O cæcas hominum menteis! O pectora cæca!
O cæcas hominum menteis! O pectora cæca!
The Abbé, prepossessed with the prejudice that a nation persecuted by the Pope and his adherents could not represent them without some insult, did not examine with sufficient care the ends of the bandages which covered the eyes and waved about the heads of the personages represented on this medal: he rashly took them forasses' ears, and as such they are engraved!
Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards, who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour ofSaint Viar. His holiness, in the voluminous catalogue of his saints, was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his existence was this inscription:—
S. VIAR.
An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar, by convincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for an ancient surveyor of the roads; and he read their saintship thus:—
PRÆFECTUS VIARum.Maffei, in his comparison between Medals and Inscriptions, detects a literary blunder in Spon, who, meeting with this inscription,Maximo VI Consuletakes the letters VI for numerals, which occasions a strange anachronism. They are only contractions ofViro Illustri—V I.As absurd a blunder was this of Dr. Stukeley on the coins of Carausius; finding a battered one with a defaced inscription ofFORTVNA AVG.he read itORIVNA AVG.
PRÆFECTUS VIARum.
Maffei, in his comparison between Medals and Inscriptions, detects a literary blunder in Spon, who, meeting with this inscription,
Maximo VI Consule
takes the letters VI for numerals, which occasions a strange anachronism. They are only contractions ofViro Illustri—V I.
As absurd a blunder was this of Dr. Stukeley on the coins of Carausius; finding a battered one with a defaced inscription of
FORTVNA AVG.
he read it
ORIVNA AVG.
And sagaciously interpreting this to be thewifeof Carausius, makes a new personage start up in history; he contrives even to give sometheoretical Memoirsof theAugust Oriuna.[92]
Father Sirmond was of opinion that St. Ursula and her eleven thousand Virgins were all created out of a blunder. In some ancient MS. they foundSt. Ursula et Undecimilla V. M.meaning St. Ursula andUndecimilla, Virgin Martyrs; imagining thatUndecimillawith theV.andM.which followed, was an abbreviation forUndecem Millia Martyrum Virginum, they made out ofTwo Virginsthe wholeEleven Thousand!
Pope, in a note on Measure for Measure, informs us, that its story was taken from Cinthio's Novels,Dec. 8.Nov. 5. That is,Decade 8, Novel 5. The critical Warburton, in his edition of Shakspeare, puts the words in full length thus,December8,November 5.
When the fragments of Petronius made a great noise in the literary world, Meibomius, an erudit of Lubeck, read in a letter from another learned scholar from Bologna, "We have herean entire Petronius; I saw it with mine own eyes, and with admiration." Meibomius in post-haste is on the road, arrives at Bologna, and immediately inquires for the librarian Capponi. He inquires if it were true that they had at Bolognaan entire Petronius? Capponi assures him that it was a thing which had long been public. "Can I see this Petronius? Let me examine it!"—"Certainly," replies Capponi, and leads our erudit of Lubeck to the church where reposesthe body of St. Petronius. Meibomius bites his lips, calls for his chaise, and takes his flight.
A French translator, when he came to a passage of Swift, in which it is said that the Duke of Marlboroughbrokean officer; not being acquainted with this Anglicism, he translated itroué, broke on a wheel!
Cibber's play of "Love's Last Shift" was entitled "La Dernière Chemise de l'Amour." A French writer of Congreve's life has taken hisMourningfor aMorningBride, and translated itL'Espouse du Matin.
Sir John Pringle mentions his having cured a soldier by the use of two quarts ofDog and Duck waterdaily: a French translator specifies it as an excellentbrothmade of a duck and a dog! In a recent catalogue compiled by a French writer ofWorks on Natural History, he has inserted the well-known "Essay onIrish Bulls" by the Edgeworths. The proof, if it required any, that a Frenchman cannot understand the idiomatic style of Shakspeare appears in a French translator, who prided himself on giving a verbal translation of our great poet, not approving of Le Tourneur's paraphrastical version. He found in the celebrated speech of Northumberland in Henry IV.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,So dull, so dead in look, sowoe-begone—
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,So dull, so dead in look, sowoe-begone—
which he renders "Ainsi douleur! va-t'en!"
The Abbé Gregoire affords another striking proof of the errors to which foreigners are liable when they decide on thelanguageandcustomsof another country. The Abbé, in the excess of his philanthropy, to show to what dishonourable offices human nature is degraded, acquaints us that at London he observed a sign-board, proclaiming the master astueur des punaises de sa majesté! Bug-destroyer to his majesty! This is, no doubt, the honest Mr. Tiffin, in the Strand; and the idea which must have occurred to the good Abbé was, that his majesty's bugs were hunted by the said destroyer, and taken by hand—and thus human nature was degraded!
A French writer translates the Latin title of a treatise of Philo-JudæusOmnis bonus liber est, Every good man is a free man, byTout livre est bon. It was well for him, observes Jortin, that he did not live within the reach of the Inquisition, which might have taken this as a reflection on theIndex Expurgatorius.
An English translator turned "Dieudéfendl'adultère" into "Goddefendsadultery."—Guthrie, in his translation of Du Halde, has "the twenty-sixth day of thenewmoon." The whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days. The blunder arose from his mistaking the wordneuvième(ninth) fornouvelleorneuve(new).
The facetious Tom Brown committed a strange blunder in his translation of Gelli's Circe. The wordStarne, not aware of its signification, he boldly renderedstares, probably from the similitude of sound; the succeeding translator more correctly discoveredStarneto be red-legged partridges!
In Charles II.'s reign a new collect was drawn, in which a new epithet was added to the king's title, that gave great offence, and occasioned great raillery. He was styledour most religious king. Whatever the signification ofreligiousmight be in theLatinword, as importing the sacredness of the king's person, yet in theEnglish languageit bore a signification that was no way applicable to the king. And he was asked by his familiar courtiers, what must the nation think when they heard him prayed for as theirmost religious king?—Literary blunders of this nature are frequently discovered in the versions of good classical scholars, who would make theEnglishservilely bend to the Latin and Greek. Even Milton has been justly censured for his free use of Latinisms and Grecisms.
