attachment was of such singular constancy, died in a consumption, a
few months before he suffered death at Tappan. She had married another
gentleman, four years after her connection with Mr Andre had, by
parental authority, been dissolved. To that marriage her father gave a
reluctant consent. So groundless was the idea of the Reviewers, who,
when this poem was first published, imagined, from some expressions,
whose sense they had mistaken, that she was urged into wedlock against
her inclination.
[45] l. 9. _Julia’s arm._--Mr Andre drew two miniature pictures of Miss
Honora S----, on his first acquaintance with her at Buxton, in the year
1769, one for himself, the other for the author of this poem.
[46] l. 1. _Hovering Rumour._--The tidings of Honora’s marriage: Upon
that event Mr Andre quitted his profession as a merchant, and joined
our army in America.
[47] l. 4. _Last dear record._--“I have a mother, and three sisters,
to whom the value of my commission would be an object, as the loss
of Grenada has much affected their income. It is needless to be more
explicit on this subject, I know your Excellency’s goodness.” See major
Andre’s last letter to General Clinton, published in the Gazette.
[48] l. 3. _Shade of my love._--The miniature of Honora. A letter from
Major Andre to one of his friends, written at that period, contained
the following sentence. “I have been taken prisoner by the Americans,
and stript of every thing except the picture of Honora, which I
concealed in my mouth. Preserving that, I yet think myself fortunate.”
[49] l. 14. _Intrepid Portia._--
“_Brutus._ Impatient of my absence,
“And grieved that young Octavius, with Mark Antony
“Had made themselves so strong, she grew distract,
“And, her attendants absent, swallow’d fire.”
_Julius Cæsar_, act 4. sc. 4.
[50] l. 4. _Sacred life._--The concurrent testimony even of the British
officers, during the years which have elapsed since this poem was first
published, acquits general Washington of that imputed cruelty, which
had so forcibly impressed the grieved heart of the author, concerning
the sacrifice of major Andre’s life. They acknowledge that there
was but one way to have saved the gallant sufferer, viz. by general
Arnold having been given up in exchange, who had fled to the English
army. It was believed by the American officers, that general Arnold
had so taken his measures, that if the projected interview with Andre
had been discovered, while they were together, it might have been in
his power to have sacrificed Andre to his own safety. This report
was urged to the prisoner by an American officer, commissioned from
general Washington, who wished his preservation, to induce him to
write to general Clinton, requesting him to propose the exchange--but
major Andre would not listen a moment to the suggestion. However,
though it is urged, that general Washington could not, with safety to
himself, and justice to his country, set aside the decision of the
court-martial, surely it was in his power to have rendered the manner
in which major Andre was to suffer, less wounding to the sensibility of
an intrepid spirit.
[51] l. 16. _Tappan._--The place where major Andre was put to death.
[52] l. 9. _Funeral-scarf._--Our whole army in America went into
mourning for major Andre, a distinguished tribute to his merit.
[53] l. 17._Cher Jean._--A name of kindness which Mr Andre was often
called by his mothers and sisters, and generally adopted by the persons
mentioned in these letters.
[54] l. 26. The trees in the cathedral walk in Lichfield.
[55] l. 16. _Field of blood._--Here is a small mistake--Lichfield is
not the field of blood, but “the field of dead bodies,” alluding to
a battle fought between the Romans and the British Christians in the
Dioclesian persecution, when the latter were massacred.--Three slain
kings, with their burying-place, now Barrowcop-hill, and the cathedral
in miniature, form the city arms. _Lich_ is still a word in use. The
church-yard gates, through which funerals pass, are often called
Lich-gates, vulgarly light-gates.
[56] l. 12. This Ode was written on the publication of Mr Hayley’s
TRIUMPHS OF TEMPER.
[57] l. 17. _Elfin Sprite._--Sophrosyne, the Goddess of Mr Hayley’s
supernatural machinery in that poem.
[58] l. 13. _Museus._--The name Mason allots to Pope in his beautiful
Monody on that Poet.
[59] l. 19. First plate in the Rake’s Progress.
[60] l. 21. See the second plate--the Brothel.
[61] l. 13. See the third plate--the Arrestment.
[62] l. 3. See the fourth plate--the Marriage.
[63] l. 18. See the fifth plate--the Gaming Table.
[64] l. 6. See the last plate--Bedlam.
[65] l. 1. _Thy science._--The first of Mr Hayley’s admirable Poems on
the Sciences, is addressed to his friend Romney, and characterizes the
great painters, ancient and modern, comparing them with the poets.
