PATMORE'S FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCE. * OPJECTION has been raised to the
publication of such books as this, on account of the violation of confidence involved in the de- scription of the social, personal, and it may be intellectual peculiari- ties of "friends or acquaintance." This objection, however, must be cautiously acted upon, or there would be an end of first-rate biography. No man's life can be written so well as by a person who knew him ; the next best material to living knowledge ss the reminiscence of those who were intimate with him, but who are unequal to or who avoid a formal biography. No doubt, there is a sense of confidence and propriety to be observed, because the com- mon feeling of mankind teaches them that delicacy and morality are of more importance than the gratification of an idle or prurient curiosity. It is better for curious things relating to famous men to fall into oblivion than to be blazoned before the world, if, without answering any useful object, they affect the feelings of survivors, or trench upon that feeling towards our common humanity which induces the mass of mankind instinctively to draw a veil over the details of the sick room, the dying bed, the wanderings of delirium, or physical and mental infirmities that may overtake us all. There is reason as well as instinct, too, in this opinion; for although truth is a good thing, distorted truth is not. And we cannot be certain that the apprehension of the reporter can always be trusted for the whole truth, but merely such portions as attract his attention, and which are consequently coloured and garbled by passing through his mind.
It is possible that a rigid censor might find matter in these vo- lumes to come under some of the categories just alluded to. We think, however, that the work is more censurable for its tone, and its frequent triviality, than for any actual violation of confidence, since the publication would be much the same in character whe- ther the alleged facts were known at first or second hand. There is a frequent assumption of superiority by the writer over his "friends and acquaintance," not critical, but patronizing or fashionable; except in the case of Mr. Plumer Ward, where things run quite the other way. In a literary sense, however, it is the
• My Friends and Acquaintance: being: Memorials. Mind-Portraith, and Personal Recollections of deceased Celebrities of the Nineteenth Century; with Selections from their Unpublished Letters. By P. G..Pattnore, Author of "Chatsworth, or the Romance of a Week," &-.c. Ike. In three volumes. Published by Saunders and Otley. predominance of- the trivial that is most objectionable, and some- iimes of triviality not grounded on special knowledge. In the ease of Campbell, there are stories about his putting his name to prose works which he did not write or scarcely read, resting apparently on no better evidence than gossip. There is talk about the ma- nagement of the New Monthly Magazine, to which Mr. Patmore was a contributor; and how a certain notification was received from the editor, Campbell, which Mr. Patmore conceives he (Camp- bell) never saw, but which he (P.) is of opinion was written by the publisher ; and so on in such skimble-scamble way. A good deal, too, is not personal recollection of facts, but disquisition grounded on some fact of no moment, or matters open to the public ken. A large part of the space devoted to Lady Blessington is of this nature. There is a sort of review of her "Conversations with Lord Byron " ; perhaps with a little colouring derived from per- sonal knowledge. There is an account of her portrait at the Exhi- bition, a disquisition on portrait-painting and on Lawrence as a portrait-painter, with a comparison of the reality and the "counter- feit presentment"; her Ladyship having stood before the portrait, while Mr. Patmore, then unknown to her, was looking at it. Her " dibtingue " equipage is discussed and described at length ; the cause of its effect in Hyde Park analyzed; and traced by Mr. Pat- more to the coachman and two tall thin footmen being raised a good deal more than was customary above the roof of the coach, and to the choice of colours for the carriage and the" picking out ": all which is innocent enough, but open to any one with eyes and a turn for flunkeyism and the stable-yard. The notice of Count D'Orsay is not objectionable for any personal revelations—indeed, Mr. Patmore seems to have none to make : but its commentary on certain notorious passages in the life of that personage is some- thing more than objectionable.
The people treated of in these volumes are Hazlitt, Lamb, Campbell, Plumcr Ward, the two Smiths, Leman Blanchard, Lady Blessington, including Count D'Orsay, and Sheridan and Tom Sheridan in a second-hand way. Of these, the only reminiscences that have any claim to value or biographical character are those of Ward, Hazlitt, and Lamb. At the time the late Mr. Ward pub- lished his " Tremaine " and "Be Yere' " Mr. Patmore was a reader of manuscripts to Mr. Colburn, and thus got into (anonymous) cor- respondence and finally into personal acquaintance with Mr. Ward. The story is terribly long, the matter of a small kind, and the in- terest chiefly literary. These reminiscences and correspondence, however, are real, and not an unimportant contribution to Ward's literary biography, besides being the best in tone of anything in the book. There is a good deal of description about Charles Lamb, though mingled with too much of Patmore ; with some anecdotes of which the following is not only the best, but one of the best things Lamb ever said.