The blunders of modern antiquaries on sepulchral monuments are numerous. One mistakesa lionat a knight's feet for acurled water dog; another could not distinguishcensersin the hands of angels fromfishing-nets;two angelsat a lady's feet were counted as her two cherub-likebabes; and another has mistaken aleopardand ahedgehogfor acatand arat!In some of these cases, are the antiquaries or the sculptors most to be blamed?[93]
A literary blunder of Thomas Warton is a specimen of the manner in which a man of genius may continue to blunder with infinite ingenuity. In an old romance he finds these lines, describing the duel of Saladin with Richard Cœur de Lion:—
AFaucon brodein hande he bare,For he thought he wolde thareHave slayne Richard.
AFaucon brodein hande he bare,For he thought he wolde thareHave slayne Richard.
He imagines thisFaucon brodemeans afalcon bird, or a hawk, and that Saladin is represented with this bird on hisfist to express his contempt of his adversary. He supports his conjecture by noticing a Gothic picture, supposed to be the subject of this duel, and also some old tapestry of heroes on horseback with hawks on their fists; he plunges into feudal times, when no gentleman appeared on horseback without his hawk. After all this curious erudition, the rough but skilful Ritson inhumanly triumphed by dissolving the magical fancies of the more elegant Warton, by explaining aFaucon brodeto be nothing more than abroad faulchion, which, in a duel, was certainly more useful than abird. The editor of the private reprint of Hentzner, on that writer's tradition respecting "the Kings of Denmark who reigned in England" buried in the Temple Church, metamorphosed the two Inns of Court,Gray's InnandLincoln's Inn, into the names of the Danish kings,GresinandLyconin.[94]
Bayle supposes that Marcellus Palingenius, who wrote the poem entitled theZodiac, the twelve books bearing the names of the signs, from this circumstance assumed the title ofPoeta Stellatus. But it appears that this writer was an Italian and a native ofStellada, a town in the Ferrarese. It is probable that his birthplace originally produced the conceit of the title of his poem: it is a curious instance how critical conjecture may be led astray by its own ingenuity, when ignorant of the real fact.
Marriage is such a rabble rout;That those that are out, would fain get in;And those that are in, would fain get out.Chaucer.
Marriage is such a rabble rout;That those that are out, would fain get in;And those that are in, would fain get out.
Chaucer.
Having examined someliterary blunders, we will now proceed to the subject of aliterary wife, which may happen to prove one. A learned lady is to the taste of few. It is however matter of surprise, that several literary men should have felt such a want of taste in respect to "their soul's far dearer part," as Hector calls his Andromache. The wives ofmany men of letters have been dissolute, ill-humoured, slatternly, and have run into all the frivolities of the age. The wife of the learned Budæus was of a different character.
How delightful is it when the mind of the female is so happily disposed, and so richly cultivated, as to participate in the literary avocations of her husband! It is then truly that the intercourse of the sexes becomes the most refined pleasure. What delight, for instance, must the great Budæus have tasted, even in those works which must have been for others a most dreadful labour! His wife left him nothing to desire. The frequent companion of his studies, she brought him the books he required to his desk; she collated passages, and transcribed quotations; the same genius, the same inclination, and the same ardour for literature, eminently appeared in those two fortunate persons. Far from withdrawing her husband from his studies, she was sedulous to animate him when he languished. Ever at his side, and ever assiduous; ever with some useful book in her hand, she acknowledged herself to be a most happy woman. Yet she did not neglect the education of eleven children. She and Budæus shared in the mutual cares they owed their progeny. Budæus was not insensible of his singular felicity. In one of his letters, he represents himself as married to twoladies; one of whom gave him boys and girls, the other was Philosophy, who produced books. He says that in his twelve first years, Philosophy had been less fruitful than marriage; he had produced less books than children; he had laboured more corporally than intellectually; but he hoped to make more books than men. "The soul (says he) will be productive in its turn; it will rise on the ruins of the body; a prolific virtue is not given at the same time to the bodily organs and the pen."
The lady of Evelyn designed herself the frontispiece to his translation of Lucretius. She felt the same passion in her own breast which animated her husband's, who has written, with such various ingenuity. Of Baron Haller it is recorded that he inspired his wife and family with a taste for his different pursuits. They were usually employed in assisting his literary occupations; they transcribed manuscripts, consulted authors, gathered plants, and designed and coloured under his eye. What a delightful family picture has the younger Pliny given posterity in his letters! Of Calphurnia, his wife, he says, "Her affection to me has given her a turn to books;and my compositions, which she takes a pleasure in reading, and even getting by heart, are continually in her hands. How full of tender solicitude is she when I am entering upon any cause! How kindly does she rejoice with me when it is over! While I am pleading, she places persons to inform her from time to time how I am heard, what applauses I receive, and what success attends the cause. When at any time I recite my works, she conceals herself behind some curtain, and with secret rapture enjoys my praises. She sings my verses to her lyre, with no other master but love, the best instructor, for her guide. Her passion will increase with our days, for it is not my youth nor my person, which time gradually impairs, but my reputation and my glory, of which, she is enamoured."
On the subject of a literary wife, I must introduce to the acquaintance of the reader Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. She is known, at least by her name, as a voluminous writer; for she extended her literary productions to the number of twelve folio volumes.
Her labours have been ridiculed by some wits; but had her studies been regulated, she would have displayed no ordinary genius. TheConnoisseurhas quoted her poems, and her verses have been imitated by Milton.
The duke, her husband, was also an author; his book on horsemanship still preserves his name. He has likewise written comedies, and his contemporaries have not been, penurious in their eulogiums. It is true he was a duke. Shadwell says of him, "That he was the greatest master of wit, the most exact observer of mankind, and the most accurate judge of humour that ever he knew." The life of the duke is written "by the hand of his incomparable duchess." It was published in his lifetime. This curious piece of biography is a folio of 197 pages, and is entitled "The Life of the Thrice Noble, High, and Puissant Prince, William Cavendish." His titles then follow:—"Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and Excellent Princess, Margaret Duchess of Newcastle, his wife. London, 1667." This Life is dedicated to Charles the Second; and there is also prefixed a copious epistle to her husband the duke.
In this epistle the character of our Literary Wife is described with all its peculiarities.
