The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-23


carriage" in his eye as the reward of
writing itY What literary men come to on
the Tiltonian theory is illustrated by the
melancholy case Of Sir Walter Scott, who
having written four or five real books for the
sake of writing them, spread them out into
four or fve-and-twenty poorer ones for the
sake of money, and so wore out his life and
broke his heart at last to buy upholstery.
Nay, we have now with us an artist more con-
summate, yet from whose works we have all
derived great and pure pleasure, OF whom 1t |
may still be said, without charging him with !
intended infdelity to his art, that had he !
written half as many books he would have l
written twice as good ones, and that his books ,
have been thus doubled and diluted for pecu-
mary profit.
The idea of the Independent about this thing
is the same that moved number of merchants
in this city, at the outbreak Of the war; to offer
money to the extent, as we recollect it, of five
hundred dollars, to the poet who should trans
| cribe for them in national ode'' the impulse
that then thrilled the American people. These
gentlemen knew that what they dealt in was
marketable for money, and they seem not to
have had a conception that there were wares
which it could not command. The productions
they got for their bid we're Just of the sort such
a bid might have been expected to elicit, and
just Of the sort the Independents ''compensa-
| ton" will always command. Or perhaps the
explanation of that paper would be that the
|
| have got an increase of the divine fire with
| each advance of their offer; that thousand
dollars would have got us just twice as good
| hymn and fifteen hundred one just thrice as
good. How high does it think they would
| have had to offer to tempt some Tyrtgus to
write down such song as that into which
| Rouget de PIsle distilled the fervor and the
| fury of a France in revoltY "By Heavens"
Burns said of his bundle of ballads, 'they
shall be either Invaluable or of no value; l
| do not need your guineas for them" That is
a sentiment which the editor of the Independent
| probably does not understand. II he did,
there might not be such an amazing difference
as there is between the Scottish songs of Robert
| Burns and ''The Sexton's Tale, and other
Poems," of MIR. Theodore TiltOn.
Nor is it in works of pure imagination alone
that the rule holds. Whatever calling minis
ters to more than the physical wants of men
| demands devotion on the part Of its profess
sors which, as no money can procure, so no
money can requite. The driest drudgery Of
literature cannot be decently done if it is done
for hire. The universities Of Great Britain
are the richest places of education on the globe.
The amplest apparatus for study is there, the
most sumptuOus support for students, the
completest exemption from the cares of this
world. Here is fair field, one would think,
for the operation of the Tiltonian theory of
| petting and protection. Yet from these gilded
nurseries, since Bentley graduated more than
two hundred years ago, there has not gone out
single great scholar. But in garret in
Dresden, during the last century, there lived
young German scholar "who shelled the
peas for his dinner with one hand while he
annotated his Tibullus with the other, and
that was his endowment. But he was recog
nized soon to have done great thing. His
name was Christian Gottlob Heyne." Franz
|, Bopp, who died the other day at Berlin, does
the Independent suppose that money could
have kept him for three-quarters of century
at work in laying bare the roots of language !;
in establishing the brotherhood and tracing
the descent of all our modern orders of speech;
that money exists in sufficient quantities to
have recompensed him then, or to replace him
, now
Not only can the love of money never in
spire art, bat in so far as the idea of pay
enters into the composition of any work of
art, in so far is the composition spoiled. Alta
1 lanta, in fact as in the fable, loses the race
3 when the gliding of the apple allures her from
the track,
"Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit."
Not that artists are above avarice, but that art
is above it. Turner was greedy of money, but
he never allowed himself therefore to pander
: to the fancy of the purchasers of his pictures
in the work he did. 1t is unnecessary to cite
: the many examples among the living and the
dead of those who have pursued contrary
5 course. The pages of Lucretius and Horace
into licking the hand that feeds it, and how
worthless Memmius, and worthless M@ce-
mas may be rescued from just oblivion. The
| patron of our time is the public. Formerly
I servility bore fruit in fattery. Now it bears
fruit in cant. Once unworthy artists were
parasites. Now they are demagogues. Virgil
> celebrated Caesar. The Independent sings ''the
loyal millions"
, The duty of the community towards the
2 artist is, plainly enough, to give to his art
! honor and appreciation; to himself every
furtherance for the prosecution of his art, food
, and raiment; and Herewith, if he be an
! artist he will be content. "a man of genius, -
{ the article we notice winds itself up, sought to
be set in the midst of comfort, like an Alderney
( COW in meadow of clover" To the contrary
) Of this, Schiller song of the muse:-
} To some she is the goddess great,
, | TO some The milch-cow of the field;
Their only care to calculate
How much butter she Will yield.
! ! And here again one may discover the differ
! ence between the poetry of Schiller and the
poetry of the editor of the Independent.
I The most heinous part of the article is the
/ inclusion in it of the clergy. The clergy are
a body of men whose business it is to point
! out always to us the utter worthlessness as
well as the evanescenoe of all our worldly aspi-
rations. Surely they, less than any other
: class whatever, ought to have care what they
shall eat or what they shall drink, or where
withal they shall be clothed. The objects
they think worth striving for are such before
which all differences of earthly condition are
= of infntesimal importance. Does the Inde-
q pendent pretend to dispute this The Lnde-