Part 12

The same Major Dwyer relates at some length the conversations of the guests at Lever’s home in Ireland. Speaking of a visit of Thackeray about 1842, he says: “James had been living at Brussels previously, and an intimacy had sprung up between Lever and him. Thackeray’s star was then barely peeping over the eastern horizon; Lever’s had attained an altitude that rendered it clearly visible to the uncharmed eye, whilst James’s had already passed its point of culmination, and was in its descending node.” I do not know what the eloquent Major meant by an “uncharmed eye,” but his figures of speech are quite luxuriant. He does not think that Thackeray and James met at Lever’s house, but he tells of a dinner there, where a Captain Siborne, Doctor Anster, and the Major were asked to meet James. It appears that after dinner, James took a very decided lead in the conversation on horsemanship and military tactics. “James” remarks the Major, “was not horsey looking; one would at first sight be inclined to set him down as an exception to the general rule, that ‘all Britons are born riders’; he looked more like a seaman than a soldier.” This is deliciously fatuous—as if a man could not talk well about horses unless he had a horsey look or drive fat oxen unless he himself were fat. It is like the Mitchell prattle about his having no scar and wearing no doublet. In talking about horses and riders, James evidently did not foresee that in the future his name would be so closely associated with “one horseman” or even two, threading romantic gorges. Perhaps it would have been better for his fame, if he had eschewed horsemen. “Why,” continues the Major, “he should have selected two such topics puzzled both Siborne and myself, but I subsequently found that James liked to seize upon and talk categorically about things which other individuals of the company present might be suspected of considering their own peculiar hobbies.” This device for enlivening post-prandial dullness by stirring up solemn and conceited prigs is quite familiar, but it does not seem to have occurred to the Major that the clever novelist was making game of the two military magnates. He tells us further how Siborne declined “to discuss professional matters with a civilian,” and closes his pompous and heavy remarks with this gem of concentrated wisdom: “James, so fond of horseflesh, finished his career as Consul General at Venice _where the sight of a horse is never seen_.” I suppose that the Major would have considered it more fitting if James had selected some place to die in where ‘the sight of a horse could be seen’ at all times by merely looking out of the window. It is not difficult to imagine the joy with which the nimble-minded James put through their paces the heavy-witted and cumbrous Captain and Major at the pleasant dinner-table of Charles Lever. It reminds me of an occasion when a sincere and simple-minded Briton undertook to engage in single combat with Mark Twain over a statement thrown out by the equally sincere and simple-minded Clemens that the people of the Phillipine Islands had a perfect right to make arson and murder lawful if they considered it proper to incorporate in their constitution a provision to that effect. His powerful arguments did not produce the slightest change in the convictions of Mr. Clemens.

However severely the sapient compilers of _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_ or the critics of our own generation may sneer at the novels—the fiction of the twentieth century being in the estimation of our contemporaries so vastly superior to all that has gone before—it is something to have had the approval of Christopher North, who was not given to bestowing lavish commendation upon the work of mere Englishmen. If you will take from the shelves the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, you will find these words:

“_North_: Mr. Colburn has lately given us two books of a very different character, [from that of some previously mentioned], _Richelieu_ and _Darnley_—by Mr. James. _Richelieu_ is one of the most spirited, amusing and interesting romances I ever read; characters well drawn—incidents—well managed—story perpetually progressive—catastrophe at once natural and unexpected—moral good, but not goody—and the whole felt, in every chapter, to be the work of a—gentleman.

_Shepherd_: And what o’_Darnley_?

_North_: Read and judge.”[43]

Edgar Allan Poe, who thought himself a critic while he was an original genius absolutely unfitted for just or accurate criticism, said that James was lauded from mere motives of duty, not of inclination—duty erroneously conceived. “His sentiments are found to be pure,” wrote Poe, “his morals unquestionable and pointedly shown forth—his language indisputably correct.” But he calls him an indifferent imitator of Scott, accuses him of having little pretension to genius, and adds that we “seldom stumble across a novel emotion in the solemn tranquillity of his pages.”[44] Elsewhere Poe says: “James’s multitudinous novels seem to be written upon the plan of the songs of the Bard of Schiraz, in which, we are assured by Fadladeen, ‘the same beautiful thought occurs again and again in every possible variety of phrase.’” This is perhaps, a fair comment upon the work of a writer who produced too many books.

