Books and Authors Part 15

A COMPOSITION WITH CONSCIENCE.

Lully, the composer, being once thought mortally ill, his friends called a confessor, who, finding the patient's state critical, and his mind very ill at ease, told him that he could obtain absolution only one way--by burning all that he had by him of a yet unpublished opera. The remonstrance of his friends was in vain; Lully burnt the music, and the confessor departed well pleased. The composer, however, recovered, and told one of his visitors, a n.o.bleman who was his patron, of the sacrifice he had made to the demands of the confessor. "And so," cried the n.o.bleman, "you have burnt your opera, and are really such a blockhead as to believe in the absurdities of a monk!" "Stop, my friend, stop," returned Lully; "let me whisper in your ear: I knew very well what I was about--_I have another copy._"

SALE, THE TRANSLATOR OF THE KORAN.

The learned Sale, who first gave to the world a genuine version of the Koran, pursued his studies through a life of wants. This great Orientalist, when he quitted his books to go abroad, too often wanted a change of linen; and he frequently wandered the streets, in search of some compa.s.sionate friend, who might supply him with the meal of the day.

THE LATTER DAYS OF LOVELACE.

Sir Richard Lovelace, who in 1649 published the elegant collection of amorous and other poems ent.i.tled _Lucasta_, was an amiable and accomplished gentleman: by the men of his time (the time of the civil wars) respected for his moral worth and literary ability; by the fair s.e.x, almost idolized for the elegance of his person and the sweetness of his manners. An ardent loyalist, the people of Kent appointed him to present to the House of Commons their pet.i.tion for the restoration of Charles and the settlement of the government. The pet.i.tion gave offence, and the bearer was committed to the Gate House, at Westminster, where he wrote his graceful little song, "Loyalty Confined," opening thus:

"When love, with unconfined wings, Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at my grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered in her eye; The birds that wanton in the air Know no such liberty."

But "dinnerless the polished Lovelace died." He obtained his liberation, after a few months' confinement. By that time, however, he had consumed all his estates, partly by furnishing the king with men and money, and partly by giving a.s.sistance to men of talent of whatever kind, whom he found in difficulties. Very soon, he became himself involved in the greatest distress, and fell into a deep melancholy, which brought on a consumption, and made him as poor in person as in purse, till he even became the object of common charity. The man who in his days of gallantry wore cloth of gold, was now naked, or only half covered with filthy rags; he who had thrown splendour on palaces, now shrank into obscure and dirty alleys; he who had a.s.sociated with princes, banqueted on dainties, been the patron of the indigent, the admiration of the wise and brave, the darling of the chaste and fair--was now fain to herd with beggars, gladly to partake of their coa.r.s.e offals, and thankfully to receive their twice-given alms--

"To hovel him with swine and rogues forlorn, In short and musty straw."

Worn out with misery, he at length expired, in 1658, in a mean and wretched lodging in Gunpowder Alley, near Shoe Lane, and was buried at the west end of St. Bride's church, Fleet Street. Such is the account of Lovelace's closing days given by Wood in his _Athenae_, and confirmed by Aubrey in his _Lives of Eminent Men_; but a recent editor and biographer (the son of Hazlitt) p.r.o.nounces, though he does not prove, the account much exaggerated.

PAYMENT IN KIND.

The Empress Catherine of Russia having sent, as a present to Voltaire, a small ivory box made by her own hands, the poet induced his niece to instruct him in the art of knitting stockings; and he had actually half finished a pair, of white silk, when he became completely tired.

Unfinished as the stockings were, however, he sent them to her Majesty, accompanied by a charmingly gallant poetical epistle, in which he told her that, "As she had presented him with a piece of man's workmanship made by a woman, he had thought it his duty to crave her acceptance, in return, of a piece of woman's work from the hands of a man."--When Constantia Phillips was in a state of distress, she took a small shop near Westminster Hall, and sold books, some of which were of her own writing. During this time, an apothecary who had attended her once when she was ill, came to her and requested payment of his bill. She pleaded her poverty; but he still continued to press her, and urged as a reason for his urgency, that he had saved her life. "You have," said Constantia, "you have indeed done so: I acknowledge it; and, in return, here is my life"--handing him at the same time the two volumes of her "Memoirs,"

and begging that he would now take _her life_ in discharge of his demand.