"Certainly, my lord, you have had as many enemies and as many friends as ever any one particular person had; nor do Iso much wonder at it, since I, a woman, cannot be exempt from the malice and aspersions of spiteful tongues, which they cast upon my poor writings, some denying me to be the true authoress of them; for your grace remembers well, that those books I put out first to the judgment of this censorious age were accounted not to be written by a woman, but that somebody else had writ and published them in my name; by which your lordship was moved to prefix an epistle before one of them in my vindication, wherein you assure the world, upon your honour, that what was written and printed in my name was my own; and I have also made known that your lordship was my only tutor, in declaring to me what you had found and observed by your own experience; for I being young when your lordship married me, could not have much knowledge of the world; but it pleased God to command his servant Nature to endue me with a poetical and philosophical genius, even from my birth; for I did write some books in that kind before I was twelve years of age, which for want of good method and order I would never divulge. But though the world would not believe that those conceptions and fancies which I writ were my own, but transcended my capacity, yet they found fault, that they were defective for want of learning, and on the other side, they said I had pluckt feathers out of the universities; which was a very preposterous judgment. Truly, my lord, I confess that for want of scholarship, I could not express myself so well as otherwise I might have done in those philosophical writings I published first; but after I was returned with your lordship into my native country, and led a retired country life, I applied myself to the reading of philosophical authors, on purpose to learn those names and words of art that are used in schools; which at first were so hard to me, that I could not understand them, but was fain to guess at the sense of them by the whole context, and so writ them down, as I found them in those authors; at which my readers did wonder, and thought it impossible that a woman could have so much learning and understanding in terms of art and scholastical expressions; so that I and my books are like the old apologue mentioned in Æsop, of a father and his son who rid on an ass." Here follows a long narrative of this fable, which she applies to herself in these words—"The old man seeing he could not please mankind in any manner, and having received so many blemishes and aspersions for thesake of his ass, was at last resolved to drown him when he came to the next bridge. But I am not so passionate to burn my writings for the various humours of mankind, and for their finding fault; since there is nothing in this world, be it the noblest and most commendable action whatsoever, that shall escape blameless. As for my being the true and only authoress of them, your lordship knows best; and my attending servants are witness that I have had none but my own thoughts, fancies, and speculations, to assist me; and as soon as I set them down I send them to those that are to transcribe them, and fit them for the press; whereof, since there have been several, and amongst them such as only could write a good hand, but neither understood orthography, nor had any learning, (I being then in banishment, with your lordship, and not able to maintain learned secretaries,) which hath been a great disadvantage to my poor works, and the cause that they have been printed so false and so full of errors; for besides that I want also skill in scholarship and true writing, I did many times not peruse the copies that were transcribed, lest they should disturb my following conceptions; by which neglect, as I said, many errors are slipt into my works, which, yet I hope, learned and impartial men will soon rectify, and look more upon the sense than carp at words. I have been a student even from childhood; and since I have been your lordship's wife I have lived for the most part a strict and retired life, as is best known to your lordship; and therefore my censurers cannot know much of me, since they have little or no acquaintance with me. 'Tis true I have been a traveller both before and after I was married to your lordship, and some times shown myself at your lordship's command in public places or assemblies, but yet I converse with few. Indeed, my lord, I matter not the censures of this age, but am rather proud of them; for it shows that my actions are more than ordinary, and according to the old proverb, it is better to be envied than pitied; for I know well that it is merely out of spite and malice, whereof this present age is so full that none can escape them, and they'll make no doubt to stain even your lordship's loyal, noble, and heroic actions, as well as they do mine; though yours have been of war and fighting, mine of contemplating and writing: yours were performed publicly in the field, mine privately in my closet; yours had many thousand eye-witnesses; mine none but my waiting-maids. But the great God, thathitherto bless'd both your grace and me, will, I question not, preserve both our fames to after-ages.
"Your grace's honest wife,"and humble servant,"M. Newcastle."
The last portion of this life, which consists of the observations and good things which she had gathered from the conversations of her husband, forms an excellent Ana; and shows that when Lord Orford, in his "Catalogue of Noble Authors," says, that "this stately poetic couple was a picture of foolish nobility," he writes, as he does too often, with extreme levity. But we must now attend to the reverse of our medal.
Many chagrins may corrode the nuptial state of literary men. Females who, prompted by vanity, but not by taste, unite themselves to scholars, must ever complain of neglect. The inexhaustible occupations of a library will only present to such a most dreary solitude. Such a lady declared of her learned husband, that she was more jealous of his books than his mistresses. It was probably while Glover was composing his "Leonidas," that his lady avenged herself for thisHomericinattention to her, and took her flight with a lover. It was peculiar to the learned Dacier to be united to woman, his equal in erudition and his superior in taste. When she wrote in the album of a German traveller a verse from Sophocles as an apology for her unwillingness to place herself among his learned friends, that "Silence is the female's ornament," it was a trait of her modesty. The learned Pasquier was coupled to a female of a different character, since he tells us in one of his Epigrams that to manage the vociferations of his lady, he was compelled himself to become a vociferator.—"Unfortunate wretch that I am, I who am a lover of universal peace! But to have peace I am obliged ever to be at war."
Sir Thomas More was united to a woman of the harshest temper and the most sordid manners. To soften the moroseness of her disposition, "he persuaded her to play on the lute, viol, and other instruments, every day." Whether it was that she had no ear for music, she herself never became harmonious as the instrument she touched. All these ladies may be considered as rather too alert in thought, and too spirited in action; but a tame cuckoo bird who is always repeating the same note must be very fatiguing. The lady of Samuel Clarke, the great compiler of books in 1680, whose name was anagrammatised to "suck all cream," alluding to his indefatigable labours in sucking all the cream of every other author, without having any cream himself, is described by her husband as entertaining the most sublime conceptions of his illustrious compilations. This appears by her behaviour. He says, "that she never rose from table without making him a curtsey, nor drank to him without bowing, and that his word was a law to her."
I was much surprised in looking over a correspondence of the times, that in 1590 the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury on the subject of his living separate from his countess, uses as one of his arguments for their union the following curious one, which surely shows the gross and cynical feeling which the fair sex excited even among the higher classes of society. The language of this good bishop is neither that of truth, we hope, nor certainly that of religion.
