FOOTNOTES:[108]"St." is Richard Stonhewer, a Fellow of Peterhouse, secretary to the Duke of Grafton, and a man of considerable, though not public, importance in politics.[109]Anstey's—referred to in the Introduction.[110]By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson.[111]Lord Strathmore.
[108]"St." is Richard Stonhewer, a Fellow of Peterhouse, secretary to the Duke of Grafton, and a man of considerable, though not public, importance in politics.
[108]"St." is Richard Stonhewer, a Fellow of Peterhouse, secretary to the Duke of Grafton, and a man of considerable, though not public, importance in politics.
[109]Anstey's—referred to in the Introduction.
[109]Anstey's—referred to in the Introduction.
[110]By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson.
[110]By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson.
[111]Lord Strathmore.
[111]Lord Strathmore.
As much has been already said of Horace Walpole's letters, but practically nothing of his other works except his novel and his play, something more may be added here to show that he was notmerelya "trifler." His private press at "Strawberry" was mainly a means of amusement to him, like a billiard-room or a tennis-court. But it provided some useful books—such as editions of Anthony Hamilton'sMemoirs of Grammont, of Lord Herbert of Cherbury'sLifeand of part of Gray'sPoems. He had neither historic knowledge nor historic sense enough to deal satisfactorily with such a subject asHistoric Doubts on Richard III., though the subject itself was quite worth dealing with. But hisCatalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, hisAnecdotes of Painting in England, and hisCatalogue of Engraversare not without value; and he could usefully handle the history of his own time, with proper corrections for his prejudices, etc. He was weakest of all as a literary critic: and his dealings with Chatterton were most unfortunate, though the mischief done was not intentional, and might not have been serious in any other case. These things have been said with a definite purpose—that of showing that Horace's interests, if seldom deep, were unusually wide. Now though width of interest is not, as Cowper's case shows, indispensable to goodness of letter-writing, it is a very great qualification for it, as giving to the result variety, colour, and "bite." At the same time, unless one had space on a very different scale from anypossible here, it would beimpossible to illustrate this "extensive curiosity" as they called it then: and Horace ought to be shown here in hismostnative element as a chronicler of "society." I have thought it worth while to subjoin for comparison Thackeray's wonderfulpasticheinThe Virginians, which is almost better Horace than Horace himself.[112]
As much has been already said of Horace Walpole's letters, but practically nothing of his other works except his novel and his play, something more may be added here to show that he was notmerelya "trifler." His private press at "Strawberry" was mainly a means of amusement to him, like a billiard-room or a tennis-court. But it provided some useful books—such as editions of Anthony Hamilton'sMemoirs of Grammont, of Lord Herbert of Cherbury'sLifeand of part of Gray'sPoems. He had neither historic knowledge nor historic sense enough to deal satisfactorily with such a subject asHistoric Doubts on Richard III., though the subject itself was quite worth dealing with. But hisCatalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, hisAnecdotes of Painting in England, and hisCatalogue of Engraversare not without value; and he could usefully handle the history of his own time, with proper corrections for his prejudices, etc. He was weakest of all as a literary critic: and his dealings with Chatterton were most unfortunate, though the mischief done was not intentional, and might not have been serious in any other case. These things have been said with a definite purpose—that of showing that Horace's interests, if seldom deep, were unusually wide. Now though width of interest is not, as Cowper's case shows, indispensable to goodness of letter-writing, it is a very great qualification for it, as giving to the result variety, colour, and "bite." At the same time, unless one had space on a very different scale from anypossible here, it would beimpossible to illustrate this "extensive curiosity" as they called it then: and Horace ought to be shown here in hismostnative element as a chronicler of "society." I have thought it worth while to subjoin for comparison Thackeray's wonderfulpasticheinThe Virginians, which is almost better Horace than Horace himself.[112]
22.To the Countess of Ossory
Arlington Street,April 31. 1773
It is most true, madam, that I did purpose to regale myself with a visit to Ampthill; but this winter, which has trod hard upon last week's summer, blunted my intention for a while, though revivable in finer weather. Oh! but I had another reason for changing my mind; you are leaving Ampthill, and I do not mean only to write my name in your park-keeper's book. Yes, in spite of your ladyship's low spirited mood, you are coming from Ampthill, and you are to be at Strawberry Hill to-morrow se'nnight. You may not be in the secret, but Lord Ossory and I have settled it, and you are to be pawned to me while he is at Newmarket. He told me you certainly would if I asked it, and as they used to say in ancient writ, I do beg it upon the knees of my heart. Nay, it is unavoidable; for though a lady's word may be ever so crackable, you cannot have the conscience to break your husband's word, so I depend upon it. I have asked Mr. Craufurd to meet you, butbegged he would refuse me, that I might be sure of his coming. Mrs Meynel has taken another year's lease of her house, so you probably, madam, will not be tired of me for the livelong day for the whole time you shall honour my mansion. Your face will be well and your fever gone a week before to-morrow se'nnight, and you will look as well as ever you did in your life, that is, as you have done lately, which is better than ever you did before. You must not, in truth, expect that I your shepherd should be quite so fit to figure in a fan mount. Besides the gout for six months, which makes some flaws in the bloom of elderly Arcadians, I have been so far from keeping sheep for the last ten days, that I have kept nothing but bad hours; and have been such a rake that I put myself in mind of a poor old cripple that I saw formerly at Hogarth's auction: he bid for the Rake's Progress, saying, "I will buy my own progress," though he looked as if he had no more title to it than I have, but by limping and sitting up. In short, I have been at four balls since yesterday se'nnight, though I had the prudence not to stay supper at Lord Stanley's. That festival was very expensive, for it is the fashion now to make romances rather than balls. In the hall was a band of French horns and clarionets in laced uniforms and feathers. The dome of the staircase was beautifully illuminated with coloured glass lanthorns; in the ante-room was a bevy of vestals in white habits, making tea; in the next, a drapery of sarcenet, that with a very funereal air crossed the chimney, and depended in vast festoons over the sconces. The third chamber's doors were heightened with candles in gilt vases, and the ballroom was formed into an oval with benches above each other, not unlike pews, and covered with red serge, above which were arbours of flowers, redand green pilasters, more sarcenet, and Lord March's glasses, which he had lent, as an upholsterer asked Lord Stanley 300l. for the loan of some. He had burst open the side of the wall to build an orchestra, with a pendant mirror to reflect the dancers, à la Guisnes; and the musicians were in scarlet robes, like the candle-snuffers who represent the senates of Venice at Drury Lane. There were two more chambers at which I never arrived for the crowd. The seasons, danced by himself, the younger Storer, the Duc de Lauzun and another, the youngest Miss Stanley, Miss Poole, the youngest Wrottesley and another Miss, who is likewise anonymous in my memory, were in errant shepherdly dresses without invention, and Storer and Miss Wrottesley in banians with furs, for winter, cock and hen. In six rooms below were magnificent suppers. I was not quite so sober last night at Mons. de Guisnes', where the evening began with a ball of children, from eighteen to four years old. They danced amazingly well, yet disappointed me, so many of them were ugly; but Dr. Delawarr's two eldest daughters and the Ancaster infanta performed a pas de trois as well as Mlle. Heinel, and the two eldest were pretty; yet I promise you, madam, the next age will be a thousand degrees below the present in beauty. The most interesting part was to observe the anxiety of the mothers while their children danced or supped; they supped at ten in three rooms. I should not omit telling you that the Vernons, especially the eldest, were not the homeliest part of the show. The former quadrilles then came again upon the stage, and Harry Conway the younger was so astonished at the agility of Mrs. Hobart's bulk, that he said he was sure she must be hollow. The tables were again spread in five rooms, and at past two in the morning we went tosupper. To excusewe, I must plead that both the late and present chancellor, and the solemn Lord Lyttleton, my predecessors by some years, stayed as late as I did—and in good sooth the watchman went four as my chairman knocked at my door.
