and

taste and aspirations of young Blanchard -and many dramatic sketches of brilliant promise, bearing his initials, S. L. B. appeared in a periodical work existing at that period, called The Drama. In them, though the conception and general treatment are borrowed from Barry Cornwall, the style and rhythm are rather modelled on the peculiarities of Byron. Their promise is not the less for the imitation they betray. The very characteristic of genius is to be imitative-first of authors, then of nature. Books lead us to fancy feelings that are not yet genuine. Experience is necessary to record those which colour our own existence the style only becomes original in proportion as the sentiment it expresses is sincere. More touching, therefore, than these Dramatic Sketches, was a lyrical effusion on the death of Sidney Ireland, a young friend to whom he was warmly attached, and over whose memory, for years afterwards, he often shed tears. He named his eldest son after that early friend. At this period, Mr. Douglas Jerrold had written three volumes of Moral Philosophy, and Mr. Buckstone, the celebrated comedian, volunteered to copy the work for the juvenile moralist. On arriving at any passage that struck his fancy, Mr. Buckstone communicated his delight to his friend Blanchard, and the emulation thus excited tended more and more to sharpen the poet's distaste to all avocations incompatible with litera ture. Anxious, in the first instance, to escape from dependence on his father, (who was now urgent that he should leave the proctor's desk for the still more ungenial mechanism of the paternal trade), he meditated the best of all preparatives to dramatic excellence; viz., a practical acquaintance with the stage itself: be resolved to become an actor. Few indeed are they in this country who have ever succeeded eminently in the literature of the stage, who have not either trod its boards, or lived habitually in its atmosphere. Blanchard obtained an interview with Mr. Henry Johnston, the actor, and recited, in his presence, passages from Glover's Leonidas. He read admirably-his elocution was faultless his feeling exquisite; Mr. Johnston was delighted with his powers, but he had experience and wisdom to cool his professional enthusiasm, and he ear nestly advised the aspirant not to think of the stage. He drew such a picture of the hazards of success-the obstacles to a position-the precariousness even of a subsistence, that the poor boy's heart sunk within him. He was about to resign himself to obscurity and trade, when he suddenly fell in with the manager of the Margate theatre; this gentleman

proposed to enroll him in his own troop, and the proposal was eagerly accepted, in spite of the warnings of Mr. Henry Johnston. A week,' says Mr. Buckstone (to whom I am indebted for these particulars, and whose words I now quote), was sufficient to disgust him with the beggary and drudgery of the country player's life; and as there were no Harlequins' steaming it from Margate to London Bridge at that day, he performed his journey back on foot, hav ing, on reaching Rochester, but his last shilling-the poet's veritable last shilling-in his pocket.

446

At that time a circumstance occurred, which my poor friend's fate has naturally brought to my recollection. He came to me late one evening, in a state of great excitement; informed me that his father had turned him out of doors; that he was utterly hopeless and wretched, and was resolved to destroy himself. I used my best endeavours to console him, to lead his thoughts to the future, and hope in what chance and perseverance might effect for him. Our discourse took a livelier turn; and after making up a bed on a sofa in my own room, 1 retired to rest. I soon slept soundly, but was awakened by hearing a footstep de. scending the stairs. I looked towards the sofa, and discovered he had left it; I heard the street door close; I instantly hurried on my clothes, and followed him; 1 called to him, but received no answer; I ran till I saw him in the distance also running; I again called his name; I implored him to stop, but he would not answer me. Still continuing his pace, I became alarmed, and doubled my speed. I came up with him near to Westminster Bridge; he was hurrying to the steps leading to the river; I seized him; he threatened to strike me if I did not release him; I called for the watch; I entreated him to return; he became more pacified, but still seemed anxious to escape from me. By entreaties; by every means of persuasion I could think of; by threats to call for help; I succeeded in taking him back. The next day he was more composed, but I believe rarely re sided with his father after that time. Necessity compelled him to do something for a livelihood, and in time he became a reader in the office of the Messrs. Bayliss, in Fleet Street. By that employ, joined to frequent contributions to the Monthly Magazine, at that time pub. lished by them, he obtained a tolerable competence.

Blanchard and Jerrold had serious thoughts of joining Lord Byron in Greece; they were to become warriors, and assist the poet in the liberation of the classic land. Many a nightly wan

dering found them discussing their project. In the midst of one of these discussions they were caught in a shower of rain, and sought shelter under a gateway. The rain continued; when their patience becoming exhausted, Blanchard, buttoning up his coat, exclaimed, Come on, Jerrold! what use shall we be to the Greeks if we stand up for a shower of rain?' So they walked home and were heroically wet through.'”

