"How fair and fresh is morn!The dewbeads dropping brightEach humble flower adorn,With coronets bedight,And jewel the rough thornWith tiny globes of light,—How beautiful is morn!Her scattered gems how bright!"
"How fair and fresh is morn!The dewbeads dropping brightEach humble flower adorn,With coronets bedight,And jewel the rough thornWith tiny globes of light,—How beautiful is morn!Her scattered gems how bright!"
There,—isn't that charming? he said,—little aware of whom he asked the amiable query. But when I went on with the second verse, he opened his eyes wider and wider as I added:
"There is a quiet gladnessOn the waking earth,Like the face of sadnessLit with chastened mirth;There is a mine of treasureIn those hours of health,Filling up the measureOf creation's wealth!"
"There is a quiet gladnessOn the waking earth,Like the face of sadnessLit with chastened mirth;There is a mine of treasureIn those hours of health,Filling up the measureOf creation's wealth!"
Of course, discovery of the author was unavoidable: so we collided and coalesced, and I rejoiced to find in this "Angel unaware" no less a celebrity than John Hughes of Donnington Priory, father of the still greater celebrity (then a youth) Tom Hughes of Rugby and "Tom Brown's Schooldays." Some time after I spent several pleasant days at his fine old place in Berks, and made happy acquaintance with the brightest old lady I ever met, his mother, who had known Burns and Byron and Scott; as also with his pleasant good wife and her clever sons, one of whom, in the ripeness of time, married a then charming little girl, the heiress-ward of my host, and since well appreciated in society as agrande dame; wife also to one famous for a Rugbyin both hemispheres, for rifledom, the White Horse of Wilts, and now full-fledged county judgeship. These excellent friendships survive many long years and will be transplanted elsewhere hereafter. All this grew from a casual encounter outside a coach: but such is life; what we call accidents are all providences, and we are guided inch by inch and minute by minute. Tom Hughes succeeded as a county judge in Yorkshire my old schoolfellow, St. John Yates, mentioned on a recent page in connection with Andrew Irvine's turkeycock irascibility.
"Watch little providences: if indeedOr less there be, or greater, in the sightOf Him who governs all by day and night,And sees the forest hidden in the seed:Of all that happens take thou reverent heed,For seen in true Religion's happier light(Though not unknown of Reason's placid creed)All things are ordered; all by orbits move,Having precursors, satellites, and signs,Whereby the mind not doubtfully divinesWhat is the will of Him who rules above,And takes for guidance those paternal hintsThat all is well, that thou art led by Love,And in thy travel trackest old footprints."
"Watch little providences: if indeedOr less there be, or greater, in the sightOf Him who governs all by day and night,And sees the forest hidden in the seed:Of all that happens take thou reverent heed,For seen in true Religion's happier light(Though not unknown of Reason's placid creed)All things are ordered; all by orbits move,Having precursors, satellites, and signs,Whereby the mind not doubtfully divinesWhat is the will of Him who rules above,And takes for guidance those paternal hintsThat all is well, that thou art led by Love,And in thy travel trackest old footprints."
And this may well be a fitting place wherein to record the origin, progress, and after long years the full completion of what is manifestly my chief authorial work in life, "Proverbial Philosophy." To ensure accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentimes unfaithful memory, I will give a few extracts from "a brief account" of the book, set down in 1838, at the beginning of Volume I. of "My Literary Heirloom," now grown to many volumes, containing newspaper cuttings, anecdotes, and letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works.
"In the year 1828, when under Mr. Holt's roof at Albury (anno ætatis meæ 18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the 'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,—successively, in the Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on Education: several other pieces growing afterwards. Whilst at Albury, my cousin showed some of these to our rector,Hugh M'Neile, who warmly praised them, and recommended their publication; but, regarding them as private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine years before they saw print; thus literally, though I meant it not then, exemplifying the Horatian advice, 'nonumque premantur in annum.' However, one day in August 1838, Mr. Stebbing, whose chapel, in the Hampstead Road I used to attend when living at Gothic Cottage, Regent's Park, in my first years of marriage, visiting me and urging me to write something for theAthenæum, which he was then editing, I was induced to show him these earliest essays; but I declined togivethem to him, whereat he was angered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to piecemeal publication, possibly also casting some reproach (as the fashion of the day then was) upon magazine and journalistic literature generally. That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful little notice in theAthenæumof April 21st (three months after my first series was published) stating that it was 'a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's.' The same false friend excluded me altogether from any notice in theExaminerwherein he had some literary influence." To this day these reviews have been my foes, which I regret.
"Still, Mr. Stebbing did me substantial good; he praised the idea as 'new, because a resuscitation of what was very old,'—and as of my own origination in these latter days, and as a good vehicle for thoughts on many matters: and he promised his valuable assistance to a young author's fame,—performing as above. So, after a last interview with him at his house, wherein I conclusively refused him, I wrote my Preface at once,jotting down (as I recollect at the street corner post opposite Hampstead Road Chapel) on the back of an old letter my opening paragraph,—
"'Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner chambers,' &c., &c.
"In ten weeks from that day I had my first series ready,—supposing it then all I should ever write;—the same assurance of a final end having been my delusion at the close of each of my four series. My first publisher was Rickerby of Abchurch Lane, who produced a beautifully printed small folio volume with ornamental initials, and now very scarce: it came to a second edition, but brought me no money,—and the third edition failing to sell, it was in great part sent to America; where N. P. Willis finding a copy, fancied the book that of some forgotten author of the Elizabethan era, and quoted it week after week in a periodical of his,The Home Journal, as such: years afterwards, when he met me in London, he was scared to find that one whom he had thought dead three hundred years was still alive and juvenile and ruddy.
