Part 5

There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell; But hush! hark: a deep sound strikes like a rising knell.

It has been generally asserted and believed that the ball was given by the duchess in the grand hall of the stately Hôtel de Ville in the Grande Place, and when in Brussels I heard the assertion repeated by many people, though denied by others. One old citizen, who remembered the battle well, affirmed it to have been at the Hôtel de Ville, which he saw brilliantly lighted up for the occasion, and passed among the crowd of equipages that filled the Grande Place, when setting down and taking up the ladies who graced the assembly with their presence. Another equally old and trustworthy inhabitant declared that to his personal knowledge the ball was given in the “Palais d’Aes,” a large building that adjoins the palace of the King of the Belgians, and is now used as a barrack; while a third affirmed it to have been held in the handsome hotel, adjoining the Chamber of Deputies, which was formerly occupied by Sir Charles Bagot, the British Ambassador to Brussels and the Hague in 1830. Thinking there could be no better authority than one who was present on the occasion, one, moreover, who was so nearly allied to the giver of the entertainment, I asked Lord William to decide the point. He replied at once that all these assertions were unfounded. His father, the Duke, took a large house in a back street, called the “Rue de la Blanchisserie” (street of the laundry), abutting on the boulevard, opposite the present Botanic Garden, and that the ball took place in the not extraordinarily spacious drawing-room of that mansion. He said, moreover, that the lines—

Within the window’d niche of that high hall Sat Brunswick’s fated chieftain,

conveyed an idea of magnitude which the so-called “high hall” did not in reality possess.

Archbishop Whately here said: “If we may be permitted without breach of good manners to speak of Waterloo in the presence of Prince Napoleon, I may remark that the correction of the very minor error just made by Lord William, though exceedingly interesting is not of great importance. Though contradicted again and again, the report still circulates, and is still believed, that the Duke of Wellington was surprised on the eve of the battle of Waterloo by the rapid march of the emperor, and was thus taken at a disadvantage.”

“I never believed the report,” said the Prince, “though I have my own views about the battle. I visited Waterloo in the winter of 1832, with what feelings you may imagine.”

“The truth as regards the alleged surprise,” said the Archbishop, “appears to be, as Lord Byron explained in a note to the passage in ‘Childe Harold,’ that the Duke had received intelligence of Napoleon’s march, and at first had the idea of requesting the Duchess of Richmond to countermand the ball; but, on reflection, considered it desirable that the people of Brussels should be kept in ignorance of the course of events. He, therefore, desired the duchess to let the ball proceed, and gave commands to all the general officers who had been invited to appear at it, each taking care to quit the room at ten o’clock quietly, and without giving any notification, except to each of the under officers, to join their respective divisions _en route_. There is no doubt that many of the subalterns who were not in the secret were surprised at the suddenness of the order.”

“I heard, when I visited the field of Waterloo less than a month ago,” I said, “that many of the officers joined the march in their dancing shoes, so little time was left for them to obey orders.”

“It has been proved to the satisfaction of every real inquirer into the facts,” said Mr. Rogers, “that as far as the duke himself and his superior officers were concerned, there was no surprise in the matter. You know the daring young lady, who presumed on her beauty to be forgiven for her impertinence, who asked the Duke point-blank at an evening party whether he had not been surprised at Waterloo. ‘Certainly not!’ he replied ‘but I am now.’”

“A proper rebuke,” said Lord William, “I hope the lady felt it.”

Byron, in the beautiful stanzas to which allusion has been made, describes the wood of Soignes, erroneously called Soignies, in the environs of Brussels, a portion of the great Forest of Ardennes:

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops as they pass. Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, Over the unreturning brave.

In a note to this passage he speaks of Ardennes as famous in Boiardo’s “Orlando,” as immortal in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” Whatever may have been the case with Boiardo, it is all but certain that Shakespeare’s “Arden” was not the Ardennes near Brussels, but the forest of Arden, in Warwickshire, near his native town of Stratford-on-Avon. He frequented this “Arden” in his youth, perhaps in chasing the wild deer of Sir Thomas Lucy, perhaps in love-rambles with Anne Hathaway. Portions of this English forest still remain, containing in a now enclosed park—the property of a private gentleman—some venerable oak trees, one of which as I roughly measured it with my walking-stick is upwards of thirty feet in circumference within a yard of the ground. This tree, with several others still standing, must have been old in the days of Shakespeare; and in the shadow of which he himself may have reclined in the happy days ere he went to London in search of fame and fortune. “Arden,” spelled Ardennes in French, is a purely Celtic word, meaning the high forest, from _Ard_, high, and _Airdean_, heights. The English district is still called “Arden,” and the small town of Henley, within its boundaries, is described as Henley-in-Arden to distinguish it from the many other Henleys that exist in England.

