Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 368, June 1846

In 1763, Smith was appointed tutor to the young nobleman, resigned his professorship, and went with his pupil to France. After a residence of a year and a half at Toulouse, he travelled in Switzerland, and then, returning to Paris, spent ten months there. His French residence was peculiarly fortunate. It rubbed off the rust of his seclusion; it introduced him to the best society of courtly life; and it brought him into direct intercourse with that whole circle of active intellect and novel philosophy, which made the Parisian coteries at once the most bustling and brilliant of Europe. However the horrid profligacy of the court, and the contemptuous infidelity of high life, might have either disgusted the morals, or startled even the scepticism of the stranger, there can be no doubt of the interest which he felt in the society of such men as Turgot, Necker, D'Alembert, and Quesnay. Smith, some fifteen or twenty years before, had drawn up a sketch of the principles which he afterwards developed in his Wealth of Nations. Political economy was then beginning to take a form in French science. Whether it ever deserved the name of science, or will ever deserve it, may be a grave question. It depends upon such a multitude of facts, and the facts themselves vary so perpetually, the "principles" derived from those facts are so feeble and fluctuating, and common experience so provokingly contradicts, from day to day, the most laboured conclusions, that every new professor has a new theory, and every new theory turns the former into ridicule, itself to be burlesqued by the next that follows. This at least is known, that Fox declared his suspicion of the whole, saying, that it was at once too daring to be intelligible, and too indefinite to be reducible to practice. Even in our day, no two authors on the subject agree; all the successful measures of revenue and finance have been adopted in utter defiance of its dogmas; while all the modern attempts to act upon what are called its principles, have only convulsed commerce, shaken public credit, and substituted fantastic visions of prosperity for the old substantial wealth of England. No occupation could have been fitter for the half-frivolous, half-factious spirit of France. A revolution in revenue was openly regarded as the first step to revolution in power; the political economists indulged themselves in a philosophic conspiracy, and vented their sneers against the government, under pretext of recognising the rights of trade. It took but a little more than twenty years to mature this dexterous contrivance, and the meek friends of free trade had the happiness of seeing France in a blaze.

Smith, on his return, shut himself up in his study in Kirkcaldy for ten years. His friends in vain attempted to draw him from his solitude to Edinburgh: he steadily, we may almost say magnanimously, refused; and at the end of the tenth year, in 1776, he explained the mystery, by the publication of the two quarto volumes of his Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The work was received with general congratulation; it was regarded as a new science, although it is well-known, as stated in the introduction to the biography, that many others had previously discussed the same subjects. Smith's views, however, were so much more comprehensive, his division so much more distinct, and his remarks so much more practical, that he deserved all the credit of the architect who combines in beauty and utility the beams and pillars which he finds scattered on the ground. And here we advert to the obvious benefit of that patronage which had been extended to this very able man by Townsend. The annuity which had been settled on him as tutor, had enabled Smith to give up the whole of his time, and the whole powers of his mind, during those ten years, to this great work. During nearly twenty years of lecturing, on the other hand, in which his pen was necessarily employed without ceasing, he seems to have published but one work, The Theory of Moral Sentiment. That he constantly formed ingenious conceptions, may be easily admitted; but that he wanted either time or inclination to complete them, is evident from the fact, that he never suffered them to appear in print, and that one of his dying directions was, that they should be destroyed by his executors.

He was now a man of fame, and to enjoy it came up to London, where he resided for two years in the midst of the best society, political and literary, to be found in England. He was now to be a man of fortune as well as of fame; he was appointed a commissioner of the customs in Scotland. He returned to Edinburgh, and commenced the agreeable life of a man at once distinguished, and opulent to the full extent of his simple desires, in a society whose names are still regarded as the lights of Scotland. He lived hospitably, and entertained good society, but he wrote no more; he was growing old, and Lord Brougham evidently thinks that the duties of his office exhausted his spirits and occupied his time. But those duties always partook largely of the nature of a sinecure; and there is every reason to doubt whether they could have worn down a man of regular habits, and who had been trained to the routine of daily business by an apprenticeship of a quarter of a century. The greater probability is, that Smith felt that he had done enough for fame; that, knowing the world, he was unwilling to expose himself to the caprices of critical applause; and that he even felt how inadequate the early theories which found admirers in the lecture-room, might be to sustain a character already brought into full publicity by his own volumes. The fact is certain, that he produced nothing more. In July 1790, he died, at the age of sixty-seven. It was his custom to give a supper on the Sunday evening to a numerous circle of friends. How far this entertainment, which was more consistent with the latitude of his Paris recollections, was reconcilable with the decorums of Scotland, we cannot say. But on one evening, after having destroyed his manuscripts, finding himself not so well as usual, he retired to bed before supper, and as he went, said to his friends, "I believe we must adjourn this meeting to some other place." He died in a very few days afterwards.

