Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 352, January 17, 1829», страница 3
THE ANECDOTE GALLERY
ANECDOTES OF CELEBRATED AUTHORS, FRENCH AND ITALIAN
Crebillon's manner of life was extremely singular. He slept little, and lay very hard; he was always surrounded with about thirty cats and dogs; and used to smoke tobacco, to keep his room sweet against their exhalations. Being one day asked, in a large company, which of his works he thought the best? "I don't know," answered he, "which is my best production; but this (pointing to his son, who was present) is certainly my worst." "It is," replied the son, with vivacity, "because no Carthusian had a hand in it," alluding to the report that the best passages in his father's tragedies had been written by a Carthusian friar, who was his friend.
Molieres, the celebrated French priest and mathematician, was a very irritable man, which led him frequently into passions, of which one was the cause of his death in 1742. In other respects he was reckoned a very amiable character; but was apt to be so absent, or absorbed in his studies, as to appear almost wholly insensible to surrounding objects. His infirmity in this respect became known, and he was accordingly made the subject of depredations. A shoe-black once finding him profoundly absorbed in a reverie, contrived to steal the silver buckles from his shoes, replacing them with iron ones. At another time, while at his studies, a villain broke into the room in which he was sitting, and demanded his money; Molieres, without rising from his studies, or giving any alarm, coolly showed him where it was, requesting him, as a great favour, that he would not derange his papers.
Ariosto, the celebrated Italian poet, being asked why he had not built his house in a more magnificent manner, and more suitable to the noble descriptions which he had given of sumptuous palaces, beautiful porticoes, and pleasant fountains, in his Orlando Furioso, he replied, "that words were combined together with less expense than stones." To such a degree was he charmed with his own verse, and so much did he also excel in his manner of reading, that he was always disgusted if he heard his own writings repeated with an ill grace and accent. Accordingly, it is said, that, when he accidentally heard a potter singing a stanza of his Orlando in an incorrect and ungraceful manner, he was so incensed, that he rushed into his shop and broke several of the pots which were exposed to sale; when the potter expostulated with him for this unprovoked injury, Ariosto replied, "I indeed have broken half a dozen of your pots, which are not worth so many halfpence, and you have spoiled a stanza of mine, which is worth a considerable sum of gold." He was so attached to a plain and frugal mode of life, that he says of himself in one of his poems, "that he was a fit person to have lived in the world when acorns were the food of mankind." His constitution was delicate and infirm; and, notwithstanding his temperance and general abstemiousness, his health was often interrupted. He bore his last sickness with uncommon resolution and serenity; affirming, "that he was willing to die on many accounts, and particularly because he found that the greatest divines were of opinion that we shall know one another in the other world;" and he observed to those who were with him, "that many of his friends were departed, whom he desired to visit, and that he thought every moment tedious till he gained that happiness."
Dante, the celebrated Italian poet, has been described by Boccacio, as of a middle stature, of a pensive and melancholy expression in his countenance. He was courteous and civil, and his way of living extremely temperate. He is said to have been a very absent man, of which instances have been recorded; once meeting with a book in an apothecary's, which he had been long looking for, he opened it, and read from morning till night without being roused from his pursuit by the distraction and tumult occasioned by a great wedding passing through the street. For some time he roved about Italy in an indigent and distressed condition, till he was hospitably received by the Lord of Ravenna, his patron and friend.
