MEMOIR

OF

WILLIAM MAGINN, LL. D.

BY DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE.

Ir was my original intention to preface this conclusion of the late Dr. Maginn's Miscellanies, with the biographical notice which I wrote for, and prefixed to, the fifth volume of the NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ that remarkable and brilliant series of papers which, for many years, helped to make Blackwood's Magazine the leading periodical of Britain. It has been suggested, however, by those to whose opinion I have pleasure in submitting, that the additional materials which have accumulated in my hands since that sketch was written, are of sufficient interest and importance to justify the presentation of a more extended Memoir, in which I can not only make use of the labors of previous writers, but avail myself of information recently supplied to myself by several of Dr. Maginn's oldest and most familiar friends.

The groundwork of every Memoir of Dr. Maginn must necessarily be, up to the present time, that highly-interesting notice, accompanying his portrait in the Dublin University Magazine, for January, 1844. The author was Edmund Kenealy, now a barrister in London, a native of Cork, like Maginn himself—like him, too, a scholar and a poetwhose friendship cheered the close of his chequered life, whose humanity smoothed the pillow of the dying man of genius-whose considerate affection honored his memory in death as it had soothed his sufferings in the sorrow and sickness of closing life. That biography, evidently written with intimate knowledge of the departed, and abounding in facts gathered from his own lips, is equally creditable to the heart and head of its gifted writer. This is the place, perhaps, where I have to acknowledge additional information, respecting Maginn and his writings, voluntarily supplied to me by Mr. Kenealy, and to ex

press my regret that the duty of making this collection of the Miscellanies was not executed by that eminently well-qualified gentlemanthe demands of his profession drew too largely upon his time to permit his performing it, even if it were advisable to reproduce in England articles many of which are so personally or politically severe and sarcastic upon living men. He wrote, when supplying me with a list of the magazine articles actually avowed by Maginn, to say: “You have a glorious opportunity to edit a rare work, where you have no fear of libel laws before your eyes. Maginn's best things can never be republished here, until all his victims have passed from the scene."

Another biography of Dr. Maginn appeared in the Irish Quarterly Review, for September, 1852, written with great kindliness of feeling, considerable fulness of detail, admirable candor, and large personal knowledge, friendship, and appreciation. It was anticipated that Professor Wilson would have delighted to pay a final tribute to his old friend and collaborateur in Blackwood; indeed it was reported that he was engaged in such a memorial of friendly regard - however, the hope was not realized, and Christopher North permitted Sir Morgan O'Doherty to go to his long home, without any regretful mention, in a periodical which owed so much to the fecundity of his early manhood, the effervescence of his wit, the geniality of his humor, and the profundity of his learning.

The life of Dr. Maginn, though not marked by remarkable circumstances, cannot be considered as uneventful. It is doubtful whether, marked by Thought rather than Action as his course was, he had not lived as much, in that short period, as many occupying a prominent position in public, have done in twice the space of time. One of his biographers observes: "It has been said that the lives of literary men in England are, in general, devoid of incidents either interesting or exciting, and yet, in all the long catalogue of human joys and sorrows, of combats against the world, and of triumphs over difficulties almost insurmountable, of instances where the indomitable will has raised its possessor to the enjoyment of every object sought, and to the full fruition of every hope long cherished, where can such glorious examples be found as in the pages of literary biography? It is true that many a noble intellect has been shattered in the pursuit of literary fame; it is true that ghastly forms of martyred genius flit across the scene, and that, from the lowest depths of the deep hearts of Poets, the cry of gnawing hunger, and the wail of helpless, hopeless sorrow arises, with an anguish more frightful than that of Philoctetes, more awful than that of Lear. Truly, literature has had its martyrs." After referring to the misery of Nash, Churchyard, and Stowe - to the sad fate of

to the

Chatterton to the charities of Goldsmith, amid his own needhumanity of Johnson, proved in his deepest poverty-to the reckless career of Byron-the lettered musings of Wordsworth - the work and toil of Southey- he adds, "read the noble life of Scott, that record of genius, of manhood, and of goodness, and learn the interest that marks every day in the life of a literary man. It is not by reason alone of its fascinating details, that literary biography should be prized and estimated. The author, more than any other man, rises by his own merits or sinks through his own faults. Even in the days when the lot of the man of genius was, but too often

666

Toil, envy, want, the Patron, and the jail,'

the want and the jail were frequently attributable to his own misconduct; but, in this our age, when from literature have sprung the glories of the Church, the Bench, the Senate, and the Bar, genius need no longer dress in rags, or live in poverty-its Patron is the Public — and for him who is entering on the journey of life, the best guide will be the biography of some literary man of the time. He will there discover how, by honorable conduct, and by persevering application, all the honors of the kingdom can be obtained- and how, on the other hand, the brightest gifts of genius are useless, if desecrated by idleness, or by misapplication."