Such is the result of good resolutions! I determined during my illness to have my colt's tooth drawn, and lo! I have cut four new in a week. Well! at least I am as grave as a judge, looked as rosy as Lord Lyttleton, and much soberer than my Lord Chancellor. To shew some marks of grace, I shall give up the opera, (indeed it is very bad) and go and retake my doctor's degrees among the dowagers at Lady Blandford's; and intending to have no more diversions than I have news to tell your ladyship, I think you shall not hear from me again till we meet, as I shall think it, in heaven.
23. (Thackeray imitating).To the Hon. H. S. Conway
Arlington Street, Friday night.
I have come away, child, for a day or two from my devotions to our Lady of Strawberry. Have I not been on my knees to her these three weeks, and aren't the poor old joints full of rheumatism? A fit took me that I would pay London a visit, that I would go to Vauxhall and Ranelagh.Quoi!May I not have my rattle as well as other elderly babies? Suppose, after being so long virtuous, I take a fancy to cakes and ale, shall your reverence say nay to me? George Selwyn and Tony Storer and your humble servant took boat at Westminster t'other night. Was it Tuesday?—no, Tuesday I was with their Graces of Norfolk, who are just from Tunbridge—it was Wednesday. How should I know?
Wasn't I dead drunk with a whole pint of lemonade I took at White's?
The Norfolk folk had been entertaining me on Tuesday with the account of a young savage Iroquois, Choctaw, or Virginian, who has lately been making a little noise in our quarter of the globe. He is an offshoot of that disreputable family of Esmond-Castlewood, of whom all the men are gamblers and spendthrifts, and all the women—well, I shan't say the word, lest Lady Ailesbury should be looking over your shoulder. Both the late lords, my father told me, were in his pay, and the last one, a beau of Queen Anne's reign, from a viscount advanced to be an earl through the merits and intercession of his notorious old sister Bernstein, late Tusher,neeEsmond—a great beauty, too, of her day, a favourite of the old Pretender. She sold his secrets to my papa, who paid her for them; and being nowise particular in her love for the Stuarts, came over to the august Hanoverian house at present reigning over us. "Will Horace Walpole's tongue never stop scandal?" says your wife over your shoulder. I kiss your ladyship's hand. I am dumb. The Bernstein is a model of virtue. She had no good reasons for marrying her father's chaplain. Many of the nobility omit the marriage altogether. Shewasn'tashamed of being Mrs. Tusher, and didn't take a GermanBaroncinofor a second husband, whom nobody out of Hanover ever saw. The Yarmouth bears no malice. Esther and Vashti are very good friends, and have been cheating each other at Tunbridge at cards all the summer.
"And what has all this to do with the Iroquois?" says your ladyship. The Iroquois has been at Tunbridge, too—not cheating, perhaps, but winning vastly. They say he has bled Lord March of thousands—Lord March, by whomso much blood hath been shed, that he has quarrelled with everybody, fought with everybody, rode over everybody, been fallen in love with by everybody's wife except Mr. Conway's, andnotexcepting her present Majesty, the Countess of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Queen of Walmoden and Yarmouth, whom heaven preserve to us.
You know an offensive little creaturede par le monde, one Jack Morris, who skips in and out of all the houses of London. When we were at Vauxhall, Mr. Jack gave us a nod under the shoulder of a pretty young fellow enough, on whose arm he was leaning, and who appeared hugely delighted with the enchantments of the garden. Lord, how he stared at the fireworks! Gods, how he huzzayed at the singing of a horrible painted wench who shrieked the ears off my head! A twopenny string of glass beads and a strip of tawdry cloth are treasures in Iroquois-land, and our savage valued them accordingly.
A buzz went about the place that this was the fortunate youth. He won three hundred at White's last night very genteelly from Rockingham and my precious nephew, and here he was bellowing and huzzaying over the music so as to do you good to hear. I do not love a puppet-show, but I love to treat children to one, Miss Conway! I present your ladyship my compliments, and hope we shall go and see the dolls together.
When the singing-woman came down from her throne, Jack Morris must introduce my Virginian to her. I saw him blush up to the eyes, and make her, upon my word, a very fine bow, such as I had no idea was practised in wigwams. "There is a certainjenny squawabout her, and that's why the savage likes her," George said—a joke certainly not as brilliant as a firework. After which it seemed to me that the savage and the savagess retired together.
Having had a great deal too much to eat and drink three hours before, my partners must have chicken and rack-punch at Vauxhall, where George fell asleep straightway, and for my sins I must tell Tony Storer what I knew about this Virginian's amiable family, especially some of the Bernstein's antecedents and the history of another elderly beauty of the family, a certain Lady Maria, who wasau mieuxwith the late Prince of Wales. What did I say? I protest not half of what I knew, and of course not a tenth part of what I was going to tell, for who should start out upon us but my savage, this time quite red in the face; and in hiswar paint. The wretch had been drinking fire-water in the next box!
