Part 4

"In 1801, believing that I was then become a grand poet, I most sapiently determined on publishing a pamphlet, and appealing to the world at once. Having attended the Edinburgh market one Monday, with a number of sheep for sale, and being unable to dispose of them all, I put the remainder into a park until the market on Wednesday. Not knowing how to pass the interim, it came into my head that I would write a poem or two from my memory, and get them printed. The thought had no sooner struck me than it was put in practice; and I was obliged to select, not the best poems, but those that I remembered best. I wrote several of these during my short stay, and gave them all to a person to print at my expense; and having sold off my sheep on Wednesday morning, I returned to the forest. I saw no more of my poems until I received word that there were one thousand copies of them thrown off. I knew no more of publishing than the man in the moon; and the only motive that influenced me was, the gratification of my vanity by seeing myself in print. All of them were sad stuff, although I judged them to be exceedingly good. Notwithstanding my pride of authorship, in a few days I had discernment enough left to wish my publication heartily at the devil, and I had hopes that long ago it had been consigned to eternal oblivion, when, behold! a London critic had, in malice of heart, preserved a copy, and quoted liberally out of it last year, to my intense chagrin and mortification;" _i.e._, while Hogg was, but four years before his death, lionizing in London.

His adventures afterward in Edinburgh, publishing his subsequent poems, are equally curious. How he published by subscription, and one third of his subscribers took his books, but never paid for them. How he set up a weekly literary paper--"The Spy," which he continued a year. How he became a great spouter at a debating club called "The Forum." How he wrote a musical farce, and a musical drama; all ending in ruin and insolvency, till he brought out the Queen's Wake, and won a good reputation. Here he with great simplicity tells us, that Mr. Jeffrey never noticed the poem till it had got into a third edition, and having given offense to Mr. Anster by comparing the two poets, he never afterward took any notice of any of his writings. Whereupon, Hogg says, proudly, he thinks that conduct can do him no honor in the long run; and that he would match the worst poem he ever published with some that Mr. Jeffrey has strained himself to bring forward. But Hogg was now a popular man. His Queen's Wake went on into edition after edition. He was introduced to Blackwood, who became his publisher, and Hogg looked upon himself as on a par in fame with the first men of his time. The familiar style in which he relates his first acquaintance with Professor Wilson, will excite a smile.

"On the appearance of Mr. Wilson's Isle of Palms, I was so greatly taken with many of his fanciful and visionary scenes, descriptive of bliss and woe, that it had a tendency to divert me occasionally of all worldly feelings. I reviewed this poem, as well as many others, in a Scottish review then going in Edinburgh, and was exceedingly anxious to meet with the author; but this I tried in vain for the space of six months. All I could learn of him was, that he was a man from the mountains of Wales, or the west of England, with hairs like eagle's feathers, and nails like bird's claws, a red beard, and an uncommon degree of wildness in his looks. Wilson was then utterly unknown in Edinburgh, except slightly to Mr. Walter Scott, who never introduces any one person to another, nor judges it of any avail. However, having no other shift left, I sat down and wrote him a note, telling him that I wished much to see him, and if he wanted to see me, he might come and dine with me at my lodgings in the road of Gabriel, at four. He accepted the invitation, and dined with Grieve and me; and I found him so much a man according to my own heart, that for many years we were seldom twenty-four hours asunder when in town. I afterward went and visited him, staying with him a month at his seat in Westmoreland, where we had some curious doings among the gentlemen and poets of the lakes."

It was now that Hogg wrote his Poetic Mirror, in which he passed off a number of poems as those of the most popular writers of the day. It must be confessed that the different compositions display uncommon ability, and if they were written as Hogg says, that is, a volume of nearly three hundred pages 8vo. in three weeks, they are wonderful. As is common with such poems, they catch the mannerisms of the authors rather than their spirit. To have risen to an equal height of sublime feeling and philosophical thought with such writers as Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc. would have been to place himself not on an equality with them, but far beyond, for he must in himself have combined the various lofty qualities of them all. Some of them, and especially those attributed to Wordsworth, are admirably grave quizzes. We may take one specimen:--

"A boy came from the mountains, tripping light, With basket on his arm,--and it appeared That there was butter there, for the white cloth That over it was spread, not unobserved, In tiny ridges gently rose and fell, Like graves of children covered o'er with snow; And by one clumsy fold the traveler spied One roll of yellow treasure, all as pure As primrose bud reflected in the lake. 'Boy,' said the stranger, 'wilt thou hold my steed, Till I walk round the corner of that mere? When I return I will repay thee well.'"

