Chapter xxiv.
_Julian recounts what happened to him while he was a poet._
"Rome was now the seat of my nativity, where I was born of a family moreremarkable for honour than riches. I was intended for the church, andhad a pretty good education; but my father dying while I was young, andleaving me nothing, for he had wasted his whole patrimony, I was forcedto enter myself in the order of mendicants.
"When I was at school I had a knack of rhiming, which I unhappilymistook for genius, and indulged to my cost; for my verses drew on meonly ridicule, and I was in contempt called the poet.
"This humour pursued me through my life. My first composition after Ileft school was a panegyric on pope Alexander IV., who then pretended aproject of dethroning the king of Sicily. On this subject I composed apoem of about fifteen thousand lines, which with much difficulty I gotto be presented to his holiness, of whom I expected great preferment asmy reward; but I was cruelly disappointed: for when I had waited a year,without hearing any of the commendations I had flattered myself withreceiving, and being now able to contain no longer, I applied to aJesuit who was my relation, and had the pope's ear, to know what hisholiness's opinion was of my work: he coldly answered me that he was atthat time busied in concerns of too much importance to attend thereading of poems.
"However dissatisfied I might be, and really was, with this reception,and however angry I was with the pope, for whose understanding Ientertained an immoderate contempt, I was not yet discouraged from asecond attempt. Accordingly, I soon after produced another work,entitled, The Trojan Horse. This was an allegorical work, in which thechurch was introduced into the world in the same manner as that machinehad been into Troy. The priests were the soldiers in its belly, and theheathen superstition the city to be destroyed by them. This poem waswritten in Latin. I remember some of the lines:--
Mundanos scandit fatalis machina muros, Farta sacerdotum turmis: exinde per alvum Visi exire omnes, magno cum murmure olentes. Non aliter quam cum humanis furibundus ab antris It sonus et nares simul aura invadit hiantes. Mille scatent et mille alii; trepidare timore Ethnica gens coepit: falsi per inane volantes Effugere Dei--Desertaque templa relinquunt. Jam magnum crepitavit equus, mox orbis et alti Ingemuere poli: tunc tu pater, ultimus omnium Maxime Alexander, ventrem maturus equinum Deseris, heu proles meliori digne parente."
I believe Julian, had I not stopt him, would have gone through the wholepoem (for, as I observed in most of the characters he related, theaffections he had enjoyed while he personated them on earth still madesome impression on him); but I begged him to omit the sequel of thepoem, and proceed with his history. He then recollected himself, and,smiling at the observation which by intuition he perceived I had made,continued his narration as follows:--
"I confess to you," says he, "that the delight in repeating our ownworks is so predominant in a poet, that I find nothing can totally rootit out of the soul. Happy would it be for those persons if their hearerscould be delighted in the same manner: but alas! hence that _ingenssolitudo_ complained of by Horace: for the vanity of mankind is so muchgreedier and more general than their avarice, that no beggar is so illreceived by them as he who solicits their praise.
"This I sufficiently experienced in the character of a poet; for mycompany was shunned (I believe on this account chiefly) by my wholehouse: nay, there were few who would submit to hearing me read mypoetry, even at the price of sharing in my provisions. The only personwho gave me audience was a brother poet; he indeed fed me withcommendation very liberally: but, as I was forced to hear and commend inmy turn, I perhaps bought his attention dear enough.
"Well, sir, if my expectations of the reward I hoped from my first poemhad baulked me, I had now still greater reason to complain; for,instead of being preferred or commended for the second, I was enjoined avery severe penance by my superior, for ludicrously comparing the popeto a f--t. My poetry was now the jest of every company, except some fewwho spoke of it with detestation; and I found that, instead ofrecommending me to preferment, it had effectually barred me from allprobability of attaining it.
"These discouragements had now induced me to lay down my pen and writeno more. But, as Juvenal says,
--Si discedas, Laqueo tenet ambitiosi Consuetudo mali.
I was an example of the truth of this assertion, for I soon betookmyself again to my muse. Indeed, a poet hath the same happiness with aman who is dotingly fond of an ugly woman. The one enjoys his muse, andthe other his mistress, with a pleasure very little abated by the esteemof the world, and only undervalues their taste for not correspondingwith his own.
"It is unnecessary to mention any more of my poems; they had all thesame fate; and though in reality some of my latter pieces deserved (Imay now speak it without the imputation of vanity) a better success, asI had the character of a bad writer, I found it impossible ever toobtain the reputation of a good one. Had I possessed the merit of HomerI could have hoped for no applause; since it must have been a profoundsecret; for no one would now read a syllable of my writings.
"The poets of my age were, as I believe you know, not very famous.However, there was one of some credit at that time, though I have theconsolation to know his works are all perished long ago. The malice,envy, and hatred I bore this man are inconceivable to any but an author,and an unsuccessful one; I never could bear to hear him well spoken of,and writ anonymous satires against him, though I had receivedobligations from him; indeed I believe it would have been an absoluteimpossibility for him at any rate to have made me sincerely his friend.
"I have heard an observation which was made by some one of later days,that there are no worse men than bad authors. A remark of the same kindhath been made on ugly women, and the truth of both stands on one andthe same reason, viz., that they are both tainted with that cursed anddetestable vice of envy; which, as it is the greatest torment to themind it inhabits, so is it capable of introducing into it a totalcorruption, and of inspiring it to the commission of the most horridcrimes imaginable.
"My life was but short; for I soon pined myself to death with the vice Ijust now mentioned. Minos told me I was infinitely too bad for Elysium;and as for the other place, the devil had sworn he would never entertaina poet for Orpheus's sake: so I was forced to return again to the placefrom whence I came."