I would to Heaven I could take a cruise with you
through the brokers, which would be the pleasantest affair possible,
only I am afraid I should make a losing voyage of it.
through the brokers, which would be the pleasantest affair possible,
only I am afraid I should make a losing voyage of it.
Selection of English Letters
You will
probably guess from this preamble, that I am engaged in a matrimonial
plan, which is really the case. Though my acquaintance with the young
lady has not been of long standing, this circumstance is in some
degree counterbalanced by the intimacy in which we have lived, and by
the opportunities which that intimacy has afforded me of remarking her
conduct and sentiments on many different occasions, some of which were
rather of a delicate nature, so that in fact I have seen more of her
during the few weeks we have been together, than I could have done
after a much longer acquaintance, shackled by the common forms of
ordinary life. You will not expect from me a description of her
person,--for which I refer you to my brother, as also for a fuller
account of all the circumstances attending the business than can be
comprised in the compass of a letter. Without flying into raptures,
for I must assure you that my judgement as well as my affections are
consulted upon this occasion; without flying into raptures then, I
may safely assure you, that her temper is sweet and cheerful, her
understanding good, and what I know will give you pleasure, her
principles of religion very serious. I have been very explicit
with her upon the nature of my expectations, and she thinks she can
accommodate herself to the situation which I should wish her to hold
in society as my wife, which, you will easily comprehend, I mean
should neither be extravagant nor degrading. Her fortune, though
partly dependent upon her brother, who is high in office at Madras, is
very considerable--at present £500 a-year. This, however, we must,
in some degree, regard as precarious,--I mean to the full extent; and
indeed when you know her you will not be surprised that I regard
this circumstance chiefly because it removes those prudential
considerations which would otherwise render our union impossible for
the present. Betwixt her income and my own professional exertions, I
have little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in society which
my family and situation entitle me to fill.
My dear Mother, I cannot express to you the anxiety I have that you
will not think me flighty nor inconsiderate in this business. Believe
me, that experience, in one instance--you cannot fail to know to what
I allude--is too recent to permit my being so hasty in my conclusions
as the warmth of my temper might have otherwise prompted. I am also
most anxious that you should be prepared to show her kindness, which I
know the goodness of your own heart will prompt, more especially
when I tell you that she is an orphan, without relations, and almost
without friends. Her guardian is, I should say _was_, for she is of
age, Lord Downshire, to whom I must write for his consent, a piece
of respect to which he is entitled for his care of her--and there the
matter rests at present. I think I need not tell you that if I assume
the new character which I threaten, I shall be happy to find that
in that capacity, I may make myself more useful to my brothers, and
especially to Anne, than I could in any other. On the other hand, I
shall certainly expect that my friends will endeavour to show every
attention in their power to a woman who forsakes for me, prospects
much more splendid than what I can offer, and who comes into Scotland
without a single friend but myself. I find I could write a great deal
more upon this subject, but as it is late, and as I must write to my
father, I shall restrain myself. I think (but you are the best judge)
that in the circumstances in which I stand, you should write to her,
Miss Carpenter, under cover to me at Carlisle.
Write to me very fully upon this important subject--send me your
opinion, your advice, and above all, your blessing; you will see the
necessity of not delaying a minute in doing so, and in keeping this
business _strictly private_, till you hear farther from me, since you
are not ignorant that even at this advanced period, an objection on
the part of Lord Downshire, or many other accidents, may intervene; in
which case, I should little wish my disappointment to be public.
TO MISS SEWARD
_The Lay of the Last Minstrel_
Edinburgh, 21 _March_, 1805.
MY DEAR MISS SEWARD,
I am truly happy that you found any amusement in the _Lay of the Last
Minstrel_. It has great faults, of which no one can be more sensible
than I am myself. Above all, it is deficient in that sort of
continuity which a story ought to have, and which, were it to write
again, I would endeavour to give it. But I began and wandered forward,
like one in a pleasant country, getting to the top of one hill to see
a prospect, and to the bottom of another to enjoy a shade, and what
wonder if my course has been devious and desultory, and many of my
excursions altogether unprofitable to the advance of my journey.
The Dwarf Page is also an excrescence, and I plead guilty to all the
censures concerning him. The truth is, he has a history, and it is
this: The story of Gilpin Horner was told by an old gentleman to
Lady Dalkeith, and she, much diverted with his actually believing so
grotesque a tale, insisted that I should make it into a Border ballad.
I don't know if you ever saw my lovely chieftainess--if you have,
you must be aware that it is _impossible_ for any one to refuse her
request, as she has more of the angel in face and temper than any one
alive; so that if she had asked me to write a ballad on a broomstick I
must have attempted it. I began a few verses, to be called the Goblin
Page; and they lay long by me, till the applause of some friends
whose judgement I valued induced me to resume the poem; so on I wrote,
knowing no more than the man in the moon how I was to end. At length
the story appeared so uncouth, that I was fain to put it into
the mouth of my old minstrel--lest the nature of it should be
misunderstood, and I should be suspected of setting up a new school of
poetry, instead of a feeble attempt to imitate the old. In the process
of romance the page, intended to be a principal person in the work,
contrived (from the baseness of his natural propensities, I suppose)
to slink downstairs into the kitchen, and now he must e'en abide
there.
I mention these circumstances to you, and to any one whose applause I
value, because I am unwilling you should suspect me of trifling with
the public in _malice prepense_. As to the herd of critics, it is
impossible for me to pay much attention to them; for, as they do not
understand what I call poetry, we talk in a foreign language to each
other. Indeed, many of these gentlemen appear to me to be a sort of
tinkers, who, unable to _make_ pots and pans, set up for _menders_ of
them, and, God knows, often make two holes in patching one. The sixth
canto is altogether redundant; for the poem should certainly have
closed with the union of the lovers, when the interest, if any, was
at an end. But what could I do? I had my book and my page still on my
hands, and must get rid of them at all events. Manage them as I would,
their catastrophe must have been insufficient to occupy an entire
canto; so I was fain to eke it out with the songs of the minstrels. I
will now descend from the confessional, which I think I have occupied
long enough for the patience of my fair confessor. I am happy you are
disposed to give me absolution, notwithstanding all my sins. We have a
new poet come forth amongst us--James Graham, author of a poem called
_The Sabbath_, which I admire very much. If I can find an opportunity
I will send you a copy.
TO LADY LOUISA STUART
_An amiable blue-stocking_
Edinburgh, 16 _June_, 1808.
MY DEAR LADY LOUISA,
Nothing will give us more pleasure than to have the honour of showing
every attention in our power to Mr. and Mrs. Morritt, and I am
particularly happy in a circumstance that at once promises me a great
deal of pleasure in the acquaintance of your Ladyship's friends, and
affords me the satisfaction of hearing from you again. Pray don't
triumph over me too much in the case of Lydia. I stood a very
respectable siege; but she caressed my wife, coaxed my children,
and made, by dint of cake and pudding, some impression even upon
the affections of my favourite dog: so, when all the outworks
were carried, the mere fortress had no choice but to surrender on
honourable terms. To the best of my thinking, notwithstanding the
cerulean hue of her stockings, and a most plentiful stock of eccentric
affectation, she is really at bottom a good-natured woman, with much
liveliness and some talent. She is now set out to the Highlands, where
she is likely to encounter many adventures. Mrs. Scott and I went as
far as Loch Catrine with her, from which jaunt I have just returned.
We had most heavenly weather, which was peculiarly favourable to my
fair companions' zeal for sketching every object that fell in their
way, from a castle to a pigeon-house. Did your Ladyship ever travel
with a _drawing_ companion? Mine drew like cart-horses, as well in
laborious zeal as in effect; for, after all, I could not help hinting
that the cataracts delineated bore a singular resemblance to haycocks,
and the rocks much correspondence to large old-fashioned cabinets
with their folding-doors open. So much for Lydia, whom I left on her
journey through the Highlands, but by what route she had not resolved.
I gave her three plans, and think it likely she will adopt none
of them: moreover, when the executive government of postilions,
landlords, and Highland boatmen devolves upon her English servant
instead of me, I am afraid the distresses of the errant damsels will
fall a little beneath the dignity of romances. All this nonsense is
_entre nous_, for Miss White has been actively zealous in getting me
some Irish correspondence about Swift, and otherwise very obliging.
It is not with my inclination that I fag for the booksellers; but what
can I do? My poverty and not my will consents. The income of my office
is only reversionary, and my private fortune much limited. My poetical
success fairly destroyed my prospects of professional success, and
obliged me to retire from the bar; for though I had a competent share
of information and industry, who would trust their cause to the author
of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_? Now, although I do allow that an
author should take care of his literary character, yet I think the
least thing that his literary character can do in return is to take
some care of the author, who is unfortunately, like Jeremy in _Love
for Love_, furnished with a set of tastes and appetites which would
do honour to the income of a Duke if he had it. Besides, I go to work
with Swift _con amore_; for, like Dryden, he is an early favourite
of mine. The _Marmion_ is nearly out, and I have made one or two
alterations on the third edition, with which the press is now
groaning. So soon as it is, it will make the number of copies
published within the space of six months amount to eight thousand,--an
immense number, surely, and enough to comfort the author's wounded
feelings, had the claws of the reviewers been able to reach him
through the _steel jack_ of true Border indifference.
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
_Congratulations_
Edinburgh, 13 _Nov. _ 1813.
I do not delay, my dear Southey, to say my _gratulor_. Long may you
live, as Paddy says, to rule over us, and to redeem the crown of
Spenser and of Dryden to its pristine dignity. I am only discontented
with the extent of your royal revenue, which I thought had been £400,
or £300 at the very least. Is there no getting rid of that iniquitous
modus, and requiring the _butt_ in kind? I would have you think of it:
I know no man so well entitled to Xeres sack as yourself, though many
bards would make a better figure at drinking it. I should think that
in due time a memorial might get some relief in this part of the
appointment--it should be at least £100 wet and £100 dry. When you
have carried your point of discarding the ode, and my point of getting
the sack, you will be exactly in the situation of Davy in the
farce, who stipulates for more wages, less work, and the key of the
ale-cellar. I was greatly delighted with the circumstances of
your investiture. It reminded me of the porters at Calais with Dr.
