Page images
PDF
EPUB

monarchy it is the duty of parliament to look at the men as well as at the measures." In Goldsmith's "Good-natured Man," one of the characters says, "Measures, not men, have always been my mark." Canning said in a speech against the Addington ministry, in 1801, "Away with the cant of Measures, not men'!—the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, sir: if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are every thing, measures are comparatively nothing." Burke, in "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents," spoke of "the cant of 'not men, but measures.'"

Of Lord Liverpool, who was premier for fifteen years, Brougham said, "The noble lord is a person of that sort, that, if you should bray him in a mortar, you could not bray the prejudices out of him."

His self-sufficiency is seen by a remark concerning the cabinet in which he was lord chancellor from 1830-34: "The Whigs are all ciphers: I am the only unit in the cabinet that gives a value to them."

On Brougham's elevation to the woolsack, Daniel O'Connell declared, "If Brougham knew a little law, he would know a little of every thing." Emerson, "New Essays," quotes it from Eldon, Brougham's predecessor as lord chancellor: "What a wonderfully versatile mind he has! he knows politics, Greek, history, science: if he only knew a little of law, he would know a little of every thing." Louis XVI. made a similar remark of the Abbé Maury, who preached at the Tuileries in 1781, and touched upon government, finance, politics, etc.: If he had said something about religion," remarked the king, "he would have said something about every thing" (Si l'abbé Maury nous avait parlé un peu de religion, il nous aurait parlé de tout).

[ocr errors]

As Samuel Rogers saw Brougham drive away from a coun try-house, he remarked, “There go Solon, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, and a great many others, in one post-chaise." Sydney Smith, seeing Brougham in a carriage, on the panel of which was the letter B surmounted by a coronet, observed, "There goes a carriage with a B outside and a wasp inside."

BEAU BRUMMEL.

[George Brummel, commonly called "Beau Brummel," born in London, 1778, a favorite and companion of the Prince Regent, and leader of fashion, having dissipated his fortune, he retired to Caen, France, where he died, 1840 ]

I once ate a pea.

When asked at dinner if he never ate vegetables.

He explained limping in Bond Street, by an injury to his leg; "and the worst of it was," he added, "it was my favorite leg."

Being asked why he had such a bad cold, he said, “I left my carriage yesterday evening on my way to town from the Pavilion, and the infidel of a landlord put me into a room with a damp stranger."

Passing a new bronze statue of Pitt, some one remarked that he never thought Pitt was so tall a man; "Nor so green a one," added Brummel.

After his rupture with the Prince Regent, Brummel came upon him suddenly one day with some friends, and, addressing one of them while looking at the prince as at an entire stranger, said, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?"

He answered the question whether he had ever seen so unseasonable a summer, by saying, "Yes: last winter'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

'Civility, he once observed, "may be truly said to cost nothing if it does not meet with a good return, it at least leaves you in the most creditable position."

After crossing the Channel, Brummel studied French; and, being asked what progress he was making, replied, "It's with me as with Napoleon in Russia, — I am stopped by the elements."

BUFFON.

[George, Count de Buffon, an illustrious French naturalist and philosopher; born in Burgundy, 1707; appointed intendant of the Royal Garden, 1739; member of the Academy, 1753; died 1788.]

The style is the man himself.

In his reception address at the French Academy, Buffon said that "only well-written works would descend to posterity. Fulness of knowledge, interesting facts, even useful inventions, are

no pledges of immortality, for they may be employed by more skilful hands: they are outside the man, the style is the man himself" (ces choses sont hors de l'homme, le style est l'homme même). Maupertuis wrote to Frederick the Great, Nov. 19, 1745: "Wit belongs to man; style, to the author. One may almost judge of the fortune of authors by reading their works; " and Goethe says, "A writer's style is the counter-proof of his character." Pope declares that "nothing is more foolish than to pretend to know a great writer by his style." Chesterfield, writing to his son (1749), calls style "the dress of thought." Isaac Disraeli, speaking of the literary character of men of genius, says that an author can have nothing truly his own but his style: an author's diction cannot be taken from him. Fénelon, before Buffon's time, called a man's style “nearly as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the beating of his pulse, in short, as any part of his being which is least subjected to the action of the will."

