Anecdotes about Authors, and Artists — Context and Discussion

rtal lot.” In 1835, he was permitted to revisit the club, when they presented him with a large silver bowl, appropriately inscribed.

It would not be difficult to string together gems from the Captain’s Lyrics. In “The Toper’s Apology”, one of his most sparkling songs, occurs this brilliant version of Addison’s comparison of wits with flying fish:--

“My Muse, too, when her wings are dry, No frolic flight will take; But round a bowl she’ll dip and fly, Like swallows round a lake. Then, if the nymph will have her share Before she’ll bless her swain, Why that I think’s a reason fair To fill my glass again.”

Many years since, Captain Morris retired to a villa at Brockham, near the foot of Box Hill, in Surrey. This property, it is said, was presented to him by his old friend, the Duke of Norfolk. Here the Captain “drank the pure pleasures of the rural life” long after many a bright light of his own time had flickered out, and become almost forgotten; even “the sweet, shady side of Pall Mall” had almost disappeared, and with it the princely house whereat he was wont to shine. He died July 11, 1835, in his ninety-third year, of internal inflammation of only four days.

Morris presented a rare combination of mirth and prudence, such as human conduct seldom offers for our imitation. He retained his _gaieté de cœur_ to the last; so that, with equal truth and spirit, he remonstrated:

“When life charms my heart, must I kindly be told, I’m too gay and too happy for one that’s so old.”

Captain Morris left his autobiography to his family; but it has not been published.

Incredible as it may appear, it is sometimes stated very confidently, that English authors and actors who give dinners, are treated with greater indulgence by certain critics than those who do not. But, it has never been said that any critical journal in England, with the slightest pretensions to respectability, was in the habit of levying black mail in this Rob Roy fashion, upon writers or articles of any kind. Yet it is alleged, on high authority, that many of the French critical journals are or were principally supported from such a source. For example, there is a current anecdote to the effect that when the celebrated singer Nourrit died, the editor of one of the musical reviews waited on his successor, Duprez, and, with a profusion of compliments and apologies, intimated to him that Nourrit had invariably allowed 2000 francs a year to the review. Duprez, taken rather aback, expressed his readiness to allow half that sum. “_Bien, monsieur_,” said the editor, with a shrug, “_mais, parole d’honneur, j’y perds mille francs_.”

POPULARITY OF THE PICKWICK PAPERS.

Mr. Davy, who accompanied Colonel Cheney up the Euphrates, was for a time in the service of Mehemet Ali Pacha. “Pickwick” happening to reach Davy while he was at Damascus, he read a part of it to the Pacha, who was so delighted with it, that Davy was, on one occasion, called up in the middle of the night to finish the reading of the chapter in which he and the Pacha had been interrupted. Mr. Davy read, in Egypt, upon another occasion, some passages from these unrivalled “Papers” to a blind Englishman, who was in such ecstasy with what he heard, that he exclaimed he was almost thankful he could not see he was in a foreign country; for that while he listened, he felt completely as though he were again in England.--_Lady Chatterton._

SWIFT’S DISAPPOINTMENT

“I remember when I was a little boy, (writes Swift in a letter to Bolingbroke,) I felt a great fish at the end of my line, which I drew up almost on the ground, but it dropt in, and the disappointment vexes me to this day; and I believe it was the type of all my future disappointments.”

“This little incident,” writes Percival, “perhaps gave the first wrong bias to a mind predisposed to such impressions; and by operating with so much strength and permanency, it might possibly lay the foundation of the Dean’s subsequent peevishness, passion, misanthropy, and final insanity.”

LEIGH HUNT AND THOMAS CARLYLE.

The following characteristic story of these two “intellectual gladiators” is related in “A New Spirit of the Age.”

