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EDGEHILL 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 ADRIAN HOFFMAN JOLINE 
 
 Author of 
 
 <* Meditations of an Autograph Collector" 
 
 **The Diversions of a Book Lover'* 
 
 "At the Library Table" 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 turtle (^orfiam ^vtsi^ 
 
 191 1 
 
Copyright, 1910, by A. H. Jolin* 
 
 All Rig^hts Reserved 
 
 
 GORHAM Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 ©CUSTeTSt 
 
To M. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO dignify these desultory papers by the title 
 of "Essays," may seem presumptuous; 
 but by a liberal construction of the dic- 
 tionary definition, they may be so styled 
 without grave offence, for they are short 
 sketches, disquisitions, and experiments. Far be it 
 from me to make pretense to the honorable name of 
 "essayist." "Essayists, like poets, are born and not 
 made," says Henley, and I am glad that he adds con- 
 cerning the essayist, "for wisdom, it is not absolutely 
 necessary that he have it." That relieves my mind 
 greatly. He also assures us that the essayist "seems 
 to write not for bread nor for a place in society, but 
 for the pleasure of writing." This also reassures me. 
 At all events, whether these are essays or some- 
 thing infinitely less, they were written at Edgehill; 
 not the place in Warwickshire where Charles I. and 
 Essex fought their famous battle, nor the rambling 
 building at Princeton where years ago lads were pre- 
 pared for college, but in a New Jersey cottage on the 
 brow of a hill. The atmosphere there is more book- 
 ish than that of Wall Street, but it must be owned 
 that some essays produced in that financial region 
 have been pecuniarily more profitable than their coun- 
 try companions. They were railway mortgages. The 
 style was dry and monotonous, but it was serious and 
 convincing. No one ever disagreed with my views as 
 expressed in those contributions to literature ; whereas 
 in other fields almost everyone refuses to concur with 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 me, except when I am merely "embroidering the ob- 
 vious," as a pert man in Life unkindly said In regard 
 to a modern essay-writer. 
 
 In the longest of these papers it was not my pur- 
 pose to present an original review of the life and work 
 of Francis Jeffrey, but only to give an outline of his 
 career and to cite some contemporaneous estimates of 
 his personality, his character, and his merits. He is 
 now little known except to those who make a study of 
 the books of the middle nineteenth century. His 
 "Life" by Cockburn Is a melancholy monument of dull 
 mediocrity on the part of the biographer. Sir Leslie 
 Stephen's admirable sketch in the Dictionary of Na- 
 tional Biography is far more satisfactory and I have 
 used It freely. In recent years Professor Gates has 
 published a critical study of Jeffrey as a reviewer in 
 Three Studies in Literature (1899), and Professor 
 Winchester has added a brief supplement in his Group 
 of English Essayists (1910). I have not attempted 
 to invade their province. If I have quoted liberally 
 from books of gossip and reminiscence, it has been 
 because the writers gave a more vivid presentation of 
 their subject than I could give by mere paraphrase. 
 
 Adrian H. Joline. 
 
 Edgehlll, Bernardsvllle, New Jersey. 
 November, 19 10. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. About the Bookshelves 9 
 
 II. The Quest of the Autograph 31 
 
 III. Reflections of an Autograph Lover ^^ 
 
 IV. A Certain Affectation of the Great 67 
 
 V. A Georgian Poet 73 
 
 VI. A Famous Reviewer 103 
 
 VII. Manners Makyth Man 197 
 
 VIII. The War on the Colleges 213 
 
ABOUT THE BrXJKSI JIILVES 
 
 SOMETIMES it seems to most of us that much 
 good paper and precious time are wasted 
 in the preparation and publication of hooks 
 ahout books, variously entitled "Diver- 
 sions", "Excursions", "Reflections", "Ram- 
 bles", "Wanderings", "Among My Books", "Book- 
 Lovers", "Book Collectors", and all the other names 
 devised with more or less ingenuity by the tribe of 
 scribblers. In our utilitarian age they must often ap- 
 pear vain, trifling, purposeless and tiresome. It may 
 be that in rare instances they are mildly amusing; but 
 when we are deafened from day to day by the cry of 
 the superior person that we must be continually striv- 
 ing "for the nation's service", with only brief inter- 
 missions for food and sleep, and that culture is some- 
 thing to be despised because it does nothing to "ad- 
 vance the interests of humanity", we are led to admit 
 that those of us who give serious attention to mere 
 books ought to hide our heads in shame and try to 
 escape conviction of the offence of being what Jesse 
 Lynch Williams would call "lily-handed dilettanti"; 
 useless, futile, as unworthy as the skulkers on the 
 field of battle. It is true that indictments have rather 
 lost their terrors in our times, because almost every- 
 one is being indicted for something, and a man scarcely 
 ventures to join a friend in smoking an after-dinner 
 cigar lest he be arrested for "conspiracy", which in 
 its last analysis, means a "breathing together"; and 
 while, as far as I know, neither the statutes of the 
 
 9 
 
lo EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 United States nor those of the forty-six States — soon 
 to be forty-eight — forbid our breathing as long as we 
 do it alone, we incur grave risks if we do it in com- 
 pany with another. 
 
 This sort of apology is common with writers about 
 books. In his preface to Excursions in Libraria, 
 Mr. G. H. Powell falls into line and tries to convince 
 us that he is addressing himself "rather to the humane 
 interests of the general reader, than to what may re- 
 spectfully be called the refined curiosities of the biblio- 
 phile, to the collector of books, that is, as books, and 
 not as antiquities or objects of exoteric virtu, in fine, 
 to the book-buyer who is also, and by virtue of his 
 office, a 'voracious' reader, even if he be not one of 
 those 
 
 ^Biblioph^gi, or men whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders' 
 
 from excessive application to study." I am not going 
 to make any more excuses; to those who love books 
 they are offensive, and to those who do not care for 
 books "as books", they are superfluous. 
 
 To be candid, some of the many volumes of book- 
 gossip are neither entertaining nor profitable. Hav- 
 ing been guilty of inflicting one or two upon a patient 
 public — but as the sales were small the number of the 
 afliicted was limited— I may be allowed to say that I 
 think the popular disregard of them is abundantly jus- 
 tified. I encountered recently one of these "Book Ex- 
 cursions" which convinced me that the hostile judg- 
 ment is sound. The writer gravely tells us that 
 "Goldsmith was a delightful author", and vouchsafes 
 the information that "Mrs. Lewes (sic) was 'George 
 Eliot' " and that Dickens was known as 'Boz'. One 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES ii 
 
 longs for Charles Lamb's candle to examine this man's 
 bumps.* We are further assured that "the letters and 
 journals of men who have filled positions of public 
 trust are often of the utmost value." This book con- 
 tains another passage which is more offensive than 
 amusing. What shall we think of an author who 
 says: "The Protestant Episcopal burial service, much 
 lauded in certain quarters, is well adapted to the com- 
 monplace ministrations of an ordinary priest, but its 
 fixed and unalterable sentences and sonorous but in- 
 sipid platitudes are poorly adjusted to finer needs!" 
 After that, we may not wonder that this "extraor- 
 dinary priest" or, more properly, minister, who is 
 probably offended by the "fixed and unalterable sen- 
 tences" of the Holy Scriptures, embellishes his book 
 with a portrait of himself! Yet the book occupies 
 space on the shelves, and is "advertised" as "of rare 
 interest and charm". I am glad it is rare. 
 
 The love of books seems to be inherent in some 
 natures. I venture to say that no one will dispute that 
 assertion, which, as I reflect about it, appears to be of 
 the same order as those about Goldsmith and George 
 Eliot. After all, what is more impressive than a good, 
 sound, respectable truism? How much more restful it 
 is than George Chesterton's mocking paradoxes. I 
 fear that Disraeli was anticipating Chesterton and try- 
 ing to be "bright" when he made Mr. Phoebus say, in 
 Lothair: "Books are fatal, they are the curse of the 
 human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are non- 
 sense, and the clever books are the refutation of that 
 
 ***Lamb got up and, taking a candle, said, 'Sir, will you al- 
 low me to look at your phrenological development?' " Hay- 
 don's Diary, quoted In AInger's "Lamb". 
 
12 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befel man, 
 was the invention of printing." He may have been 
 thinking only of Disraeli novels. It may be true, as 
 Stevenson observed, that "books are good enough in 
 their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substi- 
 tute for life," but I think he was only pretending a good 
 deal. It is like saying that strawberries are a poor 
 substitute for beef. 
 
 A certain vanity possesses the soul of the book- 
 fancier. He loves to talk about his own books and 
 to parade them with pride; but it is surely a harmless 
 vanity. I do not boast of any of the distinguished 
 volumes, prizes of the book-auction, but I enjoy the 
 loitering about the shelves, even the inspection of the 
 backs of the books, often unable to decide which one 
 I shall take down for reading purposes. In the true 
 lover of books, this habit of wandering about the 
 shelves becomes inveterate. When Robert Southey's 
 mind and memory failed him and after his power of 
 comprehension had gone, he still maintained his habit 
 of strolling in the library. "His dearly prized books 
 were a pleasure to him almost to the end" writes his 
 son, "and he would walk slowly around his library 
 looking at them and taking them down mechanically." 
 There is much pathos in this picture. It is a strange 
 manifestation of human nature that many book-lovers 
 do not like to have their treasures taken from the 
 shelves by any but themselves. Whether it Is because 
 they fear a disarrangement of the order or on account 
 of an apprehension of possible loss, it is not easy to 
 tell; perhaps it is a feeling akin to the aversion which 
 most Anglo-Saxon people have to being personally 
 jostled by strangers. The same Southey was sensi- 
 tive about having his books handled by a guest. As 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 13 
 
 is generally known, he had a large collection; the 
 whole house at Keswick was filled with books, even 
 the bedrooms and the stairways. Mr. T. J. Hogg 
 tells us that he took out a volume one day as he was 
 going downstairs with his host. "Southey looked at 
 me" he adds, "as if he was displeased, so I put it back 
 again instantly, and I never ventured to take down 
 one of his books another time." Yet Southey was 
 fond of selecting a book from the shelves and read- 
 ing from it, allowing the favored friend to keep it as 
 long as he pleased and turn over the leaves, if he, 
 Southey, had taken it down himself. As far as my 
 own little library is concerned, I am rejoiced in my 
 inmost soul when a man exhibits interest enough in 
 any one of my books to pull it away from its com- 
 panions, provided that he does not draw it out by the 
 top. My library is a place which I want to make the 
 most of and to have my friends do likewise. As was 
 said by John Fletcher. 
 
 "Give me leave 
 To enjoy myself. That place that does contain 
 My books, the best companions, is to me 
 A glorious court, where hourly I converse 
 With the old sages and philosophers." 
 
 In confidence, it is not so much the sages and philoso- 
 phers, for they are apt to talk too long and tediously. 
 Those of us who are strictly truthful derive much 
 more comfort from the chat of less serious folk. 
 Bacon and Locke, Sir William Hamilton and Doctor 
 McCosh, are well enough when some one is looking 
 at you, but a few of the French memoirs, or the best 
 of the novels are better adapted to the promotion of 
 private enjoyment. 
 
 The ideal library room, meo judice, is long and 
 
14 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 spacious, not too lofty, with the shelves low enough to 
 permit of rambling without availing of a set of steps. 
 It is not the sort of library which arouses poetic fervor 
 or is perpetuated in pictures; not the stately hall to 
 which Bulwer invites us when he tells us to 
 
 *'Sit here and muse: — it is an antique room — 
 High-roof'd, with casements, through whose purple 
 
 pane 
 Unwilling daylight stealing through the gloom, 
 Comes like a fearful stranger," 
 
 but that library is not at all suited to my taste. It 
 may be well enough for poets, who muse more than 
 they read, and whose abodes are not ordinarily in the 
 nature of baronial halls, but for humbler men a mod- 
 erately low ceiling, with no purple panes, but plenty 
 of frank daylight pouring in generously and not steal- 
 ing in furtively, is infinitely more desirable; and at 
 night I want good electric lights and do not care to be 
 compelled to grope about with a precarious and in- 
 effective candle. Laurence Hutton's library at "Peep 
 o' Day" in Princeton and some others I could men- 
 tion, which do not give the impression that they are 
 places of show but are delightful workshops, are far 
 more agreeable to the real book-fancier. I confess a 
 liking for Southey's methods, and my own books are 
 scattered all over the home, gathered in every room 
 except the butler's pantry from which by a stern do- 
 mestic decree they are hopelessly excluded. There 
 should be nothing to detract from the bookishness ; pos- 
 sibly a few prints may be permitted, but never 
 framed autographs. The autograph letter or manu- 
 script is a tender thing, to be enshrined in a portfolio; 
 to frame it is a desecration; I have some framed auto- 
 graphs myself. Every book-lover must be pleased 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 15 
 
 with the description of the library of Francis Park- 
 man, in No. 50 Chestnut Street, Boston, where his 
 printed books, several thousand, were stored, together 
 with his large collection of manuscripts. "Up in that 
 study" writes Mr. Sedgwick, "he used to sit all the 
 winter months, in the company of his books and manu- 
 scripts, while the fire from the open stove flickered 
 salutations to the shelves opposite, and the books 
 stared back at trophies got forty years before on the 
 Oregon trail, bow, arrows, shields, pipe of peace, 
 hanging tamely on the wall. * * * From other 
 walls. Sir Walter Scott, a lion, and a cat looked 
 gravely at Colonel Shaw, Colleoni, Diirer's Knight (a 
 favorite), and at the facade of Notre Dame; but pic- 
 tures had no great liberty of place, for the book- 
 shelves spread themselves all over the room."* The 
 "open stove" grates a little on the nerves, but that 
 may be forgotten. Parkman is one of the immortals, 
 but to me he is especially dear because he was so fond 
 of his cats. No library is absolutely perfect without 
 an open fire — stoveless be it understood — and a fat, 
 comfortable cat who will purr on pressure. Nothing 
 but my abhorrence of all discursiveness prevents me 
 from here indulging in a disquisition on cats; not An- 
 goras, mind, nor the prize-winners at the show; just 
 plain cats. 
 
 Sad and selfish as it may seem, there is not much 
 pleasure in the tours about the shelves if one is ac- 
 companied by anybody. The excursions must needs 
 be solitary, and the wanderer enjoys most his own un- 
 attended roamings ; I like to have friends roam 
 among the books, but I know better than to tag after 
 
 *FrancIs Parkman: H. D. Sedgwack: 252. 
 
1 6 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 them as If I feared to trust them. No one need fol- 
 low me in my little explorations ; it is the great privi- 
 lege of a reader to "skip" wisely whatever bores him. 
 But for that blessed privilege I do not know what 
 would become of us. How little do the babblers com- 
 prehend when they prattle about the folly of the book- 
 lover who buys such numbers of books that he can 
 never read! I know that I am going to utter mere 
 twaddle, but I have lately discovered that, like him 
 who talked prose without knowing it, I have been un- 
 consciously talking and writing twaddle all my life. 1 
 believe tnat the phrase about "talking prose", com- 
 monly associated with the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme", 
 really belongs to the Comte de Soissons.* This choice 
 bit of learning I am stealing from an old copy of the 
 Pall Mall Magazine. Most of the pretended learn- 
 ing of twaddlers is derived from some such source. 
 
 Usually there is little that is attractive about an 
 ancient law-book. These legal treatises are dreary 
 things, whether new or old, and they repel the "gentle 
 reader", for they are books only in form. The very 
 modern ones are the most exasperating of all, when 
 they tell you, for example, that parol testimony may 
 not be admitted to vary the terms of a written instru- 
 ment—fifty cases cited in note to sustain the profound 
 proposition, — and add that sometimes it may — citing 
 fifty more cases in another note, culled from the re- 
 ports of all sorts of courts from the Supreme Court 
 of the United States to the Supreme Court of Okla- 
 homa. This confuses the casual peruser, who will 
 worry through life oppressed by grave uncertainty as 
 to what the law on that subject really is. The old 
 
 *Lettres de Sevigne (June 12, 1686). 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 17 
 
 books are better, and now and then we may detect in 
 them a flavor other than that of decayed binding. 
 Here is a httle one, printed in London in 1659; a 
 small 16 mo volume, of one hundred and eighty-seven 
 pages only. Compare it with the three large volumes of 
 "Cook on Corporations", in which are embalmed all 
 the wisdom and lack of wisdom displayed by the 
 courts in dealing with corporate problems, from the 
 seventeenth to the twentieth century. Behold how 
 slight a book it is; only the title is voluminous. It is 
 by one William Shepheard, Sergeant at Law, and is 
 entitled "Of Corporations, Fraternities and Guilds; 
 or a Discourse wherein the Learning of the Law touch- 
 ing Bodies-Politique is unfolded, showing the Use and 
 Necessity of that Invention, the Antiquity, various 
 Kinds, Order and Government of the same." It is 
 dedicated to 'his dear countrymen' and the learned 
 author — he of the "Touchstone" — says: 
 
 "The Soveraignty which is placed in Man over the 
 rest of the Creatures is derived from the sole advan- 
 tage of his Reason, for in Corporal power he is much 
 inferior to many. The Excellency of Reason consists 
 in fitting Laws and Politics for our better Govern- 
 ment, and the best of Politics is that Invention where- 
 by men have bin fram'd into Corporations, Guilds or 
 Fraternities, for, whereas other Laws are adapted, 
 but for the benefit of Individuals, this has a more 
 noble end, and, if it were possible, would preserve 
 the Species; and although Art cannot altogether ar- 
 rive at the perfection of Nature, yet has it in this 
 shew'd a fair Adumbration, and given to man the 
 nearest resemblances of his maker: that is, to be In a 
 sort immortal." 
 
 In our day we are not given to the belief that 
 corporations are quite as divine as all that; but, to be 
 
1 8 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 fair, the sapient Shepheard was not referring to cor- 
 porations as we know them now. The corporations 
 of the time of which he wrote were mere infants. Yet 
 he does add something which shows that certain ideas 
 of our own generation are by no means original among 
 us. "These things" he remarks, "are to be known: 
 that all By-laws by them made against the Liberty 
 and Freedom of the People, as, to forbid or Restrain 
 Trade, Impose Taxes or Burdens of payment on the 
 people, where the Law doth not impose them; to bind 
 a man's Inheritance, to restrain men from suing in 
 what Court they please, or to enhance the prizes of 
 Commodities to the hurt of the publick, and private 
 advantage of the place, are void." So say we all of 
 us. He does not assume to declare that it is unlawful 
 for a corporation to make necessities cheaper: oil, for 
 example, or sugar. That would have been a strange 
 thing for his ancient mind; and I am glad he spells 
 "people" with a capital P. It was prophetic. So 
 much for the gentle Shepheard. I have quoted him 
 to show how reverently they regarded corporations 
 in the seventeenth century. What was one century's 
 meat is another century's poison. 
 
 A thin, rather shabby little volume, in a binding 
 of faded brown boards, without a word to indicate, 
 as far as the cover is concerned, the nature of the 
 contents or the name of the author, ranks among the 
 rare, for it contains the poems of George Bancroft. 
 The historian, after graduating from Harvard in 
 1 8 19, went to Europe as soon as he had gained his 
 diploma, returning in 1822 with the Gottingen degree 
 of Doctor of Philosophy and the idea that he was a 
 poet. He was in his twenty-third year when this 
 booklet of only seventy-seven pages appeared, bear- 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 19 
 
 ing the imprint "Cambridge: from the University- 
 Press: Hillard and Metcalf : 1823." It is dedicated 
 "to the President of Harvard University, the author's 
 early benefactor and friend." This President was 
 Dr. John Thornton Kirkland. The themes of the 
 poems are European, and the verse is dull, formal and 
 stilted. It is said that Bancroft in after days en- 
 deavored to suppress the book and that a large num- 
 ber of copies were burned at the house of Prescott. 
 Donald G. Mitchell calls attention to the fact that 
 the copy in the Lenox Library "shows numerous inter- 
 lineations and emendations in the script of the author, 
 as if he had once intended a revised reprint." He was 
 wise to abandon the intention, if he ever had iu What- 
 ever talent he may have possessed, it was not poetic. 
 Bancroft was a politician, and with all his affectations 
 and highly developed self-appreciation, was a man 
 of distinction, a stately figure in his later years. The 
 History, written in the old-fashioned way, shows great 
 research and conscientious labor, but, after all, it is 
 practically obsolete although the latest edition was 
 published only a quarter of a century ago. I question 
 whether it is read now to any greater extent than are 
 the histories of Hume and Smollett. He loved sonor- 
 ous sentences and solemn platitudes. It is difficult to 
 imagine a modern historian adorning his tale with 
 such a purple patch as this, for example: 
 
 "What though thought is invisible and even when 
 effective, seems as transient as the wind that raised 
 the cloud? It is yet free and indestructible; can as 
 little be bound in chains as the aspiring flame, and 
 when once generated, takes Eternity for its Guar- 
 dian."* 
 
 *History, I, 112. 
 
20 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 It might be said that his prose was poetic and his 
 poetry prosy. He begins a "Farewell to Switzerland'* 
 thus : 
 
 "Land of the brave I land of the free! farewell I 
 Thee nature moulded in her wildest mood, 
 Scooped the deep glen, and bade the mountains swell 
 O'er the dark belt of arrow tannen wood." 
 
 After this exhibition of scooping Nature, we en- 
 counter a stanza which cannot be surpassed, I think, 
 in the records of literature. 
 
 "With my own hands 'twas sweet to climb the crag, 
 Upborne and nourished by the mountain air, 
 While the lean mules would far behind me lag, 
 The fainting sons of indolence that bear." 
 
 The spectacle of Mr. Bancroft, climbing a crag by his 
 hands, unsupported by legs but sustained by air, fol- 
 lowed by a number of emaciated mules and several 
 fainting "molly-coddles" would certainly have aroused 
 deep and soul-stirring emotions in the bosom of the 
 beholders. 
 
 Is It surprising that when years had brought wis- 
 dom, he endeavored to cancel the edition? I was on 
 the point of saying that these poems were not much 
 worse than those which Americans usually produced 
 in the early part of the nineteenth century; but, on re- 
 flection, I will not go as far as that: nothing was ever 
 quite as bad. unless it may be the work of Alfred 
 Austin, of our own time and in another land than 
 ours. 
 
 Yet for this book I paid a sum which would 
 have purchased for me several well-bound sets of the 
 six volume History. I have called It "rare"; and In 
 one sense it is a "rarity", although it is not one upon 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 21 
 
 which a learned book-expert would confer that title. 
 "It is hardly necessary" Mr. Powell writes in his Ex- 
 cursions in Libraria, "to observe that as the mere un- 
 frequent occurrence of a phenomenon is no index of 
 its importance, so the fact that a particular book, or 
 any other given chattel, is seldom to be seen is no evi- 
 dence of its intrinsic value — should in fact be rather 
 the reverse, proportionally to our belief in the intel- 
 ligence of mankind, although the rarity of a book, 
 again, must be distinguished from the difficulty of ob- 
 taining it"; and he adds, quoting from the Axiomata 
 Specialia prefixed to Vogt's Catalogus Historico-Criti- 
 cus Lihrorum Rariorum, that rarity is by itself no 
 proof of value, some of the worst and some of the 
 most worthless books being the most difficult to pro- 
 cure. Strictly speaking, the record of the early indis- 
 cretion of Bancroft, historian and cabinet minister, is 
 a "curiosity" rather than a "rarity" in the peculiar 
 "lingo" of the bibliophile. 
 
 In wandering from shelf to shelf we find our minds 
 straying also in a pleasant, aimless way; and the copy 
 of Boaden's edition of Garrick's Correspondence re- 
 calls to our thoughts 
 
 "The laughter-loving dame, 
 A matchless actress, Clive her name" 
 
 the energetic Kitty, Garrick's "Pivey", who used to 
 grow angry with the great David and when he of- 
 fended her, as he frequently did, "would drive him 
 about the house like a terrier after a rat, and abuse 
 him to his face, till he was completely dumfounded." 
 In one of those modern compilations of biography 
 which seem to be so popular in England, and which, 
 although not always absolutely trustworthy, are cer- 
 
22 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 tainly quite entertaining, we find an example of what 
 some one calls "the evolution of the bon motJ' In a 
 sketch of John Hay published in Putnam's Magazine 
 for June, 1909, the tale is told that the brilliant Sec- 
 retary, who had been the victim of a faithless re- 
 porter, was applied to by the same man for certain in- 
 formation, not for publication. When Hay demurred, 
 the reporter said, "I would not violate your confi- 
 dence for the world". "Not for the World, per- 
 haps," said Hay, "but you did for the Journal. 
 
 The records show that the substance of this merry 
 jest is upwards of a hundred and fifty years old. In 
 1753 Florace Walpole sent to a friend a copy of Top- 
 ham's paper. The World, in which was an article 
 supposed to reflect upon himself, saying: "I met 
 Mrs. Clive two nights ago, and told her I had been in 
 the meadows, but would walk there no more, for 
 there was all the world. 'Well', says she, 'and don't 
 you like the World? I hear it was very clever last 
 Thursday.'"* 
 
 Occupying places not far from the customary habi- 
 tat of the "Comedy Queens" are the two volumes of 
 the English edition of "Mrs. Brookfield and Her 
 Circle" which was greeted with such loud acclaims of 
 praise when it appeared a few years ago, but which I 
 have the bad taste to dislike exceedingly. Such a col- 
 lection of pure bibble-babble is seldom to be met in 
 the literature of our language. Thackeray's letters 
 cannot escape being of interest, although most of these 
 are disappointing; really the pretty portrait of Jane 
 Octavia Brookfield, prefixed to the first volume, Is 
 the best thing in it. But William Henry Brookfield! 
 
 *FyvIe's Comedy Queens of the Georgian Era, 97-98. 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 23 
 
 No wonder that Jane flirted wildly with the Great 
 Snob ! Why in the name of the deity who protects 
 us against bores, if any such deity exists, were William 
 Henry's silly epistles inflicted upon us? I open at 
 random and find such glorious passages as these : 
 
 "On Thursday morning next — oh, where is Caro- 
 line? I breakfast— where???? At the Burlington? 
 No. At Lord Lansdowne's? Pooh! With JNO? 
 Pshaw! Upon Perigord pie and omelette aux fines 
 herhes? Du tout! With Lord John? Wheu! Bis- 
 hop of St. David's? Never! With Prince Albert? 
 Pish! With Rogers? I can hardly frame my guess- 
 ing lips to utter— Yes ! I hope he will 'behave well' 
 — that is that he will not pick his teeth with my fork, 
 etc." 
 
 The man was always chattering about his break- 
 fast. Who, pray, cares a jot about his breakfast? 
 There is an unpleasant savor of vulgarity in his refer- 
 ence to Rogers, scarcely becoming in a clergyman of 
 the church of England and the husband of Jane Oc- 
 tavia. 
 
 There are revelations of Thackeray which confirm 
 the impression that the eminent novelist was not al- 
 ways considerate of other and minor literary lights. 
 We all know of his cruel and heartless treatment of 
 poor Edmund Yates; and notwithstanding his some- 
 what intimate association with William Harrison 
 Ainsworth, he and his little circle of worshippers take 
 no pains to hide their contempt for the lesser novelist 
 who deserved better treatment and while he was not 
 as great as Thackeray was a gentleman and had many 
 more generous qualities. We find Thackeray writing 
 from Paris to Mrs. Brookfield in 1849:— "W. H. 
 Ainsworth is here. We dined next each other at the 
 3 Freres yesterday, and rather fraternized. He 
 
24 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 showed a friendly disposition I thought, and a desire 
 to forgive me my success, but beyond a good-humoured 
 acquiescence in his good will, I don't care." The de- 
 voted female, falling in with the mood of her distin- 
 guished friend, answers a few days later: "I am 
 amused at your having Mr. Ainsworth at Paris — he 
 was at Venice when we were there, and was always 
 called 'Tiger or Tig' by Uncle Hallam, who did not 
 know who he was till he came up one day and proffered 
 the hand of fellowship to Uncle H. on the ground of 
 their mutual authorship. 'I am Mr. Ainsworth', as 
 if he had been Herschel at the least, and we sat to- 
 gether in the Place St. Mark, eating ices and discuss- 
 ing you, and I recollect saying you had 'such an af- 
 fectionate nature', which Mr. Ainsworth made me re- 
 peat about 3 times, pretending not to hear, and I felt 
 I had thrown pearls before swine and been unneces- 
 sarily frank in my praise of you, and began to think 
 he might very possibly have a feeling of jealousy 
 about you as an author, tho' it would be ludicrously 
 presumptuous in him — as of all detestable writing, his 
 is the worst, I think." One scarcely knows what most 
 to admire in this effusion — the delightful humor of 
 "Uncle Hallam", or the scorn of the lady because the 
 poor creature said "I am Mr. Ainsworth" — rather a 
 natural remark under the circumstances. As nobody 
 'knew who he was' when he violated all the canons 
 of British propriety by presuming to speak to some 
 of his countrymen, he seems to have been justified in 
 giving his real name and not a fictitious one. When 
 Mrs. Brookfield made her profound remark about 
 Thackeray's "affectionate nature", we may not won- 
 der that Ainsworth, who knew well that Thackeray 
 had nothing of the sort, asked to have it repeated. 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 25 
 
 He was enjoying a little fun under disadvantageous 
 conditions. At all events, however greatly Mrs. Brook- 
 field may have despised him, the author of "Jack 
 Sheppard" had no reason to be ashamed of the rec- 
 ord of his private life. 
 
 The flood of biographies which flows from our 
 presses contains few better works than the Life of 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich, by Mr. Greenslet, who is a 
 model for his kind, never wearying the reader by the 
 customary padding, but making us wish that there 
 was more. An agreeable and successful career was 
 that of Aldrich, a true artist, who kept his youth won- 
 derfully. There is not a dull line in his letters, and 
 his literary judgments are clear, just and positive. 
 Delicious are his remarks to the telescope-man on the 
 Common about "seeing Venus naked to the visible 
 eye" and to the Hibernian election-oflicer in Boston 
 who asked him "Can you read the Declaration of In- 
 dependence"— "I can, sor; Whin in the coorse of hu- 
 man evints", etc. He touches a chord of sympathy 
 when he speaks of some of Carlyle's labored scold- 
 ings as "the incoherent and explosive pages of the 
 sour Thomas", and it is refreshing to read his letter 
 to Woodberry in 1892 when he says of his country- 
 men: "They were a promising race, they had such 
 good chances, but their politicians would coddle the 
 worst elements for votes, and the newspapers would 
 appeal to the slums for readers" ; and he quotes Kip- 
 ling on the government of New York— "a despotism 
 of the alien, by the alien, for the alien, tempered with 
 occasional insurrections of decent folk." A nation 
 rejoicing in its Roosevelts, its Bryans and its Hearsts 
 may not relish such mollycoddlish sentiments, but 
 
2 6 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 down in the hearts of thoughtful men dwells a 
 conviction that Aldrich was not far wrong. My good 
 friend of the Hartford Courant did me the honor to 
 say not long ago that I was "a little insane" and that 
 I am "never so sure and never so offensive as when I 
 am wrong." That pleases me greatly. As the American 
 says in the Boy at Mughy, "I larf." 
 
 In a very accessible corner of the library, where 
 are assembled some of the especial favorites — an An- 
 drew Lang or two, some small volumes of Lowell, a 
 book of Donald Mitchell, some of Brownell's studies, 
 and examples of the charming art of Henry Van 
 Dyke, Bliss Perry, and the gentle Doctor Crothers— is 
 the small collection of essays which Woodrow Wilson 
 called "Mere Literature" before he became a particu- 
 larly polemical President of an excellent University. 
 A year or so ago in a speech delivered before an array 
 of attentive bankers, he said that he had been im- 
 pressed by the fact that formerly, after-dinner speak- 
 ers never ventured to say anything very serious, but 
 felt obliged to pursue the jocose: while now, the peo- 
 ple expected more serious things. It may be so, and 
 the endless stream of feeble stories has become un- 
 welcome, but I doubt whether, after dinner, we are 
 fit for anything but pleasant discourses about ordi- 
 nary topics, or in a state of mind appropriate for the 
 absorption of lectures on subjects of grave moment. We 
 can dispense with the anecdotes, although I observe 
 that Doctor Wilson usually has at least three that are 
 well worth listening to, and they are always adminis- 
 tered early in the discourse in order to sugar the pill of 
 profundity. There is ground for the belief that a good 
 many of us pretend that we want solid instruction after 
 dinner without being really very hungry for it. I recall 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 27 
 
 the puzzled expression of a jovial throng last winter 
 when an excellent speaker and eminent citizen talked 
 about the hook-worm and the boll-weevil: and I saw 
 the house suddenly emptied on a warm summer after- 
 noon when a dear old doctor of divinity began by 
 saying to a perspiring audience of' alumni: "I will 
 now call your attention to a few of the by-products of 
 Christianity in Siam." The truth is that the after- 
 dinner speech, whether grave or gay, pleases the 
 hearers most when it is condensed within the limits 
 of reasonable brevity. 
 
 We are straying from the shelves to the dinner- 
 table. I plead guilty to the charge of "rambling along 
 with the irresponsibility and indirection of a child 
 playing hookey," preferred by my friend of the Hart- 
 ford Courant, who called me "an ass", which caused 
 me to exclaim with the amiable Hebrew who was de- 
 nounced as "a thief, a liar and a scoundrel," — "But out- 
 side of that, I'm all right, aind I?" 
 
 This half red-morocco bound post-octavo bearing 
 the title "The Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold" 
 by his son Blanchard Jerrold, — a presentation copy to 
 Charles Dickens with an inscription mentioning it as 
 "the first perfect copy"— is a reminder of a witty and 
 attractive personality, whose memory as an author is 
 vanishing despite "Black Eyed Susan" and "Mrs. 
 Caudle's Curtain Lectures", and remains chiefly be- 
 cause of spoken jests, many of them mythical; but its 
 value to me comes especially from its association with 
 a man of fine qualities and of a noble nature, from 
 whose library it passed into my possession. The im- 
 pulse comes to me to speak of a life-long friend, well- 
 known at the bar of New York, with whom no one 
 ever came into personal relations without respect and 
 
2 8 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 admiration. Not long after his lamented death, his 
 books, gathered with an affectionate and discriminat- 
 ing judgment, were sold at auction. Knowing how he 
 loved them, it gave me a shock of pain to have them 
 exposed at public vendue. The catalogue of them 
 did not afford many examples of the ancient lumber 
 of the bibliophile— those treasures dear to old Dib- 
 din and sacred to the book-loving antiquary, rever- 
 enced by the few, but not as comfortable to live with 
 as some of the moderns. Palaeontological relics have 
 their value, but the human interest of Thackeray, of 
 Dickens, of Leigh Hunt, of Walter Scott, and of his 
 most dissimilar fellow novelist, Tobias Smollett, is 
 more attractive to those who lay no claim to the title 
 of expert. We cannot all be Charles Lambs, running 
 home at night in ecstasy because we happen to have a 
 darling Beaumont and Fletcher folio under our arms; 
 nor can we all be Pierpont Morgans with Caxtons 
 crcvding our shelves. My friend, modest almost to 
 diffidence, v/as not a collector of Caxtons or of folio 
 Shakespeares, and he made no pretense of familiar 
 acquaintance with early examples although he knew 
 more about them than most people do. He gathered 
 around him. only what appealed most strongly to his 
 individual taste; and in that he was of my own sort, 
 although I follow him hand passibiis aeqids. In the 
 catalogue of his possessions the lover of books dwells 
 fondly on the long list of Thackerays, embracing the 
 Flore et Zephyre and the Second Funeral of Napo- 
 lean; the Dickens items; the first editions of Leigh 
 Hunt, unjustly remembered as the original of Harold 
 Skimpole; the Cruikshanks, recalling the "crank" who 
 thought he wrote Oliver Twist and was sure that he 
 created Ainsworth; the Scotts, with their treasures of 
 
ABOUT THE BOOKSHELVES 29 
 
 autograph letters, which particularly amuse me be- 
 cause their owner used to make fun of my autographs; 
 the tall copy of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, re- 
 minding us of the man who said that he preferred it in 
 the original binding; the Swifts, the early Tennysons, 
 and also the Surtees and the memoirs of that reckless 
 ''old sport", John Mytton, who would be impossible 
 In this century and who ought to have been Impossible 
 in any civilized country. It is not uninteresting 
 to note that In the translation of the Memoirs of Cas- 
 anova there are "several sections loose". In short, 
 the catalogue described the collection made by a man 
 of culture, not because of a fondness for some special 
 subject or of a devotion to the accumulation of rari- 
 ties merely on account of their rareness, but because 
 they pleased him. To the auction block we must all 
 come at last, I fancy; such is the fate of the collections 
 we spend our lives in making. We may only hope 
 that some of the things we loved may pass into the 
 hands of those who will be as fond of them as we 
 were, and who may find added worth in them because 
 they were once the objects of our affection. 
 
 But the prospect of the inevitable dispersion of the 
 assembled companions does not sadden my little tours 
 about the book-shelves. 
 
 "All round my room my silent servants wait — 
 My friends In every season, bright and dim : 
 Angels and seraphim 
 Come down and murmur to me, 
 
 Sweet and low 
 And spirits of the skies all come and go 
 
 Early and late." 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 
 
 SOME years ago a gentleman who described 
 himself as an "autographomaniac" and who 
 manifestly possessed what Sir William Gil- 
 bert called *'a pretty taste for paradox,'' 
 took up the cudgels in the Independent, on 
 behalf of the unpopular persons who "write for auto- 
 graphs," and while he confessed that his pursuit was 
 "shocking," he was brave enough to declare that he 
 was "willing to take the consequences." I fully agree 
 with him in his characterization of the nefarious habit, 
 and am willing to submit his case, as he makes it, to 
 the tribunal of public opinion, without argument on 
 behalf of the respondent. He is welcome to the con- 
 sequences, whatever they may be. I suspect that his 
 screed was not meant to be taken very seriously, and 
 that he was emulating DeQuincey's treatise on "Mur- 
 der as a Fine Art." He has incited me to utter a few 
 more words about autographs, because he did me the 
 honor to say: "Such distinguished collectors as Dr. G. 
 Birkbeck Hill and Mr. Adrian Joline turn up their 
 noses at my kind," and he made some jocose but un- 
 worthy reflections upon my method of cultivating my 
 hobby. He betrayed himself as not a real collector, 
 as only an amateur, who had not approached the 
 shrine with proper reverence and preparation. Dr. 
 Birkbeck Hill was in his life time a scholar and a 
 clever literary man, devoted to the altar of Samuel 
 Johnson, and he wrote a pleasant book called "Talks 
 About Autographs," but he was not a collector in the 
 
 31 
 
32 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 ordinary acceptation of the term, and I am by no 
 means a "distinguished collector," although I thank 
 the Maniac for conferring upon me a title as honorable 
 as it is undeserved. What amused me most about 
 the ravings of the Maniac was the assertion that col- 
 lectors of my own way of thinking buy at auctions 
 and through dealers "dry-as-dust letters written for 
 the most part by men long since gone to their fathers," 
 while the "pestilential nuisances," to borrow another 
 Gllbertian phrase, confine their attention to the auto- 
 graphs of the living, and especially prize the peppery 
 responses they receive from persecuted greatness. It 
 reminds us of the ancient fable about the Oxford 
 guide who exhibited to his party the eminent Jowett, 
 the noted head of Balliol College, wrathful and in- 
 dignant at the assault upon his study window, and of 
 the individual whose favorite boast was that he had 
 been soundly kicked by a Royal Duke. "Such and so 
 various are the tastes of men." 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his Ponkapog Papers, 
 speaks of "the average autograph hunter with his 
 purposeless insistence" — "the innumerable unknown 
 who 'collect' autographs as they would postage 
 stamps, with no interest in the matter beyond the de- 
 sire to accumulate as many as possible." He relates 
 a story of a fellow-author (I suspect it was Aldrich 
 himself) who was asked by a bereaved widow and 
 mother to copy for her some lines from his poem on 
 the death of a child, to comfort her for the loss of her 
 little girl. Two months later he found his manuscript 
 with a neat price attached to It in a second-hand book 
 shop. I am well pleased to be excluded from that class 
 of autograph hunters and I do not envy the Maniac 
 who cares to array himself in such unworthy company. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 33 
 
 We occasionally buy the letters of the living, and 
 some years ago the newspapers were quite stirred up 
 by the sale of a letter from the late Edward VII. — then 
 Prince of Wales — to Mrs. Langtry, for the respecta- 
 ble price of ninety dollars. Even the journals which 
 make pretensions to decency and good taste broke 
 forth in clamor, one of them sneering at the alleged 
 value of collecting as a preservative of literary and 
 historical treasures, and another announcing with 
 oracular finality that the incident proved the "snob- 
 bishness" of collectors. All these deductions based 
 upon insufficient premises are the offspring of imper- 
 fect intelligence and the evidence of that tendency to 
 hasty judgment which marks the utterances of the un- 
 informed and unreflecting person. The chances are 
 that the bidder was unconsciously competing, through 
 an agent, with some rival who had given an order 
 without a limit; or that the owner was making what is 
 known in Wall Street as a "washed sale" in order to 
 establish a market price for a number of similar speci- 
 mens of royal autography. I heard a rumor that a 
 faithless maid of the famous actress stole a quantity 
 of letters from her mistress, and that the vendee was 
 endeavoring to "realize" on the ill-gotten booty. But 
 whether these conjectures are well founded or not, it 
 is certainly quite easy to understand why a letter from 
 so distinguished a personage, to a noted beauty, an 
 ornament of the stage, should possess an interest for a 
 collector wholly apart from any element of snobbish- 
 ness. Nothing is more delusive than the auction price 
 of books or autographs. Long ago at a Philadelphia 
 sale, a lot of Trumbull's sketches for his great pic- 
 ture of the Battle of Princeton was oiffered, and I 
 instructed an agent to buy one or more, fixing a limit 
 
34 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 on the whole or any part. It happened that my friend 
 Junius— not the author of the famous letters— wanted 
 those very sketches, and as a result of my uninformed 
 and unwise competition, they cost him about $800 al- 
 though they would have been dear at half that sum. 
 This circumstance convinced me that it is a mistake to 
 estimate real value by casual auction prices. 
 
 Before me lies a faded pamphlet, a copy of "The 
 Athenaeum, or Spirit of the English Magazines," 
 published in Boston, on January i, 1828, containing 
 articles unblushingly appropriated from British peri- 
 odicals in the days when our own were feeble, few and 
 far between. Among them is one on "Autographs," 
 beginning with these words: "In direct opposition to 
 the established maxim, 'A living dog is better than a 
 dead lion,' the autograph of a dead man is better 
 than that of a living one; indeed, the longer a man 
 has been dead, the better the autograph." The genial 
 Maniac — who is not as mad as he pretends to be — 
 may whimsically dispute this proposition, but it is an 
 eternal verity, far beyond the power of any of us to 
 controvert successfully. As with the pictures of the 
 famous artists, the price increases when the source of 
 supply is cut off, and the value is measured by the 
 price. 
 
 I am glad to have my friend draw upon himself 
 the lightning of great men's wrath, because some day 
 the thunderers will be dead, and his specimens, heroi- 
 cally gathered In defiance of their indignant bolts, will 
 be lovingly cherished by disciples of the cult whose 
 coat-tails are Immune to the kicks of enraged states- 
 men and authors. It Is true, nevertheless, that mere 
 "autographs by request" are of little value In the 
 eyes of a wise collector. Even when they have the 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 3 5 
 
 spice of hearty resentment they are by no means 
 precious. 
 
