Genius in Sunshine and Shadow. Ballou Maturin Murray

his "Ancient History," was the son of a poor Parisian cutler, and began life at an iron-forge. James Barry, the eminent historical painter, was in his minority a foremast hand on board an Irish coasting-vessel. D'Alembert, the remarkable French mathematician, author, and academician, was at birth a poor foundling in the streets of Paris, though it must be added that he was the illegitimate and discarded son of Madame de Tencin, one of the wickedest, most profligate, most cynical, and ablest of the high-placed women of France. D'Alembert scorned her9 proffered help when she, learning that he was the offspring of one of her desultory amours, attempted to assist him by her money and patronage. He lived austerely poor, and his love was lavished, not on his natural, or rather unnatural, mother, but on the indigent woman who had picked him up in the street, and who by self-denial had enabled him to obtain sustenance and education. As soon as he was old enough to realize his true situation, he said, "I have no name, but with God's help I will make one!" The time came when Catherine II. of Russia offered him one hundred thousand francs per annum to become the educator of her son, which he declined.

      Béranger, the lyric poet of France, whose effectiveness and purity of style defy criticism, was at one time a barefooted orphan on the boulevards of the great city. His verses, bold, patriotic, and satirical, were in every mouth among the masses of his countrymen, contributing more than any other cause to produce the revolution of 1830.10 He had the noble independence to refuse all official recognition under government. Rachel, it will be remembered, was in her childhood a street-ballad singer. A resident of the French capital once pointed out to the writer a spot on the Champs Élysées where at the age of twelve, so pale as to seem scarcely more than a shadow, she used to appear daily, accompanied by her brother. A rude cloth was spread on the ground, upon which she stood and recited tragic scenes from Corneille and Racine, or sang patriotic songs for pennies, accompanied upon the violin by her brother.

      Her attitudes, gestures, and voice always captivated a crowd of people. Rachel was a Jewish pedler's daughter, though she was born in Switzerland; and in these youthful days she wore a Swiss costume upon the boulevards.11

      Boccaccio, the most famous of Italian novelists, was the illegitimate son of a Florentine tradesman, and began life as a merchant's clerk. It is well known that Shakespeare borrowed the plot of "All's Well that Ends Well" from Boccaccio.12 In fact, the "Decamerone" furnished him with plots for several of his plays. Chaucer derived from the same source his poem of the "Knight's Tale." We never hear shallow people reflecting upon the Bard of Avon for taking some of his plots from earlier writers, and weaving about them the golden threads of his superb genius, without recalling Dryden's remark relative to Ben Jonson's adaptations and translations from the classics, in such plays as "Catiline" and "Sejanus." "He invades authors," says Dryden, "like a monarch; and what would be theft in other writers is but victory in him." Sterne's idea upon the same subject also suggests itself. "As monarchs have a right," he says, "to call in the specie of a State and raise its value by their own impression, so are there certain prerogative geniuses who are above plagiaries, who cannot be said to steal, but from their improvement of a thought, rather to borrow it, and repay the commonwealth of letters with interest again, and may more properly be said to adopt than to kidnap a sentiment, by leaving it heir to their own fame."

      Columbus, who gave a new world to the old, was a weaver's son, and in his youth he earned his bread as a cabin-boy in a coasting-vessel which sailed from Genoa. The story of the great Genoese pilot possesses a more thrilling interest than any narrative which the imagination of poet or romancer has ever conceived. His name flashes a bright ray over the mental darkness of the period in which he lived. In imagination one sees him wandering for years from court to court, begging the necessary means wherewith to prosecute his inspired purpose,13 and finally, after successfully accomplishing his mission, languishing in chains and in prison.

      How naturally Halleck's invocation to Death, in "Marco Bozarris," occurs to us here, as the hero, when his object has been attained, joyfully faces the grim monarch:

      "Thy grasp is welcome as the hand

      Of brother in a foreign land;

      Thy summons welcome as the cry

      That told the Indian isles were nigh,

      To the world-seeking Genoese,

      When the land wind from woods of palm

      And orange-groves and fields of balm

      Blew o'er the Haytian seas."

      De Foe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe," and of over two hundred other books, was a hosier by trade, the son of a London butcher named James Foe. The particle De was added by the son without other authority than the suggestion of his own fancy. Cardinal Wolsey and Kirke White were also sons of butchers.

      Claude Lorraine, the glorious colorist, whose very name has become a synonym in art, was in youth employed as a pastry-cook. Molière, the great French dramatist and actor, who presents one of the most remarkable instances of literary success known to history, was the son of a tapestry-maker, and was himself at one time apprenticed to a tailor, and afterwards became a valet-de-chambre. When Molière was valet to Louis XIII., he had already appeared upon the stage, and was rather sneered at by the other members of the king's household. The generous monarch observed this, and determined to put a stop to it: "I am told you have short commons here, Molière, and some of my people decline to serve you," said Louis, as he rose from his breakfast one day. "Sit down here at my table. I warrant you are hungry." And the king cut him a portion of chicken and put it upon his plate just at the moment when a distinguished member of the royal household entered. "You see me," said the king, "giving Molière his breakfast, as some of my people do not think him good enough company for themselves." From that hour the royal valet was treated with due consideration. William Cobbett, the English author and vigorous political writer, was a poor farmer's boy and entirely self-educated. Izaak Walton, the delightful biographist and miscellaneous author, whose "Complete Angler" would make any man's name justly famous, was for years a linen-draper in London. Pope and Southey were the sons of linen-drapers.

