1817-1821.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
London, Jan. 7, 1817.
I had obtained a frank for my kind friend the evening before I received
her letter; being always a little impatient under her prolonged silence,
and particularly so at present, when I am impressed in no ordinary degree
with a sense of the ‘changes and chances of this mortal life.’
I am just returned from Lord Clifden’s, where we have passed some days.
The quiet, sensible conversation and tranquil life of his small party,
have been of use to me; while total change of scene and of topics
accelerates in some degree the effects of time. I do not disdain any
means, nor neglect any efforts, which can aid me in returning to my usual
_habits_—to my usual _feelings_ it is impossible I can ever _entirely_
return. We may lose the sensation of pain, where a limb has been
amputated; but I know by experience that the sense of privation _must_
frequently recur. And were affection to be much fainter than it ever has
been in my heart, the very spirit of calculation on one’s pleasures must
ever recal the lovely, lively image of one who would have embellished
the home of advancing years, and sparkled like the evening star on
one’s approaching night. I say not this in the language of complaint. I
know, and I best know, that I have been favoured by Heaven far above my
deserts, and that I have blessings far above the usual lot of mortality.
I say it from the habit of opening my heart with _some_ of its weaknesses
(who will dare to say they open _all?_) to a dear and candid friend.
TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.
London, Jan. 12, 1817.
I have been long musing in my bed this morning, and ended by finding that
no subjects of consolation, but those drawn from the invisible world,
could have any effect in my present loss. It is true, I have many and
most valuable treasures in the husband, children, and friends I have
left; for though the latter are few, I do not complain of this, as it is
a matter of choice, engaged as my heart is by those few. But you know I
possessed all these treasures, when I had _her_ also; and such is the
avarice of the human heart, it cannot patiently resign anything which has
once engaged its affections, though it may previously have been happy
without it. I often wish I loved _things_ more, and _persons_ less. I
see women who set their minds on worldly advantages, on being sought for
in crowded circles, on casino, on dress, on baubles, extremely happy
to an advanced age in these childish pursuits. Of these they cannot be
dispossessed, and may be so occupied very harmlessly—better employed,
perhaps, than I am in my readings and my _reveries_. I own I ought not
to have expected the situation of my last two years to have lasted; for
I found myself so happy, I should have been rejoiced to rest there for
ever, without any change but of seasons, of music, and of books. And when
I gained my extra health, as I mentioned to you from Cheltenham, I was
_too well_ satisfied for this life, and had _momentary_ presentiments
that it could not long endure. While I bore a child every year, this
great stumbling-block lay in the way of my comfort. Though delighted to
have them when they arrived, my ‘absolute contentment’ was disturbed by
looking to an annual day of torment and terror; but when I considered
this as over, I had all the pleasures of an escape added to the rest.
Here is too much of myself, but I like to open my heart, and I avoid the
subject in conversation. You can throw down my letter; but you would be
saddened by _listening_ to me; and I wish to increase, not to diminish,
your enjoyments.
* * * * *
_Jan. 13, 1817, Bath._—Saw Mrs. C., after an interval of two years. When
I left her then, she was in full possession of all her faculties at
eighty-five; conversed, read, worked, attended church most regularly,
received her friends with ease and grace, and sometimes amused herself
with cards. _Now_, she is quite helpless, never leaves one seat except to
go to rest, and suffers a partial failure of sight and memory. Still her
features are lovely, and her manners mild. The innocence of her mind is
peculiarly evinced by her malady; for although perfectly thrown open, and
her thoughts presented without veil or selection, no sign ever appears
of any feeling for which poor humanity need blush. Neither resentment,
envy, nor avarice has the smallest place in her breast. A slight desire
of elevation in rank, and pleasure in the remembrance of her beauty, are
her only weaknesses. To me she is an object peculiarly touching; for
she always loved me much; and, if I might dare to use the expression,
she shows a greater degree of respectful and admiring affection at this
moment than she ever expressed before.
* * * * *
In unconnected phrases, on that tongue
Where once the finished period smoothly rung,
The inmost foldings of thy heart are seen;
Nor throbs a heart that less demands a screen.
Thy powers, declining, feel the approach of night;
Fast fall the shadows on thy mental sight;
Obscured thy quick perception, once so clear,
Thy judgment, only to thyself severe;
Thy thoughts without selection find their way;
Far from thy purposed meaning words will stray;
Yet in full vigour many a gifted mind,
By learning nurtured, and by taste refined,
For innocence like thine might gladly change
Wit’s keenest edge and fancy’s widest range.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Bath, Feb., 1817.
C—— is gone to the ball, and I have remained to chat with you
undisturbed. ’Tis a melancholy way of _chatting_, whatever may be said of
the pleasure _we_ find in having all the talk to ourselves. I went last
night to a melancholy concert, to which I brought no spirits, and where,
of course, I found none. A little wonderful girl of ten or twelve, first
pleased, then astonished, and then fatigued me, on the pianoforte. I was
curious to hear her begin, and longed to hear her end. I went chiefly
to please the _flock_, who wanted a _shepherdess_, in which capacity I
attended. They persuaded, and _applanied_ all difficulties, came for me,
and brought me home.
To-day I dined, or rather _fed_, at Mrs. C——’s, for I went at five and
came home at seven. She shows distressing symptoms of change, decay of
memory, and alteration of countenance. She has been so long the same,
so happy, and so made for the sphere she filled, that I, who have not
much power of calling up the future, felt as if she was one of the
unchangeable parts of nature, and it is with pain I awake to the truth.
The poor dear woman, when she heard Miss Acheson admire the _curl_ in
my children’s hair, said very gravely, ‘They did not take that from
their grandmother, my dear ma’am, for _my hair_ never had the least
curl in it,’ literally thinking they were her own grandchildren. No one
undeceived her, nor even _looked_ surprised. I have always observed
that any _trait_ of real affection or heart strikes people with a sort
of awe—perhaps because it is so uncommon—as, on the other hand, evident
selfishness diminishes respect, and sets people at their ease. This gives
the key to a degree of influence possessed by some minds, not to be
accounted for on any other principle.
Lady B. and Miss C. stayed at Lady ——’s ball till five in the morning on
Tuesday, and were playing loo in the evening, _fresh_ and _gay_, at least
_dressed_ and _noisy_, as if nothing had disturbed their rest the night
before.
I continue to like Mrs. ——. She seems a real mother, which is no small
praise. At the same time we should not like each other as intimates. The
matronly character, the habit of _commanding_ one’s children, unfits
us mothers for other than family society in any intimate way. It gives
us insensibly a certain dictatorial manner, which, however veiled by
politeness or gentleness, takes away from that pliable ease that may be
possessed by other women.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Roehampton, Feb. 21, 1817.
You ask whether I know the Duke of Wellington. I do not, but was
acquainted with him in my early youth, or rather I often received him
as a guest, but was then so diffident and reserved, I do not believe I
ever addressed five words to him. He was extremely good humoured, and
the object of much attention from the female part of what was called ‘a
very gay society,’ though it did not appear such to me. You ask me if I
ever lived at Dangan? I passed there a portion of three successive years.
It _was_ a fine specimen of feudal magnificence, in space, strength, and
grandeur. There were fine gardens, a fine library, a beautiful chapel,
all that wealth collects or luxury devises; and Colonel St. George and
I, during our residence there, did not derogate from the feudal mode of
living; but I was almost a child, and perfectly passive on this and all
other subjects.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Roehampton, March 3, 1817.
I arrived here yesterday about five, and am settled in my old room,
previously sweetened with white violets by Miss Agar’s kind hands. I was
not _much_ frightened at night, considering there was a closet locked,
of which I had not the key, and I knew not what or who might bounce out
of it. True, I barricaded it with much furniture, particularly of the
brittle kind, that the difficulties of opening and the smash of crockery
might wake me, and I got up at daybreak to remove my fortifications, lest
anybody should guess the depth of my cowardice.
