An ape and a lion, a fox and an ass,
Will show how the lives of most men do pass;
They are all of them apes to the age of eighteen,
Then bold as lions till forty they’ve seen,
Then cunning as foxes till three score and ten,
And then they are asses, and no more men.
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A dove and a sparrow, a parrot and crow,
Will show you the lives of most women also;
They are all of them doves to the age of fifteen,
Then lively as sparrows till forty they’ve seen,
Then chatter like parrots, until they’re three score,
Then birds of ill omen, and women no more!
Old Song, some of the words a little softened.
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One Mr. Ollendorff undertakes to teach
you how to read, write, and speak a language in six months, and I will undertake to teach
you how to criticise all that can he written in it in six weeks; I mean in the manner and
to the full extent of the ability so general and so arrogant in our day. My ordeal has not
been a very trying one. A few
2 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
Just so have I thought of my critically-pictured self, when glancing from
the odious misfeatures of the iron-grey
CRITICAL GLANCES. | 3 |
Having been led to begin this volume with an allusion to the criticisms
upon “my book,” as Abernethy used to say, and being from
my confirmed literary habits unused to put aught literary away from me, I will venture to
add a few words more touching my performance. In it I have endeavoured to relate
circumstances truly, to depict myself ingenuously, to speak of others faithfully, to state
my opinions frankly, to express my feelings sincerely, and to season the whole with such
anecdotes and pleasantries as might render it more acceptable to the general reader, or, in
common parlance, more popular. Fifty years is a long time for reminiscence, and memory and
talent must to a certain degree fail in reviving once vivid images, as want of judgment or
just appreciation may attach too much consequence to matters of small importance. But a
whole should be taken as a whole, and I have been equally puzzled and diverted by the
multitude of critical and friendly missives with which I have been favoured (and much
encouraged) during my progress. “I have laughed like to kill myself,”
says one, “at such and such a story;” “your natural touches
and descriptions,” says another, “have powerfully affected me; do,
pray, let them fulfil their humanising effects without being marred by jokes and
amusing incidents.” “We are delighted; give us more of
yourself,” comes from a third source; and “there is, perhaps, a
little too much about your personal affairs” in so and so, is the hint of No.
4. “Launch us, as you must be well able to do, more widely in the general history
of the literature of your period.” “Your early life and scenes
in Edinburgh have restored me to the days of my youth, with a freshness I should have
thought impossible,” writes
4 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
The old man, his son, and his little jackass Trotting along the road, |
The true glass must reflect actual images; pain and pleasure, woes and mirth, chasing each other in our changeful course. For
The stait of man dois change and vary,
Now sound, now seit, now blyth, now sary,
Now dansaud mirry, now like to die.
|
Ne stait in Erd heir standis sicker;
As with the wynd wavis the wickir,
So wavis this warldis vanité.
|
ALARIC A. WATTS. | 5 |
(But I, William Jerdan cannot, with William Dunbar, add for myself)
Timor Mortis conturbat me.
|
But I must on to my progress, and throw the material of the past into my mind-mill, in the hope that it may work them off by something like that strange process by which we often unconsciously unwind the ravelled skein of memory, or develop thoughts from a germ we hardly knew was planted.
Among my earliest coadjutors and friends in the “Literary Gazette” was Mr. Alaric A. Watts, from whom I received many valuable contributions in prose and verse; and among them a series of articles pointing out the plagiarisms of Lord Byron, which created a considerable sensation and led to much controversy at the time. The talents of this gentleman had, whilst yet young for literature, recommended him to the editorship of the “New Monthly Magazine,” and during thirty years which have elapsed since that period, he has not only filled an eminently useful place in the periodical press, but taken a distinguished rank among the sweetest poets of the time, as well in separate publications as in the brilliant annuals which he so ably edited.
The coincidences, to say the least of them, which Mr. Watts pointed out between characters in Byron’s works and characters drawn by preceding writers,
and also between circumstances and language employed upon them in common, were angrily
resented by the great admirers of his lordship; but still as passion is not logic nor abuse
argument, there the statements and evidence remain to be sustained or refuted, as the case
may be, by future commentators. The “Giaour,” for instance, is traced to Mrs.
Radcliffe’s Schedoni, in the
powerful romance of the
6 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
A moment now he slacked his speed,
A moment breathed his panting steed.
|
A moment checked his wheeling steed,
A moment breathed him from his speed.—Giaour.
|
And I the cause for whom were given
Her peace on earth, her hopes in heaven.—Marmion.
|
——and she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven.
|
BYRON’S PLAGIARISMS. | 7 |
The evening fell,
The air was mild, the wind was calm,
The stream was smooth, the dew was balm.
|
Cool was the silent sky, tho’ calm,
He bathed his brow with airy balm.—Byron.
|
It were too long to revive this subject with those particular details and quotations, without which its merits cannot be understood. The French literary journals took it up, and a furious contest of les retorsions et les répliques ensued. Then sprung up the Bowles and Byron controversy relating to Pope, provoked, according to his Lordship, by words spoken at the house of “the Nestor of our inferior race of living poets,” Samuel Rogers; and the yet more violent quarrel between the noble Lord and Southey, founded on the application of the epithet “Satanic school,” to him and Moore; and a propos of the “Literary” Gazette Exposition, I have a letter before me from Mr. Watts, who says: “I received a very flattering letter from Southey yesterday, who alluded, among other matters, with high praise, to our plagiarism papers on Lord Byron . . . . .” Mr. Watts does not mention how much Byron borrowed from d’Herbelot, which I could demonstrate; nor how much Ivanhoe was indebted to Boccacio.