Lord William Lennox married the once celebrated cantatrice, Miss Wood, from whom he was divorced. He was a somewhat voluminous author of third-rate novels, and a frequent contributor to the periodical press. He died in 1880, in his eighty-first year.

Dr. Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, was the author of a very able treatise on Logic and Rhetoric, long the text-book of the schools; and also of a once famous _jeu d’esprit_ entitled “Historic Doubts concerning Napoleon Buonaparte,” in which he proved irrefragably by false logic likely to convince idle and unthinking readers, that no such person as Napoleon Buonaparte ever did exist or could have existed. In this clever little work he ridiculed, under the guise of seeming impartiality and critical acumen, the many attempts that had been made, especially by French writers of the school of Voltaire, to prove that Jesus Christ was a purely imaginary character, as much a myth as the gods of Grecian and Roman mythology. Mr. Greville, in his “Memoirs of the Courts of George III., George IV., and William IV.,” records that he met Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, at a dinner-party, and describes him “as a very ordinary man in appearance and conversation, with something pretentious in his talk, and as telling stories without point.” Nevertheless he admitted him to be “a very able man.” My opinion of the Archbishop was far more favorable. The first thing that struck me with regard to him was the clear precision of his reasoning, as befitted a man who had written with such undoubted authority on Logic and Rhetoric, and the second his rare tolerance for all conscientious differences of opinion on religious matters. Two years previously I had sat next to him on the platform of the inaugural meeting held by the members of The Athenæum at Manchester in support of that institution. Several bishops had been invited, and had signified their intention to be present, but all of them except Dr. Whately had withdrawn as soon as it was publicly announced that Mr. George Dawson, a popular lecturer and Unitarian preacher of advanced opinions, was to address the audience. Mr. Dawson, who was at the time a very young man, spoke with considerable eloquence and power, and impressed the audience favorably, the Archbishop included. “I think,” said Dr. Whately, turning to me at the conclusion of the speech, “that my reverend brethren would have taken no harm from being present to-night, and more than one of them, whom I could name, would be all the better if they could preach with as much power and spirit, as this boy has displayed in his speech.” On another occasion, when I was in Dublin in 1849. I heard that several ultra-orthodox Protestant clergymen in the city had been heard to express regret that Dr. Whately was so lax in his religious belief, and set so bad an example to his clergy. I asked in what manner, and was told in reply that he had publicly spoken of Dr. Daniel Murray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, then in his 81st year, as “a good man, a very good man,” adding the hope that he himself should be found worthy to meet Murray in Heaven.

This large-minded prelate died in 1863, in his seventy-seventh year.

IV.

THE REV. HENRY HART MILMAN—THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE—THOMAS MILLER.

It was in the summer of 1844, a few days after the interment in Westminster Abbey of Thomas Campbell, the poet, author of the “Pleasures of Hope” and many other celebrated poems, that I received an invitation to breakfast with Samuel Rogers, to meet the Rev. Dr. Milman, the officiating clergyman on that solemn occasion. There were two other guests besides myself; the Rev. Alexander Dyce, well known as a commentator on Shakespeare, and Mr. Thomas Miller—originally a basket-maker—who had acquired considerable reputation as a poet and novelist and a hard-working man of letters.

Dr. Milman was at the time rector of St. Margaret’s—the little church that stands close to Westminster Abbey and interferes greatly with the view of that noble cathedral. He was afterwards Dean of St. Paul’s, and was known to fame as the author of the successful tragedy of “Fazio,” of many poetical volumes of no great merit, and of a “History of the Jews” and a “History of Christianity,” both of which still retain their reputation.