Samuel Carter Hall, who knew James well, and who gossips with garrulous freedom about everybody, speaks of him in an admiring way. After observing that very little was known of James’s life, he says: “I knew him and esteemed him as an agreeable and kindly gentleman, somewhat handsome in person, and of very pleasant manners. He had the aspect, and indeed the character, that usually marks a man of sedentary occupations. His work all day long, and often into the night, must have been untiring, for he by no means drew exclusively on his fancy; he must have resorted much to books and have been a great reader, not only of English, but of continental histories; and he travelled a good deal in the countries in which the scenes of his historic fictions were principally laid. His novels have always been popular—they are so now, although many competitors for fame, with higher aims and perhaps loftier genius, have of late years supplied the circulating libraries. It was no light thing to run a race with Sir Walter Scott, and not to be altogether beaten out of the field. His great charm was the interest he created in relating a story, but he had masterly skill in delineating character, and in ‘chivalric essays’ none of his brethren surpassed him.”[45] He gives to James more praise for character-drawing than most of the critics bestow.

Hall quotes from Alison: “There is a constant appeal in his brilliant pages, not only to the pure and generous, but to the elevated and noble sentiments. He is imbued with the very soul of chivalry, and all his stories turn on the final triumph of those who are influenced by such feelings. Not a word or a thought which can give pain to the purest heart ever escapes from his pen.”

The genial journalist, William Jerdan, in his Autobiography, pays a deserved tribute to James. He says:

“Among the warm friendships to which I may allude, there is not one more sincere, more lasting, or more grateful to my feelings, than that which I have the honour and delight to couple with the admired and estimable name of G. P. R. James. I think it was the production of ‘The Ruined City’, for private circulation, which first introduced us to each other; and from that hour (I remember the pleasure I received from his volunteering a trial of his skill occasionally in the ‘Gazette’) I now look back on a quarter of a century upon a close intercourse of minds and hearts without a passing shade to dull its bright and cheering continuity. I need not dwell on those voluminous writings which have placed Mr. James in the foremost rank of our national fictitious literature, nor need I, in his case, illustrate my theme of the uncertainty of literature as a remunerative pursuit—with a private fortune, and the genius which has produced so many admirable works, the author has now fallen back upon a consulate at Norfolk, in America, where, if report speaks truth, he is exposed even to danger in consequence of petty resentment against something he wrote long ago about Slavery!—but, I may say, from nearer and more abundant observation than the world could attain, that the utmost appreciation of his genius must fall short of what is due to his personal worth and nobility of nature. As no author ever excelled him in the purity and rectitude of his publications—every tone of which tends to inspire just moral sentiment, and exalted virtue, and brotherly love, and universal benevolence, and the improvement carrying with it the progress and happiness of his fellow creatures—so no man in private life ever more zealously practiced the precepts which he taught, and was charitable, liberal, and generous, aye, beyond the measure of cold prudence, and without an atom of selfish reserve. To his fellow-labourers on the oft-ungrateful soil of letters, he was ever indulgent and munificent; and were this the fitting time, I could record acts of his performing that would shed a lustre on any character, however celebrated in merited biographical panegyric. I trust I may state, without compromising the privacy of friendly confidence, that I knew him, as he was ever ready to make sacrifices to friendship, sacrifice half a fortune, legally in his possession, to a mere point of honorable, I might say, romantically honourable feeling, and founded indeed on one of those family romances in which we find fact more extraordinary than fiction; and amongst lesser instances of his general sympathies for all who stood in need of succour, I may mention his procuring me the gratification of handing over £75 to the Literary Fund, as the price received from Messrs. Colburn and Bentley for a manuscript entitled “The String of Pearls.””[46]

I have referred to the remark in _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_ about the custom of James to dictate to an amanuensis, a custom he attempted to defend. The writers for this useful work, now rather antiquated, were quite given to the exercise of censorious judgment about authors who did not preserve their popularity. They say of James, however, that he was perhaps the best of the numerous imitators of Scott, and that if he had concentrated his powers on a few congenial subjects or periods of history, and “resorted to the manual labor of penmanship as a drag-chain on the machine, he might have attained to the highest honors of this department of composition. As it is, he has furnished many light, agreeable and picturesque books, none of questionable tendency.” The Cyclopædia breaks into exclamation points when it chronicles the fact that the original works of Mr. James “extend to one hundred and eighty-nine volumes,” and that he edited almost a dozen more. It then quotes from some unnamed critic whom it calls a “lively writer,”[47] and as I am endeavoring to present the contemporary estimates of James, I venture to reproduce the quotation:

“There seems to be no limit to his ingenuity, his faculty of getting up scenes and incidents, dilemmas, artifices, _contretemps_, battles, skirmishes, disguises, escapes, trials, combats, adventures. He accumulates names, dresses, implements of war and peace, official retinues, and the whole paraphernalia of customs and costumes, with astounding alacrity. He appears to have exhausted every imaginable situation, and to have described every available article of attire on record. What he must have passed through—what triumphs he must have enjoyed—what exigencies he must have experienced—what love he must have suffered—what a grand wardrobe his brain must be! He has made some poetical and dramatic efforts, but this irresistible tendency to pile up circumstantial particulars is fatal to those forms of art which demand intensity of passion. In stately narratives of chivalry and feudal grandeur, precision and reiteration are desirable rather than injurious—as we would have the most perfect accuracy and finish in a picture of ceremonials; and here Mr. James is supreme. One of his court romances is a book of brave sights and heraldic magnificence—it is the next thing to moving at our leisure through some superb and august procession.”