[66] It is said, the characters of Werter, Charlotte, and Albert, the
disastrous passion of the former, and the terrible event it produced,
were _real_, together with nearly all the sentiments in Werter’s
letters; heightened, no doubt, in the powers of eloquence, bypassing
through the pen of the celebrated German novelist. There has been much
ridiculous cant about the fancied immorality of these interesting
volumes. The long miseries and tragic death of Werter, breathe an awful
warning against imitating his error, and evince the fatal power of
indulging an hopeless passion, even for a most amiable object, to blast
the destiny, and to render fruitless all the virtues of a naturally
generous and good young man. Absurd censurers are angry that he is
not made despicable, because he was criminally indiscreet. They are
incensed that his woes excite compassion. With equal justice, Othello
might be deemed an immoral play, because we cannot with-hold our esteem
and pity from the man, who, giving way to suspicious appearances,
murders his innocent wife. Werter, by giving way to his affection
for an engaged woman, though without the least design to seduce her,
renders his own existence insupportable. There is no temptation to
copy the conduct of either character; therefore neither the play, nor
the novel, can justly be taxed with having an immoral tendency. The
light of moral warning breaks out stronger, from beneath the shades in
such characters, than from the unmingled brightness of those, who are
represented faultless, or at least exempt from any very marked error.
[67] l. 8. Sensitive plant.
[68] l. 11. Mr Hayley celebrated Mr Wright’s talent in his first great
Work, EPISTLES ON PAINTING.
[69] l. 9. Mr Wright’s Moonlight Views of Matlock.
[70] l. 13. His Vesuvius.
[71] l. 18. His Virgil’s tomb.
[72] l. 1. His Julia, banished to a desert island by her grandfather,
Augustus, for her amours with Ovid.
[73] This poem, as far as the 64th line, was written in the chaise,
returning from Coleshill to Lichfield, the author having accompanied Mr
Hayley so far on his road to London in December 1781.
[74] l. 11. Perhaps the generality of people have not sufficiently
attended to the operation of their minds, respecting the personal
idea they retain of the long absent, or the dead, so as clearly to
comprehend the eight ensuing lines.
No picture, be it ever so well painted, can vie with the memory in
that exactness, with which she presents, early in absence, the image
of that form and face, whose lineaments are dear to us. Therefore,
actual pictures of beloved friends would not be so eagerly coveted, but
that we render this darling, internal image indistinct, by recalling
it too frequently; as that strength of line, which gives sharpness
and spirit to a copper-plate, becomes injured after a certain number
of impressions have been taken off. By repeated use, the plate, if
not retouched, will produce only a dim and shadowy mass, in which the
features and countenance cannot be very distinctly discerned.
So it is with the memory, after continual recurrence, and pressure of
the affections upon the image she presents, which, for a considerable
period, she had presented with that perfect precision, to which no
powers of the pencil can attain;--but, in time, the image becomes
indistinct, not from any decay in the powers of memory; not from
the affections growing cold, but merely from intense and incessant
recurrence. Yes, it is beneath the constant glow of ardent imagination,
that the impression, given by memory, has faded. Then it is that a
good, nay even an indifferent picture, or a paper-profile of a dear
lost friend, strengthens our recollection, in the same manner that
retouching a copper-plate restores its power of giving animated
impressions.
The author wishes that all who peruse these remarks, and have
dispositions sufficiently affectionate to contemplate fervently, and
often, in their own minds the image of one, fondly beloved, whom they
have, for a length of years, or for ever lost, would recollect if,
after a time, they were able to recall that image with equal precision,
as they could remember the features, and air, of other deceased, or
absent persons, with whom they had been well acquainted, but of whom,
being less interesting to their affections, they had only casually
thought. The superior distinctness with which the less beloved image
comes back to the mind, upon its summons, proves the philosophic
truth of these remarks, and is the cause why we so fondly desire the
penciled remembrance of those we love, to refresh that ideal image
which intense and perpetual contemplation had rendered evanescent.
LOCKE says--“The pictures drawn in our minds of our absent friends,
are laid in fading colours, which, if not sometimes refreshed, will
vanish and disappear.” It might have been expected that a philosopher
so accurate and discriminating, would have pursued the observation, and
reminded us, that there are two causes, exactly opposite to each other,
which produce this vanishing; viz. the mind not having dwelt upon the
originals of those its pictures often enough to make their image strong
and vivid after long absence;--and, its too frequently casting upon
such inshrined resemblances, the dazzling light of fervent meditation.
