Part 59

Horace Walpole, 1779, speaking of the poem, The World as it Goes, describes it as "by that infamous Combe, the author of the Diabolical. It has many easy poetic lines, imitates Churchill, and is fully as incoherent and absurd in its plan as the worst of the latter's."

Again, in 1778, Walpole describes "Combe" as "a most infamous rascal, who had married a cast mistress of Lord Beauchamp, and wrote many satiric poems not quite despicable for the poetry, but brutally virulent against that Lord, and others, particularly Lord Irnham." But, as Dr. Doran aptly observes, "Walpole however fond of satire, hated satirists, particularly when they were fearless and outspoken, like Combe."

Mrs. Radcliffe and the Critics.

It is singular that although Mrs. Radcliffe's beautiful descriptions of foreign scenery, composed solely from the materials afforded by travellers, collected and embodied by her own genius, were marked in a particular degree with the characteristics of fancy portraits, yet many of her contemporaries conceived them to be exact descriptions of scenes which she had visited in person. One report transmitted to the public by the Edinburgh Review, stated that Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe had visited Italy; that Mr. Radcliffe had been attached to one of the British embassies in that country; and that it was here his gifted consort imbibed the taste for picturesque scenery, and for mouldering ruins, and for the obscure and gloomy anecdotes which tradition relates of their former inhabitants. This is so far a mistake, as Mrs. Radcliffe never was in Italy; but it has been mentioned, in explanation, that she probably availed herself of the acquaintance she formed in 1793 with the magnificent scenery on the banks of the Rhine, and the frowning remains of feudal castles with which it abounds. The inaccuracy of the reviewer is of no great consequence; but a more absurd report found its way into print, namely, that Mrs. Radcliffe, having visited the fine old Gothic mansion of Haddon House, had insisted upon remaining a night there, in the course of which she had been inspired with all that enthusiasm for Gothic residences, hidden passages, and mouldering walls, which marks her writings. Mrs. Radcliffe, we are assured, never saw Haddon House; and although it was a place excellently worth her attention, and could hardly have been seen by her without suggesting some of those ideas in which her imagination naturally revelled, yet we should suppose the mechanical aid to invention--the recipe for fine writing--the sleeping in a dismantled and unfurnished old house, was likely to be rewarded with nothing but a cold, and was an affectation of enthusiasm to which Mrs. Radcliffe would have disdained to have recourse.

These are the opinions of Sir Walter Scott; appended to them are these somewhat depreciatory remarks made by Dunlop, in his History of Fiction:--

"In the writings of Mrs. Radcliffe there is a considerable degree of uniformity and mannerism, which is perhaps the case with all the productions of a strong and original genius. Her heroines too nearly resemble each other, or rather they possess hardly any shade of difference. They have all blue eyes and auburn hair--the form of each of them has 'the airy lightness of a nymph'--they are all fond of watching the setting sun, and catching the purple tints of evening, and the vivid glow or fading splendour of the western horizon. Unfortunately they are all likewise early risers. I say unfortunately, for in every exigency Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines are provided with a pencil and paper, and the sun is never allowed to rise nor set in peace. Like Tilburina in the play, they are 'inconsolable to the minuet in Ariadne,' and in the most distressing circumstances find time to compose sonnets to sunrise, the bat, a sea-nymph, a lily, or a butterfly."

The tenor of Mrs. Radcliffe's private life seems to have been peculiarly calm and sequestered. She probably declined the sort of personal notoriety which, in London society, usually attaches to persons of literary merit; and, perhaps, no author whose works were so universally read and admired was so little personally known even to the most active of that class of people of distinction, who rest their peculiar pretensions to fashion upon the selection of literary society. Her estate was certainly not the less gracious; and it did not disturb Mrs. Radcliffe's domestic comforts, although many of her admirers believed, and some are not yet undeceived, that, in consequence of brooding over the terrors which she depicted, her reason had at length been overturned, and that the author of The Mysteries of Udolpho only existed as the melancholy inmate of a private madhouse. This report was so generally spread, and so confidently repeated in print, as well as in conversation, that the writer believed it for several years, until, greatly to his satisfaction, he learned, from good authority, that there neither was, nor ever had been, the most distant foundation for this unpleasing rumour.

