With far less classical learning, fewer images derived from travelling, inferior information on many historical subjects, and a mind of a less impassioned and energetic cast than other writers of his time, Sir Walter is far more deeply read in that book which is ever the same—the human heart. This is his unequalled excellence: there he stands, without a rival since the days of Shakspeare. It is to this cause that his astonishing success has been owing. We feel in his characters that it is not romance, but real life, which is represented. Every word that is said, especially in the Scotch novels, is nature itself. Homer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, and Scott, alone have penetrated to the deep substratum of character, which, however disguised by the varieties of climate and government, is at bottom every where the same; and thence they have found a responsive echo in every human heart. Every man who reads these admirable works, from the North Cape to Cape Horn, feels that what the characters they contain are made to say, is just what would have occurred to themselves, or what they have heard said by others as long as they lived. Nor is it only in the delineation of character, and the knowledge of human nature, that the Scottish novelist, like his great predecessors, is but for them without a rival. Powerful in the pathetic, admirable in dialogue, unmatched in description, his writings captivate the mind as much by the varied excellences which they exhibit, as by the powerful interest which they maintain. He has carried romance out of the region of imagination and sensibility into the walks of actual life.[[116]]
Isaac Disraeli, who died in 1848, at the age of eighty-two, was “a complete literary character, a man who really passed his life in his library. Even marriage produced no change in these habits: he rose to enter the chamber where he lived alone with his books, and at night his lamp was ever lit within the same walls.” His father destined him for business; but this he opposed so strongly as to compose a long poem against commerce, which he attempted to get published. In spite of all his father could say or do, young Disraeli determined to become a literary man. His first efforts were in poetry and romance; but he soon found out that his true destiny was literary history; and in 1790 he published anonymously Curiosities of Literature, the success of which led him to devote the remainder of his long life to literary and historical researches, which he prosecuted partly in the British Museum, where he was a constant visitor when the readers were not more than half a dozen daily: he also worked in his own library, which was very extensive. His Curiosities reached eleven editions; and in acknowledgment of his Life and Reign of Charles I. he was made D.C., &c. by the University of Oxford. He is thus personally described by his gifted son:
He was fair, with a Bourbon nose, and brown eyes of extraordinary beauty and lustre. He wore a small black-velvet cap, but his white hair latterly touched his shoulders in curls almost as flowing as in his boyhood. His extremities were delicate and well formed, and his leg, at his last hour, as shapely as in his youth, which showed the vigour of his frame. Latterly he had become corpulent. He did not excel in conversation, though in his domestic circle he was garrulous. Every thing interested him; and blind, and eighty-two, he was still as susceptible as a child. One of his last acts was to compose some verses of gay gratitude to his daughter-in-law, who was his London correspondent, and to whose lively pen his last years were indebted for constant amusement. He had by nature a singular volatility, which never deserted him. His feelings, though always amiable, were not painfully deep, and amid joy or sorrow the philosophic vein was ever evident. He more resembled Goldsmith than any man that I can compare him to: in his conversation his apparent confusion of ideas ending with some felicitous phrase of genius, his naïveté, his simplicity not untouched with a dash of sarcasm affecting innocence—one was often reminded of the gifted and interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was, however, one trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had no vanity. Indeed, one of his few infirmities was rather a deficiency of self-esteem.
Mr. Disraeli had the pride and happiness to see the writer of the above, Benjamin Disraeli, not only achieve high distinction in literature, but become a minister of the Crown. We remember him in his twenty-fifth year. “Who is that gentleman with a profusion of hair, whom I so often see here?” was our inquiry of a publisher in Oxford-street. “That is young Disraeli,” was the publisher’s reply; “and he would be glad to execute any literary work for a guinea or two.” He had already produced a piece of piquant satire, an Account of the Great World,[[117]] with a Vocabulary; and shortly after there was announced for publication a periodical to be called The Star-Chamber, to have been edited by Mr. Disraeli. He published his first novel, Vivian Grey, in 1825; Coningsby, a work of fiction and political history, he wrote chiefly at Deepdene, in Surrey, the seat of his friend, Mr. H. T. Hope. Mr. Disraeli entered Parliament in 1837: he succeeded Lord George Bentinck as the Conservative leader; was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Derby’s administrations of 1852 and 1858-9; thus exemplifying that the highest political honours are attainable in this country by intellectual qualification for public life.
