The book of authors : a collection of criticisms, ana, môts, personal description..

Preface

The design of this collection is to present to the reader specimens of some of the smart and piquant things that have been said by literary men and women of one another. The collection, as the title sets forth, is wholly restricted to English literature.

Among English writers will be found names more generally associated with painting, music, the senate, and the stage. These names, as in the case of Hogarth, Reynolds, Burke, Macklin, Foote, and others, have been admitted without reference to vocation.

Of Divines not many have been included. The most familiar names in English Church History are eminent rather by their acts and by the example of their lives than by their writings. A few American authors have been inserted. Room would have been found for more could more criticisms have been collected.

There are many recent and living authors to whose names I should have been glad to have subjoined more criticisms than will be found. There are also many recent and living authors whose names I have with great reluctance omitted from simple inability to procure requisite testimonies. Anonymous criticism I could have procured in abundance ; but anonymous criticisms I have, with few exceptions, rejected. Of the periodicals I have iv

Preface, quoted, the earlier numbers have been selected in preference to the later, for reasons immediately obvious, when the lists of their original contributors are examined.

Let me express the desire that in no case will the standard of merit suggested by this book be estimated by the space allotted to the criticisms on each author. Choice has been regulated not by the will but by the materials.

When unfamiliar authors have been quoted I have had regard to the good things their bad or middling productions have provoked from clever men. It must be remembered that Shadwell suggested Macflecknoe," and that to Theobald we probably owe the Dunciad." I may also add that the criticisms of middling wrriters have been quoted only when the writings of the authors under discussion have been neglected by those whose opinions would be worth adducing.

Whenever I have been embarrassed by a multitude of testimonies I have preferred the remarks of contemporaries. I have endeavoured, so far as I found possible, to make this work in its selections representative. Although many names in this volume will be found new to the general reader, he may believe that of their age they were really among the representative writers in whose productions will be found the Hterary character of their times. ^

^ The reader is desired to correct two obvious errors which were detected when it was too late to rectify them — i.e. (page i8, Lord Dorset), for 1536-1608 read 1637-1706. (Page 146), the quotations from Hume and Bishop Burnet apply to the first Earl of Shaftesbury, and not to the author of the ''Characteristics," who was the third Earl.

ERRATA.

Page \\6, for Walter Bryan Procter, Bryan Waller Procter.

THE

BOOK OF AUTHORS.

The resemblance between Roger Bacon and his great namesake is very remarkable. Whether Lord Bacon ever read the " Opus Majus" I know not, but it is singular that his favourite quaint expression, p?^cerogativce scientiarum, should be found in that work, though not used with the same allusion to the Roman Comitia. And whoever reads the sixth part of the " Opus Majus" upon experimental science, must be struck by it as the prototype in spirit of the " Novum Organum." — Hallaiu.

Our great Roger Bacon, by a degree of penetration which perhaps has never been equalled, discovered some of the most occult secrets in Nature. She seems indeed — if I may so express myself — to have stood naked before him. His honours have been stolen from him by more modern authors, who have appeared inventors when they were copying Bacon. Yet, for the reward of all his intense studies, the holy brethren and the infallible majesty of Rome occasioned him to languish in prison during the greater part of his life. — Z D' Israeli.

His are wonderful discoveries for a man to make in so ignorant an age, who had no master to teach him, but struck it all out of his own brain ; but it is still more wonderful that such discoveries should be so long concealed ; till in the next succeeding centuries other people should start up and layxlaim to those very inventions to which Bacon alone had a right. — Dr, Friend.