 In a curiously unappreciative paper concerning the 
 beloved Autocrat, Oliver Wendell Holmes, included 
 in "Adventures Among Books," Andrew Lang says 
 of the delectable Doctor: "He was even too good- 
 humored, and the worst thing I have ever heard of him 
 is that he could not say 'no' to an autograph hunter." 
 Surely Lang intended this accusation to be a gentle 
 commendation, but I fear the casual reader will fail 
 to detect the subtle humor of it. Treating it seri- 
 ously, for the casual reader's sake, I own that I am 
 unable to find in the amiable weakness any good rea- 
 son for criticism or for censure. I admit that if these 
 pests of great men had made demands upon the Doc- 
 tor's purse they would have been seeking only trash, 
 according to the dictum of the author of "Othello" — 
 whoever that author may have been — and that by ask- 
 ing for his autograph they were endeavoring to take 
 from him his good name, but only as inscribed upon 
 a sheet of paper and by no means making him "poor 
 indeed." I am convinced that the sneers and cavils of 
 those who pronounce harsh judgments upon the seek- 
 ers of autographs are only the manifestations of ig- 
 norant illiberality like the old complaints which are 
 uttered from time to time about uncut books, deckel 
 edges, first editions, and dainty bindings. These de- 
 nunciations resemble the outcries of those who pos- 
 sess not the fragrant automobile against the plutocrat 
 who monopolizes our highways. When we are not 
 of his class, we scold him bitterly, but if we come to 
 that state of affluence which enables us to join his 
 ranks, we quickly assume his autocratic demeanor to- 
 wards those who merely cumber the earth with their 
 
36 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 slow-moving vehicles, horse-drawn, crawling along 
 without benefit of gasoline or electricity. Probably 
 the Merovingian kings with their ox-chariots were 
 fiercely hostile to the swift pacer or trotter. "It all 
 depends," as they say in the Mikado. It may be in- 
 ferred that I do not love the motor-car. If I need 
 rapidity of motion, I prefer to travel in the cab of an 
 engine on the Twentieth Century Limited. I do not 
 dote upon polo or bridge, but I keep silent about them 
 because I know that my neighbor's tastes may be law- 
 fully indulged whatever I may think about them or 
 whether or not they accord with mine. As the pleas- 
 ant writer of The Upton Letters remarks, "It does 
 not matter how much people disagree, if they will only 
 admit in their minds that every one has a right to a 
 point of view, and that their own does not necessarily 
 rule out all others." I am disposed to love my neigh- 
 bors as myself, as good people are instructed to do, 
 but the task is often arduous. I ask only that he will 
 patiently indulge me in my fondness for my favorite 
 books and my pet autographs, which cannot possibly 
 interfere with his personal comfort as his automobile 
 does with mine. 
 
 Almost everyone who reads and who really thinks, 
 has a pleasure in looking at autographs. In the great 
 library of the Vatican I have observed the eager in- 
 terest with which the visitors gaze upon the hand- 
 writing of Henry VIII, of Anne Boleyn, and of Mar- 
 tin Luther, — oddly preserved in a place where one 
 would scarcely expect to find it. The throngs who con- 
 template the wonderful collections In the British 
 Museum testify to the fascination which clings to the 
 actual pen-tracings made by men and women of his- 
 toric fame, and the multitudes who visit the Library 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 37 
 
 of Congress in Washington linger over the glass- 
 covered cabinets where the letters of our Presidents, 
 as well as of many other noted public men, grouped 
 with their portraits, are admirably arranged for in- 
 spection by the curious. 
 
 The interest of many examples in collections is 
 purely autographic — that is to say, the simple fact 
 that the lines were inscribed by the particular person 
 is the chief stimulant of the imagination. It may be 
 merely a formal document to which only the signa- 
 ture of Queen Elizabeth, or of Napoleon, or of 
 Charles I. of England, or of Washington is affixed; it 
 may be nothing but a line or two penned by Samuel 
 Johnson, or by Dean Swift, by William Pitt or by 
 Mazarin or Richelieu, — the effect is produced, and no 
 one who has a spark of fancy can fail to gain some 
 pleasure from the contemplation, for example, of an 
 official paper bearing the names of Charles II. and 
 Samuel Pepys, or a parchment scroll subscribed by 
 Oliver Cromwell. It is a simple matter to advance 
 from this point to the delight of reading original let- 
 ters and manuscripts of intrinsic merit, and with the 
 charm of reading comes the joy of possession. It is 
 a joy whose nature is absolutely different from that 
 which a bibliophile experiences when he gloats over 
 his precious "first edition," or hugs to his bosom his 
 invaluable Caxton. Sometimes there may be a sense 
 of pride in the ownership of a thing which no one else 
 may own, and we may detect the note of triumph 
 sounded in the boast occasionally uttered by even the 
 most modest of my brethren— "No specimen, sir, in 
 the British Museum." But the real delight is in the 
 feeling of companionship with the man who wrote 
 the letter or the book. The true autograph hunter 
 
38 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 may live with Lamb, talk with Macaulay, listen to 
 Dr. Johnson, gaze upon Thackeray at the Garrick, 
 and stand in the presence of Pope and Dryden. If 
 these are the results of devotion to "musty, dusty 
 stuff," then let my amiable lunatic of Madison, Wis- 
 consin, in the immortal words of Patrick Henry, 
 "make the most of it." 
 
 It is strange that the autograph collector is scorned 
 and condemned by the majority. Perhaps it is because 
 most men do not reflect about that which is of no im- 
 mediate interest to them. It may be that it arises from 
 the resentment which many are apt to feel towards 
 the few who are devoted to some rather exclusive pur- 
 suit: for the concrete autograph itself usually arouses 
 some attention among intelligent persons. I have an 
 idea that the depreciation comes from a certain affec- 
 tation on the part of great men, and the shallow ac- 
 quiescence of the careless newspaper scribblers in what 
 they deem to be the popular judgment. Like the early 
 Christians, we survive our persecutions. We know that 
 popularity is a poor test of merit. It would be a sad 
 day if collecting should ever become popular, as golf- 
 ing is and as "bicycling" was. I have a keen sympathy 
 for the English schoolmaster who said that golf and 
 drink were the two curses of the country. 
 
 But whatever may be the cause, it is undeniably true 
 that plain persons, and even some who consider them- 
 selves far superior to plain persons, are filled with un- 
 holy glee whenever they find an opportunity to utter 
 expressions of contempt and derision concerning the pur- 
 suit of the autograph. These expressions are in most 
 cases coupled with sarcastic allusions to postage stamps, 
 and ev^ry man appears to believe that the Idea of asso- 
 ciating a stamp collector and an autograph collector is 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 39 
 
 entirely original with him. I have amused myself from 
 time to time by recounting some of these censorious ob- 
 servations and in trying to fathom the mystery of their 
 genesis, while venturing mildly to demonstrate their in- 
 justice. I confess that one of the latest examples which 
 has been brought to my attention has given me more 
 pain and surprise than any of its predecessors. We have 
 been assailed and vilified in the house of our friends, 
 and if one may be permitted to use a trite expression, 
 attributed to a personage whose autograph would adorn 
 even the British Museum, one may well cry out,^^jE^ tu 
 Bruter 
 
 No collector deserving the name is unaware of the 
 proud eminence which has always been awarded to the 
 Reverend William Buel Sprague, D. D., the grand- 
 father of us all, who from his Albanian eyrie dis- 
 pensed autograph letters throughout the land, and with 
 delightful liberality shared his stores with his brethren 
 of the cult, while reserving for his own a splendid mass 
 of rare Americana. The enthusiastic Draper says of 
 him that he ''fills a distinguished and unique place in the 
 history of American literature and is accorded on all 
 hands the highest rank among the early American au- 
 tograph collectors." Was he not the man who furnished 
 to Doctor Emmet that peerless Lynch letter, the envy 
 of all collectors? I have heard rumors of another let- 
 ter, said to belong to Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, but I 
 have my doubts. From the description of it given to 
 me, I think it must be the one which is printed in Dra- 
 per's "Autographic Collections" and is shown to be a 
 forgery. I had acquired a reverence for the worthy 
 Doctor equal to that with which the devotee of Chris- 
 tian Science regards Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, or to that 
 which we are assured on unimpeachable authority, the 
 
40 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 heathen exhibits when he bows down to wood and stone. 
 But a kind Bostonian, actuated by generous impulse, 
 although perhaps not wholly lacking in sarcastic humor, 
 once gave me a book called "Visits to European Celeb- 
 rities, by William B. Sprague, D. D.," from the library 
 of Governor Charles H. Bell, of New Hampshire, 
 which contains an original autograph letter of the ex- 
 cellent dominie, written undoubtedly to Bell himself. 
 The astonishing tenor of this letter leads me to pre- 
 sent it in all its hideousness : 
 
 "Albany, i8 April, '68. 
 "My dear sir: Your kind letter has set me to 
 looking through a part of my collection to see if I 
 could find duplicates of any of your names on your 
 list, and the result, as you will see, is a very meagre 
 contribution. Such as they are, however, you are en- 
 tirely welcome to them. As a friend, I would advise 
 you to have as little to do with an autograph collector 
 as possible, for though there are some honorable ex- 
 ceptions, yet, as a class, I think they rank A No. i 
 in point of meanness. 
 
 "Very truly yours, 
 
 W. B. Sprague." 
 
 I acknowledge that on the first perusal of this re- 
 markable epistle I was stricken with the sort of stupor 
 which used to overcome the Virgilian hero when he 
 succumbed to circumstances and '^vox faucihus haesitJ* 
 After having battled with all the indictments found by 
 the grand jury of the public, the charges of covetous- 
 ness, selfishness, impudence, silliness, uselessness, born 
 of the plenitude of popular misinformation, and after 
 what I had vainly deemed my triumphant pleas to those 
 indictments, sustained, as I fondly imagined, by the 
 courts of highest jurisdiction — to be confronted now 
 with an accusation based upon the shameless confession 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 41 
 
 of a co-conspirator, the shocking admissions of a parti- 
 ceps criminis, the State's evidence of a faithless asso- 
 ciate, made my heart fail me for a moment, and my soul 
 to grow sad as I said, "but it was even thou, my com- 
 panion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend !" Figu- 
 ratively, Doctor Sprague was all of that to me, although 
 I must own that his birth antedates mine a little over half 
 a century, and I never had the good fortune to enjoy 
 his actual personal acquaintance. It would not have as- 
 tonished me more had Doctor Emmet denounced the 
 Signers, Gratz or Greenough sneered at Continental 
 Congressmen, or Benjamin proclaimed the folly of buy- 
 ing autographs in the market. If Mr. Hearst had nomi- 
 nated Mayor Gaynor for the Presidency, or if the New 
 York Tribune had blazed out in condemnation of pro- 
 tective tariffs, they would not have given me as serious 
 a shock as did this utterance of the venerable Sprague. 
 But there lies the record, and with an effort I summon 
 what remains of my intellect in order to apply myself to 
 a calm consideration of this unexpected situation. 
 
 We are at a disadvantage at the outset, because the 
 evidence upon which the charge is based has not been 
 submitted to our scrutiny. A good deal of the merit of 
 a cause depends upon the nature of the proof presented 
 in its support. It is not difficult to formulate a com- 
 plaint, but it is sometimes hard to bring the witnesses 
 up to the necessities of the case. I once had a client 
 who would come to the office just before the trial 
 of his action and, rubbing his hands in a genial way, cry 
 out, "Well, what do you want us to swear to?" But 
 he was an exception, for they generally exhibit a strong 
 disinclination to testify to the point and make strenuous 
 efforts to evade it. It would have been a pleasure to 
 question the frank and honest Doctor, but unfortunately 
 
42 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 he Is beyond the reach of cross-examination. What 
 tales he might have unfolded! Alas, they are buried 
 with him. We may only analyze the accusation and 
 endeavor to determine its justice or its injustice by 
 methods which are not permitted by the rules of evi- 
 dence. 
 
 Meanness means the mean. The mean is the low- 
 minded, base, wanting in integrity, poor, pitiful, stingy. 
 Meanness is a low state, poorness, want of dignity or 
 excellence, want of liberality. I must be right about 
 this, for I am quoting from a standard dictionary. On 
 behalf of the fraternity of autograph collectors, and 
 withgut a fee — unprofessional as it may seem — I enter 
 a plea of "not guilty." When Doctor Sprague penned 
 those fatal lines, he was suffering no doubt from some 
 experience of a painful nature with a pseudo-collector, 
 a mere Jeremy Diddler of a collector, who being aware 
 of his sweet simplicity of character and willingness to 
 help the aspiring neophyte, had attempted to impose 
 upon him for purposes of sordid gain. 
 
 One great difficulty which a reasonable man en- 
 counters in the course of his life — and I consider myself 
 the only truly reasonable man of my acquaintance — is 
 the unfortunate tendency of other men to indulge in 
 generalizations. Almost all generalizations are dan- 
 gerous, fallacious, and fraught with violations of the 
 rules of logic. Journeying in Canada some years ago 
 in the society of an eminent author of our day, we met 
 a lad who suffered from, a bad cough, and some hours 
 later we came upon another boy who was laboring un- 
 der a similar affliction. My literary friend thereupon 
 delivered himself of this solemn judgment: "All small 
 boys in Canada have coughs." We are familiar with 
 the story of the Englishman visiting Germany for the 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 43 
 
 first time, and after a single hour's experience in a rail- 
 way carriage, noting in his diary: "All Germans have 
 red hair and are named Muller." The Psalmist said 
 in his haste that all men are liars. I can not help think- 
 ing that Doctor Sprague said what he did about col- 
 lectors in like haste and with less justification, because 
 all men, except George Washington and Mark Twain, 
 have lied at times, whereas I am confident that col- 
 lectors, as a rule, are not mean and that the mean ones 
 are the dishonorable exceptions. But although I hold 
 a brief for the defence, I intend to be fair. I am in- 
 formed that no less a person than Doctor Thomas Ad- 
 dis Emmet himself — clarum et verier ahile nomen — as- 
 serts that Sprague was well within the truth when he 
 stigmatized collectors in the manner set forth in the 
 Bell letter; that he was victimized right and left by peo- 
 ple who never compensated him for material that he sold 
 to them ; and that he declared that Emmet and the late 
 T. Bailey Myers were the only customers who paid him. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that Doctor 
 Sprague was not a dealer, a business man, with a 
 tangible shop and a real, perceptible price-list. Per- 
 haps the recipients of his autographic contributions 
 thought that they were donees and not vendees. Dif- 
 fident persons, strangers, might well hesitate about 
 offering filthy lucre to a learned Doctor of Divinity, 
 unless he does as merchants do and gives notice that 
 he is in trade, by judicious advertisement. I doubt 
 whether he mentioned prices or sent a bill, but if he 
 expected payment he should have resorted to the or- 
 dinary methods of business. 
 
 Assuming that Doctor Sprague has testified that 
 Emmet and Myers were the only persons who consti- 
 tute the "honorable exceptions" referred to in the 
 
44 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Bell letter, let us subject the complainant to such cross- 
 examination as under our severe difficulties, we may 
 resort to in aid of our clients. Doctor, did you ever 
 know one Israel W. Tefft, of Georgia? Is it not a 
 fact that when you visited him in 1830 he had only 
 about thirty letters of Signers, but that he offered to 
 give you such as you needed — and you took them? 
 Did he not in 1845 present to you one or more Lynch 
 signatures to enable you to complete your additional 
 sets? If the Doctor's devoted admirer, Lyman C. 
 Draper, is telling the truth, the answers must be "yes." 
 Now, I show you a letter in your unmistakable chi- 
 rography, dated at Flushing, October 16, 1874, and 
 call your attention to this language: "When I began 
 to collect autographs, I was the intimate friend and 
 correspondent of Robert Gilmour of your city, the 
 first collector I ever knew, but it is long since his col- 
 lection was sold and I suppose scattered to the 
 winds." I will ask you now whether you were not 
 mistaken in your statement to Doctor Emmet, and if 
 the names of Tefft and of Gilmour — your "intimate 
 friend" — should not be excluded from the category 
 of "mean collectors," thus doubling the number of 
 your "honorable exceptions?" 
 
 I think I will not call any witnesses, because I have 
 none excepting myself. Truly, my own experience 
 has led me to a conclusion quite different from that 
 which the dear old Doctor announced so dogmatically. 
 That experience, I admit, has not been extensive, but 
 there has been a great change in autograph hunting 
 since the Doctor's day and generation. Autograph 
 collecting in this country was then in its infancy; the 
 collecting of to-day bears a similar relation to that of 
 fifty years ago which the telephone bears to the post 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 45 
 
 or the Chicago Flyer to the deliberate trains of the 
 old Camden and Amboy. It has been my good for- 
 tune to find the genuine collectors fair-minded, gen- 
 erous, and sympathetic, and I have often profited by 
 their generosity. I hesitate to "name names" but per- 
 haps I may be pardoned for mentioning the late El- 
 liot Danforth, and also the scholarly Boston lawyer, 
 Charles P. Greenough. Laurence Hutton too, was 
 liberal and I am grateful to him, although I do not 
 accept his peculiar views about autographs. As there 
 is a "science falsely so called," there are collectors 
 who do not deserve the honorable name ; and I am 
 sure that if I could summon the shade of Sprague to 
 this mortal sphere he would readily admit that his 
 incautious assertion was the result of some temporary 
 obscuration of the mind and that he did not really 
 mean it. 
 
 Returning to the subject of the joys of the collector, 
 we cannot forget that no less famous a man than Na- 
 thaniel Hawthorne has recorded his views. When 
 he had before him a book containing letters of states- 
 men and soldiers of the Revolution, he put himself in 
 the noble order of autograph lovers. I cite his very 
 words, because, much to my astonishment, I find that 
 he expresses my own feelings much more eloquently 
 than I am able to do. "They are profitable reading 
 on a quiet afternoon," he said, "and in a mode with- 
 drawn from too intimate relation with the present 
 time, so that we can glide backward some three-quart- 
 ers of a century, and surround ourselves with the 
 ominous sublimity of circumstances that then frowned 
 upon the writers. * * * They are magic scrolls, 
 if read in the right spirit. The roll of the drum and 
 the fanfare of the trumpet is latent in some of them; 
 
46 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 and in others, an echo of the oratory that resounded 
 in the old halls of the Continental Congress, at Phila- 
 delphia ; or the words may come to us as with the liv- 
 ing utterance of one of those illustrious men, speak- 
 ing face to face, in friendly communion. Strange, that 
 the mere identity of paper and ink should be so pow- 
 erful. The same thoughts might look cold and in- 
 effectual in a printed book. Human nature craves a 
 certain materialism, and clings pertinaciously to what 
 is tangible, as if that were of more importance than 
 the spirit accidentally involved in it. And, in truth, 
 the original manuscript has always something which 
 print itself must inevitably lose. An erasure, even a 
 blot, a casual irregularity of hand, and all such little 
 imperfections of mechanical executions, bring us close 
 to the writer, and perhaps convey some of those sub- 
 tle intimations for which language has no shape. 
 * * * * There are said to be temperaments en- 
 dowed with sympathies so exquisite that, by merely 
 handling an autograph, they can detect the writer's 
 character with unerring accuracy, and read his in- 
 most heart as easily as a less gifted eye would peruse 
 the written page. Our faith in this power, be it a 
 spiritual one, or only a refinement of the physical na- 
 ture, is not unlimited, in spite of evidence. 
 God has imparted to the human soul a marvellous 
 strength in guarding its secrets, and he keeps at least 
 the deepest and most inward record for his own 
 perusal. But if there be such sympathies as we have 
 alluded to, in how many instances would history be 
 put to blush by a volume of autographic letters, like 
 this which we now close!"* 
 
 *A Book of Autographs: Hawthorne's Works. Ed. 1889. 
 Vol. XII, 88. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 47 
 
 Even In a sedate student of history, a new emotion^ 
 may be produced by the actual and visible presence 
 of such a letter as this, from Charles II. which speaks^ 
 of a kindly heart, whatever we may think of the 
 morals of the Merry Monarch. As Mr. Choate said 
 some years ago, "he was a jovial blade." 
 
 ''Whitehall, lo Jan., 1684. 
 Harry Sidney. I would have you assure Temple 
 that I am very kinde to him, and if he can compasse 
 the match he designes at Paris I will use my best 
 offices with the king of France to make It In all points 
 as easy to him as I can. 
 
 Charles R." 
 
 I trust that no disrespect Is Implied in spelling the 
 word "king" with a small "K." 
 
 Coming to a much later day, it Is surely of interest 
 to read what George Bancroft thought of President 
 Andrew Johnson, particularly in view of the discovery, 
 from the Johnson papers in the Congressional Library, 
 that the first message of that much-abused president, a 
 state paper admired and wondered at when it ap- 
 peared, was drafted by America's most distinguished 
 historian. He is writing to Adam Badeau. "I knew 
 Andrew Johnson thoroughly well," he says, "having 
 once lived near him where I saw him every day and 
 had the most unreserved intercourse with him. I then 
 held and now hold that his arraignment was an act of 
 injustice, and that he was on his trial thoroughly en- 
 titled to acquittal. The man had faults enough, ambi- 
 tion enough; but his unvaried Intention was, to main- 
 tain fidelity to the Constitution and keep within Its 
 bounds." If we look upon Bancroft on that side of his 
 character which is the most attractive, we cannot fail 
 to be brought closer to him when we have before us, 
 
48 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 in his own distinct handwriting, what he wrote to Bay- 
 ard Taylor in 1864. "Mr. Lang has just left with me 
 your chant for Bryant's 70th birthday. It is admirable. 
 I expected good from you; and you have done exceed- 
 ingly well. You need never regret that you made this 
 most successful effort. . . . You are too modest. 
 Your parts are never of the past." I am sorry to say 
 that Bancroft then proceeds to suggest amendments of 
 Taylor's verses, which in charity I refuse to quote. They 
 partake of the quality exhibited in the Poems of 1823. 
 The "Mr. Lang" mentioned in the letter is not Andrew 
 the All-Knowing, but Louis Lang, an artist of 
 New York, who composed the music for Tay- 
 lor's Ode, which was sung at the Century Club 
 on the night of November 5th, 1864, when — 
 Bancroft presiding and Emerson, Holmes and a 
 host of others assembled — that Association commem- 
 orated the arrival of the beloved poet at the age of 
 three score and ten. 
 
 The innate modesty of Hawthorne shines out in this 
 brief letter, which he wrote from Lenox in December, 
 1850, after he had given to the world "The Scarlet 
 Letter," and had ceased to be what he once styled him- 
 self, "the obscurest man of letters in America." I do 
 not know the name of the person to whom it was writ- 
 ten: but that is of no moment. He writes: "I am 
 gratified that you think me worth biographizing; and 
 as soon as I get a book off my hands, I will see what 
 I can do towards your purpose. You will not find it 
 a life of many incidents. I could wish (not for the 
 first time) that I were personally known to you, and 
 could impart the requisite materials from one corner 
 of the fireside to the other." That this expression was 
 sincere, there can be no question; it does not bear out 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 49 
 
 the idea that Hawthorne was an unsocial person, shun- 
 ning his fellow-beings. But I must not indulge too free- 
 ly in my fondness for my own treasures. 
 
 Sometimes the satisfaction in the possession of "some- 
 thing which no one else may own," is seriously les- 
 sened by the discovery that some one else has a prize 
 which he fondly believes to be the very thing which 
 I cherish so lovingly. I have had at least three severe 
 shocks but I have survived them. My letter of Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes to Parsons, the translator of the "In- 
 ferno," dated in 1867, was printed in the "Century" 
 for October, 1901, in an article by Maria S. Porter, 
 with a few verbal changes of no moment but dated 
 "1869," and the writer asserted that she was "the for- 
 tunate possessor of it." In my anxiety, I wrote to her 
 at the address given to me by the publishers of the mag- 
 azine, and told her courteously of my predicament. I 
 received no reply, and as my letter was not returned 
 to me I infer that possibly the lady had once owned 
 the Holmes letter but had parted with it before her 
 article appeared. Years ago I purchased what was 
 called the manuscript of Moore's "Epicurean," cover- 
 ing one hundred and forty-seven pages of the two hun- 
 dred and eleven comprised in the edition of 1839. 
 Within a short time I saw in the catalogue of the sale 
 of Le Gallienne's autographs, an announcement of 
 "The Manuscript of Thomas Moore's Epicurean." 
 Later it was sold in Bishop Hurst's collection, and the 
 purchaser kindly allowed me to examine it. His man- 
 uscript is perhaps the "original manuscript of the orig- 
 inal draft;" contained in a blank book; a preliminary 
 sketch, and valuable enough, while mine is manifestly 
 the copy sent to the printer. 
 
 I have what I am quite sure Is the manuscript of 
 
so EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Barry Cornwall's "Life of Charles Lamb," a thick 
 volume whose sheets seem, like my Moore's pages, to be 
 those which the compositors handled. But when the 
 aforesaid collection of the worthy Bishop was disposed 
 of at auction, there was another "Manuscript of Barry 
 Cornwall's Life of Charles Lamb" offered to a confiding 
 public. I have seen this also, and while it is bound in 
 a style quite similar to mine, it is much smaller and ap- 
 pears to be only a rough draft of a portion of the book. 
 The Bishop and I seem to have been enamored of 
 drafts. These fables teach us not to be unduly puffed 
 up about our "author's manuscripts;" there may be 
 several of the same work, for worthy books are not 
 thrown off at a single sitting. 
 
 An English dealer once pointed out to me, by way 
 of temptation to a patriotic American, the alleged man- 
 uscript of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and was quite 
 depressed in spirit when I told him that good old Doc- 
 tor Smith spent a large part of his declining years in 
 producing autograph copies of his one famous poem; 
 and Holmes, in his generous way, did not disdain to 
 turn out copies of "Old Ironsides" and "The Last 
 Leaf" — precious things, even if not the originals. 
 
 The number of genuine collectors in the United States 
 is not large, but it is increasing. To those of us whose 
 appetite has not yet been satiated, it is discouraging to 
 observe the rise in the prices of desirable autographs. 
 The Athenaeum article from which I have already 
 quoted, refers to contemporaneous auction values, and 
 speaks of Cromwell at five guineas, Francis L at four 
 shillings. Sir Francis Walsingham with five added signa- 
 tures at nine shillings. Lord Nelson at two pounds fifteen 
 shillings, and Gibbon at eight shillings. Before me is a 
 manuscript catalogue of a leading London house in 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 5 1 
 
 which Cromwell figures at eighteen pounds twelve shill- 
 ings, Francis I. at ten pounds, Walsingham at thirty-five 
 pounds, and Gibbon at two pounds fifteen shillings. At 
 a sale in London in May, 1904, a letter of Nelson to 
 Lady Hamilton brought one thousand and thirty pounds 
 t — it seems an absurd price. The "Evening Post" 
 bibliophile intimates that it is likely that "two agents 
 at the sale had unlimited bids from long-pursed buy- 
 ers, and each determined to outbid the other, and both 
 lost their heads." I am pleased to find one of my theor- 
 ies about these tremendous prices sustained by such a 
 competent authority. There are other reasons for the 
 differences in sale values. The importance of the con- 
 tents of letter or document, the sudden increase in the 
 fame of the writer, and the anxiety of some enthusiast 
 to obtain the one specimen needed to complete a 
 "set," are all factors. Twenty years ago the eigh- 
 teen lines which now confront me in the rather boy- 
 ish scrawl of Theodore Roosevelt might have been 
 found in the "seventy-five cent list," but it cost me ten 
 dollars — a fact which illustrates the truth of the adage 
 concerning the unwise person and his supply of coin, 
 more forcible than polite. It suggests the idea that the 
 problem of what to do with our ex-Presidents is more 
 easily solved than we had supposed. Ten autograph 
 letters a day at ten dollars each would afford a respect- 
 able income, although there would be danger of over- 
 stocking the market; but Congress might establish a 
 fixed price, deriving its power in that regard from the 
 interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. 
 
 Bearing in mind the record contained in the Athen- 
 aeum, it is not unlikely that the man who bought wisely 
 in 1828 might have left a legacy to his descendants far 
 more valuable than city lots in upper New York which 
 
52 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 have enriched so many members of our modern 
 aristocracy. Regarded as an investment, I am in- 
 chned to believe that a well-selected collection of 
 autograph letters may be, in the long run, superior to 
 railway stocks or bonds. It is true that autographs pay 
 no dividends; but we know that, and we never know 
 whether we are to get our income from what we are 
 pleased to call our "securities." There is great satis- 
 faction in being certain about something. I know that 
 there has been offered to me for a dozen Revolutionary 
 War letters, signed by Washington, double the amount 
 I paid for them a few years ago, and I cannot say as 
 much for any of the beautifully engraved certificates or 
 evidences of indebtedness of "railways" or "industri- 
 als." I suppose the name "industrials" was adopted 
 because of the energy with which the promoters 
 "worked" the community. The real collector, however, 
 has small regard for the sordid side of the occupation. 
 I would not part with my Washingtons for many times 
 their cost, but I like to think that somebody covets them. 
 When the Maniac charges me with turning up my 
 nose at his kind, he is mistaken. I am not what Mrs. 
 Squeers called "a turned-up-nose peacock," — far from 
 it. Dickens remarked that a peacock with a turned-up- 
 nose is a novelty in ornithology and a thing not com- 
 monly seen. A collector of autographs who turns up 
 his nose at any other collector is just as much of a nov- 
 elty. The collector who deserves the name is compre- 
 hensive in his affections; nothing collectorial is alien 
 to him. He would indeed be an offensive creature who 
 would scorn the feeblest efforts of an aspirant, the in- 
 cipient struggles of a neophyte whose untutored mind is 
 striving to attain the ultimate goal of ambition. I re- 
 member that in my salad days I deliberately destroyed 
 
THE QUEST OF THE AUTOGRAPH 53 
 
 a large number of interesting letters of public men in or- 
 der to save only the signatures, and yet I escaped an 
 indictment for malicious mischief. We must all have 
 our beginnings; we must pass through the trying or- 
 deals of infancy, of boyhood, and of young manhood. 
 There are many stages of the malady which Edmund 
 Gosse calls "collectaneomania." 
 
 A veteran collector would no more dream of distort- 
 ing his nasal organ in the presence of youthful ignor- 
 ance than Grant or Lee would have thought of sneering 
 at a West Point cadet or Choate or Carter would have 
 despised a Bachelor of Laws just out of Cambridge, 
 Columbia, or Mr. Chase's School. It is delightful to 
 observe the protoplasmic germ of a collector; no one 
 can tell what may come of it; it may develop into 
 greatness. The serene altitude of the Bixbys and the 
 Morgans I do not hope to attain; but despite the ill- 
 concealed amusement of the populace, I expect to con- 
 tinue to the end of life the pleasant quest of the auto- 
 graph. 
 
REFLECTIONS OF AN AUTOGRAPH LOVER 
 
 UPON the principle of dichotomous division, 
 dear to the soul of my old preceptor Dr. 
 Atwater, mankind may be said to consist 
 of two classes — those who collect auto- 
 graphs and those who do not. I am ad- 
 dressing myself to the second and numerically larger 
 class, for to the others I can impart little or nothing 
 of interest or value. They know it all themselves. 
 
 A well-beloved friend, known in the world of litera- 
 ture — the late Laurence Hutton— said in a lecture at 
 Princeton that there were four methods of getting au- 
 tographs: that is to say, by reception, by gift, by pur- 
 chase, and by theft. I do not reproduce his exact words 
 but only my recollection of them as he repeated them 
 to me while we were enjoying a sociable cigar on the 
 pleasant piazza of "The Inn." He did not refer to a 
 fifth method, adopted only by fiends, which may be 
 styled "extortion," possibly because he regarded it as 
 only a species of the genus theft. It is the devotee of 
 extortion who makes the honorable guild of autograph 
 collectors unjustly odious in the sight of the world. He 
 surely overlooked other ways and means which may be 
 mentioned hereafter. 
 
 I have endeavored elsewhere in a mild and humble 
 manner to vindicate the lover of autographs, truly so- 
 called, but I fear that my well-meant effort has not been 
 overwhelmingly successful. An acquaintance who made 
 false pretense of having read the dissertation, said smil- 
 ingly to me: "Why, I used to collect postage stamps 
 
 55 
 
S6 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 myself, when I was a boy", unthinkingly classing my 
 pursuit with the feeble strivings of his childhood. But 
 it is not my purpose to make a brief in the case of the 
 autograph hunter against the scoffer. He who does not 
 comprehend intuitively the good there is in the collect- 
 ing of autographs will never be convinced by all the 
 logic of the schools. It must come to him like an ap- 
 preciation of Tintoretto. 
 
 In many instances the utterances of those who abuse 
 collectors are the result of pure ignorance. At a sale 
 a few years ago, a number of letters were disposed of 
 by auction, including some of Henry Clay and other 
 American public men, which realized only small sums, 
 and one of the late Edward VII. written when he was 
 Prince of Wales and addressed to Mrs. Langtry, for 
 which some misguided but enthusiastic individual paid 
 ninety dollars as I have elsewhere related. Of course 
 the low prices of the great Americans were occasioned 
 by the profusion of the supply — the statesmen of 
 Clay's time must have written letters by the mile. 
 Say what the newspaper critics will, there are vast 
 numbers of people of refinement who gaze with in- 
 terest and curiosity on a letter from a King to a famous 
 actress, but who cast an indifferent eye upon long 
 and eloquent epistles of Clay or of Webster. To 
 denounce all collectors as snobs because one of them 
 paid ninety dollars for King Edward's autograph, is 
 an excellent example of our old college acquaintance, the 
 fallacy of the undistributed middle. We might as well 
 say that because some of our metropolitan journals reek 
 with sensation, foulness and crime, all newspapers are 
 dirty and disreputable. 
 
 We will assume as a postulate that it must be of 
 benefit to gather into one's possession the veritable 
 
AN AUTOGRAPH LOVER 57 
 
 writings of the famous, the things which their own 
 hands made, and we will consider briefly the way of 
 the man with the autograph. A notable thing it is, 
 indeed, to receive from a person of distinction an au- 
 tograph letter addressed to one's self, voluntarily, 
 without previous solicitation — like the one I am so 
 proud of, from that noble statesman, Grover Cleve- 
 land, which I prize far beyond all the rest. Obviously 
 it must be only the favored few who are able to point 
 exultingly to letters of that order; men like James T. 
 Fields, Charles Oilier, the publisher, or dear Lau- 
 rence Hutton of blessed memory. I remember that 
 the Landmarker refused to admit any other sort with- 
 in the attractive boundaries of his collection. It is 
 not pleasant to think that at some day such treasures 
 must either be added to the number of marketable au- 
 tographs or be buried irretrievably in some splendid 
 library where nobody will pay much attention to them. 
 The surest way of consigning to oblivion a collection 
 of autographs is to bestow it upon a public library 
 over whose glass-covered cases may well be inscribed 
 lasciate ogni speranza. Perhaps the Library of Con- 
 gress may be an exception. A few framed specimens 
 like the fine George Washington, on the walls of the 
 Bodleian, which stirred with pride my American 
 heart, are suitable enough, but an autograph collection 
 is not to be stored away in locked cabinets or in steel- 
 bound vaults. It is something to be played with, to 
 be pawed over, to be arranged and re-arranged, per- 
 petually to be added to, enlarged, revised, and im- 
 proved. It should be free from the intrusion of paste 
 and of albums. It should be protected by wrappers 
 or by portfolios only, except perhaps in the case of 
 complete "sets", such as "Signers of the Declara- 
 
58 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 tion", "Presidents", "Kings of England", "Napo- 
 leon's Marshals", or "Generals of the Revolution", 
 and these, when completed and associated with the 
 best of portraits, may be enshrined by our pet binder 
 in the richest of crushed levant, or in the more dura- 
 ble pig-skin which that dean of collectors. Dr. Em- 
 met, is said to prefer over all other kinds of binding. 
 
 It is also a delightful thing to acquire the auto- 
 graphs by gift, and the soul of the collector expands 
 with emotion when he contemplates the charming 
 specimens bestowed upon him by bountiful friends. I 
 cannot forget my own joy over the rare letter of Rich- 
 ter sent to me by a brother lawyer, or the manuscript 
 notes of a speech of Daniel Webster, which came 
 from a kindly Boston book-lover, or the Rufus Choate 
 manuscript, a portentous array of wild scrawlings, 
 the gift of another New York lawyer endowed with a 
 genuine affection for that which is good and instruc- 
 tive; or that splendid Kipling story, "The Recrudes- 
 cence of Imray", as it was originally called, which the 
 famous bank-president brought to me with his own 
 hands, leaving me breathless with gratitude and 
 amazement. My ponderous portfolios of Continental 
 Congressmen would be sadly deficient but for the gen- 
 erosity of Danforth and Greenough. It speaks in no 
 uncertain accents of the altruism of collectors, this 
 fondness for helping others. I do not discover it in 
 any other class of collectors. How much dear old 
 Dr. Sprague did to enlarge the happiness of his 
 brethren ! 
 
 George William Curtis, that true literary artist, 
 must have been one of the few who realize that it is 
 more blessed to give than to receive, when he parted 
 with that notelet which I have bound in my set of the 
 
AN AUTOGRAPH LOVER 59 
 
 original numbers of The Virginians together with a 
 page of the manuscript of that novel; it is quoted in 
 James Grant Wilson's book: 
 
 "My dear Curtis: 
 
 Who can be the friend who asks for the signature 
 of the unhappy 
 
 W. M. Thackeray?" 
 
 I do not know who the friend was, but he deserved 
 summary and condign punishment because he asked 
 for a signature only. He who begs for a signature is 
 lost. He has not attained the lowest round of the 
 ladder; he has the same relation to the kingdom of 
 collection as the patent medicine advertisement has to 
 literature or which the lad with his hoard of postage 
 stamps has to Beverly Chew or to Howard Mansfield. 
 I shall never feel that I have done my duty as a citi- 
 zen until I shall have secured the adoption of an 
 amendment to the Constitution making the solicitation 
 of an autograph signature equivalent to an overt act 
 of treason. 
 
 Not many of us are fortunate enough to have the 
 help of such assistants as the Autocrat of the Break- 
 fast Table whose masterpiece, according to Donald 
 Mitchell, will go with Montaigne, with the essays of 
 Goldsmith, and with "Elia" upon one of the low 
 shelves where it may be easily reached and where it 
 will always be ready to give joy to the reader. The 
 sweet doctor writes, in his clear, dainty hand: 
 
 "Beverly Farms, Mass., August 21, 1879. 
 My dear Longfellow: I send you a letter of Mr. 
 Frederick Locker with a request which I know you 
 will comply with. The daughter he refers to, as you 
 may remember, married Tennyson's son. If you 
 would have the kindness, after writing the lines 
 
6o EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 marked for yourself, to send the whole, letter and all, 
 to Emerson, he to Whittier, and Whittier to me, I 
 should feel in sending back the manuscript that I had 
 made Mr. Locker happy, and that I should be glad to 
 do, for he has shown me much kindness, though I 
 have never seen him. I cannot help the fact that his 
 letter has a few complimentary words about myself 
 — you can skip those, if you will read the rest. 
 Always faithfully yours, 
 
 O. W. Holmes." 
 
 I am told by those who knew him that Frederick 
 Locker (later calling himself, for financial reasons, 
 Frederick Locker-Lampson) who WTOte the London 
 Lyrics, was personally unpleasant, disagreeable, and 
 repellent. But if any man who loves books or the 
 makers of books pauses to ponder over the kindly 
 epistle of the beloved Holmes, his imagination must 
 surely be stimulated when he reflects that it was writ- 
 ten by the witty poet and essayist, who is one of our 
 dearest possessions; that it passed through the hands 
 of a greater poet who was almost as lovable, to whom 
 it was addressed; and that it reminds us of an accom- 
 plished author, who may have been ungracious and 
 uncomfortable to meet, but who wrote charmingly 
 and whose interesting Confidences recall pleasantly 
 the literary life of London in his day. It recalls also 
 the daughter-in-law of the great Laureate, and the 
 wonderful New Englanders, Emerson and Whittier, 
 who certainly did not refuse to comply with a request 
 so gently made. 
 
 Not unlike the Autocrat's letter is this one to Cur- 
 tis, which I find among my belongings : 
 
 "Sunnyside, September 12, 1854. 
 Mr. dear Mr. Curtis : I hasten to furnish the auto- 
 graphs you request for those two 'enthusiastic, lovely 
 
AN AUTOGRAPH LOVER 6i 
 
 and sensible' young ladles of whom you speak. Dur- 
 ing the prevalence of the autograph mania, it is quite 
 a relief to have such fair and interesting applicants. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 George W. Curtis, Esq." 
 
 It is comical to observe the old bachelor's willing- 
 ness to oblige pretty girls, as if their requests for au- 
 tographs were less tiresome than those of mere men. 
 Irving was always fond of the society of women, true 
 as he was to the memory of the one whom he lost in 
 her girlhood. 
 
 Another means of obtaining autographs, which may 
 be a sub-head under the title "gift", is exchange. There 
 was more exchanging done in the earlier days than now. 
 Perhaps the most famous instance on record is the one 
 described in the books, where Doctor Sprague, the re- 
 nowned pioneer in our ranks, parted with the only 
 known letter of Thomas Lynch, Jr., written to Wash- 
 ington on July 5, 1777. It went to Doctor Emmet in 
 a barter, practically costing him $700, according to the 
 testimony of Lyman C. Draper, who published a volume 
 about the Signers of the Declaration and the Signers 
 of the Constitution. Lynch the youthful Signer, who 
 was lost at sea when only thirty years old, ranks with 
 Button Gwinnett, of Georgia, as the rarest of the noble 
 company. Gwinnett left no holograph letters, as far as 
 my information goes, but there are several autograph 
 documents of his which are almost as valuable as letters 
 would be. Doctor Sprague had the good fortune to 
 know Judge Bushrod Washington, and obtained his 
 permission to select whatever he pleased from the 
 voluminous correspondence of the General, leaving cop- 
 ies of those he desired to take with him. He chose 
 
62 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 about fifteen hundred, among them the unrivaled Lynch^ 
 the envy and despair of modern American collectors, 
 who must needs be content with "cut" signatures. It is 
 said that the fortunate owner once refused $5,000 for 
 it, and it is now the property of the New York Public 
 Library. 
 
 Hutton, while mentioning four ways of gathering au- 
 tographs, overlooked inheritance as well as extortion 
 and exchange. The Leffingwell collection was be- 
 queathed to a niece of the original collector; part of 
 Sprague's went to his son, a respected lawyer in New 
 York, who transferred it to the accomplished Albanian 
 and entertaining speaker, the late John Boyd Thacher; 
 T. Bailey Myers left his large accumulations to his son 
 and daughter, from whom they passed to join the Em- 
 met collection in the New York Library; and Mrs. 
 Ely, of Providence, almost a unique example of a fem- 
 inine autograph-collector, handed down her stores to her 
 daughter and her grandson. I question whether an 
 inherited collection ever appeals strongly to the lega- 
 tees; the taste itself may be inherited but it does not 
 pass by testamentary disposition. 
 
 It is the fate of most collections to be dispersed, and 
 in my copy of Draper's book I have inserted a letter of 
 Doctor Sprague, in which he writes, characteristically: 
 "If you happen to have any duplicates, and will tell me 
 what they are, and which you want, I will see if I can 
 accommodate you by an exchange. When I began to 
 collect autographs I was the intimate friend and cor- 
 respondent of Robert Gilmour, of your city, — the first 
 collector I ever knew. But it is long since his collec- 
 tion was sold and, I suppose, scattered to the winds." 
 Gilmour (or Gilmor) was of Baltimore and some of 
 his quondam possessions rest now in my own collec- 
 
AN AUTOGRAPH LOVER 63 
 
 tion, to be dispersed again, I know, in the course of 
 time. 
 
