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WORDSWORTH'S POSTHUMOUS POEM.[J]
This is a voice that speaks to us across a gulf of nearly fifty years. A few months ago Wordsworth was taken from us at the ripe age of fourscore, yet here we have him addressing the public, as for the first time, with all the fervor, the unworn freshness, the hopeful confidence of thirty. We are carried back to the period when Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Rogers, and Moore were in their youthful prime. We live again in the stirring days when the poets who divided public attention and interest with the Fabian struggle in Portugal and Spain, with the wild and terrible events of the Russian campaign, with the uprising of the Teutonic nations, and the overthrow of Napoleon, were in a manner but commencing their cycle of songs. This is to renew, to antedate, the youth of a majority of the living generation. But only those whose memory still carries them so far back, can feel within them any reflex of that eager excitement, with which the news of battles fought and won, or mail-coach copies of some new work of Scott, or Byron, or the Edinburgh Review, were looked for and received in those already old days. [J] We need not remind the readers of the Excursion, that when Wordsworth was enabled, by the generous enthusiasm of Raisley Calvert, to retire with a slender independence to his native mountains, there to devote himself exclusively to his art, his first step was to review and record in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. This was at once an exercise in versification, and a test of the kind of poetry for which he was by temperament fitted. The result was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of man, of nature, and of society. This ambitious conception has been doomed to share the fate of so many other colossal undertakings. Of the three parts of his Recluse, thus planned, only the second (the Excursion, published in 1814) has been completed. Of the other two there exists only the first book of the first, and the plan of the third. The Recluse will remain in fragmentary greatness, a poetical Cathedral of Cologne.
Matters standing thus, it has not been without a melancholy sense of the uncertainty of human projects, and of the contrast between the sanguine enterprise and its silent evaporation (so often the "history of an individual mind"), that we have perused this Prelude which no completed strain was destined to follow. Yet in the poem itself there is nothing to inspire depression. It is animated throughout with the hopeful confidence in the poet's own powers, so natural to the time of life at which it was composed; it evinces a power and soar of imagination unsurpassed in any of his writings; and its images and incidents have a freshness and distinctness which they not seldom lost, when they came to be elaborated, as many of them were, in his minor poems of a later date.
The Prelude, as the title page indicates, is a poetical autobiography, commencing with the earliest reminiscences of the author, and continued to the time at which it was composed. We are told that it was begun in 1799 and completed in 1805. It consists of fourteen books. Two are devoted to the infancy and schooltime of the poet; four to the period of his University life; two to a brief residence in London, immediately subsequent to his leaving Cambridge, and a retrospect of the progress his mind had then made; and three to a residence in France, chiefly in the Loire, but partly in Paris, during the stormy period of Louis the Sixteenth's flight and capture, and the fierce contest between the Girondins and Robespierre. Five books are then occupied with an analysis of the internal struggle occasioned by the contradictory influences of rural and secluded nature in boyhood, and of society when the young man first mingles with the world. The surcease of the strife is recorded in the fourteenth book, entitled "Conclusion."
The poem is addressed to Coleridge; and, apart from its poetical merits, is interesting as at once a counterpart and supplement to that author's philosophical and beautiful criticism of the Lyrical Ballads in his Biographia Literaria. It completes the explanation, there given, of the peculiar constitution of Wordsworth's mind, and of his poetical theory. It confirms and justifies our opinion that that theory was essentially partial and erroneous; but at the same time, it establishes the fact that Wordsworth was a true and a great poet in despite of his theory.
The great defect of Wordsworth, in our judgment, was want of sympathy with, and knowledge of men. From his birth till his entry at college, he lived in a region where he met with none whose minds might awaken his sympathies, and where life was altogether uneventful. On the other hand, that region abounded with the inert, striking, and most impressive objects of natural scenery. The elementary grandeur and beauty of external nature came thus to fill up his mind to the exclusion of human interests. To such a result his individual constitution powerfully contributed. The sensuous element was singularly deficient in his nature. He never seems to have passed through that erotic period out of which some poets have never emerged. A soaring, speculative imagination, and an impetuous, resistless self-will, were his distinguishing characteristics. From first to last he concentrated himself within himself; brooding over his own fancies and imaginations to the comparative disregard of the incidents and impressions which suggested them; and was little susceptible of ideas originating in other minds. We behold the result. He lives alone in a world of mountains, streams, and atmospheric phenomena, dealing with moral abstractions, and rarely encountered by even shadowy spectres of beings outwardly resembling himself. There is measureless grandeur and power in his moral speculations. There is intense reality in his pictures of external nature. But though his human characters are presented with great skill of metaphysical analysis, they have rarely life or animation. He is always the prominent, often the exclusive, object of his own song.
Upon a mind so constituted, with its psychological peculiarities so cherished and confirmed, the fortunes and fates of others, and the stirring events of his time, made vivid but very transient impressions. The conversation and writings of contemporaries trained among books, and with the faculty of speech more fully developed than that of thought, seemed colorless and empty to one with whom natural objects and grandeurs were always present in such overpowering force. Excluded by his social position from taking an active part in the public events of the day, and repelled by the emptiness of the then fashionable literature, he turned to private and humble life as possessing at least a reality. But he thus withheld himself from the contemplation of those great mental excitements which only great public struggles can awaken. He contracted a habit of exaggerating the importance of every-day incidents and emotions. He accustomed himself to see in men and in social relations only what he was predetermined to see there, and to impute to them a value and importance derived mainly from his own self-will. Even his natural good taste contributed to confirm him in his error. The two prevailing schools of literature in England, at that time, were the trashy and mouthing writers who adopted the sounding language of Johnson and Darwin, unenlivened by the vigorous thought of either; and the "dead-sea apes" of that inflated, sentimental, revolutionary style which Diderot had unconsciously originated, and Kotzebue carried beyond the verge of caricature. The right feeling and manly thought of Wordsworth were disgusted by these shallow word-mongers, and he flew to the other extreme. Under the influences—repulsive and attractive—we have thus attempted to indicate, he adopted the theory that as much of grandeur and profound emotion was to be found in mere domestic incidents and feelings, as on the more conspicuous stage of public life; and that a bald and naked simplicity of language was the perfection of style. Singularly enough, he was confirmed in these notions by the very writer of the day whose own natural genius, more than any of his contemporaries, impelled, him to riot in great, wild, supernatural conceptions; and to give utterance to them in gorgeous language. Coleridge was perhaps the only contemporary from whom Wordsworth ever took an opinion; and that he did so from him, is mainly attributable to the fact that Coleridge did little more than reproduce to him his own notions, sometimes rectified by a subtler logic, but always rendered more attractive by new and dazzling illustrations.
Fortunately it is out of the power of the most perverse theory to spoil the true poet. The poems of Wordsworth must continue to charm and elevate mankind, in defiance of his crotchets, just as Luther, Henri Quatre, and other living impersonations of poetry do, despite all quaint peculiarities of the attire, the customs, or the opinions of their respective ages, with which they were embued. The spirit of truth and poetry redeems, ennobles, hallows, every external form in which it may be lodged. We may "pshaw" and "pooh" at Harry Gill and the Idiot Boy; but the deep and tremulous tenderness of sentiment, the strong-winged flight of fancy, the excelling and unvarying purity, which pervade all the writings of Wordsworth, and the exquisite melody of his lyrical poems, must ever continue to attract and purify the mind. The very excesses into which his one-sided theory betrayed him, acted as a useful counter-agent to the prevailing bad taste of his time.
The Prelude may take a permanent place as one of the most perfect of Wordsworth's compositions. It has much of the fearless felicity of youth; and its imagery has the sharp and vivid outline of ideas fresh from the brain. The subject—the development of his own great powers—raises him above that willful dallying with trivialities which repels us in some of his other works. And there is real vitality in the theme, both from our anxiety to know the course of such a mind, and from the effect of an absorbing interest in himself excluding that languor which sometimes seized him in his efforts to impart or attribute interest to themes possessing little or none in themselves. Its mere narrative, though often very homely, and dealing in too many words, is often characterized also by elevated imagination, and always by eloquence. The bustle of London life, the prosaic uncouthness of its exterior, the earnest heart that beats beneath it, the details even of its commonest amusements, from Bartholomew Fair to Sadler's Wells, are portrayed with simple force and delicate discrimination; and for the most part skillfully contrasted with the rural life of the poet's native home. There are some truthful and powerful sketches of French character and life, in the early revolutionary era. But above all, as might have been anticipated, Wordsworth's heart revels in the elementary beauty and grandeur of his mountain theme; while his own simple history is traced with minute fidelity and is full of unflagging interest.—London Examiner.
FOOTNOTES:
[J] The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind; an Autobiographical Poem. By William Wordsworth. London. Moxon. New York, Appleton & Co.
[From the North British Review.]