Bacon discovered the art of making reading-glasses, the camera obscura, microscopes, telescopes, and various other

Roger Bacon — John Goiver, mathematical and astronomical instruments. He discovered a method of performing all the chymical operations that are now in use. He combined the mechanical powers in so wonderful a manner, that it was for this he was accused of magic. His discoveries in medicine were by no means unimportant. That the ingredients of gunpowder and the art of making it were well known to him is now undeniable \ but the humane philosopher^ dreading the consequences of communicating this discovery to the world, transposed the letters of the Latin words which signify charcoal, which made the whole obscure. — Henry,

Gower stamped with the force of ethical reasoning his smooth rhymes ] and this was a near approach to poetry itself If in the mind of Chaucer we are more sensible of the impulses of genius — those creative and fugitive touches — his diction is more mixed and unsettled than the tranquil elegance of Gower. — I, Ulsj^aeli.

The almost worthless Gov^tr— Coleridge,

He is always polished, sensible, perspicuous, and not prosaic in the reproachful sense of the word. — Hallam.

He was a man of varied learning, but far inferior to Chaucer in the natural qualities of a true poet. — Scrymegeour.

If Chaucer had not existed the compositions of John Gower, the next poet in succession, would alone have been sufficient to have rescued the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. from the imputations of barbarism. — Warton.

The first of our authors who can properly be said to have written English was Sir John Gower, who in his " Confession of a Lover" calls Chaucer his disciple, and may therefore be considered as the father of our poetry. — -Johnson,

The " moral Gower " was Chaucer's friend, and inherited his tediousness and pedantry, without a sparkle of his fancy, passion, humour, wisdom, and good spirits. — Alexander Smith.

Geoffrey Chaucer. 1328-1400.

In all his works he excelleth, in mine opinion, all other writers in our English, for he writeth in void words, but all his matter is full of high and quick sentence, to whom ought to be given laud and praise for his noble making and writing.— CaxtoiL

Clere in sentence, in langage excellent.

What ever to saye he tooke in his entente

His langage was so fayr and pertynente

Not only the worde but verely the thynge. — Ibid.

As he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or the Romans Virgil; he is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subj ects. — Dryde?i,

Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold as to go beyond her. — Ibid.

Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene and contemptible ; he owes his celebrity merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman or Thomas of Ercildoune. — Byron.

They who look into Chaucer . . will find his comic vein, like that of Shakspeare, to be only like one of mercury imperceptibly mingled with a mine of gold. — Warton.

Chaucer his sense can only boast,

The glory of his numbers lost !

Years have defac'd his matchless strain.

And yet he did not sing in vain. — Waller.

Him who first with harmony inform'd The language of our fathers. — Akenside.

The afi'ecting parts of Chaucer are almost aiways expressed in language pure and universally intelligible even to this day. — Wordsiuorth.

See how Chaucer exhibits to us all that lay around him, the

B 2

Geoffrey Chancer.

roughness and ignorance, the honour, faith, fancy, joyousness \ of a strong mind and a strong age, both tranquil within bounds | which, as large enough for their uses, neither had tried to i pass. How strikingly for us are those grating contrasts of ; social condition harmonized by the home-bred feeling that | men as they then were had the liberty and space they then ; needed : the king and priest the all-sufficient guides of men's higher life, and all powers and even wishes finding ample ' room, each within the range marked out by custom ! Every ; figure is struck off by as clear and cutting a stroke as that of a practised mower with his scythe. — Qiiarterly Review.

In serious and moral poetry he is frequently languid and diffuse ; but he springs like Antaeus from the earth, when his subject changes to coarse satire or merry narrative. — Hallam.

His words point as an index to the objects like the eye or finger. There were none of the commonplaces of poetic diction in our author's time ; no reflected lights of fancy ; no borrowed roseate tints ; he was obliged to inspect things i for himself : to look narrowly : almost to handle the object. Chaucer had an equal eye for truth of nature and discrimination of character 3 and his interest in what he saw gave new distinctness and force to what he did. — Hazlitt,

Chaucer seems to have been a right Wicklevian, or else there never was any ; and that, all his works almost, if they be thoroughly advised, will testify (albeit it be done in mirth and covertly), and especially the latter end of his third book of the Testament of love \ for there purely he toucheth the highest matter, that is, the Communion ; wherein, except a man be altogether blind, he may espy him at the full. — -John Fox. '