He cocked his hat, clapped his hand to his sword, asked which of the gentlemen was it that was maligning his family? so that I was obliged to entreat him not to make such a noise, lest he should wake my friend Mr. George Selwyn. And I added, "I assure you, sir, I had no idea that you were near me, and I most sincerely apologize for giving you pain."
The Huron took his hand off his tomahawk at this pacific rejoinder, made a bow not ungraciously, said he could not, of course, ask more than an apology from a gentleman of my age (Merci, Monsieur!) and, hearing the name of Mr. Selwyn, made another bow to George, and said he had a letter to him from Lord March, which he had had the ill-fortune to mislay. George has put him up for the club, it appears, in conjunction with March, and no doubt these three lambs will fleece each other. Meanwhile, my pacified savage sat down with us, andburied the hatchetin another bowl of punch, for which these gentlemen must call. Heaven help us! 'Tis eleven o'clock, and here comes Bedson with my gruel!
H. W.
FOOTNOTES:[112]There is an amicable dispute among Thackerayans whether this or the imitation-Spectatorpaper inEsmondis the more wonderful of their joint kind. To facilitate this comparison the letter part (for there is one) of that paper will be given here under Thackeray's own name.
[112]There is an amicable dispute among Thackerayans whether this or the imitation-Spectatorpaper inEsmondis the more wonderful of their joint kind. To facilitate this comparison the letter part (for there is one) of that paper will be given here under Thackeray's own name.
[112]There is an amicable dispute among Thackerayans whether this or the imitation-Spectatorpaper inEsmondis the more wonderful of their joint kind. To facilitate this comparison the letter part (for there is one) of that paper will be given here under Thackeray's own name.
Smollett's reputation has been of course always mainly, indeed almost wholly, that of a novelist, though his miscellaneous work is of no small merit. But that he wrote his best novelinletters and that perhaps it is one of the best so written, has been mentioned. HisTravelsare also of the letter-kind—especially of the ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we have not much. But the following has always seemed to the present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly temper, and his command of phrase ("great Cham of literature" has, as we say now, "stuck") both appear in it: and the matter is interesting. We have, so far as I remember, no record of any interview between Johnson and Smollett, though they must have met. They were both Tories, and Johnson wrote in theCritical Reviewwhich Smollett edited. But Johnson's gibes at Scotland are not likely to have conciliated Smollett: and there was just that combination of likeness and difference between the two men which (especially as the one was as typically English as the other was Scotch) generates incompatibility. How victoriously Wilkes got over Johnson's personal dislike to him all readers of Boswell know: and it is one of the most amusing passages in the book. On this occasion, too, he did what was asked of him. "Frank" had not beenpressed, but had joined for some reason of his own. However, he accepted his discharge and returned to his master, staying till that master's death.
Smollett's reputation has been of course always mainly, indeed almost wholly, that of a novelist, though his miscellaneous work is of no small merit. But that he wrote his best novelinletters and that perhaps it is one of the best so written, has been mentioned. HisTravelsare also of the letter-kind—especially of the ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we have not much. But the following has always seemed to the present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly temper, and his command of phrase ("great Cham of literature" has, as we say now, "stuck") both appear in it: and the matter is interesting. We have, so far as I remember, no record of any interview between Johnson and Smollett, though they must have met. They were both Tories, and Johnson wrote in theCritical Reviewwhich Smollett edited. But Johnson's gibes at Scotland are not likely to have conciliated Smollett: and there was just that combination of likeness and difference between the two men which (especially as the one was as typically English as the other was Scotch) generates incompatibility. How victoriously Wilkes got over Johnson's personal dislike to him all readers of Boswell know: and it is one of the most amusing passages in the book. On this occasion, too, he did what was asked of him. "Frank" had not beenpressed, but had joined for some reason of his own. However, he accepted his discharge and returned to his master, staying till that master's death.
24.To John Wilkes, Esq.
Chelsea, 16th March, 1759.
Dear Sir
I am again your petitioner, in behalf of that greatChamof literature, Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He says the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for His Majesty's service. You know what matter of animosity the said Johnson has against you: and I dare say you desire no other opportunity of resenting it, than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on this occasion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say more on this subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, your affectionate, obliged, humble servant,
T. Smollett.
It was necessary to say a good deal about Cowper's letters in the Introduction, but it would hardly do to stint him of some further comment. It will be a most unfortunate evidence of degradation in English literary taste if he ever loses the position there assigned to him, and practically acknowledged by all the best judges for the last century. For there is certainly no other epistoler who has displayed such consummate (if also such unconscious) art in making the most out of the least. Of course people who must have noise, and bustle, and "importance" of matter, and so forth, may be dissatisfied. But their dissatisfaction convicts not Cowper but themselves: and the conviction is not for want of Art, but for want of appreciation of Art. Now this last is one of the most terrible faults to be found in any human creature. Not everybody can be an artist: but everybody who is not deficient to this or that extent in sense—to use that word in its widest and best interpretation, for understanding and feeling both—can enjoy an artist's work. Nor is there any more important function of the often misused word "education" than "bringing out" this sense when it is dormant, and training and developing it when it is brought out. And few things are more useful for exercise in this way than the under-current of artistry in Cowper's "chit-chat." His letters are so familiar that it is vain to aim at any great originality in selecting them. The following strikes me as an excellent example. What more trite than references to increased expense of postage (rather notably topical just now though!) and remarks on a greenhouse? And whatless trite—except to tritical tastes and intellects—than this letter?
It was necessary to say a good deal about Cowper's letters in the Introduction, but it would hardly do to stint him of some further comment. It will be a most unfortunate evidence of degradation in English literary taste if he ever loses the position there assigned to him, and practically acknowledged by all the best judges for the last century. For there is certainly no other epistoler who has displayed such consummate (if also such unconscious) art in making the most out of the least. Of course people who must have noise, and bustle, and "importance" of matter, and so forth, may be dissatisfied. But their dissatisfaction convicts not Cowper but themselves: and the conviction is not for want of Art, but for want of appreciation of Art. Now this last is one of the most terrible faults to be found in any human creature. Not everybody can be an artist: but everybody who is not deficient to this or that extent in sense—to use that word in its widest and best interpretation, for understanding and feeling both—can enjoy an artist's work. Nor is there any more important function of the often misused word "education" than "bringing out" this sense when it is dormant, and training and developing it when it is brought out. And few things are more useful for exercise in this way than the under-current of artistry in Cowper's "chit-chat." His letters are so familiar that it is vain to aim at any great originality in selecting them. The following strikes me as an excellent example. What more trite than references to increased expense of postage (rather notably topical just now though!) and remarks on a greenhouse? And whatless trite—except to tritical tastes and intellects—than this letter?
