Exposition of the false medium and barriers excluding men of genius from the public

Contents

STATEMENT OF FACTS.

I. Exordium 1

II. Of Epic Poets and Philosophers . . 5 III. Of Authors in general . . . .12 IV. Disappointed Authors . . . .35 V. Of Dramatic Authors . . . . .41 VI. Of Composers, and instrumental Performers .48

I

Exordium. — A common stone meets with more ready patronage than a man of genius. It may be said to have its social home and proper place of refuge in some Society, expressly established for its discovery, polishing, classification, preservation, &c, and all its numerous claims to notice and learned consideration, are admitted instantly ; but Genius is " sui generis," and a homeless outcast by general consent, during the full term of its natural life. Driven through the inhospitable desert of mortality, or tossed upon its bleak and stormy seas, the man of genius finds at length a haven in posterity ; and there, after the due course of

B precedence has fulfilled its progressive order, his claim also is gradually admitted; the tenacious world being quite sure that he is dead "as any stone."

If the complex laws which direct and govern the intricate workings of the human mind, could but for a given period admit of a practical continuity to the feelings which are excited in most meifs natures upon reading accounts of the long-suffering, fortitude, and desolate death-bed of all those whose wisdom, virtue, and extraordinary intellect have made posterity their eternal debtors ; would not the whole mass of humanity rise up, as with one accord, to establish a community by whose steady arrangements such ungrateful and monstrous results should be at once superseded, and the barbarous anomaly made human for ever after? It seems, however, we are otherwise constituted ; since nothing beyond an admission of the wrong, and the relief of our feelings in giving vent to indignant expressions, has ever yet transpired ; although the same wretched fate has always pursued and attended men of genius, since the wandering days of Homer.

In vain, as relates to his own advantage, has a man made the most important discoveries in Science: on the contrary, his reward has always been profusely paid in persecution, and the current coin of calumny, or ridicule. We have seen this conduct pursued towards the greatest Astronomers; we have seen a similar patronage bestowed upon the chief promoters of original knowledge in Natural History ; in Medicine ; in Chemistry ; in Mechanics, &c. ; and if this has been the case with sciences that depend upon demonstrable physical facts, what wonder that it should have been the same with Philosophy or Metaphysics? The more important the truth, the more opposition it has met with, and every distress {that lay in the world's power) has been accumulated round its advocate in return, with a promptitude that we very rarely see manifested in a good cause of any kind. Error always has its armed hosts, and in all great discoveries prevails over the few opponent voices longer than the average period^ even of an imperturbed human life. Posterity is then said

b 2 to do men justice ! What ! with a forced admission and acknowledgment of the value of their life's labour, after that life has been extinguished amidst penury, neglect, and oppression !

" Look at the Biography of Authors ! Except the Newgate Calendar, it is the most sickening chapter in the history of man." And these are the beings to whom the world is intrinsically indebted for the highest good: not to the vain-glorious crowd whose multitudinous names, deeds, and powers, throng with destruction through the panoramic generations of the past.

Poetry, Ethics, History, the Fine Arts, and Science in every department, how highly are they applauded and encouraged ! But the men, who are their Creators, are left to shift for themselves, and die how they may. The comprehensive motto is, < Do all you can for mankind : mankind have established a rule to do nothing for you ! ' What is the creative principle of the present march of intellect ? Is it not solely to be attributed to men of genius and ability ? If the above heartless conduct is continued, the March of Intellect becomes a Universal Type of the innate ingratitude and meanness of our human nature !

But the present Exposition is not merely intended as a recapitulation of the distressing lives and fates of those, whose lofty names in Martyrdom the world bow down to, without blushing for themselves ; it is not only a Choephorae in its libations to their hallowed tombs, but a retribution upon the oppressors' heads ; both past and present ; an analysis and elucidation of the causes of these evils ; and a condensed appeal to the collected now of ages, in the hope of calling a fresh and startled attention to the vast heap of gigantic facts that stagnate and choke up the struggling current of long-enduring humanity.

