Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850

Literary men are sad spendthrifts, not only of their money, but of themselves. At an age when other men are in the possession of vigorous faculties of mind and strength of body, they are often used-up, enfeebled, and only capable of effort under the influence of strong stimulants. If a man has the distribution of his own time – if his literary avocations are of that nature that they can be followed at home – if they demand only continuous effort, there is no reason why the waste of vital energy should be greater in his case than in that of the follower of any other learned profession. A man soon discovers to what extent he can safely and profitably tax his powers. To do well in the world he must economize himself no less than his money. Rest is often a good investment. A writer at one time is competent to do twice as much and twice as well as at another; and if his leisure be well employed, the few hours of labor will be more productive than the many, at the time; and the faculty of labor will remain with him twice as long. Rest and recreation, fresh air and bodily exercise, are essential to an author, and he will do well never to neglect them. But there are professional writers who can not regulate their hours of labor, and whose condition of life it is to toil at irregular times and in an irregular manner. It is difficult, we know, for them to abstain from using themselves up prematurely. Repeated paroxysms of fever wear down the strongest frames; and many a literary man is compelled to live a life of fever, between excitement and exhaustion of the mind. We would counsel all public writers to think well of the best means of economizing themselves – the best means of spending their time off duty. Rest and recreation, properly applied, will do much to counteract the destroying influences of spasmodic labor at unseasonable hours, and to ward off premature decay. But if they apply excitement of one kind to repair the ravages of excitement of another kind, they must be content to live a life of nervous irritability, and to grow old before their time.

THE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE

William and Charles Grant were the sons of a farmer in Inverness-shire, whom a sudden flood stript of every thing, even to the very soil which he tilled. The farmer and his son William made their way southward, until they arrived in the neighborhood of Bury, in Lancashire, and there found employment in a print work, in which William served his apprenticeship. It is said that, when they reached the spot near which they ultimately settled, and arrived at the crown of the hill near Walmesley, they were in doubt as to what course was best next to be pursued. The surrounding country lay disclosed before them, the river Irwell making its circuitous way through the valley. What was to be done to induce their decision as to the route they were to take to their future home? A stick was put up, and where it fell, in that direction would they betake themselves. And thus their decision was made, and they betook themselves toward the village of Ramsbotham, not far distant. In this place, these men pitched their tent, and in the course of many long years of industry, enterprise, and benevolence, they accumulated nearly a million sterling of money; earning, meanwhile, the good-will of thousands, the gratitude of many, and the respect of all who knew them. They afterward erected, on the top of the hill overlooking Walmesley, a lofty tower, in commemoration of the fortunate choice they had made, and not improbably as a kind of public thank-offering for the signal prosperity they had reaped. Cotton mills, and print works, were built by them of great extent, employing an immense number of hands; and they erected churches, founded schools, and gave a new life to the district. Their well-directed diligence made the valley teem with industry, activity, health, joy, and opulence; they never forgot the class from which they themselves had sprung, that of working-men, whose hands had mainly contributed to their aggrandizement, and, therefore, they spared no expense in the moral, intellectual, and physical interests of their work-people.