"But some will saye in your Lordship's behalfe that the Countesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore licke enough to shorten your lief, if shee should kepe yow company, Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a juste cause of separation between a man and wiefe, I thinck fewe men in Englande would keepe their wives longe; for it is a common jeste, yet trewe in some sense, that there is but one shrewe in all the worlde, and everee man hath her: and so everee man must be ridd of his wiefe that wolde be ridd of a shrewe." It is wonderful this good bishop did not use another argument as cogent, and which would in those times be allowed as something; the name of his lordship,Shrewsbury, would have afforded a consolatorypun!
The entertaining Marville says that the generality of ladies married to literary men are so vain of the abilities and merit of their husbands, that they are frequently insufferable.
The wife of Barclay, author of "The Argenis," considered herself as the wife of a demigod. This appeared glaringly after his death; for Cardinal Barberini having erected a monument to the memory of his tutor, next to the tomb of Barclay, Mrs. Barclay was so irritated at this that she demolished his monument, brought home his bust, and declaredthat the ashes of so great a genius as her husband should never be placed beside a pedagogue.
Salmasius's wife was a termagant; Christina said she admired his patience more than his erudition. Mrs. Salmasius indeed considered herself as the queen of science, because her husband was acknowledged as sovereign among the critics. She boasted that she had for her husband the most learned of all the nobles, and the most noble of all the learned. Our good lady always joined the learned conferences which he held in his study. She spoke loud, and decided with a tone of majesty. Salmasius was mild in conversation, but the reverse in his writings, for our proud Xantippe considered him as acting beneath himself if he did not magisterially call every one names!
The wife of Rohault, when her husband gave lectures on the philosophy of Descartes, used to seat herself on these days at the door, and refused admittance to every one shabbily dressed, or who did not discover a genteel air. So convinced was she that, to be worthy of hearing the lectures of her husband, it was proper to appear fashionable. In vain our good lecturer exhausted himself in telling her, that fortune does not always give fine clothes to philosophers.
The ladies of Albert Durer and Berghem were both shrews. The wife of Durer compelled that great genius to the hourly drudgery of his profession, merely to gratify her own sordid passion: in despair, Albert ran away from his Tisiphone; she wheedled him back, and not long afterwards this great artist fell a victim to her furious disposition.[95]Berghem's wife would never allow that excellent artist to quit his occupations; and she contrived an odd expedient to detect his indolence. The artist worked in a room above her; ever and anon she roused him by thumping a long stick against the ceiling, while the obedient Berghem answered by stamping his foot, to satisfy Mrs. Berghem that he was not napping.
Ælian had an aversion to the married state. Sigonius, a learned and well-known scholar, would never marry, and alleged no inelegant reason; "Minerva and Venus could not live together."
Matrimony has been considered by some writers as a condition not so well suited to the circumstances of philosophersand men of learning. There is a little tract which professes to investigate the subject. It has for title,De Matrimonio Literati, an cœlibem esse, an verò nubere conveniat, i.e., of the Marriage of a Man of Letters, with an inquiry whether it is most proper for him to continue a bachelor, or to marry?
The author alleges the great merit of some women; particularly that of Gonzaga the consort of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino; a lady of such distinguished accomplishments, that Peter Bembus said, none but a stupid man would not prefer one of her conversations to all the formal meetings and disputations of the philosophers.
The ladies perhaps will be surprised to find that it is a question among the learned,Whether they ought to marry?and will think it an unaccountable property of learning that it should lay the professors of it under an obligation to disregard the sex. But it is very questionable whether, in return for this want of complaisance in them, the generality of ladies would not prefer the beau, and the man of fashion. However, let there be Gonzagas, they will find converts enough to their charms.
The sentiments of Sir Thomas Browne on the consequences of marriage are very curious, in the second part of his Religio Medici, sect, 9. When he wrote that work, he said, "I was never yet once, and commend their resolutions, who never marry twice." He calls woman "the rib and crooked piece of man." He adds, "I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to procreate the world without this trivial and vulgar way." He means the union of sexes, which he declares, "is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life; nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed." He afterwards declares he is not averse to that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful: "I could look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a horse." He afterwards disserts very profoundly on the music there is in beauty, "and the silent note which Cupid strikes is far sweeter than the sound of an instrument." Such were his sentiments when youthful, and residing at Leyden; Dutch philosophy had at first chilled his passion; it is probable that passion afterwards inflamed his philosophy—for he married, and had sons and daughters!
Dr. Cocchi, a modern Italian writer, but apparently a cynic as old as Diogenes, has taken the pains of composing a treatise on the present subject enough to terrify the boldestBachelorof Arts! He has conjured up every chimera against the marriage of a literary man. He seems, however, to have drawn his disgusting portrait from his own country; and the chaste beauty of Britain only looks the more lovely beside this Florentine wife.
I shall not retain the cynicism which has coloured such revolting features. When at length the doctor finds a woman as all women ought to be, he opens a new string of misfortunes which must attend her husband. He dreads one of the probable consequences of matrimony—progeny, in which we must maintain the children we beget! He thinks the father gains nothing in his old age from the tender offices administered by his own children: he asserts these are much better performed by menials and strangers! The more children he has, the less he can afford to have servants! The maintenance of his children will greatly diminish his property! Another alarming object in marriage is that, by affinity, you become connected with the relations of the wife. The envious and ill-bred insinuations of the mother, the family quarrels, their poverty or their pride, all disturb the unhappy sage who falls into the trap of connubial felicity! But if a sage has resolved to marry, he impresses on him the prudential principle of increasing his fortune by it, and to remember his "additional expenses!" Dr. Cocchi seems to have thought that a human being is only to live for himself; he had neither heart to feel, a head to conceive, nor a pen that could have written one harmonious period, or one beautiful image! Bayle, in his articleRaphelengius, note B, gives a singular specimen of logical subtlety, in "a reflection on the consequence of marriage." This learned man was imagined to have died of grief, for having lost his wife, and passed three years in protracted despair. What therefore must we think of an unhappy marriage, since a happy one is exposed to such evils? He then shows that an unhappy marriage is attended by beneficial consequences to the survivor. In this dilemma, in the one case, the husband lives afraid his wife will die, in the other that she will not! If you love her, you will always be afraid of losing her; if you do not love her, you will always be afraid of not losing her. Our satiricalcelibataireis gored by the horns of the dilemma he has conjured up.
