Genius in Sunshine and Shadow Part 9

Correggio took the heavy burden on his shoulders and bore it two leagues and more, under a broiling Italian sun, to reach his home. On arriving there he was completely exhausted, and drank freely of the water his children brought to him; then, disheartened at his ill-fortune and broken down by fatigue, he went sadly to his rude bed, to awake on the following morning in a burning fever and delirious. In two days Correggio was no more.

The development of the genius which slept in the soul of Canova when a lad was brought about by a happy accident. A superb banquet was preparing in the palace of the Falieri family at Venice. The tables were already arranged, when it was discovered that a crowning ornament of some sort was required to complete the general effect of the banqueting board. Canova's grandfather, who brought him up, was a stone-cutter, often hewing out stone ornaments for the architects; and as he lived close at hand, he was hastily consulted by the steward of the Falieris.

Canova chanced to go with his grandfather to view the tables, and overheard the consultation. His quick eye and ready genius at once suggested a suitable design for the apex of the princ.i.p.al dishes. "Give me a plate of cold b.u.t.ter," said the boy; and seating himself at a side table he rapidly moulded a lion of proper proportions, and so true to nature in its pose and detail as to astonish all present. It was put in place, and proved to be the most striking ornamental article there. When the guests were seated and discovered it, they exclaimed aloud with admiration, and demanded to see at once the person who could perform such a miracle impromptu. Canova was brought before them, and his boyish person only heightened their wonder. From that hour he had in the head of this opulent family a kind, appreciative, and liberal patron. He was placed under tuition with the best sculptors of Venice and Rome, to study the art of which he finally became a grand master.[183]

The story of Spagnoletto is a romantic one, and not without a vivid moral. Of such humble birth was he, that nothing is said of it by himself or his friends. He suffered the very extreme of poverty; but feeling a deep love for art, and a consciousness within him that he was born to be a painter, he pursued this purpose through besetting difficulties for years. He still felt within him a power of genius superior to all and every disadvantage which he encountered. He was Spanish by birth, but made his way on foot to Rome, where he worked for his daily bread at anything which offered, and for many months was employed as a street porter, but at the same time followed the study of art in his humble way. One day a cardinal pa.s.sing in his carriage saw in the streets a ragged person painting a board affixed to an ordinary house of Rome. The young man's wretchedness attracted his attention. It was Spagnoletto earning wherewith to purchase a loaf of bread. The cardinal questioned him, took him home to his palace and gave him every luxury he desired, as well as the means to pursue his beloved art. For a brief time all was well, and the art student made great progress; but, alas! the nature which could withstand the frowns of fortune wilted beneath her smiles, and pleasure thoroughly seduced the youth by her tempting wiles. He became a slave to the senses, neglected art entirely, and was fast going to ruin. One night Spagnoletto had a dream; it was the midnight visit of his better angel, and she prevailed. He awoke the next morning determined to leave the cardinal's palace with all its luxuries behind him, to resume his former condition and industry. He worked his way to Naples, and by degrees rose steadily in art until he cast off his rags and was independent. He furnished so perfect a painting of Saint Bartholomew stripped to the muscles, that it became a valued study for anatomists, and from that day his fame was a.s.sured. His pictures were eagerly sought for, and to-day they adorn the best European galleries.[184] As Salvator Rosa, the Italian artist, delighted most in depicting wild, rugged mountain scenery and battles, so Spagnoletto, the Spanish painter, was most at home with martyrdoms, executions, and tragic scenes generally. He died at Naples in 1656.

Genius is confined to no line of art, to no special profession; we find its exponents in the legislative hall, in the pulpit, and on the stage.

