Books and Authors Part 12

A SNAIL DINNER.

The chemical philosophers, Dr. Black and Dr. Hutton, were particular friends, though there was something extremely opposite in their external appearance and manner. Dr. Black spoke with the English p.r.o.nunciation, and with punctilious accuracy of expression, both in point of matter and manner. The geologist, Dr. Hutton, was the very reverse of this: his conversation was conducted in broad phrases, expressed with a broad Scotch accent, which often heightened the humour of what he said.

It chanced that the two Doctors had held some discourse together upon the folly of abstaining from feeding on the testaceous creatures of the land, while those of the sea were considered as delicacies. Wherefore not eat snails? they are known to be nutritious and wholesome, and even sanative in some cases. The epicures of old praised them among the richest delicacies, and the Italians still esteem them. In short, it was determined that a gastronomic experiment should be made at the expense of the snails. The snails were procured, dieted for a time, and then stewed for the benefit of the two philosophers, who had either invited no guests to their banquet, or found none who relished in prospect the _piece de resistance_. A huge dish of snails was placed before them: still, philosophers are but men, after all; and the stomachs of both doctors began to revolt against the experiment. Nevertheless, if they looked with disgust on the snails, they retained their awe for each other, so that each, conceiving the symptoms of internal revolt peculiar to himself, began, with infinite exertion, to swallow, in very small quant.i.ties, the mess which he internally loathed.

Dr. Black, at length, showed the white feather, but in a very delicate manner, as if to sound the opinion of his messmate. "Doctor," he said, in his precise and quiet manner--"Doctor--do you not think that they taste a little--a very little, green?" "D----d green! d----d green!

indeed--tak' them awa',--tak' them awa'!" vociferated Dr. Hutton, starting up from table, and giving full vent to his feelings of abhorrence. So ended all hopes of introducing snails into the modern _cuisine_; and thus philosophy can no more cure a nausea than honour can set a broken limb.--_Sir Walter Scott._

CURRAN'S IMAGINATION.

"Curran!" (says Lord Byron) "Curran's the man who struck me most. Such imagination!--there never was anything like it that I ever heard of.

His _published_ life--his published speeches, give you no idea of the man--none at all. He was a _machine_ of imagination, as some one said that Prior was an epigrammatic machine." Upon another occasion, Byron said, "the riches of Curran's Irish imagination were exhaustless. I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have ever seen written--though I saw him seldom, and but occasionally. I saw him presented to Madame de Stael, at Mackintosh's--it was the grand confluence between the Rhone and the Saone; they were both so d----d ugly, that I could not help wondering how the best intellects of France and Ireland could have taken up respectively such residences."

COWLEY AT CHERTSEY.

The poet Cowley died at the Porch House, Chertsey, on the 21st of July, 1667. There is a curious letter preserved of his condition when he removed here from Barn Elms. It is addressed to Dr. Sprat, dated Chertsey, 21 May, 1665, and is as follows:--

"The first night that I came hither I caught so great a cold, with a defluxion of rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten days. And, too, after had such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn myself in bed. This is my personal fortune here to begin with. And besides, I can get no money from my tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, G.o.d knows!

if it be ominous, it can end in nothing but hanging."----"I do hope to recover my hurt so farre within five or six days (though it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it) as to walk about again. And then, methinks, you and I and _the Dean_ might be very merry upon St. Ann's Hill. You might very conveniently come hither by way of Hampton Town, lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more.--_Verb.u.m sapienti._"

It is stated, by Sprat, that the last illness of Cowley was owing to his having taken cold through staying too long among his labourers in the meadows; but, in Spence's _Anecdotes_ we are informed, (on the authority of Pope,) that "his death was occasioned by a mere accident whilst his great friend, Dean Sprat, was with him on a visit at Chertsey. They had been together to see a neighbour of Cowley's, who, (according to the fas.h.i.+on of those times,) made them too welcome. They did not set out for their walk home till it was too late; and had drank so deep that they lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried him off. The parish still talk of the drunken Dean."

A PRETTY COMPLIMENT.

Although Dr. Johnson had (or professed to have) a profound and unjustified contempt for actors, he succeeded in comporting himself towards Mrs.