 Most of us acquired our autographs as Major Gen- 
 eral Stanley acquired his ancestors— by purchase ; from 
 dealers, from private owners, and from sales at auction. 
 It is said that auction sales of autographs began in Lon- 
 don in the early part of the last century, and since 1823 
 they have been quite frequent not only in England but 
 in Paris, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. It is 
 not at all a romantic or a picturesque way, and one 
 cannot grow very gossipy or loquacious about such pure- 
 ly mercantile transactions. As in the case of books, 
 the auction prices seldom afford any just criterion of 
 value. There may be an enthusiast, bent upon gaining 
 certain items, who will run up the prices to fabulous 
 heights, and again there may be occasions when, by 
 reason of indifference, or of inadequate advertising, the 
 finest specimens are knocked down for a trifling sum, 
 but generally to professionals. I never got a bargain 
 in my life; and if an amateur shows himself at such 
 sales he is promptly frozen out or rather lifted out by 
 a combination of the dealers. Usually it is better to 
 treat with one of the regular tradesmen in autographs; 
 the private vendor is commonly impossible. His idea 
 of the value of what he has, is generally absurd. The 
 dealer will ask more than his wares are really worth, but 
 we must make due allowance, and as most of us are 
 engaged in other pursuits demanding a fairly constant 
 attention, we ought to pay him for the time he saves 
 us as well as for his expert judgment, and the money 
 is not thrown away. It is odd that some American 
 autographs are very dear in England, and most Eng- 
 lish autographs are correspondingly dear in New York. 
 This is of little moment to the money-kings who have 
 
64 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 taken to autograph-collecting, and who think nothing of 
 sweeping up a collection of thousands, while we humbler 
 disciples are conscious of guilt if we timidly venture a 
 few hundred dollars, after much pondering and self- 
 castigation. Yet I believe that he who painfully brings 
 together his beloved scraps piece-meal, by unaided toil 
 and research, derives more pleasure from it than do 
 those who purchase at wholesale. 
 
 Even the least avaricious of us sometimes dream of 
 finding money; and when I have been thinking of a 
 certain piece of luck which befell a lady I once knew, 
 I am sure to dream of finding a long-forgotten hoard 
 of autographs in some out-of-the-way place. A long 
 time ago this lady was sojourning at the home of a ven- 
 erable member of the Franklin family, and on seeing 
 some men carrying off a large box or barrel of old pa- 
 pers, was moved to ask the owner to let her have the 
 rejected rubbish. It turned out to be a wonderful au- 
 tographic treasure — drafts of letters, essays, reports, 
 Revolutionary accounts kept while the writer was in 
 France, all in the hand of Benjamin Franklin; letters 
 addressed to him, one from John Paul Jones describing 
 the battle of the Bon Homme Richard, saved as by a 
 miracle from the devouring maw of the paper mill. 
 These now occupy a place of honor in the collection of 
 a learned Pennsylvania Society, except the Jones letter 
 which I am told was unluckily given away to some 
 person unknown. It makes one's heart sink to be in- 
 formed that there had been other barrels ! The increas- 
 ed interest in all Revolutionary records which has come 
 In later days makes it well nigh impossible that such a 
 chance should come to anyone now. Yet the South has 
 not been fully explored. 
 
 As to theft and extortion, it is well not to go into 
 
AN AUTOGRAPH LOVER 6 s 
 
 distressing details. I do not justify the larceny of an 
 autograph letter for purposes of gain, but when I am 
 permitted to browse peacefully in some fat letter book 
 appertaining to a Philistine, who knows not the joys 
 of collecting, I am sorely tempted to purloin that which 
 means little to him, but much to me. Hitherto I have 
 sternly resisted the voice of the tempter. 
 
 "Why comes temptation, but for man to meet 
 And master, and make crouch beneath his foot, 
 And so be pedestaled in triumph." 
 
 A confiding friend once admitted to me that he had 
 stolen a set of autographs, and years afterwards tor- 
 tured by conscience, made restitution to the true 
 owner who had never missed them. 
 
 The London Athenaeum observed in 1855 that "the 
 story of what history owes to the autograph collectors 
 would make a pretty book". That book has never yet 
 been written, but — 
 
A CERTAIN AFFECTATION OF THE GREAT 
 
 AS the fortunate individuals who are pos- 
 sessed of what the world calls greatness 
 are necessarily different in capacity and 
 endowments from the general body of 
 the people, it is perhaps natural that 
 they should observe the affairs of life from a point 
 of view more elevated and commanding than that 
 which is occupied by ordinary human beings. It is 
 for this reason, no doubt, that they frequently dis- 
 play what we of humbler station are accustomed to 
 characterize as affectations. Those who have devoted 
 time and labor to the study of the lives of great men 
 and women, in order that we may be instructed how 
 to "make our lives sublime", will not need to be re- 
 minded of particular instances nor to be convinced by the 
 production of testimony tending to establish the verity 
 of the proposition. We are all familiar with the truth 
 that such persons, for example, as Louis XIV, Queen 
 Elizabeth, Napoleon, General Winfield Scott, Horace 
 Greeley, the Kaiser Wilhelm, and others nearer home, 
 were and are mere bundles of affectations. 
 
 I was moved to indulge in these profound reflec- 
 tions by the perusal of some remarks in the "Contrib- 
 utor's Club" in a number of the Atlantic Monthly, 
 entitled "A Great Person and Certain Bores". The 
 writer announced that he (or she) "has lately been 
 private secretary and literary advisor {sic) to a Great 
 Person", and contributed to the enlightment of man- 
 kind this gem of wisdom: "The worst enemy to the 
 Great Person is the autograph collector. Now, the col- 
 
 6^ 
 
68 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 lector who buys with good money autographs that are 
 already on paper, or who begs from his friends, or 
 who knows celebrities well enough to ask them to 
 their faces for their signatures, may be, and I am sure 
 is, a great nuisance. But he is not a foe to society." 
 
 I have elsewhere expressed the opinion, founded 
 partly upon knowledge acquired by a careful examina- 
 tion of written and printed records, and partly upon 
 facts derived from personal observation, that the truly 
 great are not really as much bored by requests for au- 
 tographs as minor magnates of literature and of poli- 
 tics would have an admiring public believe. I shall 
 not, however, attempt to justify or to defend the "pes- 
 tilential nuisance" who "writes for autographs". There 
 is no need of heaping upon the head of such a pseudo- 
 collector any further epithets of scorn. Let us say 
 that he is an impertinent intruder and a worm, and let 
 it go at that. Away with him ! What interests me is 
 to observe that the Great appear to have developed 
 their affectation so far as to denounce as a nuisance 
 the man who "buys with good money autographs that 
 are already on paper." What words of contempt 
 would be employed to crush the person who bought 
 them with forged notes or with counterfeit coin, or 
 who purchased autographs inscribed upon brass, or 
 bronze, or imperishable marble, or who made con- 
 tracts for the future delivery of autographs in the con- 
 fident expectation of a rise in the market value of au- 
 tographs, I dare not imagine, but let us for a moment 
 examine the merits of the charge preferred by so im- 
 portant a personage as a former "private secretary 
 and literary 'advisor' to a Great Person." 
 
 It may not profit us to consider what may be the 
 duties of a literary advisor to a Great Female Per- 
 
AFFECTATIONS OF THE GREAT 69 
 
 son. A really Great Person frequently needs the help 
 of a private secretary but surely not the services of a 
 literary advisor, if that title Is to be taken In Its or- 
 dinary and obvious signification. It may be that the 
 Great Female Person ought at times to be told what 
 kinds of books are appropriate to particular hours of 
 the day, or what styles and colors of binding har- 
 monize most effectively with certain gowns or with 
 the furniture of the apartment devoted to the study 
 of the works of the poets, philosophers, or word- 
 painters of the past. It may be that the Great Per- 
 son has inaccurate ideas of the spelling of English 
 words or of the construction of English sentences, but 
 I cannot believe that she needs to be advised, let us 
 say, that she must not prefer Alfred Austin to John 
 Milton, or to discard Stubbs, Freeman and John Rich- 
 ard Green in favor of the modern writers of histori- 
 cal fiction. The inquiry may, however, be deferred. 
 It is enough for the moment to say that the Atlantic 
 article contains conclusive, intrinsic evidence that the 
 Great Female Person mentioned In it Is great, not by 
 reason of Intellect or achievement, but solely because 
 of Inherited riches; and that the ex-private secretary 
 and ex-literary advisor, notwithstanding a cunning lit- 
 tle phrase inserted with intent to deceive. Is also one 
 of the bright, alluring, charming, and illogical sex, 
 whose members are, we are assured, in our hours of 
 ease uncertain, coy and hard to please, and who rise 
 to their loftiest sphere only in those uncomfortable 
 moments when pain and anguish wring the brow. We 
 may even be right In regarding this fabrication of 
 libels upon harmless collectors as actually a much 
 Greater Person than the wealthy lady who required 
 her literary advice and counsel, and I am sure that I 
 
70 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 would value her autograph far more highly, unless, 
 as a million autograph writers, more or less, are ac- 
 customed to say, at the foot of a cheque. 
 
 Verily the judgment delivered by the ex-advisor 
 whereby she decrees that the collector who buys con- 
 titutes himself a nuisance, shows her imperfect ac- 
 quaintance with the facts and the law. I fear that she 
 promulgated it without due attention to the injunction 
 audi alteram partem. If there were any Court of Ap- 
 peals of competent jurisdiction, that court would re- 
 verse it without hesitation, for manifest error appear- 
 ing upon its face. The true collector, as we well 
 know, does not "beg from his friends" — it is not neces- 
 sary. Nor does he ask celebrities for their signatures. 
 He cares little or nothing for the mere signatures of 
 living persons. He would no more think of asking a 
 great man for his signature than a numismatist would 
 think of asking him for a dime. It is one of the de- 
 lusions of the half-educated that real autograph collec- 
 tors prize signatures. To be sure, a signature of Shakes- 
 peare, or of Julius Caesar, or of Judas Iscariot, would 
 be valuable, for reasons which may readily be under- 
 stood. But nobody in this incarnation is likely to trouble 
 any of these personages for a specimen of his handwrit- 
 ing. We need not pause to consider the case of the beg- 
 gar or the gatherer of "signatures by request". We are 
 concerned only with him who "buys with good money". 
 It is such a collector whom the ex-advisor addresses in 
 an imaginary epistle wherein she saucily says: "If 
 you are grown up and hardened in evil ways, if you 
 are a professional collector of great men's letters and 
 relics, you ought to be — . Perhaps in private and not 
 in print the ex-advisor uses language not becoming in 
 a self-respecting female. 
 
AFFECTATIONS OF THE GREAT 71 
 
 We come to the allegation that the collector who buys 
 the letters and relics of great men is a nuisance, hard- 
 ened in evil ways, who ought to be — whatever the lady 
 decrees by way of punishment. The accuser admits that 
 such a collector is "not a foe to society". For this, 
 much thanks. But when, O advisor, you tell us that 
 one who is hardened in evil ways is not a foe to society, 
 you would have us believe that your society has no foe 
 in him who is an evil-doer; wherefore your society must 
 either have an evil-doer as a friend or it must be in- 
 different to his evil deeds. This comes of too long an 
 association with the rich. 
 
 But why is the collector who buys, a nuisance? A 
 nuisance Is something which produces not merely annoy- 
 ance but injury to some one. The acquisition and pres- 
 ervation of letters and manuscripts of distinguished per- 
 sons is surely not of itself injurious to any one. It is 
 neither malum prohibitum nor malum in se. If it were, 
 the libraries and museums of the civilized world must 
 be relegated to the category of nuisances and their 
 founders and promoters must be evil-doers indeed. If 
 the exposure of Martin Luther's letter in the Vatican 
 or the display of the fine Washington in the Bodleian 
 is in the nature of a nuisance, let the ex-advlsor make 
 the most of it. If in the privacy of my den I preserve 
 with fondness my manuscripts of Gray, of a story or 
 poem of Charlotte Bronte, or of an epic of Southey, 
 or of essays of Irving, or of poems of Swinburne; if 
 I love to read and to caress the letters of Tennyson, 
 of Browning, of Wordsworth, of Charles Lamb, of 
 Dickens and of Thackeray, or of our own Hawthorne, 
 Longfellow and Holmes, in what respect are the sen- 
 sibilities of even a feminine literary advisor disturbed 
 or wounded? If I should make an improper use of 
 
72 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 the Intimate and familiar confidence of any writer, so 
 as to give pain to his friends, I might be justly cen- 
 sured; but it is not of such disclosures or publications 
 that the criticism is made. Indeed, such disclosures 
 usually come from the friends themselves — seldom or 
 never from collectors. The indictment relates only to 
 the collection and ownership of autograph letters. Sure- 
 ly we are right in dismissing the bill of complaint for 
 want of equity and in regarding the careless utterance 
 as merely an Instance of a common and unworthy affecta- 
 tion on the part of Great Persons carried to an extreme. 
 The worst of it is that the complaints are so often made 
 by very Little Persons, emulating the greater ones. 
 
 Seriously, my skull is not so thick nor my skin so 
 thin that I do not discern in this outpouring of the ad- 
 visor's spirit an attempt at the lightly humorous. It 
 is, however, humor of a cheap and rather time-worn 
 vein. The late Irving Browne said that to call a lawyer 
 a liar, a physician a murderer, and a clergyman a hypo- 
 crite was the favorite amusement of a numerically con- 
 siderable portion of mankind. It is also a delight to the 
 mildly facetious to read in the columns of the ordinary 
 newspaper the stale and common jests about the som- 
 nolent policeman, the sugar-sanding grocer, and the dis- 
 honest Sunday-school Superintendent. These flat and 
 arid pleasantries may perhaps be harmless, but I think 
 that the pages of an honored and dignified magazine 
 might be employed to better purpose than In dissem- 
 inating silliness, the humor of which Is so subtle that 
 many casual readers may take It as If It were written in 
 sober earnest. To endeavor to bring Into ridicule a 
 useful and meritorious occupation is unworthy of a pub- 
 lication as venerable and as highly respected as the 
 Atlantic Monthly, 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 
 
 THE designation of literary periods by the 
 names of sovereigns Is convenient but not 
 very logical or scientific. We are accus- 
 tomed to talk of the Elizabethan epoch, the 
 time of Queen Anne, the Georgian era, 
 and the Victorian age; and we generally understand 
 what we mean by those titles. They are no more arti- 
 ficial than the division by centuries. There is no defi- 
 nite line of demarcation between the last decade of any 
 century and the first decade of its successor, nor does 
 any Chinese wall separate the closing days of Anne 
 from the opening years of the first of the Hanoverians. 
 When we speak of Elizabeth, we think of Shakespeare; 
 when we speak of Anne, we think of Pope and Swift 
 and Addison. The men of letters take precedence of 
 the mere hereditary rulers. Anne did nothing Important 
 for literature and the Georges did even less. Yet "the 
 Georgian era" is a phrase of utility and It conveys an 
 impression sufficiently significant. But although Words- 
 worth and Coleridge, Scott and Byron, Shelley and 
 Keats reached the summit of their poetic fame before 
 the fourth George came to the end of his inglorious 
 life, it is essentially an impression of that eighteenth 
 century which most of us regard as a time of prepara- 
 tion for the wonderful century which has just passed 
 away. Doubtless it was not as tame and placid as many 
 of us are apt to believe; perhaps it was as astonishing 
 and as eventful to the people who made its history as 
 our own times seem to us. "Every age appears surpris- 
 
 73 
 
74 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Ing and full of vicissitudes to those that live therein."* 
 Whatever may have been the excitements of politics 
 and of the drama in those early Georgian days, it was 
 surely not a period of great achievements in poetry. 
 '' 'Tis an age most unpoetical," wrote Horace Walpole 
 to Sir Horace Mann in 1742, and while students have 
 assidously endeavored to explain the reasons why, and 
 are not always in agreement, they concur generally in 
 the conclusion of the witty sage of Strawberry Hill. 
 Minto refers to the "common explanation of the utter 
 decay of poetry in the eighteenth century, that people 
 lived in slavish subservience to narrow and exclusive 
 rules of art; that all who felt an impulse to write in 
 verse were intimidated into taking artificial standards 
 as their guide rather than Nature, that genius was stifled 
 by timid and laborious effort after correctness." The 
 truth is that there were no great men who felt the 
 grand, poetic impulse ; and there was no encouragement 
 to avail of poetry as a means of reaching the minds and 
 hearts of their fellow-men. "The standard of taste in 
 the time of Queen Anne, and till near the end of the 
 century, was a self-consciously aristocratic and refined 
 society, self-conscious of their superior manners and su- 
 perior culture, and disposed to treat the ways of the 
 vulgar with amused contempt. Fear of being vulgar, 
 fear of being singular — these were the real nightmares 
 that sat upon eighteenth century poetry."t The fear 
 of being vulgar and of being singular is not characteris- 
 tic of our own time ; but what Walpole said of his age 
 may well be said of ours. In the Georgian era, politics 
 and the play as well as the development of the art of 
 prose writing were paramount; in the twentieth cen- 
 
 *Carlyle's Note Books. 141. 
 
 fMfnto: Literature of the Georgian Era. 41. 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 75 
 
 tury, politics, science, sociology, and the novel are the 
 most conspicuous objects of interest. The light of Vic- 
 torian poesy faded with the passing of Browning and 
 Tennyson, and went out altogether when Swinburne 
 joined the ranks of the immortal dead. Already the 
 priests of the new thought are telling us to forget 
 Browning and Tennyson; but they are giving us noth- 
 ing to fill the void left by the vanished masters. Yet 
 the poet will come again. Men remain the same and 
 in fullness of time the inspired singer will reappear. 
 Meanwhile the mediocre will prevail in poetry, 
 keeping the lamp burning, however dimly, until the 
 flame bursts forth again in brightness. 
 
 It may be doubted whether it profits us to recall 
 the memory of the minor poets of the early Georgian 
 era, for they were feeble folk, yet they had some in- 
 fluence in their generation. Some of their thoughts 
 remain in our minds. For the most part they were 
 sincere and earnest, and they had noble aspirations, 
 however far they may have fallen short of accom- 
 plishment. The record of their lives and of their 
 work may not be as fascinating as a modern romance, 
 but it is not to be despised, for it forms a part of our 
 literary history. 
 
 The solemn stateliness of the seventeen hundreds 
 was manifested by the publishing of poetry in ponder- 
 our quartos. The book I have before me is one of 
 them — an attractive example of typographic art, 
 bound in a decent crimson half-morocco, with delight- 
 ful saffron edges. It is entitled "The Poems of Mark 
 Akenside, M. D., London, printed by W. Bowyer 
 and J. Nichols, and sold by J. Dodsley, in Pall Mall. 
 MDCCLXXII." It contains a portrait of the author, 
 exhibiting a gentleman of a heavy, rather mournful 
 
76 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 countenance, with an expression of pensive dullness. 
 The type of the book is a joy to the eye and a rebuke 
 to the printers of these careless times. 
 
 It may be a shallow reflection, but nevertheless I 
 am confident that it is not wholly without merit, that 
 the memory of the poetic doctor is kept alive chiefly 
 because his name possesses an alphabetical primacy 
 in the catalogue of British Poets and also lends itself 
 to a harmless if peurile paranomasia so obvious that 
 it has afforded delight to countless thousands who have 
 fondly cherished the idea that they were its original 
 discoverers. Even the book-loving Irving Browne, 
 who was capable of better things, had no scruples 
 about telling us in verse that he could — 
 
 "Sit at home and double 
 Quite up with pain from Akenside." 
 
 It is by such inanities that many know of Akenside 
 who never read a line he wrote. 
 
 The edition of the "Works"— I love those clean 
 and comfortable old books, — was published soon after 
 the author's death and comprises "The Pleasures of 
 the Imagination" in its original as well as in its revised 
 form; "Odes on Several Subjects," bitterly abused by 
 Samuel Johnson; "Hymn to the Naiads"; and "In- 
 scriptions." 
 
 Poetry seems to come in cycles; there are waves of 
 it. Surely the tide was at the ebb in the days of Mark 
 Akenside. The great Cham of literature, who was 
 usually a brutal and often a comical Cham, was strange- 
 ly severe about Gray. The judgment of posterity re- 
 versed the decision of Johnson in Gray's case, but it has 
 aflfirmed the decree in the matter of Akenside. "I think 
 we have had enough of Gray," growled Ursa Major; 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 77 
 
 *'I see they have published a splendid edition of Aken- 
 side's works. One bad ode may be suffered, but a 
 number of them together make me sick."* Then, 
 when Boswell Intervened with his artful encouragement 
 of further talk— "Akenslde's distinguished poem is 
 his 'Pleasures of the Imagination,' but for my part I 
 never could admire it as much as some people do," — 
 the mighty Doctor fell into the trap and added, "Sir, 
 I could not read it through," to which Boswell ap- 
 pended his chirping response, "I have read It through, 
 but I did not find any great power In it." It pleases 
 me to think that they were chatting about the very edi- 
 tion to which my copy belongs. Later, the Doctor 
 gave it as his opinion that "Akenside was a superior 
 poet, both to Gray and Mason." He said this prob- 
 ably to emphasize his odd dislike of Gray rather 
 than to eulogize Akenside; a dislike which arose from 
 no personal jealousy but from an absolute incompati- 
 bility of temperament. When he wrote the Lives of the 
 English Poets, he gave to Akenside a good deal of dis- 
 criminating praise mingled with some well-merited 
 censure. He was too much of a Tory to relish the 
 poet's liberal views. 
 
 The prefatory ''Advertisement" in the edition of 
 1772 was written by the most devoted of his friends, 
 his benefactor Dyson, and the biography which forms 
 part of It is a model of conciseness. "The author of 
 these poems was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on 
 the 9th day of November, 1721. He was educated 
 at the Grammar School at Newcastle and at the Uni- 
 versities of Edinburgh and Leyden, at the latter of 
 which he took his degree of Doctor In Physic. He 
 
 *Boswell (Blrrell's Edition), Hi, 22. This was in 1772. 
 
78 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 was afterwards admitted by mandamus to the degree 
 of Doctor in Physic at the University of Cambridge; 
 elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 
 and one of the Physicians of St. Thomas's Hospital, 
 and upon the establishment of the Queen's Household, 
 appointed one of the Physicians to Her Majesty. He 
 died of a putrid fever on the 23d day of June, 1770, 
 and is buried in the Parish Church of St. James, West- 
 minster." Dyson might well have been a little more 
 generous in his disclosures and the description of poor 
 Akenside's disease seems needlessly offensive, but it 
 is characteristic of the time. Johnson in his Diction- 
 ary quotes Quincey's definition of "a putrid fever'* 
 as "that kind of a fever, in which the humours, or part 
 of them, have so little circulatory motion that they 
 fall into an intestine, die and putrefy." This luminous 
 gem of eighteenth century medical science is a puzzle 
 to our modern understanding. 
 
 Mark Akenside was the son of Mark Akenside and 
 Mary Lumsden, his wife. His father was a butcher; 
 and Johnson, with the arrogance of a bigoted disciple 
 of the Church of England, sneeringly says that he was 
 "of the Presbyterian sect." When the young Aken- 
 side was a boy of seven, the butcher's cleaver fell upon 
 his foot, causing a lameness which was always a source 
 of mortification to him. It is said that the accident 
 rendered it necessary for him to wear an artificial 
 heel. For a time he was under the tuition of Mr. 
 Wilson, a dissenting minister, and he attended the 
 Grammar School at Newcastle, where, in later years, 
 Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell were pupils. He "com- 
 posed verses" at an early age. In 1737 he sent a 
 poem to the "Gentleman's Magazine," which was 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 79 
 
 printed in that periodical, although the young author 
 was unintroduced and unknown. "It was entitled 
 *The Virtuoso'," says Mr. Gosse, "and was written in 
 imitation of Spenser in the Spenserian measure. The 
 piece consists of only ten stanzas, but they show a re- 
 markable skill in versification, and appear to have 
 preceded the longer and better known pieces by Shen- 
 stone, Thomson, and Gilbert Ridley, which soon after 
 made the Spenserian stanza fashionable."* In the 
 August number, 1738, the same magazine published 
 "A British Philippic," directed against the Spaniards, 
 which was so successful that it was reprinted as a folio 
 pamphlet. Whether he actually began his most con- 
 spicuous poem, "The Pleasures of the Imagination," 
 at the age of seventeen, as is asserted, may be doubt- 
 ed. He himself says that the plan of the work origin- 
 ally occurred to him during a visit to Morpeth, within 
 hearing of "the mossy falls of solitary Wensbeck's 
 limpid stream" ; but like Gibbon's famous account of 
 his conception of the History, this may be only a 
 poetic way of recording the first budding of an idea 
 destined to be carried out in an indefinite future. At 
 all events he published the work in 1744 and must 
 have spent some years in its composition. Meanwhile 
 he had been sent, at eighteen, to the University of 
 Edinburgh in order to prepare for the ministry, but 
 he soon found the profession of medicine more attrac- 
 tive than theology. 
 
 He had received the benefit of some funds supplied 
 by the Dissenters to aid in the education of students; 
 the Principal of Mansfield College informed Dr. George 
 Birkbeck Hill that "at or soon after the Revolution a 
 
 ■Dictionary of National Biography, Title "Akenside." 
 
8o EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 ■^Fund Board' was founded; from it grants were made 
 to students to help them to proceed to a Continental or 
 Scotch university, or even to find education at home."* 
 He returned to the donors what he had received, when 
 he abandoned the idea of becoming a minister; an hon- 
 orable act which scarcely deserves the sneer of an anony- 
 mous American writer, who makes the gratuitous sug- 
 gestion that the means came "obviously out of some one 
 else's pocket." What of it? He repaid the money and 
 proved his honorable and commendable judgment of 
 the matter. 
 
 Some remarks of Doctor Johnson upon this change 
 of purpose are not undeserving of remembrance. 
 "Whether," says the old tyrant, whom we love even 
 when he is most dictatorial and overbearing, "when 
 he resolved not to be a dissenting minister he ceased to 
 be a Dissenter, I know not. He certainly retained an 
 unnecessary and outrageous zeal for what he called and 
 thought liberty if a zeal which sometimes disguises from 
 the world, and not rarely from the mind which it pos- 
 sesses, an envious desire of plundering wealth or de- 
 grading greatness; and of which the immediate tend- 
 ency is innovation and anarchy, an impetuous eagerness 
 to subvert and confound, with very little care what shall 
 be established." There are several eminent personages 
 who enjoy a vast amount of popularity in our own time 
 who may well take to heart these words of the sturdy 
 Doctor. 
 
 In Edinburgh, Akenside continued to study for three 
 years. He was made a member of the Medical So- 
 ciety of Edinburgh on December 30, 1740. In the same 
 
 ^Johnson's Lives (G. B. Hill's Edn.), iii, 411, Note. 
 fOriginally ''a furious and outrageous zeal, etc." Boswell's 
 Johnson, Birrell's Edn. 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 8i 
 
 year he privately printed a book of verses, Including 
 an ode "On the Winter Solstice," and an elegy on 
 "Love." Dugald Stewart, in his "Elements of the 
 Philosophy of the Human Mind," afterwards wrote 
 of him: "There are various passages in Akenside's 
 works which will be read with additional pleasure 
 when It Is known that they were not entirely suggested 
 by fancy. I allude to those passages where he be- 
 trays a secret consciousness of powers adapted to a 
 higher station of life than fell to his lot. Akenside, 
 when a medical student at Edinburgh, was a member 
 of the Medical Society, then recently formed, and was 
 eminently distinguished by the eloquence which he dis- 
 played in the course of the debates. Dr. Robinson, 
 who was at that time a student of divinity in the same 
 university, told me that he was frequently led to attend 
 these meetings, chiefly to hear the speeches of Aken- 
 side, the great object of whose ambition then was a 
 seat in parliament, a situation which, he was sanguine 
 enough to flatter himself, he had some prospect of ob- 
 taining, and for which he considered his talents to be 
 much better adapted than for the profession he had 
 chosen." He was what was known as a "republican" 
 in sentiment, as poor young men under like circum- 
 stances are apt to be; but later, with the bait of oflSice 
 held out to him, he experienced a change of heart. De- 
 spite his oratorical occupations, he must have been 
 working upon his poetical masterpiece. He went to 
 Leyden in 1744, receiving his degree from that uni- 
 versity on May i6th of the same year. 
 
 He had submitted his Pleasures of the Imagination 
 to Dodsley in 1743, and Johnson heard the publisher 
 relate that when the copy was first offered to him the 
 price asked was one hundred and twenty pounds — 
 
82 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Nichols says, guineas. The price was one which Dods- 
 ley "was not inclined to give precipitately"; but he 
 showed the manuscript to Pope, who "advised him not 
 to make a niggardly offer, for this was not an every-day 
 writer." As it turned out, the publisher must have 
 made a good profit from the transaction, for the work 
 became so popular that several editions were exhausted 
 in quick succession. 
 
 The title had been used by Addison in the Specta- 
 tor. The poem was published anonymously, and Dr. 
 Johnson relates a story, the truth of which Boswell 
 doubts, that one Richard Rolt "went over to Dublin, 
 published an edition of it, and put his own name to it. 
 Upon the fame of this he lived for several months, 
 being entertained at the best tables as the 'ingenious 
 Mr. Rolt'."* It was said that "the demand for several 
 successive republications was so quick" that the poet 
 did not have sufficient time "in any of the intervals 
 to complete the whole of his corrections. "t A cheap 
 edition, with the author's name, was published four 
 months after the original appearance of the poem. 
 
 If anything further were needed to "advertise" the 
 young author, it was supplied by means of that useful 
 aid to the growth of fame, a controversy. Akenside, 
 in the words of Johnson, "adopted Shaftesbury's fool- 
 ish assertion of the efficacy of ridicule for the discovery 
 of truth." He emphasized his approval in a note, and 
 avowed his admiration for Shaftesbury by calling him 
 "the noble restorer of ancient philosophy." Warburton 
 assailed him on this subject in Remarks on Several 
 Occasional Reflections (1744), Akenside's friend 
 
 *Boswell (Birrell's Edn.), ii, 31. 
 
 ijohnson's Brit. Poets (G. B. Hill's Edn.), iii, 412, Notes. 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 83 
 
 Dyson took up the cause in an Epistle to Mr. Warhur- 
 ton occasioned by his Treatment of the Author of the 
 Pleasures of the Imagination,"^ the greater part of 
 which Mr. Dyce is inclined to beHeve was composed 
 by Akenside himselff Warburton republished his re- 
 marks in a postscript to The Divine Legation, in 1766. 
 Akenside returned to the battle in a satire on Warbur- 
 ton's edition of Pope, entitled An Ode to Thomas Ed- 
 wards.^ It was indeed, as Dr. Johnson calls it, a long 
 and eager discussion of an idle question; one of those 
 wearisome disputes of which they were so fond in 
 Georgian days. Although Johnson says that in the re- 
 vised poem the lines which had given occasion for War- 
 burton's objections were omitted, George Birkbeck 
 Hill calls attention to the fact that they were merely 
 transferred, with a few minor corrections, from Book 
 iii, 259-277 to Book ii, 523-541. 
 
 Thus at the age of twenty-four he found himself 
 in the posession of a high literary reputation. On 
 obtaining his degree of Doctor of Physic at Leyden, 
 which, after only a month of study, he received on May 
 16, 1744, he had published, according to the custom 
 in the German University, a thesis in Latin, called De 
 Ortu et Incremento Foetus Humani, marked by some 
 originality. He began practice at Northampton; but 
 finding Sir James Stonehouse, an eminent physician and 
 divine, already in full possession of the field, he re- 
 moved in 1745 to North End, Hampstead, where he 
 remained for more than two years. It is worthy of 
 mention that after more than a century had passed since 
 his brief sojourn there, writers of "literary pilgrim- 
 
 *Gent. Mag., 1744, p. 288. 
 
 fDyce. Aldine Poets. Akenside. 14. 
 
 ^Odes, ii, 10 (1751). 
 
84 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 ages'' recorded the fact that he dwelt In the same lit- 
 tle street where Arbuthnot and Mrs. Barbauld once 
 lived, where Tennyson's mother died, and where Keats 
 wrote Endymion. He passed a good deal of time in 
 the society of his friend, Jeremiah Dyson, whom he 
 first met in Leyden. In 1837 Wordsworth wrote: — 
 "I am not unfrequently a visitor on Hampstead Heath, 
 and seldom pass by the entrance of Mr. Dyson's villa 
 on Golder's Hill close by without thinking of the pleas- 
 ure which Akenside often had there." He adds: "He 
 was fond of sitting in St. James's Park, with his eyes 
 upon Westminster Abbey.* In one of his Odes,'f which 
 seem to our modern taste so absurd and which were 
 never esteemed, Akenside apostrophizes, "Thy verdant 
 scenes, O Goulder's hill," and its "steep aerial way," 
 beseeching it to 
 
 "Call thy sprightly breezes round. 
 Dissolve this rigid cough profound." 
 
 Golder's Hill, now becoming a pretty suburb of Lon- 
 don, is almost classic ground. "This picture composes 
 well" said Gainsborough, as he stood with Sir Joshua 
 upon the Hill. "Yes, beautifully! what aerial per- 
 spective!" answered Reynolds, "'Tis like viewing Na- 
 ture through the medium of a lens." Here it was that 
 Keats wrote on some scraps of paper, between break- 
 fast and lunch, "sitting on a grass-plot under a plane 
 tree," the "Ode to the Nightingale." Akenside also re- 
 fers to his friend, Mr. Cofferer Dyson, observing 
 that— 
 
 *Memoirs of Wordsworth, 1851, H, 350. 
 
 fOn Recovering from a Fit of Sickness in the Country, ii, I2. 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 85 
 
 "While around his sylvan scene 
 My Dyson led the white wing'd hours, 
 Oft from the Athenian Academic bowers 
 'Their sages came." 
 
 Leaving Hampstead to seek a wider field, he decided 
 to remove to London. Hawkins says that Dyson and 
 Akenside "dwelt together at North End, Hampstead, 
 during the summer, frequenting the Long Room and all 
 Clubs and Assemblies of the inhabitants" ; and now this 
 rich and devoted friend "settled him in a small house in 
 Bloomsbury Square, and enabled him to keep a char- 
 iot."* The generous benefactor further allowed him 
 £300 a year and set to work to gain for the poet-phy- 
 sician a comfortable practice. 
 
 Dyson was a Secretary of the Treasury and after- 
 wards Cofferer to the Houshold. He did something be- 
 sides "leading the white wing'd hours," for "he was 
 supposed to have all the Journals of the House of 
 Commons by heart" t — rather a vigorous supposition. 
 On March 23, 1774, Horace Walpole wrote of Gren- 
 ville's bill for trying elections: "It passed as rapidly 
 as if it had been for a repeal of Magna Charta, 
 brought in by Mr. Cofferer Dyson." Mr. Dyce gives 
 a passage from an early letter of Akenside to Dyson,iy 
 in which he writes: "I never think of my connection 
 with you without being happier and better for the re- 
 flection. I enjoy, by means of it, a more animated, a 
 more perfect relish of every social, of every natural 
 pleasure. My own character, by means of it, is become 
 an object of veneration and applause to myself." Dr. 
 
 *Hawkins' Johnson^ p. 243. 
 tGent. Mag., 1776, p. 416. 
 
 iJDyce, 19; G. B. Hill's Notes to Johnson's Akenside, iii, 
 414. 
 
36 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Hill thinks that if this had been written later "it would 
 have been thought a parody of Boswell in his let- 
 ters to Johnson." Dyson certainly gave substantial 
 proof of his affection. 
 
 Akenside had not accomplished much in his prac- 
 tice at Northampton and Hampstead and it cannot be 
 said that in the beginning he was very successful in 
 London. Mr. Gosse remarks that "the faults of his 
 intellect and his character now began to reveal them- 
 selves. He became mentally fossilized by pedantry 
 and conceit, and he gave way to a native tendency to 
 arrogance, which grew to be a great disadvantage 
 to him." No doubt he was spoiled by Dysonian mu- 
 nificence. He was made a Fellow of the Royal So- 
 ciety and also a Fellow of the College of Physicians 
 in 1754. His Cambridge degree, awarded in Janu- 
 ary, 1753, was, as we have seen, conferred "by man- 
 damus," by which is doubtless meant that it was given 
 in pursuance of a request from the Chancellor of the 
 University. As physician to St. Thomas's Hospital 
 and fourth censor of the College, he read the Gul- 
 stonian lectures in Anatomy in 1755, a course estab- 
 lished in the seventeenth century by Theodore Gouls- 
 ton or Gulston. In these lectures he advanced opin- 
 ions in regard to "the lymphatics" in opposition to 
 those of Boerhave, which showed his courage. This 
 gave rise to a dispute with Dr. Alexander Monro, 
 then an eminent professor of anatomy in Edinburgh, 
 who accused Akenside of plagiarism from him, but 
 the better opinion is that he did not substantiate his 
 accusation. In 1756 he dehvered the Crounian lec- 
 tures. This was a course founded by the widow of 
 Croone or Croune, in 1706. Dr. Johnson says that 
 he "began to give for these lectures a history of the 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 87 
 
 Revival of Learning, from which he soon desisted." 
 Kippis in Biographica Britannica (i. 107), whom 
 Johnson closely follows, says that "he gave up the 
 course in disgust," because some objected to the sub- 
 ject as "foreign to the institution," but Mr. Dyce 
 remarks that "the course is always of three lectures, 
 and three he gave." He was not, however, fitted for 
 the practice of medicine. It is very well for friendly 
 writers to say that "he possessed too much independ- 
 ence of mind to have recourse to those artifices by 
 which medical men in too many instances contrive to 
 creep into practice"; that is the common excuse for 
 men who fail. He was unfitted by temperament for 
 the duties of a profession which demands the most 
 gentle tact, the most cheerful self-sacrifice and the 
 most unremitting labor to ensure reputation and suc- 
 cess. We read much of the roughness and brusque- 
 ness of men like Abernethy, but with Akenside the 
 faults were not merely of manner; they were faults 
 of character. He was utterly unsympathetic. Still, 
 it is said that towards the close of his life his prac- 
 tice had become "very large and fashionable." 
 
 In London he devoted little time to poetry, but he 
 .published several medical essays, a list of which is 
 given in Biographica Britannica. Among these was a 
 discourse on the dysentery {De Dysenteria Commen- 
 tarius, 1764), much praised for its Latinity. In 
 March, 1745, he had put forth his collection of Odes, 
 and in November, 1744, The Epistle to Curio, a satire 
 on William Pulteney, which many regarded as his 
 best poem. Macaulay said of it: "If Akenside had 
 left lyric composition to Gray and Collins, and had 
 employed his powers in grave and elevated satire, he 
 might have disputed the preeminence of Dryden." 
 
88 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Pulteney had opposed Walpole, and those who, like 
 Akenslde, were hoping for reform, looked upon him as 
 the leader of "the better element," but when Pulteney 
 became a peer and surrendered to the forces of cor- 
 ruption, they poured forth upon him their vials of 
 wrath and likened him to that Curio, the friend of 
 Cicero, who had been the advocate of liberty but who 
 went over to Caesar from motives of personal ambi- 
 tion. The poet tells of the lofty expectations enter- 
 tained of Curio's patriotic and disinterested zeal for 
 freedom, but lamenting that when the "deciding hour" 
 arrived he proved false, exclaims: 
 
 " 'Twas then— O shame! O trust how ill repaid I 
 O Latium, oft by faithless sons betrayed! — 
 'Twas then — What frenzy on thy reason stole? 
 What spells unsinewed thy determined soul? 
 Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved? 
 The man so great, so honoured, so beloved? 
 This patient slave by tinsel chains allured? 
 This wretched suitor for a boon abjured? 
 This Curio, hated and despised by all. 
 Who fell himself to work his country's fall?" 
 
 The final verses are not without dignity when he 
 says of "wise liberty" : 
 
 "Protect her from yourselves, ere yet the flood 
 Of golden luxury, which commerce pours 
 Hath spread that selfish fierceness through your 
 
 blood. 
 Which not her highest discipline indures. 
 Snatch from fantastic demagogues her cause; 
 Dream not of Numa's manners, Plato's laws, 
 A wiser founder and a nobler plan, 
 O sons of Alfred, were for you assign'd: 
 Bring to that birthright but an equal mind. 
 And no sublimer lot will fate reserve for man.'* 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 89 
 
 Beset by his propensity to rewrite his productions, he 
 transformed the Epistle into an Ode and in the proc- 
 ess weakened it sadly. 
 
 The Odes were his poorest compositions. "Nothing 
 favorable can be said" of them, according to Johnson. 
 Horace Walpole, writing on March 29, 1745, after 
 referring to Lee, adds: "There is another of those 
 tame geniuses, a Mr. Akenside, who writes Odes; in 
 one he says: 'Light the tapers, urge the fire.' " Gray 
 wrote on March 8, 1758, of Dodsley^s Collection, 
 "The two last volumes are worse than the four first; 
 particularly Dr. Akenside is in a deplorable way." No 
 one seems to have had a good word for them. He 
 was hampered by rhymes. As the savage Quarterly 
 said of Keats in the memorable review of Endy- 
 mion, "He seems to us to write a line at random, and 
 then he follows not the thought excited by this line 
 but that suggested by the rhyme with which it con- 
 cludes. There is hardly a complete couplet inclosing a 
 complete idea in the whole book." In blank verse, as 
 Johnson points out, Akenside was exempt from the 
 necessity of closing the sense with the couplet; and 
 there was no interference with the exuberance of his 
 imagery and description.* In 1746 he wrote the "Hymn 
 to the Naiads," mention of which will be made later on; 
 in January, 1746, he became editor of the Museum, 
 Dodsley's magazine, for which he wrote prose essays; 
 in 1748 he published "Ode to the Earl of Huntingdon; 
 in 1749, "The Remonstrance of Shakespeare," and in 
 1758, "An Ode to the Country Gentlemen of England," 
 as well as a large number of new pieces, including "The 
 Hymn to the Naiads," which he put forth in the sixth 
 
 *Dyce, p. 49. 
 
90 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 volume of Dodsley's "Miscellany." The "Call to 
 Aristippus," a pamphlet in verse, appeared in 1758. 
 
 His service as physician in the Hospital — where 
 he became assistant in January, 1759, and two months 
 later principal physician — was not distinguished by 
 much success, however sound may have been his medi- 
 cal learning or however great his skill. Dr. Lettsom, 
 who was a student there, is reported as saying that "he 
 was the most supercilious and unfeeling physician that 
 he had hitherto known." His temper was bad; he 
 was foolishly proud and arrogant, brutal in his be- 
 havior to the poorer class of patients; involved by his 
 irascible nature in perpetual disputes. He changed his 
 politics and became a Tory to obtain the post of Phy- 
 sician to the Queen in 176 1; but then, as now, party 
 ties sat loosely upon men when it was a question of 
 place; enthusiasts for liberty and popular rights are 
 generally not unlike the two Kings of Barataria in The 
 Gondoliers. Many excuses have been urged for his 
 failings; his lowly birth, his delicate health, his irrita- 
 ble nerves, his early success, and the insolent caste feel- 
 ing of society, which aroused all the bitterness of a sen- 
 sitive disposition. 
 
 That he was highly esteemed as a poet is beyond dis- 
 pute. We know what Pope thought of him before he 
 became famous. Upon the publication of his Ode to 
 the Country Gentlemen of England, the Monthly Re- 
 view said he "well deserved to be stiled the Poet of 
 the Community," and Doctor Johnson not only wrote 
 that "he is to be commended as having fewer artifices 
 of disgust than most of his brethren of the blank song," 
 but said of The Pleasures of the Imagination that it 
 was "an example of great felicity of genius and uncom- 
 mon amplitude of acquisitions." 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 91 
 
 He talked well, although devoid of any sense of 
 humor, and he never mastered the peculiar style of 
 rough repartee which was so much in vogue in the 
 eighteenth century. He avoided "the bibulous and glu- 
 tonous element" of that period. It is written of him 
 that his "outward ensemble was eminently what the vul- 
 gar would term 'guyable.' He was not a little of a fop. 
 He was plain-featured and yet assuming in manner. * 
 
 * * His prim formality of manner, his sword and 
 stiff-curled wig, his small and sickly face trying to main- 
 tain an expression impressively dignified, made him a 
 ludicrous figure, which his contemporaries never tired 
 of ridiculing and caricaturing."* Henderson, the ac- 
 tor, said that Akenside, when he walked the streets, 
 looked for all the world like one of his own Alexan- 
 drines set upright."t Smollett made fun of him in 
 Peregrine Pickle, where he served as a model for the 
 physician who gave a comical dinner in the fashion of 
 the ancients, and who was "a young man in whose air 
 and countenance appeared all the uncouth gravity and 
 supercilious self-conceit of a physician piping hot from 
 his studies.!! * * * Not contented with display- 
 ing his importance in the world of taste and po- 
 lite literature, his vanity manifested itself in ar- 
 rogating certain material discoveries in the prov- 
 ince of physick. * * * He was strangely possessed 
 with the opinion that he himself was inspired by the 
 soul of Pindar." But it was something to have been 
 burlesqued by Smollett. 
 
