CENTURIES
FOUR CENTURIES OF
ENGLISH LETTERS
FOUR CENTURIES
OF
.
ENGLISH LETTEE8
SELECTIONS FROM
THE CORRESPOXDEXCE OF OXE HUNDRED AXD FIFTY WRITERS
FROM THE PERIOD OF THE PASTOX LETTERS
TO THE PRESEXT DAY
EDITED AND ARRAXGED BY
W. BAPTISTS SCOONES
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRAXKLIX SQUARE
1880
TO THE LADY
TO WHOSE EARNEST CO-OPERATION AND LITERARY TASTE
THE CHOICE OF MANY OF THE FINEST LETTERS
LN THIS COLLECTION IS DUE
THE PRESENT VOLUME IS INSCRIBED
WITH GRATEFUL REGARD AND AFFECTION
BY
HER HUSBAND
PEEFACE.
THE QUALITY of English epistolary correspondence is not
surpassed by that of any other European nation. In quantity
and variety France is our only successful rival.
So extensive and various are our own collections that he
who has not made a diligent hole-and-corner search for him
self can have no idea of their scope and character. In putting
forth this volume I need scarcely say that it is not, and can
not be, a complete treasury of English letters from the Lan
castrian to the Victorian era. I have simply endeavoured,
after a careful survey of nearly five hundred volumes, to
make my ' scanty plot of ground ' rich with some of the best
and brightest flowers of epistolary literature. The preserva
tion of an uniform measure of literary excellence, after the
manner of the Grolden Treasury of Poetry, was the object
which at first was attempted in the process of selection ;
but as the field of choice, thus limited, proved to be so very
narrow, and the authors so few, the addition of letters com
bining decided literary merit with features of special interest
seemed requisite to save the volume from overmuch severity
of tone.
Mr. Carlyle somewhere defines good letters as 'an un
counted handful of needles to be collected from an unmea-
viii PREFACE.
ftured continent of hay.' Given sufficient time, opportunity,
and inclination, and most men may explore this vast con
tinent ; but it is doubtful whether any single traveller would
be fortunate enough to pick up all the needles. I am sensible
of comparative failure after a long journey of research, and
I know that many a gem must still lurk in dark corners ; but
I must be content to depend on 4 the magic of patience,' and
to the kindly assistance of all who may take an interest in
this design, to bring many more fine specimens to light.
Most of the letters, it will be observed, are introduced by
a critical or explanatory head-note, worded in as condensed a
form as possible. As many readers may consider these notes
somewhat dogmatic, and even entirely superfluous, it is ne
cessary to state that their introduction, as a prominent and
essential feature of the plan, is prompted by the hope that
the volume as a whole may commend itself to the young and
unenlightened equally with their more cultured elders ; espe
cially as, I venture to hope, there will nowhere be found a
page to offend the most fastidious reader.
I am not aware of the existence of any comprehensive
and well-considered collection of English letters suitable
alike for the purposes of instruction and recreation, in spite
of the repeated pitiful complaints that the art of letter-
writing, so graceful an adornment of our older literature,
has dwindled down to the proverbial ' hurried scrawl ' of the
present hour. And yet the study of this art has not been
abandoned for want of, but in spite of, the urgent advocacy
of many English classical writers. John Locke, in his essay
on Education, remarks : ' When they understand how to write
English with due connexion, propriety, and order, and are
pretty well masters of a tolerable narrative style, they may
be advanced to writing of letters ; wherein they should not
be put upon any strains of wit or compliment, but taught to
express their own plain easy sense without any incoherence,
PREFACE. ix
confusion, or roughness. . . . The writing of letters has so
much to do in all the occurrences of human life, that no
gentleman can avoid showing himself in this kind of writing :
occasions will daily force him to make use of his pen, which,
besides the consequences that, in his affairs, his well- or ill-
managing of it often draws after it, always lays him open to
a severer examination of his breeding, sense, and abilities
than oral discourses, whose transient faults, dying for the
most part with the sound that gives them life, and so not
subject to a strict review, more easily escape observation and
censure.'
Political letters, except in very few instances, will be
conspicuous by their, absence. The chief obstacle to their
introduction here has been the want of sufficient interest in
any one or two such letters taken by themselves. The cor
respondence of politicians is a branch of literature in itself;
and though political letters are very often most interesting
in their bearing on questions of domestic and foreign policy
when read in a collective form, they will be found dull and
meaningless in fragments. A reference to such works as Stan
hope's 'Life of Pitt,' ' The Bedford Letters,' « The Correspon
dence of the Duchess of Marlborough,' Grimblot's ' Letters of
William III. and Louis XIV.,' ' The Correspondence of George
III. with Lord North,' or of William IV. with Earl Grey, and
many other such collections, will help to establish my assertion
on this point.
In regard to the arrangement of the different epistles, it
was decided, after careful consideration, not to publish them
in groups according to the subject-matter, but chronologically
according to the date of each author's birth. With these
few observations I will leave it to others to expatiate on
letter-writing as an art and on the varied beauties of our
own epistolary literature in particular ; and will conclude
with an expression of thanks to those gentlemen who have
1*
x PREFACE.
kindly granted me permission to reprint extracts from recently
published works.
To my friend Mr. Edmund Gosse I am very grateful
for the interest he has taken in the progress of this volume,
as well as for the benefit I have derived from his scholarly
criticism, and for several important contributions.
W. BAPTISTE SCOONES.
RIDGWAY PADDOCK, WIMBLEDON.
CONTENTS.
***
A.D.
1456-1509.
1471-1530.
1480-1535.
1489-1556.
1491-1547.
1507-1536.
1515-1568.
1502-1553.
1586.
1533-1603.
1541-1596.
The dates at the beginning of the lines are those of the birth and
death of each writer.
SECTION I. (1450-1600.)
PACK
Lomner, William, to John Past on . . . » , 3
Clere, Edmund, to John Paston .... .5
Paston, William, junior, to his brother, John Paston . G
Margaret, Countess of Oxford, to John Paston . . 7
Margaret of Anjou to Dame Jane Carew . . .7
Henry VII. to Sir Gilbert Talbot 8
Wolsey, Cardinal, to Dr. Stephen Gardiner. . .10
More, Sir Thomas, to his Wife 11
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, to
Henry VIII 13
Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn 15-16
Boleyn, Anne, to Cardinal Wolsey . . . .17
Ascham, Roger, to Bishop Gardiner 18
„ „ his wife, Margaret . . .19
Dudley, John, Duke of Northumberland, to the Earl
of Arundell 21
Sidney, Sir Henry, to his son, Philip Sidney . . . 23
Shrewsbury, Earl of, to Queen Elizabeth . ... 25
„ „ Lord Burghley . . . 25
Elizabeth, Queen, to the King of France, Henry IV. . . 27
„ „ Lady Norris upon the death of
her Son 27
„ „ James VI. of Scotland . . 28-30
Drake, Sir Francis, to Lord Walsingham . . .31
Rice, John ap, to Thomas Cromwell, Visitor-General of
Monasteries 32
Beerley, Richard, to Sir Thomas Cromwell, Visitor-
General of Monasteries . , 34
xii
CONTENTS.
A.D. PARK
1552-1618. Ralegh, Sir Walter, to Secretary Sir Robert Cecil . . 35
„ „ King James 1 37
1554-1601. Lyly, John, to Lord Burleigh . . . . . . 39
1561-1626. Bacon, Sir Francis, to Sir Edward Coke . .40
„ „ Sir Thomas Bodley . . . . 41
„ Lord Chancellor, to King James I. . . .42
1566-1625. James I. to his son, Prince Henry 43
„ „ Prince Charles and the Duke of Bucking
ham 45-46
1567-1601. Essex, the Earl of, to Queen Elizabeth . . . 47-51
1568-1639. Wotton, Sir Henry, to John Milton. . . . .52
1522-1571. Jewel, Dr., Bishop of Salisbury, to Peter Martyr . . 54
Cox, Dr., Bishop of Ely, to Rodolph Gualter . .56
1573-1631. Donne, Dr., to the Marquess of Buckingham . . . 59
LadyG 60
„ „ Sir Henry Goodere 61
„ „ the worthiest lady, Mrs. B. W . 62
„ „ Sir J. H 63
1574-1637. Jonson, Ben, to John Donne 63
1590-1632. Eliot, Sir John, to John Hampden .... 64-65
1591-1674. Herrick, Robert, to Sir William Herrick . . 67-68
1593-1683. Walton, Isaac, to John Aubrey 68
1594-1643. Hampden, John, to Sir John Eliot 70
1596-1666. Howel, James, to Sir J. S 71
„ „ his Father ...... 73
„ „ the Right Hon. Lady Scroop, Countess
of Sunderland 74
Sir S. C 76
„ the Right Hon. Lady E. D . . 79
1599-1658. Cromwell, Oliver, to the Hon. William Lenthall . . 79
Cromwell, Protector, to Cardinal M^azarin . . . . 82
„ „ Sir William Lockhart . 84-86
SECTION II. (1600-1700.)
1609-1669. J Henrietta Maria, Queen, to Charles I.
1600-1649. ( Charles I. to Queen Henrietta Maria
1605-1687. Waller, Edmund, to my Lady —
„ ,, Lady Lucy Sidney
1608-1641. Suckling, Sir John, to
1608-1674. Milton, John, to John Bradshaw
. 89
91-93
. 95
. 96
. 97
. 98
CONTENTS.
xiii
A.D. PAGE
1608-1674. Hyde, Sir Edward, to Lord Witherington . . . . 99
„ Edward, Earl of Clarendon, to Mr. Mordaunt . 101
„ Sir Henry Bennet. . 102
1613-1667. Taylor, Jeremy, to John Evelyn .... 103-105
1620-1706. Evelyn, John, to Abraham Cowley 107
Lady Sunderland 109
1620-1678. Marvell, Andrew, to William Kamsden . . . . Ill
„ „ the Mayor and Aldermen of Hull . 113
Penruddock's, Mrs., last letter to her Husband . . .114
„ Mr., last letter to his Wife . . .115
1624-1673. Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, to her Husband . .116
1621-1683. Sidney, Algernon, to his father, the Earl of Leicester .118
1627-1705. Ray, John, to Tankred Eobinson 120
1628-1699. Temple, Sir William, to Lord Lisle 122
„ „ Mr. Godolphin . . . . 124
„ „ Lord Halifax . . . .126
1636-1723. Russell, Lady Rachel, to King Charles II 128
„ „ Dr. Tillotson, Dean of St. Paul's. 129
1630-1694, Tillotson, Dr., to the Earl of Shrewsbury. . . . 13J
„ „ Lady Rachel Russell . . . . 133
1631-1700. Dryden, John, to John Dennis 136
„ „ Elizabeth Thomas 139
1632-1704. Locke, John, to Lady Calverley 141
1642-1727. Newton, Sir Isaac, to Richard Bentley 143
1717. Lloyd, Dr., Bishop of St. Asaph, to Dr. Fell, Bishop of
Oxford 144
Browne, Tom, to a Lady who smoked tobacco . . .146
1651-1685. Otway, Thomas, to Madam Barry 147
1658-1725. Plaxton, the Rev. George, to Ralph Thoresby . . . 148
1687. Gwynne, Nell, to Lawrence Hyde 149
1660-1753. Sloane, Sir Hans, to John Ray 150
1661-1731. De Foe, Daniel, to the Earl of Halifax . . . 151-153
1662-1742. Bentley, Dr. Richard, to John Evelyn 155
„ „ the Archbishop of Canterbury . 156
1667-1745. Swift, Dr., to the Earl of Halifax 159
„ Dean, to Archbishop King 161
„ „ the Earl of Oxford 164
„ „ Lord-Treasurer Oxford . . . . 166
„ „ Mrs. Moore 168
1667-1735. Arbuthnot, Dr., to Dean Swift . . . . . . 170
1671-1729. Steele, Richard, to Mary Scurlock . . • . .171
„ „ Lady Steele 172
„ „ the Earl cf Halifax . . . .173
1671-1757. Cibber, Colley, to Mrs. Pilkington 174
XIV
CONTENTS.
A.D. PAGK
1672-1719. Addison, Joseph, to Charles Montagu .... 176
„ „ Bishop Hough 178
„ „ Chamberlain Dashwocd . . . 180
„ ,, Mr. Secretary Craggs . . . . 181
1678-1752. Bolingbroke, Lord, to Dean Swift 182
„ Swift, Pope, and Gay . . . 184
„ „ and Alexander Pope, to Dean Swift 184
1684-1752. Berkeley, Dr., to Alexander Pope 187
1688-1744. Pope, Alexander, to Eichard Steele 189
Dean Swift ... . . 191
„ „ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . .192
1689-1761. Richardson, Samuel, to Aaron Hill 196
1690-1762. Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, to E. W. Montagu . . 198
„ Mrs. S. C . . 200
„ „ „ the Countess of Mar . i"02
„ „ „ her daughter, the Coun
tess of Bute . 207-214
1694-1773. Chesterfield, the Earl of, to his son, Philip Stanhope. 2] 5-222
Taylour, Charles, to the Publisher Rich . . . . 224
SECTION III. (1700-1800.)
1703-1791. Wesley, John, to a Friend . .
„ „ John King ....
„ „ Charles Wesley ....
1707-1754. Fielding, Henry, to the Hon. George Lyttleton .
1708-1778. Pitt, William, to his wife, Lady Chatham
1709-1784. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, to the Hon. Warren Hastings
„ „ „ Earl of Chesterfield .
„ „ „ Laird of Rasay .
„ „ „ Mrs. Piozzi . .
1739-1821. Piozzi, Mrs., to Dr. Samuel Johnson . . .
1711-1776. Hume, David, to
„ „ Jean Jacques Rousseau . . .
Dr. Blair
J 713-1768. Sterne, Lawrence, to Miss Sterne .
„ „ Ignatius Sancho . . .
1714-1763. Shenstone, William, to Mr. Graves
„ „ Richard Jago
1716-1771. Gray, Thomas, to the Rev. Norton Nicholls .
1717-1797. Walpole, the Hon. Horace, to Sir Horace Mann
William Pitt.
. 229
. . 231
232
. . 233
. 235
. . 236
. 238
. 239
240-241
242
. . 243
. 246
. . 248
. 249
. 2.50
. . 251
. 253
255-257
259-261
. 264
CONTENTS.
A.D. PAGE
1717-1797. Walpole, the Hon. Horace, to George Montagu . 265-268
the Earl of Stratford . . 270
„ „ „ Editor of the Miscellanies
of Chatterton 272
1720-1793. White, Gilbert, to Hester Chapone . . . . . 274
1720-1800. Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, to Gilbert West . . 277-279
„. „ „ Benjamin Stillingfleet . . 280
David Garrick . . .282
Fordyce, Dr., to David Garrick 284
1723-1792. Keynolds, Sir Joshua, to Mr. Barry 286
1726-1759. Wolfe, Major James, to Mrs. Wolfe . . . . . 288
„ Lieut- Col. James, to Mrs. Wolfe . . . .290
1727-1797. Wilkes, John, to Lords Egremont and Halifax . . . 291
„ „ Humphrey Cotes 292
1728-1774. Goldsmith, Oliver, to Griffith the Publisher. . . . 295
„ „ Maurice Goldsmith . . .297
„ „ Bennet Langton . . . .299
Markham, Dr., to the Duchess of Queensbury . . . 300
1729-1797. Burke, Edmimd, to the Right Hon. William Gerard
Hamilton . .301
f Francis, Philip, to the Right Hon. Edmund Burke . .304
I Burke, the Right Hon. Edmund, to Philip Francis . . 307
Junius to Sir William Draper 311
„ „ the Duke of Grafton . . . . 313
1731-1800. Co wper, William, to Clot worthey Rowley . . . . 318
„ Joseph Hill 320
Mrs. Newton 321
„ the Rev. John Newton . . 322-324
„ „ LadyHesketh 325
„ „ Mrs. Charlotte Smith . . . 327
the Rev. Walter Bagot . . . 328
Gibbon, Edward, to Dr. Priestley .... 330-331
Lord Sheffield 331
Boswell, James, to David Garrick 333
Erskine, Andrew, to James Boswell ... . . 335
Moser, Mary, to Henry Fuseli 337
More, Mrs. Hannah, to Mrs. Gwatkin 339
„ „ „ Mrs. Boscawen . . .341
1737-1794.
1740-1795.
1819.
1745-1833.
1748-1825.
1752-1803.
1752-1840.
1753-1821.
1754-1832.
Parr, Dr. Samuel, to Mr. Cradock
Ritson, Joseph, to Sir Harris Nicolas
D'Arblay, Madame, to Mrs. Lock
Inchbald, Mrs., to the Rev. J. Plumptre .
Crabbe, George, to Edmund Burke
. 342
. 345
. 346
. 348
. 350
the Rev. George, to the Right Hon. Edmund Burke 353
xvi
CONTENTS.
A.D.
1756-1836.
1757-1828.
1757-1833.
1758-1805.
1759-1792.
1759-1808.
1759-1833.
1759-1797.
1763-1855.
1766-1848.
1767-1849.
1769-1852.
1770-1850.
1771-1832.
1771-1845.
Godwin, William, to Samuel Taylor Coleridge . . .
„ „ Percy Bysshe Shelley . .
„ „ Mrs. Shelley
Blake, William, to John Flaxman .
Sotheby, William, to Professor Wilson . . . .
Nelson, Horatio, to Mrs. Nelson
„ Commodore, to Mrs. Nelson .....
„ „ „ the Hon. Sir Gilbert Elliot .
„ Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio, K.B., to Admiral
Sir John Jervis, K.B. . . . . . .
„ Rear- Admiral Sir Horatio, K.B., to Lady Nelson .
„ Vice-Admiral Sir Horatio, K.B., to the Rev. Dr.
Nelson . . . .
„ „ „ to Alexander
Davison
„ Lord, to Lady Hamilton
Burns, Robert, to Miss Ellison Begbie . .
„ „ the Earl of Glencairn . . . .
„ „ Peter Hill
„ „ Mr. Graham of Fintray . . . .
Porson, Richard, to Dr. Postlethwaite .
Wilberforce, William, to the Earl of Galloway . . .
WolJstonecraft, Mary, to Captain Imlay . . . 379
Rogers, Samuel, to Thomas Moore . . . .
D 'Israeli, Isaac, to William Godwin
Dr. Dibdin . . .
Edgeworth, Miss Maria, to Miss Sydney Smith
Wellington, Lieut-Gen. Viscount, to the Right Hon. Sir
W. W. Pole .
„ to . .
„ Field- Marshal the Marquess of, to Lord
Burghersh . . . .
„ Field- Marshal the Duke of, to Sir J. Sinclair,
Bart
„ „ „ to Francis Mudford
,, „ „ Lord FitzRoy Somerset
Wordsworth, William, to Sir George Beaumont
„ „ Alexander Dyce . . .
Scott, Walter, to George Crabbe
„ the Rev. T. Frognall Dibdin .
fPlymley, Peter, to his brother Abraham .
\ Smith, the Rev. Sydney, to Lady Holland .
„ „ „ Roderick Murchison
the Rev. R. H. Barham
PAGE
353
355
359
360
362
363
364
366
367
368
. 368
369
370
371
372
373
375
376
378
.381
382
385
386
387
401-
389
392
393
394
396
396
397
398
399
404
405
411
412
413
CONTENTS.
xvii
A.D. PAGE
1771-1845. Smith, the Eev. Sydney, to the Editor of the ' Morning-
Chronicle ' . . 414
1772-1834. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, to Josiah Wade . . .417
„ Joseph Cottle . . . . 418
„ „ „ William Godwin . . .420
1772-1835. Hogg, James, to Professor John Wilson . . . . 421
1773-1850. Jeffrey, Francis, to his brother, John Jeffrey . . . 422
Thomas Campbell 424
„ „ William Empson .... 425
Charles Dickens 427
1774-1843. Southey, Eobert, to Miss Barker 428
„ „ Joseph Cottle . . . . . 430
„ „ John Kickman „ . . . . 432
1775-1834. Lamb, Charles, to Kobert Southey 432
„ „ Samuel Taylor Coleridge „ . . 433
„ „ William Wordsworth . . . . 434
„ „ Thomas Manning 436
Mr. Gary 438
1775-1864. Landor, Walter Savage, to Eobert Southey . . . 439
„ „ „ Dr. Samuel Parr . . . 440
„ „ „ Eobert Southey . . . 441
1776-1835. Mathews, Charles, to Mrs. Mathews .... 442
„ „ the Eev. Paschal Strong . . 443
1776-1837. Constable, John, E.A., to Mr. Dunthorne . , . . 445
the Eev. J. Fisher . „ .446
1777-1835. Ireland, Samuel W. H., to Dr. Samuel Parr. . . . 448
1779-1852. Moore, Thomas, to Miss Godfrey 449
Samuel Eogers . . . 451-453
1781-1864. Aikin, Miss Lucy, to Dr. Channing . , , . .455
1784-1865. Palmerston, Lord, to Viscount Granville . , . . 458
Sir H. L. Bulwer . r „ .460
1784-1859. Hunt, Leigh, to Mr. Ives 462
„ „ Joseph Severn. , r . . 464
1785-1854. Wilson, John, to James Hogg , , . . . . 465
1785-1806. White, Henry Kirke, to John Charles worth . . .468
„ „ „ Peter Thompson , ... 470
1785-1840. Wilkie, Sir David, to Miss Wilkie 472
1786-1846. Haydon, Benjamin Eobert, to John Keats . . . . 473
„ „ „ Miss Mitford . . 475-478
William Wordsworth . 480
1786-1859. De Quineey, Thomas, to Jessie Miller 481
„ „ his daughter, Margaret Craig . 483
1788-1824, Byron, Lord, to Henry Drury . ... 485
Sir Walter Seott . 486
xviii
CONTENTS.
A.D. PAGE
1788-1824. Byron, Lord, to John Murray 487
„ „ Thomas Moore 488
„ „ the Marchesa Guiccioli . . . . 489
Thomas Moore 490-492
Sheppard, John, to Lord Byron 493
Byron, Lord, to John Sheppard 495
1788-1841 f Ramsbottom, Miss Dorothea, to Mr. Bull . . . .496
X Hook, Theodore, to Charles Mathews . • . .499
1788-1845. Barbara, the Kev. K. H., to Mrs. Hughes . . . . 500
„ Dr. Wilmot of Ashford . . 503
1789-1849. Blessington, Lady, to Walter Savage Landor . . . 504
1792-1822. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, to Henry Reveley . . . 506
Leigh Hunt . . . . 507
,, „ to 509
1793-1873. Macready, W. C., to Frederick Pollock . . . . 510
„ Mrs. Pollock 513
1795-1842. Arnold, the Rev. Thomas, D.D., to the Rev. F. C. Black-
stone .......... 515
Arnold, the Rev. Thomas, D.D., to an old pupil at Oxford. 516
„ „ „ Mr. Justice Coleridge . 517
„ „ „ the Rev. G. Cornish .519
1796-1821. Keats, John, to W. Bailey 519
Mr. Reynolds 520
1799-1845. Hood, Thomas, to his Daughter 522
„ „ Charles Dickens 523
„ „ May Elliot 523
Sir Robert Peel . 524
SECTION IV. (1800- .).
1800-1859. Macaulay, Thomas Babington, to his Mother » . . 529
„ „ „ his Father . , 530-531
„ „ „ Thomas Flower Ellis . 532
„ „ „ Macvey Napier . 535-539
1802-1876. Martineau, Harriet, to a Friend in America . . . 542
1803-1857. Jerrold, Douglas, to Miss Sabilla Novello . . .545
1803-1849. Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, to Bryan Waller Procter . . 547
1803-1878. Mathews, Charles J., to his Father 548
„ his Mother 550
„ „ Manager of the Gaiety Theatre . 551
1805-1873. Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer, to Lady Blessington . . 552
1811-1863. Thackeray, William M., to the Hon. W. B. Reed . 554-556
CONTENTS.
xix
A.D.
1812-1870.
1816-1853.
1819-1875.
PAGE
Dickens, Charles, to Mr. T. J. Thompson . . . . 558
Messrs Forster, Maclise, and Stan-
field
„ Mary Cowden Clarke .
„ his youngest child .
Robertson, the Kev. F. W., to .
Kingsley, the Eev. Charles, to Mr. Wood
n „ J. M. Ludlow
Mrs. Gaskell
a Clergyman
559
. . 560
. 561
562-564
. 565
. . 566
. 568
. 569
1819-1861 . Consort, the Prince, to the Crown Princess of Prussia 572-573
SECTION I.
A.D. 1450-1600.
I.
Forty years ago, Mr. Hallam, referring to an imperfect edition
of the'Paston Letters/ by Mr. Fenn, remarked that they alone
supplied ' a precious link in the chain of the moral history of Eng
land.' These letters come to us as a ' track of continuous light/
in a century notoriously barren of literary effort, and help to
develop not only the domestic, but the political history of Eng
land from A.D. 1422 to 1509. We are indebted to Mr. James
Gairdner for as complete and clear an account or the Paston
Correspondence as it is at present possible to obtain. This
edition, completed in 1875, contains 400 additional letters,
besides many interesting documents which are published for the
first time. The following letter describes the capture and
murder of the Duke of Suffolk, the most able of Henry the
Sixth's counsellors.
William Lomner to John Paston.
May 5, 1450.
Ryght worchipfull Sir, — I recomaunde me to yow, and am
right sory of that I shalle sey, and have soo wesshe this litel bille
with sorwfulle terys, that on ethes ye shalle reede it.
As on Monday nexte after May day there come tydyngs to
London that on Thorsday before the Duke of Suffolk come unto
the costes of Kent full nere Dover with his ij shepes and a litel
spynner; the qweche spynner he sente with certyn letters to
certyn of his trustid men unto Caleys warde, to knowe howe
he shuld be resceyvyd; and with him mette a shippe callyd
Nicolas of the Towre, with other shippis waytyng on hym, and by
hem that were in the spynner, the maister of the Nicolas hadde
knowlich of the Dukes comyng. And whanne he espyed the
Dukes shepis he sente forthe his bote to wete what they were, and
the Duke hymselfe spakke to hem, and seyd he was be the Kyngs
comaundement sent to Caleys ward, &c.
4 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
And they seyd he most speke with here master. And soo he,
with ij or iij of his men, wente forth with hem yn here bote to
the Nicolas; and whanne he come, the master badde him ' Welcom,
Traitor/ as men sey ; and forther the maister desyryd to wete yf
the shepmen wolde holde with the duke, and they sent word they
wold not yn noo wyse ; and soo he was yn the Nicolas tyl Satur
day next folwyng.
Soom sey he wrotte moche thenke to be dely verd to the Kynge,
but that is not verily knowe. He hadde his confessor with hym.
And some sey he was arreyned yn in the sheppe on here maner
upon the appechcments and fonde gylty.
Also he asked the name of the sheppe, and whanne he knewe
it, he remernbred Stacy that seid, if he myght eschape the daunger
of the Towr he should be saffe ; and thanne his herte fay lyd him,
for he thowghte he was desseyvyd, and yn in the syght of all his
men he was drawyn ought of the grete shippe yn to the bote ; and
ther was an exe, and a stoke, and oon of the lewdeste of the shippe
badde him ley down his hedde, and he should be fair ferd wyth,
and dye on a swerd ; and toke a rusty swerd, and smotte of his
hedde withyn halfe a doseyn strokes, and toke away his gown of
russet, and dobelette of velvecl mayled, and leyde his body on the
sonds of Dover ; and some sey his hedde was set oon a pole by it,
and hes men sette on the londe be grette circumstaunce and preye.
And the shreve of Kent doth weche the body, and sent his under
shreve to the juges to wete what to doo, and also to the Kynge
whatte shalbe doo. Forther I wotte nott, but this fer is that yf the
proces be erroneous, lete his concell reverse it.
Sir Thomas Keriel is taken prisoner and alle the legge
harneyse, and abonte iij. m1' (3000) Englishe men slayn.1
Mathew Gooth with xvc (1500) nedcle, and sayvd hym selfe
and hem; and Peris Brusy was cheffe capteyn, and hadde xml
C 10,000) Frenshe men and more. I prey you lete my mastras
yoi;r moder knowe these tydingis, and God have you all in his
kepyn. I prey you this Lille may recomaunde me to my mastrases
your moder and wyfe.
Wretyn yn gret hast at London the v. day of May.
W. L.
1 Eeference to a battle fought near Caen during the French war.
Our troops sent to the aid of the Duke of Somerset in Normandy were
defeated.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 5
II.
Henry VI., after a period of mental derangement, recognises
his infant son, Edward, Prince of Wales.
Edmund Clere to John Paston.
January 9, 1455.
Right welbeloved cosyn, — I recomaund me to you, latyng you
wite such tidings as we have.
Blessed be God, the King is wel amended, and hath ben syn
Cristemesday, and on Seint Jones day comaunded his awmener to
ride to Caunterbury with his offryng, and comaunded the secre-
tarie to offre at Seint Edwards.
And on the Moneday after noon the Queen came to him, and
brought my Lord Prynce with her. And then he askid what the
Princes name was, and the Queen told him Edward ; and then he
hild up his hands and thankicl God therof. And he seid he never
knew til that tyme, nor wist not what was seid to him, nor wist
not where he had be, whils he hath be seke til now. And he
askid who was godfaders, and the Queen told him, and he was well
apaid.
And she told him that the Cardinal * was dede, and he seid he
knew never thereof til that tyme ; and he seid oon of the wisist
Lords in his land was dede.
And my Lord of Wynchestr and my Lord of Seint Jones were
with him on the morrow after Tweltheday, and he speke to hem
as well as ever he did ; and when thei come out thei wept for joye.
And he seith he is in charitee with all the world, and so he wold
all tho Lords were. And now he seith matyns of Our Lady and
evesong, and herith his Masse devoutly; and Richard shall tell
yow more tidings by mouth.
I pray yow recomaund me to my Lady Morley and to Maister
Prior, and to my Lady Felbrigge and to my Lady Hevenyngham,
and to my cosyn your moder, and to my cosyn your wife.
Wreten at Grenewich on Thursday after Twelftheday
Be your cosyn
EDMUND GLEBE.
1 John Kemp, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor, who
died nine months before the date of this letter.
2
ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
III.
If the style of correspondence of the Public-Schoolboy of the
fifteenth century was more finished than it is to-day, the sub
ject-matter seems much the same : viz., money, clothes, and
exeats.
William Paston, junior, to his brother, John Paston.
Nov. 7, 1478.
[Written from Eton College.]
Eyght reverent and worchepful brodyr, — I recomaunde me on
to you, desyrynge to here of yowre welfare and prosperite ; letynge
yow wete that I have resevyd of Alwedyr a lettyr, and a nobyll in
gowlde therm. Ferthermor my creansyr l Mayster Thomas, hertely
recomandyd hym to yow, and he praythe yow to sende hym sum
mony for my comons; for he seythe ye be xx1^. [twenty-two
shillings] in hys dette, for a monthe was to pay for when he had
mony laste.
Also I beseche yow to sende me a hose clothe, one for the haly-
days of sum colore, and anothyr for the workyng days, how corse
so ever it be it makyth no matyr ; and a stomechere, and ij schyrtes,
and a peyer of sclyppers. And if it lyke yow that I may come
with Alwedyr be watyr, and sporte me with yow in London a day
or ij thys terme tyme, than ye may let all thys be tyl the tyme
that I come, and than I wol telle yow when I schall be redy to
come from Eton, by the grace of God, Whom have yow in Hys
kepyng.
Wretyn the Saturday next aftyr All Halown Day with the
hand of your brodyr,
WILLIAM PASTON.
IV.
The Viscount Lovell here referred to was one of the adhe
rents of Richard III., who was attainted on the accession of
Henry VII. An unsuccessful conspirator on his own account,
he fought on the side of the impostor Lambert Simnel, at the
battle of Stoke A.D. 1487, and is said to have been drowned in
the river Trent while beating a retreat from the royalist troops.
1 Creditor.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS.
Margaret, Countess of Oxford, to John Paston.
May ] 9, 1486.
To my right trusti and welbiloved John Paston,
Shrieve of Norffolk and Suffolk.
Right trusti and welbiloved, — I reconiaund me urto you. And
for as moche as I am credebly enfourmed that Fraunceis, late Lorde
Lovell, is now of late resorted into the Yle of Ely, to the entente
by alle lykelyhod, to finde the waies and meanes to gete him ship
ping and passage in your costes or ellis to resorte ageyn to sein-
tuary, if he can or maie ; I therfor hertily desire praie yow, and
neverthelesse, in the Kinges name streitly chargie you that ye in
all goodly haste endevore your self that such wetche or other
meanes be used and hadde in the poorts, and creks, and othre
places wher ye thinke necessary by your discrecion, to the letting
of his seid purpose ; and that ye also use all the waies ye can or
maie by your wisdom to the taking of the same Lorde Lovell.
And what pleasur ye maie do to the Kingis Grace in this matier,
I am sure, is not to you unknowen. And God kepe you.
Wretyn at Lavenham, the xix day of May.
MARGARET OxYNFORD.1
V.
This very curious letter is printed in the Oamden Society's
publications for the year 1863. The young Queen Margaret of
Anjou is urging the suit of a member of her household, a
staunch Lancastrian of the Red Rose, for the hand of a wealthy
widow who had the disposal of seventeen manors. But Dame
Oarew was not to be inveigled by royal advances. She bestowed
her hand and chattels real on the handsome young De Vere,
brother of the twelfth Earl of Oxford.
Margaret, Queen of Henry VL, to Dame Jane Carew.
Eltham [1450].
BY THE QUEEN.
Right dere and welbeloved, we grete you well ; and, for as
moch as oure trusty and welbeloved Squier, Thomas Burneby,
1 Daughter of Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury and sister of Richard,
Earl of Warwick.
8 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
sewer of our inouth, aswel for the greet zele, love, and aifeccion
that he hath unto yor personne, as for the womanly and vertuouse
governance that ye be renowned of, clesireth with all his hert to
do you worship by wey of mariage, bifore all creatures lyvyng, as
he saith ; We, desiryng th' encres, furtherance, and preferring of
oure said squire for his manyfbld merits and deserts, as for the good
service that he hath done unto my lord and us, and yet therin dayly
continueth, praye you right affectuously, that, at reverence of us,
ye will have oure said squire towards his said mariage especially
recommended, inclynyng you to his honest desire at this tyme ; the
rather by contemplacion of this oure praier, wherin we trust
verreily ye shul mowe pourvey right well for yor self, to yor greet
worship and hertsease, and cause us to have yow both in suche
tendernesse and faver of our good grace, that by reason ye shul
holde you right well content a.nd pleased ; and how ye thinke to
be disposed to our pleasir in this partie, ye will acertein us by the
bringer of these. As our singler trust is in yow.
Given, etc. at Eltham, the, etc.
To Dame Jane Carew.
VI,
Considering the weakness of Henry VII. 's title to the throne,
and considering also the fact that among the small remnant of
' Greater Barons ' who survived the Wars of the Roses, the
wearers of the white rose were the more numerous after the
battle of Bosworth, it is not surprising that Henry of Richmond,
during the first years of his reign, was set the troublesome task
of beating off pretenders to his throne. The Court of Bur
gundy, where the sister of our Edward IV. was despotic, was
the rendezvous of the disaffected Yorkist nobility.
Henry VII. to Sir Gilbert Talbot.
Kenilworth Castle : July, 1493.
Trusty and well beloved, — We greet you well; and not for
getting the great malice that the Lady Margaret of Burgundy
beareth continually against us, as she showed lately in sending
hither of a feigned boy, surmising him to have been the son of the
Duke of Clarence, and caused him to be accompanied with the
Earl of Lincoln, the Lord Lovel, and with great multitude of
Irishmen and of Almains, whose end, blessed be God, was as ye
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 9
know well. And foreseeing now the perseverance of the same her
malice, by the untrue contriving eftsoon of another feigned lad
called Perkin Warbeck, born at Tournay, in Picardy, which at
first into Ireland called himself the bastard son of King Richard ;
after that the son of the said Duke of Clarence; and now the
second son of our father, King Edward the IVth, whom God
assoil; wherethrough she intend eth, by promising unto the
Flemings and other of the archduke's obeissaunce, to whom she
laboureth daily to take her way, and by her promise to certain
aliens, captains of strange nations, to have duchies, counties,
baronies, and other lands, within this our royaume, to induce them
thereby to land here, to the destruction and disinheritance of the
noblemen and other our subjects the inhabitants of the same, and
finally to the subversion of this our royaume, in case she may
attaine to her malicious purpose, that God defend. We therefore,
and to the intent that we may be alway purveied and in readi
ness to resist her malice, write unto you at this time ; and will
and desire you that, preparing on horseback, defensibly arrayed,
four score persons, whereof we desire you to make as many spears,
with their custrells,1 and demi-lances, wellhorsed as ye can furnish,
and the remainder to be archers and bills, ye be thoroughly
appointed and ready to come upon a day's warning for to do us
service of war in this case. And ye shall have for every horse
man well and defensibly arrayed, that is to say, for a spear and
his custrel twelvepence ; a demi-lance ninepence ; and an archer or
bill, on horseback, eightpence by the day, from the time of your
coming out unto the time of your return to your home again.
And thus doing, ye shall have such thanks of us for your loving
and true acquittal in that behalf as shall be to your weal and
honour for time to come. We pray you herein ye will make such
diligence as that ye be ready with your said number to come unto
us upon any our sudden warning.
Given under our signet at our Castle of Kenilworth, the
twentieth day of July (1493).
To our trusty and well-beloved Knight and
Councillor, Sir Gilbert Talbot.
1 Squires of the body.
10 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
VIL
Cavendish in his ' Life of Wolsey,' prints this pitiful letter
from the original in the Ashinolean Museum. It is dated from
Asher (Esher), whither the Cardinal was ordered to retire after
judgment had been pronounced against him for having trans
gressed the Statute of Praemunire. In his day of authority and
glory Wolsey was the haughtiest and richest subject in England ;
only a very few days sufficed to deprive him not only of all his
former magnificence, but almost of the commonest domestic
comforts.
Cardinal Wolsey to Dr. Stephen Gardiner.
Esher: 1629.
My owne goode Mastyr Secretary, — Aftyr my moste herty
commendacions I pray you at the reverens of God to helpe, that
expedicion be usyd in my persuts, the delay wherof so reple-
nyshyth my herte with hevynes, that I can take no reste; not
for any vayne fere, but onely for the miserable condycion, that I
am presently yn, and lyclyhod to contynue yn the same, onles
that you, in whom ys myn assuryd truste, do help & releve me
therin ; For fyrst, contynuyng here in this mo west & corupt ayer,
beyng enteryd into the passyon of the dropsy. Cum prostatione
appetitus et continue insomnio. I cannot lyve.
Wherfor of necessyte I must be removyd to some other dryer
ayer and place, where I may have comodyte of physycyans.
Secondly, havyng but Yorke, wych is now decayd by viii. C. li.
by the yeere, I cannot tell how to lyve, & kepe the poore nombyr
of folks wych I nowe have, my howsys ther be in decay, and of
evry thyng mete for houssold onprovydyd and furnyshyd.
I have non apparell for my howsys ther, nor money to bring
me thether nor to lyve wyth tyl the propysse tyme of the yeere
shall come to remove thether. Thes thyngs consyderyd, Mr
Secretary, must nedys make me yn agony and hevynes, myn age
therwith and sycknes consyderyd, alas Mr Secretary, ye with
other my lordys shewyd me, that I shuld otherwyse be furnyshyd
& seyn unto, ye knowe in your lernyng & consyens, whether
I shuld forfet my spiritualties of Wynchester or no. Alas ! the
qualytes of myn offencys consyderyd, with the gret punishment &
losse of goodes that I have sustaynyd, owt to move petyfull hertys ;
and the moste nobyl Kyng, to whom yf yt wold please yow of
your cherytable goodnes to shewe the premyses aftyr your accus-
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 11
tomable wysdome & dexteryte, yt ys not to be dowbtyd, but his
higlmes wold have consyderacyon and compassyon, aggmentyng
my lyvyng, and appoyntyng such thyngs as shuld be convenient
for my furniture, wych to do shalbe to the Kyng's high honor,
meryte, & dyscharge of consyens, & to you gret prayse for the
bryngyng of the same to passe for your olde brynger up and
lovying frende. Thys kyndnes exibite from the Kyng's hyghnes
shal prolong my lyfF for some lytyl whyl, thow yt shall nat be
long, by the meane whereof hys grace shal take profygtt & by my
deth now. What ys yt to hys hyhnes to give some convenyent
porcion owt of Wynchester, & Seynt Albons, hys grace takyng
with my herty good wyl the resydew. Remember, good Mr
Secretary, my poore degre, & what servys I have done, and how
nowe approachyng to deth I must begyn the world ageyn. 1
besech you therfore, movyd with pity and compassyon soker me
in thys my calamyte, and to your power wych I knowe ys gret,
releve me \ and I with all myn shal not onely ascrybe thys my
relef unto you, but also praye to God for the increase of your
honor, & as my poore shall increase, so I shal not fayle to requyte
your kyndnes.
"Wrytten hastely at Asher, with the rude and shackyng hand of
Your dayly bedysman
And assuryd friend,
T. CARLIS EBOE.
VIII.
Lord Campbell, in his ' Lives of the Chancellors/ lays par
ticular stress on this beautiful letter written by Sir Thomas
More to his wife on receipt of the news that the greater part
of his house at Chelsea (with the outhouses and granaries) had
been destroyed "by fire. The biographer is more attracted by
the unusually simple style of the composition, and by the kind
liness of disposition and unaffected piety of this good and gifted
martyr, than by all his other elaborate writings and speeches.
A few weeks after this grievous domestic mishap, the most up
right of Henry VIII.'s councillors was sworn in Lord Chancel
lor of England.
Sir Thomas More to his Wife.
With the Court at Woodstock : Sept. 3, 1529.
Mistress Alyce, — In my most harty will, I recomend me to
you. And whereas I am enfourmed by my son Heron of the loss
12 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
of our barnes, and our neighbours also, with all the corne that was
therein, albeit (saving God's pleasure) it is gret pitie of so much
good corne lost, yet sith it hath liked hym to send us such
a chance, we must not only be content, but also be glad of his
visitation. He sent us all that we have lost : and sith he hath by
such a chance taken it away againe, his pleasure be fulfilled. Let
us never grudge thereat, but take it in good worth, and hartely
thank him, as well for adversitie, as for prosperitie. And par
adventure we have more cause to thank him for our losse, than
for our winning. For his wisedom better seeth what is good for
us than we do ourselves. Therefore I pray you be of good cheere,
and take all the howsold with you to church, and there thank
God both for that he hath given us, and for that he hath left us,
which if it please hym, he can increase when he will. And if it
please him to leave us yet lesse, at hys pleasure be it. I praye
you to make some good ensearche what my poor neighbours have
loste, and bidde them take no thought therefore, and if I shold not
leave myself a spone, there shall no poore neighbour of mine bere
no losse by any chance happened in my house. I pray you be
with my children and household mery in God. And devise some
what with your friends, what way wer best to take, for provision
to be made for corne for our household and for sede thys yere
coming, if ye thinke it good that we keepe the ground still in our
handes.
And whether ye think it good y* we so shall do or not, yet I
think it were not best sodenlye thus to leave it all up, and to put
away our folk of our farme, till we have somewhat advised us
thereon. Howbeit if we have more no we than ye shall neede, and
which can get the other maister's, ye may then discharge us of
them. But I would not that any men wer sodenly sent away he
wote nere wether. At my coming hither, I perceived none other,
but that I shold tary still with the Kinges grace. But now I
shall (I think), because of this chance, get leave this next weke to
come home and se you ; and then shall we further devise together
uppon all things, what order shall be best to take : and thus as
hartely fare you well with all our children as you can wishe.
At Woodstok the thirde daye of September, by the hand of
Your loving husband
THOMAS MORE, Knight.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 13
IK.
The following letter is historically famous as the subject of
controversy between the admirers and detractors of Archbishop
Cranmer. It has been appealed to by the former as an example
of his fidelity to Anne Boleyn and his courage in a grave emer
gency ; by the latter it is quoted as a proof of his submissiveness
to the will of Henry VIII.
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, to Henry VIII.
Lambeth : May 3, 1536.
Pleaseth your most noble Grace to be advertised, that at your
grace's commandment by Mr secretary's letters^ written in your
grace's name, I came to Lambeth yesterday, and do there remain
to know your grace's farther pleasure. And forasmuch as, without
your grace's commandment, I dare not, contrary to the contents
of the said letters, presume to come unto your grace's presence,
nevertheless, of my most bounden duty, I can do no less than most
humbly to desire your grace, by your great wisdom, and by the
assistance of God's help, somewhat to suppress the deep sorrow of
your grace's heart, and to take all adversities of God's hand both
patiently and thankfully.
I cannot deny but your grace hath great causes, many ways,
of lamentable heaviness; and also that, in the wrongful estimation
of the world, your grace's honour of every part is highly touched
(whether the things that commonly be spoken of be true or not)
that I remember not that ever Almighty God sent unto your grace
any like occasion to try your grace's constancy throughout, whether
your highness can be content to take of God's hand as well things
displeasant as pleasant.
And if he find in your most noble heart such an obedience unto
his will, that your grace, without murmuration and overmuch
heaviness, do accept all adversities, not less thanking him than
when all things succeed after your grace's will and pleasure, nor
less procuring his glory and honour ; then, I suppose your grace
did never thing more acceptable unto him since your first govern
ance of this your realm. And, moreover, your grace shall give
unto him occasion to multiply and increase his graces and benefits
unto your highness, as he did unto his most faithful servant Job ;
unto whom, after his great calamities and heaviness, for his obe
dient heart, and willing acceptation of God s scourge and rod,
2*
14 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
addidit ei Dominus cuncta duplicia. And if it be true that is
openly reported of the queen's grace, if men had a light estima
tion of things, they should not esteem any part of your grace's
honour to be touched thereby, but her honour only, to be clearly
disparaged. And I am in such a perplexity, that my mind is
clean amazed, for I never had better opinion in woman than I
had in her ; which maketh me to think that she should not be
culpable. And again, I think your highness would not have
gone so far, except she had surely been culpable. Now I think
that your grace best knoweth, that, next unto your grace, I was
most bound unto her of all creatures living. Wherefore, I most
humbly beseech your grace, to suffer me in that which both
God's law, nature, and also her kindness bindeth me unto; that
is, that I may, with your grace's favour, wish and pray for her,
that she may declare herself inculpable and innocent. And if she
be found capable, considering your grace's goodness towards her,
and from what condition your grace of your only mere goodness
took her, and set the crown upon her head, I repute him not your
grace's faithful servant and subject, nor true unto the realm, that
would not desire the offence without mercy to be punished, to
the example of all other. And as I loved her not a little, for the
love which I judged her to bear towards God and his gospel ;
so, if she be proved culpable, there is not one that loveth God and
his gospel that ever will favour her, but must hate her above all
other ; and the more they favour the gospel, the more they will
hate her ; for there never was creature in our time that so much
slandered the gospel. And God hath sent her this punishment,
for that she feignedly hath professed this gospel in her mouth, and
not in heart and deed. And though she have offended so, that she
hath deserved never to be reconciled unto your grace's favour, yet
Almighty God hath manifestly declared his goodness towards your
grace, and never offended you. But your grace, I am sure, ac
knowledged that you have offended him. Wherefore I trust that
your grace will bear no less entire favour unto the truth of the
gospel than you did before : forasmuch as your grace's favour to
the gospel was not led by affection unto her, but by zeal unto
the truth. And thus I beseech Almighty God, whose gospel
hath ordained your grace to be defended of, ever to preserve your
grace from all evil, and to give you at the end the promise of his
gospel. From Lambeth, the 3d day of May.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 15
[Cranmer had written but not despatched this letter, when lie
was summoned to a conference by the Lord Chancellor and
other peers, who stated to him the facts which, they said, could
be proved against the queen. He, therefore, in a postscript,
added as follows : — ]
After I had written this letter Unto your grace, my lord chan
cellor, &c. sent for me to come unto the starchamber ; and there
declared unto me such things as your grace's pleasure was they
should make me privy unto. For the which I am most bounden
unto your grace. And what communication we had therein,
I doubt not but they will make the true report thereof to your
grace. I am exceedingly sorry that such faults can be proved by
the queen as I heard of their relation. But I am, and ever shall
be, your faithful subject.
Your grace's
Humble subject and chaplain,
THOMAS CANTUARIENSIS.
X.
Not the least curious of the manuscripts in the Vatican
Library at Rome are the original autographs of Henry VIII.'s
love letters to Anne Boleyn. It is supposed they were stolen
from this lady at the end of the year 1528. They remained in
the Vatican until the French appropriated them, with other
treasures of art and literature, after the invasion of Italy at
the close of last century. They were restored at the peace of
1815. Halliwell, in his ' Letters of the Kings of England.'
attaches great importance to this letter as fixing the period of
the commencement of the Kiog's affection for Anne Boleyn.
Henry VIII. complains of ' having been above a whole year
struck with the dart of love.'
Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn.
[August, 1528.]
On turning over in my mind the contents of your last letters,
I have put myself into great agony, not knowing how to interpret
them, whether to my disadvantage, as you show in some places,
or to my advantage, as I understand them in some others, be
seeching you earnestly to let me know expressly your whole mind
16 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
as to the love between us two. It is absolutely necessary for me
to obtain this answer, having been for above a whole year stricken
with the dart of love, and not yet sure whether I shall fail or find
a place in your heart and affection, which last point has prevented
me for some time past from calling you my mistress ; because, if
you only love me with an ordinary love, that name is not suit
able for you, because it denotes a singular love, which is far from
common. But if you please to do the office of a true loyal mis
tress and friend, and to give up yourself body and heart to me,
who will be, and have been, your most loyal servant (if your
rigour does not foibid me) I promise you that not only the name
shall be given you, but also that I will take you for my only mis
tress, casting off all others besides you out of my thoughts and
affections, and serve you only. I beseech you to give an entire
answer to this my rude letter, that I may know on what and how
far I may depend. And if it does not please you to answer me
in writing, appoint some place where I may have it by word of
mouth, and I will go thither with all my heart.
No more, for fear of tiring you.
Written by the hand of him who would willingly remain
yours,
H.R.
XI.
Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn.
[Probably the end of 1528.]
The approach of the time for which I have so long waited re
joices me so much, that it seems almost to have come already.
However, the entire accomplishment cannot be till the two persons
meet, which meeting is more desired by me than any thing in this
world ; for what joy can be greater upon earth than to have the
company of her who is dearest to me, knowing likewise that she
does the same on her part, the thought of which gives me the
greatest pleasure.
Judge what an effect the presence of that person must have on
me, whose absence has grieved my heart more than either words
or writing can express, and. which nothing can cure, but that
begging you, my mistress, to tell your father from me, that I
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 17
desire him to hasten the time appointed by two days, that he may
be at court before the old term, or, at farthest, on the day prefixed ;
for otherwise I shall think he will not do the lover's turn, as he
said he would, nor answer my expectation.
No more at present for lack of time, hoping shortly that by
word of mouth I shall tell you the rest of the sufferings endured
by me from your absence.
Written by the hand of the secretary, who wishes himself at
this moment privately with you, and who is, and always will be,
Your loyal and most assured servant,
H. no other (A. B.) seeks It.
XII.
Anne Boleyn addressed this nai've letter to Wolsey concern-
leg the dispensation for her marriage. It will be remembered that
Anne was led to suppose that the delay of her marriage was
caused by the Cardinal's wish for another alliance, whereas he
was really employing all his influence to induce Pope Clement
VII. to issue the decretal bull. The ' recompense for his pains '
turned out to be that Anne, as Queen Consort, changed her
servile admiration of him into bitter enmity. Wolsey describes
her as his ' night-crow that never slept, but studied and continu
ally imagined his utter destruction.'
Anne Boleyn to Cardinal Wolsey.
[1528.]
My Lord, — In my most humblest wise that my poor heart can
think, I do thank your grace for yr kind letter, and for your rich
and goodly present, the which I shall never be able to deserve
without your help ; of the which I have hitherto had so great
plenty, that all the days of my life I am most bound of all crea
tures, next the King's grace, to love and serve your grace ; of the
which I beseech you never to doubt that ever I shall vary from
this thought as long as any breath is in my body. And as touch
ing your grace's trouble with the sweat, I thank the Lord that them
that I desired and prayed for are scaped, and that is the King and
you ; not doubting but that God has preserved you both for great
causes known only of his high wisdom. And as for the coming of
the Legate, I desire that much, and if it be God's pleasure, I pray
him to send this matter shortly to a good end, and then I trust,
18 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
my lord, to recompense part of your great pains. In the which I
must require you in the meantime to accept my good will, in the
stead of the power, the which must proceed partly from you, as
our Lord knoweth ; to whom I beseech to send you long life with
continuance in honour. "Written with the hand of her that is most
bound to be
Your humble and obedient servant,
ANNE BOLEYN,
XIII.
In the last edition of Roger Ascham's works, prepared by
Dr. Giles, it will be found that the letters occupy as much
space as all his other writings. Of the 295 letters only a very
few were originally written in English ; but these few, con
jointly with the English treatises are valuable as specimens of
a language as it was spoken at a period which has left us too
few examples. That the secretaryship Ascham held under Ed
ward VI. should have been continued him under Queen Mary,
in spite of his open profession of the reformed religion, and
that he should have preserved the friendship of Bishop Gar
diner and Cardinal Pole, and have been the favourite tutor of
Queen Elizabeth shows that he was, in his way, as astute and
useful as the equally fortunate Lord Burleigh. The following
letter refers to an ingenious device for securing an increase of
pension from Queen Mary.
Roger Ascham to Bishop Gardiner.
[April, 1554.]
In writing out my patent I have left a vacant place for your
wisdom to value the sum ; wherein I trust to find further favour ;
for I have both good cause to ask it, and better hope to obtain it,
partly in consideration of my unrewarded pains and undischarged
costs in teaching King Edward's person, partly for my three years'
service in the Emperor's court, but chiefly of all when King Henry
first gave it me at Greenwich, your lordship in the gallery there
asking me what the king had given me, and knowing the truth,
your lordship said it was too little, and most gently offered me to
speak to the king for me. But then I most happily desired your
lordship to reserve that goodness to another time, which time God
hath granted even to these days, when your lordship may now per
form by favour as much as then you wished by good will, being as
easy to obtain the one as to ask the other. And I beseech your
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 19
lordship see what good is offered me in writing the patent : the
space which is left by chance doth seern to crave by good luck
some words of length, as viginti or triginta, yea, with the help of
a little dash quadraginta would serve best of all. But sure as for
decem it is somewhat with the shortest : nevertheless I for my
part shall be no less contented with the one than glad with the
other, and for either of both more than bound to your lordship.
And thus God prosper your lordship.
Your lordship's most bounden to serve you,
R. ASKHAM.
To the Rt Reverend Father in God,
My Lord Bishop of Winchester his Grace, these.
XIV.
This beautiful letter of condolence at the death of his son,
Sturm, is selected as an excellent example of Roger Aschani's
epistolary style ; particularly as all the other English letters are
of very great length. It is, in its easy and intelligible flow of
words, free from the ' spots of rust ' which Hallam discovers
in the rough sentences and obsolete words of the prose of the
sixteenth century.
Roger Ascham to his wife Margaret.
[November, 1568.]
Mine own good Margaret, — The more I think upon your sweet
babe, as I do many times both day and night, the greater cause I
always find of giving thanks continually to God for his singular
goodness bestowed at this time upon the child, yourself, and me,
even because it hath rather pleased him to take the child to him
self into heaven, than to leave it here with us still on earth.
When I mused on the matter as nature, flesh, and fatherly
fantasy did carry me, I found nothing but sorrows and care,
which very much did vex and trouble me, but at last forsaking
these worldly thoughts, and referring me wholly to the will and
order of God in the matter, I found such a change, such a cause of
joy, such a plenty of God's grace towards the child, and of his
goodness towards you and me, as neither my heart can compre
hend, nor yet my tongue express the twentieth part thereof.
Nevertheless, because God and good will hath so joined you
and me together as we must not only be the one a comfort to the
20 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
other in sorrow, but also partakers together in any joy, I could not
but declare unto you what just cause I think we both have of com
fort and gladness by that God hath so graciously dealt with us as
he hath. My first step from care to comfort was this, I thought
God had done his will with our child, and because God by his
wisdom knoweth what is best, and by his goodness will do best,
I was by and by fully persuaded the best that can be is done with
our sweet child, but seeing God's wisdom is unsearchable with
any man's heart, and his goodness unspeakable with any man's
tongue, I will come down from such high thoughts, and talk more
sensibly with you, and lay open before you such matter as may be
both a full comfort of all our cares past, and also a just cause of
rejoicing as long as we live. You well remember our continual
desire and wish, our nightly prayer together, that God would
vouchsafe to us to increase the number of this world ; we wished
that nature should beautifully perform the work by us j we did
talk how to bring up our child in learning and virtue ; we had
care to provide for it, so as honest fortune should favour and
follow it. And see, sweet wife, how mercifully God hath dealt
with us in all points, for what wish could desire, what prayer
could crave, what nature could perform, what virtue could de
serve, what fortune could afford, both we have received, and our
child doth enjoy already. And because our desire (thanked be
God) was always joined with honesty, and our prayers mingled
with fear, and applied always to the world too, the will and
pleasure of God hath given us more than we wished, and that
which is better for us now than we could hope to think upon ; but
you desire to hear and know how marry, even thus, we desired to
be made vessels to increase the world, and it hath pleased God to
make us vessels to increase heaven, which is the greatest honour
to man, the greatest joy to heaven, the greatest spite to the devil,
the greatest sorrow to hell, that any man can imagine. Secon
darily, when nature had performed what she would, grace stepped
forth and took our child from nature, and gave it such gifts over
and above the power of nature, as where it could not creep in
earth by nature it was straitway well able to go to heaven by
grace. It could not then speak by nature, and now it doth praise
God by grace; it could not then comfort the sick and careful
mother by nature, and now through prayer is able to help father
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 21
and mother by grace ; and yet, thanked be nature, that hath done
all she could do, and blessed be grace that hath done more and
better than we would wish she should have done. Peradventure
yet you do wish that nature had kept it from death a little longer,
yea, but grace hath carried it where now no sickness can follow,
nor any death hereafter meddle with it ; and instead of a short
life with troubles on earth, it doth now live a life that never shal
end with all manner of joy in heaven.
And now, Margaret, go to, I pray you, and tell me as you
think, do you love your sweet babe so little, do you envy his happy
state so much, yea, once to wish that nature should have rather
followed your pleasure in keeping your child in this miserable
world, than grace should have purchased such profit for your child
in bringing him to such felicity in heaven ? Thirdly, you may say
unto me, if the child had lived in this world, it might have come
to such goodness by grace and virtue as might have turned to great
comfort to us, to good service to our country, and served to have
deserved as high a place in heaven as he doth now. To this, in
short, I answer, ought we not in all things to submit to God's
good will and pleasure, and thereafter to rule our affections, which
I doubt not but you will endeavour to do ? And therefore I will
say no more, but with all comfort to you here, and a blessing here
after, which I doubt not but is prepared for you.
Your dearly loving husband,
ROGER ASKAM.
To my dear wife, Mrs. Margaret Askam, these.
XV.
The pages of Tudor history bristle with attainders and judi
cial murders, and it must be admitted that the victims in nearly
every instance died hard, The writer of the following pitiably
abject appeal was, however, a subject meet for the executioner's
axe ; and considering his great position and the importance of
his misdeeds, his was the solitary instance of downright cowardice
in the face of death. As the contriver of Protector Somerset's
overthrow, as the most prominent figure in the worst phases of
the Reformation, as the seductive counsellor of Edward VI.,
and as the opponent of Princess Mary, he was simply an
ambitious and cunning intriguer ; but as a trifler all his life
with religion, and in his last moments a recanter in search
of pardon, he was a worthless hypocrite.
22 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1460-
John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, to the Earl of Arundell.
The Tower : August 22, 1553.
Honble Lord, and in this my distress my especiall refuge, most
wofull was the newes I receyved this evenynge by Mr Lieutenant,
that I must prepare myselfe against tomorrowe to receyve my
deadly stroke. Alas, my good lord, is my cryme so heynous as
noe redemcion but my blood can washe awaye the spottes thereof ?
An old proverb ther is, and that most true, that a lyving dogge is
better than a dead lyon. Oh ! that it would please her good grace
to give me life, yea, the life of a dogge, if I might but lyve and
kiss her feet, and spend both life and all in her honble services, as
I have the best part already under her worthie brother, and most
glorious father. Oh ! that her mercy were such as she would con-
syder how little proffitt my dead and dismembered body can bringe
her ; but how great and glorious an honor it will be in all posteri-
tyes when the report shall be that soe gracious and mightie a
queene had graunted life to so miserable and penitent an object.
Your bonble usage and promise to me since these my troubles have
made me bold to challenge this kindnes at your handes. Pardon
me if I have done amiss therein, and spare not, I pray, your
bended knees for me in this distresse. The God of heaven, it may
be, will requite it one day on you or yours ; and if my life be
lengthened by your mediation, and my good lord chauncellor's (to
whom I have also sent my blurred letters), I will ever owe it to
be spent at your honble feet. Oh ! my good lord, remember how
sweet is life, and how bitter the contrary. Spare not your speech
and paines ; for God, I hope, hath not shut out all hopes of com
fort from me in that gracious, princely, and womanlike hart ; but
that as the doleful newes of death hath wounded to death both
my soule and bodye, soe the comfortable newes of life shall be as
a new resurrection to my wofull hart. But if no remedy can be
founde, eyther by imprisonment, confiscation, banishment, and the
like, I can saye noe more, but God grant me pacyence to endure,
and a hart to forgive the whole world.
Once your fellowe and lovinge companion but now worthy of
noe name but wretchednes and misery,
J. D.
1600J ENGLISH LETTERS. 23
XVI.
This is a happy contrast to the parental utterances of Lord
Chesterfield given in another part of this volimie.
Sir Henry Sidney to his Son Philip Sidney.
[1566.]
I have received two letters from you, one written in Latin,
the other in French, which I take in good part, and will you to
exercise that practice of learning often : for that will stand you in
most stead, in that profession of life that you are born to live in.
And, since this is my first letter that ever I did write to you, I
will not, that it be all empty of some advices, which my natural
care of you provoked me to wish you to follow, as documents to
you in this your tender age. Let your first action be, the lifting
up of your mind to Almighty God, by hearty prayer, and feel
ingly digest the words you speak in prayer, with continual medi
tation, and thinking of him to whom you pray, and of the matter
for which you pray. And use this as an ordinary, and at an
ordinary hour. Whereby the time itself will put you in remem
brance to do that which you are accustomed to do. In that time
apply your study to such hours as your discreet master doth as
sign you, earnestly; and the time (I know) he will so limit, as
shall be both sufficient for your learning, and safe for your health.
And mark the sense and the matter of that you read, as well as
the words. So shall you both enrich your tongue with words,
and your wit with matter; and judgment will grow as years
groweth in you. Be humble and obedient to your master, for
unless you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel in yourself
what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others how to
obey you. Be courteous of gesture, and affable to all men, with
diversity of reverence, according to the dignity of the person.
There is nothing that winneth so much with so little cost. Use
moderate diet, so as, after your meat, you may find your wit
fresher, and not duller, and your body more lively, and not more
heavy. Seldom drink wine, and yet sometime do, lest being
enforced to drink upon the sudden, you should find yourself in
flamed. Use exercise of body, but such as is without peril of your
joints or bones. It will increase your force, and enlarge your
24 ENGLISH LETTERS, [1450-
breath. Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of your body, as
in your garments. It shall make you grateful in each company,
and otherwise loathsome. Give yourself to be merry, for you
degenerate from your father, if you find not yourself most able in
wit and body, to do any thing, when you be most merry ; but let
your mirth be ever void of all scurrility, and biting words to any
man, for a wound given by a word is oftentimes harder to be
cured than that which is given with the sword. Be you rather a
hearer and bearer away of other men's talk, than a beginner or
procurer of speech, otherwise you shall be counted to delight to
hear yourself speak. If you hear a wise sentence, or an apt phrase,
commit it to your memory, with respect of the circumstance, when
you shall speak it. Let never oath be heard to come out of your
mouth, nor words of ribaldry ; detest it in others, so shall custom
make to yourself a law against it in yourself. Be modest in each
assembly, and rather be rebuked of light fellows, for maiden-like
shamefacedness, than of your sad friends for pert boldness. Think
upon every word that you will speak, before you utter it, and
remember how nature hath rampired up (as it were) the tongue
with teeth, lips, yea, and hair without the lips, and all betokening
reins, or bridles, for the loose use of that member. Above all
things tell no untruth, no, not in trifles. The custom of it is
naughty, and let it not satisfy you, that, for a time, the hearers
take ifc for a truth ; for after it will be known as it is, to your
shame ; for there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman than
to be accounted a liar. Study and endeavour yourself to be vir
tuously occupied. So shall you make such an habit of well-doing
in you, that you shall not know how to do evil, though you would.
Remember, my son, the noble blood you are descended of, by your
mother's side ; and think that only by virtuous life and good action,
you may be an ornament to that illustrious family ; and otherwise,
thiough vice and sloth, you shall be counted lobes generis, one of
the greatest curses that can happen to man. Well (my little Philip)
this is enough for me, and too much, I fear, for you. But if I
shall find that this light meal of digestion nourish anything the
weak stomach of your young capacity, I will, as I find the same
grow stronger, feed it with touigher food. Your loving father, so
long as you live in the fear of God.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 25
XVII.
In Lodge's ' Illustrations of English History ' are numerous
reprints of the Howard and Talbot papers "bearing on the
Elizabethan period. Those which relate to the captive Queen
of Scotland exhibit Elizabeth's fretful anxiety lest her prisoner's
noble custodian should fail in due vigilance. The partisans of
Mary, Queen of Scots, may here gather what, in her case, was
understood as ' honourable captivity.'
Earl of Shrewsbury to Queen Elizabeth.
Sheffield Castle : March 3, 1572.
May it please your most excellent Majesty, — It appears by
my Lord Huntingdon's letters to me, whereof I here send your
Majesty a copy, that suspicion is of some new device for this
Queen's liberty, which I can very easily believe, for I am (as
always before) persuaded her friends everywhere occupy their
heads thereunto. I look for no less than they can do for her, and
provide for her safety accordingly. I have her sure enough, and
shall keep her forthcoming, at your Majesty's commandment,
either quick or dead, whatsoever she, or any for her, invent to the
contrary ; and, as I have no doubt at all of her stealing away
from me, so if any forcible attempt be given for her, the greatest
peril is sure to be her's. And if I be your Majesty's true faith
ful servant, as I trust your Majesty is fully persuaded, be your
Majesty out of all doubt of any her escape, or delivery from
me, by flight, force, or any other ways, without your Majesty's
own express and known commandment to me ; and thereupon I
engage to your Majesty my life, honour, and all. God preserve
your Majesty, with many happy years, long and prosperously to
reign over us.
At Sheffield Castle, the 3rd of March, 1572.
Your Majesty's humble and faithful servant,
G. SHREWSBURY.
XVIII.
There is something grimly comic in a peer of the realm —
head of all the Talbots — having his bill for ' watch and ward,'
and proper nourishment of the Queen of Scots and her numerous
suite (for he was bound to supply a goodly number of dishes
per diem to the different tables), heavily taxed by the Lords of
the Council.
26 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
Earl of Shrewsbury to Lord Burghley.
Buxton : August 9, 1580.
My very good Lord, — I came hither to Buxton, with my
charge, the 28th of July. She had a hard beginning of her jour
ney y for when she should have taken her horse, he started aside,
and therewith she fell, and hurt her back, which she still complains
of, noth withstanding she applies the bath once or twice a day. I
do strictly observe her Majesty's commandment, written to me by
your Lordship, in restraining all resort to this place ; neither does
she see, nor is seen to any more than to her own people, and such
as I appoint to attend. She has not come forth of the house since
her coming, nor shall not before her parting. Most of her folks
have been sick, since her coming hither, of the new disease ; her
self has yet escaped. My care to discharge the trust it has pleased
her Majesty to repose in me is, and shall be, no less than it has
been heretofore ; but, my Lord, I must lament my griefs to your
Lordship, whose wisdom I know to be great, and can every way
consider. I think myself very hardly dealt withal, that after
twelve years' faithful services, it shall lie in any practising enemy's
power to persuade her Majesty so much against me, as to think
me unworthy of this small portion, the allowance for this Lady's
diet, &c. It is double that money hath served me yearly which I
am driven to spend by the occasion of this charge ; besides the loss
of liberty, dangering of my life, and many other discomforts which
no money could have hired me to ; but the desire I have to serve
my sovereign makes peril and pain a pleasure to me. I will not
trouble your Lordship particularly with my charges, because I
have of late written them at more length. Good my Lord, as my
special trust is in your Lordship, deal so with her Majesty for me
as I am not offered so great a disgrace as to abate any part of the
allowance ; it touches me nearer than a much greater matter in
value could do. My assured trust has been, and is, that her
Majesty, of her gracious goodness, would reward me with more
than all I have received for this charge, whereby it might be a
testimony to the world of her good acceptance of my true and
faithful services. I have presumed to write to her Majesty touching
this allowance, by your Lordship's good means. I doubt not her
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 27
Majesty will think it well bestowed of me, if it were more. So
wishing to your Lordship all honour and health, I end, with my
wife's most hearty commendations.
Your Lordship's most faithful friend,
G. SHREWSBURY.
XIX.
"When Henry the Fourth, of France, abjured Protestantism,
his ambassador, Morlant, was ordered to break the matter to
Queen Elizabeth and to endeavour to calm her feelings by offer
ing the poor plea of c urgent motives of state.' It is said that
after writing the following epistle the Queen sought to appease
her wrath by reading Boethius's ' Consolations of Philosophy.'
Queen Elizabeth to the King of France.
Nov. 12, 1593.
Ah, what grief ! ah, what regret ! ah, what pangs have seized
my heart, at the news which Morlant has communicated ! My
God ! is it possible that any worldly consideration could render
you regardless of the divine displeasure 1 Can we reasonably ex
pect any good result can follow such an iniquity 1 How could you
imagine that He, whose hand has supported and upheld your cause
so long, would fail you at your need ? It is a perilous thing to do
ill that good may come of it ! Nevertheless, I yet hope your better
feelings may return, and, in the meantime, I promise to give you
the first place in my prayers, that Esau's hands may not defile the
blessing of Jacob. The friendship and fidelity you promise to me,
I own I have dearly earned ; but of that I should never have re
pented, if you had not abandoned your father. I cannot now regard
myself as your sister, for I always prefer that which is natural to
that which is adopted, as God best knows, whom I beseech to
guard and keep you in the right way, with better feelings.
Your sister, if it be after the old fashion : with the new I will
have nothing to do.
__ E. R
XX.
This note of condolence, disclosing a mood of tender sym
pathy very unusual with Queen Elizabeth, is nevertheless
hio-hly characteristic. Her habitual regal reserve is maintained
with quiet dignity.
28 ENGLISH LETTERS. [U50-
Queen Elizabeth to Lady Norris upon the Death of her Son.
Although we have deferred long to represent unto you our
grieved thoughts, because we liked full well to yield you the first
Reflections of our Misfortunes, whom we have always sought to
cherish and comfort ; yet knowing now what necessity must bring
it to your ears, and nature consequently must move many passion
ate affections in your Heart, we have resolved no longer to smother,
either our care for your sorrow, or the sympathy of our grief for
his Death ; wherein if society in sorrowing work diminution, we
do assure you by this true messenger of our Mind, that Nature can
have stirred no more dolorous affections in you as a mother for a
dear Son, than the gratefulness and memory of his Services past
had wrought in us his Sovereign apprehension of the miss of so
worthy a Servant. But now that Nature's common Work is done,
and he that was born to die hath paid his Tribute, let that Christian
Discretion stay the flux of your immoderate grieving which hath
instructed you both by Example and Knowledge, that nothing of
this kind hath happened but by God's Providence, and that these
Lines from your loving and gracious Sovereign serve to assure you,
that there shall ever appear the lively Characters of you and yours
that are left, in our valuing rightly all their faithful and honest
Endeavours. More we will not write of this subject, but have dis
patched this Gentleman to visit both your Lord, and condole with
you in the true sense of your Love ; and to pray you, that the World
may see, that what Time cureth in weak Minds, that Discretion and
Moderation may help in you in this Accident, where there is so
opportune occasion to demonstrate true Patience and true Modera
tion.
XXI.
In warning James VI., of Scotland, against his double-
dealing conduct, Queen Elizabeth, in her usual emphatic style,
hints at her intention of ignoring the will of Henry VIII., and
of respecting the rights of primogeniture by secretly nominating'
the descendant of her Aunt Margaret to the reversion of the
English crown. Although naturally fond of secrecy and dis
simulation the Queen could not publicly avow her determination
in this matter without courting troublesome opposition from
the partisans of the other claimants.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 29
Queen Elizabeth to James VI. of Scotland.
1585.
Eight deare Brother, — Your gladsome acceptance of my offred
amitie, togither with the desiar you seem to have ingraven in your
mynde to make merites correspondant, makes me in ful opinion
that some ennemis to our good wyl shal loose muche travel, with
making frustrat thar baiting stratagems, whiche I knowe to be
many, and by sondry meanes to be explored. I cannot halt with
you so muche as to denye that I have seen suche evident shewes
of your contrarious dealings, that if I mad not my rekening the
bettar of the moneths, I might condemiie you as unworthy of such
as I mynd to shewe myselfe toward you, and therefor I am wel
pleased to take any coulor to defend your honor, and hope that
you wyl remember that who seaketh two stringes to one bowe, he
may shute strong, but never strait ; and if you suppose that princes
causes be vailed so couvertly that no intelligence may bewraye
them, deceave not yourselfe ; we old foxes can find shiftes to save
ourselves by others malice, and come by knowledge of greattest
secreat, spetiallye if it touche our freholde. It becometh, therefor,
all our rencq to deale sincerely, lest, if we use it not, whan we do
it, we be hardly beleaved. I write not this, my deare brother, for
dout but for remembrances.
My ambassador writes so muche of your honorable traitment
of him and of Alexandar, that I belive they be convertid Scotes.
You oblige me for them ; for wiche I rendar you a milion of most
intire thankes, as she that meaneth to desarve many a good thoght
in your brest throwe good desart. And for that your request is so
honorable, retaining so muche reason, I wer out of [my] sences if
I shuld not suspend of any hiresay til the answer of your owne
action, wiche the actor ought best to knowe, and so assure yourselfe
I meane and vowe to do ; with this request, that you wyl affourd
me the reciproque. And thus, with my many petitions to the
Almighty for your long life and preservation, I ende these skribled
lines.
Your verey assured lovinge sistar and cousin,
ELIZABETH R.
30 ENGLISH LETTERS. [150-
XXII.
Queen Elizabeth here ridicules a proposal made to her on the
part of the Scotch Commissioners that Mary, Queen of Scots,
should he allowed to leave her captivity and he placed in the
keeping of some neutral prince, subject to a guarantee from her
relations that she should for ever abstain from all interference
in the affairs of England. The letter indicates with tolerable
clearness Elizabeth's intention to sacrifice the life of her dangerous
rival.
Queen Elizabeth to James VI. of Scotland.
[February, 1586-7.]
Be not caried away, my deare brother, with the lewd perswa-
tions of suche, as insteade of infowrming you of my to nideful and
helpeless cause of defending the brethe that God hath given me, to
be better spent than spilt by the bloudy invention of traitors hands,
may perhaps make you belive, that ether the offense was not so
great, or if that cannot serve them, for the over-manifest triall
wiche in publick and by the greatest and most in this land bathe
bine manifestly proved, yet they wyl make that her life may be
saved and myne safe wiche wold God wer true ; for whan you
make view of my long danger indured thes four — wel ny five —
moneths time to make a tast of, the greatest witz ainongs my
owne, and than of French, and last of you, wyl graunt with me,
that if nide wer not mor than my malice she shuld not have her
merite.
And now for a good conclusion of my long-taried-for answer.
Your commissionars telz me, that I may trust her in the hand of
some indifferent prince, and have all her cousins and allies promis
she wil no more seake my ruine. Deare brother and cousin, way
in true and equal balance wither they lak not muche good ground
whan suche stuf serves for ther bilding. Suppose you I am so
mad to truste my life in anothers hand and send hit out of my
owne 1 If the young master of Gray, for curring faueur with you,
might fortune say hit, yet old master Mylvin hath yeres ynough
to teache him more wis-dome than tel a prince of anyjugement
sucbe a contrarious frivolous maimed reason. Let your coun-
celors, for your honor, discharge ther duty so muche to you as to
declaire the absurditie of such an offer ; and, for my part, I do
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 31
assure myselfe to muche of your wisdome, as, thogh like a most
naturall good sou you charged them to seake all meanes they could
devis with wit or jugement to save her life, yet I can not, nor
do not, allege any fault to you of thes persuations, for I take hit
that you wil remember, that advis or desiars aught ever agree with
the surtye of the party sent to and honor of the sendar, wiche
whan bothe you weigh, I doute not but your wisdome wil excuse
my nide, and waite my necessitie, and not accuse me ether of malice
or of hate.
And now to conclude. Make account, I pray you, of my firme
frindeship love and care, of which you may make sure accownt,
as one that never mindz to faile from my worde, nor swarve from
our league, but wyl increase, by all good meanes, any action that
may make true shewe of my stable amitie ; from wiche, my deare
brother, let no sinistar whispeiars, nor busy troblars of princis
states, persuade to leave your surest, and stike to unstable staies.
Suppose them to be but the ecchos to suche whos stipendaries the
be, and wyl do more for ther gaine than your good. And so, God
hold you ever in his blessed kiping, and make you see your tru
friends. Excuse my not writing sonar, for paine in one of my
yees was only the cause.
Your most assured lovinge sistar and cousin,
ELIZABETH K.
XXIII.
It was thought in Spain, at least by the priests and courtiers
who surrounded Philip II., that one battle at sea and one battle
on land would bring- England to her senses, and compel Queen
Elizabeth to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope ; and not
a little of the literature of Spain in the years 1587 and 1588
pointed to the importance of capturing our Queen and killing
Drake. The English Admiral was the chief oifender. By his
successful expedition in 1587, he had retarded the invasion by a
whole year, having- tamed the Spanish, and, as he said, ' singed
the King's beard.' He is writing to that most successful diplo
mat, Walsingham, at the time we were hotly pursuing the
retreating Armada.
Sir Francis Drake to Lord Walsingham.
July 31, 1588.
Most Honorable, — I am comaunded to send these prisoners
ashore by my Lord Admerall, which had, ere this, byne long done,
32 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
but that I thought ther being here myght have done something
which is not thought meet now.
Lett me beseche your Honor that they may be presented unto
her Majestie, either by your honor, or my honorable good Lord, my
Lord Chancellor, or both of you. The one, Don Pedro, is a man
of great estymacyon with the King of Spayne, and thowght next
in this armye to the Duke of Sedonya. If they shoulde be geven
from me unto any other, it would be som gref to my friends. Yf her
Majestie will have them, God defend but I shoulde thinck it happye.
We have the armey of Spayne before us, and mynd with the
Grace of God, to wressell a poull with him.
Ther was never any thing pleased me better than the seeing
the enemey flying with a Sotherly wynd to the Northwards. God
grant you have a good eye to the Duke of Parma, for with the
Grace of God, yf we live, I doubt it not, but ere it be long so to
handell the matter with the Duke of Sedonya, as he shall wish
hymselff at Saint Marie Port among his orynge trees. God gyve
us grace to depend upon him, so shall we not doubt victory ; for
our cawse is good.
Humbly taking my leave, this last of July, 1588.
Your Honor's faythfully to be commanded ever,
FRA : DRAKE.
XXIV.
Some 150 letters relative to the suppression of the monas
teries were edited in 1843 "by Mr. Thomas Wright for the
Oamden Society, from the originals in the British Museum.
They illustrate in very plain language the depravity that was
rampant in the lesser monasteries, and the corruption that had
wormed itself into many of the larger establishments ; und even
if it "be allowed that Henry VIII.?s policy of confiscation was
based on selfish motives, and that his plea of religious reform
was subordinate to his secular aims, the suppression of four-
fifths of the monasteries was justified by the voluminous report
of the Visitor-General, Thomas Cromwell, in what is deservedly
called the < Black Book.' Although the Act of 1539 did not
actually dissolve the greater houses, their occupants were either
persuaded or terrified into a voluntary surrender. The cases of
stubborn and recalcitrant abbots were deat with by indict
ments for high treason,
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 33
John ap Rice to Thomas Cromwell, Visitor-General of
Monasteries.
Bury:' Nov. 5, 1535.
Please it your mastership, fibrasmoche as I suppose ye shall
have sute made unto you touching Burie er we retourne, I thought
convenient to advertise you of our procedinges there, and also of
the compertes, of the same.
As for thabbot, we found nothing suspect as touching his
ly ving, but it was detected that he laye moche forth in his granges,
that he delited moche in playing at dice and cardes, and therin
spent moche money, and in buylding for his pleasure. He did not
preche openly. Also that he converted divers fermes into copie
holdes, wherof poore men doth complayne. Also he semeth to be
addict to the mayntenyng of suche supersticious ceremones as hath
ben used heretofor.
As touching the convent, we coulde geate litle or no reportes
amonge theym, although we did use moche diligence in our exami-
nacion, and therby, with some other argumentes gethered of their
examinations, I fermely beleve and suppose that they had con-
federed and compacted before our commyng that they shulde dis
close nothing.
And yet it is confessed and proved, that there was here suche
frequence of women commyng and reasserting to this monastery
as to no place more. Amongest the reliques we founde moche
vanitie and superstition, as the coles that Sainte Laurence was
tested withall, the paring of S. Edmundes naylles, S. Thomas of
Canterbury penneknyff and his bootes, and divers skulles for the
hedache; peces of the holie crosse able to make a hole crosse of;
other reliques for rayne and certain other superstitiouse usages, for
avoyding of wedes growing in corne, with, suche other. Here
departe of theym that be under age upon an eight, and of theym
that be above age upon a five, wolde departe yf they might, and
they be ofthe best sorte in the house and of best lernyng and
jugement. The hole nomber of the convent before we cam was
lx., saving one, besides iij that were at Oxforde. Of Elie I have
34 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
written to your mastership by my felowe Richard a Lee. And
thus Almightie God have you in his tuicion. From Burie, vth
Kovembre.
Your servant moste bounden
JOHNE AP RICE.
XXV.
This letter, illustrative of the condition of some religious
houses, was written by a monk of the abbey of Pershore.
Richard Bterley to Sir Thomas Cromwell, Visitor- General of
Monasteries.
1536.
Most reverent lord yn God, second person yn this rem of
Englond, ynduyd with all grace and goodnes, y submytt my
selfe unto your grace and goodnes, desyurying you myckely
to be good and gracyus lord unto me synful and poor creatur,
my lowly and myck scrybullyng unto your nobull grace at
this tyme ys gruggyng yn my conchons that the relygyon
wyche we do obser and keype ys no rull of Sentt Benett, nor yt no
commandyment of God, nor of no Sentt, but lyyth and foulysse
serymonys, mayd sum yn old tyme and sume yn our tyme, by
lyyth and ondyscrytt faders, wych have done ther dutys and ful-
fellyd ther owne serymonys, an lett the preceps an commandy-
mentes of God go. And so have y do thys syx yere, wych doth
now greve my conchons sore, that y have byn a dyssymblar so long
tyme, the wych relygyon say sent Jamys, ys yn vayne and bryng-
yng forth no good fruttes; bettur owtt then yn the relygyon,
except yt were the tru relygyon of Chryst. Also we do nothyng
seyrch for the doctryn of Chryst, but all fowlows our owne
sensyaly and pleser. And thys relygyon, as y supposse, ys all yn
vayne glory, and nothyng worthy to be except nather before God
nor man. Also, most gracyus lord, ther ys a secrett thyng yn my
conchons wych dothe move me to goo out of the relygyon, an yf
yt were never so perfett, wych no man may know but my gostly
fader, the wych I supposs yf a man mothe guge yn other yong
persons as yn me selfe, for Chryst say, nolite judicare et nonjudi-
calimini; therfore y wyl guge my nowne conchons fyrst, the
wych fault he shall know of me heyrafter more largyorly, and
many other fowll vycys don amonckst relygyus me[n], not
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 35
relygyus men, as y thynk the owtt not to be cald, but dyssym-
blars with God. Now, most gracyus lord and most worthyst
vycytar that ever cam amonckes us, helpe me owt of thys vayne
relygyon, and macke me your servant, hande-mayd, and beydman,
and save my sowlle, wych sholdbe lost yf ye helpe yt not, the
wych you may save with on word speckyng, and mayck me wych
am now nawtt to cum unto grace and goodnes. Now y wyll
ynstrux your grace sumwatt of relygyus men, and how the Kynges
grace commandyment ys keyp yn puttyng forth of bockes the
beyschatt of Rome userpt power. Monckes drynk an bowll after
collacyon tell ten or xii. of the clock, and cum to mattens as
dronck as myss, and sume at cardes, sume at dyyss, and at
tabulles, sume cum to mattens begenynge at the mydes, and sume
when yt ys allmost done, and wold not cum ther so only for
boddly punnysment, nothyng for Godes sayck, wyth many other
vycys the use, wych y have no leser now to express. Also abbettes,
monckes, prest, dont lyttyl or nothyng to put owtt of bockes the
beyshatt of Romes name, for y my seylfe do know yn dyvers
bockes wher ys name and hys userpt powor upon us ys. No mor
unto your nobul grace at thays tyme, but Jesu preserve you to
pleser. Amen.
Your commyssary commandyd me to wrytt my mynd unto
your nobul grace, by my oathe I toyk of him yn our chaptur
hows.
Be me, your beydman, Rye. Beerley, now
monck yn the monastery of Pershor.
XXVI.
The death of Lady Cecil, the wife of Secretary Robert Cecil,
was the occasion of a letter of condolence from Ralegh to her
husband — for the two statesmen were firm friends in the year
1596.
If the letter does not help to illustrate Mr. Hume's remark
that Ralegh's prose was e the best model of our ancient style,'
it, at least, is thoroughly characteristic of the writer. His for
tunes were on the wane, and he was passing into a phase of
disappointment and sorrow. His most recent biographer, Mr.
Edwards, to whom we are indebted for a fresh store of corre
spondence, remarks of this particular letter : — ' Perhaps few
men of like mental calibre have taken so long a time to learn
36 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
the lessons of bereavement or the uses of adversity. The task,
however, was got by heart at last. We have here Ralegh's
crude notions about the theme before he had really learnt a
line of it,'
Sir Walter Ralegh to Secretary Sir Robert Cecil.
Sherborne : Jan 24, 1596.
Sir, — Because I know not how you dispose of yoursealf, I for-
beare to vissitt you ; preferringe your plesinge before myne own
desire. 1 had rather be with you now then att any other tyme, if
I could therby ether take of frome you the burden of your sorrows,
or lay the greater part therof on myne owne hart. In the mean
tyme, I would butt minde you of this, — that you should not over-
shaddo your wisdome with passion, butt looke aright into things
as the are.
There is no man sorry for death it sealf, butt only for the tyme
of death ; every one knowing that it is a bound never forfeted to
God. If then wee know the same to be certayne and inevitable,
wee ought withall to take the tyme of his arivall in as good part
as the knowledge ; and not to lament att the instant of every
seeminge adversety, whiche, we ar asured, have bynn on ther way
towards us from the beginninge. It apartayneth to every man of
a wize and worthy spirritt to draw together into sufferance the
unknown future to the known present ; lookinge no less with the
eyes of the minde then thos of the boddy — the one beholdinge afar
of, and the other att hand — that thos things of this worlde in
which we live be not strange unto us, when the approach, as to
febleness, which is moved with noveltes. Butt that, like true
men, participating immortalletye, and knowpng] our destines to
be of God, wee then make our estates and wishes, our fortunes and
desires, all one.
It is trew that you have lost a good and vertuous wife, and my
sealf an honorable frinde and kynswoman. Butt ther was a tyme
when shee was unknowne to you, for whom you then lamented
not. Shee is now no more your's, nor of your acquayntance, butt
immortall, and not needinge or knowing your love or sorrow.
Therefore you shall but greve for that which now is as then it was,
when not your's ; only bettered by the differance in this, that shee
hath past the weresome journey of this darke worlde, and hath
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 37
possession of her inheritance. Shee hath left behind her the frufce
of her love, for whos sakes you ought to care for your sealf, that you
leve them not without a gwyde, and not by grevinge to repine att
His will that gave them you, or by sorrowing to dry up your own
tymes that ought to establishe them.
I beleve it that sorrows are dangerus companions, converting
badd into yevill and yevill in worse, and do no other service
then multeply harms. They ar the treasures of weak harts and of
the foolishe. The minde that entertayneth them is as the yearth
and dust wheron sorrows and adversetes of the world do, as the
beasts of the field, tread, trample, and defile. The minde of man
is that part of God which is in us, which, by how mich it is subject
to passion, by so mich it is farther from Hyme that gave it us.
Sorrows draw not the dead to life, butt the livinge to death. And,
if T weare my sealf to advize my sealf in the like, I would never
forgett my patience till I saw all and the worst of yevills, and so
greve for all att once ; least, lamenting for sume one, another might
not remayne in the poure of Destiney of greater discumfort.
Your's ever beyound the pour of words to utter
W. EALEGH.
XXVII.
Sir Walter Ralegh was the chief victim of the half-hearted
Spanish policy of King James I. He had been condemned to
death for secretly allying himself with Spanish interests,- but
the sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment. His
execution, some fifteen years afterwards, was brought about by
an almost unavoidable collision with Spanish troops during the
ill-advised expedition to Guiana in search of his ' El Dorado.'
True, when this ambitious explorer, after thirteen years' impri
sonment, was released conditionally from the Tower, he was
pledged not to molest the Spaniards: but, unfortunately,
Spanish blood was shed, and not a single nugget of gold was
brought home to compensate for his disobedience.
Sir Walter Ralegh to King James I.
The Tower: Sept. 24, 1618.
If in my jorny outuard bound I had of my men murtherad at
the Islands, and spared to tak revenge ; if I did discharge some
Spanish barkes taken, without spoile ; if I forbare all partes of the
3*
33 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
Spanish Indies, wherin I might have taken twentye of their
townes on the sea cost, and did only follow the enterprise which I
undertooke for Guiana, — where without any direccion from me, a
Spanish village was burnt, which was newly sett up within three
miles of the mine, — by your Majesties favor I finde noe reason
whie the Spanish Embassadore should complaine of me. If it
were lawfull for the Spanish to murther 26 Englishmen, tyenge
them back to backe, and then to cutt theire throtes, when they
had traded with them a whole moneth, and came to them on the
land without so much as one sword amongst them all ; — and that
it may not be lawfull for your Majesties subjects, beinge forced by
them, to repell force by force, we may justly say, ' 0 miserable
English ! '
If Parker and Mutton took Campeach and other places in the
Honduraes, seated in the hart of the Spanish Indies ; burnt
townes, killed the Spaniards, and had nothing sayed to them at
their returne, — and that my selfe forbore to looke into the Indies,
because I would not offend, I may as justly say, ' 0 miserable Sir
Walter Ralegh!'
If I had spent my poore estate, lost my sonne, suffred, by sick-
nes and otherwise, a world of miseries ; if I had resisted with the
manifest hazard of my life the rebells [robberies] and spoils which
my companyes would have made ; if when I was poore I could
have mad my selfe rich ; if when I had gotten my libertye, which
all men and Nature it selfe doth so much prise, I voluntarilie lost
it ; if when I was master of my life I rendred it againe ; if,
[though] I might elsewhere have sould iny shipp and goods, and
put five or six thousand pounds in my purse, I have brought her
into England ; I beseech your Majestie to beleeve, that all this I
have done because it should [not] be sayed to your Majestie that
your Majestie had given libertie and trust to a man whose ende
was but the recovery of his libertie, and whoe had betrayed your
Majesties trust.
My mutiners tould me, that if I returned for England I should
be undone ; but I beleeved more in your Majesty's goodnes then in
their arguments. Sure I am, that I am the first who, being free
and able to inrich my selfe, hath embraced povertie. And as sure
I am that my example shall make me the last. But your Majes-
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 39
tics wisdome and goodnes I have made my judges, whoe have
ever bine, and
Shall ener remain,
Your Majesty's most humble vassall
W. RALEGH.
XXVIII.
Lyly, though still a young man in 1582, was already famous
as the author of ' Euphues,' the manual of stately morality
among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth. He had flourished
under the protection of Lord Burleigh since he left Oxford in
1574, and we do not know under what circumstances he incurred
the displeasure of the High Treasurer. He was probably soon
taken into favour again, for we find him about the Court until
the end of the century.
John Lyly to Lord Burleigh.
July, 1582.
It hath plesed my Lord vpon what colour I cannot tell, cer-
taine I am vpon no cause, to be displesed with me, ye grief whereof
is more then the losse can be. But seeing I am to Hue in ye
world, I must also be judged by the world, for that an honest
seruaunt must be such as Ca3sar wold haue his wif, not only free
from synne, but from suspicion. And for that I wish nothing
more then to commit all my waies to your wisdome and the
deuises of others to your iuclgment, I here yeld both my self and
my soule, the one to be tried by your honnor, the other by the
iustic of god ; and if I doubt not but my dealings being sifted,
the world shall find white meale, where others thought to show
cours branne.
It may be maiiie things wilbe objected, but yf any thing can be
proued I doubt, I know your L. will soone smell deuises from sim
plicity, trueth from trecherie, factions from just servis. And god
is my witnes, before whome I speak, and before whome for my
speache I shal aunswer, yat all my thoughtes concerning my L. haue
byne ever reuerent, and almost relligious. How I haue dealt god
knoweth and my Lady can conjecture, so faithfullie, as I am as
vnspotted for dishonestie, as a suckling from theft. This conscins
of myne maketh me presume to stand to all trialls, ether of
accomptes, or counsell, in the one I neuer vsed falshood nor in the
40 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
other dissembling. My most humble suit therfore vnto your L. is
yat my accusations be not smothered and I choaked in ye smoak,
but that they made be tried in ye fire, and I will stand to the heat.
And my only comfort is, yat ye yat is wis shall judge trueth,
whos nakednes shall manifest her noblenes. But I will not
troble your honorable eares, with so meinie idle words only this
upon my knees I ask, yat your L, will vousalf to talk with me,
and in all things will I shew my self so honest, yat my disgrac
shall bring to your L. as great meruell, as it hath done to me
grief, and so thoroughly will I satisfie everie objection, yat your L.
shall think me faithfull, though infortunat. That your honnor rest
persuaded of myne honest mynd, and my Lady of my true servis,
that all things may be tried to ye vttermost, is my desire, and the
only reward I craue for my iust (iust I dare term it) servis. And
thus in all humility submitting my caus to your wisdome and my
consins to ye trieall. I commit your L. to the Almightie.
Your L. most dutifullie to commaund
JOHN LYLY.
XXIX.
That ruling tyrant of the English Bar, Sir Edward Coke,
was a chronic thorn in the side of Sir Francis Bacon. Jealous of
the increasing political and literary fame of his adversary,
Coke, both in word and action, exercised all his ingenuity to
lower the credit of his accomplished countryman. His affected
depreciation of the writings of the author of ' The Advance
ment of Learning,' betrayed a petty malignity of spirit which
the philosopher did not deign to notice. Not so his studied
insolence of behaviour, which brought out the following neat
letter of expostulation.
Sir Francis Bacon to Sir Edward Coke.
[Before June 1606.]
Mr. Attorney, — I thought best once for all, to let you know in
plainness what I find of you, and what you shall find of me. You
take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and disable my law, my ex
perience, my discretion. "What it pleaseth you, I pray, think of
me : I am one that knows both mine own wants and other mens ;
and it may be, perchance, that mine mend, when others stand at a
stay. And surely I may not endure, in public place, to be
wronged without repelling the same to my best advantage to right
myself, You are great, and therefore have the more enviers,
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 41
which would be glad to have you paid at another's cost. Since
the time I missed the solicitor's place, the rather I think by your
means, I cannot expect that you and I shall ever serve as attorney
and solicitor together : but either to serve with another upon your
remove, or to step into some other course ; so as I am more free
than ever I was from any occasion of unworthy conforming
myself to you, more than general good manners, or your particular
good usage shall provoke ; and if you had not been short-sighted
in your own fortune, as I think you might have had more use of
me. But that tide is passed.
I write not this to shew my friends what a brave letter I have
written to Mr. Attorney ; I have none of those humours ; but
that I have written is to a good end, that is, to the more decent
carriage of my master's service, and to our particular better under
standing one of another. This letter, if it shall be answered by
you in deed, and not in word, I suppose it will not be worse for us
both ; else it is but a few lines lost, which for a much smaller
matter I would have adventured. So this being to yourself, I for
my part rest &c.
XXX.
This little gem, composed in honour of the founder of the
Bodleian Library, lies half-hidden in a ponderous volume
entitled ' Cabala,' consisting of some very important correspond
ence of the Elizabethan and early Stuart period. The letter is
also published in some editions of Bacon's works. So graceful
a recognition of services to literature from the man of all others
most capable of appreciating them, must have been very gratify
ing to the courtly diplomatist, Sir Thomas Bodley, at a time
when public benefactions were sparingly acknowledged.
Sir Francis Bacon to Sir Thomas Bodley, upon sending him his
book on the ' Advancement of Learning.1
1607.
Sir, — I think no man may more truly say with the Psalm,
multum incola fuit anima mea. For I do confess, since I was of
any understanding, my mind hath in effect, been absent from that
I have done, and in absence errours are committed, which I do
willingly acknowledge ; and amongst the rest, this great one that
led the rest ; that knowing my self by inward calling to be fitter
to hold a Book, than to play a Part, I have led my Life in civil
42 ENGLISH ETTERS. | H50-
Causes ; for which I was not very fit by Nature, and more unfit
by the pre-occupation of my Mind. Therefore calling my self
home, I have now for a time enjoyed my self; where likewise I
desire to make the World partaker ; my labours (if so I may term
that which was the comfort of my other labours) I have dedicated
to the King, desirous if there be any good in them, it may be as
fat of a Sacrifice incensed to his Honour ; and the second Copy
have sent unto you, not only in good affection, but in a kind of
Congruity, in regard of your Great and rare desert of learning.
For Books are the Shrines where the Saint is, or is believed to be.
And you having built an Ark to save Learning from Deluge,
deserve in Propriety, any new Instrument or Engine, whereby
Learning should be Improved or Advanced.
XXXI. f
Although the nation at large was proud of Bacon as orator,
lawyer, statesman, and philosopher, and applauded his rise to
the woolsack and to the dignity of Viscount St. Albans as
warmly as they did his unrivalled attainments, yet so heinous
was the sin of judicial bribery considered, that his conviction by
the Parliament of malpractices in the Hi<?h Court of Chancery
was followed by a national cry for his punishment.
The following letter was written before the formal impeach
ment was carried to the House of Peers, and while the charges
of bribery and corruption were being collected.
Lord Chancellor Bacon to King James I.
March 25, 1621.
May it please your most excellent Majesty, — Time hath been
when I have brought unto you gemitum columbce from others, now
I bring it from myself. I fly unto your Majesty with the wings of
a dove, which once within these seven days I thought would have
carried me a higher flight. When I enter into myself, I find not
the materials of such a tempest as is come upon me : I have been,
as your majesty knoweth best, never author of any immoderate
counsel, but always desired to have things carried suavibus modis.
I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I have been
no haughty, or intolerable, or hateful man, in my conversation or
carriage. I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a
good patriot born. Whence should this be ? For these are the
things that use to raise dislikes abroad.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 43
For the house of Commons, I began my credit there, and now
it must be the place of the sepulture thereof; and yet this parlia
ment, upon the message touching religion, the old love revived,
and they said, I was the same man still, only honesty was turned
into honour. For the upper house, even within these days, before
these troubles, they seemed as to take me into their arms, finding
in me ingenuity, which they took to be the true straight line of
nobleness, without any crooks or angles.
And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when
the books of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found
to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved
habit of taking rewards to pervert justice ; howsoever I may be
frail, and partake of the abuses of the times.
And therefore I am resolved, when I come to my answer, not
to trick up my innocency, as I writ to the lords, by cavillations
or voidances ; but to speak to them the language that my heart
speaketh to me, in excusing, extenuating, or ingenuously confessing ;
praying to God to give me the grace to see the bottom of my faults,
and that no hardness of heart do steal upon me, under shew of more
neatness of conscience, than is cause. But not to trouble your
majesty any longer, craving pardon for this long mourning letter ;
that which I thirst after, as the hart after the streams, is, that I
may know, by my matchless friend that presenteth to you this
letter, your majesty's heart (which is an abyssus of goodness, as I
am an abyssus of misery) towards me. I have been ever your
man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself, the
property being yours. And now making myself an oblation to do
with me as may best conduce to the honour of your justice, the
honour of your mercy, and the use of your service, resting as clay
in your majesty's gracious hands. &c., &c.
XXXII.
The excellent counsel vouchsafed in this letter by James I.
to his eldest son, supplemented as it was by the Koyal instruc
tions contained in < the printed book ' (Basilicon Doron), was not
addressed to a heedless boy, but to a clever princeling whose
activity of mind, firm sincerity, and ardent piety contrasted
with the vanity and pedantry of his father. In losing Prince
Henry at the early age of nineteen, the nation lost, in all
appearance, a ruler capable of reviving the best features of
Plantagenet government.
44 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
James I. to his son Prince Henry, on his leaving Scotland to
possession of the English Crown.
1603.
My Son, — That I see you not before my parting, impute it to
this great occasion, wherein time is so precious ; but that shall by
God's grace be recompensed by your coming to me shortly, and
continual residence with me ever after. Let not this news make
you proud, or insolent, for a King's son and heir was ye before,
and no more are ye yet. The augmentation that is hereby like to
fall unto you, is but in cares and heavy burthens. Be, therefore,
merry, but not insolent ; keep a greatness, but sine fastu j be
resolute, but not wilful. Keep your kindness, but in honourable
sort ; choose none to be your playfellows but them that are well
born ; and above all things, never give good countenance to any
but according as ye shall be informed that they are in estimation
with me. Look upon all Englishmen that shall come to visit
you as your loving subjects, not with that ceremony as towards
strangers, and yet with such heartiness as at this time they deserve.
This gentleman whom this bearer accompanies is worthy, and of
good rank, and now my familiar servitor ; use him, therefore, in
a more homely, loving sort nor other. I send you herewith my
book lately printed ; study and profit in it as ye would deserve my
blessing ; and as there can nothing happen unto you whereof ye
will not find the general ground therein, if not the very par
ticular point touched, so must ye level every man's opinions or
advices unto you as ye find them agree or discord with the rules
there set down, allowing and following their advices that agree
with the same, mistrusting and frowning upon them that advise
you to the contrary. Be diligent and earnest in your studies, that
at your meeting with me I may praise you for your progress in
learning. Be obedient to your master, for your own weal, and to
procure my thanks; for in reverencing him ye obey me, and
honour yourself. Farewell,
Your loving father,
JAMES R.
16001 ENGLISH LETTERS. 45
XXXIII.
Accompanied "by that accomplished trifler, the Duke of
Buckingham, Prince Charles of England, the spoilt child of an
indulgent and affectionate father, had reached the end of what
is called a romantic journey to Madrid in quest of a wife. The
romancers had passed in disguise through France under the
undignified names of Jack and Tom Smith, and at the time this
letter was 'written they were endeavouring to negotiate among
the wily Spaniards a marriage-treaty with the Infanta. The
only excuse James I. had for seeking a wife for his ' dear baby '
from a house hostile to the Protestant faith was that there was
no Protestant princess of immediate royal extraction to be
found ; at least, there was no king's daughter ; and rather than
abandon a project that would contribute so much to his desire
for a political alliance with Spain — an alliance openly depre
cated by the English nation — he consented to demands which,
rising as they did at every fresh stage of the contract, overtaxed
the patience of Charles himself, who neutralised the pliant dis
position of his father by adopting the role of an injured suitor,
and returning to London. Unfortunately, he went f from the
smoke to the smother,' and married Henrietta Maria of France.
James I. to Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham.
Theobalds : May 9, 1623.
My Sweet Boys, — If the Dutch post had not been robbed and
sore beaten in Kent, three days ago, ye had sooner received the
duplicate of the power I put in my sweet babies' hands, which I
send you for the more security, seeing the expedition of your
return depends upon it; but it rejoiceth my heart that your
opinion anent the three conditions annexed to the dispensation
agreeth fully with mine, as ye will find by one of my letters, dated
Theobalds, which Gresley will deliver unto you. Carlisle came
yesterday morning to Dos Castellanos, and a devoted servant to
the Conde d'Olivares ; but my sweet Steenie Gossip, I heartily
thank thee for thy kind, droll letter. I do herewith send thee a
kind letter of thanks to that King for the elephant, as thou de
sired, wherein I likewise thank for him, for a letter of his which
Carlisle delivered unto me, which is indeed the kindest and cour-
tesest letter ever I received from any King. I have likewise
received from Carlisle the list of the jewels which ye have already
received, and which of them my baby means to present to his
mistress ; I pray you, sweet baby, if ye think not fit to present her
46 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
the collar of great ballest rubies and knots of pearls, bring it
home again, and the like I say of the head-dressing of the great
pear pearls, which ye have, and other three head-dressings which
Frank Stewart is to deliver unto you, for they are not presents fit
for subjects ; but if ye please, ye may present one of them to the
queen of Spain. Carlisle thinks my baby will bestow a rich jewel
upon the Conde D'Olivares; but, in my opinion, horses, dogs,
hawks, and such like stuff to be sent him out of England by you
both, will be a far more noble, acceptable present to him. And
now, my sweet Steenie gossip, that the poor fool, Kate, hath also
sent thee her pearl chain, which, by accident, I saw in a box in
Frank Stewart's ; I hope I need not conjure thee not to give any
of her jewels away there, for thou knowest what necessary use she
will have of them at your return here, besides that it is not lucky
to give away that I have given her. Now, as for mails, the more
strong mails for carriage that ye can provide me with, I will be
the better secured in my journeys, and the better cheap. If ye
can get the deer handsomely here, they shall be welcome. I hope
the elephant, camels, and asses, are already by the way.
And so God bless you both, and after a happy success there,
send you speedy and comfortable home in the arms of your dear
dad. JAMES R.
XXXIV.
James I. to Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham.
March 25, 1623.
My Sweet Boys, — God bless you both, and reward you for the
comfortable news I received from you yesterday (which was my
coronation day), in place of tilting ; and God bless thee, my sweet
gossip, for thy little letter, all full of comfort, I have written a
letter to the Conde d' Olivares, as both of you desired me, as full
of thanks and kindness as can be devised, and indeed he well
deserves ; but in the end of your letter ye put in a cooling card,
anent the nuncio's averseness to this business, and that thereby ye
collect that the pope will likewise be averse ; but first ye must re
member that in Spain they never put doubt of the granting of the
dispensation — that themselves did set down the spiritual conditions.
These things may justly bo laid before them ; but I know not what
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 47
ye mean by my acknowledging the pope's, spiritual supremacy. I
am sure ye would not have me renounce my religion for all the
world ; but all that I can guess at your meaning is, that it may
[be] ye have an allusion to a passage in my book against Bellar-
mine, where I offer, if the pope would quit his godhead, and usurp
ing over Kings, to acknowledge him for the chief bishop, to which
all appeals of churchmen ought to lie en dernier resort, the very
words I send you here inclosed, and that is the farthest my con
science will permit me to go upon this point ; for I am not a
monsieur that can shift his religion as easily as he can shift his
shirt, when he cometh from tennis.
I have no more to say in this ; but God bless you, my sweet
Baby, and send him good fortune in his wooing to the comfort of
his old father, who cannot be happy but in him. My ship is ready
to make sail, and only stays for a fair wind. God send it her :
but I have, for the honour of England, curtailed the train that
goes by sea of a number of rascals. And, my sweet Steenie
gossip, I must tell thee that Kate was a little sick within these
four or five days of a headache, and the next morning, after a
little casting, was well again. I hope it is a good sign that I
shall shortly be a gossip over again, for I must be thy perpetual
gossip ; but the poor fool Kate hath, by importunity, gotten leave
of me to send thee both her rich chains ; and this is now the eighth
etter I have written for my two boys, and six to Kate. God send
me still more and more comfortable news of you both, till I may
have a joyful, comfortable, and happy meeting with you ; and that
my Baby may bring home a fair lady with him, as this is written
upon our Lady-day, 25th of March, 1623. JAMES R.
XXXV.
Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, the impetuous favourite
of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, who ' never learned to disguise
a feeling or conceal a thought,' reached the zenith of royal par
tiality "before he attained his thirtieth year.
The idol of the people and of the arruy, the Queen was as
jealous of his popularity as she was fond of him personally.
The two following letters are among a series written to the
Queen during his outward journey in command of the expedi
tion against Spain, 1597. ' They indicate his position as the
successor of the courtly Earl of Leicester.
48 ENGLISH LETTERS. [H50-
The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.
Sandwich : June 23, 1597.
Your spirit I do invoke, my most dear and admired sovereign,
to assist me, that I may express that humblest and most due
thankfulness, and that high and true joy which upon the reading
of your Majesty's letter my poor heart hath conceived. Upon
your spirit, I say, I call, as only powerful over me, and by his
infinite virtue only able to express infinite thiDgs.
Or if I be too weak an instrument to be inspired with such a
gift, or that words be not able to interpret for me, then to your
royal dear heart I appeal, which, without my words, can fully and
justly understand me. Heavens and earth shall witness for me.
I will strive to be worthy of so high a grace and so blessed a
happiness. Be pleased therefore, most dear Queen, to be ever
thus gracious, if not for my merit yet for your own constancy.
And so you shall bestow all those happinesses which in the end of
your letter you are pleased to wish ; and then, if I may hear your
Majesty is well and well-pleased nothing can be ill with your
Majesty's humblest and most affectionate vassal,
ESSEX.
XXXVI.
The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.
Portland Roads : July 6, 1597.
Most dear and most excellent Sovereign, — I received your
gracious letter full of princely care, of sweetness, and of power
to CD able your poor vassal to all duties and services that flesh and
blood can perform. I received this dear letter, I say, as I was
under sail, coming with your Majesty's fleet into the road of
Portland. And because I think it will be welcome news to your
Majesty that we are all with safety thus far advanced, I send the
gentleman whom your Majesty dispatched to me forthwith back
again.
By whom, if I could express my soul's humble, infinite and
perfect thankfulness for so high favours as your Majesty's five dear
tokens, both the watch, the thorn and above all the angel J which
1 Probably a portrait.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 49
you sent to guard me, for your Majesty's sweet letters indited by
the spirit of spirits ; if, for this I say, I could express fit thank
fulness I would strain my wits to perform it. But till God in
time make my poor endeavours and services my witnesses I must
hope your Majesty will conceive, in your royal breast that which
my weak words cannot signify. So shall you do justly as you
ever used to do, and so shall you bless and make happy your
Majesty's humble vassal, whose soul is poured out with most ear
nest, faithful and more than most affectionate wishes.
ESSEX.
XXXVIT.
In spite of the failure of the expedition to Spain, and of many
other omissions, Essex retained hisplace at Court. In the summer
of 1598, in the course of a warm discussion on the proposed ap
pointment of Sir William Knollys to the Governor-Generalship
of Ireland, the hot-headed Earl provoked the Queen by hia
discourteous manner. She promptly boxed his ears before the
Lord Treasurer and other councillors. That Essex considered
he had received hard measure is clear from his first letter to
Elizabeth after his proscription from the Court circle.
The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.
[1598.]
Madam, — When I think how I have preferred your beauty
above all things, and received no pleasure in life but by the in
crease of your favour towards me, I wonder at myself what cause
there could be to make me absent myself one day from you. But
when I remember that your Majesty hath, by the intolerable
wrong you have done both me and yourself not only broken all
laws of affection, but done against the honour of your sex, I think
all places better than that where I am, and all dangers well under
taken, so I might retire myself from the memory of my false, incon
stant and beguiling pleasures. I am. sorry to write thus much
for I cannot think your mind so dishonourable but that you punish
yourself for it, how little soever you care for me. But I desire
whatsoever falls out that your Majesty should be without excuse,
you knowing yourself to be the cause, and all the world wondering
at the effect. I was never proud till your Majesty sought to make
me too base. And now since my destiny is no better, my despair
shall be as my love was, without repentance. I will as a subject
50 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
and an humble servant owe my life, my fortune, and all that is in
me ; but this place is not fit for me, for she which governs this
world is weary of me, and I of the world. I must commend my
faith to be judged by Him who judgeth all hearts since on earth I
find no right. Wishing your Majesty all comforts and joys in the
world, and no greater punishment for your wrongs to me than to
know the faith of him you have lost, and the baseness of those you
shall keep
Your Majesty's most humble servant,
ESSEX.
XXXVIII.
After tlie Earl's unauthorised return from Ireland, on his
failure to suppress the rebellion of 1598, Elizabeth kept him
a prisoner in York House for several months. She had been
heard to exclaim: ' By God's son, I am no Queen ; that man
is above me/ and she resolved to break his proud spirit. The
Earl remained in the custody of the Lord Keeper for three
months after writing the following appeal.
The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.
May 12, 1600.
Before all letters written in this hand be banished or he that
sends this enjoin himself eternal silence, be pleased, I humbly
beseech your Majesty, to read over these humble lines. At sundry
times, and by sundry messengers, I received these words as your
Majesty's own, that you meant to correct and not to ruin ; since
which time when I languished in four months' sickness, forfeited
almost all that I was enabled to engage, felt the very pangs of
death upon me, and saw that poor reputation, whatsoever it was
that I enjoyed hitherto, not suffered to die with me, but buried
and I alive, I yet kissed your Majesty's fair correcting hand, and
was confident in your royal word ; for I said to myself, between
my ruin and my sovereign's favour there is no mean, and if she
bestow favour again, she gives it with all things that in this world
I either need or desire. But now the length of my troubles, and
the continuance, or rather increase, of your Majesty's indignation,
have made all men so afraid of me, as my own poor state is not
only ruined, but my kind friends and faithful servants are like to
die in prison because I cannot help myself with mine own.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 51
Now, I do not only feel the weight of. your Majesty's indigna
tion, and am subject to their malicious insinuations that first
envied me for my happiness in your favour, and now hate me out
of custom; but as if I were thrown into a corner like a dead
carcase, I am gnawed on and torn by the vilest and basest crea
tures upon earth. The prating tavern haunter speaks of me what
he lists ; the frantic libeller writes of me what he lists ; already
they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly they
will play me in what forms they list upon the stage. The least of
these is a thousand times worse than death. But this is not the
worst of my destiny, for your Majesty that hath mercy for all the
world but me, that hath protected from scorn and infamy all to
whom you ever avowed favour but Essex, and never repented you
of any gracious assurance you had given till now ; your Majesty,
I say, hath now, in this eighth month of my close imprisonment,
as if you thought mine infirmities, beggary and infamy too little
punishment, rejected my letters and refused to hear of me, which
to traitors you never did. What therefore remaineth for me?
only this, to beseech your Majesty, on the knees of my heart, to
conclude my punishment, my misery and my life all together,
that I may go to my Saviour, who hath paid himself a ransom for
me, and whom, methinks, I shall hear calling me out of this un
kind world in which I have lived too long, and ever thought my
self too happy.
From your Majesty's humblest vassal,
ESSEX.
XXXIX.
The full extent of the Earl's degradation will be gathered
by contrasting the last humble appeal with one of his earliest
and extravagantly familiar letters written when he was under
twenty-five years and the Queen over sixty years.
The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.
[1590]
Madam, — The delights of this place cannot make me unmindful
of one in whose sweet company I have joyed as much as the hap
piest man doth in his highest contentment ; and if my horse could
run as fast as my thoughts do fly, I would as often make mine
52 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
eyes rich in beholding the treasure of my love, as my desires do
triumph when I seem to myself in a strong imagination to con
quer your resisting will. Noble and dear lad}^ tho' I be absent,
let me in your favour be second unto none ; and when I am at
home, if I have no right to dwell chief in so excellent a place, yet
I will usurp upon all the world. And so making myself as hum
ble to do you service, as in my love I am ambitious I wish your
Majesty all your happy desires. Croydon, this Tuesday, going to
be mad and make my horse tame. Of all the men the most de
voted to your service,
ESSEX.
XL.
In the early part of 1638 Milton came over from Horton,
and was presented by John Hales to the famous Provost of
Eton, Sir Henry Wotton, then in the last year of his life. The
courtly old gentleman was delighted with the young- poet's
grace and wit, and most of all with his enthusiastic desire to
visit Italy. On April 6 Milton had sent him a copy of ' Comus,'
with a letter announcing his immediate departure for the Con
tinent, to which the Provost replies after the lapse of a week.
A few days later Milton started upon his memorable Italian
journey, and before he returned Wotton had sunk into the
debility of mind that preceded his death in December 1639. In
reading the latter part of this letter, it is impossible not to re
call the diplomatist's own witty definition of an ambassador,
1 an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his
country.'
Sir Henry Wotton to John Milton,
From the College : this 13 of April, 1638.
Sir, — It was a special favour, when you lately bestowed upon
me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than
to make me know that I wanted more time to value it, and to en
joy it rightly; and in truth, if I could then have imagined your
further stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr.
H., I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my
draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst) and to have begged
your conversation again jointly with your said learned friend, at a
poor meal or two, that we might have lauded together some good
authors of the ancient time, among which I observed you to have
been familiar.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 53
Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations,
both for a very kind letter from you dated the sixth of this month,
and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith,
wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical
did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your songs and
odes, wherein I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing
parallel in our language : ipsa tnollities. But I must not omit to
tell you, that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me
(how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had
viewed some good while before, with singular delight, having re
ceived it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of
the late R.'s poems, printed at Oxford; whereunto it is added
(as I now suppose) that the accessory may help out the principal:,
according to the art of stationers, and leave the reader con la
bocca dolce.
Now Sir, concerning your travels, wherein I may challenge a
little more privilege of discourse with you ; I suppose you will
not blanch Paris in your way; therefore I have been bold to
trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B., wh3in you shall easily
find attending the young Lord S. as his governor, and you may
surely receive from him good directions for shaping of your
farther journey into Italy, where he did reside by my choice some
time for the King after mine own recess from Venice.
I should think that your best line will be through the whole
length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa, whence
the passage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I
hasten, as you do, to Florence, or Siena, the rather to tell you a
short story from the interest you have given me in your safety.
At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipione, an
old Roman courtier in dangerous times, having been steward to
the Duca de Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled,
save this only man, that escaped by foresight of the tempest.
With him I had often much chat of those affairs, into which he
took pleasure to look back from his native harbour, and at my
departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his ex
perience) I had won confidence enough to beg his advice how I
might carry myself securely there, without offence of others, or
of mine own conscience. Signor arrigo mio, says he, pensieri
stretti, e il viso sciotio, will go safely over the whole world. Of
4
54 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
which Delphian oracle, for so I have found it, your judgment
doth need no commentary, and therefore, Sir, I will commit you
with it to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining
your friend, as much at command as any of longer date,
HENRY WOTTON.
P.S. Sir, — I have expressly sent this my footboy to prevent
your departure without some acknowledgment from me of the
receipt of your obliging letter, having myself through some busi
ness, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any
part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad and dili
gent to entertain you with home novelties, even for some fomenta
tion of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle.
XLI.
The archives at Zurich contain the original correspondence
between the chief English and Swiss Reformers. A great
many friends of the Reformation settled in this canton and its
capital on the accession of Queen Mary ; and after their return
to England, in 1558, they corresponded closely with the
friends by whom they had been so hospitably received. Under
the title of 'Zurich Letters,' the Parker Society issued two
volumes containing most interesting letters treating of matters
ecclesiastical during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This letter
refers to the refusal of all the English bishops, except Kitchin,
of Llandaff, to subscribe to the Act of Supremacy of 1559,
which, with the Act of Uniformity, virtually revived the eccle
siastical supremacy of the Crown.
Dr. Jewel) Bishop of Salisbury, to Peter Martyr.
London : Aug. 1, 1559.
I have hitherto, my father, written to you less frequently
because many engagements, both of a public and private nature,
have prevented my correspondence. I now write, not because I
have more leisure than heretofore, but because I shall have much
less in future than I have at present. For I have now one foot on
the ground, and the other almost on my horse's back. I am on the
point of setting out upon a long and troublesome commission for
the establishment of religion, through Reading, Abingdon, Glou
cester, Bristol, Bath, Wells, Exeter, Cornwall, Dorset, and Salis
bury. The extent of my journey will be about seven hundred
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 55
miles, so that I imagine we shall hardly be able to return in less
than four months. Wherefore, lest you should in the mean time
suppose me dead, notwithstanding I wrote to you twelve days
since upon our common affairs, I think it not unmeet to send you
this short greeting at the very moment of my setting out. Our
affairs are now in a favourable condition. The queen is exceed
ingly well disposed ; and the people everywhere thirsting after re
ligion. The bishops, rather than abandon the pope, whom they
have so often abjured before, are willing to submit to every thing.
Not, however, that they do so for the sake of religion, of which
they have none ; but for the sake of consistency, which the misera
ble knaves now choose to call their conscience.
Now that religion is everywhere changed, the mass-priests ab
sent themselves altogether from public worship, as if it were the
greatest impiety to have any thing in common with the people of
God. But the fury of these wretches is so great that nothing can
exceed it. They are altogether full of hopes and anticipations, (for,
as you know, they are a most anticipative race, and mightily ad
dicted to fuluritions,) that these things cannot last long. But,
whatever may happen in future, we render thanks to Almighty
God that our affairs are as they are.
Every thing is in a ferment in Scotland. Knox, surrounded
by a thousand followers, is holding assemblies throughout the
whole kingdom. The old queen (dowager) has been compelled to
shut herself up in garrison. The nobility with united hearts
and hands are restoring religion throughout the country, in spite
of all opposition. All the monasteries are every where levelled
with the ground : the theatrical dresses, the sacrilegious chalices,
the idols, the altars, are consigned to the flames ; not a vestige of
the ancient superstition and idolatry is left. What do you ask
for ? You have often heard of drinking .like a /Scythian ; but this
is churching it like a Scythian. The King of France that now is,
styles himself King of Scotland, and in case of anything happening
to our queen, (which God forefend !) heir of England. You must
not be surprised if our peop.le are indignant at this ; and how the
matter will at length turn out, God only can determine. A com
mon enemy perhaps, as is sometimes the case, may be the occasion
of reconciling with us our neighbour Scotland ; in which event,
although the [queen's] marriage should also take place, — but I will
6G ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
not prognosticate. Master Heton salutes you, and that not less
affectionately than if you were his father. Some of us are ap
pointed to bishopricks ; Cox to Ely, Scory to Hereford, Allen to
Rochester, Grindal to London, Barton to Chichester, and I, the
least of the apostles, to Salisbury. But this burden I have posi
tively determined to shake off. In the mean time there is a dismal
solitude in our Universities. The young men are flying about in
all directions, rather than come to an agreement in matters of
religion.
But my companions are waiting for me, and calling to* me to
set off. Farewell, therefore, my father, and my pride. Salute
that reverend man, and on so many accounts dearly beloved in
Christ, Master Bullinger, to whom also, if I had time, I would
send a separate letter. Salute masters Gaulter, Simler, Lavater,
Haller, Gesner, Frisius, Herman. I have five golden pistoles
from Master Bartholomew Compagni, for the venerable old man
Master Bernardine, with a letter to him from the same. I would
write to him concerning the whole business, were I not prevented
by want of time. I pray you, however, to let him know that, ex
cept [the payment of] this money, nothing else is settled. Court
affairs, as far as I can see, are so difficult of management, that I
know not whether any thing can be made of it. The queen is now
a long way off in Kent, so that nothing can be done.
Farewell, my father, farewell. May you be as happy as I can
wish you ! Salute, in my name, your Julius and Anna, and your
little son [Martyrillus].
Your every way most attached
JOHN JEWELL.
XLIL
This next extract from the ' Zurich Letters' is dated a year
or two after that the Puritans had become a powerfully organised
sect under the leadership of Thomas Cartwright. They are no
longer merely resisting the laws because the outward forms of
public worship savour too much of Roman Catholicism ; they
have changed front and are themselves attacking the episcopal
form of church government. The unwise persecution of this reli
gious body throughout the forty years of Queen Elizabeth's reign
only served to strengthen their ranks, and in this respect the
Queen's church rule was a failure. Archbishop Parker neglected
to enforce the restraining statutes with sufficient stringency
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 57
atjirst] his successor, Grindal, rather sympathised with the
Puritans than otherwise ; and this left Archbishop Whitgift —
a firm clerical statesman after Elizabeth's heart — comparatively
powerless, even with the High Commission Court in the back
ground.
Dr. Cox, Bishop of Uly, to Rodolph Gualter.
Ely: Feb. 3,1573.
I return you my best thanks, my dear brother in Christ, for
having sent me a most courteous letter, which I received in De
cember, and in which you clearly manifest your anxiety for the
church of Christ, though at so great a distance from you. This,
indeed, ought to be the chief solicitude of every pastor in the
church, but of those more especially who in the endowments of
learning and judgment, and piety are superior to the rest. When
Dr. Whitgift, the most vehement enemy of the schismatics, and
the chief instrument against them in our church, had perceived
these unruly men to have burst by their reckless attacks the
barriers of law and of religion, which had been so well and so
peacefully established ; and that they had only distributed infamous
pamphlets which, had been privately committed to the press ; and
also that from your letter to our friend Parkhurst, which they had
communicated to many persons, they had already obtained a handle
for confirming their errors, lie thought that the publication of your
letter to me would tend very much to the defence of the truth.
Your first letter was extorted from you by those who falsely ac
cused us ; but the simple truth brought the second to light. And
there is no reason why you should be disturbed about the publica
tion of what has procured credit and reputation to yourself, inas
much as it espouses the cause of truth, of which no one ought to
be ashamed.
I acquainted you with some of the errors of our men in the
questions I proposed to you, and you have gratified me most ex
ceedingly by the candid and sincere declaration of your sentiments ;
for the opinions of Masters Bullinger and Gualter are of no little
weight in our church. But these disputants of ours are so shuf
fling, and so tenacious of their own opinion, that they will give
way to no one who opposes their judgment ; and they are striving
to draw all your writings over to their side by a perverted inter
pretation of them. To give you an instance of their candour,
58 ENGLISH LETTERS. [H50-
they are zealously endeavouring to overthrow the entire order of
our Anglican church. Night and day do they importune both the
people and the nobility, and stir them up to abhorrence of those
persons who, on the abolition of popery, are faithfully discharging
the duties of the ministry, and they busy themselves in everywhere
weakening and diminishing their credit. And that they may effect
this with greater ease and plausibility, they bawl out to those har
pies who are greedily hankering after plunder and spoil, that the
property and revenues of the cathedral churches ought to be
diverted to I know not what other uses. Nor will they allow
bishops to take any other precedence than as individual pastors in
their respective parishes, whose highest authority they wish to be
that of governing, together with their presbytery, the rest of the
parishioners. And in this way they set up and establish the
equality they speak of. Besides this, they will not acknowledge
any government in the church. They propose, moreover, that the
estates and houses of the bishops should be appropriated to pious
uses ; but, more blind than moles, they do not perceive that they
will soon be swallowed up by the devouring wolves.
There are in this country twenty-three bishopricks, the endow
ments of some of which are little enough ; others have moderate
ones, and others more abundant. But all are within the bounds
of moderation. None of the bishops interfere in any matters but
the ministery of the word and sacraments, except when the law
requires them, or at the command of the sovereign. Nor in these
things, as far as I am aware, do they deal harshly with the
brethren, but temper what is severe with surprising lenity. Our
opponents, however, would complain most grievously, were our
jurisdiction transferred to the laity, as they call them : they would
soon find out that the gold had been exchanged for brass. But
how true are the insinuations which they have whispered against
us in the ears of the godly, time will shew ; and ' our rejoicing is
the testimony of our conscience.' I wish they would acquiesce in
your wholesome and prudent counsel, namely, to put up with what
cannot be amended without great danger. At first they attacked
only things of little consequence ; but now they turn every thing,
both great and small, up and down, and throw all things into con
fusion ; and would bring the church into very great danger, were
not our most pious queen most faithful to her principles, and did
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 59
she not dread and restrain the vanity and inconsistency of these
frivolous men. But because we do not decline to execute the
orders of the government, whenever it commands us to interfere,
in bridling in these our tumultuous brethren, on this ground an
undue severity, not to say cruelty, is most unjustly laid to our
charge. But we have this one comfort, that the religion of Christ
is ever accompanied by the cross, which he will, by his Holy Spirit,
enable us willingly to bear.
Your son, a youth of excellent promise, has only this fault, that
he rarely comes to see me. But I am now obliged to excuse him,
because he is residing in our other university — I mean Oxford,
which is a great way off. But I hope that he will take leave of me
before he goes away. You have acted prudently in so carefully
providing for your son, that like Ulysses, he may see the customs
and cities of many people, and like the industrious bee, extract
piety from all the churches. May 'God bring him back to be a
blessing to his father ! May Christ Jesus very long preserve you
to us in safety ! From the Isle of Ely in England, Feb. 3, 1573,
according to the English computation.
Your most loving friend in Christ, Richard Cox, pastor and
servant of the church at Ely.
RICHARD ELY.
XLIII.
Dr. Donne was one of the most conspicuous of the literary
characters of the later Elizabethan and early Stuart periods.
He was a many-sided man. His youth was spent as a hard-
reading recluse ; his early married life, after he had become
private secretary to a nobleman, was full of vicissitudes, and he
finished by being Chaplain-in-Ordinary to James I. In this
last capacity he has been described as preaching ' as an angel from
a cloud, but not in a cloud.' Few readers of his poetry will,
however, be disposed to accord like praise to the prurient wit,
the extravagant metaphor, and the conceited oddity of his
verses. His other function was satire, of which, with Joseph
Hall and John Marston, the dramatist, he was the founder. Dr.
Donne was highly appreciated in his own day, but he is now
chiefly known as the subject of one of Isaac Walton's incom
parable biographies, and as the writer of satires versified by
Alexander Pope.
60 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
Dr. Donne to the Marquess of Buckingham.
Sept. 13, 1621.
My most honoured Lord, — I most humbly beseech your Lord
ship, to afford this rag of Paper a room amongst your Evidences.
It is your evidence, not for a Manner, but for a man. As I am
a Priest, it is my Sacrifice of Prayer to God for your Lordship ;
and as I am a Priest made able to subsist, and appear in God's
Service, by your Lordship, it is a Sacrifice of my self to you. I
deliver this Paper as my image ; and I assist the Power of any
Conjurer with this imprecation upon my self, that as he shall tear
this Paper, this Picture of mine, so I may be torn in my fortune,
and in my Fame, if ever 1 have any Corner in my Heart dispos
sessed of a Zeal to your Lordship's Service. His Majesty hath
given me a Royal Key into your Chamber, leave to stand in your
presence, and your Lordship hath already such a Fortune, as that
you shall not need to be afraid of a Suitor, when I appear there.
