and diffused stream that waters the country and makes it agreeable; 'tis
true, it cannot receive ships of any burden, therefore it is of no solid
advantage, yet is it very amusing. Gondolas and painted barges float
upon its surface, the country gentleman forms it into ponds, and it is
spouted out of the mouths of various statues; it strays through the
finest fields, and its banks nourish the most blooming flowers. Let me
sport with this stream of science, wind along the vale, and glide
through the trees, foam down the mountain, and sparkle in the sunny ray;
but let me avoid the deep, nor lose myself in the vast profound, and
grant that I may never be pent in the bottom of a dreary cave, or be so
unfortunate as to stagnate in some unwholesome marsh. Limited genius is
a pump-well, very useful in all the common occurrences of life, the
water drawn from it is of service to the maids in washing their aprons;
it boils beef, and it scours the stairs; it is poured into the
tea-kettles of the ladies, and into the punch-bowls of the gentlemen.
Having thus given you, in the most clear and distinct manner, my
sentiments of genius, I proceed to give you my opinion of the ancient
and modern writers; a subject, you must confess, very aptly and
naturally introduced. I am going to be very serious, you will trace a
resemblance between me and Sir William Temple,[47] or perhaps David
Hume, Esq.
[Footnote 47: Temple wrote "An Essay upon Ancient and Modern
Learning."--ED.]
A modern writer must content himself with gleaning a few thoughts here
and there, and binding them together without order or regularity, that
the variety may please; the ancients have reaped the full of the
harvest, and killed the noblest of the game: in vain do we beat about
the once plenteous fields, the dews are exhaled, no scent remains. How
glorious was the fate of the early writers![48] born in the infancy of
letters; their task was to reject thoughts more than to seek after them,
and to select out of a number, the most shining, the most striking, and
the most susceptible of ornament. The poet saw in his walks every
pleasing object of nature undescribed; his heart danced with the gale,
and his spirits shone with the invigorating sun, his works breathed
nothing but rapture and enthusiasm. Love then spoke with its genuine
voice, the breast was melted down with woe, the whole soul was dissolved
into pity with its tender complaints; free from the conceits and
quibbles which, since that time, have rendered the very name of it
ridiculous; real passion heaved the sigh; real passion uttered the most
prevailing language. Music too reigned in its full force; that soft
deluding art, whose pathetic strains so gently steal into our very
souls, and involve us in the sweetest confusion; or whose animating
strains fire us even to madness: how has the shore of Greece echoed with
the wildest sounds; the delicious warblings of the Lyre charmed and
astonished every ear. The blaze of rhetoric then burst forth; the
ancients sought not by false thoughts, and glittering diction, to
captivate the ear, but by manly and energetic modes of expression, to
rule the heart and sway the passions.
[Footnote 48: "The most ancient poets are considered as the best ...
whether the first writers took possession of the most striking objects
for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left
nothing to those that followed them but transcription of the same
events, and new combinations of the same images."--"Rasselas," chapter
x.--ED.]
There, Boswell, there are periods for you. Did you not imagine that you
was reading "The Rambler" of Mr. Samuel Johnson; or that Mr. Thomas
Sheridan[49] himself was resounding the praises of the ancients, and his
own art? I shall now finish this letter without the least blaze of
rhetoric, and with no very manly or energetic mode of expression, assure
you, that I am,
Yours sincerely,
ANDREW ERSKINE.
[Footnote 49: Thomas Sheridan, the father of R.B. Sheridan, was about
this time lecturing on Oratory. "He knows that I laugh at his oratory,"
Johnson once said to Boswell.--ED.]
* * * * *
LETTER XXXI.
Auchinleck, June 1, 1762.
At length, O Erskine! Lady B---- and the Turkey-cock are sung in strains
sublime. I have finished an ode. Receive it with reverence.[50] It is
one of the greatest productions of the human mind. Just that sort of
composition which we form an awful and ravishing conception of, in those
divine moments, when the soul (to use a bold metaphor) is in full blow,
and soaring fancy reaches its utmost heights. Could it but be really
personified--it would be like Saul of old, taller than any of the
people, and were it to be guilty of a capital crime, it could not enjoy
one of the greatest privileges of a British subject, to be tried by its
Peers.
