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Title: The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Vol 5 (of 7)
Author: Anonymous
Language: English
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_UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL
KNOWLEDGE._
THE
GALLERY OF PORTRAITS:
WITH
MEMOIRS.
VOLUME V.
LONDON:
CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE-STREET.
1835.
[PRICE ONE GUINEA, BOUND IN CLOTH.]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
Duke-Street, Lambeth.
PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES
CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME.
Page.
1. Taylor 1
2. Lavoisier 9
3. Sydenham 18
4. Clarendon 25
5. Reynolds 35
6. Swift 45
7. Locke 53
8. Selden 61
9. Paré 69
10. Blake 77
11. L’Hôpital 85
12. Mrs. Siddons 94
13. Herschel 105
14. Romilly 111
15. Shakspeare 122
16. Euler 129
17. Sir W. Jones 134
18. Rousseau 143
19. Harrison 153
20. Montaigne 157
21. Pope 164
22. Bolivar 173
23. Arkwright 181
24. Cowper 189
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
JEREMY TAYLOR.
_From the original Picture in the Hall of All Souls College, Oxford._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
TAYLOR.
If this great ornament of our church did not boast of an exalted
lineage, he numbered among his forefathers one at least, the worthy
ancestor of such a descendant, Dr. Rowland Taylor, chaplain to Cranmer,
and rector of Hadleigh, distinguished among the divines of the
Reformation for his abilities, learning, and piety, as well as for the
courageous cheerfulness with which he suffered death at the stake in the
reign of Queen Mary. Jeremy Taylor was the son of a barber, resident in
Trinity parish, Cambridge; and was baptized in Trinity church, August
15, 1613. He was “grounded in grammar and mathematics” by his father,
and entered as a sizar at Caius College, August 18, 1626. Of his
deportment, his studies, even of the honours and emoluments of his
academical life, we have no certain knowledge. It is stated by Dr. Rust,
in his Funeral Sermon, that Taylor was elected fellow: but this is at
least doubtful, for no record of the fact exists in the registers of the
college. He proceeded to the degree of M. A. in 1633; and in the same
year, though at the early age of twenty, we find him in orders, and
officiating as a divinity lecturer in St. Paul’s Cathedral. His talents
as a preacher attracted the notice of Archbishop Laud, who sent for him
to preach at Lambeth, and approved of his performance, but thought him
too young. Taylor begged his Grace’s pardon for that fault, and promised
that, if he lived, he would mend it. By that prelate’s interest he was
admitted to the degree of M. A. _ad eundem_, in University College,
Oxford, October 20, 1635, and shortly after nominated to a fellowship at
All Souls College. It was probably through the interest of the same
powerful patron that he obtained the rectory of Uppingham in
Rutlandshire, tenable with his fellowship, March 23, 1638. The
fellowship, however, he vacated by his marriage with Phœbe Langsdale,
May 27, 1639, who died in little more than three years, leaving two
sons.
Taylor attracted notice at Oxford by his talents as a preacher; but he
does not seem to have commenced, during this period of ease and
tranquillity, any of those great works which have rendered him
illustrious as one of the most laborious, eloquent, and persuasive of
British divines. The only sermon extant which we can distinctly refer to
this period, is one preached by command of the Vice-chancellor on the
anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, 1638. This piece requires notice,
because it is connected with a report, circulated both during Taylor’s
residence at Oxford and afterwards, that he was secretly inclined to
Popery. It is even said that he “wished to be confirmed a member of the
church of Rome,” (Wood, Athenæ Oxon.) but was rejected with scorn in
consequence of the things advanced against that church in this sermon.
Of this whole statement Bishop Heber, in his ‘Life of Taylor,’ has
expressed his disbelief; and the arguments on which his opinion is
founded appear to us satisfactory. Not even during his peaceable abode
at Uppingham do Taylor’s great works appear to have been projected, as
if his amiable, affectionate, and zealous temper had been fully occupied
by domestic cares and pleasures, and by the constant though quiet duties
of a parish priest. The year 1642, as it witnessed the overthrow of his
domestic happiness by his wife’s death, saw also the beginning of those
troubles which cast him out of his church preferment, a homeless man. We
do not know the date of the sequestration of his living; but as he
joined Charles I. at Oxford in the autumn of the year; published in the
same year, by the King’s command, his treatise ‘Of the sacred Order and
Offices of Episcopacy, &c.;’ was created D. D. by royal mandate;
appointed chaplain to the King, in which capacity he frequently preached
at Oxford, and attended the royal army in the wars; it is probable that
he was among the first of those who paid the penalty of adhering to the
losing cause. Little is known of this portion of Taylor’s history. It
appears that he quitted the army, and retired into Wales, where he
married, became again involved in the troubles of war, and was taken
prisoner at Cardigan, Feb. 4, 1644. We do not know the date of his
release, or of his marriage to his second wife, Joanna Bridges, a lady
possessed of some landed property at Mandinam, near Golden Grove, in the
Vale of Towy, in Carmarthenshire, who was commonly said to be a natural
daughter of Charles I., born before his marriage. But Heber conjectures
that Taylor’s marriage was anterior to his imprisonment, and that his
wife’s estate was amerced in a heavy fine, in consequence of his being
found engaged in the royal cause at Cardigan. It is at least certain
that until the Restoration he was very poor, and that he supported
himself during part of the time by keeping a school.
During this period of public confusion and domestic trouble, Taylor
composed an ‘Apology for authorized and set Forms of Liturgy,’ published
in 1646, and his great work, a ‘Discourse on the Liberty of
Prophesying,’ published in 1647, “the first attempt on record to
conciliate the minds of Christians to the reception of a doctrine which,
though now the rule of action professed by all Christian sects, was
then, by all sects alike, regarded as a perilous and portentous
novelty.”[1] As such, it was received with distrust, if not
disapprobation, by all parties; and if it was intended to inculcate upon
the Episcopalians the propriety of conceding something to the prejudices
of their opponents, as well as to procure an alleviation of the
oppression exercised on the Episcopal church, we may see in the conduct
of the government after the Restoration, that Taylor preached a doctrine
for which neither the one nor the other were then ripe. It is the more
to his honour that in this important point of Christian charity he had
advanced beyond his own party, as well as those by whom his party was
then persecuted. But though his views were extended enough to meet with
disapprobation from his contemporaries, he gives a greater latitude to
the civil power in repressing error by penal means, than the general
practice, at least in Protestant countries, would now grant. “The
forbearance which he claims, he claims for those Christians only who
unite in the confession of the Apostles’ Creed,” and he advocates the
drawing together of all who will subscribe to that ancient and
comprehensive form of belief into one church, forgetting differences
which do not involve the fundamental points of Christianity. And he
inculcates the “danger and impropriety of driving men into schism by
multiplying symbols and subscriptions, and contracting the bounds of
communion, and the still greater wickedness of regarding all discrepant
opinions as damnable in the life to come, and in the present capital.”
For a fuller account of this remarkable work, we refer to the Life by
Heber, p. 201–218, or still better, to the original.
Footnote 1:
Heber’s Life of Taylor, p. xxvii.
It was followed at no long interval by the ‘Great Exemplar of Sanctity
and Holy Life, described in the Life and Death of Jesus Christ.’ This,
the first of Taylor’s great works which became extensively popular, is
almost entirely practical in its tendency, having been composed, as the
author tells us, with the intention of drawing men’s minds from
controverted doctrines, to the vital points on which all men are agreed,
but which all men forget so easily. It is not an attempt to connect the
relations of the four Evangelists into one complete and chronologically
consistent account; but a “series of devout meditations on the different
events recorded in the New Testament, as well as on the more remarkable
traditions which have usually been circulated respecting the Divine
Author of our religion, his earthly parent, and his followers,” set off
by that majestic style, that store of illustrations derived from the
most recondite and miscellaneous learning, and, above all, that fervent
and poetical imagination, by which Taylor is distinguished perhaps above
all the prose writers in our language. Such qualities, even without a
digested plan and connected strain of argument, which, requiring a more
continuous and attentive perusal, would not perhaps have made the book
more acceptable or useful to the bulk of readers, ensured for it a
favourable reception; and the author followed up the impression which he
had produced, at no distant period, by two other treatises of a similar
practical tendency, which, from their comparative shortness, are better
known than any other of Taylor’s works, and probably have been as
extensively read as any devotional books in the English language. We
speak of the treatises on Holy Living and on Holy Dying.
It has been mentioned that near Mandinam stood Golden Grove, the seat of
the Earl of Carbery, a nobleman distinguished by his abilities and zeal
in the Royal cause. He proved a constant and sincere friend to Taylor;
and the grateful scholar has conferred celebrity upon the name and
hospitality of Golden Grove by his ‘Guide to Infant Devotion,’ or manual
of daily prayers, which are called by the name of that place, in which
they, and many other of the author’s works, were meditated; especially
his Eniautos, or course of sermons for all the Sundays in the year.
Considerable obscurity hangs over this portion of Taylor’s life: but it
appears that in the years 1654–5 he was twice imprisoned, in consequence
of his advocacy of the fallen causes of Episcopacy and Royalty. At some
time in 1654 he formed an acquaintance with Evelyn, which proved
profitable and honourable to both parties; for the layman, as is evident
from his Memoirs and Diary, highly valued and laid to heart the counsels
of the man whom he selected as his “ghostly father,” and to whose
poverty he liberally ministered in return out of his own abundance.
We learn from Evelyn’s Diary that Taylor was in London in the spring of
1637, and his visits, if not annual, were at least frequent. He made
many friends, and among them the Earl of Conway, a nobleman possessed of
large estates in the north-east of Ireland, who conceived the desire of
securing Taylor’s eminent abilities for the service of his own
neighbourhood, and obtained for him a lectureship in the small town of
Lisburne. Taylor removed his family to Ireland in the summer of 1658. He
dwelt near Portmore, his patron’s splendid seat on the banks of Lough
Neagh; and some of the islands in that noble lake, and in a smaller
neighbouring piece of water called Lough Beg, are still recorded, by the
traditions of the peasantry, to have been his favourite places of study
and retirement. To this abode his letters show him to have been much
attached.
In the spring of 1660 Taylor visited London, to superintend in its
passage through the press the ‘Rule of Conscience, or Ductor
Dubitantium.’ This, it appears from the author’s letters, was
considerably advanced so early as the year 1655. It was the fruit of
much time, much diligence, and much prayer; and that of all his writings
concerning the execution of which he seems to have felt most anxiety. In
this case, as it often happens, the author seems to have formed an
erroneous estimate of the comparative value of his works. Neither on its
first appearance, nor in later times, did the ‘Ductor Dubitantium’
become extensively popular. Its object, which even at the first was
accounted obsolete, was to supply what the Romish church obtained by the
practice of confession, a set of rules by which a scrupulous conscience
may be guided in the variety of doubtful points of duty which may occur.
The abuses are well known, to which the casuistic subtlety of the Romish
doctors gave birth; and it may be doubted whether it were wise to lay
one stone towards rebuilding an edifice, which the general diffusion of
the Scriptures, a sufficient rule, if rightly studied, to solve all
doubts, had rendered unnecessary. The work, in spite of its passages of
eloquence and profusion of learning, is too prolix to be a favourite in
these latter days, but it is still, says his biographer, (p. ccxciii.)
one “which few can read without profit, and none, I think, without
entertainment. It resembles in some degree those ancient inlaid
cabinets, (such as Evelyn, Boyle, or Wilkins might have bequeathed to
their descendants,) whose multifarious contents perplex our choice, and
offer to the admiration or curiosity of a more accurate age a vast
wilderness of trifles and varieties with no arrangement at all, or an
arrangement on obsolete principles, but whose ebony drawers and perfumed
recesses contain specimens of every thing that is precious or uncommon,
and many things for which a modern museum might be searched in vain.”
Taylor’s accidental presence in London at this period, when the hopes of
the Royalists were reviving, was probably serviceable to his future
fortunes. He obtained by it the opportunity of joining in the Royalist
declaration of April 24; and he was among the first to derive benefit
from the restoration of that King and that Church, of whose interests he
had ever been a most zealous, able, and consistent supporter. He was
nominated Bishop of Down and Connor, August 6, 1660, and consecrated in
St. Patrick’s Cathedral January 27, 1661. In the interval he was
appointed Vice-chancellor of the University of Dublin, which during past
troubles had been greatly dilapidated and disordered, in respect both of
its revenues and discipline. He was the principal instrument in
remodelling and completing the statutes, and settling the University in
its present form.
In the spring of 1661 Taylor was made a member of the Irish Privy
Council, and the small diocese of Dromore, adjacent to Down, was
assigned to his charge, “on account,” in the words of the writ under the
Privy Seal, “of his virtue, wisdom, and industry.” This praise was well
deserved by his conduct in that difficult time, when those who had
displaced the episcopal clergy were apprehensive of being in their turn
obliged to give way, and religious differences were embittered by
thoughts of temporal welfare. Taylor had to deal chiefly with the wilder
and most enthusiastic party, and his advances towards an intercourse of
Christian charity were met with scorn and insult. But his exemplary
conduct, and persevering gentleness of demeanour, did much to soften at
least the laity of his opponents; for we are told that the nobility and
gentry of the three dioceses over which he presided came over, with one
exception, to the Bishop’s side.
His varied duties can now have left little time for the labour of the
pen; still he published sermons from time to time, and in 1664 completed
and published his last great work, a ‘Dissuasive from Popery,’
undertaken by desire of the collective body of Irish bishops. He
continued after his elevation to reside principally at Portmore,
occasionally at Lisburne. Of his habits, and the incidents of this
latter part of his life, we know next to nothing; except that he
suffered the severest affliction which could befal a man of his
sensibility and piety, in the successive deaths of his three surviving
sons, and the misconduct of two of them. One died at Lisburne, in March,
1661; one fell in a duel, his adversary also dying of his wounds; the
third became the favourite companion of the profligate Duke of
Buckingham, and died of a decline, August 2, 1667. Of the latter event
the Bishop can scarcely have heard, for he died on the 13th of the same
month, after ten days’ sickness. He was buried at Dromore. Two of his
daughters married in Ireland, into the families of Marsh and Harrison;
and several Irish families of repute claim to be connected with the
blood of this exemplary prelate by the female line.
The materials for Bishop Taylor’s life are very scanty. The earliest
sketch of it is to be found in the funeral sermon preached by his friend
and successor in the see of Dromore, Dr. Rust, who sums up the virtues
of the deceased in a peroration of highly-wrought panegyric, of which
the following just eulogy is a part—“He was a person of great humility;
and notwithstanding his stupendous parts, and learning, and eminency of
place, he had nothing in him of pride and humour, but was courteous and
affable, and of easy access, and would lend a ready ear to the
complaints, yea, to the impertinence of the meanest persons. His
humility was coupled with an extraordinary piety; and I believe he spent
the greatest part of his time in heaven.... To all his other virtues he
added a large and diffusive charity; and whoever compares his plentiful
income with the inconsiderable estate he left at his death, will be
easily convinced that charity was steward for a great proportion of his
revenue. But the hungry that he fed, and the naked that he clothed, and
the distressed that he supplied, and the fatherless that he provided
for, the poor children that he put to apprentice, and brought up at
school, and maintained at the university, will now sound a trumpet to
that charity which he dispensed with his right hand, but would not
suffer his left hand to have any knowledge of it.
“To sum up all in a few words, this great prelate had the good humour of
a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the
acuteness of a schoolman, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom
of a counsellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and
the piety of a saint; he had devotion enough for a cloister, learning
enough for an university, and wit enough for a college of virtuosi; and
had his parts and endowments been parcelled out among his poor clergy
that he left behind him, it would perhaps have made one of the best
dioceses in the world. But, alas! ‘Our Father! our Father! the horses of
our Israel, and the chariot thereof!’ he is gone, and has carried his
mantle and his spirit along with him up to heaven; and the sons of the
prophets have lost all their beauty and lustre which they enjoyed only
from the reflection of his excellencies, which were bright and radiant
enough to cast a glory upon a whole order of men.”
There is a life of Taylor by Archdeacon Bonney; and a copious memoir,
enriched by a minute analysis of all the more remarkable compositions of
our author, is prefixed to Bishop Heber’s edition of Taylor’s works.
From this the materials of the present sketch are taken. Nor can we
better conclude than with the eloquent estimate of Taylor’s merits, with
which the accomplished biographer concludes his work. “It is on
devotional and moral subjects that the peculiar character of Taylor’s
mind is most, and most successfully, developed. To this service he
devotes his most glowing language; to this his aptest illustrations, his
thoughts, and his words, at once burst into a flame, when touched by the
coals of this altar; and whether he describes the duties, or dangers, or
hopes of man, or the mercy, power, and justice of the Most High; whether
he exhorts or instructs his brethren, or offers up his supplications in
their behalf to the common Father of all, his conceptions and his
expressions belong to the loftiest and most sacred description of
poetry, of which they only want, what they cannot be said to need, the
name and the metrical arrangement.
“It is this distinctive excellence, still more than the other
qualifications of learning and logical acuteness, which has placed him,
even in that age of gigantic talent, on an eminence superior to any of
his immediate contemporaries; and has seated him, by the almost
unanimous estimate of posterity, on the same lofty elevation with Hooker
and with Barrow.
“Of such a triumvirate, who shall settle the precedence? Yet it may,
perhaps, be not far from the truth, to observe that Hooker claims the
foremost rank in sustained and classic dignity of style, in political
and pragmatical wisdom; that to Barrow the praise must be assigned of
the closest and clearest views, and of a taste the most controlled and
chastened; but that in imagination, in interest, in that which more
properly and exclusively deserves the name of genius, Taylor is to be
placed before either. The first awes most, the second convinces most,
the third persuades and delights most: and, according to the decision of
one whose own rank among the ornaments of English literature yet remains
to be determined by posterity (Dr. Parr), Hooker is the object of our
reverence, Barrow of our admiration, and Jeremy Taylor of our love.”
[Illustration:
_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._
LAVOISIER.
_From the original Picture by David in a Private Collection at Paris._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
LAVOISIER.
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in Paris, August 26, 1743. He was
educated under the eye of his father, a man of opulence, with
discernment to appreciate his son’s abilities, and liberality to
cultivate them without regard to cost. Lavoisier early showed a decided
inclination for the physical sciences; and before he was twenty years
old, had made himself master of the principal branches of natural
philosophy.
In 1764 the government proposed an extraordinary premium for the best
and cheapest project of lighting the streets of Paris, and other large
cities. To this subject, involving a knowledge of several branches of
science, Lavoisier immediately devoted his attention. He produced so
able a memoir, full of the most masterly, accurate, and practical views,
that the gold medal was awarded to him. This production was the means of
introducing him into the Academy of Sciences, of which, after a severe
contest, he was admitted a member, May 13, 1768; and he proved himself
through life one of its most useful and valuable associates.
At this time the whole range of chemical and physico-chemical science
was in an extremely imperfect state; and the first steps to a more
improved system involved the necessity of clearing away a vast mass of
error which encumbered the path to truth. For instance, one of the
fanciful ideas, the offspring of the alchemy of the dark ages, which
still continued to haunt the regions of science, was the belief of the
conversion of water into earth by gradual consolidation. This subject
Lavoisier treated in the true spirit of the experimental method, and
clearly showed that the pretended conversion was either a deposition of
earthy particles, or a sediment arising from the action of the water on
the internal surface of the retort. He also laboured on the analysis of
the gypsum found in the neighbourhood of Paris, and on the
crystallization of salts. He discussed the project of conveying water
from L’Yvette to Paris, and the theory of congelation; and to these
researches added extensive observations on the phenomena of thunder and
the Aurora Borealis.
He next directed his attention more especially to mineralogy; and made
excursions, in conjunction with Guettard, into all parts of France,
endeavouring to form from different districts a complete collection of
their characteristic mineral productions. He made advances towards a
systematic classification of facts connected with the localities of
fossils, which afterwards served as the basis of his work on the
revolutions of the globe and the formation of successive strata, of
which two admirable abstracts were inserted in the Memoirs of the
Academy of Sciences, for 1772 and 1787.
Thus during the earlier part of his life, Lavoisier does not seem to
have devoted himself in particular to any one branch of science. But
about the year 1770 the announcement of the existence of more than one
species of gaseous matter, arising out of the successive researches of
Black, Scheele, Priestley, and Cavendish, had the effect of fixing his
attention to the subject of pneumatic chemistry. The invaluable
discoveries just alluded to had opened a new world to the inquirer into
nature; and the labours of those distinguished experimentalists had
conspired to commence a fresh era in science. Lavoisier was one of the
first to appreciate at once the importance of the results they had
arrived at, and the immense field of further research to which those
results had opened the way. He perceived by a sort of instinct the
glorious career which lay before him; and the influence which this new
science thus, as it were, created, must have over every sort of physical
research. Priestley possessed precisely those qualifications which are
most available for striking out new and brilliant discoveries of facts;
a boundless fertility of invention; a power of rapidly seizing remote
analogies; and an equal readiness in framing and in abandoning
hypotheses, which have no value, but as guides to experiment. Lavoisier,
less eminent in these respects, possessed in a more peculiar degree the
mental characteristics which enable their owner to advance to grand
generalizations and philosophical theories upon the sure basis of facts.
He possessed, in its fullest sense, the true spirit of inductive
caution, and even geometrical rigour; and his observations, eminently
precise and luminous, always pointed to more general views.
In 1774, he published his ‘Opuscules Chimiques,’ in which, after a full
and truly philosophical examination of the labours of preceding
experimenters in the discovery of the gases and their characteristic
properties, he proceeds to describe his own beautiful and fundamentally
important researches, from which resulted the ‘True Theory of
Combustion,’ which may be termed the very sun and centre of the whole
modern system of chemistry.
To the vague dreams of the alchemist had succeeded the remarkable theory
of Hooke, who maintained that a certain ingredient of the atmospheric
air (which also enters as an ingredient into several other bodies,
especially nitre) was the _solvent_ which absorbed a portion of the
combustible. This process was continued in proportion as more of the
solvent was supplied. The solution took place with such rapidity, as to
occasion those motions or pulsations in which Hooke believed heat and
light to consist.
This near approach to the truth was thrown into discredit by the more
brilliant and imposing theory of Stahl, who captivated the imaginations
of chemists by his doctrine of phlogiston, the principle or element of
fire, a sort of metaphysical something, which conferred the property of
being combustible. Stahl taught that the process of combustion deprived
bodies of their phlogiston, which, in the act of separation, exhibited
its latent energies in the evolution of light and heat.
This wild chimera long maintained its ground, and received successive
modifications in the hands of several distinguished chemists, the most
important of which was that of Kirwan; but these all retained the
fundamental error that something was _abstracted from_ the burning body.
Yet Rey, so early as 1630, and Bayer afterwards, had both shown that
metals by calcination _increase_ in weight, or have something _added_ to
them. Lavoisier turned his attention to the defects of the existing
theory about 1770; and the last-named experiments probably directed him
more specifically to the essential point of the inquiry. He pursued his
researches with unwearied industry; and by a long series of experiments
of the most laborious and precise nature, he succeeded in determining
that, in all cases of combustion, that substance which is the _real_
combustible invariably receives _an addition_, or enters into a new
combination; and the matter with which it combines is in all cases that
same substance which had now been shown by Priestley to be one of the
constituents of the atmosphere, and which was then known by the name of
_vital air_.
It was however long before Lavoisier gained a single convert. At length
M. Berthollet, at a meeting of the Academy in 1785, publicly renounced
the old opinions and declared himself a convert. Fourcroy followed his
example. In 1787, Morveau, during a visit to Paris, became convinced,
and declared the conclusions of Lavoisier irresistible. The younger
chemists speedily embraced the new views; and their establishment was
thus complete. There only remained some lurking prejudices in England,
where the Essay of Kirwan retained its credit. Lavoisier and his
coadjutors translated this essay into French, accompanying each section
by a refutation. So completely was this done, that the author himself
was convinced; and, with that candour which distinguishes superior
minds, gave up his views as untenable, and declared himself a convert.
These discoveries introduced Lavoisier to the notice of the most eminent
persons in the State; and in 1776, Turgot engaged him to superintend the
manufacture of gunpowder for the Government. He introduced many valuable
improvements in the process, and many judicious reforms into the
establishment.
In 1778, Lavoisier having been incessantly engaged on the subject of
gases and combustion, announced another great discovery, “that the
respirable portion of the atmosphere is the constituent principle of
acids,” which he therefore denominated _oxygen_.
The question as to “the acidifying principle” had long formed the
subject of discussion. The prevalent theory was that of Beccher with
various modifications, which made the acid principle a compound of earth
and water regarded as elements. Lavoisier found in the instance of a
great number of the acids, that they consisted of a combustible
principle united with oxygen. He showed this both analytically and
synthetically, and hence proceeded to the conclusion that oxygen is the
acidifying principle in all acids. Berthollet opposed this doctrine, and
contended that, in general, acidity depended on the manner and
proportion in which the constituents are combined. The fact is, that, in
this instance, Lavoisier had advanced a little too rapidly to his
conclusion. Had he contented himself with stating it as applying to a
_great number_ of acids, it would have been strictly true; but he had
certainly no proof of its being _universally_ the case. When Sir H.
Davy, some years after, showed that one of the most powerful acids (the
muriatic) does not contain a single particle of oxygen, and when the
researches of Guy Lussac and others had exhibited other proofs of the
same thing, it became evident that Lavoisier’s assertion required
considerable modification. And though _nearly_ all acids have been since
included under the general law of containing _some supporter of
combustion_, yet there appear to be exceptions even to this; the
cautious language of Berthollet has been completely justified; and a
perfect theory of acidity is perhaps yet wanting. Nevertheless,
Lavoisier’s discovery is one of first-rate magnitude and importance, and
with this qualification, certainly forms the basis of all our present
knowledge of the subject.
Another important research in which Lavoisier engaged, in conjunction
with Laplace, was the determination of the specific heats of bodies, by
means of an ingenious apparatus, which they denominated the calorimeter:
these were by far the most precise experiments on the subject which had
as yet been made, though some inaccuracies in the method have since been
pointed out.
Lavoisier owed much, it must be owned, to those external advantages of
fortune, the absence of which, though it cannot confine the flights of
real genius, yet may seriously impair the value and efficiency of its
exertions; and the presence of which, though it cannot confer the powers
of intellect, may yet afford most invaluable aids to the prosecution of
research, and the dissemination of knowledge. In the instance before us,
these advantages were enjoyed to the full extent, and turned to the best
use. Lavoisier was enabled to command the most unlimited resources of
instrumental aid; he pursued his researches in a laboratory furnished
with the most costly apparatus, and was able to put every suggestion to
the test of experiment, by the assistance of the most skilful artists,
and instruments of the most perfect construction.
But as he could thus command these essential advantages for the
prosecution of his own investigations, he was equally mindful of the
extension of similar advantages to others: he always evinced himself
ready to assist the inquiries of those who had not the same means at
their disposal; and was no less liberal in aiding them by his stores of
information and able advice. Indeed no one could be more sensible how
much there is of mutual advantage in such intercourse between those
engaged in the same scientific labours; and this conviction, joined with
a full perception of the immense benefits accruing from personal
acquaintance among men of kindred pursuits, and the interchange of
social good offices, led him to the regular practice of opening his
house on two evenings in every week, for an assembly of all the
scientific men of the French capital; which very soon became a point of
general resort and reunion to the philosophers of Europe.
At these meetings general discourse and philosophic discussion were
agreeably intermingled; the opinions of the most eminent philosophers
were freely canvassed; the most striking and novel passages in the
publications of foreign countries were made known, recited, and
animadverted upon; and the progress of experiment was assisted by candid
comments and comparison with theory. In these assemblies might be found,
mingling in instructive and delightful conversation, all those whose
names made the last century memorable in the annals of science.
Priestley, Fontana, Landriani, Watt, Bolton, and Ingenhouz, were
associated with Laplace, Lagrange, Borda, Cousin, Monge, Morveau, and
Berthollet. There was also an incalculable advantage in bringing into
communication and intimacy men engaged in distinct branches of science:
the intercourse of the mathematician with the geologist, of the
astronomer with the chemist, of the computer with the experimenter, and
of the artist with the theorist, could not fail to be of mutual
advantage. In no instance were the beneficial effects of such
intercourse more strikingly displayed than in the chemical sciences;
which, from this sort of comparison of ideas and methods, began now to
assume a character of exactness from an infusion of the spirit of
geometry; and a department hitherto abandoned to the wildest
speculations, and encumbered with the most vague and undefined
phraseology (derived from the jargon of the alchemists), began to assume
something like arrangement and method in its ideas, and precision and
order in its nomenclature. This influence was strongly marked in the
physical memoirs produced in France from this period downwards. The
precision and severity of style, and the philosophical method of the
mathematicians, was insensibly transfused into the papers of the
physical and chemical philosophers.
Lavoisier individually profited greatly by the sources of improvement
and information thus opened. Whenever any new result presented itself to
him, which, perhaps, from contradicting all received theories, seemed
paradoxical, or at variance with all principles hitherto recognised, it
was fully laid before these select assemblies of philosophers; the
experiment was exhibited in their presence, and they were invited with
the utmost candour to offer their criticisms and objections. In perfect
reliance on the mutual spirit of candour, they were not backward in
urging whatever difficulties occurred to them, and the truth thus
elicited acquired a firmness and stability in its public reception
proportioned to the severity of the test it had undergone. Lavoisier
seldom announced any discovery until it had passed this ordeal.
At length he combined his philosophical views into a connected system,
which he published in 1789, under the title of ‘Elements of Chemistry:’
a beautiful model of scientific composition, clear and logical in its
arrangement, perspicuous and even elegant in its style and manner. These
perfections are rarely to be found in elementary works written by
original discoverers. The genius which qualifies a man for enlarging the
boundaries of science by his own inventions and researches is of a very
different class from that which confers the ability to elucidate, in a
simple and systematic course, the order and connexion of elementary
truths. But in Lavoisier these different species of talent were most
happily blended. He not only added profound truths to science, but
succeeded in adapting them to the apprehension of students, and was able
to render them attractive by his eloquence.
In 1791 he entered upon extensive researches, having for their object
the application of pneumatic chemistry to the advancement of medicine,
in reference to the process of respiration. With this view he examined
in great detail the changes which the air undergoes, and the products
generated in that process of the animal economy. He had previously,
however, as far back as 1780, detailed a series of experiments to
determine the quantity of oxygen consumed and carbonic acid generated by
respiration, in a given time, in the Memoirs of the French Academy.
In the twenty volumes of the Academy of Sciences, from 1772 to 1793, are
not less than forty memoirs by Lavoisier, replete with all the grand
phenomena of the science:—the doctrine of combustion in all its
bearings; the nature and analysis of atmospheric air; the generation and
combinations of elastic fluids; the properties of heat; the composition
of acids; the decomposition and recomposition of water; the solutions of
metals; and the phenomena of vegetation, fermentation, and
animalization. These are some of the most important subjects of his
papers; and during the whole of this period he advanced steadily in the
course which was pointed out to him by the unerring rules of inductive
inquiry, to which his original genius supplied the commentary. So well
did he secure every point of the results to which he ascended, that he
never made a false step. It was only in one subject, before alluded to,
that he may be said to have gone a few steps too far. Nor did he ever
suffer himself to be discouraged, or his ardour to be damped by the
difficulties and obstacles which perpetually impeded his progress. He
traced new paths for investigation, and founded a new school of science;
and his successors had ample employment in following out the inquiries
which he had indicated, and exploring those recesses to which he had
opened the way.
In the relations of social and civil life Lavoisier was exemplary; and
he rendered essential service to the state in several capacities. He was
treasurer to the Academy, and introduced economy and order into its
finances: he was also a member of the board of consultation, and took an
active share in its business. When the new system of measures was in
agitation, and it was proposed to determine a degree of the meridian, he
made accurate experiments on the dilatation of metals, in conjunction
with Laplace (1782), to ascertain the corrections due to changes of
temperature in the substances used as measuring rods in those delicate
operations.
By the National Convention he was consulted on the means of improving
the manufacture of assignats, and of increasing the difficulty of
forgery. He turned his attention to matters of rural economy, and, by
improved methods of cultivation, on scientific principles, he increased
the produce of an experimental farm nearly one half. In 1791 he was
invited by the Constituent Assembly to digest a plan for simplifying the
collection of taxes: the excellent memoir which he produced on this
subject was printed under the title of ‘The Territorial Riches of
France.’ He was likewise appointed a Commissioner of the National
Treasury, in which he effected some beneficial reforms.
During the terrors of Robespierre’s tyranny, Lavoisier remarked that he
foresaw he should be stripped of all his property, and accordingly would
prepare to enter the profession of an apothecary, by which he should be
able to gain a livelihood. But the ignorant and brutal ruffians who were
then in power had already condemned him to the scaffold, on which he was
executed, May 8, 1794, for the pretended crime of having adulterated
snuff with ingredients destructive to the health of the citizens! On
being seized, he entreated at least to be allowed time to finish some
experiments in which he was engaged; but the reply of Coffinhall, the
president of the gang who condemned him, was characteristic of the
savage ignorance of those monsters in human form:—“The Republic does not
want savans or chemists, and the course of justice cannot be suspended.”
Lavoisier in person was tall and graceful, and of lively manners and
appearance. He was mild, sociable, and obliging; and in his habits
unaffectedly plain and simple. He was liberal in pecuniary assistance to
those in need of it; and his hatred of all ostentation in doing good
probably concealed greatly the real amount of his beneficence. He
married, in 1771, Marie-Anni-Pierrette Paulze, a lady of great talents
and accomplishments, who after his death became the wife of Count
Rumford.
[Illustration]
SYDENHAM.
The celebrated physician, Thomas Sydenham, in many respects the most
eminent that England has produced, was born in the year 1624, at
Wynford-Eagle, in Dorsetshire, where his father, William Sydenham,
enjoyed a considerable estate. The mansion in which he was born is now
converted into a farm-house, and stands on the property of Lord Wynford.
In the year 1642, when eighteen, he was admitted as a commoner at
Magdalen-Hall, Oxford; but quitted it in the same year, when that city
became the head quarters of the royal army, after the battle of
Edge-hill. He was probably induced to take this step by reasons of a
political nature; for we find that his family were active adherents of
the opposite party. Indeed he is said, though on doubtful authority, to
have held a commission himself under the Parliament during his absence
from Oxford; and his elder brother, William, is known to have attained
considerable rank in the republican army, and held important commands
under the Protectorate.
The political bias of his family is not without interest, as affording a
probable explanation of some circumstances in his life which would
otherwise be rather unaccountable,—such as the fact, that though he
reached the first eminence as a practising physician, he was never
employed at court, and was slighted by the college, who invested him
with none of their honours, nor even advanced him to the fellowship,
though a licentiate of their body, and qualified by the requisite
University education.
When Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, Sydenham determined to
resume his academical studies; and passing through London
[Illustration:
_Engraved by E. Scriven._
SYDENHAM.
_From the Picture in the Hall of All Souls College, Oxford._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
on his way, he met accidentally with Dr. Thomas Coxe, a physician of
some repute at that time, who was attending his brother. The choice of a
profession became the subject of a conversation between them, which
determined him in favour of medicine; for in a letter addressed to Dr.
Mapletoft, thirty years after this time, which forms the preface to one
of his writings, he refers with much warmth to this conversation as the
origin of his professional zeal, and, consequently, of whatever useful
advances he had made in medicine. Thus his success, both in the practice
and reformation of his art, may show the advantage of waiting till the
faculties are fully matured, before they are exercised in a study which
requires independence as well as vigour in thinking: for the
circumstances of his family being sufficiently affluent to place him
above the necessity of choosing a profession early, he had not turned
his attention to physic till an age at which the medical education is
generally almost completed. We are not, however, to believe in the
justice of an accusation brought against him, that he had never studied
his profession till he began to practise it; for though we do not know
what particular line of study he pursued on his return to Oxford, it is
clear from many passages in his works that he had studied the writings
of the ancient physicians with no common care; and as his own show no
defect of acquaintance with whatever real information had been collected
before his time, we may reasonably conclude that this contemporary
censure was mistaken or malicious. He certainly held the opinions of his
modern predecessors in very little respect, for he does not often
mention them, even for the purpose of confutation; and in the letter to
Dr. Mapletoft already referred to, he says that he had found the best,
and, in fact, the only safe guide, through the various perplexities he
had met with in his practice, to be the method of actual observation and
experiment recommended by Lord Bacon. This sentiment is often repeated
in his works; but it surely does not countenance the idea that he had
begun to practise without endeavouring to make what preparation he
could, or would have had others follow such an example; for the charge
against him goes to this length. The notion might arise from a foolish
anecdote related by his admirer, Sir Richard Blackmore, of his having
recommended Don Quixote as the best introduction he knew to the practice
of medicine, which Sydenham must have intended as a jest, or perhaps as
a sarcasm on the narrator himself.
At Oxford he formed a close friendship with John Locke, better known
afterwards as a philosopher than as a physician. Their intimacy, which
lasted to the end of Sydenham’s life, probably contributed not a little
to give form to the disgust which he soon displayed at the
unsatisfactory and fluctuating state of medical opinion, and to the zeal
with which he sought to establish it on surer grounds; for he appeals,
as to the highest authority, in confirmation of some of his new views on
the treatment of fever, to the approval of his illustrious friend, who
even paid him the compliment of prefixing a eulogy in indifferent Latin
verse to the treatise in which these views are developed.
On the 14th of April, 1648, he took the degree of bachelor of medicine,
being then twenty-four years old; and in the same year obtained a
fellowship at All Souls College, by the interest of a relation. The
degree of doctor he subsequently took at Cambridge, where, being among
those who thought with him in politics, he probably found himself more
at his ease. After a visit of some length at Montpellier, then
considered the best practical school of medicine on the continent, he
settled in Westminster, and soon after married.
His progress to eminence in his profession must have been unusually
rapid, which might be owing, in some measure, to the call for men of
good capacity to the more stirring scenes of civil strife; for at
thirty-six he had succeeded in establishing a first-rate reputation,
which he continued to sustain in spite of much hostility and ill-health
for upwards of twenty years.
He witnessed the breaking out of the plague in 1665, but when it reached
the house adjoining his own, he was induced to remove with his family
some miles out of town. Of this desertion of his post, however, he seems
to have repented; for he afterwards returned, and occupied himself
diligently in visiting the victims of that devastating malady, and has
left a short but interesting account of his opinions respecting it, and
of the treatment he adopted; for the comparative success of which, he
appeals to the physicians who had witnessed or followed his practice.
At the age of 25, though a man of remarkably temperate and regular
habits, he became afflicted with gout and stone, from which he suffered
extreme torment with great resignation and patience for the rest of his
life. Of course he did not neglect the opportunity of studying those
diseases in his own person, and recording the result of his
observations. His account of gout, especially, is considered to be a
most accurate and able history of that disease.
He died, leaving a family, at his house in Pall-Mall, on the 29th of
December, 1689, in the 66th year of his age, and was buried in the
parish church of St. James, Westminster, where, in 1810, a tablet was
erected to his memory by the College of Physicians, who became, as a
body, tardily but fully convinced of his extraordinary merit and eminent
claims to the gratitude and respect of his profession.
He is said to have been a man of the most retiring and unobtrusive
disposition, and the utmost placidity of temper. In a biographical
sketch by Dr. Samuel Johnson, prefixed to an English edition of his
works by Swan, in 1742, it is remarked, that if he could not teach us in
his writings how to cure the painful disorders from which he suffered,
he has taught us by his example the nobler art to bear them with
serenity. Nor was he less patient of mental than of bodily inflictions;
for though he was the object of much asperity among the physicians of
his time, he made no reprisals upon the reputations of those who
slandered him: though he often speaks of their bitterness, he never even
mentions their names,—a forbearance to which, as his biographer
pungently remarks, they are indebted for their escape from a
discreditable immortality. His writings breathe throughout a spirit of
warm piety, candour, and benevolence: he is said to have been extremely
generous in his dealings with his patients; for which, with other
reasons, his practice though large was not very gainful, and he did not
leave much wealth behind him. He never was sought after by the great,
like his successor and disciple Radcliffe; and had none of the talents
by which that singular man was able to push his fortune and establish a
kind of professional despotism. Yet, whatever medical skill the latter
evinced seems to have been derived from Sydenham, whose doctrines and
treatment he contrived to bring into a much more early and general
repute in England than they would probably have otherwise obtained. Each
had his reward: the one will be long remembered as the founder of a
magnificent library; the other can never be forgotten as the author of
modern medicine.
The bent of Sydenham’s mind was eminently practical; he thought that the
business of a physician is to acquire an accurate knowledge of the
causes and symptoms of diseases, and the effects of different remedies
upon them, that if he cannot prevent them, he may at least recognise
them with certainty, and apply with promptitude the means most likely to
cure them: with Hippocrates and the ancient empirical physicians, whose
tenets he professed to follow, he condemned all curious speculations
upon the intimate nature of disease, as incapable of proof, and
therefore always useless, and often hurtful; and maintained that the
only trustworthy source of opinion in medicine is experience resulting
from observations frequently repeated, and experiments cautiously
varied; and that no theories worth attention can be framed until the
recorded experience of many observers, under many different
circumstances, and even through successive ages, shall be embodied into
one general system; and he boldly declared his belief that every acute
disease might then be cured. An instance, which unfortunately as yet
stands alone in support of this rather sanguine expectation, may be
taken from the history of small-pox. The observation of its contagious
nature led to the general practice of inoculation, and this to the
immortal discovery of Jenner, by which a disease but yesterday the
scourge of the earth has been almost extinguished. It is remarkable that
Sydenham, who first pointed out the important difference between its
distinct and confluent forms,—who so materially improved the treatment
by changing it from stifling to cooling,—and who studied and has
described it with a laborious accuracy hardly paralleled in the history
of medicine,—was not aware of this, to us, its most striking
characteristic of contagion. A person conversant with such subjects will
feel no surprise at this: to the general reader it may be a sufficient
explanation, that it lies dormant for ten days; and that as it can only
be taken once, and was always prevalent in London, the number of persons
susceptible at any given time, and in obvious communication with each
other, were comparatively few: so that opportunities were not so likely
to arise as might be imagined of tracing its progress in single families
or neighbourhoods from one source of contagion.
Sydenham is justly celebrated for the happiness of his descriptions, and
his skilful application of simple methods of cure, which are as
effectual as they were novel in that age when a medical prescription
sometimes contained a hundred different substances; but he has merit of
a higher kind, as a discoverer of general laws. Among others, he was the
first to notice that there is a uniformity in the fevers prevailing at
any one time, which is subject to periodical changes; and that other
acute diseases often partake largely of the same general character, and
sometimes even merge in it altogether, as the plague is said to have
swallowed up all other diseases. This, which he ascribed to some
peculiar state of the atmosphere, he called its epidemic constitution;
and to be aware of its vicissitudes must of course be very important to
the physician as a guide to practice. The value of these laws, which
Sydenham deduced from a multitude of observations, has been attested by
almost every medical writer since his time.
His works have been repeatedly printed in the original Latin, as well as
in English and the continental languages. The first was published after
he had been sixteen years in practice; the last he edited himself, is
dated three years before his death; and an elegant compendium of his
experience was published posthumously by his son. They all appear to
have been extorted by the importunity of his friends or the
misrepresentations of his enemies. It is said that they were composed in
English, and translated into Latin by his friends Mapletoft and Havers:
there is, however, little reason for attaching credit to this report, as
we are assured, on the authority of Sir Hans Sloane, who knew him well,
that Sydenham was an excellent classical scholar, and perfectly capable
of expressing himself elegantly in Latin. They are most carefully
written and clearly expressed, and bear marks of the utmost truth and
impartiality in the narration of facts, and judgment in arranging them.
They are not voluminous, as he studiously refrained from overloading
them with trivial matter, and from entering into the detail of a greater
number of cases than might be sufficient to illustrate his method of
practice. His object was to confine himself to the results of his own
observation: to this he pretty strictly adhered, so that little space is
occupied in his writings by quotations or criticism. It must be admitted
that he occasionally lapses into theoretical discussion, in violation of
his own principles; but as he seldom or never permitted his fancy to
divert him from what was practically useful, he may be pardoned, if in
that age of speculation he could not entirely resist the seduction. A
graver charge against him is, that he overlooked or undervalued the
immense body of information to be obtained from examining the effects of
diseased actions after death, and devoted himself too exclusively to the
study of the symptoms during life, and the effect of remedies upon them.
It is hardly a sufficient justification of a man of so much independence
of spirit to reply, that such examinations were opposed by the
prejudices of the age in which he lived. Others have overcome the same
obstacles, and with them many of those difficulties which perplexed and
misled even the mind of Sydenham. He had equal or greater difficulties
to contend against in the deep-rooted absurdities of the chemical and
mechanical schools, which in the early part of his life held an almost
equally divided sway in medicine: the former originated with Paracelsus
and his disciples, and had the advantage of a longer prescription; and
the latter had received a fresh accession of strength from the recent
discoveries of Harvey: both, however, gave way before his energetic
appeal to fact and experience. Scarcely less credit is due to him for
his successful opposition to the popular superstition in favour of a
host of futile remedies, which are now happily consigned to oblivion
with the family receipt books and herbals in which their virtues were
paraded, than for his victory over false principles and dangerous rules
of practice.
On the whole, it may be safely advanced that medicine, as a practical
science, owes more to the closely-printed octavo, in which the results
of his toilsome exertions are comprised, than to any other single source
of information.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._
LORD CLARENDON.
_From the Picture in the Bodleian Library, Oxford._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
CLARENDON.
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the third son of Henry Hyde, of Dinton,
Esquire, a younger branch of an ancient family long established in
Cheshire, was born at Dinton, near Salisbury, February 18, 1609. The
most valuable part of his early education he received from his father,
who was an excellent scholar: from his residence at Magdalen Hall,
Oxford, where he entered in 1622, and took his bachelor’s degree in
1625, according to his own account he obtained little benefit. In
February 1627, he was entered at the Middle Temple. At the age of
twenty-one, he married his first wife, who died within six months of
their union. After the lapse of three years he was again married, to the
daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Master of Requests to the King, by
whom he left a numerous family. He was called to the bar in Michaelmas
term, 1633. To the study of law he entertained in the first instance a
strong dislike, and applied himself chiefly to history and general
literature. But from the time of his second marriage he devoted himself
steadily to the pursuit of his profession, in which he early acquired
considerable practice and reputation. His business was, however, more
frequent in the Court of Requests, in the Star Chamber, than in the
courts of common law, and his name rarely appears in the reports of that
period.
Soon after he was called to the bar, Mr. Hyde was concerned in a
transaction of considerable moment, which produced important
consequences in his future life, by introducing him to the favourable
notice of Archbishop Laud. It arose out of certain Custom-House
regulations, by which the London merchants found themselves aggrieved.
The leading men among them applied to Mr. Hyde, who, on finding all
remonstrances with the Lord Treasurer unavailing, advised them to state
their grievances in a petition to the King, which he drew for them. On
the death of the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Portland, the affairs of
the Treasury were placed under the management of several commissioners,
of whom Laud was one. The Archbishop soon found occasion to investigate
the complaint of the merchants; and in consequence he sent for, and held
several interviews with, Mr. Hyde: to whom he became a valuable and
efficient patron, noticing him particularly when he appeared as counsel
in the Star Chamber, and consulting and employing him on many public
occasions.
Laud’s favour introduced Mr. Hyde to the Lord Keeper Coventry, the Earl
of Manchester, then Lord Privy Seal, and other political and legal
characters of high rank, of the court party. With the leaders of the
popular, or country party also he was upon friendly terms, “having,” as
he says, “that rare felicity, that even they who did not love many of
those upon whom he most depended, were yet very well pleased with him
and with his company.”
Upon the summoning of what was called the Short Parliament, which met
April 3, 1640, Mr. Hyde was elected member for Wootton-Basset, and for
Shaftesbury. He chose to take his seat for the former place. His first
and only speech during the session was in the celebrated debate on the
subject of grievances, introduced by a motion of Mr. Pym; on which
occasion Mr. Hyde directed the attention of the house to the enormous
abuses of the Earl Marshal’s Court. Whitelocke says that “he gained much
credit by his conduct in this business.” In the warm debate which took
place in the House of Commons upon the question of a supply, it was
hinted by members of the house connected with the court, that Charles,
upon hearing of their proceedings, would probably dissolve the
parliament in displeasure. Mr. Hyde perceived the injurious tendency of
such a measure, and immediately went from the house to Archbishop Laud,
to entreat him to dissuade the King from so injudicious a course. The
Archbishop heard him as usual with patience, but refused to interfere:
and the Parliament was dissolved in less than three weeks after its
first meeting.