So that, I protest to your Lordship, I know not what I want,
since I cannot suspect, nor fear myself, for ever doing, or leaving
undone, anything by which I might forfeit that Title, of being
always
Your Lordships, &c.
J. D.
XLIV.
The four short specimens which follow are characteristic of
Dr. Donne's studied extravagance and quaintness of manner.
They are taken from a volume of letters, published in the year
1651, addressed { to several persons of honour.' The same pecu
liar turn of phrase and ingenious expression runs through the
whole of this unique collection. No one knew better than Dr.
Donne how to please his fashionable entourage in prose as well
as in verse.
Dr. Donne to Lady G .
Madam, — I am not come out of England, if I remain in the
noblest part of it, your mind ; yet I confess it is too much dimi
nution to call your mind any part of England, or of this world,
since every part even of your body deserves titles of higher dignity.
No Prince would b3 loth to die, that were assured so fair a tomb
to preserve his memory; but I hive a greater vantage than so;
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 61
for since there is a religion in friendship^ and a death in absence,
to make up an entire frame there must be a heaven too : and
there can be no Heaven so proportional to that religion, and that
death, as your favour. And I am gladder that it is a heaven, than
that it were a Court, or any other high place of this world, because
I am likelier to have a room there than here ; and better cheap.
Madam, my best treasure is time ; and my best employment of
that is to study good wishes for you, in which I am by continual
meditation so learned, that your own good Angel, when it would
do you most good, might be content to come and take instructions
from
Your humble and affectionate Servant,
JOHN DONKE.
XLV.
Dr. Donne to Sir Henry Goodere.
August 15, 1607.
Sir, — In the history or style of friendship which is best written
both in deeds and words, a letter which is of a mixed nature, and
hath something of both, is a mixed Parenthesis. It may be left
out, yet it contributes, though not to the being yet to the verdure
and freshness thereof. Letters have truly the same office as Oaths.
As these amongst light and empty men are but fillings and pauses
and interjections ; but with weightier, they are sad attestations ;
so are letters to some compliment, and obligation to others. For
mine, as I never authorized my servant to lie in my behalf (for
it were officious in him, it might be worse in me) so I allow my
letters much less that civil dishonesty, both because they go from
me more considerately, and because they are permanent ; for in
them I may speak to you in your Chamber a year hence before I
know not whom, and not hear myself.
They shall therefore ever keep the sincerity and intemerate-
ness of the fountain whence they are derived. And as where
soever these leaves fall, the root is in my heart, so shall they, as
that sucks good affections towards you there, have ever true im
pressions thereof. Thus much information is in very leaves, that
they can tell what the tree is, and these can tell you I am a friend
and an honest man. Of what general use the fruit should speak,
and I have none; and of what particular profit to you, your
4*
62 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
application and experimenting should tell you, and you can make
none of such a nothing ; yet even of barren Sycamores, such as I,
there were use, if either any light flashings, or scorching vehe-
mencies, or sudden showers made you need so shadowy an example
or remembrancer. But, Sir, your fortune and mind do you this
happy injury, that you make all kinds of fruits useless to you.
Therefore I have placed my love wisely where I need communicate
nothing. All this, tho' perchance you read it not till Michaelmas,
was told you at Micham.
XLVI.
Dr. Donne to the worthiest Lady Mrs. B. W-
Madame, — I think the letters which I send you single lose
themselves by the way for want of a guide, or faint for want of
company. Now, that on your part there be no excuse, after
three single letters, I send three together, that every one of them
may have two witnesses of their delivery. They come also to
wait upon another letter from Sir Edward Herbert, of whose re
covery from a fever you may apprehend a perfecter contentment
than we, because you had none of the former sorrow. I am an
heretic if it be sound doctrine that pleasure tastes best after sorrow.
For my part I can love health well enough though I be never
sick • and I never needed my Mistress' frowns and disfavours to
make her favours acceptable to me. In States, it is a weakness
to stand upon a defensive war, and safer not to be invaded than to
have overcome; so in our soul's health, an innocence is better
than the heartiest repentance. And in the pleasures of this life it
is better that the variety of the pleasures give us the taste and
appetite to it, than a sour and sad interruption quicken our
stomach ; for then we live by Physic. I wish therefore all your
happinesses such as this entire and without flaw or spot of discon
tentment ; and such is the love and service of
Your humblest and affectionatest servant,
JOHN DONNE.
Strand : St. Peter's Day, at 4.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 63
XLVII.
Dr. Donne to Sir J. II .
Aug. 6, 1608.
I would not omit this, not commodity, but advantage of
writing to you. This emptiness in London dignifies any letter
from hence, as in the seasons, earliness and lateness make the
sourness, and after the sweetness of fruits acceptable and gracious.
"We often excuse and advance mean authors, by the age in which
they lived, so will your love do this Letter ; and you will tell
yourself that if he which writ it knew wherein he might express
his affection or anything which might have made his Letter wel-
comer, he would have done it. As it is, you may accept it so, as
we do many China manufactures, of which when we know no use,
yet we satisfy our curiosity in considering them, because we know
not how, nor of what matter they were made. Near great woods
and quarries it is no wonder to see fair houses, but in Holland,
which wants both, it is.
So were it for me who am as far removed from Court, and
knowledge of foreign passages, as this City is now from the face
and furniture of a City, to build up a long letter and to write of
myself, were but to enclose a poor handful of straw for a token in
a letter ; yet I will tell you that I am at London only to provide
for Monday, when I shall use that favour which my Lady Bed
ford hath afforded me of giving her name to my daughter ; which
I mention to you, as well to shew that I covet any occasion of a
grateful speaking of her favours, as that, because I have thought
the day is likely to bring you to London, I might tell you, that
my poor house is in your way, and you shall there find such com
pany as (I think) you will not be loth to accompany to London.
Your very true friend,
JOHN DONNE.
XLVIII.
The Countess of Bedford patronised both Jonson and Daniel,
a circumstance that roused the jealousy of the latter. Donne
wrote to Jonson begging him to refrain from openly noticing
some false charge made in this connection, and the great drama
tist replied as follows.
64 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
Ben Jonson to John Donne.
Sir, — You cannot but believe how dear and reverend your
iriendship is to me, (though all testimony on my part hath been
too short to express me) and therefore would I meet it with all
obedience. My mind is not yet so deafened by injuries, but it
hath an ear for counsel. Yet in this point that you presently dis
suade, I wonder how I am misunderstood ; or that you should
call that an imaginary right, which is the proper justice that
every clear man owes to his innocency. Exasperations I intend
none, for truth cannot be sharp but to ill natures, or such weak
ones whom ill spirits, suspicion or credulity, still possess. My
lady may believe whisperings, receive tales, suspect and condemn my
honesty, and I may not answer on the pain of losing her ! as if
she who had this prejudice of me were not already lost ! Oh ! no,
she will do me no hurt, she will think and speak well of my facul
ties. She cannot thus judge me; or, if she could, I would ex
change all glory, (if I had all men's abilities) which could come
that way, for honest simplicity. But there is a greater penalty
threatened, the loss of you, my true friend ; for others I reckon
not, who were never had l have so subscribed myself. Alas ! how
easy is a man accused that is forsaken of defence ! Well, my
modesty shall sit down, and (let the world call it guilt or what
it will) I will yet thank you that counsel me to a silence in these
oppressures, when confidence in my right, and friends, may abandon
me. And lest yourself may undergo some hazard, for my ques
tioned reputation, and draw jealousies or hatred upon you, I desire
to be left to mine own innocence, which shall acquit me, or heaven
shall be guilty.
Your ever true lover
BEN JONSON.
XLIX.
This and the following outburst of devotional resignation
are the last letters written by Eliot before his death in the
Tower on Nov. 27, 1632. The King, knowing well that he
was suffering from a mortal disease, obstinately refused to
allow him the needful care and treatment.
1 These are the words of Jonson 's letter. He seems to mean, ' I
reckon not (friends) whom I never really possessed.'
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 65
Sir John Eliot to John Hampden.
The Tower : March 22, 1632.
Dear friend, — Quit you as speedily as you can, for without it
you are faulty. I thank God lately my business has been much
with doctors and physicians, so that but by them I have had
little trouble with myself. These three weeks I have had a full
leisure to do nothing, and strictly tied unto it either by their
direction or my weakness. The cause originally was a cold, but
the symptoms that did follow it spake more sickness, and a general
indisposition it begot in all the faculties of the body. The learned
said a consumption did attend it, but I thank God I did not feel
or credit it. What they advise, as the ordinance that's appointed,
I was content to use ; and in the true show of patient, suffered
whatever they imposed. Great is the authority of princes, bub
greater much is theirs who both command our persons and our
wills. What the success of their government will be must be
referred to Him that is master of their power. I find myself
bettered, but not well, which makes me the more ready to observe
them. The divine blessing must effectuate their wit, which authors
all the happiness we receive. It is that mercy that has hitherto
protected me, and, if I may seem useful in his wisdom, will con
tinue me, amongst other offices, to remain,
Your faithful Friend and Servant,
Jo. ELIOT.
Sir John Eliot to John Hampden.
The Tower : 1632.
Besides the acknowledgment of your favour, that have so much
compassion on your friend I have little to return you from him
that has nothing worthy of your acceptance, but the contestation
that I have between an ill body and the air, that quarrel, and are
friends, as the summer winds affect them. I have these three
days been abroad, and as often brought in .new impressions of the
colds, yet, body and strength and appetite I find myself bettered
by the motion. Cold at first was the occasion of my sickness,
heat and tenderness by close keeping in my chamber has since
66 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
increased my weakness. Air and exercise are thought most proper
to repair it, which are the prescription of my doctors, though no
physic. I thank God other medicines I now take not, but those
catholicons, and do hope I shall not need them. As children learn
to go, I shall get acquainted with the air, practice and use will
compass it, and now and then a fall is an instruction for the future.
These varieties He does try us with, that will have us perfect at
all parts, and as he gives the trial he likewise gives the ability
that shall be necessary for the work. He has the Philistine at the
disposition of his will, and those that trust him, under his protec
tion and defence. 0 ! infinite mercy of our Master, dear friend,
how it abounds to us, that are unworthy of his service ! How
broken ! how imperfect ! how perverse and crooked are our ways in
obedience to him ! How exactly straight is the line of his provi
dence to us ! drawn out through all occurrents and particulars to
the whole length and measure of our time ! How perfect is his
hand that has given his son unto us, and through him has pro
mised likewise to give us all things — relieving our wants, sanctify
ing our necessities, preventing our dangers, freeing us from all
extremities, and dying himself for us ! "What can we render ]
What retribution can we make worthy so great a majesty 1
worthy such love and favour ? We have nothing but ourselves
who are unworthy above all and yet that, as all other things, is
his. For us to offer up that, is but to give him of his own, and
that in far worse condition than we at first received it, which yet
(for infinite is his goodness for the merits of his son) he is con
tented to accept. This, dear friend, must be the comfort of his
children ; this is the physic we must use in all our sickness and
extremities ; this is the strengthening of the weak, the nourishing
of the poor, the liberty of the captive, the health of the diseased,
the life of those that die, the death of the wretched life of sin !
And this happiness have his saints. The contemplation of this
happiness has led me almost beyond the compass of a letter ; but
the haste I use unto my friends, and the affection that does move
it, will I hope excuse me. Friends should communicate their
joys : this as the greatest, therefore, I could not but impart unto
my friend, being therein moved by the present expectation of your
letters, which always have the grace of much intelligence, and are
happiness to him that is truly yours.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 67
LI,
* Money makes the mirth
When all birds els do of their musick faile
Money's the still-sweet-singing nightingale.'
Thus sang, long- after Ms impecunious days at Cambridge,
the Royalist Vicar of Dean Prior, Robert Herrick. By a strange
irony of fortune the only letters we possess from the genial
and glowing pen of the great poet of the Hesperides are a series
of plaintive notes to his rich uncle, Sir William Herrick ; and
we may gather from them that this amiable relative's money
paid for the piping of some of the most graceful lyrics in the
English language.
Robert Herrick to Sir William Herrick.
Are the minds of men immutable 1 and will they rest in only
one opinion without the least perspicuous shew of change ? 0 no,
they cannot, for Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis : it
is an old but yet young saying in our age, as times change, so
men's minds are altered. O would .... were seen, for then
some pitying Planet would with a drop of dew refresh my withered
hopes, and give a life to that which is about to die ; the body is
preserved by food, and life by hope, which (but wanting either of
these conservers) faint, fear, fall, freeze, and die. 'Tis in your
power to cure all, to infuse by a profusion a double life into a
single body. Homo hornini Deus : man should be so, and he is
commanded so; but, frail and glass-like, man proves brittle in
many things. How kind Arcisilaus the philosopher was unto
Apelles the painter Plutarc in his Morals will tell you ; which
should I here depaint, the length of my letter would hide the sight
of my Labour, which that it may not, I bridle in my Quill and
mildly, and yet I fear to rashly and to boldly make known and
discover which my modesty would conceal ; and this is all : my
study craves but your assistance to furnish her with books, where
in she is most desirous to labour : blame not her modest boldness,
but suffer the aspersions of your love to distill upon her, and next
to Heaven she will consecrate her labours unto you, and because
that Time hath devoured some years, I am the more importunate
in the craving; suffer not the distance to hinder that which I
know your disposition will not deny. And now is the time (that
florida setas) which promises fruitfulness for her former barren-
68 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
ness, and wisheth all to hope. As every thing will have in time
an end, so this, which though it would extend itself and overflow
its bounds I forcibly withstand it. Wishing this world's happi
ness to follow and attend you in this life, and that with a trium
phant crown of glory you may be crowned in the best world to
come.
ROBERT HERRICK.
LIT.
Robert Her rick to Sir William Her rick.
Cambridge : January, 1616.
Before you unsealed my letter, right Worshipful, it cannot be
doubted but you had perfect knowledge of the essence of my writ
ing, before you read it ; for custom hath made you expect in my
plain-song, mitte pecuniam, that being the cause sine qud non, or
the power that gives life and being to each matter. I delight not
to draw your imagination to inextricable perplexities, or knit up
my love in indissoluble knots, but make no other exposition but
the literal sense, which is to entreat you to pay to Mr. Adrian
Morice the sum of ten pounds as customarily, and to take a note
of his hand for the receipt, which I desire may be effected briefly,
because the circumstance of the time must be expressed. I per
ceive I must cry with the afflicted usquequo, usquequo, Domine.
Yet I have confidence that I live in your memory, howsoever
Time brings not the thing hoped for to its just maturity; but
my belief is strong, and I do establish my hopes on rocks, and fear
no quicksands ; be you my firm assistant, and good effects, pro
duced from virtuous causes will follow. So shall my wishes pace
with yours for the supplement of your own happiness, and the
perfection of your own posterity.
Ever to be commanded,
ROBERT HERRICK.
To pay to Mr. Blunt, bookseller in Paul's Churchyard, the
sum above-named.
LIIL
At the age of eighty-seven Isaac Walton wrote the follow
ing letter to his friend Aubrey, in reply to some inquiries he
had made respecting ' Rare Ben Jonson'and other less impor
tant personages.
1GOO] ENGLISH LETTERS. 69
Isaac Walton to John Aubrey.
Dec. 2, 1G80.
For your friends' quse. this :
I only knew Ben Jonson, but my Lord of "Winton knew
him very well, and says he was in the 6th, that is the upper
most form in Westminster School, at which time his father
died, and his mother married a bricklayer, who made him
(much against his will) to help him in his trade. But in a short
time his schoolmaster, Mr. Camden, got him in better em
ployment, which was to attend or accompany a son of Sir "Walter
Kunleyes in his travels. Within a short time after their return,
they parted (I think not in cold blood) and with a love suitable
to what they had in their travels (not to be commended) ; and
then Ben began to set up for himself in the trade by which he got
his subsistence and fame, of which I need not give any account.
He got in time to have a ^100 a year from the King, also a pen
sion from the city, and the like from many of the nobility, and
some of the gentry, which was well paid for love or fear of his
railing in verse or prose or both.
My Lord of Winton told me, he told him he was (in his long
retirement and sickness, when he saw him, which was often)
much afflicted that he had profaned the Scripture in his plays, and
lamented it with horror ; yet at that time of his long retirement,
his pensions (so much as came in) were given to a woman that
governed him, with whom he lived and died near the Abbey at
Westminster ; and that neither he nor she took much care for next
week, and would be sure not to want wine, of which he usually
took too much before he went to bed, if not oftener and sooner.
My Lord tells me, he knows not, but thinks he was born in
Westminster. The question may be put to Mr. Wood very easily
upon what grounds he is positive as to his being born there 1 he
is a friendly man and will resolve it. So much for brave Ben.
For your 2nd and 3rd qua3. of Mr. Hill and Billingsley, I do
neither know nor can learn anything worth telling you. For your
remaining quse. of Mr. Warner and Mr. Hariotfc, this : — Mr. War
ner did long and constantly lodge near the water stairs or market
in Woolstable (Woolstable is a place or lane not far from Charing
Cross, and nearer to Northumberland House). My Lord of Win--
70 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
chester tells me he knew him, and that he said he first found out
the circulation of the blood, and discovered it to Dr. Harvey (who
said that 'twas he himself that found it) for which he is so memo
rably famous. Warner had a pension of £4:0 from the Earl of
Northumberland that lay so long a prisoner in the Tower, and
some allowance from Sir Thomas Alesbury with whom he usually
spent his summer in Windsor Park.
Mr. Hariott my Lord tells me knew also, that he was a more
gentle man than Warner. That he had £120 a year pension from
the said Earl and his lodging in Sion House where he believes he
died.
This is all I know or can learn for your friend, which I wish
may be worth the time and trouble of reading it.
I. W.
LIV.
The tedium of Sir John Eliot's imprisonment in the Tower
from 1630 to 1632 was relieved by the gifts and correspondence
of his friends ; among these the most assiduous was the great
champion of English liberty, John Hampden. The present
letter contains Hampden's impression of the ' Monarchy of
Man,' a philosophical treatise written by Eliot during his last
imprisonment.
John Hampden to Sir John Eliot.
Hampden: June 20, 1631.
Sir, — You shall receive the book I promised by this bearer's
immediate hand ; for the other papers I presume to take a little,
but a little, respite. I have looked upon your rare piece only with
a superficial view, as at first sight to take the aspect and propor
tion in the whole ; after, with a more accurate eye, to take out the
lineaments of every part. 'Twere rashness in me, therefore, to dis
cover any judgment, before I have ground to make one. This I
discern, that 'tis as complete an image of the pattern as can be
drawn by lines, a lively character of a large mind ; the subject,
method and expressions, excellent and homogenial, and to say
truth, sweet heart, somewhat exceeding my commendations. My
words cannot render them to the life, yet, to show my ingenuity
rather than my wit, would not a less model have given a full
representation of that subject 1 not by diminution, but by con
traction, of parts ? I desire to learn ; I dare not say. The varia-
1600J ENGLISH LETTERS. 71
tions upon each particular seem many ; all, T confess, excellent.
The fountain was full, the chanell narrow ; that may be the cause.
Or that the author imitated Virgil, who made more verses by
many than he intended to write, to extract a just number. Had
I seen all this, I could easily have bid him make fewer ; but if he
had bid me tell which he should have spared, I had been apposed.
So say I of these expressions, and that to satisfy you, not myself;
but that by obeying you in a command so contrary to my own
disposition, you may measure bow large a power you have
over
Jo. HAMPDEX.
Recommend my service to Mr. Long, and if Sir 0. Luke bo
in town, express my affection to him in these words. The first
part of your papers you had by the hands of B. Valentine long
since. If you hear of your sons, or can send to them, let me
know.
LV.
James Howel was the author of upwards of forty miscel
laneous works, but is now chiefly remembered by his ' Epistolse
Ho-Elianse,' or familiar letters, first printed in 1645. He may
be called the Father of Epistolary Literature, the first writer,
that is to say, of letters which, addressed to individuals, were
intended for publication. A style animated, racy, and pictu
resque ; keen powers of observation j great literary skill ; an
eager, restless, curious spirit; some humour and much wit;
and a catholicity of sympathy very unusual with the writers
of his age — are his chief claims to distinction.
If the following remarks of Howel on the composition of a
letter were supplemented by the observations of his friend Ben
' Jonson on the same subject, we should be furnished with a terse
and complete art of letter- writing. Honest Howel's complaints
about the letters of his own day scarcely lose their significance
when applied to the letters of ours.
James Howel to Sir J. S at Leeds Castle.
Westminster : July 25, 1625.
Sir, — It was a quaint difference the ancients did put betwix
a letter and an oration ; that the one should be attired like a
woman, the other like a man : the latter of the two is allowed
large side robes, as long periods, parentheses, similes, examples,
and other parts of rhetorical flourishes; but a letter or epistle
72 ENGLISH LETTERS. [145<T
sliould be short-coated and closely couched ; a hungerlin becomes
a letter more handsomely than a gown ; indeed we should write
as we speak ; and that's a true familiar letter which expresseth
one's mind, as if he were discoursing with the party to whom he
writes, in succinct and short terms. The tongue and the pen are
both of them interpreters of the mind ; but I hold the pen to be
the more faithful of the two. The tongue in udo posita, being
seated in a moist slippery place, may fail and faulter in her sudden
extemporal expressions ; but the pen having a greater advantage
of premeditation, is not so subject to error, and leaves things be
hind it upon firm and authentic record. Now letters, though
they be capable of any subject, yet commonly they are either
narratory, objurgatory, consolatory, monitory, or congratulatory.
The first consists of relations, the second of reprehensions, the
third of comfort, the two last of counsel and joy : there are some
who in lieu of letters write homilies; they preach when they
should epistolize : there are others that turn them to tedious
tractates : this is to make letters degenerate from their true
nature. Some modern authors there are who have exposed their
letters to the world, but most of them, I mean among your Latin
epistolizers, go freighted with mere Bartholomew ware, with trite
and trivial phrases only, lifted with pedantic shreds of school-boy
verses. Others there are among our next transmarine neighbours
eastward, who write in their own language, but their style is so
soft and easy, that their letters may be said to be like bodies of
loose flesh without sinews, they have neither joints of art nor
arteries in them ; they have a kind of simpering and lank hectic
expressions made up of a bombast of words and finical affected
compliments only. I cannot well away with such fleazy stuff,
with such cobweb-compositions, where there is no strength of
matter, nothing for the reader to carry away with him that may
enlarge the notions of his soul. One shall hardly find an apoph
thegm, example, simile, or any thing of philosophy, history, or
solid knowledge, or as much as one new created phrase in a hun
dred of them ; and to draw any observations out of them, were as
if one went about to distil cream out of froth ; insomuch that it
may be said of them, what was said of the Echo, ' that she is a
mere sound and nothing else.'
I return you your Balzac by this bearer : and when I found
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 73
those letters wherein he is so familiar with his King, so flat ; and
those to Richlieu so puffed with prophane hyperboles, and larded
up and down with such gross flatteries, I forbore him further.
So I ani your most affectionate servitor.
LVI.
This letter is interesting as being a contemporary account of
the death of James I., and of the accession of Charles I. The
suspicion that the King was poisoned by the instrumentality of
Buckingham, though very improbable, has been suggested by
other writers besides Howel.
James Howel to his Father.
London: Dec. 11, 1625.
Sir, — I received yours of the 3rd February by the hands of my
cousin Thomas Guiii of Trecastle.
It was my fortune to be on Sunday was fortnight at Theobalds,
where his late Majesty King James departed this life, and went
to his last rest upon the day of rest, presently after Sermon was
done : A little before the break of day, he sent for the Prince,
who rose out of his bed, and came in his night-gown ; tho King
seem'cl to have some earnest thing to say unto him, and so en-
deavour'd to rouse himself upon his Pillow, but his Spirits were
so spent that he had not strength to make his words audible. He
died of a fever which began with an Ague, and some Scotch Doc
tors mutter at a plaster the Countess of Buckingham applied at
the outside of his stomach : 'Tis thought the last breach of the
match with Spain, which for many years he had so vehemently
desir'd, took too deep an impression in him, and that he was forc'd
to rush into a "War, now in his declining age, having liv'd in a
continual uninterrupted peace his whole life, except some colla
teral aids he had sent his Son-in-law. As soon as he expir'd, the
Privy Council sat, and in less than a quarter of an hour, King
Charles was proclaim'd at Theobalds Court-gate, by Sir Edward
Zouch Knight Marshal, Master Secretary Con way dictating unto
him, that whereas it had pleas'd God to take to his mercy our
most gracious Sovereign King James of famous memory, we pro
claim Prince Charles his rightful and indubitable Heir to be King
of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, &c. The Knight Mar-
74 ENGLISH LETTERS. [U50-
shal mistook, saying, his rightful and dubitable heir, but he was
rectified by the Secretary. This being done, I took my horse in
stantly, and came to London first, except one, who was come a
little before me, insomuch, that I found the gates shut. His now
Majesty took Coach, and the Duke of Buckingham with him, and
came to Saint James ; in the evening he was proclaim'd at White
Hall Gate, in Cheapside, and other places in a sad shower of rain ;
and the weather was suitable to the condition wherein he finds the
Kingdom which is cloudy ; for he is left engag'd in a war with a
potent Prince, the people by long desuetude unapt for arms, the
Fleet Royal in quarter repair and himself without a queen, his
sister without a country, the crown pitifully laden with debts, and
the purse of the State lightly ballasted, though it never had better
opportunity to be rich than it had these last twenty years : But
God Almighty, I hope will make him emerge, and pull this
Island out of all the plunges, and preserve us from worser times.
The plague is begun in White-Chapel, and as they say, in the same
house, at the same day of the month, with the same number that
died twenty two years since, when queen Elizabeth departed.
There are great preparations for the funeral, and there is a design
to buy all the cloth for mourning white, and then to put it to the
dyers in gross, which is like to save the crown a good deal of
money, the drapers murmur extremely at the Lord Cran field for it.
I am not settled yet in any stable Condition, but I lie wind-
bound at the Cape of Good Hope, expecting some gentle gale to
launch out into any employment.
So with my love to all my brothers and sisters at the Bryn
and near Brecknock, I humbly crave a continuance of your prayers
and blessings to,
Your dutiful son,
J. H.
LVIL
Of the many accounts of the assassination of George Villiers,
Duke of Buckingham, by Felton, this is one of the fullest. It
differs in one or two minor details from that given by Secretary
Caiieton, who was present, and whose account is published in
Ellis's < Collection of Original Letters,' vol. iii. pp. 256-260 ; but
Howel is, as usual, fresh and graphic, and may doubtless be
trusted, as he was acquainted with many of the officers
connected with the Court.
flGOO ENGLISH LETTERS. 75
James Howel to the Rt. Hon. Lady Scroop, Countess of
Sunderland.
Stamford : Aug. 5, 1628.
Madam, — I lay yesternight at the post-house at Stilton, and
this morning betimes the post-master came to my bed's-head, and
told me the Duke of Buckingham was slain •
My faith was not then strong enough to believe it, till an hour
ago I met in the way with my Lord of Rutland (your brother)
riding post towards London ; it pleased him to alight, and shew
me a letter, wherein there was an exact relation of all the circum
stances of this sad tragedy.
Upon Saturday last, which was but next before yesterday,
being Bartholomew eve, the Duke did rise up in a welldisposed
humour out of his bed, and cut a caper or two, and being ready,
and having been under the barber's hand (where the murderer had
thought to have done the deed, for he was leaning upon the window
all the while) he went to breakfast, attended by a great company
of commanders, where Monsieur Subize came to him, and whis
pered him. in the ear that Hochelle was relieved ; the Duke
seemed to slight the news, which made some think that Subize
went away discontented.
After breakfast the Duke going out, Colonel Fryer stept before
him, and stopped him upon some business, and Lieutenant Felton,
b^ing behind, made a thrust with a common tenpenny knife over
Fryer's arm at the Duke, which lighted so fatally that he slit his
heart in two, leaving the knife sticking in the body. The Duke
took out the knife and threw it away : and laying his hand on his
sword, and drawing it half out, said, ' The villain hath killed me,'
(meaning, as some think, Colonel Fryer) for there had been some
difference betwixt them; so reeling against a chimney, he fell
down dead. The Dutchess being with child, hearing the noise
below, came in her night-geers from her bedchamber, which was
in an upper room, to a kind of rail, and thence beheld him welter
ing in his own blood. Felton had lost his hat in the crowd,
wherein there was a paper sewed, wherein he declared, that the
reason which moved him to this act, was no grudge of his own,
though he had been far behind for his pay, and had been put by
his Captain's place twice, but in regard he thought the Duke an
76 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
enemy to the state, because he was branded in parliament ; there
fore what he did was for the public good of his country. Yet he
got clearly down, and so might have gone to his horse, which was
tied to a hedge hard by ; but he was so amazed that he missed his
way, and so struck into the pastry, where, although the cry went
that some Frenchman had done it, he, thinking the word was
Felton, boldly confessed it was he that had done the deed, and so
he was in their hands.
Jack Stamford would have run at him, but he was kept off by
Mr. Nicholas ; so being carried up to a tower, Captain Mince tore
off his spurs, and asking how he durst attempt such an act, making
him believe the Duke was not dead, he answered boldly, that he
knew he was dispatched, for it was not he, but the hand of
heaven that gave the stroke ; and though his whole body had been
covered over with armour of proof, he could not have avoided it.
Captain Charles Price went post presently to the King four miles
off, who being at prayers on his knees when it was 'told him, yet
never stirred, nor was he disturbed a-whit till all divine service
was done. This was the relation, as far as my memory could bear,
in my Lord of Rutland's letter, who willed me to remember him
to your Ladyship, and tell you that he was going to comfort your
niece (the Dutchess) as far as he could. And so I have sent the
truth of this sad story to your Ladyship, as fast as I could by this
post, because I cannot make that speed myself, in regard of some
business I have to dispatch for my Lord in the way : so I humbly
take my leave, and rest your Ladyship's most dutiful servant.
LVIII.
Though Howel has here chosen a theme on which some of
the noblest rhetoric in literature has been expended, there are
many little touches which redeem it from being commonplace.
It may very possibly have furnished Addison with a model for
the similar reflections in which he delighted to indulge.
James Howel to Sir S. C .
Holborn : March 17, 1639.
Sir, — I was upon point of going abroad to steal a solitary
walk, when yours of the 12th current came to hand. The high
researches and choice abstracted notions I found therein, seemed to
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 77
heighten my spirits, and make my fancy fitter for my intended re-
tirement and meditation : add hereunto, that the countenance of
the weather invited me ; for it was a still evening, it was also a
clear open sky, not a speck, or the least wrinkle appeared in the
whole face of heaven, it was such a pure deep azure all the hemi
sphere over, that I wondered what was become of the three regions
of the air with their meteors. So having got into a close field, I
cast my face upwards, and fell to consider what a rare prerogative
the optic virtue of the eye hath, much more the intuitive virtue in
the thought, that the one in a moment can reach heaven, and the
other go beyond it ; therefore sure that a philosopher was but a
kind of frantic fool, that would have plucked out both his eyes,
because they were a hindrance to his speculations. Moreover, I
began to contemplate, as I was in this posture, the vast magnitude
of the universe, and what proportion this poor globe of earth might
bear with it; for if those numberless bodies which stick in the vast
roof of heaven, though they appear to us but as spangles, be some
of them thousands of times bigger than the earth, take the sea
with it to boot, for they both make but one sphere, surely the
astronomers had reason to term this sphere an indivisible point,
and a thing of no dimension at all, being compared to the whole
world. I fell then to think, that at the second general destruc
tion, it is no more for God Almighty to fire this earth, than for us
to blow up a small squib, or rather one small grain of gunpowder.
As I was musing thus, I spied a swarm of gnats waving up and
down the air about me, which I knew to be part of the universe
as well as I : and methought it was a strange opinion of our
Aristotle to hold, that the least of those small insected ephemerans
should be more noble than the sun, because it had a sensitive
soul in it. I fell to think that in the same proportion which
those animalillios bore with me in point of bigness, the same I
held with those glorious spirits which are near the throne of the
Almighty. What then should we think of the magnitude of the
Creator himself? Doubtless, it is beyond the reach of any human
imagination to conceive it : in my private devotions I presume to
compare him to a great mountain of light, and my soul seems to
discern some glorious form therein ; but suddenly as she would fix
her eyes upon the object, her sight is presently dazzled and dis-
gregated with the refulgency and coruscations thereof.
5
78 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
Walking a little further I spied a young boisterous bull breaking
over hedge and ditch to a herd of kine in the next pasture ; which
made me think, that if that fierce, strong animal, with others of
that kind, knew their own strength, they would never suffer man
to be their master. Then looking upon them quietly grazing up
and down, I fell to consider that the flesh which is daily dished
upon our tables is but concocted grass, which is recarnified in our
stomachs, and transmuted to another flesh. I fell also to think,
what advantage those innocent animals had of man, who as soon
as nature cast them into the world, find their meat dressed, the
cloth laid, and the table covered ; they find their drink brewed,
and the buttery open, their beds made, and their clothes ready ;
and though man hath the faculty of reason to make him a com
pensation for the want of those advantages, yet this reason brings
with it a thousand perturbations of mind and perplexities of spirit,
griping cares and anguishes of thought, which those harmless silly
creatures were exempted from. Going on I came to repose myself
upon the trunk of a tree, and I fell to consider further what
advantage that dull vegetable had of those feeding animals, as not
to be so troublesome and beholden to nature, nor to be subject to
starving, to diseases, to the inclemency of the weather, and to be
far longer- lived. Then I spied a great stone, and sitting a- while
upon it, I fell to weigh in my thoughts that that stone was in a
happier condition in some respects, than either of those sensitive
creatures or vegetables I saw before; in regard that that stone
which propagates by assimilation, as the philosophers say, needed
neither grass nor hay, or any aliment for restoration of nature, nor
water to refresh its roots, or the heat of the sun to attract the
moisture upwards, to increase growth, as the other did. As I
directed my pace homeward, I spied a kite soaring high in the air,
and gently gliding up and down the clear region so far above rny
head, that I fell to envy the bird extremely, and repine at his hap
piness, that he should have a privilege to make a nearer approach
to heaven than I.
Excuse me that I trouble you thus with these rambling medi
tations, they are to correspond with you in some part for those
accurate fancies of yours lately sent me. So I rest your entire
and true servitor.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS 79
LIX.
There is more elegance and less pedantry in this letter than
is usual with the writers of the first half of the seventeenth
century. It has all the spirit of Euphuism without its pedantry,
and all its ingenuity of compliment without its fulsome exaggera
tion.
James Howel to the Right Hon. Lady E. D .
April 8 [1649].
Madam, — There is a French saying that courtesies and
favours are like flowers, which are sweet only while thej> are
fresh, but afterwards they quickly fade and wither. I cannot
deny but your favours to me might be compar'd to some kind of
flowers (and they would make a thick Posie) but they should be to
the flower call'd life everlasting \ or that pretty Vermilion flower
which grows at the foot of the Mountain ./Etna in Sicily, which
never loses anything of its first colour and scent. Those favours
you did me thirty years ago in the life-time of your incomparable
brother Mr. R. Altham, (who left us in the flower of his age) me-
thinks are as fresh to me as if they were done yesterday. Nor
were it any danger to compare courtesies done to me to other
flowers, as I use them : for I distil them in the limbeck of my
memory, and so turn them to essences. But, Madam, I honour
you not so much for favours, as for that precious brood of virtues
which shine in you with that brightness, but specially for those
high motions whereby your soul soars up so often towards heaven ;
insomuch Madam, that if it were safe to call any Mortal a Saint,
you should have that title from me, and I would be one of your
chiefest Votaries; howsoever, I may without any superstition
subscribe myself
Your truly devoted Servant
J. H.
LX.
In 1846, when the second edition of Mr. Carlyle's * Letters
and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell ' was published, an opportu
nity was given for the first time, of reading and understanding
in their entirety authentic utterances which for two centuries
had been coarsely handled and were found to be ' an agglome
rate of opaque confusions — darkness on the back of darkness,
thick and threefold.'
80 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-
Mr. Carlyle recommends everyone who would 'force a path
for himself through that gloomy chaos called History of Seven
teenth Century,' to read through this collection. With all his
enthusiasm he is willing to admit that these letters are devoid
of eloquence, elegance, and often of clearness of expression, but ' •
he considers them good of their kind. They were not written
with any literary aim, but during the throes of revolutionary
struggles. Each misprinted, mispunctuated, and musty docu
ment was 'once all luminous as a burning beacon, every word
of it a live coal in its time ; it was once a piece of the general
fire and light of human life.'
This announcement of the battle of Worcester is fairly
characteristic of Cromwell's epistolary style. His extraordinary
success on the anniversary of the victory at Dunbar was a
turning-point in his career. Henceforth his aspirations increased,
and it was not long before the wearer of 'Worcester's Laureat
Wreath ' became the chief magistrate of the English Common
wealth.
Oliver Cromwell to the Honourable William Lenthall, Speaker
of the Parliament oj England.
Worcester: Sept. 4, 1651.
Sir, — I am not able yet to give you an exact account of the
great things the Lord hath wrought for this Commonwealth and
for His People : and yet I am unwilling to be silent ; but, accord
ing to my duty, shall represent it to you as it comes to hand.
This battle x was fought with various success for some hours, but
still hopeful on your part ; and in the end became an absolute vic
tory, — and so full an one as proved a total defeat and ruin of the
Enemy's Army ; and a possession of the town, our men entering
at the Enemy's heels, and fighting with them in the streets with
very great courage. We took all their baggage and artillery."
What the slain are, I can give you no account, because we have
not taken an exact view ; but they are very many, and must needs
be so ; because the dispute was long and very near at hand ; and
often at push of pike, and from one defence to another. There are
about Six or Seven thousand prisoners taken here; and many
officers and noblemen of very great quality : Duke of Hamilton,
the Earl of Eothes, and divers other Noblemen, — I hear, the Earl
of Lauderdale ; many officers of great quality, and some that will
be fit subjects for your justice.
1 Cromwell had on the previous day written to inform the Speaker
that a victory had been gained.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 81
We have sent very considerable parties after the flying Enemy :
I hear they have taken considerable numbers of prisoriers, and are
very close in the pursuit.
Indeed, I hear the Country riseth upon them everywhere ; and
I believe the forces that lay, through Providence, at Bewdley, and
in Shropshire and Staffordshire, and those with Colonel Lilburn
were in a condition, as if this had been foreseen, to intercept what
should return.
A more particular account than this will be prepared for you
as we are able. I hear they had not many more than a Thousand
horse in their body that fled ; and I believe you have near Four
thousand forces following, and interposing between them and
home ; — what fish they will catch, Time will declare.
Their Army was about Sixteen thousand strong ; and fought
ours on the Worcester Side of the Severn almost with their whole,
whilst we had engaged about half our army on the other side but
with parties of theirs. Indeed it was a stiff business ; yet I do not
think we have lost Two -hundred men. Your new-raised forces
did perform singular good service ; for which they deserve a very
high estimation and acknowledgment ; as also for their willingness
thereunto, — forasmuch as the same hath added so much to the re
putation of your affairs. They are all despatched home again;
which I hope w^ill be much for the ease and satisfaction of the
country ; which is a great fruit of these successes.
The dimensions of this mercy are above my thoughts. It is,
for aught I know, a crowning mercy. Surely, if it be not, such a
one we shall have, if this provoke those that are concerned in it to
thankfulness ; and the Parliament to do the will of Him who hath
done His will for it, and for the Nation ; — whose good pleasure it
is to establish the Nation and the Change of the Government, by
making the People so willing to the defence thereof, and so signally
blessing the endeavours of your servants in this late great work. I
am bold humbly to beg, That all thoughts may tend to the pro
moting of His honour who hath wrought so great salvation ; and
that the fatness of these continued mercies may not occasion pride
and wantonness, as formerly the like hath done to a chosen
Nation ; l but that the fear of the Lord, even for His mercies may
1 ' But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked : thou art waxen fat, thou art
grown thick, thou art covered with fatness ; then he forsook God which
82 ENGLISH LETTERS. [145
keep an authority and a people so prospered, and blessed, and wit
nessed unto, humble and faithful; and that justice and righteous
ness, mercy and truth may flow from you as a thankful return to
our gracious God. This shall be the prayer of,
Sir,
Your most humble and obedient Servant
OLIVER CROMWELL.
Your Officers behaved themselves with much honour in this
service ; and the Person who is the bearer hereof was equal, in the
performance of his duty, to most that served you that day.
LXI.
The genuineness of this letter has been doubted ; but Mr.
Carlyle is satisfied that the style sufficiently declares it to be
perfectly genuine. The letter is unique in two respects. * It is/
says Mr. Carlyle, ' the only one we have of Oliver Cromwell,
the English Puritan King, to Giulio Mazarin, the Sicilian-
French Cardinal, who are a very singular pair of correspondents
brought together by the Destinies ! It is also the one glimpse
we have from Oliver himself of the subterranean spy-world, in
which, by a hard necessity, so many of his thoughts had to
dwell.'
There are two other quite unimportant notes from the Pro
tector to the Cardinal in the archives of the Foreign Office
at Paris which Mr. Carlyle notices in his edition of ' Cromwell's
Letters/ vol. v. pp. 264. 265.
Protector Cromwell to Cardinal Mazarin.
Whitehall: Dec. 26, 1656.
The obligations, and many instances of affection, which I have
received from your Eminency, do engage me to make returns
suitable to your merit. But although I have this set home iipon
my spirit, I may not (shall I tell you, I cannot 1) at this juncture
of time, and as the face of my affairs now stands, answer to your
call for Toleration.
I say, I cannot, as to a public Declaration of my sense in that
point ; although I believe that under my Government your Emi
nency, in the behalf of Catholics, has less reason for complaint as
made him. and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.' — Deuteronomy
xxxii. 15.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 83
to rigour upon mens' consciences than under the Parliament. For
I have of some, and those very many, had compassion ; making a
difference. Truly I have (and I may speak it with cheerful
ness in the presence of God, who is a witness within me to
the truth of what I affirm) made a difference ; and as Jude speaks
' plucked many out of the fire,' — the raging fire of persecution,
which did tyrannize over their consciences, and encroached by an
arbitrariness of power upon their estates. And herein it is my
purpose, as soon as I can remove impediments, and some weights
that press me down, to make a farther progress, and discharge
my promise to your Eminency in relation to that.
And now I shall come to return your Eminency thanks for
your judicious choice of that Person to whom you have intrusted
our weightiest affair; an affair wherein your Eminency is con
cerned, though not in an equal degree and measure with myself.
I must confess that I had some doubts of its success, till Pro
vidence cleared them to me by the effects. I was, truly, and to
speak ingenuously, not without doubtings ; and shall not be
ashamed to give your Eminency the grounds I had for much
doubting. I did fear that Berkley } would not have been able
to go through and carry on that work ; and that either the Duke
would have cooled in his suit,2 or condescend to his brother. I
doubted also that those instructions which I sent over with 290 3
were not clear enough as to expressions ; some affairs here deny
ing me leisure at that time to be so particular as, in regard to
some circumstances, I would.
If I am not mistaken in his ' the Duke's ' character, as I
received it from your Eminency, that fire which is kindled between
them will not ask bellows to blow it and keep it burning. But
what I think farther necessary in this matter I will send to your
Eminency by Lockhart.
And now I shall boast to your Eminency my security upon a
well-builded confidence in the Lord : for I distrust not but if this
breach be widened a little more and this difference fomented, with
a little caution in respect of the persons to be added to it, — I dis
trust not but that Party, which is already forsaken of God as to
1 Sir John Berkeley, the Duke of York's tutor.
2 Allusion to Charles Stuart and his brother, the Duke of York.
a Cipher for the name of some emissary.
84 ENGLISH LETTERS. []450-
an outward dispensation of mercies, and noisome to their country
men, will grow lower in the opinion of all the world. If I have
troubled your Eminency too long in this, you may impute it to
the resentment of joy which I have for the issue of this Affair ; l
and I will conclude with giving you assurance that I will never
be backward in demonstrating, as becomes your brother and con
federate, that I am
Your Servant
OLIVER P.
LXII.
The drift of Cromwell's foreign policy was to bring about a
vigorous coalition of Protestant Europe in alliance with Eng
land. A treaty which he made with France against Spain, in
March 1657, contained a proviso that the English troops should
combine with the Erench in attacking the three coast towns of
Gravelines, Mardyke, aud Dunkirk ; and, in the event of success,
the two latter towns were to belong to England. When it
was ascertained that the French King and the Cardinal were
proposing to utilise our troops for another purpose, Cromwell
soon brought Mazarin to a sense of his duty, by writing the two
following letters to the English Ambassador. It was said in
France that the Cardinal feared Oliver more than the devil ;
and Mr. Carlyle remarks, ' he ought indeed to fear the devil
much more, but Oliver is the palpabler entity of the two ! '
Oliver Cromwell to Sir William Lockhart, our Ambassador in
France.
Whitehall: Aug. 31, 1657.
Sir, — I have seen your last letter to Mr. Secretary, as also
divers others : and although I have no doubt either of your dili
gence or ability to serve us in so great a Business, yet I am deeply
sensible that the French are very much short with us in ingenu
ousness and performance. And that which increaseth our sense of
this is, The resolution we for our part had, rather to overdo than
to be behindhand in anything of our Treaty. And although we
never were so foolish as to apprehend that the French and their
interests were the same with ours in all things ; yet as to the
Spaniards, who hath been known in all ages to be the most impla-
1 The ' affair ' is presumed to have reference to a dispute between the
Duke of York and his brother on a question of Spanish policy.
1600] ENGLISH LETTERS. 85
cable enemy that France hath, — we never could doubt before we
made our Treaty, that, going upon such grounds, we should have
been failed towards as we are !
To talk of ' giving us Garrisons ' which are inland, as Caution
for future action ; to talk of ' what will be done next Campaign/
— are but parcels of words for children. If they will give us Gar
risons, let them give us Calais, Dieppe and Boulogne ; — which I
think they will do as soon as be honest in their words in giving us
any one Spanish Garrison upon the coast into our hands ! I posi
tively think, which I say to you, they are afraid we should have
any footing on that side of the water, though Spanish.
I pray you tell the Cardinal, from me, That I think, if France
desires to maintain its ground, much more to get ground upon the
Spaniard, the performance of his Treaty with us will better do it
than anything appears yet to me of any Design he hath ! —
Though we cannot so well pretend to soldiery as those that are
with him ; yet we think that, we being able by sea to strengthen
and secure his Siege, and to reinforce it as we please by sea, and
the Enemy being in capacity to do nothing to relieve it, — the best
time to besiege that Place will be now. Especially if we consider
that the French horse will be able so to ruin Flanders as that no
succour can be brought to relieve the place ; and that the French
Army and our own will have constant relief, as far as England
and France can give it, without any manner of impediment, —
especially considering the Dutch are now engaged so much to
Southward as they are.
I desire you to let him know That Englishmen have had so
good experience of Winter expeditions, they are confident, if the
Spaniard shall keep the field, as he cannot impede this work, so
neither will he be able to attack anything towards France with a
possibility of retreat. And what do all delays signify but even
this : The giving the Spaniard opportunity so much the more to
reinforce himself; and the keeping our men another summer to
serve the French, without any colour of a reciprocal, or any,
advantage to ourselves !
And therefore if this will not be listened unto, I desire that
things may be considered-of to give us satisfaction for the great
expense we have been at with our Naval forces and otherwise ;
which out of an honourable and honest aim on our part hath been
5*
86 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1450-1600
incurred, thereby to answer the Engagements we had made. And,
in fine, That consideration may be had how our Men may be put
into a position to be returned to us ; — whom we hope we shall
employ to a better purpose than to have them continue where
they are.
I desire we may know what France saith, and will do, upon
this point. We shall be ready still, as the Lord shall assist us, to
perform what can be reasonably expected on our part. And you
may also let the Cardinal know farther, That our intentions, as
they have been, will be to do all the good offices we can to promote
the Interest common to us.
Apprehending it is of moment that this Business should come
to you with speed and surety, we have sent it by an Express.
LXIII.
Oliver Cromwell to Sir William Lockkart, our Ambassador in
France.
Whitehall : Aug. 81, 1657.
Sir, — We desire, having written to you as we have, that
the design be Dunkirk rather than Gravelines ; and much more
that it be : — but one of them rather than fail. We shall not be
wanting, To send over, at the French charge, Two of our old regi
ments, and Two-thousand foot more, if need be, — if Dunkirk be
the design. Believing that if the Army be well entrenched, and if
La Ferte's Foot be added to it, we shall be able to give liberty to
the greatest part of the French Cavalry to have an eye to the
Spaniard, — leaving but convenient numbers to stand by the Foot.
And because this action will probably divert the Spaniard
from assisting Charles Stuart in any attempt upon us, you may be
assured that, if reality may with any reason be expected from the
French, we shall do all reason on our part. But if indeed the
French be so false to us as that they would not have us have any
footing on that side the Water, — then I desire, as in our other
Letter to you, that all things may be done in order to the giving
us satisfaction for our expense incurred, and to the drawing-off of
our men. And truly, Sir, I desire you to take boldness and free
dom to yourself in your dealing with the French on these
accounts.
SECTION II,
A.D. 1600-1700.
LX1V.
Charles I. in the year 1646 was about to meet proposals
from the London Parliament by sanctioning a trial of Presbyte
rian Government for three years, and surrendering the command
of the Militia for ten years, when he received this ill-timed check
to what would probably have been a partial reconciliation with
his vigorous antagonists.
Queen Henrietta Maria to Charles I.
Paris: Dec. 14, 1646.
This day I received yours of the 21, to which, being streigh-
tened in tyme, I shall answer in English that it may be soonest
put into cypher. In the first place you conclude right, that
nothing but the abundance of my love could make me take upon
me the harsher part of pressing things which are inacceptable to
you. But where I find your interest so much concerned as it is
in your present resolution, I should be faultier than you if I
would suffer you to rest in such an error as would prove fatal to
you. Therefore you may safely believe, that no duty which 1
perform to you is accompanied with more kindness than when I
oppose those opinions. I acknowledge that mistakes are the
grounds of our differences in opinion, otherwise you would not so
confidently think that your answer to the propositions sent me
last week grants nothing about the militia but according to the
advice you have had from hence. Therein I shall refer you to the
duplicate herewith sent you, to which I will only add my desires
that you will carefully compare the draught sent you from hence
with the other ; and then you will find to what purpose the pre
amble serves, and what care there was taken here to make it and
the grant to persons of trust to be of a piece. If your message be
not gone there is no hurt done ; if it be, get off from this rock as
well as you can, according to the advice in those duplicates, and to
your resolution expressed in your letter, not to admit any copart
ners therein. Touching the pulpits and Presbyterian government,
90 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
&c. I will not any more enter into dispute with you, finding that
arguments of that nature have neither done you nor your business
any good ; only I may conclude that if your offer shall not satisfy
the Presbyterians, whom you desire to make yours, you must begin
again, or leave the work undone. Neither can you expect this
your subtility in reserving the last determination, after three
years, to you and the two houses will do the feat ; no, they with
whom you have to do will be cunning enough to put you to ex
plain yourself. I shall rest confidently upon your resolution now
expressed touching your friends, because you sufficiently know
how much your honour and justice, as well as policy, is in the
case. All I desire therein is, that you recede not from your de
mand of a genera] act of oblivion, for nothing less can secure you
and them. The lyke was done to you in Scotland ; which will be
a general precedent here. For the Covenant, you know my
opinion ; after the entire consideration of it, we both fully agree
therein; neither as we are advertised from London, will it be
stifly insisted upon there ; yet possibly if the Scots shall prevail,
and that only difference were in the case, they may consent to
such alterations in it as may satisfy all of us. and confirm such a
conjunction as you ought to desire. Therefore I again desire you,
upon conference with Will. Murray, or otherwise, to use your ut
most endeavours that some [perjsons may be admitted to come
privately to you and the Scots, to see upon a full debate with
them if all things may not be reconciled to your and their satis
faction. If they would consent to such a meeting, I would have
some hopes of good success : for the present there appears to be
poison in the pot ; do not trust to your own cooking of it.
For the proposition to Bellievre, I hate it. If any such thing
should be made public, you are undone; your enemies will
make a malicious use of it. Be sure you never own it
again in any discourse, otherwise than as intended as a foile
or an hyperbole, or any otherways except in sober earnest.
Consider well what I have written of; away [with] your mes
sage presently without sharing the Militia and abandoning
Ireland. Strike out the 10 years out of the clause concerning
offices, or the clause itself, which you will ; it may be a.dcled in
the close, and the naming 10 years implies that this parliament
should sit so long ; obtain the admitting of persons, and then we
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 91
shall agree in the whole business ; neither shall I then despair of
seeing you again with comfort, which is the fullest happiness I
wish for in this world. A Dieu, mon cker cceur 1
LXV.
This is the reply to the foregoing mandate. The King's
weak submission to the taunts and imperious counsels of his
exiled Queen brought about his ruin. For his obedience to her
injunctions against making necessary concessions he was made
a prisoner in the bands of the English Parliament.
Charles I. to Queen Henrietta Maria.
Newcastle : Dec. 12 and 19, 1646.
Dear Heart, — I have not received any letters, or news from
thee, this last week, of which I do not complain, for, as I have not
missed one week since I wrote first from hence, and I know that
thou hast been several times two weeks without receiving any of
mine, so I believe thou hast taken the pains, albeit I want the
comfort of hearing from thee.
My return from Scotland is, that my intended answer to Lon
don is absolutely disliked and disapproved there ; the main reasons
are, that I am not found altered in my conscience, and that I will
not authorize the covenant, without which (I tell the very words)
all that can be offered will not satisfy : yet, for their personal
duty, I have much assurance from duke Hamilton and earl of
Lanerick.
If they make good what is promised in their name (and I will
put them to it), my game will be far from desperate, but, having
little belief that these men will do as they say, I will not trouble
thee with particulars, until I give thee some more evidence than
words of their realities.
December 19.
When I had wri£ten thus far, I was desirous to stay for thy
answer to my letter of the 14th of Nov, thereby the better to
make my message to London, the which not receiving before
Wednesday, it made me spare one week's writing to thee, which I
hope you will easily excuse, since it is the first. Nor shall I now
make a particular answer to thine of the llth and 14th of Decem
ber, albeit it may be thou wilt think it full enough, for this assures
02 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
thee that my intended answer to the London propositions is not
gone, and that I have sent another message (the copy of which the
queen will receive by the French ambassadour), the substance
whereof is to adhere to my former answer, made the first [tenth 1]
of August last ; so that all thy fears concerning the militia are
saved, wherein, I confess, I thought not I had fundamentally erred,
notwithstanding that the particular possession were (for the pre-
fixt time) in the two houses, when I kept the return entire to the
crown without associates, and that I still stuck to my right, which
I did by the preamble, for I did, and yet do, conceive that the
temporary power of managing it is merely circumstantial, and not
material. But I have done, and willingly yield the argument,
when the question is of holding fast, and shall only wish that all
those whose advice the queen takes in business be but as constant
to foundations, and as little apt to be couzened or frighted out of
them, as I shall be. For those that make thee believe any altera
tion can make the covenant passable can stick at nothing, and
excuse me to tell thee that whatsoever gives thee that advice is
either fool or knave; for this damn'd covenant is the child of
rebellion,1 and breaths nothing but treason, so that if episcopacy
were to be introduced by the covenant, I would not do it, because
I am as much bound in conscience to do no act to the destruction
of monarchy as to resist heresy, all actions being unlawful (let the
end be never so just) where the means is not lawful.
I conclude this, conjuring thee never to abandon one particular
good friend of ours, which is a good cause, be the Scots never so
false, even as thou lovest him who is eternally thine,
CHARLES E.
By the next I will give thee a full account why I could not
send my particular answer to London, and, I believe also, what
may be expected from Scotland.
No security can be had for any to come to me from thee.
1 The Solemn League and Covenant.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 93
LXVI.
The complement of Charles I.'s disaster at the battle of
Naseby was the disclosure of the f Glamorgan Treaty/ The Earl
of Glamorgan was instructed to negotiate for the abolition of
all penal laws against the Roman Catholics in Ireland, and for
the surrender to them of their ecclesiastical supremacy in view
of releasing all troops maintained in that country foi the defence
of Protestantism, that they might combine with a foreign sol
diery in an attempt to crush the Parliamentarians. When
Royalist and Roundhead alike censured this treachery Charles
indirectly repudiated the transaction.
Charles 1. to Queen Henrietta Maria.
Oxford: 1646.
Dear Heart, — Whatsoever may make thee mistake my actions,
yet nothing can make me doubt of thy love, nor alter my way of
kindness and freedom to tbee, notwithstanding any variation of
the [thy ?] style to me, and I am most confident that upon second
thoughts thou wilt be very fai from blaming me, as concerning
the Scotch treaty ; my main ground — which is the saving of the
church wherein I have been bred — being so infallibly good, that
thou must commend me for it. Albeit we differ in matter of
religion, yet thou must esteem me for having care of my con
science.
Concerning which, the preservation of the Church of England
being now the only question, I should think myself obliged to seek
out all possible lawful means for maintaining it. Wherefore, re
membering what I wrote to thee last year, upon the 5th of March,
by Pooly — (thou wilt find it amongst those letters of thine which
the rebels have printed) — I think it at this time fit to renew that
motion unto thee. My words were then (which still I will make
good) that I give thee power to promise in my name (to whom
thou thinkest most fit) that ' I will take away all the penal laws
against the Eoman Catholics in England, as soon as God shall
enable me to do it, so as by their means I may have so powerful
assistance as may deserve so great a favour, and enable me to do
it.' And furthermore, I now add that I desire some particular
offers by or in the favour of the English Roman Catholics, which,
if I shall like, I will then presently engage myself for the perfor
mance of the above-mentioned conditions. Moreover, if the Pope
94: ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
and they will visibly and heartily engage themselves for the re-
establishment of the Church of England and my crown (which
was understood in my former offer) against all opposers whatso
ever, I will promise them, on the word of a king, to give them
here a free toleration of their consciences. I have now (which
formerly I did not) named the Pope expressly, to desire thee to
deal only with him or his ministers in the business, because I
believe he is likely upon these conditions to be my friend, and
wish the flourishing of my crown again, the which I think that
France nor Spain will be sorry to see. I would have thee like
wise make as few acquainted with this as may be, secrecy being
most requisite in this business (until it be so ripe that the know
ledge cannot hurt it), for everybody thinking it be deserted, it
would much prejudice me if untimely it should break out again.
Thou mayst possibly imagine that this my renewed offer pro
ceeds from my inconstant humour, or out of a desire to please, but
I assure thee that neither are the causes, though I shall not be
ashamed of the latter whensoever there is occasion, for in this I
do only pursue my constant ground, of preserving my conscience
and crown, not being ignorant of the great inconveniences (not
without some hazard) which the toleration of divers sorts of God's
worship bring to a kingdom, which is not to be suffered, but either
for the eschewing of a worse thing, or to obtain some great good ; —
both reasons at this time concurring to make me admit, nay desire
this inconvenience.
For, by this means, and I see no other, I shall hope to suppress
the Presbyterian and Independent factions, and also preserve the
Church of England and my crown from utter ruin, and yet I be
lieve I did well IN DISAVOWING GLAMORGAN (so far as I did) ; for
though I hold it not simply ill, but even most fit, upon such a con
jecture [conjuncture?] as this is, to give a toleration to other men's
consciences, that cannot make it stand with mine to yield to the
ruin of those of mine own profession, to which if I had assented,
it then might have been justly feared, that I, who was careless of
my own religion, would be less careful of my word. Whereas
now, men have more reason to trust to my promises, find[ing] me
constant to my grounds, and thou that I am eternally thine,
CHARLES R.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 95
Upon my word, I neither have nor intend to acquaint any
with this business but Ashburnham, wherefore I desire likeways
to know of thee whom thou wilt intrust with it, that if anything
come out we may know whom to blame. Besides, I offer to thy
consideration, whether it be not fit that all the English Roman
Catholics be warned by the pope's ministers to join with the forces
that are to come out of Ireland.
LXVIL
Edmund Waller's long life was an active one. Dividing
his time between politics and literature during the most stirring
period of our history, he managed with singular adroitness to
make himself extremely popular both in the House of Com
mons and in society. His fame as a refiner of our language
und poetry was, and is, deservedly great. No man better
understood the art of flattery and how to administer it with
grace.
Edmund Waller to my Lady .
Madam, — Your commands for the gathering these sticks into a
faggot had sooner been obey'd but intending to present you with
my whole vintage, I stay'd till the latest grapes were ripe : for,
here your Ladyship has not only all I have done, but all I ever
mean to do of this kind. Not but that I may defend the attempt
I have made upon Poetry, by the examples (not to trouble you
with history) of many wise and worthy persons of our own times ;
as Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Bacon, Cardinal Perron (the
ablest of his countrymen) and the former Pope ; who they say,
instead of the Triple-Crown, wore sometimes the Poet's ivy, as an
ornament, perhaps, of lesser weight and trouble. But, Madam,
these nightingales sung only in the spring ; it was the diversion
of their youth ; as Ladies learn to sing, and play, when they
are children, what they forget when they are women. The re
semblance holds further; for, as you quit the lute the sooner,
because the posture is suspected to draw the body awry ; so, this
is not always practised without some villany to the mind ; wrest
ing it from present occasions ; and accustoming us to a style some
what remov'd from common use. But, that you may not think
his case deplorable who had made verses ; we are told that Tully
(the greatest Wit among the Romans) was once sick of this disease ;
96 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
and yet recover'd so well, that of almost as bad a Poet as your
servant, he became the most perfect Orator in the world. So that,
not so much to have made verses, as not to give-over in time, leaves
a man without excuse : the former presenting us with an oppor
tunity at least of doing wisely, that is, to conceal those we have
made : which I shall yet do, if my humble request may be of as
much force with your Ladyship, as your commands have been
with me. Madam, I only whisper these in your ear; if you
publish them, they are your own : and therefore as you appre
hend the reproach of a Wit, and a Poet, cast them into the fire :
or, if they come where green boughs are in the chimney, with the
help of your fair friends, (for, thus bound, it will be too hard a task
for your hands alone) tear them in pieces, wherein you will honor
me with the fate of Orpheus ; for so his Poems, whereof we only
hear the form, (not his limbs, as the story will have it) I suppose
were scatter'd by the Thracian dames.
Here, Madam, I might take an opportunity to celebrate your
virtues, and to instruct you how unhappy you are, in that you
know not who you are : how much you excel the most excellent
of your own, and how much you amaze the least inclin'd to
wonder of our, sex. But as they will be apt to take your Lady
ship's for a Roman name, so wou'd they believe that I endeavour'd
the character of a perfect Nymph, worship'd an image of my
own making, and dedicated this to the Lady of the brain, not of
the heart, of
Your Ladyship's
most humble Servant,
EDM. WALLER.
LXVIII.
On the occasion of the marriage of Lady Dorothy Sidney,
whom Waller had courted for ten years under the name of
Sacharissa, to Lord Spenser, afterwards Earl of Sunderland,
the disappointed poet addressed this lively epistle to the sister
of the bride. This letter is incomparably superior to one
written by Pope to Mrs. Arabella Fermor on her marriage.
Edmund Waller to Lady Lucy Sidney.
July, 1639.
Madam, — In this common joy at Penshurst, I know none to
whom complaints may come less unseasonably than to your lady-
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 97
ship, the loss of a bedfellow being almost equal to the loss of a
mistress, and therefore you ought, at least to pardon, if you con
sent not to the imprecations of the deserted, which just heaven no
doubt will hear. May my lady Dorothy, if we may yet call her
so, suffer as much and have the like passion for this young lord,
whom she has preferred to the rest of mankind, as others have had
for her ; and may his love, before the year go about, make her taste
of the first curse imposed upon womankind, the pain of becoming
a mother. May her firstborn be none of her own sex, nor so like
her, but that he may resemble her lord as much as herself. May
she, that always affected silence and retirement, have the house
filled with the noise and number of her children, and hereafter of
her grandchildren, and then may she arrive at that great curse, so
much declined by fair ladies, old age ; may she live to be very old,
and yet seem young, be told so by her glass, and have no aches to
inform her of the truth ; and when she shall appear to be mortal,
may her lord not mourn for her, but go hand in hand with her to
that place, where we are told there is neither marrying, nor giving
in marriage, so that being there divorced, we may all have an
equal interest in her again ! My revenge being immortal, I wish
all this may befall her posterity to the world's end, and after
wards ! To you, madam, I wish all good things, and that this
your loss may in good time be happily supplied. Madam, I
humbly kiss your hands, and beg pardon for this trouble, from
Your ladyship's
most humble Servant
E. WALLER.
LXIX.
Sir John Suckling to .
Suckling commanded a troop in the English army of
Charles I. against the Scotch. This letter was written from
Berwick-on-Tweed shortly before the humiliating retreat of
Dunse.
June, 1639.
Sir, — We are at length arrived at that river about the uneven
running of which my friend Master William Shakespeare makes
Henry Hotspur quarrel so highly with his fellow-rebels, and for
93 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
his sake I have been something curious to consider the scantlet of
ground that angry monsieur would have had in, but cannot find it
could deserve his choler, nor any of the other side ours, did not the
king think it did. The account I shall now give you of the war
will be but imperfect, since I conceive it to be in the state that
part of the four and twenty hours is, in which we can neither call
it night nor day. I should judge it dawning towards earnest, did
not the Lords' Covananters' letters to our Lords hero something
divide me. So, sir, you may now imagine us walking up and
down the banks of the Tweed like the Tower lions in their cages,
leaving the people to think what we would do if we were let loose.
The enemy is not yet much visible. It may be it is the fault of
the climate, which brings men as slowly forward as plants ; but it
gives us fears that the men of peace will draw all this to a dumb-
show, and so destroy a handsome opportunity, which was now
offered, of producing glorious matter for future chronicle.
These are but conjectures, sir. The last part of my letter I re
serve for a great and known truth, which is, that I am, sir, your
most humble servant,
J. S.
LXX.
Appointed by the Council of State in 1649 as Secretary for
Foreign Tongues to the Commonwealth, Milton found himself
overpowered with business at the very moment when his eye
sight, long threatened with blindness, became finally extin
guished. In 1650 he lost his right eye, and the controversy
with Salmasius cost him his left. Unwilling to give up his
post of danger at such a troublous time, his growing infirmity
forced him to ask for the help of an amanuensis, and in the fol
lowing terms he suggested as his assistant a young poet of
rising reputation, a Puritan like himself, and favourably recom
mended to him by the friendly family of Fairfax.
John Milton to John Bradshaw.
February 21, 1652.
My Lord, — But that it would be an interruption to the public,
wherein your studies are perpetually employed, I should now and
then venture to supply thus my enforced absence with a line or
two, though it were only of businesse, and that would be iioe slight
one, to make mv due acknowledgments of your many favours ;
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 99
which I both doe at this time, and ever shall : and have this
farder, which I thought my parte to let you know of, that there
will be with you to-morrow, upon some occasion of business* a
gentleman whose name is Mr. Marvile; a man whom, both by
report, and the converse I have had with him, of singular desert
for the State to make use of; who alsoe offers himselfe, if there be
any employment for him. His father was the Minister of Hull ;
and he hath spent four years already in Holland, France, Italy,
and Spaine, to very good purpose, as I believe, and the gaineing of
those four languages; besides, he is a sch oiler, and well read in the
Latin and Greek authors ; and no doubt of an approved conver
sation, for he comes now lately out of the house of the Lord Fair
fax, who was a Generall, where he was intrusted to give some
instructions in the languages to the Lady, his daughter. If upon
the death of Mr. Weckerlyn, the Councell shall think that I shall
need any assistance in the performance of my place (though for my
part I find no encumbrances of that which belongs to me, except
it be in point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors,
which I must confess in my condition I am not fit for), it would
be hard for them to find a man soe fit every way for that purpose
as this gentleman ; one who, I believe, in a short time, would be
able to do them as much service as Mr. Ascan. This, my lord,
I write sincerely, without any other end than to perform my duty
to the publick, and helping them to an humble servant : laying
aside those jealousies, and that emulation, which mine own con
dition must suggest to me, by bringing in such a coadjutor ; and
remaine, my lord,
Your most obliged and faithful servant,
JOHN MILTON-.
LXXI.
The following examples of the epistolary style of Edward
Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, are selected from the State Papers
"bearing his name. In this first short note there are two points
not unworthy of notice. The oft-repeated charge of the critics
that he embarrasses his sentences with frequent parentheses is
brought home to him ; and the want of accuracy in the details
of ' The History of the Rebellion ' is indirectly explained by the
unavoidable necessity of acquiring information at second-hand
and on mere hearsay evidence.
100 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
Sir Edward Hyde to Lord Witherington.
Jersey: August 5, 1646.
My good Lord, — Being now left to leisure eno' to exercise my
own thoughts and it being much easier to revolve what is passed
than to foresee what is to come, (tho' I fear there is no notable
sharpsightedness requisite even to that) I have prevailed with
myself, how unequal soever to the task, to endeavour the com
piling a plain, faithful narrative of the proceedings of these last ill
years ; that so posterity may see, by what fatal degrees, that
wickedness hath grown prosperous which I hope is now at its
height. I have not been at too immoderate a distance (if that were
qualification enough) from the public agitations, to venture upon
this relation; yet the scene of action lying in so many several
p^ces, a much wiser and more conversant person than myself
must desist from this work, except others assist him by communi
cating what hath been transacted in their several spheres. Your
Lordship hath had a noble part in those attempts which have been
made to rescue our miserable country from the tyranny she now
groans under ; and by the happiness you enjoy in the friendship of
that excellent person (whose conduct was never unprosperous)
well known by what skill and virtue the north of England was
recovered to his Majesty, and with what difficulties defended. And
if you find that his Lordship himself may not be prevailed with to
adorn those actions with his own incomparable style, (which indeed
would render them fit to be bound up with the other commentaries)
vouchsafe I beseech your Lordship, that by your means I may be
trusted with such counsels and occurrences as you shall judge fit
to be submitted to the ill apparel I shall be able to supply them
with ; which I will take care (how simple soever) shall not defraud
them of their due integrity which will be ornament enough. What
your Lordship thinks fit to oblige me with of this kind, Mr. Nicholls
will convey to, My Lord,
Your Lordship's most affectionate and obedient Servant
EDWARD HYDE.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 101
LXXII.
The staunchest and most self-denying friend of Charles IT.
during his period of exile and almost abject poverty, misjudged
the state of affairs in June, 1659, as well as the character of his
royal debtor ; for the cause of Monarchy could only have suffered
by a show of force at the moment the Rump and the army
were caballing over the grave of Oliver Cromwell. And in so
confidently extolling the gratitude of his chief, Edward Hyde
little thought he would be an early victim to the caprice of an
indolent king who had no belief in human virtues, and to whom,
as Lord Macaulay puts it, ( honour and shame were as light and
darkness to the blind.'
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon to Mr. Mordaunt.
June 13, 1659.
Sir, — It is indeed great pity that we here, and our friends
there, have not been better prepared to appear in arms upon these
great mutations which have lately happened. But methinks I do
not see anything yet done to make us despair of the like oppor
tunities, nor do I conceive that we have at present one friend less
or one enemy more than we had two months ago. It is possible
all men's hopes and fears are not the same they were ; but these
ebbs and flows will happen upon every wind ; nor do I think that
the Army and the Parliament will the sooner agree upon a
Government because they are out of apprehension of the Crom-
wells, nor that their tameness and desertion of spirit will find the
greater remorse. Now is the time for the Parliament to raise
monuments of their justice and severity for the future terror of
those whose ambition may dispose them to break their trusts (and
I hope you are not without good instruments to kindle that fire),
and I cannot believe it possible that the Army and Parliament
can continue long of a mind. I suppose a list of the names of all
the Parliament men is in print, which I would be very glad to
see, as I would to know whether you continue to have the same
good opinion still of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and whether he
received the King's letter.
I have seen a letter from Mr Baron to the Secretary, by which
I perceive there remains some jealousies and distances between our
friends, which I hope proceed rather from misunderstanding than
from any formed waywardness, and that the interposition of dis
creet persons will qualify all, and extinguish those distempers.
102 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
We have yet heard from none of them, and you may be very con
fident that the King will not gratify any man's passions hy the
disobliging others who serve him faithfully, and I have so good
an opinion of them to believe they cannot propose any extravagant
thing. I have no more to add but that I am very faithfully
Yours &c.
LXXIII.
The feverish condition of the public pulse, sickened hy the
dominion of the soldiery and excited by the trickeries of incom
petent agitators, is here gleefully described by Lord Clarendon
on the eve of the restoration of monarchy.
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, to Sir Henry Bennet.
April 10, 1660.
Sir, — The Parliament was, as you have heard, to be dissolved
upon Thursday the 15th of last month, but there had been so
many artifices used by the Republican party, to stay the business
of the Militia, and afterwards to stop and corrupt it at the Press
that the house resolved to sit again the next day, and then about
seven o'clock at night they dissolved to the universal joy of all the
kingdom, the republican party only excepted, who had no mind
to cashier themselves of a power they were like again never to
be possessed of ; the people not being like to choose many of them
to serve in the next parliament.
Before they dissolved they declared the engagement, by which
men were bound to submit to the government without King or
House of Lords, to be void and null, and to be taken of the file
of all records wherever it was entered ; and this might be the
ground of that report at Calais, that they had voted the Govern
ment to be by King, Lords and Commons ; besides there was a
pretty accident that might contribute thereunto, for the day before
the Parliament dissolved, at full Exchange, there came a fellow
with a ladder upon his shoulders and a pot of paint in his hand,
and set the ladder in the place where the last King's statue had
stood, and then went up and wiped out that inscription which
had been made after the death of the King, Exit Tyrannus <&c.,
and as soon as he had done it threw up his cap and cried * God
bless King Charles the Second,' in which the whole Exchange
joined with the greatest shout you can imagine, and immediately
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 103
caused a huge bonfire to be made which the neighbours of Cornhill
and Cheapside imitated with three or four more, and so that action
passed nor do I find there was any order for it. There was another
signal passage likewise before the dissolution : upon the reading
the instructions to the Council of State during the interval of
Parliament (which is not to sit till the 25th of this month) there is
one which gives them authority to send agents or ambassadors to
foreign Princes, whereupon Scott stood up and desired that there
might be an exception, that they should not send to Charles Stuart,
which gave occasion to very many members of the House to stand
up and declare that they were in no degree guilty and did from
their souls abhor the horrid and odious murder of the late king,
and did detest the author of it. Upon which Scott again stood
up, and said that he indeed, and some others, had cut off the King's
head, but that the other gentlemen had brought him to the block,
which put the rest into so much passion that they would call him
to the bar, but after some heat declined it, saying he should answer
it at another bar. The writs issued out the next day for the
choosing members to meet the 25th of this month ; and very great
care is taken in all places to choose such men as are most like to
settle the government as it ought to be. And now after I have
told you all this, if I had not a very ill reputation with you for
being over sanguine with reference to England, I will tell you that
I hope we may save those honest gentlemen a labour, or at least
do our own business with very great approbation.
Yours &c.
LXXIV.
The flames that consumed the Custom House and all the
valuable records deposited there (1814), deprived the lovers of
literature of Jeremy Taylor's autobiography, and most of his
epistolary correspondence. The letters that have been preserved
are not, perhaps, the best examples of those prose writings,
which by their purity and beauty of expression gave to the
improved style of the seventeenth century almost its earliest
impetus ; still they are good unstudied specimens of the great
divine's manner. An ardent Royalist, he followed the fortunes
of Charles I. as Chaplain to the Royal army in 1642, but was
obliged to retire as a schoolmaster to Wales when the fortune
of war favoured the Parliamentarians. John Evelyn, his
greatest benefactor, induced him to leave this retreat and visit
Sayes Court. The following letter was written a few days after
he had been entertained there.
104 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
Jeremy Taylor to John Evelyn.
April 16, 1656.
Honoured and dear Sir, — I hope your servant brought my
apology with him, and that I already am pardoned, or excused, in
your thoughts, that I did not return an answer yesterday to your
friendly letter. Sr, I did believe myself so very much bound to you
for your so kind, so friendly reception of me in your ' Tusculanum,'
that I had some little wonder upon me when I saw you making
excuses that it was no better. Sr, I came to see you and your
lady, and am highly pleased that I did so, and found all your cir
cumstances to be an heap and union of blessings. But I have not
either so great a fancy and opinion of the prettiness of your abode,
or so low an opinion of your prudence and piety, as to think you
can be any ways transported with them. I know the pleasure of
them is gone off from their height before one month's possession ;
and that strangers, and seldom seers, feel the beauty of them more
than you who dwell with them. I am pleased, indeed, at the
order and the cleanness of all your outward things ; and look upon
you not only as a person, by way of thankfulness to God for his
mercies and goodness to you, specially obliged to a greater measure
of piety, but also as one who, being freed in great degrees from
secular cares and impediments, can, without excuse and alloy,
wholly intend what you so passionately desire, the service of God.
But now I am considering yours and enumerating my own
pleasures, I cannot but add that, though I could not choose but
be delighted by seeing all about you, yet my delices were really in
seeing you severe and unconcerned in these things, and now in
finding your affections wholly a stranger to them, and to com
municate with them no portion of your passion but such as is
necessary to him that uses them or receives their ministries.
Sr, I long truly to converse with you ; for I do not doubt but
in those liberties we shall both go bettered from each other. For
your ' Lucretius,' I perceive, you have suffered the importunity of
two kind friends to prevail with you. I will not say to you that
your ' Lucretius ' is as far distant from the severity of a Christian
as the fair Ethiopian was from the duty of Bp. Heliodorus ; for
indeed it is nothing but what may become the labour of a Christian
gentleman, those things only abated which our evil age needs "not;
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 105
for which, also I hope you either have by notes, or will, by preface,
prepare a sufficient antidote, but since you are ingag'd in it, do not
neglect to adorn it, and take what care of it it can require or need ;
for that neglect will be a reproof of your own act, and look as if
you did it with an unsatisfied mind, and then you may make that
to be wholly a sin, from which only by prudence and charity you
could before be advised to abstain. But, Sr, if you will give me
leave, I will impose such a penance upon you for your publication
of ' Lucretius,' as shall neither displease God nor you ; and since
you are busy in that which may minister directly to learning and
indirectly to error or the confidences of men, who of themselves
are apt enough to hide their vices in irreligion, I know you will
be willing, and will suffer yourself to be intreated, to employ the
same pen in the glorifications of God, and the ministeries of
eucharist and prayer. Sr if you have Mer Silhon « de 1'Immor-
talite de 1'Ame,' I desire you to lend it me for a week ; and be
lieve that I am in great heartiness and dearness of affection, dear
Sr, your obliged and most affectionate friend and servant,
JER. TAYLOR.
LXXV.
A letter of condolence with John Evelyn upon the loss of
his children.
Jeremy Taylor to John Evelyn.
February 17, 1657.
Dear Sir, — If dividing and sharing griefs were like the cutting
of rivers, I dare say to you, you would find your stream much
abated ; for I account myself to have a great cause of sorrow, not
only in the diminution of the numbers of your joys and hopes, but
in the loss of that pretty person, your strangely hopeful boy. I
cannot tell all my own sorrows without adding to yours ; and the
causes of my real sadness in your loss are so just and so reasonable,
that I can no otherwise comfort you but by telling you, that you
have very great cause to mourn , so certain it is that grief does
propagate as fire does. You have enkindled my funeral torch
and by joining mine to yours, I do but encrease the flame. ' Hoc
me male urit,' is the best signification of my apprehension of your
sad story. But sir, I cannot choose, but I must hold another and
106 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
a brighter flame to you, it is already burning in your heart ; and
if I can but remove the dark side of the lantern, you have enough
within you to warm yourself and to shine to others. Remember,
sir, your two boys are two bright stars, and their innocence is se
cured, and you shall never hear evil of them again. Their state is
safe, and heaven is given to them upon very easy terms ; nothing
but to be born and die. It will cost you more trouble to get
where they are ; and amongst other things one of the [hardness]
will be, that you must overcome even this just and reasonable
grief; and, indeed though the grief hath but too reasonable a
cause, yet it is much more reasonable that you master it. For be
sides that they are no losers but you are the person that complains,
do but consider what you would have suffer'd for their interest :
you [would] have suffered them to go from you, to be great princes
in a strange country : and if you can be content to suffer your own
inconvenience for their interest, you command [commend?] your
worthiest love, and the question of mourning is at an end. But
you have said and done well, when you look upon it as a rod of
God ; and he that so smites here will spare hereafter : and if you,
by patience, and submission, imprint the discipline upon your own
flesh, you kill the cause, and make the effect very tolerable ; be
cause it is, in some sense chosen, and therefore in no sense insuffer
able.
Sir, if you do not look to it, time will snatch your honour
from you, and reproach you for not effecting that by Christian
philosophy which time will do alone. And if you consider, that
of the bravest men in the world we find the seldomest stories of
their children, and the apostles had none, and thousands of the
worthiest persons, that sound most in story, died childless; you
will find it is a rare act of Providence so to impose upon worthy
men a necessity of perpetuating their names by worthy actions
and discourses, governments and reasonings. If the breach be
never repair'd, it is because God does not see it fit to be ; and if
you will be of this mind, it will be much the better. But, sir, you
will pardon my zeal and passion for your comfort, I will readily
confess that you have no need of any discourse from me to comfort
you. Sir, now you have an opportunity of serving God by passive
graces ; strive to be an example and a comfort to your Lady, and
by your wise counsel and comfort, stand in the breaches of your
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 107
own family, and make it appear that you are more to her than ten
sons. Sir, by the assistance of Almighty God, I purpose to wait
on you some time next week, that I may be a witness of your
Christian courage and bravery, and that I may see that God never
displeases you as long as the main stake is preserved — I mean your
hopes and confidences of heaven. Sir, I shall pray for all that you
can want — that is, some degrees of comfort and a present mind ;
and shall always do you honour, and fain also would do you ser
vice, if it were in the power, as it is in the affections and desires
of
Dear sir,
Your most affectionate and obliged
friend and servant
JER. TAYLOR.
LXXVI.
The experimental philosophical club, which began its meet
ings at Oxford in 1649 under the auspices of Dr. Wilkins, was
the cradle of the Royal Society. When the founder came to
London, the members met at the Bull Head Tavern, in Cheap-
side, and afterwards in Gresham College parlour. In 1662 the
club was incorporated by the name of the Royal Society, but
continued to assemble in the parlour until the year 1710. Such
a wortliy community could not fail, in the early days of Charles
II.'s reign, to be a conspicuous mark for the clownish ribaldry of
scribblers whose delight was to ridicule everything virtuous and
respectable. John Evelyn, one of the most diligent members of
the society, here invokes the aid of the once popular poet to
silence certain malicious cavillers.
John Evelyn to Abraham Cowley.
Sayes Court : March 12, 1667.
Sir, — You had reason to be astonished at the presumption, not
to name it affront, that I who have so highly celebrated Recess,
and envied it in others, should become an advocate for the enemy,
which of all others it abhors and flies from. I conjure you to be
lieve that I am still of the same mind and that there is no person
alive who does more honour and breathe after the life and repose
you so happily cultivate and adorn by yr example. But as those
who praised Dirt, a Flea, and the Gout,1 so have I PuUick Em-
1 A collection of facetiae in prose and verse.
108 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
ployment in that trifling essay ; and that in so weak a style com
pared to my antagonists, as by that alone it will appear I neither
was nor could be serious ; and I hope you believe I speak my very
soul to you ; but I have more to say which will require your kind
ness. Suppose our good friend were publishing some eulogies on
the Royal Society, and by deducing the original, progress and ad
vantages of their design would bespeak it some veneration in the
world ? Has Mr. Cowley no inspirations for it 1 Would it not
hang the most heroic wreath about his temples ? Or can he desire
a nobler or a fuller argument either for the softest airs or the
loudest echoes, for the smoothest or briskest strokes of his Pin
daric lyre ? There be those who ask, What have the Koyal Society
done 1 Where their College 1 I need not instruct you how to
answer or confound those persons, who are able to make even
these inform Blocks and Stones dance into order, and charm them
into better sense. Or, if their insolence press, you are capable to
show how they have laid solid foundations to perfect all noble
Arts, and reform all imperfect Sciences. It requires a History to
recite only the Arts, the Inventions, the Phenomena already ab
solved, improved or opened. In a word our registers have outdone
Pliny, Porta and Alexis, and all the experimentists, nay the great
Yerulam himself, and have made a nobler and more faithful col
lection of real secrets, useful and instructive than has hitherto
been shewn. Sir, we have a Library, a Repository, and an assem
bly of as worthy and great persons as the World has any ; and yet
we are sometimes the subject of satire and the songs of drunken
ness ; have a King to our founder and yet want a Maecenas ; and
above all a spirit like yours to raise us up benefactors, and to
compel them to think the designs of the Royal Society as worthy
their regards, and as capable to embalm their names, as the most
heroic enterprise, or any thing Antiquity has celebrated ; and I
am even amazed at the wretchedness of this age that acknowledges
it no more. But the Devil, who was ever an enemy to truth, and
to such as discover his prestigious effects, will never suffer the pro
motion of a design so destructive to his dominion, which is to fill
the world with imposture and keep it in ignorance, without the
utmost of his malice and contradiction. But you have numbers
and charms that can bind even these spirits of darkness, and ren
der their instruments obsequious ; and we know you have a divine
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 109
Hymn for us ; the lustre of the Royal Society calls for an ode from
the best of poets upon the noblest argument. To conclude, here
you have a field to celebrate the great and the good, who either
do, or should favour the most august and worthy design that ever
was set on foot in the world ; and those who are our real patrons
and friends, you can eternize, those who are not you can conciliate
and inspire to do gallant things. But I will add no more, when I
have told you with very great truth, that I am, sir, &c.
LXXVII.
The following letter should "be especially interesting to the
possessors of finely-timbered estates. It will refresh their
memory of the man to whom England is indebted for the
variety and abundance of her forest and other trees. Besides
his l Sylva, or Discourse on the Propagation of Timber/ John
Evelyn showed himself a worthy successor of Bacon in his love
of horticulture by publishing the first ' Gardener's Almanac.'
The references to his works on art remind us that he was not
merely a ( rural genius.'
John Evelyn to Lady Sunderland.
Saves Court, Deptford : August 4, 1690.
Madam, — As for the Calendar your Ladyship mentions, what
ever assistance it may be to some novice gardener sure I am his
Lordship will find nothing in it worth his notice but an old incli
nation to an innocent diversion, and the acceptance that it found
with my dear (and while he lived) worthy friend Mr. Cowley,
upon whose reputation only it has survived seven impressions,
and is now entering on the eighth with some considerable improve
ments, more agreeable to the present curiosity. 'Tis now, Madam,
almost forty years since I writ it, when Horticulture was not much
advanced in England, and near thirty since first 'twas published,
which cousideration will I hope excuse its many defects. If in the
mean time it deserve the name of no unuseful trifle, 'tis all it is
capable of.
When many years ago I came from rambling abroad, observed
a little there, and a great deal more since I came home than gave
me much satisfaction, and (as events have proved) scarce worth
one's pursuit, I cast about how I should employ the time which
hangs on most young men's hands, to the best advantage ; and
6*
110 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
when books and severer studies grew tedious, and other imper
tinence would be pressing, by what innocent diversions I might
sometimes relieve myself without compliance to recreations I took
no felicity in, because they did not contribute to any improvements
of the mind. This set me upon planting of Trees, and brought
forth my ' Sylva,' which booke, infinitely beyond my expecta
tions, is now also calling for a fourth impression, and has been the
occasion of propagating many millions of useful Timber Trees
throughout this Nation, as I may justify (without immodesty)
from the many letters of acknowledgment received from gentlemen
of the first quality, and others altogether strangers to me. His
late Majesty Charles II. was sometimes graciously pleased to take
notice of it to me, and that I had by that booke alone incited a
world of planters to repair their broken estates and woods, which
the greedy Rebels had wasted and made such havoc of. Upon
this encouragement I was once speaking to a mighty man, then in
despotic power, to mention the great inclination I had to serve his
Majesty in a little office then newly vacant (the salary I think
hardly £300) whose province was to inspect the Timber Trees in
His Majesty's forests, &c., and take care of their culture and im
provement; but this was conferred upon another, who, I believe
had seldom been out of the smoke of London, where tho' there was
a great deal of timber there were not many trees. I confess I had
an inclination to the employment upon a public account as well
as its being suitable to my rural genius, born as I was at Wotton
among the Woods.
Soon after this, happened the direful conflagration of this City,
when taking notice of our want of books of Architecture in the
English tongue, I published those most useful directions of ten of
the best authors on that subject, whose works were very rarely to
be had, all of them written in French, Latin or Italian and so not
intelligible to our mechanics. What the fruit of that labour and
cost has been (for the sculptures which are elegant were very
chargeable) the great improvement of our workmen, and several
impressions of the copy since, will best testify.
In this method I thought properly to begin with planting trees,
because they would require time for growth and be advancing to
delight and shade at least, and were therefore by no means to bo
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. Ill
neglected and- deferred, while building might be raised and finished
in a summer if the owner pleased.
Thus, Madam, I endeavoured to do my countrymen some little
service, in as natural an order as I could for the improving and
adorning their estates and dwellings, and if possible, make them
in love with those useful and innocent pleasures in exchange of a
wasteful and ignoble sloth which I had observed so universally
corrupted an ingenious education.
To these I likewise added my little History of Chalcography,
a treatise of the perfection of Painting, and of erecting Libraries
.... Medals, and some other intermesses which might divert
within doors, as well as altogether without.
LXXVIII.
At the Restoration the poet Mar veil, hitherto known as the
colleague and friend of Milton, was returned to Parliament for
the borough of Hull, and at once developed a policy so original
and courageous that his name has become almost synonymous
with the title of patriot. His private letters to his friends
during the early years of Charles II.'s reign are unique in the
picture they give of the dark side of the times.
Several valuable letters were written by Marvell to one
William Skinner, who had not the curiosity to keep any of them,
but gave them to the pastry-maid to put under pie-bottoms. —
(Thoresby Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 102.)
Andrew Marvell to William JRamsden.
November 28, 1670.
Dear Will, — I need not tell you I am always thinking of you.
All that has happened, which is remarkable, since I wrote, is as
follows. The Lieutenancy of London, chiefly Sterlin the Mayor,
and Sir J. Robinson, alarmed the King continually with the Con
venticles there. So the King sent them strict and large powers.
The Duke of York every Sunday would come over thence to look
to the peace. To say truth, they met in numerous open assemblys,
without any dread of government. But the train bands in the
city, and soldiery in Southwark and suburbs, harassed and abused
them continually; they wounded many, and killed some Quakers
especially, while they took all patiently. Hence arose two things
of great remark. The Lieutenancy, having got orders to their
mind, pick out Hays and Jekill, the innocentest of the whole
112 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
party, to show their power on. They offer them illegal bonds of
five thousand pounds a man, which if they would not enter into,
they must go to prison. So they were committed, and at last (but
it is a very long story) got free. Some friends engaged for them.
The other was the tryal of Pen and Mead, quakers, at the Old
Baily. The jury not finding them guilty, as the Recorder and
Mayor would have had them, they were kept without meat or
drink some three days, till almost starved, but would not alter
their verdict ; so fined and imprisoned.1 There is a book out
which relates all the passages, which were very pertinent, of the
prisoners, but prodigiously barbarous by the Mayor and Recorder.
The Recorder, among the rest, commended the Spanish Inquisi
tion, saying it would never be well till we had something like it.
The King had occasion for sixty thousand pounds. Sent to bor
row it of the city. Sterlin, Robinson, and all the rest of that
faction, were at it many a week, and could not get above ten
thousand. The fanatics under persecution, served his Majesty.
The other part, both in court and city, would have prevented it.
But the King protested money would be acceptable. So the King
patched up, out of the Chamber, and other ways, twenty thousand
pounds. The fanatics, of all sorts, forty thousand. The King,
though against many of his council, would have the Parliament
sit this twenty-fourth of October. He, and the Keeper spoke of
nothing but to have money. Some one million three hundred
thousand pounds, to pay off the debts at interest; and eight
hundred thousands for a brave navy next Spring.2
Both speeches forbid to be printed, for the King said very
little, and the Keeper, it was thought, too much in his politic
simple discourse of foreign affairs. The House was thin and
obsequious. They Voted at first they would supply him, according
to his occasions, Nemine, as it was remarked, contradicente ; but
few affirmatives, rather a silence as of men ashamed and un
willing.
Sir R. Howard, Seymour, Temple, Car, and Hollis, openly
took leave of their former party, and fell to head the King's
1 The immunity of jurymen for giving verdicts contrary to the wishes
of the bench was established at this trial.
2 Macaulay exposes the fraudulent conduct of the ' Cabal ' Administra
tion in raising these SOO,OOOZ.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 113
busyness. There is like to be a terrible Act of Conventicles.
The Prince of Orange here is much made of. The King owes
him a great deal of money. The Paper is full.
I am your's, &c.
LXXIX.
Marvell was a model member of Parliament. He repre
sented Hull from 1660 to his death in 1678, arid he kept the
' Corporation minutely informed as to the progress of affairs,
often writing to them, after sitting out a stormy debate, before
indulging himself with sleep. His main duty in the House he
held to be that of opposing the claims of the Royal household,
and this he did with the utmost resolution, dying a few months
after the date of this letter, poisoned, as was surmised, at the
direction of the Court party, whose bribes he had so scornfully
refused. He writes to his constituency as one whose conscience
tells him that he has deserved their confidence.
Andrew Marvell to the Mayor and Aldermen of Hull.
January 18 [1676-7].
Gentlemen, my very worthy friends, — Not having in the in-
tervalls of Parliament any frequent or proper occasion .of writing
to you, I am the more carefull, though always retaining the same
constant due respect and service for you, yet not to interrupt you
with unnecessary letters. But the time of Parliament's pi oroga-
tion being now within a moneth expired, and his Majesty having
by his late Proclamation signified that he expects the attendance
of the members in order to a Session, I cannot neglect to iinbrace
this opportunity of saluting you, and of giving you account that I
am here in Town in good health, God be praised, and Vigour, ready
to take that Station in the House of Commons which I obtain by
your favour, and hath so many years continued; and therefore I
desire that you will, now being the time, consider whether there
be any thing that particularly relates to the state of your town, or
your neighbouring country, or of your more publick concernment,
whereof you may thinke fit to advertise me, and therein to give
me any your instructions, which I shall carefully conforme. It is
true that by reason of so many prorogations of late years repeated,
the publick business in Parliament hath not attained the hoped
maturity, so that the weight and multiplicity of those affairs at
present will probably much exclude, and retard at Icasfc. any thing
114 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1GOO-
of more private and particular consideration ; yet, if any such, you
have, I shall strive to promote it according to the best of my duty,
and in the more generall concerns of the nation, shall, God willing,
maintain the same incorrupt mind, and clear conscience, free from
faction, or selfends, which I have, by His grace, hitherto pre
served. So wishing you all health and prosperity, I remain,
Gentlemen, &c., your most humble servant.
The ' businesse ' of Trinity House is still to be over-seen, with
all Vigilance.
For my much respected friends Mr. Matthew Smith
and Mr. George Dickinson, Wardens of the Worthy
Society of ye Trinity house, Kingston before Hull.
LXXX.
Mr. Penruddock was a gentleman of the Royalist 'party who
was beheaded by Cromwell's orders in 1655 at Exeter, for his
share in a rising there. The particulars are given in Clarendon's
1 History of the Rebellion,' Book 14, ad finem. This letter was
written by Mrs. Penruddock to her husband the night before his
execution.
Mrs. Penruddock's last letter to her Husband.
May 3, 1655.
My Dear Heart, — My sad parting was so far from making
me forget you, that I scarce thought upon myself since, but wholly
upon you. Those dear embraces which I yet feel, and shall never
lose, being the faithful testimonies of an indulgent husband, have
charmed my soul to such a reverence of your remembrance, that
were it possible, I would, with my own blood, cement your dead
limbs to live again, and (with reverence) think it no sin to rob
Heaven a little longer of a martyr. Oh ! my dear, you must now
pardon niy passion, this being my last (oh, fatal word !) that ever
you will receive from me ; and know, that until the last minute
that I can imagine you shall live, I shall sacrifice the prayers of a
Christian, and the groans of an afflicted wife. And when you are
not (which sure by sympathy I shall know), I shall wish my own
dissolution with you, that so we may go hand in hand to Heaven.
'Tis too late to tell you what I have, or rather have not done for
you ; how being turned out of doors because I came to beg mercy ;
the Lord lay not your blood to their charge,
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 115
I would fain discourse longer with you, but dare not ; passion
begins to drown my reason, and will rob me of my devoirs, which
is all I have left to serve you. Adieu, therefore, ten thousand
times, my dearest dear ; and since I must never see you more,
take this prayer, — May your faith be so strengthened that your
constancy may continue ; and then I know Heaven will receive
you ; whither grief and love will in a short time (I hope)
translate,
My dear,
Your sad, but constant wife, even to love your ashes when dead,
ARUNDEL PENRUDDOCK.
May the 3rd, 1655, eleven o'clock at night. Your children beg
your blessing, and present their duties to you.
LXXXI.
Mr. Penruddock's last letter to his Wife.
May, 1655.
Dearest Best of Creatures ! I had taken leave of the world
when I received yours : it did at once recall my fondness to life,
and enable me to resign it. As I am sure I shall leave none be
hind me like you, which weakens my resolution to part from you,
so when I reflect I am going to a place where there are none but
such as you, I recover my courage. But fondness breaks in upon
me ; and as I would not have my tears flow to-morrow, when your
husband, and the father of our dear babes, is a public spectacle, do
not think meanly of me, that I give way to grief now in private,
when I see my sand run so fast, and within a few hours I am to
leave you helpless, and exposed to the merciless and insolent that
have wrongfully put me to a shameless death, and will object the
shame to my poor children. I thank you for all your goodness to
me, and will endeavour so to die as to do nothing unworthy that
virtue in which we have mutually supported each other, and for
which I desire you not to repine that I am first to be rewarded,
since you ever preferred me to yourself in all other things. Afford
me, with cheerfulness, the precedence of this. I desire your prayers
in the article of death ; for my own will then be offered for you
and yours.
J. PENRUDDOCK.
116 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
LXXXII.
In liis l Curiosities of Literature/ Mr. D'Israeli publishes a
letter from ' the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and Excellent Princess
Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle/ who was certainly the greatest
literary curiosity of her age. Her husband, who had borne
arms for the Royal cause with some success during the civil wars,
was created a duke at the Restoration.
He and his duchess afterwards retired to the country to
devote the remainder of their days to the republic of letters.
Horace Walpole, in his f Royal and Noble Authors/ expended a
good deal of caustic wit on the eccentricities of this aristo
cratic pair — ' this picture of foolish nobility.' The work of so
industrious a couple, had it been rationally pursued, would proba
bly have escaped ridicule ; but since each publicly affected to
regard the other as the beau ideal of literary ingenuity, and
as a good deal of their ingenuity was exhibited in a certain con
tempt for the laws of style and the rules of grammar, their
labours were not much appreciated.
Had her Grace's studies been carefully regulated, she might
have done good things, as the following sensible letter will show.
Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, to her Husband, the Duke
of Newcastle.
London: 1GC7.
Certainly, my Lord, you have had as many enemies and as
many friends as ever any one particular person had ; nor do I so
much wonder at it, since I, a woman, cannot be exempt from the
malice and aspersions of spiteful tongues which they cast upon my
poor writings, some denying me to be the true authoress of them ;
for your grace remembers well, that those books I put out first to
the judgment of this censorious age were accounted not to be
written by a woman, but that somebody else had writ and pub
lished them in my name ; by which your lordship was moved to
prefix an epistle before one of them in my vindication, wherein
you assure the world, upon your honour, that what was written
and printed in my name was my own; and I have also made
known that your lordship was my only tutor, in declaring to me
what you had found and observed by your own experience ; for I
being young when your lordship married me, could not have much
knowledge of the world ; but it pleased God to command his ser
vant Nature to endue me with a poetical and philosophical genius,
even from my birth ; for I did write some books in that kind be-
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 117
fore I was twelve years of age, which for want of good method
and order I would never divulge. But though the world would
not believe that those conceptions and fancies which I writ were
my own, but transcended my capacity, yet they found fault, that
they were defective for want of learning, and on the other side,
they said I had pluckt feathers out of the universities ; which was
a very preposterous judgment. Truly, my lord, I confess that for
want of scholarship, I could not express myself so well as other
wise I might have done in those philosophical writings I published
first ; but after I was returned with your lordship into my native
country, and led a retired country life, I applied myself to the
reading of philosophical authors, on purpose to learn those names
and words of art that are used in schools ; which at first were so
hard to me, that I could not understand them, but was fain to
guess at the sense of them by the whole context, and so writ them
down, as I found them in those authors ; at which my readers did
wonder, and thought it impossible that a woman could have so
much learning and understanding in terms of art and scholastical
expressions ; so that I and my books are like the old apologue
mentioned in ^Esop, of a father and his son who rid on an ass.
[Here follows a long narrative of this fable, which she applies to
herself in these words : — ] The old man seeing he could not please
mankind in any manner, and having received so many blemishes
and aspersions for the sake of his ass, was at last resolved to drown
him when he came to the next bridge. But I am not so passionate
to burn my writings for the various humours of mankind, and for
their finding fault ; since there is nothing in this world, be it the
noblest and most commendable action whatsoever, that shall
escape blameless. As for my being the true and only authoress of
them, your lordship knows best ; and my attending servants are
witness that I have had none but my own thoughts, fancies, and
speculations, to assist me ; and as soon as I set them down I send
them to those that are to transcribe them, and fit them for the
press ; whereof, since there have been several, and amongst them
such as only could write a good hand, but neither understood
orthography, nor had any learning (I being then in banishment,
with your lordship, and not able to maintain learned secretaries,)
which hath been a great disadvantage to my poor works, and the
cause that they have been printed so false and so full of errors ;
118 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
for besides that I want also skill in scholarship and true writing,
I did many time not peruse the copies that were transcribed, lest
they should disturb my following conceptions ; by which neglect,
as I said, many errors are slipt into my works, which, yet I hope,
learned and impartial men will soon rectify, and look more upon
the sense than carp at words. I have been a student even from
childhood ; and since I have been your lordship's wife, I have
lived for the most part a strict and retired life, as is best known
to your lordship ; and therefore my censurers cannot know much
of me, since they have little or no acquaintance with me. 'Tis
true I have been a traveller both before and after I was married
to your lordship, and some times shown myself at your lordship's
command in public places or assemblies, but yet I converse with
few. Indeed, my lord, I matter not the censures of this age, but
am rather proud of them ; for it shows that my actions are more
than ordinary, and according to the old proverb, it is better to be
envied than pitied ; for I know well that ifc is merely out of spite
and malice, whereof this present age is so full that none can escape
them, and they'll make no doubt to stain even your lordship's
loyal, noble, and heroic actions as well as they do mine ; though
yours have been of war and fighting, mine of contemplating and
writing : yours were performed publicly in the field, mine pri
vately in my closet : yours had many thousand eye-witnesses ;
mine none but my waiting-maids. But the great God, that
hitherto bless'd both your grace and me, will, I question not,
preserve both our fames to after ages.
Your grace's honest wife and humble servant,
M. NEWCASTLE.
LXXXIII.
More than any other among the distinguished historical per
sonages of the seventeenth century, Algernon Sidney, in point
of character and conduct, will continue to have his detractors
and admirers. The published letters in the different editions of
the Sidney papers serve only to confirm his partisans in their
admiration of his consistency of principle as an enemy of mon
archical government — even to the extent of deprecating the per
sonal rule of Cromwell — and his enemies in their reprehension of
the factious leader who could waste his splendid energies in cabal
ling with France and Holland for the establishment of a republic
in England. The most able and eminent of the knot of revolu
tionary patriots to which he belonged, he was also the most un
compromising and most provokingly obstinate.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 119
Algernon Sidney to his Father, the Earl of Leicester.
Venice : October 12, 1660.
My Lord, — I did write to your lordship twice from Augsburgh, I
have little to add to what I then said, unless it be in relation to some
thing from him who was my colleague. I think he intends nothing
less than my hurt, but doubt he may do me very much. Not knowing
at all the grounds of my proceedings in Denmark, which I think is the
principal thing objected against me, he will be subject to aggravate
that, which he doth intend to attenuate. I do in that whole business
refer myself wholly to my two last letters to your Lordship, being
assured nobody knows my mind upon that point, unless it be those
that have seen them, or some few words inserted into others
written at the same time. He also mentions another point, but
so obscurely, that I understand it not, no other person having
spoken one word of it, which is, that there is something in the
Clerk of the Courts book, that put the King to death which doth
much prejudice me. I do not know the particulars, but the truth
of what passed I do very well remember. I was at Penshurst,
when the act for the trial passed, and coming up to town I heard
my name was put in, and that those that were nominated for
j udges were then in the painted chamber. I presently went thither,
heard the act read, and found my own name with others. A
debate was raised how they should proceed upon it, and after
having been sometime silent to hear what those would say, who
had had the directing of that business, I did positively oppose
Cromwell, Bradshaw, and others, who would have the trial to go
on, and drew my reasons from these two points : First the King
could be tried by no court; secondly, that no man could be tried
by that court. This being alleged in vain, and Cromwell using
these former words (I tell you, we will cut off his head with the
crown upon it,) I replied : you may take your own course, I can
not stop you, but I will keep myself clean from having any hand
in this business, immediately went out of the room, and never
returned. This is all that passed publicly, or that can with truth
be recorded, or taken notice of. I had an intention, which is not
120 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
veryfitfor a letter.1 Some few months after, it was moved in the
House that none should be of the Council of State, but those that
had signed the order for the king's death ; that motion soon fell ;
the company appearing unfit for such a work. Afterwards it was
moved that none should be of the Council but such as would subscribe
a paper declaring their approbation of that act ; calling that a test
whereby those that were close and sure unto the work in hand,
might be distinguished from those that were not. I opposed that,
and having given such reasons as I could to justify my opinion, I
chanced to use this expression, that such a test would prove a
snare to many an honest man, but every knave would slip through
it ; the Lord Grey of Grooby took great exceptions at this ; and
said I had called all those knaves, that had signed the order ;
upon which there was a hot debate, some defending, others blaming
what I had said, but all mistaking the true sense of it ; and I was
not hasty to explain myself. Harry Marten saved me the trouble
of doing it all, by saying that indeed such expressions did sound
something harsh, when they related to such actions, in which many
of my brethren had been engaged ; but that the error of him who
took exceptions, was much greater than mine, for I had said only,
that every knave might slip through, and not that every one who
did slip through was a knave. I mention these two things as
public ones, of which I can have many witnesses, and they had so
ill effects as to my particular concernments, as to make Cromwell,
Bradshaw, Harrison, Lord Grey and others, my enemies, who did
from that time continually oppose me. Love to truth, rather than
expectation of success, persuades me to give your lordship this
information, which you may be pleased to make use of, as you see
occasion.
LXXXIV.
In the earliest dawn of positive science in England, the name
of John Ray took the foremost place. He was the first true
systematist of the animal kingdom, and, as such, the principal
guide of Linnaeus. As a botanist his fame stands almost higher
than as a zoologist, and it is not too much to say that he was
1 As Sidney was against trial, it is likely that he aimed at the deposi
tion and banishment of Charles I., with the concurrence of both Houses of
Parliament.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 121
the inventor of geology. The following account of the Burning
Fountain of Grenoble'gives a good instance of the cool and can
did examination which Kay gave to phenomena which everyone
until his day had regarded with superstitious awe.
John Ray to Tankred Robinson.
Black Notley : May 22, 1685.
Sir, — Last post brought me yours of May 19. In answer
whereto, seeing what you assert concerning the transmutation
mentioned may be true, and is supported by good authority, and
your opinion, I see no reason it should be struck out ; for those
principles into which bodies are immediately resoluble by fire,
being not primary but compound bodies, it may consist with my
opinion of certain and fixed first principles well enough.
Reading in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' of March last
your observations on subterraneous streams, I find you mistaken
in one of your conjectures concerning matter of fact, that is con
cerning that they call the burning fountain [La Fontaine que
brule] near Grenoble, in Dauphine, which our curiosity led us
to make an excursive journey from Grenoble on purpose to see.
This place is about three leagues distant from the city up the
river. When we came there, we were much deceived in our ex
pectation ; for, instead of a burning fountain, which we dreamt
of, from the name and relations of others, we found nothing of
water, but only an actual flame of fire issuing out of a rent, or
hole, in the side of a bank, plainly visible to the eye, to which
if you applied dry straw, or any other combustible matter,
it took fire presently. I took it to be nothing else but a
little spiraculum of a mine of coals, or some such like substance,
fired ; and my reason was, because the bank, out of which the
flame issued, looked much like slate and cinder of coals. One thing
I cannot but admire, that is the long continuance of this burning.
I find mention of it in ' Augustine de Civitate Dei.' Lib. i. cap. 7
'De fonte illo ubi faces extinguunter ardentes et accenduntur
extinctse non inveni in Epiro qui vidisse se dicerent, sed qui in
Gallia similem nossent, non longe a Gratianopoli civitate ; ' by
which relation of the good father, we see how he was abused and
imposed upon by relators that were eye-witnesses. I myself also was
abused in like manner, and therefore do verilv believe there was
122 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
then no more fountain there than is now — that is a fountain of
fire, which, from the constancy and perpetuity of its issuing out,
it may be called. Hence we may learn what credit is to be
given to the verbal relations of the generality of travellers.
LXXXV.
When the critical admirers of the prose style of Sir Wil
liam Temple ask us to believe that the distinguished diplomate
t advanced our English tongue to as great a perfection as it well
can bear/ they ask too much. In marking the progress and
development of English prose style from the overcharged rhe
toric of the sixteenth century to a more simple and perspicuous
arrangement of sentences, Temple was no doubt an important
unit ; but Cowley, Tillotson, Barrow, Jeremy Taylor, Dryden,
and Locke also contributed, in their several degrees of excel
lence, to create a new standard of refinement and verbal purity
in our language. The elegance and naivete of Sir "William
Temple's style are illustrated nowhere better than in his letters.
He had a happy knack of suiting his manner and wording to
the character of the person addressed. The kindly allusion to
Edmund Waller is an example of his well-known veneration
for men of genius.
Sir William Temple to Lord Lisle.
Brussels : August, 1667.
My Lord, — I received lately the honour of one from your Lord
ship, which after all complaints of slowness and dulness had enough
to bear it out, though it had been much better addressed, but
needed nothing where it was, besides being yours. In my present
station I want no letters of business or news, which makes those
that bring me marks of my friends remembrance, or touches at
their present thoughts and entertainments, taste much better than
any thing can do that is common fare. I agree very much with
your Lordship, in being little satisfied by the wits excuse of
employing none upon relations as they do in France ; and doubt
much it is the same temper and course of thoughts among us, that
makes us neither act things worth relating, nor relate things worth
the reading. Whilst making some of the company laugh, and
others ridiculous, is the game in vogue, I fear we shall hardly
succeed at any other, and am sorry our courtiers should content
themselves with such victories as those. I would have been glad
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 123
to have seen Mr. Cowley, before he died, celebrate Captain Douglas's
death ; who stood and burnt in one of our ships at Chatham, when
his soldiers left him, because it should never be said, a Douglas
quitted his post without order; whether it be wise in men to do
such actions or no, I am sure it is so in States to honour them ; and,
if they can, to turn the vein of wits to raise up the esteem of some
qualities above the real value, rather than bring every thing to
burlesque, which, if it be allowed at all, should be so only to wise
men in their closets, and not to wits, in their common mirth and
company. But I leave them to be reformed by great men's
examples and humours, and know very well it is folly for a
private man to touch them, which does but bring them like wasps
about one's ears. However, I cannot but bewail the transitoriness
of their fame, as well as other men's, when I hear Mr. Waller
is turned to burlesque among them, while he is alive, which never
happened to old poets till many years after their death ; and though I
never knew him enough to adore him as many have done, and
easily believe he may be, as your Lordship says, enough out of
fashion, yet I am apt to think some of the old cut- work bands were
of as fine thread, and* as well wrought, as any of our new points ;
and, at least, that all the wit he and his company spent, in
heightening love and friendship, was better employed, than what
is laid out so prodigally by the modern wits, in the mockery of all
sorts of religion and government.
I know not how your Lordship's letter has engaged me in this kind
of discourses ; but I know very well you will advise me after it to keep
my residency here as long as I can, foretelling me what success I am.
like to have among our courtiers if I come over. The best on it is,
my heart is set so much upon my little corner at Sheen, that while I
keep that, no other disappointments will be very sensible to me ;
and, because my wife tells me she is so bold as enter into talk of
enlarging our dominions there, I am contriving here this summer,
how a succession of cherries may be compassed from May till
Michaelmas, and how the riches of Sheen vines may be improved
by half a dozen sorts which are not yet known there, and which, I
think, much beyond any that are. I should be very glad to come
and plant them myself this next season, but know not yet how
those thoughts will hit. Though I design to stay but a month in
England, yet they are here very unwilling I should stir, as all
124 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
people in adversity are jealous of being forsaken ; and his Majesty
is not willing to give them any discouragement, whether he gives
them any assistance or no. But, if they end the campaign with any
good fortune, they will be better humoured in that, as well as all
other points : and it seems not a very unlikely thing, the French
having done nothing in six months past but harass their army,
and being, before Lisle, engaged in a siege, which may very well
break the course of their success. They have not yet made the
least advance upon any of the out works, but been beaten off with
much loss in all their assaults : and, if that King's design be to
bring his nobility as low as he has done his people, he is in a good
way, and may very well leave most of the brave among them in
their trenches there.
I had not need write often at this length, nor make your Lord
ship any new professions of my being, my Lord, your, &c.
LXXXVI.
OEO of the very few satisfactory political transactions of
the reign of Charles II. was the Triple Alliance of 1668 nego
tiated by Sir William Temple, the resident minister of Brussels,
for the purpose of checking- the further encroachments of Louis
XIV. in Flanders. Temple, by his exceeding skill and diligence,
prevailed upon our old foes to join us and Sweden in threaten
ing resistance to France, and the conclusion of the treaty was
hailed with delight by the English Parliament j but, unhappily,
Charles's subsequent disgraceful compact with Louis XIV., known
as the Secret Treaty of Dover, nipped Temple's work almost in
the bud.
Sir William Temple to Mr. Godolphin.
Brussels : January 28 (N.S.), 1668.
Sir, — Though the interruption of our commerce hath been long,
yet I thought it necessary to renew it at this time, and thereby let
you know what has lately broken it on my side, that you may not
believe any interruption of yours has had a worse effect upon me
of late, than it ever had before, being an accident I have often been
subject to. About the end of last month, I passed through this
place with private commission from his Majesty, to sound the mind
of the States in what concerns the present quarrel between the two
Crowns, and how they were disposed to join with him in the share
of a war, or project of a peace, to be endeavoured by our joint
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offices between them. From hence I went to London, with the
private account of what I had in charge. After five days stay
there, I was dispatched back, as his Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary
to the States, with full power to treat and conclude upon those
points which his Majesty esteemed necessary for our common safety,
and the repose of Christendom, in this conjuncture. Upon the
6th I arrived here, had my first audience on the 18th, and on the
23rd were signed by me, and the Commissioners given me by the
States with full powers, three several instruments of our present
treaty : the first containing a league defensive and perpetual be
tween his Majesty and the States, against all persons without
exception, that shall invade either of them, with agreement to
furnish each other, upon occasion, with forty ships of war, of which
fourteen between sixty and eighty guns, and four hundred men
a-piece, one with another ; fourteen between forty and sixty guns
and three hundred men a-piece ; and, of the other twelve, none
under thirty-six guns, and a hundred and fifty men ; besides this,
with six thousand foot, and four hundred horse, or money instead of
them, at the choice of the invaded, and to be repaid within three
years after the end of the war : the proportions of money to the
several parts of the said aid being ascertained in the treaty.
The second instrument contains our joint obligations to dispose
France to make peace in Flanders, upon one of the alternatives
already proposed ; and likewise to dispose Spain to accept it, before
the end of May ; but, in case of difficulty made by them, to dispose
France, however, to stop all farther progress of its own arms there
and leave it wholly to the allies to procure the ends proposed in
this league.
The third instrument contains certain separate articles between
his Majesty and the States, signed at the same time, and of the
same force with the treaty, but not to be committed to letters.
It is hardly imaginable, the joy and wonder conceived here,
upon the conclusion of this treaty, brought to an issue in five days,
nor the applause given to his Majesty's resolution, as the wisest
and happiest that could, in this conjuncture, be taken by any
Prince, both for his own and his neighbours affairs ; nor are the
reflections upon the conduct of it less to the advantage of the
present ministry in England ; the thing being almost done here as
soon as my journey was known in London, and before my errand
7
126 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
was suspected by any public Minister there. Three days after
our signing, the Swedish Ambassador signed another instrument
jointly with me and the States Commissioners, obliging his Master
to enter as a principal into the same alliance, so soon as some pre
tensions he has from the Emperor and Spain are satisfied by our good
offices between them. After which Count Dona parted as Ambas
sador likewise from that Crown for England, where the rest of that
affair will be negotiated ; and in his company my brother Henry
Temple, with the whole account of my business, and the treaties
signed in order to their ratification, for which a month is allowed,
though the States promise theirs within fifteen days after the date.
When those arrive and are exchanged, I return to my residence
at Brussels, to see the issue of this business, which now takes up
the thoughts and discourse of all Christendom, and from which
most Princes will resolve to take their measures.
I suppose my Lord Sandwich upon his way, and therefore
content myself only with giving you this trouble, and the profes
sions of my being, Sir, yours, &c.
LXXXVII.
It will be seen that this ' model of a negotiator,' as Sir
James Mackintosh called Sir William Temple, entertained but
a very modest opinion of himself. He was content to work for
his country's weal, and had no thought of seeking great official
rewards. When his ambassadorial functions came to an end
after the Peace of Nimeguen, lie preferred the quiet retirement of
Moor Park, and the companionship of Swift and other literary
men, to a Secretaryship of State under the fickle rule of the
1 Merry Monarch.'
Sir William Temple to Lord Halifax.
Brussels : March 2 (tf.s.), 1668.
My Lord,— It would be a difficult thing to answer a letter I
received lately from your Lordship, if it could be ever difficult for
me to do a duty where I owe it so much, and pay it so willingly.
The reflections I make upon what you say, and what I hear from
other hands of the same kind, carry me only to consider how much
by chance, and how unequally, persons and things are judged at a
distance ; and make me apprehend, from so much more applause
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 127
than is my due upon this occasion, that upon the next I may meet
with as much more blame than I deserve ; as one seldom has a
great run of cards which is not followed by an ill one, at least
gamesters that are no luckier than I. It is not my part to unde
ceive people, that will make my successes pass for merit or
ability ; but, for my friends, I would not cheat them to my advan
tage itself; and therefore will tell you the secret of all that has
seemed so surprising in my negotiation ; which is, that things
drawn out of their center are not to be moved without much force,
or skill, or time ; but, to make their return to their center again,
there is required but little of either, for nature itself does the
work. The true center of our two nations, now so near allied, is
where they now are seated ; and nothing was in the way of their
returning thither, but the extreme jealousies grown between the
Ministers on both sides, and from thence diffused among the
people ; and this it was my good luck to cure, by falling into a
great confidence with Monsieur de Witt, which made all the rest
easy : and there is the whole story, that you may see how much
you are either biassed or mistaken in all the rest you say of it.
For what you mention of reward, I know not how it came into
your head, but I am sure it never entered into mine, nor, I dare
say, into any body's else. I will confess to you, that, considering
the approbation and good opinion, which his Majesty, and some
considerable enough about him, have been abused into, by my good
fortune in this business, I think a wiser man might possibly make
some benefit of it, and some of my friends have advised me to
attempt it, but it is in vain : for I know not how to ask, nor why,
and this is not an age where any thing is given without it. And,
by that time you see me next, you shall find all this which was so
much in talk to my advantage for nine days, as much forgotten as
if it had never been, and very justly, I think; for in that time it
received a great deal more than its due, from many other hands as
well as from yours. This I tell you, that you may not deceive
yourself by hoping to see me ever considerable, farther than in the
kindness of my friends; and that your Lordship may do your
part to make me so in that, seeing me like to fail in all other ways.
But, as I remember, this is a time with you for good speeches, and
not for ill letters ; I will therefore end this, to make you more
room for the others, and hope that none of the eloquence you are
128 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
entertained with, can be more persuasive than a plain truth, when
I assure you that I am, my Lord, your Lordship's most faithful
humble servant.
LXXXVIII.
Lord William Russell, a victim of the Rye House Plot, was
condemned to death for conspiring to seize the King's Guards ;
by a strained construction of the law of treason, this was inter
preted as an attempt to take the life of Charles II. On the
scaffold he handed a paper to the sheriffs written in justification
of his conduct as a member of the Whig Junto for pressing
reforms on the Government. In this he proved himself guilty
only of the barest misprision of treason. The paper gave great
offence at Court ; Dr. Burnet was questioned about it, hence the
following exculpatory letter from Lady Russell.
Lady Rachel Russell to King Charles II.
1683.
May it please Your Majesty, — I find my husband's enemies are
not appeased with his blood, but still continue to misrepresent him
to your Majesty. 'Tis a great addition to my sorrows, ta hear
your Majesty is prevailed upon to believe, that the paper he deli
vered to the Sheriff at his death, was not his own. I can truly
say, and am ready in the solemnest manner to attest that I often
heard him discourse the chiefest matters contained in that paper,
in the same expressions he therein uses, as some of those few rela
tions that were admitted to him, can likewise aver. And sure 'tis
an argument of no great force, that there is a phrase or two in it
another uses, when nothing is more common than to take up such
words we like, or are accustomed to in our conversation. I beg
leave further to avow to your Majesty, that all that is set down in
the paper read to your Majesty on Sunday night, to be spoken in
my presence, is exactly true ; J as I doubt not but the rest of the
paper is, which was written at my request ; and the author of it,
in all his conversation with my husband that I was privy to,
showed himself a loyal subject to your Majesty, a faithful friend
to him, and a most tender and conscientious minister to his soul.
I do therefore humbly beg your Majesty would be so charitable to
1 This paper contained an account of all that passed between Dr.
Burnet and Lord William Russell concerning his last speech and paper.
1700] ENGLISH LE1TERS. 129
believe, that he who in all his life was observed to act with the
greatest clearness and sincerity, would not at the point of death do
so disingenuous and false a thing as to deliver for his own that
what was not properly and expressly so.
And if, after the loss in such a manner of the best husband in
the world, I were capable of any consolation, your Majesty only
could afford it by having better thoughts of him, which when I
was so importunate to speak with your Majesty, I thought I had
some reason to believe I had inclined you to, not from the credit
of my word, but upon the evidence of what I had to say. I hope
I have writ nothing in this that will displease your Majesty. If
I have, I humbly beg of you to consider it as coming from a
woman amazed with grief ; and that you will pardon the daughter
of a person l who served your Majesty's father in his greatest
extremities, (and your Majesty in your greatest posts) and one that
is not conscious of having ever done anything to offend you. I
shall ever pray for your Majesty's long life and happy reign,
"Who am, with all humility,
May it please your Majesty
&c.
LXXXIX.
William III., who ridiculed many of the superstitious church
practices of his day, was regarded by the High Church party as
either an Infidel or a Puritan. His firmness and independence
in filling up the numerous ecclesiastical benefices after the Revo
lution did not tend to diminish the disaffection in the Episco
pate. The vacancy in the Deanery of St. Paul's, caused by the
nomination of Dr. Stillingfleet to the Bishopric of Worcester
was filled by Dr. Tillotson in 1689 ; at the time this appoint
ment was made Dr. Tillotson was informed by the King that he
was to be Sancroft's successor in the see of Canterbury. Un
willing to accept such high honour he sought the advice of
Lady Russell in a letter to which this was the reply.
Lady Rachel Russell to Dr. Tittotson, Dean of St. Paul's.
October, 1690.
Your letters will never trouble me, Mr. Dean; on the con
trary, they are comfortable refreshments to my, for the most part,
overburthened mind, which both by nature and by accident, is
1 The Earl of Southampton.
130 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
made so weak that I can't bear, with that constancy I should, the
losses I have lately felt ; I can say, friends and acquaintances thou
hast hid out of my sight, but I hope it shall not disturb my peace.
These were young, and as they had began their race of life after
me, so I desired they might have ended it also. But happy are
those whom God retires in his grace — I trust these were so ; and
then no age can be amiss : to the young 'tis not too early, nor to
the aged too late. Submission and prayer is all we know that we
can do towards our own relief in our distresses, or to disarm God's
anger either in our public or private concerns. This scene will
soon alter into that peaceful and eternal home in prospect. But
in this time of our pilgrimage vicissitudes of all sorts are every
one's lot. And this leads me to your case, Sir.
The time seems to be come when you must anew in practice
that submission l you have so powerfully both tried yourself and
instructed others to : I see no pla,ce to escape at ; you must take
up the cross and bear it ; I faithfully believe it has the figure of a
very heavy one to you, though not from the cares of it ; since, if
the King guesses right, you toil more now ; but this work is of
your own choosing, and the dignity of the other is what you have
bent your mind against, and the strong resolve of your life has
been to avoid it. Had this even proceeded to a vow, 'tis, I think,
like the virgins of old to be dissolved by the father of your
country.
Again, tho' contemplation, and a few friends well chosen,
would be your grateful choice, yet, if charity, obedience, and neces
sity, call you into the great world, and where enemies encompass
round about, must not you accept it 1 And each of these, in my
mean apprehension, determines you to do it. In short, 'twill be a
noble sacrifice you will make, and I am confident you will find as
a reward, kind and tender supports, if you do take the burthen
upon you ; there is, as it were, a commanding Providence in the
manner of it. Perhaps I do as sincerely wish your thoughts at
ease as any friend you have, but I think you may purchase that
too dear ; and if you should come to think so too, they would then
be as restless as before.
Sir, I believe you would be as much a common good as you
1 Dr. Tillotson had endeavoured to persuade Lord William Russell to
submit to the doctrine of passive obedie ce to kingship.
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can ; consider how few of ability and integrity this age produces.
Pray do not turn this matter too much in your head ; when one
has once turned it every way, you know that more does but per
plex, and one never sees the clearer for it. Be not stiff if it be still
urged to you. Conform to the Divine Will, which has set it so
strongly in the other's mind, and be content to endure ; 'tis God
calls you to it. I believe 'twas wisely said, that when there is no
remedy they will give it over, and make the best of it, and so I
hope no ill will terminate on the King ; and they will lay up their
arrows, when they perceive they are shot in vain at him or you,
upon whom no reflection that I can think of can be made that is
ingenious ; and what is pure malice you are above being affected
with. I wish, for many reasons, my prayers were more worthy,
but such as they are, I offer them with a sincere zeal to the throne
of Grace for you in this strait, that you may be led out of it, as
shall best serve the great ends and designs of God's glory.
XO.
Lord Macaulay refers to the following letter as ' a model of
serious, friendly, and gentlemanlike reproof.'
The Earl of Shrewsbury (created a Duke by William III.
for his activity and support at the Revolution), was accounted
one of the finest scholars and finest gentlemen of his time. He
was known from youth to old age as the King of Hearts, for
everybody loved him. His conversion from the Roman Catho
lic to the Protestant faith at the outset of his career was caused
by the disg-ust he felt at that wretched business, the Popish plot,
and the timely influence of Dr. Tillotson, the Dean of Canter
bury. So much concern did the Dean feel for his convert, whom
he found in danger of being attracted into the dissolute circle of
Charles II.'s court, that he addressed him this masterpiece of ele
gant remonstrance.
Dr. Tillotson to the Earl of Shrewsbury.
1679.
My Lord, — It was a great satisfaction to me to be any ways
instrumental in the gaining your Lordship to our religion, which I
am really persuaded to be the truth. But I am, and always was
more concern'd, that your Lordship would continue a virtuous
and good man, than become a Protestant, being assured, that the
ignorance and errors of men's understanding will find a much
132 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
easier forgiveness with God, than the faults of the will. I remem
ber that your Lordship once told me, that you would endeavour to
justify the sincerity of your change by a conscientious regard to all
other parts and actions of your life. I am sure you cannot more
effectually condemn your own act, than by being a worse man
after your profession to have embraced a better religion. I will
certainly be one of the last to believe any thing of your Lordship,
that is not good ; but I always feared, I should be one of the first
that should hear it. The time I last waited upon your Lordship,
I had heard something, that afflicted me very sensibly; but I
hoped it was not true, and was therefore loth to trouble your
Lordship about it. But having heard the same from those, who, I
believe, bear no ill-will to your Lordship, I now think it my duty
to acquaint you with it. To speak plainly, I have been told, that
your Lordship is of late fallen into a conversation dangerous both
to your reputation and virtue, two of the tenderest and dearest
things in the world. I believe your Lordship to have a great
command and conduct of yourself; but I am very sensible of
human frailty, and of the dangerous temptations, to which youth
is exposed in this dissolute age. Therefore I earnestly beseech
your Lordship to consider, besides the high provocation of
Almighty God, and the hazard of your soul, whenever you engage
in a bad course, what a blemish you will bring upon a fair and
unspotted reputation ; what uneasiness and trouble you will create
to yourself from the severe reflections of a guilty conscience, and
how great a violence you will offer to your good principles, your
nature, and your education, and to a mind the best made for
virtuous and worthy things. And do not imagine you can stop
when you please. Experience shews us the contrary, and that no
thing is more vain, than for men to think they can set bounds to
themselves in anything that is bad. I hope in God, no temptation
has yet prevailed on your Lordship so far as to be guilty of any
loose act. If it has, as you love your soul, let it not proceed to an
habit. The retreat is yet easy and open, but will every day be
come more difficult and obstructed. God is so merciful, that upon
your repentance and resolution of amendment, he is not only ready
to forgive what is past, but to assist us by his grace to do better
for the future. But I need not inforce these considerations upon
a mind so capable of, and easy to receive good counsel. I shall
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 133
only desire your Lordship to think again and again, how great a
point of wisdom it is, in all our actions, to consult the peace of our
minds, and to have no quarrel with the constant and inseparable
companion of our lives. If others displease us, we may quit their
company ; but he, that is displeased with himself, is unavoidably
unhappy because he has no way to get rid of himself. My Lord,
for God's sake, and your own, think of being happy, and resolve
by all means to save yourself from this untoward generation.
Determine rather upon a speedy change of your condition, than to
gratify the inclinations of your youth in any thing but what is
lawful and honourable; and let me have the satisfaction to be
assured from your Lordship, either that there has been no ground
for this report, or that there shall be none for the future ; which
will be the welcomest news to rne in the world. I have only to
beg of your Lordship to believe, that I have not done this to
satisfy the formality of my profession ; but that it proceeds from
the truest affection and good- will, that one man can possibly bear-
to another. I pray God every day for your Lordship with the
same constancy and fervour as for myself, and do most earnestly
beg, that this counsel may be acceptable and effectual.
I am, &c.
XOI.
This is the answer to the foregoing letter of Lady Rachel
Russell.
