What female relative of Sir Walter Scott was the prototype of Flora McIvor ? Who the Bridget of Elia is, we know ; but what sister of the novelist sat for the picture of Rose Bradwardine, or Die Vernon, or Jeannie Deans, or the " Maid of the Mist?" The originals of the Inner Temple and Christ's Hospital would have been plainly enough recognized, doubtless, had they been called by fictitious names; but when did the author of Waverley dwell in the Castle of Tillietudlem, and how far was he personally familiar with Kenilworth Castle and the Court of King James? Where did he learn the manners he has depicted in Ivanhoe, and when was he ever present at a tournament! What did Sir Walter know, personally, of Baillie Nicol Jarvie, and Dugald Dulgetty, and Donald Bean Lean, and Balfour of Burley? We assert, without fear of contradiction, that both characters and incidents, from the first to the last of these celebrated novels, have an individuality-with only slight exceptions-as distinct from the character and fortunes of the author, as the characters and incidents of a veritable history are distinct from each other. mances have been subjected to a rigid | exceptions, would have passed altogether examination in many lands; they have unquestioned under the universal rule. found their way to the hearts of all readers. We deem it safe, in such a case, to accept the universal verdict of criticism on certain leading points regarding these writings; and certain we are, that, in so far at least as regards the particulars now especially to be considered, there can be no difference of opinion. Scott, amidst the large and varied group of characters to which he has introduced us, (scarcely one of which is untrue to nature, or has not its real prototype among living menwhatever may be said of their originality,) is generally understood to have drawn two or three characters from certain circum. stances of his own condition, and to have woven the events of one or two stories from the incidents of his own life. The early years and the education of Waverley are admitted to have been taken from the author's personal experience; but here all the personality ends, and scarcely a resemblance, even, remains in all that follows the first few chapters. In the "Red Gauntlet" we find another and still more noteworthy instance of the same personality. Here the author again is admitted (under the "modesty" of various disguises) to have expressed "his own story," and to have "given vent" to some of his "most inward feelings." Now, it is a consideration which we can well afford to omit entirely, that these same introductory chapters of Waverley--which are written strictly according to the method laid down and defended by the "friend" of Elia-have been universally esteemed among the least readable parts of the book in which they occur; and that the story of "Red Gauntlet" was one of the least successful of all the author's romances. It was not, however, for the sake of showing that a work so written will almost inevitably prove a failure, (which we believe to be the fact,) that we adduced the example of this novelist. We call attention to the absurdity of pointing out two or three instances in a score of novels, and in the midst of a hundred distinct and natural fictitious characters-as the world have done--for examples of a personality, which, if the theory of Lamb be correct, is inseparable from every such composition, and which, instead of being pointed out as And equally true is this principle, as it respects every genuine work of fiction, whether in prose or in verse. Who, among all the characters of the Iliad and Odyssey, is the representative of the blind bard himself? Who has detected, "under cover" of any disguise," the "most inward feelings" of the real Homer? Why have two or three personal allusions in Paradise Lost been so carefully noted, and set down among the faults of John Milton? And when did he have personal experience of the "most inward feelings" "given vent" through the lips of the "lost archangel?" Even more evident, perhaps, is the absurdity of the allusion to the dramatist. So manifest and universally understood are the laws which exclude every appearance of personal feeling from the drama, and which deny the epithet dramatic to any dialogue in which the author's self is a character, (and how much more when he "makes himself many"!) that we forbear any illustration of the subject. A more unhappy reference could not have been made, if meant to be understood as in earnest; but if only intended as a jest, as we feel inclined to believe, it certainly amounts to a very ingenious and unextenuating confession of the charge which it ostensibly refutes. How far this first-personality, (which, be it observed, is manifested in no slight degree in that species of bravado by which an author sets at defiance all the acknowledged rules and modes of expression, and, boasting a heroic originality, indulges in a style that tasks Christian forbearance to the utmost to endure,) how far this egotism may be the fundamental vice of Wordsworth, and Byron, of Hazlitt, and Godwin, and Shelley, and Hunt, and others, their contemporaries, we leave the judicious reader to decide for himself. In the writings of Charles Lamb, we find only the individual-confined to a narrow sphere-bounded in his contemplations within the limits of common sympathy, every-day fortune, and humble experience. He seems never to have had the faintest yearning after anything better than was afforded by the immediate circle that surrounded him—the immediate society and the actual stage of civilization and improvement in which his lot had been primarily cast. In his earlier days, indeed, we find some traces of a strong religious aspiration; such as, we believe, has always more or less characterized every truly great and genial spirit. But time scattered these emotions and impulses, and maturer years found him apparently indifferent, and without genuine spiritual hopes. It is, perhaps, the natural course with all healthy minds to grow more religious as they advance in life, and to become more and more attracted to things "unseen and eternal," as the sorrows and calamities of this sublunary existence calm the passions, and sober the heart to the realities of man's immortal being as the change and illusion, that mock him perpetually here, lead the disappointed mortal to long for the everlastingly true and immutable. But Lamb's religious