Few men equalled Coleridge in the matter of prompt readiness of retort, and few have so misused the lavish gifts of Providence.[194] On a certain occasion he was riding along a Durham turnpike road, in his awkward fashion,—for he was no horseman,—when a wag, noticing his peculiarity, approached him. Quite mistaking his man, he thought the rider a good subject for a little sport, and so accosted him: "I say, young man, did you meet a tailor on the road?" "Yes," replied Coleridge, "I did, and he told me if I went a little further I should meet a goose!" The assailant was struck dumb, while the traveller jogged leisurely on.
Lord Bolingbroke, the ardent friend of Pope, was often bitterly satirical, and notably quick at retort. Being at Aix-la-Chapelle during the treaty of peace at that place, he was asked impertinently by a Frenchman whether he came there in any public character. "No, sir," replied Bolingbroke, very deliberately; "I come like a French minister, with no character at all." Bolingbroke's talents were more brilliant than solid, but the style of his literary work is admirable. It is generally believed that he wrote the "Essay on Man" in prose, and that Pope put it into verse, with such additions as would naturally occur in such an adaptation.
Painters, like poets, are equal at times to producing the keenest epigrams. Salvator Rosa's opinion of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment" is an instance of this. The brother artist wrote not unkindly as follows:—
"My Michael Angelo, I do not jest;
Thy pencil a great judgment has expressed;
But in that judgment thou, alas! hast shown
But very little judgment of thine own!"
We have already spoken of Molière[195] in these pages, though only too briefly when his just fame is considered. England has her Shakespeare, Spain her Cervantes, Germany her Goethe, and France her Molière. We have seen how triumphantly his powerful genius made its way amid adverse circumstances, until it enabled him, as Disraeli says, "to give his country a Plautus in farce, a Terence in composition, and a Menander in his moral truths." In short, Molière showed that the most successful reformer of the manners and morals of the people is a great comic poet. Did not Cervantes "laugh Spain's chivalry away"? It is a curious fact, worthy of note, that Molière, who was so great a comic writer, and such an admirable comedian upon the stage, should have been socially one of the most serious of men and of a melancholic temperament. It was a considerable time before his genius struck out in the right direction and became self-reliant. At the beginning of his dramatic authorship he "borrowed bravely" from the Italian, as Shakespeare did; and Spanish legends were also adapted by his facile pen to dramatic purposes, himself enacting chosen comedy parts of his own plays.
This course, however, did not satisfy the genius of Molière; he felt that he was capable of greater originality and of more truly artistic work. After much communing with himself he sought a new and more legitimate field of inspiration and employed fresher material. Having now the entrée to the Hôtel de Rambouillet, he began to study with critical eye the court life about him, soon producing his "Précieuses Ridicules," which was a biting satire upon the follies of the day, though delicately screened. The author skilfully parried in the prologue any application to his court associates, by averring that the satire was aimed at their imitators in the provinces. The ruse was sufficient, and the play was performed without offence; but its significance was nevertheless realized, and had its reformative influence without producing too great a shock. It was almost his first grand and original effort, and from thenceforth his career was a triumphal march. He is said to have exclaimed, "I need no longer study Plautus and Terence, nor poach on the fragments of Menander, I have only to study the world about me." Subsequently the brilliant success of his "Tartuffe," his "Misanthrope," and his "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" confirmed him in his conviction. Although society felt itself arraigned, it was also humbled and powerless. The author had become too great a power to be suppressed.
Molière's domestic life, like that of only too many men of genius, and especially of authors, was a wreck.[196]
It may be doubted if such persons ought to marry at all. Rousseau is another instance of domestic infelicity; and so are Milton, Dryden, Addison, Steele; indeed, the list could be indefinitely extended. A young painter of great promise once told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he had taken a wife. "Married!" responded the great master; "then you are ruined as an artist." Michael Angelo's answer when he was asked why he never married will be remembered: "I have espoused my art, and that occasions me sufficient domestic cares; my works shall be my children." The marriage of men of genius forms a theme of no little interest in the history of literature. It is herein that genius has oftenest found its sunshine or its shadow. Even Emerson has said, "Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged from the beginning of the world that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?" Rousseau married a kitchen-girl, and Raphael allied himself for the last eleven years of his life with a common girl of Rome, whom he first saw washing her feet in the Tiber. Judging from her portrait, which he painted, and which still hangs in the Barberini Gallery, she was by no means beautiful, though the ensemble of head, face, and neck strikes the eye as forming a very attractive whole. Margarita belonged to the lower classes of the Eternal City, and when Raphael died she went back to her former obscurity. There must have been many noble qualities in this young Roman girl, to have held the consistent devotion of so great an artist for an entire decade. She must have possessed some inspiring influence over him other than forming his mere physical model. Sympathetic she undoubtedly was, or else no such union could have lasted; and one feels that he must have imparted to her a portion of the glowing aspirations which fired his own genius.
Goethe married to legitimize his offspring; Niebuhr, to please a mistress; Churchill, because he was dispirited and lonely; Napoleon, to obtain influence; Wilkes, to oblige a friend; Lamartine, in gratitude for a fortune which was offered to him, and which he rapidly squandered; Wycherly married his servant to spite his relations. And so we might fill pages with brief mention of the influences which have led men of note to assume matrimonial relations. Balzac's marriage forms a curious example. He met by chance, when travelling, a youthful married lady, who told him, without knowing who he was, how much she admired Balzac's writings. "I never travel without a volume of his," she added, producing a copy. Greatly flattered, the author made himself known to the lady, who was a princess by birth, and who became his constant correspondent until the death of her husband, when she gave him her hand and fortune. They were married, and settled to domestic life in a château on the Rhine.