A brief anecdote or two will serve to show what manner of men these Grants were, and that Dickens, in his Brothers Cheeryble, has been guilty of no exaggeration. Many years ago, a warehouseman published an exceedingly scurrilous pamphlet against the firm of Grant Brothers, holding up the elder partner to ridicule as “Billy Button.” William was informed by some “kind friend,” of the existence and nature of the pamphlet, and his observation was, that the man would live to repent of its publication. “Oh!” said the libeler, when informed of this remark, “he thinks that some time or other I shall be in his debt, but I will take good care of that.” It happens, however, that the man in business does not always know who shall be his creditor. It turned out that the libeler shortly became bankrupt, and the brothers held an acceptance of his, which had been indorsed by the drawer who had also become bankrupt. The wantonly libeled men had now an opportunity of revenging themselves upon the libeler, for he could not obtain his certificate without their signature, and without that he could not again commence business. But it seemed to the bankrupt to be a hopeless case to expect that, they would give their signature – they whom he had so wantonly held up to public ridicule. The claims of a wife and children, however, at last forced him to make the application. He presented himself at the counting-house door, and found that “Billy Button” was in. He entered, and William Grant, who was alone, rather sternly bid him, “shut the door, sir!” The libeler trembled before the libeled. He told his tale, and produced his certificate, which was instantly clutched by the injured merchant. “You wrote a pamphlet against us once,” exclaimed Mr. Grant. The supplicant expected to see his parchment thrown into the fire; instead of which, Mr. Grant took a pen, and writing something on the document, handed it back to the supplicant, who expected to find written upon it “rogue, scoundrel, libeler,” instead of which, there was written only the signature of the firm, completing the bankrupt’s certificate. “We make it a rule,” said Mr. Grant, “never to refuse signing the certificate of an honest tradesman, and we have never heard that you were any thing else.” The tears started into the poor man’s eyes. “Ah!” continued Mr. Grant, “my saying was true, I said you would live to repent writing that pamphlet, I did not mean it as a threat, I only meant that some day you would know us better, and repent that you had tried to injure us; I see you repent it now.” “I do, I do,” said the grateful man, “I do, indeed, bitterly repent it.” “Well, well, my dear fellow, you know us now. How do you get on? What are you going to do?” The poor man stated that he had friends who could assist him when his certificate was obtained. “But how are you off in the mean time?” and the answer was that, having given up every farthing to his creditors, he had been compelled to stint his family of even the common necessaries of life, that he might be enabled to pay the cost of his certificate. “My dear fellow, this will never do, your wife and family must not suffer; be kind enough to take this ten-pound note to your wife from me – there, there, my dear fellow – nay, don’t cry – it will all be well with you yet; keep up your spirits, set to work like a man, and you will raise your head among us yet.” The overpowered man endeavored in vain to express his thanks – the swelling in his throat forbade words; he put his hand to his face, and went out of the door crying like a child.

In company with a gentleman who had written and lectured much on the advantages of early religious, moral, and intellectual training, Mr Grant asked – “Well, how do you go on in establishing schools for infants?” The reply was, “Very encouragingly indeed; wherever I have gone, I have succeeded either in inducing good people to establish them, or in procuring better support to those that are already established. But I must give over my labors, for, what with printing bills, coach-fare, and other expenses, every lecture I deliver in any neighboring town, costs me a sovereign, and I can not afford to ride my hobby such a rate.” He said, “You must not give over your labors; God has blessed them with success; He has blessed you with talents, and me with wealth, if you give your time, I ought to give my money. You must oblige me by taking this twenty-pound note, and spending it in promoting the education of the poor.” The twenty-pound note was taken, and so spent; and probably a thousand children are now enjoying the benefit of the impulse that was thus given to a mode of instruction as delightful as it was useful.

Mr. Grant was waited on by two gentlemen, who were raising a subscription for the widow of a respectable, man, who, some years before his death, had been unfortunate in business. “We lost £200 by him,” said Mr. Grant; “and how do you expect I should subscribe, for his widow?” “Because,” answered one of them, “what you have lost by the husband does not alter the widow’s claim on your benevolence.” “Neither it shall,” said he, “here are five pounds, and if you can not make up the sum you want for her, come to me, and I’ll give you more.”

Many other anecdotes, equally characteristic of the kind nature of William Grant, could be added. For fifteen years did he and his brother Charles ride into Manchester on market days, seated side-by-side, looking of all things like a pair of brothers, happy in themselves, and in each other. William died a few years ago, and was followed to the grave by many blessings. The firm still survives, and supports its former character. Long may the merchant princes of England continue to furnish such beautiful specimens of humanity as the now famous Brothers Cheeryble! —Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal.

[From the North British Review.]

