Anecdotes about Authors, and Artists - John Timbs

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year 1788, when he was only fifteen years old, he actually made an almanack for the year 1790, containing all the usual tables, calculations of the eclipses, and other phenomena, and even the customary predictions of the weather.

      Bowditch was bred to the sea, and in his early voyages taught navigation to the common sailors about him. Captain Prince, with whom he often sailed, relates, that one day the supercargo of the vessel said to him, “Come, Captain, let us go forward and hear what the sailors are talking about under the lee of the long-boat.” They went forward accordingly, and the captain was surprised to find the sailors, instead of spinning their long yarns, earnestly engaged with book, slate, and pencil, discussing the high matters of tangents and secants, altitudes, dip, and refraction. Two of them, in particular, were very zealously disputing—one of them calling out to the other, “Well, Jack, what have you got?” “I’ve got the sine,” was the answer. “But that ain’t right,” said the other; “I say it is the cosine.”

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      This romance, on its first appearance, roused the attention of all the literary world of England, and even spread its writer’s name to the continent. The author—“wonder-working Lewis,” was a stripling under twenty when he wrote The Monk in the short space of ten weeks! Sir Walter Scott, probably the most rapid composer of fiction upon record, hardly exceeded this, even in his latter days, when his facility of writing was the greatest.

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      Thomson, the author of the “Seasons,” was a very awkward reader of his own productions. His patron, Doddington, once snatched a MS. from his hand, provoked by his odd utterance, telling him that he did not understand his own verses! A gentleman of Brentford, however, told the late Dr. Evans, in 1824, that there was a tradition in that town of Thomson frequenting one of the inns there, and reciting his poems to the company.

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      Goldsmith, during the first performance of this comedy, walked all the time in St. James’ Park in great uneasiness. Finally, when he thought that it must be over, hastening to the theatre, hisses assailed his ears as he entered the green-room. Asking in eager alarm of Colman the cause—“Pshaw, pshaw!” said Colman, “don’t be afraid of squibs, when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder for two hours.” The comedy had completely triumphed—the audience were only hissing the after farce. Goldsmith had some difficulty in getting the piece on the stage, as appears from the following letter to Colman:—“I entreat you’ll relieve me from that state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long time. Whatever objections you have made, or shall make, to my play, I will endeavour to remove, and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges either of its merits or faults, I can never submit to. Upon a former occasion, when my other play was before Mr. Garrick, he offered to bring me before Mr. Whitehead’s tribunal, but I refused the proposal with indignation. I hope I shall not experience as hard treatment from you, as from him. I have, as you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly; by accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that way; at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be prepared. For God’s sake take the play, and let us make the best of it; and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as bad plays as mine.”

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      Coleridge once dined in company with a person who listened to him, and said nothing for a long time; but he nodded his head, and Coleridge thought him intelligent. At length, towards the end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed on the table, and the listener had no sooner seen them than he burst forth, “Them’s the jockeys for me!” Coleridge adds: “I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow’s head.”

      Coleridge was very luminous in conversation, and invariably commanded listeners; yet the old lady rated his talent very lowly, when she declared she had no patience with a man who would have all the talk to himself.

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      When Dr. Chalmers first visited London, the hold that he took on the minds of men was unprecedented. It was a time of strong political feeling; but even that was unheeded, and all parties thronged to hear the Scottish preacher. The very best judges were not prepared for the display that they heard. Canning and Wilberforce went together, and got into a pew near the door. The elder in attendance stood alone by the pew. Chalmers began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice. “If this be all,” said Canning to his companion, “it will never do.” Chalmers went on—the shuffling of the conversation gradually subsided. He got into the mass of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy; and, bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, he poured forth a torrent of the most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of a whole life. “The tartan beats us,” said Mr. Canning; “we have no preaching like that in England.”

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      Hallam’s History of the Middle Ages was the last book of any importance read by Sir Samuel Romilly. Of this excellent work he formed the highest opinion, and recommended its immediate perusal to Lord Brougham, as a contrast to his dry Letter on the Abuses of Charities, in respect of the universal interest of the subject. Yet, Sir Samuel undervalued the Letter, for it ran through eight editions in one month.

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      It is remarkable, (says Bulwer, in his Zanoni,) that most of the principal actors of the French Revolution were singularly hideous in appearance—from the colossal ugliness of Mirabeau and Danton, or the villanous ferocity in the countenances of David and Simon, to the filthy squalor of Marat, and the sinister and bilious meanness of the Dictator’s features. But Robespierre, who was said to resemble a cat, and had also a cat’s cleanliness, was prim and dainty in dress, shaven smoothness, and the womanly whiteness of his hands. Réné Dumas, born of reputable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more acceptable to the precise Robespierre. Dumas was a beau in his way: his gala-dress was a blood-red coat, with the finest ruffles. But Henriot had been a lacquey, a thief, a spy of the police; he had drank the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and had risen for no quality but his ruffianism; and Fouquier Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and afterwards a clerk at the bureau of the police, was little less base in his manners, and yet more, from a certain loathsome buffoonery, revolting in his speech; bull-headed, with black, sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, and small eyes that twinkled

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