Chapter 7
The _American Notes_, 1842, was a further offering from Dickens. Among other gifts may be noted Wordsworth's _Poems_, 1827-35; Campbell's _Pilgrim of Glencoe_, 1842; Longfellow's _Ballads and Voices of the Night_, 1840-2; Macaulay's _Lays_ and Tennyson's _Poems_, 1842; and lastly, Hazlitt's _Criticisms on Art_, 1844, and Carlyle's _Letters and Speeches of Cromwell_, 1846. Brougham's philosophical novel of _Albert Lunel; or, the Chateau of Languedoc_, 3 vols, 1844, figures in the catalogue as "withdrawn." It had been suppressed "for private reasons" upon the eve of publication; and this particular copy being annotated by Rogers (to whom it was inscribed) those concerned were no doubt all the more anxious that it should not get abroad. Inspection of the reprint of 1872 shows, however, that want of interest was its chief error. A reviewer of 1858 roundly calls it "feeble" and "commonplace"; and it could hardly have increased its writer's reputation. Indeed, by some, it was not supposed to be from his Lordship's pen at all. Rogers, it may be added, frequently annotated his books. His copies of Pope, Gray and Scott had many _marginalia_. Clarke's and Fox's histories of James II. were also works which he decorated in this way.
As already hinted, not very many bibliographical curiosities are included in the St. James's Place collection; and to look for Shakespeare quartos or folios, for example, would be idle. Ordinary editions of Shakespeare, such as Johnson's and Theobald's; Shakespeariana, such as Mrs. Montagu's _Essay_ and Ayscough's _Index_,--these are there of course. If the list also takes in Thomas Caldecott's _Hamlet_, and _As you like it_ (1832), that is, first, because the volume is a presentation copy; and secondly, because Caldecott's colleague in his frustrate enterprise was Crowe, Rogers's Miltonic friend, hereafter mentioned. Rogers's own feeling for Shakespeare was cold and hypercritical; and he was in the habit of endorsing with emphasis Ben Jonson's aspiration that the master had blotted a good many of his too-facile lines. Nevertheless, it is possible to pick out a few exceptional volumes from Mr. Christie's record. Among the earliest comes a copy of Garth's _Dispensary_, 1703, which certainly boasts an illustrious pedigree. Pope, who received it from the author, had carefully corrected it in several places; and in 1744 bequeathed it to Warburton. Warburton, in his turn, handed it on to Mason, from whom it descended to Lord St. Helens, by whom, again, shortly before his death (1815), it was presented to Rogers. To Pope's corrections, which Garth adopted, Mason had added a comment. What made the volume of further interest was, that it contained Lord Dorchester's receipt for his subscription to Pope's _Homer_; and, inserted at the end, a full-length portrait of Pope; viz., that engraved in Warton's edition of 1797, as sketched in pen-and-ink by William Hoare of Bath. Another interesting item is the quarto first edition (the first three books) of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, Ponsonbie, 1590: and a third, the _Paradise Lost_ of Milton in ten books, the original text of 1667 (with the 1669 title-page and the Argument and Address to the Reader)--both bequeathed to Rogers by W, Jackson of Edinburgh. (One of the stock exhibits at "Memory Hall"--as 22 St. James's Place was playfully called by some of the owner's friends--was Milton's receipt to Symmons the printer for the five pounds he received for his epic. This, framed and glazeds hung, according to Lady Eastlake, on one of the doors.[47]) A fourth rare book was William Bonham's black-letter Chaucer, a folio which had been copiously annotated in MS. by Home Tooke, who gave it to Rogers. It moreover contained, at folio 221, the record of Tooke's arrest at Wimbledon on 16th May, 1794, and subsequent committal on the 19th to the Tower, for alleged high treason.[48] Further _notabilia_ in this category were the Duke of Marlborough's _Hypnerotomachie_ of Poliphilus, Paris, 1554, and also the Aldine edition of 1499; the very rare 1572 issue of Camoens's _Lusiads_; Holbein's _Dance of Death_, the Lyons issues of 1538 and 1547; first editions of Bewick's _Birds_ and _Quadrupeds_; Le Sueur's _Life of St. Bruno_, with the autograph of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a rare quarto (1516) of Boccaccio's _Decameron_.
