Chapter X: Part 10

The philanthropy of John Howard was so prodigious that it rendered him incapable of ordinary enjoyments. His faculties were so absorbed by his great humanity that he was voted a bore by the liveliest and cleverest of his contemporaries. "But the mere men of taste," says John Foster, "ought to be silent respecting such a man as Howard; he is above their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits, who fulfill their commissions of philanthropy among mortals, do not care about pictures, statues, and public buildings; and no more did he, when the time in which he must have inspected and admired them would have been taken from the work to which he had consecrated his life. The curiosity which he might feel was reduced to wait till the hour should arrive when its gratification should be presented by conscience, which kept a scrupulous charge of all his time, as the most sacred duty of that hour. If he was still at every hour, when it came, fated to feel the attractions of the fine arts but the second claim, they might be sure of their revenge; for no other man will ever visit Rome under such a despotic consciousness of duty as to refuse himself time for surveying the magnificence of its ruins. Such a sin against taste is far beyond the reach of common saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable severity of conviction, that he had one thing to do, and that he who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity." Look a little over his wonderful life, by the aid of a few facts set down by the encyclopedist: At about the age of twenty-five he experienced a severe attack of illness, and upon his recovery testified his gratitude to the woman who had nursed him, and who was nearly thirty years his senior, by marrying her. Moved by the accounts of the horrors of the earthquake at Lisbon, he embarked for that place with a view of doing something to alleviate the calamity. On the voyage he was taken prisoner by a French privateer and carried into Brest, where he became a witness of the inhuman treatment to which prisoners of war were subjected. Designing to visit the new lazaretto of Marseilles, he endeavored in vain to procure a passport from the French government, which was incensed against him for having published a translation of a suppressed French account of the interior of the Bastile. He therefore traveled through the country in various disguises, and after a series of romantic adventures and several narrow escapes from the police, who were constantly on his track, succeeded in his purpose. He proceeded thence to Malta, Zante, Smyrna, and Constantinople, visiting prisons, pest-houses, and hospitals, and in the two latter cities gratuitously dispensing his medical services, often with great benefit to the poor. The freedom with which he exposed his person in infected places, whither his attendants refused to follow him, was characteristic of his fearless and self-sacrificing character; but as if by a miracle he escaped all contagion. His most daring act, however, has yet to be recorded. Feeling that he could not speak with authority on the subject of pest-houses until he had experienced the discipline of one, he went to Smyrna, sought out a foul ship, and sailed in her for Venice. After a voyage of sixty days, during which by his energy and bravery he assisted the crew in beating off an attack of pirates, he arrived at his destination, and was subjected to a rigorous confinement in the Venetian lazaretto, under which his health suffered severely. In the preface to one of his numerous works, he announced his intention to pursue his work, observing, "Should it please God to cut off my life in the prosecution of this design, let not my conduct be imputed to rashness or enthusiasm, but to a serious conviction that I am pursuing the path of duty." He died of camp-fever, which he contracted from a patient at Kherson, Russia, on the Black Sea, having expended nearly the whole of his large fortune in various benefactions. In a speech to the electors of Bristol, Edmund Burke thus eloquently sums up the public services of Howard: "He has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurement of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals or collect manuscripts; but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infections of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries."

In persons of genius, defects sometimes appear to take the place of merits, and weaknesses to act the part of auxiliaries. The "plastic nature of the versatile faculty" is such that common laws do not govern it, nor common standards judge it. "Men of genius," says an acute historian and critic of literature and literary men, "have often resisted the indulgence of one talent to exercise another with equal power; some, who have solely composed sermons, could have touched on the foibles of society with the spirit of Horace or Juvenal; Blackstone and Sir William Jones directed that genius to the austere studies of law and philology which might have excelled in the poetical and historical character. So versatile is this faculty of genius, that its possessors are sometimes uncertain of the manner in which they shall treat their subject, whether to be grave or ludicrous. When Brebeuf, the French translator of the Pharsalia of Lucan, had completed the first book as it now appears, he at the same time composed a burlesque version, and sent both to the great arbiter of taste in that day, to decide which the poet should continue. The decision proved to be difficult." Hence it is that men of genius and their productions are often enigmas to the world. "The hero," says Carlyle, "can be poet, prophet, king, priest, or what you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born into. I confess I have no notion of a truly great man that could not be all sorts of men. The poet who could merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas, would never make a stanza worth much. He could not sing the heroic warrior, unless he himself were at least a heroic warrior too. I fancy there is in him the politician, the thinker, legislator, philosopher; in one or the other degree, he could have been, he is, all these.... Shakespeare,--one knows not what he could not have made in the supreme degree."