II

Of Epic Poets and Philosophers. — " Know thyself" said the Greek sage ; and he was worthy of being called wise, if he had never uttered anything beside that laconic volume.

" Seven cities claim the birth of Homer dead, Thro' which the living Homer begg'd his bread."

Dante was imprisoned, banished, and sentence of death passed upon him if he ever returned to his country. Had Shakspeare been an epic poet, we should have been almost induced to believe that his banishment had been more especially effected to prove the consistency of Ignorance with respect to writers of that class. As it is, however, we have to conclude that he was outlawed, merely to make good the Charter by virtue of which the highest genius is held, and as though to show that the world's accustomed rule of conduct towards its most extraordinary benefactors, could admit of no exception. If Milton had depended for his bread upon the emolument to be derived from Paradise Lost, or any of his other poems, it is quite clear that he would have starved. His long life of literary labour, whether in keeping a day-school, or in the exercise of his sublime intellect, never produced for him anything beyond the ordinary means of existence. Chaucer was obliged to fly the country, owing to a political disturbance, and directly he ventured to return, was thrown into prison. Spencer's poverty and ruined hopes, form a long and melancholy story.

We shall speak of ancients and moderns, indiscriminately, because men of genius belong to all times and countries,

Socrates, Seneca, Longinus, Boetius, &c. were all murdered with barbarous, systematic cruelty ; their only crimes being their wisdom and virtue. Their fortitude measured the baseness of their executioners with a smile. These unnatural tragedies, however well known, cannot be too often mentioned. Would that they could be invariably written upon the sky at noonday ! Anaxagoras was condemned to die ; his chief offence being an attempt to promulgate a higher conception of the Divine Mind than heathenism tolerated. This was considered as impiety. He, however, treated his sentence of death as a puerility, saying, " it had been pronounced upon him by Nature long ago." When asked if he would have his remains conveyed to his own country, he declined the favour, remarking " that it would not shorten the distance to the other side of the grave.'*

Probably this high stoicism had quite as much effect as the eloquent pleading of Pericles ; and he was banished instead # . Zeno, the Eleatic, appears to have been put to the torture, and to have endured it with unshaken resolution ; and Aristotle, after long persecution, (his life being often in danger) according to Suidas, took poison. Julius Canius f for his superior wisdom was condemned and suffered death — which he met with equal superiority.

We shall not pause to enumerate the host of great names that rise to our memory, having mentioned the greatest ; yet with respect to Poets, we cannot refrain from alluding to the persecution, imprisonment, and sufferings of many more — nearly all the rest, we might have said — nor to the Italian captain of banditti who kissed the hand of Tasso when he had fallen into his power, after being driven into exile by the Prince.

Camoens, after passing a life of dangerous vicissitudes, and meeting with no reward, either for his

* Diogenes Laertius. Plut. in Nicia, &c. t Seneca, De Tranquil, c. 1 4.

acknowledged poetical genius, or for his military services and wounds, was supported during his latter days by the begging of a slave who had previously saved him from shipwreck, and who continued faithful to him amidst hunger and misery. Camoens died of penury and disease in an almshouse *.

His epitaph conveys a severe reproach, which we ought all of us to feel, for there is no saying how near our own times may " turn out" to resemble his. " Here lies Louis de Camoens. He excelled all the poets of his time. He lived poor and miserable, and he died so." A few years afterwards, a high-sounding inscription was engraved upon the same tomb ! This was an example of the utter absence of conscience and shame ! There are many similar instances. The epitaph upon the Persian poet Ferdausi, who met the usual fate, is more definitely pointed. " When the great Sultan died, all his power and glory departed from him ;

* This is disputed by some biographers, who affirm that he died in " his own miserable hovel close to the church/ ' Set Strangjord's Life of Camoens.

b3 and nothing remained whereby he could be recollected, except this single historical fact — that he knew not the worth of Ferdausi ! "

We were about to observe, however, that the writers of epic poems are a class distinct from all other authors ; although part of what follows will equally apply to great Moralists and Metaphysicians. They devote themselves to a sublime application of the result of profound feeling and knowledge, and a severe examination of their own power; their fame, even as their inspiration, is more lofty and apart from their human condition with all its contingencies, and they do not hunger for the vain-glory of immediate applause. They " know themselves,'" and do not seek to be admired by the million of the day. They must be content to wait in the tomb for the secure reward of leaden-footed posterity.

