The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey Volume I Part 5

EDITOR'S NOTE.--It is evident that De Quincey meditated a much longer essay on anecdotes as false, in which Niccolo Machiavelli would have come in for notice--hence the playful references in the close.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] '_The pa.s.sion which made Juvenal a poet_.' The scholar needs no explanation; but the reader whose scholars.h.i.+p is yet amongst his futurities (which I conceive to be the civilest way of describing an _ignoramus_) must understand that Juvenal, the Roman satirist, who was in fact a predestined poet in virtue of his ebullient heart, that boiled over once or twice a day in anger that could not be expressed upon witnessing the enormities of domestic life in Rome, was willing to forego all pretensions to natural power and inspiration for the sake of obtaining such influence as would enable him to reprove Roman vices with effect.

_XII. ANNA LOUISA._

SPECIMEN TRANSLATION FROM VOSS IN HEXAMETERS, WITH LETTER TO PROFESSOR W. ('CHRISTOPHER NORTH').

DR. NORTH,

_Doctor_, I say, for I hear that the six Universities of England and Scotland have sent you a doctor's degree, or, if they have not, all the world knows they ought to have done; and the more shame for them if they keep no 'Remembrancer' to put them in mind of what they must allow to be amongst their most sacred duties. But that's all one. I once read in my childhood a pretty book, called 'Wilson's Account of the Pelew Islands,'

at which islands, you know, H.M.S. _Antelope_ was wrecked--just about the time, I fancy, when you, Doctor, and myself were in long petticoats and making some noise in the world; the book was not written by Captain Wilson, but by Keates, the sentimentalist. At the very end, however, is an epitaph, and that _was_ written by the captain and s.h.i.+p's company:

'Stop, reader, stop, let nature claim a tear; A prince of mine, Lee Boo, lies buried here.'

This epitaph used often to make me cry, and in commemoration of that effect, which (like that of all cathartics that I know of, no matter how drastic at first) has long been growing weaker and weaker, I propose (upon your allowing me an opportunity) to superscribe you in any churchyard you will appoint:

'Stop, reader, stop, let genius claim a tear; A doct'r of mine, Lee Kit, lies buried here.'

'_Doct'r of_' you are to read into a dissyllable, and pretty much like Boney's old friend on the road from Moscow, General Doct'roff, who 'doctor'd them off,' as the Laureate observes, and prescribed for the whole French army _gratis_. But now to business.

For _your_ information, Doctor, it cannot be necessary, but on account of very many readers it will be so, to say that Voss's 'Luise' has long taken its place in the literature of Germany as a cla.s.sical work--in fact, as a gem or cabinet _chef d'oeuvre_; nay, almost as their unique specimen in any national sense of the lighter and less pretending muse; less pretending, I mean, as to the pomp or gravity of the subject, but on that very account more pretending as respects the minuter graces of its execution. In the comparative estimate of Germans, the 'Luise' holds a station corresponding to that of our 'Rape of the Lock,' or of Gresset's 'Vert-vert'--corresponding, that is, in its _degree_ of relative value. As to its _kind_ of value, some notion may be formed of it even in that respect also from the 'Rape of the Lock,' but with this difference, that the scenes and situations and descriptions are there derived from the daily life and habits of a fas.h.i.+onable belle and the fine gentlemen who surround her, whereas in the 'Luise' they are derived exclusively from the homelier and more patriarchal economy of a rural clergyman's household; and in this respect the 'Luise' comes nearest by much, in comparison of any other work that I know of, to our own 'Vicar of Wakefield.' Like that delightful portrait of rural life in a particular aspect, or idyll as it might be called, the 'Luise' aims at throwing open for our amus.e.m.e.nt the interior of a village parsonage (_Scotice_, 'manse'); like that in its earlier half (for the latter half of the 'Vicar' is a sad collapse from the truth and nature of the original conception into the marvellous of a commonplace novel), the 'Luise' exhibits the several members of a rustic clergyman's family according to their differences of s.e.x, age, and standing, in their natural, undisguised features, all unconsciously marked by characteristic foibles, all engaged in the exercise of their daily habits, neither finer nor coa.r.s.er than circ.u.mstances naturally allow, and all indulging in such natural hopes or fictions of romance as grow out of their situation in life. The 'Luise,' in short, and the 'Vicar of Wakefield' are both alike a succession of circ.u.mstantial delineations selected from mere rustic life, but rustic life in its most pure and intellectual form; for as to the n.o.ble countess in the 'Luise,' or the squire and his uncle, Sir William, in the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' they do not interfere sufficiently to disturb the essential level of the movement as regards the incidents, or to colour the manners and the scenery. Agreeing, however, in this general purpose, the two works differ in two considerable features; one, that the 'Vicar of Wakefield'