Smollett's baggage, six of them seizing upon one small portmanteau,
and bearing it in triumph to his lodgings. You see what it is to
laugh at the superstitions of a gentleman-usher, as I think you do
somewhere. 'The whirligig of Time brings about his revenges. '
Adieu, my dear Southey; my best wishes attend all that you do, and my
best congratulations every good that attends you--yea even this, the
very least of Providence's mercies, as a poor clergyman said when
pronouncing grace over a herring. I should like to know how the prince
received you; his address is said to be excellent, and his knowledge
of literature far from despicable. What a change of fortune even
since the short time when we met! The great work of retribution is now
rolling onward to consummation, yet am I not fully satisfied--_pereat
iste_--there will be no permanent peace in Europe till Buonaparte
sleeps with the tyrants of old.
TO J. B. S. MORRITT
_A small anonymous sort of a novel_
Edinburgh, 9 _July_, 1814.
MY DEAR MORRITT,
I owe you many apologies for not sooner answering your very
entertaining letter upon your Parisian journey. I heartily wish I had
been of your party, for you have seen what I trust will not be seen
again in a hurry; since, to enjoy the delight of a restoration, there
is a necessity for a previous _bouleversement_ of everything that is
valuable in morals and policy which seems to have been the case in
France since 1790. The Duke of Buccleugh told me yesterday of a very
good reply of Louis to some of his attendants, who proposed shutting
the doors of his apartments to keep out the throng of people. 'Open
the door,' he said, 'to John Bull; he has suffered a great deal in
keeping the door open for me. '
Now, to go from one important subject to another, I must account for
my own laziness, which I do by referring you to a small anonymous sort
of a novel, in three volumes, _Waverley_, which you will receive by
the mail of this day. It was a very old attempt of mine to embody some
traits of those characters and manners peculiar to Scotland, the last
remnants of which vanished during my own youth, so that few or no
traces now remain. I had written great part of the first volume, and
sketched other passages, when I mislaid the MS. , and only found it by
the merest accident as I was rummaging the drawers of an old cabinet;
and I took the fancy of finishing it, which I did so fast, that the
last two volumes were written in three weeks. I had a great deal of
fun in the accomplishment of this task, though I do not expect that it
will be popular in the south, as much of the humour, if there be any,
is local, and some of it even professional. You, however, who are an
adopted Scotchman, will find some amusement in it. It has made a very
strong impression here, and the good people of Edinburgh are busied in
tracing the author, and in finding out originals for the portraits it
contains. In the first case, they will probably find it difficult to
convict the guilty author, although he is far from escaping suspicion.
Jeffrey has offered to make oath that it is mine, and another great
critic has tendered his affidavit _ex contrario_; so that these
authorities have divided the Gude Town. However, the thing has
succeeded very well, and is thought highly of. I don't know if it has
got to London yet. I intend to maintain my _incognito_. Let me know
your opinion about it. . . .
24 _July_.
. . . I had just proceeded thus far when your kind favour of the
21st reached Abbotsford. I am heartily glad you continued to like
_Waverley_ to the end. The hero is a sneaking piece of imbecility;
and if he had married Flora, she would have set him up upon the
chimney-piece, as Count Borowlaski's wife used to do with him. I am
a bad hand at depicting a hero properly so called, and have an
unfortunate propensity for the dubious characters of borderers,
buccaneers, Highland robbers, and all others of a Robin-Hood
description. I do not know why it should be, as I am myself, like
Hamlet, indifferent honest; but I suppose the blood of the old
cattle-drivers of Teviotdale continues to stir in my veins.
TO THE SAME
_Acceptance of a baronetcy_
Edinburgh, 7 _Dec. _, 1818.
MY DEAR MORRITT,
. . . There is another thing I have to whisper in your faithful ear. Our
fat friend being desirous to honour Literature in my unworthy person,
has intimated to me, by his organ the Doctor, that, with consent ample
and unanimous of all the potential voices of all his ministers,
each more happy than another of course on so joyful an occasion, he
proposes to dub me Baronet. It would be easy saying a parcel of fine
things about my contempt of rank, and so forth; but although I would
not have gone a step out of my way to have asked, or bought, or
begged, or borrowed a distinction, which to me personally will rather
be inconvenient than otherwise, yet, coming as it does directly from
the source of feudal honours, and as an honour, I am really gratified
with it;--especially as it is intimated, that it is his Royal
Highness's pleasure to heat the oven for me expressly, without waiting
till he has some new _batch_ of Baronets ready in dough. In plain
English, I am to be gazetted _per se_. My poor friend Carpenter's
bequest to my family has taken away a certain degree of
_impecuniosity_, a necessity of saving cheese-parings and candle-ends,
which always looks inconsistent with any little pretension to rank.
But as things now stand, Advance banners in the name of God and St.
Andrew. Remember, I anticipate the jest, 'I like not such grinning
honours, as Sir Walter hath. ' After all, if one must speak for
themselves, I have my quarters and emblazonments, free of all stain
but Border theft and High Treason, which I hope are gentleman-like
crimes; and I hope Sir Walter Scott will not sound worse than Sir
Humphry Davy, though my merits are as much under his, in point of
utility, as can well be imagined. But a name is something, and mine
is the better of the two. Set down this flourish to the account
of national and provincial pride, for you must know we have more
Messieurs de Sotenville in our Border counties than anywhere else in
the Lowlands--I cannot say for the Highlands.
TO LORD MONTAGU
_Prince Leopold's visit_
Abbotsford, 3 _Oct. _ 1819.
MY DEAR LORD,
I am honoured with your Buxton letter. . . . _Anent_ Prince Leopold, I
only heard of his approach at eight o'clock in the morning, and he
was to be at Selkirk by eleven. The magistrates sent to ask me to help
them to receive him. It occurred to me he might be coming to Melrose
to see the Abbey, in which case I could not avoid asking him to
Abbotsford, as he must pass my very door. I mentioned this to Mrs.
Scott, who was lying quietly in bed, and I wish you had heard the
scream she gave on the occasion. 'What have we to offer him? '--'Wine
and cake,' said I, thinking to make all things easy; but she
ejaculated, in a tone of utter despair, 'Cake! ! where am I to get
cake? ' However, being partly consoled with the recollection that his
visit was a very improbable incident, and curiosity, as usual, proving
too strong for alarm, she set out with me in order not to miss a peep
of the great man. James Skene and his lady were with us, and we gave
our carriages such additional dignity as a pair of leaders could add,
and went to meet him in full puff. The Prince very civilly told me,
that, though he could not see Melrose on this occasion, he wished to
come to Abbotsford for an hour. New despair on the part of Mrs. Scott,
who began to institute a domiciliary search for cold meat through the
whole city of Selkirk, which produced _one shoulder of cold lamb_. In
the meanwhile, his Royal Highness received the civic honours of the
BIRSE[1] very graciously. I had hinted to Bailie Lang, that it ought
only to be licked _symbolically_ on the present occasion; so he
flourished it three times before his mouth, but without touching it
with his lips, and the Prince followed his example as directed. Lang
made an excellent speech, sensible, and feeling, and well delivered.
The Prince seemed much surprised at this great propriety of expression
and behaviour in a magistrate, whose people seemed such a rabble, and
whose whole band of music consisted in a drum and fife. He noticed to
Bailie Anderson, that Selkirk seemed very populous in proportion
to its extent. 'On an occasion like this it seems so,' answered the
Bailie, neatly enough I thought. I question if any magistrates in the
kingdom, lord mayors and aldermen not excepted, could have behaved
with more decent and quiet good-breeding. Prince Leopold repeatedly
alluded to this during the time he was at Abbotsford. I do not know
how Mrs. Scott ultimately managed; but with broiled salmon, and
black-cock, and partridges, she gave him a very decent lunch; and I
chanced to have some very fine old hock, which was mighty germain to
the matter.
The Prince seems melancholy, whether naturally or from habit, I do not
pretend to say; but I do not remember thinking him so at Paris, where
I saw him frequently, then a much poorer man than myself; yet he
showed some humour, for alluding to the crowds that followed him
everywhere, he mentioned some place where he had gone out to shoot,
but was afraid to proceed for fear of 'bagging a boy'. He said
he really thought of getting some shooting-place in Scotland, and
promised me a longer visit on his return. If I had had a day's
notice to have _warned the waters_, we could have met him with a very
respectable number of the gentry; but there was no time for this, and
probably he liked it better as it was. There was only young Clifton
who could have come, and he was shy and cubbish, and would not, though
requested by the Selkirk people. He was perhaps ashamed to march
through Coventry with them. It hung often and sadly on my mind that
_he_ was wanting who could and would have received him like a Prince
indeed; and yet the meeting betwixt them, had they been fated to meet,
would have been a very sad one. I think I have now given your
lordship a very full, true, and particular account of our royal visit,
unmatched even by that of King Charles at the Castle of Tillietudlem.
That we did not speak of it for more than a week after it happened,
and that that emphatic monosyllable, _The Prince_, is not heard
amongst us more than ten times a-day, is, on the whole, to the credit
of my family's understanding. The piper is the only one whose brain he
seems to have endangered; for, as the Prince said he preferred him to
any he had heard in the Highlands--(which, by the way, shows his
Royal Highness knows nothing of the matter),--the fellow seems to have
become incapable of his ordinary occupation as a forester, and has cut
stick and stem without remorse to the tune of _Phail Phranse_, i. e.
the Prince's welcome.
[Footnote 1: Bundle of hog's bristles; symbol of the soutars. ]
To DANIEL TERRY
_Progress at Abbotsford_
Abbotsford, 10 _Nov_. 1822.
My dear Terry,
I got all the plans safe, and they are delightful. The library
ceiling will be superb, and we have plenty of ornaments for it without
repeating one of those in the eating-room. The plan of shelves is also
excellent, and will, I think, for a long time suffice my collection.
