Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13: Great Writers
Notwithstanding Scott gave great dinners occasionally, they appear to have been a bore to him, and he very rarely went out to evening entertainments, although at public dinners his wit and sense made him a favorite chairman. He retired early at night and rose early in the morning, and his severest labors were before breakfast,–his principal meal. He always dined at home on Sunday, with a few intimate friends, and his dinner was substantial and plain. He drank very little wine, and preferred a glass of whiskey-toddy to champagne or port. He could not distinguish between madeira and sherry. He was neither an epicure nor a gourmand.
After Scott had become world-famous, his happiest hours were spent in enlarging and adorning his land at Abbotsford, and in erecting and embellishing his baronial castle. In this his gains were more than absorbed. He loved that castle more than any of his intellectual creations, and it was not completed until nearly all his novels were written. Without personal extravagance, he was lavish in the sums he spent on Abbotsford. Here he delighted to entertain his distinguished visitors, of whom no one was more welcome than Washington Irving, whom he liked for his modesty and quiet humor and unpretending manners. Lockhart writes: "It would hardly, I believe, be too much to affirm that Sir Walter Scott entertained under his roof, in the course of the seven or eight brilliant seasons when his prosperity was at its height, as many persons of distinction in rank, in politics, in art, in literature, and in science, as the most princely nobleman of his age ever did in the like space of time."
One more unconscious, apparently, of his great powers has been rarely seen among literary men, especially in England and France,–affording a striking contrast in this respect to Dryden, Pope, Voltaire, Byron, Bulwer, Macaulay, Carlyle, Hugo, Dumas, and even Tennyson. Great lawyers and great statesmen are rarely so egotistical and conceited as poets, novelists, artists, and preachers. Scott made no pretensions which were offensive, or which could be controverted. His greatest aspiration seems to have been to be a respectable landed proprietor, and to found a family. An English country gentleman was his beau-ideal of happiness and contentment. Perhaps this was a weakness; but it was certainly a harmless and amiable one, and not so offensive as intellectual pride. Scott indeed, while without vanity, had pride; but it was of a lofty kind, disdaining meanness and cowardice as worse even than transgressions which have their origin in unregulated passions.
From the numerous expletives which abound in Scott's letters, such as are not now considered in good taste among gentlemen, I infer that like most gentlemen of his social standing in those times he was in the habit of using, when highly excited or irritated, what is called profane language. After he had once given vent to his feelings, however, he was amiable and forgiving enough for a Christian sage, who never harbored malice or revenge. He had great respect for the military profession,–probably because it was the great prop and defence of government and established institutions, for he was the most conservative of aristocrats. And yet his aristocratic turn of mind never conflicted with his humane disposition,–never made him a snob. He abhorred all vulgarity. He admired genius and virtue in whatever garb they appeared. He was as kind to his servants, and to poor and unfortunate people, as he was to his equals in society, being eminently big-hearted. It was only fools, who made great pretensions, that he despised and treated with contempt.
No doubt Scott was bored by the numerous visitors, whether invited or uninvited, who came from all parts of Great Britain, from America, and even from continental Europe, to do homage to his genius, or to gratify their curiosity. Sometimes as many as thirty guests sat down to his banqueting-table at once. He entertained in baronial style, but without ostentation or prodigality, and on old-fashioned dishes. He did not like French cooking, and his simple taste in the matters of beverage we have already noted. The people to whom he was most attentive were the representatives of ancient families, whether rich or poor.
Scott was very kind to literary men in misfortune, and his chosen friends were authors of eminence,–like Miss Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, Thomas Moore, Crabbe, Southey, Wordsworth, Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston the chemist, Henry Mackenzie, etc. He was very intimate with the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Montagu, and other noblemen. He was visited by dukes and princes, as well as by ladies of rank and fame. George IV. sent him valuable presents, and showed him every mark of high consideration. Cambridge and Oxford tendered to him honorary degrees. Wherever he travelled, he was received with honor and distinction and flatteries. But he did not like flatteries; and this was one reason why he did not openly acknowledge his authorship of his novels, until all doubt was removed by the masterly papers of John Leycester Adolphus in 1821.