James Petiver, a famous botanist, then a bachelor, the friend of Sir Hans Sloane, in an album signs his name with this designation:—
"From the Goat tavern in the Strand, London,Nov. 27. In the 34th year of myfreedom,A.D. 1697."
Some authors excelled in this species of literary artifice. The Italian Doni dedicated each of his letters in a book calledLa Libraria, to persons whose name began with the first letter of the epistle, and dedicated the whole collection in another epistle; so that the book, which only consisted of forty-five pages, was dedicated to above twenty persons. This is carrying literary mendicity pretty high. Politi, the editor of theMartyrologium Romanum, published at Rome in 1751, has improved on the idea of Doni; for to the 365 days of the year of this Martyrology he has prefixed to each an epistle dedicatory. It is fortunate to have a large circle of acquaintance, though they should not be worthy of being saints. Galland, the translator of the Arabian Nights, prefixed a dedication to each tale which he gave; had he finished the "one thousand and one," he would have surpassed even the Martyrologist.
Mademoiselle Scudery tells a remarkable expedient of an ingenious trader in this line—One Rangouze made a collection of letters which he printed without numbering them. By this means the bookbinder put that letter which the author ordered him first; so that all the persons to whom he presented this book, seeing their names at the head, considered they had received a particular compliment. An Italian physician, having written on Hippocrates's Aphorisms, dedicated each book of his Commentaries to one of his friends, and the index to another!
More than one of our own authors have dedications in the same spirit. It was an expedient to procure dedicatory fees: for publishing books by subscription was then an art undiscovered. One prefixed a different dedication to a certain number of printed copies, and addressed them to every great man he knew, who he thought relished a morsel of flattery,and would pay handsomely for a coarse luxury. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, in his "Counsel to Builders," has made up half the work with forty-two dedications, which he excuses by the example of Antonio Perez; but in these dedications Perez scatters a heap of curious things, for he was a very universal genius. Perez, once secretary of state to Philip II. of Spain, dedicates his "Obras," first to "Nuestro sanctissimo Padre," and "Al Sacro Collegio," then follows one to "Henry IV.," and then one still more embracing, "A Todos." Fuller, in his "Church History," has with admirable contrivance introduced twelve title-pages, besides the general one, and as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty of those by inscriptions which are addressed to his benefactors; a circumstance which Heylin in his severity did not overlook; for "making his work bigger by forty sheets at the least; and he was so ambitious of the number of his patrons, that having but four leaves at the end of his History, he discovers a particular benefactress to inscribe them to!" This unlucky lady, the patroness of four leaves, Heylin compares to Roscius Regulus, who accepted the consular dignity for that part of the day on which Cecina by a decree of the senate was degraded from it, which occasioned Regulus to be ridiculed by the people all his life after, as the consul of half a day.
The price for the dedication of a play was at length fixed, from five to ten guineas from the Revolution to the time of George I., when it rose to twenty; but sometimes a bargain was to be struck when the author and the play were alike indifferent. Sometimes the party haggled about the price, or the statue while stepping into his niche would turn round on the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, actually composed the superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the apparent author by subscribing it with his name. This circumstance was so notorious at the time, that it occasioned a satirical dialogue between Motteux and his patron Heveningham. The patron, in his zeal to omit no possible distinction that might attach to him, had given one circumstance which no one but himself could have known.
Patron.I must confess I was to blame,That one particular to name;The rest could never have been knownI made the style so like thy own.Poet.I beg your pardon, Sir, for that.Patron.Why d——e what would you be at?Iwrit below myself, you sot!Avoiding figures, tropes, what not;For fear I should my fancy raiseAbove the level of thy plays!
Patron.
I must confess I was to blame,That one particular to name;The rest could never have been knownI made the style so like thy own.
Poet.
I beg your pardon, Sir, for that.
Patron.
Why d——e what would you be at?Iwrit below myself, you sot!Avoiding figures, tropes, what not;For fear I should my fancy raiseAbove the level of thy plays!
Warton notices the common practice, about the reign of Elizabeth, of an author's dedicating a work at once to a number of the nobility. Chapman's Translation of Homer has sixteen sonnets addressed to lords and ladies. Henry Lock, in a collection of two hundred religious sonnets, mingles with such heavenly works the terrestrial composition of a number of sonnets to his noble patrons; and not to multiply more instances, our great poet Spenser, in compliance with this disgraceful custom, or rather in obedience to the established tyranny of patronage, has prefixed to the Faery Queen fifteen of these adulatory pieces, which in every respect are the meanest of his compositions. At this period all men, as well as writers, looked up to the peers as if they were beings on whose smiles or frowns all sublunary good and evil depended. At a much later period, Elkanah Settle sent copies round to the chief party, for he wrote for both parties, accompanied by addresses to extort pecuniary presents in return. He had latterly one standardElegy, and oneEpithalamium, printed off with blanks, which by ingeniously filling up with the printed names of any great person who died or was married; no one who was going out of life, or was entering into it, could pass scot-free.
One of the most singular anecdotes respectingDedicationsin English bibliography is that of the Polyglot Bible of Dr. Castell. Cromwell, much to his honour, patronized that great labour, and allowed the paper to be imported free of all duties, both of excise and custom. It was published under the protectorate, but many copies had not been disposed of ere Charles II. ascended the throne. Dr. Castell had dedicated the work gratefully to Oliver, by mentioning him with peculiar respect in the preface, but he wavered with Richard Cromwell. At the Restoration, he cancelled the two last leaves, and supplied their places with three others, which softened down the republican strains, and blotted Oliver'sname out of the book of life! The differences in what are now called therepublicanand theloyalcopies have amused the curious collectors; and the former being very scarce, are most sought after. I have seen the republican. In theloyalcopies the patrons of the work are mentioned, but theirtitlesare essentially changed;Serenissimus,Illustrissimus, andHonoratissimus, were epithets that dared not shew themselves under thelevellinginfluence of the great fanatic republican.
