"Ravenna, May 10. 1821.
"I have just got your packet. I am obliged to Mr. Bowles, and Mr.
Bowles is obliged to me, for having restored him to good-humour. He
is to write, and you to publish, what you please,--_motto_ and
subject. I desire nothing but fair play for all parties. Of course,
after the new tone of Mr. Bowles, you will _not_ publish my
_defence of Gilchrist_: it would be brutal to do so after his
urbanity, for it is rather too rough, like his own attack upon
Gilchrist. You may tell him what I say there of _his Missionary_
(it is praised, as it deserves). However, and if there are any
passages _not personal_ to Bowles, and yet bearing upon the
question, you may add them to the reprint (if it is reprinted) of
my first Letter to you. Upon this consult Gifford; and, above all,
don't let any thing be added which can _personally_ affect Mr.
Bowles.
"In the enclosed notes, of course what I say of the _democracy_ of
poetry cannot apply to Mr. Bowles, but to the Cockney and water
washing-tub schools.
"I hope and trust that Elliston _won't_ be permitted to act the
drama. Surely _he_ might have the grace to wait for Kean's return
before he attempted it; though, _even then_, _I_ should be as much
against the attempt as ever.
"I have got a small packet of books, but neither Waldegrave,
Oxford, nor Scott's novels among them. Why don't you republish
Hodgson's Childe Harold's Monitor and Latino-mastix? They are
excellent. Think of this--they are all for _Pope_.
"Yours," &c.
* * * * *
The controversy, in which Lord Byron, with so much grace and
good-humour, thus allowed himself to be disarmed by the courtesy of his
antagonist, it is not my intention to run the risk of reviving by any
enquiry into its origin or merits. In all such discussions on matters of
mere taste and opinion, where, on one side, it is the aim of the
disputants to elevate the object of the contest, and on the other, to
depreciate it, Truth will usually be found, like Shakspeare's gatherer
of samphire on the cliff, "halfway down." Whatever judgment, however,
may be formed respecting the controversy itself, of the urbanity and
gentle feeling on both sides, which (notwithstanding some slight trials
of this good understanding afterwards) led ultimately to the result
anticipated in the foregoing letter, there can be but one opinion; and
it is only to be wished that such honourable forbearance were as sure of
imitators as it is, deservedly, of eulogists. In the lively pages thus
suppressed, when ready fledged for flight, with a power of self-command
rarely exercised by wit, there are some passages, of a general nature,
too curious to be lost, which I shall accordingly proceed to extract for
the reader.
* * * * *
"Pope himself 'sleeps well--nothing can touch him further;' but those
who love the honour of their country, the perfection of her literature,
the glory of her language, are not to be expected to permit an atom of
his dust to be stirred in his tomb, or a leaf to be stripped from the
laurel which grows over it. * * *
"To me it appears of no very great consequence whether Martha Blount was
or was not Pope's mistress, though I could have wished him a better.
She appears to have been a cold-hearted, interested, ignorant,
disagreeable woman, upon whom the tenderness of Pope's heart in the
desolation of his latter days was cast away, not knowing whither to
turn, as he drew towards his premature old age, childless and
lonely,--like the needle which, approaching within a certain distance of
the pole, becomes helpless and useless, and ceasing to tremble, rusts.
She seems to have been so totally unworthy of tenderness, that it is an
additional proof of the kindness of Pope's heart to have been able to
love such a being. But we must love something. I agree with Mr. B. that
_she_ 'could at no time have regarded _Pope personally_ with
attachment,' because she was incapable of attachment; but I deny that
Pope could not be regarded with personal attachment by a worthier woman.
It is not probable, indeed, that a woman would have fallen in love with
him as he walked along the Mall, or in a box at the opera, nor from a
balcony, nor in a ball-room: but in society he seems to have been as
amiable as unassuming, and, with the greatest disadvantages of figure,
his head and face were remarkably handsome, especially his eyes. He was
adored by his friends--friends of the most opposite dispositions, ages,
and talents--by the old and wayward Wycherley, by the cynical Swift, the
rough Atterbury, the gentle Spence, the stern attorney-bishop Warburton,
the virtuous Berkeley, and the 'cankered Bolingbroke.' Bolingbroke wept
over him like a child; and Spence's description of his last moments is
at least as edifying as the more ostentatious account of the deathbed of
Addison. The soldier Peterborough and the poet Gay, the witty Congreve
and the laughing Rowe, the eccentric Cromwell and the steady Bathurst,
were all his intimates. The man who could conciliate so many men of the
most opposite description, not one of whom but was a remarkable or a
celebrated character, might well have pretended to all the attachment
which a reasonable man would desire of an amiable woman.