The first of our versifiers who wrote poetically. He does not, however, appear to have deserved all the praise he has ; received, or all the censure that he has suffered. Skinner blames him in harsh terms for having vitiated his native speech by whole cartloads of foreign words. But he that reads the works of Gower will find smooth numbers and easy rhymes, of ! which Chaucer is supposed to be the inventor, and the French ( words, whether good or bad, of which Chaucer is charged as : the importer. — Johnson. j

For a hundred beautiful pictures of genuine English existence j and English character, for a world of persons and things that 1 have snatched us from the present to their society, for a host ' of wise and experience-fraught maxims, for many a tear shed

Geoffrey Chatieer — Williavi Langland. 5 and emotion revived, and laugh of merriment, for many a happy hour and bright remembrance, we thank thee, Dan Chaucer, and just thanks shalt thou receive a thousand years hence. — W, Hoiuitt.

William Langland. 14th century.

He is a great satirist, touching with caustic invective or keen irony pubhc abuses and private vices, but in the depth of his emotions and wildness of imagination he breaks forth in the solemn tones and in the sombre majesty of Dante. — / n Israeli,

The first EngHsh Avriter who can be read with approbation f is William Langland, the author of Piers Plowman's Vision," a severe satire upon the clergy. Though his measure is more uncouth than that of his predecessors, there is real energy in his conceptions, which he caught, not from the chimeras of knight-errantry, but the actual manners and opinions of his times. — Hallam.

John Skelton. 1460-1529.

His eccentricity in attempts at humour is at once vulgar and flippant ; and his style is almost a texture of slang phrases patched with shreds of French and Latin. — Thomas Campbell , Beastly Skelton. — Pope.

His buffooneries, like those of Rabelais, were thrown out as a tub to the whale ; for unless Skelton had written thus for the coarsest palates, he could not have poured forth his bitter and undaunted satire in such perilous times. — Sotithey.

Skelton is the father of English doggrel. — Quarterly RevieuK Skelton's characteristic vein of humour is capricious and grotesque. If his whimsical extravagancies ever move our laughter, at the same time they shock our sensibility. His festive levities are not only vulgar and indelicate, but frequently want truth and propriety. His subjects are often as ridiculous as his metre ; but he sometimes debases his matter by his versification. On the whole, his genius seems better suited to low burlesque than to liberal and manly satire. It is supposed by

Jolm Skelton— William Dunbar.

Caxton that he improved our language 5 but he sometimes affects obscurity, and sometimes adopts the most famiHar jDhraseology of the common people. — Warto7i.

He was a rude, rayling rimer, and all his doings ridiculous.— Piittenhanu

William Dunbar. 1465-1535-

The greatest poet that Scotland has produced. — Ellis.

Dunbar has been too little known. His works remained, till a comparatively recent period, buried in manuscript. He is a varied and powerful writer ; great alike in descriptive, didactic, and humourous poetry ; and rich in the knowledge of men and life. — Scrymegeonr.

The first thing that strikes the reader of these (Dunbar's) poems is their variety and intellectual range. It may be said that — partly from constitutional turn of thought, partly from the chaotic and turbulent time in which he lived, when families rose to splendour and as suddenly collapsed ; when the steed that bore his rider to the hunting-field in the morning returned at evening masterless to the garden-gate — Dunbar's prevailing mood of mind is melancholy : that he, with a certain fondness for the subject, as if it gave him actual relief, moralized over the sandy foundations of moral prosperity, the advance of age putting out the light of youth, and cancelfing the rapture of the lover, and the certainty of death. This is a favourite part of contemplation with him, and he pursues it with a gloomy sedateness of acquiescence which is more affecting than if he raved and foamed against the inevitable. But he has the mobility of the poetic nature, and the sad ground-tone is often drowned in the ecstasy of lighter notes. — Alexander Smith,

Sir Thomas More. 1480-1535.

