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Autobiographic Sketches

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> Autobiographic Sketches




Subsequently to this painful collision with Mrs. Lee at the Oxford
Assizes, I heard nothing of her for many years, excepting only
this--that she was residing in the family of an English clergyman
distinguished for his learning and piety. This account gave great
pleasure to my mother--not only as implying some chance that Mrs. Lee
might be finally reclaimed from her unhappy opinions, but also as a
proof that, in submitting to a rustication so mortifying to a woman
of her brilliant qualifications, she must have fallen under some
influences more promising for her respectability and happiness than
those which had surrounded her in London. Finally, we saw by the public
journals that she had written and published a book. The title I forget;
but by its subject it was connected with political or social philosophy.
And one eminent testimony to its merit I myself am able to allege,
viz., Wordsworth's. Singular enough it seems, that he who read so very
little of modern literature, in fact, next to nothing, should be the
sole critic and reporter whom I have happened to meet upon Mrs. Lee's
work. But so it was: accident had thrown the book in his way during
one of his annual visits to London, and a second time at Lowther Castle.
He paid to Mrs. Lee a compliment which certainly he paid to no other
of her contemporaries, viz., that of reading her book very nearly to
the end; and he spoke of it repeatedly as distinguished for vigor and
originality of thought.


FOOTNOTES

[1] "_My sister Mary's governess_."--This governess was a Miss Wesley,
niece to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. And the mention of _her_
recalls to me a fact, which was recently revived and misstated by the
whole newspaper press of the island. It had been always known that some
relationship existed between the Wellesleys and John Wesley. Their names
had, in fact, been originally the same; and the Duke of Wellington
himself, in the earlier part of his career, when sitting in the Irish
House of Commons, was always known to the Irish journals as Captain
Wesley. Upon this arose a natural belief that the aristocratic branch of
the house had improved the name into Wellesley. But the true process of
change had been precisely the other way. Not Wesley had been expanded
into Wellesley, but, inversely, Wellesley had been contracted by
household usage into Wesley. The name must have been _Wellesley_ in its
earliest stage, since it was founded upon a connection with Wells
Cathedral, It had obeyed the same process as prevails in many hundreds of
other names: St. Leger, for instance, is always pronounced as if written
Sillinger; Cholmondeley as Chumleigh; Marjoribanks as Marchbanks; and the
illustrious name of Cavendish was for centuries familiarly pronounced
Candish; and Wordsworth has even introduced this name into verse so as to
compel the reader, by a metrical coercion, into calling it Candish. Miss
Wesley's family had great musical sensibility and skill. This led the
family into giving musical parties, at which was constantly to be found
Lord Mornington, the father of the Duke of Wellington. For these parties
it was, as Miss Wesley informed me, that the earl composed his most
celebrated glee.

Here also it was, or in similar musical circles gathered about himself by
the first Lord Mornington, that the Duke of Wellington had formed and
cultivated his unaffected love for music of the highest class, _i.e._,
for the impassioned music of the serious opera. And it occurs to me as
highly probable, that Mrs. Lee's connection with the Wesleys, through
which it was that she became acquainted with my mother, must have rested
upon the common interest which she and the Wesleys had in the organ and
in the class of music suited to that instrument. Mrs. Lee herself was an
improvisatrice of the first class upon the organ; and the two brothers of
Miss Wesley, Samuel and Charles, ranked for very many years as the first
organists in Europe.

[2] "_The golden jubilee_."--This, in Germany, is used popularly as a
technical expression: a married couple, when celebrating the fiftieth
anniversary of their marriage day, are said to keep their _golden_
jubilee; but on the twenty-fifth anniversary they have credit only for a
_silver_ jubilee.




CHAPTER V.

I AM INTRODUCED TO THE WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL.