 One of his biographers, Charles Bucke, says of him : 
 
 *See sketch in World's Best Literature, vol. I. 
 
 tDyce, 76. 
 
 jf Peregrine Pickle, 42, 43. 
 
92 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "The features of Akenside were expressive and manly 
 In a very high degree; but his complexion was pale, 
 and his deportment solemn. He dressed too in a very 
 precise manner, and wore a powdered wig in stiff curl. 
 In respect to disposition, he is said to have been irrita- 
 ble, and to have had little restraint of his temper be- 
 fore strangers, with whom he was precise and cere- 
 monious, stiff, and occasionally sententious and dicta- 
 torial. * * * ^e had a high sense of his own 
 merits, and when persons of an inferior cast presumed 
 upon their ignorance, or want of good breeding, to in- 
 trude their observations too unceremoniously, Aken- 
 side denied himself the satisfaction of chastising their 
 presumption by the adoption of a manner perhaps too 
 severe, satirical, and splenetic. But in the society of 
 those mild and gentle spirits who admired his genius 
 and respected his virtues, he was kindness itself. His 
 language flowed chastely, gracefully, and eloquently; 
 and his varied knowledge, argumentative reasonings, 
 and nice distinctions, his fine appreciation of philo- 
 sophical allusions, and keen relish for the beauties of 
 creation, would display themselves in pure and copious 
 streams of eloquence^ never, perhaps, surpassed by the 
 greatest masters of social life the world ever knew. 
 His memory was at once discriminating and compre- 
 hensive. He retained all the riches of art, science, 
 and history, legislation, poetry, and philosophy; and 
 these he would draw out and embody to suit the occa- 
 sion required, in a manner not more wonderful to 
 those who were partially informed than delightful to 
 those who could follow his track, and continue with 
 him to the end. Yet he is said to have in general, 
 wanted gaiety of heart in society. He was naturally 
 of a cheerful temper; but his cheerfulness was ac- 
 companied by a mellowness of feeling which some- 
 times relapsed into melancholy." 
 
 A cheerful, mellow melancholy must be a wonderful 
 thing. All this, which the artless biographer — who is 
 guiltless of the italics— doubtless meant for praise, es- 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 93 
 
 tablishes the fact that Akenside was a solemn, dis- 
 agreeable, conceited creature of the species to which 
 men in nearly every age have given the title of "ass", 
 — never pleasant except when surrounded by flatterers, 
 and even under such favorable conditions a stupendous, 
 lugubrious bore, always a cad of the most offensive sort. 
 It is perhaps one of the blessings of our day that in 
 conversation "pure and copious streams of eloquence" 
 are quickly and effectually dammed. 
 
 Mr. Gosse quotes from a contemporary of the poet 
 this description: 
 
 "One leg of Dr. Akenside was considerably shorter 
 than the other, which was in some measure remedied 
 by the aid of a false heel. He had a pale, strumous 
 countenance, but was always very neat and elegant in 
 his dress. He wore a large white wig and carried a 
 long sword. He would order the servants (at Christ's 
 Hospital) on his visiting days to precede him with 
 brooms to clear the way, and prevent the patients 
 from too nearly approaching him." 
 
 When Johnson made his well-known remark about 
 the jealousy which some men feel in regard to friends 
 who rise above them, he moved Boswell to refer, as an 
 example, to the withering of "the early friendship be- 
 tween Charles Townshend and Akenside." The latter 
 alludes to it himself when he says, in his "Ode to 
 Townshend": 
 
 "For not imprudent of my loss to come, 
 I sav/ from Contemplation's quiet cell 
 His feet ascending to another home. 
 
 Where public praise and envied greatness dwell." 
 
 It is more charitable to think that the cessation of 
 their intimacy was due more to the absorption of 
 Townshend in his career as "the spoiled child of the 
 
94 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 House of Commons" than to petty envy on Akenside's 
 part. Notwithstanding the personal pecuharities of 
 the poet he appears to have had the faculty of winning 
 friends, from the time when, at an early age, he at- 
 tracted the regard of Doctor Philip Doddridge, the 
 hymn writer. Hawkins says that "his conversation was 
 of the most delightful kind," but that he lacked "that 
 quality which Swift somewhere calls an aldermanly vir- 
 tue, discretion."* 
 
 Warton thought that "of all our poets perhaps Aken- 
 side was the best Greek scholar since Milton."t It is 
 interesting to know that he was not a good reader of 
 his own verse.ll His great biographer refers to his am- 
 bitious ostentation of elegance and literature, and re- 
 gards him as having a high place "among the wits"; 
 but Johnson did not use the word in the sense to which 
 modern usage has restricted it; he meant only "those 
 who have knowledge." 
 
 His poetry was technical rhetoric usually displayed 
 in good blank verse ; but it was pedantic and prosaic at 
 its best. Doctor Minto seems to think that his admira- 
 tion of Shakespeare is quite commendable, and in the 
 book from which we have quoted gives twice a long 
 extract from the "Remonstrance" which Akenside saw 
 fit to deliver in 1749 when a company of French play- 
 ers acted by subscription at Drury Lane, in which the 
 "Bard of Avon", as the pompous physician probably 
 called him, is made to protest against the ruthless "in- 
 vasion of his domain." His favorites, however, were 
 Pope, Addison, Shaftesbury, and Hutchinson, from 
 
 *Hawkins' Johnson^ 242, 247. 
 fEssay on Pope, ii, 455. 
 
 IJDyce, 53. 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 95 
 
 whom, as well as from Plato, he took most of his ma- 
 terial. But we cannot forget that his principal work 
 was the precursor of Campbell's Pleasures of Hope 
 and of Rogers' Pleasures of Memory , although both 
 of these more modern poems are almost as obsolete as 
 their prototype. 
 
 Expressions of personal preference are dangerous 
 now, because the youthful sages who "do" the book 
 reviews in the newspapers are the only critics who are 
 permitted to indulge in them. When ordinary men 
 venture to infringe upon this journalistic monopoly and 
 timidly disclose their own views, they are told that "to 
 people who have the habit of thinking for themselves 
 they are unsatisfactory"* — ^whereby all criticism is 
 wiped from the earth by one Podsnappian wave of the 
 hand. But as newspaper reviewers neither know nor 
 care much about Akenside — should one of them ever 
 deign to cast his lordly eye upon this page he will forth- 
 with insist that he has been familiar with Akenside 
 from his cradle — I may perhaps be suffered to say that 
 I like best his "Hymn to the Naiads," notwithstanding 
 its ponderous dignity, not altogether appropriate in an 
 address to nymphs. Gosse says that it is beautiful and 
 perhaps the most "elegant" of his productions. There 
 is power in the lines : 
 
 "Down they rush 
 From Nysa's vine-impurpled cliff, the dames 
 Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fawns, 
 With old Silenus, reeling through the crowd 
 Which gambols round him, in convulsions wild 
 Tossing their limbs, and brandishing in air 
 The ivy-mantled thyrsus, or the torch 
 
 *The New York Times, July 10, 1909. 
 
96 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Through black smoke flaming, to the Phrygian pipe's 
 Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals mix'd 
 With shrieks and frantic uproar." 
 
 One of the odes affords a fair example of what may 
 be regarded as his best style — "On a Sermon against 
 Glory"- 
 
 *'Come, then, tell me, sage divine, 
 Is it an offense to own 
 That our bosoms e'er incline 
 
 Toward immortal glory's throne? 
 For with me nor pomp, nor pleasure, 
 Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure. 
 So can fancy's dream rejoice 
 To conciliate reason's choice. 
 As one approving word of her impartial voice. 
 
 If to spurn at noble praise 
 
 Be the passport to thy heaven, 
 Follow thou those gloomy ways : 
 
 No such law to me was given. 
 Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me 
 Faring like my friends before me; 
 Nor an holier place desire 
 Than Timoleon's arms acquire. 
 And TuUy's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre." 
 
 The most important of the poems, comprising about 
 two thousand lines, divided into three Books, was an 
 attempt to describe the sources, methods, and results 
 of imagination and to portray the pleasurable feelings 
 derived from its exercise, and from the study of nature, 
 art, and history. He announces his purpose at the out- 
 set: 
 
 "With what attractive charms this goodly frame 
 Of nature touches the consenting hearts 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 97 
 
 Of mortal men; and what the pleasing stores 
 Which beauteous imitation thence derives 
 To deck the poet's or the painter's toil; 
 My verse unfolds." 
 
 But it is not desirable to multiply quotations from 
 long poems : they seldom do full justice to the author 
 and when torn from the context are of little value in 
 enabling a reader to arrive at a fair judgment. Aken- 
 side's works are included in almost every collection of 
 ^'British Poets," and if any one has sufficient curiosity 
 to pursue the subject, the means of information are 
 within easy reach. The standard edition is that which 
 was edited by Alexander Dyce and published in 1834. 
 
 Much has been written about The Pleasures of the 
 Imagination, and the reviewers unite in ascribing to it 
 the merits of elevated sentiments, poetic beauty, and 
 high philosophy, expressed in dignified measures and 
 harmonious periods ; but they temper their praise by re- 
 ferring to the length of the sentences, the needless mul- 
 tiplication of words, and the redundancy of the imagery. 
 Campbell analyzes the work, but while he concedes to 
 the poet a high zeal of classical feeling and a graceful 
 development of the philosophy of taste in the purely 
 ethical and didactic parts of his subject, he thinks that 
 sweetness is wanting, that the writer does not arouse 
 the emotions, and that he appeals too seldom to ex- 
 amples from nature.* Campbell dwells upon the cold- 
 ness and tediousness of the episode of Harmodius, 
 omitted in the revision ; and another commentator says : 
 
 "Much of it (note especially the episode of PIsIs- 
 tratus at the beginning of Book III) is literally prose 
 cut into lengths." The reader of to-day will find his 
 
 *Campbeirs Specimens of the British Poets. 
 
98 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 own Impressions well described in the Life by John- 
 son: "His images are displayed with such luxuriance 
 of expression, that they are hidden, like Butler's 
 Moon, by a 'Veil of Light'; they are forms fantas- 
 tically lost under superfluity of dress. Pars minima 
 est ipsa puella sui. The words are multiplied till the 
 sense is hardly perceived; attention deserts the mind, 
 and settles in the ear. The reader wanders through 
 the gay diffusion, sometimes amazed, and sometimes 
 delighted; but after many turnings in the flowery laby- 
 rinth, comes out as he went in. He marked little, 
 and laid hold on nothing." 
 
 Gray wrote of it on April 26, 1744: 
 
 "To show you that I am a judge, as well as my coun- 
 trymen, I will tell you, though I have rather turned it 
 over than read it (but no matter, no more have they), 
 that it seems to me above the middling; and now and 
 then for a little while, rises even to the best, particularly 
 in description. It is often obscure and even unintel- 
 ligible, and too much affected with the Hutchinsonian 
 jargon. In short, its great fault is that it was pub- 
 lished at least nine years too early; and so methinks, 
 in a few words, a la mode de Temple, I have very 
 pertly despatched what, perhaps, may for several 
 years have employed a very ingenious man, worth 
 fifty of myself." 
 
 Hazlitt indeed liked the revised poem best, but he 
 was alone in his opinion as far as I can ascertain. But 
 Gray disliked Akenside "and in general all poetry in 
 blank verse except Milton." 
 
 He could not let his chief poem alone; and from 
 1757 until his death he was engaged in remodeling it. 
 Both versions, original and revised, are given in the 
 edition of 1772. He began a fourth book, but wrote 
 
A GEORGIAN POET 99 
 
 only one hundred and thirty lines. It was from this 
 unfinished book that Wordsworth took the motto to 
 Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems (1835), 
 
 "Poets * * * dwell on earth 
 To clothe whatever the soul admires and [or] loves 
 With language and with numbers." 
 
 The later revision exemplifies the truth of the theory 
 that poets seldom improve their published work by 
 emendations. Doctor Johnson says of the revision that 
 "he seems to have somewhat contracted his diffusion; 
 but I know not whether he has gained in closeness what 
 he has lost in splendor." Macaulay says he spoiled it, 
 and another critic observes that he "stuffed it with in- 
 tellectual horsehair." The truth of these remarks may 
 be perceived by comparing these opening lines of the 
 revision with the corresponding lines of the original: 
 
 "With what enchantment nature's goodly scene 
 Attracts the sense of mortals; how the mind 
 For its own eye doth objects nobler still 
 Prepare; how men by various lessons learn 
 To judge of beauty's praise; what raptures fill 
 The breast with fancy's native arts indow'd 
 And what true culture guides it to renown; 
 My verse unfolds." 
 
 The original is stiff enough, but this is even more stilted. 
 It is not discreditable to him that he should have 
 regarded his work so seriously as to toil over it in the 
 hope of improving it; but the first glow of his youthful 
 enthusiasm was better than the laborious effort of his 
 maturity. He did, however, anticipate some of Doc- 
 tor Johnson's criticisms. The Doctor complained of the 
 viewing of "the Ganges from Alpine heights" in the 
 lines (Book i, 177) — 
 
100 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "Who that from Alpine heights, his labouring eye 
 Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey 
 Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave." 
 
 This had been changed so as to read: 
 
 "Who that from heights aerial sends his eye 
 Around a wild horizon, and surveys 
 Indus or Ganges rolling his broad wave." 
 
 (Book i, line 232, Revision.) 
 
 The Doctor further said: "And the pedant surely 
 intrudes — but when was blank verse without pedantry? 
 — when he tells how " 'Planets absolve the fated rounds 
 of Time.' " But the lines (Book i, 194) were changed 
 in the later work and are : 
 
 "Bend the reluctant planets to move each 
 Round its perpetual year." 
 
 (Book i, line 252, Revision.) 
 
 This indicates that Johnson had never taken the 
 trouble to read the revised poem. 
 
 In the latter part of his life he produced an occasion- 
 al ode or dissertation. He lived for a time in Craven 
 street, but removed in 1760 to a house in Burlington 
 street which he occupied at the time of his death. He 
 was only in his forty-ninth year when, on June 23, 
 1770, he was carried away by that "putrid fever," and 
 it is a coincidence that Shenstone died at the same age 
 and of the same disease. It is said that he died in the 
 bed in which Milton died. On June 28 he was buried 
 in the church of St. James. 
 
 There was no mention of his death in the Annual 
 Register or even in the Gentleman's Magazine, to which 
 he had been so frequent a contributor. His life was 
 
A GEORGIAN POET loi 
 
 by no means a failure : he attracted the attention of his 
 contemporaries; his poems were admired in his own 
 generation; and although he was never the idol of an 
 hour, his merits were recognized by the leaders of 
 thought in his day. He has won immortality of a cer- 
 tain kind, although not the immortality of quotation. 
 He foreshadowed in a vague way the return of the 
 poet to the field of nature. He was toiling under cir- 
 cumstances which were not favorable to his work. It 
 has been observed that the poet "should preach or poet- 
 ize for his age, should elevate and beautify the ideas 
 which are current in it." But the ideas which were 
 current in England during his time were not susceptible 
 of much beautifying or elevation. A lofty and orig- 
 inal genius might have accomplished something in that 
 direction, but Akenside had little or no originality; he 
 built up his verses with materials derived from the 
 books which he preferred; he was a manufactured poet, 
 without a spark of genius. Despite his vanity and con- 
 ceit, he must have had an uneasy consciousness of the 
 inferiority of his work, or he would not have wasted 
 so much time in amending it and striving to polish it 
 when what was needed was substance rather than pol- 
 ish. The mania for revising one's own work almost 
 always indicates irresolution and a lack of confidence in 
 its merit. 
 
 He was about the latest of the machine poets. The 
 year of his death was the year of Wordsworth's birth; 
 and as with the elder poet the sun of the old school was 
 setting, with the younger poet began the dawn of the 
 day when the artificial vanished and the fragrance of 
 the early morning of poesy once more rejoiced the 
 minds and the senses of mankind. 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 
 
 I 
 
 A SUCCESSFUL lawyer whose name is as- 
 sociated with no great causes; a leader 
 in literature whose only book was a 
 mere collection of essays reprinted from 
 a magazine ; a renowned talker who left 
 to posterity no legacy of memorable sayings; Francis 
 Jeffrey owes his fame, or so much of it as survives 
 him sixty years after his death, chiefly to his work as 
 a writer of reviews. 
 
 The popularity and influence of periodical Re- 
 views have suffered so seriously in these days of mod- 
 ern culture that they may be said to have disappeared. 
 But there was a time when the Review was all-power- 
 ful. Whether its decline is due to the vast increase in 
 the number of readers, or to the lowering of the level 
 of education, or to the fact — if it be a fact — announced 
 recently by a publisher, that ''to-day the popular au- 
 thor addresses himself to women, since men no longer 
 read books," or to the growing independence of read- 
 ers who resent attempts to guide or to control their 
 judgments, only one extremely sure of himself would 
 attempt to decide. The authority of the Review was 
 never as great in America as it was in England; the 
 old North American, suflficiently heavy in its prime, 
 ponderously imitative of British models, was the sole 
 publication of that character in this country which de- 
 served the name, and while it is still a magazine and 
 
 103 
 
104 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 preserves the title, it has become only a repository for 
 articles too serious for use in the much be-pictured 
 and advertisement-crowded "monthlies" which serve 
 to amuse the idler and find their principal marts in the 
 news-stands of the street, the hotel and the railway sta- 
 tion. Yet in the earlier half of the last century the 
 British Reviews were the chief means by which the 
 leaders of thought essayed to reach the minds of men 
 and to give them instruction in politics as well as in 
 literature. 
 
 Before the founding of the Edinburgh Review m 
 1802, the magazines which pretended to do the work 
 or reviewing were but poor things, as dull as the dull- 
 est of periodicals in the eighteenth century, and those 
 were very dull indeed. There was the Monthly Re- 
 view, established in 1749, conducted by Ralph Grif- 
 fiths, "who starved and bulhed Goldsmith," and later 
 by his son, which lasted until 1845 ^^^ ^^^ in its earli- 
 est years perhaps the best of the lot. Jeffrey wrote 
 for it occasionally. In June, July, and November, 
 1802, he published in the Monthly articles on 
 White's Etymoligon and Southey's Thalaha. There 
 were also the Critical Review, begun in 1756, the 
 Gentleman^ s Magazine (1731), the London Maga- 
 zine (1732), and Scofs Magazine (1739)- But the 
 Monthly remarked that the Vicar of Wakefield had 
 "defects enough to put the reader out of patience with 
 an author capable of so strangely underwriting him- 
 self," and as late as 1798 pronounced The Rime of 
 the Ancient Mariner to be "the strangest story of 
 cock and bull that we ever saw on paper," while the 
 Gentleman's Magazine sagely commented upon 
 Gray's immortal poem in manner following: "Elegy 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 105 
 
 wrote in a country church-yard, 4to. Dodsley, 6d. : 
 seven pages. The excellency of this little piece more 
 than compensates for its lack of quantity." The Bent- 
 ley edition, two years later, called forth a luminous 
 comment about the "head and tail pieces with which 
 each poem is adorned, which are of uncommon ex- 
 cellence, the Melancholy in particular being exquisite." 
 In all of them there was scarcely any literary criticism. 
 The articles were furnished chiefly by dreary drudges, 
 hack-writers dominated by the booksellers, receiving 
 absurdly scanty pay. It is true, however, that the 
 books they reviewed were scarcely less dreary than 
 the reviews themselves. 
 
 In their History of English Literature Garnett and 
 Gosse say, with some justice : 
 
 "Readers of the early numbers of the Edinburgh 
 and the Quarterly will to-day be surprised at the emo- 
 tion they caused and the power they wielded. They 
 are often smart, sometimes witty, rarely sound, and 
 the style is, as a rule, pompous and diffuse. The mod- 
 ern reader is irritated by the haughty assumption of 
 these boyish reviewers, who treat genius as a prisoner 
 at the bar, and as in all probability a guilty prisoner. 
 * * * This unjust judging of literature, and par- 
 ticularly of poetry — what is called the 'slashing' style 
 of criticism — when it is now revived, is usually still 
 prosecuted on the lines laid down by Jeffrey and Gif- 
 ford. It gives satisfaction to the reviewer, pain to the 
 author, and a faint amusement to the public. It has 
 no effect whatever on the ultimate position of the 
 book reviewed, but, exercised on occasion, it is doubt- 
 less a useful counter-irritant to thoughtless or venal 
 eulogy." 
 
 As far as the pompous style is concerned, it was not 
 peculiar to the Reviews of the time: it pervaded all 
 
io6 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 prose literature; and when we consider the enormous 
 output of books we are now familiar with, we may 
 regret that their power of correction has substantially 
 disappeared. 
 
 The refinement of style for which certain of these 
 magazines were distinguished is indicated by some of 
 the remarks made by one about the other. The Month- 
 ly said that the staff of the Critical was composed of 
 "physicians without practice, authors without learning, 
 men without decency, and critics without judgment." 
 Smollett in the Critical declared that his Review 
 at least was not conducted by "a parcel of obscene 
 hirelings under the restraint of a bookseller and his 
 wife, who presume to revise, alter and amend the ar- 
 ticles." Mrs. Griffiths, who had literary tastes, was 
 reviled as "an antiquated Sappho, or rather a Pope 
 Joan in taste and literature, pregnant with abuse, begot 
 by rancour, under the canopy of ignorance." 
 
 The story of the inception of the Edinburgh in that 
 little room in the house on Buccleuch Place has been 
 told so often and by so many that it has become a fa- 
 miliar tale. There had been an Edinburgh Review in 
 1756, but it had expired after a twelvemonth life, des- 
 tined to be revived under brilliant auspices — brilliant at 
 least in the matter of brains, for the youthful galaxy 
 composed of Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Brougham, and 
 Horner well deserved to be called "brilliant." Smith's 
 account of the matter was disputed by Brougham long 
 years afterwards, but its correctness in the main has been 
 established. The old-age reminiscences of the Chan- 
 cellor were not conspicuous for accuracy and his over- 
 weening sense of self-importance led him to exaggera- 
 tions where his own actions were involved. Sydney 
 Smith was the editor of the first number, if it may be 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 107 
 
 said to have had a single editor, but thereafter Jeffrey 
 assumed full charge. Brougham's own copy of that 
 first number, with his autograph on the fly leaf, dated 
 "1802," lies before me. It has the initials of the auth- 
 ors marked in the index against the titles of their con- 
 tributions. The two hundred and fifty-two pages of 
 close print make up a large book, and I am sorry to 
 say, rather a dull one. It is not easy to understand now 
 why it could have aroused much interest. But on reflec- 
 tion, one may comprehend that it was such an advance 
 on its predecessors that it commanded instant apprecia- 
 tion. According to Brougham's notes, Jeffrey had five 
 articles, filling sixty-seven pages; Brougham, four, of 
 forty-six pages; Hamilton four, of thirty-seven pages; 
 and Horner, Smith, Macfarlan, Dr. John Thomson, 
 Dr. Thomas Brown, and Murray follow with a lesser 
 amount. The volume has an especial interest, for, as 
 Mr. J. Rogers Rees remarks in a pencil note, "this at- 
 tribution in the founder's autograph sets the question of 
 the several contributors finally at rest." The inaccuracy 
 of the story of the establishment of the Review which 
 Brougham gives in his Memoirs^ is indicated by the 
 fact that while he asserts that he himself wrote in the 
 first number the reviews of "Oliver's Travels," "Bald- 
 win's Egypt" (jointly with Jeffrey) and "Playf air's Il- 
 lustrations of the Huttonian Theory," yet in his per- 
 sonal copy of that number he has, in his own handwrit- 
 ing, asserted that the first two were by Hamilton and 
 the third by John Macfarlan. But he does justice to 
 Jeffrey, of whom he says : 
 
 "Jeffrey's labors as an editor were unceasing, and 
 I will venture to say, if we had searched all Europe, a 
 better man in every respect could not have been found. 
 As a critic he was unequalled; and, take them as a 
 
io8 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 whole, I consider his articles were the best we had. As 
 an instance of the care he took in revising and prepar- 
 ing contributions, I remember an article on the Me- 
 moirs of Prince Eugene was sent to Jeffrey by Mill. 
 Jejfirey gave it to Dr. Ferrier, of Manchester, to re- 
 vise; and when he got it back from Dr. Ferrier, he 
 himself corrected it, and added the moral reflections 
 and the concluding observations on the new Paris edi- 
 tion of the work." 
 
 Perhaps, in preference to the various accounts by 
 Sydney Smith, Brougham, and others, one may trust 
 most in Jeffrey's own story as related by him in a let- 
 ter written in 1846 to Robert Chambers. Jeffrey says: 
 
 "I cannot say exactly where the project of the Edin- 
 burgh Review wast first talked of among the projec- 
 tors. But the first serious conversations about it — and 
 which led to our application to a publisher — were held 
 in a small house, where I then lived, in Buccleuch Place 
 (I forget the number). They were attended by S. 
 Smith, F. Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Mur- 
 ray (John Archibald Murray, a Scottish advocate, and 
 now one of the Scottish judges), and some of them 
 also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and 
 Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were 
 given to the publisher — he taking the risk and defray- 
 ing the charges. There was then no individual edi- 
 tor, but as many of us as could be got to attend used 
 to meet in a dingy room of Willison's printing-office, 
 in Craig's Close, where the proofs of our own articles 
 were read over and remarked upon and attempts made 
 also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which 
 were then offered by strangers. * * * Smith 
 was by far the most timid of the confederacy and be- 
 lieved that, if our incognito was not strictly main- 
 tained, we could not go on a day, and this was his ob- 
 ject for making us hold our dark divans at Willison's 
 office, to which he insisted on our repairing singly, and 
 by back-approaches or different lanes. He had also 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 109 
 
 so strong an impression of Brougham's indiscretion 
 and rashness, that he would not let him be a member 
 of our association, though wished for by all the rest. 
 He was admitted, however, after the third number, 
 and did more work for us than anybody. Brown took 
 offence at some alterations I had made in a trifling 
 article of his in the second number, and left us thus 
 early: publishing at the same time in a magazine the 
 fact of his secession — a step which we all deeply re- 
 gretted, and thought scarcely justified by the provoca- 
 tion. Nothing of the kind occurred ever after." 
 
 It is amusing to compare this sober and undoubtedly 
 accurate story with Sydney Smith's, and with Broug- 
 ham's bumptious narrative, — accusing Jeffrey of timid- 
 ity — from which one would suppose that Brougham was 
 the mainstay of the enterprise and the others were 
 satellites, content to follow his lead. 
 
 Jeffrey continued to occupy the chair until 1829, and 
 under his management the circulation of the Review 
 increased from seven hundred and eighty-nine to nearly 
 thirteen thousand copies. Sir Walter Scott ascribed its 
 success mainly to two circumstances, — that it was en- 
 tirely uninfluenced by the booksellers and that the editor 
 and contributors were regularly paid. The editor re- 
 ceived at first £300 a year, afterwards £800 a year; 
 and every contributor, rich or poor, was compelled to 
 accept a minimum sum of £10 a sheet, afterwards in- 
 creased to £16. Griffiths paid two guineas a sheet of 
 sixteen pages, and his writers earned their money by 
 giving about eight pages of quotation to one page of 
 criticism; so that the Edinburgh was not especially gen- 
 erous, at first. Sir Walter's reasons may have been 
 good, but perhaps the style and the merit of the con- 
 tents and the growing demand of readers for the best 
 
no EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 work had a good deal to do with the prosperity of the 
 periodical. 
 
 The young man of twenty-nine who thus entered 
 upon his career as a famous critic and a great editor, 
 was the eldest son of George Jeffrey, a Depute Clerk 
 of the Court of Session, and Henrietta Louden, his 
 wife. His mother was a daughter of John Louden, 
 a farmer living near Lanark. There were four other 
 children of this marriage : Margaret, who died 
 young; Mary, who married George Napier, a writer 
 to the signet, on April 21, 1797; John, who went to 
 Boston, Massachusetts, engaged in business as a mer- 
 chant with his father's brother, and married a sister 
 of John Wilkes; and Marion, who married in June, 
 1806, Dr. Thomas Brown, a physician in Glasgow, 
 and who died in 1846. Francis was born in St. 
 Charles Street, St. George's Square, Edinburgh, on 
 October 23, 1773. His father is described as "a high 
 Tory," "sensible and respectable, but of a gloomy 
 temper." The mother, greatly beloved "the more so 
 from the contrast betw^een her and her husband," died 
 when Francis was only thirteen years old. The boy 
 learned dancing before he was nine, loved study 
 better than play, and was never good at any bodily 
 exercise except walking. He entered the High School 
 at Edinburgh in October, 178 1, remaining there until 
 1787. Mr. Eraser, of the School, who was the in- 
 structor of both Scott and Brougham, and who was 
 Jeffrey's preceptor for four years, — until the youth 
 passed under the sway of Alexander Adam, the rector, 
 — remembered him as a "little, clever, anxious boy, al- 
 ways near the top of his class, and who never lost a 
 place without shedding tears." He was at Glasgow 
 College during the next two years, his brightness be- 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER iii 
 
 coming manifest, but his father would not permit him 
 to attend the lectures of Professor Millar, a Whig. 
 He occupied himself much in the work of composition, 
 and even proposed to Adam to conduct a philosophi-. 
 cal correspondence. Returning to Edinburgh in 1789, 
 he attended the law lectures of Hume and Dick, and 
 was fortunate enough to be able to avail of the privi- 
 leges of the excellent library of his uncle, William 
 Morehead, who lived at Herbertshire, Stirling. In 
 September, 1791, he entered Queen's College, Ox- 
 ford, where he remained, greatly discontented, until 
 July, 1792. In the dreary and disappointing bio- 
 grapy which Lord Cockburn published in 1852, there 
 are a number of quotations from his letters to mem- 
 bers of his family betraying his dissatisfaction with 
 the conditions then prevailing in Oxford. An unpub- 
 lished letter to his sister Mary, written in April, 1792, 
 is in my possession. It is pleasantly chatty and play- 
 ful, foreshadowing the diffuseness and discursiveness 
 of his later style, and the handwriting is abominable. 
 "Oh, ma soeury he begins, referring to a portrait 
 which she had given him, "how much I am obliged to 
 you — and the readiness of your compliance has doubled 
 its value, and the elegance of the execution has multi- 
 plied it seven fold. It has restored the image to my 
 soul and given a foundation of accuracy and reality 
 to the lawless embellishments of fancy." He criti- 
 cises the portrait in a manner which reminds us of his 
 later reviews, and then wanders to the subject of 
 woman. He expresses doubts about the truth of a 
 report concerning one of his sister's friends. "I have 
 many admirable reasons," he says, "for my disbelief 
 — among the rest, first, because so many of the same 
 family have imposed upon the world of late that it 
 
112 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 would be absurd to depend upon the veracity of this, 
 and secondly because I am very unwilling to suppose 
 that it should be so tho' how and why I am unwilling 
 it may not be so easy to explain. I don't know that I 
 ever was exactly what can be called in love with this 
 fair coquette, and am certain there never was anything 
 serious in my attachment to her, for her idea was so 
 closely associated with images of laughter and vivac- 
 ity that I could never conjure up her beauties but they 
 appeared gilded with smiles and banished all the lan- 
 guishments of meditating and melting affection which 
 I take to be the only basis and indication of love — but 
 this is letting you into the very mysteries of the science, 
 — but perpend — at the same time her idea is entire 
 in my fancy — her image is enshrined in my heart, and 
 I shall be horribly tempted to wish that this (illegible) 
 may dance off in an apoplexy the night preceding his 
 espousals if I hear anything more about him; how- 
 ever, I did not dedicate one tear to the probability." 
 After this sage dissertation on love from a lad of 
 nineteen, he proceeds to more serious subjects. "I be- 
 gin to find that the company with which I am most 
 probably destined to labor along the journey of life is 
 not accommodated to my taste and disposition. It 
 seems to be composed of men of moderate futures 
 and moderate wishes and abilities and passions, and 
 virtues and vices. Men who do not think it hard to 
 toil and bustle like Mr. Paterson in his printing gar- 
 ret all day so they can have a comfortable supper and 
 a tiff of punch after it at night; men who talk very 
 sagely of the comforts of such a supper, who are easily 
 induced to forgive any fraud to which a brother has 
 been tempted, in the hope of it; men in whom busi- 
 ness has extinguished sensation and whose wishes are 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 113 
 
 bounded with the certainty of living respectably and 
 comfortably among their neighbors. Now this sort 
 of life and this sort of character is exactly what I de- 
 test and avoid. If it were not given to me to ascend 
 the towering steep of glory I should wish to descend 
 into the low and the verdant vale of obscurity and 
 peace — there to seek enjoyment from the practice of 
 benevolence, from the sublimities of meditation, the 
 gratification of taste, and the sweet simplicity of inter- 
 course which softens the ruggedness of retirement. 
 But in this heedless society of indifference and imper- 
 tmence where a man never sees the heart of his com- 
 panion, where his time is occupied in laboring out 
 some superfluous luxury to be sparkled in the eyes of 
 those from whose gratification he can have no pleas- 
 ure, where no reward or recompence is offered to his 
 hopes for the continued torture of a silly and turbu- 
 lent crowd. In this meddling, busy region of exist- 
 ence I question if it be possible for happiness to find 
 footing, and if we hear few complaints of the misery 
 of its inhabitants, it is only because their sensations 
 have been so totally destroyed that they have no no- 
 tion or idea of the good they never knew. I am de- 
 termined to make an exertion to get out of this crowd. 
 * * * Cara, I have sent you quite a declamation, 
 but such are the subjects which occupy me at present, 
 and there is not a single soul here to whom they would 
 be intelligible. The insipid and vulgarly social char- 
 acter is more universal than I had believed. I have 
 found it conjoined with learning and mathematics, 
 and pride, and even with taste and sane feeling." All 
 of this is quite characteristic of a lively boy with a 
 vocabulary too overflowing to be completely under 
 control, and it is amusing to find him at the close, 
 
114 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 straying back from the "regions of existence" to the 
 young woman about whose prospective nuptials he 
 was so much disturbed. *'I lay my commands upon 
 you to write me a long letter about this fair girl. If 
 she Is within hearing, tell her as much of my senti- 
 ments of her as you think consistent with my polite- 
 ness/^ It all shows that college lads remain about the 
 same from generation to generation. We may not 
 find so much fertility of phrase In the letters of the 
 boys of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, to their loving 
 sisters; but It is generally the life one is to lead, the 
 unsympathetic surroundings, and the eternal feminine. 
 Although disappointed with Oxford, he studied 
 diligently and wrote persistently, one of his papers 
 being an essay on "Beauty," which was "the germ of 
 his treatise on that subject in the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica/' One thing he strove for, which seems to us 
 scarcely worth while : he tried to lose his Scotch dialect 
 and accent, but did not entirely succeed. Lord Cock- 
 burn says that he was "by no means so successful in 
 acquiring an English voice. * * * What he picked 
 up was a high-keyed accent and a sharp pronuncia- 
 tion;" and the solemn biographer adds that "the acqui- 
 sition of a pure English accent by a full grown Scotch- 
 man Is fortunately impossible." He resumed his at- 
 tendance on law lectures in Edinburgh, and was admit- 
 ted to practice on December i6, 1794. He had so 
 busied himself In writing and speaking, and in the de- 
 bates of the famous Speculative Society, which he joined 
 in 1792 and where he encountered Scott, Brougham, 
 Petty, Horner, and Henry Cockburn, that he had little 
 or no time to build up a business, and in 1801 he told 
 his brother that his profession had never yet brought 
 him £100 a year. While at Oxford he had fancied 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 115 
 
 that he might become famous as a poet; he wrote to 
 his sister that he should "never be a great man, unless 
 it be as a poet." So besides his essays, he wrote much 
 verse; contemplated, in 1796, a translation in the style 
 of Cowper's Homer, from the Argonautics of Apol- 
 lonius; and composed two plays, never given to the 
 world. Cockburn tells us that he once left a manu- 
 script poem with a publisher, but after reflection, suc- 
 ceeded in rescuing it before it was considered. 
 
 II. 
 
 \The young lawyer in search of a practice should be 
 an object of commiseration. It is all so much a mat- 
 ter of chance that he is apt to be sadly discouraged at 
 the outset in his quest of clients. Brains count, it is 
 true, but brains must come into contact with opportu- 
 nity to achieve success, and the time when the conjunc- 
 tion is to occur, if it is to occur at all, seems often 
 remote and the waiting is tedious and exasperating. It 
 may never come, and the failure leaves the victim in 
 depression and penury. In any event, the aspirant 
 experiences a long discouragement, and is again and 
 agam on the point of abandoning his profession. Jeff- 
 rey was no exception to the rule. He was a Whig, and 
 in 1793 had written an essay on "Politicks" giving ex- 
 pression to views which sorely displeased his Tory 
 father, but he was encouraged by his uncle Morehead 
 whqr^was inclined to liberalism. In that day Scotland 
 was ruled by the Tories under Henry Dundas and later 
 under Melville, and there was little chance for Jeffrey, 
 although he had a small business by reason of some 
 family connections. He betook himself to London in 
 1798, taking letters to editors, including Perry of the 
 
ii6 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "Morning Chronicle," with the notion that he could 
 do far better in literature than in law, but it came to 
 nothing and back he went to study science, especially 
 chemistry. He joined a society, the "Academy of 
 Physicks," in company with Brown, Brougham and 
 Horner, and had serious thoughts of trying his fortune 
 in India. His friends suggested that he should aspire 
 to fill the chair of history in the University of Edin- 
 burgh, which A. F. Tytler had just resigned, but his 
 political principles stood in his way. In 1801 he was 
 a candidate for a reportership in the Court of Sessions, 
 but was defeated. So, having no prospects to speak 
 of and barely twenty guineas to his name, he prudently 
 married his second cousin, Catherine Wilson, on No- 
 vember I, 1 801, and went to live in that "flat" on 
 Buccleuch Place, which was to attain immortality as 
 the birthplace of the Edinburgh. Sydney Smith speaks 
 of it as being in the "eighth or ninth story," but it was 
 really in the third; and there he dwelt until May, 1802, 
 when he removed to the upper story of No. 62 Queen 
 Street. It is recorded that it cost him £7-18 to furnish 
 his study, £13-8 for his dining room, and £22-19 ^^^ 
 his drawing room. Almost ready to look for employ- 
 ment in other fields, he found his opportunity in the 
 Review. 
 
 -In the first four numbers of the Edinburgh, Jeffrey 
 had sixteen articles and Sydney Smith eighteen; in 
 the first twenty-four numbers he had seventy-five. Smith 
 twenty-three, and Brougham eighty. In the first num- 
 ber, that of October, 1802, he reviewed Southey's 
 Thalaba, and to a reader of to-day his conclusions ap- 
 pear to be well-founded. His judgment was severe but 
 not savagely fierce. He says with justice that "all the 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 117 
 
 productions of this author, it appears to us, bear very 
 distinctly the impression of an amiable mind, a culti- 
 vated fancy, and a perverted taste." But the review 
 is important chiefly from the evidence it affords of the 
 writer's hostility to the rising school of poetry, that 
 of Wordsworth and his friends — a hostility which sur- 
 vived even the ultimate victory of the new school over 
 the old and classical formality of its predecessors. The 
 spirit in which he approached the subject is indicated 
 by the opening sentence: "Poetry has this much, at 
 least, in common with religion, that its standards were 
 fixed long ago by certain inspired writers whose author- 
 ity it is no longer lawful to call in question." This 
 positive assertion of his proposition is an example of 
 what has been assailed as the dictatorial, ex cathedra 
 method which prevailed in the Edinburgh for years and 
 which reached perhaps its ultimate development in the 
 brilliant, often unfair, but always fascinating essays 
 of Macaulay. 
 
 A vast amount of nonsense has been uttered con- 
 cerning Jeffrey's arbitrary manner and his errors with 
 regard to the works of the new poets. One of the most 
 common texts for the sermons of those discerning critics 
 who are so extremely wise after the fact, is the famous 
 "This will never do," with which he opened his review 
 of The Excursion. "But has it ever done?" asks Pro- 
 fessor Minto; "I have never heard of or seen anybody 
 prepared to say that ^he Excursion can be read with 
 unflagging delight. * * * Xhe truth is that most 
 of his [Jeffrey's] criticism has been amply confirmed 
 and justified." A pretentious and "cock-sure" writer in 
 a modern "History of English Literature" so-called, 
 affords an illustration of the very quality of autocratic 
 judgment which he ascribes to Jeffrey, when he says: — 
 
ii8 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "The ministerial pronouncements of its arch-critic^ 
 Jeffrey, are such as now can only amaze. Amid the 
 great constellation of poets who had come within 
 his knowledge as a critic — Byron, Moore, Words- 
 worth, Coleridge, Crabbe, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson 
 — he discovered permanent qualities in two only, Ro- 
 gers and Campbell. He describes Wilhelm Meister 
 without circumlocution as 'so much trash'. In fact he 
 represents orthodox opinion of the day in stylish cir- 
 cles, elevated only to the extent of being expressed 
 with exceptional point." 
 
 This writer sees fit to leave wholly out of view Burns 
 and Scott and the laudatory reviews of the Reliques 
 of Robert Burns In January, 1809, and of The Lady 
 of the Lake In August, 18 10. Tennyson's "Poems, 
 Chiefly Lyrical" did not appear until a year after Jeff- 
 rey resigned the editorial chair. As to Keats, he over- 
 looks the appreciative review of Endymion, which ap- 
 peared In the Edinburgh In 1820, long after the publi- 
 cation of the cruel and excoriating criticism which dis- 
 figured the pages of the Quarterly In April, 18 18. 
 
 In a note to the review of Endymion, which I cite 
 from the volumes of collected papers (11, 373; Edition 
 of 1846), Jeffrey says: 
 
 "I still think that a poet of great power and prom- 
 ise was lost to us by the premature death of Keats 
 * * * and regret that I did not go more largely 
 into the exposition of his merits, in the slight notice 
 of them which I now venture to reprint. But though 
 I cannot, with propriety, or without departing from 
 the principle which must govern this republication, 
 now supply the omission, I hope to be forgiven for 
 having added a page or two to the citations — by which 
 my opinion of those merits was then Illustrated and is 
 again left to the judgment of the reader." 
 
 As far as Wilhelm Meister Is concerned, I am not 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 119 
 
 sure that he was wrong. It seems to be an unwarranted 
 assertion that Jeffrey merely represented "the ortho- 
 dox opinion of the day in stylish circles" — a causeless 
 sneer at a supposed deference to the views of "stylish 
 circles," which somewhat vulgar phrase is evidently 
 used to designate the aristocracy of culture and of so- 
 cial position. It is needless to devise such a puerile 
 theory. Jeffrey was a trained and accomplished law- 
 yer; and like most lawyers of his type, he was disposed 
 to find everywhere a law, a rule, whether of civil con- 
 duct prescribed by the supreme power of a state, or of 
 good taste prescribed by those whose decisions, re- 
 spected and followed in the past, had come to possess 
 in their own realm the binding force of law. Men of 
 his profession are almost always conservative, often to 
 excess, over-reluctant to countenance changes which 
 may be advantageous and which moreover are inevita- 
 ble; for all laws must change with the spirit and the 
 temper of the times. 
 