Siddons with great politeness; and once, when she called to see him at Bolt Court, and his servant Frank could not immediately furnish her with a chair, the doctor said, "You see, madam, that wherever you go there are _no seats to be got_."

THOMAS DAY, AND HIS MODEL WIFE.

Day, the author of _Sandford and Merton_, was an eccentric but amiable man; he retired into the country "to exclude himself," as he said, "from the vanity, vice, and deceptive character of man," but he appears to have been strangely jilted by women. When about the age of twenty-one, and after his suit had been rejected by a young lady to whom he had paid his addresses, Mr. Day formed the singular project of educating a wife for himself. This was based upon the notion of Rousseau, that "all the genuine worth of the human species is perverted by society; and that children should be educated apart from the world, in order that their minds should be kept untainted with, and ignorant of, its vices, prejudices, and artificial manners."

Day set about his project by selecting two girls from an establishment at Shrewsbury, connected with the Foundling Hospital; previously to which he entered into a written engagement, guaranteed by a friend, Mr. Bicknell, that within twelve months he would resign one of them to a respectable mistress, as an apprentice, with a fee of one hundred pounds; and, on her marriage, or commencing business for herself, he would give her the additional sum of four hundred pounds; and he further engaged that he would act honourably to the one he should retain, in order to marry her at a proper age; or, if he should change his mind, he would allow her a competent support until she married, and then give her five hundred pounds as a dowry.

The objects of Day's speculation were both twelve years of age. One of them, whom he called Lucretia, had a fair complexion, with light hair and eyes; the other was a brunette, with chesnut tresses, who was styled Sabrina. He took these girls to France without any English servants, in order that they should not obtain any knowledge but what he should impart. As might have been antic.i.p.ated, they caused him abundance of inconvenience and vexation, increased, in no small degree, by their becoming infected with the small-pox; from this, however, they recovered without any injury to their features. The scheme ended in the utter disappointment of the projector. Lucretia, whom he first dismissed, was apprenticed to a milliner; and she afterwards became the wife of a linendraper in London. Sabrina, after Day had relinquished his attempts to make her such a model of perfection as he required, and which included indomitable courage, as well as the difficult art of retaining secrets, was placed at a boarding-school at Sutton Coldfield, in Warwicks.h.i.+re, where she was much esteemed; and, strange to say, was at length married to Mr. Bicknell.

After Day had renounced this scheme as impracticable, he became suitor to two sisters in succession; yet, in both instances, he was refused. At length, he was married at Bath, to a lady who made "a large fortune the means of exercising the most extensive generosity."

WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING AND WILKIE, IN THE ALHAMBRA.

Geoffrey Crayon (Irving), and Wilkie, the painter, were fellow-travellers on the Continent, about the year 1827. In their rambles about some of the old cities of Spain, they were more than once struck with scenes and incidents which reminded them of pa.s.sages in the _Arabian Nights_. The painter urged Mr. Irving to write something that should ill.u.s.trate those peculiarities, "something in the 'Haroun-al-Raschid style,'" which should have a deal of that Arabian spice which pervades everything in Spain. The author set to work, _con amore_, and produced two goodly volumes of Arabesque sketches and tales, founded on popular traditions.

His study was the Alhambra, and the governor of the palace gave Irving and Wilkie permission to occupy his vacant apartments there. Wilkie was soon called away by the duties of his station; but Was.h.i.+ngton Irving remained for several months, spell-bound in the old enchanted pile. "How many legends," saith he, "and traditions, true and fabulous--how many songs and romances, Spanish and Arabian, of love, and war, and chivalry, are a.s.sociated with this romantic pile."

BOLINGBROKE AT BATTERSEA.

When the late Sir Richard Phillips took his "Morning's Walk from London to Kew," in 1816, he found that a portion of the family mansion in which Lord Bolingbroke was born had been converted into a mill and distillery, though a small oak parlour had been carefully preserved. In this room, Pope is said to have written his _Essay on Man_; and, in Bolingbroke's time, the mansion was the resort, the hope, and the seat of enjoyment, of Swift, Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and all the contemporary genius of England. The oak room was always called "Pope's Parlour," it being, in all probability, the apartment generally occupied by that great poet, in his visits to his friend Bolingbroke.