THE LITERARY PROFESSION—AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
It is a common complaint that the publishers make large fortunes and leave the authors to starve—that they are, in fact, a kind of moral vampire, sucking the best blood of genius, and destroying others to support themselves. A great deal of very unhealthy, one-sided cant has been written upon this subject. Doubtless, there is much to be said on both sides. That publishers look at a manuscript very much as a corn-dealer looks at sample of wheat, with an eye to its selling qualities, is not to be denied. If books are not written only to be sold, they are printed only to be sold. Publishers must pay their printers and their paper-merchants; and they can not compel the public to purchase their printed paper. When benevolent printers shall be found eager to print gratuitously works of unsalable genius, and benevolent paper-merchants to supply paper for the same, publishers may afford to think less of a manuscript as an article of sale—may reject with less freedom unlikely manuscripts, and haggle less savagely about the price of likely ones. An obvious common-place this, and said a thousand times before, but not yet recognized by the world of writers at large. Publishing is a trade, and, like all other trades, undertaken with the one object of making money by it. The profits are not ordinarily large; they are, indeed, very uncertain—so uncertain that a large proportion of those who embark in the publishing business some time or other find their way into the Gazette. When a publishing firm is ruined by printing unsalable books, authors seldom or never have any sympathy with a member of it. They have, on the other hand, an idea that he is justly punished for his offenses; and so perhaps he is, but not in the sense understood by the majority of those who contemplate his downfall as a retributive dispensation. The fact is, that reckless publishing is more injurious to the literary profession than any thing in the world beside. The cautious publisher is the author's best friend. If a house publish at their own risk a number of works which they can not sell, they must either go into the Gazette at last, or make large sums of money by works which they can sell. When a publisher loses money by a work, an injury is inflicted upon the literary profession. The more money he can make by publishing, the more he can afford to pay for authorship. It is often said that the authors of successful works are inadequately rewarded in proportion to their success; that publishers make their thousands, while authors only make their hundreds. But it is forgotten that the profits of the one successful work are often only a set-off to the losses incurred by the publication of half a dozen unsuccessful ones. If a publisher purchase a manuscript for L500, and the work prove to be a "palpable hit" worth L5000, it may seem hard that the publisher does not share his gains more equitably with the author. With regard to this it is to be said, in the first place, that he very frequently does. There is hardly a publisher in London, however "grasping" he may be, who has not, time after time, paid to authors sums of money not "in the bond." But if the fact were not as we have stated it, we can hardly admit that publishers are under any kind of obligation to exceed the strict terms of their contracts. If a publisher gives L500 for a copyright, expecting to sweep the same amount into his own coffers, but instead of making that sum, loses it by the speculation, he does not ask the author to refund—nor does the author offer to do it. The money is in all probability spent long before the result of the venture is ascertained; and the author would be greatly surprised and greatly indignant, if it were hinted to him, even in the most delicate way, that the publisher having lost money by his book, would be obliged to him if he would make good a portion of the deficit by sending a check upon his bankers.
We repeat, then, that a publisher who loses money by one man's books, must make it by another's, or go into the Gazette. There are publishers who trade entirely upon this principle, which, indeed, is a kind of literary gambling. They publish a dozen works, we will suppose, of which six produce an absolute loss; four just cover-their expenses; and the other two realize a profit. The publisher, especially if he be his own printer, may find this answer in the end; it may at least just keep him out of the Bankruptcy Court, and supply his family with bread. But the system can not be a really advantageous one either to publishers or authors. To the latter, indeed, it is destruction. No inconsiderable portion of the books published every year entail a heavy loss on author or publisher, or on both—and the amount of this loss may be set down, in most instances, as so much taken from the gross profits of the literary profession. If Mr. Bungay lose a hundred pounds by the poems of the Hon. Percy Popjoy, he has a hundred pounds less to give to Mr. Arthur Pendennis for his novel. Instead of protesting against the over-caution of publishers, literary men, if they really knew their own interests, would protest against their want of caution. Authors have a direct interest in the prosperity of publishers. The misfortune of authorship is not that publishers make so much money, but that they make so little. If Paternoster Row were wealthier than it is, there would be better cheer in Grub-street.
It is very true that publishers, like other men, make mistakes; and that sometimes a really good and salable work is rejected. Many instances of this might readily be adduced—instances of works, whose value has been subsequently proved by extensive popularity, having been rejected by one or more experienced member of the publishing craft. But their judgment is on the whole remarkably correct. They determine with surprising accuracy the market value of the greater number of works that are offered to them. It is not supposed that in the majority of cases, the publisher himself decides the question upon the strength of his own judgment. He has his minister, or ministers of state, to decide these knotty questions for him. A great deal has been written at different times, about the baneful influence of this middleman, or "reader"—but we can see no more justice in the complaint than if it were raised against the system which places a middleman or minister between the sovereign and his people. To complain of the incapacity of the publisher himself, and to object to his obtaining the critical services of a more competent party, were clearly an inconsistency and an injustice. If the publisher himself be not capable of deciding upon the literary merits or salable properties of the works laid before him, the best thing that he can do is to secure the assistance of some one who is. Hence the office of the "reader." It is well known that in some large publishing houses there is a resident "reader" attached to the establishment; others are believed to lay the manuscripts offered to them for publication before some critic of established reputation out-of-doors; while more than one eminent publisher might be named who has trusted solely to his own judgment, and rarely found that judgment at fault. In either of these cases there is no reason to assume the incompetency of the judge. Besides, as we have said, the question to be solved by the publisher or reader, is not a purely literary question. It is mainly indeed a commercial question; and the merits of the work are often freely acknowledged while the venture is politely declined.
Much more might be said of the relations between publishers and authors, but we are compelled to economize our space. The truth, indeed, as regards the latter, is simply this: It is not so much that authors do not know how to make money, as that they do not know how to spend it. The same income that enables a clergyman, a lawyer, a medical practitioner, a government functionary, or any other member of the middle classes earning his livelihood by professional labor, to support himself and his family in comfort and respectability, will seldom keep a literary man out of debt and difficulty—seldom provide him with a comfortable well-ordered home, creditable to himself and his profession. It is ten to one that he lives untidily; that every thing about him is in confusion, that the amenities of domestic life are absent from his establishment; that he is altogether in a state of elaborate and costly disorder, such as we are bound to say is the characteristic of no other kind of professional life. He seldom has a settled home—a fixed position. He appears to be constantly on the move. He seldom lives, for any length of time, in the same place; and is rarely at home when you call upon him. It would be instructive to obtain a return of the number of professional writers who retain pews in church, and are to be found there with their families on Sundays. There is something altogether fitful, irregular, spasmodic in their way of life. And so it is with their expenditure. They do not live like other men, and they do not spend like other men. At one time, you would think, from their lavish style of living, that they were worth three thousand a year; and at another, from the privations that they undergo, and the difficulty they find in meeting small claims upon them, that they were not worth fifty. There is generally, indeed, large expenditure abroad, and painful stinting at home. The "res angusta domi" is almost always there; but away from his home, your literary man is often a prince and a millionaire. Or, if he be a man of domestic habits, if he spends little on tavern suppers, little on wine, little on cab hire, the probability is, that he is still impulsive and improvident, still little capable of self-denial; that he will buy a costly picture when his house-rent is unpaid; that he will give his wife a guitar when she wants a gown; and buy his children a rocking-horse when they are without stockings. His house and family are altogether in an inelegant state of elegant disorder; and with really a comfortable income, if properly managed, he is eternally in debt.
Now all this may appear very strange, but it is not wholly unaccountable. In the first place, it may be assumed, as we have already hinted, that no small proportion of those who adopt literature as a profession have enlisted in the army of authors because they have lacked the necessary amount of patience and perseverance—the systematic orderly habits—the industry and the self-denial by which alone it is possible to attain success in other paths of professional life. With talent enough to succeed in any, they have not had sufficient method to succeed in any. They have been trained perhaps for the bar, but wanted assiduity to master the dry details of the law, and patience to sustain them throughout a long round of briefless circuits. They have devoted themselves to the study of physic, and recoiled from or broken down under examination; or wanted the hopeful sanguine temperament which enables a man to content himself with small beginnings, and to make his way by a gradually widening circle to a large round of remunerative practice. They have been intended for the Church, and drawn back in dismay at the thought of its restraints and responsibilities; or have entered the army, and have forsaken with impatience and disgust the slow road to superior command.
In any case, it may be assumed that the original profession has been deserted for that of authorship, mainly because the aspirant has been wanting in those orderly methodical habits, and that patience and submissiveness of temperament which secure success in those departments of professional labor which are only to be overcome by progressive degrees. In a word, it may be often said of the man of letters, that he is not wanting in order because he is an author, but he is an author because he is wanting in order. He is capable of occasional paroxysms of industry; his spasms of energy are often great and triumphant. Where results are to be obtained per saltum he is equal to any thing and is not easily to be frightened back. He has courage enough to carry a fortress by assault, but he has not system enough to make his way by regular approaches. He is weary of the work before he has traced out the first parallel. In this very history of the rise of professional authorship, we may often see the causes of its fall. The calamities of authors are often assignable to the very circumstances that made them authors. Wherefore is it that in many cases authors are disorderly and improvident? simply because it is their nature to be so—because in any other path of life they would be equally disorderly and improvident. The want of system is not to be attributed to their profession. The evil which we deplore arises in the first instance only from an inability to master an inherent defect.
