USA > Georgia > The bench and bar of Georgia: memoirs and sketches. With an appendix, containing a court roll from 1790-1857, etc., volume II > Part 43
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RANDOLPH .- Among them, but not of them, in the fearful and soli- tary sublimity of genius, stood a gentleman from Virginia, whom it were superfluous to designate,-whose speeches were universally read, whose satire was universally feared. Upon whose accents did this habitually listless and unlistening House hang so frequently with rapt attention ? Whose fame was identified with that body for so long a period ? Who was a more dexterous debater? a riper scholar? better versed in the poli- tics of our own county, or deeper read in the history of others? Above all, who was more thoroughly imbued with the idiom of the English language, more completely master of its strength and beauty and deli- cacy, or more capable of breathing thoughts of flame in words of magic and tones of silver?
CALHOUN .- There was also a son of South Carolina, still in the service of the Republic, then undoubtedly the most influential member of this House. With a genius eminently metaphysical, he applied to politics his habits of analysis, abstraction, and condensation, and thus gave to the problems of government something of that grandeur which the higher mathematics have borrowed from astronomy. The wings of his mind were rapid but capricious, and there were times when the light which flashed from them as they passed glanced, like a mirror in the sun, only to dazzle the beholder. Engrossed with his subject, careless of his words, his loftiest flights of eloquence were sometimes followed by colloquial or provincial barbarisms. But, though often incorrect, he was always fasci- nating. Language with him was merely the scaffolding of thought, em- ployed to raise a dome which, like Angelo's, he suspended in the heavens.
CLAY .- It is equally impossible to forget or to omit a gentleman from Kentucky, whom party has since made the fruitful topic of unmeasured panegyric and detraction. Of sanguine temperament and impetuous character, his declamation was impassioned, his retorts acrimonious. De- ficient in refinement rather than in strength, his style was less elegant and correct than animated and impressive. But it swept away your feelings with it like a mountain-torrent, and the force of the stream left you little leisure to remark upon its clearness. His estimate of human nature was probably not very high. It may be that his past associations had not tended to exalt it. Unhappily, it is perhaps more likely to have been lowered than raised by his subsequent experience. Yet then, and ever since, except when that imprudence so natural to genius prevailed over his better judgment, he had generally the good sense or good taste to adopt a lofty tone of sentiment, whether he spoke of measures or of men, of friend or adversary. On many occasions he was noble and cap- tivating. One I can never forget. It was the fine burst of indignant eloquence with which he replied to the taunting question, What have we gained by the war ?
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WEBSTER .- Nor may I pass over in silence a Representative from New Hampshire, who has almost obliterated all memory of that distinction by the superior fame he has attained as a Senator from Massachusetts. Though then but in the bud of his political life, and hardly conseious perhaps of his own extraordinary powers, he gave promise of the greatness he has since achieved. The same vigor of thought; the same form of expression ; the short sentences; the calm, cold, collected manner ; the air of solemn dignity; the deep, sepulchral, unimpassioned voice,-all have been developed only, not changed, even to the intense bitterness of his frigid irony. The piercing coldness of his sarcasms was indeed peculiar to him : they seemed to be emanations from the spirit of the Icy Ocean. Nothing could be at once so novel and so powerful : it was frozen mercury becoming as caustic as red-hot iron.
These were the leading portraits. A few other gentlemen were referred to in brief, complimentary terms, among whom were Mr. Gaston, of North Carolina, and Mr. Forsyth, a fellow-townsman of Mr. Wilde.
At the risk of being considered tedious, the author here inserts, for the benefit of his young brethren of the profession, a page or two concerning the carly life of Mr. Pinkney, who at the period of his death, and for a long time previous, was the acknowledged head of the bar in the United States. Mr. Wilde conceded to him that rank. While in his nineteenth year, Mr. Pinkney became the protégé of Judge Chase, and the particulars are thus given in a national work :*_
In the year 1783, an incident occurred that, botli on account of the importance of its consequences and the strong light in which it displays the warmth of feeling and keen penetration of Mr. Chase, ought not to be omitted.
