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A GRAYBEARD'S GOSSIP ABOUT HIS LITERARY IPT

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Notice of Richard Cumberland continued -The London Review Names of the principal Contributors-Its Want of Success-Anecdotes of Cumberland, and Summary of his Character-Thomas Hill, the Literary Drysalter-My first Interview with George Colman the Younger-Hill's Proneness to Exaggeration, and the Dilemmas in which it involved him.

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NOTWITHSTANDING the total failure of Cumberland's project for securing a more equal distribution of profits between publishers and authors, he was not discouraged from attempting the reform of another literary abuse, which, though it might not be equally beneficial to the former, was scarcely less detrimental to the latter class. Enlightened and impartial criticism, rare enough in our own days, could hardly be said to have existed at the period of which I am writing. Under the insanifying influence produced by the horrors of the French Revolution, and the angry excitement of the war then raging, every Review was perverted into an instrument of political animosity and religious, or rather of irreligious, hatred. Not writings but writers were criticised, the verdict being solely guided by the party or sect to which they were known, or suspected to belong. Partiality of the critical judges on one side generated reaction on the other; both were equally culpable; both seemed to exult in that which formed their joint condemnation, their success in dashing the scales out of the hands of justice.

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From this abuse we have been gradually emancipating ourselves, but there existed another, perhaps equally injurious, and, certainly more sidious, which, even now, has only received a partial remedy. All the Reviews were the property of booksellers, some of whom had notoriously established them for the express purpose of puffing their own publications, and vilipending those of their competitors. Thus was criticism doubly corrupted at its very source, subjected to every evil influence that could pervert, degrade, and taint it. That Cumberland wished to cleanse this Augean stable, for the general purification of literature, there is no reason to doubt; but we may fairly presume that he was not altogether uninfluenced by personal considerations. Too thin-skinned not to wince under the critical lash, however leniently applied, he made no secret of his hostility to their system, when the Edinburgh Reviewers, combining unprecedented vigour and talent with more copious and artistical critiques sthan had hitherto appeared, acted up to the severe spirit of their motto—“ The judge is condemned when the offender escapes." The unfavourable notice of his memoirs, in their number for April, 1806, in which they charged him with an exorbitant appetite for praise, and jealousy of censure, was little calculated to reconcile him, either to the Aristarchi of Edinburgh, or to the general condition of criticism as it was then conducted. Whatever might have been his motives, he resolved to attempt a remedy for a manifest evil by establishing a Review totally independent of bibliopolitan

influences, and guarded against all abuse of the judicial functions on the part of the contributors, by the stipulation that their names should be prefixed. On these conditions he succeeded in engaging associates, few of whom, however, could be deemed men of sufficient literary eminence to promise success to the enterprize; and in May, 1809, appeared the first number of "The London Review, conducted by Richard Cumberland, Esq." The introductory address explains, in the figurative and overwrought style to which I have alluded, his reasons for the undertaking. "It is by no means my disposition to censure indiscriminately a whole body of gentlemen concerned in the like labours with my own, merely because they carry on their operations under casemates, or by ambuscade, while I work in the open field; yet I am free to own that I should like to see their faces that I might have a better chance of understanding their manœuvres. When the enemy veiled himself in a cloud, honest Ajax only prayed for light. Every one must confess that there is a dangerous temptation, an unmanly security, an unfair advantage in concealment; why then should any man who seeks not to injure but to benefit his contemporaries resort to it? A piece of crape may be a convenient mask for a highwayman; but a man that goes upon an honest errand does not want it, and will disdain to wear it. critics aim to raise themselves by sinking others, there is a marvellous great bathos in their ambition. But what is it they wish to do? Is it to make men brighter that they persuade them they are blockheads; or do they aspire to erect a throne for themselves upon the ruins of genius, and be approached like black barbarians through an avenue of skulls erected upon poles, as the trophies of their cruelty?

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me then wonder at the bad policy of those who waste their pains in watering a dead plant, from which they can expect no produce, and neglect a living one which bursting into bloom if duly fostered, may delight them with its beauty, and regale them with its odour."