Four years after my father's death, it began to be perceived that there
was no purpose to be answered in any longer keeping up the costly
establishment of Greenhay. A head gardener, besides laborers equal to
at least two more, were required for the grounds and gardens. And no
motive existed any longer for being near to a great trading town, so
long after the commercial connection with it had ceased. Bath seemed,
on all accounts, the natural station for a person in my mother's
situation; and thither, accordingly, she went. I, who had been placed
under the tuition of one of my guardians, remained some time longer
under his care. I was then transferred to Bath. During this interval
the sale of the house and grounds took place. It may illustrate the
subject of _guardianship_, and the ordinary execution of its duties,
to mention the result. The year was in itself a year of great
depression, and every way unfavorable to such a transaction; and the
particular night for which the sale had been fixed turned out remarkably
wet; yet no attempt was made to postpone it, and it proceeded.
Originally the house and grounds had cost about £6000. I have heard
that only one offer was made, viz., of £2500. Be that as it may, for
the sum of £2500 it was sold; and I have been often assured that, by
waiting a few years, four to six times that sum might have been obtained
with ease. This is not improbable, as the house was then out in the
country; but since then the town of Manchester has gathered round it
and enveloped it. Meantime, my guardians were all men of honor and
integrity; but their hands were filled with their own affairs. One (my
tutor) was a clergyman, rector of a church, and having his parish, his
large family, and three pupils to attend. He was, besides, a very
sedentary and indolent man--loving books, hating business. Another was
a merchant. A third was a country magistrate, overladen with official
business: him we rarely saw. Finally, the fourth was a banker in a
distant county, having more knowledge of the world, more energy, and
more practical wisdom than all the rest united, but too remote for
interfering effectually.

Reflecting upon the evils which befell me, and the gross mismanagement,
under my guardians, of my small fortune, and that of my brothers and
sisters, it has often occurred to me that so important an office,
which, from the time of Demosthenes, has been proverbially
maladministered, ought to be put upon a new footing, plainly guarded
by a few obvious provisions. As under the Roman laws, for a long period,
the guardian should be made responsible in law, and should give security
from the first for the due performance of his duties. But, to give him
a motive for doing this, of course he must be paid. With the new
obligations and liabilities will commence commensurate emoluments. If
a child is made a ward in Chancery, its property is managed expensively,
but always advantageously. Some great change is imperatively called
for--no duty in the whole compass of human life being so scandalously
treated as this.