"It might be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St. John particularly favoured me,—the latter prophesying a tenth edition: but I must still condescend to pick out at the end of this paper a few of the plums of praise wherewith my early publication was indulged, if only to please the numerous admirers of my chief 'lifework.' One comfort is that no one of my reviewers all my life through has ever been bought or rewarded. As to theless fulsome style of criticism, I was supposed by theSpectatorto have 'written in hexameters,'—as if David or Solomon had ever imitated Homer or some more ancient predecessor of his; and theSunfancied that I had 'culled from Erasmus, Bacon, Franklin, and Saavedra,' whereas I was totally ignorant of their wisdoms: Saavedra I have since learned is Cervantes. TheSunday Timesfinds 'Proverbial Philosophy' 'very like Dodsley's "Economy of Human Life,"' but I may say I never saw that neat little book of maxims till my brother Dan gave it to me fourteen years after my Philosophy was public property; I am also by this critic supposed to have 'imitated the Gulistan or Bostan of Saadi,'—whereof I need not profess my total ignorance: however, the writer kindly says of me, 'if he fail to make himself heard, the fault will be rather in the public than in him.' TheMetropolitanpropounds that 'a book like this would make a man's fortune in the East, but we are afraid that philosophy in proverbs has no great chance in the West: we should recommend the author to get it translated into Arabic.'" [I have since heard that some of it has been.] Let this be enough as to those first fruits of criticism, which might be extended to satiety; but I decline to become "inebriated with the exuberance of my own verbosity," as Beaconsfield has it about Gladstone.
To carry on the story of my old book, its second series was due to Harrison Ainsworth, at all events instrumentally. For, just as he was establishing his special magazine, he asked me to help him with a contribution in the style of that then new popularity, my Proverbs. This I sturdily declined; for in my young days, it was thought ungentlemanlike to write inmagazines, though dukes, archbishops, and premiers do so now: even authorship for money was thought vulgar: but, when there greeted me at home a parcel of well-bound books as a gift from the author, being all that were then extant of Ainsworth's, I was so taken aback by his kindly munificence that I somewhat penitentially responded thereto by an impromptu chapter on "Gifts," wherewith I made the quarrel up and he was delighted: one or two others following. However, I was too quick and too impatient to wait for piecemeal publication month by month,—seeing I soon had my second series ready: and so, leaving Rickerby as an unfruitful publisher (though, as will soon appear, he produced other books for me) I went to Hatchards; with whom I had a long and prosperous career—receiving annually from £500 to £800 a year, and in the aggregate having benefited both them and myself—for we shared equally—by something like, £10,000 a piece. But in the course of time, the old grandfather and the father of the house, excellent men both, went severally to the Better Land, and I had published other books elsewhere, as will be seen, anon: and, amongst other things, Mr. Bertrand Payne, who represented the respectable poetic house of Moxon, desired to include me in his Beauties of the Poets, and in order to that, having previously obtained license both from me and Messrs. Hall & Virtue to select specimens of my lyrics for his volume, asked me to let him add a few bits of Proverbial; to this I willingly assented, but found myself repulsed by the temporary chief at Hatchards'—lately a subordinate—with a direct refusal to permit any portion of my book, of which they had a three years' lease then nearly out, to be included in the specimen volume until, the wholeremainder copies were sold off. Mr. Payne on that immediately bought all they had, writing a cheque of £900 in payment down,—whereof I got one-half, as I should have done if sold at Hatchards'. I then of course went equitably over to Moxon's,—and not long after published my third series with that house, at Mr. Payne's suggestion and solicitation: it was not a financial success, any more than others in that quarter; but I was paid by having my later thoughts on topics of the day so handsomely published at no cost of mine. The house of Moxon having its reverses,—and a fourth and final series of "Proverbial Philosophy" having grown up meanwhile, I concluded to go to Ward & Lock, that my four series might for wider circulation be all included in one cheap volume, beautifully got up, and with them I have since had some small success: for though the royalty is only about a penny a volume, the numbers licensed have been an edition of 20,000 succeeded in the course of years by another of 30,000; and I still leave the book with them so far as that cheap issue is concerned.
As, however, I desired to meet the wish of many friends and others of the public who often asked for a handsomer form, suggesting a reproduction of Hatchards' quarto, with additional illustrations for the new matter, I applied to Cassell, and made arrangements to have the whole four series issued piecemeal in weekly or monthly parts, so as to meet (as Cassell's manager suggested) a certain demand from the middle and artisan class; seeing that the aristocracy and gentry had bought the whole volume so freely, but sixpenny parts in a wider field might bring on a new sale. I did not then know that Cassell's had numerous serials already onhand, and that many of them were unremunerative; and so I was a little surprised and vexed to find that my book was after all to appear as a whole and not in numbers, and that at a higher price, half-a-guinea, in these cheap times quite prohibitive, I protested vainly as to this; as I did also at the unsatisfactory character of the illustrations to the third and fourth series, promised to be equal to Hatchards' first and second, which had cost £2000: but Cassell's additions were cheaply and insufficiently supplied by old German plates, adapted as much as might be to my words for illustration. This manifest inferiority of the last half of the volume, as well as its too great price, stopped the sale,—and after a time with a high hand all the copies were sold off by auction, to the loss of both publisher and author. As I had supplied gratis the plates of Hatchards' edition, buying up the half not mine and giving the other, I found myself thus mulcted in a large sum, for which I have only to show in return about a hundredweight of wood-blocks and stereotypes:—which may be bought by any publisher at bargain price. Altogether the whole affair was unsatisfactory and disappointing. Individuals may be genial, honest, and considerate, but a company or a partnership simply looks to the hardest bargain in the shrewdest way. Of all this I'll complain, vainly enough, no more.
In their several places, many anecdotes about "Proverbial Philosophy" shall duly appear: I may mention one or two now, as timely. When that good old man, Grandfather Hatchard, more than an octogenarian, first saw me, he placed his hand on my dark hair and said with tears in his eyes, "You will thank God for this book when your head comes to be as white as mine." Letme gratefully acknowledge that he was a true prophet. When I was writing the concluding essay of the first series, my father (not quite such a prophet as old Hatchard) exhorted me to burn it, as his ambition was to make a lawyer of me, the Church idea having failed from my stammering, and he had very little confidence, as a man of the world, in poetry bringing fortune. However, it did not get burnt, though I had some difficulty in persuading him to let me get it printed instead. The dear good man lived to bless me for it, especially for my essay on Immortality, which I know affected him seriously, and he gave me £2000 as a gift in consequence.