He was a man of rare virtues and excellent parts. In his youth he had freer thoughts of things, as appears by his " Utopia" and his ''Letters to Erasmus;" but afterwards he became superstitiously devoted to the interests and passions of the popular

Sir Thomas More.

clergy ; and as he served them when he was in authority, even to assist them in all their cruelties, so he employed his pen in the same cause, both in writing against all the new opinions in general, and in particular against Tindal, Frith, and Barnes. More was no divine at all ; and it is plain to any that read his writings that he knew nothing of antiquity beyond the quotations he found in the common law and in the Master of the Sentences (only he had read some of St. Austin's treatises). — Burnet

For justice, contempt of money, humility, and a true generosity of mind, he was an example to the age in which he lived. — Ibid.

This great and learned man was famous for enlivening his ordinary discourses with wit and pleasantry ; and as Erasmus tells him in an Epistle Dedicatory, acted in all parts of life like a second Democritus. He died upon a point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by that side for which he suffered.— Addiso7L

Sir Thomas More's character, both in public and private, comes as near to perfection as our nature will permit ; and I must think that in weighing it there has been too much concession on the score that the splendour of his great qualities was obscured by intolerance and superstition ; and that he voluntarily sought his death by violating a law which with a safe conscience he might have obeyed. We Protestants must lament that he was not a convert to the doctrines of the Reformation.— Lord Ca7npheU.

With all my Protestant zeal I must feel a higher reverence for Sir Thomas More than Thomas Cromwell or Cranmer. — • Ibid

When we reflect that Sir Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of Transubstantiation, we cannot but feel some doubt whether the doctrine of Transubstantiation may not triumph over all opposition. More was a man of eminent talents. He had all the information of the subject that we have, or that while the world lasts any human being will have. The text " This is my body " was in his New Testament as it is in ours. The absurdity of the literal interpretation was as great and as obvious in the sixteenth century as it is now. No progress that science has made, or will make, can add to what seems to us the overwhelming force of the argument against the Real Presence, We are therefore unable to understand why

Sir Thoinas More.

what Sir Thomas More beHeved respecting Transubstantiation may not be beheved to the end of time by men equal in abiUties and honesty to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More is one of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue ; and the doctrine of Transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith that stands that test will stand any test. — Macaulay.

It appears from Ben Jonson that his Works were considered as models of pure and elegant style. — Johnson.

There was but one wit in England, and that was young Thomas M^oxt— Collet,

Crom. Sir Thomas More is chosen

Lord Chancellor in your place.

Wols, That's somewhat sudden ;

But he's a learned man. May he continue Long in his Highness's favour, and do justice For truth's sake, and his conscience.^ — Shakspeare.

When More some time had Chancellor been,

No more suits did remain : The same shall never more be seen

Till MORE be there d^gdjin,— Old Prophecy.

He was of a middle stature, well proportioned, of a pale complexion ; his hair of chestnut colour, his eyes grey, his countenance mild and cheerful ; his voice not very musical, but clear and distinct ; his constitution, which was good originally, was never impaired by his way of living, otherwise than by too much study. His diet was simple and abstemious, never drinking any wine but when he pledged those who drank to him j and rather mortifying than indulging his appetite in what he ate. — More.

Sir Thomas More set out as a philosopher and reformer ; but the coarseness, turbulence, and bloody contests of Lutheranism having frightened him, this most upright and merciful man became a persecutor of men as innocent, though not of such great minds, as himself. He predicted that the Reformation would produce universal vice, ignorance, and barbarism. The events of a few years seemed to countenance his prophecy, but those of three centuries have belied it. His character is a most important example of the best man espousing the worst

^ Wolsey really said "that he was the fittest man to be his successor."-

Sir Thomas More.

cause, and supporting it even by bad actions — which is the greatest lesson of charity that can be taught. — Sir yames Mackintosh,

