William Howitt and the Athenæum.
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.1 #8 (20 Feb 1847).
The great Dor-beetle of the Athenæum has boomed! A terrible trepidation did our ridicule of the stercorarius of Wellington-street North create in the office of that paper. Every one of the unfortunate critics there cried out simultaneously, in fear of the stercorarius title sticking to him, "It is not I!" and "It is not I!" One letter after another came to me from literary men known to write for that journal, saying, "For Heaven's sake, Mr. Howitt, let the public know that I am innocent." But the great stercorarius of the establishment himself sat down, swelling with wrath, astonishment, and lacerated vanity, to the "Homes and Haunts," and did not rise again for a week, except to his dinner, and a short sleep now and then at night; and after poring through every page, and counting every syllable, forth he comes with two or three fresh columns of mares'-nests and literal errata! There was no need for him to peep and pore, and prove himself a literary dor: he had done that before to perfection; what was wanted was to prove himself a critic, capable of perceiving merits and appreciating beauties. That still remains undemonstrated.
And what has he again produced?—A list of misprints, of which I did not doubt that there were a good many; nay, I was sure there must be, because the work was put through the press, in the publisher's anxiety to have it out at Christmas, at a rate which made errors inevitable. Five sheets a day, sent to me, without a chance of a revise, rendered it impossible to prevent some slight inaccuracies of this kind; but, as the dor has pointed them out, I am much obliged to him for it; it has saved me much labour, and I shall carefully mark them for correction in a new edition.
But surely, as to the main facts, never was there such a miserable failure of a case on the part of the critic. It is very well for him to talk of the ill-temper of authors, but was there ever such an exposure of a critic's ill-temper as in this article! Never was there so poor, so fumy, spumy, and impotent a display of malice and misrepresentation. And then out comes the murder! I have dared to speak what I think of critics in my book. I have dared to quote the trenchant lines of noble Robert Burns; and I here quote them again. Mr. Dilke has not dared to say that Burns calls the critics what they are here called. He says, "as Mr. Howitt does in the book before us,"—
Foxes and statesmen subtle wiles ensure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure.
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are sung.
Even silly woman has her warlike arts,
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts.
But oh! thou bitter step-mother, and hard
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child, the Bard—
A thing unteachable in this world's skill,
And half an idiot too—more helpless still.
No heels to bear him from the opening dun,
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun.
* * * *
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears the unbroken blast from every side.
Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics! Appalled I venture on the name;
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame;
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monros;—
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose.
His heart by causeless, wanton malice wrung,
By blockheads' daring into madness stung;
His well-worn bays, than life itself more dear,
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear;
Foiled, bleeding, tortured, in the unequal strife,
The hapless Poet flounders on through life.
Till fled each hope that once his bosom fired,
And fled each muse that glorious once inspired;
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,
Dead, even resentment, for his injured page,
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage!
Here it is then that the shoe pinches. It is because I have dared, in reviewing the miseries of poets, and the dastardly treatment of critics, to express my honest opinion on these matters, and to quote the fiery words of one of the many glorious men who have suffered by those critics, that this furious onslaught is made. The times are mended. We have now many men at the periodical press too just and generous to pursue that course which Burns and every true author after him, Wordsworth, who was "a fool and an idiot," according to the critics, for years, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, even Southey, with all his learning—suffered under; but Mr. Dilke felt that if there was a man living, guilty of the old practices, it was himself, and—Ecce signum!
Mr. Dilke is quite astonished and confounded, "Why Mr. Howitt challenges criticism! He dares to defy us! Audacious, unheard-of man! He even 'crows,' and glories, and does not care a straw for us! Unfeeling monster! He is all jollity, and ignorance, and arrogance! We must crush him!"—He is not going to be so easily crushed.
"Nothing is more remarkable," says Mr. Dilke, "in Mr. Howitt's defence, than the absence of all delicacy of feeling. What right had Mr. Howitt to mix up names and persons assumed to be connected with the Athenæum with mere matters of historical detail?"
