Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.1 #5 (30 Jan 1847).
Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets. By William Howitt. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Bentley.
Being, as all the world is aware, rather closely connected with the author of this work, we did not mean to treat on it in this journal further than by occasional extracts; but the curious onslaught upon it in the Athenæum induces us to say a few words about it.
The public has for some time been wondering what was the cause that the notices of books in the Athenæum have been so odd. When they got to the end of what purported to be reviews, they found themselves no wiser than when they began. They were told a great deal about the binding, and whether the edges of the books were gilt or cut. They heard a good deal about errors of the press, and were assured on every occasion what a vastly better book the Athenæum could have written: but as to what was in the book under notice; as to any regular analysis of its subject, or description of its contents, they got none. The public were not aware that Mr. Dilke, the proprietor, having plunged into the ponderous guidance of the Daily News, had got too many irons in the fire; and that during his absence, there had been a revolution in the Athenæum office: the readers of the press and the binders had made an inroad with broom-sticks and paste-pots, and driven the old critics out of their corners, and taken their places. One of them seized on the Homes and Haunts, and hence a great display of literal errors, or what professed to be such; but no account of the real nature or contents of the book.
We happen to know that this work has engaged the author's zealous labour for upwards of two years; that in pursuit of matter for it, and in order to be accurate, he has travelled from end to end of the United Kingdom: visiting the youthful haunts of Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc. down in the West of England—their later ones in the north; those of Shelley, Byron, Keats, etc. from London to beyond Aberdeen; those of Scott, Campbell, Hogg, Burns, etc. in Scotland; those of Spenser, Mrs. Hemans, Goldsmith, Swift, etc. in Ireland, from the North to the far West. Is it to be supposed, that in so extensive a survey the author of the Rural Life of England, and of Visits to Remarkable Places, should have found nothing of interest? That in nearly a thousand pages of so practised a writer there should be nothing better worth commenting on than that by a misprint Sim is made Sam, or Bailly is made Bailie.
The entomologists describe, amid a host of beetles, two of particularly opposite nature. These are the Cetonia aurata, or Rose Beetle, and the Geotrupes stercorarius, the dirty dor-beetle—the "shard-borne beetle," of Shakspeare—or in plain English, the dung beetle. The beautiful rose-beetle, or rose-chaffer, in its splendid coat of green and gold, by a fine instinct, seeks out and lives amid beauty and fragrance. You may find it on any May-morning, glittering on the bosom of the newly opened rose, inhaling its aroma, and revelling in its crimson loveliness. The dung-beetle, on the contrary, follows an opposite instinct. To him neither rose, nor lily, nor apple-blossom, nor anything that is beautiful, or sweet, or elegant, exists, He has neither eye nor nose for them. His organization is of a kind that does not allow him to perceive them. To him all creation is a blank—except one spot—the dung-hill; and to that he whirls, droning away past the whole superb and odoriferous productions of the garden.
In the entomology of criticism, the very same creatures exist. The true critic is immediately attracted towards whatever is beautiful, true to nature, or noble in sentiment, and draws it forth, and recommends it to the reader; he leaves the little flaw, or the spots of dust, to such as have no higher tastes or perception. It is the genuine literary dung-beetle which revels in the dirt at the foot of the noble pile which the true man truly describes. To him the finer contents of a book have no existence. He has no organization to enable him to percieve or lay hold on them. Where the writer describes a Vicar of Wakefield, he sees only that the Vicar's shoes are dusty; where the poet describes a noble scene, or utters a fine sentiment, the literary stercorarius is only aware that the poet's trousers have no straps.
But the mighty bunter of small deer before us is not content to point out literal errata, he must pretend to know a great deal. He is quite amazed that Mr. Howitt has not included all the poets that ever lived in his two volumes; and, as we learn, is most indignant that he himself is not included, having some years ago come out with a great flourish of trumpets as a great epic poet, of whom nobody took any notice; and what is worse, having the other day sent an ode to this Journal, which was returned with thanks. He is very much amazed that Sir Philip Sydney was not put in, with all Penshurst on his back,—while nobody but himself ever believed Sir Philip to be one of our most eminent poets, though he is a great writer, and was a most noble man; and while, also, every one knows that the very first article of Mr. Howitt's "Visits to Remarkable Places" was Penshurst, which, with all its family documents, was thrown open to him by its present noble owner, the descendant of the Sidneys, and which forms the most complete account of Penshurst ever published.
