Part 23

Pierius Valerianus tells us that Antonius Marosticus, when held in high esteem and loved of all men, enjoying the dainties of life at the court of some Cardinal, and dallying with existence which he had rooted hopes would henceforth be peaceful, was carried off within three days by a sudden epidemic. The doleful deed, Pierius says, was made more distressful by the fact that sanitary considerations required the cremation of all the dead man’s books with the dead man’s body. How far the sense of tragedy may lie in this melancholy incident, the death of Shelley helps one to appreciate. His corpse was washed ashore near the Via Reggio, four miles from that of his friend Williams, which lay close to the tower of Migliarino, at the Bocca Lericcio. The attitude was memorable. His right hand was clasped in his heart. Bent back and thrust away, as if in haste, was in a side pocket the last volume of the poet Keats. It had been lent by Leigh Hunt, who had told the borrower to keep it till he should return it by his own hands. This impossible, and Hunt refusing to receive it through others, it was burnt with the body amid frankincense and myrrh.

It was fit that the pathetic in death should spring from a cause so troublous in life. Again and again was Shelley wounded by the forced suppression of his work. Doubtless merit is not extreme in the two-act tragedy of “Œdipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot the Tyrant.” But its fate was as subtle and sure as that of Œdipus himself. Written abroad, it was transmitted to England, printed and published anonymously, and stifled at the very dawn of its existence by the “Society for the Suppression of Vice,” who threatened a prosecution upon it, if not immediately withdrawn. The friend who had taken the pains of bringing it out did not deem it worth the cost, to pocket and nerve, of a contest, and it was laid aside—only to be revived in Mrs. Shelley’s second edition. It is said, indeed, that but seven copies are extant, one of which Mr. Buxton Forman, the industrious and intelligent editor to whom the best students of Shelley feel themselves the most beholden, secured, by search through the vast stores of Mr. Lacy, the dramatic publisher of the Strand—one of the very last plays in the very last boxes—a mere paper pamphlet, devoid of a wrapper, carried away at the cost of a six-pence, proving to be the treasure. And far was the Œdipus from being the sole cause of trouble in respect of the works of its author. Posthumous Poems of Shelley were suppressed on the application of Sir Timothy, his father. The Posthumous Letters, which excellent forgers had contrived to manufacture from articles written after the decease of the poet, exercising an amount of ingenuity described as “most extraordinary,” and receiving the reward of the labor of their hands from Sir Percy Shelley, or from Mr. Moxon, were called in on the discovery of the fraud. “Laon and Cythna” was cancelled to make way for the “Revolt of Islam.” “Queen Mab,” which had been written when Shelley was eighteen, though completed only when in his twenty-first year, was surreptitiously published while its author was in Italy—copies having been distributed among his friends—and though adjudged by the Court of Chancery, from which an injunction was sought for restraint of this irregular edition, to be disentitled to privilege on the futile score of an immorality shocking to the British constitution, it and its notes were, so late as 1840, the subject of prosecutions and convictions to all who openly, being men of fair fame, ventured to publish it, as Mr. Moxon experienced.

The poets, indeed, of Shelley’s time were peculiarly unfortunate. It is a sound enough deduction of law that what is evil—is filthy, or blasphemous, or scandalous—cannot be for the benefit of the public to learn of, nor therefore an object of the law, which is built on the needs of society, to extend its protection to—a protection which has in view the advantages of private individuals only as members of society. But in this refusal of the active bestowment of privilege the guardian of public morals in an individual man, in no sense a representative of his country—a judge of the old Court of Chancery. Now in active suppression, in punishment for enticing the public to things contaminating and none the less subtle because presented in intellectual form, there is indeed the benefit of the presence of a judge, but the issue is with a jury. And the unfortunate interval, or breach, through which public morals are so roughly assailable is measured (usually at least) by the _sum_ of the differences between a publication disentitled to privilege or worthy of punishment, and the judgment of an individual or the opinion of the country. In this vast moral interval, to say nothing of the interval of time which rapidity in administration, on the one hand, and slowness in administration on the other, scarcely ever fail to involve, there is an enticement to the indifferent part of the population, or to that bold and heroic part which dares to set up its private and painfully honest judgment against the judgment of a Chancery judge—to trade upon the bruited knowledge of a suspected well of evil, unchecked by unpalatable astringency in consumption of the draught. With the narrowness of men like Lords Eldon and Ellenborough, and the rebellious attitude held by a nation consciously approaching to the dawn of an age of a freedom of thought greater because more nobly and wit-wisely sanctioned, this breach was disastrously great, and beckoned the way to a flood of mischances directly or affectively extensive.

