LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 57 |
I wasted time in perusing works of imagination, and vapid
novels, calculated as they are, except when of a high order, to pervert history, and
vitiate the taste. They who possess a mature judgment, read some works for their style,
others for information, or for the disposition of their parts. Some are excellent as
sources of knowledge, but of little service in teaching how to acquire correct modes of
thinking, such as scientific compilations. From others, we derive no great accession of
facts, but they sharpen and discipline the faculties. Books of mere amusement are good for
the diversion of the mind after heavier studies, but they are the bane of mental
discipline, unless well selected, as I have found from experience. The more frivolous are
preferred, from being written down to the unrefined feeling and bad taste of the many;
extravagant in excitement, or else childish; vulgar in dialogue, and suitable to low and
untutored sympathies, or full of spurious morality, giving false pictures of manners, and
contradicting historical testimony. Their heroes, like the clown’s spectacles that
were to teach him reading, being imaginary models of all that shines in the social
character, without much
58 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Monk Lewis’s works fell early into my hands,
but they operated in a different mode from that the author intended. I set
Lewis down for a bigot in faith, as well as a man of loose
morality. I had known some Catholic sisters of exemplary character; and I had early become
acquainted with several excellent persons, members of their faith. There are many excellent
people who will believe chalk is cheese, if they are told they must believe it, their fault
being a belief in anything but the dictates of good sense—are they to be maligned
rather than pitied? Lewis hated the men, the creed was of less moment.
He described vice too well not to have been familiar with it. I read his ‘Monk’ at fifteen; he borrowed that
tale, I have no doubt, from “l’Année
Littéraire,” for 1772, and the article “Le Diable Amoureux.” The “Tales of Wonder” I well recollect
appearing. The first edition of his ‘Monk’ shamed
even its author into the suppression of some of its pruriences on its reaching a second. I
heard of his “Castle
Spectre”in the country; but I did not see it performed until I arrived in
town. It produced no effect on my mind—I was an infidel as to ghostly appearances
even then; but it drew crowds to the
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 59 |
In regard to ghosts, I had, when a lad, a sister whom the gods loved, for
she died young. She was a fine high-spirited girl, to whom I related my stock of ghost
stories, and to whom I was able to entrust, without fear of betrayal, all my tiny secrets.
I believe she wondered from what source I derived them. My father rejected all such
superstitions, and endeavoured to guard against their effect on the youthful mind, as if he
had some surmise of the true state of things. On a dark, ghostly, cold winter’s
night, he asked my sister if she was afraid to fetch a book out of a pew, at the upper end
of a chapel, which stood at the termination of a long avenue of trees planted among the
graves of several departed generations. I suspected it was done to try my courage. My
sister was two years younger than myself. She shall not go, thought I, feeling that my
courage was suspected, and as well that she would prove unequal to the task. My chivalry
vanquished my fears. I volunteered, my father taunting me, when I did not deserve it, that
my sister would fetch it, if I failed.
