IT was with no common pleasure that I opened a letter from Mr. Macaulay—a few lines to say that he was ready to resume his contributions to “The Quarterly Magazine.” He enclosed two Manuscripts. These scarcely filled two sheets of paper, but they were as precious as fine gold. Well do I remember the delight with which I read with a friend in London, and afterwards heard read by Mr. Moultrie at Windsor in a way in which few could read, the “Songs of the Huguenots.” These are almost as well known as Campbell’s “Mariners of England” and “The Battle of the Baltic.” The “Montcontour” is reprinted in Macaulay’s “Miscellaneous Works”—the “Ivry” was republished by himself with “Lays of Ancient Rome.” But they ought never to have been separated. There is a dramatic unity in the two poems which makes each more valuable. The song of lamentation should be read before the song of triumph.
“Oh! weep for Montcontour. Oh! weep for the hour When the children of darkness and evil had power; When the horsemen of Valois triumphantly trod On the bosoms that bled for their rights and their God.” |
After that dirge how more gladly sounds the hymn of thanksgiving:
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Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are! And glory to our Sovereign liege, King Henry of
Navarre! Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance, Through thy corn-fields green and sunny vines, Oh pleasant land of France! And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters, Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters. As thou wert constant in our ills, he joyous in our joy, For cold and stiff and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy. Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war. Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre.”
|
In a few months came another pair of lyrics, which no change in the fashion of literature can ever consign to oblivion—“Songs of the Civil War.” These, again, ought to be read together. “The Cavaliers’ March to London” has not been reprinted by the author, nor in his “Miscellaneous Works.” It is perhaps inferior to the other Ballads, but there is in it a thorough appreciation of the men who raised the Standard at Nottingham:
“To horse! to horse! brave Cavaliers! To horse for Church and Crown! Strike, strike your tents! snatch up your spears! And ho for London town! The imperial harlot, doom’d a prey To our avenging fires, Sends up the voice of her dismay! From all her hundred spires.” |
“And as with nod and laugh ye sip The goblet’s rich carnation, Whose bursting bubbles seem to tip The wink of invitation; |
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 317 |
Drink to those names,—those glorious names,— Those names no time shall sever,— Drink, in a draught as deep as Thames, Our Church and King for ever!” |
“Oh! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North, With your hands and your feet and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread?” |
The return of Macaulay was the herald of “the most high and palmy state” of the Magazine, when its first fruits were succeeded by a rich harvest. Macaulay was now unquestionably its leading spirit. In the third number, in addition to his “Songs of the Huguenots,” we have “Scenes from Athenian Revels” and “Dante.” Rarely does the Essayist give an anecdote from personal recollection; but he gives one of Mr. Brougham: “I have heard the most eloquent statesman of the age remark, that, next to Demosthenes, Dante is the writer who ought to be most attentively studied by every man who desires to attain oratorical eminence.” There is no mistaking the allusion. I have heard the same opinion given by the great master of his art on more than one occasion. In the fourth number we have, as well as “Songs of the Civil War,” the criticism on “Petrarch,” and the “Great Law-Suit between the Parishes of St. Dennis and St. George in the Water.” This is something more than an imitation of Swift. Those who venerate, and most justly, the memory of Burke, will not be displeased to see him in a caricature portrait as effective as that of Gilray:
“There was an honest Irishman, a great favourite
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| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 319 |
The fifth, number gave us “The Athenian Orators;” and a paper which, to my mind, if it wants something of the force of the great article on Milton in the “Edinburgh Review,” has a quiet beauty which is even superior. The “Gentleman of the Middle Temple,” who relates a “Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton, touching the great Civil War,” tells us how, in the warm and beautiful spring of 1665, “two men of pregnant parts and great reputation” dined with him at his lodging in the Temple. It was proposed, after they had sate at table, talking “freely of many men and things, as well ancient as modern, with much civility.” that they should sail for an hour on the river. “The wind was pleasant; the evening fine; the sky, the earth, and the water beautiful to look upon. But Mr. Cowley and I held our peace, and said nothing of the gay sights around us, lest we should too feelingly remind Mr. Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he needed no monitor: for soon he said sadly, ‘Ah, Mr. Cowley, you are a happy man. What would I now give but for one more look at the sun, and the waters, and the gardens of this fair city!’