It is not meant that fervent meditation will produce forgetfulness of
the general idea of the persons of those we fondly regret, but that it
will, in time, make us unable to recall them with that precision we
desire, without the help of the pencil.
[75] l. 1. _Romney._--The celebrated painter.
[76] l. 9. _Bards and Chiefs._--Alluding to the tradition of a battle
fought in the time of the Romans, and to the remains of the warriors’
tombs on the scene of action, Berocop Hill, near the city.
[77] l. 1. Lichfield stood a siege by Cromwell’s army, in the civil war
of that period.
[78] l. 3. _That fam’d Pair._--Johnson and Garrick were both educated
at Lichfield, under the author’s maternal grandfather, the Rev. John
Hunter, Prebendary of the Cathedral, and Master of the Free-School.
[79] l. 9. _Evening’s solemn hours._--It was Mr Hayley’s custom, during
his fortnight’s residence at Lichfield, to walk in the side aisles
of the Cathedral during choir-service at evening prayers, which are
always performed by candle-light in winter. The arches of those aisles
were then open at top into the choir. When the church was altered, in
the year 1788, the arches were closed up, which prevents all the fine
effect of dubious light and shadow, described in the ensuing lines. On
week days the choir is but imperfectly illuminated.
[80] l. 10. _Pledg’d hours._--Unforeseen business obliged Mr Hayley to
abridge his purposed visit to Mr Seward and his daughter.
[81] l. 18. _Moss-grown tower._--Stow church stands in the little
rural valley, overlooked by the east front of the Bishop’s palace, the
residence of Mr Seward and his family.
[82] l. 18. _Level line of peace._--Milton, in the close of his sonnet
to Mr Laurence, insinuates that there is danger in too frequently
indulging the luxury of intellectual society, thus--
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touch’d, and artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
He, who of these delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.
[83] The late lady Millar, of Bath-Easton, near Bath, held an assembly
at that elegant villa, once a fortnight during the Bath season. She
rendered this meeting a poetical institution, giving out subjects at
each assembly for poems to be read at the ensuing one.
The verses were deposited in an antique Etruscan vase, and were drawn
out by gentlemen appointed to read them aloud, and to judge of their
rival merits. These gentlemen, ignorant of the authors, selected three
poems from the collection which they thought most worthy of the three
myrtle wreaths, decreed as the rewards and honours of the day. The
names of the persons who had obtained the prizes were then announced
by lady Millar. Once a year the most ingenious of these productions
were published. Four volumes have already appeared, and the profits
been applied to the benefit of a charity at Bath; so that lady
Millar’s institution was not only calculated to awaken and cultivate
ingenuity, but to serve the purposes of benevolence and charity. It had
continued about six years, and ceased with the death of its amiable
patroness.--That event happened in July, 1781.
[84] l. 16. An elegy to the memory of lady Millar, set to music for
three voices, by Dr Harrington, of Bath.
[85] l. 2. _Fiercer blaze._--The Reviewers.
[86] l. 11. _Sprightly Winford._--See Miss Winford’s elegant poem, the
Hobby Horse, printed in the fourth volume of Poetical Amusements at
Bath Easton.
[87] l. 13. _Nymph of Dronfield._--See Miss Rogers’s Invocation to the
Comic Muse, fourth volume of Poetical Amusements.
[88] l. 5. _Time-honour’d Graves_--Rev. Mr Graves, of Claverton, author
of the Spiritual Quixote, &c.
[89] l. 14. _Vulture of the mind._--Alluding to the _Chorus Ex
Prometheo_, presented to the vase by the Hon. Charles Fielding, then of
Harrow School. See fourth volume of Poetical Amusements.
[90] l. 15. _Stamford’s flow’ry vale._--Rev. Mr Butt, rector of
Stamford, in Worcestershire. His verses on the Pythagorean System had
the wreath. See fourth volume of Poetical Amusements.
[91] l. 6. _Bigot rage._--Mr Jerningham, though a Roman catholic, has
ably combated monastic enthusiasm, in his ingenious poem, the Nun.
[92] l. 9. _Frail love._--See Mr Jerningham’s Funeral of Aribert.
[93] l. 11. _There tender Whalley._--Rev Mr Whalley, of Langford Court,
near Bristol, author of that interesting love poem, Edwy and Edilda.
[94] l. 5. _Bard of Æschylus._--The learned and Rev. Mr Potter,
translator of Æschylus.
[95] l. 8. _Charity’s kind warmth._--Lady Millar’s poetic institution
was also a charitable one.
[96] l. 5. Elegy on captain Cook.--Monody on major Andre.