60 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 61 |
Moore’s Poems under the name of Thomas Little, published after his
‘Anacreon,’ I read by
stealth soon after their appearance. It was not a feather in his poetical renown, that he
should, in youth, treat love no better than harlotry. It did not speak a pure spirit. I
doubt whether Moore ever felt real love. The language of artifice and
warmth beyond delicacy, coloured the passion after the mode in which rakes would depict it,
but in more elegant language. It was the love of the lip, not the heart. He had passed his
early years in the Dublin circles; he had visited many of those dissipated personages to
whom the simplicity and truth of nature’s colouring were too tasteful to be welcome,
for he was somewhat of a follower of fashion and title. It is true, he expressed his regret
in later years, that he published Little’s Poems, and there
is no doubt his regret was sincere, but he could not have written the poems with the
untainted mind of unartificial youth, prompted by genuine natural feeling. It is true that
the generous,
62 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“The Children of the Abbey,” by Maria Roche, Surr’s “Splendid Misery,” and Mrs. Opie’s “Mother and Daughter,” I remember successively taking to my place of reading in fine weather. This was a dense wood, seldom intruded upon, where I could enjoy reading undisturbed. I carried thither a piece of white-painted board for a seat, on which I had pencilled, in an idle mood, Pope’s line:
“Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care.” |
I never knew, for certain, what fair footsteps had followed me unobserved, but I had been followed, and by one who was familiar with Pope, for I found the line written under mine in a lady’s hand:
“For God, not man, absolves our frailties here.” |
I must state that Charlotte
Smith’s beautiful Sonnets were among my early reading, and that I read them still with great
pleasure. Her novels, too, were popular, and rank with the best of those days. She had a
far-spread reputation. Miss Owenson’s “St. Clair,” and “Novice of St. Dominick,” I read about
the same time as I perused Surr. Clara
Reeves’ “Old English
Baron” followed. Godwin was too
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 63 |
Coleridge’s poems I perused with delight, but
I could never lumber through Southey’s leaden
epic, “Joan of Arc.” His
“Curse of Kehama” I
perused with the interest arising from its novelty of subject, notwithstanding its
verbiage. I remember the starting of the “Edinburgh Review,” much talked of by the public. By the “Monthly”and “Critical Reviews,” and the “British Critic,” I had been too much swayed in
opinion. I think there was an “English
Review” in my early years, but I only remember there was such a work. It
was said to be established through the instrumentality of a Dr.
Thompson, a friend of Dr. Parr, and
author of a work called “The Man in the
Moon.” The “Monthly Review” had attained
considerable reputation, and was first the property of Mr.
Griffith, assisted by Dr. Rose of
Chiswick, and a Mr. Cleveland. Old Mr. Jenkinson, afterwards Earl of Liverpool—whose
writings, Peter Pindar said, showed not a spark of
fire until they were put into the grate,—Charles
Burney—not the musical man, but the Greek number three (or Porson, Parr, and
Burney),—and Dr. Rees,
of Encyclopedia renown, were contributors. The literary opinions the work expressed were
not always
64 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“Combe’s Greek proved a
lapsis—though at home in a ptysick, It was so much the worse he deserted his physic— Parr combed him they say for his Greek, and so far, It was proved to the world he was not up to par!”
|
Of the parties who established the “Critical Review” I do not remember having heard. A very
ingenious compiler for the press, Stephen Jones,
gave me much information about the reviews, which I regret has long been forgotten. The
“Quarterly Review” did not
appear until 1809, two years after I had begun my town career. Most of the foregoing
statements I remember to have learned in town. The only literati, in my boyish days,
resident near where I lived, were Polwhele, and
Whittaker, the Manchester historian.
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 65 |
Scott’s “Marmion” delighted me, and it was well calculated to
do so, especially on the first time of perusal. It came out at this period. There was a
happy abruptness in the termination, which left a grateful recollection behind. It lost
much of its attraction on a second perusal, and on the third descended to
66 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 67 |
Another of the noted works of the day, a little subsequent to Scott’s “Marmion,” was that of a poet whose fame was already fixed upon a durable foundation in “Gertrude of Wyoming,” the second edition of which appeared the same year as Scott’s “Lady of the Lake.” “Gertrude” did not strike me with its tranquil and peculiar beauties, until I had read it more than once, as Reynolds observed of Raphael’s cartoons, the excellence of which did not strike at the first glance. It was somewhat in this way that the first perusal of “Gertrude”affected me.
I was so pleased with passages in Darwin’s poetical works, when young, that I retained them in memory.
His prophecy in regard to steam-vessels was singular in its verification. His writings were
put down by the wits of the Anti-Jacobin,
not for their demerits, but
68 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“Thus charmed to sweet repose when twilight hours, Shed their soft influence on celestial bowers, The cherub innocence with smile divine Shuts his white wings, and sleeps on beauty’s shrine.” |
Many and varied were the snatches of byegone verse treasured in roy youth, in rambles over waste, and through wood and vale. In lonely hours, thoughtful, companionless, it was then I used to fix, or rather, such quotations became fixed in my mind, by continual repetition. Gray was one of my favourites, from whom I culled fragments, and the same with Milton, Pope and others. How fresh-coloured, even through the dimness of years, is the recollection of the localities where I thus beguiled many solitary moments.
