I cannot help thinking that Martyn has been a little unfortunate in his biographer, the Rev. John Sargent, jun., although that writer's 'Memoir' has been so popular that I believe it has run through about a score of editions. There was a tardy apology for the tone of the book in the preface to the tenth edition—and an explanation to the effect that Martyn's religion was really by no means of a desponding character, and that few persons 'have equalled him in the enjoyment of that "peace which passeth all understanding."' If such were the case it is unfortunate that the extracts made by Mr. Sargent from Martyn's 'Journals' should have left so wide-spread an impression to the contrary—an impression which it is probably as fruitless to attempt to counteract as Mr. Sargent expected it would be.
Sargent appears to have sympathized chiefly with one side of Martyn's character, namely, the gloomy and self-torturing one, and the result is that to read the 'Memoir' harrows one's feelings. Very similar remarks apply to the 'Journals and Letters,' but in the latter, at least, we have only the man himself, and are spared the somewhat complacent tone in which his mental anguish and physical sufferings are depicted by his friend and biographer. Charles Kingsley used to say of Martyn: 'My mind is in a chaos about him. Sometimes one feels inclined to take him at his own word, and believe him, as he says, a mere hypochondriac; then the next moment he seems a saint. I cannot fathom it. Of this, however, I am certain, that he was a much better man than I am.' One great lesson, however, of this learned, brave, and good man's life—crowned as it surely was with the crown of the martyr, if ever mortal's brow were so adorned—appears to me to be this: that a life of seclusion, nay, almost isolation, such as his, defeats its own object, if that object be, like Martyn's, to influence our fellow-men. 'It is miserable,' he used to say, when thinking of the vast amount of sin there was in the world, 'it is miserable living with men;' and, again, 'a dried leaf or a straw makes me feel in good company.' And herein seems to lie a great difference between Martyn, notwithstanding his learning, his piety, and his dauntless courage amidst incessant perils, and such heroic Christian missionaries as were St. Paul and Bishop Heber, who had learnt to mix more freely with their fellow-men, and to combine the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove.
But to turn to the life itself. Henry Martyn, like Martin Luther, sprang from a family of mine captains, and was born at Truro, on Feb. 18th, 1781—the third child of a family of four. His father, who lived at first near Gwennap Church-Town, had been an Accountant at Wheal Virgin; and being, like many others of his calling, an ingenious and self-reliant man, taught himself arithmetic and some mathematics; his abilities attracted the attention of Mr. Daniell, one of the Truro merchants, and ultimately John Martyn became his chief clerk. 'The elder Martyn,' Polwhele says, 'was a tall, erect man, used to take his daily exercise under the Coinage Hall, which was opposite his house.' The house was pulled down to make room for the new Town Hall; it occupied the site of the present Police Station, as I am informed. Henry's great-uncle, Thomas Martyn, was the author of the large and excellent Map of Cornwall, known by his name.[103] He was a surveyor, and his map is said to have been the result of fifteen years' labour—the survey having been made on foot. He died in 1752-53. Henry's mother, from whom he seems to have inherited his delicate constitution, was a Miss Fleming of Ilfracombe; she died the year after he was born.
Henry Martyn—'little Henry Martyn,' as his schoolfellows used tenderly to call him—was sent at Midsummer, 1788, to that capital nest of so large a number of our most distinguished Cornishmen—the Truro Grammar School—and he is thus described by one of his fellow-pupils, the late Clement Carlyon, M.D., Fellow of Pembroke College, and thrice Mayor of Truro, in his 'Early Years and Late Reflections:' 'A good-humoured, plain little fellow, with red eyelids devoid of eye-lashes, and indicative of a scrofulous habit; and with hands so thickly covered with warts that it was impossible for him to keep them clean, or for his respected master,[104] who borrowed a large leaf out of Dr. Busby's book, to inflict on him, when idle, stripes over the back of his hand.' He seems to have improved in appearance as he grew older; but was always 'rather low in stature, and plain in person, though not disagreeably so;[105] whilst his amiable disposition[106] and sociability ensured him the esteem and friendship of all who were acquainted with him.' Though all his life long he was particularly fond of laughing and playing with little children, at school he seldom played with the other boys; and seems to have evinced no precocity, nor was he very studious, like his friend and school-fellow Kempthorne[107] (Senior Wrangler of 1796, and afterwards vicar of a church in Gloucester): nor did Martyn display the poetic vein of another of his colleagues, Humphry Davy.