But it must be admitted that there are many predisposing circumstances in the environments of literary life—that many of the causes which aggravate, if they do not originate the malady, are incidental to the profession itself. The absolute requirements of literary labor not unfrequently compel an irregular distribution of time and with it irregular social and moral habits. It would be cruel to impute that as a fault to the literary laborer which is in reality his misfortune. We who lay our work once every quarter before the public, and they who once a year, or less frequently, present themselves with their comely octavo volumes of fiction or biography—history or science—to the reading world, may dine at home every day with their children, ring the bell at ten o'clock for family prayers, rise early and retire early every day, and with but few deviations throughout the year, regularly toil through, with more or less of the afflatus upon them, their apportioned hours of literary labor; but a large proportion of the literary practitioners of the age are connected, in some capacity or other, with the newspaper press; they are the slaves of time, not its masters; and must bend themselves to circumstances, however repugnant to the will. Late hours are unfortunately a condition of press life. The sub-editors, the summary writers, the reporters; the musical and theatrical critics, and many of the leading-article writers are compelled to keep late hours. Their work is not done till past—in many cases till long past—midnight; and it can not be done at home. It is a very unhappy condition of literary life that it so often compels night-work. Night-work of this kind seems to demand a resource to stimulants; and the exigencies of time and place compel a man to betake himself to the most convenient tavern. Much that we read in the morning papers, wondering at the rapidity with which important intelligence or interesting criticism is laid before us, is written, after midnight, at some contiguous tavern, or in the close atmosphere of a reporter's room, which compels a subsequent resort to some house of nocturnal entertainment. If, weary with work and rejoicing in the thought of its accomplishment, the literary laborer, in the society perhaps of two or three of his brethren, betakes himself to a convenient supper house, and there spends on a single meal, what would keep himself and his family in comfort throughout the next day, perhaps it is hardly just to judge him too severely; at all events, it is right that we should regard the suffering, and weigh the temptation. What to us, in many cases, "seems vice may be but woe." It is hard to keep to this night-work and to live an orderly life. If a man from choice, not from necessity, turns night into day, and day into night (we have known literary men who have willfully done so), we have very little pity for him. The shattered nerves—the disorderly home—the neglected business—the accounts unkept and the bills unpaid, which are the necessary results of nights of excitement and days of languor, are then to be regarded as the consequences not of the misfortunes, but the faults of the sufferer. It is a wretched way of life any how.
Literary men are sad spendthrifts, not only of their money, but of themselves. At an age when other men are in the possession of vigorous faculties of mind and strength of body, they are often used-up, enfeebled, and only capable of effort under the influence of strong stimulants. If a man has the distribution of his own time—if his literary avocations are of that nature that they can be followed at home—if they demand only continuous effort, there is no reason why the waste of vital energy should be greater in his case than in that of the follower of any other learned profession. A man soon discovers to what extent he can safely and profitably tax his powers. To do well in the world he must economize himself no less than his money. Rest is often a good investment. A writer at one time is competent to do twice as much and twice as well as at another; and if his leisure be well employed, the few hours of labor will be more productive than the many, at the time; and the faculty of labor will remain with him twice as long. Rest and recreation, fresh air and bodily exercise, are essential to an author, and he will do well never to neglect them. But there are professional writers who can not regulate their hours of labor, and whose condition of life it is to toil at irregular times and in an irregular manner. It is difficult, we know, for them to abstain from using themselves up prematurely. Repeated paroxysms of fever wear down the strongest frames; and many a literary man is compelled to live a life of fever, between excitement and exhaustion of the mind. We would counsel all public writers to think well of the best means of economizing themselves—the best means of spending their time off duty. Rest and recreation, properly applied, will do much to counteract the destroying influences of spasmodic labor at unseasonable hours, and to ward off premature decay. But if they apply excitement of one kind to repair the ravages of excitement of another kind, they must be content to live a life of nervous irritability, and to grow old before their time.
THE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE.
William and Charles Grant were the sons of a farmer in Inverness-shire, whom a sudden flood stript of every thing, even to the very soil which he tilled. The farmer and his son William made their way southward, until they arrived in the neighborhood of Bury, in Lancashire, and there found employment in a print work, in which William served his apprenticeship. It is said that, when they reached the spot near which they ultimately settled, and arrived at the crown of the hill near Walmesley, they were in doubt as to what course was best next to be pursued. The surrounding country lay disclosed before them, the river Irwell making its circuitous way through the valley. What was to be done to induce their decision as to the route they were to take to their future home? A stick was put up, and where it fell, in that direction would they betake themselves. And thus their decision was made, and they betook themselves toward the village of Ramsbotham, not far distant. In this place, these men pitched their tent, and in the course of many long years of industry, enterprise, and benevolence, they accumulated nearly a million sterling of money; earning, meanwhile, the good-will of thousands, the gratitude of many, and the respect of all who knew them. They afterward erected, on the top of the hill overlooking Walmesley, a lofty tower, in commemoration of the fortunate choice they had made, and not improbably as a kind of public thank-offering for the signal prosperity they had reaped. Cotton mills, and print works, were built by them of great extent, employing an immense number of hands; and they erected churches, founded schools, and gave a new life to the district. Their well-directed diligence made the valley teem with industry, activity, health, joy, and opulence; they never forgot the class from which they themselves had sprung, that of working-men, whose hands had mainly contributed to their aggrandizement, and, therefore, they spared no expense in the moral, intellectual, and physical interests of their work-people.
A brief anecdote or two will serve to show what manner of men these Grants were, and that Dickens, in his Brothers Cheeryble, has been guilty of no exaggeration. Many years ago, a warehouseman published an exceedingly scurrilous pamphlet against the firm of Grant Brothers, holding up the elder partner to ridicule as "Billy Button." William was informed by some "kind friend," of the existence and nature of the pamphlet, and his observation was, that the man would live to repent of its publication. "Oh!" said the libeler, when informed of this remark, "he thinks that some time or other I shall be in his debt, but I will take good care of that." It happens, however, that the man in business does not always know who shall be his creditor. It turned out that the libeler shortly became bankrupt, and the brothers held an acceptance of his, which had been indorsed by the drawer who had also become bankrupt. The wantonly libeled men had now an opportunity of revenging themselves upon the libeler, for he could not obtain his certificate without their signature, and without that he could not again commence business. But it seemed to the bankrupt to be a hopeless case to expect that, they would give their signature—they whom he had so wantonly held up to public ridicule. The claims of a wife and children, however, at last forced him to make the application. He presented himself at the counting-house door, and found that "Billy Button" was in. He entered, and William Grant, who was alone, rather sternly bid him, "shut the door, sir!" The libeler trembled before the libeled. He told his tale, and produced his certificate, which was instantly clutched by the injured merchant. "You wrote a pamphlet against us once," exclaimed Mr. Grant. The supplicant expected to see his parchment thrown into the fire; instead of which, Mr. Grant took a pen, and writing something on the document, handed it back to the supplicant, who expected to find "rogue, scoundrel, libeler," instead of which, there was written only the signature of the firm, completing the bankrupt's certificate. "We make it a rule," said Mr. Grant, "never to refuse signing the certificate of an honest tradesman, and we have never heard that you were any thing else." The tears started into the poor man's eyes. "Ah!" continued Mr. Grant, "my saying was true, I said you would live to repent writing that pamphlet, I did not mean it as a threat, I only meant that some day you would know us better, and repent that you had tried to injure us; I see you repent it now." "I do, I do," said the grateful man, "I do, indeed, bitterly repent it." "Well, well, my dear fellow, you know us now. How do you get on? What are you going to do?" The poor man stated that he had friends who could assist him when his certificate was obtained. "But how are you off in the mean time?" and the answer was that, having given up every farthing to his creditors, he had been compelled to stint his family of even the common necessaries of life, that he might be enabled to pay the cost of his certificate. "My dear fellow, this will never do, your wife and family must not suffer; be kind enough to take this ten-pound note to your wife from me—there, there, my dear fellow—nay, don't cry—it will all be well with you yet; keep up your spirits, set to work like a man, and you will raise your head among us yet." The overpowered man endeavored in vain to express his thanks—the swelling in his throat forbade words; he put his hand to his face, and went out of the door crying like a child.
In company with a gentleman who had written and lectured much on the advantages of early religious, moral, and intellectual training, Mr Grant asked—"Well, how do you go on in establishing schools for infants?" The reply was, "Very encouragingly indeed; wherever I have gone, I have succeeded either in inducing good people to establish them, or in procuring better support to those that are already established. But I must give over my labors, for, what with printing bills, coach-fare, and other expenses, every lecture I deliver in any neighboring town, costs me a sovereign, and I can not afford to ride my hobby such a rate." He said, "You must not give over your labors; God has blessed them with success; He has blessed you with talents, and me with wealth, if you give your time, I ought to give my money. You must oblige me by taking this twenty-pound note, and spending it in promoting the education of the poor." The twenty-pound note was taken, and so spent; and probably a thousand children are now enjoying the benefit of the impulse that was thus given to a mode of instruction as delightful as it was useful.
