The Arguments for and against aristocracy and democracy on the
Privileges of the few and the claims of the many, on Liberty and
slavery, power and the abuse of it, peace and war, are here very ably
handled, with the spirit of a Poet and the acuteness of a
Philosopher. Shakspeare himself seems to have had a leaning to the
arbitrary side of the question, perhaps from some feeling of contempt
for his own origin, and to have spared no occasion of bating the
rabble. What he says of them is very true; what he says of their
betters is also very true, though he dwells less upon it.' I then
proceed to account for this by showing how it is that 'the cause of
the people is but little calculated for a subject for poetry; or that
the language of Poetry naturally falls in with the language of
power.' I affirm, Sir, that Poetry, that the imagination generally
speaking, delights in power, in strong excitement, as well as in
truth, in good, in right, whereas pure reason and the moral sense
approve only of the true and good. I proceed to show that this
general love or tendency to immediate excitement or theatrical
effect, no matter how produced, gives a Bias to the imagination often
consistent with the greatest good, that in Poetry it triumphs over
principle, and bribes the passions to make a sacrifice of common
humanity. You say that it does not, that there is no such original
Sin in Poetry, that it makes no such sacrifice or unworthy compromise
between poetical effect and the still small voice of reason. And how
do you prove that there is no such principle giving a bias to the
imagination and a false colouring to poetry? Why, by asking in reply
to the instances where this principle operates, and where no other
can with much modesty and simplicity--'But are these the only topics
that afford delight in Poetry, etc.?' No; but these objects do afford
delight in poetry, and they afford it in proportion to their strong
and often tragical effect, and not in proportion to the good
produced, or their desireableness in a moral point of view. Do we
read with more pleasure of the ravages of a beast of prey than of the
Shepherd's pipe upon the Mountain? No; but we do read with pleasure
of the ravages of a beast of prey, and we do so on the principle I
have stated, namely, from the sense of power abstracted from the
sense of good; and it is the same principle that makes us read with
admiration and reconciles us in fact to the triumphant progress of
the conquerors and mighty Hunters of mankind, who come to stop the
Shepherd's Pipe upon the Mountains and sweep away his listening
flock. Do you mean to deny that there is anything imposing to the
imagination in power, in grandeur, in outward show, in the
accumulation of individual wealth and luxury, at the expense of equal
justice and the common weal? Do you deny that there is anything in
the 'Pride, Pomp, and Circumstance of glorious war, that makes
ambition virtue' in the eyes of admiring multitudes? Is this a new
theory of the pleasures of the imagination, which says that the
pleasures of the imagination do not take rise solely in the
calculation of the understanding? Is it a paradox of my creating that
'one murder makes a villain millions a Hero'? or is it not true that
here, as in other cases, the enormity of the evil overpowers and
makes a convert of the imagination by its very magnitude? You
contradict my reasoning because you know nothing of the question, and
you think that no one has a right to understand what you do not. My
offence against purity in the passage alluded to, 'which contains the
concentrated venom of my malignity,' is that I have admitted that
there are tyrants and slaves abroad in the world; and you would hush
the matter up and pretend that there is no such thing in order that
there may be nothing else. Further, I have explained the cause, the
subtle sophistry of the human mind, that tolerates and pampers the
evil in order to guard against its approaches; you would conceal the
cause in order to prevent the cure, and to leave the proud flesh
about the heart to harden and ossify into one impenetrable mass of
selfishness and hypocrisy, that we may not 'sympathise in the
distresses of suffering virtue' in any case in which they come in
competition with the fictitious wants and 'imputed weaknesses of the
great.' You ask, 'Are we gratified by the cruelties of Domitian or
Nero?' No, not we--they were too petty and cowardly to strike the
imagination at a distance; but the Roman senate tolerated them,
addressed their perpetrators, exalted them into gods, the fathers of
the people, they had pimps and scribblers of all sorts in their pay,
their Senecas, etc., till a turbulent rabble, thinking there were no
injuries to Society greater than the endurance of unlimited and
wanton oppression, put an end to the farce and abated the sin as well
as they could. Had you and I lived in those times we should have been
what we are now, I 'a sour malcontent,' and you 'a sweet courtier.'"
The manner in which this is managed: the force and innate power with which
it yeasts and works up itself--the feeling for the costume of society; is
in a style of genius. He hath a demon, as he himself says of Lord Byron.
