A FASHIONABLE BEAUTY OF 1837
(By A. E. Chalon, R.A.)
To distant worlds a guide amid the night,
To nearer orbs the source of life and light;
Each star resplendent on its radiant throne
Gilds other systems and supports its own.
Thus we see Stewart, in his fame reclined,
Enlighten all the universe of mind;
To some for wonder, some for joy appear,
Admired when distant and beloved when near.
’Twas he gave rules to Fancy, grace to Thought,
Taught Virtue’s laws, and practised what he taught.
Dear me! Something similar to the last line one remembers written by an earlier bard. In the same way Terence has been accused of imitating the old Eton Latin Grammar.
Harriet Martineau
-HARRIET MARTINEAU-
Somewhere about the year 1837 the world began to kick at the ‘Keepsakes,’ and they gradually got extinguished. Then the lords and the countesses put away their verses and dropped into prose, and, to the infinite loss of mankind, wrote no more until editors of great monthlies, anxious to show a list of illustrious names, began to ask them again.
As for the general literature of the day, there must have been a steady demand for new works of all kinds, for it was estimated that in 1836 there were no fewer than four thousand persons living by literary work. Most of them, of course, must have been simple publishers’ hacks. But seven hundred of them in London were journalists. At the present day there are said to be in London alone fourteen thousand men and women who live by writing. And of this number I should think that thirteen thousand are in some way or other connected with journalism. Publishers’ hacks still exist—that is to say, the unhappy men who, without genius or natural aptitude, or the art of writing pleasantly, are eternally engaged in compiling, stealing, arranging, and putting together books which may be palmed off upon an uncritical public for prize books and presents. But they are far fewer in proportion than they were, and perhaps the next generation may live to see them extinct.