Paul Scarron, whose life abounds with curious features, married Mademoiselle d'Aubignè, afterwards the celebrated Madame de Maintenon, who was at that time only sixteen years of age. On his marriage, the notary asked him what dowry he would settle upon his wife? he replied, "Immortality: the names of the wives of kings die with them, but the name of Scarron's wife shall live for ever." He was accustomed to talk to his superiors with great freedom, and in a very jocular style. In a dedication to the king, he thus addressed his majesty: "I shall endeavour to persuade your majesty, that you would do yourself no injury, were you to do me a small favour; for in that case I should become gay. If I should become more gay, I should write sprightly comedies; and if I should write sprightly comedies, your majesty would be amused, and thus your money would not be lost. All this appears so evident that I should certainly be convinced of it, if I were as great a king as I am now a poor unfortunate man." Scarron took pleasure in reading his works to his friends, as he composed them; he used to call it trying them. Segrais and another person coming to him one day, "Take a chair," he said, "and sit down, that I may examine my Comic Romance." When he saw them laugh very heartily, he said he was satisfied, "my book will be well received since it makes persons of such delicate taste laugh." He was not disappointed in his expectations, for the Romance had a great run. In the year 1638, he was attending the Carnival at Mons, of which he was a canon. Having put on the dress of a savage, he was followed by a troop of boys into a morass, where he was kept so long, that the cold penetrated his debilitated limbs, which became contracted in such a manner, that he used to compare his body to the shape of a Z. He died in 1660, at the age of fifty; he said to his friends who surrounded his dying bed, "I shall never make you weep so much as I have made you laugh." In his epitaph, made by himself, he desires, in a mixture of the comic and the pathetic, that the passengers would not awaken, by their noise, poor Scarron from the first good sleep he had ever enjoyed.
P.T.W
THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS
LEGENDS OF THE LAKES; OR, SAYINGS AND DOINGS AT KILLARNEY
By T. Crofton Croker, Esq
Two volumes of "tickling" legendary tales are almost too much for our laughter-holding sides, but more especially at this merry season—fraught with humour—and when reminiscences of the past make up for lack of realities of the present. To "notice" such a work is ten times more (we had almost said) trouble than to despatch half a dozen dull books, or a dozen harmless, well-meaning satires on human nature. But we will do our best to detach some of the good things from Mr. Croker's volumes, although the humour of the sketches which adorn them, is of too subtle a quality for our pen or sheet to hold.
Mr. Croker takes for granted that when people go to see the Lakes of Killarney, they do not intend making a very serious business of the excursion; but rather desire, while their eyes are pleased with romantic scenery, that their ears should be tickled by legendary tales; and accordingly he thinks it extraordinary that no guide-book should exist for the local traditions of Killarney. This accounts for our finding Mr. Croker on the box of the Killarney mail coach, beside Mat. Crowley, the driver, at page 2, of his first volume. Here is no preamble about "friends pressing the author to print—not intended for the public eye—a mere note-book," &c.—but he begins his journey with the first crack of the whip, and a "righte merrie" journey it is.
Our facetious friend soon reaches Killarney, and is introduced to the lord high-admiral of the lakes, and then, as the newspapers say of a pantomime, the "fun begins." Our first extract is
O'SULLIVAN'S PUNCH BOWL.
"What are we to land here for?" said I to the coxswain.
"Only just to show your honour O'Sullivan's cascade," was the reply. "Here, Doolan, show the gentleman the way." Ascending a rugged path through the wood, we soon reached the foot of the fall.
"Isn't that as fine a sight as you'd meet with in a month of Sundays," said Doolan. "Only see how the white water comes biling like a pot of praties over the big, black rocks, down it comes, one tumble over the other, the green trees all the while stretching out their arms as if they wanted to stop it. And then it makes such a dickins of a nise as it pounces into that black pool at the bottom, that it's enough to bother the brains of a man entirely. Why, then, isn't it a wonder how all that water sprung up out of the mountain? for sure, isn't there a bit of a lake above there, in the hollow of the hill that the waterfall comes out of,—they calls it O'Sullivan's Punch Bowl?"
"And, pray, who was this O'Sullivan that had such a capacious Punch Bowl?"
"Och, then, 'tis he's the fine, portly looking jantleman, and has a vice (voice) as big as twenty; 'twould do your heart good to hear the cry of him on a stag hunt day, making the mountain ring again."
"Well, Doolan, you haven't told me all this time who O'Sullivan is."