The necessities of the King compelled him to call the Long Parliament in
the following November, of which Mr. Hyde was also a member. The
elections having in general favoured the popular party, the temper of
this parliament was at its commencement decidedly more opposed to the
court than the last. At first, Mr. Hyde, whose familiarity with Laud was
well known, was an object of jealousy and dislike. His conduct as
chairman of the committee appointed to consider the abuses of the Earl
Marshal’s Court, which led to the total abolition of that unauthorized
jurisdiction, and his avowed disapprobation of several obnoxious
branches of the prerogative, restored him in some degree to the good
opinion of the house, while his influence with the moderate party, both
in the court and the parliament, daily increased. Having given up his
professional practice since the beginning of the parliament, he was much
employed in the ordinary business of the house. He was chairman of the
committee appointed to inquire into the legality and expediency of the
courts of the President and Council of the North, commonly called the
Courts of York; and in April, 1641, he was commissioned to communicate
to the House of Lords the resolutions of the Commons against those
courts. The performance of this duty he accompanied by a speech, in
which he explained to the Lords, with much clearness and precision, the
origin and nature of this obnoxious jurisdiction, and which he says in
his History, “met with good approbation in both houses.” In July
following he was chairman of the committee for inquiring into the
conduct of the judges in the case of ship-money; and the management of
the impeachment of the Lord Chief Baron Davenport, Baron Weston, and
Baron Trevor, before the Lords, was afterwards entrusted to him. Upon
this occasion, he delivered an excellent speech, exhibiting, in eloquent
language, the destructive effects of the corruption of the judges upon
the liberty of the subject and the security of property. During the same
year, he appears from the Commons’ journals to have been usually named
on the most important committees both of a public and private nature.
The course adopted by Mr. Hyde with reference to the Earl of Strafford’s
prosecution cannot be precisely ascertained. That he was employed in
arranging the preliminary steps for the impeachment, appears from the
journals; but in his History he does not explicitly declare what part he
took upon the introduction of the bill of attainder. Some of his
biographers state that he warmly opposed it; but no evidence is given in
support of the assertion; and it is quite clear that neither his name,
nor that of Lord Falkland, his political and personal friend, appear
amongst those which were posted as “Straffordians, Betrayers of their
Country,” for having voted against the measure. Though he cordially
acquiesced in many of the measures at this time introduced by the
popular leaders for the redress of grievances, his political opinions,
as well as his ultimate views and intentions, differed widely from those
of the predominant party. He strenuously opposed a bill for depriving
the bishops of their seats in parliament, which passed the House of
Commons, though it was rejected in the House of Lords by a great
majority. In no degree discouraged by this discomfiture, the leaders of
the Puritan party soon afterwards introduced a measure for the total
abolition of episcopacy, known by the title of ‘The Root and Branch
Bill,’ which was read a first time and committed. Mr. Hyde was appointed
chairman of the committee, by common consent of both parties; the one
wishing to get rid of his opposition in the committee, the other to
secure a chairman of their own views. The result proved the latter party
to be in the right; for Hyde contrived so to baffle the promoters of the
measure, that they at last thought proper to withdraw it, Sir Arthur
Haselrig declaring in the house, that “he would never hereafter put an
enemy into the chair.” His conduct respecting this measure was warmly
approved by the King; who before he went to Scotland in 1641, sent for
Mr. Hyde, to express how much he was beholden to him for his services,
“for which he thought fit to give him his own thanks, and to assure him
that he would remember it to his advantage.”
Before the King left Whitehall, in consequence of the tumults occasioned
by his indiscretion in demanding the Five Members, he charged Mr. Hyde,
in conjunction with Lord Falkland and Sir John Colepeper, to consult
constantly together upon the state of affairs in his absence, and to
give him on every occasion their unreserved advice, without which he
declared solemnly that he would take no step in the parliament. Though
much discouraged by the previous conduct of the King respecting the Five
Members, which he had adopted without consulting them, and entirely
against their judgment, they undertook and faithfully executed the
charge imposed upon them; and after the King had left London, they met
every night at Mr. Hyde’s house in Westminster, to communicate to each
other their several intelligences and observations, and to make such
arrangements as they thought best adapted to stay the falling fortunes
of the royal cause.
Mr. Hyde’s good understanding with the leaders of the popular party had
rapidly declined, since his opposition to the proposed measure for
ejecting the bishops from the House of Lords; and after his conduct in
the committee for abolishing episcopacy he was regarded as a declared
enemy, and his nightly consultations with Falkland and Colepeper were
watched with the utmost jealousy. Though his situation at this time was
one of considerable danger, he remained at his post after the King’s
departure to York, and constantly took his seat in the House of Commons.
About the latter end of April, 1642, Mr. Hyde received a letter from the
King, requiring him immediately to repair to him at York; with which
requisition he complied in the course of the next month, having first
rendered a signal service to the royal cause by persuading the Lord
Keeper Littleton to send the Great Seal and also to go himself to the
King. In consequence of this step the House of Commons passed a
resolution, in August, 1642, disabling him from sitting again in that
parliament; and their indignation was raised to such a degree, that Mr.
Hyde was one of the few persons who were excepted from the pardon which
the Earl of Essex was afterwards instructed to offer to those who might
be induced to leave the King and submit to the parliament. On joining
the King at York, Mr. Hyde continued to be one of his most confidential
advisers, and was soon afterwards knighted and made Chancellor of the
Exchequer. In this capacity he negotiated with the parliamentary
commissioners sent to Oxford in 1643; and in 1645 he acted as one of the
King’s commissioners at the treaty of Uxbridge. After the breaking off
of that treaty it was thought expedient to send the Prince of Wales into
the west of England, both to secure his person from the dangers with
which his father was environed, and to give encouragement to the
Royalists in that part of the country. Sir Edward Hyde accompanied him
as one of his council. The parliamentary successes in the west compelled
the Prince to migrate, first to Scilly, thence to Jersey, from which
place he departed into France in July, 1646. Hyde remained in Jersey for
the space of two years, devoting himself wholly to his History of the
Rebellion, which he had commenced in the Scilly Islands, and of which he
completed the four first books at that time. While engaged in this
manner, he received several letters from the King, expressive of his
approbation of his undertaking, and supplying him with a particular
relation of the occurrences which had taken place from the departure of
the Prince until the period of his joining the Scotch army.
In May, 1648, Hyde received the King’s commands to join the Prince of
Wales at Paris. On the way thither, he met Lord Cottington and others at
Rouen, where he learned that the Prince was gone to Holland, and was
ordered to follow him. After many difficulties and dangers, Cottington
and Hyde met their young master at the Hague in the month of August, and
were soon afterwards joined by several other members of the King’s
council.
On the announcement of the execution of his father, Charles despatched
Sir Edward Hyde and Lord Cottington as his ambassadors to Spain. After a
fruitless negotiation of fifteen months, they received a message from
court shortly after the arrival of the news of Cromwell’s victory at
Dunbar, desiring them to quit the Spanish dominions. Hyde then repaired
to Antwerp, where he resided with his wife and family, until, at the end
of 1651, he was summoned to Paris, to meet Charles II., after his
memorable escape from the battle of Worcester. He resided at Paris with
the exiled court for nearly three years, and during this period enjoyed
the unlimited confidence of his master, who left the arduous and
difficult task of corresponding and negotiating with the English
royalists entirely to his management. At this period the exiled
royalists were frequently reduced to great pecuniary distress. The
miserable dissensions and petty jealousies which prevailed among them
are fully described in the History of the Rebellion. At length Charles,
wearied and disgusted by the intrigues and broils which perpetually
disturbed his council, while subject to the interference of the Queen
Mother, determined to leave Paris; and accordingly he quitted that city
in June, 1654, and went to reside at Cologne, Sir Edward Hyde and the
rest of his court still following his humble fortunes. Upon the
execution of the treaty with Spain, Charles removed from Cologne to
Bruges in 1657, and in the course of that year bestowed upon Sir Edward
Hyde the then empty dignity of Lord High Chancellor of England. Soon
after this event the prospects of the Royalists began to brighten. The
government of Cromwell had been for some time growing infirm, in
consequence of domestic dissensions, the exhausted state of the revenue,
and the distrust entertained towards the Protector, who had successively
deceived and disappointed all parties. These seeds of discord were
sedulously cultivated by the English royalists; and at last the death of
that extraordinary man led to a series of events which introduced the
restoration of Charles II.
At the Restoration Sir Edward Hyde was continued as Lord Chancellor; and
notwithstanding the constant hostility of the Queen Mother and her
faction at court, he maintained for some time a paramount influence with
the King, who treated him with the confidence and friendship which his
great industry and talents for business, and his faithful attachment to
himself and his father so well deserved. In November, 1660, he was
raised to the peerage, by the title of Baron Hyde of Hindon in the
county of Wilts, and in the spring of the following year he was created
Viscount Cornbury and Earl of Clarendon. He was also about this time
elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Among the tribes of
expectant cavaliers who now flocked to the court of the restored
monarch, all impatient to obtain something in recompense for their
alleged services and sufferings in the royal cause, these honours and
distinctions bestowed upon the Earl of Clarendon raised a storm of envy
and malice which eventually caused his ruin. The King’s easiness of
access, and, as Lord Clarendon calls it, that “_imbecillitas frontis_,
which kept him from denying,” together with the moral cowardice which
induced him to escape from the most troublesome importunities, by
sending petitioners to the Chancellor for their answers, necessarily
increased the dislike with which he was regarded. The discovery of the
marriage of his daughter to the Duke of York, afterwards James II.,
though it probably took place without the knowledge of the Chancellor,
gave ample opportunity to the malice of his enemies. The King, however,
behaved on this occasion in a manner which did him credit. He not only
required the Duke to acknowledge his wife, on being certified that the
ceremony had been duly performed, but refused with passion the proffered
resignation of the Chancellor, who offered to reside in future beyond
seas, and conjured him “never more to think of those unreasonable
things, but to attend and prosecute his business with his usual
alacrity, since his kindness should never fail him.”
The first open act of hostility against Lord Clarendon was undertaken by
the Earl of Bristol, who, in 1663, exhibited articles of high treason
and other misdemeanors against him in the House of Lords. These
articles, which contained a great variety of vague and inconsistent
charges, were forwarded by the House of Lords to the King, who informed
them, that “he found several matters of fact charged, which upon his own
certain knowledge were untrue; and that the articles contained many
scandalous reflections upon himself and his family, which he looked upon
as libels against his person and government.” Upon a reference by the
House of Lords to the judges, they reported that “the whole charge did
not amount to treason though it were all true;” and upon this the
proceedings were abandoned.
But it was at last the fate of Lord Clarendon to experience the
proverbial ingratitude of princes. From the period of the Restoration a
powerful union of discontented parties had gradually combined against
him. All hated him—the old cavaliers, because they thought he neglected
their just claims upon the bounty of the King; the papists and the
dissenters, because they found him an uncompromising opponent of all
concessions to those whom he regarded as enemies of the established
church; the licentious adherents of an unprincipled court, because his
honest endeavours to withdraw the King from his levity and profligacy to
serious considerations, thwarted their intentions and interrupted their
pleasures. Their united efforts erased from Charles’s mind the
recollection of services of no common value, and caused him to abandon
his best and most faithful counsellor, without having even the
appearance of a reason for his conduct, beyond what he called “the
Chancellor’s intolerable temper.”
The Great Seal was taken from Lord Clarendon in August, 1667; and in the
month of November following, after an angry debate, he was impeached by
the Commons, in general terms, of high treason and other crimes and
misdemeanors; but the Lords, upon the impeachment being carried up,
refused to commit him, or to sequester him from parliament, on the
ground of the generality of the charge. Before the formal articles of
impeachment were prepared, Lord Clarendon left England, in consequence
of repeated messages from the King advising him to take that course,
having previously addressed to the Lords a vindication of his conduct.
Immediately after his departure a bill was introduced into the House of
Lords, and rapidly passed, by which he was condemned to perpetual
banishment, and declared to be for ever incapable of bearing any public
office or employment in England.
The charges made against Lord Clarendon at this time were scarcely less
multifarious and inconsistent than those which were instituted by Lord
Bristol a few years before. He was accused of designing to govern by a
standing army,—of accusing the King of popery,—of receiving bribes for
patents,—of selling offices,—of _acquiring a greater estate than he
could lawfully have gained in a short time_,—of advising the sale of
Dunkirk to the French,—of causing Quo Warrantos to be issued against
corporations in order that he might receive fines on renewals of
charters, and many other particulars of alleged corruption. From most of
these accusations Lord Clarendon vindicated himself in an address
delivered to the House of Lords upon his departure; but during his
retirement at Montpellier, he prepared, and transmitted to his children
in England a fuller apology, in which he answered each article of the
charges objected to him by the Commons.
After some hesitation, Lord Clarendon determined to reside at
Montpellier, where he arrived in July, 1668. He was treated with much
courtesy and respect by the governor of the city, as well as the French
and English inhabitants of all ranks. His first task was to write the
vindication of his conduct above-mentioned. During his retirement he
made himself master of French and Italian, and read the works of the
most eminent writers in both those languages. He also completed his
History of the Rebellion, and wrote an answer to Hobbes’s Leviathan, an
Historical Discourse on Papal Jurisdiction, a volume of Essays, divine,
moral, and political, and also those fragments of his Life, which were
first published by the University of Oxford in 1759. Engaged in these
pursuits he passed nearly three years at Montpellier in great
tranquillity and cheerfulness. He left that city in 1672, and went first
to Moulins, then to Rouen, where he died, December 9, 1673. His remains
were brought to England and interred in Westminster Abbey.
The political conduct of Lord Clarendon, though variously described by
writers of opposite parties, appears to have been generally as
consistent and upright as can reasonably be expected from men of warm
tempers, deeply interested in the most violent civil dissensions. His
earliest impressions were decidedly in favour of the popular party; and
even after he had become familiar with Archbishop Laud, and was
favourably noticed by Charles I., he strenuously supported that party in
the removal of actual grievances, and resisted with zeal and energy the
encroachments of prerogative. That he afterwards refused to join in the
wild and intemperate actions committed by the Parliament, and supported
the royal cause against the continually increasing demands of those with
whom he had previously acted, is not to be ascribed to inconsistency in
his conduct, but to the development of designs and measures at all times
repugnant to his principles. His advice to Charles I. and to Laud was
always temperate and wise, and was given with boldness and candour.
After the Restoration, in the height of his power and influence, he
displayed the same moderation in his opinions and conduct, and acted
upon the same principles of dislike to fundamental changes, which had
influenced him as a member of the Long Parliament. It has been imputed
to Lord Clarendon that he neglected to exert himself for the relief of
those unfortunate cavaliers whose attachment to the King had involved
them in penury and ruin. It is difficult to ascertain the exact truth of
this charge; but, whether true or false, such an accusation was sure to
be made in a case where the applicants for compensation were numerous,
and the means of satisfying them inconsiderable.
In the discharge of the legal functions of his office of Lord
Chancellor, as presiding in the Court of Chancery, he was by no means
distinguished; he promoted some reforms in the practice of his court,
and continued the judicious improvements effected during the
Commonwealth; but Evelyn says “he was no considerable lawyer,” and the
circumstance that he never decided a case without requiring the presence
of two judges is, if true, a sufficient acknowledgment of his judicial
incompetency.
For his judicial appointments Lord Clarendon is entitled to unqualified
praise. Hale, Bridgeman, and other judges of the highest eminence for
learning and independence, were appointed by him immediately after the
Restoration, and contributed in a great degree to give stability and
moral strength to the new government, by the confidence which their
characters inspired in the due administration of the law.
As an historian Lord Clarendon was unquestionably careless and inexact
to a surprising degree, which may in some measure be excused by the
necessity of writing very much from recollection; and he was a perpetual
advocate and partisan of the Royal cause, though by no means of most of
its supporters. But though his narration constantly betrays the bias of
party, and cannot therefore be safely relied upon for our historical
conclusions, his misrepresentations arise from the avowed partiality and
intense concern he feels for the cause he is advocating, and not from
any design to suppress or distort facts. His style is luxuriant and
undisciplined, and his expression in the narrative parts of his history
is diffuse and inaccurate; but his fervent loyalty and the warmth of his
attachment to his political friends have infused a richness of eloquence
into his delineations of character, which has perhaps never been
surpassed in any language.
[Illustration]
[Medal of Clarendon.] [Medal in Commemoration of the
Restoration.]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
_From a Picture by himself in his Majesty’s Collection._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
SIR J. REYNOLDS.
“Sir Joshua Reynolds,” says Burke, “was the first Englishman who added
the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country.”
Without staying to inquire how far the literal truth of this assertion
may be affected by the priority in date of Wilson and Hogarth, not to
mention their less illustrious predecessors, it may safely be affirmed,
not only that Reynolds was the founder of the English school, but that
the most valuable qualities in the art of painting were almost lost
sight of throughout Europe when he began his career. In Holland, the
rich manner of Rembrandt, feebly sustained by his imitators, had been
succeeded by no less opposite a style than that of Vanderwerf; the still
more laboured finish of Denner, a native of Hamburgh, followed; while
the minute perfection which was in vogue found a more legitimate
application in the flower-pieces of Van Huysum. Reynolds was twenty-four
years old at the decease of Denner, who had twice visited London, and
had been much employed there. The French school about the middle of the
last century took its tone from Boucher, a name now almost forgotten,
and if remembered, synonymous with the extreme of affectation; he was
principal painter to Louis XV. The native country of Claude and Poussin
was indeed more illustrious during this time in the department of
landscape, as Vernet produced his views of sea-ports about the period
alluded to; but this example, however respectable, was itself indicative
of a declining taste, and the style of view-painting in the hands of the
foreign artists who practised it in Italy, with the Prussian Hackert at
their head, had the effect of extinguishing for a time all invention in
landscape. The academy at Berlin was under the direction of a Frenchman;
Oeser was the greatest name at Leipzic and Dresden; and the south of
Germany still imported imitations of the latest Italian styles in
fashion. The state of the arts in Spain may be judged of by the fact,
that when, in 1761, Mengs, who was himself a native of Germany, repaired
to Madrid in the service of Charles III., the chief painters established
there were a Venetian and a Neapolitan, Tiepolo and Corrado Giaquinto.
The Venetian school, sometimes entirely losing its original character,
seemed at least to maintain a consistent degeneracy in the styles of
Sebastian Ricci and the above-named Giambattista Tiepolo, both weak and
mannered imitators of Paul Veronese, but still preserving, at least the
latter, some brilliancy of colour and pleasing execution. With Tiepolo
the characteristic merits of the school seem however to have ceased
altogether: towards the latter part of the century, the chief employment
of the Venetian painters was the restoration of old pictures.[2] A
particular school was established in 1778 for this purpose, and a
description of the extraordinary labours of the artists is preserved in
the thirty-eighth volume of Goëthe’s works. In Rome, the talents of
Maratta and Sacchi, and “the great but abused powers of Pietro da
Cortona,” had been succeeded by feebler efforts, descending or
fluctuating through the styles of Cignani, Trevisani, and others, till
the time of Sebastian Conca, and Pompeo Battoni. The last-named was
approaching the zenith of his short-lived reputation, and almost without
a rival (for Mengs was as yet young, and Conca already aged), when
Reynolds visited Rome.
Footnote 2:
It is worthy of remark that about the same time the sculptors in Rome
were as exclusively employed in restoring antique statues.
Laborious detail on the one hand, and empty facility on the other,
formed the distinguishing characteristics of these different schools;
but however opposite in execution, mind was alike wanting in both.
Denner may be considered the representative of the microscopic style; a
style, if it deserves the name, which he applied even to heads the size
of life; and as mere finish never was, and probably never will be
carried to a more absurd length, his name, though comparatively obscure,
marks an epoch in the art. The same scrupulous minuteness obtained about
the same time in landscape; among the view-painters, Hendrick Van Lint,
surnamed Studio, may be named as the most remarkable of his class.
Reynolds alludes to him in one of his discourses, as noted, when he knew
him in Rome, for copying every leaf of a tree. The opposite style, which
aimed at quantity and rapidity, was derived from the expert painters of
galleries and ceilings, called “Machinisti,” and more immediately from
Luca Giordano. Facility and despatch, at the expense of every solid
quality of art, were the characteristics of the school which was
represented in the earlier part of Reynolds’s career, principally by
Sebastian Conca in Italy, and by Corrado Giaquinto in Spain.
The changes which took place in this state of things, towards the latter
part of the century, may be traced partly to the renewed appreciation of
the antique statues (a taste which, however beneficial to sculpture, had
an unfortunate influence on the sister art), and subsequently to
political circumstances. The fluctuations of taste, however deliberately
estimated by retrospective criticism, are indeed generally the result of
accident, and depend on causes but seldom derived from a just definition
of the nature and object of art. It appears, however, that Reynolds,
alone as he was, the founder rather than the follower of a school,
enjoyed the rare privilege of making the taste of his time instead of
being made by it; and although it would be absurd to suppose that he
could be independent of the accidents with which he was brought in
contact, it will not appear, upon a candid inquiry, that this great
artist was in any respect directly influenced by the practice of his
age.
Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton, near Plymouth, in Devonshire, July
16, 1723; he was the son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, who taught the
grammar school of Plympton. The young artist’s fondness for drawing
manifested itself early, and at eight years of age he had become so well
acquainted with the “Jesuits’ Perspective,” as to apply its principles
with some effect in a drawing of his father’s school, a building
elevated on stone pillars. Among other books connected with art to which
he had access, Richardson’s ‘Treatise on Painting’ had a powerful effect
in exciting his ambition. The earliest known picture he attempted is a
portrait of the Rev. Thomas Smart, who was the vicar of Maker, the
parish in which Mount Edgecumbe is situated. Reynolds, then a schoolboy
about twelve years of age, sketched the portrait of the vicar at church,
and afterwards copied it on canvass. This picture is now in the
possession of John Boger, Esq., of East Stonehouse near Plymouth. The
taste of the young painter becoming every day more decided, his father,
urged by the advice of some friends, placed him at the age of seventeen
as a pupil with Hudson, who had at that time the chief business in
portrait painting, although a very indifferent artist. In 1743 Reynolds
returned to Devonshire, in consequence of a disagreement with his
master, and set up as a portrait painter in the town of Plymouth Dock,
since called Devonport. He here painted various portraits, chiefly of
naval officers. One of these works, containing the portraits of Mr. and
Mrs. Eliot and family, is in the possession of the Earl of St. Germains.
The composition of this picture, the artist’s first attempt at a group,
approaches the pyramidal form, and Reynolds, after contemplating it when
finished, observed, ‘I see I must have read something about a pyramid,
for there it is.’ Six other pictures of the artist are preserved in the
same collection, at Port Eliot in Cornwall. An admirable picture of a
boy reading by a reflected light was also executed about this time. Many
interesting works of Reynolds, some of them belonging to his earlier
practice, are preserved in the immediate neighbourhood of Plymouth, in
the collections of the Earl of Morley, Mr. Pole Carew of Antony, Mr.
Rosdew of Beechwood, Mr. Lane of Coffleet, and others. The artist’s
early works, although sometimes carelessly drawn, are distinguished by
breadth of colour, by freedom of handling, and not unfrequently by great
truth of expression: in short, he seems to have contracted none of the
defects of Hudson, except, according to some of his biographers, a
certain stiffness and sameness in the attitudes of his portraits;
defects which he afterwards exchanged for such grace, spirit, and, above
all, endless variety, that it was said “his inventions will be the
future grammar of portrait painters.” The earliest portrait he painted
of himself is in the collection of Mr. Gwatkin of Plymouth, who married
a niece of Reynolds: the same gentleman also possesses the last portrait
of the artist by himself, together with many other interesting specimens
of his pencil. In 1747 Reynolds repaired again to London, and took
lodgings in St. Martin’s Lane, then and long afterwards the favourite
residence of artists. In 1749 he sailed to the Mediterranean, by the
invitation, and in the company of Captain (afterwards Lord) Keppel.
Reynolds spent two months in Minorca, where he painted several portraits
of military and naval officers, and proceeded thence, by way of Leghorn,
to Rome.
He was fully alive to the sources of inspiration which this city of the
arts contained. In the midst of his enthusiasm, however, he was secretly
humiliated by discovering in himself an absence of all relish for the
grand works of Raffaelle in the Vatican. Richardson had inspired him
with the most exalted admiration of Raffaelle; and whatever may be
supposed, Reynolds could not be entirely unacquainted with the subjects
and designs of the works alluded to. Indeed, in some notes of his own
that have been preserved, he only confesses a feeling of disappointment,
and afterwards says, “In justice to myself, however, I must add, that
though disappointed and mortified at not finding myself enraptured with
the works of this great master, I did not for a moment conceive or
suppose that the name of Raffaelle, and these admirable paintings in
particular, owed their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of
mankind: on the contrary, my not relishing them, as I was conscious I
ought to have done, was one of the most humiliating circumstances that
ever happened to me. I found myself in the midst of works executed upon
principles with which I was unacquainted; I felt my ignorance, and stood
abashed; all the indigested notions of painting which I had brought with
me from England, where art was in the lowest state it had ever been in
(indeed it could not be lower), were to be totally done away and
eradicated from my mind.” The union of candour and docility with good
sense, which the above account evinces, was the means of emancipating
Reynolds from the taste or fashion of the day. Instead of enrolling
himself among the scholars of Pompeo Battoni, as he was strongly
recommended to do before his departure from England by his kind patron
Lord Edgecumbe, he endeavoured during the practice of his art to
penetrate the principles on which the great works around him,
particularly those of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, were produced. His
general theory will be found embodied in his writings, and if his
principles sometimes appear to be pushed too far, we may perhaps
attribute it to the wish to counteract certain prevailing errors among
his contemporaries. It is a general notion that, considering the
difference in style between the paintings of Reynolds and those of the
great models he professes to admire (Michael Angelo received his more
especial homage), he could not have been sincere in acknowledging so
thorough a conviction of their excellence. To decide fairly on this
difficult and often-discussed point, it is necessary to remember the
state of the arts when Reynolds formed his style. The great vice of the
age was a routine practice, seldom informed by any reference to the
general nature of the art, and as little remarkable for a just
discrimination of its various styles. In such a state of things it
cannot excite surprise that a sagacious and unprejudiced mind, in
endeavouring to retrace the leading principles of the art, should at the
same time see the necessity of modifying them in their application to a
particular, and in some respects a limited, department. As portrait
painting, the imitation of individuals, was to be Reynolds’s chief
occupation, it certainly did not occur to him that the abstract
representations of Michael Angelo, or even of Raffaelle, could be fit
models for him to follow, as far as execution was concerned. He saw
however that these masters were probably right even in this respect,
when the dignity and purity of their aim, and when subject, place, and
dimensions are duly considered. His imitation of them therefore began
when he endeavoured to define the end and object of the particular style
of art which he himself professed; and although he soon concluded that
it required a widely different treatment, he failed not to translate, if
we may so say, the causes of the grandeur he admired into the language
which belonged to his own department. What he considered the distinctive
and desirable requisites of portrait painting to consist in, may be best
learnt from his own works. In the first place, the more delicate
refinements of colouring and chiaro-scuro, by no means essential in the
grander and more abstract department of the art, are indispensable where
the imitation is confined to a single and generally a defective person.
It is thus that Rembrandt made up the _sum_ of beauty by the
fascinations of gradation and contrast, while the forms he had to deal
with were often of the most ordinary description. The just imitation of
the colour of flesh, the most beautiful and at the same time the most
nameless hue in nature, has ever been considered the triumph of
imitative art, and confers value and dignity on the _work_ wherever it
is fully accomplished. Again, it must be remembered that the domain of
expression begins with the accidents of form; that it belongs to and
often recommends individuality and redeems deformity; and that its vivid
interest is to be sought less in the abstract personifications of
Michael Angelo, far less in the higher region of beauty which the Greeks
justly placed above the atmosphere of the passions, than in the
varieties of accidental nature. Reynolds seized on the delicacies of
expression as strictly harmonizing with the individual forms he had to
copy: and, while thus adding a charm to his class of art, he became at
the same time the abler portrait painter; for the character and
expression of the individual are the chief points which are demanded.
Lastly, the conduct and execution of his pictures were in strict
conformity with the same principles, and may be said to have been
dictated by the largest view of the nature and means of the art.
In his works the attention is always attracted by the important objects,
or diverted from them, when diverted, only to conceal the artifice which
thus commands the eye of the spectator. It is evident that the general
degree of completeness will depend on that of the principal object; and
assuming that Reynolds’s style of painting a head was sufficiently
elaborate (it is generally less so than Vandyck’s), the _unfinish_ of
the accessories could hardly be otherwise than it is, consistently with
due subordination. The truth of this consistency of style was ultimately
acknowledged, and although so opposite from what had before been in
fashion, and so different in many respects from what the vulgar admire,
the pictures of Reynolds soon won the favour of the public. If the
admiration of his works had any ill effect, it was that it tended to
produce an imitation of the same mode rather than of the same
consistency.
On his return to England in 1752, which has been somewhat anticipated in
the foregoing remarks on his style, Reynolds repaired to his native
county, and painted one or two pictures at Plymouth: perhaps the
earliest of the fine portraits of Mr. Zachary Mudge, Vicar of St.
Andrews, was one of these. He returned to London accompanied by his
sister Frances. For a short time he again occupied lodgings in St.
Martin’s Lane, and produced there the portrait of Giuseppe Marchi, an
Italian whom he had brought home as an assistant. This picture, which
was in the style of Rembrandt, attracted general admiration; and when
his former master Hudson saw it, he exclaimed, stung with jealousy,
“Reynolds, you don’t paint so well as when you left England!” Soon after
this, in consequence of his increased fame and employment, Reynolds took
a house in Great Newport Street, where he resided for some years. The
whole length portrait of Admiral Keppel was the next work of importance
which he produced: it exhibited such powers that it completely
established the fame of the artist, and he was generally acknowledged to
be the greatest painter England had seen since the time of Vandyck. From
this period his career was one of uninterrupted success and improvement;
for his reputation was never greater than at the close of his laborious
life. The detraction which such extraordinary merit soon excited was
compelled to vent itself in attempting to undervalue the department of
art in which he excelled: in consequence of these insinuations, a
defence of portrait painting, from the pen of Dr. Johnson, appeared in
the forty-fifth number of the Idler. Johnson in that essay, after all,
only proved that portrait painting is interesting to a _few_—that in the
hands of Reynolds it was “employed in diffusing friendship, in renewing
tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing
the presence of the dead.” Reynolds himself, however, without forgetting
these important prerogatives, evidently took a more extended view of the
matter; he seems early to have felt that the chief difficulty of
portrait painting (a difficulty perhaps greater than any in the other
branches of art) is to make the representation _generally_ interesting.
It is quite obvious that this end can only be attained (especially as
beauty of form is not always at command) by a high degree of perfection
in all that constitutes the charm of art; for no interest that attaches
itself to the individual pourtrayed, however celebrated, can be so
universal or so independently intelligible as that which arises from a
large and true imitation of nature, to which all are more or less alive.
The perfection of art as applicable to portrait painting, was therefore
Reynolds’s great object, and it was only in subservience to this that he
ventured to introduce what in his hands might be considered a novelty in
this department. That novelty was the historic air he often gave his
portraits, by happy allusions to some important circumstance in the life
of the individual. His consummate knowledge of effect enabled him to do
this by means which never interfere with the mere portrait, a difficulty
which had been in a great measure evaded by preceding painters. It will
be remembered that in most of the portraits even of Titian and Vandyck
the attention is literally confined to the individual pourtrayed (after
all, the subject of the picture), and it was not lightly or
inconsiderately that Reynolds occasionally departed from this judicious
practice. If ever a painter could depend on the mere character and
expression of his heads, to say nothing of the charm of their execution,
Reynolds undoubtedly would have been secure of the public approbation on
those grounds alone; and it was only where historic interest happened to
coincide or to interfere but little with picturesque effect, that he
ventured on the additions alluded to. A better instance perhaps cannot
be given than the portrait of Lord Heathfield (celebrated for his
defence of Gibraltar), in the National Gallery; in the background of
which a cannon pointed downwards indicates, by its angle of depression,
the elevation of the spot where the veteran stands, grasping the keys of
the fortress which he defended so bravely. In his allegorical portraits,
such as Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy, Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic
Muse, &c., Reynolds encountered a much greater difficulty, and it may be
questioned whether any painter who has yet appeared would have succeeded
better. The mixture of real and imaginary beings, of individual and
abstract personifications, the treatment of which would seem to require
so different a style, was so managed by Reynolds as to satisfy, in this
respect, the most fastidious taste. The secret of the greatness of his
style in these subjects, and indeed in most of his portraits, is to be
sought in his colouring, the idea of which is large and general; and
under its dignified influence the individuality of forms and locality of
dress are rendered with all sufficient fidelity without offending. It is
thus we find in many Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch pictures, where the
subject and forms are most homely, an air of refined taste, and even of
grandeur, which seems unaccountable, till we discover that the colouring
is true to the largest idea of nature; and thus, to a certain extent,
the art is raised by raising its characteristic quality. In short, to
return to the question of his imitation of Michael Angelo, we should
find that, keeping the main requisites and attainable excellences of
portrait painting in view, Reynolds contrived to infuse into it as much
elevation as was calculated to improve it without injuring its
character; and when we find that he applied this even to execution, and
that his breadth of manner, his disdain of non-essentials, is evidently
inspired by the same feeling, we shall no longer wonder at his
admiration of the highest style of art, or doubt the sincerity of his
recorded professions on the subject. The very _indirectness_ of his
imitation, in which the whole mystery lies, so sure a proof of his
having penetrated the principle of the great master, establishes his
claim to originality as well as to consummate judgment and taste.
In 1768 the Royal Academy was instituted, and Mr. Reynolds, holding
unquestionably the first rank in his profession, was elected President.
On his elevation to this office he received the honour of knighthood. As
President he delivered to the students and professors those celebrated
discourses, which have reflected so much lustre on his name. Their
excellence in a theoretical point of view, the elegance of their
composition, and on the other hand the apparent contradictions they
sometimes contain, have been the theme of frequent observation and
discussion. The other writings of Sir Joshua are the ‘Tour to Flanders
and Holland,’ consisting of notes on the paintings seen by him in those
countries in the year 1781; ‘Notes on Du Fresnoy’s Poem;’ and three
papers in the Idler. Among the last, the Essay on Beauty was not so
original as is generally supposed, the same theory having been
previously promulgated by the Père Buffier in his ‘Cours des Sciences
par des principes nouveaux. Paris, 1732.’ Among the historical and
mythological pictures produced by Sir Joshua, that of the Infant
Hercules strangling the Serpents, executed in 1786 for the Empress of
Russia, is one of the most considerable: it is pretty closely copied, as
to invention and composition, from a description of an antique painting
of the same subject in Philostratus. This work, so different from the
taste of the Russian painters and connoisseurs, was long treated with
neglect; but in consequence of the enquiries of English travellers it
has lately been cleaned, and placed in the gallery of the Hermitage. It
is said to be in a fine state of preservation, and one of the best works
of Reynolds. The celebrated picture of Ugolino was produced by an
accidental circumstance. The subject was suggested to Sir Joshua by
Goldsmith, or, according to others, by Burke, who was struck with the
expression of an old emaciated head, among the unfinished studies of the
painter, and observed that it corresponded exactly with Dante’s
description of Count Ugolino. The head was inserted in a larger canvas,
and the rest of the composition added. For the Shakspeare Gallery Sir
Joshua painted three pictures,—the Death of Cardinal Beaufort, the
Cauldron Scene in Macbeth, and Puck from Midsummer Night’s Dream. The
designs for the window of the New College Chapel in Oxford are among the
finest of his sacred compositions.
In 1789, finding his eyesight begin to fail, Sir Joshua was compelled to
give up the practice of his art. In December, 1790, he pronounced his
farewell Address at the Royal Academy, and on that occasion repeated and
confirmed, as with his dying voice, his admiration of Michael Angelo.
His infirmities confined him much during the short remaining portion of
his life, and he died at his house in Leicester Fields, February 23,
1792. He was buried in the crypt of the cathedral of St. Paul, near the
tomb of Sir Christopher Wren. The honours of his funeral, as may be
imagined, corresponded with his justly-earned fame; and the day after
his death a well-known eulogium by Burke appeared in the public papers,
so characteristic both of the writer and the great artist to whose
memory it was dedicated, that it was called the panegyric of Apelles,
pronounced by Pericles. It concludes thus:—“His talents of every kind,
powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated by letters, his social
virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes of life, rendered him
the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable
societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit
not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity.
The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general,
and unmixed sorrow.”
For a list of the pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and ample details of
his life, the memoir of him by Northcote, who had been his scholar, may
be consulted; as well as the accounts prefixed to the various editions
of his literary works; and that by Allan Cunningham, in his Lives of the
most eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.
[Illustration: [Sketch for the picture of Mr. Eliot and his family.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by B. Holl._
SWIFT.
_From the Picture in the Bodleian Library, Oxford._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
SWIFT.
Jonathan Swift, by an account in his own handwriting, was the son of an
attorney in the city of Dublin. He was born in 1667. Some doubt has been
felt concerning his origin, in consequence of his own angry or
capricious declaration, when out of humour with Ireland,—“I am not of
this vile country; I am an Englishman;” and Sir William Temple has been
said to be his real father. This piece of scandal, however, is disproved
by circumstances of time and place. Swift was placed at Trinity College,
Dublin, at the age of fourteen. Whether through idleness, or contempt of
the prescribed studies, at the end of four years he could only obtain
his Bachelor’s degree _speciali gratiâ_; a term denoting want of merit.
This disgrace so affected him, that for the following seven years he
studied eight hours a day. In 1688 Sir William Temple, whose lady was
related to Swift’s mother, took him under his protection, and paid the
expenses of his residence at Oxford for a Master’s degree. On quitting
that University, Swift lived with Temple as his domestic companion. To a
long illness contracted during this period in consequence of a surfeit
he ascribed that frequently recurring giddiness which annoyed him
through life, and sent him to the grave deprived of reason.
While under Sir William Temple’s roof, Swift rendered material
assistance in the revision of his patron’s works, and corrected and
improved his own ‘Tale of a Tub,’ which had been sketched out previously
to his quitting Dublin. It was published in 1704. He never avowed
himself its author; but he did not deny it when Archbishop Sharpe and
the Duchess of Somerset, according to some accounts, showed it to Queen
Anne, and thereby debarred him from a bishopric. From Temple’s
conversation Swift much increased his political knowledge; and his early
impressions were naturally in favour of the Whigs: but he suspected his
patron of neglecting to provide for him, from a desire of retaining his
services. This produced a quarrel, and the friends parted in 1694. Swift
took orders, and obtained a prebend in the north of Ireland; but at
Temple’s earnest request he soon resigned that preferment, and returned
to England. A sincere reconciliation took place, and they lived together
in the utmost harmony till Sir William’s death in 1699. Swift, in
testimony of his esteem, wrote ‘The Battle of the Books,’ of which his
friend is the hero; and Temple by his will left him a legacy in money,
and the profit as well as care of his posthumous works. Swift had
indulged hopes, not without good reason, of being well provided for in
the English church, through Temple’s interest. Failing in these hopes,
he accepted the post of private secretary and chaplain to the Earl of
Berkeley, on the appointment of that nobleman to be one of the Lords
Justices of Ireland. By this new patron he seems to have been ill used.
He was soon displaced from his post, on the plea of its unfitness for a
clergyman. He was then promised the rich deanery of Derry; but that
preferment was bestowed on another person, and Swift could only procure
the livings of Laracor and Rathbeggin, which together did not amount to
more than half the value of the deanery. During his residence at
Laracor, he performed the duties of a parish priest with punctuality and
devotion, notwithstanding some occasional sallies of no very decorous or
well-timed humour, which coupled with the suspicions founded on the
anonymous ‘Tale of a Tub,’ fixed on him an imputation of insincerity in
his Christian profession, from which the opinion of posterity seems to
have absolved him.
During his incumbency at Laracor, he invited to Ireland a lady with whom
he became acquainted while with Sir William Temple. She was the daughter
of Temple’s steward, whose name was Johnson. About the year 1701, at the
age of eighteen, she went to Ireland, to reside near Swift, accompanied
by Mrs. Dingley, a lady fifteen years older than herself. Miss Johnson
was Swift’s celebrated Stella. Whether Swift’s first impulse in giving
this invitation had a view to marriage, or the cultivation of friendship
only, is uncertain. His whole conduct with respect to women was most
mysterious: apparently highly capricious, and, whatever might be its
secret motive, utterly unwarrantable. The reason assigned by the two
ladies for transferring their residence to Ireland was, “that the
interest of money was higher than in England, and provisions cheap.”
Every possible precaution was taken to prevent scandal: Swift and Miss
Johnson did not live together, nor were they ever known to meet except
in presence of a third person. Owing to this scrupulous prudence, the
lady’s fame, during fifteen years, was never questioned, nor was her
society avoided by the most scrupulous. In 1716 they were privately
married, but with no change in their mode of life: she never lodged in
the Deanery, except during those fits of giddiness and approaching
mental aberration, during which a woman, then of middle age, might
venture without breach of decorum to nurse an elderly man.
In 1701 Swift had published his ‘Dissensions in Athens and Rome;’ his
first political work, in behalf of King William and his ministers,
against the violent proceedings of the House of Commons. According to
Lord Orrery, from that year to 1708 he did not write any political
pamphlet; but he made frequent journeys to England during the whole of
Queen Anne’s reign. Between 1708 and 1710 he changed his politics,
worked hard against the Whigs among whom he had been educated, and
plunged into political controversy, with a view to open the road to
power for the Tories. The year 1710 produced the ‘Examiner,’ of which he
wrote thirty-three papers. In that year commenced his acquaintance with
Harley, who introduced him to St. John and the rest of the ministers. At
this period he dined every Saturday at Harley’s, with the Lord Keeper,
Mr. Secretary St. John, and Lord Rivers, to the exclusion of all other
persons. He may, therefore, be considered at this time as the
confidential friend of the ministry, and almost a member of their
cabinet. The company was afterwards enlarged to sixteen, including
Swift; all men of the first class in society. He now put forth all his
strength in support of the Tory party, in pamphlets, periodical papers,
and political poems. Amidst all this political agitation, he wrote down
the occurrences of every day, whether consisting of conferences with
ministers, or quarrels with his own servant, in a regular journal to
Stella.
In 1712, ten days before the meeting of parliament, he published a
pamphlet, entitled ‘The Conduct of the Allies,’ to facilitate peace, on
which the stability, almost the personal safety of the ministers, seemed
to depend. He professes that this piece cost him much pains, and no
writer was ever more successful. A sale of eleven thousand copies in two
months was in those days unprecedented: the Tory members in both houses
drew their arguments from it, and the resolutions of parliament were
little more than a string of quotations. During that year and the next
he continued to exert himself with unwearied diligence. In 1713 he
carried to the then latest date the first sketch of the ‘History of the
last four Years of Queen Anne.’ Lord Bolingbroke, when called on for his
opinion, was sincere enough to speak of it as “a seasonable pamphlet for
the administration, but a dishonour to just history.” Swift himself was
proud of it, but professed his willingness to sacrifice it to his
friend’s opinion. It was, however, published, but with no addition to
the author’s fame.
The Queen is said to have intended to promote him to a bishopric; but
the story is involved in obscurity. That Archbishop Sharpe had dissuaded
her from so doing by representing his belief in Christianity as
questionable, is not ascertained by any satisfactory evidence; but
whether that were so or not, Johnson’s suggestion seems probable, that
the difficulty arose from those clerical supporters of the ministry,
“who were not yet reconciled to the author of the ‘Tale of a Tub,’ and
would not, without much discontent and indignation, have borne to see
him installed in an English cathedral.” The deanery of St. Patrick, in
Dublin, was therefore offered to him, and he accepted it. With high
pretensions to independent equality with the ministers, and a
disinterested support of their measures, it cannot be doubted that he
viewed this Irish preferment as a sentence of exile, and was bitterly
disappointed. But his temper was too intractable to submit to play the
part of a courtier; and it is probable that his English friends were not
ill pleased to promote him to competence and dignity at a distance. His
feelings are characteristically expressed in one of his letters: “I use
the ministry like dogs, because I expect they will use me so. I never
knew a ministry do anything for those whom they made companions of their
pleasures; but I care not.”
He had indeed little reason to rejoice at first in the land where his
lot had fallen: on his arrival in Ireland to take possession of his
deanery, he found the country under the strongest excitement of party
violence. The populace looked on him as a Jacobite, and threw stones at
him as he walked the streets. His chapter received him with reluctance,
and thwarted him in whatever he proposed. Ordinary talents and firmness
must have sunk under such general hostility. But the revolutions of the
Dean’s life were strange; and he, who began with the hatred of the Irish
mob, lived to govern them with the authority of a despot.
He had not been in Ireland more than a fortnight when he returned to
England for the purpose of attempting, but in vain, a reconciliation
between the Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke. While in England, he wrote his
‘Free Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs.’ He was probably still
watching the issues of time or chance; but the Queen’s death sealed his
political and clerical doom, and he returned to Ireland. To the interval
between 1714 and 1720 Lord Orrery ascribes ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ His
mind was at this time much engrossed by a remarkable circumstance. He
had formed an intimacy in England with the family of a Dutch merchant,
named Vanhomrigh. The eldest daughter, strangely enough, became
enamoured of Swift’s mind, for it could not be of a most homely person,
nearly fifty years of age. She proposed marriage: this he declined, and
wrote his poem of ‘Cadenus and Vanessa’ on the occasion. On her mother’s
death, the young lady and her sister followed him to Ireland; the
intercourse was continued, and the proposal renewed on her part. This it
was absolutely necessary to decline, as the Dean was already married;
but he lived with Stella on the same distant footing as before, and was
reluctant either to inflict pain, or to forego his own pleasure, by an
avowal of the insuperable obstacle. Vanessa continued to receive his
visits, but so guardedly as not absolutely to forfeit her good name. She
became however more and more urgent; and peremptorily pressed him to
accept or reject her as his wife. Failing to obtain a direct answer, she
addressed a note to Miss Johnson, desiring to know whether she were
married to him, or not. Stella sent this note to Swift, who in a
paroxysm of anger rode to Vanessa’s house, threw a paper containing her
own note on the table, and quitted her without a word. This blow she did
not survive many weeks. She died in 1723, having first cancelled a will
in the Dean’s favour.
Vanessa by will ordered her correspondence with Swift to be published,
as well as ‘Cadenus and Vanessa,’ in which he had proclaimed her
excellence and confessed his love. The letters were suppressed; the poem
was published. This, whether meant as an apology for herself, or as a
posthumous triumph over her more successful rival, occasioned a great
shock and distress both to Stella and the Dean. It is said that at
length, probably as a softening to the mortification incident to the
public discovery of his passion for Vanessa, he desired that Stella
might be publicly owned as his wife; but her health was rapidly
declining. She said, perhaps petulantly, “It is too late,” and insisted
that they should continue to live as before. To this the Dean consented,
and allowed her to dispose of her fortune, by her own name, in public
charity. She died in 1727.
By Stella’s death Swift’s happiness was deeply affected. He became by
degrees more misanthropic, and ungovernable in temper; and more miserly
in his personal habits, while at the same time he devoted to charity a
large part, it is said one-third, of his income. In 1736 his deafness
and giddiness became alarming, and his mental powers gradually declined.
In 1741 his friends found it necessary that guardians should be
appointed over his person and estate. In 1742 his reason was entirely
overthrown; he became lethargic and, except at short intervals,
speechless. On the 30th of November his housekeeper told him that the
customary preparations were making to celebrate his birthday: he found
words to answer, “It is all folly; they had better let it alone.” He
died the latter end of October, 1745; in his seventy-eighth year. With
the exception of some few legacies, he left his fortune, amounting to
about twelve thousand pounds, to the building of an hospital for idiots
and lunatics.
The extent and variety of Swift’s writings render it necessary to
confine our notice to two or three of his most curious productions. Of
the ‘Tale of a Tub,’ which, being regarded as an attack upon all
religion, brought down a weight of censure on the author, against which
he protested in the preface to a later edition, Dr. Johnson says that
“it has little resemblance to his other pieces. It exhibits a vehemence
and rapidity of mind, a copiousness of images, and vivacity of diction,
such as he afterwards never possessed or never exerted. It is a mode so
distinct and peculiar, that it must be considered by itself; what is
true of that is not true of anything else which he has written. In his
other works is found an equable tenor of easy language, which rather
trickles than flows.”
‘Gulliver’s Travels’ are now probably better known to the public than
any other of his productions. That work is a moral and political
romance, exhibiting a wonderful specimen of irregular genius. Not only
are human actions placed in the most unfavourable light, but human
nature itself is libelled. His wayward temper and his ill-concealed
disappointment had put him out of conceit with the world; misanthropy
had made some inroad into his heart, and, with his pen in his hand, he
indulged in the expression of it with affected exaggeration. But however
offensive to good feeling the satire might be, the imagination and wit
which pervade this extraordinary work will always attract some readers,
while the simple, circumstantial air of truth with which such
extravagant fictions are related is a source of amusement to less
refined tastes.
