Though best known as the father of Benjamin Disraeli, a British prime minister and novelist, Isaac D'Israeli was a well-regarded author in his own right. His most popular work was a six-volume collection of essays and anecdotes titled Curiosities of Literature.
D'Israeli's damning review of Percival Stockdale's memoirs originally appeared in 13 pages of the May 1809 issue of The Quarterly Review. (Reverend Stockdale is remembered today for little else than his "Elegy on the Death of Dr. Johnson's Favourite Cat.") Here, in the final three paragraphs of that lengthy review, D'Israeli casts scorn on the "self-delusion" of a man who "is forgotten faster than he writes." The reviewer then closes with a prescient observation about the "epidemical rage for auto-biography" that he fears may soon break out.
Review of The Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Percival Stockdale
by Isaac D'Israeli*
Art. X. The Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Percival Stockdale, containing many interesting Anecdotes of the illustrious Men with whom he was connected. Written by himself. In 2 Vols. 8vo. pp. 462—481. London, Longman and Co. 1809
We must now dismiss Mr. Stockdale, and we are sorry that we cannot do it in better humour. His Memoirs are, perhaps, the most valuable part of his works--but this is not saying much. They contain some sensible observations, and not a few amusing anecdotes of his contemporaries, delivered in a style, frequently incorrect, indeed, but always sprightly and vivacious, and distinguished by a wildness of idea peculiar to himself. The author seems to have led rather a busy than an industrious life, and, in his desultory course, to have "flown over more occupations" than Autolycus. From his own statements, he appears to be of a most untoward nature: he scarcely mentions an acquaintance whose memory he does not insult; and he proves his "forgiving disposition" by the most splenetic attacks upon his relations, his benefactors, his masters, nay his dames, at the distance of threescore years! In all his disputes, and his Memoirs are full of them, he appears decidedly in the wrong; and in his contests with his spiritual superiors, outrageous and irreverent in the highest degree. He is not ashamed to avow that, in his examination for priest's orders, he was guilty of deliberate falsehood; infected, as he adds, "by the air of Lambeth." These aberrations we willingly attribute to a disordered imagination, rather than to a want of moral feeling--but Mr. Stockdales gives himself no concern about the matter: In every case, he appeals to some interior rule of right, which supersedes all written obligation, and easily convinces him that his worst actions are the effect of "disinterested, persevering, and sublime virtue!"--p. 227.
Much of the Misery of his life has arisen from a fatal error concerning his talents; his friends unfortunately mistook his animal spirits for genius, and, by directing them into the walk of poetry, bewildered him for ever. Though he never wrote a line beyond the powers of the bell-man, or the stone-cutter, though he confesses that all his verses have been received with negligence or contempt, yet the mediocrity, the absolute poverty of his genius, has not once occurred to him! While he is forgotten faster than he writes, he still dreams of "immortality," and confidently predicts that his ephemeral trifles, which passed unnoticed at their birth, will yet force attention, and descend with "glory" to futurity! It is enough to give wisdom to the foolish, and seriousness to the giddy, to contemplate the afflicting picture of self-delusion so warm in the colouring, and so true to the life! Mr. S. has embittered his days by a restless and tormenting thirst after waters, which nature placed far beyond his reach; and which those who have tasted of them, have seldom found to be the purest draught of human felicity!
We cannot close this article without observing that if the populace of writers become thus querulous after fame (to which they have no pretensions) we shall expect to see an epidemical rage for auto-biography break out, more wide in its influence and more pernicious in its tendency than the strange madness of the Abderites, so accurately described by Lucian. London, like Abdera, will be peopled solely by "men of genius"; and as the frosty season, the grand specific for such evils, is over, we tremble for the consequences. Symptoms of this dreadful malady (though somewhat less violent) have appeared amongst us before; and the case of one of the poor infected creatures (a maternal ancestor of Mr. S.) is thus technically described by honest Anthony Wood. "This Edward Waterhouse wrote a rhapsodical, indigested, and whimsical work; and not in the least to be taken into the hand of any sober scholar, unless it be to make him laugh, or wonder at the simplicity of some people. He was a cockbrained man, and afterwards took Orders."
* Published anonymously when it first appeared in The Quarterly Review (May 1809), this article has sometimes been attributed to Robert Southey, a regular contributor to the Tory journal. However, it now appears more likely that the reviewer was Isaac D'Israeli, with revisions provided by William Gifford, editor of The Quarterly Review.