The appearance of “English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers,” in the return for the attack of the Scotch reviewers upon
young Byron, I well remember. The Edinburgh did not make much noise at its first appearance,
but grew rapidly into favour. It would have merited unalloyed praise, had it supported
liberal principles only, and taken a tone more exalted. Still it had merit in a point
difficult to be understood now, from the alterations for the better effected by time.
Intense religious bigotry, the judicial bench little better than a tool of the crown; the
Test and Corporation Acts in full force, the press enslaved, illiberality and ignorance
triumphant, all showed the necessity for a striking advocacy of equal justice and free
opinion. It has since
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 69 |
The waste of labour and logic, the assumed egotism, and something like
bombast at times, presented no very edifying example in the use of the critical tomahawk
upon those literary men who were so unfortunate as not to be able to claim the
reviewer’s political brotherhood. The first person named as editor, was Dr. Grant, who could not proceed with his duties from an
attack of illness. Gifford then undertook a task for
which he had from toil the scholarship, the intense virulence from nature, and the
vulgarity by early tendencies. He had no scintillation of genius, but was a plodding
labourer over books, when not occupied in pushing his fortunes in other ways. How he became
tutor of the late Lord Westminster is well known. In
his published account of himself, he took care to omit his turf transactions, and his
female acquaintances. Weatherby, of racing calendar
notoriety, was the chum, at one time, of the tutor of the young nobleman, when he might, at
least, be supposed to “affect” strictness. Jockeys and blacklegs were hardly
consistent companions for grave tutors. But he was not likely to be over exact in this and
other matters
70 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I had a clerk, when I was in Devonshire, named John Colmer. He and Gifford were companions at Ashburton, of which place both were natives. They separated when Gifford left off the contemplative trade of the last, to go to the college, whither his early patron sent him. Whenever Colmer came to town, for he had been in trade, he used to go and see his old crony. I questioned Colmer as to his knowledge of any female sent down to Ashburton to school by Gifford. He replied in the affirmative, which decided in my mind all I had heard.
What I learned from Colmer, who did not at all suspect the drift of my questions, had better pass into oblivion.
The coarse mind of Gifford, infused fear into many writers, lest he should mangle them in the “Quarterly.” Gifford was the very antipode of anything poetical, while affecting to be a poet. His love of arithmetic and the betting-book, were hardly consistent with such an affectation. Byron, a peer, so abused by the “Edinburgh,” though not a Tory, obtained the support of Gifford in the “Quarterly,” besides that, Murray, the bookseller, owned the “Review.” Gifford flattered Byron, and the latter in return, handed over his beautiful verses in MS., for Gifford’s “experienced” correction. The critic made such ridiculous, anti-poetic work of it, that Byron could not put up with the emendations, and in his teeth fortunately kept to his first text. Byron wrote:—
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 71 |
“When all is past it is humbling to tread,
O’er the weltering field, of the tombless dead!”
|
Gifford cobbled these lines as follows:—
“O’er the weltering limbs of the tombless dead!” |
“All regarding men as their prey, All rejoicing in his decay, Follow his frame from the bier to the dust.” |
“Out upon time! it will leave no more Of the things to come than the things before!” |
It is then clear, that the Cannings, Freres, Milmans, Crokers, and other men of talent who contributed, elevated the “Review,” not its editor. Some of the scholarship notices are excellent. A selection of these in three or four volumes, from the mass of high-flown rubbish, and falsified prophecies of national ruin, would be most useful. In its classical articles, the “Review” as far outshone the “Edinburgh” as the “Edinburgh” outshone the “Quarterly” in the truth of its political predictions, and that advocacy of improvement and reform for which its reputation is imperishable.