We are to have a party this evening. The Davenports from Church Row--I
don't think you know anything of them--they have paid me a good deal of
attention. I like Davenport himself. The names of the rest are Miss
Barnes, Miss Winter with the Children.
[Later, March 17 or 18.]
On Monday we had to dinner Severn and Cawthorn, the Bookseller and
print-virtuoso; in the evening Severn went home to paint, and we other
three went to the play, to see Sheil's new tragedy ycleped Evadne. In the
morning Severn and I took a turn round the Museum--There is a Sphinx there
of a giant size, and most voluptuous Egyptian expression, I had not seen
it before. The play was bad even in comparison with 1818, the Augustan age
of the Drama, "comme on sait," as Voltaire says--the whole was made up of
a virtuous young woman, an indignant brother, a suspecting lover, a
libertine prince, a gratuitous villain, a street in Naples, a Cypress
grove, lilies and roses, virtue and vice, a bloody sword, a spangled
jacket, one Lady Olivia, one Miss O'Neil alias Evadne, alias Bellamira,
alias--Alias--Yea, and I say unto you a greater than Elias--There was
Abbot, and talking of Abbot his name puts me in mind of a spelling-book
lesson, descriptive of the whole Dramatis personae--Abbot--Abbess--Actor--
Actress--The play is a fine amusement, as a friend of mine once said to
me--"Do what you will," says he, "a poor gentleman who wants a guinea,
cannot spend his two shillings better than at the playhouse." The
pantomime was excellent, I had seen it before and I enjoyed it again. Your
Mother and I had some talk about Miss H.---- Says I, will Henry have that
Miss ----, a lath with a boddice, she who has been fine drawn--fit for
nothing but to cut up into Cribbage pins, to the tune of 15.2; one who is
all muslin; all feathers and bone; once in travelling she was made use of
as a lynch pin; I hope he will not have her, though it is no uncommon
thing to be _smitten with a staff_; though she might be very useful as his
walking-stick, his fishing-rod, his tooth-pik, his hat-stick (she runs so
much in his head)--let him turn farmer, she would cut into hurdles; let
him write poetry, she would be his turn-style. Her gown is like a flag on
a pole; she would do for him if he turn freemason; I hope she will prove a
flag of truce; when she sits languishing with her one foot on a stool, and
one elbow on the table, and her head inclined, she looks like the sign of
the crooked billet--or the frontispiece to Cinderella, or a tea-paper
wood-cut of Mother Shipton at her studies; she is a make-believe--She is
bona _s_ide a thin young 'oman--But this is mere talk of a
fellow-creature; yet pardie I would not that Henry have her--Non volo ut
eam possideat, nam, for, it would be a bam, for it would be a sham--
Don't think I am writing a petition to the Governors of St. Luke--no, that
would be in another style. May it please your Worships; forasmuch as the
undersigned has committed, transferred, given up, made over, consigned,
and aberrated himself, to the art and mystery of poetry; forasmuch as he
hath cut, rebuffed, affronted, huffed, and shirked, and taken stint at,
all other employments, arts, mysteries, and occupations, honest, middling,
and dishonest; forasmuch as he hath at sundry times and in divers places,
told truth unto the men of this generation, and eke to the women;
moreover, forasmuch as he hath kept a pair of boots that did not fit, and
doth not admire Sheil's play, Leigh Hunt, Tom Moore, Bob Southey, and Mr.
Rogers; and does admire Wm. Hazlitt; moreoverer for as more as he liketh
half of Wordsworth, and none of Crabbe; moreover-est for as most as he
hath written this page of penmanship--he prayeth your Worships to give him
a lodging--Witnessed by Rd. Abbey and Co., cum familiaribus et
consanguineis (signed) Count de Cockaigne.
The nothing of the day is a machine called the velocipede. It is a wheel
carriage to ride cock-horse upon, sitting astride and pushing it along
with the toes, a rudder wheel in hand--they will go seven miles an hour--A
handsome gelding will come to eight guineas; however they will soon be
cheaper, unless the army takes to them. I look back upon the last month, I
find nothing to write about; indeed I do not recollect anything particular
in it. It's all alike; we keep on breathing. The only amusement is a
little scandal, of however fine a shape, a laugh at a pun--and then after
all we wonder how we could enjoy the scandal, or laugh at the pun.