Scott's correspondence must have been enormous, for his postage bills amounted to £150 per annum, besides the aid he received from franks, which with his natural economy he made no scruple in liberally using. Perhaps his most confidential letters were, like Byron's, written to his publishers and printers, though many such were addressed to his son-in-law Lockhart, and to his dearest friend William Erskine. But he had also some admirable women friends, with whom he corresponded freely. Some of the choicest of his recently-published Letters are to Lady Abercorn, who was an intimate and helpful friend; to Miss Anna Seward, a literary confidant of many years; to Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Bute, and granddaughter of Mary Wortley Montagu, one of the few who knew from the first of his "Waverley" authorship; and to Mrs. John Hughes, an early and most affectionate friend, whose grandson, Thomas Hughes, has made famous the commonplace name of "Tom Brown" in our own day.
Scott's letters show the man,–frank, cordial, manly, tender, generous, finding humor in difficulties, pleasure in toil, satisfaction in success, a proud courage in adversity, and the purest happiness in the affection of his friends.
How Scott found time for so much work is a mystery,–writing nearly three novels a year, besides other literary labors, attending to his duties in the Courts, overlooking the building of Abbotsford and the cultivation of his twelve hundred acres, and entertaining more guests than Voltaire did at Ferney. He was too much absorbed by his legal duties and his literary labors to be much of a traveller; yet he was a frequent visitor to London, saw something of Paris, journeyed through Ireland, was familiar with the Lake region in England, and penetrated to every interesting place in Scotland. He did not like London, and took little pleasure in the ovations he received from people of rank and fashion. As a literary lion at the tables of "the great," he disappointed many of his admirers, since he made no effort to shine. It was only in his modest den in Castle Street, or in rambles in the country or at Abbotsford, that he felt himself at home, and appeared to the most advantage.
It would be pleasant to leave this genuinely great man in the full flush of health, creative power, inward delight and outward prosperity; but that were to leave unwritten the finest and noblest part of his life. It is to the misfortunes which came upon him that we owe both a large part of his splendid achievements in literature and our knowledge of the most admirable characteristics of the man.
My running record of his novels last mentioned "The Monastery," issued in 1820, in the same year with perhaps the prime favorite of all his works, "Ivanhoe," the romantic tale of England in the crusading age of Richard the Lion-Hearted. In 1821 he put forth the fascinating Elizabethan tale of "Kenilworth." In 1822 came "The Pirate" (the tale of sea and shore that inspired James Fenimore Cooper to write "The Pilot" and his other sea-stories) and "The Fortunes of Nigel;" in 1823, "Peveril of the Peak" and "Quentin Durward," both among his best; in 1824, "St. Ronan's Well" and "Redgauntlet;" and in 1825, two more Tales of the Crusaders,–"The Betrothed" and "The Talisman," the latter probably sharing with "Ivanhoe" the greatest popularity.
In the winter of 1825-1826, a widespread area of commercial distress resulted in the downfall of many firms; and among others to succumb were Hurst & Robinson, publishers, whose failure precipitated that of Constable & Co., Scott's publishers, and of the Ballantynes his printers, with whom he was a secret partner, who were largely indebted to the Constables and so to the creditors of that house. The crash came January 16, 1826, and Scott found himself in debt to the amount of about £147,000,–or nearly $735,000.
Such a vast misfortune, overwhelming a man at the age of fifty-five, might well crush out all life and hope and send him into helpless bankruptcy, with the poor consolation that, though legally responsible, he was not morally bound to pay other people's debts. But Scott's own sanguine carelessness had been partly to blame for the Ballantyne failure; and he faced the billow as it suddenly appeared, bowed to it in grief but not in shame, and, while not pretending to any stoicism, instantly resolved to devote the remainder of his life to the repayment of the creditors.
The solid substance of manliness, honor, and cheerful courage in his character; the genuine piety with which he accepted the "dispensation," and wrote "Blessed be the name of the Lord;" the unexampled steadiness with which he comforted his wife and daughters while girding himself to the daily work of intellectual production amidst his many distresses; the sweetness of heart with which he acknowledged the sympathy and declined the offers of help that poured in upon him from every side (one poor music teacher offering his little savings of £600, and an anonymous admirer urging upon him a loan of £30,000),–all this is the beauty that lighted up the black cloud of Scott's adversity. His efforts were finally successful, although at the cost of his bodily existence. Lockhart says: "He paid the penalty of health and life, but he saved his honor and his self-respect.
