The literary character

Author's Preface

The following Preface was prefixed to an Edition of the author's Miscellaneous Works in 1840. They were comprised in a thick 8vo volume, and included the Calamities and Quarrels of Authors, now published separately. This Preface is of interest for the expression of the author's own view of these works.

This volume comprises my writings on subjects chiefly of our vernacular literature. Now collected together, they offer an unity of design, and afford to the general reader and to the student of classical antiquity some initiation into our national Literature. It is presumed also, that they present materials for thinking not solely on literary topics ; authors and books are not alone here treated of, — a comprehensive view of human nature necessarily enters into the subject from the diversity of the characters portrayed, through the gradations of their faculties, the influence of their tastes, and those incidents of their lives prompted by their fortunes or their passions. This present volume, with its brother " Curiosities of Liteeattjee," now constitute a body of reading which may awaken knowledge in minds only seeking amusement, and refresh the deeper studies of the learned by matters not unworthy of their curiosity.

The Liteeaey Chaeaotee has been an old favourite with many of my contemporaries departed or now living, who have found it respond to their own emotions.

The Miscellanies are literary amenities, should they be found to deserve the title, constructed on that principle early adopted by me, of interspersing facts with speculation.

The Inqtjiey into the Liteeaey and Political Character of James the Fiest has surely corrected some general misconceptions, and thrown light on some obscure points in thj«story of that anomalous personage. It is a satisfaction to^me to observe, since the publication of this tract, that while some competent judges have considered the " evidence irresistible," a material change has occurred in the tone of most writers.

4 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The subject presented an occasion to exhibit a minute picture of that age of transition in our national history.

The* titles of Calamities of Authors and Quarrels of Authors do not wholly designate the works, which include a considerable portion of literary history.

Public favour has encouraged the republication of these various works, which often referred to, have long been difficult to procure. It has been deferred from time to time with the intention of giving the subjects a more enlarged investigation ; but I have delayed the task till it cannot bo performed. One of the Calamities of Authors falls to my lot, the delicate organ of vision with me lias suffered a singular disorder,* — a disorder which no oculist by his touch can heal, and no physician by his experience can expound ; so much remains concerning the frame of man un revealed to man !

In the midst of my library I am as it were distant from it. My unfinished labours, frustrated designs, remain paralysed. In a joyous heat I wander no longer through the wide circuit before me. The " strucken deer " has the sad privilege to weep when he lies down, perhaps no more to course amid those fardistant woods where once he sought to range.

Although thus compelled to refrain in a great measure from all mental labour, and incapacitated from the use of the pen and the book, these works, notwithstanding, have received many important corrections, having been read over to me with critical precision.

Amid this partial darkness I am not left without a distant hope, nor a present consolation ; and to Her who has so often lent to me the light of her eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful work of her hand, the author must ever owe "the debt immense" of paternal gratitude.

London,. May, 1840.

* I record my literary calamity as a warning to my sedentary brothers. When my eyes dwell on any object, or. whenever they are closed, there appear on a bluish film a number of mathematical squares, which are the reflection of the fine network of the retina, succeeded by blotches which subside into printed characters, apparently forming distinct words, arranged in straight lines as in a printed book ; the monosyllables are often legible. This is the process of a few seconds. It is remarkable that the usual power of the eyo is not injured or diminished for distant objects, while those near are clouded over.

Contents

LITERARY CHARACTER.

Chapter I. Pact

Of literary characters, and of the lovers of literature and art . . 23

Chapter II

Of the adversaries of literary men among themselves. — Matter-offact men, and men of wit. — The political economists. — Of those who abandon their studies. — Men in office. — The arbiters of public opinion. — Those who treat the pursuits of literature with levity 27

Chapter III

Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius. — Their habits and pursuits analogous. — The nature of their genius is similar in their distinct works. — Shown by their parallel eras, and by a common end pursued by both . . * . . .35

CHAPTER IT.

Of natural genius. — Minds constitutionally different cannot have an equal aptitude. — Genius not the result of habit and education. — Originates in peculiar qualities of the mind. — The predisposition of genius. — A substitution for the white paper of Locke 39

Chapter V

South of genius. — Its first impulses may be illustrated by its subsequent actions. — Parents have another association of the man of genius than we. — Of genius, its first habits. — Its melan-

PAOB

choly. — Its reveries. — Its love of solitude. — Its disposition to repose. — Of a youth distinguished by his equals. — Feebleness of its first attempts. — Of genius not discoverable even in manhood. — The education of the youth may not be that of his genius. — An unsettled impulse, querulous till it finds its true occupation. — With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as invention. — What the youth first applies to is commonly his delight afterwards. — Facts of the decisive character of genius 48

Chapter VI

The first studies. — The self-educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities. — Their errors. — Their improvement from the neglect or contempt they incur. — The history of self-education in Moses Mendelssohn. — Friends usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. — A remarkable interview between Petrarch in his first studies, and his literary adviser. — Exhortation . .79

CHAPTER VH.