Garrick was undoubtedly one of the greatest geniuses of the English stage; he was not only an actor, but a successful dramatic author. He married a Viennese danseuse, and so far as the world knows was happy in his domestic relations. He was equally at home in tragedy and comedy, possessing in a most marvellous degree the art of imitating the physiognomy of others and the manner of expressing their various emotions. It is said of him that he could imitate anything, bird or beast, both in voice and manner. On the occasion of a grand dinner-party in London, at a certain lord's, Garrick was a guest; in the course of the entertainment he was suddenly missed, and at last was discovered in the garden belonging to the house, where a young negro boy was rolling on the ground convulsed with screams of laughter to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-c.o.c.k that was strutting about in the enclosure. The actor had his coat-tail stuck out behind, and was in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride.[185] Garrick declared that he would cheerfully give a hundred guineas if he could say "Oh!" as Whitfield did. A n.o.ble friend wished him to be a candidate for Parliament. "No, my lord," said the actor, sincerely; "I would rather play the part of great men on the stage, than the part of fool in Parliament."[186] He acc.u.mulated a large fortune, stated at over a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. He died in 1779, and was buried with such pomp as is awarded only to those who are considered national characters. His ashes rest beside the tomb of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey.

Moore mentions having seen that excellent comic genius John Liston behind the scenes in a towering rage about some trifle, while he was dressed and "made up" for the part of Rigdum Funidos,--a contrast which must have been as ludicrous as when Was.h.i.+ngton Irving met Grimaldi in a furious rage behind the curtain, with the regular stage grin painted on his cheeks. Liston began his profession in tragic parts and developed his wonderful comic powers by chance, being suddenly called upon one evening to fill the low comedian's place on account of the illness of the actor cast for the part. He made a hit at once, such as he had not dreamed of, and it was seen by every one that he was naturally a comic actor. On the occasion referred to, by the exercise of his extraordinary facial powers he caused the spectators and actors, until the curtain fell on the closing scene, to roar with laughter, though but very little of the text had been audible to them. True genius loses itself in the character and the subject. Betterton, when he performed Hamlet, by reason of the violent and sudden emotion of amazement and horror at the presence of his father's spectre, absolutely turned as white as his neckcloth, although his natural cast of countenance was very florid, while his whole body seemed affected by an uncontrollable tremor. Had his father's apparition indeed risen before him, he could not have been seized with more real agonies. When a well-known actor of that period, named Booth, first took the part of the ghost, Betterton acted Hamlet; on which occasion his extraordinary look struck Booth with such horror that for a moment he remained silent, having forgotten his part.[187]

Samuel Foote, the witty English comedian, was one of the vainest of geniuses. "For loud, obstreperous, broad-faced mirth," said Dr. Johnson, "I know not his equal." Foote sought the stage to earn thereby a living after squandering his fortune at gaming and other vices. When visiting in the country, his vanity led him to boast of his horsemans.h.i.+p, an accomplishment of which he knew little or nothing; and when invited by Lord Mexborough to join the hunt, he could not decently decline. The consequence was that at the first burst he was thrown and broke his leg in two places, so that amputation was necessary. However, he managed to play nearly as well with a cork leg. To some one who made a reflection upon his "game" leg, Foote replied promptly: "Make no allusion to my weakest part. Did I ever attack your head?" Garrick, observing that Foote had placed a plaster bust of him in his entry, remarked, "You are not afraid, I see, to trust me near your gold and bank-notes." "No,"

retorted the humorist, "you have no hands!" Foote was considered by his contemporaries the greatest master of comic humor after Moliere. One day Foote, Garrick, and Dr. Johnson went together to Bedlam,--a hospital in London for the insane. Johnson, who was much affected at the sight of so much human misery, got into a corner by himself to meditate, and in the progress of his mood he threw himself into so many strange att.i.tudes, and drew his face into such odd shapes, that Foote whispered mysteriously to Garrick to ask _how they should contrive to get him out_!