"Pope, in fact, wherever he got it, appears to have understood the sex
well. Bolingbroke, 'a judge of the subject,' says Warton, thought his
'Epistle on the Characters of Women' his 'masterpiece.' And even with
respect to the grosser passion, which takes occasionally the name of
'_romantic_,' accordingly as the degree of sentiment elevates it above
the definition of love by Buffon, it may be remarked, that it does not
always depend upon personal appearance, even in a woman. Madame Cottin
was a plain woman, and might have been virtuous, it may be presumed,
without much interruption. Virtuous she was, and the consequences of
this inveterate virtue were that two different admirers (one an elderly
gentleman) killed themselves in despair (see Lady Morgan's 'France'). I
would not, however, recommend this rigour to plain women in general, in
the hope of securing the glory of two suicides apiece. I believe that
there are few men who, in the course of their observations on life, may
not have perceived that it is not the greatest female beauty who forms
the longest and the strongest passions.
"But, apropos of Pope.--Voltaire tells us that the Marechal Luxembourg
(who had precisely Pope's figure) was not only somewhat too amatory for
a great man, but fortunate in his attachments. La Valière, the passion
of Louis XIV. had an unsightly defect. The Princess of Eboli, the
mistress of Philip the Second of Spain, and Maugiron, the minion of
Henry the Third of France, had each of them lost an eye; and the famous
Latin epigram was written upon them, which has, I believe, been either
translated or imitated by Goldsmith:
"'Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro,
Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos:
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori,
Sic tu cæcus Amor, sic erit illa Venus.'
"Wilkes, with his ugliness, used to say that 'he was but a quarter of an
hour behind the handsomest man in England;' and this vaunt of his is
said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither
young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most
extraordinary passions upon record, Vanessa's and Stella's.
"'Vanessa, aged scarce a score.
Sighs for a gown of _forty-four_.'
He requited them bitterly; for he seems to have broken the heart of the
one, and worn out that of the other; and he had his reward, for he died
a solitary idiot in the hands of servants.
"For my own part, I am of the opinion of Pausanias, that success in love
depends upon Fortune. 'They particularly renounce Celestial Venus, into
whose temple, &c. &c. &c. I remember, too, to have seen a building in
Ægina in which there is a statue of Fortune, holding a horn of Amalthea;
and near here there is a winged Love. The meaning of this is, that the
success of men in love affairs depends more on the assistance of Fortune
than the charms of beauty. I am persuaded, too, with Pindar (to whose
opinion I submit in other particulars), that Fortune is one of the
Fates, and that in a certain respect she is more powerful than her
sisters.'--See Pausanias, Achaics, book vii. chap. 26 page 246.
'Taylor's Translation.'
"Grimm has a remark of the same kind on the different destinies of the
younger Crebillon and Rousseau. The former writes a licentious novel,
and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford)
runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most
tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid.
If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh
Review of Grimm's Correspondence, seven or eight years ago.
"In regard 'to the strange mixture of indecent, and sometimes _profane_
levity, which his conduct and language _often_ exhibited,' and which so
much shocks the tone of _Pope_, than the tone of the _time_. With the
exception of the correspondence of Pope and his friends, not many
private letters of the period have come down to us; but those, such as
they are--a few scattered scraps from Farquhar and others--are more
indecent and coarse than any thing in Pope's letters. The comedies of
Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Gibber, &c. which naturally attempted to
represent the manners and conversation of private life, are decisive
upon this point; as are also some of Steele's papers, and even
Addison's. We all know what the conversation of Sir R. Walpole, for
seventeen years the prime-minister of the country, was at his own table,
and his excuse for his licentious language, viz. 'that every body
understood _that_, but few could talk rationally upon less common
topics.' The refinement of latter days,--which is perhaps the
consequence of vice, which wishes to mask and soften itself, as much as
of virtuous civilisation,--had not yet made sufficient progress. Even
Johnson, in his 'London,' has two or three passages which cannot be read
aloud, and Addison's 'Drummer' some indelicate allusions."
