CHAPTER XIII.
Of the jealousy of Genius.—Jealousy often proportioned to the degree of genius.—A perpetual fever among Authors and Artists.—Instances of its incredible excess among brothers and benefactors.—Of a peculiar species, where the fever consumes the sufferer, without its malignancy.
Jealousy, long supposed to be the offspring of little minds, is not, however, confined to them. In the literary republic, the passion fiercely rages among the senators as well as among the people. In that curious self-description which LINNÆUS comprised in a single page, written with the precision of a naturalist, that great man discovered that his constitution was liable to be afflicted with jealousy. Literary jealousy seems often proportioned to the degree of genius, and the shadowy and equivocal claims of literary honour is the real cause of this terrible fear; for in cases where the object is more palpable and definite than intellectual excellence, jealousy does not appear so strongly to affect the claimant for admiration. The most beautiful woman, in the season of beauty, is more haughty than jealous; she rarely encounters a rival; and while her claims exist, who can contend with a fine feature or a dissolving glance? But a man of genius has no other existence than in the opinion of the world; a divided empire would obscure him, and a contested one might prove his annihilation.
The lives of authors and artists exhibit a most painful disease in that jealousy which is the perpetual fever of their existence. Why does PLATO never mention XENOPHON, and why does XENOPHON inveigh against PLATO, studiously collecting every little rumour which may detract from his fame? They wrote on the same subject! The studied affectation of ARISTOTLE to differ from the doctrines of his master PLATO while he was following them, led him into ambiguities and contradictions which have been remarked. The two fathers of our poetry, CHAUCER and GOWER, suffered their friendship to be interrupted towards the close of their lives. Chaucer bitterly reflects on his friend for the indelicacy of some of his tales: "Of all such cursed stories I say fy!" and GOWER, evidently in return, erased those verses in praise of his friend which he had inserted in the first copy of his "Confessio Amantis." Why did CORNEILLE, tottering to the grave, when RACINE consulted him on his first tragedy, advise the author never to write another? Why does VOLTAIRE continually detract from the sublimity of Corneille, the sweetness of Racine, and the fire of Crébillon? Why did DRYDEN never speak of OTWAY with kindness but when in his grave, then acknowledging that Otway excelled him in the pathetic? Why did LEIBNITZ speak slightingly of LOCKE's Essay, and meditate on nothing less than the complete overthrow of NEWTON'S system? Why, when Boccaccio sent to PETRARCH a copy of DANTE, declaring that the work was like a first light which had illuminated his mind, did Petrarch boldly observe that he had not been anxious to inquire after it, for intending himself to compose in the vernacular idiom, he had no wish to be considered as a plagiary? and he only allows Dante's superiority from having written in the vulgar idiom, which he did not consider an enviable merit. Thus frigidly Petrarch could behold the solitary Ætna before him, in the "Inferno," while he shrunk into himself with the painful consciousness of the existence of another poet, obscuring his own majesty. It is curious to observe Lord SHAFTESBURY treating with the most acrimonious contempt the great writers of his own times—Cowley, Dryden, Addison, and Prior. We cannot imagine that his lordship was so entirely destitute of every feeling of wit and genius as would appear by this damnatory criticism on all the wit and genius of his age. It is not, indeed, difficult to comprehend a different motive for this extravagant censure in the jealousy which even a great writer often experiences when he comes in contact with his living rivals, and hardily, if not impudently, practises those arts of critical detraction to raise a moment's delusion, which can gratify no one but himself.
The moral sense has often been found too weak to temper the malignancy of literary jealousy, and has impelled some men of genius to an incredible excess. A memorable example offers in the history of the two brothers, Dr. WILLIAM and JOHN HUNTER, both great characters fitted to be rivals; but Nature, it was imagined, in the tenderness of blood, had placed a bar to rivalry. John, without any determined pursuit in his youth, was received by his brother at the height of his celebrity; the doctor initiated him into his school; they performed their experiments together; and William Hunter was the first to announce to the world the great genius of his brother. After this close connexion in all their studies and discoveries, Dr. William Hunter published his magnificent work—the proud favourite of his heart, the assertor of his fame. Was it credible that the genius of the celebrated anatomist, which had been nursed under the wing of his brother, should turn on that wing to clip it? John Hunter put in his claim to the chief discovery; it was answered by his brother. The Royal Society, to whom they appealed, concealed the documents of this unnatural feud. The blow was felt, and the jealousy of literary honour for ever separated the brothers—the brothers of genius.
