LETTER LXXIV.
AN EVENING AT LADY BLESSINGTON'S—ANECDOTES OF MOORE, THE POET—TAYLOR, THE PLATONIST—POLITICS—ELECTION OF SPEAKER—PRICES OF BOOKS.
I am obliged to "gazette" Lady Blessington rather more than I should wish, and more than may seem delicate to those, who do not know the central position she occupies in the circle of talent in London. Her soirées and dinner-parties, however, are literally the single and only assemblages of men of genius, without reference to party—the only attempt at a republic of letters in the world of this great, envious, and gifted metropolis. The pictures of literary life, in which my countrymen would be most interested, therefore, are found within a very small compass, presuming them to prefer the brighter side of an eminent character, and presuming them (is it a presumption?), not to possess that appetite for degrading the author to the man, by an anatomy of his secret personal failings, which is lamentably common in England. Having premised thus much, I go on with my letter.
I drove to Lady Blessington's an evening or two since, with the usual certainty of finding her at home, as there was no opera, and the equal certainty of finding a circle of agreeable and eminent men about her. She met me with the information that Moore was in town, and an invitation to dine with her whenever she should be able to prevail upon "the little Bacchus" to give her a day. D'Israeli, the younger, was there, and Dr. Beattie, the king's physician (and author, unacknowledged, of "The Heliotrope"), and one or two fashionable young noblemen.
Moore was naturally the first topic. He had appeared at the opera the night before, after a year's ruralizing at "Sloperton cottage," as fresh and young and witty as he ever was known in his youth—(for Moore must be sixty at least). Lady B. said the only difference she could see in his appearance, was the loss of his curls, which once justified singularly his title of Bacchus, flowing about his head in thin, glossy, elastic tendrils, unlike any other hair she had ever seen, and comparable to nothing but the rings of the vine. He is now quite bald, and the change is very striking. D'Israeli regretted that he should have been met, exactly on his return to London, with the savage but clever article in Fraser's Magazine on his plagiarisms. "Give yourself no trouble about that," said Lady B., "for you may be sure he will never see it. Moore guards against the sight and knowledge of criticism as people take precautions against the plague. He reads few periodicals, and but one newspaper. If a letter comes to him from a suspicious quarter, he burns it unopened. If a friend mentions a criticism to him at the club, he never forgives him; and, so well is this understood among his friends, that he might live in London a year, and all the magazines might dissect him, and he would probably never hear of it. In the country he lives on the estate of Lord Lansdowne, his patron and best friend, with half a dozen other noblemen within a dinner-drive, and he passes his life in this exclusive circle, like a bee in amber, perfectly preserved from everything that could blow rudely upon him. He takes the world en philosophe, and is determined to descend to his grave perfectly ignorant, if such things as critics exist." Somebody said this was weak, and D'Israeli thought it was wise, and made a splendid defence of his opinion, as usual, and I agreed with D'Israeli. Moore deserves a medal, as the happiest author of his day, to possess the power.
A remark was made, in rather a satirical tone, upon Moore's worldliness and passion for rank. "He was sure," it was said, "to have four or five invitations to dine on the same day, and he tormented himself with the idea that he had not accepted perhaps the most exclusive. He would get off from an engagement with a Countess to dine with a Marchioness, and from a Marchioness to accept the later invitation of a Duchess; and as he cared little for the society of men, and would sing and be delightful only for the applause of women, it mattered little whether one circle was more talented than another. Beauty was one of his passions, but rank and fashion were all the rest." This rather left-handed portrait was confessed by all to be just, Lady B. herself making no comment upon it. She gave, as an offset, however, some particulars of Moore's difficulties from his West Indian appointment, which left a balance to his credit.
"Moore went to Jamaica with a profitable appointment. The climate disagreed with him, and he returned home, leaving the business in the hands of a confidential clerk, who embezzled eight thousand pounds in the course of a few months and absconded. Moore's politics had made him obnoxious to the government, and he was called to account with unusual severity; while Theodore Hook, who had been recalled at this very time from some foreign appointment, for a deficit of twenty thousand pounds in his accounts, was never molested, being of the ruling party, Moore's misfortune awakened a great sympathy among his friends. Lord Lansdowne was the first to offer his aid. He wrote to Moore, that for many years he had been in the habit of laying aside from his income eight thousand pounds, for the encouragement of the arts and literature, and that he should feel that it was well disposed of for that year, if Moore would accept it, to free him from his difficulties. It was offered in the most delicate and noble manner, but Moore declined it. The members of "White's" (mostly noblemen) called a meeting, and (not knowing the amount of the deficit) subscribed in one morning twenty-five thousand pounds and wrote to the poet, that they would cover the sum, whatever it might be. This was declined. Longman and Murray then offered to pay it, and wait for their remuneration from his works. He declined even this, and went to Passy with his family, where he economized and worked hard till it was cancelled."
This was certainly a story most creditable to the poet, and it was told with an eloquent enthusiasm, that did the heart of the beautiful narrator infinite credit. I have given only the skeleton of it. Lady Blessington went on to mention another circumstance, very honorable to Moore, of which I had never before heard. "At one time two different counties of Ireland had sent committees to him, to offer him a seat in parliament; and as he depended on his writings for a subsistence, offering him at the same time twelve hundred pounds a year, while he continued to represent them. Moore was deeply touched with it, and said no circumstance of his life had ever gratified him so much. He admitted, that the honor they proposed him had been his most cherished ambition, but the necessity of receiving a pecuniary support at the same time, was an insuperable obstacle. He could never enter parliament with his hands tied, and his opinions and speech fettered, as they would be irresistibly in such circumstances." This does not sound like "jump-up-and-kiss-me Tom Moore," as the Irish ladies call him; but her ladyship vouched for the truth of it. It was worthy of an old Roman.
