EPISODES OF LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS.
A great deal might be said on the subject of manuscripts. From the carefully illuminated specimens of old, preserved in our public museums, down to the hastily scribbled printer’s ‘copy’ of to-day, each bears a history, and could contribute to unfold some portion of the life of the author whose hand had wrought it. Indeed, were it possible for each written sheet to tell its own story—we here refer to manuscripts of more modern date—what a picture of intellectual endurance, disappointments, poverty, and ofttimes despair, would be brought to light; what tales of huntings amongst publishers, rebuffs encountered, and hardships undergone, would be added to literary biography.
Thackeray has himself told us how his Vanity Fair was hawked about from publisher to publisher, and its failure everywhere predicted. For a long period, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre shared the same fate. Again, Mr Kinglake’s carefully composed Eothen, the labour of several years, was destined to go the weary round of publishers in vain; and it was only when its author induced one of that cautious fraternity to accept the classic little work as a present, that he at length enjoyed the gratification of seeing it in print. The first chapter of The Diary of a Late Physician was offered successively to the conductors of the three leading London magazines, and rejected as ‘unsuitable to their pages,’ and ‘not likely to interest the public,’ until Mr Warren, then a young man of three-and-twenty, and a law student, bethought himself of Blackwood. ‘I remember taking my packet,’ he says, ‘to Mr Cadell’s in the Strand, with a sad suspicion that I should never see or hear anything more of it; but shortly after, I received a letter from Mr Blackwood, informing me that he had inserted the chapter, and begging me to make arrangements for immediately proceeding regularly with the series. He expressed his cordial approval of that portion, and predicted that I was likely to produce a series of papers well suited to his magazine, and calculated to interest the public.’
Turning now for a moment to the disciples of dramatic authorship, we discover that their experience is similar to that of many authors. Poor Tom Robertson—that indefatigable actor and dramatist—sank into his grave almost before he saw the establishment of his fame; and John Baldwin Buckstone, during his struggling career, was in the habit of pawning his manuscripts with Mr Lacy, the theatrical publisher, in order to procure bread. Upon one occasion, when met by a sympathising actor in the street, he appeared with scarcely a shoe to his feet, and almost broken-hearted, declaring that all his earthly anticipations were centred upon the acceptance of a comedy, the rejection of which would certainly prove fatal to his existence. In the end, happily for him, the comedy was accepted.
The following anecdote is connected with the history of the Odéon, one of the first theatres in Paris. One day a young author came to ascertain the fate of his piece, which, by the way, had appeared such a formidable package upon its receipt, that the secretary was not possessed of sufficient moral courage to untie the tape that bound it. ‘It is not written in the style to suit the theatre,’ he replied, handing back the manuscript. ‘It is not bad, but it is deficient in interest.’ At this juncture, the young man smiled, and untying the roll, he displayed some quires of blank paper! Thus convicted, the secretary shook hands with the aspirant, invited him to dinner, and shortly afterwards assisted him to a successful début at the Odéon. Another author once waited upon the popular manager of a London theatre inquiring the result of the perusal of his manuscript; whereupon the other, having forgotten all about it, carefully opened a large drawer, exhibiting a heterogeneous mass of documents, and exclaimed: ‘There! help yourself. I don’t know exactly which is yours; but you may take any one of them you like!’
In this instance the manager was even more considerate towards the feelings of an author than that other dramatic demigod who, it is said, was regularly in receipt of so many new pieces, good, bad, and indifferent, that he devised an ingenious method of getting rid of them. During that particular season, the exigencies of the play required a roll of papers—presumably a will—to be nightly burned in a candle in full sight of the audience; and in this way he managed to make room for the numerous manuscripts which young authors only too eagerly poured in upon him, quite unconscious of their certain fate!
Indeed, volumes might be written upon the difficulties sometimes encountered in climbing the literary ladder, and whilst the more persevering have ultimately achieved the goal of their ambition, others have been fated to see their writings consigned to oblivion, and have themselves perhaps sunk into an early grave, consequent upon the disappointments and privations endured. When the poet Chatterton was found lying dead in his garret in Brook Street, his manuscripts had been strewn upon the floor, torn into a thousand pieces. Thus much good literature has often been lost to posterity. A number of instances, too, might be cited wherein persons have risen from their deathbed to destroy their manuscripts, and which task has either proved so distressing to their sensibilities, or fatiguing to their physical powers, that they immediately afterwards expired. It is placed upon record how Colardeau, that elegant versifier of Pope’s Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, recollected at the approach of his death that he had not destroyed what was written of a translation of Tasso; and unwilling to intrust this delicate office to his friends, he raised himself from his bed, and dragging his feeble frame to the place where the manuscript was deposited, with a last effort he consumed it in the flames. In another example, an author of celebrity directed his papers to be brought to his bed, and there, the attendant holding a light, he burned them, smiling as the greedy flames devoured what had been his work for years.