Notes:
[47] It was, no doubt, identical with the "Original Articles of Agreement" (Add. MSS. 18,861) between Milton and Samuel Symmons, printer, dated 27th April, 1667, presented by Rogers in 1852 to the British Museum. Besides the above-mentioned L5 down, there were to be three further payments of L5 each on the sale of three editions, each of 1300 copies. The second edition appeared in 1674, the year of the author's death.
[48] He was acquitted. His notes, in pencil, and relating chiefly to his _Diversions of Parley_, were actually written in the Tower. Rogers, who was present at the trial in November, mentioned, according to Dyce, a curious incident bearing upon a now obsolete custom referred to by Goldsmith and others. As usual, the prisoner's dock, in view of possible jail-fever, was strewn with sweet-smelling herbs-fennel, rosemary and the like. Tooke indignantly swept them away. Another of several characteristic anecdotes told by Rogers of Tooke is as follows:--Being asked once at college what his father was, he replied, "A Turkey Merchant." Tooke _pere_ was a poulterer in Clare Market.
But the mere recapitulation of titles readily grows tedious, even to the elect; and I turn to some of the volumes with which, from references in the _Table-Talk_ and _Recollections_, their owner might seem to be more intimately connected. Foremost among these--one would think--should come his own productions. Most of these, no doubt, are included under the auctioneers' heading of "Works and Illustrations." In the "Library" proper, however, there are few traces of them. There is a quarto copy of the unfortunate _Columbus_, with Stothard's sketches; and there is the choice little _Pleasures of Memory_ of 1810, with Luke Clennell's admirable cuts in _facsimile_ from the same artist's pen-and-ink,--a volume which, come what may, will always hold its own in the annals of book-illustration. That there were more than one of these latter may be an accident. Rogers, nevertheless, like many book-lovers, must have indulged in duplicates. According to Hayward, once at breakfast, when some one quoted Gray's irresponsible outburst concerning the novels of Marivaux and Crebillon _le fils_, Rogers asked his guests, three in number, whether they were familiar with Marivaux's _Vie de Marianne_, a book which he himself confesses to have read through six times, and which French critics still hold, on inconclusive evidence, to have been the "only begetter" of Richardson's _Pamela_ and the sentimental novel. None of the trio knew anything about it. "Then I will lend you each a copy," rejoined Rogers; and the volumes were immediately produced, doubtless by that faithful and indefatigable factotum, Edmund Paine, of whom his master was wont to affirm that he would not only find any book _in_ the house, but _out_ of it as well. What is more (unless it be assumed that the poet's stock was larger still), one, at least, of the three copies must have been returned, since there is a copy in the catalogue. As might be expected in the admirer of Marivaux's heroine, the list is also rich in Jean-Jacques, whose "_gout vif pour les dejeuners_," this Amphitryon often extolled, quoting with approval Rousseau's opinion that "_C'est le temps de la journee ou nous sommes le plus tranquilles, ou nous causons le plus a noire aise._" Another of his favourite authors was Manzoni, whose _Promessi Sposi_ he was inclined to think he would rather have written than all Scott's novels; and he never tired of reading Louis Racine's _Memoires_ of his father, 1747,--that "_filon de l'or pur du dix-septieme siecle_"--as Villemain calls it--"_qui se prolonge dans l'age suivant._" Some of Rogers's likings sound strange enough nowadays. With Campbell, he delighted in Cowper's _Homer_, which he assiduously studied, and infinitely preferred to that of Pope. Into Chapman's it must be assumed that he had not looked--certainly he has left no sonnet on the subject. Milton was perhaps his best-loved bard. "When I was travelling in Italy (he says), I made two authors my constant study for versification,--Milton _and Crowe_" (The italics are ours.) It is an odd collocation; but not unintelligible. William Crowe, the now forgotten Public Orator of Oxford, and author of _Lewesdon Hill_, was an intimate friend; a writer on versification; and, last but not least, a very respectable echo of the Miltonic note, as the following, from a passage dealing with the loss in 1786 of the _Halsewell_ East Indiaman off the coast of Dorset, sufficiently testifies:--
The richliest-laden ship Of spicy Ternate, or that annual sent To the Philippines o'er the southern main From Acapulco, carrying massy gold, Were poor to this;--freighted with hopeful Youth And Beauty, and high Courage undismay'd By mortal terrors, and paternal Love, etc., etc.
