1934-03-07 — Page 11

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THE LIFE AND WORKS OF

AUGUSTINE BIRRELL

(Continued from Page 7)

rled man, even his nocturnal prowlings can not fully be des- cribed as unguarded"

"If you want to get into the eighteenth century, to feel its pulse throb beneath your fingers, "be content, sometimes to leave A writer in the "Times" ·news- the letters of Horace. Walpole paper had casually remarked some- unturned-nay even deny your-time in 1887, in the course of a self your annual reading of review of Froude's then recent Boswell and your blennial re volumes, on Carlyle, that Carlyle treat with Sterne and ride up

Was a greater man than Johnson. and down, the country with the It is a good thing" Birrell ob- greatest force of the eighteenth served." to be positive." "To be century in England."

positive in your opinions and selfish - Birrell tells 113 that Walter in your habits is the best recipe, Bagehot hated duliness, apoy not for happiness, at all events pomposity, the time-worn pause, for that far more attainable com- the greasy platitude." So did se, i modity, comfort. “Still · In Litera-. he was also merciless to humbug. iure it is very desirable to preserve hypocrisy and pretentiousness.

a moderate measure of indepen derice, and we, therefore, make cold to ask whether it is as plair as the "old hill of Howth,” that Carlyle was a greater man than Johnson? Is not the precise con- trary the truth?

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BEAKS AND BOBBIES In 1890 there appeared in the Quarterly Review an article

on Penny Fiction and the lament of the reviewer was the shocking bad taste in letters of the average Board School Boy. This boy it ap-

AN OLD STRUGGLER peared had the impudence to pre-

Boswell tells a story of an ancient fer "Spring-heeled Jack-or the Terror of London" to the fascinat-beggar-woman who whist asking alms of the Doctor, described her- as an old struggler." Birrell remarks, if true is sad but self to him "there were once reviewers in the Johnson was visibly affected. The land of mature years and Univer- Phrase stack to his memory. #1 too" he would say Kamran old sliy training who preferred the poetry of the Rev. Mr. Milne and struggler." So too in all conscience The struggles of the Rev. Mr. Atherstone (author was Carlyle, of that stirring work "The Fall of Johnson have long been. historical Nineveh") to the poetry of John Those of Carlyle had then only (The Essay from Keats. The admirer of "Spring just become so. heeled Jack" left school for the which I am quoting was published factory aged thirteen, It would in 1887; Froude's Reminiscences of appeared in 1881, his be decent to show him some little Carlyle consideration. The boy was also history of the first forty years-of In the habit of reading "Sweeney Carlyle's life in London in 1882, Todd the Demon, Barber of Fleet and his Letters and Memorials of Street-a gruesome tale which the Jane Welch Carlyle in 1883). Both the Quarterly Review denounced as men had great endowments, tem- In most atrocious taste. Then pestuous natures. hard lots. They there was Cheeky Charley, or were not among Dame Fortune's What a Boy Can Do", and "Turn-favourites. They had to fight their pike Dick"-two books in which way. What they took they took by Beaks and Bobbies and other con- storm. But-and here is a differ- stituted authorities whom.all gooience boys should love are spoken of contemptuously. Birrell admits that penny fiction is stupid enough, but pleads for people who lead hard, dull lives, that they are not kely to be content with "The Harvest of the Quie; Eye" or "The Diary of an Invalid". They love excitement and if they are taught to read at all they will read ex- citing books. Then the question arises what is an exciting book? Upon this a Board School boy is as entitled to be as tenacious of his opinion as Quarterly Reviewers are of theirs;--

There is an immense amount of clap trap talked and more written about books and reading -the Ministry of Books, the consolations of Literature," The Anatomy of Melancholy" is monthly advertised in a score of catalogues as the only book that ever got Dr. Johnson out of bed two hours earlier than be wished to rise. What evidence is there worth having that Dr. Johnsori ever in his life got out of bed to read old Burton's "Anatomy"? It is true that he is reported to have told Dr. Maxwell "some time assistant preacher in the Temple" that such was the case; had the statement been that the book had prevented him going to bed for two hours after he had better been there, I should have had no difficulty in believ- ing it. But as it stands it savours of the unreality which infests the subject."

came indeed-Johnson victorious, Carlyle did not

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that because of their affection he could say "I have lived a very happy life."

was published in 1918, Birrell cites the passage just quoted and adds."

"Anyone less like a dove than John Henry Newman it would be In April 1916, just before: the hard to picture. We are indeed Irish tragedy, Sir Willam Robert- told by ormthologists that doves son Nicoll met Birrell who remark- are quarrelsome birds, but theyed that he was glad that the time; are not fierce and yet we know was coming when he would be able from Newman's own honest con- to retire from politics and live in victions, and also "aliunde" that his house at Sheringham. Nicoll throughout his whole life he had responded "I suppose that you will to contend against a certain write a book." "I shall think flérceness of temper which made bout doing so sald Birrell. Do- him "deflant in word and deed."

ing is death; dreaming is the real I dined with Birrell for the last thing." time in August 1928. The dove still rankled.