Six months after this letter was written Bancroft was
deprived of his see, and Tillotson was appointed Archbishop of
Canterbury. When it is remembered that many of the states
men of the Middle Ages took holy orders merely to qualify
themselves to be recipients of the only lucrative form of patron
age dispensed by the Crown ; and that in the succeeding genera
tions venerable prelates have not scrupled to have the greatness
of an archbishopric thrust upon them, this hesitation, on the
part of Tillotson, to accept the leadership of the church is very
striking. A reason for his faltering was that he had a wife ; but
modern precedents, in the cases of Cranmer and Parker, out
weighed this objection.
Dr. Tillotson to Lady Rachel Russell.
October 25, 1690.
Honoured Madam, — I am obliged to your Ladyship beyond all
expression, for taking my case so seriously into your consideration,
7*
134 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
and giving rue your mature thoughts upon it. Nothing ever came
more seasonably to me than your letter, which I received on Wed
nesday se'nnight, the very night before I was to have given my
final answer to the King the next morning. I thank you for it :
it helped very much to settle and determine my wavering mind. I
weighed all you wrote, both your advice and your arguments,
having not only an assurance of your true friendship and good-will
for me, but a very great regard and deference for your judgment
and opinion. I cannot but own the weight of that consideration
which you are pleased to urge me withal ; I mean the visible marks
of a more than ordinary providence of God in this thing ; that the
King, who likes not either to importune or to be denied, should
after so obstinate a declining of the thing on my part, still persist to
press it upon me with so much kindness, and with that earnestness of
persuasion which it does not become me to mention. I wish I
could think the King had a superior direction in this, as I verily
believe he hath in some other things of much greater importance.
The next morning I went to Kensington full of fear, but yet deter
mined what was fit for me to do. I met the King coming out of
his closet, and asking if his coach was ready. He took me aside,
and I told him, that, in obedience to his Majesty's command, I
had considered of the thing as well as I could, and came to give
him my answer. I perceived his Majesty was going out, and
therefore desired him to appoint me another time, which he did on
the Saturday morning after. Then I came again, and he took me
into his closet, where I told him, that I could not but have a deep
sense of his Majesty's great grace and favour to me, not only to
offer me the best thing he had to give, but to press it so earnestly
upon me. I said, I would not presume to argue the matter any
farther, but I hoped he would give me leave to be still his humble
and earnest petitioner to spare me in that thing. He answered,
he would do so if he could, but he knew not what to do if I
refused it. Upon that I told him, that I tendered my life to him,
and did humbly devote it to be disposed of as he thought fit. He
was graciously pleased to say, it was the best news had come to him
this great while. I did not kneel down to kiss his hand, for with
out that I doubt I am too sure of it ; but requested of him, that
he would defer the declaration of it, and let it be a secret for some
time. He said he thought it might not be amiss to defer it till the
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 135
Parliament was up. I begged farther of him, that he would not
make me a wedge to drive out the present Archbishop : that some
time before I was nominated his Majesty would be pleased to
declare in Council, that since his lenity had not had any better
effect, he would wait no more, but would dispose of their places.
This I told him I humbly desired, that I might not be thought to
do any thing harsh, or which might reflect upon me : and now that
his Majesty had thought fit to advance me to this station, my
reputation was become his interest. He said he was sensible of it,
and thought it reasonable to do as I desired. I craved leave of
him to mention one thing more, which in justice to my family,
especially to my wife, I. ought to do : that I should be more than
undone by the great and necessary charge of coming into this
place ; and must therefore be an humble petitioner to his Majesty,
that if it should please God to take me out of the world, that I
may unavoidably leave my wife a beggar, he would not suffer her
to be so ; and that he would graciously be pleased to consider, that
the widow of an Archbishop of Canterbury (which would now be
an odd figure in England ) could not decently be supported by so
little as would have contented her very well if I had died a Dean.
To this he gave a very gracious answer, ' I promise you to take
care of her.'
Just as I had finished the last sentence, another very kind
letter from your Ladyship was brought to me, wherein I find your
tender concern for me, which I can never sufficiently acknowledge.
But you say the die is not cast, and I must now make the best I
can of what I lately thought was the worst that could have hap
pened to me. I thank God I am more cheerful than I expected,
and comfort myself as I can with this hope, that the providence of
God, to which I have submitted my own will in this matter, will
graciously assist me to discharge in some measure, the duty he
hath called me to. I did not acquaint my good friend, who wrote
to you, with all that had passed, because it was intended to be a
secret which I am sure is safe in your hands. I only told him,
that his Majesty did not intend, as yet, to dispose of this place ;
but when he did it, I was afraid it would be hard for me to escape.
The King, I believe, has only acquainted the Queen with it, who,
as she came out of the closet on Sunday last, commanded me to
wait upon her after dinner, which I did ; and after she had dis-
136 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
coursed about other business (which was to desire iny opinion of a
treatise sent her in manuscript out of Holland, tending to the
reconciliation of our differences in England), she told me, that the
King had with great joy acquainted her with a secret concerning
me, whereof she was no less glad ; using many gracious expres
sions, and confirming his Majesty's promises concerning my wife.
But I am sensible this is an intolerable letter, especially concern
ing one's-self. I had almost forgot to mention Mr Vaughan's
business : as soon as he brought your Ladyship's letter hither to
me, I wrote immediately to Whitehall, and got the business stop't.
The Bishop of St. David's had written up for some minister of a
great town but a small living in that diocese, that it might be
bestowed on him for his pains in that great town. The pretence
is fair, but if the Minister is no better a man than the bishop, I am
sure he is not worthy of it. I have been twice to wait on my
Lord Nottingham about it, but missed of him. When I have
inquired farther into it, if the thing be fit to be done, I will do my
best for Mr Vaughan. And I beg of your Ladyship to make no
difficulty of commanding my poor service upon any occasion, for I
am always truly glad of the opportunity. I cannot forbear to
repeat my humble thanks for your great concernment for me in
this affair.
That God would multiply his best blessings upon your Lady
ship and your children, and make them great blessings and com
forts to you, is the daily prayer of, Madam, your most obliged
humble servant.
XOII.
This John Dennis is the man so familiar to the reader of
Pope's satires. He was one of the most formidable critics of
our Augustan age. The present letter is in answer to one he
had addressed to Dryden a few days before, in which he had
spoken very enthusiastically of the great poet's genius.
Dryden's kindly and genial temper is very pleasantly illus
trated in this reply to his young admirer, though he alludes with
some bitterness to the attacks which had been so unjustly made
on his private character. The letter is interesting also for the
critical remarks with which it is interspersed.
John Dryden to John Dennis.
[March, 1693-4.]
My Dear Mr. Dennis, — When I read a letter so full of my
commendations as your last, I cannot but consider you as
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master of a vast treasure, who having more than enough for your
self, are forc'd to ebb out upon your friends. You have indeed the
best right to give them, since you have them in propriety ; but
they are no more mine when I receive them, than the light of
the moon can be allowed to be her own, who shines but by the
reflexion of her brother. Your own poetry is a more powerful
example, to prove that the modern writers may enter into com
parison with the ancients, than any which Perrault could produce
in France ; yet neither he, nor you, who are a better critick, can
persuade me, that there is any room left for a solid commendation
at this time of day, a,t least for me.
If I undertake the translation of Virgil, the little which I can
perform will shew at least, that no man is fit to write after him, in
a barbarous modern tongue. Neither will his machines be of any
service to a Christian poet. We see how ineffectually they have
been try'd by Tasso, and by Ariosto. 'Tis using them too dully,
if we only make devils of his gods : as if, for example, I would
raise a storm, and make use of ^Eolus, with this only difference of
calling him Prince of the air ; what invention of mine would there
be in this 1 or who would not see Virgil through me : only the
same trick play'd over again by a bungling juggler? Boileau has
well observed, that it is an easy matter in a Christian poem, for
God to bring the Devil to reason. I think I have given a better
hint for new machines in my preface to Juvenal ; where I have
particularly recommended two subjects, one of King Arthur's
conquest of the Saxons, and the other of the Black Prince in his
conquest of Spain. But the Guardian Angels of Monarchies and
Kingdoms are not to be touch'd by every hand : a man must be
deeply conversant in the Platonick philosophy, to deal with them ;
and therefore I may reasonably expect that no poet of our age will
presume to handle those machines, for fear of discovering his own
ignorance ; or if he should, he might perhaps be ingrateful enough
not to own me for his benefactour.
After I have confess'd thus much of our modern heroick poetry,
I cannot but conclude with Mr. Bymer, that our English comedy
is far beyond any thing of the Ancients : and notwithstanding our
irregularities, so is our tragedy. Shakspeare had a genius for it ;
and we know, in spite of Mr. Rymer, that genius alone is a
greater virtue (if I may so call it) than all other qualifications put
138 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
together. You see what success this learned critick has found in
the world, after his blaspheming Shakspeare. Almost all the
faults which he has discover'd are truly there ; yet who will read
Mr. Rymer, or not read Shakspeare 1 For my own part I reverence
Mr. Kymer's learning, but I detest his ill-nature and his arrogance.
I indeed, and such as I, have reason to be afraid of him, but
Shakspeare has not.
There is another part of poetry, in which the English stand
almost upon an equal foot with the Ancients ; and it is that which
we call Pindarique ; introduced, but not perfected, by our famous
Mr. Cowley : and of this, Sir, you are certainly one of the greatest
masters. You have the sublimity of sense as well as sound, and
know how far the boldness of a poet may lawfully extend. I
could wish you would cultivate this kind of Ode ; and reduce it
either to the same measures which Pindar used, or give new
measures of your own. For, as it is, it looks like a vast track of
land newly discover'd : the soil is wonderfully fruitful, but un-
manur'd; overstock'd with inhabitants, but almost all savages,
without laws, arts, arms, or policy.
I remember, poor Nat. Lee, who was then upon the verge of
madness, yet made a sober and a witty answer to a bad poet, who
told him, It was an easie thing to write like a madman : No, said
he, it is very difficult to write like a madman, but it is a very easy
matter to write like a fool. Otway and he are safe by death from
all attacks, but we poor poets militant (to use Mr. Cowley 's ex
pression) are at the mercy of wretched scribblers : and when they
cannot fasten upon our verses, they fall upon our morals, our
principles of state and religion. For my principles of religion, I
will not Justine them to you : I know yours are far different . For
the same reason I shall say nothing of my principles of state. I
believe you in yours follow the dictates of your reason, as I in
mine do those of my conscience.
If I thought my self in an errour, I would retract it. I am
sure that I suifer for them ; and Milton makes even the Devil say,
that no creature is in love with pain. For my morals betwixt man
and man, I am not to be my own judge. I appeal to the world, if
I have deceiv'd or defrauded any man ; and for my private con
versation, they who see me every day can be the best witnesses,
whether or not it be blameless and inoffensive. Hitherto I have
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 139
no reason to complain that men of either party shun my company.
I have never been an impudent beggar at the doors of noblemen :
my visits have indeed been too rare to be unacceptable ; and but
just enough to testifie my gratitude for their bounty, which I have
frequently received, but always unasked, as themselves will witness.
I have written more than I needed to you on this subject ; for
I dare say you justifie me to your self. As for that which I first
intended for the principal subject of this letter, which is my friend's
passion and his design of marriage, on better consideration I have
chang'd my mind : for having had the honour to see my dear friend
Wycherly's letter to him on that occasion, I find nothing to be
added or amended. But as well as I love Mr. Wycherly, I confess
I love my self so well, that I will not shew how much I am in-
feriour to him in wit and judgment, by undertaking any thing after
him. There is Moses and the Prophets in his council. Jupiter
and Juno, as the poets tell us, made Tiresias their umpire in a
certain merry dispute, which fell out in heaven betwixt them.
Tiresias, you know, had been of both sexes, and therefore was a
proper judge ; our friend Mr. Wycherly is full as competent an
arbitrator : he has been a bachelor, and marry'd man, and is now a
widower.
Virgil says of Ceneus,
Nunc vir, mine fcemina, Ceneus,
Eursus et in veterem fato revoluta figuram.
Yet I suppose he will not give any large commendations to his
middle state : nor as the sailor said, will be fond after a ship-
wrack to put to sea again. If my friend will adventure after this,
I can but wish him a good wind, as being his, and
My dear Mr. Dennis
Your most affectionate
and most faithful Servant
JOHN DEYDEN.
XCIII.
Miss Thomas was the daughter of a barrister, and had be
come acquainted with Dryden by sending him some of her verses
that she might have his opinion on them. Though labouring
under a complication of diseases and on the verge of the grave,
the old poet politely replied in words of high praise. The fol-
140 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
lowing was written within three months of his death. It would
have been well had ' Corinna,' as he gallantly called her, always
remembered his wise and solemn words.
John Dryden to Elizabeth Thomas.
November, 1699.
Madam, — The great desire which I observe in you to write
well, and those good parts which God Almighty and Nature have
bestow'd on you, make me not to doubt, that by application to
study, and the reading of the best authors, you may be absolute
mistress of poetry. 'Tis an unprofitable art, to those who profess
it; but you, who write only for your diversion, may pass your
hours with pleasure in it, and without prejudice ; always avoiding
(as I know you will,) the licence which Mrs. Behn allow'd herself,
of writing loosely, and giving, if I may have leave to say so, some
scandall to the modesty of her sex. I confess, I am the last man
who ought, in justice, to arraign her, who have been my self too
much a libertine in most of my poems ; which I should be well
contented I had time either to purge, or to see them fairly burn'd.
But this I need not say to you, who are too well born, and too
well principled, to fall into that mire.
In the mean time, I would advise you not to trust too much to
Virgil's Pastorals ; for as excellent as they are, yet Theocritus is
far before him, both in softness of thought, and simplicity of ex
pression. Mr. Creech has translated that Greek poet, which I
have not read in English. If you have any considerable faults,
they consist chiefly in the choice of words, and the placing them so
as to make the verse run smoothly ; but I am at present so taken
up with my own studies, that I have not leisure to descend to par
ticulars ; being, in the mean time, the fair Corinna's
Most humble and most
faithful Servant
JOHN DRYDEN.
P.S. I keep your two copies, till you want them, and are
pleas'd to send for them.
1700J ENGLISH LETTERS. 141
XCIV.
' The unquestioned founder of the analytical philosophy of
niind/ for so John Stuart Mill dubbed John Locke, was no mere
grave psychologist, but a rather facetious companion who
believed implicitly in La Rochefoucauld's maxim that l gravity
is a mystery of the body invented to conceal the defects of the
mind.' It was an article of faith with the author of the ' Essay on
the Human Understanding/ that in order properly to employ apart
of this life in serious occupations it is necessary to devote another
part to entertaining pastimes. There is much in Locke's familiar
correspondence that betrays a vein of pleasantry and a courtier-
like demeanour which explains his popularity among friends.
John Locke to Lady Calverley.
1703.
Madam, — Whatever reason you have to look on me, as one of
the slow men of London, you have this time given me an excuse
for being so ; for you cannot expect a quick answer to a letter,
which took me up a good deal of time to get to the beginning of it.
I turned and turned it on every side ; looked at it again and again,
at the top of every page ; but could not get into the sense and
secret of it, till I applied myself to the middle.
You, madam, who are acquainted with all the skill and methods
of the ancients, have not, I suppose, taken up with this hiero-
glyphical way of writing for nothing ; and since you were going to
put into your letter things that might be the reward of tbe highest
merit, you would, by this mystical intimation, put me into the way
of virtue, to deserve them.
But whatever your ladyship intended, this is certain, that, in
the best words in the world, you gave me the greatest humiliation
imaginable. Had I as much vanity as a pert citizen, that sets up
as a wit in his parish, you have said enough in your letter to content
me ; and if I could be swoln that way, you have taken a great deal
of pains to blow me up, and make me the finest gaudy bubble in
the world, as I am painted by your colours. I know the emperors
of the East suffer not strangers to appear before them, till they are
dressed up out of their own wardrobes ; is it so too in the empire
of wit 1 and must you cover me with your own embroidery, that I
may be a fit object for your thoughts and conversation ? This,
madam, may suit your greatness, but doth not at all satisfy my
142 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
ambition. He, who has once flattered himself with the hopes of
your friendship, knows not the true value of things, if he can
content himself with these splendid ornaments.
As soon as I had read your letter, I looked in my glass, felt my
pulse, and sighed ; for I found, in neither of those, the promises of
thirty years to come. For at the rate I have hitherto advanced,
and at the distance, I see, by this complimental way of treatment,
I still am, I shall not have time enough in this world to get to
you. I do not mean to the place where you now see the pole
elevated, as you say, 54 degrees. A post-horse, or a coach, would
quickly carry me thither. But when shall we be acquainted at
this rate ? Is that happiness reserved to be completed by the
gossiping bowl, at your granddaughter's lying-in 1
If I were sure that, when you leave this dirty place, I should
meet you in the same star where you are to shine next, and that
you would then admit me to your conversation, I might perhaps
have a little more patience. But, methinks, it is much better to
be sure of something, than to be put off to expectations of so much
uncertainty. If there be different elevations of the pole here, that
keep you at so great a distance from those who languish in your
absence ; who knows but, in the other world, there are different
elevations of persons ?
And you, perhaps, will be out of sight, among the seraphims,
while we are left behind in some dull planet. This the high
flights of your elevated genius give us just augury of, whilst you
are here. But yet, pray take not your place there before your
time ; nor keep not us poor mortals at a greater distance than you
need.
When you have granted me all the nearness that acquaintance
and friendship can give, you have other advantages enough still to
make me see how much I am beneath you. This will be only an
enlargement of your goodness, without lessening the adoration due
to your other excellences.
You seem to have some thoughts of the town again. If the
parliament, or the term, which draw some by the name and
appearance of business; or if company, and music meetings, and
other such entertainments, which have the attractions of pleasure
and delight, were of any consideration with you ; you would not
have much to say for Yorkshire, at this time of the year. But
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 143
these are no arguments to you, who carry your own satisfaction,
and I know not how many worlds always about you. I would be
glad you would think of putting all these up in a coach and
bringing them this way.
For though you should be never the better ; yet there be a great
many here that would, and amongst them
The humblest of your Ladyship's servants
JOHN LOCKE.
XCV.
Sir Isaac Newton found time for a good deal of correspond
ence with members of foreign and English Universities, notably
with the learned Dr. Bentley, of Cambridge ; but his letters are
for the most part long, and attain the dimensions and form of
scientific tracts. The following is an interesting specimen of
the few shorter epistles.
Sir Isaac Newton to Richard Bentley.
Cambridge: February 11, 1693.
Sir, — The Hypothesis of deriving the frame of the world by
mechanical principles from matter evenly spread through the
heavens being inconsistent with my system, I had considered it
very little before your letters put me upon it, and therefore trouble
you with a line or two more, if this come not too late for your use.
In my former I represented that the diurnal rotations of the Planets
could not be derived from gravity, but required a divine power to
impress them. And though gravity might give the Planets a
motion of descent towards the sun, either directly or with some
little obliquity, yet the transverse motions by which they revolve
in their several orbs required the Divine Arm to impress them
according to the tangents of their orbs. I would now add, that
the Hypothesis of matters being at first evenly spread through
the heavens is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the Hypothesis of
iunate gravity, without a supernatural power to reconcile them, and
therefore it infers a Deity. For if there be innate gravity, it's
impossible now for the matter of the earth and all the planets and
stars to fly up from them, and become evenly spread throughout
the heavens, without a supernatural power ; and certainly that
which can never be hereafter without a supernatural power, could
never be heretofore without the same power.
144 "ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
You queried whether matter evenly spread throughout a finite
space, of some other figure than spherical, would not, in falling
down towards a central body, cause that body to be of the same
figure with the whole space; and I answered, Yes. But in my
answer it is to be supposed that the matter descends directly down
wards to that body, and that that body has no diurnal rotation.
This, Sir, is all that I would add to my former letters.
I am, Your most humble Servant,
Is. NEWTON.
XCVI.
The following authentic report of the execution of the rebel
lious son of Charles II. and Lucy Walters, was written by one
of the ' Seven Bishops.' An acknowledgment of the Diike of
Monmouth's illegitimacy had been previously made in two pub
lic official declarations by his father, as well aa to James II. by
the Duke himself. It will be seen that Monmouth remained
headstrong, obstinate, and courageous, to the last moment of his
life.
Dr. Lloyd (Bishop of St. Asaph) to Dr. Fell (Bishop of Oxford}.
July 16, 1685.
My Lord, — I received your Lordship's letter by the last post,
with two enclosed, one to the Duke of Ormond, the other to the
Lord Privy-Seal; both which letters I delivered to their own
hands, and they promised to answer them.
For the King's Inauguration, I know my Lord of Canterbury
has made ready an office to be used very year, the 6th of
February, so that there will need no question concerning it. I
was this day again at Sir H. Foxe's, to speak with him, but he was
not at home. I will try again to-morrow.
I told your Lordship in my last the Bishop of Ely was ap
pointed by his Majesty to attend the Duke of Monmouth, and to
prepare him to die the next day. The Duke wrote to his Majesty,
representing how useful he might and would be, if his Majesty
would be pleased to grant him his life. But if it might not be,
he desired a longer time, and to have another divine to assist him,
Dr Tennison, or whom else the King should appoint. The King
sent him the Bishop of Bath and Wells to attend, and to tell him
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 145
he must die the next morning. The two Bishops sate up in his
chamber all nightj and watched while he slept. In the morning
by his Majesty's order, the Lords Privy-Seal and Dartmouth
brought him also Dr Tennison and Dr Hooper. All these were
with him till he died. They got him to own the King's title to the
crown, and to declare in writing that the last King told him he
was never married to his mother, and by word of mouth to acknow
ledge his invasion was sin ; but could never get him to confess it
was a rebellion. They got him to own that he and Lady Harriot
Wentworth had lived in all points like man and wife, but they
could not make him confess it was adultery.
He acknowledged that he and his Duchess were married by the
law of the land, and therefore his children might inherit, if the
King pleased. But he did not consider what he did when he
married her. He confessed that he had lived many years in all sorts
of debauchery, but said he had repented of it, asked pardon, and
doubted not that God had forgiven him. He said that since that
time he had an affection for Lady Harriot, and prayed that if it
were pleasing to God, it might continue, otherwise that it might
cease ; and God heard his prayer. The affection did continue, and
therefore he doubted not it was pleasing to God ; and that this
was a marriage, their choice of one another being guided not by
lust, but by judgment upon due consideration.
They endeavoured to shew him the falsehood and mischievous-
ness of this enthusiasticall principle. But he told them it was his
opinion, and he was fully satisfied in it. After all, he desired them
to give him the communion next morning. They told him they
could not do it, while he was in that error and sin. He said he was
sorry for it.
The next morning, he told them he had prayed that if he was
in an error in that matter God would convince bim of it, but God
had not convinced him, and therefore he believed it was no error.
When he was upon the scaffold, he professed himself a Protes
tant of the Church of England. They told him he could not be
so, if he did not own the doctrine of the church of England in the
point of non-resistance, and if he persisted in that enthusiastic
persuasion. He said he could not help it, but yet he approved the
doctrine of the church in all other things. He then spoke to the
people, in vindication of the lady Harriot, saying she was a woman
146 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
of great honour and virtue, a religious godly lady (those were his
words). They told him of his living in adultery with her. He said,
no. For these two years last past he had not lived in any sin that
he knew of; and that he had never wronged any person, and that
he was sure when he died to go to God, and therefore he did not
fear death, which (he said) they might see in his face. Then they
prayed for him, and he knelt down and joined with them After
all they had a short prayer for the king, at which he paused, but
at last said Amen.
He spoke to the headsman to see he did his business well, and
not use him as he did the Lord Russell, to give him two or three
strokes ; for if he did, he should not be able to lie still without turn
ing. Then he gave the executioner 6 guineas, and 4 to one Marshall,
a servant of Sir T. Armstrong's that attended him with the King's
leave ; desiring Marshall to give them the executioner if he did
his work well, and not otherwise. He gave this Marshall over
night his ring and watch ; and now he gave him his case of pick-
teeth : all for Lady Harriot. Then he laid himself down ; and
upon the sign given, the headsman gave a light stroke, at which
he looked him in the face ; then he laid him down again, and the
headsman gave him two strokes more, and then laid down the axa
saying, he could not finish his work ; till being threatened by the
Sheriff and others then present, he took up the axe again, and at
two strokes more cut off his head.
All this is true as to matter of fact, and it needs no comment
your Lordship. I desire your prayers, and remain
Your Lordship's most affectionate
W. ASAPH.
XCVII.
Tom Browne, once one of the most facetious and versatile of
metropolitan scribblers, is scarcely remembered now. He had
been, it is said, a schoolmaster at Kingston-on-Thames, but
having been guilty of some indiscretion he had forfeited his
ferule and set up in London as ' a merry fellow.' His merriment
is as a rule too coarse for modern taste, but the following1 letter
is not unworthy of Elia — at his worst. Mr. Browne died in 1704.
Tom Browne to a Lady who Smoked Tobacco.
Madam, — Though the ill-natured world censures you for
smoking, yet I would advise you, madam, not to part with so
1700] ENGLISH .LETTERS. 147
innocent a diversion. In the first place, it is healthful ; and, as
Galen rightly observes, is a sovereign remedy for the toothache,
the constant persecutor of old ladies. Secondly, tobacco, though it
be a heathenish weed, it is a great help to Christian meditations;
which is the reason, I suppose, that recommends it to your parsons,
the generality of whom can no more write a sermon without a pipe
in their mouths, than a concordance in their hands ; besides, every
pipe you break may serve to put you in mind of mortality, and
show you upon what slender accidents man's life depends. I knew
a dissenting minister who, on fast-days, used to mortify upon a
rump of beef, because it put him, as he said, in mind that all flesh
was grass; but, I am sure, much more is to be learnt from
tobacco. It may instruct you that riches, beauty, and all the
glories of the world, vanish like a vapour. Thirdly, it is a pretty
plaything. Fourthly, and lastly, it is fashionable, at least 'tis in a
fair way of becoming so. Cold tea, you know, has been a long
while in reputation at court, and the gill as naturally ushers in the
pipe, as the sword-bearer walks before the lord mayor.
XOVIII.
The brief life of Otway was embittered by his unrequited
passion for Mrs. (Miss) Barry, the famous actress, for whom he
wrote all those principal parts in his successive plays which
were admitted to become her genius the best of any. She kept
him in suspense for seven years, unwilling to marry or to dismiss
him, to lose his services as a playwright or to accept him as a
lover. The following letter was probably written at the close
of this period, in 1682, when the brilliant success of ' Venice
Preserved ' had made him the first tragic poet and her the first
tragic actress of that age.
Thomas Otivay to Madam Barry.
[1682.]
Could I see you without passion, or be absent from you without
pain, I need not beg your pardon for thus renewing my vows that
I love you more than health, or any happiness here or hereafter.
Everything you do is a new charm to me, and though I have
languished for seven long tedious years of desire, jealously despair
ing, yet every minute I see you, I still discover something new and
more betwitching. Consider how I love you ; what would I not
renounce, or enterprise for you 1 I must have you mine, or I am
148 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
miserable, and nothing but knowing which shall be the happy hour
can make the rest of my years that are to come tolerable. Give
me a word or two of comfort, or resolve never to look with common
goodness on me more., for I cannot bear a kind look and after
it a cruel denial. This minute my heart aches for you ; and, if I
cannot have a right in yours, I wish it would ache till I could
complain to you no longer.
Remember poor Otway.
XOIX.
Mr. Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., was a great collector of coins
and manuscripts, and his antiquarian museum was considered
almost the best private one in England. As an. antiquarian
litterateur he was able to lend much help to his friends, notably
Strype, Calamy, and Hearne, in the course of their different
publications. Two volumes of correspondence from literary
men to Thoresby are published, from which a single specimen
is extracted. It is an eloquent protest against the unbounded
influence of filthy lucre.
The Rev. George Plaxton to Ralph Thoresby.
October 1, 1709.
Dear Ralpho, — Your last maintains an odd paradox, and you
contradict the common usage of mankind. Do not all old people
wipe their eyes with Jacobuses when they meet with them, as an
opthalmique charm to mend the sight : but you tell me that gold
blinds the eyes both of the godly and wicked, and casts such films
before them that they cannot distinguish the colours of right and
wrong. 1 know there are very strange powers in gold, and won
derful are the operations of that almighty metal ; it rules in
church and state, court and camp, conventicle and cloister; it
makes bishops and mars priests ; it blinds the eyes of justice, cor
rupts juries, and blunts the sword of the greatest generals ; it is
as arbitrary as the Mogul, as imperious as the Czar, as victorious
as Eugene, and is able to conquer both Marl borough and his
Duchess ; it represents emperors, kings, and sovereign princes ; it
is stamped with a powerful authority, and bears the impresses of
Majesty, rule and greatness ; it is supreme in all dominions, domi
neers in all governments, swaggers in all corporations ; and whilst
you maintain that it blinds the eyes of too many, I aver that it
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. H9
only opens their optics, and shows them the way to slavery and
folly.
The generality of mankind are its slaves and vassals, and it
makes more conquests than powder and bullet. Let you and me
keep out of its reach, lest we become captives to its power and
supremacy, lose our liberties and freedoms and turn idolaters in
our declining years, as too many have done. As yet, I hope we
are pretty free, and secure from its insults. Let us stand upon
our guard, and rather conquer than yield to its force and power ;
for it useth all its prisoners like galley-slaves, and keeps them in a
perpetual drudgery j it is an idolater in the Indies, a Jew all the
world over, a Mahometan at Constantinople, a false Christian at
Home, and every thing in Great Britain ; what it is at Leeds your
Aldermen can tell. I am sure it has little footing at Barwick,
where we are all poor Palatines and Camisars, i.e. hardly with a
shirt.
Adieu, my friend. I am
Your's more than gold's.
0.
To Lawrence Hyde, created Earl of Rochester in 1682, Nell
Gwynne caused to be dictated (for { the indiscreetest and wildest
of creatures' could not write herself) this sprightly and vulgar
letter, which is published in the ' Camden Miscellany ' from Mr.
Tite's collection of autographs. An editorial note says, ' It is
scarcely possible to conceive a composition more characteristic
both in style and contents than this most singular effusion.'
Nell Gwynne to Lawrence Hyde.
[Probably 1678.]
Pray Deare Mr Hide forgive me -for not writeing to you before
now for the reasone is I have bin sick thre months and sinse I
recovered I have had nothing to intertaine you withall nor have
nothing now worth writing but that I can holde no longer to let
you know I never have ben in any companie wethout drinking
your health for I love you with all my soule. The Pel Mel is
now to me a clismale plase sinse I have uterly lost Sr Car Scupe
never to be recovrd agane. Mrs Knights T Lady mothers dead &
1 Mrs Knight, a rival of Nell G Wynne's at the Court of Charles II.
8
150 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
she has put up a scut chin no beiger then my Lady Grins scuchins.
My lord Rochester is gon in the euntrie. Mr. Savil has got a mis
fortune, but is upon recovery & is to marry an hairres, who I
thinke wont have an ill time on't if he holds up his thumb. My
lord of Dorscit apiers wonse in thee munths, for he drinkes aile with
Shad well and Mr Haris l at the Dukes house all day long. My
Lord Burford 2 remimbers his sarvis to you. My Lord Bauclaire3
is goeing into france. we are a goeing to supe with the king at
Whithall & my lady Harvie. The king remembers his sarvis to
you. now lets talke of state affairs, for we never Varied things so
cunningly as now for we dont know whether we shall have pesce
or war, but I am for war and for no other reason but that you
may come home. I have a thousand merry conseets, but I cant
make her write um & therefore you must take the will for the deed,
good bye. your most loveing obedunt faithfull humbel
Sarvant
E. G.
01.
From his house at the corner of Southampton Street, the
site of the present British Museum, Sir Hans Sloane supplied
hk great friend Ray with books, specimens, and every sort of
intelligence which could be of service to him in his scientific
observations. It is strange to find in the last year of the seven
teenth century such a spectacle as this tiger-fight publicly patro
nised by the elite of London.
Sir Hans Sloane to John Ray.
London : March 9, 1698-9.
Sir, — This day a large tiger was baited by three beardogs, one
after another. The first dog he killed ; the second was a match
for him, and sometimes he had* the better, sometimes the dog ; but
the battle was at last drawn, and neither cared for engaging any
farther. The third dog had likewise sometimes the better and
sometimes the worse of it, and it came also to a drawn battle.
But the wisest dog of all was a fourth, that neither by fair means
nor foul could be brought to go within reach of the tiger, who was
1 A great Shakespearean actor.
2 Son of Nell Gwynne.
8 Second son of Nell Gwynne.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 151
chained in the middle of a large cockpit. The owner got about
£300 for this show, the best seats being a guinea, and the worst five
shillings. The tiger used his paws very much to cuff his adversaries
with, and sometimes would exert his claws, but not often, using
his jaws most, and aiming at under or upper sides of the neck,
where wounds are dangerous. He had a fowl given him alive,
which, by means of his feet and mouth, he very artfully first
plucked and then eat ; the feathers, such as got into his mouth,
being troublesome. The remainders of his drink in which he has
lapped, is said by his keeper to kill dogs and other animals that
drink after him, being by his foam made poisonous and ropy. I
hope you will pardon this tedious narration, because I am apt to
think it is very rare that such a battle happens, or such a fine tiger
is seen here.
I am, &c.
OIL
An essential feature of the reign of Queen Anne was the
invasion of literature by politics. Pamphlets and lampoons
were the chief weapons of political warfare, and each political
party had its special champions. This letter refers to Daniel
De Foe's acceptance of an engagement to write for the Earl of
Halifax. The most fertile author of his day, De Foe had always
been an ardent polemicist, both in prose and doggrel ; and his
hatred of the Stuarts and predisposition to Dissent kept his pen
continually employed against Tories and Churchmen, and exposed
him to ruinous fines, imprisonment, and the pillory.
At the late age of fifty-eight he forsook political tripotage,
and began to write ' Robinson Crusoe/ and the novels which have
immortalised him.
Daniel De Foe to the Earl of Halifax.
April 5, 1705.
My Lord, — I most humbly thank your Lordship, for expres
sions of your favour and goodness which I had as little reason to
expect from your Lordship as I have capassity to merit.
My Lord Treasurer has frequently express'd himself with con
cern on my behalf, and Mr Secretary Harley the like ; but I, my
Lord, am like the Cripple at the Pool; when the moment hap-
pen'd, no man was at hand to put the wretch into the water : and
my talent of sollicitation is absolutely a Cripple, and unquallifyed
to help itself.
152 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
I wish your Lordship could understand by my imperfect ex
pression the sense I have of your unexpected goodness in mention
ing me to my Lord Treasurer. I could be very well pleased to
wait till your merit and the Nation's want of you shall place your
Lordship in that part of the Publick affaires, where I might owe
any benefitt I shall receive from it, to your goodness, and might be
able to act something for your service, as well as that of the
Publick. My Lord, the proposall your Lordship was pleas'd to
make by my brother the bearer, is exceeding pleasant to me to
perform, as well as usefull to be done, agreeable to every thing the
masterly genius of your Lordship has produced in this age; but my
rnissfortune is, the bearer, whose head is not that way, has given
me so imperfect an account, that makes me your Lordship's most
humble petitioner for some hints to ground my observations upon.
I was wholly ignorant of the design of that act, not knowing it
had such a noble original! . Pardon my importunate application to
your Lordship for some hints of the substance and design of that
act, and if your Lordship please the names again of some book?
which my dull messenger forgott, and which your Lordship was
pleas'd to say had spoke to this head.
I the rather press your Lordship on this head, because the very
next Article which of course I proposed to enter upon in the
Review being that of paper credit, I shall at once do myself the
honour to obey your Lordship's dictate, and observe the stated
order of the discourse I am upon. I shall not presume to offer it
against your Lordship's opinion, and would be farthest of all from
exposing your Lordship to any tongues ; but if ever your Lordship
shall think this despicable thing, who scorn'd to come out of
Newgate at the price of betraying a dead Master, or discovering
those things which no body would have been the worse for, fitt to
be trusted in your presence, tho' never so much incognito, he will
certainly, exclusive of what he may communicate to your Lordship
for the publick service, receive from you such instructions as are
suitable to your known genius, and the benefitt of the Nation.
I have herewith sent your Lordship another book ; I know
your Lordship has but a few minutes to spare, but I am your
Lordship's humble petitioner, to bestow an hour on its contents,
because it is likely to make some noise in the world, and perhaps
to come before your Lordship in Parliament.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 153
I forbear to divert your more serious thoughts, which particu
lars I humbly thank your Lordship for the freedom of access you
were pleas'd to give my messenger, and am extreamly ambitious of
listing myself under your Lordship, in that cause, in which your
Lordship was allwayes embarkt, viz, of Truth and Liberty.
I am,
May it please your Lordship,
Your Lordship's
Most humble and obed* Serv*,
D. FOE.
GUI.
This letter of thanks is in De Foe's best manner.
Daniel De Foe to the Earl of Halifax.
[1705.]
Pardon me my Lord, — If to a man that has seen nothing for
some yeares, but the rough face of things, the exceeding goodness
of your Lordship's discourse softned me even to a weakness I could
not conceal.
'Tis a novelty, my Lord, I have not been us'd to, to receive
obligations from persons of your Lordship's character and merit,
nor indeed from any part of the world, and the return is a task too
hard for me to undertake.
I am, my Lord, a plain and unpolish'd man, and perfectly un-
quallified to make formall acknowledgements ; and a temper sour'd
by a series of afflictions, renders me still the more awkward in the
received method of common gratitude, I mean the ceremony of
thanks.
But, my Lord, if to be encourag'd in giveing myself up to that
service your Lordship is pleas'd so much to overvallue, if going on
with the more cheerfullness in being usefull to, and promoteing the
generall peace and interest of this nation, if to the last vigorously
opposeing a stupid distracted Party, that are for ruining them
selves rather than not destroy their neighbour, if this be to merit
so much regard, your Lordship binds me in the most durable and
to me the most pleasant engagement in the world, because 'tis a
service that, with my gratitude to your Lordship, keeps an exact
154 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
unison with my reason, my principle, my inclination, and the duty
every man owes to his country, and his posterity.
Thus, my Lord, Heavenly bounty engages mankind, while the
commands are so far from being grievous, that at the same time
we obey, we promote our own felicity, and joyn the reward to
the duty.
As to the exceeding bounty I have now received, and which
your Lordship obliges me to reserve my acknowledgements of for a
yet unknown benefactor, Pardon me, my Lord, to believe your
Lordship's favour to me has at least so much share in the conduct
of it, if not in the substance, that I am persuaded I cannot be more
oblidged to the donor, than to your Lordship' singular goodness,
which tho' I can not deserve, yet I shall allways sensibly reflect
on, and improve. And I should be doubly blest, if providence
would put it into my hands, to render your Lordship some service
suited to the sence I have of your Lordship's extraordinary favour.
And yet I am your Lordship's most humble petitioner, that if
possible I may know the originalls of this munificence, sure that
hand that can suppose me to merit so much regard, must believe
me fitt to be trusted with the knowledge of my benefactor, and un-
capable of discovering any part of it, that should be conceal'd; but
I submitt this to your Lordship and the persons concern'd. I
frankly acknowledge to your Lordship, and to the unknown
rewarders of my mean performances, that I do not see the merit
they are thus pleas'd to vallue ; the most I wish and which I hope
I can answer for is, that I shall all way es preserve the homely
despicable title of an honest man. If this will recommend me,
your Lordship shall never be asham'd of giving me that title, nor
my enemys be able by fear or reward to make me otherwise.
In all things I justly apprehend your Lordship's disappoint
ment, and that your Lordship will find little else in me worth your
notice. I am,
May it please your Lordship,
Your Lordship's highly obliged,
Most humble and most
obed* servfc
DANIEL DE FOE.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 155
CIV.
How perfectly unmoved was the famous Dr. Richard Bent-
ley — how conscious of success, and how thoroughly he despised
his adversaries, when about to send to press his final reply in
the l Boyle and Bentley ' controversy (the fiercest of the lite
rary contests of the seventeenth century), will be seen in this
superadded to that of Dr. Atterbury, Dean Swift, and other
scholars, was only able to assail him by writing a ' shallow
book.'
Dr. Richard Bentley to John Evelyn.
Trinity College, Cambridge : April 21, 1698.
Honoured Friend, — I cannot express to you how kindly I
receive your Letter ; and what a trial of true friendship I esteem
it, that, at that distance from me, among the cry of such as arc
concerned as a Party to run me down, you alone would stand up
for me, and expect till you heard alteram partem, as your inscrip
tion well expresses it. As for my friends that are here upon the
spot, and can ask me questions, they are long ago satisfied that thfc
Book L is not so formidable as the authors of it believed it. But I
am content, nay desirous, to have it pass for an unanswerable
piece ; for it will be the more surprising and glorious to confute it ;
which (if you'll take my word and keep my counsel) I shall do
with that clearness and fulness in every particular, great and little,
both points of Learning and points of Fact, that the authors will
be ashamed, if any shame can be expected in them, after this pre
sent Specimen. I have almost finished already, and near the end
of the month I shall be a putting it to the press ; for I need not
nine months, as they have had, to confute so shallow a Book, that
has nothing in it, but a little Wit, Satire and Eaillery, that puts it
off among half-learned readers.
I am, yours affectionately
RICHARD BENTLEY.
1 Dr. Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistles of Plialaris and the Fables
of JEsop, examined by the Hon. Charles Boyle.
156 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600
cv.
To students of theology this letter will have a special interest.
Dr. Bentley is propounding to Archbishop Wake his plan for
preparing a new critical edition of the Greek Testament. During
four years (1716-1720), he laboured diligently in collating the
Alexandrine and Beza manuscripts in England and in putting
foreign MSS. under contribution, but for reasons, which have
not been satisfactorily explained, the work was never published,
although a subscription in aid of it was collected.
Dr. Bentley to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Trinity College, Cambridge : April 15, 1716.
May it please your Grace, — 'Tis not only your Grace's station
and general character, but the particular knowledge I have of you,
which encourages me to give you a long letter about those un
fashionable topics, Religion and learning. Your Grace knows, as
well as any, what an alarm has been made of late years with the
vast heap of Various Lections found in MSS. of the Greek Testa
ment. The Papists have made a great use of them against the
Protestants, and the Atheists against them, both. This was one of
Collins's topics in his Discourse on Freethinking, which I took
off in my short answer ; and I have heard since from several
hands, that that short view I gave of the causes and necessity and
use of Various Lections, made several good men more easy in that
matter than they were before. But since that time I have fallen
into a course of studies that led me to peruse many of the oldest
MSS. of the Greek Testament and of the Latin too of St. Jerom,
of which there are several in England, a full thousand years old.
The result of which has been, that I find I am able (what some
thought impossible) to give an edition of the Greek Testament
exactly as it was in the best exemplars at the time of the Council
of Nice ; so that there shall not be twenty words, nor even par
ticles, difference ; and this shall carry its own demonstration in
every verse, which I affirm cannot be so done of any other ancient
book, Greek or Latin ; so that that book, which, by the present
management, is thought the most uncertain, shall have a testimony
of certainty above all other books whatever, and an end be put at
once to all Various Lections now or hereafter.
I'll give your Grace the progress which brought me by degrees
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 157
into the present view and scheme that I have of a new edition.
Upon some points of curiosity I collated one or two of St. Paul's
Epistles with the Alexandrian MS., the oldest and best now in the
world : I was surprised to find several transpositions of words,
that Mills and the other collators took no notice of ; but I soon
found their way was to mark nothing but change of words ; the
collocation and order they entirely neglected; and yet at sight
I discerned what a new force and beauty this new order (I found
in the MS.) added to the sentence. This encouraged me to collate
the whole book over to a letter, with my own hands. There is
another MS. at Paris of the same age and character with this ;
but, meeting with worse usage, it was so decayed by age, that five
hundred years ago it served the Greeks for old vellum, and they
writ over the old brown capitals a book of Ephraim Syrus ; but
so that even now, by a good eye and a skilful person, the old
writing may be read under the new. One page of this for a
specimen is printed in copper cut in Lamie's Harmony of the
Evangelists. Out of this, by an able hand, I have had above two
hundred lections given me from the present printed Greek ; and
I was surprised to find that almost all agreed both in word and
order with our noble Alexandrian. Some more experiments in
other old copies have discovered the same agreement ; so that I
dare say, take all the Greek Testaments surviving, that are not
occidental with Latin too, like our Beza's at Cambridge, and that
are a thousand years old, and they'l so agree together that of the
thirty thousand present Various Lections there are not there found
two hundred.
The Western Latin copies by variety of Translators without
public appointment, and a jumble and heap of all of them, were
grown so uncertain, that scarce two copies were alike; which
obliged Damasus, then Bishop of Home, to employ St. Jerom to
regulate the best-received translation of each part of the New
Testament to the original Greek ; and so set out a new edition, so
castigated and corrected. This he declares in his preface he did
ad Grcecam veritatem, ad exemplaria Grceca, sed vetera ; and his
learning, great name, and just authority, extinguished all the other
Latin versions, and has been conveyed down to us, under the name
of the Yulgate. 'Twas plain to me, that when that copy came
first from that great Father's hands, it must agree exactly with the
8*
158 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
most authentic Greek exemplars ; and if now it could be retrieved,
it would be the best test and voucher for the true reading out of
several pretending ones. But when I came to try Pope Clement's
Vulgate, I soon found the Greek of the Alexandrian and that
would by no means pary. This set me to examine the Pope's Latin
by some MSS. of a thousand years old ; and the success is, that
the old Greek copies and the old Latin so exactly agree (when an
able hand discerns the rasures and the old lections lying under
them), that the pleasure and satisfaction it gives me is beyond
expression.
The New Testament has been under a hard fate since the
invention of printing. After the Complutenses and Erasmus, who
had but very ordinary MSS. it has become the property of book
sellers. Robert Stephens's edition, set out and regulated by him
self alone, is now become the standard. That text stands, as if an
apostle was his compositor. No heathen author has had such ill
fortune.
Terence, Ovid, etc. for the first century after printing, went
about with twenty thousand errors in them. But when learned
men undertook them, and from the oldest MSS. set out correct
editions, those errors fell and vanished. But if they had kept to
the first published text, and set the Various Lections only in the
margin, those classic authors would be as clogged with variations
as Dr. Mills's Testament is.
Pope Sixtus and Clemens at a vast expense had an assembly of
learned divines, to recense and adjust the Latin Vulgate, and then
enacted their new edition authentic ; but I find, though I have
not yet discovered anything done dolo malo, they were quite un
equal to the affair. They were mere Theologi, had no experience
in MSS., nor made use of good Greek copies, and followed books
of five hundred years before those of double [that] age. Nay, I
believe they took these new ones for the older of the two; for it
is not everybody knows the age of a manuscript.
I am already tedious, and the post is a going. So that, to
conclude, in a word, I find that by taking two thousand errors out
of the Pope's Vulgate, and as many out of the Protestant Pope
Stephens's, I can set out an edition of each in columns, without
using any book under nine hundred years old, that shall so exactly
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 159
agree word for word, and, what at first amazed me, order for
order, that no two tallies nor two indentures can agree better.
I affirm that these so placed will prove each other to a
demonstration ; for I alter not a letter of my own head without the
authority of these old witnesses. And the beauty of the compo
sition (barbarous, God knows, at present), is so improved, as makes
it more worthy of a revelation, and yet not one text of consequence
injured or weakened.
My Lord, if a casual fire should take either his Majesty's
library, or the King's of France, all the world could not do this.
As I have therefore great impulse, and I hope not aOeel to set
about this work immediately, and leave it as a KeipjXtov to posterity,
against Atheists and Infidels, I thought it my duty and my honour
to first acquaint your Grace with it ; and know if the extrinsic
expense necessary to do such a work compleatly (for my labour I
reckon nothing) may obtain any encouragement, either from the
Crown or Public.
I am, with all duty and obedience
Your Grace's most humble servant
Hi. BENTLEY.
CVI.
William III. had promised Sir William Temple that Dr.
Swift should have the first vacancy which might happen among
the prebends of Westminster or Canterbury, and reference is
made to this promise in the following letter soliciting preferment
at the hands of Lord Halifax.
This Minister died a year before a vacancy occurred, and
Swift, who really never enjoyed the full measure of Ministerial
confidence, was disappointed. Most of the future Dean of St.
Patrick's English admirers preferred to acknowledge his claims
at a distance ; for the partial welcome he received in Eng
land was the natural result of his patronising airs and overbear
ing manners.
Dr. Swift to the Earl of Halifax.
Leicester : January 13, 1709.
My Lord, — Before I leave this place (where ill health has
detained me longer than I intended) I thought it my duty to
return your Lordship my acknowledgments for all your favors
to me while I was in town ; and, at the same time, to beg some
share in your Lordship's memory, and the continuance of your
160 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
protection. You were pleased to promise me your good offices
upon occasion ; which I humbly challenge in two particulars ; one
is that you will sometimes put my Lord President in mind of me ;
the other is, that your Lordship will duly once every year wish me
removed to England. In the mean time, I must take leave to
reproach your Lordship for a most inhuman piece of cruelty ; for
I can call your extreme good usage of me no better, since it has
taught me to hate the place where I am banished, and raised my
thoughts to an imagination, that I might live to be some way
usefull or entertaining, if I were permitted to live in Town, or
(which is the highest punishment on Papists) any where within ten
miles round it. You remember very well, my Lord, how another
person of quality in Horace's time, used to serve a sort of
fellows who had disobliged him ; how he sent them fine cloaths,
and money, which raised their thoughts and their hopes, till those
were worn out and spent, and then they were ten times more
miserable than before. Hac ego si compellar imagine, cuncta resigno.
I could cite several other passages from the same author, to my
purpose ; and whatever is applyed to Maecenas I will not thank
your Lordship for accepting, because it is what you have been
condemned to these twenty years by every one of us, qui se melent
d'avoir de Vesprit. I have been studying how to be revenged of
your Lordship, and have found out the way. They have in Ireland
the same idea with us of your Lordship's generosity, magnificence,
witt, judgment, and knowledge in the enjoyment of life. But I shall
quickly undeceive them, by letting them plainly know that you
have neither Interest nor Fortune which you can call your own ;
both having been long made over to the Corporation of deserving
Men in Want, who have appointed you their advocate and steward,
which the world is pleas'd to call Patron and Protector. I shall
inform them, that my self and about a dozen others kept the best
table in England, to which because we admitted your Lordship in
common with us, made you our manager, and sometimes allowed
you to bring a friend, therefore ignorant people would needs take
You to be the Owner. And lastly, that you are the most injudicious
person alive ; because, though you had fifty times more witt than
all of us together, you never discover the least value for it, but are
perpetually countenancing and encouraging that of others. I could
add a great deal more, but shall reserve the rest of my threatnings
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 161
till further provocation. In the mean time I demand of your
Lordship the justice of believing me to be with the greatest
respect,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient and
most obliged humble servant
JON. SWIFT.
Pray, my Lord, desire Dr South to dy about the fall of the
Leaf, for he has a Prebend of Westminister, which will make me
your neighbor, and a sine-cure in the Country, both in the Queen's
gift, which my friends have often told me would fitt me extremely ;
and forgive me one word, which I know not what extorts from me ;
that if my Lord President would in such a juncture think me worth
laying any weight of his Credit, you cannot but think me per
suaded that it would be a very easy matter to compass : and I have
some sort of pretence, since the late King promised me a Prebend
of Westminster, when T petitioned him in pursuance of a recom
mendation I had from Sir William Temple.
For the Bight Honourable
the Lord Halifax, at his House
in the New Palace-yard in Westminster.
London.
CVII.
This account of the French AbbtS Guiscard's attempt to
assassinate Harley was written within an hour or two of the
event it describes.
Dean Swift to Archbishop King.
London : March 8, 1711.
My Lord, — I write to your grace under the greatest disturb
ance of mind for the public and myself. A gentleman came in
where I dined this afternoon, and told us Mr. Harley was stabbed,
and some confused particulars. I immediately ran to secretary
St. John's hard by, but nobody was at home ; I met Mrs. St. John
in her chair, who could not satisfy me, but was in pain about the
secretary, who, as she had heard, had killed the murderer. I went
straight to Mr. Harley 's where abundance of people were to inquire.
I got young Mr. Harley to me : he said his father was asleep, and
162 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
they hoped in no danger, and then told me the fact, as I shall
relate it to your grace. This day the Marquis de Guis-card was
taken up for high treason, by a warrant of Mr. St. John, and
examined before a Committee of Council in Mr. St. John's office ;
where was present the dukes of Ormond, Buckingham, Shrewsbury,
earl Powlett, Mr. Harley, Mr. St. John, and others. During
examination, Mr. Harley observed Guis-card, who stood behind
him, but on one side, swearing, and looking disrespectfully. He told
him he ought to behave himself better while he was examined for
such a crime. Guis-card immediately drew a penknife out of his
pocket, which he had picked out of some of the offices, and, reach
ing round, stabbed him just under the breast a little to the right
side ; but it pleased God that the point stopped at one of the ribs,
and broke short half an inch. Immediately Mr. St. John rose,
drew his sword, and ran it into Guis-card's breast. Five or six
more of the Council drew and Stabbed Guis-card in several places :
but the earl Powlett called out, for God's sake, to spare Guis-
card's life, that he might be made an example ; and Mr. St. John's
sword was taken from him and broke ; and the footman without
ran in, and bound Guis-card, who begged he might be killed imme
diately ; and, they say called out three or four times, l My lord
Ormond ! My lord Ormond ! ' They say Guis-card resisted them
a while, until the footman came in. Immediately Bucier, the
surgeon, was sent for, who dressed Mr. Harley ; and he was sent
home. The wound bled fresh, and they do not apprehend him in
danger : he said, when he came home, he thought himself in none ;
and, when I was there he was asleep, and they did not find him at
all feverish. He has been ill this week, and told me last Saturday
he found himself much out of order, and has been abroad but
twice since ; so that the only danger is, lest his being out of order
should, with the wound put him in a fever ; and I shall be in a
mighty pain till to-morrow morning. I went back to poor Mrs.
St. John, who told me her husband was with my Lord-keeper [sir
Simon Harcourt] at Mr. Attorney's, [sir John Trevor] and she
said something to me very remarkable : * That going to-day to pay
her duty to the queen, when all the men and ladies were dressed to
make their appearance, this being the day of the queen's accession,
the lady of the bedchamber in waiting told her the queen had not
been at church, and saw no company ; yet, when she inquired her
1700J ENGLISH LETTERS. 163
health, they said she was very well, only had a little cold.' We
conceive the queen's reasons for not going out might be something
about this seizing of Guis-card for high treason, and that perhaps
there was some plot, or something extraordinary. Your grace
must have heard of this Guis-card : he fled from France for villanies
there, and was thought on to head an invasion of that kingdom,
but was not liked. I know him well, and think him a fellow of
little consequence, although of some cunning and much villany.
We passed by one another this day in the Mall, at two o'clock,
an hour before be was taken up ; and I wondered he did not speak
to me.
I write all this to your grace, because I believe you would
desire to know a true account of so important an accident ; and
besides, I know you will have a thousand false ones ; and I believe
every material circumstance here is true, having it from young
Mr. Harley. I met sir Thomas Mansel (it was then after six this
evening,) and he and Mr. Prior told me they had just seen Guis-
card carried by in a chair, with a strong guard, to Newgate or the
Press-yard. Time perhaps will show who was at the bottom of
all this ; but nothing could happen so unluckily to England, at
this juncture, as Mr. Harley's death; when he has all the schemes
for the greatest part of the supplies in his head, and the parliament
cannot stir a step without him. Neither can I altogether forget
myself, who, in him, should lose a person I have more obligations
to than any other in this kingdom ; who has always treated me
with the tenderness of a parent, and never refused me any favour I
asked for a friend ; therefore I hope your grace will excuse the
disorder of this letter. I was intending, this night, to write one
of another sort. I must needs say, one great reason for writing
these particulars to your grace was, that you might be able to give
a true account of the fact, which will be some sort of service to
Mr Harley. I am with the greatest respect, my lord, your grace's
most dutiful, and most humble servant,
JONATHAN SWIFT.
I have read over what I writ, and find it confused and incorrect,
which your grace must impute to the violent pain of mind I am
in, greater than ever I felt in my life. It must have been the
utmost height of desperate guilt which could have spirited that
164 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
wretch to such an action. I have not heard whether his wounds
are dangerous; but I pray God he may recover to receive his
reward, and that we may learn the bottom of his villany. It is
not above ten days ago that I was interceding with the secretary
in his behalf, because I heard he was just starving ; but the secre
tary assured me he had 400£ a-year pension.
CVIII.
This singularly impressive and eloquent letter was addressed
to Lord Oxford on the occasion of the death of his daughter, the
Marchioness of Carnmrthen, after her confinement Nov. 20, 1713,
aged twenty-eight. It does far more honour to the great Dean
than any of those more pretentious satirical compositions which
are in everybody's hands, and which have made his name im
mortal.
Dean Swift to Lord-Treasurer Oxford.
November 21, 1713.
My Lord, — Your lordship is the person in the world to whom
everybody ought to be silent upon such an occasion as this, which
is only to be supported by the greatest wisdom and strength of
mind : wherein, God knows, the wisest and best of us, who would
presume to offer their thoughts, are far your inferiors. It is true,
indeed, that a great misfortune is apt to weaken the mind and dis
turb the understanding. This, indeed, might be of some pretence
to us to administer our consolations, if we had been wholly
strangers to the person gone. But, my lord, whoever had the
honour to know her, wants a comforter as much as your lordship :
because, though their loss is not so great, yet they have not the
same firmness and prudence to support the want of a friend, a
patroness, a benefactor, as you have to support that of a daughter.
My lord, both religion and reason forbid me to have the least con
cern for that lady's death upon her own account ; and he must be
an ill Christian, or a perfect stranger to her virtues, who would
not wish himself, with all submission to God Almighty's will, in
her condition. But your lordship, who has lost such a daughter,
and we, who have lost such a friend, and the world, which has lost
such an example, have, in our several degrees, greater cause to
lament than perhaps was ever given by any private person before :
for, my lord, I have sat down to think of every amiable quality
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 165
that could enter into the composition of a lady, and could not single
out one which she did not possess in as high a perfection as human
nature is capable of. But as to your lordship's own particular, as
it is an inconceivable misfortune to have lost such a daughter, so it
is a possession which few can boast of to have had such a daughter.
I have often said to your lordship i That I never knew any one by
many degrees so happy in their domestics as you ; ' and I affirm you
are so still, though not by so many degrees : from whence it is
very obvious that your lordship should reflect upon what you have
left, and not upon what you have lost.
To say the truth, my lord, you began to be too happy for a
mortal ; much more happy than is usual with the dispensations of
Providence long to continue. You had been the great instrument
of preserving your country from foreign and domestic ruin : you
have had the felicity of establishing your family in the greatest
lustre, without any obligation to the bounty of your prince, or any
industry of your own : you have triumphed over the violence and
treachery of your enemies by your courage and abilities : and, by
the steadiness of your temper, over the inconstancy and caprice of
your friends. Perhaps your lordship has felt too much com
placency within yourself upon this universal success : and God
Almighty, who would not disappoint your endeavours for the
public, thought fit to punish you with a domestic loss, where he
knew your heart was most exposed ; and, at the same time, has
fulfilled his own wise purposes, by rewarding in a better life that
excellent creature he has taken from you.
I know not, my lord, why I write this to you, nor hardly what
I am writing. I am sure it is not from any compliance with form ;
it is not from thinking that I can give your lordship any ease. I
think it was an impulse upon me that I should say something :
and whether I shall send you what I have written I am yet in
doubt.
JONATHAN SWIFT.
CIX.
This is perhaps the most beautiful to he found among the
printed letters of Swift. The unusual tenderness of its tone
may he attributed to the great domestic calamity which the
writer was almost every hour fearing would befall himself — the
death of Stella.
166 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
Dean Swift to Mrs. Moore.
Deanery House : December 27, 1727.
Dear Madam, — Though I see you seldomer than is agreeable to
my inclinations, yet you have no friend in the world that is more
concerned for anything that can affect your mind, your health, or
your fortune : I have always had the highest esteem for your
virtue, the greatest value for your conversation, and the truest
affection for your person ; and therefore cannot but heartily con
dole with you for the loss of so amiable, and (what is more) so
favourite a child. These are the necessary consequences of too strong
attachments, by which we are grieving ourselves with the death of
those we love, as we must one day grieve those who love us with
the death of ourselves. For life is a tragedy, wherein we sit as spec
tators awhile, and then act our own part in its self-love, as it is the
motive to all our actions, so it is the sole cause of our grief. The
dear person you lament is by no means an object of pity, either in
a moral or religious sense. Philosophy always taught me to
despise life, as a most contemptible thing in itself; and religion
regards it only as a preparation for a better, which you are taught
to be certain that so innocent a person is now in possession of ; so
that she is an immense gainer, and you and her friends the only
losers. Now, under misfortunes of this kind, I know no consola
tion more effectual to a reasonable person than to reflect rather
upon what is left than what is lost. She was neither an only
child nor an only daughter. You have three children left, one
(Charles Devenisb, Esq.) of them of an age to be useful to his
family, and the two others as promising as can be expected from
heir age ; so that, according to the general dispensations of God
Almighty, you have small reason to repine upon that article of
life. And religion will tell you that the true way to preserve
them is, not to fix any of them too deep in your heart, which is a
weakness that God seldom leaves long unpunished : common
observation showing us that such favourite children are either
spoiled by their parents' indulgence, or soon taken out of the
world ; which last is, generally speaking, the lighter punishment
of the two. God, in his wisdom, hath been pleased to load our
declining years with many sufferings, with diseases and distress of
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS 167
nature ; with the death of many friends, and the ingratitude of
more; sometimes with the loss or diminution of our fortunes,
when our infirmities most need them ; often with contempt from
the world, and always with neglect from it ; with the death of
our most hopeful or useful children ; with a want of relish for all
worldly enjoyments ; with a general dislike of persons and things ;
and though all these are very natural effects of increasing years,
yet they were intended by the author of our being to wean us gra
dually from our fondness of life, the nearer we approach toward
the end of it. And this is the use you are to make in prudence,
as well as in conscience, of all the afflictions you have hitherto un
dergone, as well as of those which in the course of nature and provi
dence you have reason to expect. May God, who hath endowed you
with so many virtues, add strength of mind and reliance upon his
mercy, in proportion to your present sufferings, as well as those he
may think fit to try you with through the remainder of your life.
I fear my present ill disposition, both of health and mind, has
made me but a sorry comforter : however it will show that no cir
cumstance of life can put you out of my mind, and that I am, with
the truest respect, esteem, and friendship, dear Madam, your most
obedient and humble servant,
JONATHAN SWIFT.
OX.
In this letter which refers to the writer's celebrated party-
history entitled f The Four Last Years of Queen Anne's Reign,'
Swift recalls the particulars of the quarrels between Lords
Oxford and Boliagbroke in 1713-1714. Interesting- historically,
it is scarcely less interesting from a literary point of view.
' There is,' says Lord Stanhope, ' something very mournful and
affecting in the tone of these recollections of his friends.' He
might have added, and something very charming in the mellow
beauty of the composition.
Dean /Swift to the Earl of Oxford.
June 14, 1737.
My Lord, — I had the honour of a letter from your lordship,
dated April the 7th which I was not prepared to answer until this
time. Your lordship must needs have known that the history you
mention of the * Four last years of the Queen's Reign,' was written
at Windsor, just upon finishing the peace ; at which time your
168 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
father and my lord Bolingbroke had a misunderstanding with each
other that was attended with very bad consequences. When I
came to Ireland to take this deanery (after the peace was made) I
could not stay here above a fortnight being recalled by a hundred
letters to hasten back, and to use my endeavours in reconciling
those ministers. I left them the history you mention, which I
finished at Windsor, to the time of the peace. When I returned to
England I found their quarrels and coldness increased. I laboured
to reconcile them as much as I was able : I contrived to bring
them to my lord Masham's, at St. James's. My lord and lady
Masham left us together. I expostulated with them both, but
could not find any good consequences. I was to go to Windsor
next day with my Lord- treasurer ; I pretended business that pre
vented me: expecting they would come to some. . . . But I
followed them to Windsor ; where my lord Bolingbroke told me
that my scheme had come to nothing. Things went on at the same
rate; they grew more estranged every day. My lord-treasurer
found his credit daily declining. In May before the queen died
I had my last meeting with them at my lord Masham's. He left
us together ; and therefore I spoke very freely to them both and
told them ' I would retire, for I found all was gone.' Lord Boling
broke whispered me, ' I was in the right.' Your father said i All
would do well.' I told him ' that I would go to Oxford on Monday,
since I found it was impossible to be of any use.' I took coach
to Oxford on Monday; went to a friend in Berkshire there
stayed until the queen's death ; and then to my station here
where I stayed twelve years, and never saw my lord your father
afterward. They could not agree about printing the ( History of
the Four last Years : ' and therefore I have kept it to this time
when I determine to publish it in London, to the confusion of
all those rascals who have accused the queen and that ministry of
making a bad peace ; to which that party entirely owes the pro-
testant succession. I was then in the greatest trust and confidence
with your father the lord-treasurer, as well as with my lord
Bolingbroke, and all others who had part in the administration.
I had all the letters from the secretary's office during the treaty of
peace : out of those, and what I learned from the ministry, I formed
that history, which I am now going to publish for the information
of posterity, and to control the most impudent falsehoods which
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 169
have been published since. I wanted no kind of materials. I
knew your father better than you could at that time ; and I do
impartially think him the most virtuous minister and the most
able that I ever remembered to have read of. If your lordship has
any particular circumstances that may fortify what I have said in
the history, such as letters or materials, I am content they should
be printed at the end by way of appendix. I loved my lord your
father better than any other man in the world, although I had
no obligation to him on the score of preferment; having been
driven to this wretched kingdom, to which I was almost a stranger,
by his want of power to keep me in what I ought to call my own
country, although 1 happened to be dropped here, and was a year
old before I left it ; and, to my sorrow, did not die before I came
back to it again. I am extremely glad of the felicity you have in
your alliance ; and desire to present my most humble respects to
my lady Oxford and your daughter the duchess. As to the history,
it is only of affairs which I know very well, and had all the
advantages possible to know, when you were in some sort but a
lad. One great design of it is, to do justice to the ministry at
that time, and to refute all the objections against them, as if they
had a design of bringing in popery and the pretender : and
further to demonstrate that the present settlement of the crown
was chiefly owing to my lord your father. I can never expect to
see England : I am now too old and too sickly, added to almost a
perpetual deafness and giddiness. I live a most domestic life : I
want nothing that is necessary ; but I am in a cursed, factious,
oppressed, miserable country; not made &o by nature, but by the
slavish, hellish principles of an execrable prevailing faction in it.
Farewell, my lord. I have tired you and myself. I desire
again to present my most humble respects to my lady Oxford and
the duchess your daughter. Pray God preserve you long and
happy ! I shall diligently inquire into your conduct from those
who will tell me. You have hitherto continued right : let me hear
that you persevere so. Your task will not be long ; for I am not
in a condition of health or time to trouble this world, and I am
heartily weary of it already ; and so should be in England, which
I hear is full as corrupt as this poor enslaved country. I am, with
the truest love and respect, my lord, your lordship's most obedient
and most obliged, &c.
JONATHAN SWIFT.
170 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
CXI.
Dr. John Arbuthnot, Physician in ordinary to Queen Anne,
and one of the most accomplished wits of our Augustan age, was
born 1667. He was the intimate friend of Pope, Swift, and
Bolingbroke, and was fortunate in attaining the double reputa
tion of eminence in a professional career, and a place of distinc
tion among contemporary writers and wits. He contributed his
share of those squibs and political tracts which marked the
parliamentary party-warfare of the last years of Queen Anne's
reign.
Dr. Arbuthnot to Dean Swift.
Hampstead : October 4, 1734.
My Dear and Worthy Friend, — You have no reason to put me
among the rest of your forgetful friends; for I wrote two long
letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The
first was about your health : the last I sent a great while ago by
one De la Mar. I can assure you with great truth that none of
your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart toward you
than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world ; and you
among the rest of my friends shall have my last prayers and good
wishes.
The young man whom you recommended came to this place,
and I promised to do him what service my ill state of health would
permit. I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an
asthma that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most
earnestly desired and begged of God that he would take me. Con
trary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had for
borne for some years, because of bloody water) I recovered my
strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach
again ; but I expect the return of my symptoms upon my return
to London, and the return of tbe winter. I am not in circum
stances to live an idle country life ; and no man at my age ever
recovered of such a disease further than by an abatement of the
symptoms. What I did I can assure you was not for life but ease.
For I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in har
bour, and then blown back to sea ; who has a reasonable hope of
going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very
bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world ;
for I have as great comfort in my own family, and from the kind-
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 171
ness of my friends, as any man, but the world, in the main, dis
pleases me ; and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that
are likely to befall my country. However, if I should have the
happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the
comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine
why you are frighted from a journey to England. The reasons
you assign are not sufficient ; the journey I am sure would do you
good. In general I recommend riding, of which I have always
had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own ex
perience.
My family give you their love and service. The great loss I
sustained in one of them gave me my first shock ; and the trouble
I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper, to bear the
loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a
most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we
shall never see one another more in this world. I shall to the
last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well
assured you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour ; for
all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from that
way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes ;
for none can be with more sincerity than I am, my dear friend,
your most faithful friend and humble servant,
J. AEBUTHNOT.
CXII.
Steele's second wife was a Miss Mary Scurlock, of Llan-
gunnor, a lady of considerable wealth and of fascinating presence ;
she received his advances at first with coldness, yet only a month
elapsed between his proposal and their marriage, which occurred
about eight days after the composition of the folio wing pretty
letter.
Richard Steele to Mary Scurlock.
September 1, 1707.
It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet
attend to business.
As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and I must lock
myself up, or other people will do it for me.
A gentleman asked me this morning, ' What news from Lisbon 1 '
and I answered, * She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired
to know when I had been las at Hampton Court. I replied, ' I
172 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
will be on Tuesday come se'nnight.' Pr'ythee, allow me at least
to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may be in some
composure. 0 love !
A thousand torments dwell about thee !
Yet who would live to live without thee ?
Methinks I could write a volume to you j but all the language
on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what dis
interested passion, I am ever yours,
KICK. STEELE.
OXIII.
It need scarcely be stated that Isaac BickerstafTe was the nom
de plume of Sir Bichard Steele while he was writing for the
'Tatter.'
Sir Eichard Steele to the Earl of Halifax.
(Inclosing Mr. Bickerstaffe's proposal for a subscription. )
January 26, 1709.
My Lord, — I presume to enclose to your lordship Mr. Bicker
staffe's proposall for a subscription, and ask your lordship's favour
in promoting it, having that philosopher's interest at heart as much
as my own, and am, indeed, confident I am the greatest admirer he
has. The best argument I have for this partiality is, that my
Lord Halifax has smiled upon his labours. If any whom your
Lordship recommends shall think fitt to subscribe more than the
sum proposed for a Book, it may be said that it is for so many
more books. This will make the favour more gracefull by being
confer'd in an oblique way, and at the same time save the con
fusion of the Squire, whom I know to be naturally proud.
I am, my Lord, your Lordship's most obliged
most obedient humble servant
EICH. STEELE.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 173
CXIV.
Coleridge has warmly commended the letters of Steele to
his second wife as ' models of their kind.' They are brief and
artless, full of a sensitive ardour in demanding- reciprocity of
affection, and singularly unaffected in style. Lady Steele died
before her husband in 1718 ; she has been blamed for being so
much absent from home, yet it is to this circumstance that we
owe the priceless correspondence which she preserved.
Sir Richard Steele to Lady Steele.
June 20, 1717.
Dear Prue, — I have yours of the 14th, and am infinitely
obliged to you for the length of it. I do not know another whom
I could commend for that circumstance ; but where we entirely
love, the continuance of anything they do to please us is a pleasure.
As for your relations, once for all, pray take it for granted, that
my regard and conduct towards all and singular of them shall be
as you direct.
I hope, by the grace of God to continue what you wish me,
every way an honest man. My wife and my children are the
objects that have wholly taken up my heart ; and as I am not
invited or encouraged in anything which regards the public, I am
easy under that neglect or envy of my past actions, and cheerfully
contract that diffusive spirit witliin the interests of my own
family. You are the head of us; and I stooped to a female reign
as being naturally made the slave of beauty. But to prepare for
our manner of living when we are again together, give me leave to
say, while I am here at leisure, and come to lie at Chelsea, what I
think may contribute to our better way of living. I very much
approve Mrs. Evans and her husband and if you take my advice,
I would have them have a being in our house, and Mrs. Clark the
care and inspection of the nursery. I would have you entirely at
leisure to pass your time with me in diversions, in books, in enter
tainments, and no manner of business intrude upon us but at
stated times. For, though you are made to be the delight of my
eyes, and food of all my senses and faculties, yet a turn of care
and housewifery, and I know not what prepossession against con
versation-pleasures, robs me of the witty and the handsome woman
9
174 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
to a degree not to be expressed. I will work my brains and
fingers to procure us plenty of all things, and demand nothing of
you but to take delight in agreeable dresses, cheerful discourses
and gay sights, attended by me. This may be done by putting the
kitchen and the nursery in the hands I propose ; and I shall have
nothing to do but to pass as much time at home as I possibly can,
in the best company in the world. We cannot tell here what to
think of the trial of my Lord Oxford ; if the ministry are in
earnest in that and I should see it will be extended to a length of
time, I will leave them to themselves, and wait upon you. Miss
Moll grows a mighty beauty, and she shall be very prettily dressed,
as likewise shall Betty and Eugene ; and if I throw away a little
money in adorning my brats, I hope you will forgive me : They
are, I thank God, all very well ; and the charming form of their
mother has tempered the likeness they bear to their rough sire,
who is, with the greatest fondness, your most obliged and most
obedient husband,
HIGH. STEELE.
oxv.
George II.'s Poet Laureate was seventy-six years of age when
he wrote the following letter of advice to Mrs. Pilkington.
From its remarkably familiar tone it will be readily understood
that it was addressed to a person the writer did not respect but
was anxious to befriend. Lsetitia Pilkington, whose career was
neither very interesting nor very reputable, was proud of the
friendship of this dissipated old dramatist.
Colley Gibber to Mrs. Pilkington.
June 29, 1747.
Thou frolicsome farce of fortune.
What! Is there another act to come of you then? I was
afraid, some time ago, you had made your last exit. Well ! but
without wit or compliment, I am glad to hear you are so tolerably
alive. I have your incredible narrative from Dublin before me,
and shall, as you desire me, answer every paragraph in its turn,
without considering its importance or connection.
You say I have for many years been the kind preserver of your
life. In this, I think, I have no great merit ; because you seem
to set so little value upon it yourself : otherwise you would have
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 175
considered, that poverty was the most helpless handmaid that ever
waited upon a high-spirited lady. But as long as the world
allowed you wit and parts, how poor (compared to you without a
shilling in your pocket) was an illiterate queen of the Indies. Oh,
the glory of a great soul ! Why, to be sure, as you say, it must
be a fine thing indeed ! But — a word in your Majesty's ear —
common sense is no contemptible creature, notwithstanding you have
thought her too vulgar to be one of your maids of honour.
Common sense might have prevented as many misfortunes as
your high-and-mightiness has run through. It is true, you have
stood them all with a Catonian constancy ; but I fancy you might
have passed your life as merrily without them. You see I am
still friend enough to be free with your failings : but make the
best of a bad market. You seem now to have a glimpse of a new
world before you !
Think a little how you are to squeeze through the crowd, with
such a bundle at your back ; and don't suppose it possible you can
have a grain of wit, till you have twenty pounds in your pocket.
With half that sum, a greater sinner than you may look the devil
in the face. Few people of sense will turn their back upon a
woman of wit, that does not look as if she came to borrow money
of them : but, when want brings her to her wits' end, every fool
will have wit enough to avoid her. But as this seems now to be
your case, I am more afraid of your being out of your wits at
your good, than your bad fortune ; for I question whether you
are as able to bear the first as the last. If you don't tell me a
poetical fib, in saying that people of taste so often borrow Cicero
of you, I will send you half a score of them, with which you may
compliment those whom you suppose to be your friends ; perhaps
you may have a chance of having the favour returned with some
thing more than it is worth. Generosity is less shy of shewing
itself, when it only appears to be grateful. In a word, if you
would have these books, you must order some friend in London
to call upon me for them ; for you know I hate care and trouble.
I am not sure your spouse's having taken another wife, before
you came over, might not have proved the only means of his being
a better husband to you ; for, had he picked up a fortune, the hush !
hush ! of your prior claim to him, might have been worth a better
separate maintenance, than you are now like to get out of him.
176 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
As for my health and spirits, they are as usual, and full as strong
as any body's that has enjoyed his the same number of years. If
the value I have for you gives you any credit in your own country
pray stretch it as far as you think it can be serviceable to you ; for
under all tLe rubbish of your misfortunes, I can see your merit
sparkle like a lost jewel. I have no greater pleasure, than in
placing my esteem on those who can feel and value it. Had you
been born to a larger fortune, your shining qualities might have
put half the rest of your sex out of countenance. If any of them
are uncharitable enough to call this flattery, tell them what a poor
devil you are, and let that solace you. If ever you should recover
enough of the public favour to dissipate your former sorrows, I
should be glad to see you here. In the mean time you will fully
repay any service I may have done you, by sometimes letting me
hear of your well-doing. I hope you have but one volume of your
Memoirs in the press ; because, if that meets with any success, I
believe I could give you some natural hints, which, in the easy
dress of your pen, might a good deal enliven it.
You make your court very ill to me, by depreciating the
natural blessings on your side the water.
What have you to boast of, that you want, but wealth and
insolent dominion ? Is not the glory of God's creation, lovely
woman ! there in its highest lustre ? I have seen several and
frequent examples of them here; and have heard of many, not
only from yourself, but others, who, for the agreeable entertain
ments of the social mind, havo not their equal playfellows in Old
England. And pray what, to me, would life be worth without
them ? dear soft souls ! for now too they are lavish of favours,
which, in my youth, they would have trembled to trust me with.
In a word, if, instead of the sea, I had only the dry-ground Alps
to get over, I should think it but a trip to Dublin. In the mean
time we must e'en compound for such interviews as the post or
the packet can send to you, or bring to
Your real Friend and Servant
C. CIBBEE.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 177
OXVI.
Joseph Addison gives his impressions of the French bour
geoisie, represented by the good people of Blois, at a time when
the extravagant tastes and costly wars of the Grand Monarque
culminated in the imposition, for the first time, of a capitation
tax on people already poverty-stricken through burthensorne
taxation.
Joseph Addison to Charles Montagu, Esq.
Blois : October, 1G99.
Honoured Sir, — You will be surpris'd I clont question to find
among your Correspondencies in Foreign parts a Letter Dated from
Blois : but as much out of ye world as we are, I have often the
pleasure to hear you mention'd among the Strangers of other
Nations whose company I am here sometimes Engag'd in ; I have
found since my leaving England that 'tis Impossible to talk of her
with those that know there is such a Nation, but you make a part
of the Discourse. Your name comes in upon the most different
subjects, if we speak of the men of Wit or the men of Business, of
Poets or Patrons, Politicians or Parliament men. I must confess
I am never so sensible of my Imperfection in the French Language
as when I would express myself on so agreeable a subject; tho' if
I understood it as well as Mother Tongue I shou'd want words on
this occasion. I cant pretend to trouble you with any News from
this place, where the only Advantage I have besides getting the
Language is to see the manners and temper of the people, which I
believe may be better learn't here than in Courts and greater
Citys where Artifice and Disguise are more in fashion. And truly
by what I have yet seen they are the Happiest nation in the
World. Tis not in the pow'r of Want or Slavery to make 'em
miserable. There is nothing to be met with in the Country but
Mirth and Poverty. Ev'ry one sings, laughs and starves. Their
Conversation is generally Agreeable ; for if they have any Wit or
Sense, they are sure to show it. They never mend upon a
Second meeting, but use all the freedom and familiarity at first
Sight that a Long Intimacy or Abundance of wine can scarce
draw from an Englishman : Their Women are perfect Mistresses
in this Art of showing themselves to the best Advantage. They
are always gay and sprightly and set off ye Worst Faces in
17? EXGLISH LETTERS [1600-
Europe with, y* best airs. Ev'ry one knows how to give herse.
charming a Look jj^nd posture as Sr Godfrey Kneller cd draw her in.
I cannot end niy letter without observing, that from what I have
already seen of the world I cannot but set a particular mark upon
those who abound most in the Virtues of their Xation and least
with its Imperfections. When therefore I see the Good sense of
an Englishman in its highest perfection without any mixture of
the Spleen, I hope you will excuse me if I admire the Character
and am Ambitious of subscribing myself
HonM Sir,
Yor Ac.
CXYII.
In 1700 Boileau had almost entirely retreated from the world,
and it was by special favour that he received the elegant young
Englishman, as yet known to fame only as a singularly accom
plished Latinist : but Malebranche, like Saint Evremond in the
generation before him, had more friends in London than in Paris,
and to pay him a visit was the duty of every lettered English
man who found himself in France.
Joseph Addison to Bishop Hough,
December, 1700.
My Lord, — I receiv'd yc honour of your Ldship's Letter at
Paris, and am since got as ft\r as Lyons in my way for Italy. I am
at present very well content to quit y6 French conversation, which
since y6 promotion of their young prince begins to grow Insupport
able. That wh was before y® Vainest nation in y* world is now
worse than ever. There is scarce a man in it that does not give him
self greater airs upon it, and look as well pleased as if he had rec'd
some considerable advancement in his own fortunes. The best
company I have met with since my being in this country has been
among yc men of Letters, who are generally easy of access, espe
cially ye Religious who have a great deal of time on their hands,
and are glad to pass some of it off in y« society of strangers. Their
Learning for y6 most part lies among y« old schoolmen. Their
public disputes run upon y6 Controversys between the Thomists
and Scotists, which they manage with abundance of Heat and
False Latin. When I was at Paris I visited y6 Pere Malbranche
who has a particular esteem for ye English Xation, where I
believe he has more admirers than in his own. The French dont
1700] // LETTERS. 171)
core for following him through his deep Researches, and generally
look upon all y* new Philosophy as Visionary or Irreligious.
Malbranche himself told me that he was five and twenty years old
before he had so much as heard of y* name of Des Cartes. His
book is now reprinted with many Additions, among which he
show'd me a very pretty hypothesis of Colours wb is different from
that of Cartesius or Mr. Newton, tbo' they may all three be True.
He very much prais'd Mr Newton's Mathematics, shook his head
at y9 name of Hobbes, and told me he thought him a pauvre
esprit. He was very solicitous about y6 English translation of his
work, and was afraid it had been taken from an HI Edition of it.
Among other Learned men I had y6 honour to be introduc'd to
Mr Boileau, who is now retouching his works and putting 'em
out in a new Impression. He is old and a little Deaf but talks
incomparably well in his own calling. He heartily hates an 111
poet and throws himself into a passion when he talks of any
one that has not a high respect for Homer and Virgil. I dont
know whether there is more of old Age or Truth in his Censures
on ye French writers, but he wonderfully decrys y* present and
extols very much his former cotemporarys, especially his two
intimate Mends Arnaud and Racine. I askt him whether he
thought Telemaque was not a good modern piece : he spoke of it
with a great deal of esteem, and said that it gave us a better
notion of Homer's way of writing than any translation of his
works could do, but that it falls however infinitely short of ye
Odyssee, for Mentor, says he, is eternally Preaching, but Ulysses
shows us every thing in his character and behaviour y* y« other
is still pressing on us by his precepts and Instructions. He said
y« punishment of bad Kings was very well invented, and might
compare with any thing of that nature in ye 6th Eneid, and that
y6 deceit put on Telemaque's Pilot to make him misguide his
master is more artful and poetical than y6 Death of Palinnrus. I
mention his discourse of his Author because it is at present ye
Book y* is everywhere talked of, and has a great many partizans
for and against it in this country. I found him as warm in crying
up this man and ye good poets in general as he has been in cen
suring ye bad ones of his time, as we commonly observe y6 man
that makes y* Best Mend is y« worst enemy. He talk'd very-
much of Corneille, allowing him to be an excellent poet, but at y«
180 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
same time none of ye best Tragique writers, for that he declaimed
too frequently and made very fine Descriptions often when there
was no occasion for 'em. Aristotle, says he, proposes two passions
y* are proper to be rais'd by Tragedy, Terrour and Pity, but
Corneille endeavours at a new one wh is Admiration. He in-
stanc'd in his Pompey (wh he told us ye late Duke of Condy thought
ye best Tragedy yi was ever written) where in ye first scene ye
King of Egypt runs into a very pompous and long description of
ye battle of Pharsalia, tho' he was then in a great hurry of affairs
and had not himself been present at it. I hope your Ldship will
excuse me for this kind of Intelligence, for in so beaten a Road as
that of France it is impossible to talk of anything new unless
we may be allow'd to speak of particular persons, y* are always
changing and may therefore furnish different matter for as many
travellers as pass thro' ye country.
I am my Ld
Your Ldship's &c.
CXVIII.
This letter, so full of the gentlemanlike badinage and grace
ful humour in which its author was the first English writer to
excel, was composed at a moment when the hopes of Addi-
son were at their lowest, and his ambition most painfully
humiliated. The death of King William had destroyed that
Whig Ministry with which the poet's chances of preferment were
bound up, and had brought him but one advantage, ' leisure to
make the tour of Germany.'
Joseph Addison to Chamberlain Dashwood.
Geneva: July, 1702.
Dear Sir, — About three days ago Mr. Bocher put a very pretty
snuff-box in my hand. I was not a little pleas'd to hear that it
belonged to myself, and was much more so when I found it was a
present from a Gentleman that I have so great an honour for.
You did not probably foresee that it would draw on you ye
trouble of a Letter, but you must blame yourself for it. For my
part I can no more accept of a Snuff-box without returning my
Acknowledgements, than I can take Snuff without sneezing after it.
This last I must own to you is so great an absurdity that I
should be ashamed to confess it, were not I in hopes of correcting
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 181
it very speedily. I am observ'd to have my Box oft'ner in my
hand than those that have been used to one these twenty years, for
I cant forbear taking it out of my pocket whenever I think of
Mr. Dashwood. You know Mr. Bays recommends Snuff as a
great provocative to "Wit, but you may produce this Letter as a
Standing Evidence against him. I have since ye beginning of it
taken above a dozen pinches, and still find myself much more
inclin'd to sneeze than to jest. From whence I conclude that
Wit and Tobacco are not inseparable, or to make a Pun of it,
tho' a Man may be master of a snuff-box,
Non euicunque datum est habere Nasam.
I should be afraid of being thought a Pedant for my Quotation
did not I know that ye Gentleman I am writing to always carrys
a Horace in his pocket. But whatever you may think me, pray
Sr do me ye Justice to esteem me
Your most &c.
CXIX.
The last letter written by Addison commends in these touch
ing terms to the favour of his successor Mr. Craggs, the fortunes
of his young friend and literary executor Tickell. It was long
before that poet could so far command his grief as to write the
elegy on Addison, which is one of the finest products of English
verse in the eighteenth century ; and, before it was finished,
Craggs had followed Addison to the grave. A few days before
the writing of this letter, the great essayist had given Tickell
directions for publishing his complete works.
Joseph Addison to Mr. Secretary Craqgs.
J'me, 1719.
Dear Sir, — I cannot wish that any of my writings should last
longer than the memory of our friendship, and therefore I thus
publicly bequeath them to you, in return for tho many valuable
instances of your affection.
That they may come to you with as little disadvantage as
possible, I have left the care of them to one, whom, by the expe
rience of some years, I know well-qualified to answer my inten
tions. He has already the honour and happiness of being under
your protection ; and as he will very much stand in need of it, I
cannot wish him better than that he may continue to deserve the
favour and protection of such a patron.
182 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
I have no time to lay out in forming such compliments, as
would but ill suit that familiarity between us, which was once my
greatest pleasure, and will be my greatest honour hereafter.
Instead of them, accept of my hearty wishes that the great re
putation you have acquired so early, may increase more and more :
and that you may long serve your country with those excellent
talents, and unblemished integrity, which have so powerfully
recommended you to the most gracious and amiable monarch that
ever filled a throne.
May the frankness and generosity of your spirit continue to
soften and subdue your enemies, and gain you many friends, if
possible, as sincere as yourself. When you have found such, they
cannot wish you more true happiness than I, who am with the
greatest zeal, <fec.
cxx.
Lord Bolingbroke is writing to announce an event which was
full of importance in marking an exceptional career. The Royal
assent had just been given to a Bill allowing him to return to
England and to the possession of his property ; but Parliament,
by refusing to cancel his Attainder, insisted on keeping so dan
gerous and insinuating a rival at arm's length. Permanently
deprived of his seat in the House of Lords he found an outlet
for his bitterness in the pages of the ' Craftsman,' but neither as
St. John Viscount Bolingbroke nor as Humphrey Oldcastle was
he able to make headway against that Whig ascendancy which
lasted even beyond the remaining twenty-five years of his life.
Lord Bolingbroke to Dean Swift.
London: July 24, 1725.
Mr. Ford will tell you how I do, and what I do. Tired with
suspense, the only insupportable misfortune of life, I desired, after
nine years of autumnal promises and vernal excuses, a decision ;
and cared very little what that decision was, provided it left me a
liberty to settle abroad, or put me on a foot of living agreeably at
home. The wisdom of the nation has thought fit, instead of
granting so reasonable a request, to pass an act, which fixing my
fortune unalterably to this country, fixes my person there also :
and those, who had the least inind to see me in England, have
made it impossible for me to live any where else. Here I am
then, two-thirds restored, my person safe, (unless I meet hereafter
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 183
with harder treatment than even that of Sir Walter Raleigh) and
my estate, with all the other property I have acquired, or may
acquire, secured to me. But the attainder is kept carefully and
prudently in force, lest so corrupt a member should come again
into the house of lords, and his bad leaven should sour that sweet,
untainted mass. Thus much I thought I might say about my
private affairs to an old friend, without diverting him too long
from his labours to promote the advantage of the church and state
of Ireland ; or, from his travels into those countries of giants and
pigmies, from whence he imports a cargo I value at an higher
rate than that of the richest galleon. Ford brought the dean of
Derry to see me. Unfortunately for me, I was then out of town ;
and the journey of the former into Ireland will perhaps defer,
for some time, my making acquaintance with the other, which I
am sorry for. I would not by any means lose the opportunity
of knowing a man, who can espouse in good earnest the system of
father Malebranche, and who is fond of going a missionary into
the West Indies. My zeal for the propagation of the Gospel will
hardly carry me so far; but my spleen against Europe has, more
than once, made me think of buying the dominion of Bermudas,
and spending the remainder of my days as far as possible from
those people, with whom I have passed the first and greatest part
of my life. Health and every other natural comfort of life is to
be had there, better than here. As to imaginary and artificial
pleasures, we are philosophers enough to despise them. What say
you 1 Will you leave your Hibernian flock to some other shepherd,
and transplant yourself with me into the middle of the Atlantic
ocean 1 We will form a society more reasonable, and more useful
than that of doctor Berkeley's 1 College : and I promise you
solemnly, as supreme magistrate, not to suffer the currency of
Wood's halfpence : 2 Nay, the coiner of them shall be hanged, if he
presumes to set his foot on our island.
Let me hear how you are, and what you do ; and if you really
1 Dr. Berkeley obtained a charter for establishing a University in the
Bermudas for the general improvement and education of our colonies, but
the design miscarried for lack of money.
2 Allusion to the « Drapier Letters,' written by Swift against the intro
duction into Ireland of a new copper coinage to be supplied by
Birmingham speculator, William Wood.
184 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
have any latent kindness still at the bottom of your heart for me ;
say something very kind to me, for I don't dislike being cajoled.
If your heart tells you nothing, say nothing, that I may take the
hint, and wean myself from you by degrees. Whether I shall
compass it or not, God knows : but, surely this is the properest
place in the world to renounce friendship in, or to forget obliga
tions. Mr. Ford says he will be with us again by the beginning
of the winter. Your Star will probably hinder you from taking
the same journey. Adieu, dear Dean. I had something more to
say to you, almost as important as what I have said already, but
company comes in upon me, and relieves you.
CXXI.
To Swift, Pope, and Gay this little trifle was addressed by
their restless correspondent in one of his cheery moments.
Lord Holingbroke to the Three Yahoos of Twickenham, Jonathan,
Alexander, John.
From the banks of the Severn : July 23, 1726.
Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what
I am doing ; yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade
myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within this fort
night to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my
long silence. To relieve you therefore from this great anxiety of
mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you ; and I please
myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must
needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give you
further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you,
that I shall be in your neighbourhood again by the end of next
week ; by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of busi
ness will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a pro
fessor of that divine science, la bagatelle.
Adieu, Jonathan, Alexander, John ! Mirth be with you.
CXXII.
This joint epistle was written at the time Lord Bolingbroke's
second wife, the niece of Madame de Maintenon, was iu failing
health. Pope's allusion to his mother is one of the many touch
ing illustrations of the best trait in his character.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 185
Lord Bolingbroke and Alexander Pope to Dean Swift.
March 29, 1731.
I have delayed several posts answering your letter of January
last, in hopes of being able to speak to you about a project which
concerns us both, but me the most, since the success of it would
bring us together. It has been a good while in my head and at my
heart ; if it can be set a-going you shall hear of it. I was ill in
the beginning of the winter for near a week, but in no danger
either from the nature of my distemper or from the attendance
of three physicians. Since that bilious intermitting fever I have
had, as I had before, better health than the regard I have paid to
health deserves. We are both in the decline of life, my dear dean,
and have been some years going down the hill ; let us make the
passage as smooth as we can. Let us fence against physical evil
by care and the use of those means which experience must have
pointed out to us : let us fence against moral evil by philosophy.
I renounce the alternative^ you propose. But we may, nay (if we
will follow nature, and do not work up imagination against her
plainest dictates), we shall of course, grow every year more indif
ferent to life, and to the affairs and interests of a system out of
which we are soon to go. This is much better than stupidity. The
decay cf passion strengthens philosophy, for passion may decay
and stupidity not succeed. Passions (says Pope, our divine, as you
will see one time or other), are the gales of life ; let us not com
plain that they do not blow a storm. What hurt does age do us
in subduing what we toil to subdue all our lives ? It is now six
in the morning ; I recal the time (and am glad it is over) when
about this hour I used to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure
or jaded with business ; my head often full of schemes, and my
heart as often full of anxiety. Is it a misfortune, think you, that
I rise at this hour refreshed, serene, and calm ? that the past and
even the present affairs of life stand like objects at a distance
from me, where I can keep off the disagreeables so as not to be
strongly affected by them, and from whence I can draw the
others nearer to me. Passions in their force would bring all these,
nay, even future contingencies, about my ears at once, and reason
would but ill defend me in the scuffle.
I leave Pope to speak for himself, but I must tell you how
186 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
much my wife is obliged to you. She says she would find strength
enough to nurse you if you were here, and yet, God knows, she is
extremely weak; the slow fever works under and mines the con
stitution ; we keep it off sometimes, but still it returns and makes
new breaches before nature can repair the old ones. I am not
ashamed to say to you that I admire her more every hour of my
life : Death is not to her the King of terrors ; she beholds him
without the least. When she suffers much she wishes for him
as a deliverer from pain; when life is tolerable she looks on
him with dislike, because he is to separate her from those friends
to whom she is more attached than to life itself. You shall not
stay for my next as long as you have for this letter, and in every
one Pope shall write something much better than the scraps of
old philosophers, which were the presents, munuscula, that stoical
fop Seneca used to send in every epistle to his friend Lucilius.
P.S. By Alexander Pope.
My lord has spoken justly of his lady ; why not I of my mother ?
Yesterday was her birthday, now entering on the ninety-first year
of her age ; her memory much diminished, but her senses very
little hurt, her sight and hearing good ; she sleeps not ill, eats
moderately, drinks water, says her prayers; and this is all she
does. I have reason to thank God for continuing so long to me
a very good and tender parent, and for allowing me to exercise
for some years those cares which are now as necessary to her as
hers have been to me. An object of this sort daily before one's
eyes very much softens the mind, but perhaps may hinder it from
the willingness of contracting other ties of the like domestic
nature when one finds how painful it is even to enjoy the tender
pleasures. I have formerly made so strong efforts to get and to
deserve a friend ; perhaps it were wiser never to attempt it, but
live extempore, and look upon the world only as a place to pass
through, just pay your hosts their due, disperse a little charity,
and hurry on. Yet am I just now writing (or rather planning) a
book ] to make mankind look upon this life with comfort and
pleasure, and put morality in good humour. And just now, too,
1 The Essay on Man.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 187
I am going to see one I love tenderly, and tomorrow to entertain
several civil people, whom if we call friends it is by the courtesy
of England. Sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras. While we do live
we must make the best of life.
Cantantes licet usque (minus via Isedat) eamus —
as the shepherd said in Yirgil when the road was long and heavy.
I am yours.
CXXIII.
In the midst of Dr. Berkeley's voluminous and not very
lively correspondence there is a refreshing descriptive account
of the Island of Inarinie (the modern Ischia), addressed to
Pope from the Doctor's winter quarters at Naples.
Dr. Berkeley to Alexander Pope.
Naples: October 22, 1717.
I have long had it in my thoughts to trouble you with a letter,
but was discouraged for want of something that I could think
worth sending fifteen hundred miles. Italy is such an exhausted
subject, that, I dare say, you'd easily forgive my saying nothing of
it } and the imagination of a poet is a thing so nice and delicate,
that it is no easy matter to find out images capable of giving plea
sure to one of the few, who (in any age) have come up to that
character. I am nevertheless lately returned from an island where
I passed three or four months ; which, were it set out in its true
colours, might, methinks, amuse you agreeably enough for a
minute or two. 'The island Inarinie is an epitome of the whole
earth, containing, within the compass of eighteen miles, a wonderful
variety of hills, vales, ragged rocks, fruitful plains, and barren
mountains, all thrown together in a most romantic confusion.
The air is, in the hottest season, constantly refreshed by cool
breezes from the sea. The vales produce excellent wheat and
Indian corn, but are mostly covered with vineyards intermixed
with fruit-trees. Besides the common kinds, as cherries, apricots,
peaches, &c. they produce oranges, limes, almonds, pomegranates,
figs, water-melons, and many other fruits unknown to our cli
mates, which lie every where open to the passenger. The hills are
the greater part covered to the top with vines, some with chesnut
groves, and others with thickets of myrtle and lentiscus. The
188 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
fields in the northern side are divided by hedgerows of myrtle.
Several fountains and rivulets add to the beauty of this landscape,
which is likewise set off by the variety of some barren spots and
naked rocks. But that which crowns the scene, is a large moun
tain rising out of the middle of the island (once a terrible Vol
cano, by the ancients called Mons Eporneus). Its lower parts are
adorned with vines and other fruits, the middle affords pasture to
flocks of goats and sheep; and the top is a sandy pointed rock,
from which you have the finest prospect in the world, surveying
at one view, besides several pleasant islands lying at your feet, a
tract of Italy about three hundred miles in length, from the pro
montory of Antium to the Cape of Palinurus ; the greater part of
which hath been sung by Homer and "Virgil, as making a con
siderable part of the travels and adventures of their two heroes.
The islands Caprea, Prochyta, and Parthenope, together with
Cajeta, Cumse, Monte Miseno, the habitations of Circe, the Syrens,
and the Lastrigones, the bay of Naples, the promontory of Minerva,
and the whole Campagnia felice, make but a part of this noble
landscape; which would demand an imagination as warm, and
numbers as flowing, as your own, to describe it. The inhabitants
of this delicious isle, as they are without riches and honours, so
are they without the vices and follies that attend them ; and were
they but as much strangers to revenge as they are to avarice and
ambition, they might in fact answer the poetical notions of the
golden age. But they have got, as an alloy to their happiness, an
ill habit of murdering one another on slight offences. We had
an instance of this the second night after our arrival, a youth of
sixteen being shot dead by our door : and yet by the sole secret
of minding our own business, we found a means of living securely
among those dangerous people. Would you know how we pass the
time at Naples 1 Our chief entertainment is the devotion of our
neighbours. Besides the gaiety of their churches (where folks
go to see what they call una bella Devotione, i.e. a sort of religious
opera), they make fireworks almost every week out of devotion ;
the streets are often hung with arras out of devotion ; and (what
is still more strange) the ladies invite gentlemen to their houses,
and treat them with music and sweetmeats, out of devotion : in a
word, were it not for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples
would have little else to recommend it beside the air and situation.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 189
Learning is in no very thriving state here, as indeed nowhere else
in Italy ; however, among many pretenders, some men of taste are
to be met with. A friend of mine told me not long since, that,
being to visit Salvini at Florence, he found him reading your
Homer : he liked the notes extremely, and could find no other
fault with the version, but that he thought it approached too near
a paraphrase ; which shews him not to be sufficiently acquainted
with our language. I wish you health to go on with that noble
work ; and when you have that, I need not wish you success. You
will do me the justice to believe, that whatever relates to your
welfare is sincerely wished by your, &c.
CXXIV.
This is doubtless one of those letters which Pope, in pretend
ing to address to a friend, addressed in reality to posterity. It
reads very like one of Addison's f Saturday Spectators.'
A deep experience of ' that long disease, my life/ gave Pope
an unusual right to moralise on the vanity of human ambition,
and we have seldom an opportunity of admiring him so sin
cerely as when we find him indulging in this wise and whole-
son' e strain. Yet to Steele, the most spontaneous of letter-
writers, the measured cadences of Pope's epistolary style must
have seemed, as they seeii to us, with all their beauty, a little
artificial.
Alexander Pope to Richard Steele.
July 15, 1712.
You formerly observed to me that nothing made a more ridi
culous figure in a man's life than the disparity we often find in
him sick and well : thus one of an unfortunate constitution is per
petually exhibiting a miserable example of the weakness of his
mind and of his body in their turns. I have had frequent oppor
tunities of late to consider myself in these different views, and I
hope have received some advantage by it, if what Waller says be
true, that
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
Then, surely, sickness, contributing no less than old age to
the shaking down this scaffolding of the body, may discover the
inward structure more plainly. Sickness is a sort of early old
190 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
age ; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state, and inspires us
•with the thought of a future, better than a thousand volumes of
philosophers and divines. It gives so warning a concussion to
those props of our vanity, our strength, and youth, that we think
of fortifying ourselves within, when there is so little dependence
upon our outworks. Youth, at the very best, is but a betrayer of
human life in a gentler and smoother manner than age : it is like
a stream that nourishes a plant upon a bank, arid causes it to
flourish and blossom to the sight, but at the same time is under
mining it at the root in secret. My youth has dealt more fairly
and openly with me : it has afforded me several prospects of my
danger, and has given me an advantage not very common to young
men, that the attractions of the world have not dazzled me very
much ; and I begin, where most people end, with a full conviction
of the emptiness of all sorts of ambition, and the unsatisfactory
nature of all human pleasures. When a smart fit of sickness tells
me this scurvy tenement of my body will fall in a little time, I am
e'en as unconscious as was that honest Hibernian, who, being in
bed in the great storm some years ago, and told the house would
tumble over his head, made answer, ' What care I for the house,
I am only a lodger.' I mncy it is the best time to die when one is
in the best humour ; and so excessive weak as I now am, I may say
with conscience that I am not at all uneasy at the thought that
many men whom I never had any esteem for, are likely to enjoy
this world after me. When I reflect what an inconsiderable little
atom every single man is, with respect to the whole creation,
methinks it is a shame to be concerned at the removal of such a
trivial animal as I am. The morning after my exit the sun will
rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring
as green, the world will proceed in its old course, people will
laugh as heartily and marry as fast as they were used to do.
* The memory of man,' as it is elegantly expressed in the
Book of Wisdom, ' passeth away as the remembrance of a guest
that tarrieth but one day.'
There are reasons enough in the fourth chapter of the same
book to make any young man contented with the prospect of
death. * For honourable age is not that which Btandeth in length
of time, or is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the
gray hair to men, and an unspotted life is old age. He was taken
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away speedily, lest wickedness should alter his understanding, 01
deceit beguile his soul,' £c. I am, yours, &c.
A. POPE.
CXXV.
This letter is selected, firstly, because it is an interesting
specimen of Pope's power of conveying in prose what no writer
in ancient or modern literature has approached him in convey
ing in verse — compliment; secondly, because it contains the
famous description of the lovers killed by lightning, a descrip
tion which Thackeray has so justly chosen for encomium.
Alexander Pope to Lady Mary Worthy Montagu.
171G.
Madam, — I have been (what I never was till now) in debt to
you for a letter some weeks. I was informed you were at sea,
and that 'twas to no purpose to write till some news had been
heard of your arriving somewhere or other. Besides, I have had
a second dangerous illness, from which I was more diligent to
be recovered than from the first, having now some hopes of seeing
you again. If you make any tour in Italy, I shall not easily for
give you for not acquainting me soon enough to have met you
there. I am very certain I can never be polite unless I travel
with you : and it is never to be repaired, the loss that Homer has
sustained, for want of my translating him in Asia. You will
come hither full of criticisms against a man who wanted nothing to
be in the right but to have kept you company ; you have no way
of making me amends, but by continuing an Asiatic when you
return to me, whatever English airs you may put on to other
people. I prodigiously long for your Sonnets, your Remarks,
your Oriental Learning ; — but I long for nothing so much as your
Oriental self. You must of necessity be advanced so far back into
true nature and simplicity of manners, by these three years' resi
dence in the East, that I shall look upon you as so many years
younger than you was, so much nearer innocence, (that is, truth,)
and infancy (that is, openness). I expect to see your soul so
much thinner dressed as your body ; and that you have left off,
as unwieldy and cumbersome, a great many damned European
habits. Without offence to your modesty be it spoken, I have a
burning desire to see your soul stark naked, for I am confident
'tis the prettiest kind of white soul in the universe. But I forget
192 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
whom I am talking to ; you may possibly by this time believe,
according to the Prophet, that you have none ; if so, shew me
that which comes next to a soul ; you may easily put it upon a
poor ignorant Christian for a soul, and please him as well with it;
— I mean your heart; — Mahomet, I think, allows you hearts;
which (together with fine eyes and other agreeable equivalents)
are worth all the souls on this side the world. But if I must be
content with seeing your body only, God send it to come quickly :
I honour it more than the diamond casket that held Homer's
Iliads ; for in the very twinkle of one eye of it there is more wit,
and in the very dimple of one cheek of it there is more meaning,
than all the souls that ever were casually put into women since
men had the making of them.
I have a mind to fill the rest of this paper with an accident
that happened just under my eyes, and has made a great impres
sion upon me. I have just passed part of this summer at an old
romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It over
looks a common-field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two
lovers, as constant as ever were found in Romance, beneath a
spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it will)
was John He wet; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-
set man about five and twenty, Sarah a brown woman of eighteen.
John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the
same field with Sarah, when she milked, it was his morning and
evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. Their love was the
talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood ; for all they
aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage.
It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents'
consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait
to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work,
they were talking of their wedding clothes ; and John was now
matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers to her com
plexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they
were thus employed, (it was on the last of July) a terrible storm
of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what
shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frighted and out of
breath, sunk on a haycock, and John (who never separated from
her) sate by her side, having raked two or three heaps together to
secure her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack as if
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 193
Heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each
other's safety, called to one another : those that were nearest our
lovers, hearing no answer, stept to the place where they lay : they
first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair, — John, with
one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face,
as if to secure her from the lightning. They were struck dead,
and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There
was no mark or discolouring on their bodies, only that Sarah's
eye-brow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts.
They were buried the next day in one grave, in the parish of
Stanton-Har court, in Oxfordshire ! where my Lord Harcourt, at
my request, has erected a monument over them. Of the following
epitaphs which I made, the critics have chosen the godly one : I
like neither, but wish you had been in England to have done this
office better : I think 'twas what you could not have refused me on
so moving an occasion.
When Eastern lovers feed the fun'ral fire,
On the same pile their faithful Fair expire ;
Here pitying Heav'n that virtue mutual found,
And blasted both, that it might neither wound.
Hearts so sincere, th' Almighty saw well pleas'd,
Sent his own lightning, and the victims seized.
Think not, by rig'rous judgment seiz'd,
A pair so faithful could expire ;
Victims so pure Heav'n saw well pleas'd
And snatch'd them in celestial fire.
Live well, and fear no sudden fate :
When God calls Virtue to the grave,
Alike 'tis justice, soon or late,
Mercy alike to kill or save.
Virtue unmov'd can hear the call,
And face the flash that melts the ball.
Upon the whole, I can't think these people unhappy. The
greatest happiness, next to living as they would have done, was to
die as they did. The greatest honour people of this low degree
could have, was to be remembered on a little monument, unless
you will give them another, — that of being honoured with a tear
194 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
from the finest eyes in the world. I know you have tenderness ;
you must have it ; it is the very emanation of good sense and
virtue ; the finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.
But when you are reflecting upon objects of pity, pray do not
forget one, who had no sooner found out an object of the highest
esteem, than he was separated from it ; and who is so very un
happy as not to be susceptible of consolation, from others, by
being so miserably in the right as to think other women what they
really are. Such an one can't but be desperately fond of any
creature that is quite different from these. If the Circassian be
utterly void of such honour as these have, and such virtue as
these boast of, I am content. I have detested the sound of honest
woman and loving spouse, ever since I heard the pretty name of
Odaliche. Dear Madam, I am for ever
Your, &c.
My most humble services to Mr. Wortley. Pray let me hear
from you soon, though I shall very soon write again. I am con
fident half cur letters are lost.
CXXVI.
This letter, written during a visit to Bolingbroke's villa at
Dawley, gives us a pleasant glimpse of that restless politician in
the midst of those rural pursuits which he loved to affect. There
is, we may suspect, more elegance than sincerity in the poet's
language. He probably cared as little as his patron for hay
cocks and rakes ; though Pope, as many of his letters prove,
was not so insensible to the "beauties of the country as some of
his critics would insist.
Alexander Pope to Dean Swift.
Dawley : June 28, 1728.
I now hold the pen for my Lord Bolingbroke, who is reading
your letter between two haycocks, but his attention is somewhat
diverted by casting his eyes on the clouds, not in admiration of
what you say, but for fear of a shower. He is pleased with your
placing him in the triumvirate between yourself and me ; though
be says that he doubts he shall fare like Lepidus — while one of us
runs away with all the power, like Augustus, and another with
all the pleasures, like Antony. It is upon a foresight of this
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 195
that he has fitted up his farm, and you will agree that his scheme
of retreat at least is not founded upon weak appearances. Upon
his return from the Bath, all peccant humours he finds are purged
out of him ; and his great temperance and economy are so signal,
that the first is fit for my constitution, and the latter would enable
you to lay up so much money as to bay a bishopric in England.
As to the return of his health and vigour, were you here, you
might inquire of his haymakers ; but as to his temperance, I can
answer that (for one whole day) we have had nothing for dinner
but mutton-broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl.
Now his lordship is run after his cart, I have a moment left
to myself to tell you that I overheard him yesterday agree with
a painter for £200 to paint his country-hall with trophies of
rakes, spades, prongs, &c., and other ornaments, merely to coun
tenance his calling this place a farm — now turn over a new leaf. —
He bids me assure you he should be sorry not to have more
schemes of kindness for his friends than of ambition for himself;
there, though his schemes may be weak, the motives at least are
strong ; and he says further, if you could bear as great a fall and
decrease of your revenues as he knows by experience he can, you
would not live in Ireland an hour.
The ' Dunciad ' is going to be printed in all pomp, with the
inscription, which makes me proudest. It will be attended with
proeme, prolegomena, testimonia scriptorum, index authorum, and
notes variorum. As to the latter, I desire you to read over the
text, and make a few in any way you like best ; whether dry
raillery, upon the style and way of commenting of trivial critics ;
or humorous, upon the authors in the poem; or historical, of
persons, places, times ; or explanatory, or collecting the parallel
passages of the ancients. Adieu. I am pretty well, my mother
not ill.
Dr. Arbuthnot vexed with his fever by intervals ; I am afraid
lie declines, and we shall lose a worthy man : I am troubled about
him very much : I am, &c.
196 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
CXXVII.
From early youth, when he would compose billets-doux for
voung damsels, to those later days when he corresponded with
the coterie of ladies who criticised ' Pamela/ and ' Clarissa/
Samuel Kichardson pursued his hobby of writing and receiving
letters. Mrs. Barbauld published this correspondence with her
biog-raphy of the novelist, but the interest of the letters expired
with the century in which they were written. Mr. Aaron Hill
was the writer who pretended to despise the public taste in
literature of his day, and who prophesied that he would be read
and admired when Pope was forgotten.
Samuel Richardson to Aaron Hill.
October 27, 1748.
Dear Sir, — With regard to some parts of your favour of the
nineteenth, I will only say that I am too much pained on your
account to express anything but my pain. A mind so noble ! so
generous ! so underrating intentional good from himself ! so over
rating trifling benefits from others 1 But no more on this subject.
You are an alien, Sir, in this world; and no wonder that the
base world treat you as such.
You are so very earnest about transferring to me the copyright
to all your works, that I will only say, that that point must be
left to the future issues of things. But I will keep account. I will,
though I were to know how to use the value of your favours as to
those issues (never can I the value of your generous intentions).
You will allow me to repeat, I will keep account. It is therefore
time enough to think of the blank receipt you have bad the good
ness to send me to fill up.
Would to heaven that all men had the same (I am sure I may
call it just) opinion of your works that I have ! But — shall I tell
you, Sir? — The world, the taste of the world, is altered since you
withdrew from it. Your writings require thought to read, and to
take in their whole force ; and the world has no thought to bestow.
Simplicity is all their cry ; yet hardly do these criers know what
they mean by the noble word. They may see a thousand beauties
obvious to the eye : but if there lie jewels in the mine that require
labour to come at. they will not dig. I do not think, that were
Milton's Paradise Lost to be now published as a new work, it
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 197
would be well received. Shakespeare, with all his beauties, would,
as a modern writer, be hissed off the stage. Your sentiments,
even they will have it who allow them to be noble, are too munifi
cently adorned : and they want you to descend to their level.
Will you, Sir, excuse me this freedom ? Yet I can no longer
excuse myself, to the love and to the veneration mingled that I
bear to you, if I do not acquaint you with what the world you
wish to mend says of your writings. And yet for my own part,
I am convinced that the fault lies in that indolent (that lazy, I
should rather call it) world. You would not, I am sure, wish to
write to a future age only. — A chance too so great, that posterity
will be mended by what shall be handed down to them by this.
And few, very few are they who make it their study and their
labour, to stem the tide of popular disapprobation or prejudice.
Besides, I am of opinion that it is necessary for a genius to
accommodate itself to the mode and taste of the world it is cast
into, since works published in this age must take root in it to
flourish in the next.
As to your title, Sir, which you are pleased to require my
opinion of, let me premise, that there was a time, and that within
my own remembrance, when a pompous title was almost necessary
to promote the sale of a book. But the "booksellers, whose
business is to watch the taste and foibles of the public, soon (as
they never fail on such occasions to do) wore out that fashion : and
now, verify ing the old observation, that good wine needs no bush, a
pompous or laboured title is looked upon as a certain sign of want
of merit in the performance, and hardly ever becomes an invitation
to the purchaser.
As to your particular title to this great work, I have your
pardon to beg, if I refer to your consideration, whether epic, truly
epic, as the piece is, you would choose to call it epic in the title-
page ; since hundreds who will see the title, will not, at the time,
have seen your admirable definition of the word. Excuse, Sir,
this freedom also, and excuse these excuses. — I am exceedingly
pressed in time, and shall be for some time to come, or, sloven as
I am in my pen, this should not have gone.
God forbid that I should have given you cause to say, as a
recommendation, that there will be more prose than verse in your
future works ! I believe, Sir, that Mr. Garrick in particular has
10
198 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
not in any manner entered into vindictive reflections. I never
saw him on the stage ; but of late I am pretty well acquainted
with him. I know he honours you. But he thinks you above the
present low taste ; (this I speak in confidence) and once I heard
him say as much, and wish that you could descend to it. Hence
one of the reasons that have impelled me to be so bold as I have
been in this letter.
The occasion of the black wax I use, is the loss of an excellent
sister. We loved each other tenderly ! But my frequent, I might
say constant, disorders of the nervous kind ought to remind me,
as a consolation, of David's self-comfort on the death of his child,
perhaps oftener than it does, immersed as I am in my own trifles,
and in business, that the common parental care permits me not to
quit, though it becomes every day more irksome to me than
another.
I am, Sir,
With true affection,
Your most faithful,
and obedient servant
__ S. RICHARDSON.
CXXVIII.
This was written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to her
future husband shortly before her marriage, and is surely one of
the most curious love-letters ever penned by a young lady to
her betrothed.
She seems, however, to have been as fond of her husband as
her cold and unwomanly nature would permit her to be of any
man. The story of their married life is a singularly unromantic
romance.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (then Pierrepont) to
E. W. Montagu Esq.
March, 1711.
Though your letter is far from what I expected, having once
promised to answer it, with the sincere account of my inmost
thoughts, I am resolved you shall not find me worse than my word,
which is (whatever you may think) inviolable.
'Tis no affectation to say, that I despise the pleasure of pleasing
people whom I despise : all the fine equipages that shine in the
ring never gave me another thought, than either pity or contempt
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 199
for the owners, that could place happiness in attracting the eyes of
strangers. Nothing touches me with satisfaction but what touches
my heart, and I should find more pleasure in the secret joy I
should feel, at a kind expression from a friend I esteemed, than at
the admiration of a whole playhouse, or the envy of those of my
own sex, who could not attain to the same number of jewels, fine
clothes, &c., supposing I was at the very summit of this sort of
happiness.
You may be this friend if you please : did you really esteem me,
had you any tender regard for me, I could, I think, pass my life in any
station, happier with you, than in all the grandeur of the world with
any other. You have some humours, that would be disagreeable to
any woman that married with an intention of finding her happiness
abroad. That is not my resolution. If I marry, I propose to myself
a retirement ; there is few of my acquaintance T should ever wish to
see again ; and the pleasing one, and only one, is the way in which I
design to please myself. Happiness is the natural design of all the
world ; and everything we see done, is meant in order to attain it.
My imagination places it in friendship. By friendship, I mean an
entire communication of thoughts, wishes, interests, and pleasures,
being undivided ; a mutual esteem, which naturally carries with
it a pleasing sweetness of conversation, and terminates in the
desire of making one or another happy, without being forced to
run into visits, noise, and hurry, which serve rather to trouble,
than compose the thoughts of any reasonable creature. There are
few capable of a friendship such as I have described, and 'tis
necessary for the generality of the world to be taken up with trifles.
Carry a fine Lady or a fine Gentleman out of town, and they know
no more what to say. To take from them plays, operas, and
fashions, is taking away all their topics of discourse ; and they
know not how to form their thoughts on any other subjects. They
know very well what it is to be admired, but are perfectly ignorant
of what it is to be loved. I take you to have sense enough, not to
think this science romantic : I rather choose to use the word friend
ship, than love ; because in the general sense that word is spoke,
it -signifies a passion rather founded on fancy than reason: and
when I say friendship, I mean a mixture of friendship and esteem
and which a long acquaintance increases, not decays; how far 1
deserve such a friendship, I can be no judge of myself: I may
200 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
want the good sense, that is necessary to be agreeable to a man of
merit, but I know I want the vanity to believe I have ; and can
promise you shall never like me less, upon knowing me better ;
and that I shall never forget that you have a better understanding
than myself.
And now let me entreat you to think (if possible) tolerably of
my modesty, after so bold a declaration : I am resolved to throw
off reserve, and use me ill if you please. I am sensible, to own
an inclination for a man is putting one's self wholly in his power :
but sure you have generosity enough not to abuse it. After all I
have said, I pretend no tie but on your heart : if you do not love
me, I shall not be happy with you ; if you do I need add no
further. I am not mercenary, and would not receive an obligation
that comes not from one who loves me. I do not desire my letter
back again : you have honour and I dare trust you. I am going
to the same place I went last spring. I shall think of you there :
it depends upon you in what manner.
M. P.
CXXIX.
We have here the first announcement of that great disco
very — inoculation for small-pox, which Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu was the first European to adopt. Amid much oppo
sition on the part of English physicians she had the courage to
introduce it into this country, inoculating by way of experiment
her own child.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Mrs. S. C .
Adrianople : April 1, 1717.
In my opinion, Dear S — — , I ought rather to quarrel with you
for not answering my Nimeguen letter of August till December,
than to excuse my not writing again till now. I am sure there
is on my side a very good excuse for silence, having gone such tire
some land journeys, though I don't find the conclusion of them so
bad as you seem to imagine. I am very easy here, and not in the
solitude you fancy me. The great number of Greeks, French,
English, and Italians, that are under our protection, make their
court to me from morning till night; and I'll assure you, are many
of them very fine ladies ; for there is no possibility for a Christian
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 201
to live easily under this government but by the protection of
an ambassador — and the richer they are the greater is their danger.
Those dreadful stories you have heard of the plague have very
little foundation in truth. I own I have much ado to reconcile
myself to the sound of a word which has always given me such
terrible ideas, though I am convinced there is little more in it than
in a fever. As a proof of this, let me tell you that we passed
through two or three towns most violently affected. In the very
next house where we lay (in one of those places) two persons died
of it. Luckily for me I was so well deceived that I knew nothing
of the matter; and I was made believe, that our second cook who
fell ill here had only a great cold. However, we left our doctor
to take care of him, and yesterday they both arrived here in good
health, and I am now let into the secret that he has had the plague.
There are many that escape it ; neither is the air ever infected.
I am persuaded that it would be as easy a matter to root it out
here as out of Italy and France ; but it does so little mischief, they
are not very solicitous about it, and are content to suffer this dis
temper instead of our variety, which they are utterly unacquainted
with.
Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that
will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal and so
general amongst us, is here entirely harmless by the invention of
ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old
women who make it their business to perform the operation every
autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated.
People send to one another to know if any of their family has a
mind to have the small-pox : they make parties for this purpose,
and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together), the
old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort
of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She
immediately rips open that you offer to her with a large needle
(which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts
into the vein as much matter as can lye upon the head of her
needle, and after that binds up the little wound with a hollow
bit of shell ; and in this manner opens four or five veins. The
Grecians have commonly the superstition of opening one in the
middle of the forehead, one in each arm, and one on the breast, to
mark the sign of the cross ; but this has a very ill effect, all these
202 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
wounds leaving little scars, and is not done by those that are not
superstitious, who choose to have them in the legs, or that part
of the arm that is concealed. The children or young patients play
together all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health to the
eighth. Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their
beds two days, very seldom three. They have very rarely above
twenty or thirty in their faces, which never mark ; and in eight
days' time they are as well as before their illness. When they
are wounded, there remain running sores during the distemper,
which I don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every year thousands
undergo this operation; and the French ambassador says plea
santly, that they take the small-pox here by way of diversion, as
they take the waters in other countries. There is no example of
any one that has died in it ; and you may believe I am well satis
fied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my
dear little son.
I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention
into fashion in England ; and I should not fail to write to some of
our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them
that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable
branch of their revenue for the good of mankind. But that dis
temper is too beneficial to them, not to expose to all their resent
ment the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it.
Perhaps, if I live to return, I may, however, have courage to war
with them. Upon this occasion admire the heroism in the heart of
your friend, &c. &c.
cxxx.
Contains a description of the visit of the writer both to the
Sultana Hafite"n, and to the wife of the Deputy Grand Vizier.
In none of her famous letters from the East are Lady Mary's
descriptive powers seen to greater advantage. Word-painting
has rarely been carried farther.
Lady Mary Worthy Montagu to the Countess of Mar.
Adrianople : April 18, 1717.
I wrote to you, dear Sister, and to all my other English corre
spondents, by the last ship, and only Heaven can tell when I shall
have another opportunity of sending to you ; but I cannot forbear
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 203
to write again, though perhaps my letter may lie upon my hands
these two months. To confess the truth, my head' is so full of my
entertainment yesterday, that 'tis absolutely necessary for my own
repose to give it some vent. Without further preface, I will then
begin my story.
I was invited to dine with the grandvizier's lady ; and it was
with a great deal of pleasure I prepared myself for an entertain
ment which was never before given to any Christian. I thought
I should very little satisfy her curiosity (which I did not doubt
was a considerable motive to the invitation) by going in a dress
she was used to see, and therefore dressed myself in the court
habit of Vienna, which is much more magnificent than ours.
However, I chose to go incognita, to avoid any disputes about
ceremony, and went in a Turkish coach, only attended by my
woman that held up my train, and the Greek lady who was my
iiiterpretess. I was met at the court door by her black eunuch,
who helped me out of the coach with great respect, and conducted
me through several rooms, where her she-slaves, finely dressed,
were ranged on each side. In the innermost I found the lady
sitting on her sofa, in a sable vest. She advanced to meet me, and
presented me half a dozen of her friends with great civility. She
seemed a very good-looking woman, near fifty years old. I was
surprised to observe so little magnificence in her house, the
furniture being all very moderate; and, except the habits and
number of her slaves, nothing about her appeared expensive. She
guessed at my thoughts, and told me she was no longer of an age
to spend either her time or money in superfluities ; that her whole
expense was in charity, and her whole employment praying to God.
There was no affectation in this speech ; both she and her husband
are entirely given up to devotion. He never looks upon any other
woman ; and, what is much more extraordinary, touches no bribes,
notwithstanding the example of all his predecessors. He is so
scrupulous on this point, he would not accept Mr. Wortley's
present, till he had been assured over and over that it was a
settled perquisite of his place at the entrance of every ambassador.
She entertained me with all kind of civility till dinner came in,
which was served, one dish at a time, to a vast number, all finely
dressed after their manner, which I don't think so bad as you have
perhaps heard it represented.
204 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
I am a very good judge of their eating, having lived three
weeks in the house of an effendi at Belgrade, who gave us very
magnificent dinners, dressed by his own cooks. The first week
they pleased me extremely; but I own I then began to grow
weary of their table, and desired our own cook might add a dish or
two after our manner. But I attribute this to custom, and am
very much inclined to believe that an Indian who had never tasted
of either, would prefer their cookery to ours. Their sauces are
very high, all the roast very much done. They use a great deal of
very rich spice. The soup is served for the last dish ; and they
have at least as great a variety of ragouts as we have. I was very
sorry I could not eat of as many as the good lady would have had
me, who was very earnest in serving me of everything. The treat
concluded with coffee and perfumes, which is a high mark of re
spect ; two slaves kneeling censed my hair, clothes, and handker
chief. After this ceremony she commanded her slaves to play and
dance, which they did with their guitars in their hands, and she
excused to me their want .of skill, saying she took no care to
accomplish them in that art.
I returned her thanks, and soon after took my leave. I was
conducted back in the same manner I entered, and would have
gone straight to my own house; but the Greek lady with me
earnestly solicited me to visit the Kiyaya's l lady, saying he was
the second officer in the empire, and ought indeed to be looked
upon as the first, the grand- Vizier having only the name, while he
exercised the authority. I had found so little diversion in the
vizier's harem, that I had no mind to go into another. But her
importunity prevailed with me, and I am extremely glad I was so
complaisant.
All things here were with quite another air than at the grand-
Vizier's ; and the very house confessed the difference between an
old devotee and a young beauty. It was nicely clean and
magnificent. I was met at the door by two black eunuchs, who
led me through a long gallery between two ranks of beautiful
young girls, with their hair finely plaited, almost hanging to their
feet, all dressed in fine light damasks, brocaded with silver. I was
sorry that decency did not permit me to stop to consider them nearer.
1 Kiyaya = Lieutenant- Deputy to Grand Vizier.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 205
But that thought was lost upon my entrance into a large room or
rather pavilion, built round with gilded sashes, which were most
of them thrown up, and the trees planted near them gave an agreeable
shade, which hindered the sun from being troublesome. The
jessamines and honeysuckles that twisted round their trunks shed
a soft perfume, increased by a white marble fountain playing sweet
water in the lower part of the room, which fell into three or four
basins with a pleasing sound. The room was painted with all sorts of
flowers, falling out of gilded baskets, that seemed tumbling down.
On a sofa raised three steps, and covered with fine Persian carpets,
sat the Kiyaya's lady, leaning on cushions of white satin, em
broidered ; and at her feet sat two young girls about twelve years
old, lovely as angels, dressed perfectly rich and almost covered
with jewels. But they were hardly seen near the fair Fatima
(for that is her name), so much her beauty effaced everything I
have seen, nay, all that has been called lovely either in England
or Germany. I must own that I never saw anything so gloriously
beautiful nor can I recollect a face that would have been taken
notice of near hers. She stood up to receive me, saluting me
after their fashion, putting her hand to her heart with a sweetness
full of majesty, that no court breeding could ever give. She ordered
cushions to be given me, and took care to place me in the corner,
which is the place of honour. I confess, though the Greek lady
had before given me a great opinion of her beauty, I was so struck
with admiration that I could not for some time speak to her,
being wholly taken up in gazing. That surprising harmony of
features, that charming result of the whole ! that exact proportion
of body ! that lovely bloom of complexion unsullied by art ! the
unutterable enchantment of her smile — But her eyes ! — large and
black, with all the soft languishment of the blue ! every turn of
her face discovering some new grace. After my first surprise was
over, I endeavoured by nicely examining her face, to find out
some imperfection, without any fruit of my search, but my being
clearly convinced of the error of that vulgar notion, that a face
exactly proportioned, and perfectly beautiful, would not be agreeable,
having done for her with more success, what Apelles is said to
have essayed by a collection of the most exact features, to form a
perfect face.
Add to all this a behaviour so full of grace and sweetness, such
10*
206 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
easy motions, "with an air, so majestic, yet free from stiffness or
affectation, that I am persuaded, could she be suddenly transported
upon the most polite throne of Europe, nobody would think her
other than bred and born for a queen, though educated in a country
we called barbarous. To say all in a word, our most celebrated
English beauties would vanish near her. She was dressed in a
caftdn of gold brocade, flowered with silver very well fitted to her
shape and showing to admiration the beauty of her bosom, only
shaded by the thin gauzs of her shift. Her drawers were pale
pink, her waistcoat green and silver, her slippers white satin, finely
embroidered ; her lovely arms adorned with bracelets of diamonds ;
and her broad girdle set round with diamonds ; upon her head
a rich Turkish handkerchief of pink and silver, her own fine
black hair hanging a great length in various tresses, and on one
side of her head some bodkins of jewels. I am afraid you will
accuse me of extravagance in this description. I think I have
read somewhere that women always speak in rapture when they
speak of beauty, and I cannot imagine why they should not be
allowed to do so. I rather think it a virtue to be able to admire
without any mixture of desire or envy. The gravest writers have
spoken with great warmth of some celebrated pictures and
statues. The workmanship of Heaven certainly excels all our
weak imitations, and, I think, has a much better claim to our
praise. For my part, I am not ashamed to own I took more
pleasure in looking on the beauteous Fatima, than the finest piece
of sculpture could have given me. She told me the two girls at
her feet were her daughters, though she appeared too young to be
their mother. Her fair maids were ranged below the sofa, to the
number of twenty, and put me in mind of the pictures of the ancient
nymphs. I did not think all nature could have furnished such a
scene of beauty. She made them a sign to play and dance. Four
of them immediately began to play some soft airs on instruments,
between a lute and a guitar, which they accompanied with their
voices, while the others danced by turns. This dance was very
different from what I had seen before. Nothing could be more
artful. The tunes so soft ! — the motions so languishing ! — accom
panied with pauses and dying eyes ! half-falling back, and then
recovering themselves in so artful a manner. I suppose you may
have read that the Turks have no music but what is shocking to
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 207
the ears ; but this account is from those who never heard any but
what is played in the streets, and is just as reasonable as if a
foreigner should take his ideas of English music from the bladder
and string, or the marrow-bones and cleavers. I can assure you
that the music is extremely pathetic ; 'tis true I am inclined to
prefer the Italian, but perhaps I am partial. I am acquainted
with a Greek lady who sings better than Mrs. Robinson, and is
very well skilled in both, who gives the preference to the Turkish.