In my twelfth year it was that first of all I entered upon the arena
of a great public school, viz., the Grammar School [1] of Bath, over
which at that time presided a most accomplished Etonian--Mr. (or was he
as yet Doctor?) Morgan. If he was not, I am sure he ought to have been;
and, with the reader's concurrence, will therefore create him a doctor on
the spot. Every man has reason to rejoice who enjoys the advantage of a
public training. I condemned, and _do_ condemn, the practice of sending
out into such stormy exposures those who are as yet too young, too
dependent on female gentleness, and endowed with sensibilities originally
too exquisite for such a warfare. But at nine or ten the masculine
energies of the character are beginning to develop themselves; or, if
not, no discipline will better aid in their development than the bracing
intercourse of a great English classical school. Even the selfish are
_there_ forced into accommodating themselves to a public standard of
generosity, and the effeminate in conforming to a rule of manliness.
I was myself at two public schools, and I think with gratitude of the
benefits which I reaped from both; as also I think with gratitude of
that guardian in whose quiet household I learned Latin so effectually.
But the small private schools, of which I had opportunities for
gathering some brief experience,--schools containing thirty to forty
boys,--were models of ignoble manners as regarded part of the juniors,
and of favoritism as regarded the masters. Nowhere is the sublimity
of public justice so broadly exemplified as in an English public school
on the old Edward the Sixth or Elizabeth foundation. There is not in
the universe such an Areopagus for fair play, and abhorrence of all
crooked ways, as an English mob, or one of the time-honored English
"foundation" schools. But my own first introduction to such an
establishment was under peculiar and contradictory circumstances. When
my "rating," or graduation in the school, was to be settled, naturally
my altitude (to speak astronomically) was taken by my proficiency in
Greek. But here I had no advantage over others of my age. My guardian
was a feeble Grecian, and had not excited my ambition; so that I could
barely construe books as easy as the Greek Testament and the Iliad.
This was considered quite well enough for my age; but still it caused
me to be placed under the care of Mr. Wilkins, the second master out
of four, and not under Dr. Morgan himself. Within one month, however,
my talent for Latin verses, which had by this time gathered strength
and expansion, became known. Suddenly I was honored as never was man
or boy since Mordecai the Jew. Without any colorable relation to the
doctor's jurisdiction, I was now weekly paraded for distinction at the
supreme tribunal of the school; out of which, at first, grew nothing
but a sunshine of approbation delightful to my heart. Within six weeks
all this had changed. The approbation indeed continued, and the public
expression of it. Neither would there, in the ordinary course, have
been any painful reaction from jealousy, or fretful resistance, to the
soundness of my pretensions; since it was sufficiently known to such
of my school-fellows as stood on my own level in the school, that I,
who had no male relatives but military men, and those in India, could
not have benefited by any clandestine aid. But, unhappily, Dr. Morgan
was at that time dissatisfied with some points in the progress of his
head class; [2] and, as it soon appeared, was continually throwing in
their teeth the brilliancy of my verses at eleven or twelve, by
comparison with theirs at seventeen, eighteen, and even nineteen. I had
observed him sometimes pointing to myself, and was perplexed at seeing
this gesture followed by gloomy looks, and what French reporters call
"sensation," in these young men, whom naturally I viewed with awe as my
leaders--boys that were called young men, men that were reading
Sophocles, (a name that carried with it the sound of something seraphic
to my ears,) and who had never vouchsafed to waste a word on such a child
as myself. The day was come, however, when all that would be changed. One
of these leaders strode up to me in the public playground, and,
delivering a blow on my shoulder, which was not intended to hurt me, but
as a mere formula of introduction, asked me "what the devil I meant by
bolting out of the course, and annoying other people in that manner. Were
'other people' to have no rest for me and my verses, which, after all,
were horribly bad?" There might have been some difficulty in returning
an answer to this address, but none was required. I was briefly
admonished to see that I wrote worse for the future, or else----. At
this _aposiopesis_ I looked inquiringly at the speaker, and he filled
up the chasm by saying that he would "annihilate" me. Could any person
fail to be aghast at such a demand? I was to write worse than my own
standard, which, by his account of my verses, must be difficult; and
I was to write worse than himself, which might be impossible. My
feelings revolted against so arrogant a demand, unless it had been far
otherwise expressed; if death on the spot had awaited me, I could not
have controlled myself; and on the next occasion for sending up verses
to the head master, so far from attending to the orders issued, I
double-shotted my guns; double applause descended on myself; but I
remarked with some awe, though not repenting of what I had done, that
double confusion seemed to agitate the ranks of my enemies. Amongst
them loomed out in the distance my "annihilating" friend, who shook
his huge fist at me, but with something like a grim smile about his
eyes. He took an early opportunity of paying his respects to me again,
saying, "You little devil, do you call this writing your worst?" "No,"
I replied; "I call it writing my best." The annihilator, as it turned
out, was really a good-natured young man; but he was on the wing for
Cambridge; and with the rest, or some of them, I continued to wage
war for more than a year. And yet, for a word spoken with kindness,
how readily I would have resigned (had it been altogether at my own
choice to do so) the peacock's feather in my cap as the merest of
bawbles. Undoubtedly, praise sounded sweet in _my_ ears also; but that
was nothing by comparison with what stood on the other side. I detested
distinctions that were connected with mortification to others; and,
even if I could have got over _that_, the eternal feud fretted and
tormented my nature. Love, that once in childhood had been so mere a
necessity to me, _that_ had long been a reflected ray from a departed
sunset. But peace, and freedom from strife, if love were no longer
possible, (as so rarely it is in this world,) was the clamorous
necessity of my nature. To contend with somebody was still my fate;
how to escape the contention I could not see; and yet, for itself, and
for the deadly passions into which it forced me, I hated and loathed
it more than death. It added to the distraction and internal feud of
my mind, that I could not _altogether_ condemn the upper boys. I was
made a handle of humiliation to them. And, in the mean time, if I had
an undeniable advantage in one solitary accomplishment, which is all
a matter of accident, or sometimes of peculiar direction given to the
taste, they, on the other hand, had a great advantage over me in the
more elaborate difficulties of Greek and of choral Greek poetry. I
could not altogether wonder at their hatred of myself. Yet still, as
they had chosen to adopt this mode of conflict with me, I did not feel
that I had any choice but to resist. The contest was terminated for
me by my removal from the school, in consequence of a very threatening
illness affecting my head; but it lasted more than a year, and it did
not close before several among my public enemies had become my private
friends. They were much older, but they invited me to the houses of
their friends, and showed me a respect which affected me--this respect
having more reference, apparently, to the firmness I had exhibited,
than to any splendor in my verses. And, indeed, these had rather drooped
from a natural accident; several persons of my own class had formed
the practice of asking me to write verses for _them_. I could not
refuse. But, as the subjects given out were the same for the entire
class, it was not possible to take so many crops off the ground without
starving the quality of all.