This stranger who has approached leaves the horse with the boy, and never does return. All the hot day the boy stands holding the horse on the dusty road, till the steed, taking alarm at a thunder-storm, breaks away,--

"And never more Was in those regions seen."...

As for the boy, he lifted up his basket, and he felt

"With his left hand how it affected was By the long day and burning sun of Heaven. It was all firm and flat--no ridges rose Like graves of children--basket, butter, cloth, Were all one piece, coherent. To his home The boy returned right sad and sore aghast."

According to Hogg, he had the honor of being the projector and commencer of no less a periodical than Blackwood's Magazine. This is his account of it. "From the time I gave up 'The Spy,' I had been planning with my friends to commence the publication of a magazine on a new plan; but for several years we only conversed about the utility of such a work, without doing any thing further. At length, among others, I chanced to mention it to Mr. Thomas Pringle; when I found that he and his friends had a plan in contemplation of the same kind. We agreed to join our efforts, and try to set it a-going; but as I declined the editorship, on account of residing mostly on my farm at a distance from town, it became a puzzling question who was the best qualified among our friends for that undertaking. We at length fixed on Mr. Gray as the fittest person for a principal department, and I went and mentioned the plan to Blackwood, who, to my astonishment, I found had likewise long been cherishing a plan of the same kind. He said he knew nothing about Pringle, and always had his eye on me as a principal assistant; but he would not begin the undertaking till he saw that he could do it with effect. Finding him, however, disposed to encourage such a work, Pringle, at my suggestion, made out a plan in writing, with a list of his supporters, and sent it in a letter to me. I inclosed it in another, and sent it to Mr. Blackwood, and not long after that period Pringle and he came to an arrangement. Thus I had the honor of being the beginner and almost sole instigator of that celebrated work--'Blackwood's Magazine.'"

One can not avoid smiling over this account, in which Hogg cuts so great a figure, and especially at the idea of _his_ becoming the editor of such a work; a man who, though a good poet, and wonderful, all things considered, could just write, and that was all. In the accounts given by Pringle and Lockhart of the origin of this famous magazine, we have little or no mention of James Hogg, far less of the probability of his editorship of it. In this account we must attribute the largeness of James's figure on the canvas to "that inherent vanity," which he says he could not for the life of him divest himself of when speaking of himself. It is true and notorious, however, that he became and continued for many years one of its chief contributors, and figured most conspicuously in those admirable papers, the Noctes Ambrosianæ. In these, language of the most beautiful and poetical kind was often put into the Shepherd's mouth; but it must also be confessed, much oftener language of a very different kind. He was made to figure as a coarse toper and buffoon. That he was at once proud of figuring so largely in the Noctes, and yet felt acutely the degrading character fixed on him there, is evident from his own statement in his autobiography. In speaking of Professor Wilson, to whom he deservedly awards a noble nature, he says: "My friends in general have been of opinion that he has amused himself and the public too often at my expense: but, except in one instance, which terminated very ill for me, and in which I had no more concern than the man in the moon, I never discerned any evil design on his part, and thought it all excellent sport. At the same time, I must acknowledge that it was using too much freedom with any author, to print his name in full to poems, letters, and essays, which he himself never saw. I do not say that he has done this; but either he or some one else has done it many a time."[1]

[1] Memoir, p. 87.

But speaking of Blackwood, the publisher, he assumes a different tone. "For my part, after twenty years of feelings hardly suppressed, he has driven me beyond the bounds of human patience. That magazine of his, which owes its rise principally to myself, has often put words and sentiments into my mouth of which I have been greatly ashamed, and which have given much pain to my family and relations; and many of these, after a solemn written promise that such freedoms should never be repeated. I have been often urged to restrain and humble him by legal measures, as an incorrigible offender deserves. I know I have it in my power, and if he dares me to the task, I want but a hair to make a tether of."[2]

[2] Ib., p. 107.

It must be confessed that no justification can be offered for such treatment. Such was my own opinion, derived from this source, of Hogg, and from prints of him, with wide open mouth and huge straggling teeth, in full roars of drunken laughter, that, on meeting him in London, I was quite amazed to find him so smooth, well-looking, and gentlemanly a sort of person.

There are many truths which James Hogg in his honest candor speaks out, that not one author in a thousand, stand as high and as strong as he may, dares speak out, for fear of the trade, as it is called. For instance, who will not set the seal of his authorly experience to this: "I would never object trusting a bookseller, were he a man of any taste; for, unless he wishes to reject an author altogether, he can have no interest in asserting what he does not think. But the plague is, they _never read works themselves_, but give them to their minions, with whom there never fails to lurk a literary jealousy; and whose suggestions may be uniformly regarded as any thing but truth. For my own part, I know that I have always been looked on by the learned part of the community as an intruder in the paths of literature, and every opprobrium has been thrown on me from that quarter. The truth is, that I am so. The walks of learning are occupied by a powerful aristocracy, who deem that province their own peculiar right; else, what would avail all their dear-bought collegiate honors and degrees?"[3]

[3] Memoir, p. 81.

