Part 13
Certainly if this were the essence of Browning’s poetry the best safeguard against its falsehood would be its own weakness. Such a message, if this were all, could never attract many hearers, nor inspire those whom it attracted. Effort, struggle, noble conflict would be impossible in a world where there were no moral certainties or realities, but all men felt that they were playing at a stupid game like the Caucus race in _Alice in Wonderland_, where everything went round in a circle and every runner received a prize.
But in fact these elements of weakness in Browning’s work, as it seems to me, do not belong to his true poetry. They are expressed, generally, in his most obfuscated style, and at a prohibitory length. They are embodied in poems which no one is likely to read for fun, and few are capable of learning by heart.
But when we go back to his best work we find another spirit, we hear another message. Clear, resonant, trumpet-like his voice calls to us proclaiming the glorious possibilities of this imperfect life. Only do not despair; only do not sink down into conventionality, indifference, mockery, cynicism; only rise and hope and go forward out of the house of bondage into the land of liberty. True, the prophecy is not complete. But it is inspiring. He does not teach us how to live. But he does tell us to live,—with courage, with love to man, with trust in God,—and he bids us find life glorious, because it is still imperfect and therefore full of promise.
A QUAINT COMRADE BY QUIET STREAMS
In April, 1653, Oliver Cromwell, after much bloodshed and amid great confusion, violently dissolved the “Rump Parliament.” In May of the same year, Izaak Walton published _The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation_. ’Twas a strange contrast between the tranquil book and the tempestuous time. But that the contrast was not displeasing may be inferred from the fact that five editions were issued during the author’s life, which ended in 1683, at the house of his son-in-law in the cathedral close at Winchester, Walton being then in his ninety-first year and at peace with God and man.
Doubtless one of the reasons why those early editions, especially the first, the second, and the fifth, (in which Walton’s friend Charles Cotton added his “Instructions How to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream,”) are now become so rare and costly, is because they were carried about by honest anglers of the 17th Century in their coat-pockets or in their wallets, a practice whereby the body of a book is soon worn out, though its soul be immortal.
That this last is true of Walton’s _Angler_ seems proven by its continual reappearance. The Hundredth Edition (called after the rivers Lea and Dove, which Walton loved) was brought out in 1888, by the genial fisherman and bibliophile, R. B. Marston of the London _Fishing Gazette_. Among the other English editions I like John Major’s second (1824); and Sir John Hawkins’, reissued by Bagster (1808); and Pickering’s richly illustrated two volumes edited by Sir Harris Nicolas (1836). There is a 32mo reprint by the same publisher, (and a “diamond” from the Oxford University Press,) small enough to go comfortably in a vest-pocket with your watch or your pipe. I must speak also of the admirable introductions to the _Angler_ written in these latter years by James Russell Lowell, Andrew Lang, and Richard Le Gallienne; and of the great American edition made by the Reverend Doctor George W. Bethune in 1847, a work in which the learning, wit, and sympathy of the editor illuminate the pages. This edition is already hard to find, but no collector of angling books would willingly go without it.
The gentle reader has a wide choice, then, of the form in which he will take his Walton,—something rare and richly adorned for the library, or something small and plain for the pocket or the creel. But in what shape soever he may choose to read the book, if he be not “a severe, sour-complexioned man” he will find it good company. There is a most propitiating paragraph in the “Address” at the beginning of the first edition. Explaining why he has introduced “some innocent harmless mirth” into his work, Walton writes:
“I am the willinger to justify this innocent mirth because the whole discourse is a kind of picture of my own disposition, at least of my disposition in such days and times as I allow myself, when honest _Nat._ and _R.R._ and I go a-fishing together.”
This indeed is one of the great attractions of the book, that it so naturally and simply shows the author. I know of no other in which this quality of self-revelation without pretense or apology is as modest and engaging,—unless it be the _Essays_ of Charles Lamb, or those of M. de Montaigne. We feel well acquainted with Walton when we have read the _Angler_, and perhaps have added to our reading his only other volume,—a series of brief _Lives_ of certain excellent and beloved men of his time, wherein he not only portrays their characters but further discloses his own. They were men of note in their day: Sir Henry Wotton, ambassador to Venice; Dr. John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s; Richard Hooker, famous theologian; George Herbert, sacred poet; Bishop Sanderson, eminent churchman. With most of these, and with other men of like standing, Walton was in friendship. The company he kept indicates his quality. Whatever his occupation or his means, he was certainly a gentleman and a scholar, as well as a good judge of fishing.
Of the actual events of his life, despite diligent research, little is known, and all to his credit. Perhaps there were no events of public importance or interest. He came as near as possible to the fortunate estate of the nation which has a good repute but no history.
