Part 1 (1/2)
Calamities and Quarrels of Authors.
by Isaac Disraeli.
PREFACE.
The Calamities of Authors have often excited the attention of the lovers of literature; and, from the revival of letters to this day, this cla.s.s of the community, the most ingenious and the most enlightened, have, in all the nations of Europe, been the most honoured, and the least remunerated. Pierius Valeria.n.u.s, an attendant in the literary court of Leo X., who twice refused a bishopric that he might pursue his studies uninterrupted, was a friend of Authors, and composed a small work, ”De Infelicitate Literatorum,” which has been frequently reprinted.[1] It forms a catalogue of several Italian literati, his contemporaries; a meagre performance, in which the author shows sometimes a predilection for the marvellous, which happens so rarely in human affairs; and he is so unphilosophical, that he places among the misfortunes of literary men those fatal casualties to which all men are alike liable. Yet even this small volume has its value: for although the historian confines his narrative to his own times, he includes a sufficient number of names to convince us that to devote our life to authors.h.i.+p is not the true means of improving our happiness or our fortune.
At a later period, a congenial work was composed by Theophilus Spizelius, a German divine; his four volumes are after the fas.h.i.+on of his country and his times, which could make even small things ponderous. In 1680 he first published two volumes, ent.i.tled ”Infelix Literatus,” and five years afterwards his ”Felicissimus Literatus;” he writes without size, and sermonises without end, and seems to have been so grave a lover of symmetry, that he shapes his _Felicities_ just with the same measure as his _Infelicities_. These two equalised bundles of hay might have held in suspense the casuistical a.s.s of Sterne, till he had died from want of a motive to choose either. Yet Spizelius is not to be contemned because he is verbose and heavy; he has reflected more deeply than Valeria.n.u.s, by opening the moral causes of those calamities which he describes.[2]
The chief object of the present work is to ascertain some doubtful yet important points concerning Authors. The t.i.tle of Author still retains its seduction among our youth, and is consecrated by ages. Yet what affectionate parent would consent to see his son devote himself to his pen as a profession? The studies of a true Author insulate him in society, exacting daily labours; yet he will receive but little encouragement, and less remuneration. It will be found that the most successful Author can obtain no equivalent for the labours of his life. I have endeavoured to ascertain this fact, to develope the causes and to paint the variety of evils that naturally result from the disappointments of genius. Authors themselves never discover this melancholy truth till they have yielded to an impulse, and adopted a profession, too late in life to resist the one, or abandon the other.
Whoever labours without hope, a painful state to which Authors are at length reduced, may surely be placed among the most injured cla.s.s in the community. Most Authors close their lives in apathy or despair, and too many live by means which few of them would not blush to describe.
Besides this perpetual struggle with penury, there are also moral causes which influence the literary character. I have drawn the individual characters and feelings of Authors from their own confessions, or deduced them from the prevalent events of their lives; and often discovered them in their secret history, as it floats on tradition, or lies concealed in authentic and original doc.u.ments. I would paint what has not been unhappily called the _psychological_ character.[3]
I have limited my inquiries to our own country, and generally to recent times; for researches more curious, and eras more distant, would less forcibly act on our sympathy. If, in attempting to avoid the naked brevity of Valeria.n.u.s, I have taken a more comprehensive view of several of our Authors, it has been with the hope that I was throwing a new light on their characters, or contributing some fresh materials to our literary history. I feel anxious for the fate of the opinions and the feelings which have arisen in the progress and diversity of this work; but whatever their errors may be, it is to them that my readers at least owe the materials of which it is formed; these materials will be received with consideration, as the confessions and statements of genius itself. In mixing them with my own feelings, let me apply a beautiful apologue of the Hebrews--”The cl.u.s.ters of grapes sent out of Babylon implore favour for the exuberant leaves of the vine; for had there been no leaves, you had lost the grapes.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A modern writer observes, that ”Valeriano is chiefly known to the present times by his brief but curious and interesting work, _De Literatorum Infelicitate_, which has preserved many anecdotes of the princ.i.p.al scholars of the age, not elsewhere to be found.”--ROSCOE'S _Leo X._ vol. iv. p. 175.
[2] There is also a bulky collection of this kind, ent.i.tled, _a.n.a.lecta de Calamitate Literatorum_, edited by Mencken, the author of _Charlataneria Eruditorum_.
[3] From the Grecian _Psyche_, or the soul, the Germans have borrowed this expressive term. They have a _Psychological Magazine_. Some of our own recent authors have adopted the term peculiarly adapted to the historian of the human mind.
AUTHORS BY PROFESSION.
GUTHRIE AND AMHURST--DRAKE--SMOLLETT.
A great author once surprised me by inquiring what I meant by ”an Author by Profession.” He seemed offended at the supposition that I was creating an odious distinction between authors. I was only placing it among their calamities.
The t.i.tle of AUTHOR is venerable; and in the ranks of national glory, authors mingle with its heroes and its patriots. It is indeed by our authors that foreigners have been taught most to esteem us; and this remarkably appears in the expression of Gemelli, the Italian traveller round the world, who wrote about the year 1700; for he told all Europe that ”he could find nothing amongst us but our writings to distinguish us from the worst of barbarians.” But to become an ”Author by Profession,” is to have no other means of subsistence than such as are extracted from the quill; and no one believes these to be so precarious as they really are, until disappointed, distressed, and thrown out of every pursuit which can maintain independence, the n.o.blest mind is cast into the lot of a doomed labourer.
Literature abounds with instances of ”Authors by Profession”
accommodating themselves to this condition. By vile artifices of faction and popularity their moral sense is injured, and the literary character sits in that study which he ought to dignify, merely, as one of them sings,
To keep his mutton twirling at the fire.
Another has said, ”He is a fool who is a grain honester than the times he lives in.”
Let it not, therefore, be conceived that I mean to degrade or vilify the literary character, when I would only separate the Author from those polluters of the press who have turned a vestal into a prost.i.tute; a grotesque race of famished buffoons or laughing a.s.sa.s.sins; or that populace of unhappy beings, who are driven to perish in their garrets, unknown and unregarded by all, for illusions which even their calamities cannot disperse. Poverty, said an ancient, is a sacred thing--it is, indeed, so sacred, that it creates a sympathy even for those who have incurred it by their folly, or plead by it for their crimes.
The history of our Literature is instructive--let us trace the origin of characters of this sort among us: some of them have happily disappeared, and, whenever great authors obtain their due rights, the calamities of literature will be greatly diminished.
As for the phrase of ”Authors by Profession,” it is said to be of modern origin; and GUTHRIE, a great dealer in literature, and a political scribe, is thought to have introduced it, as descriptive of a cla.s.s of writers which he wished to distinguish from the general term. I present the reader with an unpublished letter of Guthrie, in which the phrase will not only be found, but, what is more important, which exhibits the character in its degraded form. It was addressed to a minister.
_June 3, 1762._
”My Lord,