One of the marvels of More was his infinite variety. He could write epigrams in a hair shirt at the Carthusian convent ; and pass from translating Ltician to lecturing on Aicgustine in the church of St. Lawrence. Devout almost to superstition, he was lighthearted almost to buffoonery. One hour we see him encouraging Erasmus in his love of Greek and the new learning, or charming with his ready wit the supper-tables of the Court, or turning a debate in Parliament ; the next at home, surrounded by friends and familiar servants, by wife and children, and children's children, dwelling among them in an atmosphere of love and music, prayers and irony — throwing the rein, as it were, on the neck of his most careless fancies, and condescending to follow out the humours of his monkey and the fool. His fortune was almost as various. From his utter indifference to show and money, he must have been a strange successor to Wolsey. He had thought as httle about fame as Shakspeare ; yet in the next generation it was an honour to an Englishman throughout Europe to be the countryman of More. — ■Edi7ihii7'gh Revieiu^ 1846.

He was a learned, wise, and exceeding good man ; extremely bigoted to the errors of Popery, which first made him the persecutor of the Protestants, and in the end cost him his life. Excepting in this instance, his character was almost faultless. He had every accomplishment of his time and every virtue of humanity. He had a passionate love for learning and learned men. His own writings are esteemed the most elegant and masterly of any of that age. The liveliness of his wit and his zeal for Popery caused him to treat the persons he wrote against with more acrimony than was natural to his temper. But his controversial pieces, which are large and numerous (for he was the chief person who appeared in that controversy), are to be admired even at this day for their good sense, the plausibiUty of his argumentation, the sprightliness of his fancy, and the elegance of his raillery. If truth had not lain so evidently as it did on the side of Protestantism, such an adversary, in its first appearance, must have given considerable check to it.— Bishop Hvrd,

Archbishop Cranmen 1489-1556.

He was a man raised of God for great services, and well fitted for them. He was naturally of a mild and gentle temper, not soon heated, nor apt to give his opinion rashly of things or; persons ; and yet his gentleness, tho' it oft exposed him to his enemies, who took advantages from it to use him ill, knowing he would readily forgive them, did not lead him into such a weakness of spirit as to consent to everything that was uppermost. ... He was a man of great candour ; he never dissembled his opinion, nor disowned his friends. — Burnet.

If we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies, yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration. — Hallani.

If we consider Cranmer merely as a statesman he will not appear a much worse man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Somerset. But when an attempt is made to set him up as a saint it is scarcely possible for any man of sense who knows the history of the times to preserve his gravity. — -Macaulay^ " Essays r

He was at once a divine and a statesman. In his character of divine he was perfectly ready to go as far in the way of change as any Swiss or Scottish reformer. In his character of statesman he was desirous to preserve that organization which had, during many ages, admirably served the purposes of the bishops of Rome, and might be expected now to serve equally well the purposes of the English kings, and of their ministers. His temper and his understanding eminently fitted him to act as a mediator. Saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a time-server in action, a placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he was in every way qualified to arrange the terms of the coalition between the religious and the worldly enemies of Popery. — Macaulafs ^'•History of EnglandJ'^

He was undoubtedly a man of merit, possessed of learning and capacity, and adorned with candour, sincerity, and beneficence, and all those virtues which were fitted to render him useful and amiable in society. His moral quaHties procured him universal respect ; and the courage of his martyrdom,

Archbisllop Cramner—Sir David Lindsay. 1 1

I though he fell short of the right inflexibihty observed in many, made him the hero of the Protestant party. — Hume.