The brasses for the shelves I like--but not the price: the notched
ones, after all, do very well. I have had three grand hawls since I
last wrote to you. The pulpit, repentance-stool, King's seat, and
God knows how much of carved wainscot, from the kirk of Dunfermline,
enough to coat the hall to the height of seven feet:--supposing
it boarded above, for hanging guns, old portraits, intermixed with
armour, &c. --it will be a superb entrance-gallery: this is hawl the
first. Hawl second is twenty-four pieces of the most splendid Chinese
paper, twelve feet high by four wide, a present from my cousin Hugh
Scott, enough to finish the drawing-room and two bedrooms. Hawl third
is a quantity of what is called Jamaica cedar-wood, enough for fitting
up both the drawing-room and the library, including the presses,
shelves, &c. : the wood is finely pencilled and most beautiful,
something like the colour of gingerbread; it costs very little more
than oak, works much easier, and is never touched by vermin of any
kind. I sent Mr. Atkinson a specimen, but it was from the plain end of
the plank; the interior is finely waved and variegated. Your kind
and unremitting exertions in our favour will soon plenish the
drawing-room. Thus we at present stand. We have a fine old English
cabinet, with china, &c. -and two superb elbow-chairs, the gift of
Constable, carved most magnificently, with groups of children, fruit,
and flowers, in the Italian taste: they came from Rome, and are much
admired. It seems to me that the mirror you mention, being framed in
carved box, would answer admirably well with the chairs, which are of
the same material. The mirror should, I presume, be placed over
the drawing-room chimney-piece; and opposite to it I mean to put an
antique table of mosaic marbles, to support Chantrey's bust. A good
sofa would be desirable, and so would the tapestry screen, if really
fresh and beautiful; but as much of our furniture will be a little
antiquated, one would not run too much into that taste in so small an
apartment. For the library I have the old oak chairs now in the little
armoury, eight in number, and we might add one or two pair of the
ebony chairs you mention. I should think this enough, for many seats
in such a room must impede access to the books; and I don't mean
the library to be on ordinary occasions a public room. Perhaps the
tapestry-screen would suit better here than in the drawing-room. I
have one library table here, and shall have another made for atlases
and prints. For the hall I have four chairs of black oak. In other
matters we can make it out well enough. In fact, it is my object
rather to keep under my new accommodations at first, both to avoid
immediate outlay, and that I may leave room for pretty things which
may occur hereafter.
I would to Heaven I could take a cruise with you
through the brokers, which would be the pleasantest affair possible,
only I am afraid I should make a losing voyage of it. Mr. Atkinson has
missed a little my idea of the oratory, fitting it up entirely as
a bookcase, whereas I should like to have had recesses for
curiosities--for the Bruce's skull--for a crucifix, &c. , &c. -in short,
a little cabinet instead of a book-closet. Four sides of books would
be perfectly sufficient; the other four, so far as not occupied by
door or window, should be arranged tastefully for antiquities, &c. ,
like the inside of an antique cabinet, with drawers, and shottles, and
funny little arches. The oak screen dropped as from the clouds: it is
most acceptable; I might have guessed there was only one kind friend
so ready to supply hay to my hobby-horse. You have my views in these
matters and your own taste; and I will send the _needful_ when
you apprise me of the amount total. Where things are not quite
satisfactory, it is better to wait a while on every account, for the
amusement is over when one has room for nothing more. The house is
completely roofed, &c. , and looks worthy of Mrs. Terry's painting. I
never saw anything handsomer than the grouping of towers, chimneys,
&c. upon the roof, when seen at a proper distance.
Once more, let me wish you joy of your professional success. I can
judge, by a thousand minute items, of the advance you make with the
public, just as I can of the gradual progress of my trees, because I
am interested in both events. You may say, like Burke, you were not
'coaxed and dandled into eminence' but have fought your way gallantly,
shown your passport at every barrier, and been always a step in
advance, without a single retrograde movement. Every one wishes to
advance rapidly, but when the desired position is gained, it is far
more easily maintained by him whose ascent has been gradual, and whose
favour is founded not on the unreasonable expectations entertained
from one or two seasons, but from an habitual experience of the power
of pleasing during several years. You say not a word of poor Wattles.
I hope little Miss has not put his nose out of joint entirely.
I have not been very well--a whoreson thickness of blood, and a
depression of spirits arising from the loss of friends (to whom I
am now to add poor Wedderburne), have annoyed me much; and _Peveril_
will, I fear, smell of the apoplexy. I propose a good rally, however,
and hope it will be a powerful effect. My idea is, _entre nous_, a
Scotch archer in the French King's guard, _tempore_ Louis XI, the most
picturesque of all times.
TO J. B. S. MORRITT
_A brave face to the world_
Edinburgh, 6 _Feb. _ 1826.
MY DEAR MORRITT,
It is very true I have been, and am in danger, of a pecuniary loss,
and probably a very large one, which in the uncertainty I look at as
to the full extent, being the manly way of calculating such matters,
since one may be better, but can hardly be worse. I can't say I
feel overjoyed at losing a large sum of hard-earned money in a most
unexpected manner, for all men considered Constable's people secure as
the Bank; yet, as I have obtained an arrangement of payment convenient
for every body concerned, and easy for myself, I cannot say that I
care much about the matter. Some economical restrictions I will make;
and it happened oddly that they were such as Lady Scott and myself
had almost determined upon without this compulsion. Abbotsford will
henceforth be our only establishment; and during the time I must be
in town, I will take my bed at the Albyn Club. We shall also break
off the rather excessive hospitality to which we were exposed, and no
longer stand host and hostess to all that do pilgrimage to Melrose.
Then I give up an expensive farm, which I always hated, and turn
all my odds and ends into cash. I do not reckon much on my literary
exertions--I mean in proportion to former success--because popular
taste may fluctuate. But with a moderate degree of the favour which
I have always had, my time my own, and my mind unplagued about other
things, I may boldly promise myself soon to get the better of this
blow. In these circumstances, I should be unjust and ungrateful to ask
or accept the pity of my friends. I for one, do not see there is much
occasion for making moan about it. My womankind will be the greater
sufferers,--yet even they look cheerily forward; and, for myself, the
blowing off my hat in a stormy day has given me more uneasiness.
I envy your Brighton party, and your fine weather. When I was at
Abbotsford the mercury was down at six or seven in the morning more
than once. I am hammering away at a bit of a story from the old affair
of the _diablerie_ at Woodstock in the Long Parliament times. I don't
like it much. I am obliged to hamper my fanatics greatly too much
to make them effective; but I make the sacrifice on principle; so,
perhaps, I shall deserve good success in other parts of the work.
You will be surprised when I tell you that I have written a volume in
exactly fifteen days. To be sure, I permitted no interruptions. But
then I took exercise, and for ten days of the fifteen attended the
Court of Session from two to four hours every day. This is nothing,
however, to writing _Ivanhoe_ when I had the actual cramp in my
stomach; but I have no idea of these things preventing a man
from doing what he has a mind. My love to all the party at
Brighton--fireside party I had almost said, but you scorn my
words--seaside party then be it. Lady Scott and Anne join in kindest
love. I must close my letter, for one of the consequences of our
misfortunes is, that we dine every day at half-past four o'clock;
which premature hour arises, I suppose, from sorrow being hungry as
well as thirsty. One most laughable part of our tragic comedy was,
that every friend in the world came formally, just as they do here
when a relation dies, thinking that the eclipse of _les beaux yeux de
ma cassette_ was perhaps a loss as deserving of consolation.
TO MARIA EDGEWORTH
_Time's revenges_
Edinburgh, 23 _June_, 1830.
MY DEAR MISS EDGEWORTH,
Nothing would be so valuable to me as the mark of kindness which you
offer, and yet my kennel is so much changed since I had the pleasure
of seeing you, that I must not accept of what I wished so sincerely
to possess. I am the happy owner of two of the noble breed, each of
gigantic size, and the gift of that sort of Highlander whom we call a
High Chief, so I would hardly be justified in parting with them even
to make room for your kind present, and I should have great doubts
whether the mountaineers would receive the Irish stranger with due
hospitality. One of them I had from poor Glengarry, who, with all the
wild and fierce points of his character, had a kind, honest, and
warm heart. The other from a young friend, whom Highlanders call
MacVourigh, and Lowlanders MacPherson of Cluny. He is a fine spirited
boy, fond of his people and kind to them, and the best dancer of a
Highland reel now living. I fear I must not add a third to Nimrod and
Bran, having little use for them except being pleasant companions. As
to labouring in their vocation, we have only one wolf which I know
of, kept in a friend's menagerie near me, and no wild deer. Walter
has some roebucks indeed, but Lochore is far off, and I begin to
feel myself distressed at running down these innocent and beautiful
creatures, perhaps because I cannot gallop so fast after them as to
drown sense of the pain we are inflicting. And yet I suspect I am like
the sick fox; and if my strength and twenty years could come back, I
would become again a copy of my namesake, remembered by the sobriquet
of Walter _ill tae hauld_ (to hold, that is). 'But age has clawed
me in its clutch,' and there is no remedy for increasing disability
except dying, which is an awkward score.
There is some chance of my retiring from my official situation upon
the changes in the Court of Session. They cannot reduce my office,
though they do not wish to fill it up with a new occupant. I shall be
therefore _de trop_; and in these days of economy they will be better
pleased to let me retire on three parts of my salary than to keep me a
Clerk of Session on the whole; and small grief at our parting, as the
old horse said to the broken cart. And yet, though I thought such a
proposal when first made was like a Pisgah peep at Paradise, I cannot
help being a little afraid of changing the habits of a long life all
of a sudden and for ever. You ladies have always your work-basket and
stocking-knitting to wreak an hour of tediousness upon. The routine of
business serves, I suspect, for the same purpose to us male wretches;
it is seldom a burden to the mind, but a something which must be done,
and is done almost mechanically; and though dull judges and duller
clerks, the routine of law proceedings, and law forms, are very unlike
the plumed troops and the tug of war, yet the result is the same.
The occupation's gone. The morning, that the day's news must all be
gathered from other sources--that the jokes which the principal Clerks
of Session have laughed at weekly for a century, and which would not
move a muscle of any other person's face, must be laid up to perish
like those of Sancho in the Sierra Morena--I don't above half like
forgetting all these moderate habits, and yet
Ah, freedom is a noble thing!
as says the old Scottish poet. So I will cease my regrets, or lay them
by to be taken up and used as arguments of comfort, in case I do not
slip my cable after all, which is highly possible. Lockhart and Sophia
have taken up their old residence at Chiefswood. They are very fond of
the place; and I am glad also my grandchildren will be bred near the
heather, for certain qualities which I think are best taught there.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
1772-1834
TO CHARLES LAMB
_A sympathetic reply_[1]
28 _Sept. _ 1796.
Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon
me and stupefied my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter;
I am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your
anguish by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest
fortunes there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit:
much that calls for the exercise of patience and resignation; but
in storms, like these, that shake the dwelling and make the heart
tremble, there is no middle way between despair and the yielding up of
the whole spirit unto the guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter
of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter
that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a
Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness
and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse in
frequent prayer to 'his God and your God'; the God of mercies, and
father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless
of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine Providence knows
it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is sweet to be roused from
a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the gladsome rays of
the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be awakened from the
blackness and amazement of a sudden horror by the glories of God
manifest and the hallelujahs of angels.
As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your abandoning
what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as a man called by
sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation of hopes into quietness,
and a soul set apart and made peculiar to God. We cannot arrive at any
portion of heavenly bliss without in some measure imitating Christ;
and they arrive at the largest inheritance who imitate the most
difficult parts of His character, and, bowed down and crushed under
foot, cry in fullness of faith, 'Father, Thy will be done. '
I wish above measure to have you for a little while here--no visitants
shall blow on the nakedness of your feelings--you shall be quiet, and
your spirit may be healed. I see no possible objection, unless your
father's helplessness prevent you, and unless you are necessary to
him. If this be not the case, I charge you write me that you will
come.
I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to encourage gloom or
despair--you are a temporary sharer in human miseries, that you may
be an eternal partaker of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any
means it be possible, come to me.
[Footnote 1: See Letter, p. 355. ]
TO JOSEPH COTTLE
_Literary adventurers_
[1798. ]
MY DEAR COTTLE,
Neither Wordsworth nor myself could have been otherwise than
uncomfortable, if any but yourself had received from us the first
offer of our tragedies, and of the volume of Wordsworth's poems. At
the same time, we did not expect that you could with prudence and
propriety, advance such a sum as we should want at the time we
specified. In short, we both regard the publication of our tragedies
as an evil. It is not impossible but that in happier times they may be
brought on the stage: and to throw away this chance for a mere trifle,
would be to make the present moment act fraudulently and usuriously
towards the future time.
My tragedy employed and strained all my thoughts and faculties for
six or seven months; Wordsworth consumed far more time, and far more
thought, and far more genius. We consider the publication of them
an evil on any terms; but our thoughts were bent on a plan for the
accomplishment of which a certain sum of money was necessary, (the
whole) at that particular time, and in order to do this we resolved,
although reluctantly, to part with our tragedies: that is, if we
could obtain thirty guineas for each, and at less than thirty guineas
Wordsworth will not part with the copyright of his volume of poems. We
shall offer the tragedies to no one, for we have determined to procure
the money some other way. If you choose the volume of poems, at
the price mentioned, to be paid at the time specified, i. e. thirty
guineas, to be paid sometime in the last fortnight of July, you may
have them; but remember, my dear fellow! I write to you now merely as
a bookseller, and entreat you, in your answer, to consider yourself
only; as to us, although money is necessary to our plan [that of
visiting Germany], yet the plan is not necessary to our happiness; and
if it were, W. would sell his poems for that sum to some one else,
or we could procure the money without selling the poems. So I entreat
you, again and again, in your answer, which must be immediate,
consider yourself only.
Wordsworth has been caballed against _so long and so loudly_, that
he has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the Allfoxden
estate to let him the house, after their first agreement is expired,
so he must quit it at midsummer; whether we shall be able to procure
him a house and furniture near Stowey, we know not, and yet we must:
for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the
shores would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not
strain every nerve to keep their poet among them. Without joking, and
in serious sadness, Poole and I cannot endure to think of losing him.
At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but before
midsummer, and we will procure a horse easy as thy own soul, and we
will go on a roam to Lynton and Lynmouth, which, if thou comest in
May, will be in all their pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak
of its august cliffs, and the green ocean, and the vast valley of
stones, all which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new
honours only from the winter's snow. At all events come down, and
cease not to believe me much and affectionately your friend.
TO JOSIAH WADE
_A public example_
Bristol, 26 _June_, 1814.
DEAR SIR,
For I am unworthy to call any good man friend--much less you, whose
hospitality and love I have abused; accept, however, my entreaties for
your forgiveness, and for your prayers.
Conceive a poor miserable wretch, who for many years has been
attempting to beat off pain, by a constant recurrence to the vice that
reproduces it. Conceive a spirit in hell, employed in tracing out for
others the road to that heaven, from which his crimes exclude him! In
short, conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and hopeless, and
you will form as tolerable a notion of my state, as it is possible for
a good man to have.
I used to think the text in St. James that 'he who offendeth in one
point, offends in all,' very harsh; but I now feel the awful, the
tremendous truth of it. In the one crime of OPIUM, what crime have
I not made myself guilty of! Ingratitude to my Maker! and to my
benefactors--injustice! _and unnatural cruelty to my poor children!
_--self-contempt for my repeated promise-breach, nay, too often,
actual falsehood!
After my death, I earnestly entreat that a full and unqualified
narration of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made
public, that, at least, some little good may be effected by the
direful example!
May God Almighty bless you, and have mercy on your still affectionate,
and, in his heart, grateful
S. T. C.
TO THOMAS ALLSOP
_Himself and his detractors_
2 _Dec. _ 1818.
MY DEAR SIR,
I cannot express how kind I felt your letter. Would to Heaven I had
had many with feelings like yours, 'accustomed to express themselves
warmly and (as far as the word is applicable to you), even
enthusiastically'. But alas! during the prime manhood of my intellect
I had nothing but cold water thrown on my efforts. I speak not now of
my systematic and most unprovoked maligners. On _them_ I have retorted
only by pity and by prayer. These may have, and doubtless have, joined
with the frivolity of 'the reading public' in checking and almost in
preventing the sale of my works; and so far have done injury to
my _purse_. _Me_ they have not injured. But I have loved with
enthusiastic self-oblivion those who have been so well pleased that
I should, year after year, flow with a hundred nameless rills into
_their_ main stream, that they could find nothing but cold praise and
effective discouragement of every attempt of mine to roll onward in a
distinct current of my own; who _admitted_ that the _Ancient Mariner_,
the _Christabel_, the _Remorse_, and some pages of the _Friend_
were not without merit, but were abundantly anxious to acquit their
judgements of any blindness to the very numerous defects. Yet they
_knew_ that to _praise_, as mere praise, I was characteristically,
almost constitutionally, indifferent. In sympathy alone I found at
once nourishment and stimulus; and for sympathy _alone_ did my heart
crave. They knew, too, how long and faithfully I have acted on the
maxim, never to admit the _faults_ of a work of genius to those who
denied or were incapable of feeling and understanding the _beauties_;
not from wilful partiality, but as well knowing that in _saying_ truth
I should, to such critics, convey falsehood. If, in one instance, in
my literary life I have appeared to deviate from this rule, first,
it was not till the fame of the writer (which I had been for fourteen
years successfully toiling like a second Ali to build up) had been
established; and secondly and chiefly, with the purpose and, I may
safely add, with the _effect_ of rescuing the necessary task from
Malignant Defamers, and in order to set forth the excellences and the
trifling proportion which the defects bore to the excellences. But
this, my dear sir, is a mistake to which affectionate natures are too
liable, though I do not remember to have ever seen it noticed--the
mistaking those who are desirous and well pleased to be loved _by_
you, for those who love you. Add, as a more general cause, the fact
that I neither am nor ever have been of any party. What wonder, then,
if I am left to decide which has been my worst enemy, the broad,
pre-determined abuse of the _Edinburgh Review_, &c. , or the cold and
brief compliments, with the warm _regrets_, of the _Quarterly_? After
all, however, I have now but one sorrow relative to the ill success of
my literary toils (and toils they have been, _though not undelightful
toils_), and this arises wholly from the almost insurmountable
difficulties which the anxieties of to-day oppose to my completion
of the great work, the form and materials of which it has been the
employment of the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years
to mature and collect.
If I could but have a tolerably numerous audience to my first, or
first and second Lectures on the _History of Philosophy_, I should
entertain a strong hope of success, because I know that these lectures
will be found by far the most interesting and _entertaining_ of any
that I have yet delivered, independent of the more permanent interest
of rememberable instruction. Few and unimportant would the errors of
men be, if they did but know, first, _what they themselves meant_;
and, secondly, what the _words_ mean by which they attempt to convey
their meaning, and I can conceive no subject so well fitted to
exemplify the mode and the importance of these two points as the
History of Philosophy, treated as in the scheme of these lectures.
TO THE SAME
_The Great Work described_
_Jan. _ 1821.
. . . I have already the _written_ materials and contents, requiring
only to be put together from the loose papers and commonplace or
memorandum books, and needing no other change, whether of omission,
addition, or correction, than the mere act of arranging, and the
opportunity of seeing the whole collectively bring with them of course
(1) Characteristics of Shakespeare's dramatic works, with a critical
review of each play; together with a relative and comparative critique
on the kind and degree of the merits and demerits of the dramatic
works of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger. The
History of the English Drama; the accidental advantages it afforded
to Shakespeare, without in the least detracting from the perfect
originality or proper creation of the Shakespearian Drama; the
contradistinction of the latter from the Greek Drama, and its still
remaining _uniqueness_, with the causes of this, from the combined
influences of Shakespeare himself, as man, poet, philosopher, and
finally, by conjunction of all these, dramatic poet; and of the age,
events, manners, and state of the English language. This work, with
every art of compression, amounts to three volumes of about five
hundred pages each. (2) Philosophical Analysis of the Genius and Works
of Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, and Calderon, with similar, but
more compressed criticisms on Chaucer, Ariosto, Donne, Rabelais, and
others, during the predominance of the Romantic Poetry. In one large
volume. These two works will, I flatter myself, form a complete code
of the principles of judgement and feeling applied to works of Taste;
and not of Poetry only, but of Poesy in all its forms, Painting,
Statuary, Music, &c. , &c. (3) The History of Philosophy considered
as a Tendency of the Human Mind to exhibit the Powers of the Human
Reason, to discover by its own Strength the Origin and Laws of Man and
the World, from Pythagoras to Locke and Condillac. Two volumes.
(4) Letters on the Old and New Testament, and on the Doctrine
and Principles held in common by the Fathers and Founders of the
Reformation, addressed to a candidate for Holy Orders, including
advice on the Plan and Subjects of Preaching, proper to a Minister of
the Established Church.
