B OOKS.

WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN.*

THE curiosity with which we opened this volume has not been gratified. The interest we were prepared to feel has not been created. We must say that we expected more frean such a writer as Mr. Theodore Martin when he acted as the biographer of his friend and associate. There has always been to us something pleasant and suggestive connected with the name of Aytoun, though none of his writings quite came up to the standard of our expectations. His national ballads reminded us too much of Macaulay. His humorous pieces bore the appearance of studies in the manner of Wilson. We never managed to read his Norman Sinclair. It was enough for us that his Bothwell was praised by the literary critic of the Times. But with all these drawbacks we could appreciate the real merits of the man, and could mark with a sort of reverential awe the fount of fiery life from whence bubbled up fun and whiskey, song and sheets of Blackwood. Of course there was nothing in this to be compared to the fertility of Wilson, whose daughter Aytoun married, and to whom Aytoun was a limited successor. Yet to slow London pens there seems something wonderful in the number of those double-columned pages which Aytoun produced with each succeeding month, and which were sometimes remarkable, while they were nearly always readable. "As indicative of his industry and versatility," says his biographer, "it may be remarked that no fewer than five papers by him, all of an elaborate kind, two literary and three political, appeared in Blackwood for March and April, 1854; while for two years previous every number of the magazine, with two exceptions, contained at least one, and sometimes two or three, papers by him." Still, the quality of a man's writing is more to be regarded than its quantity, and what Mr. Martin is pleased to call papers of an elaborate kind, may not necessarily have re- flected much credit on their author. We can recall some of these laborious articles intended to do service to the cause of Toryism and orthodoxy, and in our opinion the incidental touches that betrayed the writer, were worth far more than the sounding • Memoir of irnliam Edmormioune, Ayfoun, 7).04 By Ti.e.11,re Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sou&

paragraphs which consoled country gentlemen for that oversight in the scheme of Creation by which Liberalism and evil were brought into being. A rather famous, and not very creditable,

review of Maud was preserved from neglect by an allusion to

a guard of the old coaching days, and his partiality for rum and milk. We do not say that Aytoun wrote these articles against the grain, as Mr. Theodore Martin will infer from our criticism. But it seems to us that Aytouu united the characters of a barren and a prolific author, that he wrote a great deal that was toler- able, but little that was really good, while the sense of combined power and fluency rather blinded him to the rarity of the one and the inferiority of the other.

Mr. Theodore Martin will resent this judgment. He is touchy on the score of Aytoun, more touchy than most biographers. We may explain this by a reference to the peculiar relations of the two friends, and to the fact that the present work is in some sense autobiographical. It is the life of one half of Bon Gaultier, written by the other half. Mr. Theodore Martin, as he himself assures us, is the author of part of Aytoun. If Aytoun's reputa- tion is diminished, it seems as if that of Mr. Theodore Marlin must suffer. But we do not think there is any ground for this apprehension. Nothing we may say of Aytoun's gene-

ral characteristics will detract from the fame he has earned as Mr. Theodore Martin's collaborateur in Bon Gaultier. The greatest victim of those parodies esteemed them more highly than the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliees. Mr. Martin sdys modestly that some of the best of the ballads were exclusively Aytoun's. Be this as it may, it is certain that Aytoun had a facility for writing verse, which, when verse was made the vehicle of his other natural gifts, achieved the very highest success of which he was capable. In his mock-spasmodic tragedy of Firm Wan,

written with a speed which seems that of an express train by the side of Scott's gallop, there are passages which are nearly poetry, and there is a richness of humour which is quite sublime.

"Damme, Sir, if crambo isn't the thing, after all !" wrote Aytoun, astonished at his own success. "And the advantage is. that you can go on slapdash, without thinking," which to painful writers like the present always seems the secret of the luxuriance of others. It is all very well to talk of "that last and greatest art, the art to blot," but what is the use of blotting on a clean sheet of paper? You write down a sentence, and you alter it, and you scratch it out, and you substitute another, and after all you have not found anything to your taste. Aytoun, meanwhile, has

written an elaborate article or a scene in Firmilian, and whatever holes you may pick in it, at least it is there to be criticized. Nor was Aytoun's rapidity in versifying conspicuous only in burlesque.