Being in Baltimore, he was induced to attend, as an auditor, the meet- ing of a debating-elub composed chiefly of students and very young men. Among the speakers there was one whose excellent style of delivery, firm voice, and strength of argument particularly caught his attention. He spoke to the youth after the debate had closed, and found he was from Annapolis, and had been placed with a physician and apothecary in Balti- more, where he compounded medicines and expected to receive instruc- tion in pharmacy and medical practice. Mr. Chase advised him to study law, and encouraged him to hope for success in the legal profession. To this the youth replied that he could not afford to go through the prepara- tory course of study, being entirely without means, and having no depend- ence except upon his own immediate exertions. Mr. Chase, with the sym- pathy of kindred genius, felt for the friendless youth an instantaneous re- gard, and, perceiving at once the indication of great native powers, resolved that a mind so highly gifted should not languish in obscurity : he therefore invited the young man to the benefit of his library, his instruction, and
* Sanderson's Biography of the Signers, vol. ix. p. 211.
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his table, and urged upon him the immediate acceptance of the offer so carnestly, that it was promptly and gladly accepted, and the fortunate youth sent his trunk by a sloop, while he went on foot himself, to Anna- polis, where he became not only established in the office, but domesticated in the family, of his generous benefactor.
This young man was William Pinkney, afterward the eloquent and learned Attorney-General of the United States, minister successively at the courts of London, Naples, and St. Petersburg, the most distinguished lawyer in America, and, until the blight of party dissensions fell upon their attachments, the ardent and grateful friend of Mr. Chase.
The state of dependence which the young Pinkney was obliged for a while to endure subjected him to many mortifications, arising from the · pride and the prejudices of his associates, who thought themselves more respectable because more fortunate; but, could they or he have then looked forward to the brilliant destiny that awaited him, their pride and his distress would equally have vanished. Under the pressure of such feelings as his peculiar relation toward Mr. Chase excited, he wrote to him the following letter :-
"Never, sir, in writing to any person, did I feel myself so much at a loss for a subject. I wish to say something worthy of your attention ; but the eagerness of that wish damps my abilities for doing it. But there is one point upon which I cannot but enlarge : it touches me so sensibly that I am filled with the deepest regret every time I reflect on it.
"The greater part of the students belonging to the law seem to be my enemies : for what reason, Heaven knows! To some I may have given cause ; to others, I am certain, none. You, sir, with all your discernment, can hardly conceive the uneasiness of my situation, destitute, friendless, and unhappy, opposed by all, supported by none, troubled with a thou- sand domestic vexations ! Oh, be my patron and my friend ! Assist me to struggle through my difficulties, and kindly smooth the rugged path before me.
"You, give me leave to say, sir, know what it is to climb the steepy road to eminence; your merit encountered many an adverse shock, but you surmounted all; my poverty and singular backwardness of genius are too powerful obstacles for me to combat. To you, then, I look up as my guardian genius, my protector, my prop : do not let me be deceived, do not let me be disappointed. Pardon this incoherent scrawl. I have been lately extremely ill, and am but just recovering : weakness prevents me from proceeding further than to wish you uninterrupted health, to- gether with
"'The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy.'"'
This letter was written while Mr. Chase was in England, to which country he had gone at the request and on behalf of the State of Mary- land.
Surely, friendless, unassisted youth, animated by the right de- sire, have an example, in the difficulties which Mr. Pinkney over- came, to stimulate their hopes and exertions to conquer. That it may possibly produce such effect is the sole reason why the extract is here.
The writings of Mr. Wilde were so abundant and various on legal, political, and literary subjects, that no attempt will be made
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even to enumerate them. They consisted chiefly of arguments, speeches, essays, articles for the press, and fragments of poetry, most of them inaccessible to the author. The celebrated lines, "My Life is like the Summer Rose," which attracted the praise of Lord Byron,* were published about the year 1820. The language does not afford a purer gem.
BY RICHARD HENRY WILDE.
My life is like the summer rose, That opens to the morning sky, And, ere the shades of evening close, Is scatter'd on the ground to die : Yet on that rose's humble bed The softest dews of Night are shed,
As though she wept such waste to see ;
But none shall drop one tear for me!
My life is like the autumn leaf, Which trembles in the moon's pale ray: Its hold is frail, its date is brief,
Restless,-and soon to pass away: Yet when that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The wind bemoan the leafless tree ; But none shall breathe a sigh for me.