He is equally profound on the traditions of Holland House, and shows that Addison never did or could write any of his "Spectators" there. We can only say that such are the traditions of Holland House, and the only traditions of Holland House. That they were most kindly, personally and on the spot communicated to the author by the present noble proprietor,--and that any one who supposes that Addison's history or habits of intimacy in that house for many years before that event.
The writer delights, however, in finding mares' nests. Such is that of Sam for Sim. The lines in Ben Jonson's verses alluded to are these:—
"Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers,
Cries old Sim, the king of skinkers."
Any other than a mere literary dor-beetle would have seen that this was a mere misprint. But he finds a mare's nest as big at Abbotsford. The account of the interior and its contents, he says, was not furnished by Sir Walter himself. Lockhart knows better, and he knows better, cunning fellow. Now, who says that Lockhart ever did say that Sir Walter furnished it? The statement to be found at page 551 of Lockhart's People's Edition of Scott's Life is this:—"I now insert the fullest account that I know of—one drawn up in 1829, for a keepsake, called the Anniversary, of which Mr. Allan Cunningham had at that time the management. It was written in the character of an imaginary American, supposed to visit Scotland in the summer of 1825, and to examine the place when Sir Walter was absent," etc. Now, Sir Walter being a contributor to the Anniversary, and his perpetual mystifications of this kind, gave the public an idea that Sir Walter furnished it himself. It was, therefore, not only said that Scott furnished it, but it has continued to be said so; but so far from Mr. Howitt saying that Lockhart says so, he himself says he doubts the truth of the saying, because he finds the account so inaccurate.
But this literary Stercorarius is not content to attempt wielding little matters of this kind; he actually runs Quixote-like on the localities of London, and carries the Mermaid Tavern and the Globe Theatre clean away at one lift out of their ancient positions. "The Mermaid Tavern," he says, "never was in Friday Street at all, but in Bread Street." It is the first time we ever heard of it. Gifford, in his Life and Works of Ben Jonson, says, "About this time (1603) Jonson probably began to acquire that turn for conviviality for which he was afterwards noted. Sir Walter Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engagement with the wretched Cobham, and others, had instituted a meeting of beaux esprits at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in Friday Street." We need not quote, regarding so well-known a fact, further than that Charles Knight in his "London" gives the same locality.
Equally absurd is the exploit of the literary Stercorarius as regards the Globe Theatre. Stow, who should be pretty good authority, places it on Bankside; and turning to Charles Knight's "London," the first work on London at hand, we find him declaring the same thing, and locating Bankside thus: "Not the least interesting part of the river is that now lying on our right between the bridges of Black Friars and Southwark, and known generally from a very remote period as the Bankside. *** And here, too, on the Bankside was the Globe Theatre (Shakspere's theatre), situated very nearly in a line with the approach to the present Southwark Bridge."
Another mare's nest of this very acute critic is, that Mr. Howitt talks of the Globe Theatre being burnt down in 1613, and yet of the name of Shakspere being found in the accounts of the theatre for that year. The theatre was burnt down in June of that year, and surely half a year was time enough for the name of Shakspere or of a thousand other men having been looked for on its books. This is a simple fact as regards Shakspere; but to proceed with the blunders of this writer would be a waste of time. He concludes, as such men generally do when they have sufficiently cooled their malice, with an air of candour, warning Mr. Howitt to be careful of his reputation for accuracy. We conclude our remarks with a warning too, and that is, to the proprietor of the Athenæum to take a good new besom, and sweep the literary dor-beetles out of his premises. The patience of the public may be too much tempted. It looks not for ebullitions of spleen, but good sensible criticism, and if it does not find it in one publication, will soon look for it in another. The Literary Gazette says of this very same work: "The whole work is digested with ability and care; nothing more could be done by an author. We heartily commend his diligence, and bear witness to his talent." The acute editor of the Examiner says: "A fresh and vivid love of the subject is as obvious in its last page as its first." The honest and candid editor of the Atlas says: "The energy of Mr. Howitt's style, his rapid survey of facts and characters, the clearness with which he masses the principal features of a biography, and the integrity which everywhere shines through his criticisms, confer a permanent interest on the work. There will be many differences of opinion on points of taste; but it is the province of such books to raise questions of this kind. They provoke speculation; they set you thinking and finding fault, which is the first thing most people do when they are required to think; they open new views, and disturb old prejudices. A book which never begs the question is sure of rough handling in some quarters."