"'The glory dies not, and the grief is past.'""Woodstock," then about half-done, was completed in sixty-nine days, and issued in March, 1826, bringing in about $41,000 to his creditors. His "Life of Napoleon," published in June, 1827, produced $90,000. In 1827, also, Scott issued "Chronicles of the Canongate," First Series (several minor stories), and the First Series of "Tales of a Grandfather;" in 1828, "The Fair Maid of Perth" (Second Series of the "Chronicles"), and more "Tales of a Grandfather;" in 1829, "Anne of Geierstein," more "Tales of a Grandfather," the first volume of a "History of Scotland," and a collective edition of the Waverley Novels in forty-eight volumes, with new Introductions, Notes, and careful corrections and improvements of the text throughout,–in itself an immense labor; in 1830, more "Tales of a Grandfather," a three volume "History of France," and Volume II. of the "History of Scotland;" in 1831, and finally, a Fourth Series of "Tales of My Landlord," including "Count Robert of Paris" and "Castle Dangerous."
This completes the list of Scott's greater productions; but it should be remembered that during all the years of his creative work he was incessantly doing critical and historical writing,–producing numerous reviews, essays, ballads; introductions to divers works; biographical sketches for Ballantyne's "Novelist's Library,"–the works of fifteen celebrated English writers of fiction, Fielding, Smollett, etc.; letters and pamphlets; dramas; even a few religious discourses; and his very extensive and interesting private correspondence. He was such a marvel of productive brain-power as has seldom, if ever, been known to humanity.
The illness and death of Scott's beloved wife, but four short months after his commercial disaster, was a profound grief to him; and under the exhausting pressure of incessant work during the five years following, his bodily power began to fail,–so that in October, 1831, after a paralytic shock, he stopped all literary labor and went to Italy for recuperation. The following June he returned to London, weaker in both mind and body; was taken to Abbotsford in July; and on the 21st September, 1832, with his children about him, the kindly, manly, brave, and tender spirit passed away.
At the time of his death Sir Walter had reduced his great indebtedness to $270,000. A life insurance of $110,000, $10,000 in the hands of his trustees, and $150,000 advanced by Robert Cadell, an Edinburgh bookseller, on the copyrights of Scott's works, cleared away the last remnant of the debt; and within twenty years Cadell had reimbursed himself, and made a handsome profit for his own account and that of the family of Sir Walter.
The moneyed details of Scott's literary life have been made a part of this brief sketch, both because his phenomenal fecundity and popularity offer a convenient measure of his power, and because the fiscal misfortune of his later life revealed a simple grandeur of character even more admirable than his mental force. "Scott ruined!" exclaimed the Earl of Dudley when he heard of the trouble. "The author of Waverley ruined! Good God! let every man to whom he has given months of delight give him a sixpence, and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than Rothschild!" But the sturdy Scotchman accepted no dole; he set himself to work out his own salvation. William Howitt, in his "Homes and Haunts of Eminent British Poets," estimated that Scott's works had produced as profits to the author or his trustees at least £500,000,–nearly $2,500,000: this in 1847, over fifty years ago, and only forty-five years from Scott's first original publication. Add the results of the past fifty years, and, remembering that this gives but the profits, conceive the immense sums that have been freely paid by the intelligent British public for their enjoyment of this great author's writings. Then, besides all this, recall the myriad volumes of Scott sold in America, which paid no profit to the author or his heirs. There is no parallel.
Voltaire's renown and monetary rewards, as the master-writer of the eighteenth century, offer the only case in modern times that approaches Scott's success; yet Voltaire's vast wealth was largely the result of successful speculation. As a purely popular author, whose wholesome fancy, great heart, and tireless industry, has delighted millions of his fellow-men, Scott stands alone; while, as a man, he holds the affection and respect of the world. Even though it be that the fashion of his workmanship passeth away, wonder not, lament not. With Mithridates he could say, "I have lived." What great man can say more?