Diametrically opposed to this doctrine, is the present opinion of one of the contributors to the Review, who, rendered wiser by a long experience, thus sings his palinode:

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If concealment affords a strong and often an irresistible temptation to the gratification of malice, and the splenetic effusions of envy, an avowal of the critic's name must inevitably blunt or misdirect the sword of justice; thus seducing him into an opposite extreme, and affording a fresh proof that the reverse of wrong is not always right. Absolute impartiality is hardly attainable; for almost every man, without being conscious of the fact, has his little prejudices and prepossessions; but the fearlessness and independence possessed by an anonymous writer are calculated to make a much nearer approach to fair criticism, than the fettering responsibility imposed by the reviewer's signature. The man who is hampered and disarmed by publicity, will only exercise a portion of the critic's functions; avoiding all notice of those whom he is afraid to attack, however manifest may be their demerits; overlauding the objects of his favour; and attempting to neutralise the conscious excess of these encomiums by an undue severity towards the humbler aspirants whom he thinks he may victimise with impunity."*

Few, except raw recruits, had been enlisted by the editor for an enter

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* Memoirs, &c., of James Smith, vol. i., p. 22.

prise that demanded a much more vigorous and practised band. His own name, much as it deserved respect, was no longer the tower of strength that it had been. Mr. Pye, indeed, had been enrolled, but, alas! his prose was little better than his odes; and when Mr. Pybus published his fulsome eulogy on the Russian emperor, the laureate, becoming unluckily incorporated with him and Peter Pindar in a malicious Latin epigram,

Poetis Anglia gaudet tribus,
Peter Pindar, Pye, et Pybus,—

was doomed to experience the truth of Pope's well-known lines,

Whoe'er offends at some unlucky time
Slides in a verse, or hitches in a rhyme,
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,

And the sad burden of some merry song.

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The appropriate subjects selected by the laureate were Scott's edition of Dryden, and Elton's translation of Hesiod. The two Smiths, not having yet drawn their lottery-prize of the "Rejected Addresses," chose frivolous works for review; the elder brother levelling his ridicule at "A New System of Domestic Cookery," in which Cumberland inserted a few Greek quotations; the junior shooting his light shafts at "The New and Old Joe Miller," a butt scarcely worth the cost of a single arrow. Horace Twiss came forward as the vindicator of Mr. Malthus, whose population doctrine it had been found much more easy to vituperate than to refute. With the single exception of Mr. G. W. Crowe, who has since become advantageously known to the public, the remaining names belong to the class of the illustrious obscure, and I will not disturb their repose..

In the preface to the first number, the editor had said:" Every body knows the pain and peril of a first approach. Our pledged associates are aware of that, and wisely post themselves in the reserve. The wary and sagacious will not be eager to push off in the first adventurous boat, till they have proof that she is seaworthy." If any such reserve ever existed it was never called into action, or never responded to the call, for, after the second number, the London Review, finding no favour with the public, and presenting (let the reader mark the candour of a contributor!) no very prominent claims to its patronage, was discontinued. It was free, however, from the injustice with which Bishop Warburton upbraids the world, when he says, "The public is a malicious monster, which cares not what it affords to dead merit, so it can but depress the living."

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Prone to the belief that he had been ill-used by the world, and in his diplomatic capacity he had certainly received ungenerous treatment, Cumberland's habitual mood was querulous; but I still recollect the delight with which he told me that his Observer, a series of six volumes, had been incorporated with the great edition of the " British Essayists," so that he considered that work as fairly enrolled among the standard classics of the British language.

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The London Review was the last occasion on which I had the honour of seeing my name associated with that of Mr. Cumberland, whose life, indeed, was not much longer spared, as he died on the 7th of May, 1811, at the house of his friend, Mr. Henry Fry, in Bedford-place. When I last saw him, I found him much altered and attenuated, his white hair hanging over his ears in thin flakes, his figure stooping, his countenance

haggard. Not long before he had asked permission to appoint me one of his executors, to which I gave my consent; but he never altered his will, and I thus escaped all the trouble and responsibility of the office. The publication or suppression of his voluminous papers was intrusted to his friends, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Rogers, and Sir James Bland Burges. In 1813, his "Posthumous Dramatic Works," were published, in two volumes, by subscription, under the superintendence of his daughter, Mrs. Jansen.

Before I conclude this retrospect, let me recall a few notabilia connected with the name of Cumberland, that still linger in my memory. More than once have I heard him relate an anecdote, illustrating the reckless and impulsive character of the lower class of Irish, which is thus repeated in his memoirs :

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"Amongst the labourers in my father's garden, there were three brothers of the name of O'Rourke, regularly descended from the kings of Connaught, if they were exactly to be credited for their genealogy. One of the younger brothers was upon crutches in consequence of a contusion on his hip, which he literally acquired as follows: when my father came down to Clonfert from Dublin, it was announced to him that the bishop was arrived; the poor fellow was then in the act of lopping a tree in the garden; transported at the tidings, he exclaimed, Is my lord come? Then I'll throw myself out of this same tree for joy.' He exactly fulfilled his word, and laid himself up for months."