describes the rural clergyman of England, 'Luise' the rural clergyman of North Germany; the other, that the English idyll is written in prose, the German in verse--both of which differences, and the separate peculiarities growing out of them, will, it may perhaps be thought, require a few words of critical discussion.

There has always existed a question as to the true principles of translation when applied, not to the mere literature of _knowledge_ (because _there_ it is impossible that two opinions can arise, by how much closer the version by so much the better), but to the literature of _power_, and to such works--above all, to poems--as might fairly be considered _works of art_ in the highest sense. To what extent the principle of _compensation_ might reasonably be carried, the license, that is, of departing from the strict literal forms of the original writer, whether as to expressions, images, or even as to the secondary thoughts, for the sake of reproducing them in some shape less repellent to a modern ear, and therefore virtually sustaining the harmony of the composition by preventing the attention from settling in a disproportionate degree upon what might have a startling effect to a taste trained under modern discipline--this question has always been pending as a question open to revision before the modern courts of criticism; as surely to you, Dr. North, one of the chief 'swells' on that bench, I need not say. But, for the sake of accurate thinking, it is worth while observing that formerly this question was moved almost exclusively with a view to the Latin and Greek cla.s.sics; and that circ.u.mstance gave a great and a very just bias to the whole dispute. For the difference with regard to any capital author of ancient days, as compared with modern authors, is this, that here we have a twofold interest--an interest with work, and a separate interest in the writer.

Take the 'Prometheus Desmotes' of aeschylus, and suppose that a translator should offer us an English 'Prometheus,' which he acknowledged to be very free, but at the same time contended that his variations from the Greek were so many downright improvements, so that, if he had not given us the genuine 'Prometheus,' he had given us something better. In such a case we should all reply, but we do not want something better. Our object is not the best possible drama that could be produced on the fable of 'Prometheus'; what we want is the very 'Prometheus' that was written by aeschylus, the very drama that was represented at Athens. The Athenian audience itself, and what pleased its taste, is already one subject of interest. aeschylus on his own account is another. These are collateral and alien subjects of interest quite independent of our interest in the drama, and for the sake of these we wish to see the real original 'Prometheus'--not according to any man's notion of improvement, but such as came from a sublime Grecian poet, such as satisfied a Grecian audience, more than two thousand years ago. We wish, in fact, for the real aeschylus, 'unhousel'd, unaneal'd,'

with all his imperfections on his head.

Such was the way, and the just way, of arguing the point when the application was limited to a great authentic cla.s.sic of the Antique; nor was the case at all different where Ariosto or any other ill.u.s.trious Italian cla.s.sic was concerned. But a new sort of casuistry in this question has arisen in our own times, and by accident chiefly in connection with German literature; but it may well be, Dr. North, that you will be more diverted by a careful scrutiny of my metres after Voss in ill.u.s.tration, than by any further dissertation on my part on a subject that you know so well.

Believe me, Always yours admiringly, X. Y. Z.

_The Parson's Dinner._

In the month of leafy June, beneath celestial azure Of skies all cloudless, sate the aged Rector of Esthwaite Dining amidst his household; but not the meridian ardour Of sunbeams fierce he felt; him the shady veranda With vine-clad trellis defends: beyond a pendulous awning Of boughs self-wreath'd from limes (whose mighty limbs overarching Spanned the low roof of the house) spreads far effectual umbrage For young and old alike; noontide awfully breathless Settled in deepest silence on the woods and valley of Esthwaite.

