Among the great variety of characters which fall in a traveller's way,
I became acquainted during my sojourn in London, with an eccentric
personage of the name of Buckthorne.
He was a literary man, had lived
much in the metropolis, and had acquired a great deal of curious,
though unprofitable knowledge concerning it. He was a great observer of
character, and could give the natural history of every odd animal that
presented itself in this great wilderness of men. Finding me very
curious about literary life and literary characters, he took much pains
to gratify my curiosity.
"The literary world of England," said he to me one day, "is made up of
a number of little fraternities, each existing merely for itself, and
thinking the rest of the world created only to look on and admire. It
may be resembled to the firmament, consisting of a number of systems,
each composed of its own central sun with its revolving train of moons
and satellites, all acting in the most harmonious concord; but the
comparison fails in part, inasmuch as the literary world has no general
concord. Each system acts independently of the rest, and indeed
considers all other stars as mere exhalations and transient meteors,
beaming for awhile with false fires, but doomed soon to fall and be
forgotten; while its own luminaries are the lights of the universe,
destined to increase in splendor and to shine steadily on to
immortality."
"And pray," said I, "how is a man to get a peep into one of these
systems you talk of? I presume an intercourse with authors is a kind of
intellectual exchange, where one must bring his commodities to barter,
and always give a quid pro quo."
"Pooh, pooh - how you mistake," said Buckthorne, smiling; "you must
never think to become popular among wits by shining. They go into
society to shine themselves, not to admire the brilliancy of others. I
thought as you do when I first cultivated the society of men of
letters, and never went to a blue-stocking coterie without studying my
part beforehand as diligently as an actor. The consequence was, I soon
got the name of an intolerable proser, and should in a little while
have been completely excommunicated had I not changed my plan of
operations. From thenceforth I became a most assiduous listener, or if
ever I were eloquent, it was tete-a-tete with an author in praise of
his own works, or what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the
works of his contemporaries. If ever he spoke favorably of the
productions of some particular friend, I ventured boldly to dissent
from him, and to prove that his friend was a blockhead; and much as
people say of the pertinacity and irritability of authors, I never
found one to take offence at my contradictions. No, no, sir, authors
are particularly candid in admitting the faults of their friends.
"Indeed, I was extremely sparing of my remarks on all modern works,
excepting to make sarcastic observations on the most distinguished
writers of the day. I never ventured to praise an author that had not
been dead at least half a century; and even then I was rather cautious;
for you must know that many old writers have been enlisted under the
banners of different sects, and their merits have become as complete
topics of party prejudice and dispute, as the merits of living
statesmen and politicians. Nay, there have been whole periods of
literature absolutely taboo'd, to use a South Sea phrase. It is, for
example, as much as a man's reputation is worth, in some circles, to
say a word in praise of any writers of the reign of Charles the Second,
or even of Queen Anne; they being all declared to be Frenchmen in
disguise."
"And pray, then," said I, "when am I to know that I am on safe grounds;
being totally unacquainted with the literary landmarks and the boundary
lines of fashionable taste?"
"Oh," replied he, there is fortunately one tract of literature that
forms a kind of neutral ground, on which all the literary world meet
amicably; lay down their weapons and even run riot in their excess of
good humor, and this is, the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Here you
may praise away at a venture; here it is 'cut and come again,' and the
more obscure the author, and the more quaint and crabbed his style, the
more your admiration will smack of the real relish of the connoisseur;
whose taste, like that of an epicure, is always for game that has an
antiquated flavor.
"But," continued he, "as you seem anxious to know something of literary
society I will take an opportunity to introduce you to some coterie,
where the talents of the day are assembled. I cannot promise you,
however, that they will be of the first order. Somehow or other, our
great geniuses are not gregarious, they do not go in flocks, but fly
singly in general society. They prefer mingling, like common men, with
the multitude; and are apt to carry nothing of the author about them
but the reputation. It is only the inferior orders that herd together,
acquire strength and importance by their confederacies, and bear all
the distinctive characteristics of their species."
A LITERARY DINNER.
A few days after this conversation with Mr. Buckthorne, he called upon
me, and took me with him to a regular literary dinner. It was given by
a great bookseller, or rather a company of booksellers, whose firm
surpassed in length even that of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.
I was surprised to find between twenty and thirty guests assembled,
most of whom I had never seen before. Buckthorne explained this to me
by informing me that this was a "business dinner," or kind of field
day, which the house gave about twice a year to its authors. It is
true, they did occasionally give snug dinners to three or four literary
men at a time, but then these were generally select authors; favorites
of the public; such as had arrived at their sixth and seventh editions.
"There are," said he, "certain geographical boundaries in the land of
literature, and you may judge tolerably well of an author's popularity,
by the wine his bookseller gives him.
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