Now, a highly curious result of the working of these doctrines was seen in cases in which—not as with Shelley, nor as with Byron, who vainly sought in February 1822 to suppress the edition of “Cain” which the pirate, Benbow, had printed, and who in the same year saw his “Vision” first refused by the publishers of the Row, then given to John Hunt, then placed by John and his brother in the first number of the _Liberal_, and then made the subject of a true bill returned by a Middlesex grand jury on an indictment preferred by the “Constitutional Association”—in cases in which, I say, the authors, from change of opinion, were opposed to any publication of their earlier works. The most prominent instance of this occurs, of course, in the “Wat Tyler” of Laureate Southey. In the height of his pantisocratic schemes, and full of Socialist feelings, Southey had written this dramatic poem, and placed the manuscript in the hands of his brother-in-law, Robert Lovell; he took it to Mr. Ridgway, the London publisher. When Southey visited the Metropolis shortly afterwards, the year was 1794, Mr. Ridgway was in Newgate. Thither Southey went, and either found incarcerated in the same apartment with his publisher, or took with him, the Rev. Mr. Winterbottom, a dissenting minister. It was agreed that “Wat Tyler” should be published anonymously. The piece, however, appears to have been forgotten, and wholly to have escaped the memory of both publisher and Southey. But it had crept—so Cottle, Hone, and Browne may best be reconciled—into the hands of Mr. Winterbottom, who taking it with him, when years had passed, while on a visit to friends at Worcester, beguiled some dull hour by reading the piece for the amusement of the company, who were well pleased to pamper their dislike to Southey by chuckling at his _ratting_ in political opinions. But generosity clearly demanded that this pleasant spirit of carping should have a sphere extended far beyond a Worcestershire company. So thought two of the guests, who, obtaining the manuscript, with great devotion sacrificed the long hours of night by transcribing it, being careful the while to preserve the privacy which attends the most highly charitable actions. Through their hands the transcription reached the publisher, and no sooner had his edition appeared than Southey became naturally anxious to lay the ghost of his former beliefs. For that purpose, with the advice of his friends, he applied for an injunction. Lord Eldon refused to grant it, on the plea that “a person cannot recover damages upon a work which in its nature is calculated to do injury to the public.” The decision of the Court encouraged the vendors to redouble their efforts, and not fewer than 60,000 copies are said to have been sold during the excitement the case created. As for poor Southey, he defended himself as best he could in the _Courier_, and underwent the further suspense of seeing a prosecution urged against him by turbulent spirits in the legislature—Lord Brougham first, and Mr. William Smith after. The ridicule was all the more increased by the fact that Southey had recently published in the _Quarterly Review_ an article in most striking contrast. And it is noticeable that in _his_ American _Quarterly Review_ Dr. Orestes A. Brownson printed opinions destructive of his early views, which had also been in sympathy with Socialistic and transcendental movements, as well as with Unitarianism, and threw cold water upon, and indeed endeavored in his own country altogether to suppress, the work by which in this country he is best known, “Charles Elwood; or, the Infidel Converted.”

Certainly few authors have had better justification for a change of opinion than Adrian Beverland. In a work quite unfit for general reading, which purported to be issued “Eleutheropoli, in Horto Hesperidum, typis Adami, Evæ, Terræ filii, 1678,” he had maintained with nasty nicety that view of original sin which Henri Corneille Agrippa in his “Declamatio de originali Peccato” had nearly as undisguisedly maintained before him. For this performance he was cast into prison at Leyden, and would have fared badly enough had he not found means of escape. His work, however, was sufficiently thought of to provoke from Leonard Ryssenius a “justa detestatio libelli sceleratissimi,” just as a previous work had called from Allard Uchtman a “Vox clamantis in deserto, ad sacrorum ministros, adversus Beverlandum.” Passing these by, Beverland himself was contented to write stinging libels against the Leyden magistrates and professors, and then to flee to London, where he engaged himself principally in collecting odious pictures. But after a time came a measure of repentance, and though no excessive purity can be claimed for an “Admonition” published by Bateman, of London, in 1697, yet the preface or “advertisement” does certainly contain a strong condemnation of his “Peccatum originale.” Fifteen years after, he died in a state of deep poverty, a madman—impressed with the horrible idea that he was pursued by two hundred men allied by oath to slay him.