Neither are the ‘Drapier’s Letters,’ written in 1724, less remarkable,
although the temporary nature of the subject has divested them of all
interest, except as samples of the powers of his mind and the character
of his style. Lord Orrery calls them “those brazen monuments of his
fame.” A patent had been taken out by one Wood for a copper coinage for
Ireland, to the amount of one hundred and eighty thousand pounds in
halfpence and farthings, by which the projector, at least as was alleged
by the opponents of the ministry, would have gained exorbitant profit,
and the nation would of course have incurred proportionate loss. The
Dean, in the character of a Drapier, wrote a series of letters, exposing
the folly and mischief of giving gold and silver for a debased coin
probably not worth a third of its nominal value. He urged the people to
refuse this copper money; and the nation acted on the Drapier’s advice.
The government took the alarm at this seditious resistance to the King’s
patent, and offered three hundred pounds reward for the discovery of the
author of the fourth letter; but his precautions were so well taken, and
his popularity so universal, that, though known to be the author, the
proclamation failed to touch him. The popular indignation rose to such a
height that Wood was compelled to withdraw his patent, and the base
money was totally suppressed. From this time forward the Dean, who at
his first arrival in Ireland had been most unpopular, possessed
unlimited influence; he was consulted on all measures of domestic
policy; persons of all ranks either courted or feared him; national
gratitude was expressed by all ranks in their various ways; the Drapier
was a toast at every convivial meeting, and the sign of his head insured
custom to an ale-house.
His letters are remarkable for the pure English of their style: there is
little of solid information to be derived from them; but the most
trifling anecdotes of distinguished men find ready acceptation with a
large class of readers.
As a poet, in the higher sense of the word, we rank Swift’s claims to
honour very humbly. But he possessed uncommon power of correct, easy,
and familiar versification; which, with his racy vein of humour, will
secure him admirers among those who can pardon his offensive grossness.
Delany, an Irishman to the backbone, gives the following character of
him: “No man ever deserved better of any country, than Swift did of his;
a steady, persevering, inflexible friend; a wise, a watchful, and a
faithful counsellor, under many severe trials and bitter persecutions,
to the manifest hazard both of his liberty and fortune.” With respect to
his conversation and private economy some particulars may be worth
mentioning. His rule never to speak more than a minute at a time, and to
wait for others to take up the conversation, it were well if professed
talkers would adopt. He excelled in telling a story, but told the same
too often; an infirmity which grew on him, as it does on others, in
advancing life. He was churlish to his servants, but in the main a kind
and generous master. He was unceremonious and overbearing, sometimes
brutal; but in company which he respected, not coarse, although his
politeness was in a form peculiar to himself. He considered wealth as
the pledge of independence; but his frugality towards the close of his
life amounted to avarice. As we have represented some features of his
character in no very amiable light, we will conclude with an anecdote
which shows the kindly portion of his nature to advantage. In the high
tide of his influence, he was often rallied by the ministers for never
coming to them without a Whig in his sleeve: whatever might have been
his expectations from the unsolicited gratitude of his party, he never
pressed his own claims personally; but he often solicited favours from
Lord Oxford in behalf of Addison, Congreve, Rowe, and Steele. Personal
merit rather than political principles directed his choice of friends.
His intimacy with Addison was formed when they used to meet at the
parties of Lord Halifax or Lord Somers, who were leaders of the Whigs;
but it continued unabated when the Tories had gained the ascendency.
Swift’s works have gone through many editions in various forms. The
latest and best is that of Sir Walter Scott. That man must be considered
fortunate in his biographers, of whom memoirs have been handed down,
with more or less detail, by Lord Orrery, Dr. Delany, Dr. Hawkesworth,
Dr. Sheridan, Dr. Johnson, and Sir W. Scott.
[Illustration: [Gulliver in Lilliput, from a Design by Stothard.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
LOCKE.
_From the original Picture by Sir G. Kneller in the Hall of Christ
Church, Oxford._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
LOCKE.
John Locke was born August 29, 1632, at Wrington, a village of
Somersetshire, about eight miles from Bristol. He was the eldest of two
sons of John Locke, a man of some property, who had been bred to the
law, but became afterwards a captain under Cromwell. In those turbulent
times he met with losses which diminished his fortune, and he left an
inconsiderable inheritance to his son. Locke received his education at
Westminster School, and Christ Church, Oxford. While an undergraduate he
was chosen to write a welcome on the occasion of a visit which Cromwell
paid to that University, just after the conclusion of his peace with the
Dutch. This he did in a laudatory copy of verses in English and Latin,
comparing the great Protector to Julius for warlike, and to Augustus for
peaceful, accomplishments. This and some Latin verses, prefixed to a
work of Sydenham’s, are Locke’s only poetical attempts. There is little
merit in either. He was a great admirer of the meagre verse of Sir
Richard Blackmore, which is no great evidence of his poetical taste.
Between the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts he was elected
Student of his college. From that time he applied himself diligently,
for many years, to the study of medicine, without, however, practising
it as a matter of gain. The weakness of his health probably gave this
turn to his thoughts: his brother died of consumption; and he himself
was apprehensive through life of falling a victim to the same disease.
In 1664 he went abroad as secretary to Sir W. Swan, envoy to the court
of Brandenburg; and on his return to Oxford the year following, he
applied himself to the discovery of the effects of the air on the human
frame. His first work, published in 1667, was a register of the
variations in the atmosphere, determined between certain periods by the
common instruments, as a supplement to a work by Boyle.
He was amusing himself with such enquiries, when one of the slight but
important accidents of life brought him an acquaintance, whose influence
determined his future course. A friend, being obliged to take a journey,
desired Locke to make his excuses to Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl of
Shaftesbury) for not having procured for him some mineral waters against
his arrival in Oxford. When Lord Ashley did arrive, Locke carried this
message to him. They were mutually pleased with each other, and this
acquaintance speedily grew up into a strict friendship. Locke’s advice
determined Lord Ashley to submit to a surgical operation, by which, it
is said, the life of the patient was saved; and he was received into the
house, and practised his profession in the family and amongst a few
private friends of his noble patron. While living in this way, his
thoughts were turned into the channel of politics by the advice of his
new associates; and, taking up that study earnestly, he was soon able to
advise and assist Ashley in all his plans of state, becoming at the same
time the referee of his private affairs. This warm friendship is
singular, considering the purity of Locke’s life, and the notoriously
bad character, public and private, of his noble patron. But the latter
was an eloquent orator, and an admirable talker; and it was probably
this latter quality which attached Locke so much. He had so great an
esteem for good conversation, as to give it a first place in the
formation of a man’s mind, calling books the raw material, and social
talk, with meditation, the true architects of our mental constructions.
In 1668 Locke attended the Earl and Countess of Northumberland to
France. But some accident caused him soon to return to his old residence
with Shaftesbury, for whom he drew up the fundamental laws of Carolina,
which had just been granted to him and other lords. Two of the articles
of this settlement gave great offence to the clergy, and were expunged.
They are remarkable, and should be mentioned. One was, “That no man that
doth not acknowledge a God, and that God publicly worshipped, should be
a freeman or inhabitant of Carolina.” The other was a proposition, that
any seven persons agreeing in a form of worship should be esteemed a
church, and be supported by the state. The Church of England, however,
was alone established in that colony. In 1671 Locke began to form his
great Essay on the Human Understanding; but his engagements with
Shaftesbury prevented its immediate completion. The year following, his
patron becoming Chancellor, Locke was made secretary of presentations,
which office he speedily lost on the partial disgrace of the Earl, who,
still remaining President of the Board of Trade, appointed him secretary
to a commission of inquiry into the state of trade, and the colonial
plantations. This office he also lost in the same manner, upon Lord
Shaftesbury’s total disgrace in 1674.
Having retained his studentship, Locke then retired to Oxford, partly
for his health’s sake, and partly to pursue his old medical studies. He
took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine in this year. It appears that he
continued to pay some attention to these studies until an advanced age:
for in 1697 he communicated to the Royal Society the history of a
curious case which he had seen at the great hospital of La Charité,
during his residence in Paris. In 1675, in hope of obtaining relief from
an asthmatical complaint, he went to Montpellier. There was also another
reason for this journey. He had just published an anonymous pamphlet for
Shaftesbury, blaming the conduct of the House of Lords in the matter of
the Test Act, containing a vehement abuse of the bishops, and of what he
called their favourite doctrine, “the divine right” of kings and
priests. This pamphlet does not appear in the folio edition of his
works; it was anonymous, like most of his other productions. The odium
consequent upon it made his absence from England expedient, if not
necessary. During his stay abroad Locke kept a journal of what he saw,
did, and thought. In it we find the heads of many of his future works,
which are very concise and valuable; but the narrative is dry, and the
attempts at humour not very successful: he seems however to have been as
observant of what relates to the external world, as he was of the
intellectual. In 1679, Shaftesbury, on being made President of the
Council, summoned Locke to England. But the old statesman’s favour was
short lived: he was committed to the Tower in July, 1681, and soon after
his release, retired to Holland, where he died in January, 1683. Locke
accompanied him, and continued his faithful services until death. For
seventeen years he had been Shaftesbury’s constant partizan and adviser;
and the odium attached to that nobleman clung to himself, and prevented
his return to England for many years. In 1683 he was reported by the
English envoy at the Hague to be on terms of intimacy with the
malcontents in Holland; upon which the secretary (Sunderland) wrote to
Dr. Fell, the Dean of Christ Church, ordering his expulsion from
college. This mandate was not immediately complied with: the Dean
declared that for many years he had watched the conduct of Locke, and
even tried to entrap him into an exposure of his political sentiments,
but had always found him too wary. He allowed Locke time to come and
defend himself, which he would not do, and then expelled him from his
studentship.
On the accession of James II., William Penn, the quaker of Pennsylvania,
being in some favour with the King, would have procured a pardon for
Locke, but he refused the offer, through a friend, as having been guilty
of no crime. In May, 1685, the English ambassador demanded him of the
States-General, of the pretext that he was concerned in the unsuccessful
expedition of the Duke of Monmouth. It is supposed that he owed this bad
turn partly to the malice of the envoy himself, as his name did not
appear in the list of those required which was sent from England. He
neither liked the person nor the invasion of the duke, and was at
Utrecht when the armament of that unfortunate nobleman sailed from the
Texel. Locke was not given up, but was obliged to hide himself for about
a year in the house of his friend M. Veen, at Amsterdam, receiving
assurance from the local authorities that timely warning should be given
him of pressing danger. He was obliged to conceal himself so closely as
only to take his exercise during the night. It is probable that the real
cause of this persecution was his first letter on Toleration, written in
Latin about this time, and addressed to his friend Limborch, the
sentiments of which were peculiarly offensive to the English court.
Locke had now time to attend to his own affairs, being no longer taken
up with those of a patron. He busied himself in the completion of his
Essay concerning Human Understanding, which was not, however, printed
till 1689. The extracting of passages from various works for reviewal in
Le Clerc’s literary journal, the Bibliothèque Universelle, the formation
and continuation of a small society for the weekly discussion of all
subjects, the members of which were his friends Le Clerc, Limborch,
Guenelon, and others, and the abridgment of his Essay, served to fill up
his time during the remainder of his stay in Holland. In 1689 he
published a second letter on Toleration, and early in the same year
returned to his native country in the fleet which conducted the Princess
of Orange to the throne of England. The Revolution had completely
changed the face of affairs in Locke’s favour; he was considered a
martyr to its principles, and was esteemed accordingly by its authors.
On his return he immediately petitioned William to cause him to be
reinstated in his studentship; but the College refused to restore him,
offering at the same time to make him a supernumerary student. This he
would not accept; because he felt it not to be a full reparation of the
injustice he had suffered. He allowed the matter to drop.
If Locke had been ambitious, his path to political advancement was now
open. William offered him the ambassadorship to the Imperial Court, or
to that of Brandenburg. He refused both these high appointments; but
accepted a Commissionership of Appeals from his friend Lord Mordaunt,
afterwards Earl of Peterborough. This office was worth only £200 a year.
His friends Sir Francis and Lady Masham (a daughter of the celebrated
Cudworth) prevailed on him to take apartments in their house at Oates in
Essex; between which place and his office in London he spent the
remainder of his life. In 1690 Locke published his Treatise on Civil
Government. The folio edition of his Essay, and a Letter on Education,
appeared in the latter part of the same year. In 1692 he produced a
third Letter on Toleration. The state of the coinage being a subject of
great importance at that time, he took it into consideration, and
published ‘Certain Thoughts on the State of English Silver Money, &c.,’
in a letter to a member of parliament. This treatise was thought so
good, that when the matter was inquired into by the government, Locke
was consulted, and his advice taken with respect to the new coinage. In
consequence of this important assistance, he received from William III.
a Commissionership of Foreign Trade and Plantations, the value of which
was £1000 a year. The King was exceedingly desirous of a comprehension
with the dissenters, and to forward his views Locke wrote his
‘Reasonableness of Christianity.’ This book involved him in a religious
controversy with Dr. Edwards, who attacked its opinions in his ‘Socinian
Unmasked,’ to which Locke replied by two vindications, each of them
longer than the original work. No sooner had he finished this labour
than he was called upon to encounter a fresh and more able antagonist.
Toland and some other Unitarians having turned to their own use some of
the arguments in Locke’s Essay, Dr. Stillingfleet, the learned Bishop of
Worcester, confounded Locke with that party. In his defence of the
doctrine of the Trinity the Bishop severely censured various passages of
Locke’s great work, as tending to subvert some of the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity; Locke replied, and there was an alternation
of answers between them till the Bishop’s death. That event took place
soon after Locke’s third answer, which was the last thing he ever
published. These replies of Locke are reputed to be most finished
specimens of a grave and subtle irony, too refined perhaps to be
generally perceived by the uninitiated eye.
In 1700 Locke’s weak state of health induced him to retire from public
life. He resigned his situation in a personal interview with the King,
giving no previous notice of his intention to the conductors of the
government, and refusing the pension which his master wished him to
accept. He took up his residence at Oates, where he passed the remainder
of his life in reading and contemplating the Scriptures. He often
regretted that he had not more occupied himself in this study. The piety
of his latter years was without formality or ostentation, not arising
from that sense of disappointment, or irksomeness for want of
employment, which often leads men to seek refuge in a late devotion.
Neither Locke’s mental nor bodily senses failed him to his last moments,
though the year before his death was passed in extreme weakness. On
taking the sacrament he declared “that he was in peace with all men, and
in sincere union with the Church of Christ, by whatever name
distinguished.” The affectionate attentions of Lady Masham softened the
pain of his last illness, and he died gently in his chair while she was
reading to him one of the Psalms of David, October 28, 1704, in his
seventy-third year. He died, unmarried, from the natural decay of an
originally weak constitution. He was buried in the churchyard at High
Laver, near Oates, under a decent monument. His epitaph had been written
some years before, by himself, in Latin[3]. He left behind him many
unpublished works, among which his ‘Conduct of the Understanding’ stands
highest. ‘An Examination of Malebranche’s opinion of seeing all things
in God; ‘A Discourse of Miracles;’ part of a fourth letter on the
subject of Toleration; some imperfect memorial sketches of the life of
the Earl of Shaftesbury; a new method for a commonplace-book; and
paraphrases of several of the epistles of St. Paul, make up the list of
his posthumous works, almost all of which were translated into French by
Le Clerc and others, and appeared (together with those published by
himself) in three folio volumes, not many years after his death. A great
many of his letters to his friends Molyneux and Limborch are also
published in this edition. There remain many more which have been given
to the world by various hands, addressed to the Earl of Peterborough,
Dr. Mapletoft, &c., and to Newton. In Lord King’s life of Locke his
correspondence with the latter is given at full length, and is very
curious,—chiefly relating to subjects they were both engaged in, the
prophecies and miracles.
Footnote 3:
“Siste, viator; juxta situs est J. L. Si qualis fuerit rogas,
mediocritate suâ contentum se vixisse respondet. Literis innutritus
eousque tantum profecit ut veritati unicà studeret. Hoc ex scriptis
illius disce; quæ, quod de eo reliquum est, majori fide tibi
exhibebunt, quam epitaphii suspecta elogia. Virtutis si quas habuit,
minores sane quam quas sibi laudi, tibi in exemplum proponeret. Vitia
una sepeliantur. Morum exemplum si quæras, in evangelio habes
(vitiorum utinam nusquam), mortalis certè quod prosit hic et ubique.
Natum . . . . Mortuum . . . . Memorat hac tabula brevi et ipsa
interitura.”
That which has assured to Locke imperishable fame is the ‘Essay
concerning Human Understanding.’ This great work, however, met with
considerable obloquy at first: the heads of colleges at Oxford even
endeavoured to prevent its being read in their University. The Essay is
in the hands of all; the writings of its opponents, comparatively
speaking, are forgotten. It will be generally admitted, that in it Locke
laid the foundation of modern metaphysical philosophy.
Two of Locke’s chief works, the ‘Treatise on Civil Government,’ and
‘Essay on Education,’ are more capable of a short analysis. The former
may be taken as an expression of his own opinions in defence of the
Revolution. It is divided into two parts. The first contains an exposure
of the fallacies of Sir Robert Filmer’s ‘Patriarcha,’ arguing that Adam
had not such natural or gifted right of dominion as Filmer pretends;
that if he had, his heirs had not; that if they had, yet there is no
general law, divine or human, which determines the right of succession,
much less of bearing rule; lastly, that if such right had been
determined, yet the eldest line from Adam being unknown, no man can
pretend more than another to that right of inheritance; consequently,
that some other source of political power must be found than “Adam’s
private dominion and paternal jurisdiction.” Locke proceeds in the
second part to declare his opinion as to what this other source may be.
He argues, that originally the executive power was in the hands of each
individual; but, by mutual consent, for mutual benefit, as men grew into
societies, political power was created, and given to persons chosen from
the whole body by the major part of such societies. He protests against
absolute power, as not expressing the will of the majority; but defends
prerogative, as a discretionary power lodged in the hands of the
executive government. He maintains that this compact must be held
sacred, but reverts to the society if its duration was declared
temporary, or upon the misconduct of rulers or delegates. When
forfeited, the will of the society may create new forms of government;
or, under the old form, continue it in other hands.
The Essay on Education is expressly for the use of gentlemen, since “if
that class be properly tended the rest will follow of course.” The
child, he says, should have much air and exercise, should be accustomed
to little sleep and early habits. That superstitious terrors, and the
frequent use of the rod should be carefully avoided; that the boy should
be used to suffer pain gradually, to harden him, but not as a
punishment; that the parents’ authority should be perfect over the
child, and be gradually taken off, till the relation between them
becomes a confiding friendship; that particular attention be paid to his
manners, so that his courage, learning, wit, plainness, and good-nature,
do not turn to brutality, pedantry, buffoonery, rusticity, and fawning.
He says, that the child’s curiosity should be encouraged; that he should
learn by games, and his attainments never be forced; that he should not
be left to flounder in difficulties, but helped through them. Locke
prefers a careful tutor to a public school: he says that a boy stands a
better chance of being both virtuous and well-bred under the care of the
former. What he should know is Latin, Greek, a little mathematics, how
to keep accounts; the less of logic the better; he should write a good
hand; and a virtuous youth so bred, “one may turn loose into the world
with great assurance that he will find employment and esteem
everywhere.” He further recommends that the boy should travel between
the ages of eight and sixteen, rather than between sixteen and twenty
one; and that when he comes of age he had better not marry according to
the usual custom, but wait some years, that his children “may not tread
too closely on his heels.”
The habit of Locke’s mind was perhaps originally severe; but from
constant social intercourse with men of all characters and opinions, was
rendered mild and equable. Nothing seems to have provoked him into a
loss of temper so much as being forced into argument with professed
logicians. He calls the logical method taught at Oxford an ill, if not
the worst way of acquiring knowledge and seeking truth. He was fond of
the society of children, and would enter into the enjoyments of riper
youth with facility. He was entrusted by his patron with the education
and marriage of his son, who was the father of the author of the
‘Characteristics.’ The latter nobleman (the third Earl of Shaftesbury)
owed much to Locke’s care, and was his eulogist.
Locke was of a cautious if not timid disposition. This appears from many
of his letters, and may be inferred from the anonymous publication of
most of his writings. His weak health, the political persecution to
which he was exposed during great part of his life, and the discipline
to which he was subjected in childhood, which was strict and severe, in
some measure account for this failing. His friendships were very steady;
witness his close adherence to his patron Shaftesbury. Sydenham’s
contemporary and friendly character of Locke is remarkable: he says, in
a prefatory letter to one of his works, that “if we consider his genius,
his penetrating and exact judgment, and the strictness of his morals, he
has scarcely any superior, and few equals now living.”
[Illustration: [Reverse of a French Medal of Locke.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by Rob^t. Hart._
SELDEN.
_From a Picture attributed to Sir Peter Lely in the Bodleian Library,
Oxford._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
SELDEN.
John Selden was born at Salvington, a hamlet of Tarring, near Worthing,
in the county of Sussex, December 16, 1584 (O.S.). His father, according
to Wood, “was a sufficient plebeian,” who, through some skill in music,
obtained as his wife Margaret Baker, a daughter of a knightly family of
the county of Kent. The baptism of his eminent son, as well as his own
musical talents, are noticed in an existing parish registry in these
words: “1584.—Johnne, sonne of John Selden, the minstrell, was baptised
the XXX^{th} day of December.” The house in which the family lived was
called Lacies, and the estate of the father consisted, in 1606, of
eighty-one acres, of the annual value of about twenty-three pounds. John
Selden, the son, received his early education at the Free Grammar-School
of Chichester. At the age of fourteen he entered at Hart Hall, Oxford.
After residing four years at the University, he was admitted, in 1602, a
member of Clifford’s Inn, one of the dependencies of the greater inns of
court, in which students of law were formerly accustomed to commence
their legal education. He removed in May, 1604, to the Inner Temple. His
attention appears to have been early drawn to the study of civil and
legal history, and antiquities; he did not court the more active
business of his profession, and his employment at the bar was limited.
In 1607, he prepared for the press his first work, entitled ‘Analectωn
Anglo-Britannicωn,’ being a collection of civil and ecclesiastical
matters relating to Britain, of a date anterior to the Norman conquest.
This was soon followed by three other works of a similar character, and
in 1614 he printed his ‘Treatise upon Titles of Honour.’ The last of
these works has been considered in our courts of law to be of great
authority, and has been usually spoken of with much commendation.
Pursuing his legal inquiries, he edited, in 1616, two treatises, one of
Sir John Fortescue, the other of Sir Ralph Hengham, and in the same year
wrote a ‘Discourse on the Office of Lord Chancellor.’ In the next year
he printed a work, ‘De Diis Syris,’ which added to his celebrity, but is
not compiled with that attention to the value of the respective
authorities cited, so essentially necessary to the accurate
consideration of historical questions. His next work was a ‘History of
Tithes,’ printed in 1618, which excited against him the bitter hostility
of the clergy. The doctrine of divine right, as the foundation of many
ecclesiastical claims, was at this time jealously maintained, and was
considered to be peculiarly connected with the right of the clergy to
tithes. Selden drew no direct conclusion against the divine nature of
the right to tithes, but he had so arranged his authorities as to render
such a conclusion inevitable. The nature only of the title was
contested, and so far from the clergy having had any reason to look upon
Selden as an enemy, he in fact strengthened their claim to tithes by
placing it upon the same footing as any ordinary title to property. As
soon as the ‘History’ appeared it was attacked. The High Commission
Court summoned Selden before it, and to this tribunal he was compelled
to apologise. The terms of his submission very accurately state the
offence, and are expressive of regret that “he had offered any occasion
of argument against any right of maintenance _jure divino_ of the
ministers of the gospel.” The work received several answers, but Selden
was forbidden by James I., under a threat of imprisonment, to notice
them. “All that will,” said he, “have liberty, and some use it, to write
and preach what they will against me, to abuse my name, my person, my
profession, with as many falsehoods as they please, and my hands are
tied: I must not so much as answer their calumnies. I am so far from
writing more, that I have scarce ventured for my own safety so much as
to say they abuse me, though I know it.”
Hardly had this storm passed, when he became involved in the disputes
between the Crown and the House of Commons. One of the earliest steps of
that body, upon the convocation of Parliament in 1621, was to present a
remonstrance on the state of public affairs. This was succeeded by the
memorable protestation of December 18, in which the liberty of the
subject was asserted, and the right of the Commons to offer advice to
the Crown was insisted on. This protestation was erased from the
journals of the House by the King’s own hands, and the parliament was
dissolved. Selden, whose advice, though he was not then a member, had
been requested by the House in this dispute, was in consequence
imprisoned, and detained in confinement five weeks. His release was
owing to the intercession of Bishop Williams, who represented him to be
“a man who hath excellent parts, which might be diverted from an
affectation of pleasing idle people to do some good and useful service
to his Majesty.” On his release, he dedicated to Williams his edition of
Eadmer’s contemporary ‘History of England, from the Norman Conquest to
the death of Henry I.,’ which he had prepared for the press during his
confinement.
When the next parliament assembled in 1624, Selden sat in it as member
for the borough of Lancaster. Though nominated upon several committees,
he took no active share in the general business of the House. About this
time also he was appointed one of the readers of the Inner Temple; but
he refused the office, and was in consequence for some time disabled to
be advanced to the rank of a bencher of the inn. Upon the accession of
Charles I. a new parliament was called, in which Selden sat for the
borough of Great Bedwin. This parliament was almost immediately
dissolved, and another summoned, to which Selden was again returned for
the same borough as before. The Commons immediately entered upon a
consideration of the conduct of the Duke of Buckingham, and his
impeachment being resolved on, Selden was one of the members appointed
to prepare the articles, and was named a manager for their prosecution.
These proceedings were stopped by another dissolution of parliament in
June, 1626. But the necessities of the Crown requiring those supplies
which parliament refused without a redress of grievances, forced loans
were resorted to in the exercise of certain pretended owners of the
prerogative. In several instances these loans were refused; among others
by Sir Edward Hampden, who was imprisoned in consequence: and the
illegality of his commitment was very ably argued by Selden in the
King’s Bench. In the third parliament, called by Charles I. in 1628,
Selden sat for the borough of Ludgershall; and in the debates which
immediately took place upon illegal commitments, the levy of tonnage and
poundage, and the preparation of the Petition of Rights, he took a very
active share. The attack upon the Duke of Buckingham was renewed, and it
was proposed by Selden, that judgment should be demanded against him
upon the impeachment of the former parliament. As affecting a great
constitutional question, only finally determined in 1791, of the
continuance of impeachments, notwithstanding a dissolution of
parliament, the suggestion was remarkable. Further proceedings were,
however, stopped by the assassination of the Duke.
During the prorogation of parliament, Selden again devoted himself to
literary pursuits. The Earl of Arundel, a great lover and promoter of
the arts, had received from the east many ancient marbles, having on
them Greek inscriptions. At the request of Sir Robert Cotton, these
inscriptions were transcribed under the superintendence of Selden, and
were published under the title of ‘Marmora Arundeliana.’ In January,
1629, parliament again assembled, and the debates upon public grievances
were renewed. The goods of several merchants, in the interval of the
meeting of parliament, had been seized by the Crown, to satisfy a claim
to the duty of tonnage and poundage. Among the sufferers was Rolls, a
member of the House. It was moved, that the seizure of his goods was a
breach of privilege. When the question was to be put, the Speaker said
“he durst not, for that the King had commanded to the contrary.” Selden
immediately rose, and vehemently complained of this conduct: “Dare you
not, Mr. Speaker, to put the question when we command you. If you will
not put it, we must sit still: thus, we shall never be able to do any
thing. They that come after you may say, that they have the King’s
commands not to do it. We sit here by the command of the King under the
great seal, and you are, by his Majesty, sitting in his royal chair
before both houses, appointed for our Speaker, and now refuse to do your
office.” The House then adjourned in a state of great excitement. When
it re-assembled, the Speaker was called upon to put the question, and
again refused. On this Holles and Valentine thrust the Speaker into the
chair, and held him down, while Sir Miles Hobart locked the door of the
house and took possession of the key. A declaration was then produced by
Sir John Elliot, which Colonel Stroud moved should be read, and himself
put the question. The motion was declared to be carried; and the
Speaker, refusing to act upon it, was charged by Sir P. Heyman with
cutting up the liberty of the subject by the roots. Selden moved that
the declaration should be read by the clerk, which was agreed to. The
House then adjourned to a day, previous to which the King came to the
House of Lords and dissolved the parliament, on account of “the
undutiful and seditious carriage of the Lower House,” without the
attendance of the Commons. Selden, and the other members concerned in
the violence offered to the Speaker, were committed to prison. This was
his last and most rigorous confinement. For some time he was denied the
use of pens, ink, paper, and books. When, after many weeks had elapsed,
he was brought up with the other prisoners before the King’s Bench upon
a writ of _habeas corpus_, their discharge was offered upon condition of
their finding bail for their good behaviour. “We demand,” said Selden,
“to be bailed in point of right; and if it be not grantable of right, we
do not demand it. But finding sureties for good behaviour is a point of
discretion merely, and we cannot assent to it without great offence to
the parliament where these matters, which are surmised by the return,
were acted.” They were remanded, and remained for a long time in prison,
where Elliot, one of the ablest members of the popular party, fell a
victim to his confinement. In 1634, Selden was suffered to go at large
upon bail, which was discontinued upon his petition to the Crown. During
his imprisonment he wrote a treatise, ‘De Successionibus in Bona
Defuncti ad Leges Ebræorum,’ and another, ‘De Successione in
Pontificatum Ebræorum.’ Both those works he dedicated to Archbishop
Laud; probably upon account of his being indebted to the Archbishop for
the loan of books. Not long after the recovery of his liberty, Selden
obtained the favour of Charles I., and dedicated to him his celebrated
essay on the ‘Mare Clausum,’ an argument in favour of the dominion of
the English over the four seas, copies of which were, by order of the
Privy Council, directed to be placed in the council chest, the Court of
Exchequer, and the Court of Admiralty.
To the Long Parliament, which commenced its sittings in 1640, Selden was
unanimously returned by the University of Oxford; but neither this new
connexion with the clergy, nor the favour of Charles, appears to have
affected his opinions. Upon the first day of the sitting of parliament
he was nominated a member of the committee to inquire into the abuses of
the Earl Marshal’s Court, and was appointed with others to draw up a
remonstrance upon the state of the nation. He also sat upon the
committees which conducted the measures preparatory to the impeachment
of the Earl of Strafford, but he was not one of the managers before the
House of Lords; and his name was posted in Old Palace Yard as one of
“the enemies of justice,” a title given to those who were regarded as
favourable to the Earl. It is not very clear what his opinions upon the
impeachment were. That he should have been satisfied with all the steps
taken by his party is not possible, for his opinions were undoubtedly
moderate, and his studious habits must have checked any disposition to
violence. He was also nominated to frame the articles of impeachment
against Laud, and was a party to the resolutions against the legislative
powers of the bishops. The court, however, appears to have considered
him favourable to its interests, until he spoke against the commission
of array. Upon this question, Clarendon represents the influence of his
opinion upon the public to have been very prejudicial to Charles I.
About this time the great seal was offered to him. He declined it,
according to Clarendon, on account of his love of ease, and “that he
would not have made a journey to York or have been out of his own bed
for any preferment.” The reason which he himself assigned for refusing
it, was the impossibility of his rendering any service to the Crown. He
sat as member of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and took the
covenant; yet he was not well affected to the Puritans, and declared
that “he was neither mad enough nor fool enough to deserve the name of
Puritan.” Upon the death of Dr. Eden, Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge,
in August, 1645, Selden was elected his successor, but declined to
accept the office. About this time he appears to have gradually
withdrawn from public business. His fondness of ease and his increasing
age, and the silence he preserved upon many important events, all
contribute to leave the inference of his approval or disapproval of much
of the conduct of the parliamentary leaders open to adverse parties. He
certainly never openly abandoned the popular side, nor does he appear to
have forfeited its respect; and yet at the same time he continued to be
esteemed by many of the leading Royalists.
The studies of Selden were continued to the latest period of his life,
and he was near the age of seventy when his last work was published. The
influence he possessed with the parliamentary leaders was frequently
exerted in favour of letters. When Archbishop Laud’s endowment of the
professorship of Arabic in the University of Oxford, was seized, on the
attainder of that prelate, he procured its restitution. Archbishop Usher
having preached against the divines of Westminster, and excited their
anger, was punished by the confiscation of his library. Selden
interfered, and saved it from sale and dispersion. When prelacy was
abolished, the library attached to the see of Canterbury was by his
efforts transferred to the University of Cambridge, where it remained
until the Restoration. Through his entreaties, Whitelocke was induced to
accept the charge of the medals and books at St. James’s, and thus
secured their preservation. The services which he rendered to the
University of Oxford were no less valuable, and were acknowledged in
grateful terms by that learned body; and it was through his interference
that the papers and instruments of Graves, the Professor of Mathematics,
which had been seized by a party of soldiers, were restored.
Selden died November 30, 1654, and was buried in the Temple church. He
left behind him no immediate relations, and he bequeathed nearly the
whole of his fortune, amounting to nearly 40,000_l._, to his four
executors, giving only one hundred pounds to each of the children of his
sister, the wife of John Barnard, of Goring. His books and manuscripts
he had originally given by his will to the University of Oxford; but
that body having demanded of him a heavy bond for the restitution of a
book which he desired to borrow from the public library, the bequest was
struck out, and they were directed to be placed “in some convenient
public library or college in one of the universities.” Sir M. Hale and
his other executors, considering that they were the executors “of his
will, and not of his passion,” transferred them to the Bodleian Library
at Oxford.
To learned men Selden was liberal and generous; and there is a letter
from Casaubon in Parr’s ‘Life of Archbishop Usher,’ in which that
distinguished scholar with great feeling says, “I was with Mr. Selden
after I had been with your Grace, whom, upon some intimation of my
present condition and necessities, I found so noble, as that he did not
only presently furnish me with a very considerable sum of money, but was
so free and forward in his expressions, as that I could not find in my
heart to tell him much (somewhat I did) of my intention of selling, lest
it should sound as a farther pressing upon him of whom I had received so
much.”
Milton terms Selden “the chief of learned men reputed in this land;” and
Whitelocke states, “that his mind was as great as his learning, being
very generous and hospitable.” Clarendon, who could not regard Selden
with any political partiality, though he had in early life been on terms
of intimacy with him, describes him to have been “a person whom no
character can flatter or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit
or virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds and in all
languages (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings),
that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant among
books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his
humanity, courtesy, and affability were such, that he would have been
thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature,
charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew,
exceeded that breeding.”
The motto adopted by Selden was περὶ παντὸς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν (above all
things, liberty), and it is to be found neatly written upon the first
page of many of his MSS. Its spirit he extended to religious questions;
and there are many bold and vigorous passages in his writings in which
the necessity of freedom of inquiry upon all subjects is strongly
insisted on. Noticing upon one occasion a certain class of ancient
philosophers, he remarks, “He who takes to himself their liberty of
inquiry, is in the only way that, in all kinds of studies, leads and
lies open even to the sanctuary of truth; while others, that are servile
to common opinion and vulgar suppositions, can rarely hope to be
admitted nearer than into the base-court of her temple, which too
speciously often counterfeits her innermost sanctuary.” His religious
opinions have, with much impropriety, been the subject of dispute. They
have been chiefly inferred from several passages of a work published
after his death, entitled ‘Selden’s Table Talk.’ From the nature of his
studies, his writings are far from being popular, and are, in
consequence, now but little read. They obtained, however, for their
author, during an age abounding with illustrious and learned men, an
honourable reputation, among the most distinguished literary men of
continental Europe, as well as among those of his own country. His works
were edited by Dr. Wilkins, in 3 vols. folio, in 1726, to which a Latin
‘Life of the Author’ is prefixed.
[Illustration: [Gallery of the Arundel Marbles.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
A. PARÉ.
_From the original Picture, in “L’École de Médecine,” at Paris._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
PARÉ.
Ambroise Paré, the father of French surgery, and one of the most useful
as well as the earliest of the innovators upon that art as practised by
the ancients, was born at Laval, in the district of Maine, in the year
1509. After going through the rudiments of education, he was placed at
an early age under the tuition of the chaplain Orsoy, in his native
town, to be instructed in the classics; but the means of his family
appear to have been very narrow, or the economy with which they were
supplied must have been strict; for we find that the worthy chaplain was
obliged to make use of the services of his pupil in grooming his mule
and other menial capacities, in order to eke out the scanty remuneration
he received for his instructions. In truth, these do not appear to have
been great; for Paré never achieved a knowledge of Greek, and was but
superficially acquainted with the Latin language; and it is probable
that even this small amount of classical acquirement was made at a late
period of his life, when, being an author, he wished to quote.
On leaving his tutor, he was placed with a barber-surgeon at Laval,
named Vialot, who is recorded to have taught him how to bleed. Not long
after this change in his pursuits, the lithotomist, Laurent Colot, came
to Laval to undertake the treatment of one of the chaplain’s
ecclesiastical brethren: on this occasion, Paré was present, and
zealously assisted at the operation. This accidental circumstance
appears to have suggested to him the ambitious project of following the
higher departments of surgery; and he contrived to leave the shop of his
master in phlebotomy, and repaired to Paris, where he availed himself
with so much diligence of the advantages afforded by that city, as a
school of anatomy and medicine, that he was soon entrusted with the
subordinate charge of the patients of Goupil, who then held the surgical
chair in the college of France. From this discerning tutor he learned
not only all the knowledge which could at that time be obtained from
secondary sources, but the art of expressing himself well, and
acquitting himself of his duties with neatness and grace. The talents
thus acquired were of the greatest service to him in his after-life,
which was chiefly passed among the great; and gave him that ease of
manner and power of gaining confidence, which stood him so frequently in
stead as court-surgeon to four successive monarchs, and, aiding the
natural frankness of his character, carried him safely through many an
intrigue and cabal, dangerous not only to his reputation and fortunes,
but even to his life. He was never a member of the community of
barber-surgeons, but derived his legal qualification to practise from a
degree in surgery taken at the college of St. Edme, of which he was
afterwards Provost.
Having passed upwards of three years as a student, residing actually
within the walls of the Hotel Dieu at Paris, he was appointed
Staff-surgeon, in 1536, when twenty-seven years old, to the Mareschal
René de Monte-jean, who commanded the infantry under the Constable
Montmorenci in the campaign of Piedmont. In this capacity, Paré was
present at the siege and capture of Turin.
From this time is to be dated the commencement of his acquaintance with
military surgery, for which he afterwards did so much. “I was then,” he
says, “very raw and inexperienced, having never seen the treatment of
gunshot wounds. It is true that I had read in the Treatise of Jean de
Vigo on wounds in general, that those inflicted by fire-arms partake of
a poisonous nature on account of the powder, and that they should be
treated with hot oil of elder mixed with a little theriacum. Seeing,
therefore, that such an application must needs put the patient to
extreme pain, to assure myself before I should make use of this boiling
oil, I desired to see how it was employed by the other surgeons. I found
their method was to apply it, at the first dressing, as hot as possible,
within the wound with tents and setons: and this I made bold to do
likewise. At length my oil failed me, and I was fain to substitute a
digestive, made of the yolks of eggs, rose-oil, and turpentine. At night
I could not rest in my bed in peace, fearing that I should find the
wounded, in whose cases I had been compelled to abstain from using this
cautery, dead of poison: this apprehension made me rise very early in
the morning to visit them; but beyond all my hopes, I found those to
whom I had applied the digestive suffering little pain, and their wounds
free from inflammation; and they had been refreshed by sleep in the
night. On the contrary, I found those to whom the aforesaid oil had been
applied, feverish, in great pain, and with swelling and inflammation
round their wounds. I resolved, therefore, that I would never burn
unfortunate sufferers from gunshot in that cruel manner again.”
Such was the casual origin of one of Paré’s greatest improvements in
surgery,—the substitution of a mild treatment for the cautery in gunshot
wounds; a principle which he afterwards successfully extended to other
injuries at that time deemed poisonous. The improvement seems as obvious
as it was important: yet the adherents of the old practice gave him much
trouble, and even made it necessary for him to defend his wholesome
innovation long afterwards before Charles IX. in person.
Yet with all his sound sense, Ambroise Paré was not by any means free
from the credulity of his age. For instance, he relates, in his account
of this siege, an amusing story of the court he paid to an Italian quack
doctor, who lived at Turin, to wheedle him out of the secret of a
dressing for fresh gunshot wounds, for which he had great fame. This was
found to consist of a mixture of bruised worms, the grease of puppies
boiled down alive, and other absurd ingredients, constituting the
celebrated _oleum catellorum_, the only merit of which consists in its
harmlessness. He is erroneously praised by Dr. Ballingall for having
banished this unguent from practice, whereas, on the contrary, he
introduced it; and he shows, by his frequent reference to it in his
works, that he had no small faith in its virtues, and was exceedingly
proud of having been the means of its publication.
The death of his patron, the Mareschal, soon after the fall of Turin,
induced him to return to Paris, though tempted by large offers to remain
in the camp.
In 1543, he accompanied the Duc de Rohan into Britanny, where Francis I.
commanded in person against the English; and the next year he followed
that monarch in his expedition to throw supplies into Landrecy. In 1545,
he was with the camp at Boulogne, where he cured the general of the
royal army, Francis Duke of Guise, of a very dangerous wound, which
gained him great reputation.
In 1552, he attended the Duc de Rohan in his campaign in Germany. During
this expedition occurred one of those instances of combined humanity and
skill, which made Paré the favourite of the French army. He thus tells
the story: “A party had gone out to attack a church, where the peasants
of the country had fortified themselves, hoping to get some provisions,
but they came back very soundly beaten; and one especially, a
captain-lieutenant of the company of the Duke, returned with seven
gashes in his head, the least of which had penetrated to the inner table
of the skull, besides four sabre wounds in the arm, and one across the
shoulder, which divided the shoulder-blade in half. When he was brought
to quarters, the Duke judged him to be so desperately wounded, that he
absolutely proposed, as they were to march by daylight, to dig a trench
for him, and throw him into it, saying, that it was as well that the
peasants should finish him. But being moved with pity, I told him (says
Paré), that the captain might yet be cured: many gentlemen of the
company joined with me in begging that he might be allowed to go with
the baggage, since I was willing to dress and cure him. This was
accordingly granted: I dressed him, and put him into a small
well-covered bed in a cart drawn by one horse. I was at once physician,
surgeon, apothecary, and cook to him; and, thank God, I did cure him in
the end, to the admiration of all the troops: and out of their first
booty, the men-at-arms gave me a crown a-piece, and the archers
half-a-crown each.”
His reputation was now so high, that no expedition of importance,
especially if generalled by a prince of the blood, or one of the higher
nobility, was considered complete without his presence. This was
accordingly solicited by the old King of Navarre, more commonly called
the Duc de Vendôme, on an occasion of that kind. But being tired of a
military life, and disgusted with its cruelties and horrors, he
endeavoured to evade the proposal, alleging the illness of his wife, and
other excuses: but the Duke would take no denial; and at last he
consented to accompany him to the siege of Chateau le Comte. There he
acquitted himself so well, that upon the warm encomiums of the Duke he
was received into the service of Henry the Second, in 1552, being then
but thirty-three years old. From this time he lived at the court, where,
with other advantages, obtained not less by his behaviour and wit than
his skill, he enjoyed, though a Huguenot, the especial favour of the
Queen, Catherine de’ Medici, who was fond of conversing with him in her
own language, with which Paré had become well acquainted in his Italian
campaign. She served him powerfully on several important occasions.
Paré, however, still continued to frequent the camp, when any emergency
seemed to demand his services. Such an occasion occurred at the renowned
siege of Metz, in the winter of 1552, conducted by Charles V. in person,
with the Duke of Alva and 120,000 men, against a garrison of 6000, which
ended, after two months, in the disastrous retreat of the besiegers. The
defence was most gallantly carried on by the flower of the French army,
headed by many of the higher noblesse, and several of the princes of the
blood, under the Duke of Guise. It has been already mentioned that
gunshot wounds were at that time thought to have something poisonous
about them; and the severe cold, and other circumstances of that siege,
being such as unusually to depress and harass the garrison, their wounds
proved almost uniformly fatal; and the idea arose and gained ground,
that Charles had ordered his bullets to be actually poisoned. Paré alone
was thought able to meet the necessity of the case in such an extremity;
and the demand for his assistance became so pressing in the dispirited
garrison, that at the instance of the Duke of Guise the King was induced
to send him. He was stealthily introduced by the treachery of one of
Charles’s captains, for a bribe of 1500 crowns, and his appearance on
the ramparts was hailed by the troops with the most extravagant
expressions of joy. “Now that Paré is with us,” they cried, “we shall
not perish of our wounds.” Their spirits revived, and the successful
issue of their arduous struggle is generally ascribed to the presence of
Paré.
Upon the raising of the siege, of which, as is usual in his writings, he
gives a most lively and humorous account, Paré returned to court. In
1553 he was sent on a like errand to the siege of Hesdin, which, after a
vigorous defence, and against the faith of a capitulation, was pillaged
by the troops of the Duke of Savoy. Paré was himself one of the
prisoners, but escaped in disguise after various adventures, and
returned to Paris; notwithstanding the tempting offers of the Duke of
Savoy, who had witnessed his skill, though kept in ignorance of his
name.
He was sent upon many other missions of the same kind; as to the fields
of St. Quentin and Moncontour; to Rouen, where he attended the Duc de
Vendôme on occasion of the wound of which he died; and to St. Denys,
where he performed the same unwelcome duty for the Constable. The long
intervals of these services he always passed at court, in the enjoyment
of his well-earned reputation and favour.
On the death of Henry II. in 1559, occasioned by an accident at a
tournament, Francis II., his eldest son by Catherine de’ Medici,
succeeded to the crown. He immediately confirmed Paré in his situation
of surgeon in ordinary and counsellor. It will not be supposed that he
could enjoy this constant favour and good fortune without the usual
drawback in the excited jealousy of his professional rivals. Their
rancour was at length carried to such a pitch, that they gravely accused
him of causing the premature death of Francis in 1560, by injecting
poison into his ear under the pretext of treating him for an
inflammation seated there, of which he died. Catherine, however,
shielded him from this attack, expressing her complete reliance on his
integrity as well as his skill, in words which the historians of the
period have preserved. A similar accusation was brought against him as
unsuccessfully in the case of Henry III., who was afflicted with the
same disorder: on which occasion the Queen-Mother again stood forward in
his behalf, and his innocence was fully attested by the physicians whom
she had placed about her son, and who had witnessed every application he
made.
On the death of Francis II. in 1560, Paré maintained his place in the
household of Charles IX., to whom it was thought he had rendered
essential service after an injury inflicted on one of the nerves of the
arm by an unlucky phlebotomist. This misfortune of his humbler brother
was of great use to Paré, who, though a courtier during the predominance
of the Guises, openly professed the Protestant faith; for it was
probably the means of procuring him in Charles the only protector
powerful enough to save him from being included in the general massacre
of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s Day. Brantôme and Sully each
connect his name with that event. The words of the former are as
follows: “Le Roi quand il fût jour, ayant mis la tête a la fenêtre de sa
chambre, et qu’il voyait aucuns dans le fauxbourg St. Germain qui se
remuoient, et se sauvoient, il prit une grande arquebuse de chasse qu’il
avoit, et en tira tout plein de coups à eux; mais en vain, car
l’arquebuse ne tiroit si loin; incessamment crioit, ‘Tuez, tuez,’ en
n’en vouloit sauver aucun si non Maître Ambroise Paré, son premier
chirurgien, et le premier de la Chrestienté, et l’envoya querir et venir
le soir dans sa chambre et garde robbe, commandant de n’en bouger; et
disoit qu’il n’etoit raisonnable qu’un qui pouvoit servir à tout un
petit monde, fûst ainsi massacré.”
“De tous ceux,” says Sully, “qui approchoient ce prince (Charles IX.) il
n’y avoit personne qui eut tant de part à sa confiance qu’ Ambroise
Paré. Cet homme qui n’etoit que son chirurgien, avoit pris avec lui une
si grande familiarité, quoiqu’il fût Huguenot, que ce prince lui ayant
dit le jour du massacre que c’etoit à cette heure qu’il falloit que tout
le monde se fît catholique, Paré lui répondit sans s’étonner, ‘Par la
lumière de Dieu, Sire, je crois qu’il vous souvient m’avoir promis de ne
me commander jamais quatre choses; sçavoir, de rentre dans le ventre de
ma mère, de me trouver à un jour de bataille, de quitter votre service,
et d’aller à la messe.’”
Paré still retained his situation after the accession of Henry III. in
1574; but he seems to have resigned the cares of active life about that
time, and we hear little more of him. He died December 2, 1590, in the
eighty-first year of his life, and was buried in the church of St. André
des Arcs in Paris.
Paré appears to have been a man of quick and independent observation
rather than of reflection or genius. His constitution was vigorous, and
fitted no less for social enjoyments than active business: his person
was manly and graceful, his spirits buoyant, and his disposition
remarkably amiable and attractive; hence he was a universal favourite,
particularly in a despotic court, of which the dullness was agreeably
relieved by his frankness, and his powers of humour and repartee. The
amusing and well-told anecdotes and lively descriptions that teem in all
his writings, which, it may be observed, are equal in point of style to
any of the time, sufficiently attest his possession of those qualities,
even if the stories and bon-mots that are related of him be questioned.