Mr. Grant was waited on by two gentlemen, who were raising a subscription for the widow of a respectable, man, who, some years before his death, had been unfortunate in business. "We lost L200 by him," said Mr. Grant; "and how do you expect I should subscribe, for his widow?" "Because," answered one of them, "what you have lost by the husband does not alter the widow's claim on your benevolence." "Neither it shall," said he, "here are five pounds, and if you can not make up the sum you want for her, come to me, and I'll give you more."
Many other anecdotes, equally characteristic of the kind nature of William Grant, could be added. For fifteen years did he and his brother Charles ride into Manchester on market days, seated side-by-side, looking of all things like a pair of brothers, happy in themselves, and in each other. William died a few years ago, and was followed to the grave by many blessings. The firm still survives, and supports its former character. Long may the merchant princes of England continue to furnish such beautiful specimens of humanity as the now famous Brothers Cheeryble!—Chambers' Edinburgh Journal.
[From the North British Review.]
WRITING FOR PERIODICALS.
Lord Lyndhurst once said, at a public dinner, with reference to the numberless marvels of the press, that it might seem a very easy thing to write a leading article, but that he would recommend any one with strong convictions on that point, only to try. We confidently appeal to the experience of all the conductors of the leading journals of Great Britain, from the quarterly reviews to the daily journals, convinced that they will all tell the same unvarying tale of the utter incompetency of thousands of very clever people to write articles, review books, &c. They will all have the same experiences to relate of the marvelous failures of men of genius and learning—the crude cumbrous state in which they have sent their so-called articles for publication—the labor it has taken to mould their fine thoughts and valuable erudition into comely shape—the utter impossibility of doing it at all. As Mr. Carlyle has written of the needle-women of England, it is the saddest thing of all, that there should be sempstresses few or none, but "botchers" in such abundance, capable only of "a distracted puckering and botching—not sewing—only a fallacious hope of it—a fond imagination of the mind;" so of literary labor is it the saddest thing of all, that there should be so many botchers in the world, and so few skilled article-writers—so little article-writing, and so much "distracted puckering and botching." There may be nothing in this article-writing, when once we know how to do it, as there is nothing in balancing a ladder on one's chin, or jumping through a hoop, or swallowing a sword. All we say is, if people think it easy, let them try, and abide by the result. The amateur articles of very clever people are generally what an amateur effort at coat-making would be. It may seem a very easy thing to make a coat; but very expert craftsmen—craftsmen that can produce more difficult and elaborate pieces of workmanship, fail utterly when they come to a coat. The only reason why they can not make a coat is, that they are not tailors. Now there are many very able and learned men, who can compass greater efforts of human intellect than the production of a newspaper article, but who can not write a newspaper at all, because they we not newspaper-writers, or criticise a book with decent effect, because they are not critics. Article-writing comes "by art not chance." The efforts of chance writers, if they be men of genius and learning, are things to break one's heart over.
It is not enough to think and to know. It requires the faculty of utterance, and a peculiar kind of utterance. Certain things are to be said in a certain manner; and your amateur article-writer is sure to say them in any manner but the right. Perhaps of all styles of writing there is none in which excellency is so rarely attained as that of newspaper-writing. A readable leading article may not be a work of the loftiest order, or demand for its execution the highest attributes of genius; but, whatever it may be, the power of accomplishing it with success is not shared by "thousands of clever fellows." Thousands of clever fellows, fortified by Mr. Thackeray's opinion, may think that they could write the articles which they read in the morning journals; but let them take pen and paper and try.
We think it only fair that professional authors should have the credit of being able to do what other people can not. They do not claim to themselves a monoply of talent. They do not think themselves capable of conducting a case in a court of law, as cleverly as a queen's counsel, or of getting a sick man through the typhus fever as skillfully as a practiced physician. But it is hard that they should not receive credit for being able to write better articles than either the one or the other; or, perhaps it is more to the purpose to say, than the briefless lawyers and patientless medical students who are glad to earn a guinea by their pens. Men are not born article-writers any more than they are born doctors of law, or doctors of physic; as the ludicrous failures, which are every day thrown into the rubbish-baskets of all our newspaper offices, demonstrate past all contradiction. Incompetency is manifested in a variety of ways, but an irrepressible tendency to fine writing is associated with the greater number of them. Give a clever young medical student a book about aural or dental surgery to review, and the chances are ten to one that the criticism will be little else than a high-flown grandiloquent treatise on the wonders of the creation. A regular "literary hack" will do the thing much better.
If there be any set of men—we can not call it a class, for it is drawn from all classes—who might be supposed to possess' a certain capacity for periodical writing, it is the fraternity of members of Parliament. They are in the habit of selecting given subjects for consideration—of collecting facts and illustrations—of arranging arguments—and of expressing themselves after a manner. They are for the most part men of education, of a practical turn of mind, well acquainted with passing events, and, in many instances, in possession just of that kind of available talent which is invaluable to periodical writers. But very few of them can write an article, either for a newspaper or a review, without inflicting immense trouble upon the editor. Sometimes the matter it contains will be worth the pains bestowed upon it; but it very often happens that it is not. It is one thing to make a speech—another to write an article. But the speech often, no less than the article, requires editorial supervision. The reporter is the speaker's editor, and a very efficient one too. In a large number of cases, the speaker owes more to the reporter than he would willingly acknowledge. The speech as spoken would often be unreadable, but that the reporter finishes the unfinished sentences, and supplies meanings which are rather suggested than expressed. It would be easy to name members who are capable of writing admirable articles; but many of them owe their position in the House to some antecedent connection with the press, or have become, in some manner regularly "connected with the press;" and have acquired, by long practice, the capacity of article-writing. But take any half-dozen members indiscriminately out of the House, and set them down to write articles on any subject which they may have just heard debated, and see how grotesque will be their efforts? They may be very "clever fellows," but that they can write articles as well as men whose profession it is to write them, we take upon ourselves emphatically to deny.
ANECDOTE OF LORD CLIVE.
Although of a gloomy temperament, and from the earliest age evincing those characteristics of pride and shyness which rendered him unsocial, and therefore unpopular in general society, this nobleman, in the private walks of life, was amiable, and peculiarly disinterested. While in India, his correspondence with those of his own family, evinced in a remarkable degree those right and kindly feelings which could hardly have been expected from Clive, considering the frowardness of early life and the inflexible sternness of more advanced age. When the foundation of his fortune was laid. Lord Clive evinced a praiseworthy recollection of the friends of his early days. He bestowed an annuity of L800 on his parents, while to other relations and friends he was proportionately liberal. He was a devotedly attached husband, as his letters to Lady Clive bear testimony. Her maiden name was Maskelyne, sister to the eminent mathematician, so called, who long held the post of astronomer royal. This marriage, which took place in 1752, with the circumstances attending it, are somewhat singular, and worth recording: Clive, who was at that period just twenty-seven, had formed a previous friendship with one of the lady's brothers, like himself a resident at Madras. The brother and sister, it appears, kept up an affectionate and constant correspondence—that is, as constant an interchange of epistolary communication as could be accomplished nearly a century ago, when the distance between Great Britain and the East appeared so much more formidable, and the facilities of postal conveyance so comparatively tardy. The epistles of the lady, through the partiality of her brother, were frequently shown to Clive, and they bespoke her to be what from all accounts she was—a woman of very superior understanding, and of much amiability of character. Clive was charmed with her letters, for in those days, be it remembered, the fair sex were not so familiarized to the pen as at the present period. At that time, to indite a really good epistle as to penmanship and diction, was a formidable task, and what few ladies, comparatively speaking, could attain to. The accomplished sister of Dr. Maskelyne was one of the few exceptions, and so strongly did her epistolary powers attract the interest, and gain for her the affections of Clive, that it ended by his offering to marry the young lady, if she could be induced to visit her brother at Madras. The latter, through whom the suggestion was to be made, hesitated, and seemed inclined to discourage the proposition; but Clive in this instance evinced that determination of purpose which was so strong a feature in his character. He could urge, too, with more confidence a measure on which so much of his happiness depended—for he was now no longer the poor neglected boy, sent out to seek his fortune, but one who had already acquired a fame which promised future greatness. In short, he would take no refusal; and then was the brother of Miss Maskelyne forced to own, that highly as his sister was endowed with every mental qualification, nature had been singularly unfavorable to her—personal attractions she had none. The future hero of Plassy was not, however, to be deterred—but he made this compromise: If the lady could be prevailed upon to visit India, and that neither party, on a personal acquaintance, felt disposed for a nearer connection, the sum of L5000 was to be presented to her. With this understanding all scruples were overcome. Miss Maskelyne went out to India, and immediately after became the wife of Clive, who, already prejudiced in her favor, is said to have expressed himself surprised that she should ever have been represented to him as plain. So much for the influence of mind and manner over mere personal endowments. With the sad end of this distinguished general every reader is familiar. His lady survived the event by many years, and lived to a benevolent and venerable old age.
