Genius in Sunshine and Shadow Part 10

"But see where artful Dryden next appears, Grown old in rhyme, but charming e'en in years; Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords The sweetest numbers and the fittest words.

Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears; If satire or heroic strains she writes, Her hero pleases and her satire bites; From her no harsh, unartful numbers fall, She wears all dresses, and she charms in all."

Richard Porson, the profound scholar, linguist, and wit, reared many monuments of cla.s.sic learning, which have however crumbled away, leaving his name familiar to us only as a writer of _jeux d'esprit_; but these are admirable. He was full of the suns.h.i.+ne of wit; and though sarcastic and personal, as the nature of his _bon-mots_ compelled, he had no bitterness in his reflections, and uttered them with a good-natured laugh. Wonderful stories are told of his powers of memory. He could repeat several consecutive pages of a book after reading them once. It was he who wrote a hundred epigrams in one night on the subject of Pitt's drinking habit, one of which occurs to us:--

"When Billy found he scarce could stand, 'Help, help!' he cried, and stretched his hand, To faithful Harry calling.

Quoth he, 'My friend, I'm sorry for't, 'Tis not my practice to support A minister that's falling.'"

The "faithful Harry" was Dundas, Viscount Melville.

The reply of Pitt to Walpole, March 6, 1741, is one of the finest, most polished, and biting retorts on record: "The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wis.h.i.+ng that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience."

Dr. Gilles, the historian of Greece, and Dr. Porson used often to meet and discuss matters of mutual interest relating to the cla.s.sics. These interviews were certain to lead to very earnest arguments; Porson was much the better scholar of the two. Dr. Gilles was one day speaking to him of the Greek tragedies and of the Odes of Pindar. "We know nothing,"

said Gilles, emphatically, "of the Greek metres." Porson answered: "If, Doctor, you will put your observation in the singular number, I believe it will be quite correct." In repartee he was remarkable. "Dr. Porson,"

said a gentleman with whom he had been disputing,--"Dr. Porson, my opinion of you is most contemptible." "Sir," responded the Doctor promptly, "I never knew an opinion of yours that was not contemptible."

Porson was a natural wit, so to speak. Being once at a dinner-party where the conversation turned upon Captain Cook and his celebrated voyages, an ignorant person in order to contribute something towards the conversation asked, "Pray, was Cook killed on his first voyage?" "I believe he was," answered Porson, "though he did not mind it much, but immediately entered upon a second."

The sharpest repartee is both witty and satirical. James II., when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton, prompted by curiosity. In the course of his conversation the Duke said to the poet that he thought his blindness was a judgment of Heaven on him because he had written against Charles I., the Duke's father; whereupon the immortal poet replied: "If your Highness thinks that misfortunes are indexes of the wrath of Heaven, what must you think of your father's tragical end? I have lost my eyes--he lost his head."

Few men equalled Coleridge in the matter of prompt readiness of retort, and few have so misused the lavish gifts of Providence.[194] On a certain occasion he was riding along a Durham turnpike road, in his awkward fas.h.i.+on,--for he was no horseman,--when a wag, noticing his peculiarity, approached him. Quite mistaking his man, he thought the rider a good subject for a little sport, and so accosted him: "I say, young man, did you meet a _tailor_ on the road?" "Yes," replied Coleridge, "I did, and he told me if I went a little further I should meet a _goose_!" The a.s.sailant was struck dumb, while the traveller jogged leisurely on.

Lord Bolingbroke, the ardent friend of Pope, was often bitterly satirical, and notably quick at retort. Being at Aix-la-Chapelle during the treaty of peace at that place, he was asked impertinently by a Frenchman whether he came there in any public character. "No, sir,"

replied Bolingbroke, very deliberately; "I come like a French minister, with no character at all." Bolingbroke's talents were more brilliant than solid, but the style of his literary work is admirable. It is generally believed that he wrote the "Essay on Man" in prose, and that Pope put it into verse, with such additions as would naturally occur in such an adaptation.

Painters, like poets, are equal at times to producing the keenest epigrams. Salvator Rosa's opinion of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment" is an instance of this. The brother artist wrote not unkindly as follows:--

"My Michael Angelo, I do not jest; Thy pencil a great judgment has expressed; But in that judgment thou, alas! hast shown But very little judgment of thine own!"