With equal truth and force, does the writer add (particularly referring to Dr. Maginn): "In all the sad instances of misapplied genius amongst the literary men of the nineteenth century, the subject of this memoir is the most glaring and the most pitiable. • When the funeral pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should comment upon their ashes.' So writes Sir Thomas Brown, and as we look back through the life of William Maginn, we wish that he had borne in mind this quaint thought of the old moralist, and had felt with him, that we must all make provision for our names,' because, 'to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration.' Had Maginn thought thus he would have saved himself many a heart-sickening pang, many a weary hour of depression, and of penitence for days cast away, in which he had been prodigal of that which would have been to him wealth, honor, fame—his glowing, brilliant, glorious genius. True it is, that in the life of William Maginn, there was no disgrace: the Cork schoolmaster was of that class in which Johnson places Milton, men whom no employment can dishonor, no occupation degrade. But in the morning of life the gay thoughtlessness of his heart bore him, smiling, through many a day of sorrow, and

gay and thoughtless he continued to the end of his too brief existence. • Never making provision for his name,' he is now one of those mindwrecks who have drifted from this bank and shoal of time,' into the wide, dark ocean of the world's forgetfulness—his brilliant life-labors uncollected, and but in part known, scattered through the pages of periodical publications, whilst his grave is neglected, unmarked, and nameless."*

It is not as a mere literary performance, executed with the hope of affording information or entertainment, for a short time, that I now record "the short and simple annals" of William Maginn's life. There is as deep a moral in it as can be found in many a seriousthoughted homily, and my labor will not have been executed in vain, if it show to living aspirants for literary distinction that Genius itself is little worth, in that exciting struggle, unless it be accompanied and supported by solidity of character and discretion of conduct. Of Dr. Maginn it may be said, as of too many others, that he had

Talents, like water in the desert wasted,

because he did not resolutely resist the temptations to self-indulgence which Society, ever eager for companionship with the gifted and the distinguished, threw in his path. In his case they led to broken fortunes, ruined health, and an early grave. The touching lesson which his life and death can teach will not be wholly thrown away, I hope, because it has so weak an exponent as myself.

With these remarks, perhaps not wholly uncalled for, I proceed to my task.

WILLIAM MAGINN, born at Cork, on November 11, 1794, was the eldest son of an eminent classical scholar, who for many years kept an academy in Marlborough street in that city. This school was held in high estimation and liberally patronized by the leading families of the county and its capital. The elder Maginn having noticed that his son, at a very early age, exhibited unusual abilities, learning everything as if by intuition, cultivated them so carefully and successfully that, before he had completed his tenth year, William Maginn was sufficiently advanced to enter Trinity College, Dublin. The entrance examination there is nearly as difficult, after four years' study, as that on which students obtain their degrees at the Scotch and many other universities. Maginn's answering was so good, on this examination, that (the rank being invariably given according to merit) he was "placed" among Dr. Maginn.

* Irish Quarterly Review, vol. ii. pp. 593–597. Article

the first ten, out of more than a hundred competitors, two thirds of whom were double his own age.

The distinction which he thus obtained, at the commencement of his university career, he preserved to its close. He passed through all his classes with credit, obtained several prizes, and appeared to learn every thing without an effort. He was the reputed author of a poem, entitled "Eneas Eunuchus," which caused no little excitement, by the eccentricity of its fancy, and the boldness of its thoughts. General opinion marked him out, thus early, as a person likely to distinguish himself in after-life. He graduated before he was fourteen. No one (since the brilliant career of Cardinal Wolsey, at Oxford) better merited the appellation of "The Boy-Bachelor." His college tutor, Dr. Kyle, then a fellow and afterward Provost of the University,* was much attached to him, considering him the head of his class, and repeatedly declared in after years, that Maginn, while in his teens, had more literary and general knowledge than most men of mature age whom he had ever met. He survived his eminent pupil several years.

The erudite and eccentric Dr. Barrett (subsequently amberalized by O'Doherty in Blackwood's Magazine†) was Professor of Hebrew, on Erasmus Smith's foundation, in Trinity College, at the time of Maginn's matriculation there. The lad entered, as has already been related, with great distinction, and his extremely juvenile appearance excited surprise and interest. He wore a short jacket, with large linen collar and frill turned over, and a small leather cap. He was only ten years old, and even more childlike in appearance than years. The day after his entrance, as he was crossing the College-yard, in a student's gown which had received several tucks to reduce it to a wearable length, he met Dr. Barrett, who, supposing that somebody had thus dressed up a schoolboy in order to raise a laugh, angrily accosted him, in his usual and peculiar mode of interrogation, with "D'ye see me now ?‡ Who

* In 1830, on the death of Dr. St. Lawrence, Dr. Samuel Kyle was made Bishop of Cork and Ross, at the head of which See he remained until his death in 1848. It was his friendship which provided Maginn's two brothers, John and Charles, with church-preferment.

See the "Luctus on the Death of Sir Daniel Donnelly" (Odoherty Papers, vol. ii. p. 69) for a Hebrew Dirge on the Bruiser, by Barrett, and (the same vol. pp. 327-342) for "Letters from the Dead to the Living," for Barrettiana and Cattiana.

Barrett so invariably commenced with this question, that, when examining for a Fellowship, where no language but Latin is used, he classically translated his pet phrase into "Videsneme nunc ?"