'Tis certain they have very fine natural voices ; these were very
agreeable. When the dance was over, four fair slaves came into
the room with the silver censers in their hands, and perfumed the
air with amber, aloes-wood, and other scents. After this they
served me coffee upon their knees in the finest Japan china, with
soucoups of silver, gilt. Then lovely Fatima entertained me all
this while in the most polite agreeable manner, calling me often
Guzel sultanum, or the beautiful sultana, and desiring my friend
ship with the best grace in the world, lamenting that she could not
entertain me in my own language. When I took my leave two
maids brought in a fine silver basket of embroidered handkerchiefs ;
she begged I would wear the richest for her sake, and gave the
others to my woman and interpretess. I retired through the same
ceremonies as before, and could not help thinking that I had been
some time in Mahomet's paradise, so much was I charmed with
what I had seen. I know not how the relation of it appears to
you. I wish it may give you part of my pleasure ; for I would
have my dear sister share in all the diversions of,
Yours, &c.
CXXXI.
There are few people who will not recognise the wisdom
and justice of the following remarks, however paradoxically, and
perhaps even cynically, they are stated. The writer's theory at
all events may suggest some profitable reflections on a subject
where reflection is rarer than it should be.
Lady Mary Worthy Montagu to her Daughter, the Countess
of Bute.
Lovere : November 1, 1751.
Dear Child, — I received yours of August 25, and my Lord
Bute's obliging notice of your safe delivery at the same time. I
208 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1GOO-
wish you joy of your young son, and of every thing else. You do
not mention your father, by which I suppose he is not returned to
England, and am in pain for his health, having heard but once
from him since he left it, and know not whether he has received
my letters. I dare say you need not be in any doubt of his good
opinion of you ; for my part, I am so far persuaded of the good
ness of your heart. I have often had a mind to write you a con
solatory epistle' on my own death, which I believe will be some
affliction, though my life is wholly useless to you. That part of it
which we passed together you have reason to remember with grati
tude, though I think you misplace it ; you are no more obliged to
me for bringing you into the world, than I am to you for coming
into it, and I never made use of that commonplace (and like most
commonplace, false) argument, as exacting any return of affection.
There was a mutual necessity on us both to part at that time, and
no obligation on either side. In the case of your infancy, there
was so great a mixture of instinct, I can scarce even put that in
the number of the proofs I have given you of my love ; but I con
fess I think it a great one, if you compare my after conduct
towards you with that of other mothers, who generally look on
their children as devoted to their pleasures, and bound by duty
to have no sentiments but what they please to give them ; play
things at first, and afterwards the objects on which they may
exercise their spleen, tyranny, or ill humour. I have always
thought of you in a different manner. Your happiness was my
first wish, and the pursuit of all my actions, divested of all
self-interest so far. I think you ought, and believe you do,
remember me as your real friend. Absence and distance have not
the power to lessen any part of my tenderness for you, which
extends to all yours, and I am ever your most affectionate mother
M. W. M.
I play at whist an hour or two every afternoon. The fashion
here is to play for the collation, so that the losers have at least the
consolation of eating part of their money.
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 209
cxxxrr.
In a former letter Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had sent
some hints about the education of children j and she now con
tinues the topic.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to the Countess of Bute.
February 19, 1753.
My dear Child, — I gave you some general thoughts on the
education of your children in my last letter; but fearing you
should think I neglected your request, by answering it with too
much conciseness, I am resolved to add to it what little I know
on that subject, and which may perhaps be useful to you in a con
cern, with which you seem so nearly affected.
People commonly educate their children as they build their
houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without con
sidering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are
designed. Almost all girls of quality are educated as if they were
to be great ladies, which is often as little to be expected, as an im
moderate heat of the sun in the north of Scotland. You should
teach yours to conform their desires to probabilities, to be as
iiseful as is possible to themselves, and to think privacy (as it is)
the happiest state of life. I do not doubt your giving them all
instructions necessary to form them to a virtuous life ; but 'tis a
fatal mistake to do this, without proper restrictions. Vices are
often hid under the name of virtues, and the practice of them
followed by the worst of consequences.
Sincerity, friendship, piety, disinterestedness, and generosity,
are all great virtues ; but pursued, without discretion, become
criminal. I have seen ladies indulge their own ill humour by
being very rude and impertinent, and think they deserved approba
tion, by saying I love to speak truth. One of your acquaintances
made a ball the next day after her mother died, to shew she was
sincere. I believe your own reflection will furnish you with but
too many examples of the ill effects of the rest of the sentiments I
have mentioned, when too warmly embraced. They are generally
recommended to young people without limits or distinction, and
this prejudice hurries them into great misfortunes, while they are
210 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
applauding themselves oil the noble practice (as they fancy) of very
eminent virtues.
I cannot help adding (out of my real affection to you), that I
wish you would moderate that fondness you have for your chil
dren. I do not mean you should abate any part of your care, or
not do your duty to them in its utmost extent ; but I would have
you early prepare yourself for disappointments, which are heavy iu
proportion to their being surprising. It is hardly possible, in such
a number, that none should be unhappy \ prepare yourself against
a misfortune of that kind. I confess there is hardly any more
difficult to support; yet, it is certain, imagination has a great
share in the pain of it, and it is more in our power (than it is
commonly believed) to soften whatever ills are founded or aug
mented by fancy. Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil, I
mean acute pain ; all other complaints are so considerably dimi
nished by time, that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion,
since the sensation of it vanishes when that is over.
There is another mistake, I forgot to mention, usual in
mothers : if any of their daughters are beauties, they take great
pains to persuade them that they are ugly, or at least that they
think so, which the young woman never fails to believe springs
from envy, and is perhaps not much in the wrong. I would, if
possible, give them a just notion of their figure, and shew them
how far it is valuable. Every advantage has its price, and may be
either over or undervalued. It is the common doctrine of (what
are called) good books, to inspire a contempt of beauty, riches,
greatness, &c. which has done as much mischief among the young
of our sex as an over eager desire of them. Why they should not
look on those things as blessings where they are bestowed, though
not necessaries that it is impossible to be happy without, I cannot
conceive. I am persuaded the ruin of lady was in great mea
sure owing to the notions given her by the good people that had
the care of her. "Tis true, her circumstances and your daughters
are very different : they should be taught to be content with
privacy, and yet not neglect good fortune, if it should be offered
them.
I am afraid I have tired you with my instructions. I do not
give them as believing my age has furnished me with superior
wisdom, but in compliance with your desire, and being fond of
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 211
every opportunity that gives a proof of the tenderness with which
I am ever
Your affectionate mother
M. WORTLEY.
I should be glad if you sent me the third volume of Campbell's
Architecture, and with it any other entertaining books. I have
seen the Duchess of Marlborough's Memoirs, but should be glad of
the apology for a late resignation. As to the ale, 'tis now so late
in the year, it is impossible it should come good. You do not
mention your father ; my last letter from him told me he intended
soon for England.
CXXXIII.
This letter was evidently written after reading the political
and philosophical works of Lord Bolingbroke, which had been
published by Mallet the year before. A better criticism of that
brilliant and unprincipled statesman could scarcely be found ; the
estimate of Madame de Sevigne must be received with some
caution.
Lady Mary Worthy Montagu to the Countess of Bute.
Lovere: July 20, 1754.
My dear Child, — I have now read over the books you were so
good to send, and intend to say something of them all, though
some are not worth speaking of. I shall begin, in respect to his
dignity, with Lord Bolingbroke, who is a glaring proof how far
vanity can blind a man, and how easy it is to varnish over to one's
self the most criminal conduct. He declares he always loved his
country, though he confesses he endeavoured to betray her to
popery and slavery ; and loved his friends, though he abandoned
them in distress, with all the blackest circumstances of treachery.
His account of the peace of Utrecht is almost equally unfair or
partial. I shall allow that, perhaps, the views of the Whigs, at
that time, were too vast, and the nation, dazzled by military glory,
had hopes too sanguine; but surely the same terms that' the
French consented to, at the treaty of Gertruydenberg, might have
been obtained ; or if the displacing of the Duke of Marlborough
raised the spirits of our enemies to a degree of refusing what they
had before offered, how can he excuse the guilt of removing him
from the head of a victorious army, and exposing us to submit
212 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
to any articles of peace, being unable to continue the war? I
agree with him, that the idea of conquering France is a wild extra
vagant notion, and would, if possible, be impolitic; but she might
have been reduced to such a state, as would have rendered her
incapable of being terrible to her neighbours for some ages : nor
should we have been obliged, as we have done almost ever since, to
bribe the French ministers to let us live in quiet. So much for his
political reasonings, which I confess, are delivered in a florid, easy
style ; but I cannot be of Lord Orrery's opinion, that he is one of
the best English writers. Well turned periods, or smooth lines,
are not the perfection either of prose or verse ; they may serve to
adorn, but can never stand in the place of good sense. Copious
ness of words, however ranged, is always false eloquence, though it
will ever impose on some sort of understandings. How many
readers and admirers has Madame de Sevigne, who only gives us,
in a lively manner, and fashionable phrases, mean sentiments,
vulgar prejudices, and endless repetitions 1 Sometimes the tittle
tattle of a fine lady, sometimes that of an old nurse, always tittle
tattle ; yet so well gilt over by airy expressions, and a flowing
style, she will always please the same people to whom Lord
Bolingbroke will shine as a first rate author. She is so far to be
excused, as her letters were not intended for the press ; while he
labours to display to posterity all the wit and learning he is master
of, and sometimes spoils a good argument by a profusion of words,
running out into several pages a thought that might have been
more clearly expressed in a few lines, and, what is more, often falls
into contradiction and repetitions, which are almost unavoidable to
all voluminous writers, and can only be forgiven to those retailers,
whose necessity compels them to diurnal scribbling, who load their
meaning with epithets, and run into digressions, because (in the
jockey phrase) it rids ground, that is, covers a certain quantity of
paper, to answer the demand of the day. A great part of Lord
Bolingbroke's letters are designed to shew his reading, which, in
deed, appears to have been very extensive ; but I cannot perceive
that such a minute account of it can be of any use to the pupil he
pretends to instruct, nor can I help thinking he is far below eithei*
Tillotson or Addison, even in style, though the latter was some
times more diffuse than his judgment approved, to furnish out
the length of a daily ' Spectator.' I own I have small regard for
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 213
Lord Bolingbroke as an author, and the highest contempt for him
as a man. He came into the world greatly favoured both by
nature and fortune, blest with a noble birth, heir to a large estate,
endowed with a strong constitution, and, as I have heard, a
beautiful figure, high spirits, a good memory, and a lively appre
hension, which was cultivated by a learned education : all these
glorious advantages, being left to the direction of a judgment
stifled by unbounded vanity, he dishonoured his birth, lost his
estate, ruined his reputation, and destroyed his health, by a wild
pursuit of eminence even in vice and trifles.
I am far from making misfortune a matter of reproach. I
know there are accidental occurrences not to be foreseen or
avoided by human prudence, by which a character may be injured,
wealth dissipated, or a constitution impaired : but I think I may
reasonably despise the understanding of one who conducts himself
in such a manner as naturally produces such lamentable con
sequences, and continues in the same destructive paths to the end
of a long life, ostentatiously boasting of morals and philosophy in
print, and with equal ostentation bragging of the scenes of low
debauchery in public conversation, though deplorably weak both in
niind and body, and his virtue and his vigour in a state of non-
existence. His confederacy with Swift and Pope puts me in mind
of that of Bessus and his sword-men, in the King and No King,
who endeavour to support themselves by giving certificates of each
other's merit.
Pope has triumphantly declared that they may do and say
whatever silly things they please, they will still be the greatest
geniuses nature ever exhibited. I am delighted with the com
parison given of their benevolence, which is indeed most aptly
figured by a circle in the water, which widens till it comes to
nothing at all ; but I am provoked at Lord Bolingbroke's mis
representation of my favourite Atticus, who seems to have been
the only Roman that, from good sense, had a true notion of the
times in which he lived; in which the republic was inevitably
perishing, and the two factions, who pretended to support it,
equally endeavouring to gratify their ambition in its ruin. A
wise man, in that case, would certainly declare for neither, and try
to save himself and family from the general wreck, which could
not be done but by a superiority of understanding acknowledged
2U ENGLISH LETTERS. [1GOO-
on both sides. I see no glory in losing life or fortune by being the
dupe of either, and very much applaud the conduct which could
preserve an universal esteem amidst the fury of opposite parties.
We are obliged to act vigorously, where action can do any good ;
but in a storm, when it is impossible to work with success, the
best hands and ablest pilots may laudably gain the shore if they
can. Atticus could be a friend to men, without awaking their
resentment, and be satisfied with his own virtue without seeking
popular fame : he had the reward of his wisdom in his tranquillity,
and will ever stand among the few examples of true philosophy,
either ancient or modern.
You must forgive this tedious dissertation. I hope you read
in the same spirit I write, and take as proofs of affection whatever
is sent you by your truly affectionate mother,
M. WORTLEY.
CXXXIV.
From the year 1739 to the year 1761 Lady Wortley Mon
tagu resided in Italy, keeping up a continual correspondence
with her daughter and other friends in England. To this period
belong some of the most charming of her letters. They are less
ambitious and elaborate than her more celebrated letters written
during Mr. Wortley's Embassy.
The graceful cynicism of Horace and Pope has perhaps
never been more successfully reproduced in prose than in the
following letter.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to her Daughter, the Countess
of Bute.
Lovere : September 30, 1757.
My dear Child, — Lord Bute has been so obliging as to let me
know your safe delivery, and the birth of another daughter : may
she be as meritorious in your eyes as you are in mine ! I can
wish nothing better to you both, though I have some reproaches to
make you.
Daughter ! daughter ! don't call names ; you are always
abusing my pleasures, which is what no mortal will bear. Trash,
lumber, sad stuff, are the titles you give to my favourite amuse
ment. If I called a white staff a stick of wood, a gold key gilded
brass, and the ensigns of illustrious orders coloured strings, this
may be philosophically true, but would be very ill received. We
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 215
have all our playthings ; happy are they that can be contented
with those they can obtain: those hours are spent in the wisest
manner, that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least pro
ductive of ill consequences. I think my time better employed in
reading the adventures of imaginary people, than the Duchess of
Marlborough, who passed the latter years of her life in paddling
with her will, and* contriving schemes of plaguing some, and ex
tracting praise from others, to no purpose ; eternally disappointed
and eternally fretting. The active scenes are over at my age. I
indulge, with all the art I can, my taste for reading. If I would
confine it to valuable books, they are almost as rare as valuable
men. I must be content with what I can find. As I approach a,
second childhood, I endeavour to enter into the pleasures of it.
Your youngest son is, perhaps, at this very moment riding on a
poker, with great delight, not at all regretting that it is not a gold
one, and much less wishing it an Arabian horse, which he could
not know how to manage. I am reading an idle tale, not expect
ing wit or truth in it, and am very glad it is not metaphysics to
puzzle my judgment, or history to mislead my opinion : he fortifies
his health by exercise; I calm my cares by oblivion. The me
thods may appear low to busy people; but, if he improves his
strength and I forget my infirmities, we both attain very desirable
ends.
I have not heard of your father of a long time. I hope he is
well, because you do nob mention him.
I am ever dear child,
Your most affectionate mother,
M. WORTLEY.
cxxxv.
The letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to his son (nearly
400 in number) extend over a period of thirty years. The
earliest date is 1738; the last epistle was written on Oct.
17, 1768. The following month Philip Stanhope died; his
father survived him by nearly five years. In 1774, the son's
widow — Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope — published the correspondence,
but the letters were never intended for publication. Lord
Macaulay, writing to Mr. Napier in 1833, remarked : l When I
said that Lord Chesterfield had lost by the publication of his
letters, I of course considered that he had much to lose ; that he
has left an immense reputation, founded on the testimony of all
21G ENGLISH LETTERS.
his contemporaries of all parties, for wit, taste, and eloquence ;
that what remains of his Parliamentary oratory is superior to
anything of that time that has come down to us, except a little
of 'Pitt's. The utmost that can be said of the letters is that
they are the letters of a cleverish man ; and there are not many
which are entitled even to that praise. I think he would have
stood higher if we had been left to judge of his powers — as we
judge of those of Chatham, Mansfield, and Lord Townsend, and
many others — only by tradition, and by fragments of speeches
preserved in Parliamentary reports.'
The Earl of Chesterfield to his /Son, Philip Stanhope, Esq.
London : November 24, 1747.
Dear Boy, — As often as I write to you (and that you know is
pretty often) so often am I in doubt whether it is to any purpose,
and whether it is not labour and paper lost. This entirely depends
upon the degree of reason and reflection which you are master of, or
think proper to exert. If you give yourself time to think, and have
sense enough to think right, two reflections must necessarily occur
to you ; the one is, that I have a great deal of experience and that
you have none ; the other is, that I am the only man living who
cannot have, directly or indirectly, any interest concerning you,
but your own. From which two undeniable principles, the obvious
and necessary conclusion is, that you ought, for your own sake, to
attend to and follow my advice.
If, by the application which I recommend to you, you acquire
great knowledge, you alone are the gainer ; I pay for it. If you
should deserve either a good or a bad character, mine will be
exactly what it is now, and will neither be the better in the first
case, nor tbe worse in the latter. You alone will be the gainer or
the loser.
Whatever your pleasures may be,- I neither can nor shall
envy you them, as old people are sometimes suspected, by young
people, to do ; and I shall only lament, if they should prove such
as are unbecoming a man of honour, or below a man of sense.
But you will be the real sufferer, if they are such. As therefore
it is plain that I have no other motive than that of affection in
whatever I say to you, you ought to look upon me as your best,
and for some years to come, your only friend.
True friendship requires certain proportions of age and
manners, and can never subsist where they are extremely different,
except in the relations of parent and child ; where affection on one
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 217
side, and regard on the other, make np the difference. The friend
ship which you may contract with people of your own age, may be
sincere, may be warm ; but must be for some time reciprocally
unprofitable, as there can be no experience on either side.
The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the
blind ; ' they will both fall into the ditch.' The only sure guide is
he who has often gone the road which you want to go. Let me be
that guide : who have gone all roads ; and who can consequently
point out to you the best. If you ask me why I went any of the
bad roads myself, I will answer you very truly, that is for want of
a good guide ; ill example invited me one way, and a good guide
was wanting to show me a better. But if anybody, capable of
advising me, had taken the same pains with me, which I have taken,
and will continue to take with you, I should have avoided many
follies and inconveniences, which undirected youth ran me into.
My father was neither able nor desirous to advise me ; which is
what I hope you cannot say of yours. You see that I make use
only of the word advise ; because I would much rather have the
assent of your reason to my advice, than the submission of your
will to my authority. This, I persuade myself, will happen, from
that degree of sense which I think you have ; and therefore I will
go on advising, and with hopes of success. You are now settled
for some time at Leipsic : the principal object of your stay there is
the knowledge of books and sciences ; which if you do not, by
attention and application, make yourself master of while you are
there, you will be ignorant of them all the rest of your life : and
take my word for it a life of ignorance is not only a very con
temptible, but a very tiresome one. Redouble your attention,
then, to Mr Harte, in your private studies of the Literse Humaniores,
especially Greek. State your difficulties whenever you have any ;
do not suppress them either from mistaken shame, lazy indifference
or in order to have done the sooner. Do the same with Professor
Mascow, or any other professor.
When you have thus usefully employed your mornings, you
may with a safe conscience divert yourself in the evenings, and
make those evenings very useful too, by passing them in good
company, and, by observation and attention, learning as much of
the world as Leipsic can teach you. You w7ill observe and imitate
the manners of the people of the best fashion there ; not that they
218 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
are (it may be) the best manners in the world ; but because they
are the best manners of the place where you are, to which a man
of sense always conforms. The nature of things is always and
everywhere the same : but the modes of them vary, more or less
in every country ; and an easy and genteel conformity to them, or
rather the assuming of them at proper times and in proper places,
is what particularly constitutes a man of the world, and a well-
bred man.
Here is advice enough I think, and too much it may be you will
think, for one letter : if you follow it, you will get knowledge,
character and pleasure by it ; if you do not, I only lose operam et
oleum, which, in all events, I do not grudge you.
I send you by a person who sets out this day for Leipsic, a small
packet containing some valuable things which you left behind ; to
which I have added, by way of New Year's gift, a very pretty
tooth-pick case : and, by the way, pray take care of your teeth, and
keep them extremely clean. I have likewise sent you the Greek
roots lately translated into English from the French of the Port
Koyal. Inform yourself what the Port Royal is. To conclude,
with a quibble : I hope you will not only feed upon the Greek
roots, but likewise digest them perfectly.
Adieu.
CXXXVI.
The Earl of Chesterfield to his Son.
London: December 18, 1747.
Dear Boy, — As two mails are now due from Holland I have
no letters of your's or Mr Harte's to acknowledge, so that this
letter is the effect of that scribendi cacoethes, which my fears, my
hopes, and my doubts concerning you, give me. "When I have
wrote you a very long letter upon any subject, it is no sooner
gone but I think I have omitted something in it which might be of
use to you, and then I prepare the supplement for the next post ; or
else some new subject occurs to me, upon which I fancy I can
give you some information, or point out some rules, which may be
advantageous to you. This sets me to writing again, though God
knows whether to any purpose or not : a few years more can only
ascertain that. But, whatever my success may be my anxiety
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 219
and my care can only be the effects of that tender affection which
I have for you, and which you cannot represent to yourself greater
than it really is. But do not mistake the nature of that affection,
and think it of a kind that you may with impunity abuse. It is
not natural affection, there being in reality no such thing ; for, if
there were, some inward sentiment must necessarily and recipro
cally discover the parent to the child, and the child to the parent
without any exterior indications, knowledge, or acquaintance what
soever; which never happened since the creation of the world,
whatever Poets, Romance or Novel-writers and such sentiment-
mongers, may be pleased to say to the contrary. Neither is my
affection for you that of a mother, of which the only, or at least the
chief, objects are health and life : I wish you them both most
heartily ; but at the same time I confess they are by no means my
principal care.
My object is to have you fit to live ; which if you are not, I do not
desire that you should live at all. My affection for you then is,
and only will be, proportioned to your merit ; which is the only
affection that one rational being ought to have for another.
Hitherto I have discovered nothing wrong in your heart or
head : on the contrary, I think I see sense in the one and senti
ments in the other. This persuasion is the only motive for my
present affection ; which will either increase or diminish according
to your merit or demerit. If you have the know! edge, the honour,
and the probity which you may have, the marks and warmth of
my affection shall amply reward them ; but if you have them not,
my aversion and indignation will ris in the same proportion ; and
in that case, remember that I am under no further obligation
than to give you the necessary means of subsisting. If ever we
quarrel, do not expect or depend upon any weakness in my nature,
fora reconciliation, as children frequently do, and often meet with,
from silly parents. I have no such weakness about me ; and as I
will never quarrel with you but upon some essential point, if once we
quarrel I will never forgive. But I hope and believe that this
declaration (for it is no threat) will prove unnecessary. You are
no stranger to the principles of virtue ; and surely who ever knows
virtue must love it. As for knowledge you have already enough
of it to engage you to acquire more. The ignorant only either
despise it, or think that they have enough : those who have the
220 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
most are always the most desirous to have more, and know that
the most they can have is alas ! but too little.
Reconsider from time to time, and retain the friendly advice
which I send you. The advantage will be all your own.
OXXXVII.
' Autres temps autres moeurs ' may certainly now he said of
the remarks made in this epistle concerning music. When
the Earl of Chesterfield was a young man, music was the only
fine art encouraged by his sovereign ; indeed George I. was
himself a performer on the violin. Perhaps this was a reason
why the Earl laboured to make a fashionable and refined man
of the rough and homely ( heir apparent ' to the English throne.
The Earl of Chesterfield to his Son.
London: April 19, 1749.
Dear Boy, — This letter will, I believe, still find you at Venice,
in all the dissipations of Masquerades, Ridottos, Operas, &c. ; with
all my heart ; they are decent evening amusements, and very pro
perly succeed that serious application to which I am sure you de
vote your mornings.
There are liberal and illiberal pleasures, as well as liberal and
illiberal arts. There are some pleasures that degrade a gentleman,
as much as some trades could do. Sottish drinking, indiscriminate
gluttony, driving coaches, rustic sports such as fox-chases, horse
races, &c., are in my opinion infinitely below the honest and indus
trious professions of a tailor, and a shoemaker, which are said to
deroger.
As you are now in a musical country where singing, fiddling,
and piping, are not only the common topics of conversation, but
•almost the principal objects of attention; I cannot help cautioning
you against giving into those (I will call them illiberal) pleasures
(though music is commonly reckoned one of the liberal arts) to the
degree that most of your countrymen do when they travel in Italy.
If you love music, hear it ; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers
to play to you ; but I insist on your neither piping nor fiddling
yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible
light ; brings him into a great deal of bad company ; and takes up
a great deal of time which might be much better employed. Few
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 221
things would mortify me more than to see you bearing part in a
concert with a fiddle under your chin or a pipe in your mouth.
I have had a great deal of conversation with Comte du Perron
and Comte Lascaris, upon your subject ; and I will tell you, very
truly, what Comte de Perron (who is, in my opinion, a very pretty
man) said of you. ' II a de 1'esprit, un savoir peu commun a son
age, une grande vivacite, et quand il aura pris des manieres il sera
parfait ; car il faut avouer qu'il sent encore le college ; mais cela
viendra.' I was very glad to hear from one whom I think so good a
judge, that you wanted nothing but des manieres ; which I am con
vinced you will now soon acquire in the company which hencefor-
wards you are likely to keep. But I must add too, that if you
should not acquire them, all the rest will be of very little use to
you. By manieres I do not mean bare common civility ; every
body must have that who would not be kicked out of company :
but I mean engaging, insinuating, shining manners; a distinguished
politeness, an almost irresistible address ; a superior gracefulness
in all you say and do. It is this alone that can give all your other
talents their full lustre and value ; and consequently it is this
which should now be the principal object of your attention. Ob
serve minutely, wherever you go, the allowed and established
models of good breeding, and form yourself upon them. Whatever
pleases you most in others will infallibly please others in you. I
have often repeated this to you ; now is your time of putting it in
practice.
Pray make my compliments to Mr. Harte; and tell him I
have received his letter from Vienna, but that I shall not trouble
him till I have received the other letter he promises me upon the
subject of one of my last. I long to hear from him after your
settlement at Turin ; the months that you are to pass there will be
very decisive ones for you. The exercises of the Academy, and the
manners of Courts must be attended to and acquired, and, at the
same time your other studies continued. I am sure you will not
pass, nor desire, one single idle hour there ; for I do not foresee
that you can, in any part of your life, put out six months to greater
interest than those next six at Turin.
We will talk hereafter about your stay at Rome and in other
oarts of Italy. This only I will recommend to you ; which is, to
extract the spirit of every place you go to, In those places, which
11
222 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
are only distinguished by classical fame, and valuable remains of
antiquity, have your classics in your hand, and in your head ; com
pare the ancient geography and descriptions with the modern ; and
never fail to take notes. Rome will furnish you with business
enough of that sort ; but then it furnishes you with many other
objects well deserving your attention, such as deep ecclesiastical
craft and policy. Adieu.
CXXXVIII.
The Earl of Chesterfield to his Son.
London : August 10, 1749.
Dear Boy, — Let us resume our reflections upon men, their
characters, their manners; in a word, our reflections upon the
World.
They may help you to form yourself, and to know others. A
knowledge very useful at all ages, very rare at yours : it seems as if
it were no body's business to communicate it to young men. Their
masters teach them, singly, the languages, or the sciences of their
several departments ; and are indeed generally incapable of teach
ing them the World : their Parents are often so too, or at least neg
lect doing it; either from avocations, indifference, or from an
opinion, that throwing them into the world (as they call it) is the
best way of teaching it them. This last notion is in a great degree
true ; that is, the World can doubtless never be well known by
theory ; practice is absolutely necessary ; but, surely, it is of great
use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of
mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of
it, made by some experienced traveller.
There is a certain dignity of manners absolutely necessary, to
make even the most valuable character either respected or re
spectable.
Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes,
waggery, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and
knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a
merry fellow ; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable
man. Indiscriminate familiarity, either offends your superiors, or
else dubs you their dependent, and led captain. It gives your in
feriors, just, but troublesome and improper claims of equality. A
1700] ENGLISH LETTERS. 223
joker is near akin to a buffoon ; and neither of them is the least
related to wit. "Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company,
upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is
never respected there, but only made use of. "We will have such-
a-one, for he sings prettily ; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for
he dances well ; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always
joking and laughing ; we will ask another, because he plays deep
at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are
all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude
all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever is had (as it is called) in
company, for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing,
and will never be considered in any other light ; frequently never
respected, let his merits be what they will.
This dignity of manners, which I recommend so much to you,
is not only as different from pride, as true courage is from bluster
ing, or true wit from joking ; but is absolutely inconsistent with
it ; for nothing vilifies and degrades more than pride. The pre
tensions of the proud man, are oftener treated with sneer and con
tempt, than with indignation : as we offer ridiculously too little to
a tradesman, who asks ridiculously too much for his goods ; but we
do not haggle with one who only asks a just and reasonable price.
Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much
as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a
modest assertion of one's own opinion ; and a complaisant acquies
cence in other people's, preserve dignity.
Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify,
as they imply, either a very low turn of mind, or low education,
and low company.
Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and a laborious attention to
little objects, which neither require nor deserve a moment's
thought, lower a man ; who from thence is thought (and not un
justly) incapable of greater matters. Cardinal de Ketz, very
sagaciously marked out Cardinal Chigi for a little mind, from the
moment that he told him he had wrote three years with the same
pen, and that it was an excellent good one still.
A certain degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions,
gives dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which
are always serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the face,
and a whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of
224 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1600-
futility. Whoever is in a hurry, shows that the thing he is about
is too big for him. Haste and hurry are very different things. I
have only mentioned some of those things which may, and do, in
the opinion of the world, lower and sink characters, in other re
spects valuable enough ; but I have taken no notice of those that
affect and sink the moral character. They are sufficiently obvious.
A man who has patiently been kicked, may as well pretend to
courage, as a man blasted by vices and crimes may to dignity of any
kind. But an exterior decency and dignity of manners, will even
keep such a man longer from sinking, than otherwise he would be :
of such consequence is the TO irpe-n-or, even though affected and put
on ! Pray read frequently, and with the utmost attention, nay get
by heart if you can, that incomparable chapter in Cicero's Offices,
upon the TO Trptirov or the Decorum. It contains whatever is neces
sary for the dignity of Manners. In my next, I will send you a
general map of Courts ; a region yet unexplored by you ; but
which you are one day to inhabit. The ways are generally crooked
and full of turniDgs, sometimes strewed with flowers, sometimes
choked up with briars ; rotten ground and deep pits frequently lie
concealed under a smooth and pleasing surface : all the paths are
slippery, and every slip is dangerous. Sense and discretion must
accompany you at your first setting out ; but, notwithstanding
those, till experience is your guide, you will every now and then
step out of your way, or stumble. Lady Chesterfield has just now
received your German letter, for which she thanks you ; she says
the language is very correct ; and I can plainly see the character is
well formed, not to say better than your English character. Con
tinue to write German frequently, that it may become quite
familiar to you. Adieu.
CXXXIX.
This letter, from a person not otherwise known, contains
some important information, brightly recorded, regarding- the
famous actress Mrs. Oldfield, and the no less famous dramatist,
George Farquhar.
Charles Taylour to the Publisher Rich.
November 25, 1730.
Sir, — In your memoirs of Mrs. Oldfield it may not be amiss to
insert the following facts, on the truth of which you may depend.
1700| ENGLISH LETTERS. 225
Her father, Capt. Oldfield, not only ran out all the military, but
the paternal bounds of his fortune, having a pretty estate in houses
in Pall Mall. It was wholly owing to Capt. Farquhar that
Mrs. Oldfield became an actress, from the following incident ; din
ing one day at her aunt's, who kept the Mitre Tavern in St. James'
Market, the poet heard Miss Nanny reading a play behind the bar
with so proper an emphasis, and such agreeable turns, suitable to
each character, that he swore the girl was cut out for the stage, for
which she had before always expressed an inclination, being very de
sirous to try her fortune that way. Her mother, the next time she
saw Mr. Yanbrugh, who had a great respect for the family, told
him what was Capt. Farquhar's opinion, upon which he desired to
know whether, in the plays she read, her fancy was most pleased
with tragedy or comedy ; miss, being called in, said * comedy,' she
having at that time gone through all Beaumont and Fletcher's
comedies, and the play she was reading, when Capt. Farquhar
dined there, being ' The Scornful Lady.' Mr. Yanbrugh, shortly
after, recommended her to Mr. Christopher Rich, who took her
into the theatre at the allowance of fifteen shillings a week. How
ever, her agreeable figure and sweetness of voice, soon gave her the
preference, in the opinion of the whole town, to all our young
actresses, and his Grace, the late Duke of Bedford, being pleased
to speak to Mr. Rich in her favour, he instantly raised her allow
ance to twenty shillings a week ; her fame and salary soon after
wards rose to her just merit.
Your humble Servant,
CHARLES TAYLOUR.
SECTION III
A.D. 1700-1800.
CXL.
The rise and progress of Methodism is as marked a feature
of the reign of George II., as the spread of Puritanism is of the
reign of Queen Elizabeth. The Puritans were called into being
by the injudicious activity of the Queen and her prelates
against a body of men whose religious zeal rejected the supersti
tious ceremonies which were retained in order to win over the
English Roman Catholics to the reformed faith : the Methodists
supplied a want ; their purpose was to infuse a little enthusiasm
and discipline among the slack and lifeless regular clergy.
Both Bishop Burnet, the Whig, and Bishop Atterbury, the
Tory, coincide in their estimate of the sorry state of public wor
ship at this period. If field-preaching was common in many
popular districts, it was because there were no churches in them.
No wonder then, that, as the Puritans grew from being an insig
nificant sect into a powerful political faction, the followers of
John Wesley, in England alone, should have numbered 71,000
the year of their founder's death.
John Wesley to a Friend.
London: December 20, 1751.
My dear Friend, — I think the right method of preaching is
this. At our first beginning to preach at any place, after a
general declaration of the love of God to sinners, and His willing
ness that they should be saved, to preach the law, in the strongest,
the closest, the most searching manner possible.
After more and more persons are convinced of sin, we may
mix more and more of the gospel, in order to beget faith, to raise
into spiritual life those whom the law hath slain. I would not
advise to preach the law without the gospel, any more than the
gospel without the law. Undoubtedly, both should be preached
in their turns ; yea, both at once, or both in one. All the con
ditional promises are instances of this. They are law and gospel
mixed together.
In this manner, not only my brother and I, but Mr. Maxfield,
Nelson, James Jones, Westall, and Beeves, all preached at the
11*
230 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
beginning. By this preaching, it pleased God to work those
mighty effects in London, Bristol, Kingswood, Yorkshire, and
Newcastle. By means of this, twenty-nine .persons received
remission of sins, in one day, at Bristol only; most of them,
while I was opening and enforcing our Lord's sermon on the
mount. In this manner John Downes, John Bennet, John
Haughton, and all the other Methodists, preached, till James
Wheatley came among them. The change he has introduced has
done great harm to David Tratham, Thomas Webb, Robert Swin
dells, and John Maddern ; all of whom are but shadows of what
they were. It has likewise done great harm to hearers as well as
preachers, diffusing among them, a prejudice against the scriptural
Methodist manner of preaching Christ, so that they can no longer
hear the plain old truth, with profit or pleasure, nay hardly with
patience. The gospel preachers, so called, corrupt their hearers,
and they vitiate their taste. They feed them with sweetmeats,
till the genuine wine of the Kingdom seems quite insipid to them.
They give them cordial upon cordial, which make them all life
and spirit for the present; but, meantime, their appetite is de
stroyed, so that they can neither retain nor digest the pure milk of
the word.
According to the constant observations I have made, in all
parts both of England and Ireland, preachers of this kind spread
death, not life, among their hearers. This was the case when I
went last into the north. For some time before my coming, John
Downes had scarce been able to preach at all ; the three others,
in the round, were such as style themselves ' gospel preachers/
When I came to review the societies, with great expectation of
finding a vast increase, I found most of them lessened by one
third. One was entirely broken up. That of Newcastle was less
by a hundred members than when I visited it before ; and, of
those that remained, the far greater number, in every place, were
cold, weary, heartless, and dead. Such were the blessed effects of
this gospel-preaching ! of this new method of preaching Christ.
On the other hand, when, in my return, I took an account of
the societies in Yorkshire, chiefly under the care of John Nelson,
one of the old way, I found them all alive, strong, and vigorous of
oul, believing, loving, and praising God their Saviour ; and in
creased in number from eighteen or nineteen hundred to upwards
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 23 L
of three thousand. These had been continually fed with whole
some food. From the beginning they had been taught both the
law and the gospel. God loves you', therefore love and obey
Him. Christ died for you ; therefore die to sin. Christ is risen ;
therefore rise in the image of God. Christ liveth evermore;
therefore live to God, till you live with Him in glory.
So we preached ; and so you believed. This is the scriptural
way,, the Methodist way, the true way. God grant we may
never turn therefrom, to the right hand or to the left.
I am, my dear friend, your ever affectionate brother,
___^ JOHN WESLEY.
CXLI.
Would that a few ' gospel-preachers ' would take this Lit of
advice to heart.
John Wesley to John King (one of his Preachers in America).
Near Leeds : July 28, 1775.
My dear Brother, — Always take advice or reproof as a favour :
it is the surest mark of love.
I advised you once, and you took it as an affront ; nevertheless
I will do it once more.
Scream no more, at the peril of your soul. God now warns
you by me, whom He has set over you.
Speak as earnestly as you can, but do not scream. Speak
with all your heart, but with a moderate voice. It was said of
our Lord, ' He shall not cry ' ; the word properly means, He shall
not scream. Herein, be a follower of me, as I am of Christ. I
often speak loud, often vehemently, but I never scream, I never
strain myself. I dare not. I know it would be a sin against
God and my own soul. Perhaps one reason why that good man,
Thomas Walsh, yea, and John Manners too, were in such grievous
darkness before they died, was, because they shortened their own
lives.
O John, pray for an advisable and teachable temper ! By
nature you are very far from it : you are stubborn and headstrong.
Your last letter was written in a very wrong spirit. If you cannot
take advice from others, surely you might take it from your affec
tionate brother,
JOHN WESLEY.
232 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CXLII.
But John Wesley was an autocrat. He did not wish to
secede from the Church of England, but to kindle a little ardour
in the ranks of a sluggish ministry. To this end he drew his
travelling preachers chiefly from the workshop and the plough,
and satisfied himself of their fitness to be his lieutenants. These
men he shifted about from city to city, and insisted on their im
plicit obedience to his wishes and injunctions. The following
letter was written at a time when there were symptoms of
insubordination, in regard to Wesley's claims to have the sole
and exclusive power of making appointments. A conference of
preachers had appointed a man to a vacant pulpit and ' pious
John ' immediately expelled him ; but Wesley seems to have
forgotten that the THEN flourishing condition of Methodism was
not the consequence of his own individual energy, and that his
160 itinerant preachers counted for something in a vast success.
Horace Walpole wrote as early as 1749 : ' Methodism in the
metropolis is more fashionable than anything but brag; the
women play very deep at both.'
John Wesley to Charles Wesley.
January, 1780.
My dear Brother, — You seem not to have well considered the
Rules of a Helper, or the rise of Methodism. It pleased God,
by me, to awaken, first my brother, and then a few others ; who
severally desired of me, as a favour, that I would direct them in all
things. After my return from Georgia, many were both awakened
and converted to God. One and another, and another of these
desired to join with me as sons in the gospel, to be directed by me.
I drew up a few plain rules (observe there was no conference in
being !) and permitted them to join me on these conditions. Who
ever, therefore, violates these conditions, particularly that of being
directed by me in the work, does, ipso facto, disjoin himself from
me. This brother M'Nab has done (but he cannot see that he
has done amiss) : and he would have it a common cause; that is,
he would have all the preachers do the same. He thinks * they
have a right so to do.' So they have. They have a right to dis
join themselves from me whenever they please. But they cannot,
in the nature of the thing, join with me any longer than they are
directed by me. And what if fifty of the preachers disjoin them
selves J What should I lose thereby 1 Only a great deal of labour
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 233
and care, which I do not seek ; but endure, because no one else
either can or will.
You seem likewise to have quite a wrong idea of a conference.
For above six years after my return to England, there was no
such thing. I then desired some of my preachers to meet me, in
order to advise, not control, me. And you may observe, they had
no power at all, but what I exercised through them. I chose to
exercise the power which God had given me in this manner, both
to avoid ostentation, and gently to habituate the people to obey
them when I should be taken from their head. But as long as I
remain with them, the fundamental rule of Methodism remains
inviolate. As long as any preacher joins with me, he is to be
directed by me in his work. Do not you see then, that brother
M'Nab, whatever his intentions might be, acted as wrong as
wrong could be ? and that the representing of this as the common
cause of the preachers was the way to common destruction, the
way to turn their heads, and to set them in arms 1 Tt was a blow
at the very root of Methodism. I could not, therefore, do less
than I did ; it was the very least that could be done, for fear that
evil should spread. I do not willingly speak of these things at all ;
but I do it now out of necessity ; because I perceive the mind of
you, and some others, is a little hurt by not seeing them in a
true light.
I am, your affectionate brother,
JOHN WESLEY.
CXLIII.
When Lord Lyttleton followed Henry Fielding's example by
marrying a second time, this congratulatory note was written
by the once needy novelist to his patron. Fielding was in
debted for his post of Justice of the Peace for Middlesex to Lord
Lyttleton, and he was ever sensible of the benefaction. To the
same kind patron he appealed successfully for his friend Edward
Moore, known to us as the writer of the tragedy entitled ' The
Gamester ; ' for when Dodsley appointed Moore editor of the
1 World,' Lyttleton beat up several fashionable contributors for
him. With all his faults and eccentricities, Fielding was a
generous and affectionate friend, and was as careless of the
malicious prattle of Horace Walpcle and the misrepresentations
of his rival Richardson, as in early life he had been in choosing
his company.
234 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Henry Fielding to the Hon. George Lyttleton.
Bow Street : August 29, 1749.
Sir, — Permit me to bring up the rear of your friends in paying
my compliments of congratulation on your late happy nuptials.
There may, perhaps, be seasons when the rear may be as honour
able a post in friendship as in war ; and if so, such certainly must
be every time of joy and felicity. Your present situation must be
full of bliss ; and so will be, I am confident, your future life from
the same fountain. Nothing can equal the excellent character
your lady bears amongst those of her own sex, and I never yet
knew them speak well of a woman who did not deserve their
good words. How admirable is your fortune in the matrimonial
lottery ! I will venture to say there is no man alive who exults
more in this, or in any other happiness that can attend you, than
myself, and you ought to believe me from the same reason that
fully persuades me of the satisfaction you receive from any hap
piness of mine; this reason is that you must be sensible how
much of it I owe to your goodness ; and there is a great pleasure
in gratitude, though I believe it second to that of benevolence,
for of all the delights upon earth, none can equal the raptures
which a good mind feels in conferring happiness on those whom
we think worthy of it. This is the sweetest ingredient in power,
and I solemnly protest I never wished for power more than a few
days ago, for the sake of a man whom I love, the more, perhaps
from the esteem I know he bears you than any other reason. This
man is in love with a young creature of the most apparent worth
who returns his affections. Nothing is wanting to make two very
miserable people extremely blest, but a moderate portion of the
greatest of human evils, so philosophers call it, and so it is called by
divines, whose word is the rather to be taken as they are many
of them more conversant with this evil than even the philosophers
were. The name of this man is Moore, to whom you kindly
destined the laurel, which, though it hath long been withered, may
not probably soon drop from the brow of its present possessor.
But there is another place of much the same value now vacant : it
is that of deputy-licenser to the stage. Ba not offended at this
hint \ for though I will own it impudent enough in one who hath
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 235
so many obligations of his own to you to venture to recommend
another man to your favour, yet impudence itself may possibly be
a virtue when exerted on behalf of a friend : at least I am the
less ashamed of it, as I have known men remarkable for the oppo
site modesty, possess it without the mixture of any other quality.
In this fault then you must indulge me — for should I ever see you
as high in power as I wish, and as it is perhaps more my interest
than your own that you should be, I shall be guilty of the like as
often as I find a man in whom I can, after much intimacy, dis
cover no want but that of the evil above mentioned. I beg you
will do me the honour of making my compliments to your unknown
lady, and believe me to be, with the highest esteem, respect, and
gratitude,
Sir, your most obliged
Most obedient, humble servant,
HENRY FIELDING.
CXLIV.
After a year's absence, William Pitt, gouty and infirm,
returned to his seat in the House of Commons to shine in the
most memorable debate of the eighteenth century — on the
American Stamp Act. When the result of the division was made
known, the great Commoner was overwhelmed with applause,
and Lord Stanhone writes : ' Every head was uncovered ;
and many persons in token of their respect and gratitude fol
lowed his chair home. On the other hand, hisses and revilings
assailed, but did not daunt, the haughty and resolute Gren-
ville.'
William Pitt to his Wife, Lady Chatham.
February 22, 1766 (past 4 o'clock).
Happy, indeed, was the scene of this glorious morning (for at
past one we divided), when the sun of liberty shone once more
benignly upon a country, too long benighted. My dear love, not
all the applauding joy which the hearts of animated gratitude,
saved from despair and bankruptcy, uttered in the lobby, could
touch me, in any degree, like the tender and lively delight, which
breathes in your warm and affectionate note.
All together, my dearest life, makes me not ill to-day after the
immense fatigue, or not feeling that I am so. Wonder not if I
should find myself in a placid and sober fever, for tumultuous
236 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
exultation you know I think not permitted to feeble mortal
successes ; but my delight, heartfelt and solid as it is, must want
its sweetest ingredient (if not its very essence) till I rejoice with
my angel, and with her join in thanksgivings to protecting Heaven,
for all our happy deliverances.
Thank you for the sight of Smith : his honest joy and affection
charm me. Loves to the sweet babes, patriotic or not ; though I
hope impetuous William is not behind in feelings of that kind.
Send the saddle-horses if you please, so as to be in town early to
morrow morning. I propose, and hope, to execute my journey to
Hayes by eleven.
N Your ever loving husband.
W. PITT.
CXLV.
'They form a grand group in my biographical picture/
remarks James Boswell of the three letters forwarded to him by
Warren Hastings in the month of December, 1790 — the only
letters he had received from Dr. Samuel Johnson. The one
here selected is the best of the trio ; and in grace and finish it
is scarcely inferior to any other of the epistles to be read in Bos-
well's volumes on the f Life of Dr. Johnson.'
Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Hon. Warren Hastings.
March 30, 1774.
Sir, — Though I have had but little personal knowledge of you, I
have had enough to make me wish for more ; and though it be now a
long time since I was honoured by your visit, I had too much pleasure
from it to forget it. By those whom we delight to remember, we
are unwilling to be forgotten ; and therefore I cannot omit this
opportunity of reviving myself in your memory by a letter which
you will receive from the hands of my friend Mr. Chambers; a
man, whose purity of manners and vigour of mind are sufficient
to make everything welcome that he brings. That this is my only
reason for writing, will be too apparent by the uselessness of my
letter to any other purpose. I have no questions to ask • not that
I want curiosity after either the ancient or present state of regions,
in which have been seen all the power and splendour of wide-
extended empire ; and which, as by some grant of natural superiority,
supply the rest of the world with almost all that pride desires, and
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 237
luxury enjoys. But my knowledge of them is too scanty to furnish
me with proper topicks of enquiry. I can only wish for informa
tion ; and hope, that a mind comprehensive like yours will find
leisure, amidst the cares of your important station, to enquire into
many subjects of which the European world either thinks not at
all, or thinks with deficient intelligence and uncertain conjecture.
I shall hope, that he who once intended to increase the learning
of his country by the introduction of the Persian language, will
examine nicely the traditions and histories of the East ; that he
will survey the wonders of its ancient edifices, and trace the
vestiges of its ruined cities and that, at his return, we shall know
the arts and opinions of a race of men, from whom very little has
been hitherto derived.
You, Sir, have no need of being told by me, how much may be
added by your attention and patronage to experimental knowledge
and natural history. There are arts of manufacture practised in
the countries in which you preside, which are yet very imperfectly
known here, either to artificers or philosophers. Of the natural
productions, animate and inanimate, we yet have so little intelli
gence, that our books are filled, I fear, with conjectures about
things which an Indian peasant knows by his senses.
Many of those things my first wish is to see ; my second to
know by such accounts as a man like you will be able to give.
As I have not skill to ask proper questions, I have likewise no
such access to great men as can enable me to send you any political
information. Of the agitations of an unsettled government, and
the struggles of a feeble ministry, care is doubtless taken to give
you more exact accounts than I can obtain. If you are inclined to
interest yourself much in public transactions, it is no misfortune
to you to be so distant from them. That literature is not totally
forsaking us, and that your favourite language is not neglected,
will appear from the book, which I should have pleased myself
more with sending, if I could have presented it bound ; but time
was wanting. I beg, however, Sir, that you will accept it from a
man very desirous of your regard ; and that if you think me able
to gratify you by anything more important, you will employ me.
I am now going to take leave, perhaps a very long leave, of my
dear Mr. Chambers. That he is going to live where you govern,
may justly alleviate the regret of parting ; and the hope of seeing
238 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
both him and you again, which I am not willing to mingle with
doubt, must at present, comfort as it can, Sir,
Your most humble servant
SAM JOHNSON.
CXLVI.
The proudest man of his generation, the Earl of Chester
field, met with a most crushing rehuif at the hands of Dr.
Johnson. The great Lexicographer was not a proud man ; hut
what he denned as his defensive pride was capable of producing
the most galling results.
Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Earl of Chesterfield
February, 1775.
My Lord, — I have been lately informed by the proprietor of
the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended
to the publick, were written by your Lordship. To be so distin
guished, is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to
favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what
terms to acknowledge.
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your
Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the
enchantment of your address ; and could not forbear to wish that
I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre, — that
I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending;
but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride
nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once
addressed your Lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of
pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had
done all that I could ; and no man is well pleased to have his all
neglected, be it ever so little.
Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your
outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ; during which
time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which
it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last, to the verge
of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encourage
ment, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect,
for I never had a Patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at
last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a
1800] ENGLISH LE1TERS. 239
man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached
ground, encumbers him with help 1 The notice which you have
been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind ;
but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ;
till I am solitary, and cannot impart it ; till I am known, and do
not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess
obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling
that the publick should consider me as owing that to a Patron,
which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation
to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I
should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have been
long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted
myself with so much exultation,
My Lord
Your Lordship's most humble
most obedient servant
SAM JOHNSON.
CXLVII.
In this instance, however, we find Dr. Johnson gracefully
apologising for unwittingly wounding the pride of the house of
Rasay.
Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Laird of Rasay.
London : May 6, 1775.
Dear Sir, — Mr. Boswell has this day shewn me a letter, in
which you complain of a passage in * the Journey to the Hebrides/
My meaning is mistaken. I did not intend to say that you had
personally made any cession of the rights of your house, or any
acknowledgement of the superiority of M'Leod of Dunvegan. I
only designed to express what I thought generally admitted, — that
the house of Rasay allowed the superiority of the house of Dun-
vegan. Even this I now find to be erroneous, and will therefore
omit or retract it in the next edition.
Though what I had said had been true, if it had been dis
agreeable to you, I should have wished it unsaid ; for it is not my
business to adjust precedence. As it is mistaken, I find myself
disposed to correct it, both by my respect for you, and my reverence
for truth. As I know not when the book will he reprinted, 1 have
240 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
desired Mr. Boswell to anticipate the correction in the Edinburgh
papers.
This is all that can be done.
I hope I may now venture to desire that my compliments may
be made, and my gratitude expressed, to Lady Rasay, Mr. Malcolm
M'Leod, Mr. Donald M'Queen, and all the gentlemen and all the
ladies whom I saw in the Island of Rasay ; a place which I re
member with too much pleasure and too much kindness, not to be
sorry that my ignorance, or hasty persuasion, should, for a single
moment, have violated its tranquillity.
I beg you all to forgive an undesigned and involuntary injury,
and to consider me as,
Sir, your most obliged,
and most humble servant
SAM JOHNSON.
OXLVIII.
This question of precedence, so common North of the Tweed,
reminds one of Sir Walter Scott's favourite letter in which
Lord Macdonald makes reply to the head of the Glengarry
family.
My dear Glengarry,
As soon as you can prove yourself to be my chief I
shall be ready to acknowledge you; in the
meantime, I am yours,
MACDONALD.
The three following letters tell of the final rupture of the
friendship, extending over twenty years, of Dr. Johnson and Mrs.
Thrale. On June 30, 1784, Dr. Johnson, in common with the
other executors under Mr. Thrale's will, received an intimation
that Mrs. Thrale was actually married, or about to be married,
to Mr. Piozzi, an Italian music-master.
Dr. Samuel Johnson to Mrs. Piozzi.
July 2, 1784.
Madam, — If I intepret your letter right, you are ignominiously
married : if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If
you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive
your wickedness ; if you have forfeited your fame and your
country, may your folly do no further mischief. If the last act
is yet to do, I who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 241
you, and served you, I who long thought you the first of woman
kind, entreat that, before your fate is irrevocable, I may once more
see you. I was, I once was, Madam, most truly yours,
SAM JOHNSON.
I will come down, if you permit it.
OXLTX.
Dr. Samuel Johnson to Mrs. Piozzi.
London : July 8, 1784.
Dear Madam, — What you have done, however I may lament
it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me.
I therefore breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless,
but at least sincere.
I wish that God may grant you every blessing, that you may
be happy in this world for its short continuance, and eternally
happy in a better state ; and whatever I can contribute to your
happiness I am very ready to repay, for that kindness which
soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.
Do not think slightly of the advice which I now presume to
offer. Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle in England : you may live
here with more dignity than in Italy, and with more security ;
your rank will be higher, and your fortune more under your own
eye. I desire not to detail all my reasons, but every argument of
prudence and interest is for England, and only some phantoms of
imagination seduce you to Italy. I am afraid, however, that my
counsel is vain, yet I have eased my heart by giving it.
When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself
in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, attempting to dissuade
her, attended on her journey ; and when they came to the irre
meable stream that separated the two Kingdoms, walked by her
side into the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle,
and with earnestness proportioned to her danger and his own
affection pressed her to return. The Queen went forward. — If the
parallel reaches thus far, may it go no farther. — The tears stand
in my eyes.
I am going into Derbyshire, and hope to be followed by your
good wishes, for I am, with great affection,
Yours, &c.
242 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CL.
Mrs. Piozzi to Dr. Samuel Johnson.
July 4, 1784.
Sir, — I have this morning received from you so rough a letter
in reply to one which was both tenderly and respectfully written,
that I am forced to desire the conclusion of a correspondence which
I can bear to continue no longer.
The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my
first ; his sentiments are not meaner ; his profession is not meaner,
and his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all
mankind. It is want of fortune, then, that is ignominious ; the
character of the man I have chosen has no other claim to such an
epithet. The religion to which he has been always a zealous
adherent will, I hope, teach him to forgive insults he has not
deserved ; mine will, I hope, enable me to bear them at once with
dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame is
indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received.
My fame is as unsullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy
of him who must henceforth protect it.
I write by the coach the more speedily and effectually to prevent
your coming hither. Perhaps by my fame (and I hope it is so)
you mean only that celebrity which is a consideration of a much
lower kind. I care for that only as it may give pleasure to my
husband and his friends.
Farewell, dear Sir, and accept my best wishes. You have
always commanded my esteem, and long enjoyed the fruits of a
friendship, never infringed by one harsh expression on <my part
during twenty years of familiar talk. Never did I oppose your
willy nor can your unmerited severity itself lessen my regard ;
but till you have changed your opinion of Mr. Piozzi, let us
converse no more. God bless you.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 243
OLI.
The controversy raised by James Macpherson's publication
of some poems which he attributed to Ossian, a Highland poet
who flourished in the third century, was a long and bitter one.
It lasted during the latter hall' of Macpherson's life and con
tinued for several years after his death. It was alleged that
fragments of ancient poetry, sung in Gaelic by the natives
of the North of Scotland, and transmitted orally from singer
to singer, and from age to age, had been discovered in manu
script at the homes of the Highland peasantry ; and a sub
scription was raised in Edinburgh to enable Macpherson to ex
tend his researches, and produced the two epic poems ' Fingal*
and 'Temora.' Among the earliest admirers of Macpherson
were Dr. Blair, and our poets Shenstone and Gray ; but Dr.
Johnson at once denied the authenticity of the poems. Subse
quently a committee of the Highland Society of Edinburgh
reported that they had failed to discover any one poem the same
in title and tenor with the ' poems of Ossian.'
David Hume to .
Edinburgh : August 16, 1760.
Sir, — I am surprised to find by your letter, that Mr. Gray
should have entertained suspicions with regard to the authenticity
of these fragments of our Highland poetry. The first time I was
shown the copies of some of them in manuscript, by our friend
John Home, I was inclined to be a little incredulous on that head ;
but Mr. Home removed my scruples, by informing me of the man
ner in which he procured them from Mr. Macpherson, the trans
lator. These two gentlemen were drinking the waters together at
Moffat last autumn, when their conversation fell upon Highland
poetry, which Mr. Macpherson extolled very highly. Our friend,
who knew him to be a good scholar, and a man of taste, found .his
curiosity excited, and asked whether he had ever translated any of
them. Mr. Macpherson replied, that he never had attempted any
such thing, and doubted whether it was possible to transfuse such
beauties into our language ; but, for Mr. Home's satisfaction, and
in order to give him a general notion of the strain of that wild
poetry, he would endeavour to turn one of them into English. He
accordingly brought him one next day, which our friend was so
much pleased with, that he never ceased soliciting Mr. Macpherson,
244 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
till he insensibly produced that smaL volume which has been pub
lished.
After this volume was in everybody's hands, and universally
admired, we heard every day new reasons, which put the authen
ticity, not the great antiquity which the translator ascribes to
them, beyond all question, for their antiquity is a point, which
must be ascertained by reasoning ; though the arguments he em
ploys seem very probable and convincing. But certain it is, that
these poems are in everybody's mouth in the Highlands, have been
handed down from father to son, and are of an age beyond all
memory and tradition.
In the family of every Highland chieftain, there was anciently
retained a bard, whose office was the same with that of the Greek
rhapsqdists; and the general subject of the poems which they re
cited was the wars of Fingal ; an epoch no less remarkable among
them, than the wars of Troy among the Greek poets. This custom
is not even yet altogether abolished : the bard and piper are esteemed
the most honourable offices in a chieftain's family, and these two
characters are frequently united in the same person. Adam
Smith, the celebrated Professor in Glasgow, told me that the piper
of the Argyleshire Militia repeated to him all those poems which
Mr. Macpherson has translated, and many more of equal beauty.
Major Mackay, Lord Reay's brother, also told me that he remembers
them perfectly; as likewise did the Laird of Macfarlane, the greatest
antiquarian whom we have in this country, and who insists so
strongly on the historical truth, as well as on the poetical beauty
of these productions. I could add the Laird and Lady Macleod
to these authorities, with many more, if these Were not sufficient,
as they live in different parts of the Highlands, very remote from
each other, and they could only be acquainted with poems that
had become in a manner national works, and had gradually spread
themselves into every mouth, and imprinted themselves on every
memory. Every body in Edinburgh is so convinced of this truth,
that we have endeavoured to put Mr. Macpherson on a way of
procuring us more of these wild flowers. He is a modest, sensible,
young man, not settled in any living, but employed as a private tutor
in Mr. Grahame of Belgowan's family, a way of life which he is not
fond of. We have, therefore, set about a subscription of a guinea
or two guineas a-piece, in order to enable him to quit that family,
1800] -ENGLISH LETTERS. 215
and undertake a mission into the Highlands, where he hopes to
recover more of these fragments,
There is, in particular, a country surgeon somewhere in Loch-
abar, who, he says, can recite a great number of them, but never
committed them to writing • as indeed the orthography of the
Highland language is not fixed, and the natives have always em
ployed more the sword than the pen. This surgeon has by heart
the Epic poem mentioned by Mr. Macpherson in his Preface ; and
as he is somewhat old, and is the only person living that has it
entire, we are in the more haste to recover a monument, which
will certainly be regarded as a curiosity in the republic of letters.
I own that my first and chief objection to the authenticity of
these fragments was not on account of the noble and even tender
strokes which they contain ; for these are the offspring of genius
and passion in all countries ; I was only surprised at the regular
plan which appears in some of these pieces, and which seems to be
the work of a more cultivated age. None of the specimens of bar
barous poetry known to us, the Hebrew, Arabian, or any other,
contain this species of beauty ; and if a regular epic poem, or even
any thing of that kind, nearly regular, should also eome from that
rough climate or uncivilized people, it wrould appear to me a phe
nomenon altogether unaccountable.
I remember Mr. Macpherson told me, that the heroes of this
Highland epic were no't only, like Homer's heroes, their own
butchers, bakers, and cooks, but also their own shoemakers, car
penters, and smiths. He mentioned an incident which put this
matter in a remarkable light. A warrior had the head of his
spear struck off in battle ; upon which he immediately retires be
hind the army, where a large forge was erected, makes a new one,
hurries back to the action, pierces his enemy while the iron,
which was yet red-hot, hisses in the wound. This imagery you will
allow to be singular, and so well imagined that it would have
been adopted by Homer, had the manners of the Greeks allowen
him to have employed it.
I forgot to mention, as another proof of the authenticity of
these poems, and even of the reality of the adventures contained in
them, that the names of the heroes, Fingal, Oscar, Osur, Oscan,
Dermid, are still given in the Highlands to large mastiffs, in the
eame manner as we affix to them the names of Caesar, Pompey,
12
246 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Hector, or the French that of Marlborough. It gives me pleasure
to find that a person of so fine a taste as Mr. Gray approves
of these fragments; as- it may convince us that our fondness
of them is not altogether founded on national prepossessions, which,
however, you know to be a little strong. The translation is ele
gant, but I made an objection to the author, which I wish you
would communicate to Mr. Gray, that we may judge of the just
ness of it. There appeared to me many verses in his prose, and
all of them in the same measure with Mr. Shenstone's famous
ballad,—
Ye shepherds, so cheerful and gay,
"Whose flocks never carelessly roam, &e.
Pray, ask Mr. Gray whether he made the same remark, &c., and
whether he thinks it a blemish.
Yours most sincerely, &c.
CLII.
The feud "between Jean Jacques Rousseau and David Hume,
the historian, is a curious passage of literary history.
During his stay in this country Rousseau found a delightful
home at Wotton, the residence of a Mr. Davenport. David
Hume had procured this home for the ' apostle of affliction/ and
was acknowledged to "be his ' cher patron ; ' more than this, he
had been instrumental in obtaining from*George III. a pension
for his friend. Out of some correspondence connected with this
grant of money, but chiefly owing to a letter reflecting on
Rousseau's moral ailments, written by Horace Walpole under the
signature of the King of Prussia, arose a dispute which severed
this fretful foreigner's connection with Hume and with England.
Without a shadow of evidence Rousseau charged his benefactor
with enticing him to England for the sole purpose of reducing
him to derision and captivity, and insisted that the most consider
able personages in the realm were privy to the plot. Mr. Hume,
it will be seen, did not choose to treat his ungrateful assailant
as an unfortunate monomaniac, but as an intensely vain and
quarrelsome person.
David Hume to Jean Jacques Rousseau.
June 26, 1766.
As I am conscious of having ever acted towards you the most
friendly part, of having always given you the most tender and the
most active proofs of sincere affection, you may judge of my extreme
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 217
surprise on perusing your epistle. Such . violent accusations, con
fined altogether to generalities, it is as impossible to answer as it
is impossible to comprehend them. But affairs cannot, must not,
remain on that footing. I shall charitably suppose that some
infamous calumniator has belied me to you. But, in that case, it
is your duty, and, I am persuaded, it will be your inclination, to
give me an opportunity of detecting him, and of justifying myself,
which can only be done by your mentioning the particulars of
which I am accused. You say that I myself know that I have
been false to you ; but I say it loudly, and will say it to the whole
world, that I know the contrary ; that I know my friendship to
wards you has been unbounded and uninterrupted ] and that
though I have given you instances of it, which have been uni
versally remarked both in France and England, the public as yet
are acquainted only with the smallest part of it. I demand that
you name to me the man who dares assert the contrary ; and,
above all, I demand that he shall mention any one particular in
which I have been wanting to you. You owe this to me, you owe
it to yourself, you owe it to truth, and honour, and justice, and to
every thing deemed sacred among men. As an innocent man —
for I will not say as your friend, I will not say as your benefactor —
but I repeat it, as an innocent man I claim the privilege of prov
ing my innocence and of refuting any scandalous falsehood which
may have been invented against me. Mr. Davenport, to whom I
have sent a copy of your letter, and who will read this before he
delivers it, will, I am confident, second my demand and tell you
that nothing can be more equitable. Happily I have preserved
the letter you wrote me after your arrival at Wotton ] and you
there express, in the strongest terms, in terms indeed too strong,
your satisfaction in my poor endeavours to serve you. The little
epistolary intercourse which afterwards passed between us has
been all employed on my side to the most friendly purposes. Tell
me, then, what has since given you offence 1 Tell me of what
am accused. Tell me the man who accuses me. Even after you
have fulfilled all these conditions to my satisfaction, and to that
of Mr. Davenport, you will still have great difficulty to justify
your employing such outrageous terms towards a man with whom
you have been so intimately connected, and who was entitled, on
many accounts, to have been treated by you with more regard and
248 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
decency. Mr. Davenport knows the whole transaction about your
pension, because I thought it necessary thab the person who had
undertaken your settlement should be fully acquainted with your
circumstances, lest he should be tempted to perform towards you
concealed acts of generosity, wrbich, if they accidentally came to
your knowledge, might give you some grounds of offence.
I am, Sir, &c.
CLIII.
David Hume to Dr. Blair.
July 15, 1768.
Dear Doctor, — I go in a few hours to "Woburn ; so can only
give you the outline of my history. Through many difficulties I
obtained a pension for Eousseau. The application was made with
his own consent and knowledge. I write him that all is happily
completed, and he need only draw for the money. He answers
me that I am a rogue and a rascal ; and have brought him into
England merely to dishonour him. I demand the reason of this
strange language, and Mr. Davenport, the gentleman with whom
he lives, tells him that he must necessarily satisfy me. To-day I
received a letter from him, which is perfect frenzy. It would
make a good eighteen-penny pamphlet ; and I fancy he intends to
publish it. He there tells me, that D'Alembert, Horace Walpole,
and I, had from the first entered into a combination to ruin him,
and had ruined him. That the first suspicion of my treachery
arose in him while we lay together in the same room of an inn in
France. I there spoke in my sleep, and betrayed my intention of
ruining him. That young Tronchin lodged in the same house
with me at London ; and Annie Elliot looked very coldly at him
as he went by her in the passage. That I am also in a close con
federacy with Lord Lyttelton, who, he hears, is his mortal enemy.
That the English nation were very fond of him on his first arrival ;
but that Horace "Walpole and I had totally alienated them from
him. He owns, however, that his belief of my treachery went no
higher than suspicion while he was in London ; but it rose to cer
tainty after he arrived in the country ; for that there were several
publications in the papers against him, which could have proceeded
from nobody but me or my confederate, Horace Walpole. The
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 249
rest is all of a like strain, intermixed .with many lies and much
malice. I own that I was very anxious about this affair, but this
letter has totally relieved me. I write in a hurry, merely to
satisfy your curiosity. I hope soon to see you, and am, &c.
CLIV.
Ignatius Sancho was an emancipated negro, who, having been
struck with a passage in one of Sterne's sermons, describing the
misery and injustice of slavery, addressed a letter to him. The
author of i Tristram Shandy,' touched with the poor Black's
enthusiastic compliments and simple eloquence, replied : —
Lawrence Sterne to Ignatius SancJio.
Ooxwold: July 27, 17CG.
There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events (as
well as in the gveat ones) of this world ; for I had been writing a
tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl ; and my
eyes had scarce clone smarting with it, when your letter of recom
mendation, in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, came
to me ; — but why her brethren 1 — or yours, Sancho, — any more
than mine 1
It is by the finest tints and most insensible gradations that
Nature descends from the fairest face about St. James's to the
sootiest complexion in Africa. — At which tint of these is it, that
the ties of blood are to cease 1 and how many shades must we
descend lower still in the scale, ere mercy is to vanish with them 1
But 'tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the
world to use the other half of it like brutes, and then endea
vour to make them so. For my own part, I never look westward
(when I am in a pensive mood at least) but I think of the burdens
which our brothers and sisters are there carrying ; and, could I
ease their shoulders from one ounce of them, I declare I would set
out this hour upon a pilgrimage to Mecca for their sakes ; which,
by the by, Sancho, exceeds your walk of ten miles in about the
same proportion that a visit of humanity should one of mere form.
• — However, if you meant my Uncle Toby, more he is your debtor.
If I can weave the tale I have wrote into the work I am about,
'tis at the service of the afflicted — and a much greater matter ; for,
in serious truth, it casts a sad shade upon the world, that so great
250 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
a part of it are, and have been so long, bound in chains of dark
ness, and in chains of misery, and I cannot but both respect and felici
tate yon, that, by so much laudable diligence, you have broke the
one ; — and that, by falling into the hands of so good and merciful
a family, Providence has rescued you from the other.
And so, good-hearted Saiicho, adieu ! and, believe me, I will
not forget your letter.
Yours,
L. STERNE.
CLV.
Lawrence Sterne was in London, carrying his l Sentimental
Journey ' through the press, about the time this letter was
written. He was dying slowly of consumption, lonely and
wretched amid all his social triumphs. His wife and his
daughter Lydia, to whom he was much attached, were away
from him, alienated, it is to be feared, by his misconduct. The
1 incomparable woman ' he alludes to was Mrs. Eliza Draper,
who plays such an important part in his correspondence.
Lawrence Sterne to Miss Sterne.
Bond Street : April 9; 1767.
This letter, my dear Lydia, will distress thy good heart ; for,
from the beginning, thou wilt perceive no entertaining strokes of
humour in it. I cannot be cheerful when a thousand melancholy
ideas surround me. I have met with a loss of near fifty pounds,
which I was taken in for in an extraordinary manner — but what
is that loss in comparison of one I may experience 1 Friendship
is the balm and cordial of life, and without it 'tis a heavy load
not worth sustaining. I am unhappy — thy mother and thyself at
a distance from me ; and what can compensate for such a destitu
tion1? For God's sake, persuade her to come and fix in England,
for life is too short to waste in separation ; and, whilst she lives
in one country and I in another, many people will suppose it pro
ceeds from choice ; besides, I want thee near me, thou child and
darling of my heart ! I am in a melancholy mood, and my Lydia's
eyes will smart with weeping, when I tell her the cause that now
affects me. I am apprehensive the dear friend I mentioned in my
last letter is going into a decline. I was with her two days ago,
and I never beheld a being so altered ; she has a tender frame, and
looks like a drooping lily, for the roses are fled from her cheeks.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 251
can never see or talk to this incomparable woman without burst
ing into tears. I have a thousand obligations to her, and I owe
her more than her whole sex, if not all the world put together.
She has a delicacy in her way of thinking that few possess. Our
conversations are of the most interesting nature ; and she talks to
me of quitting this world with more composure than others think
of living in it. I have wrote an epitaph, of which I send thee a
copy ; — 'tis expressive of her modest worth ; — but may Heaven
restore her; — and may she live to write mine !
Columns and labour'd urns but vainly show
An idle scene of decorative woe ;
The sweet companion, and the friend sincere,
Need no mechanic help to force the tear.
In heartfelt numbers, never meant to shine,
'Twill flow eternal o'er a hearse like thine ;
'Twill flow whilst gentle goodness has one friend,
Or kindred tempers have a tear to lend.
Say all that is kind of me to thy mother, and believe me, my
Lydia, that I love thee most truly.
So adieu. I am what I ever was, and hope ever shall be,
Thy affectionate Father,
L. STERNE.
As to Mr. M , by your description he is a fat fool. I beg
you will not give up your time to such a being. Send me some
batons pours les dents ; there are none good here.
CLVI.
"William Shenstone, one of the most pleasing of our minor
poets and the author of the once famous l Pastoral Ballad,' here
inculcates with much elegance and good sense the value of
social intercourse as a necessary ingredient to man's happiness.
A bachelor and a recluse himself he scarcely practised what he
preached, though his inconsistency in this case so far from
diminishing adds rather to his authority on the subject with
which he deals.
William Shenstone to Mr. Graves.
[1745.]
Dear Mr. Graves,— There is not a syllable you tell me con
cerning yourself in your last letter, but what applied to me is most
252 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700
literally true. I am sensible of the daily progress I make towards
insignificancy, and it will not be many years before you see me
arrived at the ne plus ultra. I believe it is absolutely impossible
for me to acquire a considerable degree of knowledge, though I can
understand things well enough at the time I read them. I remem
ber a preacher at St. Mary's (I think it was Mr. E ) made a
notable distinction betwixt apprehension and comprehension. If
there be a real difference, probably it may find a place in the expli
cation of my genius. I envy you a good general insight into the
writings of the learned. I must aim at nothing higher than a
well-concealed ignorance. — I was thinking, upon reading your
letter, where it was that you and Mr. Whistler and I went out of
the road of happiness. It certainly was where we first deviated
from the turnpike-road of life. Wives, children, alliances, visits,
&c. are necessary objects of our social passions ; a-nd whether or no
we can, through particular circumstances, be happy with, I think
it plain enough that it is not possible to be happy without them.
All attachments to inanimate beauties, to curiosities, and orna
ments, satiate us presently. — The fanciful tribe has the disadvan
tage to be naturally prone to err in the choice of lasting pleasures :
and when our passions have habitually wandered, it is too difficult
to reduce them into their proper channels. When this is the case,
nothing but the change or variety of amusements stands any
chance to make us easy, and it is not long ere the whole species is
exhausted. I agree with you entirely in the necessity of a sociable
life in order to be happy : I do not think it much a paradox, that
any company is better than none. I think it obvious enough as to
the present hour; and as to any future influence, solitude has
exceeding savage effects on our dispositions. — I have wrote out my
elegy : I lay no manner of stress but upon the piety of it. —
Would it not be a good kind of motto, applied to a person you
know, that might be taken from what is said of Ophelia in
Hamlet,
I tell thee, faithless priest,
A ministering angel shall Ophelia be
When thou art howling.1
I have amused myself often with this species of writing since you
1 The writer is obviously quoting from memory, and not altogether
correctly.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 253
saw me ; partly to divert my present impatience, and partly as it
will be a picture of most that passes in my mind ; a portrait
which friends may value. — I should be glad of your profile : if
you have objections, I drop my request. — I should be heartily glad
if you would come and live with me, for any space of time that
you could find convenient. But I will depend on your coming
over with Mr. Whistler in the spring. I may possibly take a
jaunt towards you ere long : the road would furnish me out some
visits ; and, by the time I reached you, perhaps, afford me a kind
of climax of happiness. If I do not, I shall perhaps be a little
time at Bath. I do not speak of this last as a scheme from which
I entertain great expectations of pleasure. It is long since I have
considered myself as undone. The world will not perhaps consider
me in that light entirely, till I have married my maid. Adieu !
CLVIT.
Hichard Jago was in his day (1715-1781) a poet of some
repute, though his principal claim to notice now is his intimacy
with Shenstone. The tenderness and grace which characterise
many of Shenstone's poems seem to be reflected in the prose of
the present letter, which is evidently the work of an amiable
and sincere man.
William Shenstone to Richard Jago.
November 15, 1752.
Dear Mr. Jago, — Could I with convenience mount my horse,
and ride to Harbury this instant, I should much more willingly do
so than begin this letter. Such terrible events have happened to
us, since we saw each other last, that, however irksome it may be
to dwell upon them, it is in the same degree unnatural to substi
tute any subject in their place. I do sincerely forgive your long
silence, my good friend, indeed I do ; though it gave me uneasi
ness. I hope you do the same by mine. I own, I could not
readily account for the former period of yours, any otherwise than
by supposing that I had said, or done something, in the levity of
my heart, which had given you disgust ; but being conscious to
myself of the most sincere regard for you, and believing it could
never be discredited for any trivial inadvertences, I remember, I
continued still in expectation of a letter, and did not dream of
writing till such time as I had received one. I trusted you would
12*
251 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700^
write at last ; and that, by all my past endeavours to demonstrate
my friendship, you would believe the tree was rooted in my heart
whatever irregularity you might observe in the branches.
This was my situation before that dreadful sera which gave me
such a shock as to banish my best friends for a time out of my
memory. And when they recurred, as they did the first of any
thing, I was made acquainted with that deplorable misfortune
of yours ! believe me, I sympathized in your affliction, notwith
standing my own ; but alas ! what comfort could I administer,
who had need of every possible assistance to support myself? I
wrote indeed a few letters with difficulty ; amongst the rest, one
to my friend Graves ; but it was to vent my complaint. I will
send you the letter, if you please, as it is by far my least painful
method of conveying you some account of my situation. Let it
convince you, that I could have written nothing at that time,
which could have been of any service to you : let it afford you, at
least, a faint sketch of my dearest brother's character ; but let it
not appear an ostentatious display of sorrow, of which I am by no
means guilty. I know but too well that I discovered upon the
occasion, what some would call, an unmanly tenderness ; but I
know also, that sorrow upon such subjects as these is very con
sistent with virtue, and with the most absolute resignation to the
just decrees of providence — ' Hominis est enim affici dolore
sentire ; resistere tamen & solatia admittere non solatiis non
egere.' — Pliny. I drank, purchased amusements, never suffered
myself to be a minute without company, no matter what, so it
was but continual. At length, by an attention to such conversa
tion and such amusements as I could at other times despise, I
forgot so far as to be cheerful. — And after this, the summer,
through an almost constant succession of lively and agreeable
visitants, proved even a scene of jollity. — It was inebriation all,
though of a mingled nature ; yet has it maintained a sort of truce
with grief, till time can assist me more effectually by throwing
back the event to a distance. — Now, indeed that my company has
all forsaken me, and I am delivered up to winter, silence, and re-
llection, the incidents of the last year revive apace in my memory ;
and I am even astonished to think of the gaiety of my summer.
The fatal anniversary, the ' dies quern semper acerbum &c.' is
beginning to approach, and every face of the sky suggests the ideas
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 255
of last winter. — Yet I find myself cheerful in company, nor would
I recommend it to you to be much alone. — You would lay the
highest obligation upon me by coming over at this time. — I
pressed your brother, whom I saw at Birmingham, to use his
influence with you ; but if you can by no means undertake the
journey, I will take my speediest opportunity of seeing you at
Harbury. Mr. Miller invited me strenuously to meet Dr. Lyttel-
ton at his house ; but I believe my most convenient season will
be, when my Lord Dudley goes to Barrels ; for T can but ill bear
the pensiveness of a long and lonely expedition. After all, if you
can come hither first, it would afford me the most entire satisfac
tion. — I have been making alterations in my house that would
amuse you ; and have many matters to discourse with you, which
it would be endless to mention upon paper. Adieu ! my dear
friend ! May your merit be known to some one who has greater
power to serve you than myself ; but be assured at the same time,
that no one loves you better, or esteems you more.
"W. SHENSTONE.
CLVIII.
The Rev. Norton Nicholls was a young- man who recom
mended himself to Gray, when an undergraduate at Cambridge,
by his elegant acquaintance with Italian literature. He became
the most intimate friend of the poet, and his ' Recollections of
Gray ' are by far the best we possess. He was refined and
vivacious in temperament, and suited the shy and melancholy
scholar of Pembroke to perfection. The following letter gives
us little idea of Gray's habitual life at Cambridge. ' Gray y
vivait,' says Bonstettin, ' enseveli dans line espece de cloitre,
d'oii le quinzieme siecle n'avait pas encore de'menageV
Thomas Gray to the Rev. Norton Nicholls.
Pembroke College, November 8, 1768.
Not a single word since we parted at Norwich, and for aught 1
know, you may be ignorant how I fell into the jaws of the King of
Denmark at Newmarket, and might have staid there till this time,
had I not met with Mr. Vice-chancellor and Mr. Orator, with their
diplomas and speeches ; who, on their return to Cambridge, sent
me a chaise from thence, and delivered me out of that den of
thieves. However, I passed a night there ; and in the next room,
256 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
divided from me by a thin partition, was a drunken parson and his
party of pleasure, singing and swearing, and breaking all the ten
commandments All that I saw on my way else was the abbey
church at Wyndham, to learned eyes a beautiful remnant of anti
quity, part of it in the style of Henry the First, and part in that
of Henry the Sixth ; the wooden fretwork of the north aisle you
may copy, when you build the best room of your new Gothic par
sonage, it will cost but a trifle. So now 1 am going to town about
my business, which (if I dispatch to my mind) will leave me at
rest, and with a tolerably easy temper for one while. I return
hither as soon as I can, and give you notice what a sweet
humour I am in. Mrs. Nicholls and you take advantage of it,
come and take possession of the lodge at Trinity Hall, (by the
way, I am commissioned to offer it to you by Dr. Marriott for
that purpose, and you have nothing to do but to thank him for his
civilities, and say at what time you intend to make use of them ;)
and so we live in clover, and partake the benefits of a University
education together, as of old. Palgrave is returned from Scotland,
and will perhaps be here. Mason too, if he is not married, (for
such a report there is) may come, and Dr. Hallifax is always at
your service. Lord Richard Cavendish is come : he is a sensible
boy, awkward and bashful beyond all imagination, and eats a
buttock of beef at a meal. I have made him my visit, and we did
tolerably well considering. Watson is his public tutor, and one
Winstanley his private ; do you know him 1
Marriott has begun a subscription for a musical amphitheatre,
has appropriated ^500 (Mr. Titley's legacy to the University) to
that purpose, and gives twenty guineas himself. He has drawn a
design for the building, and has printed an argument about the
poor's-rates, which he intended to have delivered from the bench,
but one of the parties dropped the cause. He has spoke at the
Quarter Sessions two hours together, and moved the towns-people
to tears, and the University to laughter. At laying down his
office too he spoke Latin and said, Invidiam, et opinwnum de me
commenta delebit dies. He enlarged (which is never done) on the
qualifications of Hinchliffe his successor, qui mores hominum mul-
torum vidit et urbes — qui cum Magnis vixit et placuit. Next day
Hinchliffe made his speech, and said not one word (though it is
usual) of his predecessor. I tell you Cambridge news for want of
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 257
better. They say Rigby is to move for the expulsion of Wilkes
from the house. My respects to mamma.
I am yours,
T. G.
Tell me about my uncle and aunt : direct to Roberts, Jermyn
Street.
CLIX.
The modern appreciation of light and colour in landscape
was a thing quite unknown to our ancestors, and it is in this
letter that the greatest lyric poet of his age, accidentally and as
if carried out of himself by the instinct of beauty, inaugurates
the style of descriptive writing which has reached its apex in
Mr. Ruskin. We see that he was a little ashamed of his enthu
siasm ; we see, moreover that he had been reading the last new
poem, Mr. Christopher Anstey's 'New Bath Guide,' already,
though but three months old, * the most fashionable of books.'
Thomas Gray to the Rev. Norton Nicholls.
Pembroke Hall: August 26, 1766.
Dear Sir, — It is long since that I heard you were gone in haste
into Yorkshire on account of your mother's illness ; and the same
letter informed me that she was recovered ; otherwise I had then
wrote to you, only to beg you would take care of her, and to in
form you that I had discovered a thing very little known, which
is, that in one's whole life one never can have any more than a
single mother. You may think this is obvious, and (what you
call) a trite observation. You are a green gosling ! I was at the
same age (very near) as wise as you, and yet I never discovered
this (with full evidence and conviction, I mean) till it was too
late. It is thirteen years ago, and seems but yesterday; and
every day I live it sinks deeper into my heart.
Many a corollary could I draw from this axiom for your use,
(not for my own) but I will leave you the merit of doing it your
self. Pray tell me how your own health is. I conclude it perfect,
as I hear you offered yourself for a guide to Mr. Palgrave, into
the Sierra-Morena of Yorkshire. For me, I passed the end of
May and all J une in Kent not disagreeably ; the country is all a
garden, gay, rich, and fruitful, and (from the rainy season) had
preserved, till I left it, all that emerald verdure, which commonly
253 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
only one sees for the first fortnight of the spring. In the west
part of it from every eminence the eye catches some long winding
reach of the Thames or Medway, with all their navigation ; in the
east, the sea breaks in upon you, and mixes its white transient
sails arid glittering blue expanse with the deeper and brighter
greens of the woods and corn. This last sentence is so fine, I am
quite ashamed ; but, no matter ; you must translate it into prose.
Palgrave, if he heard it, would cover his face with his pudding
sleeve,
I went to Margate for a day ; one would think it was Bar
tholomew fair that Imd flown down from Smithfield to Kent in the
London machine, like my Lady Stuffdamask : (to be sure you
have read the New Bath Guide, the most fashionable of books) so
then I did not go to Kinsgate, because it belonged to my Lord
Holland ; but to Bamsgate I did, and so to Sandwich, and Deal,
and Dover, and Folkestone, and Hythe, all along the coast, very
delightful. I do not tell you of the great and small beasts, and
creeping things innumerable that I met with, because you do not
suspect that this world is inhabited by any thing but men and
women and clergy, and such two-legged cattle.
Now I am here again very disconsolate and all alone, even
Mr. Brown is gone ; and the cares of this world are coming thick
upon me ; I do not mean children. You, I hope, are better off,
riding and walking with Mr. Aislaby, singing duets with my
cousin Fanny, improving with Mr. Weddell, conversing with
Mr. Harry Duncomb. I must not wish for you here ; besides, I
am going to town at Michaelmas, by no means for amusement.
Do you remember how we are to go into Wales next year ? Well !
Adieu, I am sincerely yours. T. G.
P.S. Pray how does poor Temple find himself in his new
situation? Is Lord Lisburne as good as his letters were ? What
is come of the father and brother ? Have you seen Mason ?
CLX.
Phe one thing Horace Walpole specially prided himself upon
being an excellent correspondent. He held that ' letter-
The one
was
writing is one of the first duties that the very best people let
perish out of their rubric ; ' but he has certainly made amends
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 259
for the shortcomings, in this respect, of many equally witty and
accomplished persons by bequeathing to his successors the best
and most entertaining collection of letters in our language.
For variety of anecdote and scandal, malicious humour,
pleasant cynicism, and lively tittle-tattle, couched in a style at
once piquant and graceful, his epistles are quite incomparable.
We must bear in mind, however, that Walpole's aim. in life was
to be amused, and that he gratified this propensity by playing
the part of a fashionable critic and thoroughbred virtuoso. His
social position, his wealth, his extensive connection with cour
tiers and aristocrats, litterateurs and blue- stockings, and his
great powers of observation, afforded him unequalled opportuni
ties for gratifying his whim. But he was too unsparing a judge
of the vanities and foibles of his own age to escape being placed
in the stocks himself ; and Macaulay has done it.
The Hon. Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill : June 4, 1740.
As summerly as June and Strawberry Hill may sound, I
assure you I am writing to you by the fire-side : English weather
will give vent to its temper, and whenever it is out of humour it
will blow east and north and all kinds of cold. Your brothers
Ned and Gal. dined with me to-day, and I carried the latter back
to Richmond : as I passed over the green, I saw Lord Bath, Lord
Lonsdale, and half-a-dozen more of the White's club sauntering at
the door of a house which they have taken there, and come to
every Saturday and Sunday to play at whist. You will naturally
ask why they can't play at whist in London on those two days as
well as on the other five ; indeed I can't tell you, except that it is
so established a fashion to go out of town at the end of the week,
that people do go, though it be only into another town. It made
me smile to see Lord Bath sitting there, like a citizen that has
left off trade ! Your brother Ned had not seen Strawberry Hill
since my great improvements ; he was astonished : it is pretty :
you never saw so tranquil a scene, without the least air of
melancholy ; I should hate it, if it was dashed with that. I
forgot to ask Gal. what is become of the books of Hough ton
which I gave him six months ago for you and Dr. Cocchi. You
perceive I have got your letter of May 23rd, and with it Prince
Craon's simple epistle to his daughter : I have no mind to de
liver it : it would be a proper recommendation of a staring boy on
his travels, and is consequently very suitable to my colleague,
260 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Master St. Leger ; but one hates to be coupled with a romping
greyhound puppy, * qui est moiiis prudent que Monsieur Yalpol!1
I did not want to be introduced to Madame de Mirepoix's as
semblies, but to be acquainted with her, as I like her family :
I concluded, simple as he is, that an old Frenchman knew how to
make these distinctions. By thrusting St. Leger into the letter
with me, and talking of my prudence, I shall not wonder if she
takes me for his bear-leader, his travelling governor !
Mr. Chute, who went from hence this morning, and is always
thinking of blazoning your pedigree in the noblest colours, has
turned over all my library, till he has tapped a new and very great
family for you : in short, by your mother it is very clear that you
are descended from Hubert de Burgh, Grand Justiciary to Richard
the Second : l indeed I think he was hanged ; but that is a mis
fortune that will attend very illustrious genealogies ; it is as
common to them as to the pedigrees about Paddington and Black-
heath. I have had at least a dozen great- great-grandfathers that
came to untimely ends. All your Virtuosos in heraldry are con
tent to know that they had ancestors who lived five hundred
years ago, no matter how they died. A match with a low woman
corrupts a stream of blood as long as the Danube, — tyranny,
villainy, and executions are mere fleabites, and leave no stain.
The good Lord of Bath, whom I saw on Richmond-green this
evening, did intend, I believe, to ennoble my genealogy with
another execution ; how low is he sunk now from those views,
and how entertaining to have lived to see all those virtuous patriots
proclaiming their mutual iniquities ! Your friend Mr. Doddington,
it seems, is so reduced as to be relapsing into virtue. In my last
I told you some curious anecdotes of another part of the band, of
Pope and Bolingbroke. The friends of the former have published
twenty pamphlets against the latter ; I say against the latter, for,
as there is no defending Pope, they are reduced to satirize Boling
broke. One of them tells him how little he would be known him
self from his own writings, if he were not immortalized in Pope's ;
and still more justly, that if he destroys Pope's moral character,
what will become of his own, which has been retrieved and sanc
tified by the embalming art of his friend 1 However, there are still
1 This is clearly an oversight. Hubert de Burgh was Henry the Third's
Justiciar ; and the office was abolished long before the reign of Richard II.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 261
new discoveries made every day of Pope's dirty selfishness. Not
content with, the great profits which he proposed to make of the
work in question, he conld not bear that the interest of his money
should be lost till Bolingbroke's death ; and therefore told him that
it would cost very near as much to have the press set for half-a
dozen copies as it would for a complete edition, and by this mean,
made Lord Bolingbroke pay very near the whole expense of he
fifteen hundred. Another story I have been told on this occasion,
was of a gentleman who, making a visit to Bishop Atterbury in
France, thought to make his court by commending Pope. The
Bishop replied not : the gentleman doubled the dose : at last the
Bishop shook his head, and said, ' Mens curva in corpore curvo ! '
The world will now think j ustly of these men : that Pope was the
greatest poet, but not the most disinterested man in the world ;
and that Bolingbroke had not all those virtues and not all those
talents which the other so proclaimed ; and that he did not even
deserve the friendship which lent him so much merit ; and for the
mere loan of which he dissembled attachment to Pope, to whom in
his heart he was as perfidious and as false as he has been to the
rest of the world.
The Duke of Devonshire has at last resigned, for the unaccount
able and unenvied pleasure of shutting himself up at Chatsworth
with his ugly mad Duchess ; the more extraordinary sacrifice, as
he turned her head, rather than give up a favourite match for his
son. She has consented to live with him there, and has even been
with him in town for a few days, but did not see either her son or
Lady Harrington. On his resignation he asked and obtained an
English barony for Lord Besborough, whose son Lord Duncannon,
you know, married the Duke's eldest daughter. I believe this is
a great disappointment to my uncle, who hoped he would ask the
peerage for him or Pigwiggin. The Duke of Marlborough suc
ceeds as lord steward. Adieu !
CLXI.
The Hon. Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street: June 25, 1749.
Don't flatter yourself with your approaching year of Jubilee :
its pomps and vanities will be nothing to the shows and triumphs
202 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
we have had and are having. I talk like an Englishman : here
you know we imagine that a jubilee is a season of pageants, not
of devotion ; but our Sabbath has really been all tilt and tourna
ment. There have been, I think, no less than eight masquerades,
the fire- works, and a public act at Oxford : to-morrow is an instal
lation of six Knights of the Bath, arid in August of as many
Garters : Saturday, Sunday, and Monday next, are the banquets
at Cambridge, for the instalment of the Duke of Newcastle as
chancellor. The whole world goes to it : he has invited, sum
moned, pressed the entire body of nobility and gentry from all
parts of England. His cooks have been there these ten days,
distilling essences of every living creature, and massacring and
confounding all the species that Noah and Moses took such pains to
preserve and distinguish. It would be pleasant to see pedants and
professors searching for etymologies of strange dishes, and tracing
more wonderful transformations than any in the Metamorphoses.
How miserably Horace's unde et quo Catius will be hacked about
in clumsy quotations ! I have seen some that will be very unwil
ling performers at the creation of this ridiculous Mamamouchi.1
I have set my heart on their giving a doctor's degree to the
Duchess of Newcastle's favourite — this favourite is at present
neither a lover nor an apothecary, but a common pig, that she
brought from Hanover : I am serious ; and Harry Yane, the new lord
of the treasury, is entirely employed, when he is not at the Board,
in opening and shutting the door for it. Tell me, don't you very
often throw away my letters in a passion, and believe that I invent
the absurdities I relate ! — Were not we as mad when you was in
England 1
The King, who has never dined out of his own palaces, has
just determined to dine at Claremont to-morrow — all the cooks
are at Cambridge — imagine the distress !
Last Thursday, the Monarch of my last paragraph gave away
the six vacant ribands : one to a Margrave of Anspach, a near
relation of the late Queen; others to the Dukes of Leeds and
Bedford, Lords Albemarle and Granville : the last, you may
imagine, gives some uneasiness. The Duke of Bedford has always
been unwilling to take one, having tied himself up in the days of
his patriotism to forfeit great sums if ever he did. The King told
J See Moli£re's Bourgeois Gentillwmmc.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 263
him one day this winter, that he would give none away but to
him and to Anspach. This distinction struck him : he could not
refuse the honour; but he has endeavoured to waive it, as one
imagines, by a scruple he raised against the oath, which obliges
the Knights, whenever they are within two miles of Windsor, to
go and offer. The King would not abolish the oath, but has given
a general dispensation for all breaches of it, past, present, and to
come. Lord Lincoln and Lord Harrington are very unhappy at
not being in the list. The sixth riband is at last given to Prince
George : the Ministry could not prevail for it till within half an
hour of the ceremony ; then the Bishop of Salisbury was sent to
notify the gracious intention. The Prince was at Kew, so the
message was delivered to Prince George himself. The child, with
great good sense, desired the Bishop to give his duty and thanks,
and to assure the King that he should always obey him ; but that,
as his father was out of town, he could send no other answer. "Was
not it clever ? The design of not giving one riband to the Prince's
children had made great noise : there was a Remembrancer l on
that subject ready for the press. This is the Craftsman of the
present age, and is generally levelled at the Duke, and filled with
very circumstantial cases of his arbitrary behaviour. It has
absolutely written down Hawley, his favourite general and execu
tioner, who was to have been upon the staff.
Garrick is married to the famous Violette,2 first at a Protestant,
and then at a Roman Catholic chapel. The chapter of this histoiy
is a little obscure and uncertain as to the consent of the protecting
Countess, and whether she gives her a fortune or not.
Adieu ! I believe I tell you strange rhapsodies ; but you must
consider that our follies are not only very extraordinary, but are
our business and employment : they enter into our politics, nay,
I think they are our politics — and I don't know which are the
simplest. They are Tully's description of poetry, * haec studia
juventutem alunt, senectutem oblectant; pernoctant nobiscum,
peregrinantur, rusticantur,' so if you will that I write to you, you
must be content with a detail of absurdities. I could tell you of
Lord Mountford's making cricket-matches, and fetching up parsons
1 A weekly newspaper.
2 A German dancer at the Opera House, and a protegee of Dorothy,
Countess of Burlington.
2G4 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
by express from different parts of England to play matches on
Richmond-green ; of his keeping aide-de camps to ride to all parts
to lay bets for him at horse-races, and of twenty other pecu
liarities ; but I fancy you are tired : in short, you, who know me,
will comprehend all best when I tell you that I live in such a scene
of folly as makes me even think myself a creature of common sense.
CLXII.
Horace Walpole rarely lost a favourable opportunity of
addressing any celebrated personage. This is one of many con
gratulatory epistles to the elder Pitt received at the end of
1759 — the year of Minden, Quiberon Bay, and Quebec ; ' a year
the most auspicious this country ever knew,' wrote Lord Bute.
The Hon. Horace, Walpole to William Pitt.
November 19, 1759.
Sir, — On my coming to town I did myself the honour of waiting
on you and Lady Hester Pitt ; and though I think myself ex
tremely distinguished by your obliging note, I should be sorry for
having given you the trouble of writing it, if it did not lend me a
very pardonable opportunity of saying what I much wished to
express, but thought myself too private a person and of too little
consequence to take the liberty to say. In short, Sir, I was eager
to congratulate you on the lustre you have thrown on this country ;
I wished to thank you for the security you have fixed to me of
enjoying the happiness I do enjoy. You have placed England in a
situation in which it never saw itself, — a task the more difficult,
as you had not to improve, but recover.
In a trifling book, written two or three years ago,1 I said
(speaking of the name in the world the most venerable to me)
* sixteen unfortunate and inglorious years since his removal have
already written his eulogium.' It is but justice to you, Sir, to
add, that that period ended when your administration began. Sir,
do not take this for flattery : there is nothing in your power to
give that I would accept ; nay, there is nothing I could envy, but
what I believe you would scarce offer me, your glory. This may
seem very vain and insolent ; but consider, Sir, what a monarch
is a man who wants nothing ; consider how he looks down on one
1 The catalogue of lloyal and noble authors.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 2G5
who is only the most illustrious man in Britain. But, Sir, freedoms
apart ; insignificant as I am, probably it must be some satisfaction
to a great mind like your's, to receive incense when you. are sure
there is no flattery blended with it. And what must any English
man be that could give you a moment's satisfaction, and would
hesitate]
Adieu, Sir. I am unambitious, I am uninterested — but I am
vain. You have by your notice, uncanvassed, unexpected, and at
the period when you certainly could have the least temptation to
stoop down to me, flattered me in the most agreeable manner. If
there could arrive the moment when you could be nobody, and I
any body, you cannot imagine how grateful I would be. In the
mean time, permit me to be, as I have been ever since I had the
honour of knowing you, Sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
HORACE WALPOLE.
CLXIII.
The sublime and the ridiculous at the funeral of George II.
The, Hon. Horace Walpole to George Montagu.
Arlington Street: November 13, 1760.
Even the honeymoon of a new reign don't produce events
every day. There is nothing but the common saying of addresses
and kissing hands. The chief difficulty is settled; Lord Gower
yields the mastership of the horse to Lord Huntingdon, and re
moves to the great wardrobe, from whence Sir Thomas Robinson
was to have gone into Ellis' place, but he is saved. The city,
however, have a mind to be out of humour ; a paper has been
fixed on the Royal Exchange, with these words, ' No petticoat
government, no Scotch minister, no Lord George Sackville ' ;
two hints totally unfounded, and the other scarce true. No petti
coat ever governed less, it is left at Leicester House : Lord George's
breeches are as little concerned ; and, except Lady Susan Stuart
and Sir Harry Erskine, nothing has yet been done for any Scots.
For the King himself, he seems all good nature, and wishing to
satisfy everybody ; all his speeches are obliging.
I saw him again yesterday, and was surprised to find the levee-
room had lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign
2G6 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
don't stand in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground,
and dropping bits of German news ; he walks about, and speaks
to everybody. I saw him afterwards on the throne where he is
graceful and genteel, sits with dignity and reads his answers to
addresses well; it was the Cambridge address, carried by the
Duke of Newcastle in his doctor's gown, and looking like the
Medecin malgre lui. He had been vehemently solicitous for
attendance for fear my Lord Westmoreland, who vouchsafes him
self to bring the address from Oxford, should outnumber him.
Lord Litchfield and several other Jacobites have kissed hands:
George Selwyn says, * They go to St. James/ because now there are
so many Stuarts there/
Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other
night ; I had never seen a royal funeral ; nay, I walked as a rag
of quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest
way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's
chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the
coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of
silver on high stands, had a very good effect. The ambassador
from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber.
The procession, through a line of foot guards, every seventh
man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their
officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the
drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns, — all this
was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the abbey,
where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich robes, the
choir and almsmen bearing torches ; the whole abbey so illu
minated, that one saw it to greater advantage than by day ; the
tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing distinctly, and
with the happiest chiaro scuro. There wanted nothing but incense,
and little chapels here and there, with priests saying mass for the
repose of the defunct ; yet one could not complain of its not being
Catholic enough. I had been in dread of being coupled with
some boy of ten years old ; but the heralds were not very accurate,
and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to keep me
in countenance. When we came to the Chapel of Henry the
Seventh, all solemnity and decorum ceased ; no order was observed,
people sat or stood where they could or would ; the Yeomen of
the Guard were crying out for help, oppressed by the immense
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS, 267
weight of the coffin ; the bishop read sadly and blundered in the
prayers ; the fine chapter, Man that is born of a woman, was
chanted, not read ; and the anthem, besides being immeasurably
tedious, would have served as well for a nuptial. The real serious
part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland, heightened by
a thousand melancholy circumstances. He had a dark brown
adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a train of five yards.
Attending the funeral of a father could not be pleasant : his
leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours ;
his face bloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke,
which has affected, too, one of his eyes ; and placed over the
mouth of the vault into which, in all probability, he must himself
so soon descend ; think how unpleasant a situation ! He bore it
all with a firm and unaffected countenance. This grave scene was
fully contrasted by the burlesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell
into a fit of crying the moment he came into the chapel, and flung
himself back in a stall, the archbishop hovering over him with a
smelling-bottle ; but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of
his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy
who was or was not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his
eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of catching cold ; and
the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself
weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke of
Newcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble.
It was very theatric to look clown into the vault, where the coffin
was, attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of
the bed-chamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed
by the King's order.
I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very trifle.
The King of Prussia has totally defeated Marshal Daun.1 This
which would have been prodigious news a month ago, is nothing
to-day ; it only takes its turn among the questions, l Who is to be
groom of the bed-chamber ? What is Sir T. Robinson to have 1 '
I have been to Leicester fields to-day ; the crowd was immoderate ;
I don't believe it will continue so. Good night.
1 The Austrian General Daun, the ablest of the antagonists of Frede
rick II, was defeated at Torgau. This was the bloodiest battle fought
during the Seven Years' War.
2G3 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
OLXIV.
The conversation between Horace Wai pole and Hogarth, so
graphically described in this letter, took place very many years
after the great painter had practically abandoned portrait-
painting, and indeed some time after he had completed those
works by which he will ever be famous. But he was aiming at
a different and a higher standard of excellence in his art, and it
is clear that Walpole coincided in Sir Joshua Reynolds' opinion
that t Hogarth was not blessed with the knowledge of his own
deficiency, or of the bounds which were set to the extent of his
own powers.'
The Hon. Horace Walpole to George Montagu.
Arlington Street: May 5, 1761.
We have lost a young genius, Sir William Williams; an
express from Belleisle, arrived this morning, brings nothing but
his death. He was shot very unnecessarily, riding too near a
battery; in sum he is a sacrifice to his own rashness and to
ours. For what are we taking Belleisle ? I rejoiced at the little
loss we bad on landing ; for the glory, I leave it to the common
council. I am very willing to leave London to them too, and to
pass balf the week at Strawberry, where my two passions, lilacs
and nightingales are in full bloom. I spent Sunday as if it were
Apollo's birthday; Gray and Mason were with me, and we listened
to the nightingales till one o'clock in the morning. Gray has
translated two noble incantations from the Lord knows who, a
Danish Gray, who lived the Lord knows when. They are to be
encbased in a history of English bards which Mason and he are
writing ; but of which the former has not written a word yet, and
of which tbe latter, if he rides Pegasus at bis usual footpace will
finish the first two pages two years hence.
But the true frantic OEstus resides at present with Mr.
Hogarth ; I went t'other morning to see a portrait he is painting
of Mr. Fox. Hogarth told me he had promised, if Mr. Fox would
sit as he liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens
could. I was silent — ' Why now,' said he, ' you think this very
vain, but why should not one speak truth 1 ' This truth was
uttered in the face of his own Sigismonda. . . Sbe has her father's
picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 269
the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's
market. As I was going, Hogarth put on a very grave face and
said, ' Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to you.' I sat down and said
I was ready to receive his commands. For shortness I will mark
this wonderful dialogue by initial letters.
H. I am told you are going to entertain the town with some
thing in our way.
"W. Not very soon, Mr. Hogarth. H. I wish you would let me
have it to correct it : I should be very sorry to have you expose
yourself to censure ; we painters must know more of these things
than other people.
W. Do you think nobody understands painting but painters 1
H. Oh ! so far from it, there's Reynolds who certainly has genius ;
why, but t'other day he offered a hundred pounds for a picture that
I would not hang in my cellar ; and indeed, to say truth, I have
generally found that persons who had studied painting least were
the best judges of it ; but what I particularly wished to say to
you was about Sir James Thornhill (you know he married Sir
James' daughter) : I would not have you say anything against him ;
there was a book published some time ago, abusing him, and
it gave great offence. He was the first that attempted history
in England, and, I assure you, some Germans have said that he
was a very great painter. W. My work will go no lower than
the year 1700, and I really have not considered whether Sir J.
Thornhill will come within my plan or not; if he does, I fear
you and I shall not agree upon his merits.
H. I wish you would let me correct it ; besides I am writing
something of the same kind myself; I should be sorry we should
clash.
W. I believe it is not much known what my work is, very
few persons have seen it.
H. Why it is a critical history of painting is it not ? "W. No,
it is an antiquarian history of it in England; I bought Mr. Vertue's
MSS. and, I believe, the work will not give much offence ; besides,
if it does, I cannot help it : when I publish anything I give it to
the world to think of it as they please.
H. Oh ; if it is an antiquarian work, we shall not clash ; mine
is a critical work ; I don't know whether I shall ever publish it.
It is rather an apology for painters. I think it is owing to the
13
270 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
good sense of the English they have not painted better. W. My
dear Mr. Hogarth, I must take my leave of you, you now grow
too wild — and I left him. If I had stayed, there remained nothing
but for him to bite me. I give you my honour this conversation is
literal, and, perhaps as long as you have known Englishmen and
painters you have never met with anything so distracted. I had
consecrated a line to his genius (I mean, for wit) in my preface ; 1
shall not erase it ; but I hope nobody will ask me if he is not mad.
Adieu !
CLXV.
The Hon. Horace Walpole to the Earl of Strafford.
Paris: September 8, 17G9.
T'other night at the Duchess of ChoiseuTs at supper, the in-
tendant of Rouen asked me if we had roads of communication all
over England and Scotland? I suppose he thinks that in general
we inhabit trackless forests and wild mountains, and that once a
year a few legislators come to Paris to learn the arts of civil life,
as to sow corn, plant vines and make operas. If this letter should
contrive to scramble through that desert Yorkshire, where your
lordship has attempted to improve a dreary hill and uncultivated
vale, you will find I remember your commands of writing from
this capital of the world, whither I am come for the benefit of my
country, and where I am intensely studying those laws and that
beautiful frame of government, which can alone render a nation
happy, great and nourishing; where lettres de cachet soften
manners, and a proper 'distribution of luxury and beggary
ensures a common felicity. As we have a prodigious number of
students in legislature, of both sexes here at present, I will not
anticipate their discoveries ; but, as your particular friend, will
communicate a rare improvement on nature which these great
philosophers have made and which would add considerable beauties
to those parts which your lordship has already recovered from the
waste, and taught to look a little like a Christian country. The
secret is very simple, and yet demanded the effort of a mighty
genius to strike it out. It is nothing but this : trees ought to be
educated as much as men, and are strange awkward productions
when not taught to hold themselves upright or bow on proper
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 271
occasions. The academy de belles lettres have even offered a prize
for the man that shall recover the long lost art of an ancient Greek,
called le sieur Orphee, who instituted a dancing school for plants,
and gave a magnificent ball on the birth of the Dauphin of France
which was performed entirely by forest- trees. In this whole
kingdom there is no such thing as seeing a tree that is not well
behaved. They are first stripped np and then cut down ; and you
would as soon meet a man with his hair about his ears as an oak
or ash. As the weather is very hot now, and the soil chalk, and the
dust white, I assure you it is very difficult, powdered as both are
all over, to distinguish a tree from a hair dresser. Lest this should
sound like a travelling hyperbole, I must advertise your lordship,
that there is little difference in their heights : for, a tree of thirty
years' growth being liable to be marked as royal timber, the proprie
tors take care not to let their trees live to the age of being enlisted,
but burn them, and plant others as often almost as they change
their fashions. This gives an air of perpetual youth to the face of
the country, and if adopted by us would realize Mr. Addison's
visions, and ' Make our bleak rocks and barren mountains smile/
What other remarks I have made in my indefatigable search after
knowledge must be reserved to a future opportunity ; but as your
lordship is my friend, I may venture to say without vanity to you,
that Solon nor any of the ancient philosophers who travelled to
Egypt in quest of religions, mysteries, laws, and fables, never sat up
so late with the ladies and priests and presidents du parlement
at Memphis, as I do here — and consequently were not half so well
qualified as I am to new-model a commonwealth. I have learned
how to make remonstrances,1 and how to answer them. The latter,
it seems, is a science much wanted in my own country ; and yet
it is as easy and obvious as their treatment of trees, and not very
unlike it. It was delivered many years ago in an oracular
sentence of my namesake — ' Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo.' You
must drive away the vulgar, and you must have an hundred
and fifty thousand men to drive them away with — that is all. I
do not wonder the intendantof Rouen thinks we are still in a state
of barbarism, when we are ignorant of the very rudiments of
government.
1 Alluding to the Remonstrances from the City of London, and other
corporate bodies, after a majority of the House of Commons had voted-
against the claims of John Wilkes to take his seat as member for Middlesex.
272 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond have teen here a few
days, and have gone to Aubigne. I do not think him at all well,
and am exceedingly concerned for it \ as I know no man who has
more estimable qualities. They return by the end of the month.
I am fluctuating whether I shall not return with them, as they
have pressed me to do, through Holland. I never was there, and
could never go so agreeably ; but then it would protract my absence
three weeks, and I am impatient to be in my own cave, notwith
standing the wisdom I imbibe every day. But one cannot sacrifice
one's self wholly to the public : Titus and Wilkes have now and then
lost a day. Adieu, my dear lord ! Be assured that I shall not
disdain yours and Lady Strafford's conversation, though you have
nothing but the goodness of your hearts, and the simplicity of
your manners, to recommend you to the more enlightened under
standing of your old friend.
CLXVJ.
In refusing to be made the dummy of Thomas Chatterton's
literary forgeries of the Rowley poems, Horace Walpole acted
in a sensible and dignified manner. The partisans of Chatterton
charged the great conoscente not only with arrogance and un-
kindness, but with being the indirect cause of poor Chatterton's
death, as though Walpole could have guessed that the very life
of this extraordinary boy depended on his being hoaxed by
means of certain spurious legends. ' If,' wrote Walpole, * Row
ley could rise from the dead and acknowledge every line ascribed
to him, he could not prove that I used Ohatterton ill. I would
take the ghost's word, and am sure it would be in my favour/
Among the letters and statements written to vindicate his own
conduct, is to be found the following tribute of admiration for
'the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.'
The Hon. Horace Walpole to the Editor of the Miscellanies of
Chatterton.
Strawberry Hill : May, 1778.
As the warmest devotees to Chatterton cannot be more per
suaded than I am of the marvellous vigour of his genius at so very
premature an age, I shall here subjoin the principal seras * of his life,
1 In the original correspondence these data are given at the end of this
latter, but they are very incomplete.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 273
which, when compared with the powers of his mind, the perfection of
his poetry, his knowledge of the world, which, though in some respects
erroneous, spoke quick intuition, his humour, his vein of satire,
and above all the amazing number of books he must have looked
into, though chained down to a laborious and almost incessant
service, and confined to Bristol, except at most for the last five
months of his life, the rapidity with which he seized all the topics
of conversation then in vogue, whether of politics, literature, or
fashion; and when, added to all this mass of reflection, it is
remembered that his youthful passions were indulged to excess,
faith in such a prodigy may well be suspended — and we should look
for some secret agent behind the curtain, if it were not as difficult
to believe that any man possessed of such a vein of genuine poetry
would have submitted to lie concealed, while he actuated a puppet;
or would have stopped to prostitute his muse to so many unworthy
functions. But nothing in Chatterton can be separated from
Chatterton. His noblest flights, his sweetest strains, his grossest
ribaldry, and his most common-place imitations of the productions
of magazines, were all the effervescences of the same ungovernable
impulse, which, cameleon-like, imbibed the colours of all it looked
on. It was Ossian, or a Saxon monk, or Gray, or Smollet, or
Junius — and if it failed most in what it most affected to be, a
poet of the fifteenth century, it was because it could not imitate
what had not existed. I firmly believe that the first impression
made on so warm and fertile an imagination was the sight of some
old parchments at Bristol ; that meeting with Ossian'.s poems, his
soul, which was all poetry, felt it was a language in which his
invention could express itself; and having lighted on the names of
Rowley and Canninge, he bent his researches towards the authors
of their age ; and as far as his means could reach, in so confined a
sphere, he assembled materials enough to deceive those who have
all their lives dealt in such uncouth lore, and not in our classic
authors, nor have perceived that taste had not developed itself in the
reign of Edward IV. It is the taste in Rowley's supposed poems
that will for ever exclude them from belonging to that period. Mr.
Tyrrwhit and Mr. War ton have convicted them of being spurious
by technical criterions; and Rowley I doubt will remain in
possession of nothing that did not deserve to be forgotten, even
should some fragments of old parchments and old verses be ascer
tained antique.
ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CLXVII.
Miss Hecky Mulso was Gilbert White's first and only love.
He did not succeed in persuading her to marry him, and in
1760, in her thirty-fourth year, she became Mrs. Chapone, after
wards famous as the author of ( Letters to a Young Lady.' But
the friendship continued, and it was in answer to some verses
addressed to Timothy, the famous Selborne tortoise, that White
wrote this letter. By some whim of old bachelor coquetry he
makes Timothy address the lady by her long-dropped maiden
name.
Gilbert White to Hester Chapone.
Selborne : August 31, 1784.
Most respectable Lady, — Your letter gave me great satisfaction,
being the first that ever I was honor'd with. It is my wish to
answer you in your own way ; but J never could make a verse in
my life, so you must be contented with plain prose. Having seen
but little of this great world, conversed but little and read less,
I feel myself much at a loss how to entertain so intelligent a
correspondent. Unless you will let me write about myself, my
answer will be very short indeed.
Know then that I am an American and was born in the year
1734 in the Province of Virginia in the midst of a Savanna that
lay between a large tobacco plantation and a creek of the sea. Here
I spent my youthful days among my relations with much satisfaction,
and saw around me many venerable kinsmen, who had attained
to great ages, without any interruption from distempers. Longevity
is so general among our species that a funeral is quite a strange
occurrence. I can just remember the death of my great- great
grandfather, who departed this life in the 160th year of his age.
Happy should I have been in the enjoyment of my native climate
and the society of my friends bad not a sea-boy, who was wander
ing about to see what he could pick up, surprized me as I was
sunning myself under a bush ; and whipping me into his wallet,
carryed rne aboard his ship. The circumstances of our voyage
are not worthy a recital ; I only remember that the rippling of the
water against the sides of our vessel as we sailed along was a very
lulling and composing sound, which served to sooth my slumbers
as I lay in the bold. We had a short voyage, and came to anchor,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 275
on the coast of England in the harbour of Chichester. In that
city niy kidnapper sold me for halfa-crown to a country gentle
man, who came up to attend an election. I was immediately
packed in a hand-basket, and carryed, slung by the servant's side,
to their place of abode. As they rode very hard for forty miles,
and I had never been on horseback before, I found myself some
what giddy from my airy jaunt. My purchaser, who was a great
humorist, after shewing me to some of his neighbours and giving
me the name of Timothy, took little further notice of me ; so I fell
under the care of his lady, a benevolent woman, whose humane
attention extended to the meanest of her retainers.
With this gentlewoman I remained almost 40 years, living in a
little walled in court in the front of her house, and enjoying much
quiet and as much satisfaction as I could expect without society. At
last this good old lady dyed in a very advanced age, such as a tortoise
would call a good old age ; and I then became the property of her
nephew. This man, my present master, dug me out of my winter
retreat, and, packing me in a deal box, jumbled me 80 miles in
post-chaises to my present place of abode. I was sore shaken by
this expedition, which was the worst journey I ever experienced.
In my present situation I enjoy many advantages — such as the
range of an extensive garden, affording a variety of sun and shade,
and abounding in lettuces, poppies, kidney beans, and many other
salubrious and delectable herbs and plants, and especially with a
great choice of delicate gooseberries ! But still at times I miss my
good old mistress, whose grave and regular deportment suited best
with my disposition. For you must know that my master is what
they call, a naturalist, and much visited by people of that turn, who
often put him on whimsical experiments, such as feeling my pulse,
putting me in a tub of water to try if I can swim, &c., and twice
in the year I am carried to the grocer's to be weighed, that it may
be seen how much I am wasted during the months of my
abstinence, and how much I gain by feasting in the summer.
Upon these occasions I am placed in the scale on my back, where
I sprawl about to the great diversion of the shop-keeper's children.
These matters displease me ; but there is another that much hurts
my pride : I mean that contempt shown for my understanding
which these Lords of the Creation are very apt to discover, think
ing that nobody knows anything but themselves. I heard my
276 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
master say that he expected that I should some day tumble down
the ha-ha ; whereas I would have him to know that I can discern
a precipice from plain ground as well as himself. Sometimes my
master repeats with much seeming triumph the following lines,
which occasion a loud laugh.
Timotheus placed on high
Amidst the tuneful choir,
With flying fingers touched the lyre.
For my part I see no wit in the application ; nor know whence
the verses are quoted, perhaps from some prophet of his own, who,
if he penned them for the sake of ridiculing tortoises, bestowed his
pains, I think, to poor purposes. These are some of my grievances ;
but they sit very light on me in comparison of what remains behind.
Know then, tender-hearted lady, that my greatest misfortune, and
what I have never divulged to any one before, is — the want of
society of my own kind. This reflection is always uppermost in
my own mind, but comes upon me with irresistible force every
spring. It was in the month of May last that I resolved to elope
from my place of confinement, for my fancy had represented to me
that probably many agreeable tortoises of both sexes might inhabit
the heights of Baker's Hill or the extensive plains of the neigh
bouring meadow, both of which I could discern from the terrass.
One sunny morning, therefore, I watched my opportunity, found
the wicket open, eluded the vigilance of Thomas Hoar, and escaped
into the saint-foin, which began to be in bloom, and thonce into the
beans. I was missing eight days, wandering in this wilderness of
sweets, and exploring the meadow at times. But my pains were
all to no purpose ; I could find no society such as I wished and
sought for. I began to grow hungry, and to wish myself at
home. I therefore came forth in sight, and surrendered myself up
to Thomas, who had been inconsolable in my absence. Thus,
Madam, have I given you a faithful account of my satisfactions
and sorrows, the latter of which are mostly uppermost. You are a
lady, I understand, of much sensibility. Let me therefore, make my
case your own in the following manner ; and then you will judge
of my feelings.
Suppose you were to be kidnapped away to-morrow, in the bloom
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 277
of your life, to a land of Tortoises, and were never to see again
for fifty years a human face ! ! ! Think on this, clear lady,
and pity
Your sorrowful Reptile
TIMOTHY.
CLXVIII.
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, the writer of an Essay on the
Genius of Shakespeare, was the leader of the lady-wits of her
day. In concert with Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Ord she instituted
those intellectual reunions from which the term ' blue-stocking '
arose. Female pedants, us this term ' blue-stocking ' has grown
to mean, these women certainly were not; they were highly
gifted and accomplished lovers of society, whose chief aim
was to supersede the prevailing occupation of card-playing by
conversation parties. Mrs. Chapoue had already opened up an
attack against the fashionable vice of gambling in No. 10 of the
' Rambler.' From small literary breakfast parties Mrs. Montagu
advanced to evening assemblies for conversation, and her house
in Hill Street was visited by such brilliant talkers as Dr.
Johnson, Lord Lyttleton, Garrick, Pulteney, Mason, Burke,
Lord Althorp, Mrs. Thrale, Madame d'Arblay, Horace Walpole,
Mrs. Buller (who could hold her own for an hour and more
in argument against Dr. Johnson), and Stillingfleet. The last-
named was a distinguished converger who always wore blue
stockings, and his occasional absence was so much felt that
it became a common saying, ' We can do nothing without the
blue stockings.' These meetings soon came to be called bas-
bleu assemblies. In her own generation Mrs. Montagu was
without a superior in the art of letter writing.
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Gilbert West.
Sandleford : September 3, 1753.
I am much obliged to my dear cousin, for his kind and agree
able letter, which gave me a higher pleasure and more intense
delight, than those rural objects which employed my attention in
my walks, or filled the magic lantern of my mind, in those noon
day dreams, you suppose to have amused me. You are mistaken,
when you imagine I sent invitations to beaux and belles, to fill the
vacant apartments of my mind. True indeed, that there may be
empty space enough to receive French hoops, and, from the same
reason, an echo to repeat French sentiments; but there are few of
the fine world whom I should invite into my mind, and fewer still,
who are familiar enough there, to come unasked. I make use of
] 3*
278 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
these seasons of retirement and leisure, to do like the good house
wives, to sweep the rooms, range the little homely furniture in
order, and deck them with, a little sage and other herbs of grace,
as they are called, and then hope the fairies will come and visit
them, arid not the dull creatures of earth's mould, of whom I have
enough when I am in town. But you are a welcome and a frequent
guest, because you bring with you those virtues and graces, whose
presence I would desire, I am pleased with your praise of Moliere,
but not with your application of his Misanthrope. When virtue
and wisdom live out of the world, they grow delicate, but it is too
severe to call that moroseness ; and, perhaps, they lose something
of their purity, when they mix with the crowd, and abate in
strength, as they improve in flexibility. There is a limit, and a
short one too, beyond which human virtue cannot go ; a hair's
breadth beyond the line, and it is vice. I am now satisfied of
what I had before believed, (as you seem so much to admire the
Misanthrope), that it is far beyond all comedies that ever were
written. The character being so entirely kept up, and the error,
though every where visible, no where monstrous. The Misanthrope
has the same moroseness in his love suit and his law suit ; he is as
rigid and severe to a bad verse as a bad action, and as strict in a
salutation in the street or address in a drawing-room, as he would
be in his testimony in a court of justice ; right in the principle,
wrong only in the excess, you cannot hate him when he is un
pleasant, nor despise him when he is absurd. When the ground
work of a character is virtuous, whatever fantastic forms or
uncouth figures may be wrought upon it, it cannot appear abso
lutely odious or ridiculous. On the contrary, where the ground
is vicious, however prettily adorned or gayly coloured, set it in
open day, it will be detestable ; of which we have an instance
in this play ; we hate and despise the lively agreeable coquette, as
soon as we discover her, and esteem the rigid unamiable Mis
anthrope. I think my young cousin can hardly have a better
amusement than reading Moliere ; from whose delicate wit and
nice satirical touch, he will find that not only the worst passions
want correction and restraint, but the best regulation. The first
prayer I should make, if I had a son, would be that he might bs
free from vice ; the second, that he might be free from absurdity,
the least grain of it spoils a whole character, and I do not know any
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 279
comic author more useful than Moliere, for both these purposes.
Our English play-writers give some vice or affectation, to all their
principal characters. I am very well, and careful of my health ;
all people are fond of novelty and you know health is such to me, but
nothing can more recommend it to me, than thinking my welfare of
consequence to you. Adieu, Cousin ! I must put on a great hoop,
and go three miles to dinner ; how much better was our gipsey-life !
I believe I shall enter myself of the society at Norwood, the rather
tempted to it, as I should be your neighbour. I have not heard
from Mrs Boscawen, but I am glad she had the pleasure of spending
sometime at Wickham.
CLXIX.
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Gilbert West.
Hill Street [1754].
My most inestimable cousin, — I am much more satisfied now
I find that your indisposition was owing to the rencontre of salt
fish, milk, and a strange olio of diet, than when I imagined it was
the gout in your stomach. But pity, which sometimes subsides
into soft passions, on this occasion warms and hardens into anger,
Why, when an invalid, would you be so careless of your diet ?
However difficult it may be to the strong temper of the budge
doctors of the stoic fur, to run mad with discretion, I assure you it
is not impossible to the gentle dame in blonde lace and Paris
hoop; 1 followed the precepts of the tres-precieuse Lady Grace,
and visited ' soberly.' I have not been out since Sunday, Mr.
Montagu's cold having given me a reason for staying at home, and
my indolence would have been glad even of an excuse. I did not
see Sir George Lyttelton till yesterday morning, but the account
he gave of your health pleased me very much. The good Dean
called in the evening, and unfolded to me the horrid tale of the
salt fish and asses' milk. Oh, could the milky mother, who is so
often insulted, so much despised and oppressed by man, have
known his perverseness of appetite would have turned her salutary
milk, the effect of prudent and fit diet, into a kind of poison;
how would she have animadverted upon the occasion 1 I dare say
she would have made better observations on the different powers
of reason and instinct than have been made by any philosopher oil
280 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
two legs. I wish I had her critique upon human reason, in black
and white, with her modest apology for long ears and walking on
four legs. I have just received Mr. Bower's third volume of the
Popes, with so polite an Italian epistle, as shews he can play what
note he pleases on Apollo's harp. I had the pleasure of seeing
Mr. Berenger on Monday morning, he has been under discipline
for his eyes, but his spirits and vivacity are not abated. Pray has
Mr. Birch sent you his Queen Elizabeth ? I have not seen it, and
I know I shall read it with sorrow. A belle passion at three
score is worse than eating salt fish in the gout. I shall hate these
collectors of anecdotes, if they cure one of that admiration of a
great character that arises from a pleasing deception of sight. I
desire you not to read aloud this part of Queen Bess's story, when
the ass is at your door ; it would make a bad chapter for us in her
history of human reason, sixty odd to twenty-one ! instinct never
made such a blunder. An old woman and a young man, a sin
against nature, an old queen and a young counsellor, a sin against
politics and prudence. * Ambition should be made of sterner
stuff.' I shall begin to believe Madame Scudery's romances, in
which Lucretia is adroit at intrigue, the stern Brutus a whining
lover, and Cato the censor admirable at writing the billet-doux.
I cannot forgive Mr. Birch for bringing this story to light in such
a manner; I supposed with Shakspeare that, in spite of Cupid's
idle darts, ' she pass'd on in maiden meditation fancy free.' I
should have written to you before if I had not been in hopes Mr.
Montagu's cold would have given me some room to natter myself
with a visit to Wickham.
CLXX.
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Benjamin Stillingfleet.
Beaufort Square, Bath : July 26, 1757.
And so, Sir, your pride and your vanity, and your laziness,
and your indolence, and your indifference for your friends, have at
length persuaded you, that you are not to write to me again, till I
have thank'd you for those letters I have already received ! Small
trust have you in my gratitude, if you require all bills drawn upon
it should be paid at sight. Mr. Stillingfleet can write to me, and
where is there a philosopher less desceuvre than one who studies
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 281
the infinite folios of divine wisdom, that reads the stars and can
rightly spell of every herb that sips the dew 1 Why ! you do not
perceive an eclipse of the sun unless, for want of light, you run
your head against a post at noon -day; as for simples, I cannot say
you are absolutely ignorant of those that are medicinal, I am sen
sible you make pretty good use of them, but I will be hang'd if
you know how many leaves there are in a daisy, or how many
fibres in the leaf of a pimpernel ; you are neither looking up at
the stars nor down at the plants, and therefore why am I over
looked and forgotten? truly I believe, because you sit vis-a-vis
Mrs. Garrick ; but pray what business have you with Venus or the
Graces, or anything so like them as the said Mrs. Garrick? I
think I am a very pretty kind of a sickly woman, that look as if I
had sometime had the jaundice, and as if I might sometime or
another have it again ; and altogether a very proper subject for
doctorship's admiration and meditation, and so, Sir, I expect some
tokens of your attention by the next post. Have I not given you
leave to entertain me out of any corner of your brain, and pro-
niis'd to read with equal complaisance what your wisdom or your
wit shall suggest, nay even what you may say in your foolishness,
if your wit should be at low ebb 1
Whether you choose Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair,
write like the sage Charron or the fantastical Hudibras, I am still
your gentle reader : and I have generally observed people of wit
choose companions for their patient hearing, rather than their
quick reply, and I imagined with such, the more one attended and
the less one replied the better ; but since you will be answered, I
must tell you why I have not sooner complied with that humour
of yours. I have been wandering from place to place ; I went to
Windsor to make a visit to Mrs. Stanley, and there I spent some
days very idly and very agreeably ; and I have been at this place
ever since last Thursday, taking sweet counsel with my sister and
Lady Bab Montagu, and in their company thinking but little of
the absent. As to your request that you may send my letter to
Mr. Affleck, permit me to say, no ; I am extremely pleased that
he is partial enough to me to desire it, and, if he loves a little
nonsense now and then for his recreation, why I own it a harmless
282 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
thing, and I would not refuse your sending my letters merely
because they are nonsensical ; but I have known such disagreeable
things arise from a communication of private letters, that I beg to
be excused ; there is so much envy, malice, and nonsense, in the
world, that the most innocent amusement cannot escape ; some
fool might know my letters were shewn Mr. Affleck ; that fool
would tell another, who would report to a third fool, that I was
vain of my letters, and loved to have them communicated; and to
what three fools assert some wise man would assent, and I should
be ridiculous. One walks about in this world in as much danger
and dread of ridicule as people do in some parts of America of the
thread worm, which in spite of all care will imperceptibly get into
the heel, and from thence poison the whole body. I had a letter
from Mr. Stillingfleet yesterday, in which he speaks much of the
virtues of Malvern waters, but does not tell me how they agree
with him, which I take ill, for when can they have a subject of
more worth to the world and to me ? Mrs. Boscawen and a
friend of hers will come to me at my return for a few days, and
then my house will be pretty well filled. As soon as they leave
me, I hope you will favour me with the performance of your
promise.
