than "her ladyship's front;" or that, like his prototype, the red man, he was not grander in his "scalps " than in himself. To come back, however, from special instances to my original proposition; for if I walk farther in this track, I might grow personal. I opine, then, the work will be found almost universally greater than the man. In other words, that the individual in any great creation has, through the excitement of his labour, so worked upon his faculties that they have accomplished results far beyond their normal exercise, and in this way transcended the individual himself. Hence was it Petrarch shed tears as he read over his sonnets-tears, certainly, not shed for Laura; and Cervantes laughed till he cried over the drolleries of Sancho Panza. And if Shakespeare withstood Falstaff, be was something more or less than human. I have heard, and I like to believe it, that Dugald Dalgetty was intensely relished by Scott years after he had written him. Over and over again in the Lives of Painters do we find them in amazement at some of their own earlier efforts; and Fuseli cried out on seeing one of his own without recognizing it, "What a genius that fellow had!" These are the traits, too, which Brown & Co. fix on to establish their pet accusation of vanity against clever men; and indeed I would wish at this moment to protest against being classed with these critics, since it is not by disparaging the man that I seek to establish my position, but by elevating the work. Now what is the true state of the case? It is no use beating about the bush, taking a bygone example, or indicating a live one by asterisks. Let me instance myself; I can afford to say it without any risk of being called vain. I have seen a great deal of life, not alone in the great world and the little, world, but in that intermediate world which is bigger than them both. I am variously accomplished, and remarkably gifted. Don't be disgusted, sagacious reader; I must say these things-they are part of my brief; and if I do not put them forward, you certainly will not do so for me; but if I am anything "great," it is as a conversationalist. Competent judges from all parts of the world have declared that, though I may have an equal somewhere in Japan, perhaps, or Bokhara, I have no superior. Not a monologist like Macaulay, nor an overbearing opinionist like Croker, nor a flippant epigrammatist like Thiers, my skill was pre-eminently employed in eliciting whatever latent stores of agreeability I could detect around me. Not merely a talker myself, I made talkers of others. No rock so dull that I could not elicit a spark from it; no table-land so barren that I could not find a wild-flower in its desolation. Well, it so chanced that t'other day one of those creatures who presume on the fact of being an old schoolfellow to maintain an acquaintanceship, dormant for half a lifetime-as if there could be any bond of friendship cemented by having been flogged by the same cane-came through the neighbourhood where I have pitched my tent for the summer, and installed himself as my guest for a day. He was a loutish, heavy-headed dog as a boy, and years had not made any better of him. He was as wearisome at forty as I remember him at fourteen, with this addition, that he had gathered as he went on in life a quantity of commonplace observation which he fancied to be wisdom, and a stock of the very dreariest stories that he thought wit. I had to endure this wretched incubus for twelve mortal hours, and to endeavour to, what is called entertain him. I did my utmost; I took him through politics, and gave him a canter from Circassia to SchleswigHolstein, with diversions into Poland and North America. I tried him with Colenso and the Dean of Westminster, dashed with Dr. Dar "I suppose," said he, after another pause, "that you may have been ill, or out of sorts-probably hard up. I hear you often are hard up." "And why do you infer any of these?" asked I, a little uneasily. win and spiced with Du Chaillu. I went into early Christian art, railroad shares, the grape disease, Garibaldi, the Irish famine, and the state of the Funds. I gave him a haunch of Alpine mutton Wales could not rival, and a bottle of such "chambertin" as the First Napoleon drank after a victory. I prolonged the evening in an arbour over the lake, with a view at our feet Claude never approached in his best moments, with the perfection of mocha and an unparalleled cigar; and after a long pause, in which, by the aid of maraschino, I was endeavouring to recruit exhausted nature, the crea-Watkins of ours is worth a score ture' said, "By the way, I gave Scroggins of the Three hundred and fifth, a letter to you; you were at Paris at the time." "Perhaps so; I do not remember. I have forgotten him." "Well, he has not forgotten you." At this remark I rallied. I brightened up-I felt as one, after days of lying becalmed, as the first air of wind raises the drooping ensign at the peak, and wafts it lazily to the wind. I thought, at all events, Scroggins was better than his friend. I at least had made some impression on him. "Scroggins," continued he, "is a clever fellow; he was on Sir Hugh Badstock's staff in India twelve years ago, at Rangoon, and knows a deal of life." I gave a ready assent to this under the guarantee already received, that Scroggins had preserved a full memory of me. "When he was going abroad," continued he, "he came down to my place in Surrey. 'Don't you know O'Dowd?' said he. 'Intimately; we were in the same class at school.' 'Give me a letter to him,' said he, for I shall stop some time in Paris, and I hear so much of him, I'd like to see him.'" At this I smiled blandly once more, and nodded that he should go on; but instead of doing so, he only filled his glass, and tasted it, and then sat silent. "Well," said I-" well ?" "Well, I thought so, because Scroggins said when he came back that he was never so disappointed in all his life: you were not a bit what he expected; you never said a funny thing the whole time he was there-told no good story, and did not even once make him laugh. 