But I digress. The above subject seems to me not a week old. Time carries no scale of the distances of its spoliations; the more remote often appearing the more approximate.
I met in society many literary characters about this time, some Templars,
others collegians, and some pro-
72 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 73 |
Samuel wrote with rapidity and elegance, but he possessed little imagination. He left behind him an elaborate volume on courts-martial, written just before he quitted England some years after this, to become Chief Justice of Demerara, where he died. He was of the middle height, inclined to corpulence. His complexion ruddy, with some remnant of the Israelitish feature still apparent, rendering his countenance rather handsome, the midway between the personal of the two creeds. He was singularly generous and affable; in his living rather profuse than otherwise. He wore the invariable blue coat, buckskins, pigtail, and powder of that day. Suspenders were not yet in vogue, and the shirt was invariably displayed above the waistband, rotund gentlemen being continually forced to pull the buckskins up, I see him now, through the long vista of years, in the act of the existing fashionables. He lived in Sloane Street, where I often used to call upon him. He drove a handsome vehicle. I remember he had a French valet, who was a greater man than his master. In Surrey, ascending a steep hill the horses fatigued, the master got down and began pushing the carriage, desiring Louis to descend, but he sat unmoved.
“Dat do for my master, but dat not do for de valet of France: monsieur do if he please. I not.”
Not only did Samuel attack the East
India Company in the ‘Pilot,’ he obtained
the advocacy of Sir Thomas Turton in the House of
Commons, by a series of letters in that paper. But Sir Thomas made his
motion in vain on “the most atrocious, shameful, and inhuman
74 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“About the fifth of April, the mother of this illustrious youth,
with agonized heart and frantic feelings, sent the stained and reeking garments of her
expiring son to the Chief Justice of Madras, and along with it the imprecations of
nature for the dreaded loss of her beloved offspring, laying his death, which now
appeared inevitable, with a mother’s wildness at the door of British policy; and
calling with widely extended cries for vengeance and restitution. On the sixth, this
ill-fated prince was relieved by the hand of death from his earthly miseries, having
endured with the patience of a martyr more than a martyr’s sufferings; having
never lost, in the feelings of the man, the dignity of the station for which he was
intended, and for which he was, by Providence, so well and so peculiarly
endowed.”
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 75 |
Dr. Maclean, the well known anti-contagionist, had a share in the paper at its commencement, but parted with it soon afterwards. David Walker, a son of the rector of Middleton, near Manchester, held another share, and resided at the house in the Strand, next door to Burgess’s Italian Warehouse, where the paper was printed. The printer, a tall raw-boned Scotchman, named Taylor, was an original character, a “pawky” fellow, as any Scotchman need be. He had won the sixteenth of twenty thousand pounds in the lottery, but this good fortune made no difference in his conduct. He took his own four guineas weekly, was in the office daily a quarter before 4 a.m., and paid the same close attention to his duties until the paper appeared at 3 p.m., on the Saturday. He then paid his men, set his dress in order, and adjourned to a bout of good fellowship with some of his countrymen, until Sunday was well in, though your Scotchman is a great external religionist. Even if his potations were continued into the evening, he was at his post at four on the Monday morning. Each of his men was expected to have his column of type ready by eight o’clock. The papers, it must be recollected, were not then as gigantic as they are at present. The only reporter on the establishment, little required, was named Jenkins. The morning papers supplied most of the requisite reports.
The editor of an evening paper then came at 8 a.m.,
76 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Samuel, when he gave up all but a few contributions
himself, had an Indian friend in Mr., afterwards Sir Herbert
Compton, who having run a successful career in the law in India, found it
necessary, before he could rise higher, to become a member of the English bar, now, I
believe, necessary to any legal practice in the East. He became chief editor of the paper.