CHATTERTON'S PROFIT AND LOSS RECKONING.

Chatterton, the marvellous boy, wrote a political essay for the _North Briton_, Wilkes's journal; but, though accepted, the essay was not printed, in consequence of the death of the Lord Mayor, Chatterton's patron. The youthful patriot thus calculated the results of the suppression of his essay, which had begun by a splendid flourish about "a spirited people freeing themselves from insupportable slavery:"

"Lost, by the Lord Mayor's death, in this essay, 1 11 6 Gained in elegies, 2 2 0 Do. in essays, 3 3 0 -------- 5 5 0 ---------- Am glad he is dead by 3 13 6"

LOCKE'S REBUKE OF THE CARD-PLAYING LORDS.

Locke, the brilliant author of the _Essay on the Human Understanding_, was once introduced by Lord Shaftesbury to the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Halifax. But the three n.o.blemen, instead of entering into conversation on literary subjects with the philosopher, very soon sat down to cards. Locke looked on for a short time, and then drew out his pocket-book and began to write in it with much attention. One of the players, after a time, observed this, and asked what he was writing. "My Lord," answered Locke, "I am endeavouring, as far as possible, to profit by my present situation; for, having waited with impatience for the honour of being in company with the greatest geniuses of the age, I thought I could do nothing better than to write down your conversation; and, indeed, I have set down the substance of what you have said for the last hour or two." The three n.o.blemen, fully sensible of the force of the rebuke, immediately left the cards and entered into a conversation more rational and more befitting their reputation as men of genius.

HAYDN AND THE SHIP CAPTAIN.

When the immortal composer Haydn was on his visit to England, in 1794, his chamber-door was opened one morning by the captain of an East Indiaman, who said, "You are Mr. Haydn?" "Yes." "Can you make me a 'March,' to enliven my crew? You shall have thirty guineas; but I must have it to-day, as to-morrow I sail for Calcutta." Haydn agreed, the sailor quitted him, the composer opened his piano, and in a few minutes the march was written. He appears, however, to have had a delicacy rare among the musical birds of pa.s.sage and of prey who come to feed on the unwieldy wealth of England. Conceiving that the receipt of a sum so large as thirty guineas for a labour so slight, would be a species of plunder, he came home early in the evening, and composed other two marches, in order to allow the liberal sea captain his choice, or make him take all the three. Early next morning, the purchaser came back.

"Where is my march?" "Here it is." "Try it on the piano." Haydn played it over. The captain counted down the thirty guineas on the piano, took up the march, and went down stairs. Haydn ran after him, calling, "I have made other two marches, both better; come up and hear them, and take your choice." "I am content with the one I have," returned the captain, without stopping. "I will make you a present of them," cried the composer. The captain only ran down the more rapidly, and left Haydn on the stairs. Haydn, opposing obstinacy to obstinacy, determined to overcome this odd self-denial. He went at once to the Exchange, found out the name of the ship, made his marches into a roll, and sent them, with a polite note, to the captain on board. He was surprised at receiving, not long after, his envelope unopened, from the captain, who had guessed it to be Haydn's; and the composer tore the whole packet into pieces upon the spot. The narrator of this incident adds the remark, that "though the anecdote is of no great elevation, it expresses peculiarity of character; and certainly neither the composer nor the captain could have been easily cla.s.sed among the common or the vulgar of men."

HAYDN'S DIPLOMA PIECE AT OXFORD.

During his stay in England, Haydn was honoured by the diploma of Doctor of Music from the University of Oxford--a distinction not obtained even by Handel, and it is said, only conferred on four persons during the four centuries preceding. It is customary to send some specimen of composition in return for a degree; and Haydn, with the facility of perfect skill, sent back a page of music so curiously contrived, that in whatever way it was read--from the top to the bottom or the sides--it exhibited a perfect melody and accompaniment.

