Symonds

“ Symonds, to whom I repeated it, remarked at once, a man who was thus respected by both Carlyle and Landor must have had more in him than we can trace. So I feel with true humility.
It was to save my brain that Symonds proposed reviewing. He and, it appears, Leslie Stephen fear a little some eclipse; I am not quite without sharing the fear. I know my own languor as no one else does; it is a dead down-draught, a heavy fardel. Yet if I could shake off the wolverine aforesaid, and his fangs are lighter, though perhaps I feel them more, I believe I could be myself again a while. ”

“ As an original poet Symonds belongs to the class described by Johnson as extorting more praise than they are capable of affording pleasure. It is impossible not to admire the skill and science of his versification and the richness of his phraseology; but everything seems studied, nothing spontaneous; there is no sufficient glow of inspiration to fuse science and study into passion, and the perpetual glitter of fine words and ambitious thoughts becomes wearisome. ”

“ That was what Symonds had meant by his ironical allusions to my conduct in the witness-box. In my present state of mind, with my muddled head, and stumbling tongue, an expert heckler might goad me into saying anything—into hanging her with the words out of my own mouth.
I had a wild notion of flying myself, so that there might be no risk of doing her an injury by my inability to hold my own in a tongue-match with the lawyers. ”

“ There are two men in Symonds whom it is hard to reconcile. His friends and intimates unanimously describe him as one endowed with an ardour and energy amounting to impetuosity, and their testimony is fully borne out by what is known of his taste for mountain-climbing and bodily exercise, his quick decision in trying circumstances, his ability in managing the affairs of the community to which he devoted himself, and the amount and facility of his literary productions. ”

“ Symonds perceived that in his manner, to say the least, there was something curious. As he looked at me I endeavoured to give him the assurance which I saw that he required.
“It is Mr. Edwin Lawrence, you may safely take my word for it. The lady can confirm what I say.”
Which the lady did upon the instant. The inspector was still, plainly, in a state of uncertainty; which, under the circumstances, was scarcely strange.
“I don’t know if this is a trick which you have got up between you, and which you think you can play off on me; but, anyhow, who do you say the dead man is?” ”

“ Symonds is like a Tait to me; eternal interest in the same topics, eternal cross-causewaying of special knowledge. That makes hours to fly.' And a little later he wrote: 'Beyond its splendid climate, Davos has but one advantage—the neighbourhood of J.A. Symonds. I dare say you know his work, but the man is far more interesting.'" (Balfour's Life of Stevenson, I, 214.) When Symonds first read the essay Talk and Talkers, he pretended to be angry, and said, "Louis Stevenson, what do you mean by describing me as a moonlight serenader?" ”

“ This kinship with another art did not escape so acute a critic as Symonds as a characteristic of Tasso's style. But the kinship on another side with the art of painting is equally close; a thousand pictures rise before us as we follow the perfect melody of the irregular lyric measures. ”

“ Symonds was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1752. In 1753 he was elected a fellow of Peterhouse, and he proceeded M.A. in 1754. In 1771 he was appointed professor of modern history on the death of Thomas Gray, the poet, and in the following year he was created LL.D. by royal mandate and migrated to Trinity College. He died, unmarried, on 18 Feb. ”

“ A chastened taste cannot but be offended by the drollery and burlesque which, like a true Neapolitan, Bruno blends with daring speculation and serious reflection, as well as by his gaudy rhetoric and exaggerated euphuism; yet Symonds is right in observing that "when the real divine œstrum descends upon him the thought is simple, the diction direct; the attitude of mind and the turn of expression are singularly living, surprisingly modern." ”

“ Symonds’ estimate of Jonson’s genius, it is in many points quite excellent. He ranks him with the giants rather than with the gods, with those who compel our admiration by their untiring energy and huge strength of intellectual muscle, not with those ‘who share the divine gifts of creative imagination and inevitable instinct.’ Here he is right. ”

“ It tells how much Leaves of Grass, and especially the Calamus section, had helped the writer. "What the love of man for man has been in the past," Symonds wrote, "I think I know. What it is here now, I know also—alas! What you say it can and should be I dimly discern in your Poems. ”