I have no news but that the Princess Elizabeth weighs fifteen stone, so
I am not come up to the royal standard yet; and that _growing down_ is
not confined to me, for that she is becoming, as it is said, ‘a mushroom’
from having been a fine young woman; and the Regent has lost several
inches.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., FRANKFORT.
London, March 23, 1817.
This week has been barren of letters from you, but your last was more
than ‘the perfume and the suppliance of a minute.’ It is still fresh and
green, and has made me smile as often as I read it over; for one of your
letters is always a permanent part of my amusement till relieved by a
successor.
Many are the inquiries that have been made for you, and amongst thousands
of others, they have been made by Marsh,[58] who rests on his oars, and
speaks no more in the House; but, _en revanche_, talks long and well at
dinner, takes the lead, gives good jokes pretty often, and bad ones when
the good are not forthcoming, having now established such a character
that men take them in the lump, one with another. He plays into the
hands of Smith, one of the writers of _Rejected Addresses_, but the
least efficient; who sings his comic songs after dinner, and returns
Marsh’s ball at other times. S—— also acknowledged your civilities to
him and his companions. He was near not surviving this acknowledgment,
for very soon after, between talking, drinking, and eating all at once,
with equal assiduity, he was almost choked, and forced to leave the room.
Dott followed him professionally, saw him black in the face, administered
somewhat, and brought him back ‘_triomphant, adoré_,’ to eat a second
dinner.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
London, March 27, 1817.
Your expressions of sympathy and consolation are most soothing. I do
not become less sensible of my loss, but I am more accustomed to it.
Sometimes a quick perception of former pleasure in that delightful gift
of heaven _will_ return. I then remember _how_ I felt in looking at her
opening beauty, hearing her gay, gentle voice, and watching her dawn
of little joys and virtues; and I recollect the hope that accompanied
all this, and wonder that I am not more afflicted; for I know that but
a small share of my present comparative composure springs from pious
resignation. Mad. de Sévigné says truly, ‘_On est si faible, qu’on se
console_;’ and we attribute to our strength what we owe to our weakness,
to our willingness to be occupied by the weeds, when the flowers are
gone. There may be those whose consolations spring solely from religion.
I speak but of myself and the majority.
I wish I had some prose subject attractive enough to tempt me to write.
Most people are more vain of their dance than their walk, their song than
their speech, their verse than their prose. I prefer my own prose to my
rhymes; because the want of that precision, command of language, and
harmony, gained by a classical education and the study of the poetry of
Greece and Rome, is more apparent in verse than prose.
Shall I petition you not to call yourself OLD when you write to me? I
cannot bear my friends should resign themselves too soon. Lady Williams
Wynne, with whom I passed some days at her sister’s, is sixty-eight, eats
green apples, kneels down through our long church service, walks out in
October without hat or cloak in a muslin gown, and takes long walks alone
many miles through roads, and villages, and fields, wears artificial
flowers and three flounces, never speaks of time with reference to his
effects on herself; yet never appears to make herself the least young,
and is a model of propriety, and of the English matron. The _flowers_ and
_flounces_ I know you despise at any season, but I only throw them in to
swell the heap.
Now I must have you make this sort of running fight against time, and not
talk of yourself as OLD. Mind and heart like yours are never so. Excuse
this ebullition of affectionate regard.
SONNET WRITTEN AT NIGHT AFTER RETURNING FROM A DANCE AT MRS. BATHURST’S.
_March, 1817._
I am not envious; yet the sudden glance
Of transport beaming from a mother’s eye,
When light her daughter’s airy footsteps fly,
Supremely graceful in the wavy dance,
Wakes with a start such thoughts as slept perchance,
Hushed to repose by the long lullaby
Of many a fond complaint and heartfelt sigh:
Again the host of keen regrets advance;
Again I paint what Bessy _might_ have been,
Since what she _was_ I never can pourtray;
So soft, so splendid shone my Fairy Queen,
A star that glittered o’er my closing day,
A light from heaven, whose pure ethereal beam
Threw its long glories over life’s dark stream.
TO THE LADY FANNY PROBY.
London, April, 1817.
You are indeed qualified to ‘minister to a mind diseased,’ both from
the tenderness of your feelings, and the quickness of your faculties.
Many with kind hearts fail in the office of comforter, from want of that
intuitive perception and delicacy you eminently possess. I am inclined
to believe that ‘_telle bonté qu’on a, on n’a que celle de son esprit_;’
and we may think this without supposing any partiality shown to the more
highly gifted, when we qualify it with the knowledge that ‘where much is
given,’ there ‘much will be required.’
I took my boys to see _Macbeth_ last night, but found that though they
read Shakespeare, they did not readily catch the language of the scene.
They understood Kean well, his tones are so natural; but the raised voice
and declamatory style in which most others pronounce tragedy, renders
it, I see, nearly unintelligible to children. I was astonished by Kean’s
talents in all that followed the murder, highly as I before thought of
them. I suppose remorse never was more finely expressed; and I quitted
the house with more admiration of him, and even of Shakespeare, than ever
I had felt before.
The sight of the poor in London is even more melancholy than that of the
dark, foggy, and snowy sky. I speak not of those who ask, but of the
silent and drooping figures in the prime and middle of life, seated,
shivering and dying, on the steps of houses, without stockings, without
linen, in ragged clothing above that of the lower class, with famine
sunken in every line of their faces. ‘This is,’ indeed, ‘a sorry sight’
in this once happy country.
* * * * *
_May 2, 1817, London._—I return next Monday to the country, my spirits, I
think, _not_ amended by my visit to town. All earthly sufferings return
in paroxysms; mine are nearly as frequent, yet I have done all that my
friends desired, have seen a variety of things and persons, mingled in
crowds, &c. &c. Employment more _solid_ would be better for a mind like
mine; but having this depends not on one’s self, when one is married, and
a mother.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., FRANKFORT.
June 24, 1817.
I received your dear letter this morning, and it has thrown a bright
sunshine on _my day_; though to others, who had not such a pleasant
volume from an affectionate and _amusing_ son, the day was as black, wet,
and dirty, as ever disgraced the month of June. As to May, she may have
been very lovely when she was young; but she is now grown old, and a more
chilly, forbidding, decayed beauty I have never met with.
We are now in town for a few days. My recent misfortune _will_ recur so
strongly when I am tranquil, that I am forced to seek variety in whatever
shapes, fair or foul, it can be met with. Even as I am now, it will
require an effort to unroot myself from the tenacious soil of London,
that great mantrap, which catches and retains all descriptions of people,
however dissimilar in their tastes, pursuits, and inclinations. I once
passed in the eyes of a literal sober-minded circle for being the most
dissipated woman possible, because I declared it was pleasant to date a
letter from London.
I wish Moore had published _The Fire Worshippers_ alone. It has more
merit than the other poems, which are uncommonly gaudy and sugary, and
glitter, and dazzle, and cloy, and surfeit us at last. But I sincerely
believe he has written _Lalla Rookh_ for the sake of his wife and
children. It is evident that his inclinations, perhaps his talents, are
not suitable for a work of any considerable length. He is a sweet bird,
fitted for short excursions; vigorous while on the wing, but not formed
for long flights; and he should not have promised us an epic, and then
put us off with four tales, tacked together by a coarse thread.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Bursledon Lodge, June 30, 1817.