Such, too, was the jealousy which separated AGOSTINO and ANNIBAL CARRACCI, whom their cousin LUDOVICO for so many years had attempted to unite, and who, during the time their academy existed, worked together, combining their separate powers.[A] The learning and the philosophy of Agostino assisted the invention of the master genius, Annibal; but Annibal was jealous of the more literary and poetical character of Agostino, and, by his sarcastic humour, frequently mortified his learned brother. Alike great artists, when once employed on the same work, Agostino was thought to have excelled his brother. Annibal, sullen and scornful, immediately broke with him; and their patron, Cardinal Farnese, was compelled to separate the brothers. Their fate is striking: Agostino, divided from his brother Annibal, sunk into dejection and melancholy, and perished by a premature death, while Annibal closed his days not long after in a state of distraction. The brothers of Nature and Art could not live together, and could not live separate.
[Footnote A: See an article on the Carracci in "Curiosities of
Literature." vol. ii.]
The history of artists abounds with instances of jealousy, perhaps more than that of any other class of men of genius. HUDSON, the master of REYNOLDS, could not endure the sight of his rising pupil, and would not suffer him to conclude the term of his apprenticeship; while even the mild and elegant Reynolds himself became so jealous of WILSON, that he took every opportunity of depreciating his singular excellence. Stung by the madness of jealousy, BARRY one day addressing Sir Joshua on his lectures, burst out, "Such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses!" clenching his fist in the agony of the convulsion. After the death of the great artist, BARRY bestowed on him the most ardent eulogium, and deeply grieved over the past. But the race of genius born too "near the sun" have found their increased sensibility flame into crimes of a deeper dye—crimes attesting the treachery and the violence of the professors of an art which, it appears, in softening the souls of others, does not necessarily mollify those of the artists themselves. The dreadful story of ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO seems not doubtful. Having been taught the discovery of painting in oil by Domenico Venetiano, yet, still envious of the merit of the generous friend who had confided that great secret to him, Andrea with his own hand secretly assassinated him, that he might remain without a rival. The horror of his crime only appeared in his confession on his death-bed. DOMENICHINO seems to have been poisoned for the preference he obtained over the Neapolitan artists, which raised them to a man against him, and reduced him to the necessity of preparing his food With his own hand. On his last return to Naples, Passeri says, "Non fu mai più veduto da buon occhio da quelli Napoletani: e li Pittori lo detestavano perchè egli era ritornato—mori con qualche sospetto di veleno, e questo non è inverisimile perchè l'interesso è un perfido tiranno." So that the Neapolitans honoured Genius at Naples by poison, which they might have forgotten had it flourished at Rome. The famous cartoon of the battle of Pisa, a work of Michael Angelo, which he produced in a glorious competition with the Homer of painting, Leonardo da Vinci, and in which he had struck out the idea of a new style, is only known by a print which has preserved the wonderful composition; for the original, it is said, was cut into pieces by the mad jealousy of BACCIO BANDINELLI, whose whole life was made miserable by his consciousness of a superior rival.
In the jealousy of genius, however, there is a peculiar case where the fever silently consumes the sufferer, without possessing the malignant character of the disease. Even the gentlest temper declines under its slow wastings, and this infection may happen among dear friends, whenever a man of genius loses that self-opinion which animates his solitary labours and constitutes his happiness. Perhaps when at the height of his class, he suddenly views himself eclipsed by another genius—and that genius his friend! This is the jealousy, not of hatred, but of despair. Churchill observed the feeling, but probably included in it a greater degree of malignancy than I would now describe.
Envy which turns pale,
And sickens even if a friend prevail.
SWIFT, in that curious poem on his own death, said of POPE that
—He can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six.
The Dean, perhaps, is not quite serious, but probably is in the next lines—
It gives me such a jealous fit,
I cry "Pox take him and his wit."
If the reader pursue this hint throughout the poem, these compliments to his friends, always at his own expense, exhibit a singular mixture of the sensibility and the frankness of true genius, which Swift himself has honestly confessed.
What poet would not grieve to see
His brother write as well as he?[A]
ADDISON experienced this painful and mixed emotion in his intercourse with POPE, to whose rising celebrity he soon became too jealously alive.[B] It was more tenderly, but not less keenly, felt by the Spanish artist CASTILLO, a man distinguished by every amiable disposition. He was the great painter of Seville; but when some of his nephew MURILLO'S paintings were shown to him, he stood in meek astonishmont before them, and turning away, he exclaimed with a sigh—"Yà murio Castillo!" Castillo is no more! Returning home, the stricken genius relinquished his pencil, and pined away, in hopelessness. The same occurrence happened to PIETRO PERUGINO, the master of Raphael, whose general character as a painter was so entirely eclipsed by his far-renowned scholar; yet, while his real excellences in the ease of his attitudes and the mild grace of his female countenances have been passed over, it is probable that Raphael himself might have caught from them his first feelings of ideal beauty.
[Footnote A: The plain motive of all these dislikes is still more amusing, as given in this couplet of the same poem:—
"If with such genius heaven has blest 'em,
Have I not reason to detest 'em."—ED.]
[Footnote B: See article on Pope and Addison in "Quarrels of Authors." ]