FullReads

At the age of fifteen we find the boy writing to his older brother Neville: “I have made a firm resolution never to spend above one hour at this amusement [novel reading]. I have been obliged to enter into this resolution in consequence of a vitiated taste acquired by reading romances.” He is human enough to add, however, that “after long and fatiguing researches in ‘Blackstone’ or ‘Coke,’ ‘Tom Jones’ or ‘Robinson Crusoe’ afford a pleasing and necessary relaxation. Of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ I shall observe that it is allowed to be the best novel for youth in the English language.”

The older brother to whom these comments were addressed was living in London, apparently a fairly successful man of business. Henry permitted himself to indulge his pedagogical and ministerial instincts for the benefit and improvement of his kinsman. They seem to have carried on a mutual recrimination in their letters: Neville was inclined to belittle the divine calling of poets in their teens; while Henry deplored his brother’s unwillingness to write at length and upon serious and “instructive” topics. Alas, the ill-starred young man had a mania for self-improvement. If our great-grandparents were all like that what an age it had been for the Scranton correspondence courses! “What is requisite to make one’s correspondence valuable?” asks Henry. “I answer, sound sense.” (The italics are his own.) “You have better natural abilities than many youth,” he tells his light-hearted brother, “but it is with regret I see that you will not give yourself the trouble of writing a good letter. My friend, you never found any art, however trivial, that did not require some application at first.” He begs the astounded Neville to fill his letters with his opinions of the books he reads. “You have no idea how beneficial this would be to yourself.” Does one not know immediately that Henry is destined to an early grave?

Henry’s native sweetness was further impaired by a number of prizes won in magazine competitions. A silver medal and a pair of twelve-inch globes shortly became his for meritorious contributions to the Monthly Mirror. He was also admitted a member of a famous literary society then existing in Nottingham, and although the youngest of the sodality he promptly announced that he proposed to deliver them a lecture. With mingled curiosity and dismay the gathering assembled at the appointed time, and the inspired youth harangued them for two hours on the subject of Genius. The devil, or his agent in Nottingham, had marked Henry for destruction.

In such a career there can be no doubt as to the next step. He published a book of poems. His verses, dealing with such topics as Consumption, Despair, Lullaby of a Female Convict to Her Child the Night Previous to Execution, Lines Spoken by a Lover at the Grave of His Mistress, The Eve of Death, and Sonnet Addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady, had been warmly welcomed by the politest magazines of the time. To wish to publish them in more permanent form was natural; but the unfortunate young man conceived the thought that the venture might even be a profitable one. He had found himself troubled with deafness, which threatened to annul his industry in the law; moreover, his spirit was canting seriously toward devotional matters, and thoughts of a college career and then the church were lively in his mind.

The winter of 1802-3 was busily passed in preparing his manuscript for the printer. Probably never before or since, until the Rev. John Franklin Bair of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, set about garnering his collected works into that volume which is the delight of the wicked, has a human heart mulled over indifferent verses with so honest a pleasure and such unabated certainty of immortality. The first two details to be attended to were the printing of what were modestly termed Proposals–i.e., advertisements of the projected volume, calling for pledges of subscription–and, still more important, securing the permission of some prominent person to accept a dedication of the book. The jolly old days of literary patronage were then in the sere and saffron, but it was still esteemed an aid to the sale of a volume if it might be dedicated to some marquis of Carabas. Accordingly the manuscript was despatched to London, and Neville, the philistine brother, was called upon to leave it at the residence of the Duchess of Devonshire. A very humble letter from honest Henry accompanied it, begging leave of her Grace to dedicate his “trifling effusions” to her.