Lord Macaulay, the brilliant essayist, historian, and orator, exemplifies in his successful career how genius may be most profitably nurtured by systematic education. Of quick perception and great power of memory, when a boy he would tell long stories from the Arabian Nights and Scott’s novels; but the familiar books of his home were the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, and a few Cameronian divines; and he was fond of Scripture phraseology throughout his writings. He appears to have been a great favourite of Hannah More, who thought him a little prodigy of acquisition, and wrote of him, when on a visit to her in his boyhood:
The quantity of reading that Tom has poured in, and the quantity of writing he has poured out, is astonishing. We have poetry for breakfast, dinner, and supper. He recited all Palestine (Bishop Heber’s poem), while we breakfasted, to our pious friend, Mr. Whalley, at my desire, and did it incomparably.... I sometimes fancy I observe a daily progress in the growth of his mental powers. His fine promise of mind, too, expands more and more; and, what is extraordinary, he has as much accuracy in his expression as spirit and vivacity in his imagination. I like, too, that he takes a lively interest in all passing events, and that the child is still preserved; I like to see him as boyish as he is studious, and that he is as much amused with making a pat of butter as a poem. Though loquacious, he is very docile; and I don’t remember a single instance in which he has persisted in doing any thing when he saw we did not approve it. Several men of sense and learning have been struck with the union of gaiety and rationality in his conversation.
More remarkable was the prevoyance of Macaulay’s power as a writer, which Hannah More almost literally predicted: he cherished a warm recollection of his obligations to her, and the influence she had in directing his reading. He received his peerage in honour of his valuable services to literature: he will long be remembered by his grasp of mind, descriptive picturesqueness, strong feeling and vivid fancy, life-like portraiture, and marvellous scenic skill. In his mastery of the art of writing he was unrivalled.
It may take the reader by surprise to be told that, astounding as the career of Lord Brougham has been, the rise of this distinguished man to the highest honour of the realm appears to have been predicted thirty years before its attainment. At the Social Science dinner at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, on June 14th, 1862, at which Lord Brougham presided, Mr. J. W. Napier, Ex-Chancellor of Ireland, related that he remembered, some years previously, meeting an old and respected lady in the north of England, who was present at a party when the first writers in the Edinburgh Review, including Henry Brougham, dined together at Edinburgh, after the publication of the Second Number of the Review (in 1802). On that occasion, the lady’s husband, Mr. Fletcher, remarked that the writer of a certain paper in the Review, of which he knew not the author, was fit to be any thing. Mr. Brougham hearing this, observed, “What! do you think he is fit to be Lord Chancellor?” The reply was, “Yes; and I tell you more: he will be Lord Chancellor;” and the old lady had the happiness to live thirty years after this, and to see her friend Lord Chancellor of England. Lord Brougham well remembered old Mrs. Fletcher, and corroborated the accuracy of Mr. Napier’s anecdote. Mr. Napier then proposed, in an affectionate manner, the health of Lord Brougham, whose answer was, as he said, but a repetition of words he had spoken thirty years ago elsewhere. But on the present occasion they were perhaps even more appropriate, and in themselves singularly beautiful: “When I cease from my labours, the cause of freedom, peace, and progress will lose a friend, and no man living will lose an enemy.” The noble lord was much affected, and it is needless to tell of the applause which followed the sentiment.
Henry Brougham was born in Edinburgh in 1779: his father was no extraordinary man, but his mother is described as a woman of talent and delightful character. The son was educated in Edinburgh, which, in 1857, he declared in public he looked upon as a very great benefit conferred on him by Providence. He was dux of the Rector’s class at the Edinburgh University in 1791; and he was preëminent in mathematics and natural philosophy, in law, metaphysics, and political science. When not more than seventeen, he contributed to the Royal Society a paper on the Inflection and Reflection of Light; and next, a paper of Porisms in the Higher Geometry. He chose the Scottish Bar as his profession; and, with Horner, Jeffrey, and other Scottish Whigs, joined the renowned Speculative Society for the sake of extemporaneous debate. He for some time edited the Edinburgh Review, and was for five-and-twenty years the most industrious and versatile of the contributors. In 1808 he was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and began to practise as an English barrister. In 1810 he entered Parliament, and soon distinguished himself on all the great questions of the day. His application to law, literature, and science was alike intense. Sir Samuel Romilly said, he seemed to have time for every thing; and Sydney Smith once recommended him to confine himself to only the transaction of so much business as three strong men could get through. Hazlitt, in a portrait-sketch taken about 1825, says:
Mr. Brougham writes almost as well as he speaks. In the midst of an election contest he comes out to address the populace, and goes back to his study to finish an article for the Edinburgh Review, sometimes indeed wedging three or four articles in the shape of rifacimenti of his own pamphlets or speeches in Parliament in a single Number. Such indeed is the activity of his mind, that it appears to require neither repose nor any other stimulus than a delight in its own exercise. He can turn his hand to any thing, but he cannot be idle. He is, in fact, a striking instance of the versatility and strength of the human mind, and also, in one sense, of the length of human life: if we make good use of our time, there is room enough to crowd almost every art and science into it.