Of the moral character of Nell Gwynn, who was a favorite London actress and a mistress of Charles II., the less said the better; and yet she was not entirely void of good impulses, for it is well known that she persuaded the king to establish and endow Chelsea Hospital. But of Bracegirdle, the beautiful actress who captivated all hearts, and whom Congreve was thought nearly to wors.h.i.+p, not a word reflecting upon her moral character could be truthfully uttered. At a London coffee-house one evening there chanced to be gathered a score or more of her admirers, including the Dukes of Devons.h.i.+re and Dorset, besides other members of the peerage. Bracegirdle's name had been mentioned; when Lord Halifax said: "You all of you praise the virtue of this lady; why not reward her for not selling it? There are two hundred guineas _pour encourager les autres_." A thousand guineas were raised on the spot, which the n.o.blemen took to Bracegirdle, going into her presence in a body. As it was a testimony intended in honor of her virtue, she accepted it. No doubt a large portion of this handsome tribute found its way very quickly into the hands of her needy pensioners; for she was no more estimable in her profession than n.o.ble in her charities. The best dramatists wrote for her; and two of them, Rowe and Congreve, when they gave her a lover in a play seemed palpably to plead their own pa.s.sions and to make their individual court to her in fict.i.tious characters.

Having spoken of Nell Gwynn and Bracegirdle, another English actress, Margaret Woffington, comes forcibly to mind; and though we do not propose to treat especially the profession of the drama, the incidental mention of some of its members in this gossip is not out of place. Her father was an Irish bricklayer in Dublin, where Peg Woffington, as she was best known, was a great public favorite long before she came to London to find an equally agreeable home. Her versatility of genius may be judged of from the fact of her personating Lady Macbeth and Sir Harry Wildare with equal excellence. The latter character was a favorite one with Garrick, but he gave up the part altogether after witnessing her excellence in its a.s.sumption.[188] She also was distinguished for her benevolence and open-handed charity. The manager of Covent Garden Theatre could always be sure of a full house when he announced her in the character of the gay, dissipated, good-humored rake, Sir Harry Wildare. Margaret built and endowed two almshouses at Teddington, Middles.e.x, and lies buried in the princ.i.p.al church of the district. In the height of her popularity she declared that she preferred the society of men to that of women; the latter, she said, "talk of nothing but silks and scandal." Her end was singularly dramatic. She was playing the character of Rosalind with more than usual eclat, when she was struck with paralysis, and died soon after in the prime of life.[189]

We have spoken of accident as often determining the development and directing the course of genius. Edward Shuter was one of the most popular comedians on the London stage in 1776, but he began life as a pot-boy at a public-house in the neighborhood of Covent Garden. A gentleman came to the house one evening, and after refres.h.i.+ng himself he sent the boy Shuter to call him a hackney-coach. On reaching home he found that he had dropped his pocket-book; and suspecting that he had lost it in the coach, he went the next morning to the tavern to make inquiry. He asked Shuter if he knew the number of the hack. The poor boy could not read or write, and was totally unskilled in numerals; but he knew the signs by which his master scored the quarts and pints of porter that were drunk, and to the gentleman's inquiry as to the number of the coach which the boy had called for him Shuter said it was "two pots and a pint" (771). This was unintelligible to the gentleman, but was explained by the landlord. The coachman was summoned, and the pocket-book recovered. This acuteness of the boy interested the gentleman, and he became his patron, sent him to school, and gave him a start in the line of his choice, which was the theatrical profession.

Such is the story in brief of one of the famous London comedians.

How many of our readers remember the one recorded scene when Queen Elizabeth condescended to coquet with Shakespeare? The great bard was performing the part of a king; Elizabeth's box was contiguous to the stage, and she purposely dropped her handkerchief from the box upon the boards, at the very feet of Shakespeare, having a mind thus to try whether her poet would stoop from his high estate of a.s.sumed majesty.

"Take up _our_ sister's handkerchief," was his prompt and dignified order to one of the actors in his train.