A false report of another kind gave Mrs. Radcliffe much concern. In Miss Seward's Correspondence, among the literary gossip of the day, it is roundly stated that the Plays upon the Passions were Mrs. Radcliffe's, and that she owned them. Mrs. Radcliffe was much hurt at being reported capable of borrowing from the fame of a gifted sister; and Miss Seward would, no doubt, have suffered equally, had she been aware of the pain she inflicted by giving currency to a rumour so totally unfounded. The truth is, that residing at a distance from the metropolis, and living upon literary intelligence as her daily food, Miss Seward was sometimes imposed upon by those friendly caterers, who were more anxious to supply her with the newest intelligence, than solicitous about its accuracy.

Mrs. Radcliffe died at her residence in Stafford Row, Pimlico, on the 7th of February, 1823; and her remains rest in the vault of the Chapel-of-ease to St. George's parish, in the Bayswater Road, facing Hyde Park.

Cool Sir James Mackintosh.

Mackintosh, a name dear to letters and philosophy, was no lawyer in the narrow-minded sense of the word, and when appointed judge at Bombay, was lamentably thrown away upon such society as he met there. Accustomed to lead in the conversations of the conversation-men of the metropolis--such as Sharp, Rogers, Dumont--he found himself transplanted among those who afforded a sad and bitter contrast. It was like Goëthe's oak-plant, with its giant fibres, compressed within the dimensions of a flower-pot. On the third day after his arrival, most forcibly was he reminded of the contrast, when one of the members of the Council, the conversation turning upon quadrupeds, turned to him and inquired what was a quadruped. It was the same sagacious Solomon who asked him for the loan of some book, in which he could find a good account of Julius Cæsar. Mackintosh jocosely took down a volume of Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, in which mention is made of a Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls in the time of Charles the First. The wiseacre actually took the book home with him, and after some days brought it back to Sir James, remarking that he was disappointed on finding that the book referred to Julius Cæsar only as a lawyer, without the slightest mention of his military exploits.

Sir James was subject to certain Parson Adams-like habits of forgetfulness of common things and lesser proprieties; and this brought down upon him no slight share of taunt and ridicule. It happened, on his arrival at Bombay, that there was no house ready for his reception, and it would be a fortnight before a residence in the fort could be prepared for him. Mr. Jonathan Duncan, the Governor of the Presidency, therefore, with great kindness, offered him his garden-house, called Sans Pareil, for the temporary accommodation of Sir James and his family. But months and months elapsed, till a twelvemonth had actually revolved; Mackintosh and his wife, during all this time, found themselves so comfortable in their quarters, that they forgot completely the limited tenure on which they held them, appearing by a singular illusion, not to have the slightest suspicion of Mr. Duncan's proprietorship, notwithstanding some pretty intelligible hints on the subject from that gentleman, but communicated with his usual delicacy and politeness. At last, politeness and delicacy were out of the question, and the poor Governor was driven to the necessity of taking forcible possession of his own property. This was partly indolence, partly absence of mind in Sir James. He was constitutionally averse to every sort of exertion, and especially that of quitting any place where he found himself comfortable.

Before he went out to India, he made a trip into Scotland with his lady; and having taken up his abode for the night at an inn in Perthshire, not far from the beautiful park of Lord Melville (then Mr. Dundas) sent a request to Lady Jane Dundas (Mr. Dundas being absent) for permission to see the house and grounds, which was most civilly granted. Mr. Dundas being expected in the evening, her ladyship politely pressed them to stay for dinner, and to pass the night, their accommodation at the inn, not being of the best description. Mr. Dundas returned the same day, and though their politics were as adverse as possible, was so charmed with the variety of Mackintosh's conversation, that he requested his guests to prolong their visit for two or three days. So liberal, however, was the interpretation they put upon the invitation, that the two or three days were protracted into as many months, during which, every species of hint was most ineffectually given, till their hosts told them, with many polite apologies, that they expected visitors and a numerous retinue, and could no longer accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh.