Leigh Hunt and Carlyle were once present among a small party of equally well known men. It chanced that the conversation rested with these two, both first-rate talkers, and the others sat well pleased to listen. Leigh Hunt had said something about the islands of the Blest, or El Dorado, or the Millennium, and was flowing on in his bright and hopeful way, when Carlyle dropt some heavy tree-trunk across Hunt’s pleasant stream, and banked it up with philosophical doubts and objections at every interval of the speaker’s joyous progress. But the unmitigated Hunt never ceased his overflowing anticipations, nor the saturnine Carlyle his infinite demurs to those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed and applauded by turns; and had now fairly pitted them against each other, as the philosopher of Hopefulness and of the Unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and profundity, that extensive knowledge of books and character, with their ready application in argument or illustration, and that perfect ease and good-nature, which distinguish each of these men. The opponents were so well matched, that it was quite clear the contest would never come to an end. But the night was far advanced, and the party broke up. They all sallied forth; and leaving the close room, the candles and the arguments behind them, suddenly found themselves in presence of a most brilliant star-light night. They all looked up. “Now,” thought Hunt, “Carlyle’s done for!--he can have no answer to that!” “There!” shouted Hunt, “look up there! look at that glorious harmony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal song of hope in the soul of man.” Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to hear what he would say. They began to think he was silenced at last--he was a mortal man. But out of that silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent. And who, on earth, could have anticipated what the voice said? “Eh! it’s a _sad_ sight!”---- Hunt sat down on a stone step. They all laughed--then looked very thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up to the influence? Again they laughed--then bade each other good night, and betook themselves homeward with slow and serious pace. There might be some reason for sadness, too. That brilliant firmament probably contained infinite worlds, each full of struggling and suffering beings--of beings who had to die--for life in the stars implies that those bright worlds should also be full of graves; but all that life, like ours, knowing not whence it came, nor whither it goeth, and the brilliant Universe in its great Movement having, perhaps, no more certain knowledge of itself, nor of its ultimate destination, than hath one of the suffering specks that compose this small spot we inherit.

Johnson, the publisher in St. Paul’s Churchyard, obtained the copyright of Cowper’s Poems, which proved a great source of profit to him, in the following manner:--One evening, a relation of Cowper’s called upon Johnson with a portion of the MS. poems, which he offered for publication, provided Johnson would publish them at his own risk, and allow the author to have a few copies to give to his friends. Johnson read the poems, approved of them, and accordingly published them. Soon after they had appeared, there was scarcely a reviewer who did not load them with the most scurrilous abuse, and condemn them to the butter shops; and the public taste being thus terrified or misled, these charming effusions stood in the corner of the publisher’s shop as an unsaleable pile for a long time.

At length, Cowper’s relation called upon Johnson with another bundle of the poet’s MS., which was offered and accepted upon the same terms as before. In this fresh collection was the poem of the “Task.” Not alarmed at the fate of the former publication, but thoroughly assured of the great merit of the poems, they were published. The tone of the reviewers became changed, and Cowper was hailed as the first poet of the age. The success of this second publication set the first in motion. Johnson immediately reaped the fruits of his undaunted judgment; and Cowper’s poems enriched the publisher, when the poet was in languishing circumstances. In October, 1812, the copyright of Cowper’s poems was put up to sale among the London booksellers, in thirty-two shares. Twenty of the shares were sold at 212_l._ each. The work, consisting of two octavo volumes, was satisfactorily proved at the sale to net 834_l._ per annum. It had only two years of copyright; yet this same copyright produced the sum of 6764_l._

HEARNE’S LOVE OF ALE.

Thomas Warton, in his Account of Oxford, relates that at the sign of Whittington and his Cat, the laborious antiquary, Thomas Hearne, “one evening suffered himself to be overtaken in liquor. But, it should be remembered, that this accident was more owing to his love of antiquity than of ale. It happened that the kitchen where he and his companion were sitting was neatly paved with sheep’s trotters disposed in various compartments. After one pipe, Mr. Hearne, consistently with his usual gravity and sobriety, rose to depart; but his friend, who was inclined to enjoy more of his company, artfully observed, that the floor on which they were then sitting was no less than an original tesselated Roman pavement. Out of respect to classic ground, and on recollection that the Stunsfield Roman pavement, on which he had just published a dissertation, was dedicated to Bacchus, our antiquary cheerfully complied; an enthusiastic transport seized his imagination; he fell on his knees and kissed the sacred earth, on which, in a few hours, and after a few tankards, by a sort of sympathetic attraction, he was obliged to repose for some part of the evening. His friend was, probably, in the same condition; but two printers accidentally coming in, conducted Mr. Hearne, between them, to Edmund’s Hall, with much state and solemnity.”

