The suggestions contained in the following two letters to Mr. Gosse
refer to the collection of English Odes which that gentleman was then
engaged in editing (Kegan Paul, 1881).
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [Dec. 6, 1880]._
MY DEAR WEG,--I have many letters that I ought to write in preference to
this; but a duty to letters and to you prevails over any private
consideration. You are going to collect odes; I could not wish a better
man to do so; but I tremble lest you should commit two sins of omission.
You will not, I am sure, be so far left to yourself as to give us no
more of Dryden than the hackneyed St. Cecilia; I know you will give us
some others of those surprising masterpieces where there is more
sustained eloquence and harmony of English numbers than in all that has
been written since; there is a machine about a poetical young lady,[33]
and another about either Charles or James, I know not which; and they
are both indescribably fine. (Is Marvell's Horatian Ode good enough? I
half think so.) But my great point is a fear that you are one of those
who are unjust to our old Tennyson's Duke of Wellington. I have just
been talking it over with Symonds; and we agreed that whether for its
metrical effects, for its brief, plain, stirring words of portraiture,
as--he "that never lost an English gun," or--the soldier salute; or for
the heroic apostrophe to Nelson; that ode has never been surpassed in
any tongue or time. Grant me the Duke, O Weg! I suppose you must not put
in yours about the warship; you will have to admit worse ones,
however.--Ever yours,