As I may have been only too faithfully frank in mentioning this curious literary anecdote,—which, as known to others, I could scarcely have suppressed,—it is only fair to the memory of my dear and honoured father that I should here produce one of his very few letters to me, just found among my archives and bearing upon this same subject. It was written to me at Brighton, and is dated Laura House, Southampton, October 16, 1842:—
"My dearest Martin,—Anything that I could say, or any praise that I could give respecting your last volume would, in my estimation, fall very far short indeed of its merits. I shall therefore merely say that I look upon your chapter upon Immortality, not only as a most exquisite specimen of fine, sound, and learned composition, but as combating in the most satisfactory manner thewisdomof infidelity, almost perfect. I only hope that you may receive the just tribute of the literary community: your own feelings as the author of that chapter must be very enviable. God bless you, dearest, dearest Martin.—Believe me, ever your affectionate father and sincere friend,Martin Tupper."
"My dearest Martin,—Anything that I could say, or any praise that I could give respecting your last volume would, in my estimation, fall very far short indeed of its merits. I shall therefore merely say that I look upon your chapter upon Immortality, not only as a most exquisite specimen of fine, sound, and learned composition, but as combating in the most satisfactory manner thewisdomof infidelity, almost perfect. I only hope that you may receive the just tribute of the literary community: your own feelings as the author of that chapter must be very enviable. God bless you, dearest, dearest Martin.—Believe me, ever your affectionate father and sincere friend,
Martin Tupper."
I need not say that these are "ipsissima verba," and that I here insert the letter in full, as the warmest and most honourable palinode I could have received from a man so usually reserved and reticent as was my revered and excellent father.
The brother of my friend Benjamin Nightingale (to be more spoken of hereafter) was so fascinated with the book that he copied it all out in his own handwriting, word for word, and was jocularly accused of pretending to its authorship. I once met an enthusiast who knew both the two first series by heart,—and certainly he went on wherever I tried to pose him from the open volume,—my own memory being far less faithful. Similarly my more recent friend William Hawkes claims to have read the whole book sixty times; whereof this impromptu of mine is a sort of half proof:—
Impromptu."Sixty times, you tell me, friend,You've read my books from end to end.Perhaps not all my myriad rhymes,But all my rhythmics sixty times.Yes, friend, for I have heard you quoteMy old Proverbials by rotePage after page, and anywhereHave heard you spout them then and there,Though I myself had quite forgotWhat I had writ, and you had not."Well, author surely never moreWas complimented so before;For though I knew in years long pastAn amiable enthusiast,Who copied out in his MS.My whole Proverbial, as for press,Until he half believed that heWas the real Simon M. F. T.,—Yet thou, my worthy William Hawkes,Hast beaten Nightingale by chalks,—And, years ago, your friends for fameHave given you Martin Tapper's name,Because you constantly were heardQuoting Proverbial word for word!So then, by heart, as by the pen,'I live upon the mouths of men,'Ev'n as Ennius lived of old,A life worth more than gems or gold."
Impromptu.
"Sixty times, you tell me, friend,You've read my books from end to end.Perhaps not all my myriad rhymes,But all my rhythmics sixty times.Yes, friend, for I have heard you quoteMy old Proverbials by rotePage after page, and anywhereHave heard you spout them then and there,Though I myself had quite forgotWhat I had writ, and you had not.
"Well, author surely never moreWas complimented so before;For though I knew in years long pastAn amiable enthusiast,Who copied out in his MS.My whole Proverbial, as for press,Until he half believed that heWas the real Simon M. F. T.,—Yet thou, my worthy William Hawkes,Hast beaten Nightingale by chalks,—And, years ago, your friends for fameHave given you Martin Tapper's name,Because you constantly were heardQuoting Proverbial word for word!So then, by heart, as by the pen,'I live upon the mouths of men,'Ev'n as Ennius lived of old,A life worth more than gems or gold."
Two more strange anecdotes may here find their place (others will occur elsewhere in this volume hereafter) respecting "Proverbial Philosophy." Joseph Durham, the sculptor, a great friend of mine, had been known to me for some years, and one day he gave me a curious little book, very ancient and dingy-looking, entitled "Politeuphuia, Wits' Commonwealth: London, 1667;" with this explanation, that he had picked it up at an old bookstall, and, finding it was written somewhat in proverbs gave it to me, adding, in his shrewd way, the humorous fancy that (until he had read it and couldn't discover a line or thought of exact similarity) possibly he might have checkmated me by showing me the mine from which I had dug my wisdoms! As I have before me a memorandum pasted into the booklet itself (it is a minute duodecimo) I will here quote exactly what I wrote in it at the time: the date being Albury House, May 24, 1865:—
"This little book has just been given to me by Durham; it is very scarce, so much so that the British Museum, he says, does not possess a copy; probably there are not six in the world. I never saw it, nor heardof it till now; just twenty-nine years after the publication of my Proverbial Philosophy. It is a curious coincidence that the headings of this Wits' Miscellany are similar to my own; as Of so and so throughout; I first wrote On so and so; but did not like the sound, and remembering it would be De in Latin, altered it to Of. The treatment also of the subjects has some apparent similitude; but in looking all through the book, it is strange that not one line, not one phrase, is the same as any of mine. Travelling on the same road, and in somewhat of the same proverbial rhythm, this is very curious; whilst it certainly acquits me of even unintended and unconscious plagiarism. The headings begin of God, of Heaven, of Angels, &c.,—and then of vertue, of peace, of truth, &c., and afterwards of love, of jealousie, of hate, of beauty, of flattery, &c., &c.,—all being aphoristic quotations from ancient authors. As before stated, the whole was unseen by me until nearly thirty years after I had published my independent essays on the same theses much in a similar key."
