Literary Byways

Mr. J. Cuthbert Hadden, who has made a study of this subject, says the supply of verse to-day is greatly in excess of the demand, and so it happens that in many quarters poetry is not paid for at all. Most of the minor poets whose volumes come before the public have to bear the whole expense of production themselves, and only a very small number escape without considerable loss. In this connection an amusing story regarding James Russell Lowell – not quite a minor poet – may be quoted. The cost of publishing his first book was borne entirely by Mr. Lowell himself, the edition being a plain but substantial one of 500 copies. The author felt the usual pride in his achievement, and hoped for almost immediate fame. Unhappily, only a few copies of the work were sold. Soon after, a fire occurred in the publishing house where the volumes were stored, and they were destroyed. As the publisher carried a full insurance on the stock, Mr. Lowell was able to realise the full cash value on his venture, and he had the satisfaction of saying that the entire edition was exhausted.

The leading American novelists usually get £1,000 for a serial story in a magazine, and a similar sum when it is produced in book form. Bret Harte can command a thousand dollars for a single magazine article. Mrs. Grant received a cheque for £40,000 for her share of the first volume of General Grant’s “Memoirs,” and the whole of her share of the proceeds is put down at £100,000.

In closing, we must remind our readers that there are two sides to every picture, and that countless instances of bitter disappointment and death are recorded in the annals of literature. Only a few in the mighty army of writers come to the front and win fame and fortune.

“Declined with Thanks.”

“Declined with thanks,” is a phrase which often disappoints the aspirant in the wide field of literature. Works of the highest merit are frequently rejected by publishers; indeed, some of the most popular books in our language have gone the rounds of the trade without their merits being recognised. Frequently the authors, after repeated failures, have brought their works out at their own risk, and have thereby won fame and fortune. In works of fiction, perhaps the most notable example of a story which was offered to publisher after publisher only to be returned to its author, is that of “Robinson Crusoe.” It was at last “Printed for W. Taylor, at the Ship in Paternoster Row, MDCCXIX.” It proved a good speculation for the lucky publisher. He made a profit of one hundred thousand pounds out of the venture. Jane Austen’s name stands high in the annals of English literature; yet she had a struggle to get her books published. She sold her “Northanger Abbey” to a Bath bookseller for the insignificant sum of ten pounds. The manuscript remained for some time in his possession without being printed, he fearing that if published it would prove a failure. He was, however, at length induced to issue it, and its merits caused it to be extensively read. Samuel Warren could not prevail upon a publisher to bring out his well-known book, “The Diary of a late Physician,” and, much against his inclination, it was first given to the reading public as a serial in “Blackwood’s Magazine.” Thackeray wrote his great novel, “Vanity Fair,” for “Colburn’s Magazine”; it was refused by the publishers, who deemed it a work without interest. He tried to place it with several of the leading London firms who all declined it. He finally issued it in monthly parts, and by it his fame as a novelist was established.

It will surprise many to learn that the first volume of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Fairy Tales” was declined by every publisher in Copenhagen. The book was brought out at the author’s own cost, and the charming collection of stories gained for him world-wide renown. The Rev. James Beresford could not induce any publisher to pay twenty pounds for his amusing volume, entitled “The Miseries of Human Life.” It was after some delay issued, and in twelve months passed through nine editions. A humorous notice by Sir Walter Scott in the “Edinburgh Review” doubtless did much to increase the circulation of the book. The handsome sum of five thousand pounds profit was cleared out of this happy venture. In an able work by a leading American critic, entitled “American Publishers and English Authors,” it is stated that “‘Jane Eyre’ went the round of the publishing houses of London, but could not find a market until the daughter of a publisher accidentally discovered the manuscript in an iron safe, where it had been lying until it was mouldy. She saw the extraordinary merit of the novel, and induced her father to publish it.” The foregoing statement is incorrect. As a matter of fact, the manuscript was sent by rail to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., on the 24th August, 1847, and by the 16th of October in the same year the firm issued the novel. According to Mrs. Gaskell’s “Life of Charlotte Brontë,” the future publishers of “Jane Eyre” were at once most favourably impressed with the book, and this is fully confirmed by the prompt publication of it. Respecting its reception by the firm, says Mrs. Gaskell, “the first reader of the manuscript was so powerfully struck by the character of the tale, that he reported his impression in very strong terms to Mr. Smith, who appears to have been much amused by the admiration excited. ‘You seem to have been so much enchanted, that I do not know how to believe you,’ he laughingly said. But when a second reader, in the person of a clear-headed Scotchman, not given to enthusiasm, had taken the manuscript home in the evening, and become so deeply interested in it as to sit up half the night to finish it, Mr. Smith’s curiosity was sufficiently excited to prompt him to read it for himself; and great as were the praises which had been bestowed upon it, he found that they did not exceed the truth.” The first novel Miss Brontë wrote was entitled “The Professor,” which was submitted to numerous publishers without finding one to accept it. It was not issued until after the death of the gifted author, and is much inferior to her other books. Says Mrs. Gaskell, “Mr. Smith has told me a little circumstance connected with the reception of this manuscript, which seems indicative of no ordinary character. It came in a brown paper parcel to 65, Cornhill. Besides the address to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., there were on it those of other publishers to whom the tale had been sent, not obliterated, but simply scored through, so that Mr. Smith at once perceived the names of some of the houses in the trade to which the unlucky parcel had gone, without success.”

