The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-12 00:00:00

CHAPTER VI

With that title, " a literary man," what erronious at-
tributes a thoughtless world has associated ! We contemplate
the career of successful authorship ; we picture to ourselves
the gifted poet, the admired novelist, the historian, the
philosopher, the political essayist, or the dramatist, as the
centre of worshipping throngs, the spoiled children of flattery

and fortune. We have before us, too, the career of him who
has worn away the last hours of his earthly existence in ob-
scurity and penury, to be rewarded in after years with fame
and almost idolatry ; but little know we how many thousands
of gifted, wayward beings sink down in the struggle, with-
out either a present reward to smooth the ruggid path of
life, to protect them from the approaches of care and even
of want, or the confident assurance of future immortality to
cheer them in their last miserable hours. Let the man of
talent or the man of genius, even, who has not fortune to
austain him in his ambitious longings ; who has not friends
to cheer him on ;—above all, let him who has not that best
gift of Heaven—a happy heart—or who is curst with that
worst possession of man—dispiriting or remorseful memories
—shun, as he would a pest house, or as he would guilt, the
rugged and heart-wearying career of authorship. Seek
rather the drudgery of the meanest employe of commerce;
seek the dingy atmosphere of the merchant's counting-
htdhroeeuasmwe ;sild as
palnucinge into the busy whirl of every day life ; forget
pofiferiianrygmsmeroecfmifuoylroicuerstehao:forbeosyehapoeodf;rimd tthheis,haanudn,tibny
the blessing haunting
and even a calm and reasonable u
for the wounded and sunken hear,tsni there. of may
earthly still
habpeppineaecses:
There may appear something sordid—something humiliat-
ing to the character of man in this advice. And yet it is but
too well justified by numbe7rileissthe
hree no hope on earth for
melancholy experiences. I
withered
hopes of boyhood
leaves of the first
m
blight
e the ho
may be asked the question
man once fallen? Do the
it
nife ? Do
the ad
the tree in its
floweraturity ? Is there
sumrw still
linger
ge after
reoro l
d or the shrub
maturity
a warm sun and a vivifying soil for the
which the tempest has trampled, and is there
the bowed down spirit of a being created only a lcitthleoploewfoerr
than the angels, and moulded in the express image of his
Maker?" There is all this. In life it is not said to us, as
in death, " Where the tree falls there must it lie." There
is hope, and gladness and consolation for " the broken and
contrite heart ;" but let them not be sought for except from
their heavenly fountain—above all let them not be sought
for amidst the dreamy intoxication of the poet's imaginings—
let them not be sought for in the career of authorship ! The

fit ir~groemoriea t

all nature in her lovelinesu is undimmed by the

shadow of

guilt or grief—to whose ear the whispering of the breezes in
the meadow or the hedgerows, the musical flow of the
streatnlets, the roll of the rapid river or the dash of the
torrent, come unmingled with the funereal tread and the dirge-
like tones of departed peace and wrecked happiness—may win

from the troubled joys and even the pains of such a career
delight indescribable and measureless. The mourner, even,
may forget in it for a time his grief; and the wretched, for a
time, lose in it the consciousness of his wretchedness. But
to some spirits—

nd no insignificant number—the brightest
and most entranciag forgetfulness which it affords is but the
delirious madness of the opium eater, which plunges them,
when its passion is exhausted, into a still deeper and darker
hell than that from which its seducing intoxication first

dragged them

Such a career, however, Henry Melton had now embraced ;

and for success in such a one he had talents which eminently
fitted him. His mind was in itself deeply poetical. He
possessed fancy, imagination, and taste ; and, withal, a
memory stored with the purest gems of antiquity, and en-
riched, as well, with the fruits of an extensive reading of
our best modern writers. But to what particular branch of
literature must his varied powers be applied ? He was, to
one of his habits of viewing the world, little above the
pressure of want, about a hundred pounds being all that was
left him of his once fair, though not glittering, expectations
of fortune. Something, therefore, must be done which
afforded a prospect of immediate remuneration ; and he
turned his attention at once, as a temporary resource, to the
field which was open to him in our periodical literature.
He made his first attempt, and it was unsuccessful,—as we
venture to say would be the first and many an after attempt
of the loftiest talent which our Universities could furnish.
The classical and pure style, the cultivated taste, the chaste
feeling, and refined fancy of the first-class man were not
those qualities best calculated to win favour with the super-
cilious editorship of the fashionable authors, the obscure
philosophers, or the threadbare jesters, who rule absolutely
in the literary cathedrce of New Bond-street or Paternoster-
row. They were not, either, the qualities which an ener-
vated public mind looks upon with approbation as the

