Books and Authors Part 4

SILENCE NOT ALWAYS WISDOM.

Coleridge once dined in company with a person who listened to him, and said nothing for a long time; but he nodded his head, and Coleridge thought him intelligent. At length, towards the end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed on the table, and the listener had no sooner seen them than he burst forth, "Them's the jockeys for me!" Coleridge adds: "I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow's head."

Coleridge was very luminous in conversation, and invariably commanded listeners; yet the old lady rated his talent very lowly, when she declared she had no patience with a man who would have all the talk to himself.

DR. CHALMERS IN LONDON.

When Dr. Chalmers first visited London, the hold that he took on the minds of men was unprecedented. It was a time of strong political feeling; but even that was unheeded, and all parties thronged to hear the Scottish preacher. The very best judges were not prepared for the display that they heard. Canning and Wilberforce went together, and got into a pew near the door. The elder in attendance stood alone by the pew. Chalmers began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice. "If this be all," said Canning to his companion, "it will never do." Chalmers went on--the shuffling of the conversation gradually subsided. He got into the ma.s.s of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy; and, bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, he poured forth a torrent of the most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for ill.u.s.trations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of a whole life. "The tartan beats us," said Mr. Canning; "we have no preaching like that in England."

ROMILLY AND BROUGHAM.

Hallam's _History of the Middle Ages_ was the last book of any importance read by Sir Samuel Romilly. Of this excellent work he formed the highest opinion, and recommended its immediate perusal to Lord Brougham, as a contrast to his dry _Letter on the Abuses of Charities_, in respect of the universal interest of the subject. Yet, Sir Samuel undervalued the Letter, for it ran through eight editions in one month.

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS.

It is remarkable, (says Bulwer, in his _Zanoni_,) that most of the princ.i.p.al actors of the French Revolution were singularly hideous in appearance--from the colossal ugliness of Mirabeau and Danton, or the villanous ferocity in the countenances of David and Simon, to the filthy squalor of Marat, and the sinister and bilious meanness of the Dictator's features. But Robespierre, who was said to resemble a cat, and had also a cat's cleanliness, was prim and dainty in dress, shaven smoothness, and the womanly whiteness of his hands. Rene Dumas, born of reputable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more acceptable to the precise Robespierre. Dumas was a beau in his way: his gala-dress was a _blood-red_ coat, with the finest ruffles. But Henriot had been a lacquey, a thief, a spy of the police; he had drank the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and had risen for no quality but his ruffianism; and Fouquier Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and afterwards a clerk at the bureau of the police, was little less base in his manners, and yet more, from a certain loathsome buffoonery, revolting in his speech; bull-headed, with black, sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, and small eyes that twinkled with sinister malice; strongly and coa.r.s.ely built, he looked what he was, the audacious bully of a lawless and relentless bar.

DEATH OF SIR CHARLES BELL.

This distinguished surgeon died suddenly on April 29, 1842, at Hallow Park, near Worcester, while on his way to Malvern. He was out sketching on the 28th, being particularly pleased with the village church, and some fine trees which are beside it; observing that he should like to repose there when he was gone. Just four days after this sentiment had been expressed, his mortal remains were accordingly deposited beside the rustic graves which had attracted his notice, and so recently occupied his pencil. There is a painful admonition in this fulfilment.

CLa.s.sIC PUN.

It was suggested to a distinguished _gourmet_, what a capital thing a dish all fins (turbot's fins) might be made. "Capital," said he; "dine with me on it to-morrow." "Accepted." Would you believe it? when the cover was removed, the sacrilegious dog of an Amphytrion had put into the dish "Cicero _De finibus_" "There is a work all fins," said he.

POETRY OF THE SEA.