25.To the Rev. John Newton
Sept. 18. 1784.
My dear Friend,
Following your good example, I lay before me a sheet of my largest paper. It was this moment fair and unblemished but I have begun to blot it, and having begun, am not likely to cease till I have spoiled it. I have sent you many a sheet that in my judgment of it has been very unworthy of your acceptance, but my conscience was in some measure satisfied by reflecting, that if it were good for nothing, at the same time it cost you nothing, except the trouble of reading it. But the case is altered now. You must pay a solid price for frothy matter, and though I do not absolutely pick your pocket, yet you lose your money, and, as the saying is, are never the wiser; a saying literally fulfilled to the reader of my epistles.
My greenhouse is never so pleasant as when we are just upon the point of being turned out of it. The gentleness of the autumnal suns, and the calmness of this latter season, make it a much more agreeable retreat than we ever find it in summer; when, the winds being generally brisk, we cannot cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity of air, without being at the same time incommoded by it. But now I sit with all the windows and the door wide open, and am regaled with the scent of every flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known how to make it. We keep no bees, but if I lived in a hive I should hardly hear more of their music. All the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of mignonette, opposite to the window,and pay me for the honey they get out of it by a hum, which, though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my ear as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds that nature utters are delightful,—at least in this country. I should not perhaps find the roaring of lions in Africa, or of bears in Russia, very pleasing; but I know no beast in England whose voice I do not account musical, save and except always the braying of an ass. The notes of all our birds and fowls please me, without one exception. I should not indeed think of keeping a goose in a cage, that I might hang him up in the parlour for the sake of his melody, but a goose upon a common, or in a farmyard, is no bad performer; and as to insects, if the black beetle, and beetles indeed of all hues, will keep out of my way, I have no objection to any of the rest; on the contrary, in whatever key they sing, from the gnat's fine treble to the bass of the humble bee, I admire them all. Seriously however it strikes me as a very observable instance of providential kindness to man, that such an exact accord has been contrived between his ear, and the sounds with which, at least in a rural situation, it is almost every moment visited. All the world is sensible of the uncomfortable effect that certain sounds have upon the nerves, and consequently upon the spirits:—and if a sinful world had been filled with such as would have curdled the blood, and have made the sense of hearing a perpetual inconvenience, I do not know that we should have had a right to complain. But now the fields, the woods, the gardens have each their concert, and the ear of man is for ever regaled by creatures who seem only to please themselves. Even the ears that are deaf to the Gospel, are continually entertained, though without knowing it, by sounds for which they are solely indebted to itsauthor. There is somewhere in infinite space a world that does not roll within the precincts of mercy, and as it is reasonable, and even scriptural, to suppose that there is music in Heaven, in those dismal regions perhaps the reverse of it is found; tones so dismal, as to make woe itself more insupportable, and to acuminate[113]even despair. But my paper admonishes me in good time to draw the reins, and to check the descent of my fancy into deeps, with which she is but too familiar.
Our best love attends you both, with yours,
Sum ut semper, tui studiossimus,
W. C.
FOOTNOTES:[113]"Acuminate" = "sharpen," is a perfectly good word in itself, but perhaps does not so perfectly suit "despair," which crushes rather than pierces.
[113]"Acuminate" = "sharpen," is a perfectly good word in itself, but perhaps does not so perfectly suit "despair," which crushes rather than pierces.
[113]"Acuminate" = "sharpen," is a perfectly good word in itself, but perhaps does not so perfectly suit "despair," which crushes rather than pierces.
It has been said of Sydney Smith that he was not only a humourist, but a "good-humourist," and this is undoubtedly true. Politics, indeed, according to their usual custom, sometimes rather acidulated his good humour; but anybody possessed of the noun, with the least allowance of the adjective, should be propitiated by the way in which the almost Radical reformer ofPeter Plymley's Lettersin 1807 became the almost Tory and wholly conservative maintainer of ecclesiastical rights in those to Archdeacon Singleton thirty years later.Both, however, were "Letters" of the sophisticated kind: but we have plenty of perfectly genuine correspondence, also agreeable and sometimes extremely amusing. Whether Sydney (his friends always abbreviated him thus, and he accepted the Christian name) describes the makeshifts of his Yorkshire parish or the luxuries of his Somerset one; whether he discusses the effect of a diet of geraniums on pigs or points out that as Lord Tankerville has given him a whole buck "this takes up a great deal of my time"—he is always refreshing. He has no great depth, but we do not go to him for that: and he is not shallow in the offensive sense of the word. His gaiety does not get on one's nerves as does that of some—perhaps most—professional jokers: neither, as is too frequently the case with them, does it bore. His letters are not the easiest to select from: for they are usually short and their excellence lies rather in still shorterflashessuch as those glanced at above; as the grave proposition that "the information of very plain women is so inconsiderable that I agree with you in settingno store by it;" or as this other (resembling a short newspaper paragraph) "The Commissioner will have hard work with the Scotch atheists: they are said to be numerous this season and in great force, from the irregular supply of rain." But the following specimens are fairly representative. They were written at an interval of about ten years: the first from Foston, the second from Combe Florey. "Miss Berry," the elder of the famous sisters who began by fascinating Horace Walpole and ended by charming Thackeray: "Donna Agnes" was the younger. "Lady Rachel," the famous wife of the person who suffered for the Rye House plot (Lady Rachel Wriothesley, of Rachel Lady Russell, but Miss Berry had written aLifeof her under her maiden name). Sydney's politics show in his allusion to the assassination of the Duc de Berri, son of Charles X. of France (who had, however, not then come to the throne); in his infinitely greater sorrow for the dismissal of the mildly Liberal minister Decazes; and in his spleen at the supporters of the English Tory government of Lord Liverpool. (The "little plot" was Thistlewood's). In the second letter the "hotel" is his new parsonage in Somerset: "Bowood," Lord Lansdowne's Wiltshire house, a great Whig rallying place. I suppose "Sea-shore Calcott" is Sir A. W. Calcott the painter. "Luttrell" (Henry), a talker and versifier very well known in his own day, but of less enduring reputation than some others. "Napier's Book," the brilliant if somewhat partisanHistory of the Peninsular War. I am not quite certain in which of two senses Sydney uses the wordcaractère. As ought to be well known this does not exactly correspond to our "character"—but most commonly means "temper" or "disposition." It has, however, a peculiar technical meaning of "official description" or "estimate" which would suit Sir William Napier well. The Napiers were "kittle cattle" from the official point of view.