His ‘Apology,’ as he calls one of his later pieces, containing an
account of his various campaigns and journeys, is full of humour, and
well worth the perusal of the general reader. It was published by way of
answer to an attack upon his treatment of contused wounds and
hæmorrhages, made by an obscure Parisian lecturer, whose name he does
not mention; and he diverts himself exceedingly at the expense of the
critic, for his presumption in pretending to teach a surgeon whose
experience had been gathered from twenty sieges and fields of battle,
through an active professional life of forty years. The raillery he
employs is often very keen and pointed, but never ill-natured, and
indicates the infinite superiority he felt, and had a right to feel,
over his merely book-learned adversary.
His conduct throughout life appears to have been remarkably upright and
sincere, though tinctured by the adulation which, in that age of
violence and despotism, was always exacted by the great from those who
were more humbly born.
He was a bold and good operator, and his general skill and success in
the practice of his profession is unquestionable; in that day it must
have been wonderful. As a surgical writer, his fame principally rests
upon his introduction of a soothing method of treating gunshot and other
contused wounds, and his discovery or rather restoration of the method
of arresting hæmorrhage, by the ligature of the bleeding vessel, instead
of searing with hot iron, and other insufficient and painful means. But
he made many other novel and useful remarks which only do not deserve
the name of discoveries, because they relate to more trivial points, and
do not involve important principles: and, upon the whole, much as
surgery has been improved since his time, there have been few writers to
whom it has owed so much as to him, especially in the military
department. The whole body of his writings on that subject, though
diffuse, merit the perusal of professional men. The same praise cannot
be given without exception and reserve to those of his writings which
were less the records of his personal experience, than compilations from
other sources. His remarks upon the subjects of Physiology, Medical
Diseases, the Composition of Remedies, Natural History, and Obstetrics,
are not free from error, credulity, and even indelicacy. The latter
charge was successfully urged against him by the contemporary Parisian
physicians, who were jealous of his encroachments upon what they
considered their own domain, and he was obliged to alter the original
editions.
He was too much occupied by his practice to engage deeply in the study
of anatomy: hence his knowledge of it was rather sufficient than
accurate; and though he wrote upon it at some length, and even added new
facts to that science, his success in advancing it can only be
considered as a proof of the imperfect information of the time. He lived
before the discovery of the circulation of the blood.
His first publication, on Gunshot Wounds, in 1545, was incorporated with
his other writings, comprising altogether twenty-six treatises, and
printed at Paris in one large folio volume in 1561. This, with some
posthumous additions, has been often reprinted, and there are
translations of it in Latin and other languages. The first English
edition was by Thomas Johnson in 1634.
[Illustration: [Medal of Paré.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Mollison._
ADMIRAL BLAKE.
_From the Picture in the Hall of Wadham College, Oxford._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
BLAKE.
Robert Blake is believed to have been born at Plansfield, in the parish
of Spaxton, Somersetshire, near Bridgewater, in which town his father
was a merchant; but the place is not so well ascertained as the date of
his birth, which was August, 1598. He was educated in the Free School of
Bridgewater, whence in due time he removed to Oxford, and became
successively a member of St. Alban’s Hall and Wadham College. His
character was studious, yet he was fond of field-sports and other
violent exercises; and we may infer that he had at least a decent share
of scholastic learning, from his having been a candidate, though
unsuccessfully, for a studentship at Christchurch, and a fellowship at
Merton College. He returned to Bridgewater when about twenty-five years
old, and lived quietly on his paternal estate till 1640, with the
character of a blunt, bold man, of ready humour and fearless expression
of his sentiments, which, both in politics and religion, were adverse to
the pretensions of the court. These qualities gained for him the
confidence of the Presbyterian party in Bridgewater, by whom he was
returned to the parliament of April, 1640. The speedy dissolution of
that assembly gave him no opportunity of trying his powers as a debater;
and in the next parliament he was not re-elected. But on the breaking
out of the civil war, he displayed his principles by entering the
Parliamentary army.
We have no certain information concerning the time or the capacity in
which he began to serve; but in 1643 we find him intrusted with the
command of a fort at Bristol, when the city was besieged by the
Royalists. Here his impetuous temper had nearly brought him to an
untimely death; for, having maintained his fort and killed some of the
king’s soldiers after the garrison had surrendered, Prince Rupert was
with difficulty induced to spare his life, which was held to have been
forfeited by this violation of the laws of war. Blake served afterwards
in the west of England with good repute, and in 1644 was appointed
Governor of Taunton, a place of great consequence, being the only
Parliamentary fortress in that quarter. In that capacity he
distinguished himself by the skill, courage, and constancy with which,
during two successive sieges, he maintained the town against the
Royalists in 1645; an important service, for which the parliament voted
£2000 to the garrison, and £500 to the governor. It is recorded that he
disapproved of the extremity to which matters were pushed against
Charles, and that he was frequently heard to say, that he would as
freely venture his life to save the King’s, as he had ever done it in
the service of the Parliament.
In February, 1649, Colonel Blake, in conjunction with two officers of
the same rank, Deane and Popham, was appointed to command the fleet. It
may be taken as a proof that, notwithstanding the fame of our early
navigators, the King’s service at sea had never been treated with much
attention, that, down to later times than those of which we now write,
the chief command of a fleet seems never to have been given to a man of
naval education and habits. It is probable that the sea service then
held out no inducements strong enough to tempt men of high birth to
submit to its inconveniences, and that the command of a fleet was
esteemed too great a post to be conferred on a man of humble origin. For
this new employment Blake soon showed signal capacity. When the embers
of the war were stirred up after the King’s death, he was ordered to the
Irish seas in pursuit of Prince Rupert, whom he blockaded in the harbour
of Kinsale for several months. Despair of relief induced the Prince at
last to make a daring effort to break through the Parliamentary
squadron, in which he succeeded; but with the loss of three ships. Blake
pursued him to the Tagus, where being denied liberty to attack his enemy
by the King of Portugal, in revenge he captured and sent home a number
of ships richly laden, on their way from Brazil. In January, 1651, he
attacked and, with the exception of two ships, destroyed the Royalist
fleet, in the neutral harbour of Malaga; a breach of national law, which
can only be justified on the alleged ground that Rupert had destroyed
British ships in the same harbour. These services were recompensed by
the Parliament with the post of Warden of the Cinque Ports; and in March
an act was passed constituting Blake, with his colleagues Deane and
Popham, admirals and generals of the fleet for the year ensuing. In that
capacity, he took Jersey, Guernsey, and the Scilly Islands from the
Royalists; a service, for which he was again thanked by Parliament. In
this year he was elected a member of the Council of State.
March 25, 1652, Blake was appointed sole admiral for nine months, in
expectation of a war with the Dutch. The United States and England were
at this time the two most powerful maritime countries in the world; and
it is hard to find any better reason than national rivalry for the
bloody war which broke out between them in the spring of this year; a
war which seems to have been begun on a point of etiquette, at the
discretion of the admirals, without orders for hostilities being known
to be given by the governments on either side. On May 18, a fleet of
forty-two Dutch ships, commanded by the celebrated Van Tromp, appeared
off the Goodwin Sands. Being challenged by Major Bourne, who commanded a
squadron in the Downs, they professed to have been driven from their
anchorage off Dunkirk by stress of weather; but instead of drawing off
the coast as they were required to do, they sailed to Dover and cast
anchor, in a manner which showed the deliberate design of insulting the
British flag. Blake lay some distance to the westward in Rye Bay.
Intelligence was immediately sent to him, and on his approach the Dutch
weighed anchor, and seemed about to retreat, but, changing their course,
they sailed direct for the English fleet. When within musket shot, Blake
ordered a single gun to be fired at the Dutch admiral’s flag, which was
done thrice. Van Tromp returned a broadside, and a hot and
well-contested action ensued, and was maintained till nightfall. Under
cover of the darkness the Dutch retreated, losing two ships (one sunk,
the other taken), and leaving the possession of the field and the honour
of the victory in the hands of the English. The States appear neither to
have authorised nor approved of the conduct of their admiral; for they
left no means untried to satisfy the English government; and when they
found the demands of the latter so high as to preclude accommodation,
they dismissed Van Tromp, and intrusted the command of their fleet to De
Ruyter and De Witt. Meanwhile, Blake’s activity was unremitting. He
gained a rich harvest of prizes among the Dutch homeward-bound
merchantmen, which were pursuing their way without suspicion of danger;
and when he had sent home forty good prizes and effectually cleared the
Channel, he sailed to the northward, dispersed the fleet engaged in the
herring fishery, and captured a hundred of the vessels composing it,
together with a squadron of twelve ships of war sent out to protect
them. The hostile fleets again came to an engagement, September 28, in
which the advantage was decidedly in favour of the English, the
rear-admiral of the Dutch being taken, and three or four of their ships
disabled. Night put an end to the action; and, though for two days the
English maintained the pursuit, the lightness and uncertainty of the
wind prevented them from closing with the enemy, who escaped into Goree.
After this battle the drafting off of detachments on various services
reduced the English fleet to forty sail, and those, it is said, in
consequence of the negligence or jealousy of the executive government,
were ill provided with men and ammunition, and other requisite supplies.
Thus weakly furnished, Blake lay in the Downs, when Van Tromp again
stood over to the English coast with eighty men-of-war. Of that
undaunted spirit which usually prompts the British seaman to refuse no
odds Blake had an ample share; indeed, he did much to infuse that spirit
into the service. But there are odds for which no spirit can make up,
and as he had a brave and skilful enemy, the result of his rashness was
that he was well beaten. Not more than half the ships on either side
were engaged; but out of this small number of English vessels two were
taken, and four destroyed; the rest were so shattered that they were
glad to run for shelter into the river Thames. The Dutch remained
masters of the narrow seas; and Van Tromp, in an idle bravado, sailed
through the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, as if he had swept it
clear of English ships. However, neither the admiral nor the nation were
of a temper to submit to this indignity; and great diligence having been
used in refitting and recruiting the fleet, Blake put to sea again in
February, 1653, with eighty ships. On the 18th he fell in with Van
Tromp, with nearly equal force, conducting a large convoy of merchantmen
up the Channel. A running battle ensued, which was continued during
three consecutive days, until, on the 20th, the Dutch ships, which, to
suit the nature of their coast, were built with a smaller draught of
water than the English, obtained shelter in the shallow waters of
Calais. In this long and obstinate fight, the Dutch lost only eleven
men-of-war and thirty merchant vessels; but the number killed is said to
have amounted to 1500 on either side; a loss of life of most unusual
amount in naval engagements.
Another great battle took place on the 3rd and 4th of June, between Van
Tromp and Generals Deane and Monk. On the first day the Dutch seem to
have had somewhat the advantage: on the second Blake arrived with a
reinforcement of eighteen sail, which turned the scale in favour of the
English. Bad health obliged him then to quit the sea, so that he was not
present at the last great victory of July 29, in which Van Tromp was
killed. But out of respect for his services the Parliament presented him
with a gold chain, as well as the admirals who had actually commanded in
the battle. When Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament, and assumed the
office of Protector, Blake, though in his principles a republican, did
not refuse to acknowledge the new administration. In conjunction with
Deane and Monk he published a declaration of their resolution,
“notwithstanding the late change, to proceed in the performance of their
duties, and the trust reposed in them against the enemies of the
Commonwealth.” He is reported to have said to his officers, “It is not
our business to mind state-affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling
us.” He sat in the two first Parliaments summoned by the Protector, who
always treated him with great respect. Nor was Cromwell’s acknowledged
sagacity in the choice of men at fault, when he chose Blake to command a
strong fleet, sent into the Mediterranean in November, 1654, to uphold
the honour of the English flag, and to demand reparation for the slights
and injuries done to the nation during that stormy period of civil war,
when our own discord had made others daring against us. In better hands
such a mission could not have been placed. Dutch, French, and Spaniards
alike concurred in rendering unusual honours to his flag. The Duke of
Tuscany and the Order of Malta made compensation for injuries done to
the English commerce. The piratical states of Algiers and Tripoli were
terrified into submission, and promised to abstain from further
violence. The Dey of Tunis held out, confident in the strength of his
fortifications. “Here,” he said, “are our castles of Goletta and Porto
Ferino: do your worst; do you think we fear your fleet?” Blake took the
same course as, in our own time, Lord Exmouth did against Algiers: he
bore right into the bay of Porto Ferino; engaged the fortress within
musket shot, and in less than two hours silenced or dismounted its guns;
and sending a detachment of boats into the harbour, burnt the shipping
which lay there. After this example he found no more difficulty in
dealing with the African states.
War having been declared between Spain and England, in 1656, Blake took
his station to blockade the bay of Cadiz. At this period his
constitution was much broken, insomuch that, in the expectation of a
speedy death, he sent home a request that some person proper to be his
successor might be joined in commission with him. General Montague was
accordingly sent out with a strong squadron. Being obliged to quit the
coast of Spain in September to obtain water for his fleet, Blake left
Captain Stayner with seven ships to watch the enemy. In this interval
the Spanish Plate fleet appeared. Stayner captured four ships richly
laden with bullion; the rest escaped. Montague conducted the prizes
home, so that Blake was again left alone in the Mediterranean. In the
ensuing spring, having learnt that another Plate fleet had put into the
island of Teneriffe, he sailed thither, and arrived in the road of Santa
Cruz, April 20. The bay was strongly fortified, with a formidable castle
at the entrance, and a connected chain of minor forts all round it. The
naval force collected there was also considerable, and strongly posted,
the smaller vessels being placed under the guns of the forts, the
galleons strongly moored with their broadsides to the sea; insomuch that
the Spanish Governor, a man of courage and ability, felt perfectly at
ease as to the security of his charge. The master of a Dutch ship, which
was lying in the harbour, was less satisfied, and went to the Governor
to request leave to quit the harbour; “For I am sure,” he said, “that
Blake will presently be among you.” The Governor made a confident reply.
“Begone if you will, and let Blake come if he dares.” Daring was the
last thing wanting; nor did the Admiral hesitate, as a wise man might
well have done, about the real difficulties of the enterprise in which
he was about to engage. The wind blowing into the bay, he sent in
Captain Stayner with a squadron to attack the shipping, placed others in
such a manner as to take off, and, as far as possible, to silence the
fire of the castle and the forts, and himself following, assisted
Stayner in capturing the galleons, which, though inferior in number,
were superior in size and force to the English ships. This was completed
by two o’clock in the afternoon, the engagement having commenced at
eight in the morning. Hopeless of being able to carry the prizes out of
the bay against an adverse wind, and a still active enemy, Blake gave
orders to burn them: and it is probable that he himself might have found
some difficulty in beating out of the bay under the fire of the castle,
which was still lively, when on a sudden, the wind which had blown
strong into the bay, suddenly veered round to the south-west, and
favoured his retreat, as it had favoured his daring approach. Of this,
the most remarkable, as it was the last exploit of Blake’s life,
Clarendon says, “The whole action was so incredible, that all men who
knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage soever
endowed, would ever have undertaken it; and they could hardly persuade
themselves to believe what they had done: while the Spaniards comforted
themselves with the belief, that they were devils and not men who had
destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong resolution of bold and
courageous men can bring to pass, that no resistance or advantage of
ground can disappoint them; and it can hardly be imagined how small a
loss the English sustained in this unparalleled action, not one ship
being left behind, and the killed and wounded not exceeding two hundred
men; when the slaughter on board the Spanish ships and on shore was
incredible.”
It will be recollected with interest that, on the same spot, Nelson lost
his arm, in an unsuccessful night-attempt to capture Santa Cruz with an
armed force in boats.
For this service the thanks of Parliament were voted to the officers and
seamen engaged, with a diamond ring to the Admiral worth 500_l._ Blake
returned to his old station off Cadiz; but the increase of his
disorders, which were dropsy and scurvy, raised a desire in him to
return to England, which, however, he did not live to fulfil. He died as
he was entering Plymouth Sound, August 17, 1657. His body was
transported to London, and buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey,
at the public expense. After the Revolution it was thought unworthy to
remain in that treasure-house of England’s departed greatness; and with
the bones of others who had found a resting-place there during the short
period of the Commonwealth, it was transferred to St. Margaret’s
churchyard. It has been disputed whether this was done with more or less
of indecency; but the matter is little worth inquiry. The real indecency
and folly lay in thinking that any ground, however sanctified by the
reverent associations of centuries, could be polluted by the tomb of a
man whose leading passion was the glory of his country, and who made the
name and flag of that country respected wheresoever he carried it: a man
of whom not one mean or interested action is recorded, and whose great
qualities extorted praise even from the Royalists. Bate, in his
‘Elenchus Motuum,’ speaks of him as a man “blameable in this only, that
he joined with the _parricides_;” and it may be remarked that Dr. Bate’s
horror of a parricide did not prevent his being physician to Cromwell,
as well as to Charles I. and II.
We conclude with Clarendon’s character of this great man. “He was of
private extraction, yet had enough left him by his father to give him a
good education, which his own inclination disposed him to receive in the
University of Oxford, where he took the degree of a Master of Arts, and
was enough versed in books for a man who intended not to be of any
profession, having sufficient of his own to maintain him in the plenty
he affected, and having then no appearance of ambition to be a greater
man than he was. He was of a melancholic and sullen nature, and spent
his time most with good fellows, who liked his moroseness, and a freedom
he used in inveighing against the licence of the time and the power of
the court. They who knew him inwardly, discovered that he had an
anti-monarchical spirit, when few men thought the government in any
danger.” After a short sketch of Blake’s actions in the civil war, the
noble author continues, “He then betook himself wholly to the sea, and
quickly made himself signal there. He was the first man that declined
the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be attained
in less time than was imagined, and despised those rules which had long
been in practice, to keep his ship and his men out of danger; which had
been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection,
as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to
be sure to come safe home again. He was the first man who brought the
ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very
formidable, and were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to
fright those who could be rarely hurt by them. He was the first who
infused that proportion of courage into the seamen, by making them see
by experience what mighty things they could do, if they were resolved,
and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water, and though he
has been very well imitated and followed, he was the first that gave the
example of that kind of naval courage, and bold and resolute
achievements.”
The earliest life of Blake which we have seen is in the second volume of
a collection entitled ‘Lives English and Foreign,’ published at the
beginning of the last century. Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion,
Heath’s Chronicle of the Civil Wars, the Memoirs of Ludlow, Whitelock,
and other contemporary authorities, will furnish minute accounts of the
many battles of which we have here only made short mention.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by R. Woodman._
L’HÔPITAL.
_From the original by Janet, in the Musée Royal, Paris._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
L’HÔPITAL.
Michel de l’Hôpital was born at Aigueperse in Auvergne. The date of his
birth he himself declares, in his testament, to be uncertain, but at the
same time he refers it to the year 1505. His father was the domestic
physician, the faithful friend, and trusted counsellor of the Constable
of Bourbon, and still followed his patron’s fortunes, when that ill-used
and misguided prince took up arms against France in 1523. Michel de
l’Hôpital, then a student at the University of Toulouse, was arrested as
the son of one of Bourbon’s partizans; but after a short time he was set
at liberty by the express order of Francis I., and after the lapse of
two or three years was permitted to rejoin his father in Italy. He
completed his education during a residence of six years at the
celebrated University of Padua. Quitting that University with high
credit for his acquirements both in polite literature and legal
knowledge, he took up his abode at Rome with his father, and soon
obtained the favourable notice both of the Emperor Charles V. and the
French ambassador, Cardinal de Grammont. But preferring the hope of
re-establishment in his native country to the prospects of advancement
held out in a foreign land, he returned to France in the train of the
Cardinal; was present at the espousal of Catherine de Medici with the
Dauphin, afterwards Henry II., in 1583; and laid a stepping-stone
towards his fortunes by attracting the notice of his future queen. The
death of the Cardinal however in the following year overclouded his
prospects. His father was unable to procure a reversal of the sentence
of exile and confiscation passed on him for his adherence to Bourbon;
and Michel de l’Hôpital, without means or friends, betook himself to the
practice of the law in the courts of Paris. Fortunately, his merits
procured a discerning friend in Jean Morin, a high legal functionary,
who gave him his daughter in marriage in 1537, with the judicial office
of _Conseiller_ for her dowry.
L’Hôpital filled this office during nine years. It was one in which he
found no pleasure; for though attached to the philosophical study of the
law (and he mentions it as one of the evils of his situation that he had
been obliged to abandon a project for collecting into one body the laws
of France, both written and resting on judicial decisions), he found the
daily routine of trying causes extremely irksome. His letters are full
of complaints of this drudgery, as he esteemed it, and express in lively
terms the pleasure which he felt in escaping during the vacations into
the country, and renewing his literary pursuits. He numbered the most
intellectual and learned men of France among his friends, nor was he
backward in seeking to conciliate the great and powerful. It is worth
noting, as indicative of the manners of the age, that his favourite
method of addressing such persons was in Latin hexameters. Accounts of
his way of life, statements of his wishes, petitions, &c., are conveyed
in that form; and he composed with fluency, and with a competent share
of elegance, without great attention to correctness. One of his frequent
correspondents, to whose favour he owed in great measure his future
rise, was Cardinal Lorraine. The Chancellor Olivier, a man of no common
virtue, was another of his best friends, and to him L’Hôpital was
indebted for being withdrawn from the hated bustle of the law, by his
appointment as envoy to the Council of Bologna. This proved a sinecure;
and he employed his time in wandering about the neighbourhood of that
city, and writing letters to the Chancellor, full of poetical
descriptions, and requests for a more permanent provision away from the
tumult of the law courts.
Early in 1549 L’Hôpital was recalled, after remaining upwards of a year
in Italy. He found the Chancellor in disgrace; but his acknowledged
merit obtained the notice of Margaret of Valois, daughter of Francis I.,
a steady patroness of learning, herself devoted to literary as well as
religious study. Being created Duchess of Berri, she appointed him her
Chancellor, to manage the affairs of the province; and one of his first
steps in that capacity was the establishment of a new law-school at
Bourges, to which he endeavoured to attract the most eminent teachers.
Her influence, added to that of Cardinal Lorraine, procured for him the
high financial appointment of Superintendent of the Chamber of Accounts,
in 1554. His conduct in that station was firm and honest. He laboured to
put a stop to numberless abuses, which had prevailed both in the
collection and disposition of the revenue; and his zeal is testified by
the ill-will which it brought upon him, and which twice endangered the
loss of his place. His independence in this respect is ill contrasted by
his obsequiousness in supporting the edict known in French history by
the name of the _Semestre_. This requires a few words of explanation. No
legislative body was recognised by the French constitution. Even the
States-General could not enact: the power of making laws resided solely
in the sovereign. But by the practice of the land, the edicts of the
monarch required to be registered by the body of lawyers called the
Parliament of Paris, before they could possess validity as law: a
wholesome practice, which often served as a check upon the court. It was
probably with the intention of rendering that body more subject to
control, that Henry II., or his ministers, introduced the
above-mentioned edict, by which it was proposed to divide the Parliament
into two bodies, to relieve each other every six months. Under this
arrangement it would have been easy to collect the refractory spirits
into one body, and then to bring measures forward for registration in
whichever half year might best suit the views of the crown. L’Hôpital’s
accession to this measure has been palliated by alleging, that, as the
price of it, he stipulated for the abolition of a custom which
prevailed, for suitors to offer fees to the judges before whom their
causes were to be tried, under the name of _spices_ (_épices_),—a ready
means of corruption, for yielding to which, or something not much worse,
Bacon, about half a century later, was removed with disgrace from the
chancellorship of England. The whole tenor of L’Hôpital’s policy in
after times tended to depress the Parliament; and this furnishes a
presumption that his conduct in this particular instance was honest. But
it is strange that he should not have perceived any inroad on the
independence of the judicial body to be a still greater evil than even
that from which he endeavoured to free it. After all, the scheme failed,
and he was deeply mortified at the obloquy which his accession to it
incurred.
The accession of Francis II., by bringing the house of Guise into power,
proved the means of L’Hôpital’s advancement. One of the first acts of
the new government was to restore to the office of chancellor Olivier, a
man of tried integrity, and a friend to toleration. But while the
princes of Guise availed themselves of his high character to court
popularity, they had no thought of acting by his advice; and Olivier,
compelled to be the unwilling instrument of a policy which he detested,
and afraid or unable to resign, was hastened by vexation to his grave.
L’Hôpital was selected to be his successor in June, 1560. The Guises and
the Queen Mother are said to have been actuated by different views in
agreeing upon this appointment. The former thought that from an old
adherent and petitioner of Cardinal Lorraine they had no opposition to
fear: the latter is said to have been influenced by the hope that
L’Hôpital’s patriotism would lead him to be a check on the over-powerful
house of Lorraine.
The circumstances under which he became Chancellor were such as might
fairly breed suspicion of his honesty. None but a bold man could have
hoped to do good after the example of Olivier; none but a dexterous man
could have succeeded. And such dexterity is seldom joined with that
sincerity and purity of purpose, which is one of the most valuable
qualities of a statesman, or any man. There are sometimes seasons in
which an honest man may take office, with the certainty not only that he
will not be permitted to do much that he would wish, but also that he
will be obliged to do a good deal that he disapproves. But such
compromises are of bad example and evil influence, and can only be
excused by the necessity of the times, and by the good results which
ensue. By this test, L’Hôpital’s conduct is vindicated. He conferred a
signal benefit on France at his first entrance upon office, by
dexterously contriving to prevent the establishment of the Inquisition,
which had been resolved on. He obtained the convocation of an Assembly
of Notables at Fontainebleau, in which, through his influence,
conciliatory measures were adopted towards the Protestants, and it was
resolved to summon a meeting of the States-General. But the Guises, by
working on the young king’s fears, turned that measure to their own
advantage. Condé no sooner appeared than he was arrested, tried, and
condemned to death. The King of Navarre was threatened with a similar
fate; and but for the opportune death of Francis II., the kingdom
probably would have been plunged at once into the utmost fury of a
religious war. But the succession of Charles IX., a minor, in December
1560, threw the regency into the hands of Catherine; and she, encouraged
by L’Hôpital, asserted her independence of the Guises, and, to
conciliate the support of a powerful party, released Condé, and allied
herself with the King of Navarre.
At first, the Chancellor’s liberal measures seemed to prosper. As if in
compliance with the demands of the States, he published the celebrated
Ordonnance of Orleans, which embodied most of his views for the
reformation of the state, and introduced a variety of bold and important
changes into the church, the courts of justice, and the financial
system. One portion of it is expressly directed against the oppressive
rights claimed and exercised by the nobility. But the spirit of the age
was not ripe for such extensive reforms: they were too far in advance to
produce a lasting influence. And in attempting to overcome an interested
and prejudiced opposition, the Chancellor was led to an act unworthy of
his real zeal for the welfare of his country. His legal improvements had
not conciliated the good will of the lawyers; and, foreseeing that the
Parliament of Paris might probably refuse to register his edicts, he
took it on himself to dispatch them to the provinces, without ever
having submitted them to that body. To justify such a step, it is not
enough to say that his views were enlarged and noble, theirs bigoted and
illiberal; for it is seldom or never that any object can be of
importance enough to justify a constitutional statesman in breaking down
a constitutional security. Nor had he even the bad excuse of success.
The Parliament were justly incensed, and probably became still more
hostile to the measures adopted in defiance of its authority; and the
high Catholic party prevailed in obtaining a new Assembly of Notables,
at which all was undone which the Chancellor had been labouring to do,
and the persecuting edicts against the Protestants were re-established
in full force.
This blow to his system of toleration the Chancellor contrived to
obviate. He had no assembly, no body of recognised authority on which to
lean for support. The Parliament of Paris was against him; the Assembly
of Notables, composed of lawyers and nobility, was against him; the
States-General were tedious to convoke, and were paralysed by their
division into three orders. In this difficulty he bethought himself of
calling an assembly of deputies from the provincial Parliaments of the
kingdom; and fortified by their recommendation, he promulgated and
obtained registration of the celebrated edict of January, 1562, which,
under certain restrictions, permitted the open profession of the
Protestant faith. Upon this the furious bigotry of the Duke of Guise
broke into open violence, and kindled the first of those religious wars
which long desolated France. Strengthened by the adhesion of the
Constable Montmorenci, and by possession of the persons of the King, and
Queen Regent, the brothers of Lorraine usurped the conduct of affairs,
and excluded L’Hôpital from the council. It is remarkable, considering
his resolute opposition to their policy, that they did not deprive him
of his office; and this may be taken as an evidence either of the
consummate prudence with which, without betraying his own principles, he
avoided giving personal offence to his opponents; or that his character
stood so high as to render his opponents unwilling to incur the odium of
displacing him.
The assassination of the Duke of Guise, in February, 1563, restored to
Catherine her own free-will, and L’Hôpital to power; and he immediately
availed himself of it to lay the basis of peace by fresh edicts in
favour of toleration, which as usual were opposed by the Parliament. In
the following year, Charles IX. having reached the age of fourteen, the
Chancellor revived an old law which fixed the majority of Kings of
France at that age, and declared the King’s majority before the
Parliament of Rouen. Soon after, he was engaged in a quarrel with his
old patron, Cardinal Lorraine, relative to the privileges of the
Gallican Church. The question was, whether or not the decrees of the
Council of Trent should be admitted as authority in France. The
Chancellor opposed this, and he carried his point.
To amuse Charles, and to avoid some of the evils which usually beset a
court, the Chancellor conducted his young sovereign on a tour to the
southern provinces of France. This was attended with unforeseen and evil
consequences. At Bayonne Charles was met by his sister, the Queen of
Spain, attended by the Duke of Alva and other Spanish noblemen. Alva
acquired the confidence of Catherine, whom he persuaded that in the
hands of L’Hôpital she really had no more freedom of action than under
the control of the Guises; and as in her opposition to them she had been
actuated by no love of toleration, she had little to unlearn under the
tuition of that bigoted and able partizan of the papacy. L’Hôpital soon
perceived that his power was shaken. He laboured to make up for the lost
confidence of Catherine, by attaching himself more and more to Charles
IX.; and for a time he succeeded in retaining influence over that
prince, who, during the years 1565 and 1566, was kept in a state of
vacillation between those who pleaded for peace and toleration, and
those who would have exterminated Protestantism at all hazards and by
all means. The religious war was renewed in 1567. Peace was concluded in
1568; but L’Hôpital was not employed to manage it. His only hold upon
power was now in the reverence of the King; and this was shaken by the
artful representations of Catherine. It shows, however, in a strong
light, the ascendancy which L’Hôpital had acquired over Charles’s mind,
that the joint influence of Catherine and the House of Guise could not
induce him absolutely to dismiss his faithful minister. In 1568 he sent
to request the Chancellor to give up the seals for a time, with a
promise of returning them. L’Hôpital says in his Testament, that “he
judged it better to yield to the necessity of the state, and to its new
governors, than to contend with them.” He retired to his estate at
Vignay, near Etampes, where he returned with avidity to his literary
pursuits, and to the amusements and occupations of the country, to which
his letters represent him as devotedly attached.
The Chancellor had not amassed wealth in his various high employments;
but his pensions were continued by the King; and Catherine herself did
not forget his former services. Even in the dreadful massacre of St.
Bartholomew’s they interfered to protect him; though his family were
Protestants, and he himself, though a Catholic by profession and in
observances, was so suspected by the bigot party, who did not understand
how sincerity and tolerance could go together, that it passed into a
sort of proverb, ‘Lord deliver us from the Chancellor’s mass.’ A troop
of horse was sent from court to preserve his mansion from insult. His
domestics were alarmed, and proposed to shut the gates. “No,” said the
Chancellor; “but if the small gate is not enough, open the great one.”
His daughter, then in Paris, was in imminent danger, and escaped only
through the intervention of the Duchess of Guise.
The Chancellor did not long survive this signal proof that his labours
had been in vain. “I have lived too long,” he said, “since I have seen
what has occurred in my last days,—a youth changed from a mild king into
a merciless tyrant.” He died, March 13, 1573; and was buried in his
parish church of Champmoteux. His monument is among those which have
been collected at Paris, in the Musée des Petits-Augustins.
Brantôme has described the person of L’Hôpital. He wore a long white
beard; his face was pale, his demeanor grave, and he resembled the
pictures of St. Jerome, by which name he was known at court. He and the
Constable Montmorenci were famous as _rabroueurs_, or reprimanders, and
were joint terrors to the idle courtiers; and this harshness, if we may
trust his own representations, was not natural, but assumed as a
necessary qualification for his office. His private habits were very
simple and frugal, and he regarded the increase of luxury as the bane of
France. Brantôme says that once, when he paid the Chancellor a visit
with Maréchal Strozzi, their host gave them for dinner a single dish of
_bouillie_, and that his whole stock of plate consisted of one silver
saltcellar. He adds an amusing account of the way in which the
Chancellor rated two newly appointed functionaries, who came to present
themselves, and who could not pass satisfactorily through a legal
examination, which he bestowed upon them.
The leading objects of L’Hôpital’s political life were to obtain the
reformation of abuses, to establish the independence of the Gallican
church against the usurpations of Rome, and to procure toleration for
the Protestants. He is, we believe, the first minister who laid down the
principle of toleration, and proclaimed the impossibility and absurdity
of making force the rule of reason; and he has thus gained an
indefeasible title to the reverence, not only of his countrymen, but of
mankind. “What laws,” he said, in his inaugurative speech to the
Parliament of Paris, “have not been promulgated on this point of
religion? What judgments and punishments, of which even the magistrates
of the Parliament have been victims? To what purpose have served such
continued armaments and combats in Germany, in England, and in Scotland?
The ancient religion has been shaken by these combats, and the new
confirmed. The mistake lies in treating the maladies of the mind as if
they were those of the body. Experience teaches us that it is the force
of reason, the gentle persuasion of words alone, which can win hearts,
and cure diseased spirits.”
This great man has another claim to notice, as one of the most
distinguished jurists and reformers of France. He has been classed with
Charlemagne and St. Louis, as one of the three principal legislators of
that country; and his eminent successor D’Aguesseau bore testimony to
the merits of his edicts, as the foundation of the most useful laws
which were afterwards enacted. His constitutional views were directed
towards raising the royal authority, at the expense of the nobility and
the Parliament. We have expressed our belief that in the latter instance
his conduct was wrong. His views of reform are embodied in the
Ordonnance of Orleans (January, 1561), and that of Moulins (February,
1566), which De Thou describes as being the complement of the former. Of
the contents of the Ordonnance of Orleans we have already given such
notice as our space allows; that of Moulins pertains rather to legal and
judicial reforms; it limits and defines the powers of judicial officers,
and determines the law on various points, relative to entails, arrests
for debt, sales, &c. In short, these two edicts provide for the removal
of most of those evils which, unredressed, produced the first
Revolution.
It is much to be regretted that L’Hôpital’s essay towards a work on
French law is lost. There is a volume extant of his Poetical Epistles,
of which the best edition is that of Amsterdam, 1732. To these, and to
his Testament, which is printed in the Bibliothèque Choisie of Colomiès,
and in Brantôme (article of the Constable Montmorenci), we may refer for
authentic details of his life; of which numerous particulars will be
found in the history of De Thou, the Memoirs of Brantôme, the Letters of
Pasquier, the Eloges of Thevet, and other contemporary writers. His
speeches before the States of Orleans have been published; and a
Collection of Memoirs, consisting of various State Papers, printed at
Cologne, 1672, has been ascribed to him. The Eloge of L’Hôpital was
proposed as a prize by the French Academy in 1777. Slight accounts of
him will be found in the various biographical dictionaries; but no
publication, so far as we know, has appeared either in French or
English, which can dispense with the necessity of consulting the
original authorities, on the part of those who wish to obtain more than
a superficial acquaintance with the history of this illustrious
statesman.
[Illustration:
[The Conciergerie at Paris, from whence the Huguenot prisoners were
liberated by L’Hôpital himself,—from a Print in the British Museum.]
]
[Illustration]
MRS. SIDDONS.
The light esteem in which the theatrical profession has commonly been
held renders it probable that the introduction of an actress among the
few female names included in our Gallery may seem to some persons
uncalled for and injudicious. That there are few players entitled to
such admission we allow: but for one who studied acting as a branch of
art, discarding every unworthy species of stage trickery; and who, by
profound study, and a rare union of mental and bodily excellence, has
inseparably connected her name and memory with the masterpieces of the
British drama, we do claim a place (to which her eminent brother is
almost equally entitled) among the master-minds of the fine arts.
Sarah Kemble came of a theatrical stock. Her father was manager of a
provincial company of actors; her mother was the daughter of a
provincial manager. Both parents maintained a high character for moral
rectitude; and the latter is said to have been distinguished by a
strength of mind, and stateliness of demeanour, which may have had some
influence upon the character and manners of her celebrated children.
Sarah, their eldest daughter, was born at Brecon, July 5, 1755. From an
early period of childhood she was trained to the stage. She was scarcely
more than seventeen when her affections were engaged by an actor of her
father’s company, named Siddons, to whom, after some opposition on the
part of her parents, she was married, November 26, 1773. Her early
married life was beset with difficulties. Mr. Siddons possessed little
merit as an actor; and during nine years, which elapsed before Mrs.
Siddons established a metropolitan reputation, she had to endure hard
work and low pay. The first encouragement which she received in her
career was from the notice of the Hon. Miss Boyle, afterwards Lady
O’Neil, a lady possessed of high mental qualities, as well as birth and
beauty, who was so much struck
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
M^{RS}. SIDDONS.
_After the Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
by the young actress’s performance of Belvidera at Cheltenham in 1774,
that she sought her out in her obscurity, and there commenced a warm and
lasting friendship. Through this connection Mrs. Siddons seems to have
been introduced to Garrick, by whom she was engaged at Drury Lane
theatre. Her first appearance was in the character of Portia, December
29, 1775. She was received with indifference; and during the remainder
of the season she did not establish herself in the favour of the London
audiences, nor did she appear in any first-rate part. Garrick professed
high admiration for her, and on quitting the stage, which he did towards
the close of that season, promised to procure for her an advantageous
engagement with his successors in the management. In this promise he
failed, for during the summer of 1776 she received an abrupt dismissal
from Drury Lane. Her failure to produce a sensation in the first
instance does not seem to have weighed much on her mind. She knew her
powers, but was conscious that they were immature; and she was deeply
sensible through life how necessary, even to the greatest powers, are
cultivation and study. But this dismissal affected her in a very
different manner. In her own words, quoted from the autograph
‘Recollections’ intrusted to her friend and biographer, Mr. Campbell,
“it was a stunning and cruel blow, overwhelming all my ambitious hopes,
and involving peril, even to the very subsistence of my helpless babes.”
Her fears were soothed, and her mortification relieved by her success at
several of the provincial theatres. She received her dismissal from
Drury Lane while at Birmingham, where she was engaged during the summer
to perform the highest characters; and where she laid the foundation of
her fame, by acquiring the good opinion of the actor Henderson, who
pronounced, within a year of her expulsion from Drury Lane, that she was
an actress who never had an equal, nor would ever have a superior.
Through his recommendation, in the following year she obtained a
permanent engagement at Bath, where she was received with distinguished
favour, and where she remained until her increasing reputation procured
for her an invitation to return to Drury Lane. She chose the part of
Isabella, in the ‘Fatal Marriage,’ for her debut, October 10, 1782. The
anxiety with which she approached this second trial is described in an
interesting manner in her own memoranda. On this occasion her hopes were
fully gratified. She played Isabella eight times between October 10, and
October 30, when she appeared in her second character, Euphrasia, in the
‘Grecian Daughter.’ Her other parts, during this first season, were Jane
Shore, Calista, Belvidera, and Zara in the ‘Mourning Bride.’
We propose in this sketch of Mrs. Siddons’s theatrical life to notice
only the most remarkable of her characters, reserving to the end a
complete list of them, together with a few remarks on her style of
acting. In November, 1783, she played Isabella in ‘Measure for Measure,’
with entire success; and thus solved the real or pretended doubts of a
few persons, who questioned her courage or capacity to represent the
masterpieces of Shakspeare to a London audience. No one could do more
justice to the pure, uncompromising, clear-sighted virtue of Isabella,
so consonant to her own honest and high-souled simplicity: nor was she
at fault in attempting, during the same season, Constance, in ‘King
John,’ a character of more varied emotion, and far greater demand on the
resources of the player. Of this part she says, in an elaborate
criticism, worthy of being read with attention by all persons, and
especially by actors, “I cannot conceive in the whole range of dramatic
character a greater difficulty than that of representing this grand
creature.” Those who remember her performance of it in the meridian of
her powers, bear testimony, with Mr. Campbell, to the depth of her
maternal affection, her queen-like majesty, and her tremendous power of
invective and sarcasm: when first revived for her the play seems to have
been coldly received.
The celebrated portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse was painted
by Reynolds in 1783. The character was suggested by the painter: the
attitude is that in which the sitter first placed herself, by which
Reynolds was so struck that he at once adopted it.
An interesting anecdote relative to Mrs. Siddons’s first country
performance of Lady Macbeth, is told in the Memoranda from which we have
already quoted. “It was my custom to study my characters at night, when
the domestic cares and business of the day were over. On the night
preceding that in which I was to appear for the first time, I shut
myself up, as usual, when all the family were retired, and commenced my
study of _Lady Macbeth_. As the character is very short, I thought I
should soon accomplish it. Being then only twenty years of age, I
believed, as many do believe, that little more was necessary than to get
the words into my head; for the necessity of discrimination, and the
development of character, at that time of my life, had scarcely entered
into my imagination. But, to proceed, I went on with tolerable composure
in the silence of the night, (a night I can never forget,) till I came
to the assassination scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a
degree that made it impossible for me to get farther. I snatched up my
candle, and hurried out of the room, in a paroxysm of terror. My dress
was of silk, and the rustling of it, as I ascended the stairs to go to
bed, seemed to my panic-struck fancy like the movement of a spectre
pursuing me. At last I reached my chamber, where I found my husband fast
asleep. I clapt my candlestick down upon the table, without the power of
putting the candle out; and I threw myself on my bed, without daring to
stay even to take off my clothes. At peep of day I rose to resume my
task; but so little did I know of my part when I appeared in it at
night, that my shame and confusion cured me of procrastinating my
business for the remainder of my life.”
“About six years afterwards I was called upon to act the same character
in London. By this time I had perceived the difficulty of assuming a
personage with whom no one feeling of common general nature was
congenial or assistant. One’s own heart could prompt one to express with
some degree of truth the sentiments of a mother, a daughter, a wife, a
lover, a sister, &c.; but to adopt this character must be an effort of
the judgment alone.”
In accordance with this, Mrs. Siddons has been known to say, that Lady
Macbeth gave her more trouble than any other of her characters, both in
settling her conception of the poet’s meaning, and determining the means
of giving effect to it. Her success however in the eyes of the public
was complete: in Mr. Campbell’s words, “the moment she seized the part
she identified her image with it in the minds of the living generation.”
She appeared in it for the first time in London, February 2, 1785. Smith
played Macbeth. As in the case of Constance, Mrs. Siddons has left, in
an elaborate essay on the character of Lady Macbeth, interesting
evidence of the deep study which she bestowed on her profession; a point
in which, as well as in general mental cultivation, the Kemble family
have been advantageously distinguished from others even of our
first-rate actors. It is scarcely possible to conceive ‘Macbeth’ so well
performed as when the principal characters were filled by Mrs. Siddons
and Kemble: the actors might have been thought born for the parts. The
same may be said of ‘Coriolanus,’ in which they appeared together for
the first time in February, 1789. But the season of 1785 is also
memorable for Mrs. Siddons’s first appearance in Desdemona, a character
as widely different from the Scottish Queen as can well be imagined. Yet
it is recorded to have been one of the actress’s most exquisite
performances; and this is one of the strongest proofs of her
extraordinary talent. Unsuitable as her person, voice, and general
demeanour may seem to those who knew her only in her later days, we have
the undeniable testimony of competent judges to the grace, loveliness,
and sweetness with which she personated the gentle Venetian. Her very
stature, Mr. Boaden says, seemed to be lowered. Ophelia she performed
once, and once only, for her benefit, May 15, 1786, to her brother’s
Hamlet; and, though a poor singer, she rendered the part deeply
affecting. Juliet she also performed, we believe once only, for her
benefit in 1789. Cordelia and Imogen are to be added to the list of
characters of the gentler cast. The former was not one of her most
popular, probably not one of her most effective, performances, for Lear
is said to have been almost the only play in which, when both were on
the stage, the brother made a stronger impression than the sister. The
pure, gentle dignity of Imogen must have found in her a most effective
representative.
In the autumn of 1783, about a year before Dr. Johnson’s death, Mrs.
Siddons, at his own request, paid him a visit, which was several times
repeated. He expressed a strong desire to see her in Queen Katherine,
his favourite character among Shakspeare’s females. He was not so
gratified; for the play was not brought forward until November 28, 1788,
after an absence from the stage of near half a century. This, like Lady
Macbeth, we must regard as one of Mrs. Siddons’s peculiar characters.
“It was an era,” Mr. Campbell says, “not only in Mrs. Siddons’s history,
but in the fortune of the play as an acting piece; for certainly, in the
history of all female performance on the British stage, there is no
specific tradition of any excellence at all approaching to hers as Queen
Katherine.” The two principal scenes belonging to the part are
strikingly contrasted. The high mind and majestic deportment of the
actress, and the sarcasm which she pours out on the Cardinal, render the
Trial Scene one of the most effective on the stage; and it has
fortunately been preserved from oblivion by the pencil of Harlowe. But
the last scene, in the sick chamber, was among the strongest proofs of
Mrs. Siddons’s close adherence to nature, and one of her greatest
triumphs over the difficulties of her art, enhanced as they were by the
extravagant dimensions of the modern theatres. It may be mentioned to
show her confidence in her own judgment as to the truth of nature that,
though the audience in the gallery sometimes asked her to speak louder,
she never obeyed the call; but left the architect responsible for any
failure of effect, rather than herself overstep the bounds of propriety
in the most solemn event of human life.
Mrs. Siddons quitted Drury Lane for the season 1789–90, in consequence
of the difficulty of obtaining her salary while the treasury was in the
hands of Sheridan. She was induced by promises to return in the
following season; but a weak state of health prevented her playing more
than seven nights, and she appeared in no new character; nor, during the
summer of 1791, did she act on any provincial stage. She returned to
Drury Lane in 1794, after the rebuilding of the theatre, and remained
there until 1802; when the impossibility of rescuing the reward of her
labours from that “drowning gulf,” as she justly calls Sheridan in one
of her letters, drove her away finally. The most remarkable of her new
characters, during this period of eight years, were Millwood, in ‘George
Barnwell,’ and Agnes, in ‘Fatal Curiosity,’ both plays of Lillo; Mrs.
Haller; Elvira in ‘Pizarro,’ which, in spite of the demerits of the
play, she rendered one of her most popular characters; and Hermione, in
the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ her last new part, which she acted for the first
time, March 25, 1802. The statue scene was one of her most extraordinary
performances, both for its illusion while she remained motionless, and
for the effect produced by her descent from the pedestal, and
recognition of her daughter Perdita.
In one of her early performances of this character she met with an
accident which might well have ended fatally. The muslin draperies in
which she was enveloped caught fire from a lamp; fortunately, one of the
scene-men saw and extinguished it before it spread. Her gratitude for
his interposition is eloquently expressed in her correspondence; and her
warmth of feeling was subsequently evinced in the pains which she took
to procure for the man’s son, who had deserted from the army, remission
from what she justly calls “the horrid torture and disgrace of the
lash,” and in the lively pleasure which she expresses in the prospect of
succeeding.
Upon her final departure from Drury Lane, Mrs. Siddons formed an
engagement at Covent Garden, where she appeared for the first time,
September 27, 1803. She continued there until June 29, 1812, on which
day she bid farewell to the stage. During this time she performed in no
new characters, nor is any circumstance which requires notice recorded
of this part of her professional life. In her last season we find that,
of her earlier characters, she performed Isabella, in ‘The Fatal
Marriage,’ twice; Isabella, in ‘Measure for Measure,’ seven times;
Euphrasia, twice; Belvidera, six times; and Mrs. Beverley, four times.
It may perhaps be taken as an indication of that by which she wished
chiefly to be remembered, that she played Lady Macbeth ten times, and
chose it for her farewell. Queen Katherine she played six times;
Constance and Volumnia, four times each; Elvira, five times; Mrs.
Haller, twice; Hermione, four times. On her last appearance the house
was crowded to excess, and the excitement of the occasion was testified
by a general demand that the play should be stopped after Lady Macbeth’s
appearance in the sleeping scene. Mrs. Siddons returned to the boards on
various occasions, chiefly for her brother Charles’s benefit: her last
performance was in the part of Lady Randolph, June 9, 1819.
In giving, in addition to what we have already said, a short general
notice of the professional merits of Mrs. Siddons, we shall confine our
remarks chiefly to those characters which better suited her maturer
years, in which alone a large majority of our readers can have seen her.
