Famous Men Twenty Years Ago
DEAR T: I have just been enjoying in the last volume of Washington Irving’s Life his pleasant reminiscences of the literary celebrities of Great Britain. Perhaps a few memories of some other notables — preserved by me from a visit to Europe in the year after graduation from college — may interest you and your Independent family. The first week after my arrival was spent in the exquisite Lake District of Westmoreland. I gathered holly-leaves in the grounds of “Ellery,” the shooting and boating-seat of old Christopher North; I rowed past the homes of Bishop Watson and Mrs. Hemans, and put in at sunset to the “Salutation Inn” of Ambleside, where Coleridge, South ey3 and Wordsworth often stopped to” have a crack wi,” the broadvisaged landlord. In the twilight, Wordsworth trotted past the door, with a bunch of heather stuck in his “bonnet” and his white hair falling on his shoulders. The next morning I spent with him at Rydal Mount, in full view of the mountain-scenes that inspired him to his best poetry. In walking about his grounds, the poet-philosopher looked like a Berkshire county farmer — wore a blue coat and broad slouched white hat, and “goggles” bestriding his portentous nose. He was the patriarch of nature to the life. He spoke tenderly of Irving — sadly of poor South ey, who was then in ruins — and pointing toward “Dove’s Nest,” the former abode of Mrs. Hemans, he said “she was a most clever lady, but we never thought her very original.” His quiet wife sat knitting at the door as he reentered his cottage. Nature’s best interpreter since Cowper, he now lies in the little Gothic church just under the hill.
Reaching Edinburgh by way of” Branksome Tower” and Abbotsford, I called at the house of Professor Wilson, in Gloucester place. But old Christopher had fled to escape from the small-pox, which had broken out among his domestics. ‘He was famous for his carelessness in dress. Just then Edinburgh was laughing over a story of Wilson’s being stopped on his way to lecture in the University by a street-vender of old clothes, who wished to strike up a bargain. Christopher, with a loud laugh, caught at his threadbare trowsers and said, “What’ 11 ye gi’e me for these?” Not long before he had lost his lovely wife. Returning some essays unread to his students, he tenderly apologized by saying, “I could hardly see to read in the valley of the shadow of death.”
Dr. Candlish was then the most conspicuous Edinburgh preacher after Chalmers. Prof. Addison Alexander says that he heard from him the best discourse he listened to in Europe. Candlish reminded me of Van Bur en in the face — spoke with awkward vehemence — and delivered a powerful discourse on the Creation, which has ever since found a place in his volume on Genesis. In manner he was brusque and abrupt — quite in contrast with the Henry Clay-like bonhomie of Dr. Guthrie. Have you noticed that the London Times has pronounced Guthrie “the most eloquent man in Europe?” Sickness has now laid him aside — it is feared for ever.
A few days passed at Sheffield gave me an opportunity to meet James Montgomery, whose hymns will be sung when his elaborate longer poems will be forgotten. A small, refined, old man, with very silyery hair, he always looked oddly from being swathed up in a huge cravat that reached from his chin quite down on his breast. He was full of enthusiasm for America, and full of indignation too, that so many people would persist in confounding him with Robert Montgomery, whose poem on Satan has been impaled (like a beetle in a museum) by the keen pen of Macaulay. “Only think,” said the dear old poet to me, “that I should have just got a letter telling me that my poem on Satan is the best I ever wrote /” It was enough to make the gentle Moravian grow red in the face to have such a bantling laid at his front door. At Sheffield I heard a melting sermon from Pike, whose “Guide to Young Disciples” was once more read than now. John Angell James I expected to find thin, pale, and spirituelle; but instead of this delicate ideal I found a bluff, broad John Bull, with the genial look of a sea-captain. No English minister of our time — unless it be Spurgeon — has brought the Gospel-essence into so many hearts. Was he not the model man of our modern pulpit — better than he would have been if he had even been a genius?
Twenty years ago Charles Dickens ruled the realm of fiction. We college boys joked in W ellerisms, and wept over Oliver and Little Nell.
With a letter from our friend Mrs. M, I
sought the young lion in his lair; but he was at the sea-side finishing his famous “American Notes,” that bore so hard on our national saliva and slavery. On his return he called and invited me to his sanctum. It was graced with sketches and statuettes of Sam Weller, Pickwick, etc., and with a fine portrait of one whose sad domestic history he has told the outside world quite too much about. How handsome he was then! With the great lustrous eyes that you saw yourself in — and the merry mouth wreathed with laughter — and the mass of glossy hair! He overflowed in rapid talk, but shyed off from the least allusion to his works. His home was then happy with child-music. The bright-eyed little daughter who came in to give me a kiss before going to school, is now wedded to a son of Wilkie Collins, the novelist. Dickens’ last words to me
were, “Tell Mrs. M I have not forgotten the slave.” If Dickens had always written with the Bible at his side, and the religion of Wilberforce in his heart, he might have been the foremost writer on social reforms in his day.
Carlyle I would speak of, and a memorable walk with him; but I have already pencilled it for your columns. Emerson’s late apology for Carlyle’s blundering assault on the free North is not satisfactory. ‘He seems to forget that years ago Carlyle wrote rude and coarse jests against giving freedom to “Quashee” in the West Indies. He would have done the world better service if he had remembered more of the Westminster Catechism that his minister taught him in Ecclefechan. German literature has improved Carlyle’s scholarship at the expense of his theology.
One of the pleasantest mornings I spent in London was with the “Female Shakespeare,” as her admirers were wont to call her — Joanna Baillie. I found her a bright-eyed, vivacious little old lady, with the apple-bloom still fresh on her cheek. Her first words were, “What a pity that you did not come sooner; Thomas Campbell has just left the house.” I was surprised to hear this; for at that time the poet of Hohcnlinden had nearly ostracised himself from such society by his indulgence with the bottle. He grew exceedingly coarse in conversation when steeped in strong ale; and at the Literary Fund Dinner of that year, his friends held him in his chair to keep him from maudlin exhibitions of himself. It is painful to allude to this infirmity of the gifted man who has so enriched our literature; but there is a solemn warning in it to every man of genius. Mrs. Baillie warmed into enthusiasm over Dr. Channing’s essays (which she pronounced superior to any living writer’s,) and ran on delightfully with chat about Sir Walter and Wordsworth. “There is no one left of the old circle but Wordsworth and myself,” said she sadly.
Melvillw&s at that time the planet of the London pulpit; Spurgeon being still a school-boy, and the prophetic polybiblious Dr. Cumming yet unknown. I heard Melvill at his old Camberwell chapel, the crowd so great that I was glad to get a seat on the gallery-steps. He was a stylish man, and delivered an ornate sermon on Pride in a tone somewhat theatrical. His most splendid discourses were rewritten several times; the imloo Famous Men Twenty Years Ago.
press of Chalmers is easily detected in some of them. The sermon on the Bible as an intellectual study is a master-piece. Thou shalt not steal from Melvill, is a commandment not always remembered in some minister’s studies. But here I am at the end of my sheet without any sketch of Binney’s preaching, or of pleasant evenings at the cottage of Mrs. S. C. Hall, which I would like to have etched hurriedly. You may commit this rambling letter to the Balaambasket, or to the columns of The Independent, as you may fancy. These twenty dead years have not left England’s sky as thickly sown with stars as when I gazed up thither with my boyish eyes of wonder and delight.