It has been said of Sydney Smith that he was not only a humourist, but a "good-humourist," and this is undoubtedly true. Politics, indeed, according to their usual custom, sometimes rather acidulated his good humour; but anybody possessed of the noun, with the least allowance of the adjective, should be propitiated by the way in which the almost Radical reformer ofPeter Plymley's Lettersin 1807 became the almost Tory and wholly conservative maintainer of ecclesiastical rights in those to Archdeacon Singleton thirty years later.
Both, however, were "Letters" of the sophisticated kind: but we have plenty of perfectly genuine correspondence, also agreeable and sometimes extremely amusing. Whether Sydney (his friends always abbreviated him thus, and he accepted the Christian name) describes the makeshifts of his Yorkshire parish or the luxuries of his Somerset one; whether he discusses the effect of a diet of geraniums on pigs or points out that as Lord Tankerville has given him a whole buck "this takes up a great deal of my time"—he is always refreshing. He has no great depth, but we do not go to him for that: and he is not shallow in the offensive sense of the word. His gaiety does not get on one's nerves as does that of some—perhaps most—professional jokers: neither, as is too frequently the case with them, does it bore. His letters are not the easiest to select from: for they are usually short and their excellence lies rather in still shorterflashessuch as those glanced at above; as the grave proposition that "the information of very plain women is so inconsiderable that I agree with you in settingno store by it;" or as this other (resembling a short newspaper paragraph) "The Commissioner will have hard work with the Scotch atheists: they are said to be numerous this season and in great force, from the irregular supply of rain." But the following specimens are fairly representative. They were written at an interval of about ten years: the first from Foston, the second from Combe Florey. "Miss Berry," the elder of the famous sisters who began by fascinating Horace Walpole and ended by charming Thackeray: "Donna Agnes" was the younger. "Lady Rachel," the famous wife of the person who suffered for the Rye House plot (Lady Rachel Wriothesley, of Rachel Lady Russell, but Miss Berry had written aLifeof her under her maiden name). Sydney's politics show in his allusion to the assassination of the Duc de Berri, son of Charles X. of France (who had, however, not then come to the throne); in his infinitely greater sorrow for the dismissal of the mildly Liberal minister Decazes; and in his spleen at the supporters of the English Tory government of Lord Liverpool. (The "little plot" was Thistlewood's). In the second letter the "hotel" is his new parsonage in Somerset: "Bowood," Lord Lansdowne's Wiltshire house, a great Whig rallying place. I suppose "Sea-shore Calcott" is Sir A. W. Calcott the painter. "Luttrell" (Henry), a talker and versifier very well known in his own day, but of less enduring reputation than some others. "Napier's Book," the brilliant if somewhat partisanHistory of the Peninsular War. I am not quite certain in which of two senses Sydney uses the wordcaractère. As ought to be well known this does not exactly correspond to our "character"—but most commonly means "temper" or "disposition." It has, however, a peculiar technical meaning of "official description" or "estimate" which would suit Sir William Napier well. The Napiers were "kittle cattle" from the official point of view.
26.To Miss Berry
Foston, Feb 27th, 1820.
I thank you very much for the entertainment I have received from your book. I should however have been afraid to marry such a woman as Lady Rachel; it would have been too awful. There are pieces of china very fine and beautiful, but never intended for daily use....
I have hardly slept out of Foston since I saw you. God send I may be still an animal, and not a vegetable! but I am a little uneasy at this season for sprouting and rural increase, for I fear I should have undergone the metamorphose so common in country livings. I shall go to town about the end of March; it will be completely empty, and the drugs that remain will be entirely occupied about hustings and returning-officers.
Commerce and manufacturers are still in a frightful state of stagnation.
No foreign barks in British ports are seen,Stuff'd to the water's edge with velveteen,Or bursting with big bales of bombazine;No distant climes demand our corduroy,Unmatch'd habiliment for man and boy;No fleets of fustian quit the British shore,The cloth-creating engines cease to roar,Still is that loom which breech'd the world before.
No foreign barks in British ports are seen,Stuff'd to the water's edge with velveteen,Or bursting with big bales of bombazine;No distant climes demand our corduroy,Unmatch'd habiliment for man and boy;No fleets of fustian quit the British shore,The cloth-creating engines cease to roar,Still is that loom which breech'd the world before.
I am very sorry for the little fat Duke de Berri, but infinitely more so for the dismissal of De Cases,—a fatal measure.
I must not die without seeing Paris. Figure to yourself what a horrid death,—to die without seeing Paris! I think I could make something of this in a tragedy, so asto draw tears from Donna Agnes and yourself. Where are you going to? When do you return? Why do you go at all? Is Paris more agreeable than London?
We have had a little plot here in a hay-loft. God forbid anybody should be murdered! but, if I were to turn assassin, it should not be of five or six Ministers, who areplaced where they are by the folly of the country gentlemen,but of the hundred thousand squires, to whose stupidity and folly such an Administration owes its existence.
Ever your friend,
Sydney Smith.
27.To N. Fazakerly, Esq.
Combe Florey, October, 1829.
Dear Fazakerly,
I don't know anybody who would be less affronted at being called hare-brained than our friend who has so tardily conveyed my message, and I am afraid now he has only given you a part of it. The omission appears to be, that I had set up an hotel on the Western road, that it would be opened next spring, and I hoped for the favour of yours and Mrs. Fazakerly's patronage. "Well-aired beds, neat wines, careful drivers, etc. etc."
I shall have very great pleasure in coming to see you, and I quite agree in the wisdom of postponing that event till the rural Palladios and Vitruvii are chased away; I have fourteen of them here every day. The country is perfectly beautiful, and my parsonage the prettiest place in it.
