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hand them round to the company, as the delightful Miss Slowboy does the baby in the last Christmas book. What was better than wit in his talk was, that it was so genial. He enjoyed thoroughly, and chirped over his wine with a good humor, that could not fail to be infectious. His own hospitality was delightful: there was something about it charmingly brisk, simple, and kindly. How he used to laugh! As I write this, what a number of pleasant, hearty scenes come back! One can hear his jolly, clear laughter; and see his keen, kind, beaming Jew face,-a mixture of Mendelssohn and Voltaire.

vial meetings, does not miss, and will not miss for ever, the sweetness of those unpretending talents--the earnestness of that honesty which seemed unconscious it was worn so lightlythe mild influence of that exuberant kindness, which softened the acrimony of young dispu tants, and reconciled the secret animosities of jealous rivals? Yet few men had experienced more to sour them than Laman Blanchard, or had gone more resolutely through the author's hardening ordeal of narrow circumstance, of higher aims of ambition, which must almost daily labor, and of that disappointment in the inevitably befall those who retain ideal standards of excellence, to be reached but by time and leisure, and who are yet condemned to draw hourly upon unmatured resources for the Sir Bulwer Lytton's account of him will practical wants of life. To have been engaged be read by all his friends with pleasure, and from boyhood in such struggles, and to have by the world as a not uncurious specimen for those more fortunate, and untiring love for preserved, undiminished, generous admiration of the biography of a literary man. The his own noble yet thankless calling; and this memoir savors a little too much of the with a constitution singularly finely strung, Suneral oration. It might have been a little and with all the nervous irritability which more particular and familiar, so as to give usually accompanies the indulgence of the the public a more intimate acquaintance imagination; is a proof of the rarest kind of with one of the honestest and kindest of men strength, depending less upon a power purely who ever lived by pen; and yet, after a beautiful heroism which woman, and such intellectual, than upon the higher and more long and friendly intercourse with Blanch-men alone as have the best feelings of a woard, I believe the praises Sir Lytton be- man's nature, take from instinctive enthusiasm stows on his character are by no means for what is great, and uncalculating faith in exaggerated: it is only the style in which what is good. they are given, which is a little too funere"It is, regarded thus, that the character of Laman Blanchard assumes an interest of a ally encomiastic. The memoir begins in very elevated order. He was a choice and this way, a pretty and touching design of worthy example of the professional English Mr. Kenny Meadows heading the bio-men of letters in our day. He is not to be graphy:considered in the light of the man of daring "To most of those who have mixed gener-citement of vehement calumny and uproarious and turbulent genius, living on the false exally with the men who, in our day, have chosen literature as their profession, the name but sufficiently quiet and unnoticed to be praise. His was a career not indeed obscure, of Laman Blanchard brings recollections of solaced with little of the pleasure with which, peculiar tenderness and regret. Amidst a career which the keenness of anxious rivalry not ignoble vanity rewards the labor and in aspirants of a noisier fame, gratified and renders a sharp probation to the temper and stimulates the hope. For more than twenty the affections, often yet more embittered by that strife of party, of which, in a Representa-paths of literary composition, mostly in perihe toiled on through the most fatiguing tive Constitution, few men of letters escape odicals, often anonymously; pleasing and the eager passions and the angry prejudice lightly instructing thousands, but gaining they recall the memory of a competitor, without envy; a partisan, without gall; firm as the tation or popular renown, which more fortunone of the prizes, whether of weighty repufirmest in the maintenance of his own opinions; nate chances, or more pretending modes of but gentle as the gentlest in the judgment he investing talent, have given in our day to men passed on others. of half his merits."

"Who, among our London brotherhood of letters, does not miss that simple cheerfulness

-that inborn and exquisite urbanity-that Not a feature in this charming character child-like readiness to be pleased with all-is flattered, as far as I know. Did the subthat happy tendency to panegyrize every ject of the memoir feel disappointment in merit, and to be lenient to every fault? Who the higher aims of ambition? Was his does not recall that acute and delicate sensi- career not solaced with pleasure? Was bility-so easily wounded, and therefore so his noble calling a thankless one? I have a certain intellectual fine breeding, of forbear- said before, his calling was not thankless; ance and sympathy, into every society where his career, in the main, pleasant; his disit insinuated its gentle way? Who, in convi- appointment, if he had one of the higher

