LONDON AND LITERATURE.
-w-HAT influence does our London—this city of countless inhabitants and ceaseless turmoil—exert upon the world of letters, and what transformation is it likely to effect upon the stray genius who may fall into its clutches ? The question is
suggested by one that Mr. Lang asked in the coarse of his speech last Monday, the anniversary of Burns's birth, when, after the annual dinner of the Edinburgh Burns Club, he proposed the toast of the evening. " Had Burns been living to day," he asked, "would the world that lay around him have been so fit to inspire him with song? " " London," he ' thought, would inevitably have sucked him into its dingy and disastrous Corrievrechan." And then, what change would the poet have suffered, what would he have become ? He would have battered at the theatre-doors, Mr. Lang thinks ; he might have drunk strong liquors in Fleet Street, and scribbled articles for the daily Press,—or, worse still, he might have contributed verses to the magazines. " His magnificent genius would have been frittered away in the struggle for life." It might have been so, of course ; one who succumbed to the temptations of Ayrshire would hardly be likely to resist those of London. But the speculation, as far as Barns is concerned, is an unprofitable one. It is as absolutely impossible to picture the genius of Burns bound by the conditions of our modern life, and feeding on the ex- citements of the crowded Metropolis, as it would be to translate his Scotch songs into smooth English verse. Still, when Mr. Lang speaks of the frittering away of his genius as being the necessary outcome of the influence of London, we are tempted to demur. The whirlpool of London life is dingy and disastrous enough, and many a strong swimmer has been sucked down and engulfed in it before now; but many, too, have been the victims of the still waters, the deep stagnation of country life. What would have been the fate of the London author of to-day, to whom the constant movement and the hmuying crowds of faces have become a necessary part of his literary life, if he had been condemned to the quiet exile of the -country ? That would be just as impossible a question to answer as the other, and it would be just as reasonable to suppose that the latter would have consumed himself in hopeless longing for some break in the monotony of life, some opening for his genius, as that the country poet should have frittered away his great gifts among the countless opportuni- ties, openings, and temptations of a city life. Barns might have battered at the theatre-doors, he might have reeled through all Fleet Street and the Strand also, he might have written verses for the magazines, and earned his daily bread upon the treadmill of a daily paper,—he might have done all -these things, and worse also, and yet he might have remained Burns in spite of them all. Genius such as his was, is not easily frittered away in fragments, nor does it lightly become the victim of its circumstances. Born to poverty and labour, as Mr. Lang says, he was the poet of poverty -and labour. Here in London there is poverty and labour to spare. Born to such toil, why should the dingy joys of the London streets have drawn him from his task any more surely than did the temptations of his Ayrshire home ? London, alas ! possesses no such vehicle for verse, no such strong and poetic speech, as the Scots tongue ; but, setting aside that one drawback, what was there to prevent the poet of the humble life of Scotland becoming the voice of London's toil and trouble? There is something new in the idea that genius may suffer from the multitude of openings. It is true that among those that write, the race is not for so few prizes, nor the law of the survival of the fittest so rigorous, as it was in Burns's day. There are many comfortable stages on the steep hill of Parnassus where the weary poet can rest himself, and where he is often pleased to remain, content with the lower level, and renouncing the laborious toil of climbing to the summit. To-day, even these have their audiences and their reward; a century ago, it was either the summit or nothing at all,—there was no half-way place. But genius—such genius, that is to say, as can be rightly described as mag- nificent—would never be content with such compromises or brook the lower seats. However great the pressure of neces- sity, and the temptations of openings that led to ease, it would surely have struggled on.
To us it does not seem so likely that the' multitude of opportunities would have frittered away his power, as that the enormous increase of the audience would have disturbed the author, and caused him to hesitate as to what voice he should address them in. Compare the reading public that was known to Burns, and the public that reads a popular English author of to-day. Surely one would think that so vast and varied a throng of hearers would tend to make his voice uncer-
tain, wavering with the doubt as to whom he really addressed, and how he should best address them. Critics there are, also, to-day such as Burns knew not. Countless critics, and count- less magazines and reviews in which their criticisms appear, contradict each other, and disappear again for ever ;—a multiplicity of counsellors, whose counsel is not more helpful than is their cavilling harmful. But bow would they have borne with the Scotch ploughman, and how would be have borne himself with them P Would his sturdy independence and self-willed self-reliance have been proof equally against their blandishments and their rebukes, or would he have sung high or low according to their pleasure, obediently pitching his voice in the key that was given to him P Who shall say? This much, at least, we might suggest,—that that many-headed patron, the reading public, is no more arrogant and hard to please, than was the wealthy or influential patron of centuries back ; and that it is possible that Burns's scanty subscribers and admirers were every whit as wrongheaded in their criticisms, and as inconsequent in their demands, as ever the larger modern public can be. Looking at the influence that London has exercised upon the imaginations and lives of her children of genius, it can hardly be fairly contended that she has stunted their growth, or wasted their energies by tempting them into barren ways and sterile by-paths. Could Shakespeare have written Hamlet in Stratford-on-Avon? Could one imagine Dr. Johnson in any other surroundings ? Would Goldsmith have ever made his voice heard from his native village ?—and to him the streets of London were full of temptations that were not resisted. Think of Dickens or of Thackeray, and what they owed to the seething restlessness of the life that surrounded them. London has no Cockney poet to match her Cockney novelist ; but is it so impossible that she should have one ?—a poet, that is to say, born to poverty and labour, for of other poets she cherishes a hundred or so, and very charming poets too. Not the least of them is Mr. Lang himself,—surely be might have a better word for the great city that has become the land of his adoption, for to him she has never been unkind. Born, bred, and nurtured in the very heart of London, she not only gave us our Dickens, but she made him what he was. Though not born to poverty and labour in the strictest sense of the word, he was born to the grinding penury of middle-class thriftless- ness, and the task of illustrating, helping, and enlightening his people was one that he fulfilled nobly. What would have become of the genius of Dickens had he been born and bred in some out-of-the-way country spot ? Surely there is no reason for thinking that his magnificent genius would have starved for want of opportunity, and been utterly wasted for the world's use and enjoyment? Why should one suppose, then, that the genius of Burns, born under those conditions, would have been frittered away in the ceaseless struggle for existence that is entailed by London life upon those that live it? Genius is a fire which burns as brightly whatever the fuel it feeds upon, whether it consumes the logs of Scotch pine, or the coal of the London grates : there may be a difference in the smoke, but the flame is much the same.
What has London done, that this reproach should be cast upon her? The latest and the youngest of those who have changed the clearer air of other skies for a shelter under her sooty canopy, Rudyard Kipling, who has deserted the teeming millions of India for the even more crowded press of the London pavements, does not yet seem to have suffered any change in consequence of the change of climate. Is that result still one that may be expected, and are we to view the gradual frittering-away of his powers in the pages of maga- zines and the feuilletons of newspapers P Why should it be so ? The bribe to exceed one's powers and write for easy hire, is a very great one; but is it more detrimental than the pres- sure of want in forcing out work unnaturally ? The pressure of civilisation that one seems to feel the actual weight of in London, and the struggle for life around one, are quite as likely to condense as to fray out in shreds the gift that is within the Londoner.
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