"There has been an anxiety labouring in my mind the greater part of the last twelvemonth. At times it had nearly overwhelmed me. I thought I should absolutely have sunk into despair. O! what a kind friend is in those times! I thank God, whatever my picture may be, I can say thus much, I am a greater philosopher and a better Christian.">[
Thus the days of a man of genius are passed in labours as unremitting and exhausting as those of the artisan. The world is not always aware, that to some, meditation, composition, and even conversation, may inflict pains undetected by the eye and the tenderness of friendship. Whenever ROUSSEAU passed a morning in society, it was observed, that in the evening he was dissatisfied and distressed; and JOHN HUNTER, in a mixed company, found that conversation fatigued, instead of amusing him. HAWKESWORTH, in the second paper of the "Adventurer," has drawn, from his own feelings, an eloquent comparative estimate of intellectual with corporeal labour; it may console the humble mechanic; and Plato, in his work on "Laws," seems to have been aware of this analogy, for he consecrates all working men or artisans to Vulcan and Minerva, because both those deities alike are hard labourers. Yet with genius all does not terminate, even with the most skilful labour. What the toiling Vulcan and the thoughtful Minerva may want, will too often be absent—the presence of the Graces. In the allegorical picture of the School of Design, by Carlo Maratti, where the students are led through their various studies, in the opening clouds above the academy are seen the Graces, hovering over their pupils, with an inscription they must often recollect—Senza di noi ogni fatica è vana.
The anxious uncertainty of an author for his compositions resembles the anxiety of a lover when he has written to a mistress who has not yet decided on his claims; he repents his labour, for he thinks he has written too much, while he is mortified at recollecting that he had omitted some things which he imagines would have secured the object of his wishes. Madame DE STAEL, who has often entered into feelings familiar to a literary and political family, in a parallel between ambition and genius, has distinguished them in this; that while "ambition perseveres in the desire of acquiring power, genius flags of itself. Genius in the midst of society is a pain, an internal fever which would require to be treated as a real disease, if the records of glory did not soften the sufferings it produces."—"Athenians! what troubles have you not cost me," exclaimed DEMOSTHENES, "that I may be talked of by you!"
These moments of anxiety often darken the brightest hours of genius. RACINE had extreme sensibility; the pain inflicted by a severe criticism outweighed all the applause he received. He seems to have felt, what he was often reproached with, that his Greeks, his Jews, and his Turks, were all inmates of Versailles. He had two critics, who, like our Dennis with Pope and Addison, regularly dogged his pieces as they appeared[A]. Corneille's objections he would attribute to jealousy—at his pieces when burlesqued at the Italian theatre[B] he would smile outwardly, though sick at heart; but his son informs us, that a stroke of raillery from his witty friend Chapelle, whose pleasantry hardly sheathed its bitterness, sunk more deeply into his heart than the burlesques at the Italian theatre, the protest of Corneille, and the iteration of the two Dennises. More than once MOLIERE and Racine, in vexation of spirit, resolved to abandon their dramatic career; it was BOILEAU who ceaselessly animated their languor: "Posterity," he cried, "will avenge the injustice of our age!" And CONGREVE'S comedies met with such moderate success, that it appears the author was extremely mortified, and on the ill reception of The Way of the World, determined to write no more for the stage. When he told Voltaire, on the French wit's visit, that Voltaire must consider him as a private gentleman, and not as an author,—which apparent affectation called down on Congreve the sarcastic severity of the French author,[C] —more of mortification and humility might have been in Congreve's language than of affectation or pride.
[Footnote A: See the article "On the Influence of a bad temper in Criticism" in "Calamities of Authors," for a notice of Dennis and his career.—ED.]
[Footnote B: See the article on "The Sensibility of Racine" in "Literary
Miscellanies," (in the present volume) and that on "Parody," in
"Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii. p. 459.—ED.]
[Footnote C: Voltaire quietly said he should not have troubled himself to visit him if he had been merely a private gentleman.—ED.]
The life of TASSO abounds with pictures of a complete exhaustion of this kind. His contradictory critics had perplexed him with the most intricate literary discussions, and either occasioned or increased a mental alienation. In one of his letters, we find that he repents the composition of his great poem, for although his own taste approved of that marvellous, which still forms a noble part of its creation, yet he confesses that his cold reasoning critics have decided that the history of his hero, Godfrey, required another species of conduct. "Hence," cries the unhappy bard, "doubts torment me; but for the past, and what is done, I know of no remedy;" and he longs to precipitate the publication, that "he may be delivered from misery and agony." He solemnly swears—"Did not the circumstances of my situation compel me, I would not print it, even perhaps during my life, I so much doubt of its success." Such was the painful state of fear and doubt experienced by the author of the "Jerusalem Delivered," when he gave it to the world; a state of suspense, among the children of imagination, in which none are more liable to participate than the true sensitive artist. We may now inspect the severe correction of Tasso's muse, in the fac-simile of a page of his manuscripts in Mr. Dibdin's late "Tour." She seems to have inflicted tortures on his pen, surpassing even those which may be seen in the fac-simile page which, thirty years ago, I gave of Pope's Homer.[A] At Florence may still be viewed the many works begun and abandoned by the genius of MICHAEL ANGELO; they are preserved inviolate—"so sacred is the terror of Michael Angelo's genius!" exclaims Forsyth. These works are not always to be considered as failures of the chisel; they appear rather to have been rejected for coming short of the artist's first conceptions: yet, in a strain of sublime poetry, he has preserved his sentiments on the force of intellectual labour; he thought that there was nothing which the imagination conceived, that could not be made visible in marble, if the hand were made to obey the mind:—
Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto,
Ch' un marmo solo in se non circoseriva
Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva
La man che obbedisce all' intelletto.