Sterne could not find a bookseller who would pay fifty pounds for “Tristram Shandy,” he therefore issued it on his own account, and it proved a saleable work, gaining for its author a front place amongst English humorists. Mrs. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was written as a serial for the “National Era,” an anti-slavery journal published at Washington. It was next offered to Messrs. Jewett & Co., but their reader and critic pronounced it not a story of sufficient interest to be worth reproducing in book form. The wife of the latter strenuously insisted that it would meet with a favourable reception, and advised its publication. In a notice of Mrs. Stowe, it is stated that in four years 313,000 copies had been printed in the United States alone, probably as many more in Great Britain. Miss Warner’s popular novel, “The Wide, Wide World,” was declined by a leading New York publisher. It is said that several well-known houses refused to have anything to do with one of the most popular books of recent times, “Vice Versâ”; even when in type, two American firms did not discover its worth, and rejected it.

Some notable books in history, travels, poetry, and science have been “Declined with thanks.” Both Murray and Longman were afraid to risk the publication of Prescott’s “Ferdinand and Isabella,” but Bentley brought out the book, and according to his statement it is the most successful work that he has published. A score of houses refused to publish “Eöthen.” The author in despair handed his manuscript to one of the lesser known booksellers, and printed it at his own cost; it was extremely successful. After twenty-five editions of Buchan’s “Domestic Medicine” had been sold, one thousand six hundred pounds was paid for the copyright, yet, strange to state, before it was published not a single firm in Edinburgh would pay a hundred pounds for it. Strahan, the King’s printer, had offered to him the first volume of Blair’s “Sermons,” and, after a careful perusal, concluded that the work would not be one to find a ready sale. Dr. Johnson, however, came to the rescue, and with his eloquence induced Mr. Strahan to pay a hundred pounds for the copyright. It had a large circulation; for a second volume, three hundred pounds was the amount gladly paid, and for subsequent volumes six hundred pounds each.

Sir Richard Phillips rejected several famous books. It was to this bookseller and publisher that Robert Bloomfield offered the copyright of his “Farmer’s Boy” in return for a dozen copies of the work when printed. He feared it would be a failure, and declined it. The poet issued it by subscription, and within three years 25,000 copies were sold. This publisher is said to have had offered to him Byron’s early poems. He might have purchased the copyright of “Waverley” for thirty pounds, but declined it! He rejected other works which won favourable reception from the press and the public. It is only right to state that he gave to the world many valuable volumes, and that he was a man of decided literary ability. A paragraph went the rounds of the literary press after the death of Mr. J. H. Parker, the well-known Oxford publisher, stating that the copyright of Keble’s “Christian Year” was offered to Joseph Parker for the sum of twenty pounds and refused. It was further stated that “during the forty years which followed the publication of this work nearly 400,000 copies were sold, and Mr. Keble’s share of the profits amounted to fourteen thousand pounds, being one-fourth the retail price.” The brothers Smith desired to sell for twenty pounds to Mr. Murray their celebrated “Rejected Addresses,” but the great publisher declined the proposal with thanks. They resolved to bring out the book at their own risk. It hit the popular taste, and after sixteen editions had been sold, Mr. Murray paid for the copyright one hundred and thirty-one pounds. The poems yielded the authors over a thousand pounds.

