PROFESSIONAL "PRIZES."
MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S striking anecdote about David Cox, at the Artists' General Benevolent Institution last Saturday, showing as it did that that remarkable water- colour painter rated his own pictures, even at the end of his life, as worth less than a fiftieth-part of what the public are now willing to give for them, suggests very grave doubts as to the common view that great "professional prizes" are of any considerable account in developing genius, at least if we- mean by "prizes," prizes in money or money's worth. David Cox estimated as really worth about £8 towards the close of his career, a picture which has recently fetched £450. But if he could have got £450 for it, would he have painted one more of his best pictures, or rather, would he not have painted much fewer of them P So far as we can judge, there is but- one case in which it seems clear that works of great genius were produced because they fetched great prices, but which might not have been, and probably would not have been produced, if they had not fetched great prices. Some of Sir Walter Scott's later romances would probably never have been written, but for that grim determination to pay off his debts and rescue Abbotsford, if it might be, from his creditors, which actuated him in his last lonely years of tragic, uphill struggle. In his case, the passion to found a house for his descendants, and to connect his name with the reaches of his loved Tweed, was a far deeper passion than his passion for writing those great romances which shaped themselves so vividly and easily in his imagination. And in his case, no doubt the "great prizes" stimulated the creation of great productions. But we hardly remember another instance of the same effect. And we know of plenty in which the "great prizes," instead of spurring great imaginations to their highest efforts, have stimulated them to poor and hasty efforts, which marred instead of making the fame of their authors. The bigger the external prize with which an effort of genius is to be stimulated, the stronger is the temptation to secure it at as small a cost as may be,—for though men will put out their highest efforts to tell what kindles their imagination, they will not put them forth for such a poor reward as wealth, unless, as in the very unique case of Sir Walter Scott, it happens that something can be attained by means of wealth which kindles their imagination even more powerfully than the mere act of conceiving and painting great actions and great passions will itself kindle it. No doubt that was the case with Scott. The craving for what is called, in our poor human speech, " owning " a few acres of Scotch moor and glen, and connecting them with his name, had penetrated deeper into his nature than even the desire to picture human joys, and woes, and humours, and destinies, as he alone could picture them ; and the idea of raising a home of his own by the Tweed he loved so well, dominated him more completely than even the delight of exerting his own powers in their most congenial sphere. But his was one of the rarest cases in the history of genius. As a rule, it will be found that when external prizes like wealth, or, in a less degree, even fame, begin to move a mind which has once been heated by the pure flame of genius, the character of the genius deteriorates. It is impossible to let the mind fall under the influence of a lower and vulgarer motive, and yet to keep it working with the old magic. The love of fame is much more- intimately bound up with the work of genius than the love of wealth, and yet even the appetite excited for fame after it has once been tasted, will frequently be found to cause deterioration in the work of genius. That is the main difference, as we think, between many of the later works of Dickens, the more senti- mental works like "The Chimes," and some others of the Christmas efforts, for instance, or "Bleak House" or "Hard Times," and his earlier works. In the latter, you see the posing of an insatiable love for fame ; in the former, only the outpouring of an overflowing stream of genius. The works which paid him best were least characteristic of his power.
And yet we are told that it is only "great prizes" which
will attract the best men into the various professions. We hold, on the contrary, that great prizes, so far as they influence the imagination of those who enter any profession,—and we should apply this quite as confidently to the Law as to any other,—distinctly lower the tone of a profession ; and that, in point of fact, these great prizes are seldom gained except by those who have not been tempted into a profession by the hope of them, but who have beentemitted into it by pure interest in the subject-matter of the profession. Take as one illustration . the universal testimony of the greater statesmen to their absolute dependence on the permanent officials who supply them with all their materials, and the wonderful merit of the work done by these men, who are not only out of sight but out of mind as regards the general public. Suppose the greater statesmen suddenly swept away by some plague which did not touch the permanent staff, and the whole work of government would proceed steadily enough, though of course the public might fall into a panic for want of the mediating minds on which they have been accus- tomed to depend for their assurance that it is so pro- ceeding. On the other hand, suppose the permanent staff swept away by such a plague, and the statesmen only to remain, and we should have anarchy at once. It is the unpretending, the ill-paid work, the work that is done mostly from sheer workmanlike interest in the work, that is the backbone of the State ; and as it is with the State, so it is with the Law and the Art and the Science of the community, and most of all with the moral and spiritual teaching. Ninety-nine hundredths of the good -work of the world is, we will not say ill paid, because it is paid by the best of all payments, the sense of satisfaction and efficiency with which it is performed, but at least ill paid in money, and is almost unrecognised work. Even those who take the great prizes of the best-paid professions, often get a great deal of their best work done by the juniors whose hands are not seen in it, just as they themselves did their very best work when they were ill-paid and unrecognised juniors, who worked almost solely from their workmanlike love of -work. Of course we are not using this as an argument for paying work meanly,—that is, in a way which all but starves the workers. But we do use it as an argument against the high-prize theory of the professions. On the whole, we believe that the best workers in all professions are those who are very moderately paid, so far as regards the external rewards, and who, so far as they are-well paid at all, are paid by their own profound insight into its structure, and their disinterested ■ Ielight in its thoroughness and completeness. Milton got five pounds for "Paradise Lost," while Dr. Johnson got ten guineas for the poem on "London." Both were fine pieces of work ; both were what we should now call astoundingly under-paid ; but the one which was most ridi- culously under-paid was as much greater than the other, which received a double payment in money, as the Sun is greater than the Earth. Again, the German Army is paid at a vastly lower rate than the English ; but no one supposes that the work done by the German soldier is less efficient than the work done by the English. There is no standard in the world so intolerably unjust to the merit of work as the standard of price. Indeed, all prices are affected, and very gravely affected, by considerations many of which are entirely irrelevant to the real worth of the work done and the honest labour thrown into it. We do not say that it would be well that there should be no so-called prizes in the various pro- fessions. Probably their existence excites the imagination even of those who never gain or hope to gain them, and pre- vents that monotony and dead-level of tone which so dis- courages the higher kind of ambition. But we do say that by far the best work of the world gets no prizes, and, like old David Cox's, is recognised only posthumously in the persons of those who did not do the work, and perhaps even do- not love it.
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