“This little incident,” writes Percival, “perhaps gave the first wrong bias to a mind predisposed to such impressions; and by operating with so much strength and permanency, it might possibly lay the foundation of the Dean’s subsequent peevishness, passion, misanthropy, and final insanity.”
LEIGH HUNT AND THOMAS CARLYLE.
The following characteristic story of these two “intellectual gladiators” is related in “A New Spirit of the Age.”
Leigh Hunt and Carlyle were once present among a small party of equally well known men. It chanced that the conversation rested with these two, both first-rate talkers, and the others sat well pleased to listen. Leigh Hunt had said something about the islands of the Blest, or El Dorado, or the Millennium, and was flowing on in his bright and hopeful way, when Carlyle dropt some heavy tree-trunk across Hunt’s pleasant stream, and banked it up with philosophical doubts and objections at every interval of the speaker’s joyous progress. But the unmitigated Hunt never ceased his overflowing anticipations, nor the saturnine Carlyle his infinite demurs to those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed and applauded by turns; and had now fairly pitted them against each other, as the philosopher of Hopefulness and of the Unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and profundity, that extensive knowledge of books and character, with their ready application in argument or illustration, and that perfect ease and good-nature, which distinguish each of these men. The opponents were so well matched, that it was quite clear the contest would never come to an end. But the night was far advanced, and the party broke up. They all sallied forth; and leaving the close room, the candles and the arguments behind them, suddenly found themselves in presence of a most brilliant star-light night. They all looked up. “Now,” thought Hunt, “Carlyle’s done for!—he can have no answer to that!” “There!” shouted Hunt, “look up there! look at that glorious harmony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal song of hope in the soul of man.” Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to hear what he would say. They began to think he was silenced at last—he was a mortal man. But out of that silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent. And who, on earth, could have anticipated what the voice said? “Eh! it’s a sad sight!”—— Hunt sat down on a stone step. They all laughed—then looked very thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up to the influence? Again they laughed—then bade each other good night, and betook themselves homeward with slow and serious pace. There might be some reason for sadness, too. That brilliant firmament probably contained infinite worlds, each full of struggling and suffering beings—of beings who had to die—for life in the stars implies that those bright worlds should also be full of graves; but all that life, like ours, knowing not whence it came, nor whither it goeth, and the brilliant Universe in its great Movement having, perhaps, no more certain knowledge of itself, nor of its ultimate destination, than hath one of the suffering specks that compose this small spot we inherit.
COWPER’S POEMS.
Johnson, the publisher in St. Paul’s Churchyard, obtained the copyright of Cowper’s Poems, which proved a great source of profit to him, in the following manner:—One evening, a relation of Cowper’s called upon Johnson with a portion of the MS. poems, which he offered for publication, provided Johnson would publish them at his own risk, and allow the author to have a few copies to give to his friends. Johnson read the poems, approved of them, and accordingly published them. Soon after they had appeared, there was scarcely a reviewer who did not load them with the most scurrilous abuse, and condemn them to the butter shops; and the public taste being thus terrified or misled, these charming effusions stood in the corner of the publisher’s shop as an unsaleable pile for a long time.
At length, Cowper’s relation called upon Johnson with another bundle of the poet’s MS., which was offered and accepted upon the same terms as before. In this fresh collection was the poem of the “Task.” Not alarmed at the fate of the former publication, but thoroughly assured of the great merit of the poems, they were published. The tone of the reviewers became changed, and Cowper was hailed as the first poet of the age. The success of this second publication set the first in motion. Johnson immediately reaped the fruits of his undaunted judgment; and Cowper’s poems enriched the publisher, when the poet was in languishing circumstances. In October, 1812, the copyright of Cowper’s poems was put up to sale among the London booksellers, in thirty-two shares. Twenty of the shares were sold at 212l. each. The work, consisting of two octavo volumes, was satisfactorily proved at the sale to net 834l. per annum. It had only two years of copyright; yet this same copyright produced the sum of 6764l.