Of the irritability of genius.— Genius in society often in a state of suffering. — Equality of temper more prevalent among men of letters. — Of the occupation of making a great name. — Anxieties of the most successful. — Of the inventors. — Writers of learning. — Writers of taste. — Artists 98

Chapter VIII

The spirit of literature and the spirit of society. — The inventors. — Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius. — The notions of persons of fashion of men of genius. — The habitudes of the man of genius distinct from those of the man of society. — Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, the progress of genius. — The disagreement between the men of the world and the literary character 123

Chapter IX

Conversations of men of genius. — Their deficient agreeableness may result from qualities which conduce to their greatness. — Slow-minded men not the dullest. — The conversationists not the ablest writers. — Their true excellence in conversation consists of associations with their pursuits .... 136

Chapter X. Page

Literary solitude. — Its necessity. — Its pleasures. — Of visitors by profession. — Its inconveniences 149

Chapter XI

The meditations of genius. — A work on the art of meditation not yet produced. — Predisposing the mind.— Imagination awakens imagination. — G-enerating feelings by music. — Slight habits. — Darkness and silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of our conceptions. — The arts of memory. — Memory the foundation of genius. — Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literary character. — And to assist their studies. — The meditations of genius depend on habit. — Of the night-time. — A day of meditation should precede a day of composition. — "Works of magnitude from slight conceptions. — Of thoughts never written. — The art of meditation exercised at all hours and places. — Continuity of attention the source of philosophical discoveries. — Stillness of meditation the first state of existence in genius 157

CHAPTER XIL

The enthusiasm of genius. — A state of mind resembling a waking dream distinct from reverie. — The ideal presence distinguished from the real presence. — The senses are really affected in the ideal world, proved by a variety of instances. — Of the rapture or sensation of deep study in art, science, and literature. — Of perturbed feelings, in delirium.— In extreme endurance of attention. — And in visionary illusions. — Enthusiasts in literature and art. — Of their self-immolations 183

Chapter XIII

Of the jealousy of genius. — Jealousy often proportioned to the degree of genius. — A perpetual fever among authors and artists. — Instances of its incredible excess among brothers and benefactors. — Of a peculiar species, where the fever consumes the sufferer, without its malignancy 207

Chapter XIV

pag a Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates in a deficiency of analogous ideas. — It is not always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other .213

Chapter XV

Self-praise of genius. — The love of praise instinctive in the nature of genius. — A high opinion of themselves necessary for their great designs. — The ancients openly claimed their own praise. — And several moderns. — An author knows more of his merits

. than his readers. — And less of his defects. — Authors versatile in their admiration and their malignity 217

Chapter XVI

The domestic life of genius. — Defects of great compositions attributed to domestic infelicities. — The home of the literary character should be the abode of repose and silence. — Of the father. — Of the mother. — Of family genius. — Men of genius not more respected than other men in their domestic circle. — The cultivators of science and art do not meet on equal terms with others, in domestic life. — Their neglect of those around them. — Often accused of imaginary crimes 231

Chapter XVII

The poverty of literary men. — Poverty, a relative quality. — Of the poverty of literary men in what degree desirable. — Extreme poverty. — Task-work. — Of gratuitous works. — A project to provide against the worst state of poverty among literary men . 247

Chapter XVIII

The matrimonial state of literature. — Matrimony said not to be well-suited to the domestic life of genius. — Celibacy a concealed cause of the early querulousness of men of genius. — Of unhappy unions. — Not absolutely necessary that the wife should be a literary woman. — Of the docility and susceptibility of the higher female character. — A picture of a literary wife . . .262

Chapter XIX. Page

Literary friendships.— In early life. — Different from those of men of the i orld. — They suffer an unrestrained communication of their ideas, and bear reprimands and exhortations. — Unity of feelings. — A sympathy not of manners but of feelings. — Admit of dissimilar characters. — Their peculiar glory. — Their sorrow. 276

Chapter XX

The literary and the personal character. — The personal dispositions of an author may be the reverse of those which appear in his writings. — Erroneous conceptions of the character of distant authors. — Paradoxical appearances in the history of genius. — "Why the character of the man may be opposite to that of his writings 287

Chapter XXI

The man of letters. — Occupies an intermediate station between authors and readers. — His solitude described. — Often the father of genius. — Atticus, a man of letters of antiquity. — The perfect character of a modern man of letters exhibited in Peiresc. — Their utility to authors and artists 298

Chapter XXII

Literary old age still learning. — Influence of late studies in life. — Occupations in advanced age of the literary character. — Of literary men who have died at their studies . . . .313

CHAPTER XXHI.