[Footnote 50: The Ode is not worth reprinting.--ED.]
I am sure that my ode is great. Mr. James Bruce the gardener, my
faithful counsellor and very excellent companion, declares it is quite
to his mind. He stood by me while I took my portrait of the cock, from a
large one which struts upon the green. I shall be in Edinburgh in a few
days; for which reason, I remain your affectionate friend,
JAMES BOSWELL.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXII.
New-Tarbat, June 5, 1762.
Dear BOSWELL,--The first idea of our correspondence was not yours; for,
many months before you addressed me, I wrote you the following letter at
Fort George, where you may remember our acquaintance commenced. You'll
observe that some of the stanzas[51] are parodies on Gray's Elegy in a
Church-yard, I use the liberty to mark them. I stood too much in awe of
you, to send it when it was written, and I am too much at my ease now,
to be withheld any longer from presenting you with it.
I am, Sir,
With the greatest respect and esteem,
Your most obedient,
And most humble servant,
ANDREW ERSKINE.
[Footnote 51: These stanzas are nearly as bad as Boswell's Ode, and,
like it, are not worth reprinting.--ED.]
* * * * *
LETTER XXXIII.
Auchinleck, June 9, 1762.
Dear ERSKINE,--At this delightful season of the year, when everything is
cheerful and gay, when the groves are all rich with leaves, the gardens
with flowers, and the orchards with blossoms, one would think it almost
impossible to be unhappy; yet such is my hard fate at present, that
instead of relishing the beautiful appearance of nature, instead of
participating the universal joy, I rather look upon it with aversion, as
it exhibits a strong contrast to the cloudy darkness of my mind, and so
gives me a more dismal view of my own situation. Fancy, capricious fancy
will allow me to see nothing but shade. How strange is it to think, that
I who lately abounded in bliss, should now be the slave of black
melancholy! How unaccountable does it appear to the reasoning mind that
this change should be produced without any visible cause. However, since
I have been seized with _the pale cast of thought_, I know not how, I
comfort myself, that I shall get free of it as whimsically. You must
excuse this piece of serious sententiousness; for it has relieved me;
and you may look upon it as much the same with coughing before one
begins to sing, or deliver anything in public, in order that the voice
may be as clear as possible.
The death of your kittens, my dear Erskine! affected me very much. I
could wish that you would form it into a tragedy, as the story is
extremely pathetic, and could not fail greatly to interest the tender
passions. If you have any doubts as to the propriety of their being
three in number, I beg it of you to reflect that the immortal
Shakespeare has introduced three daughters into his tragedy of King
Lear, which has often drawn tears from the eyes of multitudes. The same
author has likewise begun his tragedy of Macbeth with three witches; and
Mr. Alexander Donaldson has resolved, that his collection of original
poems by Scotch gentlemen, shall consist of three volumes, and no more.
I don't know, indeed, but your affecting tale might better suit the
intention of an opera, especially when we consider the musical genius of
the feline race: were a sufficient number of these animals put under the
tuition of proper masters, nobody can tell what an astonishing chorus
might be produced. If this proposal shall be embraced, I make no doubt
of its being the wonder of all Europe, and I remain,
Yours, as usual,
JAMES BOSWELL.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXIV.
New-Tarbat, June 14, 1762.
AND are YOU gloomy! oh James Boswell! has your flow of spirits
evaporated, and left nothing but the black dregs of melancholy behind?
has the smile of cheerfulness left your countenance? and is the laugh of
gaiety no more? oh woeful condition! oh wretched friend! but in this
situation you are dear to me; for lately my disposition was exactly
similar to yours. No conversation pleased me; no books could fix my
attention; I could write no letters, and I despised my own poems. Tell
me how you was affected; could you speak any? could you fix your
thoughts upon anything but the dreary way you was in? and would not the
sight of me have made you very miserable? I have lately had the
epidemical distemper; I don't mean poverty, but that cold which they
call the influenza, and which made its first appearance in London;[52]
whether it came to Scotland in the wagon, or travelled with a companion
in a post-chaise, is quite uncertain.