"It is notorious," says Macaulay, "that Niccolo Machiavelli, out of whose surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the devil, was through life a zealous republican. In the same year in which he composed his manual of kingcraft, he suffered imprisonment and torture in the cause of public liberty. It seems inconceivable that the martyr of freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of tyranny." The real object and meaning of his celebrated book, The Prince, have been subjects of dispute for centuries. One old critic says, "Machiavel is a strenuous defender of democracy; he was born, educated, and respected under that form of government, and was a great enemy to tyranny. Hence it is that he does not favor a tyrant: it is not his design to instruct a tyrant, but to detect his secret attempts, and expose him naked and conspicuous to the poor people. Do we not know there have been many princes such as he describes? Why are such princes angry at being immortalized by his means? This excellent author's design was, under the show of instructing the prince, to inform the people." Another says, "I must say that Machiavel, who passed everywhere for a teacher of tyranny, detested it more than any man of his time; as may easily appear by the tenth chapter of the first book of his Discourses, in which he expresses himself very strongly against tyrants." Nardi, his contemporary, calls his works "panegyrics upon liberty." Bayle says, "The Jesuit Porsevin, who had not read The Prince, was nevertheless the cause of its being condemned by the Inquisition. He charges Machiavel with such things as are not in The Prince. His charges were made upon passages from a work, published anonymously, entitled Anti-Machiavel, and not from The Prince. The Prince was published about the year 1515, and dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, nephew to Leo X. It did not prejudice the author with this pope, who nevertheless was the first who threatened those with excommunication that read a prohibited book!"

A critic says of La Rochefoucauld: "The author of the Maxims was apparently the least selfish public man of his land and age. Saith one of his biographers, not untruly, 'He gave the example of all the virtues of which he would appear to contest the existence.' He ridicules bravery as a madness; and as Madame de Maintenon, who could have had no predilection for his system, curtly observes, 'he was, however, very brave.' The proofs of his bravery do not rest on Madame de Maintenon's assertion. A scorn of danger, preeminently French, as it became the inheritor of so great a French name to exhibit, was sufficiently shown at the siege of Bordeaux and the battle of St. Antoine. Madame de Sevigne speaks of La Rochefoucauld with an admiration which she rarely bestows except on her daughter; and says that in his last agonizing illness he thought more of his neighbor than himself. Cardinal de Retz, in the portrait he has left of the brilliant duke,--a portrait certainly not flattered,--tells us that this philosopher, who reduced all human motives to self-interest, did not feel the little interests which were never his weak point, and did not understand the great interests which were never his strong point; and, finally, this acute critic of contemporaneous celebrities, after assuring us that La Rochefoucauld 'had never been a good party-man,' tells us that in the relations of common life La Rochefoucauld was the honestest man of the age."

Sir John Denham, according to Count Grammont, was "one of the brightest geniuses England ever produced for wit and humor, and for brilliancy of composition; satirical and free in his poems, he spared neither frigid writers nor jealous husbands, nor even their wives; every part abounded with the most poignant wit, and the most entertaining stories; but his most delicate and spirited raillery turned generally against matrimony; and as if he wished to confirm, by his own example, the truth of what he had written in his youth," he married, at the age of seventy-nine, Miss Brook, aged eighteen, a favorite of King Charles II., and mistress of his brother, the Duke of York, afterward King James II. "As no person entertained any doubt of his having poisoned her (on account of jealousy), the populace of his neighborhood had a design of tearing him in pieces as soon as he should come abroad; but he shut himself up to bewail her death, until their fury was appeased by a magnificent funeral, at which he distributed four times more burnt wine than had ever been drank at any burial in England."

(You remember the plea Denham urged in behalf of old George Wither, the Puritan poet, when he was taken prisoner by the Cavaliers, and a general disposition was displayed to hang him at once. Sir John saved his life by saying to Charles, "I hope your majesty will not hang poor George Wither, for as long as he lives it can't be said that I am the worst poet in England.")

Literature is full of such facts as at first blush appear incredible. Consider, that "although the soil of Sweden is not rich in either plants or insects, and many of its feathered tribes are but temporary visitants, leaving it at stated periods in quest of milder climes, nevertheless it was amidst this physical barrenness that the taste of Linnaeus for his favorite pursuit broke out almost from his earliest infancy, and found the means, not only of its gratification, but of laying a basis of a system which soon spread its dominion over the whole world of science. Almost within the Arctic circle, this enthusiast of nature felt all those inspirations which are generally supposed to be the peculiar offspring of warmer regions. He traveled over the greater part of Lapland, skirting the boundaries of Norway, and returning to Upsala by the Gulf of Bothnia, having passed over an extent of about four thousand miles. Nothing but the enthusiasm of genius would have made him, night and day, wade the cold creeks and treacherous bogs, and climb the bleak mountains of Lapland--eating little but fish, unsalted, and crawling with vermin. He considered his labor amply remunerated by the information he had gained, and the discovery of new plants in the higher mountains, with the payment of his expenses, amounting to about ten pounds!"

And reflect, that "on a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass-house, among thieves and beggars, was to be found the author of The Wanderer, the man of exalted sentiments, extensive views, and curious observations; the man whose remarks on life might have assisted the statesman, whose ideas of virtue might have enlightened the moralist, whose eloquence might have influenced senates, and whose delicacy might have polished courts."