Universality of genius. — Limited notion of genius entertained by the ancients. — Opposite faculties act with diminished force. — Men of genius excel only in a single art . . . . .320

Chapter XXIV

Literature an avenue to glory. — An intellectual nobility not chimerical, but created by public opinion. — Literary honours of various nations. — Local associations with the memory of the man of genius 326

Chapter XXV. Paob

Influence of authors on societj', and of society on authors. — National tastes a source of literary prejudices. — True genius always the organ of its nation. — Master-writers preserve the distinct national character. — Genius the organ of the state of the age. — Causes of its suppression in a people. — Often invented, but neglected. — The natural gradations of genius. — Men of genius produce their usefulness in privacy. — The public mind is now the creation of the public writer. — Politicians affect to deny this principle. — Authors stand between the governors and the governed. — A view of the solitary author in his study. — They create an epoch in history. — Influence of popular authors. — The immortality of thought. — The family of genius illustrated by their genealogy 339

LITERARY MISCELLANIES.

Miscellanists 367

Style 380

Goldsmith and Johnson 383

Self-characters 385

On habituating ourselves to an individual pursuit . * . . 394

On novelty in literature 397

Yers de Societe 401

The sensibility of Racine 424

Of voluminous works incomplete by the deaths of the authors 456

Of domestic novelties at first condemned* 462

Domesticity; or, a dissertation on servants .... 474 Printed letters in the vernacular idiom 487

CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST.

Advertisement • 495

Of the first modem assailants of the character of James I., Burnet,

Bolingbroke and Pope, Harris, Macaulay, and Walpole 499

His pedantry 501

His polemical studies 503

how these were political 506

Of some of his writings 514

Popular superstition of the age 516

The King's habits of life those of a man of letters 519

Of the facility and copiousness of his composition 522

Of his eloquence 523

Of his wit 524

Specimens of his humour, and observations on human life 525

Some evidences of his sagacity in the discovery of truth 530

Of his " Basilicon Doron" 533

Of his idea of a tyrant and a King 534

Advice to Prince Henry in the choice of his servants and associates 536

Describes the Eevolutionists of his time 537

Of the nobility of Scotland 538

Of colonising „ 539

Of merchants 539

Eegulations for the Prince's manners and habits 540

Of his idea of the royal prerogative 543

The lawyers' idea of the same 544

Of his elevated conception of the kingly character 548

His design in issuing "The Book of Sports " for the Sabbath-day 550

The Sabbatarian controversy 552

The motives of his aversion to war 555

James acknowledges his dependence on the Commons ; their conduct 556

Of certain scandalous chronicles 560

A picture of the age from a manuscript of the times 564

James I. discovers the disorders and discontents of a peace of

more than twenty years 578

The King's private life in his occasional retirements 580

A detection of the discrepancies of opinion among the decriers of

James 1 582

Summary of his character 587

THE

OR. THE

HISTORY. OF MEN OF GENIUS,

DRAWN FROM THEIR OWN FEELINGS AND CONFESSIONS.

TO

In dedicating this work to one of the most eminent literary characters of the age, I am experiencing a peculiar gratification, in which, few, perhaps none, of my contemporaries can participate ; "for I am addressing him, -whose earliest effusions attracted my regard, near half a century past ; and during that awful interval of time— for fifty years is a trial of life of whatever may be good in us— you have multiplied your talents, and have never lost a virtue.

When I turn from the uninterrupted studies of your domestic solitude to our metropolitan authors, the contrast, if not encouraging, is at least extraordinary. You are not unaware that the revolutions of Society have operated on our literature, and that new classes of readers have called forth new classes of writers. The causes and the consequences of the present state of this fugitive literature might form an inquiry which would include some of the important topics which concern the Public Mind— but an inquiry which might be invidious shall not disturb a page consecrated to the record of excellence. They who draw their inspiration from the hour must not, however, complain if with that hour they pass away.

I. DISRAELI.

March, 1839,

Preface

For the fifth time I revise a subject which has occupied my inquiries from early life, with feelings still delightful, and an enthusiasm not wholly diminished.

