The San Francisco call., 1897-10-17

| duu otheis practlceo It, ana the saLirlcdl
Martsl asks one of his books whom il would
| Ii Ike 10 have for patron The dedication is q
| clotn that has allowed itself to be cut into
garments OF all sizes and patterns. According
| 10 PERIODS, TO authors. 10 patrons, to nations
| or TO the demand of the book itself, it has
| been variously long. short, simple, osten-
| tatlous. wise, foolish, modest, ridiculous,
| humble, cringing, delicate, charming, stupid,
| vulgar, ingenious, pompous or graceful.
| One could almost care TO write a character
| sketch OF the Tatron whose name appears
above the authors panegyric; yet we have
| few examples of men whose vanity refused to
! breathe the aromatic incense. For example,
| Tasso dedicated Jerusalem Delivered" to the
| Duke of Ferrars, who ciassed him fool
and sent him to a dungeon, and when Ariosto
| laid Orlando at the feet of Cardinal Oppolite
| d. Este, the latter rewarded him for his eulo-
| CYSTIC dedication with: Whore in the devil,
| Master Ludovico, did you pick up so much
| rubbish"
| During the age of Anne almost everybody in
| England, except Pope and Swift, dedica ted
| his book to Lord Halifax, who began life with
| literary ambitions and ended by being
| patron. Compliments TO him generally
| brought a substantial reward in money or
| good office. Thomas Gordon wrote satire,
| entitled Dedication, to a Great Man Con-
| corning Dedications." in which he says: 81
| nave known an author praise an earl, for
twenty pages together, though he knew moth
| Ing OF him, but that he had money to spare.
He made him wise, just and religious, for no
| reason in the world but in hopes to find him
| charitable, and gave him most bountiful
| heart. because he himself had most empty
| stomach
| During his life everybody dedicated to Car
| dinal Richeleu, and Disraen gives good
| sample in his "Curiositles of Literature:
| who has seen your face without being seized
4 those W
! prophets shudder when God showed the
| beams of his glory? But he whom they
dared not to approach in the burning bush
| and in the noise of thunders appeared to them
sometimes in the freshness of the zephyrs,
| the softness of your august counlenance dissi-
| pates at the same time and changes into dew
| the small yapors which cover its maj es ty.
| Perhaps the greatest height to which the
| hattering dedication attains is In these words
addressed to Charles II:
| You. sir such blessings 10 the world dispense,
| We scarce perceive the use of Providence.
| People began TO protest against fattering
| dedications quite early. For instance Eras-
| mus, in his praise of Folly" which he dedi-
| Gates 10 Sir Thomas More, says: what is done
| by several seemingly great and wise men, who
| with new fashioned modesty employ some
| paltry orator or scribDling poet whom they
! bribe to hatter them with some high-fown
| character that shall consist of mere lies and
| shams, and yet the person thus extolIed shall
| bristle up and peacock-like spread their
| plumes, while the impudent parasite magni-
! tes the poor wretch to the skies and proposes
| him as complete pattern of all virtues, from
each OF which he is yet as far distant as heaven
| from hell. What is all this in the meanwhile
| but the tricking up daw in stolen feathers,
| laboring to change the blackamoor's hue and
| the drawing on pigmy's frock over the
! shoulders of giant?'
| Thackeray dedicated his "Paris Sketch
book" to tailor who had lent him money;
| Dickens wrote a most graceful tribute 10
Samuel Rogers in Master Humphreys
| Clock; Sir William Napier said beautifully
| to the Duke OF Wellington, in his History OF
| the Peninsular War; This history dedicate
| to your Grace, because 1 have served long
/ enough under your command to feel why the
soldiers OF the Tenth Legion were attached to
| Caesar" Among the best poetica1 dedications
are sheley's. to Mary W. Shelley, in ''The Re-
volt of Islam: B.owning's, to Elizabeth B.
! Browning, in "Men and Women" and Ten
nyson's inscription to her Majesty in 'The
Idylls of the King"
The Golden Age of Dedication lasted from
| the Restoration to the end of the seventeenth
| century. Pepys writes in his Diary that he
| went "in all haste to st. Paul S Churchyard to
cause the title of my English Mare CIausum
| to be changed and the new title dedication to
|
| 10 have the other seen dedicated to the Com
! monwealth."
Dryden embodied in his dedications the
| spirit of the fattering age He was only
| equaled by Alphra Behn, who prefaced a ridic-
| ulous tribute 10 Nell Gwynne to q poem. Sterne
| laughs at the whole system by leaving the page
of .Tristram Shandy" blank with the words:
''To be let or sold for fifty guineas."
| In 1856 the Connoisseur says: "The hum
| BILE detica tor loads his great man with virtues
totally foreign to his nature and disposition.
| which sit as awkwardly upon him as lace and
| embroidery upon q chimrey-sweeper: ana so
| overwhelm him with the huge mass of learn
| ing with which he graciously dubs him a
! scho.ar that he makes as ridiculous a figure
as the ass in the Dunciad."
| Pope and DR.. Johnson gave the deathblow
| to the old-fashioned dedicat ton, although the
latter wrote many pompOus and fulsome ones
| 10 order. Boswell remarks: what an ex-
| pense, sir do you put us to in buying of
| books to which you have written pre- faces or
| dedications." Johnson: ''Why, have dedf-
Gated to the royal family all around" Gold
smith: 'And perhaps sir, not one sentence
| of wit in whole dedication" Johnson:
! "Perhaps not, sir"