He was born in the town of Stafford, August 9th, 1593. Of his schooling he speaks with becoming modesty; and it must have been brief, for at the age of sixteen or seventeen he was an apprentice in London. Whether he was a linendraper or an ironmonger is a matter of dispute. Perhaps he was first one and then the other. His first shop, in the Royal Burse, Cornhill, was about seven and a half feet long by five wide. But he must have done a good business in those narrow quarters; for in 1624 he had a better place on Fleet Street, and from 1628 to 1644 he was a resident of the parish of St. Dunstan’s, having a comfortable dwelling (and probably his shop) in Chancery Lane, “about the seventh house on the left hand side.” He served twice on the grand jury, and was elected a vestryman of St. Dunstan’s twice.
It was during his residence here that he lost his first wife, Rachel Floud, and the seven children whom she had borne to him. In 1644, finding the city “dangerous for honest men” on account of the civil strife and disorder, he retired from London, and probably from business, and lived in the country, “sometimes at Stafford,” (according to Anthony Wood, the antiquary,) “but mostly in the families of the eminent clergymen of England, of whom he was much beloved.” This life gave him large opportunity for his favourite avocation of fishing, and widened the circle of his friendships, for wherever he came as a guest he was cherished as a friend. I make no doubt that the love of angling, to which innocent recreation he was attached by a temperate and enduring passion, was either the occasion or the promoter of many of these intimacies. For it has often been observed that this sport inclines those that practise it to friendliness; and there are no closer or more lasting companionships than such as are formed beside flowing streams by men who study to be quiet and go a-fishing.
After his second marriage, about 1646, to Anne Ken, half-sister of Bishop Thomas Ken, (author of the well-known hymns, “Awake, my soul, and with the sun,” and “All praise to Thee, my God, this night,”) Walton went to live for some years at Clerkenwell. While he was there, the book for which he had been long preparing, _The Compleat Angler_, was published, and gave him his sure place in English literature and in the heart of an innumerable company of readers.
Never was there a better illustration of “fisherman’s luck” than the success of Walton’s book. He set out to make a little “discourse of fish and fishing,” a “pleasant curiositie” he calls it, full of useful information concerning the history and practice of the gentle art, and, as the author modestly claims on his title-page, “not unworthy the perusal of most anglers.” Instead of this he produced an imperishable classic, which has been read with delight by thousands who have never wet a line. It was as if a man went forth to angle for smelts and caught a lordly salmon.
As a manual of practical instruction the book is long since out of date. The kind of rod which Walton describes is too cumbrous for the modern angler, who catches his trout with a split bamboo weighing no more than four or five ounces, and a thin waterproofed line of silk beside which Father Izaak’s favourite line twisted of seven horse-hairs would look like a bed-cord. Most of his recipes for captivating baits and lures, and his hints about “oyl,” or “camphire” with which they may be made infallibly attractive to reluctant fish, are now more curious than valuable. They seem like ancient superstitions,—although this very summer I have had recommended to me a secret magic ointment one drop of which upon a salmon-fly would (supposedly) render it irresistible. (Yes, reader, I did try it; but its actual effect, owing to various incalculable circumstances, could not be verified. The salmon took the anointed fly sometimes, but at other times they took the unanointed, and so I could not make affidavit that it was the oil that allured them. It may have been some tickling in the brain, some dim memory of the time when they were little parr, living in fresh water for their first eighteen months and feeding mainly on floating insects, that made them wish to rise again.)
But to return to my subject. The angler of to-day who wishes to understand the technics of modern fishing-gear will go to such books as H. B. Wells’ _Fly Rods and Fly Tackle_, or to Dr. George Holden’s _The Idyl of the Split Bamboo_. This very year two volumes have been published, each of which in its way goes far beyond Walton: Mr. William Radcliffe’s _Fishing from the Earliest Times_, which will undoubtedly take its place as the standard history of the ancient craft of fish-catching; and Mr. Edward R. Hewitt’s _Secrets of the Salmon_, a brilliant and suggestive piece of work, full of acute scientific observation and successful experiment. These belong to what De Quincey called “the literature of knowledge.” But the _Angler_ belongs to “the literature of power,”—that which has a quickening and inspiring influence upon the spirit,—and here it is unsurpassed, I may even say unrivalled, by any book ever written about any sport. Charles Lamb wrote to Coleridge commending it to his perusal: “It might sweeten a man’s temper at any time to read _The Compleat Angler_.”
The unfailing charm of the book lives in its delicately clear descriptions of the country and of rural life; in its quaint pastoral scenes, like the interview with the milkmaid and her mother, and the convocation of gipsies under the hedge; and in its sincerely happy incitements to patience, cheerfulness, a contented spirit, and a tranquil mind.
