BOOKS.
SAMUELLOVER.*
THE career of a man with the triple reputation of musician, painter, and poet, could not fail to be engaging, even had he not also happened to be a humourist and an Irishman. We are, therefore, not a little indebted to Mr. Bayle Bernard for the pleasant and painstaking life of Samuel Lover that lies before us.. But whilst we cordially own that Mr. Bernard has agreeably and instructively filled an undeniable blank in biographical litera- ture by this memoir, we are not agreed with him that substantial injustice has been done to Lover's merits, either during his life- time or since his death.
Under the influence of competition and high pressure, the present public have become such believers in speciality, that they are incredulous of any approach to universal genius.. The last generation was more easy-going, and in conse- quence more sympathetic with versatility. Still, Lover's con- temporaries must naturally have looked with suspicion on a " Jack-of-so-many-Trades " as Lover, till he actually proved himself to have been master of them all. And it was to this very fact, we believe, that Lover owed a large share of his popularity.. He was the "Admirable Crichton" of his day, and became a popular favourite, as much on account of his reputation for• versatility as for his special achievements in any one department.. True, the diversity of his gifts had, as Mr. Bernard says, " diffused public attention over a wide group of particulars, and had neces- sarily placed some of them in a less distinct light than the others."' But " mine ignotum pro mirifico " is human nature. Each of his admirers probably credited him with the possession, in the highest degree, of the particular gift of which he was least capable of judging ; and we are inclined to think that Lover was, on this ground, a gainer rather than a loser in his generation. It is right, however, that Lovers claims should be severally and candidly considered, as Mr. Bernard undertakes that they
The Life of Samuel Lover, R.II A.: Artistic, Literary, and Musical. With Sele&- tiotu3 from his Unpublished Papers and Correspondence. By Bayle Bernard. 8 vole. London: Henry S. King and Co. ISM
shall be, in the• after-glow of his reputation, rather than in the heyday of his success ; and Mr. Bernard's idea of guaging the results of his various talents as accurately as possible, by com- paring them with the efforts of his contemporaries in literature and the fine arts, if imperfectly carried out, certainly has resulted in his succeeding in his attempt to place " Irish art and literature," with which he (Lover) was so much connected, " in a clearer and compacter view than has yet been given to the world ;" but whilst we doubtless meet with chapters full of able, if often over-lauda- tory criticisms of the Irish poets, painters, musicians, and novelists of this century in Mr. Bernard's book, we frequently fail to discover their connection, either in point of contrast or of comparison, with the subject of his memoir. Still the biographer pursues his eccentric course with such enthusiastic bonhomie that we cannot find it in our hearts to quarrel with him.
The following is a brief epitome of this discursive book, as far as Samuel Lover is himself concerned—for the selections from his unpublished papers that Mr. Bernard gives us does not call for any special notice : — Samuel Lover was born in Dublin in 1797, of Protestant parents. "His mother was a tender, patient, thoughtful woman, who watched over him with a love that was as judicious as it was gentle," but unfortunately she did not live beyond his twelth year, for his father, a practical man of business, totally disregarding the aesthetic nature which the boy inherited from her, ruthlessly resolved that he should be, like himself, a stockbroker, and accordingly put him into his office. For some time young Lover sat so conscientiously in " The Stocks," that he almost seemed likely to justify his father's belief in his destiny for dividends. But Apollo had taken much too exuberant an interest in the lad to surrender him so tamely to Libra, for all this time Lover was developing some half-dozen talents, the indulgence in any one of which his practical parent would have considered a serpent on the road to stock-broking reputation ; but when they combined into a many-headed monster that played the piano and plied the paint-brush with equal ease, and dashed off songs, poems, and dramas with graceful indifference, no wonder that sensible Mr. Lover senior took desperate measures to scotch the unnatural Hydra before finally succumbing to its accumulated horrors. When warnings failed, the father tried open resistance and ridicule. The piano and paint-box were forbidden, story and song were made fun of or thrown into the fire. The contention culminated in the following characteristic manner : " In addition
to writing a play " " to be acted in a loft," young Lover had turned stage-carpenter and scene-painter, and constructed a fantoccini theatre, with all its little actors and appliances ; and his father, finding him one day deeply engaged amongst his puppets when he ought to have been among his clients, suddenly appeared as a kind of dens ex matinee, poker in hand, and brought the performance to an unexpectedly violent close by the utter annihilation of the stage and its occupants, and indeed of everything concerned with the production of the drama but its un- fortunate author. A visit to London did not serve to lessen young Lover's distaste for business, and shortly after his return he an- nounced to his amazed father his intention of entering on an artist's career in Dublin. This resolve, considering that he was ignorant of the first principles of painting, and could not count on any assist- ance from his father, seemed as hopeless as it was hair-brained. Yet not only did he carry out his object, but even managed to improve his other talents so effectually, that we find him in a few years one of the recognised lions of Dublin society, when the Irish capital had again roused herself from the lethargy