My life is like the print which feet Have left on Tampa's desert strand : Soon as the rising tide shall beat, Their trace will vanish from the sand : Yet, as if grieving to efface All vestige of the human race, On that lone shore loud moans the sea ; But none shall thus lament for me.
From the "Ode to Ease," a sort of confession of the heart, rambling with gentle pathos after the delusions of life are verified, the author quotes briefly, as another specimen of Mr. Wilde's poetic ability :-
I choose thee, EASE! and now for me No heart shall ever fondly swell, No voice of soothing melody Awake the music-breathing shell ; Nor tongue of rapturous harmony Its love in faltering accents tell ; Nor flushing cheek, nor languid eye, Nor sportive smile, nor artless sigh, Confess affection all as well. No snowy bosom's fall and rise Shall e'er again enchant my eyes; No melting lips, profuse of bliss, Shall ever greet me with a kiss; Nor balmy breath pour in mine ear The trifles love delights to hear; But living loveless, hopeless, I Unmourned and unloved must die.
* On the authority of the late William H. Torrance, Esq.
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RICHARD H. WILDE.
Enough has been quoted from Mr. Wilde's pen, both in prose and in verse, to establish his rank in the world of letters, without drawing upon his "Conjectures and Researches concerning the Love, Madness, and Imprisonment of Torquato Tasso," a work which occupied several years in the preparation. While the author will aim at justice, though prepossessed, as he admits himself to be, with the merits of his subject, he still feels the obligation, as it is no less his right, to examine with all candor this performance of Mr. Wilde, who has dug from the rubbish of centuries many a shining particle of Italian lore, about as interesting to the bulk of mankind as the agonies of a naturalist over the geometrical skill and gossamer fabrics of a very wise but a very unpopular insect. Ideas borrowed from this building-artist have led many architects besides Sir Christopher Wren to combine beauty and strength in the edifices which immortalized their names. The comparison, therefore, is not so disrespectful as might at first appear. While St. Peter's may have been fashioned in part from suggestions conveyed by a spider's ingenuity, yet Michael Angelo is not the less honored for applying wisdom from so humble a source to such magnificent results. Poor Tasso, in his prison, wove beautiful chaplets and ingenious webs, with which Mr. Wilde has reared a temple of gorgeous finishing, just as beautiful to contemplate as if it rested on a foundation more solid than a mad poet ! But the opening pages of Mr. Wilde shall speak the matter at issue :-
There is scarcely any poet whose life excites a more profound and melancholy interest than that of TORQUATO TASSO.
His short and brilliant career of glory captivated the imagination, while the heart is deeply affected by his subsequent misfortunes. Greater fame and greater misery have seldom been the lot of man, and a few brief years sufficed for each extreme.
An exile even in his boyhood, the proscription and confiscation suffered by his father deprived him of honor and patrimony. Honor and love, and the favor of princes, and enthusiastic praise, dazzled his youth. Envy, malice, and treachery, tedious imprisonment and imputed madness, insult, poverty, and persecution, clouded his manhood. The evening of his days was saddened by a troubled spirit, want, sickness, bitter memo- ries, and deluded hopes; and, when at length a transient gleam of sun- shine fell upon his prospects, DEATH substituted the IMMORTAL for the LAUREL crown.
Mystery adds its fascination to his story. The causes of his imprison- ment are hidden in obscurity : it is still disputed whether he was insane or not.
A rumor of daring love was common in his age, and has come down to ours ; but it is contradicted by the most industrious, and, in some respects, the most accurate, though perhaps the least candid, of his biographers.
Still, unquestioned facts enough remain to rouse our curiosity. Courtly
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intrigues, a friend's treachery, intercepted letters, false keys, a quarrel and a combat, are universally admitted. The origin of this strife, the secrets revealed, the contents of the papers so unjustifiably examined, have exercised and often baffled literary ingenuity, which, still untired, because unsatisfied, returns to its task with fresh ardor. Some connection between the misfortunes of the poet and the strange occurrences faintly whispered by his contemporaries or obscurely hinted by himself is naturally suspected ; and the severity of his punishment-if punishment it was- implies, one would suppose, no ordinary crime. We can hardly persuade ourselves that a custody so rigorous was intended merely for the cure of a inental malady, and the works he composed during its continuance are scarcely reconcilable with madness ; yet it is difficult to read his letters and believe him always sane.