I hope your dear daughter will soon entirely recover her health, and
look back on her illness, as I can do on all mine, with a deep sense of
its advantages—as a touchstone of the affections of those we love—a bond
of union twined by protecting cares on one hand, and gratitude on the
other—a remembrancer of the precarious tenure of earthly blessings—a new
source of sympathy with those that suffer—and a dark shade which throws
into gayer and purer lights the common, and therefore often unobserved,
blessings of existence.
You particularly delighted me with your description of Lismore, because
some of the days of my infancy were passed there. Perhaps no picture
is painted on my memory more vividly than that of Lismore Castle—the
church—the bridge—the valley—and the unnumbered beauties of that
exquisite spot. How often have I gazed with delight from the windows of
the Castle; and being ignorant I was short-sighted, of which my eyes gave
no outward indication, I imagined no greater enjoyment—when a person put
a short-sighted glass as a plaything into my hand, while yet a child. The
improvement of the picture was so great that I exclaimed, ‘Oh, this is
the way I shall see in heaven.’
I have no news. Poverty goes on increasing, and like the spider in an
empty house, spreads her thin grey pall over the kingdom, widening
swiftly, though imperceptibly. Our population, though of necessity hungry
and idle, are surprisingly quiet. The loans and gratuities proposed by
Government, are but drops in a sandy desert; and as Government must
take _two_ drops for every _one_ they give (to pay for the machinery of
taxation and finance), I, like Mrs. Primrose, ‘never find out we grow
richer for all their contrivances.’ In short, we are all becoming poorer,
and though philosophers tell us that to sink all together is to keep the
same place, they have not quite persuaded us this is practically true.
The Bishop of London made this consolatory remark to a poor curate, who
replied, ‘Yes, my Lord, we may sink all together, and your Lordship may
sink a story, and be still in a good place; but I am on the ground floor,
and if I go any lower, I shall be underground.’ If our time of decline as
a nation is marked, I hope that it may not be sudden, but so gradual as
to cause as little individual misery as possible. Adieu, my dear friend;
may every storm blow over your innocent and happy dwelling, unfelt.
* * * * *
_July, 1817._—We are now reading Miss Edgeworth’s _Ormond_ and
_Harrington_. The Edinburgh Reviewers have done her much mischief; first,
by persuading her to stick fast to the bogs, after she has exhausted
all that was comic, pathetic, or striking in the peculiar distinctions
between England and Ireland; next, by objecting to her morality being
so apparent. Now she never writes half so well as when she evidently
endeavours to illustrate a moral or prudential axiom; and in this case,
as ships sail best with ballast, she always walks more firmly and
gracefully, instead of being impeded in her course.
* * * * *
_Sept. 7, 1817._—When one has not seen an affected person for some years,
it is amusing to observe how much their manner has changed. One’s natural
manner lasts for life; an assumed one can never be kept in exact repair,
and must vary in process of time. Lady C., from being once decisive
and lively, now speaks in the toneless whisper of some of the English
grandees, with deliberate utterance and unvarying languor.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., FRANKFORT.
Bursledon Lodge, Sept. 20, 1817.
I am anxious to know whether C——’s statement of promotion coming is a
forerunner of reality, or a phantom raised to gratify his inclination
for writing a letter with ‘private’ at the top, and a recommendation of
prudence at the bottom. This, I know, is in itself tempting to some, and,
I have heard, is peculiarly so to him.
When you next incline to make me a present, send a few bottles of _Eau
de Cologne_. I bought some lately on the faith of the seller, and had
recourse to it on one of our extraordinary hot nights at the Brunswick
Hotel, when I thought the pillows seemed unsweet. I dashed it about
magnificently, but it proved to be _whisky_, so for that night at least,
you see, I slept in my _native sweets_.
I admire the critique on _Wat Tyler_ less than you do, because the writer
speaks with a contempt of Southey’s abilities quite disingenuous. No man
of literary acquirements can really despise Southey as a poet—except,
perhaps, one like Lord Byron in the first effervescence of youthful
pride, fastidious ideas of perfection, and astonishment at his own
splendid, and, in this our day, unrivalled powers. Read _Don Roderick_,
and then judge whether Southey is not a poet, and of a very high order.
I am in high admiration of this long line of shore. Last night the sun
set opposite to the sea, illuminating its smooth surface, and gilding
the boats which skim along it with all the splendid colouring of Paul
Veronese, and in an hour after the moon rose behind the waves in quiet
and contrasted beauty.
* * * * *
_Nov. 5, 1817._—November in nothing but name. The cannon firing, I hope
for the Princess Charlotte’s becoming a happy mother.
* * * * *
_Nov. 6._—The melancholy fate of our lovely Princess strikes with a
heaviness of heart like a domestic calamity. So sweet, so spotless,
so full of endearing qualities, so firm and ardent in her affections,
so nobly bold in asserting them when it seemed her duty, so raised
above the faults and follies of her age, sex, and station. It is tragic
that she should have expired without a single friend or relative save
him who must have been overwhelmed with the unfathomable depth of his
affliction. That the heiress of the British Empire should not in her
first confinement have had a single female but a mercenary, to watch over
her the first night after a dangerous and afflicting labour—that the
barbarity of changing her household in her youth so frequently as not to
permit her forming an attachment for some valuable married woman, should
have deprived her of the cares of a friend—the coldness of the Queen
prevented her from wishing for those of an experienced grandmother,—and
the faults, perhaps, of both parents cut her off from the assistance of a
mother, is indeed a melancholy thought. I did not think anything but the
loss of a dear friend could have given me so much pain.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., FRANKFORT.
Bursledon Lodge, Nov. 25, 1817.
After a fortnight of that stillness and depression into which our lovely
Princess’s untimely fate had thrown the whole country, some of those
whose interest in her was founded on everything but _personal knowledge_,
begin to recover their usual tone of spirits—that tone which, while it
does not prevent us from regretting a loss, follows our being in some
degree accustomed to the privation. Nothing but having been an actor in
the scene, could convey an idea of the state of the kingdom. It seemed
as if every family had lost an individual from its own circle, who was
more or less dear. All was sorrow, lamentation, regret, varied only
in kind and degree. The charge of want of religion and loyalty in the
lower classes is totally disproved by the manner in which the day of her
funeral was kept throughout the whole country. There was an universal
pause from labour as on a Sabbath day—or rather as it ought to be on a
Sabbath day—and a general laying aside of every thought of business and
pleasure. It was a day of prayer and humiliation. The churches and all
places of religious worship were overflowing. All sectarian barriers
were broken down by the strong feelings of compassion for the living,
reverence and regret for the dead. Indeed, when I say pleasure was laid
aside, I express myself improperly, for it seemed never to have been
thought of in any shape from the time of this deep disappointment to
a generous, a devoted, and an enlightened nation. Had a fast day been
appointed by public authority, this affecting expression of general
sorrow would not have been so clear a proof of the impression made by
one whose name is enshrined in our hearts, and who will be remembered
for ever as a model of all that is touching and noble, spirited and
affectionate, dignified and condescending. The Sunday after her death,
all our servants, down to the very kitchen-maid, appeared at prayers
in deep mourning. She has been wept in every cottage, and her loss has
scarcely _yet_ been thought of as a political calamity, it has come so
near every heart as a private sorrow.
TO THE SAME.
Bursledon Lodge, Dec. 18, 1817.
Accept a little kaleidoscope, the emblem of a poetic imagination;
varying, shifting, reflecting, combining, refining, illuminating; and
from the simplest elements producing endless beauty and variety; educing
order from confusion, and diversity from repetition. May your imagination
thus multiply your pleasures.
All is sombre in the general state of England; the poor dying of hunger;
and the death of our Princess and her infant, though no longer the
subject of conversation to the exclusion of every other, has left a cloud
that will not pass away. It seems like blotting spring from the year.
