Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, February, 1885. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ had publicly spoken of Dr. Daniel Murray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, then in his 81st year, as “a good man, a very good man,” adding the hope that he himself should be found worthy to meet Murray in Heaven.

      This large-minded prelate died in 1863, in his seventy-seventh year.

      IV

The Rev. Henry Hart Milman – The Rev. Alexander Dyce – Thomas Miller

      It was in the summer of 1844, a few days after the interment in Westminster Abbey of Thomas Campbell, the poet, author of the “Pleasures of Hope” and many other celebrated poems, that I received an invitation to breakfast with Samuel Rogers, to meet the Rev. Dr. Milman, the officiating clergyman on that solemn occasion. There were two other guests besides myself; the Rev. Alexander Dyce, well known as a commentator on Shakespeare, and Mr. Thomas Miller – originally a basket-maker – who had acquired considerable reputation as a poet and novelist and a hard-working man of letters.

      Dr. Milman was at the time rector of St. Margaret’s – the little church that stands close to Westminster Abbey and interferes greatly with the view of that noble cathedral. He was afterwards Dean of St. Paul’s, and was known to fame as the author of the successful tragedy of “Fazio,” of many poetical volumes of no great merit, and of a “History of the Jews” and a “History of Christianity,” both of which still retain their reputation.

      The conversation turned principally on the funeral of the poet, at which both Mr. Dyce and myself had been present. The pall-bearers were among the most distinguished men of the time, for their rank, their talent, and their high literary and political positions. They included Sir Robert Peel, Lord Brougham, Lord Campbell, the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Strangford, and the Duke of Buccleuch, the last named the generous nobleman – noble in nature as well as in rank – who had offered, when a lad in his teens, to pay the debts of his illustrious namesake, Sir Walter Scott, when the great novelist had fallen upon evil days in the full flush of his fame and popularity. A long procession of authors, sculptors, artists, and other distinguished men followed the coffin to the grave. Many Polish exiles were conspicuous among them. As Dr. Milman pronounced the affecting words of the burial service, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” a Polish gentleman made his way through the ranks of mourners, and drawing a handful of earth from a little basket which he carried, exclaimed in a clear voice, “This is Polish earth for the tomb of the friend of Poland,” and sprinkled it upon the coffin. This dramatic incident recalled to my mind, as it no doubt did to that of other spectators, Campbell’s unwearied exertions in the cause of Poland, and of the indignant lines in the “Pleasures of Hope,”

      Hope for a season bade the world farewell,

      And Freedom shriek’d when Kosciusko fell.

      Mr. Rogers, reminded, perhaps, of a grievance by the presence at the breakfast table of Dr. Milman, seemed to brood over an injustice that he thought had been done him with reference to the late poet. When Campbell, under the pressure of some pecuniary difficulty, complained of the scanty rewards of literature, and especially of poetry, Mr. Rogers was reported to have recommended him to endeavor to procure employment as a clerk. This was thought to be very unfeeling; but on this occasion Mr. Rogers explained to the whole company that he had been misunderstood, and that he had not meant any unkindness. “I myself,” he said, “was a clerk in my early days, and never had to depend upon poetry for my bread; and I only suggested that in Mr. Campbell’s ‘case,’ and in that of every other literary man, it would be much better if the writing of poetry were an amusement only and not a business.”

      “No doubt,” said Mr. Dyce, “but men of genius are not always the masters of their own youth, and cannot invariably choose their careers or make choice of a profession which requires means and time to qualify for it. You, for instance, Mr. Rogers, when a clerk, were clerk to your father, and qualified yourself under his auspices for partnership in, or succession to the management of, his prosperous bank. Mr. Campbell had no such chances.”

      “It is a large question,” said Dr. Milman. “The love of literature in a man of genius, rich or poor – especially if poor, is an all-absorbing passion; and shapes his life, regret it as we may. Literature has rewards more pleasant than those of money, pleasant though money undoubtedly is. If money were to be the ‘be-all’ and ‘end-all’ of life, it would be better to be a rich cheesemonger or butcher than a poor author. But no high-spirited, intelligent, and ambitious youth could be of this opinion and shape his life by it. Sensitive youths drift into poetry, as prosaic and adventurous youths drift into the army or the navy.”

      “The more’s the pity,” replied Mr. Rogers, “as by drifting into poetry they too often drift into poverty and misery. I trust, however, you will all understand that the idle and the malevolent gossips did, and do me, gross unjustice when they say that I recommended Campbell to accept a clerkship rather than continue to rely upon poetry. I never thought of doing so. I merely expressed a general wish that every man of genius, not born to wealth, should have a profession to rely upon for his daily bread.”

      “A wish that all men would agree in,” said Mr. Dyce, “and that after all had no particular or exclusive reference to Mr. Campbell. He did not find the literature which he adorned utterly unprofitable. He made money by his poetry and by his literary labor generally, besides gaining a pension of three hundred pounds per annum on the Civil List, and the society of all the most eminent men of his time, which he could not have done as a cheesemonger or a butcher, however successful he might have become in these pursuits.”

      “These are all truisms,” said Mr. Rogers, somewhat sharply, as if annoyed. “What I complain of is that the world, the very ill-natured world, should have spread abroad the ridiculous story that I recommended Mr. Campbell, in his declining years, to apply for a clerkship.”

      “I think no one believes that you did so,” said Dr. Milman, “or that you could have done so. Your sympathy with men of letters is well known and has been proved too often, not by mere words only, but by generous deeds, for such a story to obtain credence.”

      “Falsehoods,” replied Mr. Rogers, still with a tone of bitterness, “are not cripples. They run fast, and have more legs than a centipede. I saw it stated in print the other day that I depreciate Shakespeare and think him to have been over-rated. I know of no other foundation for the libel than that I once quoted the opinion expressed of him by Ben Jonson, his dearest friend and greatest admirer. Though Ben Jonson called Shakespeare ‘the Swan of Avon,’

      Soul of the age,

      The applause, delight, and wonder of the stage,

      and affirmed that:

      He was not for an age, but for all Time,

      he did not hesitate to express the wish, in answer to one who boasted that Shakespeare had never blotted a line, ‘would to Heaven he had blotted a thousand.’ Ben Jonson saw the spots on the glorious face of the sun of Shakespeare’s genius, and was not accused of desecrating his memory because he did so; but because I quoted that very saying and approved of it, I have been accused of an act of treason against the majesty of the great poet. Surely my offence was no greater than that of Ben Jonson! If there were treason in the thought, it was treason that I shared with him who had said he loved Shakespeare with as much love as was possible to feel on this side of idolatry.”

      “I think,” remarked Dr. Milman, “that such apparently malevolent repetitions of a person’s remarks are the results of careless ignorance or easy-going stupidity, rather than of positive ill-nature or a wilful perversion of the truth.”

      “It is very curious,” said Mr. Dyce, “how very few people can repeat correctly what they hear, and that nine people out of ten cannot repeat a joke without missing the point or the spirit of it.”

      “And what a widely prevalent СКАЧАТЬ