[Footnote 52: "The time is wonderfully sickly; nothing but sore-throats,
colds, and fevers." Horace Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu, April
29, 1762.--ED.]
Derrick's versifications are infamously bad; what think you of the
Reviewers commending such an execrable performance? I have a fancy to
write an ironical criticism upon it, and praise all the worst lines,
which you shall send to Derrick, as the real sentiments of a gentleman
of your acquaintance on reading his work. For want of something else to
entertain you, I begin my criticism immediately.--To versify poetical
prose has been found a very difficult task. Dr. Young and Mr. Langhorne,
in their paraphrases upon the Bible (which Lord Bolingbroke tells us, is
an excellent book) have succeeded but indifferently: I therefore took up
Mr. Samuel Derrick's versifications from Fingal, with little expectation
of being entertained; but let no man judge of a book till at least he
reads the title page; for lo! Mr. Samuel Derrick has adorned his with a
very apt and uncommon quotation, from a good old poet called Virgil. I
am much pleased with the candour so conspicuous in the short
advertisement to the public, in which Mr. Derrick seems very willing to
run snacks in reputation with Mr. MacPherson, which will greatly rejoice
that gentleman, who cannot justly boast of so extensive a fame as Mr.
Samuel Derrick. The dedication is very elegant, though, I am apt to
think, the author has neither praised Lord Pomfret nor himself enough;
two worthy people, who, in my opinion, deserve it. But at last, we come
to the poems themselves: and here I might indulge myself in warm and
indiscriminate applause; but let it be my ambition to trace Mr. Derrick
step by step through his wonderful work; let me pry both into the
kitchen and dining-room of his genius, to use the comparison of the
great Mr. Boyle. The first lines, or the exordium of the battle of Lora,
are calmly sublime, and refined with simplicity. In the eighth line, our
author gives the epithet of posting to the wind, which is very
beautiful: however, to make it natural, it ought to be applied, in
poetical justice, to that wind which wafts a packet-boat. I had almost
forgot, the sixth line says, "the voice of songs, a tuneful voice I
hear." Now, I should be glad to know, whether these same songs be a man
or a woman. Lines 23 and 24.
"In secret round they glanc'd their kindled eyes,
Their indignation spoke in bursting sighs."
It seems to me improbable, that a pair of kindled eyes could glance in
secret; and I cannot think that sighs are the language of indignation.
Lines 57, 58, 59.
"So on the settled sea blue mists arise,
In vapory volumes darkening to the skies,
They glitter in the sun."
These mists that glitter and are dark at the same time, are very
extraordinary, and the contrast is lovely and new. Line 67th
begins--"His post is terror."--This is a post, that, I believe, none of
our members of Parliament would accept. Lines 175, 176,
"An hundred steeds he gives that own the rein,
Never a swifter race devour'd the plain."
Devoured the plain! if this is not sublime, then am I no critic;
however, its lucky for the landed interest, that the breed of those
horses is lost; they might do very well, I confess, in the Highlands of
Scotland; but a dozen of them turned loose near Salisbury would be
inconceivably hurtful. I'm tired of this stuff; if you think it worth
the while you may end it and send it to Derrick; but let your part be
better than mine, or it won't do. "Grief for thy loss drank all my
vitals dry"--I laughed heartily at that line.
In this letter I have bestowed my dulness[53] freely upon you; you have
had my wit, and you must take my stupidity into the bargain; as when we
go to the market, we purchase bones as well as beef; and when we marry
an heiress, we are obliged to take the woman as well as the money; and
when we buy Donaldson's collection, we pay as dear for the poems of Mr.
Lauchlan MacPherson, as we do for those written by the incomparable
Captain Andrew.
[Footnote 53: "If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my
heart to bestow it all of your worship."--"Much Ado about Nothing." Act
iii., scene 5.--ED.]
You are in Edinburgh, I imagine, by this time, if the information of Mr.
Alexander Donaldson may be depended upon. I shall be in town one night
soon on my way to Kelly, for the H----s of D---- threaten an invasion
upon this peaceful abode. Farewell.
Yours sincerely,
ANDREW ERSKINE.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXV.
Edinburgh, June 19, 1762.