I was at Bowood last week: the only persons therewere seashore Calcott and his wife,—two very sensible, agreeable people. Luttrell came over for the day; he was very agreeable, but spoke too lightly, I thought, of veal soup. I took him aside, and reasoned the matter with him, but in vain; to speak the truth, Luttrell is not steady in his judgments on dishes. Individual failures with him soon degenerate into generic objections, till, by some fortunate accident, he eats himself into better opinions. A person of more calm reflection thinks not only of what he is consuming at the moment, but of the soups of the same kind he has met with in a long course of dining, and which have gradually and justly elevated the species. I am perhaps making too much of this; but the failures of a man of sense are always painful.
I quite agree about Napier's book. I do[114]not think that any[114]man would venture to write so true, bold, and honest a book; it gave me a high idea of his understanding, and makes me very anxious about hiscaractère
Ever yours,
Sydney Smith.
FOOTNOTES:[114]One would expect either "did" or "other": but the actual combination is a very likely slip of pen or press.
[114]One would expect either "did" or "other": but the actual combination is a very likely slip of pen or press.
[114]One would expect either "did" or "other": but the actual combination is a very likely slip of pen or press.
Since this little book was undertaken it has been announced, truly or not, that the bulk of Scott's autograph letters has been bought by a fortunate and wise man of letters for the sum of £1500. Neither life nor literature can ever be expressed in money value: but if one had £1500 to spend on something not directly necessary, it is possible to imagine a very large number of less satisfactory purchases. For as was briefly suggested in the Introduction, Scott's letters—while saturated with that singular humanity and nobility of character in which he has hardly a rival among authors of whom we know much—are distinctly remarkable from the purely literary point of view. His published work, both in verse and prose, has been accused (with what amount of justice we will not here trouble ourselves to discuss)—of carelessness in style and art. No such charge could possibly be brought against his letters, which hit the happy mean between slovenliness and artificial elaboration in a fashion that could hardly be bettered. The great variety of his correspondents, too, provides an additional attraction: for letters indited to the same person are apt to show a certain monotony. And Scott is equal to any and every occasion. Here as elsewhere the "Diary" drains off a certain proportion of matter: but chiefly for the latest period and in circumstances scarcely happy enough for letters themselves.The following letter was selected because of its admirable treatment of a theme—the behaviour, responsibility, and generalstatusof Authors as objects of public judgment—on which an infinite amount of deplorable and disgustingnonsense has been talked and written. It starts, as will be seen, with the quarrel between Lord and Lady Byron—and then generalises. Not many things show Scott's golden equity and fairness better. He is perhaps "a little kind" to Campbell, who was, one fears, an extra-irritable specimen of the irritable race: but this is venial. And probably he did not mean the stigma which might be inferred from the conjunction of "AphraandOrinda." They were certainly both of Charles II.'s time: but while poor Aphra was, if not wholly vicious, far from virtuous, the "matchless Orinda" (Katherine Philips) bears no stain on her character.
Since this little book was undertaken it has been announced, truly or not, that the bulk of Scott's autograph letters has been bought by a fortunate and wise man of letters for the sum of £1500. Neither life nor literature can ever be expressed in money value: but if one had £1500 to spend on something not directly necessary, it is possible to imagine a very large number of less satisfactory purchases. For as was briefly suggested in the Introduction, Scott's letters—while saturated with that singular humanity and nobility of character in which he has hardly a rival among authors of whom we know much—are distinctly remarkable from the purely literary point of view. His published work, both in verse and prose, has been accused (with what amount of justice we will not here trouble ourselves to discuss)—of carelessness in style and art. No such charge could possibly be brought against his letters, which hit the happy mean between slovenliness and artificial elaboration in a fashion that could hardly be bettered. The great variety of his correspondents, too, provides an additional attraction: for letters indited to the same person are apt to show a certain monotony. And Scott is equal to any and every occasion. Here as elsewhere the "Diary" drains off a certain proportion of matter: but chiefly for the latest period and in circumstances scarcely happy enough for letters themselves.
The following letter was selected because of its admirable treatment of a theme—the behaviour, responsibility, and generalstatusof Authors as objects of public judgment—on which an infinite amount of deplorable and disgustingnonsense has been talked and written. It starts, as will be seen, with the quarrel between Lord and Lady Byron—and then generalises. Not many things show Scott's golden equity and fairness better. He is perhaps "a little kind" to Campbell, who was, one fears, an extra-irritable specimen of the irritable race: but this is venial. And probably he did not mean the stigma which might be inferred from the conjunction of "AphraandOrinda." They were certainly both of Charles II.'s time: but while poor Aphra was, if not wholly vicious, far from virtuous, the "matchless Orinda" (Katherine Philips) bears no stain on her character.
28.To Joanna Baillie
(End of April 1816)
My dear friend,
I am glad you are satisfied with my reasons for declining a direct interference with Lord B[yron]. I have not, however, been quite idle, and as an old seaman have tried to go by a side wind when I had not the means of going before it, and this will be so far plain to you when I say that I have every reason to believe the good intelligence is true that a separation is signed between Lord and Lady Byron. If I am not as angry as you have good reason to expect every thinking and feeling man to be, it is from deep sorrow and regret that a man possessed of such noble talents should so utterly and irretrievably lose himself. In short, I believe the thing to be as you state it, and therefore Lord Byron is the object of anything rather than indignation. It is a cruel pity that such high talents should have been joined to a mind so wayward and incapable of seeking control where alone it is to be found, in the quiet discharge of domestic duties and filling up in peace and affection hisstation in society. The idea of his ultimately resisting that which should be fair and honourable to Lady B. did not come within my view of his character—at least of his natural character; but I hear that, as you intimated, he has had execrable advisers. I hardly know a more painful object of consideration than a man of genius in such a situation; those of lower minds do not feel the degradation, and become like pigs, familiarised with the filthy elements in which they grovel; but it is impossible that a man of Lord Byron's genius should not often feel the want of that which he has forfeited—the fair esteem of those by whom genius most naturally desires to be admired and cherished.