Godwin’s new work, _Mandeville_, is in unison with the season and the
times. It is ‘darkness visible,’ a tremendous picture of envy, hatred,
and revenge. There is a strong instance of the impressive power of genius
in Mandeville’s description of his disfigured countenance. One cannot
forget a word of it; one knows his face better than that of half one’s
commonplace acquaintance.
TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.
Bursledon Lodge, Dec., 1817.
I refresh myself in writing to you with ideas of kindness and affection,
after looking over Godwin’s _Mandeville_, which, beginning in massacre,
goes on through varied shades of hatred and revenge, and ends by a
ghastly wound, the sole and suitable catastrophe of this dismal farrago,
occasionally relieved by gleams of powerful and original genius. Perhaps
when I read, instead of skimming, I may like it better. It is too late
now to dignify hatred. It succeeded for a moment, when the public taste
was vitiated by those works of second-rate German authors, which not only
corrupted our literature, but led us to form a false judgment of our
admirable northern neighbours; for we naturally supposed that the best
of their writings made their way here; while of these we saw very few.
Besides, Lord Byron’s _haters_ have put all others out of fashion. They
alone can be angry, revengeful, or misanthropic with grace. The mob of
haters, if we except Marmion, appear a set of vulgar ruffians, since we
knew the Corsair, Manfred, &c.
As to Chalmers, he is very eloquent and very good; but many others on the
same subject more readily touch my heart, and please my taste. Besides, I
do not so much want books to confirm my faith, as to incite me to act up
to it. I should be very fortunate if my practice was as firm as my belief.
Lady —— did not come here for nothing. She has persuaded Lady —— that
her country-house—just purchased, after three years’ trial, _chiefly_
to please her, and expensively furnished _entirely_ to please her—is in
an air injurious to her health. Really with malicious people distance
is one’s only safeguard. There is no _muzzling_ them. This is provoking
to an affectionate man. When I see how good sort of women tease their
husbands, I am not surprised that so many wise men ‘abstain from that
employment.’
TO MRS. TUITE.
London, Feb., 1818.
We have taken a house in Gloucester Place. It has in my eyes but one
fault, being too well furnished, filled too much with that knick-knackery
I should banish were it mine, and dislike guarding for another. Then I
unfortunately saw the lady who possesses it, or rather is possessed by
it; and she gave me so many directions about covering it, dusting some
chairs under the covers, and scarcely sitting upon others, and watching
over the extremities of the unrobed ladies who held the lights, and not
suffering the housemaid to touch their projections, and not using leather
to the gilding, nor aught save the breezes from the feather-brush, that
I was really quite sick of _internal decoration_, which, like many other
species of wealth, is often a plague to the possessor.
I saw your friend, Lady H., to-day. She is just going to bring her
daughter into the world. This second birth is sometimes as painful as the
first; and when circumstances are not favourable to the wishes of the
mother, it is quite a protracted labour.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Roehampton, March 24, 1818.
Jekyll and Rogers came yesterday, but what has been to me a much more
acceptable arrival, so did your letter, a golden branch laden with its
quadruple fruits. I never was less entertained with the _par nobile
fratrum_. ‘’Tis the brain of the victim that tempers the dart’ of wit
as well as of love; and I am beginning to think the constant endeavour
to make _something_ of _nothing_ may be tiresome. I am convinced they
would have been better apart; and Rogers stifled a pun of Jekyll’s
yesterday in a cruel manner. I guessed at it, but did not laugh out, as
it was in Latin; and no one but Rogers and me attended to it; the former
quickly threw out a squib in an opposite direction. Next morning, Jekyll
introduced the subject of the _ducks_ again, in order to pave the way
for his pun about _dux_. Again it perished. I thought this was hard. I
am very low, which I regret, as the kind friends in the house expected I
should have been gay and communicative with _the wits_; and seeing this
makes me lower still.
TO THE SAME.
Bath, May 18, 1818.
I got into a sort of scrape by introducing myself last night by Lady C.
Burke to Mrs. C——, who had, I thought, mentioned to you a wish for my
acquaintance. I supposed I was doing a very civil thing to her, as she
had made the _first_ step, in making the _second_; but she gave me that
_vacant ill-bred stare_ which the lady whose _protégée_ she was reserved
for her _female_ friends, and seemed to think I was doing myself too
great an honour. Perhaps she was out of humour at the moment; for a few
minutes before a gentleman approached her with winning civility, saying,
‘Don’t you dance?’ ‘Sometimes,’ she replied, with that encouraging
_smile_ which forms the direct contrast to the _stare_ bestowed on me.
‘Much too hot for it to-night,’ says he, turning on his heel. This was so
like a caricature put into action, that it amused me.
——’s fair one is two-and-thirty, and has been hacked about London and
Dublin for many years, and sent here to be young and _naïve_. What might
be _liking_, if she had known him long enough, or if she had been young
enough not to know the meaning of the various things she has done and
said, or if she was a great _parti_, and thought she must make some
advances, lest he should not imagine he would be accepted, changes its
character when one knows it is so convenient for spinsters of that age to
be established.
I like Lady A., though I do not well know why; for mere good looks make
no impression on a woman; and I know nothing more of her than that
her easy graces and her _laisser aller_, and the mystery of her face,
expressive at once of pain and pleasure, make up a prettier outside, in
my opinion, than that of any other person I meet at Bath.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
London, May 25, 1818.
I send you the last canto of _Childe Harold_. _La fin couronne les
œuvres_, and magnificently too. What in descriptive poetry is finer
than his Italian sunset, or the sketch of the Coliseum—except, indeed,
his own more exquisitely touched and highly finished picture of it in
the last act of Manfred? What shows more intimate acquaintance with the
human heart than his stanza on the scorpion-sting of past, and apparently
forgotten, griefs? What is more sublime and pathetic than his address
to Time, melting so beautifully and unexpectedly into forgiveness? Then
his description of the dying Gladiator, that wonderfully tragic and
Shakespearian statue, which seems to blend the subdued sensibility of our
later days with the stoical patience of ancient heroism; while all fitly
closes with a description of the Apollo, that statue which seems like his
own poetry personified. In short, you will be charmed, as all here have
been.
The Princess of Hesse Homburg will redeem the character of good behaviour
in the conjugal bonds, lost or mislaid by her family. She is delighted
with her _hero_, as she calls him. In his way from the scene of the
marriage ceremony to the Regent’s Cottage, where, to his great annoyance,
they were destined to pass the first quarter of the honeymoon, he was
sick, from being unused to a close carriage, and forced to leave her for
the dicky, and put Baron O’Naghten in his place. He said he was not so
much _ennuyé_ at the Cottage as he expected, having passed all his time
in his dressing-gown and slippers, smoking in the conservatory.
* * * * *
_June 10, 1818._—I have seen enough to hope no nearer friend of mine
will ever engage in a contested election. It shows our fellow-men in
a contemptible light; and yet freedom of election is one of the best
features in the best Constitution possessed by any of the _old_ States of
the world—for I presume not to compare with our daughter. She is ‘fresh
as a nursing mother, the current in whose veins is nectar,’ diffusing
hope and plenty, cheerfulness and vigour. To expect that England should
resemble America in these points, is as absurd as to expect the daughter
should be intellectual and refined, polished and accomplished as her
mother. Let each endeavour to improve as her years will permit.
Those who bought their mourning for the Queen may lock it up. It is the
only dress we have a certainty of wanting, unless prevented by its being
worn for ourselves.
TO A FRIEND.
Bursledon Lodge, July 21, 1818.