“ Mr. Symonds was received as a friend at St. Ives, and elected into the Corporation. But in the course of a few years a violent struggle arose respecting the election of a Recorder, when Mr. Symonds most prudently considering that nothing further was likely to be obtained from those who had already given him a living, sold himself to the opposite party, carried the election for them by his casting vote, and received the living of St. Earth. ”

“ Approaching silently in the long grass, Jack Symonds peered curiously through the interstices of the jungle-like mass of thorn. There was Cummles, the renegade Cree, holding the floor, as usual; his fellows were asking him questions, to which he was replying confidently.
"We'll reel off as many copies of the notice as we'll want," he was saying. "The Crees will all fall for the wheeze, and everything should go well, with ordinary luck." ”

“ Outwardly he was cool and calm; but I, who had some knowledge of the man, perceived that he was making a strenuous effort to retain the mastery of himself in face of some most unusual emotion. He spoke with an exaggeration of his usual deliberative manner.
"You are aware, Mr. Symonds, that I am not a likely person to interfere with the police in the execution of their duty; but it happens, in this case, that I am acquainted with this young lady, and am sure that she has had no more to do with this crime than"—he paused, he drew in his lips, as if to moisten them—"I have. ”

“ We may remember, in fact, that Madam Symonds was a contemporary—across-seas—of Madam Pepys, and wore the same garments; only she apparently had richer and more varied garments than did that beautiful young woman whose husband was in the immediate employ of the king.
Arthur Abbott was the agent in Boston through whom this London finery and flummery was delivered to Madam Symonds in safety; and it is an amusing side-light upon social life in the colony to know that in 1675 Abbott’s wife was “presented before the court” for wearing a silk hood above her station, and her husband paid the fine. ”

“ John Symonds, son to him whose wife forfeited succession to her brother, Mr Millington's fortune, because both men were sturdily obstinate in the matter of political creed, was, though a layman, great at extempore prayer and sermon-making. When any young man came a-wooing to one of his bonnie daughters, the father would take the suitor to an inner sanctum, there to be tested as to his ability to get through the like devotional exercises. ”

“ The most important changes introduced by Symonds, as surveyor of the navy, lay in giving his ships greater beam and a more wedge-shaped bottom, thus obtaining greater speed and stability, and, by requiring less ballast, increasing the stowage and permitting heavier armaments. ”

“ While not an ambitious story, nor a labored character novel, it is thoroughly enjoyable as light reading. The characters are sketched vigorously, the movement swift, and the style easy and natural. G. W. Dillingham & Company, New York 11.50.
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS, compiled and edited by William Winter, and privately printed for Joseph W, Symonds, represents a labor of love, rescuing from obscurity a literary reputation, not at any time extensive, though within a limited circle unquestionably brilliant at Mr, Symonds* death forty-six years ago. ”

“ Poets take their final rank by matter and not by form. Though Symonds mentions slurringly a great poet like Baudelaire, still the following lines should be carefully pondered by many of our versifiers: "The carving of cherry-stones in verse, the turning of triolets and rondeaux, the seeking after sound and color without heed for sense, is all foredoomed to final failure." Poetry appeals to the imaginative reason, and must embody thought and emotion. As Symonds remarks, Pater's discrimination between these two is fanciful. ”

“ Symonds is essentially rhetorical. When, for instance, he tells us that ‘Jonson made masks,’ while ‘Dekker and Heywood created souls,’ we feel that he is asking us to accept a crude judgment for the sake of a smart antithesis. ”

“ It is, indeed, in passages and extracts that Symonds appears at his best. Rich in description, full of “purple patches,” his work has not that harmony and unity that are essential to the conduct of philosophical argument. He saw the part more clearly than the whole; but his view, if partial, is always vivid and concentrated. His translations are among the finest in the language; here his subject was found for him, and he was able to lavish on it the wealth of colour and quick sympathy which were his characteristics. He was a lover of beauty, a poet and a philosopher ”