We have already spoken of Moliere[195] in these pages, though only too briefly when his just fame is considered. England has her Shakespeare, Spain her Cervantes, Germany her Goethe, and France her Moliere. We have seen how triumphantly his powerful genius made its way amid adverse circ.u.mstances, until it enabled him, as Disraeli says, "to give his country a Plautus in farce, a Terence in composition, and a Menander in his moral truths." In short, Moliere showed that the most successful reformer of the manners and morals of the people is a great comic poet.

Did not Cervantes "laugh Spain's chivalry away"? It is a curious fact, worthy of note, that Moliere, who was so great a comic writer, and such an admirable comedian upon the stage, should have been socially one of the most serious of men and of a melancholic temperament. It was a considerable time before his genius struck out in the right direction and became self-reliant. At the beginning of his dramatic authors.h.i.+p he "borrowed bravely" from the Italian, as Shakespeare did; and Spanish legends were also adapted by his facile pen to dramatic purposes, himself enacting chosen comedy parts of his own plays.

This course, however, did not satisfy the genius of Moliere; he felt that he was capable of greater originality and of more truly artistic work. After much communing with himself he sought a new and more legitimate field of inspiration and employed fresher material. Having now the entree to the Hotel de Rambouillet, he began to study with critical eye the court life about him, soon producing his "Precieuses Ridicules," which was a biting satire upon the follies of the day, though delicately screened. The author skilfully parried in the prologue any application to his court a.s.sociates, by averring that the satire was aimed at their imitators in the provinces. The _ruse_ was sufficient, and the play was performed without offence; but its significance was nevertheless realized, and had its reformative influence without producing too great a shock. It was almost his first grand and original effort, and from thenceforth his career was a triumphal march. He is said to have exclaimed, "I need no longer study Plautus and Terence, nor poach on the fragments of Menander, I have only to study the world about me." Subsequently the brilliant success of his "Tartuffe," his "Misanthrope," and his "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" confirmed him in his conviction. Although society felt itself arraigned, it was also humbled and powerless. The author had become too great a power to be suppressed.

Moliere's domestic life, like that of only too many men of genius, and especially of authors, was a wreck.[196]

It may be doubted if such persons ought to marry at all. Rousseau is another instance of domestic infelicity; and so are Milton, Dryden, Addison, Steele; indeed, the list could be indefinitely extended. A young painter of great promise once told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he had taken a wife. "Married!" responded the great master; "then you are ruined as an artist." Michael Angelo's answer when he was asked why he never married will be remembered: "I have espoused my art, and that occasions me sufficient domestic cares; my works shall be my children."

The marriage of men of genius forms a theme of no little interest in the history of literature. It is herein that genius has oftenest found its suns.h.i.+ne or its shadow. Even Emerson has said, "Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged from the beginning of the world that such as are in the inst.i.tution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?" Rousseau married a kitchen-girl, and Raphael allied himself for the last eleven years of his life with a common girl of Rome, whom he first saw was.h.i.+ng her feet in the Tiber. Judging from her portrait, which he painted, and which still hangs in the Barberini Gallery, she was by no means beautiful, though the ensemble of head, face, and neck strikes the eye as forming a very attractive whole. Margarita belonged to the lower cla.s.ses of the Eternal City, and when Raphael died she went back to her former obscurity. There must have been many n.o.ble qualities in this young Roman girl, to have held the consistent devotion of so great an artist for an entire decade. She must have possessed some inspiring influence over him other than forming his mere physical model.

Sympathetic she undoubtedly was, or else no such union could have lasted; and one feels that he must have imparted to her a portion of the glowing aspirations which fired his own genius.

Goethe married to legitimize his offspring; Niebuhr, to please a mistress; Churchill, because he was dispirited and lonely; Napoleon, to obtain influence; Wilkes, to oblige a friend; Lamartine, in grat.i.tude for a fortune which was offered to him, and which he rapidly squandered; Wycherly married his servant to spite his relations. And so we might fill pages with brief mention of the influences which have led men of note to a.s.sume matrimonial relations. Balzac's marriage forms a curious example. He met by chance, when travelling, a youthful married lady, who told him, without knowing who he was, how much she admired Balzac's writings. "I never travel without a volume of his," she added, producing a copy. Greatly flattered, the author made himself known to the lady, who was a princess by birth, and who became his constant correspondent until the death of her husband, when she gave him her hand and fortune.

