It is not often that people own up to their failures! In his Literary Life (Volume I) John Galt writes of his work Ouranoulogos -
“But although the work was brought out at less than a fourth of the price at which it should have been published, and was greatly admired by everyone who saw it, it fell literally still-born from the press; A more complete failure, indeed, I never heard of.”
The Ouranoulogos or The Celestial Volume, was a work written by John Galt in 1833 and published by Cadel in London and Blackwood in Edinburgh. As the advertisement for the work shows, Ouranoulogos was meant to be the first of twelve instalments and Galt was fortunate to have the artist John Martin, provide an illustration for the first volume.
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| Ouranoulogos by John Martin |
In a letter to William Blackwood written in March 1833 Galt writes –
“I hear you are to be in town about the end of the month but in the mean time I write to say that I have seen Mr Cadell respecting a joint publication projected by me and Mr Martin (Balshazzar) and I propose to him to be my publisher with you; to which he readily acceded and I write this in consequence.”
Galt, continues -
John Martin, artist
“The
work is to be in royal quatro and to consist of a picture by Martin and an
illustrative tale by me with an extract from the original work that has
suggested it. It is to be executed in
the very first style that the arts allow here and to come out in numbers. We expect it will form an era in the arts as
the drawing and engraving are to be executed simultaneously and the printing to
be as elegant as can be produced.”
John Martin (1789-1854) was an English painter, engraver and illustrator known for his large, dramatic works, many of biblical scenes. His works became very popular especially “Belshazzar’s Feast” of 1820 to which John Galt alludes in his letter to Blackwood. John Martin illustrated scenes from many novels and was also an engineer and inventor. The illustration for Ouranoulogos was later expanded by Martin into a work now owned by the Royal Collection Trust entitled The Eve of the Deluge.
"Eve of the Deluge" by John Martin - source
Galt explains his lofty idea for Ouranoulogos in Literary Life -
“I really designed, and in part executed, a solemn abstract work of the Miltonic kind, a natural effect, as I believe it to be, of the comparative solitude to which I was consigned. I allude to the Ouranoulogos, of which one number was published, illustrated with a picture, a rare and recently invented species of engraving, in which Mr Martin displayed all his singular power.”
Ouranoulogos is the story of the Biblical flood and Noah's Ark -
"Forty days and forty nights the rain fell as a curtain – the
hills were drowned, the windows of Heaven were opened, and the angels
contemplated the retiring Austerity of the Lord. All around was the loneliness of death, and
as the rimless vast of the premundane." (John Galt, Ouranoulogos)
Galt also quotes from the work by Arthur Golding (1536-1606) the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses of 1603 -
“Th’ outrageous swelling of the seaThe lesser hillocks drown;Unwounted waves on highest topsOf mountains did rebound. The greatest part of men were drownde;And such as scapt the flood,Forlorne with fasting overlong,Did die for want of food.”
In 1833 John Galt had become increasingly unwell and short of money. At the time, he and his wife, Elizabeth were living at Barn Cottage, Old Brompton in London. While admitting Ouranoulogos was a failure, he reasoned that -
“A more complete failure, indeed, I never heard of; and it can only be accounted for by supposing, astrologically, that the disaster which withered my limbs, extended to my fortunes. As yet, to be sure, I am not very sensible that it has affected my head, but it will do so, no doubt, by and by.”
Galt ends this rather sombre chain of thought with the words –
“The hours that are rung on a doctor’s
bottle, are not so salutary as those which are chimed by the village clock.” (Literary Life Volume I.)