It is not improbable that Rogers caught the mould of his blank verse from the copy rather than from the model. In the matter of style--as Flaubert has said--the second-bests are often the better teachers. More is to be learned from La Fontaine and Gautier than from Moliere and Victor Hugo.
Many art-books, many books addressed specially to the connoisseur, as well as most of those invaluable volumes no gentleman's library should be without, found their places on Rogers's hospitable shelves. Of such, it is needless to speak; nor, in this place, is it necessary to deal with his finished and amiable, but not very vigorous or vital poetry. A parting word may, however, be devoted to the poet himself. Although, during his lifetime, and particularly towards its close, his weak voice and singularly blanched appearance exposed him perpetually to a kind of brutal personality now happily tabooed, it cannot be pretended that, either in age or youth, he was an attractive-looking man. In these cases, as in that of Goldsmith, a measure of burlesque sometimes provides a surer criterion than academic portraiture. The bust of the sculptor-caricaturist, Danton, is of course what even Hogarth would have classed as _outre_[49]; but there is reason for believing that Maclise's sketch in _Fraser_ of the obtrusively bald, cadaverous and wizened figure in its arm-chair, which gave such a shudder of premonition to Goethe, and which Maginn, reflecting the popular voice, declared to be a mortal likeness--"painted to the very death"--was more like the original than his pictures by Lawrence and Hoppner. One can comprehend, too, that the person whom nature had so ungenerously endowed, might be perfectly capable of retorting to rudeness, or the still-smarting recollection of rudeness, with those weapons of mordant wit and acrid epigram which are not unfrequently the protective compensation of physical shortcomings. But this conceded, there are numberless anecdotes which testify to Rogers's cultivated taste and real good breeding, to his genuine benevolence, to his almost sentimental craving for appreciation and affection. In a paper on his books, it is permissible to end with a bookish anecdote. One of his favourite memories, much repeated in his latter days, was that of Cowley's laconic Will,--"I give my body to the earth, and my soul to my Maker." Lady Eastlake shall tell the rest:--"This ... proved on one occasion too much for one of the party, and in an incautious moment a flippant young lady exclaimed, 'But, Mr. Rogers, what of Cowley's _property_?' An ominous silence ensued, broken only by a _sotto voce_ from the late Mrs. Procter: 'Well, my dear, you have put your foot in it; no more invitations for you in a hurry,' But she did the kind old man, then above ninety, wrong. The culprit continued to receive the same invitations and the same welcome."[50]
Note:
[49] Rogers's own copy of this, which (it may be added), he held in horror, now belongs to Mr. Edmund Gosse. Lord Londonderry has a number of Danton's busts.
[50] _Quarterly Review_, vol. 167, p. 512.
PEPYS' "DIARY"
To One who asked why he wrote it.
You ask me what was his intent? In truth, I'm not a German; 'Tis plain though that he neither meant A Lecture nor a Sermon.
But there it is,--the thing's a Fact. I find no other reason But that some scribbling itch attacked Him in and out of season,
To write what no one else should read, With this for second meaning, To "cleanse his bosom" (and indeed It sometimes wanted cleaning);
To speak, as 'twere, his private mind, Unhindered by repression, To make his motley life a kind, Of Midas' ears confession;
And thus outgrew this work _per se_,-- This queer, kaleidoscopic, Delightful, blabbing, vivid, free Hotch-pot of daily topic.