She was throughout the tragic department the unrivalled actress of her
time; though in such parts as Belvidera, Desdemona, Cordelia, &c., the
power of exciting the sympathy of an audience might have been shared
with her by Mrs. Cibber and other of her predecessors, or by her
successors, Miss O’Neil or Miss Kemble. But in one respect she stands
alone in her profession: she was the most intellectual of actresses. She
was a person of deep thought, and an habitual student of nature with a
view to the perfection of her art; and that as much, or more, in
advanced life, than when she had her reputation to make or to enjoy in
the first years of her celebrity. Mrs. Siddons sat day after day in her
study, looking at Shakspeare and whatever bore upon him, not as if he
were the mere poet of the stage, furnishing an outline to be filled up
by her peculiar powers, but as if he were the high priest and expositor
of human nature, whose lessons it was the serious business of her life
to learn, and having learned, to teach.
We shall not add to what we have already said of her Queen Katherine, or
Lady Macbeth, except one circumstance, illustrative of the above
position. Mrs. Siddons, who repeatedly read ‘Macbeth’ before the most
competent judges, made a deeper and more lasting impression, not only in
her own part, but in the other characters, than did the representation
on the stage by her brother and herself, with all the advantages of
dress and the illusion of scenery. The audience, at her readings,
consisting of men and women of taste and literature, professed never to
have understood Shakspeare so thoroughly before.
Her Isabella, in ‘Measure for Measure,’ claims a short notice. This play
in Garrick’s reign was acted occasionally to empty benches in the dull
part of the season; but neither the manager himself, nor his leading
performers, condescended to appear in so grave and sermonizing a piece.
Even when played by Kemble and his sister, it did not draw crowded
houses; but it ensured a critical and enlightened audience. The theatre
seldom contained so many men of the first reputation for taste and
literature as when that play was performed. John Kemble’s mind was
framed in the same mould with his sister’s; he gave to a sententious and
philosophic part dignity and interest, where an ordinary actor would
preach his audience to sleep. The scene between the Duke in the disguise
of a Confessor, and Isabella, excited neither tears nor rapturous
applause, but intense interest, and breathless attention. The Duke’s
exposition of his project is long, her intervening speeches short, and
not emphatic; so that such a scene bids fair to be called _prosing_. But
the intense and intelligent expression in her eyes, and more perhaps in
her mouth, the great seat of expression, filled up whatever was wanting:
the gradually increasing, but as yet far from complete comprehension of
the device, and of its consistency with her own purity, marked without
words what was passing in her mind: but when she exclaims “The image of
it gives me content already, and I trust it will grow to a most
prosperous perfection,” the burst of perfect understanding, the lighting
up of every feature, and the tones of sudden joy, produced a
corresponding effect in the spectators, which scenes of intense pathos
could scarcely surpass in effect. Mrs. Siddons’s power over the mind was
as great as over the passions.
Another extraordinary performance was her Millwood, in ‘George
Barnwell.’ She took that part, which had never been played by a
first-rate actress, in hopes that she might be of service to her brother
Charles, then a young actor, who was to be brought forward as Barnwell.
In the early scenes the severity of her blandishments bordered on the
ludicrous; she was more like Barnwell’s mother than his mistress: but in
her scene of dissimulation with Thorowgood, and in her subsequent arrest
and diabolically triumphant avowal of the motive of her conduct through
life, the desire to revenge her wrongs on the opposite sex, she
pourtrayed wickedness with grand and appalling force. Her thundering
exclamation, “I know you, and I hate you all; I expect no mercy, and I
ask for none,” was made with a withering effect. The scene in ‘Fatal
Curiosity,’ in which Agnes suggests to her husband the murder of their
unknown son, was another of her wonderful exhibitions: in Mr. Campbell’s
words, “it made the flesh of the spectator creep.”
Mrs. Siddons is said to have thought well of her own talents for comedy;
and her reading of Shakspeare’s characters of low humour was admirable.
She played at different times Katherine, in ‘The Taming of the Shrew,’
and Rosalind; as well as Mrs. Oakley, and a few other characters of the
modern drama. There seems to have been nothing against her success in
genteel comedy but a deficiency of animal spirits. Her delivery of the
level conversation in tragedy was easy, graceful, and refined. Her
representation of the early scenes in ‘The Gamester,’ where she had
merely to personate an elegant and highbred woman, bearing up against
present anxiety and impending misfortune, was as attractive and as
finished as her deep tragedy in the sequel was pathetic and harrowing.
And in the first scenes of Mrs. Haller, the charm of her manners and
delivery imparted interest even to the dull detail of a housekeeper’s
weekly routine.
We subjoin a list of the parts which Mrs. Siddons performed in London.
The reader will be surprised to find how many of them are in plays all
but forgotten, and utterly unworthy of her talents. In those marked (*)
she made her first appearance for her own benefit: in those marked (†),
for John Kemble’s.
Characters. Plays.
1782–3.
Isabella Fatal Marriage
Euphrasia Grecian Daughter
Jane Shore Jane Shore
Calista Fair Penitent
*Belvidera Venice Preserved
*Zara Mourning Bride
1783–4.
Isabella Measure for Measure
Mrs. Beverley Gamester
Constance King John
*Lady Randolph Douglas
Countess of Salisbury Countess of Salisbury (_Hartson._)
*Sigismunda Tancred and Sigismunda
1784–5.
Margaret of Anjou Earl of Warwick (_Franklin._)
Zara Zara (_from Voltaire._)
Matilda Carmelite (_Cumberland._)
Camiola Maid of Honour
*Lady Macbeth Macbeth
Desdemona Othello
Elfrida Elfrida (_Mason._)
Rosalind As you like it
1785–6.
The Duchess Duke of Braganza (_Jephson._)
Mrs. Lovemore Way to keep Him
*Hermione Distressed Mother
*Ophelia, and the Lady in
Comus
Malvina The Captives (_Delap._)
Elwina Percy (_Miss H. More._)
1786–7.
Cleone Cleone (_Dodsley._)
Imogen Cymbeline
Hortensia Count of Narbonne (_Jephson._)
†Lady Restless All in the Wrong
Julia Italian Lovers (_Jephson._)
Alicia Jane Shore
1787–8.
Cordelia Lear
Cleonice Fall of Sparta (_Mrs. Cowley._)
†Katherine Taming the Shrew
Dionara Regent (_Greatheed._)
*Cleopatra All for Love
1788–9.
Queen Katherine Henry VIII.
Volumnia Coriolanus
*The Princess and Mrs. Riot Law of Lombardy (_Jephson._)
Lethe (_Farce. Garrick._)
Mary Mary Queen of Scots (_St. John._)
*Juliet Romeo and Juliet
1791–2.
Queen Elizabeth Richard III.
Mrs. Oakley Jealous Wife
1792–3.
Ariadne Ariadne (_Murphy._)
1793–4.
Countess Orsini Emilia Galotti (_from Lessing._)
1794–5.
Horatia Roman Father (_Whitehead._)
Elvira Edwyn and Elgiva (_Miss Burney._)
Palmira Mahomet (_from Voltaire._)
Emmeline Edgar and Emmeline (_Afterpiece._)
1795–6.
Roxana Alexander the Great (_Lee._)
Almeyda Queen of Granada (_Miss Lee._)
Julia Such Things were (_Prince Hoare._)
1796–7.
Eleanora Edwin and Eleonora (_Thomson._)
Vitellia Conspiracy (_Jephson._)
Millwood George Barnwell
Athenais Force of Love (_Lee._)
Aspasia Tamerlane (_Rowe._)
Dido Queen of Carthage (_Reed._)
Agnes Fatal Curiosity
1797–8.
Julia Rivals
Mrs. Haller Stranger
1798–9.
Miranda Aurelio and Miranda (_Boaden._)
Countess Castle of Montval (_Dr. Whalley._)
Elvira Pizarro
1799–1800.
Adelaide Adelaide (_Pye._)
Lady Jane De Montfort
1800–1.
Helena Antonio (_Godwin._)
Agnes Julian and Agnes (_Sotheby._)
1802.
Hermione Winter’s Tale
Of Mrs. Siddons’s private life it is not necessary for us to speak at
length. She had a full share of domestic troubles; and suffered the most
poignant sorrow which could have befallen her affectionate temper, in
the successive deaths of two lovely daughters in the prime of youth, and
of her eldest son at a more advanced age. Nor was she exempted by her
brilliant success and large gains from great anxiety upon pecuniary
matters, and from the necessity of diligent labour at times when rest
would have been most grateful to a distressed spirit, and a body
weakened by frequent indisposition. And she made it her boast that she
had never wilfully disappointed either a manager or the public; and that
in point of punctuality, she had always been _an honest actress_. But
Mr. Siddons lost money in some unfortunate speculations; and this,
combined with the extreme difficulty of extracting from Sheridan her
salary, or even the proceeds of her benefits, kept Mrs. Siddons poor for
many years. It is however gratifying to know that the evening of her
life was spent in affluence.
In social intercourse Mrs. Siddons commanded the respect of all, the
admiration and love of those who knew her intimately. To a
constitutional want of animal spirits, and to a fear of that
presumptuous intrusion to which actresses are often exposed, we may
attribute a gravity, not to say severity of manner, from which distant
observers sometimes inferred a corresponding severity of character. That
this was not the case, that she was benevolent, cheerful, and
affectionately interested in the welfare of all who enjoyed her
friendship, is shown by the testimony of many, and by the evidence of
her own actions.
To be courted by the rich and noble is not the best proof or reward even
of professional merit; and no one ever was less disposed than Mrs.
Siddons to act the part of what is called _a lion_. But it should be
mentioned that her acquaintance was eagerly cultivated among the highest
of the land; and that she was personally esteemed by George III. and his
queen, and often summoned to attend on their private circle. She
possessed a still higher honour, and one which she is said to have
esteemed more highly, in the admiration and friendship of Johnson,
Reynolds, Burke, Fox, and other intellectual ornaments of the age.
After quitting the stage, Mrs. Siddons gave public readings of poetry at
the Argyle Rooms, and also, by special invitation from the Universities,
at Cambridge and Oxford. At home her readings of Shakspeare were the
delight of large and frequent parties, till within a year or two of her
death. The latter years of her life were spent, the winter months at her
house in London, the summer months at some watering-place, and in visits
to her numerous friends. Time laid his touch gently on her noble face
and person; and to the end of life she looked some years younger than
her age, and preserved her mental powers unimpaired. She died June 8,
1831, in her seventy-sixth year.
We need hardly refer to the Lives of Messrs. Boaden and Campbell. The
interest of the latter is much increased by the critical and other
writings of Mrs. Siddons, with which it is interspersed.
[Illustration: [Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, from Sir J. Reynolds.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by E. Scriven._
SIR W. HERSCHELL.
_From a Crayon Picture by the late J. Russell, Esq^{re}. R.A. in the
possession of Sir John Herschell._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
HERSCHEL.
William Herschel was born at Hanover, November 15, 1738. His father was
a musician, and brought up his four sons to his own art, which in
Germany gave him better means of educating his children, than would have
fallen to the lot of a person holding the same station in England. The
subject of our memoir is said to have had a master who instructed him in
French, ethics, and metaphysics: but at the age of fourteen he was
placed in the band of the Hanoverian regiment of guards, and in 1758 or
1759 he accompanied a detachment of the regiment to England. Another
account states that he grew tired of his occupation, and came to England
alone. Here, after struggling with poverty for some time, he was chosen
by Lord Darlington to organize a band for the Durham militia; after
which he passed several years in the West Riding of Yorkshire, employed
in teaching music and studying languages. About 1765 he was elected
organist at Halifax, and employed himself in the study of harmony and
mathematics. Such at least is the statement of the ‘Obituary;’ but in
that respectable work we find no references to the sources from which
these minute particulars of Herschel’s early life are obtained. About
this time he is said to have visited Italy; and, without professing to
give credit to it, we may here insert a curious story which appears to
have been copied into English works from the ‘Dictionnaire des Auteurs
Vivans,’ &c., Paris, 1816. Being at Genoa, and not having wherewith to
pay his passage home to England, he procured from a M. L’Anglé the use
of some public rooms for a concert, at which he played a quartett,
alone, upon a harp, and two horns, one fastened to each shoulder. Those
who are in the least acquainted with wind instruments will hardly
believe that a horn fastened to the shoulder would be of much more use
than one growing out of the head, as a musical instrument; to say
nothing of the difficulty of blowing two horns at once, or of playing a
_quartett_ upon _three_ instruments. Remarkable characters are generally
made the subject of wonderful stories, of which each is fashioned in
accordance with the general habits of the inventor: the groom’s idea of
a wit was “a gentleman who could ride three horses at once;” surely two
horns and a harp are not too much to be played at once by a planetary
discoverer.
About 1766, he is said to have been one of the Pump-room band at Bath,
and was shortly afterwards organist of the Octagon Chapel there. He
taught and read as before; and here he turned his attention to
astronomy. He borrowed a small reflecting telescope of a friend; and at
length, finding that the purchase of such an instrument was
(“fortunately,” as it has been well expressed,) above his means, he
endeavoured to construct one for himself. His first attempt was a
five-feet Newtonian reflector. It was some time before he perfected
himself in the method of forming mirrors: in one instance he is said to
have spoiled 200 before he succeeded.
In 1781, he announced to the world the discovery of his new planet, of
which we shall presently speak. He was immediately appointed private
astronomer to the King, by George III., a post which, we believe, was
created for him, and died with him, with a salary of £400, and removed,
first to Datchet, afterwards to Slough, where he continued till his
death, August 23, 1822. During this period he ran that career of patient
and sagacious investigation, terminating in brilliant discovery, which
has made his name so well known to the world. Little has been published
concerning his private life; but the whole results of his mind are to be
found in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ between the years 1782 and
1818.
We have not been able to find the dates of his knighthood, or of his
receiving the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from the University of
Oxford. He married (we cannot find the date) Mrs. Mary Pitt, a widow;
and his only son, Sir John Herschel, has selected from the many tasks to
which he is competent, that of developing and adding to his father’s
discoveries.
In the space which we can devote to the astronomical and optical labours
of Herschel, we cannot attempt to furnish even the smallest detail of
their end and objects, since the catalogue of titles alone would occupy
more room than we have to give. We can do no more than address ourselves
to the impression which generally exists upon the subject, and which
supposes the inventor and the philosopher to be no more than an
industrious man with good eyes, clever at grinding mirrors for
reflecting telescopes, and lucky enough to point one at a new planet.
Such being the common notion, it is not possible to make any mere
description of Herschel’s papers an index of his merits. Nor have we
here understated the scientific knowledge of the public in general. When
Sir John Herschel lately set out for the Cape of Good Hope, the
newspapers announced his approaching departure, accompanied by the
information that “six waggon loads of telescopes” were on their way to
the ship, which was all that was said, except in publications expressly
scientific. That one principal object of the son’s voyage was to
complete a great branch of astronomy, by doing in the southern
hemisphere what the father had done in the northern, was not stated for
a very simple reason—that this portion of the father’s labours is hardly
known by name to any but astronomers. And it is to astronomers only that
Herschel is truly known. The notion entertained of him by others often
reminds us of the farmer, who came to him to know the proper time to cut
his hay. The philosopher replied by pointing to his own crop, which
happened to be rotting on the ground under a heavy rain.
The planet which Herschel called after George III. (but which now goes
under the more appropriate name of Uranus) was discovered by him March
13, 1781; not accidentally, but as one of the fruits of a laborious
investigation, with a distinct and useful object. He was examining every
star with one telescope, that he might obtain a definite idea of
relative phenomena, which should enable him to distinguish changes
actually taking place, from differences of appearance caused by the use
of different telescopes: the whole being in furtherance of the design of
“throwing some new light upon the organization of the celestial bodies.”
The last words, which are part of the title of one of his subsequent
papers, aptly express the line of astronomy to which Herschel devoted
his life; and the discovery of the planet Uranus was not the chance work
of a moment, but the consequence of sagacity strengthened by habit, the
latter being formed with a perfect knowledge of what was wanted, as well
as of what would be useful in supplying it. Had he been merely
registering the places of the stars, he would probably (as others did
before him) have passed the planet, perhaps with some remark upon its
apparent _diskiness_: for though the stars have no well-defined discs,
yet some have so much more of the appearance of discs than others, that
a faint planet, viewed with a low power, might easily be taken for a
star. But being engaged upon the stars, expressly with a view to trying
how much of such a circumstance would be telescopic, and how much real,
he was thereby led to try higher powers, and, eventually, other
telescopes. The existence of the _planet_ was soon ascertained, and
forms one of the two great features of Herschel’s reputation in the eyes
of the world at large.
The celebrated forty-foot telescope, first described to the Royal
Society by Herschel, June 2, 1795, was the result of a long series of
experiments on the construction of mirrors, begun at Bath, on telescopes
from two to twenty feet in length. And we may here remark, that “the
bulk of his fortune arose from the sale of telescopes of his own
construction, many of which were purchased for the chief observatories
of Europe,” and not from the salary of £400 a year which he received as
private astronomer to George III. See ‘Statement of Circumstances,’ &c.,
a pamphlet printed on the occasion of the last election of a President
by the Royal Society. In 1785, George III. furnished Herschel with the
means of undertaking an instrument larger than any he had yet made. The
greatest difficulty (independent of the stand) was the obtaining a
mirror of sufficient size, which should not crack in cooling, and should
be strong enough not to bend under its own weight. This instrument has
been so frequently described that we shall say no more of it, except
that Herschel dates the completion of it from August 28, 1789, when he
discovered the sixth satellite of Saturn, and obtained his best view of
the spots on that planet. A month later, the seventh satellite was
discovered by Herschel. This telescope is now never used. Sir J.
Herschel prefers a twenty-foot reflector for his own observations.
The first discovery of the satellites of Uranus was also in a minor
degree the work of thought. Such bodies were repeatedly looked for by
Herschel, but none were seen. A small change in the instrument, by which
the light was increased, suggested one more trial; and the result was
the establishment of the existence of the two first satellites, in
January, 1787. Two more were discovered by Herschel, in 1790, and two
more in 1794. These satellites cannot be seen but with an instrument of
first-rate power, and in a favourable position of the planet. No one has
observed the four last satellites except Herschel himself, or the two
first, except himself and Sir J. Herschel, who has confirmed his
father’s determination of their periods. See _Mem. Royal Astron. Soc._
vol. viii. He found that their orbits were nearly perpendicular to the
plane of the ecliptic, and ascertained their retrograde motion, and some
remarkable relations between their mean distances. It has a brilliant
sound, but it is literally true as to the number of _known_ bodies
composing the solar system, that Herschel left it exactly half as large
again as he found it. To the Sun, Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Moon,
Mars, Jupiter and four satellites, Saturn and five satellites, and
Halley’s Comet, eighteen in all, he added nine, namely, two satellites
to Saturn, Uranus and six satellites.
But not content with augmenting our own, it is to Herschel we owe the
discovery of other systems. That the fixed stars were each the centre of
a number of planets was suspected, perhaps rather prematurely, before
his observations were made known. But the first positive addition to our
knowledge of _systems_, that is of bodies which move in any degree of
connexion with each other, is to be found in his paper read to the Royal
Society, June 9, 1803, announcing that Castor, γ Leonis, ε Bootis, ζ
Herculis, δ Serpentis, γ Virginis, were most probably _binary_[4] stars.
The existence of such systems has been confirmed by Sir J. Herschel and
Professor Struve, and the duration of the periods given by Herschel has
been sufficiently confirmed to make the exactness of his observations
remarkable. But to new planets, and new systems, Herschel added new
universes; or, more properly speaking, showed that the universe
consisted of portions, each conveying as large an idea of extent and
number, as the whole of what was previously called _the universe_. His
great telescope furnished sufficient facts, and his mind was not slow to
draw a conjectural inference, which must be classed among the happiest
efforts of reasoning speculation. The resolution of the milky way into
stars proved that we are situated in a stratum of such bodies much
thicker in some directions than others: this led to the inference that
some or all of the nebulæ with which the sky is crowded might be similar
enormous groups of stars; and the resolution of some of the nebulæ into
detached portions was a first step towards the demonstration of the
conjecture.
Footnote 4:
_Double_ stars, those which are so near to each other as to appear one
to the naked eye: _binary_ systems, double stars which revolve round
each other.
There is enough yet unmentioned,—in the discovery of the time of
rotation of Saturn—that of Jupiter’s satellites—that of the
refrangibility of heat—the experiments on colours—the enormous
collection of nebulæ—the experimental determination of the magnitude of
stars—the researches and conjectures on the physical constitution of the
sun—those on the qualities of telescopes, &c. &c.,—to form by itself no
ordinary title to the recollection of posterity. But we must refer to
Sir J. Herschel’s Astronomy, in which will be found such an account of
them as the plan of the work permitted, by one who has shown himself as
indisposed to exaggerate, as interested to explain.
In the labours of his observatory Herschel was assisted by his sister,
Miss Caroline Herschel, with whose help he published, in 1798, his
catalogue of Flamsteed’s stars. This lady, whose exertions, both as an
observer and calculator, are well known to astronomers, is still living,
at a very advanced age, in Hanover.
We do not know of any very trustworthy account of Herschel. ‘The
Obituary for 1822,’ the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ the ‘Annual Register,’
&c., do not state their authorities. We have followed the
first-mentioned work as to facts and dates in most of the particulars
here mentioned.
[Illustration: [View of the great telescope erected at Slough.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by R. Woodman._
SIR S. ROMILLY.
_From an Enamel after a Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
ROMILLY.
The grandfather of Sir Samuel Romilly, as we learn from the following
passage of a speech which he made at Bristol, “was born the heir to a
considerable landed estate at Montpellier, in the South of France. His
ancestors had early imbibed and adopted the principles and doctrines of
the Reformed Religion, and he had been educated himself in that
religious faith. He had the misfortune to live soon after the time when
the Edict of Nantes, the great Toleration Act of the Protestants of
France, was revoked by Louis XIV.; and he found himself exposed to all
the vexations and persecutions of a bigoted and tyrannical government
for worshipping God in the manner in which he believed was most
acceptable to Him. He determined to free himself from this bondage; he
abandoned his property, he tore himself from his connexions, and,
quitting the country and its tyrant, sought an asylum in this land of
liberty, where he had to support himself only by his own exertions. He
himself embarked in trade; he educated his sons to useful trades; and he
was contented, at his death, to leave them, instead of his original
patrimony, no other inheritance than the habits of industry he had given
them—the example of his own virtuous life, an hereditary detestation of
tyranny and injustice, and an ardent zeal in the cause of civil and
religious freedom.” One of these sons became eminent as a jeweller, and
married Miss Garnault, by whom he had a numerous family. Of these three
only lived to maturity, Thomas, Catherine, and Samuel. Samuel was the
youngest, and was born March 1, 1757.
His father was a man of extreme benevolence, and strict integrity; warm
in his affections, and cheerful in his disposition. Under the influence
of his precepts and example the moral character of Samuel Romilly was
formed: for his mother, from an habitual state of bad health, was
incapable of superintending the early education of her children, which
was consequently much neglected. Samuel and his brother were sent to a
common day-school, the master of which pretended to teach Latin,
although really ignorant of that language. It was at one time
contemplated to train him to commercial business in the house of the
Fludyers, who were then considerable merchants in the city, and near
relations of his family: but the sudden death of both the partners of
that house put an end to these projects; and in the absence of other
occupation, his father employed him in keeping his accounts, and
sometimes receiving orders from customers. He had thus leisure to
cultivate tastes more congenial to his nature; and at the age of
fourteen he commenced that self-education, to which he owed all his
future success. Every volume of his father’s little collection, and of
the circulating libraries in the neighbourhood, was anxiously and
attentively perused. Ancient and modern history, treatises on science,
works of criticism, travels, and English poetry, were among his
favourite books. But a passion for poetry soon predominated over other
tastes; and from admiring the poetry of others he aspired at becoming a
poet himself. He wrote eclogues, songs, and satires, translated passages
from French poets, and imitated English ones; and resolving to devote
himself steadily to literature he hoped to acquire fame as an author. He
now set about learning Latin in earnest; and was soon able, by dint of
unremitting assiduity, and with some assistance from a private tutor, to
understand the easier Latin authors. In the course of about three years
he had read through Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus three times; he had
studied almost the whole of Cicero, as well as the principal poets; he
had gone through the Latin translations of the Greek historians,
orators, and philosophers; and had made numerous translations from the
Latin classics into English, which he retranslated into Latin. This
double exercise he found to be eminently useful in rendering him, what
he at length became, a very excellent scholar. In addition to these
studies, he attended lectures on natural philosophy, painting,
architecture, and anatomy.
In the meanwhile he felt his father’s business become every day more
irksome; and it was definitively arranged that he should enter into some
branch of the law; a plan which he was enabled to execute by the
accession to the family of a considerable legacy. At the age of sixteen,
he was articled to Mr. Lally for five years, with a view of succeeding
to him as one of the six clerks in Chancery. The society, however, of
Mr. Lally and the pursuit of his literary tastes had greater attractions
for him than the regular occupation of the office; and although he
scrupulously performed the duties required of him, his favourite
classics engrossed a large portion of his time, and his mind was still
intent upon a life of peaceful retirement, and the prospect of literary
fame.
At the expiration of the term of his apprenticeship, however, he
determined, much against the opinion of many of his friends, to study at
one of the inns of court, and to be called to the bar. His real motive
in deciding against a clerkship in chancery, which was then only to be
obtained by purchase, was little suspected at the time; it was, that he
might not be obliged to call for his share of the legacy just alluded
to, amounting to 2000_l._; which he knew it would be very inconvenient
to his father to pay. This trait of pious benevolence was, by a just
retribution, the pivot upon which his future fortunes more immediately
turned.
It was not till he had attained his twenty-first year that he entered
upon these new studies; and they were pursued with so much persevering
assiduity, that at length he became seriously indisposed, and all
application was for months prohibited by his medical advisers. So
serious an interruption to his pursuits was likely to be most injurious
to him in his profession; when, fortunately, an opportunity occurred of
making an excursion to the continent. The Rev. John Roget, who had
recently married his sister, had been attacked with a pulmonary
complaint, which obliged him to remove with her to a southern climate,
leaving behind them in England their first and then only child. They
were no sooner settled at Lausanne, than they ardently desired to have
this child conveyed to them, and Mr. Romilly, from a deep sense of the
obligations he already owed to his brother-in-law for assisting him in
his studies, and supplying that judicious and well-timed encouragement,
which, on a susceptible and ardent mind, ever acts as the most powerful
incentive to exertion, readily undertook the charge. The change of air
and scene, the lively interest he took in visiting new countries, and
the consciousness of rendering no small service to relatives to whom he
was most affectionately attached, produced a rapid and favourable change
upon his health. Still more important was the effect produced on the
tone of his mind by this renewed intercourse with a friend, who had
early discerned his latent abilities and extraordinary capacity, and
who, on this occasion, placing before his view the wide field on which
those talents might be advantageously exercised, and the important
services he might thus be capable of rendering to his fellow-creatures,
produced impressions which were indelible, and which, as he himself has
often said, had a marked influence upon the subsequent events of his
life.
On his return to England he resumed his studies with renovated strength
and with redoubled ardour. He was called to the bar in 1783. More than
ten years, however, elapsed before any real prospect of success opened
to him in his profession. It is true that he was employed in drawing
pleadings in chancery, and this business gradually increased; but it
never required him to open his lips in court; and although he regularly
attended the Midland circuit, he had no connexions on it, and it was not
until he commenced an attendance on the sessions that the circuit at
length became a source of some profit to him. In 1792 he appeared for
the first time as a leader: in a short time he was employed in almost
every case, and not many years passed before he was at the head of his
circuit.
But we are anticipating a later period. In 1784 Mr. Romilly became
acquainted with Mirabeau, and through him with Lord Lansdowne. That
nobleman appreciated the knowledge and character of the rising lawyer,
and becoming intimate with him, did all in his power to encourage and
bring forth his talents. About the same time there was published a tract
by the Rev. Dr. Madan, entitled ‘Thoughts on Executive Justice.’ It had
attracted some attention, and was so much admired by Lord Lansdowne,
that he suggested to his friend the task of writing a treatise in the
same spirit. But Mr. Romilly was so much shocked at the principle upon
which it proceeded, namely, that of rigidly executing the criminal code
in all cases, barbarous and sanguinary as it then was, that, instead of
adopting its doctrines, he sat down to refute them. The triumphant reply
which he drew up and published anonymously did not meet with the success
it deserved. Nevertheless he had the satisfaction of hearing it praised
from the bench; and Lord Lansdowne himself had the singular candour to
acknowledge the merit of a production, which, although written at his
own suggestion, was at variance with the opinions he had desired to see
inculcated.
Allusion has been made to Mr. Romilly’s acquaintance with Mirabeau. He
was one of those of whose talents Mirabeau had availed himself on more
than one occasion. It is unnecessary, however, to mention more than the
following instance, which is too characteristic to be omitted. During
one of Mr. Romilly’s visits to Paris, in 1788, curiosity led him to see
the prison of the Bicêtre, and on meeting Mirabeau the next day, he
described to him all the horror and disgust with which the place had
inspired him. Mirabeau, struck with the force of his description, begged
him to express it in writing, and to be allowed to use it. Mirabeau
translated and published this account in a pamphlet, which, in spite of
the title, ‘Lettre d’un Voyageur Anglais sur la Prison de Bicêtre,’ was
everywhere ascribed to him; while the real author, on his return to
England, printed his own MS. in the ‘Repository,’ as the translation,
although it was in fact the original.
It was not till the autumn of 1796, when on a visit to Bowood, the
country-seat of Lord Lansdowne, that Mr. Romilly first met Miss Garbett,
to whom he was afterwards united, and who formed the charm of the
remainder of his existence. With such sacred inducements to renew his
efforts in his profession, his advancement was proportionably rapid. On
November 6, 1800, he was appointed king’s counsel; and it was soon clear
that he might aspire to the highest ranks of his profession. In 1806 he
was made Solicitor-general, under the administration of Mr. Fox and Lord
Grenville. He was, much against his will, knighted on his appointment;
and was brought into Parliament by the Government for Queenborough. Soon
after, he was called upon to sum up the evidence on the trial of Lord
Melville; a duty which he performed with consummate skill, though with a
feebleness of voice which deprived his most able speech of its just
effect in the vast hall where it was delivered.
During the first session of his parliamentary career, Sir Samuel Romilly
confined himself principally to questions of law, and seldom addressed
the House, except in committee; but in the beginning of 1807 he took a
more prominent part, and made his first great speech in favour of the
abolition of the Slave-trade—a speech, which at once placed him on a
level with the most successful orators of the day. In this subject he
had always felt deep interest. From his earliest youth he had expressed
the warmest indignation against this infamous traffic; he had
translated, with a view to publication, Condorcet’s pamphlet against
West Indian slavery, and, at the beginning of the French Revolution, he
had written an eloquent paper against the Slave-trade, and had
transmitted it to his friend Dumont, from whom he trusted it would pass
to Mirabeau, and would remind him of the importance of the question, at
a time when a comparatively slight effort would have settled it in that
country for ever. These previous efforts had produced no effect; but he
had afterwards the satisfaction of belonging to the ministry to whom the
honour was due of abolishing the slave-trade, and of thus preparing the
way for putting an end to slavery itself. This ministry were soon after
dismissed from their offices, for not sacrificing their opinions in
favour of Catholic emancipation to the lamentable and persevering
prejudices entertained by George III. on that question, prejudices
adopted by his son and successor, to the infinite detriment of his
dominions.
On the dissolution of parliament which followed, Sir Samuel Romilly,
having procured for himself a seat for Wareham, lost no time in
re-introducing a measure, which had been rejected in the former
parliament, to enable a creditor to obtain the payment of his debts from
the landed property of persons dying indebted. With a view to prevent
opposition, he had confined the operation of his measure to freehold
estates only. The bill, however, even in this modified form, met with
the greatest opposition. Its introduction by Sir Samuel was ascribed to
“his hereditary love of democracy;” it was denounced by Canning, “as the
first step of something that might end like the French Revolution, and
as a dangerous attack against the aristocracy, which was thus to be
sacrificed to the commercial interest;” and it was finally rejected by a
considerable majority. Rather than give up his object entirely, he
determined to make another concession to the prejudices of his
opponents; and a few days after the rejection of the measure, on
introducing a second bill on the same subject, he limited its operation
to the landed estates of _traders_. This expedient succeeded; the
aristocracy, caring little what became of traders’ estates, suffered the
bill to pass both houses without the slightest opposition, and it
received the Royal assent in August, 1807. After the lapse of seven
years, he made fresh attempts in favour of his original bill, but in
vain. It was indeed carried by the Commons, in 1814, by a majority of
nearly two to one; and again in the same house, in the two succeeding
years, without the slightest opposition; but on all these occasions it
was as regularly rejected by the House of Peers. The original measure,
including copyhold as well as freehold estates, has recently become part
of the law of the land.
During the vacation of 1807 Sir Samuel Romilly prepared some of those
reforms in the criminal law, by which he is most known to the public.
For many years he had been intent on this subject, and had made it his
particular study. During repeated visits to the continent, he never
missed an opportunity of attending any important trial; and for the
sixteen years during which he attended the circuit, he had been in the
habit of noting down whatever appeared to him worthy of observation in
the criminal courts. Shocked at instances of judicial injustice, which
thus fell under his notice, he had secretly resolved that, if it should
ever be in his power, he would endeavour to provide a remedy for such
gross abuses. The principles of his intended reforms were contained in
his answer to Dr. Madan. He held that the prevention of crime is more
effectually accomplished by certainty than by severity of punishment;
that to approximate to certainty of punishment, it was necessary to
mitigate the severities of the penal code; that, unless this were done,
there would still be an indisposition on the part of the public to
prosecute, of witnesses to give evidence, of juries to convict, and even
of judges to put in execution the sentences they had themselves
passed;—that all these were so many chances of escape offered to a
culprit, operating rather as encouragements than as checks to crime.
These doctrines, then so new, although now received as axioms, made but
few converts at first; and it was not till they were again brought
before the public in the House of Commons, in 1808, that they attracted
some of that attention to which they were entitled. One of his first
bills, which repealed the punishment of death for stealing privately
from the person to the amount of five shillings, passed both houses with
but little opposition; but, as the number of prosecutions increased in
consequence, it was alleged that the crime itself had increased, and
that all similar reforms would be attended with similar mischief.
Romilly urged in vain that, when the measure was under consideration, he
had foretold that it would produce an increase of prosecutions; and that
this, far from being an argument against the mitigation of punishment,
was the best proof of its efficacy. In vain did he defend his principle,
with the varied stores of his knowledge, with the most powerful
arguments, and with the eloquence of deep conviction. The mature
reflections of above thirty years’ study and experience were treated as
the rash innovations of a wild theorist. The effect of government
circulars was too seldom counteracted by the attendance of his own
political friends; no party advantage could be gained from such
enlightened labours; there was no large and powerful body in the country
to second his efforts; and when, at length, after unremitting
perseverance, he occasionally succeeded in carrying a bill through the
Commons, it was rarely permitted to pass through the ordeal of the Upper
House. But these efforts were not thrown away. His views, ably and
diligently supported by Sir James Mackintosh and others, have since been
confirmed and acted on even by his political opponents. The credit which
was due to him who had sown the seed has since been claimed by those who
reaped it; but the harvest is not lost to the public.
But Romilly did not shrink from taking an active part on questions more
generally interesting to the public, even though the avowal of his
opinions might endanger his advancement in life. A remarkable instance
of this kind occurred in the beginning of 1809, when the conduct of the
Duke of York was brought before the house by Colonel Wardle. He was
aware that to support this inquiry would not be less obnoxious to many
members of the former government than to those then in office. It had
been significantly intimated to him that the Prince of Wales would
consider any attack on the duke as an attack on himself; and he felt
under some obligation to the Prince for having formerly offered him a
seat in parliament, which, however, he had declined. Such was his
position; entertaining, however, a strong opinion on the subject, he
resolved not to abandon his duty; and he spoke and voted in favour of
the motion. He concluded his speech in these words: “The venerable
judge[5] who took an early part in the discussion of this question has
attested the sincerity of his vote by an affecting allusion to his age
and infirmities, to the few inducements which the remainder of his life
presented to him. I cannot say the same thing. Not labouring under the
same affliction, and not having arrived at the same period of life, I
may reasonably be allowed for myself, and for those who are most dear to
me, to indulge hopes of prosperity yet to come. Reflecting on the
vicissitudes of human life, I may entertain apprehensions of adversity
and persecution which perhaps await me. I have, however, the
satisfaction to reflect, that it is not possible for me to hope to
derive, in any way the most remote, advantages from the vote which upon
this occasion I shall give, and from the part which I have thought it my
duty to act.”
Footnote 5:
Mr. Barton, a Welsh judge, who was then at the age of nearly seventy,
and deprived of his sight.
These anticipations were afterwards corroborated by several persons, who
told him, that after such a speech, he must give up all thoughts of ever
being Chancellor. The public also felt that he had made a sacrifice in
their cause. Thanks were voted to him in conjunction with Mr. Whitbread,
Lord Folkstone, and some others, from the City of London, Liverpool,
Carmarthen, Wiltshire, Bristol, Berwick, &c. &c.; and he was invited by
the Livery of London to a public dinner, as a mark of approbation of his
conduct. He declined, however, to accept the intended honour, and his
answers to the addresses were drawn up with that unaffected modesty, and
love of simple truth, which were so peculiarly characteristic of his
mind. Instead of dwelling upon his own merit, he drew the picture of
what would have been thought of him had he pursued an opposite course.
“Seeing the case,” he said in his answer to the Livery, “in the light in
which I saw it, to have acted otherwise than I did, I must have been
base enough to have deserted my public duty upon a most important
occasion, from the mean apprehension that to discharge my duty might be
attended with personal disadvantage to myself. If there be much merit in
not having been actuated by such unworthy motives, (which I cannot
think, but if there be,) that merit I certainly may pretend to, &c.”
The course which he took in the year following on the imprisonment of
Gale Jones, and the alleged breach of privilege by Sir Francis Burdett,
was again at variance with that adopted by either of the two great
parties in the house. The Opposition as well as the Ministry, and all
the lawyers who took any part in the debate, concurred in thinking the
paper written by Sir Francis Burdett a breach of privilege, and
deserving of punishment of one kind or another; while Romilly maintained
that the house had no jurisdiction to take cognizance of the offence. He
did not dispute the right to imprison for a breach of privilege which
obstructed their proceedings, but he denied the right and the policy of
doing so for the publication of animadversions on matters already
concluded. He urged that these latter questions “ought not to be decided
on by the house, which thus constituted itself prosecutor, party, and
judge, without affording to the accused the opportunity of even hearing
the charges preferred against him; but they ought to be left to the
ordinary tribunals, the courts of law.” These arguments, disregarded at
the time, were amply justified by the events which followed. The folly
of the course adopted was proved by serious disturbances, attended with
the loss of life; petitions couched in the most disrespectful language
were sent up, and inserted on the Journals; and the question of the
privileges of the Commons came, in the first instance, before the courts
of law, and was finally decided by the House of Lords. Invitations to
public dinners were again sent to him, which he again declined; and
addresses of thanks were voted “for the stand he had made in favour of
the dominion of the law, against arbitrary discretion and undefined
privilege.”
But it was not only in this way that the public showed how much they
appreciated his integrity and independence. In 1812 he was pressed to
allow himself to be put in nomination for several large constituencies;
amongst others for Liverpool, Chester, Middlesex, and Bristol. At
Bristol, his past political conduct was considered a sufficient
guarantee for the future; no pledge was required of him, he was to be
put to no expense, and it was agreed that he should be excused from
personal canvas. On terms so honourable he consented to be put in
nomination; and although a total stranger in the town, his reception was
most encouraging, and there seemed every prospect of success.
Nevertheless the common but dishonest maxim, of every thing being fair
at an election, being acted upon by the opposite party, it was soon
evident that he would not be returned; and on the seventh day he
resigned any further contest.
Although his opinions were not as yet to receive the sanction of any
large and popular constituency, he did not relax his efforts in favour
of the rights and interests of the people. On being returned for
Horsham, during the six sessions which this parliament lasted, we find
him the same strenuous advocate for civil liberty and religious
toleration in the most extensive sense of the words, at home and abroad;
the same determined enemy to peculation and corruption, the same ardent
and judicious reformer of the laws; “incapable on every occasion of
being swerved from his duty by the threats of power, the allurements of
the great, the temptations of private interest, or even the seduction of
popular favour. All the toil, the pain, and the fatigue of his duties
were his own; all the advantage which resulted from his labours were for
the public.”
He spoke and voted against military flogging, the game laws, the
punishment of the pillory, the poor laws, the law of libel, and
lotteries; against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, Lord
Sidmouth’s circular letter, and the employment of spies and informers;
and against the persecution of the Protestants in France, and the Alien
bill at home; in favour of Catholic emancipation, the education of the
poor, and the liberty of the press. He was always a zealous advocate for
peace; against the system of the corn laws, and all restrictions on
commerce, and he was in favour of an extensive change in the
representation of the people, of shortening the duration of parliament,
and ensuring the free exercise of the elective franchise. He was also in
favour of the promulgation of laws, of allowing counsel to prisoners, of
giving compensation to those who had been unjustly accused, of greatly
extending the rules respecting the admission of evidence; of introducing
secondary punishments, and of instituting a public prosecutor; and all
this not more for the sake of humanity towards the guilty, than for the
great ends of justice, the prevention of crime, and the reform of
criminals.
At the conclusion of this parliament in 1818, Sir Samuel Romilly, after
having again been invited to stand for several large constituencies, by
any of which he was assured he would be elected, was at length put in
nomination for Westminster; and although he was violently opposed by the
court on the one side, and by the ultra popular party on the other;
although, during the whole of the contest, he was calmly pursuing his
professional duties in the Court of Chancery, and never once appeared on
the hustings till the conclusion, he was returned at the head of the
poll. After his election, he did all in his power to avoid the ceremony
of chairing; but on his objections being over-ruled, his greatest
pleasure was when, after he had addressed the multitude from the windows
of Burlington House, he was able to escape by a back door and walk by
the less frequented streets to his home, there to receive
congratulations no less hearty, and more congenial to his temper and
taste. But he did not live to take his seat. A life of uninterrupted and
rarely equalled domestic happiness, and of great success in his
professional and political career, was suddenly embittered by the loss
of that being, to whom he had been deeply and devotedly attached for
above twenty years, and with whom he had ever considered his happiness
and prosperity as being indissolubly connected. He sank under this
calamity, and mankind was deprived of his services for ever[6].
Footnote 6:
Strong symptoms of an incipient brain fever showed themselves, and
these increased so rapidly as to produce, before they could be
checked, a temporary delirium, as most frequently happens in that
malady; and in this paroxysm he terminated his existence, November 22,
1818, three days after Lady Romilly’s death.
Romilly was reserved and silent in general society, but affectionate,
entertaining, and instructive with his friends; and full of joyousness,
humour, and playfulness with his children, and in the bosom of his
family. He was endowed with a lively imagination, he was fond of
retirement, and was a passionate admirer of the beauties of nature.
Indefatigable in his profession and in parliament, he yet found time to
keep up with the literature of the day, to write criticisms on the books
which he read, to keep a regular diary of his political career, and to
compose essays on various branches of the criminal law. His eloquence
was of that kind which never fails to make a lasting impression: it was
full of earnest conviction and deep sensibility. He was a great master
of sarcasm, but he considered it an unfair weapon and rarely employed
it. So jealous was he of his independence, that when he was
solicitor-general, and one of his nephews was peculiarly anxious to be
placed in the Military Academy at Woolwich, he refused to lay himself
under any obligation, even for so slight a favour; and the application
was never made. Few ever gained so large a portion of public favour, and
yet so studiously avoided courting popularity; and no one ever rose
higher in the esteem of his political contemporaries. Unsullied in
character as a lawyer, as a politician, and as a man, his life, which
was prolonged to the age of sixty-one, was a life of happiness and of
honour. No statues are erected to his memory; no titles descend to his
children; but he has bequeathed a richer, a prouder, and a more lasting
inheritance, than any which the world can bestow: the recollection of
his virtues is still fresh in the minds of his countrymen, and the
sacrifices he made in the cause of humanity will not be forgotten by
mankind.
[Illustration]
SHAKSPEARE.
The materials which we possess for the biography of Shakspeare are very
unsatisfactory. The earliest life is that by the poet Rowe, who, as if
aware of its scantiness, merely entitles it ‘Some Account.’ It contains
what little the author could collect, when no sources of information
were left open but the floating traditions of the theatre after the
lapse of nearly a century. Mr. Malone prefixed a new life to his
edition, extending to above 500 pages; but he only brings his author to
London, and as to his professional progress, adds nothing to Rowe’s
meagre tale, except some particles of information previously
communicated in notes by himself and Steevens.
William Shakspeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire,
April 23, 1564. He was one of ten children. His father was a dealer in
wool, as it is generally said, but according to Malone, a glover, and
alderman in the corporation of Stratford. Our great poet received such
education as the lower forms of the Grammar School at Stratford could
give him; but he was removed from that establishment at an early age, to
serve as clerk in a country attorney’s office. This anecdote of his
boyhood receives confirmation from the frequent recurrence of technical
law-phrases in his plays; and it has been remarked that he derives none
of his allusions from other learned professions. Before he was eighteen
years of age he contracted a marriage with Anne Hathaway, a woman some
years older than himself, and the daughter of a substantial yeoman in
his own neighbourhood. He went to London about 1586, when he was but
twenty-two years of age, being obliged, as the common story goes, to fly
the country, in consequence of being detected in deer-stealing. This
tale is thought to be confirmed by the ridicule cast on his supposed
prosecutor, Sir Thomas Lucy, in the character of Justice Shallow,
pointed as it is by the
[Illustration:
_Engraved by E. Scriven._
SHAKSPEARE.
_From the Picture in the Possession of His Grace the Duke of
Buckingham, at Stowe._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street. June 1, 1835._
]
commendation of the “dozen white luces as a good coat.” But as this is
the only lawless action which tradition has imputed to one of the most
amiable and inoffensive of men, we may perhaps esteem the tale to be the
mere gossip of the tiring-room: indeed, Malone has adduced several
arguments to prove that it cannot be correctly told. It is not necessary
to suppose that Shakspeare was compelled to fly his native town because
he came to the metropolis; his emigration is sufficiently accounted for
by his father’s falling into distressed circumstances, and being obliged
in this very year, 1586, to resign his alderman’s gown on that account.
Another traditional anecdote, that Shakspeare’s first employment was to
wait at the play-house door, and hold the horses of those who had no
servants, is discredited by Mr. Steevens, who says, “That it was once
the general custom to ride on horseback to the play I am yet to learn.
The most popular of the theatres were on the Bankside; and we are told
by the satirical pamphleteers of that time that the usual mode of
conveyance to those places of amusement was by water; but not a single
writer so much as hints at the custom of riding to them, or at the
practice of having horses held during the hours of exhibition. Let it be
remembered too, that we receive this tale on no higher authority than
that of Cibber’s ‘Lives of the Poets.’”
Nothing is authentically proved with respect to Shakspeare’s
introduction to the stage. His first play is dated by Malone in 1589,
three years after the time assigned for the author’s arrival in London.
It appears from the dedication to ‘Venus and Adonis,’ published in 1593,
in which he calls that poem “the first heir of his invention,” that his
earliest essays were not in dramatic composition. The ‘Lucrece,’
published in 1594, and the collection of sonnets, entitled the
‘Passionate Pilgrim,’ published in 1599, also belong to an early period
of his poetical life. The ‘Lover’s Complaint,’ and a larger collection
of sonnets, were printed in 1609. It may be conjectured that he was led
to write for the stage in consequence of the advice and introduction of
Thomas Green, an eminent comedian of the day, who was his townsman, if
not his relation. Shakspeare trod the boards himself, but he never rose
to eminence as an actor: it is recorded that the Ghost in ‘Hamlet’ was
his masterpiece. But the instructions to the players in ‘Hamlet’ exhibit
a clear and delicate perception of what an actor ought to be, however
incompetent the writer might be to furnish the example in his own
person.
The extent of Shakspeare’s learning has been much controverted. Dr.
Johnson speaks of it thus: “It is most likely that he had learned Latin
sufficiently to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never
advanced to an easy perusal of the Roman authors. Concerning his skill
in modern languages, I can find no sufficient ground of determination;
but as no imitations of French or Italian authors have been discovered,
though the Italian poetry was then high in esteem, I am inclined to
believe that he read little more than English, and chose for his fables
only such tales as he found translated.” Other writers have contended
that he must have been acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics: but
Dr. Farmer, in his ‘Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare,’ has accounted
in a very satisfactory manner for the frequent allusions to the facts
and fables of antiquity to be met with in Shakspeare’s writings, without
supposing that he read the classic authors in their original languages.
The supposition indeed is at variance with his whole history. Dr. Farmer
has particularly specified the English translations of the classics then
extant, and concludes on the whole, that the studies of Shakspeare were
confined to nature and his own language.