Yet not the less there would rise, after stillest interval often, 10 Low whispering gales that stole, like sobbing murmur of infant Dreaming in arms maternal, into the heart o' the youngest: Gales that at most could raise a single ringlet of auburn As it pencill'd the n.o.ble brow of the youthful Anna Louisa-- Sole child that survived to thee, oh, aged pastor of Esthwaite.

Clad in his morning gown, the reverend priest at a table Of sculptur'd stone was seated; and his seat was a ma.s.sy but easy Settle of oak, which in youth his ancient servitor, Isaac, Footman, s.e.xton, and steward, butler and gardener also, Carved by the winter fire in nights of gloomy November, And through many a long, long night of many a dark December. 21 The good man's heart was glad, and his eyes were suffus'd with a rapture Of perfect love as they settled on her--that pulse of his heart's blood, The one sole prop of his house, the beautiful Anna Louisa.

By the side of himself sate his wife, that ancient tamer of housemaids,[12]

Yet kind of heart as a dove, and with matron graces adorning Her place as she sate dispensing hospitality boundless To the strangers within her gates; for, lo! two strangers on one side Sate of the long stone table; yet strangers by manner or action One would not suppose them; nor were they, but guests ever honour'd, 30 And dear to each heart in the house of th' ancient Rector of Esthwaite.

The elder of them was called Augustus Harry Delancey, And he rode as a cornet of horse in the mighty imperial army.

Him had the parents approved (and those were melodious accents, The sweetest he ever had heard) as suitor of Anna Louisa.

But from lips more ruby far--far more melodious accents Had reach'd his ears since then; for she, the daughter, her own self, Had condescended at last to utter sweet ratification Of all his hopes; low whisp'ring the 'yes'--celestial answer That raised him to paradise gates on pinion[13] of expectation. 40 Over against his beloved he sate--the suitor enamour'd: And G.o.d He knows that indeed should it prove an idolatrous error To look in the eyes of a lady till you feel a dreamy devotion, I fear for the health of your soul that day, oh, Harry Delancey!

Next to Delancey there sate his pupil, Magnus Adolphus, A fair-haired boy of ten, half an orphan, a count of the empire-- Magnus Adolphus of Arnstein, that great Bavarian earldom.

Him had his widowed mother, the n.o.ble Countess of Arnstein, Placed with Delancey betimes, as one in knightly requirements Skilful and all-accomplished, that he the 'youthful idea'[14] 50 Might 'teach how to shoot' (with a pistol, videlicet),--horses To mount and to manage with boldness, hounds to follow in hunting The fox, the tusky boar, the stag with his beautiful antlers: Arts, whether graceful or useful, in arms or equestrian usage, Did Augustus impart to his pupil, the youthful earl of the empire.

To ride with stirrups or none, to mount from the near-side or off-side (Which still is required in the trooper who rides in the Austrian army), To ride with bridle or none, on a saddle Turkish or English, To force your horse to curvet, pirouette, dance on his haunches, And whilst dancing to lash with his feet, and suggest an effectual hinting 60 To the enemy's musqueteers to clear the road for the hinter: Or again, if you want a guide by night, in a dangerous highway Beset with the enemies' marksmen and swarming with murderous ambush, To train your horse in the art of delicate insinuation, Gently raising a hoof to tap at the door o' the woodsman.

But, if he persists in snoring, or pretending to snore, or is angry At your summons to leave his lair in the arms of his wife or his infants, To practise your horse in the duty of stormy recalcitration, Wheeling round to present his heels, and in mid caracoling To send the emperor's greeting smack through the panel of oakwood[15] 70 That makes the poor man so hard of hearing imperial orders.