Dear ERSKINE,--You have upon many occasions made rather too free with my
person, upon which I have often told you that I principally value
myself. I feel a strong inclination to retaliate. I have great
opportunity, and I will not resist it. Your figure, Erskine, is
amazingly uncouth. The length of your body bears no manner of proportion
to its breadth, and far less does its breadth bear to its length. If we
consider you one way, you are the tallest, and if we consider you
another way, you are the thickest man alive. The crookedness of your
back is terrible; but it is nothing in comparison of the frightful
distortions of your countenance. What monsters have you been the cause
of bringing into the world! not only the wives of sergeants and
corporals of the 71st regiment, but the unhappy women in every town
where you was quartered, by looking at you have conceived in horror.
Natural defects should be spared; but I must not omit the large holes in
your ears, and the deep marks of the iron on your hands. I hope you will
allow these to be artificial. Nature nails no man's ears to the
pillory. Nature burns no man in the hand. As I have a very sincere
friendship for you, I cannot help giving you my best advice with regard
to your future schemes of life. I would beseech you to lay aside all
your chimerical projects, which have made you so absurd. You know very
well, when you went upon the stage at Kingston in Jamaica, how
shamefully you exposed yourself, and what disgrace and vexation you
brought upon all your friends. You must remember what sort of treatment
you met with, when you went and offered yourself to be one of the
fathers of the inquisition at Macerata, in the room of Mr. Archibald
Bower;[54] a project which could enter into the head of no man who was
not utterly destitute of common sense.
[Footnote 54: The author of the "History of the Popes." He had been a
professor in the University of Macerata, and a Counsellor of the
Inquisition. He became a Protestant, and died in England.--ED.]
You tell me, that your intention at present is, to take orders in the
Church of England; and you hope I will approve of your plan: but I must
tell you honestly, that this is a most ridiculous hair-brained conceit.
Before you can be qualified for the smallest living, you must study nine
years at Oxford; you must eat at a moderate computation, threescore of
fat beeves, and upwards of two hundred sheep; you must consume a
thousand stone of bread, and swallow ninety hogsheads of porter. You
flatter yourself with being highly promoted, because you are an Earl's
brother, and a man of genius. But, my dear friend, I beg it of you to
consider, how little these advantages have already availed you. The
army was as good a scene for you to rise in as the church can be; and
yet you are only a lieutenant in a very young regiment.
I seriously think, that your most rational scheme should be, to turn
inn-keeper upon some of the great roads: you might have an elegant sign
painted of Apollo and the Muses, and entertainment for men and horses,
by THE HONOURABLE ANDREW ERSKINE, would be something very unusual, and
could not fail to bring numbers of people to your house. You would by
this means have a life of most pleasing indolence, and would never want
a variety of company, as you would constantly dine and sup with your
guests. Men of fashion would be glad to receive you as their equal; and
men of no fashion would be proud to sit at table with one who had any
pretension to nobility. I hope the honest concern which I shew for your
real welfare, will convince you how much I am,
My dear Sir,
Your most affectionate friend,
JAMES BOSWELL.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXVI.
Kelly, July 5, 1762.
Dear BOSWELL,--Vanity has, in all former ages, been reckoned the
characteristic of poets; in our time, I think they are more particularly
distinguished by modesty; I have carefully perused their works, and I
have never once found them throwing out either thought, sentiment, or
reflection of their own; convincing proof of their humility; they seem
all to allow that the ancients, and some few of the earlier moderns,
were much better writers than themselves; therefore they beg, borrow,
and steal from them, without the smallest mercy or hesitation. In some
things, however, they are quite original; their margins and prices are
larger than any ever known before; and they advertise their pieces much
oftener in the newspapers than any of their predecessors. You compliment
me highly on my elegies, and tell me that I have even dared to be
original now and then; and you ask me very seriously, how I come to be
so well acquainted with the tender passion of love.--Ah, Sir, how
deceitful are appearances! under a forbidding aspect and uncouth form, I
conceal the soul of an Oroondates, a soul that thrills with the most
sensible emotions at the sight of beauty. Love easily finds access where
the mind is naturally inclined to melancholy; we foster the pleasing
delusion, it grows up with our frame, and becomes a part of our being;
long have I laboured under the influence of that passion; long vented my
grief in unavailing sighs. Besides, your thin meagre man is always the
most violent lover; a thousand delusions enter his paper-skull, which
the man of guts never dreams of. In vain does Cupid shoot his arrows at
the plump existence, who is entrenched in a solid wall of fat: they are
buried like shrimps in melted butter; as eggs are preserved by
mutton-tallow, from rottenness and putrefaction, so he, by his grease,
is preserved from love. Pleased with his pipe, he sits and smokes in
his elbow-chair; totally unknown to him is the ardent passion that
actuates the sentimental soul: alas! unhappy man! he never indulged in
the pleasing reverie which inspires the spindle-shanked lover, as he
strays through nodding forest by gliding stream; if he marries, he
chooses a companion fat as himself; they lie together, and most musical
is their snore, they melt like two pounds of butter in one plate in a
sunshiny-day.
