THE EARLY YEARS OF ALEXANDER SMITH.* IT is just seventeen
years since the name of Alexander Smith was thrust, by the publication of A Life Drama, into a notoriety which seemed almost fame. To young and enthusiastic miuds it might appear that no such sensation had been made since the days of Childe Harold. The magniloquent boasts in the poem itself, the glowing anticipations of a poet who was to arise and set the age to music, the frequent apostrophes to Fame with a large " F," and with even loftier attributes than could be symbolized by this literal promotion, were enough to turn the heads of boys and maidens. When the contagion spread to grave critics, and when papers of some authority praised with but little reserve, the triumph was complete. " The New Poet," as Mr. Gilfillan called Alexander Smith, was accepted as the true poet, the coming man, the subject of his own prophecies. We need not trace the more gradual steps of his decline. It is enough to say that the great success was • The Early Mare of Alexander Smith, Poet and Essayist. A Study for Young Men. By the Rev. T. Brisbem. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1869.
never repeated, that eager palates found' the luscious draught of the Life Drama cloy from its very sweetness, and that Alexander Smith subsided into a writer of pleasing essays. In this book Mr. Brisbane, as one of the friends of the poet's youth, sketches the history of those struggles which preceded his first public recog- nition. With the publication of the Life Drama, and the improve- ment in Alexander Smith's circumstances which was its result, Mr. Brisbane seems to have dropped out of the circle of intimates, and we have but few details of the remaining years of the poet's life. That part, however, as Mr. Brisbane tells us, has already found its chroniclers, while lie bases his claim to be heard on the novelty of his materials. At the same time, lie is so fully conscious of his literary shortcomings, and apologizes for them so modestly, that the critic is to some extent disarmed. We are prepared to pass over faults of style, clumsiness of expression, even errors of judgment. But after we have sedulously refrained from taking any note of the first two blemishes, we find that to pass over the third would be equivalent to leaving Mr. Brisbane's book unnoticed.
From the outset we see that the point of view chosen by Mr. Brisbane is a mistaken one. lie tells us in his preface that if he seems to praise the dead it is because in some places true por- traiture itself is praise. There are many sentences throughout the volume which bear strangely on this avowal. Thus Mr. Brisbane says that Dreanithorp is "a volume of essays having few equals in the English language." If this is true portraiture, it surely implies that the painter is entirely ignorant of the subjects of comparison. Similar instances of exaggeration abound. We are told that Alexander Smith was, from his youth, an adept in minia- ture-painting. " His earliest works," Mr. Brisbane says, " abound with inimitable miniatures, and lie has seldom manifested this talent more happily than in describing his shopmates. Thus
He at my right hand over dwelt alone, A moat of dullness fenced him from the world.
Harry's laughing face Filled with his mischievous and merry eyes.'
These are all true life pictures which his early friends cannot fail to identify." Mr. Brisbane must surely know that the test of a portrait, be it miniature or life-size, is its power of bringing out its subject so that all people, whether strangers or familiars, may catch its chief characteristics. It seldom happens that even the worst photograph cannot be identified by those to whom the original is known. We cannot think that any, save those who were well acquainted with Alexander Smith's shopmates, would recognize them from these descriptions. To judge from Mr. Brisbane's account such vagueness is the more reprehensible, as these friends of the poet's " were young men of more than ordinary talent and culture." We are actually told that " the verses of one occasionally graced the poet's corner of the city newspapers ; another wrote and published a drama, the scene of which was laid in the Noachian age ; while a third was a painter in water-colours of very considerable ability. They all, however," and this shows that their modesty was equal to their talent and culture, " regarded Sandie, as they familiarly named him, as their superior in genius and literary attainments, though he was the youngest of all." If this is to be taken as a sample of Mr. Brisbane's acumen, the reader will hardly care to accompany him any further. It is as absurd to make the poet's corner of a local newspaper the gauge of superior talent as it is to elevate a single phrase of no great felicity into an inimitable miniature. But the ac- count given of Alexander Smith's smart sayings is almost worse. Mr. Brisbane tells us that the poet once helped a little boy to cross a swollen stream, and afterwards met with the same boy dressed as au acrobat, " with a fillet round his brow, tights covered with tinsel lozenges, and flesh-coloured shoes." The "characteristic smart say- ing" with which Alexander Smith celebrated this recognition was, " Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for some have enter- tained angels unawares." Mr. Brisbane adds rather obscurely that he was often very happy at a bon mot of this kind. As we do not see the point of either this joke or of those which follow, the happiness involved in them is an unknown quantity. It seems, however, that when the owner of a milk-cart dashed the whole contents of a measure of butter-milk into a boy's face, Alexander Smith remarked, "Eh, that's sour clunk!" Another time, when he had come back from Edinburgh, where he was then living, to Glasgow, a friend met him in the street, and asked, " Well, have you come back for a change of air?" "No," was what Mr. Brisbane calls the quick reply, " I have only come back for a change of smoke." One more specimen is vouchsafed us, and that is perhaps the best. In a discussion at a society of which Alexander Smith was a prominent member, a speaker on the opposite side wound up a long argument by saying, " That is the right stuff !" " And it is stuff !" retorted the poet, as Mr. Brisbane adds, " without rising from his seat." As the climax of all, we read, "Such ejaculations of spontaneous wit were frequent with him in the club. Indeed it was generally thus that he answered his opponents, for he never excelled in argumentation." What must have been the debates of the society !