Had not the principle upon which this work is constructed occurred to me in my youth, the materials which illustrate the literary character could never have been brought together. It was in early life that I conceived the idea of pursuing the history of genius by the Similar events which had occurred to men of genius. Searching into literary history for the literary character formed a course of experimental philosophy in which every new essay verified a former trial, and confirmed a former truth. By the great philosophical principle of induction, inferences were deduced and results established, which, however vague and doubtful in speculation, are irresistible when the appeal is made to facts as they relate to others, and to feelings which must be decided on as they are passing in our own breast.

It is not to be inferred from what I have here stated that I conceive that any single man of genius will resemble every man of genius ; for not only man differs from man, but varies from himself in the different stages of human life. All that I assert is, that every man of genius will discover, sooner or later, that he belongs to the brotherhood of his class, and that he cannot escape from certain habits, and feelings, and disorders, which arise from the same temperament and sympathies, and are the necessary consequence of occupying the same position, and passing through the same moral existence. Whenever we compare men of genius with each other, the history of those who are no more will serve as a perpetual commentary on our contemporaries. There are, indeed, secret feelings which their prudence conceals, or their fears obscure, or their modesty shrinks from, or their pride rejects ; but I have sometimes imagined that I have held the clue as they have lost themselves in their own labyrinth. I know that many, and some of great celebrity, have sympathised with the feelings which inspired these volumes; nor, while I have elucidated the idiosyncrasy of genius, have I less studied the habits and characteristics of the lovers of literature.

It has been considered that the subject of this work might have been treated with more depth of metaphysical disquisition; and there has since appeared an attempt to combine with this investigation the medical science. A work, however, should be judged by its design, and its execution, and not by any preconceived notion of what it ought to be according to the critic, rather than the author. The nature of this work is dramatic rather than metaphysical. It offers a narration or a description ; a conversation or a monologue ; an incident or a scene.

Perhaps I have sometimes too warmly apologised for the infirmities of men of genius. From others we may hourly learn to treat with levity the man of genius because he is only such. Perhaps also I may have been too fond of the subject, which has been for me an old and a favourite one — I may have exalted the literary character beyond the scale by which society is willing to fix it. Yet what is this Society, so omnipotent, so all judicial ? The society of to-day was not the society of yesterday. Its feelings, its thoughts, its manners, its rights, its wishes, and its wants, are different and are changed : alike changed or alike created by those very literary characters whom it rarely comprehends and often would despise. Let us no longer look upon this retired and peculiar class as useless members of our busy race. There are mental as well as material labourers. The first are not less necessary ; and as they are much rarer, so are they more precious. These are they whose " published labours " have benefited mankind — these are they whose thoughts can alone rear that beautiful fabric of social life, which it is the object of all good men to elevate or to support. To discover truth and to maintain it, — to develope the powers, to regulate the passions, to ascertain the privileges of man, — such have ever been, and such ever ought to be, the labours of Authors ! Whatever we enjoy of political and private happiness, our most necessary knowledge as well as our most refined pleasures, are alike owing to this class of men ; and of these, some for glory, and often from benevolence, have shut themselves out from the very beings whom they love, and for whom they labour.

Upwards of forty years have elapsed since, composed in a distant county, and printed at a provincial press, I published u An Essay on the Manners and Genius of the Literary Character." To my own habitual and inherent defects were superadded those of my youth. The crude production was, however, not ill received, for the edition disappeared, and the subject was found more interesting than the writer.

During a long interval of twenty years, this little work was often recalled to my recollection by several, and by some who have since obtained celebrity. They imagined that their attachment to literary pursuits had been strengthened even by so weak an effort. An extraordinary circumstance concurred with these opinions. A copy accidentally fell into my hands which had formerly belonged to the great poetical genius of our times ; and the singular fact, that it had been more than once read by him, and twice in two subsequent years at Athens, in 1810 and 1811, instantly convinced me that the volume deserved my renewed attention.

It was with these feelings that I was again strongly at- " 2 tractcd to a subject from which, indeed, during the course of a studious life, it had never been long diverted. The consequence of my labours was the publication, in 1818, of an octavo volume, under the title of "The Literary Character, illustrated by the History of Men of Genius, drawn from their own feelings and confessions."

In the preface to this edition, in mentioning the fact respecting Lord Byron, which had been the immediate cause of its publication, I added these words : " I tell this fact assuredly not from any little vanity which it may appear to betray ; — for the truth is, were I not as liberal and as candid in respect to my own productions, as I hope I am to others, I could not have been gratified by the present circumstance ; for the marginal notes of the noble author convey no flattery ; — but amidst their pungency, and sometimes their truth, the circumstance that a man of genius could reperuse this slight effusion at two different periods of his life, was a sufficient authority, at least for an author, to return it once more to the anvil."