The lively writer has a style which displays the worst faults of the middle nineteenth century, but he is really not far wrong in his conclusions. The Cyclopædia sums up the matter in a sentence which tells the story and signifies that the man wrote too much:

“The sameness of the author’s style and characters is, however, too marked to be pleasing.”

I timidly venture to suggest that the same thing may be true of Kipling and hope that I may not be annihilated by the bolts of Jupiter for such a daring piece of sacrilege. Having gone so far—but I will refrain from mentioning some other makers of novels with regard to whom the same fable might be narrated.

We may easily understand that the accusation of “sameness” is one which is not very serious when preferred against the author of nearly two hundred volumes. As Allibone says, “he who composes a library is not to be judged by the same standard as he who writes but one book.” We must remember that not only Professor Wilson, but Leigh Hunt, about whose taste and discrimination there can be no question, says of him:

“I hail every fresh publication of James, though I half know what he is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and his landscape, and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial. But I am charmed with the new amusement which he brings out of old materials. I look on him as I look on a musician famous for ‘variations.’ I am grateful for his vein of cheerfulness, for his singularly varied and vivid landscapes, for his power of painting women at once lady-like and loving, (a rare talent,) for making lovers to match, at once beautiful and well-bred, and for the solace which all this has afforded me, sometimes over and over again in illness and in convalescence, when I required interest without violence, and entertainment at once animated and mild.”

Allan Cunningham, in his _Biographical and Critical History of the Literature of the Last Fifty Years_ (1833) refers to his excellent taste, extensive knowledge of history, right feeling of the chivalrous, and heroic and ready eye for the picturesque, adding that his proprieties are admirable and his sympathy with whatever is high-souled and noble, deep and impressive. Cunningham was on terms of intimacy with him, as a number of letters from James addressed to him abundantly prove. The _Edinburgh Review_ estimated highly his abilities as a romance writer, declaring that his works were lively and interesting, and animated by a spirit of sound and healthy morality in feeling and of natural deliberation in character which should secure for them a calm popularity which would “last beyond the present day.”

He was not regarded so favorably by the _London Athenæum_, which said of him: “The first and most obvious contrivance for the attainment of quantity, is, of course, dilution; but this recourse has practically its limit, and Mr. James had reached it long ago. Commonplace in its best day, anything more feeble, vapid—_sloppy_ in fact, (for we know not how to characterize this writer’s style but by some of its own elegancies)—than Mr. James’s manner has become, it were difficult to imagine. Every literary grace has been swamped in the spreading marasmus of his style.”[48]

The bewildered reader of reviews is often at a loss to reconcile the censure of one and the praise of another; and it was not very long before the appearance of this slashing article that the _Dublin University Magazine_ had thus expressed its opinions: “His pen is prolific enough to keep the imagination constantly nourished; and of him, more than of any modern writer, it may be said, that he has improved his style by the mere dint of constant and abundant practice. For, although so agreeable a novelist, it must not be forgotten that he stands infinitely higher as an historian.*** The most fantastic and beautiful coruscations which the skies can exhibit to the eyes of mankind dart as if in play from the huge volumes that roll out from the crater of the volcano.*** The recreation of an enlarged intellect is ever more valuable than the highest efforts of a confined one. Hence we find in the works before us, lightly as they have been thrown off, the traces of study—the footsteps of a powerful and vigorous understanding.”[49] The works were _Corse de Léon_, _The Ancient Régime_, and _The Jacquerie_—none of them as deserving as _Richelieu_, _Henry Masterton_, or _Mary of Burgundy_. James was a member of the _Dublin_ staff and his friend Lever may have inspired the compliments.

One more review may be noticed. Mr. E. P. Whipple, whose criticisms have not become immortal, evidently disapproved of James, and did not hesitate to say so. It is the old charge of sameness and overproduction. Whipple scored James in the North American Review of April, 1844.