The reflections that arise from the above view of the heirs of immortality, must excite a melancholy sense of the innate grandeur of the chosen of Humanity, in those readers whose imagination and sensibility can sympathise with the picture in all its vital bearings. They cannot but see that the highest gifts of intellect, only lead to a martyrdom from the meanest causes — stones instead of bread. The reflection should make us scorn the setting up of the posthumous monument, viewing it as a mere epitome of mankind's imbecility, and a selfish salvo to the conscience of Ingratitude.

But setting aside this marble-hearted love — to men capable of erecting stupendous idealisms of moral power, we can only give a solemn warning in the tremendous language of Shelley in his address to Time :

Unfathomable sea ! whose waves are years ; Ocean of Time ! whose waters of deep woe

Are brackish with the salt of human tears !

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow

Claspest the limits of Mortality !

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore, Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable sea ?

III

Or Authors in general. — In the fresh spring time of our existence ; when the eagle wing of sun-ward hope is strenuous in the glorious dawn, and the rich and rosy dews fall heavy on the opening flower that begems the path over which, with swelling bosom and unbaffled energies, we bound with feet that feel not the earth beneath them, while the voice is uplifted in full enjoyment of Nature's free and heartfelt presence — it is a good thing to be a ploughman. But to become an Author, is to poison the sacred draught of heaven, and to bring down Olympus in desolate ruins over the highway of life ! Under what stupendous dreams are all his hopes buried for ever ! To till the wholesome earth, and reap the tawny harvest of the year^ is a somewhat sturdy task " in the eye of Phoebus," and often felt to be a heavy manual toil : but it hath no certain heart-aches for its reward ; and is a blythe and jocund labour, compared with his, who through the painful day, and dead enduring night, struggles and yearns towards the goal of Immortality. The energies of his heart, are as the horses of the sun — his course around the vast empyrean, is at length accomplished— his reward, is squalid human misery ; with giant despair striding forwards in the clearing distance !

The labours of an Author are far more grievous than those attending the humblest occupations of mankind. The manufacturer, who sits at his Ixionlike task, from twelve to sixteen hours a day, never began with the hopes of an Author ; never had such prospects as his imagination has often shown him was his forthcoming reward. But fresh mountains rise at every eminence he has surmounted ; he finds that his capability, both natural and hard-earned, is a thing apart from ' the nick of time,' which gives success ; and beset with hydra-headed difficulties and opponents (besides being made the bye-word of all his acquaintance) the object ever seen, never reached, he thus grows grey and infirm. Such is his life ; he dies in penury and wretchedness ; and it is well if his wife and children do not have the horror of seeing his corpse seized by his matter-of-fact, lawful, respectable creditors, ' who have been too patient with him all along, or they would not have been placed in such a disagreeable situation ! '

The above is a bitter literal picture; and the trampled feelings and profound thoughts that may be said to constitute the foreground, are only compensated in the abstract, by the glorious edifice dimly seen in the hazy distance, with the possible apotheosis of its human architect. Humanity drops tears of blood over the obscure and lonely grave, where intellectual Passion lies cold and consumed away ; while slow in the ascendant majesty of time, the mighty Promethean shadow begins its resurrection towards sublime futurity !