careful not to wound-which seemed to infuse

aims of ambition, one that might not un- good education-an education, indeed, of that easily be borne. If every man is disap-kind which could not but unfit young Laman the abilities and bestowed the learning, which for the calling of his father; for it developed may be said to lift a youth morally out of trade, and to refine him at once into a gentleman. At six years old he was entered a scholar of St. Olave's school, then under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Blenkorm. He became the head Latin scholar, and gained the chief prize in each of the last three years he remained at the academy. When he left, it was the wish of the master and trustees that he should be sent to college, one boy being annually selected from the pupils, to be maintained at the university, for the freshman's year, free of expense; for the charges of the two remaining years the parents were to provide. So strong, however, were the hopes of the master for his consented to depart from their ordinary pracpromising pupil, that the trustees of the school tice, and offered to defray the collegiate expenses for two years. Unfortunately, the offer was not accepted. No wonder that poor Laman regretted in after life the loss of this golden opportunity. The advantages of an university career to a young man in his position, with talents and application, but without interest, birth, and fortune, are incalculable. The pecuniary independence afforded by the scholarship and the fellowship, is in itself no despicable prospect; but the benefits which distinction, fairly won at those noble and unrivalled institutions, confers, are the greatest the vagueness of youthful ambition to the where least obvious: they tend usually to bind secure reliance on some professional career, in which they smooth the difficulties and abridge the novitiate. Even in literature a college education not only tends to refine the taste, but to propitiate the public. And in all the many walks of practical and public life, the honors wishers amongst powerful contemporaries, gained at the university never fail to find welland to create generous interest in the fortunes of the aspirant.

pointed because he cannot reach supreme excellence, what a mad, misanthropical world ours would be! Why should men of letters aim higher than they can hit, or be "disappointed" with the share of brains God has given them? Nor can you say a man's career is unpleasant who was so heartily liked and appreciated as Blanchard was, by all persons of high intellect, or low, with whom he came in contact. He had to bear with some, but not unbearable poverty. At home he had every thing to satisfy his affection: abroad, every sympathy and consideration met this universally esteemed, good man. Such a calling as his is not thankless, surely. Away with this discontent and morbid craving for renown! A man who writes (Tennyson's) Ulysses, or Comus, may put in his claim for fame if you will, and demand and deserve it but it requires no vast power of intellect to write most sets of words, and have them printed in a book:-To write this article, for instance, or the last novel, pamphlet, book of travels. Most men with a decent education and practice of the pen, could go and do the like, were they so professionally urged. Let such fall into the rank and file, and shoulder their weapons, and load and fire cheerfully. An everyday writer has no more right to repine because he loses the great prizes, and can't write like Shakspeare, than he has to be envious of Sir Robert Peel, or Wellington, or King Hudson, or Taglioni. Because the sun shines above, is a man to warm himself and admire; or to despond because he can't in his person flare up like the sun? I don't believe that Blanchard was by any means an amateur-martyr, but was, generally speaking, very decently satisfied with

his condition.

Here is the account of his early history -a curious and interesting one:—

"Samuel Laman Blanchard was born of respectable parents in the middle class at Great Yarmouth, on the 15th of May, 1803. His mother's maiden name was Mary Laman. She married first Mr. Cowell, at St. John's Church, Bermondsey, about the year 1796; he died in the following year. In 1799 she was married again, to Samuel Blanchard, by whom she had seven children, but only one son, the third child, christened Samuel Laman. "In 1805, Mr. Blanchard (the father) appears to have removed to the metropolis, and to have settled in Southwark as a painter and glazier. He was enabled to give his boy a

"But my poor friend was not destined to have one obstacle smoothed away from his weary path.* With the natural refinement of his disposition, and the fatal cultivation of his once in a situation which it was impossible intellectual susceptibilities, he was placed at that he could fill with steadiness and zeal. Fresh from classical studies, and his emulation warmed by early praise and school-boy triumph, he was transferred to the drudgery of a desk in the office of Mr. Charles Pearson, a proctor in Doctors' Commons. The result was

*"The elder Blanchard is not to be blamed for proffered by the liberal trustees of St. Olave's; it voluntarily depriving his son of the advantages appears from a communication by Mr. Keymer (brother-in-law to Laman Blanchard)-that the circumstances of the family at that time were not such as to meet the necessary expenses of a student-even for the last year of his residence at the university."

