English Lands Letters and Kings Part 10

[3] Pension granted, 1762: _Ra.s.selas_ published, 1759.

[4] Joshua Reynolds, b. 1723; d. 1792. His _Discourses_ published, 1771. Life by Leslie, 1867.

[5] It is from this latter gentleman--whom I had the good fortune to meet in the course of his visit to this country--that my information in regard to the latter _status_ of the club is derived.

[6] Edmund Burke, b. 1729; d. 1797. Editions of his works are various.

Best life of him is by John Morley (1867).

[7] B. 1740; d. 1795.

[8] There is, to be sure, a great deal of what the natural reserve of most men would lead them to withhold. But if this "free-telling" does add some of the finer lights and most artistic touches to his picture, and if he perceives this to be so (and have we any right to a.s.sume the contrary?) shall we not credit it rightly to his book-making art and commend it accordingly?

That his gentlemanly reserves are not of a p.r.o.nounced sort may count against the delicacy of his nature, but not necessarily against his capacity as a literary artist.

[9] Edward Gibbon, b. 1737; d. 1794. Dr. Milman's is the standard edition of his History. Bowdler's edition (1825) is noticeable for its expurgations. The work, through its translations, holds as large a place in the historic _curriculum_ of French, Italian, and German students, as in that of English-speaking nations.

[10] _Biographie Universale_; Article Necker (Mme. Necker, _nee Susanne Curchod_).

[11] Hume's first volume of English History appeared in 1754--just twenty-two years before the _Decline and Fall_. Hume was about twenty-six years Gibbon's senior.

[12] Boswell says in his Diary (1779): "Gibbon is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our literary club to me."

[13] The old house has wholly disappeared; the hotel covers a portion of Gibbon's garden.

[14] Letter in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in relation to Sir John Lubbock's "List of Hundred Best Books." Reprinted in _Critic_ (American) of March 20, 1886.

[15] See, for instance, account of Julian's march, and of the taking of Constantinople.

[16] Oliver Goldsmith, b. 1728; d. 1774. Fullest and best _Life_, that of John Forster.

{144}

CHAPTER IV.

We parted company, in our last chapter, with Dr. Johnson, of whose work and career every educated person should know; we parted company also, with that more lovable, though less important man, Dr. Goldsmith--of whom it would have been easy and pleasant to talk by the hour; we all know him so well; we all would have wished him so well--if wishes could have counted. And as we sidle into the Poets' corner of Westminster Abbey--on whatever visit we make there--we put a friendly eagerness into our search for the medallion effigy of Goldsmith over the door, which we do not put into our search for a great many entombed under much greater show of marble. But Goldsmith's bones do not lie in the Abbey; he was buried somewhere under the wing of the Old Temple Church--the particular locality {145} being subject of much doubt; while the memorial statue of Johnson--his body lying in Westminster--must be sought for, still farther down in the city, under the arches of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Garrick has what we might almost call melodramatic monument among the marbles of the Poets' corner; Reynolds has abiding memorials in the dashes of mellowed coloring and in the tender graces of those cherished portraits, some of which belong to every considerable gallery of England; Burke and Gibbon lie in quiet country places--the first near to his old home of Beaconsfield; and the historian among those southern downs of Suss.e.x which look upon the Channel waters; his books may never have touched us to tenderness; but he bows his way out of our presence, with the grandest history belonging to the eighteenth century for a memorial.

_A Scottish Historian._

[Sidenote: David Hume.]

We must not forget that hard-headed man who wrote Hume's History of England, who was born twenty-two years before the historian of Rome, {146} and died in the year in which Gibbon was reaping his first rewards. He[1] was a sceptic too of even more aggressive type than Gibbon--was, like him, somewhat ungainly in person, and though of larger build and of coa.r.s.er mould, possessed a cheery good humor, and a bright colloquial wit which made him sure of good friends and many.

Like Gibbon he lived and died a bachelor: like him, he leaned toward continental ways of living, and like him garnered some of his highest honors in France. Of course you know his History of England--where it begins, where it ends--but we do not press examination on these points.

In most editions you will find--(it should be found in all)--among the foreleaves, a short autobiographic sketch, written in his most neat, perspicuous, and engaging manner, which is well worth the close attention of every reader, even if he do not wade through the royal extensions of the History. You will learn there that David Hume was born in that pleasant border land of Scotland which is watered {147} by the Tweed, the Yarrow, and the Teviot--where we found the poet Thomson.

North of his boyish home stretched Lammermoor, and westward within easy tramping distance lay Lauderdale; but in that day these names had not been illuminated by a touch of the magician's wand, nor was his mind ever keenly alive to the beauties of landscape. Hume's childhood knew only great stretches of brown heather, bounded by bare bluish-gray heights, with the waves of the German Sea pounding on the rocky, desolate sh.o.r.es--where stands the ruin of Fast Castle, the original of "Wolf's Crag" of the Master of Ravenswood.