You have not been surprised at my late silence; you are aware of the
slowness and apathy, mental and bodily, which sometimes creep over
me. They are now so great that even writing to you is an effort at
the moment; and I do it rather in the hope of hastening a letter from
you, and giving you some satisfaction, than from my usual pleasure in
pouring out my heart before you. I am glad you have left town for many
reasons—first, your wishing it; next, the heat; thirdly, your health
of body; and lastly, your health of mind; to which the conversation
of your foreign friend was by no means favourable. To those of dull
feelings, the picture of an impassioned mind like hers is an _interest_,
an _amusement_, a _spectacle_, a _sensation_. But to those of vivid
feelings—like you and me—it is painful. It is a strong gale blowing
upon our minds, and not only disturbing their present smoothness, but
disclosing wrecks long concealed below—at least, I found it so, even
in the descriptions you gave me. I have just read Mˡˡᵉ de Lespinasse’s
_Letters_ in French, which remind me of your friend in almost every line.
I hope she may never read them. They have done me no good. They are
traced with a pen of fire; and you will own she knew how to love;—finely
written, without the slightest attempt at fine writing.
I hope you found Mrs. —— quite well. I have an affectionate regard for
her far beyond that inspired by her being most agreeable and valuable,
from your friendship for her and her lover-like return. The metal is
gold; but your love for her adds to it in my eyes a fine and interesting
impression.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Bursledon Lodge, July 23, 1818.
Mˡˡᵉ de Lespinasse’s _Letters_ to Guibert, the great military genius whom
Buonaparte acknowledges for his master in the art of war, are my present
study. They are a literary curiosity, being exquisitely written, without
any view to publicity; but oh! what total darkness as to religion and
morality. She does not _defy_, _despise_, or _renounce_ these: she never
seems to have heard of them. Educated in a convent, and transplanted to
the society of _les esprits forts_ in Paris, appertaining to no family,
being the fruit of her mother’s breach of the marriage vow, without
father, brother, husband, I _pity_ more, far more, than I _blame_ her.
You will read, but I know you will not let them be _seen_ by the young,
however guarded. They are so impassioned, and so full of the highest
intellect, they must be dangerous.
As to Mad. d’Epinay, she is a clever, amusing Frenchwoman, with so little
idea of candour and truth, that she cannot even assume them, so as to
deceive us in telling her own story. Poor Rousseau! I never pitied him
more, or blamed him less, than since I have read this work, where there
is such an evident design to blacken his character.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Bursledon Lodge, Aug. 21, 1818.
Sweet Mrs. —— was very low yesterday. I think there is a Platonic
affection between her and ——, which I am not at all surprised at. I see
it exists at least on her side, and I think on both. You know I can
conceive this to exist with perfect innocency, where there is no _love_,
properly so called, for any other person. I mean that a woman, who has
nothing more than _bienveillance_ for her husband, may with perfect
purity have a very strong wish for the conversation of a more sensible
man; and where religion _is_, and youth _is not_, I do not think it
_very_ dangerous; in fact, I should not think it dangerous at all, but
for the extraordinary lessons of experience.
We read Molière in the evening, and being obliged to dwell on the _Avare_
in translating, it increases my admiration. It is the most finished,
perfect, witty, humorous, pleasant, moral picture of avarice, in every
point of view, admissible in comedy. F—— feels the wit and _finesse_ of
it in a manner very surprising at his age.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Bursledon Lodge, Sept. 15, 1818.
I sympathize in your affliction; but I revere your calmness and
resignation, and, as far as is permitted to be proud of the qualities
of our friends, I am proud of it. I feel myself raised by contemplating
the union of the warmest family affection, of inexpressible tenderness
in all the relations of life, with a sublime firmness which unites
Christian hope and stoical fortitude. Oh, do not say you are vain of _my_
friendship. Believe me, the exultation ought all to be on my side, and
I often thank Heaven for the kindness which prompted you to seek me at
Ballitore, and has followed me with partial affection from that hour,
veiling my many faults, and placing the less exceptionable features in
the fairest points of view.
The manner in which you and yours support your present sorrow, reminds me
forcibly of what was said to me by another mourner not very long since.
She and her husband had attended her brother to the island of Madeira
in his last illness, and shared with his young wife in the anxious
task of nursing him. One of them was always by his side night and day,
and frequently all. He lingered many weeks in a decline; he was her
favourite brother; he was her husband’s bosom friend, previous to the
connexion by marriage.
I dreaded meeting his sister on her return; and looked with a kind of
sensitive apprehension to the day she immediately offered to pass with
me. But she entered with a seraphic smile, was composed and sweet as
usual, and in the evening when we were alone, she owned that she must
always look back to the period of his loss as one of the most soothing
recollections of her life;—‘he was so completely resigned, and so
perfectly prepared.’ She is an admirable woman. At eight-and-twenty she
has a consummate judgment, is perfectly pure from vanity or selfishness,
has looked through the decorations and trappings of grandeur (she is
daughter of Lord A——) with that quiet perception which has enabled her
to rate them at their real value, is serene like the first mornings of
spring, pious, affectionate, and somewhat between the violet and the lily
of the valley, in an exterior feminine and pleasing in the highest degree.
Her husband, a clergyman, was obliged to perform the last duties to his
friend _before_ and _after_ the termination of existence. He filled all
the duties of his office for the inhabitants of Madeira, where there
was no resident clergyman. They wrote him a most grateful farewell,
accompanied with a present of two hundred pounds, which he accepted, and
gave to assist in building a church in the island. These are pleasing
passages in the lives of our friends.
* * * * *
_Sept. 10, 1818, Bognor._—This is still a wild, and, in my opinion,
unpleasant watering-place. I should rather say _cheerless_ than wild, for
it is tame as to scenery; all the buildings are irregular—not that rural
irregularity which is consistent with beauty, but that of negligence and
indifference to appearance. I am engaged to visit Mr. Hayley to-morrow at
half-past twelve.
* * * * *
_Sept. 11._—Mr. Hayley received me with the most cordial politeness,
showed me beautiful miniatures and pictures of all kinds; fine portraits
of Gibbon, Cowper, Charlotte Smith, Romney, and an enamelled miniature
from his own Serena. He was politely pleased with my songs, and made
me give him _seven_, at two intervals of my visit. He showed a strong
desire to amuse, and succeeded—and would have equally succeeded with less
exertion.
* * * * *
_Sept. 12._—When Peter asked concerning John, ‘Lord, and what shall this
man do?’ our Saviour answered, ‘What is that to thee? follow thou me.’
When bewildered in speculations as to the future lot of others, this
answer has sounded from the depths of my heart, as addressed to me. It
strikes at the root of the pride which erects itself into a judge of
the acts and intentions of Supreme Wisdom, not only towards ourselves,
but others. We are not satisfied with the assurance that to us who have
received the revelation of our hopes and duties, happiness, eternal in
its duration, and inexpressible in its intensity, is offered to all
who sincerely seek it; but we almost reproach God for not making the
gift general, unconditional. We seem to accuse the Supreme Being of
partiality towards ourselves; we ask, What hath this man done? and the
pride of human nature advances like a boundless ocean, in successive
waves foaming and thundering against that rock, the existence of evil,
but ever leaving that rock in all its strength for future ages and
generations to beat against in vain.
Who utter the deepest complaints against the evils of life? They who are
most distinguished by its blessings. Youth and genius are amongst the
most clamorous of the complainants. I hope and believe that misery is not
so miserable as it appears. I have suffered, and I know the alleviations
which attend each species of suffering I have endured; alleviations I
could not have imagined in the case of another.