LORD BYRON
1788-1824POETIC GENIUSIt is extremely difficult to depict Lord Byron, and even presumptuous to attempt it. This is not only because he is a familiar subject, the triumphs and sorrows of whose career have been often portrayed, but also because he presents so many contradictions in his life and character,–lofty yet degraded, earnest yet frivolous, an impersonation of noble deeds and sentiments, and also of almost every frailty which Christianity and humanity alike condemn. No great man has been more extravagantly admired, and none more bitterly assailed; but generally he is regarded as a fallen star,–a man with splendid gifts which he wasted, for whom pity is the predominant sentiment in broad and generous minds. With all his faults, the English-speaking people are proud of him as one of the greatest lights in our literature; and in view of the brilliancy of his literary career his own nation in particular does not like to have his defects and vices dwelt upon. It blushes and condones. It would fain blot out his life and much of his poetry if, without them, it could preserve the best and grandest of his writings,–that ill-disguised autobiography which goes by the name of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," in which he soars to loftier flights than any English poet from Milton to his own time. Like Shakespeare, like Dryden, like Pope, like Burns, he was a born poet; while most of the other poets, however eminent and excellent, were simply made,–made by study and labor on a basis of talent, rather than exalted by native genius as he was, speaking out what he could not help, and revelling in the richness of unconscious gifts, whether for good or evil.
Byron was a man with qualities so generous, yet so wild, that Lamartine was in doubt whether to call him angel or devil. But, whether angel or devil, his life is the saddest and most interesting among all the men of letters in the nineteenth century.
Of course, most of our material comes from his Life and Letters, as edited by his friend and brother-poet, Thomas Moore. This biographer, I think, has been unwisely candid in the delineation of Byron's character, making revelations that would better have remained in doubt, and on which friendship at least should have prompted him to a discreet silence.
Lord Byron was descended from the Byrons of Normandy who accompanied William the Conqueror in his invasion of England, of which illustrious lineage the poet was prouder than of his poetry. In the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the monasteries, a Byron came into possession of the old mediaeval abbey of Newstead. In the reign of James I., Sir John Byron was made a knight of the Order of the Bath. In 1784 the father of the poet, a dissipated captain of the Guards, being in embarrassed circumstances, married a rich Scotch heiress of the name of Gordon. Handsome and reckless, "Mad Jack Byron" speedily spent his wife's fortune; and when he died, his widow, being reduced to a pittance of £150 a year, retired to Scotland to live, with her infant son who had been born in London. She was plain Mrs. Byron, widow of a "younger son," with but little expectation of future rank. She was a woman of caprices and eccentricities, and not at all fitted to superintend the education of her wayward boy.
Hence the childhood and youth of Byron were sad and unfortunate. His temper was violent and passionate. A malformation of his foot made him peculiarly sensitive, and the unwise treatment of his mother, fond and harsh by turns, destroyed maternal authority. At five years of age, he was sent to a day-school in Aberdeen, where he made but slim attainments. Though excitable and ill-disciplined, he is said to have been affectionate and generous, and perfectly fearless. A fit of sickness rendered his removal from this school necessary, and he was sent to a summer resort among the Highlands. His early impressions were therefore favorable to the development of the imagination, coming as they did from mountains and valleys, rivulets and lakes, near the sources of the Dee. At the age of eight, he wrote verses and fell in love, like Dante at the age of nine.
On the death of the grandson of the old Lord Byron in 1794, this unpromising youth became the heir-apparent to the barony. Nor did he have to wait long; for soon after, his grand-uncle died, and the young Byron, whose mother was struggling with poverty, became a ward of Chancery; and the Earl of Carlisle–one of the richest and most powerful noblemen of the realm, a nephew by marriage of the deceased peer–was appointed his guardian. This cold, formal, and politic nobleman took but little interest in his ward, leaving him to the mismanagement of his mother, who, with her boy, at the age of ten, now removed to Newstead, the seat of his ancestors,–the government, meanwhile, for some reason which is not explained, having conferred on her a pension of £300 a year.