This is a parallel case to the recent statement in a printed book with characteristic illustrations respecting the non-originality of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; and Milton's Paradise Lost has been similarly disparaged, Mr. Plummer Ward having written and shown to me a pamphlet by himself to prove that some Italian poem seen by Milton in youth preceded him on the same lines;—while Mr. Geikie quotes from the Anglo-Saxon Cædmon papers nearly identical with some in Paradise Lost. But there is no end to assertions of this sort, impugning authorial honesty and originality: when authors write on the same topics and with much the same stock of words and ideas both religious and educational,it is only a marvel that the thoughts and writings of men do not oftener collide, and seem to be plagiaristic reproductions. I have spoken of all this at length, that if any one hereafter finds this "Politeuphuia" in the British Museum (which is welcome to have my copy if it lacks one), and years hence accuses my innocence of having stolen from it, he may know that I have thus taken the bull by the horns and twisted him over.
The last anecdote I shall now inflict upon my reader in this connection is as follows:—
One James Orton, an American gentleman whom I have never seen that I know of (unless by possibility in some one of the crowds met anonymously, before whom I may have read in public) was kind enough many years ago to publish a beautifully printed and illustrated volume "The Proverbialist and the Poet," whereof he sent me two copies; but lacking his address, probably with the delicate object of preventing an acknowledgment; and I am almost ashamed to state that his whole book in different inks combines the threefold wisdoms of King Solomon, William Shakespeare, and Martin Tupper; the title-page being decorated in colours with views of the Temple, Stratford-on-Avon, and Albury House! If I ventured to quote the Preface, it would beat even this as the climax of fulsome flattery, and I think that my friends of the Comic Press who have done me so much service by keeping up my shuttlecock with their battledores, and so much honour by placing me prominently among the defamed worthies of the world, would in their charity (for they have some) pity the victim of such excruciating praise, if he failed hereby to repudiate it.
Not but that poor human nature delights in adulation.I well remember the joy wherewith I first greeted the following from a Cincinnati paper; so hearty too, and generous, and obviously sincere.
"The author of this book will rank, we are free to say, with the very first spirits of the British world. It will live, in our judgment, as long as the English language, and be a text-book of wisdom to the young of all generations of America and England both. We would rather be the author of it, than hold any civil or ecclesiastical office in the globe. We would rather leave it as a legacy to our children, than the richest estate ever owned by man. From our heart we thank the young author for this precious gift, and, could our voice reach him, would pronounce a shower of heartfelt blessings on his soul. When we began to read it with our editorial pencil in hand, we undertook to mark its beautiful passages, should we find any worthy of distinction; but, having read to our satisfaction—indeed to our amazement—we throw down the pencil, and, had we as much space as admiration, we would quote the whole of it. It is one solid, sparkling, priceless gem."
I may as well add a few more such extracts, as strictly within the text of "My Lifework."
"The author of 'Proverbial Philosophy' is a writer in whom beautiful extremes meet,—the richness of the Orient, and the strength of the Occident—the stern virtue of the North and the passion of the South. At times his genius seems to possess creative power, and to open to our gaze things new and glorious, of which we have never dreamed; then again it seems like sunlight, its province not to create, but to vivify and glorify what before was within and around us. Aspirations, fancies, beliefs we have long folded in our hearts as dear andsacred things, yet never had the power or the courage to reveal, bloom out as naturally in his pages as wild flowers when the blossoming time is come. We are not so much struck by the grandeur of his conceptions, or fascinated by the elegance of his diction, as warmed, ennobled, and delighted by the glow of his enthusiasm, the purity of his principles, and the continuous gushing forth of his tenderness. His words form an electric chain, along which he sends his own soul, thrilling around the wide circle of his readers."—N. P. Willis'sHome Journal.
"Perhaps no writer has attracted a greater degree of public attention, or received a larger share of public praise, during the last few years, than Martin F. Tupper,—a man of whom England may well be proud, and whose name will eventually be one of the very noblest on the scroll of fame."—American Courier.
"Everybody knows the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of Martin Tupper; a million and a half of copies—so, publishers say—have been sold in America."—New York World.
"Full of genius, rich in thought, admirable in its religious tone and beautiful language."—Cincinnati Atlas.
"'Apples of gold set in pictures of silver' is the most apposite apophthegm we can apply to the entire work. We have rarely met a volume so grateful to the taste in all its parts, so rich in its simplicity, so unique in its arrangements, and so perfect in all that constitutes the perfection of style, as the volume before us. It must live like immortal seed, to produce a continual harvest of profitable reflection."—(Philadelphian)Episcopal Recorder.
"No one can glance at this work without perceiving that it is produced by the inspiration of genius. Itis full of glorious thoughts, each of which might be expanded into a treatise."—Albany Atlas.
"We cannot express the intense interest and delight with which we have perused 'Proverbial Philosophy.'"—Oberlin's Evangelist.
"The 'Proverbial Philosophy' has struck with almost miraculous force and effect upon the minds and hearts of a large class of American readers, and has at once rendered its author's name and character famous and familiar in our country. It abounds in gems and apt allusions, which display without an effort the deep practical views and the æsthetical culture of the author."—Southern Literary Messenger.
Let all this suffice for America: a few from this side of the Atlantic may be added:—
"Were we to say all we think of the nobleness of the thoughts, of the beauty and virtuousness of the sentiments contained in this volume, we should be constrained to write a lengthened eulogium on it."—Morning Post.
"Martin Farquhar Tupper has won for himself the vacant throne waiting for him amidst the immortals, and after a long and glorious term of popularity among those who know when their hearts are touched, without being able to justify their taste to their intellect, has been adopted by the suffrage of mankind and the final decree of publishers into the same rank with Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning."—Spectator.
"It is a book easily understood, and repaying the reader on every page with sentiments true to experience, and expressed often with surprising beauty."—Presbyterian.
"One of the most thoughtful, brilliant, and finished productions of the age."—Banner of the Cross.
"For poetic imagery, for brightness of thought, for clear and striking views of all the interests and conditions of man, this work has been pronounced by the English and American press as unequalled."—Literary Messenger.
"The principal work of Martin Farquhar Tupper, 'Proverbial Philosophy,' is instinct with the spirit of genial hopeful love: and to this mainly should be attributed the vast amount of sympathetic admiration it has attracted, not only in this country, but also in the United States."—English Review.
