A very pleasant day we “Londoners” once spent at a Chiswick parsonage, formerly tenanted by Hogarth, along with the hospitable Cary, and, as Elia called them, his Caryatides![13] The last time my eyes rested on the Interpreter (of the House Beautiful as well as of the Inferno), he was on the Library steps of the British Museum. Ere this, I trust he hath reached the tiptop—nay, hath perhaps attained, being a Literary Worthy, even unto a Trusteeship, and had to buy, at Ellis’s, a few yards of the Blue Ribbon of Literature!
Procter,—alias Barry Cornwall, formerly of the Marcian Colonnade, now of some prosaical Inn of Court—the kindly Procter, one of the foremost to welcome me into the Brotherhood, with a too-flattering Dedication (another instance against the jealousy of authors), is my own left-hand file. But what he says shall be kept as strictly confidential; for he is whispering it into my Martineau ear. On my other side, when I turn that way, I see a profile, a shadow of which ever confronts me on opening my writing-desk,—a sketch taken from memory, the day after seeing the original[14]. In opposition to the “extra man’s size” of Cunningham, the party in question looks almost boyish, partly from being in bulk somewhat beneath Monsieur Quetelet’s “Average Man,” but still more so from a peculiar delicacy of complexion and smallness of features, which look all the smaller from his wearing, in compliment, probably, to the Samsons of Teutonic Literature, his locks unshorn. Nevertheless whoever looks again,
Sees more than marks the crowd of common men.
There is speculation in the eyes, a curl of the lip, and a general character in the outline, that reminds one of some portraits of Voltaire. And a Philosopher he is every inch. He looks, thinks, writes, talks and walks, eats and drinks, and no doubt sleeps philosophically—i.e. deliberately. There is nothing abrupt about his motions,—he goes and comes calmly and quietly—like the phantom in Hamlet, he is here—he is there—he is gone! So it is with his discourse. He speaks slowly, clearly, and with very marked emphasis—the tide of talk flows like Denham’s river, “strong without rage, without overflowing, full.” When it was my frequent and agreeable duty to call on Mr. De Quincey (being an uncommon name to remember, the servant associated it, on the Memoria Technica principle, with a sore throat and always pronounced it Quinsy), and I have found him at home, quite at home, in the midst of a German Ocean of Literature, in a storm,—flooding all the floor, the table and the chairs,—billows of books tossing, tumbling, surging open,—on such occasions I have willingly listened by the hour whilst the Philosopher, standing, with his eyes fixed on one side of the room, seemed to be less speaking than reading from a “handwriting on the wall.” Now and then he would diverge, for a Scotch mile or two, to the right or left, till I was tempted to inquire with Peregrine in John Bull (Colman’s not Hook’s), “Do you never deviate?”—but he always came safely back to the point where he had left, not lost the scent, and thence hunted his topic to the end. But look!—we are in the small hours, and a change comes o’er the spirit of that “old familiar face.” A faint hectic tint leaves the cheek, the eyes are a degree dimmer, and each is surrounded by a growing shadow—signs of the waning influence of that Potent Drug whose stupendous Pleasures and enormous Pains have been so eloquently described by the English Opium Eater. Marry, I have one of his Confessions with his own name and mark to it:—an apology for a certain stain on his MS., the said stain being a large purplish ring,—“Within that circle none durst drink but he,”—in fact the impression, coloured, of “a tumbler of laudanum negus, warm, without sugar.”[15]
That smart active person opposite with a game-cock-looking head, and the hair combed smooth, fighter fashion, over his forehead—with one finger hooked round a glass of champagne, not that he requires it to inspirit him, for his wit bubbles up of itself—is our Edward Herbert, the Author of that true piece of Biography, the Life of Peter Corcoran. He is “good with both hands,” like that Nonpareil Randall, at a comic verse or a serious stanza—smart at a repartee—sharp at a retort, and not averse to a bit of mischief. ’Twas he who gave the runaway ring at Wordsworth’s Peter Bell. Generally, his jests, set off by a happy manner, are only ticklesome, but now and then they are sharp-flavoured,—like the sharpness of the pine-apple. Would I could give a sample. Alas! What a pity it is that so many good things uttered by Poets, and Wits, and Humorists, at chance times—and they are always the best and brightest, like sparks struck out by Pegasus’ own hoof, in a curvet amongst the flints—should be daily and hourly lost to the world for want of a recorder! But in this Century of Inventions, when a self-acting drawing-paper has been discovered for copying visible objects, who knows but that a future Niepce, or Daguerre, or Herschel, or Fox Talbot, may find out some sort of Boswellish writing-paper to repeat whatever it hears!