All delicacy of feeling! A critic of the Athenæum school talking of delicacy of feeling! When have they ever shown it? Is there a crew more reckless of every feeling of an author than they are? Is there a more cruel, unjust, taunting, distorting, and overbearing periodical than the Athenzeum in existence? If there wanted a proof of this, it is shown in the number of letters and personal congratulations that I have received from authors all round, on my castigation of this cold-blooded review. Mr. Dilke may assure himself, if he do not already know it, that if there be a man and a review hated in this country by authors, they are himself and his Athenæum. In this case there has been one universal jubilation, that a man has been found who dared to speak out. "Well done!" says one popular poet," you have executed capital justice on that ungenerous Assinæum. I have enjoyed it vastly, and so has everybody." "We have had an exquisite treat," says another author, "in reading your richly deserved flagellation of the Athenæum. The stercorarius was worth anything; it will stick by him." "You have balanced accounts with the Athenæum," says a third, "both for yourself and many other ill-used authors; they will thank you; and depend upon it,—
The poor beetle that you tread upon,
In corporal sufferance, feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies!"
In my article, let it, however, be clearly understood that I named no name but that of Mr. Dilke. And does Mr. Dilke think that he has any patent or prescription which authorizes him to make as free as he pleases with the name of any author that comes before him, and to have his own inviolably concealed? Does he think that a man who keeps a band of nameless literary assassins, is to be always permitted to preserve the anonymous! Does he think, that he has been the proprietor of the Athenæum so many years, and that nobody knows of it? Does he imagine that he has inflicted so many unmerited injuries on honest men, under the name of criticism—or has directed the infliction of them—and that he is not known and held responsible for them?
It is time to do away with this delusion; to tear away this thin disguise. He who maintains a journal, and employs nameless and irresponsible agents of critical injustice, is, and must be, responsible for all that is done in that organ. It is not merely the anonymous attack on men who give their names with their works, that constitutes the greater part of the cowardice of criticism; that is bad enough; but that is not the meanest and the worst. It is because critics know that authors have no means of retaliating in general. Their book does not come out weekly or monthly. The critic has the lash in his hand; the author is laid prostrate on his back; and the un-English cowardice of the thing is that the critic, presuming on his security, strikes the man when he is down. The meanest porter who fights in the street disdains such a deed; but the unworthy critic does it everyday. If his victim should, however, happen to rise, should happen to have a good switch with him, then the pitiful critic bawls lustily about delicacy of feeling, forsooth. Then he shows that the critic, who himself daily applies the lash to the naked back of those that he lives by, is of all animals the most thin-skinned. Then, as Satan said of Job, "Put forth but thy finger, and touch his skin, and he will curse thee to thy face." Here is a striking instance of it.
For these reasons I come at once to the real offender, and deal with Mr. Dilke, as the proprietor of the Athenæum, by name, as he deals with me.
And now, what is the fact still? Mr. Dilke has only repeated his false statements, and added to them literal errata, as proofs of ignorance. Take as a specimen the assertion about Dryden's house in Gerrard-street. There is no fact more notorious than that Dryden lived the greater part of his town life in Gerrard-street. All his biographers, from Derrick to Scott, concur in it. It is a common-place. Dilke says, "Gerrard-street was not built then!" Built when? If he means, in Dryden's time, why we tell him that he lived there about six-and-thirty years. If he means, it was not built at the time of his assault in Rose-street, that is just as great a blunder. What says Sir Walter Scott? "Dryden's house, which he appears to have resided in from the period of his marriage till his death, was in Gerrard-street, the fifth on the left hand, coming from Little Newport-street."—Vol. i. p. 461. Dryden was married in 1665.—Vol. i. p. 88. The beating that he got, Scott says, was on the 18th of December, 1679.—Vol. i. p. 204. Now, if he lived in Gerrard-street from the time of his marriage, 1665, till the time of his assault in 1679, he had lived there fourteen years before the assault; and therefore Mr. Dilke need not ask King Solomon to tell him whether Gerrard-street was built then; nor whether he was going to his house in Gerrard-street at the time; for Sir Walter can again tell him that "He was waylaid by ruffians, and severely beaten, as he passed through Rose-street, Covent-garden, returning from Will's Coffee-house to his own house in Gerrard-street."—Vol. i. p. 204.