Here then, leaving the critics, we remark ourselves, that we confess that Mr. Howitt is a dangerous man in the literary republic. He advises authors never to sell their copyrights, but merely editions. He tells them, what publishers had much rather that he did not tell them, that they will get no more for a whole copyright than they will for a single edition. He tells them that they have no right to rob their families and children to enrich booksellers. He says, I never would sell my copyrights, and my works are become a substantial property to me. I have sold merely one edition of the present work; and the large sum I have received from that is but the first instalment of many thousand pounds which I hope to receive, or that my children will receive, from successive editions. He bids authors, as he does mechanics, to combine, and thus to become powerful and alike independent of publishers and reviewers. He tells them these and many such truths, in these very volumes. He bids the public to laugh at critics, and read and judge for themselves. He says, that for five-and-twenty years the critics have been continually serving him as Goldsmith says the robber did the sailor,—first knock him down, and then tell him to stand; but that he has not only stood, but walked on, trusting in truth and the public, and every year finding the sale of his works extend, and his favour with the public on the increase. These are dangerous doctrines, but Mr. Howitt enjoys danger, and flourishes on it. On the other hand, he points out the fate of authors who will not combine, and will not be men of business. One such case we will quote: The critics talk of "the gossip" of the volume: if this be gossip, it is of an awful kind,—
TANNAHILL'S HOLE.
"For want of poets and poets' children entertaining these rational ideas, what miseries have from age to age awaited them! In the course of my peregrinations to the birth-places and the tombs of poets, how often have these reflections been forced upon me! Humble, indeed, are frequently their birth-places; but what is far worse, how wretched are often the places of their deaths! How many of them have died in the squalid haunts of destitution, and even by their own hand! How many of them have left their families to utter poverty; how many of those caressed in their lives, lie without a stone or a word of remembrance in their graves! Scott, with all his glory and his monuments in other places, has not even a slab bearing his name laid upon his breast. Chatterton's very bones have been dispersed to make a market. Motherwell, amid all the proud cenotaphs in the Necropolis at Glasgow, such men as Major Monteith having whole funeral palaces to themselves, has not even a cubic foot of stone, or a mere post with his initials, to mark his resting-place. But still more melancholy is the contemplation of the beginning and the end of Robert Tannahill, the popular song-writer of Paisley. Tannahill was no doubt stimulated by the fame of Burns. True, he had not the genius of Burns, but genius he had, and that is conspicuous in many of those songs which during his lifetime were sung with enthusiasm by his countrymen. Tannahill was a poor weaver of Paisley. The cottage where he lived is still to be seen, a very ordinary weaver's cottage in an ordinary street; and the place where he drowned himself may be seen too at the outside of the town. This is one of the most dismal places in which a poet ever terminated his career. Tannahill, like Burns, was fond of a jovial hour amid his comrades in a public-house. But weaving of verse and weaving of calico did not agree. The world applauded, but did not patronise; poverty came like an armed man; and Tannahill, in the frenzy of despair, resolved to terminate his existence. Outside of Paisley there is a place where a small stream passes under a canal. To facilitate this passage, a deep pit is sunk, and a channel for the waters is made under the bottom of the canal. This pit is, I believe, eighteen feet deep. It is built round with stone, which is rounded off at its mouth, so that any one falling in cannot by any possibility get out, for there is nothing to lay hold of. Any one once in there might grasp and grasp in vain for an edge to seize upon. He would sink back and back till he was exhausted and sank for ever. No doubt Tannahill in moments of gloomy observation had noted this. And at midnight he came, stripped off his coat, laid down his hat, and took the fatal plunge. No cry could reach human ear from that horrible abyss: no effort of the strongest swimmer could avail to sustain him: soon worn out he must go down, and amid the black boiling torrent be borne through the subterranean channel onward with the stream. Thus died Robert Tannahill, and a more fearful termination was never put to a poetical career. The place is called Tannahill's hole, and cats and dogs drowned in it, from its peculiar fitness for inevitable drowning, float about on the surface, and add to the revolting shudder which the sight of it creates."Characteristics of Men of Genius; a Series of Biographical, Historical, and Critical Essays, selected by permission, chiefly from the North American Review. 2 vols. Chapman, Brothers, Newgate Street. 1846.
