[Footnote A: For a full account of their literary career see the first article in "Quarrels of Authors.">[
One glory is reserved for literary friendship. The friendship of a great name indicates the greatness of the character who appeals to it. When SYDENHAM mentioned, as a proof of the excellence of his method of treating acute diseases, that it had received the approbation of his illustrious friend LOCKE, the philosopher's opinion contributed to the physician's success.
Such have been the friendships of great literary characters; but too true it is, that they have not always contributed thus largely to their mutual happiness. The querulous lament of GLEIM to KLOPSTOCK is too generally participated. As Gleim lay on his death-bed he addressed the great bard of Germany—"I am dying, dear Klopstock; and, as a dying man will I say, in this world we have not lived long enough together and for each other; but in vain would we now recal the past!" What tenderness in the reproach! What self-accusation in its modesty!
CHAPTER XX.
The literary and the personal character.—The personal dispositions of an author may be the reverse of those which appear in his writings. —Erroneous conceptions of the character of distant authors.—Paradoxical appearances in the history of Genius.—Why the character of the man may be opposite to that of his writings.
Are the personal dispositions of an author discoverable in his writings, as those of an artist are imagined to appear in his works, where Michael Angelo is always great, and Raphael ever graceful?
Is the moralist a moral man? Is he malignant who publishes caustic satires? Is he a libertine who composes loose poems? And is he, whose imagination delights in terror and in blood, the very monster he paints?
Many licentious writers have led chaste lives. LA MOTHE LE VAYER wrote two works of a free nature; yet his was the unblemished life of a retired sage. BAYLE is the too faithful compiler of impurities, but he resisted the voluptuousness of the senses as much as Newton. LA FONTAINE wrote tales fertile in intrigue, yet the "bon-homme" has not left on record a single ingenious amour of his own. The Queen of NAVARRE'S Tales are gross imitations of Boccaccio's; but she herself was a princess of irreproachable habits, and had given proof of the most rigid virtue; but stories of intrigues, told in a natural style, formed the fashionable literature of the day, and the genius of the female writer was amused in becoming an historian without being an actor. FORTIGUERRA, the author of the Ricciardetto, abounds with loose and licentious descriptions, and yet neither his manners nor his personal character were stained by the offending freedom of his inventions. SMOLLETT'S character is immaculate; yet he has described two scenes which offend even in the license of imagination. COWLEY, who boasts with such gaiety of the versatility of his passion among so many mistresses, wanted even the confidence to address one. Thus, licentious writers may be very chaste persons. The imagination may be a volcano while the heart is an Alp of ice.
Turn to the moralist—there we find Seneca, a usurer of seven millions, writing on moderate desires on a table of gold. SALLUST, who so eloquently declaims against the licentiousness of the age, was repeatedly accused in the senate of public and habitual debaucheries; and when this inveigher against the spoilers of provinces attained to a remote government, he pillaged like Verres. That "DEMOSTHENES was more capable of recommending than of imitating the virtues of our ancestors," is the observation of Plutarch. LUCIAN, when young, declaimed against the friendship of the great, as another name for servitude; but when his talents procured him a situation under the emperor, he facetiously compared himself to those quacks who, themselves plagued by a perpetual cough, offer to sell an infallible remedy for one. Sir THOMAS MORE, in his "Utopia," declares that no man ought to be punished for his religion; yet he became a fierce persecutor, flogging and racking men for his own "true faith." At the moment the poet ROUSSEAU was giving versions of the Psalms, full of unction, as our Catholic neighbours express it, he was profaning the same pen with infamous epigrams; and an erotic poet of our times has composed night-hymns in churchyards with the same ardour with which he poured forth Anacreontics. Napoleon said of Bernardin St. Pierre, whose writings breathe the warm principles of humanity and social happiness in every page, that he was one of the worst private characters in France. I have heard this from other quarters; it startles one! The pathetic genius of STERNE played about his head, but never reached his heart[A]. Cardinal RICHELIEU wrote "The Perfection of a Christian, or the Life of a Christian;" yet was he an utter stranger to Gospel maxims; and FREDERICK THE GREAT, when young, published his "Anti-Machiavel," and deceived the world by the promise of a pacific reign. This military genius protested against those political arts which, he afterwards adroitly practised, uniting the lion's head with the fox's tail—and thus himself realising the political monster of Machiavel!
[Footnote A: See what is said on this subject in the article on Sterne in the "Literary Miscellanies," of the present volume.]