Arts such as these and others, the use of the sabre on horseback, All modes of skill gymnastic, modes whether forceful or artful, Of death-grapple if by chance a cannon-shot should un-horse you, All modes of using the limbs with address, with speed, or enormous Effort of brutal strength, all this did Harry Delancey Teach to his docile pupil: and arts more n.o.bly delightful, Arts of the head or the heart, arts intellectual; empire Over dead men's books, over regions of high meditation, Comparative tactics, warfare as then conducted in ages When powder was none, nor cannon, but brute catapultae, 81 Blind rams, brainless wild a.s.ses, the stony slinger of huge stones.[16]

Iron was lord of the world; iron reigned, man was his engine; But now the rule is reversed, man binds and insults over iron.

Together did they, young tutor, young pupil, Augustus, Adolphus, Range over history martial, or read strategical authors, Xenophon, Arrian, old Polybius, old Polyaenus (Think not these Polys, my boy, were blooming Pollies of our days!), And above all others, they read the laurel'd hero of heroes, Thrice kingly Roman Julius, sun-bright leader of armies, Who planted his G.o.d-like foot on the necks of a whole generation. 91 Such studies, such arts were those by which young Harry Delancey Sought to discharge the trust which to him the Lady of Arnstein Confided with hopes maternal; thus trained, he hoped that Adolphus Would s.h.i.+ne in his native land, for high was his place in the empire.

EDITOR'S NOTE.--This was, of course, written for _Blackwood's Magazine_; but it never appeared there.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] 'That tamer of housemaids': [Greek: Hektoros ippodamoio]--of Hector, the tamer of horses ('Iliad').

[13] 'On pinion of expectation.' Here I would request the reader to notice that it would have been easy for me to preserve the regular dactylic close by writing '_pinion of antic.i.p.ation_;' as also in the former instance of '_many a dark December_' to have written '_many a rainy December_.' But in both cases I preferred to lock up by the ma.s.sy spondaic variety; yet never forgetting to premise a dancing dactyle--'many a'--and 'pinion of.' Not merely for variety, but for a separate effect of peculiar majesty.

[14] Alluding to a ridiculous pa.s.sage in Thomson's 'Seasons':

'Delightful task! to teach the young idea how to shoot.'

[15] All these arts, viz., teaching the horse to fight with his forelegs or lash out with his hind-legs at various angles in a general melee of horse and foot, but especially teaching him the secret of 'inviting' an obstinate German boor to come out and take the air strapped in front of a trooper, and do his duty as guide to the imperial cavalry, were imported into the Austrian service by an English riding-master about the year 1775-80. And no doubt it must have been horses trained on this learned system of education from which the Highlanders of Scotland derived their terror of cavalry.

[16] 'Blind rams, brainless wild a.s.ses,' etc. The 'arietes,' or battering-rams with iron-bound foreheads, the 'onagri,' or wild a.s.ses, etc., were amongst the poliorcetic engines of the ancients, which do not appear to have received any essential improvement after the time of the brilliant Prince Demetrius, the son of Alexander's great captain, Antigonus.

_XIII. SOME THOUGHTS ON BIOGRAPHY._

We have heard from a man who witnessed the failure of Miss Baillie's 'De Montford,' notwithstanding the scenic advantages of a vast London theatre, fine dresses, fine music at intervals, and, above all, the superb acting of John Kemble, supported on that occasion by his incomparable sister, that this unexpected disappointment began with the gallery, who could not comprehend or enter into a hatred so fiendish growing out of causes so slight as any by possibility supposable in the trivial Rezenvelt. To feel teased by such a man, to dislike him, occasionally to present him with your compliments in the shape of a duodecimo kick--well and good, nothing but right. And the plot manifestly tended to a comic issue. But murder!--a Macbeth murder!--not the injury so much as the man himself was incommensurate, was too slight by a thousand degrees for so appalling a catastrophe. It reacts upon De Montford, making _him_ ign.o.ble that could be moved so profoundly by an agency so contemptible.

