| “‘That fellow,’ said Cyrano de Bergerac to a friend, ‘is always in one’s way, and always insolent. The dog is conscious that he is so fat that it would take an honest man more than a day to give him a thorough beating.’” | “A man being rallied by Louis XIV. on his bulk, which the King told him had increased from want of exercise, ‘Ah, sir,’ said he, ‘what would your Majesty have me do? I have already walked three times round the Duc D’Aumont this morning.’” | “A man was asked by his friend when he last saw his jolly comrade ——? ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I called on him yesterday at his lodgings, and there I found him sitting all round a table by himself.’” |
The affinity between these is unmistakable. The same train of thought may produce the same fruit with an absolute freedom from indebtedness. It is a rather interesting problem, of which the solution will, perhaps, never be forthcoming. A second illustration is admissible, shewing the same process at work at a different angle:—
| Eighteenth Century. | Nineteenth Century. |
| “Sheridan told his son that he thought it was high time for him to take a wife. ‘Whose wife shall I take, sir?’ was the inquiry.” | “When Sydney Smith’s physician (Abernethy) told him that he ought to take exercise on an empty stomach, he inquired, ‘upon whose?’”[1] |
[1] There can be no doubt that the faulty or varying versions of stories of modern origin are often ascribable to the neglect of immediate registration, and the subsequent oral or written repetition from memory.
It is not in the least degree a ground for astonishment, that jeux d’esprit appertaining to old times have descended to our own in a decomposed or mutilated condition, when we find such fugitive trifles connected with men, who were all but our contemporaries, already parting with the bloom of the mint. Two of the biographers of Charles Lamb offer to public consideration simultaneously a mot from his lips, in terms beginning to be fairly devious, but which, when a few more years have run out, will by possibility have ceased to be recognisable by the author. Ecce!
| “Mr. Procter. | “Mr. Fitzgerald. |
| “An old lady, fond of her dissenting minister, wearied Lamb by the length of his praises. ‘I speak, because I know him well,’ said she. ‘Well, I don’t,’ replied Lamb, ‘I don’t; but damn him at a venture.’” | “A lady once bored him a good deal. ‘Such a charming man! I know him! Bless him! I know him!’ To her Charles, wearied with repetition of this encomium,—‘Well, I don’t; but damn him at a hazard.’” |
The two records are approximately similar; yet the discrepancies are rather serious, taking into calculation the nearness of Lamb to us and to the literary gentlemen who have made it their business to chronicle his good sayings. The editorial setting has somewhat overlaid the mounted jewel.
None of our Shakespearian students has hitherto addressed himself to the special task of tracing to, their sources the few pieces of gossip about the poet, save, perhaps, the deer-stealing episode. The Richard III. and William the Conqueror story, in which Burbage and Shakespear are made to figure, is recorded by Manningham in his Elizabethan Diary, and no earlier analogue has fallen in my way. The scandal about Davenant is another item of the same class, which we are almost ashamed to find ourselves cherishing, even though it be, as it were, formâ pauperis, from sheer lack of better matter. It seems lamentable that, while the anecdote-hunter was on the trail, he did not appropriate, for the benefit, instruction and delight of every intelligent individual coming after him, some particulars of Shakespear’s private and literary life, once so easy of access, now so irretrievably lost! How many thousand biographies of all kinds of nonentities might not be exchanged for an account of Shakespear by an educated contemporary!
Malone refers to the foundation of the Literary Club and to a little episode about Garrick and Johnson in connection with that event:—
“Not very long after the institution of the Club,” he says, “Sir J. Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. ‘I like it much,’ says he; ‘I think I’ll be of you.’ When Sir J. Reynolds mentioned this to Dr. Johnson, he was much displeased at the actor’s conceit. ‘He’ll be of us!’ says Johnson; ‘how does he know we will permit him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such language.’ However, when Garrick was regularly proposed, some time afterwards, Johnson warmly supported him....”