* * * * *
To the extract that follows I beg to call the particular attention of
the reader. Those who at all remember the peculiar bitterness and
violence with which the gentleman here commemorated assailed Lord Byron,
at a crisis when both his heart and fame were most vulnerable, will, if
I am not mistaken, feel a thrill of pleasurable admiration in reading
these sentences, such as alone can convey any adequate notion of the
proud, generous pleasure that must have been felt in writing them.
* * * * *
"Poor Scott is now no more. In the exercise of his vocation, he
contrived at last to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest.
But he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. I knew him
personally, though slightly. Although several years my senior, we had
been schoolfellows together at the 'grammar-schule' (or, as the
Aberdonians pronounce it, '_squeel_') of New Aberdeen. He did not behave
to me quite handsomely in his capacity of editor a few years ago, but he
was under no obligation to behave otherwise. The moment was too tempting
for many friends and for all enemies. At a time when all my relations
(save one) fell from me like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and
my few friends became still fewer--when the whole periodical press (I
mean the daily and weekly, _not_ the _literary_ press) was let loose
against me in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions
(from their usual opposition) of 'The Courier' and 'The Examiner,'--the
paper of which Scott had the direction, was neither the last, nor the
least vituperative. Two years ago I met him at Venice, when he was bowed
in griefs by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the
bitterness of domestic privation. He was then earnest with me to return
to England; and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a
different opinion, he replied to me,'that he and others had been greatly
misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been
taken to excite them. Scott is no more, but there are more than one
living who were present at this dialogue. He was a man of very
considerable talents, and of great acquirements. He had made his way, as
a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. Poor
fellow! I recollect his joy at some appointment which he had obtained,
or was to obtain, through Sir James Mackintosh, and which prevented the
further extension (unless by a rapid run to Rome) of his travels in
Italy. I little thought to what it would conduct him. Peace be with him!
and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as
readily forgiven him, as the little injury which he had done to one who
respected his talents and regrets his loss."
* * * * *
In reference to some complaints made by Mr. Bowles, in his Pamphlet, of
a charge of "hypochondriacism" which he supposed to have been brought
against him by his assailant, Mr. Gilchrist, the noble writer thus
proceeds:--
"I cannot conceive a man in perfect health being much affected by such a
charge, because his complexion and conduct must amply refute it. But
were it true, to what does it amount?--to an impeachment of a liver
complaint. 'I will tell it to the world,' exclaimed the learned
Smelfungus: 'you had better (said I) tell it to your physician. 'There
is nothing dishonourable in such a disorder, which is more peculiarly
the malady of students. It has been the complaint of the good and the
wise and the witty, and even of the gay. Regnard, the author of the last
French comedy after Molière, was atrabilarious, and Molière himself
saturnine. Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Burns, were all more or less affected
by it occasionally. It was the prelude to the more awful malady of
Collins, Cowper, Swift, and Smart; but it by no means follows that a
partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs. But
even were it so,
"'Nor best, nor wisest, are exempt from thee;
Folly--Folly's only free.' PENROSE.
"Mendelsohn and Bayle were at times so overcome with this depression as
to be obliged to recur to seeing 'puppet-shows,' and 'counting tiles
upon the opposite houses,' to divert themselves. Dr. Johnson, at times,
'would have given a limb to recover his spirits.'
"In page 14. we have a large assertion, that 'the Eloisa alone is
sufficient to convict him (Pope) of _gross licentiousness_.' Thus, out
it comes at last--Mr. B. does accuse Pope of 'gross licentiousness,' and
grounds the charge upon a poem. The _licentiousness_ is a 'grand
peut-être,' according to the turn of the times being:--the _grossness_ I
deny. On the contrary, I do believe that such a subject never was, nor
ever could be, treated by any poet with so much delicacy mingled with,
at the same time, such true and intense passion. Is the 'Atys' of
Catullus _licentious_? No, nor even gross; and yet Catullus is often a
coarse writer. The subject is nearly the same, except that Atys was the
suicide of his manhood, and Abelard the victim.