To the completion of these four works, I have literally nothing more
to do than to _transcribe_; but, as I before hinted, from so many
scraps and _sibylline_ leaves, including margins of books and blank
pages, that, unfortunately, I must be my own scribe, and not done by
myself, they will be all but lost; or perhaps (as has been too often
the case already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for
this purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let
fly against the luckless bird from whom they had been plucked or
moulted.
In addition to these--of my GREAT WORK, to the preparation of which
more than twenty years of my life have been devoted, and on which
my hopes of extensive and permanent utility, of fame, in the noblest
sense of the word, mainly rest--that, by which I might,
As now by thee, by all the good be known,
When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave,
Which self-surviving I might call my own,
Which folly cannot mar, nor hate deprave--
The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame,
Might make me dear to Him from whom they came.
Of this work, to which all my other writings (unless I except my
Poems, and these I can exclude in part only) are introductory and
preparative; and the result of which (if the premises be, as I, with
the most tranquil assurance, am convinced they are--insubvertible,
the deductions legitimate, and the conclusions commensurate, and only
commensurate, with both) must finally be a revolution of all that has
been called _philosophy_ or metaphysics in England and France, since
the era of the commencing predominance of the mechanical system at
the restoration of our second Charles, and with this the present
fashionable views, not only of religion, morals, and politics but
even of the modern physics and physiology. You will not blame the
earnestness of my expressions, nor the high importance which I attach
to this work: for how, with less noble objects, and less faith in
their attainment, could I stand acquitted of folly, and abuse of time,
talents, and learning in a labour of three-fourths of my intellectual
life? Of this work, something more than a volume has been dictated
by me, so as to exist fit for the press, to my friend and enlightened
pupil, Mr. Green; and more than as much again would have been evolved
and delivered to paper, but that, for the last six or eight months,
I have been compelled to break off our weekly meeting, from the
necessity of writing (alas! alas! of attempting to write) for
purposes, and on the subjects, of the passing day. Of my poetic works
I would fain finish the _Christabel_! Alas! for the proud time when I
planned, when I had present to my mind, the materials, as well as
the scheme, of the Hymns entitled _Spirit_, _Sun_, _Earth_, _Air_,
_Water_, _Fire_ and _Man_; and the Epic Poem on what still appears
to me the one only fit subject remaining for an epic poem--Jerusalem
besieged and destroyed by Titus.
TO THE SAME
_Reminiscences_
4 March, 1822.
My Dearest Friend,
I have been much more than ordinarily unwell for more than a week
past--my sleeps worse than my vigils, my nights than my days;
--The night's dismay
Sadden'd and stunned the intervening day;
but last night I had not only a calmer night, without roaming in my
dreams through any of Swedenborg's Hells _modérés_; but arose this
morning lighter and with a sense of _relief_. . . .
I shall make you smile, as I did dear Mary Lamb, when I say that you
sometimes mistake my position. As individual to individual, from
my childhood, I do not remember feeling myself either superior or
inferior to any human being; except by an act of my own will in cases
of real or imagined moral or intellectual superiority. In regard to
worldly rank, from eight years old to nineteen, I was habituated,
nay, naturalised, to look up to men circumstanced as you are, as my
superiors--a large number of our governors, and almost _all_ of those
whom we regarded as greater men still, and whom we saw most of, _viz. _
our committee governors, were such--and as neither awake nor asleep
have I any other feelings than what I had at Christ's Hospital,
I distinctly remember that I felt a little flush of pride and
consequence--just like what we used to feel at school when the boys
came running to us--'Coleridge! here's your friends want you--they are
quite _grand_,' or 'It is quite a _lady_'--when I first heard who you
were, and laughed at myself for it with that pleasurable sensation
that, spite of my sufferings at that school, still accompanies any
sudden reawakening of our school-boy feelings and notions. And oh,
from sixteen to nineteen what hours of Paradise had Allen and I in
escorting the Miss Evanses home on a Saturday, who were then at a
milliner's whom we used to think, and who I believe really was, such
a nice lady;--and we used to carry thither, of a summer morning, the
pillage of the flower gardens within six miles of town, with Sonnet
or Love Rhyme wrapped round the nose-gay. To be feminine, kind, and
genteelly (what I should now call neatly) dressed, these were the only
things to which my head, heart, or imagination had any polarity, and
what I was then, I still am.
God bless you and yours.
ROBERT SOUTHEY
1774-1843
TO JOSEPH COTTLE
_Question of copyrights_
Greta Hall, 20 _April_, 1808.
My dear Cottle,. . .
What you say of my copyrights affected me very much. Dear Cottle, set
your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to be at rest. These were
yours, fairly bought, and fairly sold. You bought them on the chance
of their success, which no London bookseller would have done; and had
they not been bought, they could not have been published at all.
probably guess from this preamble, that I am engaged in a matrimonial
plan, which is really the case. Though my acquaintance with the young
lady has not been of long standing, this circumstance is in some
degree counterbalanced by the intimacy in which we have lived, and by
the opportunities which that intimacy has afforded me of remarking her
conduct and sentiments on many different occasions, some of which were
rather of a delicate nature, so that in fact I have seen more of her
during the few weeks we have been together, than I could have done
after a much longer acquaintance, shackled by the common forms of
ordinary life. You will not expect from me a description of her
person,--for which I refer you to my brother, as also for a fuller
account of all the circumstances attending the business than can be
comprised in the compass of a letter. Without flying into raptures,
for I must assure you that my judgement as well as my affections are
consulted upon this occasion; without flying into raptures then, I
may safely assure you, that her temper is sweet and cheerful, her
understanding good, and what I know will give you pleasure, her
principles of religion very serious. I have been very explicit
with her upon the nature of my expectations, and she thinks she can
accommodate herself to the situation which I should wish her to hold
in society as my wife, which, you will easily comprehend, I mean
should neither be extravagant nor degrading. Her fortune, though
partly dependent upon her brother, who is high in office at Madras, is
very considerable--at present £500 a-year. This, however, we must,
in some degree, regard as precarious,--I mean to the full extent; and
indeed when you know her you will not be surprised that I regard
this circumstance chiefly because it removes those prudential
considerations which would otherwise render our union impossible for
the present. Betwixt her income and my own professional exertions, I
have little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in society which
my family and situation entitle me to fill.
My dear Mother, I cannot express to you the anxiety I have that you
will not think me flighty nor inconsiderate in this business. Believe
me, that experience, in one instance--you cannot fail to know to what
I allude--is too recent to permit my being so hasty in my conclusions
as the warmth of my temper might have otherwise prompted. I am also
most anxious that you should be prepared to show her kindness, which I
know the goodness of your own heart will prompt, more especially
when I tell you that she is an orphan, without relations, and almost
without friends. Her guardian is, I should say _was_, for she is of
age, Lord Downshire, to whom I must write for his consent, a piece
of respect to which he is entitled for his care of her--and there the
matter rests at present. I think I need not tell you that if I assume
the new character which I threaten, I shall be happy to find that
in that capacity, I may make myself more useful to my brothers, and
especially to Anne, than I could in any other. On the other hand, I
shall certainly expect that my friends will endeavour to show every
attention in their power to a woman who forsakes for me, prospects
much more splendid than what I can offer, and who comes into Scotland
without a single friend but myself. I find I could write a great deal
more upon this subject, but as it is late, and as I must write to my
father, I shall restrain myself. I think (but you are the best judge)
that in the circumstances in which I stand, you should write to her,
Miss Carpenter, under cover to me at Carlisle.
Write to me very fully upon this important subject--send me your
opinion, your advice, and above all, your blessing; you will see the
necessity of not delaying a minute in doing so, and in keeping this
business _strictly private_, till you hear farther from me, since you
are not ignorant that even at this advanced period, an objection on
the part of Lord Downshire, or many other accidents, may intervene; in
which case, I should little wish my disappointment to be public.
TO MISS SEWARD
_The Lay of the Last Minstrel_
Edinburgh, 21 _March_, 1805.
MY DEAR MISS SEWARD,
I am truly happy that you found any amusement in the _Lay of the Last
Minstrel_. It has great faults, of which no one can be more sensible
than I am myself. Above all, it is deficient in that sort of
continuity which a story ought to have, and which, were it to write
again, I would endeavour to give it. But I began and wandered forward,
like one in a pleasant country, getting to the top of one hill to see
a prospect, and to the bottom of another to enjoy a shade, and what
wonder if my course has been devious and desultory, and many of my
excursions altogether unprofitable to the advance of my journey.
The Dwarf Page is also an excrescence, and I plead guilty to all the
censures concerning him. The truth is, he has a history, and it is
this: The story of Gilpin Horner was told by an old gentleman to
Lady Dalkeith, and she, much diverted with his actually believing so
grotesque a tale, insisted that I should make it into a Border ballad.
I don't know if you ever saw my lovely chieftainess--if you have,
you must be aware that it is _impossible_ for any one to refuse her
request, as she has more of the angel in face and temper than any one
alive; so that if she had asked me to write a ballad on a broomstick I
must have attempted it. I began a few verses, to be called the Goblin
Page; and they lay long by me, till the applause of some friends
whose judgement I valued induced me to resume the poem; so on I wrote,
knowing no more than the man in the moon how I was to end. At length
the story appeared so uncouth, that I was fain to put it into
the mouth of my old minstrel--lest the nature of it should be
misunderstood, and I should be suspected of setting up a new school of
poetry, instead of a feeble attempt to imitate the old. In the process
of romance the page, intended to be a principal person in the work,
contrived (from the baseness of his natural propensities, I suppose)
to slink downstairs into the kitchen, and now he must e'en abide
there.
I mention these circumstances to you, and to any one whose applause I
value, because I am unwilling you should suspect me of trifling with
the public in _malice prepense_. As to the herd of critics, it is
impossible for me to pay much attention to them; for, as they do not
understand what I call poetry, we talk in a foreign language to each
other. Indeed, many of these gentlemen appear to me to be a sort of
tinkers, who, unable to _make_ pots and pans, set up for _menders_ of
them, and, God knows, often make two holes in patching one. The sixth
canto is altogether redundant; for the poem should certainly have
closed with the union of the lovers, when the interest, if any, was
at an end. But what could I do? I had my book and my page still on my
hands, and must get rid of them at all events. Manage them as I would,
their catastrophe must have been insufficient to occupy an entire
canto; so I was fain to eke it out with the songs of the minstrels. I
will now descend from the confessional, which I think I have occupied
long enough for the patience of my fair confessor. I am happy you are
disposed to give me absolution, notwithstanding all my sins. We have a
new poet come forth amongst us--James Graham, author of a poem called
_The Sabbath_, which I admire very much. If I can find an opportunity
I will send you a copy.