You will learn further from that precious bit of autobiography--which he calls with a nave directness, "My Own Life"--that he was younger son of a good family; that he came to fairish education thereabout, and in Edinboro'; that his family would have pushed him to the study of law; but he--loving philosophy and literature better, and in search of some method of increasing his means for their pursuit--wandered southward to study business in the city of Bristol. This was a place of much greater commercial importance, {148} relatively, then than now: but Bristol merchandizing presently disgusts him; and husbanding carefully his small moneys, he goes across the Channel--to study philosophy, while practising the economies of French provincial life in a small town of central France. A few years thereafter he prints his first book in London on _Human Nature_; and he says it fell "dead-born"

from the press; but he is still sanguine and cheery; writes other essays after his return from France--hovering between Edinboro' and his old Berwickshire home; studying Greek the while, and for a year serving, as secretary, the crazy Marquis of Annandale. Shortly thereafter (1746) began his official connection with the General St.

Clair, involving a new and pleasanter experience of European life. On his return, after three years, he goes to cover again in his old Berwickshire home, where he elaborates the _Political Discourses_--setting forth those broad views of trade and commerce, which came to larger ill.u.s.tration later, under the pen of his good friend Adam Smith.[2]

{149}

[Sidenote: Hume's England.]

In 1751 he removed from country to town--the true scene he says "for a man of letters," and established himself in a small flat of one of those lofty houses which still look down over the New City and the valley gardens, and lived there comfortably--with his sister for help mate--on some 50 a year. He tried vainly for a professorship in one of the Scottish universities, but was counted too unsafe a man. As Custodian of the Advocates' Library of Edinboro', a place which he secured shortly after--largely through the influence of lady friends--he came to that familiar fellowship with books which prompted him to the making of his History of England. He does not begin at the beginning: he tells of the Stuarts first; then goes back to the Tudors; and then back of these to the dull (dull to him and dull to us) Anglo-saxon start point: Stubbs and Freeman had not in that {150} day made their explorative forays and set up their scaffoldings.

Hume's ambition was high and sensitive: he was intensely disappointed with the reception of the earlier volumes of his history. "I was discouraged," he says, "and had not the war been at that time breaking out between France and England, I had certainly retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and never more have returned to my native country."

But his writings had qualities which were sure in the end to provoke the reading and discussion of them by thoughtful men and women. He is known wider than he thinks; his books have been translated; Montesquieu has corresponded with him; so has a certain Mme. de Boufflers--a pet of the Paris salons--who has written gushingly of her admiration; and the stolid, good-humored, cool-blooded Hume has responded in his awkward manner; other missives, with growing confidences have pa.s.sed; she always clever, and witty and full of adulation; and he clumsy and clever, and with such tenderness as an elephant might show toward {151} a gazelle. And the shining side of life opens bewitchingly upon him when he goes to Paris in 1763 as an attache to the Emba.s.sy of Lord Hertford.

[Sidenote: Hume in Paris.]

In place of Scotch kerseys, his square, ma.s.sive figure is set off with the golden broidery of a diplomat. His reputation as a philosopher and as a historian had been confirmed by all the literary magnates of Paris; and the queens of society in that gay capital, Mme. de Boufflers among them, pounced upon the big Scotch David, to be led away through the pretty martyrdoms of the salon. And he bore it bravely; he had feared, indeed, that his inapt.i.tudes and inexperience would have made such a life irksome to one of his quiet habits; but he good-humoredly and complacently accepted the sacrifice and came to love the intoxicating incense. Sterne, who happened in Paris in those days, says that Hume was the lion of the city; no a.s.semblage was complete without his presence. Yet he did not lose his cool philosophic poise.

He carried his good humor everywhere, and an indifference that made him engaging; if arrows of Cupid were launched at him, they did not pierce through the wrappings of his thick Scotch phlegm.

{152}

Mme. d'epinay tells a good story of these times about his taking part in some tableau where he was to personate an Eastern sovereign, seated between two beautiful Circa.s.sian damsels, to whom he was expected to show devotional a.s.siduities of speech. But the frigid philosopher, banked in between those feminine piles of silk and jewels, only rubs his hands, slaps his knees, purses up his mouth, and says over and over, in his inconsequent French,--"Eh bien, Mesdemoiselles, vous voila! vous voila donc! Eh bien, nous voici!" Whereat we may be sure that his pretty companions let fall slily a disparaging "_qu'il est bete!_"--As if the man who had traced to their ultimate issues the subtleties of the _Principles of Morals_ could parry and thrust with the pretty conversational foils of a Pompadour!

[Sidenote: David Hume.]