Lord Brougham has obviously expended his chief labour on the life of this favourite philosopher, of whom, fifty years ago, every Scottish economist was a devoted pupil. Times are changed, yet this intelligent biographer has given a very ample and accurate, so far as we can judge, analysis of the Enquiry. But he would have greatly increased the obligations of the reader, by giving some portion of his treatise to the questions which modern artifice has devised, and modern infatuation has adopted.

An interesting "memoir" of Johnson commences the volume; but the topic would lead us too far. The biographer gives that literary Samson full applause for the strength of his understanding, the boldness of his morality, and the pungency of his wit. Rather to our surprise, he pours out an eloquent panegyric on Boswell. That we are indebted to this versatile personage for one of the most amusing and instructive collections of reminiscences in the history of authorship, will be readily conceded. But this is the first time of our hearing a demand that we should pay him any more peculiar homage. But Lord Brougham is himself the head of a school: his ipse dixit demands acquiescence, and none can doubt that, if he is singular in his dogmas, he deserves attention for the vigour of his advocacy.

REYNARD THE FOX. 2

The natural history of the Cockney has been frequently illustrated, and never so successfully as in time past in the pages of Maga. But nature is inexhaustible in all her creations. You might study a lifetime, and yet not fully master the properties of one of those little Infusoria that wriggle or spin about in a phial of foul or fair water, and a still wider subject of study is of course supplied by any larger animal, such as a Cockney, placed as he is a little lower than the angels, and half-way down, or there abouts, between a man and a chimpanzee.

Upon careful inquiry it would probably be found, that in most nations the population, though all purporting to be men and women, consists in a good measure of beings that stand several degrees below the point of humanity. France, among several specimens of a higher order, has occasionally shown that a considerable proportion of its inhabitants was a hideous cross between the tiger and the baboon. Holland has had its Grotius and its Erasmus, but the otter and the beaver breed make up the mass of those who go by the name of Dutchmen. There has been no want in Germany of clear-sighted men, but the mole, the bat, and the owl furnish a large contingent to the ranks of its literati. In other nations we see a greater or less preponderance of the wolf or the bear, the goat or the goose, the ass, the hog, or the hippopotamus. Such being the universal condition of the world, we should rather be proud than otherwise, that, in England, we can boast of a secondary tribe, made, perhaps, by some of nature's journeymen, but that yet imitate humanity so respectably, so amiably, and so amusingly, as the Cockney must be admitted to do.

A Cockney is by locality very much what a tailor is by trade. Though a remote sub-multiple of a man, he is enterprising, indefatigable, cutting his way to his object through every thing with a ready tongue and a quick wit. Yet he is deficient in some qualities indispensable to the species homo. Courage the Cockney undoubtedly possesses, because he is always among those who are said to rush in where others fear to tread. But veneration is utterly wanting in his composition; and here the resemblance to the tailor is conspicuous; as we never knew a single snip that had the slightest reverence for any thing under heaven – if, indeed, the assertion should not be made in still broader terms. In the tailor this effect, defective, comes by an obvious cause. The intolerable liberties which the vulgar fraction is permitted to take with people's persons, divesting the best and bravest of us of the halo of heroism that surrounds us at a distance; and the fact that the great mysteries of dress, the paraphernalia of our dignity and decency, and the chief emblems of our manhood and domestic authority, emerge exclusively from the hands of this insignificant but indispensable maker of men, are enough to extinguish within him all sentiment of respect for any thing human or divine. The Cockney arrives at a similar state of easy and impudent non-chalance by a different process. Littered in London, and living there all his life, he is proud of its position among cites; and he comes, by a natural process of reasoning, to ascribe its importance to its connexion with his own person and people, and to see nothing better or greater in the universe than himself and what belongs to him. The feeling grows with his growth, and is fed by a full indulgence in all the good things with which the land of Cockayne abounds, and which the most morose of mortals must admit to be eminently conducive to self-complacency.