 In fact, however, this sapient scribbler borrowed 
 his judgment from Sir Leslie Stephen's charming es- 
 say, "The First Edinburgh Reviewers,"* which is full 
 of that delightful and easy book-discussion so fascin- 
 ating to a reader who enjoys literary criticism. Ste- 
 phen was, in that essay, a little, if ever so little, severe 
 with Jeffrey, and his article on Jeffrey in the National 
 Dictionary of Biography is much more favorable in 
 its tone. Stephen says of him in the essay: "Every critic 
 has a sacred and inalienable right to blunder at times; 
 but Jeffrey's blundering is amazingly systematic and 
 comprehensive." He illustrates this by a quotation 
 from the last of Jeffrey's poetical critiques (October, 
 
 * 
 
 Hours in a Library, il, 241 (1894). 
 
120 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 1829) where the reviewer, he says, sums up his criti- 
 cal experience. "He doubts whether Mrs. Hemans, 
 whom he is reviewing at the time, will be immortaL 
 'The tuneful quartos of Southey,' he says, 'are al- 
 ready little better than lumber,' and the rich melodies 
 of Keats and Shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of 
 Wordsworth, and the plebeian pathos of Crabbe, are 
 melting fast from the field of vision. The novels of 
 Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid 
 strains of Moore are fading into distance and dim- 
 ness, except when they have been married to immor- 
 tal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is 
 receding from its place of pride." This does not im- 
 press one as a monument of error. Surely every word 
 of it is as true to-day as it was in 1829, except that 
 there has been a recrudescence of "the rich melodies 
 of Keats and Shelley," and of Byron, whose star was 
 assuredly almost obscured for many years, although 
 of late it seems to be again shining with a good deal 
 of its former lustre. The gravamen of the charge 
 of blundering which is preferred against Jeffrey is, to 
 use the words of Sir Leslie Stephen, his assertion 
 that "the two who show least marks of decay are— of 
 all people in the world — Rogers and Campbell!" 
 Let us reason together a little about this censure. 
 
 Every lawyer knows that in dealing with what a 
 man says, it is important to know exactly what he said. 
 What was it that Jeffrey said about Rogers and 
 Campbell which has brought down upon him the ava- 
 lanche of blame showered by Stephen and Scrib- 
 bler? Dr. Winchester says that it has been "quoted 
 by everybody who has written anything on Jeffrey 
 since Christopher North quoted it first in Blackwood,** 
 The trouble is that everybody does not quote it; almost 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 121 
 
 everybody attempts to paraphrase it and blunders in the 
 attempt. This is exactly what Jeffrey wrote : — 
 
 ''The two who have the longest withstood this rapid 
 withering of the laurel, and with the least mark of 
 decay on their branches, are Rogers and Campbell; 
 neither of them, it may be remarked, voluminous writ- 
 ers, and both distinguished rather for their fine taste 
 and consummate elegance of their writings, than for 
 that fiery passion, and disdainful vehemence which 
 seemed for a time to be so much more in favor with the 
 public." 
 
 It may be permitted to say that in 1829 this was 
 all quite true ; no one has denied it. It is very far from 
 an assertion that Rogers and Campbell will be "the 
 sole enduring relics from an age of Wordsworth, 
 Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Byron." Jeffrey says 
 not a word about what may happen in the future. Sir 
 Leslie appears to have had a slight degree of com- 
 punction about his conclusion, because he attempts to 
 sustain his severity by the remark that "this summary 
 was republished in 1843, by which time the true pro- 
 portions of the great reputations of the period were 
 becoming more obvious to an ordinary observer." 
 But Jeffrey was not writing in 1843; ^^ was simply 
 repeating what he wrote in 1829. Would Sir Leslie 
 have had him change it? His principle in the repro- 
 duction is referred to in the note about Keats, hereto- 
 fore quoted. In the well-known words of Jeffrey, 
 "This will never do." It must be remembered, too, 
 that Rogers was a dearly beloved friend, and critics 
 are human; and I dare to say that there are even now 
 verses of Campbell which are familiar to thousands 
 who do not know a line of Keats or of Shelley. More- 
 over, if the modest statement of his views was a 
 
122 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 blunder, we must remember what Sir Leslie well says, 
 "criticism is a still more perishable commodity than 
 poetry," and if you censure one critic for an occa- 
 sional error, you will have to condemn them all. 
 Stephen does admit in a letter to Mrs. Jackson, in 
 1877, that "Jeffrey, too, said a true thing or two 
 about Wordsworth." But was Sir Leslie, after all, a 
 very competent judge ? His biographer, Mr. Maitland, 
 in Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen (1906) says: 
 
 "Stephen, we are told, after his death, did not 
 
 really care for poetry any more than Jeffrey, and 
 
 consequently was not fully qualified to criticise it. Of 
 course not; he was a philosopher." 
 
 Hence we may distrust the capacity of Stephen to 
 decide about Jeffrey's views of poetry. The devoted 
 admirers of Wordsworth never quite forgave Jeffrey 
 for what he said about their idol. Crabbe Robinson 
 records in his Diary a talk with Empson, in which 
 the latter relates that Jeffrey had lately told him that 
 so many people had thought highly of Wordsworth, 
 that he was resolved to reperuse his poems and see if 
 he had anything to retract. He found nothing to re- 
 tract except, perhaps, a contemptuous and flippant 
 phrase or two. Empson believed that Jeffrey's dis- 
 taste for Wordsworth was honest, — mere uncongenial- 
 ity of mind. Jeffrey did acknowledge that he was 
 wrong in his treatment of Lamb. Robinson notes, in 
 April, 1835, ^^s meeting Jeffrey at dinner. "Jeffrey," 
 he says, "is a sharp and clever-looking man, and in 
 spite of my dislike to his name, he did not on the 
 whole displease me. His treatment of Wordsworth 
 would not allow me to like him, had he been greater 
 by far than he was. And, therefore, when he said. 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 123 
 
 *I was always an admirer of Wordsworth/ I could not 
 repress the unseemly remark, 'You had a singular 
 way of showing your admiration'."* 
 
 In the Thalaha review, Jeffrey vigorously attacks 
 the "affectation of great simplicity and familiarity of 
 language," which was characteristic of the new school 
 of poets; "the perverted taste for simplicity" he calls 
 it. He seems to have been fond of the expression 
 "perverted taste." He is moved to bitter words when 
 he refers to their "splenetic and idle discontent with 
 the existing institutions of society." His own feel- 
 ings were so far "aristocratic" that he was unable to 
 believe that while the princely and the wealthy are to 
 be strongly condemned for acts of vice and profligacy, 
 the members of "the lower orders of society" are to 
 be excused and pitied for like acts, because they are 
 "but the helpless victims or instruments" of the dis- 
 orders attending the vicious constitution of society. 
 He is guilty of such offensive and unpopular sugges- 
 tions as that "the same apology ought certainly to be 
 admitted for the wealthy, as for the needy offender. 
 They are subject alike to the overruling influence of 
 necessity, and equally affected by the miserable condi- 
 tion of society. If it be natural for a poor man to 
 murder and rob in order to make himself comfort- 
 able, it is no less natural for a rich man to gorman- 
 dise and domineer, in order to have the full use of his 
 riches. Wealth is just as valid an excuse for the one 
 class of vices as indigence is for the other." Such 
 sentiments, if uttered in these times of ours, would 
 surely subject the offender to the scornful rebukes of 
 our modern philosophers of the press, who regard it 
 
 *Diary, iil, 65. 
 
124 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 as criminal to be rich — unless the fortune was ac- 
 quired by printing newspapers, or was inherited by 
 an editor, and whose denunciations of large fortunes 
 are accompanied by abject deference to the possessors 
 of them when in their personal presence. 
 
 The review of The Reliques of Robert Burns (Janu- 
 ary, 1809) is a fine example of the discriminating power 
 of the critic. Scotchman as he was, Burns was for him 
 no fetish to be adored blindly, whose every verse was 
 to be raved about because the poet was a genius. He 
 did not belong to that class of men who cannot believe 
 that Shakespeare or Milton were ever dull; or that 
 there are lines in the Holy Scriptures which might 
 well be blotted out; or that George Washington never 
 did a foolish thing or Benedict Arnold a good one. He 
 recognized the truth that even the great have their 
 failings, as they must have, being human; all the more 
 lovable, more honorable perhaps for having them. 
 After the usual introductory essay of the day, treating 
 of the relative advantages of great culture and of hum- 
 ble beginnings in the making of a true poet, and arri- 
 ving at the conclusion that such a poet may well be un- 
 encumbered by "the pretended helps of extended study 
 and literary society," he calls attention to the harshness 
 and acrimony of Burns's invective, his want of polish 
 or at least of respectfulness in the general tone of his 
 gallantry, his contempt or affectation of contempt for 
 prudence, decency, and regularity; his frequent mistake 
 of mere exaggeration and violence for force and sub- 
 limity; and then he says: 
 
 "With the allowances and exceptions we have now 
 stated, we think Burns entitled to the rank of a great 
 and original genius. He has in all his compositions 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 125 
 
 great force of conception; and great spirit and anima- 
 tion in its expression. He has taken a large range 
 through the region of Fancy and naturalized himself 
 in almost all her climates. He has great humor — 
 great powers of description — great pathos — and great 
 discrimination of character. Almost everything that 
 he says has spirit and originality; and everything that 
 he says well, is characterized by a charming facility, 
 which gives a grace even to occasional rudeness, and 
 communicates to the reader a delightful sympathy 
 with the spontaneous soaring and conscious inspiration 
 of the poet." 
 
 What he wrote of The Lady of the Lake in the num- 
 ber for August, 1 8 10, shows his capacity of estimating 
 the real value of popular works, uninfluenced by per- 
 sonal friendship or by the voice of the multitude. He 
 gives a careful study of the elements of popularity in 
 poetry, and finds the great secret of Scott's popularity 
 and the leading characteristic of his poetry to consist 
 "in this, that he has made more use of common topics, 
 images, and expressions than any original poet of later 
 times ; and, at the same time, displayed more genius and 
 originality than any recent author who has worked in 
 the same materials. By the latter peculiarity, he has 
 entitled himself to the admiration of every description 
 of readers; — by the former he is recommended in an 
 especial manner to the inexperienced — at the hazard of 
 some little offence to the more cultivated and fastid- 
 ious." He says further: 
 
 "There is nothing, in Mr. Scott, of the severe and 
 majestic style of Milton— or of the terse and fine com- 
 position of Pope, — or of the elaborate elegance and 
 melody of Campbell,— or even of the flowing and 
 redundant diction of Southey. But there is a medley 
 of bright images and glowing words, set carelessly 
 
126 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 and loosely together — a diction, tinged successively 
 with the careless richness of Shakespeare, the harsh- 
 ness and antique simplicity of the old romances, the 
 homeliness of vulgar ballads and anecdotes, and the 
 sentimental glitter of the most modern poetry— pass- 
 ing from the borders of the ludicrous to those of the 
 sublime — alternately minute and energetic — sometimes 
 artificial, and frequently negligent — but always full 
 of spirit and vivacity — abounding in images that are 
 striking, at first sight, to minds of every contexture — 
 and never expressing a sentiment which it can cost the 
 most ordinary reader any exertion to comprehend." 
 
 Jeffrey praises Scott's vivifying spirit of strength and 
 animation; his ease of production; his singular talent 
 for description and "especially for the description of 
 scenes abounding in motion or action of any kind"; the 
 manner in which "with a few bold and abrupt strokes 
 he finishes a most spirited outline, and then instantly 
 kindles it by the sudden light and color of some moral 
 affection;" the "air of freedom and nature which he 
 has contrived to impart to most of his distinguished 
 characters, and with which no poet more modern than 
 Shakespeare has ventured to represent persons of such 
 dignity." At the same time, he remarks that Scott has 
 "dazzled the reader with the splendor, and even 
 warmed him with the transient heat of various affec- 
 tions; but he has nowhere fairly kindled him with en- 
 thusiasm, or melted him into tenderness;" and he thinks 
 it quite obvious that "Mr. Scott has not aimed at writ- 
 ing either in a pure or a very consistent style." 
 
 He had not written of Marmion so approvingly, al- 
 though it was brought out by Constable, who was pub- 
 lishing the Edinburgh. It is said that Jeffrey rather 
 characteristically sent the article to Scott with a note 
 saying that he was coming to dinner on the following 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 127 
 
 Tuesday. Scott felt the sting of the review, but tried 
 to hide his feelings. Mrs. Scott, however, was but 
 frigidly polite, and as Jeffrey was taking leave forgot 
 even her cold politeness, saying in her broken English: 
 
 ''Well, guid night, Mr. Jeffrey; dey tell me you 
 have abused Scott in the Review; and I hope Mr. 
 Constable has paid you well for writing it." 
 
 These quotations have been given partly to afford a 
 glimpse of Jeffrey when he was at his best and partly 
 to refute the assumption that he was always finding 
 fault and wounding the feelings of authors. He had, 
 it is true, some very decided views about poetry, which 
 in those earlier days of the nineteenth century was a 
 serious matter. People read the galloping verses of 
 Scott then as eagerly as in later times they devoured 
 novels. But "suddenly and without any warning," as 
 Besant says, "the people of Great Britain left off read- 
 ing poetry." It must be observed that both of the 
 poets so favorably regarded by Jeffrey were Scotchmen 
 like himself; when he came to deal with Englishmen 
 he was possibly open to the charge of undue severity. 
 Yet Southey was not much vexed by the review of 
 Thalaba. He called it "dishonest" in some of its asser- 
 tions, and justly remarks that the first part, evidently 
 an answer to Wordsworth's Preface to the second edi- 
 tion of the Lyrical Ballads, is utterly irrelevant to 
 Thalaba, "The review altogether is a good one," he 
 writes to a friend, and adds, with regard to some of 
 the adverse criticism, "when any Scotchman's book 
 shall come to be reviewed, then see what the Edinburgh 
 critics will say." A review of Madoc was published 
 in the number for October, 1805; it was both severe 
 
128 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 and complimentary. It was sent to Southey before it 
 appeared, and Jeffrey wrote to Horner: 
 
 "Southey is to be here to-day with P. Elmsley. I 
 mean to let him read my review of Madoc before I 
 put myself in the way of meeting with him. He is 
 too much a man of the world, I believe, in spite of 
 his poesy, to decline seeing me, whatever he may think 
 of the critic." 
 
 They did meet, and Southey wrote to Will Taylor, 
 on October 22, 1805 : 
 
 "I have seen Jeffrey, etc. I met him in good hu- 
 mor, being by God's blessing, of a happy temper. 
 Having seen him, it would be impossible to be angry 
 at anything so diminutive. We talked upon the ques- 
 tion of taste, on which we are at issue; he is a mere 
 child upon that subject. I never met with a man who 
 was so easy to checkmate." 
 
 Southey evidently felt the censure more keenly than 
 he would have been willing to confess. As Cockburn 
 says: 
 
 "Jeffrey's being a child in taste, and easily check- 
 mated in discussion will probably strike those who 
 knew him as novelties in his character." 
 
 The fact that if Jeffrey made any mistake in the 
 review of Madoc, it was in lauding the poem too high- 
 ly. It was one of poor Southey's stupendous failures. 
 
 Dr. Winchester thinks that Jeffrey's criticism "has 
 always a certain hard common-sense. It Is clear and 
 sane, level to the comprehension of everybody. There 
 is nothing subtle in it. He never goes much below the 
 surface." The learned essayist then calls Jeffrey dog- 
 matic and superficial, and says that he was unable to 
 apply any historical method in criticism; inconsistent, 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 129 
 
 with taste narrowed In its range on the one side by that 
 hard common sense of his, and on the other by ''a 
 rather prim sentimentaHty." Dr. Winchester seems 
 disposed to find fault with Jeffrey because in the first 
 quarter of the nineteenth century he did not write in 
 the manner of the first decade of the twentieth. But 
 it is not easy to understand why he should accuse Jeff- 
 rey of ignoring Keats because "the Edinburgh had no 
 word of recognition for him, and only broke silence 
 In 1820, when his brief career was closed." The article 
 appeared in August, 1820, and Keats died in his twenty- 
 sixth year, in February, 1821 ; so that the delay was not 
 extraordinary. Endymion first appeared in 18 18 and 
 attracted little attention at the time. The "Lamia, 
 Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems," 
 which was the immediate occasion of the review, was 
 published early in July, 1820. So that to the ordinary 
 mind it appears that one must be extremely anxious to 
 find fault who would censure Jeffrey for neglecting 
 Keats. 
 
 In my boyhood. Chambers' Cyclopaedia of Eng- 
 lish Literature was regarded as a trustworthy guide, 
 and I am disposed to believe that it deserved its reputa- 
 tion. Its verdict upon Jeffrey bears the impress of fair- 
 ness and candor. "There is some ground," says the im- 
 partial writer who has manifestly no desire to be 
 "smart" or censorious, "for charging upon the Edin- 
 burgh Review, in its earlier career, an absence of proper 
 respect and enthusiasm for the works of living genius. 
 Where no prepossession of the kind intervened, Jeffrey 
 was an admirable critic. If he was not profound, he 
 was interesting and graceful. His dissertations on the 
 works of Cowper, Crabbe, Byron, Scott, and Campbell, 
 and on the earlier and greater lights of our poetry, as 
 
130 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 well as those on moral science, national manners, and 
 views of actual life, are expressed with great eloquence 
 and originality, and in a fine spirit of humanity. His 
 powers of perception and analysis were quick, subtle 
 and penetrating, and withal comprehensive; while his 
 brilliant imagination invested subjects that in ordinary 
 hands would have been dry and uninviting, with strong 
 interest and attraction. He seldom gave full scope to 
 his feelings and sympathies, but they occasionally broke 
 forth with inimitable effect and kindled up the pages 
 of his criticism." 
 
 The same writer, later on, observes with much 
 force, that "as a literary critic, we may advert to the 
 singular taste and judgment with Lord Jeffrey exer- 
 cised in making selections from the works he reviewed, 
 and interweaving them, as it were, with the text of 
 his criticism. Whatever was picturesque, solemn, pa- 
 thetic, or sublime, caught his eye, and was thus intro- 
 duced to a new and vastly extended circle of readers, 
 besides furnishing matter for various collections of 
 extracts and innumerable school exercises. The chief 
 defect of his writing is the occasional diffuseness and 
 carelessness of his style. He wrote as he spoke, with 
 great rapidity and with a flood of illustration." I 
 am not sure that an author who "writes as he speaks" 
 is not, after all, as satisfactory as one who observes 
 the law of reticence with severity and strictness. Surely 
 his work is readable, and as the eye runs rapidly over 
 the printed page, no time is wasted. The colloquial 
 style is, however, not favored by every reader. Many 
 prefer that their mental pabulum should be supplied 
 in condensed tablets, and prefer the concise, the epi- 
 grammatic method. 
 
 Some remarks of Jeffrey, in his review of Camp- 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 131 
 
 bell's Specimens of the British Poets (18 19), Impress 
 me as significant of his methods of judgment. He 
 says : 
 
 "As the materials of enjoyment and Instruction ac- 
 cumulate around us, more and more, we fear, must 
 thus be daily rejected and left to waste. For while 
 our tasks lengthen, our lives remain as short as ever; 
 and the calls on our time multiply, while our time 
 itself is flying swiftly away. This superfluity and 
 abundance of our treasures, therefore, necessarily ren- 
 der much of them worthless; and the veriest accidents 
 may. In such a case, determine what part shall be pre- 
 served, and what thrown away and neglected. When 
 an army Is decimated, the very bravest may fall; and 
 many poets, worthy of eternal remembrance, have 
 probably been forgotten, merely because there was not 
 room in our memories for all." 
 
 And looking forward to 19 19, he says: 
 
 "Our living poets will then be nearly as old as 
 Pope and Swift are at present, — but there will 
 stand between them and that generation nearly ten 
 times as much fresh and fashionable poetry as Is now 
 Interposed between us and those writers; — and if 
 Scott and Byron and Campbell have already cast Pope 
 and Swift a good deal into the shade. In what form 
 and dimensions are they themselves likely to be pre- 
 sented In the eyes of our great grandchildren? The 
 thought, we own. Is a little appalling; — and we con- 
 fess we see nothing better to Imagine than that they 
 may find a comfortable place in some new collection 
 of specimens — the centenary of the present publica- 
 tion. There — If the future editor have anything like 
 the Indulgence and veneration for antiquity of his 
 predecessor — there shall posterity still hang with 
 rapture on the half of Campbell, — and the fourth part 
 of Byron, — and the sixth of Scott, — and the scattered 
 tythes of Crabbe, — and the three per cent, of Southey, 
 — while some good-natured critic shall sit in our 
 
132 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 mouldering chair, and more than half prefer them to 
 those by whom they have been superseded! — It is an 
 hyperbole of good-nature, however, we fear, to as- 
 cribe to them even those dimensions at the end of a cen- 
 tury. After a lapse of two hundred and fifty years, we 
 are afraid to think of the space they may have shrunk 
 into. We have no Shakespeare, alas! to shed a never- 
 setting light on his contemporaries! — and if we con- 
 tinue to write and rhyme at the present rate for two 
 hundred years longer, there must be some new art of 
 short-hand reading invented, — or all reading will be 
 given up in despair." 
 
 The error he made was in supposing that in the 
 twentieth century, poetry would be a matter of inter- 
 est to the general reader. We know that nobody cares 
 much now for poetry; it has ceased to be a subject of 
 concern to any but the few; if it is read at all, it is only 
 by the student of literature, for the multitude of men 
 find their food for thought in science, sociology and 
 fiction. The man at the club would stare in hopeless 
 surprise at any reference to Pope, or Crabbe, or even 
 Campbell, modern as he is, and say to himself that his 
 interlocutor was a queer old antediluvian, and a mere 
 burrower in the rubbish of long ago. 
 
 Naturally Jeffrey, as the responsible editor, was 
 compelled sometimes to suffer vicariously for the of- 
 fense of others. Everyone knows the biting review 
 of "Hours of Idleness," which Brougham wrote for 
 the number of January, 1808, and how Byron fumed 
 furiously in the somewhat labored satire of "English 
 Bards and Scottish Reviewers," pouring forth his 
 vitriolic wrath upon Jeffrey in particular. But Byron 
 repented of his assault when in later years he came 
 to know the worth of the man he libelled. He had 
 said: 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 133 
 
 "Believe a woman or an epitaph, 
 Or any other thing that's false, before 
 You trust in critics, who themselves are sore; 
 Or yield one single thought to be misled 
 By Jeffrey's heart or Lambe's Boeotian head." 
 
 In 18 16 he wrote: 
 
 "This was not just. Neither the heart nor the head 
 of these gentlemen are at all what they are here rep- 
 resented. At the time this was written, I was per- 
 sonally not acquainted with either." 
 
 Later in the satire he exclaimed: 
 
 "Health to immortal Jeffrey! once in name 
 England could boast a judge almost the same !" 
 
 To compare Jeffrey with Jeffreys seems to have 
 been a favorite occupation of wounded authors in 
 those days: each one appeared to think that his con- 
 ceit was original. Byron goes on to give vent to a 
 tirade somewhat tedious, in the course of which he 
 makes much of the Moore duel, described later on. 
 But in his Diary (18 14) he recorded his recantation. 
 "I have often," he says, "since my return to Eng- 
 land, heard Jeffrey most highly commended by those 
 who knew him, for things independent of his talents. 
 I admired him for this — not because he has praised 
 me, but because he is, perhaps, the only man who, un- 
 der the relations in which he and I stand or stood with 
 regard to each other, would have had the liberality to 
 act thus: none but a great soul dared hazard It — a 
 little scribbler would have gone on cavilling to the end 
 of the chapter." Jeffrey, In 18 12, reviewing the first 
 and second cantos of Childe Harold, had referred to 
 the scurrilous stings of the satire by saying that "per- 
 sonalities so outrageous were only injurious to their 
 
134 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 author.'* Byron tried to make amends in the tenth 
 canto of Don Juan by saying: 
 
 "And all our little feuds, at least all miney 
 Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe 
 
 (As far as rhyme and criticism combine 
 To make such puppets of us things below,) 
 
 Are over; Here's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne!' 
 I do not know you, and may never know 
 
 Your face — but you have acted on the whole 
 
 Most nobly, and I own it from my soul. 
 
 And when I use the phrase of 'Auld Lang Syne!' 
 'Tis not addressed to you — the more's the pity 
 
 For me, for I would rather take my wine 
 
 With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud 
 city." 
 
 Miss Anna Seward, that plump Swan of Lichfield 
 whose story has been told so charmingly of late by 
 E. V. Lucas, was plainly enraged when she wrote to 
 Sir Walter Scott on June 20, 1806: "Not even you 
 can teach me to esteem him whom you call your little 
 friend Jefrey, the Edinburgh Reviewer. Jefries 
 ought to have been his name, since so similar his na- 
 ture. On his self-placed bench of decision on poetic 
 works, he is all that Jefferies was when tyranny had 
 thrown the judicial robe on his shoulder." 
 
 It was in this year, 1806, when Jeffrey made such 
 an attack upon the Odes and Epistles of Thomas 
 Moore that a rather comical duel followed, which be- 
 gan by Moore's telling Jeffrey a funny story and end- 
 ed by the timely arrival of the police who haled the 
 Scotchman and the Irishman, with their seconds, Hor- 
 ner and Hume, to Bow Street, where all began to talk 
 on literary subjects. "But whatever was the topic," 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 135 
 
 writes Moore in his voluminous Memoirs, "Jeffrey, I 
 recollect, expatiated upon it with all his peculiar flu- 
 ency and eloquence ; and I can now most vividly recall 
 him to my memory, as he lay upon his back on a form 
 which stood beside the wall, pouring volubly forth his 
 fluent but most oddly pronounced diction, and dress- 
 ing his subject out in every variety of array that an 
 ever rich and ready wardrobe of phraseology could 
 supply." They took a liking each to the other and 
 became warm friends; and Moore records with pride 
 how Jeffrey said to him, twenty-one years later, re- 
 ferring to the Life of Sheridan, "Here is a convinc- 
 ing proof that you can think and reason solidly and 
 manfully, and treat the gravest and most important 
 subjects in a manner worthy of them." 
 
 The poet had some provocation, for in the review of 
 his poems (Edinburgh Review, No. xvi., July, 1806), 
 Jeffrey had written of him as "the most licentious of 
 modern versifiers, and the most poetical of the propa- 
 gators of impiety," adding what Moore understood 
 to be a charge of mercenary motives. The duelists 
 met at Chalk Farm, but the police interfered and It 
 was found that one of the pistols had no ball in it. So 
 Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers could 
 not refrain from saying: 
 
 "Can none remember that eventful day, 
 That ever glorious, almost fatal fray. 
 When Little's leadless pistol met his eye 
 And Bow Street myrmidons stood laughing by?" 
 
 Moore insisted that his pistol was loaded, and tried 
 to send a challenge to Byron, but the friend to whom 
 it was entrusted contrived to forget all about it. Theo- 
 dore Hook, in the Man of Sorrow perpetrated this 
 epigram : 
 
136 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "When Anacreon would fight, as the poets have said, 
 
 A reverse he display'd in his vapor, 
 For while all his poems were loaded with lead, 
 
 His pistols were loaded with paper! 
 For excuses, Anacreon old custom many thank, 
 
 Such a salvo he would not abuse. 
 For the cartridge, by rule, is alway made blank, 
 
 Which is fired away at Reviews." 
 
 The whole story is told fully in Moore's Memoirs 
 as well as by Cockburn, and it is the subject of com- 
 ment in many contemporary works. In Clayden's 
 account of "Rogers and his Contemporaries," other 
 details are furnished. The banker-poet is brought 
 into the field. "Jeffrey," says Clayden, "had written 
 a slashing review of Moore's Epistles, Odes and other 
 Poems, in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1806, and 
 was apparently conscious that he had done Moore in- 
 justice. Rogers met him at Lord Fincastle's at dinner 
 in the early summer, and the conversation turned on 
 Moore. Lord Fincastle described the new poet as 
 having great amenity of manner, and Jeffrey laughing- 
 ly replied, 'I am afraid he would not show much 
 amenity to me.' The insult and challenge followed 
 soon after this conversation, and a meeting was ar- 
 ranged at Chalk Farm. William Spencer had heard 
 of it, and had told the police, and, when the combatants 
 were about to fire, the police appeared and took them 
 all off to the station. Moore sent for Spencer to bail 
 him, but Rogers had heard of the arrest and was on 
 the spot in time to give the necessary security. This 
 quarrel of two friends gave Rogers an opportunity of 
 playing his favorite part of peacemaker. He carried 
 messages between the combatants, containing, as Moore 
 says, those formalities of explanation which the world 
 requires, and arranged that they should meet at his 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 137 
 
 house." Rogers, In his Table Talk, gives a brief ac- 
 count of his relation to the duel, and adds : *'The poet 
 and the critic were mutually reconciled by means of 
 Horner and myself : they shook hands with each other 
 in the garden behind my house." They may have 
 shaken hands there, but it is doubtful whether Rogers 
 really had as much to do with the reconciliation as all 
 this Implies. In Clayden's book is given In full the let- 
 ter of Jeffrey to Rogers, written from Edinburgh, July 
 30, 18 19, In which his generous liberality Is exhibited. 
 He says: 
 
 t'l have been very much shocked and disturbed by 
 observing in the newspapers the great pecuniary calam- 
 ity which has fallen on our excellent friend Moore, and 
 not being able to get any distinct Information either as 
 to its extent, or Its probable consequences, from any- 
 body here, I have thought it best to relieve my anxiety 
 by applying to you, whose kind concern in him must 
 both have made you acquainted with all the particulars, 
 and willing, I hope, to satisfy the enquiries of one who 
 sincerely shares in that concern. * * * j have, 
 unfortunately, not a great deal of money to spare. But 
 if it should be found practicable to relieve him from 
 this unmerited distress by any contribution, I beg leave 
 to say that I shall think It an honor to be allowed to 
 take share In it to the extent of 300 /. or 500 /., and 
 that I could advance more than double the sum named 
 above upon any reasonable security of ultimate repay- 
 ment, however long postponed." 
 
 In his own account of the Moore affair, Jeffrey, 
 writing to his friend, George Bell (August 22, 1806), 
 says : 
 
 "Moore agreed to withdraw his defiance; and then 
 I had no hesitation in assuring him (as I was ready to 
 have done at the beginning, if he had applied arnica- 
 
138 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 bly) that in writing the review I considered myself 
 merely as the censor of the morality of his book, and 
 that I intended to assert nothing as to the personal mo- 
 tives or personal character of the author, of whom 
 I had no knowledge at the time. * * * ^y^ have 
 since breakfasted together very lovingly. * * * 
 You are too severe upon the little man. He has be- 
 haved with great spirit throughout this business. He 
 really is not profligate, and is universally regarded, 
 even by those who resent the style of his poetry, as 
 an innocent, good-hearted, idle fellow. * * * 
 We were very near going to Hamburgh after we had 
 been bound over here; but it is much better as it is. I 
 am glad to have gone through this scene, both be- 
 cause it satisfies me that my nerves are good enough 
 to enable me to act in conformity to my notions of 
 propriety without any suffering, and because it also as- 
 sures me that I am really as little in love with life as 
 I have been for some time in the habit of professing." 
 
 This indifference to life arose from the depression 
 caused by the death of his sister Mary (Mrs. Napier) 
 and by a still greater affliction which for a time threat- 
 ened to drive him from his literary and professional 
 work. His wife, whom he loved devotedly, died on 
 August 8, 1805. 
 
 The Edinburgh was not destined to continue long 
 without a rival. Its open disapproval of the war with 
 France, rather than its advocacy of domestic reforms, 
 not only aroused the indignation of the Tories but 
 offended many of the moderate men of the class who 
 consider it to be unpatriotic to oppose a government 
 during the pendency of a conflict in which the nation 
 may be at the time engaged, however they may have 
 deplored the beginning of such a conflict. We had ex- 
 amples of our own in the Civil War of 1861-1865, and 
 in the Spanish War of 1898. The final offense which 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 139 
 
 provoked the loyal Britons was a review by Jeffrey 
 (with some help from Brougham) of Don Pedro 
 Ceballos's account of the French Usurpation in Spain, 
 which appeared in the number for October, 1808. 
 Jeffrey "dared to despair of what was then called the 
 regeneration of Spain; and this at the. very moment 
 when the hearts of most of the English people were 
 agitated with delight in the belief that this glorious 
 change had already begun and that the Peninsula was 
 henceforth to be inhabited by a population of pa- 
 triots."* Jeffrey was more accurate in his forecast 
 than he was a little later when he wrote to Horner 
 that his "honest impression" was that Bonaparte would 
 be "in Dublin in about fifteen months, perhaps sooner." 
 In that event, he said he would "try to go to America." 
 The Tories brought out their Quarterly Review in 
 February, 1809, and Sir Walter Scott went over to it. 
 It does not seem to have injured the Edinburgh seri- 
 ously. When Jeffrey saw the first number he wrote : 
 
 "I have seen the Quarterly this morning. It is an 
 Inspired work, compared with the pen prattle of Cum- 
 berland. But I do not think it very formidable; and 
 if it were not for our offences, I should have no fear 
 about its consequences." 
 
 In March he wrote to Horner: 
 
 "Tell me what you hear, and what you think of this 
 new Quarterly; and do not let yourself imagine that I 
 feel any unworthy jealousy, and still less any unworthy 
 fear, on the occasion. My natural indolence would 
 have been better pleased not to be always in sight of 
 an alert and keen antagonist. But I do rejoice at 
 the prospect of this kind of literature, which seems to 
 be more and more attended to than any other, being 
 
 *Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey. I-192. 
 
I40 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 generally improved in quality, and shall be found to 
 have set an example." 
 
 This was manifestly said in all sincerity, and Jeffrey 
 was shrewd enough to perceive that rivalry and com- 
 petition would advance the fortunes of his Review in- 
 stead of retarding them. In fact, the Edinburgh was 
 not at first particularly Whiggish. Scott, who was any- 
 thing but a Whig, had been a contributor for years 
 before the Ceballos article appeared, and as late as 
 1807 advised Southey to follow his example. In No- 
 vember, 1808, Scott wrote to his brother-in-law, say- 
 ing that Jeffrey had "offered terms of pacification, en- 
 gaging that no party politics should again appear in 
 his 'Review'," but after this letter had been given out 
 in Lockhart's Life, Jeffrey insisted, in the preface to 
 his collected essays, that he had been misunderstood 
 and added that he had told Sir Walter that he had 
 for six years regarded politics as "the right leg" of the 
 Review. The real attitude of Jeffrey is shown by a let- 
 ter which he wrote to Horner, on December 6, 1808, 
 quoted by Horner in his Memoirs (i. 464) when, ask- 
 ing help in the day of need, he told Horner to write 
 anything, "only no party politics, and nothing but ex- 
 emplary moderation and impartiality on all politics." 
 In fact, while his contributors were all inclined to lib- 
 eralism, Jeffrey himself wrote very few political essays. 
 His tendency was Whiggish, but he was not enthusi- 
 astic; he was not a sympathizer with Cobbett or Ben- 
 tham, and even thought that Carlyle was too much in 
 earnest. The radicals. Sir Leslie Stephen says, regarded 
 him as a mere trimmer. So he met with the approval 
 of neither faction of extremists, the usual fate of hon- 
 est men who have a strong sense of justice and abhor 
 tyranny whether of the mob or of the aristocracy. 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 141 
 
 In 1803 he decided not to accept a professorship 
 of moral and poHtical science in a college at Calcutta, 
 although, according to Horner, his professional income 
 was then only about £240. In that year he "became 
 an ensign in a volunteer regiment, with a strong con- 
 viction that an invasion was imminent, but showed so 
 little military aptitude that he was never at home in 
 his uniform, and could hardly, according to Cockburn, 
 "face his company to the right or left." His social suc- 
 cess, however, was marked, but he was despondent, as 
 we have seen, after the death of his sister and of his 
 wife, following the loss of his child, born in September, 
 1802, and dying in October of the same year. He 
 bravely worked on and with courage pursued his way 
 both in society and in his literary and professional 
 labor*. His practice grew, and, although he was neither 
 learned nor profound, he was successful before juries 
 and often argued appeals in the House of Lords. 
 After 1807 he had, as Cockburn says, an "unchallenged 
 monopoly on one side," before the general assembly, 
 and when the jury system for the trial of issues of fact 
 in civil cases was introduced in 18 16, he was employed 
 in almost every trial. His manner was artificial, he 
 had a tendency to refine too much, but he had an ex- 
 cellent memory for details, much sagacity, and a charm 
 of manner which was most effective before juries and 
 popular bodies. He was engaged in the trial of Mac- 
 laren and Bird for sedition in 18 17, and defended suc- 
 cessfully several criminals. So his repute as a lawyer 
 increased in spite of his editorial occupations. 
 
 In 1 8 10 he removed from Queen Street to 92 
 George Street, which was his Edinburgh home until 
 he moved to 24 Moray Place in 1827. In 18 10 he 
 became acquainted with a daughter of Charles Wilkes 
 
142 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 of New York, who was visiting Scotland in company 
 with her aunt. She was a grand-niece of John Wilkes 
 and a near connection of Captain Charles Wilkes, 
 long years afterwards famous as an explorer and as 
 the captor of Mason and Shdell. He fell in love with 
 her, and after her return to America decided to go 
 there, leaving his clients to look after themselves as 
 best they might and entrusting the Review to his 
 friends. He had a most uncomfortable voyage, but 
 reached New York in October, 1813, and married 
 Miss Wilkes very soon afterwards, returning to Eng- 
 land in February, 18 14. 
 
 In may not be without interest to Americans to re- 
 member that he never shared in the hostility towards 
 them which was prevalent in his time. Perhaps his 
 personal experiences in the United States in 1813- 
 18 14 and his marriage to an American woman were 
 accountable in part for his friendliness. On his visit 
 he had two interviews with the men whom Lord Cock- 
 burn— with the fine indifference of a Briton to the 
 names of our public officials— calls "Mr. Munroe, the 
 Secretary" and "Mr. Maddison, the President," with 
 whom he discussed fully the problems of the pending 
 war; and he dined with the President.* 
 
 Naturally his views were not in accord with those 
 of Madison and Monroe, but the debate appears, by 
 Jeffrey's account, to have been conducted with dignity 
 and courtesy although without any practical result. 
 The truth is that neither party to the "War of 18 12" 
 
 *Cockburn, I., 226-227. It is curious that long years after- 
 wards, Sir Alexander James Cockburn, at a dinner, asked a 
 relative of mine why Chief Justice Chase did not come over to 
 England, as they w^ould be glad to do him honor. Chase had 
 died some time before, but the Lord Chief Justice had not 
 heard of it. 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 143 
 
 could afford to boast very much about the merits of 
 its cause, and both of the belligerents were wrong in 
 many ways. In May, 1820, Jeffrey published an ar- 
 ticle in the Edinburgh on the jealousies between Amer- 
 ica and Great Britain, of which Cockburn says: 
 
 "He had constantly endeavored to remove the irri- 
 tations which made these two kindred nations think 
 so uncharitably and so absurdly of each other." 
 
 When Jeffrey reprinted the paper in his Selected 
 Contributions he added in a note : 
 
 "There is no one feeling, having public concerns 
 for its object, with which I have been so long and so 
 deeply impressed, as that of the vast importance of 
 our maintaining friendly, and even cordial relations, 
 with the free, peaceful, moral, and industrious States 
 of America — a condition upon which I cannot help 
 thinking that not only our own freedom and prosper- 
 ity, but that of the better part of the world, will ul- 
 timately be found to be more and more dependent." 
 
 Like many Britons, he was at his worst in a foreign 
 country and appears to have created an impression 
 wholly erroneous regarding his personality. George 
 Ticknor, who met him in the United States, and after- 
 wards again in Edinburgh in 18 19, says in his Journals 
 that Jeffrey "both here and in his own house and all 
 society, was a much more domestic, quiet sort of per- 
 son that we found him in America." One of the best 
 pen portraits of him is given by Ticknor in a letter to 
 his friend, Charles S. Davies of Portland, dated oa 
 February 8, 18 14,* in which he says: 
 
 "I had seriously intended to send you a sketch of 
 the Abraham of the Edinburgh Review, while I was 
 
 *Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor, I., 43. 
 
144 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 running over with speculations and opinions about 
 him.* * * 
 
 "You are to imagine * * * before you, a 
 short, stout little gentleman, about five and a half feet 
 high, with a very red face, black hair, and black eyes. 
 You are to suppose him to possess a very gay and ani- 
 mated countenance, and you are to see in him all the 
 restlessness of a will-o'-wisp, and all that fitful irregu- 
 larity in his movements which you have heretofore 
 appropriated to the pasteboard Merry Andrews 
 whose limbs are jerked about with a wire. These you 
 are to interpret as the natural indication of the im- 
 petuous and impatient character which a further ac- 
 quaintance develops. 
 
 "He enters a room with a countenance so satisfied, 
 and a step so light and almost fantastic, that all your 
 previous impressions of the dignity and severity of the 
 Edinburgh Review are immediately put to flight, and, 
 passing at once to the opposite extreme, you might, 
 perhaps, imagine him to be frivolous, vain, and super- 
 cilious. He accosts you, too, with a freedom and 
 familiarity which may, perhaps, put you at your ease, 
 and render conversation unceremonious; but which, 
 as I observed in several instances, were not very toler- 
 able to those who had always been accustomed to the 
 delicacy and decorum of refined society. Mr. Jeffrey, 
 therefore, I remarked, often suffered from the pre- 
 possessions of those he met, before any regular con- 
 versation commenced, and almost before the tones of 
 his voice were heard. It is not possible, however, to 
 be long in his presence without understanding some- 
 thing of his real character — for the same promptness 
 and assurance which mark his entrance into a room 
 carry him at once into conversation. The moment a 
 topic is suggested — no matter what or by whom— he 
 comes forth, and the first thing you observe is his 
 singular fluency. 
 
 "He bursts upon you with a torrent of remarks, and 
 you are for some time so much amused with his earn- 
 estness and volubility, that you forget to ask yourself 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 145 
 
 whether they have either appropriateness or meaning. 
 When, however, you come to consider his remarks 
 closely, you are surprised to find that, nothwithstand- 
 ing his prodigious rapidity, the current of his langu- 
 age never flows faster than the current of his thoughts. 
 You are surprised to discover that he is never, like 
 other impetuous speakers, driven to amplification and 
 repetition in order to gain time to collect and arrange 
 his ideas; you are surprised to find that, while his con- 
 versation is poured forth in such a fervor and tumult 
 of eloquence that you can scarcely follow or compre- 
 hend it, it is still as compact and logical as if he were 
 contending for a victory in the schools or for a deci- 
 sion from the bench. 
 
 "After all this, however, you do not begin to un- 
 derstand Mr. Jeffrey's character; for it is not until you 
 become interested in the mere discussion, until you 
 forget his earnestness, his volubility, and his skill, that 
 you begin to feel something of the full extent of his 
 powers. You do not, till then, see with how strong 
 and steady a hand he seizes the subject, and with what 
 ease, as well as dexterity, he turns and examines it on 
 every side. You are not, until then, convinced that he 
 but plays with what is the labor of ordinary minds, 
 and that half his faculties are not called into exercise 
 by what you at first suppose would tax his whole 
 strength. And, after all, you are able to estimate him, 
 not by what you witness, — for he is always above a 
 topic which can be made the subject of conversation, — 
 but by what you imagine he would be able to do if he 
 were excited by a great and difficult subject and a pow- 
 erful adversary. 
 
 "With all this, he preserves in your estimation a 
 transparent simplicity of character. You are satisfied 
 that he does nothing for effect and show; you see that 
 he never chooses the subject, and never leads the con- 
 versation in such a way as best to display his own 
 powers and acquirements. You see that he is not am- 
 bitious of being thought a wit; and that, when he has 
 been most fortunate in his argument or illustration, he 
 
146 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 never looks round, as some great men do, to observe 
 what impression he has produced upon his hearers. In 
 short, you could not be in his presence an hour with- 
 out being convinced that he has neither artifice nor 
 affectation; that he does not talk from the pride of 
 skill or of victory, but because his mind is full to over- 
 flowing, and conversation is his relief and pleasure. 
 
