_Washington, February 1, 1822_.
MY DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 31st ult. is just received at 5 P.M.
for I have just returned from the President's. I feel the blush of
genuine shame at the apparent presumption of adding my name in favor
of the magazine to that of the eminent gentlemen at Princeton. This is
real and unaffected--but you desire it--and I dare follow your beck in
any direction. Would that I could in one still more important.
Holingshead's History of Duncan of Scotland, is under copy by my
Elizabeth (my daughter, once your pet) for the purpose of showing the
full basis of Shakspeare's Macbeth. I think you will be pleased with
it--and the readers of Shakspeare must differ much from me, if they do
not find it very interesting.
If you suppose from what I said of nine o'clock that that is my hour
of going to bed on _week-day nights_, you are mistaken by several
hours. For some time past, I have been obliged to be in my office
before breakfast, and till nine or ten o'clock at night, when I have
to come home, take my tea, talk over family affairs, and get to bed
between eleven and twelve; but it is killing me also. And as death
would be most extremely inconvenient to me in more respects than one,
at this time, I shall quit that course of operations, and look a
little to my health, if I can survive the approaching Supreme
Court--_sed quære de hoc_.
My troubles not being already enough, in the estimation of the
honorable body now assembled in the Capitol, they are beginning to
institute inquiries, for my better amusement, into the circumstances
of three fees paid me by the government, in the course of the four
years that I have been here, for professional services foreign to my
official duties--a thing which has been continually done at all times,
under this government, but which they affect to think a new affair
entirely, and only an additional proof among ten thousand others of
the waste of public money, by the rapacity, if not peculation, of
those in office. I am sick of public life; my skin is too thin for the
business; a politician should have the hide of a rhinoceros, to bear
the thrusts of the folly, ignorance, and meanness of those who are
disposed to mount into momentary consequence by questioning _their
betters_, if I may be excused the expression after professing my
modesty. "There's nought but care on every hand;" all, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit, save religion, friendship, and literature.
I agree that your story of the _Oysterman_ is the best, but I {52}
suspect that the Orange story is the true original. I knew old
Bletcher: _he_ was a _Baptist_ preacher; and although I did not hear
the words, they are so much in his character that I verily believe
them to have been uttered by him; and it would have been quite in his
character too to have gone on with the amplification you suggest.
I do sincerely wish it were in my power to mount the aforesaid gay
streamer, and long Tom, on your gallant little barque. I will try in
the spring and summer to contribute a stripe or two, and a blank
cartridge or so; but I shall not tell you when I do, that it is I, for
it is proper you should have it in your power to say truly, "I do not
know who it is." I have already got credit for much that I never
wrote, and much that I never said. The guessers have an uncommon
propensity to attribute all galling personalities to me, all sketches
of character that touch the quick, and make some readers wince. I
have, in truth, in times gone by, been a little wanton and imprudent
in this particular, and I deserve to smart a little in my turn. But I
never wrote a line wickedly or maliciously. There is nothing in the
Spy that deserves this imputation, and nothing in the Old Bachelor,
which, give me leave to tell you, "_venia deter verbo_," you and your
magazine, and your writer, ** have underrated. There is a juster
criticism of it in the Analectic Magazine--but this writer, too, has
not true taste nor sensibility. He accuses me of extravagance only
because he never felt himself, the rapture of inspiration. And you
accuse me of redundant figure, because you are not much troubled
yourself with the throes of imagination--just as G-- H-- abuses
eloquence because there is no chord in his heart that responds to its
notes. So take that. And if you abuse me any more, I will belabor your
magazine as one of the heaviest, dullest, most drab-colored
periodicals extant in these degenerate days. What! shall a Conestoga
wagon-horse find fault with a courser of the sun, because he sometimes
runs away with the chariot of day, and sets the world on fire? So take
that again, and put it in your pocket. But enough of this _badinage_,
for if I pursue it much farther you will think me serious--besides it
is verging to eleven, and the fire has gone down. I began this scrawl
a little after five--walked for health till dark--came in and found
company who remained till near ten--and could not go to bed without a
little more talk with you. But I shall tire you and catch cold--so
with our united love to Mrs. Rice, my dear Harriet, and yourself, good
night.
Your friend, in truth,
WM. WIRT.