[From The Ladies' Companion.]
THE IMPRISONED LADY.
We derive the following curious passage of life one hundred years since, from the second Series of Mr. Burke's "Anecdotes of the Aristocracy:"
Lady Cathcart was one of the four daughters of Mr. Malyn, of Southwark and Battersea, in Surrey. She married four times, but never had any issue. Her first husband was James Fleet, Esq., of the City of London, Lord of the Manor of Tewing; her second, Captain Sabine, younger brother of General Joseph Sabine, of Quinohall; her third, Charles, eighth Lord Cathcart, of the kingdom of Scotland, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in the West Indies; and her fourth,[K] Hugh Macguire, an officer in the Hungarian service, for whom she bought a lieutenant-colonel's commission in the British army, and whom she also survived. She was not encouraged, however, by his treatment, to verify the resolution, which she inscribed as a posy on her wedding-ring:
"If I survive, I will have five."
Her avowed motives for these several engagements were, for the first, obedience to her parents; for the second, money; for the third, title; and for the fourth, submission to the fact that "the devil owed her a grudge, and would punish her for her sins." In the last union she met with her match. The Hibernian fortune-hunter wanted only her money. Soon after their marriage, she discovered her grievous mistake, and became alarmed lest the colonel, who was desperately in love, not with the widow, but with the "widow's jointured land," designed to carry her off, and to get absolute power over all her property; to prepare for the worst, her ladyship plaited some of her jewels in her hair, and quilted others in her petticoat. Meanwhile the mistress of the colonel so far insinuated herself into his wife's confidence that she learned where her will was deposited; and Macguire getting sight of it, insisted on an alteration in his favor, under a threat of instant death. Lady Cathcart's apprehensions of the loss of her personal freedom proved to be not without foundation; one morning, when she and her husband went out from Tewing to take an airing, she proposed, after a time, to return, but he desired to go a little further. The coachman drove on; she remonstrated, "they should not be back by dinner-time." "Be not the least uneasy on that account," rejoined Macguire; "we do not dine to-day at Tewing, but at Chester, whither we are journeying." Vain were all the lady's efforts and expostulations. Her sudden disappearance excited the alarm of her friends, and an attorney was sent in pursuit, with a writ of habeas corpus or ne exeat regno. He overtook the travelers at an inn at Chester, and succeeding in obtaining an interview with the husband, demanded a sight of Lady Cathcart. The colonel, skilled in expedients, and aware that his wife's person was unknown, assured the attorney that he should see her ladyship immediately, and he would find that she was going to Ireland with her own free consent. Thereupon Macguire persuaded a woman, whom he had properly tutored, to personate his wife. The attorney asked the supposed captive, if she accompanied Colonel Macguire to Ireland of her own good-will? "Perfectly so," said the woman. Astonished at such an answer, he begged pardon, made a low bow, and set out again for London. Macguire thought that possibly Mr. Attorney might recover his senses, find how he had been deceived, and yet stop his progress; and in order to make all safe, he sent two or three fellows after him, with directions to plunder him of all he had, particularly of his papers. They faithfully executed their commission; and when the colonel had the writ in his possession, he knew that he was safe. He then took my lady over to Ireland, and kept her there, a prisoner, locked up in his own house at Tempo, in Fermanagh, for many years; during which period he was visited by the neighboring gentry, and it was his regular custom at dinner to send his compliments to Lady Cathcart, informing her that the company had the honor to drink her ladyship's health, and begging to know whether there was any thing at table that she would like to eat? The answer was always—"Lady Cathcart's compliments, and she has every thing she wants." An instance of honesty in a poor Irishwoman deserves to be recorded. Lady Cathcart had some remarkably fine diamonds, which she had concealed from her husband, and which she was anxious to get out of the house, lest he should discover them. She had neither servant nor friend to whom she could intrust them, but she had observed a beggar who used to come to the house, she spoke to her from the window of the room in which she was confined; the woman promised to do what she desired, and Lady Cathcart threw a parcel, containing the jewels, to her.
The poor woman carried them to the person to whom they were directed; and several years afterward, when Lady Cathcart recovered her liberty, she received her diamonds safely. At Colonel Macguire's death, which occurred in 1764, her ladyship was released. When she was first informed of the fact, she imagined that the news could not be true, and that it was told only with an intention of deceiving her. At the time of her deliverance she had scarcely clothes sufficient to cover her; she wore a red wig, looked scared, and her understanding seemed stupefied: she said that she scarcely knew one human creature from another: her imprisonment had lasted nearly twenty years. The moment she regained her freedom she hastened to England, to her house at Tewing, but the tenant, a Mr. Joseph Steele, refusing to render up possession, Lady Cathcart had to bring an action of ejectment, attended the assizes in person, and gained the cause. At Tewing she continued to reside for the remainder of her life. The only subsequent notice we find of her is, that, at the age of eighty, she took part in the gayeties of the Welwyn Assembly, and danced with the spirit of a girl. She did not die until 1789, when she was in her ninety-eighth year.
In the mansion-house of Tempo, now the property of Sir John Emerson Tennent, the room is still shown in which Lady Cathcart was imprisoned.
FOOTNOTES:
[K] Lady Cathcart's marriage to Macguire took place 18th May, 1745.
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
FROM OUR FOREIGN FILES, AND UNPUBLISHED BOOKS.
Sidney Smith's account of the origin of the Edinburgh Review is well known. The following statement was written by Lord Jeffrey, at the request of Robert Chambers, in November, 1846, and is now first made public: "I can not say exactly where the project of the Edinburgh Review was first talked of among the projectors. But the first serious consultations about it—and which led to our application to a publisher—were held in a small house, where I then lived, in Buccleugh-place (I forget the number). They were attended by S. Smith, F. Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were given to the publisher—he taking the risk and defraying the charges. There was then no individual editor, but as many of us as could be got to attend used to meet in a dingy room of Willson's printing office, in Craig's Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go through with this; and it was soon found necessary to have a responsible editor, and the office was pressed upon me. About the same time Constable was told that he must allow ten guineas a sheet to the contributors, to which he at once assented; and not long after, the minimum was raised to sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign. Two-thirds of the articles were paid much higher—averaging, I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number. I had, I might say, an unlimited discretion in this respect, and must do the publishers the justice to say that they never made the slightest objection. Indeed, as we all knew that they had (for a long time at least) a very great profit, they probably felt that they were at our mercy. Smith was by far the most timid of the confederacy, and believed that, unless our incognito was strictly maintained, we could not go on a day; and this was his object for making us hold our dark divans at Willson's office, to which he insisted on our repairing singly, and by back approaches or different lanes! He also had so strong an impression of Brougham's indiscretion and rashness, that he would not let him be a member of our association, though wished for by all the rest. He was admitted, however, after the third number, and did more work for us than any body. Brown took offense at some alterations Smith had made in a trifling article of his in the second number, and left us thus early; publishing at the same time in a magazine the fact of his secession—a step which we all deeply regretted, and thought scarcely justified by the provocation. Nothing of the kind occurred ever after."
Constable soon remunerated the editor with a liberality corresponding to that with which contributors were treated. From 1803 to 1809 Jeffrey received 200 guineas for editing each number. For the ensuing three years, the account-books are missing; but from 1813 to 1826 he is credited L700 for editing each number.
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The "Economist" closes an article upon the late Sir ROBERT PEEL with the following just and eloquent summation:
"Sir Robert was a scholar, and a liberal and discerning patron of the arts. Though not social, he was a man of literary interests and of elegant and cultivated taste. Possessed of immense wealth, with every source and avenue of enjoyment at his command, it is no slight merit in him that he preferred to such refined enjoyment the laborious service of his country. He was no holiday or dillettanti statesman. His industry was prodigious, and he seemed actually to love work. His toil in the memorable six months of 1835 was something absolutely prodigious; in 1842 and 1843 scarcely less so. His work was always done in a masterly and business-like style, which testified to the conscientious diligence he had bestowed upon it. His measures rarely had to be altered or modified in their passage through the House. In manners he was always decorous—never over-bearing or insulting, and if ever led by the heat of contest into any harsh or unbecoming expression, was always prompt to apologize or retract. By his unblemished private character, by his unrivaled administrative ability, by his vast public services, his unvarying moderation, he had impressed not only England but the world at large with a respect and confidence such as few attain. After many fluctuations of repute, he had at length reached an eminence on which he stood—independent of office, independent of party—one of the acknowledged potentates of Europe; face to face, in the evening of life, with his work and his reward—his work, to aid the progress of those principles on which, after much toil, many sacrifices, and long groping toward the light, he had at length laid a firm grasp; his guerdon, to watch their triumph. Nobler occupation man could not aspire to; sublimer power no ambition need desire; greater earthly reward, God, out of all the riches of his boundless treasury has not to bestow."