Some time after the publication of this edition of " The Literary Character," which was in fact a new work, I was shown, through the kindness of an English gentleman lately returned from Italy, a copy of it, which had been given to him by Lord Byron, and which again contained marginal notes by the noble author. These were peculiarly interesting, and were chiefly occasioned by observations on his character, which appeared in the work.

In 1822 I published a new edition of this work, greatly enlarged, and in two volumes. I took this opportunity of inserting the manuscript Notes of Lord Byron, with the exception of one, which, however characteristic of the amiable feelings of the noble poet, and however gratifying to my own, I had no wish to obtrude on the notice of the public*

* As everything connected with the reading of a mind like Lord Byron's is interesting to the philosophical inquirer, this note may now be preserved. On

Soon after the publication of this third edition, I received the following letter from his lordship :

" Dear Sir, — If you will permit me to call you so, — I had some time ago taken up my pen at Pisa, to thank you for the present of your new edition of the * Literary Character,' which has often been to me a consolation, and always a pleasure. I was interrupted, however, partly by business, and partly by vexation of different kinds, — for I have not very long ago lost a child by fever, and I have had a good deal of petty trouble with the laws of this lawless country, on account of the prosecution of a servant for an attack upon a cowardly scoundrel of a dragoon, who drew his sword upon some unarmed Englishmen, and whom I had done the honour to mistake for an officer, and to treat like a gentleman. He turned out to be neither, — like many other with medals, and in uniform ; but he paid for his brutality with a severe and dangerous wound, inflicted by nobody knows whom, for, of three suspected, and two arrested, they have been able to identify neither; which is strange, since he was wounded in the presence of thousands, in a public street, during a feast-day and full promenade. But to return to things more analogous to the ' Literary Character,' I wish to say, that had I known that the book was to fall into your hands, or that the MS. notes you have thought worthy of publication would have attracted your attention, I would have made them more copious, and perhaps not so careless.

" I really cannot know whether I am, or am not, the genius you are pleased to call me, — but I am very willing to put up with the mistake, if it be one. It is a title dearly enough bought by most men, to render it endurable, even when not quite clearly made out, which it never can be, till the Posterity,

that passage of the Preface of the second Edition which I have already quoted, hia Lordship was thus pleased to write :

"I was wrong, but I was young and petulant, and probably wrote down any thing, little thinking that those observations would be betrayed to the author, whose abilities I have always respected, and whose works in general I have read oftener than perhaps those of any English author whatever, except such as treat of Turkey."

whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, have sanctioned or denied it, while it can touch us no further.

" Mr. Murray is in possession of a MS. memoir of mine (not to be published till I am in my grave), which, strange as it may seem, I never read over since it was written, and have no desire to read over again. In it I have told what, as far as I know, is the truth — not the whole truth — for if I had done so, I must have involved much private, and some dissipated history : but, nevertheless, nothing but truth, as far as regard for others permitted it to appear.

"I do not know whether you have seen those MSS. ; but, as you are curious in such things as relate to the human mind, I should feel gratified if you had. I also sent him (Murray), a few days since, a Common-place Book, by my friend Lord Clare, containing a few things, which may perhaps aid his publication in case of his surviving me. If there are any questions which you would like to ask me, as connected with your philosophy of the literary mind (i/mine be a literary mind), I will answer them fairly, or give a reason for not, good — bad — or indifferent. At present, I am paying the penalty of having helped to spoil the public taste ; for, as long as I wrote in the, false exaggerated style of youth, and the times in which we live, they applauded me to the very echo ; and within these few years, when I have endeavoured at better things, and written what I suspect to have the principle of duration in it: the Church, the Chancellor, and all men, even to my grand patron, Francis Jeffrey, Esq., of the Edinburgh Review, have risen up against me, and my later publications. Such is Truth ! men dare not look her in the face, except by degrees ; they mistake her for a Gorgon, instead of knowing her to be Minerva. I do not mean to apply this mythological simile to my own endeavours, but I have only to turn over a few pages of your volumes to find innumerable and far more illustrious instances. It is lucky that I am of a temper not to be easily turned aside, though by no means difficult to irritate. But I am making a dissertation, instead of writing a letter. I write to you from the Villa Dupuy, near Leghorn, with the islands of Elba and Corsica visible from my balcony, and my old friend the Mediterranean rolling blue at my feet. As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions, and resist or endure those of others.