“‘I know not,’ said Mr.
Cowley, ‘whether we ought not rather to envy you for that which
makes you to envy others: and that specially in this place, where all eyes which are
not closed in blindness ought to become fountains of tears. What can we look upon which
is not a memorial of change and sorrow, of fair things vanished, and evil things
done?’ . . . . ‘Sir, by your favour,’said Mr. Milton, ‘though, from many circumstances, both of body and of
fortune, I might plead fairer excuse for
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The men of opposite opinions argue with temper, though each holds his own. It was not to be expected that Macaulay would hesitate to make Milton more eloquent than Cowley.
“‘When will rulers learn, that where liberty is not, security
and order can never be. We talk of absolute power, but all power hath limits, which, if
not fixed by the moderation of the governors, will be fixed by the force of the
governed. Sovereigns may send their opposers to dungeons; they may clear out a
senate-house with soldiers; they may enlist armies of spies; they may hang scores of
the disaffected at every cross-road: but what power shall stand in that frightful time
when rebellion hath become a less evil than endurance? Who shall dissolve that terrible
tribunal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed, denounces against the oppressor the
doom of its wild justice? Who shall repeal the law of self-defence? What arms or
discipline shall resist the strength of famine and despair? How often were the ancient
Caesars dragged from their golden palaces, stripped of their purple robes, mangled,
stoned, defiled with filth, pierced with hooks, hurled
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 321 |
Macaulay, in the height of his fame, looked back upon the Conversation between Cowley and Milton with a just pride. And yet it would seem that he could scarcely have felt, when he thus concluded his article on “The Athenian Orators,” that there was something in these Magazine papers of a Cambridge under-graduate which “the world would not willingly let die.”
“A magazine is certainly a delightful invention for a very idle or very busy man. He is not compelled to complete his plan or to adhere to his subject. He may ramble as far as he is inclined, and stop as soon as he is tired. No one takes the trouble to recollect his contradictory opinions or his unredeemed pledges. He may be as superficial, as inconsistent, and as careless as he chooses. Magazines resemble those angels, who, according to the pretty Rabbinical tradition, are generated every morning by the brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise,—whose life is a song,—who warble till sunset, and then sink back without regret into nothingness. Such spirits have nothing to do with the detecting spear of Ithuriel or the victorious sword of Michael. It is enough for them to please, and be forgotten.”
After the return of Mr. Macaulay,
the Quarterly
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“The Bœotian, or Sixth
Order,” professed to be an analytical account of a work on the principles
of Architecture, almost unknown in this country. This production of the great Vander von Bluggen set forth canons of Art which had not been
lost upon a few modern architects, and which were illustrated in their practice. Mr. Soane, although his name was not mentioned in the
article, thought fit, in 1827, to bring an action against me for the libellous matter
contained in the publication of 1824. The cause was tried in the Court of King’s
Bench on the 12th of June, 1827. The array of counsel for the plaintiff was most
formidable—Mr. Gurney, Mr. Brougham, and two juniors. The defendant was fortunate in having
retained Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Hill. When Mr. Gurney solemnly read some of the
axioms of Vander von Bluggen, contending that they were doubtless
intended
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 323 |
The freedom and even licence of criticism, as applied to literature, is too
firmly established as a principle to require any vindication. It cannot be doubted that the
liberty which is claimed by and permitted to public writers, of commenting without reserve
upon the writings of others, has had a most salutary influence upon the morals, the
learning, the taste, and the intellectual progress, of this and of every other country. The
only limit which is prescribed for the regulation of this freedom is, that the critic
should avoid every occasion of personal slander, and that his opinions should be grounded
solely upon the merits or demerits of the work that he reviews, without any admixture of
private malignity. It has been received as a just principle of such writing, and that
principle has been admitted
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The powers of ridicule in criticism are peculiarly applicable in matters of taste; the false principles of which are not so easily demonstrable by reason and argument, as by those lighter attacks which place an absurdity in a strong and prominent point of view, and deprive it of the force of example and the authority of fashion. Without multiplying instances of the efficacy of this salutary ridicule, it may be sufficient to observe, that knight-errantry was banished from Europe by the Don Quixote of Cervantes,—that the monstrous lies of voyagers, and the absurd speculations of philosophy, were put to shame by Gulliver’s Travels,—that Swift was equally successful in exposing and guarding the public against the absurd pretensions of astrology in Partridge, and the furious ravings of hypercriticism in Dennis,—that a host of immoral and stupid writers were swept away by the Dunciad;—and, to approach nearer our own times, that the false glitter of the Delia Cruscan school of poetry was stript of its pretensions by Mr. Gifford in his “Baviad and Meviad,” and that the philosophical affectation of Darwin was laughed out of reputation by the “Loves of the Triangles” of Mr. Canning. Against all and each of these productions, which are acknowledged to have had a most beneficial influence upon the taste of the periods in which they were produced, ridicule was the sole weapon employed for the correction of daring absurdity or inordinate pretension.