The conversation turned principally on the funeral of the poet, at which both Mr. Dyce and myself had been present. The pall-bearers were among the most distinguished men of the time, for their rank, their talent, and their high literary and political positions. They included Sir Robert Peel, Lord Brougham, Lord Campbell, the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Strangford, and the Duke of Buccleuch, the last named the generous nobleman—noble in nature as well as in rank—who had offered, when a lad in his teens, to pay the debts of his illustrious namesake, Sir Walter Scott, when the great novelist had fallen upon evil days in the full flush of his fame and popularity. A long procession of authors, sculptors, artists, and other distinguished men followed the coffin to the grave. Many Polish exiles were conspicuous among them. As Dr. Milman pronounced the affecting words of the burial service, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” a Polish gentleman made his way through the ranks of mourners, and drawing a handful of earth from a little basket which he carried, exclaimed in a clear voice, “This is Polish earth for the tomb of the friend of Poland,” and sprinkled it upon the coffin. This dramatic incident recalled to my mind, as it no doubt did to that of other spectators, Campbell’s unwearied exertions in the cause of Poland, and of the indignant lines in the “Pleasures of Hope,”

Hope for a season bade the world farewell, And Freedom shriek’d when Kosciusko fell.

Mr. Rogers, reminded, perhaps, of a grievance by the presence at the breakfast table of Dr. Milman, seemed to brood over an injustice that he thought had been done him with reference to the late poet. When Campbell, under the pressure of some pecuniary difficulty, complained of the scanty rewards of literature, and especially of poetry, Mr. Rogers was reported to have recommended him to endeavor to procure employment as a clerk. This was thought to be very unfeeling; but on this occasion Mr. Rogers explained to the whole company that he had been misunderstood, and that he had not meant any unkindness. “I myself,” he said, “was a clerk in my early days, and never had to depend upon poetry for my bread; and I only suggested that in Mr. Campbell’s ‘case,’ and in that of every other literary man, it would be much better if the writing of poetry were an amusement only and not a business.”

“No doubt,” said Mr. Dyce, “but men of genius are not always the masters of their own youth, and cannot invariably choose their careers or make choice of a profession which requires means and time to qualify for it. You, for instance, Mr. Rogers, when a clerk, were clerk to your father, and qualified yourself under his auspices for partnership in, or succession to the management of, his prosperous bank. Mr. Campbell had no such chances.”

“It is a large question,” said Dr. Milman. “The love of literature in a man of genius, rich or poor—especially if poor, is an all-absorbing passion; and shapes his life, regret it as we may. Literature has rewards more pleasant than those of money, pleasant though money undoubtedly is. If money were to be the ‘be-all’ and ‘end-all’ of life, it would be better to be a rich cheesemonger or butcher than a poor author. But no high-spirited, intelligent, and ambitious youth could be of this opinion and shape his life by it. Sensitive youths drift into poetry, as prosaic and adventurous youths drift into the army or the navy.”

“The more’s the pity,” replied Mr. Rogers, “as by drifting into poetry they too often drift into poverty and misery. I trust, however, you will all understand that the idle and the malevolent gossips did, and do me, gross unjustice when they say that I recommended Campbell to accept a clerkship rather than continue to rely upon poetry. I never thought of doing so. I merely expressed a general wish that every man of genius, not born to wealth, should have a profession to rely upon for his daily bread.”

“A wish that all men would agree in,” said Mr. Dyce, “and that after all had no particular or exclusive reference to Mr. Campbell. He did not find the literature which he adorned utterly unprofitable. He made money by his poetry and by his literary labor generally, besides gaining a pension of three hundred pounds per annum on the Civil List, and the society of all the most eminent men of his time, which he could not have done as a cheesemonger or a butcher, however successful he might have become in these pursuits.”

“These are all truisms,” said Mr. Rogers, somewhat sharply, as if annoyed. “What I complain of is that the world, the very ill-natured world, should have spread abroad the ridiculous story that I recommended Mr. Campbell, in his declining years, to apply for a clerkship.”

“I think no one believes that you did so,” said Dr. Milman, “or that you could have done so. Your sympathy with men of letters is well known and has been proved too often, not by mere words only, but by generous deeds, for such a story to obtain credence.”

“Falsehoods,” replied Mr. Rogers, still with a tone of bitterness, “are not cripples. They run fast, and have more legs than a centipede. I saw it stated in print the other day that I depreciate Shakespeare and think him to have been over-rated. I know of no other foundation for the libel than that I once quoted the opinion expressed of him by Ben Jonson, his dearest friend and greatest admirer. Though Ben Jonson called Shakespeare ‘the Swan of Avon,’

Soul of the age, The applause, delight, and wonder of the stage,

and affirmed that:

He was not for an age, but for all Time,

he did not hesitate to express the wish, in answer to one who boasted that Shakespeare had never blotted a line, ‘would to Heaven he had blotted a thousand.’ Ben Jonson saw the spots on the glorious face of the sun of Shakespeare’s genius, and was not accused of desecrating his memory because he did so; but because _I_ quoted that very saying and approved of it, I have been accused of an act of treason against the majesty of the great poet. Surely my offence was no greater than that of Ben Jonson! If there were treason in the thought, it was treason that I shared with him who had said he loved Shakespeare with as much love as was possible to feel on this side of idolatry.”