On inquiring for an ancient inhabitant of Battersea, Sir Richard Phillips was introduced to a Mrs. Gilliard, a pleasant and intelligent woman, who told him she well remembered Lord Bolingbroke; that he used to ride out every day in his chariot, and had a black patch on his cheek, with a large wart over his eyebrows. She was then but a girl, but she was taught to look upon him with veneration as a great man. As, however, he spent little in the place, and gave little away, he was not much regarded by the people of Battersea. Sir Richard mentioned to her the names of several of Bolingbroke's contemporaries; but she recollected none except that of Mallet, who, she said, she had often seen walking about in the village, while he was visiting at Bolingbroke House.

RELICS OF MILTON.

Milton was born at the _Spread Eagle_,[8] Bread-street, Cheapside, December 9, 1608; and was buried, November, 1674, in St. Giles's Church, Cripplegate, without even a stone, in the first instance, to mark his resting-place; but, in 1793, a bust and tablet were set up to his memory by public subscription.

Milton, before he resided in Jewin-gardens, Aldersgate, is believed to have removed to, and "kept school" in a large house on the west side of Aldersgate-street, wherein met the City of London Literary and Scientific Inst.i.tution, previously to the rebuilding of their premises in 1839.

Milton's London residences have all, with one exception, disappeared, and cannot be recognised; this is in Petty France, at Westminster, where the poet lived from 1651 to 1659. The lower part of the house is a chandler's-shop; the parlour, up stairs, looks into St. James's-park.

Here part of _Paradise Lost_ was written. The house belonged to Jeremy Bentham, who caused to be placed on its front a tablet, inscribed, "SACRED TO MILTON, PRINCE OF POETS."

In the same gla.s.s-case with Shakspeare's autograph, in the British Museum, is a printed copy of the Elegies on Mr. Edward King, the subject of _Lycidas_, with some corrections of the text in Milton's handwriting.

Framed and glazed, in the library of Mr. Rogers, the poet, hangs the written agreement between Milton and his publisher, Simmons, for the copyright of his _Paradise Lost_.--_Note-book of 1848._

[8] The house has been destroyed many years.

WRITING UP THE "TIMES" NEWSPAPER.

Dr. Dibdin, in his _Reminiscences_, relates:--"Sir John Stoddart married the sister of Lord Moncrieff, by whom he has a goodly race of representatives; but, before his marriage, _he was the man who wrote up the Times newspaper_ to its admitted pitch of distinction and superiority over every other contemporary journal. Mark, gentle reader, I speak of the _Times_ newspaper during the eventful and appalling crisis of Bonaparte's invasion of Spain and destruction of Moscow. My friend fought with his _pen_ as Wellington fought with his _sword_: but nothing like a t.i.the of the remuneration which was justly meted out to the hero of Waterloo befel the editor of the _Times_. Of course, I speak of remuneration in degree, and not in kind. The peace followed. Public curiosity lulled, and all great and stirring events having subsided, it was thought that a writer of less commanding talent, (certainly not the _present Editor_,) and therefore procurable at a less premium, would answer the current purposes of the day; and the retirement of Dr.

Stoddart, (for he was at this time a civilian, and particularly noticed and patronised by Lord Stowell,) from the old _Times_, and his establishment of the _New Times_ newspaper, followed in consequence. But the latter, from various causes, had only a short-lived existence. Sir John Stoddart had been his Majesty's advocate, or Attorney-General, at Malta, before he retired thither a _second_ time, to a.s.sume the office of Judge."

RELICS OF THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP.

The portal of the Boar's Head was originally decorated with carved oak figures of Falstaff and Prince Henry; and in 1834, the former figure was in the possession of a brazier, of Great Eastcheap, whose ancestors had lived in the shop he then occupied since the great fire. The last grand Shakspearean dinner-party took place at the Boar's Head about 1784. A boar's head, with silver tusks, which had been suspended in some room in the house, perhaps the Half Moon or Pomegranate, (see _Henry IV._, Act.