[97] l. 7. Monody on lady Miller.
[98] l. 6. Alluding to the RETIREMENT, published by Mr Stevens,
in 1782, the first of a small, but beautiful collection of poems,
printed for Ab. Portal of the Strand; Faulder, of New Bond-street; and
Kearsley, No. 46, Fleet-street. This work went through two editions,
though it met the utmost injustice that dullness and spleen could
produce, in one of the leading Reviewers. No compositions, especially
those of so young a man, are without imperfections. The few defects
of RETIREMENT were assiduously pointed out, and exaggerated, and
many unexceptionable lines and expressions clumsily ridiculed; while
the numerous passages of striking and unborrowed beauty, were passed
over in silence; but the Gentleman’s Magazine did more justice to
those excellencies, which must impress and delight every reader, who
possesses any portion of poetic taste.
[99] l. 16. _Talents wither’d_--Referring to Mr Stevens’ beautiful
descriptions in his poem, RETIREMENT, of the hard fate of those
great poets, SPENCER, MILTON, OTWAY, COLLINS, and CHATTERTON, each
of whom struggled with the evils of neglect and poverty; and all,
except Milton, became their victims. I am tempted to instance here
the passages which relate to Collins and Chatterton, to prove that
in praising the genius of Mr Stevens, I have not been influenced by
partiality.
CENTER
COLLINS----QUOTED FROM RETIREMENT.
“But who is he whom later garlands grace?
“Lo! his worn youth, beneath the chilling grasp
“Of penury, faints; and in her mournful shroud,
“Darkening all joy, all promises of bliss,
“All health, all hope, dire melancholy saps,
“In drear decay, the fabric of his mind!
“See shuddering Pity, o’er his fallen soul
“Wring her pale hands!--Regardless of the guide
“That lifts his steps, regardless of the friend
“That mourns, nor sadly conscious of himself,
“Silent, yet wild, his languid spirit lies!
“The light of thought has wander’d from his eye,
“It glares, but sees not!--yet this breathing corse,
“This youthful driv’ller, Nature’s ghastliest form,--
“O! who would love the lyre!--in all the courts
“Of fancy, where abstracted beauty play’d
“With wildest elegance, his ardent shell
“Enamour’d struck, and charm’d the various soul.
CENTER
CHATTERTON----QUOTED FROM RETIREMENT.
“See later yet, and yet in drearier state,
“Where dawning Genius, struggling into day,
“Sinks in a dark eclipse!--No friendly heart,
“With love propitious, and no angel-hand
“With prosperous spell his labouring sun relieve,
“And chace the gather’d clouds that drop with blood!
CENTER
CHARLES THE FIRST----QUOTED FROM RETIREMENT.
1. 2.---------------- “in mockery see,
“O’er royal sorrow sits, in stern array,
“The traitrous judgment! In the eye of Heaven
“O’er his meek brow dishonourable death
“Unwinds her sable flag.
CENTER
ELIZABETH----FROM THE SAME POEM.
_See in Hume’s History, the death of that Queen._
“O mark, where GLORIANA lies!--behold!
“On the cold pavement for the jewell’d throne!
“Mark, as the soothing friend, or to her ear,
“In wily humour creeping, the base speech
“Of adulation breathes!--Dread sovereign queen!
“Imperial Mistress! Arbitress of Earth!
“Mark, if the Goddess, at the alluring sound,
“Unveil her sorrowing eye!--Mark if the pride
“Of empire, glistening on her crown, adorn
“Her brow’s wan horror!--if a nation’s prayer
“Gladden her heart!--Stern at her bosom hang,
“Bath’d in her blood, and twisted with the strings
“Of life, the inexorable Fiends of Woe!
[100] l. 2. _Western world._--This poem was written in retrospection of
that fatal American war, which dismembered the British Empire.
[101] l. 13. _Romney._--The celebrated Mr Romney was then on a visit to
Eartham.
[102] l. 15. _Heron._--Miss Heron, of Portsmouth.
[103] l. 16. _Eliza._--Mrs Hayley.
[104] l. 1. The almost incessant stormy weather of July and August, in
the summer 1782, will not be forgotten.
[105] l. 7. _Thou offend_--Indeed! what never? The Italian poet
flatters a little, it must be granted--his translator owns it--nor will
the lordly sex assert that female woes are _always imaginary_.
[106] These verses were published in one of the Gentlemen’s Magazines,
in 1783.
[107] This epitaph on Mr Garrick was requested and written in the
year 1792, for his monument in Lichfield Cathedral, but not used, the
sculptor not having left a space large enough for its insertion.