The Cockney, thus devoid of all diffidence in himself, is prepared for every thing in the scale of human thought or action; pleasuring or politics, theatricals or theology, an Epping hunt or an Epic poem. In literature we may say of him, nearly in the words applied by Dr Johnson to Goldsmith, that there is scarcely any kind of composition that he does not handle, and none that he handles which he does not adorn with graces all his own.

It is wonderful, however, to see with what success a Cockney can sometimes disguise himself. He will write you a book, in which, several pages on end, you think you are reading the thoughts of some ordinary mortal. But the cloven foot always appears before you are done with him. In poetry, indeed, you can go but a short way till the cat is let out of the bag. That unfortunate letter R! No lessons in elocution, no change of climate, can eradicate the deep-seated mischief of its mispronunciation in a Cockney whose years of pupilarity have been passed on the spot of his birth.

These remarks have been elicited by a disappointment we have recently suffered, in being led to purchase the book referred to at the commencement of this article. We saw it advertised by an alluring title – "Reynard the Fox – a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages reproduced in Rhyme." We bought the book, and were delighted with its appearance. A quaint, antique, cream-coloured binding – a golden vignette on the outside, of the fox making his obeisance to Noble the king of the beasts, and the lioness his spouse – a beautiful paper and type within, with red and blue illuminations interspersed at the heads of chapters and paragraphs; – all this combined to whet our appetite for a delicious treat. We read the preface and introduction, if not with pleasure, at least with patience, and with wonderfully few misgivings as to the truth, the worst feature in them being the tendency to Carlyleism, to which, however offensive in itself, custom has made us somewhat callous. But we had not perused a page or two of the reproduction in rhyme itself, when we discovered that we were wandering in the regions of Cockneyland, with one of its most distinguished natives for our guide.

Our immediate purpose is to offer an exposition, not of the old Reynard, but of its present "reproduction." We may say, however, that we think the original work is one peculiarly ill-suited to be appreciated or reproduced by one of Mr Naylor's compatriots. It is a product of true genius, humour, and sagacity. The author must have looked at beasts and men with a keen eye, and from the vantage ground of a contemplative mind; and he has worked out his thoughts in a plain and simple style of illustration, and embodied them in easy and natural language. There is much merriment in his work, but no straining after wit. There is all the knowledge of the day that an accomplished man could be expected to possess, but no parade of learning. There is no quaintness in the style, and no effort in the verse. The age of Hudibras had not come; and that of the Ingoldsby Legends, or Miss Kilmansegg, was still further off. The old Flemish writers of Reynard exhibit judgment as well as talent, and their Low Saxon successor, though himself a reproducer, has asserted a claim both to freedom and originality. The quiet, sensible, unaffected treatment of their subject, which these old versifiers exhibit, where the topics offered so much temptation to burlesque and extravagance, is the thing of all others least likely to be comprehended or relished in the meridian of Bow Bells.

But, then, Goethe has successfully translated the book; and, therefore, Mr Naylor must do the same. This is a common mode of syllogising in Cockayne. Homer, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, have done such and such things, and therefore a Cockney is to do them also. Whatever may be the precise minor premise involved in this argument, we venture to suggest a doubt of its soundness. Mr Naylor tells us he has followed Alkmar's and Goethe's example, "mindful ever of the requisitions insisted on by Novalis in all paraphrastic translations, that they should convey accurately an idea of the first type, whilst, at the same time, the translator made his author speak after that appreciation of his work which exists in his own mind, no less than according to the poet's original conception." Mr Naylor may have succeeded in making his author speak after that appreciation of his work which exists in his own mind; but if the "first type" of Reynard had been no better than the reproduction gives us an idea of, the shapeless and sickly cub would not have lived an hour into the thirteenth century.

Before Mr Naylor resolved on reproducing Reynard in English rhyme, he should have inquired whether it was not already as well done as he was likely to do it. In his elaborate enumeration of his predecessors in the task of translation, he thus writes: – "There is also said to be a translation of Reynard into English doggerel, by one Soltau, a German" – "known," as he adds in a note, "as the translator of Hudibras into German." We have now before us the translation so slightingly alluded to, published at Hamburg in 1826. In all external and physical recommendations, this homely volume is far inferior to the London reproduction; but we shall immediately give our readers an opportunity of judging whether the doggerel of "one Soltau, a German," is not at least as good as that of "one Naylor, a Cockney."

