INTERCHAPTER VII.
OBSOLETE ANTICIPATIONS; BEING A LEAF OUT OF AN OLD ALMANACK, WHICH LIKE OTHER OLD ALMANACKS THOUGH OUT OF DATE IS NOT OUT OF USE.
If
You play before me, I shall often look on you,
I give you that warning before hand.
Take it not ill, my masters, I shall laugh at you,
And truly when I am least offended with you;
It is my humour.
MIDDLETON.
When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, “by reading one book;” “meaning,” says Bishop Taylor, “that an understanding entertained with several objects is intent upon neither, and profits not.” Lord Holland's poet, the prolific Lope de Vega tells us to the same purport;
Que es estudiante notable
El que lo es de un libro solo.
Que quando no estavan llenos
De tantos libros agenos,
Como van dexando atras,
Sabian los hombres mas
Porque estudiavan en menos.
The homo unius libri is indeed proverbially formidable to all conversational figurantes. Like your sharp shooter, he knows his piece perfectly, and is sure of his shot. I would therefore modestly insinuate to the reader what infinite advantages would be possessed by that fortunate person who shall be the homo hujus libri.
According to the Lawyers the King's eldest son is for certain purposes of full age as soon as he is born,—great being the mysteries of Law! I will not assume that in like manner hic liber is at once to acquire maturity of fame; for fame, like the oak, is not the product of a single generation; and a new book in its reputation is but as an acorn, the full growth of which can be known only by posterity. The Doctor will not make so great a sensation upon its first appearance as Mr. Southey's Wat Tyler, or the first two Cantos of Don Juan; still less will it be talked of so universally as the murder of Mr. Weire. Talked of however it will be, widely, largely, loudly and lengthily talked of: lauded and vituperated, vilified and extolled, heartily abused, and no less heartily admired.
Thus much is quite certain; that before it has been published a week, eight persons will be named as having written it: and these eight positive lies will be affirmed each as positive truths on positive knowledge.
Within the month Mr. Woodbee will write to one Marquis, one Earl, two Bishops, and two Reviewers-Major assuring them that he is not the Author. Mr. Sligo will cautiously avoid making any such declaration, and will take occasion significantly to remark upon the exceeding impropriety of saying to any person that a work which has been published anonymously is supposed to be his. He will observe also that it is altogether unwarrantable to ask any one under such circumstances whether the report be true. Mr. Blueman's opinion of the book will be asked by four and twenty female correspondents, all of the order of the stocking.
Professor Wilson will give it his hearty praise. Sir Walter Scott will deny that he has any hand in it. Mr. Coleridge will smile if he is asked the question. If it be proposed to Sir Humphrey Davy he will smile too, and perhaps blush also. The Laureate will observe a careless silence; Mr. Wordsworth a dignified one. And Professor Porson, if he were not gone where his Greek is of no use to him, would accept credit for it, though he would not claim it.
The Opium-Eater while he peruses it, will doubt whether there is a book in his hand, or whether he be not in a dream of intellectual delight.
“My little more than nothing” Jeffrey the second,—(for of the small Jeffreys Jeffrey Hudson must always be the first)—will look less when he pops upon his own name in its pages. Sir Jeffrey Dunstan is Jeffrey the third: he must have been placed second in right of seniority, had it not been for the profound respect with which I regard the University of Glasgow. The Rector of Glasgow takes precedence of the Mayor of Garratt.
And what will the Reviewers do? I speak not of those who come to their office, (for such there are, though few,) like Judges to the bench, stored with all competent knowledge and in an equitable mind; prejudging nothing, however much they may foreknow; and who give their sentence without regard to persons, upon the merits of the case;—but the aspirants and wranglers at the bar, the dribblers and the spit-fires, (there are of both sorts;)—the puppies who bite for the pleasure which they feel in exercising their teeth, and the dogs whose gratification consists in their knowledge of the pain and injury that they inflict;—the creepers of literature, who suck their food like the ivy from what they strangulate and kill; they who have a party to serve, or an opponent to run down; what opinion will they pronounce in their utter ignorance of the author? They cannot play without a bias in their bowls!—Aye, there's the rub!
Ha ha, ha ha! this World doth pass
Most merrily, I'll be sworn,
For many an honest Indian Ass
Goes for a Unicorn.
Farra diddle dyno,
This is idle fyno!
Tygh hygh, tygh hygh! O sweet delight!
He tickles this age that can
Call Tullia's ape a marmasite,
And Leda's goose a swan.1
1 BRITISH BIBLIOGRAPHER.
Then the discussion that this book will excite among blue stockings, and blue beards! The stir! the buzz! the bustle! The talk at tea tables in the country and conversazione in town,—in Mr. Murray's room, at Mr. Longman's dinners, in Mr. Hatchard's shop,—at the Royal Institution,—at the Alfred, at the Admiralty, at Holland House!—Have you seen it?—Do you understand it? Are you not disgusted with it?—Are you not provoked at it?—Are you not delighted with it? Whose is it? Whose can it be?