It would have been worth while to tell this tale more fully; not to envelope the chief personage in fine words, as statuaries do their sitters in Roman togas, and, making them assume the heroic-conventional look, take away from them that infinitely more interesting one which Nature gave them. It would have been well if we could have had this stirring little story in detail. The young fellow, forced to the proctor's desk, quite angry with the drudgery, theatre - stricken, poetry - stricken, writing dramatic sketches in Barry Cornwall's manner, spouting Leonidas before a manager, driven away starving from home, and, penniless and full of romance, courting his beautiful young wife. "Come on, Jerrold! what use shall we be to the Greeks if we stand up for a shower of rain?" How the native humour breaks out of the man! Those who knew them can fancy the effect of such a pair of warriors steering the Greek fire-ships, or manning the breach at Missolonghi. Then there comes that pathetic little outbreak of despair, when the poor young fellow is nearly giving up; his father banishes him, no one will buy his poetry, he has no chance on his darling theatre, no chance of the wife that he is longing for. Why not finish with life at once? He has read Werter, and can understand suicide. None," he says, in a sonnet,

66

"None, not the hoariest sage, may tell of all

The strong heart struggles with before it fall."

If Respectability wanted to point a moral, isn't there one here? Eschew poetry, avoid the theatre, stick to your business, do not read German novels, do not marry at twenty. All these injunctions seem to hang naturally on the story.

And yet the young poet marries

at twenty, in the teeth of poverty and experience; labours away, not unsuccessfully, puts Pegasus into harness, rises in social rank and public estimation, brings up happily round him an affectionate family, gets for himself a circle of the warmest friends, and thus carries on, for twenty years, when a providential calamity visits him and the poor wife almost together, and removes them both.

In the beginning of 1844, Mrs. Blanchard, his affectionate wife and the excellent mother of his children, was attacked with paralysis, which impaired her mind and terminated fatally at the end of the year. Her husband was constantly with her, occupied by her side, whilst watching her distressing malady, in his daily task of literary business. Her illness had the severest effect upon him. He, too, was attacked with partial paralysis and congestion of the brain, during which first seizure his wife died. The rest of the story was told in all the newspapers of the beginning of last year. Rallying partially from his fever at times, a sudden catastrophe overwhelmed him. On the night of the 14th February, in a gust of delirium, having his little boy in bed by his side, and having said the Lord's Prayer but a short time before, he sprang out of bed in the absence of his nurse (whom he had besought not to leave him), and made away with himself with a razor. was no more guilty in his death than a man who is murdered by a madman, or who dies of the rupture of a blood-vessel. In his last prayer he asked to be forgiven, as he in his whole heart forgave others; and not to be led into that irresistible temptation under which it pleased Heaven that the poor wandering spirit should succumb.

He

At the very moment of his death his friends were making the kindest and most generous exertions in his behalf. Such a noble, loving, and generous creature, is never without such. The world, it is pleasant to think, is always a good and gentle world to the gentle and good, and reflects the benevolence with which they regard it. This memoir contains an affecting letter from the poor fellow himself, which indicates Sir Edward Bulwer's admirable and delicate generosity towards him. "I

bless and thank you always," writes the kindly and affectionate soul, to another excellent friend, Mr. Forster. There were other friends, such as Mr. Fonblanque, Mr. Ainsworth, with whom he was connected in literary labour, who were not less eager to serve and befriend him.

As soon as he was dead, a number of other persons came forward to provide means for the maintenance of his orphan family. Messrs. Chapman and Hall took one son into their publishing-house, another was provided in a merchant's house in the City, the other is of an age and has the talents to follow and succeed in his father's profession. Mr. Col

burn and Mr. Ainsworth gave up their copyrights of his Essays, which are now printed in three handsome volumes, for the benefit of his children.

The following is Sir Edward Bulwer's just estimate of the writer :—

"It remains now to speak (and I will endeavour to do so not too partially) of the talents which Laman Blanchard displayed, and of the writings he has left behind.

"His habits, as we have seen, necessarily forbade the cultivation of deep scholarship, and the careful developement of serious thought. But his information upon all that interested the day was, for the same reason, various and extending over a wide surface. His observation was quick and lively. He looked abroad with an inquiring eye, and noticed the follies and humours of men with a light and pleasant gaiety, which wanted but the necessary bitterness (that was not in him) to take the dignity of satire. His style and his conceptions were not marked by the vigour which comes partly from concentration of intellect, and partly from heat of passion; but they evince, on the other hand, a purity of taste, and a propriety of feeling, which preserve him from the caricature and exaggeration that deface many compositions obtaining the praise of broad humour or intense purpose. His fancy did not soar high, but its play was sportive, and it sought its aliment with the graceful instincts of the poet. He certainly never fulfilled the great promise which his Lyric Offerings held forth. He never wrote up to the full mark of his powers; the fountain never rose to the level of its source. But in our day the professional man of letters is compelled to draw too frequently, and by too small disbursements, upon his capital, to allow large and profitable investments of