Editors of newspapers and magazines have often made ludicrous blunders in rejecting poems of sterling merit. It is generally known that the editor of the Greenock Advertiser expressed his regret that he could not insert in his newspaper one of Thomas Campbell’s best poems on account of it not being quite up to his standard.

The Rev. Charles Wolfe submitted to the editor of a leading magazine his famous ode on “The Burial of Sir John Moore,” but it was rejected in such a scornful manner as to cause the writer to hand it to the editor of The Newry Telegraph, an Ulster newspaper of no standing as a literary journal. It was published in 1817, in that obscure paper, with the initials of “C. W.” It was reproduced in various publications, and attracted great attention. It is one of the best in our limited number of pieces of martial poetry.

Epigrams on Authors

The epigram is of considerable antiquity. The Greeks placed on their monuments, statues, and tombs, short poetical inscriptions, written in a simple style, and it was from this practice that we derive the epigram. In the earlier examples we fail to find any traces of satire which is now its chief characteristic. The Romans were the first to give a satirical turn to this class of literature. Amongst the writers of Latin epigrams, Catullus and Martial occupy leading places. The French are, perhaps, the most gifted writers of epigrams. German epigrammatists have put into verse moral proverbs. Schiller and Goethe did not, however, follow the usual practice of their countrymen, but wrote many satirical epigrams, having great force. Many of our English poets have displayed a fine faculty of writing epigrams.

The birthplace of Homer is a disputed point, and has given rise to not a few essays and epigrams. Thomas Heywood, in one of his poetical publications, published in 1640, wrote: —

“Seven cities warr’d for Homer, being dead,Who, living, had no roof to shroud his head.”

Much in the same strain wrote Thomas Seward, a century and a half later: —

“Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,Through which the living Homer begg’d his bread.”

The two writers have not stated fully the number of cities which claim to have given birth to Homer. The number is nearer twenty than seven. Pope, in his translation of Homer, was assisted by a poet named William Broome, a circumstance which prompted John Henley to pen the following: —

“Pope came off clean with Homer; but, they say,Broome went before, and kindly swept the way.”

Butler, the author of “Hudibras,” was much neglected during his life. It is true that Charles II. and his courtiers read and were delighted with his poem, but they did not extend to him any patronage. The greater part of his days were passed in obscurity and poverty. He had been buried about forty years when a monument was placed in Westminster Abbey to his memory, by John Barber, a printer, and afterwards an Alderman and Lord Mayor of London. Samuel Wesley wrote on the memorial the following lines: —

“Whilst Butler, needy wretch! was yet alive,No gen’rous patron would a dinner give;See him, when starved to death, and turn’d to dust,Presented with a monumental bust!The poet’s fate is here in emblem shown, —He asked for bread, and he receiv’d a stone.”

An epitaph similar in sentiment to the foregoing was placed by Horace Walpole over the remains of Theodore, King of Corsica, who, after many trials and disappointments, ended his life as a prisoner for debt in King’s Bench, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne’s, Westminster: —

“The grave, great teacher, to a level bringsHeroes and beggars, galley slaves and kings.But Theodore this moral learn’d ere dead;Fate pour’d its lesson on his living head;Bestow’d a kingdom, and denied him bread.”

The fourth Earl of Chesterfield, on seeing a whole-length portrait of Nash between the busts of Sir Isaac Newton and Pope in the rooms at Bath, wrote as follows: —

“Immortal Newton never spokeMore truth than here you’ll find;Nor Pope himself e’er penn’d a jokeMore cruel on mankind.The picture, plac’d the busts between,Gives satire all its strength:Wisdom and Wit are little seen,But Folly at full length.”