Ever your most obliged,
E. MONTAGU.
CLXXT.
In one of the most pleasing- letters published in the ' Garrick
Correspondence/ Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu pleads for assistance
and advice for a young playwright.
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to David Garrick.
Denton: July 24, 1770.
Dear Sir, — The liberty I am going to take seems to require
many apologies; at the same time I am but too sensible that
excuses are but poor alleviations of a fault. There is a certain
quality called by the Gods simplicity, by men foolishness which
sometimes betrays the owner into transgressions for which good
nature finds an excuse when the invention of the offender cannot
frame one. Let my folly therefore find access to your good nature,
and thus gently introduce my story.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 283
A friend of mine who lias not a foot of land anywhere but in
Parnassus, and there pretends not to more than a copyhold, showed
me a comedy of his writing, which I thought might at least vie
with most of the late predictions in that way ; but I am a very
incompetent judge of this matter. All I would beg is, that you
would cast your eye over the piece. If you do not approve it, no
angry female muse (such as once assailed you) armed with terrors
which belong rather to Tisiphone than Melpomene, will rage and
foam. My friend is an honest peaceable man : if his play deserves
your approbation, it will bs a great piece of good fortune to him to
have it under your protection, and will at once realize every good
wish I can form for him. Whatever you decide upon the subject
I shall know is right and just. I am not perhaps a judge what
should please in comedy and have not the least guess what will
please. The dialogue of this play seemed to me easy and lively,
and I thought the poet touched with good humoured raillery the
fashionable follies of the times, which in themselves, though per
haps not in their consequences, appear too frivolous for severe
satire.
Great physicians have transmitted to posterity remedies for
those disorders to which human nature is addicted in all ages and
climates of the world ; but though an Hippocrates and a Galen,
may have assumed a perpetual authority in cases of consumption,
dropsy and malignant fevers, the humble under-graduate doctor
considers some new epidemical cold as his province, and hastens to
publish his cure for Influenza, or to offer an antidote to Hyson
tea; advertises his balsam of honey when the fogs of November
affect the lungs ; and as the spring advances, brings out his tinc
ture of sage to purify those humours that warm weather' causes to
ferment.
To a Plautus, a Terence, or a Moliere, it belongs to attack the
dropsy of pride, the feverish thirst of avarice, or the melancholy
madness of misanthropy. The minor poet aims no higher than to
remove some incidental malady, some new disorder with which
the town is infected. Even if he can take off those freckles which
pollute the pure roses and lilies of youthful beauty, or can soften
the wrinkles on the brow of old age, he has his merit and deserves
encouragement. I wish you may have reason to think my friend
deserves a place in some of these humble classes. It is improper
284 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
on some accounts that his name should be known, and therefore
he desired me to send his piece with my petition that you should
read it. As I endeavoured to smuggle a certain Essay through
the world, you may perhaps suspect me of having a hand in this
comedy ; but I do assure you, by all that is most serious, I have
not therein either art or part • I have not either invented or cor
rected, nor knew anything of it till it was almost finished. The
author was to finish it after I came out of town, and I promised to
send him a letter to you to send with it, which I did the more
readily as he will remain to you mute and invisible ; and therefore
you will have merely the trouble of casting your eye over the play,
and when you have done so, if you please to send the play with
your opinion of it to my house in Hill Street I shall be more
obliged to you than I can express. Any alterations you should
desire will certainly be made. Upon recollection, I will beg of you
not to send your letter in the packet with the play but indeed to
put the letter in the post directed to me at Denton ; for the person
may otherwise delay my having your letter if he should not call at
my house for his play. I shall be in great anxiety till I hear you
forgive me the liberty I have taken. I was under very uncommon
obligations to exert my endeavours to serve the author of this play;
I promise you I will never again presume so far. I should be very
unhappy if I thought my taking this liberty would lessen that
friendship which I flatter myself Mr. and Mrs. Garrick have for
one who has the highest esteem for them. I live over again in
imagination the charming day I passed at Hampton. May the
muses, les jeux, and les ris, as usual, keep their court there, and
health and pleasure never be absent even for an hour. With most
perfect regard I am Dear Sir &c
E. MONTAGU.
CLXXII.
Dr. Fordyce, the dramatic critic, in a letter to David Gar-
rick, narrates his impressions of that great actor's impersonation
of f King Lear.'
Dr. Fordyce to David Garrick.
May 13, 1763.
Dr. Fordyce presents his best compliments to Mr. Garrick and
begs to be indulged in the pleasure of telling that gentleman some
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 285
part of what he felt the other night at Drury Lane. It is impos
sible to tell him all.
He has seen Mr. Garrick in his other characters with delight
always, and with admiration as often as the author will let him.
But in King Lear he saw him with rapture and astonishment. He
could wish, he could imagine, nothing higher. It was Nature her
self wrought into a vast variety of the strongest, the tenderest, and
the most terrible emotions, that ever agitated the breast of a
father and of a monarch.
In my opinion, Sir, those who have not seen you in that won
derful part, are still strangers to the extent of your powers. They
have not yet seen Mr. Garrick. It seems to me the character, of
all others, that gives the noblest scope to the career and diversity
of his genius. And I am much mistaken if, in the representation,
be does not feel his soul expand with a freedom and fulness of
satisfaction, beyond what he experiences in any other part. Such
violent starts of amazement, of horror, of indignation, of paternal
rage excited by filial ingratitude the most prodigious ; such a per
ceptible, yet rapid gradation, from these dreadful feelings to the
deepest frenzy ; such a striking correspondence between the tempest
in his mind and that of the surrounding elements. In the very
whirlwind of passion and of madness, such an exact attention to
propriety, that it is still the passion and the madness of a King.
Those exquisite touches of self-reproach for a most foolish arid ill-
requited fondness to two worthless daughters, and for the greatest
injustice and cruelty to one transcendently excellent. Those resist
less complaints of aged and royal wretchedness, with all the
mingled workings of a warm and hasty, but well-meaning and gen
erous soul, just recovering from the convulsion of its faculties,
through the pious care of a worthy, but injured child and follower ;
till at length the parent, the sovereign and the friend, shine out in
the mildest majesty of fervent virtue, like the sun after a fearful
storm, breaking forth delightfully in all the soft splendour of a
summer evening. These, Sir, are some of the great circumstances
which so eminently distinguished your action two nights ago.
They possessed by turns all your frame, and appeared successively
in every word, and yet more in every gesture, but most of all in
every look and feature ; presenting, I verily think, such a picture
as the world never saw anywhere else ; yet such a one as all the
286 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
world must acknowledge perfectly true, interesting, and un
affected. A very crowded audience gave the plainest proofs that
they found it so. Even a French lady, if I mistook not the
person, who has been used to all the polite frigidity of the French
drama, was moved and melted in the most sensible manner. But
what struck me most and will ever strike me on reflection, was
the sustaining with full power, to the last, a character marked
with the most diversified and vehement sensations, without even
departing once, so far as I could perceive, even in the quickest
transitions and fiercest paroxysms, from the simplicity of nature,
the grace of attitude or the beauty of expression. What I alone
regretted was the blending of modern tragedy with the inimitable
composition of your immortal Shakespeare. It was some comfort,
however, that you had no share in the whining scene.
I hope, Sir, you will forgive this freedom of praise, prompted
us it is by pure esteem for the man whom forming Nature, without
the least assistance from example, has been placed so high in his
profession. I have said so much, not because I imagine that my
single approbation can be of any consequence to Mr. Garrick,
amidst the approbation of the public ; but merely to relieve myself
in gome measure from a load of sensibility with which King Lear
has quite overwhelmed me.
I am Sir, your most obedient servant
J. FORDYCE.
CLXXIII.
A young artist who had described himself as engaged in
dissensions with certain picture dealers at Rome who were en
deavouring to influence travellers against the English copyists,
received this kind and excellent letter of advice from Sir Joshua
Reynolds.
Sir Joshua Reynolds to Mr. Barry.
17GO.
Dear Sir,— I am very much obliged to you for your remem
brance of me in your letter to Mr. Burke, which, though I have
read with great pleasure as a composition, I cannot help saying
with some regret, to find that so great a portion of your attention
has been engaged upon temporary matters, which might be so
much more profitably employed upon what would stick by you
through your whole life.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 287
Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed in any
other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object,
from the moment he rises till he goes to bed ; the effect of every
object that meets the painter's eye may give him a lesson, provided
his mind is calm, unembarrassed with other objects, and open to
instruction. This general attention, with other studies connected
with the art, which must employ the artist in his closet, will be
found sufficient to fill up life, if it was much longer than it is.
Were I in your place, I would consider myself as playing a great
game, and never suffer the little malice and envy of my rivals to
draw off my attention from the main object ; which, if you pursue
with a steady eye, it will not be in the power of all the Cicerones
in the world to hurt you. Whilst they are endeavouring to pre
vent the gentlemen from employing the young artists, instead of
injuring them, they are, in my opinion, doing them the greatest
service.
Whilst I was at Rome I was very little employed by them,
and that I always considered as so much time lost. Copying those
ornamental pictures, which the travelling gentlemen always bring
home with them as furniture for their houses, is far from being the
most profitable manner of a student spending his time.
Whoever has great views I would recommend to him, whilst
at Rome, rather to live on bread and water, than lose those advan
tages which he can never hope to enjoy a second time, and which
he will find only in the Vatican ; where, I will engage, no cavalier
sends his students to copy for him. I do not mean this as any
reproach to the gentlemen ; the works in that place, though they
are the proper study of an artist, make but an awkward figure
painted in oil, and reduced to the size of easel pictures. The
Capella Sistina is the production of the greatest genius that was
ever employed in the arts ; it is worth considering by what prin
ciples that stupendous greatness of style is produced ; and endea
vouring to produce something of your own on those principles,
will be a more advantageous method of study, than copying the
St. Cecilia in the Borghese, or the Herodias of Guido, which may
be copied to eternity, without contributing one jot towards making
a man a more able painter.
If you neglect visiting the Vatican often, and particularly the
Capella Sistina, you will neglect receiving that peculiar advantage
288 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
which Rome can give above all other cities in the world. In other
places you will find casts from tli3 antique, and capital pictures of
the great painters, but it is there only that you can form an idea
of the dignity of the art, as it is there only that you can see the
works of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle. If you should not relish
them at first, which may probably be the case, as they have none
of -those qualities which are captivating at first sight, never cease
looking till you feel something like inspiration come o\7er you, till
you think every other painter insipid, in comparison, and to be
admired only for petty excellencies.
I suppose you have heard of the establishment of a Royal
Academy here ; the first opportunity I have I will send you the
discourse I delivered at its opening, which was the first of January.
As I hope you will be hereafter one of our body, I wish you would,
as opportunity offers, make memorandums of the regulations of the
academies that you may visit in your travels, to be engrafted on
our own, if they should be found useful. I am, with the greatest
esteem Yours
J. REYNOLDS.
CLXXIV.
"William Pitt did not over-estimate the military qualities of the
young Brigadier-General Wolfe when he selected him much out
of the order of seniority to command an expedition having for its
object to deprive France of her American settlements. Although
untried in any considerable command Wolfe had the character
of being a perfect soldier. He was a rigid disciplinarian, and
was keenly devoted to military work at a time when sloth and
debauchery were distinguishing features of the British officer's
life ; for there was little doing between the peace of Aix-la-
Chapelle and the outbreak of the Seven Years' War.
When the first of the two following letters to his mother
was written, he was Acting-Commander of the 20th Foot in
Scotland, a trying position for a young man in his twenty-third
year ; the second letter was written after the suppression of the
Gloucestershire riots, and at a time when he little expected to be
so soon called to that glorious mission which cost him his life.
Major James Wolfe to Mrs. Wolfe.
Glasgow : October 2, 1749.
Dear Madam, — It will not be possible in my circumstances to
get leave of absence for four months ; we can expect no such indul
gence. A less time is not worth asking for, and therefore I'll pass
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 289
the winter at Perth. I must hunt and shoot for exercise, and
read for entertainment. After Christmas, when the company
comes into Edinburgh, and the place is in all its perfection of dirt
and gaiety, I'll repair thither, and stay a fortnight or three weeks.
It will help to dispel melancholy, and I have been told that a
certain smell is a remedy for the vapours ; there I can't fail to
meet the cure. This day fortnight we leave this town, and till we
return to it cannot hope to find so good quarters. According to
the rotation of the troops in Scotland, the sixth year brings us
back ; but 'tis a dreadful interval, a little life to a military man ;
and for my particular, so far from being in love with the country,
that I'd go to the Rhine, or Italy, nay, serve a campaign against
the Turks, rather than continue in it the time I have mentioned,
and that, too, in the very blooming season of our days. It is my
misfortune tjo miss the improving hour, and to degenerate instead
of brightening. Few of my companions surpass me in common
knowledge but most of them in vice. This is a truth that I should
blush to relate to one that had not all my confidence, lest it be
thought to proceed either from insolence or vanity ; but I think
you don't understand it so. I dread their habits and behaviour,
and am forced to an eternal watch upon myself, that I may avoid
the very manner which I most condemn in them. Young men
should have some object constantly in their aim, some shining
character to direct them. 'Tis a disadvantage to be first at an
imperfect age ; either we become enamoured with ourselves, seeing
nothing superior, or fall into the degree of our associates.
I'll stop here, that you may not think me very uneasy. As I
now am, it is possible that I might be better pleased, but my duty
and a natural indolence of temper make it less irksome ; and then
a pretty constant employment helps to get me through, and secures
me from excess or debauch. That, too, is enough prevented by
the office of a Commander.
My duty to my father.
I am, dear madam
Your obedient and affectionate Son
J. WOLFE.
200 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CLXXV.
Lieut. -Colonel James Wolfe to Mrs. Wolfe.
Stroud : December G, 1756.
Dear Madam, — I attribute it in some measure to the nature of
my employment as well as to tbe condition of my blood, being
everlastingly chagrined with the ill actions of the people about me,
and in the constant exercise of power to punish and rebuke. I
pass so much of my time at quarters, and am so intent upon having
everything clone in its proper way, that those aids which an
equality of society, the conversation of women, and the wholesome
advice of friends are known to give to minds of my cast, are
totally cut off from me and denied ; and if I was to serve two or
three years in America I make no doubt but that I should be
distinguished by a peculiar fierceness of temper suited to the nature
of that war. I don't know whether a man had better fall early
into the hands of those savages, than be converted by degrees into
their nature and forget humanity.
It may happen that a second battalion of those regiments may
have colonels appointed to them without including your son in the
number. A man who never asks a favour will hardly ever obtain
it. I persuade myself they will put no inferior officer (unless a
peer) over my head, in which case I can't complain, not being able
to say that I have ever done more than my duty, and happy if I
came up to that. If any soldier is preferred when my turn comes,
I shall acquaint the Secretary at War that I am sensible of the
injury that is done me, and will take the earliest opportunity to
put it out of his or any man's power to repeat it. Not while the
war lasts ; for if 500 young officers one after another were to rise
before me I should continue to serve with the utmost diligence, to
acquit myself to the country, and to show the Ministers that they
had acted unjustly. But I flatter myself that I shall never be
forced to these disagreeable measures.
I don't believe that Mrs. Goldsmith is dead, but dying. They
are still at Kinsale, because she is not able to move ; for her desire
was to be carried to die amongst her own relations.
My cousin, whose good nature and gratitude are such that he
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 201
can refuse nothing to a wife that he thinks deserves everything
at his hands, had agreed to carry her to Limerick ; but she had
not strength for the journey, and I expect to hear everyday that
she is at rest. I am afraid poor Goldsmith has been obliged to
call in some expensive assistance, and therefore conclude that a
present from the General would be acceptable. He has distin
guished himself by a most considerable regard for the poorer
branches of his family, for which, I make no doubt but that he
himself will be considered. All mankind are indeed our relations,
and have nearly an equal claim to pity and assistance > but those
of our own blood call most immediately upon us. One of the
principal reasons that induces me to wish myself at the head of a
regiment is, that I may execute my father's plan while there
remains one indigent person of his race.
CLXXVI.
The present century has produced no John Wilkes but only
pinchbeck imitations of him. The witty and dissipated proprie
tor of the ' North Briton ' was a complete master of the science
of demagogy ; and the absurdly impolitic and unconstitutional
advisers of George III. provided him with the means of becom
ing a popular idol. His talents and virtues were, however, not
sufficiently solid to make him permanently superior to the vacil
lations and whims of the mob. The modern Wilkes, thirsting
for notoriety, and having no sound cause to champion, tickles
the ears of gaping masses with dishonest flattery. This letter
is written after "Wilkes had been discharged from the Tower on
the ground of his Privilege as a Member of Parliament. The
' general warrant ' under which he had been arrested for his
libellous attack on the Ministry in No. 45 of the ' North Briton,'
extended to the seizure of his private papers. He had writ
ten demanding the restoration of the stolen goods, and had
received a sharp rebuke from the Secretaries of State to which
this is the rejoinder.
John Wilkes to Lords Egremont and Halifax (Secretaries of State.)
Great George Street: May 29, 1763.
My Lords, — Little did I expect, when I was requiring from
your lordships what an Englishman has a right to, — his property
taken from him (and said to be in your lordships' possession,) —
that I should have received in answer, from persons in your high
292 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
station, the expressions of ' indecent and scurrilous ' applied to
my legal demands.
The respect I bear to his majesty whose servants it seems you
still are (though you stand legally convicted of having in me
violated, in the highest and most offensive manner, the liberties of
all the commons in England), prevents my returning you an answer
in the same Billingsgate language. If I considered you only in
your private capacities, I should treat you both according to your
deserts: but where is the wonder that men who have attacked
the sacred liberty of the subject, and have issued an illegal war
rant to seize his property, should proceed to such libellous expres
sions ? You say, ' that such of my papers shall be restored to me,
as do not lead to a proof of my guilt.' I owe this to your appre
hension of an action, not to your love of justice ; and in that light,
if I can believe your lordships' assurances, the whole will be
returned to me. I fear neither your prosecution, nor your perse-
cution j and I will assert the security of my own house, the liberty
of my person, and every right of the people, not so much for my
own sake, as for the sake of every one of my English fellow-
subjects.
I am, my lords,
Your humble servant,
JOHN WILKES.
CLXXVII.
If Wilkes had not set up a printing press in his own house,
after his acquittal, it is tolerably certain his enemies would have
failed to obtain evidence of his being either author or publisher
of the ' North Briton ' : yet he imprudently reprinted No. 45
(and some copies of an infamous poem called ' Essay on
Woman '), speculating on immense sales. But Government
bribed the very persons he employed in Great George Street to
appear as witnesses against him. The following letter from
Paris, whither he had gone after his duel with Mr. Martin,
shows that he considered his expulsion from Parliament as cer
tain.
John Wilkes to Humphrey Cotes.
Hotel de Saxe, Paris : January 20, 1764.
My Dearest Cotes, — Philipps writes to me in a warm strain, to
return immediately ; and, from the partial view he takes of my
1800] ENGLISH LET1ERS. 293
affairs, which is so far as law and the two houses are concerned, I
really think him right. You and I, my beloved friend, have more
extended views ; and therefore, as I have now an opportunity, I
will sift it to the bottom, for I am secure of my conveyance.
Your letter of the 10th leaves me no doubt of the certainty of my
expulsion. Now give me leave to take a peep into futurity. I
argue upon the supposition that I was expelled this morning, at
one or two o'clock, after a warm debate. I am, then, no longer a
member of parliament. Of consequence, a political man not in the
house is of no importance, and never can be well enough, nor
minutely enough, informed, to be of any great service.
What then am I to do in England 1 If I return soon, it is
possible that I may be found guilty of the publication, of No. 45
of the ' North Briton,' and of the * Essay on Woman/ I must then
go off to France ; for no man in his senses would stand Mansfield's
sentence upon the publisher of a paper declared by both houses of
parliament scandalous, seditious, &c. The ' Essay on Woman/ too,
would be considered as blasphemous ; and Mansfield would, in
that case, avenge on me the old Berwick grudge. Am I then to
run the risk of this, and aftsrwards to confess by going away so
critically — as evident a flight as Mahomet's was from Mecca 1
Surely not.
But I am to await the event of these two trials ; and Philipps
can never persuade me that some risk is not run. I have in my
own case experienced the fickleness of the people. I was almost
adored one week; the next, neglected, abused, and despised. With
all the fine things said and wrote of me, have not the public to this
moment left me in the lurch, as to the expense of so great a variety
of law-suits'? I will serve them to the last moment of my life ;
but I will make use of the understanding God has given me,
and will owe neither my security nor indemnity to them. Can
I trust likewise a rascally court, who bribe my own servants to
steal out of my house 1 Which of the opposition, likewise, can
call on me, and expect my services ? I hold no obligation to any
of them, but to Lord Temple; who is really a superior being. It
appears, then, that there is no call of honour. I will now go on
to the public cause, that of every man, — liberty. Is there thon
any one point behind to be tried ] I think not. The two important
decisions in the Court of Common-Pleas and at Guildhall, have
14
294 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
secured for ever an Englishman's liberty and property. They have
grown out of iny firmness, and th3 affair of the ' North Briton ; '
but neither in this case are we nor our posterity concerned whether
John Wilkes, or John a Nokes, wrote or published the ' North
Briton ' or ' the Essay on Woman.'
The public, then, has no call upon me. I have steadily pur
sued their object, and I may now, after all their huzzas, fall back
into the mass of common citizens. Does any one point suffer by
my absence ? I have not heard that it does. I know that many
of the opposition are, to the full, as much embarrassed about my
business as the administration, and detest it as much. I believe,
both parties will rejoice at my being here. Too many personalities,
likewise, have been mixed with my business, and the King him
self has taken too great, not to say too indecent, a share in it, to
recede. Can it be thought, too, that the princess dowager can ever
forgive what she supposes I have done? What then am I to
-expect if I return to England 1 Persecution from my enemies ;
coldness and neglect from friends, except such noble ones as you
and a few more. I go on to some other things.
My private finances are much hurt, by three elections ; one at
Berwick, and two at Aylesbury. Miss Willies's education is
expensive. I can live here much cheaper than in London. And
what is my duty, and you know is the object I have most at heart,
her welfare, will be better, in every point, ascertained here, with
me, than at London. Shall I return to Great George-street, and
live at so expensive a house ? Eorbid it real economy, and forbid
it pride, to go to another, unless for some great national point of
liberty ! Perhaps, in the womb of fate, some important public or
private event is to turn up. A lucky death often sets all right.
Mrs. Mead and Mr. Sherbrooke are both old, and have no relation
but Miss Wilkes. She is devoted to me, beyond what you can
imagine ; and is really all that a fond father can wish. I have
taken all possible care of her in every respect. I could live here
as well as I wish, for one half of what it will cost me in London ;
and, when Miss Wilkes was of an age to return to England, not a
farthing in debt — which at present oppresses my spirits. I am
grown prudent, and will be economical to a great degree.
If government means peace or friendship with me, and to save
their honour (wounded to the quick by Webb's affair), I then
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 295
breathe no longer hostility. And, between ourselves, if they would
send me ambassador to Constantinople it is all I should wish. Mr.
Grenville, I am told, solicits his recall. I think, however, the
King can never be brought to this, (as to me I mean,) though the
ministry would wish it.
If I stay at Paris, I will not be forgot in England ; for I will
feed the papers, from time to time, with gall and vinegar against
the administration. I cannot express to you how much I am
courted here, nor how pleased our inveterate enemies are with the
4 North Briton.' Gay felt the pulse of the French ministers about
my coming here and Churchill's, upon the former report. The
answer was sent from the Duke de Praslin, by the King's orders, to
monsieur St. Foy, premier commis des affaires etrangeres, in these
words : ' Les deux illustres J. W. et C. C. peuvent venir en France
et a Paris aussi souvent et pour autant de terns, qu'ils le jugeront
a propos, &c.'
I am offered the liberty of printing here whatever I choose.
I have taken no resolution ; nor will I, till I hear again from you.
Favour me with your sentiments fully and freely.
Your most devoted
JOHN WILKES.
CLXXVIII.
At the close of 1758, Oliver Goldsmith, then at the very
lowest ebb of fortune, failed to pass Lis examination at Surgeon's
Hall, and was thrown on the world at the age of thirty with
nothing whatever to do for a living. At this moment his land
lady came to him with a piteous tale of her distress, and the im
petuous poet, having no money, gave her forthwith his new suit
of clothes to pawn. Unfortunately these had been lent him by
Griffith the publisher, who seems to have found out the circum
stance directly, and who indulged his temper by calling Goldsmith
a knave and a sharper, and by threatening to send him to prison.
Oliver Goldsmith to Mr. Griffith.
January, 1759.
Sir, — I know of no misery but a jail to which my own
imprudences and your letter seems to point. I have seen it in
evitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as
a favor, — as a favor that may prevent something more fatal. I
have been some years struggling with a wretched being—- with all
29G ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
th at contempt that indigence brings with it — with all those pas
sions which make contempt insupportable. What, then, has a
jail that is formidable? I shall at least have the society of
wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell you, again and
again, that I am neither able nor willing to pay you a farthing,
but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the Jailor shall
make ; thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper, since, unable to
pay my own debts one way, I would generally give some security
another. No, sir ; had I been a sharper — had I been possessed of
less good-nature and native generosity, I might surely now have
been in better circumstances.
I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoidably
brings with it : my reflections are filled with repentance for my
imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a villain : that
may be a character you unjustly charge me with. Your books, I
can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, but in the custody of
a friend, from whom my necessities obliged me to borrow some
maney. Whatever becomes of my person, you shall have them in
a month. It is very possible both the reports you have heard and
your own suggestions may have brought you false information
with respect to my character ; it is very possible that the man
whom you now regard with detestation may inwardly burn with
grateful resentment.
It is very possible that, upon a second perusal of the letter I
sent you, you may see the workings of a mind strongly agitated
with gratitude and jealousy. If such circumstances should appear,
at least spare invective till my book with Mr. Dodsley shall be
published, and then, perhaps, you may see the bright side of a
mind, when my professions shall not appear the dictates of neces
sity, but of choice.
You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so;
but he was a man I shall ever honor ; but I have friendships only
with the dead ! I ask pardon for taking up so much time ; nor
shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am, sir your
humble servant,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
P.S. — I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolutions.
I80o] ENGLISH LET1ERS. 297
CLXXIX.
In estimating the character of Goldsmith, we gain much by
considering what the stock was from which he sprang. . Com
pared with some of his relations, the eccentric poet was a model
of social stability. We see him in this highly characteristic
letter freely giving up to his family the small legacy of fifteen
pounds left him by his uncle Contarine ; it was but a drop among
all those thirsty souls. No wonder Goldsmith was in no haste
to return to his native country.
Oliver Goldsmith to Maurice Goldsmith.
January, 1770.
Dear Brother, — I should have answered your letter sooner,
"but, in truth, I am not fond of thinking of the necessities of those
I love, when it is so very little in my power to help them. I am
sorry to find you are every way unprovided for ; and what adds to
my uneasiness is, that I have received a letter from my sister
Johnson by which I learn that she is pretty much in the same
circumstances. As to myself, I believe I think I could get both
you and my poor brother-in-law something like that which you
desire, but I am determined never to ask for little things, nor
exhaust any little interest I may have, until I can serve you. him
and myself more effectually. As yet, no opportunity has offered ;
but I believe you are pretty well convinced that I will not be
remiss when it arrives.
The King has lately been pleased to make me professor of
Ancient History in the royal academy of painting which he has
just established, but there is no salary annexed ; and I took it
rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to
myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like ruffles
to one that wants a shirt.
You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen pounds left me in
the hands of my cousin Lawder, and you ask me what I would
have done with them. My dear brother, I would by no means
give any directions to my dear worthy relations at Kilmore how
to dispose of money which is, properly speaking, more theirs than
mine. All that I can say is, that I entirely, and this letter will
serve to witness, give up any right and title to it ; and I am sure
298 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
they will dispose of it to the best advantage. To them I entirely
leave it ; whether they or you may think the whole necessary to
fit you out, or whether our poor sister Johnson may not want the
half, I leave entirely to their and your discretion. The kindness
of that good couple to our shattered family demands our sincerest
gratitude ; and, though they have almost forgotten me, yet, if good
things at last arrive, I hope one day to return and increase their
good-humour by adding to my own.
I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, as
I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. I have
ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkner's, folded in a
letter.
The face you well know is ugly enough, but it is finely painted.
I will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon some mezzo
tint prints of myself, and some more of my friends here, such as
Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I believe I have written
a hundred letters to different friends in your country, and never
received an answer to any of them. I do not know how to
account for this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me
those regards which I must ever retain for them.
If, then, you have a mind to oblige me, you will write often,
whether I answer you -or not. Let me particularly have the news
of our family and old acquaintances. For instance, you may
begin by telling me about the family where you reside, how they
spend their time, and whether they ever make mention of me.
Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson and his son, my
brother Harry's son and daughter, my sister Johnson, the family
of Ballyoughter, what is become of them, where they live, and
how they do. You talked of being my only brother. I don't
understand you. Where is Charles ? A sheet of paper occasion
ally filled with the news of this kind would make me very happy,
and would keep you nearer my mind. As it is, my dear brother,
believe me to be
Yours, most affectionately,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 209
CLXXX.
Goldsmith had been lodging at a little farm-house in
Edgeware when he wrote this letter, and the comedy so
modestly referred to was no other than the immortal ' She Stoops
to Conquer.' In March 1773 it was at last brought ^ out at
Covent Garden, and with amazing success!* The difficulties that
it met with from the timidity of Colman, the jealousy of Cum
berland, and the unworldliness of the author himself, are now
matter of history, and the comedy itself universally recognised
as the best English play of that century.
Oliver Goldsmith to Bennet Langton.
The Temple : September 7, 1772.
My dear Sir, — Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, I
have been almost wholly in the country, at a farmer's house, quite
alone, trying to write a comedy. It is now finished ; but when or
how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are
questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much employed
upon that, that I am under the necessity of putting off my in
tended visit to Lincolnshire for this season. Reynolds is just
returned from Paris, and finds himself now in the case of a truant
that must make up for his idle time by diligence. We have
therefore agreed to postpone our journey till next summer, when
we hope to have the honor of waiting upon Lady Rothes and you,
and staying double the time of our late intended visit. "We often
meet, and never without remembering you. I see Mr. Beauclerc
very often both in town and country. He is now going directly
forward to become a second Boyle : deep in chemistry and physics.
Johnson has been down on a visit to a country parson, Doctor
Taylor; and is returned to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale's.
Burke is a farmer, en attendant a better place ; but visiting about
too. Every soul is visiting about and merry but myself. And
that is hard too, as I have been trying these three months to do
something to make people laugh. There have I been strolling
about the hedges, studying jests with a most tragical countenance.
The Natural History is about half finished, and I will shortly
finish the rest. God knows I am tired of this kind of finishing,
which is but bungling work ; and that not so much my fa^ilt as
300 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
the fault of my scurvy circumstances. They begin to talk in town
of the Opposition's gaining ground ; the cry of liberty is still as
loud as ever. I have published, or Davies has published for me,
an 'Abridgment of the History of England,' for which I have been
a good deal abused in the newspapers, for betraying the liberties
of the people. God knows I had no thought for or against liberty
in my head ; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent
size, that, as Squire Richard says, would do no harm to nobody.
However, they set me down as an arrant Tory, and consequently
an honest man. When you come to look at any part of it, you'll
say that I am a sore Whig. God bless you, and with iny most
respectful compliments to her La.dyship, I remain, dear Sir, your
most affectionate humble servant.
^__ OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
CLXXXI.
Dr. Markham was Head Master at Westminster School at
the time this letter was written. He was appointed to the See
of Chester in 1771, and was translated to the Archbishopric of
York five years afterwards. Edmund Burke was in his thir
tieth year, and about to enter the nursery of his political career
as private secretary to Mr. Gerard Plamilton, Assistant Secretary
for Ireland under the Lieutenancy of Lord Halifax. In this
capacity Burke found better ' ground to stand upon ' in his native
city than Madrid could have afforded him.
Dr. Markham to the Duchess of Queensbury.
Westminster : September 25, 1759.
Madam, — I must entreat your Grace's pardon for the trouble
I am giving you. It is in behalf of a very deserving person, with
whom I have long had a close friendship. My acquaintance with
your Grace's sentiments and feelings persuades me, that I shall not
want advocates when I have told you my story.
The consulship at Madrid has been vacant these eight months.
Lord Bristol is writing pressing letters to have a consul appointed.
I am informed that the office lies so much out of the road of
common applications, that it has not yet been asked for ; that it
has been offered to some, who have declined it ; and that Mr. Pitt
is actually at a loss for a proper person to appoint to it. This has
encouraged my friend to think of it. It so happens, that those who
might serve him are mostly out of town. He expects, indeed,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 301
recommendations from some he has writ to. The warm part that
I take in all his interests obliges me to avail myself of the honour
I have of being known to your Grace, and to beg as much of your
assistance with Mr. Pitt, as you. think you can give me with pro
priety. It is time I should say who my friend is. His name is
Edmund Burke. As a literary man he may possibly be not quite
unknown to you. He is the author of a piece which imposed on
the world as Lord Bolingbroke's, called, ' The Advantages of
Natural Society,' and of a very ingenious book published last year,
called, ' A Treatise on the Sublime and the Beautiful.'
I must farther say of him, that his chief application has been
to the knowledge of public business, and our commercial interests ;
that he seems to have a most extensive knowledge, with extra
ordinary talents for business, and to want nothing but ground to
stand upon to do his country very important services. Mr. "Wood,
the under-secretary, has some knowledge of him, and will, I am
persuaded, do ample justice to his abilities and character. As for
myself, as far as my testimony may serve him, I shall freely
venture it on all occasions ; as I value him not only for his learn
ing and talents, but as being, in all points of character, a most
amiable and most respectable man.
I hope your Grace will forgive my taking up so much of your
time. I am really so earnest in this gentleman's behalf, that if I
can be instrumental in helping him! shall think it one of the
most fortunate events of my life. I beg leave to trouble you with
my compliments to the Duke; and am, with afresh remembrance
of your many kindnesses,
Your Grace's most obliged and most faithful servant,
W. MARKHAM.
CLXXXII.
Edmund Burke began his public career in 1759 as private
secretary to William Gerard Hamilton (known as single-speech
Hamilton, the Assistant Secretary for Ireland). In return for
no little influence exerted in securing a pension of £300 per
annum for Burke, Hamilton had the audacity to expect the pro-
ter/e would gratefully abandon his life to him. It was not likely
that Burke would accept villein service tinder a feudal superior ;
he threw up his annuity and broke with his patron for ever.
14*
SC2 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Edmund Burke to the Right Hon. William Gerard
Hamilton.
February, 17G5.
Dear Sir,- — Your letter, which I received about four o'clock
yesterday, seemed not to have been written with an intention of
being answered. However, on considering the matter this morn
ing, I thought it respectful to you, and, in a manner, necessary to
myself, to say something to those heavy charges which you have
made against me in our last conversations ; and which, with a
polite acrimony in the expression, you have thought proper to
repeat in your letter.
I should, indeed, be extremely unhappy, if I felt any conscious
ness at all of that unkindness, of which you have so lively a sense.
In the six years during which I have had the honour of being con
nected with you, I do not know that I have given you one just
occasion of complaint ; and if all things have not succeeded every
way to your wishes, I may appeal to your own equity and candour
whether the failure was owing to any thing wrong in my advice, or
inattention in my conduct ; I can honestly affirm, and your heart
will not contradict me, that in all cases I preferred your interest to
my own. I made you. and not myself, the first object in every
deliberation. I studied your advancement, your fortune, and your
reputation in every thing, with zeal and earnestness; and some
times with an anxiety, which has made many of my hours miser
able. Nobody could be more ready than I was to acknowledge
the obligations I had to you ; and if I thought, as in some in
stances I did, and do still think, I had cause of dissatisfaction, I
never expressed it to others, or made yourself uneasy about them. I
acted in every respect, with a fidelity which, I trust, cannot be im
peached. If there be any part of my conduct in life, upon which I
can look with entire satisfaction, it is my behaviour with regard to
you.
So far as to the past : with regard to the present, what is
that unkindness and misbehaviour of which you complain 1 My
heart is full of friendship to you ; and is there a single point
which the best and most intelligent men have fixed, as a proof of
friendship and gratitude, in which I have been deficient, or in
which I threaten a failure 1 What you blame is only this, that I
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 303
will not consent to bind myself to you, for no less a term than my
whole life, in a sort of domestic situation, for a consideration to be
taken out of your private fortune; that is, to circumscribe my
hopes, to give up even ths possibility of liberty, and absolutely to
annihilate myself for ever. I beseech you, is the demand, or the
refusal, the act of unkindriess ? If ever such a test of friendship
was proposed, in any instance, to any man living, I admit that my
conduct has been unkind ; and, if you please, ungrateful. If I
had accepted your kind offers, and afterwards refused to abide by
the condition you annex to them, you then would have had a good
right to tax me with unkindness. But what have I done, at the
end of a very long, however I confess unprofitable, service, but to
prefer my own liberty to the offers of advantage you are pleased to
make me ; and, at the same time, to tender you the continuance
of those services (upon which, partiality alone induces you to set
any value) in the most disinterested manner, as far as I can do it,
consistent with that freedom to which, for a long time, I have
determined to sacrifice every consideration; and which I never
gave you the slightest assurance that I had any intention to sur
render ; whatever my private resolves, may have been in case an
event had happened, which (so far as concerns myself) I rejoice
never to have taken place ? You are kind enough to say, that' you
looked upon my friendship as valuable ; but hint that it has not
been lasting. I really do not know when, and by what act, I
broke it off. I should be wicked and mad to do it, unless you call
that a lasting friendship, which all mankind would call a settled
servitude, and which no ingenuity can distinguish from it. Once
more put yourself in my situation, and judge for me. If I have
spoken too strongly, you will be so good to pardon a man on
his defence, in one of the nicest questions to a mind that has any
feeling. I meant to speak fully, not to offend. I am not used
to defend my conduct ; nor do I intend, for the future, to fall into
so bad a habit. I have been warmed to it by the imputation you
threw on me ; as if I deserted you on account solely of your want
of success. On this, however, I shall say nothing, because perhaps
I should grow still warmer; and I would not drop one loose word
which might mark the least disrespect, and hurt a friendship
which has been, and I natter myself will be, a satisfaction and an
honour to me. I beseech you that you will judge of me with a
304 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
little impartiality and temper. I hope I have said nothing in our
last interview which could urge you to the passion you speak of.
If anything fell which was strong in the expression, I believe it
was from you, and not from me, and it is right that I should hear
more than I then heard. I said nothing, but what I took the
liberty of mentioning to you a year ago, in Dublin : I gave you no
reason to think I had made any change in my resolution. We,
notwithstanding, have ever since, until within these few days pro
ceeded as usual. Permit me to do so again. No man living can
have a higher veneration than I have, for your abilities ; or can
set a higher value on your friendship, as a great private satisfac
tion, arid a very honourable distinction. I am much obliged to
you for the favour you intend me, in sending to me in three or
four days (if you do not send sooner) ; when you have had time to
consider this matter coolly. I will again call at your door, and
hope to be admitted; I beg it, and entreat it. At the same time
do justice to the single motive which I have for desiring this
favour, and desiring it in this manner. I have not wrote all this
tiresome matter, in hopes of bringing on an altercation in writing,
which you are so good to me as to decline personally ; and which,
in either way, I am most solicitous to shun. What I say is, on
reviewing it, little more than I have laid before you in another
manner. It certainly requires no answer. I ask pardon for my
prolixity, which my anxiety to stand well in your opinion has
caused.
I am, with great truth,
Your most affectionate and most obliged
humble servant
EDM. BURKE.
CLXXXIII.
The following very interesting- correspondence, typical alike
of the manner of Sir Philip Francis and Edmund Burke, refers
to the intended publication of the ' Reflections on the French
Revolution.' The year 1790 produced nothing more startling ;
no less than 30,000 copies of the volume were sold before the
first flash of public curiosity was satisfied. That the great
Whig statesman should have expressed more than ordinary
anxiety at so terrible a crisis as the French Revolution, and that
lie should have been the first among the political chieftains of
his day to quail before its excesses is consistent with his impres-
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 305
sionable and impetuous nature ; but no one anticipated he would
have pushed his denunciation to so exaggerated a pitch as fairly
to ruin theWhig party by scaring the bulk of its members over
to William Pitt's side of the House of Commons.
Philip Francis to the Right Hon. Edmund Burke.
February 19, 1790.
My dear Mr. Burke, — I am sorry you should have had the
trouble of sending for the printed paper you lent me yesterday,
though I own I cannot much regret even a fault of my own that
helps to delay the publication of that paper. I know with
certainty that I am the only friend, and many there are, who
ventures to contradict or oppose you face to face on subjects of this
nature. They either care too little for you, or too much for them
selves, to run the risk of giving you immediate offence, for tli3
sake of any subsequent or remote advantage you might derive from
it. But what they withhold from you, they communicate very
liberally to me ; because they think, or pretend, that I have some
influence over you, which I have not, but, which on the present
occasion, I most devoutly wish I had. I am not afraid of exas
perating you against me, at any given moment ; because I know
you will cool again, and place it all to the right account.
It is the proper province, and ought to ba the privilege of an
inferior to criticise and advise. The best possible critic of the
Iliad would be, ipso facto, and by virtue of that very character,
incapable of being the author of it. Standing, as I do, in this
relation to you, you would renounce your superiority, if you refused
to be advised by me.
Waiving all discussion concerning the substance and general
tendency of this printed letter, I must declare my opinion
that what I have seen of it is very loosely put together. In point
of writing, at least, the manuscript you showed me first, was much
less exceptionable. Remember that this is one of the most singular,
that it may be the most distinguished, and ought to be one of the
most deliberate acts of your life. Your writings have hitherto
been the delight and instruction of your own country. You now
undertake to correct and instruct another nation, and your appeal,
in effect, is to all Europe. Allowing you the liberty to do so in an
extreme case, you cannot deny that it ought to be done with special
deliberation in the choice of the topics, and with no less care and
30G ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
circumspection in the use you make of them. Have you thoroughly
considered whether it be worthy of Mr. Burke, — of a privy-
counsellor, — of a man so high and considerable in the House of
Commons as you are,— and holding the station you have obtained
in the opinion of the world, to enter into a war of pamphlets with
Dr. Price '? If he answered you, as assuredly he will, (and so will
many others,) can you refuse to reply to a person whom you have
attacked ? If you do, you are defeated in a battle of your own
provoking, and driven to fly from ground of your own choosing.
If you do not, where is such a contest to lead you, but into a vile
and disgraceful, though it were ever so victorious, an altercation?
* Dii mdiora.' But if you will do it, away with all jest, and sneer,
and sarcasm ; let everything you say be grave, direct, and serious.
In a case so interesting as the errors of a great nation, and the
calamities of great individuals, and feeling them so deeply as you
profess to do, all manner of insinuation is improper, all gibe and
nick-name prohibited. In my opinion, all that you say of the
queen is pure foppery. If she be a perfect female character, you
ought to take your ground upon her virtues. If she be the
reverse, it is ridiculous in any but a lover, to place her personal
charms in opposition to her crimes. EitLer way, I know the
argument must proceed upon a supposition ; for neither have you
said anything to establish her moral merits, nor have her accusers
formally tried and convicted her of guilt. On this subject, how
ever, you cannot but know that the opinion, of the world is not
lately, but has been many years, decided.
But in effect, when you assert her claim to protection and
respect, on no other topics than those of gallantry, and beauty,
and personal accomplishments, you virtually abandon the proof
and assertion of her innocence, which you know is the point
substantially in question. Pray, sir, how long have you felt your
self so desperately disposed to admire the ladies of Germany ? I
despise and abhor, as much as you can do, all personal insult and
outrage, even to guilt itself, if I see it, where it ought to be,
dejected and helpless ; but it is in vain to expect that I, or any rea
sonable man, shall regret the sufferings of a Messalina, as I should
those of a Mrs. Greive or a Mrs. Burke ; I mean all that is beautiful
or virtuous amongst women. Is it nothing but outside ? Have
they no moral minds ? Or are you such a determined champion of
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. SOT
beauty as to draw your sword in defence of any jade upon earth,
provided she be handsome? Look back, I beseech you, and
deliberate a little, before you determine that this is an office that
perfectly becomes you. If I stop here, it is not for want of a
multitude of objections. The mischief you are going to do your
self, is to my apprehension, palpable. It is visible. It will be
audible. I snuff it in the wind. I taste it already. I feel it in
every sense; and so will you hereafter; when, I vow to God, (a
most elegant phrase,) it will be no sort of consolation for me to
reflect that I did every thing in my power to prevent it. I wish
you were at the devil for giving me all this trouble : and so fare
well.
P. FRANCIS.
CLXXXIV.
The Reply.
The Right Hon. Edmund Burke to Pliitip Francis.
. Gerard Street : February 20, 1790.
My dear Sir, — I sat up rather late at Carlton House, and on
my return hither, I found your letter on my table. I have not slept
since. You will, therefore, excuse me if you find anything con
fused, or otherwise expressed than I could wish, in speaking upon
a matter which interests you from your regard to me. There
are some things in your letter for which I must thank you ; there
are others which I must answer ; — some things bear the mark
of friendly admonition ; others bear some resemblance to the tone
of accusation.
You are the only friend I have who will dare to give me advice ;
I must, therefore, have something terrible in me, which intimidates
all others who know me from giving me the only unequivocal
mark of their regard. Whatever this rough and menacing
manner may be, I must search myself upon it ; and when I
discover it, old as I am, I must endeavour to correct it. I
flattered myself, however, that you at least would not have thought
my other friends justified in withholding from me their services of
this kind. You certainly do not always convey to me your
opinions with the greatest tenderness and management ; and yet I
do not recollect, since I first had the pleasure of your acquaintance.
308 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
th at there has been a heat or a coolness of a single day's duration,
on my side, during that whole time. I believe your memory
cannot present to you an instance of it. I ill deserve friends, if I
throw them away on account of the candour and simplicity of
their good nature. In particular you know, that you have in
some instances, favoured me with your instructions relative to
things I was preparing for the public. If I did not in every
instance agree with you, I think you had, on the whole sufficient
proofs of my docility, to make you believe that I received your
correction?, not only without offence, but with no small degree of
gratitude.
Your remarks upon the first two sheets of my Paris letter, relate
to the composition and the matter. The composition, you say, is
loose, and I am quite sure of it : — I never intended it should be
otherwise. For, purporting to be, what in truth it originally
was, — a letter to a friend, I had no idea of digesting it in a
systematic order. The style is open to correction, and wants it.
My natural style of writing is somewhat careless, and I should be
happy in receiving your advice towards making it as little vicious
as such a style is capable of being made. The general character
and colour of a style, which grows out of the writer's peculiar
turn of mind and habit of expressing his thoughts, must be
attended to in all corrections. It is not the insertion of a piece
of stuff, though of a better kind, which is at all times an improve
ment.
Your main objections are, however, of a much deeper nature,
and go to the political opinions and moral sentiments of the piece,
in which I find, though with no sort of surprise, having often
t-ilked with you on the subject, — that we differ only in every thing.
You say, 'the mischief you are going to do yourself, is to my
apprehension palpable; I snuff it in the wind, and my taste
sickens at it.' This anticipated stench, that turns your stomach at
such a distance, must be nauseous indeed. You seem to think I
shall incur great (and not wholly undeserved) infamy, by this
publication. This makes it a matter of some delicacy to me, to
suppress what I have written ; for I must admit in my own
feelings, and in that of those who have seen the piece, that my
sentiments and opinions deserve the infamy with which they are
threatened. If they do not, I know nothing more than that I oppose
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 309
the prejudices and inclinations of many people. This, I was well
aware of from the beginning, and it was in order to oppose those in
clinations and prejudices, that I proposed to publish my letter. I
really am perfectly astonished how you could dream, with my
paper in your hand, that I found no other cause than the beauty
of the queen of France (now, I suppose, pretty much faded) for
disapproving the conduct which has been held towards her, and
for expressing my own particular feelings. I am not to order the
natural sympathies of my own heart, and of every honest breast, to
wait until all the jokes and all the anecdotes of the coffee-houses of
Paris and of the dissenting meeting-houses of London, are scoured
of all the slander of those who calumniate persons, that, afterwards,
they may murder them with impunity. I know nothing of your
story of Messalina. A.m I obliged to prove juridically the virtues of
all those I shall see suffering every kind of wrong, and contumely,
and risk of life, before I endeavour to interest others in their suf
ferings — and before I endeavour to excite horror against midnight
assassins at back-stairs, and their more wicked abettors in pul
pits ^ What ! — Are not high rank, great splendour of descent,
great personal elegance and outward accomplishments, ingredients
of moment in forming the interest we take in the misfortunes of
men? The minds of those who do not feel thus, are not even
systematically right. * What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
that he should weep for her ? ' — Why, — because she was Hecuba,
the queen of Troy — the wife of Priam, — and suffered, in the close
of life, a thousand calamities ! I felt too for Hecuba, when I
read the fine tragedy of Euripides upon her story ; and I never
inquired into the anecdotes of the court or city of Troy, before I
gave way to the sentiments which the author wished to inspire ; —
nor do I remember that he ever said one word of her virtue.
-It is for those who applaud or palliate assassination, regicide, and
base insult to women of illustrious place, to prove the crimes (in
sufferings) which they allege, to justify their own. But if they
have proved fornication on any such woman, — taking the manners
of the world, and the manners of France, — I shall never put it in
a parallel with assassination ! — No : I have no such inverted scale
of faults in my heart or my head.
You find it perfectly ridiculous, and unfit for me in particular,
to take these things as my ingredients of commiseration. Pray
310 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
why is it absurd in me to think, that the chivalrous spirit which
dictated a veneration for women of condition and of beauty, with
out any consideration whatever of enjoying them, was the great
source of those manners which have been the pride and ornament
of Europe for so many ages 1 And am I not to lament that I have
lived to see those manners extinguished in so shocking a manner,
by means of speculations of finance, and the false science of a
sordid and degenerate philosophy ? I tell you again, — that the
recollection of the manner in which I saw the queen of France, in
the year 1774, and the contrast between that brilliancy, splendour,
and beauty, with the prostrate homage of a nation to her, — and
the abominable scene of 1789, which I was describing, — did draw
tears from me and wetted my paper. These tears came again into
my eyes, almost as often as I looked at the description ; — they
may again. You do not believe this fact, nor that these are my
real feelings ; but that the whole is affected, or, as you express it,
downright foppery. My friend, — LI tell you it is truth ; and that it
is true, and will be truth, when you and I are no more j and will
exist as long as men with their natural feelings shall exist. I shall
say no more on this foppery of mine. Oh ! by the way, you ask
me how long I have been an admirer of German ladies 1 Always
the same. Present me the idea of such massacres about any
German lady here, and such attempts to assassinate her, and such
a triumphant procession from Windsor to the Old Jewry, and I
assure you, I shall be quite as full of natural concern and just
indignation.
As to the other points, they deserve serious consideration, and
they shall have it. I certainly cannot profit quite so much by
your assistance, as if we agreed. In that case, every correction
would be forwarding the design. We should work with one
common view.
But it is impossible that any man can correct a work according
to its true spirit, who is opposed to its object, or can help the
expression of what he thinks should not be expressed at all.
I should agree with you about the vileness of the controversy
with such miscreants as the ' Revolution Society/ and the
' National Assembly ; ' and I know very well that they, as well
as their allies, the Indian delinquents, will darken the air with
their arrows. But I do not yet think they have the advowson of
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 311
reputation. I shall try that point. My dear Sir, you think of
nothing but controversies : ' I challenge into the field a battle,
and retire defeated, &c.' If their having the last word be a defeat,
they most assuredly will defeat me. But I intend no controversy
with Dr. Price, or Lord Shelburne, or any other of their set. I
mean to set in full view the* danger from their wicked principles
and their black hearts. I intend to state the true principles of
our constitution in church and state, upon grounds opposite to
theirs. If any one bo the better for the example made of them,
and for this exposition, well and good. I mean to do my best to
expose them to the hatred, ridicule, and contempt of the whole
world; as I always shall expose such calumniators, hypocrites,
sowers of sedition, and approvers of murder and all its triumphs.
When I have done that, they may have the field to themselves ;
and I care very little how they triumph over me, since I hope
they will not be able to draw me at their heels, and carry my
head in triumph on their poles.
I have been interrupted, and have said enough. Adieu !
believe me always sensible of your friendship ; though it is im
possible that a greater difference can exist on earth than, unfortu
nately for me, there is on those subjects, betweeen your sentiments
and mine. EDM. BURKE.
CLXXXV.
Some remarks Juniushad made in his first letter reflecting on
the conduct of the Oommander-in-Ohief, Lord Granby, induced
Sir William Draper to come forward in his lordship's defence,
and a contest ensued. It soon degenerated into mere personali
ties, Junius charging Draper with selling* his commission as
Captain in the 16th Regiment for £200 a year, and with being
in receipt of a salary as Governor of Yarmouth, though bound
to take an oath as a half-pay officer that he was not holding any
place of profit under the Crown. The following is an answer to a
letter in which Draper denied the charge, angrily contending
that the most virtuous man in the kingdom could not always
answer to his conscience on every point.
Junius to Sir William Draper.
March 3, 1769.
Sir, — An academical education has given you an unlimited
command over the most beautiful figures of speech. Masks,
312 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
hatchets, racks, and vipers dance through your letters in all the
mazes of metaphorical confusion. These are the gloomy com
panions of a disturbed imagination ; the melancholy madness of
poetry, without the inspiration. I will not contend with you in
point of composition. You are a scholar, Sir William, and, if I
am truly informed, you write Latin with almost as much purity as
English. Suffer me then, for I am a plain unlettered man, to
contimie that style of interrogation, which suits my capacity, and
to which, considering the readiness of your answers, you ought to
have no objection. Even Mr. Bingley promises to answer, if put
to the torture. Do you then really think that, if I were to ask a
most virtuous man whether he ever committed theft, or murder, it
would disturb his peace of mind 1 Such a question might perhaps
discompose the gravity of his muscles, but I believe it would little
affect the tranquillity of his conscience. Examine your own
breast, Sir William, and you will discover that reproaches and
inquiries have no power to afflict either the man of unblemished
integrity, or the abandoned profligate. It is the middle compound
character which alone is vulnerable : the man, who, without firm
ness enough to avoid a dishonourable action, has feeling enough to
be ashamed of it. I thank you for your hint of the Decalogue,
and shall take an opportunity of applying it to some of your most
virtuous friends in both houses of Parliament.
You seem to ha.ve dropped the affair of your regiment ; so let
it rest. When you are appointed to another, I dare say you will
not sell it either for a gross sum, or for an annuity upon lives.
I am truly glad (for really, Sir William, I am not your enemy,
nor did I begin this contest with you,) that you have been able to
clear yourself of a crime, though at the expense of the highest
indiscretion. You say that your half-pay was given you by way
of pension. I will not dwell upon the singularity of uniting in
your own person two sorts of provision, which in their own
nature, and in all military and parliamentary views, are incom
patible; but I call upon you to justify that declaration wherein
you charge your sovereign with having done an act in your favour,
notoriously against law. The half-pay, both in Ireland and Eng
land, is appropriated by Parliament ; and if it be given to persons
who, like you, are legally incapable of holding it, it is a breach of
law. It would have been more decent in you to have called this
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 313
dishonourable transaction by its true name — a job to accommodate
two persons, by particular interest and management at the Castle.
What sense must Government have had of your services, when the
rewards they have given you are only a disgrace to you !
And now, Sir William, I shall take my leave of you for ever.
Motives very different from any apprehension of your resentment,
make it impossible you should ever know me. In truth, you have
some reason to hold yourself indebted to me. From the lessons I
have given you, you may collect a profitable instruction for your
future life. They will either teach you so to regulate your conduct
as to be able to set the most malicious inquiries at defiance ; or, if
that be a lost hope, they will teach you prudence enough not to
attract the public attention to a character which will only pass
without censure when it passes without observation.
CLXXXVI.
In reading this brilliant Philippic it should be borne in mind
that the Duke of Giafton was at this time the mere tool of
George III., and that the King was maddening the people by his
insane obstinacy with regard to America, and by his setting
up Luttrell in Wilkes' place as member for Middlesex. His
Grace is here made the scapegoat of his Royal master's folly,
and is contemplated as the worthy successor of the universally
detested Bute. The Duke's frailties in private life are not for
gotten, and the fact of his being Chancellor of the University of
Cambridge — the profligate Sandwich being High Steward-
furnishes Junius with the reflections which conclude the
letter.
Junius to the Duke of Graf ton.
July 8, 1769.
My Lord, — If nature had given you an understanding qualified
to keep pare with the wishes and principles of your heart, she
would have made you, perhaps, the most formidable minister that
ever was employed under a limited monarch to accomplish the
ruin of a free people.
When neither the feelings of shame, the reproaches of con
science, nor the dread of punishment, form any bar to the designs
of a minister, the people would have too much reason to lament
their condition, if they did not find some resource in the weakness
of his understanding. We owe it to the bounty of Providence,
314 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
that the completest depravity of the heart is sometimes strangely
united with a confusion of the mind which counteracts the most
favourite principles, and makes the same man treacherous without
art, and a hypocrite without deceiving. The measures, for in
stance, in which your Grace's activity has been chiefly exerted, as
they were adopted without skill, should have been conducted with
more than common dexterity. But truly, my Lord, the execution
has been as gross as the design. By one decisive step you have
defeated all the arts of writing. You have fairly confounded the
intrigues of opposition, and silenced the clamours of faction. A
dark, ambiguous system might require and furnish the materials
of ingenious illustration ; and, in doubtful measures, the virulent
exaggeration of party must be employed to rouse and engage the
passions of the people. You have now brought the merits of your
administration to an issue on which every Englishman of the
narrowest capacity may determine for himself. It is not an alarm
to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judgment of the people
upon their own most essential interests. A more experienced
minister would not have hazarded a direct invasion of the first
principles of the constitution before he had "made some progress in
subduing the spirit of the people. With such a cause as yours, my
Lord, it is not sufficient that you have the court at your devotion
unless you can find means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The
collective body of the people form that jury, and from their decision
there is but one appeal. Whether you have talents to support
you at a crisis of such difficulty and danger should long since have
been considered. Judging truly of your disposition, you have,
perhaps, mistaken the extent of your capacity. Good faith and
folly have so long been received for synonymous terms, that the
reverse of the proposition has grown into credit, and every villain
fancies himself a man of abilities. It is the apprehension of your
friends, my Lord, that you have drawn some hasty conclusion of
this sort, and that a partial reliance upon your moral character
has betrayed you beyond the depth of your understanding. You
have now carried things too far to retreat. You have plainly
declared to the people what they are to expect from the continuance
of your administration. It is time for your Grace to consider what
you also may expect in return from their spirit and their resent
ment.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 315
Since the accession of our most gracious sovereign to the throne
we have seen a system of government which may well be called a
reign of experiments. Parties of all denominations have been
employed and dismissed. The advice of the ablest men in this
country has been repeatedly called for and rejected; and when the
royal displeasure has been signified to a minister, the marks of it
have usually been proportioned to his abilities and integrity. The
spirit of the Favourite had some apparent influence upon every
administration ; and every set of ministers preserved an appearance
of duration, as long as they submitted to that influence. But there
were certain services to be performed for the favourite's security,
or to gratify his resentments, which your predecessors in office had
the wisdom or the virtue not to undertake. The moment this
refractory spirit was discovered their disgrace was determined.
Lord Chatham, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Bockingham have suc
cessively had the honour to be dismissed for preferring their duty
as servants of the public to those compliances which were ex
pected from their station. A submissive administration was at
last gradually collected from the deserters of all parties, interests,
and connections ; and nothing remained but to find a leader for
these gallant well-disciplined troops. Stand forth, my Lord, for
thou art the man. Lord Bute found no resource of dependence of
security in the proud, imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's
abilities, the shrewd, inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville, nor in
the mild but determined integrity of Lord Bockingham. His
views and situation required a creature void of all these properties ;
and he was forced to go through every division, resolution, com
position, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily
arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat and
insipid in your retired state, but, brought into action, you become
vitriol again. Such are the extremes of alternate indolence or
fury which have governed your whole administration. Your
circumstances with regard to the people soon becoming desperate,
like other honest servants you determined to involve the best of
masters in the same difficulties with yourself. "We owe it to your
Grace's well-directed labours, that your sovereign has been per
suaded to doubt of the affections of his subjects, and the people to
suspect the virtues of their sovereign, at a time when both were
unquestionable.
316 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
You have degraded the royal dignity into a base, dishonourable
competition with Mr. Wilkes, nor had you abilities to carry even
this last contemptible triumph over a private man, without the
grossest violation of the fundamental laws of the constitution and
the rights of the people. But these are rights, my Lord, which
you can no more annihilate than you can the soil to which they
are annexed. The question no longer turns upon points of
national honour and security abroad, or on the degrees of expe
dience and propriety of measures at home. It was not inconsistent
that you should abandon the cause of liberty in another country,
which you had persecuted in your own ; and in the common arts
of domestic corruption, we miss no part of Sir Robert Walpole's
system except his abilities. In this humble imitative line you
might long have proceeded, safe and contemptible. You might,
probably, never have risen to the dignity of being hated, and even
have been despised with moderation. But it seems you meant to
be distinguished, and, to a mind like yours, there was no other
road to fame but by the destruction of a noble fabric, which you
thought had been too long the admiration of mankind. The use
you have made of the military force introduced an alarming change
in the mode of executing the laws. The arbitrary appointment of
Mr. Luttrell invades the foundation of the laws themselves, as it
manifestly transfers the right of legislation from tho«e whom the
people have chosen to those whom they have rejected. With a
succession of such appointments we may soon see a House of
Commons collected, in the choice of which the other towns and
counties of England will have as little share as the devoted county
of Middlesex.
Yet, I trust, your Grace will find that the people of this
country are neither to be intimidated by violent measures, nor
deceived by refinements. When they see Mr. Luttrell seated in
the House of Commons by mere dint of power, and in direct
opposition to the choice of a whole county, they will not listen to
those subtleties by which every arbitrary exertion of authority is
explained into the law and privilege of Parliament. It requires
no persuasion of argument, but simply the evidence of the senses,
to convince them that to transfer the right of election from the
collective to the representative body of the people contradicts all
those ideas of a House of Commons which they have received from
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 317
their forefathers, and which they have already, though vainly
perhaps, delivered to their children. The principles on which this
violent measure has been defended, have added scorn to injury,
and forced us to feel that we are not only oppressed but insulted.
With what force, my Lord, with what protection, are you
prepared to meet the united detestation of the people of England ]
The city of London has given a generous example to the kingdom
in what manner a king of this country ought to be addressed ; and
I fancy, my Lord, it is not yet in your courage to stand between
your sovereign and the addresses of his subjects. The injuries
you have done this country are such as demand not only redress
but vengeance. In vain shall you look for protection to that
venal vote which you have already paid for — another must be
purchased ; and to save a minister, the House of Commons must
declare themselves not only independent of their constituents, but
the determined enemies of the constitution. Consider, my Lord,
whether this be an extremity to which their fears will permit
them to advance, or, if their protection should fail you, how far
you are authorized to rely upon the sincerity of those smiles which
a pious court lavishes without reluctance upon a libertine by pro
fession. It is not, indeed, the least of the thousand contradictions
which attend you, that a man, marked to the world by the
grossest violation of all ceremony and decorum, should be the first
servant of a court, in which prayers are morality and kneeling is
religion. Trust not too far to appearances by which your prede
cessors have been deceived, though they have not been injured.
Even the best of princes may at last discover that this is a conten
tion in which everything may be lost but nothing can be gained ;
and, as you became minister by accident, were adopted without
choice, trusted without confidence,* and continued without favour,
be assured that, whenever an occasion presses, you will be dis
carded without even the forms of regret. You will then have
reason to be thankful if you are permitted to retire to that seat of
learning which, in contemplation of the system of your life, the
comparative purity of your manners with those of their high
steward, and a thousand other recommending circumstances, has
chosen you to encourage the growing virtue of their youth, and to
preside over their education. Whenever the spirit of distributing
prebends and bishopricks shall have departed from you, you will
15
318 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
find that learned seminary perfectly recovered from the delirium
of an installation, and, what in truth it ought to be, once more a
peaceful scene of slumber and thoughtless meditation. The vener
able tutors of the university will no longer distress your modesty
by proposing you for a pattern to their pupils. The learned
dulness of declamation will be silent ; and even the venal muse,
though happiest in fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for the
benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might
be deferred until your morals shall happily be ripened to that
maturity of corruption at which the worst examples cease to be
contagious.
JUNIUS.
CLXXXV1I.
Those to whom the name of Oowper has hitherto only sug
gested a sour and insane bigot, will be surprised to read those
whimsical and tenderly humorous letters in which he has en
shrined the sweetness of his timid nature.
From his hermitage amon^ the sedgy brooks of Olney he
long continued to remind his friends that the most retired and
melancholy of men was a scholar, a bright companion, and, para
doxical as it may seem, on all points but one a very shrewd
man of the world.
William Cowper to Clotworthey Rowley.
September 2, 1762.
Dear Rowley, — Your letter has taken me just in the crisis; to
morrow I set off for Brightbelmston, and there I stay till the
winter brings us all to town again. This world is a shabby fellow,
and uses us ill ; but a few years hence there will be no difference
between us and our fathers of the tenth generation upwards. I
could be as splenetick as you, and with more reason, if I thought
proper to indulge that humour ; but my resolution is, (and I would
advise you to adopt it,) never to be melancholy while I have a
hundred pounds in the world to keep up my spirits. God knows
how long that will be ; but in the mean time lo Triumphe ! If a
great man struggling with misfortunes is a noble object, a little
man that despises them is no contemptible one ; and this is all the
philosophy I have in the world at present. It savours pretty
much of the ancient stoic; but till the stoics became coxcombs,
they were, in my opinion, a very sensible sect.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 319
If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to
despise the shame of being a little one, I should not despair of a
house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with all its appurtenances ; for
there is nothing more certain, and I could prove it by a thousand
instances, than that every man may be rich if he will. What is
the industry of half the industrious men in the world but avarice,
and call it by which name you will, it almost always succeeds.
But this provokes me, that a covetous dog who will work by
candlelight in a morning, to get what he does not want, shall be
praised for his thriftiness, while a gentleman shall be abused for
submitting to his wants, rather than work like an ass to relieve
them. Did you ever in your life know a man who was guided in
the general course of his actions by any thing but his natural temper]
And yet we blame each other's conduct as freely as if that temper
was the most tractable beast in the world, and we had nothing to
do but to twitch the rein to the right or the left, and go just as
we are directed by others ! All this is nonsense, and nothing better.
There are some sensible folks, who having great estates have wisdom
enough too to spend them properly ; there are others who are not
less wise, perhaps, as knowing how to shift without 'em. Between
these two degrees are they who spend their money dirtily, or get
it so. If you ask me where they are to be placed who amass much
wealth in an honest way, you must be so good as to find them
first, and then I'll answer the question. Upon the whole, my dear
Rowley, there is a degree of poverty that has no disgrace belonging
to it ; that degree of it, I mean, in which a man enjoys clean linen
and good company ; and if I never sink below thisr degree of it, I
care not if I never rise above it. This is a strange epistle, nor can
I imagine how the devil I came to write it : but here it is, such as
it is, and much good may it do you with it.
I have no estate, as it happens, so if it should fall into bad
hands, I shall be in no danger of a commission of lunacy. Adieu !
Carr is well, and gives his love to you.
Yours ever,
WM. COWPER.
320 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CLXXXVIII.
The following letter was written in the happy period that
succeeded the first serious attack of insanity at Olney.
William Cowper to Joseph Hill.
July 8, 1780.
Mon Ami, — If you ever take the tip of the Chancellor's ear
between your finger and thumb, you can hardly improve the
opportunity to better purpose, than if you should whisper into it
the voice of compassion and lenity to the lace-makers. I am an
eye-witness of their poverty, and do know that hundreds in this
little town are upon the point of starving, and that the most unre
mitting industry is but barely sufficient to keep them from it. I
know that the Bill by which they would have been so fatally
affected is thrown out : but Lord Stormont threatens them with
another ; and if another like it should pass, they are undone. We
lately sent a petition from hence to Lord Dartmouth ; I signed it,
and am sure the contents are true. The purport of it was to
inform him that there are very near one thousand two hundred
lace-makers in this beggarly town, the most of whom had reason
enough while the Bill was in agitation, to look upon every loaf
they bought as the last they should ever be able to earn. I can
never think it good policy to incur the certain inconvenience of
ruining thirty thousand, in order to prevent a remote and possible
damage though to a much greater number. The measure is like a
scythe, and the poor lace-makers are the sickly crop that trembles
before the edge of it. The prospect of peace with America is like
the streak of dawn in their horizon ; but this Bill is like a black
cloud behind it, that threatens their hope of a comfortable day with
litter extinction. I did not perceive till this moment, that I had
tacked two similes together ; a practice which, warranted by the
example of Homer, and allowable in an epic poem, is rather luxu
riant and licentious in a letter : lest I should add another, I
conclude.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 321
CLXXXIX.
In the elegant fluency of his humorous verse Cowper ap
proaches the golden style of Goldsmith. The eighteenth cen
tury, however, had taken out a patent for occasional poetry,
and even third-rate bards like Lloyd and Anstey gave their
social numbers a grace that we must be content to envy.
William Coivper to Mrs. Newton.
September 16,1781.
A Noble theme demands a noble verse,
In such I thank you for your fine oysters,
The barrel was magnificently large,
But being sent to Olney at free charge,
Was not inserted in the driver's list,
And therefore overlook'd, forgot, or miss'd ;
For when the messenger whom we dispatch'd
Enquired for oysters, Hob his noddle scratch'd,
Denying that his waggon or his wain
Did any such commodity contain.
In consequence of which, your welcome boon
Did not arrive till yesterday at noon ;
In consequence of which some chanced to die,
And some, though very sweet, were very dry.
Now Madam says (and what she says must still
Deserve attention, say she what she will,)
That what we call the Diligence, be-case
It goes to London with a SAvifter pace,
Would better suit the carriage of your gift,
He turning downward with a pace as swift ;
And therefore recommends it with this aim —
To save at least three days, — the price the same ;
For though it will not carry or convey
For less than twelve pence, send whate'er you may,
For oysters bred upon the salt sea shore,
Pack'd in a barrel, tbey will charge no more.
News have I none that I can deign to writs,
Save that it rain'd prodigiously last night ;
And that ourselves were, at the seventh hour,
S22 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Caught in the first beginning of the shower ;
But walking, running, and with much ado,
Got home — just time enough to be wet through.
Yet both are well, and wond'rous to be told,
Soused as we were, we yet have caught no cold ;
And wishing just the same good hap to you,
We say, good Madam, and good Sir, Adieu !
cxc.
The iron will of the Rev. John Newton acted in two direc
tions upon the sensitive character of Cowper ; at one moment
it paralysed, and at another exhilarated him. There can he
little doubt, however, that at length the tonic became excessive,
and the irritant too powerful for so frail and sensitive a brain.
William Cowper to the Rev. John Newton.
March 29, 1784.
My dear Friend, — It being his majesty's pleasure that I should
yet have another opportunity to write before he dissolves the par
liament, I avail myself of it with all possible alacrity. I thank
you for your last, which was not the less welcome for coming, like
an extraordinary gazette, at a time when it was not expected. As
when the sea is uncommonly agitated, the water finds its way into
creeks and holes of rocks, which in its calmer state it never
reaches, in like manner the effect of these turbulent times is felt
even at Orchard side, where in general we live as undisturbed by
the political element, as shrimps or cockles that have been acci
dentally deposited in some hollow beyond the water mark, by the
usual dashing of the waves. We were sitting yesterday after
dinner, the two ladies and myself, very composedly, and without
the least apprehension of any such intrusion in our snug parlour,
one lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentleman winding
worsted, when to our unspeakable surprise a mob appeared before
the window ; a smart rap was heard at the door, the boys halloo'd,
and the maid announced Mr. Grenville. Puss was unfortunately
let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his good friends at
his heels, was refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred
to the back door, as the only possible way of approach.
Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 323
would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window, than be absolutely
excluded. In a minute, the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour,
were filled. Mr. Grenville advancing toward me shook me by the
hand with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing. As
soon as he and as many more as could find chairs were seated, he
began to open the intent of his visit. I told him I had no vote,
for which he readily gave me credit. I assured him I had no
influence, which he was not equally inclined to believe, and the
less, no doubt, because Mr. Ashburner, the draper, addressing
himself to me at this moment, informed me that I had a great
deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a treasure
without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion, by
saying, that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine where
it could be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference.
Mr. Grenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies,
and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and
seemed upon the whole a most loving, kissing, kindhearted gentle
man. He is very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair
of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient as it
should seem for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator,
he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a ribband from
his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, Puss scam
pered ; the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, with-
drew. "We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in
a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to
be thus interrupted more. I thought myself, however, happy in
being able to affirm truly that I had not that influence for which
he sued ; and which, had I been possessed of it, with my present
views of the dispute between the Crown and the Commons, I must
have refused him, for he is on the side of the former. It is com
fortable to be of no consequence in a world where one cannot exer
cise any without disobliging somebody. The town however seems
to be much at his service, and if he be equally successful throughout
the country, he will undoubtedly gain his election. Mr. Ashburner
perhaps was a little mortified because it was evident that I owed
the honour of this visit to his misrepresentation of my importance.
But had he thought proper to assure Mr. Grenville that I had three
heads, I should not I suppose have been bound to produce them.
Many thanks for the worsted, which is excellent.
324: ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
We are as well as a spring hardly less severe than the severest
winter will give us leave to be. With our united love, we con
clude ourselves yours and Mrs. Newton's affectionate and faithful,
&c.
CXCI.
The new volume here spoken of was the celehrated poem
of 'The Task/ the result of the beneficent companionship of
Lady Austen. By its publication in 1785, Oowper, who had
reeached his fifty-fourth year in comparative obscurity, suddenly
found himself famous. ;JChe public was delighted to be led once
more into the woods and fields by a poet of such pure and
simple diction.
William Cowper to the Rev. John Neivton.
December 10, 1785.
My Dear Friend, — What you say of my last volume gives me
the sincerest pleasure. I have heard a like favourable report of it
from several different quarters, but never any (for obvious reasons)
that has gratified me more than yours. I have a relish for mode
rate praise, besause it bids fair to be judicious ; but praise excessive,
such as our poor friend 's, (I have an uncle also who cele
brates me exactly in the same language ;) — such praise is rather too
big for an ordinary swallow. I set down nine-tenths of it to the
account of family partiality. I know no more than you what kind
of a market my book has found ; but this I believe, that had not
Henderson died, and had it been worth my while to have given
him a hundred pounds to have read it in public, it would have
been more popular than it is. I am at least very unwilling to
esteem John Gilpin as better worth than all the rest that I have
written, and he has been popular enough. Your sentiments of
Pope's Homer agree perfectly with those of every competent judge
with whom I have at any time conversed about it. I never saw
a copy so unlike the original. There is not, I believe, in all the
world to be found an uninspired poem so simple as those of Hcmer ;
nor in all the world a poem more bedizened with ornaments than
Pope's translation of them. Accordingly, the sublime of Homer
in the hands of Pope becomes bloated and tumid, and his descrip
tion tawdry. Neither had Pope the faintest conception of those
exquisite discriminations of character for which Homer is so
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 325
remarkable. All his persons, and equally upon all occasions,
speak in an inflated and strutting phraseology, as Pope has
managed them ; although in the original, the dignity of their
utterance, even when they are most majestic, consists principally
in the simplicity of their sentiments and of their language.
Another censure I must needs pass upon our Anglo-Grecian, out
of many that obtrude themselves upon me, but for which I have
neither time to spare, nor room ; which is, that with all his great
abilities he was defective in his feelings to a degree that some
passages in his own poems make it difficult to account for. No
writer more pathetic than Homer, because none more natural ; and
because none less natural than Pope in his version of Homer,
therefore than he none less pathetic. But I shall tire you with a
theme with which I would not wish to cloy you beforehand.
If the great change in my experience, of which you express so
lively an expectation, should take place, and whenever it shall take
place, you may securely depend upon receiving the first notice of
it. But whether you. come witli congratulations, or whether
without them, I need not say that you and yours will always be
most welcome here. Mrs. Unwin's love both to yourself and to
Mrs. Newton joins itself as usual, and as warmly as usual, to
that of Yours, my dear friend,
affectionately and faithfully,
WM. COWPER.
CXCII.
Oowper's letters are habitually charming, bat the most deli
cate and characteristic of all are those written to his cousin,
that bright and loveable woman whose sympathy became neces
sary to his peace of mind, and who, having discovered that fact,
for the future never withheld it.
William Cowper to Lady Hesketh.
May 29, 1786.
Thou dear, comfortable cousin, whose letters, among all that I
receive, have this property peculiarly their own, that I expect
them without trembling, and never find any thing in them that
does not give me pleasure; for which therefore I would take
nothing in exchange that the world could give me, save and except
that for which I must exchange them soon, (and happy shall I be
15*
326 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
to do so,) your own company. That, indeed, is delayed a little too
long ; to my impatience at least it seems so, who find the spring,
backward as it is, too forward, because many of its beauties will
have faded before you will have an opportunity to see them. We
took our customary walk yesterday in the wilderness at "Weston,
and saw, with regret, the laburnums, syringas, and guelder-roses,
some of them blown, and others just upon the point of blowing,
and could not help observing — all these will be gone before Lady
ELesketh comes ! Still however there will be roses, and jasmine,
and honey-suckle, and shady walks, and cool alcoves, and you will
partake them with us. Bat I want you to have a share of every
thing that is delightful here, and cannot bear that the advance of
the season should steal away a single pleasure before you can come
to enjoy it.
Every day I think of you, almost all the day long ; I will ven
ture to say, that even you were never so expected in your life. I
called last week at the Quaker's to see the furniture of your bed,
the fame of which had reached me. It is, I assure you, superb, of
printed cotton, and the subject classical. Every morning you will
open your eyes on Phaeton kneeling to Apollo, and imploring his
father to grant him the conduct of his chariot for a day. May
your sleep be as sound as your bed will be sumptuous, and your
nights at least will be well provided for.
I shall send up the sixth and seventh books of the Iliad shortly,
and shall address them to you. You will forward them to the
General. I long to show you my workshop, and to see you
sitting on the opposite side of the table. We shall be as close
packed as two wax figures in an old fashioned picture frame. I
am writing in it now. It is the place in which I fabricate all my
verse in summer time. I rose an hour sooner than usual this
morning, that I might finish my sheet before breakfast, for I must
write this day to the General. ,»
The grass under my windows is all bespangled with dewdrops,
and the birds are singing in the apple trees, among the blossoms.
Never poet had a more commodious oratory in which to invoke
his Muse.
I have made your heart ache too often, my poor dear cousin,
with talking about my fits of dejection. Something has happened
that has led me to the subject, or I would have mentioned them
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 327
more sparingly. Do not suppose, or suspect that I treat you with
reserve ; there is nothing in which I am concerned that you shall
not be made acquainted with. But the tale is too long for a letter.
I will only add, for your present satisfaction, that the cause is not
exterior, that it is not within the reach of human aid, and that yet
I have a hope myself, and Mrs. Tin win a strong persuasion of its
removal. I am indeed even now, and have been for a consider
able time, sensible of a change for the better, and expect, with
good reason, a comfortable lift from you. Guess, then, my beloved
cousin, with what wishes I look forward to the time of your
arrival, from whose coming I promise myself not only pleasure, but
peace of mind, — at least an additional share of it. At present it
is an uncertain and transient guest with me ; but the joy with
which I shall see and converse with you at Olney, may perhaps
make it an abiding one. W. C.
CXCIII.
After the publication of his Homer in 1791, the health
and spirits of Cowper succumbed to an irremediable decay.
For a while the necessity of attending to Mrs. Unwin, who
was become a helpless invalid, excited and seemed to sustain
him, but in reality it destroyed him. We get a vivid picture of
his strange timidity in this account of his visit to Lady Bagot.
William Cowper to the Rev. Walter Bagot.
August 2, 1791.
My Dear Friend, — I was much obliged, and still feel myself
much obliged to Lady Bagot, for the visit with which she favoured
me. Had it been possible that I could have seen Lord Bagot too,
I should have been completely happy. For, as it happened, I was
that morning in better spirits than usual ; and though I arrived
late, and after a long walk, and extremely hot, which is a circum
stance very apt to disconcert me, yet I was not disconcerted half
so much as I generally am at the sight of a stranger, especially of
a stranger lady, and more especially at the sight of a stranger lady
of quality. When the servant told me that Lady Bagot was in
the parlour, I felt my spirits sink ten degrees ; but the moment I
saw her, at least when I had been a minute in her company, I felt
them rise again, and they soon rose even above their former pitch.
328 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
I know two ladies of fashion now, whose manners have this effect
upon me. The Lady in question, and the Lady Spencer. I am a
shy animal, and want much kindness to make me easy. Such I
shall be to my dying day. Here sit I, calling myself shy, yet have
j ust published by the by, two great volumes of poetry.
This reminds me of Ranger's observation in the ' Suspicious
Husband/ who says to somebody, I forget whom — ' There is a
degree of assurance in you modest men, that the impudent fellows
can never arrive at ! ' Assurance indeed ! Have you seen 'em ?
What do you think they are ? Nothing less I can tell you than a
translation of Homer. Of the sublimest poet in the world.
That's all. Can I ever have the impudence to call myself shy
again 1
You live, I think, in the neighbourhood cf Birmingham ?
What must you not have felt on the late alarming occasion 1
You I suppose could see the fires from your windows. We,
who only heard the news of them, have trembled. Never sure
was religious zeal more terribly manifested, or more to the preju
dice of its own cause.
Adieu, my dear friend. I am, with Mrs. Un win's best com
pliments, Ever yours.
CXCIV.
The beauty, the misfortunes, and the talent of Charlotte
Smith combined to make her figure universally fascinating to
her contemporaries. At the time this letter was written, how
ever, she had just thrown in her lot, with her customary ardour,
with the French Revolution, and had thereby estranged many
of her friends. But Hayley, through whom she became acquainted
with Cowper, remained staunch to her.
William Cowper to Mrs. Charlotte Smith.
October 26, 1793.
Dear Madam, — Your two counsellors are of one mind. Wo
both are of opinion that you will do well to make your second
volume a suitable companion to the first, by embellishing it in the
same manner ; and have no doubt, considering the well-deserved
popularity of your verse that the expense will be amply refunded
by the public.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 329
I would give you, Madam, not my counsel only, but consolation
also, were I not disqualified for that delightful service by a great
dearth of it in my own experience. I, too, often seek but cannot
find it. Of this however I can assure you, if that may at all com
fort you, that both my friend Hayley and myself most truly sym
pathize with you under all your sufferings ; neither have you, I am
persuaded, in any degree lost the interest you always had in him,
or your claim to any service of whatever kind that it may be in
his power to render you. Had you no other title to his esteem,
his respect for your talents and his feelings for your misfortunes
must insure to you the friendship of such a man for ever. I know,
however, that there are seasons when, look which way we will, we
see the same dismal gloom enveloping all objects. This is itself an
affliction, and the worse because it makes us think ourselves more
unhappy than we are ; and at such a season it is, I doubt not, that
you suspect a diminution of our friend's zeal to serve you.
I was much struck by an expression in your letter to Hayley
where you say that 'you will endeavour to take an interest in
green leaves again.' This seems the sound of my own voice
reflected to me from a distance ; I have so often had the same
thought and desire.
A day scarcely passes at this season of the year when I do not
contemplate the trees so soon to be strip t, and, say, perhaps I shall
never see you clothed again ; every year as it passes makes this
expectation more reasonable, and the year, with me, cannot be
very distant when the event will verify it. Well — may God grant
us a good hope of arriving in due time where the leaves never fall,
and all will be right.
Mrs. TJnwin I think is a little better than when you saw her,
but still feeble ; so feeble as to keep me in a state of continual
apprehension. I live under the point of a sword suspended by a
hair. She begs you to accept her compliments.
Adieu, my dear madam, believe me
Your sincere and affectionate humble servant,
WAI. COWPER.
330 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
cxcv.
The most appropriate introduction to this letter will be
from Gibbon's ' Memoirs of my Life and Writings.' Referring
to the opponents who had been provoked by his memorable
attack on Christianity in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of
his History, he says : — 'In his "History of the Corruptions of
Christianity," Dr. Priestley threw down his two gauntlets to
Bishop Hurd and Mr. Gibbon. I declined the challenge in a
letter exhorting my opponent to enlighten the world by his
philosophical discoveries,' &c. Priestley's object evidently was
to induce Gibbon to avow plainly his opposition to Christianity.
Edward Gibbon to Dr. Priestley.
January 23, 1783.
Sir, — As a mark of your esteem, I should have accepted with
pleasure your ' History of the Corruptions of Christianity.' You
have been careful to inform me, that it is intended, not as a gift,
but as a challenge, and such a challenge you must permit me to
decline. At the same time you glory in outstripping the zeal of
the Mufti and the Lama, it may be proper to declare, that I should
equally refuse the defiance of those venerable divines. Once, and
once only, the just defence of my own veracity provoked me to
descend into the amphitheatre ; but as long as you attack opinions
which I have never maintained, or maintain principles which I
have never denied, you may safely exult in my silence and your
own victory. The difference between us, (on the credibility of
miracles,) which you choose to suppose, and wish to argue, is a
trite and antient topic of controversy, and, from the opinion which
you entertain of yourself and of me, it does not appear probable
that our dispute would either edify or enlighten the Public.
That Public will decide to whom the invidious name of unbe
liever more justly belongs ; to the Historian, who, without inter
posing his own sentiments, has delivered a simple narrative of
authentic facts, or to the disputant who proudly rejects all
natural proofs of the immortality of the soul, overthrows (by cir
cumscribing) the inspiration of the evangelists and apostles, and
condemns the religion of every Christian nation, as a fable less
innocent, but not less absurd, than Mahomet's journey to the third
Heaven.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 331
And now, Sir, since you assume a right to determine the objects
of my past and future studies, give me leave to convey to your ear
the almost unanimous, and not offensive wish, of the philosophic
world : — that you would confine your talents and industry to those
sciences in which real and useful improvements can be made.
Remember the end of your predecessor Servetus, not of his life,
(the Calvins of our days are restrained from the use of the same
fiery arguments,) but, I mean, the end of his reputation. His
theological writings are lost in oblivion ; and if his book on the
Trinity be still preserved, it is only because it contains the first
rudiments of the discovery of the circulation of the blood.
I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant.
CXCVI.
In the letter to which the following is the reply, Dr Priest
ley, after some sneering remarks touching Gibbon's covert and
insidious method of attacking Christianity, had observed that
he admired Servetus more for his courage as a martyr than for
his services as a scientific discoverer.
Udivard Gibbon to Dr. Priestley.
February 6, 1783.
Sir, — As I do not pretend to judge of the sentiments or inten
tions of another, I shall not enquire how far you are inclined to
suffer, or inflict, martyrdom. It only becomes me to say, that the
style and temper of your last letter have satisfied me of the pro
priety of declining all farther correspondence, whether public or
private, with such an adversary.
I am, Sir, your humble servant.
CXCVII.
It is difficult to associate with the cold and cynical historian
of the Roman Empire so much tenderness and genuine depth of
feeling as this letter displays. But Gibbon's attachment to Lord
Sheffield and Mr. Deyverdun was singularly unselfish, almost
romantic. It should be remembered that at the time he
undertook this visit to England he was suffering from a dreadful
disease which must have made travelling not only inconvenient
but painfuL
332 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Edivard Gibbon to Lord Sheffield.
Lausanne : April 27, 1793.
My dearest Friend, — for such you most truly are, nor does there
exist a person who obtains, or shall ever obtain, a superior place in
my esteem and affection. After too long a silence I was sitting
down to write, when, only yesterday morning (such is now the
irregular slowness of the English post), I was suddenly struck, in
deed struck to the heart, by the fatal intelligence from Sir Henry
Clinton and M. de Lally. Alas ! what is life, and what are our
hopes and projects ! When I embraced her at your departure
from Lausanne, could I imagine that it was for the last time?
When I postponed to another summer my journey to England,
could I apprehend that I never, never should see her again 1 I
always hoped that she would spin her feeble thread to a long
duration, and that her delicate frame would survive (as is often
the case) many constitutions of a stouter appearance. In four
days ! in your absence, in that of her children ! But she is now at
rest ; and if there be a future life, her mild virtues have surely
entitled her to the reward of pure and perfect felicity. It is for
you that I feel, and I can judge of your sentiments by comparing
them with my own. I have lost, it is true, an amiable and affec
tionate friend, whom I had known and loved above three-and-
twenty years, and whom I often styled by the endearing name of
sister. But you are deprived of the companion of your life, the
wife of your choice, and the mother of your children ; poor chil
dren ! the liveliness of Maria, and the softness of Louisa, render
them almost equally the objects of my tenderest compassion. I do
not wish to aggravate your grief; but, in the sincerity of friend
ship, I cannot hold a different language. I know the impotence of
reason, and I much fear that the strength of your character will
serve to make a sharper and more lasting impression.
The only consolation in these melancholy trials to which
human life is exposed, the only one at least in which I have any
confidence, is the presence of a real friend ; and of that, as far as it
depends on myself, you shall not be destitute. I regret the few
days that must be lost in some necessary preparations ; but I
trust that to-morrow se'nnight (May the fifth) I shall be able to
set forwards on my journey to England ; and when this letter
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 333
reaches you, I shall be considerably advanced on my way. As it
is yet prudent to keep at a respectful distance from the banks of
the French Rhine, I shall incline a little to the right, and proceed by
Schaffousen and Stutgard to Frankfort and Cologne : the Austrian
Netherlands are now open and safe, and I am sure of being able at
least to pass from Ostend to Dover ; whence, without passing
through London, I shall pursue the direct road to Sheffield Place.
Unless I should meet with some unforeseen accidents and
delays, I hope, before the end of the month to share your solitude,
and sympathize with your grief. All the difficulties of the journey,
which my indolence had probably magnified, have now disappeared
before a stronger passion ; and you will not be sorry to hear, that,
as far as Frankfort to Cologne, I shall enjoy the advantage of the
society, the conversation, the German language, and the active
assistance of Sever y. His attachment to me is the sole motive
which prompts him to undertake this troublesome journey ; and as
soon as he has seen me over the roughest ground he will immedi
ately return to Lausanne. The poor young man loved Lady S. as
a mother, and the whole family is deeply affected by an event
which reminds them too painfully of their own misfortune. Adieu.
I could write volumes, and shall therefore break off abruptly. I
shall write on the road, and hope to find a few lines a poste
restante at Frankfort and Brussels. Adieu ; ever yours.
CXCVIII.
During the tour to the Hebrides with Dr. Johnson, Boswell
wrote the following interesting letter to David Garrick, which,
to use the great actor's own words, { made me half mad.'
James Boswell to David Garrick.
Inverness: August 29, 1773.
My dear Sir, — Here I am, and Mr. Samuel Johnson actually
with me. We were a night at Fores, in coming to which, in the
dusk of the evening, we passed over the bleak and blasted heath
where Macbeth met the witches. Your old preceptor repeated,
with much solemnity, the speech, ' How far is't called to Fores 1
What are these, so withered and so wild in their attire.'
This day we visited the ruins of Macbeth's castle at Inverness.
334: ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
I have had great romantic satisfaction in seeing Johnson upon the
classical scenes of Shakspeare in Scotland ; which I really looked
upon as almost as improbable as that ' Birnam Wood should come to
Dunsinane.' Indeed, as I have always been accustomed to view
him as a permanent London object, it would not be much more
wonderful to me to see St. Paul's church moving along where we
now are. As yet we have travelled in post-chaises ; but to-morrow
we are to mount on horseback, and ascend into the mountains by
Fort Augustus, and so on to the ferry, where we are to cross to
Skye. We shall see that island fully, and then visit some more of
the Hebrides • after which we are to land in Argyleshire, proceed
by Glasgow to Auchinleck, repose there a competent time, and
then return to Edinburgh, from whence the Rambler will depart
for old England again, as soon as he finds it convenient. Hitherto
we have had a very prosperous expedition. I flatter myself,
servelur ad imum, qualis ab incepto processerit. He is in excel
lent spirits, and I have a rich journal of his conversation. Look
back, Davy, to Lichfield ; run up through the time that has
elapsed since you first knew Mr. Johnson, and enjoy with me his
present extraordinary tour. I could not resist the impulse of
writing to you from this place. The situation of the old castle
corresponds exactly to Shakspeare's description. While we were
there to-day, it happened oddly that a raven perched upon one of
the chimney-tops, and croaked. Then I in my turn repeated —
The raven himself is hoarse,
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements !
I wish you had been with us. Think what an enthusiastic happi
ness I shall have to see Mr. Samuel Johnson walking among the
romantic rocks and woods of my ancestors at Auchinleck. Write
to me at Edinburgh. You owe me his verses on great George and
tuneful Gibber, and the bad verses which led him to make his fine
ones on Philips the musician. Keep your promise, and let me
have them. I offer my very best compliments to Mrs. Garrick,
and ever am your warm admirer and friend.
JAMES BOSWELL.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 335
CXCIX.
Boswell's passion for notoriety, even at the expense of pub
lishing ridicule of himself, pursued him from youth to old age.
This is a specimen of the flippant banter he thought fit to
chronicle. (See ' Boswell's Letters,' p. 365.)
He had not yet made the acquaintance of his future idol, Dr.
Samuel Johnson.
Andrew Erskine to James Bosivell.
New Tarbat : November 23, 17G1.
Dear Boswell, — As we never bear that Demosthenes could broil
beefsteaks, or Cicero poach eggs, we may safely conclude that these
gentlemen understood nothing of cookery. In like manner, it
may be concluded that you, James Boswell, and I, Andrew
Erskine, cannot write serious epistles. This, as Mr. Tristram
says, I deny ; for this letter of mine shall contain the quintessence
of solidity ; it shall be a piece of boiled beef and cabbage, a roasted
goose, and a boiled leg of pork and greens : in one word, it shall
contain advice, sage and mature advice. Oh, James Boswell !
take care and don't break your neck, pray don't fracture your
skull, and be very cautious in your manner of tumbling down pre
cipices ; beware of falling into coalpits, and don't drown yourself
in every pool you meet with. Having thus warned you of the
most material dangers which your youth and inexperience will be
ready to lead you into, I now proceed to others less momentary
indeed, but very necessary to be strictly observed. Go not near
the soaping Club ; never mention Drury Lane playhouse ; be
attentive to those pinchbeck buckles which fortune has so gra
ciously given you, of which I am afraid you'r hardly fond
enough ; * never wash your face, but above all forswear poetry ;
from experience I can assure you, and this letter may serve as a
proof, that a man maybe as dull in prose as in verse; and as dull
ness is what we aim at, prose is the easiest of the two. Oh, my
friend, profit by these my instructions, think that you see me
studying for your advantage, my reverend locks overshadowing my
paper, my hands trembling, and my tongue hanging out, a figure
of esteem, affection, and veneration. By heavens, Boswell ! I love
1 Boswell was a great dandy in his youth.
336 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
you more but this I think may be more conveniently expressed
in rhyme.
More than a herd of swine .a kennel muddy,
More than a brilliant belle polemic study,
More than fat Falstaif loved a cup of sack,
More than a guilty criminal the rack,
More than attorneys love by cheats to thrive,
And more than witches to be burnt alive.
I begin to be afraid that we shall not see you here this winter,
which will be a great loss to you. If ever you travel into
foreign parts, as Machiavel used to say, everybody abroad will
require a description of New Tarbat from you. That you may
not appear totally ridiculous and absurd, I shall send you some
little account of it. Imagine then to yourself what Thomson
would call an interminable plain, interspersed in a lovely manner
with beautiful green hills. The seasons here are only shifted by
summer and spring. "Winter with his fur cap and his cat-skin
gloves, was never seen in this charming retreat. The castle is of
Gothic structure, awful and lofty ; there are fifty bedchambers in
it, with halls, saloons, and galleries without number. Mr. M 's
father, who wag a man of infinite humour, caused a magnificent
lake to be made, just before the entry of the house. His diversion
was to peep out of his window, and see the people who came to
visit him skipping through it, for there was no other passage;
then he used to put on such huge fires to dry their clothes that
there wi\s no bearing them. He used to declare that he never
thought a man good company till he was half-drowned and half-
burnt ; but if in any part of his life he had narrowly escaped
hanging (a thing not uncommon in the Highlands) he would
perfectly doat upon him, and whenever the story was told him
he was ready to choke himself. But to return. Everything
here is in the grand and sublime style. But, alas ! some envious
magician with his d d enchantments, has destroyed all these
beauties. By his potent art the house with so many bedcham
bers in it cannot conveniently lodge above a dozen people.
The room which I am writing in just now is in reality a
handsome parlour of twenty feet by sixteen, though in my eyes
and to all outward appearance it seems a garret of six feet by
four. The magnificent lake is a dirty puddle, the lovely plain a
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 337
rude, wild country covered with the most astonishing high black
mountains ; the inhabitants, the most amiable race under the sun,
appear now to be the ugliest, and look as if they were overrun
with the itch : their delicate limbs, adorned with finest silk stock
ings, are now bare and very dirty ; but to describe all the trans
formations would take up more paper than Lady B , from
whom I had this, would choose to give me. My own metamor
phosis is indeed so extraordinary that I must make you acquainted
with it. You know I am really very thick and short, prodigiously
talkative, and wonderfully impudent : now I am thin and tall,
strangely silent, and very bashful. If these things continue, who
is safe? Even you, Boswell, may feel a change. Your fair and
transparent complexion may turn black and oily, your person
little and squat, and who knows but you may eternally rave
about the King of Great Britain's Guards,1 a species of mad
ness from which good Lord deliver us ! I have often wondered,
Boswell, that a man of your taste in music cannot play upon the
Jew's-harp ; there are some of us here that touch it very melo
diously, I can tell you. Corelli's solo of ' Maggie Lauder,' and
Pergolesi's sonata of * The Carle he came o'er the Craft,' are excel
lently adapted to that instrument. Let me advise you to learn it.
The first cost is but three halfpence, and they last a long time.
Having thus, Boswell, written you a most entertaining letter, with
which you are highly pleased, to your great grief I give over, in
these or the like words,
Your affectionate friend
ANDREW ERSKINE.
CC.
The original body of the Royal Academy contained two
women, the famous Angelica Kaufmann, and Mary Moser,
whose flower pieces were as much admired in her own day as
those of Van Huysum. The latter of these ladies fancied herself
in love with Fnseli, the painter ; and it was on the occasion of his
visit to Italy that she sent him this lively and coquettish epistle
interesting- from its casual notice of many eminent persons, and
from the idea it gives us of a Royal Academy Exhibition more
than a hundred years ago.
1 Boswell relinquished the idea of ' going into the Guards ' after the
Duke of Argyll had expressed the opinion that the youth ought not to he
shot at for three and sixpence a day.
333 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Mary Moser to Henry Fusell.
Autumn of 1770.
If you have not forgotten at Rome those friends whom you
remembered at Florence, write to me from that nursery of arts
and raree-show of the world which nourishes in ruins ; tell me of
pictures, palaces, people, lakes, woods, and rivers ; say if Old Tiber
droops with age, or whether his waters flow as clear, his rushes
grow as green, and his swans look as white, as those of Father
Thames : or write me your own thoughts and reflections which
will be more acceptable than any description of any thing Greece
and Rome have done these two thousand years.
I suppose there has been a million of letters sent to Italy with
an account of our Exhibition, so it will be only telling you what
you know already, to say that Reynolds was like himself in
pictures which you have seen ; Gainsborough beyond himself in a
portrait of Garrick in the character of Abel Drugger, with two
other figures, Subtle and Face. Sir Joshua agreed to give a
hundred guineas for the picture ; Lord Carlisle half an hour after
offered Reynolds twenty to part with it, which the Knight gene
rously refused, resigned his intended purchase to the Lord, and the
emolument to his brother artist. (He is a gentleman !) Angelica
made a very great addition to the show; and Mr. Hamilton's
picture of Briseis parting from Achilles, was very much admired :
the Briseis in taste, ct, Fantique, elegant and simple. Coates,
Dance, Wilson, &c., as usual. Mr. West had no large picture
finished. You will doubtless imagine I derived my epistolary
genius from my nurse ; but when you are tired of my gossiping,
you may burn the letter, so I shall go on. Some of the literati of
the Royal Academy were very much disappointed, as they could
not obtain diplomas ; but the Secretary, who is above trifles, has
since made a very flattering compliment to the Academy in the
Preface to his Travels : the Professor of History is comforted by
the success of his i Deserted Village,' which is a very pretty poem,
and has lately put himself under the conduct of Mrs. Hornick
and her fair daughters, and is gone to France ; and Dr. Johnson
sips his tea and cares not for the vanity of the world. Sir Joshua,
a few days ago, entertained the Council and Visitors with calipash
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 339
and calipee, except poor Coates, who last week fell a victim to the
corroding power of soap-lees, which he hoped would have cured
him of the stone ; many a tear will drop on his grave, as he is not
more lamented as an artist than a friend to the distressed. (Ma
poca polvere sono die nulla sente /) My mamma declares that you
are an insufferable creature, and that she speaks as good English
as your mother did High-German. Mr. Meyer laughed aloud at
your letter, and desired to be remembered. My father and his
daughter long to know the progress you will make, particularly
MARY MOSER,
Who remains sincerely your friend and believes you will exclaim
or mutter to yourself, ' Why did she send this d d nonsense to
me?'
Henry Fuseli Esq. a Roma.
CCI.
Mrs. Hannah More's long and useful life may be divided
into two epochs — her town and her country life. The first period
extended to her fortieth year, during which she wrote dramas
and associated with the chief male and female wits in London.
The second is that through which she is best known. Resign-
ing all ambition to be celebrated as a playwright, and impressed
with the seriousness of religion and the need of reform in female
education, she retired to Gloucestershire, and there worked and
wrote for rich and poor alike. The gay side of her nature shows
itself very generally in her correspondence.
Mrs. Hannah More to Mrs. Gwatkin.
Hampton : August 9, 1778.
My dear Madam, — I wrote to you last Friday, not knowing of
your migration. I hope they will not send you up the letter, as it
is of no consequence now ; containing only the particulars relative
to my dear little friend, of which you have now so much better
information. When your letter was brought, I was upon a visit
in the neighbourhood, where it was sent me. There were ten
ladies and a clergyman. I was pleased with the assemblage,
thinking the vanity of the sex would meet with its equilibrium
in the wisdom of the profession; — that the brilliant sallies of
female wit and sprightliness would be corrected and moderated by
the learned gravity and judicious conversation of the Rev. Theo-
logue. I looked upon the latter as the centripetal, acting against
340 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
tlie centrifugal force of the former, who would be kept within
their orbit of decorum by his means. For about an hour nothing
was uttered but icords, which are almost an equivalent to nothing.
The gentleman had not yet spoken. The ladies, with loud vocife
rations, seemed to talk much without thinking at all. The gentle
man, with all the male stupidity of silent recollection, without
saying a single syllable, seemed to be acting over the pantomime
of thought. I cannot say, indeed, that his countenance so much
belied his understanding, as to express any thing : no, let me not
do him that injustice ; he might have sat for the picture of insen
sibility. I endured his taciturnity thinking that the longer he
was in collecting, adjusting, and arranging his ideas, the more
would he charm me with the tide of oratorical eloquence, when
the materials of his conversation were ready for display : but, alas !
it never occurred that I have seen an empty bottle corked as well
as a full one. After sitting another hour, I thought I perceived
in him signs of pregnant sentiment, which was just on the point of
being delivered in speeeh. I was extremely exhilarated at this,
but it was a false alarm ; he essayed it not. At length the
imprisoned powers of rhetoric burst through the shallow mounds
of torpid silence and reserve, and he remarked, with equal acute-
ness of wit, novelty of invention, and depth of penetration, that
— ' we had had no summer.' Then, shocked at his own loquacity,
he double-locked the cloor of his lips, * and word spoke never more.9
Will you not say I am turning devotee when I tell you what my
amusements, of the reading kind, are. I have read through all
the epistles three times since I have been here ; the ordinary trans
lation, Locke's Paraphrase, and a third put into very elegant
English (I know not by whom), in which St. Paul's obscurities
are elucidated, and Harwood's pomp of words avoided. I am also
reading 'West on the Resurrection ; ' in my poor judgment a most
excellent thing, calculated to confound all the cavils of the infidel,
and to confirm all the hopes of the believer. Have you heard
from the sweet little Cornwallian since you left her 1 My most
affectionate regards to my dear Master Lovell, and earnest wishes
for his speedy recovery.
I am, my dear Madam
With the most perfect esteem
Your ever obliged and affectionate humble servant
H. MORE.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 341
COIL
Mrs. Hannah More to Mrs. Boscawen.
Bath: 1707.
If I do write, quoth I to myself, in the humour I am in, I
shall convince my most honoured friend that I have no wit ; and
if I do not write I shall prove to a demonstration that I have no
gratitude. Thus the matter stood for a long time in exact equi
poise; but at last recollecting that wit was only a talent, and
gratitude a virtue, I was resolved to secure to myself the reputa
tion and comfort of the one, though at the risk, nay the certainty,
of forfeiting all pretensions to the other. Now, Madam, I appeal
to your discernment, if I have not made the better choice ? Of
attaining to the one I despair ; it is a rare but dangerous present —
but come, Gratitude ! thou peaceful, amiable virtue, and confess
(though thou art less addicted to confession than to feeling) if I
did not cherish thee in my heart, this morning, when I received so
delightful a letter from Auclley Street. Nothing could have
diminished the entire pleasure that letter gave me, but the un
pleasant intelligence of the indisposition of the writer.
I did not get hither to my winter quarters till Christinas. I
was so earnestly pressed to halt at Stoke, with the Duchess, in my
way, that I complied for three or four days. Very strong indeed
were the intreaties of my noble hostess that I should remain
during the visit of the whole house of Manners, but I was con
strained to be equally firm in my refusal.
Since I have been here I have so entirely lost my cough as to
be able to drink the waters, which do me much good. Now, my
dear Madam, if you do not think here is already a sufficient quan
tity of egotism, I will go on to tell you, that though I go to the
pump, I do not make any visits, not having set my foot to the
ground these two months. I shall, however, make an exception in
favour of your neighbours, Lord and Lady Kenyon, who have
done me the honour to desire to be acquainted with me. I am
much pleased with the plain unadorned integrity, the simplicity of
manners, the respect for piety, of this great Lord Chief Justice : I
think he discovers more reverence for virtue and religion in his
decisions than any law leader I remember.
My friends are extremely kind, so that I have full as much
16
342 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
cornpany as my heart can wish. Lady Herries is here, with the
full use of her limbs, which I am glad of; though, if they had been
my limbs, I question if I should have thought the use of them
worth purchasing at tlie expense of living abroad — better be dying
in England, than well any where else, is my maxim. Grave as
the times are, Bath never was so gay ; princes and kings that will
be, and princes and kings that have been, pop upon you at every
corner ; the Stadtholder and Prince of Wales only on a flying visit ;
but their Highnesses of York are become almost inhabitants, and
very sober and proper their behaviour is. The Duchess contri
butes by her residence in it, to make our street alive. I had the
honour of spending a morning with her Royal Highness. Her
conversation was judicious and lively ; the waters have been of
service to her ; she has had the goodness to present me with a
beautiful little box with her hair, set round with pearls on the lid.
Lady Waldegrave writes me but a sad account of poor Lord
Oxford. Of Mrs. Carter's recovery, though slow, I hear better
accounts. I say nothing of war, because I am weary of the word,
nor of peace, because I lose all hope of it. I am thankful, how
ever, that the fault does not rest with us ; one can bear the
affliction far better, when one has not to bear the guilt also.
Alas ! my dear Madam, your letter has just arrived which
announces the affecting tidings of Lord Oxford's death — affecting
in no small degree ; though I have been in daily expectation of
such an event taking place, my feelings are quite overcome when
I call to remembrance that kindness which knew no interruption
during twenty years.
I am, dear Madam,
Affectionately yours,
H. MORE
com.
Dr. Samuel Parr, tlie eminent scholar and philologist,
resigned an assistant-mastership at Harrow in 1772 and kept a
private school. In 178G he retired to Hatton in Warwickshire,
where he resided during the remainder of his life. Here he
wrote on all manner of subjects, critical, historical, philological,
and metaphysical ; and in the abundance of his learning his
advice and help were sought by many celebrated writers. That
he left no special and great work behind him is not surprising,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 313
if we consider the time lie must have exhausted in letter-writing.
Quite a literary curiosity is the list of over 1,400 of his corre
spondents, given iu the 7th vol. of his published works, includ
ing people of almost every rank and profession, from Royalty to
the humble pupil. There seems to be no doubt that in conver
sational power he had no rival, with the exception of Dr. John
son, and that like the great Lexicographer he could at times be
excessively arrogant. We may read that James Boswell was
in danger of losing prestige, if not, indeed, of suffering total
eclipse.
Dr. Samuel Parr to Mr. Cradock.
Ilatton : January G, 1825.
Dear and truly excellent Mr. Cradock, — Again and again I
thank you for a letter, most elegant in the style, interesting in tho
matter, and courteous in the spirit. Long, dear Sir, have I been
acquainted with your various and curious knowledge, with your
pure taste, with your polished manners, and your benevolent dis
position. Happy I always was in your enlightened conversation,
and accustomed I have been to assign you a very distinguished
place among those literary men who combine the best social quali
ties with intellectual endow Qients.
Nam te cum doctis semper vixissa fatetur
Invidia.
And your diction will not yield the place to the Magni, of whom
Horace boasts.
Well, dear Sir, I sympathise with you in your pleasure and
in your pride, when you represent yourself as the oldest remain
ing scholar, who lived upon terms of intimacy with Samuel
Johnson. You saw him often, and you met him often, in the
presence of Goldsmith, Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other
literary heroes. I acknowledge the great superiority of your
claims. Lord Stowell, I should suppose, will stand in the next
place, and I challenge for myself the third. For many years I
spent a month's holidays in London, and never failed to call upon
Johnson. I was not only admitted, but welcomed. I conversed
with him upon numberless subjects of learning, politics, and com
mon life. I traversed the whole compass of his understanding ;
and, by the acknowledgment of Burke and Reynolds, I distinctly
understood the peculiar and transcendental properties of his mighty
and virtuous mind. I intended to write his life; I laid by sixty or
311 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
seventy books for the purpose of writing it in such a manner as would
do no discredit to myself. I intended to spread my thoughts over
two volumes quarto, and if I had filled three pages the rest would
have followed. Often have I lamented my ill fortune in not build
ing this monument to the fame of Johnson, and let me not be accused
of arrogance when I add, my own.
I read with great attention and great approbation the tragedy
which you sent me, and I should like to talk with you three or
four hours upon its very great merits. You gladden my soul by
telling me of your intention to instruct and to interest men of
letters, and men of wisdom, by reviewing what you saw and heard
in the course of your observations upon events and characters for
many years.
Thus far, solitude has been of use to you, and your grey hairs
will bring to you increase of honour, by the proofs which you
will give that your mental strength is not impaired by old age.
Pray Mr. Craclock, let me now and then hear from you. I fear
that it will not be in my power again to visit the capital ; but if I
should go thither, be assured that I will find my way to your abode.
At all events, permit me to call you my friend ; and do not be
angry with me for telling you that, in the will I last made, I left you
a ring, as a memorial of my regard and respect. I should defy the
rigours of winter if I could find an opportunity of spending hours
and hours with you, or our most intelligent and upright friend,
John Nichols. My mind was soothed when I read your statement
of the concern which you and other valuable men expressed for my
health. Danger is over, and my recovery goes on even rapidly. I
must beg a favour from you and Mr. Urban. On the 26th of this
month I shall complete my 78th year, and, by the kindness of
Providence, mens sana in corpore sano has fallen to my lot. I
hope that you and Mr. Urban will find a bumper for many returns
of my birthday. You shall be indulged with water, but John
Nichols must qualify some of his oldest and most orthodox port.
May heaven bless you both ! I have the honour to be, dear Sir,
with unfeigned respect, your friend and obedient humble servant,
S. PARE.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 345
CCIV.
So mucli excellent work in Joseph Ritson's way has "been
done since the beginning of this century that the name of this
writer has long ceased to be popular. As a collector of ancient
English and Scottish songs, and a writer on our early metrical
romances he excited a great deal of curiosity and interest a
hundred years ago. He also excited no little enmity from the
persistent acerbity of his literary criticisms. His intimacy with
this early ballad literature may have imbued him with the
Tory spirit, but hardly qualified him to quit his proper sphere
for this sort of bavardage against the Whigs.
Joseph Ritson to Sir Harris Nicolas (the Editor oj his Letters').
Gray's Inn : April 20, 1796.
Ah ! you are a clever fellow ! after half a dozen attempts you
have at last (with Mr. Wolley's assistance) given a precise answer
to one half of my question, and to that half too, which you might
have easily guessed was of no sort of consequence to. me. However,
1 cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend
his pace by beating.' I know of no authors who give an authentic
account of events from the revolution to the present time, unless
it be Sir John Dairy mple (Memoirs of Great Britain, 3 volumes
4to. and 8vo.) to the battle of La Hogue; Macpherson (History
of G. B. and original papers, 4 volumes, 4to.), to the accession of
the present family ; and Smollett, to the peace of 1748. Always
prefer Tory or Jacobite writers ; the Whigs are the greatest liars
in the world. You consult history for facts, not principles. The
Whigs, I allow, have the advantage in the latter, and this advan
tage they are constantly labouring to support by a misrepresentation
of the. former. A glaring instance of this habitual perversion is
their uniform position, that the King, Lords and Commons, are the
three estates of the realm ; than which nothing can be more false.
Now, it so happens, that the bad principles of the Tories are cor
roborated by the facts and records of history, which makes it their
interest to investigate, and expose the truth ; and I can readily
believe that all the alterations which Hume professes to have made
in his history in favour of that party were strictly just. The
revolution itself was so iniquitous a transaction, and we have had
such a succession of scoundrels since it took place, that you must
316 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
not wonder if corruption or pusillanimity have prevented historians
from speaking of both as they deserve. You will do Mr. Malone
great injustice if you suppose him to be in all respects what I may
have endeavoured to represent him in some. In order that he
may recover your more favourable opinion, let me recommend to
your perusal, the discussion, in his prolegomena, entitled, ' Shak-
speare, Ford and Jonson ; ' and his ' Dissertation on the three
parts of King Henry the Sixth/ (to which I am more indebted for
an acquaintance with the manner of our great dramatic poet than
to any thing I ever read). His recent enquiry into the Shakspearian
forgeries evinces, also, considerable industry and acuteness, and is
certainly worth your reading. I do not mean to say that there
was any difficulty in the subject ; but it has certainly derived im
portance from the ignorant presumption and Gullibility of certain
literary aristocrats who have considerable influence upon what is
called the public. As to the personalities in my Quip modest and
Cursory criticisms, I can only defend them by those of my antago
nist. In behalf of the Remarks I have nothing to say. Indeed,
I should think you much better employed in putting them into
the fire, than in a vain attempt to diminish the inaccuracies of
such a mass of error both typographical and authorial. Farewell.
J. RlTSON.
CCV.
A prominent feature of the ' Diary and Letters of the Author
of Evelina,' is the revelation of the unbounded affection that the
different members of the Burney family entertained for one
another. Frances Burney's (Madame dArblay) sister, Mrs.
Susanna Phillips, died soon after reaching Norbury Park after
travelling from Dublin. ' The news of her death,' wrote
Madame d'Arblay, ' closed the last period of my perfect happi
ness on earth.'
Madame d'Arllay to Mrs. Lock.
January 9, 1800.
' As a Guardian Angel! ' — Yes, my dearest Fredy. as such in
every interval of despondence I have looked up to the sky to see
her ; but my eyes cannot pierce through the thick atmosphere, and
I can only represent her to me seated on a chair of sickness, her
soft hand held partly out to me as I approach her ; her softer eyes
so greeting me as never welcome was expressed before; and a smile-
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 347
of heavenly expression speaking the tender gladness of her grateful
soul that God at length should grant our reunion. From our
earliest moments, when no misfortune happened to our dear family,
we wanted nothing but each other. Joyfully as others were re
ceived by us — loved by us — all that was necessary to our happiness
was fulfilled by our simple junction. This I remember with my
first remembrance ; nor do I recollect a single instance of being
affected beyond a minute by any outward disappointment, if its
result was leaving us together.
She was the soul of my soul ! — and 'tis wonderful to me, my
dearest Fredy, that the first shock did not join them immediately
by the flight of mine — but that over — that dreadful, harrowing,
never-to-be-forgotten moment of horror that made me wish to be
mad — the ties that after that first endearing period have shared
with her my heart, come to my aid. Yet I was long incredulous;
and still sometimes I think it is not — and that she will come — and
I paint her by my side — by my father's — in every room of these
apartments, destined to have chequered the woes of her life with
rays of comfort, joy, and affection.
O, my Fredy, not selfish is the affliction that repines her earthly
course of sorrow was allowed no shade ! — that at the instant soft
peace and consolation awaited her she should breathe her last !
You would understand all the hardship of resignation for me were
you to read the joyful opening of her letter, on her landing, to my
poor father, and her prater at the end to be restored to him. O, my
Fredy ! could you indeed think of me — be alarmed for me on
that dreadful day ! — I can hardly make that enter my compre
hension ; but I thank you from my soul ; for that is beyond any
love I had thought possible, even from your tender heart. Tell
me you all keep well, and forgive me my distraction. I write so
fast I fear you can hardly read; but you will see I am con
versing with you, and that will show you how I turn to you for
the comfort of your tenderness. Yes, you have all a loss indeed !
FRANCES D'ARBLAY.
348 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCVI.
We read in one of Mrs. Inchbald's letters that on the day
Covent Garden Theatre was burnt to the ground (1809), a
volume of ' Sermons ' which had been sent to her by the author,
the Rev. J. Plumptre, was opened for the iirst time. The pub
lication of this volume was seasonable enough, for the parish
pulpits were, at the time, sending forth the bitterest protests
against the abuse of dramatic composition ; and the recent
catastrophes at both the Patent Theatres provided an appropriate
text for all who chose to deprecate stage plays. Mrs. Inch-
bald's remarks on Mr. Plumptre's sermons will not altogether
displease a broad-minded divine of our own day,
Mrs. Inclibald to the Rev. J. Plumptre.
Sir, — I should have acknowledged the favour of your letter
much sooner, but that I have been ambitious to add a few obser
vations, in compliance with your request, to that vast catalogue
of facts which you have so charitably produced in defence of the
drama. It appears to me, however, that you have left so little to
be said in addition to your arguments, that I almost despair of a,
future volume from you ; and in all my endeavours to aid the
cause, I have no more than the following remarks to offer.
My first is, — that the disgrace imputed to the actor's profession
seems to have been a kind of preservative against every other dis
grace — at least against that worst of ignominies which attaches to
every offence punishable by law. From murder down to forgery
or petty larceny — from high treason down to sedition or even dis
affection to the royal cause — all English actors are allowed to have
been free. The misdeeds of actors a,re at least rejined ; not of that
atrocious nature into which men of all classes, they alone excepted,
seem at some time or other to have fallen.
My second observation is, — the enemies of the Stage make
no reference to the age in which certain immoral and licentious
plays were written ; but condemn those plays as if they were
written in the present day, and performed with all those vile
scenes which are now omitted in representation, and which
were neither sinful nor shameful at tbe time of their produc
tion; for they merely spoke the language and gave the man
ners of the times. Delicacy had not, at that period, augmented
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS, 349
the number of our enjoyments and transgressions, by imposing its
present laws of refinement. A quotation from Mr. "Warton will
best explain the meaning I would convey in this observation.
After having noticed some very indecorous scene in an ancient
drama, where the patriarch Noah and his wife are the principal
personages, the critic observes : ' Our ancestors intended no
sort of impiety by these monstrous unnatural mixtures. Neither
the writers nor the spectators saw their impropriety. They had
no just idea of decorum, consequently but little sense of the ridicu
lous : what appears to us to be the highest burlesque upon these
characters, made no sort of impression in those days.'
Having brought my two observations into a smaller space than
I apprehended I should do, permit me now to say, in reply to that
part of your letter in which you distinguish between the effects of
seriousness and levity in the utterance of language dangerous to
the hearer, — that I can by no means consider levity as possessing
any peculiar allurement to the passion commonly called Love.
For, as far as every serious description must impress our hearts
and our understanding more deeply than a jocular one, so far I
conceive there may be danger in those very warnings, however
gravely delivered, which the fall of David and other holy persons
in the Old Testament are meant to impart. The awfu! consequences
which followed guilt in the unlawful loves of the Jews, will no
doubt alarm ; but they will also awaken the mind to the contem
plation of those crimes so dearly purchased ; and the magnitude of
the temptation can in no way be so forcibly described, as by the mag
nitude of the punishment, which was sure to overtake the unhappy
sinner, and yet was so often braved by the very favourites of
Heaven.
But writings that are familiar to us lose very often (as other
familiar things do) their natural effect ; for I sincerely believe that
many an actor would blush to read all the adventures of the
Jewish people before an actress whom he esteemed, as much as an
ecclesiastic would be ashamed to recite one of our most licentious
comedies before the woman whom he wished to make his wife.
My veneration for the Sacred History is in no shape diminished
by this opinion ; but rny respect for the cavillers at plays is wholly
overcome or destroyed by it.
There is a quotation in your work wherein Gisborne will not
1C*
350 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
aclmifc on the stage even allusions offensive to modesty. This would
seem highly proper, and every one would agree in such taste for
purity did not the comparison of the * beam and the mote ' force
itself upon recollection, and give rise to the suspicion, that he con
ceives there is a prerogative in indelicacy which only belongs to the
Christian Church.
Dear Sir, your most obliged humble servant,
E. INCHBALD.
P.S. — If I were asked by an illiterate foreigner to explain to him
the exact meaning of our word delicacy, I would conclude my defi
nition by saying : — 'And this very Delicacy is at present all the
fashion ; and the most beautiful and becoming fashion it is that ever
was followed. The grave and the good are loudest in its praise ;
but 110 one loves and admires it so much as the Libertine. It is
the lure to his pleasures and heightens all their gratifications. It
conceals, as with a veil, all the vices of the artful wanton, and sup
plies her with bonds to secure the paramour whom delicacy has
ensnared.'
CCTVII.
When Crabbe was struggling- for literary employment in
London, and found himself ou the verge of starvation, he ad
dressed this letter to Burke relying on the great statesman's
reputation for philanthropy. The result was, ' he went into
Mr. Burke's room a poor young- adventurer, and came out vir
tually secure of almost all the good fortune that afterwards
fell to his lot.' "Who must not regret that his generous patron
did not live to read ' The Borough ' and * Sir Eustace Grey ? '
George Crabbe to Edmund Burke.
Sir, — I am sensible that I need even your talents to apologise
for the freedom I now take ; but I have a plea which, however
simply urged, will, with a mind like yours, Sir, procure me par
don : I am one of those outcasts on the world, who are without a
friend, without employment, and without bread. Pardon me a
short preface. I had a partial father, who gave me a better edu
cation than his broken fortune would have allowed ; and a better
than was necessary, as he could give me that only. I was de
signed for the profession of physic; but nob having wherewithal to
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 351
complete the requisite studies, the design but served to convince
me of a parent's affection, and the error it had occasioned. In
April last, I came to London with three pounds, and flattered my
self this would be sufficient to supply me with the common neces
saries of life, till my abilities should procure me more ; of these I
had the highest opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my
delusion. I knew little of the world, and had read books only : I
wrote, and fancied perfection in my compositions, when I wanted
bread they promised me affluence, and soothed me with dreams
of reputation, whilst my appearance subjected me to contempt.
Time, reflection, and want, have shown me my mistake. I
see my trifles in that which I think the true light ; and, whilst I
deem them such, have yet the opinion that holds them superior to
the common run of poetical publications.
I had some knowledge of the late Mr. Nassau, the brother of
Lord Rochford ; in consequenca of which, I asked his Lordship's
permission to inscribe my little work to him. Knowing it to be
free from all political allusions and personal abuse, it was no very
material point to me to whom it was dedicated. His Lordship
thought it none to him, and obligingly consented to my request.
I was told that a subscription would be the more profitable
method for me, and therefore endeavoured to circulate copies of
the enclosed Proposals.
I am afraid, Sir, I disgust you with this very dull narration,
but believe me punished in the misery that occasions it. You will
conclude, that, during this time, I must have been at more expense
than I could afford ; indeed, the most parsimonious could not have
avoided it. The printer deceived me, and my little business has
had every delay. The people with whom I live perceive my situa
tion, and find me to be indigent and without friends. About ten
days since, I was compelled to give a note for seven pounds, to
avoid an arrest for about double that sum which I owe. I wrote
to every friend I had, but my friends are poor likewise; the time
of payment approached, and I ventured to represent my case to
Lord Kochford. I begged to be credited for this sum till I received
it of my subscribers, which I believe will be within one month : but
to this letter I had no reply, and I have probably offended by my
importunity. Having used every honest means in vain, I yester
day confessed my inability, and obtained, with much entreaty, and
352 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
as the greatest favour, a week's forbearance, when I am positively
told, that I must pay the money, or prepare for a prison.
You will guess the purpose of so long an introduction. I ap
peal to you, Sir, as a good, and, let me add, a great man. I have
no other pretensions to your favour than that I am an unhappy
one. It is not easy to support the thoughts of confinement ; and I
am coward enough to dread such an end to my suspense.
Can you, Sir, in any degree, aid me with propriety ? Will you
ask any demonstration of my veracity 1 I have imposed upon my
self, but I have been guilty of no other imposition. Let me, if
possible, interest your compassion. I know those of rank and
fortune are teased with frequent petitions, and are competed to re
fuse the requests even of those whom they know to ba in distress :
it is therefore, with a distant hope I ventured to solicit such
favour ; but you will forgive me, Sir, if you do not think proper
to relieve. It is impossible that sentiments like yours can proceed
from any but a humane and generous heart.
I will call upon you, Sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the hap
piness to obtain credit with you, I must submit to my fate. My
existence is a pain to myself, and every one near and dear to me
are distressed in my distresses.
My connections, once the source of happiness, now embitter the
reverse of my fortune, and I have only to hope a speedy end to a
life so unpromisingly begun : in which (though it ought not to be
boasted of) I can reap some consolation from looking to the end of
it. I am, Sir, with the greatest respect,
Your obedient and most humble servant,
GEORGE CRABBE.
CCVIII.
In the spring of 1782, when Edmund Burke was made a
Privy Councillor and was appointed Paymaster-General of the
forces in the second Rockingham Administration, Crabbe
joined in the chorus of congratulation, and we may be sure his
words were heartfelt. The post was the most lucrative in the
Ministry, yielding in perquisites alone more than 2o,OOOZ. a year.
This, with other wasteful expenditure, the new Minister swept
away in an early measure of reform.
^
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 353
The Rev. George Crabbe to the Right Hon. Edmund Burke.
Sir, — I have long delayed, though I much wished to write to
you, not being willing to take up any part of your time with the
impertinence of congratulation ; but I now feel that I had rather
be thought an intruder on your patience, than not to be a partaker
of the general joy. Most heartily, indeed, do I rejoice, being well
assured that if the credit and happiness of this kingdom can be
restored, the wisdom and virtues of my most honoured friend, and
his friends, will bring forward so desirable an event ; and if not,
it will be some satisfaction to find such men lost to the confidence
of the people, who have so long demonstrated their incapacity to
make a proper use of it.
Having procured a successor to my curacies, I expect to be in
town within a few days, — and for a few. I shall then hope once
to see you ; not bearing to suppose that any honours, or business,
or even the calls of my country, should make me totally forgotten ;
for you have directed, assisted, adopted me ; and I cannot relin
quish the happiness your favour gives me. I will be still your
son, and my portion shall be to rejoice in my father's honour. I
am also, with the highest respect, and most earnest good wishes,
Dear and excellent sir,
Your greatly obliged and grateful servant,
GEORGE CRABBE.
CCIX.
Godwin — "Wollstonecraft — Shelley. There is no more inte
resting chapter in modern literary history than that embodied in
the memorials of the lives and relationship of these strange
characters. Letters from the pen of each are necessarily
included in this volume. Godwin had risen into fame by his
political writings and Ms novel of ' Caleb Williams/ before he
married Mary Wollstonecraft. She died in childbed Sept. 1797.
The daughter of the marriage was wedded to the poet Shelley.
In 1798 Godwin edited the posthumous works of his wife, and
soon after visited his friend Curran in Ireland. The great Irish
barrister is thus brought before us.
William Godwin to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Dublin : September, 1800.
Dear Coleridge, — You scarcely expected a letter from me of
the above date. But I recaived last September an invitation from
354 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
John Philpot Outran, the Irish barrister, probably the first advo
cate in Europe, then in London, to spend a few weeks with him in
Ireland this summer, which I did not feel in myself philosophy
enough to resist. Nor do I repent my compliance. The advantages
one derives from placing the sole of one's foot on a foreign soil
are extremely great. Few men, on such an occasion, think it
worth their while to put on armour for your encounter. I know
Fox and Sheridan, but can scarce consider them as my acquaint
ance. Your next door neighbour, before he admits you to his
familiarity, considers how far he should like to have you for his
familiar for the next seven years. But familiarity with a foreign
guest involves no such consequences, and so circumstanced, you
are immediately admitted on the footing of an inmate. I am now
better acquainted with Grattan and Curran, the Fox and Sheridan
of Ireland, after having been four weeks in their company, than I
can pretend ever to have been with their counterparts on my
native soil.
Curran I admire extremely. There is scarcely the man on
earth with whom I ever felt myself so entirely at my ease, or so
little driven back, from time to time, to consider of my own miser
able individual. He is perpetually a staff and a cordial, without
ever affecting to be either. The being never lived who was more
perfectly free from every species of concealment. With great
genius, at least a rich and inexhaustible imagination, he never
makes me stand in awe of him, and bow as to my acknowledged
superior, a thing by-the-by which, de temps a d'autre, you compel
me to do. He amuses me always, astonishes me often, yet
naturally and irresistibly inspires me with confidence. I am apt,
particularly when away from home, to feel forlorn and dispirited.
The two last days I spent from him, and though they were em
ployed most enviably in tete a tete with Grattan, I began to feel
dejected and home-sick. But Curran has joined me to-day, and
poured into my bosom a full portion of his irresistible kindness
and gaiety.