The merit of Shakspeare did not escape the notice of Queen Elizabeth. He
evinced his gratitude for her patronage in that beautiful passage in the
‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ where he speaks of her as “a fair vestal,
throned in the west.”
Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, is the relater of an anecdote which
shows the continuance of high favour to our author. It is expressed in
these words: that “the most learned prince and great patron of learning,
King James I., was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter
to Mr. Shakspeare;” and Dr. Farmer supposes, with apparent probability,
that this honour was conferred in return for the compliment paid to the
monarch in ‘Macbeth.’ Shakspeare also possessed the esteem of, and was
admitted to familiar intercourse with, the accomplished Earls of
Southampton and Essex; and enjoyed the friendship of his great
contemporary Ben Jonson.
Of the poet’s career before the London public nothing authentic has come
down to us; and perhaps if more were known, it might not be worth
recording. But his retirement in 1611 or 1612, about four years before
his death, though it afford no story, furnishes a pleasing reflection.
He had left his native place, poor and almost unknown: he returned to
it, not rich, but with a competence and an unblemished character. His
good-natured wit made him a welcome member of private society when he no
longer set the theatre in a roar; and he ended his days in habits of
intimacy, and in some cases in the bonds of friendship, with the leading
gentlemen of the neighbourhood. He died on his birthday, April 23, 1616,
when he had completed his fifty-second year. If we look merely at the
state in which he left his productions, we should be apt to conclude
that he was insensible of their value. To quote the words of Dr.
Johnson, “It does not appear that Shakspeare thought his works worthy of
posterity; that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had
any further prospect than that of present popularity and present
profit.” But the imperfect form in which they came before the public is
not necessarily to be accounted for by this extravagance of humility. It
is clear that any publication of his plays by himself would have
interfered at first with his own interest, and afterwards with the
interest of those to whom he made over his share in them; besides which,
such was the revulsion of the public taste, that the publication of his
works by Hemings and Condell was accounted a doubtful speculation. For
several years after his death the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were
more frequently acted than those of Shakspeare; and the beautiful works
of the joint dramatists afterwards gave place to the rhyming rhapsodies
of Dryden and the bombast of Lee. Garrick brought back the public to
Shakspeare and every-day nature; Kemble exhibited him in the more
refined dress of classical taste and philosophy.
Mr. Malone has observed, that our author’s prose compositions, should
they be discovered, would exhibit the same perspicuity, the same
cadence, the same elegance and vigour, which we find in his plays. In
1751, an attempt was made to impose on the public by a book entitled ‘A
Compendious or Brief Examination of certayne Ordinary Complaints of
divers of our Countrymen in these our Days, &c., by William Shakspeare,
Gentleman;’ the signature to which, in the original edition of 1581, was
“W. S., Gent.;” and Dr. Farmer has clearly proved the initials to mean
“William Stafford, Gent.” Another and more impudent forgery was
attempted by Ireland, who published in 1795 a volume, entitled
‘Shakspeare’s Manuscripts.’ The fraud met with partial success, and the
tragedy of ‘Vortigern’ was performed as one of Shakspeare’s, to the
great disgust, it is said, of John Kemble, who had to act in it much
against his will. Malone exposed the imposition in 1796, and Ireland
himself ultimately acknowledged it. With respect to the probable
character of Shakspeare’s prose compositions, it is needless to
speculate on it, as we have no reason to believe that he ever wrote any
prose, except for the stage.
Some interesting criticisms of Mrs. Siddons on the chief female
characters of Shakspeare will be found in the life of that eminent
actress in this volume. We may here introduce another observation of
hers on Constance in ‘King John.’ She said that the intuition of
Shakspeare in delineating that character struck her as all but
supernatural: she could scarcely conceive the possibility of any man
possessing himself so thoroughly with the most intense and most inward
feelings of the other sex: had Shakspeare been a woman and a mother, he
must have felt neither less nor more than as he wrote.
The two first folio editions are in great request among book-collectors,
and, owing to their scarcity, fetch high prices at auctions. They have
nothing to recommend them either as to accuracy or elegance of
typography, but are really valuable for the various readings which they
contain. The best modern editions are those of Johnson and Steevens, and
Malone. The last edition is the posthumous one of Malone, edited by
Boswell, and little room is left for any farther elucidation of our
great dramatist, as far as verbal criticism is concerned. But for the
higher branches of criticism, the works of such a poet are as
inexhaustible as those of Homer; and if his fame be equally immortal,
its fate is more singular. However ardent may be the admiration of Homer
on the part of modern scholars, and however profound their investigation
of his merits, far from pretending to discoveries unknown to the Grecian
critics and philosophers, they support their own views by constant
references to the ancients; but Shakspeare has found his most elaborate,
and with certain drawbacks, his best critics, among foreigners. In
England Shakspeare is the idol of those who read either for the
amusement of the imagination, or as students not of poetical or
metaphysical, but of every-day nature; and his English editors have
rather criticised down to the level of such readers, than aimed at
ripening their taste, or elevating their conceptions. We find eminent
men among them, such as Pope, Warburton, and Johnson, yet none well
qualified to perform the highest functions of a commentator. Johnson’s
Preface is highly valued for the justness of his general criticism, and
his vindication of the poet on the score of the unities is triumphantly
conclusive. But his remarks at the end of each play are so jejune and
superficial, that short as they are, no reader perhaps ever wished them
longer. One cannot help wondering that the acute, and in many instances
profound, though sometimes partial, critic of Cowley, Milton, Dryden,
Pope and Gray, should have skimmed so lightly over the surface of
Shakspeare. Not so his German translators and critics. No sooner did the
Germans take up the study of English literature, than they selected
Shakspeare on whom to try their powers; and they are thought to have
dived deeper into his mind than have his own countrymen, with their
apparently better opportunities. Nor is this wonderful: for they have
regarded the poet not merely as the minister of amusement to an admiring
audience, but as a metaphysical philosopher of nature’s forming,
possessed of deepest insight into the complex motives which move the
hearts, and stimulate the actions of mankind. And seeking with a
reverent attention to trace the workings of the _maker’s_ mind (for in
this instance there is a peculiar propriety in translating the Greek
word _poet_) they have succeeded in furnishing profound and satisfactory
explanations of much that less intellectual critics had treated as
instances of the author’s irregular and capricious genius. In this, as
in other branches of German literature, Goëthe stands pre-eminent: and
the translation of his ‘Wilhelm Meister’ has placed within the reach of
all readers a series of original and masterly criticisms, especially on
that stumbling-block of commentators, the character of Hamlet. We may
quote as a specimen his exposition of the principle upon which the
anomalies of the Prince of Denmark’s conduct are to be solved. “It is
clear to me that Shakspeare’s intention was to exhibit the effects of a
great action, imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its
accomplishment. In this case I find the character consistent throughout.
Here is an oak tree planted in a china vase, proper only to receive the
most delicate flowers. The roots strike out and the vessel flies to
pieces. A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but without that energy
of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under a load which it can
neither support nor endure to abandon altogether. _All_ his obligations
are sacred to him; but this alone is above his powers! An impossibility
is required at his hands; not an impossibility in itself, but that which
is so to him. Observe, how he turns, shifts, hesitates, advances, and
recedes;—how he is continually reminded and reminding himself of his
real commission, which he nevertheless in the end seems almost entirely
to lose sight of, and this without ever recovering his former
tranquillity!” How different this from the praise of _variety_ allowed
to this tragedy by Johnson, to “the pretended madness, causing mirth,”
without any adequate cause for feigning it, and the objection that
through the whole piece he is “rather an instrument than an agent!”
Malone’s “attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays of
Shakspeare were written” occupies 180 pages. Where so many words are
necessary, the arrangement to be justified may not be very certain; but
that of Malone is generally received. It runs thus: The First Part of
King Henry VI., 1589. Second and Third Parts, Two Gentlemen of Verona,
1591. Comedy of Errors, 1592. King Richard II. and III., 1593. Love’s
Labour’s Lost, Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1594. Taming
of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, King John, 1596. First Part of King
Henry IV., 1597. Second Part, All’s well that ends well, 1598. King
Henry V., As You like it, 1599. Much ado about Nothing, Hamlet, 1600.
Merry Wives of Windsor, 1601. Troilus and Cressida, 1602. Measure for
Measure, King Henry VIII., 1603. Othello, 1604. King Lear, 1605.
Macbeth, 1606. Twelfth Night, Julius Cæsar, 1607. Antony and Cleopatra,
1608. Cymbeline, 1609. Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, 1610. Winter’s Tale,
1611. Tempest, 1612. Except the placing of the historical plays in
separate succession, the order of Malone’s edition follows the above
dates. Previous editions arranged the plays as comedies, histories, and
tragedies, beginning with the Tempest, the last written, and ending with
Othello. We must add to the list of plays ascribed to Shakspeare, and
included in the editions of his works, Pericles and Titus Andronicus,
which are now acknowledged not to be the composition of Shakspeare,
though perhaps retouched by him. The Yorkshire Tragedy, Lord Cromwell,
and others, have still less right to bear the honour of his name.
[Illustration: [Shakspeare’s Monument at Stratford-upon-Avon.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by B. Holl._
EULER.
_From a Picture by A. Lorgna in the Collection of the Institute of
France._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
EULER.
Leonard Euler[7] was born at Basle, April 15, 1707. His father was the
clergyman of Reichen, near Basle, and had himself been a pupil of James
Bernouilli. He intended his son for his own profession, and after having
been himself his first instructor in mathematics, sent him to the
university of Basle. John Bernouilli was at this time Professor, and his
sons, Nicolas and Daniel, two more of the _eight_ Bernouillis known to
the history of science, were under him. With the sons Euler contracted
an intimate friendship; and obtained such a degree of favour even with
their father, that the latter gave him a private lesson weekly, upon
points more advanced than those treated in the public course. This was a
strong mark of favour from John Bernouilli, who was of an unamiable
disposition, jealous of his brother, of his son, and finally of almost
every one who displayed a superior talent for mathematics. Euler at
first turned his attention to theology, in accordance with the wishes of
his father, but this was not of long continuance. At the age of
nineteen, besides obtaining a degree from his University, he had merited
the notice of the Academy of Sciences for a memoir on some points of
naval architecture. In the same year, he was an unsuccessful candidate
for a Professorship at Basle, an unlucky event, M. Condorcet observes,
for his country, inasmuch as a few days afterwards he left it for
Russia, and never returned. His friends the Bernouillis (Nicolas and
Daniel) had, two years before, accepted invitations from the Empress
Catherine; and he followed them in hopes of obtaining employment and
subsistence at St. Petersburgh. But by the time he arrived, both Nicolas
Bernouilli and the Empress were dead, the Academy of St. Petersburgh was
left without a patron, and Euler, a nameless stranger, could not for a
long time obtain any settled avocation. How he maintained himself we are
not told; but he was upon the point of entering the Russian service as a
sailor, when his prospects brightened, and he obtained the place of
Professor of Natural Philosophy. In 1733 he succeeded Daniel Bernouilli,
who returned to his own country, as Professor of Mathematics. In the
same year he married a young lady named Gsell, the daughter of an artist
of Basle, who had emigrated to Russia in the reign of Peter the Great.
Footnote 7:
We have followed the _éloge_ of Condorcet as to facts and dates. We
should have preferred that of M. Fuss, but have not had the
opportunity of seeing it. The mere biographical details of Euler’s
life are, however, of the simplest character.
The despotism of the Russian government could not please the republican
born; but circumstances obliged him to endure it till 1741, when he
quitted Petersburgh for Berlin on the invitation of Frederic the Great.
To the necessity for continual reserve and government of the tongue
which was necessary in the Russian capital has been attributed his love
of silence and study, which exceeded all that is related of any of his
contemporaries. The mother of Frederic, who was as much attached to the
conversation of distinguished men as the King himself, could never
obtain more than a few syllables from Euler at any one time. On her
asking the reason why he would not speak, he is said to have replied,
“Madam, I have lived in a country where men who speak are hanged.”
Euler remained at Berlin till 1766. In 1761 he lost his mother, who had
resided with him for eleven years. During this time he was not
considered as having abandoned his Russian engagements, and a part of
his salary was regularly paid. When the Russians invaded Brandenburg in
1760, a farm belonging to him was destroyed, but he was immediately more
than reimbursed, by the order of the Empress Elizabeth. On the
invitation of that princess he consented to return to Petersburgh in
1766. He had for some years suffered from weakness in the eyes; and not
long after his return to Russia he became so nearly blind, that he could
distinguish nothing except very large letters marked with chalk on a
slate. In this state he continued for the remainder of his life; and by
constant exercise he acquired a power of recollection, whether of
mathematical formulæ or figures, which would be totally incredible, if
it were not supported by strong evidence. He formed in his head, and
retained in his memory, a table of the first six powers of all numbers
up to 100, containing about 3000 figures. Two of his pupils had summed
seventeen terms of a converging series, and differed by a unit in the
fiftieth decimal of the result; Euler decided between them correctly by
a mental calculation[8]. His chief amusement during his deprivation was
the formation of artificial magnets, and the instruction of one of his
grandchildren in mathematics. His studies were in no degree relaxed by
it. In 1771 Euler’s house was destroyed by fire, together with a
considerable part of the city. He was himself saved by a
fellow-countryman named Grimm, and his manuscripts were also rescued. In
1776 he married the aunt of his first wife. No other event worthy of
special notice occurred before his death, which took place suddenly,
September 7, 1783. He had been employed in calculating the laws of the
ascent of balloons, which were then newly introduced; he afterwards
dined with his family and M. Lexell, his pupil, conversed with them on
the newly-discovered planet of Herschel, and was amusing himself with
one of his grandchildren; suddenly the pipe which he held in his hand
dropped on the ground, and it was found that[9] “life and calculation
were at an end.” He had thirteen children, of whom only three survived
him; one of them, John Albert Euler, was known as a mathematician.
Footnote 8:
We suspect some mistake in this account, which is constantly given. A
very surprising story ought to be consistent: now it is difficult to
believe that any series which was actually employed in practice (and
people do not sum series to fifty places for amusement) would converge
so quickly, as to give fifty places in seventeen terms. The well-known
series for the base of Napier’s logarithms is called a rapidly
converging series, and gives about fifteen places in seventeen terms.
We cannot help thinking, either that Euler settled one disputed term
only, or that there is some mistake about the number of figures.
Footnote 9:
Il cessa de calculer et de vivre.—CONDORCET.
Of the scientific character of Euler it is impossible to speak in
detail, since even the _resumé_ of M. Condorcet, which is much longer
than any account we can here insert, is meagre in the extreme; and we
imagine that the reader would form no idea whatsoever of the man we are
describing, from any brief enumeration of discoveries for which we
should be able to allow room. In more than fifty years of incessant
thought, Euler wrote thirty separate works and more than seven hundred
memoirs: which could not altogether be contained in forty large quarto
volumes. These writings embrace every existing branch of mathematics,
and almost every conceivable application of them, to such an extent,
that there is no one among mathematicians, past or present, who can be
placed near to Euler in the enormous variety of the subjects which he
treated. And the contents of these volumes are without exception the
original fruit of his own brain; seeing that he left no subject as he
found it. He is not a diffuse writer, except in giving a large number of
examples, and this renders him in some respects the most instructive of
all writers. His works are full of the most original thoughts developed
in the most original manner; so that they have been a mine of
information for his successors, which is even now far from being
exhausted. Let a student be employed upon any subject connected with
mathematics, however remotely, and he has discovered but little if he
has not found out that Euler was there before him.
Of all mathematical writers, Euler is one of the most simple, and this
in a manner which renders his writings not by any means a sound
preparation for future investigations. Difficulties seem to have
disappeared in the progress, or never to have been encountered; and the
student is rather made to feel that Euler could take him anywhere, than
furnished with the means of providing for himself, when his guide shall
have left him. Hence the writings of others, in every way inferior to
Euler in elegance and simplicity, are to be preferred, and have been
preferred, for the formation of mathematical power.
Euler is to be measured by the assistance which he gave to his immediate
successors, and here it is well known that he paved the way for the
research of others in a more effectual manner than any of his
contemporaries. The incessant repetition of his name in later authors is
sufficient authority for this assertion. His writings are the first in
which the modern analysis is uniformly the instrument of investigation.
His predecessors, James and John Bernouilli, had perhaps the largest
share in bringing the infinitesimal analysis of Newton and Leibnitz to
the state of power required for extensive application. To Euler (besides
important extensions) belongs the distinct merit of showing how to apply
it to physical investigations, in conjunction with D’Alembert, who ran a
splendid and contemporary career of a similar character in this respect.
But though it would be perhaps admitted that there are individual
results of the latter which exceed anything done by the former, in
generality of application, there is no comparison whatsoever between the
extent of the labours of the two.
Euler was a man of a simple, reserved, and benevolent mind; with a
strong sense of devotion, and a decided religious habit, according to
the Calvinism of the Established Church of his country. At the court of
Frederic, he himself conducted the devotions of his family every
evening; a practice which then and there implied much moral courage, and
insensibility to ridicule. But he possessed humour, for when he was
asked to calculate the horoscope of one of the Russian princes, he
quietly suggested that it was the official duty of the astronomer, and
imposed the duty upon a colleague, who doubtless did not feel very much
flattered by the application.
There are few men whom the usual biographical formulæ as to moral
character and habits would better fit than Euler, according to every
account which has appeared of him. But such praises are no distinction;
and it will be more to the purpose to state that the only occasion in
which he was betrayed into printing a word which his eulogists have
regretted, was in the dispute between Maupertuis and himself against
others on the principle known by the name of _least action_, one of the
warmest and most angry discussions which ever took place.
Perhaps it is to the quiet abstraction of his life that he owed the
perpetuity of his tenure of investigation. Many eminent mathematical
discoverers have run the brilliant part of their career while
comparatively young. Euler “ceased to calculate and to live” at once.
But it may be that this was a part of his natural constitution, and a
distinct feature of his mind. The nature of his writings rather confirms
the latter supposition. There is the same difference between them and
those of others, that there is between conversation and oratory. He
seems to be moving in his natural element, where others are swimming for
their lives.
The best works of Euler for a young mathematician to read, in order to
get an idea of his style and methods, are the ‘_Analysis Infinitorum_,’
and the ‘_Treatise on the Integral Calculus_.’
[Illustration]
SIR W. JONES.
William Jones, the most accomplished Oriental scholar of the last
century, an upright magistrate, and eminent benefactor of the native
subjects of our Indian dominions, was born in London on Michaelmas Eve,
1746. His father, a man esteemed by his contemporaries, a skilful
mathematician, and the friend of Newton, died in July, 1749. His mother
then devoted herself entirely to the education of this her only
surviving son; and to her careful and judicious culture of his infant
years, bestowed indeed upon a happy soil, is to be ascribed the early
development of that thirst for learning and faculty of profitable
application, which enabled Jones to accumulate in a short and busy life
a quantity and variety of abstruse knowledge, such as the same age does
not often see equalled. To the end of her life he acknowledged and
repaid her care and affection by ardent love and unchanging filial
respect. When only seven years old, he was sent to Harrow. His progress,
slow at first, afterwards became most rapid; and the head master, Dr.
Thackeray, a man not given to praise, spoke of him as “a boy of so
active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury
Plain he would find the way to fame and riches.”
At the time of his quitting school, besides a much deeper acquaintance
with the classical languages than usually falls to the lot of a
schoolboy, Jones had acquired the French and Italian languages, had
commenced the study of Hebrew, and (a thing only worth mention as
indicative of his tastes) had made himself acquainted with the Arabic
letters. Botany, the collection of fossils, and composition in English
verse, were his favourite amusements at this period. March 16, 1764, he
was entered as a student of University College, Oxford. He was elected a
scholar on the Bennett foundation, October 30, 1764; and fellow on the
same foundation, August 7, 1766, before he was of standing to proceed to
the degree of B.A., which he took in 1768. At an early period of his
residence he applied in earnest
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
SIR WILLIAM JONES.
_From the Picture in the Hall of University College, Oxford._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
to the study of Arabic; and his zeal was such, that, though habitually
self-denying, and anxious not to trespass on his mother’s slender
income, he maintained at Oxford, at his own expense, a Syrian, with whom
he had become acquainted in London, for the benefit to be derived from
his instruction. From the Arabic he proceeded to learn the Persian
language.
His residence was varied, though his favourite studies do not appear to
have been interrupted, by an invitation to undertake the care of the
late Lord Spencer, then a boy of seven years old. This was in 1765. The
next five years he spent with his pupil chiefly at Harrow, and
occasionally at Althorp, or in London, or on the continent. It appears
from the college books that he resided at Oxford very little in the
years 1766, 1767, and 1768. Wherever he was, his time was diligently
employed, not only in his severer studies, but in the pursuit of
personal accomplishments and the cultivation of valuable acquaintances,
especially with those who, like himself, were attached to the
investigation of Eastern languages and science. In 1768 he received a
high, but an unprofitable compliment, in being selected to render into
French a Persian Life of Nadir Shah, transmitted to the English
government by the King of Denmark for the purpose of translation. To
this performance, which was printed in 1770, Mr. Jones added a ‘Treatise
on Oriental Poetry,’ in which several of the odes of Hafiz are
translated into verse. This also was written in French; and it has
justly been observed by a French writer in the ‘Biographie Universelle,’
that the occurrence of some imperfections of style ought not to
interfere with our forming a high estimate of the talents of a man who,
at the age of twenty-two, possessed the varied qualifications and
recondite acquirements displayed in this work. By the end of the same
year, 1770, the author finished his ‘Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry,’ a
Latin treatise, which for its style is commended by the competent
authority of Dr. Parr; and which has also obtained high praise for the
taste and judgment displayed in selecting and translating the passages
by which the text is illustrated. It was not printed till 1774.
Not the least striking part of Mr. Jones’s character was an ardent love
of liberty, and a high and honourable feeling of independence in his own
person. The former was displayed in his open and fearless advocacy of
opinions calculated to close the road to preferment, such as an entire
disapprobation of the American war, and a strong feeling of the
necessity of reform in Parliament. It should also be noticed that at an
early period he denounced in energetic language the abomination of the
Slave Trade. His personal love of independence was at this time
manifested in his resolution to quit the certain road to ease and
competence which his connexion with the noble family of Spencer laid
before him, to embark in the brilliant but uncertain course of legal
adventure. Ambition was a prominent feature in Jones’s character; and it
was his hope and his earnest wish to distinguish himself in the House of
Commons as well as at the bar. He was admitted of the Middle Temple
November 19, 1770; and his Oriental studies, though not entirely
abandoned, especially at first, were thenceforth much curtailed until
the prospect of being appointed to a judicial office in India furnished
an adequate reason for the resumption of them. But he gave a proof that
his devotion to Oriental had not destroyed his taste for Grecian
learning, by publishing in 1778 a translation of the ‘Orations of
Isæus,’ relative to the laws of succession to property in Athens. The
subject appears to have interested him; for in 1782, when his attention
was again directed to the East, he published translations of two Arabian
poems; one on the Mohammedan law of succession to the property of
intestates, the other on the Mohammedan law of inheritance. About the
same time he translated the seven ancient Arabian poems, called
Moallakat, or ‘Suspended,’ because they had been hung up, in honour of
their merit, in the Temple of Mecca; and to show, perhaps, that his
attention had not been withdrawn from his immediate profession, he wrote
an ‘Essay on the Law of Bailments.’
Mr. Jones was called to the bar in 1774. Within two years’ space he
obtained a commissionership of bankrupts; by what influence does not
appear: it could not be from any professional eminence. A letter written
to Lord Althorp so early as October, 1778, intimates a wish to obtain
some judicial appointment in India, not only in consequence of the
interest which he had felt from an early age in every thing connected
with the East, but from a motive which has sent other eminent men to the
same unhealthy climate; a feeling that pecuniary independence was almost
essential to success in political life, and the hope of returning in the
prime of manhood with an honourable competence.
In 1780 Mr. Jones became a candidate to represent the University of
Oxford. His political opinions were not calculated to win the favour of
that learned body, and though respectably supported, he did not find
encouragement to warrant him in coming to a poll. From this time forward
Mr. Jones’s mind was much occupied by the thought of going to India. His
letters contain frequent allusions to the subject, and express doubt
whether, notwithstanding the personal friendship of Lord North, his own
known views of politics, especially his often and strongly-declared
reprobation of the American war, would not interfere with his obtaining
the desired promotion. The event proved him to be right, for it was not
until after the formation of the Shelburne ministry that he received
information of his appointment to a seat in the Supreme Court of
Judicature at Calcutta, March 3, 1783. For this he was indebted to the
friendship of Lord Ashburton (Mr. Dunning). The state of uncertainty in
which he was so long retained interfered considerably with his attention
to his legal practice, which was rapidly increasing. He was the more
anxious on this subject, because he had been long attached to Miss
Shipley, daughter of the Bishop of St. Asaph; and his union with her was
only deferred until professional success should place him in a fit
station to support a family. His marriage took place in April, and in
the same month he embarked for India. It remains to be noticed, that in
1782 Mr. Jones had written an essay, entitled ‘The Principles of
Government,’ in a dialogue between a farmer and country gentleman,
intended to express in a cheap and simple form his own views on
constitutional questions. This was first printed by the Society for
Constitutional Information, of which Mr. Jones was a member: it was
reprinted by his brother-in-law, the Dean of St. Asaph, who was in
consequence indicted for libel. In the prosecution which ensued, Mr.
Erskine made one of his first and most remarkable appearances, and the
series of speeches which he delivered in this case prepared the way for
the Libel Bill of 1792.
Sir William Jones arrived in Calcutta in September, and entered on his
judicial functions in December, 1783. One of his first employments was
the organization of a scientific association, under the title of the
Asiatic Society. The Governor-general, Warren Hastings, was requested to
become president; and on his declining to accept, as an honorary
distinction, an office the real duties of which he was unable to fulfil,
Sir William Jones was fitly placed at the head of that institution,
which, but for him, probably would not have existed. The transactions of
that society, under the name of ‘Asiatic Researches,’ were published
under his superintendence, and owe a large portion of their interest to
the labours of his pen. Another work, the ‘Asiatic Miscellany,’ was also
indebted to him for several valuable contributions. But the perfect
acquisition of the Sanscrit language was the chief employment of that
time which could be spared from his judicial labours; a task indeed
subsidiary to those labours, and performed with the benevolent design of
insuring to the Indian subjects of Britain a pure administration of
justice, by rendering the knowledge of their laws accessible to British
magistrates. Bound to adjudicate between the natives according to their
own native laws, and ignorant for the most part of the very language in
which those laws were written, the judges were obliged to have recourse
to native lawyers, called Pundits, who were regularly attached to the
courts as a species of assessors. Of these men Sir W. Jones, no harsh or
hasty reprover, says, “It would be unjust and absurd to pass
indiscriminate censure on so considerable a body of men; but my
experience justifies me in declaring that I could not, with an easy
conscience, concur in a decision merely on the written opinion of native
lawyers, in a case in which they could have the remotest interest in
misleading the court.” The obvious remedy was to obtain a trustworthy
digest of the Hindoo laws, which should then be accurately translated
into English. The scheme indeed had been already undertaken in part at
the desire of Mr. Hastings, by Mr. Halhed: but as the code of Hindoo
law, compiled by that gentleman, was merely a translation from a
defective Persian version of the original Sanscrit, it did not possess
the requisite correctness, or authority. It appears from Sir W. Jones’s
correspondence, that at an early period he had contemplated supplying
this great desideratum by his own labour and expense. But prudence did
not warrant such an uncalled-for act of liberality; and he addressed a
letter to Lord Cornwallis, dated March 19, 1788, in which the necessity
for such a work, and the means by which it might be executed, are fully
laid down. It was to be compiled by the Mohammedan or Hindoo lawyers,
working under the superintendence of a director and translator, who
should be qualified to check and correct intentional or careless error:
and a chief difficulty, in Sir W. Jones’s own words, was “to find a
person who, with a competent knowledge of the Sanscrit and Arabic, has a
general acquaintance with the principles of jurisprudence, and a
sufficient share even of legislative spirit, to arrange the plan of a
digest, superintend the compilation of it, and render the whole, as it
proceeds, into perspicuous English. Now (he continues), though I am
truly conscious of possessing a very moderate portion of those talents
which I should require in the superintendent of such a work, yet I may
without vanity profess myself equal to the labour of it;—and I cannot
but know that the qualifications required, even in the low degree in
which I possess them, are not often found united in the same person.”
The proposal of course was eagerly accepted. That he should have
acquired the necessary acquaintance, first with the language, then with
the law, in the space of four years and a half, is sufficiently
remarkable; and the method in which he proposed to execute it will
startle those who know the enervating influence of a tropical climate.
“I should be able,” he says, “if my health continued firm, to translate
every morning, before any other business is begun, as much as the
lawyers could compile, and the writers copy, in the preceding day.” The
quantity of work which Jones did in India was indeed astonishing; but he
was a severe economist of time, and even his hours of recreation were
rendered serviceable to the increase of knowledge. Botany especially was
a favourite pursuit of his more leisure hours; and his correspondence
with Banks and others shows at once the zeal with which, when duty would
permit, he followed that fascinating science, and the readiness with
which he communicated his own discoveries to his friends, and laboured
to answer their inquiries. Nor did he neglect poetry. Several odes to
Hindoo deities, originally published in the Asiatic Miscellany, will be
found in his works; and these, with an elegant and cultivated fancy,
display considerable power of composition. He projected a more serious
undertaking,—an epic poem, of which a Phœnician colonist of Britain was
to be the hero, and the Hindoo mythology was to furnish the machinery:
the whole being an allegorical panegyric on the British constitution,
and furnishing the character of a perfect King of England. But the
extravagant fictions of the Hindoo religion have never proved
permanently popular in an English dress; and there is no reason to
regret that this scheme never advanced beyond its first sketch. The
author made a more acceptable present to European literature in
translating ‘Sacontala, or the Fatal Ring,’ a very ancient Indian drama,
which contains a lively, simple, and pleasing picture of the manners of
Hindustan at a remote age. It is ascribed to the first century before
Christ.
For a catalogue of Sir W. Jones’s works, we must refer to the edition
published by Lady Jones. We have only noticed a few of the most
important: to which are to be added, the series of anniversary
discourses addressed to the Asiatic Society, and the translation of the
‘Ordinances of Menu.’ The former, eleven in number, treat of the
History, Antiquities, Arts, &c. of Asia, and more especially of the
origin and connection of the chief nations among whom that quarter of
the globe is divided. His last work was the translation of the
‘Ordinances of Menu,’ “a system of duties” (we quote from the
translator’s preface) “religious and civil, and of law in all its
branches, which the Hindoos firmly believe to have been promulged in the
beginning of time by Menu, son or grandson of Brahma, or, in plain
language, the first of created beings, and not the oldest only, but the
holiest of legislators: a system so comprehensive, and so minutely
exact, that it may be considered as the Institutes of Hindoo law,
preparatory to the copious Digest which has lately been compiled by
Pundits of eminent learning.” This was his last work. It was begun in
1786, though not completed and published till 1794, a short time before
the author’s death.
The private history of Sir William Jones, during the period of his life
which was spent in India, affords very little scope for narration.
During his first summer he nearly fell a victim to the climate; but an
absence of seven months spent in travelling recruited his strength, and
after his return to Calcutta, in February, 1785, he seemed to be
acclimated, and suffered little from serious illness till his last fatal
attack. His domestic habits are thus described by his biographer, Lord
Teignmouth. “The largest portion of each year was devoted to his
professional duties and studies; and all the time that could be saved
from these important avocations was dedicated to the cultivation of
science and literature. While business required the daily attendance of
Sir W. Jones in Calcutta, his usual residence was on the banks of the
Ganges, at the distance of five miles from the court; to this spot he
returned every evening after sunset, and in the morning rose so early as
to reach his apartments in town by walking, at the first appearance of
the dawn. The intervening period of each morning, until the opening of
the court, was regularly allotted and applied to distinct studies. He
passed the months of vacation at his retirement at Crishnagur (a villa
about fifty miles from Calcutta) in his usual pursuits.” Those portions
of his correspondence which are preserved in Lord Teignmouth’s life may
be read with pleasure; and indeed constitute the chief interest of the
latter part of the work. Busy, tranquil, and cheerful, his life afforded
little of material for the biographer: and but for the impaired health
of his wife, his residence in India would have been one of almost
unmixed happiness. Lady Jones was compelled to embark for England in
December, 1793. The mere desire of increasing a fortune, which he
professed to find already large enough for his moderate wishes, would
not have tempted Sir William Jones to remain alone in Bengal: but he
felt an earnest desire to complete the great work on Hindoo Law, which
he had originated; and no apprehension was felt on his account, as his
constitution seemed to have become inured to the climate. But in the
following spring he was attacked by inflammation of the liver, which ran
its fatal course with unusual rapidity. He died, April 27, 1794. The
‘Digest,’ to which he had thus sacrificed his life, was completed by Mr.
Colebrooke, and published in 1800.
Blameless in his domestic relations, consistent and enlightened in his
political views, an honest and indefatigable magistrate, few men have
gone through life with more credit, or as far as it is possible to form
an opinion, with more happiness than Sir William Jones. As a scholar,
the circumstances of his life being considered, his acquirements were
extraordinary; and in this light the most remarkable feature of his
character was his singular facility in learning languages. A list,
preserved in his own handwriting, thus classes those with which he was
in any degree acquainted; they are twenty-eight in number. “Eight
languages studied critically—English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek,
Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit. Eight studied less perfectly, but all
intelligible with a dictionary—Spanish, Portuguese, German, Runic,
Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish. Twelve studied less perfectly, but all
attainable: Thibetian, Pâli, Pahlair, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic,
Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, Chinese.” Besides law, which as his
profession, was his chief business through life, his writings embrace a
vast variety of subjects in the several classes of philology, botany,
zoology, poetry original and translated, political discussion,
geography, mythology, astronomy as applied to chronology, and history,
especially that of the Asiatic nations. And the praise of ‘adorning
everything that he touched’ is singularly due to him, for the elegance
of his style, and his power of throwing interest over the dry and
uncertain inquiries in which he took such delight. As far as England is
concerned, he was our great pioneer in Eastern learning; and if later
scholars, profiting in part by his labours, have found reason to dissent
from his opinions, it is to be recollected, as far as our estimate of
his powers is concerned, that most men, who have obtained eminence in
this recondite department of literature, have done so by the devotion of
their undivided powers: what Jones accomplished was performed, on the
contrary, in the intervals of those official labours, to which the best
hours and energies of his life were, as his first point of duty,
devoted. What he had meditated, if life and leisure had been granted,
may be inferred from the list of ‘Desiderata,’ which his biographer
(vol. ii., p. 301, it is not said on what authority) regards as
exhibiting his own literary projects. The following emphatic panegyric,
conceived in the warm language which affection naturally indulges in on
such an occasion, has been pronounced on him by his friend and
school-fellow, Dr. Bennet, Bishop of Cloyne. “I knew him from the early
age of eight or nine, and he was always an uncommon boy. Great
abilities, great particularity of thinking, fondness for writing verses
and plays of various kinds, and a degree of integrity and manly courage,
of which I remember many instances, distinguished him even at that
period. I loved and revered him, and though one or two years older than
he was, was always instructed by him from my earliest age. In a word, I
can only say of this wonderful man, that he had more virtues and less
faults than I ever yet saw in any human being; and that the goodness of
his head, admirable as it was, was exceeded by that of his heart. I have
never ceased to admire him from the moment I first saw him, and my
esteem for his great qualities and regret for his loss will only end
with my life.”
Due honours were paid after death to this great man. The Court of
Directors placed a statue of him in St. Paul’s cathedral; and Lady Jones
erected a monument to him in the ante-chapel of University College,
Oxford. In conformity with his own expressed opinion, that “the best
monument that can be erected to a man of literary talent, is a good
edition of his works,” she caused them to be collected and printed in
1799, in six quarto volumes. They have been reprinted in octavo. A life
of Sir William Jones was afterwards written by Lord Teignmouth, his
intimate friend in India, at Lady Jones’s request. There is a memoir in
the Annual Obituary for 1817, which is chiefly devoted to set forth the
political opinions of Sir William Jones, in a stronger light than seemed
fitting to his noble biographer.
[Illustration: [Statue of Sir W. Jones, by John Bacon, R.A., in St.
Paul’s.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by Rob^t. Hart._
ROUSSEAU.
_From an original Picture by Latour, in the possession of M. Bordes,
at Paris._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
ROUSSEAU.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, the son of a watch-maker at Geneva, was born June
28, 1712. His mother dying while he was yet a child, his father took a
second wife; and he himself was placed at school at the village of
Bossey, near Geneva, where he learnt but little, and was afterwards
apprenticed to an engraver, a coarse, brutal man, whose treatment of him
tended to sour a temper already wilful and morose. He became addicted to
idleness, pilfering, and lying. The fear of punishment for some act of
especial misconduct induced him to run away from his master, and he
wandered into Savoy, where finding himself totally destitute, he applied
to the Bishop of Annecy, on the plea of wishing to be instructed in the
Catholic religion. The bishop recommended him to Madame de Warens, a
Swiss lady, herself a convert to Catholicism, who lived at Annecy. She
received the boy kindly, relieved his present wants, and afforded him
the means of proceeding to Turin, where he entered the College of
Catechumens, and after going through a preparatory course of
instruction, abjured the reformed religion, and became a Catholic. But
as he refused to enter into holy orders, on leaving the college he was
again thrown upon his own resources. He became a domestic servant; but
his want of self-control and discretion rendered him very unfit for his
employment: and in 1730 he returned to the house of Madame de Warens,
who received him kindly, and afforded him support and protection during
the next ten years. Of his foolish, profligate, and ungrateful course of
life during this period, we have neither space nor wish to give an
account: after many absences, and many returns, Rousseau quitted her
finally in 1740, receiving letters of introduction to some persons at
Lyons. Tutor, musician, and private secretary to the French Ambassador,
his restless temper and versatile mind led him successively from Lyons
to Paris and Venice. From the last-named city he returned to Paris in
1745; and alighting at an obscure inn, met with a servant girl, Therese
Levasseur, with whom he formed a connexion which lasted all the rest of
his life. He tried to compose music for the stage, but did not succeed
in his attempts. He was next employed as a clerk in the office of M.
Dupin, Fermier-général, but did not remain long in his new employment.
In 1748 he became acquainted with Madame d’Epinay, who proved afterwards
one of his steadiest and kindest friends. He frequented the society also
of D’Alembert, Diderot, and Condillac, and he was engaged to write the
articles on music for the Encyclopédie, which he did very ill, as he
himself acknowledges. One day he saw by chance in an advertisement, that
a prize had been offered by the Academy of Dijon, for the best essay on
the question, Whether the progress of sciences and of the arts has been
favourable to the morals of mankind? He at once resolved to write for
the prize, and apparently without having ever before considered the
subject, made up his mind to take the negative side of the question.
Diderot encouraged, but did not, as has been commonly said, originate
this determination. He supported his position, that science, literature,
and art, have been fatal to the virtues and happiness of mankind, with a
glowing eloquence; and the Academy awarded him the prize. His success
confirmed him in a turn for paradox and exaggeration; and he seems to
have adopted, as a general principle, the doctrine that the extreme
opposite to wrong must necessarily be right. At the same time his
reputation as an author became established, and in a few years after his
first essay, he was acknowledged to be one of the most, or rather the
most, eloquent writer among his contemporaries. Meantime he persevered
in his attempts at musical composition, and wrote ‘Le Devin du Village,’
an opera which was played before the king at the Court Theatre of
Fontainebleau, and met with the royal approbation. Rousseau was in one
of the boxes with a gentleman belonging to the court. The king having
expressed a desire to see the composer of the opera, Rousseau became
alarmed or ashamed at the slovenly condition of his dress, and instead
of repairing to the royal presence, he ran out of the house and hastened
back to Paris. Naturally shy, he possessed neither ease of manners nor
facility of address, and he could never throughout life subdue his own
acute feeling of these deficiencies; a feeling which of course tended to
perpetuate and increase his awkwardness. This was the secret spring of
most of his eccentricities. In order to hide his imperfections, he
resorted to the plan of affecting to disregard manners altogether; he
put on the appearance of a cynic, of a misanthropist, which he was not
in reality.
It was about the year 1750, soon after writing his dissertation for the
Dijon prize, that he made a total change in his habits and mode of
living. He gave up all refinement about his dress, laid aside his sword,
bag, and silk stockings, sold his watch, but kept his linen apparel,
which, however, was stolen from him shortly after. He spent one half of
the day in copying music as a means of subsistence, and he found
constant employment. Several persons who knew his circumstances offered
him three or four times the value of his labour, but he would never
accept more than the usual remuneration. In 1753 he wrote his ‘Lettre
sur la Musique Française,’ in which he asserted that the French had no
music deserving the name, that they could not possibly have any, and
then added, that “were they ever to have any it would be all the worse
for them;” a sentence unintelligible to his readers, and probably to
himself also. When years after this he heard Gluck, with whose music he
was delighted, he observed to some one, “this man is setting French
words to very good music, as if on purpose to contradict me;” and upon
this reflection he broke off acquaintance with Gluck. However, his
letter on French music sorely wounded the national vanity, and he was
exposed to a sort of petty persecution in consequence of it. Rousseau
wrote next his letter to D’Alembert, ‘sur les Spectacles,’ which led to
a controversy between them. He wrote also the ‘Discours sur l’Origine de
l’Inégalité parmi les Hommes,’ for another prize of the Academy of
Dijon, with a dedication to the magistrates of his native town Geneva,
which was much admired as a specimen of dignified eloquence. The
discourse itself is composed in his accustomed paradoxical vein. He
maintains that men are not intended to be sociable beings; that they
have a natural bias for a solitary existence; that the condition of the
savage, untutored and free in his native wilds, is the natural and
proper state of man; and that every system of society is an infraction
of man’s rights, and a subversion of the order of nature. He assumes
that men are all born equal by nature, disregarding the daily evidence
of the contrary, in respect both of their physical and moral powers. His
idea of the equal rights of men, which he afterwards developed in the
‘Contrat Social,’ instead of being founded upon enlightened reason,
religion, and morality, rests upon the base of his favourite theory, of
man’s equality in a state of nature; while we know from experience, that
those savage tribes who approach nearest to this imaginary natural
state, acknowledge no other right than that of the strongest. Most of
Rousseau’s paradoxes proceed from the false position assumed in his
first dissertation, that a savage, unsocial state, is the very
perfection of man’s existence.
After the publication of this discourse Rousseau repaired to Geneva,
where he was well received by his countrymen. He there abjured
Catholicism and resumed the profession of the reformed religion. But he
soon returned to Paris; and, at the invitation of Madame d’Epinay, in
1756, took up his residence at the house called L’Hermitage, in the
valley of Montmorency, near Paris. It was in this pleasant retirement
that he began his celebrated novel ‘Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloïse,’
which he finished in 1759. As a work of imagination and invention it is
little worth; but as a model of impassioned eloquence, it will be
admired as long as the French language shall continue to be spoken or
read by men. Rousseau, while he wrote it, was himself under the
influence of a passion which he had conceived for the beautiful Madame
d’Houdetot, Madame d’Epinay’s sister-in-law, a love totally hopeless and
ridiculous on his part, but which no doubt inspired him while engaged in
the composition of this work. When it appeared, many people, especially
women, thought that Julie was a real living object of his attachment,
and the supposition being favourable to the popularity of the book and
its author, Rousseau was not very anxious to undeceive them. He esteemed
the fourth portion of the work the best. “The first two parts are but
the desultory verbiage of feverish excitement, and yet I could never
alter them after I had once written them. The fifth and the sixth are
comparatively weak, but I let them remain out of consideration of their
moral utility.... My imagination cannot embellish the objects I see; it
must create its own objects. If I am to paint the spring, I must do it
in winter; if to describe a landscape, I must be shut up within walls:
were I confined in the Bastille, I should then write best on the charms
of liberty. I never could write as a matter of business, I can only do
it through impulse or passion.” (Rousseau’s ‘Notes to the Nouvelle
Heloïse,’ in Mercier and Le Tourneur’s edition.) He had great difficulty
in constructing his periods; he turned them and he altered them
repeatedly in his head, often while in bed, before he attempted to put
them on paper.
La Nouvelle Heloïse has been censured for the dangerous example it
affords, and for the interest it throws upon seduction and frailty. The
character of St. Preux is decidedly faulty, and even base, in spite of
all his sophistry, which however has probably led other young men placed
in a similar situation to forget the relative duties of society, and the
obligations of hospitality. Here we perceive also the influence of
Rousseau’s favourite paradox; for in a state of nature, such as Rousseau
has fancied it, the intimacy of St. Preux and Julie would have been
unobjectionable. But then the relative position of the teacher, his
pupil, and her parents, would not have been the same as in the novel,
for they would have been all savages together. Rousseau has however
redeemed the character of Julie after she becomes a wife, and he has
thus paid a sincere homage to the sacredness of the marriage bond, and
to the importance of conjugal duties, the basis of all society. Rousseau
was not a contemner of virtue; he felt its beauty, though his practice
was by no means modelled on its dictates. He tells us himself the
workings of his mind on this subject. “After much observation I thought
I perceived nothing but error and folly among philosophers, oppression
and misery in the social order. In the delusion of my foolish pride I
fancied myself born to dissipate all prejudices; but then I thought
that, in order to have my advice listened to, my conduct ought to
correspond to my principles. I had been till then good-hearted, I now
became virtuous. Whoever has the courage of showing himself such as he
is, must, if he be not totally depraved, become such as he ought to be.”
It was probably in compliance with his growing sense of moral duty, that
he married at last the woman he had so long been living with, when she
was forty-seven years of age, and, as he himself acknowledges, was not
possessed of any attractions of either mind or person, having nothing to
recommend her except her attention to him, especially in his frequent
fits of illness or despondency. He seems also to have bitterly repented,
in the latter years of his life, having in his youth sent his
illegitimate children to the foundling hospital.
Rousseau’s next work was the ‘Emile, ou de l’Education,’ which appeared
in 1762. It contains many excellent precepts, especially in the first
part, although, as a whole system, it may be considered as
impracticable, at least in any state of society which has yet been
formed upon the earth. It was remarked at the time, that the author,
after having brought up his Emile to manhood, ought to create a new
world for him to live in. Rousseau himself seems to have been of this
opinion, for when a Mr. Angar introduced to him his son, whom he said he
had educated according to the principles of the Emile, Rousseau quickly
replied, “So much the worse for you, and for your son too.” The ‘Emile,’
however, introduced some beneficial changes in the early treatment of
children. It discredited the absurd practice of swaddling infants like
mummies, to the manifest injury of their tender limbs; it induced
mothers of the higher ranks to suckle their children, instead of
committing them to the care of nurses; it corrected several wrong
principles of early education, such as that of ruling children through
fear, of considering them as slaves having no will of their own, and of
terrifying them by absurd stories and fables; it inculcated freedom of
body and mind, the necessity of amusement and relaxation, of appealing
to the feelings of children, of treating them like rational beings.
Rousseau may be truly called the benefactor of children. As he
proceeded, however, in his plan for boys grown older, Rousseau became
involved in some of his favourite speculations about religion and
metaphysics, which gave offence to both Catholics and Protestants. The
Parliament of Paris condemned the work. The Archbishop issued a
_mandement_ against it. The States-General of Holland likewise
proscribed the book. At Geneva, it was publicly burnt by the hand of the
executioner. The publication of the ‘Contrat Social, ou Principes du
Droit Politique,’ which appeared soon after, added to the storm against
the author. It contains much speculative truth, combined with much
ignorance of men’s nature and passions. The idea of a perfect and
universal model of government, without regard to local circumstances,
seems chimerical. It is a curious fact that Rousseau, after reading
Bernardin de St. Pierre’s political works, observed that they contained
projects which were impracticable on account of a fundamental error, out
of which the author was unable to extricate himself, namely, “that of
supposing that men in general and in all cases will conduct themselves
according to the dictates of reason and virtue, rather than according to
their passions.” Rousseau, in uttering these words, passed judgment on
his own ‘Contrat Social,’ which he afterwards also acknowledged having
written, “not for men but for angels.” In fact, he never meant it for
anything but a speculative treatise, and in his ‘Considérations sur le
Gouvernement de la Pologne,’ published some years after, having to write
for a practical purpose, he considerably modified his former principles.