They were married, and settled to domestic life in a chateau on the Rhine.

But we have wandered away from Moliere before quite concluding the consideration of himself and his works. One of his most popular productions, "L'Impromptu de Versailles," has often been borrowed from; indeed, the general idea has been appropriated bodily both on the English and American stage. In this piece Moliere appears in his own person and in the midst of his whole theatrical company, apparently taken quite aback because there is no suitable piece prepared for the occasion. The characters are the actors as though congregated in the Green Room, with whom the manager is consulting, now reprimanding and now advising. In the course of his remarks he throws out hints of plots designed for plays, criticises his own productions, gives amusing sketches of character, and in short presents a humorous, realistic, and unique scene which formed as a whole a very complete comedy, and which proved a grand success. Louis XIV. was his friend and patron; being himself particularly fond of theatrical performances, he often made shrewd suggestions, which the actor and dramatist took good care faithfully to adopt. Indeed, it was said that this then unique idea of the Green Room brought before the curtain was from his Majesty's own brain, though greatly improved upon by Moliere. Some of the plots hinted at by the manager before his company in this play were afterwards amplified and perfected so as to become popular dramas, not only by Moliere, but by other dramatists. This is notably the case with Beaumarchais' "Barber of Seville," which is but the elaboration of one of these incipient plots. However, Moliere was himself so liberal a borrower, like Montesquieu, Racine, and Corneille, he could well afford to lend to others. Bruyere embodies whole pa.s.sages from Publius Syrus in his printed works; and La Fontaine borrowed his style and much of his matter from Mazot and Rabelais. Though we have referred to this subject before, we will add that Voltaire looked upon everything as imitation; saying that the instruction which we gather from books is like fire: we fetch it from our neighbor's, kindle it at home, and communicate it to others, till it becomes the property of all.

CHAPTER XII.

Every thoughtful person must often have realized how close is the natural sympathy between artists in literature and artists of the pencil and brush; between painters and poets. Belori informs us of a curious volume in ma.n.u.script by the hand of Rubens, which contained among other topics descriptions of the pa.s.sions and actions of men, drawn from the poets and delineated by the artist's own graphic pencil. Here were represented battles, s.h.i.+pwrecks, landscapes, and various casualties of life, copied and ill.u.s.trated from Virgil and other cla.s.sic poets, showing clearly whence Rubens often got his inspiration and ideas of detail. The painter and the poet are the Siamese-twins of genius. The finest picture ever produced is but poetry realized, though each art has its distinct province. The same may be said as to sculpture and poetry.

It has long been a mooted question whether the Laoc.o.o.n in sculpture preceded or was borrowed from the idea expressed in poetry. Lessing believed that the sculptor borrowed from the poet. All the sister arts[197]--music, sculpture, poetry, and painting--are most intimately allied. When great composers, like Mozart, were contemplating a grand expression of their genius, they endeavored to inspire themselves with lofty ideas by reading the poets; while masters in literature and oratory have sought for a similar purpose the elevating and soothing influence of music.

Orators have not infrequently depended upon more material stimulus, as we have seen in the instances of Pitt and Sheridan. The biographer of More tells us that when Sir Thomas was sent by Henry VIII. on an emba.s.sy to the Emperor of Germany, before he delivered his important remarks he ordered one of his servants to fill him a goblet of wine, which he drank off at once, and in a few moments repeated it, still demanding another.

This his faithful servant, knowing his master's temperate habits, feared to furnish, and even at first declined to do so, lest he should expose him thereby before the Emperor. Still, upon a reiterated order, he brought the wine, which was rapidly swallowed by Sir Thomas, who then made his address to the sovereign in Latin, like one inspired, and to the intense admiration of all the auditors, the Emperor himself complimenting him upon his eloquence. More was a strange medley of character. Devout in his religious convictions, he was yet as light-hearted as a child,--at times wise as Solomon in his discourse, and anon descending almost to buffoonery; a truly good man at heart, and yet often espousing the worst of causes. Though a p.r.o.nounced reformer, he predicted that the Reformation would result in universal vice. He is represented to have had a supreme contempt for money and a true generosity of spirit. With the most solemn convictions of the realities of death, he yet died upon the scaffold with a joke upon his lips.

