12th.—Walked with Louisa in search of lodgings. Mr B—— to dinner, and accompanied me, Sophia, and Louisa to the theatre Drury-lane. The Secret, and Feudal Times, both of them very dull and indifferent.
END OF DIARY
CHAPTER VIII
Mr Holcroft soon after went abroad. On his arrival at Hamburgh, he went to lodge at the house of his daughter and her husband, Mr Cole, who was settled there in trade. He afterwards went to reside at the house of ——, where he paid five pounds a week; and as his remittances from England were often interrupted, he would have been reduced to great distress, had it not been for the generous exertions of a stranger, a Mr Schuckmacher. This gentleman, who was a merchant, advanced 250l. to Mr Holcroft, on his note of hand. The first literary attempt which Mr Holcroft made after he was settled on the continent failed. This was to set up a journal, (the European Repository) containing an account of the state of foreign literature, and anecdotes of celebrated characters. It only reached the second number.
It is certain that Mr Holcroft’s introductions, and his connexions with literary men abroad, would have afforded every opportunity for executing such a work well, had it met with encouragement. While at Hamburgh, he visited Klopstock, Voss, Sander, &c. &c. On his first introduction to Klopstock, the latter laboured to shew the superiority of the German to every other language in conciseness; and challenged Mr Holcroft to translate with equal conciseness into English. To which he replied, that Klopstock might be easily supposed to overcome Holcroft, but that the English language ought not to suffer on that account. He told Mr Holcroft a story of Voss, the celebrated classic; that at a time when he was too ill even to hear a scholar read and parse a few lines in the classics, familiar as they were to him, he was still able and desirous to continue his translation of Ovid in Hexameters, and found relief from this laborious task. When Baron Stolberg (the superintendant of the academy) came to visit him, he hid his papers, lest he should be accused of neglect of duty, or blamed for disregarding his health. Sander, a Dane by birth, informed Mr Holcroft that the Road to Ruin, and the Deserted Daughter, had been translated into the Danish language, and that the latter had been the most popular of the pieces brought out the preceding winter at Copenhagen.
The admiration of the Germans for English literature, and their contempt for the French, are well known. Molière is the only man among the latter, to whom they allow much genius. Their notions of excellence are indeed rather hypercritical than common-place. They seem in general to assign the highest stations to the greatest men, but their list of great men is short. There are only four whom they consider as poets, that is to say, inventors of a new style, namely, Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Goethe. Why the last should have this high rank assigned him, I do not know. He is placed by the Germans themselves far above Schiller. Mr Holcroft while abroad, translated his poem of Herman and Dorothea. A note from the author to the translator on this subject, will be found among the letters at the end of the volume.—Mr Holcroft also, while he was at Hamburgh, finished and sent over the comedy of ‘Hear both Sides,’ and his translation of ‘Deaf and Dumb,’ which were afterwards acted with success, at Drury-Lane.
On his departure from England, he had renounced all idea of picture-dealing, and connoisseurship. He however attended several picture-sales, but without attempting to bid. One day as he was strolling along the street, his attention was caught by a small picture, which lay among some lumber at a broker’s shop. He went in, asked the price of it, and was answered three guineas. Mr Holcroft made no bargain, but determined to go home, and get Mrs. Holcroft to come and look at it, to see whether any one else must not be as much struck with it as he was. On re-examining the picture, his confidence in its being an original increased, and he paid the money for it. As he was returning home in triumph with the picture under his arm, he met Mercier, (Mrs. Holcroft’s father) who had himself been a dabbler in pictures, and who, laughing, exclaimed, ‘A ce trait je connois mon sang.’
The first step being got over, they consulted together, how to turn this accident to advantage; they henceforward frequented auction-rooms, and ransacked brokers’ shops, to make mutual discoveries of original pictures, which might be had for a song. Mr Holcroft, in this manner, laid out between four and five hundred pounds, by which he expected to clear at least double the sum.
In this expectation he was once more wretchedly disappointed. Not that the pictures were in themselves bad, they were many of them excellent, and in general by the masters to whom they were attributed; but they were not the finest specimens of those masters, and with respect to second rate pictures, it requires either an acquaintance with the particular master who happens to be in vogue for the time, or regular connexions with other picture-dealers, to secure the purchaser against loss. The pictures which Mr Holcroft sent over to England, were fifty-seven in number. They were entrusted to the care of Mr Godwin. He prevailed on some professional friends, to go and look at them, who thought they would hardly sell for the amount of the custom-house-duties, which were a hundred-and-fifty pounds. A few of them were however brought away, and left in the care of Mr Opie. The following friendly letter to Mr Holcroft, was written on this subject.
‘December 5, 1799.