It will doubtless be found interesting to see recorded in juxtaposition the words and the manner of death of some of the great geniuses whom history mentions. When Alonzo Cano, the famous Spanish artist, was dying, the attendant priest presented before him an ivory crucifix; Cano turned away and refused to look at it because the sculpture was so bad, calling for a plain cross, which he embraced, and died. Chaucer breathed his last while composing a ballad. When the priest came whom Alfieri had been prevailed upon to see, he requested him to call the next day.

"Death, I trust, will tarry four-and-twenty hours," he said, but died in the interim. Petrarch was found dead in his library, leaning on a book.

"I could wish this tragic scene were over," said Quin the actor, "but I hope to go through it with becoming dignity." Pitt, the great statesman, died alone, in a solitary house on Wimbledon Common. Rousseau, when dying, asked to be carried to the window of the apartment overlooking his garden, that he might look his last on Nature.

When Malherbe the lyric poet was dying, he reprimanded his nurse for making use of a solecism in her language, and bade the priest stop his trite, cant talk about heaven, saying, "Your wretched style only makes me out of conceit with it." Bide, the English monk and author, on the night of his death continued to dictate to his amanuensis. He asked his scribe how many chapters yet remained to complete the work, and was told there was one. "Take your pen," he commanded, and went on with the work.

By and by the scribe said, "It is finished," just as his master breathed his last. Roscommon, when expiring, quoted from his own translation of the "Dies Irae." "All my possessions for a moment of time!" were the dying words of Queen Elizabeth. The last words of Cardinal Beaufort were, "What! is there no bribing death?" The last words uttered by Byron were, "I must sleep now." In his last moments Crebillon, who had composed two acts of his tragedy of "Catiline," regretted that he had not been spared to complete it.

Colorden on the day of his death was visited by his friend Barthe, who requested his opinion of the comedy of the "Selfish Man," which he came to read at his bedside. "You may add an excellent trait to the character of your princ.i.p.al personage," said Colorden. "Say that he obliged an old friend, on the eve of his death, to hear him read a five-act comedy!"

"Let me die to the sound of delicious music," were the last words of Mirabeau. Herder died writing an ode to the Deity, his pen on the last line. h.e.l.ler died feeling his own pulse; and when he found it almost gone, turning his eyes to his brother physician, said, "My friend, the artery ceases to beat!" "Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to anchor,"

said Nelson, and expired. The last words of Charles I. were uttered on the scaffold,--"I fear not death! Death is not terrible to me!"

Curran's ruling pa.s.sion was strong in death. Near the close of his earthly hours his physician at his morning call said he "seemed to cough with more difficulty." "That's surprising," said the almost exhausted invalid, "as I have been practising all night." "There is not a drop of blood on my hands," said the expiring Frederick V. of Denmark. "Let not poor Nellie starve" (Nell Gwynn, his mistress), were the last words of Charles II. "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore do I die in exile," said Pope Gregory VII. with his expiring breath. Anne Boleyn turned to the executioner on the scaffold, and pointing to her neck, said pathetically, "It is small, very small indeed!" The last words of Maria Theresa were, "I do not sleep; I wish to meet my death awake." Madam Roland exclaimed, "O liberty! liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!"

It was in perfect accord with his character when Chancellor Thurlow said at the closing moment of his life, "I'm shot if I don't believe I'm dying!" "World without end, Amen!" said Bunyan as he breathed his last.

"Guilty, but recommended to the mercy of the court," whispered Lord Hermand. "For the last time I commit soul, body, and spirit into His hands," said John Knox in dying. "Trust in G.o.d," said President Edwards, "and you need not fear." These were his last words. "If I had strength enough to hold a pen," said Willian Hunter, the distinguished anatomist, "I would write how easy and delightful it is to die." The dying words of Louis XIV. were, "I thought that dying had been more difficult." Arthur Murphy the dramatist quoted in his last breath Pope's lines,--

"Taught by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death and calmly pa.s.s away."

