Conversation of Literary Men.—Literary men talk less than they did. They seldom “lay out” much for conversation. The conversational, like the epistolary age, is past; and we have come upon the age of periodical literature. People neither put their best thoughts and their available knowledge into their letters, nor keep them for evening conversation. The literary men of 1850 have a keener eye to the value of their stock-in-trade, and keep it well garnered up, for conversion, as opportunity offers, into the current coin of the realm. There is some periodical vehicle, nowadays, for the reception of every possible kind of literary ware. The literary man converses now through the medium of the Press, and turns every thing into copyright at once. He can not afford to drop his ideas by the way-side; he must keep them to himself, until the printing-press has made them inalienably his own. If a happy historical or literary illustration occurs to him, it will do for a review article; if some un-hackneyed view of a great political question presents itself to him, it may be worked into his next leader; if some trifling adventure has occurred to him, or he has picked up a novel anecdote in the course of his travels, it may be reproduced in a page of magazine matter, or a column of a cheap weekly serial. Even puns are not to be distributed gratis. There is a property in a double-entente, which its parent will not willingly forego. The smallest jokelet is a marketable commodity. The dinner-table is sacrificed to Punch. There is too much competition in these days, too many hungry candidates for the crumbs that fall from the thinker’s table, not to make him chary of his offerings. In these days, every scrap of knowledge—every happy thought—every felicitous turn of expression, is of some value to a literary man; the forms of periodical literature are so many and so varied. He can seldom afford to give any thing away; and there is no reason why he should. It is not so easy a thing to turn one’s ideas into bread, that a literary man need be at no pains to preserve his property in them. We do not find that artists give away their sketches, or that professional singers perform promiscuously at private parties. Perhaps, in these days of much publishing, professional authors are wise in keeping the best of themselves for their books and articles. We have known professional writers talk criticism; but we have generally found it to be the very reverse of what they have published.
Rewards of Literature.—Literature has been treated with much ingratitude, even by those who owe most to it. If we do not quite say with Goldsmith, that it supports many dull fellows in opulence, we may assert, with undeniable truth, that it supports, or ought to support, many clever ones in comfort and respectability. If it does not it is less the fault of the profession than the professors themselves. There are many men now in London, Edinburgh, and other parts of the country, earning from £1000 to £300 per annum by their literary labors, and some, with very little effort, earning considerably more. It is no part of our plan in the present article to mix up modern instances with our wise saws, else might we easily name writers who, for contributions to the periodical press, for serial installments of popular tales, and other literary commodities, demanding no very laborious efforts of intellectual industry, have received from flourishing newspaper proprietors and speculative booksellers, sums of money which it would be difficult to earn with equal facility in any other learned profession. An appointment on the editorial staff of a leading daily paper is in itself a small fortune to a man. The excellence of the articles is, for the most part, in proportion to the sum paid for them; and a successful morning journal will generally find it good policy to pay its contributors in such a manner as to secure the entire produce of their minds, or, at all events, to get the best fruits that they are capable of yielding. If a man can earn a comfortable independence by writing three or four leading articles a week, there is no need that he should have his pen ever in his hand, that he should be continually toiling at other and less profitable work. But if he is to keep himself ever fresh and ever vigorous for one master he must be paid for it. There are instances of public writers who had shown evident signs of exhaustion when employed on one paper—who had appeared, indeed, to have written themselves out so thoroughly, that the proprietors were fain to dispense with their future services—transferring those services to another paper, under more encouraging circumstances of renumeration, and, as though endued with new life, striking out articles fresh, vigorous, and brilliant. They gave themselves to the one paper; they had only given a part of themselves to the other.
Schamyl, the Prophet of the Caucasus, through whose inspiriting leadership the Caucasians have maintained a successful struggle against the gigantic power of Russia for many years, is described by a recent writer as a man of middle stature; he has light hair, gray eyes, shaded by bushy and well-arched eyebrows; a nose finely moulded, and a small mouth. His features are distinguished from those of his race by a peculiar fairness of complexion and delicacy of skin: the elegant form of his hands and feet is not less remarkable. The apparent stiffness of his arms, when he walks, is a sign of his stern and impenetrable character His address is thoroughly noble and dignified. Of himself he is completely master; and he exerts a tacit supremacy over all who approach him. An immovable, stony calmness, which never forsakes him, even in moments of the utmost danger, broods over his countenance. He passes a sentence of death with the same composure with which he distributes “the sabre of honor” to his bravest Murids, after a bloody encounter. With traitors or criminals whom he has resolved to destroy he will converse without betraying the least sign of anger or vengeance. He regards himself as a mere instrument in the hands of a higher Being; and holds, according to the Sufi doctrine, that all his thoughts and determinations are immediate inspirations from God. The flow of his speech is as animating and irresistible as his outward appearance is awful and commanding. “He shoots flames from his eyes and scatters flowers from his lips,” said Bersek Bey, who sheltered him for some days after the fall of Achulgo, when Schamyl dwelt for some time among the princes of the Djighetes and Ubiches, for the purpose of inciting the tribes on the Black Sea to rise against the Russians. Schamyl is now fifty years old, but still full of vigor and strength; it is however said, that he has for some years past suffered from an obstinate disease of the eyes, which is constantly growing worse. He fills the intervals of leisure which his public charges allow him, in reading the Koran, fasting, and prayer. Of late years he has but seldom, and then only on critical occasions, taken a personal share in warlike encounters. In spite of his almost supernatural activity, Schamyl is excessively severe and temperate in his habits. A few hours of sleep are enough for him; at times he will watch for the whole night, without showing the least trace of fatigue on the following day. He eats little, and water is his only beverage. According to Mohammedan custom, he keeps several wives. In 1844 he had three, of which his favorite (Pearl of the Harem, as she was called) was an Armenian, of exquisite beauty.
A Frankfort journal states that the colossal statue of Bavaria, by Schwanthaler, which is to be placed on the hill of Seudling, surpasses in its gigantic proportions all the works of the moderns. It will have to be removed in pieces from the foundry where it is cast to its place of destination, and each piece will require sixteen horses to draw it. The great toes are each half a mètre in length. In the head two persons could dance a polka very conveniently, while the nose might lodge the musician. The thickness of the robe, which forms a rich drapery descending to the ankles, is about six inches, and its circumference at the bottom about two hundred mètres. The Crown of Victory which the figure holds in her hands weighs one hundred quintals (a quintal is a hundred weight).
Wordsworth’s prose writings are not numerous; and with the exception of the well-known prefaces to his minor poems, they are little known. A paper or two in Coleridge’s Friend, and a political tract occasioned by the convention of Cintra, form important and valuable contributions to the prose literature of the country. We would especially call attention to the introductory part of the third volume of the Friend, as containing a very beautiful development of Mr. Wordsworth’s opinions on the moral worth and intellectual character of the age in which it was his destiny to live. The political tract is very scarce; but we may safely affirm, that it contains some of the finest writing in the English language. Many of its passages can be paralleled only by the majestic periods of Milton’s prose, or perhaps by the vehement and impassioned eloquence of Demosthenes. Its tone is one of sustained elevation, and in sententious moral and political wisdom it will bear a comparison with the greatest productions of Burke. We trust that this pamphlet will be republished. A collection and separate publication of all Mr. Wordsworth’s prose writings would form a valuable addition to English literature.