"In the example of Gonzalo, with whom Philemon is perfectly well acquainted, a remarkable exemplification of the passion of Vanity occurs. I recollect, one evening, he came rushing into a party where I sat, screaming with the extatic joy of a maniac—'Ευρηκα, Ευρηκα'; and, throwing down a scroll, rushed as precipitately out of the room. The scroll was of vellum; the title to the contents of it was penned in golden letters, and softly-painted bunches of roses graced each corner. It contained a sonnet to love, and another to friendship; but a principal mistake which struck us, on the very threshold of our critical examination, was that he had incorrectly entitled these sonnets. Friendship should have been called love, and love, friendship. We had no sooner made the discovery than Gonzalo returned, expecting to find us in like ecstacies with himself!—We gravely told him that we stumbled at the very threshold. It was quite sufficient—he seized his sonnets with avidity—and, crumpling the roll (after essaying to tear it) thrust it into his pocket, and retreated. One of the gentlemen in company made the following remarks, on his leaving us: 'In the conduct of Gonzalo appears a strange mixture of intellectual strength and intellectual debility; of wit and dulness; of wisdom and folly; and all this arises chiefly from his mistaking the means for the end—the instrument of achieving for the object achieved. The fondest wish of his heart is literary fame: for this he would sacrifice every thing. He is handsome, generous, an affectionate son, a merry companion, and is, withal, a very excellent belles-lettres scholar. Tell him that the ladies admire him, that his mother doats on him, and that his friends esteem him—and—keeping back the wished-for eulogy of literary excellence—you tell him of nothing which he cares for. In truth he might attain some portion of intellectual reputation, if he would throw aside his ridiculous habits. He must, as soon as the evening shades prevail, burn wax tapers—he must always have an Argand lamp lighted up before him, to throw a picturesque effect upon a dark wood painted by Hobbima—his pens must be made from the crow's wing—his wax must be green—his paper must be thick and hot-pressed; and he must have a portfolio of the choicest bits of ancient vellum that can be procured—his body must recline upon a chintz sofa—his foot must be perched upon an ottoman—in short he must have every thing for which no man of common sense would express the least concern. Can you be surprised, therefore, that he should commence his sonnet to friendship thus:
Oh, sweetest softest thing that's friendship hight!
or that he should conceive the following address to women, by one William Goddard, worthy of being ranked among the most beautiful poetical efforts of the 16th century:
|
Stars of this earthly heaven, you whose essence Compos'd was of man's purest quintessence, To you, to virtuous you, I dedicate This snaggy sprig[83]——" |
[83] From "A Satyrical Dialogue, &c., betweene Alexander the Great and that truelye woman-hater Diogynes. Imprinted in the low countryes for all such gentlewomen as are not altogether idle nor yet well occupyed," 4to. no date. A strange composition! full of nervous lines and pungent satire—but not free from the grossest licentiousness.
"Enough," exclaimed Philemon—while Lysander paused a little, after uttering the foregoing in a rapid and glowing manner—"enough for this effeminate vanity in man! What other ills have you to enumerate, which assail the region of literature?"—"I will tell you," replied Lysander, "another, and a most lamentable evil, which perverts the very end for which talents were given us—and it is in mistaking and misapplying these talents. I speak with reference to the individual himself, and not to the public. You may remember how grievously Alfonso bore the lot which public criticism, with one voice, adjudged to him! This man had good natural parts, and would have abridged a history, made an index, or analyzed a philosophical work, with great credit to himself and advantage to the public. But he set his heart upon eclipsing Doctors Johnson and Jamieson. He happened to know a few etymons more correctly, and to have some little acquaintance with black letter literature, and hence thought to give more weight to lexicographical inquiries than had hitherto distinguished them. But how miserably he was deceived in all his undertakings of this kind past events have sufficiently shewn. No, my good Philemon, to be of use to the republic of literature, let us know our situations; and let us not fail to remember that, in the best appointed army, the serjeant may be of equal utility with the captain.
"I will notice only one other, and a very great, failing observable in literary men—and this is severity and self-consequence. You will find that these severe characters generally set up the trade of Critics; without attending to the just maxim of Pope, that
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.
"With them, the least deviation from precise correctness, the most venial trippings, the smallest inattention paid to doubtful rules and equivocal positions of criticism, inflames their anger, and calls forth their invectives. Regardless of the sage maxims of Cicero, Quintilian, and Horace, they not only disdain the sober rules which their ancient brethren have wisely laid down, and hold in contempt the voice of the public,[84] but, forgetting the subject which they have undertaken to criticise, they push the author out of his seat, quietly sit in it themselves, and fancy they entertain you by the gravity of their deportment, and their rash usurpation of the royal monosyllable 'Nos.'[85] This solemn pronoun, or rather 'plural style,'[86] my dear Philemon, is oftentimes usurped by a half-starved little I, who sits immured in the dusty recess of a garret, and who has never known the society nor the language of a gentleman; or it is assumed by a young graduate, just settled in his chambers, and flushed with the triumph of his degree of 'B.A.', whose 'fond conceyte' [to borrow Master Francis Thynne's[87] terse style,] is, to wrangle for an asses shadowe, or to seke a knott in a rushe!'
[84] "Interdum vulgus rectum videt:" says Horace.—Epist. lib. ii. ad. Augustum, v. 63.