His history was a singular example of talent, industry, and integrity combined. He remained
editor until it became requisite for him to return to the East, after having dined himself
into a knowledge of the law here. He became Advocate-General both at Madras and Calcutta,
and finally Chief Justice at Bombay. He returned to England, dying in Hyde Park Gardens two
or three years ago. He is said to have run away from his friends early in life, and to have
enlisted as a private soldier in a regiment ordered to India. There he soon obtained his
discharge, and studying the law upon the spot, was permitted to practise, under the old
charter. He continued an advocate in the Supreme Court, but there he must have remained and
risen no higher had he not returned and entered the Temple. I am often reminded of him by
his house in Upper Baker Street, on the same side as the house of Mrs. Siddons, but not half way up from the New Road, all
beyond it being then grass land to
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 77 |
“You are wrong, my Lord, I assure you, I was sketching the lion.”
“Let me see it, I insist,” said the angry Rhadamanthus.
Compton handed up the sketch, which the judge declared was an intended insult to himself, foaming and distorting his features with anger.
“My Lord,” said Compton, calmly, “I have assured you I did not intend it for your likeness. It is not my fault if your Lordship’s passion makes your face resemble the lion’s.”
Compton, when Samuel undertook the editorship, in his place for a day or two, visited
Bath and Cheltenham, and sometimes Brighton, towns new to him. On those occasions he sent
us up letters, and light articles of local interest, which drew the attention of the
fashionable world to the paper. He generally signed
78 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I remember gentleman Lewis as he was styled, coming to us occasionally to go and dine at a coffeehouse. They truly called him “gentleman.” He was an excellent companion, and deputy manager of Covent Garden Theatre, a remarkably amiable and contented man. Some relations of his in India, made him known to the ‘Pilot’ people, I forget what the connection was. Lewis shone as Ranger and the Copper Captain among his more prominent characters.
When I quitted town, for an object subsequently explained, I left Compton at his post, his Temple probation not having been completed. He was succeeded by Edward Fitzgerald, who died, in 1823, Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, after twelve years’ residence.
My duties were desultory. They commenced about half past 10 a.m., by a walk into the city as far as Lloyd’s, the great
mart of commercial intelligence. I had access by an ivory ticket. From thence, and after
looking at American and other papers, I returned to communicate the intelligence of the
morning. I delivered all I might
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 79 |
I met the funeral of Opie, the painter, passing up the Strand, on its way to St. Paul’s, and it reminded me that I had an introduction to the painter from the West, but procrastinated calling when I came to town. I deeply regretted not knowing him. How often had I rambled along the wild shores of his native parish, bent over its lofty cliffs, and traced the metallic veins laid bare in their sides by the ever-resounding surf that undermines their base. He had married a second time in 1798, a lady so well-known by her writings. His first wife was a wanton from whom he was divorced.
I remember an instance of her conduct characteristic
80 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Many other characters, the names of whom alone survive, used to drop in occasionally at the office for whose reception there was a handsome drawing-room. One of these was Major Topham, when on his visits to town from the Wolds, having long given up his paper established nearly twenty years before, called “The World.” He wrote the life of Elwes, the miser, several dramatic and political works, and prologues and epilogues, I know not how many, with an account of an aërolite, which fell near his country residence. It was taken up warm, having penetrated deeply into the earth. Topham was a stout, full faced, ruddy complexioned man, with grey whiskers, of middle stature, gentlemanly in manners, with much openness of disposition. He died in 1820.
His attachment to Mrs. Wells, the
actress, was singular. It is true I only saw her when much altered by time, and still more
by ill habits. She was a fine
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 81 |
She next pretended to embrace the Catholic faith,
82 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Spencer Smith, the elder brother of the hero of
Acre, Sir Sidney, and British Ambassador at
Constantinople, was another of our friends. He got the paper introduced into the Foreign
Office. He was about this time contesting the borough of Dover. He possessed much general
information, and was a delightful companion. He had married in 1798, the daughter of Baron Herbert, the Austrian minister at
Constantinople, who the year
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 83 |
Sweet Florence! could another ever share
This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine,
But check’d by every tie, I may not dare
To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine,
Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.