The tyranny of ALPHONSO, indeed, is ill disguised, even by his most carnest apologist ; but of the poet's own defence we have merely a inuti- lated copy. Few points of literary history, therefore, are more interesting or more obscure than the LOVE, the MADNESS, and the IMPRISONMENT of Tasso.
Various conjectures respecting them have been offered,-none, perhaps, entirely satisfactory. The value of those which follow will depend on their probability, and that, again, on the number of incidents collected and compared, and the candor and sagacity employed in their collation. To draw as far as possible from his own writings whatever light they may afford concerning the most doubtful events of his life is the object of this essay.
After some half-dozen intervening pages, we have the substratum of the whole work :-
According to MANSO, it was said and believed in the lifetime of the poet that he sung the charms of three ladies, all of the court of Ferrara. He affected to be captivated with the whole three, and under the name of LEONORA, common to them all, attempted to conceal which was the real object of his passion. It was the opinion of the day that the Princess LEONORA of Este was the first, the Countess LEONORA SAN VITALE the second, and a lady of the DUCHESS of FERRARA the third. To the latter, MANSO continues, was addressed the canzone of TASSO begin- ning,-
"Oh, chosen with the Graces and the Loves !"
SERASSI, whose book was dedicated to a princess of the House of ESTE, though in some other particulars he praises MANSO and relies on his authority, seems intent upon destroying it in every thing that relates to the supposed loves of TASSO and LEONORA.
With regard to this beautiful canzone, he says he possesses a copy of it in the handwriting of the time, inscribed to a young lady of the SAN VITALE whose name was OLYMPIA. This fact he considers fatal to the story of the three LEONORAS, and, in stating it, apparently imagined he had disposed of the question. The proof, however, is by no means con- clusive. His copy is dated in 1577; the canzone was certainly written before or during the year 1576.
The controversy is here presented in which Mr. Wilde embarks
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as champion to establish the fact, by learned and patient investi- gation, which of the three ladies Tasso preferred in his song :-
"Three high-born dames it was my lot to see, Not all alike in beauty, yet so fair, And so akin in act, and look, and air, That Nature seem'd to say, 'SISTERS ARE WE !'
I praised them all,-but one of all the three So charm'd me, that I loved her, and became Her bard, and sung my passion and her name
Till to the stars they soared past rivalry.
Her only I adored ; and if my gaze Was turn'd elsewhere, it was but to admire
Of her high beauty some far-scatter'd rays, And worship her in idols,-fond desire,
False incense hid; yet I repent my praise, As rank idolatry 'gainst LOVE's true fire."
The mind of the reader could be refreshed by still more copious extracts, showing the industry of Mr. Wilde in the examination of the best libraries and the largest collections of manuscripts in Italy, in order to render the issue still more complex which of the fair rivals was entitled to the honor of Tasso's devotion. After all, nothing is settled,-nothing positive but "Conjectures," nothing evident but "Researches," of which the title-page gives honest warning. Still, the uncertainty is no discredit to Mr. Wilde. He made the best of his scattered materials. The dust of two centuries and a half had gathered on the memorials with which Tasso was connected. He was born at Sorrento, March 11, 1544, and died in the monastery of St. Onfrio, April 25, 1595, on the very day which had been previously selected and prepared in great pomp for his coronation with laurel conferred by the Pope and voted by the world of letters as a reward of his transcendent genius. Death at such a moment was but a transition from glory to glory, if the idea may be indulged that the spiritual life of the poet was equal to the graces of his intellect. A character thus moulded may justly claim the homage of mankind, not only for its splendor, but for the sufferings which hallowed it. No rudeness or levity shall desecrate the shrine at which so many sons of genius have knelt. If no other reason could inspire tenderness, no other thought awaken sympathy, the conviction that RICHARD HENRY WILDE loved the memory of Tasso, and expressed his reverence in strains of impassioned purity, would be sufficient to forbear criti- cism on the merits of this Georgia-Italian compound of poetic rap- tures. The commentator has adorned the text beyond its capacity, and has eclipsed all his predecessors in delicate arguments to render Tasso a breathing verity in the souls of men. With pro-
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found respect for both, let the eulogy be declared that TASSO and WILDE were of kindred tastes, and should exist together on the roll of Fame.