TO LADY LOUISA STUART
_An amiable blue-stocking_
Edinburgh, 16 _June_, 1808.
MY DEAR LADY LOUISA,
Nothing will give us more pleasure than to have the honour of showing
every attention in our power to Mr. and Mrs. Morritt, and I am
particularly happy in a circumstance that at once promises me a great
deal of pleasure in the acquaintance of your Ladyship's friends, and
affords me the satisfaction of hearing from you again. Pray don't
triumph over me too much in the case of Lydia. I stood a very
respectable siege; but she caressed my wife, coaxed my children,
and made, by dint of cake and pudding, some impression even upon
the affections of my favourite dog: so, when all the outworks
were carried, the mere fortress had no choice but to surrender on
honourable terms. To the best of my thinking, notwithstanding the
cerulean hue of her stockings, and a most plentiful stock of eccentric
affectation, she is really at bottom a good-natured woman, with much
liveliness and some talent. She is now set out to the Highlands, where
she is likely to encounter many adventures. Mrs. Scott and I went as
far as Loch Catrine with her, from which jaunt I have just returned.
We had most heavenly weather, which was peculiarly favourable to my
fair companions' zeal for sketching every object that fell in their
way, from a castle to a pigeon-house. Did your Ladyship ever travel
with a _drawing_ companion? Mine drew like cart-horses, as well in
laborious zeal as in effect; for, after all, I could not help hinting
that the cataracts delineated bore a singular resemblance to haycocks,
and the rocks much correspondence to large old-fashioned cabinets
with their folding-doors open. So much for Lydia, whom I left on her
journey through the Highlands, but by what route she had not resolved.
I gave her three plans, and think it likely she will adopt none
of them: moreover, when the executive government of postilions,
landlords, and Highland boatmen devolves upon her English servant
instead of me, I am afraid the distresses of the errant damsels will
fall a little beneath the dignity of romances. All this nonsense is
_entre nous_, for Miss White has been actively zealous in getting me
some Irish correspondence about Swift, and otherwise very obliging.
It is not with my inclination that I fag for the booksellers; but what
can I do? My poverty and not my will consents. The income of my office
is only reversionary, and my private fortune much limited. My poetical
success fairly destroyed my prospects of professional success, and
obliged me to retire from the bar; for though I had a competent share
of information and industry, who would trust their cause to the author
of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_? Now, although I do allow that an
author should take care of his literary character, yet I think the
least thing that his literary character can do in return is to take
some care of the author, who is unfortunately, like Jeremy in _Love
for Love_, furnished with a set of tastes and appetites which would
do honour to the income of a Duke if he had it. Besides, I go to work
with Swift _con amore_; for, like Dryden, he is an early favourite
of mine. The _Marmion_ is nearly out, and I have made one or two
alterations on the third edition, with which the press is now
groaning. So soon as it is, it will make the number of copies
published within the space of six months amount to eight thousand,--an
immense number, surely, and enough to comfort the author's wounded
feelings, had the claws of the reviewers been able to reach him
through the _steel jack_ of true Border indifference.
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
_Congratulations_
Edinburgh, 13 _Nov. _ 1813.
I do not delay, my dear Southey, to say my _gratulor_. Long may you
live, as Paddy says, to rule over us, and to redeem the crown of
Spenser and of Dryden to its pristine dignity. I am only discontented
with the extent of your royal revenue, which I thought had been £400,
or £300 at the very least. Is there no getting rid of that iniquitous
modus, and requiring the _butt_ in kind? I would have you think of it:
I know no man so well entitled to Xeres sack as yourself, though many
bards would make a better figure at drinking it. I should think that
in due time a memorial might get some relief in this part of the
appointment--it should be at least £100 wet and £100 dry. When you
have carried your point of discarding the ode, and my point of getting
the sack, you will be exactly in the situation of Davy in the
farce, who stipulates for more wages, less work, and the key of the
ale-cellar. I was greatly delighted with the circumstances of
your investiture. It reminded me of the porters at Calais with Dr.
Smollett's baggage, six of them seizing upon one small portmanteau,
and bearing it in triumph to his lodgings. You see what it is to
laugh at the superstitions of a gentleman-usher, as I think you do
somewhere. 'The whirligig of Time brings about his revenges. '
Adieu, my dear Southey; my best wishes attend all that you do, and my
best congratulations every good that attends you--yea even this, the
very least of Providence's mercies, as a poor clergyman said when
pronouncing grace over a herring. I should like to know how the prince
received you; his address is said to be excellent, and his knowledge
of literature far from despicable. What a change of fortune even
since the short time when we met! The great work of retribution is now
rolling onward to consummation, yet am I not fully satisfied--_pereat
iste_--there will be no permanent peace in Europe till Buonaparte
sleeps with the tyrants of old.
TO J. B. S. MORRITT
_A small anonymous sort of a novel_
Edinburgh, 9 _July_, 1814.
MY DEAR MORRITT,
I owe you many apologies for not sooner answering your very
entertaining letter upon your Parisian journey. I heartily wish I had
been of your party, for you have seen what I trust will not be seen
again in a hurry; since, to enjoy the delight of a restoration, there
is a necessity for a previous _bouleversement_ of everything that is
valuable in morals and policy which seems to have been the case in
France since 1790. The Duke of Buccleugh told me yesterday of a very
good reply of Louis to some of his attendants, who proposed shutting
the doors of his apartments to keep out the throng of people. 'Open
the door,' he said, 'to John Bull; he has suffered a great deal in
keeping the door open for me. '
Now, to go from one important subject to another, I must account for
my own laziness, which I do by referring you to a small anonymous sort
of a novel, in three volumes, _Waverley_, which you will receive by
the mail of this day. It was a very old attempt of mine to embody some
traits of those characters and manners peculiar to Scotland, the last
remnants of which vanished during my own youth, so that few or no
traces now remain. I had written great part of the first volume, and
sketched other passages, when I mislaid the MS. , and only found it by
the merest accident as I was rummaging the drawers of an old cabinet;
and I took the fancy of finishing it, which I did so fast, that the
last two volumes were written in three weeks. I had a great deal of
fun in the accomplishment of this task, though I do not expect that it
will be popular in the south, as much of the humour, if there be any,
is local, and some of it even professional. You, however, who are an
adopted Scotchman, will find some amusement in it. It has made a very
strong impression here, and the good people of Edinburgh are busied in
tracing the author, and in finding out originals for the portraits it
contains. In the first case, they will probably find it difficult to
convict the guilty author, although he is far from escaping suspicion.
Jeffrey has offered to make oath that it is mine, and another great
critic has tendered his affidavit _ex contrario_; so that these
authorities have divided the Gude Town. However, the thing has
succeeded very well, and is thought highly of. I don't know if it has
got to London yet. I intend to maintain my _incognito_. Let me know
your opinion about it. . . .
24 _July_.
. . . I had just proceeded thus far when your kind favour of the
21st reached Abbotsford. I am heartily glad you continued to like
_Waverley_ to the end. The hero is a sneaking piece of imbecility;
and if he had married Flora, she would have set him up upon the
chimney-piece, as Count Borowlaski's wife used to do with him. I am
a bad hand at depicting a hero properly so called, and have an
unfortunate propensity for the dubious characters of borderers,
buccaneers, Highland robbers, and all others of a Robin-Hood
description. I do not know why it should be, as I am myself, like
Hamlet, indifferent honest; but I suppose the blood of the old
cattle-drivers of Teviotdale continues to stir in my veins.
TO THE SAME
_Acceptance of a baronetcy_
Edinburgh, 7 _Dec. _, 1818.
MY DEAR MORRITT,
. . . There is another thing I have to whisper in your faithful ear. Our
fat friend being desirous to honour Literature in my unworthy person,
has intimated to me, by his organ the Doctor, that, with consent ample
and unanimous of all the potential voices of all his ministers,
each more happy than another of course on so joyful an occasion, he
proposes to dub me Baronet. It would be easy saying a parcel of fine
things about my contempt of rank, and so forth; but although I would
not have gone a step out of my way to have asked, or bought, or
begged, or borrowed a distinction, which to me personally will rather
be inconvenient than otherwise, yet, coming as it does directly from
the source of feudal honours, and as an honour, I am really gratified
with it;--especially as it is intimated, that it is his Royal
Highness's pleasure to heat the oven for me expressly, without waiting
till he has some new _batch_ of Baronets ready in dough. In plain
English, I am to be gazetted _per se_. My poor friend Carpenter's
bequest to my family has taken away a certain degree of
_impecuniosity_, a necessity of saving cheese-parings and candle-ends,
which always looks inconsistent with any little pretension to rank.
But as things now stand, Advance banners in the name of God and St.
Andrew. Remember, I anticipate the jest, 'I like not such grinning
honours, as Sir Walter hath. ' After all, if one must speak for
themselves, I have my quarters and emblazonments, free of all stain
but Border theft and High Treason, which I hope are gentleman-like
crimes; and I hope Sir Walter Scott will not sound worse than Sir
Humphry Davy, though my merits are as much under his, in point of
utility, as can well be imagined. But a name is something, and mine
is the better of the two. Set down this flourish to the account
of national and provincial pride, for you must know we have more
Messieurs de Sotenville in our Border counties than anywhere else in
the Lowlands--I cannot say for the Highlands.
TO LORD MONTAGU
_Prince Leopold's visit_
Abbotsford, 3 _Oct. _ 1819.
MY DEAR LORD,
I am honoured with your Buxton letter. . . . _Anent_ Prince Leopold, I
only heard of his approach at eight o'clock in the morning, and he
was to be at Selkirk by eleven. The magistrates sent to ask me to help
them to receive him. It occurred to me he might be coming to Melrose
to see the Abbey, in which case I could not avoid asking him to
Abbotsford, as he must pass my very door. I mentioned this to Mrs.