When asked if he heard the prayers which were offered in his presence, the Duke of Marlborough replied, "Yes, and I join in them." He never spoke again. "O Lord, open the King of England's eyes," said the martyr Tyndale as he died at the stake. When those n.o.ble English reformers, Latimer and Ridley, were being burned at the stake, "Be of good cheer, brother," cried Ridley, "for our G.o.d will either a.s.suage the fury of this flame or enable us to abide it." Latimer replied: "Be of good comfort, brother, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as by G.o.d's grace shall never be put out." Lady Jane Grey's last words upon the scaffold were: "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

"Many things are growing plain and clear to me," whispered Schiller, and died with these words on his lips.

Anna Laet.i.tia Barbauld, the English auth.o.r.ess, wrote with great poetic feeling and moral beauty. Her husband became a lunatic, and she suffered much. It was her beautiful self-sacrifice that gave the best charm to her character. She wrote, among many other works, a popular life of the novelist Richardson, and some political pamphlets of great force and excellence. Her series of books for children would alone have given her lasting reputation. There occurs to us in these closing pages the stanza which she wrote in her old age, probably in her eighty-second year, not long before her death,--lines which Rogers and Wordsworth so much and so justly admired. The former says in his "Table Talk" that while sitting with Madame D'Arblay a few weeks before her death, he asked her if she remembered these lines of Mrs. Barbauld's. "Remember them!" answered the famous auth.o.r.ess, "I repeat them to myself every night before I go to sleep."

"Life! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'T is hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not 'Good-night,' but in some brighter clime Bid me 'Good morning.'"

CHAPTER XI.

Genius has its hours of suns.h.i.+ne as well as of shadow, and when it finds expression in wit and humor it is undoubtedly most popular. The Emperor t.i.tus thought he had lost a day if he had pa.s.sed it without laughing.

Coleridge tells us men of humor are in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so, although a man of genius may, among other gifts, possess wit. As in pathos and tenderness "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin," so is it in true wit and humor with the appreciative.

Obtuseness will be unsympathetic under any circ.u.mstances. "It is not in the power of every one to taste humor," says Sterne, "however much he may wish it; it is the gift of G.o.d! and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment with him." Bruyere has somewhere said very finely that "wit is the G.o.d of moments, but genius is the G.o.d of ages." Some men of genius have found their most natural exponent to be the pen; others indulge in practical humor. Sheridan[190] belonged to this latter cla.s.s; he was full of fun and frolic, ever on the alert for an opportunity to exercise his humor. When on a certain occasion he had been driving about the town for three or four hours in a hackney-coach, he chanced to see his friend Richardson, whom he hailed, and invited into the vehicle. When they were seated together he at once introduced a subject upon which he and Richardson always differed, and a controversy naturally ensued. At last, affecting to be mortified at Richardson's argument, Sheridan said abruptly, "You are really too bad; I cannot bear to listen to such things: I will not stay in the coach with you." And accordingly he opened the door and sprang out, Richardson hallooing triumphantly, "Ah, you're beat, you're beat!" Nor was it until the heat of the victory had a little cooled that he realized he was left in the lurch to pay for Sheridan's three hours' coaching.[191]

Sheridan, profligate and unprincipled as he was, still was capable of fine expression of sentiment and true poetic fire. In a poem called "Clio's Protest; or, the Picture Varnished," we find the following really beautiful lines:--

"Marked you her cheek of rosy hue?

Marked you her eye of sparkling blue?

That eye in liquid circles moving; That cheek abashed at man's approving; The one Love's arrows darting round; The other blus.h.i.+ng at the wound: Did she not speak, did she not move, Now Pallas, now the Queen of Love?"