 "But nothwithstanding everybody saw and acknowl- 
 edged these traits in Mr. Jeffrey's character, he was 
 very far from winning the good opinion of all. There 
 were still not a few who complained that he was super- 
 cilious, and that he thought himself of a different and 
 higher order from those he met; that he had been used 
 to dictate until he was unwilling to listen, and that he 
 had been fed upon admiration until it had become 
 common food, and he received it as a matter of course. 
 
 "There is some ground for this complaint, but I 
 think the circumstances of the case should take its edge 
 from censure. It seems to me that Mr. Jeffrey has 
 enough of that amiable feeling from which politeness 
 and the whole system of the petite morale springs. But 
 that he has not learned the necessary art of distribut- 
 ing it in judicious proportions. He shows the same 
 degree of deference to every one he meets; and, there- 
 fore, while he flatters by his civility those who are lit- 
 tle accustomed to attention from their superiors, he 
 disappoints the reasonable expectations of those who 
 have received the homage of all around them until it 
 has become a part of their just expectations and 
 claims. 
 
 "This, at least, was the distinction here. The 
 young men and the literary men all admired him; the 
 old men and the politicians found their opinions and 
 dignity too little regarded by the impetuous stranger. 
 The reasons of this are to be sought, I think, in his 
 education and constitution; and I was, therefore, not 
 disposed to like him less for his defect. I was not dis- 
 posed to claim for a man who must have passed his 
 youth in severe and solitary study, and who was not 
 brought into that class of society which refines and 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 147 
 
 fashions all the external expressions of character, un- 
 til his mind and habits were matured, and he was 
 brought there to be admired and to dictate. I was not 
 disposed to claim from him that gentleness and deli- 
 cacy of manners which are acquired only by early dis- 
 cipline, and which are most obvious in those who have 
 received, perhaps, their very character and direction 
 from early collision with their superiors in station or 
 talent. 
 
 "Besides, even admitting that Mr. Jeffrey could 
 have early been introduced to refined society, still I do 
 not think his character would have been much changed; 
 or, if it had been, that it would have been changed for 
 the better. I do not think it would have been possible 
 to have drilled him into the strict forms of society and 
 hienseance without taking from him something we 
 should be very sorry to lose. 
 
 "There seems to me to be a prodigious rapidity in 
 his mind which could not be taken away without di- 
 minishing its force; and yet it is this rapidity, I think, 
 which often offended some of my older friends, in the 
 form of impatience and abruptness. He has, too, a 
 promptness and decision which contribute, no doubt, 
 to the general power of his mind, and certainly could 
 not be repressed without taking away much of that 
 zeal which carries him forward in his labors, and gives 
 so lively an interest to his conversation; yet you could 
 not be an hour in his presence without observing that 
 his promptness and decision very often make him ap- 
 pear peremptory and assuming. 
 
 "In short, he has such a familiar acquaintance with 
 almost all the subjects of human knowledge, and con- 
 sequently such an intimate conviction that he is right, 
 and such a habit of carrying his point; he passes, as it 
 seems to me, with such intuitive rapidity from thought 
 to thought, and subject to subject, that his mind is 
 completely occupied and satisfied with its own knowl- 
 edge and operations, and has no attention left to be- 
 stow on the tones and manner of expression. He Is, 
 in fact, so much absorbed with the weightier matters of 
 
148 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 the discussion, — with the subject, the argument, and 
 the illustrations, — that he forgets the small tithe of 
 humanity and forbearance which he owes to every 
 one with whom he converses ; and I was not one of 
 those who ever wished to correct his forgetfulness, or 
 remind him of his debt." 
 
 This is all very graphic, but it is amazing to observe 
 the lofty attitude of the young New Englander of 
 twenty-three, for that was Ticknor's age when he thus 
 delivered his judgment. One may indulge in a little 
 merriment over his airy affectation of social superior- 
 ity. When we realize what Jeffrey's social life had 
 been, the patronizing tone, the assumption of dignity, 
 conveyed by the lad's phrases, moves us to laughter. 
 The solemn prigs of Massachusetts of 1814 — so wise 
 and great in their petty environment! — what was their 
 dull, provincial society compared with that in which 
 Jeffrey had been an ornament for years ! Still, most 
 of Ticknor's comments are worthy of notice; much 
 may be forgiven to a confirmed Bostonian, who con- 
 siders the Bostonian standard as the highest ever at- 
 tained or ever dreamed of by mortal man. 
 
 Despite the air of tolerance which Mr. Ticknor dis- 
 plays with regard to Jeffrey in social life, It may not be 
 amiss to recall that in a circle at least as worthy of es- 
 teem as that of Boston, he was received without ques- 
 tion. He was always welcome in the refined precincts 
 of Holland House, and indeed In all the Whig society 
 of London, but as Mr. Sanders says in "The Holland 
 House Circle," the appearances there of "the hard 
 working Scotch lawyer and vigorous, if obscurantist 
 writer, were comparatively rare except during the brief 
 period when he sat In the Reform Parliament." In 
 181 1 his London campaign Included a large dinner 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 149 
 
 party at Holland House, where the hostess was ''in 
 great gentleness and softness," and where he failed to 
 appreciate the charm of Lady Caroline Lamb. He 
 seems not to have revisited Holland House until 1840, 
 when he had "a sweet walk under the cedars and in the 
 garden, where he listened in vain for the nightingales; 
 though Lord Holland and Allen challenged them to 
 answer by divers fat and asthmatical whistles." Jef- 
 frey kept up his acquaintance with Lady Holland in her 
 widowhood.* That lady writes of him to Mrs. Creevey 
 in 1 8 14, "Do not be surprised at receiving a visit from 
 that very dear little man, who has the best heart and 
 temper, although the authors of the day consider him 
 as their greatest scourge. * * * Yq^ ^m think 
 as much of his acquaintance, as he is full of wit, anec- 
 dote and lively sallies. "t 
 
 IV. 
 
 His devotion to his family was one of his most 
 charming traits. In 18 15 he took up his country resi- 
 dence at Craigcrook, three miles northwest of Edin- 
 burgh. Moore, visiting him there in 1825, says: 
 
 "Jeffrey cannot bear to stir without his wife and 
 child; requires something living and breathing near 
 him and is miserable when alone." 
 
 Craigcrook had been the home of Constable, and 
 his son, Thomas Constable, quotes a letter from Jef- 
 frey to his father, written August 25, 18 14, to show 
 "the unfailing consideration and the liberal kindness 
 that were Mr. Jeffrey's eminent characteristics," offer- 
 ing, although he could not use the place for some con- 
 
 *The Holland House Circle. 257. London, 1908. 
 fCreevey Papers. I, 205. 
 
ISO EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 siderable time, to pay for it at any time or to grant any 
 moderate accommodation in money if any exigency in 
 Constable's affairs required it. He also gives another 
 letter to illustrate Jeffrey's liberality. By some care- 
 lessness, there had been delay in paying for an article 
 in the Review. Jeffrey wrote to Constable : 
 
 "Here, by God's grace, is Mr. L.'s honorarium. 
 Pray let it be sent off instantly to him, at Longman's 
 & Co., and desire them to pay him or offer him ten 
 guineas for the delay and disappointment. I mulct 
 myself of this fine. * * * j deserve this for my 
 negligence, and besides it is right that the Review and 
 its management should not be liable to the imputation 
 of shabbiness, even from the shabby." 
 
 Two letters from Jeffrey to Hazlitt, written in 1818, 
 are given by Constable, relating to a proposed suit at 
 law which Hazlitt wished to begin against Blackwood^ s 
 Magazine, which are too long for full quotation, but 
 which show distinctly "the generous, yet wise and 
 honest nature of the writer."* 
 
 In one of these letters he says: 
 
 "I am concerned to find your health Is not as good as 
 It should be, and that you would take more care of 
 It if your finances were in better order. We can- 
 not let a man of genius suffer in this way, and I hope 
 you are in no serious danger. I take the liberty of en- 
 closing £100, a great part of which I shall owe you in 
 a few weeks, and the rest you shall pay me back in re- 
 views whenever you can do so without putting your- 
 self to any uneasiness. If you really want another 
 £100 tell me plainly and it shall be heartily at your ser- 
 vice." 
 
 One morning he received a letter from Hazlitt, say- 
 
 *Archibalci Constable and his Literary Correspondence 
 
 (1873). 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 151 
 
 Ing, "I am dying; can you send me £10 and so con- 
 summate your many kindnesses to me?" Jeffrey sent 
 a check for £50, but whether it saved Hazlitt's life I 
 am unable to discover. 
 
 The house in Moray Place, then the new part of 
 Edinburgh, looked out on the Forth on one side and to 
 a green garden on the other. Macaulay, no doubt in- 
 tending to confer upon it the highest badge of dis- 
 tinction which an Englishman can bestow upon a dwell- 
 ing-place, pronounced it to be "really equal to the 
 houses in Grosvenor Square." Macaulay stopped with 
 him there in 1828, and wrote to his mother:* 
 
 /In one thing, as far as I have observed, he is always 
 the same; and that is the warmth of his domestic af- 
 fections. Neither Mr. Wilberforce nor my uncle 
 Babington comes up to him in this respect. The flow 
 of his kindness is quite inexhaustible. Not five min- 
 utes pass without some fond expression or caressing 
 gesture to his wife or his daughter. He has fitted up 
 a study for himself, but he never goes into it. Law 
 papers, reviews, whatever he has to write, he writes 
 in the drawing room or in his wife's boudoir. When he 
 goes to other parts of the country on a retainer, he 
 takes them in the carriage with him. I do not wonder 
 that he should be a good husband; for his wife is a 
 very amiable woman. But I was surprised to see a 
 man so keen and sarcastic, so much of a scoffer, pour- 
 ing himself out with such simplicity and tenderness in 
 all sorts of affectionate nonsense." 
 
 On July 2, 1829, he was unanimously elected Dean 
 of the Faculty of Advocates, a position of honor. His 
 opinion was that the "head of a great law corporation" 
 should not "continue to be the conductor of what might 
 be fairly enough represented as in many respects a party 
 
 *Trevelyan's Macaulay. I. 143 (Am. Edn.). 
 
152 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 journal." So he withdrew from the management of 
 the Edinburgh Review. The number for June, 1829, 
 was the last one edited by him, and thereafter he con- 
 tributed to the magazine not more than five or six arti- 
 cles. 
 
 A few years later his friend Cockburn urged him 
 in vain to undertake some work of original composi- 
 tion, but he could not be persuaded. In reply to Cock- 
 burn he wrote, on August 28, 1835: 
 
 "I have been delighting myself with Mackintosh. 
 I only got the book two days ago and have done noth- 
 ing but read it ever since. The richness of his mind 
 intoxicates me. And yet do you not think he would 
 have been a happier man, and quite as useful and re- 
 spectable, if he had not fancied it a duty to write a 
 great book? And is not this question an answer to 
 your exhortation to me to write a little one? I have 
 no sense of duty that way, and feel that the only sure 
 or even probable result of the attempt would be hours 
 and days of anxiety, and unwholesome toil, and a 
 closing scene of mortification." 
 
 Of his two hundred contributions to the Edinburgh, 
 seventy-nine were selected for publication in book form, 
 in 1843; ^"^ ^ second edition, of three volumes, was 
 issued five years later. These essays are not read 
 now as are those of Macaulay, Hazlitt, Carlyle, or 
 Mackintosh; because, while they have a certain charm 
 and brightness, they possess no lasting qualities of 
 style or of substance. They seem to be too fluent. As 
 Dr. Samuel McChord Crothers said recently at Prince- 
 ton—and he found it worth repeating in his interesting 
 paper on the Autocrat in the Atlantic Monthly for 
 August, 1909: 
 
 "The writer who is usually fluent should take 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 153 
 
 warning from the instructions which accompany his 
 fountain pen: 'when this pen flows too freely it is a 
 sign that it is nearly empty and should be filled'." 
 
 They seem to be wanting in depth and solidity. An 
 American writer well says; 
 
 "He was French in his literary aptitudes and quali- 
 ties; never heavy: touching things with a feather's 
 point, yet touching them none the less surely." 
 
 But touching things with a feather's point, however 
 surely, leaves but a slight impression and time effaces 
 it without mercy. Yet it has also been said of him 
 that he "with his clear, legal mind, his stabbing and 
 brilliant manner of expression, his sarcasm, cold and 
 sharp-edged as a Toledo blade, unfortunately only too 
 capable of wounding too deeply — won the position of 
 the greatest English critic of all time and of the most 
 eminent Scottish lawyer of the day — achieving the 
 highest honors open to the advocates of Edinburgh."* 
 It is the fate of men like him to be overestimated by 
 their contemporaries and underrated by those who come 
 after them. 
 
 He wrote for the Edinburgh a long review of Ali- 
 son's Essays on Taste, which, in 18 16, he used for 
 the article on Beauty in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 This appeared later as a small volume. 
 
 His letters were always delightful; those to the 
 American relatives of his wife, describing her new 
 home life, are admirable. He wrote often to Mrs. 
 Waddington— Georgiana Port, grand-niece of Mrs. 
 Delany,— and in some of his letters to her he speaks 
 quite frankly on literary matters. In 1 8 1 2 he writes : 
 
 *Curwen. History of Booksellers. 117. 
 
154 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "As for Alison, Its review, which you call abuse, is 
 the best I ever wrote on a matter of free speculation, 
 and Burke and Price are both wrong. This is one of 
 the few things I am sure about, and I really have a 
 strong desire to convert you to the right path. For 
 Madame de Stael, I have never seen her U Allemagne 
 yet, and never asked for it. You see what a savage 
 I am. Moreover, I do not greatly admire her, and 
 I do not tolerate idolatry. Corinne is clever, and 
 upon the strength of your recommendation I shall get 
 the other immediately and review it candidly, if I 
 find anything to say about it. * * * There are 
 some wild poems published here by a lad of the name 
 of Wilson [The Isle of Palms was published early in 
 1812], a seraph of the Lake School, and very amiable. 
 Lord Byron has also published a quarto of a strange 
 sort of gloomy, misanthropical poetry* — but power- 
 ful and vigorous. I have thoughts of reviewing 
 both." 
 
 In 1 8 14, answering Mrs. Waddington's request to 
 review Madame D'Arblay's latest book — she was no 
 longer the great Fanny Burney and had lost the art 
 which made Johnson and Burke sit up all night to read 
 Evelina — he writes : 
 
 'T don't know what to say to you about the Wan- 
 derer. The cry is pretty general against it, and 
 among judicious and good people as well as others. 
 There is no disguising the fact, and I am afraid there 
 is only one way of accounting for it, not that the judges 
 are — but that the work is bad. If a popular work— 
 I mean a work intended to please and Instruct general 
 readers — Is generally disliked, how can it be a good 
 work? There is no way of getting over that. Yet 
 you must know that I like the book better than any- 
 body I meet with here — and better than anybody al- 
 most that I have heard of but you. I think it has 
 
 *The first two cantos of Childe Harold. 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 155 
 
 great faults, but I do not think it very much inferior 
 to her earlier works, the faults of which seem to be 
 forgotten in order to contrast their excellence with the 
 faults of this, which is worse written than they are, 
 and a little more diffuse, but has the same merits of 
 brilliant coloring, decided character, and occasional 
 elegance. Now I can't tell whether I shall review it 
 or not, nor can I promise to speak of it as you do, if I 
 should. Gently and favorably I certainly shall speak, 
 because I have the highest veneration for the per- 
 sonal character of the author; but I must speak what 
 I think. I do not think it quite pretty in her not to say 
 a word in that long, foolish preface, of Miss Edge- 
 worth, of Madame de Stael, and to praise herself so 
 directly. The last may be partly simplicity of char- 
 acter; the first looks petty." 
 
 It was not until February, 18 15, that the partly- 
 promised review appeared, mainly a discussion of the 
 general subject of "novels of manners." As to the 
 book itself, he calls attention to the absurdities of the 
 plot observing "that in the conduct of a story she never 
 excelled, while her characters are equally superficial 
 and confined." "We are sorry," he concludes, "to speak 
 so disadvantageously of the work of so excellent and 
 favorite a writer; and the more so as we perceive no 
 decay of talent, but only a perversion of it."* Most 
 of us would think that he was too gentle in dealing 
 with the stupid story, whose style Macaulay described 
 as "a barbarous patois'^ a sort of "broken Johnsonese," 
 and one marvels that it could have been written by the 
 author of the Diary, which ranks with that of Pepys, 
 among the best in the language. 
 
 The second volume of Cockburn's Life is made up 
 entirely of letters. They are far more interesting than 
 
 *Side-Lights on the Georgian Period: George Paston, 48. 
 
156 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 the Life itself, which is a stupid affair, containing long 
 accounts of men who happened to be friends and ac- 
 quaintances of Jeffrey and of the biographer, but who 
 might have been dismissed with a mere reference. It 
 is not divided into chapters and, worst of all, it has 
 no index. Some original unpublished letters are in 
 my possession. From the letter to his sister I have 
 already quoted. Most of them are to John Richard- 
 son, an eminent Scottish solicitor, of whom Jeffrey was 
 very fond. Unfortunately the chirography is so atro- 
 cious that it almost defies translation. Of his wretched 
 scrawl Lady Holland says in her Memoirs of Sydney 
 Smith : 
 
 "My father wrote to him, on receiving one of his 
 letters, 'My dear Jeffrey: — We are much obliged by 
 your letter, but should be still more so were it legible. 
 I have tried to read it from left to right, and Mrs. 
 Sydney from right to left, and w^e neither of us can 
 decipher a single word of it.' " 
 
 In one of these letters, dated November 10, 18 18, 
 he mentions the recent death of Romilly by suicide, 
 and says: 
 
 "It is a tremendous revelation, this of Romilly's 
 death, and yet I cannot help considering it as rather 
 an heroic ending." 
 
 The rest is undecipherable — unless by some expert in 
 Assyrian inscriptions. In another, written from Edin- 
 burgh on February 8, 1825, he reveals his kindly senti- 
 ments in regard to Thomas Campbell. He says : 
 
 "My dear Richardson :—Altho' the new No. of 
 the Review will be out within ten days, I am tempted 
 to gratify Campbell's natural impatience to know how 
 we have treated him, by sending him a separate copy 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 157 
 
 of my article on his new volume,* and not being sure 
 of his address, I take the liberty of enclosing it to you. 
 You may perhaps like to take a look of it in passing, 
 and think this privilege a sufficient indemnification for 
 the double postage to which it will subject you, if not, 
 you must put it to my account. You will see I have 
 treated him kindly — indeed I should not have the 
 heart, I am afraid, to treat him otherwise, even if I 
 thought he deserved it. But I really think, in sub- 
 stance, all I have said of him, tho' I might have ex- 
 pressed it less warmly and added other thoughts. Give 
 my love to him and tell me how near I have come to 
 pleasing him. You see I have done him the honor 
 of placing him at the fore of the No. and consequently 
 I have had this sheet by me for a fortnight. But I 
 have forborne sending it for fear of its contents find- 
 ing their way into some newspaper or magazine — 
 against the possibility of which I beg you to caution 
 the said Editorial pest, and to secure obedience to this 
 caution I would recommend his burning the said sheet 
 as soon as he has sufficiently perused it. * * * 
 We are a little anxious about the Judicature Bill. 
 When you hear any certain tidings of it, do let us 
 know. What is the worshipful the Solr. doing up 
 among you? What trim is Brougham in? What is 
 to be done with Ireland? We have a strong paper 
 on that subject in this No, which I am anxious to have 
 out before decisive measures are adopted." 
 
 Another letter is to Talfourd, and it is an additional 
 disclosure of his generous disposition: 
 
 Edinburgh, 9 May, 1836. 
 My dear Serjeant — I wrote to Spring Rice the day 
 after I received your new supplication for poor Leigh 
 Hunt, and entreated him to confer favorably with you 
 on the subject. Yesterday I had his answer, saying 
 that he had nothing whatever to say as to selecting or 
 
 *Campbeirs Theodoric, and Other Poems: No. 82, Arti- 
 cle I, # 
 
158 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 suggesting who should have pensions, and that this 
 was strictly and entirely in the department of Lord 
 Melbourne, to whom, however, he promised to com- 
 municate what I had written. I have been making 
 an application very nearly to the same effect with your 
 friend, Dr. Bowring, with whom I suppose you are 
 in communication, and whom I beg you will assure of 
 my most hearty concurrence in so kind a suit. He 
 seems to think Lord M. well disposed and if you get 
 up a tolerable show of conservative auxiliaries, I shall 
 have good hopes of success. I shall be most happy 
 to hear of your progress, and to lend any little aid 
 in my power. I have still a pleasing presentiment 
 that I am to have the gratification of seeing you here 
 in the course of the summer. In the meantime pray 
 do not forget me. 
 
 Always very faithfully yours, 
 
 F. Jeffrey. 
 To Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, &c., &c. 
 
 Almost every one who refers to Macaulay's early 
 life quotes what Jeffrey wrote to him in acknowledg- 
 ing the receipt of the manuscript of the essay on Mil- 
 ton, which appeared in the Edinburgh in August, 1825 : 
 
 "The more I think the less I can conceive where 
 you picked up that style." 
 
 It was a hasty remark, no doubt, and not meant to 
 be embalmed for posterity; for Jeffrey surely knew that 
 "style" is the result either of an inborn power of using 
 language in a particular way or of care, study and wide 
 reading; it is never "picked up." 
 
 It was easy for him to detect the signs of promise 
 in a young contributor. He recognized Carlyle's merit 
 at once, and the record of his relations with the Carlyles 
 is an honorable one. He soon became their friend and 
 benefactor, and for several years the articles in the 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 159 
 
 Review were one of the main sources of their income. 
 It was difficult for Carlyle to be grateful to any one; 
 but he came very near to gratitude towards Jeffrey. 
 In the "Two Note Books," he says (1830), "Francis 
 Jeffrey the other week offered me a hundred a year, 
 having learned that this sum met my yearly wants; 
 he did it neatly enough, and I had no doubt of his 
 sincerity." In his "Reminiscences" he writes: 
 
 "Jeffrey about this time generously offered to con- 
 fer on me an annuity of £100." 
 
 Charles Eliot Norton, in his footnote to this passage, 
 refers to Carlyle's acute analysis of his own and Jeff- 
 rey's feelings in the matter, and adds that Carlyle 
 hardly does justice to the simplicity of Jeffrey's kind 
 intention. Carlyle refused to receive the gift, and per- 
 haps he was right. 
 
 Froude gives us the story of the proposed annunity 
 quite fully. He says: 
 
 ^Jeffrey's anxiety to be of use did not end in recom- 
 mendations to Napier. He knew how the Carlyles 
 were situated in money matters. He knew that they 
 were poor, and that their poverty had risen from a 
 voluntary surrender of means which were properly 
 their own, but which they would not touch while Mrs. 
 Welsh was alive. He knew also that Carlyle had 
 educated and was still supporting, his brother out of 
 his own slender earnings. He saw, as he supposed, a 
 man of real brilliancy and genius weighed down and 
 prevented from doing justice to himself by a drudg- 
 ery which deprived him of the use of his more com- 
 manding talents; and with a generosity the merit of 
 which was only exceeded by the delicacy with which 
 the offer was made, he proposed that Carlyle should 
 accept a small annuity from him. Here again I re- 
 gret that I am forbidden to print the admirable letter 
 
i6o EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 in which Jeffrey conveyed his desire, to which Carlyle 
 in his own mention of this transaction has done but 
 scanty justice. The whole matter, he said, should be 
 an entire secret between them. He would tell no one 
 — not even his wife. He bade Carlyle remember that 
 he, too, would have been richer if he had not been 
 himself a giver where there was less demand upon his 
 liberality. He ought not to wish for a monopoly of 
 generosity, and if he was really a religious man he 
 must do as he would be done to ; nor, he added, would 
 he have made the offer did he not feel that in similar 
 circumstances he would have freely accepted it him- 
 self. To show his confidence he enclosed 50 /., which 
 he expected Carlyle to keep, and desired only to hear ) 
 in reply that they had both done right." 
 
 Later in the Note Books Carlyle records a visit 
 of the Jeffreys and thus delivers himself: 
 
 Very good and interesting beyond wont was our 
 worthy Dean. He is growing old, and seems dispir- 
 ited and partly unhappy." [Jeffrey was fifty-seven and 
 could not have been remarkably aged.] "Jeffrey's 
 essential talent sometimes seems to me to have been 
 that of a Goldoni; some comic Dramatist, not with- 
 out a touch of true lyrical pathos. He is the best 
 mimic (in the lowest and highest senses) I ever saw. 
 
 * * * He is one of the most loving men alive; 
 has a true kindness, not of blood and habit only, but 
 of soul and spirit. He cannot do without being loved. 
 
 * * * I have heard him say: 'If Folly were the 
 happiest, I would be a fool.' Yet his daily Life belies 
 this doctrine, and says: 'Tho' Goodness were the 
 most wretched, I would be Good.' In conversation 
 he is brilliant (or rather sparkling) lively, kind, will- 
 ing either to speak or listen, and above all men I have 
 ever seen, ready and copious. On the whole, exceed- 
 ingly pleasant in light talk. Yet alas light, light, too 
 light! He will talk of nothing earnestly, tho' his 
 look sometimes betrays an earnest feeling. * * * 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER i6i 
 
 He Is not a strong man in any shape; but nimble and 
 tough. He stands midway between God and Mam- 
 mon; and his preaching thro' Hfe has been an attempt 
 to reconcile these. Hence his popularity; a thing 
 easily accountable when one looks at the world and at 
 him; but little honourable to either. Literature! 
 Poetry! except by active indestructible Instinct, which 
 he has never dared to avow, yet being a true Poet (in 
 his way could never eradicate ) — he knows not what 
 they mean. A true Newspaper Critic, on the great 
 scale ; no priest, but a Concionator ! Yet on the whole 
 he is about the best man I ever saw. Sometimes I 
 think he will abjure the Devil (If he live) and be- 
 come a pure Light. Already he Is a most tricksy 
 dainty beautiful little spirit; I have seen gleams on the 
 face and eyes of the man that let you look into a high- 
 er country. God bless him!" 
 
 And this is the tribute paid by one who never did 
 to anybody an act of disinterested kindness, an alleged 
 philosopher who was always finding fault but was of no 
 practical value to the world, to a man who was always 
 doing good, a kindly, helpful man, whose life was love 
 and who neither attained nor wished to attain that emi- 
 nence as "a pure light" which manifests itself by the 
 perpetual scolding of others. 
 
 Jane Welsh Carlyle partially atones for the dubious 
 praise accorded by her surly spouse. "Lord Jeffrey" 
 she writes "came unexpectedly while the Count 
 [D'Orsay] was here. What a difference! The prince 
 of critics, and the prince of dandies. How washed out 
 the beautiful dandiacal face looked beside that little 
 clever old man's. The large blue dandiacal eyes, you 
 would have said, had never contemplated anything more 
 than the reflection of the handsome personage they 
 pertained to. In a looking glass; while the dark, pene- 
 trating eyes of the other had been taking note of most 
 
1 62 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 things in God's universe, even seeing a good way into 
 mill stones."* Another worthy female — Harriet Marti- 
 neau, who sneered at almost every one — thought Jeffrey 
 "one of the most egregious flatterers of vain women in 
 general." He had evidently flattered the lady atro- 
 ciously. In her Autobiography, she expands her view, 
 saying : 
 
 "Whatever there might be of artificial in Jeffrey's 
 manners — of a set 'company state of mind' and mode 
 of conversation, — there was a warm heart under- 
 neath, and an ingenuousness which added captivation 
 to his intellectual graces. He could be absurd enough 
 in his devotion to a clever woman; and he could be 
 highly culpable in drawing out the vanity of a vain 
 one, and then comically making game of it; but his 
 better nature was always within call; and his generos- 
 ity was unimpeachable in every other respect." 
 
 With regard to Jeffrey's behavior towards women, 
 Carlyle in his Reminiscences, has some pleasant things 
 to say; 
 
 "He had much the habit of flirting about with wo- 
 men, especially pretty women, much more the both 
 pretty and clever; all in a weakish, mostly dramatic, 
 and wholly theoretic way (his age now fifty gone) ; 
 would daintily kiss their hands in bidding good morn- 
 ing, offer his due homage, as he phrased it; trip about, 
 half like a lap-dog, half like a human adorer, with 
 speeches pretty and witty, always of trifling import. 
 I have known some women (not the prettiest) take 
 offence at it, and awkwardly draw themselves up, but 
 without the least putting him out. The most took it 
 quietly, and found an entertainment to themselves in 
 cleverly answering it, as he did in partly offering it; 
 pertly, yet, with something of real reverence, and al- 
 
 *Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. (1883.) 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 163 
 
 ways in a dexterous, light way, * * * An airy 
 environment of this kind was, whenever possible, a 
 coveted charm in Jeffrey's way of life." 
 
 Carlyle in his Reminiscences has left these records 
 of his impressions of the man who so befriended him in 
 the hour of need: 
 
 f I used to find in him a finer talent than any he has 
 evidenced in writing. This was chiefly when he got to 
 speak Scotch, and gave me anecdotes of old Scotch 
 Braxfield and vernacular (often enough but not al- 
 ways cynical) curiosities of that type, which he did 
 with a greatness of gusto quite peculiar to the topic, 
 with a fine and deep sense of humor, of real comic 
 mirth, much beyond what was noticeable in him other- 
 wise, not to speak of the perfection of the mimicry, 
 which itself was something. I used to think to my- 
 self, 'Here is a man whom they have kneaded into the 
 shape of an Edinburgh reviewer, and clothed the soul 
 of in Whig formulas and blue and yellow; but he 
 might have been a beautiful Goldoni too, or some- 
 thing better in that kind, and have given us comedies 
 and aerial pictures true and poetic of human life in 
 a far other way.' There was something of Voltaire 
 in him, something even in bodily features; those 
 bright-beaming, swift and piercing hazel eyes, with 
 their accompaniment of rapid, keen expression in the 
 other lineaments of face, resembled one's notion of 
 Voltaire; and in the voice, too, there was a fine half- 
 plangent kind of metallic ringing tone which used to 
 remind me of what I fancied Voltaire's voice might 
 have been; Voix sombre et majesteuse,' Duvernet 
 calls it." 
 
 V. 
 
 They must have been greatly addicted to talk for 
 talk's sake in those days. There appears to have been 
 far more interchange of words among the men of let- 
 
1 64 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 ters than there has been among the writers of recent 
 generations. We read so much in all their intermin- 
 able memoirs and in their voluminous correspondence, 
 about "talk," and the merits of the talkers— talk at 
 clubs, at dinners, in the salons, — talk morning, noon 
 and night— that it is puzzling to find out how they 
 ever found time to work. It must be owned that we 
 are not favored with many records of what was actu- 
 ally said, the few volumes of "Table Talk" being 
 manifestly edited for publication so as to take all the 
 spontaneity out of them; and the "jests" and "anec- 
 dotes" which have been preserved to us seem mostly 
 flat, stale and unprofitable, although there are a few 
 deserving immortality, such as the one about Jeffrey's 
 damning the North Pole and the resulting accusation 
 by Sydney Smith of using disrespectful language about 
 the equator. An example of the dreariness of some 
 of these talks is afforded by the discussion between 
 Moore, Rogers and Lord Holland and later between 
 Moore and John Wilson about the wonderful joke 
 of Sheridan delivered to Tarleton, and Lord John 
 Russell's ludicrous note thereon in his edition of 
 Moore's Memoirs. Moore expresses rather a gloomy 
 opinion of this joke or hon mot. Lord Russell ap- 
 pends this portentous remark: 
 
 "Sheridan's joke to Tarleton. Any one might think 
 the wit poor (although I do not agree with them) but 
 the joke is clear enough. 'I was on a horse, and 
 now Lm on an elephant,' i. e., 'I was high above 
 others, but now I am much higher.' 'You were on an 
 ass, and now you're on a mule,' said Sheridan: i. e.y 
 'You were stupid and now you're obstinate.' For 
 quick repartee in conversation, there are few things 
 better. J. R." 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 165 
 
 There are luckily no such scintillations of wit 
 charged against Jeffrey, but the tradition concerning 
 him gives him the highest reputation as an entertain- 
 ing talker. He was not addicted to the telling of 
 anecdotes or "stories," but was "bubbling over with 
 engaging book-lore and poetic hypotheses, and eager 
 to put them into those beautiful shapes of language 
 which come — as easily as water flows — to his pen or 
 to his tongue. * * * Q^e did not, after con- 
 versing with him, recall great special aptness of re- 
 mark or of epithet, so much as the charmingly even 
 flow of apposite and illustrative language — void of all 
 extravagances and of all wickedness too."* His bio- 
 grarapher says of his conversation: 
 
 "The listener's pleasure was enhanced by the per- 
 sonal littleness of the speaker. A larger man could 
 scarcely have thrown off Jeffrey's conversational flow- 
 ers without exposing himself to ridicule. But the live- 
 liness of the deep thoughts, and the flow of the bright 
 expressions that animated his talk, seemed so natural 
 and appropriate to the figure that uttered them, that 
 they were heard with something of the delight with 
 which the slenderness of the trembling throat and the 
 quivering of the wings make us enjoy the strength 
 and clearness of the notes of a little bird."t 
 
 This description produces rather a belittling effect, 
 reminding one of a canary bird in a cage, and it may 
 be doubted if the subject of it would have relished 
 it greatly. 
 
 Haydon, writing to Miss Mitford from Edinburgh 
 in 1820, is not as enthusiastic as some others, and re- 
 marks that 
 
 *Donald G. Mitchell, English Letters and Kings, 93. 
 fLord Cockburn: Life, I, 364. 
 
1 66 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 ^'Jeffrey has a singular expression, poignant, bitter, 
 piercing— as if his countenance never Hghted up but at 
 the perception of some weakness in human nature. 
 Whatever your praise to Jeffrey, he directly chuckles 
 out some error that you did not perceive. Whatever 
 your praise to Scott, he joins heartily with yourself, 
 and directs your attention to some additional beauty. 
 The face of Scott is the expression of a man whose 
 great pleasure has been to shake Nature by the hand; 
 while to point at her with his finger, has certainly, 
 from his expression, been the chief enjoyment of Jef- 
 
 Richard Harris Barham records that Moore spoke 
 of Jeffrey as an excellent judge, and remarked on the 
 difference between his conversation and that of Scott; 
 Scott was all anecdote, without any intermediate mat- 
 ter, all fact, while Jeffrey had a profusion of ideas all 
 worked up into the highest flight of fancy, but no 
 fact. Moore preferred Scott's talk, as he got tired 
 of Jeffrey's. 
 
 One reason why different people had opposing opin- 
 ions in regard to Jeffrey's personality and conversa- 
 tion, is given by Macaulay in the letter to his mother 
 from which a quotation has already been given, — a 
 letter written with the power and vividness of expres- 
 sion which marked not only his published work but 
 even his private correspondence. He said: 
 
 "I will commence with Jeffrey. I had almost for- 
 gotten his person; and, indeed, I should not wonder 
 if even now I were to forget it again. He has twen- 
 ty faces, almost as much unlike each other as my 
 father's to Mr. Wilberforce's, and infinitely more un- 
 like to each other than those of near relations often 
 
 *B. R. Haydon and His Friends, iii. 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 167 
 
 are, infinitely more unlike, for example, than those of 
 the two Grants. When absolutely quiescent, reading 
 a paper, or hearing a conversation in which he takes 
 no interest, his countenance shows no indication what- 
 ever of intellectual superiority of any kind. But as 
 soon as he is interested, and opens his eyes upon you, 
 the change is like magic. There is a flash in his glance, 
 a violent contortion in his frown, an exquisite humor 
 In his sneer, and a sweetness and brilliancy in his smile, 
 beyond anything that I ever witnessed. A person who 
 had seen him in only one state would not know him if 
 he saw him in another. For he has not, like Broug- 
 ham, marked features which in all moods of mind re- 
 main unaltered. The mere outline of his face is insig- 
 nificant. The expression is everything, and such 
 power and variety of expression I never saw in any 
 human countenance, not even in that of the most cele- 
 brated actors. I can conceive that Garrick may have 
 been like him. I have seen several pictures of Gar- 
 rick, none resembling another, and I have heard Han- 
 nah More speak of the extraordinary variety of coun- 
 tenance by which he was distinguished, and of the un- 
 equalled radiance and penetration of his eye. The 
 voice and delivery of Jeffrey resemble his face. He 
 possesses considerable power of mimicry, and rarely 
 tells a story without imitating several different accents. 
 His familiar tone, his declamatory tone, and his pa- 
 thetic tone are quite different things. Sometimes 
 Scotch predominates in his pronunciation; sometimes 
 it Is imperceptible. Sometimes his utterance is snap- 
 pish and quick to the last degree; sometimes it is re- 
 markable for rotundity and mellowness. I can easily 
 conceive that two people who had seem him on differ- 
 ent days might dispute about him as the travelers in 
 the fable disputed about the chameleon." 
 
 Mrs. Grant of Laggan, usually styled "the cele- 
 brated," writes of a visit she received from Scott and 
 Jeffrey: 
 
1 68 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "You would think that the body of each was formed 
 to lodge the soul of the other. Jeffrey looks the poet 
 all over: the ardent eye, the nervous agitation, the 
 visibly quick perceptions keep one's attention awake 
 in the expectation of flashes of genius; nor is that ex- 
 pectation disappointed, for his conversation is in a 
 high degree fluent and animated. Walter Scott has 
 not a gleam of poetic fire in his countenance, which 
 merely suggests the idea of plain good sense." 
 
 She confessed that she was unable to refrain from 
 liking "the archcritic" in spite of his manifold literary 
 offenses. 
 
 Macaulay thought his conversation very much like 
 his countenance and his voice, of immense variety, 
 sometimes plain and unpretending, sometimes brilliant 
 and rhetorical; a shrewd observer, fastidious, and 
 while not altogether free from affectation himself, hav- 
 ing a peculiar loathing for it in other people. 
 
 "He has a particular contempt" Macaulay adds "in 
 which I most heartily concur with him, for the fadaises 
 of blue-stocking literature, for the mutual flatteries of 
 coteries, the handing about of vers de societe, the al- 
 bums, the conversaziones, and all the other nauseous 
 trickeries of the Sewards, Hayleys, and Sothebys. I 
 am not quite sure that he has escaped the opposite ex- 
 treme, and that he is not a little too desirous to ap- 
 pear rather a man of the world, an active lawyer, or 
 an easy, careless gentleman, than a distinguished 
 writer." 
 
 Macaulay thought him to be hypochondriac, but 
 that he was "on the whole, the youngest looking man 
 of fifty that I know, at least when he was animated." 
 In 1828 when this was written, Jeffrey was fifty-five. 
 
 Of his conversation, Hazlitt says in his Spirit of 
 the Age : 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 169 
 
 "There Is no subject on which he is not au fait: no 
 company in which he is not ready to scatter his pearls 
 for sport. * * * YWs only difficulty seems to be, 
 not to speak, but to be silent. * * * ^e is never 
 absurd, nor has he any favorite points which he Is 
 always bringing forward. It cannot be denied that 
 there is something bordering on petulance of manner, 
 but it is of that least offensive kind which may be 
 accounted for from merit and from success, and im- 
 plies no exclusive pretensions nor the least particle of 
 ill-will to others. On the contrary, Mr. Jeffrey is 
 profuse of his encomiums and admiration of others, 
 but still with a certain reservation of a right to differ 
 or to blame. He cannot rest on one side of a ques- 
 tion; he is obliged by a mercurial habit and disposi- 
 tion, to vary his point of view. If he is ever tedious, 
 it is from an excess of liveliness; he oppresses from 
 a sense of airy lightness. He is always setting out on 
 a fresh scent; there are always relays of topics. * * * 
 New causes are called; he holds a brief in his hand 
 for every possible question. This is a fault. Mr. 
 Jeffrey is not obtrusive, is not impatient of opposition, 
 is not unwilling to be interrupted; but what is said by 
 another seems to make no impression on him; he is 
 bound to dispute, to answer it, as if he was in Court, 
 or as if he were in a paltry Debating Society, where 
 young beginners were trying their hands. * * * 
 He cannot help cross-examining a witness, or stating 
 the adverse view of the question. He listens not to 
 judge, but to reply. In consequence of this, you can 
 as little tell the impression your observations make on 
 him as what weight to assign to his." 
 
 Most of us have met men who are like Jeffrey In 
 these respects; usually they are the bright, clever, self- 
 centered men, who consider themselves to be on exhi- 
 bition. In talking with them, one can see at a glance 
 that they are thinking not of what you are saying to 
 them but of what they will say when you have paused. 
 
170 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 They are entertaining persons, but not always agree- 
 able in conversation. 
 Hazlitt further says: 
 
 "Mr. Jeffrey shines in mixed company; he is not 
 good in a tete-a-tete. You can only show your wis- 
 dom and your wit in general society; but in private 
 your follies or your weaknesses are not the least inter- 
 esting topics; and our critic has neither any of his own 
 to confess, nor does he take delight in hearing those 
 of others. Indeed, in Scotland generally the display 
 of personal character, the indulging your whims and 
 humors in the presence of a friend is not much en- 
 couraged — every one there is looked upon in the light 
 of a machine, of a collection of topics. * * * 
 The accomplished and ingenious person of whom we 
 speak, has been a little infected by the tone of his 
 countrymen — he is too didactic, too pugnacious, too 
 full of electrical shocks, too much like a voltaic bat- 
 tery, and reposes too little on his own excellent good 
 sense, his own love of ease, his cordial frankness of 
 temper and unaffected candor. He ought to have be- 
 longed to us !" 
 
 Lockhart is not quite as censorious as Hazlitt is, but 
 then Lockhart had a more amiable disposition. He 
 says, in "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk" : 
 
 "I have never, I believe, heard so many ideas thrown 
 out by any man in so short a space of time, and ap- 
 parently with such entire negation of exertion. His 
 conversation acted upon me like the first delightful 
 hour after taking opium. The thoughts he scattered 
 so readily about him (his words, rapid and wonder- 
 fully rapid as they are, appearing to be continually 
 panting after his conceptions) —his thoughts, I say, 
 were at once so striking, and so just, that they took 
 in succession entire possession of my imagination, and 
 yet with so felicitous a tact did he forbear from ex- 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 171 
 
 pressing any one of these too freely, that the reason 
 was always kept in a pleasing kind of excitement, by 
 the endeavor more thoroughly to examine their bear- 
 ings. * * * J have heard some men display 
 more profoundness of reflection, and others of a much 
 greater command of the conversational picturesque — 
 but I never before witnessed anything to be compared 
 with the blending together of apparently little con- 
 sistent powers in the whole strain of his discourse. 
 Such a power, in the first place, of throwing away at 
 once every useless part of the idea to be discussed, 
 and then such a happy redundancy of imagination to 
 present the essential and reserved part in its every 
 possible relation, and point of view, — and all this con- 
 nected with so much of the plain savoir faire of actual 
 existence, and such a thorough scorn of mystification, 
 it is really a very wonderful intellectual coalition." 
 
 In the Reminiscences, Carlyle describes a scene in 
 his own home at Craigenputtoch. 
 