inevitable; his mind, by a natural reaction, | this gentleman proposed to enroll him in his betook itself to the pursuits most hostile to such a career. Before this, even from the age of thirteen, he had trifled with the Muses; he now conceived in good earnest the more perilous passion for the stage.

own troop, and the proposal was eagerly accepted, in spite of the warnings of Mr. Henry Johnston. A week,' says Mr. Buckstone, (to whom I am indebted for these particulars, and whose words I now quote,)' was sufficient to disgust him with the beggary and drudgery of the country player's life; and as there were no 'Harlequins' steaming it from Margate to London Bridge at that day, he performed his journey back on foot, having, on reaching Rochester, but his last shilling-the poet's veritable last shilling-in his pocket.

"Barry Cornwall's Dramatic Scenes were published about this time,-they exercised considerable influence over the taste and aspirations of young Blanchard-and many dramatic sketches of brilliant promise, bearing his initials, S. L. B., appeared in a periodical work existing at that period, called The Drama. In them, though the conception and "At that time a circumstance occurred, general treatment are borrowed from Barry which my poor friend's fate has naturally Cornwall, the style and rhythm are rather brought to my recollection. He came to me modelled on the peculiarities of Byron. Their late one evening, in a state of great excitepromise is not the less for the imitation they ment; informed me that his father had turned betray. The very characteristic of genius is him out of doors; that he was utterly hopeless to be imitative-first of authors, then of nature. and wretched, and was resolved to destroy Books lead us to fancy feelings that are not himself. I used my best endeavors to console yet genuine. Experience is necessary to re- him, to lead his thoughts to the future, and cord those which color our own existence: and hope in what chance and perseverance might the style only becomes original in proportion effect for him. Our discourse took a livelier as the sentiment it expresses is sincere. More turn; and after making up a bed on a sofa in touching, therefore, than these Dramatic my own room, I retired to rest. I soon slept Sketches, was a lyrical effusion on the death soundly, but was awakened by hearing a footof Sidney Ireland, a young friend to whom he step descending the stairs. I looked towards was warmly attached, and over whose memory, the sofa, and discovered he had left it; I heard for years afterwards, he often shed tears. He the street door close; I instantly hurried on named his eldest son after that early friend. my clothes, and followed him; I called to him, At this period, Mr. Douglas Jerrold had writ- but received no answer; I ran till I saw him ten three volumes of Moral Philosophy, and in the distance also running; I again called Mr. Buckstone, the celebrated comedian, vol- his name; I implored him to stop, but he would unteered to copy the work for the juvenile not answer me. Still continuing his pace, I moralist. On arriving at any passage that became alarmed, and doubled my speed. I struck his fancy, Mr. Buckstone communicated came up with him near to Westminster Bridge; his delight to his friend Blanchard, and the he was hurrying to the steps leading to the emulation thus excited tended more and more river; I seized him; he threatened to strike to sharpen the poet's distaste to all avocations me if I did not release him; I called for the incompatible with literature. Anxious, in the watch; I entreated him to return; he became first instance, to escape from dependence on more pacified, but still seemed anxious to his father, (who was now urgent that he should escape from me. By entreaties; by every leave the proctor's desk for the still more un-means of persuasion I could think of; by genial mechanism of the paternal trade), he threats to call for help; I succeeded in taking meditated the best of all preparatives to dra-him back. The next day he was more commatic excellence; viz., a practical acquaint- posed, but I believe rarely resided with his ance with the stage itself: he resolved to be- father after that time. Necessity compelled come an actor. Few indeed are they in this him to do something for a livelihood, and in country who have ever succeeded eminently in time he became a reader in the office of the the literature of the stage, who have not either Messrs. Bayliss, in Fleet Street. By that trod its boards, or lived habitually in its atmos- employ, joined to frequent contributions to phere. Blanchard obtained an interview with the Monthly Magazine, at that time publishMr. Henry Johnston, the actor, and recited, in [ed by them, he obtained a tolerable compehis presence, passages from Glover's Leonidas.tence.