There are other Contributors—poor Hazlitt for instance—whose shades rise up before me: but I never met with them at the Entertainments just described. Shall we ever meet anywhere again? Alas! some are dead; and the rest dispersed; and the days of Social Clubs are over and gone, when the Professors and Patrons of Literature assembled round the same steaming bowl, and Johnson, always best out of print, exclaimed, “Lads! who’s for Poonch!”
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Amongst other notable men who came to Colebrooke Cottage, I had twice the good fortune of meeting with S. T. Coleridge. The first time he came from Highgate with Mrs. Gilman, to dine with “Charles and Mary.” What a contrast to Lamb was the full-bodied Poet, with his waving white hair, and his face round, ruddy, and unfurrowed as a holy Friar’s! Apropos to which face he gave us a humorous description of an unfinished portrait, that served him for a sort of barometer, to indicate the state of his popularity. So sure as his name made any temporary stir, out came the canvas on the easel, and a request from the artist for another sitting: down sank the Original in the public notice, and back went the copy into a corner, till some fresh publication or accident again brought forward the Poet; and then forth came the picture for a few more touches. I sincerely hope it has been finished! What a benign, smiling face it was! What a comfortable, respectable figure! What a model, methought, as I watched and admired the “Old Man eloquent,” for a Christian bishop! But he was, perhaps, scarcely orthodox enough to be trusted with a mitre. At least, some of his voluntaries would have frightened a common everyday congregation from their propriety. Amongst other matters of discourse, he came to speak of the strange notions some literal-minded persons form of the joys of Heaven; joys they associated with mere temporal things, in which, for his own part, finding no delight in this world, he could find no bliss hereafter, without a change in his nature, tantamount to the loss of his personal identity. For instance, he said, there are persons who place the whole angelical beatitude in the possession of a pair of wings to flap about with, like “a sort of celestial poultry.” After dinner he got up, and began pacing to and fro, with his hands behind his back, talking and walking, as Lamb laughingly hinted, as if qualifying for an itinerant preacher; now fetching a simile from Loddiges’ garden, at Hackney; and then flying off for an illustration to the sugar-making in Jamaica. With his fine, flowing voice, it was glorious music, of the “never-ending, still-beginning” kind; and you did not wish it to end. It was rare flying, as in the Nassau Balloon; you knew not whither, nor did you care. Like his own bright-eyed Marinere, he had a spell in his voice that would not let you go. To attempt to describe my own feeling afterward, I had been carried, spiralling, up to heaven by a whirlwind intertwisted with sunbeams, giddy and dazzled, but not displeased, and had then been rained down again with a shower of mundane stocks and stones that battered out of me all recollection of what I had heard, and what I had seen!
On the second occasion, the author of Christabel was accompanied by one of his sons. The Poet, talking and walking as usual, chanced to pursue some argument, which drew from the son, who had not been introduced to me, the remark, “Ah, that’s just like your crying up those foolish Odes and Addresses!” Coleridge was highly amused with this mal-àpropos, and, without explaining, looked slily round at me, with the sort of suppressed laugh one may suppose to belong to the Bey of Tittery. The truth was, he felt naturally partial to a book he had attributed in the first instance to the dearest of his friends.
“MY DEAR CHARLES,—This afternoon, a little, thin, mean-looking sort of a foolscap, sub-octavo of poems, printed on very dingy outsides, lay on the table, which the cover informed me was circulating in our book-club, so very Grub Streetish in all its appearance, internal as well as external, that I cannot explain by what accident of impulse (assuredly there was no motive in play) I came to look into it. Least of all, the title, Odes and Addresses to Great Men, which connected itself in my head with Rejected Addresses, and all the Smith and Theodore Hook squad. But, my dear Charles, it was certainly written by you, or under you, or una cum you. I know none of your frequent visitors capacious and assimilative enough of your converse to have reproduced you so honestly, supposing you had left yourself in pledge in his lock-up house. Gillman, to whom I read the spirited parody on the introduction to Peter Bell, the Ode to the Great Unknown, and to Mrs. Fry; he speaks doubtfully of Reynolds and Hood. But here come Irving and Basil Montagu.