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Page 26
Irving had not contemplated publishing in England, but the papers began
to be reprinted, and he was obliged to protect himself. He offered the
sketches to Murray, the princely publisher, who afterwards dealt so
liberally with him, but the venture was declined in a civil note,
written in that charming phraseology with which authors are familiar,
but which they would in vain seek to imitate. Irving afterwards greatly
prized this letter. He undertook the risks of the publication himself,
and the book sold well, although "written by an author the public knew
nothing of, and published by a bookseller who was going to ruin." In a
few months Murray, who was thereafter proud to be Irving's publisher,
undertook the publication of the two volumes of the "Sketch-Book," and
also of the "Knickerbocker" history, which Mr. Lockhart had just been
warmly praising in "Blackwood's." Indeed, he bought the copyright of the
"Sketch-Book" for two hundred pounds. The time for the publisher's
complaisance had arrived sooner even than Scott predicted in one of his
kindly letters to Irving, "when
'Your name is up and may go
From Toledo to Madrid.'"
Irving passed five years in England. Once recognized by the literary
world, whatever was best in the society of letters and of fashion was
open to him. He was a welcome guest in the best London houses, where he
met the foremost literary personages of the time, and established most
cordial relations with many of them; not to speak of statesmen,
soldiers, and men and women of fashion, there were the elder D'Israeli,
Southey, Campbell, Hallam, Gifford, Milman, Foscolo, Rogers, Scott, and
Belzoni fresh from his Egyptian explorations. In Irving's letters this
old society passes in review: Murray's drawing-rooms; the amusing
blue-stocking coteries of fashion of which Lady Caroline Lamb was a
promoter; the Countess of Besborough's, at whose house The Duke could be
seen; the Wimbledon country seat of Lord and Lady Spence; Belzoni, a
giant of six feet five, the centre of a group of eager auditors of the
Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and unpretending, and a copious
talker; Gifford, a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, with
something of a humped back, eyes that diverge, and a large mouth,
reclining on a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of the petulance
that you would expect from his Review, but a mild, simple, unassuming
man,--he it is who prunes the contributions and takes the sting out of
them (one would like to have seen them before the sting was taken out);
and Scott, the right honest-hearted, entering into the passing scene
with the hearty enjoyment of a child, to whom literature seems a sport
rather than a labor or ambition, an author void of all the petulance,
egotism, and peculiarities of the craft. We have Moore's authority for
saying that the literary dinner described in the "The Tales of a
Traveller," whimsical as it seems and pervaded by the conventional
notion of the relations of publishers and authors, had a personal
foundation. Irving's satire of both has always the old-time Grub Street
flavor, or at least the reminiscent tone, which is, by the way, quite
characteristic of nearly everything that he wrote about England. He was
always a little in the past tense. Buckthorne's advice to his friend
is, never to be eloquent to an author except in praise of his own works,
or, what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the work of his
contemporaries. "If ever he speaks favorably of the productions of a
particular friend, dissent boldly from him; pronounce his friend to be a
blockhead; never fear his being vexed. Much as people speak of the
irritability of authors, I never found one to take offense at such
contradictions. No, no, sir, authors are particularly candid in
admitting the faults of their friends." At the dinner Buckthorne
explains the geographical boundaries in the land of literature: you may
judge tolerably well of an author's popularity by the wine his
bookseller gives him. "An author crosses the port line about the third
edition, and gets into claret; and when he has reached the sixth or
seventh, he may revel in champagne and burgundy." The two ends of the
table were occupied by the two partners, one of whom laughed at the
clever things said by the poet, while the other maintained his
sedateness and kept on carving. "His gravity was explained to us by my
friend Buckthorne. He informed me that the concerns of the house were
admirably distributed among the partners. Thus, for instance, said he,
the grave gentleman is the carving partner, who attends to the joints;
and the other is the laughing partner, who attends to the jokes." If any
of the jokes from the lower end of the table reached the upper end, they
seldom produced much effect. "Even the laughing partner did not think it
necessary to honor them with a smile; which my neighbor Buckthorne
accounted for by informing me that there was a certain degree of
popularity to be obtained before a bookseller could afford to laugh at
an author's jokes."
In August, 1820, we find Irving in Paris, where his reputation secured
him a hearty welcome: he was often at the Cannings' and at Lord
Holland's; Talma, then the king of the stage, became his friend, and
there he made the acquaintance of Thomas Moore, which ripened into a
familiar and lasting friendship. The two men were drawn to each other;
Irving greatly admired the "noble-hearted, manly, spirited little
fellow, with a mind as generous as his fancy is brilliant." Talma was
playing Hamlet to overflowing houses, which hung on his actions with
breathless attention, or broke into ungovernable applause; ladies were
carried fainting from the boxes. The actor is described as short in
stature, rather inclined to fat, with a large face and a thick neck; his
eyes are bluish, and have a peculiar cast in them at times. He said to
Irving that he thought the French character much changed--graver; the
day of the classic drama, mere declamation and fine language, had gone
by; the Revolution had taught them to demand real life, incident,
passion, character. Irving's life in Paris was gay enough, and seriously
interfered with his literary projects. He had the fortunes of his
brother Peter on his mind also, and invested his earnings, then and for
some years after, in enterprises for his benefit that ended in
disappointment.
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