ORIGIN OF THE BEGGAR'S OPERA.

It was Swift that first suggested to Gay the idea of the _Beggar's Opera_, by remarking, what an odd, pretty sort of a thing a Newgate pastoral might make! "Gay," says Pope, "was inclined to try at such a thing for some time; but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what gave rise to the _Beggar's Opera_. He began on it; and when he first mentioned it to Swift, the doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice, but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, 'It would either take greatly, or be d.a.m.ned confoundedly.' We were all, at the first sight of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by hearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 'It will do--I see it in the eyes of them.' This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke (besides his own good taste) has as particular a knack as any one now living, in discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this, as usual; the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause."

THE TWO SHERIDANS.

Sheridan made his appearance one day in a pair of new boots; these attracting the notice of some of his friends: "Now guess," said he, "how I came by these boots?" Many probable guesses were then ventured, but in vain. "No," said Sheridan, "no, you have not hit it, nor ever will. I bought them, and paid for them!" Sheridan was very desirous that his son Tom should marry a young lady of large fortune, but knew that Miss Callander had won his son's heart. Sheridan, expatiating once on the folly of his son, at length broke out: "Tom, if you marry Caroline Callander, I'll cut you off with a shilling!" Tom, looking maliciously at his father, said, "Then, sir, you must borrow it." In a large party one evening, the conversation turned upon young men's allowances at college. Tom deplored the ill-judging parsimony of many parents in that respect. "I am sure, Tom," said his father, "you have no reason to complain; I always allowed you 800 a-year." "Yes, father, I confess you allowed it; but then--it was never paid!"

KILLING NO MURDER.

In a journey which Mademoiselle Scudery, the Sappho of the French, made along with her no less celebrated brother, a curious incident befell them at an inn at a great distance from Paris. Their conversation happened one evening to turn upon a romance which they were then jointly composing, to the hero of which they had given the name of Prince Mazare.

"What shall we do with Prince Mazare?" said Mademoiselle Scudery to her brother. "Is it not better that he should fall by poison, than by the poignard?" "It is not time yet," replied the brother, "for that business; when it is necessary we can despatch him as we please; but at present we have not quite done with him." Two merchants in the next chamber, overhearing this conversation, concluded that they had formed a conspiracy for the murder of some prince whose real name they disguised under that of Mazare. Full of this important discovery, they imparted their suspicions to the host and hostess; and it was resolved to inform the police of what had happened. The police officers, eager to show their diligence and activity, put the travellers immediately under arrest, and conducted them under a strong escort to Paris. It was not without difficulty and expense that they there procured their liberation, and leave for the future to hold an unlimited right and power over all the princes and personages in the realms of romance.

SENSITIVENESS TO CRITICISM.

Hawkesworth and Stillingfleet died of criticism; Ta.s.so was driven mad by it; Newton, the calm Newton, kept hold of life only by the sufferance of a friend who withheld a criticism on his chronology, for no other reason than his conviction that if it were published while he lived, it would put an end to him; and every one knows the effect on the sensitive nature of Keats, of the attacks on his _Endymion_. Ta.s.so had a vast and prolific imagination, accompanied with an excessively hypochondriacal temperament. The composition of his great epic, the _Jerusalem Delivered_, by giving scope to the boldest flights, and calling into play the energies of his exalted and enthusiastic genius--whilst with equal ardour it led him to entertain hopes of immediate and extensive fame--laid most probably the foundation of his subsequent derangement.

His susceptibility and tenderness of feeling were great; and, when his sublime work met with unexpected opposition, and was even treated with contempt and derision, the fort.i.tude of the poet was not proof against the keen sense of disappointment. He twice attempted to please his ignorant and malignant critics by recomposing his poem; and during the hurry, the anguish, and the irritation attending these efforts, the vigour of a great mind was entirely exhausted, and in two years after the publication of the _Jerusalem_, the unhappy author became an object of pity and terror. Newton, with all his philosophy, was so sensible to critical remarks, that Whiston tells us he lost his favour, which he had enjoyed for twenty years, by contradicting him in his old age; for "no man was of a more fearful temper."