Exactly similar is Mr, Dilke's very next assertion, regarding Dryden's wife. "Dele; 'perhaps the more so, as Lady Dryden always remained in town;' as this is a mere assertion." What says Sir Walter Scott again? "His excursions to the country seem to have been frequent; perhaps the more so, as Lady Elizabeth always remained in town." —Vol. i. p. 461.
So, then, it is not William Howitt, but Sir Walter Scott, that is so blundering, ignorant, and arrogant! As Mr, Dilke said that my blunders were much at the service of Mr. Bentley, this fact is very much at Mr. Dilke's. I wish him joy of the discovery; and I think a certain celebrated historian may write to me again, "We are obliged to you for taking down the ignorant arrogance of that man a button-hole or two."
After all, he is compelled to leave the Globe Theatre on Bankside. It matters not where Southwark Bridge stands, which did not stand there in the days of the Globe Theatre. Mr. Dilke twaddles a deal about a Globe Alley, and infers that the Globe, therefore, was near it. He might just as well at once have said the Globe Theatre stood on Bethnal Green because there is a Globe Town there. What is an <>alley to a whole town? There still remains the fact, that the biographers and commentators of Shakspere say that no mention of his name was on the books of the Globe Theatre in 1613, and the fact, that the theatre was not burnt till June of that year. If there was a Mermaid Tavern in Bread-street, I have quoted my authorities for the famous tavern of the Mermaid being in Friday-street; and they are good authorities. Charles Knight, in his "London," confirms these authorities.—Vol. i. p. 372.
As to Milton's house, in St. Bride's Churchyard, it is the tradition of that neighbourhood that that side of the churchyard was not wholly burnt down, and that Milton's house stood on the spot where the back part of the Punch Office now stands. As to Thomson, it is as certain a fact, that Pope very rarely mentions him at all. I refer any candid reader to the lives and letters of Pope; and it could not have been otherwise, or Pope in his latter years could not have written that "Thomson and some other young men have published lately some creditable things." As to the wood-cut of Pope's Villa, I leave that, or any other cut, to the artist and publisher, whose concern they are. With the embellishments I have nothing to do. I do not believe the cut in question to be the real, old, unaltered house of Pope, of which I have a print, and of which there is an ancient print published by Bowles, bound in a volume, in the British Museum. But even as regards the cuts in general, I believe them to be most correct, as they are elegant and excellent. And the assertion of Mr. Dilke, that there is not a specimen of Pope's architecture known, is as erroneous as any other of his assertions—as his own drawings of his house and premises are in the British Museum, drawn in his usual paper-sparing way on backs of letters.
"Pope never bought Twickenham; he only bought the lease of a villa at Twickenham,"—says Mr. Dilke. So say I:—p. 156, vol. i—"Pope did not purchase the freehold of the house and grounds at Twickenham, but only a long lease." The story of Pope's skull is not "a cock-and-bull story," though Charles Dilke, in his vast knowledge, is not aware of the fact. If any one wishes to know whether Swift and Godolphin were once friends, let him refer to the history of those times:—but every one, except Mr. Dilke, knows this. Or, if any one would satisfy himself whether I know anything of those times, which are not very ancient or obscure, let him refer to my book himself.
As to Holland House, the great dung-beetle still carps at the phrase "next door," which is still a fact, though Holland House and Cromwell's house did not actually abut. Put the next house, or next neighbour, and the fact is the same. And, lastly, I need not endeavour to oblige Miss Aikin by information of the long intimacy of Addison at Holland House before his marriage, because it is Miss Aikin who has obliged me. In her Life of Addison are given the facts which I condense, at pp. 128 and 129 of vol. i. Let the reader refer to her work and to mine. The following passages of mine on those pages are a mere condensation of Miss Aikin's account:—
"Addison was always anxious to get a quiet retreat amidst trees and greenness, where he could write. Such afterwards was his abode at Sandy-End, a little hamlet of Fulham. Here he appears to have occupied apartments in a lodging-house, established at this place; whence several of the published letters of Steele are dated, written at times when he seems to have been the guest of Addison. From Sandy-End, too, are dated some letters to Lord Warwick, his future son-in-law, then a boy, and very anxious to get news about birds and birds-nests, which Addison most cordially gives him. He then went to Ireland, as chief secretary to the Earl of Wharton, on his appointment to the lord-lientenancy, and resided for some time in that capacity in Dublin. After this he removed to a lodging at Kensington, owing to his increasing intimacy at Holland House, and was about this time a frequent guest at Northwick Park," &c.