into which she had been sunk since the Union. Second only to Comerford as a miniature-painter, a charming composer, song-writer, and pianoforte-player, a racy raconteur of his own irresistible Irish stories, as well as a wit full of the most spontaneous sparkle, no wonder that Lover justified Lady Morgan in informing him that, while writing the Life and Times of Salvator Rosa, she had insisted the more strongly on the evil of a parent resisting the nitural bent of a son's genius from her acquaintance with his own case. " For my part," said she, " if 1 bad a son, and he -desired to become a highwayman, I should certainly not oppose him ; on the contrary, I believe I should make him a present of a pair of pistols and a good horse to boot, and should say to him, My dear boy, I am very unhappy at the choice you have made, but since the gallows is your vocation, in heaven's name pursue it " Lover was not destined to re- main much longer in Ireland. The great success in London of his miniature of Paganini tempted him, a few years after his marriage with Miss Berrel, a Dublin lady, to try his fortunes in the English capital. Here he received a hearty welcome from the celebrities of the day. " When," says Mr. Bernard, "in the green-room of Drury Lane he was presented to Malibran, she held out her hand to him, exclaiming, in the prettiest broken English, ' Will you lend me the loan of a gridiron ?' in allusion to his famous Irish story, and on apologising to Sydney Smith for twice addressing a note to him at the wrong number, nine or eleven instead of ten., the wit exclaimed, ' There's luck in odd numbers, says Rory O'More ;1 " and, by-the-by, we learn from Mr. Bernard's narrative that 1, Rory O'More," the appearance of which certainly gave a quietus to the conventional English notion of the Irish comic song, was produced by Lover in deliberate response to Lady Morgan's challenge, "Do you think you could do better ? " The remark- able success of " Rory O'More "as a song tempted Lover to make many others, and some of them superior, efforts in the same direction, such as " Molly Carew " and " Mary of Tipperary." About this time he had added another leaf to his laurels by his felicitous illustrations of the " Irish Horn-Book," a famous satirical attack on the Irish tithe-system. These latter carica- tures were anonymous, and indeed might have got Lover into trouble, had their authorship been made known ; but his secret was so well kept by his confederates, that it never escaped during his lifetime. For many years to come we find Lover not only painting, writing, and composing, but with unsubdued exuberance putting forth fresh pairs of hands in every direction. He sup- plied Madame Vestris with extravaganzas, Liston and Power with comediettas and farces, besides turning his hand successfully to novel-writing, and so producing his laughable Handy Andy. And to make a fresh application of the proverb that "Many hands make light labour," our Irish Briareus found himself so relieved by this refreshing interchange of good offices with himself, that far from doing his miniatures injustice by his versatility in other directions, he appears to have thus added greater freshness and freedom to their thought and finish.
But the most practical of all proofs of the value of Lover's many-sidedness appeared when his eyes gave way, and he had to give up painting, his chief source of income. Rest was restoring his sight, when the discovery of photography put an end to miniature-painting, but encouraged by his success in society as a singer and story-teller, he determined on attempting an Irish entertainment in public. His venture proved entirely successful in London, and afterwards in the Provinces, Ireland, and the United States, where he spent a couple of years, and became an immense favourite with the Americans. During this period he lost his wife, but married again a few years afterwards on his return to London, when he forsook public life himself, and took to oil -painting and libretto - writing, besides editing his collection of Irish lyrics. In his sixty-second year he joined the Volunteers, assisting at the establishment of the London Irish, not only as a committee-man, but also as one of its most energetic members on drill, and further aided the cause by a series of volunteer songs. In 1864 his lungs became so much affected that he was obliged to seek change of air in. Jersey, and from this time till his death he declined gradually, and passed peacefully away in 1867. He lies buried in Kensal- Green Cemetery, and a tablet is to be seen in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, containing a simple and touching inscription to his memory.
We have sufficiently indicated' our own admiration of Lover's not very deep but singularly universal genius in the above epitome of Mr. Bernard's memoir, but whilst giving him every credit for the unflagging laboriousness of his work, we cannot agree with Mr. Bernard in his panegyric of Lover's patient fidelity to detail, if we are to understand him to apply it to his friend's writings and musical compositions as well as to his miniatures. His songs,. both music and words, are full of melody, and possess the rare charm of simplicity, but it is precisely for the want of that perfect harmony of detail which distinguishes all first-rate work, that much the greater portion of Lover's productions will not live. But some of his Irish, and even English, poems have become part of our nineteenth-century literature. Handy Andy and several of his shorter humorous efforts in prose will continue to be popular, and not a few of his airs will be sung by our great-grandchildren. So much for the author. Of the man we could say even more, but nothing more happily than Mr. Bayle Barnard. "He was not one who gained our admiration at the cost of our respect. Genius- in his case was not called upon to supply the cloak of charity. His life was pure and honourable, and the talents that adorned it were but the embroidery on a substance that was in itself sound and enduring."
Previous page