It is a curious literary folly, not of an individual but of the Spanish nation, who, when the laws of Castile were reduced into a code under the reign of Alfonso X. surnamed the Wise, divided the work intoseven volumes; that they might be dedicated to theseven letterswhich formed the name of his majesty!
Never was a gigantic baby of adulation so crammed with the soft pap ofDedicationsas Cardinal Richelieu. French flattery even exceeded itself.—Among the vast number of very extraordinary dedications to this man, in which the Divinity itself is disrobed of its attributes to bestow them on this miserable creature of vanity, I suspect that even the following one is not the most blasphemous he received. "Who has seen your face without being seized by those softened terrors which made the prophets shudder when God showed the beams of his glory! But as He whom they dared not to approach in the burning bush, and in the noise of thunders, appeared to them sometimes in the freshness of the zephyrs, so the softness of your august countenance dissipates at the same time, and changes into dew, the small vapours which cover its majesty." One of these herd of dedicators, after the death of Richelieu, suppressed in a second edition his hyperbolical panegyric, and as a punishment to himself, dedicated the work to Jesus Christ!
The same taste characterises our own dedications in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. The great Dryden has carried it to an excessive height; and nothing is more usual than to compare thepatronwith theDivinity—and at times a fair inference may be drawn that the former was more in the author's mind than God himself! A Welsh bishop made anapologyto James I. forpreferringthe Deity—to his Majesty! Dryden's extravagant dedications were the vices of the time more than of the man; they were loaded with flattery, and no disgrace was annexed to such an exercise ofmen's talents; the contest being who should go farthest in the most graceful way, and with the best turns of expression.
An ingenious dedication was contrived by Sir Simon Degge, who dedicated "the Parson's Counsellor" to Woods, Bishop of Lichfield. Degge highly complimented the bishop on having most nobly restored the church, which had been demolished in the civil wars, and was rebuilt but left unfinished by Bishop Hacket. At the time he wrote the dedication, Woods had not turned a single stone, and it is said, that much against his will he did something, from having been so publicly reminded of it by this ironical dedication.
The "Botanic Garden" once appeared to open a new route through the trodden groves of Parnassus. The poet, to a prodigality ofImagination, united all the minute accuracy ofScience. It is a highly-repolished labour, and was in the mind and in the hand of its author for twenty years before its first publication. The excessive polish of the verse has appeared too high to be endured throughout a long composition; it is certain that, in poems of length, a versification, which is not too florid for lyrical composition, will weary by its brilliance. Darwin, inasmuch as a rich philosophical fancy constitutes a poet, possesses the entire art of poetry; no one has carried the curious mechanism of verse and the artificial magic of poetical diction to a higher perfection. His volcanic head flamed with imagination, but his torpid heart slept unawakened by passion. His standard of poetry is by much too limited; he supposes that the essence of poetry is something of which a painter can make a picture. A picturesque verse was with him a verse completely poetical. But the language of the passions has no connexion with this principle; in truth, what he delineates as poetry itself, is but one of its provinces. Deceived by his illusive standard, he has composed a poem which is perpetually fancy, and never passion. Hence his processional splendour fatigues, and his descriptive ingenuity comes at length to be deficient in novelty, and all the miracles of art cannot supply us with one touch of nature.
Descriptive poetry should be relieved by a skilful intermixture of passages addressed to the heart as well as to the imagination: uniform description satiates; and has been considered as one of the inferior branches of poetry. Of this both Thomson and Goldsmith were sensible. In their beautiful descriptive poems they knew the art of animating the pictures ofFancywith the glow ofSentiment.
Whatever may be thought of the originality of Darwin's poem, it had been preceded by others of a congenial disposition. Brookes's poem on "Universal Beauty," published about 1735, presents us with the very model of Darwin's versification: and the Latin poem of De la Croix, in 1727, entitled "Connubia Florum," with his subject. There also exists a race of poems which have hitherto been confined toone subject, which the poet selected from the works of nature, to embellish with all the splendour of poetic imagination. I have collected some titles.
Perhaps it is Homer, in his battle of theFrogs and Mice, and Virgil in the poem on aGnat, attributed to him, who have given birth to these lusory poems. The Jesuits, particularly when they composed in Latin verse, were partial to such subjects. There is a little poem onGold, by P. Le Fevre, distinguished for its elegance; and Brumoy has given theArt of making Glass; in which he has described its various productions with equal felicity and knowledge. P. Vanière has written onPigeons, Du Cerceau onButterflies. The success which attended these productions produced numerous imitations, of which several were favourably received. Vanière composed three on theGrape, theVintage, and theKitchen Garden. Another poet selectedOrangesfor his theme; others have chosen for their subjects,Paper, Birds, and fresh-waterFish. Tarillon has inflamed his imagination withgunpowder; a milder genius, delighted with the oaten pipe, sang ofSheep; one who was more pleased with another kind of pipe, has written onTobacco; and a droll genius wrote a poem onAsses. Two writers have formed didactic poems on theArt of Enigmas, and onShips.
Others have written on moral subjects. Brumoy has painted thePassions, with a variety of imagery and vivacity of description; P. Meyer has disserted onAnger; Tarillon, like our Stillingfleet, on theArt of Conversation; and a lively writer has discussed the subjects ofHumour and Wit.
Giannetazzi, an Italian Jesuit, celebrated for his Latinpoetry, has composed two volumes of poems onFishingandNavigation. Fracastor has written delicately on an indelicate subject, hisSyphilis. Le Brun wrote a delectable poem onSweetmeats; another writer onMineral Waters, and a third onPrinting. Vida pleases with hisSilk-worms, and hisChess; Buchanan is ingenious with theSphere. Malapert has aspired to catch theWinds; the philosophic Huet amused himself withSaltand again withTea. TheGardensof Rapin is a finer poem than critics generally can write; Quillet'sCallipedia, or Art of getting handsome Children, has been translated by Rowe; and Du Fresnoy at length gratifies the connoisseur with his poem onPainting, by the embellishments which his verses have received from the poetic diction of Mason, and the commentary of Reynolds.