Leaving, however, these battles of the books, and their authors, to be dealt with by Prince Posterity, I may note, en passant, a sample or two of Byron’s anachronisms, recalled to memory by the grand show of Sardanapalus, as an acting drama this season. Here we find:—
My eloquent Indian! Thou speakest music, The very chorus of the tragic song I have heard thee talk of as the favourite pastime Of thy far father land. |
Now, as the learned and witty Maginn would remark,
8 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
Again, Sardanapalus asks the same lady:—
Myrrha, my love, hast thou thy shell in
order? Sing me a song of Sappho, her, thou knowest Who in thy country threw— |
Look on this brow! the laurel wreath
Beam’d on it like a wreath of fire;
For passion gave the living breath,
That shook the chords of Sappho’s lyre!
|
Look on this brow! the lowest slave,
The veriest wretch of want and care,
Might shudder at the lot that gave
Her genius, glory, and despair.
|
For, from these lips were uttered sighs
That, more than fever, scorched the frame;
And tears were rained from these bright eyes,
That, from the heart, like life-blood came.
|
ALARIC A. WATTS. | 9 |
She loved—she felt the lightning-gleam,
That keenest strikes the loftiest mind;
Life quenched in one ecstatic dream,
The world waste before—behind.
|
And she had hope—the treacherous hope,
The last deep poison of the bowl,
That makes us drain it, drop by drop,
Nor lose one misery of soul.
|
Then all gave way—mind, passion, pride!
She cast one weeping glance above,
And buried in her bed, the tide,
The whole concenter’d strife of Love!
|
But to return to my friend Alaric Watts, with whom, during so many years, I carried on a copious literary intercourse and correspondence, always benefited by his assistance, and occasionally still more obliged to him for acting as my Lord-Lieutenant when temporarily absent from headquarters, I look back on the period with mingled emotions of pleasure and pain. Mr. Watts, like myself, did not find literature the path to fortune. Yet was he exceedingly well read, full of intelligence, cultivated in taste, superior in talent, and laborious in application. In every thing I found him straightforward, honourable, and kind-hearted; if a little warm sometimes, when we happened to differ in opinion, I will venture to record it to the credit of both, that beyond asserting our own convictions of what was due to truth in criticism, we never contravened each other for an hour.
In the retrospects of life, there are too often changes to regret more
distressing to the mind than the most afflicting losses. The latter are inevitable, the
conditions of existence. The former are caused by ourselves. Between Alaric Watts and I no such event ever occurred to be
lamented now. He sought me first, as his senior with some experience, to advise him in his
literary career. His footsteps thenceforward ran parallel to mine, and we were ever ready
10 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
A few lines from another letter bear so much upon a good deal of the
preceding, that I cannot refrain from copying them. “My dear friend,—On looking
over the
TOM CAMPBELL. | 11 |
Ranging among poets, I hope I may consider it opportune to cast a glance over my intimacy with the author of the “Pleasures of Hope,” which also endured for many a year, and to the day of his death. Among the attendants at his funeral in Westminster Abbey, there were not many who mourned him more sincerely than I did, for I had participated in his eccentricities, regretted his little weaknesses, studied his better qualities, and admired his genius. Campbell’s was a curiously mixed character, partaking of the sublime and the ridiculous in an extraordinary degree. In this respect there was a certain similarity between him and Goldsmith, as the latter is handed down to us in his social habits and high poetic mission—the
Noll, Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll. |
12 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
Perhaps he was thinking of founding the London University, or of
establishing the Association for the succour of the unfortunate Poles; in both of which he
took an ardent and effective part. This ardour was constitutional, and pervaded his later
years. I remember him desperately in love with a fair, embonpoint, and handsome lady, who
published a very nice romance, and is now the wife of another, better acquainted with
banking than poetical notes;
TOM CAMPBELL. | 13 |
Tom told an amusing story of having a “travelling merchant,” alias a bagman, foisted upon him as a bed-fellow, under a mistaken notion, in a small country inn, when travelling in Scotland; but I must content myself with a less racy preliminary. He had been stopped by the weather in the afternoon, had dined, and indulged himself with a toothpick to wile away the idle after hour. Enter chambermaid. “Sir, if ye please, are ye dune with the toothpick?” “Why do you ask? I suppose I may pick away as long as I like!” “Oh dear na, sir! for it belongs to the Club, and thae hae been met amaist an hour!” The disgust with which the instrument was thrown away may, be more readily imagined than described, though he did describe it admirably.
Please ye, my worshipful readers, I think it was from Campbell, it might be from Sam Anderson or McCulloch, that I gathered the annexed characteristic Scotch facetiæ, with which I will finish this anecdotic division.
There is nothing like imitation! A baillie of Dundee,
14 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
The minister of Renfrew was desired to pray for some newly-elected baillies, and thus he performed his apologetic duty: “I should ha’,” said he, “to petition again for the sake of ithers; but, L—d, it is na worth while to trouble ye for such a set o’ puir bodies!”
Rate of Interest. In a conversation which happened to turn on railway accidents and the variety of human sufferings, a bank director observed that he always felt great interest in the case of a broken limb. “Then, I suppose,” said—“for a compound fracture you feel compound interest.”
But, lest no interest at all should be felt for this episodiacal gossip, I hasten to close the page on Chapter I.
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