"In 1716 he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick; but five years before this, that is, in 1711, he had made the purchase of Bilton."
All this time, and as may be seen on the authority of Miss Aikin, so confidently appealed to by Dilke, Addison was growing more and more intimate at Holland House, and was so much resident there, that Miss Aikin has to defend him from the charge of having been the regular tutor of young Lord Warwick, Equally reckless is the reiteration as my assertion, that Sir Walter Scott supplied the catalogue of his furniture to the Anniversary, when my assertion is (see the work, vol. ii. p. 19), that that could not be the case, on account of its inaccuracy. As regards Chatterton's monument, I find my own statement confirmed by the Life of Chatterton, in two volumes, published at Cambridge in 1842, vol. ii. p. 626.
But enough; we might go through the whole of these shameless falsifications in the same manner; but the limits and objects of our Journal do not admit of it. It remains only to note the malicious animus with which the critic has picked out verbal and even literal errata, and with a pitiful craft of misrepresentation endeavoured to pass them off as instances of ignorance. Very strange ignorance, indeed, it must have been if true. I have called Miss Elmy, he says, the subsequent wife of Crabbe, Miss Elny. This is noted as ignorance. With the admirable Life of Crabbe before me, by his son, such an ignorance was impossible. It is, as the dishonest reviewer very well knew, simply a misprint; for he could see, and no doubt did see, a few pages further, p. 20, vol. ii., the names of both Miss Elmy, and her mother, Mrs. Elmy, correctly printed. The name of this lady occurs thrice—twice it is correctly printed, and he carefully selects the third, a misprint. I leave such tasks to that contempt which the public will assuredly visit them with. Then Mount Benger is misprinted Bengen; but could this deceive the merest child who ever heard of the Ettrick Shepherd? Could any but a dung-beetle imagine that he could persuade the world that a man who had made a pilgrimage to Mount Benger did not know its name? Any one would instantly know, and Charles Dilke knew, that it was a casual erratum, at the moment that he vaunted it as an instance of ignorance. Six times Mount Benger occurs; five times it is correctly printed, and he picks out the sixth, which has had an n overlooked for an r,—and this being the only case in which it was misprinted. So also of White House Vale. Did anybody ever hear of a White House Vale? Can anybody suppose for a moment that Mr. Dilke did not, even with his little dor-beetle intellect, know that it was a misprint for White Horse Vale?°
I leave these self-evident matters. I have done a public duty in writing my work on "The Homes and Haunts of the Poets." Tracing their miserable history, I have expressed my hearty contempt of the critics who in their day misrepresented them, and often brought them to despair and death. It has not pleased Mr. Dilke, but, nevertheless, it will not be lost on the public. I have, moreover, committed another offence. I have shown that all the critics, with all their fine theories, since the appearance of Wordsworth, have never hit upon the true theory of his poetry. This is a capital offence against the bloated vanity of such small critics as Mr. Dilke. But the Editor of the Examiner, with more candour, worthy of his great abilities, has admitted that I am quite right—that I have completely made out my case; and one of our most eminent poets writes to me, "I am glad the Editor of the Examiner thinks, as I do, that you have completely made out the case regarding Wordsworth's poetry. It explains to me many things I never before could understand."
