COL. JOHN HAYCOL. JOHN HAYIN WASHINGTON
COL. JOHN HAY
It was a happy thought that inspiredThe Critic’sseries of Authors at Home. The very idea was benevolence. One of its charms is the reader’s sense of mutuality—reciprocity. Has notCol.Hay, for instance, been a welcomed guest beneath many, many roof-trees, beside many, many hearthstones; and are his own doors to be shut with a “Procul, O procul este, profani!”? One can fancy the gratitude of posterity for these contemporary sketches of those whose lips have been touched and tongues loosened by the song-inspirer—of those who have “instructed our ignorance, elevated our platitudes, brightened our dullness, and delighted our leisure.” For the lack of aCriticin the past, how little we know of those authors at home whom we forgather with in imagination! A scrap of this memoir, that biography, and yonder letter, makes a ragged picture at best. There was only one Boswell, and he, as Southey says, has gone to heaven for his “Johnson,” if ever a man went there for hisgood works. The mind’s eye, of course, pictures Rogers at one of his famous breakfasts; the galaxy at Holland House; Coleridge monotoning, with Lamb furnishing puns for periods; “smug Sydney,” ten miles from a lemon, scattering pearls before Yorkshire swine;Dr.Johnson at Thrale’s, drinking tea and bullying his betters; Dryden enthroned at the Kit-kat; but all the portraits, save those by Boswell, are unsatisfactory—mere outlines without coloring, and lacking that essential background, the “at home.”
Great political revolutions are the results or causes of literary schools; and the future student of our literature will note with more emphasis than we, that one of the incidents or results of the war between the sections was the birth of a new school of writers whose works are distinctively original and distinctively American. To this class, who have won, and are winning, fame for themselves while conferring it upon their country, belongsCol.Hay. His earlier writings have the characteristics of freshness, vigor and intensity which indicate an absence of the literary vassalage that dwarfed the growth and conventionalized or anglicized American writers as a class. Travel and indwelling among the shrines of the Old World’s literary gods and goddesses, have not un-Americanized either the man or the author. The facile transition from “Jim Bludso”to “A Woman’s Love” is paralleled by that from a bull-fight to a Bourbon duel.
Though not at all ubiquitous,Col.Hay is a man of many homes,—that of his birth, Indiana; that of his Alma Mater, “Brown,” whose memory he has gracefully and affectionately embalmed in verse; that of his Mother-in-Law, Illinois, having been admitted to her bar in 1861. This great year—1861—the pivot upon which turned so many destinies,—saw him “at home” in the White House. Next to his own individual claims upon national recognition, his relations to the martyred President, the well-known confidence, esteem and affection which that great guider of national destiny felt for his youthful secretary, have rendered his name as familiar as a household word. At home in the tented fields of the Civil War, at home in the diplomatic circles of Paris, Vienna, and Madrid,Col.Hay, after an exceptionally varied experience, planted his first vine and fig-tree in Cleveland, Ohio, and his second in the City of Washington. Between these two homes he vibrates. The summer finds him in his Euclid Avenue house, which occupies the site where that of Susan Coolidge once stood. Around its far-reaching courtyard and uncramped, unfenced spaciousness, she moved—that happiest of beings, one endeared to little stranger hearts all over the land.
Among the many handsome residences erected within a few years in Washington,Col.Hay’s is one of the largest. Its solid mass of red brick, massive stone trimmings, stairway and arched entrance, Romanesque in style, give it an un-American appearance of being built to stay. The architect, the late H. H. Richardson, seems to have dedicated the last efforts of dying genius to the object of making the structure bold without and beautiful within. The great, broad hall, the graceful and roomy stairway, the large dining-room on the right, wainscoted in dark mahogany, with its great chimney-place and great stone mantel-piece extending beyond on either side; the other chimney-places with African marble mantelpieces; the oak wainscoting of the large library, and the colored settles on either side of the fireplace; the cosey little room at the entrance; the charming drawing-room—in brief, it seems as thoughMr.Richardson contemplated a monument to himself when he designed this beautiful home. The library is the largest room; and it was there that I foundCol.Hay at home in every sense. The walls are shelved, hung (not crowded) with pictures; the works ofvirtubreak the otherwise staring ranks of books.