We may seem to be lingering too long over the faults of Mr. Brisbane's book, but these are really its most characteristic features. It does not give us any solid information about Alexander Smith. Its few anecdotes partake more of the nature of gossip than of biography. There may be some interest to the poet's friends and admirers in the story of his going to the Free Church with Mr. Brisbane, and promising to take a New Testa- ment in his pocket for their mutual use. When the Testament, however, was produced, and was handed solemnly from one to the other, it turned out to be a copy of Don Juan. Another story, which is equally edifying, is told of Alexander Smith's attendance at a church in Glasgow. It was just after the publication of the Life Drama, and the preacher at the church was proud to think that his sermon had attracted a man of genius. But further inquiries showed that the poet did not come for the sake of the preaching, but for that of a tradesman's pretty daughter, who was one of the congregation. Mr. Brisbane mentions some facts about the composition of the Life Drama which partly account for the radical fault of its texture. Acting on hints from some advisers, Alexander Smith resolved to weave a number of detached pieces into a single poem. The result was as might have been expected. In many places the connec- tions were arbitrary ; there was no main story ; the minor details assumed throughout too great an importance. The superabundance of metaphor, which might have been more readily perceived in short poems, was encouraged rather than checked. Mr. Brisbane tells us with his usual felicity of the tropical exu- berance of imagination of one of Alexander Smith's early friends having supplied the Life Drama with some of its finest figures. But the poet himself gave the reins to his love of imagery. Mr. Brisbane was present when the metaphor of the ocean " toying with the shore, his wedded bride," retiring a space to see how fair she looked, and then proudly running up to kiss her, came into the poet's mind, and was at once put into words. " It was thus spontaneously," we read, " while looking upon some object, that almost all his finest metaphors were acquired, and not dur- ing study at his desk. They came, they were not excogitated." No doubt they were the genuine expressions of the author's thought, but the mistake was thinking they were enough by themselves. That Alexander Smith had this idea, and that his friend does not see its bearing on his poetic character, appears in more than one part of this volume. Had Mr. Brisbane taken the trouble to analyze his own materials, he would not have overlooked these important coincidences between the life and the verse of his hero. There is a letter from Alexander Smith to Mr. Brisbane, which in one page contains two of the most characteristic metaphors used in the Life Drama. Not only have we here the germ of " God ! our souls are aprou'd waiters," in the words, " I do not intend to gird on an apron and become waiter to the world ;" but a still better instance is provided in the compliment paid to Alexander Smith by a young lady. to She inquired," he writes to his friend, " when I intended to publish ; I said something of not being ambitious of seeing my productions line portmanteaus ; she said, 'Not portmanteaus ; they would line memories.' Ye Gods, my strong imagination felt a crown dropping upon my head !" And accordingly, in the Life Drama we have,-
"' You should give the world,' she whispered, 'such delicious thoughts as these.'
' They are fit to line portmanteaus.' ' Nay,'she answered, 'memories.' "
Mr. Brisbane's negligence in omitting this illustration is unpardon- able, but we dwell upon it in order to show that a happy turn in familiar talk may jar upon the feelings, if it is transplanted thus rudely and baldly into a work of art. To Alexander Smith the phrase recalled a scene in his own life, and he never thought that he was weaving it into the midst of passionate language and imagery. Mr. Brisbane tries to excuse some of the faults in the Life Drama by saying that it was sent too quickly to the press. But if we remember rightly, the whole poem appeared in the Critic, a paper published once a fortnight. During those intervals it would have been possible for many corrections to be made, and even for parts to be recast, before the book was finally given to the public. It is a question, however, if the indiscrimi- nate laudation which was then applied to Alexander Smith, and echoes of which survive in Mr. Brisbane's book, would not have blinded the poet to greater faults than he bad committed. We have no right to expect too much of a youth whose education had been scanty, who was in a humble position in life, and who felt within him stirrings that critics told him were those of genius. The glimpse Mr. Brisbane gives us of him in one of his earliest employments, tracing the lines of sewed muslin designs with lithographic ink, and covering with verses the paper used to pro- tect the design from being rubbed, is not only the most character- istic detail in the whole book, but reminds us of the many circum- stances that must be taken into account in our judgment of its subject.
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