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 325 |
There was no ease in the books of a nature similar to the action of Mr. Soane. Indeed, with the exception of a cause tried before Lord Kenyon, in which the same plaintiff complained of the severity of criticism in a poem called “The Modern Goth,” and complained in vain, no artist of any denomination whatever had sought to establish his reputation by legal proceedings against critical animadversion. That artists had abundant provocation to such legal remedy, if legal remedy could be given them, must be obvious to the most superficial observer of our periodical literature. The painters of portraits, for instance, are peculiarly dependent upon the good opinion of the public, yet what painter of portraits ever thought of coming to a court of justice, for having it affirmed of him that his likenesses were inaccurate, his attitudes vulgar, or his colours jaundiced? The reason of this forbearance is perfectly obvious; for every professor of art must feel that he owes much more to criticism than he can lose by it; and the proper use to make of those animadversions is to improve his own productions.
Criticisms upon architecture have ever been as contemporaneous with the
works of art, as criticisms upon literature or upon historic performances. Sir Christopher Wren was attacked with great severity for
some supposed incongruities in his churches in London. The records of his feelings are to
be found in his posthumous journals. The “Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers” is well
known for its classical wit and its caustic severity. Mr. Thomas
Hope published a criticism on the works of James Wyatt
which actually prevented that eminent architect being employed in the erection of Downing
College.
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In the fifth number of the “Quarterly Magazine” there appeared a miscellaneous paper entitled “The Anniversary.” It was a vehicle for the introduction of a considerable variety of stray contributions. My article had little of originality in its conception; for Blackwood had published something similar, occupying a whole number of his Miscellany. I could scarcely have dreamt that, eight and twenty years afterwards, this piece of merriment would have been received au pied de la lettre; that in a Memoir of Macaulay—“with some account of his early and unknown writings”—so charming a simplicity would have been manifested by this “shilling” biographer, as to demand from him an elaborate abridgment of the narrative of what he terms “a jollification amongst the young contributors” to “Knight’s Quarterly Magazine.” He has, however, a saving clause which may cover a little of his greenery—“The whole affair may have been heightened by the pen of the reporter.”
When the fifth number of the Magazine was
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 327 |
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The Macaulay biographer receives
this as a curious anecdote of De Quincey, which
“indicates that he was fast changing into that little dried-up,
parchment-hided man that he became years afterwards.” This it is, to make a
book without the least knowledge of the men and things of which it treats.
“Dried-up! parchment-hided!” “Oh, for one hour of Dundee!” One hour of De
Quincey—better, three hours from nine till midnight—for a rapt
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 329 |
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One more illustration of the eccentricity of De
Quincey. I had been to Windsor. On my return I was told that Mr.