By what transition I know not, the conversation turned on Platonism, and D'Israeli, (who seemed to have remembered the shelf on which Vivian Grey was to find "the latter Platonists" in his father's library) "flared up," as a dandy would say, immediately. His wild, black eyes glistened, and his nervous lips quivered and poured out eloquence; and a German professor, who had entered late, and the Russian Chargé d'affaires who had entered later, and a whole ottoman-full of noble exquisites, listened with wonder. He gave us an account of Taylor, almost the last of the celebrated Platonists, who worshipped Jupiter, in a back parlor in London a few years ago, with undoubted sincerity. He had an altar and a brazen figure of the Thunderer, and performed his devotions as regularly as the most pious sacerdos of the ancients. In his old age he was turned out of the lodgings he had occupied for a great number of years, and went to a friend in much distress to complain of the injustice. He had "only attempted to worship his gods, according to the dictates of his conscience." "Did you pay your bills?" asked the friend. "Certainly." "Then what is the reason?" "His landlady had taken offence at his sacrificing a bull to Jupiter in his back parlor!"
The story sounded very Vivian-Greyish, and everybody laughed at it as a very good invention; but D'Israeli quoted his father as his authority, and it may appear in the Curiosities of Literature—where, however, it will never be so well told, as by the extraordinary creature from whom we had heard it.
February 22d, 1835.—The excitement in London about the choice of a Speaker is something startling. It took place yesterday, and the party are thunderstruck at the non-election of Sir Manners Sutton. This is a terrible blow upon them, for it was a defeat at the outset; and if they failed in a question where they had the immense personal popularity of the late Speaker to assist them, what will they do on general questions? The House of Commons was surrounded all day with an excited mob. Lady —— told me last night that she drove down toward evening, to ascertain the result (Sir C. M. Sutton is her brother-in-law), and the crowd surrounded her carriage, recognizing her as the sister of the tory Speaker, and threatened to tear the coronet from the panels. "We'll soon put an end to your coronets," said a rapscallion in the mob. The tories were so confident of success that Sir Robert Peel gave out cards a week ago, for a soirée to meet Speaker Sutton, on the night of the election. There is a general report in town that the whigs will impeach the Duke of Wellington! This looks like a revolution, does it not? It is very certain that the Duke and Sir Robert Peel have advised the King to dissolve parliament again, if there is any difficulty in getting on with the government. The Duke was dining with Lord Aberdeen the other day, when some one at table ventured to wonder, at his accepting a subordinate office in the cabinet he had himself formed. "If I could serve his majesty better," said the patrician soldier, "I would ride as king's messenger to-morrow!" He certainly is a remarkable old fellow.
Perhaps, however, literary news would interest you more. Bulwer is publishing in a volume, his papers from the New Monthly. I met him an hour ago in Regent-street, looking what is called in London, "uncommon seedy!" He is either the worst or the best dressed man in London, according to the time of day or night you see him. D'Israeli, the author of Vivian Grey, drives about in an open carriage, with Lady S——, looking more melancholy than usual. The absent baronet, whose place he fills, is about bringing an action against him, which will finish his career, unless he can coin the damages in his brain. Mrs. Hemans is dying of consumption in Ireland. I have been passing a week at a country house, where Miss Jane Porter, Miss Pardoe, and Count Krazinsky (author of the Court of Sigismund), are domiciliated for the present. Miss Porter is one of her own heroines, grown old—a still handsome and noble wreck of beauty. Miss Pardoe is nineteen, fair-haired, sentimental, and has the smallest feet and is the best waltzer I ever saw, but she is not otherwise pretty. The Polish Count is writing the life of his grandmother, whom I should think he strongly resembled in person. He is an excellent fellow, for all that. I dined last week with Joanna Baillie, at Hampstead—the most charming old lady I ever saw. To-day I dine with Longman to meet Tom Moore, who is living incog. near this Nestor of publishers at Hampstead. Moore is fagging hard on his history of Ireland. I shall give you the particulars of all these things in my letters hereafter.
Poor Elia—my old favorite—is dead. I consider it one of the most fortunate things that ever happened to me, to have seen him. I think I sent you in one of my letters an account of my breakfasting in company with Charles Lamb and his sister ("Bridget Elia") at the Temple. The exquisite papers on his life and letters in the Athenæum, are by Barry Cornwall.
Lady Blessington's new book makes a great noise. Living as she does, twelve hours out of the twenty-four, in the midst of the most brilliant and mind-exhausting circle in London, I only wonder how she found the time. Yet it was written in six weeks. Her novels sell for a hundred pounds more than any other author's except Bulwer. Do you know the real prices of books? Bulwer gets fifteen hundred pounds—Lady B. four hundred, Honorable Mrs. Norton two hundred and fifty, Lady Charlotte Bury two hundred, Grattan three hundred and most others below this. D'Israeli can not sell a book at all, I hear. Is not that odd? I would give more for one of his novels, than for forty of the common saleable things about town.
The authoress of the powerful book called Two Old Men's Tales, is an old unitarian lady, a Mrs. Marsh. She declares she will never write another book. The other was a glorious one, though!