Numerous projects for monuments to the deceased statesman have been broached. In reference to these, and to the poverty of thought, and waste of means, which in the present age builds for all time with materials so perishable as statues, a correspondent of the Athenaeum suggests, as a more intelligent memorial, the foundation of a national university for the education of the sons of the middle classes. Ours, he says, are not the days for copying the forms of ancient Rome as interpreters of feelings and inspirations which the Romans never knew. While the statues which they reared are dispersed, and the columns they erected are crumbling to decay, their thoughts, as embodied in their literature, are with us yet, testifying forever of the great spirits which perished from among them, but left, in this sure and abiding form, the legacy of their minds.
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The effect upon civilization of the Ownership of the Land being in the hands of a few, or of the many, has been earnestly discussed by writers on political and social economy. Two books have recently been published in England, which have an important bearing upon this subject. One is by SAMUEL LAING, Esq. the well known traveler, and the other by JOSEPH KAY, Esq. of Cambridge. Both these writers testify that in the continental countries which they have examined—more especially in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland—they have found a state of society which does fulfill in a very eminent degree all the conditions of a most advanced civilization. They have found in those countries education, wealth, comfort, and self-respect; and they have found that the whole body of the people in those countries participate in the enjoyment of these great blessings to an extent which very far exceeds the participation in them of the great mass of the population of England. These two travelers perfectly agree in the declaration that during the last-thirty or forty years the inequality of social condition among men—the deterioration toward two great classes of very rich and very poor—has made very little progress in the continental states with which they are familiar. They affirm that a class of absolute paupers in any degree formidable from its numbers has yet to be created in those states. They represent in the most emphatic language the immense superiority in education, manners, conduct, and the supply of the ordinary wants of a civilized being, of the German, Swiss, Dutch, Belgian and French peasantry over the peasantry and poorer classes not only of Ireland, but also of England and Scotland. This is the general and the most decided result with reference to the vital question of the condition and prospects of the peasantry and poorer classes, neither Mr. Laing nor Mr. Kay have any doubt whatever that the advantage rests in the most marked manner with the continental states which they have examined over Great Britain. According to Mr. Laing and Mr. Kay, the cause of this most important difference is—the distribution of the ownership of land. On the continent, the people own and cultivate the land. In the British islands the land is held in large masses by a few persons; the class practically employed in agriculture are either tenants or laborers, who do not act under the stimulus of a personal interest in the soil they cultivate.
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A self-taught artist named Carter has recently died at Coggshall, Essex, where he had for many years resided. He was originally a farm laborer, and by accident lost the power of every part of his body but the head and neck. By the force of perseverance and an active mind, however, he acquired the power of drawing and painting, by holding the pencil between his lips and teeth, when placed there by the kind offices of an affectionate sister. In this manner he had not only whiled away the greater part of fourteen years of almost utter physical helplessness, but has actually produced works which have met with high commendation. His groups and compositions are said to have been "most delicately worked and highly finished." The poor fellow had contemplated the preparation of some grand work for the International Exhibition, but the little of physical life remaining in him was lately extinguished by a new accident.
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CONVERSATION OF LITERARY MEN.—Literary men talk less than they did. They seldom "lay out" much for conversation. The conversational, like the epistolary age, is past; and we have come upon the age of periodical literature. People neither put their best thoughts and their available knowledge into their letters, nor keep them for evening conversation. The literary men of 1850 have a keener eye to the value of their stock-in-trade, and keep it well garnered up, for conversion, as opportunity offers, into the current coin of the realm. There is some periodical vehicle, nowadays, for the reception of every possible kind of literary ware. The literary man converses now through the medium of the Press, and turns every thing into copyright at once. He can not afford to drop his ideas by the way-side; he must keep them to himself, until the printing-press has made them inalienably his own. If a happy historical or literary illustration occurs to him, it will do for a review article; if some un-hackneyed view of a great political question presents itself to him, it may be worked into his next leader; if some trifling adventure has occurred to him, or he has picked up a novel anecdote in the course of his travels, it may be reproduced in a page of magazine matter, or a column of a cheap weekly serial. Even puns are not to be distributed gratis. There is a property in a double-entente, which its parent will not willingly forego. The smallest jokelet is a marketable commodity. The dinner-table is sacrificed to Punch. There is too much competition in these days, too many hungry candidates for the crumbs that fall from the thinker's table, not to make him chary of his offerings. In these days, every scrap of knowledge—every happy thought—every felicitous turn of expression, is of some value to a literary man; the forms of periodical literature are so many and so varied. He can seldom afford to give any thing away; and there is no reason why he should. It is not so easy a thing to turn one's ideas into bread, that a literary man need be at no pains to preserve his property in them. We do not find that artists give away their sketches, or that professional singers perform promiscuously at private parties. Perhaps, in these days of much publishing, professional authors are wise in keeping the best of themselves for their books and articles. We have known professional writers talk criticism; but we have generally found it to be the very reverse of what they have published.
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REWARDS OF LITERATURE.—Literature has been treated with much ingratitude, even by those who owe most to it. If we do not quite say with Goldsmith, that it supports many dull fellows in opulence, we may assert, with undeniable truth, that it supports, or ought to support, many clever ones in comfort and respectability. If it does not it is less the fault of the profession than the professors themselves. There are many men now in London, Edinburgh, and other parts of the country, earning from L1000 to L300 per annum by their literary labors, and some, with very little effort, earning considerably more. It is no part of our plan in the present article to mix up modern instances with our wise saws, else might we easily name writers who, for contributions to the periodical press, for serial installments of popular tales, and other literary commodities, demanding no very laborious efforts of intellectual industry, have received from flourishing newspaper proprietors and speculative booksellers, sums of money which it would be difficult to earn with equal facility in any other learned profession. An appointment on the editorial staff of a leading daily paper is in itself a small fortune to a man. The excellence of the articles is, for the most part, in proportion to the sum paid for them; and a successful morning journal will generally find it good policy to pay its contributors in such a manner as to secure the entire produce of their minds, or, at all events, to get the best fruits that they are capable of yielding. If a man can earn a comfortable independence by writing three or four leading articles a week, there is no need that he should have his pen ever in his hand, that he should be continually toiling at other and less profitable work. But if he is to keep himself ever fresh and ever vigorous for one master he must be paid for it. There are instances of public writers who had shown evident signs of exhaustion when employed on one paper—who had appeared, indeed, to have written themselves out so thoroughly, that the proprietors were fain to dispense with their future services—transferring those services to another paper, under more encouraging circumstances of renumeration, and, as though endued with new life, striking out articles fresh, vigorous, and brilliant. They gave themselves to the one paper; they had only given a part of themselves to the other.
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SCHAMYL, the Prophet of the Caucasus, through whose inspiriting leadership the Caucasians have maintained a successful struggle against the gigantic power of Russia for many years, is described by a recent writer as a man of middle stature; he has light hair, gray eyes, shaded by bushy and well-arched eyebrows; a nose finely moulded, and a small mouth. His features are distinguished from those of his race by a peculiar fairness of complexion and delicacy of skin: the elegant form of his hands and feet is not less remarkable. The apparent stiffness of his arms, when he walks, is a sign of his stern and impenetrable character His address is thoroughly noble and dignified. Of himself he is completely master; and he exerts a tacit supremacy over all who approach him. An immovable, stony calmness, which never forsakes him, even in moments of the utmost danger, broods over his countenance. He passes a sentence of death with the same composure with which he distributes "the sabre of honor" to his bravest Murids, after a bloody encounter. With traitors or criminals whom he has resolved to destroy he will converse without betraying the least sign of anger or vengeance. He regards himself as a mere instrument in the hands of a higher Being; and holds, according to the Sufi doctrine, that all his thoughts and determinations are immediate inspirations from God. The flow of his speech is as animating and irresistible as his outward appearance is awful and commanding. "He shoots flames from his eyes and scatters flowers from his lips," said Bersek Bey, who sheltered him for some days after the fall of Achulgo, when Schamyl dwelt for some time among the princes of the Djighetes and Ubiches, for the purpose of inciting the tribes on the Black Sea to rise against the Russians. Schamyl is now fifty years old, but still full of vigor and strength; it is however said, that he has for some years past suffered from an obstinate disease of the eyes, which is constantly growing worse. He fills the intervals of leisure which his public charges allow him, in reading the Koran, fasting, and prayer. Of late years he has but seldom, and then only on critical occasions, taken a personal share in warlike encounters. In spite of his almost supernatural activity, Schamyl is excessively severe and temperate in his habits. A few hours of sleep are enough for him; at times he will watch for the whole night, without showing the least trace of fatigue on the following day. He eats little, and water is his only beverage. According to Mohammedan custom, he keeps several wives. In 1844 he had three, of which his favorite (Pearl of the Harem, as she was called) was an Armenian, of exquisite beauty.