“ For the king, it will make hero-worshippers, and, for the biographer, admirers.
The best personality portrait with which I am familiar is that of John Addington Symonds, sketched and painted by himself and finished by his friend Horatio F. Brown. It is a model psychological biography which concerns itself particularly with the nature and display of the temperament of a man who was a strange mixture of mysticism and practicality, scepticism and credulity, piety and sensuousness, emotion and intellect ”

“ The innovations of Symonds evoked much opposition, and in 1846 the admiralty decided on the appointment of a committee of reference to sit in judgment on the surveyor's work and alter or modify it at discretion. Symonds found such a system impracticable, and in October 1847 he retired with a pension of 500l. a year in addition to his half-pay as captain. On 1 May 1848 he was nominated a civil C.B. He was appointed naval aide-de-camp to the queen on 22 July 1853, and became a rear-admiral on the retired list in 1854. ”

“ Symonds was by no means so efficient a man in these cases as the Willises, against whom the monarch had taken a rooted antipathy. In the King’s first illness, as Willis, the clergyman, once entered the room to visit the patient, the latter asked him if he, a clergyman, was not ashamed of himself for exercising such a profession. ”

“ No seed shall perish which the soul hath sown.
“Sonnet, Versöhnung, a Belief,”—John Addington Symonds.
John Addington Symonds, a distinguished English critic and historian of literature, was born at Bristol, October 5, 1840, and died at Rome, April 19, 1893. He wrote: “Studies of the Greek Poets,” “Sketches in Italy and Greece,” “Introduction to the Study of Dante,” “Shakespeare’s Predecessors,” “Sketches and Studies in Italy,” and his greatest work: “The Renaissance in Italy.” ”

“ Ingram is different. They say he is much cleverer than Dr. Symonds; but I can't quite make him out. One does not feel at one's ease with him, somehow. I should think he could be sarcastic. Besides, he is a widower too. So, of course, I have to be careful. It is extraordinary, the number of widowers in this neighbourhood—and rather tiresome! I do think clergymen and doctors ought not to be unmarried, for the sake of other people. It makes things so uncomfortable."
Sybella, leant her cheek pensively on her hand. ”

“ On the abolition of the navy board in 1832 Symonds was appointed on 9 June surveyor of the navy, and held that office till 1847; during this time he built over two hundred ships, among them the Pique frigate, the Queen of 110 guns, the Albion of 90 guns, and the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, afterwards Osborne. ”

“ Preoccupied with the unique mystery of the individual soul—a sense of which was Christianity's gift to Christendom—he endeavored to portray that wherein a particular person is unique and singular. Acutely conscious also of his own individuality, instead of effacing it he made his work the vehicle and expression of that individuality. The history of Renaissance architecture, as Symonds has pointed out, is the history of a few eminent individuals, each one moulding and modifying the style in a manner peculiar to himself alone. ”

“ Miss Adair, Hume, and the constable still at my heels. We must have presented a spectacle which was not without its comic side as we went scurrying across the carpet. But what I saw as I looked into that bedchamber banished from my mind all thoughts of the incongruous; it must, for the time being, have paralysed the muscles of the body; or I do not think that I should have remained for even so long as I did a silent witness of that piteous scene.
One of the first things I realised was the presence in the room of Inspector Symonds. ”

“ His descriptive talent is especially remarkable, and his permanent reputation must mainly rest, apart from his translations, upon his ‘History of the Italian Renaissance.’ Symonds's book, a labour of love, is not vivified by genius. It is a series of picturesque sketches rather than a continuous work, and the diverse aspects of the Renaissance, presented separately, are never sufficiently harmonised in the writer's mind. ”

“ Two works from his pen, a volume of essays, In the Key of Blue, and a monograph on Walt Whitman, were published in the year of his death. His activity was unbroken to the last. In life Symonds was morbidly introspective, a Hamlet among modern men of letters, but with a capacity for action which Hamlet was denied. ”

“ Symonds would have been deprived of his inspectorship—for, of course, he would have been obstinate in his heresy; the world outside would have had an antecedent presumption that truth lay with the man who was making sacrifices for it, and that there was little to be said in the way of argument for what could not stand without the help of the law. ”