ANECDOTE.
An Hon. Member of the Senate, some years past, inquired of a brother Statesman, if they had made a House? No, sir, says he, there are but nine; we want one to make a quorum. Aye, (replies the other) I knew you could do nothing till I arrived. Very true, retorts the wit, a cypher completes the ten.
THE FARRAGO.
Nº. II.
“ONE OF THOSE CLOSE STUDENTS, WHO READ PLAYS FOR THEIR IMPROVEMENT IN LAW.”
TATLER.
Every grave author, who apothegmatizes for the advancement of learning, vehemently insists on the propriety of superadding application to genius. Much has been written to invigorate the lassitude of indolence, to expose the inefficacy of desultory studies, to lash the absurdity of procrastination, and to journalize the wanderings of the mind. But, deaf to the warning voice, there still exists a class of students respectable for talents and taste, who, whenever fickleness waves her wand, fly mercurially from a stated task, glance on many subjects, and improve none. Their judgment, pronouncing sentence against themselves, acknowledges the utility of fixation of thought, and marks, with mathematical precision, the point on which attention should rest; but their wayward imagination is eternally making curves. These literary, like other hypochondriacs, have their lucid intervals; and, at times, are fully apprized of the flitting nature of their application. They write many a penitential annotation upon the chapter of their conduct, and frame many a goodly plan to be executed—to-morrow. The paroxysm soon returns; and every shackle, which sturdy resolution has imposed, their ingenious indolence will undo.
It is unpleasant to see those, whom nature and fortune have conspired to befriend, unqualified to gain the eminence of distinction, by a habit of turning out of the path. With this censurable volatility are commonly united, brilliant talents, a feeling heart, and a social temper. If their possessors would even occasionally adopt and practice those plodding precepts, which dissipation prompts them to deride, they would discharge with applause every honorable duty of business and of life. But, instead of turning the meanders of fancy into a regular channel, they are perpetually roaming, in quest of pleasure. They employ morning moments, not over learned tomes, but at ladies’ toilets. After a night of revelry, amid the votaries of wine and loo, they will tell you of Charles Fox, who, like a man of spunk, at brothels and at Brookes’s, wenches, gambles, and drinks all night, and, like a man of genius, harrangues in the house all day. They talk of their privileges, and swear by the tails of the comets, which are the greatest ramblers in the universe, that they will be eccentric. The, style of their legislation is, “be it enacted, by Fancy and her favourites, that whenever Genius chooses to cut capers, they be, and hereby are, allowable.”
As I have a cordial aversion to the abstract modes of speculation, and choose, with Dr. Johnson, to embody opinions, I proceed to illustrate by two examples; one from the annals of literature, and one from real life.
The poet Shenstone was an officer of distinguished rank, in the regiment of careless bards. Every reader of his works will acknowledge that they bear “the image and superscription” of genius. But, still, he was an indolent, uneconomical, volatile character, who, lolling in the bowers of the Leasowes, wrote pastorals and the school-mistress, when, by a more vigorous exertion of his talents, he might perhaps have eloquently charmed the coifed sergeants of Westminster-Hall, or dictated new maxims of polity to an applauding House of Commons. At the very moment he was wasting his time and his patrimony, in the erection of rural altars to Pan and the Dryads, he wrote “Economy,” a poem, in which he chaunts the praise of the cittish virtues, and gravely advises his friends to devote at least a rainy day to worldly prudence. In this production are some thoughts suggested, one may venture to affirm, by Shenstone’s experience, pertinent to the subject of this essay. The tolerating reader will pardon their insertion. Travellers over a dusty desart rejoice at the sight of verdure; and, disgusted by the insipidity of a meagre Farrago, its readers may exult to view a quotation.
“When Fancy’s vivid spark impels the soul
To scorn quotidian scenes, to spurn the bliss
Of vulgar minds, what nostrum shall compose
This fatal frenzy? In what lonely vale
Of balmy medicine’s various field aspires
The blest refrigerant? vain, most vain the hope
Of future fame, this orgasm uncontrol’d.”