“He is a most scientific expositor of the fact that a man may be a maker of books without being a maker of thoughts; that he may be the reputed author of a hundred volumes and flood the market with his literary wares, and yet have very few ideas and principles for his stock in trade. For the last ten years he has been repeating his own repetitions and echoing his own echoes. His first novel was a shot that went through the target, and he has ever since been assiduously firing through the hole.*** When a man has little or nothing to say, he should say it in the smallest space. He should not, at any rate, take up more room than suffices for a creative mind. He should not provoke hostility and petulance by the effrontery of his demands upon time and patience. He should let us off with a few volumes, and gain our gratitude for his benevolence, if not our praise for his talents.”[50]

Whipple’s _critiques_ are far more obsolete than James’s novels; and a good deal of what he says of James is fairly applicable to his own essays. Even Whipple concedes the excellence of _Richelieu_, notwithstanding the fact that it did not emanate from New England.

Back in the forties, there was a magazine, published in Philadelphia, known as _Graham’s American Monthly Magazine_, in which the chief American writers of the day, including Poe, Bryant, Cooper, Longfellow, Willis, and Lowell occasionally figured as contributors. It had its page of reviews and in the number of November, 1848, it enlightened its readers with a disquisition on “Vanity Fair”; by W. M. _Thackerway_ (_sic_), beginning “This is one of the most striking novels of the season.” If Lamb could only have met that reviewer, he surely would have danced about, as on a memorable occasion, singing “diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John” and endeavored to examine the reviewer’s bumps. _Graham_ (November, 1844) was very severe with poor James, in a notice of _Arrah Neil_. The reviewer says: “In our opinion, there is hardly an instance on record of an author who has contrived to earn an extensive reputation as a writer of works of imagination, with such slender intellectual materials as Mr. James. No one has ever written so many books, purporting to be novels, with so small a stock of heart, brain, and invention. He is continually infringing his own copyright, by reproducing his own novels. Far from being surprised that he has written so much, we are astonished that he has not written more. From his first novel, all the rest can be logically deduced; and the reason that they have not appeared faster, may be found in the fact that he has been economical in the employment of amanuenses.” More of this kind of talk is indulged in without a single word about the book itself or its merits; which proves quite clearly that the reviewer was merely following the path marked out by some other critic, and there is no evidence whatever that he had ever read the work he was reviewing. Thus it is to-day; a parrot-cry of “diffuseness, dilution, re-copying, repetition,”—so easy to proclaim, so difficult to answer, all born of the disposition of newspaper and magazine critics to accept the view which needs no exercise of brains to approve and to announce. It is not without significance that when James was in America, he was a contributor to this same magazine, which had scored him so unmercifully; for example, in the volume for 1851 I find two stories by him—_Christian Lacy, a Tale of the Salem Witchcraft_, and _Justinian and Theodora_,—as well as a rather graceful sonnet to Jenny Lind.

James C. Derby mentions the fact that James was a friend of Philip Pendleton Cooke, the Virginian poet, and relates that Thackeray visited James when in the South, but that James “resented the latter’s [Thackeray’s] flings at him as a ‘solitary horseman’, the meaning of which those who have read James’s novels will understand. James once told Cooke of his intention to write his own memoirs—a purpose never fulfilled. Incidentally, he told Cooke a story of Washington Irving, his early adviser, who amiably approved of his earliest essays in literature. It seems that James was in Bordeaux, and after strolling all day, returned to his inn. On his way through a long, dark passage he saw some one in front carrying a candle, a man in black slowly ascending the old-fashioned staircase. On the landing the man stopped, and holding up his candle looked at a cat lying on the window-sill, regarding the gazer with a surprised and frightened expression. The stranger in black looked at the cat for some time mutely and then muttered sadly, ‘Ah, pussy! pussy! If you had seen as much trouble as I have, you would not be surprised at anything.’ After which he went on up the stairs,’ said James, ‘and as I heard that Irving was in Bordeaux, I said to myself: ‘That can be nobody in the world but Irving’, which turned out to be a fact.[51]

Frederick Locker-Lampson visited Walter Savage Landor at Fiesole in the early sixties, and found him reading a Waverly novel. Lampson congratulated the old poet on having so pleasant a companion in his retirement, and Landor, with a winning dignity, replied: “Yes, and there is another novelist whom I equally admire, my old friend [G. P. R.] James.”[52] Locker-Lampson does not seem to have shared Landor’s appreciation of James. He says, later in his memoirs: “It is a law of literature that every generation should be industrious in burying its own, especially novels. What has become of Smollett and Mackenzie—the cockpit of the ‘Thunder’ or the sentimental Harley? Where is the shadowy Mr. G. P. R. James and where is that witty old ghost of the Silver Fork school, Mrs. Gore?*** Yet they all had vogue.”[53] It is odd that almost every one, in speaking of James, recites his numerous initials and bestows upon him the title of “Mr.” which carries with it the suggestion of a sneer.

In my small collection of Gladstone letters I find one addressed to James which shows not only that the statesman liked the books but that he and the author were on terms of some intimacy.

“WHITEHALL, May 17, ’43.