Few authors willingly destroy any manuscript that has cost them a long period of toil and research, though history records numerous examples where the loss of certain manuscripts has almost proved an irremediable misfortune to their author. The story of Mr Carlyle lending the manuscript of the first volume of his French Revolution to his friend John Stuart Mill, and its accidental destruction by fire, is well known. A similar disaster once happened to M. Firmin Abauzit, a philosopher who had applied himself to every branch of human learning, and to whom the great Newton had remarked, among other compliments: ‘You are worthy to distinguish between Leibnitz and me.’ It happened on one occasion that he had engaged a fresh female servant, rustic, simple, and thoughtless, and being left alone in his study for a while, she declared to herself that she would ‘set his things to rights;’ with which words she deliberately cleared the table, and swept the whole of his papers into the fire, thus destroying calculations which had been the work of upwards of forty years. Without one word, however, the philosopher calmly recommenced his task, with more pain than can readily be imagined. Most readers also will remember the similar misadventure which occurred to Sir Isaac Newton.
Of manuscripts which have perished through the ignorance or malignancy of the illiterate, there are numerous instances. The original ‘Magna Charta,’ with all its appendages of seals and signatures, was one day discovered, by Sir Robert Cotton, in the hands of his tailor, who with his shears was already in the act of cutting up into measures that priceless document, which had been so long given up as for ever lost. He bought the curiosity for a trifle; and caused it to be preserved, where it is still to be seen, in the Cottonian Library, with the marks of dilapidation plainly apparent. The immortal works of Agobart were found by Papirius Masson in the hands of a bookbinder at Lyons, the mechanic having long been in the habit of using the manuscript sheets for the purpose of lining the covers of his books. Similarly, a stray page of the second decade of Livy was found by a man of letters concealed under the parchment of his battledore, as he was amusing himself at that pastime in the country. He at once hastened to the maker of the battledore; but alas! it was too late—the man had used the last sheet of the manuscript of Livy about a week before!
A treatise printed among the works of Barbosa, a bishop of Ugento, in 1649, fell into the possession of that worthy, it is said, in a rather singular manner. Having sent out for a fish for his table, his domestic brought him one rolled up in a piece of written paper, which excited the bishop’s curiosity so much, that he forthwith rushed out to the market, just in time to discover and rescue the original manuscript from which the leaf had been torn. This work he afterwards published under the title of De Officio Episcopi.
The manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci suffered greatly from the wilful ignorance of his relatives. Once, when a curious collector of antiquities chanced to discover a portion of his writings by the merest accident, he eagerly carried them to one of the descendants of the great painter; but the man coldly observed that ‘he had a great deal more in his garret, which had lain there for many years, if the rats had not destroyed them.’
Cardinal Granville was in the habit of preserving his letters, and at his death, he left behind him a prodigious number, written in all languages, and duly noted, underlined, and collated by his own hand. These relics were left in several immense chests, to the mercy of time and the rats; and subsequently, five or six of the chestsful were sold to the grocers as waste paper. It was then that an examination of the treasure was made; and as the result of the united labours of several literary men, enough of the papers to fill eight thick folios were rescued, and afterwards published.
Fire and shipwreck have at various periods caused considerable havoc among manuscripts. Many of our oldest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were consumed some years ago by a fire in the Cottonian Library; and those which remain present a baked and shrivelled appearance, rendering them almost unrecognisable. Ben Jonson on one occasion sustained the loss of the labours of twenty-one years within one short hour, by fire; and Meninsky’s famous Persian Dictionary met with a like fate from the effects of a bomb falling upon the roof of his house during the siege of Vienna by the Turks.
National libraries have occasionally been lost at sea. In the beginning of last century, a wealthy burgomaster of Middelburg, in the Netherlands, named Hudde, actuated solely by literary curiosity, made a journey to China; and after travelling through the whole of the provinces, he set sail for Europe, laden with a manuscript collection of his observations, the labour of thirty years, the whole of which was sunk in the ocean. Again, Guarino Verenese, one of those learned Italians who volunteered to travel through Greece for the recovery of ancient manuscripts, had his perseverance repaid by the acquisition of many priceless treasures. Returning to Italy, however, he was shipwrecked; and such was his grief at the loss of this collection, that his hair became suddenly white.
Differing from those authors who have destroyed their manuscripts before death, are those who have delivered them into the hands of relatives and friends, together with the fullest instructions as to their disposal. It is well known that Lord Byron handed the manuscript of his autobiography to Tom Moore, with the strictest injunctions not to publish it till after his death. Immediately after he expired, Moore sold the manuscript to John Murray the publisher for two thousand pounds; but subsequently knowing something of the nature of the autobiography, and the effect which its publication would exert upon the memory of the deceased author, his own better feelings, united to the persuasions of Byron’s friends, prompted him to regain possession of the document, which he did, at the same time refunding the money to Mr Murray. The manuscript was then burned.