De Quincey had taken his box away, leaving word that he was gone home. I
knew that he was waiting for a remittance from his mother, which would satisfy some
clamorous creditors and enable him to rejoin his family at Grasmere. Two or three days
after, I heard that he was still in town. I obtained a clue to his hiding place, and found
him in a miserable lodging on the Surrey side of Waterloo bridge. He had received a large
draft on a London banker at twenty-one days’ sight. He summoned courage to go to
Lombard Street, and was astonished to learn that he could not obtain the amount till the
draft became due. A man of less sensitive feelings would have returned to Pall Mall East,
and have there waited securely and comfortably till I came. How to frame his apology to our
trusty domestic was the diffi-
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 331 |
The prospects of the Magazine after the publication of the fifth number were not disheartening. The contributions of Mr. Macaulay, which came to me early, appeared almost sufficient in themselves to bear up the Miscellany, even if the temporary defection of one of its most important and earliest contributors were to continue. The article on “Mitford’s History of Greece” by the future orator and historian, clearly indicates the bent of his studies:
“All wise statesmen have agreed to consider the prosperity or
adversity of nations as made up of the happiness or misery of individuals, and to
reject as chimerical all notions of a public interest of the community, distinct from
the interest of the component parts. It is therefore strange that those whose office it
is to supply statesmen with examples and warnings, should omit, as too mean for the
dignity of history, circumstances which exert the most extensive influence on the state
of society. In general, the undercurrent of human life flows steadily on, unruffled by
the storms which agitate the surface. The happiness of the many commonly depends on
causes independent of victories and defeats, of revolutions or restorations,—causes
which can be regulated by no laws, and which are recorded in no archives. These causes
are the things which
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Perhaps my readers, who may have become somewhat wearied with the eternal reproduction of the famous “New Zealander,” may not turn away from the original sketch of that personage:—
“The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to
his comrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, while he retained the casket
of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at one glance all the hidden
riches of the universe. Surely it is no exaggeration to say, that no external advantage
is to be compared with that purification of the intellectual eye which gives us to
contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental world, all the hoarded treasures of its
primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is the gift
of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have for more than twenty centuries been
annihilated; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; her language into a
barbarous jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of
Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 333 |
Mr. Macaulay contributed also to the sixth number “A Prophetic Account of a Grand National Poem, to be entitled ‘The Wellingtoniad,’and to be published A.D. 2824.” It purports to be written by Richard Quongti, “lineally descended from Quongti, the famous Chinese-liberal.” The humour is admirable. But in the introductory account of Quongti, would the author of this clever jeu d’esprit have postponed for a thousand years, had he happily been now living, such a consummation as that alluded to in noticing Quongti’s travels “to the United States of America”? “That tremendous war, which will be fatal to American liberty, will, at that time, be raging through the whole federation. At New York the travellers will hear of the final defeat and death of the illustrious champion of freedom, Jonathan Higginbottom, and of the elevation of Ebenezer Hogsflesh to the perpetual Presidency!”
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At the beginning of October I went to Cambridge with Mr. Hill. We arrived on a day of jubilation, for Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Malden had each gained a Trinity fellowship. There was a happy dinner in Mr. Malden’s rooms. But a cloud had come over the bright prospects of the “Quarterly Magazine.” Two of its first supporters were holding back their contributions. “Some trick not worth an egg”—some misunderstanding about the future editorship—had produced a coldness in those with whom I had been most intimate. I was weary and heartsick. I was worn out with anxiety at the dangerous illness of my father. Cares of business were pressing upon me heavily. I had engaged in large undertakings which demanded my constant attention in London, and I had a divided duty at Windsor. The Magazine was a loss and a trouble. With the sixth number I determined to announce that its career was ended.
I had spent a night at my father’s bed-side. The crisis was fast approaching. My wife had been
too ill, in Pall Mall East, to take her willing part in this sad office—but, at all risks,
she came in time for the end. As the November sun was rising brightly above the trees of
the Long Walk, I poured out to her my thoughts in a letter which is before me:
“All here is full of pleasing but melancholy associations. How alive the mind
is at such seasons. If I look out upon the garden and orchard, the history of almost
every tree that he planted, and the recollection of our walks beneath them from my
boyhood, force themselves upon me. I feel that I could never be entirely happy in any
other place.” The future of my London life loomed dark and
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 335 |
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura Che la diritta via era smarrita.” |
“In the midway of this our mortal life I found me in a gloomy wood, astray, Gone from the path direct.” Cary. |
Reserving for the next epoch of my “Working Life” the recital of some of its passages in my vocation of a London publisher from 1823 to 1826, I have here to complete my notice of the close of “The Quarterly Magazine.” A glance at the short life of a second series, and at a small experiment upon the public taste which was attempted by me, in conjunction with Mr. Praed and Mr. St. Leger, will be briefly given in the present volume.