"We doubt," wrote Birrell, "whether there a in English literature amore triumphant book than Boswell's. What mat- erials for tragedy are wanting? Johnson was a man of strong passions, unbending spirit, viol- ent temper, as poor as a church mouse, and as proud as the proudest of Church Dignitaries: endowed with the strength of a coal-heaver, the courage of ä lion and the tongue of Dean Swift, he could knock down book- sellers and alience, bargees; he was melancholy almost to mad- ness, - “radically wretched," in- dolent, blinded diseased. Poverty was long his portion; not that seizes his tomahawk and is off on genteel poverty that is some- the trail. A long life of opposition times behindhand with its rent, and indigestion of ferce 'warfare but that hungry poverty that with cooks and Philistines spoilt does not know where to look for his temper, never of the best, and its dinner. Against all these made him too often contemptuous, things had this "old struggler" savage, unjust. His language then to contend; over all these things becomes unreasonable, unbearable, did this "old struggler" prevail. bad. In siang phrase he always Over even the fear of death, the "plies it on." Does a bookseller giving up of his "intellectual misdirect a parcel he exclaims being which had haunted his "My malison on all Blockheadisms gloomy fancy for a lifetime, he and Torpid Tafidelities of which seems finally to have prevailed, this world is full" "It is," Birrell

"& and to have met his end as a concludes thousand pities." brave man should.

And one's thoughts turn away from this stormy old man to the Oratory at Birmingham, the home of New- To return from his digression to "the, more I wring him by the long life spent in painful con- qualities as a writer, I quote this "The more the devil worries me man who throughout an equally Birrell's estimate of the Cardinal's nose." But then if the devil's troversy and wielding weapons as summary:- was the only nose that was wrung terrific as Carlyle's own has rarely. In the transaction why need forgotten to be urbane. and 'whose Carlyle cry out so loud? After every sentence is 'thing of buffeting one's way through the beauty,, storm-tossed pages of froude's Carlyle-in which the universe is stretched upon the rack because, food disagrees with man and

For Cardinal Newman, not only cocks crow with what thankful as a writer but also as an anxious ness and reverence do we read inquirer after truth. Birrell had once again the letter in which the profoundest admiration. Johnson tells Mrs. Thrale how charm of his style, he writes, neces- he has been called to endure not sarily, bandes description, as well dyspepsia or sleeplessness but might one seek to analyse the paralysis itself."

Carlyle writing to his wife, says, and truthfully enough,

ADMIRATION FOR CARLYLE

a

CARDINAL NEWMAN

"The

| fragrance of a flower or to expound in words the jumping of one's, heart when a beloved friend unex- pectedly enters the room." The Cardinal, in Birrell's view, always

And lastly all these striking qualities and gifts float about in

pleasant atmosphere.

a

Speaker Thanked

Sir Thomas Southern said he

would like to thank Sir William Hornell on behalf of all those pre- sënt, for his very interesting lecture of Augustine Birrell.

Sir Thomas also made reference To take up any one of Dr. New-

to Birrell's made of writing, refer- man's books is to be led away from "evil tongues" and the ring to him as a laughing philo "aneers of selfish men," from and very readable, although 8

sopher, whose writing was clear, the shoving and pushing that Thomas ventured to think that gather and grow round the pig: Birrell's writing was not great troughs of life into é diviner literature, and recommended his ether and purer air, and it is to works to the weary, who when spend your time in the company home from work could pick up of one who, though he may some something easy to read and in- times astonish, yet never fails to teresting." make you feel (to use Carlyle'a

An outstanding point in favÒUE words about a very different of Birrell, continued Sir Thomas author) "that you have passed was that he never attacked the your evening well and nobly as pen of a juventie." In a temple of wisdom, not 111 and disgracefully as in brawling supper tavern-rooms" with fools and-nolgy persons,

LEAD KINDLY LIGHT”

Among the other speakers were Mr. G. F.. de. Martin, Professor, Middleton-Smith and Mr. M. F

In the same year, 1800, there appeared in the columns of the Edinburgh Review a comparison of the lives of Dr. Newman and Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham. Dr. Newman of course got a great deal the worst of it. In an article en- titled the Edinburgh Review and Religion, Birrell quotes some passages from this review, and gives his powers of sacram full rein. "It is amusing" he says "In these days amidst the clash of contending dogmas, the hot rivalry of sects (remember this was writ- ten in 1880) to be reminded of the continued existence of a body of And yet Birrell had a great ad- men who are able to solace their miration for Carlyle who was in- aimed at effect and never missed souls and to satisfy every religious deed a personal friend of his.it. Humour also he possessed in aspiration they possess by dally "Carlyle" he wrote can not be a marked degree; in sarcasm he non-attendance at the services of killed by an epigram nor can the was preeminent.

