"_Arlington Street, April 27, 1773._
"Mr. Gough wants to be introduced to me! Indeed! I would see him,
as he has been midwife to Masters; but he is so dull that he
would only be troublesome--and besides, you know I shun
authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to
keep such bad company. They are always in earnest, and think
their profession serious, and dwell upon trifles, and reverence
learning. I laugh at all these things, and write only to laugh
at them and divert myself. None of us are authors of any
consequence, and it is the most ridiculous of all vanities to be
vain of being _mediocre_. A page in a great author humbles me to
the dust, and the conversation of those that are not superior
to myself reminds me of what will be thought of myself. I blush
to flatter them, or to be flattered by them; and should dread
letters being published some time or other, in which they would
relate our interviews, and we should appear like those puny
conceited witlings in Shenstone's and Hughes's correspondence,
who give themselves airs from being in possession of the soil
of Parnassus for the time being; as peers are proud because they
enjoy the estates of great men who went before them. Mr. Gough is
very welcome to see Strawberry-hill, or I would help him to
any scraps in my possession that would assist his publications,
though he is one of those industrious who are only re-burying the
dead--but I cannot be acquainted with him; it is contrary to
my system and my humour; and besides I know nothing of barrows
and Danish entrenchments, and Saxon barbarisms and Phoenician
characters--in short, I know nothing of those ages that knew
nothing--then how should I be of use to modern literati? All the
Scotch metaphysicians have sent me their works. I did not read one
of them, because I do not understand what is not understood by
those that write about it; and I did not get acquainted with
one of the writers. I should like to be intimate with Mr.
Anstey, even though he wrote Lord Buckhorse, or with the author
of the Heroic Epistle--I have no thirst to know the rest of my
contemporaries, from the absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to
the silly Dr. Goldsmith, though the latter changeling has had
bright gleams of parts, and the former had sense, till he
changed it for words, and sold it for a pension. Don't think me
scornful. Recollect that I have seen Pope, and lived with
Gray.--Adieu!"
Such a letter seems not to have been written by a literary man--it is
the babble of a thoughtless wit and a man of the world. But it is
worthy of him whose contracted heart could never open to patronage or
friendship. From such we might expect the unfeeling observation in the
"Anecdotes of Painting," that "want of patronage is the apology for
want of genius. Milton and La Fontaine did not write in the bask of
court favour. A poet or a painter may want an equipage or a villa, by
wanting protection; they can always afford to buy ink and paper,
colours and pencil. Mr. Hogarth has received no honours, but universal
admiration." Patronage, indeed, cannot convert dull men into men of
genius, but it may preserve men of genius from becoming dull men. It
might have afforded Dryden that studious leisure which he ever wanted,
and which would have given us not imperfect tragedies, and uncorrected
poems, but the regulated flights of a noble genius. It might have
animated Gainsborough to have created an English school in landscape,
which I have heard from those who knew him was his favourite yet
neglected pursuit. But Walpole could insult that genius, which he
wanted the generosity to protect!
The whole spirit of this man was penury. Enjoying an affluent
income he only appeared to patronise the arts which amused his
tastes,--employing the meanest artists, at reduced prices, to
ornament his own works, an economy which he bitterly reprehends in
others who were compelled to practise it. He gratified his avarice
at the expense of his vanity; the strongest passion must prevail.
It was the simplicity of childhood in Chatterton to imagine Horace
Walpole could be a patron--but it is melancholy to record that a
slight protection might have saved such a youth. Gray abandoned
this man of birth and rank in the midst of their journey through
Europe; Mason broke with him; even his humble correspondent Cole,
this "friend of forty years," was often sent away in dudgeon; and
he quarrelled with all the authors and artists he had ever been
acquainted with. The Gothic castle at Strawberry-hill was rarely
graced with living genius--there the greatest was Horace Walpole
himself; but he had been too long waiting to see realised a
magical vision of his hopes, which resembled the prophetic fiction of
his own romance, that "the owner should grow too large for his
house." After many years, having discovered that he still retained his
mediocrity, he could never pardon the presence of that preternatural
being whom the world considered a GREAT MAN.--Such was the feeling
which dictated the close of the above letter; Johnson and Goldsmith
were to be "scorned," since Pope and Gray were no more within the
reach of his envy and his fear.