In its first form the book opened with a dialogue between Piscator and Viator; but later this was revised to a three-sided conversation in which Venator, a hunter, and Auceps, a falconer, take the place of Viator and try valiantly to uphold the merits of their respective sports as superior to angling. Of course Piscator easily gets the best of them, (authors always have this power to reserve victory for their favourites,) and Auceps goes off stage, vanquished, while Venator remains as a convert and willing disciple, to follow his “Master” by quiet streams and drink in his pleasant and profitable discourse. As a dialogue it is not very convincing, it lacks salt and pepper; Venator is too easy a convert; he makes two or three rather neat repartees, but in general, he seems to have no mind of his own. But as a monologue it is very agreeable, being written in a sincere, colloquial, unaffected yet not undignified manner, with a plenty of digressions. And these, like the by-paths on a journey, are the pleasantest parts of all. Piscator’s talk appears easy, unconstrained, rambling, yet always sure-footed, like the walk of one who has wandered by the little rivers so long that he can move forward safely without watching every step, finding his footing by a kind of instinct while his eyes follow the water and the rising fish.
But we must not imagine that such a style as this, fluent as it seems and easy to read as it is for any one with an ear for music, either comes by nature or is attained without effort. Walton speaks somewhere of his “artless pencil”; but this is true only in the sense that he makes us forget the processes of his art in the simplicity of its results. He was in fact very nice in his selection and ordering of words. He wrote and rewrote his simplest sentences and revised his work in each of the five earlier editions, except possibly the fourth.
Take, for example, the bit which I have already quoted from the “address to the reader” in the first edition, and compare it with the corresponding passage in the fifth edition:
“I am the willinger to justify _the pleasant part of it_, because, _though it is known I can be serious at reasonable times_, yet the whole discourse is, _or rather was_, a picture of my own disposition, _especially_ in such days and times as I _have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing with_ honest Nat. and R. Roe; _but they are gone, and with them most of my pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth away and returns not_.”
All the phrases in italics are either altered or added.
He cites Montaigne’s opinion of cats,—a familiar judgment expressed with lightness,—and in the first edition Winds up his quotation with the sentence, “To this purpose speaks Montaigne concerning cats.” In the fifth edition this is humourously improved to, “Thus _freely_ speaks Montaigne concerning cats,”—as if it were something noteworthy to take a liberty with this petted animal.
The beautiful description of the song of the nightingale, and of the lark, and the fine passage beginning, “Every misery that I miss is a new mercy,” are jewels that Walton added in revision.
In the first edition he gravely tells how the salmon “will force themselves over the tops of weirs and hedges or stops in the water, _by taking their tails into their mouths and leaping over those places_, even to a height beyond common belief.” But upon reflection this fish-story seems to him dubious; and so in the later edition you find the mouth-and-tail legend in a poetical quotation, to which Walton cautiously adds, “_This Michael Drayton tells you_ of this leap or summer-salt of the salmon.”
It would be easy to continue these illustrations of Walton’s care in revising his work through successive editions; indeed a long article, or even a little book might be made upon this subject, and if I had the time I should like to do it.
Another theme would well repay study, and that is the influence of the King James Version of the Bible upon his style and thought. That wonderful example of pure, strong, and stately English prose, was first printed and published when Walton was eighteen years old, about the time he came to London as an apprentice. Yet to such good purpose did he read and study it that his two books, the _Angler_ and the _Lives_, are full of apt quotations from it, and almost every page shows the exemplary effect of its admirable diction. Indeed it has often seemed to me that his fine description of the style of the Prophet Amos, (in the first chapter of the _Angler_,) reveals something of the manner in which Walton himself desired to write; and in this desire he was not altogether unsuccessful.
How clearly the man shines through his book! An honest, kindly man, not ashamed of his trade, nor of his amusements, nor of his inmost faith. A man contented with his modest place in the world, and never doubting that it was a good world or that God made it. A firm man, not without his settled convictions and strong aversions, yet “content that every reader should enjoy his own opinion.” A liberal-mannered man, enjoying the music of birds and of merry songs and glees, grateful for good food, and “barly-wine, the good liquor that our honest Fore-fathers did use to drink of,” and a fragrant pipe afterwards; sitting down to meat not only with “the eminent clergymen of England,” but also, (as his Master did,) with publicans and sinners; and counting among his friends such dignitaries as Dr. John Hales, Bishop King, and Sir Henry Wotton, and such lively and vagarious persons as Ben Jonson, Carey, and Charles Cotton. A loyal, steadfast man, not given to change, anxiety of mind, or vain complaining, but holding to the day’s duty and the day’s reward of joy as God sent them to him, and bearing the day’s grief with fortitude. Thus he worked and read and angled quietly through the stormy years of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, wishing that men would beat their swords into fish-hooks, and cast their leaden bullets into sinkers, and study peace and the Divine will.
A STURDY BELIEVER
When James Boswell, Esq., wrote _The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, he not only achieved his purpose of giving the world “a rich intellectual treasure,” but also succeeded in making himself a subject of permanent literary interest.