"We congratulate ourselves, for the sake of our land's language, on this noble addition to her stock of what Dr. Johnson justly esteems 'the highest order of learning.' If Mr. Tupper be not the high priest of his profession, he is at least no undignified minister of the altar. The spirit of a noble hope animates the exercise of his high function."—Parthenon.
"We know not whether Mr. Tupper, when he was pouring forth the contents of these glorious volumes, intended to write prose or poetry; but if his object was the former, his end has not been accomplished. 'Proverbial Philosophy' is poetry assuredly; poetry exquisite, almost beyond the bounds of fancy to conceive, brimmed with noble thoughts, and studded with heavenward aspirations."—Church of England Journal.
"The 'Proverbial Philosophy,' which first established Mr. Tupper's reputation, is a work of standard excellence. It has met with unprecedented success, and many large editions of it have been sold. It led to the author's being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and the King of Prussia, in token of his Majesty's highapprobation of the work, sent him the gold medal for science and literature."—Glasgow Examiner.
"This book is like a collection of miniature paintings on ivory, small, beautiful, highly finished, and heterogeneous: in style something between prose and verse; not so rigid as to fetter the thought, not so free as to exclude absolute distinctness, with the turn and phrase of poetry."—Christian Remembrancer.
"There is more novelty in the sentiments, a greater sweep of subjects, and a finer sense of moral beauty displayed by Mr. Tupper, than we remember to have seen in any work of its class, excepting of course the 'Proverbs of Solomon.' We also discover in his 'Philosophy' the stores of extensive reading, and the indisputable proofs of habitual and devout reflection, as well as the workings of an elegant mind."—Monthly Review.
"Have we not now done enough to show that a poet of power and of promise,—a poet and philosopher both—is amongst us to delight and instruct, to elevate and to guide."—Conservative Journal.
"This work glows and glitters all over with the effluence and lustre of a fine imagination, and is steeped in the rich hues and pervading beauty of a mild wisdom, and a genial and kindly morality."—Scots Times.
"The 'Proverbial Philosophy' contains much sound reflection, moral and religious maxims of the highest importance, elegant figures and allusions, sound and serious observations of life,—all expressed in most appropriate and well-selected language."—Gentleman's Magazine.
"One of the most original and curious productions of our time."—Atlas.
"A book as full of sweetness as a honeycomb, of gentleness as woman's heart; in its wisdom worthythe disciple of a Solomon, in its genius the child of a Milton. Every page, nay almost every line, teems with evidences of profound thinking and various reading, and the pictures it often presents to our mind are the most imaginative and beautiful that can possibly be conceived."—Court Journal.
"If men delight to read Tupper both in England and America, why should they not study him both in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth? The judgment of persons who are more or less free from insular prejudices is said in some degree to anticipate that which is admitted to be the conclusive verdict of posterity."—Saturday Review.
"The popularity of the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of Martin Tupper is a gratifying and healthy symptom of the present taste in literature, the book being full of lessons of wisdom and piety, conveyed in a style startling at first by its novelty, but irresistibly pleasing by its earnestness and eloquence."—Literary Gazette.
"Mr. Mill, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Browning, Mr. Morris, Mr. Rossetti—all these writers have a wider audience in America than in England. So too has Mr. Tupper. The imagination staggers in attempting to realise the number of copies of his works which have been published abroad. Unlike most of his contemporaries, further, he has conquered popularity in both hemispheres. He has won the suffrages of two great nations. He may now disregard criticism."—Daily News.
This sonnet, written and published in 1837, nearly half a century ago, explains itself and may fairly come in here as a protest and prophecy by a then young author. And,nota bene, if hyper-criticism objects thata sonnet must always be a fourteen-liner (this being one only of twelve) I reply that it is sometimes of sixteen, as in the one by Dante to Madonna, which I have translated in my "Modern Pyramid:" and there are instances of twelve, as one at least of Shakespeare's in his Passionate Pilgrim. But this is a small technicality.
To my Book "Proverbial Philosophy," before Publication."My soul's own son, dear image of my mind,I would not without blessing send thee forthInto the bleak wide world, whose voice unkindPerchance will mock at thee as nothing worth;For the cold critic's jealous eye may findIn all thy purposed good little but ill,May taunt thy simple garb as quaintly wrought,And praise thee for no more than the small skillOf masquing as thine own another's thought:What then? count envious sneers as less than nought:Fair is thine aim,—and having done thy best,So, thus I bless thee; yea, thou shalt be blest!"
To my Book "Proverbial Philosophy," before Publication.
"My soul's own son, dear image of my mind,I would not without blessing send thee forthInto the bleak wide world, whose voice unkindPerchance will mock at thee as nothing worth;For the cold critic's jealous eye may findIn all thy purposed good little but ill,May taunt thy simple garb as quaintly wrought,And praise thee for no more than the small skillOf masquing as thine own another's thought:What then? count envious sneers as less than nought:Fair is thine aim,—and having done thy best,So, thus I bless thee; yea, thou shalt be blest!"
There were also two others afterward, in the jubilate vein; but I spare my reader, albeit they are curiously prophetic of the wide good-doing since accomplished.
To the above numerous commendations which indeed might be indefinitely extended, it is only fair to add that "Proverbial Philosophy" has run the gauntlet of both hemispheres also in the way of parody, ridicule, plagiaristic imitation, and in some instances of envious and malignant condemnation. It has won on each side both praise from the good and censure from the bad: our comic papers have amused us with its travesties—as Church Liturgies and Holy Writ have been similarly parodied,—and some of the modern writers who are unfriendly to Christian influences have donetheir small endeavour to damage both the book and its author through adverse criticism. But their efforts are vain. They have availed only to advance—from first to last now for some forty-five years—the world-wide success of "Proverbial Philosophy."