"Why, then, that's the quare question for your honour to be after axing me. Sure all the country knows O'Sullivan of Toomies, for didn't him, and his father before him, live at the butt end of the mountain, near the neck of the Lawn; and wasn't they great chieftains in the ould times; and hadn't they a great sketch of country to themselves: they haven't so much now, for their hearts were too big for their manes (means;) and that's the rason O'Sullivan was obligated to sell this part of the mountain to Mr. Herbert of Mucruss?"
"A sad story this, Doolan; but it seems to me these O'Sullivans must have been very fond of a bowl of punch, or why is the lake you mentioned called O'Sullivan's Punch Bowl?"
"Oh, then, your honour's as sharp as a needle entirely; but about that same lake it's a quare story sure enough. A long time before there was a waterfall here at all, one of the rale ould O'Sullivans was out all day hunting the red deer among the mountains. Well, sir, just as he was getting quite weary, and was wishing for a drop of the cratur to put him in spirits—"
"Or spirits into him," said I.
"Oh, sure, 'tis all the same thing," returned Doolan with a grin, intended for a smile. "'Tis all one surely, if a man can only have the drop when he wants it. Well, what should O'Sullivan see but the most beautiful stag that ever was seen before or since in this world; for he was as big as a colt, and had horns upon him like a weaver's beam, and a collar of real gold round his neck. Away went the stag, and away went the dogs after him full cry, and O'Sullivan after the dogs, for he was determined to have that beautiful fine stag; and though, as I said, he was tired and weary enough, you'd think the sight of that stag put fresh life into him. A pretty bit of a dance he led him, for he was an enchanted stag. Away he went entirely off by Macgillicuddy's Reeks, round by the mountains of the Upper Lake, crossed the river by the Eagle's Nest, and never stopped nor staid till he came to where the Punch Bowl is now. When O'Sullivan came to the same place he was fairly ready to drop, and for certain that was no wonder; but what vexed him more than all was to find his dogs at fault, and the never a bit of a stag to be seen high nor low. Well, my dear sowl, he didn't know what to make of it, and seeing there was no use in staying there, and it so late, he whistled his dogs to him, and was just going to go home. The moon was just setting over to the top of the mountain shedding her light, broad and bright, over the edge of the wood and down on the lake, which was like a sheet of silver, except where the islands threw their black shadows over the water. O'Sullivan looked about him, and began to grow quite dismal in himself, for sure it was a lonesome sight, and besides he had a sort of dread upon him, though he couldn't tell the reason why. So not liking to stay there, as I said before, he was just going to make the best of his way home, when, who should he see, but Fuan Mac Cool (Fingal.) standing like a big joint (giant) on the top of a rock. 'Hallo, O'Sullivan,' says he, 'where are you going so fast?' says he, 'come back with me,' says he, 'I want to have some talk with you.' You may be sure it was O'Sullivan was amazed and a little bit frightened too, though he wouldn't pertind to it; and it would be no wonder if he was; for if O'Sullivan had a big vice, (voice) Fuan Mac Cool had a bigger ten times, and it made the mountains shake again like thunder, and all the eagles fly up to the moon. 'What do you want with me?' says O'Sullivan, at the same time putting on as bould a face as he could. 'I want to know what business you had hunting my stag?' says Fuan, 'by the vestment,' says he, 'if 'twas any one else but yourself, O'Sullivan, I'd play the red vengeance with him. But, as you're one of the right sort, I'll pass it over this time; and, as my stag has led you a pretty dance over the mountains, I'll give you a drop of good drink, O'Sullivan; only take my advice, and never hunt my stag again.' Then Fuan Mac Cool stamped with his foot, and all of a sudden, just in the hollow which his foot made in the mountain, there came up a little lake, which tumbled down the rocks, and made the waterfall. When O'Sullivan went to take a drink of it, what should it be but rale whiskey punch, and it staid the same way, running with whiskey punch, morning, noon, and night, until the Sasenaghs4 came into the country, when all at once it was turned to water, though it goes still by the name of O'Sullivan's Punch Bowl.'"