At the Truro Grammar School, having failed in 1795 to obtain a Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he remained till 1797, in which year he took up residence at St. John's College, Cambridge, where, from his assiduity, he was known as 'the man who had never lost an hour,' and was at once fortunate in securing the advice and friendship of his old acquaintance Kempthorne, who, as well as Martyn himself, soon came within the influence of a very earnest Low Church Divine, the Rev. Charles Simeon, a fellow of King's College, of whom it is only right to add that he more than once warned Martyn, whilst in the East, that he was overtaxing his strength and energies. To this clergyman Martyn was afterwards to become curate.
The death of his father in 1800 led Martyn to study the Bible most seriously; and he so read its pages as to determine upon basing his whole life upon its promises. He says, for instance, of his magnificent success in becoming the Senior Wrangler of his year (and that year was a distinguished one in the annals of the University): 'I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow!' Indeed, it is said that, when he entered the Senate House for the examination, and saw the unusually large number assembled there, he ejaculated, with apparently some inconsistency, the text: 'Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not, saith the Lord.' In 1802 he became Fellow and Tutor of his college, and gained the first prize for Latin prose composition, thus compensating amply for his lack of success in 1799, when he failed to obtain the prize for themes in his college, and came out second instead of first, as was expected, at the examination.
He now returned to his native place for a short time, for much-needed rest and change; not, however, staying much at Truro, but passing most of his holiday at Woodbury, just below Malpas, on the Fal, the residence of his brother-in-law, Rev. Mr. Curgenven (curate of the parishes of Kenwyn and Kea). These were amongst the happiest moments of his life. He says, either of this place or Lamorran (and the description is applicable to either): 'The scene is such as is frequently to be met with in this part of Cornwall. Below the house is an arm of the sea flowing between the hills, which are covered with wood. By the shore I walk in general, in the evening, out of the reach of all sound but the rippling of the water and the whistling of the curlew.'
On his return to Cambridge in the following October, conversations with Mr. Simeon, instigated by a perusal of the 'Life and Labours of David Brainerd among the North American Indians,' gave rise to Martyn's intense desire to become a missionary; and, notwithstanding his alleged appreciative enjoyment of a literary and social life at home, he offered his services to a Missionary Society. They were not, however, accepted; and after having been ordained at Ely in October, 1803, he became Mr. Simeon's curate—preaching sometimes at Lolworth, a church six miles from the University, on the Huntingdon road, and sometimes at Trinity Church, Cambridge. Simeon always continued a friend and admirer of Martyn, and had his portrait hung up over his fireplace. He often used to look up at it with affectionate earnestness: 'There!' he used to say, 'see that blessed man! What an expression of countenance! No one looks at me as he does—he seems always to be saying, "Be serious, be in earnest; don't trifle—don't trifle." 'Then he would smile at the picture, and gently bow, and add: 'And I won't trifle—I won't trifle.'
Early in 1804, Martyn, as well as his younger sister, Sally (Mrs. Pearson), to whom he seems to have been fondly attached, had the misfortune to lose all their patrimony; an event which, in addition to the causes already referred to, probably led to his making a second effort (which was also at the time unsuccessful) to procure an appointment as a missionary—this time in the form of a 'chaplaincy' to the East India Company. This year was further memorable from Martyn's making the acquaintance of a kindred spirit—the poet, H. Kirke White (also a Johnian), 'a religious young man of seventeen, who wants to come to college, but has only £20 a year.'