I am much obliged to Mrs. Baillie for excluding me in her general censure of authors; but I should have hoped for a more general spirit of toleration from my good friend, who had in her own family and under her own eye such an exception to her general censure—unless, indeed (which may not be far from the truth), she supposes that female genius is more gentle and tractable, though as high in tone and spirit as that of the masculine sex. But the truth is, I believe, we will find a great equality when the different habits of the sexes and the temptations they are exposed to are taken into consideration. Men early flattered and coaxed, and told they are fitted for the higher regions of genius and unfit for anything else,—that they are a superior kind of automaton and ought to move by different impulses than others,—indulge their friends and the public with freaks and caprioles like those of that worthy knight of La Mancha in the Sierra Morena. And then, if our man of genius escapes this temptation, how is he to parry the opposition of the blockheads who join all their hard heads and horns together to butt him outof the ordinary pasture, goad him back to Parnassus, and "bid him on the barren mountain starve." It is amazing how far this goes, if a man will let it go, in turning him out of the ordinary course of life into the stream of odd bodies, so that authors come to be regarded as tumblers, who are expected to go to church in a summerset, because they sometimes throw a Catherine-wheel for the amusement of the public. A man even told me at an election, thinking I believe he was saying a severe thing, that I was a poet, and therefore that the subject we were discussing lay out of my way. I answered as quietly as I could, that I did not apprehend my having written poetry rendered me incapable of speaking common sense in prose, and that I requested the audience to judge of me not by the nonsense I might have written for their amusement, but by the sober sense I was endeavouring to speak for their information, and only expected [of] them, in case I had ever happened to give any of them pleasure, in a way which was supposed to require some information and talent, [that] they would not, for that sole reason, suppose me incapable of understanding or explaining a point of the profession for which I had been educated. So I got a patient and very favourable hearing. But certainly these great exertions of friends and enemies have forced many a poor fellow out of the common paths of life, and obliged him to make a trade of what can only be gracefully executed as an occasional avocation. When such a man is encouraged in all his freaks and follies, the bit is taken out of his mouth, and, as he is turned out upon the common, he is very apt to deem himself exempt from all the rules incumbent on those who keep the king's highway. And so they play fantastic tricks before high heaven.
The lady authors are not exempt from these vagaries, being exposed to the same temptations; and all I can allow Mrs. Baillie in favour of the fair sex is that since the time of the Aphras and Orindas of Charles II's time, the authoresses have been ridiculous only, while the authors have too often been both absurd and vicious. As to our leal friend Tom Campbell, I have heard stories of his morbid sensibility chiefly from the Minto family, with whom he lived for some time, and I think they all turned on little foolish points of capricious affectation, which perhaps had no better foundation than an ill-imagined mode of exhibiting his independence. But whatever I saw of him myself—and we were often together, and sometimes for several days—was quite composed and manly. Indeed, I never worried him to make him get on his hind legs and spout poetry when he did not like it. He deserves independence well; and if the dog which now awakens him to the recollection of his possessing it, happened formerly to disturb the short sleep that drowned his recollection of so great a blessing, there is good reason for enduring the disturbance with more patience than before.
But surely, admitting all our temptations and irregularities there are men of genius enough living to restrain the mere possession of talent from the charge of disqualifying the owner for the ordinary occupation and duties of life. There never were better men, and especially better husbands, fathers, and real patriots, than Southey and Wordsworth; they might even be pitched upon as most exemplary characters. I myself, if I may rank myself in the list, am, as Hamlet says, indifferent honest, and at least not worse than an infidel in loving those of my own house. And I think that generally speaking,authors, like actors, being rather less commonly believed to be eccentric than was the faith fifty years since, do conduct themselves as amenable to the ordinary rules of society.
This tirade was begun a long time since, but is destined to be finished at Abbotsford. Your bower is all planted with its evergreens, but must for seven years retain its original aspect of a gravel pit.
(Rest lost.)
It is a strange thing, and could hardly have happened in any country but England, that there is to this day no complete collection or edition of the works of Coleridge—one of the most poetical of our poets, one of the most important of our critics, and one of the most influential, if one of the least methodical and conclusive, of our philosophers. Indeed we never knew what good prose he could write till the fragments calledAnima Poetaewere published, two-thirds of a century after his death. But that no collected edition of his letters appeared till very shortly before this is explicable without any difficulty. Coleridge's temperament was not heroic, and his correspondence as well as his conduct justified, in regard to much more than his nonage, the ingenious phrase of an American lady-essayist that he must have been "a verybeatablechild." To a certain extent, however, the correspondence does also justify our adoption (seeIntroduction) of the charitable theory that enlargement of understanding brings about extension of pardon. And putting this aside, the letters sometimes give us an idea of what his admittedly marvellous conversation (or rather monologue) must have been like. They are not very easy to select from, for their author's singular tendency todivagationaffects them. But they sometimes display that humour which he undoubtedly possessed, though his best-known published writings seldom admit of it: and the divagation itself has its advantages. In the following Coleridge appears in curiously different lights. After joking at his own Pantheism he becomes amazingly practical, for itwas, as Scott pointsout somewhere, a fault of Southey's to cling to the system of "half-profits," a fault which often made his enormous labours altogether unprofitable. "I-rise to I-set" = "getting-up to bed-time" seems to have been a favourite quip of his. "Stuart," the Editor of theMorning Postfor which Coleridge was then writing. "The Anthology"—anAnnualone edited by Southey. As for theAnti-Jacobinlibel it was, admirable as was the wit that accompanied it, utterly indefensible; for it accused Coleridge of havingat this time"left his poor children fatherless and his wife destitute" (the extraordinary thing is that he actually did this later!) Of course he never executed the Life of Lessing.[115]"The Wedgwoods" had given him an annuity. The assault on "Mr. Gobwin" is one of poor Hartley Coleridge's most delightful feats. Had he been a little older, he might have pointed out to the author ofPolitical Justicethat lecturing his mother for his, Hartley's, fault was quite unjustifiable: and indeed that objecting to it at all was improper. The right way (according to that great work itself) would have been to discuss with Hartley whether the advantage in physical exercise and animal spirits derived by him from wielding the nine-pin, outweighed the pain experienced by Gobwin, and so was justifiable on the total scheme of things. ("Moshes," as indeed is obvious, was Hartley's pet-name).