One of the first things that Mrs. Byron did on her removal to Newstead was to intrust her son to the care of a quack in Nottingham, in order to cure him of his lameness. As the doctor was not successful, the boy was removed to London with the double purpose of effecting a cure under an eminent surgeon, and of educating him according to his rank; for his education thus far had been sadly neglected, although it would appear that he was an omnivorous reader in a desultory kind of way. The lameness was never cured, and through life was a subject of bitter sensitiveness on his part. Dr. Glennie of Dulwich, to whose instruction he was now confided, found him hard to manage, because of his own undisciplined nature and the perpetual interference of his mother. His progress was so slow in Latin and Greek that at the end of two years, in 1801, he was removed to Harrow,–one of the great public schools of England, of which Dr. Drury was head-master. For a year or two, owing to that constitutional shyness which is so often mistaken for pride, young Byron made but few friendships, although he had for school-fellows many who were afterwards distinguished, including Sir Robert Peel. Before he left this school for Cambridge, however, he had made many friends whom he never forgot, being of a very generous and loving disposition. I think that those years at Harrow were the happiest he ever knew, for he was under a strict discipline, and was too young to indulge in those dissipations which were the bane of his subsequent life. But he was not distinguished as a scholar, in the ordinary sense, although in his school-boy days he wrote some poetry remarkable for his years, and read a great many books. He read in bed, read when no one else read, read while eating, read all sorts of books, and was capable of great sudden exertions, but not of continuous drudgeries, which he always abhorred. In the year 1803, when a youth of fifteen, he formed a strong attachment for a Miss Chaworth, two years his senior, who, looking upon him as a mere schoolboy, treated him cavalierly, and made some slighting allusion to "that lame boy." This treatment both saddened and embittered him. When he left school for college he had the reputation of being an idle and a wilful boy, with a very imperfect knowledge of Latin and Greek.
Young Byron entered Trinity College in 1805, poorly prepared, and was never distinguished there for those attainments which win the respect of tutors and professors. He wasted his time, and gave himself up to pleasures,–riding, boating, bathing, and social hilarities,–yet reading more than anybody imagined, and writing poetry, for which he had an extraordinary facility, yet not contending for college prizes. His intimate friends were few, but to his chosen circle he was faithful and affectionate. No one at this time would have predicted his future eminence. A more unpromising youth did not exist within the walls of his college. He had a most unfortunate temper, which would have made him unhappy under any circumstances in which he could be placed. This temper, which he inherited from his mother–passionate, fitful, defiant, restless, wayward, melancholy–inclined him naturally to solitude, and often isolated him even from his friends and companions. He brooded upon supposed wrongs, and created in his soul strong likes and dislikes. What is worse, he took no pains to control this temperament; and at last it mastered him, drove him into every kind of folly and rashness, and made him appear worse than he really was.
This inborn tendency to moodiness, pride, and recklessness should be considered in our estimate of Byron, and should modify any harshness of judgment in regard to his character, which, in some other respects, was interesting and noble. He was not at all envious, but frank, warm-hearted, and true to those he loved, who were, however, very few. If he had learned self-control, and had not been spoiled by his mother, his career might have been far different from what it was, and would have sustained the admiration which his brilliant genius called out from both high and low.
As it was, Byron left college with dangerous habits, with no reputation for scholarship, with but few friends, and an uncertain future. His bright and witty bursts of poetry, wonderful as the youthful effusions of Dryden and Pope, had made him known to a small circle, but had not brought fame, for which his soul passionately thirsted from first to last. For a nobleman he was poor and embarrassed, and his youthful extravagances had tied up his inherited estate. He was cast upon the world like a ship without a rudder and without ballast. He was aspiring indeed, but without a plan, tired out and disgusted before he was twenty-one, having prematurely exhausted the ordinary pleasures of life, and being already inclined to that downward path which leadeth to destruction. This was especially marked in his relations with women, whom generally he flattered, despised, and deserted, as the amusements of an idle hour, and yet whose society he could not do without in the ardor of his impulsive and ungoverned affections. In that early career of unbridled desire for excitement and pleasure, nowhere do we see a sense of duty, a respect for the opinions of the good, a reverence for religious institutions, or self-restraint of any kind; but these defects were partly covered over by his many virtues and his exalted rank.
