There is, indeed, no safer investment for
middling literary abilities than History; for, if it fail to yield any
large harvest of renown, it is comparatively secure from the assaults
of ridicule, such as make pretension in other spheres of writing
conspicuous.
Even in what are considered the successful exemplars in this department
of literature, the errors incident to artificiality, the conventional
forms of writing, are patent. Only in passages do we recognize that
beauty or truth, that reality and genuineness, which so often wholly
pervade a poem, a story, a memoir, or even a disquisition: at some
point, the flow incident to wilful instead of soulful utterance becomes
apparent;--ambition, pride of opinion, love of display somewhere
manifest themselves. It has been said that the chief element of Hume's
mental power was skepticism; and, singular as it may appear, his doubts
about what are deemed the vital interests of humanity gave a charm to
his record of her political vicissitudes; while he made capital of
touching "situations," he displayed his own strength of intellect; but,
with all this, did not write complete and authentic history. And when
analyzed, what was the _animus_ of Gibbon's elaborate chronicle? He
"spent his time, his life, his energy," says a severe, but just critic,
"in putting a polished gloss on human tumult, a sneering gloss on human
piety." And who has not felt, in following Macaulay's animated periods
and thorough exposition and illustration of some event, trait, or
economy,--in itself of little importance and limited value,--how much
better it would have been to reserve his brilliant descriptive and keen
analytical powers for the grand episodes, the prolific crises, and the
leading characters of history, instead of indiscriminately devoting them
to a consecutive account of national incidents and persons, both great
and small, illustrious and insignificant?
A popular British author of our own day, in order to demonstrate the
law of compensation, as regards the literary vocation, cites its
inexpensiveness,--arguing, that, whereas the artist must invest capital,
however small, in colors, marble, canvas, and studio-hire, and the
professional man occupy a costly locality, the author needs but a quire
of foolscap and a pen and ink to set up in trade.
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