This list might be augmented with a few of our own poets, and there still remain some virgin themes which only require to be touched by the hand of a true poet. In the "Memoirs of Trevoux," they observe, in their review of the poem onGold, "That poems of this kind have the advantage of instructing us very agreeably. All that has been most remarkably said on the subject is united, compressed in a luminous order, and dressed in all the agreeable graces of poetry. Such writers have no little difficulties to encounter: the style and expression cost dear; and still more to give to an arid topic an agreeable form, and to elevate the subject without falling into another extreme.—In the other kinds of poetry the matter assists and prompts genius; here we must possess an abundance to display it."
Myles Davis's "Icon Libellorum, or a Critical History Pamphlets," affords some curious information; and as this is apamphlet-reading age, I shall give a sketch of its contents.
The author observes: "FromPamphletsmay be learned the genius of the age, the debates of the learned, the follies of the ignorant, thebévuesof government, and the mistakes of the courtiers. Pamphlets furnish beaus with their airs, coquettes with their charms. Pamphlets are as modish ornaments to gentlewomen's toilets as to gentlemen's pockets; they carry reputation of wit and learning to all that make them their companions; the poor find their account in stall-keeping and in hawking them; the rich find in them their shortest way to the secrets of church and state. There is scarce any class of people but may think themselves interested enough to be concerned with what is published in pamphlets, either as to their private instruction, curiosity, and reputation, or to the public advantage and credit; with all which both ancient and modern pamphlets are too often over familiar and free.—In short, with pamphlets the booksellers and stationers adorn the gaiety of shop-gazing. Hence accrues to grocers, apothecaries, and chandlers, good furniture, and supplies to necessary retreats and natural occasions. In pamphlets lawyers will meet with their chicanery, physicians with their cant, divines with their Shibboleth. Pamphlets become more and more daily amusements to the curious, idle, and inquisitive; pastime to gallants and coquettes; chat to the talkative; catch-words to informers; fuel to the envious; poison to the unfortunate; balsam to the wounded; employ to the lazy; and fabulous materials to romancers and novelists."
This author sketches the origin and rise of pamphlets. He deduces them from the short writings published by the Jewish Rabbins; various little pieces at the time of the first propagation of Christianity; and notices a certain pamphlet which was pretended to have been the composition of Jesus Christ, thrown from heaven, and picked up by the archangel Michael at the entrance of Jerusalem. It was copied by the priest Leora, and sent about from priest to priest, till Pope Zachary ventured to pronounce it aforgery. He notices several such extraordinary publications, many of which produced as extraordinary effects.
He proceeds in noticing the first Arian and Popish pamphlets, or ratherlibels, i. e. little books, as he distinguishes them. He relates a curious anecdote respecting the forgeries of the monks. Archbishop Usher detected in a manuscript of St. Patrick's life, pretended to have been found at Louvain, as an original of a very remote date, several passages taken, with little alteration, from his own writings.
The following notice of our immortal Pope I cannot pass over: "Another class of pamphlets writ by Roman Catholics is that ofPoems, written chiefly by a Pope himself, a gentleman of that name. He passed always amongst most of his acquaintance for what is commonly called a Whig; for it seems the Roman politics are divided as well as popishmissionaries. However, oneEsdras, an apothecary, as he qualifies himself, has published a piping-hot pamphlet against Mr. Pope's 'Rape of the Lock,' which he entitles 'A Key to the Lock,' wherewith he pretends to unlock nothing less than aplotcarried on by Mr. Pope in that poem against the last and this present ministry and government."
He observes onSermons,—"'Tis not much to be questioned, but of all modern pamphlets what or wheresoever, theEnglish stitched Sermonsbe the most edifying, useful, and instructive, yet they could not escape the critical Mr. Bayle's sarcasm. He says, 'République des Lettres,' March, 1710, in this articleLondon, 'We see here sermons swarm daily from the press. Our eyes only behold manna: are you desirous of knowing the reason? It is, that the ministers being allowed toreadtheir sermons in the pulpit,buy all they meet with, and take no other trouble than to read them, and thus pass for very able scholars at a very cheap rate!'"
He now begins more directly the history of pamphlets, which he branches out from four different etymologies. He says, "However foreign the wordPamphletmay appear, it is a genuine English word, rarely known or adopted in any other language: its pedigree cannot well be traced higher than the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. In its first state wretched must have been its appearance, since the great linguist John Minshew, in his 'Guide into Tongues,' printed in 1617, gives it the most miserable character of which any libel can be capable. Mr. Minshew says (and his words were quoted by Lord Chief Justice Holt), 'APamphlet, that isOpusculum Stolidorum, the diminutive performance of fools; from πἁν,all, and πλἡθω, Ifill, to wit,allplaces. According to the vulgar saying, all things are full of fools, or foolish things; for such multitudes of pamphlets, unworthy of the very names of libels, being more vile than common shores and the filth of beggars, and being flying papers daubed over and besmeared with the foams of drunkards, are tossed far and near into the mouths and hands of scoundrels; neither will the sham oracles of Apollo be esteemed so mercenary as a Pamphlet.'"
Those who will have the word to be derived fromPam, the famous knave ofLoo, do not differ much from Minshew; for the derivation of the wordPamis in all probability from πἁν,all; or thewholeor thechiefof the game.
Under thisfirstetymological notion of Pamphlets may becomprehended thevulgar storiesof the Nine Worthies of the World, of the Seven Champions of Christendom, Tom Thumb, Valentine and Orson, &c., as also most of apocryphal lucubrations. The greatest collection of this first sort of Pamphlets are the Rabbinic traditions in the Talmud, consisting of fourteen volumes in folio, and the Popish legends of the Lives of the Saints, which, though not finished, form fifty folio volumes, all which tracts were originally in pamphlet forms.
Thesecondidea of theradixof the wordPamphletis, that it takes its derivations from πἁν,all, and φιλἑω,I love, signifying a thing beloved by all; for a pamphlet being of a small portable bulk, and of no great price, is adapted to every one's understanding and reading. In this class may be placed all stitched books on serious subjects, the best of which fugitive pieces have been generally preserved, and even reprinted in collections of some tracts, miscellanies, sermons, poems, &c.; and, on the contrary, bulky volumes have been reduced, for the convenience of the public, into the familiar shapes of stitched pamphlets. Both these methods have been thus censured by the majority of the lower house of convocation 1711. These abuses are thus represented: "They have republished, and collected into volumes, pieces written long ago on the side of infidelity. They have reprinted together in the most contracted manner, many loose and licentious pieces, in order to their being purchased more cheaply, and dispersed more easily."
