IN THE DISTANCE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 134, 3 December 1929, Page 6

IN THE DISTANCE

FAMILIAR FIGURES

PORTRAITS OF THE 'SIXTIES

(By S. Sannders.)

." The discovery of the fact that Mr. .Justin McCarthy's "Portraits of the "Sixties" had lain,in the Parliamentary '; Library in Wellington for close upon a quarter of a century without being ■/sought by others than two privileged "readers —one a distinguished Judgo.of -the Supreme Court, now deceased, and [the other a cultured member of the Legislative Council—prompted me the .other day to unearth my own copy of the.work, which.l had read and enjoyed and laid aside in the long ago. Justin \WCarthy was a prolific writer. Born ■in Cork in 1830 and taking up jour- ;.' nalism" at an early age, he drifted into •politics, producing half a dozen novels -by the way, and in 1579 entered the ■ House of Commons as member for -Longford and a supporter of the Home KEule party. He made- no great stir in -Parliament—as the. Biographical Dictionary puts it euphemistically, he was better known as a novelist than as a —but he caught the atmosphere of tho place and reproduced it for the consumption of his readers very happily. His "History of Our Own ■Times," which covers only the period ■between the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 and the Home General Election of 1880, is not a standard work, nor is it an account of our days, since it was written fifty years ago; but it is a very readable book, and I could wish, without any disrespect to the greater some volume of tho kind had •been substituted for the Hume and 'Macaulay of my early youth. Macaulay •passed away in 1559, just a year too early to be included in Justin M'Ca.rthy's portraits; but in his history the ■nrdent Irishman concludes a warm appreciation of the great author with a qualification which another generation lias endorsed. "In everything MacauJay attempted," he says, "he went very near to that success which true genius achieves. In everything he fell -just'short of that achievement." With apologies for this digression, which has -nothing whatever to do with the portraits, the bare outlines of half a dozen •f the pictures may be indicated.

''/ DICKENS AND THACKERAY. ■•': Charles Dickens is appropriately given the pride of place at the head of .the portraits. .At that time —the !?sixties of last century—the author of :*'Pickwick Papers," "Nicholas Nieklehj," "David Copperfield," a score of other novels and innumerable stories, vrith which we all are more or less -iajniliar, stood in popular estimation head and shoulders above all his literary contemporaries. "Dickens," we •are told, "was read by everyone, high and low, the cultured and the uncultured," by everyone, indeed, with eyes to see and a heart to understand. :"There was," wo are told again, "a sort of Dickens language which people unconsciously spoke and wrote under 'the spell of the master. The fact itself was but another tribute to the genius of Dickens, and may help us even still to understand how wide and deep was :the influence then exercised by the spell of the enchanter." His supremacy in another role is warmly extolled "by tho author of his portrait. "Dicken3," he says, "had a voice of marvellous compass, depth, and variety of tone. Some of its chords were perfect music, and, although he had often vto pass in a moment from the extreme of one mood to the extreme of another, there was not the slightest strain or effort or struggle after effect. 'All seemed to come with perfect ease from the instinct and the inspiration of the man." Thackeray is commonly referred to as Dickens's great rival, but, Viewed at this - distance of tjme, it seems that the differences between the two men, in temperament and method, left no room for any literary rivalry between them. Here there is no space even to quote Justin McCarthy's views "on this point, and it is more interesting to be reminded that "in appearance and manner Thackeray was as unlike : Dickens as he was in his literary style," that he stood six feet four inches in height and that his "massive head and expansive forehead were crowned with a covering of thick and premature white hair." The average reader among us having mentioned "Vanity Fair," "Barry Lyndon,", and "The Virginians" has just about exhausted his recollection of tho works of the more cultured of theso two prolific writers.

1 • COBDEN AND BKIGHT. -..Rirhard Cobden, the "Apostle of Free Trade," and John Bright, the "Quaker Statesman," though born in the dawn ef last century, lived long enough to figure in. the decade to which Justin McCarthy confines his portraits. They both were present at the framing of the Treaty of Paris of 1860, which, finally jettled amicable commercial relations between England and France, and John Bright remained recognised as one of the most eloquent public speakers of Jiis day up to the time of his death in 1889. The achievements of neither of these great men need recital here. A paragraph from our author's tribute to Cobden must suffice. '' No one ever felt any irritating strain when listening to Cobden," it runs in print. "Everyone settled down to the comfortable convie-' tion that he had only to listen, and no ■word could fail to reach his ears. Men like Gladstone, like Bright, like the anti-slavery orator, "Wendell Phil. ]Ips, had magnificent voices, which were able to command any assembly by the mere charm of their musical intonation. But the wonder of Cobden's voice was .that it could always exercise the same command, although it did not seem to be endowed with any such extraordinary power. His voice was like his eloquence, which had nothing in it showy, nothing that appealed to the musical sense, but could always captivate, arouse and hold in silent wrapt, attention." To choose a paragraph from our author's eulogy of John Bright is Bio easy matter, Tjut perhaps tho last sentence of a concluding chapter will «uit the case as well as would any other. "At ono period of Bright's 'career," it is recorded, "a high-toned and fastidious London journal, having given him much commendation for his eloquence, declared that it was a pity Mr. Bright had never quite caught the tone of the House of Commons. The immediate and obvious comment made by other writers on this declaration was that it was a much greater pity the House of Commons had never quite caught the tone of Mr. Bright." Never was there a happier retort. "No House of Commons," one authority averred, "has ever caught or ever is likely to catch, the tone of Mr. Bright.'' If this can be said of the Mother of Parliaments with justice, as appears to have been the case, other assemblies of the kind within the Empire should be reviewing their own standard of propriety.

". GABLYLE AND TENNYSON. To associate Thomas Csrlyle and Alfred Tennyson in a newspaper paragraph probably is a proceeding the shade of neither of these distinguished figures of the 'sixties will appreciate. But Jnstia M'Carthy dared to present the "Despotic Sovereign of Thought" and the "One Great Poet of the Day" in the Bame chapter, and so created a precedent to which I may appeal should the necessity arise. Most schoolboys of Carlyle's days, grown to men, and many of those of a 1 later day, bear a grudge against tho Sage of Chelsea, writings even to-day make fairly

hard reading. "Portraits of the 'Sixties" reminds us that Carlylo's sympathies lay with the Southern States dur ing the American War —a catastrophe beyond my: memory—and that he "fro quen'tly- expressed his opinions and de nounced his opponents without any challenge or provocation on their part." • As regards tho war, so it is recorded, In- ' "summed up the whole controversy to his own complete satisfaction us mereh , a question between the right to hire one's servants by the week or for life.'' From a dozen pages devoted to a per sonal sketch of Tennyson I must taki a paragraph of a score of lines that wil. give some idea of the personality and the manner of the man. "There were many Englishmen of distinction there," my authority writes of a visit to the !.Isle of Wight, "and Tennyson was the most conspicuous among the guests. Tennyson's appearance was very striking, and his .figure might have been taken as a living illustration of romantic poetry. He was tall and stately, wore a great mass of thick, long hair— long hair was then still worn even by men who did not affect originality— his frame was. slightly stooping; his shoulders were bent as if with the weight of thought; there was something entirely out of the common and very commanding in his whole presence, and a stranger meeting him in whatever crowd would probably have assumed at once that he was a literary king." After all this it is gratifying to have an assurance that there was no artificially about Tennyson and that the simplicity of genius was at the heart of his mystery. At any rate, he has a grandson who plays cricket!