"The 'licentiousness' of the story was _not_ Pope's,--it was a fact. All
that it had of gross he has softened; all that it had of indelicate he
has purified; all that it had of passionate he has beautified; all that
it had of holy he has hallowed. Mr. Campbell has admirably marked this
in a few words (I quote from memory), in drawing the distinction between
Pope and Dryden, and pointing out where Dryden was wanting. 'I fear,'
says he, 'that had the subject of 'Eloisa' fallen into his (Dryden's)
hands, that he would have given us but a _coarse_ draft of her passion.'
Never was the delicacy of Pope so much shown as in this poem. With the
facts and the letters of 'Eloisa' he has done what no other mind but
that of the best and purest of poets could have accomplished with such
materials. Ovid, Sappho (in the Ode called hers)--all that we have of
ancient, all that we have of modern poetry, sinks into nothing compared
with him in this production.
"Let us hear no more of this trash about 'licentiousness.' Is not
'Anacreon' taught in our schools?--translated, praised, and edited? and
are the English schools or the English women the more corrupt for all
this? When you have thrown the ancients into the fire, it will be time
to denounce the moderns. 'Licentiousness!'--there is more real mischief
and sapping licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian
hymn, or a German comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was
penned or poured forth since the rhapsodies of Orpheus. The sentimental
anatomy of Rousseau and Mad. de S. are far more formidable than any
quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles by
_reasoning_ upon the _passions_; whereas poetry is in itself passion,
and does not systematise. It assails, but does not argue; it may be
wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to optimism."
Mr. Bowles having, in his pamphlet, complained of some anonymous
communication which he had received, Lord Byron thus comments on the
circumstance.
"I agree with Mr. B. that the intention was to annoy him; but I fear
that this was answered by his notice of the reception of the criticism.
An anonymous writer has but one means of knowing the effect of his
attack. In this he has the superiority over the viper; he knows that his
poison has taken effect when he hears the victim cry;--the adder is
_deaf_. The best reply to an anonymous intimation is to take no notice
directly nor indirectly. I wish Mr. B. could see only one or two of the
thousand which I have received in the course of a literary life, which,
though begun early, has not yet extended to a third part of his
existence as an author. I speak of _literary_ life only;--were I to add
_personal_, I might double the amount of _anonymous_ letters. If he
could but see the violence, the threats, the absurdity of the whole
thing, he would laugh, and so should I, and thus be both gainers.
"To keep up the farce, within the last month of this present writing
(1821), I have had my life threatened in the same way which menaced Mr.
B.'s fame, excepting that the anonymous denunciation was addressed to
the Cardinal Legate of Romagna, instead of to * * * *. I append the
menace in all its barbaric but literal Italian, that Mr. B. may be
convinced; and as this is the only 'promise to pay' which the Italians
ever keep, so my person has been at least as much exposed to 'a shot in
the gloaming' from 'John Heatherblutter' (see Waverley), as ever Mr.
B.'s glory was from an editor. I am, nevertheless, on horseback and
lonely for some hours (_one_ of them twilight) in the forest daily; and
this, because it was my 'custom in the afternoon,' and that I believe if
the tyrant cannot escape amidst his guards (should it be so written), so
the humbler individual would find precautions useless."
The following just tribute to my Reverend Friend's merits as a poet I
have peculiar pleasure in extracting:--
"Mr. Bowles has no reason to 'succumb' but to Mr. Bowles. As a poet, the
author of 'The Missionary' may compete with the foremost of his
contemporaries. Let it be recollected, that all my previous opinions of
Mr. Bowles s poetry were _written_ long before the publication of his
_last_ and best poem; and that a poet's last poem should be his best, is
his highest praise. But, however, he may duly and honorably rank with
his living rivals," &c. &c. &c.
Among various Addenda for this pamphlet, sent at different times to Mr.
Murray, I find the following curious passages:--
"It is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about '_in-door_
nature' and 'artificial images,' Pope was the principal inventor of that
boast of the English, _Modern Gardening_. He divides this honour with
Milton. Hear Warton:--'It hence appears that this _enchanting_ art of
modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every
nation in Europe, chiefly owes _its origin_ and its improvements to two
great poets, Milton and _Pope_.'