characteristics of successful magazine literature
Melton could neither furnish a dawdling detail of drawins
room frippery, modelled upon the sayings and doings of the
Housekeeper's Coterie, or the Ladies' Maid's Levee ; a

brilliant passage in the career of some sentimental cut

throat ; the interesting memoranda of a trip to Margate, or
a pic-nic excursion to Hampton Court ; or a record of a
birthday party of some amiable Miss Higgs or Popkins, the
daughter of some eminent tallow chandler in the City, at

which the tender heart of some Mr. Augustus Tomkins was
blown into an undying flame, and the foundation was laid for
a union between the two houses of Higgs and Tomkins—the
glory of Cripplegate Within, and Bow-lane or Hounsditch.

Such productions as these, which furnish the every-day
materials of a certain class of our monthly periodicals, were
as far beyond the reach of Melton as a dozen consecutive
pages, containing sound reasoning, healthy and pure fancy,
or correct English feeling, conveyed in grammatically con-
structed language, would be above the powers of the male or
female triflers from whose literary workshop they are issued
to the world. Another class of periodicals, distinguished by
a higher order of literature, was tried, but with little greater
success. Here my poor friend was doomed to experience
" how hard it is to climb," even into the favour of men,—
who ought to be able to discern and appreciate talent,—when
the ascent is not smoothed and assisted by the breath of
popular approbation and a previously acquired name. He
imagined, and half the world has imagined before him, that
to an honored place in the columns of —, and —, and
—, the only key required, and the surest warrant for ad-
mission, was the power to amuse, to instruct, to gladden
mankind ; that genius never sought for admission within
those portals in vain; that the bright imaginings of the poet,
the wisdom of the statesman, the knowledge of the econo-
mist, the taste and learning of the critic, were ever welcomed
there. He was mistaken. It is not so. The turgid poetry
or the frigid prose of the man who has a reputation, is more
acceptable than intellectual gems from the man who is un-
known. A popular writer can throw off a few sketchy pages
in an hour of leisure or of vapid feeling—when the fatigue of
the last soiree is not expelled from his listless limbs, and
whilst the incense of flattery which steamed around him is
still lingering amid his languid thoughts—and the world will
read them, and publishers will pay for them, because they
are the production of the author of —, of one who bears
a charmed name, and is—fashionable ! The man of sterling
talent may throw his whole soul into an essay, a tale, or a
poem, and reap only disappointment, neglect, or even
obloquy. He is unknown !
In these latter efforts, however, Melton was not altogether
unsuccessful. It would have been discreditable indeed to
critical acumen of editorship if he had been so. I
have seen myself and many of my readers may have met
with some of his productions in the pages of one leading
periodical, and read them with delight, although ignorant
alike of the name and the person of the gifted author. But
the world at large judges not thus—is not thus impartial in
its fiat. Periodical literature is, in itself, a fleeting thing.
The rarest production of intellect, cast into that devouring
streat, enduret but until the next wave comes dancing on,
bearing on its crest new gems, new flowers. The admired
essay of this month is wiped away from memory by the
flood of fresh beauties or new born dulness, which another
month brings with it; and hence mere talent or yenius, even
when they can win admission, are seldom, and then but
wretchedly, rewarded. A crowd of well-known names upon
the title-page of any periodical publication is a surer pass-
port to success, and, what booksellers value as its accompa-
niment—profit—than if some hitherto " mute inglorious
Milton " were to enrich its pages with another " Paradise
Lost," or a Spencer pourtray afresh—
" The heavenly Una, and her wilk-white lamb."

Amongst such men is distributed the golden shower of lite-
rary reward, whilst to the struggling aspirant is meted out a
miserable pittance only, scarcely sufficient to furnish oil for
the lamp, by whose light he consumes his youth and man-
hood in his lone garret.
Such was the degree of success which attended the literary
labours of poor Melton. His little patrimony melted ra-
pidly from his grasp ; and in anguish and disappointment,
and not unfrequently in dissipation and self-abandonment,
he contemplated a clouded future gathering around his
head.