So true is James, so far as regards the practice of publishers never reading the MSS. submitted to them, but consigning them to readers;--_i.e._, publishers being the only dealers who never pretend to judge of the article they deal in;--that since the publication of the Book of Seasons, which was declined by half-a-dozen of the principal publishing houses in London, I never suffered a MS. of mine to be inspected by any publisher. What is more, finding that publishers in bargaining for copyrights never offered more than half the profits of a single edition, I have always persisted in refusing to sell copyrights, and sold only editions. This is a point that all authors should attend to. An author is not justified in selling the copyrights of his works, which should become the property of his family, especially as he may rest assured that he will, in nine cases out of ten, never get more for the whole copyright than he ought to have for a single edition. The late Mr. Longman once spoke to me a great truth--a truth confirmed by all experiences of all authors, in all ages, the present forming no exception--that "Authorship is an agreeable addition to a tolerable fixed income, but as a total dependence is a wretched reed." Scott, the most successful author of any age, though possessed of a good income independent of literature, died a bankrupt. Maginn, Hood, Blanchard, and a host of others, have yet to swell the history of the calamities of authors.

Speaking again of a certain publisher, James says, "The great fault of the man is, that the more he can provoke an author by insolence and contempt, he likes the better. Beside, he will never confess that he is in the wrong, else any thing might be forgiven. No, no, the thing is impossible that he can ever be wrong! The poor author is not only always in the wrong, but, 'Oh! he is the most insufferable beast!'"

And the truth is, that authors are in the wrong. They are in the wrong not to have combined long ago, like other professions, for the maintenance of their common interests, and for the elevation of the character of the class. They are a rope of sand. Cliques and small coteries may and do congregate, but there has ever been wanting among authors a comprehensive plan of union. It is true that their body is continually swelled by adventurers, and often characterless adventurers. He who succeeds in nothing else, thinks he can succeed as an author, or the master of a school. These men, often unprincipled, or poor, bring great reproach upon the whole body, and accordingly you hear authors commonly spoken of by publishers, as a most reckless, improvident, unprincipled, and contemptible set of men. This is the tone in which publishers are educated, it is the tone that pervades their publishing houses, it is the spirit and gospel of the Row. The authors of the present day are regarded by publishers exactly as they were in the days of Grub-street. In their eyes, they are poor, helpless, and untractable devils. And whence arises this? It is because authors have taken no single step to place themselves on a different footing. Are authors now what authors were in the days of Grub-street? They are a far different body. They are a far more numerous, and far more respectable body. We may safely assert, that there is no profession which includes so much talent, as there is none which diffuses such a vast amount of knowledge and intelligence through the world. They are the class, indeed, which are the enlighteners, and modelers, and movers of society. Yet, strange to say, invincibly powerful in the public cause, they are weak as water in their own: capable of challenging offenders in the very highest places; arraigning at the public tribunal, lords, peers, or the very crowned heads themselves; and sure, when they have truth on their side, of being victorious: yet they lie prostrate in individual weakness at the foot of every well-fed seller of a book, and receive his kicks with an astonishing patience. Nay, they have not the shrewdness of our butchers and bakers, who hang together and grow rich; they are a set of Ishmaelites, whose hands are against every man of their own class, and every man's hand is against them. From behind the barricades of newspapers and reviews, they fire with murderous rage on each other, instead of turning their force on the common enemy.

When we call to mind the men who are now actually living as members of the great community of authors, rich bankers, men of titles and large estates, wealthy traders, ladies and gentlemen of the most respectable private fortunes, professional men, clearing large incomes by their professions, distinct from literature, it must be confessed that the world has no such instance of infatuation to show as that of authors. Combine, and they may defy poverty and the world. How small a sum, contributed annually by every author, would soon raise a fund capable of not only succoring all cases of professional need, without recourse to the present Literary Fund, which is a degrading charity toward those who should establish a claim on a proper professional fund for themselves! How small a sum would not only do this, but also present a noble fund for the support of every authorly interest, the defense of every authorly right! If the men of property, character, and influence in the body, would but bestow a very small portion of their time and attention to the general interests of the body, how soon would the whole body feel the animating, and, I may add, reforming spirit of such coalition! The upright and honorable would acquire confidence, the unprincipled would be discountenanced, and the tone of publishers would rapidly alter toward men who had not only learned to respect themselves, but were resolved to establish respect for the body. "Get authors to combine! Sooner," exclaim both publishers and authors themselves, when such a notion is avowed, "chain the winds, or make granite slabs out of sea-sand!" Yet, spite of this humiliating opinion of authors, let but a number of the most respectable names once unite for the purpose, and it will be seen that the rest of the worthy will flock round them, and that few would venture to stand alone, as individuals improvident, or indifferent to the interests and the character of the body.

