EARTHLY IMMORTALITY.
AT the Royal Academy last Saturday, Mr. Gladstone spoke of his obligation to Millais, for having "enormously improved his chance of immortality," by painting him with the skill displayed in the picture which we all remember. But it is, in truth, very difficult to say what does really improve a man's chance of earthly immortality. There is a certain " young man in black," whom Titian painted and Hazlitt wrote of, and whose chance of immortality, such as it is, is due undoubtedly primarily to the fact that Titian painted him, and secondarily to the fact that Hazlitt took a violent fancy to the picture, and descanted very effectively on its charms. But, after all, the sort of nameless immortality which you owe to such an accident as this is an immortality for your features and dress, and nothing else, and an immortality even for these only amongst the few who care for Titian's pictures and Hazlitt's essays. Such an immortality, how- ever, would not be thought very enviable by most men. It is very much the same sort of " immortality " as be- longs to Gainsborough's market-cart or Turner's pear-shaped tree, though the subject of it happens to have once been a person capable of enjoying a prospect of immortality, which no market-cart or tree could do. And if we come to think of it the immortality of Gainsborough's nameless " Blue Boy " would hardly have been more valued by the majority of healthy-minded boys than the immortality of the market-cart would have been valued by the market-cart. It is only among those who have attained a certain height in the conventionalism of imagination, that a desire for immortality unconnected with any act or quality which one can regard as personal or voluntary or expressive of one's true self, can be sincerely felt. Indeed, why any rational being should desire that for centuries to come the people of the earth should gaze on an imperfect likeness of his outward form, without entertaining, or having even the chance of entertaining, any feeling that penetrates beyond that shadow of himself to the reality from which the shadow was first projected, is almost as difficult to understand as it is to understand the satisfaction of thinking that the air-vibrations caused by one's foolish words go on propagating themselves for ever in the atmosphere, and bearing witness, as it were—at least to an intelligence capable of analysing the whole complex result—that thousands of ages ago a person did exist foolish enough to utter these words when he might have kept silence.
But whatever one may think of the artificial satisfaction in such a shadow of immortality as may accrue to the original of a fine painting, simply on the ground that the painting is so fine, doubtless the kind of immortality most coveted, the im- mortality of a poet, statesman, discoverer, or artist, does imply a good deal more than this,—namely, the personal identification of some more or loss historical life with admirable and remem- berable achievements. But what must take off a good deal from the satisfaction even of such immortality as this, is the capricious character of the article. What is most certain is that immortality is not gained by desert. Strafford has gained immortality far more effectually than Pym, Prince Rupert far more effectually than Fairfax. Again, successful military men have always had far more chance of immortality than civilians of far more exceptional qualities ; while of the last, those who have distinguish ed themselves by unique qualities which, however worthless, catch the fancy and dwell in the memory of the masses, have far more chance of immortality than those who have best consulted the wishes, interests, and purposes of the people at large. If Sir Robert Walpole is immortal at all, it will be rather for what is discreditable to him than for what is credit- able,—for the coarse fibre of his nature, both personal and politi- cal, rather than for his large common-sense and homely saga- city. Bolingbroke's name will be vaguely familiar to thousands to whom Walpole's will be a blank, because Bolingbroke's name is connected with the idea of surprises, of strange aud unex- pected flashes of success and failure, of lightning breaking through the dull atmosphere of common life. So, too, Canning will be remembered more for his wit, for his admirable mockery of humanitarian sentiment, than for any political services ; and if the great name of Romilly survives, it will be in part, at least, on account of the tragic ending, and not mainly on account of the fruitful epoch of his noble life. Anything in a career that strikes men like a riddle, contributes infinitely more than it should to its immortality. Alexander and Napoleon were riddles—the one to the East, the other to the West—for some- thing like twenty years, and no careers in all history have, perhaps, so much of earthly immortality in them as those of Alexander and Napoleon.
Often; again, immortality is better secured by a single touch of exaggerated feeling than by the achievements of a life-time. Sir Walter Raleigh will be longer remembered for the cloak which he spread in the mud to save the feet of Queen Elizabeth, than for all his Parliamentary and Naval exploits ; just as the late Lord Derby will probably be better remembered for jumping on the table of the House of Commons during the excitement of the Reform Bill, than for all the incidents of his later career as a Conservative chief. Wilkes, and perhaps even Bradlaugh, have a chance of being remembered long after the most useful of all the steady-going representatives of the people are forgotten. What is needed for the immortality of this world is something that will catch the eye of generation after generation, and what most catches the eye of generation after generation is not, as a rule, that which renders the greatest service to the generation to which the agent belongs. Lord Palmerston, for instance, has already gained a reputation likely to be far better remembered in future centuries than Lord Rumen, yet Lord Russell certainly rendered far greater services to the generation to which he be- longed than Lord Palmerston. Lord Palmerston, by turning one or two shining facets of his political ability towards the various countries of Europe, made his a much more con- spicuous and intelligible figure to posterity than Lord Russell's is ever likely to be.
For the immortality of history, as it is called, what you chiefly need, is a great separateness either of character, or of achievement, or of both, more especially if it be a sort of separateness that catches easily the public eye. Swift is certainly surer of a popular immortality than Pope, because " Gulliver's Travels " contain the sort of popular satire which is at once separate from all others, and yet in its way glaring,— too glaring not to attract the attention of even the most sparing students of our older literature. And just for the same reason for which Swift is sure of a popular immortality wider and fuller than any which Pope is likely to attain, Lord Beaconsfield, with his Jewish descent, and his not unworthy glorying in that descent, his entire independence of party traditions and ties, his vast ambition, his mordant genius, his brilliant onslaughts on Sir Robert Peel, his grotesque position as confidential adviser to Lord George Bentinck, his eccentric elevation to the head of of the Squirearchical party, his curious studies of root crops, and of the ideal cottage with its " porch, its oven, and its tank," as well as of the advantages of " crossing your Downs with Cots- wolds," his sympathy with Emperors and his protection of Popes, his " education " of the Tory party into a democratic policy, his creation of an Empress, his annexation of a Mediter- ranean " place of arms," his snatch at a " scientific frontier," and his great letter to the Duke of Marlborough on the Irish policy of " men of light and leading," will attain a sort of immortality likely enough to be denied to statesmen of fax greater political genius and far more splendid services. The comet always attracts more attention than the planet, if only because its path is so much more erratic, and, therefore, so much more conspicuous.
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