A state more interesting that either stanch advocacy or loud condemnation of a position once relied on is that of hesitation. It is one peculiarly unlikely to express itself, because the tendency of hesitation is to refrain; or if expressing itself to arrest attention, because subtile or feeble qualifications refer their interest to the themes they hedge and do not centre in themselves. But when a mind throws itself with force into a posture of racked doubt, and bids us be aware that the struggle, not the issue, is of utter worth, or when with yet greater fervor of expectancy a revelation, we know not whence, we know not whither, is awaited with every nerve full-strained, the world more surely than by either other mood becomes a gallery rocked with hearkening spectators. I think there is something of this earnest hesitation in a career it is not difficult, at this distance of time, to futilize—Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s. There is a very human weakness in his self-debate upon the publication of the “De Veritate,” but there is a very human need—and, moreover, a need made personal (as are all needs), though founded in philanthropy. Truly the more sacred experience is—unless it can reach to that intensity and presentness which thrills all who stand enclosed in the thin line of its horizon—the more clearly it is desecrated by the common tread, and seems a thing to mock at. So is it with the scene which Herbert himself describes.

Being thus doubtful in my chamber, one fair day in the summer, my casement being open towards the sun, the sun shining clear, and no wind stirring, I took my work, “De Veritate,” in my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words: “O Thou eternal God, Author of the light which now shines upon me, and Giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech Thee, give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it.” I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud, though yet gentle noise, came from heaven (for it was like nothing on earth), which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon also I resolved to print my book.

An aspect of mind combining both resolution and diffidence, which has lead to the obliteration of literary work, is reliance on a friend’s counsel. An amusing example of this is related in the ecclesiastical history of Nicephorus Callistus concerning Marsilius Ficinus. This gentleman had translated Plato into Latin, and came to his learned friend Musurus Candiotus to know his opinion of it. Candiotus, after perusing some few leaves, perceived that it would not satisfy the expectation of the learned, and was even of opinion that it was so slubbered over as to resemble the original (as Cicero the younger did his father) in nothing but in name. He accordingly took up a sponge, dipped it in an ink-pot, and blotted out the first page. This done, he turns to Ficinus. “Thou seest,” quoth he “how I have corrected the first page; if thou wilt, I will correct the rest in like sort.” Now Ficinus was fully as mild in temper as slender in scholarship. “No reason,” says he, “that Plato should be disgraced through my default; refine away.” And according to his words was it done.

It would appear from Scaliger that even had not Ficinus commenced his out-sponged work afresh, literature would not have lamentably lost. Far, indeed, would this have been from true, had the influence of a friend prevailed to wipe from among the works of Gray “The Progress of Poetry,” and “The Bard.” I will not deny of its setting the sentence in which Walpole communicates the likelihood of such a fate.

One quality I may safely arrogate to myself: I am not _afraid to praise_. Many are such timid judges of composition, that they hesitate to wait for the public opinion. Show them a manuscript, though they highly approve it in their hearts, they are afraid to commit themselves by speaking out. Several excellent works have perished from this cause; a writer of real talents being often a mere sensitive plant with regard to his own productions. Some cavils of Mason (how inferior a poet and judge!) had almost induced Gray to destroy his two beautiful and sublime odes. We should not only praise, but hasten to praise.

In modern days the function of Mason is more generally filled by adverse public critics. The case of the late Edward Fitzgerald, who by an unfavorable review was induced to withdraw from circulation his “Six Dramas of Calderon,” and probably altogether to withhold from the public his rendering of “La Vida es Sueño,” and “El Mágico Prodigioso,” is until the present unhappily in point.

More melancholy still are those episodes of literary history which present the wearied author consigning with forced smile and show of acquiescence—“coactus volo”—the products of his craft to an untimely end. English history does not lack its instances of these heroic souls in motley, these Herculeses with their distaffs. There is John Selden, and there is Reginald Pecock: let us bare the mishaps of these representatives.

In the time of James I., the clergy were pleased to advance to the utmost the doctrine of the divine right of tithes—a divinity entailed in a pedigree of patriarchal ages, Jewish priesthood, and Christian priesthood. Upon so venerable a claim so cogently revived, lawyers yet looked with jealousy. For they saw in every claim by divine right, where royal and sub-royal patrons were unconcerned, a limitation of human rights, with their correlative human duties very apt to be regulated by positive law. Selden, partaking of the legal spirit—coincident this once with the historic—produced his “History of Tithes,” a plain narrative, margented with copious authorities, which established abundantly the duty of paying tenths—but established on the distasteful ground of human authority. James, who patronised divinity partly to show the ardor with which he in his one turn could venerate, partly for the reflected strength wherewith it encircled himself, partly from conceit and cowardice, and partly from better motives, summoned the author to appear before him in December 1618, at his palace at Theobalds. Introduced by Ben Jonson and Edward Hayward, Selden maintained the test of two conferences at Theobalds, and one at Whitehall with the monarch in person; but this in nowise prevented his being called, on January 28, 1618, before seven members of the High Commission Court in whose presence he was induced to make and sign this declaration.