Something of the same disproportion there is, though in a different way, between any quarrel that may have divided us from a man in his life-time and the savage revenge of pursuing the quarrel after his death through a malicious biography. Yet, if you hated him through no quarrel, but simply (as we all hate many men that died a thousand years ago) for something vicious, or which you think vicious, in his modes of thinking, why must you, of all men, be the one to undertake an edition of his works, 'with a life of the author'? Leave that to some neutral writer, who neither loves nor hates. And whilst crowds of men need better biographical records whom it is easy to love and not difficult to honour, do not you degrade your own heart or disgust your readers by selecting for your exemplification not a model to be imitated, but a wild beast to be baited or a criminal to be tortured? We privately hate Mr. Thomas Hobbes, of Malmsbury; we know much evil of him, and we could expose many of his tricks effectually. We also hate Dean Swift, and upon what we think substantial arguments. Some of our own contemporaries we hate particularly; Cobbett, for instance, and other bad fellows in fustian and corduroys. But for that very reason we will not write their lives. Or, if we should do so, only because they might happen to stand as individuals in a series, and after warning the reader of our own bias. For it is too odious a spectacle to imprison a fellow-creature in a book, like a stag in a cart, and turn him out to be hunted through all his doubles for a day's amus.e.m.e.nt. It too much resembles that case of undoubted occurrence both in France and Germany, where 'respectable'

individuals, simply as amateurs, and not at all with any view to the salary or fees of operating, have come forward as candidates for the post of public executioner. What is every man's duty is no man's duty by preference. And unless where a writer is thrust upon such a duty by an official necessity (as, if he contracts for a 'Biographia Britannica,'

in that case he is bound by his contract to go through with the whole series--rogues and all), it is too painful to see a human being courting and wooing the task of doing execution upon his brother in his grave.

Nay, even in the case where this executioner's task arises spontaneously out of some duty previously undertaken without a thought of its severer functions, we are still shocked by any exterminating vengeance too rancorously pursued. Every reader must have been disgusted by the unrelenting persecution with which Gifford, a deformed man, with the spiteful nature sometimes too developed in the deformed, had undertaken 'for our fathers in the Row' an edition of Ma.s.singer. Probably he had not thought at the time of the criminals who would come before him for judgment. But afterwards it did not embitter the job that these perquisites of office accrued, _lucro ponatur_, that such offenders as c.o.xeter, Mr. Monck Mason, and others were to be 'justified' by course of law. Could he not have stated their errors, and displaced their rubbish, without further personalities? However, he does _not_, but makes the air resound with his knout, until the reader wishes c.o.xeter in his throat, and Monck Mason, like 'the cursed old fellow' in Sinbad, mounted with patent spurs upon his back.

We shall be interrupted, however, and _that_ we certainly foresee, by the objection--that we are fighting with shadows, that neither the _eloge_ in one extreme, nor the libel in the other extreme, finds a place in _our_ literature. Does it not? Yes, reader, each of these biographical forms exists in favour among us, and of one it is very doubtful indeed whether it ought not to exist. The _eloge_ is found abundantly diffused through our monumental epitaphs in the first place, and _there_ every man will countersign Wordsworth's judgment (see 'The Excursion' and also Wordsworth's prose Essay on Epitaphs), that it is a blessing for human nature to find one place in this world sacred to charitable thoughts, one place at least offering a sanctuary from evil speaking. So far there is no doubt. But the main literary form, in which the English _eloge_ presents itself, is the Funeral Sermon. And in this also, not less than in the churchyard epitaph, kind feeling ought to preside; and for the same reasons, the sanct.i.ty of the place where it is delivered or originally published, and the solemnity of the occasion which has prompted it; since, if you cannot find matter in the departed person's character fertile in praise even whilst standing by the new-made grave, what folly has tempted you into writing an epitaph or a funeral sermon? The good ought certainly to predominate in both, and in the epitaph nothing _but_ the good, because were it only for a reason suggested by Wordsworth, viz., the elaborate and everlasting character of a record chiselled out painfully in each separate letter, it would be scandalous to confer so durable an existence in stone or marble upon trivial human infirmities, such as do not enter into the last solemn reckoning with the world beyond the grave; whilst, on the other hand, all graver offences are hushed into 'dread repose,' and, where they happen to be too atrocious or too memorable, are at once a sufficient argument for never having undertaken any such memorial. These considerations privilege the epitaph as sacred to charity, and tabooed against the revelations of candour. The epitaph cannot open its scanty records to any breathing or insinuation of infirmity. But the Funeral Sermon, though sharing in the same general temper of indulgence towards the errors of the deceased person, might advantageously be laid open to a far more liberal discussion of those personal or intellectual weaknesses which may have thwarted the influence of character otherwise eminently Christian. The _Oraison Funebre_ of the French proposes to itself by its original model, which must be sought in the _Epideictic_ or panegyrical oratory of the Greeks, a purpose purely and exclusively eulogistic: the problem supposed is to abstract from everything _not_ meritorious, to expand and develop the total splendour of the individual out of that one centre, that main beneficial relation to his own age, from which this splendour radiated. The incidents of the life, the successions of the biographical detail, are but slightly traced, no farther, in fact, than is requisite to the intelligibility of the praises. Whereas, in the English Funeral Sermon, there is no principle of absolute exclusion operating against the minutest circ.u.mstantiations of fact which can tend to any useful purpose of ill.u.s.trating the character. And what is too much for the scale of a sermon literally preached before a congregation, or modelled to counterfeit such a mode of address, may easily find its place in the explanatory notes. This is no romance, or ideal sketch of what might be. It is, and it has been.