In consequence of the excitement produced by these works, Rousseau left
Paris for Switzerland in 1762. He went first to Yverdun, but the Senate
of Berne enjoined him to leave its territory. He then repaired to
Neuchatel, which was subject to the King of Prussia, and of which the
old Marshal Keith was Governor. Keith received him very kindly, and
Rousseau took up his residence at the village of Motiers, in the Val de
Travers. There he wrote a Reply to the Archbishop of Paris, and a Letter
to the Magistrates of Geneva, in which he renounced his rights of
citizenship. He next wrote the “Lettres de la Montagne,” which is a
series of severe strictures on the political government and church of
Geneva. It is curious as a sketch of the old institutions of that
republic, written by one of its own citizens. This work increased the
existing irritation against its author, a feeling which spread even to
the villagers of Motiers, who are said to have annoyed their eccentric
visiter in various ways. Rousseau, however, is suspected of having
greatly magnified, if not invented, some of the acts of aggression of
which he complains. He spoke of them as amounting to a regular
conspiracy against his person, and removed his abode to the little
island of St. Pierre, on the lake of Bienne. Thence, after a time, as if
to court notice, he wrote a letter to the Senate of Berne, requesting
permission to remain on the island. For answer he received an order to
quit the territory of the canton in twenty-four hours. At the invitation
of his former friend Marshal Keith, he meditated a visit to Berlin. But
the advice of some friends in Paris induced him to change his mind, and
accept the friendly offer of our historian Hume, who was anxious to
procure for him a safe asylum in England, where he might quietly attend
to his studies and live in peace. Rousseau arrived in London in January,
1766; and in the following March, went to his intended home at Wootton
in Derbyshire. Knowing the man he had to deal with, Hume, with the real
kindness of character which he possessed, had sought by every means to
avoid shocking the irritable delicacy or vanity of his protégé: and the
residence which he procured for him in the house of a man of fortune,
Mr. Davenport, is said to have been unexceptionable. But before long he
quarrelled with both Hume and Davenport, left Wootton abruptly, and
returned to France. The ostensible cause of all this was the publication
of a letter in the newspapers, bearing the King of Prussia’s name, and
reflecting severely upon Rousseau’s weaknesses and eccentricities.
Rousseau accused Hume, or some of his friends, of having written it.
Hume protested in vain that he knew nothing of the matter. At last
Horace Walpole acknowledged himself to be the author. Rousseau, however,
would not be pacified, and attributed to Hume the blackest designs
against him. The correspondence that passed between the parties on the
subject is curious, and is given in the complete editions of our
author’s works. He afterwards seemed to say that during his residence in
England he had been subject to fits of insanity.
Returning to France, Rousseau led an unsettled life, with frequent
changes in his place of residence, until June, 1770. He then returned to
Paris, and took lodgings in the Rue Plâtrière, which has since been
called Rue J. J. Rousseau. It is to be noticed that in the interim he
had published his ‘Dictionnaire de Musique,’ a work which has the
reputation of being both imperfect and obscure. Indeed, notwithstanding
his passionate fondness for the art, he never attained to a profound
acquaintance with it. Passing through Lyons on his way to Paris, he
subscribed his mite towards the erection of a statue to Voltaire: thus
avenging himself for the coarse abuse which the latter had on many
occasions poured upon him, and which Rousseau never returned. Voltaire
is said to have been exceedingly annoyed at this. After his return to
the capital, he was overwhelmed with visits and invitations to dinner.
Though there was a prosecution pending against him for his ‘Emile,’ he
was left undisturbed: but at the same time he was cautioned not to
exhibit himself too conspicuously in public; advice which he utterly
disregarded. He soon relapsed into his former misanthropy, and became
subject to convulsive fits, which fearfully disfigured his features, and
gave a haggard expression to his looks. He fancied that every body was
conspiring against him, and he also complained of inward moral
sufferings which tortured his mind.
Among other imaginary grievances he thought that the French ministers
had imposed restrictions upon him with respect to his writings. One of
his friends applied to the Duc de Choiseuil to ascertain the fact. The
Duke’s answer, dated 1772, is as follows: “If ever I have engaged M.
Rousseau not to publish anything without my previous knowledge, of which
fact however I have no remembrance, it could only have been in order to
save him from fresh squabbles and annoyance. However, now that I have no
longer the power of protecting him (the Duke had resigned his
premiership), I fully acquit him of any engagement of the kind.”
As Rousseau was walking one day in the street Menil Montant, a large dog
that was running before the carriage of the President Saint Fargeau
tripped his legs, and he fell. The President alighted, expressed his
regret at the accident, and begged the sufferer to accept of his
carriage to return home. Rousseau, however, refused. The next day the
President sent to inquire after his health. “Tell your master to chain
up his dog,” was the only reply.
Being old and infirm, the labour of copying music had become too irksome
for him: still he would accept of no assistance from his friends, though
all his income consisted of an annuity of 1450 livres. His wife was also
in bad health, and provisions were very dear at the time; he therefore
began to look out for a country residence. A friend mentioned this to
the Marquis de Girardin, who immediately offered Rousseau a permanent
habitation at his château of Ermenonville, near Chantilly. Rousseau
accepted the proposal, and chose for his residence a detached cottage
near the family mansion. He removed to it in May, 1778, and appeared
more calm and contented in his new abode. He was fond of botany, and
used to take long walks in quest of flowers with one of M. de Girardin’s
sons. On July 1st he went out as usual, but returned home fatigued and
ill: he however slept quietly that night. Next morning he rose early
according to his custom, and went out to see the sun rise; he came back
to breakfast, after which he went to his room to dress, as he intended
to pay a visit to Madame de Girardin. His wife happening to enter his
room shortly after, found him sitting with his elbow leaning on a chest
of drawers. He said he was very ill, and complained of cold shivering
and of violent pain in his head. Madame de Girardin being informed of
this, came at once to visit him; but Rousseau, thanking her for all her
kindness to him, begged of her to return home and leave him alone for
the present. He then having requested his wife to sit by him, begged her
forgiveness for any pain or displeasure of which he might have been the
cause, and said that his end was approaching, that he died in peace, as
he never had intended or wished evil to any human being, and that he
hoped in the mercy of God. He begged that M. de Girardin would allow him
to be buried in his park. He gave directions to his wife about his
papers, and requested her particularly to have his body opened, that the
cause of his death might be ascertained. He then asked her to open the
window, “that he might once more behold the beautiful green of the
fields.” “How pure and beautiful is the sky!” he then observed, “there
is not a cloud. I trust the Almighty will receive me there above.” In so
saying, he fell on his face to the floor, and on raising him, life was
found to be extinct. On opening the body, a considerable quantity of
serum was found between the brain and its integuments. His sudden death
was attributed by many persons to suicide: but there is no direct
evidence of which we know to prove this. On the other side there is the
positive assertion of the physician who examined the body, that his
death was natural. Rousseau was buried in an island shaded by poplars,
on the little lake of the park of Ermenonville. A plain marble monument
was raised to his memory.
The first part of his ‘Confessions,’ which he had begun to write while
at Wootton, was published in 1781. He had himself fixed the year 1800
for the publication of the second part, judging that, by that time, the
persons mentioned in the work would be dead; but, through an abuse of
confidence on the part of the depositories of the MSS., it was published
in 1788. His autobiography does not include the latter years of his
life.
Rousseau was temperate and frugal in his habits, disinterested and
warm-hearted, and impressed with strong feelings against oppression and
injustice. He was not envious of the fame or success of his brother
authors. He never sneered at religion like Voltaire and others of his
contemporaries, although in his speculative works he expressed his
doubts concerning revelation, and brought forth the arguments that
occurred to him on that side of the question: but he had none of the
fanaticism of incredulity against Christianity. Of the morality of the
Gospel he was a sincere admirer, and a most eloquent eulogist. “I
acknowledge,” he says in his ‘Emile,’ “that the majesty of the
Scriptures astonishes me, that the holiness of the Gospel speaks to my
heart. Look at the books of the philosophers; with all their pomp, how
little they appear by the side of that one book! Can a book so sublime,
and yet so simple, be the work of man? How prejudiced, how blind that
man must be, who can compare the son of Sophroniscus (Socrates) to the
son of Mary!” With such sentiments Rousseau could not long agree with
Helvetius, Diderot, D’Holbach, and their coterie. They, on their side,
ridiculed and abused him, because he was too sincere and independent for
them. “I have spent my life,” says Rousseau, “among infidels, without
being seduced by them; I loved and esteemed several of them, and yet
their doctrine was to me insufferable. I told them repeatedly that I
could not believe them.... I leave to my friends the task of
constructing the world by chance. I find in the very architects of this
new-fangled world, and in spite of themselves and their arguments, fresh
proofs of the existence of a God, a Creator of all.” A very good
collection of the moral maxims scattered about Rousseau’s works was
published under the title of ‘Esprit, Maximes et Principes de J. J.
Rousseau,’ 8vo., Neuchatel, 1774.
Rousseau set to music about 100 French romances, which he called
‘Consolations des Misères de ma Vie.’ Several editions of all his works
have been made at different times: that by Mercier and Le Tourneur, 38
vols. 4to., has been long considered as one of the best. The edition of
Lefevre, 22 vols. 8vo., 1819–20, and that of Lequien, 21 vols. 8vo.,
1821–2, are now preferred to all former ones.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
JOHN HARRISON.
_From an Engraving by Tassaerts published in 1708 after a Painting by
King._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
HARRISON.
John Harrison was born in May, 1693, at Foulby, in Yorkshire. His
father, who was a joiner, trained him from an early age to the same
business; but he soon began to study machinery. He turned his attention
to the mechanism of clocks; and, to obviate the irregularities produced
in their rate of going by variations of temperature, he invented the
method of compensation, employed in what is now called the _gridiron_
pendulum, before the year 1720. This contrivance consisted in
constructing a pendulum with bars of different metals, having different
rates of expansion so as to correct each other: it is described in all
popular treatises on physics. By this means it is stated that he had,
before the year above-mentioned, constructed two clocks which agreed
with each other within a second a month, and one of which did not vary,
on the whole, more than a minute in ten years.[10]
Footnote 10:
Folke’s Address to the Royal Society, Nov. 30, 1749.
This success induced him to turn his attention to watches, or rather to
time-keepers for naval purposes. It would be impossible without the help
of plates to render intelligible the rise and progress of his methods,
for which we must refer the reader to treatises of Horology. His first
instrument was tried upon the Humber, in rough weather, and succeeded so
well that he was recommended to carry it to London, for the inspection
of the Commissioners of Longitude.
The question of the discovery of the longitude had been considered of
national importance since the year 1714, when an Act was passed offering
10,000_l._, 15,000_l._, and 20,000_l._ for any method of discovering the
longitude within 60, 40, or 30 miles respectively. In 1735 Harrison
arrived in London with his time-piece, and showed it to several members
of the Royal Society. He obtained a certificate of its goodness, signed
by Halley, Smith, Bradley, Machin, and Graham, in consequence of which
he was allowed to proceed with it to Lisbon, in a king’s ship, in 1736.
The watch was found to correct the ship’s reckoning a degree and a half;
and the commissioners thereupon gave Harrison 500_l._, to enable him to
proceed. He finished a second time-piece in 1739, and a third in 1758,
each nearer to perfection than the former, and both abounding in
ingenious contrivances to overcome the effects of temperature, and of
the motion of a vessel at sea. In 1741 he obtained another certificate,
signed by almost every name of eminence in English science of the time.
In 1749 the gold medal of the Royal Society was awarded to him. In 1761,
having then a fourth time-piece in hand, but being convinced that the
third was sufficiently correct to come within the limits of the act of
parliament, he applied to the Commissioners for a trial of it.
Accordingly, in 1761 (Nov. 18), his son, William Harrison, was sent in a
king’s ship to Jamaica with the watch, and returned to Portsmouth, March
26, 1762. On arrival at Port Royal, Jan. 19, 1762, the watch was found
wrong only 5⅒ seconds; and at its return, only 1 minute 54½ seconds.
This was sufficient to determine the longitude within 18 miles; and
Harrison accordingly claimed 20,000_l._, in a petition to the House of
Commons, presented early in 1763. The Commissioners had awarded him
1,500_l._, and promised 1,000_l._ more after another voyage. Owing to
some doubt as to the method of equal altitudes employed in finding the
time at Port Royal, they do not appear to have been of opinion that the
first voyage was conclusive. In 1763 an act passed, by which, firstly,
no other person could become entitled to the reward until Harrison’s
claim was settled; and, secondly, 5,000_l._ was awarded to him on his
discovery of the structure of the instrument. But the Commissioners not
agreeing about the payment, another voyage was resolved on, and Mr.
William Harrison sailed again for Barbadoes, with Dr. Maskelyne,
afterwards the Astronomer Royal. The result was yet more satisfactory
than before; and in 1765 a new act was passed, awarding to Harrison the
whole sum of 20,000_l._: the first moiety upon the discovery of his
construction; the second, so soon as it should be found that others
could be made like it. In this act it is stated that the watch did not
lose more than ten miles of the longitude. But Harrison had by this time
been rendered unduly suspicious of the intentions of the Commissioners.
He imagined that Dr. Maskelyne had treated him unfairly, and was
desirous of having no method of finding the longitude except that of
lunar observations. An account of the subsequent proceedings, of which
the following is an abstract, was printed in self-defence by the
Commissioners:—
May 28, 1765, Mr. Harrison’s son informs the Commissioners that he is
ready to deliver the drawings and explanations, and expects a
certificate that he is entitled to receive the first moiety of the
reward. The Commissioners are unanimously of opinion that verbal
explanations and experiments, in the presence of such persons as they
may appoint, will be necessary. May 30, Mr. Harrison attends in person,
and consents to the additional explanation; and certain men of science,
as well as watchmakers, are instructed to receive them. June 13, Mr.
Harrison, being present, is informed that the Board is ready to fix a
time to proceed, on which he denies ever having given his assent, and
refers to a letter which he had delivered at the last meeting. The
letter had not, says the Commissioners’ Minute, been delivered, but had
been left upon the table, unnoticed by any one. It was to the effect
that Harrison was willing to give further verbal explanation, but
requires to know to whom it must be given; “for,” says he, “I will never
attempt to explain it to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, and who
they may appoint; nor will I ever come under the directions of men of
theory.” He further refuses to make any experimental exhibition, and
ends by complaining of the usage he has received. He was then told by
the Board that he would only be asked for experiments in cases where
there were operations which could not be fully explained by words, such,
for instance, as the tempering of the springs; on which he left the
Board abruptly, declaring, “that he never would consent to it, as long
as he had a drop of English blood in his body.” The Commissioners
thereupon declined further dealing with him.
The reason of the above absurd conduct we suspect to have been, that
Harrison desired, in addition to the large reward claimed by him, to
have a monopoly of the manufacture of his watches, such as would have
necessarily been created for his benefit, had he been allowed to keep
his actual methods of working a secret. For he offered, _upon receiving
the reward_, “to employ a sufficient number of hands, so as with all
possible speed to furnish his Majesty’s navy, &c. &c., not doubting but
the public will consider the charge of the outset of the undertaking.”
We quote here from the Biographia Britannica, in the last volume of
which, published in 1766, is an account of him, from materials avowedly
furnished by himself, and plainly written by a partisan. It is the only
instance we can find in which a memoir of a living person has been
inserted in that work.
The next circumstance we find, (for there is no connected history of
this discussion, which exists only in a number of detached pamphlets,)
is the delivery of the watch to Dr. Maskelyne, at the Royal Observatory,
in May, 1766, that its rate of going might there be tried. The Report of
the Astronomer Royal states, that it could not be depended upon within a
degree of longitude in a voyage of six weeks; and a very angry pamphlet,
published by Harrison in the following year, accuses Maskelyne of having
treated the instrument unfairly. Many circumstances are stated which now
appear ludicrous, and some which, if true, would have reflected
discredit on the Commissioners. But nothing can be inferred, after the
refusal of Harrison to accede to the very reasonable demand of the
Commissioners, except that he was most probably as wrong in his
suspicions as he had been foolish in his dealings. The end of this
dispute was, that in 1767 Harrison complied with the conditions insisted
upon; and, it having been found that his improvements were such as
admitted of execution by another person, he received the whole sum
awarded to him by the Act of Parliament.
Harrison was not a well-educated man, and was deficient in the power of
expressing his meaning clearly. It was easier for him, no doubt, to make
two watches than to explain one; and hence, perhaps, his aversion to
“men of theory,” who troubled him for descriptions and explanations.
He died in 1776, at his house in Red Lion Square, having been engaged
during the latter years of his life in bringing his improvements still
nearer to perfection. His last work, which was tried in 1772, was found
to have erred only four seconds and a half in ten weeks.
In his younger days, some church-bells, which were out of tune, set him
upon examining the musical scale, with a view to correct them. He
communicated his ideas on the subject to Dr. Smith, who confirmed and
extended them in his well-known work on Harmonics. In the Preface it is
stated that Harrison made the interval of the major-third bear to that
of the octave the proportion of the diameter of a circle to its
circumference. This, he said, he did on the authority of a friend, who
assured him it would give the best scale. Harrison himself wrote a
treatise on the scale, but we do not know whether it was published.
He is, on the whole, a fine instance of the union of originality with
perseverance. The inventions, of which it takes so short a space to tell
the history, were the work of fifty years of labour, and to them the art
of constructing chronometers, and consequently the science of
navigation, is indebted for much of its present advanced state.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._
MONTAIGNE.
_From an original Picture at Paris, in the “Dépot des Archives du
Royaume.”_
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
MONTAIGNE.
Michel, Seigneur, or Lord, of MONTAIGNE, a feudal estate in the province
of Perigord, near the river Dordogne, was born February 28, 1533, of a
family said to have been originally from England. He was a younger son;
but, by the death of his elder brother, inherited the estate by the
title of which he is known. His father, a blunt feudal noble, who had
served in the wars of Francis I., placed him out at nurse in a village
of his domain, and directed that he should be treated in the same manner
as the children of the peasants. As soon as he could speak, he was
placed under the care of a German tutor, selected for his ignorance of
the French, and intimate acquaintance with the Greek and Latin
languages. All Montaigne’s intercourse with his preceptor was carried on
in Latin; and even his parents made a rule never to address him except
in that language, of which they picked up a sufficient number of words
for common purposes. The attendants were enjoined to follow the same
practice. “They all became latinized,” says Montaigne himself, “and even
the villagers around learnt words in that language, some of which took
root in the country, and became of common use among the people.” Thus,
without any formal course of scholastic teaching, Montaigne spoke Latin
long before he could speak French, which he was afterwards obliged to
learn as if it had been a foreign language. When, at a mature age, he
was writing his Essays, he professed to be still ignorant of grammar,
having learnt various languages by practice, and not knowing yet the
meaning of adjective, conjunctive, or ablative, (Essais, b. i. c. 48.)
This last assertion probably is not to be taken strictly to the letter.
He studied Greek also by way of pastime, rather than as a task. The
object of his father was to make him learn without constraint and from
his own wish; and, as an instance of the old soldier’s whimsical notions
on education, he caused his son to be awakened in the morning to the
sound of music, that his nervous system might not be injured by any
sudden shock. At six years old Montaigne was sent to the College of
Guienne, at Bordeaux, an establishment which then enjoyed a very high
reputation. He soon made his way to the higher classes; and at thirteen
years of age had completed his college education. Having no taste for
military life, which was then the usual career of young noblemen, he
studied the law; and in 1554 was made Councillor (or Judge) in the
Parliament of Bordeaux, in which capacity he acted for several years. He
went several times to Court, and enjoyed the favour of Henry II., by
whom, or as some say, by Charles IX., he was made a Gentleman of the
King’s Chamber, and Knight of the Order of St. Michel. Among his brother
councillors at Bordeaux there was a young man of distinguished merit,
called La Boëtie, for whom Montaigne conceived a feeling of the most
romantic friendship, which soon became reciprocal. The sentiments and
opinions of the two seem to have sympathized in an extraordinary degree.
La Boëtie died young, but his friend’s affection survived: a chapter of
the Essays is devoted to his memory, and in other parts of Montaigne’s
writings we find frequent recurrence to the same subject.
Montaigne married Françoise de la Chassaigne when he was thirty-three
years of age; and this he did, as he says, in consequence of external
persuasions, and in order to please his friends rather than himself, for
he was not inclined to a married life; “but once married, although he
had been till then considered a licentious man, he observed the conjugal
laws more strictly than he had himself expected.” On succeeding to the
family estate, on which he generally resided, he took the management of
it into his own hands; and although his father, judging from his habits
of abstraction and seeming carelessness of worldly objects, had foretold
that he would ruin his patrimony, Montaigne, at his death, left the
property if not much better, certainly not worse than he found it. He
was not rich, for we are told, by Balzac, that his income did not exceed
6000 livres, which was no great revenue for a country gentleman even at
that time. In 1569 he translated into French a Latin work of Sebonde or
Sebon, in defence of the mysteries and doctrines of the Church of Rome,
against Luther and other Protestant writers. France was at that time
desolated by civil and religious war. Montaigne, although he evidently
disapproved of the conduct of the Court towards the Protestants, yet
remained loyal to the King. He lived in retirement, and took no part in
public affairs, except by exhorting both parties to moderation and
mutual charity. By this conduct he became, as it generally happens,
obnoxious to both factions, and he incurred some danger in consequence.
The massacre of St. Bartholomew plunged him into a deep melancholy. He
detested cruelty and the shedding of blood, and in several passages of
his Essays has animadverted in strong terms upon the atrocities
committed against the Protestants. It was about this dismal epoch of
1572, when, solitude and melancholy urging him to the task, he began to
write that celebrated work, of which we shall presently speak more at
length. It was first published in March, 1580; and had great success.
After some time, Montaigne printed a new edition of it, with additions;
but without making any alterations in the part which had appeared
before. The popularity of the book was such that in a few years there
was hardly a man of education in France who had not a copy of it.
Soon after the first publication of his Essays, Montaigne undertook a
journey for the sake of his health. He went to Germany, Switzerland,
and, lastly, to Italy. He visited several bathing-places, among others,
Baden, and the baths of Lucca in Tuscany. He proceeded to Rome, where he
was well received by several Cardinals and other persons of distinction,
and was introduced to Pope Gregory XIII. Montaigne was delighted with
Rome; he found himself at home among those localities and monuments
which were connected with his earliest studies, and with the first
impressions of his childhood. His remarks on what he saw in the course
of his journey are those of a man of penetration, sincere and plain
spoken, and written in his peculiar antique style. His MS. journal,
after lying forgotten for nearly two centuries, was discovered in an old
chest in the château of his family, and published in 1775, by M. de
Querlon, under the following title, ‘Journal du Voyage de Michel de
Montaigne en Italie, par la Suisse et l’Allemagne, en 1580–1.’ It is one
of the earliest descriptions of Italy in a modern language. In this
journey, Montaigne received the freedom of the city of Rome, by a
special bull of the Pope, which he valued as the proudest distinction of
his life.
While he was abroad, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux by the votes of
the citizens; an honour which he would have declined, but that the king,
Henry III., insisted on his accepting of it. This was a mere honorary
office, no emolument being attached to it. The appointment was for two
years; but Montaigne was re-elected at the expiration of that period,
which was a mark of public favour of rare occurrence.
On retiring from his office, Montaigne returned to his estate. The
country was then ravaged by the war of the League. He had great
difficulty in saving his family and property in the midst of the
contending parties, and once narrowly escaped assassination in his
château. To add to the miseries of civil war, the plague broke out in
his neighbourhood in 1586; and he then, with his family, left his home
and became a wanderer, residing successively at several friends’ houses
in other parts of the country. He was at Paris in 1588, busy about a new
edition of his Essays. It appears from De Thou, that about this time he
was employed in negotiation with a view to mediate peace between Henry
of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., and the Duke of Guise. At Paris, he
made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle de Gournay, a young lady, who had
conceived a kind of sentimental affection for him by reading his book.
In company with her mother, she visited and introduced herself to him,
and from that time he called her his “fille d’alliance,” or adopted
daughter, a title which she retained for the rest of her life, as she
never married. This attachment, which, though warm and reciprocal, has
every appearance of being of a purely platonic nature, is one of the
remarkable circumstances of Montaigne’s life. At the time of his death,
Mademoiselle de Gournay and her mother crossed one-half of France, in
spite of the civil troubles and the insecurity of the roads, to mix
their tears with those of his widow and daughter.
On his return from Paris, in the latter part of 1588, Montaigne stopped
at Blois, with De Thou, Pasquier, and other friends. The famous
States-General were then assembled in that city, where the murder of the
Duke of Guise, and of his brother, the Cardinal, soon after took place
(23d and 24th December, 1588). Montaigne had long foreseen that the
civil dissensions could only terminate with the death of one of the
great party leaders; and he also said to De Thou that Henry of Navarre
was inclined to embrace the Catholic faith, were he not afraid of being
forsaken by his party; and that, on the other side, Guise himself would
not have been averse from adopting the Protestant religion, if he could
thereby have promoted his ambitious views. After these events, Montaigne
returned to his château. In the following year, he became acquainted
with Pierre Charron, a theological writer of considerable reputation. An
intimate friendship ensued between the two authors; and Charron, in his
book ‘De la Sagesse,’ borrowed many thoughts from the Essays, which he
held in high estimation. Montaigne, by his will, empowered Charron to
assume the coat of arms of his family, as he himself had no male issue.
Montaigne’s health had been declining for some time; he was afflicted
with gravel and cholic, and he was obstinately resolved against
consulting physicians. In September, 1592, he fell ill of a malignant
quinsy, which kept him speechless for three days, during which he had
recourse to his pen to signify to his wife his last intentions. He
desired that several gentlemen of the neighbourhood should be requested
to come and take leave of him. When they were assembled in his room, a
priest said mass, and at the elevation of the host, Montaigne half
raised himself on his bed, with his hands joined together, and in that
attitude expired, September 13, 1592, in the sixtieth year of his age.
His body was buried at Bordeaux, in the church of the Feuillans, where a
monument was erected to him by his widow. He left an only daughter,
heiress of his property.
Montaigne’s Essays have been the subject of much and very conflicting
criticism. If we consider the age and the intellectual condition of the
country in which the author was born, we must pronounce them a very
extraordinary work, not so much on account of the learning contained in
them, as for the philosophical spirit and the frank, independent,
liberal tone that pervades their pages. Civilization and literature were
then at a low ebb in France; the language was hardly formed, the country
was still torn by the rude turbulence, and subject to the oppression, of
feudal lords and feudal laws; and was, moreover, distracted by ignorant
fanaticism, by deadly intolerance, and by civil factions, rendered more
fierce by religious feuds. It is very remarkable that, in a remote
province of a country so situated, a country gentleman, himself
belonging to the feudal aristocracy, should have composed a work full of
moral maxims and precepts, conceived in the spirit of the philosophers
of Greece and Rome, and founded, not on the sanctions of revealed
religion, but on a sort of natural system of ethics, on the beauty of
virtue, on the innate sense of justice, on the lessons of history. It is
almost more remarkable that such a book should have been read with
avidity amidst the turmoil of factions, the din of civil war, the knell
of persecution and massacre.
The morality of the Essays has been called, and justly so, a pagan
morality: it is not founded on the faith and the hopes of a Christian;
and its principles are in many respects widely different from those of
the Gospel. Scepticism was the bias of Montaigne’s mind; his philosophy
is, in great measure, that of Seneca, and other ancient writers, whose
books were the first that were put into his hands when a child.
Accordingly, Pascal, Nicole, Leclerc, and other Christian moralists,
while rendering full justice to Montaigne’s talents and the many good
sentiments scattered about the Essays, are very severe upon his ethics,
taken as a system. Yet he was not a determined infidel, for not only in
the Essays, but in the journal of his travels, which was not intended
for publication, he manifests Christian sentiments; and we have seen
that the mode of his death was that of a Christian. In his chapter on
prayers, (Essais, b. i. 56,) he recommends the use of the Lord’s Prayer
in terms evidently sincere; and in a preceding chapter, after speaking
of two sorts of ignorance, the one, that which precedes all instruction,
and the other, that which follows partial instruction, he says, that
“men of simple minds, devoid of curiosity and of learning, are
Christians through reverence and obedience; that minds of middle growth
and moderate capacities are the most prone to error and doubt; but that
higher intellects, more clear-sighted and better grounded in science,
form a superior class of believers, who, through long and religious
investigations, arrive at the fountain of light of the Scriptures, and
feel the mysterious and divine meaning of our ecclesiastical doctrines.
And we see some who reach this last stage, through the second, with
marvellous fruit and confirmation; and who, having attained the extreme
boundary of Christian intelligence, enjoy their success with modesty and
thanksgivings, accompanied by a total reformation of their morals,
unlike those men of another stamp, who, in order to clear themselves of
the suspicion of their past errors, become violent, indiscreet, unjust,
and throw discredit on the cause which they pretend to serve.” (Essais,
b. i. ch. 54.) And a few lines after, he modestly places himself in the
second rank, of those who, disdaining the first state of uninformed
simplicity, have not yet attained the third and last exalted stage, and
who, he says, are thereby rendered “inept, importunate, and troublesome
to society. But I, for my part, endeavour, as much as I can, to fall
back upon my first and natural condition, from which I have idly
attempted to depart.” Although we may not trust implicitly to the
sincerity of this modest admission, yet we clearly see from this and
other passages, that Montaigne’s mind was anything but dogmatical, and
that he felt the insecurity of his own philosophy, which was made up of
impulses and doubts, rather than of argumentation and conviction.
Montaigne has been also censured for several licentious and some cynical
passages of his ‘Essais.’ This licentiousness, however, is rather in the
expressions than in the meaning of the author. He spoke plainly of
things which are not alluded to in a more refined state of society, but
he did so evidently without mischievous intentions, and as a thing of
common occurrence in his days. His early familiarity with the Latin
classics probably contributed to this habit.
Notwithstanding these faults, Montaigne’s Essays are justly admired for
the sound sense, honesty, and beauty which abound in them. ‘The best
parts of them (says a French critic) are those in which he speaks of the
passions and inclinations of men; as for his learning, it is vague, not
methodical, and uncertain; and his philosophical maxims are often
dangerous.’ (Mélanges d’Histoire et de Litterature,’ Rouen, 1699, tom.
i. p. 133.) Montaigne combats most earnestly all the malignant feelings
inherent in man, inhumanity, injustice, oppression, uncharitableness;
cruelty he detests, his whole nature was averse from it. His chapters on
pedantry and on the education of children are remarkably good. He
throws, at times, considerable light on the state of society and manners
in France in his time, which may be considered as the last period of
feudal power in that country. In his chapter on the inequality among
men, he speaks of the independence of the French nobility, especially in
the provinces remote from the Court, as Britanny; where the feudal lords
living on their estates, surrounded by their vassals, their officers and
valets, their household conducted with an almost royal ceremonial, heard
of the king but once a-year as if he were some distant king or Sultan of
Persia, and only remembered him on the score of some distant
relationship, which they hold carefully registered among their ancestral
documents.
Mademoiselle de Gournay edited Montaigne’s ‘Essais’ in 1635, and
dedicated the edition to the Cardinal de Richelieu. She wrote a long
preface to it, which is a zealous apology for Montaigne and his works
against the charges of the earlier critics. An edition of the ‘Essais’
was published by Pierre Coste, 3 vols. 4to. London, 1724, enriched with
valuable notes and several letters of Montaigne at the end of the third
volume. The edition of Paris, 3 vols. 4to. 1725, is, in great measure, a
reprint of that of Coste, except that the publishers have added extracts
of the various judgments of the most distinguished critical writers
concerning the ‘Essais,’ and also two more letters of Montaigne’s at the
end. These additions render this Paris edition the most complete. The
ex-senator Vernier published in 1810, ‘Notices et Observations pour
faciliter la Lecture des Essais de Montaigne,’ Paris, 2 vols. 8vo. It is
a useful commentary.
[Illustration]
POPE.
Alexander Pope was born in London, June S, 1688. His father was a
merchant, of good family, attached to the Roman Catholic religion; and
his own childish years were spent, first under the tuition of a priest,
then at a Roman Catholic Seminary at Twyford, near Winchester. He taught
himself to write by copying printed books, in the execution of which he
attained great neatness and exactness. When little more than eight years
old he accidentally met with Ogilby’s Translation of Homer. The
versification is insipid and lifeless; but the stirring events and
captivating character of the story so possessed his mind, that Ogilby
became a favourite book. When about ten years old he was removed from
Twyford to a school at Hyde Park Corner. He had there occasional
opportunities of frequenting the theatre; which suggested to him the
amusement of turning the chief events in Homer into a kind of play,
composed of a succession of speeches from Ogilby, strung together by
verses of his own. In these two schools he seems, instead of advancing,
to have lost what he had gained under his first tutor. When twelve years
old he went to live with his parents at Binfield, in Windsor Forest. He
there became acquainted with the writings of Spenser, Waller, and
Dryden. For the latter he conceived the greatest admiration. He saw him
once, and commemorates the event in his correspondence, under the words
“Virgilium tantum vidi:” but he was too young to have made acquaintance
with that master of English verse, who died in 1701. He studied Dryden’s
works with equal attention and pleasure, adopted them as a model of
rhythm, and copied the structure of that author’s periods. This was,
however, so far from a grovelling imitation, that it enabled him to
raise English rhyme to the most perfect melody of which it is capable.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
POPE.
_From the Picture by Hudson in the possession of His Grace the Duke of
Buckingham._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
In the retirement of Binfield, Pope laboured successfully to make amends
for the loss of past time. At fourteen years of age he had written with
some elegance, and at fifteen had attained some knowledge of the Greek
and Latin languages, to which he soon added French and Italian. In 1704
he began his pastorals, published in 1709, which introduced him, through
Wycherley, to the acquaintance of Walsh, who proved a sincere friend to
him. That gentleman discovered at once that Pope’s talent lay less in
striking out new thoughts of his own, than in easy versification, and in
improving what he borrowed from the ancients. Among other useful hints,
he pointed out that we had several great poets, but that none of them
were correct; he therefore admonished him to make that merit his own.
The advice was gratefully received; and Pope’s correspondence shows that
it was carefully followed. His melodious numbers, so marked a feature of
his style, were in a great measure the result of that suggestion.
In the same year, 1704, he wrote the first part of his ‘Windsor Forest’:
the whole was not published till 1713. The fault charged on this poem
is, that few images are introduced which are not equally applicable to
any other sylvan scenery. It was dedicated to Lord Lansdowne, whom he
mentions as one of his earliest acquaintance. To those already named,
may be added Bolingbroke, Congreve, Garth, Swift, Atterbury, Talbot,
Somers, and Sheffield, whose friendship he had gained at sixteen or
seventeen years of age. Pope, to his credit be it set down, cultivated
friendships not only with the great, but with his brethren among the
poets. Wycherley indeed was infected with the weakness of the archbishop
in ‘Gil Blas,’ touching his own compositions, and the young poet was
imprudently caustic in his criticism on the old one. Their
correspondence was consequently dropped; and though renewed through the
mediation of a common friend, it was with no revival of cordiality. But
in 1728, some time after Wycherley’s death, his poems were republished;
and in the following year Pope printed several letters which had passed
between them, in vindication of Wycherley’s fame as a poet, in answer to
certain misrepresentations prefixed to that edition. This quarrel was a
trying affair in the outset of Pope’s career, and his conduct had been
above his years; but young as he was, his talents were now beginning to
ripen. His example confirms the truth of Lord Bacon’s remark, that
personal deformity acts as a spur to that improvement of the mind, which
is most likely to rescue him who is curtailed of his due proportion from
a sense of degradation.
To this early period of Pope’s life belong the ‘Messiah,’ the ‘Ode for
St. Cecilia’s Day,’ ‘Verses to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady,’ and
other of Pope’s minor pieces, which were collected and published in a
small 8vo. volume in 1720. It is stated in a note to Dr. Johnson’s Life,
that Pope himself was the object of the passion commemorated in the
last-mentioned poem. The date of that most brilliant composition,
‘Eloisa to Abelard,’ is uncertain. The ‘Essay on Criticism’ was written
in 1709, “A work,” says Johnson, “which displays such extent of
comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with
mankind, and such knowledge both of ancient and modern learning, as are
not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience.” Pope’s
fame was carried to its height by the ‘Rape of the Lock.’ That poem
originated in an impertinence offered by Lord Petre to Mrs. Arabella
Fermor, which led to a quarrel between their respective families. Both
parties were among Pope’s acquaintance, and this lively piece was
written to produce a reconciliation, in which it succeeded. The
universal applause given to the first sketch induced the author to
enrich it with the machinery of the Sylphs. In that new dress the two
cantos, extended to five, came out in 1712, accompanied by a letter to
Mrs. Arabella Fermor, to whom he afterwards addressed another after her
marriage, in the spruce and courtly style of Voiture. A sentence or two
may be quoted as a sample of the poet’s epistolary manner. “Madam, you
are sensible, by this time, how much the tenderness of one man of merit
is to be preferred to the addresses of a thousand; and by this time, the
gentleman you have made choice of is sensible how great is the joy of
having all those charms and good qualities which have pleased so many,
now applied to please one only.... It may be expected, perhaps, that one
who has the title of being a wit should say something more polite upon
this occasion; but I am really more a well-wisher to your felicity, than
a celebrator of your beauty.... I hope you will think it but just that a
man, who will certainly be spoken of as your admirer after he is dead,
may have the happiness, while he is living, to be esteemed, Yours, &c.”
This letter is sometimes annexed to the poem, and not injudiciously, as
it completes the winding-up in the happy marriage of the heroine. In the
same year he published his ‘Temple of Fame,’ which, according to his
habitual caution, he had kept two years in his study. It appears from
one of his letters, that at that time he had made some progress in
translating the Iliad: in 1713, he circulated proposals for publishing
his translation by subscription. He had been pressed to this undertaking
some time before by several of his friends, and was now encouraged in
the design by others. The publication of the first four books, in 1715,
gave general satisfaction; and so materially improved the author’s
finances, that he resolved to come nearer to his friends in the capital.
With that view, the small estate at Binfield was sold, and he purchased
a house at Twickenham, whither he removed with his father and mother
before the end of the year 1715. While employed in the decoration of his
seat, he could not forbear doubling his pleasures by boasting of it in
his communications with his friends. In a letter to Mr. Blount he says,
in his customary tone of gallantry, “The young ladies may be assured
that I make nothing new in my gardens, without wishing to see them print
their fairy steps in every corner of them.... You’ll think I have been
very poetical in this description, but it is pretty nearly the truth.”
This letter was written in 1725. Warburton tells us that the improvement
of his celebrated grotto was the favourite amusement of his declining
years: not long before his death, by enlarging and ornamenting it with
ores and minerals of the richest and rarest kind, he had made it a most
elegant and romantic retirement. But modern taste will scarcely confirm
the reverend editor’s assertion, that “the beauty of his poetic genius,
in the disposition and ornaments of those romantic materials, appeared
to as much advantage as in any of his best-contrived poems.”
Pope’s father survived his removal to Twickenham only two years. The old
gentleman had sometimes recommended to his son the study of medicine, as
the best method of increasing his scanty patrimony. Neglect of pecuniary
considerations was not among Pope’s weaknesses: he did not indeed engage
in the medical profession; but he took other opportunities of pushing
his fortune. With this view, he published an edition of his collected
poems in 1717; a proceeding as much suggested by profit as by fame. In
the like disposition, he undertook a new edition of Shakspeare, which
was published in 1721. The execution of it proved the editor’s unfitness
for the task which he had undertaken. Immediately after the completion
of the Iliad, in 1720, Pope engaged, for a considerable sum, to
undertake the Odyssey. Only twelve books, however, of the translation
proceeded from his own pen: the rest were done by Broome and Fenton
under his direction. The work was completed in 1725. The following year
was employed, in concert with Swift and Arbuthnot, in the publication of
miscellanies, of which the most remarkable is the celebrated ‘History of
Martinus Scriblerus.’ About this time, as he was returning home one day
in Lord Bolingbroke’s chariot, it was overturned on Chase Bridge, near
Twickenham, and thrown with the horses into the river. The glasses being
up, Pope was nearly drowned, and was extricated with difficulty from his
hazardous situation. He lost the use of two fingers, in consequence of a
severe cut from the broken glass.
Having secured an independent fortune, Pope endeavoured to protect his
literary fame from all future attacks, by browbeating every one into
silence: this he hoped to accomplish by the poem of the ‘Dunciad,’ which
came out in 4to. in the year 1727. He somewhere says, that the life of
an author is a state of warfare: he now showed himself a master in
literary tactics, a great captain in offensive as well as defensive war.
The poem made its first appearance in Ireland, cautiously, as a masked
battery; nor was the triumph completed without the co-operation of an
Eugene with this satirical Marlborough in the person of Swift, who
furnished some of the materials in his own masterly style of sarcasm.
The improved edition was printed in London in 1728. Sir Robert Walpole
presented it to the King and Queen, and, probably at the same time,
offered to procure the author a pension; but Pope refused this, as he
had before, in 1714, rejected a similar proposal from Lord Halifax. In a
letter to Swift, written about this time, he expresses his feelings
thus: “I was once before displeased at you for complaining to Mr. —— of
my not having a pension; I am so again at your naming it to a certain
lord.” In 1710, Mr. Craggs had given him a subscription for one hundred
pounds in the South Sea Fund; but he made no use of it. These favours
must be understood to have been proffered for the purpose of estranging
him from his personal friends; and this repeated rejection of them is an
honourable proof of steadiness to his attachments.
In 1729, the poet, by Lord Bolingbroke’s advice, turned his pen to moral
subjects; and, with the assistance of his friend, set to work upon the
‘Essay on Man.’ Bolingbroke writes thus to Swift: “Bid Pope talk to you
of the work he is about, I hope in good earnest; it is a fine one, and
will be, in his hands, an original.” Pope tells the dean, in his next
letter, what this work was. “The work Lord Bolingbroke speaks of with
such abundant partiality, is a system of ethics, in the Horatian way.”
In another letter, written probably at the beginning of the following
year, we trace the general aim which he at all events wished the public
to attribute to this work. “I am just now writing, or rather planning, a
book to bring mankind to look upon this life with comfort and pleasure,
and put morality in good humour.” This subject was well suited to his
genius. He found the performance more easy than he had expected, and
employed his leisure by following up the design in his Ethic Epistles,
which came out separately in the course of the two following years. The
fourth, addressed to the Earl of Burlington, did no good to the author’s
character, in consequence of the violent attack supposed to be made on
the Duke of Chandos, a beneficent and esteemed nobleman, under the name
of Timon. Pope loudly asserted that in drawing Timon’s character he had
not the Duke in view: but his denials have not obtained credence; and he
has thus incurred the charge of equivocation and falsehood, without
exculpating himself from that of ingratitude and wanton insolence. The
vexation caused by this business was somewhat softened by the rapid and
lucrative sale of the epistle, which very soon went through the press a
third time. In a letter to Lord Bolingbroke he says, “Certainly the
writer deserved more candour, even in those who knew him not, than to
promote a report, which, in regard to that noble person, was
impertinent; in regard to me, villainous. I have taken an opportunity of
the third edition, to declare his belief not only of my innocence, but
of their malignity; of the former of which my heart is as conscious as I
fear some of theirs must be of the latter. His humanity feels a concern
for the injury done to me, while his greatness of mind can bear with
indifference the insult offered to himself.” He concludes with a threat
of using real instead of fictitious names in his future works. How far
he carried that menace into effect will presently be seen. The
complaints made against the epistle in question by secret enemies
provoked him to write satire, in which he ventured to attack the
characters of some persons in high life: the affront was of course
resented, and he retaliated by renewing his invective against them, both
in prose and verse. In the imitation of the first satire of the second
book of Horace, he had described Lord Hervey and Lady Mary Wortley
Montague so characteristically, under the names of Lord Fanny and
Sappho, that those noble personages, besides fighting the aggressor with
his own weapons, used their interests to his injury, not only among the
nobility, but with the King and Queen. Pope remonstrated most strongly
against this last mode of revenge. He continued writing satires till the
year 1739, when he entertained some thoughts of undertaking an epic poem
on the pretended colonization of our island by the Trojan Brute. A
sketch of this project, which he never carried into effect, is given in
Ruffhead’s ‘Life of Pope,’ p. 410.
Pope was an elaborate letter-writer; and many of his familiar epistles
found their way into the world without his privity. Under the plea of
self-defence he published a correct and genuine collection of them in
1737. About this time the weak state of his health drew him frequently
to Bath. Mr. Allen, a resident in the neighbourhood, having been pleased
with the letters, took occasion to form an acquaintance with the author,
which soon ripened into friendship. Hence arose Pope’s intimacy with
Warburton, who tells us that, before they knew each other, he had
written his ‘Commentary on the Art of Criticism, and on the Essay on
Man.’ One complaint against that essay had rested on its obscurity, of
which the author had previously been warned by Swift. But this was
comparatively a slight objection: the philosophic poet was charged with
having insidiously laid down a scheme of deism. A French translation, by
the Abbé Resnil, appeared at Paris in 1738, on which a German professor,
by name Crousaz, animadverted, as a system of ethics embodying the
doctrine of fatalism. Pope thus acknowledges his obligation to Warburton
for his defence: “You have made my system as clear as I ought to have
done, and could not; you understand me as well as I do myself, but you
express me better than I express myself.” The ‘Essay on Man’ was
republished with the Commentary annexed in 1740; and at the instance of
Warburton, a fourth book was added to the ‘Dunciad,’ and printed
separately in 1742.
In the course of the following year the whole poem of the ‘Dunciad’ was
published together, as a specimen of a more correct edition of Pope’s
works, which the author had then resolved to give to the world; but he
did not live to complete it. He had through life been subject to an
habitual headache inherited from his mother, and this was now greatly
increased, with the addition of dropsical symptoms. He died on the 30th
of May, 1744, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Pursuant to his own
request, his body was laid in the same vault with those of his parents,
to whose memory he had erected a monument, with an inscription written
by himself, immediately on their respective deaths. To this, in
conformity with his will, the simple words, “Et sibi,” with the date of
his death, were added. He bequeathed to Warburton the property of such
of his works already printed as he had written, or should write,
commentaries upon, provided they had not been otherwise disposed of or
alienated; with this condition, that they were to be published without
future alterations. After he had made his will, he wrote a letter to
this legatee, announcing his legacy, and saying, “I own the late
encroachments upon my constitution make me willing to see the end of all
further care about me, or my works. I would rest for the one in a full
resignation of my being to be disposed of by the Father of all mercy;
and for the other (though indeed a trifle, yet a trifle may be some
example), I would commit them to the candour of a sensible and
reflecting judge, rather than to the malice of every shortsighted and
malevolent critic, or inadvertent and censorious reader. And no hand can
set them in so good a light, or so well can turn their best side to the
day, as your own.” In discharge of his trust, Warburton put forth a
complete edition of all Pope’s works in 1751; and, according to his own
persuasion, executed it conformably to the presumed wishes of the
author. In point of elegance, allowing for the state of typography at
the time, no objection could be made, nor could the poet’s orders have
been more faithfully obeyed, in forming the various pieces into a
collection. But some of Warburton’s remarks are in a less friendly tone
than might have been expected; and if not absolutely injurious to his
memory, are such as leave Pope’s moral character in a measure open to
attack. Many circumstances are related in the large biographies of Pope,
which our inclination would as little allow us as our limits to detail.
Some of them would not compensate in desirable information for the
tediousness of the narrative: others relate to defunct controversies. To
the latter of these classes may be referred Pope’s quarrel with Colley
Cibber, which loaded the press with vulgar indecency on both sides;
also, Bolingbroke’s charge of treachery brought against Pope in an
advertisement prefixed to a tract published by his lordship in 1749,
five years after the accused could no longer answer his accuser.
We shall not devote any part of our confined space to an examination of
the faults and weaknesses of this eminent man: they have been fully
dwelt on in works of easy access. Some apology for many of them may be
found in his bodily infirmities, deformed frame, and extreme debility of
constitution. Pope’s person, character, and writings are treated of at
large by Dr. Warton, in his ‘Essay.’ Ruffhead’s ‘Life of Pope’ contains
much curious and entertaining matter. Dr. Johnson’s examination of
Pope’s works is among the most elaborate and best pieces of criticism in
his ‘Lives of the Poets.’ We cannot better conclude than with his
description of Pope’s appearance, and summing up of his poetical
character. “The person of Pope is well known not to have been formed by
the nicest model. He has, in his account of the ‘Little Club,’ compared
himself to a spider, and by another is described as protuberant before
and behind. He is said to have been beautiful in his infancy: but he was
of a constitution originally feeble and weak; and, as bodies of a tender
frame are easily distorted, his deformity was probably in part the
effect of his application. His stature was so low, that, to bring him to
a level with common tables, it was necessary to raise his seat. But his
face was not displeasing, and his eyes animated and vivid....” “It is
surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked,
whether Pope was a poet, otherwise than by asking, in return, if Pope be
not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To circumscribe poetry by a
definition will only show the narrowness of the definer, though a
definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look
round upon the present time, and back upon the past; let us inquire to
whom the voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their
productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the pretensions of
Pope will be no more disputed. Had he given the world only his version,
the name of poet must have been allowed him: if the writer of the Iliad
were to class his successors, he would assign a very high place to his
translator, without requiring any other evidence of genius.” With
respect to the translation of the Iliad, it is fair to give Pope the
benefit of Dr. Johnson’s praise. But we are justified by the consentient
voice of almost all scholars, in condemning it as an unfaithful and
meretricious version, composed in a spirit totally different from that
of Homer, and bearing no resemblance to his manner.
Our engraving is from a copy of the original picture by Hudson, made by
T. Uwins, A.R.A.
[Illustration: [Entrance to Pope’s Grotto.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
BOLIVAR.
_From an Engraving by Mr. H. Ponte._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
BOLIVAR.