That imaginative English artist Barry, the great historical painter, advised his pupils as follows: "Go home from the Academy, light your lamps, and exercise yourselves in the creative part of your art, with Homer, with Livy, and all the great characters ancient and modern, for your companions and counsellors." Barry has left behind him works upon art which should not be read except with care, unbia.s.sed judgment, and honest appreciation. His own eccentricities, all arising from a pa.s.sion for art, led his contemporaries to criticise the man and ignore his work. He was wildly enthusiastic in all things relating to art, but yet sometimes exhibited the coa.r.s.eness of his early a.s.sociations. He was born at Cork, from whence his father sailed as a foremast hand aboard a coasting vessel, and designed his son for the same humble occupation; but the lad had other and higher aspirations, until finally he attracted the notice of people able to advise and help him. Humbly born and self-educated as he was, he presented some of the highest aspects of genius. By the generosity of Edmund Burke he was sent to Rome, where he studied art for three or four years under favorable circ.u.mstances. On his return to England he took high rank, and was engaged by the Academy as a professor. At times in his lectures before the students he would burst into such vehement enthusiasm as to electrify his listeners, and they in turn would rise to their feet and shout applauses long and deep, entirely heedless of the great turmoil which they created. Then Barry would exclaim: "Go it, go it, boys; they did so at Athens!"

Literature and art should be wedded together. The careful reader and the keen observer gather up a mental harvest and store it for use. What many conceive to be genius is often but reproduction. Hosts of ideas have pa.s.sed through the crucible of the author's mind and have been refined by the process, coming forth individualized by the stamp of his personality. He is none the less an originator, a creator; originality is after all but condensed and refined observation.

There is a great deal of nonsense written and credited by the world at large as to the inspiration of authors.h.i.+p. Some of the very best poetic turns of thought are the children of purest accident. Sir Joshua Reynolds, calling upon Goldsmith one day, opened his door without knocking, and found him engaged in the double occupation of authors.h.i.+p and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches, now casting a glance at his writing-table, and now shaking his finger at the dog to make him retain his upright position. The last lines upon the paper were still wet,--as Sir Joshua[198] said when he afterwards told the story,--and formed a part of the description of Italy:--

"By sports like these are all their cares beguiled: The sports of children satisfy the child."

Goldsmith, with his usual good humor, joined in the laugh caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged to the great painter that his boyish sport with the dog suggested the lines.

Goldsmith was always the wayward and erratic being whom we have represented in these pages. His habit on retiring at night was to read in bed until overcome by somnolence; and he was so little inclined to sleep, that his candle was kept burning until the last moment. His mode of extinguis.h.i.+ng it finally, when it was out of immediate reach, was characteristic of his indolence and carelessness: he threw his slipper at it, which consequently was found in the morning covered with grease beside the overturned candlestick.

If, as we have attempted to show, authors exhibit oftentimes a spirit of vanity, it must be admitted that readers as frequently exhibit evidence of captiousness.

Those who sit down to peruse a book without a good and wholesome appet.i.te for reading are very much in the same condition as one who approaches a table loaded with food, without a sense of hunger. In neither case can one be a proper judge of what is before him; mental or physical pabulum requires for just appreciation a wholesome appet.i.te.

Unjust criticism often grows out of an attempt to force the appet.i.te, the censor coming to his task in a wrong humor. The author is usually severely judged; he is solus, his critics are many: if he satisfies one cla.s.s of readers he is sure to dissatisfy another. Swift's definition of criticism, in his "Tale of a Tub," is pertinent. "A true critic," he says, "in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones."

Edgar A. Poe's sarcasm upon the "North American Review," in the matter of criticism, will long be remembered. It was generally considered at the time not only a keen but a just retort. Our erratic genius writes: "I cannot say that I ever fairly comprehended the force of the term 'insult,' until I was given to understand, one day, by a member of the 'North American Review' clique, that this journal was not only willing but anxious to render me that justice which had been already accorded me by the 'Revue Francaise,' and the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' but was restrained from doing so by my 'invincible spirit of antagonism.' I wish the 'North American Review' to express no opinion of me whatever,--for I have none of it. In the mean time, as I see no motto on its t.i.tlepage, let me recommend it one from 'Sterne's Letter from France.' Here it is: 'As we rode along the valley, we saw a herd of a.s.ses on the top of one of the mountains: how they viewed and _reviewed_ us!'" No one can deny that Poe possessed remarkable genius; but his best friends could not approve either his temper or his habits.