There are persons of memorable interest in past times, of whom all that we know is embodied in a funeral sermon. For instance, Jeremy Taylor in that way, or by his Epistles Dedicatory, has brought out the characteristic features in some of his own patrons, whom else we should have known only as _nominis umbras_. But a more impressive ill.u.s.tration is found in the case of John Henderson, that man of whom expectations so great were formed, and of whom Dr. Johnson and Burke, after meeting and conversing with him, p.r.o.nounced (in the Scriptural words of the Ethiopian queen applied to the Jewish king, Solomon) 'that the half had not been told them.' For this man's memory almost the sole original record exists in Aguttar's funeral sermon; for though other records exist, and one from the pen of a personal friend, Mr. Joseph Cottle, of Bristol, yet the main substance of the biography is derived from the _fundus_ of this one sermon.[17] And it is of some importance to cases of fugitive or un.o.btrusive merit that this more quiet and sequestered current of biography should be kept open. For the local motives to an honorary biographical notice, in the shape of a Funeral Sermon, will often exist, when neither the materials are sufficient, nor a writer happens to be disposable, for a labour so serious as a regular biography.

Here then, on the one side, are our English _eloges_. And we may add that amongst the Methodists, the Baptists, and other religious sectaries, but especially among the missionaries of all nations and churches, this cla.s.s of _eloges_ is continually increasing. Not unfrequently men of fervent natures and of sublime aspirations are thus rescued from oblivion, whilst the great power of such bodies as the Methodists, their growing wealth, and consequent responsibility to public opinion, are pledges that they will soon command all the advantages of colleges and academic refinement; so that if, in the manner of these funeral _eloges_, there has sometimes been missed that elegance which should have corresponded to the weight of the matter, henceforwards we may look to see this disadvantage giving way before inst.i.tutions more thoroughly matured. But if these are our _eloges_, on the other hand, where are our libels?