sympathies, his heavenly yearnings, were mainly confined to his youthful days. In his general sympathies, there was little expansiveness: there was, at most, but a Liomentary elasticity. Out of the city-out of the particular quarter of London in which his days were passed, he was almost entirely lost. Out of the immediate circle about him, composed of his brother, his sister, and a score or two of friends, he knew little of men. In literature, even, he had no strong sympathies beyond a limited round of writers. His chief favorites were the dramatists, and such quaint and melancholy authors as Burton, Sir T. Brown, and old Francis Quarles. The necessities of his outward lot-the severe lesson of subordination he so faithfully learned and practiced from his youth up-the character of his literary associates-all contributed to fix the boundary of his mind within limits to which Nature herself seems to have but half intended to confine him. Literature as an amusement-notwithstanding the sage words and "advice" of Coleridge on this subject--by no means suffices one whom destiny has ordained for a man of letters. To sustain two distinct characters in the drama of actual life, is as impossible as it is undesirable. The anointed poet can by no means devote his days to the drudgery of business, and his nights to the enchantments of song. Talfourd, the author of Ion, and Talfourd, the serjeant at law, seem to us totally incongruous; nay, both characters must necessarily be partial and imperfect, and, in some good measure, failures. That Lamb, the 66 man of figures," could not, from the nature of the case, rise to a very exalted position in belles lettres, without casting off his original profession, seems to us too evident to admit of any argument. It requires the whole man--the whole soul, might, mind, and strength-to fill up the measure of mediocrity, even, and much more evidently, of greatness, in any high calling. In judging the literary character of Lamb, therefore, justice compels us to judge him for what he is, and not for what some too partial admirers have held him up to our view. The boyish admiration we have already confessed for this writer, was not, we are prone to think, a mistaken feeling. The characteristics which then won our attachment we now discover as plainly, and appreciate, perhaps, as fully, as in other days. To speak of these qualities delights us, after all, quite as much as to point out the limitations and short-comings to which we have alluded, and which, in the more youthful days we have mentioned, | true of others, but in no case besides (as we lacked the discrimination to detect. We love Charles Lamb-and this is mainly true, we suppose, of all his readers for the affectionateness of his disposition and the kindliness of his heart; and more than all, for his genuine, inimitable humor. These are qualities which will never lack admirers. Though in some measure it may be true that these qualities best appear in the living man, and cannot be fully represented in the written work-and though, undoubtedly, one evening spent with Lamb, in his best mood, were quite as delightful as any essay of " Elia," yet it is certainly not impossible to embody these characteristics in a literature that shall be truly agreeable, and deserving of a high rank. And we take pleasure in saying to the praise of Lamb, that he seems to us to have combined these elements after a manner hitherto unknown in any literature. Our readers may think we have spoken somewhat too strongly of the personality of these writings. But never, perhaps, was there a writer in whom the quality in question appears with so little to offend, and from whose personal musings we rise with so little dislike at what is usually so unpleasant, and oftentimes disgusting. It is a fault so inherent in a literature of this kind and which we have affirmed to possess distinct marks of originality—a literature which must necessarily exhibit the author in his own living peculiarities-that we are willing, for the time, to forget the evil, for the sake of the real good of which it is the ground. It is the man, Charles Lamb, that from first to last we love; and analyze our impressions of his writings as closely as we will, we shall probably find this to be the grand object and the final end of all our attachment. Hence it is that we so often suspect ourselves of a greater fondness for the letters so properly collected (and perhaps not without an insight of their significance in this very particular) by Serjeant Talfourd, than for the more finished productions on which his reputation in the literary world had hitherto stood. Almost imperceptibly to ourselves, we are all the while interesting ourselves in the man, and longing to get nearer and nearer to the real object of our devotion. More or less, the same may be we are aware) is the author at once so constantly present to our minds, and his presence so freely and cordially welcomed. In Lamb, the predominant quality of mind seems to have been affection. Strong, turbulent passions he had none. To whatever habit and education had consecrated in his mind, he clung with an inextinguishable fondness. The Inner Temple, where his childhood was passed-its courts, its fountains, the grave and venerable characters he was there wont to see and to converse with; Christ's Hospital, the scene of his school-days; the favorite haunts of his school-boy leisure; all the little incidents and events which he saw and interpreted with childhood's eyes; the customs grown obsolete, and the buildings transformed or gone to decay, which in earlier days had been centres of business and excitement; the older friends who had caressed the child; and the relations on whom he had accustomed himself to rely with an unsuspecting confidence; were the first, foremost, ever present objects of his attachment. He judged everything (we might almost literally say) according to his simple likes and dislikes; he measured everything according to an immediate attraction or repulsion, rather than by a deliberate exercise of his understanding. We have sometimes thought, (and we belive not without reason,) that a violation of sentiment was with him paramount to a violation of justice; that a transgression against his own peculiar taste, was more heinous than a transgression against conscience. He complained of the "Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis," for instance, from considerations that addressed