You will acknowledge these are extraordinary traits. Yet
Curran is far from a faultless and perfect character. Immersed
for many years in a perpetual whirl of business, he has no pro
foundness or philosophy. He has a great share of the Irish cha
racter — dashing, etourdi, coarse, vulgar, impatient, fierce, kittenish,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 355
He has no characteristic delicacy, no intuitive and instant com
merce with the sublime features of nature. Ardent in a memor
able degree, and a patriot from the most generous impulse, he
has none of that political chemistry which Burke so admirably
describes (I forget his words), that resolves and combines, and
embraces distant nations and future ages. He is inconsistent in
the most whimsical degree. I remember, in an amicable debate
with Sheridan, in which Sheridan far outwent him in refinement,
penetration, and taste, he three times surrendered his arms,
acknowledged his error, yea, even began to declaim (for declama
tion is too frequently his mania) on the contrary side : and as often,
after a short interval, resumed his weapons, and renewed the
combat. Now and then, in the career of declamation, he becomes
tautological and ineffective, and I ask myself : Is this the prophet
that lie went forth to see ! But presently after he stumbles
upon a rich vein of imagination, and recognises my willing suf
frage. He has the reputation of insincerity, for which he is in
debted, not to his heart, but to the mistaken, cherished calculations
of his practical prudence. He maintains in argument that you
ought never to inform a man, directly or indirectly, of the high
esteem in which you hold him. Yet, in his actual intercourse, he
is apt to mix the information too copiously and too often. But
perhaps his greatest fault is, that though endowed with an energy
the most ardent, and an imagination the most varied and pic
turesque, there is nothing to which he is more prone, or to which
his inclination more willingly leads him, than to play the buffoon.
OCX.
No one more than Percy Bysshe Shelley needed the piece of
wholesome advice which his father-in-law vouchsafed him in
the following letter. William Godwin proclaimed himself a
republican and a philanthropist in 1793, and first came into
notoriety by his treatise called ' Political Justice.' That he did
not figure with many of his political friends in the State trials
which disgraced our courts of justice in 1794 is due to his strict
observance of the principles of action which he here enunciates
to the young democrat.
356 NEGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Wittiam Godwin to Percy Bysshe Shelley.
March 4,] 812.
My good friend, — I have read all your letters (the first per
haps excepted) with peculiar interest, and I wish it to be under
stood by you unequivocally that, as far as I can yet penetrate into
your character, I conceive it to exhibit an extraordinary assemblage
of lovely qualities not without considerable defects. The defects
do, and always have arisen chiefly from this source, that you are
still very young, and that in certain essential respects you do not
sufficiently perceive that you are so.
In your last letter you say, ' I publish because I will publish
nothing that shall not conduce to virtue, and therefore my publica
tions, as far as they do influence, shall influence for good.'
Oh, my friend, how short-sighted are the views that dictated
this sentence ! Every man, in every deliberate action of his life,
imagines he sees a preponderance of good likely to result. This
is the law of our nature, from which none of us can escape.
You do not in this point generically differ from the human
beings about you. Mr. Burke and Tom Paine, when they wrote
on the French Revolution, perhaps equally believed that the
sentiments they supported were essentially conducive to the wel
fare of man. When Mr. Walsh resolved to purloin to his own
use a few thousand pounds, with which to settle himself and his
family and children in America, he tells us that he was for some
time anxious that the effects of his fraud should fall upon Mr.
Oldham rather than upon Sir Thomas Plumer, because, in his
opinion, Sir Thomas was the better man. And I have no doubt
that he was fully persuaded that a greater sum of happiness would
result from these thousand pounds being employed in settling his
innocent and lovely family in America, than in securing to his
employer the possession of a large landed estate. . . .
In the pamphlet you have just sent me, your views and mine as
to the improvement of mankind are decisively at issue. You pro
fess the immediate objects of your efforts to be ' the organisation of
a society whose institution shall serve as a bond to its members.'
If I may be allowed to understand iny book on Political Justice,
its pervading principle is, that association is a most ill-chosen and
ill-qualified mode of endeavouring to promote the political hap-
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 357
piness of mankind. And I think of your pamphlet, however com
mendable and lovely are many of its sentiments, that it will either
be ineffective to its immediate object, or that it has no very remote
tendency to light again the flames of rebellion and war. . . .
Discussion, reading, enquiry, perpetual communication : these
are my favourite methods for the improvement of mankind, but
associations, organized societies, I firmly condemn. You may as
well tell the adder not to Lting :
* You may as well use question with the wolf:
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven!'
as tell organized societies of men, associated to obtain their rights
and to extinguish oppression, — prompted by a deep aversion to
inequality, luxury, enormous taxes, and the evils of war, — to be
innocent, to employ no violence, and calmly to await the progress
of truth. I never was at a public political dinner, a scene that I
have now not witnessed for many years, that I did not see how
the enthusiasm was lighted up, how the flame caught from man
to man, how fast the dictates of sober reason were obliterated by the
gusts of passion, and how near the assembly was, like Alexander's
compotatores at Persepolis, to go forth and fire the city, or, like
the auditors of Anthony's oration over the body of Caesar, to apply
a flaming brand to the mansion of each several conspirator.
Discussion and conversation on the best interests of society are
excellent as long as they are unfettered, and each man talks to his
neighbour in the freedom of congenial intercourse as he happens
to meet with him in the customary haunts of men, or in the quiet
and beneficent intercourse of each other's fireside. But they
become unwholesome and poisonous when men shape themselves
into societies, and become distorted with the artifices of organiza
tion. It will not then long be possible to reason calmly and dis
passionately : men will heat each other into impatience and indig
nation against their oppressors ; they will become tired of talking
for ever, and will be in a hurry to act. If this view of things is
true, applied to any country whatever, it is peculiarly and fearfully
so when applied to the fervent and impetuous character of the
Irish. .
338 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
One principle that I believe is wanting in you, and in all our
too fervent and impetuous reformers, is the thought that almost
every institution and form of society is good in its place and in
the period of time to which it belongs. How many beautiful and
admirable effects grew out of Popery and the monastic institutions
in the period when they were in their genuine health and vigour.
To them we owe almost all our logic and our literature. What ex
cellent effects do we reap, even at this day, from the feudal system
and from chivalry ! In this point of view nothing perhaps can
be more worthy of our applause than the English Constitution.
Excellent to this purpose are the words of Daniel in his Apology
for Rhyme ; ' Nor can it touch but of arrogant ignorance, to hold
this or that nation barbarous, these or those times gross, con
sidering how this manifold creature man, wheresoever he stand in
the world, hath always some disposition of worth, entertains and
effects that order of society which is best for his use, and is
eminent for some one thing or other that fits his humour and the
times.' This is the truest and most sublime toleration. There is
a period, indeed, when each institution is obsolete, and should be
laid aside ; but it is of much importance that we should not pro
ceed too rapidly in this, or introduce any change before its due
and proper season. . . .
You say that you count but on a short life. In that too you
are erroneous. I shall not live to see you fourscore, but it is
not improbable that my son will. I was myself in early life of a
remarkably puny constitution. Pope, who was at all times kept
alive only by art, reached his fifty-seventh year. The constitution
of man is a theatre of change, and I think it not improbable that
at thirty or forty you will be a robust man. . . .
To descend from great things to small, I can perceive that you
are already infected with the air of the country [Ireland]. Your
letter with its enclosures cost me by post £1 Is. 8d., and you
say in it that you ' send it in this way to save expense.' The post
always charges parcels that exceed a sheet or two by weight, and
they should therefore always be forwarded by some other con
veyance. . . .
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 359
CCXI.
Referring to the following- letter in his ' Life of Godwin/ Mr.
C. Kegan Paul remarks : — ' The stoicism which is so admirable
in repressing his own feelings, is less beautiful when used to con
dole with Mrs. Shelley on the death of her child. It is fair to
remark, however, that he is dealing with his daughter as he
would have desired men should deal with him had he given way
to what, had he indulged it, he would have considered a blame-
able weakness.'
William Godwin to Mrs. Shelley.
Skinner Street : September 9, 1819.
My dear Mary, — Your letter of August 19 is very grievous to
me, inasmuch as you represent me as increasing the degree of
your uneasiness and depression.
You must, however, allow me the privilege of a father, and a
philosopher, in expostulating with you 011 this depression. I can
not but consider it as lowering your character in a memorable
degree, and putting you quite among the commonality and mob of
your sex, when I had thought I saw in you symptoms entitling
you to be ranked among those noble spirits that do honour to our
nature. What a falling off is here ! How bitterly is so inglorious
a change to be deplored !
What is it you want that you have not ? You have the hus
band of your choice, to whom you seem to be unalterably attached,
a man of high intellectual attainments, whatever I, and some other
persons, may think of his morality, and the defects under this last
head, if they be not (as you seem co think) imaginary, at least do
not operate as towards yon. You have all the goods of fortune,
all the means of being useful to others, and shining in your
proper sphere. But you have lost a child : and all the rest of the
world, all that is beautiful, and all that has a claim upon your
kindness, is nothing, because a child of two years old is dead.
The human species may be divided into two great classes :
those who lean on others for support, and those who are qualified
to support. Of these last, some have one, some five, and some ten
talents. Some can support a husband, a child, a small but respect
able circle of friends and dependents, and some can support a
world, contributing by their energies to advance their who1e
8GO ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
species one or more degrees in the scale of perfectibility. The
former class sit with their arms crossed, a prey to apathy and
languor, of no use to any earthly creature, and ready to fall from
their stools if some kind soul, who might compassionate, but who
cannot respect them, did not come from moment to moment, and
endeavour to set them up again. You were formed by nature to
belong to the best of these classes, but you seem to be shrinking
away, and voluntarily enrolling yourself among the worst.
Above all things, I entreat you, do not put the miserable de
lusion on yourself, to think there is something fine, and beautiful,
and delicate, in giving yourself up, and agreeing to be nothing.
Remember, too, that though at first your nearest connections
may pity you in this state, yet that when they see you fixed in
selfishness and ill-humour, and regardless of the happiness of every
one else, they will finally ceass to love you, and scarcely learn to
endure you.
The other parts of your letter afford me much satisfaction.
Depend upon it, there is no maxim more true or more important
than this, Frankness of communication takes off bitterness. . . ,
True philosophy invites all communication, and withholds none.
CCXII
At the age of forty-three the marvellous poet and painter in
whom the last revival of English art beg'an, had already
wrapped himself completely in those golden webs of mysticism
which at once obscured and illuminated his strange thoughts and
words. He had come down to Felpham a few days before the
date of this letter, to be near his friend and patron Hayley.
William Blake to John Flaxman.
Felpham : September 21, 1800.
Dear Sculptor of Eternity, — We are safe arrived at our cot
tage, which is more beautiful than I thought it, and more con
venient. It is a perfect model for cottages, and I think for palaces
of magnificence, only enlarging not altering its proportions and
adding ornaments and not principles. Nothing can be more grand
than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple without intricacy, it
seems to be the spontaneous expression of humanity, congenial to
the wants of man. No other formed house can ever please me so
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 361
well, nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be im
proved either in beauty or use.
Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I
have begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because
it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides
her golden gates : her windows are not obstructed by vapours ;
voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard and their
forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage is also a shadow
of their houses. My wife and sister are both well, courting
Neptune for an embrace.
Our journey was very pleasant, and though we had a great
deal of luggage no grumbling. All was cheerfulness and good
humour on the road, and yet we could not arrive at our cottage
before half past eleven at night, owing to the necessary shifting of
our luggage from one chaise to another, for we had seven dif
ferent chaises and as many different drivers. We set out between
six arid seven in the morning of Thursday, with sixteen heavy
boxes and portfolios full of prints.
And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth
is shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I
could well conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled
with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages
of eternity before my mortal life ; and those works are the delight
and study of archangels. Why then should I be anxious about
the riches and fame of mortality 1 The Lord our Father will do
for us and with us according to his divine will.
You, O dear Flaxman, are a sublime archangel, — my friend
and companion from eternity. In the divine bosom is our dwell
ing-place. I look back into the regions of reminiscence, and
behold our ancient days before this earth appeared in its vegetative
mortality to my mortal vegetated eyes. I see our houses of eter
nity which can never be separated, though our mortal vehicles
should stand at the remotest corners of heaven from each other.
Farewell, my best Friend ; — remember me and my wife in love
and friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxrnan, whom we ardently
desire to entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold. And
believe me for ever to remain
Your grateful and affectionate
WILLIAM BLAKE.
362 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCXIII.
It will be remembered that in a series of articles (now col
lected) originally contributed to ' Blackwood's Magazine,'
entitled * Homer and his Translators,' Professor Wilson criti
cised in his usual spirited and affable manner, the relative merits
of the versions of Chapman, Dryden, Tickel, Pope; Cowper, and
Sotheby. Three articles had appeared up to July 1831, in each
of which Sotheby's work received its fair share of approbation.
This may account for the extreme impatience for further acknow
ledgments of his merits. But why have importuned the critic
so early as October for matter only promised for Christmas, and
which actually appeared in the December number ?
William Sotheby to Professor Wilson.
13 Lower Grosvenor Place : October 8, 1831.
My Dear Sir, — One month, two months, three months' grievous
disappointment, intolerable disappointment, Homer and his tail,
Chapman, Pope, and Sotheby in dim eclipse. What becomes of
the promise solemnly given to the public, that the vases of good
and evil impartially poured forth by your balancing hand, were
ere Christmas to determine our fate ? I long doubted whether I
should trouble you with a letter, but the decided opinion of our
friend Lockhart decided me.
And now hear, I pray, in confidence, why I am peculiarly
anxious for the completion of your admirable remarks.
I propose, ere long, to publish the Odyssey, and shall gratify
myself by sending you, as a specimen of it, the eleventh book. It
will contain, inter alia, a sop for the critics, deeply soaked in the
blood of a fair heifer and a sable ram, and among swarms of spirits,
the images of the heroes of the Iliad, completing the tale of Troy
divine. After the publication of the Odyssey, it is my intent, by the
utmost diligence and labour, to correct the Iliad, and to endeavour
to render it less unworthy of the praise you have been pleased to
confer on it. Of your praise I am justly proud ; yet for my future
object, I am above measure desirous of the benefit of your cen
sures. The remarks (however flattering) with which I have been
honoured by others, are less valuable to me than your censures ;
of this, the proof will be evident in the subsequent edition. You
must not, you cannot leave your work incomplete. How resist
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 363
the night expedition of Diomede and Ulysses 1 — Hector bursting
the rampart — Juno and the Cestus — Hector rushing on, like the
stalled horse snapping the cord — The death of Sarpedon — The
consternation of the Trojans at the mere appearance of the armed
Achilles — The Yulcanian armour — Achilles mourning over Patro-
clus — The conclusion of the twentieth book — The lamentations of
Priam, and Hecuba, and, above all, of Andromache — Priam at the
feet of Achilles — Andromache's lamentation, and Helen's (oh, that
lovely Helen !) over the corse of Hector — can these and innume
rable other passages be resisted by the poet of the City of the
Plague ] No, no, no.
In sooth, I must say, I had hope that at Christmas I might
have collected, and printed for private distribution, or, far rather
published, for public delight and benefit, with your express per
mission, the several critiques in one body, and then presented to
the world a work of criticism unparalleled.
I dine this day at Lockh art's, with my old and dear friend, Sir
"Walter. His health has improved since his arrival. Perhaps
your cheeks may burn. I beg the favour of hearing from you. —
I remain, my dear Sir, most sincerely yours,
WM. SOTHEBY.
COXIV.
Writing1 six weeks after the event, Nelson somewhat
casually refers to the wounds he received during the siege of the
strong fortress of Calvi. As no mention was made of his loss of
an eye in the public list of wounded, he drew Admiral Hood's
attention to the omission on the 2nd Oct. following, remarking,
' I do not think that his Majesty will consider that I suffered the
less pain from the determination to do my duty in twenty-four
hours after the accident, that those laborious duties entrusted by
your lordship to my direction might not slacken.'
Horatio Nelson to Mrs. Nelson.
Off Leghorn : August 18, 1794.
I left Calvi on the 15th, and hope never to be in it again. I
was yesterday in St. Fiorenzo, and to-day shall be safe moored, I
expect, in Leghorn : since the Ship has been commissioned, this
will be the first resting time we have had. As it is all past, I
may now tell you, that on the 10th of July, a shot having hit our bat
tery, the splinters and stones from it struck me with great violence
361 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
in the face and breast. Although the blow was so severe as to occa
sion a great flow of blood from my head, yet I, most fortunately,
escaped, having only my right eye nearly deprived of its sight : it
was cut down, but is so far recovered, as for me to be able to dis
tinguish light from darkness. As to all the purposes of use, it is
gone ; however, the blemish is nothing, not to be perceived, unless
told. The pupil is nearly the size of the blue part, I don't know
the name. At Bastia, I got a sharp cut in the back. You must
not think that my hurts confined me : no, nothing but the loss of
a limb would have kept me from my duty, and I believe my
exertions conduced to preserve me in this general mortality. I
am fearful that Mrs. Moutray's son, who was on shore with us
will fall a sacrifice to the climate ; he is a Lieutenant of the
Victory, a very fine young man, for whom I have a great regard.
Lord Hood is quite distressed about him. Poor little Hoste is
also extremely ill, and I have great fears about him ; one hundred
and fifty of my people are in their beds ; of two thousand men I
am the most healthy. Josiah is very well, and a clever smart
young man, for so I must call him, his sense demands it.
Yours, &c.
HORATIO NELSON.
ccxv.
On July 15, 1795, Nelson was sent with a squadron to co
operate with the Austrian General De Vins, against the French on
the coast of Genoa, and on August 11 he was appointed a Com
modore. During the ensuing months he was chiefly employed in
watching the Mediterranean coast line from Leghorn to Toulon.
Commodore Nelson to Mrs. Nelson.
Off Leghorn : August 2, 1796.
Had all my actions, my dearest Fanny, been gazetted, not one
fortnight would have passed during the whole war without a letter
from me : one day or other I will have a long Gazette to myself ;
I feel that such an opportunity will be given me. I cannot, if I
am in the field for glory, be kept out of sight. Probably my ser
vices ma}7 be forgotten by the great, by the time I get home ; but
my mind will not forget, nor cease to feel, a degree of consolation
and of applause superior to undeserved rewards. Wherever there
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 3G3
is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps.
Credit must be given me in spite of envy. Even the French respect
me : their Minister at Genoa, in answering a note of mine, when
returning some wearing apparel that had been taken, said, ' Your
Nation, Sir, and mine, are made to show examples of generosity as
well as of valour, to all the people of the earth.' I will also relate
another anecdote, all vanity to myself, but you will partake of it.
A person sent me a letter, and directed as follows, * Horatio Nel
son, Genoa.' On being asked how he could direct in such a man
ner, his answer, in a large party, was, ' Sir, there is but one
Horatio Nelson in the World.' The letter certainly came imme
diately. At Genoa, where I have stopped all their trade, 1 am
beloved and respected, both by the Senate and lower order. If
any man is fearful of his vessel being stopped, he comes and asks
me ; if I give him a Paper, or say, ' All is right,' he is contented.
I am known throughout Italy ; not a Kingdom, or State, where
my name will be forgotten. This is my Gazette.
Lord Spencer has expressed his sincere desire to Sir John
Jervis, to give me my Flag. You ask me when I shall come
home ? I believe, when either an honourable peace is made, or a
Spanish war, which may draw our Fleet out of the Mediterranean.
God knows I shall come to you not a sixpence richer than
when I set out. I had a letter a few days since from H.R.H. the
Duke of Clarence, assuring me of his unalterable friendship. With
kindest love to my father, believe me your most affectionate
husband,
HORATIO NELSON.
CCXVI.
Sir John Jervis' splendid fight off Cape St. Vincent took
place on ' the most glorious Valentine's Day, 1797.' Nelson's
ship the f Captain ' was so much damaged that on the following1
day he shifted his Broad Pendant to the ' Irresistible ; ' and a
week after he was appointed Rear- Admiral of the Blue. Nothing
in naval warfare ever surpassed the action of Nelson's ship dur
ing this battle. It is said that a more glorious group was never
witnessed than that of the ' Captain,' a wreck in hull and masts,
with a tight grip on her two magnificent prizes, the ' St. Nicolas '
and * St. Josef.'
17
3G6 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Commodore Nelson to the Eon. Sir Gilbert Elliot.
Irresistible : February 16, 1797.
My dear Sir, — Your affectionate and flattering letter is, I assure
you, a sufficient reward for doing (what to me was a pleasure) my
duty. My Admiral and others in the Fleet think the same as
you do of my conduct. To receive the swords of the vanquished,
on the quarter-deck of a Spanish First-rate, can seldom fall to the
good fortune of any man. Miller is doing for you two sketches of
the action, sufficient, I am sure, to please yon, from your know
ledge of its correctness.
You will now, I am sure, think me an odd man, but still I
hope you will agree with me in opinion, and if you can be instru
mental in keeping back what I expect will happen, it will be an
additional obligation, for very far is it from my disposition to hold
light the Honours of the Crown ; but I conceive to take hereditary
Honours without a fortune to support the dignity, is to lower that
Honour it would be my pride to support in proper splendour. On
the 1st of June,1 12th of April,2 and other glorious days, Baronetage
has been bestowed on the Junior Flag Officers : this Honour is
what I dread, for the reasons before given, and which I wish a
friend to m*ge for me to Lord Spencer, or such other of his Majes
ty's Ministers as are supposed to advise the Crown. There are
other Honours, which die with the possessor, and I should be
proud to accept, if my efforts arc thought worthy of the favour of
my King. May health and every blessing attend you, and I pray
for your speedy passage and a happy meeting with Lady Elliot and
your family. And believe me ever,
Your most obliged and faithful,
HORATIO NELSON.
CCXVII.
During the unsuccessful attack on the town of Santa Cruz, in
the Island of Teneriffe, on July 24, 1797, Nelson had his right
arm shot off; and we niay gather from the three short letters
which follow, the Admiral apprehended that, minus an eye and
an arm, he would be l shelved ' on his return to England.
1 June 1, 1794, Lord Howe's victory off Ushant.
8 April 12, 1782. Lord Rodney's victory over the Comte de Grasse.
1800] ENGLISH .LETTERS. 367
Rear- Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B.,1 to Admiral
Sir John Jervis, K.B.
Theseus : July 27, 1797.
My dear Sir, — I am become a burthen to my friends, and use
less to my Country; but by my letter wrote the 24th you will per
ceive my anxiety for the promotion of my son-in-law, Josiah
Nisbet. When I leave your command, I become dead to the
World ; I go hence, and am no more seen. If from poor Bowen's
loss, you think it proper to oblige me, I rest confident you will do
it ; the Boy is under obligations to me, but he repaid me by bring
ing me from the Mole of Santa Cruz. I hope you will be able to
give me a frigate, to convey the remains of my carcase to England.
God bless you, my dear Sir, and believe me, your most obliged and
faithful,
HORATIO NELSON.
You will excuse my scrawl, considering it is my first attempt.
CCXVIII.
Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., to Admiral
Sir John Jervis, K.B.
Theseus : August 16, 1797.
My dear Sir, — I rejoice once more in sight of your Flag, and
with your permission will come on board the Yille de Paris, and
pay you my respects. If the Emerald has joined, you know my
wishes. A left-handed Admiral will never again bo considered as
useful, therefore the sooner I get to a very humble cottage the
better, and make room for a better man to serve the State ; but
whatever be my lot, believe me, with the most sincere affection,
ever your most faithful
HORATIO NELSON.
Nelson appointed a Knight of the Bath, March, 1797.
368 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCXIX.
Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., to Lady Nelson.
Theseus : August 1797.
My dearest Fanny, — I am so confident of your affection, that I
feel the pleasure you will receive will be equal, whether rny letter
is wrote by my right hand or left. It was the chance of war, and
I have great reason to be thankful ; and I know that it will add
much to your pleasure in finding that Josiah, under God's Provi
dence, was principally instrumental in saving my life. As to my
health, it never was better ;. and now I hope soon to return to
you ; and my Country, I trust, will not allow me any longer to
linger in want of that pecuniary assistance which I have been
fighting the whole war to preserve to her. But I shall not be sur
prised to be neglected and forgot, as probably I shall no longer be
considered as useful. However, I shall feel rich if I continue to
enjoy your affection. The cottage is now more necessary than
ever. You will see by the papers, Lieutenant Weatlieraead is
gone. Poor fellow ! he lived four days after he was shot. I shall
not close this letter till I join the Fleet, which seems distant; for
it's been calm these three days past. I am fortunate in having a
good surgeon on board ; in short, I am much more recovered than
I could have expected. I beg neither you or my father will think
much of this mishap : my mind has long been made up to such an
event. God bless you, and believe me
Your most affectionate husband,
HORATIO NELSON.
coxx.
Some of Nelson's most characteristic letters were written
during the year 1804, when, as Vice- Admiral of the White,
Commanding'-in-Ohief in the Mediterranean, with his flag in the
* Victory/ he was hoping to entice Admiral La Touche Treville
out of the port of Toulon. The French ships gave a few false
alarms, hut never once seriously confronted the English squadron.
The postscript of the following letter sufficiently indicates Nel
son's just sense of indignation at Treville's false official report;
wherein he states that our ships ' bore away. I pursued him
to the S.E. until night. In the morning at daylight I saw no
more of him.'
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 369
Vice- Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., to the Rev. Dr. Nelson.
Victory : August 8, 1804.
My dear Brother, — Mr. C. B. Yonge had joined the Victory
long before your letter was wrote, and he is a very good, deserving
young man, and when he has served his time, I shall take the
earliest opportunity of putting him into a good vacancy ; but that
will not be until October, the very finish, I expect, of my remain
ing here, for my health has suffered much since I left England,
and if the A dmiralty do not allow me to get at asses' milk and rest,
you will be a Lord before I intend you should. I am glad the
wine was good and acceptable. I have been expecting Monsieur
La Touche to give me the meeting every day for this year past,
and only hope he will come out before I go hence. Remember me
kindly to Mrs. Nelson, and believe me ever, your most affectionate
brother,
NELSON AND BRONTE.
You must excuse a short letter. You will have seen Monsieur
La Touche's letter of how he chased me and how I ran. I keep it ;
and, by God, if I take him, he shall Eat it !
CCXXT.
It required the indefatigable energy and the lively sense of
public duty of a Nelson to withstand the anxieties and disappoint
ments of his command from June 1803 to July 1805. During
these two years (less ten days), he did not set foot out of the
* Victory.' The escape of the French fleet from Toulon was a
real affliction to him, and his pursuit, with only ten sail of the
line, of the combined French and Spanish squadron to the
West Indies is, perhaps, the most creditable part of his match
less career. ( I am in truth half dead, but what man can do to
find them out shall be done,' said he ; but misled by incorrect
information he steered for Tobago as the enemy were returning
to Europe via Martinique.
Vice-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., to Alexander
Damson.
Victory: July 24, 1805.
My dear Davison, — As all my letters have been sent to Eng
land, I know nothing of what is passing ; but I hope very, very
370 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
soon to take you by the hand. I am as miserable as you can con
ceive. But for General Brereton's damned information, Nelson
would have been, living or dead, the greatest man in his Profession
that England ever saw. Now, alas ! I am nothing — perhaps shall
incur censure for misfortunes which may happen, and have hap
pened. When I follow my own head, I am, in general, much
more correct in my judgment, than following the opinion of others.
I resisted the opinion of General Brereton's information till it
would have been the height of presumption to have carried my
disbelief further. I could not, in the face of Generals and Admi
rals, go N.W., when it was apparently clear that the enemy had
gone South. But I am miserable. I now long to hear that they
are arrived in some Port in the Bay ; for until they are arrived
somewhere, I can do nothing but fret. Then I shall proceed to
England. I can say nothing, or think of anything, but the loss
my Country has sustained by General Brereton's unfortunate, ill-
timed, false information. God bless you : and believe me ever,
my dear Davison, your most faithful and affectionate friend,
NELSON AND BRONTE.
CCXXII.
On the morning of Oct. 19, 1805, the combined fleets of France
and Spain left Cadiz Harbour, arid the same afternoon Nelson
knew that he would soon have an opportunity of encountering
his enemy. This unfinished letter was found opened on his
desk after the action, and was conveyed by Captain Hardy to
Lady Hamilton, who wrote the following endorsement, 'Oh
miserable and wretched Emma, oh, glorious and happy Nelson.'
Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton.
Victory: October 19, 1805,
Noon, Cadiz E.S.E. 16 leagues.
My dearest beloved Emma, the dear friend of my bosom, the
signal has been made that Enemy's Combined fleet are coming out
of Port. We have very little Wind, so that I have no hopes of
seeing them before to-morrow. May the God of Battles crown my
endeavours with success, at all events I will take care that my
name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia, both of whom I
love as much as my own life, and as my last writing before the
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 371
battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish
my letter after the Battle ; may Heaven bless you prays your Nel
son and Bronte. Oct. 20th in the morning we were close to the
mouth of the Streights, but the wind had not come far enough to
the westward to allow the Combined fleets to weather the shoals
off Trafalgar, but they were counted as far as forty sail of Ships of
War which I suppose to be thirty- four of the Line and six frigates, a
group of them were seen off the Lighthouse of Cadiz this morning
but it blows so very fresh, and thick weather, that I rather believe
they will go into the Harbour before night. May God Almighty
give us success over these fellows and enable us to get a Peace.
CCXXIII.
It wns a servant in a family on Cessnoch Water who inspired
Burns with several of his best lyrics, with ' Montgomery's
Peggy,' with ( Bonny Peggy Alison ' and with ' Now western
winds.'
Moreover, it was she to whom the following- fine love-
letter was addressed. No one was a tetter student than Burns
of what one of our old dramatists has styled ' the red-leaved
and confused hook of the heart,' and, rough as he was, his na
ture melted at once into a most indulgent tenderness at the
slightest appeal from womanhood. The young- woman in this
case would not entertain the poet's suit, but she herself con
fessed that it ' cost her some heartaches to get rid of the affair.'
Itobert Burns to Miss Ellison Begbie.
Lochlea: 1783.
I verily believe, my dear E., that the pure genuine feelings of
love are as rare in the world as the pure genuine principles of vir
tue and piety. This I hope will account for the uncommon style
of all my letters to you. By uncommon, I mean their being writ
ten in such a hasty manner, which to tell you the truth, has made
me often afraid lest you should take me for some zealous bigot,
who conversed with his mistress as he would converse with his
minister. I don't know how it is, my dear, for though, except
your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much
pleasure as writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy rap
tures so much talked of among lovers. I have often thought that
if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue 'tis
372 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
some thing extremely akin to it. Whenever the thought of my E.
warms my heartv every feeling of humanity, every principle of
generosity kindles in my breast. It extinguishes every dirty spark
of malice and envy which are but too apt to infest me. I grasp
every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally
participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathize with the
miseries of the unfortunate. I assure you, my dear, I often look up
to the Divine Disposer of events with an eye of gratitude for the
blessing which I hope he intends to bestow on me in bestowing
you. I sincerely wish that he may bless my endeavours to make
your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in sweetening
the rougher parts of my natural temper, and bettering the un
kindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my dear, is a passion,
at least in my view, worthy of a man, and I will add worthy of a
Christian. The sordid earth-worm may profess love to a woman's
person, whilst in reality his affection is centered in her pocket ;
and the slavish drudge may go a- wooing as he goes to the horse -
market to choose one who is stout and firm, and as we may say of
an old horse, one who will be a good drudge and draw kindly. I
disdain their dirty puny ideas. I would be heartily out of humour
with myself, if I thought I were capable of having so poor a notion
of the sex, which were designed to crown the pleasures of society.
Poor devils ! I don't envy them their happiness who have such
notions. For my part I propose quite other pleasures with my
dear partner.
R. B.
COXXIV.
There are few documents in the history of literature more
pathetic, when we consider the result, than this simple letter of
business.
Robert Burns to the Earl of Glencairn.
Edinburgh: 1787.
My Lord, — I know your lordship will disapprove of my ideas
in a request I am going to make to you; but I have weighed, long
and seriously weighed, my situation, my hopes and turn of mind,
and am fully fixed to my scheme if I can possibly effectuate it. I
wish to get into the Excise. I am told that your lordship's inte
rest will easily procure me the grant from the Commissioners ; and
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 373
your lordship's patronage and goodness,, which have already rescued
me from obscurity, wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask
that interest. You have likewise put it in my power to save the
little tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and
three sisters from destruction. There, my lord, you have bound
me over to the highest gratitude. My brother's farm is but a
wretched lease, but I think he will probably weather out the re
maining seven years of it ; and after the assistance which I have
given and will give him, to keep the family together, I think, by
my guess, I shall have rather better than two hundred pounds,
and instead of seeking what is almost impossible at present to find,
a farm that I can certainly live by, with so small a stock, I shall
lodge this sum in a banking-house, a sacred deposit, excepting only
the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old age.
These, my lord, are my views : I have resolved from the ma-
turest deliberation ; and now I am fixed, I shall leave no stone
unturned to carry my resolve into execution. Your lordship's
patronage is the strength of my hopes ; nor have I yet applied to
any body else. Indeed my heart sinks within me at the idea of
applying to any other of the great who have honoured me with
their countenance. I am ill-qualified to dog the heels of greatness
with the impertinence of solicitation, and tremble nearly as much
at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial ; but to your
lordship I have not only the honour, the comfort, but the pleasure
of being
Your lordship's much obliged
And deeply indebted humble servant,
E. B.
CCXXV.
The humanity of Burns is perhaps the most striking of all his
great qualities. We have had lyric poets as tine, wits as brilliant,
hut we have scarcely had another man of imaginative genius so
near to us in all the common feelings of the heart. So true a
man is he, so unaffected in his laughter or his tears, so plain a
creature like ourselves, that when he falls upon the thorns of
life, and bleeds, we never think of regarding- him as a great
man, but merely as a friend distressed and lost. What sim
plicity, what kindly enthusiasm, what quiet humour, animated
the writer of the following letter to a bookseller in Edinburgh !
17*
874 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Robert Burns to Peter Hill.
Ellisland : February 2, 1790.
No ! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses
for not writing — I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to
gallop at least 200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds
and yeasty barrels, and where can I find time to write to,
or importance to interest anybody ? the upbraidings of my con
science, nay the upbraidings of my wife, have persecuted me on
your account these two or three months past. I wish to God I
was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light upon
you, to let the world see what you really are, and then I would
make your fortune, without putting my hand in my pocket for you,
which, like all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much
as possible. What are you doing, and how are you doing ? Have
you lately seen any of my few friends 1 What has become of the
Borough Reform, or how is the fate of my poor namesake Made
moiselle Burns decided ? O man ! but for thee and thy selfish
appetites, and dishonest artifices, that beauteous form, and that
once innocent and still ingenuous mind, which shone conspicuous
and lovely in the faithful wife, and the affectionate mother; and
shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no claim on
thy humanity !
I saw lately in a Review, some extracts from a new poem,
called the ' Village Curate ' ; send it me. I want likewise a cheap
copy of ' The World.' Mr. Armstrong, the young poet who does
me the honour to mention me so kindly in his works, please give
him my best thanks for the copy of his book — I shall write him,
my first leisure hour. I like his poetry much, but I think his
style in prose quite astonishing.
Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with fur
ther commissions. I call it troubling you — because I want only,
Books ; the cheapest way, the best ; so you may have to hunt for
them in the evening auctions. I want Smollett's Works, for the
sake of his incomparable humour. I have already Roderick
Random, and Humphrey Clinker — Peregrine Pickle, Launcelot
Greaves, and Ferdinand, Count Fathom, I still want ; but as I
said, the veriest ordinary copies will serve me. I am nice only in
the appearance of my poets. I forget the price of Cowper's Poems,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 375
but, I believe, I must have them. I saw the other day, proposals
for a publication, entitled, ' Banks's new and complete Christian's
Family Bible,' printed for C. Cooke, Paternoster-row, London.
He promises at least, to give in the work, I think it is three
hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the names of the
first artists in London. You will know the character of the per
formance, as some numbers of it are published ; and if it is really
what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send me
the published numbers.
Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me
you shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The
dazzling perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue
my course in the quiet path of methodical routine.
K. B.
CCXXVI.
Burns found no advancement in the miserable service that he
had chosen to enter. He never rose higher than the ' nicked
stick,' the badge and implement of a common gauger. But the
Government was not content with ignoring the claims of the
poet to promotion. He was known to hold liberal opinions, and
to be that dangerous being, < a friend of the people.' The Com
missioners of Excise wrote him a letter, couched in the formal
ity of official insolence, informing that great man that ' such a
petty officer as he had no business with politics.'
It is believed that but for the interposition of the friend to
whom this letter is addressed, Burns would have been summarily
dismissed, and his family turned adrift upon the world.
Robert Burns to Mr. Graham of Fintray.
December, 1792.
Sir, — I have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr.
Mitchel, the collector, telling me that he has received an order
from your Board to enquire into my political conduct, and
blaming me as a person disaffected to government.
Sir, you are a husband — and a father. — You know what you
would feel, to see the much loved wife of your bosom, and your
helpless, prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world, de
graded and disgraced from a situation in which they had been
respectable and respected, and left almost without the necessary
support of a miserable existence. Alas, Sir! must I think that
376 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
such, soon will be my lot ! and from the d — limed, dark insinua
tions of hellish groundless envy too ! I believe, Sir, I may aver
it. and in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not tell a deliberate
falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be,
than those I have mentioned, hung over my head ; and I say, that
the allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a lie ! To the
British Constitution, on revolution principles, next after my God,
I am most devoutly attached ; you, Sir, have been much and gene
rously my friend. — Heaven knows how warmly I have felt the
obligation, and how gratefully I have thanked you. — Fortune, Sir,
has made you powerful, and me impotent ; has given you patron
age, and me dependence. — I would not for my single self, call on
your humanity ; were such my insular, unconnected situation, I
would despise the tear that now swells in my eye — I could brave
misfortune, I could face ruin ; for at the worst, ' Death's thousand
doors stand open ; ' but, good God ! the tender concerns that I
have mentioned, the claims and ties that I see at this moment,
arid feel around me, how they unnerve Courage, and wither Reso
lution ! To your patronage, as a man of some genius, you have
allowed me a claim ; and your esteem, as an honest man, I know
is my due : to these, Sir, permit me to appeal; by these may I
adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to over
whelm me, and which, with my latest breath I will say it, I have
not deserved.
R B.
COXXVII.
Watson has, in his 'Life of Porsou,' very graphically
described the difficulties which beset that ' Prince of Grecians '
at the time the following letter was written.
His refusal to take Orders and subscribe to the Thirty-Nine
Articles necessitated the resignation of a fellowship at Cambridge
which was his chief means of support, and left him, as he said,
( a gentleman in London with sixpence in his pocket.' Soon
after the professorship of Greek became vacant, and Dr. Postle-
thwaite, the Master of Trinity, wrote to inquire of Porson
whether he would offer himself as a candidate. The reply of
the needy scholar who apprehended that subscription to the Test
would be enforced as rigorously for the tenure of the professor
ship, does him infinite honour.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 377
Richard Porson to Dr. Postletkivaite.
October 0, 1792.
Sir, — When I first received the favour of your letter, I must
own that I felt rather vexation and chagrin than hope and satis
faction. I had looked upon myself so completely in the light of an
outcast from Alma Mater, that I had made up my mind to have
no further connection with the place. The prospect you held out
to me gave me more uneasiness than pleasure. When I was
younger than I now am, and my disposition more sanguine than it
is at present, I was in daily expectation of Mr. Cook's resignation,
and I flattered myself with the hope of succeeding to the honour
he was going to quit. As hope and ambition are great castle-
builders, I had laid a scheme partly, as I was willing to think, for
the joint credit, partly for the mutual advantage, of myself and the
University. I had projected a plan of reading lectures, and I per
suaded myself that I should easily obtain a grace permitting me to
exact a certain sum from every person who attended. But seven
years' waiting will tire out the most patient temper • and all my
ambition of this sort was long ago laid asleep. The sudden news
of the vacant professorship put me in mind of poor Jacob, who,
having served seven years in hopes of being rewarded with Rachel,
awoke, and behold it was Leah. Such, Sir, I confess, were the
first ideas that took possession of my mind. But after a little
reflection, I resolved to refer a matter of this importance to my
friends. This circumstance has caused the delay, for which I
ought before now to havo apologised. My friends unanimously
exhorted me to embrace the good fortune which they conceived to
be within my grasp. Their advice, therefore, joined to the
expectation I had entertained of doing some small good by my
exertions in the employment, together with the pardonable vanity
which the honour annexed to the office inspired, determined me ;
and I was on the point of troubling you, Sir, and the other
electors, with notice of my intentions to profess myself a candidate,
when an objection, which had escaped me in the hurry of my
thoughts, now occurred to my recollection. The same reason
which hindered me from keeping my fellowship by the method you
obligingly pointed out to me, would, I am greatly afraid, prevent
me from being Greek Professor. Whatever concern this may give
S78 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
me for myself, it gives me none for the public. I trust there are
at least twenty or thirty in the UniA^ersity equally able and willing
to undertake the office; possessed, many, of talents superior to
mine, and all of a more complying conscience. This I speak upon
the supposition that the next Greek professor will be compelled to
read lectures ; but if the place remains a sinecure, the number of
qualified persons will be greatly increased. And though it were
even granted that my industry and attention might possibly pro
duce some benefit to the interests of learning and the credit of the
University, that trifling gain would be as much exceeded by keep
ing the professorship a sinecure, and bestowing it on a sound
believer, as temporal considerations are outweighed by spiritual.
Having only a strong persuasion, not an absolute certainty, that
such a subscription is required of the professor elect, if I am mis
taken I hereby offer myself as a candidate ; but if I am right in
my opinion, I shall beg of you to order my name to be erased from
the boards, and I shall esteem it a favour conferred on,
Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,
R. PORSON.
CCXXVIII.
' Country gentlemen are the nerves and ligatures of your
political body.' Have we not here traces of the influence of
William Pitt on his firm friend and constant companion ?
William Wilberforce to the Earl of Galloway.
House of Commons: December 3, 1800.
My dear Lord, — I assure you from my heart that no man
respects more than myself the character of a nobleman or gentle
man who lives on his own property in the country, improving his
land, executing the duties of magistracy, exercising hospitality and
diffusing comfort, and order and decorum and moral improve
ment, and though last not least (where it has any place) religion,
too, throughout the circle greater or smaller, which he fills.
Greatly I regret that due attention, as I think, has not been paid
to this class of persons. Every inducement and facility should
have been held out to them for fixing in the country, rather than
in towns.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 379
Timber, bricks and tiles &c. used in improvements, should
have been exempted from taxation. The house-tax and window-
tax should have been increased on town houses, and lessened on
thoss of gentlemen residing on their own property. For in fact
your country gentlemen are the nerves and ligatures of your poli
tical body, and they enable you to enforce laws which could not
be executed by the mere power of Government, and often preserve
the public peace better than a regiment of soldiers.
London is the gangrene of our body politic, and the bad
humours it generates corrupt the whole mass. Through the me
dium of the great clubs &c. one set of opinions, manners, modes of
living are diffused through a vast mass of the higher orders.
Domestic restraints, and family economy, and order are voted
bores, while, from the nature of our constitution, aided by the
increasing wealth and the prevailing sentiments of the age, what
ever ways of thinking, speaking, and acting become popular in the
higher classes, soon spread through every order. Hence respect
for our nobility, and even for the King himself, instead of being
regarded as a Christian duty, is deemed an antiquated prejudice.
Your Lordship's obliged and faithful
"VV. WlLBERFORCE.
CCXXIX.
A volume of letters from Mary Wollstouecraft to Captain
Gilbert Imlay, with a prefatory memoir of the writer, by Mr. C.
Kep;an Paul, throws a flood of light on the character of a re
markable woman whose chief claim to public notice seems,
until recently, to have been that she was the wife of the philo
sopher Godwin, and the mother of Shelley's wife. Although
the exceptional views on social questions so boldly asserted by
this lady, will be held as extravagant and outre now as they were
in the last century, Mr. C. Kegan Paul, in hallowing the memory
of a pure, impassioned, and refined being through a life of toil
and sorrow has nevertheless succeeded in painting so complete a
picture of Mary Wollstonecraft that our just sympathy is ex
cited for her as fully as these letters excite our disgust for the
scoundrel Imlay who first stole her heart and then deserted her.
Mary Wollstonecraft to Captain
Paris : September 22, 1794.
I have just written two letters, that are going by other con
veyances, and which I reckon on your receiving long before this.
380 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
I therefore merely write, because I know I should be disappointed
at seeing anyone who had left you if you did not send a letter,
were it ever so short, to tell me why you did not write a longer,
and you will want to be told, over and over again, that our little
Hercules is quite recovered. Besides looking at me, there are
three other things which delight her; to ride in a coach, to look
at a scarlet waistcoat, and hear loud music — yesterday, at the fete,
she enjoyed the two latter ; but, to honour J. J. Rousseau, I in
tend to give her a sash, the first she has ever had round her — and
why not ? — for I have always been half in love with him.
"Well, this you will say is trifling — shall I talk about alum or soap?
There is nothing picturesque in your present pursuits ; my imagi
nation, then, rather chooses to ramble back to the Barrier with you,
or to see you coming to meet me, and my basket of grapes. With
what pleasure do I recollect your looks and words, when I have
been sitting on the window, regarding the waving corn ! Believe
me, sage sir, you have not sufficient respect for the imagination. I
could prove to you in a trice that it is the mother of sentiment,
the great distinction of our nature, the only purifier of the passions
— animals have a portion of reason, and equal, if not more exqui-
s'.te senses ; but no trace of imagination, or her offspring taste,
appears in any of their actions. The impulse of the senses, pas
sions, if you will, and the conclusions of reason, draw men together;
but the imagination is the true fire, stolen from heaven, to animate
this cold creature of clay, producing all those fine sympathies that
lead to rapture, rendering men social by expanding their hearts, in
stead of leaving them leisure to calculate how many comforts
society affords. If you call these observations romantic, a phrase
in this place which would be tantamount to nonsensical, I
shall be apt to retort, that you are embruted by trade and
the vulgar enjoyments of life. Bring me then back your barrier
face, or you shall have nothing to say to my barrier girl ; and I
shall fly from you, to cherish the remembrances that will ever be
dear to me ; for I am yours truly,
MARY.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 331
ccxxx.
In the foregoing as well as in the following letter the
writer refers to her child. Mary Wollstonecraft had given her
heart to Imlay and considered herself Imlay's wife. To quote
Mr. 0. Kegan Paul: 'Her view was that a common affection
was marriage, and that the marriage tie should not bind after
the death of love, if love should die.'
Mary Wollstonecraft to Captain Imlay.
January 9, 1795.
I just now received one of your hasty notes', for business so en
tirely occupies you, that you have not time, or sufficient command
of thought, to write letters. Beware ! you seem to be got into a
world of projects and schemes, which are drawing you into a gulf,
that, if it do not absorb your happiness, will infallibly destroy
mine.
Fatigued during my youth by the most arduous struggles, not
only to obtain independence, bub to render myself useful, not
merely pleasure, for which I had the most lively taste, — I mean
the simple pleasures that flow from passion and affection, — escaped
me, but the most melancholy views of life were impressed by a
disappointed heart on my mind. Since I knew you I have been
endeavouring to go back to my former nature, and have allowed
some time to glide away, winged with the delight which only spon
taneous enjoyment can give. Why have you so soon dissolved the
charm ?
I am really unable to bear the continual inquietude which
your and 's never-ending plans produce. This you may
term want of firmness, but you are mistaken ; I have still
sufficient firmness to pursue my principle of action. The present
misery, I cannot find a softer word to do justice to my feelings,
appears to me unnecessary, and therefore I have not firmness to
support it as you may think I ought. I should have been con
tent, and still wish, to retire with you to a farm. My God !
anything but these continual anxieties, anything but commerce,
which debases the mind, and roots out affection from the heart.
I do not mean to complain of subordinate inconveniences ; yet
I will simply observe, that, led to expect you every week, I did
382 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
not make the arrangements required by the present circumstances,
to procure the necessaries of life. In order to have them, a ser
vant, for that purpose only, is indispensable. The want of wood
has made me catch the most violent cold I ever had ; and my head
is so disturbed by continual coughing, that I aiu unable to write
without stopping frequently to recollect myself. This however, is
one of the common evils which must be borne with — bodily pain
does not touch the heart, though it fatigues the spirits.
Still, as you talk of your return, even in February, doubtingly,
I have determined, the moment the weather changes, to wean my
child. It is too soon for her to begin to divide sorrow ! And as
one has well said, despair is a freeman, we will go and seek our
fortune together. This is not a caprice of the moment, for your
absence has given new weight to some conclusions that I was very
reluctantly forming before you left me. I do not choose to be a
secondary object. If your feelings were in unison with mine, you
would not sacrifice so much to visionary prospects of future
advantage.
CCXXXI.
This is the letter that made Tom Moore ' unhappy for days ; '
but he was not the only person who envied the literary veteran
Samuel Rogers, who with an ample fortune was retiring from
the field of literature full of honours and full of health, to
devote the remainder of a long life to the luxury of travel abroad
and to the enjoyment of the most refined and amusing' society at
home. The first part of his 'Italy* appeared in 1822, and the
complete edition, delayed on account of the illustrations, and
produced at an expense of 10,000/., was published a few years
afterwards. There was a good margin of time for repose be
tween this, his last work, and his death, which occurred in the
year 1855, at the age of ninety-three.
Samuel Rogers to Thomas Moore.
Venice: October 17, 1814.
My dear Moore, — Last night in my gondola I made a vow I
would write you a letter if it was only to beg you would write to
nte at Rome. Like the great Marco Polo, however, whose tomb I
saw to-day, I have a secret wish to astonish you with my travels,
and would take you with me, as you would not go willingly, from
London to Paris, and from Paris to the Lake of Geneva, and so on
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 383
to this city of romantic adventure, the place from which he started.
I set out in August last, with my sister and Mackintosh. He
parted with us in Switzerland, since which time we have travelled
on together, and happy should we have been could you and Psyche
have made a quartett of it. I hope all her predictions have long
ago been fulfilled to your mind, and that she, and you, and the
bambini are all as snug and as happy as you can wish to be. By
the way, I forgot one of your family, who, I hope, is still under
your roof. I mean one of nine sisters — the one I have more than
once made love to. With another of them, too, all the world
knows your good fortune. Apropos of love, and such things, is
Lord Byron to be married to Miss Milbanke, at last 1 I have heard
it. But to proceed to business ; Chamouny, and the Mer de
Glace, Voltaire's chamber at Ferney, Gibbon's terrace at Lausanne.,
Rousseau's Isle of St. Pierre, the Lake of Lucerne,, and the little
Cantons, the passage over the Alps, the Lago Maggiore, Milan,
Yerona, Padua, Venice — what shall I begin with 1 but I believe I
must refer you to my three Quartos on the subject, whenever they
choose to appear. The most wonderful thing we have seen is
Bonaparte's road over the Alps — as smooth as that in Hyde Park,
and not steeper than St. James's Street. We left Savoy at seven
in the morning, and slept at Domo d'Ossola in Italy that night.
For twenty miles we descended through a mountain-pass, as rocky,
and often narrower, than the narrowest part of Dovedale; the road
being sometimes cut out of the mountain, and three times carried
through it, leaving the torrent (and such a torrent !) to work its
way by itself. The passages or galleries, as I believe the French
engineers call them, were so long as to require large openings here
and there for light, and the roof was hung with icicles, which the
carriage shattered as it passed along, and which fell to the ground
with a shrill sound. We were eight hours in climbing to the top
and only three in descending. Our wheel was never locked, and
our horses were almost always in a gallop. But I must talk to
you a little about Venice. I cannot tell you what I felt, when
the postillion turned gaily round, and, pointing with his whip,
cried out, ' Venezia ! ' For there it was, sure enough, with its long
line of domes and turrets glittering in the sun. I walk about here
all day long in a dream. Is that the Eialto, I say to myself] Is
this St. Mark's Place 1 Do I see the Adriatic 1 I think if vou
38 1 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
and I were together here, my dear Moore, we might manufacture
some tbing from the ponte del sospiri, the scala del giganti, the
piombi, the pozzi, and the thousand ingredients of mystery and
terror that are here at every turn. Nothing can be more luxu
rious than a gondola and its little black cabin, in which you
can fly about unseen, the gondoliers so silent all the while.
They dip their oars as if they were afraid of disturbing you ;
yet you fly. As you are rowed through one of the narrow
streets, often do you catch the notes of a guitar, accompanied by a
female voice, through some open window ; and at night, on the
Grand Canal, how amusing is it to observe the moving lights (every
gondola has its light), one now and then shooting across at a little
distance, and vanishing into a smaller canal. Oh, if you had any
pursuit of love or pleasure, how nervous would they make you,
not knowing their contents or their destination ! and how infinitely
more interesting, as more mysterious, their silence, than the noise
of carriage-wheels ! Before the steps of the Opera-house, they aro
drawn up in array with their shining prows of white metal, wait
ing for the company. One man remains in your boat, while the
other stands at the door of your loge. When you come out, he
attends you down, and calling ' Pietro,' or ' Giacomo/ is answered
from the water, and away you go. The gliding motion is delight
ful, and would calm you after any scene in a casino. The gondolas
of the Foreign Ministers carry the national flag. I think you
would be pleased with an Italian theatre. It is lighted only from
the stage, and the soft shadows that are thrown over it produce a
very visionary effect. Here and there the figures in a box are
illuminated from, within, and glimmering and partial lights are
almost magical. Sometimes the curtains are drawn, and you may
conceive what you please. This is indeed a fairy land, and Venice
particularly so. If at Naples you see most with the eye, and at
Home with the memory, surely at Venice you see most with
the imagination. But enough of Venice. To-morrow we bid
adieu to it, — most probably I shall never see it again. "We shall
pass through Ferrara to Bologna, then cross the Apennines to
Florence, and so on to Home, where I shall look for a line from
you. Pray, have you sermonized the discordant brothers 1 I
hope you have, and not forgotten yourself on the occasion. When
you write to Tunbridge, pray remember me. Tell Lady D. I
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 385
passed the little Lake of Lowertz, and saw the melancholy effects
of the downfall. It is now a scene of desolation, and the little
town of Goldau is buried many fathoms deep.
It is a sad story, and you shall have it when we meet. I re
ceived a very kind letter from her at Tunbridge, and mean to
answer it. I hope to meet you in London-town, when you visit
it next ; at least I shall endeavour to do so. My sister unites
with me in kindest remembrance to Mrs. Moore ; and pray, pray
believe me to be,
Yours ever,
S. R.
At Verona we were shown Juliet's tomb in a Convent garden !
In the evening we went to the play, but saw neither Mercutio,
nor " the two Gentlemen " there.
COXXXII.
The last considerable work by William Godwin was a ' His
tory of the Commonwealth of England.' In the preparation of
this book he had consulted Sir Walter Scott and other authori
ties respecting Cromwell's character and rule ; and among the
letters he received is one of interest from the late Mr. Isaac
D Israeli. Mazarin quite understood how not to offend the Lord
Protector.
Isaac D' Israeli to William Godwin.
6, Bloomsbury Square : July 12, 1828.
Dear Sir,— It is with great pleasure I communicate to you
the striking anecdote which confirms the notice you find "in Yol-
taire of Cromwell, who when Protector, would be addressed, much
against Louis XIV.'s inclination, as 'brother,' by the French
monarch. At the same time I beg to repeat that I find in my
note on this anecdote, a loose reference to Thurlow's papers, by
which I infer that I must have read in Thurlow's collection some
thing relative to the subject of your enquiry.
The present anecdote is very circumstantial and of undoubted
authority. Dr. Sampson derived it from Judge Rookly, who was
present at the delivery of the letter. I transcribe it literally from
the Diary of Dr. Sampson, Sloane MSS.
'He was in the Banqueting House to receive the Duke of
Crequi, as ambassador from the French King. Great was the
386 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
state and crowd. The ambassador made his speech, and after all
compliments, he delivered a letter into his hands which was super
scribed : " To his most serene Highness Oliver, Lord Protector of
England, Scotland, and Ireland." He looks wistfully at the letter,
puts it in his pocket, turns away without speaking a word or read
ing it. The ambassador was highly vexed at this, and as soon as he
could meet with Secretary Thurlow, expostulates with him for the
great affront and indignity offered to his master, so great a prince
— asked him what he thought the cause might be. Thurlow an
swered, he thought the Protector might be displeased with the
superscription of the letter. The Duke said he thought that it was
according to form, and in terms as agreeable as could be. " But,"
says Thurlow, "the Protector expected he should have written to our
dear brother Oliver." It is said the ambassador writing this over
to France, the King replied : " Shall I call such a fellow my brother ? "
to which Cardinal Mazarin answered, " Aye, call him your father
if need be, if you would get from him what you desire." And so a
letter was procured, having the desired superscription.'
I need not assure you of the correctness of the transcript.
Believe me, very truly yours,
I. D'lSRAELI.
CCXXXIII.
Dr. Dibdin wished to include a chapter on the fine arts in
his ' Literary Reminiscences,' and requested Mr. Isaac Disraeli
to furnish him with the loan of some of William Blake's works.
This was the letter of reply. We may see at p. 44 of his
' Essay on Blake/ that Mr. Swinburne has endorsed Mr. DTsraeli's
criticism in strikingly coincident language.
Isaac D'Israeli to Dr. Dibdin.
Bradenham House, Wycombe : July 24, 1835.
My dear friend, — It is quite impossible to transmit to you the
One Hundred and Sixty designs I possess of Blake's ; and as im
possible, if you had them, to convey every precise idea of such an
infinite variety of these wondrous deliriums of his fine and wild
creative imagination. Heaven, hell, and earth, and the depths
below, are some of the scenes he seems alike to have tenanted ;
but the invisible world also busies his fancy ; aerial beings which
could only float in visions, and unimaginable chimeras, such as you
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 387
have never viewed, lie by the side of his sunshiny people. You
see some innocent souls winding about blossoms — for others the
massive sepulchre has opened, and the waters beneath give up their
secrets. The finish, the extreme delicacy of his pencil, in his
light gracile forms, marvellously contrast with the ideal figures of
his mystic allegories ; sometimes playful, as the loveliness of the
arabesques of Raffaelle. Blake often breaks into the ' terribil via '
of Michael Angelo, and we start amid a world too horrified to
dwell in. Not the least extraordinary fact of these designs is,
their colouring, done by the artist's own hand, worked to his fancy;
and the verses which are often remarkable for their sweetness
and their depth of feeling. I feel the imperfection of my general
description. Such singular productions require a commentary.
Believe me, with regard
Your sincere well wisher,
ISAAC DISRAELI.
CCXXXIV.
Miss Edgeworth points to her intimate friend the Eev.
Sydney Smith as the man whose captivating manners and
generous heart would have deeply influenced the Irish people
had he been able to reside permanently among them.
Miss Maria EJgeworth to Miss Smith, daughter of the Rev.
Sydney Smith.
I have not the absurd presumption to think your father would
leave London or Combe Florey, for Ireland voluntarily) but I wish
some Irish bishopric were forced upon him, and that his own sense
of national charity and humanity would forbid him to refuse.
Then, obliged to reside amongst us, he would see, in the twinkling
of an eye (such an eye as his), all our manifold grievances up and
down the country. One word, one bon mot of his, would do more
for us, I guess, than Mr. 's four hundred pages, and all the
like, with which we have been bored. One letter from Sydney Smith
on the affaire of Ireland, with his name to it. and after having been
there, would do more for us than his letters did for America and
England ; — a bold assertion, you will say, and so it is ; but I cal
culate that Pat is a far better subject for wit than Jonathan ; it
only plays round Jonathan's head, but it goes to Pat's heart — to
388 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
th e very bottom of his heart, where he loves it ; and he don't care
whether it is for or against him, so that it is real wit and fun.
Now Pat would doat upon your father, and kiss the rod with all
his soul, he would, — the lash just lifted, — when he'd see the laugh
on the face, the kind smile, that would tell him it was all for his
good. Your father would lead Pat (for he'd never drive him) to
the world's end, and maybe to common sense in the end, — might
open his eyes to the true state of things and persons, and cause
him to ax himself how it comes that, if he be so distressed by the
Sassenach landlords that he can't keep soul and body together, nor
one farthing for the wife and children, after paying the rinl for the
land, still and nevertheless he can pay King Dan's rint aisy, —
thousands of pounds, not for lands or potatoes, but just for castles
in the air. Methinks I hear Pat saying the words, and see him
jump to the conclusion, that * maybe the gintleman, his reverence,
that " has the way with him" might be the man after all to do them
all the good in life, and asking nothing at all from them. Better,
sure, than ."Dan after all ; and we will follow him through thick
and thin — why no '? What though he is his reverence, the Church,
that is, our clear gy, won't object to him ; for he was never an
inimy any way, but always for paying them off handsome, and
fools if they don't take it now. So down with King Dan, for he's
no good ! and up with Sydney — he's the man, King of glory ! '
But, visions of glory, and of good better than glory, spare my
longing sight ; else I shall never come to an end of this note. Note
indeed ! I beg your pardon.
Yours affectionately,
MARIA EDGEWORTH.
CCXXXV.
The sayinsr that the Duke of Wellington's enemies never
gave him so much trouble as his friends is verified over and
over aqrain in the volumes containing his civil and military cor
respondence. At the time the following- letter was written Vis
count Wellington of Talavera was probably the only public
man who had complete, confidence in his own strength, and in
the might of Great Britain to ' strike the bold stroke for the
rescue of the world.' All he required for his campaign in the
Peninsula was men, money, and freedom of action. But the
Government was half-hearted and economical ; the Opposition
openly sneered at his l very rash ' conduct ; the Spanish General
1800J ENGLISH LETTERS 389
Ouesta, was old, obstinate, and incapable; the Portuguese
Government "was obstructive ; and there were 380,000-French-
men, already in possession of the chief strongholds, opposed to
us. No wonder Wellington thought the authorities at home
1 were all gone mad ! '
Lieut.-General Viscount Wellington to the Rt. Hon. Sir W. W.
Pole.
Cartaxo : January 11, 1811.
My dear William, — I have received your letters of the 8th and
the 25th of December. I have never been able to obtain any
specific instructions, or even statement of an object. You have
seen the only instructions which I have, which are to save the
British army; and that is the only object officially stated to me
for keeping an army in the Peninsula.
I agree entirely in opinion with you that it is desirable, nay
necessary, to reinforce this army at an early period to a large
amount, and of this opinion I have repeatedly apprised Lord Liver
pool in some public dispatches, and in many private letters : but
after what has been stated to you, you will hardly believe that I
have now scarcely the force which was originally promised me,
which was to be 35,000 infantry. Then, when the last reinforce
ments were sent out, not only I was told that I was to expect no
more, but I was desire! to send home some of the troops in case
Massena should retire. I even begged to borrow 10,000 men from
England or Ireland for a short period, which was refused ; and
then they tell you that I don't apply for specific numbers to per
form specific operations. What I have already written will show
you how the facts stand respecting my applications, and I will now
state how they stand respecting objects. Before the siege of Al
meida I urged in the strongest terms to be reinforced ; I pointed
out from whence I could be reinforced ; and stated the probability
that if I were reinforced, I could save everything. Was this an
object or not ?
Then I would observe that, adverting to the nature of the war
in the Peninsula, to the disparity of means and resources in the
possession or in the power of the two parties, to the instructions
which government have given to me, and the limitation of my
powers of action in every point of view, and to the uncertainty of
the operations of the allies, it is not quite fair to call upon me to
18
390 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
state the specific object to be attained by every additional soldier
who might be sent to me. Government have embarked in this
contest, with all its difficulties and uncertainties ; and it is their
duty to state their objects in it, and employ the best officer they
can find, and the largest army they can collect, to carry it on in
the best manner he can, and to reinforce him to the utmost : for
sure I am that if we cannot persevere in carrying it on in
the Peninsula, or elsewhere on the Continent, we must prepare to
make one of our own islands the seat of the war ; and when one of
them will have been so for a week, we shall heartily repent all the
little, dirty feelings which have prevented us from continuing the
contest elsewhere. If there is confidence in me that I shall use to
advantage the reinforcements which can be sent to me, let them be
sent without calling upon me for objects; or at all events before I
am called upon for objects, let government themselves state theirs,
if they have any excepting to keep the war out of the king's do
minions.
I think you are mistaken respecting the facility with which an
army could get on without money. Your reasoning is appli
cable only to the pay of the troops, which is but a small part of
the expense which must be defrayed in money. But the necessity
of paying in money the officers and soldiers of an army cannot be
measured by the necessity of paying in money the officers and sea
men of a fleet. First, the rations of the soldier are not sufficient
for his subsistence for any great length of time. Secondly, all his
necessaries are bought and paid for out of his daily subsistence,
and there is the greatest distress, as well for some descriptions of
food not issued by the commissary, as for necessaries when the pay
is not issued. In the same manner the officers of the army cannot
live upon their rations alone, and they, as well as the soldiers,
must be paid, or they must do as the French army do, that is,
plunder in order to be able to get on at all.
I think, however, that measures might be adopted to increase
our supplies of specie in this country ; but since government have
taken this subject into their own hands, and have sent here a gen
tleman to make their own inquiries and arrangements upon the
subjects, I have given myself no further trouble about it.
Not only I think that the supply of specie in Portugal might be
increased, but that other measures might be adopted to decrease
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 391
the demand for specie ; and I must observe that if the war in Por
tugal is to be carried on on the large scale supposed, troops must be
brought from other parts ; the expenses in those parts, and the
demand for specie there, must cease ; and the specie which sup
plied them might be brought here.
I have now, I believe, replied to all the principal points in your
letter. I agree with you in thinking that we ought to be largely
reinforced. If we are, I am tolerably certain of the result; and I
am equally certain that if Buonaparte cannot root us out of his
country, he must alter his system in Europe, and must give us
such a peace as we ought to accept.
I acknowledge that I doubt whether the government (I mean
the existing administration of England) have the power, or the in
clination, or the nerves to do all that ought to be done to carry tho
contest on as it might be. I am the commander of the British
army without any of the patronage or power that an officer in that
situation has always had. I have remonstrated against this sys
tem, but in vain. Then I am the mainspring of all the other
operations, but it is because I am Lord Wellington ; for I have
neither influence nor support, nor means of acquiring influence,
given to me by the government. I have not authority to give a
shilling, or a stand of arms, or a round of musket ammunition to
anybody. I do give all, it is true ; but it is contrary to my in
structions, and at my peril \ and I don't think that government
ought in fairness to make a man what they call commander of the
forces, and place him in the perilous situation in which they have
got me, without giving him in specific terms either power or confi
dence, or without being certain of having a majority in Parliament
to support him in case of accidents.
You can have no idea of the risks I Incur every day upon every
subject, which not another officer of the army would even look at ;
and for this reason I have pressed the strengthening of government
much against their inclination : but if I did not incur these risks
the service in these times could not go on for a moment. I agree,
with you in thinking that the Prince of Wales will make a com
plete change : indeed I don't think that the restrictions on his
power will be carried.
There is nothing new here. If the Spaniards can do anything,
they won't allow Mortier to cross the Guadiana unless the siege
392 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
of Cadiz should be raised; and then the war will take a new
turn.
In the mean time I think Massena must withdraw. He is
sadly pressed for provisions, certainly. Indeed it is extraordinary
that he has existed at all so long.
Ever yours most affectionately,
WELLINGTON.
P.S. — I wrote this letter last night, and have since received
yours describing the mares, which will answer perfectly. Just to
show you the uncertainty of all operations in which Spaniards are
concerned, I mention that I have this morning received accounts
that the enemy have crossed the Guadiana at Merida, the Spaniards
having neglected to destroy the bridge, as they were ordered ! We
shall thus have a large army in the Alentejo immediately.
CCXXXVI.
In the following amusing letter we find the Iron Duke cour
teously insisting on ' duty before pleasure ! ' He had already in a
despatch (January 1811), to the Military Secretary expressed
his annoyance at the continued absence on leave of general
and other officers of the army ; and he observed, ' At this
moment we have seven general officers gone or going home ; and
excepting myself there is not one in the country who came out
with the army, except General Sir Alexander Campbell, who
was all last winter in England.'
There were two good and sufficient reasons for the Duke's
complaint that he was actually discharging the duties of ' General-
in-Chief, General of Cavalry, General of Division, and some
times Colonel of Regiment.' In the first place he was much
fatigued ; and in the second place the time had arrived for
crossing the Portuguese frontier and developing his plan on
Spanish ground.
Lieut. -General Viscount Wellington to .
Quinta de S. Joiio : June 27, 1811.
I have had the honour of receiving your — — 's letter of
the 3rd inst., and it is impossible not to feel for the unhappiness of
the young lady, which you have so well described ; but it is not so
easy as you imagine to apply the remedy.
It appears to me that I should be guilty of a breach of discre
tion if I were to send for the fortunate object of this young lady's
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 393
affections, and apprise him of the pressing necessity for his early
return to England : the application for permission to go ought to
come from himself; and, at all events, the offer ought not to be
made by me, and particularly not founded on the secret of this young
lady.
But this fortunate Major now commands his battalion, and I
am very apprehensive that he could not with propriety quit it at
present, even though the life of this female should depend upon it ;
and, therefore, I think that he will not ask for leave.
We read occasionally of desperate cases of this description, but
I cannot say that I have ever yet known of a young lady dying of
love. They contrive, in some manner, to live, and look tolerably
well, notwithstanding their despair and the continued absence of
their lover; and some have even been known to recover so far as
to be inclined to take another lover, if the absence of the first has
lasted too long. I don't suppose that your protegee can ever re
cover so far, but I do hope that she will survive the continued
necessary absence of the Major, and enjoy with him hereafter many
happy days. I have, &c.,
WELLINGTON.
CCXXXVII.
Lord Wellington is writing from the once thriving port of St.
Jean, the frontier town of France, where he established his head
quarters in November 1813, after the battle of the Nivelle, and
the retreat of Marshal Soult to his intrenched camp before
Bayonne. On entering French territory Wellington ordered
that all food and other supplies should be paid for : on the other
hand it would seem that the French, after mercilessly exhaust
ing the rich yields of Spain, systematically pillaged their own
countrymen.
Field-Marshal the Marquess of Wellington to Lord Burghersh.
St. Jean de Luz : January 14, 1814.
My dear Burghersh, — I have received your several letters to
the 17th December, and I am very much obliged to you for the in-
terestiDg details which they contain.
You will have seen the official accounts of our proceedings ;
and the ministers will most probably have made you and Lord
Aberdeen acquainted with the state of affairs here, as detailed to
them in my reports.
394: ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
I was obliged to put the Spanish army into cantonments as soon
as I passed the Nivelle. It would have been useless to attempt to
keep them in the state in which they were, and I should have lost
them all. This circumstance, but more particularly the state of
the roads from the constant bad weather, has cramped my opera
tions since ; and I hope that I shall soon be able to renew them in
style.
In the meantime Soult has received another large reinforce
ment, being the third since the battle of Yitoria.
We have found the French people exactly what we might expect
(not from the lying accounts in the French newspapers, copied into
all the others of the world, and believed by everybody, notwithstand
ing the internal sense of every man of their falsehood, but) from
what we knew of the government of Napoleon, and the oppres
sion of all descriptions under which his subjects have laboured. It
is not easy to describe the detestation of this man. What do you
think of the French people running into our posts for protection
from the French troops, with their bundles on their heads, and
their beds, as you recollect to have seen the people of Portugal and
Spain ?
I entertain no doubt that, if the war should continue, and it
should suit the policy of the allied powers to declare for the House
of Bourbon, the whole of France will rise as one man in their
favour, with the exception, possibly, of some of the prefets, and of
the Senate, and that they will be replaced on the throne with the
utmost ease. I think it probable that the Allies will at last be
obliged to take this line, as you will see the trick that Bony has
endeavoured to play by his treaty with King Ferdinand.
If Priscilla is with you, give my best love to her. I received
her letter from Berlin ; and I have sat to Mr. Heaphey for a pic
ture for her, which I suppose will be sent to her unless one of her
sisters or her mother should seize it. Believe me, &c.
WELLINGTON.
ccxxxvm.
The exultant English public had enough and to spare of
1 Accounts of the Battle of Waterloo ' in the years 1815 and
1816 ; but unfortunately they were for the most part lamentably
incorrect. Certain people who had chanced to converse with an
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 395
r private actually engaged in the combat, or had gossiped
citizen of Brussels, or had cross-questioned any one of
officer or
with a citizen
the numerous peasants of the great ' cockpit of Europe/ pub
lished a version of the event with an air of authority that im
posed on the unwary and irritated the experts. In the two
following letters it will be seen that the Duke of Wellington
himself, who at no time entertained the hope of ever read
ing a perfectly accurate account of all the details of his great
triumph (vide ' Supplementary Despatches/ vol. x. p. 507),
was particularly provoked by these crude and garbled publica
tions.
Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to Sir J. Sinclair, Bart.
Bruxelles : April 28, 1816.
Sir, — I have received your letter of the 20th. The people of
England may be entitled to a detailed and accurate account of the
battle of Waterloo, and I have no objection to their having it ; but
I do object to their being misinformed and misled by those novels
called 'Relations,' and 'Impartial Accounts/ &c., &c., of that
transaction, containing the stories which curious travellers have
picked up from peasants, private soldiers, individual officers, &c.,
and have published to the world as the truth. Hougoumont was
no more fortified than La Haye Sainte ; and the latter was not
lost for want of fortifications, but by one of those accidents from
which human affairs are never entirely exempt.
I am really disgusted with and ashamed of all that I have
seen of the battle of Waterloo. The number of writings upon it
would lead the world to suppose that the British army had never
fought a battle before ; and there is not one which contains a true
representation, or even an idea, of the transaction ; and this is be
cause the writers have referred as above quoted instead of to the
official sources and reports.
It is not true that the British army was unprepared. The
story of the Greek is equally unfounded as that of Yandamme
having 46,000 men, upon which last point I refer you to Marshal
Ney's report, who upon that point must be the best authority. I
have, &c.
WELLINGTON.
890 ENGLISH LETTERS. [.1700-
CCXXXIX.
Field- Marshal the Duke of Wellington to Francis Mudford.
Paris: June 8, 1816.
Sir, — I have received your letter of the 21st May. I have
already explained to you my reasons for declining to give a formal
permission that any work with the contents of which I should not
be acquainted should be dedicated to me, with which you appear
to be satisfied ; and I applied those reasons particularly to a
work on the battle of Waterloo, because that, notwithstanding
so much had been published on that event by so many people,
there was but little truth. You now desire that I should point
out to you where you could receive information on this event, on
the truth of which you could rely. In answer to this desire, I can
refer you only to my own despatches published in the ' London
Gazette.' General Alava's report is the nearest to the truth of the
other official reports published, but even that report contains some
statements not exactly correct. The others that I have seen can
not be relied upon. To some of these may be attributed the source
of the falsehoods since circulated through the medium of the un
official publications with which the press has abounded. Of these
a remarkable instance is to be found in the report of a meeting be
tween Marshal Bliicher and me at La Belle Alliance; and some
have gone so far as to have seen the chair on which I sat down in
that farm-house. It happens that the meeting took place after
ten at night, at the village of Genappe j and anybody who attempts
to describe with truth the operations of the different armies will
see that it could not be otherwise. The other part is not so ma
terial ; but, in truth, I was not off my horse till I returned to
Waterloo between eleven and twelve o'clock at night. I have, &c.
WELLINGTON.
CCXL.
A string of searching questions respecting our military esta
blishments and regulations having been addressed by the Russian
Ambassador, Prince Lieven, on the part of his Emperor,
General Sir Herbert Taylor, the matter was referred to the
Duke of Wellington, who refused, with some indignation, to
1800J ENGLISH LETTERS. 397
recommend the Ministers to gratify the curiosity of the Rus
sian, or any foreign Government. The Duke considered there
was sufficient publicity of details in the documents usually laid
before Parliament, and that it would be inconvenient to encou
rage a comparative discussion of our system with that of other
military establishments. And he had not forgotten that during
his visit to Russia the War Minister at St. Petersburg refused
him information on a simple point of military expenditure.
Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to Lord FitzRoy Somerset.
Sud.bourne : October 20, 1829.
My dear Lord FitzRoy, — I wish that you would look at and
show to Lord Hill my letter to Sir Herbert Taylor on the queries
from the Emperor of Russia respecting the army.
In truth the organisation and economy of our army are not its
brilliant parts. Its conduct in the field is unrivalled. Its officers
are gentlemen, and moreover the gentlemen of England. The
organisation suits the purposes of our service in peace and war,
scattered as the army is from Indus to the Pole, and from the
pillars of Hercules to the Eastern extremities of the earth. But it
would be ridiculous, when opened in all its details, to one of the
military nations of Europe ; and that for the purpose of being
criticised. Ever yours, &c.
WELLINGTON.
CCXLi.
The still waters of Wordsworth's affection ran very deep,
and he never became entirely consoled for the loss of the brother
whom he deplores in this touching letter. As he says in the
fine verse that he dedicated to Captain Wordsworth's memory,
the sailor l to the sea had carried undying recollections ' of the
Cumberland landscape, and was one of the very fsw who under
stood the poet's peculiar mission from the first. He was wrecked
off the Bill of Portland February 5, 1805.
William Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.
Grasmere : February ] 1, 1805.
My dear Friend, — The public papers will already have
broken the shock which the sight of this letter will give you.
You will have learned by them the loss of the Earl of Aber-
gavenny, East Indiaman, and along with her, of a great propor
tion of the crew — that of her captain, our brother, and a most
18*
398 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
beloved brother lie was. This calamitous news we received at two
o'clock to-day, and I write to you from a house of mourning.
My poor sister, and my wife who loved him almost as we did (for
he was one of the most amiable of men), are in miserable affliction,
which I do all in my power to alleviate ; but Heaven knows, I
want consolation myself. I can say nothing higher of my ever-
dear brother, than that he was worthy of his sister, who is now
weeping beside me, and of the friendship of Coleridge ; meek,
affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet
in everything but words.
Alas ! "What is human life 1 This present moment.
I thought this morning would have been devoted to the pleasing
employment of writing a letter to amuse you in your confinement.
I had singled out several little fragments (descriptions merely), which
I purposed to have transcribed from my poems, thinking that the
perusal of them might give you a few minutes' gratification, and
now I am called to this melancholy office.
I shall never forget your goodness in writing so long and
interesting a letter to me under such circumstances. This letter
also arrived by the same post which brought the unhappy tidings
of my brother's death, so that they were both put into my hands
at the same moment.
Your affectionate friend,
W. WORDSWORTH.
CCXLII.
The assiduity of Mr. Dyce constrained Wordsworth, not
much or naturally addicted to the pleasures of antiquariauism,
to take an interest in the forgotten poets of the seventeenth cen
tury. But it is curious to note how easily the fate of Shirley
brings him back to Cumberland, and to a story that might find
its place in the l Excursion.'
William Wordsworth to Alexander Dyce.
Rydal Mount : March 20, 1833.
My dear Sir, — I have to thank you for the very valuable pre
sent of Shirley's works, just received. The preface is all that I
have yet had time to read. It pleased me to find that you sympa
thised with me in admiration of the passage from the Duchess of
Newcastle's poetry ; and you will be gratified to be told that I
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 399
have the opinion you have expressed of that cold and false-hearted
Frenchified coxcomb, Horace Walpole.
Poor Shirley ! What a melancholy end was his ! And then to
be so treated by Dryden ! One would almost suspect some private
cause of dislike, such as is said to have influenced Swift in regard to
Dryden himself. Shirley's death reminded me of a sad close of
the life of a literary person, Sanderson by name, in the neighbour
ing county of Cumberland. He lived in a cottage by himself,
though a man of some landed estate. His cottage, from want of
care on his part, took fire in the night. The neighbours were
alarmed; they ran to his rescue; he escaped, dreadfully burned,
from the flames, and lay down (he was in his seventieth year),
much exhausted under a tree, a few yards from the door. His
friends in the meanwhile endeavoured to save what they could of
his property from the flames. He inquired most anxiously after a
box in which his manuscripts and published pieces had been
deposited with a view to a publication of a laboriously-corrected
edition ; and, upon being told that the box was consumed, he ex
pired in a few minutes, saying or rather sighing out the words,
* Then I do not wish to live.' Poor man ! though the circulation
of his works had not extended beyond a circle of fifty miles diame
ter, perhaps, at furthest, he was most anxious to survive in the
memory of the few who were likely to hear of him.
The publishing trade, I understand, continues to be much
depressed, and authors are driven to solicit or invite subscriptions,
as being in many cases the only means of giving their works to the
world. I am always pleased to hear from you, and believe me,
My dear Sir,
Faithfully your obliged friend,
. WORDSWORTH.
CCXLIIL
George Crabbe began to write as a contemporary of Gold
smith and Johnson, but his realistic vigour attracted little notice
until the tide set, with Scott and Byron, in the direction of
naturalism. The middle-aged poet, who had almost resigned
ambition, woke up to find himself famous among the younger
men, and to renew his labours in literature. But he received
no greeting more genial or more flattering than this from the
Minstrel of the Border.
403 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Walter Scott to George Crabbe.
Ashestiel : October 2, 1809.
Dear Sir, — I am just honoured with your letter, which gives
me the more sensible pleasure, since it has gratified a wish of more
than twenty years' standing. It is, I think, fully that time since
I was for great part of a very snowy winter, the inhabitant of an
old house in the country, in a course of poetical study, so very
like that of your admirably-painted ' Young Lad/ that I could
hardly help saying, ' That's me ! ' when I was reading the tale to
my family. Among the very few books which fell under my
hands was a volume or two of Dodsley's Annual Register, one
of which contained copious extracts from * The Village ' and ' The
Library,' particularly the conclusion of book first of the former, and
an extract from the latter, beginning with the description of the
old romancers. I committed them most faithfully to my memory,
where your verses must have felt themselves very strangely lodged
in company with ghost stories, border riding ballads, scraps of old
plays, and all the miscellaneous stuff which a strong appetite for
reading, with neither means nor discrimination for selection, had
assembled in the head of a lad of eighteen. New publications at
that time were very rare in Edinburgh, and my means of procur
ing them very limited ; so that, after a long search for the poems
which contained these beautiful specimens, and which had afforded
me so much delight, I was fain to rest contented with the extracts
from the Register, which I could repeat at this moment. You
may, therefore, guess my sincere delight when I saw your poems at
a later period assume the rank in the public consideration which
they so well deserve. It was a triumph to my own immature
taste to find I had anticipated the applause of the learned and
of the critical, and I became very desirous to offer my gratulor,
among the more important plaudits which you have had from
every quarter. I should certainly have availed myself of the free
masonry of authorship (for our trade may claim to be a mystery
as well as Abhorson's), to address to you a copy of a new poetical
attempt which I have now upon the anvil, and esteem myself par
ticularly obliged to Mr. Hatchard and to your goodness acting
upon his information, for giving me the opportunity of paving the
way for such a freedom. I am too proud of the compliments you
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 401
honour me with, to affect to decline them ; and with respect to the
comparative view I have of my own labours and yours, I can only
assure you that none of my little folks, about the formation of
whose taste and principles I may be supposed naturally solicitous,
have ever read any of my own poems, while yours have been our
regular evening's amusement. My eldest girl begins to read well,
and enters as well into the humour as into the sentiment of your
admirable descriptions of human life. As for rivalry, I think it
has seldom existed among those who know by experience, that
there are much better things in the world than literary reputa
tion, and that one of the best of these good things is the regard
and friendship of those deservedly and generally esteemed for
their worth or their talents. I believe many dilettanti authors do
cocker themselves up into a great jealousy of anything that inter
feres with what they are pleased to call their fame, but I should
as soon think of nursing one of my own fingers into a whitlow for
my private amusement, as encouraging such a feeling. I am truly
sorry to observe you mention bad health. Those who contribute
so much to the improvement as well as the delight of society should
escape this evil. I hope, however, that one day your state of
health may permit you to view this country. I have very few
calls to London, but it will greatly add to the interest of those
which may occur, that you will permit me the honour of waiting
upon you in my journey, and assuring you, in person, of the eaily
admiration and sincere respect with which I have the honour to
be, dear Sir, yours, &c.,
WALTER SCOTT.
CCXLIV.
When Dr. Dibdin published his { Bibliographical and Anti
quarian Tour in France and Germany/ he desired to send pre
sentation copies of the earliest impressions to Southey, Campbell,
Walter Scott, and Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London.
In Walter Scott's case Dr. Dibdin adopted the ruse of re
questing the great novelist to convey a copy to the Author of
Waverley, on the plea that by no other means would the work
"be likely to reach its intended destination. This was the adroit
reply.
402 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Sir Walter Scott to the Rev. T. Frognall Dibdin.
Edinburgh: June 13, 1821.
My dear Sir, — Upon my return from a little excursion to the
country, I found your splendid book, which I think one of the
most handsome that ever came from the British press, and return
you my best thanks for placing it in my possession as a mark of your
regard. You have contrived to strew flowers over a path which,
in other hands, would have proved a very dull one, and all Biblio
manes must remember you long, as he who first united their anti
quarian details with good-humoured raillery and cheerfulness. I
am planning a room at Abbotsford to be built next year for my
books, and I will take care that your valued gift holds a place
upon my future shelves, as much honoured as its worth deserves,
and for that purpose an ingenious artist of Edinburgh has promised
to give your Tour an envelope worthy of the contents. You see
from all this, that I have no idea of suffering these splendid
volumes to travel any farther in quest of the nameless and unknown
Author of Waverley. As I have met with some inconveniences in
consequence of public opinion having inaccurately identified me
with this gentleman, I think I am fairly enabled to indemnify my
self by intercepting this valuable testimony of your regard.
The public have called for a new edition of old John Dryden's
Works, on which I bestowed much labour many years ago. I hope
you will let me place a set of these volumes upon your shelves in
return — which are just on the point of issuing from the press,
and will wait on you in the course of a fortnight. I hope Ames
does not slumber ? I am always,
My dear Sir,
Your obliged and faithful servant,
WALTER SCOTT.
CCXLV.
Twelve months later a vacancy occurred in the Roxburghe
Club by the death of one of its leading members, and certainly
its chief Bibliomaniac, Sir M. Sykes ; and at the suggestion of
Dr. Dibdin the committee agreed that he should repeat his ruse
by writing Scott a letter requesting to be informed whether he
thought the author of Waverley would like to become a member.
Hence another equally curious and characteristic rejoinder.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 403
Sir Walter Scott to the Rev. T. Frognall Dibdin.
Edinburgh. : February 25, 1823.
My dear Sir, — I was duly favoured with your letter, which
proves one point against the unknown author of Waverley, namely,
that he is certainly a Scotsman, since no other nation pretends to
the advantage of the Second Sight. Be he who or where he may,
he must certainly feel the very high honour which has selected him
(Nominis Umbra) to a situation so worthy of envy.
As his personal appearance in the fraternity is not like to be
a speedy event, one may presume he may be desirous of offering
some test of his gratitude in the shape of a reprint, or such like
kickshaw ; and for that purpose you had better send him the
statutes of your learned body which I will engage shall reach him
in safety. It will follow as a characteristic circumstance, that the
table of the Roxburghe, like that of King Arthur, will have a
vacant chair like that of Banquo's at Macbeth 's banquet. But if
this author who ' hath fern-seed and walketh invisible,' should not
appear to claim it before I come to London (should I ever be there
again), with permission of the Club, I, who have something of
adventure in me, although ' a knight like Sir Andrew Aguecheek
dubb'd with unhack'd rapier and on carpet consideration ' would,
rather than lose the chance of a dinner with the Roxburghe Club,
take upon me the adventure of the siege perilous, and reap some
amends for perils and scandals into which the invisible champion has
drawn me by being his Locum tenens on so distinguished an occa
sion.
It will be not uninteresting to you to know that a fraternity is
about to be established here something on the plan of the Roxburghe
Club, but having Scottish antiquities chiefly in view. It is to be
called the Bannatyne Club, from the celebrated antiquary George
Bannatyne, who compiled by far the greatest manuscript record of
old Scottish poetry. Their first meeting is to be held on Thursday,
when the health of the Roxburghe Club will not fail to be drank.
I am, dear Sir, &c.
WALTER SCOTT.
404 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
COXLVI.
A third letter from Sir Walter Scott on receipt of Dr. Dib-
din's formal intimation of his election to the Club, closes the story
of this literary fiction. In the preface to ' Peveril of the Peak,'
Scott recorded with pride the circumstance that he had been
elected to the Roxburghe Club merely as the author of ' Wa-
verley ' and' without any other designation.
Sir Walter Scott to the Rev, T. Frognall Dibdin.
Edinburgh : May 1, 1823.
My dear Sir, — I am duly honoured with your very interesting
and flattering communication. Our highlanders have a proverbial
saying, founded on the traditional renown of Fingal's dog, ' If it is
not Bran,' they say, ' it is Bran's brother.' Now this is always
taken as a compliment of the first class, whether applied to an
actual cur or parabolically to a biped, and upon the same principle
it is with no small pride and gratification that the Roxburghe
Club have been so very flatteringly disposed to accept me as a
locum tenens for the unknown author whom they have made the
child of their adoption. As sponsor I will play my part as well
as I can ; and should the real Simon Pure make his appearance,
to push me from my stool, why I shall have at least the satisfac
tion of having enjoyed it.
They cannot say but what I had the crown.
Besides, I hope the Devil does not owe me such a shame.
Mad Tom tells us that the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman,
and this mysterious personage will I hope partake as much of his
honourable feelings as of his invisibility, and resuming his incognito
permit me to enjoy in his stead an honour which I value more than
I do that which has been bestowed on me by the credit of having
written any of his novels.
I regret deeply I cannot soon avail myself of my new privi
leges, but Courts which I am under the necessity of attending
officially set down in a few days, and hei mi/ii do not arise for
Vacation until July. But I hope to be in Town next Spring, and
certainly I have one strong additional reason for a London Journey
furnished by the pleasure of meeting the Roxburghe Club. Make
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 405
my most respectful compliments to the .members at their next
merry meeting, and express in the warmest manner my sense of
obligation.
I am always, my dear Sir,
Yery much your most obedient servant,
WALTER SCOTT.
CCXLVII.
Under the nom deplume of Peter Plymley, the Eev. Sydney
Smith, in a series of ten letters addressed ' to my brother Abra
ham/ joined in that controversy which, lasting, as it did, from
Pitt to Peel, was the most persistent and most wearying1 political
quarrel of modern times. Ranging himself among1 the followers
of Grenville and Fox in advocating liberal concessions to the
Roman Catholics, he fired his first shot in 1807, the effect of
which has been likened to that of ' a spark on a heap of gun-
powder.' Unfortunately the writer's vigorous arguments and
cheerful humour were marred by overmuch bitterness and scoff
ing. Although the authorship of these letters was never really
proved by the Government of the day, their vivid resemblance
to the tone of Sydney Smith's conversation virtually betrayed
him.
Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham.
1807.
Dear Abraham, — A worthier and better man than yourself
does not exist ; but I have always told you, from the time of our
boyhood, that you were a bit of a goose. Your parochial affairs
are governed with exemplary order and regularity : you are as
powerful in the vestry as Mr. Perceval is in the House of Com
mons, and, I must say, with much more reason ; nor do I know
any church where the faces and smock-frocks of the congregation
are so clean, or their eyes so uniformly directed to the preacher.
There is another point upon which I will do you ample justice;
and that is, that the eyes so directed towards you are wide open ;
for the rustic has, in general, good principles, though he cannot
control his animal habits, and, however loud he may snore, his
face is perpetually turned toward the fountain of orthodoxy.
Having done you this act of justice, I shall proceed, according
to our ancient intimacy and familiarity, to explain to you my
opinions about the Catholics, and to reply to yours.
In the first place, my sweet A.braham, the Pope is not landed
406 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
— nor are there any curates sent out after him — nor has he been
hid at St. Alban's by the Dowager Lady Spencer — nor dined
privately at Holland House — nor been seen near Dropmore. If
these fears exist (which I do not believe), they exist only in the
mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; they emanate from his
zeal for the Protestant interest; and, though they reflect the
highest honour upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must
certainly be considered as more ambiguous proofs of the sanity and
vigour of his understanding. By this time, however, the best in
formed clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis are convinced
that the rumour* is without foundation ; and, though the Pope is
probably hovering about our coast in a fishing-smack, it is most
likely he will fall a prey to the vigilance of our cruisers ; and it is
certain he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of our soil.
Exactly in the same manner the story of the wooden gods seized
at Charing Cross, by an order from the Foreign Office, turns out
to be without the shadow of a foundation : instead of the angels
and archangels, mentioned by the informer, nothing was discovered
but a wooden image of Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham,
as a head piece for the Spanker gun- vessel : it was an exact re
semblance of his Lordship in his military uniform, and therefore as
little like a god as can well be imagined.
Having set your fears at rest as to the extent of the conspiracy
formed against the Protestant religion, I will now come to the
argument itself.
You say these men interpret the Scriptures in an unorthodox
manner, and that they eat their god. Very likely. All this may
seem very important to you, who live fourteen miles from a mar
ket town, and, from long residence upon your living, are become a
kind of holy vegetable ; and, in a theological sense, it is highly im
portant. But I want soldiers and sailors for the state ; I want to
make a greater use than I now can do of a poor country full of
men; I want to render the military service popular among the
Irish ; to check the power of France ; to make every possible
exertion for the safety of Europe, which in twenty years time will
be nothing but a mass of French slaves : and then you, and ten
other such boobies as you, call out — * For God's sake, do not think
of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland ! . . . They interpret
the Epistle to Timothy in a different manner from what we do !
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 407
.... They eat a bit of wafer every Sunday, which they call
their God !'....! wish to my soul they would eat you, and*
such reasoners as you are. What ! when Turk, Jew, Heretic,
Infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against this coun
try; when men of every religious persuasion, and no religious
persuasion ; when the population of half the globe is up in arms
against us, are we to stand examining our generals and armies as
a bishop examines a candidate for holy orders, and to suffer no
one to bleed for England who does not agree with you about the
2nd of Timothy ? You talk about Catholics ! If you and your
brotherhood have been able to persuade the country into a con
tinuation of this grossest of all absurdities, you have ten times the
power which the Catholic clergy ever had in their best days.
Louis XIV., when he revoked the Edict of Nantes, never thought
of preventing the Protestants from fighting his battles ; and gained
accordingly some of his most splendid victories by the talents of
his Protestant generals. No power in Europe, but yourselves, has
ever thought for these hundred years past of asking whether a
bayonet is Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Lutheran ; but whether
it is sharp and well- tempered. A bigot delights in public ridicule ;
for he begins to think he is a martyr. I can promise you the full
enjoyment of this pleasure from one extremity of Europe to the
other. I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic
religion as you can be, and no man who talks such nonsense shall
ever tithe the product of the earth, nor meddle with the ecclesias
tical establishment in any shape ; but what have I to do with the
speculative nonsense of his theology, when the object is to elect
the mayor of a country town, or to appoint a colonel of a marching
regiment ? Will a man discharge the solemn impertinences of the
one office with less zeal, or shrink from the bloody boldness of the
other with greater timidity, because the blockhead believes in all
the Catholic nonsense of the real presence? I am sorry there
should be such impious folly in the world, but I should be ten
times a greater fool than he is, if I refused, in consequence of his
folly, to lead him out against the enemies of the state. Your
whole argument is wrong : the state has nothing whatever to do
with theological errors which do not violate the common rules of
morality, and militate against the fair power of the ruler : it leaves
all these errors to you, and to such as you. You have every tenth
403 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
porker in your parish for refuting them ; and take care that you
are vigilant, and logical in the task. I love the Church as well as
you do ; but you totally mistake the nature of an establishment,
when you contend that it ought to be connected with the military
and civil career of every individual in the state. It is quite right
that there should be one clergyman to every parish interpreting
the Scriptures after a particular manner, ruled by a regular
hierarchy, and paid with a rich proportion of haycocks and wheat-
sheafs. When I have laid this foundation for a rational religion
in the state — when I have placed ten thousand well educated men
in different parts of the kingdom to preach it up, and compelled
every body to pay them, whether they hear them or not — I have
taken such measures as I know must always procure an immense
majority in favour of the Established Church ; but I can go no
further. I cannot set up a civil inquisition, and say to one, you
shall not be a butcher because you are not orthodox ; and prohibit
another from brewing, and a third from administering the law,
and a fourth from defending the country. If common justice did
not prohibit me from such a conduct, common sense would. The
advantage to be gained from quitting the heresy would make it
shameful to abandon it ; and men who had once left the Church
would continue in such a state of alienation from a point of honour,
and transmit that spirit to the latest posterity. This is just the
effect your disqualifying laws have produced. They have fed Dr.
Kees, and Dr. Kippis ; crowded the congregation of the Old Jewry
to suffocation ; and enabled every sublapsarian, and supralapsarian,
and semi-pelagian clergyman, to build himself a neat brick chapel,
and live with some distant resemblance to the state of a gentleman.
You say the King's coronation oath will not allow him to consent
to any relaxation of the Catholic laws. Why not relax the Catholic
laws as well as the laws against Protestant dissenters 1 If one is
contrary to his oath, the other must be so too ; for the spirit of the
oath is, to defend the Church establishment, which the Quaker and
the Presbyterian differ from as much or more than the Catholic ;
and yet his Majesty has repealed the Corporation and Test Act in
Ireland, and done more for the Catholics of both kingdoms than
had been done for them since the [Reformation. In 1778, the
Ministers said nothing about the royal conscience; in 1793 no
conscience; in 1804 no conscience; the common feelings of hu-
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 409
manity and justice then seem to have had their fullest influence
upon the advisers of the crown : but in 1807 — a year, I suppose,
eminently fruitful in moral and religious scruples, (as some years
are fruitful in apples, some in hops,) — it is contended by the well-
paid John Bowles, and by Mr. Perceval (who tried to be well
paid), that that is now perjury which we had hitherto called policy
and benevolence ! Religious liberty has never made such a stride
as under the reign of his present Majesty ; nor is there any in
stance in the annals of our history, where so many infamous and
damnable laws have been repealed as those against the Catholics
which have been put an end to by him : and then, at the close of
this useful policy, his advisers discover that the very measures of
concession and indulgence, or (to use my own language) the
measures of justice, which he has been pursuing through the whole
of his reign, are contrary to the oath he takes at its commence
ment ! That oath binds his Majesty not to consent to any measure
contrary to the interest of the Established Church : but who is to
judge of the tendency of each particular measure 1 Not the King
alone ; it can never be the intention of this law that the King, who
listens to the advice of his Parliament upon a road bill, should re
ject it upon the most important of all measures. Whatever be his
own private judgment of the tendency of any ecclesiastical bill, he
complies most strictly with his oath if he is guided in that par
ticular point by the advice of his Parliament, who may be pre
sumed to understand its tendency better than the King, or any
other individual. You say, if Parliament had been unanimous in
their opinion of the absolute necessity for Lord Howick's bill, and
the King had thought it pernicious, he would have been perjured
if he had not rejected it. I say, on the contrary, his Majesty
would have acted in the most conscientious manner, and have
complied most scrupulously with his oath, if he had sacrificed his
own opinion to the opinion of the great council of the nation;
because the probability was that such opinion was better than his
own ; and upon the same principle, in common life, you give up
your opinion to your physician, your lawyer, and your builder.
You admit this bill did not compel the King to elect Catholic
officers, but only gave him the option of doing so if he pleased ;
but you add, that the King was right in not trusting such dan
gerous power to himself or his successors. Now you are either to
410 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
suppose that the King for the time being has a zeal for the Catholic
establishment, or that he has not. If he has not, where is the
danger of giving such an option 1 If you suppose that he may be
influenced by such an admiration of the Catholic religion, why did
his present Majesty, in the year 1804, consent to that bill which
empowered the Crown to station ten thousand Catholic soldiers in
any part of the kingdom, and placed them absolutely at the dis
posal of the Crown ? If the King of England for the time being is
a good Protestant, there can be no danger in making the Catholic
eligible to anything : if he is not, no power can possibly be so dan
gerous as that conveyed by the bill last quoted : to which, in point
of peril, Lord Ho wick's bill is a mere joke. But the real fact is,
one bill opened a door to his Majesty's advisers for trick, jobbing,
and intrigue ; the other did not. Besides, what folly to talk to
me of an oath, which, under all possible circumstances, is to pre
vent the relaxation of the Catholic laws ! for such a solemn appeal
to God sets all conditions and contingencies at defiance. Suppose
Bonaparte was to retrieve the only very great blunder he has
made, and were to succeed, after repeated trials, in making an im
pression upon Ireland, do you think we should hear any thing of
the impediment of a coronation oath ? or would the spirit of this
country tolerate for an hour such ministers, and such unheard-of
nonsense, if the most distant prospect existed of conciliating the
Catholics by every species even of the most abject concession ?
And yet, if your argument is good for anything, the coronation
oath ought to reject, at such a moment, every tendency to concilia
tion, and to bind Ireland for ever to the crown of France.
I found in your letter the usual remarks about fire, fagot, and
bloody Mary. Are you aware, my dear Priest, that there were as
many persons put to death for religious opinions under the mild
Elizabeth as under the bloody Mary? The reign of the former
was, to be sure, ten times as long ; but I only mention the fact,
merely to show you that something depends upon the age in which
men live, as well as on their religious opinions. Three hundred
years ago, men burnt and hanged each other for these opinions.
Time has softened Catholic as well as Protestant : they both
required it ; though each perceives only his own improvement, and
is blind to that of the other. We are all the creatures of circum
stances. I know not a kinder and better man than yourself; but
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 411
you (if you had lived in those times) would certainly have roasted
your Catholic : and I promise you, if the first exciter of this reli
gious mob had been as powerful then as he is now, you would soon
have been elevated to the mitre. I do not go the length of saying
that the world has suffered as much from Protestant as from
Catholic persecution ; far from it j but you should remember the
Catholics had all the power, when the idea first started up in the
world that there could be two modes of faith ; and that it was
much more natural they should attempt to crush this diversity of
opinion by great and cruel efforts, than that the Protestants should
rage against those who differed from them, when the very basis of
their system was complete freedom in all spiritual matters.
I cannot extend my letter any further at present, but you shall
soon hear from me again. You tell me I am a party man. I
hope I shall always be so, when I see my country in the hands of
a pert London joker and a second-rate lawyer. Of the first, no
other good is known than that he makes pretty Latin verses ; the
second seems to me to have the head of a country parson, and the
tongue of an Old Eailey lawyer.
If I could see good measures pursued, I care not a farthing
who is in power ; but I have a passionate love for common justice,
and for common sense, and I abhor and despise every man who
builds up his political fortune upon their ruin.
God bless you, reverend Abraham, and defend you from the
Pope, and all of us from that administration who seek power
by opposing a measure which Burke, Pitt, and Fox all considered
as absolutely necessary to the existence of the country.
ccxLVin.
"Would it "be uncharitable to surmise that the witty parson
would not have written the following letter had he been a good
shot. He himself has admitted that the birds on Lord Grey's
preserves seemed to consider the muzzle of his gun as their
safest position, and that he gave up shooting because ' I never
could help shutting my eyes when I fired my gun, so was not
likely to improve.'
412 ENGLISH LETTERS. F1700-
The Rev. Sydney Smith to Lady Holland.
June 24, 1809.
My dear Lady Holland, — This is the third day since I arrived
at the village of Heslington, two hundred miles from London. I
missed the hackney-coaches for the first three or four days in
York, but after that, prepared myself for the change from the
aurelia to the grub state, and dare say I shall become fat, torpid,
and motionless with a very good grace.
I have laid down two rules for the country : first, not to smite
the partridge ; for, if I fed the poor, and comforted the sick, and
instructed the ignorant, yet I should be nothing worth, if I smote
the partridge.
If anything ever endangers the Church, it will be the strong
propensity to shooting for which the clergy are remarkable. Ten
thousand good shots dispersed over the country do more harm to
the cause of religion than the arguments of Voltaire and Rousseau.
The squire never reads, but is it possible he can believe THAT reli
gion to be genuine whose ministers destroy his game 1 I mean to
come to town once a year, though of that, I suppose, I shall soon
be weary, finding my mind growing weaker and weaker, and my
acquaintance gradually falling off. I shall by that time have taken
myself again to shy tricks, pull about my watch-chain, and become
(as I was before) your abomination. I am very much obliged to
Allen for a long and very sensible letter upon the subject of Spain.
After all, surely the fata of Spain depends upon the fate of
Austria. Pray tell the said Don Juan, if he comes northward to
visit the authors of his existence, he must make this his resting-
place. Mrs. Sydney is all rural bustle, impatient for the parturi
tion of hens and pigs ; I wait patiently, knowing all will come in
due season 1
SYDNEY SMITH.
CCXLIX.
This letter was written during a meeting of the British Asso
ciation at Glasgow, under the presidency of the Marquess of
Breadalbane. Sydney Smith was a voracious and rapid reader,
and Mr. Hay ward, in one of his essays, likens his method of
reading to that of Dr. Johnson, who could tear out the heart of
a book. In this wise he acquired a considerable amount of
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 413
scientific knowledge, especially of geology ; but, says Mr. Hay-
ward, ' he was too liberal and enlightened a divine to believe
that sound religion could be undermined by the diffusion of
truth, and when the cry of Moses against Murchison was
raised at York, he gallantly sided with the geologist.'
The Rev. Sydney Smith to Roderick Murchison.
Combe Florey : 1840.
Dear Murchison, — Many thanks for your kind recollections of
ine in sending me your pamphlet, which I shall read with all
attention and care. My observation has been necessarily so much
fixed on missions of another description, that I am hardly recon
ciled to zealots going out with voltaic batteries and crucibles, for
the conversion of mankind, and baptizing their fellow-creatures
with the mineral acids; but I will endeavour to admire, and
believe in you. My real alarm for you is, that by some late deci
sions of the magistrates, you come under the legal definition of
strollers', and nothing would give me more pain than to see
any of the sections upon the mill, calculating the resistance of the
air, and showing the additional quantity of flour which might be
ground in vacuo, — each man in the mean time imagining himself a
Galileo. Mrs. Sydney has eight distinct illnesses, and I have nine.
"We take something every hour, and pass the mixture from one to
the other. About forty years ago, I stopped an infant in Lord
Breadalbane's grounds, and patted his face. The nurse said, ' Hold
up your head, Lord Glenorchy.1 This was the President of your
society. He seems to be acting an honourable and enlightened
part in life. Pray present my respects to him and his beautiful
Marchioness.
SYDNEY SMITH.
CCL.
This is a very characteristic note written to the author of
the ' Ingoldsby Legends.'
The Rev. Sydney Smith to the Rev. R. H. Barham.
39, Green Street: November 15, 1841.
Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your kind present of game. If
there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is the roast
19
414 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
pheasant and bread sauce — barn door fowls for dissenters, but for
the real churchman, the thirty-nine times articled clerk — the
pheasant, the pheasant !
Ever yours,
SYDNEY SMITH.
CCLI.
No man in his day was more earnest than Sydney Smith in
endeavours to procure redress of grievances, social, religious,
or moral. He was ever ready to wage war against what he con
sidered public wrongs, great or small ; and would take up his
pen in good-humoured ridicule of railway directors or sporting
parsons as readily as in eager denunciation (though not invari
ably in the best taste), of some religious disabilities or political
shortcomings.
The Rev. Sydney Smith to the Editor of the ' Morning Chronicle.9
June 7, 1842.
Sir, — Since the letter upon railroads, which you were good
enough to insert in your paper, I have had some conversation with
two gentlemen officially connected with the Great Western.
Though nothing could be more courteous than their manner, nor
more intelligible than their arguments, I remain unshaken as to
the necessity of keeping the doors open.
There is in the first place, the effect of imagination, the idea
that all escape is impossible, that (let what will happen) you must
sit quiet in first class No. 2, whether they are pounding you into
a jam, or burning you into a cinder, or crumbling you into a
human powder. These excellent directors, versant in wood and
metal, seem to require that the imagination should be sent by some
other conveyance, and that only loads of unimpassioned, un-
intellectual flesh and blood should be darted along on the Western
rail ; whereas, the female homo is a screaming, parturient, inter-
jectional, hysterical animal, whose delicacy and timidity, mono
polists (even much as it may surprise them) must be taught to
consult. The female, in all probability, never would jump out ;
but she thinks she may jump out when she pleases, and this is
intensely comfortable.
There are two sorts of dangers which hang over railroads.
The one retail dangers, where individuals only are concerned ; the
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 415
other, wholesale dangers, where the whole train or a considerable
part of it, is put in jeopardy. For the first danger there is a
remedy in the prudence of individuals ; for the second there is
none. No man need be drunk, nor need he jump out when the
carriage is in motion ; but in the present state of science it is
impossible to guard effectually against the fracture of the axle-tree,
or the explosion of the engine ; and if the safety of the one party
cannot be consulted but by the danger of the other, if the foolish
cannot be restrained but by the unjust incarceration of the wise,
the prior consideration is due to those who have not the remedy
for the evil in their own hands.
But the truth is — and so (after a hundred monopolising
experiments on public patience) the railroad directors will find it —
there can be no other dependence for the safety of the public than
the care which every human being is inclined to take of his own
life and limbs. Every thing beyond this is the mere lazy tyranny
of monopoly, which makes no distinction between human beings
and brown paper parcels. If riding were a monopoly, as travelling
in carriages is now become, there are many gentlemen whom I see
riding in the Park upon such false principles, that I am sure the
cantering and galloping directors would strap them, in the ardour
of their affection, to the saddle, padlock them to the stirrups, or
compel them to ride behind a policeman of the stable; and
nothing but a motion from O'Brien, or an order from Gladstone,
could release them.
Let the company stick up all sorts of cautions and notices
within their carriages and without; but, after that, no doors
locked. If one door is allowed to be locked, the other will soon
be so too ; there is no other security to the public than absolute
prohibition of the practice. The directors and agents of the
Great "Western are individually excellent men ; but the moment
men meet in public boards, they cease to be collectively excellent.
The fund of morality becomes less, as the individual contributors
increase in number. I do not accuse such respectable men of
any wilful violation of truth, but the memoirs which they are
about to present will be, without the scrupulous cross-examination
of a committee of the House of Commons, mere waste paper.
But the most absurd of all legislative enactments is this
hemiplegian law — an act of Parliament to protect one side of the
416 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
body and not the other. If the wheel comes off on the right, the
open door is uppermost, and every one is saved. If, from any
sudden avalanche on the road, the carriage is prostrated to the
left, the locked door is uppermost, all escape is impossible, and
the railroad martyrdom begins.
Leave me to escape in the best way I can, as the fire offices
very kindly permit me to do. I know very well the danger of
getting out on the off-side ; but escape is the affair of a moment ;
suppose a train to have passed at that moment, I know I am safe
from any other trains for twenty minutes or half an hour ; and if
I do get out on the off side, I do not remain in the valley of
death between the two trains, but am over to the opposite bank
in an instant — only half-roasted, or merely browned, certainly not
done enough for the Great Western directors.
On Saturday morning last, the wheel of the public carriage, in
which a friend of mine -was travelling, began to smoke, but was
pacified by several buckets of water, and proceeded. After five
more miles, the whole carriage was full of smoke, the train was
with difficulty stopped, and the flagrant vehicle removed. The
axle was nearly in two, and in another mile would have been
severed.
Railroad travelling is a delightful improvement of human life.
Man is become a bird ; he can fly longer and quicker than a Solan
goose. The mamma rushes sixty miles in two hours to the aching
finger of her conjugating and declining grammar boy. The
early Scotchman scratches himself in the morning mists of the
North, and has his porridge in Piccadilly before the setting sun.
The Puseyite priest, after a rush of one hundred miles, appears with
his volume of nonsense at the breakfast of his bookseller. Every
thing is near, every thing is immediate — time, distance, and delay
are abolished. But, though charming and fascinating as all this
is, we must not shut our eyes to the price we shall pay for it.
There will be every three or four years some dreadful massacre —
whole trains will be hurled down a precipice, and two or three hun
dred persons will be killed on the spot. There will be every now
and then a great combustion of human bodies, as there has been at
Paris ; then all the newspapers up in arms — a thousand regulations,
forgotten as soon as the directors dare — loud screams of the
velocity whistle — monopoly locks and bolts, as before. The
1800] ENGLISH .LETTERS. 417
locking plea of directors is philanthropy ; and I admit that to
guard men from the commission of moral evil is as philanthropical
as to prevent physical suffering. There is, I allow, a strong
propensity in mankind to travel on railroads without paying ; and
to lock mankind in till they have completed their share of the
contract is benevolent, because it guards the species from degrading
and immoral conduct, but to burn or crush a whole train merely
to prevent a few immoral insides from not paying, is I hope a
little more than Ripon or Gladstone will bear.
We have been, up to this point, very careless of our railway
regulations. The first person of rank who is killed will put every
thing in order, and produce a code of the most careful rules. I
hope it will not be one of the bench of bishops ; but should it be so
destined, let the burnt bishop — the unwilling Latimer — remember
that, however painful gradual concoction by fire may be, his death
will produce unspeakable benefit to the public. Even Sodor and
Man will be better than nothing. From that moment the bad
effects of the monopoly are destroyed ; no more fatal deference to
the directors ; no despotic incarceration, no barbarous inattention
to the anatomy and physiology of the human body ; no commit
ment to locomotive prisons with warrant. "We shall then find it
possible
'Voyager libre sans mourir.'
SYDNEY SMITH.
CCLII.
Coleridge took a little tour through Somersetshire in 1797 ;
he was always particularly troublesome in' a coach, insisting
upon talking to everybody with that ceaseless volubility for
which he was so famous. For once, however, he seems to have
met his match, and indeed to have had the tables turned upon
him with some violence. Mr. George Burnet was then residing
with the Coleridges at Stowey, and was supposed to be a con
vert to Pantisocracy.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge to JosiaJi Wade.
Stowey: 1797.
My dear friend, — I am here after a most tiresome journey ;
in the course of which a woman asked me if I knew one
Coleridge, of Bristol ; I answered, I had heard of him. Do you
418 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
know, (quoth she) that that vile jacobin villain drew away a young
man from our parish, one Burnet, &c. and in this strain did the
woman continue for near an hour ; heaping on me every name of
abuse that the parish of Billingsgate could supply. I listened very
particularly ; appeared to approve all she said, exclaiming, ' dear
me ! ' two or three times, and, in fine, so completely won the
woman's heart by my civilities, that I had not the courage to
undeceive her.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. You are a good prophet. Oh, into what a state have
the scoundrels brought this devoted kingdom.
If the House of Commons would but melt down their faces,
it would greatly assist the copper currency — we should have brass
enough.
CCL1II.
Mr. Cottle was proud to remember in his old age that lie, a
provincial bookseller, had been the publisher of the first volumes
of three such poets as Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey.
The transaction discussed in the following letter is a no less
momentous one than the publication of the famous ' Lyrical
Ballads.' The poets were then living at Allfoxden, near Stowey,
and the caballing against Wordsworth to which Coleridge refers
was the result of the intense terror caused in the village by
Wordsworth's habit of ' roaming over the hills at night, like a
partridge.' At last the skeleton of a child, as it was supposed,
was discovered close to Allfoxden, and they were about to march
Wordsworth off on suspicion of murder, when the bones were
most vexatiously proved to be those of a dog.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Joseph Cottle.
May, 1798.
My dear Cottle, — Neither Wordsworth nor myself could have
been otherwise than uncomfortable, if any but yourself had
received from us the first offer of our Tragedies, and of the
volume of Wordsworth's Poems. At the same time, we did not
expect that you could with prudence and propriety, advance such
a sum as we should want at the time we specified. In short, we
both regard the publication of our Tragedies as an evil. It is not
impossible but that in happier times, they may be brought on the
stage : and to throw away this chance for a mere trifle, would be
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 419
to make the present moment act fraudulently and nsuriously
towards the future time.
My Tragedy employed and strained all my thoughts and
faculties for six or seven months ; Wordsworth consumed far
more time, and far more thought, and far more genius. "We
consider the publication of them an evil on any terms; but our
thoughts were bent on a plan for the accomplishment of which a
certain sum was necessary, (the whole) at that particular time, and
in order to this we resolved, although reluctantly, to part with our
Tragedies : that is, if we could obtain thirty guineas for each, and
at less than thirty guineas Wordsworth will not part with the
copy-right of his volume of Poems. We shall offer the Tragedies
to no one, for we have determined to procure the money some
other way. If you choose the volume of poems, at the price
mentioned, to be paid at the time specified, i.e. thirty guineas, to
be paid sometime in the last fortnight of July, you may have them ;
but remember, my dear fellow ! I write to you now merely as a
bookseller, and entreat you, in your answer, to consider yourself
only ; as to us, although money is necessary to our plan, that of
visiting Germany, yet the plan is not necessary to our happiness ;
and if it were, Wordsworth could sell his Poems for that sum to some
one else or we could procure the money without selling the Poems.
So I entreat you, again and again, in your answer, which must be
immediate, consider yourself only.
Wordsworth has been caballed against so long and s.o loudly,
that he has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the
Allfoxden estate, to let him the house, after their first agreement is
expired, so he must quit it at Midsummer : whether we shall be
able to procure him a house and furniture near Stowey, we know
not, and yet we must : for the hills, and the woods, and the
streams, and the sea, and the shores, would break forth into
reproaches against us, if we did not strain every nerve, to keep
their poet among them. Without joking, and in serious sadness,
Poole and I cannot endure to think of losing him.
At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but
before Midsummer, and we will procure a horse easy as thy own
soul, and we will go on a roam to Lin ton and Limouth, which, if
thou comest in May, will be in all their pride of woods and
waterfalls, not to speak of its august cliffs, and the green ocean,
420 ENGLISH LETTERS. II7QQ-
and the vast Valley of Stones, all which live disdainful of the
seasons, or accept new honours only from the winter's snow.
At all events come down, and cease not to believe me much
and affectionately your friend
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CCLIV.
This humorously naive confession exactly hits off Coleridge's
peculiar weakness. It suited the indolent temperament of the
day-dreamer to expound, for hours at a time, his views on philoso
phy and culture to spell-bound throngs of fashionable listeners.
But the world at large had been the gainer if this profoundly
learned man, this most suggestive of poets, this representative
of German metaphysics, had talked less and written more.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Godwin.
At Mr. Lamb's, 36, Chapel Street :
March 3, 1800.
Dear Godwin, — The punch, after the wine, made me tipsy
last night. This I mention, not that my head aches, or that I felt,
after I quitted you, any unpleasantness or titubancy ; but because
tipsiness has, and has always, one unpleasant effect — that of mak
ing me talk very extravagantly ; and as, when sober, I talk ex
travagantly enough for any common tipsiness, it becomes a matter of
nicety in discrimination to know when I am or am not affected.
An idea starts up in my head, — away I follow through thick and
thin, wood and marsh, brake and briar, with all the apparent
interest of a man who was defending one of his old and long-estab
lished principles. Exactly of this kind was the conversation with
which I quitted you. I do not believe it possible for a human be
ing to have a greater horror of the feelings that usually accompany
such principles as I then supposed, or a deeper conviction of their
irrationality, than myself ; but the whole thinking of my life will
not bear me up against the accidental crowd and press of my
mind, when it is elevated beyond its natural pitch. We shall talk
wiselier with the ladies on Tuesday. God bless you, and give your
dear little ones a kiss apiece from me. Yours with affectionate
esteem,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 421
CCLV.
Although the 'Ettrick Shepherd' ascertained in due season
that poetry and literary work were more profitable to him than
sheep-farming in Scotland, he preferred sport on the moors in
the middle of August to what he called the ' disadvantage ' of
indoor enjoyment at that period of the year among learned
companions.
James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd) to Professor John Wilson.
Mount Benger : August 1829.
My Dear and Honoured John, — I never thought you had been
so unconscionable as to desire a sportsman on the llth or even the
1 3th of August to leave Ettrick Forest for the bare scraggy hills
of Westmoreland ! — Ettrick Forest, where the black cocks and
white cocks, brown cocks and grey cocks, ducks, plovers and
peaseweeps and whilly-whaups are as thick as the flocks that cover
her mountains, and come to the hills of Westmoreland that can
nourish nothing better than a castril or stonechat ! To leave the
great yellow-fin of Yarrow, or the still larger grey-locher for the
degenerate fry of Troutbeck, Esthwaite, or even Wastwater ! No,
no, the request will not do ; it is an unreasonable one, and there
fore not unlike yourself, for besides, what would become of Old
North and Blackwood, and all our friends for game, were I to
come to Elleray just now 1 I know of no home of man where I
could be so happy within doors with so many lovely and joyous
faces around me ; but this is not the season for in-door enjoyments ;
they must be reaped on the wastes among the blooming heath, by
the silver spring, or swathed in the delicious breeze of the wilder
ness. Elleray, with all its sweets, could never have been my choice
for a habitation, and perhaps you are the only Scottish gentleman
who ever made such a choice, and still persists in maintaining it,
in spite of every disadvantage. Happy days to you and a safe
return ! Yours most respectfully,
JAMES HOGG.
422 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCLVI.
The first ' Edinburgh Review' was published in 1755, and
disappeared within twelve months. This letter announces the
successful launching of the present review, which was projected
by Sydney Smith in Jeffrey's lodgings. Brougham, Homer, and
Allen joined in the first consultations.
Jeffrey, now in his twenty-ninth year, and hesitating on the
cross-roads of law and literature, little thought he would excel
in both — that the industrious advocate would attain eminence as
a judge; and that the young reviewer of Southey's 'Thalaba'
would advance to be the chief and most versatile critic of hia
generation.
Francis Jeffrey, to his brother, John Jeffrey.
Edinburgh : July 2, 1803.
My dear John, — It will be a sad thing if your reformation be the
cause of my falling off; yet it is certain that since you have begun
to write oftener, my letters have begun to be more irregular.
I am glad you have got our Review, and that you like it.
Your partiality to my articles is a singular proof of your judgment.
In No. 3, I do Gentz, Hayley's Cowper, Sir J. Sinclair, and Thel-
wall. In No. 4, which is now printing, I have Miss Baillie's Plays,
Comparative View of Geology, Lady Mary Wortley, and some
little ones. I do not think you know any of my associates.
There is the sage Homer however, whom you have seen, and who
bas gone to the English bar with the resolution of being Lord
Chancellor; Brougham, a great mathematician, who has just pub
lished a book upon the ' Colonial Policy of Europe/ which all you
Americans should read; Bevd. Sydney Smith, and P. Elmsley, two
learned Oxonian priests, full of jokes and erudition : my excellent
little Sanscrit Hamilton, who is also in the hands of Bonaparte at
Fontainebleau ; Thomas Thomson and John Murray, two ingenious
advocates ; and some dozen of occasional contributors, among whom,
the most illustrious, I think, are young Watt of Birmingham, and
Davy of the Royal Institution. We sell 2,500 copies already,
and hope to do double that in six months, if we are puffed enough.
I wish you could try if you can repandre us upon your continent,
and use what interest you can with the literati, or rather with
the booksellers of New York and Philadelphia. I believe I have
ENGLISH LETTERS. 423
not told you that the concern has now become to be of some emolu
ment. After the fourth number the publishers are to pay the
writers no less than ten guineas a-sheet, which is three times what
was ever paid before for such work, and to allow 50£ a number
to an editor. I shall have the offer of that first, I believe, and I
think I shall take it, with the full power of laying it down when
ever I think proper. The publication is in the highest degree re
spectable as yet, as there are none but gentlemen connected with
it. If it ever sink into the state of an ordinary bookseller's
journal I have done with it.
We are all in great horror about the war here, though not half
so much afraid as we ought to be. For my part I am often in
absolute despair, and wish I were fairly piked, and done with it.
It is most clearly and unequivocally a war of our own seeking, and
an offensive war upon our part, though we have no means of offend
ing. The consular proceedings are certainly very outrageous and
provoking, and, if we had power to humble him I rather think we
have had provocation enough to do it. But with our means, and in
the present state and temper of Europe, I own it appeal's to me like
insanity. There is but one ground upon which our conduct can be
j ustified. If we are perfectly certain that France is to go to war with
us, and will infallibly take some opportunity to do it with greater
advantage in a year or two, there may be some prudence in being
beforehand with her, and open the unequal contest in our own way.
While men are mortal, and the fortunes of nations variable, how
ever, it seems ridiculous to talk of absolute certainty for the
future; and we ensure a present evil, with the magnitude of which
we are only beginning to be acquainted. In the meantime we must
all turn out, I fancy, and do our best. There is a corps of riflemen
raising, in which I shall probably have a company. I hate the
business of war, and despise the parade of it; but we must submit
to both for a while. I am happy to observe that there is little of
that boyish prating about uniforms, and strutting in helmets, that
distinguished our former arming. We look sulky now, and manful,
I think. Always, dear John, very affectionately yours.
424 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCLVII.
This friendly letter was addressed to the rjoet Campbell shortly
before the poem of ' Gertrude of Wyoming ' was published.
Jeffrey's elaborate public criticism of the same poet soon fol
lowed. Campbell himself was captivated as much by the
reviewer's tact in discovering ' beauty and blemish ' as he was
by his early and constant friendship.
Francis Jeffrey to Thomas Campbell.
Edinburgh: March 1, 1800.
I have seen your Gertrude. The sheets were sent to Ali
son, and lie allowed me, though very hastily, to peruse them.
There is great beauty, and great tenderness, and fancy in the work
— and I am sure it will be very popular. The latter part is ex
quisitely pathetic, and the whole touched with those soft and
skyish tints of purity and truth, which fall like enchantments on
all minds that can make anything of such matters. Many of your
descriptions come nearer the tone of ' The Castle of Indolence/ than
any succeeding poetry, and the pathos is much more graceful and
delicate. . . . But there are faults too — for which you must be
scolded. In the first place, it is too short — not merely for the de
light of the reader — but, in some degree, for the development of
the story, and for giving full effect to the fine scenes that are de
lineated. It looks almost as if you had cut out large portions of
it, and filled up the gaps very imperfectly. There is little or
nothing said, I think, of the early love, and of the childish plays
of your pair, and nothing certainly of their parting, and the effects
of separation on each — though you had a fine subject in his Euro
pean tour, seeing everything with the eyes of a lover — a free man,
and a man of the woods. It ends rather abruptly — not but
that there is great spirit in the description — but a spirit not quite
suitable to the soft and soothing tenor of the poem. The most
dangerous faults, however, are your faults of diction. There is
still a good deal of obscurity in many passages — and in others a
strained and unnatural expression — an appearance of labour and
hardness ; you have hammered the metal in some places till it has
lost all its ductility. These are not great faults, but they are
blemishes ; and as dunces will find them out, noodles will see them
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 425
when they are pointed to. I wish you had had courage to correct, or
rather to avoid them, for with you they are faults of over finish
ing, and not of negligence. I have another fault to charge you
with in private, for which I am more angry with you than for all
the rest. Your timidity, or fastidiousness, or some other knavish
quality, will not let you give your conceptions glowing, and bold,
and powerful, as they present themselves ; but you must chasten,
and refine, and soften them, forsooth, till half their nature and
grandeur is chiselled away from them. Believe me, my dear C.,
the world will never know how truly you are a great and original
poet, till you venture to cast before it some of the rough pearls of
your fancy. Write one or two things without thinking of publica
tion, or of what will be thought of them — and let me see them, at
least, if you will not venture them any further. I am more mis
taken in my prognostics than I ever was in my life, if they are not
twice as tall as any of your full-dressed children. I write all
this to you in a terrible hurry — but tell me instantly when your
volume is to be out.
F. JEFFREY.
CCLVIII.
Francis Jeffrey to William Empson.
Killin : August 2, 1834.
My dear E., — This is a great disappointment, and, after all,
why were you so faint-hearted after coming so far 1 Rain ! Oh
effeminate cockney, and most credulous brother of a most unwise
prognosticator of meteoric changes. Though it rained in the Bo3otia
of Yorkshire, must it rain also in the Attica of Argyll 1 Why,
there has not been a drop of rain in the principality of Macallum-
More for these ten days ; but, on the contrary, such azure skies,
and calm, coerulean waters, such love and laziness — inspiring heats
by day, and such starlight rowings and walkings through fragrant
live blossoms, and dewy birch woods by night; and then such
glow-worms twinkling from tufts of heath and juniper, such naiads
sporting on the white quartz pebbles, and meeting your plunges
into every noon-day pool; and such herrings at breakfast, and
haggises at dinner, and such pale, pea-green mountains, and a
genuine Highland sacrament ! The long sermon in Gaelic, preached
426 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
out of tents to picturesque multitudes in the open air, grouped
on rocks by the glittering sea, in one of the mountain bays of
those long withdrawing lochs ! You have no idea what you have
missed ; and for weather especially, there is no memory of so long
a tract of calm, dry, hot weather at this season ; and the fragrance
of the mountain hay, and the continual tinkling of the bright
waters ! But you are not worthy even of the ideas of these things
and you shall have no more of them, but go unimproved to youi
den at Haileybury, or your stye at the Temple, and feed upon
the vapour of your dungeon. When we found you had really
gone back from your vow, we packed up for Loch Lomond yester
day, and came on here, where we shall stay in the good Breadal-
bane country till Monday, and then return for a farewell peep at
our naiads, on our way to Ayrshire, and thence back to Craigcrook
about the 18th. (Write always to Edinburgh.) I sent a letter to
Napier for you, which he returned two days ago. After that I
could not tell where to address you. I left instructions at the
Arrochar post-office for the forwarding of your letters to Rice.
Only two newspapers had come for you when we came away, and
these I generously bestowed in my last. And now it is so hot that
I cannot write any more, but must go and cool myself in the
grottos of the rocky Dochart, or float under the deep shades that
overarch the calm course of the translucent Lochy, or sit on the
airy summit where the ruins of Finlarig catch the faint fluttering
of the summer breeze. All Greek and Hebrew to you, only more
melodious. Poor wretch ! We have been at Finlarig and at Auch-
more ; both very beautiful, but the heat spoils all, as I fear it may
have our salmon. God bless us, I am dyspeptic and lumbaginous,
and cannot sleep, and I lay it all on the heat, when I daresay old
age and bad regime should have their share. Why should not you
and Malthus come down to our solemnity on the 8th September ?
After your long services, a fortnight's holiday could not be grudged,
especially for the purpose of making you better teachers, and get
ting solutions to all your difficulties. I hope Mrs. Soinerville
will come.
I had a glimpse of my beautiful Mrs. Grant before leaving
Edinburgh, and grudge such a sultana to India. Write to me
soon. My Charlottes send their love in anger to you. Ever
yours.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 427
CCLIX.
In the recently published volumes of Charles Dickens' Letters
the editorial comment for the year 1843 informs us that the
popular novelist ' was at work upon " Martin Ohuzzlewit " until
the end of the year, when he also wrote and published the first
of his Christmas stories — " The Christmas Carol." ' To have
received from the pen of the brilliant critic, Jeffrey, so genuine
an assurance of the increasing repute and influence of hia
writings must have greatly flattered even this spoilt child of the
public.
frauds Jeffrey to Charles Dickens.
Edinburgh : December 26, 1843.
Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens ! and may it
always be as light and full as it is kind, and a fountain of kindness
to all within reach of its beatings ! We are all charmed with your
Carol, chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all
through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has
been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchetts is like the
dream of a beneficent angel in spite of its broad reality, and little
Tiny Tim, in life and death almost as sweet and as touching as
Nelly. And then the school-day scene, with that large-hearted
delicate sister, and her true inheritor, with his gall-lacking liver,
and milk of human kindness for blood, and yet all so natural,
and so humbly and serenely happy ! Well, you should be happy
yourself, for you may be sure you have done more good, and not
only fastened more kindly feelings, but prompted more positive
acts of beneficence, by this little publication, than can be traced to
all the pulpits and confessionals in Christendom since Christmas
1842.
And is not this better than caricaturing American knaveries,
or lavishing your great gifts of fancy and observation on Pecksniffs,
Dodgers, Bailleys, and Moulds. Nor is this a mere crotchet of
mine, for nine-tenths of your readers, I am convinced, are of the
same opinion ; and accordingly, I prophesy that you will sell three
times as many of this moral and pathetic Carol as of your grotesque
and fantastical Chuzzlewits.
I hope you have not fancied that I think less frequently of you,
or love you less, because I have not lately written to you. Indeed it
428 . ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
is not so ; but I have been poorly in health for the last five months,
and advancing age makes me lazy and perhaps forgetful. But I
do not forget my benefactors, and I owe too much to you not to
have you constantly in my thoughts. I scarcely know a single in
dividual to whom I am indebted for so much pleasure, and the
means at least of being made better. I wish you had not made such
an onslaught on the Americans. Even if it were all merited, it does
mischief, and no good. Besides you know that there are many ex
ceptions ; and if ten righteous might have saved a city once, there
are surely innocent and amiable men and women, and besides, boys
and girls enough, in that vast region, to arrest the proscription of a
nation. I cannot but hope, therefore, that you will relent before
you have done with them, and contrast your deep shadings with
some redeeming touches. God bless you. I must not say more
to-day. With most kind love to Mrs. Dickens, always very
affectionately, &c.
Since writing this in the morning, and just as I was going to
seal it, in comes another copy of the Carol, with a nattering auto
graph on the blank page, and an address in your own ' fine Roman
hand.' I thank you with all my heart, for this proof of your re
membrance, and am pleased to think, that while I was so occupied
about you, you had not been forgetful of me. Heaven bless you,
and all that are dear to you. Ever yours, &c.
CCLX.
Landor said that in Southey's letters alone could his charac
ter he read. If this be true, they reveal him as an essentially
prosaic, worthy person, crammed with knowledge of hooks,
estimable in all his social relations, hut singularly dry and un
sympathetic. To one or two correspondents, and notably to
Miss Barker, he unbends and shows the most human side of his
nature, hut his letters generally contain too much information
to be good as letters.
Robert Southey to Miss Barker.
Keswick : April 3, 1804.
Senhora, — Perhaps you may be anxious to hear of our goings
on, and therefore, having nothing to say, I take up a very short
and ugly pen to tell you so. In a fortnight's time, by God's good
will, I may have better occasion to write.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 429
I have within this last week received a pleasure of the highest
possible terrestrial nature, the arrival of some Portuguese and
Spanish books. No monk ever contemplated with more devotion
a chest of relics piping hot, than I did the happy deal box that
contained the long-expected treasures. But. let us leave these
books alcne, and talk of my manufactory. Did you ever see
Ellis's ' Specimens of the Early English Poets ' 1 It is a very
useful collection, though not to my judgment made with due
knowledge or taste, — but still a good book, and which has sold
wondrously well, George Ellis being a parliament man, and of
fashionable fame. Heber helped him in the business well. He
ends with the reign of Charles II. Now am I going to begin
where he ends, and give specimens of all the poets and rhymesters
from that time to the present, exclusive of the living jockeys;
whereby I expect to get some money ; for, be it known to you in
due confidence, that though this will really be a pleasant and
useful book, I have undertaken it purely for the lucre of gain.
For if this should sell as a sequel and companion to Ellis's book,
for which I design it, and shall advertise it, the profits will be
considerable. Some little notice of each author is to be prefixed to
the pieces, sometimes being only a list of his works, sometimes a
brief biography, if he be at all an odd fish, and sometimes such odd
things as may flow from the quaintness of my heart. This costs
me a journey to London, as at least half these gentlemen are not
included in the common collections of the poets, and must be resur-
rectionised at Stationers' Hall, where they have long since been
confined to the spiders. A journey will stir my stumps, and
perhaps do me good ; yet I do not like it — it disturbs me, and
puts me out of my way. However, I shall be very glad to see
Ilickman, whom Coleridge calls a sterling man, and with whom I
shall guest. And then there are half a score whom I regard more
than acquaintances — Carlisle, Duppa, &c. &c., not to mention all
the oddities in my knowledge whom I love to shake hands with
now and then, and hug myself at the consciousness of knowing
such an unequalled assortment. Oh, if some Boswell would but
save me the trouble of recording the unbelievable anecdotes I
could tell ! Stories which would be worth their weight in gold,
when gold will be of no use to me.
Coleridge is gone for Malta, and his departure affects me more
430 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
than I let be seen. Let what will trouble me, I bear a calm face ;
and if the Boiling Well could be drawn (which, however it heaves
and is agitated below, presents a smooth, undisturbed surface), that
should be my emblem. It is now almost ten years since he and I
first met, in my rooms at Oxford, which meeting decided the destiny
of both ; and now when, after so many ups and down, I am, for a
time, settled under his roof, he is driven abroad in search of health.
Ill he is, certainly and sorely ill ; yet I believe if his mind was as
well regulated as mine, the body would be quite as manageable.
I am perpetually pained and mortified by thinking what he ought
to be, for mine is an eye of microscopic discernment to the faults
of my friends ; but the tidings of his death would come upon me
more like a stroke of lightning than any evil I have ever yet
endured ; almost it would make me superstitious, for we were two
ships that left port in company. He has been sitting to Northcote
for Sir George Beaumont. There is a finely painted, but dismal
picture of him here, with a companion of Wordsworth. I enjoy
the thought of your emotion when you will see that portrait of
Wordsworth. It looks as if he had been a month in the con
demned hole, dieted upon bread and water, and debarred the use
of soap, water, razor, and combs ; then taken out of prison, placed
in a cart, carried to the usual place of execution, and had just
suffered Jack Ketch to take off his cravat. The best of this good
joke is, that the Wordsworths are proud of the picture, and that
his face is the painter's ideal of excellence; and how the devil the
painter has contrived to make a likeness of so well-looking a man
so ridiculously ugly poozles everybody.
I am expecting with pleasurable anticipation the beaver's back.
Farewell. t Yours,
R. SOUTHEY.
CCLXI.
In 1794 Robert Lovell introduced Southey, then a lad of
twenty, to Joseph Cottle, a wealthy and enlightened bookseller
of Bristol, who was so delighted with him that he immediately
printed a volume of his ' Poems ' and his epic of * Joan of
Arc,' presenting the unknown aspirant with eighty guineas for
the two copyrights. This generosity opened the career of
Southey, and fourteen years afterwards, at the height of his
reputation, he had not forgotten that fact. Cottle, in retiring
from business, neglected to return the copyrights to Southey,
and wrote to say he was sorry. This was Southey's reply.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 431
Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle.
Wednesday evening. Greta Hall :
April 28, 1808.
My dear Cottle, — "What you say of my copy-rights affects mo
very much. Dear Cottle, set your heart at rest on that subject.
It ought to be at rest. They were yours; fairly bought, and
fairly sold. You bought them on the chance of their success, what
no London bookseller would have done ; and had they not been
bought, they could not have been published at all. Nay, if you
had not published * Joan of Arc,' the poem never would have
existed, nor should I, in all probability, ever have obtained that
reputation which is the capital on which I subsist, nor that power
which enables me to support it.
But this is not all. Do you suppose, Cottle, that I have for
gotten those true and most essential acts of friendship which you
showed me when I stood most in need of them ? Your house was
my house when I had no other. The very money with which I
bought my wedding ring, and paid my marriage fees, was supplied
by you. It was with your sisters that I left my Edith, during my
six months' absence ; and for the six months after my return, it
was from you that I received, week by week, the little on which
we lived, till I was enabled to live by other means. It is not the
settling of our cash account that can cancel obligations like these.
You are in the habit of preserving your letters, and if you were
not, / would entreat you to preserve this, that it might be seen here
after. Sure I am, that there never was a more generous, nor a
kinder heart than yours, and you will believe me when I add, that
there does not live that man upon earth, whom I remember with
more gratitude, and more affection. My heart throbs, and my
eyes burn with these recollections. Good night, my dear old friend
and benefactor.
EGBERT SOUTHED.
432 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCLXII.
Robert Southey to John RicJcman.
Keswick : August 17-20, 1809.
My dear Rickman, — I can wish you nothing better than that
your life may be as long, your age as hale, and your death as easy
as your father's. The death of a parent is a more awful sorrow
than that of a child, but a less painful one : it is in the inevitable
order and right course of nature that ripe fruit should fall ; it
seems like one of its mishaps when the green bud is cut off. In
the outward and visible system of things, nothing is wasted : it
would therefore be belying the whole system to believe that
intellect and love, — which are of all things the best, — could perish.
I have a strong and lively faith in a state of continued conscious
ness from this stage of existence, and that we shall recover the
consciousness of some lower stages through which we may pre
viously have past, seems to me not improbable. The supposition
serves for dreams and systems, — the belief is a possession more
precious than any other. I love life, and can thoroughly enjoy it ;
but if to exist were but a lifehold property, I am doubtful whether
I should think the lease worth holding. It would be better never
to have been than ever to cease to be.
Still I shall hope for your coming. You would at any rate
have been inconveniently late for the Highlands, for which as near
Midsummer as possible is the best season. September is the best
for this country.
ccLxm.
In 1797 Coleridge introduced Lamb to Southey, whose
mind proved so far more congenial to the great humourist than
that of any other early literary friend, that his letters imme
diately began to take those delightful airs of fantastic whim
which we identify with the name of Lamb.
Charles Lamb to Robert Southey.
1798.
My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a
velvet collar. He assures me every body wears velvet collars now.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 433
Some are born fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like
your humble servant, have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue
has been making inroads hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon
me an additional button, recommending gaiters, but to come upon
me thus in a full tide of luxury, neither becomes him as a tailor or
as the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman was robbed the other
day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse shay from
Hampstead ; the villains rifled him of four guineas, some shillings
and half-pence, and a bundle of customers' measures, which they
swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they
rode off he addrest them with profound gratitude, making a congee :
' Gentlemen, I wish you good night, and we are very much obliged
to you that you have not used us ill ! ' And this is the cuckoo
that has had the audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side,
and a black velvet collar. A cursed ninth of a scoundrel !
Yours sincerely,
C. LAMB.
CCLXIV.
There was a little coldness between Coleridge and Lamb in
1798. Coleridge, with his usual pomposity, had told Lanib
that he should he happy to instruct him on all points upon
which he needed information, and this seems to have ruffled
Lamb. Accordingly he drew up the following absurd table of
theological queries and begged to have them expounded to him.
Coleridge could see no fun in the joke, and called Lamb ' a
young visionary.'
Charles Lamb to /Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Theses quaedam Theologies.
1st. Whether God loves a lying angel better than a true man?
2nd. "Whether the archangel Uriel could affirm an untruth, and if
he could, whether he would ?
3rd. "Whether honesty be an angelic virtue, or not rather to be
reckoned among those qualities which the schoolmen term.
' Yirtutes minus splendidse 1 '
4th. Whether the higher order of Seraphim illuminati ever sneer 1
5th. Whether pure intelligences can love ?
6th. Whether the Seraphim ardentes do not manifest their virtues,
by the way of vision and theory ; and whether practice be
not a sub-celestial and merely human virtue ?
434 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
7th. Whether the vision beatific be anything more or less than a
perpetual represent ment, to each individual angel, of his
own present attainments, and future capabilities, somehow
in the manner of mortal looking-glasses, reflecting a per
petual complacency and self-satisfaction?
8th and last. Whether an immortal and amenable soul may not
come to be condemned at last, and the man never suspect it
beforehand ?
Learned Sir, my friend, — Presuming on our long habits of
friendship, and emboldened further by your late liberal permis
sion to avail myself of your correspondence, in case I want any
knowledge, (which I intend to do, when I have no Encyclopedia,
or Ladies Magazine at hand to refer to, in any matter of science,)
I now submit to your enquiries the above theological propositions,
to be by you defended or oppugned, or both, in the schools of Ger
many, whither, I am told, you are departing, to the utter dissatis
faction of your native Devonshire, and regret of universal
England ; but to my own individual consolation, if, through the
channel of your wished return, learned sir, my friend, may be
transmitted to this our island, from those famous theological wits
of Leipsic and Gottingen, any rays of illumination, in vain to be
derived from the homegrowth of our English halls and colleges.
Finally wishing, learned sir, that you may see Schiller, and swing
in a wood, (vide poems) and sit upon a tun, and eat fat hams of
Westphalia,
I remain
Your friend and docile pupil, to instruct,
CHARLES LAMB.
CCLXV.
The Lake Poets, consisting of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and
Lloyd, with their families, had settled at Keswick in 1800,
and when in 1801 Lamb published a slender volume of ' Poems '
that identified him with them in the public mind, they were
all anxious to attract him also to Cumberland. Lloyd and
Coleridge invited him in vain, and finally Wordsworth summoned
him to leave London, with the following- result.
Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth.
I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation
into Cumberland. With you and your sister I could gang any
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 435
where ; but am afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so
desperate a journey. Separate from the pleasure of your company,
I don't now care if I never see a mountain in my life. I have
passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and
intense local attachments, as any of you mountaineers can have
done with dead nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and
Fleet Street, the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers,
coaches, waggons, playhouses ; all the bustle and wickedness round
Covent Garden ; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles ; life
awake, if you are awake, at all hours of the night ; the impossi
bility of being dull in Fleet Street ; the crowds, the very dirt and
mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements, the print-shops,
the old book-stalls, parsons cheapening books, coffee-houses, steams
of soups from kitchens, the pantomimes — London itself a panto
mime and a masquerade — all these things work themselves into
my mind, arid feed me without a power of satiating me. The
wonder of these sights impels me into night-walks about her
crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from
fulness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange
to you ; so are your rural emotions to me. But consider, what
must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions
of my heart with usury to such scenes 1
My attachments are all local, purely local — I have no passion
(or have had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious
engendering of poetry and books) to groves and valleys. The
rooms where I was born, the furniture which has been before my
eyes all my life, a book-case which has followed me about like a
faithful dog (only exceeding him. in knowledge,) wherever I have
moved — old chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I have
sunned myself, my old school, — these are my mistresses — have I
not enough, without your mountains? I do not envy you. I
should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends
of anything. Your sun, and moon, and skies, and hills, and lakes,
affect me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable cha
racters than as a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I
might live with handsome visible objects. I consider the clouds
above me but as a roof beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy
the mind ; and, at last, like the pictures of the apartment of a
connoisseur, unable to afford him any longer a pleasure. So fading
436 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
upon me, from disuse, have been the beauties of Nature, as they
have been confinedly called ; so ever fresh, and green and warm are
all the inventions of men, and assemblies of men in this great city.
I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna.1
Give my kindest love, and my sister's, to D. and yourself.
And a kiss from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite. Thank you
for liking my play !
C. L.
CCLXVI.
To a friend who had been absent nine years in China, Lamb
addressed this quaint and funereal letter. It is hardly neces
sary to remind the reader that not a word of it is true, and that
some of the worthies here slain and buried survived for more
than thirty years.
Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning.
December 25, 1815.
Dear old friend and absentee, — This is Christmas-day 1815
with us ; what it may be with you I don't know, the l^th of June
next year perhaps ; and if it should be the consecrated season with
you, I don't see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys ; you
would not desecrate the festival by offering up a withered Chinese
bantam, instead of the savoury, grand JSTorfolcian holocaust, that
smokes all around my nostrils at this moment, from a thousand
firesides. Then what puddings have you ? "Where will you get
holly to stick in your churches, or churches to stick your dried
tea-leaves (that must be the substitute) in ? What memorials you
can have of the holy time, I see not. A chopped missionary or
two may keep up the thin idea of Lent and the wilderness ; but
what standing evidence have you of the Nativity 1 — 'tis our rosy-
cheeked, home-stalled divines, whose faces shine to the tune of
Christmas ; faces fragrant with the mince-pies of half a century,
that alone can authenticate the cheerful mystery — I feel, I feel
myself refreshed with the thought — my zeal is great against the
unedified heathen. Down with the Pagodas — down with the
idols — Ching-chong-fo and his foolish priesthood ! Come out of
1 The allusions at the close of this letter are to Wordsworth's poems of
Joanna's Kock, and the ' Pet Lamb,' and to Lamb's unsuccessful tragedy
of ' John Woodvil.'
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. W
Babylon, 0 my friend ! for her time is come, and the child that is
native, and the Proselyte of her gates, shall kindle and smoke
together ! And in sober sense, what makes you so long from
among us, Manning 1 You must not expect to see the same Eng
land again which you left.
Empires have been overturned, crowns trodden into dust, the
face of the western world quite changed : your friends have all got
old — those you left blooming — myself (who am one of the few that
remember you) those golden hairs which you recollect my taking
a pride in, turned to silvery and grey. Mary has been dead and
buried many years, — she desired to be buried in the silk gown you
sent her. Rickman, that you remember active and strong, now
walks out supported by a servant-maid and a stick. Martin
Burney is a very old man. The other day an aged woman knocked
at my door, and pretended to my acquaintance ; it was long before
I had the most distant cognition of her ; but at last together we
made her out to be Louisa, the daughter of Mrs. Topham, formerly
Mrs. Morton, who had been Mrs. Reynolds, formerly Mrs. Kenney,
whose first husband was Holcroft, the dramatic writer of the last
century. St. Paul's Church is a heap of ruins ; the Monument
isn't half as high as you knew it, divers parts being successively
taken down which the ravages of time had rendered dangerous ;
the horse at Charing Cross is gone, no one knows whither, — and
all this has taken place while you have been settling whether
Ho-hing-tong should be spelt with a — or a — . For aught I see
you had almost as well remain where you are, and not come like a
Struldbrug into a world where few were born when you went away.
Scarce here and there one will be able to make out your face ; all
your opinions will be out of date, your jokes obsolete, your puns
rejected with fastidiousness as wit of the last age. Your way of
mathematics has already given way to a new method, which after
all is I believe the old doctrine of Maclaurin, new vamped up
with what he borrowed of the negative quantity of fluxions from
Euler.
Poor Godwin ! I was passing his tomb the other day in Cripple-
gate church-yard. There are some verses upon it written by Miss
, which if I thought good enough I would send you. He was
one of those who would have hailed your return, not with bois
terous shouts and clamours, but with the complacent gratulations
20
438 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
of a philosopher anxious to promote knowledge as leading to happi
ness — but his systems and his theories are ten feet deep in Cripple-
gate mould. Coleridge is just dead, haying lived just long enough
to close the eyes of Wordsworth, who paid the debt to nature but
a week or two before — poor Col., but two days before he died, he
wrote to a bookseller proposing an epic poem on the ' Wanderings
of Cain ' in twenty-four books. It is said he has left behind him
more than forty thousand treatises in criticism, metaphysics, and
divinity, but few of them in a state of completion. They are now
destined, perhaps, to wrap up spices. You see what mutations the
busy hand of Time has produced, while you have consumed in
foolish voluntary exile that time which might have gladdened
your friends — benefited your country ; but reproaches are useless.
Gather up the wretched reliques, my friend, as fast as you can,
and come to your old home. I will rub my eyes and try to recog
nise you. We will shake withered hands together, and talk of old
things — of St. Mary's Church and the barber's opposite, where the
young students in mathematics used to assemble. Poor Crips,
that kept it afterwards, set up a fruiterer's shop in Trumpington
Street, and for aught I know resides there still, for I saw the
name up in the last journey I took there with my sister just before
she died. I suppose you heard that I had left the India House,
and gone into the Fishmongers' Almshouses over the bridge. I
have a little cabin there, small and homely, but you shall be wel
come to it. You like oysters, and to open them yourself; I'll get
you some if you come in oyster time. Marshall, Godwin's old
friend, is still alive, and talks of the faces you used to make.
Come as soon as you can.
C. LAMB.
CCLXVII.
One of the last letters written by Charles Lamb before his
fatal illness in 1834 was in reply to one enclosing a list of candi
dates for a widows' fund society, and requesting his votes. The
list chanced to "be headed by a Mrs. Southey.
Charles Lamb to Mr. Cary.
Dear Sir, — The unbounded range of munificence presented to
my choice, staggers me. What can twenty votes do for one hun-
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 439
dred and two widows 1 I cast my eyes hopeless among the viduage.
N.B. Southey might be ashamed of himself to let his aged mother
stand at the top of the list, with his 100£. a year and butt of sack.
Sometimes I sigh over No. 12, Mrs. Carve-ill, some poor relation
of mine, no doubt. No. 15 has my wishes, but then she is a
Welsh one. I have Kuth upon No. 21. I'd tug hard for No. 24.
No. 25 is an anomaly ; there can be no Mrs. Hog. No. 34 in-
snares me. No. 73 should not have met so foolish a person. No.
92 may bob it as she likes, but she catches no cherry of me. So I
have even fixed at hap-hazard, as you'll see.
Yours, every third Wednesday,
C. L.
CCLXVIII.
The loss of his eldest son and the intolerable vexation caused
by the republication of his seditious drama of ' Wat Tyler/ had
driven Southey in 1816 into a condition of melancholy that pre
vented him from writing to his friends. Landor, ignorant of the
causes of his silence, addressed him this eloquent appeal.
Walter Savage Landor to Robert Southey.
1817.
I have written many letters to you since I received one from
you. Can anything occur that ought to interrupt our friendship ?
Believe me, Southey— and of all men living I will be the very last
to deceive or to flatter you — I have never one moment ceased to
love and revere you as the most amiable and best of mortals, and
your fame has always been as precious to me as it could ever be to
yourself. If you believe me capable, as you must, of doing any
thing to displease you, tell it me frankly and fully. Should my
reply be unsatisfactory, it will not be too late nor too soon to shake
me off from all pretensions to your friendship. Tell it me rather
while your resentment is warm than afterwards ; for in the midst
of resentment the heart is open to generous and tender sentiments ;
it closes afterwards. I heard with inexpressible grief of your most
severe and irreparable loss, long indeed ago ; but even if I had
been with you at the time, I should have been silent. If your
feelings are like mine, of all cruelties those are the most intolerable
tiiat come under the name of condolence and consolation. Surely
to be told that we ought not to grieve is among the worst bitter-
440 ENGLISH LETTERS. [170CU
nesses of grief. The best of fathers and of husbands is not always
to derive perfect happiness from being so ; and genius and wisdom,
instead of exempting a man from all human sufferings, leave him
exposed to all of them, and add many of their own. Whatever
creature told me that his reason had subdued his feelings, to him
I should only reply that mine had subdued my regard for him.
But occupations and duties fill up the tempestuous vacancy of the
soul ; affliction is converted to sorrow, and sorrow to tenderness :
at last the revolution is completed, and love returns in its pristine
but incorruptible form. More blessings are still remaining to you
than to any man living. In that which is the most delightful of
all literary occupations, at how immense a distance are you from
every rival or competitor ! In history, what information are you
capable of giving to those even who are esteemed the most learned !
And thoso who consult your criticisms do not consult them to find,
as in others, wijbh what feathers the most barbarous ignorance
tricks out its nakedness, or with what gypsy shuffling and arrant
slang detected impostures are defended. On this sad occasion I
have no reluctance to remind you of your eminent gifts. In return
I ask from you a more perfect knowledge of myself than I yet
possess. Conscious that I have done nothing very wrong, I
almost hope that I have done something not quite right, that
I may never think you have been unjust towards me.
W. L.
COLXIX.
Reference is made on another page to Dr. Samuel Parr's
great conversational powers, second only to those of Dr. John
son, Landor had not made Parr converse in any of the ' Imagi
nary Conversations,' though he intended to dedicate a volume
to him. Parr was on his death-bed when this letter arrived.
Walter Savage Landor to Dr. Samuel Parr.
Florence : February 5, 1825.
My dear Sir, — It has appeared, and might well do so, an
extraordinary thing, that I should have omitted your name in my
' Conversations.' You will perceive at the close of this paper,
that, if I did not venture to deliver your opinions, at least I had
not forgotten the man by whom mine could have been best
corrected.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 441
Had I completed my undertaking I should have prefixed to
the last volume a dedication to my venerable friend, Dr. Samuel
Parr, and it would have been with more propriety inscribed to
him than any of the former, as containing less of levity and of
passion, and greatly more, if I had done justice to the interlocutors,
of argument and of eloquence. My first exercises in these were
under his eye and guidance, corrected by his admonition, and ani
mated by his applause. His house, his library, his heart, were
always open to me ; and among my few friendships, of which
indeed, partly by fortune, partly by choice, I have certainly had
fewer than any man, I shall remember his to the lust hour of my
existence with tender gratitude.
My admiration of some others I have expressed in the few
words preceding each volume ; my esteem and love of him I have
expressed in still fewer ; but with such feelings as that man's are
who has shaken hands with the friends that followed him to the
shore, and who sees from the vessel one separate from the rest,
one whom he can never meet again. May you enjoy, my dear Sir,
all that can be enjoyed of life ! I am heartily sated of it, and have
abandoned all thoughts of completing my design. The third
volume will, however, come out in the beginning of March, and I
hope there are some things in it which will not displease you.
I request you to present my most respectful compliments to
Mrs. Parr, and to believe me, dear Sir, yours ever most faithfully,
W. S. LANDOR.
CCLXX.
We have seen Landor in his best mood of tenderness and
Spartan dignity, we are now introduced to him during one of
those paroxysms of vehemence which were so habitual to him.
The letter refers to some slight misdemeanour on the part of the
publisher of Lander's ' Imaginary Conversations.'
Walter Savage Landor to Robert Southey.
Florence : April 11, 1825.
Taylor's first villany in making me disappoint the person with
whom I had agreed for the pictures instigated me to throw my
fourth volume, in its imperfect state, into the fire, and has cost me
nine-tenths of my fame as a writer. His next villany will entail
perhaps a chancery-suit on my children, — for at its commencement
442 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
I blow my brains out. Mr. Hazlitt, Mr. Leigh Hunt, Lord
Dillon, Mr. Brown, and some other authors of various kinds, have
been made acquainted, one from another, with this whole affair,
and they speak of it as a thing unprecedented. It is well that I
rewrote the ' Tiberius and Yipsania ' before Taylor gave me a fresh
proof of his intolerable roguery. This cures me for ever, if I live,
of writing what could be published; arid I will take good care
that my son shall not suffer in the same way. Not a line of any
kind will I leave behind me. My children shall be carefully
warned against literature. To fence, to swim, to speak French,
are the most they shall learn.
W. S. L.
CCLXXI.
Very few public entertainers have worked harder than Mr.
Charles Mathews (the elder) did to sustain a great reputation
and keep a purse well filled. He seemed to flit about the pro
vinces with extraordinary rapidity, and this, too, in the coach
ing days. Mathews was a most energetic and constant correspon
dent, and seems never to have missed a reasonable opportunity
of writing to Mrs. Mathews when absent from home on a series
of provincial engagements. In this letter he writes of his suc
cess at Edinburgh.
Charles Mathews to Mrs. Mathews.
Edinburgh: February 9, 1822.
I know too many people here to study undisturbed ; therefore
am obliged to hide myself in the private walks, when the weather
will permit. Yesterday was lovely, and I had a good spell ; to-day
boisterous and wet. Terry declared that he was blown off the
pavement into the middle of the street, from the violence of a
squall, and must have fallen, if he had not made a snatch at a man
who returned his hug, like two people on the ice. I have had two
nights, the first 80 j£., for they would not be persuaded that I was
myself, in consequence of the disturbance Irish Mathews occa
sioned here. But believing from ocular demonstration that I was
I, my second amounted to 132£., which, to appreciate, you must
be ' acquainted with circumstances too- tedious, &c. When I tell
you that the boxes will only hold 55£., you may suppose what it,
was. Sir Walter, the magician of the North, and all his family,
were there. They huzzaed when he came in, and I never played
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 443
with such spirit, I was so proud of his presence. Coming out, I
saw him in the lobby, and very quietly shook his hand. ' How d'ye
do, Sir Walter?' — 'Oh, hoo are ye1? wall, hoo have you been
entertained 1 ' (I perceived he did not know me.) — ' Why, Sir, I
don't think quite so well as the rest of the people.' — * Why not 1 I
have been just delighted. It's quite wonderful hoo the devil he
gets through it all.' — (Whispering in his ear) : ' I am surprised
too ; but I did it all myself.' Lockhart, Lady Scott, and the chil
dren quickly perceived the equivoque, and laughed aloud, which
drew all eyes upon me : an invitation for to-morrow followed,
which I accepted joyfully. I doubt if the players in Shakspeare's
time appreciated his invite as I do an attention from the man who
in my mind is second only to him.
Murray has overreached himself — and I continue to oppose.
Much I thank him for allowing me to stand alone, and to oppose
without compunction.
CHARLES MATHEWS.
CCLXX1I.
During Mr. Charles Mathews' (the elder) professional visit
to America in the autumn of 1822, a minister of the Dutch
Reformed Church took occasion while preaching a sermon on
the subject of the yellow-fever, 'Pestilence — a Punishment for
Public Sins,' to utter a violent tirade against theatres generally
and the evil influence of the great English comedian in particu
lar, as though Mathews were responsible in the month of
November for the dreadful scourge which made its first appear
ance during the previous July. Just before his return to Eng
land Mathews wrote this letter with a view to frighten the parson
by inferring that he would be adequately and prominently repre
sented in his next English * At Home.'
Charles Mathews to the Rev. Paschal Strong.
New York: 1823.
Sir, — Ingratitude being in my estimation a crime most heinous
and most hateful, I cannot quit the shores of America without
expressing my grateful sense of services which you have gra
tuitously rendered.
Other professors in ' that school of Satan, that nursery of hell ! '
as you most appropriately style the theatre, have been, ex neces
sitate, content to have their merits promulgated through the
444 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
medium of the public papers j but mine you have graciously
vouchsafed to blazon from the pulpit. You have, as appears in your
recently published sermon, declared me to be (what humility tells
me I only am in your partial and prejudiced estimation) 'an actor
whom God Almighty sent here as a man better qualified than any
other in the world to dissipate every serious reflection ! '
What man ! what woman ! what child ! could resist the effects
of such a description, coming from such a quarter 1 particularly as
you, at the same time, assured the laughter-loving inhabitants of
this city that the punishment incident to such a ' thirst after dissi
pation' had been already inflicted by 'their late calamity/ the
pestilence, * voracious in its thirst of prey ! ' and you might have
added, thirsty in its hunger for drink. No wonder that the
theatre has since been crowded, the manager enriched, and the most
sanguine expectations of him whom you have perhaps improperly
elevated to the rank of the avenging angel so beautifully described
by Addison, completely realized.
For each and all of these results accept, reverend sir, my cordial
and grateful thanks. Nor deem me too avaricious of your favours,
if I venture to solicit more. As you have expressly averred, in
the sermon before me, that ' God burnt the theatre of New York, to
rebuke the devotees of pleasure there resident? permit me, your
humble avenging angel, to inquire, by whom and for what purpose
the cathedrals at Rouen and Venice were recently destroyed by
fire, and in a manner which more especially implicated the hand
of Providence 1 But beware, most reverend sir, I conjure you, lest
your doctrines of special dispensations furnish arguments and arms
to the scoffer and atheist.
One other request, and I have done. You appear too well
acquainted with my peculiarities and propensities not to be aware
that, when I travel abroad, I am always anxious to collect some
thing original and funny wherewith to entertain my friends and
patrons ' at home.' Now, sir, so little do the American people, in
general, differ from their parent stock whom it is my object to
amuse, that I have as yet scarcely procured anything in which
these qualities are united, except your aforesaid sermon ; you will,
therefore, infinitely oblige me, if you will, on Sunday next, preach
another on the subject of my angelic attributes ; in which case,
you may rely on my being a most attentive auditor. I hope to
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 445
have the opportunity of studying the peculiarities of your style
and action. The gracefulness and Christian charity, humility and
universal benevolence, which doubtless beam in your expressive
countenance, will enable me to produce a picture of prodigious
effect, of which all who know the original will acknowledge the
likeness to be Strong !
I have sir, the honour to be, most gratefully your obliged,
angelic, yellow- fever-producing friend,
C. MATHEWS.
CCLXXIII.
To lovers of John Constable's simple and unaffected art —
and they are legion — these two specimens, gleaned from the
volume of correspondence prepared by his fellow-academician,
C. R. Leslie, will be interesting.
John Constable, JR. A., to Mr. Dunthorm.
London : May 29, 1802.
My dear Dunthorne, — I hope I have now done with the
business that brought me to town with Dr. Fisher. It is sufficient
to say that had I accepted the situation offered it would have been
a death-blow to all my prospects of perfection in the art I love.
For these few weeks past, I believe I have thought more seriously
of my profession than at any other time of my life; of that
which is the surest way to excellence. I am just returned from a
visit to Sir George Beaumont's pictures with a deep conviction of
the truth of Sir Joshua Reynolds' observation, that there is no
easy way of becoming a good painter. For the last two years I
have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second
hand. I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the
same elevation of mind with which I set out, but have rather tried
to make my performances look like the work of other men. I am
come to a determination to make no idle visits this summer, nor
to give up my time to common-place people.
I shall return to Bergholt, where I shall endeavour to get a
pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may
employ me. There is little or nothing in the exhibition worth
looking up to. There is room enough for a natural painter. The
great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something
20*
446 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
beyond the truth. Fashion always had, and will have, its day ;
but truth in all things only will last, and can only have just claims
on posterity. I have reaped considerable benefit from exhibiting;
it shews me where I am, and in fact tells me what nothing else
could.
CCLXXIV.
Twenty years "before this letter was written, Constable,
then in his twenty-sixth year, was lectured by West in the fol
lowing words : ' Always remember, Sir, that light and shadow
never stand still. Whatever object you are painting, keep in
mind its prevailing character rather than its accidental appear
ance. In your skies, for instance, always aim at brightness,
although there are states of the atmosphere in which the sky
itself is not bright. I do not mean that you are not to paint
lowering skies, but even in the darkest effects there should be
brightness. Your darks should look like the darks of silver, not
of lead or of slate.'
John Constable, R.A., to the Rev. J. Fisher.
Hampstead : October 23, 1821.
My dear Fisher, — I am most anxious to get into my London
painting-room, for I do not consider myself at work unless I am
before a six-foot canvas. I have done a good deal of skying, for
I am determined to conquer all difficulties, and that among the
rest. And now, talking of skies, it is amusing to us to see how
admirably you fight my battles; you certainly take the best
possible ground for getting your friend out of a scrape (the
example of the old masters). That landscape painter who does
not make his skies a very material part of his composition, neglects
to avail himself of one of his greatest aids. Sir Joshua Reynolds,
speaking of the landscapes of Titian, of Salvator, and of Claude,
says : ' Even their skies seem to sympathize with their subjects.'
I have often been advised to consider my sky as * a white sheet
thrown behind the objects.1 Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as
mine are, it is bad ; but if it is loaded, as mine are not, it is
worse; it must and always shall with me make an effectual
part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a class
of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard
of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. You may conceive
then, what a l white sheet ' would do for me, impressed as I
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 447
am with these notions, and they cannot be erroneous. The
sky is the source of light in nature, and governs every thing ;
even our common observations on the weather of every day are
altogether suggested by it. The difficulty of skies in painting
is very great, both as to composition and execution ; because, with
all their brilliancy, they ought not to come forward, or, indeed, be
hardly thought of any more than extreme distances are ; but this
does not apply to phenomena or accidental effects of sky, because
they always attract particularly. I may say all this to you, though
you do not want to be told that I know very well what I am about,
and that my skies have not been neglected, though they have often
failed in execution, no doubt, from an over-anxiety about them,
which will alone destroy that easy appearance which nature always
has in all her movements.
How much I wish I had been with you on your fishing
excursion in the New Forest ! What river can it be 1 But the
sound of water escaping from mill-dams &c., willows, old rotten
planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shake
speare could make everything poetical ; he tells us of poor Tom's
haunts among sheepcotes and mills.
As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places.
They have always been my delight, and I should indeed have been
delighted in seeing what you describe, and in your company, ' in
the company of a man to whom nature does not spread her volume
in vain.' Still I should paint my own places best ; painting is
with me but another word for feeling, and I associate ' my care
less boyhood ' with all that lies on the banks of the Stour ; those
scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful ; that is, I had often
thought of pictures of them before I ever touched a pencil, and
your picture is the strongest instance of it I can recollect ; but I
will say no more, for I am a great egotist in whatever relates to
painting. Does not the Cathedral look beautiful among the
golden foliage ? its solitary grey must sparkle in it.
Yours ever
J. 0.
443 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCLXXV.
The famous Dr. Samuel Parr was not tlio only scholar who
•was taken in by the impudent Shakespeare forgeries of Samuel
"William Henry Ireland. That Sheridan should have purchased
such vapid nonsense as l Vortigern ' for Drury Lane Theatre, and
that John Kemble should have consented to act in it, is scarcely
less surprising than that the author of the play should have
assurance enough to string together the deliberate lies which
make up this letter. Before the year was out Ireland published
a confession of his guilt.
Samuel W. H. Ireland to Dr. Samuel Parr.
Norfolk Street, Strand : February 0, 1796.
Dear Sir, — When I had last the pleasure of seeing you in
London, you nattered me with some hope of your friendly inter
ference relative to a defence of the Shakspeare MSS. The daily
attacks on them and myself you have no doubt seen ; many of
,them are of the grossest, and most insidious nature: to these
(following your advice) I have said but little, and believe I must
continue with perseverance to bear all with meekness and charity.
Several pamphlets have appeared pro and con ; those against with
more scurrility tban argument. Amongst those in favour, one
signed Philalethes is worthy notice, it is written by a gentleman
and a scholar. Great indeed is the mass of papers, books, &c.
that have come into my hands since I had the pleasure of seeing
you. The play of Vortigern, and of Henry the Second, part of
Hamlet, and the whole of Lear, all written in the same hand, and
signed in many places by himself, between seventy and eighty
books out of his library, with poetical and very interesting notes,
all in his own hand, and signed with his name, among them is
Spenser's Fairy Queen, published in 1590, with his notes and
an acrostic on the name of Spenser, signed by Shakspeare, besides
those many legal instruments, signed by him either as the principal
or as a witness ! ! This treasure the commentators and a host of
opponents all declare a forgery, although they have never seen a
line of them, and many of them have been invited for that purpose,
particularly Dr. Farmer, to whom you very obligingly addressed a
long letter in my house. He is one of those I am told who,
without deigning to call to view the papers, disbelieves, and says
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 449
they must be forgeries. Your neighbour Mr. Greatheed has seen
and is a firm believer.
Mr. Erskine, the Lord Chief Baron, and a host of persons in
and out of the Law, who have seen, have not a shadow of doubt
on the subject. Burke and Malone are preparing their great guns,
and I hear to be out in a few days. Steevens is likewise running
a race with them, to have the first blow at me. With such an
opposition, I need not say even truth may be injured for a time,
although it must eventually rise superior as in most cases it has
been known to do. In support of our discovery, a recent one has
been made by Mr. Albany Wallis of Norfolk, amongst the deeds
&c. of the Fetherstonhaugh family (to whom he has been agent
near forty years) that corroborate as to the signature of Shakspeare
and various other names on my deeds and papers in every respect.
This is for us a very strong support indeed, and must weigh
greatly with those who choose to be convinced. Situated as we
are, I need not say (although I have many literary friends in town)
that should you continue, on viewing these treasures, to be as con
vinced of their authenticity as when I had the pleasure of seeing
you here, that your pen would prove to me a tower of strength.
I shall esteem myself honoured by a line from you as soon as
convenient, and remain, dear Sir, your obliged and obedient
servant,
S. IRELAND.
CCLXXVI.
Moore had not made his bargain with the Messrs. Longman
when the following letter was written ; and it so happened that
Lord Byron's * Giaour ' did not stand in the way of an offer of
3,000 guineas for < Lalla Rookh.'
Byron derived more popularity from his Turkish tale than
Moore did from his Persian narrative simply because it was
treated with greater force and truth to nature. In justice to
Moore's generous disposition it should be repeated that he lett
two-thirds of this money in the hands of his publisher to be
invested for the benefit of his parents. The reference to Bessy
(Dyke) is a touching- recognition of the claims of an excellent
wife to the life-long affection of her husband — a state of blessed
ness by no means common among Moore's poetical companions.
450 ENGLISH LETTERS. \\1W-
Thomas Moore to Miss Godfrey.
Mayfield, Ashbourne : May, 1813.
I was a good deal relieved from my apprehensions about Lady
Donegal by your letter, for though you mention colds, &c., I was
afraid, from what Rogers said in his letter, that her old complaint had
returned with more violence than usual, as he mentioned that she
was obliged to consult Baillie, and I always couple his name with
something serious and clinical. But indeed, Rogers himself, in
the next line to this intelligence, mentioned having met her at
Gloucester House the Saturday preceding; which (unless aqua
regalis or royal wish-wash was among the doses prescribed by
Baillie), I did not think looked like very serious indisposition. If
wishing you both well and happy, and free from all the ills of this
life, could in any way bring it about, I should be as good as a
physician for both your bodies and souls as you could find any
where. So you insist upon my taking my poem to Town with
me ? I will, if I can, you may be sure ; but I confess I feel rather
down-hearted about it. Never was anything more unlucky for me
than Byron's invasion of this region, which when I entered it, was
as yet untrodden, and whose charm consisted in the gloss and
novelty of its features ; but it will now be over-run with clumsy
adventurers, and when I make my appearance, instead of being a
leader as I looked to be, I must dwindle into a humble follower —
a Byronian. This is disheartening, and I sometimes doubt whether
I shall publish it at all ; though at the same time, if I may trust
my own judgment, I think I never wrote so well before. But (as
King Arthur, in Tom Thumb, says) ' Time will tell/ and in the
mean time, I am leading a life which but for these anxieties of fame,
and a few ghosts of debt that sometimes haunt me, is as rationally
happy as any man can ask for. You want to know something of
our little girls. Barbara is stout and healthy, not at all pretty,
but very sensible-looking, and is, of course, to be everything that's
clever. The other little thing was very ill-treated by the nurse
we left her with in that abominable Cheshire, but she is getting
much better, and promises to be the prettier of the two. Bessy's
heart is wrapped up in them, and the only pain they ever give me
is the thought of the precariousness of such treasures, and the way
I see that her life depends upon theirs. She is the same affectionate,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 451
sensible, and unaffected creature as a mother that she is as a wife,
and devotes every thought and moment to them and me. I pass
the day in my study or in the fields ; after dinner I read to Bessy
for a couple of hours, and we are in this way, at present, going
through Miss Edgeworth's works, and then after tea I go to my
'study again. We are not without the distractions of society, for
this is a very gay place, and some of the distractions I could dis
pense with ; but being far out of the regular road, I am as little
interrupted as I could possibly expect in so very thick a neighbour
hood. Thus you have a little panorama of me and mine, and I
hope you will like it.
Good-bye. Ever yours,
T. MOORE.
CCLXXVII.
In this charming letter from his cottage retreat in Warwick
shire, the Irish Burns, as Byron called the witty and lively
Hibernian, tells his friend Rogers the progress he is makingwith
the ( Peris.'
Thomas Moore to Samuel Rogers.
Mayfield : December 26, 1815.
My dear Rogers, — As this is about the time you said you should
be on your return to London, from your bright course through
,that noble zodiac you've been moving in, I hasten to welcome you
thither, not alas ! with my hand, as I could wish, — that joy must
not be for a few months longer, — but with my warmest con
gratulations on your safe and sound return from the Continent,
and hearty thanks for your kind recollections of me — recollec
tions, which I never want the outward and visible sign of letter-
writing to assure me of, however delightful and welcome it
may be, in addition to knowing that there's sweet music in the
instrument, to hear a little of its melody now and then. This
image will not stand your criticism, but you know its meaning,
and that's enough — much more indeed than we Irish image-
makers can in general achieve. My desire to see you for yourself
alone, is still more whetted by all I hear of the exquisite gleanings
you have made on your tour. The Donegals say you have seen so
much, seen everything so well, and described it all so picturesquely,
that there is nothing like the treat of hearing you talk of your
452 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
travels — how I long for that treat ! You are a happy fellow, my
dear Rogers, I know no one more nourri des fleurs of life, 110 one
who lives so much ' apis matinse more ' as yourself. The great
regret of my future days (and I hope the greatest} will be my loss
of the opportunity of seeing that glorious gallery, which like those
' domes of Shadukiam and Amberabad,' that Nourmahal saw in
the ' gorgeous clouds of the west,' is now dispersed and gone for
ever. It is a loss that never can be remedied ; but still perhaps
our sacrifices are among our pleasantest recollections, and I ought
not to feel sorry that the time and money, which would have pro
cured for myself this great gratification, have been employed in
making other hearts happy, better hearts than mine, and better
happiness than that would have been. With respect to my Peris,
thus stands the case, and remember that they are still to remain
(where Peris best like to be) under the rose. I have nearly finished
three tales, making, in all, about three thousand five hundred lines,
but my plan is to have^e tales, the stories of all which are ar
ranged, and which J[ am determined to finish before I publish — no
urgings nor wonderings nor taun tings shall induce me to lift the
curtain till I have grouped these five subjects in the way I think
best for variety and effect. I have already suffered enough by
premature publication. I have formidable favourites to contend
with, and must try to make up my deficiencies in dash and vigour
by a greater degree, if possible, of versatility and polish. Now it
will take, at the least, six thousand lines to complete this plan, i.e.
between two and three thousand more than I have yet done. By
May next I expect to have five thousand finished. This is the
number for which the Longmans stipulated, and accordingly in
May I mean to appear in London, and nominally deliver the work
into their hands. It would be then too late (even if all were
finished) to think of going to press; so that I shall thus enjoy the
credit with the Literary Quidnuncs of having completed my task
together with the advantage of the whole summer before me to
extend it to the length I purpose. Such is the statement of my
thousands, &c., which I am afraid you will find as puzzling as a
speech of Mr. Yansittart's ; but it is now near twelve o'clock at
night, which being an hour later than our cottage rules allow, I
feel it impossible to be luminous any longer — in which tendency
to eclipse, my candle sympathises most gloomily.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 453
Your poor friend Psyche is by no means well. I was in hopeu
that our Irish trip would have benefited her ; but her weakness
and want of appetite continue most distressingly, and our cold
habitation in the fields has now given her a violent cough, which
if it does not soon get better, will alarm me exceedingly. I never
love her so well as when she is ill, which is perhaps the best proof
how really I love her. How do Byron and my Lady go on ? there
are strange rumours in the country about them.
Ever yours, my dear Rogers,
THOMAS MOORE.
CCLX XVIII.
Acting under the advice of his friends Moore remained three
years on the other side of the Channel, pending the settlement
of a lawsuit involving a claim for 6,000/. against him for sundry
defalcations of a deputy whom he had left in charge of his
Government post at Bermuda. The claim was satisfied with a
cheque for 740/. from Lord Lansdowne, which Moore repaid
out of the profits of the ' Loves of the Angels ' and his ' Fables
of the Holy Alliance.' Allusion is made in this letter to the pre
cious gift of the ' Byron Memoirs.' They were consigned to the
flames by Moore on Byron's death in deference to the wishes of
the poet's sister and executor ; and, indeed, on Moore's judg
ment of what he considered due to the memory of his illustrious
friend. The celebrated biography of Byron was immediately
undertaken for Messrs. Longman, and the copyright passed into
the hands of Mr. John Murray.
Thomas Moore to Samuel JRogers.
Paris : Decomber 23, 1819.
My dear Rogers, — There is but little use now in mentioning
(though it is very true) that I began a letter to you from Rome ;
the first fragment of which is now before my eyes, and is as follows,
' One line from Rome is worth at least two of even yours from
Venice; and it is lucky it should be so, as I have not at this
moment time for much more.' There I stopped ; and if you had
ever travelled on the wing as I have done, flying about from morn
ing till night, and from sight to sight, you would know how hard
it is to find time to write, and you would forgive me. Taking for
granted that you do forgive me, I hasten to write you some very
valueless lines indeed, as they must be chiefly about myself. I
found a letter here on my arrival, from the Longmans, telling me
454 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
that I must not venture to cross the water (as was my intention,
for the purpose of reaching Holyrood House) till they had con
sulted you and some other of my friends with respect to the expe
diency of such a step. I have heard nothing more from them on the
subject, and therefore I suppose I must make up my mind to having
Mrs. Moore and the little ones over, and remaining here. This
is disappointing to me in many respects, and in few more than its
depriving me of all chance of seeing you, my dear Rogers, and of
comparing notes with you on the subject of the many wonders I
have witnessed since we parted. Lord John has, I suppose, told
you of the precious gift Lord Byron made me at Venice — his own
memoirs, written up to the time of his arrival in Italy. I have
many things to tell you about him, which at this moment neither
time nor inclination will let me tell ; when I say ' inclination/ I
mean that spirits are not equal to the effort. I have indeed seldom
felt much more low and comfortless than since I arrived in Paris ;
and though if I had you at this moment ' a quattr ' occki,' I
know I should find wherewith to talk whole hours, it is with
difficulty I have brought myself to write even these few lines.
Would I were with you ! I have no one here that I care one pin
for, and begin to feel, for the first time, like a banished man.
Therefore, pray write to me, and tell me that you forgive my lazi
ness, and that you think I may look to our meeting before very
long. If it were possible to get to Holyrood House, I should infi
nitely prefer it.
Lord John, in a letter I have just received from him, says you
have not been well ; but I trust, my dear .Rogers, you are by this
time quite yourself again.
Ever yours most truly
THOMAS MOORE.
CCLXXIX.
Treated by two able and earnest people who understood
what they were writing about, the historical, social, religious,
and literary topics comprised in the correspondence of Lucy
Aikin and Dr. Channing have a special interest of their own.
Miss Aikin was very apt to disparage the manners, habits, and
intellectual calibre of her countrywomen, but she could hold a
brief for them in the hour of need against their American
cousins.
It is as well this gifted authoress did not live to witness les
costumes d" harlequin of the years 1879-80.
800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 455
Miss Lucy Aikin to Dr. Channing.
Hampstead : August 9, 1842.
My dear Friend, — It grieves me to learn that illness has been
the cause of your long silence ; but it is past, I hope, and if your
summer be bright and balmy like ours, it will give you strength
to support the rigours of the coming winter. But 0 ! that you
would come to recruit in our milder climate ! We should then
soon exorcise that strange phantom of a petticoated man which
your imagination has conjured up during your illness, and some
demon has whispered you to call an Englishwoman. I am well per
suaded that you could have formed no such notion of us when you
were here, although I believe you then saw but little society, and
that of an inferior kind.
As to the very delicate subject of comparative beauty, our
travellers attest that you have many very pretty girls ; so have
we : and even Miss Sedgwick pronounces that ' the English
woman is magnificent from twenty to five-and-forty.' We are
satisfied; so let it rest. With respect to our step or stride, as you
say, I have a little history to give you, Down to five-and-forty or
fifty years ago, our ladies, tight-laced and ' propped on French
heels/ had a short, mincing step, pinched figures, pale faces, weak
nerves, much affectation, a delicate helplessness and miserable
health. Physicians prescribed exercise, but to little purpose. Then
came that event which is the beginning or end of everything — the
French Revolution. The Parisian women, amongst other re
straints, salutary or the contrary, emancipated themselves from
their stays, and kicked off their petits talons. We followed the
example, and, by way of improving upon it, learned to march of
the drill-sergeant, mounted boots, and bid defiance to dirt and foul
weather. We have now well- developed figures, blooming cheeks,
active habits, firm nerves, natural and easy manners, a scorn of
affectation, and vigorous constitutions. If your fair daughters would
also learn to step out, their bloom would be less transient, and
fewer would fill untimely graves. I admit, indeed, some unneces
sary inelegance in the step of our pedestrian fair ones ; but this
does not extend to ladies of quality, or real gentlewomen, who take
the air chiefly in carriages or on horseback. They walk with the
same quiet grace that pervades all their deportment, and to which
45G ENGLISH LETTERS. [17CO-
you have seen nothing similar or comparable. When you mention
our * stronger gestures/ I know not what you mean. All Europe
declares that we have no gesture. Madame de Stae'l ridiculed us
as mere pieces of still-life ; and of untravelled gentlewomen this is
certainly true in general. All governesses proscribe it. Where it
exists it arises from personal character. I have seen it engaging
when the offspring of a lively imagination and warm feelings, re
pulsive when the result of a keen temper or dictatorial assumption.
Again, your charge of want of delicacy I cannot understand. The
women of every other European nation charge us with prudery,
and I really cannot conceive of a human being more unassailable
by just reproach on this head than a well-conducted Englishwoman.
We have, indeed, heard some whimsical stories of American dam
sels who would not for the world speak of the leg even of a table,
or the back even of a chair ; and I do confess that we are not deli
cate or indelicate to this point. But if you mean to allude to the
enormities of Frances Wright, or even to some of the discussions
of , I can only answer, we blush too. Be pleased to
consider that you have yet seen in your country none of our ladies
of high rank, and few of your people, excepting diplomatic charac
ters, have had more than very transient glimpses of them here, while
we have had the heads of your society with us. Now I must
frankly tell you, in reference to your very unexpected claim for
your countrywomen of superior refinement, that although I have
seen several of them whose manners were too quiet and retiring to
give the least offence, I have neither seen nor heard of any who,
even in the society of our middle classes, were thought entitled to
more than this negative commendation — any who have become pro
minent without betraying gross ignorance of more than conventional
good-breeding. The very tone of voice, the accent and the choice
of phrase, give us the impression of extreme inelegance. Patriot
and staunch republican as you are, I think you must admit the
a-priori probability that the metropolis of the British Empire, the
first city in the world for size, for opulence, for diffusion of the
comforts, accommodations and luxuries of life, as well as for all
the appliances of science, literature and taste — the seat of a court
unexcelled in splendour, and of an aristocracy absolutely unrivalled
in wealth, in substantial power and dignity, and especially in mental
cultivation of the most solid and most elegant kind — would afford
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 457
such a standard of graceful and finished manners as your State
capitals can have no chance of coming up to. Further, it has been
most truly observed that in every country it is the mothers who
give the tone both to morals and manners ; but with you the
mothers are by your own account the toilers. Oppressed with
the cares of house and children, they either retire from society into
the bosom of their family, or leave at least the active and promi
nent parts in it to mere girls : and can you suppose that the art and
science of good breeding, for such it is, will be likely to advance
towards perfection when all who have attained such proficiency as
experience can give resign the sway to giddy novices 1 With us it
is quite different. Young ladies do not come out till eighteen, and
then their part is a very subordinate one. It is the matron who
does the honours of her house and supports conversation ; and her
daughters pay their visits beneath her wing. Under wholesome
restraint like this, the young best learn self-government. ' Sir,'
said Dr. Parr, when provoked by the ill-manners of a rich man
who had been a spoiled child, * it is discipline that makes the
scholar, discipline that makes the gentleman, and it is the want of
discipline that makes you what you are.' One of your young
women showed her taste and breeding by asking an English lady
if she had seen ' Victoria ; ' and I must mention that Miss Sedg-
wick has thought proper to describe the first and greatest lady in
the world as l a plain little body, ' adding, ' ordinary is the word for
her.' It was no woman luckily, but your Mr. D., who had the
superlative conceit and impertinence to express his surprise to a
friend of mine at finding so much good society in London. Now
I think I have given you enough for one letter.
Let me thank you very gratefully for your ' Duty of the Free
States.' We ought all to be grateful to you as one of the most
earnest and powerful pleaders for peace between our two countries.
I trust there is now good hope of the settlement of all our dis
putes. But your man-owners may as well give up all hope of our
lending our hands to the recovery of their chattels : we shall go to
war sooner, I can tell them. Your piece gave me much new informa
tion respecting the obligations of the free states in connection with
slavery ; they are more onerous than I thought. You must carry
your point as to the district of Columbia at all risks, and I appre
hend you will do so as soon as your people can be brought earn-
458 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
estly to will it — a state of public feeling which seems to be advanc
ing. After our victory over slave-trade and slavery, no good cause
is ever to be despaired of, not even although many of its champions
may show themselves rash, uncharitable, violent. Reason, justice
and humanity, must condescend to own that they need the service
of the passions to lead the forlorn hope in their holiest crusades.
Your lively delineations of the Southerns and the Northerns
struck me very forcibly. The contrast is just what we should
draw between English and Irish. Difference of climate may
in great degree account for this in your case, but it can have no
part in ours. We should ascribe it to difference of race, had not
the original English settlers in Ireland grown into such a likeness
of the old Celtic stock. Nothing more inscrutable than the causes
of national character. Climate certainly modifies the original
type. Thus the picture which you draw of American women in
your letter bore much resemblance, I thought, to the Creoles of our
islands. But surely the same character cannot apply to the women
of both North and South any more than to the men ; for, inde
pendently of all other causes, the presence or absence of domestic
slaves must modify every detail of domestic, and of course of
feminine, life.
CCLXXX.
Political bias apart, and judging- from quite neutral ground,
readers of the memoirs and correspondence of the late Viscount
Palmerston will scarcely fail to remark that his Lordship's man
agement of the Foreign Office, especially during the decade
immediately following the Reform Bill of 1832, partook of the
omniscience of Sir Francis Walsingham and the resoluteness of
Protector Cromwell. The despatches of Lord Palmerston to
Lord Granville and Sir Henry Bulwer are of a piece with Pro
tector Cromwell's drafts to Sir William Lockhart.
Lord Palmerston to Viscount Granville, British Ambassador
at Paris.
Foreign Office : January 7, 1831.
My dear Granville, — In a conversation which I had a few days
ago with Talleyrand, about the affairs of Belgium, I mentioned to
him an idea which had occurred to me, as an arrangement which
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 450
might probably smooth some of our difficulties. The King of the
Netherlands would wish his son to wear the crown of Belgium ;
the Belgians want much to have Luxembourg. Could not the
King give up Luxembourg to his son, on condition of his being
elected by the Belgians 1 and might not the Belgians choose the
Prince of Orange, on condition that he should bring Luxembourg
with him ] Talleyrand looked very grave, and said he thought his
Government would not like to see Luxembourg united to Belgium.
I asked why, inasmuch as it had been so united hitherto, and
would not be more inconvenient to France when united to Belgium
alone, than when united to Belgium joined with Holland. He
said, the fact was that their frontier in that direction is very weak
and exposed, and Luxembourg runs into an undefended part of
France. He then said, "Would there be no means of making an
arrangement by which Luxembourg might be given to France, ? I
confess I felt considerable surprise at a proposition so much at
variance with all the language and professions which he and his
Government have been holding. I said that such an arrangement
appeared to me to be impossible, and that nobody could consent to
it. I added that England had no selfish objects in view in the
arrangements of Belgium, but that we wished Belgium to be really
and substantially independent. That we were desirous of living
upon good terms with France, but that any territorial acquisitions
of France such as this which he contemplated would alter the re
lations of the two countries, and make it impossible for us to con
tinue on good terms. I found since this conversation that he had
been making similar propositions to Prussia about her Rhenish
provinces, in the event of the possibility of moving the King of
Saxony to Belgium and giving Saxony to Prussia. To-day he
proposed to me that France should get Philippeville and Marien-
burg, in consideration of France using her influence to procure
the election of Leopold for Belgium. I do not like all this ; it
looks as if France was unchanged in her system of encroachment,
and it diminishes the confidence in her sincerity and good faith
which her conduct up to this time had inspired. It may not be
amiss for you to hint, upon any fitting occasion, that though we
are anxious to cultivate the best understanding with France, and
to be on the terms of the most intimate friendship ivith her, yet that
460 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
it is only on the supposition that she contents herself with the finest
territory in Europe, and does not mean to open a new chapter of
encroachment and conquest.
My dear Granville,
Yours sincerely,
PALMERSTON.
CCLXXXI.
Lord Palmerston to Sir H. L. Bulwer, Paris.
Carlton Terrace : September 27, 1840.
My dear Bulwer, — Notwithstanding the mysterious threatening
with which Thiers has favoured us, I still hold to my belief that
the French Government will be too wise and prudent to make
war ; and various things which come to me from different quarters
confirm me in that belief. Besides, bullies seldom execute the
threats they deal in ; and men of trick and cunning are not
always men of desperate resolves. But if Thiers should again
hold to you the language of menace, however indistinctly and
vaguely shadowed out, pray retort upon him to the full extent of
what he may say to you, and with that skill of language which I
know you to be the master of, convey to him in the most friendly
and unoflensive manner possible, that if France throws down the
gauntlet we shall not refuse to pick it up ; and that if she begins
a war, she will to a certainty lose her ships, colonies, and commerce
before she sees the end of it ; that her army of Algiers will cease
to give her anxiety, and that Mehemet Ali will just be chucked
into the Nile. I wish you had hinted at these topics when Thiers
spoke to you ; I invariably do so when either Guizot or Bourqueney
begin to swagger, and I observe that it always acts as a sedative.
I remind them that countries seldom engage in unprovoked war,
unless they have something to gain by so doing ; but that we
should very soon have nearly three times the number of ships that
France could put to sea, and must, therefore, have the command
of all their interests beyond sea ; and that even if we had not such
a decided superiority upon our own bottom, Russia would be with
us, and has a fleet equal to the fleet of France. These considera
tions perhaps might weigh more with Louis Philippe than with
Thiers, but I am inclined to think that they will weigh with some
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 4G1
body or oilier at Paris. However, I may be mistaken, and the
French may either make war, in spite of their assurances, or
commit some violent and outrageous act of aggression against the
Sultan, which the four Powers will be obliged to resent ; in that
case France must take the consequences, and her Government bear
the responsibility.
While Thiers is telling you that this last absurd proposal of
Mehemet is the last word of Mehemet and of France, Guizot is
getting conveyed to me through all sorts of out-of-the-way channels,
that if we would but make the most trifling concession, if we would
give way the very least in the world, the French Government
would jump at our proposals, and the whole thing might be settled
satisfactorily (to France he means, of course). But as to the offer
which has been modestly trumpeted forth as a concession, it
happens to be just the reverse ; for France has said for some time
past that she would engage that Mehemet should be content with
Egypt hereditary and Syria for his life; but now by a juggle he
wants us to give Syria for the life of Ibrahim, which is nothing
less than an anticipated inheritance of Syria for Ibrahim ; and,
therefore, something more instead of less than what was talked of
by France before. Really Thiers must think us most wonderful
simpletons to be thus bamboozled. As to concessions, the fact is,
that, when four Powers make a treaty, they intend to execute it ;
and, as we made our whole extent of possible concession to France
before the treaty, by offering to let Mehemet keep St. John of
Acre, there is nothing more left that we can concede. If we go
further at all, we must let Mehemet have Beyrout arid Damascus,
neither of which it is by any means possible to allow him to
retain.
I conclude by the great anxiety that some parties have to
settle the matter soon, though at our expense, that they look for
ward to a speedy settlement of differences at the Bourse at the
expense of other people ; and that, having made a large sum by
the fall, they want to double their profits by the rise. Pray let
me know when the next settling day happens at the French
Bourse. I should like to know what day it will be, as I foresee
that it will be a critical period. I hear that Flahault is coming
over upon a special mission to the Court of Holland ; but that will
not be of any essential use to Thiers.
21
462 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Metfeeraich is just as stout and firm as we are, and Thiers'
intrigues will fail there also. I must say I never in my life was
more disgusted with anything than I have been by the conduct of
certain parties — useless now to name — in all this affair.
I hear from persons who have been in Germany that the same
feeling of indignation that is felt by us against the conduct of the
French Government is felt by the Germans, and that France would
find no friends beyond the Rhine. One notion of Thiers seems to
be that he might attack Austria, and leave the other powers alone.
Pray undeceive him in this, and make him comprehend that Eng
land is not in the habit of deserting her allies ; and that if France
attacks Austria on account of this treaty, she will have to do with
England as well as with Austria, and I have not the slightest
doubt on earth that she would find Prussia and Russia upon her
also. It is quite impossible that the severe pressure brought upon
all interests in France by Thiers should not soon begin to be felt,
and that loud complaints should not force him to take his line one
way or the other. You think he may then cross the Rubicon. I
still think that he will be unwilling or unable to do so.
Yours sincerely,
PALMERSTON.
CCLXXXII.
On February 3, 1813, Leigh Hunt was sentenced to two
years' imprisonment for an article in the ' Examiner,' in which
the Prince Regent, who had been spoken of by the ' Morning
Post ' as an Adonis and a Maecenas, was somewhat freely ridi
culed. The result of the following letter to the governor of the
gaol was that the poet was not only allowed to see his friends,
but to decorate his cell in the most profuse manner ; he was
•visited in the bower he made for himself by nearly all his distin
guished literary contemporaries.
Leigh Hunt to Mr. Ives.
Surrey Jail : February 5, 1813.
Mr. Leigh Hunt presents his compliments to Mr. Ives, and
puts down his wishes upon paper as requested.
His first and greatest wish, then, is to be allowed to have his
wife and children living with him in the prison. It is to be ob
served, that his is a new case within these walls; and not only so,
]800| ENGLISH LETTERS. 463
but that his habits have always been of the most domestic kind,
that he has not been accustomed to be from home a clay long, and
that he is subject, particularly at night-time, to violent attacks of
illness, accompanied by palpitations of the heart and other nervous
affections, which render a companion not only much wanted, but
sometimes hardly to be dispensed with. His state of health is bad
at the present moment, as anybody may see; not so bad indeed as
it has been, and he wishes to make no parade of it; but quite bad
enough to make him feel tenfold all the wants of his situation, and
to render it absolutely necessary that his greatest comforts should
not all be taken away. If it would take time, however, to con
sider this request, his next wish is that his wife and children be
allowed to be with him in the day-time. His happiness is wound
up in them, and he shall say no more on this subject except that a
total separation in respect to abode would be almost as bad to him
as tearing his body asunder.
His third and last request is, that his friends be allowed to
come up to his room during the daytime ; and if this permission
be given, he will give his word that it shall not be abused. His
physician has often declared that society is necessary to his health ;
but though he has been used to every comfort that domestic and
social happiness can bestow, he is content with as little as possible,
and provided his just wish be granted, could make almost any
sacrifice.
This is all he has to say on the subject, and all with which he
should ever trouble anybody. The hope of living in Mr. Ives's
house he has given up; many privations, of course, he is prepared
to endure ; with the other regulations of the prison he has no wish
to interfere ; and from what little has already been seen of him in
this plac?, he believes that every credit will be given him for con
ducting himself in a reasonable and gentlemanly manner ; for as
he is a stubborn enemy of what is wrong, so is he one of the
quietest and most considerate friends of what is right. He has
many private friends who would do their utmost for him ; and his
character, he believes, has procured him some public ones of the
highest description, who would leave no means untaken for better
ing his condition, but he would willingly leave his comforts to
those about him. To conclude, he is prepared to suffer all ex
tremities rather than do himself dishonour ; but it is no dishonour
464 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
to have the feelings of a husband and a father : and till he is dead
to them and to everything else, he shall not cease exerting himself
in their behalf.
CCLXXXIII.
The last visit paid by Keats before leaving England in Sep
tember 1820, was to the house of Leigh Hunt in Kentish Town.
He died at Koine February 23, 1821, but Hunt, ignorant of his
death, wrote the following letter to the friend who tended his
sick-bed, in the hope that it might solace the dying poet.
Leigh Hunt to Joseph Severn.
Vale of Health, Hampstead : March 8, 1821.
Dear Severn, — You have concluded, of course, that I have sent
no letters to Rome, because I was aware of the effect they would
have on Keats's mind ; and this is the principal cause ; for, besides
what I have been told of his emotions about letters in Italy, I re
member his telling me upon one occasion that, in his sick moments,
he never wished to receive another letter, or ever see another face,
however friendly. But still I should have written to you, had I not
been almost at death's door myself. You will imagine how ill I
have been, when you hear that I have just begun writing again
for the * Examiner ' and * Indicator/ after an interval of several
months, during which my flesh wasted from me with sickness and
melancholy. Judge how often I thought of Keats, and with what
feelings. Mr. Brown tells me he is comparatively calm now, or
rather quite so. If he can bear to hear of us, pray tell him, — but
he knows it already, and can put it into better language than any
man. I hear that he does not like to be told that he may get
better ; nor is it to be wondered at, considering his firm persuasion
that he shall not recover. He can only regard it as a puerile
thing, and an insinuation that he cannot bear to think he shall
die. But if his persuasion should happen to be no longer so strong
upon him, or if he can now put up with such attempts to console
him, tell him of what I have said a thousand times, and what I still
(upon my honour, Severn), think always, that I have seen too
many instances of recovery from apparently desperate cases of con
sumption not to be in hope to the very last. If he cannot bear
this, tell him — tell that great poet and noble-hearted man — that
we shall all bear his memory in the most precious part of our
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 465
hearts, and that the world shall bow their heads to it, as our loves
do. Or if this, again, will trouble his spirit, tell him that we shall
never cease to remember and love him ; and that the most scepti
cal of us has faith enough in the high things that nature puts into
our heads to think all who are of one accord in mind or heart are
journeying to one and the same place, and shall unite somewhere
or other again, face to face, mutually conscious, mutually delighted.
Tell him he is only before us on the road, as he was in everything
else ; or whether you tell him the latter or no, tell him the former,
and add that we shall never forget that he was so, and that we are
coming after him. The tears are again in my eyes, and I must not
afford to shed them. The next letter I write shall be more to
yourself and more refreshing to your spirits, which we are very
sensible must have been greatly taxed. But whether our friend
dies or not, it will not be among the least lofty of your recollections
by-and-by that you helped to soothe the sick-bed of so fine a being.
God bless you, dear Severn.
Your sincere Friend,
LEIGH HUNT.
CCLXXXIV.
John Wilson, the intimate friend of the Lake poets, and a
Lakist himself, but better known as l Christopher North,' has
returned from a pedestrian tour with his wife in the Western
Highlands ; and overflowing with health and spirits writes the
narrative of his adventures in the following jaunty letter to the
' Ettrick Shepherd.' We see the prolific critic in one of his
raciest moods, — a mood foreshadowing the essay on ' Anglimania/
or the ' Noctes Ambrosianse.'
John Wilson to James Hogg.
Edinburgh : September 1815.
My Dear Hogg, — I am in Edinburgh, and wish to be out of
it. Mrs. Wilson and I walked 350 miles in the Highlands, be
tween the 5th of July and the 26th of August, sojourning in divers
glens from Sabbath unto Sabbath, fishing, eating, and staring. I
purpose appearing in Glasgow on Thursday, where I shall stay till
the Circuit is over. I then go to Elleray, in the character of a
Benedictine monk, till the beginning of November. Now pause
and attend. If you will meet me at MofFat on October 6th, I will
walk or mail it with you to Elleray, and treat you there with
4G6 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
fowls and Irish, whisky. Immediately on receipt of this, write a
letter to me, at Mr. Smith's Bookshop, Hutcheson Street, Glasgow,
saying positively if you will, or will not do so. If you don't, I
will lick you, and fish up Douglas Burn before you, next time I
come to Ettrick. I saw a letter from you to M the other day,
by which you seem to be alive and well. You are right in not
making verses when you can catch trout. Francis Jeffrey leaves
Edinburgh this day for Holland and France. I presume, after
destroying the King of the Netherlands he intends to annex that
kingdom to France, and assume the supreme power of the United
Countries, under the title of Geoffrey the First. You, he will
make Poet Laureate and Fishmonger, and me admiral of the Mus-
quito Fleet.
If you have occasion soon to write to Murray, I pray introduce
something about ' The City of the Plague,' as I shall probably offer
him that poem in about a fortnight or sooner. Of course I do not
wish you to say that the poem is utterly worthless. I think that
a bold eulogy from you (if administered immediately) would be of
service to me ; but if you do write about it, do not tell him that I
have any intention of offering it to him, but you may say, you hear
I am going to offer it to a London bookseller. We stayed seven
days at Mrs. Izett's, at Kinnaird, and were most kindly received.
Mrs. Izett is a great ally of yours, and is a fine creature. I killed
in the Highlands 170 dozen of trouts. One day 19 dozen and a
half, another 7 dozen. I, one morning, killed ten trouts that
weighed nine pounds. In Loch Awe, in three days, I killed 76
pounds' weight of fish, all with the fly. The Gaels were astonished.
I shot two roebucks, and had nearly caught a red-deer by the tail.
/ was within half a mile of it at farthest. The good folks in the
Highlands are not dirty. They are clean, decent, hospitable, ugly
people. We domiciliated with many, and found no remains of the
great plague of fleas, etc,, that devastated the country from the
time of Ossian to the accession of George the Third. We were at
Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, Inverary, Dalmally, Loch Etive, Glen
Etive, Dalness, Appin, Ballachulish, Fort William, Moy, Dai-
whinny, Loch Ericht (you dog), Loch Raimoch, Glen Lyon, Tay-
inouth, Blair Athole, Bruar, Perth, Edinburgh. Is not Mrs.
Wilson immortalised ?
I know of Cona. It is very creditable to our excellent friend,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. iG7
but will not sell any more than the ' Isle of Palms/ or * The White
Doe.' The ' White Doe ' is not in season ; venison is not liked in
Edinburgh. It wants flavour ; a good Ettrick wether is prefer
able. Wordsworth has more of the poetical character than any
living writer, but he is not a man of first-rate intellect ; his genius
oversets him. Southey's ' Roderic ' is not a first-rate work ; the
remorse of Roderic is that of a Christian devotee, rather than that
of a dethroned monarch. His battles are ill fought. There is no
processional march of events in the poem, no tendency to one great
end, like a river increasing in majesty till it reaches the sea.
Neither is there national character, Spanish or Moorish. No
sublime imagery; no profound passion. Southey wrote it, and
Southey is a man of talent ; but it is his worst poem.
Scott's ' Field of Waterloo ' I have seen. What a poem ! —
such bald and nerveless language, mean imagery, commonplace
sentiments, and clumsy versification ! It is beneath criticism.
Unless the latter part of the battle be very fine indeed, this poem,
will injure him.
Wordsworth is dished. Southey is in purgatory; Scott is
dying ; and Byron is married. Herbert is frozen to death in
Scandinavia. Moore has lost his manliness. Coleridge is always
in a fog. Joanna Baillie is writing a system of cookery. Mont
gomery is in a madhouse, or ought to be. Campbell is sick of a con
stipation in the bowels. Hogg is herding sheep in Ettrick forest ;
and Wilson has taken the plague. 0 wretched writers ! Unfortunate
bards ! What is Bobby Miller's back shop to do this winter 1 Alas !
alas ! alas ! a wild doe is a noble animal ; write an address to ono,
and it shall be inferior to one I have written — for half a barrel of
red herrings ! The Highlanders are not a poetical people. They
are too national ; too proud of their history. They imagine that a
colleyshangy between the Macgregors and Campbells is a sublime
event ; and they overlook mountains four thousand feet high. If
Ossian did write the poems attributed to him, or any poems like
them, he was a dull dog, and deserved never to taste whisky as
long as he lived. A man who lives for ever among mist and
mountains, knows better than to be always prosing about them.
Methinks I feel about objects familiar to infancy and manhood, but
when we speak of them, it is only upon great occasions, and in situa
tions of deep passion. Ossian was probably born in a flat country
468 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Scott has written good lines in the ' Lord of the Isles/ but he
has not done justice to the Sound of Mull, which is a glorious strait.
The Northern Highlanders do not admire Waverley, so I presume
the South Highlanders despise Guy Mannering. The Westmor
land peasants think Wordsworth a fool. In Borrowdale, Southey
is not known to exist. I met ten men at Hawick who did not
think Hogg a poet, and the whole city of Glasgow think me a mad
man. So much for the voice of the people being the voice of God.
I left my snuff-box in your cottage. Take care of it. The Anstru-
ther bards have advertised their anniversary ; I forget the day.
I wish Lieutenant Gray of the Marines had been devoured by
the lion he once carried on board his ship to the Dey of Algiers, or
that he was kept a perpetual prisoner by the Moors in Barbary.
Did you hear that Tennant had been taken before the Session for
an offence against good morals 1 If you did not, neither did 1 1
Indeed it is, on many accounts, exceedingly improbable.
Yours truly,
JOHN WILSON.
CCLXXXV.
Unhappy White ! while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came ; and all thy promise fail-
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
Byron wrote the following note to his little poem, whicn
opened in the words here quoted.
1 Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge in October 1806 in
consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that
would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could
not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than sub
dued. His poems abound in such beauties as might impress
the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was
allotted to talents which would have dignified the sacred func
tions he was destined to assume.'
Southey, the literary executor of this most amiable and un
assuming lad who was free from those little eccentricities so
commonly yoked to genius, was more impressed with the
variety and abundance of the MSS. he had to investigate than
he had been with a previous inspection of poor Ohatterton's
papers. ' Chatterton,' writes Southey, 'is the only youthful
poet whom Kirke White does not leave far behind him.'
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 4G9
Henry KirJce White to John Charlesworth.
Nottingham : July 6, 1805.
Dear Charlesworth, — I beg you will admire the elegance of
texture and shape of the sheet on which I have the honour to
write to you, and beware lest, in drawing your conclusions, you
conceive that I am turned exciseman ; — for I assure you I write
altogether in character ; — a poor Cambridge scholar, with a patri
mony of a few old books, an ink-horn, and some sundry quires of
paper, manufactured as the envelopes of pounds of tea, but con
verted into repositories of learning and taste.
The classics are certainly in disrepute. The ladies have no
more reverence for Greek and Latin, than they have for an old
peruke, or the ruffles of Queen Anne. I verily believe that they
would hear Homer's Greek without evidencing one mark of terror
and awe, even though spouted by an University orator, or a West
minster Stentor. 0 tempora ! 0 mores / the rural elegance of the
twanging French horn, and the vile squeak of the Italian fiddle
are more preferred than all the energy and all the sublimity of all
the Greek and Roman orators, historians, poets, and philosophers
put together. Now, Sir, as a classic, I cannot bear to have the
honourable fame of the ancients thus despised and contemned, and
therefore I have a controversy with all the beaux and belles,
Frenchmen and Italians. When they tell me that I walk by rule
and compass, that I balance my body with strict regard to the
centre of gravity, and that I have more Greek in my pate than
grace in my limbs, I can bear it all in sullen silence, for you know
it must be a libel, since I am no mathematician, and therefore can
not have learned to walk ill by system. As for grace, I do be
lieve, since I read Xenophon, I am become a very elegant man ;
and in due time shall be able to spout Pindar, dancing in due
gradation the advancing, retrograde, and medium steps, according
to the regular progress of the strophe, antistrophe, and epode.
You and I will be very fashionable men, after the manner of the
Greeks : we will institute an orchestra for the exercise of the ars
saltandi, and will recline at our meals on the legitimate Triclinium
21*
470 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
of the ancients, only banish all modern beaux and belles, to whom
I am a professed and declared enemy.
So much for flippancy —
Vale!
H. K. WHITE.
CCLXXXVL
In a note to a friend written six weeks before the following
interesting letter, Kirke White complained that the least
mental effort during the day brought on nervous horrors in the
evening and a sleepless night. ' The systole and diastole of my
heart seem to be playing at ball — the stake, my life. I can
only say the game is not yet decided.' In his letters to his
mother and brothers he avoided these allusions to the alarming
state of his health. The following was written soon after his
twenty-first birthday and six months before his death.
Henry Kirke White to P. Thompson.
Nottingham: April 8, 1806.
Dear Sir, — I sincerely beg your pardon for my ungrateful dis
regard of your polite letter. The intervening period has been so
much taken up, on the one hand by ill health, and on the other
by occupations of the most indispensable kind, that I have
neglected almost all my friends, and you amongst the rest. I
-am now at Nottingham, a truant from study, and a rejected
votary at the shrine of Health ; a few days will bring me back to
the margin of the Cam, and bury me once more in the busy
routine of college exercises. Before, however, I am again a man
of bustle and occupation, I snatch a few moments to tell you how
much I shall be gratified by your correspondence, and how greatly
I think myself flattered by your esteeming mine worth asking
for.
The little sketch of your past occupations and present pursuits
interested me. Cultivate, with all assiduity, the taste for letters
which you possess. It will be a source of exquisite gratification
to you ; and if directed as it ought to be, and I hope as it will be
directed, it will be more than gratification, (if we understand
pleasure alone by that word,) since it will combine with it utility
of the highest kind. If polite letters were merely instrumental
in cheering the hours of elegant leisure, in affording refined and
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 471
polished pleasures, uncontaminated with gross and sensual gratifi
cations, they would still be valuable ; but in a degree infinitely
less than when they are considered as the hand-maids of the
virtues, the correctors as well as the adorn ers of society. But
literature has, of late years, been prostituted to all the purposes of
the bagnio. Poetry, in particular, arrayed in her most bewitching
colours, has been taught to exercise the arts of the Leno, and to
charm only that she may destroy. The Muse, who once dipped
her hardy wing in the chastest dews of Castalia, and spoke nothing
but what had a tendency to confirm and invigorate the manly
ardour of a virtuous mind, now breathes only the voluptuous
languishings of the harlot, and, like the brood of Circe, touches
her charmed cords with a grace, that, while it ravishes the ear,
deludes and beguiles the sense. I call to witness Mr. Moore, and
the tribe of imitators which his success has called forth, that my
statement is true. Lord Strangford has trodden faithfully in the
steps of his pattern.
I hope for the credit of poetry, that the good sense of the age
will scout this insidious school ] and what may we not expect, if
Moore and Lord Strangford apply themselves to a chaster Muse ?
They are both men of uncommon powers. You may remember the
reign of Darwinian poetry, and the fopperies of Delia Crusca. To
these succeeded the school of Simplicity, in which Wordsworth,
Southey and Coleridge, are so deservedly eminent. I think that
the new tribe of poets endeavour to combine these two opposite
sects, and to unite richness of language, and warmth of colouring,
with simplicity and pathos. They have certainly succeeded ; but
Moore unhappily wished to be a Catullus, and from him has
sprung the licentiousness of the new school. Moore's poems and
his translations will, I think, have more influence on the female
society of this kingdom than the stage has had in its worst period,
the reign of Charles II. Ladies are not ashamed of having the
delectable Mr. Little on their toilet, which is a pretty good proof
that his voluptuousness is considered as quite veiled by the senti
mental garb in which it is clad. But voluptuousness is not the
less dangerous for having some slight resemblance of the veil of
modesty. On the contrary, her fascinations are infinitely more
powerful in this retiring habit than when she boldly protrudes
herself on the gazer's eye, and openly solicits his attention. The
472 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
broad indecency of Wycherly and his contemporaries was not half
so dangerous as this insinuating and half-covered mock delicacy,
which makes use of the blush of modesty in order to heighten the
charms of vice.
I must conclude somewhat abruptly, by begging you will not
punish my negligence towards you by retarding the pleasure I
shall receive from your answer.
I am
Very truly yours
H. K. WHITE.
CCLXXXVII.
The great Scotch painter, although an abundant, was scarcely
an easy or entertaining correspondent. But his straightforward
description of his reception at Abbotsford has a charm for us
which the passage of time can only intensify. It will be ob
served that up to this year, 1817, Scott had contrived to conceal,
even from his own family, the authorship of the Waverley
Novels.
Sir David Wilkie to Miss Wilkie.
Abbotsford : October 30, 1817.
My dear Sister, — Since my arrival here I made a journey up
the Yarrow with Mr. Scott's friend, Mr. Laidlaw, and saw the
Kev. Dr. Russell, who desired most particularly to be remembered
to my mother. He seemed very happy to see me, and delighted
to talk over many old stories. On coming down from Yarrow I
went to meet Mr. and Mrs. Scott, at the Duke of Buccleuch's at
Bowhill. Mr. Scott introduced me to the Duke and his family,
and as it was a day on which there was to be a great cattle-show,
there was a large assemblage of people at the place and an immense
number invited to dinner. The dinner was given quite in the
ancient style of Border conviviality. Mr. Scott presided at a
by-table in the principal room, at which the Ballantynes, Hogg
the poet, and some others, besides myself, were present. This
gave occasion to our being toasted as the Table of the Talents,
which made some merriment. The company sat till two o'clock.
There was a great variety of songs, and before parting the gentle
men were so enthusiastic with music and with claret, that the
song of Weel may we a' be was sung no less than five times, and
God save the King about four times in full cry. I never saw such
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 473
a flow of conviviality and high spirits, and at the same time the
greatest good-humour. I have been making a little group while
here of Mr. Scott, Mrs. Scott, and all the family, with Captain
Ferguson, and some other characters. They are so pleased with it
that it has been taken to the Duke of Buccleuch's, when a request
was made that I would paint a picture of the same kind of the
Duke ; but as this was going out of my line entirely, I felt it
necessary to decline it. I have got a good way on with the
picture : the Misses Scott are dressed as country girls, with pails
as if they had come from milking : Mr. Scott as if telling a story :
and in one corner I have put in a great dog of the Highland breed,
a present to Mr. Scott from the Laird of Glengary. In the back
ground the top of the Cowdenknowes, the Tweed, and Melrose (as
seen from a hill close by) are to be introduced. I am not to bring
the picture to town, as Mr. Scott wishes to show it to his mother,
but he is to send it to me. I have never been in any place where
there is so much real good-humour and merriment. There is
nothing but amusement from morning till night ; and if Mr. Scott
is really writing ' Rob Roy,' it must be while we are sleeping. He
is either out planting trees, superintending the masons, or erecting
fences, the whole of the day. He goes frequently out hunting,
and this morning there was a whole cavalcade of us out with Mr.
and Miss Scott, hunting hares.
The family here are equally in the dark about whether Mr.
Scott is the author of the Novels. They are quite perplexed about
it : they hope he is the author, and would be greatly mortified if
it were to turn out that he was not. He has frequently talked
about the different characters himself to us, and the young ladies
express themselves greatly provoked with the sort of unconcern he
affects towards them. He has denied the Novels, however, to
various people that I know ; and though the family used to tease
him at first about them, yet they dare not do it now.
D.W.
CCLXXXVIII.
We are indebted to Mr. F. W. Haydon, the son of Benjamin
Robert Haydon, for the Life and Letters of his father, which
were so warmly welcomed about three years ago. They offer
one of the most striking illustrations in English, literature of a
474 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
personal correspondence reflecting1, almost to minuteness, the
details of a chequered life. The proiecje of Opie and Fuseli,
the fellow-student of Wilkie, the tutor of Landseer, and the
friend of most of the poets and wits of his generation, Haydon,
as artist, lecturer, critic, and controversialist, lets us into the
secret of his method and enthusiasm, his friendships and quar
rels, his transitory successes and his many disappointments.
Benjamin Robert Haydon to John Keats.
May 11, 1817.
My dear Keats, — I have been intending to write to you every
hour this week, but have been so interrupted that the postman
rang his bell every night in vain, and with a sound that made my
heart quake. • I think you did quite right to leave the Isle of
Wight if you felt no relief; and being quite alone, after study
you can now devote your eight hours a-day with just as much
seclusion as ever. Do not give way to any forebodings. They
are nothing more than the over- eager anxieties of a great spirit
stretched beyond its strength, and then relapsing for a time to
languid inefficiency. Every man of great views is, at times, thus
tormented, but begin again where you left off without hesitation
or fear. Trust in God with all your might, my dear Keats. This
dependence, with your own energy, will give you strength, and
hope, and comfort.
I am always in trouble, and wants, and distresses; here I
found a refuge. From my soul I declare to you I never applied
for help or for consolation, or for strength, but I found it. I
; always rose up from my knees with a refreshed fury, an iron-
clenched firmness, a crystal piety of feeling that sent me streaming
on with a repulsive power against the troubles of life.
Never despair while there is this path open to you. By
habitual exercise you will have habitual intercourse and constant
companionship ; and at every want turn to the Great Star of your
hopes with a delightful confidence that will never be disappointed.
I love you like my own brother. Beware, for God's sake, of the
delusions and sophistications that are ripping up the talents
and morality of our friend ! 1 He will go out of the world the
victim of his own weakness and the dupe of his own self-delusions,
with the contempt of his enemies and the sorrow of his friends,
1 Eeference to Leigh Hunt.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 475
and the cause lie undertook to support injured by his own neglect
of character.
I wish you would come up to town for a day or two that I
may put your head in my picture.
I have rubbed in Wordsworth's, and advanced the whole.
God bless you, my dear Keats ! do not despair ; collect incident,
study character, read Shakespeare, and trust in Providence, and
you will do, you must.
Ever affectionately yours,
B. R. HAYDON.
COLXXXIX.
Benjamin Robert Haydon to Miss Miiford.
September, 1823.
Oh, human nature ! and human criticism ! Did mankind know
the motives which instigate all criticism on living talent, or within
ten years after its existence, how cautious it would be of suffering
itself to be led by modern critics ? . . .
When Keats was living, I could not get Hazlitt to admit
Keats had common talents ! Death seems to cut off all appre
hensions that our self-love will be wounded by acknowledging
genius. But let us see, and sift the motives of this sudden change.
* Blackwood's ' people Hazlitt would murder, morally or physically,
no matter which, but to murder them he wishes. To suppose
Keats's death entirely brought on by ' Blackwood's ' attacks is too
valuable and mortal a blow to bs given up. With the wary
cunning of a thoroughbred modern review writer, he dwells on this
touching subject, so likely to be echoed by all who have suffered by
* Blackwood's 'vindictive animosities.
Now, Keats is an immortal ; before, he was a pretender !
Now, his sensitive mind withered under their ( murderous criticisms/
when, had Keats been a little more prominent, Hazlitt, as soon as
any man, would have given him the first stab ! He thus revenges
his own mortification by pushing forward the sheeted ghost of
poor fated Keats.
Hazlitt and his innamorata have now gone to Italy, the land
of Art, and he has left ' the land of spinning jennies and Sunday-
schools,' as he says — and, as he forgot to say, the land also of
476 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700^
Shakespeare and Milton, Bacon and Newton, Hampden and
Locke.
In the ' Morning Chronicle ' of yesterday is his first letter, full
of his usual good things, and — bad things ; but still I hope he
will continue them. Any man who can leave England, and look
back upon her shore and think only of spinning jennies and of
nothing else, must be a bastard son. . . . Alas ! what England
suffers from her unnatural children ! Disappointed painters,
disappointed poets, disappointed statesmen, disappointed place-
hunters, all unite to decry her genius, her worth, her grandeur,
and her power.
ccxo.
Mr. Haydon's estimate of Wordsworth's poetry portrays
with tolerable exactness the tone of public criticism half a
century ago, criticism which Professor Shairp has succeeded
in modifying in some directions and altogether dissipating
in others. With regard to the second half of this letter it may
be remembered that Byron never attempted to ' skin ' Keats for
his ' drivelling idiotism.' He recanted after reading ' Hyperion,'
and deplored the early death of Keats as a loss to our litera
ture.
Benjamin Robert Haydon to Miss Mitford.
[1824.]
You are unjust, depend upon it, in your estimate of Byron's
poetry, and wrong in your ranking Wordsworth beyond him. There
are things in Byron's poetry so exquisite, that fifty or five hundred
years hence they will be read, felt, and adored throughout the
world. I grant that Wordsworth is very pure and very holy, and
very orthodox, and occasionally very elevated, highly poetical, and
oftener insufferably obscure, starched, dowdy, anti-human and
anti-sympathetic, but he will never be ranked above Byron nor
classed with Milton, he will not, indeed. He wants the construc
tive power, the lucidus ordo of the greatest minds, which is as
much a proof of the highest order as any other quality. I dislike
his selfish Quakerism ; his affectation of superior virtue ; his utter
insensibility to the frailties — the beautiful frailties of passion. I
was once walking with him in Pall Mall ; we darted into Christie's.
A copy of the * Transfiguration ' was at the head of the room, and
in the corner a beautiful copy of the ' Cupid and Psyche ' (statues)
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. .477
kissing. Cupid is taking her lovely chin, and turning her pouting
mouth to meet his while he archly bends his own down, as if say
ing, ' Pretty dear ! ' You remember this exquisite group ? . . .
Catching sight of the Cupid, as he and I were coming out, Words
worth's face reddened, he showed his teeth, and then said in a loud
voice, ' The Dev-v-v-vils ! ' There's a mind ! Ought not this ex
quisite group to have roused his ' Shapes of Beauty/ and have
softened his heart as much as his old grey-mossed rocks, his
withered thorn, and his dribbling mountain streams? I am
altered about Wordsworth, very much, from finding him a bard too
elevated to attend to the music of humanity. No, No ! give me
Byron, with all his spite, hatred, depravity, dandyism, vanity,
frankness, passion, and idleness, to Wordsworth, with all his heart
less communion with woods and grass.
When he came back from his tour, I breakfasted with him in
Oxford Street. He read * Laodamia ' to me, and very finely. He
had altered, at the suggestion of his wife, Laodamia's fate (but I
cannot refer to it at this moment), because she had shown such
weakness as to wish her husband's stay. Mrs. Wordsworth held
that Laodamia ought to be punished, and punished she was. I
will refer to it. Here it is —
She whom a trance of passion thus removed,
As she departed, not without the crime
Of lovers, who, in reason's spite have loved,
Was doomed to wander in a joyless clime
Apart from happy ghosts, that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet in Elysian bowers.
I have it in his own hand. This is different from the first
edition. And as he repeated it with self- approbation of his own
heroic feelings for banishing a wife because she felt a pang at her
husband going to hell again, his own wife sat crouched by the fire
place and chanted every line to the echo, apparently congratulating
herself at being above the mortal frailty of loving her William.
You should make allowance for Byron's not liking Keats.
He could not. Keats's poetry was an immortal stretch beyond the
mortal intensity of his own. An intense egotism, as it were, was
the leading exciter of Byron's genius. He could feel nothing for
fauns or satyrs, or gods, or characters past, unless the association
478 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
of them were excited by some positive natural scene where they
had actually died, written, or fought. All his poetry was the re
sult of a deep feeling roused by what passed before his eyes.
Keats was a stretch beyond this. Byron could not enter into it any
more than he could Shakespeare. He was too frank to conceal his
thoughts. If he really admired Keats he would have said so (I am
afraid I am as obscure here as "Wordsworth). So, in his contro
versy with Bowles, Byron really thought Pope the greater poet.
He pretended that a man who versified the actual vices or follies
was a greater, and more moral poet than he who invented a plot,
invented characters which by their action on each other produced a
catastrophe from which a moral was inferred. This at once
showed the reach of his genius.
CCXCI.
This entertaining narrative is inserted for the especial con
sideration and guidance of dramatic critics.
Benjamin Robert Haydon to Miss Mitford.
August 18, 1826.
How do you find yourself? I heard you were poorly. What
are you about 1 I was happy to hear of 's safe arrival again,
and I shall be most happy to see him, though tell him he will find
110 more * Solomons ' towering up as a background to our conver
sations. Nothing but genteel-sized drawing-room pocket-history—
Alexander in a nutshell ; Bucephalus no bigger than a Shetland
pony, and my little girl's doll a giantess to my Olympias. The
other night I paid my butcher ; one of the miracles of these times,
you will say. Let me tell you I have all my life been seeking for
a butcher whose respect for genius predominated over his love of
i^iin. I could not make out, before I dealt with this man, his ex
cessive desire that I should be his customer ; his sly hints as I
passed his shop that he had ' a bit of South Down, very fine; a
sweetbread, perfection ; and a calf's foot that was all jelly without
bone ! ' The other day he called, and I had him sent up into the
painting-room. I found him in great admiration of < Alexander.'
' Quite alive, Sir ! ' ' I am glad you think so,' said I. * Yes,
Sir, but, as I have said often to my sister, you could not have
painted that picture, Sir, if you had not eat my meat, Sir 1 '
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 479
' Yery true/ Mr. Sowerby. ' Ah ! Sir, I have a fancy for genus,
Sir ! ' ' Have you, Mr. Sowerby ? ' ' Yes, Sir ; Mrs. Siddons, Sir,
has eat my meat, Sir ; never was such a woman for chops, Sir ! ' —
and he drew up his beefy, shiny face, clean shaved, with a clean
blue cravat under his chin, a clean jacket, a clean apron, and a
pair of hands that would pin an ox to the earth if he was obstre
perous — ' Ah ! Sir, she was a wonderful crayture ! ' ' She was,
Mr. Sowerby.' ' Ah, Sir, when she used to act that there char
acter, you see (but Lord, such a head ! as I say to my sister) — that
there woman, Sir, that murders a king between 'em ! ' ' Oh !
Lady Macbeth.' < Ah, Sir, that's it— Lady Macbeth— I used to get
up with the butler behind her carriage when she acted, and, as I
used to see her looking quite wild, and all the people quite fright
ened, Ah, ha ! my lady, says I, if it wasn't for my meat, though,
you wouldn't be able to do that ! ' * Mr. Sowerby, you seem to
be a man of feeling. Will you take a glass of wine 1 ' After a bow
or two, down he sat, and by degrees his heart opened. * You see,
Sir, I have fed Mrs. Siddons, Sir ; John Kemble, Sir ; Charles
Kemble, Sir ; Stephen Kemble, Sir ; and Madame Catalani, Sir ;
Morland the painter, and, I beg your pardon, Sir, and you, Sir.'
' Mr. Sowerby, you do me honour.' * Madame Catalani, Sir, was
a wonderful woman for sweetbreads ; but the Kemble family, Sir,
the gentlemen, Sir, rump-steaks and kidneys in general was their
taste ; but Mrs. Siddons, Sir, she liked chops, Sir, as much as you
do, Sir,' &c. &c. I soon perceived that the man's ambition was
to feed genius. I shall recommend you to him ; but is he not a
capital fellow ? But a little acting with his remarks would make
you roar with laughter. Think of Lady Macbeth eating chops !
Is this not a peep behind the curtain 1 I remember Wilkie saying
that at a public dinner he was looking out for some celebrated man,
when at last he caught a glimpse for the first time of a man whose
books he had read with care for years, picking the leg of a roast goose,
perfectly abstracted ! Never will I bring up my boys to any pro
fession that is not a matter of necessary want to the world. Paint
ing, unless considered as it ought to be, is a mere matter of orna
ment and luxury. It is not yet taken up as. it should be in a
wealthy country like England, and all those who devote themselves
to the higher branches of Art must suffer the penalty, as I have
clone, and am doing. So I was told, and to no purpose. I opposed
480 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
my father, my mother, and my friends, though I am duly grati
fied by my fame in the obscurest corners. Last week a book-stall
keeper showed me one of my own books at his stall, and, by way
of recommending it, pointed out a sketch of my own on the fly
leaf, ' Which/ said he, ' I suppose is by Hay don himself. Ah !
Sir, he was badly used — a disgrace to our great men.' t But he was
imprudent/ said I. < Imprudent ! ' said he. * Yes, of course ; he de
pended 011 their taste and generosity too much.' ' Have you any
more of his books 1 ' said I. ' Oh ! I had a great many ; but I have
sold them all, Sir, but this, and another that I will never part
with.'
CCXCII.
Benjamin Robert Haydon to William Wordsworth.
London : October 16, 1842.
In the words of our dear departed friend, Charles Lamb, ' You
good-for-nothing old Lake-poet/ what has become of you? Do
you remember his saying that at my table in 1819, with ' Jerusa
lem' towering behind us in the painting-room, and Keats and
your friend Monkhouse of the party ? Do you remember Lamb
voting me absent, and then making a speech descanting on my ex
cellent port, and proposing a vote of thanks 1 Do you remember
his then voting me present ? — I had never left my chair — and in
forming me of what had been done during my retirement, and
hoping I was duly sensible of the honour ? Do you remember the
Commissioner (of Stamps and Taxes) who asked you if you did not
think Milton a great genius, and Lamb getting up and asking
leave with a candle to examine his phrenological development 1
Do you remember poor dear Lamb, whenever the Commissioner
was equally profound, saying : ' My son John went to bed with his
breeches on/ to the dismay of the learned man? Do you remember
you and I and Monkhouse getting Lamb out of the room by force,
and putting on his great coat, he reiterating his earnest desire to
examine the Commissioner's skull? And don't you remember
Keats proposing ' Confusion to the memory of Newton/ and upon
your insisting upon an explanation before you drank it, his say
ing : ' Because he destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reduciog
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 481
it to a prism.' Ah ! my dear old friend, you and I shall never see
such days again ! The peaches are not so big now as they were in
our clays. Many were the immortal dinners which took place in
that painting-room, where the food was simple, the wine good, and
the poetry ' first rate.' Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Charles Lamb,
Hazlitt, David Wilkie, Leigh Hunt, Talfourd, Keats, &c., &c.,
attended my summons, and honoured my table.
My best regards to Mrs. and Miss Wordsworth, in which my
wife and daughter join.
Ever yours,
B. R. HAYDON.
CCXCIII.
The letters of De Qnincey display his marvellous style in its
most characteristic moods. He doffed his singing robes in
addressing those dear to him, and aimed rather at securing
sympathy than admiration. For sympathy, indeed, his tortured
spirit is seen visibly pining through all the seventy-five years of
his suffering existence, and to this is due, no doubt, that occa
sional excess of emphasis which has brought on his writing the
charge of insincerity.
Thomas De Quincey to Jessie Miller.
Saturday morning : May 26, 1837.
My dear Miss Jessie. — In some beautiful verses where the
writer has occasion to speak of festivals, household or national,
that revolve annually, I recollect at this moment from his descrip
tion one line to this effect —
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest.
Thus Christmas, I suppose, is a subject for memory until Midsummer,
after which it becomes a subject for hope, because the mind ceases
to haunt the image of the past festival in a dawning anticipation
of another that is daily drawing nearer. ' Well,' I hear you say,
' a very pretty sentimental opening for a note addressed to a lady ;
but what is the moral of it T
The moral, my dear Miss Jessie, is this — that I, soul-sick of
endless writing, look back continually with sorrowful remem
brances to the happy interval which I spent under your roof; and
next after that, I regret those insulated evenings (scattered here
and there) which, with a troubled pleasure — pleasure anxious and
482 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
boding — I have passed beneath the soft splendours of your lamps
since I 'was obliged to quit the quiet haven of your house. Sor
rowful, I say, these remembrances are, and must be by contrast
with my present gloomy solitude ; and if they ever cease to be
sorrowful, it is when some new evening to be spent underneath
the same lamps comes within view. That which is remembered
only suddenly puts on the blossoming of hope, and wears the vernal
dress of a happiness to come instead of the sad autumnal dress of
happiness that has vanished.
Is this sentimental ? Be it so ; but then also it is intensely
true; and sentimentality cannot avail to vitiate truth; on the
contrary, truth avails to dignify and exalt the sentimental. But
why breathe forth these feelings, sentimental or not, precisely on
this vulgar Saturday 1 (for Saturday is a day radically vulgar to
my mind, incurably sacred to the genius of marketing, and hostile
to the sentimental in any shape). ' Why 1 ' you persist in asking.
Simply because, if this is Saturday, it happens that to-morrow is
Sunday ; and on a Sunday night only, if even then, I can now
approach you without danger. And what I fear is — that you, so
strict in your religious observances, will be dedicating to some
evening lecture, or charity sermon, or missionary meeting, that
time which might be spent in Duncan Street, and perhaps — pardon
me for saying so — more profitably. ' How so 1 ' Why because,
by attending the missionary meeting, for example, you will, after
all, scarcely contribute the 7th, or even the 70th, share to the
conversion of some New Zealander or feather-cinctured prince of
Owhyee. Whereas now, on the other hand, by vouchsafing your
presence to Duncan Street, you will give — and not to an tin-
baptised infidel, who can never thank you, but to a son of the
Cross, who will thank you from the very centre of his heart — a
happiness like that I spoke of as belonging to recurring festivals,
furnishing a subject for memory through one half of the succeeding
interval, and for hope through the other.
Florence was with me yesterday morning, and again through
out the evening; and, by the way, dressed in your present.
Perhaps she may see you before I do, and may tell you that I
have been for some time occupied at intervals in writing some
memorial ' Lines for a Cenotaph to Major Miller of the Horse
Guards Blue/ and towards which I want some information from
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 483
you. The lines are about thirty-six in number ; too many, you
will say, for an epitaph. Yes, if they were meant for the real
place of burial • but these, for the very purpose of evading that
restriction, are designed for a cenotaph, to which situation a more
unlimited privilege in that respect is usually conceded.
COXCIV.
De Quincey declared, in writing1 to an old schoolfellow in
1847, that he had had ' no dinner since parting with him in the
eighteenth century.' It is now believed that he suffered all his
life from the terrible disorder known as gastrodynia, a nervous
irritation and constant gnawing at the coats of the stomach.
To relieve this, a happy instinct dictated to him the use of
opium, without which his constitution must early have given
way to that exhaustion and famishing of which he speaks. So,
in the case of this illustrious person, the adage was curiously
confirmed, that one man's meat is another man's poison.
Thomas De Quincey to his daughter, Margaret Craig.
Thursday, June 10, 1847.
My dear M., — I am rather disturbed that neither M. nor F.
nor E. has found a moment for writing to me. Yet perhaps it was
not easy. For I know very seriously, and have often remarked,
how difficult it is to find a spare moment for some things in the
very longest day, which lasts you know twenty-four hours;
though, by the way, it strikes one as odd that the shortest lasts
quite as many. I have been suffering greatly myself for ten days,
the cause being, in part, some outrageous heat that the fussy atmo
sphere put itself into about the beginning of this month — but
what for, nobody can understand. Heat always untunes the
harp of my nervous system ; and oh heavens ! how electric it is !
But, after all, what makes me so susceptible of such undulations
in this capricious air, and compels me to sympathise with all
the uproars and miffs, towering passions or gloomy sulks, of the
atmosphere, is the old eternal ground, viz. : that I am famished.
Oh, what ages it is since I dined ! On what great day of jubilee
is it that Fate hides, under the thickest of table-cloths, a dinner
for me 1 Yet it is a certain, undeniable truth, which this personal
famine has revealed to me, that most people on this terraqueous
globe eat too much. Which it is, and nothing else, that makes
484 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
them stupid, as also unphilosopliic. To be a great philosopher, it
is absolutely necessary to be famished. My intellect is far too
electric in its speed, and its growth of flying armies of thoughts
eternally new. I could spare enough to fit out a nation. This
secret lies — not, observe, in my hair; cutting off that does no
harm : it lies in my want of dinner, as also of breakfast and
supper. Being famished, I shall show this world of ours in the
next five years something that it never saw before. But if I had
a regular dinner, I should sink into the general stupidity of my
beloved human brethren.
By the way, speaking of gluttony as a foible of our interesting
human race, I am reminded of another little foible, which they
have rather distressingly, viz., a fancy for being horribly dirty. If
I had happened to forget this fact, it would lately have been
recalled to my remembrance by Mrs. Butler, formerly Fanny
Kemble (but I dare say you know her in neither form — neither as
chrysalis nor butterfly). She, in her book on Italy, &c. (not too
good, I fear), makes this ' observe ' in which I heartily agree —
namely, that this sublunary world has the misfortune to be very
dirty, with the exception of some people in England, but with no
exception at all for any other island or continent. Allowing for
the ' some ' in England, all the rest of the clean people, you per
ceive clearly, must be out at sea. For myself, I did not need
Mrs. Butler's authority on tLis matter. One fact of my daily
experience renews it most impertinently, and will -not suffer me to
forget it. As the slave said every morning to Philip of Macedon,
* Philip, begging your honour's pardon, you are mortal] so does
this infamous fact say to me truly as dawn revolves, ' Tom, take
it as you like, your race is dirty? The fact I speak of is this — •
that I cannot accomplish my diurnal ablutions in fewer minutes
than sixty, at the least, seventy-five at the most. Now, having an
accurate measure of human patience, as that quality exists in most
people, well I know that it would never stand this. I allow that,
if people are not plagued with washing their hair, or not at the
same time, much less time may suffice, yet hardly less than thirty
minutes I think.
Professor Wilson tells on this subject a story of a Frenchman
which pleases me by its naivete — that is, you know, by its uncon
scious ingenuousness. He was illustrating the inconsistencies of
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 485
man, and he went on thus — ' Oiir faces, for instance, our hands —
why, bless me ! we wash them every day : our feet, on the other
hand — -never \ ' And echo answered — ' never*
ccxcv.
Worn with fever and wearied at last with that brilliant
series of adventures in Greece and Turkey of which the public
was soon to hear so much in prose and verse, Byron started
homeward from Malta on June 3, 1811. This, the last of his
letters on the voyage, closes the first epoch of his romantic
career.
Lord Byron to Henry Drury.
Volage frigate, off Ushant : July 17, 1811.
My dear Drury, — After two years' absence (on the 2nd) and
tome odd days, I am approaching your country. The day of our
arrival you will see by the outside date of my letter. At present,
we are becalmed comfortably, close to Brest Harbour ; — I have
never been so near it since I left Duck Puddle. We left Malta
thirty-four days ago, and have had a tedious passage of it. You
will either see or hear from or of me, soon after the receipt of this,
as I pass through town to repair my irreparable affairs ; and thence
I want to go to Notts, and raise rents, and to Lanes, and sell
collieries, and back to London and pay debts, — for it seems I shall
neither have coals nor comfort till I go down to Rochdale in person.
I have brought home some marbles for Hobhouse ; — for myself,
four ancient Athenian skulls, dug out of sarcophagi — a phial of
Attic hemlock — four live tortoises — a greyhound (died on the
passage) — two live Greek servants, one an Athenian, t'other a
Yaniote, who can speak nothing but Romaic and Italian — and
myself, as Moses in the Yicar of Wakefield says, slily, and I
may say it too, for I have as little cause to boast of my expedition
as he had of his to the fair.
I wrote to you from the Cyanean Rocks to tell you I had swam
from Sestos to Abydos — have you received my letter? Hodgson,
I suppose, is four deep by this time. What would he have given
to have seen, like me, the real Parnassus, where I robbed the
Bishop of Chrissse of a book of geography ! — but this I only call
plagiarism, as it was done within an hour's ride of Delphi.
22 Yours,
BYKON.
486 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCXCVI.
In 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' which appeared
in March, 1809, the gay young satirist spared none of his poeti
cal contemporaries, and consequently the next five or six years
had to witness the spectacle of the proudest of poets asking1
pardon in every direction. It is only fair to say that he did it
with a very good grace, and this was his apology to the "bard
who reigned before him.
Lord Byron to Sir Walter Scott.
St. James's Street: July 6, 1812.
Sir, — I have just been honoured with your letter. I feel
sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the
' evil works of my nonage,' as the thing is suppressed voluntarily,
and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire
was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully
bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted
by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently
thank you for your praise; and now, waiving myself, let me talk
to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to
him at a ball ; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from
royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and
your immortalities : he preferred you to every bard past and pre
sent, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a
difficult question. I answered, I thought the ' Lay.' He said his
own opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told
him that I thought you more particularly the poet of Princes, as
they never appeared more fascinating than in * Marmion ' and the
* Lady of the Lake.' He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on
the description of your Jameses as no less royal than poetical. He
spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well
acquainted with both } so that (with the exception of the Turks
and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I
defy Murray to have exaggerated his Royal Highness's opinion of
your powers, nor can I pretend to enumerate all he said on the
subject ; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed
in language which would only suffer by my attempting to tran
scribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 487
idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto
considered as confined to manners, certainly superior to those of
any living gentleman.
The interview was accidental. I never went to the levee ; for
having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my
curiosity was sufficiently allayed ; and my politics being as perverse
as my rhymes, I had, in fact, no business there. To be thus
praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you ; and if that
gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made
through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately
and sincerely,
Your obliged and obedient servant,
BYRON.
P.S. — Excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just
after a journey.
CCXCVII.
Byron, who affected indifference to literature, was in fact
one of the typical men of letters of his time. Not even Southey
shows more minute consideration of technical matters than the
noble writer whose unique correspondence with his publisher
has happily been preserved to us. Byron demanded the most
unwearied editorial care from his printers, and some dereliction
of duty, some neglect of the anise and cummin of the publisher's
art, dictated this amusing outburst of wrath.
Lord Byron to John Murray.
2, Albany : April 29, 1814.
Dear Sir,— I enclose a draft for the money ; when paid, send
the copyright. I release you from the thousand pounds agreed on
for the Giaour and Bride, and there's an end.
If any accident occurs to me, you may do then as you please ;
but, with the exception of two copies of each for yourself only, I
expect and request that the advertisements be withdrawn, and the
remaining copies of all destroyed; and any expense so incurred I
will be glad to defray.
For all this, it might be as well to assign some reason. I have
none to give, except my own caprice, and I do not consider the
circumstances of consequence enough to require explanation.
In course, I need hardly assure you that they never shall be
488 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
published with my consent, directly, or indirectly, by any other
person whatsoever, — that I am perfectly satisfied, and have every
reason so to be, with your conduct in all transactions between us
as publisher and author.
It will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance,
and to consider you as my friend.
Believe me very truly, and for much attention,
Your obliged and very obedient servant,
BYRON.
P.S. — I do not think that I have overdrawn at Hammersley's ;
but if that be the case, I can draw for the superflux on Hoare's.
The draft is £6 short, but that I will make up. On payment —
not before — return the copyright papers.
CCXCVIIL
Thus commences, auspiciously enough, that singularly
deplorable connection over which so much scandalous specula
tion has been wasted, and so much vulgar curiosity exposed.
That a union between the sea and a forest pool, between the
most fiery and the most chilly of mortals, could continue long
or terminate happily, was scarcely to be expected, yet who
could foresee the end would be so near, the agony so intense ?
Lord Byron to Thomas Moore.
Newstead Abbey : September 20, 1814.
Here's to her who long
Hath waked the poet's sigh !
The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
My dear Moore, — I am goiog to be married — that is, I am
accepted, and one usually hopes the rest will follow. My mother
of the Gracchi (that are to be) you think too strait-laced for me,
although the paragon of only children, and invested with ' golden
opinions of all sorts of men/ and full of ' most blest conditions ' as
Desdemona herself. Miss Milbanke is the lady, and I have her
father's invitation to proceed there in my elect capacity, — which,
however, I cannot do till I have settled some business in London
and got a blue coat.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 489
She is said to be an heiress, but of that I really know nothing
certainly, and shall not enquire. But I do know, that she has
talents and excellent qualities; and you will not deny her judg
ment, after having refused six suitors and taken me.
Now, if you have any thing to say against this, pray do ; my
mind's made up, positively fixed, determined, and therefore I will
listen to reason, because now it can do no harm. Things may
occur to break it off*, but I will hope not. In the mean time, I
tell you (a secret, by the by,— at least, till I know she wishes it to
be public,) that I have proposed and am accepted. You need not
be in a hurry to wish me joy, for one mayn't be married for
months. I am going to town to-morrow ; but expect to be here,
on my way there, within a fortnight.
If this had not happened, I should have gone to Italy. In my
way down, perhaps, you will meet me at Nottingham, and come
over with me here. I need not say that nothing will give me
greater pleasure. I must, of course, reform thoroughly; and,
seriously, if I can contribute to her happiness, I shall secure my
own. She is so good a person, that — that — in short, I wish I was
a better. Ever, &c.
CCXOIX.
This letter was written in a copy of ' Corinne ' during Madame
Guiccioli's absence from Bologna, it "being Byron's whim to sit
daily in her garden, among her books, at the usual hour of his
visit. Fifty years afterwards the Italian lady essayed to write
the memoirs of her lover, but the book was a disappointment to
his admirers, for her memory had failed and she had no style.
Lord Byron to the Marchesa Guiccioli.
Bologna : August 25, 1819.
My dearest Teresa, — I have read this book in your garden ; —
my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is
a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine.
You will not understand these English words, and others will not
understand them — which is the reason I have not scrawled them
in Italian. But you will recognise the handwriting of him who
passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book
which was yours, he could only think of love. In that word,
beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours — Amor mio — is
490 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
comprised my existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here,
and I fear that I shall exist hereafter, — to what purpose you will
decide ; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen
years of age, and two out of a convent. I wish that you had
stayed there, with all my heart — or, at least, that I had never
met you in your married state.
But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me, — at
least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great
consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot
cease to love you.
Think of me sometimes, when the Alps and the ocean divide
us, — but they never will, unless you wish it.
BYRON.
CCC.
Byron was better suited to an Italian than to an English life.
His habitual indolent good-nature, with flashes of vehement
passion, was easily satisfied with Southern manners, and he had
a peculiar felicity in describing them. He tells a tragical story
here with great effect.
Lord Byron to Thomas Moore.
Ravenna : December 9, 1820.
1 open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show the state
of this country better than I can. The commandant of the
troops is now lying dead in my house. He was shot at a little
past eight o'clock, about two hundred paces from my door. I
was putting on my great-coat to visit Madame la Contessa G.
when I heard the shot. On coming into the hall, I found all my
servants on the balcony, exclaiming that a man was murdered. 1
immediately ran down, calling on Tita (the bravest of them) to
follow me. The rest wanted to hinder us from going, as it is the
custom for every body here, it seems, to run away from ' the
stricken deer.'
However, down we ran, and found him lying on his back,
almost, if not quite dead with five wounds, one in the heart, two in
the stomach, one in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some
soldiers cocked their guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing.
However we passed, and I found Diego, the adjutant, crying over
him like a child — a surgeon who said nothing of Ids profession —
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 491
a priest, sobbing a frightened prayer — and the commandant,
all this time, on his back, on the hard, cold pavement, without
light or assistance, or anything around him but confusion, and
dismay.
As nobody could, or would, do anything but howl and pray,
and as no one would stir a finger to move him, for fear of con
sequences, I lost my patience — made my servant and a couple of
the mob take up the body — sent off two soldiers to the guard —
despatched Diego to the Cardinal with the news, and had the
commandant carried up stairs into my own quarter. But it was
too late, he was gone — not at all disfigured — bled inwardly — not
above an ounce or two came out.
I had him partly stripped — made the surgeon examine him, and
examined him myself. He had been shot by cut balls or slugs.
I felt one of the slugs, which had gone through him, all but the
skin. Everybody conjectures why he was killed, but no one knows
how. The gun was found close by him — an old gun, half filed
down.
He only said, ' 0 Dio ! ' and ' Gesu ! ' two or three times, and
appeared to have suffered little. Poor fellow ! he was a brave
officer, but had made himself much, disliked by the people. I
knew him personally, and had met him often at conversazioni and
elsewhere. My house is full of soldiers, dragoons, doctors, priests,
and all kinds of persons, — though I have now cleared it, and clapt
sentinels at the doors. To-morrow the body is to be moved. The
town is in the greatest confusion, as you may suppose.
You are to know that, if I had not had the body moved, they
would have left him there till morning in the street, for fear of
consequences. I would not choose to let even a dog die in such a
manner, without succour : — and, as for consequences, I care for none
in a duty.
Yours, &c.
P.S. The lieutenant on duty by the body is smoking his pipe
with great composure.- A queer people this.
492 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCCI.
In Byron's famous controversy with the Rev. W. L. Bowles
upon the merits of Alexander Pope, whom the former gravely
preferred to Shakespeare and Milton, there was something of
wilful arrogance and something, too, of real critical insight.
There was a tendency abroad at that time, in the flush of
romantic revival, to depreciate the exquisite and polished art of
Pope ; yet it was scarcely the author of the ' Corsair ' from whom
a defence of Augustan poetry was to be expected. Nor did he
altogether succeed ' in making manure of Bowles for the top of
Mount Parnassus.'
Lord Byron to Thomas Moore.
Ravenna : May 3, 1821.
Though I wrote to you on the 28th ultimo, I must acknowledge
yours of this day, with the lines. They are sublime, as well as
beautiful, and in your very best mood and manner. They are also
but too true.
However, do not confound the scoundrels at the heel of the
boot with their betters at the top of it. I assure you that there
are some loftier spirits.
Nothing, however, can be better than your poem, or more
deserved by the Lazzaroni. They are now abhorred and disclaimed
nowhere more than here.
We will talk over these things (if we meet) some day, and I
will recount my own adventures, some of which have been a little
hazardous, perhaps.
So, you have got the Letter on Bowles ? I do not recollect to
have said anything of you that could offend, certainly, nothing
intentionally. As for . . . , I meant him a compliment. 1
wrote the whole off-hand, without copy or correction, and expecting
then eveiy day to be called into the field. What have I said of
you ? I am sure I forget. It must be something of regret for
your approbation of Bowles. And did you not approve, as he
says 1 Would I had known that before ! I would have given him
some more gruel. My intention was to make fun of all these
fellows ; but how I succeeded, I don't know.
As to Pope, I have always regarded him as the greatest name
in our poetry. Depend upon it the rest are barbarians. He is a
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 493
Greek Temple, with a Gothic Cathedral on one hand, and a
Turkish Mosque and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles
about him. You may call Shakespeare and Milton, pyramids, if
you please, but I prefer the Temple of Theseus or the Parthenon
to a mountain of burnt brick- work.
The Murray has written to me but once, the day of its pub
lication, when it seemed prosperous. But I have heard of late from
England but rarely. Of Murray's other publications (of mine),
I know nothing, — nor whether he has published. He was to
have done so a month ago. I wish you would do something, — •
or that we were together.
Ever yours and affectionately
B.
CCCII.
These two letters tell their own story. They have been
selected partly because they illustrate a singularly touching and
romantic episode in the life of the great poet to whom they
refer, and because of their own intrinsic merits. Mr. Sheppard's
letter is a model of tact and good sense under circumstances of
no ordinary delicacy, and Byron's reply proves that with all his
cynical egotism his heart was far from being a stranger to gene
rous emotions. His dissertation might perhaps, considering the
occasion, have been spared ; but the letter is very creditable to
him.
John Slieppard to Lord Byron.
Frome, Somerset: November 21, 1821.
My Lord, — More than two years since, a lovely and beloved
wife was taken from me, by lingering disease after a very shorb
union. She possessed unvarying gentleness and fortitude, and a
piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so in
fluential as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. In the
last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born and only
infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible affection, her last
whispers were ' God's happiness ! God's happiness ! ' Since the
second anniversary of her decease, I have read some papers which
no one had seen during her life, and which contain her most secret
thoughts. I am induced to communicate to your Lordship a
passage from these papers, which there is no doubt, refers to your-
22*
494 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
self, as I have more than once heard the writer mention your
agility on the rocks at Hastings.
1 Oh, my God, I take encouragement from the assurance of thy
Word, to pray to Thee in behalf of one for whom I have lately
been much interested. May the person to whom I allude (and who is
now, we fear, as much distinguished for his neglect of Thee as for
the transcendent talents thou hast bestowed on him) be awakened
to a sense of his own danger, and led to seek that peace of mind
in a proper sense of religion, which he has found this world's enjoy
ments unable to procure. Do Thou grant that his future example
may be productive of far more extensive benefit than his past
conduct and writings have been of evil ; and may the Sun of
righteousness, which, we trust, will, at some future period, arise 011
him, be bright in proportion to the darkness of those clouds which
guilt has raised around him, and the balm which it bestows, healing
and soothing in proportion to the keenness of that agony which
the punishment of his vices has inflicted on him ! May the hope
that the sincerity of my own efforts for the attainment of holiness,
and the approval of my own love to the great Author of religion,
will render this prayer, and every other for the welfare of man
kind, more efficacious ! — cheer n\e in the path of duty ; — but, let
me not forget, that, while we are permitted to animate ourselves to
exertion by every innocent motive, these are but the lesser streams
which may serve to increase the current, but which, deprived of
the grand fountain of good, (a deep conviction of inborn sin, and
firm belief in the efficacy of Christ's death for the salvation of
those who trust in him, and really wish to serve him,) would soon
dry up, and leave us barren of every virtue as before.
< July 31, 1814— Hastings.'
There is nothing, my Lord, in this extract which, in a literary
sense, can at all interest you ; but it may, perhaps, appear to you
worthy of reflection how deep and expansive a concern for the
happiness of others the Christian faith can awaken in the midst
of youth and prosperity. Here is nothing poetical and splendid,
as in the expostulatory homage of M. De Lamartine ; but here is
the sublime, my Lord ; for this intercession was offered, on your
account, to the supreme Source of happiness. It sprang from a
faith more confirmed than that of the French poet, and from
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 495
a charity which, in combination with faith, showed its power un-
impaired amidst the languors and pains of approaching dissolution.
I will hope that a prayer, which, I am sure, was deeply sincere,
may not be always unavailing. It would add nothing, my Lord,
to the fame with which your genius has surrounded you, for an
unknown and obscure individual to express his admiration of it.
I had rather be numbered with those who wish and pray, that
' wisdom from above,' and ' peace/ and joy/ may enter such a
mind.
JOHN SHEPPARD.
CCCIII.
Lord Byron to John Sheppard.
Pisa: December 8, 1821.
Sir, — I have received your letter. I need not say that the
extract which it contains has affected me, because it would imply
a want of all feeling to have read it with indifference. Though
I am not quite sure that it was intended by the writer for
me, yet the date, the place where it was written, with some other
circumstances that you mention, render the allusion probable.
But for whomever it was meant, I have read it with all the pleasure
which can arise from so melancholy a topic. I say pleasure —
because your brief and simple picture of the life and demeanour of
the excellent person whom I trust you will again meet, cannot be
contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues, and her
pure and unpretending piety. Her last moments were particularly
striking ; and I do not know that, in the course of reading the
story of mankind, and still less in my observations upon the exist
ing portion, I ever met with anything so unostentatiously beauti
ful. Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great
advantage over all others, — for this simple reason, that if true,
they will have their reward hereafter ; and if there be no hereafter,
they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had
the assistance of an exalted hope, through life, without subsequent
disappointment, since (at the worst for them) out of nothing,
nothing can arise, not even sorrow. But a man's creed does not
depend upon himself: who can say, I will believe this, that, or the
other ? and least of all, that which he least can comprehend. I
496 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
have, however, observed, that those who have begun life with
extreme faith, have in the end greatly narrowed it, as Chilling-
worth, Clarke (who ended as an Arian), Bayle, and Gibbon (once a
Catholic), and some others ; while on the other hand, nothing is
more common than for the early sceptic to end in a firm belief,
like Maupertius, and Henry Kirke White.
But my business is to acknowledge your letter, and not to
make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good wishes,
and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the
beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few
words. I can assure you that all the fame which ever cheated
humanity into higher notions of its own importance would never
weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which
a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my welfare. In this
point of view, I would not exchange the prayer of the .deceased in
my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Csesar, and Napoleon,
could such be accumulated upon a living head. Dome at least the
justice to suppose, that
Video meliora proboque,
however the ' deteriora sequor ' may have been applied to my
conduct.
I have the honour to be
Your obliged and obedient servant
BYRON.
CCCIV.
A single specimen of Theodore Hook's absurdly facetious
' Ramsbottom, Letters ' is selected. The style has been imitated
a good deal in our own day.
Miss Dorothea Ramsltottom to Mr. Bull.
Montague Place : January 6, 1825.
Dear Mr. Bull, — Why don't you write to us — or call ? We
are all of us well, and none of us no more, as perhaps you may
suppose, except poor Mr. Earn, — of course you know of his
disease, it was quite unexpected, with a spoonful of turtle in hia
mouth — the real gallipot as they cal^it. However, I have no
doubt he is gone to heaven, and my daughters are gone to Bath,
except Lavy, who is my pet, and never quits me.
18001 ENGLISH LETTERS. 497
The physicians paid great attention to poor Mr. Ram ; and he
suffered nothing — at least that I know of. It was a very comfort
able thing that I was at home shay new, as the French say, when
he went, because it is a great pleasure to see the last of one's rela
tions and friends.
You know we have been to Room since you heard from us —
the infernal City as it is called — the seat of Popery, and where the
Pop himself lives. He was one of the Carnals, and was elected
just before we was there : he has changed his name, not choosing
to disgrace his family. He was formerly Doctor Dallyganger, but
he now calls himself Leo, which the Papists reverse, and call
him Ole or Oleness. He is a fine cretur, and was never married,
but he has published a Bull in Room, which is to let people com
mit t all kind of sin without impunity, which is different from your
Bull, which shoes up them as does any crime. He is not Pop this
year, for he has proclaimed Jew Billy in his place, which is very
good, considering the latter gentleman is a general, and not of his
way of thinking.
Oh, Mr. Bull, Room is raley a beautiful place — We entered it
by the Point of Molly, which is just like the Point and Sally at
Porchmouth, only they call Sally there Port, which is not known
in Room. The Tiber is not a nice river, it looks yellow ; but it
does the same there as the Tames does here. We hired a carry-
letty and a cocky-oily, to take us to the Church of Salt Peter,
which is prodigious big ; — in the center of the pizarro there is a
baselisk very high — on the right and left two handsome found
lings ; and the farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, is ornamented with
collateral statutes of some of the Apostates. There is a great
statute of Salt Peter himself, but Mr. Fulmer thinks it to be
Jew Peter, which I think likely too — there were three brothers of
the same name, as of course you know — Jew Peter the fortuitous,
the capillary, and toe-nails ; and it is euros that it must be him,
for his toes are kissed away by the piety of the religious debau
ches who visit his shin or shrine. Besides I think it is Jew Peter,
because why should not he be worshipped as well as Jew Billy ? —
Mr. Fulmer made a pun, Lavy told me, and said the difference
between the two Jew Billies was, that one drew all the people to
the sinagog, and the other set all the people agog to sin — I don't
conceive his meaning, which I am afraid is a Dublin tender.
498 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
There was a large quire of singers, but they squeaked too much
to please me — and played on fiddles, so I suppose they have no
organs ; — the priests pass all their time in dissolving sinners by
oracular confusion, which, like transmogrification, is part of their
doctoring — the mittens in the morning, and whispers at night, is
just equally the same as at Paris.
Next to Salt Peter's Church is the Church of Saint John the
Latter end, where the Pop always goes when he is first made —
there is another basilisk here covered with highrogreffins. I
assure you the Colocynth is a beautiful ruin — it was built for
fights, and Mr. Fulmer said that Hel of a gabbler, an Emperor,
filled his theatre with wine — what a sight of marvels Mr. B. oh so
superb ! — the carraway, and paring, and the jelly and tea-cup,
which are all very fine indeed.
The Veteran (which I used foolishly to call the Vacuum till I
had been there,) is also filled with statutes — one is the body of the
angel Michael, which has been ripped to pieces, and is therefore
said to be Tore — so — but I believe this to be a poetical fixture : —
the statute of the Racoon is very moving, its tail is prodigious
long, and goes round three on 'em — the Antipodes is also a fine
piece of execution. As for paintings there is no end to them in
Room — Mr. Raffies's Transmigration is, I think, the finest — much
better than his Harpoons : — there are several done by Hannah
Bell Scratchy, which are beautiful ; I dare say she must be related
to Lady Bell, who is a very clever painter, you know, in London.
The Delapidation of St John by George Honey is very fine, besides
several categorical paintings, which pleased me very much. The
shops abound with Cammyhoes and Tally hoes — which last always
reminded me of the sports of the field at home, and the cunning of
sly Reynolds a getting away from the dogs. They also make
Scally holies at Borne, and what they call obscure chairs — but, oh,
Mr. B. what a cemetry there is in the figure of the Venus of
Medicine, which belongs to the Duke of Tusk and eye — her con
tortions are perfect.
