These fast-following letters of mine seem intended to refute a charge
made against me by Morton: that I had only so much impulse of
correspondence as resulted from the receipt of a friend's letter. Is it
very frivolous to write all these letters, on no business whatsoever?
What I think is, that one will soon be going into the country, where one
hears no music, and sees no pictures, and so one will have nothing to
write about. I mean to take down a Thucydides, to feed on: like a whole
Parmesan. But at present here I am in London: last night I went to see
Acis and Galatea brought out, with Handel's music, and Stanfield's
scenery: really the best done thing I have seen for many a year. As I
sat alone (alone in spirit) in the pit, I wished for you: and now Sunday
is over: I have been to church: I have dined at Portland Place: {102} and
now I come home to my lodgings: light my pipe: and will whisper something
over to Italy. You talk of your Naples: and that one cannot understand
Theocritus without having been on those shores. I tell you, you can't
understand Macready without coming to London and seeing his revival of
Acis and Galatea. You enter Drury Lane at a quarter to seven: the pit is
already nearly full: but you find a seat, and a very pleasant one. Box
doors open and shut: ladies take off their shawls and seat themselves:
gentlemen twist their side curls: the musicians come up from under the
stage one by one: 'tis just upon seven: Macready is very punctual: Mr. T.
Cooke is in his place with his marshal's baton in his hand: he lifts it
up: and off they set with old Handel's noble overture. As it is playing,
the red velvet curtain (which Macready has substituted, not wisely, for
the old green one) draws apart: and you see a rich drop scene, all
festooned and arabesqued with River Gods, Nymphs, and their emblems; and
in the centre a delightful, large, good copy of Poussin's great landscape
(of which I used to have a print in my rooms) where the Cyclops is seen
seated on a mountain, looking over the sea-shore. The overture ends, the
drop scene rises, and there is the sea-shore, a long curling bay: the sea
heaving under the moon, and breaking upon the beach, and rolling the surf
down--the stage! This is really capitally done. But enough of
description. The choruses were well sung, well acted, well dressed, and
well grouped; and the whole thing creditable and pleasant. Do you know
the music? It is of Handel's best: and as classical as any man who wore
a full-bottomed wig could write. I think Handel never gets out of his
wig: that is, out of his age: his Hallelujah chorus is a chorus not of
angels, but of well-fed earthly choristers, ranged tier above tier in a
Gothic cathedral, with princes for audience, and their military trumpets
flourishing over the full volume of the organ. Handel's gods are like
Homer's, and his sublime never reaches beyond the region of the clouds.
Therefore I think that his great marches, triumphal pieces, and
coronation anthems, are his finest works. There is a little bit of
Auber's, at the end of the Bayadere when the God resumes his divinity and
retires into the sky, which has more of pure light and mystical solemnity
than anything I know of Handel's: but then this is only a scrap: and
Auber could not breathe in that atmosphere long: whereas old Handel's
coursers, with necks with thunder clothed and long resounding pace, never
tire. Beethoven thought more deeply also: but I don't know if he could
sustain himself so well. I suppose you will resent this praise of
Beethoven: but you must be tired of the whole matter, written as it is in
this vile hand: and so here is an end of it. . . . And now I am going to
put on my night-cap: for my paper is nearly ended, and the iron tongue of
St. Paul's, as reported by an East wind, has told twelve. This is the
last news from the city. So Good night. I suppose the violets will be
going off in the Papal dominions by the time this letter reaches you: my
country cousins are making much of a few aconites. Love to Morton.
P.S. I hope these foolish letters don't cost you and Morton much: I
always pay 1_s._ 7_d._ for them here: which ought to carry such levities
to Hindostan without further charge.
_To Bernard Barton_.
LONDON, _February_ 21/42.
I have just got home a new coat for my Constable: which coat cost 33
shillings: just the same price as I gave for a Chesterfield wrapper (as
it is called) for myself some weeks ago. People told me I was not
improved by my Chesterfield wrapper: and I am vext to see how little my
Constable is improved by his coat of Cloth of Gold. But I have been told
what is the use of a frame lately: only as it requires nice explanation I
shall leave it till I see you. Don't you wish me to buy that little
Evening piece I told you of? worth a dozen of your Paul Veroneses put
together.
When I rate you (as you call it) about shewing my verses, letters, etc.,
you know in what spirit I rate you: thanking you all the time for your
generous intention of praising me. It would be very hard, and not
desirable, to make you understand why my Mama need not have heard the
verses: but it is a very little matter: so no more of it. As to my doing
anything else in that way, I know that I could write volume after volume
as well as others of the mob of gentlemen who write with ease: but I
think unless a man can do better, he had best not do at all; I have not
the strong inward call, nor cruel-sweet pangs of parturition, that prove
the birth of anything bigger than a mouse. With you the case is
different, who have so long been a follower of the Muse, and who have had
a kindly, sober, English, wholesome, religious spirit within you that has
communicated kindred warmth to many honest souls. Such a creature as
Augusta--John's wife--a true Lady, was very fond of your poems: and I
think that is no mean praise: a very good assurance that you have not
written in vain. I am a man of taste, of whom there are hundreds born
every year: only that less easy circumstances than mine at present are
compel them to one calling: that calling perhaps a mechanical one, which
overlies all their other, and naturally perhaps more energetic impulses.
As to an occasional copy of verses, there are few men who have leisure to
read, and are possessed of any music in their souls, who are not capable
of versifying on some ten or twelve occasions during their natural lives:
at a proper conjunction of the stars. There is no harm in taking
advantage of such occasions.
This letter-writing fit (one must suppose) can but happen once in one's
life: though I hope you and I shall live to have many a little bargain
for pictures. But I hold communion with Suffolk through you. In this
big London all full of intellect and pleasure and business I feel
pleasure in dipping down into the country, and rubbing my hand over the
cool dew upon the pastures, as it were. I know very few people here: and
care for fewer; I believe I should like to live in a small house just
outside a pleasant English town all the days of my life, making myself
useful in a humble way, reading my books, and playing a rubber of whist
at night. But England cannot expect long such a reign of inward quiet as
to suffer men to dwell so easily to themselves. But Time will tell us:
Come what come may,
Time and the Hour runs through the roughest day. {106}
It is hard to give you so long a letter, so dull an one, and written in
so cramped a hand, to read in this hardworking part of your week. But
you can read a bit at odd times, you know: or none at all. Anyhow 'tis
time to have done. I am going to walk with Lusia. So farewell
P.S. I always direct to you as 'Mr. Barton' because I know not if
Quakers ought to endure Squiredom. How I long to shew you my Constable!
Pray let me know how Mr. Jenney is. I think that we shall get down to
Suffolk the end of next week.
LONDON, _Febr_. 25/42.