themselves solely to his affection, through the cherished remembrances of childhood. Whatever innovated upon these last, was condemned to unqualified censure. lived in his habits and affections, and an assault upon these was, therefore, to him, a capital injury. He That there was an almost entire absence of passion in his constitution, we have already remarked. We do, indeed, read that he was once, for a few weeks, in love with a fair Quakeress, to whom he neither had spoken, nor did ever speak, an audible word. "Elia" alludes occasionally to a certain "Alice W," who, if not the same, seems to have been a love of very similar character. The "love" for this Quakeress in a short time becomes so perfectly extinct that he avows himself ashamed to have been guilty of such folly declares himself forever wedded to the fortunes of his sister, and settles down with her, without, apparently, another thought of "love;" for, marriage, even in those few weeks whose folly he so much deplores, seems not to have once occurred to his mind. And when the pretty Quakeress dies, witness the manner in which the poet lover expresses his grief! Beautiful-touching beyond descriptionthis best of Lamb's poems truly is; yet how clearly does it prove that such a mind never did, in any accepted sense, LOVE! Lamb, at the date of this poem, was twenty-eight years of age. ture. The difference to me!" We can better pardon this deficiency, so uncommon in a poet, than the extravagances of his fondness-rivalling the sickly longings of the enceinte for whatever was quaint, eccentric, out-of-the-way in literaWholesome, healthy nourishment answered not his purpose at all. If no oddity sufficiently gratifying could be compassed, he must at least be served to a dish of the antique. Nor were these sickly longings without their influence upon the literary offspring to which he subsequently gave birth. The simile has its full application. Quaintness is always affected, unless it have become natural in the way of habit; and eccentricity, we are sure, forms no part of genius, and cannot, but with difficulty, amalgamate with it. How strong was Lamb's affection for whatever had become habitual and consecrated by time and experience, and how he shuddered at the approach of any innovation or disturbance, is remarkably shown. in the essay entitled "New Year's Eve." We refer especially to such passages as the following: “I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties -new books, new faces, new years-from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine only in the prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past disappointments. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play once again for love, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the incidents of some well-contrived novel." 66 The elders with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution, and the ringing out of the old year was kept by them with circumstances of peculiar ceremony. In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that concerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it, indeed, and, if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December. But now shall I confess a truth? I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments and the shortest periods, like misers' farthings. In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away like a weaver's shuttle.' Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived-I, and my friends to be no younger, no richer, no handI do not want to be weaned by age; or drop; like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave. Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me. My household gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian shores. A new state of being staggers me. somer. Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle light, and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities and jests, and irony itself-do these things go out with life? "Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him? "And you, my midnight darlings, my folios! must I part with the intense delight of having you (huge armfuls) in my embraces? Must knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition, and no longer by the familiar process of reading? "Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which point me to them here, the recognizable face; 'the sweet assurance of a look ?' "In winter, this intolerable disinclination to dying, to give it its mildest name, does more especially haunt and beset me. In a genial August noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is almost problematic. At those times do such poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. Then we expand and burgeon. Then are we as strong again, as valiant again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The blast that nips and shrinks me, puts me in thoughts of death. All things allied to the unsubstantial wait upon that master feeling; cold, numbness, dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral appearances, that cold ghost of the sun, or Phœbus's sickly sister, like that innutritious one denounced in the Canticles: I am none of her minions; I hold with the Persian. "Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings death into my mind. All partial evils, like humors, run into that capital plaguesore. I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of the grave as of some soft arms, in which they may slumber as on a pillow. Some have wooed death-but out upon thee, I say, ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) give thee to six-score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation, or more frightful and compounding Positive! "Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are altogether frigid and insulting like thyself. For what satisfaction hath a man, that he shall lie down with kings and emperors in death,' who, in his lifetime, never greatly coveted the society of such bedfellows? or, forsooth, that 'so shall the fairest face appear?' Why, to comfort me, must Alice -n be a goblin? More than all, I conceive disgust at these impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that such as he now is, I must. shortly be.' Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the mean time I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters! Thy New Year's days are past. I survive, a jolly candidate for 1821." |