He read admirably-his elocution was fault- "Blanchard and Jerrold had serious less-his feeling exquisite; Mr. Johnston was thoughts of joining Lord Byron in Greece; delighted with his powers, but he had experi- they were to become warriors, and assist the ence and wisdom to cool his professional en-poet in the liberation of the classic land. Many thusiasm, and he earnestly advised the aspirant a nightly wandering found them discussing not to think of the stage. He drew such a picture of the hazards of success-the obsta cles to a position-the precariousness even of a subsistence, that the poor boy's heart sunk within him. He was about to resign himself to obscurity and trade, when he suddenly fell in with the manager of the Margate theatre;

their project. In the midst of one of these discussions they were caught in a shower of rain, and sought shelter under a gateway. The rain continued; when their patience becoming exhausted, Blanchard, buttoning up his coat, exclaimed, 'Come on, Jerrold! what use shall we be to the Greeks if we stand up

for a shower of rain? So they walked home, and were heroically wet through.'"

mother of his children, was attacked with paralysis, which impaired her mind and It would have been worth while to tell Her husband was constantly with her, octerminated fatally at the end of the year. this tale more fully; not to envelope the cupied by her side, whilst watching her chief personage in fine words, as statuaries distressing malady, in his daily task of litdo their sitters in Roman togas, and, makerary business. Her illness had the seing them assume the heroic-conventional look, take away from them that infinitely tacked with partial paralysis and congesverest effect upon him. He, too, was atmore interesting one which Nature gave tion of the brain, during which first seizure them. It would have been well if we could his wife died. The rest of the story was have had this stirring little story in detail. told in all the newspapers of the beginning The young fellow, forced to the proctor's of last year. Rallying partially from his desk, quite angry with the drudgery, thea- fever at times, a sudden catastrophe overtre-stricken, poetry-stricken, writing dra-whelmed him. On the night of the 14th matic sketches in Barry Cornwall's man- February, in a gust of delirium, having his ner, spouting Leonidas before a manager, little boy in bed by his side, and having driven away starving from home, and, pen- said the Lord's Prayer but a short time benyless and full of romance, courting his fore, he sprang out of bed in the absence beautiful young wife. Come on, of his nurse (whom he had besought not to what use shall we be to the Greeks if we leave him), and made away with himself stand up for a shower of rain?" How the with a razor. He was no more guilty in native humor breaks out of the man! his death than a man who is murdered by Those who knew them can fancy the effect a madman, or who dies of the rupture of a of such a pair of warriors steering the blood-vessel. In his last prayer he asked Greek fire-ships, or manning the breach at to be forgiven, as he in his whole heart forMissoloughi. Then there comes that pa- gave others; and not to be led into that thetic little outbreak of despair, when the irresistible temptation under which poor young fellow is nearly giving up; his pleased Heaven that the poor wandering father banishes him, no one will buy his spirit should succumb. poetry, he has no chance on his darling. theatre, no chance of the wife that he is longing for. Why not finish with life at once? He has read Werter, and can understand suicide. "None," he says, in a sonnet,

46

Jerrold!

None not the hoariest sage may tell of all
The strong heart struggles with before it fall.”

If Respectability wanted to point a moral, isn't there one here? Eschew poetry, avoid the theatre, stick to your business, do not read German novels, do not marry at twenty. All these injunctions seem to hang naturally on the story.

it

At the very moment of his death his friends were making the kindest and most generous exertions in his behalf. Such a noble, loving, and generous creature, is never without such. The world, it is pleasant to think, is always a good and gentle world to the gentle and good, and reflects the benevolence with which they regard it. This memoir contains an affecting letter from the poor fellow himself, which indicates Sir Edward Bulwer's admirable and delicate generosity towards him. "I bless and thank you always," writes the kindly and affectionate soul, to another excellent friend, Mr. Forster. There were other friends, such as Mr. Fonblanque, Mr. AinsAnd yet the young poet marries at twen-worth, with whom he was connected in litty, in the teeth of poverty and experience; erary labor, who were not less eager to labors away, not unsuccessfully, puts Pe- serve and befriend him. gasus into harness, rises in social rank and public estimation, brings up happily round him an affectionate family, gets for himself a circle of the warmest friends, and thus carries on, for twenty years, when a providential calamity visits him and the poor wife almost together, and removes them both.

In the beginning of 1844, Mrs. Blanchard, his affectionate wife and the excellent

As soon as he was dead, a number of other persons came forward to provide means for the maintenance of his orphan family. Messrs. Chapman and Hall took one son into their publishing-house, another was provided in a merchant's house in the City, the other is of an age and has the talents to follow and succeed in his father's profession. Mr. Colburn and Mr. Ainsworth gave up their copyrights of his Es

136 A BROTHER OF THE PRESS ON THE HISTORY OF A LITERARY MAN, ETC. [MAY. says, which are now printed in three hand-or the month, but for permanent effect upon some volumes, for the benefit of his chil-the public. dren.