I have been at different times turning it in my head whether I should go
to Edinburgh and study for a physician; I am afraid I should not take
kindly to it; I am sure I could not take fees--and yet I should like to do
so; it's not worse than writing poems, and hanging them up to be fly-blown
on the Review shambles. Everybody is in his own mess. Here is the parson
at Hampstead quarrelling with all the world, he is in the wrong by this
same token; when the black cloth was put up in the Church for the Queen's
mourning, he asked the workmen to hang it the wrong side outwards, that it
might be better when taken down, it being his perquisite--Parsons will
always keep up their character, but as it is said there are some animals
the ancients knew which we do not, let us hope our posterity will miss the
black badger with tri-cornered hat; Who knows but some Reviewer of Buffon
or Pliny may put an account of the parson in the Appendix; No one will
then believe it any more than we believe in the Phoenix. I think we may
class the lawyer in the same natural history of Monsters; a green bag will
hold as much as a lawn sleeve. The only difference is that one is fustian
and the other flimsy; I am not unwilling to read Church history at present
and have Milner's in my eye; his is reckoned a very good one.
18th September 1819.
[In looking over some of my papers I found the above specimen of my
carelessness. It is a sheet you ought to have had long ago--my letter must
have appeared very unconnected, but as I number the sheets you must have
discovered how the mistake happened. How many things have happened since I
wrote it--How have I acted contrary to my resolves. The interval between
writing this sheet and the day I put this supplement to it, has been
completely filled with generous and most friendly actions of Brown towards
me. How frequently I forget to speak of things which I think of and feel
most. 'Tis very singular, the idea about Buffon above has been taken up by
Hunt in the Examiner, in some papers which he calls "A Preter-natural
History."][90]
Friday 19th March.
This morning I have been reading "the False One." Shameful to say, I was
in bed at ten--I mean this morning. The Blackwood Reviewers have committed
themselves in a scandalous heresy--they have been putting up Hogg, the
Ettrick Shepherd, against Burns: the senseless villains! The Scotch cannot
manage themselves at all, they want imagination, and that is why they are
so fond of Hogg, who has a little of it. This morning I am in a sort of
temper, indolent and supremely careless--I long after a Stanza or two of
Thomson's Castle of Indolence--my passions are all asleep, from my having
slumbered till nearly eleven, and weakened the animal fibre all over me,
to a delightful sensation, about three degrees on this side of faintness.
If I had teeth of pearl and the breath of lilies I should call it
languor, but as I am[B] I must call it laziness. In this state of
effeminacy the fibres of the brain are relaxed in common with the rest of
the body, and to such a happy degree that pleasure has no show of
enticement and pain no unbearable power. Neither Poetry, nor Ambition, nor
Love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me; they seem
rather like figures on a Greek vase--a Man and two women whom no one but
myself could distinguish in their disguisement.[91] This is the only
happiness, and is a rare instance of the advantage of the body
overpowering the Mind. I have this moment received a note from Haslam, in
which he expects the death of his Father, who has been for some time in a
state of insensibility; his mother bears up he says very well--I shall go
to town to-morrow to see him. This is the world--thus we cannot expect to
give way many hours to pleasure. Circumstances are like Clouds continually
gathering and bursting--While we are laughing, the seed of some trouble is
put into the wide arable land of events--while we are laughing it sprouts
it grows and suddenly bears a poison fruit which we must pluck. Even so we
have leisure to reason on the misfortunes of our friends; our own touch us
too nearly for words. Very few men have ever arrived at a complete
disinterestedness of Mind: very few have been influenced by a pure desire
of the benefit of others,--in the greater part of the Benefactors to
Humanity some meretricious motive has sullied their greatness--some
melodramatic scenery has fascinated them. From the manner in which I feel
Haslam's misfortune I perceive how far I am from any humble standard of
disinterestedness. Yet this feeling ought to be carried to its highest
pitch, as there is no fear of its ever injuring society--which it would
do, I fear, pushed to an extremity. For in wild nature the Hawk would lose
his Breakfast of Robins and the Robin his of Worms--The Lion must starve
as well as the swallow. The greater part of Men make their way with the
same instinctiveness, the same unwandering eye from their purposes, the
same animal eagerness as the Hawk. The Hawk wants a Mate, so does the
Man--look at them both, they set about it and procure one in the same
manner. They want both a nest and they both set about one in the same
manner--they get their food in the same manner. The noble animal Man for
his amusement smokes his pipe--the Hawk balances about the Clouds--that is
the only difference of their leisures. This it is that makes the Amusement
of Life--to a speculative Mind--I go among the Fields and catch a glimpse
of a Stoat or a fieldmouse peeping out of the withered grass--the creature
hath a purpose, and its eyes are bright with it. I go amongst the
buildings of a city and I see a Man hurrying along--to what? the Creature
has a purpose and his eyes are bright with it. But then, as Wordsworth
says, "we have all one human heart----" There is an electric fire in human
nature tending to purify--so that among these human creatures there is
continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at
it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish. I have no doubt that
thousands of people never heard of have had hearts completely
disinterested: I can remember but two--Socrates and Jesus--Their histories
evince it. What I heard a little time ago, Taylor observe with respect to
Socrates, may be said of Jesus--That he was so great a man that though he
transmitted no writing of his own to posterity, we have his Mind and his
sayings and his greatness handed to us by others. It is to be lamented
that the history of the latter was written and revised by Men interested
in the pious frauds of Religion. Yet through all this I see his splendour.