Cumberland was in the habit of adopting some subject of favour and patronage whom he would cry up, somewhat injudiciously, as a prodigy. At one time a young performer, named Alexander Rae, was pronounced to be a puerile wonder, who was to eclipse Garrick, and he importuned every one to go to the Haymarket, and see him in the character of Mortimer in the "Iron Chest." At another period, I myself was the object of an equally unmeasured predilection. At a literary party where the conversation turned upon the comedy of "Love for Love," some one happening to say," When will the days of Congreve return?" Cumberland pointed to me, and exclaimed with an air of perfect conviction,— "When that boy writes a play.". On that hint I wrote; what boy would have disbelieved the prophecy? My comedy met a cold reception, lingered for a few nights, was then withdrawn, and is now utterly forgotten. Humbled, but not quite discouraged, I attempted a farce, which was condemned on the first night. So much for the new Congreve !

The first new piece exhibited after the rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre, was Cumberland's comedy of the "Jew," referring to which he says, in his memoirs, "The benevolence of the audience assisted me in rescuing a forlorn and persecuted character, which till then had only been brought upon the stage for the unmanly purpose of being made a spectacle of contempt, and a butt for ridicule." In consequence of the service thus rendered to their class, it was rumoured that the Jews had presented a piece of plate to him, but on my asking whether the report were true, he replied, with a look of disappointment, and in a sneering tone,-"No, not they! and if they had, I should have been half afraid to receive it, lest I should be indicted as a receiver of stolen goods;" an answer characteristic enough of the speaker, but hardly in accordance with the spirit and professed object of his play.

Of his occasional happiness in malicious pleasantry, I remember another

instance. While residing at Ramsgate, he had two sister neighbours, whose censorious tongues had rendered them rather unpopular. At some public meeting, he happened to be seated next to one of them, and, on her rising to depart, offered to put on her shawl, observing, at the same time, for he rarely lost an opportunity of paying a compliment, that it was almost a sin to hide such shoulders, i YHWH 911 to 2762 "Oh!" said the lady, with a smirk; "my sister and I, you know, are famous for the beauty of our backs." Mom Tot gertonbaz vltasis. "Ha! that is the reason, I suppose, why your friends are always so glad to see them, sneered the dramatist, as soon as the party was out of ear-shot. unit oqtoe en it

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At an early period of my acquaintance with Cumberland, I had writ ten a romance, which, in accordance with the prevalent taste, abounded in monks, monsters, horrors, thunderings, ghosts, and trap-doors. This farrago I requested him to peruse, and give me his opinion as to the propriety of its publication. He took the manuscript to Ramsgate, where he told me that his daughter, Lady Edward Bentinck, should read it to him, and in a few days it was returned to me with an unfavourable verdict, softened by compliments and many encouragements to new and better efforts. On my telling him, at our next interview, that I had immediately burnt it, he paid me the equivocal talent of saying, "You showed talent, my dear boy, in writing that work, but you have evinced much more in committing it to the flames." One of the charges against my unfortu nate novel having been its diffuseness, I remember that in writing to a friend, I retaliated upon my censor by maliciously quoting his own wiredrawing of the expende Hannibalem, in one of his minor poems, entitled Pride." The following is the passage

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Man, man thou little grovelling elf, b, Turn thine eyes inward, view thyself; Draw out thy balance, hang it forth, or Weigh every atom thou art worth, Thy peerage, pedigree, estate, (The pains that Fortune took to make thee great), Toss them all in-stars, garter garters, strings, The whole regalia of kings

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bu Now watch the beam, and fairly say How much does all this trumpery weigh ? Give in the total, let the scale be just, And own, proud mortal, own thou art but dust, Surely the old Roman said as much in a single line, when he told us that the greatest hero must one day be comprised in a small urn.

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1. Cumberland never received fair treatment from his contemporaries. Why he should be so universally considered as the Sir Fretful Plagiary of Sheridan's "Critic," I never could discover. The former name might in some degree be applicable, for he was a disappointed man, and belonged to the irritable race; but for the second, it would be difficult to show any valid ground, notwithstanding the great variety of his voluminous writings. In the criticisms on Grecian literature which appeared in the Observer, he has frankly acknowledged how much he was indebted to Dr. Bentley's MSS., and it is fair, therefore, to conclude, that if he had consciously borrowed from others, he would have been equally candid in confessing his obligations. In appreciating his personal character, one of his biographers, after admitting his great conversational powers,

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