Campbell was a great lover of submarine prospects. "Often in my boyhood," says the poet, "when the day has been bright and the sea transparent, I have sat by the hour on a Highland rock admiring the golden sands, the emerald weeds, and the silver sh.e.l.ls at the bottom of the bay beneath, till, dreaming about the grottoes of the Nereids, I would not have exchanged my pleasure for that of a connoisseur poring over a landscape by Claude or Poussin. Enchanting nature! thy beauty is not only in heaven and earth, but in the waters under our feet. How magnificent a medium of vision is the pellucid sea! Is it not like poetry, that embellishes every object that we contemplate?"

"FELON LITERATURE."

One of the most stinging reproofs of perverted literary taste, evidently aimed at Newgate Calendar literature, appeared in the form of a valentine, in No. 31 of _Punch_, in 1842.

The valentine itself reminds one of Churchill's muse; and it needs no finger to tell where its withering satire is pointed:--

"THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN.

"Ill.u.s.trious scribe! whose vivid genius strays 'Mid Drury's stews to incubate her lays, And in St. Giles's slang conveys her tropes, Wreathing the poet's lines with hangmen's ropes; You who conceive 'tis poetry to teach The sad bravado of a dying speech; Or, when possessed with a sublimer mood, Show "Jack o'Dandies" dancing upon blood! Crush bones--bruise flesh, recount each festering sore-- Rake up the plague-pit, write--and write in gore! Or, when inspired to humanize mankind, Where doth your soaring soul its subjects find? Not 'mid the scenes that simple Goldsmith sought, And found a theme to elevate his thought; But you, great scribe, more greedy of renown, From Hounslow's gibbet drag a hero down.

Imbue his mind with virtue; make him quote Some moral truth before he cuts a throat. Then wash his hands, and soaring o'er your craft--Refresh the hero with a b.l.o.o.d.y draught: And, fearing lest the world should miss the act, With n.o.ble zeal _italicize_ the fact. Or would you picture woman meek and pure, By love and virtue tutor'd to endure, With cunning skill you take a felon's trull, Stuff her with sentiment, and scrunch her skull! Oh! would your cras.h.i.+ng, smas.h.i.+ng, mas.h.i.+ng pen were mine, That I could "scorch your eyeb.a.l.l.s" with my words,

"MY VALENTINE."

DEATH BED REVELATIONS.

Men before they die see and comprehend enigmas hidden from them before.

The greatest poet, and one of the n.o.blest thinkers of the last age, said on his death-bed:--"Many things obscure to me before, now clear up and become visible."

STAMMERING WIT.

Stammering, (says Coleridge,) is sometimes the cause of a pun. Some one was mentioning in Lamb's presence the cold-heartedness of the Duke of c.u.mberland, in restraining the d.u.c.h.ess from rus.h.i.+ng up to the embrace of her son, whom she had not seen for a considerable time, and insisting on her receiving him in state. "How horribly _cold_ it was," said the narrator. "Yes," said Lamb, in his stuttering way; "but you know he is the Duke of _Cu-c.u.m-ber-land_."

ORIGIN OF BOTTLED ALE.

Alexander Newell, Dean of St. Paul's, and Master of Westminster School, in the reign of Queen Mary, was an excellent angler. But Fuller says, while Newell was catching of fishes, Bishop Bonner was catching of Newell, and would certainly have sent him to the shambles, had not a good London merchant conveyed him away upon the seas. Newell was fis.h.i.+ng upon the banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his danger, which was so pressing, that he dared not go back to his own house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler, he had taken with him provisions for the day; and when, in the first year of England's deliverance, he returned to his country, and to his own haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank: there he looked for it, and "found it no bottle, but a gun--such the sound at the opening thereof; and this (says Fuller) is believed (casualty is mother of more invention than industry) to be the original of bottled ale in England."

BAD'S THE BEST.

Canning was once asked by an English clergyman, at whose parsonage he was visiting, how he liked the sermon he had preached that morning.

"Why, it was a short sermon," quoth Canning. "O yes," said the preacher, "you know I avoid being tedious." "Ah, but," replied Canning, "you _were_ tedious."

LUDICROUS ESTIMATE OF MR. CANNING.