If it is expected, as a matter of impartiality, that I should here print adverse criticisms as well as those which are favourable, I simply decline to be so foolish: a caricature impresses where a portrait is forgotten: thelitera scriptain printer's ink remains and is quotable for ever, and I do not think it worth while deliberately to traduce myself and my book children by adopting the opinions of dyspeptic scribes who will find how well I think of them in my Proverbial Essay "Zoilism;" which, by the way, I read at St. Andrews, before some chiefs of that university, with A. K. H. B. in the chair.
Accordingly, I prefer now to appear one-sided, as a piece of common sense; quite indifferent to the charge of vain-gloriousness; all the good verdicts quoted are genuine, absolutely unpaid and unrewarded, and are matters of sincere and skilled opinion; so being such I prize them: the opposing judgments—much fewer, and far less hearty, as "willing to wound and yet afraid to strike"—may as well perish out of memory by being ignored and neglected. Here is a social anecdote to illustrate what I mean. I once knew a foolish young nobleman of the highest rank who—to spite his younger brother as he fancied—posted him up in his club for having called him "a maggot;" and all he got for his pains in this exposure was that the name stuck to himself for life! so it is not necessary to borrow fame's trumpet to proclaim one's few dispraises.
Moreover, I have thought it only just to the many unseen lovers of "Proverbial Philosophy" to show them how heartily their good opinions have been countersigned and sanctioned all over the English-speaking world by critics of many schools and almost all denominations. It is not then from personal vanity that so much laudation is exhibited [God wot, I have reason to denounce and renounce self-seeking]—but rather to gratify and corroborate innumerable book friends.
If there had been International Copyright in the more halcyon days of my "Proverbial" popularity, when, as reported (see theNew York Worldon p. 124), a million and a half copies of my book were consumed in America, I should have been materially rewarded by a royalty of something like a hundred thousand pounds: but the bare fact is that all I have ever received from my Transatlantic booksellers in the way of money has been some £80 (three thousand dollars) which Herman Hooker of Philadelphia gave me for the exclusive privilege—so far as I could grant it—of being my publisher. For aught else, I have nothing to complain of in the way of praise, however profitless, of kindliness, however well appreciated, and of boundless hospitality, however fairly reimbursed at the time by the valuable presence of a foreign celebrity. No doubt the public are benefited by the cheapness of books unprotected by copyright, and the author, if he wins no royalty, gains by fame and pleasure; but the absence of a copyright law is a great mistake,—as well as an injustice to the authorship of both nations, by starving the literature of each other, American publishers will not sufficiently pay their own native bookwrights when they can appropriate theirneighbours' works for nothing; and ours in England probably enriched themselves as vastly and cheaply by Mrs. Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as many among the thirty-three States by "Proverbial Philosophy."
As my handsome quarto "Proverbial" has been for two generations a common gift-book for weddings, and has more than once appeared among the gifts at royal marriages, it is small wonder that I have often been greeted by old—and young—married couples as having been a sort of spiritual Cupid on such occasions. Frequently at my readings and elsewhere ladies thitherto unknown have claimed me as their unseen friend, and some have feelingly acknowledged that my Love and Marriage (both written in my teens) were the turning-points of their lives and causes of their happiness. These lines will meet the eyes of some who will acknowledge their truth, and possibly if they like it may write and tell me so: some of my warmest friendships have originated in grateful letters of a similar character.
It may also be worthy of mention that on this side of the Atlantic as well as on the other (see especially the case of N. P. Willis) it has often been taken for granted that the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" has been dead for generations. No doubt this is due both to the antique style of the book and to the retiring habits of its author: comparatively few of my readers know me by sight. I could mention many proofs of this belief in my non-existence: here is one; a daughter of mine is asked lately by an eminent person if she is a descendant of the celebrated Elizabethan author? and when that individual in passing round the room came near to the Professor, and was introduced to him as her father,the man could scarcely be brought to believe that his long-departed book friend was positively alive before him. The Professor looked as if he had seen a ghost.
Throughout this volume I wish my courteous readers to bear in mind that the writer excludes from it as much as possible the strictly private and personal element; it is intended to be mainly authorial or on matters therewith connected. Moreover, if they will considerately take into account that as a youth and until middle age I was, from the speech-impediment since overcome, isolated from the gaieties of society, as also that I religiously abstained from theatricals at a time before Macready, who has since purified them into a very fair school of morals,—to say less of having been engaged in marriage from seventeen to twenty-five,—I can have (for example) no love adventures to offer for amusement, nor any dramatic anecdotes such as Ruskin might supply. The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is full of entertaining and highly coloured incidents which could not be possible to one rather of the Huguenot stamp than that of the Cavalier, and so I cannot compete therewith as to any of the spicier records of hot youth: for which indeed let me be thankful.
If then my reader finds me less lively than he had—shall I say uncharitably?—hoped for, let him take into account that, to quote the splendid but sensuous phrase of Swinburne, I have always been stupidly prone to prefer "the lilies and languors of virtue" to "the roses and raptures of vice."
I will now proceed with the self-imposed duty of recording my authorial performances.
In 1839, Rickerby was again my publisher; the new book being "A Modern Pyramid; to Commemorate a Septuagint of Worthies." In this volume, commencing with Abel, and ending with Felix Neff, I have greeted both in verse and prose threescore and ten of the Excellent of the earth. Probably the best thing in it is the "Vision Introductory;" and, as the book has been long out of print, I will produce it here as an interesting flight of fancy, albeit somewhat of a long one. If an author can be accounted a fair judge of his own writings, this is my best effort in the imaginative line; and as it is no new brain-child (we always love the last baby best), but was written little short of fifty years ago, the impartial opinion of an old judge is probably a correct one. The sun-dial is still in my garden,—and as I stood by it half a century since, there grew up to my mind's eye this Vision:—
"I was walking in my garden at noon: and I came to the sun-dial, where, shutting my book, I leaned upon the pedestal, musing; so the thin shadow pointed to twelve.
"Of a sudden, I felt a warm sweet breath upon my cheek, and, starting up, in much wonder beheld a face of the most bewitching beauty close beside me, gazingon the dial: it was only a face; and with earnest fear I leaned, steadfastly watching its strange loveliness. Soon, it looked into me with its fascinating eyes, and said mournfully, 'Dost thou not know me?'—but I was speechless with astonishment: then it said, 'Consider:'—with that, my mind rushed into me like a flood, and I looked, and considered, and speedily vague outlines shaped about, mingled with floating gossamers of colour, until I was aware that a glorious living Creature was growing to my knowledge.