An Author devotes the incessant efforts of his whole life, and amidst every worldly difficulty; either of which, commonly induces bodily sickness and premature infirmity ; in order to produce works of which the world reaps the benefit. The world's reply in return for this, is concise and conclusive — 6 Starve— rot — and we will feast upon your Remains r

To be banished or imprisoned, is among the lighter part of the hardships to which genius has ever been subject. Demosthenes, Cicero, Ovid, &c. were banished. The former was eventually driven to poison himself. How painful are the letters of Cicero to his family ! There is a passage in one of them, w r here he says, " I wish for nothing but to see you, and to expire in your arms, since both gods and men are equally insensible, and overlook all our services ; the former disregarding the purity of our reverence and adoration, the latter forgetting all that I have done for my country and fellow-citizens." — " I know not what condition you may be in; whether you have any means left, or are stript of everything * ! " He was finally condemned to death, and slaughtered while endeavouring to effect his escape. The above writers, however, more particularly Ovid, betrayed great weakness of character under their sufferings, and we would far rather allude to the towering conduct of Dante; who, when proposi-

* Letter to his wife Terentia, to Tullia and Cicero, his children.

tions were made for his return, with every worldly advantage, provided he would compromise his principles, disdainfully refused, sternly concluding his answer, with the hope that " in the mean time he should not want for bread."

66 Plautus, the comic poet, lived by turning a mill-wheel. Xelander sold, for a little broth, his Commentary upon Dion Cassius. Aldus Manutius was so poor that he was rendered insolvent, merely by the small sum he borrowed to enable him to transport his library from Venice to Rome. Sigismund Galenius, John Bodinus, Lelio Giraldo, Ludovico Castelvetro, Archbishop Usher, and a multitude of other learned men, died in poverty. And how melancholy is it to see Cardinal Bentivoglio, the ornament of Italy and the belles lettres, and the benefactor of the poor, after so many important services rendered to the public by his embassies and his writings, languishing in poverty in his old age, selling his palace to pay his debts, and dying without leaving wherewithal to bury him # ! "

We have presumed to honour our pages by placing this nobleman's head in the frontispiece.

Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastile, where he wrote the greater part of the Henriade. Being rich by his own private property, something more efficient than neglect or ridicule was requisite for his many persecutions. Although Corneille met with considerable reward for his writings, he died in distress. Rousseau fared much worse; and Vaugelas, the elegant scholar, left his corpse to be dissected, for the benefit of his creditors ! In Spain, there has been abundance of cruel instances. It is true we cannot include Garcilaso, or Ancillia — both noblemen ; nor Lopez de Vega — a man of rank; nor Calderon — why not? — he possessed some fine church livings. All the principal historians &c, were Jesuits ; and most of them 6 padres maistres.'* In modern times, the patronage of the 'literatos,' is chiefly confined to the ecclesiastics. As to Germany, we shall content ourselves with quoting Weisser's epigram, On the suppression of Mendicity. Literally rendered thus :

How cruel it is of thee, Germany,

To forbid begging among thy people :

Thus thou surely takest away from thy best heads,

The last means of obtaining food * !

Yet, although there are but too many instances in France during its earlier period of literature, they may almost be suffered to pass as melancholy exceptions, when compared with the undeviating rule that has been observed in England ! Oh, favoured island of intellectual glory, to whom have you chiefly owed your superiority over other nations ? — and how has your gratitude been manifested ? What has been the life and death of your greatest men ?

Stowe, the learned antiquary and chronicler, after passing a life of extraordinary labour amidst worldly privations, when in his eightieth year, petitioned James the First for a licence to collect alms. He received a grant, giving him permission to do so during one twelvemonth ! The unfortunate old man gained so trifling a sum, that he obtained an extension of the period to a second

twelvemonth ! In the first grant, the King may be taxed with cruel meanness, or brute insensibility ; but the second, looks like " malice prepense !" De Lolme's fine work on the English Constitution found no encouragement, either from booksellers, or, when it was eventually printed, from the public. Its author was frequently imprisoned for debt. The same neglect attended Drayton's Polyolbion. Raleigh's History of the World was written during his many years of confinement. Runyan wrote his Pilgrim's Progress in a similar situation. De Foe was imprisoned in Newgate for some political treatise. Rushworth, after receiving the thanks of the King, on his restoration, died of a broken heart in the King's Rench, " having neglected his own affairs for his Historical Collections."