'In fact,' said he, of that fellow, and sings niggermelodies and dances the "Perfect Cure" till you'd split your sides looking at him.'" "Did you ever hear what the footman said to Oliver Goldsmith in the kitchen?" "No." 666 "You're a wit, they say; let us see if you can swallow a poker!"" "And what did Goldsmith say?" asked my ancient friend and schoolfellow. "History recordeth not; but I believe I could tell you what he felt." As he sipped his wine in silence, I remembered an anecdote of a fellow-sufferer, and my memory helped me to some consolation. It was during one of Charles Kean's visits to the United States. He was entertained at dinner by one of the great New York merchants. Opposite to him at the table there sat a gentleman, who continued to observe him with marked attention, and at last called on the host to present him to Mr. Kean. The introduction was duly made, and ratified by drinking wine together, when the stranger, with much impressiveness of manner, said, “I saw you in Richard last night." Kean, feeling, not unnaturally, that a compliment was approaching, smiled blandly and bowed. Yes, sir," continued the other, in a slow, almost judicial tone; "I have seen your father in Richard; and I saw the last Mr. Cook"-an- célèbre potage de cock-a-leekie, other pause, in which Charles Kean's triumph was gradually mounting higher and higher. "Yes, sir! Cook, sir, was better than your father; and your father, sir, a long way better than you!" Now, of course, these things, or something like them, happen every day. If we have not a slave in our chariot, we have a schoolfellow; and I have mentioned this fact to show that I am well aware that though this order of men is a large class, I by no means accept the honour of being brigaded amongst them; and, as I have already declared, I do not desire to bring down the man, but to elevate the thing he has created. Mon. Jeffrey, faut-il le manger avec des prunes ou sans prunes?" Now, had the clever Scotsman been as subtle as a man of society as he was as a lawyer, the question, instead of deterring him by its frivolity, would have opened one of the pleasantest themes that can be discussed at table. Did he want the Treaty of Amiens, the death of the Duc d'Enghien, or the restoration of the Bourbons? You will see, sagacious reader, that I do not seek recruits to my opinion about the superiority of the work to the man amongst those who go about recording their bitter disappointments with clever people. to The greatest men-that is, the The Cockney who knocks with men who deal with the greatest his knuckles at the great bell of questions-are seldom good talkers. Moscow and pronounces its tone to The indiscretion SO essential be poor, is a fair representative of good talk would be fatal to them. the creatures who impose them- Louis Philippe, indeed, would tell selves on men of distinction out you everything the last interview of a mere vulgar curiosity, and he had with Guizot, and the conthen go away, disparaging that tents of the despatch he had sent greatness of which their nature off to Soult; but then be had this could give them no measure. Be- greatest security--nobody believed sides this, the small fry who hunt a word of it. To my theme, howcelebrities want something appli- ever. The man will never be equal cable to themselves and their own to his best work, for this reason, small ways and small habits. They that he will never be able to prewant him to give something to sent such a force of concentration record; to shoot a bird that they in himself, as in that to which, for may carry home. a given time at least, he gave all his energy and all his will. a poor creature have I seen a great chess-player-by what a "Cretin" have I been electrified at the piano! What a dotard have I overlooked at the whist-table, displaying traits of veritable genius in the game! It is thus that the world gets crammed with twaddling stories about this or that great general or Minister being singularly heavy in society, taking little part in the conversation, and never by an observation or a remark rising above the veriest commonplace. It is wonderful how even clever men, when little conversant with society, will fall into this mistake. Jeffrey, with all his acuteness, is an instance. He mentions his having met Talleyrand at dinner, and being seated next him. The occasion was a proud one, and he hoped to carry away from it some memories that would not die; but the only remark the great Minister made him was, "Apropos de votre What The small folk in art, letters, politics, or the drama may be, İ grant, greater than their works. It is not according them any overwhelming praise, and they are welcome to it. There is, indeed, a sort of agreeability that seems depend on a man's failure in his especial career; and we all of us can call to mind pleasant painters who daubed abominably, and actors who could be delightful in society, though they were always "damned" to are on the stage. As for the briefless barrister, he has ever been a charming companion; and I am credibly informed that there great authorities on the bench who look regretfully back to the time when they went circuit only for change of air. To say that some one portion of a man's life is greater than the whole of it, is not a very startling proposition. Take, for instance, Sydney Smith's defence of Acre; take Wolfe's night-attack on Quebec; Dessaix's charge at Marengo; or take such an action as we saw t'other day, when that American-he is now a Confederate captain-went through the midst of the fight on the Peiho, to the ship of Admiral Hope, rowed in an open boat, through shot and shell and crashing musketry, to offer any succour in his power to the wounded. Tuffnel, I think-I hope I am right-was his name. I say it will be a rare chance if his whole life be up to the level of that noble achievement. It will be the same in matters of intellectual effort. There will be moments, hours, even days, when some great mind-who knows how nourished, how stimulated, how prompted?