Balzac complained of lack of appreciation; though, as has just been shown, he captivated one of his readers to such a degree as to bring him a wife and a fortune. "A period," he says, "shall have cost us the labor of a day; we shall have distilled into an essay the essence of our mind; it may be a finished piece of art, and they think they are indulgent when they p.r.o.nounce it to contain some pretty things, and that the style is not bad!" Montaigne said that he found his readers too learned or too ignorant, and that he could please only a middle cla.s.s who possessed just knowledge enough to understand him. To read well and to a consistent purpose is as much of an art as to write well. It was said of Dr. Johnson by Mrs. Knowles that "he knows how to read better than any other one; he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it."

A literary friend of the writer has long adopted an effective aid to memory in connection with reading. After perusing a book he writes down the date, the place, and under what circ.u.mstances it was read, and in a few concise lines gives the impression it has left upon his mind. This he does not design as a criticism; it is intended for himself only. At a future day he can take up the volume, since perusing which he may have read a hundred in a similar manner, and by turning to his brief comment at the close, the power of a.s.sociation enables him to recall the subject of the volume and virtually to remember the contents. He a.s.sures us that the circ.u.mstances under which he became familiar with the book, if fairly remembered, recall even its detail. For our own part, we have trusted solely to a retentive memory, and the choice of such lines of reading as inclination has suggested. The books which we consult lovingly will long remain with us, requiring very little effort to impress their contents upon the brain.

How suggestive is this theme of books and the reading of them! Whipple eulogizes them thus appropriately: "Books,--light-houses erected in the great sea of time; books,--the precious depositories of the thoughts and creations of genius; books,--by whose sorcery time past becomes time present, and the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes. These were to visit the fireside of the humble, and lavish the treasures of the intellect upon the poor. Could we have Plato and Shakespeare and Milton in our dwellings, in the full vigor of their imaginations, in the full freshness of their hearts, few scholars would be affluent enough to afford them physical support; but the living images of their minds are within the reach of all. From their pages their mighty souls look out upon us in all their grandeur and beauty, undimmed by the faults and follies of earthly existence, consecrated by time."

Poets have been more addicted to building castles upon paper than residences upon the more substantial earth. Though the old axiom of "genius and a garret" has pa.s.sed away, both as a saying and in the experiences of real life, still it had its pertinency in the early days of literature and art. Ariosto, who was addicted to castle-building with the pen, was asked why he was so modestly lodged when he prepared a permanent home for himself. He replied that palaces are easier built with words than with stones. But the poet, nevertheless, had a snug and pretty abode at Ferrara, Italy, a few leagues from Bologna, which is still extant. Leigh Hunt says: "Poets love nests from which they can take their flights, not worlds of wood and stone to strut in." The younger Pliny was more of a substantial architect, whose villa, devoted to literary leisure, was magnificent, surrounded by gardens and parks.

Tycho Brahe, the great Danish astronomer, built a grand castle and observatory combined on an island of the Baltic, opposite Copenhagen, which he named the "Castle of the Heavens."

Many of our readers have doubtless visited the house which Shakespeare built for himself in his native town on Red-Lion Street. In pa.s.sing through its plain apartments one receives with infinite faith the stereotyped revelations of the local cicerone. Buffon was content to locate himself for his literary work and study in an old half-deserted tower, and Gibbon, as we have seen, to write his great work in the summer-house of a Lausanne garden. Chaucer lived and wrote in a grand palace, because he was connected with royalty; but he never dilated upon such surroundings,--his fancy ran to outdoor nature, to the flowers and the trees. Milton[199] sought an humble "garden house" to live in; that is, a small house in the environs of the city, with a pleasant little garden attached. Addison wrote his "Campaign" "up two pair of back stairs in the Hay-market." Johnson tells us that much of his literary work was produced from a garret in Exeter Street. Paul Jovius,[200] the Italian author, who wrote three hundred concise eulogies of statesmen, warriors, and literary men of the fourteenth century, built himself an elegant chateau on the Lake of Como, beside the ruins of the villa of Pliny, and declared that when he sat down to write he was inspired by the a.s.sociations of the place. In his garden he raised a marble statue to Nature, and his halls contained others of Apollo and the Muses.