WRITING FOR PERIODICALS

Lord lyndhurst once said, at a public dinner, with reference to the numberless marvels of the press, that it might seem a very easy thing to write a leading article, but that he would recommend any one with strong convictions on that point, only to try. We confidently appeal to the experience of all the conductors of the leading journals of Great Britain, from the quarterly reviews to the daily journals, convinced that they will all tell the same unvarying tale of the utter incompetency of thousands of very clever people to write articles, review books, &c. They will all have the same experiences to relate of the marvelous failures of men of genius and learning – the crude cumbrous state in which they have sent their so-called articles for publication – the labor it has taken to mould their fine thoughts and valuable erudition into comely shape – the utter impossibility of doing it at all. As Mr. Carlyle has written of the needle-women of England, it is the saddest thing of all, that there should be sempstresses few or none, but “botchers” in such abundance, capable only of “a distracted puckering and botching – not sewing – only a fallacious hope of it – a fond imagination of the mind;” so of literary labor is it the saddest thing of all, that there should be so many botchers in the world, and so few skilled article-writers – so little article-writing, and so much “distracted puckering and botching.” There may be nothing in this article-writing, when once we know how to do it, as there is nothing in balancing a ladder on one’s chin, or jumping through a hoop, or swallowing a sword. All we say is, if people think it easy, let them try, and abide by the result. The amateur articles of very clever people are generally what an amateur effort at coat-making would be. It may seem a very easy thing to make a coat; but very expert craftsmen – craftsmen that can produce more difficult and elaborate pieces of workmanship, fail utterly when they come to a coat. The only reason why they can not make a coat is, that they are not tailors. Now there are many very able and learned men, who can compass greater efforts of human intellect than the production of a newspaper article, but who can not write a newspaper at all, because they we not newspaper-writers, or criticise a book with decent effect, because they are not critics. Article-writing comes “by art not chance.” The efforts of chance writers, if they be men of genius and learning, are things to break one’s heart over.

It is not enough to think and to know. It requires the faculty of utterance, and a peculiar kind of utterance. Certain things are to be said in a certain manner; and your amateur article-writer is sure to say them in any manner but the right. Perhaps of all styles of writing there is none in which excellency is so rarely attained as that of newspaper-writing. A readable leading article may not be a work of the loftiest order, or demand for its execution the highest attributes of genius; but, whatever it may be, the power of accomplishing it with success is not shared by “thousands of clever fellows.” Thousands of clever fellows, fortified by Mr. Thackeray’s opinion, may think that they could write the articles which they read in the morning journals; but let them take pen and paper and try.

We think it only fair that professional authors should have the credit of being able to do what other people can not. They do not claim to themselves a monoply of talent. They do not think themselves capable of conducting a case in a court of law, as cleverly as a queen’s counsel, or of getting a sick man through the typhus fever as skillfully as a practiced physician. But it is hard that they should not receive credit for being able to write better articles than either the one or the other; or, perhaps it is more to the purpose to say, than the briefless lawyers and patientless medical students who are glad to earn a guinea by their pens. Men are not born article-writers any more than they are born doctors of law, or doctors of physic; as the ludicrous failures, which are every day thrown into the rubbish-baskets of all our newspaper offices, demonstrate past all contradiction. Incompetency is manifested in a variety of ways, but an irrepressible tendency to fine writing is associated with the greater number of them. Give a clever young medical student a book about aural or dental surgery to review, and the chances are ten to one that the criticism will be little else than a high-flown grandiloquent treatise on the wonders of the creation. A regular “literary hack” will do the thing much better.