This is likely to be a topic of offence, for many readers will start at hearing the upright Samuel Johnson and the good-humoured, garrulous Plutarch denounced as traffickers in libel. But a truth is a truth. And the temper is so essentially different in which men lend themselves to the propagation of defamatory anecdotes, the impulses are so various to an offence which is not always consciously perceived by those who are parties to it, that we cannot be too cautious of suffering our hatred of libel to involve every casual libeller, or of suffering our general respect for the person of the libeller to exonerate him from the charge of libelling. Many libels are written in this little world of ours unconsciously, and under many motives. Perhaps we said that before, but no matter. Sometimes a gloomy fellow, with a murderous cast of countenance, sits down doggedly to the task of blackening one whom he hates worse 'than toad or asp.' For instance, Procopius performs that 'labour of hate' for the Emperor Justinian, pouring oil into his wounds, but, then (as Coleridge expresses it in a 'neat' sarcasm), oil of vitriol. Nature must have meant the man for a Spanish Inquisitor, sent into the world before St. Dominic had provided a trade for him, or any vent for his malice--so rancorous in his malignity, so horrid and unrelenting the torture to which he subjects his sovereign and the beautiful Theodora. In this case, from the withering scowl which accompanies the libels, we may be a.s.sured that they _are_ such in the most aggravated form--not malicious only, but false. It is commonly said, indeed, in our courts, that truth it is which aggravates the libel. And so it is as regards the feelings or the interests of the man libelled. For is it not insufferable that, if a poor man under common human infirmity shall have committed some crime and have paid its penalty, but afterwards reforming or out-growing his own follies, seeks to gain an honest livelihood for his children in a place which the knowledge of his past transgression has not reached, then all at once he is to be ruined by some creature purely malignant who discovers and publishes the secret tale? In such a case most undoubtedly it is the truth of the libel which const.i.tutes its sting, since, if it were not true or could be made questionable, it would do the poor man no mischief. But, on the other hand, it is the falsehood of the libel which forms its aggravation as regards the publisher. And certain we are, had we no other voucher than the instinct of our hatred to Procopius, that his disloyal tales about his great lord and lady are odiously overcharged, if not uniformly false. Gibbon, however, chooses to gratify his taste for the luxury of scandal by believing at once in the perfect malice of the slanderer, and the perfect truth of his slanders.

Here then, in this Procopius, is an instance of the gloomy libeller, whose very gloom makes affidavit of his foul spirit from the first.

There is also another form, less odious, of the hostile libeller: it occurs frequently in cases where the writer is not chargeable with secret malice, but is in a monstrous pa.s.sion. A shower-bath might be of service in that case, whereas in the Procopius case nothing but a copious or a _Pro_copius application of the knout can answer. We, for instance, have (or had, for perhaps it has been stolen) a biography of that same Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, with whom Andrew Marvell 'and others who called Milton friend' had such rough-and-tumble feuds about 1666, and at whose expense it was that Marvell made the whole nation merry in his 'Rehearsal Transprosed.' This Parker had a 'knack'

at making himself odious; he had a _curiosa felicitas_ in attracting hatreds, and wherever he lodged for a fortnight he trailed after him a vast parabolic or hyperbolic tail of enmity and curses, all smoke and fire and tarnish, which bore the same ratio to his small body of merit that a comet's tail, measuring billions of miles, does to the little cometary ma.s.s. The rage against him was embittered by politics, and indeed sometimes by knavish tricks; the first not being always 'confounded,' nor the last 'frustrated.' So that Parker, on the whole, was a man whom it might be held a duty to hate, and therefore, of course, to knout as often as you could persuade him to expose a fair extent of surface for the action of the lash. Many men purchased a knout for his sake, and took their chance for getting a 'shy' at him, as Parker might happen to favour their intentions. But one furious gentleman, who is resolved to 'take his full change' out of Parker, and therefore to lose no time, commences operations in the very first words of his biography: 'Parker,' says he, 'the author of ----, was the _sp.a.w.n_ of Samuel Parker.' His rage will not wait for an opportunity; he throws off a torrent of fiery sparks in advance, and gives full notice to Parker that he will run his train right into him, if he can come up with his rear. This man is not malicious, but truculent; like the elder Scaliger, of whom it was observed that, having been an officer of cavalry up to his fortieth year (when he took to learning Greek), he always fancied himself on horseback, charging, and cutting throats in the way of professional duty, as often as he found himself summoned to pursue and 'cut up' some literary delinquent. Fire and fury, 'bubble and squeak,' is the prevailing character of his critical composition. 'Come, and let me give thee to the fowls of the air,' is the cry with which the martial critic salutes the affrighted author. Yet, meantime, it is impossible that he can entertain any personal malice, for he does not know the features of the individual enemy whom he is pursuing. But thus far he agrees with the Procopian order of biographers--that both are governed, in whatever evil they may utter, by a spirit of animosity: one by a belligerent spirit which would humble its enemy as an enemy in a fair pitched battle, the other by a subtle spirit of malice, which would exterminate its enemy not in that character merely, but as an individual by poison or by strangling.