Mr. Martin quotes one or two fair serious poems which were written "in a very few minutes," or "dashed off at a heat."

They are not true poetry, but they are an excellent imitation of it. We doubt if their author was at all more successful with

the pieces on which "lie bestowed great care, rightly looking to them as the basis of his literary reputation." The Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers are unquestionably stirring and spirited, but,

as we have said already, they do not seem to us original. Macaulay's lays, says Mr. Martin, were not the prototype of these ballads ; but Macaulay's lays appeared just before Aytoun's, and when two men happen to hit on much the same thought at much the same time, the second is sure to suffer in public estimation. Even

if Macaulay had not written the Lays of Ancient Rome, there would be something factitious and rhetorically effective in the Scottish Cavaliers. Mr. Martin indignantly protests against the

remark that Aytoun's "serious poetry was mere cleverness, exercised on the traditionary material of his political school. "His White Rose," the same critic had observed, "was not waxen,—we do not say that ; but we do say that it had a very faint smell ; that though his Jacobite romanticism was real so far as it went, it did not go very far." To this Mr. Martin replies that Aytoun's attach- ment to the Stuarts was as genuine a passion as ever stirred the heart of a Cavalier :—

" Of course it was a thing of his imagination : all devotion is so more or less. But for him it was so real, that it coloured his views of the his- tory of that dynasty and its followers to a degree which surprised those who know how critical was his observation and how practical his judg- ment in all other matters. Touch this theme at any time, even whoa his flow of mirthful spirits was at its fullest, and his tremulous voiect and quivering lip told how deeply seated were his feelings in all that related to it. On any other point he would bear to be rallied, but not upon this. His historical faith was to him only leas sacred than hia religious creed. It was a part of his very self, imbibed, doubtless, at his mother's knee, in the tales with which she charmed his childish ears, and riveted to his heart by the songs and ballads on which his youthful passion for romance and chivalry had been fed. The men and women of that race were substantial realities, around which not 'merely his pastime and his happiness had grown,' but to whom tho

worship of his imagination and the devotion of his loyalty had been ,given. He believed in them, lived with them, and could no more brook

slight or wrong to their names, than to the honour of a living friend. What he wrote about them was written, therefore, with the force of an almost personal devotion. His too dominant sense of the ridiculous may have spoiled his hand, as I have sometimes thought it did, for serious verse ; but it was wholly overborne by the intensity of his feeling where one of the race of Stuart, or where their great followers Montrose or Dundee, were concerned. Therefore it was that he selected the subjects of his Lays of the Cavaliers, not as being the traditionary material of his political school,' to be written about with a factitious -enthusiasm, but because he felt on no other subjects so strongly, and knew that they would certainly bring out whatever of the poet was in him."

Yet this is really no answer to the charge. It is not said that .Aytoun did not feel, but that he did not produce on others a distinct impression that he felt. A man may fully persuade himself of his -devotion to a cause, when in the long run he fails to persuade .others. It is not merely a question of power and temperament.

But when we find that in other matters Aytoun was moved by a genuine inspiration, and that in these he preserved the outer shell or husk of inspiration, we naturally miss the contents of it, and -comment on their absence. Mr. Martin's religious simile is perhaps the best refutation of the argument which it is meant to establish.

It often happens that a man's religious creed is sacred to him, and a part of his very self ; and yet, when he exercises his mind

'upon it, the result is far from real. We have no doubt Aytoun thought he felt, and felt he felt, very deeply on the subject of the Stuarts. But his verse was a better test of the sincerity of his inmost feeling than a tremulous voice and a quivering lip.