If there be any set of men – we can not call it a class, for it is drawn from all classes – who might be supposed to possess’ a certain capacity for periodical writing, it is the fraternity of members of Parliament. They are in the habit of selecting given subjects for consideration – of collecting facts and illustrations – of arranging arguments – and of expressing themselves after a manner. They are for the most part men of education, of a practical turn of mind, well acquainted with passing events, and, in many instances, in possession just of that kind of available talent which is invaluable to periodical writers. But very few of them can write an article, either for a newspaper or a review, without inflicting immense trouble upon the editor. Sometimes the matter it contains will be worth the pains bestowed upon it; but it very often happens that it is not. It is one thing to make a speech – another to write an article. But the speech often, no less than the article, requires editorial supervision. The reporter is the speaker’s editor, and a very efficient one too. In a large number of cases, the speaker owes more to the reporter than he would willingly acknowledge. The speech as spoken would often be unreadable, but that the reporter finishes the unfinished sentences, and supplies meanings which are rather suggested than expressed. It would be easy to name members who are capable of writing admirable articles; but many of them owe their position in the House to some antecedent connection with the press, or have become, in some manner regularly “connected with the press;” and have acquired, by long practice, the capacity of article-writing. But take any half-dozen members indiscriminately out of the House, and set them down to write articles on any subject which they may have just heard debated, and see how grotesque will be their efforts? They may be very “clever fellows,” but that they can write articles as well as men whose profession it is to write them, we take upon ourselves emphatically to deny.

ANECDOTE OF LORD CLIVE

Although of a gloomy temperament, and from the earliest age evincing those characteristics of pride and shyness which rendered him unsocial, and therefore unpopular in general society, this nobleman, in the private walks of life, was amiable, and peculiarly disinterested. While in India, his correspondence with those of his own family, evinced in a remarkable degree those right and kindly feelings which could hardly have been expected from Clive, considering the frowardness of early life and the inflexible sternness of more advanced age. When the foundation of his fortune was laid. Lord Clive evinced a praiseworthy recollection of the friends of his early days. He bestowed an annuity of £800 on his parents, while to other relations and friends he was proportionately liberal. He was a devotedly attached husband, as his letters to Lady Clive bear testimony. Her maiden name was Maskelyne, sister to the eminent mathematician, so called, who long held the post of astronomer royal. This marriage, which took place in 1752, with the circumstances attending it, are somewhat singular, and worth recording: Clive, who was at that period just twenty-seven, had formed a previous friendship with one of the lady’s brothers, like himself a resident at Madras. The brother and sister, it appears, kept up an affectionate and constant correspondence – that is, as constant an interchange of epistolary communication as could be accomplished nearly a century ago, when the distance between Great Britain and the East appeared so much more formidable, and the facilities of postal conveyance so comparatively tardy. The epistles of the lady, through the partiality of her brother, were frequently shown to Clive, and they bespoke her to be what from all accounts she was – a woman of very superior understanding, and of much amiability of character. Clive was charmed with her letters, for in those days, be it remembered, the fair sex were not so familiarized to the pen as at the present period. At that time, to indite a really good epistle as to penmanship and diction, was a formidable task, and what few ladies, comparatively speaking, could attain to. The accomplished sister of Dr. Maskelyne was one of the few exceptions, and so strongly did her epistolary powers attract the interest, and gain for her the affections of Clive, that it ended by his offering to marry the young lady, if she could be induced to visit her brother at Madras. The latter, through whom the suggestion was to be made, hesitated, and seemed inclined to discourage the proposition; but Clive in this instance evinced that determination of purpose which was so strong a feature in his character. He could urge, too, with more confidence a measure on which so much of his happiness depended – for he was now no longer the poor neglected boy, sent out to seek his fortune, but one who had already acquired a fame which promised future greatness. In short, he would take no refusal; and then was the brother of Miss Maskelyne forced to own, that highly as his sister was endowed with every mental qualification, nature had been singularly unfavorable to her – personal attractions she had none. The future hero of Plassy was not, however, to be deterred – but he made this compromise: If the lady could be prevailed upon to visit India, and that neither party, on a personal acquaintance, felt disposed for a nearer connection, the sum of £5000 was to be presented to her. With this understanding all scruples were overcome. Miss Maskelyne went out to India, and immediately after became the wife of Clive, who, already prejudiced in her favor, is said to have expressed himself surprised that she should ever have been represented to him as plain. So much for the influence of mind and manner over mere personal endowments. With the sad end of this distinguished general every reader is familiar. His lady survived the event by many years, and lived to a benevolent and venerable old age.

[From The Ladies’ Companion.]