I have considered it my duty to corroborate the main opinions of James Hogg on this point. In the course of inquiries necessary for the writing of this work, I have had to stand on so many spots marked by the miseries of authors; in rooms where they have shed their own blood, or perished by poison in the hour of destitution and despair; by dismal pools, where they have plunged at midnight from starvation to death; or where, covered with fame, they have lain on their death-beds with scarce any other covering; and I have vowed, on those awful spots, to call on my fellow-authors to come forward and vindicate their most glorious profession, and to found an association which shall give a motive to every member to respect the name he bears--that of a prophet and an apostle of truth to the world--and a hope of ultimate aid to him and his, if such aid be needful, as a right and not a boon.

Nearly twenty years of authorship have shown me much and sad experience; but nothing ever revealed to me the low estimation in which authors are held by publishers, so much as a simple fact, mentioned some time ago, in Chambers' Journal, but which was witnessed by myself. I was in an eminent publisher's, when the principal addressed the head clerk thus:--

_Principal._--"Mr. ---- wishes to open an account with us. He is a publisher of some standing, and seems getting on very well; I think we may do it."

_Clerk._--(Drawing himself up in an attitude of ineffable surprise)--"_Sir! he is an author!_"

_Principal._--"Oh! that alters the question entirely. I did not know that. Open an account? Certainly not! certainly not!"

Is there an author who hears this, who does not ask himself the question, why they who ought to be regarded only with reverence, and whose talents should invest them with a panoply of salutary fear, should thus be the objects of uttermost contempt? But take another anecdote. The publisher of a celebrated review and myself were conversing on literary matters, when a very popular author was announced, who begged a word with the publisher, and they retired together. Presently the publisher came back.

_Publisher._--"We were talking of the relative merits of authors and publishers just now."

_Myself._--"Yes."

_Publisher._--"Well, you authors regard yourselves as the salt of the earth. It is you who are the great men of the world; you move society, and propel civilization; we publishers are but good pudding-eaters, and paymasters to you."

_Myself._--"True enough; but _you_ think that you are the master manufacturers, and we authors the poor devil artisans who really have no right to more than artisan wages."

_Publisher._--"Ay, if you will take them as wages, and often before they are earned. Grant that you are the salt of the earth; methinks the salt has wonderfully lost its savor, when it has to come with a manuscript in one hand, and holds out the other for the instant pay, or the kettle can not boil. See, there now is a man just gone, that will be a name these five hundred years hence; yet what does he come to me for? For a sovereign! I tell you candidly, that if no hero can be a hero to his valet de chambre, neither can an author be a hero to his publisher, when he comes _in forma pauperis_ every day before him. For the life of me I can not maintain an admiration of a man, when, like a rat, he is always nibbling at my purse-strings, and especially when I know--and what publisher does not know it?--that give the coin before the work is done, and it never is done. I content myself with things as I find them, and I leave all homage to the reader."

Let the whole body of authors lay these things duly to heart, and there will not long be an association for the maintenance of its honor and its interests in every profession but theirs.

Of his cotemporary authors Hogg speaks in his life with the highest honor. He confesses that he used most unmeasured language toward both Sir Walter Scott and John Wilson, when they offended him, but records their refusal to be offended with him, and their cordial kindness. Of Southey, Lockhart, Sym, the Timothy Tickler of Blackwood, Galt, etc., his reminiscences are full of life and interest. Of Wordsworth's poetry he entertained the high notion that a true poet must do; but there occurred a scene at Rydal which James gives in explanation of his caricaturing Wordsworth, which, as it is his own account, is worth transcribing.

"I dined with Wordsworth, and called on himself several times afterward, and certainly never met with any thing but the most genuine kindness; therefore people have wondered why I should have indulged in caricaturing his style in the Poetic Mirror. I have often regretted that myself; but it was merely a piece of ill-nature at an affront which I conceived had been put upon me. It was the triumphal arch scene. This anecdote has been told and told again, but never truly; and was likewise brought forward in the Noctes Ambrosianæ, as a joke; but it was no joke: and the plain, simple truth of the matter was this:--