Many thanks for your letter and kind words upon _Attila_. I do believe
that he is a good fellow, at all events he is very successful in
society and though there are not as you well know twenty people in
London who know who Attila was, he is as well received, I understand,
as if he had the entrée. Conjectures as to who Attila was are various
in the well _informed circles_ of the Metropolis, and ever since the
book was advertised two principal opinions have prevailed, some people
maintaining that He, Attila, was Platoff; others asserting that he was
a Lady, first cousin to Boru the Backswoodsman, and the heroine of a
romance by Chateaubriand. This may look like a joke, but I can assure
you, it is a fact and that out of one hundred people of the highest
rank in Europe you will not find five who know who Attila was; setting
aside the groveling animals who, as the Duke of Somerset says,
_addict_ themselves to Literature.
I am very sorry to hear you say that these well informed and
enlightened times have not done justice to your romances. I’ll tell
you one great fault they have, which is probably that which prevents
the world from liking them as much as it should do: they have too much
poetry in them, Allan, one and all from _Michael Scott to Lord
Roldan_. But you must not expect to succeed in all walks of art. You
are a lyric poet and a biographer; how can you expect that the critics
would ever let you come near romances. No, no; they feel it their
bounden duty to smother all such efforts of your genius and they
fulfil that duty with laudable zeal. Did you see how the Athenæum
attempted to dribble its small beer venom upon _Attila_. If you have
not, read that sweet and gramatical (_sic_) article, when you will
find that because a man has succeeded in one style of writing he
cannot succeed in another, and apply the critics dictum to yourself.
One half of this world is made up of idiocy, insanity, humbug, and
peculation, and the other half (very nearly) of envy, hatred, malice,
and all uncharitableness.
Yours ever truly
G. P. R. JAMES
This letter is directed to “Charles Ollier, Esq., Richard Bentley, Esq.,
New Burlington street, London.”
FAIR OAK LODGE, PETERSFIELD,
HANTS, 25th December, 1837.