Anecdotes about Authors, and Artists - John Timbs

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arguments behind them, suddenly found themselves in presence of a most brilliant star-light night. They all looked up. “Now,” thought Hunt, “Carlyle’s done for!—he can have no answer to that!” “There!” shouted Hunt, “look up there! look at that glorious harmony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal song of hope in the soul of man.” Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to hear what he would say. They began to think he was silenced at last—he was a mortal man. But out of that silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent. And who, on earth, could have anticipated what the voice said? “Eh! it’s a sad sight!”—— Hunt sat down on a stone step. They all laughed—then looked very thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up to the influence? Again they laughed—then bade each other good night, and betook themselves homeward with slow and serious pace. There might be some reason for sadness, too. That brilliant firmament probably contained infinite worlds, each full of struggling and suffering beings—of beings who had to die—for life in the stars implies that those bright worlds should also be full of graves; but all that life, like ours, knowing not whence it came, nor whither it goeth, and the brilliant Universe in its great Movement having, perhaps, no more certain knowledge of itself, nor of its ultimate destination, than hath one of the suffering specks that compose this small spot we inherit.

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      Johnson, the publisher in St. Paul’s Churchyard, obtained the copyright of Cowper’s Poems, which proved a great source of profit to him, in the following manner:—One evening, a relation of Cowper’s called upon Johnson with a portion of the MS. poems, which he offered for publication, provided Johnson would publish them at his own risk, and allow the author to have a few copies to give to his friends. Johnson read the poems, approved of them, and accordingly published them. Soon after they had appeared, there was scarcely a reviewer who did not load them with the most scurrilous abuse, and condemn them to the butter shops; and the public taste being thus terrified or misled, these charming effusions stood in the corner of the publisher’s shop as an unsaleable pile for a long time.

      At length, Cowper’s relation called upon Johnson with another bundle of the poet’s MS., which was offered and accepted upon the same terms as before. In this fresh collection was the poem of the “Task.” Not alarmed at the fate of the former publication, but thoroughly assured of the great merit of the poems, they were published. The tone of the reviewers became changed, and Cowper was hailed as the first poet of the age. The success of this second publication set the first in motion. Johnson immediately reaped the fruits of his undaunted judgment; and Cowper’s poems enriched the publisher, when the poet was in languishing circumstances. In October, 1812, the copyright of Cowper’s poems was put up to sale among the London booksellers, in thirty-two shares. Twenty of the shares were sold at 212l. each. The work, consisting of two octavo volumes, was satisfactorily proved at the sale to net 834l. per annum. It had only two years of copyright; yet this same copyright produced the sum of 6764l.

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      Thomas Warton, in his Account of Oxford, relates that at the sign of Whittington and his Cat, the laborious antiquary, Thomas Hearne, “one evening suffered himself to be overtaken in liquor. But, it should be remembered, that this accident was more owing to his love of antiquity than of ale. It happened that the kitchen where he and his companion were sitting was neatly paved with sheep’s trotters disposed in various compartments. After one pipe, Mr. Hearne, consistently with his usual gravity and sobriety, rose to depart; but his friend, who was inclined to enjoy more of his company, artfully observed, that the floor on which they were then sitting was no less than an original tesselated Roman pavement. Out of respect to classic ground, and on recollection that the Stunsfield Roman pavement, on which he had just published a dissertation, was dedicated to Bacchus, our antiquary cheerfully complied; an enthusiastic transport seized his imagination; he fell on his knees and kissed the sacred earth, on which, in a few hours, and after a few tankards, by a sort of sympathetic attraction, he was obliged to repose for some part of the evening. His friend was, probably, in the same condition; but two printers accidentally coming in, conducted Mr. Hearne, between them, to Edmund’s Hall, with much state and solemnity.”

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      Sheridan’s wit was eminently brilliant, and almost always successful; it was, like all his speaking, exceedingly prepared, but it was skilfully introduced and happily applied; and it was well mingled, also, with humour, occasionally descending to farce. How little it was the inspiration of the moment all men were aware who knew his habits; but a singular proof of this was presented to Mr. Moore, when he came to write his life; for we there find given to the world, with a frankness which must have almost made their author shake in his grave, the secret note-books of this famous wit; and are thus enabled to trace the jokes, in embryo, with which he had so often made the walls of St. Stephen’s shake, in a merriment excited by the happy appearance of sudden unpremeditated effusion.—Lord Brougham.

      Take an instance from this author, giving extracts from the common-place book of the wit:—“He employs his fancy in his narrative, and keeps his recollections for his wit.” Again, the same idea is expanded into “When he makes his jokes, you applaud the accuracy of his memory, and ’tis only when he states his facts that you admire the flights of his imagination.” But the thought was too good to be thus wasted on the desert air of a common-place book. So, forth it came, at the expense of Kelly, who, having been a composer of music, became a wine-merchant. “You will,” said the ready wit, “import your music and compose your wine.” Nor was this service exacted from the old idea thought sufficient; so, in the House of Commons, an easy and, apparently, off-hand parenthesis was thus filled with it, at Mr. Dundas’s cost and charge, “who generally resorts to his memory for his jokes, and to his imagination for his facts.”

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      This man of genius among trading authors, before he began his History of England, wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, then in the Whig Administration, offering, if the Earl would procure for his work the patronage of the Government, he would accommodate his politics to the Ministry; but if not, that he had high promises of support from the other party. Lord Shelburne, of course, treated the proffered support of a writer of such accommodating principles with contempt; and the work of Smollett, accordingly, became distinguished for its high Toryism. The history was published in sixpenny weekly numbers, of which 20,000 copies were sold immediately. This extraordinary popularity was created by the artifice of the publisher. He is stated to have addressed a packet of the specimens of the publication to every parish-clerk in England, carriage-free, with half-a-crown enclosed as a compliment, to have them distributed through the pews of the church: this being generally done, many people read the specimens instead of listening to the sermon, and the result was an universal demand for the work.

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      The transcript of Magna Charta, now in the British Museum, was discovered by Sir Robert Cotton in the possession of his tailor, who was just about to cut the precious document out into “measures” for his customers. Sir Robert redeemed the valuable curiosity at the price of old parchment, and thus recovered what had long been supposed to be irretrievably lost.

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