We walked about in the Viccissitude, and hired a maccaroni, or
as the French, alluding to the difficulty of satisfying the English,
call them a ' Lucky to please/ and, of course, exploded the A rch of
Tights and the Baths of Diapason. Poor Lavy, whom I told you
was fond of silly quizzing, fell down on the Tarpaulin Rock in one
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 499
of her revelries — Mr. Fuliner said it would make a capital story
when she got home, but I never heard another syllabub about it.
One thing surprised me, the Pop wears three crowns together,
which are so heavy that they call his cap, a tirer. His Oleness
was ill the last day we went to the Chapel at the Choir and all,
having taken something delirious the day before at dinner ; he was
afterwards confined with romantic gout; but we saw enough of
him after, and it was curious to observe the Carnal s prostrating
themselves successfully before him — he is like the German corn-
plaster which Mr. Ram used to use — quite unavailable.
However, Mr. B. the best part of all, I think, was our coming
home — I was so afraid of the pandittis, who were all in trimbush
with arquebasedes and Bagnets that I had no peace all the time
we were on root — but I must say I liked Friskhearty ; and
Tiffaly pleased me, and so did Miss Senis's Villa and the Casket
Alley ; however, home is home, be it never so homely, and here
we are, thank our stars.
We have a great deal to tell you, if you will but call upon us
— Lavy has not been at the halter yet, nor do I know when she
will, because of the mourning for poor Mr. Ram — indeed I have
suffered a great deal of shag-green on account of his disease, and
above all have not been able to have a party on Twelfth Night. —
Yours truly,
DOROTHEA KAMSBOTTOM.
Pray write, dear Mr. B.
CCOV.
In the ' Fuprglestone Correspondence ' Theodore Hook made
some quizzing remarks on an itinerant company of players
which Charles Mathews, the elder, foolishly accepted as a
deliberate insult to the profession to which he belonged. The
short interruption which followed in the intimacy of these two
old friends was removed by the following letter.
Theodore Hook to Charles Mathews.
Cleveland Row: March 5, 1829.
My Dear Mathews, — You are now about one of the oldest
acquaintances I have (or just now have not) ; some of my happiest
hours have been passed in your company ; I hate mincing (except
in a case of veal). There is a difference, not perhaps existing
600 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
between us, but between you now and yourself at other times.
They (on) say that you have been annoyed wilh one of my tales, as
if any man except a pacha had more than one ; and our good-
natured friends, bless them, make out that you are personally
affected by some of the jokes about the Fugglestones, and other
imaginary personages. Now, I verily believe that, if I had read
that story to you before it was published, you would have enjoyed
it more than any body who has read it ; since to ridicule the bad
part of a profession can be no satire upon the good • and, as I
have said somewhere before, Lawrence might as well be annoyed
at the abuse of sign-painters, or Halford angry at a satire upon
quacks, as you personally with any thing reflecting upon the lower
part of the theatrical world. From you yourself I verily believe I
culled the art of ridiculing the humbugs of the profession. How
ever, why you should suppose that I, after having for years (in
every way I could) contributed — needlessly, I admit — to sup
port your talents, merits, and character, professional and private,
could mean to offend you, I cannot imagine. I can only say that
nothing was further from my intention than to wound your feel
ings, or those of any other individual living, by what seemed to me
a fair travestie of a fair subject for ridicule, and which I repeat
never could apply to you, or any man in your sphere or station.
Now the upshot of all this is this, — where not the smallest
notion of personal affront was contemplated, I think no personal
feeling should remain. If you think so, come and call upon me, or
tell me where I may pay you a visit. If you don't think so, why
say nothing about it, and burn this letter. But do whichever of
these things you may, rest assured I do not forget old associations,
and that I am, and shall be, my dear Mathews, as much yours as
ever.
And now, having said my say, I remain,
Yours most truly
THE. E. HOOK.
CCOVI.
When Mr. Bentley started his 'Miscellany' in the year
1837, with Charles Dickens for his principal contributor, he
induced the Rev. R. II. Barham to assist the regular staff of
collaborateurs with occasional offerings ; and under the pseudo
nym of 'Thomas Ingroldsby ' legend after legend appeared, and
1SOO] ENGLISH LETTERS. 501
gave popularity to the new venture. To the lady (the grand
mother of the author of l Tom Brown's School-days ') to whom
the following letter is addressed, Mr. Barbara, was indebted not
only for constant supplies of legendary lore, but for the neces
sary incentive to continue the work be had commenced. He
fully acknowledges this on the title-page of a presentation copy
of the l Legends.'
To Mrs. Hughes, who made me do 'em,
Quod placeo est— si placeo — tuum.
The Rev. R. H. Barham to Mrs. Hughes.
March 1, 1837.
My dear Madam, — Unluckily, I was too late for your last
parcel, but the wortby Mr. Sbarpe promises me this sball go.
Enclosed you will bave tbe Spectre of Tappington, tbe pictorial
illustration to which I think I told you was Dick's. You will say,
perhaps, he might have "been better employed. You will also
recognise Hampden Pye, transformed, for the nonce, into Hamilton
Tighe, which rhymes as well and prevents all unpleasant feelings,
or the chance of them. You will see also that other liberties have
been taken with his story, which may, after all, perhaps be only
supplying omissions ; for if poor Hampden was shot, somebody
must have shot him, and why not ' Hairy-faced Dick ' as well as
anybody else1? The inference is most illogical and, I think,
conclusive.
I have this moment sent Bentley a real Kentish legend, or
rather the amalgamation of two into one, for his next number,
which Mr. Dick has also undertaken to illustrate as before. I
should much like to have your opinion of the Miscellany. At
present it does not bear out Hook's prophecy ; he said the title
was ominous — * Miss-sell-any ; ' but, so far from this being the
case, Bentley assures me he has sold six thousand of the last
number, and that he considers the speculation now as safe. He
has just given Charles Mathews five hundred pounds for his
father's MSS., to form materials for a life of him, which Hook is
to execute, and have five hundred more for the job. The book
will be in three vols. with portraits, &c., and, as the editor is
heart and soul in the affair, will, I have no doubt, be a most
amusing one. Jack Brag is not yet out, but I have seen the
proofs of all that is printed of it. It is not so good, certainly as
502 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
Gilbert Gurney, but is, nevertheless, full of fun, with some palpable
hits in it.
Mrs. Clarke (ci-devant), whom you inquire after, is so far from
quitting her Quickly occupation that she may be said to be now a
double landlady, inasmuch as her new husband drives a roaring
trade in another publichouse, between which and her own she
vibrates as a sort of Bacchanalian pendulum. I have not yet seen
the Rev. Sydney, though, as his month commences to-day, I pre
sume I soon shall. Perhaps I ought to have called, as he sent me
his pamphlet. He did not take in the Bishop [of Llandaff], who
hit upon the forgery at first sight. The name of Vorstius alone
fixed the chronology and detected the imposition, which, after all,
is the funniest I have seen.1 I am told the pamphlet has had a
great effect upon the Commissioners, and that he will carry his
point as to the patronage. To-morrow night's debate will let us
into the secret.
What do you think of my Lord de Roos and Mr. Camming 1
I enclose you the following epigram, which is an impromptu of
Hook's :—
Cease your humming,
The matter's done :
Defendant's Gumming ;
Plaintiff's Gone !
By the way, the Duke of Beaufort and Lord Chesterfield are
said to have intimated their intention of supporting his Lord
ship, and the following hit at his Grace is going the round of the
clubs. Somebody was saying that the Duke had already left his
card with De Roos. ' Did he mark it ? ' was asked. ' Of course
not,' was the answer. ' O, then,' said Poole, who often says very
sharp things, ' it's clear he did not consider it an honour/ I wish
Mr. Hughes could be prevailed upon to give Bentley a lift ! Has
he seen the book ? My paper warns me to conclude, but I have
just room to tell you that Mr. Tate has taken the living of
Hutton, now vacant, and that Hawes has entered a caveat against
1 Allusion to the story of the Synod of Dort, told by Sydney Smith in
his Letter to Archdeacon Singleton on the Church Commission.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 503
him, claiming the presentation himself in his capacity of almoner.
I don't think he has a chance of establishing his claim.
Believe me to remain, as ever, &c.
R. H. BARHAM.
CCCVII.
Mr. Barham, like his intimate friend, Theodore Hook, pos
sessed extraordinary facility in writing rhymed letters, birthday
odes, and impromptu verses of all descriptions ; but he rarely,
if ever, attempted a, pun. Of these funny trifles one of the best
is the following note of invitation.
The Rev. R. H. Barham to Dr. Wilmot, of Ashford.
O Doctor ! wilt thou .dine with me
And drive on Tuesday morning down 1
Can ribs of beef have charms for thee —
The fat, the lean, the luscious brown 1
No longer dressed in silken sheen,
Nor deck'd with rings and brooches rare,
Say, wilt thou come in velveteen,
Or corduroys that never tear 1
O Doctor ! when thou com'st away,
Wilt thou not bid John ride behind,
On pony, clad in livery gay,
To mark the birds our pointers find 1
Let him a flask of darkest green
Replete with cherry brandy bear,
That we may still, our toils between,
That fascinating fluid share !
0 Doctor ! canst thou aim so true
As we through briars and brambles go,
To reach the partridge brown of hue.
And lay the mounting pheasanr. low
Or should, by chance, it so befail
Thy path be cross'd by timid hare,
Say, wilt thou for the gamebag call
And place the fur-clad victim there
504 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
And when at last the dark'ning sky
Proclaims the hour of dinner near,
"Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh,
And quit thy sport for homely cheer ?
The cloth withdrawn, removed the tray — •
Say, wilt thou, snug in elbow-chair,
The bottle's progress scorn to stay,
But fill, the fairest of the fair 1
COCVIII.
Of all the literary and social lions who helped to render
' Gore House ' famous, Lady Blessington regarded Walter Savage
Landor with the greatest respect and honour.
As the author of the ' Imaginary Conversations ' wrote
chiefly to entertain himself, and had few competitors in the
first rank of writers of English prose, it was scarcely necessary
for the Countess to assure him (then in his sixtieth year), of
his successes in literature. Mr. Landor was residing in Italy
at this time.
Lady Blessington to Walter Savage Landor.
London, Seamore Place : March 1C, 1835.
The introduction to your ' Examination ' * is printed, and the
' Conference of Spenser and Lord Essex ' follows the i Examina
tion,' and reads admirably in print. I have read all the proof
sheets, and hope you will be satisfied with their correctness, and
Messrs. Saunders and Otley have informed me that the book will
be out in the course of this week. Of its success I entertain no
doubt, though I have had many proofs that the excellence of lite
rary productions cannot always command their success. So" much
depends on the state of the literary horizon when a work presents
itself; the sky is at present much overclouded by the unsettled
state of politics at home and abroad ; but notwithstanding all this,
I am very sanguine in my expectations about the success your
book will have, and so are the publishers.
The ' Conference ' is peculiarly interesting, as bearing on the
state of Ireland, which, alas ! now, as in the reign of Elizabeth,
remains unsettled, unsatisfied and unsatisfying ; resisting hitherto
1 ' Examination on William Shakspeare,' by W. S. L,
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 505
the various remedies that have been applied to her disease by severe
surgeons or timid practitioners. I think very highly of the ' Exami
nation ; ' it is redolent with the joyous spirit of the immortal bard,
with whom you have identified yourself ; his frequent pleasantry
wantons in the breast of song, while snatches of pathos break in
continually in the prose. The ' Conference ' is deeply interesting,
and so dissimilar from the * Examination ' that it is difficult to
imagine it the work of the same mind, if one did not know that
true genius possesses the power of variety in style and thought. I
wish you could be persuaded to write your memoirs ; what a trea
sure they would prove to posterity.1 Tracing the working of such
a mind as yours, a mind that has never submitted to the ignoble
fetters that a corrupt and artificial society would impose, could not
fail to be highly interesting, as well as useful, by giving courage to
the timid and strength to the weak, and teaching them to rely on
their own intellectual resources instead of leaning on that feeble
reed the world, which can wound but not support those who rely
on it. Mr. E. Lytton Bulwer's new novel, ; The Last Days of
Pompeii/ has been out a fortnight ; it is an admirable work, and
does him honour. He refers to you in one of the notes to it as
* his learned friend Mr. Landor,' so you see you are in a fair way of
being praised (if not understood) by the dandies, as his book is in
the hands of the whole tribe. The novel is dedicated to our friend
Sir William Gell. There is no year in which your fame does not
gain at all sides, and it is now so much the fashion to praise you,
that you are quoted by many who are as incapable of appreciating
as of equalling you.
M. BLESSINGTON.
1 Writing to his friend John Forster a quarter of a century after this
hope had been expressed, Landor said, ' You may live to superintend such
edition or selection of my writings as may be called for after my death.
I place them in your hands with the more pleasure, since you have thought
them not unworthy of your notice, and even your study, among the labours
of our greatest authors, our Patriots in the best times. The world is
indebted to you for a knowledge of their characters and their works : I
shall be contented to be as long forgotten, if I arise with the same advan
tages at last.' Hence the well-known edition, completed in 1876.
606 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
CCOIX.
In the abundance of characteristic traits contained in the
letters which Shelley wrote during his restless life in Italy, we
are enabled to see in this ' eternal child ' the union of the finest
moral nature with poetic genius of exquisite sensibility. All the
peculiar phases of his character are in these letters developed
with sufficient distinctness to mark him as the strangest and
most interesting of literary geniuses. In waging war against
Christianity or the rights of marriage — against the rich and
strong in favour of the poor and weak — against political corrup
tion and social despotism, we see the young delicate enthusiast,
with grand self-denial and earnestness, expending precious
energy in an insatiable yearning to benefit his fellow-creatures.
Percy Bysshe Shelley to Henry Eeveley.
Florence : November 17, 1819.
My dear Henry, — I was exceedingly interested by your letter,
and I cannot but thank you for overcoming the inaptitude of a
long disuse at my request, for my pleasure. It is a great thing
done, the successful casting of the cylinder. May it be a happy
auspice for what is to follow ! I hope, in a few posts, to remit the
necessary money for the completion. Meanwhile, are not those
portions of the work which can be done without expense, saving
time in their progress 1 Do you think you lose much money or
time by this delay ? All that you say of the alteration in the form
of the boat strikes me, though one of the multitude in this respect,
as improvement. I long to get aboard her, and be an unworthy
partaker in the glory of the astonishment of the Livornese, when
she returns from her cruise round Melloria. When do you think
she will be fit for sea 1
Your volcanic description of the birth of the cylinder is very
characteristic of you and of it. One might imagine God, when he
made the earth, and saw the granite mountains and flinty promon
tories flow into their craggy forms, and the splendour of their
fusion filling millions of miles of the void space, like the tail of a
comet, so looking, so delighting in his work. God sees his machine
spinning round the sun, and delights in its success, and has taken
out patents to supply all the suns in space with the same manufac-
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 507
ture. Your boat will be to the ocean of water, what this earth is
to the ocean of ether — a prosperous and swift voyager.
When shall we see you all 1 You not, I suppose, till your boat
is ready to sail — and then, if not before, I must, of course, come to
Livorno. Our plans for the winter are yet scarcely denned ; they
tend towards our spending February and March at Pisa, where our
communications will not be so distant, nor so epistolary. C
left us a week ago, not without many lamentations, as all true
lovers pay on such occasions. He is to write me an account of the
Trieste steam-boat, which I will transmit to you.
Mrs. Shelley, and Miss C return you their kindest saluta
tions, with interest.
Most affectionately yours
P. B. S.
CCOX.
During Shelley's visit to Byron at Ravenna in 1821, the
latter suggested that Leigh Hunt should join them at Pisa in
the autumn and share in the speculation explained in this letter.
Shelley's modest refusal to participate in the business was doubt
less sincere, although he at no time intended ever to be fettered
in the expression of his opinions, nor would he compromise his
friends by publishing such opinions in copartnership.
Percy Bysshe Shelley to Leigh Hunt.
Pisa : August 26, 1821.
My dearest Friend, — Since I last wrote to you, I have been on
a visit to Lord Byron at Ravenna. The result of this visit was a
determination, on his part, to come and live at Pisa ; and I have
taken the finest palace on the Lung' Arno for him. But the
material part of my visit consists in a message which he desires me
to give you, and which, I think, ought to add to your determina
tion — for such a one I hope you have formed, of restoring your
shattered health and spirits by a migration to these ' regions mild
of calm and serene air.' He proposes that you should come and
go shares with him and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted
here ; in which each of the contracting parties should publish all
their original compositions, and share the profits. He proposed it
to Moore, but for some reason it was never brought to bear.
There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you
508 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
and Lord Byron engage, must, from various, yet co-cperating rea
sons, be very great. As for myself, I am, for the present, only a
sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other,
and effectuate the arrangement ; since (to entrust you with a secret
which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord Byron) nothing would
induce me to share in the profits, and still less, in the borrowed
splendour of such a partnership.
You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would
bring, in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal
stocks of reputation and success. Do not let my frankness with
you, nor my belief that you deserve it more than Lord Byron, have
the effect of deterring you from assuming a station in modern lite
rature, which the universal voice of my contemporaries forbids me
either to stoop or to aspire to. I am, and I desire to be, nothing.
I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for
your journey ; because there are men, however excellent, from
whom we would never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense
of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself; but
I suppose that I shall at last make up an impudent face, and ask
Horace Smith to add to the many obligations he has conferred on
me. I know I need only ask. I think I have never told you how
very much I like your ' Amyntas ; ' it almost reconciles me to trans
lations, In another sense I still demur. You might have written
another such poem as the ' Nymphs,' with no great access of efforts.
I am full of thoughts and plans, and should do something, if the
feeble and irritable frame which incloses it was willing to obey the
spirit. I fancy that then I should do great things. Before this
you will have seen 'Adonais.' Lord Byron, I suppose from
modesty, on account of his being mentioned in it, did not say a
word of ' Adonais/ though he was loud in his praise of ' Prome
theus,' and, what you will not agree with him in, censure of ' the
Cenci.' Certainly, if ' Marino Faliero ' is a drama, ' the Cenci ' is
not — but that between ourselves. Lord Byron is reformed, as far
as gallantry goes, and lives with a beautiful and sentimental Italian
Lady, who is as much attached to him as may be. I trust greatly
to his intercourse with you, for his creed to become as pure as he
thinks his conduct is. He has many generous and exalted quali
ties, but the canker of aristocracy wants to be cut out.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 509
CCCXI.
In the poem referred to in the following very characteristic
letter, Shelley expressed his intense sympathy with the cause of
Greek independence then struggling to assert itself. Shelley
had an exaggerated admiration for everything Greek, and a
hatred of everything Turkish. It was his opinion that ' we are
all Greeks ; our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have
their roots in Greece.' In expressing his views of Christianity
the poet is, as usual, very outspoken.
Percy Bysshe Shelley to
Pisa: April 11, 1822.
My dear . . . , — I have, as yet, received neither the ....
nor his metaphysical companions — Time, my Lord, has a wallet on
his back, and I suppose he lias bagged them by the way. As he
has had a good deal of alms for oblivion out of me, I think he
might as well have favoured me this once ; I have, indeed, just
dropped another mite into his treasury, called Hellas, which I
know not how to send to you, but I dare say some fury of the
Hades of authors will bring one to Paris. It is a poem written on
the Greek cause last summer — a sort of lyrical, dramatic, non
descript piece of business. You will have heard of a row we have
had here, which, I dare say, will grow to a serious size before it
arrives at Paris. It was, in fact, a trifling piece of business
enough, arising from an insult of a drunken dragoon, offered to
one of our party, and only serious, because one of Lord B.'s ser
vants wounded the fellow dangerously with a pitchfork. He is
now, however, recovering, and the echo of the affair will be heard
long after the original report has ceased.
Lord Byron has read me one or two letters of Moore to him, in
which Moore speaks with great kindness of me ; and of course I can
not but feel nattered by the approbation of a man, my inferiority
to whom I am proud to acknowledge. Amongst other things,
however, Moore, after giving Lord B. much good advice about
public opinion, &c., seems to deprecate my influence on his mind,
on the subject of religion, and to attribute the tone assumed in
' Cain' to my suggestions. Moore cautions him against my influ
ence on this particular, with the most friendly zeal ; and it is plain
23
510 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
that his motive springs from a desire of benefiting Lord B., without
degrading me. I think you know Moore. Pray assure him that
I have not the smallest influence over Lord Byron, in this parti
cular, and if I had, I certainly should employ it to eradicate
from his great mind the delusions of Christianity, which, in spite
of his reason, seem perpetually to recur, and to lay in ambush for
the hours of sickness and distress. ' Cain ' was conceived many
years ago, and begun before I saw him last year at Ravenna. How
happy should I not be to attribute to myself, however indirectly,
any participation in that immortal work ! I differ with Moore in
thinking Christianity useful to the world ; no man of sense can
think it true ; and the alliance of the monstrous superstitions of the
popular worship with the pure doctrines of the Theism of such a
man as Moore, turns to the profit of the former, and makes the
latter the fountain of its own pollution. I agree with him that
the doctrines of the French, and Material Philosophy, are as false
as they are pernicious ; but still they are better than Christianity,
inasmuch as anarchy is better than despotism ; for this reason, that
the former is for a season, and that the latter is eternal. My ad
miration of the character, no less than of the genius of Moore,
makes me rather wish that he should not have an ill opinion of me.
Where are you ? We settle this summer near Spezzia ; Lord
Byron at Leghorn. May not I hope to see you, even for a trip in
Italy -1 I hope your wife and little ones are well. Mine grows a
fine boy, and is quite well. I have contrived to get my musical
coals at Newcastle itself. My dear . . . . , believe me,
Faithfully yours,
P. B. S-
cccxn.
In Sir Frederick Pollock's two volumes of interesting l Remi-
niscences of Macready,' many highly characteristic letters of our
great actor are given which point to the purity of his taste in
matters dramatic and literary, and at once explain how that the
English stage, during his reign, was elevated and refined, not so
much by the comprehensiveness of his genius as by the hearty
way he honoured his calling.
'The Poet Laureate, in a sonnet composed for Macready on
his retirement from the stage, bids him
1300] ENGLISH LETTERS. fill
Rank with the best,
Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest
Who made a nation purer through their ait.
Thine is it that our drama did not die
Nor flicker down to brainless pantomime
And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see.
W. C. Macready to Frederick Pollock.
Bournemouth, Hants : August 9, 1853.
My dear Pollock, — In my desire to be furnished with abundant
gifts to my adopted institution, for so the apathy of our Sherbor-
nian magnates will justify me in calling it, I took advantage of
yesterday's post to enclose a message of inquiry to you in my hasty
acknowledgment of your 's and Mrs. Pollock's kindness ; and to-day
I follow it with my apologies for pressing on you so startling an
invitation in so abrupt a manner. This, however, I know you will
readily excuse. Whether you will as readily feel disposed to come
and tell my rustic friends who Dante was, what were his aims and
objects of his life, and how they were frustrated, on what pinnacle
of fame he stands, and what was the kind of work that placed him
there — ' that is the question.' If my lungs had held good, and my
head were equal to the employment, I should apply their powers in
this way, and endeavour ' to scatter plenty ' of knowledge among
my less fortunate fellow-men. But I am a worn-out instrument,
and have to content myself with the manifestation of my will.
I was very much interested by your remarks on the German
Hamlet, With much attention to the various criticisms I have
seen on Devrient, I am disposed to regard him as a very second-rate
mind. You characterise his performance as ' frigid and tiresome.'
There is a volume in those two words. The morbidly acute sensi
bility and sensitiveness of Hamlet to be frozen up and stagnated in
a declaiming and attitudinising statue or automaton leaves room
for no further remark, but induces me to submit to you, whether
you have not conceded more to the actor than he can rightly claim
in pronouncing ' his understanding of the character to be correct.'
We apply these terms of praise (and they are high praise) erro
neously, I think, to a man who, in his delivery, shows us he under
stands the words he is uttering. But to fathom the depths of
character, to trace its latent motives, to feel its finest quiverings of
emotion, to comprehend the thoughts that are hidden under words,
512 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
and thus possess oneself of the actual mind of the individual man,
is the highest reach of the player's art, and is an achievement that
I have discerned but in few. Kean — when under the impulse of
his genius he seemed to clutch the whole idea of the man — was an
extraordinary instance among those possessing the faculty of imper
sonation. But if he missed the character in his first attempt at
conception, he never could recover it by study. Mrs. Siddons, in
a loftier style, and to a greater extent, had this intuitive power.
Indeed, she was a marvel — I might almost say a miracle. John
Kernble is greatly overrated, I think, by the clever men, who, in
their first enthusiasm, caught a glimpse of the skirts of his glory.
Neither in Hamlet nor Macbeth, nor even in the passionate parts
of Coriolanus did he give me the power of belief in him. He was
very clever in points and magnificent in person. But what am I
doing, and where have I been led 1 reading you a dull discourse on
matters that you must be very indifferent about. Well, as Fal-
stafF says of himself I may say of the Prince of Denmark, ' I have
much more to say on behalf of that same Hamlet,' but I cannot
help smiling as I think of the much already said.
I grow very angry in turning to politics, and hating war as I
do, cannot help wishing that crafty and grasping barbarian Czar
may have his battalions pushed into the Pruth, Cronstadt and
Odessa beaten about his ears, and some dexterous Orloff afterwards
found to relieve mankind from his tyrannous machinations ! You
see what a sanguinary politician I am ! I must admit a most cor
dial abhorrence of Russian Czars and Czarinas, from. Peter the
Brute, inclusive, down to this worthy descendant, who regards
himself as having a mission to stop the march of human progress !
Quousque tandem ? I am looking for Forster in about a month,
though he tells me he has fallen lame again since his return from
Lillies.
I am ever always, dear Pollock,
Most sincerely yours
W. C. MACEEADY.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 513
CCCXIII.
Mr. Macready explains the process by which he checked a
tendency to redundance of action in his early days. He also
speaks of the frequent use of looking-plasses to reflect his pos
tures. Madlle. Rachel's salon d etude in Paris was fitted with
mirrors so ingeniously arranged, both on the walls and the ceiling,
that the eftect of the merest movement of the body and the
smallest fold in the drapery of her garments could be observed
by her.
W. C. Macready to Mrs. Pollock.
Sherborne : June 20, 1856.
My Dear Mrs. Pollock, — In a letter written to me ' on Thursday
morning,' you make inquiry of me whether it is true that, in my
youth, my action was redundant, and that I took extraordinary pains
to chasten it 1 It is rather hard to give evidence on occurrences of
so remote a date. Indeed, I must make myself quite certain
whether I ever knew such a period as that of youth before I can
answer your question. Of that, however, I will not at present
treat, but inform you that there was a time when my action was
redundant — when I was taught to attempt to imitate in gesture
the action I might be relating, or to figure out some idea of the
images of my speech. How was I made sensible of this offence
against good taste ? I very soon had misgivings suggested by my
own observation of actual life. These became confirmed by re
marking how sparingly, and therefore how effectively, Mrs.
Siddons had recourse to gesticulation. In the beginning of one of
the chapters of ' Peregrine Pickle ' is the description of an actor
(who must have been Quin) in Zanga, elaborately accompanying by
gesture the narration of Alonzo's emotions on discovering and read
ing a letter ; the absurdity is so apparent that I could not be blind
to it, and applied the criticism to myself in various situations,
which might have tempted me to something like the same extrava
gance. A line in the opening of one of the Cantos of Dante — I do
not immediately remember it — made a deep impression on me in
suggesting to me the dignity of repose ; and so a theory became
gradually formed in my mind, which was practically demonstrated
to me to be a correct one, when I saw Talma act, whose every
movement was a change of subject for the sculptor's or the painter's
514: ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
study. Well, as my opinions were thus undergoing a transition,
my practice moved in the same direction, and I adopted all the
modes I could devise to acquire the power of exciting myself into
the wildest emotions of passion, coercing my limbs to perfect still
ness. I would lie down on the floor, or stand straight against a
wall, or get my arms within a bandage, and, so pinioned or con
fined, repeat the most violent passages of Othello, Lear, Hamlet,
Macbeth, or whatever would require most energy and emotion ; I
would speak the most passionate bursts of rage under the supposed
constraint of whispering them in the ear of him or her to whom
they were addressed, thus keeping both voice and gesture in subjec
tion to the real impulse of the feeling. — ' Such was my process.'
Perhaps when I have the pleasure of seeing you I may make my
self more intelligible, if you desire further acquaintance with my
youthful discipline. I was obliged also to have frequent recourse
to the looking-glass, and had two or three large ones in my room
to reflect to myself each view of the posture I might have fallen
into, besides being under the necessity of acting the passion close to
a glass to restrain the tendency to exaggerate its expression — which
was the most difficult of all — to repress the ready frown, and keep
the features, perhaps I should say the muscles of the face, undis
turbed, whilst intense passion would speak from the eye alone. The
easier an actor makes his art appear, the greater must have been
the pains it cost him. I do not think it difficult to act like Sig-
nora Bistori ; it seems to me merely a melodramatic abandonment
or lashing up to a certain point of excitement. It is not so good as
Rachel, nor to be compared with such acting as that of Siddons and
O'lSTeill. But you will have cried, l Hold, enough ! ' long since.
Will you give my love to your husband, and ask him for me the
name of his optical instrument maker. I want to send some ar
ticles to be refitted, and, from Willie's enthusiasm about his tele
scope, I hope I may derive some benefit from his acquaintance. I
have a great deal to tell you, if I had time to gossip, but I am sure
here is more than sufficient for one post. All loves from home.
Mine to your little boys.
Believe me
Yours most sincerely,
W. C. M ACRE AD Y.
1800J ENGLISH LETTERS. 615
CCCXIV.
There is scarcely a page of the two volumes of the ' Life and
Correspondence of Dr. Arnold,' by Dean Stanley, which does
not throw a beam of light on the character of one of the most
interesting, zealous, and useful men of this century. Few are
the instances, even in modern biographical literature, in which
so forcible a representation of character is given by means of
epistolary correspondence. From the abundance of his earnest
ness — for this is the most striking of his characteristics — we
who had not the advantage of falling within the sphere of his
influence, may snatch from his letters most vivid* glimpses of
his work as a church reformer, a political thinker, a scholarly
author, a friend of the working classes, and greatest of all, as a
schoolmaster. It is not merely within the precincts of Rugby
School that his name is a household word.
The Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., to the Rev. F. C. Blackstone.
Rugby : September 28, 1828.
It is, indeed, a long time since I wrote to you, and there has
been much of intense interest in the period which has elapsed since
I did write. But it has been quite an engrossing occupation ; and
Thucydides and everything else has gone to sleep while I have
been attending to it. Now it is becoming more familiar to me, but
still the actual employment of time is very great, and the matters
for thought which it affords are almost endless. Still I get my daily
exercise and bathing very happily, so that I have been, and am,
perfectly well, and equal in strength and spirits to the work. For
myself, I like it hitherto beyond my expectation, but, of course,
a montb is a very short time to judge from. I am trying to esta
blish something of a friendly intercourse with the Sixth Form, by
asking them, in succession, in parties of four, to dinner with us,
and I have them each separately up into my room to look over
their exercises. I mean to bring in something like ' gatherings '
before it is long, for they understand that I have not done with
my alterations, nor probably ever shall have ; and I am going to
have an examination for eveiy form in the school, at the end of
the short half-year, in all the business of the half-year, Divinity,
Greek and Latin, Arithmetic, History, Geography, and Chronology,
with first and second classes, and prize books for those who do well.
51C ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
I find that my power is perfectly absolute, so that I have no excuse
if I do not try to make the school something like my beau ideal
• — it is sure to fall far enough short in reality. There has been no
flogging yet, (and I hope that there will be none,) and surprisingly
few irregularities. I chastise, at first, by very gentle impositions,
which are raised for a repetition of offences — flogging will be only
my ratio ultima — and talking I shall try to the utmost. I believe
that boys may be governed a great deal by gentle methods and
kindness, and appealing to their better feelings, if you show that
you are not afraid of them. I have seen great boys, six feet high,
shed tears when I have sent for them up into my room and spoken
to them quietly, in private, for not knowing their lesson, and I
have found that this treatment produced its effects afterwards, in
making'them do better. But, of course, deeds must second words
when needful, or words will soon be laughed at.
CCCXV.
The Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., to an old pupil at Oxford.
February 25, 1833.
It always grieves me to hear that a man does not like Oxford.
I was so happy there myself, and above all, so happy in my friends,
that its associations to niy mind are purely delightful. But, of
course, in this respect, everything depends upon the society you
fall into. If this be uncongenial, the place can have no other at
tractions than those of a town full of good libraries.
The more we are destitute of opportunities for indulging our
feelings, as is the case when we live in uncongenial society, the
more we are apt to crisp and harden our outward manner to save
our real feelings from exposure. Thus I believe that some of the
most delicate-minded men get to appear actually coarse from their
unsuccessful efforts to mask their real nature. And I have known
men disagreeably forward from their shyness. But I doubt whether
a man does not suffer from a habit of self-constraint, and whether
his feelings do not become really, c,s well as apparently, chilled. It
is an immense blessing to be perfectly callous to ridicule; or,
which comes to the same thing, to be conscious thoroughly that
what we have in us of noble and delicate is not ridiculous to any
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 517
but fools, and that, if fools will laugh, wise men will do well to let
them.
I shall really be very glad to hear from you at any time, and I
will write to the best of my power on any subject on which you
want to know my opinion. As for anything more, I believe that
the one great lesson for us all is, that we should daily pray for an
'increase of faith.' There is enough of iniquity abounding to
make our love in danger of waxing cold ; it is well said, therefore,
' Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also
in Me.' By which I understand that it is not so much general
notions of Providence which are our best support, but a sense of
the personal interest, if I may so speak, taken in our welfare by
Him who died for us and rose again. May His Spirit strengthen
us to do His will, and to bear it, in power, in love, and in wisdom.
God bless you.
CCOXVI.
This letter was written while Coleridge was staying at Fox
How with the Doctor's family.
The Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., to Mr. Justice Coleridge.
Rugby: September 23, 1836.
If you have the same soft air that is now breathing round us,
and the same bright sun playing on the trees, which are full
charged with the freshness of last night's rain, you must, I think,
be in a condition to judge well of the beauty of Fox How. It is a
real delight to think of you as at last arrived there, and to feel that
the place which we so love is enjoyed by such dear friends, who
can enjoy it fully. I congratulate you on your deliverance from
Lancaster Castle, and by what you said in your last letter, you are
satisfied, I imagine, with the propriety of the verdict. Now you
can not only see the mountains afar off, but feel them in eyes,
lungs, and mind ; and a mighty influence I think it is. I often
used to think of the solemn comparison in the Psalm, ' the hills
stand about Jerusalem ; even so standeth the Lord round about
His people.' The girdling in of the mountains round the valley
of our home is as apt an image as any earthly thing can be of the
encircling of the everlasting arms, keeping off evil, and showering
all good.
But my great delight in thinking of you at Fox How is mixed
23*
518 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
with no repining that I cannot be there myself. We have had
our holyday, and it was a long and most agreeable one ; and Neme
sis might well be angry, if I was not now ready and glad to be at
work again. Besides, I think that the School is again in a very
hopeful state ; the set, which rather weighed us down during the last
year, is now broken and dispersed ; and the tide is again, I trust,
at flood, and will, I hope, go on so. You would smile to see the
zeal with which I am trying to improve the Latin verse, and the
difficulty which I find in doing it, But I stand in amaze at the
utter want of poetical feeling in the minds of the majority of boys.
They cannot in the least understand either Homer or Yirgil ;
they cannot follow out the strong graphic touches which, to an ac
tive mind, suggest such infinitely varied pictures, and yet leave it
to the reader to draw them for himself on the hint given. But my
delight in going over Homer and Yirgil with the boys makes me
think what a treat it must be to teach Shakespeare to a good class
of young Greeks in regenerate Athens ; to dwell upon him, line by
line, and word by word, in the way that nothing but a translation
lesson ever will enable one to do ; and so to get all his pictures
and thoughts leisurely into one's mind, till I verily think one
would, after a time, almost give out light in the dark, after having
been steeped as it were in such an atmosphere of brilliance. And
how could this ever be done without having the process of con
struing, as the grosser medium, through which alone all the beauty
can be transmitted, because else we travel too fast, and more than
half of it escapes us 1 Shakespeare, with English boys, would be
but a poor substitute for Homer ; but I confess that I should be
glad to get Dante and Goethe now and then in the room of some of
the Greek tragedians and of Horace; or rather not in their room,
but mixed up along with them. I have been trying something of
this in French, as I am now going through, with the Sixth Form,
Barante's beautiful Tableau de la Litterature Frangaise pendant le
Dix-huitieme Siecle.
I thought of you the other day, when one of my fellows trans
lated to me that splendid paragraph, comparing Voltaire to the
Babouc of one of his own romances, for I think you first showed
me the passage many years ago. Now, by going through Barante
in this way, one gets it thoroughly ; and with a really good book,
I think it is a great gain.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 519
COOXVII.
Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., to the Rev. G. Cornish.
Fox How: July 6, 1839.
As I believe that the English universities are the best place in
the world for those who can profit by them, so I think for the
idle and self-indulgent they are about the very worst, and I would
far rather send a boy to Yan Diemen's Land, where he must work
for his bread, than send him to Oxford to live in luxury, without
any desire in his mind to avail himself of his advantages. Childish
ness in boys, even of good abilities, seems to me to be a growing
fault, and I do not know to what to ascribe it, except to the great
number of exciting books of amusement, like Pickwick and
Nickleby, Bentley's Magazine, &c. &c. These completely satisfy
all the intellectual appetite of a boy, which is rarely very voracious,
and leave him totally palled, not only for his regular work, which
I could well excuse in comparison, but for good literature of all
sorts, even for History and for Poetry.
I went up to Oxford to the Commemoration, for the first time
for twenty-one years ; to see Wordsworth and Bunsen receive their
degrees ; and to me, remembering how old Coleridge inoculated a
little knot of us with the love of Wordsworth, when his name was
in general a by- word, it was striking to witness the thunders of
applause, repeated over and over again, with which he was greeted
in the Theatre by Undergraduates and Masters of Arts alike.
CCOXVIII.
This letter was written from Leatherhead, and during the
composition of ' Endymion,' to Mr. Bailey, a very sympathetic
friend of Keats, who barely survived him.
John Keats to W. Bailey.
October 8, 1817.
My dear Bailey, — I refused to visit Shelley, that I might have
my own unfettered scope. . . . As to what you say about my
being a Poet, I can return no answer but by saying that the high
idea I have of poetical fame makes me think I see it towering too
high above me. At any rate I have no right to talk until
620 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
* Endymion ' is finished. It will be a test, a trial of my powers of
imagination, and chiefly of my invention, — which is a rare thing
indeed — by which I must make 4000 lines of one bare circum
stance and fill them with poetry. And when I consider that this
is a great task, and that when done it will take me but a dozen
paces towards the Temple of Fame, — it makes me say — ' God
forbid that I should be without such a task ! ' I have heard Hunt
say, and I may be asked, ' Why endeavour after a long poem ? ' To
which I should answer, * Do not the lovers of poetry like to have
a little region to wander in, where they may pick and choose, and
in which the images are so numerous that many are forgotten and
found new in a second reading, — which may be food for a week's
stroll in the summer ? ' not that they like this better than what they
can read through before Mrs. Williams comes down stairs 1— a
morning's work at most.
Besides, a long poem is a test of invention, which I take to be
the polar star of poetry, as Fancy is the sails, and Imagination the
rudder. Did our great poets ever write short pieces ? I mean, in
the shape of Tales. This same invention seems indeed of late
years to have been forgotten in a partial excellence. But enough
of this — I put on no laurels till I have finished ' Endymion/ and
I hope Apollo is not enraged at my having made mockery of him
at Hunt's.
The little mercury I have taken has corrected the poison and
improved my health — though I feel from my employment that I
shall never again be secure in robustness. Would that you were
as well as
Your sincere Friend and Brother
JOHN KEATS.
CCCXIX.
Written at the most fecund moment of Keats' life, when he
had just completed ' Isabella ' and f St. Agnes' Eve/ and had laid
1 Lamia ' aside unfinished that he might give his whole strength
to ' Hyperion.'
John Keats to W. Reynolds.
Winchester : August 25, 1819.
My dear Reynolds, — By this post I write to Rice, who will
tell you why we have left Shanklin, and how we like the place.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 621
I have indeed scarcely anything else to say, leading so monotonous
a life, unless I was to give you a history of sensations and day
nightmares. You would not find me at all unhappy in it, as all
my thoughts and feelings, which are of the selfish nature, home
speculations, every day continue to make me more iron. I am
convinced more and more, every day, that fine writing is, next to fine
doing, the top thing in the world ; the l Paradise Lost ' becomes a
greater wonder. The more I know what my diligence may in
time probably effect, the more does my heart distend with pride
and obstinacy. I feel it in my power to become a popular writer.
I feel it in my power to refuse the poisonous suffrage of a public.
My own being, which I know to be, becomes of more consequence
to me than the crowds of shadows in the shape of men and
women that inhabit a kingdom. The soul is a world of itself, and
has enough to do in its own home. Those whom I know already
and who have grown as it were a part of myself, I could not do
without ; but for the rest of mankind, they are as much a dream
to me as Milton's ' Hierarchies/ I think if I had a free and
healthy and lasting organisation of heart, and lungs as strong as
an ox so as to be able to bear unhurt the shock of extreme thought
and sensation without weariness, I could pass my life very nearly
alone, though it should last eighty years. But I feel my body too
weak to support me to this height ; I am obliged continually to
check myself, and be nothing.
It would be vain for me to endeavour after a more reasonable
manner of writing to you. I have nothing to speak of but my
self, and what can I say but what I feel 2 If you should have any
reason to regret this state of excitement in me, I will turn the
tide of your feelings in the right channel, by mentioning that it
is the only state for the best sort of poetry — that is all I care for,
all I live for. Forgive me for not filling up the whole sheet;
letters become so irksome to me, that the next time I leave London
I shall petition them all to be spared me. To give me credit for
constancy, and at the same time waive letter- writing, will be the
highest indulgence I can think of.
Ever your affectionate Friend,
JOHN KEATS.
522 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
cccxx.
During the very last days of his health, Hood was induced
to march across Germany with the 19th Polish Infantry, a
regiment in which his friend Franck was an officer. He wrote,
1 1 pass for very hardy, if not foolhardy, I slight the cold so,' and
it is to be feared that exposure during this voluntary campaign
commenced his fatal illness. This letter was sent from Halle to
his child, who was then residing with her mother at Coblenz.
Thomas Hood to his Daughter.
Halle : October 23, 1837.
My dear Fanny, — I hope you are as good still as when I went
away — a comfort to your good mother and a kind playfellow to
your little brother. Mind you tell him my horse eats bread out of
my band, and walks up to tbe officers wbo are eating, and pokes
his nose into tbe women's baskets. I wish T could give you both
a ride. I hope you liked your paints; pray keep them out of
Tom's way, as they are poisonous. I shall have rare stories to tell
you wben I come borne ; but mind, you must be good till then, or
I shall be as mute as a stockfish. Your mama will show you on
the map where I was wben I wrote this ; and wben she writes
will let you put in a word. You would have laughed to see your
friend "Wildegans running after tbe sausage boy to buy a ' wiirst.'
There was hardly in officer without one in bis hand smoking bot.
Tbe men piled their guns on tbe grass, and sat by tbe side of the
road, all munching at once like ogres. I bad a pocket full of bread
and butter, which soon went into my ' cavities,' as Mrs. Dilke calls
them. I only hope I shall not get so hungry as to eat my hors3.
I know I need not say, keep school and mind your book, as you
love to learn. You can have Minna sometimes, her papa says.
Now God bless you, my dear little girl, my pet, and think of
your
Loving Father
THOMAS HOOD.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 623
CCCXXI.
This is a fair example of the every-day correspondence of
that creature of infinite jest whose life had already become one
long and brave struggle against diseases. Under the name of
Peter Priggins is disguised Mr. J. T. Hewlett, one of the chief
contributors to ' Hood's Magazine.'
Thomas Hood to Charles Dickens.
My Dear Dickens, — Only thinking of the pleasure of seeing
you again, with Mrs. Dickens, on Tuesday or Wednesday, I never
remembered, till I got home to my wife, who is also my flapper
(not a young wild duck, but a Remembrancer of Laputa), that I
have been booked to shoot some rabbits — if I can — at Wantage,
in Berks, a reverend friend called ' Peter Priggins,' will be waiting
for me, by appointment, at his railway-station on Tuesday. But
I must and can only be three or four days absent ; after which, the
sooner we have the pleasure of seeing you the better for us. Mrs.
Hood thinks there ought to be a ladies' dinner to Mrs. Dickens.
I think she wants to go to Greenwich, seeing how much good it
has done me, for I went really ill, and came home well. So that
occasionally the diet of Gargantua seems to suit me better than
that of Panta-#rw£ Well, — adieu for the present. Live, fatten,
prosper, write, and draw the mopuses wholesale through Chapman
and Haul.
Yours ever truly
THOMAS HOOD.
CCCXXII.
No one ever wrote brighter or prettier letters to children
than Hood. He knew how to restrain the quick march of his
wit until their small footsteps could keep pace with it, and
then would follow a revel of innocent drollery. This note was
addressed to the little daughter of his friend J)r. Elliot.
Thomas Hood to May Elliot.
Monday, April 1844.
My dear May, — I promised you a letter, and here it is. I was
sure to remember it ; for you are as hard to forget, as you are soft
624 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1700-
to roll down a hill with. What fun it was ! only so prickly, I
thought I had a porcupine in one pocket, and a hedgehog in the
other. The next time, before we kiss the earth we will have its
face well shaved.
Did you ever go to Greenwich Fair ? I should like to go there
with you, for I get no rolling at St. John's "Wood. Tom and
Fanny only like roll and butter, and as for Mrs. Hood, she is for
rolling in money.
Tell Dunnie that Tom has set his trap in the balcony and has
caught a cold, and tell Jeanie that Fanny has set her foot in the
garden, but it has not come up yet. Oh, how I wish it was the
season when l March winds and April showers bring forth May
flowers ! ' for then of course you would give me another pretty
little nosegay. Besides it is frosty and foggy weather, which I
do not like. The other night when I came from Stratford, the
cold shrivelled me up so, that when I got home, I thought I was
niy own child !
However, I hope we shall all have a merry Christmas ; I mean
to come in my ticklesome waistcoat, and to laugh till I grow fat,
or at least streaky. Fanny is to be allowed a glass of wine, Tom's
mouth is to have a hole holiday, and Mrs. Hood is to sit up to
supper ? There will be doings ! And then such good things to
eat; but, pray, pray, pray, mind they don't boil the baby by
mistake for the plump pudding, instead of a plum one.
Give my love to everybody, from yourself down to Willy,
with which and a kiss, I remain, up hill and down dale,
Your affectionate lover
THOMAS HOOD.
CCCXXIII.
The last letter, written by this great poet and good man, was
addressed to Sir Robert Peel in gratitude for the transfer of a
pension of 100/ a year from his to Mrs. Hood's name, and in
order thoroughly to appreciate the sentiment of this letter
we should compare it with that last poem of his composed
about the same time, in which lie took farewell of life. Happy
in being able to f smell the rose above the mould,' lie could
smile at being so near death's door, that, as he said, he could
almost fancy he heard the creaking of the hinges.
1800] ENGLISH LETTERS. 625
Thomas Hood to Sir Robert Peel.
1845.
Dear Sir, — We are* not to meet in the flesh. Given over by my
physicians and myself, I am only kept alive by frequent instalments
of mulled port wine. In this extremity I feel a comfort, for
which I cannot refrain from again thanking you, with all the
sincerity of a dying man, — and, at the same time, bidding you a
respectful farewell.
Thank God my mind is composed and my reason undisturbed,
but my race as an author is run. My physical debility finds no
tonic virtue in a steel pen, otherwise I would have written one more
paper — a forewarning one — against an evil, or the danger of it,
arising from a literary movement in which I have had some share,
a one-sided humanity, opposite to that Catholic Shaksperian sym
pathy, which felt with King as well as Peasant, and duly estimated
the mortal temptations of both stations. Certain classes at the
poles of society are already too far asunder ; it should be the duty
of our writers to draw them nearer by kindly attraction, not to
aggravate the existing repulsion, and place a wider moral gulf
between Rich and Poor, with Hate on the one side and Fear on the
other. But I am too weak for this task, the last I had set myself ;
it is death that stops my pen, you see, and not the pension.
God bless you, sir, and prosper all your measures for the benefit
of my beloved country.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most grateful and obedient servant,
THOS. HOOD.
SECTION IV.
A.D. 1800-
CCCXXIV.
The following seven letters, the first of which was written
at the age of fourteen, are considered to be very characteristic
of Lord Macatilay. They are published in this collection by
the kind permission of Mr. G. Otto Trevelyan.
Thomas Babington Macaulay to his Mother.
Shelford: April 11, 1814.
My clear Mamma, — The news is glorious indeed. Peace !
peace with a Bourbon, with a descendant of Henri Quatre, with
a prince who is bound to us by all the ties of gratitude ! I have
some hopes that it will be a lasting peace, for the troubles of the
last twenty years will make kings and nations wiser. I cannot con
ceive a greater punishment to Buonaparte than that which the allies
have inflicted on him. How can his ambitious mind support it 1
All his great projects and schemes, which once made every throne
in Europe tremble are buried in the solitude of an Italian isle.
How miraculously everything has been conducted ! We almost
seem to hear the Almighty saying to the fallen tyrant, ' For this
cause have I raised thee up that I might show in thee My power.'
As I am in very great haste with this letter I shall have but
little time to write. I am sorry to hear that some nameless friend
of Papa's denounced my voice as remarkably loud. I have
accordingly resolved to speak in a moderate key except on the
undermentioned special occasions. Imprimis, when I am speaking
at the same time with three others. Secondly, when I am praising
the ' Christian Observer.' Thirdly, when I am praising Mr. Preston
or his sisters, I may be allowed to speak in my loudest voice, that
they may hear me.
I saw to-day the greatest of churchmen, that pillar of Ortho
doxy, that true friend to the Liturgy, that mortal enemy to the
Bible Society, — Herbert Marsh, D.D., Professor of Divinity on
Lady Margaret's foundation. I stood looking at him for about
ten minutes, and shall always continue to maintain that he is a
530 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
very ill-favoured gentleman as far as outward appearance is
concerned. I am going this week to spend a day or two at Dean
Milner's, where I hope, nothing unforeseen preventing, to see you
in about two months' time.
Ever your affectionate Son,
T. B. MACAULAY.
CCOXXV.
In this, and in the following letter, Macaulay is recording
Lis early impressions of the Rev. Sydney Smith.
Thomas Bribing ton Macaulay to his Father.
York: July 21, 1826
My dear Father, — The other day as I was changing my neck
cloth which my wig had disfigured, my good landlady knocked at
the door of my bedroom, and told me that Mr. Smith wished to
see me and was in my room below. Of all names by which men
are called there is none which conveys a less determinate idea to
the mind than that of Smith. "Was he on the circuit 1 For I do
not know half the names of my companions. Was he a special
messenger from London 1 Was he a York attorney coming to be
preyed upon, or a beggar coming to prey upon me, a barber to
solicit the dressing of my wig, or a collector for the Jews'
Society 1
Down I went, and to my utter amazement beheld the Smith
of Smiths, Sydney Smith, alias Peter Plymley. I had forgotten
his very existence till I discerned the queer contrast between his
black coat and his snow-white head, and the equally curious
contrast between the clerical amplitude of his person and the most
unclerical wit, whim and petulance of his eye.
I shook hands with him very heartily ; and on the Catholic
question we immediately fell, regretted Evans, triumphed over Lord
George Beresford, and abused the Bishops.1 He then very kindly
urged me to spend the time between the close of the Assizes and
the commencement of the Sessions at his house ; and was so
hospitably pressing that I at last agreed to go thither on Saturday
afternoon. He is to drive me over again into York on Monday
1 Reference is here made to a recent general election.
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 531
morning. I am very well pleased at having this opportunity of
becoming better acquainted with a man who, in spite of innu
merable affectations and oddities, is certainly one of the wittiest
and most original writers of our time.
Ever yours affectionately,
T. B. M.
CCCXXVI.
Thomas Babington Macaulay to his Father.
Bradford: July 26, 1826.
My dear Father, — On Saturday I went to Sydney Smith's.
His parish lies three or four miles out of any frequented road.
He is, however, most pleasantly situated. 'Fifteen years ago,'
said he to me as I alighted at the gate of his shrubbery, ' I was
taken up in Piccadilly and set down here. There was no house
and no garden ; nothing but a bare field.'
One service this eccentric divine has certainly rendered to the
Church. He has built the very neatest, most commodious, and
most appropriate rectory that I ever saw. All its decorations are
in a peculiarly clerical style, grave, simple, and gothic. The bed
chambers are excellent, and excellently fitted up; the sitting-
rooms handsome ; and the grounds sufficiently pretty. Tindal and
Parke (not the judge of course,) two of the best lawyers, best
scholars, and best men in England, were there. "We passed an
extremely pleasant evening, and had a very good dinner, and many
amusing anecdotes. After breakfast the next morning I walked
to church with Sydney Smith. The edifice is not at all in keeping
with the rectory. It is a miserable little hovel with a wooden
belfry. It was, however, well filled, and with decent people, who
seemed to take very much to their pastor. I understand that he
is a very respectable apothecary ; and most liberal of his skill, his
medicine, his soup and his wine, among the sick. He preached a
very queer sermon — the former half too familiar and the latter half
too florid, but not without some ingenuity of thought and expres
sion.
Sydney Smith brought me to York on Monday morning in
time for the stage-coach which runs to Skipton. We parted with
many assurances of good will. I have really taken a great liking
532 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
to him. He is full of wit, humour, and shrewdness. He is not
one of those show talkers who reserve all their good things for
special occasions. It seems to be his greatest luxury to keep his
wife and daughter laughing two or three hours every day. His
notions of law, government, and trade are surprisingly clear and
just. His misfortune is to have chosen a profession at once above
him and below him. Zeal would have made him a prodigy;
formality and bigotry would have made him a bishop ; but he
could neither rise to the duties of his order, nor stoop to its degra
dations.
He praised my articles in the Edinburgh Review with a warmth
which I am willing to believe sincere, because he qualified his com
pliments with several very sensible cautions. My great danger,
he said, was that of taking a tone of too much asperity and con
tempt in controversy. I believe that he is right, and I shall try to
mend.
Ever affectionately yours,
T. B. M.
CCCXXVII.
Macau! ay's extraordinary power of work is scarcely more
than hinted at in this particular letter. Other letters written
about the same time to the same friend contain prodigious lists
of classical works that had been read with care ; so carefully
that, as Mr. Trevelyan assures us, every volume and sometimes
every page is interspersed with critical remarks — literary,
historical, and grammatical. This was accomplished in the
midst of official duties almost too arduous to admit of that
repose and leisure indispensable to ordinary men; and at a
time when the writer was being scurrilously assailed in the
Indian Press for his activity in promoting the Black Actj by
which all civil appeals of certain British residents were to be
tried by the Sudder Court instead of the Supreme Court at
Calcutta.
Thomas Babington Macaulay to Thomas Flower Ellis.
Calcutta: May 30, 1836.
Dear Ellis, — I have just received your letter dated Dec. 28.
How time flies ! Another hot season has almost passed away,
and we are daily expecting the beginning of the rains. Cold
season, hot season, and rainy season are all much the same to me.
I shall have been two years on Indian ground in less than a fort-
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 6H3
night, and I have not taken ten grains of solid, or a pint of liquid
medicine during the whole of that time.
If I judged only from my own sensations I should say that this
climate is absurdly maligned : but the yellow, spectral figures
which surround me seem to correct the conclusions which I should
be inclined to draw from the state of my own health.
One execrable effect the climate produces. It destroys all the
works of man with scarcely one exception. Steel rusts ; razors lose
their edge ; thread decays ; clothes fall to pieces ; books moulder
away and drop out of their bindings ; plaster cracks ; timber rots ;
matting is in shreds. The sun, the steam of this vast alluvial
tract, and the infinite armies of white ants, make such havoc with
buildings that a house requires a complete repair every three years.
Ours was in this situation about three months ago ; and if we had
determined to brave the rains without any precautions we should
in all probability have had the roof down on our heads. Accord
ingly we were forced to migrate for six weeks from our stately
apartments, and our flower beds, to a dungeon where we were stifled
with the stench of native cookery, and deafened by the noise of
native music. At last we have returned to our house. We found
it all snow-white and pea-green ; and we rejoice to think that we
shall not again be under the necessity of quitting it till we quit it
for a ship bound on a voyage to London.
We have been for some months in the middle of what the
people here think a political storm. To a person accustomed to
the hurricanes of English faction this sort of tempest in a horse-
pond is merely ridiculous. We have put the English settlers up
the country under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Company's
courts in civil actions in which they are concerned with natives.
The English settlers are perfectly contented ; but the lawyers of the
Supreme Court have set up a yelp which they think terrible, but
which has infinitely diverted me. They have selected me as the
object of their invectives, and I am generally the theme of five or
six columns of prose and verse daily. I have not patience to read
a tenth part of what they put forth. The last ode in my praise
which I perused began
Soon we hope they will recall ye,
Tom Macaulay, Tom Macaulay.
24
534 ENGLISH LETTERS. (.1800-
The last prose which I read was a parallel betweeii me and
Lord Strafford.
My mornings, from five to nine, are quite my own. I still give
them to ancient literature. I have read Aristophanes twice through
since Christmas ; and have also read Herodotus, and Thucydides,
again. I got into a way last year of reading a Greek play every
Sunday. I began on Sunday the 1 8th of October with the Prome
theus, and next Sunday I shall finish with the Cyclops of Euripides.
Euripides has made a complete conquest of me. It has been un
fortunate for him that we have so many of his pieces. It has, on
the other hand, I suspect, been fortunate for Sophocles that so
few of his have come down to us. Almost every play of
Sophocles, which is now extant, was one of his masterpieces.
There is hardly one of them which is not mentioned with
high praise by some ancient writer. Yet one of them, the
Trachinige, is to my thinking, very poor and insipid. Now, if
we had nineteen plays of Sophocles, of wliich twelve or thirteen
should be no better than the TrachinisB — and if, on the other
hand, only seven pieces of Euripides had come down to us, and if
those seven had been the Medea, the Baccha?, Iphigenia in
Aulis, the Orestes, the Phrenissae, the Hippolytus, and the Alcestis,
—I am not sure that the relative position which the two poets now
hold in our estimation would not be greatly altered.
I have not done much in Latin. I have been employed in
turning over several third-rate and fourth-rate writers. After
finishing Cicero, I read through the works of both the Senecas,
father and son. There is a great deal in the ControversiaB both
of curious information, and judicious criticism. As to the son, I
cannot bear him. His style affects me in something the same way
as that of Gibbon. But Lucius Seneca's affectation is even more
rank than Gibbon's. His works are made up of mottoes. There
is hardly a sentence which might not be quoted; but to read him
straightforward is like dining on nothing but anchovy sauce. I
have read, as one does read such stuff", Valerius Maximus, Annaeus
Floras, Lucius Ampelius, and Aurelius Victor. I have also gone
through Phaedrus. I am now better employed. I am deep in the
Annals of Tacitus, and I am at the same time reading Suetonius.
You are so rich in domestic comforts that I am inclined to envy
you. I am not, however, without my share. I am as fond of my
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 535
little niece as her father. I pass an hour or more every day in
nursing her, and teaching her to talk. She has got as far as Ba,
Pa, Ma ; which as she is not eight months old, we consider as proofs
of a genius little inferior to that of Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton.
The municipal elections have put me in good spirits as to
English politics. I was rather inclined to despondency.
Ever yours affectionately,
T. B. MACAULAY.
CCCXXVIII.
The ( Eastern Question ' was almost as complicated in the
year 1840 as it is to-day. The rebellion of the Sultan's vassals
in Egypt had spread into the heart of the Ottoman Empire, and
there was every indication that Syria would soon fall an easy
prey to France, and Constantinople to Russia.
"England, however, boldly adhered to her traditional policy
of maintaining the independence of Turkey ; and it is interest
ing to read the opinion of our great Whig historian of the
diplomatic negotiations conducted by Lord Palmerston with
his usual vigour and fearlessness.
Thomas Babington Macaulay to Macvey Napier.
London : December 8, 1840.
Dear Napier, — I shall work at my article on Leigh Hunt
whenever I have a leisure hour, and shall try to make it amusing
to lovers of literary gossip. I will not plague you with my argu
ments about the Eastern Question. My own opinion has long
been made up. Unless England meant to permit a virtual parti
tion of the Ottoman Empire between France and Russia, she had
no choice but to act as she has acted. Had the treaty of July not
been signed, Nicholas would have been really master of Constanti
nople, and Thisrs of Alexandria. The Treaty once made, I never
would have consented to flinch from it, whatever had been the
danger. I am satisfied that the War party in France is insatiable
and unappeasable ; that concessions would only have strengthened
and emboldened it ; and that after stooping to the lowest humilia
tions, we should soon have had to fight without allies, and at every
disadvantage. The policy which has been followed I believe to be
not only a just and honourable, but eminently a pacific policy.
Whether the peace of the world will long be preserved I do
not pretend to say ; but I firmly hold that the best chance of pre-
636 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
serving it was to make the Treaty of July, and, having made it, to
execute it resolutely. For my own part I will tell you plainly
that, if the course of events had driven. Palmerston to resign, I
would have resigned with him, though I had stood alone. Look
at what the late Ministers of Louis Philippe have avowed with
respect to the Balearic Isles. Were such designs ever proclaimed
before, except in a crew of pirates, or a den of robbers 1 Look at
Barrot's speeches about England. Is it for the sake of such friend
ships as this that our country is to abdicate her rank, and sink
into a dependency ] I like war quite as little as Sir William
Molesworth or Mr. Fonblanque. It is foolish and wicked to
bellow for war, merely for war's sake, like the rump of the Moun
tain at Paris. I would never make offensive war. I would never
offer to any other power a provocation which might be a fair
ground for war. But I never would abstain from doing what I
had clear right to do, because a neighbour chooses to threaten me
with an unjust war; first, because I believe that such a policy
would, in the end, inevitably produce war ; and secondly because
I think war, though a very great evil, by no means so great an
evil as subjugation and national humiliation.
In the present case, I think the course taken by the Govern
ment unexceptionable. If Guizot prevails, — that is to say, if
reason, justice, and public law prevail, — we shall, have no war.
If the writers of the National, and the singers of the Marseil
laise prevail, we can have no peace. At whatever cost, at what
ever risk, these banditti must be put down ; or they will put down
all commerce, civilization, order, and the independence of nations.
Of course what I wiite to you is confidential; not that I
should hesitate to proclaim the substance of what I have said on
the hustings, or in the House of Commons ; but because I do not
measure my words in pouring myself out to a friend. But I have
run on too long, and should have done better to have given the
last half-hour to Wycherley.
Ever yours,
T. B. MACAULAY.
18771 ENGLISH LETTERS. 637
CCOXXIX.
Mr. Macvey Napier, in his capacity of Editor of the { Edin
burgh Review/ had unintentionally wounded Leigh Hunt's
feelings by requesting him to contribute a ' gentlemanlike '
article. The result of the following mediatory letter was a
generous and amiable communication from Napier to Leigh
Hunt which more than satisfied him.
Thomas Babington Macaulay to Macvey Napier.
Albany, London : October 30, 184L
Dear Napier, — I have received your letter and am truly glad
you are satisfied with the effect of my article. As to the prelimi
nary part of the matter, I am satisfied, and more than satisfied.
Indeed, as you well know, money has never been my chief object
in writing. It was not so even when I was poor ; and at present
I consider myself as one of the richest men of my acquaintance ;
for I can well afford to spend a thousand a year, and I can enjoy
every comfort on eight hundred. I own, however, that your
supply comes agreeably enough to assist me in furnishing my
rooms, which I have made, unless I am mistaken, into a very
pleasant student's cell. And now a few words about Leigh Hunt.
He wrote to me yesterday in great distress, and enclosed a letter
which he had received from you, and which had much agitated
him. In truth, he misunderstood you; and you had used an
expression which was open to some misconstruction.
You told him that you should be glad to have a " gentleman
like " article from him, and Hunt took this for a reflection on his
birth. He implored me to tell him candidly whether he had
given you any offence, and to advise him as to his course. I
replied that he had utterly misunderstood you ; that I was sure
you meant merely a literary criticism ; that your taste in compo
sition was more severe than his, more indeed than mine ; that you
were less tolerant than myself of little mannerisms springing from
peculiarities of temper and training ; that his style seemed to you
too colloquial ; that I myself thought he was in danger of excess
in that direction ; and that, when you received a letter from him
promising a very " chatty " article, I was not surprised that you
should caution him against his besetting sin. I said that I was
538 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
sure that you wished him well, and would be glad of his assist
ance ; but that he could not expect a person in your situation to
pick his words very nicely; that you had during many years
superintended great literary undertakings; that you had been
under the necessit}'- of collecting contributions from great numbers
of writers, and that you were responsible to the public for the
whole. Your credit was so deeply concerned that you must be
allowed to speak plainly. I knew that you had spoken to men of
the first consideration quite as plainly as to' him. I knew that
you had refused to insert passages written by so great a man as
Lord Brougham. I knew that you had not scrupled to hack and
hew articles on foreign politics which had been concocted in the
Hotels of ambassadors, and had received the imprimatur of Secre
taries of State. I said that, therefore, he must, as a man of sense,
suffer you to tell him what you might think, whether rightly or
wrongly, to be the faults of his style. As to the sense which he
had put on one or two of your expressions, I took it on myself, as
your friend, to affirm that he had mistaken their meaning, and
that you would never have used those words if you had foreseen
that they would have been so understood. Between ourselves, the
word " gentlemanlike" was used in rather a harsh way. Now I
have told you what has passed between him and me; and I leave
you to act as you think fit. I am sure that you will act properly
and humanely. But I must add that I think you are too hard on
his article. As to the Yicar of Wakefield,1 the correction must
be deferred, I think, till the appearance of the next number. I
am utterly unable to conceive how I can have committed such a
blunder, and failed to notice it in the proofs.
Ever yours,
T. B. MACAULAY.
1 Alluding to an unfortunate mistake in a recent article in the
' Edinburgh Review,' which arose from the substitution of the « Vicar of
Wakefield ' for « History of Greece,' thereby pronouncing the former work
to be a bad one.
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 539
CCCXXX.
In this most interesting letter Macaulay is his own apologist
for the tone and diction of what he humbly designates as his
little historical essays.
Thomas Babington Macaulay to Macvey Napier.
Albany, London : April 18, 1842.
Dear Napier, — I am much obliged to you for your criticisms
on my article on Frederic. My copy of the Review I have lent,
and cannot therefore refer to it. I have, however, thought over
what you say, and should be disposed to admit part of it to be
just. But I have several distinctions and limitations to suggest.
The charge to which I am most sensible is that of interlarding
my sentences with French terms. I will not positively affirm
that no such expression may have dropped from my pen in writing
hurriedly on a subject so very French. It is, however, a practice
to which I am extremely averse, and into which I could fall only
by inadvertence. I do not really know to what you allude ; for
as to the words ' Abbe ' and ' Parc-aux-Cerfs,' which I recollect,
those surely are not open to objection. I remember that I carried
my love of English in one or two places almost to the length of
affectation. For example, I called the ' Place des Victoires/ the
< Place of Victories ' ; and the « Fermier General ' D'Etioles, a pub
lican. I will look over the article again, and try to discover to
what you allude. The other charge, I confess, does not appear to
me to be equally serious. I certainly should nob, in regular
history, use some of the phrases which you censure. But I do not
consider a review of this sort as regular history, and I really think
that from the highest and most unquestionable authority, I could
vindicate my practice.
Take Addison, the model of pure and graceful writing. In his
Spectators I find ' wench,' ' baggage/ ' queer old put/ « prig/
' fearing that they should smoke the knight.' All these expres
sions I met this morning, in turning over two or three of his
papers at breakfast. I would no more use the word * bore ' or
' awkward squad ' in a composition meant to be uniformly serious
and earnest, than Addison would in a State Paper have called
540 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
Louis an l old put/ or have described Shrewsbury and Argyle as
' smoking the design to bring in the Pretender.'
But I did not mean my article to be uniformly serious and
earnest. If you judge of it as you would judge a regular history,
your censure ought to go very much deeper than it does, and to be
directed against the substance as well as against the diction.
The tone of many passages, nay of whole pages, would justly
be called flippant in a regular history. But I conceive that this
sort of composition has its own character, and its own laws.
I do not claim the honour of having invented it ; that praise
belongs to Southey ; but I must say that in some points I have
improved upon his design. The manner of these little historical
essays bears, I think, the same analogy to the manner of Tacitus
or Gibbon which the manner of Ariosto bears to the manner of
Tasso, or the manner of Shakespeare's historical plays to the
manner of Sophocles.
Ariosto when he is grave and pathetic, is as grave and pathetic
as Tasso ; but he often takes a light fleeting tone which suits him
admirably, but which in Tasso would be quite out of place. The
despair of Constance in Shakespeare is as lofty as that of QEdipus
in Sophocles; but the levities of the bastard Faulconbridge would
be utterly out of place in Sophocles. Yet we feel that they are
not out of place in Shakespeare.
So with these historical articles. Where the subject requires
it, they may rise, if the author can manage it, to the highest alti
tudes of Thucydides. Then, again, they may without impropriety,
sink to the levity and colloquial ease of Horace Walpole's Letters.
This is my theory. Whether I have succeeded in the execution is
quite another question. You will, however, perceive that I am in
no danger of taking similar liberties in my history.
I do, indeed, greatly disapprove of those notions which some
writers have of the dignity of History. For fear of alluding to
the vulgar concerns of private life, they take no notice of the cir
cumstances which deeply affect the happiness of nations. But I
never thought of denying that the language of history ought to
preserve a certain dignity. I would, however, no more attempt to
preserve that dignity in a paper like this on Frederic than I would
exclude from such a poem as ' Don Juan ' slang terms, because
such terms would be out of place in ' Paradise Lost/ or Hudi-
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 541
brastic rhymes, because such rhymes would be shocking in Pope's
Iliad.
As to the particular criticisms which you have made, I will
ingly submit my judgment to yours, though I think I could say
something on the other side. The first rule of all writing — that
rule to which every other is subordinate — is that the words used
by the writer shall be such as most fully and precisely convey his
meaning to the great body of his readers. All considerations about
the dignity and purity of style ought to bend to this consideration.
To write what is not understood in its whole force for fear of using
some word which was unknown to Swift or Dryden, would be, I
think, as absurd as to build an Observatory like that at Oxford,
from which it is impossible to observe, only for the purpose of
exactly preserving the proportions of the Temple of the Winds at
Athens. That a word which is appropriate to a particular idea,
which everybody high and low uses to express that idea, and which
expresses that idea with a completeness which is not equalled by
any other single word, and scarcely by any circumlocution, should
be banished from writing, seems to be a mere throwing away of
power. Such a word as ' talented ' it is proper to avoid ; first, be
cause it is not wanted ; secondly, because you never have it from
those who speak very good English. But the word ' shirk ' as
applied to military duty is a word which everybody uses ; which
is the word, and the only word for the thing; which in every
regiment, and in every ship, belonging to our country is employed
ten times a day; which the Duke of Wellington, or Admiral
Stopford, would use in reprimanding an officer. To interdict it,
therefore, in what is meant to be familiar, and almost jocose, nar
rative seems to me rather rigid. But I will not go on. I will
only repeat that I am truly grateful for your advice, and that if
you will, on future occasions, mark with an asterisk any words in
my proof sheets which you think open to objection, I will try to
meet your wishes, though it may sometimes be at the expense of
my own.
Ever yours most truly,
T. B. MACAULAY.
24*
542 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
CCCXXXI.
This remarkable letter, •written by tlie historian of the Great
Peace (1800-1815), to an Anti-Slavery friend in America, will be
read with as much interest to-day as it was when republished in
England a quarter of a century ago, after the outbreak of the
Crimean War.
Harriet Martineau to a Friend in America.
October 1, 1849.
My dear . . . , — We can think of little else at present than
of that which should draw you and us into closer sympathy than
even that which has so long existed between us. We, on our side
the water, have watched with keen interest the progress of your
War of Opinion, — the spread of the great controversy which can
not but revolutionise your social principles and renovate your social
morals. For fifteen years past, we have seen that you are ' in for
it/ and that you must stand firm amidst the subversion of Ideas,
Customs, and Institutions, till you find yourselves encompassed by
' the new beavens and the new earth ' of which you have the sure
promise and foresight.
We, — the whole population of Europe, — are now evidently
entering upon a stage of conflict no less important in its issues, and
probably more painful in its course. You remember how soon
after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars our great Peace Minis
ter, Canning, intimated the advent, sooner or later, of a War of
Opinion in Europe ; a war of deeper significance than Napoleon
could conceive of, and of a wider spread than the most mischievous
of his quarrels. The War of Opinion which Canning foresaw was
in fact a war between the further and nearer centuries, — between
Asia and Europe — between despotism and self-government. The
preparations were begun long ago. The Barons of Runnymede
beat up for recruits when they hailed the signature of Magna
Charta, and the princes of York and Lancaster did their best to
clear the field for us, and those who are to come after us. The
Italian Republics wrought well for us, and so did the French
Revolutions, one after the other, as hints and warnings ; and so
did the voyage of your Mayflower — and the Swiss League, and
German Zollverein, and in short everything that has happened for
1877J ENGLISH LETTERS. 543
several hundreds of years. Everything has tended to bring our
continent and its resident nations to the knowledge that the first
principles of social liberty have now to be asserted and contended
for, and to prepare the assertors for the greatest conflict that the
human race has yet witnessed. It is my belief that the war has
actually begun, and that, though there may be occasional lulls, no
man now living will see the end of it.
Russia is more Asiatic than European. It is obscure to us
who live nearest to her where her power resides. We know only
that it is not with the Emperor, nor yet with the people. The
Emperor is evidently a mere show, — being nothing except while he
fulfils the policy or pleasure of the unnamed power which we can
not discern. But, though the ruling power is obscure, the policy
is clear enough. The aim is to maintain and extend despotism ;
and the means chosen are the repression of mind, the corruption of
conscience, and the reduction of the whole composite population of
Russia to a brute machine. For a great lapse of time, no quarter
of a century has passed without some country and nation having
fallen in, and become a compartment of the great machine ; and,
the fact being so, the most peace-loving of us can hardly be sorry
that the time has come for deciding whether this is to go on, —
whether the Asiatic principle and method of social life are to domi
nate or succumb. The struggle will be no contemptible one. The
great tarantula has its spiderclaws out and fixed at inconceivable
distances. The people of Russia, wretched at home, are better
qualified for foreign aggression than for any thing else.
And if, within her own empire, Russia knows all to be loose
and precarious, poor and unsound, and -with none but a military
organisation, she knows that she has for allies, avowed or concealed,
all the despotic tempers that exist among men. Not only such
governments as those of Spain, Portugal, Rome and Austria, are in
reality the allies of Eastern barbarism ; but all aristocracies, all
self-seekers, be they who and where they may. It is a significant
sign of the times that territorial alliances are giving way before
political affinities, the mechanical before the essential union; and,
if Russia has not for allies the nations that live near her frontier,
she has those men of every nation who prefer self-will to freedom.
This corrupted ' patriarchal ' system of society (but little su
perior to that which exists in your slave States) occupies one-half
544 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
of the great battle-field where the hosts are gathering for the fight.
On the other, the forces are ill-assorted, ill-organised, too little pre
pared ; but still, as having the better cause, sure, I trust, of final
victory. The conflict must be long, because our constitutions are,
like yours, compromises, our governments as yet a mere patch
work, our popular liberties scanty and adulterated, and great
masses of our brethren hungry and discontented. We have not a
little to struggle for among ourselves, when our whole force is
needed against the enemy. In no country of Europe is the repre
sentative system of government more than a mere beginning. In
no country of Europe is human brotherhood practically asserted.
Nowhere are the principles of civilisation of Western Europe
determined and declared, and made the ground-work of organised
action, as happily your principles are as against those of your
slave-holding opponents.
But, raw and ill-organised as are our forces, they will be strong
sooner or later, against the serried armies of the Asiatic policy.
If, on the one side, the soul comes up to battle with an imperfect
and ill- defended body, on the other, the body is wholly without a
soul, and must, in the end, fall to pieces. The best part of the
mind of Western Europe will make itself a body by dint of action,
and the pressure which must bring out its forces ; and it may be
doubted whether rb could become duly embodied in any other way.
What forms of society may arise as features of this new growth,
neither you nor I can say. We can only ask each other whether,
witnessing as we do the spread of Communist ideas in every free
nation of Europe, and the admission by some of the most cautious
and old-fashioned observers of social movements that we in Eng
land cannot now stop short of * a modified communism,' the result
is not likely to be a wholly new social state, if not as yet un
dreamed-of social idea. However this may be, while your slave
question is dominant in Congress, and the Dissolution of your
Union is becoming a familiar idea, and an avowed inspiration, our
crisis is no less evidently approaching. Russia has Austria under
her foot, and she is casting a corner of her wide pall over Turkey.
England and France are awake and watchful ; and so many men
of every country are astir, that we may rely upon it that not only
are territorial alliances giving way before political affinities, but
national ties will give way almost as readily, if the principles of
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 515
social liberty should demand the disintegration of nations. Let us
not say, even to ourselves, whether we regard such an issue with
hope or fear. It is a possibility too vast to be regarded but with
simple faith and patience. In this spirit let us contemplate what
is proceeding and what is coming, doing the little we can by the
constant assertion of the principles of social liberty, and a perpetual
watch for opportunities to stimulate human progress.
Whether your conflict will be merely a moral one, you can
form a better idea than I. Ours will consist in a long and bloody
warfare — possibly the last, but inevitable now.
The empire of brute force can conduct its final struggle only by
brute force ; and there are but few yet on the other side who have
any other notion or desire. While I sympathise wholly with you
as to your means as well as your end, you will not withhold your
sympathy from us because our heroes still assert their views and
wills by exposing themselves to wounds and death in the field
and assenting once more to the old non sequitur about Might and
Right. Let them this time obtain the lower sort of Might by the
inspiration of their Bight, and in another age, they will aim higher.
But I need not thus petition you ; for I well know that where
there is most of Right, there will your sympathies surely rest.
Believe me your friend,
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
CCCXXXH.
Miss Novello has knitted a purse for Douglas Jerrold, and
the pungent satirist bethinks himself with some shame of all
the cutting things he has said about woman. He sits down
accordingly to write a palinode, and thinks to conceal his fault
by lavishing compliments on the sex, but the cloven foot of the
would-be cynic peeps out.
Douglas Jerrold to Miss Sabilla Novdlo.
Putney Green : June 9, 1852.
Dear Miss Novello, — I thank you very sincerely for your pre
sent, though I cannot but fear its fatal effects upon my limited
fortunes, for it is so very handsome that whenever I produce it I
feel that I have thousands a year, and as in duty bound, am inclined
to pay accordingly. I shall go about, to the astonishment of all
onmibii men, insisting upon paying sovereigns for sixpences.
546 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
Happily, however, this amiable insanity will cure itself (or I
may always bear my wife with me as a keeper).
About this comedy. I am writing it under the most signifi
cant warnings. As the Eastern king — name unknown, at least to
me — kept a crier to warn him that he was but mortal and must
die, and so to behave himself as decently as it is possible for any
poor king to do, so do I keep a flock of eloquent geese that continu
ally, within ear-shot, cackle of the British public. Hence, I trust
to defeat the birds of the Haymarket by the birds of Putney. But
in this comedy I do contemplate such a heroine, as a set-off to the
many sins imputed to me as committed against woman, whom I have
always considered to be an admirable idea imperfectly worked out.
Poor soul ! she can't help that. Well, this heroine shall be woven
of moon- beams — a perfect angel, with one wing cut to keep her
among us. She shall be all devotion. She shall hand over her
lover (never mind his heart, poor wretch !), to her grandmother,
who she suspects is very fond of him, and then, disguising herself
as a youth, she shall enter the British navy and return in six
years, say, with epaulets on her shoulders, and her name in the
Navy List rated post-captain. You will perceive that I have
Madame Celeste in my eye — am measuring her for the uniform.
And young ladies will sit in the boxes, and with tearful eyes, and
noses like rose-buds, say, " What magnanimity ! " And when this
great work is done — this monument of the very best gilt ginger
bread to woman set up on the Haymarket stage, you shall, if you
will, go and see it, and make one to cry for the author, rewarding
him with a crown of tin-foil, and a shower of sugar-plums.
In lively hope of that ecstatic moment, I remain, yours truly,
DOUGLAS JERROLD.
CCCXXXIII.
Barry Cornwall was the first person to discover the quaint
fenius ot Beddoes, that Elizabethan dramatist born out of his
ue time, and struggling in vain against an unsympathetic gene
ration. Some of the best of Beddoes' letters, all of which teem
with forcible and original literary thought, were addressed to
Procter. It should perhaps be noticed that Ajax Flagellifer
was George Darley, then fulminating as critic to the ' London
Magazine/ and that the ' last author ' is Beddoes himself, who
was engaged in composing1 his ' Death's Jest-Book.'
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 647
Thomas Lovell Beddoes to Bryan Waller Procter.
Bristol : March 3, 1824.
Dear Procter, — I have just been reading your epistle to our
Ajax Flagellifer, the bloody John Lacy : on one point, where he is
most vulnerable, you have omitted to place your sting, — I mean
his palpable ignorance of the Elizabethans, and many other drama
tic writers of this and preceding times, with whom he ought to
have formed at least a nodding acquaintance, before he offered him
self as physician to Melpomene.
About Shakespeare you don't say enough. He was an incar
nation of nature, and you might just as well attempt to remodel
the seasons, and the laws of life and death, as to alter ' one jot or
tittle ' of his eternal thoughts. ' A star ' you call him : if he was
a star, all the other stage- scribblers can hardly be considered a
constellation of brass buttons. I say he was an universe ; and all
material existence, with its excellences and defects, was reflected in
shadowy thought upon the chrystal waters of his imagination,
ever-glorified as they were by the sleepless sun of his golden intel
lect. And this imaginary universe had its seasons and changes, its
harmonies and its discords, as well as the dirty reality ; on the snow-
maned necks of its winter hurricanes rode madness, despair, and
' empty death, with the winds whistling through the white grating
of his sides ; ' its summer of poetry, glistening through the drops of
pity ; and its solemn and melancholy autumn, breathing deep
melody among the ' sere and yellow leaves ' of thunder- stricken life,
&c. &c. (See Charles Phillips's speeches and X. Y. Z. for the
completing furbelow of this paragraph.) By the 3rd scene of the
4th act of Macbeth. I conclude that you mean the dialogue between
Malcolm and Macduff, which is only part of the scene; for the
latter part, from the entrance of Rosse, is of course necessary to
create an interest in the destined avenger of Duncan, as well as to
set the last edge to our hatred of the usurper. The Doctor's speech
is merely a compliment to the * right divine ' of people in turreted
night-caps to cure sores a little more expeditiously than Dr. Solo
mon ; and is, too, a little bit of smooth chat, to show, by MacdufFs
manner, that he has not yet heard of his wife's murder.
I hope Guzman has grown since I saw him, and has improved
in vice.
543 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
I shall be in London in about a week, and hope to find you in
your Franciscan eyrie — singing among the red brick boughs, and lay
ing tragedy-eggs for Covent Garden market. So you ' think this last
author will do something extraordinary : ' — so do I too ; I should not
at all wonder, if he was to be plucked for his degree, — which would
be quite delightful and new.
This March wind has blown all my sense away, and so fare
well.
CCCXXXIV.
The following letters have been selected from the recently
published Memoirs of the late Mr. C. J. Mathews, by one of his
personal friends, as being among the most characteristic of the
great comedian. It will be remarked that the genial freshness
and humour common to the first two letters is preserved in
the third, in spite of the lapse of more than half a century. But
then this highly accomplished gentleman was always young
and genial and kind.
Charles J. Mathews to his Father.
Crater of Vesuvius ! ! ! January 23, 1824.
My dear Father, — I flatter myself I have chosen a situation
sufficiently piquant to write you a letter. Here I am on that
mountain, the talk and wonder of the world, the terror of thou
sands ! Not merely on it, but positively in the crater ! in it ! !
surrounded with smoke and fire ! standing on ashes, cinders, brim
stone, and sulphur ! ! How little are the people I look down upon
at this moment ! They are like the Spanish fleet, they cannot be
seen ; the King and all the royal family, all the pomp of the world
is lost ; all its vices, virtues, pleasures, pains, are forgotten. How
truly may life be compared to a broomstick ! Now is the time, if
ever it can arrive, that Seven Dials, and even Islington, is for
gotten ! Now are the Tottenham, Olympic, and Royalty Theatres
despised ! What a scene of horror is around me ! Fields of deso
lation, burning torrents, smoke, liquid fire, and every implement
of destruction ! I can no more ; I am overwhelmed with the mag
nificence of my own imagination, I sink under the terrors invented
and embodied by my own poetical mind. Immediately below me
is an extinguished crater, into which three years ago a Frenchman
precipitated himself. He remained three days at a little hermitage
1877J ENGLISH LETTERS. 549
on the mountain, and wrote some notes to his friends in Naples.
His object, he said, was to collect stones and various specimens of
lava, for the Royal Museum afc Paris. On the third day he went
out as usual to collect and examine the volcanic matter on the
mountain, and on approaching this crater — then in action — desired
the guide to fetch him a particular stone at a little distance off,
but on the instant of his turning his back, he threw himself head
long into the burning crater. The guide instantly ran to the spot,
but only in time to see him thrown up, and immediately reduced
to a cinder. His reason he left among his papers. He said he
had long been disgusted with the world and had determined to
destroy himself, but that the last blow had been given him by a young
lady, to whom he was so much attached, having married in his
absence and contrary to her vows of fidelity to himself.
About half-way up the mountain is a hermitage, where we take
some refreshment on our journey, which is necessary enough, for
the labour is very great to arrive at the summit, walking on cin
ders, and each step that is taken brings the sufferer a yard lower
than he was before. In the hermitage is ail album, as usual in all
show places, for fools to write nonsense in. I only found two bits
worth copying. Les voila.
1 John Hallett of the Port of Poole, England, went to Mount
Vesuvius on the 20 of Oct. 1823, and I wood Recomend aney
person that go ther to take a bottle of wine there, for it his a dry
place and verrey bad rode.'
'1823. I have witnessed the famous mountain of Vesuvius in
Italy, and likewise the Wicklow mountains in Ireland which I
prefer, they talk of the lava in a Palaver I little understand, and
as for the crater, give me a drop of the swait cratur of Dublin in
preference. — James O'Connor.'
I write as you may suppose in high spirits, and conclude with
saying that thoug'i you and your spouse are only my distant rela
tions, that I shall always be entirely yours,
CHARLES JAMES MATHEWS.
650 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
ccoxxxv.
Charles J. Mathews to his Mother.
Palazzo Belvedere, Naples: March 11, 1824.
My dear Mother, — In snubbing me for my love of writing on
exterior subjects, or rather my not mentioning those of our interior,
you are not aware of what you desire. All our occupations nearly
are external, our indoor employments are always the same, and
therefore uninteresting in the description. But since you are
determined to be made acquainted with our domesticities I shall
give you one day.
In the morning we generally rise from our beds, couches, floors,
or whatever we happen to have been reposing upon the night
before, and those who have morning-gowns and slippers put them
on as soon as they are up. We then commence the ceremony of
washing, which is longer or shorter in its duration, according to
the taste of the persons who use it. You will be glad to know
that from the moment Lady Blessington awakes she takes exactly
one hour and a half to the time she makes her appearance, when
we usually breakfast ; this prescience is remarkably agreeable, as
we can always calculate thus upon the probable time of our break
fasting ; there is sometimes a difference of five or six minutes, but
seldom more. This meal taking place latish in the day, I always
have a premature breakfast in my own room the instant I am up,
which prevents my feeling that hunger so natural to the human
frame from long fasting. After our collation, if it be fine, we set
off to see sights, walks, palaces, monasteries, views, galleries of
pictures, antiquities, and all that sort of thing ; if rainy, we set to
drawing, writing, reading, billiards, fencing, and everything in the
^vorld. At dinner we generally contrive to lay in a stock of
viands that may last us through the evening and sometimes suc
ceed. After dinner, as well as several times in the course of the
day, we go up and pay a visit to poor ' Prim-rose,' 1 who, it is
supposed, will be allowed to walk a little in the course of two or
three months more. Should we leave before that she must go
home by sea, as the motion of a carriage would certainly much
injure her.
1 Miss Power, Lady Blessington's sister.
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 551
In the evening each person arranges himself (and herself) at
his table and follows his own concerns till about 10 o'clock, when
we sometimes play whist, sometimes talk, and are always de
lightful ! About half- past eleven we retire with our flat candle
sticks in our hands, after wishing each other the compliments of
the season and health to wear it out. Thursdays usually, and
Sundays, the Italian master comes, though for the present we
have dropped him.
MORE PARTICULARS.
At dinner Lady B takes the head of the table, Lord B
left, Count D'Orsay on her right, and I at the bottom. We have
generally for the first service a joint and five entrees; for the
second, a roti and five entrees, including sweet things. The name
of our present cook is Raffelle, and a very good one when he likes.
This is the nature of our day in the house. Almost all the
interest of Naples, and indeed of all Italy, is among the wonderful
curiosities with which every city and its environs is overstocked.
I am more and more anxious to know the result of my
father's entertainment. With best love to him, believe me, my
dear mother,
Your affectionate Son,
C. J. MATHEWS.
P.S. Lord B always cuts his own hair with a pair of
scissors ! ! !
CCCXXXVI.
Written the year before his death at the age of 74, on the
occasion of a benefit to the late Mr. John Parry, when Mr.
Matkews was to play Sir Fretful Plagiary and Puff in the
'Critic.'
Charles J. Mathews to the Manager of the Gaiety Theatre.
59, Belgrave Road : February 6, 1877, 4 p.m.
I cannot tell you how disappointed I am at not being able to
assist at the benefit of my dear old friend John Parry to-morrow.
I should have been delighted to put my best leg forward. But
alas ! ab this moment I have no one leg that is better than the
other. That agreeable complaint, so airily spoken of by those who
never had it, as ' a touch of the gout,' has knocked me off my pins
652 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
altogether. Your gout is a sad enemy to light comedy (we young
light comedians are only men after all) and how could I, in the
character of Puff, talk to Sneer and Dangle of my ' hopping and
skipping about the stage with my usual activity/ while hobbling
on by the aid of a stick ? (I have sometimes been badly supported
even by two).
It is the first time I ever disappointed the public on a similar
occasion, and only comfort myself with the reflection that I shall
not be missed among so many; and that, after all, so that the
illustrious John be in good form, the audience will be amply grati
fied, and pardon my unavoidable absence.
I need not wish Parry success — one who has never known any
thing else, and can only envy those who are able once more to
witness and enjoy it.
I send no doctor's certificate. I wish I was enabled to do so.
But if any one doubts, all the harm I wish him is that he should
exchange places with me for four-and- twenty hours.
Faithfully yours,
C. J. MATHEWS.
CCCXXXVII.
A chatty letter from the pen of the popular novelist,
written when he was at the meridian of his literary fame, will
probably be interesting.
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton to Lady Blessington.
January 23, 1835.
Yerily, my dearest friend, you regale me like Prince Pretty-
man, in the Fairy Isle. I owe you all manner of thanks for a
most delicate consideration, in the matter of twelve larks, which
flew hither on the wings of friendship yesterday ; and scarcely had
I recovered from their apparition, when lo, the rushing pinions of
a brace of woodcocks.
Sappho and other learned persons tell us that Venus drove
sparrows ; at present she appears to have remodelled her equipage
upon a much more becoming and attractive feather. I own that
I have always thought the Dove himself a fool to the Woodcock,
whom, for his intrinsic merits, I would willingly crown King of
the tribe. As for your eagle, he is a Carlist of the old regime, a
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 653
mere Bourbon, good for nothing, and pompous ; but the Wood
cock, parlez moi de ga, he has the best qualities both of head and
heart ; and as for beauty, what opera-dancer ever had such a leg ?
I have given their two majesties into Rembault's honourable
charge, and hope they will be crowned to-morrow as a matter of
COURSE.
Many thanks for the volume of Monsr. de B . . . — You are
right. I never s-iw a cooler plagiarism in my life. I shall cer
tainly retaliate upon M. de B . . . the moment I can find anything
in him worth stealing ! Yet the wretch has talent, and his French
seems to me purer and better (but I am a very poor judge) than
that of most of his contemporaries. But then he has no elevation,
and therefore no true genius, and has all the corruptions of vice
without her brilliancy. Good Heaven ! has the mighty mischief
of Yoltaire transmigrated into such authorlings. They imitate his
mockery, his satire. They had much better cobble shoes.
I don't (pardon me) believe a word you say about the ' Two
Friends.' If it have no passion, ib may be an admirable novel
nevertheless. Miss Edge worth has no passion; — and who in her
line excels her ?
As to your own doubts they fore bell your success. I have
always found, one is never so successful as when one is least san
guine. I fell in the deepest despondency about ' Pompeii ' and
' Eugene Aram ' ; and was certain, nay, most presumptuous about
' Devereux,' which is the least generally popular of my writings.
Your feelings of distrust are presentiments to be read back
ward ; they are the happiest omens. But I will tell you all about
it — Brougham-like — when I have read the book. As to what I
say in the preface to ' Pelham,' the rules that I lay down may not
suit all. But it may be worth while to scan over two or three
common-place books of general criticism, such as Blair's ' Belles
Lettres,' Campbell's ' Rhetoric/ and Schlegel's * Essay on the
Drama,' and his brother's on ' Literature.'
They are, it is true, very mediocre, and say nothing of novels
to signify ; but they will suggest to a thoughtful mind a thousand
little maxims of frequent use. Recollect all that is said of poetry
and the drama may be applied to novels ; but after all, I doubt
not you will succeed equally without this trouble. Reflection in
one's chamber, and action in the world, are the best critics. With
554 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
them we can dispense with other teachers; without them all
teachers are in vain. l Fool ! ' (says Sidney in the Arcadia), ' Fool !
look in thy heart and write ! ' E. L. B.
CCCXXXVIII.
' Hand Immemor ' is the title of a brochure written and pri
vately printed in Philadelphia fifteen years ago in memory of
the late Mr. Thackeray. It consists of a few personal recollec
tions of the gentleman to whom the following letters were
written, and with whom Mr. Thackeray became intimately
acquainted on the occasion of his visit to America in 1853 for
the purpose of delivering a course of lectures on the English
Humourists. Mr. Reed remarks: ' There are two classes of
people in every American microcosm, those who run after cele
brities, and those, resolute not to be pleased, who run, as it were,
against them. All were won. or conquered by his simple
naturalness.' As the brochure, containing the following and
other letters from the pen of the great satirist, was published
some years ago in f Blackwood/ the editor is glad to be able to
enrich his collection with two such characteristic examples with
out disrespect to their author's objection to the publication of his
correspondence.
William M. Thackeray to the Hon. W. B. Reed.
Mr. Anderson's Music Store, Penn's Avenue,
Friday ,(1853.)
My dear Reed, — (I withdraw the Mr. as wasteful and ridiculous
excess), and thank you for the famous autograph, and the kind
letter enclosing it, and the good wishes you form for me. There
are half a dozen houses I already know in Philadelphia where I
could find very pleasant friends and company ; and that good old
library would give me plenty of acquaintance more. But home
and my parents there, and some few friends I have made in the
25 years, and a tolerably fair prospect of an honest livelihood on
the familiar London flag-stones, and the library at the Athenaeum,
and the ride in the Park, and the pleasant society afterwards ; and
a trip to Paris now and again, and to Switzerland and Italy in
the summer — these are little temptations which make me not dis
contented with my lot, about which I grumble only for pastime,
and because it is an Englishman's privilege.
Own now that all these recreations here enumerated have a
pleasant sound. I hope I shall live to enjoy them yet a little
18771 ENGLISH LETTERS. 655
while, before I go to ' Nox et domus exilis Plutonia/ whither poor,
kind, old Peter has vanished. So that Saturday I was to have
dined with him, and Mrs. Peter wrote, saying, he was ill with
influenza, he was in bed with his last illness, and there were to be
no more Whister parties for him. Will Whister himself, hos
pitable, pig- tailed shade, welcome him to Hades ? And will they
sit down — no, stand up — to a ghostly supper, devouring the
l<l>Bip.ovQ ^i>x»7e of oysters and all sorts of birds 1 I never feel pity
for a man dying, only for survivors, if there be such, passionately
deploring him.
You see the pleasures the undersigned proposes to himself here
in future years — a sight of the Alps, a holiday on the Rhine, a
ride in the Park, a colloquy with pleasant friends of an evening.
If it is death to part with these delights (and pleasures they are
and no mistake), sure the mind can conceive others afterwards ;
and I know one small philosopher who is quite ready to give up
these pleasures ; quite content (after a pang or two of separation
from dear friends here), to put his hand into that of the summoning
Angel and say, ' Lead on, O messenger of God our Father, to the
next place whither the Divine Goodness calls us.' We must be
blindfolded before we can pass, I know ; but I have no fear about
what is to come, any more than my children need fear that the
love of their father should fail them. I thought myself a dead
man once, and protest the notion gave me no disquiet about myself
— at least the philosophy is more comfortable than that which is
tinctured with brimstone.
The Baltimoreans flock to the stale old lectures as numerously
as you to ... Philadelphia. Here, the audiences are more polite
than numerous ; but the people who do come are very well pleased
with their entertainment. I have had many dinners — Mr. Everett,
Mr. Fish, our Minister, ever so often the most hospitable of envoys.
I have seen no one at all in Baltimore, for it is impossible to do
the two towns together ; and from this I go to Richmond and
Charleston — not to New Orleans, which is too far. And I hope
you will make out your visit to Washington, and that we shall
make out a meeting more satisfactory than that dinner at New
York, which did not come off. The combination failed which I
wanted to bring about. Have you heard Miss Furness of Phila
delphia sing 1 She is the very best ballad-singer I ever heard. And
556 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
will you please remember me to Mrs. Reed, and your brother, and
Wharton, and Lewis, and his pretty young daughter ; and believe
me, always faithfully yours, dear Reed,
W. M. THACKERAY.
CCCXXXIX.
William M. Thackeray to the Hon. W. B. Reed.
Neufchatel, Switzerland : July 21, 1853.
My dear Reed, — Though I am rather slow in paying the tailor,
I always pay him ; and as with tailors, so with men ; I pay my
debts to my friends, only at rather a long day. Thank you for
writing to me so kindly, you who have so much to do. I have
only began to work ten days since, and now, in consequence, have
little leisure. Before, since my return from the West, it was
flying from London to Paris, and vice versa — dinners right and
left — parties every night. If I had been in Philadelphia, I could
scarcely have been more feasted. Oh, you unhappy Reed ! I see
you (after that little supper with McMichael) on Sunday, at your
own table, when we had that good sherry-madeira, turning aside
from the wine cup with your pale face ! That cup has gone down
this well so often, that I wonder the cup isn't broken, and the well
as well as it is. Three weeks of London were more than enough
for me, and I feel as if I had had enough of it and of pleasure.
Then I remained a month with my parents ; then I brought my
girls on a little pleasuring tour. We spent 10 days at Baden, when
I set intrepidly to work again ; and have been five days in Swit
zerland now, not bent on going up mountains, but on taking
things easily. How beautiful it is ! How pleasant ! How great
and affable, too, the landscape is ! It's delightful to be in the
midst of such scenes — the ideas get generous reflections from them.
I don't mean to say my thoughts grow mountainous and enormous
like the Alpine chain yonder — but, in fine, it is good to be in the
presence of this noble nature. It is keeping good company ; keep
ing away mean thoughts. I see in the papers now and again
accounts of fine parties in London. Bon Dieu ! Is it possible
any one ever wanted to go to fine London parties, and are there
now people sweating in May-fair routs ?
The European Continent swarms with your people. They are
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 557
not all as polished as Chesterfield. I wish some of them spoke
French a little better. I saw five of them at supper, at Basle, the
other night with their knives down their throats. It was awful.
My daughter saw it, and I was obliged to say : ' My dear, your
great-great grandmother, one of the finest ladies of the old school I
ever saw, always applied cold steel to her victuals. It's no crime
to eat with a knife,' which is all very well, but I wish five of 'em
at a time wouldn't.
Will you please beg McMichael, when Mrs. Glyn, the English
tragic actress, comes to read Shakespeare in your city, to call on
her — do the act of kindness to her, and help her with his valuable
editorial aid ] I wish we were going to have another night soon,
and that I was going this very evening to set you up with a head
ache against to-morrow morning. By Jove, how kind you all
were to me ! How I like people, and want to see 'em again !
You are more tender-hearted, romantic, sentimental, than we are.
I keep on telling this to our fine people here, and have so bela
boured your — (Here, the paper on being turned revealed a pen
and ink caricature. At the top is written, ' Pardon this rubbish
ing picture : but I didn't see, and can't afford to write page 3 over
again) — your country with praise in private that I sometimes
think I go too far. I keep back some of the truth : but the great
point to try and ding into the ears of the great, stupid, virtue-
proud English is, that there are folks as good as they in America.
That's where Mrs. Stowe's book has done harm, by inflaming us
with an idea of our own superior virtue in freeing our blacks,
whereas you keep yours. Comparisons are always odorous, as Mrs.
Malaprop says.
I am about a new story, but don't know as yet if it will be
any good. It seems to me I am too old for story telling ; but I
want money, and shall get 20,000 dollars for this, of which (D.V.)
I'll keep fifteen. I wish this rubbish (the sketch) were away ; I
might put written rubbish in its stead. Not that I have anything
to say, but that I always remember you and yours, and honest
Mac, and Wharton, and Lewis, and kind fellows who have been
kind to me, and I hope will be kind to me again.
Good bye, my dear Heed, and believe me, ever sincerely yours,
W. M. THACKERAY.
25
558 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
CCOXL.
The greatest proof of Charles Dickens's high spirits was the
inventive skill he devoted (with no little expenditure of time)
to such whimsical jokes as that of pretending an attachment to
the Queen. The following letter, written immediately after her
Majesty's marriage in 1840, was addressed to his friend, Mr. T.
J. Thompson, the father of the painter of the ' Roll Call.' Mr.
Wakley, to whom reference is made in Mr. Dickens's postscript,
was coroner at that date.
Charles Dickem to Mr. T. J. Thompson.
Devonshire Terrace : Thursday morning. [1840.]
My dear Thompson, — .... Maclise and I are raving with
love for the Queen, with a hopeless passion whose extent no tongue
can tell, nor mind of man conceive. On Tuesday we sallied down
to Windsor, prowled about the Castle, saw the corridor and their
private rooms, Nay, the very bedchamber (which we know from
having been there twice), lighted up with such a ruddy, homely,
brilliant glow, bespeaking so much bliss and happiness, that I, your
humble servant, lay down in the mud at the top of the Long Walk
and refused all comfort — to the immeasurable astonishment of a
few straggling passengers who had survived the drunkenness of the
previous night. After perpetrating sundry other extravagances,
we returned home at midnight in a post-chaise, and now we wear
marriage medals next our hearts and go about with pockets full of
portraits, which we weep over in secret. Forster was with us at
Windsor, and (for the joke's sake), counterfeits a passion too, BUT
HE DOES NOT LOVE HER.
Don't mention this unhappy attachment. I am very wretched,
and think of leaving my home. My wife makes me miserable, and
when I hear the voices of my infant children, I burst into tears.
I fear it is too late to ask you to take this house, now that you
have made such arrangements of comfort in Pall Mall ; but if you
will, you shall have it very cheap — furniture at a low valuation —
money not being so much an object as escaping from the family.
For God's sake turn this matter over in your mind, and please to
ask Captain Kincaide wbat lie asks — his lowest terms, in short,
for ready money — for that post of Gentleman-at-Arms. I must
be near her, and I see no better way than that — for the present.
I have on hand three numbers of ' Master Humphrey's Clock,'
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 559
and the two first chapters of e Barnaby.' Would you like to buy
them ? "Writing any more in my present state of mind is out of the
question. They are written in a pretty fair hand, and when I am in
the Serpentine may be considered curious. Name your own terms.
I know you don't like trouble, but I have ventured, notwith
standing, to make you an executor of my will. There won't be. a
great deal to do, as there is no money. There is a little bequest
having reference to HER which you might like to execute. I have
heard on the Lord Chamberlain's authority that she reads my
books and is very fond of them. I think she will be sorry when
I am gone. I should wish to be embalmed, and to be kept (if
practicable), on the top of the Triumphal Arch at Buckingham
Palace when she is in town, and on the north-east turrets of the
Hound Tower when she is at Windsor
.... From your distracted and blighted friend,
C. D.
Don't show this to Mr. Wakley if it ever comes to that.
CCOXLI.
Two days after the birth of his fifth child Charles Dickens
received an invitation from three of his intimate friends to dine
at Richmond. This is the amusing reply.
Charles Dickens to Messrs. Forster, Maclise, and Stanfield.
Devonshire Lodge : January 17, 1844.
Fellow Countrymen, — The appeal with which you have hon
oured me, awakens within my breast emotions that are more
easily to be imagined than described. Heaven bless you. I shall
indeed be proud, my friends, to respond to such a requisition. I
had withdrawn from Public Life — I fondly thought for ever — to
pass the evening of my days in hydropathical pursuits, and the
contemplation of virtue. For which latter purpose, I had bought
a looking-glass. But, my friends, private feeling must ever yield
to a stern sense of public duty. The Man is lost in the Invited
Guest, and I comply. Nurses, wet and dry; apothecaries;
mothers-in-law ; babbies ; with all the sweet (and chaste) delights
of private life; these, my countrymen, are hard to leave. But
you have called me forth, and I will come. Fellow Countrymen,
your friend and faithful servant, CHARLES DICKENS.
6GO ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
CCCXLII.
Mrs, Cowden Clarke joined Dickens' Amateur Dramatic Com
pany in 1848 and took the part of Dame Quickly with much
success. She has recorded with pleasant enthusiasm the gaiety
and joyous excitement of this frolic stroll through the pro
vinces of which Dickens was the heart and soul. The troupe
returned to London to find ordinary life very dull and hum
drum, and it was in the midst of this first natural depression
that the ' Implacable Manager ' wrote this engaging note. The
initials Y.G. and G.L.B. refer to the names Dickens had given
himself of Young Gas, and Gas-Light Boy.
Charles Dickens to Mary Cowden Clarke.
Devonshire Terrace : July 22, 1848.
My dear Mrs. Clarke, — I have no energy whatever, I am very
miserable. I loathe domestic hearths. I yearn to be a vagabond.
Why can't I marry Mary1? Why have I seven children — not
engaged at sixpence a- night a-piece, and dismissible for ever, if they
tumble down, not taken on for an indefinite time at a vast ex
pense, and never, — no never, never, — wearing lighted candles
round their heads. I am deeply miserable. A real house like
this is insupportable, after that canvas farm wherein I was so
happy. What is a humdrum dinner at half-past five, with nobody
(but John) to see me eat it, compared with that soup, and the hun
dreds of pairs of eyes that watched its disappearance? Forgive
this tear. It is weak and foolish, I know.
Pray let me divide the little excursional excesses of the journey
among the gentlemen, as I have always done before, and pray
believe that I have had the sincerest pleasure and gratification in
your co-operation and society, valuable and interesting on all
public accounts, and personally of no mean worth nor held in
slight regard.
You had a sister once when we were young and happy — 1
think they called her Emma. If she remember a bright being
who once flitted like a vision before her, entreat her to bestow a
thought upon the ' Gas ' of departed joys. I can write no more.
« Y. G.' The (darkened) « G. L. B.'
1877J ENGLISH LETTERS. 561
CCCXLIII.
Written on the occasion of the youngest child of Charles
Dickens leaving home to join his brother in Australia. Mr.
Forster, in his Life of this most widely popular of modern
writers, says of this letter, * Those who most intimately knew
Dickens will know best that every word is written from his
heart, and is radiant with the truth of his nature.'
Charles Dickens to his Youngest Child.
September, 1868.
I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon
my mind, and because I want you to have a few parting words
from me, to think of now and then at quiet times. I need not
tell you that I love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my
heart to part with you. But this life is half made up of partings,
and these pains must be borne. It is my comfort and ray sincere
conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are best
fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than
any experiment in a study or office would have been : and without
that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupa
tion. What you have always wanted until now, has been a set,
steady, constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a
thorough determination to do whatever you have to do, as well as
you can do it. I was not so old as you are now, when I first Lad
to win my food, and to do it out of this determination ; and I
have never slackened in it since. Never take a mean advantage
of any one in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who
are in your power. Try to do to others as you would have them
do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is
much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest
rule laid down by Our Saviour than that you should. I put a
New Testament among your books for the very same reasons, and
with the very same hopes, that made me write an easy account of
it for you, when you were a little child. Because it is the best
book that ever was, or will be, known in the world ; and because
it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature, who
tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be guided.
As your brothers have gone away, one by one, I have written to
5G2 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
each such words as I am now writing to you, and have entreated
them all to guide themselves by this Book, putting aside the inter
pretations and inventions of man. You will remember that you
have never at home been harassed about religious observances, or
mere formalities. I have always been anxious not to weary my
children with such things, before they are old enough to form
opinions respecting them. You will therefore understand the
better that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and
beauty of the Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself,
and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but
heartily respect it. Only one thing more on this head. The more
we are in earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold
forth about it. Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying
your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never
abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it. I hope you
will always be able to s?y in after life, that you had a kind father.
You cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so
happy, as by doing your duty.
CCCXLIV.
So many of the Rev. F. W. Robertson's letters are charac
teristic of their writer, and the writer himself was so great and
good a man that even in this book of specimens one hesitates
to intrude such fragmentary recognition of him without apology.
No man in our day has exercised greater self-denial in the pursuit
of the high function of influencing men for good. The bodilv
disease which afflicted and troubled him so poignantly might
have been cured had he taken needful rest ; hut he never seems
to have relaxed for a single moment the fascinating grasp which
his strong liberalism, his devout earnestness, and particularly
his fearlessness of purpose enabled him to retain over his con
gregation and his personal friends.
As Mr. Stopford Brooke, his biographer, remarks, f He seems
to have been rather felt than seen by men.'
The Rev. F. W. Robertson to .
July, 1851.
I wish I did not hate preaching so much, but the degradation
of being a Brighton preacher is almost intolerable. * I cannot dig,
to beg I am ashamed ; ' but I think there is not a hard-working
artisan whose work does not seem to me a worthier and higher
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 563
being than myself. I do not depreciate spiritual work — I hold
it higher than secular ; all I say and feel is, that by the change
of times the pulpit has lost its place. It does only part of that
whole which used to be done by it alone. Once it was newspaper,
schoolmaster, theological treatise, a stimulant to good works, histo
rical lecture, metaphysics, &c., all in one. Now these are par
titioned out to different officers, and the pulpit is no more the
pulpit of three centuries back, than the authority of a master of a
household is that of Abraham, who was soldier, butcher, sacrificer,
shepherd, and emir in one person. Nor am I speaking of the
ministerial office ; but only the * stump orator ' portion of it — and
that I cannot but hold to be thoroughly despicable. I had an
hour's baiting from Mrs. yesterday, in reference, no doubt, to
what the papers have been saying, and to reports of my last
sermons. She talked very hotly of the practice of laying all
faults at the door of the aristocracy, whereas it was the rich city
people, on whom she lavished all her (supposed) aristocratic scorn,
who were in fault, because they would live like nobles. Besides,
did not the nobles spend their money, and was not that support of
the poor ^ I wasted my time in trying to explain to her that
expenditure is not production ; that ^50,000 a year spent is not
£50,000 worth of commodities produced, and adds nothing to the
real wealth of the country. I tried to show her that twenty
servants are not supported by their master, but by the labourers
^who raisa their corn and make their clothes ; and that twenty
beings taken off the productive classes throws so much more labour
upon those classes. Of course such things are necessary; only
employment does not create anything. Men engaged in carrying
dishes or in making useless roads are employed, no doubt. But
this labour does the country no good ; and the paying of them for
their labour, or the mere giving in charity, may make a fairer dis
tribution of the wealth there is, but does not go one step towards
altering the real burden of the country or producing new wealth.
Extravagant expenditure impoverishes the country. This simple
fact I could not make her comprehend. Then she got upon poli
tical preaching — abused it very heartily — acknowledged that
religion had to do with man's political life, but said a clergyman's
duty is to preach obedience to the powers that be — was rather
puzzled when I asked her whether it were legitimate to preach
504 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
from James v. 1 : ' Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl,' &c.
— asked whether it was possible for old women and orphans to
understand such subjects, to which I replied, ' No ; and if a clergy
man refuse to touch on such subjects, which belong to real
actual life, the men will leave his church ; and, as is the case in
the Church of England, he will only have charity orphans who are
compelled to go, and old women to preach to.'
On Monday I had a long visit from . He wanted me to
preach in Percy Chapel for some schools. I refused. The system
of l starring ' it through the country is a contemptible one. If
there is a feeble light in any man, the glowworm is the type which
nature has given for his conduct, to shine or glimmer quietly in
his own place, and let the winged insects come to the light if they
like. "Whereas the fireflies which fly in the West Indies, ob
truding themselves about in people's faces, are caught and put
under a watch-glass by the inhabitants, to show them what o'clock
it is by night. When they have been used up they are thrown
aside, and no one stops to see whether they live or die. The quiet
little glowworm is seen only by those that love it. Birds of prey
are asleep. What a pretty little fable might be made of this !
For men and women it is true. She who will be admired, flashing
her full-dressed radiance in the foolish or rather wise world's face,
will be treated like the firefly, used to light up a party or to flirt
with, and then &c. &c.
CCCXLV.
The Rev. F. W. Robertson to
My dear , — I implore you, do not try morphine ever, no,
not once. I will trust you not to do so, not to take any opiate
whatever. I ask it humbly. Pledge me your word that you will
honourably comply with this, in the letter and in the spirit too.
It is a wicked and cowardly attempt to rule the spirit by the flesh.
It is beneath you. If you do it I can honour you no longer ; the
results upon the system are slow, sure, and irreparable, and the
habit grows until it is unconquerable. I am deeply, anxiously in
earnest. You are not worthy the fidelity of my friendship if you
try to drown misery in that way. Except in the grossness of the
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 565
effect, where is the difference between the opiate and the dram 1
Do you not know what keeps the gin palaces open? — Misery !
The miserable go there to forget. You must not, and shall not do
it, for it is degradation. I would have you condescend to no
miserable materialism to escape your sorrow. Remember what
Maria Theresa said when she began to doze in dying, ' I want to
meet my God awake.' Remember that He refused the medicated
opiate on the cross. Meet misery awake. May I borrow sacred
words : ' Having begun in the spirit, do not be made perfect
through the flesh.' Summon the force to bear out of your own
heart, and the divine that dwells there — not out of a laudanum
bottle. I have spoken ruggedly, but not rudely. Forgive me ; I
am not myself to-night ; I would gladly sustain the depression I
feel, by opiate, or by anything else ; but I resist, because it is
despicable.
Yours, &c.
CCCXLVI.
Charles Kingsley at the outset of his curate life was vege
tating in a somewhat primitive fashion in a thatched cottage at
Eversley. Except at Sandhurst, there was no society in and
about his parish, and he makes the following plaintive appeal to
an old college friend.
The, Rev. Charles Kingsley to Mr. Wood.
Eversley: 1842.
Peter ! — Whether in the glaring saloons of Almack's, or
making love in the equestrian stateliness of the park, or the
luxurious recumbency of the ottoman, whether breakfasting at
one, or going to bed at three, them art still Peter, the beloved of
my youth, the staff of my academic days, the regret of my paro
chial retirement ! — Peter ! I am alone ! Around me are the
everlasting hills, and the everlasting bores of the country ! My
parish is peculiar for nothing but want of houses and abundance
of peat bogs ; my parishioners remarkable only for aversion to
education, and a predilection for fat bacon. I am wasting my
sweetness on the desert air — I say my sweetness, for I have given
up smoking, and smell no more. Oh, Peter, Peter, come down
and see me ! 0 that I could behold your head towering above the
fir-trees that surround my lonely dwelling. Take pity on me ! I
566 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
itm like a kitten in the washhouse copper with the lid on ! And,
Peter, prevail on some of your friends here to give me a day's
trout-fishing, for my hand is getting out of practice. But, Peter, I
am, considering the oscillations and perplex circumgurgitations of
this piece-meal world, an improved man. I am much more happy,
much more comfortable, reading, thinking, and doing my duty —
much more than ever I did before in my life. Therefore I am not
discontented with my situation or regretful that I buried my first-
class in a country curacy, like the girl who shut herself up in a
band-box on her wedding night (vide Rogers's * Italy '). And my
lamentations are not general (for I do not want an inundation of
the froth and tide-wash of Babylon the Great), but particular,
being solely excited by want of thee, oh Peter, who are very
pleasant to me, and wouldst be more so if thou wouldst come and
eat my mutton, and drink my wine, and admire my sermons, some
Sunday at Eversley.
Your faithful friend,
BOANERGES ROAR-AT-THE-CLODS.
CCCXLVIT.
Mr. James Brooke, a British subject, was cruising in the
Eastern Seas in his yacht, the ' Royalist ' (armed with a few six-
poimders), at the time the Dyaks were in a state of insur
rection at Sarawak against the Sultan of Borneo. Mr. Brooke
visited Sarawak and volunteered his aid in suppressing the
rebels. Some time afterwards the Sultan conferred on him the
title of Rajah and Governor of Sarawak.
Rajah Brooke set to work to reform the government, and
with the assistance of some English ships of war, he extir
pated piracy. Visiting England in 1848 he was created a
Knight Commander of the Bath. But certain influential people
who were hostile to his severe treatment of the natives charged
him with butchering unoffending people on the pretext of exter
minating a few pirates.
Mr, Kingsley did not share in tins view. { Westward Ho '
was dedicated to Rajah Sir James Brooke and Bishop Selwyn.
The Rev. Charles Kingsley to J. M. Ludloiv*
I have an old ' crow to pick with you ' about my hero, Rajah
Brooke \ and my spirit is stirred within me this morning by seeing
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 5G7
that the press are keeping up the attack d>n him for the Borneo
business. I say at once that I think he was utterly right and
righteous. If I had been in his place I would have done the same.
If it is to do again, I trust he will have courage to do it again.
But, thank God, just because it is done it will not have to be done
again.
The truest benevolence is occasional severity. It is expedient
that one man die for the people. One tribe exterminated, if need
be, to save a whole continent. ' Sacrifice of human life ! ' Prove
that it is human life. It is beast-life.
These Dyaks have put on the image of the beast, and they must
take the consequence. ' Value of life 1 ' Oh, Ludlow, read history ;
look at the world, and see whether God values mere physical
existence. Look at the millions who fall in war ; the mere fact
that savage races, though they breed like rabbits, never increase in
number ; and then, beware lest you reproach your Maker. Christ
died for them ] Yes, and He died for the whole creation as well —
the whole world, Ludlow — for the sheep you eat, the million
animalcules which the whale swallows at every gape. They shall
all be hereafter delivered into the glorious liberty of the children
of God ; but, as yet, just consider the mere fact of beasts of prey,
the countless destruction which has been going on for ages and
ages, long before Adam's fall, and then consider. Physical death is
no evil. It may be a blessing to the survivors. Else, why pestilence,
famine, Cromwell and Perrot in Ireland, Charlemagne hanging
four thousand Saxons over the Weser Bridge ; did not God bless
those terrible righteous judgments? Do you believe in the Old
Testament 1 Surely, then, say, what does that destruction of the
Canaanites mean ? If it was right, Rajah Brooke was right. If he
be wrong, then Moses, Joshua, David, were wrong. No ! I say.
Because Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of peace, because the meek
alone shall inherit the earth, therefore you Malays and Dyaks of
Sarawak, you also are enemies to peace. ' Your feet swift to shed
blood, the poison of asps under your lips ; ' you who have been
warned, reasoned with ; who have seen, in the case of the surround
ing nations, the strength and happiness which peace gives, and will
not repent, but remain still murderers and beasts of prey — You
are the enemies of Christ, the Prince of peace ; you are beasts, all
the more dangerous, because you have a semi-human cunning. I
568 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
will, like David, ' hate you with a perfect hatred, even as though
you were my enemies.' I will blast you out with grape and
rockets, ' I will beat you as small as the dust before the wind.'
You, the strange children that dissemble with me, shall fail, and be
exterminated, and be afraid out of your infernal river-forts, as the
old Canaanites were out of their hill-castles. I say, honour to a
man, who, amid all the floods of sentimental coward cant, which by
some sudden revulsion may, and I fear will, become coward cruelty,
dares act manfully on the broad sense of right, as Rajah Brooke
is doing. Oh, Ludlow, Ludlow, recollect how before the '89 men
were maundering about universal peace and philanthropy, too loving
to hate God's enemies, too indulgent to punish sin. Recollect how
Robespierre began by refusing, on conscientious principles, to assist
at the punishment of death ! Just read, read the last three
chapters of the Revelations, and then say whether these same
organs of destructiveness and combativeness, which we now-a-days,
in our Manich seism, consider as the devil's creation, may not be
part of the image of God, and Christ the Son of God, to be used
in His Service and to His glory, just as much as our benevolence
or our veneration. Consider — and the Lord give thee grace to
judge what I say. I may be wrong. But He will teach us birth ;
and show this to Maurice, and ask him if I am altogether a fiend
therein. . .
I have been seeing lately an intimate friend of Rajah Brooke,
and hearing things which make me love the man more and more.
I think the preserving that great line of coast from horrible
outrage, by destroying the pirate fleet, was loving his neighbour as
himself.
CCCXLVHI.
Of the three gifted daughters of the Rev. P. Bronte, of
Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte (Ourrer Bell) was the last sur
vivor. She died March 31, 1855. Although her writings were
frequently the subject of hostile criticism she modestly forbore
to assert herself. The privilege of telling an incurious public
the story of a pure and unselfish life was accorded to Mrs. Gas-
kell. Her estimate of the extent of the gap in the republic of
letters which the death of the authoress of ' Jane Eyre ' and .
' Villette ' had caused, was abundantly confirmed, and in no in
stance more worthily than in the following amende honorable
from the pen of the late Charles Kingsley.
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 569
The Eev. Charles Kingsley to Mrs. Gaskell.
St. Leonards : May 14, 1857.
Let me renew our long-interrupted acquaintance by compli
menting you on poor Miss Bronte's ' Life.' You have had a
delicate and a great work to do, and you have done it admirably.
Be sure that the book will do good. It will shame literary people
into some stronger belief that a simple, virtuous, practical home-
life, is consistent with high imaginative genius ; and it will shame,
too, the prudery of a not over cleanly though carefully white
washed age, into believing that purity is now (as in all ages till
now) quite compatible with the knowledge of evil. I confess that
the book has made me ashamed of myself. ' Jane Eyre ' I hardly
looked into, very seldom reading a work of fiction — yours, indeed,
and Thackeray's are the only ones I care to open. * Shirley '
disgusted me at the opening, and I gave up the writer and her
books with a notion that she was a person who liked coarseness.
How I misjudged her ! and how thankful I am that I never put a
word of my misconceptions into print, or recorded my rnisjudgments
of one who is a whole heaven above me.
Well have you done your work, and given us the picture of a
valiant woman made perfect by sufferings. I shall now read care
fully and lovingly every word she has written, especially those
poems, which ought not to have fallen dead as they did, and which
seem to be (from a review in the current Fraser) of remarkable
strength and purity.
CCCXLIX.
Mr. Charles Kingsley very much objected to be called
a ' Muscular Christian.' In taking notice of a review by a
clergyman in which this term is applied to him he is making an
exception to his rule never to reply to the critics.
The Rev. Charles Kingsley to a Clergyman.
October 19, 1858.
Dear Sir, — A common reviewer, however complimentary or
abusive, would have elicited no answer from me ; but in your notice
of me, there is — over and above undeserved kind words — an evident
earnestness to speak the truth and do good, which makes me write
570 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
frankly to you. You have used that, to me painful, if not offen
sive, term ' Muscular Christianity.' My dear Sir, I know of no
Christianity save one, "which is the likeness of Christ, and the same
for all men, viz., to be transformed into Christ's likeness, and to
consecrate to His service, as far as may be, all the powers of body,
soul, and spirit, regenerate and purified in His Spirit. All I wish to
do is, to cay to the strong and healthy man, even though he be not
very learned, or wise, or even delicate-minded — in the aesthetic
sense : * You too, can serve God with the powers which He has
given you. He will call you to account for them, just as much as
he will call the parson, or the devout lady/
You seem to be of the same mind as some good-natured youth,
who, in reviewing me the other day, said that I must never have
known aught but good health, never had an ache in my life.
As if one could know health, without having known sickness,
or joy — without having known sorrow ! . . . May God grant
that you may never go through what I have done of sickness,
weakness, misery, physical, mental, spiritual. You fancy that
I cannot sympathise with the struggles of an earnest spirit,
fettered, tormented, crushed to the very earth by bodily weak
ness and sickness. If I did not, I were indeed a stupid and
a bad man ; for my life for fifteen years was nothing else but that
struggle. But what if, when God gave to me suddenly and
strangely health of body and peace of mind, I learnt what a price
less blessing that corpus sanum was, and how it helped — humi
liating as the confession may be to spiritual pride — to the producing
of mentem sanam ? What if I felt bound to tell those who had
enjoyed all their life that health which was new to me, what a
debt they owed to God, how they must and how they might pay
that debt ? Whom have I wronged in so doing ? What, too, if it
has pleased God that I should have been born and bred and have
lived ever since in the tents of Esau 1 What if — by no choice of
my own — my relations, and friends should have been the hunters
and fighters ? What if, during a weakly youth, I was forced
to watch — for it was always before my eyes — Esau rejoicing
in his strength, and casting away his birthright for a mess
of pottage 1 What if, by long living with him, I have learnt
to love him as my own soul, to understand him, his capa
bilities, and weaknesses ? Whom have I wronged therein ] What
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 571
if I said to myself, Jacob has a blessing, but Esau has one also,
though his birthright be not his ; and what blessing he has he shall
know of, that he may earn it ? Jacob can do well enough without
me. He has some 15,000 clergy, besides dissenting preachers,
taking care of him (though he is pretty well able to take care of
himself, and understands sharp practice as well as he did in his
father Isaac's time), and telling him that he is the only ideal ; and
that Esau is a poor, profane blackguard, only fit to have his blood
poured out like water on Crimean battle-fields, while Jacob sits
comfortably at home, making money, and listening to those who
preach smooth things to him % And what if, when I tried, I found
that Esau would listen to me ; that he had a heart as well as
Jacob; that he would come to hear me preach, would ask my
advice, would tell me his sorrows, would talk to me about his
mother, and what he had learnt at his mother's knee, because he
felt that I was at least one of like passions as himself, who had
been tempted on all points like as he was, and with many sins 1
What if he told me at the same time that he could not listen to
Jacob's private chaplains, that he did not understand them, nor
they him ; that he looked on them with alternate fear and contempt ?
If I said to myself more and more clearly as the years rolled on,
I will live for Esau and with Esau ; — if I be called a gluttonous
man and a wine-bibber, the friend of publicans and sinners, there is
One above me who was called the same, and to Him I commit
myself and my work ; — it is enough for me that He knows my
purpose, and that on Crimean battle-fields and Indian marches,
poor Esau has died with a clearer conscience and a lighter heart
for the words which I have spoken to him. If I have said this,
whom have I wronged 1 I have no grudge against Jacob and his
preachers; only when I read the 17th verse of the 3rd chapter of
Revelations, I tremble for him, and for England, knowing well that
on Jacob depends the well-being of England, whether physical,
intellectual, or spiritual, and that my poor Esau is at best food
for powder. God help him !
But surely there is room in God's kingdom for him, and for
one parson ; though, thank God, there is more than one who will
teach him what God requires of him. Therefore my mind is made
up. As long as Esau comes to me as to a friend ; and as long as
Esau's mother comes to me to save her child from his own passions
572 ENGLISH LETTERS. [1800-
and appetites — would God that I could do it ! — so long shall I
labour at that which, if I cannot do it well, seenis to me the only
thing which I can do.
CCCL.
By the kindness and courtesy of Sir Theodore Martin, the
Editor has received permission to publish the following con
tributions from the letters of the late Prince Consort. The first
most characteristic example does not appear in so complete a
form in Sir Theodore's 'Life of the Prince Consort.' The
second is the fragment quoted at page 467, vol. iv. of the same
work.
The Prince, Consort to the Crown Princess of Prussia.
Buckingham Palace : April lu, 1859.
That you take delight in modelling does not surprise me. As
an art it is even more attractive than painting, because in it the
thought is actually incorporated; it also derives a higher value
and interest from the circumstance that in it we have to deal with
the three dimensions, instead of having to do with surface merely,
and are not called upon to resort to the illusion of perspective.
As the artist combines material and thought without the interven
tion of any other medium, his creation would be perfect, if life,
which the divine Creator can alone give, could also be breathed
into his work ; and I quite understand and feel with the sculptor
in the Fable, who implored the gods to let his work descend from
its pedestal.
We have an art, however, in which even this third element of
creation — force and growth — is presented, and which has there
fore had extraordinary attractions for me of late years, indeed, I
may say, from earliest childhood, viz. the art of gardening. In
this the artist who lays out the work, and devises a garment for a
piece of ground, has the delight of seeing his work live and grow,
hour by hour, and while it is growing he is able to polish it, to cut
and carve upon it, to fill up here and there, to hope, and to grow
fond.
I will get Alice to read to me the article about Freemasons. It
is not likely to contain the whole secret. The circumstance which
provokes you only into finding fault with the order, viz. that hus
bands dare not communicate the secret of it to their wives, is just
1877] ENGLISH LETTERS. 573
one of its best features. If to be able to be silent is one of a hus
band's chief virtues, then the test, which puts him in opposition
to that being, towards whom he constantly shows the greatest
weakness, is the hardest of all tests and therefore virtue in its
most condensed and comprehensive form. The wife, therefore,
should not only rejoice to see him capable of withstanding such a
test, but should take occasion out of it to vie with him in virtue,
by taming the inborn curiosity which she inherits from mother
Eve.
If moreover the subject of the secret be nothing more im
portant than an apron, then every chance is given to virtue on
both sides, without disturbing the confidence of marriage, which
ought to be complete.
CCCLI.
The, Prince, Consort to the Crown Princess of Prussia.
Bucking-ham Palace : June 22, 1859.
Royal personages, to whom services are being constantly ren
dered, often forget, that these involve all sorts of sacrifices to the
persons who render them, which — if those to whom they are ren
dered would only keep their eyes open — might be obviated and
spared. But it is just the most faithful servants and the worthiest
friends who are most silent about their own affairs, and who have
therefore to be thoroughly probed before we get at the truth.
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