:

"In such circumstances, I firmly believe The following is Sir Edward Bulwer's that his powers would have sufficed to enrich our poetry and our stage with no inconsiderajust estimate of the writer :ble acquisitions. All that he wanted for the It remains now to speak (and I will en-and to sow upon the more patient system. soil of his mind was time to wait the seasons, deavor to do so not too partially) of the talents But too much activity and too little preparawhich Laman Blanchard displayed, and of the tion were his natural doom. To borrow a writings he has left behind. ed the land by a succession of white crops. homely illustration from the farm, he exhaust

"His habits, as we have seen, necessarily forbade the cultivation of deep scholarship, and the careful development of serious thought. But his information upon all that interested the day was, for the same reason, various and extending over a wide surface. His observation was quick and lively. He looked abroad with an inquiring eye, and noticed the follies and humors of men with a light and pleasant gaiety, which wanted but the necessary bitterness (that was not in him) to take the dignity of satire. His style and his conceptions were not marked by the vigor which comes partly from concentration of intellect, and partly from heat of passion; but they evince, on the other hand, a purity of taste, and a propriety of feeling, which preserve him from the caricature and exaggeration that deface many compositions obtaining the praise of broad humor or intense purpose. His fancy did not soar high, but its play was sportive, and it sought its aliment with the graceful instincts of the poet. He certainly never fulfilled the great promise which his Lyric Offerings held forth. He never wrote up to the full mark of his powers; the fountain never rose to the level of its

German, and exhibited, at Jena or Bonn, the
"On the other hand, had he been born a
same abilities and zeal for knowledge which
distinguished him in the school of Southwark,
he would, doubtless, have early attained to
allowed fair play and full leisure for a charac-
some moderate competence, which would have
ter of genius which, naturally rather elegant
thought and preparation.
than strong, required every advantage of fore-

our age.

And this

backs upon what he actually was are made "But when all is said-when all the drawand allowed--enough remains to justify warm eulogy, and to warrant the rational hope that he will occupy an honorable place among the pretensions, and regarding solely what he writers of his age. Putting aside his poetical performed, not what he promised, he unquestionably stands high amongst a class of writbeen rich-the Essayists, whose themes are ers, in which for the last century we have not drawn from social subjects, sporting lightly between literature and manners. kind of composition is extremly difficult in itsource. But in our day the professional man self, requiring intellectual combinations rarely of letters is compelled to draw too frequently, memoir deserve a place in every collection of found. The volumes prefaced by this slight and by too small disbursements, upon his cap-belles lettres, and form most agreeable and ital, to allow large and profitable investments characteristic illustrations of our manners and of the stock of mind and idea, with which he commences his career. The number and vaThey possess what is seldom found riety of our periodicals have tended to results in light reading, the charm that comes from which benefit the pecuniary interests of the bequeathing pleasurable impressions. They author, to the prejudice of his substantial fame. are suffused in the sweetness of the author's A writer like Otway could not now-a-days life, all acerbity in observation, all gall in disposition; they shun all painful views of starve; a writer like Goldsmith might live in their gentle sarcasms. Added to this, they Mayfair and lounge in his carriage; but it may be doubted whether the one would now-a-the most anxious parent would guard his contain not a thought, not a line, from which days have composed a Venice Preserved, or child. They may be read with safety by the the other have given us a Deserted Village and a Vicar of Wakefield. There is a fatal truth and character to interest the most remost simple, and yet they contain enough of facility in supplying the wants of the week by the rapid striking off a pleasant article, which interferes with the steady progress, even with the mature conception, of an elaborate work. Such an authority will serve to recom"Born at an earlier day, Laman Blanchard mend these Sketches from Life, we hope, would probably have known sharper trials of to many a library. Of the essays them- . pecuniary circumstance; and instead of the selves, it is hardly necessary to select spesufficient, though precarious income, which cimens. There is not one that can't be his reputation as a periodical writer afforded read with pleasure; they are often wise, him, he might have often slept in the garret, and been fortunate if he had dined often in and always witty and kindly.

the cellar. But then he would have been compelled to put forth all that was in him of mind and genius; to have written books. not papers; and books not intended for ti.

flective."

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