Table-Talk, Essays on Men and Manners [149]
had a masterly perception of all styles and of every kind and degree of excellence, sublime or beautiful, from Milton's _Paradise Lost_ to Shenstone's _Pastoral Ballad,_ from Butler's _Analogy_ down to _Humphrey Clinker._ If you had a favourite author, he had read him too, and knew all the best morsels, the subtle traits, the capital touches. 'Do you like Sterne?' 'Yes, to be sure,' he would say; 'I should deserve to be hanged if I didn't!' His repeating some parts of _Comus_ with his fine, deep, mellow-toned voice, particularly the lines, 'I have heard my mother Circe with the Sirens three,' etc., and the enthusiastic comments he made afterwards, were a feast to the ear and to the soul. He read the poetry of Milton with the same fervour and spirit of devotion that I have since heard others read their own. 'That is the most delicious feeling of all,' I have heard him explain, 'to like what is excellent, no matter whose it is.' In this respect he practised what he preached. He was incapable of harbouring a sinister motive, and judged only from what he felt. There was no flaw or mist in the clear mirror of his mind. He was as open to impressions as he was strenuous in maintaining them. He did not care a rush whether a writer was old or new, in prose or in verse--'What he wanted,' he said, 'was something to make him think.' Most men's minds are to me like musical instruments out of tune. Touch a particular key, and it jars and makes harsh discord with your own. They like _Gil Blas,_ but can see nothing to laugh at in _Don Quixote:_ they adore Richardson, but are disgusted with Fielding. Fawcett had a taste accommodated to all these. He was not exceptious. He gave a cordial welcome to all sort, provided they were the best in their kind. He was not fond of counterfeits or duplicates. His own style was laboured and artificial to a fault, while his character was frank and ingenuous in the extreme. He was not the only individual whom I have known to counteract their natural disposition in coming before the public, and by avoiding what they perhaps thought an inherent infirmity, debar themselves of their real strength and advantages. A heartier friend or honester critic I never coped withal. He has made me feel (by contrast) the want of genuine sincerity and generous sentiment in some that I have listened to since, and convinced me (if practical proof were wanting) of the truth of that text of Scripture--'That had I all knowledge and could speak with the tongues of angels, yet without charity I were nothing!' I would rather be a man of disinterested taste and liberal feeling, to see and acknowledge truth and beauty wherever I found it, than a man of greater and more original genius, to hate, envy, and deny all excellence but my own--but that poor scanty pittance of it (compared with the whole) which I had myself produced!
There is another race of critics who might be designated as the _Occult School_--_vere adepti._ They discern no beauties but what are concealed from superficial eyes, and overlook all that are obvious to the vulgar part of mankind. Their art is the transmutation of styles. By happy alchemy of mind they convert dross into gold--and gold into tinsel. They see farther into a millstone than most others. If an author is utterly unreadable, they can read him for ever: his intricacies are their delight, his mysteries are their study. They prefer Sir Thomas Browne to the _Rambler_ by Dr. Johnson, and Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ to all the writers of the Georgian Age. They judge of works of genius as misers do of hid treasure--it is of no value unless they have it all to themselves. They will no more share a book than a mistress with a friend. If they suspected their favourite volumes of delighting any eyes but their own, they would immediately discard them from the list. Theirs are superannuated beauties that every one else has left off intriguing with, bedridden hags, a 'stud of nightmares.' This is not envy or affectation, but a natural proneness to singularity, a love of what
There is another race of critics who might be designated as the _Occult School_--_vere adepti._ They discern no beauties but what are concealed from superficial eyes, and overlook all that are obvious to the vulgar part of mankind. Their art is the transmutation of styles. By happy alchemy of mind they convert dross into gold--and gold into tinsel. They see farther into a millstone than most others. If an author is utterly unreadable, they can read him for ever: his intricacies are their delight, his mysteries are their study. They prefer Sir Thomas Browne to the _Rambler_ by Dr. Johnson, and Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ to all the writers of the Georgian Age. They judge of works of genius as misers do of hid treasure--it is of no value unless they have it all to themselves. They will no more share a book than a mistress with a friend. If they suspected their favourite volumes of delighting any eyes but their own, they would immediately discard them from the list. Theirs are superannuated beauties that every one else has left off intriguing with, bedridden hags, a 'stud of nightmares.' This is not envy or affectation, but a natural proneness to singularity, a love of what