The poets have frequently made satire an auxiliary of their wit; and when the proportions are properly adhered to, a favorable result is produced. Satire, like many subtle poisons used as a medicine, may be safely taken in small quant.i.ties, while an overdose is liable to be fatal. In Chaucer's[192] Canterbury Pilgrims he draws his portraits to the life. While he exposes the weakness of human nature, he does not do so in surliness; a pleasant smile wreathes his lips all the while. There is slyness, but no bitterness in his satire. He would not chastise, he would only reform his fellow-men. As ill.u.s.trating exactly the opposite spirit, we may instance Pope, Dryden, and Byron, who, descending from their high estate, often prost.i.tuted their genius to attacks upon personal enemies or rivals, with keenest weapons, while their opponents had no means of defence. The "Dunciad" is a monument of satiric wit, or genius belittled.

Swift, who wrote "cords" of worthless rhymes, squibs, songs, and verses, which live as much by their vulgar smartness as for the slight portion of true wit which tinctures them, says: "Satire is a sort of gla.s.s wherein beholders generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets with in the world, and that so few are offended with it." Hawthorne gave the Dean a merited thrust when he said, "the person or thing on which his satire fell shrivelled up as if the Devil had spit on it." The _double entendre_ to be found in nearly all of Swift's effusions, epigrams, and verses, comes with ill grace from a dignitary of the Church. He was always ready with an epigram on all occasions. One "lives in our memory"

which he addressed to Mrs. Houghton of Bormount, who took occasion one day to praise her husband in Swift's presence:--

"You always are making a G.o.d of your spouse; But this neither reason nor conscience allows: Perhaps you will say 'tis in grat.i.tude due, And you adore him because he adores you.

Your argument's weak, and so you will find; For you, by this rule, must adore all mankind."

The wit and humor of Shakespeare endear him to our hearts; and what a rich harvest does the gleaner obtain from his pages! Take "Love's Labor's Lost," for instance, a play produced in his youth, so full of quips and quiddity as to live in the memory by whole scenes. There is no lack of scathing sarcasm in the play, but it leaves no bitter taste in the mouth, like the "doses" of Swift or the more unscrupulous productions of Pope in the same line. Ben Jonson,[193] who ranked so high as a dramatist, has been p.r.o.nounced to be, next to Shakespeare, the greatest wit and humorist of his time. His expression was through the pen, not by the tongue: no man was more taciturn in society. Much of Jonson's matter was better adapted to his time than to ours; words which seem to us so coa.r.s.e and vulgar pa.s.sed unchallenged in the period which gave them birth.

Here are five lines from Jonson, with which he closes a play directed against plagiarists and libellers generally. He sums up thus:--

"Blush, folly, blus.h.!.+ here's none that fears The wagging of an a.s.s's ears, Although a wolfish case he wears.

Detraction is but baseness' varlet, And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet."

It is said that Jonson was a "sombre" man. We have seen that it is by no means always suns.h.i.+ne with those who brighten others' spirits by their pen. The great luminary is not always above the horizon.

A friend remarked to the wife of one of our wittiest poets, "What an atmosphere of mirth you must live in, to share a home with one who writes always so sportively and wittily!" The answer was a most significant shake of the head.

We spoke of Dryden as a satirist; perhaps no writer ever went further in the line of bitterness and personality. His portrait of the Duke of Buckingham will occur to the reader in this connection:--

"A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."

When a boy at school in Westminster, Dryden more than once showed the budding promise of the genius that was in him. When put with other cla.s.smates to write a composition on the miracle of the conversion of water into wine, he remained idle and truant, as usual, up to the last moment, when he had only time to produce one line in Latin and two in English; but they were of such excellence as to presage his future greatness as a poet, and elicit hearty praise from his tutor. They were as follows:--

_Videt et erubit lympha pudica Deum!_

"The modest water, awed by power divine, Beheld its G.o.d, and blushed itself to wine."

Dryden's complete works form the largest amount of poetical composition from the pen of one writer, in the English language; and yet he published scarcely anything until he was nearly thirty years of age.

From that period he was actively engaged in authors.h.i.+p for forty years, and gave us some of the finest touches of his genius in his second spring of life. Addison wrote of Dryden at this period the following lines:--