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From one of his executors, Mr. Donald Grant, who wrote the life prefixed to his poems, I heard of the state of his numerous MSS.; the scattered, yet warm embers of the unhappy bard. Several tragedies, and one on Mary Queen of Scots, abounding with all that domestic tenderness and poetic sensibility which formed the soft and natural feature of his muse; these, with minor poems, thirty lectures on the Roman History, and portions of a periodical paper, were the wrecks of genius! He resided here, little known out of a very private circle, and perished in his fortieth year, not of penury, but of a broken heart. Such noble and well-founded expectations of fortune and fame, all the plans of literary ambition overturned: his genius, with all its delicacy, its spirit, and its elegance, became a prey to that melancholy which constituted so large a portion of it.
Logan, in his “Ode to a Man of Letters,” had formed this lofty conception of a great author:—
| Won from neglected wastes of time, Apollo hails his fairest clime, The provinces of mind; An Egypt with eternal towers;[63] See Montesquieu redeem the hours From Louis to mankind. No tame remission genius knows, No interval of dark repose, To quench the ethereal flame; From Thebes to Troy, the victor hies, And Homer with his hero vies, In varied paths to Fame. |
Our children will long repeat his “Ode to the Cuckoo,” one of the most lovely poems in our language; magical stanzas of picture, melody, and sentiment.[64]
These authors were undoubtedly men of finer feelings, who all perished immaturely, victims in the higher department of literature! But this article would not be complete without furnishing the reader with a picture of the fate of one who, with a pertinacity of industry not common, having undergone 81 regular studies, not very injudiciously deemed that the life of a man of letters could provide for the simple wants of a philosopher.
This man was the late Robert Heron, who, in the following letter, transcribed from the original, stated his history to the Literary Fund. It was written in a moment of extreme bodily suffering and mental agony in the house to which he had been hurried for debt. At such a moment he found eloquence in a narrative, pathetic from its simplicity, and valuable for its genuineness, as giving the results of a life of literary industry, productive of great infelicity and disgrace; one would imagine that the author had been a criminal rather than a man of letters.
“The Case of a Man of Letters, of regular education, living by honest literary industry.
“Ever since I was eleven years of age I have mingled with my studies the labour of teaching or of writing, to support and educate myself.
“During about twenty years, while I was in constant or occasional attendance at the University of Edinburgh, I taught and assisted young persons, at all periods, in the course of education; from the Alphabet to the highest branches of Science and Literature.
“I read a course of Lectures on the Law of Nature, the Law of Nations; the Jewish, the Grecian, the Roman, and the Canon Law; and then on the Feudal Law; and on the several forms of Municipal Jurisprudence established in Modern Europe. I printed a Syllabus of these Lectures, which was approved. They were intended as introductory to the professional study of Law, and to assist gentlemen who did not study it professionally, in the understanding of History.
“I translated ‘Fourcroy’s Chemistry’ twice, from both the second and the third editions of the original; ‘Fourcroy’s Philosophy of Chemistry;’ ‘Savary’s Travels in Greece;’ ‘Dumourier’s Letters;’ ‘Gessner’s Idylls’ in part; an abstract of ‘Zimmerman on Solitude,’ and a great diversity of smaller pieces.
“I wrote a ‘Journey through the Western Parts of Scotland,’ which has passed through two editions; a ‘History of Scotland,’ in six volumes 8vo; a ‘Topographical Account of Scotland,’ which has been several times reprinted; a number 82 of communications in the ‘Edinburgh Magazine;’ many Prefaces and Critiques; a ‘Memoir of the Life of Burns the Poet,’ which suggested and promoted the subscription for his family—has been many times reprinted, and formed the basis of Dr. Currie’s Life of him, as I learned by a letter from the doctor to one of his friends; a variety of Jeux d’Esprit in verse and prose; and many abridgments of large works.
“In the beginning of 1799 I was encouraged to come to London. Here I have written a great multiplicity of articles in almost every branch of science and literature; my education at Edinburgh having comprehended them all. The ‘London Review,’ the ‘Agricultural Magazine,’ the ‘Anti-Jacobin Review,’ the ‘Monthly Magazine,’ the ‘Universal Magazine,’ the ‘Public Characters,’ the ‘Annual Necrology,’ with several other periodical works, contain many of my communications. In such of those publications as have been reviewed, I can show that my anonymous pieces have been distinguished with very high praise. I have written also a short system of Chemistry, in one volume 8vo; and I published a few weeks since a small work called ‘Comforts of Life,’[65] of which the first edition was sold in one week, and the second edition is now in rapid sale.
“In the Newspapers—the Oracle, the Porcupine when it existed, the General Evening Post, the Morning Post, the British Press, the Courier, &c., I have published many Reports of Debates in Parliament, and, I believe, a greater variety of light fugitive pieces than I know to have been written by any one other person.
“I have written also a variety of compositions in the Latin and the French languages, in favour of which I have been honoured with the testimonies of liberal approbation.
“I have invariably written to serve the cause of religion, morality, pious christian education, and good order, in the most direct manner. I have considered what I have written as mere trifles; and have incessantly studied to qualify myself for something better. I can prove that I have, for many years, read and written, one day with another, from twelve to sixteen hours a day. As a human being, I have not been free 83 from follies and errors. But the tenor of my life has been temperate, laborious, humble, quiet, and, to the utmost of my power, beneficent. I can prove the general tenor of my writings to have been candid, and ever adapted to exhibit the most favourable views of the abilities, dispositions, and exertions of others.
“For these last ten months I have been brought to the very extremity of bodily and pecuniary distress.
“I shudder at the thought of perishing in a gaol.
“92, Chancery-lane, Feb. 2, 1807.
“(In confinement).”
The physicians reported that Robert Heron’s health was such “as rendered him totally incapable of extricating himself from the difficulties in which he was involved, by the indiscreet exertion of his mind, in protracted and incessant literary labours.”
About three months after, Heron sunk under a fever, and perished amid the walls of Newgate. We are disgusted with this horrid state of pauperism; we are indignant at beholding an author, not a contemptible one, in this last stage of human wretchedness! after early and late studies—after having read and written from twelve to sixteen hours a day! O, ye populace of scribblers! before ye are driven to a garret, and your eyes are filled with constant tears, pause—recollect that few of you possess the learning or the abilities of Heron.
The fate of Heron is the fate of hundreds of authors by profession in the present day—of men of some literary talent, who can never extricate themselves from a degrading state of poverty.
LABORIOUS AUTHORS.
This is one of the groans of old Burton over his laborious work, when he is anticipating the reception it is like to meet with, and personates his objectors. He says:—
“This is a thinge of meere