"Lamb and Coleridge were talking together on the incidents of Coleridge's early life, when he was beginning his career in the church ; and Coleridge was describing some of the facts in his usual tone, when he paused, and said, 'Pray, Mr. Lamb, did you ever hear rue preach ? ' Demme,' said Lamb, 'I never heard you do anything else.' " A part if not the whole of Hazlitt has already appeared; which is probably the ease with some of the other matter. It is of a very mingled yarn; sometimes derogatory to liazlitt's standing, eleva- ting to that of Patmore, sometimes touching upon ground that would have been better avoided. It also contains information about Hazlitt, necessary to the essayist's biographer, and quite justifiable to record unless biography is to be reduced to inanity. This is a picture of Hazlitt's mode of life. "Hazlitt usually rose at from one to two o'clock in the day—scarcely ever before twelve and if he had no work in hand, he would sit over his break- fast (of excessively strong black tea, and a toasted French roll) till four or Ave in the afternoon—silent, motionless, and self-absorbed, as a Turk over his opium-pouch ; for tea served him precisely in this capacity. It was the only stimulant he ever took, and at the same time the only luxury ; the de- licate state of his digestive organs prevented him from tasting any fermented liquors, or touching any food but beef and mutton, or poultry and game, dressed with perfect plainness. He never touched any but Una; tea, and was very particular about the quality of that, always using the most expen- sive that could be got : and he used, when living alone, to consume nearly a pound in a week. A cup of Hazlitt's tea (if you happened to come in for the first brewage of it) was a peculiar thing ; I have never tasted anything like it. He always made it himself; half-filling the teapot with tea, pour- ing the boiling water on it, and then almost immediately pouring it out ; using with it u great quantity of sugar and cream. "To judge from its occasional effect upon myself, I should say that the quantity Ruzlitt drank of this tea produced, ultimately, a most injurious effect upon him ; and in all probabilityhastened his death, which tool: place from disease of the digestive organs. But its immediate effect was agreeable, even to a degree of fascination ; and, not feeling any subsequent reaction from it, he persevered in its use to the last, notwithstanding two or three at-
tacks similar to that which terminated his life. * * *
"His breakfast and tea were frequently the only meals that Hazlitt took till late at night ; when he usually ate a hearty supper of hot meat—either rump-steak, poultry, or game—a partridge or a pheasant. This he invariably took at a tavern; his other meals (except his dinner sometimes) being as invariably taken at home. "There were three or four houses only that he frequented ; for he never entered the doors of any one where his ways were not well known, or where there was any chance of his bill being asked for till he chose to offer payment of it. And when treated in a way that pleased him in this latter particular, he did not care what he paid. I have known him pay with cheerfulness ac- cumulated sums of twenty or thirty pounds for suppers only or chiefly. "The houses Hazlitt frequented were the Southampton Coffeehouse, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane; Munday's, in Maiden lane, Co- vent Garden ; and (for a shot t period) the Spring Garden Coffeehouse. The first of these he has immortalized in one of the most amusing of his essays, On Cofleehouse Politicians.' Here, for several years, he used to hold a sort of evening levee ; where, after a certain hour at night (and till a very uncertain hour in the morning) he was always to be found, and always more or less ready to take part in that sort of desultory ' talk ' (the only thing really deserving the name of 'conversation ') in which he excelled every man I have ever met with. But of this hereafter. Here, however, in that little bare and comfortless coffeeroom, have I scores of times seen the day- light peep through the crevices of the window-shutters upon Table-Talk' that was worthy an intellectual feast of the gods."
Owing to the effect of some excess in earlier years upon the di- gestive organs, Hazlitt was compelled to "total abstinence" when Mr. Patmore knew him. It seems however, from this picture, glass in hand, to have been an effort.
" Hazlitt himself could never bear to see the table wholly empty of some emblem of that taking one's ease at one's inn' which was a favourite feel- ing and phrase with him ; and immediately his supper-cloth was removed (for his corporeal enjoyment on these occasions was confined to the some- what solid but brief one of a pound or so of rump-steak or cold roast beef,) he used to be impatient to know what we were each of us going to take,- and, as each in turn determined the important point, he would taste it with us in imagination. It was his frequent and almost habitual practice, the moment the first glass was placed upon the table after supper, to take it up as if to carry it to his lips then to stop for a few moments before it reached them, and then smell to the liquor and draw in the fumes, as if they were a rich distilled perfume.' He would then put the glass down slowly, with- out uttering a word ; and you might sometimes see the tears start into his eyes, while he drew in his breath to the uttermost, and then sent it forth hi a half sigh, half yawn, that seemed to come from the very depths of his heart. At other times he would put the glass down with a leas dejected feel- ing, and exclaim, in a tone of gusto that would have done honour to the most earnest of gastronomes over the last mouthful of his actual ortolan, That'a fine, by G—d literally exhilarating, and almost intoxicating, himself with i
the bare imagination of t."
This was Hazlitt's manner of composition. "The three or four hours a day employed by Hazlitt in composition en- abled him to produce an essay for a magazine, one of his most profound and masterly Table-Talks, in two or three sittings ; or a long and brilliant ar- ticle of thirty or forty pages for the 'Edinburgh Review,' in about a week. But when he had an entire volume or work in hand he invariably went into the country to execute it, and ahnost always to the same spot—a little way- side public-house, called 'The Hut,' standing alone, and some miles diataAt from any other house, on Winterslow Heath, a barren tract of country on tbe road to and a few miles from Salisbury. There, ensconced in a little wain.- scoted parlour, looking out over the bare heath to the distant groves of Nerr. man Court, some of his finest essays were written ; there, in utter solitude and silence, many of his least unhappy days were spent; there, wandering for hours over the bare heath, or through the dark woods of the above- named domain, his shattered frame always gained temporary strength and renovation.
"When Hazlitt was regularly engaged on any work or article, he wrote at the rate of from ten to fifteen octavo pages at a sitting ; and never, or very rarely, renewed the sitting on the same day, except when he was at:Winter- slow ; where, having no means of occupation or amusement in the evening part of the day, be used, I believe habitually, to write after his tea. An doubtless, one of his motives for going there when he had any considerable work to get through, was the knowledge that by that means alone he odd persuade himself to 'work double tides.'"
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