Among the good things which the year 1922 has brought to us I count the _Boswell redivivus_ from the industrious and skilful hand of Professor Chauncey Brewster Tinker of Yale. He calls his excellent book, which is largely enriched with new material in the way of hitherto unpublished letters, _Young Boswell_. This does not mean that he deals only with the early years, amatory episodes, and first literary ventures of Johnson’s inimitable biographer, but that he sees in the man a certain persistent youngness which accounts for the exuberance of his faults and follies as well as for the enthusiasm of his hero-worship.
Mr. Tinker does not attempt to camouflage the incorrigible absurdities of Boswell’s disposition, nor the excesses of his conduct, but finds an explanation if not an excuse for them in the fact that he had a juvenile temperament which inclined him all through life to self-esteem and self-indulgence, and kept him “very much a boy” until he died of it. Whether this is quite consistent with his being “in fullest truth a genius,” as Mr. Tinker claims, may be doubted; for genius in the high sense is something that ripens if time be given it. But what is certain beyond a question is that this vain and vagarious little Scotch laird had in him a gift of observation, a talent of narration, and above all a power of generous admiration, which enabled him to become, by dint of hard work, what Macaulay entitled him, “the first of biographers.”
Ever since it appeared in 1791, Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ has been a most companionable book. Reprinted again and again, it finds a perennial welcome. To see it in a new edition is no more remarkable nowadays than it once was to see Dr. Oliver Goldsmith in a new and vivid waistcoat. For my own part I prefer it handsomely drest, with large type, liberal margins, and a-plenty of illustrations. For it is not a book in which economy of bulk is needful; it is less suitable for company on a journey or a fishing-trip, than for a meditative hour in the library after dinner, or a pleasant wakeful hour in bed, when the reading-lamp glows clear and steady, and all the rest of the family are asleep or similarly engaged in recumbent reading.
There are some books with which we can never become intimate. However long we may know them they keep us on the cold threshold of acquaintance. Others boisterously grasp our hand and drag us in, only to bore us and make us regret the day of our introduction. But if there ever was a book which invited genially to friendship and delight it is this of Boswell’s. The man who does not know it is ignorant of some of the best cheer that can enliven a solitary fireside. The man who does not enjoy it is insensible alike to the attractions of a noble character vividly depicted, and to the amusement afforded by the sight of a great genius in company with an adoring follower capable, at times, of acting like an engaging ass.
Yet after all, I have always had my doubts about the supposed “asininity” of Boswell. As his Great Friend said, “A man who talks nonsense so well must know that he is talking nonsense.” It is only fair to accept his own explanation and allow that when he said or did ridiculous things it was, partly at least, in order to draw out his Tremendous Companion. Thus we may think with pleasure of Boswell taking a rise out of Johnson. But we do not need to imagine Johnson taking a rise out of Boswell; it was not necessary; he rose of his own accord. He made a candid record of these diverting incidents because, though self-complacent, he was not touchy, and he had sense enough to see that the sure way to be entirely entertaining is to be quite frank.
Boswell threw a stone at one bird and brought down two. His triumphant effort to write the life of his Immense Hero just as it was, with all its surroundings, appurtenances, and eccentricities, has won for himself a singular honour: his proper name has become a common noun. It is hardly necessary to use a capital letter when we allude to a boswell. His pious boast that he had “Johnsonized the land,” is no more correct than it would be to say, (and if he were alive he would certainly say it,) that he had boswellized biography.
The success of the book appears the more remarkable when we remember that of the seventy-five years of Samuel Johnson’s life not more than two years and two months were passed in the society of James Boswell. Yet one would almost think that they had been rocked in the same cradle, or, (if this figure of speech seem irreverent,) that the Laird of Auchinleck had slept in a little trundle-bed beside the couch of the Mighty Lexicographer. I do not mean by this that the record is trivial and cubicular, but simply that Boswell has put into his book as much of Johnson as it will hold.
Let no one imagine, however, that a like success can be secured by following the same recipe with any chance subject. The exact portraiture of an insignificant person confers information where there is no curiosity, and becomes tedious in proportion as it is precise.[19] The first thing needful is to catch a giant for your hero; and in this little world it is seldom that one like Johnson comes to the net.
What a man he was,—this “old struggler,” as he called himself,—how uncouth and noble and genuine and profound,—“a labouring, working mind; an indolent, reposing body”! What a heart of fortitude in the bosom of his melancholy, what a kernel of human kindness within the shell of his rough manner! He was proud but not vain, sometimes rude but never cruel. His prejudices were insular, but his intellect was continental. There was enough of contradiction in his character to give it variety, and enough of sturdy faith to give it unity. It was not easy for him to be good, but it was impossible for him to be false; and he fought the battle of life through along his chosen line even to the last skirmish of mortality.