The history of Bolivar is that of the revolutions in Columbia and Peru.
Nothing remarkable is related of his early life; and with respect to his
personal merits as a soldier and statesman, he has shared the common lot
of eminent men, in being extravagantly praised and violently censured.
He has been compared to Cæsar and Napoleon on the one hand; and he has
been accused of frivolity, incompetency, and even cowardice, on the
other. The time for forming a dispassionate opinion of his character is
not yet arrived. We shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a short
sketch of the establishment of independence on the Spanish Main, so far
as Bolivar was concerned in it; premising that we merely follow the
course of history in giving him the credit of those measures which were
carried into execution under his authority and ostensible guidance.
Simon Bolivar was born in the city of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela,
on the 24th or 25th of July, 1783. In early childhood he lost both his
parents, who were of noble family, and possessed of large estates. At
the age of fourteen or sixteen, he was sent to Spain for education. His
habits are said to have been dissipated; but he paid some attention to
the study of jurisprudence. After visiting Italy and France, he returned
to Madrid, married, and in 1809 returned to reside on his estates near
Caracas. It is positively asserted, and as positively denied, that
Bolivar had an active share in the decisive movement at Caracas, April
19, 1810, when the Spanish authorities were deposed. A congress was
summoned, which met March 2, 1811. Bolivar received a colonel’s
commission, and was sent to claim the protection of Great Britain. The
date of his return to South America we do not find: but he is said to
have been concerned in the first military operations of the patriots;
and in September, 1811, he was appointed governor of the strong sea-port
of Puerto Cabello. In March, 1812, a violent earthquake took place. The
clergy succeeded in producing a considerable reaction in favour of
royalist principles, by representing this calamity to be a manifestation
of God’s wrath against revolution. Monteverde, the royal general, then
advanced, and met with rapid success. The strong hold of Puerto Cabello,
the chief depôt of the patriots, was wrested from Bolivar by an
insurrection of the prisoners confined in it; the patriot army became
dispirited; and General Miranda, under the sanction of congress,
concluded a treaty, July 26, 1812, by which an amnesty was concluded,
and the province of Venezuela returned under the dominion of Spain.
Miranda was subsequently arrested on a futile charge of treachery to the
patriot cause, and delivered to the Spaniards, who kept him in prison to
the day of his death. In this unjustifiable transaction, Bolivar had a
principal share.
Bolivar retired for a short time to his estate; but he soon became
uneasy at the frequency of arrests, and obtained a passport to quit the
country. He retired to Curaçoa. In the following September, his active
temper led him to seek employment in the patriot army of New Granada,
which had declared itself independent in 1811, and still held out, with
better fortune than Venezuela. He obtained a trifling command, not such
as to satisfy his ambition; and on his own responsibility, he undertook
an expedition against the Spaniards on the east bank of the river
Magdalena, in which he succeeded; clearing the country of Spanish posts
from Mompox, on the above named river, to the town of Ocaña, on the
frontier of Caracas. This exploit attracted public notice. He conceived
the bold plan of invading Venezuela with his small forces, and the
congress of New Granada consented to his making the attempt, and raised
him to the rank of brigadier. He crossed the frontier with little more
than 500 men; but the country rose in arms to second him; and after
several engagements, in which the patriots were successful, he defeated
Monteverde in person at the battle of Lastoguanes, and, finally, entered
Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, in triumph, August 4, 1813.
At this time no regular government could be said to exist; but a
convention of the chief civil and military functionaries, held at
Caracas, January 2, 1814, conferred on Bolivar the title of Liberator of
Venezuela, and invested him with the office of Dictator, and the supreme
control over both branches of the executive. But these successes were
followed by a rapid reverse; and before the end of the year, he was
beaten out of Venezuela, and obliged to return to New Granada. That
country was harassed by the contests of numerous and discordant parties.
Bolivar was received with respect by the congress; and was entrusted
with the task of compelling the dissentient province of Santa Fe de
Bogotá, afterwards named Cundinamarca, to accede to the union of the
other provinces. He marched against the city of Bogotá in December, at
the head of 2000 men. It was not in a condition to resist, and
capitulated, after the suburbs had been taken by storm. It will afford
an instance of the difficulty of getting at the real character of
Bolivar, to say, that we find it stated in one account that his
behaviour at Bogotá received not only the thanks of Congress, but the
approbation of the citizens; while another author asserts, that
notwithstanding the capitulation, and in spite of the most urgent
remonstrances, he permitted the pillage of part of the city for the
space of forty-eight hours. He was then appointed to act against the
strong town of Santa Martha, which commands the mouth of the river
Magdalena. Unfortunately, private enmity between himself and Castillo,
the governor of Carthagena, led to dissensions which ended in the
investment of Carthagena, instead of Santa Martha, by Bolivar. During
this civil strife, which led to consequences most injurious to the
patriot cause, General Morillo arrived from Spain, now enabled by the
peace of 1814 to act with more vigour against her revolted colonies; and
Bolivar gave up his command, on the pretext that the harmony and
advantage of the army required it, and embarked for Jamaica, May 10,
1815. During his abode at Kingston, he narrowly escaped assassination at
the hands of a Spaniard, who stabbed to the heart a person who chanced
to occupy the bed in which Bolivar usually slept. From Jamaica, he went
to Hayti, where, with the help of the president Petion, and in
conjunction with a French officer, Commodore Brion, he drew together a
force, with which he again raised the standard of independence in the
province of Cumana, in May, 1816: but he was soon driven out of the
country, and returned to Hayti, whence, in December, he again sailed to
the island of Margarita, and he issued a proclamation convoking a
congress of the representatives of Venezuela. He then repaired to
Barcelona, and organised a provisional government. During the years 1817
and 1818, the struggle was obstinate; but the patriot cause on the whole
gained a decided advantage. In February 1819, Bolivar summoned a
congress at Angostura, on the river Orinoco, and resigned his authority
into its hands. The assembly, however, continued to him the executive
power, with the title of Provisional President of Venezuela, until the
expulsion of the enemy should afford a prospect of more settled times.
Bolivar rejoined the army in March, and soon after conducted his forces
to join the patriots in New Granada. Two battles, on the 1st and 23d of
July, were fought to the advantage of the patriots, whose cause obtained
a final triumph in the decisive victory won August 7, at Bojaca. Bolivar
advanced at once to Bogotá, where he was enthusiastically welcomed; and
within a short time, eleven provinces of New Granada announced their
adhesion to the cause of independence. He summoned a congress, by which
he was appointed President, and Captain-general of the Republic.
Meanwhile a party, jealous of his intentions, had obtained the
ascendancy in the Venezuela Congress held at Angostura; and Bolivar,
fearful of being supplanted, quitted the scene of war with his best
troops and marched to Angostura. His presence, with such a force, turned
the scale in favour of the party attached to his interest. It was
determined to summon a general convention from the independent provinces
of Venezuela and Granada; and December 17, 1819, the celebrated decree
was passed by which the two states were united, and entitled the
Republic of Columbia. Bolivar was appointed President.
Strengthened by union, the patriots took the field in greater force than
they had hitherto been able to raise. The course of war during 1820 was
on the whole favourable to them. In November, an armistice for six
months was concluded. Soon after the renewal of hostilities, an
important victory was gained by the Columbian troops under Bolivar, at
Carabobo, not far from the city of Valencia, June 21, 1821, which may be
regarded as having closed the war in Venezuela. Before the end of the
year, Columbia was nearly cleared of Spanish troops, with the exception
of the province of Quito; and time was found to attend to the
establishment of civil order. The constitution of the short-lived
Columbian Republic was adopted, August 20, 1821, and Bolivar was
appointed First Constitutional President.
The war was then directed against the Spaniards in the south. In
January, 1822, Bolivar himself conducted operations in the province of
Pasto, lying to the north of Quito, while General Sucre, who had been
sent previously to assist the cause of independence in Guayaquil, after
liberating the southern provinces of Loxa and Cuenca, advanced
northwards, and secured independence to the province of Quito by the
decisive victory of Pichincha, May 24, 1822. But though this portion of
Columbia was now cleared of enemies, there could be no security to the
frontier provinces while the Spaniards held Peru; and it was therefore
determined to send assistance to the patriots in that country. Bolivar
landed at Lima, September 1, 1823, and was invested with supreme power
as Dictator of Peru. It was not until the end of 1825, however, that the
war of independence was finished; and the honour of this, in a military
point of view, belongs rather to Sucre than to Bolivar.
On the establishment of a separate republic in 1825, in the province
called by the Spaniards Upper Peru, the new state paid a high compliment
to the Liberator, by assuming the name of Bolivia, and requesting him to
draw up a constitution for its adoption. In compliance with the wish
thus expressed, he presented to the constituent congress in May, 1826,
the celebrated Bolivian Code; for an account of which we must refer to
the ‘Encyclopædia Americana,’ or the appendix to the ‘Memoirs of General
Miller.’ This forms a remarkable era in Bolivar’s life; for, out of the
institutions of this code, arose the first suspicions that the Liberator
was at heart indisposed to republican institutions. It was however
adopted; and Sucre was appointed President. Meanwhile, though the
deliverance of Peru was completed, Bolivar showed no intention of
leading home the Columbian troops. A congress summoned at Lima, in
February, 1825, continued to him, for another year, the dictatorial
power which he had received on his first entrance into the country. A
second congress, held in 1826, adopted the same course, adding a
recommendation that he should consult the provinces as to the form of
government which it might be desirable to establish. The result was,
that the Bolivian Code was declared to be adopted by Peru, and Bolivar
himself was nominated President.
During the Liberator’s long absence in the south, the northern provinces
of Columbia became involved in civil confusion. The Vice-president,
General Santander, was a man of firmness and ability; but the
newly-formed government wanted consistency, and that habitual respect
which is paid to long recognised authority. In April, 1826, General
Paez, who commanded in Venezuela, being summoned before the senate of
Columbia to answer certain charges, refused obedience, trusting to the
devoted attachment of the troops under his command: and to this private
act of rebellion, something of a national character was given, by the
accession of many in Venezuela, who disapproved of the union with New
Granada, or distrusted the intentions of those who held the reins of
power. At the same time, the southern departments, which had formerly
composed the presidency of Quito, displayed a strong inclination to
adopt the Bolivian Code. Bolivar has not escaped the suspicion of having
fomented these troubles, with a view to convince all parties that
tranquillity could only be secured by strengthening the executive, by
appointing him Dictator of the Columbian Republic. Being recalled for
the suppression of these disturbances, he quitted Lima in September,
1826, and hastened to Caracas, where, instead of punishing, he met Paez
upon friendly terms, confirmed him in the office which he held, and
published a general amnesty on the submission of the insurgents. The
term for which he was elected President had now expired. He had been
re-elected, and should have gone through the forms of taking office at
the beginning of 1827; but in February, he announced his intention to
resign, and retire to his estates, in consequence of the imputations of
ambition cast upon him. The spring was spent by Congress in discussing
this matter; and at last, June 6, it was finally determined not to
accept his resignation, and a general convention was summoned to meet at
Ocaña, March 2, 1828, to revise the constitution. In September, Bolivar
again assumed the office of President.
Meanwhile a speedy revolution had taken place in Peru. It is no great
argument of Bolivar’s purity of purpose, that, a year after the war was
finished, the Columbian auxiliaries were still retained by him in
Bolivia and Peru, one division being quartered in the former country,
and two in the latter. Many of them were strongly attached to their
general, and perhaps had no objection to becoming instruments of his
ambition, so far as Peru was concerned. But when he incurred the
suspicion of meditating the overthrow of the Columbian constitution,
they took fire. The division quartered at Lima matured a plan of revolt,
arrested their generals, who were personally attached to Bolivar, and
announced to the authorities of Lima their desire to relieve the
Peruvians from a constitution which had been forced upon them, and to
return home to defend their own country. Hereupon, in concurrence with
the generally declared wish of the people throughout Peru, the Bolivian
Code was thrown aside only a few weeks after it had been adopted; and in
June, 1827, a new congress was summoned, and a new President and
Vice-president of the republic were elected. The troops embarked; but on
their landing in Columbia, part placed themselves under the orders of
officers sent to take the command of them, and the rest were easily
reduced to obedience.
The convention met at the appointed time. Bolivar opened the proceedings
with an address, in which he ascribed the internal troubles of Columbia
to the want of sufficient power in the executive department, and plainly
intimated his opinion that the constitution had been founded on views
too liberal to be adapted to the state of society existing in that
country. His speech was very much in accordance with the views developed
in the Bolivian Code, and furnished good reason for believing that he
was no less willing to accept supreme power than his friends were
disposed to invest him with it, as the only remedy for existing evils.
The majority of the convention, however, were suspicious of the
President’s intentions. Finding themselves in a minority, his friends
vacated their seats in the assembly, which being thus reduced below the
number necessary to give validity to its proceedings, became virtually
extinct.
In this state of things, a meeting was convened at Bogotá, June 13, of
the principal civil and military residents, at which resolutions were
passed investing Bolivar with the most extensive powers as Supreme Chief
of Columbia. He himself was not present, but in the near neighbourhood;
and on receiving intimation of these resolutions, he made a solemn entry
into Bogotá, June 20, and assumed the powers thus gratuitously bestowed
upon him, not, it is to be observed, by the act of the convention, or of
any body authorised to interfere in any way with the existing
constitution. Great dissatisfaction was felt by those who were not
attached to the party of Bolivar; and in the following September, a
conspiracy was organised in the garrison of Bogotá, to which the
President’s life had nearly fallen a sacrifice. It was quelled however.
General Santander, the Vice-president, was accused of being concerned in
it, and was banished from Columbia. Partial insurrections subsequently
broke out in various places. Towards the close of 1829, the discontent
which had formerly appeared in Venezuela, manifested itself more
decidedly. Paez put himself at the head of the dissatisfied party; and
in a very short time, the whole province raised the standard of
independence, and expressed its determination to be merged no longer in
the Columbian Republic. In the midst of these tumults, Bolivar resolved
at length to retire from the eminent station in which he had been the
cause of so much offence. He had issued a proclamation, December 24,
1828, summoning a convention in January, 1830, to frame a new permanent
constitution for Columbia. It met at the appointed time. Bolivar, in
opening the deliberations, expressed his determination not to accept
again the chief magistracy of the state; but, as he had said the same
thing in equally strong terms before, nobody paid much attention to the
declaration. This time, however, he adhered to it. Besides the labour of
making a new constitution, the convention had to discuss the difficult
question of the secession of Venezuela: nor was this all, for as that
district had separated itself from the Columbian Republic, in a great
degree Owing to its distrust of Bolivar, so the southern provinces
refused to acknowledge the new constitution unless he were placed at its
head. The convention wisely resolved, with respect to Venezuela, that
every peaceful method should be tried to prevent its secession, but that
it would not be expedient or proper to attempt to maintain the union by
force. To anticipate a little the order of time, the Venezuelans were
resolved to have an independent government; and finally, in 1832, the
short-lived republic of Columbia was divided into three, bearing
respectively the titles of Venezuela, New Granada, and the Republic of
the Equator, which was formed out of the southern provinces of Quito,
Guayaquil, and Assuai.
After the adoption of the new constitution of 1830, Bolivar retired to
the province of Carthagena, exhausted both in body and mind. He died at
Santa Martha, December 17, 1830, leaving a character on the merits of
which it is difficult to pronounce a decided opinion. His name will not
soon be forgotten, for it is indissolubly connected with the cause of
independence in South America: but, in reviewing the progress and
prospects of North and South America, it is impossible not to remark
Bolivar’s inferiority to Washington, both in talent and virtue, and not
to reflect with regret how different, in all probability, the conduct
and the prosperity of the South American republics would have been if
they had possessed such a leader as the first President of the United
States.
The chief books which have been consulted for this sketch have been the
‘Annual Register,’ General Ducoudray Holstein’s ‘Memoirs of Bolivar,’ a
work evidently written under strong feelings of personal hostility, the
article Bolivar in the ‘Encyclopædia Americana,’ and a short account of
the Liberator in the ‘Memoirs of General Miller.’ In these works there
is so much discrepancy, not only of opinions, but of facts and dates,
that we do not venture to hope that we have escaped errors. A clear and
impartial history of the war of independence is still a desideratum.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
ARKWRIGHT.
_From a Picture by Wright of Derby._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
ARKWRIGHT.
In the history of trade there is nothing so remarkable as the rapid and
immense increase of the British cotton manufacture during the last
thirty years of the eighteenth century. Two nearly contemporaneous
discoveries concurred to produce that increase: the invention of
machinery for spinning; and the improvement, we might almost say
completion, of the steam-engine by James Watt. To his eminent merits we
have borne our testimony in the first volume of this work; and scarcely
less important, though less imposing, have been the services of the
ingenious men who contrived to spin thread without the use of the human
hand. We do not hesitate to take Arkwright as the representative of
those who wrought this great revolution in our manufacturing system, for
though recent evidence has refuted his claim to the invention, properly
speaking, of spinning by machinery, he was the first person who rendered
that invention profitable.
By the year 1760, the manufacture of cotton goods, which had been
increasing slowly from the beginning of the century, had attained
considerable importance. In 1764, the declared value of British cotton
goods exported was upwards of 200,000_l._, having increased tenfold
within forty or fifty years. At this period the demand for them exceeded
the supply, in consequence of the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient
quantity of yarn for weaving. The one-thread spinning-wheel, now nearly
banished from our cottages, was then the sole source from which
spun-yarn could be obtained; and the trades of spinning and weaving were
commonly united in a humble manner—the man wove, while his wife and
daughters spun. If this domestic supply was insufficient, the weaver had
often to waste time and labour in collecting materials for his daily
work. Mr. Guest states, that “it was no uncommon thing for a weaver to
walk three or four miles in a morning, and call on five or six spinners,
before he could collect weft to serve him for the remainder of the day;
and when he wished to weave a piece in a shorter time than usual, a new
ribbon or a gown was necessary to quicken the exertions of the spinner.”
This check existing on the industry of the weaver, it is no wonder that
mechanical ingenuity was tasked to invent a quicker way of spinning. The
principle of the first plan by which this was effected may be easily
explained. Suppose a ribbon placed between two horizontal cylinders
which are in contact with each other; if the cylinders are made to
revolve, it is evident that they will draw the ribbon onwards in the
direction of their motion. Again, if the foremost end of it be presented
to a second pair of similar revolving cylinders, it will be drawn
through these also. If both pairs revolve with exactly the same
velocity, it will pass through them unaltered; but if the second pair
revolve with greater velocity than the first, there will be a certain
strain on the intermediate ribbon, which, if extensible, will be
stretched in the same degree that the velocity of the second pair of
rollers exceeds that of the first. Now cotton, after being cleaned and
carded, comes from the card in fleecy rolls, the fibres of which are
laid parallel, and so made fit to spin. To reduce these to thread or
yarn takes more than one operation: the first brings the _cardings_ into
thick, loosely twisted threads, called _rovings_; the subsequent ones
reduce the rovings into yarn fit for the loom. It is evident that both
the cardings and rovings are fitted by their texture for the process of
extension by rollers described above; and that they would be drawn out
twofold, fourfold, or in any greater or less degree, proportionate to
the difference of velocity between the first and second pair of rollers.
From the second pair the thread is delivered to a spindle, which gives
the due degree of twist; and it is finally wound on a bobbin: the whole
being set in motion by the same mechanical power. It is evident that
many spindles might be attached to, and many threads spun by, the same
combination of rollers. Arkwright claimed the merit of this invention.
It is proved, however, by the undeniable evidence of an existing patent,
printed by Mr. Baines in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, that
this principle of spinning by rollers was patented so early as the year
1738, by a foreigner named Lewis Paul; the real inventor was John Wyatt,
of Birmingham. In their hands however, though the invention did not
absolutely fail, it did not so succeed as to be brought into general
use, or even to become profitable to the inventors. Simple and obvious
as the _principle_ appears when once laid down, great difficulties were
to be overcome in forming this stretched cotton into a useful thread; as
may be conceived from reflecting on the great rapidity with which, to
make spinning profitable, parts of the machine must move, the perfect
regularity of motion requisite, and the slightness of the strain which a
few untwisted filaments of cotton will bear. For the apparently trivial
object of producing a uniform line of fine yarn, the utmost efforts of
mechanical ingenuity have been called forth, and some of the most
beautiful, delicate, and powerful machinery in existence has been
constructed. It was in overcoming these difficulties that the talent or
perseverance of Paul and Wyatt failed; the merit of conquering them, and
giving birth to a new system of manufacture, belongs to Arkwright. We
quote the following notice of his early life from Mr. Baines:—
“Richard Arkwright rose by the force of his natural talents from a very
humble condition in society. He was born at Preston, December 23, 1732,
of poor parents. Being the youngest of thirteen children, his parents
could only afford to give him an education of the humblest kind, and he
was scarcely able to write. He was brought up to the trade of a barber,
at Kirkham and Preston, and established himself in that business at
Bolton, in 1760. Having become possessed of a chemical process for
dyeing human hair, which in that day, when wigs were universal, was of
considerable value, he travelled about collecting hair, and again
disposing of it when dyed. In 1761, he married a wife from Leigh, and
the connexions he thus formed in that town are supposed to have
afterwards brought him acquainted with Highs’s experiments in making
spinning machines. He himself manifested a strong bent for experiments
in mechanics, which he is stated to have followed with so much
devotedness as to have neglected his business and injured his
circumstances. His natural disposition was ardent, enterprising, and
stubbornly persevering; his mind was as coarse as it was bold and
active, and his manners were rough and unpleasing.”
In the course of his travels in 1767, he fell in with a clockmaker,
named Kay, at Warrington, whom he employed as a workman in prosecuting
some of his mechanical experiments. Kay, according to his own account,
gave Arkwright some description of a machine contrived by one Highs, for
spinning by rollers. It is certain that from thenceforward Arkwright
abandoned his former pursuits, and applied himself, in conjunction with
Kay, to the construction of a spinning machine. One Smalley, a
liquor-merchant of Preston, assisted him with money; and the two,
fearing lest they might be endangered by a riotous spirit which had been
directed against machinery in Lancashire, went to settle at Nottingham.
There Arkwright obtained an introduction to Messrs. Need and Strutt, two
gentlemen largely engaged in the stocking manufactory, who appreciated
his talents, and entered into partnership with him. What became of Mr.
Smalley we do not hear. Arkwright took out a patent for his invention,
which was enrolled, July 15, 1769. The partners erected a mill near
Nottingham, which was turned by horse-power: but this was soon
superseded by a much larger establishment at Cromford in Derbyshire, on
the river Derwent, in which water-power was applied for the first time
to the purpose of spinning; and from that circumstance Arkwright’s
machine was called the _water-frame_.
As the difficulty of meeting the weavers’ demand for yarn had led to the
invention of machines for spinning, so the rapid manufacture of yarn
rendered it indispensable to facilitate the prior operations in
preparing the raw material. Men’s minds had been turned to this object
for some time. The operation of carding, whether wool or cotton, was at
first done with hand-cards of small size. The first improvement was the
invention of stock-cards, one of which was fixed, and the other held in
the hand, or afterwards suspended from above, so that the workman could
manage a much larger card, and prepare more cotton in a given time. The
next and main improvement was placing cards lengthways upon a cylinder,
which worked within a concave half cylinder of the same diameter. This
process was patented by Paul in 1748. But he derived no profit from
this, any more than from his former patent; and it was not until after
the improvements in spinning that the method of carding by cylinders was
brought into use. Arkwright was not the first to revive it, but he had a
great share in perfecting the carding machinery when it had been
revived. The raw cotton being carded, an extension, or rather a new
application, of the principle of spinning by rollers converted the
cardings into rovings, which again were made into yarn fit for the loom
by the water-frame, or, as it is now called in an improved form, the
_throstle_. Arkwright took out his second patent, December 16, 1775;
this included the carding machine, drawing-frame, and roving-frame, a
series of engines by which the cotton, from its raw state, was rendered
fit for the last process of spinning. We shall not attempt to explain
the construction of these elaborate machines, which can hardly be
rendered intelligible even by the help of numerous plates.
The process of turning cotton-wool into thread by machinery was thus
completed. Before we follow its effects upon Arkwright’s fortunes, it is
proper to say a few words concerning other improvements. About, or
somewhat earlier than, the time when Arkwright’s attention was first
turned to spinning, a weaver named James Hargreaves, of Stand Hill, near
Blackburn, invented a machine by which, according to the terms of the
patent, sixteen or more threads might be spun by one person at the same
time. This is the machine so well known under the name of the
_spinning-jenny_. Hargreaves’ patent was invaded, and invalidated on
technical grounds; so that his machine came rapidly into general use,
and for spinning the _weft_ was preferred to Arkwright’s water-frame,
from which it was entirely different in principle. Samuel Crompton, an
ingenious weaver resident near Bolton, between the years 1774 and 1779,
tried to unite the principles of both, and produced a machine which, on
that account, he called a _mule_. This, under different improved forms,
is the machine now generally used in spinning; but the water-frame, or
throstle, is still found to answer best for some kinds of work[11]. But
to return to the fortunes of Arkwright: the series of machines which he
invented or improved gave an amazing impulse to the cotton trade.
“Weavers could now obtain an unlimited quantity of yarn at a reasonable
price; manufacturers could use warps of cotton, which were much cheaper
than the linen warps formerly used. Cotton fabrics could be sold lower
than had ever before been known. The demand for them consequently
increased. The shuttle flew with fresh energy, and the weavers earned
immoderately high wages. Spinning-mills were erected to supply the
requisite quantity of yarn. The fame of Arkwright resounded through the
land, and capitalists flocked to him to buy his patent machines, or
permission to use them.” * * *
Footnote 11:
A third person has been mentioned as the inventor both of the jenny
and of roller-spinning, Thomas Highs, of Leigh, above-mentioned, whose
claims seem entitled to more courteous notice than they have met with
in the Edinburgh Review. There is nothing unreasonable in supposing
that both Highs and Arkwright may have heard of Wyatt’s method of
spinning by rollers, which was practised in two factories, one erected
at Birmingham, the other at Nottingham.
“The factory system in England takes its rise from this period. Hitherto
the cotton manufacture had been carried on almost entirely in the houses
of the workmen: the hand or stock-cards, the spinning-wheel, and the
loom, required no larger apartment than that of a cottage. A
spinning-jenny of small size might also be used in a cottage, and in
many instances was so used; when the number of spindles was considerably
increased, adjacent workshops were used. But the water-frame, the
carding-engine, and the other machines which Arkwright brought out in a
finished state, required both more space than could be found in a
cottage, and more power than could be applied by the human arm. Their
weight also made it necessary to place them in strongly-built mills, and
they could not be advantageously turned by any power then known but that
of water.”
“The use of machinery was accompanied by a greater division of labour
than existed in the primitive state of the manufacture; the material
went through many more processes, and of course the loss of time and the
risk of waste would have been much increased, if its removal from house
to house at every stage of the manufacture had been necessary. It became
obvious that there were several important advantages in carrying on the
numerous operations of an extensive manufacture in the same building.
Where water-power was required, it was economy to build one mill, and
put up one water-wheel, rather than several. This arrangement also
enabled the master-spinner himself to superintend every stage of the
manufacture; it gave him a greater security against the wasteful or
fraudulent consumption of the material; it saved time in the
transference of the work from hand to hand; and it prevented the extreme
inconvenience which would have resulted from the failure of one class of
workmen to perform their part, when several other classes of workmen
were dependent upon them. Another circumstance which made it
advantageous to have a large number of machines in one manufactory was,
that mechanics must be employed on the spot to construct and repair the
machinery, and that their time could not be fully occupied with only a
few machines.”
“All these considerations drove the cotton-spinners to that important
change in the economy of English manufactures, the introduction of the
factory system; and when that system had once been adopted, such were
its pecuniary advantages that mercantile competition would have rendered
it impossible, even had it been desirable, to abandon it.” (Baines,
‘History of Cotton Manufacture,’ pages 183, 185.)
It was not to be expected that Arkwright would enjoy undisturbed so
valuable a monopoly as that which he had created, and many persons
infringed his patents, in the belief that he was not the real owner of
the inventions which he claimed. An attempt was made in 1772 to set
aside his first patent for the water-frame; but this failed, and he
retained the enjoyment of that patent unquestioned till the expiration
of the fourteen years. To preserve his second patent, for the carding,
drawing, and roving machines, he brought several actions against
master-spinners, one of which, against Colonel Mordaunt, was tried in
1781, and a verdict was obtained for the defendant, setting aside the
patent. Arkwright for some time did not contest this decision. But in
1785, he made another attempt to establish his second patent before a
court of law; and in the first instance obtained a verdict in his own
favour, but on the cause being reheard, the patent was finally declared
invalid.
Notwithstanding this defeat, Arkwright rapidly acquired a very large
fortune, through the magnitude of his concerns, and his industry,
penetration, and skill in business. On the dissolution of his
partnership with the Messrs. Strutt about 1783, the extensive works at
Cromford fell to his share. In 1786, he was High Sheriff of Derbyshire,
and was knighted, on occasion of presenting an address to the King. We
find no other record worth notice of the last years of his life. He
died, August 3, 1792, in his sixtieth year.
Arkwright’s originality and honesty as an inventor have been violently
impugned by Mr. Guest, in his History of the Cotton Manufacture. The
arguments on the other side may be seen in the Edinburgh Review, No. 91,
to which Guest published a reply. Mr. Baines’s History of the Cotton
Manufacture, which we have chiefly followed and largely quoted from in
this account, contains the latest and fullest account which we have seen
of Arkwright’s character and history. There appears to have been some
alloy of selfishness and disingenuousness in his disposition, some
ground for the statement of counsel in the trial of 1785: “It is a
notorious story in the manufacturing counties; all men that have seen
Mr. Arkwright in a state of opulence have shaken their heads, and
thought of these poor men, Highs and Kay, and have thought, too, that
they were entitled to some participation of the profits.” Still it
becomes us to speak with gentleness of the faults of a person to whose
talents, nationally speaking, we owe so much: and there is much to be
said in extenuation of them, in consideration of the lowness of his
original calling, of the self-complacency and sensitive jealousy common
to almost all schemers, and the fascination of wealth when it flows
largely and unexpectedly upon a man bred in extreme poverty. As an
inventor Arkwright’s merit is undeniable. Mr. Baines, who seems to have
judged calmly and impartially, assigns to him the high praise, that “in
improving and perfecting mechanical inventions, in exactly adapting them
to the purposes for which they were intended, in arranging a
comprehensive system of manufacturing, and in conducting vast and
complicated concerns, he displayed a bold and fertile mind, and
consummate judgment, which, when his want of education, and the
influence of an employment so extremely unfavourable to mental expansion
as that of his previous life, are considered, must have excited the
astonishment of mankind. But the marvellous and ‘unbounded invention,’
which he claimed for himself and which has been too readily accorded to
him—the _creative faculty_ which devised all that admirable mechanism,
so entirely new in its principles, and characteristic of the first order
of mechanical genius—which has given a new spring to the industry of the
world, and within half a century has reared up the most extensive
manufacture ever known—this did not belong to Arkwright.” * * * * * * *
“The most marked traits in the character of Arkwright were his wonderful
ardour, energy, and perseverance. He commonly laboured in his
multifarious concerns from five o’clock in the morning till nine at
night; and when considerably more than fifty years of age, feeling that
the defects of his education placed him under great difficulty and
inconvenience in conducting his correspondence, and in the general
management of his business, he encroached upon his sleep, in order to
gain an hour each day to learn English grammar, and another hour to
improve his writing and orthography! He was impatient of whatever
interfered with his favourite pursuits; and the fact is too strikingly
characteristic not to be mentioned, that he separated from his wife not
many years after his marriage, because she, convinced that he would
starve his family by scheming when he should have been shaving, broke
some of his experimental models of machinery. Arkwright was a severe
economist of time; and, that he might not waste a moment, he generally
travelled with four horses, and at a very rapid speed. His concerns in
Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Scotland, were so extensive and numerous as
to show at once his astonishing power of transacting business, and his
all-grasping spirit. In many of these he had partners, but he generally
managed in such a way that, whoever lost, he himself was a gainer. So
unbounded was his confidence in the success of his machinery, and in the
national wealth to be produced by it, that he would make light of
discussions on taxation, and say that he would pay the national debt!
His speculative schemes were vast and daring; he contemplated entering
into the most extensive mercantile transactions, and buying up all the
cotton in the world, in order to make an enormous profit by the
monopoly; and from the extravagance of some of these designs, his
judicious friends were of opinion that, if he had tried to put them in
practice, he might have overset the whole fabric of his prosperity.”
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
COWPER.
_From a Picture in the Possession of the Publisher._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
COWPER.
William Cowper was born at the rectory of Berkhampstead, in
Hertfordshire, Nov. 26, 1731. He was nearly related to the noble family
of that name, his great-uncle having been chancellor and first Earl
Cowper: his grandfather, the brother of the chancellor, was a judge of
the common pleas. Cowper’s mother died before he was six years old. Soon
afterwards he was sent to a country school, from which, at the age of
nine, he was removed to Westminster. It is probable that one cause among
others of his future unhappiness was the early loss of that tender
parent, whose “constant flow of love,” beautifully acknowledged in his
verses on receiving her picture, and in many parts of his
correspondence, made a deep and lasting impression on his infant mind.
Cowper was exactly the boy to require a mother’s care. His constitution
was delicate, his mind sensitive and timid; and he discovered a tendency
to dejection, which was aggravated by the tyranny then practised at our
public schools. Quitting Westminster at eighteen, with a good character
for talent and scholarship, he went at once into an attorney’s office;
where he spent three years, according to his own account, with very
little profit. He then became a member of the Inner Temple, intending to
practise at the bar. At this period of life he amused himself with
composition, and showed a strong predilection for polite literature and
agreeable society; but he had no taste for the law, and took no pains to
qualify himself for his profession. Long afterwards he deeply lamented
the loss of time during his early manhood, and earnestly warned his
young friends against a similar error.
In 1763 Cowper was appointed to the lucrative office of reading clerk,
and clerk of the private committees of the House of Lords. The fairest
prospect of happiness now lay before him, for his union with one of his
cousins, it is said, had only been deferred until he should obtain a
satisfactory establishment. But the idea of reading in public was
intolerable to him; and he gave up this office for the less valuable one
of clerk of the journals, in which it was hoped that his personal
appearance before the House would not be required. Unfortunately it did
prove necessary that he should appear at the bar to qualify himself for
the post. “They whose spirits are formed like mine,” he thus expressed
himself in after-life, “to whom a public exhibition of themselves is
mortal poison, may have some ideas of the horrors of my situation:
others can have none.” He fought hard against this morbid feeling; but,
when the day arrived for entering upon his duties, such was his terror
and distress, that even his friends acquiesced in his abandoning the
attempt. But his mind had been disordered in the struggle, and he
shortly sank into deep religious despondency; so that it was found
necessary, in December, 1763, to place him in a lunatic asylum at St.
Albans, under the care of Dr. Cotton.
Cowper’s insanity at this period, and the grievous dejection of the last
twenty-seven years of his life, have been imputed to the so-called
gloominess of his religious tenets. From that opinion we entirely
dissent. No sense of religious abasement can be conceived able to drive
a sane man to distraction at the thought of having to appear in a public
capacity before Parliament; and Cowper’s struggles and mental distress
on that occasion were anterior to his receiving any serious impressions
of religion. Moreover, it appears certain that his recovery was due to
more encouraging views of the doctrines of the Gospel, assisted by the
kind and judicious mental, as well as bodily, treatment of Dr. Cotton.
For eight years his religion was the source of unfailing cheerfulness
and active benevolence; and after he ceased to derive pleasure from it
in his own person, he was still mild and charitable in his conduct
towards others, and his opinions concerning them. The extent of Cowper’s
mental wandering on subjects unconnected with his own spiritual state is
not perhaps generally known. A remarkable instance of it occurs in a
letter to his esteemed friend, Mr. Newton, dated October 2, 1787, from
which it appears that, during thirteen years, Cowper had entertained
doubts of Mr. Newton’s personal identity. At this latter period,
therefore, there was hallucination of mind, as well as religious gloom.
Cowper’s recovery from his first illness is dated in July, 1764; but he
remained with his friendly and beloved physician nearly a year more,
after which he took lodgings at Huntingdon, directed by the wish of
being within easy reach of his brother, who was a resident Fellow of
Benet College, Cambridge.
He soon became acquainted with a family, bearing the name of Unwin,
consisting of a clergyman, his wife and daughter, and one son, an
undergraduate of Cambridge. Struck by Cowper’s appearance, the latter
threw himself into the stranger’s way; and a feeling of mutual regard
and esteem led to Cowper’s establishing himself as a permanent inmate in
Mr. Unwin’s family in November, 1765. After the lapse of nearly two
years in tranquil happiness, the sudden death of Mr. Unwin led to the
family’s departure from Huntingdon to Olney in Buckinghamshire, in
October, 1767. But the foundation had been laid of a friendship which no
misfortune or change of circumstance could destroy; and Cowper and Mrs.
Unwin united their slender incomes, and continued to dwell under the
same roof. The first six years of their abode at Olney were spent in
domestic quiet and retirement almost unbroken, except by the society of
Mr. Newton, an eminent and exemplary divine, who was then curate on the
living. The well-known collection called the “Olney Hymns” were composed
by Cowper and Newton, for the most part, during this period. But in 1773
Cowper’s mental disease returned in the dreadful shape of religious
despondency. He conceived himself to be set apart for eternal misery:
yet amid the deep gloom produced by the loss of that spiritual happiness
which he had enjoyed since his recovery from his first illness, he was
so entirely submissive that he was accustomed to say, “If holding up my
finger would save me from endless torments, I would not do it against
the will of God;” and in accordance with the belief that his own fate
was sealed, he ceased to pray, and absented himself entirely from divine
worship. The depth of his dejection was gradually cheered by the
affectionate, watchful, and judicious care of his guardian friend, Mrs.
Unwin. One of the first signs of improvement was a desire to tame some
leverets. He was soon supplied with three, which have obtained celebrity
in prose and verse, such as no other hares have enjoyed before or since.
He tried at different times gardening, drawing, and a variety of
trifling manual occupations, as methods of diverting his thoughts from
his own miseries. “Many arts I have exercised with this view,” he says
in a letter to Mrs. King, “for which nature never designed me, though
among them were some in which I arrived at considerable proficiency, by
mere dint of the most heroic perseverance. There is not a squire in all
this country who can boast of having made better squirrel houses,
hutches for rabbits, or bird-cages, than myself; and in the article of
cabbage-nets I had no superior. But gardening was, of all employments,
that in which I succeeded best, though even in this I did not suddenly
attain perfection.” (Oct. 11, 1788.) At last he devoted himself to
writing, “a whim,” he says elsewhere, “that has served me longest and
best, and will probably be my latest.” His first volume of poems,
containing “Table Talk,” &c. was published in the summer of 1781, having
been written chiefly in the preceding winter. It was undertaken at the
instance of Mrs. Unwin, who, on his recovery from a long fit of unusual
dejection, urged him to devote his attention to a work of some extent,
and such as should require a considerable share of application and
attention. At the same time she suggested as a subject the “Progress of
Error,” which is the second piece in the volume. Cowper had already
written many of his lighter pieces, and that at the times when he was
labouring under the severest depression. He accounts for this singular
phenomenon with his peculiar and playful humour. “The mind, long wearied
with the sameness of a dull, dreary prospect, will gladly fix its eyes
on anything that may make a little variety in its contemplations, though
it were but a kitten playing with its tail.”
Early in 1780, Cowper lost a valued friend, and almost his only
associate, by the removal of Mr. Newton to London. In the following year
he became acquainted with Lady Austen, who, for a short time, fills a
prominent place in the poet’s history. We must refer to fuller memoirs
for the tale of her introduction, and the gradual growth of that strict
intimacy which ensued between herself, Mrs. Unwin, and Cowper. For some
time the three friends spent a considerable portion of every day in each
other’s society; and Cowper was indebted to Lady Austen’s liveliness in
conversation and varied accomplishments for a great alleviation of his
mental sufferings. The famous history of John Gilpin owes its birth to a
story told by her one evening, to rouse the poet out of a fit of
despondency; and it engaged his fancy so strongly, that in the course of
the night, during which he was kept awake by fits of laughter, he turned
it into verse. The ballad soon got abroad, and obtained unusual
popularity: it was long before the author was known. “The Task” was
composed at Lady Austen’s request. She saw the benefit which Cowper
derived from earnest literary employment, and often urged him to try his
strength in blank verse. After some pressing, he promised to comply, if
she would furnish him with a subject. “Oh, you can write on anything,”
she said; “write on this sofa.” The lively answer chimed in with his
peculiar humour, and he adopted it literally: his sofa forms the subject
of the poem; the first book of which is entitled “The Sofa,” and opens
with a history of the invention and merits of that piece of furniture,
which is unsurpassed in its peculiar vein of humour. But the author soon
rises into a higher strain, and in his discursive range paints the
beauty of the country with that fidelity and exquisite sense of natural
beauty which constitutes his chief poetic merit; describes the peculiar
appearances and occupations of the winter season; weighs the evils and
advantages attendant on a high state of civilization; exhibits, in
reproving the faults of the age, his power both in the lighter
skirmishing of satire, and in the stern outpouring of an honest
indignation; inculcates the doctrines of that religion of peace and love
from which it was his own singular and melancholy lot to derive no
peace; and all with a beauty and facility of versification, and power of
illustration, sufficient to attract many whom the grave nature of the
subjects to be discussed would rather deter. The scope and conduct of
the work is well described in the following lines from the conclusion,
in which, anticipating death, he says—
It shall not grieve me then, that once, when call’d
To dress a sofa with the flowers of verse,
I played awhile, obedient to the fair,
With that light task: but soon, to please her more,
Whom flowers alone I knew would little please,
Let fall the unfinish’d wreath, and roved for fruit;
Roved far and gather’d much: some harsh, ’tis true,
Pick’d from the thorns and briers of reproof,
But wholesome, well digested, grateful some
To palates that can taste immortal truth;
Insipid else, and sure to be despised.
“The Task” was accompanied by a shorter poem, entitled “Tirocinium,”
written expressly in dispraise of the existing system of public schools
in England; and prompted by Cowper’s bitter recollection of his
sufferings at Westminster. The volume was published in 1785.
As soon as this was completed, Cowper engaged in another more laborious
undertaking, the translation of Homer. This also was suggested by Lady
Austen; and it had a most beneficial effect in furnishing the poet with
constant employment from this time forward to the end of his life, with
the exception of those periods in which the pressure of disease was too
severe to admit of any exertion. He spared no pains in the execution of
this great work; and after his version was made, subjected it to a most
careful revision, amounting nearly to a re-translation. It was published
in 1791, and was preceded by a list of subscribers, whose number and
individual eminence bear testimony to the high esteem in which Cowper
was then held. His translation, however, has never been popular: he has
avoided Pope’s errors, but he has failed in giving life and interest,
and in catching the vital spirit of his author.
During the long period which the literary labours above-mentioned
occupied, Cowper’s domestic history is characterized by the same general
depression and the same seclusion as we have above described. In 1784
his friendship with Lady Austen was interrupted by a disagreement
between her and Mrs. Unwin, who seems to have feared that the former
might obtain an influence over the poet paramount to her own; and to
have been justly hurt at the prospect of becoming second in the
affections of him, to whom, for so many years, she had devoted herself
with a zeal which merited the utmost return. Cowper felt this, and he
himself broke off his intercourse with Lady Austen, in a way which was
admitted by herself to do credit to his delicacy and judgment, no less
than to his generosity. In about a year after the termination of this
valuable friendship, he received the best amends that could be made, in
the renewal of intercourse, after it had been interrupted for
twenty-three years, with his cousin Lady Hesketh, to whom from childhood
he had been strongly attached. She visited Olney in June, 1786; and from
that time forwards her purse and her personal exertions were unsparingly
bestowed to promote the comfort of her beloved cousin. At her instance
his confined and ruinous abode at Olney was exchanged in November, 1786,
for a commodious house in the pretty neighbouring village of Weston,
which was especially recommended to Cowper as being the residence of his
esteemed friends Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton. Here Lady Hesketh commonly
spent part of the year. The state of Cowper’s spirits during his
residence at Weston was variable; but he made a few new acquaintance,
and among them his correspondent, Mr. Rose, and his biographer, Mr.
Hayley. He also enjoyed a vivid pleasure in the renewal of intercourse
with his maternal relations, among whom his young cousin Johnson, who
afterwards became his tender and devoted guardian, obtained an especial
place in his affections. Still, however, his mental malady continued
unabated; and a new cause of uneasiness beset him in the growing
infirmities of Mrs. Unwin. In March, 1792, the disease which had been
for some time sapping her strength, manifested itself in a paralytic
attack, from which she never entirely recovered. From thenceforward
Cowper’s time and attention were devoted, as his primary object, to
contributing to her comfort and amusement. In her company he quitted his
home, the first time for twenty-seven years, to visit Mr. Hayley’s seat
at Eartham, in Sussex. Two important works had engaged his attention:
one a poem on the four ages of man’s life, the other an edition of
Milton. These, however, were successively laid aside; and such time as
his weak spirits and melancholy occupation allowed him, be employed in
revising his Homer for a second edition. But Mrs. Unwin became more and
more enfeebled in mind and body; and in the beginning of 1794 Cowper
relapsed into a gloom as deep as that which he had endured at the
commencement of his malady. To watch over him in this melancholy Lady
Hesketh made Weston her constant, instead of her occasional abode, until
the middle of the following year, when her health gave way under the
constant pressure of anxiety. Mr. Johnson, who had taken orders, and
resided at East Dereham in Norfolk, then undertook the charge of his
unhappy relation; removed him and Mrs. Unwin into his own neighbourhood,
and watched over their decline with the most unwearied and judicious
tenderness. But little could now be done to give Cowper pleasure. The
pathetic poem, “To Mary,” is supposed by Mr. Hayley to have been the
last thing written by him before quitting Weston; and the only original
verses which he composed afterwards were some Latin lines, which he
translated into English, on the appearance of some ice islands in the
German Sea, and the touching poem called the “Cast-away,” founded on the
loss of a man overboard in Anson’s voyage, and alluding in an affecting
strain to his own unfortunate condition. After his departure from
Weston, he who had been so diligent a correspondent only wrote three or
four letters; nor could he be excited to converse by the visits even of
his most intimate friends, as Mr. Rose and Sir John Throckmorton. In
January, 1800, his final illness, which was dropsy, commenced. He died
April 25th in the same year; nor to the last did one gleam of hope break
through the darkness which had surrounded him for twenty-seven years.
It was Cowper’s especial merit as a poet to cultivate simplicity and
nature. He set the example of throwing aside conventional affectations
and unmeaning pomp of diction, and in consideration of this great
service may well be pardoned for occasionally incurring the opposite
fault of being tame and prosaic. His genius was truly original: all his
writings, whether moral, satirical, or descriptive, bear the legible
impress of his own peculiar constitution of mind and habits of thinking.
His minor and occasional poems are very happy, for his imagination could
extract a deep and beautiful moral from slight occurrences, which
commonly pass unnoticed in the bustle of life. Many of his letters are
published in Hayley’s Life of Cowper; and these are embodied with the
Private Correspondence afterwards given to the world by Mr. Johnson, in
the edition of Cowper’s works by Mr. Grimshawe now in the press. As a
letter writer Cowper appears to us to be unequalled in the English
language. His correspondence is the genuine intercourse of friend with
friend; full of wit and humour, but a humour that never vents itself in
the depreciation of others; and abounding in passages of graver beauty,
expressed in the most easy, yet elegant and correct language. When once
a man knows that his letters are admired, he is in great danger of
writing for admiration. Cowper was aware of this, and occasionally
alludes to the temptation in lively terms. “I love praise dearly,
especially from the judicious, and those who have so much delicacy
themselves as not to offend mine in giving it. But then I found this
consequence attending, or likely to attend, the eulogium you bestowed.
If my friend thought me witty before, he shall think me ten times more
witty hereafter; where I joked once, I will joke five times; and for
every sensible remark, I will send him a dozen. Now this foolish vanity
would have spoiled me quite, and have made me as disgusting a letter
writer as Pope, who seems to have thought that unless a sentence was
well turned, and every sentence pointed with some conceit, it was not
worth the carriage. I was willing therefore to wait until the impression
that your commendation had made on the foolish part of me was worn off,
that I might scribble away as usual, and write my uppermost thoughts,
and those only.” (June 8, 1780. To the Rev. W. Unwin.) No one ever
avoided this danger better. It is strange and wonderful that these
compositions, which bear the stamp of so much cheerfulness and
benevolence, should have been written, most of them, in his deepest
gloom, and avowedly for the purpose of withdrawing his thoughts from his
own misery.
[Illustration: [Tomb of Cowper, in East Dereham Church, Norfolk.]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Changed “better” to “letter” on p. 28.
2. Changed “the placing the” to “the placing of the” on p. 128.
3. Silently corrected typographical errors.
4. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
6. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript
character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in
curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Vol 5 (of 7)" ***
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