" Evil is the condition," says Ockley, the orientalist, while imprisoned for debt, " of that historian who undertakes to write the lives of others before he knows how to live himself ! " Ockley bore his hard lot, however, with noble philosophy. He died in debt, and left his family in great distress. Yet this was the man whose fine enthusiasm was such, that, speaking of the Persian language, he exclaims, " How often have I endeavoured to perfect myself in that language, but my malignant and envious stars still frustrated my attempts ; but they shall sooner alter their courses than extinguish my resolution of quenching that thirst, which the little I have had of it hath already excited ! " A sentiment that must have made the soul of Zoroaster yearn to rise from the womb of ages to assist him.

A detailed account of nearly all the above benefactors of our ungrateful England will be found in Mr. D'Israeli's " Calamities of Authors # ." Two entire volumes are filled with these histories of undeserved wretchedness, and all of modern times, and in our own country ! He might have filled more than double that number, with the same limitations of time and place; nor would the instances and information be very difficult to obtain ; but how many volumes would it occupy if we could give an account, however brief, of all those whose sufferings have never come to light ?

* A fresh edition of this work is greatly wanted, as it has become scarce, and difficult to be purchased.

We extract this harrowing letter from the same work. It is enough to appal any young poet who has not quite lost his reason in his rhymes. It was written by a young gentleman named Pattison.

" Sir,

" If you were ever touched with a sense

of humanity, consider my condition ; what I am,

my proposals will inform you ; what I have been,

Sydney College in Cambridge can witness ; but

what I shall be some few hours hence, I tremble

to think — spare my blushes — I have not enjoyed

the common necessaries of life for these two days,

and can hardly hold to subscribe myself,

" Yours, &c.*"

Not enjoyed the common necessaries of life !

The following extracts are taken at random from the Index; the whole of which ought to be engraved on a brazen obelisk, and set up in Westminster Abbey, by way of antithesis to the monuments !

* D'Israeli. The Despair of Young Poets.

u Collins, publishes his Odes without success, and afterwards indignantly burns the edition. — Cowley, his remarkable lamentation for having written poetry . — Dryden, in his old age, complains of dying of over-study ; regrets he was born among Englishmen. — Grainger's complaint of not receiving half the pay of a scavenger! — Hume, his literary life how mortified with disappointments; wished to change his name, and his country. — Logan, the history of his literary disappointments ; dies broken-hearted. — Milton, more esteemed" (in the first instance) " by foreigners than at home. — Prior, felicitated himself that his natural inclination for poetry had been checked. — Sale, the learned, often wanted a meal while translating the Koran. — Selden, compelled to recant his opinions, and not suffered to reply to his calumniators. — Smollet, confesses the incredible labour and chagrin he had endured as an author ! —Stowe, the chronicler, petitions to be a licensed beggar ! &c. &c."

Independent of the crowd of melancholy chronicles, there are few persons who have had a general literary acquaintance, under whose actual observavation, various instances must not have come but too palpably. We once called upon an Author, a scholar and a man of science, (one who has been of much

service to Sir R. P ,) who was busily employed,

in translating a Greek work in one room, while his wife was equally so at the washing-tub, in the other. The door was half open, and it was impossible to affect unconsciousness. " You see," said he with a smile, that was only of the features, and without any illumination from the heart ; " you see what it is to be an Author ! Fortunate are those who never feel ' a call' — so very few are chosen." This is true enough ; and would be right enough also, did we not know that merit has nothing to do with the choice, until you are chosen ; that is u in vogue. " We once knew an author, whose genius has since been admitted by the rt fit few," who being unable to afford pens, had recourse to a substitute too painfully ridiculous to be mentioned, and * manufactured, " as he said, " half a dozen very decent tools !" He was not, however, quite so wretchedly circumstanced as poor Savage, who wrote at intervals the greater part of his play of " Sir Thomas Overbury," when he was without lodgings, wandering about the streets, picking up bits of blank paper, and then stepping into some shop to beg the use of a pen and ink, to write down the last speech he had composed. This we learn from Dr. Johnson, who was personally intimate with him : and the Doctor himself, always poor, had once been in circumstances almost as distressing ; for we find that they often wandered together whole nights about the streets, having no money to procure lodgings * !