Even here, though I myself am pursuing the same instinctive course as the
veriest human animal you can think of, I am, however young, writing at
random, straining at particles of light in the midst of a great darkness,
without knowing the bearing of any one assertion, of any one opinion. Yet
may I not in this be free from sin? May there not be superior beings
amused with any graceful, though instinctive, attitude my mind may fall
into as I am entertained with the alertness of a Stoat or the anxiety of a
Deer? Though a quarrel in the Streets is a thing to be hated, the energies
displayed in it are fine; the commonest Man shows a grace in his quarrel.
By a superior Being our reasonings may take the same tone--though
erroneous they may be fine. This is the very thing in which consists
Poetry, and if so it is not so fine a thing as philosophy--For the same
reason that an eagle is not so fine a thing as a truth. Give me this
credit--Do you not think I strive--to know myself? Give me this credit,
and you will not think that on my own account I repeat Milton's lines--
"How charming is divine Philosophy,
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute."
No--not for myself--feeling grateful as I do to have got into a state of
mind to relish them properly. Nothing ever becomes real till it is
experienced--Even a Proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has
illustrated it. I am ever afraid that your anxiety for me will lead you to
fear for the violence of my temperament continually smothered down: for
that reason I did not intend to have sent you the following sonnet--but
look over the two last pages and ask yourselves whether I have not that in
me which will bear the buffets of the world. It will be the best comment
on my sonnet; it will show you that it was written with no Agony but that
of ignorance; with no thirst of anything but Knowledge when pushed to the
point though the first steps to it were through my human passions--they
went away and I wrote with my Mind--and perhaps I must confess a little
bit of my heart--
Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell:
No God, no Deamon of severe response
Deigns to reply from heaven or from Hell.--
Then to my human heart I turn at once--
Heart! thou and I are here sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain!
Why did I laugh? I know this being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads:
Yet could I on this very midnight cease,[92]
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, fame and Beauty are intense indeed
But Death intenser--Death is Life's high meed.
I went to bed and enjoyed an uninterrupted sleep. Sane I went to bed and
sane I arose.
[April 15.]
This is the 15th of April--you see what a time it is since I wrote; all
that time I have been day by day expecting Letters from you. I write quite
in the dark. In the hopes of a Letter daily I have deferred that I might
write in the light. I was in town yesterday, and at Taylor's heard that
young Birkbeck had been in Town and was to set forward in six or seven
days--so I shall dedicate that time to making up this parcel ready for
him. I wish I could hear from you to make me "whole and general as the
casing air."[93] A few days after the 19th of April[94] I received a note
from Haslam containing the news of his father's death. The Family has all
been well. Haslam has his father's situation. The Framptons have behaved
well to him. The day before yesterday I went to a rout at Sawrey's--it was
made pleasant by Reynolds being there and our getting into conversation
with one of the most beautiful Girls I ever saw--She gave a remarkable
prettiness to all those commonplaces which most women who talk must
utter--I liked Mrs. Sawrey very well. The Sunday before last your Brothers
were to come by a long invitation--so long that for the time I forgot it
when I promised Mrs. Brawne to dine with her on the same day. On
recollecting my engagement with your Brothers I immediately excused myself
with Mrs. Brawne, but she would not hear of it, and insisted on my
bringing my friends with me. So we all dined at Mrs. Brawne's. I have been
to Mrs. Bentley's this morning, and put all the letters to and from you
and poor Tom and me.[95] I found some of the correspondence between him
and that degraded Wells and Amena. It is a wretched business; I do not
know the rights of it, but what I do know would, I am sure, affect you so
much that I am in two minds whether I will tell you anything about it. And
yet I do not see why--for anything, though it be unpleasant, that calls to
mind those we still love has a compensation in itself for the pain it
occasions--so very likely to-morrow I may set about copying the whole of
what I have about it: with no sort of a Richardson self-satisfaction--I
hate it to a sickness--and I am afraid more from indolence of mind than
anything else. I wonder how people exist with all their worries. I have
not been to Westminster but once lately, and that was to see Dilke in his
new Lodgings--I think of living somewhere in the neighbourhood myself.