During Sir James Mackintosh's Recordership of Bombay, a singular incident occurred. Two Dutchmen having sued for debt two English officers, Lieutenants Macguire and Cauty, these officers resolved to waylay and assault them. This was rather a resolve made in a drunken excitement than a deliberate purpose. Fortunately, the Dutchmen pursued a different route from that which they had intended, and they prosecuted the two officers for the offence of lying-in-wait with intent to murder. They were found guilty, and brought up for judgment. Previous to his pronouncing judgment, however, Sir James received an intimation that the prisoners had conceived the project of shooting him as he sat on the bench, and that one of them had for that purpose a loaded pistol in his writing-desk. It is remarkable that the intimation did not induce him to take some precautions to prevent its execution--at any rate, not to expose himself needlessly to assassination. On the contrary, the circumstances only suggested the following remarks:--"I have been credibly informed that you entertained the desperate project of destroying your own lives at that bar, after having previously destroyed the judge who now addresses you. If that murderous project had been executed, I should have been the first British judge who ever stained with his blood the seat of justice. But I can never die better than in the discharge of my duty." All this eloquence might have been spared. Macguire submitted to the judge's inspection of his writing-desk, and showed him that, though it contained two pistols, neither of them was charged. It is supposed to have been a hoax--a highly mischievous one, indeed--but the statement was primâ facie so improbable, that it was absurd to give it the slightest credit.

Eccentricities of Cobbett.

Cobbett began his career a political writer of ultra-Conservative stamp. He first became known to the public as "Peter Porcupine," under which name he fiercely attacked the democratic writers and speakers of France and America. He was then resident in America, and encountered one or two trials at law for alleged libels, in his defence of monarchical and aristocratic institutions. The Porcupine Papers attracted much notice in England, were quoted and lauded by the government organs--quoted in both Houses of Parliament, and eulogized in the pulpit. The writer was considered one of the most powerful supports of the principles of the British constitution. This series of papers was republished in England, in twelve volumes octavo, under the patronage of the Prince Regent, to whom, it is believed, the work was dedicated.

On his return from America, Cobbett began a daily paper called the Porcupine. This was soon discontinued, and he began the Register. Both these papers were strongly in favour of the government; and the Register ran through several volumes before a change took place in the political opinions of the editor--a change hastened, if not caused, by an affront offered him by William Pitt. Windham was a great admirer of Cobbett, and after reading one of his Porcupine papers, declared that the author was "worthy of a statue in gold." Pitt had refused to meet the author of the Register at Windham's table; and this Cobbett resented, and never forgave. Very soon after this, a marked change took place in his politics; henceforth he was more consistent, and the last Register which came from his pen, very shortly before his death, breathed the same spirit which he had shown years before as one of the leaders of the democratic party.

One of Cobbett's oddities was the wood-cut of a gridiron which for many years headed the Political Register, as an emblem of the martyrdom which he avowed he was prepared to undergo, upon certain conditions. The gridiron will be recollected as one of the emblems of St. Lawrence, and we see it as the large gilt vane of one of the City churches dedicated to the saint.

As he was broiled on a gridiron for refusing to give up the treasures of the church committed to his care, so Cobbett vowed that he would consent to be broiled upon certain terms, in his Register, dated Long Island, on the 24th of September, 1819, wherein he wrote the well-known prophecy on Peel's Cash Payments Bill of that year as follows:--"I, William Cobbett, assert that to carry their bill into effect is impossible; and I say that if this bill be carried into full effect, I will give Castlereagh leave to lay me on a gridiron, and broil me alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning stand by and laugh at my groans."

On the hoisting of the gridiron on the Register, he wrote and published the fulfilment of his prophecy in the following statement:--"Peel's bill, together with the laws about small notes, which last were in force when Peel's bill was passed; these laws all taken together, if they had gone into effect, would have put an end to all small notes on the first day of May, 1823; but to precede this blowing-up of the whole of the funding system, an act was passed, in the month of July, 1822, to prevent these laws, and especially that part of Peel's bill which put an end to small Bank of England notes, from going into full effect; thus the system received a respite; but thus did the parliament fulfil the above prophecy of September, 1819."