"So I looked resolutely on her (for she wore the garb of woman), gazing still as she grew: and again she said mildly, 'Consider:'—then I noted that from her jewelled girdle upwards, all was gorgeous, glistening, and most beautiful; her white vest was rarely worked with living flowers, but brighter and sweeter than those of earth; flowing tresses, blacker than the shadows cast by the bursting of a meteor, and, like them, brilliantly interwoven with strings of light, fell in clusters on her fair bosom; her lips were curled with the expression of majestic triumph, yet wreathed winningly with flickering smiles; and the lustre of her terrible eyes, like suns flashing darkness, did bewilder me and blind my reason:—Then I veiled mine eyes with my clasped hands; but again she said, 'Consider:'—and bending all my mind to the hazard, I encountered with calmness their steady radiance, although they burned into my brain. Bound about her sable locks was as it were a chaplet of fire; her right hand held a double-edged sword of most strange workmanship, for the one edge was of keen steel, and the other as it were the strip of a peacock's feather; on the face of the air about her were phantoms of winged horses, and of racking-wheels: and from herglossy shoulders waved and quivered large dazzling wings of iridescent colours, most glorious to look upon.
"So grew she slowly to my knowledge; and as I stood gazing in a rapture, again she muttered sternly,—'Consider!'—Then I looked below the girdle upon her flowing robes: and behold they were of dismal hue, and on the changing surface fluttered fearful visions: I discerned blood-spots on them, and ghastly eyes glaring from the darker folds, and, when these rustled, were heard stifled meanings, and smothered shrieks as of horror: and I noted that she stood upon a wreath of lightnings, that darted about like a nest of young snakes in the midst of a sullen cloud, black, palpable, and rolling inwards as thick smoke from a furnace.
"Then said she again to me, 'Dost thou not know me?'—and I answered her,—'O Wonder, terrible in thy beauty, thy fairness have I seen in dreams, and have guessed with a trembling spirit that thou walkest among fears; are thou not that dread Power, whom the children of men have named Imagination?'—And she smiled sweetly upon me, saying, 'Yea, my son:' and her smile fell upon my heart like the sun on roses, till I grew bold in my love and said, 'O Wonder, I would learn of thee; show me some strange sight, that I may worship thy fair majesty in secret.'
"Then she stood like a goddess and a queen, and stretching forth her arm, white as the snow and glittering with circlets, slowly beckoned with her sword to the points of the dial. There was a distant rushing sound, and I saw white clouds afar off dropping suddenly and together from the blue firmament all round me in a circle: and they fell to the earth, and rolled onwards, fearfully converging to where I stood; and they cameon, on, on, like the galloping cavalry of heaven; pouring in on all sides as huge cataracts of foam; and shutting me out from the green social world with the awful curtains of the skies.—Then, as my heart was failing me for fear, and for looking at those inevitable strange oncomings, and the fixt eyes of my queenlike mistress, I sent reason from his throne on my brow to speak with it calmly, and took courage.
"So stood I alone with that dread beauty by the dial, and the white rolling wall of cloud came on slowly around with suppressed thunderings, and the island of earth on which I stood grew smaller and smaller every moment, and the garden-flowers faded away, and the familiar shrubs disappeared, until the moving bases of those cold mist-mountains were fixed at my very feet. Then said to me the glorious Power, standing in stature as a giant,—'Come! why tarriest thou? Come!'—and instantly there rushed up to us a huge golden throne of light filigree-work, borne upon seven pinions, whereof each was fledged above with feathers fair and white, but underneath they were ribbed batlike, and fringed with black down: and all around fluttered beautiful winged faces, mingled and disporting with grotesque figures and hideous imps. Then she mounted in her pomp the steps of the throne, and sat therein proudly. Again she said to me, 'Come!'—and I feared her, for her voice was terrible; so I threw myself down on the lowest of the seven golden steps, and the border of her dark robe touched me. Then was I full of dread, hemmed about with horrors, and the pinions rustled together, and we rushed upward like a flame, and the hurricane hastened after us: my heart was as a frozen autumn-leaf quivering in my bosom, and I lookedup for help and pity from the mighty Power on her throne; but she spurned me with her black-sandalled foot, and I was thrust from my dizzy seat, and in falling clutched at the silver net-work that lay upon the steps as a carpet,—and so I hung; my hands were stiffly crooked in the meshes like eagle's talons, my wrists were bursting, the bones of my body ached, and I heard the chill whisper of Death (who came flitting up to me as a sheeted ghost) bidding my poor heart be still: yet I would live on, I would cling on, though swinging fearfully from that up-rushing throne; for my mind was unsubdued, and my reason would not die, but rebelled against his mandate. And so the pinions flapped away, the dreadful cavalcade of clouds followed, we broke the waterspout, raced the whirlwind, hunted the thunder to his caverns, rushed through the light and wind-tost mountains of the snow, pierced with a crash the thick sea of ice, that like a globe of hollow glass separates earth and its atmosphere from superambient space, and flying forward through the airless void, lighted on another world.
"Then triumphed my reason, for I stood on that silent shore, fearless though alone, and boldly upbraided the dread Power that had brought me thither,—'Traitress, thou hast not conquered; my mind is still thy master, and if the weaker body failed me, it hath been filled with new energies in these quickening skies: I am immortal as thou art; yet shalt thou fear me, and heed my biddings: wherefore hast thou dared—?' but my wrathful eye looked on her bewitching beauty, and I had no tongue to chide, as she said in the sobriety of loveliness,—'My son, have I not answered thy prayer? yet but in part; behold, I have good store of preciousthings to show thee:' with that, she kissed my brow, and I fell into an ecstasy.