Take the opening of the poem, which, in the original, is full of freshness and spirit, with all the joyousness of a holiday scene.

Soltau"It happen'd on a Whitsunday,When woods and fields look'd green and gay,When balmy flow'rs and herbs were springing,And feather'd folks were sweetly singing;The morn was fine, the weather clear,And fragrant odours fill'd the air,When Noble, sov'reign king of beasts,Proclaim'd a court and public feasts.His loyal subjects, lords and commons,Obey'd their master's royal summons;And many a valiant knight and squireTo court repair'd in grand attire,With their attendants, great and small —'Twas difficult to count them all."Naylor"Now Pentecost, the feast, by someCall'd 'merry Whitsuntide,' was come!The fields show'd brave, with kingcups dight,And hawthorns kercheft were in white:Her low-breathed lute the fresh'ning rillUnto the waken'd woods 'gan trill;Whilst, hid in leafy bower remote,The cuckoo tuned his herald-note;The meads were prankt in gold and green,And 'leetel fowles' of liveried sheen,Their pipes with Jubilate! swelling,From bush and spray were philomelling —The breeze came balmy from the west,And April, harness'd in her best,The laughing sun led forth to see —When Noble (lion-king was he,And sceptre sway'd o'er bird and beast,)Held ancient ways, and kept the feast,The trumpets clang'd loud proclamation —The couriers coursed throughout the nation —Full many a Brave and many a BoldCame hastening in troops untold."

The German translator here keeps precisely within the same compass of fourteen lines with his "first type," while the Londoner has one-half more. But this is not the main difference. The German is neater and more natural, and nearer the spirit as well as the letter of his model. All the trash in the new reproduction about hawthorns "kercheft in white," the low-breathed lute of the rill trilling, the cuckoo and his herald note, the 'leetel fowles' swelling and philomelling, and April harnessed in her best, are mere frippery sewed on by the reproducer, to make the venerable old garment look finer in the eyes of his co-Cockneys.

We next give the two translations of that part of the poem which represents the Cock's complaints against Reynard, for killing his daughter, and which is supposed to give so accurate a representation of the form of process in the Middle Ages in an accusation of murder.