An unquestionably learned, humane, charitable, and pious man. His nature was singularly frank and open. His zeal for pure religion as delivered in the Gospel was ardent; yet he was too fearful and compliant in some things against his own ; better judgment. Perhaps the sense of great obligations to ' Henry, as well as the resolute, vindictive temper of that prince, was sometimes a snare to him. He was by temper mild and moderate, sincere and constant in his friendships, and a great favourer of learning and learned men. It is no wonder his notions of Christian liberty were in those times imperfect, which made him, against the natural bent of his mind, in some few instances a persecutor. It is but of late we have understood the doctrine of toleration in its full extent. His greatest failing was his recantation at Oxford, the effect of a natural constitutional timidity, which yet he repaired as well as he could by giving the sincerest marks of repentance. On the whole, he lived in trying times, and was, with the exception of a few faults, an eminently great and good man. — Bishop Hnrd,

Sir David Lindsay. 1490-1557-

He was esteemed one of the first poets of the age, and his writings had contributed greatly to the advancement of the Reformation. Notwithstanding the indelicacy which disfigures several of his poetical productions, the personal deportment of Lindsay was grave ; his morals were correct ; and his writings discover a strong desire to reform the manners of the age, as well as ample proofs of true poetical genius, extensive learning, and wit the most keen and penetrating. He had long lashed the vices of the clergy, and exposed the absurdities and superstitions of Popery, in the most popular and poignant satires,

I being protected by James V., who retained a strong attachment to the companion of his early sports and the poet who

! had often amused his leisure hours. — Dr, Thomas M^Crie}

^ Of early satirists Lindsay seems to have been the most efficacious. That the Reformation in Scotland was accelerated by the influence of his compositions is certain. His poems, we are told, were read by "every man, i

12,

Sir David Lindsay — Roger Ascham.

Lyndsay had prepared the ground and John Knox only ; sowed the seed. — Fi?ikerton.

The name of Lindsay has been cherished by the Scottish^ people with peculiar affection. His language is their vernacular ; dialect, patent to all their associations and famiHar feelings. His themes, while they embrace subjects of interest to all humanity, have still an aim peculiarly and immediately Scottish. I Few of his pieces boast many of the charms which we associate ; with the term " poetry but graphicness of painting, pungency of| sarcasm, and depth of wisdom and reflection are qualities which j secure to Lindsay perpetual admiration. — D, Scrymegeotir,

Roger Ascham. 1505-1568.

The first book which can be worth naming at all is Ascham's Schoolmaster," published in 1570, and probably written some years before. Ascham is plain and strong in his style, but woman, and child. " An anecdote illustrative of this influence (recorded by a Scotch biographer of John Knox) is worth repeating : —

*' Some time between 1550 and 1558 a friar was preaching at Perth in the church where the scholars of Andrew Simson attended public worship. In the course of his sermon, after relating some of the miracles wrought at the shrine of the saints, he began to inveigh bitterly against the Lutheran preachers, who were going about the countiy and endeavouring to withdraw the people from the Catholic faith. When he was in the midst of his invective a loud hissing arose in that part of the church where the boys, to the number of three hundred, were seated, so that the friar, abashed and affrighted, broke off his discourse and fled from the pulpit. A complaint having been made to the master, he instituted an inquiry into the cause of the disturbance, and to his astonishment found that it originated with the son of a craftsman in the town, who had a copy of Lindsay's 'Monarchies,' which he had read at intervals to his schoolfellows. When the master was ; about to administer severe chastisement to him, both for the tumult which he had occasioned and also for retaining in his possession such a heretical book, the boy veiy spiritedly replied that the book was not heretical, re- 1 quested his master to read it, and professed his readiness to submit to ; punishment, provided any heresy was found in it. This proposal appeared so reasonable to Simson, that he perused the work, which he had not for- \ merly seen, and was convinced of the truth of the boy's statement. He accordingly made the best excuse which he could to the magistrates for the behaviour of his scholars, and advised the friar to abstain in future from extolling miracles and from abusing the Protestant preachers. From that time Simson was friendly to the Reformation."- — MS, History of the Kirk. — Ed.

Roger Aschain — John Knox, y Without grace or warmth ; his sentences have no harmony of structure. He stands, however, as far as I have seen, above all ^ other writers in the first half of the Queen's (EHzabeth) reign. J" — Hallain,