The most interesting public event which, during my stay at this school,
at all connected itself with Bath, and indeed with the school itself,
was the sudden escape of Sir Sidney Smith from the prison of the Temple
in Paris. The mode of his escape was as striking as its time was
critical. Having accidently thrown a ball beyond the prison bounds in
playing at tennis, or some such game, Sir Sidney was surprised to
observe that the ball thrown back was not the same. Fortunately, he
had the presence of mind to dissemble his sudden surprise. He retired,
examined the ball, found it stuffed with letters; and, in the same
way, he subsequently conducted a long correspondence, and arranged the
whole circumstances of his escape; which, remarkably enough, was
accomplished exactly eight days before the sailing of Napoleon with
the Egyptian expedition; so that Sir Sidney was just in time to
confront, and utterly to defeat, Napoleon in the breach of Acre. But
for Sir Sidney, Bonaparte would have overrun Syria, _that_ is certain.
What would have followed from that event is a far more obscure problem.

Sir Sidney Smith, I must explain to readers of this generation, and
Sir Edward Pellew, (afterwards Lord Exmouth,) figured as the two
[3] Paladins of the first war with revolutionary France. Rarely were
these two names mentioned but in connection with some splendid,
prosperous, and unequal contest. Hence the whole nation was saddened by
the account of Sir Sidney's capture; and this must be understood, in
order to make the joy of his sudden return perfectly intelligible. Not
even a rumor of Sir Sidney's escape had or could have run before him;
for, at the moment of reaching the coast of England, he had started with
post horses to Bath. It was about dusk when he arrived: the postilions
were directed to the square in which his mother lived: in a few minutes
he was in his mother's arms, and in fifty minutes more the news had flown
to the remotest suburb of the city. The agitation of Bath on this
occasion was indescribable. All the troops of the line then quartered in
that city, and a whole regiment of volunteers, immediately got under
arms, and marched to the quarter in which Sir Sidney lived. The small
square overflowed with the soldiery; Sir Sidney went out, and was
immediately lost to us, who were watching for him, in the closing ranks
of the troops. Next morning, however, I, my younger brother, and a
school-fellow of my own age, called formally upon the naval hero. _Why_,
I know not, unless as _alumni_ of the school at which Sir Sidney Smith
had received his own education, we were admitted without question or
demur; and I may record it as an amiable trait in Sir Sidney, that he
received us then with great kindness, and took us down with him to the
pump room. Considering, however, that we must have been most afflicting
bores to Sir Sidney,--a fact which no self-esteem could even then
disguise from us,--it puzzled me at first to understand the principle of
his conduct. Having already done more than enough in courteous
acknowledgment of our fraternal claims as fellow-students at the Bath
Grammar School, why should he think it necessary to burden himself
further with our worshipful society? I found out the secret, and will
explain it. A very slight attention to Sir Sidney's deportment in public
revealed to me that he was morbidly afflicted with nervous sensibility
and with _mauvaise honte_. He that had faced so cheerfully crowds of
hostile and threatening eyes, could not support without trepidation those
gentle eyes, beaming with gracious admiration, of his fair young
countrywomen. By accident, at that moment Sir Sidney had no acquaintances
in Bath, [4] a fact which is not at all to be wondered at. Living
so much abroad and at sea, an English sailor, of whatever rank, has
few opportunities for making friends at home. And yet there was a
necessity that Sir Sidney should gratify the public interest, so warmly
expressed, by presenting himself somewhere or other to the public eye.
But how trying a service to the most practised and otherwise most
callous veteran on such an occasion, that he should step forward,
saying in effect, "So you are wanting to see me: well, then, here I
am: come and look at me!" Put it into what language you please, such
a summons was written on all faces, and countersigned by his worship
the mayor, who began to whisper insinuations of riots if Sir Sidney
did not comply. Yet, if he _did_, inevitably his own act of obedience
to the public pleasure took the shape of an ostentatious self-parading
under the construction of those numerous persons who knew nothing of
the public importunity, or of Sir Sidney's unaffected and even morbid
reluctance to obtrude himself upon the public eye. The thing was
unavoidable; and the sole palliation that it admitted was--to break
the concentration of the public gaze, by associating Sir Sidney with