"Walpole (no friend to Pope) asserts that Pope formed _Kent's_ taste,
and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted
for diffusing 'a taste in laying out grounds.' The design of the Prince
of Wales's garden was copied from _Pope's_ at Twickenham. Warton
applauds 'his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much
variety and scenery on a spot of five acres.' Pope was the _first_ who
ridiculed the 'formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in
gardening,' both in _prose_ and verse. (See, for the former, 'The
Guardian.')
"'Pope has given not only some of our _first_ but _best_ rules and
observations on _Architecture_ and _Gardening_.' (See Warton's Essay,
vol. ii. p. 237, &c.&c.)
"Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in 'Kendal
green,' and our Bucolical Cockneys, crying out (the latter in a
wilderness of bricks and mortar) about 'Nature,' and Pope's 'artificial
in-door habits?' Pope had seen all of nature that _England_ alone can
supply. He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst the beautiful scenery
of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at the country seats of
Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough, Digby, and Bolingbroke;
amongst whose seats was to be numbered _Stowe_. He made his own little
five acres' a model to Princes, and to the first of our artists who
imitated nature. Warton thinks 'that the most engaging of _Kent's_ works
was also planned on the model of Pope's,--at least in the opening and
retiring shades of Venus's Vale.'
"It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and he
could ride (he rode to Oxford from London at a stretch), and he was
famous for an exquisite eye. On a tree at Lord Bathurst's is carved,
'Here Pope sang,'--he composed beneath it. Bolingbroke, in one of his
letters, represents them both writing in a hayfield. No poet ever
admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has done, as I will
undertake to prove from his works, prose and verse, if not anticipated
in so easy and agreeable a labour. I remember a passage in Walpole,
somewhere, of a gentleman who wished to give directions about some
willows to a man who had long served Pope in his grounds: 'I understand,
sir,' he replied: 'you would have them hang down, sir, _somewhat
poetical_.' Now if nothing existed but this little anecdote, it would
suffice to prove Pope's taste for _Nature_, and the impression which he
had made on a common-minded man. But I have already quoted Warton and
Walpole (_both_ his enemies), and, were it necessary, I could amply
quote Pope himself for such tributes to _Nature_ as no poet of the
present day has even approached.
"His various excellence is really wonderful: architecture, painting,
_gardening_, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered, that
English _gardening_ is the purposed perfectioning of niggard _Nature_,
and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch,
double-post-and-rail, Hounslow-heath and Clapham-common sort of a
country, since the principal forests have been felled. It is, in
general, far from a picturesque country. The case is different with
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and I except also the lake counties and
Derbyshire, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear Harrow on the
Hill, and some spots near the coast. In the present rank fertility of
'great poets of the age,' and 'schools of poetry'--a word which, like
'schools of eloquence' and of 'philosophy,' is never introduced till the
decay of the art has increased with the number of its professors--in the
present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts of Naturals;--the
Lakers, who whine about Nature because they live in Cumberland; and
their _under-sect_ (which some one has maliciously called the 'Cockney
School'), who are enthusiastical for the country because they live in
London. It is to be observed, that the rustical founders are rather
anxious to disclaim any connection with their metropolitan followers,
whom they ungraciously review, and call cockneys, atheists, foolish
fellows, bad writers, and other hard names, not less ungrateful than
unjust. I can understand the pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of
Windermere to what Mr. B * * terms '_entusumusy_' for lakes, and
mountains, and daffodils, and buttercups; but I should be glad to be
apprised of the foundation of the London propensities of their imitative
brethren to the same' high argument.' Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
have rambled over half Europe, and seen Nature in most of her varieties
(although I think that they have occasionally not used her very well);
but what on earth--of earth, and sea, and Nature--have the others seen?
Not a half, nor a tenth part so much as Pope. While they sneer at his
Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of Windsor except its
_brick_?
"When they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they have
travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of
Middlesex--when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to
its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not till then, can it
properly be permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not _in
Wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the
'_artificial_' works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the 'Man
of Ross,' whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I
have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration
of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could
hardly have preserved his honest renown.