So artless in its vanity, So fleeting, so eternal, So packed with "poor Humanity"-- We know as Pepys' his journal.[51]
Note:
[51] Written for the Pepys' Dinner at Magdalene College, Cambridge, February 23rd, 1905.
A FRENCH CRITIC ON BATH
Among other pleasant premonitions of the present _entente cordiale_ between France and England is the increased attention which, for some time past, our friends of Outre Manche have been devoting to our literature. That this is wholly of recent growth, is not, of course, to be inferred. It must be nearly five-and-forty years since M. Hippolyte Taine issued his logical and orderly _Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise_; while other isolated efforts of insight and importance--such as the _Laurence Sterne_ of M. Paul Stapfer, and the excellent _Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au XVIII^e Siecle_ of the late M. Alexandre Beljame of the Sorbonne--are already of distant date. But during the last two decades the appearance of similar productions has been more recurrent and more marked. From one eminent writer alone--M. J.-J. Jusserand--we have received an entire series of studies of exceptional charm, variety, and accomplishment. M. Felix Rabbe has given us a sympathetic analysis of Shelley; M. Auguste Angellier,--himself a poet of individuality and distinction,--what has been rightly described as a "splendid work" on Burns;[52] while M. Emile Legouis, in a minute examination of "The Prelude," has contrasted and compared the orthodox Wordsworth of maturity with the juvenile semi-atheist of Coleridge. Travelling farther afield, M. W. Thomas has devoted an exhaustive volume to Young of the _Night Thoughts_; M. Leon Morel, another to Thomson; and, incidentally, a flood of fresh light has been thrown upon the birth and growth of the English Novel by the admirable _Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme Litteraire_ of the late Joseph Texte--an investigation unquestionably of the ripest scholarship, and the most extended research. And now once more there are signs that French lucidity and French precision are about to enter upon other conquests; and we have M. Barbeau's study of a famous old English watering-place[53]--appropriately dedicated, as is another of the books already mentioned, to M. Beljame.[54]
Notes:
[52] A volume of _Pages Choisies de Auguste Angellier, Prose et Vers_, with an Introduction by M. Legouis, has recently (1908) been issued by the Clarendon Press. It contains lengthy extracts from M. Angellier's study of Burns.
[53:]_Une Ville d'Eaux anglaise au XVIIIe Siecle, La Societe Elegante et Litteraire a Bath sous la Reine Anne et sous les Georges_. Par A. Barbeau. Paris, Picard, 1904.
[54] The list grows apace. To the above, among others, must now be added M. Rene Huchon's brilliant little essay on Mrs. Montagu, and his elaborate study of Crabbe, to say nothing of M. Jules Derocquigny's Lamb, M. Jules Douady's Hazlitt, and M. Joseph Aynard's Coleridge.
At first sight, topography, even when combined with social sketches, may seem less suited to a foreigner and an outsider than it would be to a resident and a native. In the attitude of the latter to the land in which he lives or has been born, there is always an inherent something of the soil for which even trained powers of comparison, and a special perceptive faculty, are but imperfect substitutes. On the other hand, the visitor from over-sea is, in many respects, better placed for observation than the inhabitant. He enjoys not a little--it has been often said--of the position of posterity. He takes in more at a glance; he leaves out less; he is disturbed by no apprehensions of explaining what is obvious, or discovering what is known. As a consequence, he sets down much which, from long familiarity, an indigenous critic would be disposed to discard, although it might not be, in itself, either uninteresting or superfluous. And if, instead of dealing with the present and actual, his concern is with history and the past, his external standpoint becomes a strength rather than a weakness. He can survey his subject with a detachment which is wholly favourable to his project; and he can give it, with less difficulty than another, the advantages of scientific treatment and an artistic setting. Finally, if his theme have definite limits--as for instance an appreciable beginning, middle, and end--he must be held to be exceptionally fortunate. And this, either from happy guessing, or sheer good luck, is M. Barbeau's case. All these conditions are present in the annals of the once popular pleasure-resort of which he has elected to tell the story. It arose gradually; it grew through a century of unexampled prosperity; it sank again to the level of a county-town. If it should ever arise again,--and it is by no means a _ville morte_,--it will be in an entirely different way. The particular Bath of the eighteenth century--the Bath of Queen Anne and the Georges, of Nash and Fielding and Sheridan, of Anstey and Mrs. Siddons, of Wesley and Lady Huntingdon, of Quin and Gainsborough and Lawrence and a hundred others--is no more. It is a case of _Fuit Ilium_. It has gone for ever; and can never be revived in the old circumstances. To borrow an apposite expression from M. Texte, it is an organism whose evolution has accomplished its course.