Pray, Boswell, remember me kindly to honest Johnston. Let me know if his
trees are growing well, at his paternal estate of Grange; if he is as
fond of Melvil's Memoirs[55] as he used to be; and if he continues to
stretch himself in the sun upon the mountains near Edinburgh.
I ever am,
Yours most affectionately,
ANDREW ERSKINE.
[Footnote 55: Sir James Melville. Born 1535, died 1607. His "Memoirs"
were published in 1683.--ED.]
* * * * *
LETTER XXXVII.
Kelly, July 6, 1762.
Dear BOSWELL,--Nothing happened during my journey; I arrived in Aberdeen
on Thursday last; the town is really neater, cleaner, and better than
you would imagine; but the country around is dismal; long gloomy moors,
and the extended ocean, are the only prospects that present themselves;
the whole region seems as if made in direct opposition to descriptive
poetry. You meet here with none of the lengthened meads, sunny vales
and dashing streams, that brighten in the raptured poet's eye; however,
as I believe you have been here, I shall trouble you with no farther
descriptions.
Never was parting more tender than that of mine with George Robertson
the postilion, and the Kelly chaise at Dundee water-side; we formed as
dolorous a trio as then existed upon the face of this valley of tears.
Oh George! Oh! Erskine! were the cries that echoed across the waves, and
along the mountains.
Tears trickled down the rugged boatman's face,
An unpaid freight he thought no harder case;
The seals no longer sported in the sea,
While ev'ry bell rung mournful in Dundee,
Huge ploughmen wept, and stranger still, 'tis said,
So strong is sympathy, that asses bray'd.
Farewell, lovely George, I roared out, and oh! if you should happen to
be dry, for such is the nature of sorrow, take this shilling, and spend
it in the sugared ale, or the wind-expelling dram: with sweet reluctance
he put forth his milk-white hand, cold with clammy sweat, and with a
faltering voice, feebly thanked me. Oh! I shall never forget my emotions
when he drove from me, and the chaise lessened in my view; now it
whirled sublime along the mountain's edge; now, I scarcely saw the head
of George nodding in the vale. Thus, on the summit of a craggy cliff,
which high overlooks the resounding waves, Jean, Susan, or Nell, sees in
a boat her lovely sailor, who has been torn from her arms by a cruel
press-gang; now it climbs the highest seas; now it is buried between
two billows, and vanishes from her sight. Weep not, sweet maid, he shall
return loaded with honours; a gold watch shall grace each fob, a pair of
silver buckles shall shine resplendent upon his shoes, and a silk
handkerchief shall be tied around his neck, which soon shall cover thy
snowy bosom.
When the chaise was totally lost, and my breast was distracted with a
thousand different passions; all of a sudden I broke out into the
following soliloquy.--Surely, surely mortal man is a chaise: now
trailing through the heavy sand of indolence, anon jolted to death upon
the rough road of discontent; and shortly after sunk in the deep rut of
low spirits; now galloping on the post-road of expectation, and
immediately after, trotting on the stony one of disappointment; but the
days of our driving soon cease, our shafts break, our leather rots, and
we tumble into a hole.
Adieu, yours,
ANDREW ERSKINE.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXVIII.
Kelly, July 7, 1762.