Stephen Duck’s poetry and progress in life gave rise to some lively lines by the lampooners of the eighteenth century. He was an agricultural labourer, having a thirst for knowledge and some skill as a writer of verse. This humble and self-taught student was brought under the notice of Queen Caroline, who was much interested in his welfare, and pleased with his poetry; she granted him a pension of £30 a year. He was next made a yeoman of the guard, an appointment he did not long retain, for he was advanced to the position of a clergyman in the Church of England, and presented to the living of Byfleet, Surrey. It is to be feared that his education was not sufficiently liberal for a clerk in holy orders. Dean Swift assailed the poor poet as follows: —

“The thresher Duck could o’er the Queen prevail;The proverb says ‘No fence against a flail.’From threshing corn he turns to thresh his brains,For which Her Majesty allows him grains.Though ’tis confess’d that those who ever sawHis poems, think them all not worth a straw.Thrice happy Duck, employed in threshing stubble!Thy toil is lessen’d and thy profits doubled.”

The want of dignity displayed in the foregoing is unworthy of Swift, and the reply as follows made by Duck is certainly much to his credit: —

“You think it, censor, mighty strangeThat, born a country clown,I should my first profession changeAnd wear a chaplain’s gown!If virtue honours the low raceFrom which I was descended,If vices your high birth disgraceWho should be most commended?”

Duck wrote the epitaph for the tombstone over the remains of Joe Miller of mirthful memory. The following is a copy of the lines: —

“If humour, wit, and honesty could saveThe hum’rous, witty, honest from the grave;The grave had not so soon this tenant foundWhom honesty, and wit, and humour crowned.Or could esteem and love preserve our breath,And guard us longer from the stroke of death,The stroke of death on him had later fell,Whom all mankind esteem’d and lov’d so well.”

The poet-preacher was advanced to the chaplaincy of a regiment of Dragoon Guards. Sad to relate, in the year 1756, in a fit of insanity, he took his own life.

During the Gordon riots on the 7th of January, 1780, Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square was burnt, and in the flames perished his valuable library, which he commenced collecting when a lad at school. It included many valuable volumes and materials for memoirs of his times. Cowper thus wrote on the subject: —

“So then – the Vandals of our isle,Sworn foes of sense and law,Have burnt to dust a nobler pileThan ever Roman saw!And Murray sighs o’er Pope and Swift,And many a treasure more,The well-judged purchase, and the giftThat graced his letter’d store.Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,The loss was his alone;But ages yet to come shall mournThe burning of his own.”

A pleasing and playful epigram on Robert Bloomfield, the author of “The Farmer’s Boy,” was written by Henry Kirke White: —

“Bloomfield, thy happy omen’d nameEnsures continuance of thy fame;Both sense and truth this verdict give,While fields shall bloom thy name shall live.”

The residences of Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge near the English Lakes suggested the title of lake poets, and of their works the Rev. Henry Townshend wrote: —

“They come from the lakes – an appropriate quarterFor poems diluted with plenty of water.”

Surely Lord Holland was a little wide of the mark when he penned the following epigram, complaining that Southey did not write sufficient laureate poems; the fact is, he wrote too many to sustain his reputation as a poet: —

“Our Laureate Bob defrauds the King —He takes his cash and will not sing;Yet on he goes, I know not why,Singing for us who do not buy.”

In the Diary of Thomas Moore, under date of September 4, 1825, it is stated: “Lord H. full of an epigram he had just written on Southey, which we all twisted and turned into various shapes; he is as happy as a boy during the operation. He suggests the following as the last couplet: —

“And for us, who will not buy,Goes singing on eternally.”

It has been truthfully observed that William Wordsworth “found poetry in the most common-place events of life, and described them in familiar language; he naturally contended that there was little real difference between poetry and prose.” Byron thus rallies him on the theory: —

“The simple Wordsworth, framer of a layAs soft as evening in his favourite May,Who warns his friend, ‘to shake off toil and trouble,And quit his books, for fear of growing double;’Who, both by precept and example, showsThat prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;Convincing all, by demonstration plain,Poetic souls delight in prose inane.”

Theodore Hook produced some pungent verses; here is a slight example on Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound”: —

“Shelley styles his new poem Prometheus Unbound,And ’tis like to remain so while time circles round;For surely an age would be spent in the findingA reader so weak as to pay for the binding!”

Scott wrote a poem which was published in 1815, under the title of The Field of Waterloo, and prefaced it thus: “It may be some apology for the imperfections of this poem, that it was composed hastily, and during a short tour upon the Continent, where the author’s labours were liable to frequent interruption; but its best apology is, that it was written for the purpose of assisting the Waterloo subscription.”