A large sign-gridiron was actually made for Mr. Cobbett. It was of dimensions sufficient for him to have lain thereon (he was six feet high); the implement was gilt, and we remember to have seen it in his office-window, in Fleet Street; but it was never hoisted outside the office. It was long to be seen on the gable-end of a building next Mr. Cobbett's house at Kensington.

Cobbett possessed extraordinary native vigour of mind; but every portion of his history is marked by strange blunders. Shakspeare, the British Museum, antiquities, posterity, America, France, Germany, are, one and all, either wholly indifferent to him, or objects of his bitter contempt. He absurdly condemned the British Museum as "a bundle of dead insects;" abused drinking "the immortal memory" as a contradiction of terms; and stigmatized "consuming the midnight oil" as cant and humbug. His political nicknames were very ludicrous: as big O for O'Connell; Prosperity Robinson for a flaming Chancellor of the Exchequer; and shoy-hoy for all degrees of quacks and pretenders. Still, his own gridiron was a monstrous piece of quackery, as audacious as any charlatan ever set up.

When he had a subject that suited him, he is said to have handled it not as an accomplished writer, but "with the perfect and inimitable art with which a dog picks a bone." Still, his own work would not bear this sort of handling--witness the biting critique upon his English grammar, which provoked the remark that he would undertake to write a Chinese grammar.

In country or in town, at Barn Elms, in Bolt Court or at Kensington, Cobbett wrote his Registers early in the morning: these, it must be admitted, had force enough; for he said truly, "Though I never attempt to put forth that sort of stuff which the intense people on the other side of the Channel call eloquence, I bring out strings of very interesting facts; I use pretty powerful arguments; and I hammer them down so closely upon the mind, that they seldom fail to produce a lasting impression." This he owed, doubtless, to his industry, early rising, and methodical habits.

Cobbett affected to despise all acquirements which he had not. In his English Grammar he selects examples of bad English from the writings of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Watts, and is very contemptuous on "what are called the learned languages;" but he would not have entered upon Latin or Greek.

It seemed to be Cobbett's aim to keep himself fresh in the public eye by some means of advertisement or other; a few were very reprehensible, but none more than his disinterring the bones of Thomas Paine, buried in a field on his own estate near New Rochelle, and bringing these bones to England, where, Cobbett calculated, pieces of them would be worn as memorials of the gross scoffer. Cobbett, however, never more widely mistook English feeling: instead of arousing, as he expected, the enthusiasm of the republican party in this country, he only drew upon himself universal contempt.

Heber, the Book-Collector.

There have been many instances of the indulgence of book collecting to the extent which is termed book-madness; but none more remarkable than that of Mr. Richard Heber, half-brother to the celebrated Bishop of Calcutta of the same name. Mr. Heber inherited property which permitted him to spend immense sums in the purchase of books; and he received an education which enabled him to appreciate the books when purchased. He was not therefore, strictly speaking, a bibliomaniac, and nothing more, though his exertions in collecting amounted to eccentricities. He would make excursions from the family seats in Yorkshire and Shropshire to London, to attend book sales; and when the termination of the war in 1815 opened the Continent to English travellers, Heber visited France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and made large purchases of books in each country. He cared for nothing but books. He kept up a correspondence with all the great dealers in old books throughout the kingdom. On hearing of a curious book, he was known to have put himself into a mail-coach, and travelled three or four hundred miles to obtain it, fearful to entrust his commission to any agent. He was known to say seriously to his friends, on their remarking on his many duplicates, "Why, you see, sir, no man can do comfortably without three copies of a work. One he must have for a show copy, and he will, probably, keep it at his country-house. Another he will require for his use and reference; and, unless he is inclined to part with this, which is very inconvenient, or risk the injury of his best copy, he must needs have a third at the service of his friends."