It chanced that by the unexpected withdrawal of Lord Hertford, Hume was for a time chief of the Emba.s.sy, and for the first and last time (in so full a sense) did a historian of England thus become British Amba.s.sador to the Court of France. But Hume does not love the English or England; he resents their neglect of him; he never {153} forgets that he is a Scotsman; it tw.a.n.gs in his speech; it tw.a.n.gs louder in his heart; he would like to live in that pleasant country of France:--"They are all kind to me here," he says; "but not one of a thousand in all England would care a penny's worth if I broke my neck to-morrow." And though his reputation is now largely upon the growth at home, still he is not pleasantly _lie_ with the masters. Somewhat later, when by another unexpected good turn he is made Under-Secretary of State and has official position in London, he writes to Dr. Blair, of Edinboro', who has offered to give him a letter to Bishop Percy--"I thank you, but it would be impracticable for me to cultivate his friendship, as men of letters have here no place of rendezvous; and are indeed sunk and forgot in the general torrent of the world." And yet this was at a date (1763), when the Turk's Head gathering was all alive, when Sterne had recently published the last volume of his _Tristram_; when poor Smollett[3] (of {154} _Roderick Random_ fame) has won success by a flimsy, but popular continuation of Hume's History; when the _Vicar of Wakefield_ was fresh (though as yet unprinted); when Mason and Gray and Warburton and Johnson were all sounding their trumpets. With such feelings of alienation it is not strange that Hume did not nestle into the hearts of great Londoners as he had nestled into the good-will of Parisians.

Under the influences of Mme. de Boufflers he tried to make a home in England for that strange creature, Rousseau, who had become an exile, and who brought with him--to the torment of Hume--all his eccentricities, his peevishness, his inhuman vanities, his abnormal sensitiveness, his wild jealousies, and his exaltations of genius.

These things work a rupture between the two in the end--as they should and ought to do,--and the next good sight we have of the Scotch philosopher is in a new home of his own (1772), which he has built in the new part of Edinboro'. Twenty odd years before he had lived in the old city on an income of 50 a year; and now he lives in the new with an income of 1,000 a year. In {155} the old times he had hardly secured place as Custodian of the mouldy Library of the Advocates; now he is the marked potentate in the literary world of Scotland. Stanch Presbyterians do indeed look at him askance, and shake their heads at his uncanny beliefs, or rather lack of beliefs. Old nurses put hobgoblin wings upon him to frighten good children; but he has stanch, loving friends among the best and the clearest sighted. Dr. Blair is his friend; excellent Dr. Robertson is his friend; his good nature, his kindness of heart, his rect.i.tude of life, his intellectual charities, won even those who shuddered at his disbeliefs; that sceptical miasma--born in his blood--and harmful to many (as it was to himself), seemed to lose its malarious taint in the large, free, intellectual atmosphere in which the philosopher lived. Honest doubts were then, and always will be, better than dishonest beliefs; just as honest beliefs are a thousand fold better than dishonest doubts.

[Sidenote: Death of Hume.]

It was in our year of 1776--when his reputation was brightening and widening month by month, that David Hume, the author of the first scholarly History of England, died, and was buried {156} on a shoulder of the Calton Hill, from which one may look eastward across the valley (where lies Holyrood Palace) to the Salisbury Crags on the left and to the Castle Rock on the right.

It is probable that his History will long hold place on our library shelves; its style might almost be counted a model historic style--if we were to have models (of which the wisdom is doubtful). It is clear, it is precise, it is perspicuous, it is neat to a fault. It might almost be called a reticent style, in its neglect of those wrappings of wordy ill.u.s.tration and amplification which so many historians employ.

He makes us see his meaning as if we looked through crystal; and if the crystal is toned by his prejudices--as it is and very largely--it is altogether free from the impertinent decorative arabesques of the rhetorician. Many of the periods of which he gives the record, have had new light thrown upon them by the searching inquiries of late days.

Old reputations with which he dealt reverently have suffered collapse; political horizons which were limited and gave smallness consequence, have widened; but for good, straightforward, lucid, {157} logical setting forth of the main facts of which he undertook the record, Hume will long remain the reference book. There will be never a time when lovers of good literature will not be attracted by his pathetic picture of the career of Charles I.; and never a time when the judicious reader will accept it as altogether worthy of trust.

The life of the historian--by Dr. Huxley--is rather a history of his philosophy than of his life; in which the eminent scientist--with due apology for intrusion upon literary ground--sets his logic to an easy canter all around the soberer paces of the great Scotch charger--showing nice agreement in the paces of the two, and commending and ill.u.s.trating the metaphysics of the Historian, with a pretty fanfaronade of Exposition and Applause.

_A Pair of Poets._

[Sidenote: Two poets.]

Were it only to change the current of our talk, I bring now a brace of poets to your notice; not well paired indeed, as you will find: but each one in his own way giving us music that strongly {158} contrasts with _The Deserted Village_, and the ponderous Satires of Johnson.