In the matter of the manuscripts of musical works, it may be related that shortly after Handel had settled at Hamburg in the capacity of conductor of the opera in that city, he cultivated the acquaintance of a well-known musician named Mattheson, and the two became great friends. But presently a quarrel arose between them, the result of which was that they drew their swords; and Mattheson’s weapon might in all probability have dealt fatally with the other’s life, had it not chanced to strike and break upon the score of Almira, Handel’s first opera, which he had hurriedly stowed beneath his coat, and over which, it is said, the quarrel had really arisen. After this, the combatants became reconciled, and Mattheson eventually bore the principal character in the opera when it was produced.
Returning to literature, it is perhaps not generally known that Swift’s Tale of a Tub was introduced to the world with such cunning secrecy, that the manuscript was actually thrown from a passing coach into the doorway of the bookseller who afterwards published it. Gulliver’s Travels was given to the public in the same mysterious manner. From one of Swift’s letters to Pope, as well as from another epistle to Dr T. Sheridan, we learn that during the time occupied in finishing, revising, and transcribing his manuscript, prior to thinking about a fitting bookseller to publish it, Tickell, then Secretary of State, expressed a strong curiosity to see the work concerning which there was so much secrecy. But the Dean frankly replied that it would be quite impossible for Mr Tickell to find his ‘treasury of waste-papers without searching through nine different houses,’ inasmuch as he had his manuscripts conveyed from place to place through nine or ten different hands; and then it would be necessary to send to him for a key to the work, else he could not understand a chapter of it. In the end, Gulliver came forth from its hiding-place through the medium of Mr Charles Ford, who offered to carry the manuscript to Mr Motte the bookseller, on behalf of his friend, and to whom he afterwards complained that the man’s timidity was such as to compel him to make some important abridgments throughout the work. The book was, however, no sooner published, than it was received with unlimited acclamation by all classes.
Of Defoe’s world-famous Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, we are told that it was only taken up by Taylor—who purchased the manuscript, and netted one thousand pounds by the publication—after every other bookseller in town had refused it. In a similar manner, one bookseller refused to give twenty-five pounds for the manuscript of Fielding’s Tom Jones; while another bought it, and cleared not less than eighteen thousand pounds by the venture during his lifetime!
With a few particulars touching upon the value of manuscripts which have at various periods been put up for public sale after the death of their authors, we will bring our paper to a conclusion.
When, some years ago, the manuscript of Scott’s Guy Mannering came into the market, the United States gladly secured the precious treasure at a cost of three hundred and eighty guineas; and in 1867, at a sale of the manuscripts which had belonged to Mr Cadell the well-known publisher, the Lady of the Lake was sold for two hundred and seventy-seven guineas, and Rokeby realised one hundred and thirty-six guineas, both becoming the property of Mr Hope-Scott. At the same sale, Sir William Fraser paid two hundred guineas for the manuscript of Marmion; whilst the same appreciative collector of literary antiquities paid, in 1875, so high a price as two hundred and fifty guineas for Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard, a composition occupying no more than four quarto sheets of manuscript.
Of Charles Dickens’s manuscripts, The Christmas Carol was purchased by Mr Harvey of St James’s Street for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, and resold by him for two hundred and fifty pounds; The Battle of Life is still held on sale by that gentleman; and Our Mutual Friend was purchased, on behalf of Mr George Washington Childs of Philadelphia, by Mr Hotten, for two hundred pounds. As is well known, the manuscript of The Pickwick Papers was bequeathed by Mr Forster to the South Kensington Museum, and will become the property of the British nation on the death of his widow, who has meanwhile, and in the most generous manner, permitted it and other manuscripts from the pen of Charles Dickens to be publicly exhibited where they will become permanently enshrined.
Not very long ago, the manuscript of a short poem by Burns brought seventy guineas; yet this sum must be regarded as but a small proportion of that value which might be realised for only one line—not to speak of one play—written by Shakspeare’s own hand. In his Memorials of Westminster Abbey, the late Dean Stanley has told us how Spenser the poet died in King Street, Westminster, and was solemnly interred in Poets’ Corner, hard by. ‘His hearse,’ he says, ‘was attended by poets; and mournful elegies, together with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb. What a funeral was that at which Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson, and, in all probability, Shakspeare attended! what a grave in which the pen of Shakspeare may be mouldering away!’ Certainly, if but one line of that ‘mournful elegy’ written by the Immortal Bard could be recovered and offered for sale, we should then have a pleasing and memorable opportunity of marking the estimation in which the poet is held by mankind.