|
Smith gave me the detail of a most frightful abuse of English law in the ruin of a Turkish captain of a vessel, named Antonopolo, by a London attorney, such a history of professional rascality was hardly ever before equalled, the Turk was got into prison, and his ship and cargo applied to the purposes of his plunderer. The unfortunate man was a total stranger to the country, and in prison would have died, but for Smith’s interference. I put the whole case into the paper. It had been printed the year before, in a series of letters addressed to the Earl of Moira. After 1808, I saw no more of Spencer Smith. Ten years passed away, during three of which I had been absent from England. Wind bound nearly a week at Dieppe in 1818, where I knew no one, and by no means in good spirits, hoping for a change in the wind every hour, I was seated near the sea ruminating at my detention, when a voice near me called out:
“God bless me—what Cyrus Redding!”
A packet had come in with Smith on
board. Our congratulations were mutual. We spent the day together.
84 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I visited Johnson, the smuggler, in the Fleet prison, to obtain some intelligence of moment, which we required, and he frankly gave it to me. He was a man about the middle height, no way calculated from his appearance to carry the formidable name he bore. He was enlarged by government, so it was reported, to pilot Lord Castlereagh’s expedition to Walcheren, because he knew the coast better than most pilots. There was a tale circulated some years afterwards, that he had planned to take the late Emperor Napoleon off the Island of St. Helena. I imagine it was an idle story.
Some comments on Major Semple Lisle,
although the police had been seeking to apprehend him, brought him to the office. He was
charged with stealing a bit of bacon—his life has long been before the public. He was
rather tall, a thin pale man, with acute features. In manners gentlemanly, dressed in
shabby green; I could not help fancying I saw marks of great suffering in his countenance.
I assured him we had no reason to press upon him, our reporter had brought the proceedings
as they occurred. He complained of being haunted with charges wholly unfounded, and obliged
to secret himself from his creditors, he could not therefore openly meet his accusers. I
pacified him. Singular enough, the next day passing where I had not been half a dozen times
before in my life, that row of one story bourses at the east end of New St. Pancras Church,
I saw Semple Lisle knock at one of them. He observed me, and looked
imploringly, so I fancied—I kept his secret. Government gave him at last some
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 85 |
Little Paull, who was returned for Westminster, and ultimately committed suicide with such remarkable deliberation, placing the looking glass in a position which reflected the part of the throat most eligible for his purpose, and himself opposite to it when he inflicted the wound;—he used to look in sometimes for the purpose of hearing or communicating Indian news. His affairs had become deranged. The Prince of Wales’ party, which had proffered him parliamentary support, having offers of certain concessions from the administration, throw off Paull at the very moment he was going down to open the debate. While he was in Carlton House on his way, the arrangement was concluded, and the prince’s friends, who had before pledged themselves to bear him up with their votes, abandoned him at the eleventh hour; such was the political honour of that time.
The day Paull destroyed himself, it was said remittances had arrived at his house from India, which would have prevented the catastrophe, this could not have been the fact, for as late as 1839, Sir Charles Wolseley told me, at Wolseley, that he had been one of Paull’s securities for the reserved payment for his house in Charles Street, St. James’, and that after his suicide, he had to pay two thousand pounds on that account. Paull was a zealous man, versed in the East Indian affairs, but seemed to know very little besides.
The duel between Paull and Burdett took place in Coombe Wood, near Wimbledon. In that
wood there was an ice house overshadowed by five or six venerable
86 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I saw the election for Westminster, when Sheridan and Paull were rivals. Among other ridiculous things, a kind of stage was brought from Drury Lane Theatre, supported on men’s shoulders, upon this there were four tailors busily at work, with a live goose and several huge cabbages, they came close up to the hustings, before Paull, amidst roars of laughing. The joke was, that Paull’s father had been a tailor. A voter called out to Sheridan that he had long supported him, but should, after that, withdraw his countenance from him.
“Take it away at once—take it away at once,” cried Sheridan from the hustings, “it is the most villainous looking countenance I ever beheld.”
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