The “advertisement” in the concluding Number, wherein I
announced the discontinuance of a work which, “as it proceeded, had acquired a
considerable distinction amongst the discerning and the intelligent,” was
certain to give offence. I was unwilling to offend; but I was sorely wounded. I
wrote—“The publisher has lately had to choose between surrendering that
responsibility which his duties to society have compelled him to retain, and which has
in many cases prevented this work offending those whose esteem is most to be desired,
or losing much of the assistance which has given to the ‘Quarterly Magazine’ a peculiar and original
character. He could not hesitate in his choice. He would not commit his own opinions to
an inexperienced and
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This led to a controversy. An article appeared in “The Cambridge Chronicle,” written by Mr. Praed. It was more temperate than I had anticipated. He described the Magazine as having been intended originally to assume something of a more classical tone than its periodical contemporaries. He spoke of the publisher as an honest and liberal man, but expressed a somewhat disparaging opinion of his competence to retain the direction of the Magazine permanently and exclusively. I replied in the same newspaper. There was a correspondence between Mr. Praed and myself,—formal and reserved on either side. Willingly would I forget the whole affair, did I not feel it my duty and pleasure to record that, within two months, Mr. Praed spontaneously called upon me, held out once more the hand of friendship, and never afterwards lost an opportunity of testifying his goodwill towards me. He took no part in the continuation of the “Quarterly Magazine.” In the editorship of its one number, published in the autumn of 1825, Mr. Malden assisted. In its general tone it was much more sober—and of course less interesting—than its predecessor. It might have made its way; for one of the great wholesale houses in Paternoster Row proposed to take a share in it, after its first appearance. The Panic came, and disposed of this and of many other schemes.
Mr. Derwent Coleridge had returned to assist in
rearing our callow Phœnix. His paper on “The Chevalier Bayard” is curious, as showing how the romantic, in the
mind of a man of real talent,
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 337 |
“‘When men change swords for ledgers’—we think they do exceeding well. The thirst for gold is at least as respectable as the thirst for blood; and though the language and sentiments of the counting-house be not quite so poetical as those of the field, yet we think the latter ill purchased at the price which has been paid for them, by cutting off heads, and hewing off arms and legs.”
In the same spirit—whilst, at the same time, the author does full justice to the character of Bayard—we have this bit of vigorous truth:—
“When we read of a stout and well-fed nobleman, cased in all the
iron he could support, and mounted on a great horse, as it was
emphatically termed; when we read of a baron, thus fortified, sallying forth from his
castle for forty days, and pouncing on a rabble of half-armed and half-starved foot
soldiers, like Don Quixote on the flock of sheep,
with an excellent chance besides of having his life spared, should the worst come to
the worst, for the sake of his ransom,—shall we be ravished from ourselves by any
enthusiastic sympathy with such heroism, or compare for a moment the courage here
exhibited, with that of a modern officer at the head of his troop? For the tournay,
nothing could be more safe, gothic, and absurd; nor can we understand with what colour
of reason the chroniclers attribute to a young champion any extraordinary valour for
engaging in such conflicts, though with the prowest knight in Christentie, when the
utmost risk he runs is that of being jerked off his horse, somewhat more rudely indeed
than one falls in a
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Of the liberal but essentially religious spirit in which theological questions were approached by young men of Cambridge, before the days of Pusey and Arnold, of high-church and broad-church, we may judge from a passage in a learned and impartial review of the newly discovered work of Milton, “On Christian Doctrine”:—
“We have heard it lamented by some that this volume should be drawn from its obscurity, as they imagine its heterodox and strange opinions may hurt the character of Milton, or tend to injure the cause of religion by depriving some tenets of the assistance to be given them by the example of the great Christian poet. We cannot enter into these fears or scruples. No man’s character is injured by holding conscientiously any opinion, or by supporting it by the fair and lawful weapons of argument and erudition. He who pretends to opinions in which he does not believe, or promulgates his own doctrines by objectionable means, suffers indeed in character; but these are charges from which the fame of Milton is free. As for the other objection, that the cause of some of the most vital tenets of Christianity may suffer by the arguments, or the example, of our author, that is a base and unworthy dread. The cause of truth cannot be injured by any argument, or shaken by the defection of men, no matter how endowed with the gifts of genius or the acquisitions of learning.”