Is it Walter Scott's?—There is no Scotch in the book,—and that hand is never to be mistaken in its masterly strokes.—Is it Lord Byron's?—Lord Byron's! Why the Author fears God, honours the King, and loves his country and his kind. Is it by Little Moore?—If it were we should have sentimental lewdness, Irish patriotism which is something very like British treason, and a plentiful spicing of personal insults to the Prince Regent. Is it the Laureate?—He lies buried under his own historical quartos! There is neither his mannerism, nor his moralism, nor his methodism. Is it Wordsworth?—What,—an Elephant cutting capers on the slack wire!—Is it Coleridge?—The method indeed of the book might lead to such a suspicion,—but then it is intelligible throughout. Mr. A——?—there is Latin in it. Mr. B——?—there is Greek in it. Mr. C——?—it is written in good English. Mr. Hazlitt? It contains no panegyric upon Bonaparte; no imitations of Charles Lamb; no plagiarisms from Mr. Coleridge's conversation; no abuse of that gentleman, Mr. Southey and Mr. Wordsworth,—and no repetitions of himself. Certainly therefore it is not Mr. Hazlitt's.
Is it Charles Lamb?
Baa! Baa! good Sheep, have you any wool?
Yes marry, that I have, three bags full.
Good Sheep I write here, in emendation of the nursery song; because nobody ought to call this Lamb a black one.
Comes it from the Admiralty? There indeed wit enough might be found and acuteness enough, and enough of sagacity, and enough of knowledge both of books and men; but when
The Raven croaked as she sate at her meal
And the Old Woman knew what he said,—2
the Old Woman knew also by the tone who said it.
2 SOUTHEY.
Does it contain the knowledge, learning, wit, sprightliness, and good sense, which that distinguished patron of letters my Lord Puttiface Papinhead has so successfully concealed from the public and from all his most intimate acquaintance during his whole life?
Is it Theodore Hook with the learned assistance of his brother the Archdeacon?—A good guess that of the Hook: have an eye to it!
“I guess it is our Washington Irving,” says the New Englander. The Virginian replies “I reckon it may be;” and they agree that none of the Old Country Authors are worthy to be compared with him.
Is it Smith?
Which of the Smiths? for they are a numerous people. To say nothing of Black Smiths, White Smiths, Gold Smiths, and Silver Smiths, there is Sidney, who is Joke-Smith to the Edinburgh Review; and William, who is Motion Smith to the Dissenters Orthodox and Heterodox, in Parliament, having been elected to represent them,—to wit the aforesaid Dissenters—by the citizens of Norwich. And there is Cher Bobus who works for nobody; and there is Horace and his brother James, who work in Colburn's forge at the sign of the Camel. You probably meant these brothers; they are clever fellows, with wit and humour as fluent as their ink; and to their praise be it spoken with no gall in it. But their wares are of a very different quality.
Is it the Author of Thinks I to myself?—“Think you so,” says I to myself I. Or the Author of the Miseries of Human Life? George Coleman? Wrangham,—unfrocked and in his lighter moods? Yorick of Dublin? Dr. Clarke? Dr. Busby? The Author of My Pocket Book? D'Israeli? Or that phenomenon of eloquence, the celebrated Irish Barrister, Counsellor Phillips? Or may it not be the joint composition of Sir Charles and Lady Morgan? he compounding the speculative, scientific and erudite ingredients; she intermingling the lighter parts, and infusing her own grace, airiness, vivacity and spirit through the whole. A well-aimed guess: for they would throw out opinions differing from their own, as ships in time of war hoist false colours; and thus they would enjoy the baffled curiosity of those wide circles of literature and fashion in which they move with such enviable distinction both at home and abroad.
Is it Mr. Mathurin? Is it Hans Busk?—
Busk ye, busk ye my bonny bonny bride,
Busk ye, my winsome marrow!
Is it he who wrote of a World without Souls, and made the Velvet Cushion relate its adventures?
Is it Rogers?—The wit and the feeling of the book may fairly lead to such an ascription, if there be sarcasm enough to support it. So may the Pleasures of Memory which the Author has evidently enjoyed during the composition.
Is it Mr. Utinam? He would have written it,—if he could.—Is it Hookham Frere? He could have written it,—if he would.—Has Matthias taken up a new Pursuit in Literature? Or has William Bankes been trying the experiment whether he can impart as much amusement and instruction by writing, as in conversation?
Or is it some new genius ‘breaking out at once like the Irish Rebellion a hundred thousand strong?’ Not one of the Planets, nor fixed stars of our Literary System, but a Comet as brilliant as it is eccentric in its course.
Away the dogs go, whining here, snuffing there, nosing in this place, pricking their ears in that, and now full-mouthed upon a false scent,—and now again all at fault.
Oh the delight of walking invisible among mankind!
“Whoever he be,” says Father O'Faggot, “he is an audacious heretic.” “A schoolmaster, by his learning,” says Dr. Fullbottom Wigsby. The Bishop would take him for a Divine, if there were not sometimes a degree of levity in the book, which though always innocent, is not altogether consistent with the gown. Sir Fingerfee Dolittle discovers evident marks of the medical profession. “He has manifestly been a traveller” says the General, “and lived in the World.” The man of letters says it would not surprize him if it were the work of a learned Jew. Mr. Dullman sees nothing in the book to excite the smallest curiosity; he really does not understand it, and doubts whether the Author himself knew what he would be at. Mr. McDry declares, with a harsh Scotch accent, “Its just parfit nonsense.”