“I think,” remarked Dr. Milman, “that such apparently malevolent repetitions of a person’s remarks are the results of careless ignorance or easy-going stupidity, rather than of positive ill-nature or a wilful perversion of the truth.”

“It is very curious,” said Mr. Dyce, “how very few people can repeat correctly what they hear, and that nine people out of ten cannot repeat a joke without missing the point or the spirit of it.”

“And what a widely prevalent tendency there is to exaggerate, especially in numbers. If some people see a hundred of anything, they commonly represent the hundred as a thousand and the thousand as ten thousand.”

“Not alone in numbers,” interposed Mr. Rogers, “but in anything. If I quoted Ben Jonson’s remark in relation to Shakespeare once only, the rumor spreads that I quoted it frequently; and so the gossip passes from mouth to mouth with continual accretion. Perhaps I shall go down to posterity as an habitual reviler and depreciator of Shakespeare.”

“Perhaps you won’t go down to posterity at all,” said Mr. Dyce, good-naturedly.

“Perhaps not,” replied Mr. Rogers, “but if my name should happen to reach that uncertain destination I trust I may be remembered, as Ben Jonson is, as a true lover of Shakespeare. But great as Shakespeare is, I don’t think that our admiration should ever be allowed to degenerate into slavish adoration. We ought neither to make a god of him nor a fetish. And I ask you, Mr. Dyce, as a diligent student of his works and an industrious commentator upon them, whether you do not think that very many passages in them are unworthy of his genius. If Homer nods, why not Shakespeare?”

“I grant all that,” replied Mr. Dyce, “nay more! I assert that many of the plays attributed to him were not written by him at all. And more even than that. Several of his plays were published surreptitiously, and without his consent, and never received his final corrections or any revision whatever. The faults and obscurities that are discoverable even in the masterpieces of his genius, were not due to him at all, but to ignorant and piratical booksellers, who gave them to the world without his authority, and traded upon his name. Some also must be attributed to the shorthand writers who took down the dialogue as repeated by the actors on the stage. It is curious to reflect how indifferent Shakespeare was to his dramatic fame. He never seems to have cared for his plays at all, and to have looked at them, to use the slang of the artists of our days, as mere ‘_pot-boilers_,’ compositions that brought him in money, and enabled him to pay his way, but in which he took no personal pride whatever.”

“His heart was in his two early poems—‘Venus and Adonis,’ and the ‘Rape of Lucrece,’” said Dr. Milman, “the only compositions, it should be observed, that were ever published by his authority, and to which he appended his name. His sonnets, which some people admire so much—an admiration in which I do not share—were published surreptitiously, without his consent, and probably more than one-half of them were not written by him. Some of them are undoubtedly by Marlowe, and some by authors of far inferior ability. Shakespeare’s name was popular at the time; there was no law of copyright, and booksellers did almost what they pleased with the names and works of celebrated men; and what seems extraordinary in our day, the celebrated men made no complaint—most probably because there was no redress to be obtained for them if they had done so. The real law of copyright only dates from the eighth year of the reign of Queen Anne, 1710, or nearly a century after Shakespeare’s death.”

“But authors in those early days, even in the absence of a well-defined law of copyright,” said Mr. Miller, “received payment for their works; witness the receipt of John Milton for five pounds on account of ‘Paradise Lost’—now in the possession of our host—and which we have all seen.”

“But that was long after the death of Shakespeare,” said Mr. Dyce, “and it does not appear that Shakespeare ever received a shilling for the copyright of any of his works. Perhaps he received gratuities from the Earls of Southampton and Pembroke, and the other rich young men about town, for whom it is supposed that he wrote many of his sonnets. That he also must have received considerable sums for his representation of his plays at the Globe Theatre is evident from the well-ascertained fact that he retired from theatrical business with a competent fortune and lived the life for some years of a prosperous country gentleman.”