      How rapidly instances of the triumphs of genius over circumstances multiply upon us when the mind is permitted to roam at will through the long vista of the past! Cervantes, the Spanish Shakespeare, whose "Don Quixote" is as much a classic14 as "Hamlet," was a common foot-soldier in the army of Castile. In 1575 he was captured by an Algerine corsair and carried as a slave to Algiers, where he endured the most terrible sufferings. He was finally ransomed and returned to Spain. Alexandre Dumas's grandmother was an African slave. Hugh Miller, author, editor, poet, distinguished naturalist, whose clear, choice Saxon-English caused the Edinburgh "Review" to ask, "Where could this man have acquired his style?" was a stone-mason, and his only college was a stone-quarry.15

      Keats, the sweetest of English poets, whose delicacy of fancy and beauty of versification are "a joy forever," was born in a stable. Oliver Cromwell, one of the most extraordinary men in English history, famous as a citizen, great as a general, and greatest as a ruler, was the son of a malt-brewer. Howard, the philanthropist and author, whose name stands a monument of Christian fame, was at first a grocer's boy. Rossini, one of the greatest of modern composers, was the son of an itinerant musician and a strolling actress. Andrea del Sarto was the son of a tailor, and took his name from his father's trade. Perino del Vaga was born in poverty and nearly starved in his boyhood. Perugino, whose noble painting of the "Infant Christ and the Virgin" adorns the Albani Palace at Rome, grew up in want and misery. We all remember the story of the shepherd-boy Giotto, who finally came to be so eminent a painter, and the intimate friend of Dante; like Michael Angelo, he was an architect and sculptor. Paganini, one of the greatest of instrumental performers that ever lived, was born in poverty and was illegitimate. He gained enormous sums of money by his wonderful exhibitions and musical compositions, but was spoiled by adulation, becoming reckless and dissipated. His performances in the cities of Europe created a furore before unparalleled in the history of music, and never since surpassed.

      Wilson

9

When approached by Madame de Tencin, who was finally eager to acknowledge so distinguished a son, he replied: —

10

I knew a very wise man that believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation. —Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.

11

Rachel made her debut at the Théâtre Français of Paris, in 1838. She came to this country in 1855, and performed in our Eastern cities. Three years later she died of consumption, near Cannes, in the South of France. When she was giving one of her readings before the Duke of Wellington, she perceived that all her audience were ignorant of the French language except the Duke himself. She went on, however, at her best, consoling herself that he at least understood her. After it was over, the Duke approached the great actress, and said: "Mademoiselle, our guests have had a great advantage over me; they have had the happiness of hearing you: I am as deaf as a post."

12

Hazlitt, after remarking that Shakespeare's play of "All's Well that Ends Well" is taken from Boccaccio, adds: "The poet has dramatized the original novel with great skill and comic spirit, and has preserved all the beauty of character and sentiment without improving upon it, which is impossible." In the town of Certaldo, Tuscany, the house in which Boccaccio was born is shown to curious travellers. On the façade is an inscription speaking of the small house and a name which filled the world. "Before seven years of age," says Boccaccio, "when as yet I had met with no stories, was without a master, and hardly knew my letters, I had a natural talent for fiction, and produced some small tales."

13

The author has stood upon the Bridge of Pinos, at Granada, from whence Columbus, discouraged and nearly heart-broken, was recalled by Isabella, after having been denied and dismissed, as he supposed, for the last time. The messenger of the relenting queen overtook the great pilot at the bridge, and conducted him back to the Hall of the Ambassadors, in the Alhambra.

14

Disraeli tells us that the French ambassador to Spain, meeting Cervantes, congratulated him on the great success and reputation gained by his "Don Quixote;" whereupon the author whispered in his ear: "Had it not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book much more entertaining." When Cervantes was a captive, and in prison at Algiers, he concerted a plan to free himself and his comrades. One of them traitorously betrayed the plot. They were all conveyed before the Dey of Algiers, who promised them their lives if they would betray the contriver of the plot. "I was that person," replied Cervantes; "save my companions, and let me perish." The Dey, struck with his noble confession, spared his life and permitted them all to be ransomed.

15

"The Testimony of the Rocks," a noble and monumental work, by Hugh Miller, was published in 1857. The night following its completion its author shot himself through the heart. The overworked brain had given out, and all was chaos. He had sense enough left to write a few loving lines to his wife and children, and to say farewell.