And see what Bishop Burnet, in his History of his Own Times, says of the vile Lord Rochester: "In the last year of his life I was much with him, and have writ a book of what passed between him and me: I do verily believe he was then so changed that if he had recovered he would have made good all his resolutions." Of this book, mentioned by the bishop, Dr. Johnson said, It is one "which the critic ought to read for its eloquence, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety."

Soame Jenyns, a friend of Johnson and Goldsmith and Reynolds, is thus spoken of by Cumberland: "He came into your house at the very moment you had put upon your card; he dressed himself to do your party honor in all the colors of the jay; his lace indeed had long since lost its lustre, but his coat had faithfully retained its cut since the days when gentlemen wore embroidered figured velvet, with short sleeves, boot-cuffs, and buckram skirts; as nature had cast him in the exact mould of an ill-made pair of stiff stays, he followed her so close in the fashion of his coat that it was doubted if he did not wear them: because he had a protuberant wen just under his poll, he wore a wig, that did not cover above half his head. His eyes were protruded like the eyes of the lobster, who wears them at the end of his feelers, and yet there was room between one of these and his nose for another wen that added nothing to his beauty; yet I heard this good man very innocently remark, when Gibbon published his history, that he wondered anybody so ugly could write a book!"

It has been remarked as an interesting fact, that Wilberforce at the age of twenty-five, and Wendell Phillips at the same age, were the two persons who seemed the least likely of all their respective contemporaries to become world-renowned as advocates of the cause of antislavery. Wilberforce was returned to parliament at twenty-one, when, according to his biographer, "he became the idol of the fashionable world, dancing at Almack's, and singing before the Prince of Wales." At twenty-five, he abandoned his gayeties, entered upon a new life, and took up the great cause which he advocated during the remainder of his long career. Wendell Phillips, at the age of twenty-two, was a Boston lawyer, aristocratic, wealthy, handsome, polished, and sought after; colonel of a city militia company, and a lover of blooded horses, of fencing and boxing. He was born on Beacon Street, and his father was one of the most popular mayors Boston ever had. At Harvard University, where he graduated, he was president of the "exclusive society" known as the Gentleman's Club, and in fact he was the leader of the aristocratic party among the students. At twenty-five he abandoned his practice of law, gave up the fashionable world, and espoused the cause of the slave.

Robespierre, anarchist and philanthropist, and Frederick of Prussia, despot and philosopher, were both bitter and vitriolic natures; yet both, in their youth, exceeded Exeter Hall itself in their professions of universal beneficence. Frederick indeed wrote early in life a treatise called the Anti-Machiavel, which was, says his biographer, "an edifying homily against rapacity, perfidy, arbitrary government, unjust war; in short, against almost everything for which its author is now remembered among men."

The grand Descartes, modestest of men, who, observes Bulwer, wished to live in a town where he should not be known by sight, felt so keen an anguish at the snubbings and censures his writings procured him, that he meditated the abandonment of philosophy and the abjuration of his own injured identity by a change of name. Happily for mankind, some encouraging praises came to his ears, and restored the equilibrium of his self-esteem, vanity (if all pleasure in approbation is to be so called) reconciling him once more to the pursuit of wisdom.

Gray's diffidence, or fastidiousness, according to Hazlitt, was such as to prevent his associating with his fellow-collegians, or mingling with the herd, till at length, like the owl, shutting himself up from society and daylight, he was hunted and hooted at like the owl whenever he chanced to appear, and was even assailed and disturbed in the haunts in which "he held his solitary reign." He was driven from college to college, and was subjected to a persecution the more harassing to a person of his indolent and retired habits. But he only shrunk the more within himself in consequence, read over his favorite authors, corresponded with his distant friends, was terrified out of his wits at the bare idea of having his portrait prefixed to his works, and probably died from nervous agitation at the publicity into which his name had been forced by his learning, taste, and genius. Such was the author of the immortal Elegy, which Daniel Webster died repeating, and of which Wolfe said he would rather be the author than be conqueror of Quebec.

Washington Irving's modesty and diffidence did not make him shut "himself up from society and daylight," but it made him a stranger to many of his neighbors, and even to the boys about Sunnyside. It will be a surprise to many to know that one morning he was ordered out of a field he was crossing--belonging to a neighbor of his, a liquor dealer, who threatened, if he found the "old vagabond" on his premises again, he would set his dogs on him! It will also be a surprise to know that the distinguished author of The Sketch Book was a confessed orchard thief. Once, when picking up an apple under a tree in his own orchard, he was accosted by an urchin of the neighborhood, who, not recognizing him as the proprietor, offered to show him a tree where he could "get better apples than those." "But," urged the boy, "we must take care that the old man don't see us." "I went with him," said Irving, "and we stole a dozen of my own apples!"

IX.

PARADOXES.