 ''One of the nights there * * * encouraged 
 possibly by the presence of poor James Anderson, an 
 ingenious, simple, youngish man, and our nearest gen- 
 tleman neighbor, Jeffrey in the drawing room was 
 cleverer, brighter, and more amusing than I ever saw 
 him elsewhere. We had got to talk of public speak- 
 ing, of which Jeffrey had plenty to say, and found 
 Anderson and all of us ready enough to hear. Be- 
 fore long he fell into mimicking of public speakers, 
 men unknown, perhaps imaginary generic specimens; 
 and did it with such a felicity, flowing readiness, in- 
 genuity, and perfection of imitation as I never saw 
 equalled, and had not given him credit for before. 
 Our cozy little drawing room, bright-shining, hidden 
 in the lowly wilderness, how beautiful it looked to us, 
 become suddenly as it were a Temple of the Muses! 
 The little man strutted about full of electric fire, with 
 attitudes, with gesticulations, still more with winged 
 words, often broken-winged, amid our admiring laugh- 
 
172 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 ter; gave us the windy, grandiloquent specimen, the 
 ponderous stupid, the airy ditto, various specimens, as 
 the talk, chiefly his own, spontaneously suggested, of 
 which there was a little preparatory interstice between 
 each two. And the mimicry was so complete, you 
 would have said not his mind only, but his very body 
 became the specimens, his face filled with the expres- 
 sion represented, and his little figure seeming to grow 
 gigantic if the personage required it. At length he 
 gave us the abstruse costive specimen, which had a 
 meaning and no utterance for it, but went about clam- 
 bering, stumbling, as on a path of loose bowlders, and 
 ended in total down-break, amid peals of the heartiest 
 laughter from us all. This of the aerial little sprite 
 standing there in fatal collapse, with the brightest of 
 eyes sternly gazing into utter nothingness and dumb- 
 ness, was one of the most tickling and genially ludic- 
 rous things I ever saw, and it prettily winded up our 
 little drama." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Robert Pearse Gillies, that odd, unlucky, obscure 
 aspirant for honor as a poet and an editor, has left in 
 his book of recollections an account of Jeffrey which 
 exaggerates certain traits and must have been written 
 as of a time when the "little great man," as Hazlitt 
 calls him, was still young and perhaps a bachelor. He 
 says: 
 
 "Among the public characters who were always to 
 be met with at our balls and routs in those days, out 
 of sight and comparison the most distinguished was 
 Mr. Jeffrey. To every one who appreciated his tal- 
 ents, the wonder was how he could reconcile his mode 
 of life in this respect with his literary and professional 
 engagement. But that he did so was very certain. 
 He seemed the gayest of the gay. He was invited 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 173 
 
 everywhere, tried to make his appearance everywhere, 
 and on all such occasions his popularity (if possible) 
 increased. * * * Yo all appearances he cared 
 not a rush about habits of consecutive application. 
 No one could guess what portion of his day was ap- 
 propriated to literary tasks nor indeed could have 
 imagined that he really had any such tasks on hand. 
 In the mornings, from nine till two, he was on parade 
 and professionally employed in the Parliament House. 
 Thereafter, till dinner time, weather permitting, he 
 walked out or promenaded on horseback. Never did 
 it happen for a single day during the season, that he 
 had not divers invitations both for dinner and even- 
 ing parties. Of the former, it is needless to say, he 
 could accept only one per diem; but it was quite pos- 
 sible during the evening, to migrate from one rout to 
 another, and this he often did, winding up, of course, 
 where the supper party was most attractive and con- 
 genial." 
 
 Referring to Dugald Stewart and Sir Walter Scott, 
 their quiet homes and orderly libraries, he continues : 
 
 "Never did any fox-hunter or wild roue trample 
 more disdainfully on all such notions than Mr. Jef- 
 frey! He had third-rate apartments in a 'land' situ- 
 ated in Queen Street, where exclusive of the necessary 
 law books and the very newest publications, his entire 
 library consisted of a few motley tatterdemalion vol- 
 umes, for all the world likest to a set of worn out 
 school books, and such perhaps they really were. 
 Truly there appeared no great charm in that home to 
 render it an object of attachment and affection. Its 
 arrangements were not symmetrical nor indicated much 
 attention to comfort. The looking-glass over the 
 chimney piece remains yet in my remembrance, be- 
 cause within and under its tarnished frame were lo- 
 cated a preposterous multitude of visiting cards and 
 notes of invitation which showered on him from all 
 quarters, 'thick as the leaves in Vallambrosa'." 
 
174 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 Jeffrey did not occupy a "third-rate apartment in 
 Queen Street" after his marriage, and it is quite ab- 
 surd to found a judgment upon a man's whole life, on 
 a mode of living as a young bachelor. But even Gil- 
 lies, — a little envious — cannot withhold a slight tribu- 
 ute of praise. He goes on to say: 
 
 "From all this and other traits which I might ad- 
 duce, who could have imagined that the gay, young 
 barrister was in truth the most adventurous and suc- 
 cessful student in town, the very man of all our 
 Athenian world who was most ready and able to grap- 
 ple with a difficult question, to torture and twist it by 
 the process of analysis and reasoning, till gleams of 
 light the most unexpected were thrown upon the sub- 
 ject, and who when his reader or hearer thought that 
 no more could possibly be done, would start again de 
 novo, not merely with unabated but increased vivacity, 
 adding more and more of patient argument and bril- 
 liant illustration, till at last a so-called essay (alias 
 review) came forth, comprising materials that might 
 serve as texts for future volumes. 
 
 "This was not comprehensible yet was nevertheless 
 true — when did he elaborate his papers? There was 
 only one way of accounting for it — the old suggestion 
 as applied in the case of Chatterton, that he did not 
 sleep, but could betake himself to work with undi- 
 minished zeal when the day's work of the world was 
 done. It would be rather too hypothetical to suppose 
 that he possessed a duality of mind, and could persist 
 in arranging silently a critical argument with one, 
 whilst with the other he managed a nonsensical con- 
 versation at the supper table. However, there was 
 one leading peculiarity in Jeffrey's character, which 
 perhaps rendered time of some value in his case, that 
 would otherwise have been lost; I mean the grace and 
 alacrity wherewith, if opportunity offered, he could 
 turn ordinary conversation to account. If the most 
 commonplace remark was tendered on a subject in 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 175 
 
 itself interesting, he would rapidly reply with an il- 
 lustration as original as it was unexpected. And if 
 his superficial neighbor luckily ventured to differ from 
 him in opinion, then he would rouse and present the 
 matter in a hundred new lights (if needful) so as to 
 carry his point. And this argument taking its rise, 
 perhaps, from a mere platitude in the course of ordin- 
 ary table-talk, or during a walk to Corstorphin Hill, 
 might dwell on his remembrance and if committed af- 
 terwards to writing, serve for the commencement of a 
 leading article." 
 
 These diffuse and somewhat rambling remarks of 
 Gillies have been given so fully because they afford a 
 portrait of the real Jeffrey as he appeared to his con- 
 temporaries in his younger days, and throw much light 
 on his methods as they were before he attained celeb- 
 rity outside of the narrow walls of the Scotch '* Athens." 
 These methods were never wholly abandoned, and the 
 result has been that what he wrote often conveys an 
 impression that he has not penetrated to the core of his 
 subject, but is playing around and about it with no set- 
 tled convictions and no wish to have any such convic- 
 tions concerning it. Naturally writings of this kind 
 have no permanence of interest, and soon become part 
 of the lumber of the past, read only by some curious 
 burrower in literary history. But the man, Jeffrey, 
 will be read of and remembered although his once- 
 dreaded reviews may have gone the way of most of the 
 ephemeral pages of the magazine. 
 
 Hazlitt certainly knew him well, and had abundant 
 occasion to experience the benefit of his generous friend- 
 ship. In the Spirit of the Age, Hazlitt further says of 
 him: 
 
 "The severest of critics, as he has been sometimes 
 termed, is the best natured of men. Whatever there 
 
176 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 may be of wavering or indecision in Mr. Jeffrey's rea- 
 soning, or of harshness in his critical decisions, in his 
 disposition there is nothing but simplicity and kind- 
 ness. He is a person that no one knows without es- 
 teeming, and who both in his public connections and 
 private friendships, shows the same manly upright- 
 ness and unbiassed independence of spirit. At a dis- 
 tance, in his writings, or even in his manner, there may 
 be something to excite a little uneasiness and appre- 
 hension; in his conduct, there is nothing to except 
 against. He is a person of strict integrity himself, 
 without pretence or affectation; and knows how to re- 
 spect this quality in others, without prudery or intol- 
 erance. He can censure a friend or a stranger, and 
 serve him effectually at the same time. He expresses 
 his disapprobation, but not as an excuse for closing up 
 the avenues of his liberality. He is a Scotchman with- 
 out one particle of hypocrisy, of cant, of servility, or 
 selfishness in his composition. He has not been spoiled 
 by fortune — has not been tempted by power — is firm 
 without violence, friendly without weakness — a critic 
 and even-tempered, a casuist and an honest man — and 
 amidst the toils of his profession and the distractions 
 of the world, retains the gayety, the unpretending 
 carelessness, and simplicity of youth.'' 
 
 In Macvey Napier's Correspondence (London, 
 1879) he quotes Macaulay as saying, in 1843: 
 
 "When I compare him with Sydney and myself, I 
 feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his range is 
 immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a 
 writer. But he is not only a writer; he has been a 
 great advocate, and he is a great judge. Take him 
 all in all, I think him more nearly an universal genius 
 than any man of our time. * * * Jeffrey has 
 tried nothing in which he has not succeeded, except 
 Parliamentary speaking; and there he obtained what 
 to any other man would have been great success, and 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 177 
 
 disappointed his hearers only because their expecta- 
 tions were extravagant." 
 
 Doctor John Brown, in Horae Subsecivae, speaks 
 of 
 
 "Jeffrey, whom flattery, success, and himself cannot 
 spoil, or taint that sweet, generous nature — keen, in- 
 stant, unsparing, and true as a rapier; the most pains- 
 taking and honest working of all clever men." 
 
 VII 
 
 We have observed that in his earlier years at the 
 bar he had but little practice. His lack of early suc- 
 cess has been ascribed partly to his Whig opinions; 
 but they could not have done him any serious harm. 
 It has also been said to be due to the general preju- 
 dice against literary lawyers. This prejudice may 
 have had something to do with it; for clients are in- 
 clined to believe that their lawyer should not think of 
 anything but their affairs and their cases and resent 
 devotion to any shrines but their own. The law is 
 proverbially a jealous mistress, but clients are even 
 more jealous masters. When a man has won a repu- 
 tation as a lawyer he may perhaps by way of digres- 
 sion, a holiday excursion, dabble in literature; but not 
 till then. If he makes a business of literary work, he 
 must give up hope of eminence in the field of juris- 
 prudence. After he has gained a name in his pro- 
 fession, his dabblings are never regarded seriously. 
 Still, Jeffrey began to rise as a lawyer after he be- 
 came known as an editor and a reviewer. He was 
 at his best before juries, as may well be supposed, 
 
178 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 for jurymen care very little about profundities and a 
 good deal about things that shine brightly on the sur- 
 face. 
 
 The Monthly Magazine said of him, as a lawyer: 
 
 "When once he had made himself master of a case 
 and its bearings, he was always ready to debate it, 
 even at a moment's warning, however heterogeneous 
 the subject to which he had been tasking his faculties 
 the moment before. This might be owing to a habit 
 which he had in previous conversations with the party 
 or his agent, to ply them with all the arguments that 
 could be brought against them. Often have we known 
 an honest countryman, perplexed by his objections, re- 
 monstrate with his attorney for having encouraged 
 him to proceed with a hopeless case, or for having 
 employed a pleader of so desponding a temperament; 
 and immediately thereafter have we seen his honest 
 face grow momentarily broader and broader, brighter 
 and brighter, as Jeffrey, on stepping to the bar, pro- 
 ceeded to demonstrate his right in a train of the closest 
 and most irrefragable reasoning." 
 
 One is amused and not displeased at the fact that, 
 as he found trouble in adjusting his forensic wig over his 
 black, bushy hair, he never wore a wig in court and was 
 for many years the only lawyer at the Scottish bar who 
 dared to dispense with that ornament. Despite this de- 
 fiance of professional custom, he became a leader in the 
 courts. He did excellent work in the trial of Maclaren 
 and Bird for sedition in 1817, and again in sedition 
 cases at Stirling in 1820, although he lost his causes. 
 In 182 1 he was made Lord Rector of the University of 
 Glasgow. When the Whigs came into power in 1830 
 he was made Lord Advocate. Carlyle writes in his 
 Note Book about that time : 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 179 
 
 ^'Jeffrey is Lord Advocate and M. P. Sobbed and 
 shrieked at taking office, like a bride going to be mar- 
 ried." 
 
 He may have shown some emotion but his cross- 
 grained friend, who was given to thinking and writing 
 in italics and with over-abundant exclamation points, 
 probably exaggerated it. Jeffrey resigned his deanship 
 and he set to work to get the necessary seat in Parlia- 
 ment. Cockburn notes that the income of his new of- 
 fice was about £3000 a year, but between December, 
 1830 and May, 1832, he spent about £10,000 in par- 
 liamentary contests. Elected for the Forfarshire 
 burghs, he lost his seat through some defect in the pro- 
 ceedings, and was then chosen, April 6, 183 1, for Mal- 
 ton. He failed of election for Edinburgh and was in 
 June again elected for Malton. After the Reform 
 Bill was passed he stood again for Edinburgh, and 
 was elected December 19, 1832. He did not achieve 
 much success in Parliament, for he began too late. He 
 was never an orator, although in what he said he was 
 ^'always clean-cut, sensible, picturesque, flowing smooth- 
 ly, but rather on the surface of things than into their 
 depths." Mackintosh* spoke favorably of the speech 
 on reform which he delivered on March 4, 1831, and 
 it was published "at the special request of government." 
 He made other speeches which were well regarded, but 
 they were rather essays than speeches. 
 
 Brougham in his Memoirs says, however: 
 
 *'It was the custom to say he had failed in Parlia- 
 ment. I recollect meeting Sir Robert Peel the night 
 he made his first speech; and in answer to my inquiry 
 
 *Memoirs, 1 1 : 479. 
 
i8o EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 as to its success, he said that Jeffrey had fired over 
 their heads, and was too clever for his audience." 
 
 If one may judge of the House of Commons of that 
 day by the House of the present, it could not have 
 been difficult to accomplish that feat. 
 
 He was hampered by a distressing infirmity, suffer- 
 ing greatly from an affection of the trachea, and was 
 obliged to undergo an operation in October, 1831. He 
 grew weary of his tasks, and while he preserved his 
 good temper and conciliatory ways, he found much of 
 the work quite distasteful. 
 
 Hazlitt in his Spirit of the Age gives a description 
 of Jeffrey's style of speaking. He says: 
 
 "He makes fewer blots in addressing an audience 
 than any one we remember to have heard. There is 
 not a hairbreadth space between any two of his 
 words, nor is there a single expression either ill- 
 chosen or out of place. He speaks without stopping 
 to take breath, with ease, with point, with elegance, 
 and without 'spinning the thread of his verbosity finer 
 than the staple of his argument.' He may be said to 
 weave words into any shapes he pleases for use or 
 ornament, as the glass-blower moulds the vitreous fluid 
 with his breath, and his sentences shine like glass 
 from their polished smoothness, and are equally trans- 
 parent. * * * Whenever the Scotch advocate 
 has appeared at the bar of the English House of 
 Lords, he has been admired by those who were in the 
 habit of attending to speeches there, as having the 
 greatest fluency of language and the greatest subtlety 
 of distinction of any one of the profession. The law- 
 reporters were as little able to follow him from the 
 extreme rapidity of his utterance as from the tenuity 
 and evanescent nature of his reasoning." 
 
 The article of the New Monthly Magazine, ( 1 83 1 ) , 
 says: 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER i8i 
 
 "His delivery is not commanding — that, his figure 
 forbids — but it is fascinating. He rises, settles his 
 gown about his shoulders, and commences in a low 
 tone of voice. For the first two or three sentences, 
 he seems beating about for ideas — words there are 
 plenty. But he soon comes upon the track. With 
 the side of his face turned towards the person or per- 
 sons he is addressing, he fixes his serpent eye upon 
 them and holds them fast. At one time he leans for- 
 ward and speaks in tones as harsh as the grating of 
 an earthenware plate upon a working grindstone; again 
 he stands erect, or even casts himself backward, and 
 without any sensible motion of his lips, emits a continu- 
 ous stream of most melodious voice." 
 
 Lockhart in Peter^s Letters to his Kinsfolk, (1819), 
 remarks of Jeffrey's oratory: 
 
 "I have told you in a former letter that his pronun- 
 ciation is wretched — it is a mixture of provincial Eng- 
 lish, with undignified Scotch, altogether snappish and 
 offensive, and which would be quite sufficient to render 
 the elocution of a more ordinary man utterly disgust- 
 ing; but the flow of his eloquence is so overpoweringly 
 rapid, so unweariedly energetic, so entirely unlike every 
 other man's mode of speaking, that the pronunciation 
 of the particular words is quite lost to one's view, in 
 the midst of that continual effort which is required, in 
 order to make the understanding, even the ear of the 
 listener, keep pace with the glowing velocity of the 
 declamation. His words come more profusely than 
 words ever came before, and yet it seems as if they were 
 quite unable to follow, passihus aequis, the still more 
 amazing speed of his thought. You sit, while minute 
 follows minute uncounted and unheeded, in a state of 
 painful excitation, as if you were in a room overlighted 
 with gas, or close under the crash of a whole pealing 
 orchestra. 
 
 ''This astonishing fluency and vivacity, if possessed 
 by a person of very inferior talents, might for a little 
 
1 82 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 be sufficient to create an illusion In his favor; and I 
 have heard that such things have been. But the more 
 you can overcome the effect of Mr. Jeffrey's dazzling 
 rapidity, and concentrate your attention on the Ideas 
 embodied with such supernatural facility, the greater 
 will be your admiration. It Is Impossible to conceive 
 the existence of a more fertile, teeming intellect. The 
 flood of his Illustration seems to be at all times rioting 
 up to the very brim — yet he commands and restrains It 
 with equal strength and skill; or, If It does boil over for 
 a moment. It spreads such a richness all around, that it 
 is Impossible to find fault with Its extravagance. * 
 
 * * If he be not the most delightful, he Is cer- 
 tainly by far the most wonderful of speakers." 
 
 James Grant, In Random Recollections, referring 
 to Jeffrey's first speech In Parliament, 1831, says: 
 
 "The amazing rapidity of his delivery operated 
 much against his speech. I think I never heard a per- 
 son, either in or out of the House, speak so fast as he 
 did on that occasion. The most experienced short-hand 
 reporters were unable to follow him. * * * Yet, 
 notwithstanding the rapidity with which Mr. Jeffrey 
 spoke on this occasion, he never so much as faltered 
 once, nor recalled a word which he uttered to substi- 
 tute one more suitable for It. His manner * * * 
 was graceful, but it wanted variety. His voice was 
 clear and pleasant; but It had no flexibility in its into- 
 nations. He continued and ended In much the same 
 tones as he began. The same monotony characterized 
 his gesticulation." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Glad to be relieved of parliamentary drudgery, he 
 became a Lord of the Sessions In May, 1834, and 
 after a farewell dinner had been given to him by the 
 Scottish members, he assumed his judicial seat on 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 183 
 
 June 7, 1834, and thus acquired his title of "Lord Jef- 
 frey," for he never reached the peerage. He usually 
 passed his winters in Edinburgh, and his summers at 
 Craigcrook, visiting London in the spring. In the 
 summers he occupied himself in his garden and in 
 reading. Sir Leslie Stephen says: 
 
 ''He was a sloven in regard to books, and had a 
 'wretched collection,' though in a 'moment of infir- 
 mity' he joined the Bannatyne Club in 1826. He had 
 been one of the founders of the 'Friday Club,' in 
 1803, which endured for more than thirty years." 
 
 As a judge he gave great satisfaction, showing the 
 same qualities of tact, quickness and accuracy which 
 marked his career at the bar and in the world of let- 
 ters. In 1 84 1 he had a serious illness, from the ef- 
 fects of which he never entirely recovered. In No- 
 vember, 1842, he became a member of the first divi- 
 sion of the court, where he had three associates and 
 where the opinions were oral. Cockburn asserts that 
 he was singularly patient, painstaking and candid. 
 His fault was over-volubility and mutability, which 
 led him to interpose a 'running margin of questions, 
 suppositions and comments' throughout the argu- 
 ment. But his urbanity and openness of mind made 
 him exceedingly popular, especially with the bar.* 
 Some men are so constituted mentally that they are 
 unable to comprehend an argument except by inter- 
 rupting the counsel and satisfying themselves as the 
 hearing proceeds, in regard to the questions which oc- 
 cur to them at the moment. Such judges annoy and 
 disconcert lawyers, because they disturb the or- 
 derly sequence of the argument and their fidgety 
 
 ^Dictionary of National Biography, xxix, 275. 
 
1 84 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 queries bring about a sort of medley, without form 
 or shape, instead of a well-arranged presentation 
 of the subject under consideration. In this way 
 time is often wasted and real injustice done. 
 All sound lawyers welcome questions by the 
 court arising naturally out of the particular mat- 
 ter with which they may happen to be dealing, but 
 it is otherwise when a nimble minded, restless judge 
 insists upon darting from the point immediately un- 
 der consideration to some remote field, which is to be 
 entered upon later. The judge who talks too much 
 is as unsatisfactory as the one who never opens his 
 lips and listens with blank stolidity. Jeffrey's per- 
 sonal charm, however, endeared him to all who prac- 
 tised before him. 
 
 Many of his contemporaries dwell upon his person- 
 ality, his appearance, and his manners. The author 
 of the paper in the New Monthly Magazine (1831), 
 to which reference has been made, thus describes 
 him: 
 
 *'He is of low stature, but his figure is elegant and 
 well proportioned. This he seems to be aware of from 
 the assiduity with which he takes care that his little per- 
 sonage shall always be set out to the best advantage. 
 The continually varying expression of his countenance 
 renders it impossible to say what his features are. * 
 
 * * The face is rather elongated, the chin de- 
 ficient, the mouth well-formed, with a mingled expres- 
 sion of determination, sentiment and arch-mockery; the 
 nose Is slightly curved. * * * Xhe brow never 
 presents the same appearance for two moments succes- 
 sively; It Is now smooth and unfurrowed, lofty and 
 vaulted; look again, and the skin is contracted up- 
 wards Into a thousand parallel wrinkles, offering the 
 semblance of a 'forehead villainous low.' The eye is 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 185 
 
 the most peculiar feature of the countenance ; it is large 
 and sparkling, but with a want of transparency that 
 gives it the appearance of a heartless enigma." 
 
 Lockhart says of him, in Peter's Letters to his Kins- 
 folk: 
 
 '*It is a face which any man would pass without ob- 
 servation in a crowd, because it is small and swarthy, 
 and entirely devoid of lofty or commanding outlines — 
 and besides, his stature is so low, that he might walk 
 close under your chin or mine without ever catching the 
 eye even for a moment. 
 
 "Mr. Jeffrey * * * is a very active-looking 
 man, with an appearance of extraordinary vivacity in 
 all his motions and gestures. His face is one which 
 cannot be understood at a single look — perhaps it re- 
 quires, as it certainly invites, a long and anxious scru- 
 tiny before it lays itself open to the gazer. The feat- 
 tures are neither handsome, nor even very defined in 
 their outlines; and yet the effect of the whole is as 
 striking as any arrangement either of more noble or 
 more marked features, which ever came under my view. 
 The forehead is very singularly shaped, describing in 
 its bend from side to side a larger segment of a circle 
 than is at all common; compressed below the temples 
 almost as much as Sterne's; and throwing out sinuses 
 above the eyes, of an extremely bold and compact struc- 
 tures The hair is very black and wiry, standing in rag- 
 ged, bristly clumps out from the upper part of his head, 
 but lying close and firm lower down, especially about the 
 ears. Altogether, it is picturesque, and adds to the 
 effect of the visage. The mouth is the most expres- 
 sive part of his face. The lips are very fine, but they 
 tremble and vibrate, even when brought close together, 
 in such a way as to give the idea of an intense, never- 
 ceasing play of mind. There is a delicate kind of sneer 
 almost always upon them, which has not the least ap- 
 pearance of ill-temper about it, but seems to belong en- 
 tirely to the speculative understanding of the man. 
 
1 86 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 "I have said that the mouth is the most expressive 
 part of his face — and, in one sense, this is the truth, for 
 it is certainly the seat of all its rapid and transitory 
 expression. But what speaking things are his eyes ! 
 They disdain to be agitated by those lesser emotions 
 which pass over the lips; they reserve their fierce and 
 dark energies for matters of more moment; once kin- 
 dled with the heat of any passion, how they beam, 
 flash upon flash ! The scintillation of a star is not more 
 fervid. Perhaps, notwithstanding this, their repose is 
 even more worthy of attention. With the capacity of 
 emitting such a flood of radiance, they seem to take a 
 pleasure in banishing every ray from their black, in- 
 scrutable, glazed, tarn-like circles. I think their pre- 
 vailing language is, after all, rather a melancholy than 
 a merry one — it is, at least, very full of reflection. Such 
 is a faint outline of this countenance, the features of 
 which (to say nothing at all of their expression), have, 
 as yet, baffled every attempt of the portrait painters. 
 
 * * * A sharp, and at the same time, very deep- 
 toned voice — a very bad pronunciation, but accompa- 
 nied with very little of the Scotch accent — a light and 
 careless manner exchanged now and then for an infinite 
 variety of more earnest expression and address — this 
 is as much as I could carry away from my first visit." 
 
 Dr. John Brown in his Horae Suhsecivae (Third 
 Series, Edinburgh, 1882) said of Jeffrey's mouth that 
 it was "mobile and yet firm, arch, and kind, with a 
 beautiful procacity or petulance about it, that you 
 would not like absent in him, or present in any one else." 
 
 Robert Tomes in My College Days writes of him : 
 
 "I often peeped through the green curtain which 
 hung before his contracted judicial shell, and watched 
 the wondrous little man unravelling, in his quick, im- 
 patient way, the tangle of Scotch law. His restless per- 
 son was in a state of perpetual movement; his eyes- 
 turning here, there, and everywhere; his features at 
 constant play; his forehead rippling in quick succes- 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 187 
 
 sive wrinkles as if trying to throw ojfi his close-fitting 
 judicial wig, which seemed to grasp his diminutive head 
 painfully, almost down to his eyebrows, and with its 
 great stiff curls of white horse-hair heavily to oppress 
 him with its weight. His arms, too, he was ever mov- 
 ing with an uneasy action, as if he would rid himself of 
 the incumbrance of his official robe of scarlet, which 
 covered his shoulders, and hung in loose folds from his 
 neck to his wrists." 
 
 Carlyle in his Reminiscences gives a vivid pen-pic- 
 ture of him, as he was apt to do when he dealt with 
 those who interested him : 
 
 "A delicate, attractive, dainty little figure as he mere- 
 ly walked about, much more if he were speaking, un- 
 commonly bright black eyes, instinct with vivacity, in- 
 telligence, and kindly fire; round brow, delicate oval 
 face full of rapid expression, figure light, nimble, pret- 
 ty though so small, perhaps hardly five feet in height. 
 He had his gown, almost never any wig, wore his 
 black hair rather closely cropt; I have seen the back 
 part of it jerk suddenly out in some of the rapid ex- 
 pressions of his face, and knew even if behind him 
 that his brow was then puckered, and his eyes looking 
 archly, half contemptously out, in conformity to some 
 conclusive little cut his tongue was giving." 
 
 Elsewhere Carlyle says: 
 
 "His accent was * * * singular, but it was by 
 no means Scotch; at his first going to Oxford (where 
 he did not stay long) he had peremptorily crushed 
 down his Scotch (which he privately had in store in 
 excellent condition to the very end of his life, produci- 
 ble with highly ludicrous effect on occasion), and adopt- 
 ed instead a strange, swift, sharp-sounding, fitful mo- 
 dulation, part of it pungent, quasi-labrant, other parts 
 of it cooing, bantery, lovingly quizzical, which no 
 charms of his fine ringing voice (metallic tenor of sweet 
 tone), and of his vivacious rapid looks, and pretty lit- 
 
1 88 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 tie atttludes and gestures, could not altogether reconcile 
 you to, but In which he persisted through good report 
 and bad. Old Braxey (Macqueen, Lord Braxfield), a 
 sad old cynic, on whom Jeffrey used to set one laugh- 
 ing often enough, was commonly reported to have said, 
 on hearing Jeffrey again after that Oxford sojourn, 
 'The laddie has clean tint his Scotch, and found nae 
 English!' which was an exaggerative reading of the 
 fact, his words and syllables being elaborately Eng- 
 lish (or English and more, e. g., 'heppy,' 'my lud,' 
 etc., etc.), while the tune he sang them to was all his 
 own." 
 
 "His voice," says Carlyle, "clear, harmonious, and 
 sonorous, had something of metallic in it, something 
 almost plangent; never rose into alt, into any dis- 
 sonance of shrillness, nor carried much the character 
 of humor, though a fine feeling of the ludicrous al- 
 ways dwelt in him, as you would notice best when he 
 got into Scotch dialect, and gave you, with admirable 
 truth of mimicry, old Edinburgh incidents and experi- 
 ences of his. * * * Y^As laugh was small and 
 by no means Homeric; he never laughed loud (could 
 not do it I should think) , and indeed often sniggered 
 slightly than laughed in any way." 
 
 Lord Cockburn is almost interesting in his descrip- 
 tion of the voice: 
 
 "His voice was distinct and silvery; so clear and 
 precise that when in good order, it was heard above 
 a world of discordant sounds. The utterance was 
 excessively rapid; but without spluttering, slurring, 
 or confusion; and regulated Into deliberate emphasis, 
 whenever this was proper. The velocity of the cur- 
 rent was not more remarkable than its purity and 
 richness. His command of language was unlimited." 
 
 Charles Pebody, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 
 June, 1870, writes: 
 
 "He never took up his pen till the candles were lit. 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 189 
 
 * * * He did most of his work in those fatal 
 hours of inspiration from ten at night till two or three 
 o'clock in the morning. * * * ^jg manuscript 
 was inexpressibly vile; for he wrote with great haste, 
 
 * * * generally used a wretched pen, * * * 
 and altered, erased, and interlined without the slight- 
 est thought of the printer or his correspondent. 
 
 * * * The explanation is, of course, the usual one 
 with men of Jeffrey's temperament and genius. He 
 had a horror and hatred of the work of the desk. 
 
 * * * His favorite hours of reading were in the 
 morning and in bed, unless he had to deal with a 
 subject of peculiar dignity, and in that case he read it 
 up * * * at night; for he had a notion that 
 hints and suggestions, facts and thoughts, illustrations 
 and authorities, picked up promiscuously over-night, 
 assorted themselves in sleep round their proper cen- 
 tres, and thus reappeared in the morning in logical 
 order." 
 
 Samuel Carter Hall, that diffuse, conceited and 
 prosy hanger-on upon the outskirts of literature, 
 seems to have forgotten his usual good-nature — which 
 alone renders him endurable — in his observations about 
 Jeffrey, but he admits that he did not know him very 
 well. 
 
 "The far-famed editor of the Edinburgh Review 
 had a few friends — firm and staunch and loving 
 friends, and very many foes. Some of them he wil- 
 fully and wantonly made so; others he did not under- 
 stand, and therefore misrepresented; others he rightly 
 and conscientiously condemned, and soured into bit- 
 ter and irrational hostility." 
 
 He further says: 
 
 "No doubt he was a bitter, caustic and often unjust 
 critic; and during his long career of power there were 
 not many cases wherein he exhibited generosity and 
 
190 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 consideration, or that far-seeing intelligence which 
 can anticipate and augur good as well as bad in the 
 authors tried at his tribunal." 
 
 Jeffrey must at some time have treated Mr. Hall as 
 the humbug he really was; the assertion that he had "a 
 few friends" is absurdly inane and groundless; but then 
 Hall was a fat-headed person, whose attempts to iden- 
 tify himself with the great men whom he happened to 
 meet in a long life of pottering about literature and 
 art have not sufficed to preserve his name in the mem- 
 ory of posterity. 
 
 IX. 
 
 All — or nearly all — those who have left their testi- 
 mony concerning him have dwelt upon his gentle and 
 kindly nature. It is true that Lockhart, who naturally 
 could not lose an opportunity of exalting Scott, quotes 
 from a letter this quite ill-natured comparison : 
 
 "Jeffrey for the most part entertained us, when 
 books were under discussion, with the detection of 
 faults, blunders, absurdities, or plagiarisms. Scott 
 took up the matter where he left it, recalled some 
 compensating beauty or excellence for which no credit 
 had been allowed, and by the recitation, perhaps, of 
 one fine stanza, set the poor victim on his legs again." 
 
 The obvious implication is, that a poet — for it is 
 plain that they were talking of poetry — may blunder, 
 steal and be as absurd as he likes, but no one may speak 
 of it if he has happened to write "one fine stanza." 
 
 One trait he possessed which many will accept as 
 competent evidence of his sweetness of disposition, de- 
 spite his occasional worrying of poor poets — his fond- 
 ness for animals. Lord Cockburn says: 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 191 
 
 *'The only friend, besides his wife, daughter, and 
 servants, that he took with him (to London) was one 
 he often mentions, 'Poor Poll,' a gray and very wise 
 parrot. He was attached to all that sort of domestic 
 companions, and submitted to much taunts on account 
 of the soft travelling-basket for the little dog, 'Witch,' 
 and the large cage for his bird. The hearth rug and 
 the sofa were seldom free of his dumb pets." 
 
 He failed perceptibly about ten years before his 
 death. In one of his charming letters to Miss Berry, 
 given in her "Journal," he writes (1842) : 
 
 "Though the trachea is at this moment my most 
 urgent malady, the most obstinate and formidable is 
 in another quarter, and one with which you are un- 
 fortunately but too well acquainted. You and I should 
 be in a very tolerable condition if it were not for that 
 frigidus circum praecordia sanguis, though I confess 
 I should scarcely have expected that our hearts should 
 be the first things that failed about us, and (pri- 
 vately) take it rather amiss."* 
 
 Although his health declined, he did not become 
 morose or discouraged, but he maintained his interest 
 in books and his fondness for his family while con- 
 tinuing his judicial labors almost without intermission. 
 Stephen refers to "his kindly old age, when he could 
 hardly have spoken sharply of a Lake poet." He was 
 especially fond of Dickens, and his letters of appre- 
 ciation are enthusiastic; he wept over Little Nell and 
 Paul Dombey; and the son-in-law of Thackeray, 
 while saying with what seems to be unnecessary con- 
 temptuousness that "the emotion is a little senile," 
 admits that at least it was genuine. He revised the 
 proof sheets of the first two volumes of Macaulay's 
 
 ^Miss Berry's Journal (1865), ili. 475. 
 
192 . EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 History, priding himself greatly upon his accuracy in 
 the matter of punctuation. Hugh Miller, in his Es- 
 says (1862) refers to his remarkable energy when he 
 was approaching the end. 
 
 "All accounts agree," says Miller, "in representing 
 him as in private life one of the kindest and gentlest 
 of mortals, ever surrounded by the aroma of a deli- 
 cate sense of honor and a transparent truthfulness, 
 equable in temper, in conversation full of a playful 
 ease, and, with even his ordinary talk, ever glittering 
 in an unpremeditated wit 'that loved to play, not 
 wound.' Never was there a man more thoroughly 
 beloved by his friends. Though his term of life ex- 
 ceeded the allotted three score and ten years, his fine 
 intellect * * * ^^g ^q ^\^q \^^^ untouched by 
 decay. Only four days previous to that of his death 
 he sat upon the bench; only a few months ago he fin- 
 ished an article for his old Review distinguished by 
 all the nice discernment and acumen of his most vig- 
 orous days. It is further gratifying to know, that 
 though infected in youth and middle age by the wide- 
 spread infidelity of the first French revolution, he was 
 for at least the last few years of his life of a differ- 
 ent spirit. He read much and often in his Bible; and 
 he is said to have studied especially, and with much 
 solicitude, the writings of St. Paul." 
 
 His death occurred at Craigcrook, on January 26, 
 1850. Empson, who married Jeffrey's only daughter, 
 Charlotte, in 1838, and who succeeded Napier as 
 editor of the Edinburgh in 1847, wrote on the 28th to 
 Samuel Rogers : 
 
 "A three days' illness, apparently slight in its 
 causes and symptoms, deprived us, at six o'clock, on 
 Saturday evening, of our dear friend. Millar was 
 not alarmed, nor Christison, until four and twenty 
 hours before his death. He suffered no pain, but 
 from the sense of increasing weakness. Wine and 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 193 
 
 brandy (he took nothing else) had no effect on his 
 pulse or system. What there was of illness was a 
 feverish cold, accompanied by a slight bronchial 
 cough.'* 
 
 It was simply a case of a wearing out of the 
 heart. On the 31st he was buried in the Dean Ceme- 
 tery near Edinburgh. 
 
 Walter Bagehot's article in the National Review 
 of October, 1855, on "The First Edinburgh Review- 
 ers," gives us a pleasant, kindly, and discriminating 
 opinion in regard to Jeffrey. Referring to his literary 
 work, he says : 
 
 "Any one who should expect to find a pure perfec- 
 tion in these miscellaneous productions should remem- 
 ber their bulk. If all his reviews were reprinted they 
 would be very many. And all the while he was a 
 busy lawyer, was editor of the Review, did the busi- 
 ness, corrected the proof sheets; and more than all — 
 what one would have thought a very strong man's 
 work — actually managed Henry Brougham. You 
 must not criticise papers like these, rapidly written in 
 a hurry of life, as you would the painful words of an 
 elaborate sage, slowly and with anxious carefulness 
 instructing mankind. * * * ^it was neither a 
 pathetic writer nor a profound writer; but he was 
 a quick-eyed, bustling, black-haired, sagacious, agree- 
 able man of the world. He had his day, and was 
 entitled to his day; but a gentle oblivion must now 
 cover his already subsiding reputation." 
 
 Does not the same "gentle oblivion" cover the repu- 
 tation of all writers who are not great creators? 
 
 Sir Leslie Stephen, in the National Dictionary of 
 Biography, presents a fair and scholarly estimate of 
 the career and the character of Jeffrey, and writing 
 a generation after the Bagehot review, seems to give 
 
194 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 to the critic and lawyer a rank somewhat higher than 
 Bagehot is inclined to bestow. 
 
 "If he had been less afraid of making blunders," 
 Stephen remarks, "and trusted his natural instincts, 
 he would have left a more permanent reputation, and 
 achieved a less negative result." 
 
 Dr. Winchester is not too partial to Jeffrey, but 
 he closes his discussion of the merits of the reviewer 
 with some words of commendation. 
 
 "In briefest summary, then," he says, "we may ad- 
 mit that to Jeffrey, rather than to any other man, may 
 be given the credit of raising the critical essay to the 
 rank of a recognized literary form; that his writing 
 is always brilliant and plausible, that his critical ver- 
 dicts are always clear, and if upon matters within the 
 range of his appreciation, sensible and just. On the 
 other hand, it must also be admitted that his range of 
 appreciation is limited; that his impressions are of- 
 ten worth more than the dogmas he invents to justify 
 them; and that a considerable part of his fame was 
 due to the immense and novel popularity of the Re- 
 view, which raised him for a time to literary dictator- 
 ship almost like that of Dryden or Johnson." 
 
 It has been charged against him that he was with- 
 out enthusiasm in his politics, despondent, pessimistic; 
 prone to alarm for his country and for the interests of 
 the landed proprietors; that he was indifferent to the 
 development of new forces; that he belonged to a class 
 of men who "detest enthusiasm wherever it may be 
 found" and are antagonistic to "every great impulse 
 of the kind that leads men to self-sacrifice and to won- 
 der, or to a new world of ideal creation." These be 
 brave words, full of sound and of the frothy order 
 which captivates so many shallow minds. He could 
 
A FAMOUS REVIEWER 195 
 
 not be popular; for, as Chesterton says: "the man who 
 is popular must be optimistic about something, even 
 if he is only optimistic about pessimism." Jeffrey was 
 a Whig, and it is amusing to learn from one source 
 that his radical views hampered his early life as a law- 
 yer and from another that he was so ultra-conserva- 
 tive as to entertain some regard and respect for the 
 rights of property. It is conceded that he was an 
 advocate of reform in the criminal laws, the game 
 laws, the anti-Catholic laws, the abuses of Chancery, 
 and the evils of colonial slavery. Yet because he was 
 unwilling to throw up his cap wildly in acclaiming 
 every scheme devised by unscrupulous agitators for 
 the universal betterment of mankind — and incidentally 
 for their own personal advancement and aggrandise- 
 ment — he is called "pessimistic," and "aristocratic." 
 His clear vision foresaw the coming of a time when the 
 majority of men, possessing the maximum of all the 
 meaner qualities of man, would awake to a sense of 
 their power and under the guise of a pretended zeal for 
 the improvement of the race and its conditions, would 
 seek to appropriate for the benefit of the lazy, vicious 
 and unthrifty, the rewards of integrity, intelligence, 
 and industry. If he was opposed to "the doctrine of 
 equality and every form of socialism," it was not be- 
 cause he was aristocratic, in the ordinary meaning of 
 the term, but because he was not deceived by false pro- 
 phets and because he knew that the errors and faults of 
 humanity cannot be eradicated by empty talk about the 
 brotherhood of man and his indefinite perfectibility. 
 He had no fondness for that equality which is secured 
 by pulling down instead of by uplifting. 
 
 On the whole, it may be said of him that he was 
 
196 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 an accomplished man; whose resources were always 
 fully at his command; possessing no great inventive 
 force, but a charm of speech and manner which en- 
 abled him to exercise over those whom he met, what 
 is popularly known as personal magnetism; too fas- 
 tidious, perhaps, in many of his tastes, but endowed 
 with a capacity of literary judgment usually just if not 
 always infallible. He distrusted his own ability to give 
 to the world a book that would survive him ; his critical 
 faculties had been cultivated at the expense of the cre- 
 ative faculty. A reviewer of the work of others, he 
 would have reviewed his own with like fearlessness 
 and discrimination. He did not choose to subject him- 
 self to the later sneer of Disraeli and furnish another 
 example of a critic who failed in literature. So we 
 must seek his monument in the faded pages of the 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 
 
 WHEN Swift was only a few years past 
 thirty he amused himself by preparing 
 a code for his conduct "when he 
 should come to be old," and one of 
 his rules was "not to scorn present 
 ways, or wits, or fashions, or men, or war." But ex- 
 perience tells us that neither he nor any man who has 
 passed the half-century mark and entered upon "com- 
 mencing old age" ever followed that rule; it is a mere 
 New Year resolve, made only to be broken. Perhaps 
 it is not precisely "scorn" which is manifested by the 
 elderly person, but rather disapproval, particularly 
 if he has had a reasonable amount of success in life 
 and has therefore acquired the habit of what is called 
 "conservatism," — that is to say, the desire to keep 
 things as they were because all went very well then. 
 We utter a truism when we say that the nature of man 
 remains substantially the same from generation to 
 generation, and that manners change much, but men 
 continue to be about as wise or as silly as their fathers 
 were. We are all apt to derive much comfort from 
 the notion that in some indefinite future everything 
 is to be perfect, every human being is to think only of 
 the welfare of his brother man or sister woman; pov- 
 erty, misery, sin, and crime are to disappear; and all 
 mankind are to dwell in a serene atmosphere of peace, 
 love, and harmony, forgetting what Mr. Locke calls 
 "the glorious duty of selfishness." It will be a dull 
 and stupid life when that millenium is reached, but 
 
 197 
 
198 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 there is consolation in the thought that it will come 
 to us at about the time when we find the bag of gold 
 at the foot of the rainbow. 
 