the stock of mind and idea, with which he commences his career. The number and variety of our periodicals have tended to results which benefit the pecuniary interests of the author, to the prejudice of his substantial fame. A writer like Otway could not now-a-days starve; a writer like Goldsmith might live in May. fair and lounge in his carriage; but it may be doubted whether the one would now-a-days have composed a Venice Preserved, or the other have given us a Deserted Village and a Vicar of Wakefield. There is a fatal facility in supplying the wants of week by the rapid striking off a pleasant article, which interferes with the steady progress, even with the mature conception, of an elaborate work.

"Born at an earlier day, Laman Blanchard would probably have known sharper trials of pecuniary circumstance; and instead of the sufficient, though recarious income, which his reputation as a periodical writer afforded him, he might have often slept in the garret, and been fortunate if he had dined often in the cellar. But then he would have been compelled to put forth all that was in him of mind and genius; to have written books, not papers; and books not intended for the week or the month, but for permanent effect upon the public.

"In such circumstances, I firmly be lieve that his powers would have sufficed to enrich our poetry and our stage with no inconsiderable acquisitions. All that he wanted for the soil of his mind was time to wait the seasons, and to sow upon the more patient system. But too much activity and too little preparation were his natural doom. To borrow a homely illustration from the farm, he exhausted the land by a succession of white crops.

"On the other hand, had he been born a German, and exhibited, at Jena or Bonn, the same abilities and zeal for knowledge which distinguished him in the school of Southwark, he would, doubtless, have early attained to some moderate competence, which would have allowed fair play and full leisure for a character of genius which, naturally rather elegant than strong, required every advantage of forethought and prepara tion.

"But when all is said-when all the drawbacks upon what he actually was are made and allowed-enough remains to justify warm eulogy, and to warrant the rational hope that he will occupy an honourable place among the writers of his age. Putting aside his poetical pretensions, and regarding solely what he performed, not what he promised, he unquestionably stands high amongst a class of writers, in which for the last century

we have not been rich-the Essayists, whose themes are drawn from social subjects, sporting lightly between literature and manners. And this kind of composition is extremely difficult in itself, requiring intellectual combinations rarely found. The volumes prefaced by this slight memoir deserve a place in every collection of belles lettres, and form most agreeable and characteristic illustrations of our manners and our age. They possess what is seldom found in light read. ing, the charm that comes from bequeath. ing pleasurable impressions. They are suffused in the sweetness of the author's disposition; they shun all painful views of life, all acerbity in observation, all gall in their gentle sarcasms. Added to

this, they contain not a thought, not a line, from which the most anxious parent would guard his child. They may be read with safety by the most simple, and yet they coutain enough of truth and character to interest the most reflective."

Such an authority will serve to recommend these Sketches from Life, we hope, to many a library. Of the essays themselves, it is hardly necessary to select specimens. There is not one that can't be read with pleasure; they are often wise, and always witty and kindly. Let us dip into the volume, and select one at random. Here is one which relates to that class, which is ranked somehow as last in the literary profession, and is known under the famous name of

"The Penny-a-Liner.

"The penny-a-liner, like Pope, is 'known by his style.' His fine Roman hand once seen, may be sworn to by the most cursory observer. But though in this one respect of identity resembling Pope, he bears not in any other the least likeness to author dead or living. He has no brother, and is like no brother, in literature. Such as he was, he is. He disdains to accommodate his manner to the ever-altering taste of the times. He refuses to bow down to the popular idol, innovation. He has a style, and he sticks to it. He scorns to depart from it, to gratify the thirst for novelty. He even thinks that it improves with use, and that his pet phrases acquire a finer point and additional emphasis upon every fresh application. Thus, in relating the last fashionable occurrence, how a noble family has been plunged into consternation and sorrow by the elopement of Lady Prudentia a month after marriage, he informs you, as though the phrase itself carried conviction to the heart, that the

