Books and Authors Part 6

DROLLERY SPONTANEOUS.

More drolleries are uttered unintentionally than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being "droll to order." One evening a lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ----, tell us a lively anecdote;" and the poor fellow was mute the rest of the evening.

"Favour me with your company on Wednesday evening--you are such a lion,"

said a weak party-giver to a young _litterateur_. "I thank you," replied the wit, "but, on that evening I am engaged to eat fire at the Countess of ----, and stand upon my head at Mrs. ----."

ORIGIN OF COWPER'S "JOHN GILPIN."

It happened one afternoon, in those years when Cowper's accomplished friend, Lady Austen, made a part of his little evening circle, that she observed him sinking into increased dejection; it was her custom, on these occasions, to try all the resources of her sprightly powers for his immediate relief. She told him the story of John Gilpin, (which had been treasured in her memory from her childhood), to dissipate the gloom of the pa.s.sing hour. Its effects on the fancy of Cowper had the air of enchantment. He informed her the next morning that convulsions of laughter, brought on by his recollection of her story, had kept him waking during the greatest part of the night! and that he had turned it into a ballad. So arose the pleasant poem of John Gilpin. To Lady Austen's suggestion, also, we are indebted for the poem of "the Task."

HARD FATE OF AUTHORS.

Sir E. B. (now Lord) Lytton, in the memoir which he prefixed to the collected works of Laman Blanchard, draws the following affecting picture of that author's position, after he had parted from an engagement upon a popular newspaper:--

"For the author there is nothing but his pen, till that and life are worn to the stump: and then, with good fortune, perhaps on his death-bed he receives a pension--and equals, it may be, for a few months, the income of a retired butler! And, so on the sudden loss of the situation in which he had frittered away his higher and more delicate genius, in all the drudgery that a party exacts from its defender of the press, Laman Blanchard was thrown again upon the world, to s.h.i.+ft as he might and subsist as he could. His practice in periodical writing was now considerable; his versatility was extreme. He was marked by publishers and editors as a useful contributor, and so his livelihood was secure. From a variety of sources thus he contrived, by constant waste of intellect and strength, to eke out his income, and insinuate rather than force his place among his contemporary penmen. And uncomplainingly, and with patient industry, he toiled on, seeming farther and farther off from the happy leisure, in which 'the something to verify promise was to be completed.' No time had he for profound reading, for lengthened works, for the mature development of the conceptions of a charming fancy. He had given hostages to fortune. He had a wife and four children, and no income but that which he made from week to week. The grist must be ground, and the wheel revolve. All the struggle, all the toils, all the weariness of brain, nerve, and head, which a man undergoes in his career, are imperceptible even to his friends--almost to himself; he has no time to be ill, to be fatigued; his spirit has no holiday; it is all school-work. And thus, generally, we find in such men that the break up of the const.i.tution seems sudden and unlooked-for. The causes of disease and decay have been long laid; but they are smothered beneath the lively appearances of constrained industry and forced excitement."

JAMES SMITH, ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF "REJECTED ADDRESSES."

A writer in the _Law Quarterly Magazine_ says:--To the best of our information, James's _coup d'essai_ in literature was a hoax in the shape of a series of letters to the editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, detailing some extraordinary antiquarian discoveries and facts in natural history, which the worthy Sylva.n.u.s Urban inserted without the least suspicion. In 1803, he became a constant contributor to the _Pic-Nic_ and _Cabinet_ weekly journals, in conjunction with Mr.

c.u.mberland, Sir James Bland Burgess, Mr. Horatio Smith, and others. The princ.i.p.al caterer for these publications was Colonel Greville, on whom Lord Byron has conferred a not very enviable immortality--

"Or hail at once the patron and the pile Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle."

One of James Smith's favourite anecdotes related to him. The Colonel requested his young ally to call at his lodgings, and in the course of their first interview related the particulars of the most curious circ.u.mstance in his life. He was taken prisoner during the American war, along with three other officers of the same rank; one evening they were summoned into the presence of Was.h.i.+ngton, who announced to them that the conduct of their Government, in condemning one of his officers to death as a rebel, compelled him to make reprisals; and that, much to his regret, he was under the necessity of requiring them to cast lots, without delay, to decide which of them should be hanged. They were then bowed out, and returned to their quarters. Four slips of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, "I knew how it would be; I never won so much as a hit of backgammon in my life." As Greville told the story, he was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, under the pretext of companions.h.i.+p, but, in reality, to prevent him from escaping, and leaving the honour amongst the remaining three. "And what," inquired Smith, "did you say to comfort him?" "Why, I remember saying to him, when they left us, _D---- it, old fellow, never mind_;" but it may be doubted (added Smith) whether he drew much comfort from the exhortation. Lady Asgill persuaded the French minister to interpose, and the captain was permitted to escape.