The brief and obscure life of Richard Ayton, author of " Essays and Sketches of Character, &c," (Taylor and Hessey, 1825,) is one of those things which comes over the mind with the same feeling as a pathetic private recollection. He died in Warren- Street, Tottenham Court Road, in great distress, at the age of thirty-seven. Those who read the above Essays, which possess all the irresistible charm of the amiable Goldsmith, with a far deeper

* Biographia Dramatica.

understanding, and an original vein of wit, highly graphic, yet luminous to the subject, must be interested in the man as much as they are delighted with the book ; the surest sign of the goodness of the writer's heart. And when we consider the painful circumstances of his life, and premature descent into the cold and lonely grave^ with the unjust oblivion to which the world has consigned him, we cannot but revert to his character as to that of some dear companion of former years, whose familiar intercourse had been a charm, and is now a loss never to be supplied, and drop a tear to the memory of Richard Ayton.

The instances have become so multiplied, nay, universal, that they cease, in most cases, to have a legitimate effect upon the hearers. The imagina* tion is forestalled by the literal, common-place facts, and the sympathy turns by re-action to disgust, from provocation at the reiterated, never- satisfied tax upon sensibility. The sum-total seems " ad infinitum,'' and we are quite tired of the story. Upon any fresh instance coming to light, folks now say with a peevish sigh, ' They have all met with

c the same f or reply to the tale of woe, with a conclusive reasoning, like that we use when a child hurts itself, who was repeatedly " warned not to do so," — 6 Then they should not have been Authors." In other words, c if they cannot bear to be flayed alive, they should not be eels. It was what they had to expect, and there is no help for it, but their getting used to it V

This is sorry jesting; and, what is worse, it seems all that is left us. The evil has continued for generations. But it is not a necessary one ; and a strenuous perseverance in efforts directed to a practical result, may not be altogether fruitless.

Let us enter more fully into the facts of the subject.

There is scarcely a " stock-book" in the libraries of all the booksellers, that was not refused in the first instance by the Publishers ! This fate has continually attended every great work, and every original one ; except the author possessed a previous reputation, much wealth, or extraordinary interest. All really great works have been looked upon as unintelligible lumber, and after performing a painful campaign, have returned to the author's hands to await the advent of the uncertain "hour ;" and with really original ones, the immediate antipathy has manifested itself to a degree approaching the ludicrous. The wittiest and most entertaining books, whose moral tendency is as sound and beneficial, as their humour is rich and refreshing to the dull monotony of every-day occurrences, were in the first instance, kicked out of every publisher's shop in town, as though they (the books) had been impertinencies ; while those of an impassioned character have always been " packed off" with a precipitation resembling that of firemen getting combustibles out of a warehouse. The eloquent Burke ' obtained no fame by any of his fine works, till he chanced to take up a popular topic on the right side of court patronage. Notwithstanding the genius of Byron, seconded by the far more advantageous introduction of rank and fortune, his success was not gained without a violent struggle. How would his Lordship have fared as an obscure individual ? If Constable had not been an exception to the race of publishers, Scott's novels would probably have run

c2 the gauntlet through all the trade. A contingency may give speedy popularity to a man of genius, who otherwise might have found a premature grave, after the melancholy manner of Otway, Chatterton, Burns, Logan, Pattison, Carey, White, Keats, Ayton, Fletcher, &c. &c. &c.