Anecdotes about Authors, and Artists. John Timbs

nor Warburton, nor Johnson, nor Burke, transmitted their blood. One of the arguments against a perpetuity in literary property is, that it would be founding another noblesse. Neither jealous aristocracy nor envious Jacobinism need be under such alarm. When a human race has produced its ‘bright, consummate flower’ in this kind, it seems commonly to be near its end.”

THE BLUE-STOCKING CLUB.

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      Towards the close of the last century, there met at Mrs. Montague’s a literary assembly, called “The Blue-Stocking Club,” in consequence of one of the most admired of the members, Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, always wearing blue stockings. The appellation soon became general as a name for pedantic or ridiculous literary ladies. Hannah More wrote a volume in verse, entitled The Bas Bleu: or Conversation. It proceeds on the mistake of a foreigner, who, hearing of the Blue-Stocking Club, translated it literally Bas Bleu. Johnson styled this poem “a great performance.” The following couplets have been quoted, and remembered, as terse and pointed:—

      “In men this blunder still you find,

       All think their little set mankind.”

      “Small habits well pursued betimes,

       May reach the dignity of crimes.”

DR. JOHNSON AND HANNAH MORE.

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      When Hannah More came to London in 1773, or 1774, she was domesticated with Garrick, and was received with favour by Johnson, Reynolds, and Burke. Her sister has thus described her first interview with Johnson:—

      “We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds; she had sent to engage Dr. Percy, (‘Percy’s Collection,’ now you know him), quite a sprightly modern, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected: he was no sooner gone than the most amiable and obliging of women, Miss Reynolds, ordered the coach to take us to Dr. Johnson’s very own house: yes, Abyssinian Johnson! Dictionary Johnson! Ramblers, Idlers, and Irene Johnson! Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion? The conversation turned upon a new work of his just going to the press (the ‘Tour to the Hebrides’), and his old friend Richardson. Mrs. Williams, the blind poet, who lives with him, was introduced to us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation lively and entertaining. Miss Reynolds told the Doctor of all our rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said she was ‘a silly thing.’ When our visit was ended, he called for his hat, as it rained, to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself more en cavalier. I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson in his little parlour when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair hoping to catch a little ray of his genius: when he heard it, he laughed heartily, and told her it was a chair on which he never sat. He said it reminded him of Boswell and himself when they stopped a night, as they imagined, where the weird sisters appeared to Macbeth. The idea so worked on their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest. However, they learned the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country.”

MISS MITFORD’S FAREWELL TO THREE MILE CROSS.

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      When Miss Mitford left her rustic cottage at Three Mile Cross, and removed to Reading, (the Belford Regis of her novel), she penned the following beautiful picture of its homely joys:—

      “Farewell, then, my beloved village! the long, straggling street, gay and bright on this sunny, windy April morning, full of all implements of dirt and mire, men, women, children, cows, horses, wagons, carts, pigs, dogs, geese, and chickens—busy, merry, stirring little world, farewell! Farewell to the winding, up-hill road, with its clouds of dust, as horsemen and carriages ascend the gentle eminence, its borders of turf, and its primrosy hedges! Farewell to the breezy common, with its islands of cottages and cottage-gardens; its oaken avenues, populous with rooks; its clear waters fringed with gorse, where lambs are straying; its cricket-ground where children already linger, anticipating their summer revelry; its pretty boundary of field and woodland, and distant farms; and latest and best of its ornaments, the dear and pleasant mansion where dwelt the neighbours, the friends of friends; farewell to ye all! Ye will easily dispense with me, but what I shall do without you, I cannot imagine. Mine own dear village, farewell!”

SMOLLETT’S “HUGH STRAP.”

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      In the year 1809 was interred, in the churchyard of St. Martin’s-in-the Fields, the body of one Hew Hewson, who died at the age of 85. He was the original of Hugh Strap, in Smollett’s Roderick Random. Upwards of forty years he kept a hair-dresser’s shop in St. Martin’s parish; the walls were hung round with Latin quotations, and he would frequently point out to his customers and acquaintances the several scenes in Roderick Random pertaining to himself, which had their origin, not in Smollett’s inventive fancy, but in truth and reality. The meeting in a barber’s shop at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the subsequent mistake at the inn, their arrival together in London, and the assistance they experienced from Strap’s friend, are all facts. The barber left behind an annotated copy of Roderick Random, showing how far we are indebted to the genius of the author, and to what extent the incidents are founded in reality.

COLLINS’S POEMS.

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      Mr. John Ragsdale, of Richmond, in Surrey, who was the intimate friend of Collins, states that some of his Odes were written while on a visit at his, Mr. Ragsdale’s house. The poet, however, had such a poor opinion of his own productions, that after showing them to Mr. Ragsdale, he would snatch them from him, and throw them into the fire; and in this way, it is believed, many of Collins’s finest pieces were destroyed. Such of his Odes as were published, on his own account in 1746, were not popular; and, disappointed at the slowness of the sale, the poet burnt the remaining copies with his own hands.

CAPTAIN MORRIS’S SONGS.

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      Alas! poor Morris—writes one—we knew him well. Who that has once read or heard his songs, can forget their rich and graceful imagery; the fertile fancy, the touching sentiment, and the “soul reviving” melody, which characterize every line of these delightful lyrics? Well do we remember, too, his “old buff waistcoat,” his courteous manner, and his gentlemanly pleasantry, long after this Nestor of song had retired to enjoy the delights of rural life, despite the prayer of his racy verse:

      “In town let me live, then, in town let me die;

       For in truth I can’t relish the country, not I.

       If one must have a villa in summer to dwell,

       Oh! give me the sweet, shady side of Pall Mall.”

      Captain Morris was born about the middle of the last century, and outlived the majority of the bon vivant society which he gladdened with his genius, and lit up with his brilliant humour.

      Yet, many readers of the present generation may ask, “Who was Captain Morris?” He was born of good family, in the celebrated year 1745, and appears to have inherited a taste for literary composition; for his father composed