Both James and Horatio Smith were also contributors to the _Monthly Mirror_, then the property of Mr. Thomas Hill, a gentleman who had the good fortune to live familiarly with three or four generations of authors; the same, in short, with whom the subject of this memoir thus playfully remonstrated: "Hill, you take an unfair advantage of an accident; the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you now give yourself out for younger than you are."

The fame of the Smiths, however, was confined to a limited circle until the publication of the _Rejected Addresses_, which rose at once into almost unprecedented celebrity.

James Smith used to dwell with much pleasure on the criticism of a Leicesters.h.i.+re clergyman: "I do not see why they (the _Addresses_) should have been rejected: I think some of them very good." This, he would add, is almost as good as the avowal of the Irish bishop, that there were some things in _Gulliver's Travels_ which he could not believe.

Though never guilty of intemperance, James was a martyr to the gout; and, independently of the difficulty he experienced in locomotion, he partook largely of the feeling avowed by his old friend Jekyll, who used to say that, if compelled to live in the country, he would have the drive before his house paved like the streets of London, and hire a hackney-coach to drive up and down all day long.

He used to tell, with great glee, a story showing the general conviction of his dislike to ruralities. He was sitting in the library at a country-house, when a gentleman proposed a quiet stroll into the pleasure-grounds:--

"'Stroll! why, don't you see my gouty shoe?'

"'Yes, I see that plain enough, and I wish I'd brought one too, but they're all out now.'

"'Well, and what then?'

"'What then? Why, my dear fellow, you don't mean to say that you have really got the gout? I thought you had only put on that shoe to get off being shown over the improvements.'"

His bachelors.h.i.+p is thus attested in his niece's alb.u.m:

"Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die, Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses: For what little fame Is annexed to my name, Is derived from _Rejected Addresses_."

The two following are amongst the best of his good things. A gentleman with the same Christian and surname took lodgings in the same house. The consequence was, eternal confusion of calls and letters. Indeed, the postman had no alternative but to share the letters equally between the two. "This is intolerable, sir," said our friend, "and you must quit."

"Why am I to quit more than you?" "Because you are James the Second--and must _abdicate_."

Mr. Bentley proposed to establish a periodical publication, to be called _The Wit's Miscellany_. Smith objected that the t.i.tle promised too much.

Shortly afterwards, the publisher came to tell him that he had profited by the hint, and resolved on calling it _Bentley's Miscellany_. "Isn't that going a little too far the other way?" was the remark.

A capital pun has been very generally attributed to him. An actor, named Priest, was playing at one of the princ.i.p.al theatres. Some one remarked at the Garrick Club, that there were a great many men in the pit.

"Probably, clerks who have taken Priest's orders." The pun is perfect, but the real proprietor is Mr. Poole, one of the best punsters as well as one of the cleverest comic writers and finest satirists of the day.

It has also been attributed to Charles Lamb.

Formerly, it was customary, on emergencies, for the judges to swear affidavits at their dwelling-houses. Smith was desired by his father to attend a judge's chambers for that purpose, but being engaged to dine in Russell-square, at the next house to Mr. Justice Holroyd's, he thought he might as well save himself the disagreeable necessity of leaving the party at eight by dispatching his business at once: so, a few minutes before six, he boldly knocked at the judge's, and requested to speak to him on particular business. The judge was at dinner, but came down without delay, swore the affidavit, and then gravely asked what was the pressing necessity that induced our friend to disturb him at that hour.

As Smith told the story, he raked his invention for a lie, but finding none fit for the purpose, he blurted out the truth:--

"'The fact is, my lord, I am engaged to dine at the next house--and--and----'

"'And, sir, you thought you might as well save your own dinner by spoiling mine?'

"'Exactly so, my lord, but----'

"'Sir, I wish you a good evening.'"

Smith was rather fond of a joke on his own branch of the profession; he always gave a peculiar emphasis to the line in his song on the contradiction of names:

"Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney;"

and would frequently quote Goldsmith's lines on Hickey, the a.s.sociate of Burke and other distinguished cotemporaries:

"He cherished his friend, and he relished a b.u.mper; Yet one fault he had, and that was a thumper, Then, what was his failing? come, tell it, and burn ye: He was, could he help it? a special attorney."

The following playful colloquy in verse took place at a dinner-table between Sir George Rose and himself, in allusion to Craven-street, Strand, where he resided:--

"_J. S._--'At the top of my street the attorneys abound.

And down at the bottom the barges are found: Fly, Honesty, fly to some safer retreat, For there's craft in the river, and craft in the street.'"

"_Sir G. R._--'Why should Honesty fly to some safer retreat, From attorneys and barges, od rot 'em?

For the lawyers are _just_ at the top of the street, And the barges are _just_ at the bottom.'"