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A Frankfort journal states that the colossal statue of Bavaria, by Schwanthaler, which is to be placed on the hill of Seudling, surpasses in its gigantic proportions all the works of the moderns. It will have to be removed in pieces from the foundry where it is cast to its place of destination, and each piece will require sixteen horses to draw it. The great toes are each half a metre in length. In the head two persons could dance a polka very conveniently, while the nose might lodge the musician. The thickness of the robe, which forms a rich drapery descending to the ankles, is about six inches, and its circumference at the bottom about two hundred metres. The Crown of Victory which the figure holds in her hands weighs one hundred quintals (a quintal is a hundred weight).
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WORDSWORTH'S prose writings are not numerous; and with the exception of the well-known prefaces to his minor poems, they are little known. A paper or two in Coleridge's Friend, and a political tract occasioned by the convention of Cintra, form important and valuable contributions to the prose literature of the country. We would especially call attention to the introductory part of the third volume of the Friend, as containing a very beautiful development of Mr. Wordsworth's opinions on the moral worth and intellectual character of the age in which it was his destiny to live. The political tract is very scarce; but we may safely affirm, that it contains some of the finest writing in the English language. Many of its passages can be paralleled only by the majestic periods of Milton's prose, or perhaps by the vehement and impassioned eloquence of Demosthenes. Its tone is one of sustained elevation, and in sententious moral and political wisdom it will bear a comparison with the greatest productions of Burke. We trust that this pamphlet will be republished. A collection and separate publication of all Mr. Wordsworth's prose writings would form a valuable addition to English literature.
Mr. Wordsworth's conversation was eminently rich, various, and instructive. Attached to his mountain home, and loving solitude as the nurse of his genius, he was no recluse, but keenly enjoyed the pleasures of social intercourse. He had seen much of the world, and lived on terms of intimate friendship with some of the most illustrious characters of his day. His reading was extensive, but select; indeed, his mind could assimilate only the greater productions of intellect. To criticism he was habitually indifferent; and when solicited for his opinions, he was generally as reserved in his praise as he was gentle in his censures. For some of his contemporaries he avowed the highest respect; but Coleridge was the object of his deepest affection as a friend, and of his veneration as a philosopher. Of the men who acted important parts in the political drama of the last century, the homage of his highest admiration was given to Burke, who, after Shakspeare and Bacon, he thought the greatest being that Nature had ever created in the human form.
The last few years of Mr. Wordsworth's life were saddened by affliction. They who were admitted to the privilege of occasional intercourse with the illustrious poet in his later days will long dwell with deep and affectionate interest upon his earnest conversation while he wandered through the shaded walks of the grounds which he loved so well, and ever and anon paused to look down upon the gleaming lake as its silver radiance was reflected through the trees which embosomed his mountain home. Long will the accents of that "old man eloquent" linger in their recollection, and their minds retain the impression of that pensive and benevolent countenance. The generation of those who have gazed upon his features will pass away and be forgotten. The marble, like the features which it enshrines, will crumble into dust. Ut vultus hominum ita simulacra vultus imbecilla ac mortalia sunt, forma mentis aeterna; the attributes of his mighty intellect are stamped for ever upon his works which will be transmitted to future ages as a portion of their most precious inheritance.
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No man is more enshrined in the heart of the French people than the poet BERANGER. A few weeks since he went one evening with one of his nephews to the Clos des Lilas, a garden in the students' quarter devoted to dancing in the open air, intending to look for a few minutes upon a scene he had not visited since his youth, and then withdraw. But he found it impossible to remain unknown and unobserved. The announcement of his presence ran through the garden in a moment. The dances stopped, the music ceased, and the crowd thronged toward the point where the still genial and lovely old man was standing. At once there rose from all lips the cry of Vive Beranger! which was quickly followed by that of Vive la Republique. The poet, whose diffidence is excessive, could not answer a word, but only smiled and blushed his thanks at this enthusiastic reception. The acclamations continuing, an agent of the police invited him to withdraw, lest his presence might occasion disorder. The illustrious song-writer at once obeyed; by a singular coincidence the door through which he went out opened upon the place where Marshal Ney was shot.
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THE PARIS ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS AND BELLES LETTRES is constantly sending forth the most valuable contributions, to the history of the middle ages especially. It is now completing the publication of the sixth volume of the Charters, Diplomas, and other documents relating to French history. This volume, which was prepared by M. Pardessus, includes the period from the beginning of 1220 to the end of 1270, and comprehends the reign of St. Louis. The seventh volume, coming down some fifty years later, is also nearly ready for the printer. Its editor is M. Laboulaye. The first volume of the Oriental Historians of the Crusaders, translated into French, is now going through the press, and the second is in course of preparation. The greater part of the first volume of the Greek Historians of the same chivalrous wars is also printed, and the work is going rapidly forward. The Academy is also preparing a collection of Occidental History on the same subject. When these three collections are published, all the documents of any value relating to the Crusades will be easily accessible, whether for the use of the historian or the romancer. The Academy is also now engaged in getting out the twenty-first volume of the History of the Gauls and of France, and the nineteenth of the Literary History of France, which brings the annals of French letters down to the thirteenth century. It is also publishing the sixteenth volume of its own Memoirs, which contains the history of the Academy for the last four years, and the work of Freret on Geography, besides several other works of less interest. From all this some idea may be formed of the labors and usefulness of the institution.
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In speaking of the advantage of education to Mechanics, Robert Hall says that it has a tendency to exalt the character, and, in some measure, to correct and subdue the taste for gross sensuality. It enables the possessor to beguile his leisure moments (and every man has such) in an innocent, at least, if not in a useful manner. The poor man who can read, and who possesses a taste for reading, can find entertainment at home, without being tempted to repair to the public-house for that purpose. His mind can find employment where his body is at rest. There is in the mind of such a man an intellectual spring, urging him to the pursuit of mental good; and if the minds of his family are also a little cultivated, conversation becomes the more interesting, and the sphere of domestic enjoyment enlarged. The calm satisfaction which books afford puts him into a disposition to relish more exquisitely the tranquil delight of conjugal and parental affection; and as he will be more respectable in the eyes of his family than he who can teach them nothing, he will be naturally induced to cultivate whatever may preserve, and to shun whatever would impair that respect.
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For producing steel pens the best Dennemora—Swedish iron—or hoop iron is selected. It is worked into sheets or slips about three feet long, and four or five inches broad, the thickness varying with the desired stiffness and flexibility of the pen for which it is intended. By a stamping press pieces of the required size are cut out. The point intended for the nib is introduced into a gauged hole, and by a machine pressed into a semi-cylindrical shape. In the same machine it is pierced with the required slit or slits. This being effected, the pens are cleaned by mutual attrition in tin cylinders, and tempered, as in the case of the steel plate, by being brought to the required color by heat. Some idea of the extent of this manufacture will be formed from the statement, that nearly 150 tons of steel are employed annually for this purpose, producing upward of 250,000,000 pens.
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Philosophers abroad are working diligently at many interesting branches of physical science: magneto and muscular electricity, dia-magnetism, vegetable and animal physiology: Matteucci in Italy, Bois-Reymond, Weber, Reichenbach, and Dove in Germany. The two maps of isothermal lines for every month in the year, lately published by the last-mentioned savant, are remarkable and most valuable proofs of scientific insight and research. If they are to be depended on, there is but one pole of cold, situate in Northern America; that supposed to exist in the Asiatic continent disappears when the monthly means are taken. These maps will be highly useful to the meteorologist, and indeed to students of natural philosophy generally, and will suggest other and more-extended results.
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A communication from M. Tremaux, an Abyssinian traveler, has been presented to the French Academy by M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire: it gives an account of the sudden difference which occurs in the races of men and animals near Fa Zoglo, in the vicinity of the Blue Nile. The shores of this stream are inhabited by a race of Caucasian origin, whose sheep have woolly coats; but at a few miles' distance, in the mountains of Zaby and Akaro, negro tribes are found whose sheep are hairy. According to M. Trevaux, 'the differences and changes are due to two causes: the one, that vegetable nature, having changed in aspect and production, attracts and supports certain species, while others no longer appear, or the individuals are fewer. As for the second cause, it is the more surprising, since it produces opposite effects on the same point: where man has no longer silken, but woolly hair, there the sheep ceases to be covered with wool.' M. St. Hilaire remarked on these facts, that the degree of domestication of animals is proportional to the degree of civilization of those who possess them. Among savage people dogs are nearly all alike, and not far removed from the wolf or jackal; while among civilized races there is an almost endless variety—the greater part far removed from the primitive type. Are we to infer from this that negroes will cease to be negroes by dint of civilization—that wool will give place to hair, and vice versa? If so, a wide field is opened for experiment and observation.
MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.