Thethirdoriginal interpretation of the word Pamphlet may be that of the learned Dr. Skinner, in hisEtymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ, that it is derived from the Belgic wordPampier, signifying a little paper, or libel. To this third set of Pamphlets may be reduced all sorts of printed single sheets, or half sheets, or any other quantity of single paper prints, such as Declarations, Remonstrances, Proclamations, Edicts, Orders, Injunctions, Memorials, Addresses, Newspapers, &c.
Thefourthradical signification of the word Pamphlet is that homogeneal acceptation of it, viz., as it imports any little book, or small volume whatever, whether stitched or bound, whether good or bad, whether serious or ludicrous. The only proper Latin term for a Pamphlet isLibellus, or little book. This word indeed signifies in English anabusivepaper or little book, and is generally taken in the worst sense.
After all this display of curious literature, the reader may smile at the guesses of Etymologists; particularly when he is reminded that the derivation ofPamphletis drawn from quite another meaning to any of the present, by Johnson, which I shall give for his immediate gratification.
Pamphlet[par un filet, Fr. Whence this word is written anciently, and by Caxton,paunflet] a small book; properly a book sold unbound, and only stitched.
The French have borrowed the wordPamphletfrom us, and have the goodness of not disfiguring its orthography.Roast Beefis also in the same predicament. I conclude thatPamphletsandRoast Beefhave therefore their origin in our country.
Pinkerton favoured me with the following curious notice concerning pamphlets:—
"Of the etymon ofpamphletI know nothing; but that the word is far more ancient than is commonly believed, take the following proof from the celebratedPhilobiblon, ascribed to Richard de Buri, bishop of Durham, but written by Robert Holkot, at his desire, as Fabricius says, about the year 1344, (Fabr. Bibl. Medii Ævi, vol. i.); it is in the eighth chapter.
"Sed, revera, libros non libras maluimus; codicesque plus dileximus quam florenos: ac PANFLETOS exiguos phaleratis prætulimus palescedis."
"But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer smallpamphletsto war horses."
This word is as old as Lydgate's time: among his works, quoted by Warton, is a poem "translated from apamfletein Frenshe."
Myles Davies has given an opinion of the advantages of Little Books, with some humour.
"The smallness of the size of a book was always its own commendation; as, on the contrary, the largeness of a book is its own disadvantage, as well as the terror of learning. In short, a big book is a scare-crow to the head and pocket of the author, student, buyer, and seller, as well as a harbour of ignorance; hence the inaccessible masteries of the inexpugnable ignorance and superstition of the ancient heathens, degenerate Jews, and of the popish scholasters and canonists,entrenched under the frightful bulk of huge, vast, and innumerable volumes; such as the great folio that the Jewish rabbins fancied in a dream was given by the angel Raziel to his pupil Adam, containing all the celestial sciences. And the volumes writ by Zoroaster, entitled The Similitude, which is said to have taken up no more space than 1260 hides of cattle: as also the 25,000, or, as some say, 36,000 volumes, besides 525 lesser MSS. of his. The grossness and multitude of Aristotle and Varro's books were both a prejudice to the authors, and an hindrance to learning, and an occasion of the greatest part of them being lost. The largeness of Plutarch's treatises is a great cause of his being neglected, while Longinus and Epictetus, in their pamphlet Remains, are every one's companions. Origen's 6000 volumes (as Epiphanius will have it) were not only the occasion of his venting more numerous errors, but also for the most part of their perdition.—Were it not for Euclid's Elements, Hippocrates' Aphorisms, Justinian's Institutes, and Littleton's Tenures, in small pamphlet volumes, young mathematicians, fresh-water physicians, civilian novices, andles apprentices en la ley d'Angleterre, would be at a loss and stand, and total disencouragement. One of the greatest advantages theDispensaryhas overKing Arthuris its pamphlet size. So Boileau's Lutrin, and his other pamphlet poems, in respect of Perrault's and Chapelain's St. Paulin and la Pucelle.Theseseem to pay a deference to the reader's quick and great understanding;thoseto mistrust his capacity, and to confine his time as well as his intellect."
Notwithstanding so much may be alleged in favour of books of a small size, yet the scholars of a former age regarded them with contempt. Scaliger, says Baillet, cavils with Drusius for the smallness of his books; and one of the great printers of the time (Moret, the successor of Plantin) complaining to the learned Puteanus, who was considered as the rival of Lipsius, that his books were too small for sale, and that purchasers turned away, frightened at their diminutive size; Puteanus referred him to Plutarch, whose works consist of small treatises; but the printer took fire at the comparison, and turned him out of his shop, for his vanity at pretending that he wrote in any manner like Plutarch! a specimen this of the politeness and reverence of the early printers for their learned authors; Jurieu reproaches Calomiès that he isa great author of little books!
At least, if a man is the author only of little books, he will escape the sarcastic observation of Cicero on a voluminous writer—that "his body might be burned with his writings," of which we have had several, eminent for the worthlessness and magnitude of their labours.
It was the literary humour of a certain Mæcenas, who cheered the lustre of his patronage with the steams of a good dinner, to place his guests according to the size and thickness of the books they had printed. At the head of the table sat those who had published infolio, foliissimo; next the authors inquarto; then those inoctavo. At that table Blackmore would have had the precedence of Gray. Addison, who found this anecdote in one of the Anas, has seized this idea, and applied it with his felicity of humour in No. 529 of the Spectator.
Montaigne's Works have been called by a Cardinal, "The Breviary of Idlers." It is therefore the book for many men. Francis Osborne has a ludicrous image in favour of such opuscula. "Huge volumes, like the ox roasted whole at Bartholomew fair, may proclaim plenty of labour, but afford less of what isdelicate,savoury, andwell-concocted, than SMALLER PIECES."
In the list of titles of minor works, which Aulus Gellius has preserved, the lightness and beauty of such compositions are charmingly expressed. Among these we find—a Basket of Flowers; an Embroidered Mantle; and a Variegated Meadow.