In conclusion, the Hón: Dr. R. their beloved church. It is" con- many influences which moulded "Had he lived the secular life

H. Kotewall expressed a vote of tinued Birrell, "the bricks and him be referred to any single and adopted - a Parliamentary Birrell claim that Dr. Cardinal thanks to the speaker, NY mortar, the ivy-mantled tower source. The rich banquet of bis career he would have been simp. Newman's poetry can not be pass- also referred to the presence of nestling in the valley hard by The genius. has spread before us its ly terrific for his weapons ofed over without a word though he the Colony's new Chief Justice, Blue Boar, the chiming of "the many courses." Birrell admired offence are both numerous and admits that he is ill-fitted to do it Hon. Mr. A. D. A. MacGregor, K.C bells on a Sunday morning as they Carlyle for his mysticism of which deadly. His sentences stab-his justice. Then comes the following whom Dr. Kotewall hoped would fall on the ears of men walking in his hero-warship is, in his view án invective destroys. The pompons oft-quoted passage --- we soon favour the Boclety with a an opposite direction, that appeal aspect, for his faculty of conceiving high-placed imbecilè mouthing

"Lead Kindly Light," has forced paper as his predecessors had to those stalwart song of the the concrete picturesque, for his

its way into every hymn÷book, '| done. · Establishment. The Church they humour. His every production,"

Those who go, and those who do Dr. Kotewall also stated that the love is in the glowing language of Birrell insists, "is bathed in hum-

not go to church, the fervent be- Society's next lecture would be Its Edinburgh eulogist:--

pur." He is not to be taken literal-

lever and the tired-out sceptic, given by Father Gallagher p "A church which is so con ly he is always a humorist, not

here meet on common ground, Tuesday, April 10, The subject scious of her veracity and her trifrequently a writer of burlesque

The language of the verses in will be "The Mother in Literature. faith towards God that she tears and occasionally a buffoon, Swin-

their intense sincerity seems to not the world at all; a Church burne had shortly before then

reduce all human feelings, whe whose chief Pastor goes in and taken Carlyle to task for inde-

ther ted on dogmas and holy out of Lambeth Palace at all ficacy. This spectacle," says Bir-

rites, or on man's own sad heart, hours of the night without rell, has an oddity all of its own,”

to a common denominator--“The

NOTICE TO MARINERS guards, and without temporal but so far as he is concerned he One of the Eminent Victorians

night is dark and I am far from power.

can not but concur with this critic portrayed by Lytton Strachey was bome, Lead Thoy me on The

Gunnery Practice At Sau Cham This is too much for Birrell:- In thinking that Carlyle has laid Cardinal Manning and in the

Island Br bellever. can not often say more. "In this passage our enthusiast himself open, particularly in his course of that portrayal Manning The unbeliever will never willing- tod obviously confuses the boun- Frederick the Great, to the charge is compared to an eagle and New-

The harbour: Master has issued ly say lesa, daries which separate the sub- one usually associates with the man to a dove, "It was a meet-

Augustine Birrell died in his that 3-inch gunnery practice will a notice to mariners to the effect Ime from the ridiculous. The great and terrible name of Dean ng of the Eagle and the Dove, house in Chelsea on November 20, be carded out by HM. Ship* spectacle he invites us to behold Swift"

there was a hovering, then a swoop 1933. He was $3 On his 19th "Tarantule" at Ban Chau Island of. Dr. Benson letting himself By nature Carlyle was tolerant and then the galck bear and the birthday a number of his literary while.on passage from Hong Keba into Lambeth Palace at two in enough so true a humorist could relentless talons did their work and political friends gave him a to the West, River on 8th MERICA the morning," without guards" Dever be a bigot. When the war This passage, annoyed Birrell con- lutcheon at the Savoy Hotel Their 1934 Iacks grandeur and provokes the paint is not on, a child might lead siderably in his review of Emin present to him was Rowe's edition All crafte a thereby war remark that as the Archbishop, him. But this mood is never for ent Victorians which is entitled of Shakespeare's works in thank not to sall near the vicinity, dur Jike the Apostle Peter, is a mar long. Bome gaddy stings him be. The Gods of Yesterday" and Jing his friends, Birrell told theming the practice.

his platitudes, the worldly "sophister, with his oven full of half-baked thoughts, the fil-bred rhetorician with his tawdry aphorisms, the heartless hate- producing satirist, would have gone down before his sword and spear. But God was merciful to: these sinners: Newman-became a Priest and they Privy Coun- cillors."