M. Barbeau's task, then, is very definitely mapped-out and circumscribed. But he is far too good a craftsman to do no more than give a mere panorama of that daily Bath programme which King Nash and his dynasty ordained and established. He goes back to the origins; to the legend of King Lear's leper-father; to the _Diary_ of the too-much-neglected Celia Fiennes; to Pepys[55] and Grammont's Memoirs; to the days when hapless Catherine of Braganza, with the baleful "_belle_ Stewart" in her train, made fruitless pilgrimage to Bladud's spring as a remedy against sterility. He sketches, with due acknowledgments to Goldsmith's unique little book, the biography of that archquack, _poseur_, and very clever organiser, Mr. Richard Nash, the first real Master of the Ceremonies; and he gives a full account of his followers and successors. He also minutely relates the story of Sheridan's marriage to his beautiful "St. Cecilia," Elizabeth Ann Linley. A separate and very interesting chapter is allotted to Lady Huntingdon and the Methodists, not without levies from the remarkable _Spiritual Quixote_ of that Rev. Richard Graves of Claverton, of whom an excellent account was given not long since in Mr. W. H. Hutton's suggestive _Burford Papers_. Other chapters are occupied with Bath and its _belles lettres_; with "Squire Allworthy" of Prior Park and his literary guests, Pope, Warburton, Fielding and his sister, etc.; with the historic Frascati vase of Lady Miller at Batheaston, which stirred the ridicule of Horace Walpole, and is still, it is said, to be seen in a local park. The dosing pages treat of Bath--musical, artistic, scientific--of its gradual transformation as a health resort--of its eventual and foredoomed decline and fall as the one fashionable watering-place, supreme and single, for Great Britain and Ireland.
Note:
[55] Oddly enough--if M. Barbeau's index is to be trusted, and it is an unusually good one,--he makes no reference to Evelyn's visit to Bath. But Evelyn went there in June, 1654, bathed in the Cross Bath, criticised the "_facciata_" of the Abbey Church, complained of the "narrow, uneven and unpleasant streets," and inter-visited with the company frequenting the place for health. "Among the rest of the idle diversions of the town," he says, "one musician was famous for acting a changeling [idiot or half-wit], which indeed he personated strangely." (_Diary_, Globe edn., 1908, p. 174.)
But it is needless to prolong analysis. One's only wonder--as usual after the event--is that what has been done so well had never been thought of before. For while M. Barbeau is to be congratulated upon the happy task he has undertaken, we may also congratulate ourselves that he has performed it so effectively. His material is admirably arranged. He has supported it by copious notes; and he has backed it up by an impressive bibliography of authorities ancient and modern. This is something; but it is not all[56]. He has done much more than this. He has contrived that, in his picturesque and learned pages, the old "Queen of the West" shall live again, with its circling terraces, its grey stone houses and ill-paved streets, its crush of chairs and chariots, its throng of smirking, self-satisfied prom-enaders.
Note:
[56] To the English version (Heinemann, 1904) an eighteenth-century map of Bath, and a number of interesting views and portraits have been added.