_She writes to remind him_
Ballitore, 7th of Eleventh-month, 1816.
I believe it will surprise George Crabbe to receive a letter from an
entire stranger, whom most probably he does not remember to have ever
seen or heard of, but who cannot forget having met him at the house of
Edmund Burke, Charles Street, James's Square, in the year 1784. I
was brought thither by my father, Richard Shackleton, the friend
from their childhood of Edmund Burke. My dear father told thee that
Goldsmith's would now be the _deserted village_; perhaps thou dost not
remember this compliment, but I remember the ingenuous modesty which
disclaimed it. He admired '_The Village', 'The Library_,' and '_The
Newspaper_' exceedingly, and the delight with which he read them to
his family could not but be acceptable to the author, had he known
the sound judgement and the exquisite taste which that excellent
man possessed. But he saw no more of the productions of the Muse he
admired; whose originality was not the least charm. He is dead--the
friend whom he loved and honoured, and to whose character thou dost so
much justice in the preface to '_The Parish_ _Register_', is also gone
to the house appointed for all living. A splendid constellation of
poets arose in the literary horizon; I looked around for Crabbe. Why
does not he, who shines as brightly as any of these, add his lustre?
I had not long thought thus when, in an Edinburgh Review, I met
with reflections similar to my own, which introduced '_The Parish
Register_'. Oh, it was like the voice of a long-lost friend, and glad
was I to hear that voice again in '_The Borough_'!--still more in
'_The Tales_,' which appear to me excelling all that preceded them!
Every work is so much in unison with our own feelings, that a wish for
information concerning them and their author is strongly excited.
One of our friends, Dykes Alexander, who was in Ballitore in 1810, I
think, said he was personally acquainted with thee, and spoke highly
of thy character. I regretted I had not an opportunity of conversing
with him on this subject, as perhaps he would have been able to decide
arguments which have arisen; namely, whether we owe to truth or to
fiction that 'ever new delight' which thy poetry affords us. The
characters, however singular some of them may be, are never unnatural,
and thy sentiments so true to domestic and social feelings, as well as
to those of a higher nature, have the convincing power of reality
over the mind, and _I_ maintain that all thy pictures _are drawn from
life_. To inquire whether this be the case is the excuse which I make
to myself for writing this letter. I wish the excuse may be accepted
by thee, for I greatly fear I have taken an unwarrantable liberty in
making the inquiry. Though advanced in life, yet from an education of
peculiar simplicity, and from never having been long absent from my
retired native village, I am too little acquainted with decorum. If I
have now transgressed the rules it prescribes, I appeal to the candour
and liberality of thy mind to forgive a fault caused by a strong
enthusiasm.
PS. Ballitore is the village in which Edmund Burke was educated by
Abraham Shackleton, whose pupil he became in 1741, and from whose
school he entered the college of Dublin in 1744. The school is still
flourishing.