MARRIAGES OF MEN OF GENIUS. 



dicals with which I had to contend 

 when I began the Monthly Magazine 

 in 1795 ; but, till 1824, when I sold 

 that work, the average regular sale 

 did not exceed 3500 or 3750. 



THE FIRST MAGAZINE. 



The Gentleman's Magazine unac- 

 countably passes for the earliest pe- 

 riodical of that description ; while, 

 in fact, it was preceded nearly forty 



years by the Gentleman's Journal 

 of Motteux, a work much more 

 closely resembling our modern ma- 

 gazines, and from which Sylvanus 

 Urban borrowed part of his title, 

 and part of his motto ; while on the 

 first page of the first number of the 

 Gentleman's Magazine itself, it is 

 stated to contain " more than any 

 book of the kind and price." (Mr. 

 Watts, of the British Museum.) 



MAEEIAGES OF MEN OF GENIUS, 



Marriages of men of genius is 

 one of the strangest themes in the 

 history of literature. Goethe mar- 

 ried to become respectable; Nie- 

 buhr to please a mistress ; Churchill 

 because he was miserable; Napo- 

 leon to get a command ; Wilkes to 

 oblige his friends ; "Wycherly to 

 spite his relations. The author of 

 Salad for the Solitary, furnishes 

 the following piquant morceaux, 

 touching the marriage of two 

 French litterateurs of celebrity : 



" M. Balzac, the French novelist, 

 exhibits another example of eccen- 

 tricity in matrimonial affairs. Ac- 

 cording to a Parisian correspondent, 

 the arrival of this celebrated author 

 from Germany caused an immense 

 sensation in certain circles, owing 

 to the romantic circumstances con- 

 nected with his marriage. When 

 Balzac was at the zenith of his 

 , he was travelling in Switzer- 

 land, and had arrived at the inn 

 just at the very moment the Prince 

 and Princess Hanski were leaving 

 it. Balzac was ushered into the 

 room they had just vacated, and 

 was leaning from the window to 

 observe their departure, when his 

 attention was arrested by a soft 

 voice at his elbow, asking for a 

 book which had been left behind 

 upon the window-seat. The lady 

 was certainly fair, but appeared 

 doubly so in the eyes of the poor 

 author, when she intimated that 



the book she was in quest of was 

 the pocket edition of his own works, 

 adding that she never travelled 

 without it, and that without it she 

 could not exist ! She drew the vo- 

 lume from beneath his elbow, and 

 flew down stairs, obedient to the 

 screaming summons of her hus- 

 band a pursy old gentleman, who 

 was already seated in the carriage, 

 railing in a loud voice against dila- 

 tory habits of women in general 

 and his own spouse in particular ; 

 and the emblazoned vehicle drove 

 off, leaving the novelist in a state 

 of self-complacency the most envia- 

 ble to be conceived. This was the 

 only occasion upon which Balzac 

 and the Princess Hanski had met, 

 till his recent visit to Germany, 

 when he presented himself as her 

 accepted husband. During these 

 long intervening fifteen years, how- 

 ever, a literary correspondence was 

 steadily kept up between the par- 

 ties, till at length instead of a letter 

 containing literary strictures upon 

 his writings, a missive of another 

 kind having a still more directly 

 personal tendency, reach* d him 

 from the fair hand of the princess. 

 It contained the announcement of 

 the demise of her husband the 

 prince that he had bequeathed 

 to her his domains, and his great 

 wealth* and consequently, that she 

 felt bound to roqn'to liim in some 

 measure for his liberality, and lia-l 



