TO
ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D.,
&c. &c. &c.
In dedicating this Work to one of the most eminent literary characters of the age, I am experiencing a peculiar gratification, in which few, perhaps none, of my contemporaries can participate; for I am addressing him, whose earliest effusions attracted my regard, near half a century past; and during that awful interval of time—for fifty years is a trial of life of whatever may be good in us—you have multiplied your talents, and have never lost a virtue.
When I turn from the uninterrupted studies of your domestic solitude to our metropolitan authors, the contrast, if not encouraging, is at least extraordinary. You are not unaware that the revolutions of Society have operated on our literature, and that new classes of readers have called forth new classes of writers. The causes and the consequences of the present state of this fugitive literature might form an inquiry which would include some of the important topics which concern the PUBLIC MIND—but an inquiry which might be invidious shall not disturb a page consecrated to the record of excellence. They who draw their inspiration from the hour must not, however, complain if with that hour they pass away.
I. DISRAELI.
INTRODUCTION.
For the fifth time I revise a subject which has occupied my inquiries from early life, with feelings still delightful, and an enthusiasm not wholly diminished.
Had not the principle upon which this work is constructed occurred to me in my youth, the materials which illustrate the literary character could never have been brought together. It was in early life that I conceived the idea of pursuing the history of genius by the similar events which had occurred to men of genius. Searching into literary history for the literary character formed a course of experimental philosophy in which every new essay verified a former trial, and confirmed a former truth. By the great philosophical principle of induction, inferences were deduced and results established, which, however vague and doubtful in speculation, are irresistible when the appeal is made to facts as they relate to others, and to feelings which must be decided on as they are passing in our own breast.
It is not to be inferred from what I have here stated that I conceive that any single man of genius will resemble every man of genius; for not only man differs from man, but varies from himself in the different stages of human life. All that I assert is, that every man of genius will discover, sooner or later, that he belongs to the brotherhood of his class, and that he cannot escape from certain habits, and feelings, and disorders, which arise from the same temperament and sympathies, and are the necessary consequence of occupying the same position, and passing through the same moral existence. Whenever we compare men of genius with each other, the history of those who are no more will serve as a perpetual commentary on our contemporaries. There are, indeed, secret feelings which their prudence conceals, or their fears obscure, or their modesty shrinks from, or their pride rejects; but I have sometimes imagined that I have held the clue as they have lost themselves in their own labyrinth. I know that many, and some of great celebrity, have sympathised with the feelings which inspired these volumes; nor, while I have elucidated the idiosyncrasy of genius, have I less studied the habits and characteristics of the lovers of literature.
It has been considered that the subject of this work might have been treated with more depth of metaphysical disquisition; and there has since appeared an attempt to combine with this investigation the medical science. A work, however, should be judged by its design and its execution, and not by any preconceived notion of what it ought to be according to the critic, rather than the author. The nature of this work is dramatic rather than metaphysical. It offers a narration or a description; a conversation or a monologue; an incident or a scene.
Perhaps I have sometimes too warmly apologised for the infirmities of men of genius. From others we may hourly learn to treat with levity the man of genius because he is only such. Perhaps also I may have been too fond of the subject, which has been for me an old and a favourite one—I may have exalted the literary character beyond the scale by which society is willing to fix it. Yet what is this Society, so omnipotent, so all judicial? The society of to-day was not the society of yesterday. Its feelings, its thoughts, its manners, its rights, its wishes, and its wants, are different and are changed: alike changed or alike created by those very literary characters whom it rarely comprehends and often would despise. Let us no longer look upon this retired and peculiar class as useless members of our busy race. There are mental as well as material labourers. The first are not less necessary; and as they are much rarer, so are they more precious. These are they whose "published labours" have benefited mankind—these are they whose thoughts can alone rear that beautiful fabric of social life, which it is the object of all good men to elevate or to support. To discover truth and to maintain it—to develope the powers, to regulate the passions, to ascertain the privileges of man—such have ever been, and such ever ought to be, the labours of AUTHORS! Whatever we enjoy of political and private happiness, our most necessary knowledge as well as our most refined pleasures, are alike owing to this class of men; and of these, some for glory, and often from benevolence, have shut themselves out from the very beings whom they love, and for whom they labour.
Upwards of forty years have elapsed since, composed in a distant county, and printed at a provincial press, I published "An Essay on the Manners and Genius of the Literary Character." To my own habitual and inherent defects were superadded those of my youth. The crude production was, however, not ill received, for the edition disappeared, and the subject was found more interesting than the writer.
During a long interval of twenty years, this little work was often recalled to my recollection by several, and by some who have since obtained celebrity. They imagined that their attachment to literary pursuits had been strengthened even by so weak an effort. An extraordinary circumstance concurred with these opinions. A copy accidentally fell into my hands which had formerly belonged to the great poetical genius of our times; and the singular fact, that it had been more than once read by him, and twice in two subsequent years at Athens, in 1810 and 1811, instantly convinced me that the volume deserved my renewed attention.
It was with these feelings that I was again strongly attracted to a subject from which, indeed, during the course of a studious life, it had never been long diverted. The consequence of my labours was the publication, in 1818, of an octavo volume, under the title of "The Literary Character, illustrated by the History of Men of Genius, drawn from their own feelings and confessions."
In the preface to this edition, in mentioning the fact respecting Lord Byron, which had been the immediate cause of its publication, I added these words: "I tell this fact assuredly not from any little vanity which it may appear to betray;—for the truth is, were I not as liberal and as candid in respect to my own productions, as I hope I am to others, I could not have been gratified by the present circumstance; for the marginal notes of the noble author convey no flattery;—but amidst their pungency, and sometimes their truth, the circumstance that a man of genius could reperuse this slight effusion at two different periods of his life, was a sufficient authority, at least for an author, to return it once more to the anvil."
Some time after the publication of this edition of "The Literary Character," which was in fact a new work, I was shown, through the kindness of an English gentleman lately returned from Italy, a copy of it, which had been given to him by Lord Byron, and which again contained marginal notes by the noble author. These were peculiarly interesting, and were chiefly occasioned by observations on his character, which appeared in the work.
In 1822 I published a new edition of this work, greatly enlarged, and in two volumes. I took this opportunity of inserting the manuscript Notes of Lord Byron, with the exception of one, which, however characteristic of the amiable feelings