These volumes are valuable additions to our materials for thought. To criticise their contents would be a work of supererogation, after the excellent preface of Mr. John Chapman, which is, indeed, an able review of the whole. They comprise articles on Gregory VIL., Ignatius Loyola, and Pascal, ranked as ecclesiastics; on Dante, Petrarch, Milton, Shelley, Lord Byron, Goethe, Scott, Wordsworth, and the Poets of Germany. From this list of poets we would have abstracted Scott, and treated of him as a novelist. Michael Angelo and Canova are classed as artists; and Machiavelli, Louis 1X., and Peter the Great, as statesmen. Here is abundance of variety, and all are more or less treated with talent; some with profound ability—as for example, Goethe, towards whom a spirit discriminative as well as reverential is maintained. We agree with Mr. Chapman in wishing, however, that an article on Schiller had been also given, and we may add, by the same able hand. The favourite maxims of the two men here given in juxtaposition, are suggestive of the power to develope each. Schiller's was, "Keep true to the dream of thy youth"—Goethe's was, "It is not the knowledge of what might be, but what is, that forms us." These two maxims, taken in their broad sense, merge into one. Keep true to the dream of thy youth, and thou wilt never cease to inquire, and to accumulate the knowledge of what is. It is because the dream of youth becomes dull before manhood, that the knowledge of what is, so seldom is attained, and action is so tardy and defective, and progression so uncertain and slow.
The essay on Shelley pleases us the least of all. Laudatory as it is, it is apologetic, and Shelley needs no apology. His course is simply the upward tendency of the flame of aspiration, necessarily destructive at its first kindling, but burning on more and more clearly into a steady glow. And this leads us to another objection. We would fain have seen in writers so advanced as these, a distinction made, the neglect of which opens the door to extensive error. We mean, a distinction between the systems and powers which have been invented or set up by men in various ages, in the name of Christ, and the doctrine, or rather influence, which is true Christianity. The former have generally been diametrically opposed to the latter, yet they have all been called Christianity. It is time that this error in language should be corrected. The writer, for example, of the brilliant essay on Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, describes that extraordinary and gifted man as having for his aim the spread of Christianity. His aim was indeed the spread of a system which he conceived to be Christianity, but which possessed no single resemblance to it, in truth. In like manner the writer on Shelley represents him as opposed to Christianity; and indeed Shelley fell into the same mistake concerming himself, a mistake which he would have corrected had he lived longer. Let any one read at p. 221 of Vol. I. the list of his sacrifices for conscience and principle; then the description of his generous, loving, truthful nature; and lastly Leigh Hunt's testimony—"He was pious towards nature, towards his friends, towards the whole human race, towards the meanest insect of the forest;" and then ask, Was this man opposed to Christ?
The same error in language runs through the article on Pascal, and that fine one on Gregory VII. No praises of Gregory's intellect, his grand views, his powerful will, his great achievement, can be too high. He conquered brute force by church authority. He raised a great despotism which overtopped all others. But this is not Christianity. He is said to have been the son of a carpenter—here is his history condensed by a poet:—
"There was a carpenter of Tuscany,
Whose son, from a cowled monk, made himself Pontiff.
High-fronted saints and martyrs, men sublime
In aspiration and security,—
Trusting to virtue, wisdom, justice, peace,
The elements of nature in their souls,—
Have by thus trusting left their tasks undone;
Staked midst the roar of flames, or nailed and left
In silence on the lonely night-black cross.
So I, who know what blood I have within,
Do act, believing all mankind the same;
And being now in thunder throned above them,
Shall melt them with my fiery bolts, and pour
These tremblers in the moulds of my fixed will.
One Altar—one High Pontiff—and some Kings,
Holding in fief their sceptres."
Gregory VII. A Tragedy, by R.H. Horne.
Christ was the son of a carpenter. When the tempter came to him, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, He turned away. He went among the poor and oppressed; denounced the powerful and the oppressors; chose the human heart as his kingdom; taught that the Infinite Spirit is the universal Father; taught reverence, faith, and love; and was rejected and crucified. But the great domination erected by Gregory has crumbled away; the once terrible powers of the Church are but words; while the "still, small voice," awakened in the heart of man by Christ, speaks ever more and more distinctly ; begins to influence feeling and action, and begins at length to unfold the meanings and bearings, and the great simplicity of truth in his words, "One is your Father, even God, and all ye are brethren."