It only remains to say, that spite of the errata which a hasty printing has occasioned, I am quite easy to risk my reputation on the soundness of the facts given in my work. They remain untouched even by the cavils of Mr. Dilke. I know that the whole bulk of the work is true, and has been carefully digested and carefully written, and I refer any candid reader to it for the proof. For two years I have laboriously waded through whole heaps of the best authorities on the subject, so far as books were concerned, and have gone over many hundreds of miles to visit the scenes described. But I knew very well that on a subject where the imagined claims of numerous living writers of verse were concerned, I must necessarily give offence by omissions, as well as stir the bile of critics by unpalatable truths. I have executed my task with a bold and conscientious diligence, and I am perfectly easy to bear the worst brunt of petty misrepresentations, and to wait the award of the candid. In the meantime I beg any one who would convince himself of the real character of "The Homes and Haunts" to get the book—it may be had from any circulating library—and judge for himself; and, if I am not greatly mistaken, the perusal of it will furnish, in every candid mind, the most thorough condemnation of the treatment of it by Charles Dilke. It becomes every honest journalist and every honest man to set his face determinedly against this atrocious system of literary Burking, under which I daily see worthy men, without any means of defence, suffering the most unmerited injuries and often total ruin. I only regret that mine is not a peculiar case; but the like treatment of any other author equally excites my indignant resentment.
Since this went to press, I have received the following note from a gentleman of well-known research.
Tavistock Square, Feb. 8, 1847.
Dear Mr. Howitt,
The Athenæum Critic makes a great gun of the Globe Theatre matter, taking full a column to show your error. I can prove the contrary. Look at the half-map enclosed—a faithful copy of the genuine old map of 1563! seven years before the Exchange was built. You are right. The Globe stood a little to the west of Southwark Bridge foot—certainly not near St. Saviour's. Bankside lies chiefly between Southwark and Blackfriars Bridges—a small portion, however, runs East of Southwark Bridge, terminating at a wharf, thence called "Bank-end Wharf—where also Maid Lane had its Eastern termination, at double the distance from Southwark Bridge, as from St. Saviour's. Maid Lane appears on a map, "Laurie's new Plan of London, 1825;" it is now called New Park Street; and a reference to a map of this year will show Bankside, and New Park Street and Park Street, uniting at a small open place close to Bank-end Wharf. The modern Bridge Street crosses Bankside and Maid Street, (i.e. New Park Street,) where they are one hundred yards asunder; and here the Globe Theatre stood, a little to the west of Bridge Street. Of course, in old time, it would be designated "Globe Theatre, Maid Lane," or "Bankside," indiscriminately. Almost opposite is Queenhithe, two hundred yards west of the northern foot of Southwark Bridge.
Radulphus Aggus, author of "Oxoniæ Antiqua, (sic in orig.) 1578," is the alleged author of the old map.
The "Maid Lane" mentioned, is so designated in the map of 1825; and I should say is the Maiden Lane of the
Athenæum.
In this matter, I feel sure that the critic, (Smell-fungus,) is egregiously wrong; and is very likely so in other cases,—for instance, Buccleugh is the word twice over in Allan Cunningham's Anniversary, which I have got.
Dear Sir, I am,
Yours truly,
N.N.N.
Now let any one refer to the old map mentioned, and then refer to the modern maps of London, and they will see how exactly Bankside is laid down in its true ancient position, extending from Holland Street, near Blackfriars Bridge, to a little beyond Southwark Bridge, and New Park Street, at its junction with the cross street running to the river, occupying the position of the old Globe Theatre. Let them then turn to the language of the Athenæum of last week on this subject, viz: "The fourth error affords a still more marvellous exhibition of Mr. Howitt's ignorance. The Globe Theatre, he tells us, stood on Bankside, and Bankside lay 'between the bridges of Blackfriars and Southwark.' The latter clause of this description, as we observed in our review, would exclude the Globe altogether from Bankside." The Athenæum then tells us that it really stood close to the Church of St. Saviour's, i.e. in its modern name, St. Mary Overie's. Turn, good reader, to the position of St. Mary Overie's, on any map, and then look where Bankside is, and be astonished at the idiotic blunder of this man, at the very moment that he is heaping the most insulting language on an author, who is backed by every established authority, and maps both old and new. If this is not enough for the great Dor Beetle, we will give an engraving of that portion of the old map.