"If they had said nothing of _Pope_, they might have remained 'alone
with their glory' for aught I should have said or thought about them or
their nonsense. But if they interfere with the little 'Nightingale' of
Twickenham, they may find others who will bear it--_I_ won't. Neither
time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration
for him, who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all
feelings, and of all stages of existence. The delight of my boyhood, the
study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be
the consolation of my age. His poetry is the Book of Life. Without
canting, and yet without neglecting, religion, he has assembled all
that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in
consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, 'That of all the members
of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man
that is born capable of making a _great poet_ there may be a _thousand_
born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any
in story.' Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: it is honourable to
him and to the art. Such a 'poet of a thousand years' was _Pope_. A
thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in
our literature. But it can _want_ them--he himself is a literature.
"One word upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. 'Dr. Clarke,
whose critical exactness is well known, has _not been_ able to point out
above three or four mistakes _in the sense_ through the whole Iliad. The
real faults of the translation are of a different kind.' So says Warton,
himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief
fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they consist in his
having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will
always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do
their best and their worst; they will never wrench Pope from the hands
of a single reader of sense and feeling.
"The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is
their _vulgarity_. By this I do not mean that they are coarse, but
'shabby-genteel,' as it is termed. A man may be _coarse_ and yet not
_vulgar_, and the reverse. Burns is often coarse, but never _vulgar_.
Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake
school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. It is in
their _finery_ that the new under school are _most_ vulgar, and they may
be known by this at once; as what we called at Harrow 'a Sunday blood'
might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes
might be better cut, and his boots the best blackened, of the
two;--probably because he made the one or cleaned the other with his own
hands.
"In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the latter,
I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. * * They may be
honourable and _gentlemanly_ men, for what I know, but the latter
quality is studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me
of Mr. Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in
'Evelina.' In these things (in private life, at least) I pretend to some
small experience: because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a
little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and the
Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries,
down to the London boxer, the '_flash and the swell_,' the Spanish
muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch Highlander, and the
Albanian robber;--to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian
social life. Far be it from me to presume that there are now, or can be,
such a thing as an _aristocracy_ of _poets_; but there _is_ a nobility
of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from
talent, and partly from education,--which is to be found in Shakspeare,
and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is
nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's little
chorus. If I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should
say that it is only to be defined by _examples_--of those who have it,
and those who have it not. In _life_, I should say that most _military_
men have it, and few _naval_; that several men of rank have it, and few
lawyers; that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they
are not pedants); that _fencing_-masters have more of it than
dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not _an
Irishism_ to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than
among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never
_make_ entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be
good for any thing without it. It is the _salt_ of society, and the
seasoning of composition. _Vulgarity_ is far worse than downright
_black-guardism_; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong
sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all
things, 'signifying nothing.' It does not depend upon low themes, or
even low-language, for Fielding revels in both;--but is he ever
_vulgar_? No. You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the
scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master, not its slave. Your
vulgar writer is always most vulgar the higher his subject; as the man
who showed the menagerie at Pidcock's was wont to say, 'This, gentlemen,
is the _Eagle_ of the _Sun_, from Archangel in Russia: the _otterer_ it
is, the _igherer_ he flies.'"
* * * * *
In a note on a passage relative to Pope's lines upon Lady Mary W.
Montague, he says--
"I think that I could show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was
also greatly to blame in that quarrel, _not_ for having rejected, but
for having encouraged him; but I would rather decline the task--though
she should have remembered her own line, '_He comes too near, that comes
to be denied._' I admire her so much--her beauty, her talents--that I
should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name
of _Mary_, that as Johnson once said, 'If you called a dog _Harvey_, I
should love him;' so, if you were to call a female of the same species
'Mary,' I should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the
same sex with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman:
she could translate _Epictetus_, and yet write a song worthy of
Aristippus. The lines,
"'And when the long hours of the public are past,
And we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last,
May every fond pleasure that moment endear.'
Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear!
Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd,
He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud,
Till,' &c. &c.
There, Mr. Bowles!--what say you to such a supper with such a woman? and
her own description too? Is not her '_champaigne and chicken_' worth a
forest or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that this stanza
contains the '_purée_' of the whole philosophy of Epicurus:--I mean the
_practical_ philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master;
for I have been too long at the university not to know that the
philosopher was himself a moderate man. But after all, would not some of
us have been as great fools as Pope? For my part, I wonder that, with
his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, he did no
more,--instead of writing some lines, which are to be condemned if
false, and regretted if true."
* * * * *