Sheridan’s wit was eminently brilliant, and almost always successful; it was, like all his speaking, exceedingly prepared, but it was skilfully introduced and happily applied; and it was well mingled, also, with humour, occasionally descending to farce. How little it was the inspiration of the moment all men were aware who knew his habits; but a singular proof of this was presented to Mr. Moore, when he came to write his life; for we there find given to the world, with a frankness which must have almost made their author shake in his grave, the secret note-books of this famous wit; and are thus enabled to trace the jokes, in embryo, with which he had so often made the walls of St. Stephen’s shake, in a merriment excited by the happy appearance of sudden unpremeditated effusion.--_Lord Brougham._

Take an instance from this author, giving extracts from the common-place book of the wit:--“He employs his fancy in his narrative, and keeps his recollections for his wit.” Again, the same idea is expanded into “When he makes his jokes, you applaud the accuracy of his memory, and ’tis only when he states his facts that you admire the flights of his imagination.” But the thought was too good to be thus wasted on the desert air of a common-place book. So, forth it came, at the expense of Kelly, who, having been a composer of music, became a wine-merchant. “You will,” said the _ready_ wit, “import your music and compose your wine.” Nor was this service exacted from the old idea thought sufficient; so, in the House of Commons, an easy and, apparently, off-hand parenthesis was thus filled with it, at Mr. Dundas’s cost and charge, “who generally resorts to his memory for his jokes, and to his imagination for his facts.”

SMOLLETT’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

This man of genius among trading authors, before he began his History of England, wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, then in the Whig Administration, offering, if the Earl would procure for his work the patronage of the Government, he would accommodate his politics to the Ministry; but if not, that he had high promises of support from the other party. Lord Shelburne, of course, treated the proffered support of a writer of such accommodating principles with contempt; and the work of Smollett, accordingly, became distinguished for its high Toryism. The history was published in sixpenny weekly numbers, of which 20,000 copies were sold immediately. This extraordinary popularity was created by the artifice of the publisher. He is stated to have addressed a packet of the specimens of the publication to every parish-clerk in England, carriage-free, with half-a-crown enclosed as a compliment, to have them distributed through the pews of the church: this being generally done, many people read the specimens instead of listening to the sermon, and the result was an universal demand for the work.

MAGNA CHARTA RECOVERED.

The transcript of Magna Charta, now in the British Museum, was discovered by Sir Robert Cotton in the possession of his tailor, who was just about to cut the precious document out into “measures” for his customers. Sir Robert redeemed the valuable curiosity at the price of old parchment, and thus recovered what had long been supposed to be irretrievably lost.

When Mr. Fox’s furniture was sold by auction, after his decease in 1806, amongst his books there was the first volume of his friend Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_: by the title-page, it appeared to have been presented by the author to Fox, who, on the blank leaf, had written this anecdote of the historian:--“The author, at Brookes’s, said there was no salvation for this country until six heads of the principal persons in administration were laid upon the table. Eleven days after, this same gentleman accepted a place of lord of trade under those very ministers, and has acted with them ever since!” Such was the avidity of bidders for the most trifling production of Fox’s genius, that, by the addition of this little record, the book sold for three guineas.

Sir Joshua Reynolds used to relate the following characteristic anecdote of Johnson:--About the time of their early acquaintance, they met one evening at the Misses Cotterell’s, when the Duchess of Argyll and another lady of rank came in. Johnson, thinking that the Misses Cotterell were too much engrossed by them, and that he and his friend were neglected as low company, of whom they were somewhat ashamed, grew angry, and, resolving to shock their suspected pride, by making the great visitors imagine they were low indeed, Johnson addressed himself in a loud tone to Reynolds, saying, “How much do you think you and I could get in a week if we were to work as hard as we could?” just as though they were ordinary mechanics.

LORD BYRON’S “CORSAIR.”

The Earl of Dudley, in his _Letters_, (1814) says:--“To me Byron’s _Corsair_ appears the best of all his works. Rapidity of execution is no sort of apology for doing a thing ill, but when it is done well, the wonder is so much the greater. I am told he wrote this poem at ten sittings--certainly it did not take him more than three weeks. He is a most extraordinary person, and yet there is G. Ellis, who don’t feel his merit. His creed in modern poetry (I should have said _contemporary_) is Walter Scott, all Walter Scott, and nothing but Walter Scott. I cannot say how I hate this petty, factious spirit in literature--it is so unworthy of a man so clever and so accomplished as Ellis undoubtedly is.”