THE IMPRISONED LADY

We derive the following curious passage of life one hundred years since, from the second Series of Mr. Burke’s “Anecdotes of the Aristocracy:”

Lady Cathcart was one of the four daughters of Mr. Malyn, of Southwark and Battersea, in Surrey. She married four times, but never had any issue. Her first husband was James Fleet, Esq., of the City of London, Lord of the Manor of Tewing; her second, Captain Sabine, younger brother of General Joseph Sabine, of Quinohall; her third, Charles, eighth Lord Cathcart, of the kingdom of Scotland, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in the West Indies; and her fourth,11 Hugh Macguire, an officer in the Hungarian service, for whom she bought a lieutenant-colonel’s commission in the British army, and whom she also survived. She was not encouraged, however, by his treatment, to verify the resolution, which she inscribed as a posy on her wedding-ring:

“If I survive,I will have five.”

Her avowed motives for these several engagements were, for the first, obedience to her parents; for the second, money; for the third, title; and for the fourth, submission to the fact that “the devil owed her a grudge, and would punish her for her sins.” In the last union she met with her match. The Hibernian fortune-hunter wanted only her money. Soon after their marriage, she discovered her grievous mistake, and became alarmed lest the colonel, who was desperately in love, not with the widow, but with the “widow’s jointured land,” designed to carry her off, and to get absolute power over all her property; to prepare for the worst, her ladyship plaited some of her jewels in her hair, and quilted others in her petticoat. Meanwhile the mistress of the colonel so far insinuated herself into his wife’s confidence that she learned where her will was deposited; and Macguire getting sight of it, insisted on an alteration in his favor, under a threat of instant death. Lady Cathcart’s apprehensions of the loss of her personal freedom proved to be not without foundation; one morning, when she and her husband went out from Tewing to take an airing, she proposed, after a time, to return, but he desired to go a little further. The coachman drove on; she remonstrated, “they should not be back by dinner-time.” “Be not the least uneasy on that account,” rejoined Macguire; “we do not dine to-day at Tewing, but at Chester, whither we are journeying.” Vain were all the lady’s efforts and expostulations. Her sudden disappearance excited the alarm of her friends, and an attorney was sent in pursuit, with a writ of habeas corpus or ne exeat regno. He overtook the travelers at an inn at Chester, and succeeding in obtaining an interview with the husband, demanded a sight of Lady Cathcart. The colonel, skilled in expedients, and aware that his wife’s person was unknown, assured the attorney that he should see her ladyship immediately, and he would find that she was going to Ireland with her own free consent. Thereupon Macguire persuaded a woman, whom he had properly tutored, to personate his wife. The attorney asked the supposed captive, if she accompanied Colonel Macguire to Ireland of her own good-will? “Perfectly so,” said the woman. Astonished at such an answer, he begged pardon, made a low bow, and set out again for London. Macguire thought that possibly Mr. Attorney might recover his senses, find how he had been deceived, and yet stop his progress; and in order to make all safe, he sent two or three fellows after him, with directions to plunder him of all he had, particularly of his papers. They faithfully executed their commission; and when the colonel had the writ in his possession, he knew that he was safe. He then took my lady over to Ireland, and kept her there, a prisoner, locked up in his own house at Tempo, in Fermanagh, for many years; during which period he was visited by the neighboring gentry, and it was his regular custom at dinner to send his compliments to Lady Cathcart, informing her that the company had the honor to drink her ladyship’s health, and begging to know whether there was any thing at table that she would like to eat? The answer was always – “Lady Cathcart’s compliments, and she has every thing she wants.” An instance of honesty in a poor Irishwoman deserves to be recorded. Lady Cathcart had some remarkably fine diamonds, which she had concealed from her husband, and which she was anxious to get out of the house, lest he should discover them. She had neither servant nor friend to whom she could intrust them, but she had observed a beggar who used to come to the house, she spoke to her from the window of the room in which she was confined; the woman promised to do what she desired, and Lady Cathcart threw a parcel, containing the jewels, to her.