The author’s house is situated at the corner of H and Sixteenth Streets. Its southern windows look out upon Lafayette Park, and beyond it atthe confronting White House, peculiarly suggestive toCol.Hay of historic days and men; and as he labors on his History of Lincoln, I imagine, the view of the once home of the martyr is a source at once of sadness and of inspiration. In the same street, one block to the west, lived George Bancroft; diagonally across the park, and in full view, is the house where was attempted the assassination of Secretary Seward, and near where Philip Barton Key was killed by Gen. Sickles; opposite the east front ofCol.Hay’s house isSt.John’s, one of the oldest Episcopal churches in the District of Columbia, much frequented by the older Presidents. It was here that Dolly Madison exhibited her frills and fervor. Before the days of American admirals, tradition says that one of the old commodores, returning from a long and far cruise in which he had distinguished himself, and starting forSt.John’s on a Sunday morning, entered the church as the congregation was about repeating the Creed. As soon as he was in the aisle, the people stood up, as is the custom. The old commodore, being conscious of meritorious service, mistook the movement for an expression of personal respect, and with patronizing politeness, waved his hand toward theRev.Dr.Pyne and the congregation, and said: “Don’t rise on my account!” The whitened sepulchre of a house to the west ofCol.Hay’s, was the residence of Senator Slidell—the once international What-shall-we-do-with-him? The eastern corner of the opposite block was the home and death-place of Sumner. In the immediate neighborhood are the three clubs of Washington—the Metropolitan, Cosmos, and Jefferson. The first has the character of being exclusive, the second of being scientific, and the third liberal. In the one they eat terrapin; in the other, talk anthropology; while in the last, Congressmen, Cabinet officers and journalists are “at home,” and a spirit of cosmopolitanism prevails.
The author of “Pike County Ballads” and “Castilian Days,” and the biographer of Lincoln, is about sixty-four years of age. In person, of average height; gray hair, mustache and beard, and brown eyes; well built, well dressed, well bred and well read, he is pleasant to look at and to talk with. He is a good talker and polite listener, and altogether an agreeable and instructive companion. As a collector he seems to be jealous as to quality rather than greedy as to quantity. His shelves are not loaded down with so many pounds of print bound in what-not, and his pictures and works of art “have pedigrees.” I found great pleasure in examining a fine old edition of Lucan’s “Pharsalia,” printed at Strawberry Hill, with notes by Grotius and Bentley. A much more interesting work was “The Hierarchieof the Blessed Angells, Printed by Adam Islip, 1635.” On the fly-leaf was written: “E. B. Jones, from his friend A. C. Swinburne.” My attention was called to the following lines:
Mellifluous Shake-speare, whose enchanting quill,Commanded mirth and passion, was but Will.
They suggested the Donnelly extravaganza; and I discoveredCol.Hay to be of the opinion which well-informed students of English literature generally hold—namely, thatMr.Donnelly’s ingenuity is equalled only by his ignorance. There was also a presentation copy of the first edition of Beckford’s “Vathek,” and De Thou’s copy of Calvin’s Letters, with De Thou’s and his wife’s ciphers intertwined in gilt upon its side and back, expressive of a partnership even in their books; and rare and costly editions of Rogers’s “Italy” and “Poems.” It will be recollected that the banker-poet engaged Turner to illustrate his verses, and the total cost to the author was about $60,000. Among objects of special interest are the bronze masks ofMr.Lincoln, one by Volk (1860), the other by Clark Mills (1865). It is a test of credulity to accept them as the counterfeit presentments of the President. There is such a difference in the contour, lines and expression, that, asCol.Hay remarked, the contrast exhibits the influences and effects of thegreat cares and responsibilities under whichMr.Lincoln labored; and although both casts were made in life, and at an interval of only five years, the latter one represents a face fifteen years older than the first.
Over the library door are two large bronze portraits, hanging on the same line; one is of Howells, the other of James. Residence abroad, and that attention to and study of art to which “An Hour with the Painters” bears evidence, enabledCol.Hay to make a selection of oils and water-colors, pen-and-inks and drawings which is not marred by anything worthless. Before referring to these, I must not pass a portrait of Henry James, when twenty-one years of age, painted by Lafarge. A Madonna and Child, by Sassoferrato;St.Paul’s, London, by Canaletto; a woman’s portrait by Maes; four pen-and-ink sketches by Du Maurier, and one by Zamacois; two by Turner—of Lucerne and the Drachenfels (see “Childe Harold,” or the guide-book, for Byron’s one-line picture of the castellated cliff); a water-color by Girtin, Turner’s over-praised teacher; and a collection of original drawings by the old masters—Raphael, Correggio, Teniers, Guido, Rubens and others,—surely there is nothing superfluous in his collection; and the same elegant and discriminating taste is exhibited in all ofCol.Hay’s surroundings. The poet haslaid aside his lyre temporarily, and withMr.Nicolay, late Marshal of the Supreme Court, devoted himself to preparing forThe Centurywhat, at the time it was written, was the most exhaustive memoir of a man and his times ever written on this side of the Atlantic. Conscious of the depth, height, and breadth of their theme, the writers did not propose to leave anything for successors to supply on the subject ofMr.Lincoln’s administration.
Reflecting that though scientific workers were plentiful in Washington there was but a sprinkling of literary men, I askedCol.Hay what he thought of the capital’s possibilities as a “literary centre.” His opinion was that the great presses and publishing-houses were the nucleus of literary workers; but that the advantages afforded, or to be afforded, by the National Library and other Government facilities, must of necessity invite authors to Washington, from time to time, on special errands, or for temporary residence.
B. G. Lovejoy.
[Since his residence in London as Ambassador to the Court ofSt.James and his resignation from the position of Secretary of State,Col.Hay has divided his time between Washington and his summer home at Lake Sunapee, in New Hampshire.—Editors.]