The action of Congress during the past month has been of more than usual interest. The Senate has finally disposed of the Compromise Bill, which has absorbed its discussions for nearly the whole of the session, and has taken definite action upon all the subjects which that bill embraced. On the 30th of July, the bill being before the Senate, a resolution offered by Senator BRADBURY, of Maine, was pending, authorizing the appointment of Commissioners by the United States and Texas, for the adjustment of the boundary line between Texas and New Mexico. To this Mr. DAWSON, of Ga., offered an amendment, providing that until the boundary should have been agreed to, no territorial government should go into operation east of the Rio Grande, nor should any state government be established to include that territory. This amendment was adopted, ayes 30, noes 28. Mr. BRADBURY'S resolution, thus amended, was then adopted by the same vote. On the 31st the bill came up for final action. Mr. NORRIS moved to strike out the clause restricting the Legislature of New Mexico from establishing or prohibiting slavery. This was carried, 32 to 20. Mr. PEARCE, of Maryland, then moved to strike out all relating to New Mexico, which was carried by a vote of 33 to 22. He then moved to re-insert it, omitting the amendment of Messrs. Bradbury and Dawson—his object being by this roundabout process (which was the only way in which it could be reached), to reverse the vote adopting that amendment. His motion was very warmly and strongly resisted, and various amendments offered to it were voted down. The motion itself was then put and lost, ayes 25, nays 28. This left nothing in the bill except the provision for admitting California and that establishing a territorial government for Utah. Mr. WALKER, of Wisconsin, then moved to strike out all except that part relating to California. This was lost, ayes 22, nays 33. Mr. ATCHISON, of Missouri, moved to strike out all relating to California. This motion was first lost by a tie vote, but a reconsideration was moved by Mr. WINTHROP and carried, and then the motion prevailed, ayes 34, nays 25. The Bill thus contained nothing but the sections relating to Utah, and in that shape it was passed, ayes 32, nays 18. Thus the Compromise bill, reported early in the session, and earnestly debated from that time forward, was decisively rejected. On the very next day, the 1st of August, the bill for the admission of California was made the special order by a vote of 34 to 23. Mr. FOOTE, of Miss., offered an amendment that California should not exercise her jurisdiction over territory south of 35 deg. 30'. Mr. CLAY in an earnest and eloquent speech, after regretting the fate of the Compromise Bill, said he wished it to be distinctly understood that if any state or states, or any portion of the people, should array themselves in arms against the Union, he was for testing the strength of the government, to ascertain whether it had the ability to maintain itself. He avowed the most unwavering attachment to the Union, and declared his purpose to raise both his voice and his arm in support of the Union and the Constitution. He had been in favor of passing the several measures together: he was now in favor of passing them separately: but whether passed or not, he was in favor of putting down any and all resistance to the federal authority. After some debate, Mr. FOOTE'S amendment was negatived, yeas 23, nays 33. On the 6th of August Mr. TURNEY, of Tennessee, offered an amendment, dividing California into two territories, which may hereafter form state constitutions. This was rejected, ayes 29, nays 32. Mr. YULEE offered an amendment, establishing a provisional government, which he advocated in a speech extending through three days: on the 10th it was rejected by a vote of 12 to 35 An amendment offered by Mr. Foote, erecting the part of California south of 36 deg. 30' into a distinct territory, was rejected by a vote of 13 to 30. On the 12th the bill was ordered to be engrossed, yeas 33, nays 19; and on the 13th, after a brief but warm debate, in the course of which Senators BERRIEN and CLEMENS denounced the bill as fraught with mischief and peril to the Union, and Mr. HOUSTON ridiculed the apprehensions thus expressed, the bill was finally passed, yeas 34, nays 18, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Baldwin, Bell, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Chase, Cooper, Davis, of Massachusetts, Dickinson, Dodge, of Wisconsin, Dodge, of Iowa, Douglas, Ewing, Felch, Green, Hale, Hamlin, Houston, Jones, Miller, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, and Winthrop—34.
NAYS.—Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Berrien, Butler, Clemens, Davis, of Mississippi, Dawson, Foote, Hunter, King, Mason, Morton, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soule, Turney, and Yulee—18.
The next day a Protest against the admission of California, signed by Senators Mason and Hunter, of Virginia, Butler and Barnwell, of South Carolina, Turney, of Tennessee, Soule, of Louisiana, Davis, of Mississippi, Atchison, of Missouri, and Morton and Yulee, of Florida, was presented, and a request made that it might be entered on the Journal. This, however, the Senate refused. Thus was completed the action of the Senate on the admission of California.
On the 5th of August Mr. PEARCE, of Md., introduced a bill, making proposals to Texas for the settlement of her western and northern boundaries. It proposes that the boundary on the north shall commence at the point where the meridian of 100 deg. west longitude intersects the parallel of 36 deg. 30' north latitude, and shall run due west to the meridian of 103 deg. west longitude: thence it shall run due south to the 32d degree north latitude, thence on the said parallel to the Rio del Norte, and thence with the channel of said river to the Gulf of Mexico. For relinquishing all claims to the United States government for territory beyond the line thus defined, the bill proposes to pay Texas ten millions of dollars. The bill was debated for several successive days, and on the 9th was ordered to be engrossed, yeas 27, nays 24, and received its final passage on the same day, yeas 30, nays 20, as follows:
YEAS.—Messrs. Badger, Bell, Berrien, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Clarke, Clemens, Cooper, Davis, of Massachusetts, Dawson, Dickinson, Dodge, of Iowa, Douglas, Felch, Foote, Greene, Houston, King, Norris, Pearce, Phelps, Rusk, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Wales, Whitcomb, and Winthrop—30.
NAYS.—Messrs. Atchison, Baldwin, Barnwell, Benton, Butler, Chase, Davis, of Mississippi, Dodge, of Wisconsin, Ewing, Hale, Hunter, Mason, Morton, Seward, Soule, Turney, Underwood, Upham, Walker, and Yulee—20.
Thus was completed the action of the Senate on the second of the great questions which have enlisted so much of public attention during the past few months.—On the 14th the bill providing a territorial government for New Mexico was taken up. Mr. CHASE moved to amend it by inserting a clause prohibiting the existence of slavery within its limits, which was rejected, ayes 20, nays 25. The bill was then ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, which it had, and was finally passed.
In the House of Representatives, no business of importance has been transacted. The Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill has been discussed, and efforts have been made to change the existing rules of the House so as to facilitate public business; but nothing important has been done.—On the 6th of August President FILLMORE sent to the House a Message, transmitting a letter he had received from Governor BELL, of Texas, announcing that he had sent a commissioner to extend the laws of Texas over that part of New Mexico which she claims, and that he had been resisted by the inhabitants and the United States military authorities. The President says in his Message that he deems it his duty to execute the laws of the United States, and that Congress has given him full power to put down any resistance that may be organized against them. Texas as a state has no authority or power beyond her own limits; and if she attempts to prevent the execution of any law of the United States, in any state or territory beyond her jurisdiction, the President is bound by his oath to resist such attempts by all the power which the Constitution has placed at his command. The question is then considered whether there is any law in New Mexico, resistance to which would call for the interposition of the Executive authority. The President regards New Mexico as a territory of the United States, with the same boundaries which it had before the war with Mexico, and while in possession of that country. By the treaty of peace the boundary line between the two countries is defined, and perfect security and protection in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and in the free exercise of their religion, is guaranteed to those Mexicans who may choose to reside on the American side of that line. This treaty is part of the law of the land, and as such must be maintained until superseded or displaced by other legal provisions; and if it be obstructed, the case is regarded as one which comes within the provisions of law, and which obliges the President to enforce these provisions. "Neither the Constitution or the laws," says Mr. FILLMORE, "nor my duty or my oath of office, leave me any alternative, or any choice, in my mode of action." The Executive has no power or authority to determine the true line of boundary, but it is his duty, in maintaining the laws, to have regard to the actual state of things as it existed at the date of the treaty—all must be now regarded as New Mexico which was possessed and occupied as New Mexico by citizens of Mexico at the date of the treaty, until a definite line of boundary shall be established by competent authority. Having thus indicated the course which he should pursue, the President expresses his earnest desire that the question of boundary should be settled by Congress, with the assent of the government of Texas. He deprecates delay, and objects to the appointment of commissioners. He expresses the opinion that an indemnity may very properly be offered to Texas, and says that no event would be hailed with more satisfaction by the people than the amicable adjustment of questions of difficulty which have now for a long time agitated the country, and occupied, to the exclusion of other subjects, the time and attention of Congress. Accompanying the Message was a letter from Mr. WEBSTER, Secretary of State, in reply to that of Governor BELL. Mr. WEBSTER vindicates the action of the military authorities in New Mexico, saying that they had been instructed to aid and advance any attempt of the inhabitants to form a state government, and that in all they did they acted as agents of the inhabitants rather than officers of the government. An outline is given of the history of the acquisition of New Mexico, and it is clearly shown that every thing thus far has been done in strict accordance with the stipulations of the treaty, and with the position and principles of the late President Polk. The military government existed in New Mexico as a matter of necessity, and must remain until superseded by some other form. The President approves entirely of the measures taken by Colonel Munroe, while he takes no part, and expresses no opinion touching the boundary claimed by Texas. These documents were ordered to be printed and were referred to committees. |
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