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 339 |
De Quincey had written to me in December, 1824, in
the belief that, as he expressed it, “many of your friends will rally about you,
and urge you to some new undertaking of the same kind. If that should happen I beg to
say, that you may count upon me, as one of your men, for any extent of labour, to the
best of my power, which you may choose to command.” He wrote a translation of
“The Love Charm” of
Tieck, with a notice of the author. This is not
reprinted in his collected works, though perhaps it is the most interesting of his
translations from the German. In this spring and summer of 1825, De
Quincey and I were in intimate companionship. It was a pleasant time of
intellectual intercourse for me. My father, a little before his last illness, had far
advanced in building a cottage, by the side of his own, for my family to occupy. That hope
of his heart to have us near him was not fulfilled. But in that summer we spent much of our
time there. Mr. Praed and Mr. Moultrie were living at Eton as private tutors. They
had taken a great liking to my friend Mr. Tarver,
and were most assiduous in promoting his interests, as French master at the college. In his
society, after he came to reside at Windsor when the war was at an end, I had found a
clever and accomplished companion, who had the peculiar advantage of knowing intimately
both the French and English languages, and was familiar with the literature of both
countries. He was born and bred up in France,—but was of English parents. Mr. Malden came to visit me for a week or two. There was a
re-union in which all unpleasantnesses were forgotten. When I went to London, I was
associated with Hill, and St. Leger, and De Quincey, who each
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“At this time calamity presses upon me with a heavy hand. . . . .
At this moment I have not a place to hide my head in.” (Mrs. Gordon’s ‘Christopher North,’ vol. ii. p. 79.) He left
London in the summer, exulting in the prospect of freedom from debt, and from the necessity
that had pressed upon him “to maintain the war with the wretched business of hack
author, with all its degradations.” (Ibid.) I
occasionally had a warm-hearted letter from him; but our correspondence, after a year or
two, had ceased. I was delighted at its renewal in July 1829, when he wrote me the most
pressing invitation from Mrs. De Quincey and
himself, to come, with my wife and children, to visit them. He had quitted his home at the
Lakes in 1827, to remain in Edinburgh for two years, writing, but separated for the greater
part of the time from his family. Wonderfully characteristic are some passages of this
letter: “Well, by good management and better luck, I contrived early in this
present year to silence mes Anglois (as the
French do, or did, use to entitle creditors). This
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 341 |
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In the spring of 1826, St. Leger and
I,—at a time when there was little prospect of publishing books with any success,—thought
that a smart weekly sheet might have some hold upon the London public, who were sick of all
money questions, and wanted something like fun in that gloomy season of commercial ruin. We
went to Eton to consult Praed. He entered most
warmly and kindly into the project. We settled that “The Brazen Head” should be its title; and that
“The Friar” and “The Head” should discourse upon human affairs, chiefly
under the management of our brilliant associate. For ourselves, we had a supplementary
machinery, that of “Harlequin,” whose
laughing face had been too long hidden by a wretched black mask, and who had been too long
doomed to perpetual silence,—a woeful contrast to the overflowing wit of his dear Italian
days. We had four weeks of this pleasantry; and, what was not an advantage, we had nearly
all the amusement to ourselves; for the number of our purchasers was not
“Legion.” Yet in the “Brazen Head” there are poems of
Praed—(unknown, from the scarcity of these sixty-four pages, to
the Americans who have printed three editions of his poems)—which
| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 343 |
|
“I think, whatever mortals crave,
With impotent endeavour,
A wreath,—a rank,—a throne,—a grave,—
The world goes round for ever;
I think that life is not too long,
And therefore I determine
That many people read a song,
Who will not read a sermon.