This plea did not disarm hostile criticism. Thomas, Lord Erskine, expressed himself as follows: —

“On Waterloo’s ensanguined plainLie tens of thousands of the slain;But none by sabre or by shotFell half so flat as Walter Scott.”

Wrote Thomas Moore in his Diary: “I have read Walter-loo. The battle murdered many, and he has murdered the battle; ’tis sad stuff.”

The Earl of Carlisle wrote a sixpenny pamphlet advocating small theatres; and on the day it was issued the newspapers contained the announcement that he had given a large subscription to a public fund, a circumstance which formed the theme of the following epigram by his cousin, Lord Byron:

“Carlisle subscribes a thousand poundsOut of his rich domains;And for sixpence circles roundThe product of his brains:’Tis thus the difference you may hitBetween his fortune and his wit.”

Byron made his unhappy marriage the subject of at least three epigrams. Here are two of them as follows: —

On His Wedding-day“Here’s a happy new year! But with reasonWish me many returns of the season,But as few as you please of the day.”

At a later period he wrote —

I beg you’ll permit me to say —“This day, of all our days, has doneThe worst for me and you:’Tis just six years since we were one,And five since we were two.”

Lord Byron’s friend, Thomas Moore, wrote many excellent epigrams, and not a few were penned about him. He published his first volume of poems under the name of Thomas Little. It is stated that a lady found a copy of the book under the pillow of her maid’s bed, and wrote on it in pencil: —

“You read Little, I guess;I wish you’d read less.”

The servant was equal to her mistress, and wrote: —

“I read Little before,Now I mean to read Moore.”

Lord Byron wrote the following in 1811 on Moore’s farcical opera: —

“Good plays are scarce;So Moore writes farce;The poet’s fame grows brittle —We knew beforeThat Little’s Moore,But now ’tis Moore that’s Little.”

Respecting Moore’s duel with Lord Jeffrey, Theodore Hook composed the following lines: —

“When Anacreon would fight, as the poets have said,A reverse he displayed in his vapour,For while all his poems were loaded with lead,His pistols were loaded with paper.For excuses, Anacreon old custom may thank,Such salvo he should not abuse;For the cartridge, by rule, is always made blankThat is fired away at Reviews.”

“Moore is here called Anacreon,” says W. Davenport Adams, “in allusion to his translations from that poet.” The duel was owing to an article in the Edinburgh Review, which Moore thought proper to resent by challenging the editor. The combatants were, however, arrested on the ground, and conveyed to Bow Street, where the pistols were found to contain merely a charge of powder, the balls having in some way disappeared. Byron alludes to the circumstance in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: —

“When Little’s leadless pistol met his eye,And Bow Street myrmidons stood laughing by.”

After this strange encounter, the poet and critic were firm friends.

Slips of the pen have given rise to some smart epigrammatic corrections. Albert Smith wrote in an album as follows: —

“Mont Blanc is the Monarch of Mountains,They crown’d him long ago;But who they got to put it onNobody seems to know.”Albert Smith.

Thackeray was successfully solicited to contribute to the same book, and wrote under the fore-going: —

A Humble Suggestion“I know that Albert wrote in a hurry,To criticize I scarce presume;But methinks that Lindley Murray,Instead of who had written whom.”W. M. Thackeray.

Samuel Warren on one occasion made a slip in writing in an album, misquoting Moore, writing “glory’s throb” instead of “glory’s thrill.” The mistake formed the subject of the following impromptu lines by Mr. Digby Seymour: —

“Warren, thy memory was poorThe Irish bard to rob,Had you remembered Tommy Moore,Glory would ‘thrill,’ not ‘throb.’”

The vanity of Mr. Warren was unusually largely developed, and gave rise to a number of amusing anecdotes. Sir George Rose thus refers to his weakness: —

“Samuel Warren, though able, yet vainest of men,Could he guide with discretion his tongue and his pen,His course would be clear for – ‘Ten Thousand a Year;’But limited else be a brief – ‘Now and Then.’”

For a long period Mr. Warren was the Recorder for Hull. Mr. Thompson, the Town Clerk, was a gentleman of cultivated literary tastes, and able to compose a neat epigram. He wrote the following: —