Soltau"Gray scarce had done, when ChanticleerThe Cock in mourning did appear;Two sons accompanied their sire,Like him in funeral attire,With hoods of crape and torches lighted,And doleful lays they both recited.Two others follow'd with a bier;Mournful and slowly they drew near,With heartfelt sighs and deepest groan,Their fav'rite sister to bemoan."The Cock in tears the throne approach'd,And thus his sad harangue he broach'd:'My Liege, have pity on a man,The most distressed of his clan,Who, with his children here before You,Is come, for vengeance to implore YouOn Reynard, who, with fell design,Hath done great harm to me and mine.When hoary Winter left the plain,And Spring smiled on the world again,When leaves were budding, daisies springing,And tuneful birds in thickets singing,The sun at dawn of morning found meWith my young family around me;Ten sons and fourteen daughters fair,Breathing with joy the genial air,All of one breed, and full of life,Brought up by my good prudent wife.Protected by a massy wallAnd six bold mastiffs, stout and tall,They lived, in spite of Reynard crafty,Within a cloister-yard in safety."But lo! our enemy contrivedOur joy, alas! should be short-lived.In hermit's garb the traitor came,With letters, written in your name,Where strictest orders were express'd,To keep peace between bird and beast.He said, he scorn'd the joys of sense,And led a life of penitence,To expiate his former guilt,And streams of blood, which he had spilt;He vow'd, in future he would eatNo poultry, nor forbidden meat."All joyful, to my little crew,To tell the happy news I flew,That Reynard friar's garments wore,And was our enemy no more.Now for the first time we did ventureOut of our gate. A dire adventureAwaited us; for whilst we stray'dAnd sported on a sunny glade,Reynard, conceal'd below a bush,Upon us suddenly did rush;One of my hopeful sons he slew,And of my fairest daughters two. —Five only out of twenty-fourAre left; the rest he did devour.My daughter Rake-up, on this bier,Slain by the murderer, lies here;He bit her neck off yesterday —Revenge her death, my liege, I pray.'"'Sir Gray,(quoth Noble,) did you hear?Fine things of th' hermit-fox appear.Was't thus, that with his fasts he meant it?Sure as I live he shall repent it!"'Good Cock, we've heard your mournful tale,And we your daughter's fate bewail;Thus, first of all, we'll see the honourOf funeral rites bestow'd upon her;Next with our Council we shall furtherConsult, how to revenge this murther.'"Naylor"He ceased; and scarce a sand had runWhen Chanticleer and all his clanAppear'd in court: right in the vanA pullet's corse accompanied,'Clept Dem'selle Scratchclaw ere she died;By Reynard's bite decapitated —This wise the tidings were related.Close to the throne the Cock drew nigh:Deep anguish dimm'd his upturn'd eye:Two little Bantams, right and left,Wept bitter tears, as birds bereft.Sir Flapwing was of high degree,As fine a bantling as you'd see'Twixt Amsterdam and Paris, he.Sir Strain-neck was the other 'clept,And, like the first one, proudly stept.Before them each a torch they bear,Alike the same; for twins they were.Young Cocks yet twain bare up the pall,And help'd the wail with voices small.Then Chanticleer, before the KingCommenced, in tones deep harrowing:'Ah, gracious Lord and King! give earTo my disastrous tale! The tearOf pity shed on us who standFor justice, suppliants at your hand.Sire! thus it chanced; – The frosted beardOf Winter scarce had disappear'd;Scarce had the thorny brake put byIts hosiery of fleece, and IAs happy felt as though a chicken;About me, strutting, crowing, picking,In comeliness my little ones:I counted up ten stalwart sons;Of daughters, too, a wondrous store, —Plump Ortolans, and full a score.My dame, the thoughtful prudent Hen,Had train'd their youth beneath her kenAll virtues cardinal to practise,Best learned from mothers, as the fact is.Our house was in the convent yard,High wall'd around: six dogs stood guard; —All kept for our peculiar care,By night and day to shield us there.Now, gracious Liege! mark what I tell.Reynard, (the knave!) with cockle-shellAnd pilgrim's staff, wellworn, appears,Bearing a packet: as he nears,I note your royal seal, and readAnnouncement of the truce decreed:No more, he said, he played the royster,But sought repentance in a cloister:Observed the rule o' th' strictest sect,His sins to purge with sure effect;Whereby myself might to the endMy life secure and fearless spend.Said he, 'flesh diet I have swornNever to touch from night to morn.' —Unto my children all, I statedThe royal message, then relatedHow Reynard had assumed the cowl,And left off hankering after fowl.Myself I led them far and wide,When lo! the Fox's guile defiedMy anxious cares: in that same hourHe'd mark'd a victim for his power!Perdu behind a bush he lay,And took, before mine eyes, his prey!The best of all my brood he seized,And ate her up. The morsel pleasedHis scoundrel maw – 'twas dainty meat —And soon he sought another treat. —Full four-and twenty hopeful chicksAs e'er peck'd corn from out fresh ricksWere mine, – and now, as I'm alive,The villain's kill'd them all but five!Pity, O King! my sorrowing tale:Grant succour in this hour of wail!But yesterday, the huntsman's crySurprised him in the act to flyWith Scratchclaw's body, which you seeKill'd by his murd'rous tooth – ah me!'Tis here as witness of my woe —Oh that my hardhap to your heart may go!'Enraged, the King: 'Sir Badger, ho!The monk your uncle (troth!) doth knowTo keep his fast, – the holy man! —Match me the like of this who can?What need of further question here?Draw nigh and listen, Chanticleer!Ourself your daughter dead will seeEntomb'd with all solemnityOf dirge and mass, in her last slumber,And vigils also without number.This done, from these our lieges trueWe'll crave their help and counsel too,Touching the murder and the vengeance due.'To Bruin then the King thus spake:'Bruin! look well you undertakeThis journey with dispatch – 'Tis I,Your Sov'reign, calls upon you – fly!Be wise and wary: Reynard's guileIs practised in each crafty wile.'"

Neither of the translators is here very good, and Naylor is perhaps as near hitting the nail on the point (to use the phrase of a friend of ours of the Fogie Club) as his competitor. He still gives us, however, a great many silly superfluities, though some of them we have ventured to cut out.