Having thus attempted to poise his judgment fairly, and to award justice to the gifted man on whose tomb he now leans with sad and deferential feelings, the author presumes to announce an opinion which he is not conscious of borrowing; and he has, there- fore, to answer for its temerity.
The mission to which Mr. Wilde addressed his faculties and gave years of toil in Europe was not in harmony with his relative duties to mankind and with that position which his eminent talents and finished cultivation had secured from the world. He was qualified for extensive practical usefulness as a jurist, scholar, and statesman. That he should retire for a short period from his own country for relaxation amid the cities, establishments, and relics of the Old World was not surprising or extraordinary. All men of liberal views would do the same, other considerations per- mitting. But to remain seven years, with no engagements more solid than glancing over antiquated documents from which no prin- ciples or systems could be educed beneficial to mankind, was a sacrifice of himself much regretted by many of his partial country- men. It was, indeed, a transition from the open air, where moun- tain and lake and forest and river and rich harvests and fragrant verdure were ever lending variety to the landscape and a sweet moral tone to the imagination,-it was a step from these purifying elements of nature to the gilded halls of luxury, where exclusive- ness and mock civilities prevailed, and where music and laughter and wine and much frivolous chat constituted the round of enjoy- ments with which he was more or less identified. True, there was poetry in all this,-too much of it. There was delight to the senses, but mildew to the heart. The voluptuary, the man of fashion, the idler, were gratified; but the moral hero, the public benefactor, the man of enterprise, and the scholar of a just ambi- tion, desirous to leave a record of popular utility, would turn with generous self-denial from such enchantments.
No reproach on the memory of Mr. Wilde is intended by this picture. Tasso, Byron, and other men of sublime gifts yielded to the attraction. The error, if any, was sanctified by the rare com- panionship. We know that genius has moods of its own, rarely prudent, and ever prone to extremes. But that a dozen volumes or more should be written by the biographers of a poet, mostly filled with speculations on the good fortune of one of " three high-
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born dames" to be the ideal of his muse, is an expenditure of time and abilities utterly disproportioned to the intrinsic value of the subject. The task, with whatever success performed by Mr. Wilde, was below the merit which should have sustained itself in a better field,-at the forum, in the walks of political economy, in com- merce, in constitutional law, or in the analysis of government, all of which admitted the classic beauties of style. The love of Tasso is childish, his madness excites sympathy, and his imprisonment raises a question whether it was caused by the rage of a tyrant or the pity of a friend. The final consequence is logically deduced. There have been examples besides that of Tasso where love induced madness, and a prison was the remedy, the preservation of the individual; yet who ever deemed the catastrophe of such vital concern as to devote several of the best years of a truly emi- nent life to the investigation, to the sentimental details, to the fantasies of insanity, and that, too, not for the benefit of medical jurisprudence ?
The attack having been made, the vindication follows by the same hand,-a cheerful defence, a grateful reply to seeming ob- jections. In the case of Mr. Wilde there was much to extenuate, if not wholly justify, his self-expatriation and the indulgence of his literary taste in a channel whose crystal current bore him imperceptibly into "dream-land," where poetic natures love to dwell amid creations of their own, society of their own forming, and delights peculiar to themselves. He had known hardship in his youth ; his moral courage and intellectual superiority had
opened a path to renown. He had figured in Congress as an acknowledged luminary, without a rival in elegance of style and felicity of imagination under the control of a sound, dignified judgment. The press had teemed with compliments to his genius at home and abroad. His society was courted in the leading cir- cles of fashion and intelligence, and he was the most finished gen- tleman in them all. He was courtly in address, yet engaging and familiar with his friends. After the defeat of the ticket for Con- gress on which he was nominated in 1834, his spirit chafed under a sense of injustice. He was too conspicuous in public estimation to be thus neglected at the ballot-box without becoming an object of remark in contrast with his former triumphs. For the first time he realized desertion,-loneliness. His sensitive mind turned upon itself for support.
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