Scott, who was lying quietly in bed, and I wish you had heard the
scream she gave on the occasion. 'What have we to offer him? '--'Wine
and cake,' said I, thinking to make all things easy; but she
ejaculated, in a tone of utter despair, 'Cake! ! where am I to get
cake? ' However, being partly consoled with the recollection that his
visit was a very improbable incident, and curiosity, as usual, proving
too strong for alarm, she set out with me in order not to miss a peep
of the great man. James Skene and his lady were with us, and we gave
our carriages such additional dignity as a pair of leaders could add,
and went to meet him in full puff. The Prince very civilly told me,
that, though he could not see Melrose on this occasion, he wished to
come to Abbotsford for an hour. New despair on the part of Mrs. Scott,
who began to institute a domiciliary search for cold meat through the
whole city of Selkirk, which produced _one shoulder of cold lamb_. In
the meanwhile, his Royal Highness received the civic honours of the
BIRSE[1] very graciously. I had hinted to Bailie Lang, that it ought
only to be licked _symbolically_ on the present occasion; so he
flourished it three times before his mouth, but without touching it
with his lips, and the Prince followed his example as directed. Lang
made an excellent speech, sensible, and feeling, and well delivered.
The Prince seemed much surprised at this great propriety of expression
and behaviour in a magistrate, whose people seemed such a rabble, and
whose whole band of music consisted in a drum and fife. He noticed to
Bailie Anderson, that Selkirk seemed very populous in proportion
to its extent. 'On an occasion like this it seems so,' answered the
Bailie, neatly enough I thought. I question if any magistrates in the
kingdom, lord mayors and aldermen not excepted, could have behaved
with more decent and quiet good-breeding. Prince Leopold repeatedly
alluded to this during the time he was at Abbotsford. I do not know
how Mrs. Scott ultimately managed; but with broiled salmon, and
black-cock, and partridges, she gave him a very decent lunch; and I
chanced to have some very fine old hock, which was mighty germain to
the matter.
The Prince seems melancholy, whether naturally or from habit, I do not
pretend to say; but I do not remember thinking him so at Paris, where
I saw him frequently, then a much poorer man than myself; yet he
showed some humour, for alluding to the crowds that followed him
everywhere, he mentioned some place where he had gone out to shoot,
but was afraid to proceed for fear of 'bagging a boy'. He said
he really thought of getting some shooting-place in Scotland, and
promised me a longer visit on his return. If I had had a day's
notice to have _warned the waters_, we could have met him with a very
respectable number of the gentry; but there was no time for this, and
probably he liked it better as it was. There was only young Clifton
who could have come, and he was shy and cubbish, and would not, though
requested by the Selkirk people. He was perhaps ashamed to march
through Coventry with them. It hung often and sadly on my mind that
_he_ was wanting who could and would have received him like a Prince
indeed; and yet the meeting betwixt them, had they been fated to meet,
would have been a very sad one. I think I have now given your
lordship a very full, true, and particular account of our royal visit,
unmatched even by that of King Charles at the Castle of Tillietudlem.
That we did not speak of it for more than a week after it happened,
and that that emphatic monosyllable, _The Prince_, is not heard
amongst us more than ten times a-day, is, on the whole, to the credit
of my family's understanding. The piper is the only one whose brain he
seems to have endangered; for, as the Prince said he preferred him to
any he had heard in the Highlands--(which, by the way, shows his
Royal Highness knows nothing of the matter),--the fellow seems to have
become incapable of his ordinary occupation as a forester, and has cut
stick and stem without remorse to the tune of _Phail Phranse_, i. e.
the Prince's welcome.
[Footnote 1: Bundle of hog's bristles; symbol of the soutars. ]
To DANIEL TERRY
_Progress at Abbotsford_
Abbotsford, 10 _Nov_. 1822.
My dear Terry,
I got all the plans safe, and they are delightful. The library
ceiling will be superb, and we have plenty of ornaments for it without
repeating one of those in the eating-room. The plan of shelves is also
excellent, and will, I think, for a long time suffice my collection.
The brasses for the shelves I like--but not the price: the notched
ones, after all, do very well. I have had three grand hawls since I
last wrote to you. The pulpit, repentance-stool, King's seat, and
God knows how much of carved wainscot, from the kirk of Dunfermline,
enough to coat the hall to the height of seven feet:--supposing
it boarded above, for hanging guns, old portraits, intermixed with
armour, &c. --it will be a superb entrance-gallery: this is hawl the
first. Hawl second is twenty-four pieces of the most splendid Chinese
paper, twelve feet high by four wide, a present from my cousin Hugh
Scott, enough to finish the drawing-room and two bedrooms. Hawl third
is a quantity of what is called Jamaica cedar-wood, enough for fitting
up both the drawing-room and the library, including the presses,
shelves, &c. : the wood is finely pencilled and most beautiful,
something like the colour of gingerbread; it costs very little more
than oak, works much easier, and is never touched by vermin of any
kind. I sent Mr. Atkinson a specimen, but it was from the plain end of
the plank; the interior is finely waved and variegated. Your kind
and unremitting exertions in our favour will soon plenish the
drawing-room. Thus we at present stand. We have a fine old English
cabinet, with china, &c. -and two superb elbow-chairs, the gift of
Constable, carved most magnificently, with groups of children, fruit,
and flowers, in the Italian taste: they came from Rome, and are much
admired. It seems to me that the mirror you mention, being framed in
carved box, would answer admirably well with the chairs, which are of
the same material. The mirror should, I presume, be placed over
the drawing-room chimney-piece; and opposite to it I mean to put an
antique table of mosaic marbles, to support Chantrey's bust. A good
sofa would be desirable, and so would the tapestry screen, if really
fresh and beautiful; but as much of our furniture will be a little
antiquated, one would not run too much into that taste in so small an
apartment. For the library I have the old oak chairs now in the little
armoury, eight in number, and we might add one or two pair of the
ebony chairs you mention. I should think this enough, for many seats
in such a room must impede access to the books; and I don't mean
the library to be on ordinary occasions a public room. Perhaps the
tapestry-screen would suit better here than in the drawing-room. I
have one library table here, and shall have another made for atlases
and prints. For the hall I have four chairs of black oak. In other
matters we can make it out well enough. In fact, it is my object
rather to keep under my new accommodations at first, both to avoid
immediate outlay, and that I may leave room for pretty things which
may occur hereafter.
I would to Heaven I could take a cruise with you
through the brokers, which would be the pleasantest affair possible,
only I am afraid I should make a losing voyage of it. Mr. Atkinson has
missed a little my idea of the oratory, fitting it up entirely as
a bookcase, whereas I should like to have had recesses for
curiosities--for the Bruce's skull--for a crucifix, &c. , &c. -in short,
a little cabinet instead of a book-closet. Four sides of books would
be perfectly sufficient; the other four, so far as not occupied by
door or window, should be arranged tastefully for antiquities, &c. ,
like the inside of an antique cabinet, with drawers, and shottles, and
funny little arches. The oak screen dropped as from the clouds: it is
most acceptable; I might have guessed there was only one kind friend
so ready to supply hay to my hobby-horse. You have my views in these
matters and your own taste; and I will send the _needful_ when
you apprise me of the amount total. Where things are not quite
satisfactory, it is better to wait a while on every account, for the
amusement is over when one has room for nothing more. The house is
completely roofed, &c. , and looks worthy of Mrs. Terry's painting. I
never saw anything handsomer than the grouping of towers, chimneys,
&c. upon the roof, when seen at a proper distance.
Once more, let me wish you joy of your professional success. I can
judge, by a thousand minute items, of the advance you make with the
public, just as I can of the gradual progress of my trees, because I
am interested in both events. You may say, like Burke, you were not
'coaxed and dandled into eminence' but have fought your way gallantly,
shown your passport at every barrier, and been always a step in
advance, without a single retrograde movement. Every one wishes to
advance rapidly, but when the desired position is gained, it is far
more easily maintained by him whose ascent has been gradual, and whose
favour is founded not on the unreasonable expectations entertained
from one or two seasons, but from an habitual experience of the power
of pleasing during several years. You say not a word of poor Wattles.
I hope little Miss has not put his nose out of joint entirely.
I have not been very well--a whoreson thickness of blood, and a
depression of spirits arising from the loss of friends (to whom I
am now to add poor Wedderburne), have annoyed me much; and _Peveril_
will, I fear, smell of the apoplexy. I propose a good rally, however,
and hope it will be a powerful effect. My idea is, _entre nous_, a
Scotch archer in the French King's guard, _tempore_ Louis XI, the most
picturesque of all times.
TO J. B. S. MORRITT
_A brave face to the world_
Edinburgh, 6 _Feb. _ 1826.
MY DEAR MORRITT,
It is very true I have been, and am in danger, of a pecuniary loss,
and probably a very large one, which in the uncertainty I look at as
to the full extent, being the manly way of calculating such matters,
since one may be better, but can hardly be worse. I can't say I
feel overjoyed at losing a large sum of hard-earned money in a most
unexpected manner, for all men considered Constable's people secure as
the Bank; yet, as I have obtained an arrangement of payment convenient
for every body concerned, and easy for myself, I cannot say that I
care much about the matter. Some economical restrictions I will make;
and it happened oddly that they were such as Lady Scott and myself
had almost determined upon without this compulsion. Abbotsford will
henceforth be our only establishment; and during the time I must be
in town, I will take my bed at the Albyn Club. We shall also break
off the rather excessive hospitality to which we were exposed, and no
longer stand host and hostess to all that do pilgrimage to Melrose.
Then I give up an expensive farm, which I always hated, and turn
all my odds and ends into cash. I do not reckon much on my literary
exertions--I mean in proportion to former success--because popular
taste may fluctuate. But with a moderate degree of the favour which
I have always had, my time my own, and my mind unplagued about other
things, I may boldly promise myself soon to get the better of this
blow. In these circumstances, I should be unjust and ungrateful to ask
or accept the pity of my friends. I for one, do not see there is much
occasion for making moan about it. My womankind will be the greater
sufferers,--yet even they look cheerily forward; and, for myself, the
blowing off my hat in a stormy day has given me more uneasiness.
I envy your Brighton party, and your fine weather. When I was at
Abbotsford the mercury was down at six or seven in the morning more
than once. I am hammering away at a bit of a story from the old affair
of the _diablerie_ at Woodstock in the Long Parliament times. I don't
like it much. I am obliged to hamper my fanatics greatly too much
to make them effective; but I make the sacrifice on principle; so,
perhaps, I shall deserve good success in other parts of the work.