some alien group, no matter of what cattle. Such a group would relieve
both parties--gazer and gazee--from too distressing a consciousness
of the little business on which they had met. We, the schoolboys, being
three, intercepted and absorbed part of the enemy's fire, and, by
furnishing Sir Sidney with real _bona fide_ matter of conversation,
we released him from the most distressing part of his sufferings, viz.,
the passive and silent acquiescence in his own apotheosis--holding a
lighted candle, as it were, to the glorification of his own shrine.
With our help, he weathered the storm of homage silently ascending.
And we, in fact, whilst seeming to ourselves too undeniably a triad
of bores, turned out the most serviceable allies that Sir Sidney ever
had by land or sea, until several moons later, when he formed the
invaluable acquaintance of the Syrian "butcher," viz., Djezzar, the
Pacha of Acre. I record this little trait of Sir Sidney's constitutional
temperament, and the little service through which I and my two comrades
contributed materially to his relief, as an illustration of that
infirmity which besieges the nervous system of our nation. It is a
sensitiveness which sometimes amounts to lunacy, and sometimes even
tempts to suicide. It is a mistake, however, to suppose this morbid
affection unknown to Frenchmen, or unknown to men of the world. I have
myself known it to exist in both, and particularly in a man that might
be said to live in the street, such was the American publicity which
circumstances threw around his life; and so far were his habits of
life removed from reserve, or from any predisposition to gloom. And
at this moment I recall a remarkable illustration of what I am saying,
communicated by Wordsworth's accomplished friend, Sir George Beaumont.
To _him_ I had been sketching the distressing sensitiveness of Sir
Sidney pretty much as I have sketched it to the reader; and how he,
the man that on the breach at Acre valued not the eye of Jew, Christian,
or Turk, shrank back--_me ipso teste_--from the gentle, though
eager--from admiring, yet affectionate--glances of three very young
ladies in Gay Street, Bath, the oldest (I should say) not more than
seventeen. Upon which Sir George mentioned, as a parallel experience
of his own, that Mr. Canning, being ceremoniously introduced to himself
(Sir George) about the time when he had reached the meridian of his
fame as an orator, and should therefore have become _blasé_ to the
extremity of being absolutely seared and case-hardened against all
impressions whatever appealing to his vanity or egotism, did absolutely
(_credite posteri!_) blush like any roseate girl of fifteen. And that
this was no accident growing out of a momentary agitation, no sudden
spasmodic pang, anomalous and transitory, appeared from other concurrent
anecdotes of Canning, reported by gentlemen from Liverpool, who
described to us most graphically and picturesquely the wayward
fitfulness (not coquettish, or wilful, but nervously overmastering and
most unaffectedly distressing) which besieged this great artist in
oratory, and the time approached--was coming--was going, at which the
private signal should have been shown for proposing his health. Mr.
P. (who had been, I think, the mayor on the particular occasion
indicated) described the restlessness of his manner; how he rose, and
retired for half a minute into a little parlor behind the chairman's
seat; then came back; then whispered, _Not yet I beseech you; I cannot
face them yet;_ then sipped a little water, then moved uneasily on
his chair, saying, _One moment, if you please: stop, stop: don't hurry:
one moment, and I shall be up to the mark:_ in short, fighting with
the necessity of taking the final plunge, like one who lingers on the
scaffold.

Sir Sidney was at the time slender and thin; having an appearance of
emaciation, as though he had suffered hardships and ill treatment,
which, however, I do not remember to have heard. Meantime, his
appearance, connected with his recent history, made him a very
interesting person to women; and to this hour it remains a mystery
with me, why and how it came about, that in every distribution of
honors Sir Sidney Smith was overlooked. In the Mediterranean he made
many enemies, especially amongst those of his own profession, who used
to speak of him as far too fine a gentleman, and above his calling.
Certain it is that he liked better to be doing business on shore, as
at Acre, although he commanded a fine 80 gun ship, the Tiger. But
however that may have been, his services, whether classed as military
or naval, were memorably splendid. And, at that time, his connection,
of whatsoever nature, with the late Queen Caroline had not occurred.
So that altogether, to me, his case is inexplicable.

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