'feelings of the injured husband may be more easily conceived than described.' If he requires that phrase twice in the same narrative, he consents to vary it by saying, that that they may be imagined, but cannot be depicted.' In reporting an incident illustrative of the fatal effects of taking prussic acid, he states that the 'vital spark is extinct,' and that not the smallest hopes are entertained of the unfortunate gentleman's recovery. A lady's bag is barbarously stolen from her arm by a monster in the human form.' A thunder-storm is described as having 'visited' the metropolis, and the memory of the oldest inhabitant furnishes no parallel to the ravages of the electric fluid.' A new actress' surpasses the most sanguine expectations of the public, and exhibits talents that have seldom been equalled, never excelled.' A new book is not simply published, it emanates from the press.' On the demise of a person of eminence, it is confidently averred that he had a hand 'open as day to melting charity,' and that, take him for all in all, we ne'er shall look upon his like again.' Two objects not immediately connected are sure to be 'far as the poles asunder;' although they are very easily brought together and reconciled in the reader's mind by the convenience of the phrase as it were,' which is an especial favourite, and constantly in request. He is a great admirer of amplitude of title, for palpable reasons; as when he reports, that Yesterday the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, M. P., his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department, dined with,' &c. He is wonder. fully expert in the measurement of hailstones, and in the calculation of the number of panes of glass which they demolish in their descent. He is acquainted with the exact circumference of every gooseberry that emulates the plenitude of a pumpkin; and can at all times detect a phenomenon in every private family, by simply reckoning up the united ages of its various members. But in the discharge of these useful duties, for the edification and amusement of the public, he employs, in the general course of things, but one set of phrases. If a fire can be rendered more picturesque by designating it the devouring element,' the devouring element rages in the description to the end of the chapter. Once a hit always a hit; a good thing remains good for ever; a happy epithet is felicitous to the last. The only variation of style that he can be prevailed upon to attempt, he introduces in his quotations. To these he often gives an entirely new aspect, and occasionally, by accident, he improves upon the originals. Of this, the following may stand as a specimen :—

6

'Tis not in mortals to deserve success; But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll command it."'

The good-natured satirist seldom hits harder than this, and makes fun so generously, that it is a pleasure to be laughed at by him. How amusingly the secret of the penny-a-liner's craft is unveiled here! Well, he, too, is a member of the great rising fraternity of the press, which, weak and despised yesterday, is powerful and in repute to-day, and grows daily in strength and good opinion.

Out of Blanchard's life (except from the melancholy end, which is quite apart from it), there is surely no ground for drawing charges against the public of neglecting literature. His career, untimely concluded, is in the main a successful one. In truth, I don't see how the aid or interposition of government could in any way have greatly benefited him, or how it was even called upon to do so. It does not follow that a man would produce a great work even if he had leisure. Squire Shakspeare of Stratford, with his lands and rents, and his arms over his porch, was not the working Shakspeare; and indolence (or contemplation, if you like) is no

unusual quality in the literary man. Of all the squires who have had acres and rents, all the holders of lucky, easy, government places, how many have written books, and of what worth are they? There are some persons whom government, having a want of, employs and pays-barristers, diplomatists, soldiers, and the like; but it doesn't want poetry, and can do without tragedies. Let men of letters stand for themselves. Every day enlarges their market, and mul tiplies their clients. The most skilful and successful among the cultivators of light literature have such a hold upon the public feelings, and awaken such a sympathy, as men of the class never enjoyed until now: men of science and learning, who aim at other distinction, get it; and, in spite of Doctor Carus's disgust, I believe there was never a time when so much of the practically useful was written and read, and every branch of bookmaking pursued, with an interest so eager.

But I must conclude. My letter has swelled beyond the proper size of letters, and you are craving for news have you not to-day's Times' battle of Ferozeshah? Farewell.

M. A. T.

THE Common lodging-house, as the reader is no doubt aware, is a house of accommodation for all classes, no matter what may be their appearance or character, provided they can produce when required the necessary quantity of coins. In every considerable village in the kingdom there is a domicile called the Beggars' House; and in every town, fewer such houses or more, according to its size or population. In London there are hundreds of such, from that which suits the poor tenant of a room or cellar, with its two or three shakedown-beds upon the floor, to the more substantial holding of the landlord, with his ten or twenty up to two or three hundred beds. In one or other of these the houseless wanderer may find shelter, provided he pay from a penny to sixpence a-night; sleeping, according to the rate of his payments, on iron, or wood, or straw,

or in a hammock. If he be the penny-a-night lodger, he will have no softer resting-place than the floor. This common lodging-house business is a thriving trade; very little capital is required to carry it on. An old house will do in any back street or filthy lane; indeed, the more wretched the neighbourhood the better. Old bedsteads and bed-clothes of the coarsest description, with a few forms and a table for the kitchen, are nearly all that is required for the concern. The front room, or what is usually termed the parlour, is generally fitted up into a shop; or, when this is not the case, there is always some accommodating neighbour at hand who has for sale bacon, butter, cheese, bread, tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, potatoes, red and salt herrings, smuggled liquors, and table - beer. Some add the savoury profession of the cook to