* * * * *
_Oct. 11, London._—Just returned from St. James’s Chapel. I hope no
foreign _clinquant_ or frippery magnificence will ever alter the simple
and noble worship of that chapel, a monument, among many others, of our
good old King’s admirable taste—nothing done for show, and the whole
distinction arising from the highest excellence in that art of which the
use has been sanctified by revelation to the use of religion. ‘Oh Lord,
whither shall I go then from thy presence?’ was exquisitely sung. The
aërial purity of Knyvett’s voice, differing in the quality of its tone
from any mortal music or sound the earth owns, was delightfully suited
to a being who speaks of taking the wings of the morning and dwelling in
the uttermost parts of the sea. While I deprecate adding to this simple
worship, I am equally averse to taking aught away. I should be sorry to
find the scientific and affecting music of Handel, Purcell, and Croft,
resigned for the unison singing of our Dissenters, pathetic on its first
hearing, but soon cloying and insipid for want of variety; and I should
deplore changing our majestic, expressive, pathetic liturgy, for the
extempore prayers of any individual, however highly gifted. Yet even the
last of these changes is within the limits of possibility, and the former
is more than probable.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
Bursledon Lodge, Nov., 1818.
I should be ‘dull as the fat weed that rots itself in ease on Lethe’s
wharf,’ had I not been delighted with your last. In fact, your letters
give me so much pleasure, they give me some pain; for I always regret I
have not an audience to whom I could read them, stealing a modest eye
round the applauding circle.
I have been much indisposed, but am to-day pretty well, saving a cough,
which proceeds from the _malaria_ of Bursledon church, which is _damp_
by nature, and was yesterday _close_ from people, and people of a class
who are unconscious of hair-brushes, honey-water, and _Eau de Cologne_.
You know the sort of air, composed of the living and the dead, in a close
country church with a large burying-place. I am always a little the worse
for it.
You have given me _carte blanche_ as to your charities; but I never
recollect we are two distinct personages, except when I am to spend your
money; and on this subject I feel myself so miserably _chiche_ (excuse a
vulgar gallicism from the vocabulary of nurses and abigails), that I am
ashamed to see how little I give for you in proportion to what I ought.
Be so good, therefore, as to specify a sum for the purpose, which I will
then feel it my duty to bestow.
The Queen’s death has been so long expected as to make no impression on
the little circle around me. I feel for those who _must_ regret her; but
no woman who reigned so long has ever taken so little root in the hearts
of her people. Her own supposed heartlessness chilled all the warmer
feelings.
We have a miraculous young poet in our neighbourhood—son to Sir George
Dallas. He has excited the wonder and admiration of Dr. Parr, Scott,
Southey, Rogers, and about ten others, who all declare, in reply to
a circular letter of Sir George’s, that no one at his age—now past
eighteen—ever wrote Greek, Latin, and English verse so well. I think his
ear is admirable, his verses always musical, and showing a wide range of
thought. There are who do not think, maugre all this, that he will ever
be a great poet. None of his verses ever _stick_—to the heart or the
memory. His manners are simple, pleasing, and well-bred. He is not vain;
but I suspect that praise is become to him less a pleasure received than
a want supplied.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Bursledon Lodge, Nov., 1818.
I have had a conversation with our new friend, which, considering his
_relative_ situation, gives me serious concern. I find that he is an
unbeliever; that he has filled his memory with every trite, pert, and
often confuted argument against the character of the Bible, beginning
with the Creation, and ending with the most solemn and sublime of our
doctrines. This is a melancholy case, and in my mind destroys that
species of confidence which you give or withhold, not from reasoning,
but from feeling. He started from Genesis with a remark how _absurd_ it
was—(Moses, wise in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, what people are they
who assume a superiority over thee!)—well, how absurd it was to say that
the _light_ was created _first_, and _then_ the sun and moon. Would not
common modesty make any one suppose that one did not perfectly understand
the passage, rather than accuse a narrative of absurdity, which has
been read with reverence by the wisest of the uninspired, and written,
perhaps, by the wisest of the inspired? Happily, I found a complete reply
to this in King’s _Morsels of Criticism_.... These very circumstances
are among those which prove the truth of the Bible—this simplicity of
narrative, which, going straight to the point, stops not to clear up
those trifling difficulties, which a willing mind will not cavil at, and
a diligent mind will endeavour to comprehend. I have given him the book,
and hope to find answers for all his petty objections. It is safe to
look for them in good writers, and unsafe and unseemly, perhaps, in a
woman to enter the lists of controversy herself.
* * * * *
_Nov. 31, 1818._—Perhaps I may not live to want this book;[59] if not, I
request my dear F—— will use it during the year 1819. It will remind him
of one who loved him well.
I am now in good health and spirits, and therefore what I say to him
here cannot be attributed to _gloom_. I beg of him to remember that I
have never found any pleasure wholly unmixed with some little disquiet,
_except that_ of _trying_ to do good, _to increase the happiness_,
or _lessen_ the _misery of others_; nor any _pain_ so severe as the
recollection of having in any instance done _wrong_.
TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.
Bursledon Lodge, Dec. 1, 1818.
It grieves me that any waters should be thought necessary for Mr. Ellis;
and I am particularly sorry that he intends making his visit to Harrogate
a time for study. Do explain to him the danger of this. Many persons
cannot with impunity even write a letter. I wish he would do as our
Continental friends, who are often wiser in their generation, especially
in what relates to care of themselves. They lay aside not only their
wisdom, but their dignity, at those places, and take the goods the gods
provide, though these may come in the shape of people who, like the
witches of _Macbeth_, ‘are not inhabitants of earth’ (that is, of the
_beau monde_), ‘though they are on it.’ My fears for Mr. Ellis are that
he will lead a sedentary, refined, grand, and melancholy _old_ life,
instead of the desultory, rambling, thought-dispelling existence which
gives to these waters half their value.
I wish I could show you a bouncing, talking, conceited, squat, broad,
rather plain, much adorned and little clothed Mrs. ——, who is _so_ like
Punch in Petticoats, from the loud shrillness and continuance of her
talk, the showiness of her dress, and the vehemence of her gestures.
She whirls like a tee-totum, and rattles like the machine placed to
scare birds from a cherry-tree. But I am like Mˡˡᵉ de Fontanges (_vide_
Sévigné), who said, on being offered liqueurs, ‘_Madame, ce petit garçon
oublie que je suis dévote_’—only I am _myself_ forgetting my resolutions,
which is worse.
* * * * *
1818.—The following little sketch was never, so far as I know,
even written out. I find it complete, but in the rough, with
the erasures and interlineations of a first draft. It was
intended to be one of a series, as is plain from a few lines
written on the same sheet of paper, in which the writer says,
‘When we abound with writers who describe every object on every
side, why should not one painter, taking up a lighter pencil
and using a fainter colour, indicate rather than detail, and
thus invite attention to real life by slight sketches, rather
than by the fulness and perfection of a finished Dutch picture?’
HOLLAND HOUSE.
BY THE GHOST OF LA BRUYÈRE.
Aurelio has no desire more powerful than that of rivalling, perhaps
excelling, Holland House. Alas! poor Aurelio! In our time at least
Holland House will never know a competitor. It has all that London
requires—an honourable name, entwined and illustrated with recollections
of Charles Fox—delightful amenity, fine understanding, and a most
benevolent and upright heart in the noble host—in our hostess, who
always keeps her state, talents, caprice, some beauty, and infinite
imperiousness, forming a spirited contrast with one or two points in her
position—in short, the zest of many contrarieties, as piquant as the
infinite variety of her cook, a man, ‘take him for all in all, we ne’er
shall look upon his like again.’ To have him in our mind’s eye alone,
would be the torment of Tantalus; therefore, when he departs, we can only
hope to forget him; for alas! the cook, like the actor, lives but in
the present; unless, indeed, he succeed in giving his name to some dish
which may carry it down to the remotest posterity with that of Robert,
Maintenon, Véry. While such a cook covers the table, and the flower of
our wits and poets surround it, while more good things are eaten and said
there than in any other circle of the same magnitude in the civilized
world, Holland House must ever remain unrivalled.