-will accomplish what no effort of mere will could ever have effected; and at such times as these the work will be greater than the man. It would seem that there is something uncontrollable at certain periods in humble intellectsomething that, revolting against all discipline and all restraint, confers a power on the mind's operations which is never the accompaniment of its normal labours; and in this way it resembles the strength of the man in insanity, which, without any real accession of increased force, appears to be doubled. These are the seasons in which men work out those conceptions which, after the lapse of years, they come to look on with wonder and astonishment. "Ah! I could draw in those days," said Vandyck, when, in his advanced manhood, he saw his first sketch of the picture of St. Martin parting his Cloak.' The Singlespeech Hamiltons are a class. There are a large number of men of one book, one picture, one poem. There are even men of one joke; and I'll be bound, in such a case, that the joke was as good, if not better, than the man who made it. Now, if men be inferior to their works, I think the reverse is the case with women. They are invariably better than anything they paint, or write, or model, or compose; and one reason is, they have less power of concentration than men-less of that faculty that enables the individual, while directing all his energies to one effort, to invest that effort with something totally extraneous to, and occasionally superior to, the individual who effected it. Women too, I suspect, work with far less strain on their faculties than men; and part of that natural easy tone so fascinating in their writing is a result of this. Still, it has the effect of all steaming at half power, the pace is comparatively slow. If I wanted an instance of the woman superior to anything she had produced, I would quote my distinguished country woman Miss Edgeworth. Now, some of her shorter tales are admirable; in the painting of certain traits of the Irish character I do not know her equal. She understood that strange nature with all its varying shades, and its characteristics, at times so opposite and antagonistic, with a nicety of appreciation that none have ever surpassed; and yet how immeasurably above all she wrote was she herself-how superior her conversation to the best dialogue of her books-and how infinitely more gentle, more tender, more womanly, in fact, was she than the sweetest heroine she ever drew! I forbear to quote some others whose names occur to me at this moment, because I have already erred in letting the question lapse into the individual. THE MODERN CRICHTONS. The present is unquestionably a moment of national humiliation. We have come exceedingly ill out of Schleswig-Holstein. We are very small on the continent of Europe, and are not, certainly, cutting a distinguished figure in our wars with the savages either in Africa or New Zealand. The noble Premier who guides our fortunes has, indeed, informed us that the Budget is satisfactory and the harvest promising, both being events which redound to the wisdom of the Cabinet; but somehow we have for some years got so much accustomed to hear these gratifying facts, and yet never to recognise that they either manifested thenselves in light taxation or cheap bread, that we listen to them with a moderated joy, and without any unbecoming exuberance. I suppose I must have fallen into a depressing, dispirited vein, for I looked around me in vain to catch anything which should speak to me cheerily and comfortingly. All was "out of joint." The Church was squabbling; the laity had bullied them out of an opinion; and when they gave it, every one abused them for having declared it. We are angry with our dear ally France because she wouldn't fight Germany for us, and she so fond of fighting too. We are not quite pleased with our Colonies either. We want themand very naturally-to be loyal and stanch to the mother countryto aid us at a pinch, if need be, but at the same time to be thoroughly self-supporting, and never cost us a sixpence. "Ah!" said the old Irish countess, "there's nothing I like better than oysters; I'd have a supper of them every night if the servants would eat the shells." While I thus ran over one after another of our grievances-a list that extended from the coast of Assam to the harbour of Galway I couldn't help asking myself, Have we anything, have we anybody, to be proud of at this moment? is there a feature of our time that we assume to regard as satisfactory?-when I suddenly bethought me that we have a class probably more nearly approaching perfection than any country was ever endowed with,-men who not alone unite in their characters all the traits which distinguish greatness, but combine within their intellects acquirements the most varied and dissimilar. I do not desire to try your patience. The Admirable Crichtons I mean are the Lawyers! Law itself is a large study. The vast wisdom which ages have accumulated and recorded must ever present a great field for human labour; but what is law to the multiform knowledge of these marvellous men? You imagine that their nights are given to the deep research of their textbooks, and that their heads are crammed full of cases, and writs in error, and arguments in chamber, and so on. Not a bit of it. Law is the least of their accomplishments. In fact, they would seem to practise law as a shopkeeper I knew in Limerick kept a clothshop, "only for the convenience of small change." It is over science, art, and literature-the fine arts, the drama, patent inventions, casualties at sea, and death by mysterious agency-that they roam, as a wild bee floats over a garden. Take a case of fouling in the Channel, where the Mary Jane of Swansea, being on the starboard tack, was run into by the Da-hing Hero of Cardiff, lost her bowsprit, was damaged in her bulwarks, and so severely injured below the waterline that she narrowly escaped foundering off the Nore, and indeed only gained Margate to go down in four fathoms water. Spinks was for the Mary Jane; |