The traveller visits with eager interest Rubens' house in his native city of Antwerp, a veritable museum within, but plain and unpretentious without. Rubens is to the Belgian capital what Thorwaldsen is to Copenhagen. Spenser lived in an Irish castle (Kilcolman Castle), which was burned over his head by a mob; and, sad to say, his child was burned with it. In his verses Spenser was always depicting "lowly cots," and it was on that plane that his taste rested. Moore's vine-clad cottage at Sloperton is familiar to all. In the environs of Florence we still see the cottage home where Landor lived and wrote, and in the city itself the house of Michael Angelo,--plain and unadorned externally, but with a few of the great artist's household G.o.ds duly preserved in the several apartments. The historic home of the poet Longfellow, in Cambridge, has become a Mecca to lovers of poetry and genius; while Tennyson's embowered cottage at the Isle of Wight is equally attractive to travellers from afar.

Pope[201] had a modest nest at Twickenham, and Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, the beauties of both being more dependent upon the surrounding scenery than upon any architectural attraction. Pope declared all gardens to be landscape-paintings, and he loved them. Scott made himself a palatial home at Abbotsford, which was quite an exception to that of his brother poets. Dr. Holmes's unpretentious town house in the Trimountain city overlooks the broad Charles, and affords him a glorious view of the setting sun. Emerson's Concord home was and is the picture of rural simplicity. Hawthorne's biographer makes us familiar with his red cottage at Lenox. Bryant made himself an embowered summer cottage at Roslyn, New York State. Lowell has a fine but plain residence overlooking the beautiful grounds of Mount Auburn. Nothing could be more simple and lovely than Whittier's Danvers home. None of these poets have built castles of stone, whatever they may have done under poetical license.

"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness,"

says the poet Cowley, "as that I might be master at least of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them and study of Nature, and then, with no desire beyond my wall,--

'----Whole and entire to lie, In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.'"

Cowley at last got what he so ardently desired, but it was not until he was too old and broken in health to find that active enjoyment which he had so fondly antic.i.p.ated. He died in the forty-ninth year of his age.

We spoke of the contrast which was manifest between the private and public life of Moliere. These paradoxes are strange, but by no means uncommon in the character of men of genius. It will be remembered that Grimaldi, the cleverest and most mirth-provoking clown of his day in England, was often under medical treatment on account of his serious attacks of melancholy. It seems almost incredible that men of such profound judgment in most matters, as were Dr. Johnson and Addison, should have been so inexcusably weak as to entertain a belief in ghosts,--an eccentricity which neither of them denied. Byron,[202] who as a rule was noted for his shrewd common-sense, was so superst.i.tious that he would not help a person at table to salt, nor permit himself to be served with it by another's hand. There were other equally absurd "omens" which he strenuously regarded. Cowper, who was a devoutly religious man, deliberately attempted to hang himself,--an act entirely at variance with his serious convictions. So also Hugh Miller, one of the most wholesome writers upon the true principles of life, wrested his own life from his Maker's hands.

Pope, who was such a bravado with his pen, boldly denouncing an army of scholars and wits in his "Dunciad," was personally an arrant coward, who could not summon sufficient self-possession to make a statement before a dozen of his personal friends. The paradox which existed between Goldsmith's pen and tongue pa.s.sed into an axiom: with the one he was all eloquence and grace; with the other, as foolish as a parrot. Douglas Jerrold, whose forte was as clearly that of wit and humor as it is the sun's province to s.h.i.+ne, was ever wis.h.i.+ng to write a profound essay on natural philosophy. Newton, highest authority in algebra, could not make the proper change for a guinea without a.s.sistance, and while he was master of the Mint was hourly put to shame by the superior practical arithmetic of the humblest clerks under him. Another peculiarity of Newton was that he fancied himself a poet; but who ever saw a verse of his composition? Judged by all accepted rules, Charles Lamb experienced ills sufficient to have driven him to commit suicide; whereas the truth shows that with "his sly, shy, elusive, ethereal humor" he was ordinarily the most genial and contented of beings.