* * * * *
_Jan. 1, 1819._—I opened the _Anti-Jacobin_ lately, and was shocked at
Canning’s lines on Mad. de Staël. At the same time, I was pleased to see
how twenty years have increased our refinement, and added to the rank and
prerogative of woman. All parties blame Croker for his coarse and savage
_critique_ on Lady Morgan, under cover of reviewing her _France_; yet
it is milk and water, both in mildness and purity, when compared with
the lines on Mad. de Staël, which then lay on every young lady’s table;
though now every man would reprobate, and every woman wish to disown
having seen it. I see Canning always laughed at many subjects which were
unfit subjects for a jest.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Feb. 22, 1819.
I can well appreciate the kindness which leads you to communicate your
sorrows to me; and I think myself highly honoured by the power of
infusing any portion of that balm you so well deserve to receive from the
hands of friendship. I am very much impressed in reading the annals of
those whom you regard, by seeing how much the stroke of final separation
is lightened both to the sufferer and survivors (who are often indeed
the severest sufferers), by the blameless lives, close ties of family
affection, and temperate habits, which are more frequently found among
those of your persuasion than any other. I do not mean to draw any
inference tending to flattery: you can understand an opinion in all its
bearings; and to you explanation is unnecessary.
The stings of death arising from those errors and those crimes, from
which the sobriety and staid simplicity of the Friends happily keep
them at a distance; the indifference of relatives, who in their career
of ambition have hardly time, if their aspiring pursuits left them
inclination, to watch the couch of departing life; the complicated
ailments produced by the madness of luxurious tables and studied
refinements of indolence and ease,—from such your Society seem in general
happily exempt, and fall, like the nipped blossom or the ripened fruit,
by an end, ‘without sin, without shame, and as free from pain as may be.’
Such was the end prayed for by the good Bishop Wilson, and may such be
ours.
I read Buxton _On Prisons_ last Christmas. It interested me greatly;
and I was happy to see another ray of light thrown on those abodes of
wretchedness. The force and closeness of his reasoning are admirable. His
introduction is a masterpiece: never, perhaps, was so much explained,
and so many errors unanswerably confuted, in a few words. He gives a new
idea of the duty of society towards prisoners. To me he was peculiarly
gratifying; because I had always entertained the opinions he maintains,
and had _suffered_ myself to be persuaded that in _me_ they arose from
the weakness of my heart.
Our Queen was estimable in essentials; but she was not beloved even by
her family, if we except her good, kind husband. We cannot be surprised
if she was little regretted by her people. Her age and sufferings had
prepared the good, and the unfeeling do not see that any affectation of
sorrow is called for.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
London, March 10, 1819.
I wish to send you Rogers’ new poem. It is rather too largely entitled
_Human Life_: it is the _beau ideal_ of the life of an English country
gentleman, from his cradle to his tomb, and is exquisitely touched; but
to relish it one must love the country, and love one’s children, and
be alive to all the minutiæ of domestic life; for though our country
gentleman is a _soldier_ and a _senator_, yet his retirement forms by far
the longest, as well as the most beautiful, part of the poem. It is not
much relished in my little London—is called flat, prosaic, and dull; but
_the public_ have bought it with avidity.
TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
London, March 18, 1819.
I should feel ungrateful if I deferred thanking you for the pleasure your
last poem has given me. You deserve the peculiar gratitude of every fond
mother, for you have divined, embodied, and immortalized the tenderest
and the purest feelings of her existence. In looking back, the only days
I earnestly desire to recall, are those which glided away while I was
‘girt with growing infancy,’ and read in the eyes and the smiles of my
children, who were affectionate and beautiful, a promise of happiness,
such as this world can never fulfil.
You have given us the _beau ideal_ of the life of an English gentleman,
and conquered the very difficult task of rendering highly poetical that
of which the original, divested of the beautiful colouring you have
thrown upon it, is daily before our eyes. Without availing yourself of
distance of time, or of place, of excitement, or of an appeal to any but
our best feelings, you, like our own Apelles, have given to portraits of
simple, unsophisticated, virtuous English nature, the dignity of historic
painting, and the graces of fiction.
They who can read your thirty-eighth page without tears, I should suppose
are few.[60] To me it was peculiarly affecting from the circumstances
of my past life; but I must not allow myself to select gems from the
casket, and now with much difficulty I shall restrain myself from saying
more.
It is so pleasant both to feel and to express admiration, that I know you
will forgive me for having thus obtruded mine.
* * * * *
_March 24, 1819, London._—The Automaton chess-player faces the
spectators, seated at what appears to be a table, upon which his
chess-board is placed. He wears a rich Turkish habit, sleeves and vest of
gold stuff, a dark green mantle like a lady’s triangular shawl, trimmed
with fur, a white turban and heron’s feather. His right hand is extended
gracefully on the table, his attitude is dignified, his aspect grave, and
his countenance of that class we of the present day often designate as a
Kemble face. One is surprised on first viewing him, at feeling a strong
impression of sadness, and somewhat of awe, from his complete immobility,
as connected with so close an imitation of life. After a few minutes, one
of the spectators, who has engaged him many nights before, ventures to
attack this representation of destiny, and concedes to him the right of
opening the game.
A slight noise is heard of winding up, and the fateful figure raises
its left hand—‘that hand whose motion is not life,’ for Lord Byron’s
expressions must cross us everywhere we go. This inauspicious hand, which
bears some resemblance to the talon of a bird of prey, although covered
with a white glove, now lifts its pawn, and drops it in another place
with a slight, but hard and bony noise. The humble-looking opponent
plays his best, but his schemes are thwarted, and his pieces inexorably
taken, the Automaton always putting them aside before he places his own,
differing in this alone from the living player, in whom these movements
are usually simultaneous. The game goes on, the spectators take part with
their fellow-mortal—whisper—advise. He is puzzled with their hints, and
somewhat appalled by engaging an unknown and mysterious power. The very
buzz and delay of winding up increases his embarrassment. Once when he
was slower than usual, the handsome right hand tapped on the table as if
to reprove his tardiness; and the poor player seemed fearful of having
made his opponent wait too long. At last the talon-like hand, after
pouncing like a bird of prey upon several of his adversary’s best pieces
with an alarming air of unwavering volition, checks his king and castle.
The Automaton, secure of a speedy victory, nods his head with an air of
conscious superiority, like the statue in _Don Juan_. A few moves finish
the game, which has lasted about half an hour, and a fresh adversary
advances to a fresh defeat.
This invincible champion is engaged for above a hundred nights. He has
never yet been conquered in England. This is the triumph of mechanism;
no one has yet discovered, or made any plausible guess how the impulse
of the real player is communicated to the figure. Many persons seem to
think it owes its power of playing chess better than all its opponents to
its original formation; and that its capability of motion and skill in
the game are inseparably united. Some only admire how neatly he takes up
his pieces. After he has played, he and his table—for they are one and
indivisible—are rolled away, and succeeded by an Automaton Trumpeter, who
is complete from top to toe, and represents a large portion of mankind,
for he holds up his head, is a fine military figure, dresses well, _se
présente bien_, beats time correctly, and plays two marches in good tune.
Many come in, aye, and go out too, of the world, in this their vocation,
who do little more.
There is no visible communication between the Automaton chess-player and
any human being. The lower part of the table, which is shaped like a
chest on the side where it meets the eye of the spectators, is not large
enough to admit a man, nor could any one so placed view the chess-board.