Your mother was well by your Brothers' account. I shall see her perhaps
to-morrow--yes I shall. We have had the Boys[96] here lately--they make a
bit of a racket--I shall not be sorry when they go. I found also this
morning, in a note from George to you and my dear sister a lock of your
hair which I shall this moment put in the miniature case. A few days ago
Hunt dined here and Brown invited Davenport to meet him, Davenport from a
sense of weakness thought it incumbent on him to show off--and pursuant
to that never ceased talking and boring all day till I was completely
fagged out. Brown grew melancholy--but Hunt perceiving what a
complimentary tendency all this had bore it remarkably well--Brown
grumbled about it for two or three days. I went with Hunt to Sir John
Leicester's gallery; there I saw Northcote--Hilton--Bewick, and many more
of great and Little note. Haydon's picture is of very little progress this
year--He talks about finishing it next year. Wordsworth is going to
publish a Poem called Peter Bell--what a perverse fellow it is! Why will
he talk about Peter Bells--I was told not to tell--but to you it will not
be telling--Reynolds hearing that said Peter Bell was coming out, took it
into his head to write a skit upon it called Peter Bell. He did it as soon
as thought on, it is to be published this morning, and comes out before
the real Peter Bell, with this admirable motto from the "Bold Stroke for a
Wife" "I am the real Simon Pure." It would be just as well to trounce Lord
Byron in the same manner. I am still at a stand in versifying--I cannot do
it yet with any pleasure--I mean, however, to look round on my resources
and means, and see what I can do without poetry--To that end I shall live
in Westminster--I have no doubt of making by some means a little to help
on, or I shall be left in the Lurch--with the burden of a little
Pride--However I look in time. The Dilkes like their Lodgings at
Westminster tolerably well. I cannot help thinking what a shame it is that
poor Dilke should give up his comfortable house and garden for his Son,
whom he will certainly ruin with too much care. The boy has nothing in his
ears all day but himself and the importance of his education. Dilke has
continually in his mouth "My Boy." This is what spoils princes: it may
have the same effect with Commoners. Mrs. Dilke has been very well
lately--But what a shameful thing it is that for that obstinate Boy Dilke
should stifle himself in Town Lodgings and wear out his Life by his
continual apprehension of his Boy's fate in Westminster school, with the
rest of the Boys and the Masters. Every one has some wear and tear. One
would think Dilke ought to be quiet and happy--but no--this one Boy makes
his face pale, his society silent and his vigilance jealous--He would I
have no doubt quarrel with any one who snubb'd his Boy--With all this he
has no notion how to manage him. O what a farce is our greatest cares! Yet
one must be in the pother for the sake of Clothes food and Lodging. There
has been a squabble between Kean and Mr. Bucke--There are faults on both
sides--on Bucke's the faults are positive to the Question: Kean's fault is
a want of genteel knowledge and high Policy. The former writes knavishly
foolish, and the other silly bombast. It was about a Tragedy written by
said Mr. Bucke which, it appears, Mr. Kean kick'd at--it was so bad--After
a little struggle of Mr. Bucke's against Kean, Drury Lane had the Policy
to bring it out and Kean the impolicy not to appear in it. It was damn'd.
The people in the Pit had a favourite call on the night of "Buck, Buck,
rise up" and "Buck, Buck, how many horns do I hold up." Kotzebue the
German Dramatist and traitor to his country was murdered lately by a young
student whose name I forget--he stabbed himself immediately after crying
out Germany! Germany! I was unfortunate to miss Richards the only time I
have been for many months to see him.
Shall I treat you with a little extempore?--