|
|
“I think you’ve look’d through many hearts,
And mused on many actions,
And studied man’s component parts,
And nature’s compound fractions;
I think you’ve picked up truth by bits
From foreigner and neighbour,
I think the world has lost its wits,
And you have lost your labour.
|
|
“I think the studies of the wise,
The hero’s noisy quarrel,
The majesty of woman’s eyes,
The poet’s cherish’d laurel;
And all that makes us lean or fat,
And all that charms or troubles,—
This bubble is more bright than that,
But still they all are bubbles.
|
|
“I think the thing you call Renown,
The unsubstantial vapour
For which the soldier burns a town,
The sonnetteer a taper,
|
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|
Is like the mist which, as he flies,
The horseman leaves behind him;
He cannot mark its wreaths arise,
Or, if he does, they blind him.
|
|
‘I think one nod of mistress Chance
Makes creditors of debtors,
And shifts the funeral for the dance,
The sceptre for the fetters;
I think that Fortune’s favour’d guest
May live to gnaw the platters;
And he that wears the purple vest
May wear the rags and tatters.
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“I think the Tories love to buy
‘Your Lordships’ and ‘Your Graces,’
By loathing common honesty,
And lauding common-places;
I think that some are very wise,
And some are very funny,
And some grow rich by telling lies,
And some by telling money.
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“I think the Whigs are wicked knaves,
And very like the Tories,
Who doubt that Britain rules the waves.
And ask the price of glories;
I think that many fret and fume
At what their friends are planning,
And Mr. Hume hates Mr. Brougham
As much as Mr. Canning.
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“I think that friars and their hoods,
Their doctrines and their maggots,
Have lighted up too many feuds,
And far too many faggots;
I think while zealots fast and frown,
And fight for two or seven,
That there are fifty roads to town,
And rather more to Heaven.
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“I think that, thanks to Paget’s lance,
And thanks to Chester’s learning,
The hearts that burned for fame in France,
At home are safe from burning;
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| Ch. X.] | THE FIRST EPOCH. | 345 |
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I think the Pope is on his back,
And, though ’tis fun to shake him,
I think the Devil not so black
As many people make him.
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“I think that Love is like a play
Where tears and smiles are blended,
Or like a faithless April day,
Whose shine with shower is ended;
Like Colnbrook pavement, rather rough,
Like trade exposed to losses,
And like a Highland plaid, all stuff,
And very full of crosses.
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“I think the world, though dark it be,
Has aye one rapturous pleasure,
Conceal’d in life’s monotony,
For those who seek the treasure;
One planet in a starless night,—
One blossom on a briar,—
One friend not quite a hypocrite,—
One woman not a liar!
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“I think poor beggars court St. Giles,
Rich beggars court St. Stephen;
And Death looks down with nods and smiles,
And makes the odds all even;
I think some die upon the field,
And some upon the billow,
And some are laid beneath a shield,
And some beneath a willow.
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“I think that very few have sigh’d,
When Fate at last has found them,
Though bitter foes were by their side,
And barren moss around them;
I think that some have died of drought,
And some have died of drinking;—
I think that nought is worth a thought,
And I’m a fool for thinking!”
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“I think” my readers wilt not complain of the length of this
reprint. I could not select stanzas
| 346 | PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: | [Ch. X. |
I must hold my hand. I must look forward to my proper work of sober narrative in the next stage of life’s journey—to trace the progress of education—the growth of popular literature. The following lines from the “Arlechino Parlante” of “The Brazen Head”—the Harlequin “who everything changes”—verses which St. Leger and I produced in happy association, are suggestive of the opening, in a new condition of society, for labours that might be useful to my fellow-men:
“I have whistled up sprites to bestow my new lights On all that is ancient, exclusive, and dark;— I have spread around knowledge—I build London College— I have steam on the Thames, I have gas in the Park. No longer a minister frowns and looks sinister, When philosophy mingles with maxims of state; Economical squires deride their grand-sires, And reasoning citizens lead the debate.” |
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