He and it are rolled about without mystery or hesitation. His possessor
walks or stands near him, with apparent carelessness, and lays down the
pieces he has taken from his adversary in the course of the game, but has
no other communication. He plays by day, and the room in an evening is
fully lighted. There is some little trick, however, in the Automaton’s
appearing invincible, as he allows but an hour in the evening, and half
that time in the morning, for any game; and it is easy to conceive that
a skilful player, who might not be capable of always winning, might in
every instance have the power of protracting a game so as not to lose it
within an hour.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Salthill, May 17, 1819.
I seize a quiet hour at Salthill, where we came yesterday for the purpose
of breathing a little fresh air, and sitting under the shade of the
lime-trees, to converse with you in peace, to ask of the health and
welfare of your friends and family, and to complain a little of my own—I
mean of my health, which has never been passable for four-and-twenty
hours together since I left the country. You, I am sure, wonder why I
came to town, and why I stay there; but you must know London operates
as a magnet when one is absent from it, and is full of the _glue_ Mad.
de Sévigné speaks of as abounding in the society of _les dévots du
Faubourg_—I forget which,—when one is in it. Be dissipated or domestic,
sick or well, good or bad, wise or foolish, London, once tasted, will
be required again and again. This is a mystery, and I leave it to wiser
heads to explain. It is a good hint to country gentlemen not to be too
anxious to give their wives a sip of this enchanted Cup.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
London, July 2, 1819.
_Mazeppa_, like some portraits of the Regent by Cosway, is rather a
description of the Horse and his Rider than _vice versâ_. The horse is
certainly the hero. Where he and Mazeppa are united, all the pictures of
this new Centaur are hold, impressive, and energetic. We are breathless
with suspense and terror during Mazeppa’s perilous course, which recals,
and perhaps excels in force and beauty, that of Leonora’s unknown
horseman. It seems as if the author had tried his strength, in awaking so
deep an interest without displaying any other feeling of the mind than
the mere instinct of self-preservation, as in ancient Greek tragedies our
sympathy is excited by an excess of physical suffering alone. Mazeppa’s
indifference to the fate of his mistress is something worse than I could
have expected even from the proverbial ingratitude of man.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Cheltenham, Aug. 8, 1819.
My recollections of Anna Seward are as favourable as gratitude for the
most sedulous desire on her part to receive with marked kindness the
visitor introduced by her Llangollen friends can make them. You shall
have them copied _verbatim_ from my journal when I return.[61] Her
genius seemed of an order calculated to take much higher flights than
she ever accomplished. The growth of her wing was impeded by ‘too much
cherishing.’ She lived in the relaxing atmosphere of a country town,
where she was indubitably superior to all the women and most of the men
in mental gifts and attainments, and though not absolutely beautiful,
her personal attractions were considerable—two circumstances adverse
to the expansion of talent. ‘_Trop d’encouragement lasse le génie_,’
says Mad. de Staël, an accurate observer of external life and internal
feelings; and the more personal advantages a woman possesses, the farther
she is removed by man from that tone of equality which would tend to her
improvement. While young he too often looks at her as his prize or his
prey, his friend, his enemy, or his victim, to render her even-handed
justice. And when old, he considers it as something inherently ridiculous
that she should wither away, according to the universal law of nature,
and deems her change ‘from fair to foul’ (as Lord Byron uncivilly calls
it, when speaking of his mistress) a fit subject for all his powers of
ridicule. A country town also is a nursery of much vanity in those who
are superior to their companions. Each remarkable person is usually
unrivalled in his own department; and the dissipation is more constant,
more from morning till night, and more _dozy_ and stupefying than in
a capital. Her _Letters_, I own, I had not patience to read through.
Her account of living characters seemed to me prolix and dull, though
I had no right to complain, being dismissed with the laconic phrase of
‘amiable, lovely, and accomplished.’ It would have required much higher
sauce to bribe me to go through the book.
TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.
Cheltenham, Aug. 8, 1819.
If I were in danger, I could not be removed in a better time, _provided
it is suitable to my eternal interests_; for I should leave all the
people I most love prosperous and happy, and all, except your dear
self, in good health. I have a sufficiency for all my boys, and the
most complete union and affection in my family; and I should escape
the steep part of the down hill, for as yet many circumstances have
combined to hide from me that I was going down. My husband being much
younger than the husbands of my cotemporaries, my children being young,
the cheerfulness of my temper when well, and my freedom from the common
cares of advancing years, have all combined to keep me in a comfortable
atmosphere of youthfulness, which could not have lasted many years
longer. Besides, from the multifarious accidents of life, a few added
years might give me the pain of losing some of the dear objects of my
affection. So, to return, _provided it were suitable to my eternal
interests_, I could not go in a better time; yet, I assure you, I would
much prefer staying with those I love.
* * * * *
_Oct., 1819._—A letter full of the most awful details relative to the
Duke of Richmond’s death. They shall not darken this paper. On so
awful an infliction, from which no care can insure us, and which may
at any moment occur to us or ours, it is best not to fix our eyes too
steadily. One circumstance only it may not be wholly unprofitable to
keep in mind. The bite was inflicted by an _irritated_ animal—a fox,
which had been confined, escaped to the woods, was retaken, and became
enraged at being again subject to confinement. I remember the Duke of
Richmond in Ireland, when, as Col. Lennox, he was an object of universal
admiration to the young of both sexes. His duel with the Duke of York
seemed to have something in it chivalrous, displaying a recklessness of
all selfish considerations. We knew little of the particulars, but this
mystery increased our respect. He was supposed to excel in all manly
exercises, and that was a higher praise in those days than it is in these
more intellectual times. He was said to be the finest formed man in
England, and his playing at cricket was praised as an exquisite display
of grace, strength, and skill. When Lord Buckingham was Secretary in Lord
Westmoreland’s Administration, he gave parties in the Phœnix Park, where
the _élite_ of the young men played cricket, while Lady Westmoreland and
a few young women, either of the highest station or selected from the
beauties of that time (and in those days beauty was itself a dignity),
sat in a tent as spectators. The writer is ashamed to say, that such is
her propensity to _ennui_ under the smallest constraint or continuity of
enforced pleasure, she has suffered greatly under the delights of these
parties, and was too well prepared to answer the question, ‘_Est-ce que
je m’amuse?_’ Yet by those who never were invited how much were they
desired; how much were the initiated envied by those who were hopeless
of admission. Cricket was succeeded by a dinner; cards and dancing
filled up the interval till the appearance of a supper, twin brother to
the dinner; and then by the light of the waning moon or rising dawn, we
parted to drive through the beautiful scenery of the Park.
* * * * *
_Nov. 10._—Yesterday evening I tried to read Boccaccio, in order to
find a tale to amuse my children. The language may be very fine and
very pure, but the stories in general are so cumbrously told, so loaded
with unnecessary circumstance, so coarsely indecent, and so brutally
cruel, that I cannot but wonder at the reputation of this work. Impurity
without wit, and _dénouements_ of assault and battery, are to be found
in almost every page of the tales that mean to be gay. Yet a few of them
are charming, and I love to see the mine where Shakespeare found so much
valuable ore.
* * * * *
_Nov. 19._—An amendment in health disposes us to look on all around us
with a favourable eye. I am not surprised that the gradual recovery of
spirits incident to humanity, when it begins to ‘wear down’ a great
sorrow, has sometimes induced men hastily to marry, without much apparent
temptation, when the first affliction for a beloved wife was fading into
calm regret. This action has been a theme for obloquy to all professors
of sentiment, somewhat more than it deserves. It is rather a symptom of
that easiness of being pleased which attends recovery of mind or body,
than one of fickleness. Last winter I found this house disagreeable,
dark, confined, small. I was going down the hill, as to health. This
year, in the gloomy month of November, I think it comfortable, compact,
convenient; I am ascending in the scale, and see a better prospect around
me.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.