My good Lords, I most humbly acknowledge the error which I have committed in publishing “The History of Tithes,” and especially in that I have at all, by showing any interpretation of Holy Scriptures, by meddling with councils, fathers, or canons, or by what else soever occurs in it, offered any occasion of argument against any right of maintenance, _jure divino_, of the minister of the Gospel; beseeching your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and humble acknowledgment, together with the unfeigned protestation of my grief, for that through it I have so incurred both his Majesty’s and your Lordships’ displeasure conceived against me in behalf of the Church of England.

Beside this forced submission, the authority which had exacted it prohibited the book. Further, Selden was forbidden to publish anything in his own defence, while public invitation—pluckily used—was given to any who should choose to attack either him or his history with all the virulence of pocket and party polemics. Nor was this all, but Selden stooped at the bidding of the king to uphold opinions, no doubt on three small points, which he had seemed to impugn in his greater work. It is pleasant to add that he circulated among his friends in manuscript answers to the attacks which were published against him.

The fall of Pecock was more abject, and less relieved. About 1449 he had written—not printed, of course—“The Repressor.” He had in design to defend the clergy from the aspersions, as he conceived them, of the “Bible-man” or Lollards. With this view he vindicated the use of images, the going on pilgrimages, and the retention of the various ranks of the hierarchy in their full directive authority. In 1450 he remained in sufficient esteem—though indeed his treatise was not much circulated for four or five years—to be transferred to the see of Chichester. From that time, however, his good fortune deserted him. The Duke of York conceived it well to cover his strides towards the crown, with the redress of grievances; and the disgrace of Pecock’s patrons, the Duke of Suffolk and the Bishop of Norwich, together with the personal dislike the king contracted towards him, made Chichester a safe object of attack. While all things were thus working for the good man’s evil, the council met at Westminster in the autumn of 1457, whence by general acclamation Pecock was expelled. He was cited to appear before Archbishop Bourchier on November 11, and the character of his offence became more definitised. He had held cheap the authority of the old doctors, he had denied that the Apostles’ Creed was made by the Apostles, and at the same time he had magnified the office of reason—rather than singly of the Scriptures, or rather than singly of the Church—as an ultimate test. Accordingly, to this citation he appeared, armed with nine of his books, into which it must be confessed were introduced some newly conceived passages and some erasures. A committee of Bishops, to whom the matter was then referred, reported adversely; and after further disputation the archbishop offered Pecock his choice of making a public abjuration of his errors, or of being first degraded, and then delivered over to the secular arm “as the food of fire, and fuel for the burning.” He chose the abjuration: a preliminary confession was forthwith made, a written confession was added at Lambeth on the 3rd of December, and on the next day, Sunday, arrayed in his episcopal habit, in the presence of 20,000 persons, he knelt at the feet of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Rochester, Durham, and of his “own pure and free will, and without any man’s coercion or dread,” made his recantation. In this he had declared that he presumed of his own natural wit to prefer the judgment of reason before the Testaments and the authority of the Church; had published many perilous doctrines and books containing enumerated heresies; and now considered himself grievously to have sinned and wickedly to have deceived the people of God, but returned to the unity of the mother Holy Church and renounced both the rehearsed heresies and all other “spices,” or kinds of heresy, and exhorted all men not to trust in his books, neither to keep or read them in any wise, but to bring them in haste to the Primate or his agents; in that he publicly assented that his books should be deputed unto the fire, and openly be burnt as an example and terror to all others. The recantation ended, a fire was kindled at the Cross. With his own hands Pecock delivered three folios and eleven quartos of his own composition to the executioner, who took and threw them in the flames, while the Bishop exclaimed aloud “My pride and presumption have brought upon me these troubles and these reproaches.” Little could he then think that in some future day England would, at public cost, republish the chief of the books his own lips had condemned.

But the punishment of Pecock did not end here. It was perhaps not much to him that the University of Oxford (which has consistently shown a spirit of illiberality, or at least a burning disposition, throughout its eras almost down to the present age) should in solemn procession, its Chancellor at its head, march to a place where four roads met—the Quatre-voix or Carfax—and there burn to ashes every copy of his works on which hands could be laid. But, deprived of his bishopric, it was necessary that directions should be given for his personal fare. These came to the Abbot of Thorney, to whose Cambridgeshire Abbey the cleric was sent. He was to live for ever in one closed chamber, so contrived that he might hear Mass; to be attended by one sad man to make his bed; to be forbidden all books but a breviary, a mass-book, a psalter, a legend, and a Bible; to be refused any thing to write with or on; but to be allowed a sufficiency of food and fire. And in this dolorous state there is all reason to suppose his closing days were spent.[74]