BOOKSELLERS IN LITTLE BRITAIN.

Little Britain, anciently Breton-street, from the mansion of the Duke of Bretagne on that spot, in more modern times became the “Paternoster-row” of the booksellers; and a newspaper of 1664 states them to have published here within four years, 464 pamphlets. One Chiswell, resident here in 1711, was the metropolitan bookseller, “the Longman” of his time; and here lived Rawlinson (“Tom Folio” of _The Tatler_, No. 158), who stuffed four chambers in Gray’s Inn so full, that his bed was removed into the passage. John Day, the famous early printer, lived “over Aldersgate.”

RECONCILING THE FATHERS.

A Dean of Gloucester having some merry divines at dinner with him one day, amongst other discourses they were talking of reconciling the Fathers on some points; he told them he could show them the best way in the world to reconcile them on all points of difference; so, after dinner, he carried them into his study, and showed them all the Fathers, classically ordered, with a quart of sack betwixt each of them.

DR. PARR AND SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

Sir James once asked Dr. Parr to join him in a drive in his gig. The horse growing restive--“Gently, Jemmy,” the Doctor said; “don’t irritate him; always soothe your horse, Jemmy. You’ll do better without me. Let me down, Jemmy!” But once safe on the ground--“Now, Jemmy,” said the Doctor, “touch him up. Never let a horse get the better of you. Touch him up, conquer him, do not spare him. And now I’ll leave you to manage him; I’ll walk back.”

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH’S HUMOUR.

Sir James Mackintosh had a great deal of humour; and, among many other examples of it, he kept a dinner-party at his own house for two or three hours in a roar of laughter, playing upon the simplicity of a Scotch cousin, who had mistaken the Rev. Sydney Smith for his gallant synonym, the hero of Acre.

WRITINGS OF LOPE DE VEGA.

The number of Lope de Vega’s works has been strangely exaggerated by some, but by others reduced to about one-sixth of the usual statement. Upon this computation it will be found that some of his contemporaries were as prolific as himself. Vincent Mariner, a friend of Lope, left behind him 360 quires of paper full of his own compositions, in a writing so exceedingly small, and so exceedingly bad, that no person but himself could read it. Lord Holland has given a facsimile of Lope’s handwriting, and though it cannot be compared to that of a dramatist of late times, one of whose plays, in the original manuscript, is said to be a sufficient load for a porter, it is evident that one of Mariner’s pages would contain as much as a sheet of his friend’s, which would, as nearly as possible, balance the sum total. But, upon this subject, an epigram by Quarles may be applied, written upon a more serious theme:

“In all our prayers the Almighty does regard The judgment of the _balance_, not the _yard_; He loves not words, but matter; ’tis his pleasure To buy his wares by _weight_, not by measure.”

With regard to the quantity of Lope’s writings, a complete edition of them would not much, if at all, exceed those of Voltaire, who, in labour of composition, for he sent nothing into the world carelessly, must have greatly exceeded Lope. And the labours of these men shrink into insignificance when compared to those of some of the schoolmen and of the Fathers.

POPULARITY OF LOPE DE VEGA.

Other writers, of the same age with Lope de Vega, obtained a wider celebrity. Don Quixote, during the life of its ill-requited author, was naturalized in countries where the name of Lope de Vega was not known, and Du Bartas was translated into the language of every reading people. But no writer ever has enjoyed such a share of popularity.

“Cardinal Barberini,” says Lord Holland, “followed Lope with veneration in the streets; the king would stop to gaze at such a prodigy; the people crowded round him wherever he appeared; the learned and studious thronged to Madrid from every part of Spain to see this phœnix of their country, this monster of literature; and even Italians, no extravagant admirers, in general, of poetry that is not their own, made pilgrimages from their country for the sole purpose of conversing with Lope. So associated was the idea of excellence with his name, that it grew, in common conversation, to signify anything perfect in its kind; and a Lope diamond, a Lope day, or a Lope woman, became fashionable and familiar modes of expressing their good qualities.”