Who, but the acquaintance of genius and its inconsistencies could suppose that one, who knew so well the road to fame, should linger at “caravansaries of rest” by the way? That he, who advises “to collect the dissipated mind, to shorten the train of wild ideas and to indulge no expence, but what is legitimated by economy,” should be desultory in his application and prodigal of his estate?
I had collected thus much of my weekly oblation to the public, when, instead of proceeding, as in duty bound, I forgot my own sermon, and—sauntered away. Indolence, deriding my efforts, snatched my pen, overturned my ink-stand, and bade me go and “clip the wings of time” with a friend. I obeyed, and visited Meander. He is a juvenile neighbour of mine, placed by his friends with a view to the profession of the law, in the office of an eminent advocate. The character of Meander is so various, that it almost precludes delineation. Were Sterne summoned to describe him, the eccentric wit would quote his Tristram Shandy, and affirm that Meander was a mercurial sublimated creature; heteroclite in all his declensions. He has so much of the wildness of the fifth Henry in his composition, that were I not versed in his pedigree, I should suppose he descended in a right line from that prince. His ambitious projects, like the birds of Milton, tower up to Heaven’s gate, and he starts as many schemes as a visionary projector. So entirely devoted is he to the cultivation of the Belles Lettres, that his graver moments, instead of being dedicated to Blackstone and Buller, are given to Shakespeare and Sterne. He reads plays, when he should be filling writs; and, the other day, attempting to draw a deed, instead of “know all men by these presents,” he scribbled a simile from Spenser. Notwithstanding his enthusiastic fondness for the study of polite literature, even from that, he frequently flies off in a tangent; and the charms of the ladies and of loo, full often cause him to forget that there is a poet or novelist in our language. The ignis fatuus of his fervid imagination is continually dancing before him, and leads him many a fantastic, weary step “over hog and through briar.” Nothing can be more sanguine than his plans of study and of steadiness; and nothing more languid than their execution. When I entered his lodgings, a domestic informed me that Meander was still in bed, having sate up all night, with a tavern party of friends. The servant continuing his narration, added, “that his master talked much of one Churchill, and at the hour of retiring, suddenly exclaimed,
“Wound up at twelve at noon, your clock goes right,
Mine better goes, wound up at twelve at night.”
I smiled at these traits of my friend’s character, and, as I well knew that his slender frame was exhausted by the labors of the night, plying the pasteboard play, vociferating drunken anthems and swallowing bumpers, in rapid succession, I therefore suffered him to remain undisturbed. Unwilling, however, to lose that amusement, which was the object of my visit, I consoled myself for the absence of my friend, by surveying his apartment, the furniture of which would give one an idea of Meander’s character, without a personal acquaintance. On a small table, lay several of his favourite authors, in all the confusion of carelessness. Among others I noted Shakespeare, Congreve’s comedies, letters of the younger Lyttleton, Mrs. Behn’s novels, Fielding’s Tom Jones, and a mountain of pamphlets, composed of magazines and plays. In the pigeon holes of a desk, I saw a number of loose bits of paper. These puzzled me sadly. I thought, at first, they contained arcana of importance; and compared them to the Sybilline leaves of antiquity. But, I must own that I was a little chagrined, when I discovered that they were only that species of gambling composition, which I should call loo assignats, but which, in plainer phrase, are denominated due bills. On a low window seat, in a dark corner, lay a most ponderous folio, over which a diligent spider had woven a web of such size and intricacy, that the insect must of necessity have been months in spinning it. Curiosity prompted me to brush away this cobweb covering, and examine the book it concealed. The reader may easily imagine the state of my risibles, when I found the volume entitled “An abridgement of the Law, by Matthew Bacon.” A drawer left partly open, revealed to view a bundle of manuscripts, among which, I found a diary kept by my friend, some parts of which so completely illustrated his character, that I proposed, with a few transcripts from it, to terminate this essay. But, the narrowness of my limits forbids, and the journal of Meander, the annals of volatility must be postponed. They shall form the subject of our next lucubration.