[108] This lady had a personal friendship with Richardson, the
well-known author of Clarissa Harlowe, &c. which, beginning in her
youth, continued till his death. Her destiny was uncommon as her merit.
Deserted by her husband before she was sixteen, she knew not, through
the remainder of her days, whether she was a wife, or widow. She had to
struggle with the mortifications of dependence, and a narrow fortune,
considering her birth and education. When, in declining life, the
latter was augmented from fifty to eighty pounds per ann. she spared
twenty annually to the distressed daughter of a deceased gentleman, who
during his life had been a generous and protecting friend to herself.
[109] l. 4. _Once fair form._--This epithet alludes to proportion
rather than colour.
[110] l. 12. _Chang’d a Bard_--The author hopes she shall not be
understood too seriously through this sportive poem. She has every
honour for the profession of a public magistrate, and only means
to say, that it does not require, she presumes, that brilliance of
imagination, necessary to form a poet, accomplished as Mr Mundy. It is
hoped she may be excused for trying to exalt her honoured masters, the
Bards.
[111] l. 3. Rousseau supported himself, during several years, by
copying music for the professors of that science, at the time when he
refused royal gratuities.
[112] l. 5. _O! tell it not_--“Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in
the streets of Askelon, lest the sons of the Philistines rejoice, lest
the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.” The reader will perceive
the propriety of the personages introduced in this parody. The muses
are desired not to mention Mr Mundy’s preference of law to poetry, on
the banks of the Hebrus, because it was there that the poet, Orpheus,
was destroyed by Bacchanalian women, whose descendants would be likely
to triumph in such a preference, from their hereditary aversion to the
lyre; not in Lydia, because Midas, king of that country, decreed the
palm to Pan, in his contest with Apollo.--His daughters, therefore,
would probably exult in poetic apostacy.--It is thus
“That our frail thoughts dally with vain surmise.”
[113] l. 2. _The Bard immortalized_--Mr Mundy printed 500 copies, for
presents to his friends, of one of the most admirable local poems in
our language, bearing the name and describing, in the most appropriate
traits, the scenery of NEEDWOOD FOREST. The composition is enriched
with moral sentiments, pathetic episodes, and fanciful machinery.
[114] l. 3. _Glowing wreath_--The poem, NEEDWOOD FOREST, which its
author cannot be prevailed upon to publish generally.
[115] l. 2. _Triple zone_--Mr Brydone tells us, that the three distinct
seasons, Summer, Spring, and Winter, in inverted order, form the
torrid, the temperate, and the frigid zone, round the ascending heights
of MOUNT ETNA.
[116] l. 18. _Acis_--Mr BRYDONE mentions the peculiar coldness of this
river, hence often called in Sicily, _il fiume Freddo_; also, that
it rises out of the earth at once, a _large stream_. It is the river
celebrated by the poets, into which the nymph Galatea transformed
the shepherd ACIS, her lover, after he had been killed by the giant,
Polypheme. Mr Brydone ingeniously observes, that the extreme velocity
of the current, seems, from our recollection of the fable, to be
inspired by terror.
[117] l. 8. _Bason thrown_--This is Mr Brydone’s own simile, and beyond
any other which could have been chosen, brings to the mind’s eye these
peculiar effects of vision. Poets and orators often find themselves
obliged to accommodate great things to our perception, by comparing
them to small ones. These comparisons are often happy, and sometimes
sublime.
“Thou spreadest out the heavens like a curtain.”
Milton compares the fallen angels in Pandemonium to _bees_, and Homer,
Menelaus, guarding the dead body of Patroclus, to a _fly_. Instances of
this sort in the noblest writers are innumerable.
[118] l. 10. _Vegetates on blood?_--Colonel St. George had nobly
distinguished himself in the late disastrous war with America.
He now lives with a considerable part of his head shot away, and though
feeble, emaciated, and in almost constant pain, his imagination and
his virtues have lost nothing of their vigour. His wit, and genius
for allegoric and humourous invention in the art of the pencil, are
first-rate. He is singularly happy in the grotesque humour of some of
his designs, in the sublimity of others, and in the originality of
all. He is also a pleasing poet, though not a poetic author--but upon
these talents he sets so little value as to seem disgusted when their
excellence is praised.
To the above note, coeval with the composition of the poem, its author
grieves to add--that Colonel St. George was assassinated, in the year
1798, in his house in Ireland, by the rebels--and thus finally perished
for his attachment to the government of this country.