It is a strange thing, and could hardly have happened in any country but England, that there is to this day no complete collection or edition of the works of Coleridge—one of the most poetical of our poets, one of the most important of our critics, and one of the most influential, if one of the least methodical and conclusive, of our philosophers. Indeed we never knew what good prose he could write till the fragments calledAnima Poetaewere published, two-thirds of a century after his death. But that no collected edition of his letters appeared till very shortly before this is explicable without any difficulty. Coleridge's temperament was not heroic, and his correspondence as well as his conduct justified, in regard to much more than his nonage, the ingenious phrase of an American lady-essayist that he must have been "a verybeatablechild." To a certain extent, however, the correspondence does also justify our adoption (seeIntroduction) of the charitable theory that enlargement of understanding brings about extension of pardon. And putting this aside, the letters sometimes give us an idea of what his admittedly marvellous conversation (or rather monologue) must have been like. They are not very easy to select from, for their author's singular tendency todivagationaffects them. But they sometimes display that humour which he undoubtedly possessed, though his best-known published writings seldom admit of it: and the divagation itself has its advantages. In the following Coleridge appears in curiously different lights. After joking at his own Pantheism he becomes amazingly practical, for itwas, as Scott pointsout somewhere, a fault of Southey's to cling to the system of "half-profits," a fault which often made his enormous labours altogether unprofitable. "I-rise to I-set" = "getting-up to bed-time" seems to have been a favourite quip of his. "Stuart," the Editor of theMorning Postfor which Coleridge was then writing. "The Anthology"—anAnnualone edited by Southey. As for theAnti-Jacobinlibel it was, admirable as was the wit that accompanied it, utterly indefensible; for it accused Coleridge of havingat this time"left his poor children fatherless and his wife destitute" (the extraordinary thing is that he actually did this later!) Of course he never executed the Life of Lessing.[115]"The Wedgwoods" had given him an annuity. The assault on "Mr. Gobwin" is one of poor Hartley Coleridge's most delightful feats. Had he been a little older, he might have pointed out to the author ofPolitical Justicethat lecturing his mother for his, Hartley's, fault was quite unjustifiable: and indeed that objecting to it at all was improper. The right way (according to that great work itself) would have been to discuss with Hartley whether the advantage in physical exercise and animal spirits derived by him from wielding the nine-pin, outweighed the pain experienced by Gobwin, and so was justifiable on the total scheme of things. ("Moshes," as indeed is obvious, was Hartley's pet-name).
29.To Robert Southey
Tuesday night, 12 o'clock(December 24) 1799.
My dear Southey,
My Spinosism (if Spinosism it be, and i' faith 'tis very like it) disposed me to consider this big city as that part of the supreme One which the prophetMoses was allowed to see—I should be more disposed to pull off my shoes, beholding Him in aBush, than while I am forcing my reason to believe that even in theatresHeis, yea! even in the Opera House. Your "Thalaba" will beyond all doubt bring you two hundred pounds, if you will sell it at once; butdonot print at a venture, under the notion of selling the edition. I assure you that Longman regretted the bargain he made with Cottle concerning the second edition of the "Joan of Arc," and is indisposed to similar negotiations; but most and very eager to have the property of your works at almost any price. If you have not heard it from Cottle, why, you may hear it from me, that is, the arrangement of Cottle's affairs in London. The whole and total copyright of your "Joan," and the first volume of your poems (exclusive of what Longman had before given), was taken by him at three hundred and seventy pounds. You are a strong swimmer, and have borne up poor Joey with all his leaden weights about him, his own and other people's! Nothing has answered to him but your works. By me he has lost somewhat—by Fox, Amos, and himselfvery much. I can sell your "Thalaba" quite as well in your absence as in your presence. I am employed from I-rise to I-set (that is, from nine in the morning to twelve at night), a pure scribbler. My mornings to booksellers' compilations, after dinner to Stuart, who paysallmy expenses here, let them be what they will; the earnings of the morning go to make up an hundred and fifty pounds for my year's expenditure; for, supposingall clear, my year's (1800) allowance is anticipated. But this I can do by the first of April (at which time I leave London). For Stuart I write often his leading paragraphs on Secession, Peace, Essay on the new French Constitution, Advice to Friends ofFreedom, Critiques on Sir W. Anderson's Nose, Odes to Georgiana D. of D. (horribly misprinted), Christmas Carols, etc., etc.—anything not bad in the paper, that is not yours, is mine. So if any verses there strike you as worthy the "Anthology," "do me the honour, sir!" However, in the course of a week Ido meanto conduct a series of essays in that paper which may be of public utility. So much for myself, except that I long to be out of London; and that my Xstmas Carol is a quaint performance, and, in as strict a sense as ispossible, an Impromptu, and, had I done all I had planned, that "Ode to the Duchess" would have been a better thing than it is—it being somewhat dullish, etc. I have bought the "Beauties of the Anti-jacobin," and attorneys and counsellors advise me to prosecute, and offer to undertake it, so as that I shall have neither trouble or expense. They say it is a clear case, etc. I will speak to Johnson about the "Fears in Solitude." If he gives them up they are yours. That dull ode has been printed often enough, and may now be allowed to "sink with deep swoop, and to the bottomgo," to quote an admired author; but the two others will do with a little trimming.
My dear Southey! I have said nothing concerning that which most oppresses me. Immediately on my leaving London I fall to the "Life of Lessing"; till that is done, till I have given the Wedgwoods some proof that I amendeavouringto do well for my fellow-creatures, I cannot stir. That being done, I would accompany you, and see no impossibility of forming a pleasant little colony for a few years in Italy or the South of France. Peace will come soon. God love you, my dear Southey!Iwould write to Stuart, and give up his paper immediately. You should do nothing that did not absolutelypleaseyou. Beidle, be very idle! The habits of your mind are such that you will necessarily do much; but be as idle as you can.
Our love to dear Edith. If you see Mary, tell her that we have received our trunk. Hartley is quite well, and my talkativeness is his, without diminution on my side. 'Tis strange but certainly many things go in the blood, beside gout and scrophula. Yesterday I dined at Longman's and met Pratt, and that honest piece of prolix dullity and nullity, young Towers, who desired to be remembered to you. To-morrow Sara and I dine at Mister Gobwin's, as Hartley calls him, who gave the philosopher such a rap on the shins with a ninepin that Gobwin in huge painlecturedSara on his boisterousness. I was not at home.Est modus in rebus.Moshes is somewhat too rough and noisy, but the cadaverous silence of Gobwin's children is to me quite catacombish, and, thinking of Mary Wollstonecraft, I was oppressed by it the day Davy and I dined there.
God love you and
S. T. Coleridge.