תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

elected Chairman of the Sessions; in seven years more will be made a knight; and in four years after that, will deliver himself of five quarto volumes of a history of music, in the slow and laborious conception of which he is already painfully engaged. Altogether, his existence was a kind of pompous, parsimonious, insignificant drawl, cleverly ridiculed by one of the wits in an absurd epitaph : " Here lies Sir John Hawkins, Without his shoes and 'stauckins.' One of his favourite themes was the improvidence of what he called sentimental writers, at the head of whom he placed the author of Tom Jones; a book which he charged with having corrupted the rising 'generation, and sapped the foundation of that morality 'which it is the duty of parents and all public instructors 'to inculcate in the minds of young people.' This was his common style of talk. Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, he looked upon as 'stuff;' and for the three last, as men whose necessities and abilities were nearly commensurate,' he had a special contempt. As Chairman of Quarter Sessions, what other judgment could he be expected to have of them? Being men of loose principles, he would say, bad economists, and living without foresight, it is their endeavour to commute for their 'failings by professions of greater love to mankind, more ' tender affections, and finer feelings, than they will allow 'men of more regular lives, whom they deem formalists, to 'possess.' With a man of such regular life, denouncing woe to loose characters that should endeavour to commute

[ocr errors]

their failings, poor Goldsmith had naturally little chance; and it fared as ill with the rest of the Club when questions of 'economy' or 'foresight' came up. Mr. Hawkins, after the first four meetings, begged to be excused his share of the reckoning, on the ground that he did not partake of the supper. And was he excused?' asked Doctor Burney, when Johnson told him of the incident many years after. 'Oh yes,' was the reply; for no man is angry at another 'for being inferior to himself. We all scorned him, and 'admitted his plea. Yet I really believe him,' pursued Johnson, characteristically, 'to be an honest man at the 'bottom; though to be sure he is penurious, and he is 'mean, and it must be owned he has a tendency to savage'ness.' It was this latter tendency which caused his early secession from the Club. He was not a member for more than two or three years. His own account is that he withdrew because its late hours were inconsistent with his domestic arrangements: but the fact was, says Boswell, that he one evening attacked Mr. Burke in so rude a manner, that all the company testified their displeasure; and at their next meeting his reception was such that he never came again.

Letitia Matilda Hawkins herself, proposing to defend her father, corroborates this statement. 'The Burkes,' she says, describing the impressions of her childhood, 'as 'the men of that family were called, were not then what 'they were afterwards considered; they were, as my 'father termed them, Irish Adventurers; and came into

'this country with no good auguries, nor any very decided 'principles of action. They had to talk their way in the 'world that was to furnish their means of living.'

An Irish adventurer who had to talk his way in the world, is much what Burke was considered by the great as well as little vulgar, for several more years to come. He was now thirty-three; and till the present year had derived his only help from the booksellers, for whom he had some time written, and continued to write, the historical portion of the Annual Register. He had been but a few months in enjoyment of Hamilton's pension, and was already extremely uneasy as to the conditions on which he began to suspect it had been granted. His patron does not seem to have relished his proposed return to London society. Your business ought on all occasions 'to have the preference, I know,' wrote Burke, in deprecation; to be the first, and the last, and indeed in all ' respects the main concern. All I contend for is, that I 'may not be considered as absolutely excluded from all 'other thoughts, in their proper time and due subordina'tion.' The whole truth was not made obvious to him till

[ocr errors]

two years later. He then found (and on finding it flung up the pension) that Hamilton thought him placed by it in a sort of domestic situation.' It was the consideration of a bargain and sale of independence. It was a claim for absolute servitude. Not to value myself as a gentleman,' remonstrated Burke, ' a freeman, a man of education, and one pretending to literature, is there any situation in

'life so low, that can subject a man to the possibility of 'such an engagement? Would you dare attempt to bind 'your footman to such terms?' Mr. Hawkins, it is clear, would have thought the terms suitable enough to the situation in life of an Irish adventurer; and the incident may illustrate his vulgar and insolent phrase.

Let it always be remembered, when Burke's vehemence of will and sharp impetuosity of temper are remembered. These were less his natural defects, than his painful sense of what he wanted in the eyes of others. When, in later years, he proudly reviewed those exertions which had been the soul of the revived Whig party, which had reestablished their strength, consolidated their power and influence, and been rewarded with insignificant office and uniform exclusion from the Cabinet, he had to reflect that at every step in the progress of his life he had been traversed and opposed, and forced to make every inch of his way in the teeth of prejudice and dislike. The narrowness ' of his fortune,' says Walpole, 'kept him down.' At every turnpike he met, he had been called on to show his passport; otherwise no admission, no toleration for him. Improved by this, his manners could hardly be the more other spheres of consideration were closed to him, the more would he be driven to dominate in his own: and I have little doubt that he somewhat painfully at times, in the first few years of the Club, impressed others as well as Hawkins with a sense of his predominance. He had to talk his 'way in the world that was to furnish his means of living,'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

and this was the only theatre open to him yet. Here only could he as yet pour forth, to an audience worth exciting, the stores of argument and eloquence he was thirsting to employ upon a wider stage; the variety of knowledge, the fund of astonishing imagery, the ease of philosophic illustration, the overpowering copiousness of words, in which he has never had a rival. A civil guest, says Herbert, will no more talk all, than eat all, the feast; and perhaps this might be forgotten now and then. I am convinced,' says Miss Hawkins, my father was disgusted with the overpowering deportment of Burke, and his monopoly of 'the conversation, which made all the other members, 'excepting his antagonist Johnson, merely his auditors.' Something of the same sort is said by that antagonist, though in a more generous way. What I most envy 'Burke for,' said Johnson, 'is, that he is never what we call 'hum-drum; never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in 'haste to leave off. Take up whatever topic you please, 'he is ready to meet you. I cannot say he is good at 'listening. So desirous is he to talk, that if one is speak'ing at this end of the table, he'll speak to somebody at 'the other end. But Burke, sir, is such a man, that if 'you met him for the first time in the street, where you 'were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped 'aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to

[ocr errors][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

you in such a manner, that, when you parted, you would say, this is an extraordinary man. Now you may be long

enough with me, without finding anything extraordinary.'

« הקודםהמשך »