We would not have it said that we blame Mr. Martin for taking the part of his friend ; but we think Aytoun would have come out better if he had not been so systematically defended, and we are sure the Life would have gained if its writer had recorded instead of arguing. Mr. Martin gives us but brief glimpses of Aytoun as he lived, and deluges us with Aytoun as he wrote. We like many -of Aytoun's magazine papers, but we cannot think that they

represent his life. H they did, we should have to lament that such a life was spent in double columns, and that the marvellous ease

with which Aytoun wrote crambo should have been lavished on the -crambe repetita of Tory, polities. But it is not only in thus over- loading his book with extracts that Mr. Martin sins against the /rules of biography. A short sentence in a note almost awakens suspicions which we trust are unfounded. After quoting Aytoun's epigram on Thackeray's Georges, that he preferred his Jeameses, Mr. Martin says, "Aytoun must have been deeply stung [by Thackeray's want of reverence for Mary Stuart] before he could have -given expression to what was, for him, so harsh a sarcasm. Had it not already found its way into print, I should not have referred to a saying so little in harmony with the kindly nature of the man."

:Now, it may occur to some readers that Mr. Martin has studied harmony rather than fidelity. A biographer always finds some traits of character which make him uncomfortable, some acts

-which need an explanation. If no explanation is to be found, and the acts are not known to others, what is simpler than to pass them over? We do not accuse Mr. Martin of having left out any- -thing, but he has hinted at his readiness to sacrifice Aytoun's best saying to the undimmed picture of his kindliness. Coupled with his zeal in defending Aytoun's writings,—he even tells us that the -chief fault of Norman Sinclair is that Aytoun tried to put too much into it,—this avowal of Mr. Martin's might partly explain the meagreness of his biography. But we prefer to think that there was not much to be told. After all, Aytoun's life was not event- ful. His writings will not be classed with those of "Wilson, Lockhart, Sidney Smith, Peacock, Jerrold, Mahony, and Hood," though he was only inferior to the first because he imitated him, and his name has as good a chance of enduring as those of three -others in the list. We must find room for Mr. Martin's sketch of his conversational humour, while we regret that only one sample of it is given us :—

" A more delightful companion than Aytoun was at this period it would be difficult to imagine. Full of health and vigour, and with a flow of spirits which seemed inexhaustible, his society acted like a tonic on men of a more sensitive temperament and a constitution less robust. What- ever was the topic in hand, he was sure to look at it with peculiar fresh- ness and originality. With a quaint phrase, an unexpected epithet, or apt illustration, he would give a novel aspect to matters the most familiar. Out of men or things the most common-place he would extract materials for pleasantry and heart-easing mirth ; ' and whether his linagination was running riot in a series of grotesque images, or his judg- ment insinuating its conclusions in a quiet stroke of irony, he was .equally happy. His wide reading and ready memory enriched his talk with endless allusions apt, yet unexpected, which quickened the fancy -of those with whom he talked, while his own vivid imagination warmed the stream of his conversation with a kind of poetical underglow. He was not a sayer of witty things, which, like the epigrams that dropped by the dozen from the mouth of Jerrold, could be written down for future generations to enjoy. Now and then, of course, things of this kind flashed from him ; but in sharpness of repartee, or pungency of wit, he was surpassed by many of his compeers. He was of too kindly and sympathetic a nature, perhaps, to shine as a wit ; not only was his friend dearer to him than his jest, but he had that fine instinct of pain which suspends many a flash of humour or wit that might dazzle many, but must wound one. But there was a charm of humour about his talk which it would be hard to define. It was compounded mainly of pleasant exaggeration, playful allusion, unlooked-for turns of phrase, and strong mother-wit. It was always essentially the humour of a gentleman, without cynicism, and without irreverence."

Of the humour of his writings we need hardly speak at length, but we consider that the most genuine part of the man, the one that will survive his serious verse, his politics, and his biography.