Page images
PDF
EPUB

lume. The only perfect reproduction of a couplet in a dif ferent idiom occurred in A.D. 1170, when the Archbishop of York sent a salmon to the chronicler of Malmesbury, with request for a receipt in verse, which was handed to bearer in duplicate-

"Mittitur in disco mihi piscis ab archiepisco

-Po non ponetur nisi potus. Pol! mihi detur."

“E'm sent a fyshe, in a dyshe, by the archbish=

-Hop, is not put here. Egad! he sent noe beere."

Sense, rhythm, point, and even pun are here miraculously reproduced. Prout did his best to rival him of Malmesbury, but he held that in the clear failure of one language to elicit from its repertory an exact equivalent, it becomes not only proper but imperative (on the law principle of Cestui apres in case of trusts) to fall back on an approximate word or idea. of kindred import, the interchange in vocabulary showing at times even a balance in favour of the substitute, as happens in the ordinary course of barter on the markets of the world. He quite abhorred the clumsy servility of adhering to the letter while allowing the spirit to evaporate; a mere verbal echo distorted by natural anfractuosities, gives back neither the tone nor quality of the original voice; while the ease and curious felicity of the primitive utterance is marred by awkwardness and effort; spontaneity of song being the quintessence.

Modest distrust of his own power to please deterred Prout from obtruding much of his personal musings; he preferred chewing the cud of classic fancies, or otherwise approved and substantial stuff; delighting to invest with new and varied forms what had long gained universal recognition.

He had strict notions as to what really constitute the Belles lettres. Brilliancy of thought, depth of remark, pathos of sentiment, sprightliness of wit, vigour and aptitude of style, with some scholarship, were requisites for his notice, or claim to be held in his esteem a literary man. It is useless to add how much of recent growth, and how many pretenders to that title, he would have eschewed.

A word as to the Etchings of D. Maclise, R.A. This great artist in his boyhood knew Prout, and has fixed his true features in enduring copper. The only reliable outline of Sir Walter Scott, as he appeared in plain clothes, and without ideal halo, may be seen at page 54, where he "kisses the Blarney Stone" on his visit to Prout in the summer of 1825. Tom Mcore, equally en deshabille, can be recognized by all who knew him, perpetrating one of his "rogueries" at page 150. The painter's own slim and then youthful figure is doing homage to L.E.L. on a moonlit bank at page 229, while the "garret" of Béranger, page 299, the "night before Larry's execution," page 267, and "Mandarins robing Venus in silk," page 533, are specimens of French, Irish, and Chinese humanity.

But it is his great cartoon of writers in Fraser, anno 1835 (front.), that will most interest coming generations. The banquet he has depicted was no fiction, but a frequent. fact in Regent Street, 212. Dr. Maginn in the chair, addressing the staff contributors, has on his right, Barry Cornwall (Procter), Robert Southey, Percival Bankes, Thackeray, Churchill, Serjeant Murphy, Macnish, Ainsworth, Coleridge, Hogg, Galt, Dunlop, and Jerdan. Fraser is croupier, having on his right Crofton Croker, Lockhart,

Theodore Hook, Sir David Brewster, Dr. Moir (Delta), Tom Carlyle, Count D'Orsay (talking to Allan Cunningham), Sir Egerton Brydges; Rev. G. R. Gleig, chaplain of Chelsea hospital; Rev. F. Mahony, Rev. Edward Irving (of the unknown tongues), a frequent writer in Fraser, and frequenter of his sanctum, where "oft of a stilly night" he quaffed glenlivat with the learned Editor.

Of these twenty-seven, only eight are now living: Mr Procter, lunacy commissioner; Serjeant Murphy, insolvency ditto; the Author of Vanity Fair; the vigorous wordwielder, who then was supplying Fraser with Sartor Resartus; Ainsworth; Gleig, the worthy and efficient chaplaingeneral of Her Majesty's Forces; Sir David, and

FRANK MAHONY.

PARIS, Nov. 20, 1859.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

It is much to be regretted that our Author should be no longer in the land of the living, to furnish a general Preamble, explanatory of the scope and tendency of his multifarious writings. By us, on whom, with the contents of his coffer, hath devolved the guardianship of his glory, such deficiency is keenly felt; having learnt from Epictetus that every sublunary thing has two handles, (παν πραγμα δυας x λaßas), and from experience that mankind are prone to take hold of the wrong one. King Ptolemy, to whom we owe the first translation of the Bible into a then vulgar tongue (and consequently a long array of "centenary celebrations"), proclaimed, in the pithy inscription placed by his order over the entrance of the Alexandrian Library, that books were a sort of physic. The analogy is just, and pursuing it, we would remark that, like other patent medicines, they should invariably be accompanied with " directions for use. Such προλεγομενα would we in the present case be delighted ourselves to supply, but that we have profitably studied the fable of La Fontaine entitled "L'ane qui portait les Reliques." (liv. v. fab. 14.)

In giving utterance to regret, we do not insinuate that the present production of the lamented writer is unfinished or abortive: on the contrary, our interest prompts us to pronounce it complete, as far as it goes. Prout, as an author, will be found what he was in the flesh-" totus teres atque rotundus." Still a suitable introduction, furnished by a kindred genius, would in our idea be ornamental. The Pantheon of republican Rome, perfect in its simplicity, yet derived a supplementary grace from the portico superadded by Agrippa.

Much meditating on the materials that fill "the chest," and daily more impressed with the merit of our author, we thought it a pity that his wisdom should be suffered to evaporate in magazine squibs. What impression could, in

« PreviousContinue »