[ocr errors]

His character, "His manners

In Buffon's case the aphorism suited the man. habits, even his physique, resembled his style. were distinguished, his tastes magnificent, his carriage noble; and all corresponded to the beauty of his images, the amplitude of his periods, the harmony and majesty of his expressions. He justified the inscription upon the statue erected to him in his lifetime, Majestate naturæ par ingenium'" (a genius equalled by natural majesty). To some one who spoke to Voltaire of Buffon's "Natural History," "Not so natural," rejoined the poet. His manner of writing, with his hands enclosed in lace ruffles, made les manchettes de Buffon a proverbial expression for an ornate style. Grimm said Montesquieu had "the style of a genius; Buffon, the genius of style;" and a witty woman remarked, that the naturalist sometimes renounced the spirit of his age, but never its pomps.

Genius is only great patience (Le génie n'est autre chose qu'une grande aptitude à la patience.)

Carlyle wrote that genius is only an immense capacity for taking trouble. Dr. Johnson's definition was, "Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.”

LORD BURGHLEY.

[Sir William Cecil, an English statesman; born 1520; secretary of state from the accession of Queen Elizabeth, 1558; lord treasurer, 1572; died 1598.]

Madam, I have heard men say that those who would make fools of princes are the fools themselves.

To Queen Elizabeth.

"England," he said, "can never be ruined except by a parlia

ment."

He wrote to his son, Sir Robert Cecil, July 10, 1598: “Serve God, by serving the queen; for all other service is indeed bondage to the Devil."

He used to throw off his official robe with the exclamation, "Lie there, Lord Treasurer!"

GOTTFRIED BÜRGER.

[A German poet, author of "Lenore; " born, 1748; died, 1794.] You are Goethe, I am Bürger.

The familiar and consequential manner with which Bürger introduced himself to Goethe in 1800. He was mortified to find that the equality thus assumed was not recognized by the author of "Tasso" and "Iphigenia."

DUKE OF burgundy.

[Grandson of Louis XIV., and father of Louis XV.; born at Versailles, 1682. Fénelon was appointed his tutor, and effected an entire change in his character, which, from being obstinate and passionate, became humble and gentle. The duke and duchess died of malignant small-pox in 1712, greatly regretted by the nation.]

What, do kings die? (Quoi, donc, les rois meurent-ils ?)

To Fénelon, who spoke of a certain king as dead. The question illustrates the education of princes of that period. Thus the grandfather of Philip Égalité, Duc d'Orleans, started up in indignation, when his secretary stumbled, in reading, on the words, "the late king of Spain" (feu roi d'Espagne). "Monseigneur," hastily auswered the trembling but adroit man of business, "'tis a title they take!" (c'est un titre qu'ils prennent!) -CARLYLE: French Revolution, I. 1, 4.

A king is made for his subjects, and not his subjects for him.

66

These two sayings illustrate the two phases of the duke's character. The latter has, however, a more illustrious parentage; for it translates almost literally Dante's sentiment in his treatise "De Monarchia," " Non enim gens propter regem, sed e converso rex propter gentem," in which he anticipates the proposition of Calvin, "that it is possible to conceive a people without a prince, but not a prince without a people;" and again Dante declares that "citizens exist not for the sake of consuls, nor the people for the sake of the king; but, on the contrary, consuls for the sake of citizens, and the king for the sake of the people."

It is related of the Duchess of Burgundy, that she asked Louis XIV. and Mme. de Maintenon, why in England queens governed better than kings, and answered the question herself: "Because under kings it is the women who govern, and men under queens." A palpable hit at the state of things in France.

EDMUND BURKE.

[A distinguished orator and writer; born in Dublin, 1730, or, according to some authorities, in 1728; educated at Trinity College, and studied for the bar; published his "Vindication of Natural Society," anonymously, 1756; entered Parliament, 1766; Paymaster-general in the Rockingham ministry, 1782; retired 1783; died 1797.]

In that way I let myself down to you.

In 1759 Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton, known, from his brilliant and only speech in the House of Commons, as "Single-speech Hamilton," who made him his private secretary, and, at a later period, twitted him with being taken from a garret. "In that way," proudly answered Burke, "I let myself down to you."

The Abbé Mably, an historical writer, made an even more pointed answer to a French count who had befriended him and then boasted of it, "Men of merit lodge in garrets, and fools inhabit palaces" (Les gens de mérite logent dans des greniers, et les sots habitent dans des hôtels).

Burke was in the habit of frequenting in youth the gallery of the House of Commons to listen to the debates. "Some of these

« PreviousContinue »