"I perceived that I was come to the kingdom of disembodied spirits, and they crowded around me as around some strange creature, clustering with earnest looks, perchance to inquire of me somewhat from the world I had just left. Although impalpable, and moving through each other, transparent and half-invisible, each wore the outward shape and seeming garments he had mostly been known by upon earth: and my reason whispered me, this is so, until the resurrection; the seen material form is the last idea which each one hath given to the world, but the glorified body of each shall be as diverse from this, yet being the same, as the gorgeous tulip from its brown bulb, the bird of paradise from his spotted egg, or the spreading beech from the hard nut that had imprisoned it.—Then Imagination stood with me as an equal friend, and spake to me soothingly, saying, 'Knowest thou any of these?'—and I answered, 'Millions upon millions, a widespread inundation of shadowy forms, from martyred Abel to the still-born babe of this hour I behold the gathered dead; millions upon millions, like the leaves of the western forests, like the blades of grass upon the prairie, they are here crowding innumerable: yet should my spirit know some among them, as having held sweet converse with their minds in books; only this boon, sweet mistress, from yonder mingled harvest of the dead, in grace cull me mine intimates, that I may see them even with my bodily eyes.' So she smiled, and waved her fair hand: and at once, a few, a very few, not all worthiest, not all best, came nearer to me with looks of love; and I knew them each one, for I had met andsomewhile walked with each of them in the paths of meditation; and some appeared less beatified than others, and some even meanly clad as in garments all of earth, yet I loved them more than the remainder of that crowded world, though not equally, nor yet all for merit, but in that I had sympathy with these as my friends. And each spake kindly to me in his tongue, so that I stood entranced by the language of the spirits. Then said my bright-winged guide, 'Hast thou no word for each of these? they love thy greeting, and would hear thee.' But I answered, 'Alas, beautiful Power, I know but the language of earth, and my heart is cold, and I am slow of tongue: how should I worthily address these great ones?'—So with her finger she touched my lips, and in an inspiration I spake the language of spirits, where the thoughts are as incense to the mind, and the words winged music to the ear, and the heart is dissolved into streams of joy, as hail that hath wandered to the tropics: in sweetness I communed with them all, and paid my debt of thanks.
"And behold, a strange thing, changing the aspect of my vision. It appeared to me, in that dreamy dimness, whereof the judgment inquireth not and reason hath no power to rebuke it, that while I was still speaking unto those great ones, the several greetings I had poured forth in my fervour,—being as it were flowing lava from the volcano of my heart,—became embodied into mighty cubes of crystal; and in the midst of each one severally flickered its spiritual song, like a soul, in characters of fire. So I looked in admiration on that fashioning of thoughts, and while I looked, behold, the shining masses did shape up, growing of themselves into a fair pyramid: and I saw that its eastern foot was shrouded in a mist,and the hither western foot stood out clear and well defined, and the topstone in the middle was more glorious than the rest, and inscribed with a name that might not be uttered; for whereas all the remainder had seemed to be earthborn, mounting step by step as the self-built pile grew wondrously, this only had appeared to drop from above, neither had I welcomed the name it bore in that land of spirits; nevertheless, I had perceived the footmarks of Him, with whose name it was engraved, even on the golden sands of that bright world, and had worshipped them in silence with a welcome.
"Thus then stood before me the majestic pyramid of crystal, full of characters flashing heavenly praise; and I gloried in it as mine own building, hailing the architect proudly, and I grew familiar with those high things, for my mind in its folly was lifted up, and looking on my guide, I said, 'O Lady; were it not ill, I would tell my brethren on earth of these strange matters, and of thy favour, and of the love all these have shown me; yea, and I would recount their greetings and mine in that sweet language of the spirits.'—But the glorious Wonder drew back majestic with a frown, saying, 'Not so, presumptuous child of man; the things I have shown thee, and the greetings thou hast heard, and the songs wherewith I filled thee, cannot worthily be told in other than the language of spirits: and where is the alphabet of men that can fix that unearthly tongue,—or how shouldst thou from henceforth, or thy fellows upon earth, attain to its delicate conceptions? behold, all these thine intimates are wroth with thee; they discern evil upon thy soul: the place of their sojourn is too pure for thee.'
"Then was there a peal of thunder, like the burstingof a world, whereupon all that restless sea of shadows, and their bright abode, vanished suddenly; and there ensued a flood of darkness, peopled with shoaling fears, and I heard the approach of hurrying sounds, with demoniac laughter, and shouts coming as for me, nearer and louder, saying, 'Cast out! Cast out!' and it rushed up to me like an unseen army, and I fled for life before it, until I came to the extreme edge of that spiritual world, where, as I ran looking backwards for terror at those viewless hunters, I leaped horribly over the unguarded cliff, and fell whirling, whirling, whirling, until my senses failed me—
"When I came to myself, I was by the sun-dial in my garden, leaning upon the pedestal, and the thin shadow still pointed to twelve.
"In astonishment, I ran hastily to my chamber, and strove to remember the strains I had heard. But, alas! they had all passed away: scarcely one disjointed note of that rare music lingered in my memory: I was awakened from a vivid dream, whereof the morning remembered nothing. Nevertheless, I toiled on, a rebel against that fearful Power, and deprived of her wonted aid: my songs, invitâ Minervâ, are but bald translations of those heavenly welcomings: my humble pyramid, far from being the visioned apotheosis of that of a Cephren, bears an unambitious likeness to the meaner Asychian, the characteristic of which, barring its presumptuous motto, must be veiled in one word from Herodotus (2-136),—alas! for the bathos of translation, the cabalistic—φηλικος, 'built up of mud.'
"Was not Rome lutea as well as marmorea? and is not beautiful Paris anciently Lutetia, with its tile-sheds for Tuileries, and a Bourbe-bonne for its Sovereign?"
All these sonnets, with others, were published by me elsewhere, as I state further on. The volume also contains some of my less faulty translations, as from Sappho, Æschylus, Pythagoras, Virgil, Horace, Dante, Petrarch, &c. And here I will give a chance specimen out of my "Septuagint of Worthies," to each one of whom I have appropriated a page or two of explanatory prose besides his fourteen lines of poetry. Take my sonnet on "Sylva" Evelyn:—