 It was not surprising when at what in his custom- 
 ary grandiloquence of phrase the newspaper report- 
 ers styles "a banquet," I heard an eminent educator, 
 of the "popular" variety, intimate that we must think 
 only of the future, — not of the present or of the past. 
 His approving audience applauded this sentiment vig- 
 orously. I am not sure that I know exactly what he 
 meant. If one does not think at all of the past, he 
 must reduce his mind to comparative vacuity, relin- 
 quish the "pleasures of memory," abandon the les- 
 sons of experience, part with the emotions of grati- 
 tude, patriotism, and filial affection; and if one does 
 not think at all of the present, he is in much danger 
 of being run over by a motor-car. In all likelihood 
 the speaker did not intend to be taken literally; his 
 utterance was only a bit of rhetorical exaggeration, 
 which we often hear from orators after the sounding 
 of the stroke of midnight. It is like the assertion of 
 a distinguished University President, made on numer- 
 ous occasions, to the effect that our boys should be 
 brought up to be "as much unlike their fathers as pos- 
 sible;" which amazing precept, if carried to its logical 
 result, would require us to educate the son of a learned 
 and pious divine to be wholly devoid of learning and 
 thoroughly devoted to crime. He did not intend to 
 violate the commandment about honoring one's father 
 but, in his modesty, he merely wished to add to the 
 decalogue a new commandment — "Forget thy father 
 and thy mother and be like me." One trouble about 
 these showy, banquet-bred generalizations is, that 
 while they tickle the ears of the banqueters who have 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 199 
 
 banqueted freely, they are seldom or never strictly 
 true, and they do not look or sound as well on the 
 morning after as they did in the glamour of the cigars 
 and the champagne. Nevertheless "it is in the nature 
 of the mind of man" according to Bacon, "to the ex- 
 treme prejudice of knowledge to delight in the spaci- 
 ous liberalities of generalities, as in a Champain re- 
 gion, and not in the inclosures of particularity." We 
 must not take the after-dinner speaker au pied de la 
 lettre. There is much to be said in favor of contem- 
 plating the future; but we had a Greek saying in my 
 college days which I would like to give in the origi- 
 nal, but refrain, because I have wholly forgotten my 
 accents — "the future will be secure if your present 
 work be well done." 
 
 The famous Dean was right, in the main ; we should 
 not scorn present ways, or wits, or fashions, or men, 
 or war — although I am inclined to doubt whether we 
 should not have a wholesome scorn of war, past, pres- 
 ent or future, if war is what it was concisely, mono- 
 syllablically and forcibly pronounced to be by the great 
 soldier who marched through Georgia. Yet it may be 
 permitted even to the middle aged to indulge in a little 
 mild criticism; if everyone, young and old, should join 
 in a chorus of approbation of everything, the monotony 
 would be unendurable; it would be like the constant 
 diet of candy to which the young Duke in Patience 
 objected so strongly. One need not be scolding or 
 finding fault all the time : but the only thing which is 
 more odious than a confirmed pessimist is a persistent 
 optimist. The moderate pessimist — if logically such 
 a being may exist — has his uses. The sourness of the 
 lemon adds to the palatability of the succulent oyster, 
 or, to avail of a simile for which an apology is due to 
 
200 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 the enthusiastic prohibitionists of Maine and Kansas, 
 the tinge of the bitters in the pre-prandial cocktail lends 
 an indescribable charm to that reprehensible but pleas- 
 ant beverage. As the author of "Excursions of a 
 Book-Lover" said of late: 
 
 "The optimist is good in his place, but as much 
 may be said of the pessimist. Not always, but often, 
 there is about the optimist a certain vulgarity not to 
 be discovered in the pessimist. There is an offensive 
 smacking of the lips over the good things of this life, 
 and an indifference to the troubles of others that not 
 infrequently render the optimist somewhat disgusting 
 to men of finer nerve and kinder heart." 
 
 But the optimist is "popular," and most men crave 
 popularity. 
 
 An excellent young American, then recently gradu- 
 ated from one of our best colleges — which, with a fond 
 but mistaken pride, we call "universities" — some years 
 ago, in company with a fellow-American, was saunter- 
 ing through the lovely gardens of New College, Ox- 
 ford, and tempted by the smooth grass, reclined thereon 
 while each indulged in the luxury of a cigar. To them 
 appeared of a sudden a venerable guardian who, w^ith- 
 out uttering a w^ord, beckoned mysteriously to them. 
 Impressed by his age and majesty, they arose and were 
 led by him beyond the gate, where he requested them 
 to turn about and view that sculptured relic. "What 
 do you see?" he asked in those sepulchral accents com- 
 mon among venerable Britons in authority. They said 
 that they had observed that gate and had admired its 
 beauty. "But," said the solemn dignitary, "what do 
 you read there?" They deciphered the inscription 
 "Manners Makyth Man." "Gentlemen do not smoke 
 in the gardens of New College," said the white-haired 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 201 
 
 custodian. No doubt it was his favorite joke, well 
 crusted by years of placid enjoyment. 
 
 When William of Wykeham devised his celebrated 
 motto he was not referring, as we know, to behavior 
 towards others as much as to what the Roman friends 
 of our youth, whom it is now unfashionable to mention, 
 denominated mores — a course of life, morals in the 
 largest sense. But there s a measure of truth in the 
 construction of the wise saying adopted by the ancient 
 keeper of New College Gardens. If the "manners" 
 of the twentieth century "makyth man," the product is 
 not particularly agreeable. But the manners of the 
 nineteenth were no doubt as unpleasant to the stately 
 folk of its predecessor, and so on ad infinitum : es- 
 pecially the manners of the young people who are fol- 
 lowing the course laid down for them by the great 
 educator and are so absorbed in the study of the future 
 that they have little time to think of the duties and pro- 
 prieties of the present. 
 
 Certain laws of decency may not be violated without 
 causing decay or degeneracy in the moral fibre of the 
 offenders. The youth of either sex who habitually dis- 
 regard the obvious requirements of politeness — a word 
 now almost obsolete — and who are absolutely uncon- 
 scious of the rights and the feelings of others, are 
 surely not to be expected to aid materially in the de- 
 velopment of altruism, to devote themselves to pro- 
 moting the good of mankind, or to accomplish much 
 in advancing the cause of common humanity. The 
 modern idea that young people, at least those of the 
 more prosperous orders of society, are to be indulged 
 to the top of their bent, that they are to be entertained 
 and amused at the expense of their elders, that they are 
 to have "a good time" because in due course they will 
 
202 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 become old and cannot, is largely the efficient cause of 
 their folly and their indifference to the demands of 
 ordinary courtesy. It is responsible for the misfor- 
 tune that the majority of our young people, principally 
 alas ! of our young women, are inclined to be vain, 
 heedless, self-willed, and noisy. The conduct of a 
 drove of them in public leads us to wonder if indeed 
 these are the heirs of all the ages, the best result of our 
 highly organized civilization. Now I must concede 
 that the accusation is not new, for we find my Lord 
 Chesterfield, writing in 1767 to his hopeful godson: 
 
 ('Learning without politeness makes a disagreeable 
 Pedant, and politeness without learning makes a su- 
 perficial frivolous Puppy. I am sorry to say that in 
 general the Youth of the present age have neither. 
 Their manners are illiberal, and their ignorance is 
 notorious. They are sportsmen, they are jockeys, 
 they know nor love nothing but dogs and horses, rac- 
 ing and hunting." 
 
 But he was writing only of the males: now we are 
 doubling the offense of it, just as we are threatened 
 with a doubling of the evils of universal suffrage by 
 giving the so-called right of voting to the feminine half 
 of the community. What Chesterfield wrote might 
 well have been written to-day, with a few additions. 
 The trouble always is that the offending do not care 
 to please; to them it is a sad sacrifice of time and labor. 
 As the same wise observer says : 
 
 "The first great step toward pleasing is the desire 
 to please, and whoever really desires it will please to 
 a certain degree." 
 
 But in our youthful sybarites of to-day the idea of 
 pleasing any but their own dear selves is manifestly 
 strange and abhorrent. 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 203 
 
 Sport and play are good things in due moderation; 
 but when the young men and women of any land think 
 only of sports, devote their waking hours wholly to 
 sports and play, can talk of nothing but sports and play, 
 that land is doomed to decadence. All work and no 
 play makes Jack a dull boy, we know ; but all play and 
 no work makes Jack a very stupid and silly boy, and 
 Jill comes tumbling after. 
 
 Such assertions are naturally distasteful to the gen- 
 eral; and whoever reads them will be inclined to cry 
 out in contempt, if he deems them worthy of so much 
 attention. Should any of our omniscient newspaper 
 folk honor them with a word of comment, it will be 
 Indignant, petulant, and abusive. For the newspaper 
 is bound to flatter its readers: and a large portion of 
 its daily contents consists of reports of games, sports, 
 and "society intelligence" — the marriages of Daisy and 
 Jack, George and Gladys, their attendants, their wed- 
 ding gifts, and what they are going to do in the way 
 of enjoying life after they have ended the honeymoon. 
 We have pages on pages about base ball games, prize- 
 fights, golf and tennis tournaments, automobile con- 
 tests, competition in what is fantastically termed "avia- 
 tion,"— all the ephemeral topics of "play." Soon we 
 may have columns about hop-scotch and marbles. Let 
 us be thankful however that the immense mass of it 
 crowds out the chronicles of crime and the indecent de- 
 tails of all sorts of occurrences which may better be 
 buried In the latrines devoted to the purpose of hiding 
 such rottenness from public view. 
 
 But modern lack of politeness Is not due wholly to 
 the spoiled children; the adults are little better. We 
 have read of late some favor-currying screeds in our 
 daily press written by cunning foreigners in order to 
 
204 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 win the good will and consequent pecuniary profit which 
 attends the expression of well-devised flattery, in which 
 it is asserted that New Yorkers are the most polite 
 people on earth. That sort of talk usually elicits the 
 unqualified approval of the flattered; but when Hop- 
 kinson Smith dared to tell the truth he was denounced 
 as severely as a public favorite ever is by the gentlemen 
 of the newspapers. 
 
 It is permissible to scold occasionally about minor 
 things. I suppose that I am what is called "grouchy" 
 — a word not to be found in the best dictionaries, but 
 yet an admirable word, and one that most of us un- 
 derstand ; although in my youth I would probably have 
 associated it only w^ith that luckless Marshal of France 
 who bore, justly or unjustly, the blame for the defeat 
 of Napoleon at Waterloo. One manifestation of the 
 rudeness of the day and of the growing disregard of 
 considerations of propriety, may be trifling in itself but 
 it is typical. Men, and commonly young men, now 
 smoke in public or semi-public dining rooms when wo- 
 men are present. This breach of the law of good man- 
 ners is not peculiar to boys; I have seen with disgust 
 a distinguished American diplomat indulging himself 
 in this unpardonable assault upon the canons of good 
 behavior. Smoking is not a grave offence when it is 
 practised in a proper place : far be it from a confirmed 
 smoker of nearly fifty years standing to utter a fanci- 
 ful objection to it; but there are many otherwise so- 
 ciable and admirable people to whom the odor of to- 
 bacco and especially of cigarettes is exceedingly offen- 
 sive, particularly when they are only half through 
 dinner. The man who is most devoid not only of man- 
 ners but of morals is the cigarette smoker who puffs 
 the acrid, noisome fumes in your face at all times and 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 205 
 
 In all seasons, even at your breakfast table, and adds 
 insult by depositing the ashes and the ''butts" on the 
 floor, on the table, on the library shelves, or in any 
 place which may be convenient for him, however in- 
 convenient it may be for his host, while the smoulder- 
 ing, nauseating remnants poison your air and upset 
 your digestion. For this shameless offender, boiling 
 oil and melted lead are scarcely adequate punishments. 
 Yet so common has become the gross abuse of smok- 
 ing in dining rooms of hotels and restraurants, and 
 even at meals in private houses, that hardly any one 
 may be found at this day to raise his feeble voice in 
 protest against it. It is a modern abomination, and in 
 all shame and humility I confess that I have been guilty 
 of it myself. 
 
 There is another petty annoyance to which we may 
 refer merely as a proof that men otherwise estimable 
 enough are thoughtless regarding the natural rights of 
 others. The telephone is one of the most serviceable 
 and convenient nuisances of modern times. It is per- 
 emptory czar, and when one is "rung up" there seems 
 to be an absolute necessity of answering the call forth- 
 with. Nine times out of ten the calling person — gen- 
 erally summoning you on business more important to 
 him than to you — after you have responded to the shrill 
 girl who operates the machinery, compels you to wait 
 until it suits his convenience to come to the transmitter; 
 and there one sits, patiently or otherwise, wasting his 
 own time, awaiting the pleasure of the lordly person- 
 age who has disturbed him and who ought to have 
 been ready at the instant. This particular exhibition 
 of disgraceful effrontery is most common among the 
 possessors of what my friend, the Complete Letter 
 Writer of Wall Street, used to call "the unconscious 
 
2o6 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 insolence of conscious wealth." It is a sad reflection 
 that chafe as we do under the inexcusable brutality of 
 it, we generally submit to it chiefly because we hesitate 
 to "make a fuss" over a serious abuse when we are com- 
 pelled to endure so much greater ones; but it arouses 
 flames of wrath and I am always trying to plan an ef- 
 fective method of rebuke. When people send tickets 
 for "charitable entertainments" and ask us to return 
 them if we do not pay for them we take our revenge 
 by throwing tickets and all in the waste basket; but I 
 do not know exactly what to do about the odious man 
 who "telephones" and compels me to wait for him. 
 Some day there will be an assassination and a verdict 
 of justifiable homicide. 
 
 The luckless person who is obliged to ride in our 
 street cars or to walk upon our thoroughfares must 
 recognize the sad truth that in order to preserve his equi- 
 librium or to proceed with an ordinary amount of com- 
 fort he must exercise that eternal vigilance which is 
 said to be the price of liberty. On the cars, one must 
 not expect of course any thoughtful regard on the part 
 of any passenger for the convenience or the comfort of 
 any other passenger, or even any respect for laws and 
 ordinances. I am referring chiefly to New York and 
 Philadelphia, for there is a better state of affairs in 
 Boston and even a worse condition in Chicago, where 
 most of the passengers are mere ordinary thugs. Men 
 — and women too — crowd the rear platform when there 
 is abundant room inside, preventing entrance or exit, 
 the male offender generally puffing a cigar made of 
 near-tobacco, an offence prohibited by law, but nobody 
 seems to have the courage to call for the enforcement 
 of the law, mainly because our learned and discrimina- 
 ting Police Magistrates appear to have a contemptuous 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 207 
 
 opinion of the complainant in such cases and he is usually 
 lucky if he escapes without sarcastic comments upon his 
 absurdly finical temperament, duly reported in the news- 
 papers with admiring glee. Those who have seats es- 
 tablish themselves in such a position as to occupy the 
 place of two, and seldom or never make room for in- 
 comers. The strap-hangers infest the rear of the ve- 
 hicle in order to cause the greatest amount of trouble 
 for the others, and are indignant at a modest request 
 to "move up;" and those seated ones who do not sprawl 
 about in an effort to look out of the window, cross their 
 legs and obstruct the aisle. The women commonly take 
 up room beside them with boxes and bundles, oblivious 
 of those who are obliged to stand. If any one enters 
 or departs by the front door, he rarely closes it after 
 him. In short, no consideration for others is exhibited 
 except in one instance; men still offer a seat to a wo- 
 man who has a child in her arms. 
 
 /On the sidewalks the shambling cubs persistently 
 shuffle along, usually on the wrong side, and when a 
 hapless pedestrian happens to be going in an opposite 
 direction, he is generally shoved into the gutter. Down 
 town, since the advent of the feminine stenographers 
 and typewriters, those gentle, soft-voiced, over-dressed 
 creatures crowd the walks and promenade three or four 
 abreast while they shriek their amatory or sartorial con- 
 fidences to one another and monopolize the pavement, 
 regardless of the progress of those who are forced to 
 encounter their serried ranks. The familiar device of 
 setting one's shoulder firmly to meet the onset of the 
 cub cannot be resorted to as against the type-writer 
 mob; and the unhappy wayfarer meekly betakes him- 
 self to the middle of the street where he braves the ter- 
 rors of the lordly truck-driver and the haughty chauf- 
 
208 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 feur, and stumbles over the cart of the foreign fruit- 
 vendor who, for some inscrutable reason, is allowed to 
 occupy, free of charge, large portions of the public do- 
 main in the transaction of his personal and private busi- 
 ness and abounds mostly in our narrowest and most 
 crowded roadways. 
 
 I plead guilty to being a sour, ill-tempered, elderly 
 gentleman, unable to find amusement and delight in 
 submitting to the trivial insults of the merry creatures 
 who think that any caitiff who resents their ill-behavior 
 must be a hopeless misanthrope. Why, my friend, 
 should you complain about little things like these, which 
 make me so happy? Why do you grumble when I turn 
 over the seat in the railway car so that I may monopo- 
 lize four places, one for my valise, one for my golfing 
 outfit, and two for my sacred person while you stand 
 abashed and wistful, tossed about much, like the pious 
 ^neas, as the train dashes over the curves? Why do 
 you utter sniffs of disgust when I open the window as 
 we enter the long tunnel, in order that free admission 
 may be afforded for the coal-gas and the smoke? What 
 if the sum of such trifles makes up a good deal of the 
 misery of existence? It is your misery, not mine, and 
 you are a mouldering relic of a vanished time when 
 men wished to please, and therefore practised the art 
 of politeness. 
 
 As far as the misuse of our roads and streets is con- 
 cerned, the fiend of the motor-cycle and the monarch 
 of the automobile are the most oppressive and tyran- 
 nical. The ordinarily decent citizen becomes utterly des- 
 titute of morals when he is in control of a motor-car, 
 wrapped in his own mantle of unrestricted power. We 
 submit meekly to be driven into the ditch, to be covered 
 by the dust, to be deafened by his hideous "honks," and 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 209 
 
 to be stifled by his unnecessary smoke. We are grate- 
 ful if when he has run us down and mutilated our un- 
 offending bodies, he will condescend to pick us up and 
 carry us to the nearest hospital. In absolute disregard 
 of others, the hired chauffeur is far surpassed by the 
 owner — or the owner's son. That is why, when I am 
 trudging along the highway and behold an approaching 
 car whose owner is in charge of its movements, I gen- 
 erally climb a tree. No doubt when I own a motor-car 
 myself, my extreme views on the subject may be slightly 
 modified. 
 
 ' The decay of good manners may be due in part to 
 an over-estimate of the value of what are called "demo- 
 cratic ideals" which are no new things, and which as 
 understood in these times, are based upon the precept 
 that you should love your neighbor as yourself — if he 
 has a vote — but that your neighbor is in no way bound 
 to love you, unless you go a little further and let him 
 kick you when he is so inclined. The gospel of equal- 
 ity among men is preached to us with much fervor and 
 insistence, particularly by clergymen, college professors, 
 and candidates for office. I am not in accord with Fran- 
 cis Parkman when he spoke of modern democracy as 
 
 '^organized ignorance, led by unscruplous craft, and 
 marching, amid the applause of fools, under the flag of 
 equal rights." 
 
 It is needless to get as excited about it as all that. 
 There is no real objection to it, although it is partly 
 founded upon a fallacious interpretation of one of Mr. 
 Jefferson's "glittering generalities;" it has a grand 
 sound and it is pleasing to most of those who listen to 
 it. When we reflect upon it with coolness, we know 
 that men are not and cannot be equal in everything. No 
 
210 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 legislation can make them equal in thrift, in morals, in 
 virtue, or in intellect. Equality of opportunity may 
 perhaps be ensured by man-made laws, but they must 
 be better framed than our laws generally are. The dif- 
 ferences among men were created by the fiat of the Al- 
 mighty, a decree of higher force than even the judg- 
 ment of the great tribunal in Washington — pronounced 
 by a divided court. Conceding however that every 
 man is as good as every other man, one of the diffi- 
 culties to be found in the results of the disinterested 
 efforts of our apostles of equality is that the uncultured 
 person appears to entertain the opinion that it is neces- 
 sary, in order to maintain his equality with the cultured, 
 to domineer over him, to put him down, to humiliate 
 him. It may be that in the work of making the world 
 perfect we should compel the educated and refined to 
 abate something of their refinement, so as not to of- 
 fend the others; but it seems unprofitable to exalt the 
 vulgar merely to preserve a so-called equality. The 
 honest son of toil who dons a clean shirt once a w^eek 
 and indulges in a bath twice a year, is fully as deserving 
 as the luxurious mortal who changes his shirt twice a 
 day and has his cold plunge every morning, but must 
 we bow down to him and adore him because of his noble 
 indifference to the mere luxuries of fresh linen and pure 
 water? For pity's sake, mes camarades, as our own 
 great Walt would call you, have a little tolerance for 
 the clean; do not boast yourselves so greatly of your 
 superiority of simplicity. Do not despise those who de- 
 light in books, for example. We know that it is a mis- 
 erable weakness to be fond of books, but pray do not 
 crush us worms under your iron heels for so trivial an 
 offence. Have some regard for our poor tastes and 
 preferences; it is not incumbent upon you to trample on 
 
MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 211 
 
 us in order to make us your equals. We do not com- 
 plain of most of your ways and customs, of your fond- 
 ness for certain strenuous forms of diversion, of your 
 mode of speech, or even of your manifest purpose of 
 extortion when you deal with our property. We ask 
 only that you should give your lofty consideration now 
 and then to what is commonly called "The Golden 
 Rule." Really, it is a good rule; Congress has not yet 
 abolished it as constituting an improper restriction upon 
 the freedom of interstate commerce ; but that may come 
 to pass. Even our later Presidents have not framed 
 and thrust upon our intelligent legislators any bill to do 
 away with it or to modify it in accordance with popular 
 demand in the West, so as to read: 
 
 "Do unto others as you would have them do unto 
 you, provided however that in doing it unto others 
 you shall require the others to submit in all respects 
 ■ to the wishes and preferences of the majority of the 
 qualified voters in the land, including all Italians, 
 Hungarians, Scandinavians and other emigrants and 
 every ignorant being in the country except Indians not 
 taxed." 
 
 We know that the cry of the day is, in substance : 
 
 ^^'^Uherty and Humbug, now and forever, one and 
 inseparable." 
 
 But be careful lest in your high-minded aspiration 
 to be so much the equals of the "better classes," you 
 succeed in putting them so far under you, that you de- 
 stroy the government which protects you in your place 
 of eminence; and in your effort to tax property to the 
 utmost you may sooner or later be unable to find any 
 property to tax. 
 
 Manners makyth man; the lack of them makyth 
 — something quite different. 
 
THE WAR ON THE COLLEGES 
 
 IT is undoubtedly reprehensible rashness in an or- 
 dinary person, untrained in the profession of 
 pedagogy to express views about so grave a 
 matter as education. The expert men who de- 
 vote their energies exclusively to the task 
 of training the youthful mind are apt to eye 
 with justifiable jealousy or indignation the at- 
 tempt of the outsider to invade their peculiar pro- 
 vince, and their prohibitory signs are as manifest to the 
 beholder as are those in the Central Park which warn 
 the heedless to "keep off the grass." But the average 
 American has a way of bestowing upon mankind the 
 boon of his own opinions, whether in regard to poli- 
 tics, economics, science, or religion, without much hesi- 
 tancy about his own competence, in which respect he 
 is not unlike his fellow-beings of other nationalities; 
 and after he has reached an age when he begins to 
 lead what Mr. Benson calls "a life of reflection, rather 
 than of action, of contemplation rather than of busi- 
 ness," he begins to feel that it is not always those who 
 are engaged in the turmoil of the battle who are most 
 capable of judging the merits of the campaign and that 
 the unconcerned spectator may be able to arrive at 
 sound conclusions with as much accuracy and clear- 
 ness as the one who is in the thick of the fight; at least, 
 that is his own judgment. 
 
 We are passing through a season of much uneasiness 
 among those who are occupied in the business of edu- 
 cation, particularly about our colleges, which we persist 
 
 213 
 
214 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 is calling "universities," whether or not they are pos- 
 sessed of university equipment. The heads of these in- 
 stitutions, with a few worthy exceptions, appear to be 
 the most distrustful concerning the efficacy of their own 
 labors. Naturally the great body of the uneducated, 
 delighting to hear from such unimpeachable authority 
 that the colleges are not what they ought to be and that 
 the boasted education which colleges are supposed to 
 furnish is of little worth, indulge in much self-gratula- 
 tion over the fact that they never wasted their time 
 upon such a trifle; while the newspapers, who aim to 
 please the majority, swell the chorus of censure and 
 crow lustily over the folly of spending valuable years in 
 acquiring something which "is of no use" to the ambi- 
 tious individual seeking for wealth, or power, or what- 
 ever the man of the day most covets. Behold the fall 
 of him who has presumed to look down on "the com- 
 mon people" because he was possessed of an education 
 which turns out to be only a sham! And the voice of 
 the common people is divine; yet I could never per- 
 ceive the wisdom of the remark attributed to Lincoln, 
 to the effect that God must have greatly loved the com- 
 mon people because he made so many of them; for 
 that might with equal wisdom be said of mosquitoes or 
 of the ordinary house-fly. 
 
 One of the consequences of these apologetic out-giv- 
 ings of some of our presidents has been the out-pour- 
 ing of the spirit of a few of the persons who hang upon 
 the outskirts of education. At a recent assemblage in 
 Boston of what is styled, with the customary grandeur, 
 "The National Education Association," the principal 
 of a New York High School and the Superintendent of 
 Public Schools in Wisconsin delivered themselves with 
 portentous wisdom of such observations as these : 
 
THE WAR ON THE COLLEGES 215 
 
 "There is no spectacle in American life to-day more 
 pitiful than the contrast between what the college ad- 
 vertises to do and what it performs." "The teach- 
 ing by our college professors is the poorest in the 
 country." "The average third-year boy in the high 
 school is more able to think, discuss and express an 
 idea than the average college student two years older." 
 "The young man learns in college that he need not 
 work; he comes to regard his college as a social and 
 sporting club." "Colleges with their narrow and 
 false ideals of culture * * * their domination 
 has reached a degree of intolerable impertinence." 
 "The high schools in desperation have been drawing 
 a line of cleavage between those fitting for college and 
 those who are not. This is unnecessary, unfitting, 
 and undemocratic." 
 
 After such luminous remarks it is not surprising that 
 the distinguished fragment of this Association, known 
 as "The Department of Secondary Education," adopted 
 a resolution declaring that there should be a recog- 
 nition as electives in college-entrance requirements "of 
 all subjects well taught in the high schools" — manual 
 training, commercial branches, and agriculture; and the 
 requirement of two languages in addition to English 
 was forcibly denounced. The force of folly could no 
 further go. The Evening Post, in an editorial article of 
 comment, justly says : — 
 
 "That situation represents the culmination of a 
 wave of criticism and restlessness which in large meas- 
 ure owes its strength and volume to what we cannot 
 but feel has been a want of perception, on the part 
 of many of our leading college presidents especially, 
 of the issue really involved in the agitation about our 
 colleges which has for some years been so much to 
 the fore. To be conscious of deficiencies, ready to 
 admit them and anxious to remedy them, is one thing; 
 it is quite another to assume a position of apologetic 
 
2i6 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 defensiveness, to talk as though the faults of the col- 
 lege were all there was In the institution, to declare that 
 the college is useless unless It devotes itself to a task 
 quite other than that for which it has stood in the 
 past. And yet this is essentially the attitude in which 
 more than one of our leading college presidents has 
 allowed himself to be placed. They should have 
 known— we hardly think they can have actually real- 
 ized It — that such talk as this means not the Improve- 
 ment of the college, but Its abolition; not greater ef- 
 ficiency In attaining the aims to which it has his- 
 torically been devoted, but the abandonment of those 
 aims. 
 
 Now, the fact Is that a great deal of the stuff that 
 Is talked about colleges by such persons as those from 
 whom the above quotations are made Is simply rub- 
 bish. There are, of course, young men who go to col- 
 lege and don't work, but to talk as though this were 
 true of all of them, or of a majority of them, Is to 
 fly In the face of the simplest observation. Very much 
 the greater part of the young men in our colleges work 
 as hard at their studies as can reasonably be expected. 
 As for the superiority of the third-year high school 
 boy to the college youth two years older, this is, of 
 course, a mere personal assertion. And the terrible 
 hardships of differentiating between courses designed 
 to be followed by a college training and those that 
 are not, rests, so far as we can see, upon the idea that 
 a college has no rights that a true democrat is bound 
 to respect. It may be that the objects which a col- 
 lege pursues are not worth pursuing; but so long as it 
 does pursue them, It must of necessity demand, on the 
 part of entering students, such preparation as is neces- 
 sary for their attainment." 
 
 The substance of the accusations made against our 
 colleges seems to be that their courses of Instruction do 
 not tend to develop strong, earnest workers or to "fit 
 young men for the toils and struggles of active life"; 
 
THE WAR ON THE COLLEGES 217 
 
 at least that is about all I am able to make out of the 
 multitude of words with which we are deluged by the 
 discontented and chiefly by some of our college and 
 university presidents. It is unfortunate that the heads 
 of our "institutions of learning" think that it is in- 
 cumbent on them to undertake the improvement of the 
 world instead of giving their chief attention to the dis- 
 charge of their immediate duties; and they exhibit a 
 strong inclination to become autocratic and dictatorial 
 as if, forsooth, their accidental elevation to the place 
 of head-teachers imposed upon them the labor of regu- 
 lating everything and everybody. In this respect they 
 certainly surpass such old-fashioned presidents as Mark 
 Hopkins, Noah Porter, and James McCosh, who did 
 some good work in the cause of education, although 
 they did not devote much time to the business of "up- 
 lifting," or rather of perpetually talking about it to mis- 
 cellaneous audiences. There is one other charge; it is 
 said that the colleges foster idleness and exclusiveness, 
 producing mere dilettanti. A dilettante is, I believe, 
 "a lover or admirer of the fine arts," and not altogether 
 an abandoned wretch or a moral outcast. Rather an 
 extensive observation of college graduates during the 
 past quarter of a century has not disclosed to me any 
 considerable number of dilettanti. I have generally 
 found them to be earnest and conscientious men, at all 
 events those of the professions. Most of this talk 
 about aristocracy and exclusiveness, luxury, lavish ex- 
 penditure and lazy self-indulgence among college stu- 
 dents is pure tw^addle. In every large body of young 
 men there will be idlers and spendthrifts, and the pro- 
 portion of them will be about as great as that which is 
 found in the entire community. As to "luxury," ideas 
 change with the progress of time. When I entered col- 
 
21 8 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 lege over forty years ago, my father thought me "luxu- 
 rious" because I had a carpet in my room; and it was 
 a very cheap carpet at that. To the survivors of that 
 time, what are necessities now seem to be luxuries, but 
 yet they are not exactly sybaritic; facilities for bathing, 
 for example — and other facilities. The men who were 
 graduated in those days were none the worse perhaps 
 for their lack of comforts ; nor does it seem to me that 
 the graduates of to-day are any the worse for having 
 them. Are these young men of the twentieth century 
 inferior to their ancestors? If they are, we are obliged 
 to infer that the system of college training then pre- 
 valent must have been more efficient than it is now, and 
 that the modern improvements of which we have been 
 so proud have not been improvements at all; that the 
 millions on millions of money extracted from pluto- 
 cratic pockets have been obtained on false pretenses and 
 have been virtually wasted in perceptorial extravagances. 
 As to aristocratic exclusiveness, I will have something 
 to say later. 
 
 I assert with much indignation that the charge 
 that "the young man learns in college that he need not 
 work" and that "he comes to regard his college as a 
 social and sporting club" is false and silly, the creation 
 either of ignorance, or of malice; and I am sorry for 
 the unfortunate lads whom necessity compels to attend 
 public schools or high schools controlled by such 
 persons as those who are guilty of disseminating the 
 libels proclaimed at the meeting in Boston. 
 
 We know that the college curriculum has been vastly 
 enlarged in scope, the courses of study improved, and 
 the opportunities of students immeasurably increased. 
 To say that "the teaching by our college professors is 
 the poorest in the country" is a contemptible slur that is 
 
THE WAR ON THE COLLEGES 219 
 
 sufficient to discredit all the allegations of the high- 
 schopl orator. The age of matriculation has been ad- 
 vanced, thereby delaying the time of graduation and 
 postponing the beginning of the earning period, in or- 
 der that preparation may be more thorough and the 
 men better fitted to avail of their greater opportuni- 
 ties. But, to leave the high-school apostles for the mo- 
 ment, all this, according to some of our presidents, 
 does not result in producing men really superior to the 
 graduates of a generation or more ago. If that is so, 
 if the new men are no wiser or stronger than their 
 predecessors, then it is manifest that the "old education" 
 which we used to enjoy is not to be sneered at, and that, 
 after all, it may not be prudent to bring up young men 
 to be "as much unlike their fathers as possible." 
 
 Well, as far as that is concerned, much depends on 
 your point of view and the "point of view" at present 
 is mainly of those who are convinced that nothing in 
 life is so important as to "push" and "get ahead." 
 There is much vague talk, principally rhetorical, and 
 largely made up of those well-sounding platitudes about 
 uplifting humanity, and devoting ourselves to the na- 
 tion's service, and abstaining from the pursuit of riches, 
 and sternly devoting ourselves to obedience to such 
 laws, for example, as those which forbid one to enclose 
 a letter in an express package, and striving for the tri« 
 umph of those charmingly indefinite "democratic 
 ideals," the precise nature whereof we are not much en- 
 lightened about, because the orator scorns details. It all 
 means, however, that there is but one thing needful 
 for man — unrest; for if you rest, even for a moment, 
 you are sure to be passed in the race, life being merely 
 a race. I am tempted to quote from Mr. Benson's es- 
 
2 20 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 say on "Contentment," for he dares to say what most of 
 us are timid about saying: 
 
 "The gospel that I detest," he says, "is the gospel 
 of success, the teaching that every one ought to be 
 discontented with his setting, that a man ought to get 
 to the front, clear a space around him, eat, drink, 
 make love, cry and strive and fight. It is all to be at 
 the expense of feebler people. That is a detestable 
 Ideal, because it is the gospel of tyranny rather than 
 the gospel of equality. * * * -pj^g result of it is 
 the lowest kind of democratic sentiment, which says, 
 'Every one is as good as every one else, and I am a 
 little better,' and the jealous spirit, which says, 'If I 
 cannot be prominent, I will do my best that no one 
 else shall be.' " 
 
 He calls our attention to the custom of disguising 
 rank individualism under a pretense of desiring to im- 
 prove social conditions : 
 
 "The clean handed social reformer, who desires no 
 personal advantage, and whose influence is a matter 
 of anxious care, is one of the noblest of men; but now 
 that schemes of social reform are fashionable, there 
 are a number of blatant people who use them for pur- 
 poses of personal advancement. What I rather de- 
 sire is to encourage a very different kind of individual- 
 Ism, the Individualism of the man who realizes that the 
 hope of the race depends upon the quality of life, upon 
 the number of people who live quiet, active, gentle, 
 kindly, faithful lives, enjoying their work and turning 
 for recreation to the nobler and simpler sources of 
 pleasure — the love of nature, poetry, literature and 
 art." 
 
 Of course this is all very old-fashioned and con- 
 temptible ; it tends to luxury and to exclusiveness, and is 
 suitable only to the wretched minority. 
 
THE WAR ON THE COLLEGES 221 
 
 Now, in spite of the fact that the gospel of stren- 
 uousness, so loudly proclaimed by the man who enjoys 
 the distinction of being the most famous of living Amer- 
 icans, is the one which appeals most forcibly to the 
 popular mind, there is an element of vulgarity about 
 it which does not commend it to the few who consider 
 that there are virtues in the quiet and useful life as well 
 as in the noisy, showy life ; and there are such things as 
 "nature, poetry, literature, and art," as well as steam, 
 electricity, and improvement of the condition of the day 
 laborer; and that there is something beyond the mere 
 doing of things which, aided or unaided by the doer, 
 find their way into the columns of the daily press. Take 
 literature, for example. One of our most celebrated 
 University Presidents has said: 
 
 "It is plain that you cannot impart 'university 
 methods' to thousands, or create 'investigators' by the 
 score, unless you confine your university education to 
 matters which dull men can investigate, your labora- 
 tory training to tasks which mere plodding diligence 
 and submissive patience can compass. Yet, if you do 
 so limit and constrain what you teach, you thrust 
 taste and insight and delicacy of perception out of the 
 schools, exalt the obvious and the merely useful above 
 the things which are only imaginatively or spiritually 
 conceived, make education an affair of tasting, and 
 handling, and smelling, and so create Philistia, that 
 country in which they speak of 'mere literature.' "* 
 
 But if you may not teach this love of literature, for 
 its own sake, by rule and formula, in the arid quarters 
 of the class room, you may, if you know how, create 
 an appropriate atmosphere in which this love may be 
 fostered and developed, and it is not an atmosphere of 
 
 *Woodrow Wilson: "Mere Literature," 1896. 
 
222 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 agriculture, commercial branches and veterinary sur- 
 gery. If the chief aim of our colleges is to bring up 
 what are called "men of action," publicists, politicians, 
 pedagogues, scientific discoverers, and social reformers, 
 then the Philistine will dominate and Gradgrind will 
 triumph. Where the atmosphere is essentially ultili- 
 tarian, you will never cultivate the flowers of "mere 
 literature." The man who has what was once called 
 a "liberal education," that which ought to be had by 
 every one who deserves the "grand old name of gen- 
 tleman," is like him who has a deep and abiding fond- 
 ness for animated creation which does not find expres- 
 sion in the killing of birds and animals under the speci- 
 ous pretence of a devotion to the study of "faunal na- 
 ture." 
 
 The gentlemen of the high-school class have a great 
 horror of what we call "the classics." For many years 
 it has been the cry of the utilitarian, 
 
 "What is the good of Latin and Greek? Of what use 
 are they to men of strength, and force, and lofty as- 
 piration?" 
 
 So in deference to outcry, for we yield habitually to 
 the views of those who make the most noise, the study 
 of those languages has almost ceased and that of science 
 occupies the primacy. Perhaps this circumstance has 
 contributed largely to the diminution in the number of 
 scholarly men of general cultivation. In their place 
 we have chemists, engineers, and electricians; men of 
 great capacity and usefulness; but there is no good 
 reason why they should not be men of culture as well 
 as the lawyers, clergymen and physicians, and no doubt 
 some of them are. In their technical training they need 
 not deprive themselves of that general culture which 
 a college education was meant to give and ought to 
 
THE WAR ON THE COLLEGES 223 
 
 give, so that all who have had its benefits may have 
 some common ground on which to meet. It is not 
 necessary that all of them should be skillful Latinists 
 or Grecians, but no one can justly be called a scholar 
 who has no knowledge whatever of Greek or Latin. 
 He may be a good chemist, engineer or electrician, and 
 he may be possessed of genius, but he will not be an 
 educated man in the broad sense. It is no answer to 
 say that there are great men who knew not a word of 
 those languages. It might as well be said that no one 
 need know anything of the Bible because Plato and 
 Socrates never knew anything of it; or that no man 
 should ever "go to college" because Benjamin Frank- 
 lin and Abraham Lincoln never did. The inquiry 
 whether Lincoln would have been what he was if he 
 had been a college man always seemed to me to be 
 profitless. If he had been educated as a soldier, a phy- 
 sician, or a theologian he might not have been Presi- 
 dent, but that does not prove that we should not have 
 soldiers, or doctors, or ministers. One might as well 
 conjecture what his life would have been if he had been 
 born in a city instead of in a Kentucky log cabin. 
 
 I am aware that the method of teaching "the 
 classics" which treats them merely as vehicles for im- 
 parting a knowledge of grammar or etymology is 
 worthless. There has been too much of that and too 
 many questions such as the famous one "who dragged 
 whom how many times around the walls of what?" 
 Such abominations have disgusted generations of pupils 
 and made them "comprehend, but never love" the liter- 
 ature of Greece and Rome. But there are remedies for 
 such evils. 
 
 The humor of the situation lies in the fact that the 
 assailants of our colleges — insiders as well as outsiders 
 
224 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 — seem to think that there is a vested right in the mul- 
 titude to have a college education, and that particular 
 form of education with which the multitude is pleased. 
 They ignore the right of the minority to seek the cul- 
 ture which that minority desires, and to have a college 
 where it may enjoy its own form of education. I do not 
 deny that my fellow-being who craves the "commercial 
 branches," manual training, agriculture, veterinary sur- 
 gery and all that, is entitled to go where such things are 
 taught, but I deny his right to drag me there with him, 
 and to deprive me of what used to be called "the hu- 
 manities" — liberal studies. He may be just as good 
 a man as I am — perhaps a much better man than I can 
 hope to be — but I do not admit his right to compel me 
 to associate with him if his tastes, manners, and per- 
 sonal qualities are not agreeable to me. He may call 
 me "aristocratic" and "exclusive" if I prefer culture to 
 mere utility, and to choose my own friends; but if I 
 am forced to attend a college or a university where I 
 am constrained by law to fraternize with him, then 
 there is no true democracy about it; it is tyranny, as 
 Mr. Benson says. My individual liberty of choice is 
 destroyed. Why he should want to live with me against 
 my will, I cannot divine ; I should think he would find 
 it as uncomfortable as I should. If Doe, an aspiring 
 devotee of useful studies, insists upon having a college 
 where Roe is obliged to associate with him, willy-nilly 
 — a situation he will never find in the world after his 
 graduation — let him have it, but he will fail in one es- 
 sential point— Roe will not go there. If Roe selects a 
 university which is more or less "exclusive," as every 
 true university must be. Doe has no right to demand 
 that he, too, shall be admitted there on his own terms 
 and have everything changed to suit his preferences. 
 
THE WAR ON THE COLLEGES 225 
 
 The idea that because all men in our land have equal 
 political rights they have likewise equal social rights is 
 not democratic; it is socialistic. If I want to ride in 
 a Pullman car instead of in an ordinary coach, I mean 
 to do it unless I am prohibited from so doing by some 
 legislative enactment ; and to that extent will be as un- 
 democratic as I please. 
 
 Far be it from an humble person like myself to as- 
 sert that the noble task of solving the great social prob- 
 lems of the day should be shunned and avoided by our 
 university men; but there are other things in life. 
 There is room for all the workers, but there must be 
 some room also for the gentle scholars who love the less 
 vigorous forms of reflection and thought. There is 
 room for the scholar who does not trouble his soul with 
 envious feelings toward those who are more largely 
 blessed — or cursed — with riches. Too much stress is 
 laid upon the sorrows of the poor young man who thinks 
 that he is wronged by those who, having more money 
 and different associations, are not disposed to embrace 
 him and to call him brother. The tastes of men, young 
 and old, are various; the college world is not and can- 
 not be made to be wholly different from the world in 
 general. Young men as well as their elders will and 
 must select their own companions, their own fields of 
 usefulness, their own objects of endeavor, interest and 
 ambition. According to my own observation, the lads 
 form friendships in college with very little concern 
 about the matter of wealth; the element of snobbish- 
 ness is lacking in them. But they will not be coerced 
 into familiar association with any one. 
 
 "The culture and manurance of minds in youth,'* 
 said Bacon, "hath such a forcible, though unseen oper- 
 ation, as hardly any length of time or contraction of 
 
226 EDGEHILL ESSAYS 
 
 labor can countervail It afterwards." But it must be 
 an intellectual preparation, and our professors need 
 not expect to make human nature over again or essen- 
 tially different from what it has always been; they 
 must seek to guide men and not to re-create them. 
 
 Let no one say that I mean to ignore the moral and 
 the ethical; they are comprehended in the intellectual. 
 The doctrinaires and the visionaries of the day are wed- 
 ded to the delusion that there are no ethics or morals 
 except the socialistic; those who disagree with them 
 are thrust aside with the sneering epithets of "aristo- 
 crat" and "patrician." There were ethics before Em- 
 ma Goldman and morals before Karl Marx. True de- 
 mocracy is not the rule of the rabble; it is the rule of 
 the people of sound sense and wisdom. We want no 
 "politics" in our colleges. Let our college leaders ab- 
 stain from politics, which distract their minds from 
 their legitimate work and lure them into the perilous 
 regions of demagogy. Political ambition has spoiled 
 many good lawyers ; it has ruined some promising uni- 
 versity presidents. 
 
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