Much might be added on this subject; but a further disquisition would only prolong into a political discussion, what we have only pretended to treat on the score of vulgar prejudice.
CHAPTER XXIX.
MERIT AND POPULARITY.
What is popularity? By what indications is it known? Who ratifies its titles? And do those titles, conferred by favoritism, error, influence, prejudice, interest, or flattery, possess more value or more durability than the scattered leaves on which the Sybil inscribed her oracles? Is merit a positive thing or a relative—a matter of conversation, or of proof?
What, we say again, is popularity? How is it acquired? How forfeited? Is it the result of merit, or a capricious out-burst of opinion impersonating itself so as to enjoy its own homage under the traits of a living statue?
To these questions, it is difficult to give a definitive and conclusive reply. Popularity is often the privilege and shield of a fool or rascal; while genuine merit of a real and indisputable quality seldom secures it unless from some accidental cause. Those who aspire to popularity care more for the amount of suffrages, than for their specific worth. They delight in being the object of popular excitement; and hearing their name re-echoed, assign their personal qualities as the cause of these capricious demonstrations. True merit heeds not such fulsome acclamations;—too well aware that the man who becomes the tool of popularity, ends in being an object of contempt.
There are numerous ways of achieving popularity. But we must not forget to distinguish the difference between the popularity of men, and the popularity of their productions. Both are variable; being subject to the influence of events, the vacillations of parties, and of human inconstancy. Popularity is, however, less fickle as regards the masterpieces of the mind of man, than as regards individuals whom it frequently raises to the sky, the better to fling them down into the dust. A man may sometimes be popular in spite of himself; dragged from his seclusion, elevated above his natural position only to sink for want of appropriate support.
How many examples are to be found in our history, of such ephemeral popularity; the idol of to-day being proscribed on the morrow of his ovation! On such occasions, the public resembles a mind obeying by turns two directly opposite impulsions. In such perplexities, the scales are rarely held with a steady hand; and when they discover a man to be deficient in the merit they have gratuitously attributed to him, they avenge themselves by unnecessarily depreciating that which they have capriciously overrated. The man who delights in popularity is as much subjugated as the veriest slave in Rome. He must obey those whom he desires to command; must adopt measures he wishes to repress; and if for a moment he venture to pause for the admeasurement of the abyss he is approaching, is taxed with cowardice and treachery!