You will be surprised when I tell you that I have written a volume in
exactly fifteen days. To be sure, I permitted no interruptions. But
then I took exercise, and for ten days of the fifteen attended the
Court of Session from two to four hours every day. This is nothing,
however, to writing _Ivanhoe_ when I had the actual cramp in my
stomach; but I have no idea of these things preventing a man
from doing what he has a mind. My love to all the party at
Brighton--fireside party I had almost said, but you scorn my
words--seaside party then be it. Lady Scott and Anne join in kindest
love. I must close my letter, for one of the consequences of our
misfortunes is, that we dine every day at half-past four o'clock;
which premature hour arises, I suppose, from sorrow being hungry as
well as thirsty. One most laughable part of our tragic comedy was,
that every friend in the world came formally, just as they do here
when a relation dies, thinking that the eclipse of _les beaux yeux de
ma cassette_ was perhaps a loss as deserving of consolation.
TO MARIA EDGEWORTH
_Time's revenges_
Edinburgh, 23 _June_, 1830.
MY DEAR MISS EDGEWORTH,
Nothing would be so valuable to me as the mark of kindness which you
offer, and yet my kennel is so much changed since I had the pleasure
of seeing you, that I must not accept of what I wished so sincerely
to possess. I am the happy owner of two of the noble breed, each of
gigantic size, and the gift of that sort of Highlander whom we call a
High Chief, so I would hardly be justified in parting with them even
to make room for your kind present, and I should have great doubts
whether the mountaineers would receive the Irish stranger with due
hospitality. One of them I had from poor Glengarry, who, with all the
wild and fierce points of his character, had a kind, honest, and
warm heart. The other from a young friend, whom Highlanders call
MacVourigh, and Lowlanders MacPherson of Cluny. He is a fine spirited
boy, fond of his people and kind to them, and the best dancer of a
Highland reel now living. I fear I must not add a third to Nimrod and
Bran, having little use for them except being pleasant companions. As
to labouring in their vocation, we have only one wolf which I know
of, kept in a friend's menagerie near me, and no wild deer. Walter
has some roebucks indeed, but Lochore is far off, and I begin to
feel myself distressed at running down these innocent and beautiful
creatures, perhaps because I cannot gallop so fast after them as to
drown sense of the pain we are inflicting. And yet I suspect I am like
the sick fox; and if my strength and twenty years could come back, I
would become again a copy of my namesake, remembered by the sobriquet
of Walter _ill tae hauld_ (to hold, that is). 'But age has clawed
me in its clutch,' and there is no remedy for increasing disability
except dying, which is an awkward score.
There is some chance of my retiring from my official situation upon
the changes in the Court of Session. They cannot reduce my office,
though they do not wish to fill it up with a new occupant. I shall be
therefore _de trop_; and in these days of economy they will be better
pleased to let me retire on three parts of my salary than to keep me a
Clerk of Session on the whole; and small grief at our parting, as the
old horse said to the broken cart. And yet, though I thought such a
proposal when first made was like a Pisgah peep at Paradise, I cannot
help being a little afraid of changing the habits of a long life all
of a sudden and for ever. You ladies have always your work-basket and
stocking-knitting to wreak an hour of tediousness upon. The routine of
business serves, I suspect, for the same purpose to us male wretches;
it is seldom a burden to the mind, but a something which must be done,
and is done almost mechanically; and though dull judges and duller
clerks, the routine of law proceedings, and law forms, are very unlike
the plumed troops and the tug of war, yet the result is the same.
The occupation's gone. The morning, that the day's news must all be
gathered from other sources--that the jokes which the principal Clerks
of Session have laughed at weekly for a century, and which would not
move a muscle of any other person's face, must be laid up to perish
like those of Sancho in the Sierra Morena--I don't above half like
forgetting all these moderate habits, and yet
Ah, freedom is a noble thing!
as says the old Scottish poet. So I will cease my regrets, or lay them
by to be taken up and used as arguments of comfort, in case I do not
slip my cable after all, which is highly possible. Lockhart and Sophia
have taken up their old residence at Chiefswood. They are very fond of
the place; and I am glad also my grandchildren will be bred near the
heather, for certain qualities which I think are best taught there.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
1772-1834
TO CHARLES LAMB
_A sympathetic reply_[1]
28 _Sept. _ 1796.
Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon
me and stupefied my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter;
I am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your
anguish by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest
fortunes there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit:
much that calls for the exercise of patience and resignation; but
in storms, like these, that shake the dwelling and make the heart
tremble, there is no middle way between despair and the yielding up of
the whole spirit unto the guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter
of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter
that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a
Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness
and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse in
frequent prayer to 'his God and your God'; the God of mercies, and
father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless
of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine Providence knows
it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is sweet to be roused from
a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the gladsome rays of
the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be awakened from the
blackness and amazement of a sudden horror by the glories of God
manifest and the hallelujahs of angels.
As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your abandoning
what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as a man called by
sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation of hopes into quietness,
and a soul set apart and made peculiar to God. We cannot arrive at any
portion of heavenly bliss without in some measure imitating Christ;
and they arrive at the largest inheritance who imitate the most
difficult parts of His character, and, bowed down and crushed under
foot, cry in fullness of faith, 'Father, Thy will be done. '
I wish above measure to have you for a little while here--no visitants
shall blow on the nakedness of your feelings--you shall be quiet, and
your spirit may be healed. I see no possible objection, unless your
father's helplessness prevent you, and unless you are necessary to
him. If this be not the case, I charge you write me that you will
come.
I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to encourage gloom or
despair--you are a temporary sharer in human miseries, that you may
be an eternal partaker of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any
means it be possible, come to me.
[Footnote 1: See Letter, p. 355. ]
TO JOSEPH COTTLE
_Literary adventurers_
[1798. ]
MY DEAR COTTLE,
Neither Wordsworth nor myself could have been otherwise than
uncomfortable, if any but yourself had received from us the first
offer of our tragedies, and of the volume of Wordsworth's poems. At
the same time, we did not expect that you could with prudence and
propriety, advance such a sum as we should want at the time we
specified. In short, we both regard the publication of our tragedies
as an evil. It is not impossible but that in happier times they may be
brought on the stage: and to throw away this chance for a mere trifle,
would be to make the present moment act fraudulently and usuriously
towards the future time.
My tragedy employed and strained all my thoughts and faculties for
six or seven months; Wordsworth consumed far more time, and far more
thought, and far more genius. We consider the publication of them
an evil on any terms; but our thoughts were bent on a plan for the
accomplishment of which a certain sum of money was necessary, (the
whole) at that particular time, and in order to do this we resolved,
although reluctantly, to part with our tragedies: that is, if we
could obtain thirty guineas for each, and at less than thirty guineas
Wordsworth will not part with the copyright of his volume of poems. We
shall offer the tragedies to no one, for we have determined to procure
the money some other way. If you choose the volume of poems, at
the price mentioned, to be paid at the time specified, i. e. thirty
guineas, to be paid sometime in the last fortnight of July, you may
have them; but remember, my dear fellow! I write to you now merely as
a bookseller, and entreat you, in your answer, to consider yourself
only; as to us, although money is necessary to our plan [that of
visiting Germany], yet the plan is not necessary to our happiness; and
if it were, W. would sell his poems for that sum to some one else,
or we could procure the money without selling the poems. So I entreat
you, again and again, in your answer, which must be immediate,
consider yourself only.
Wordsworth has been caballed against _so long and so loudly_, that
he has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the Allfoxden
estate to let him the house, after their first agreement is expired,
so he must quit it at midsummer; whether we shall be able to procure
him a house and furniture near Stowey, we know not, and yet we must:
for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the
shores would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not
strain every nerve to keep their poet among them. Without joking, and
in serious sadness, Poole and I cannot endure to think of losing him.
At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but before
midsummer, and we will procure a horse easy as thy own soul, and we
will go on a roam to Lynton and Lynmouth, which, if thou comest in
May, will be in all their pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak
of its august cliffs, and the green ocean, and the vast valley of
stones, all which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new
honours only from the winter's snow. At all events come down, and
cease not to believe me much and affectionately your friend.
TO JOSIAH WADE
_A public example_
Bristol, 26 _June_, 1814.
DEAR SIR,
For I am unworthy to call any good man friend--much less you, whose
hospitality and love I have abused; accept, however, my entreaties for
your forgiveness, and for your prayers.
Conceive a poor miserable wretch, who for many years has been
attempting to beat off pain, by a constant recurrence to the vice that
reproduces it. Conceive a spirit in hell, employed in tracing out for
others the road to that heaven, from which his crimes exclude him! In
short, conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and hopeless, and
you will form as tolerable a notion of my state, as it is possible for
a good man to have.
I used to think the text in St. James that 'he who offendeth in one
point, offends in all,' very harsh; but I now feel the awful, the
tremendous truth of it. In the one crime of OPIUM, what crime have
I not made myself guilty of! Ingratitude to my Maker! and to my
benefactors--injustice! _and unnatural cruelty to my poor children!
_--self-contempt for my repeated promise-breach, nay, too often,
actual falsehood!
After my death, I earnestly entreat that a full and unqualified
narration of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made
public, that, at least, some little good may be effected by the
direful example!
May God Almighty bless you, and have mercy on your still affectionate,
and, in his heart, grateful
S. T. C.
TO THOMAS ALLSOP
_Himself and his detractors_
2 _Dec. _ 1818.
MY DEAR SIR,
I cannot express how kind I felt your letter. Would to Heaven I had
had many with feelings like yours, 'accustomed to express themselves
warmly and (as far as the word is applicable to you), even
enthusiastically'. But alas! during the prime manhood of my intellect
I had nothing but cold water thrown on my efforts. I speak not now of
my systematic and most unprovoked maligners. On _them_ I have retorted
only by pity and by prayer. These may have, and doubtless have, joined
with the frivolity of 'the reading public' in checking and almost in
preventing the sale of my works; and so far have done injury to
my _purse_. _Me_ they have not injured. But I have loved with
enthusiastic self-oblivion those who have been so well pleased that
I should, year after year, flow with a hundred nameless rills into
_their_ main stream, that they could find nothing but cold praise and
effective discouragement of every attempt of mine to roll onward in a
distinct current of my own; who _admitted_ that the _Ancient Mariner_,
the _Christabel_, the _Remorse_, and some pages of the _Friend_
were not without merit, but were abundantly anxious to acquit their
judgements of any blindness to the very numerous defects. Yet they
_knew_ that to _praise_, as mere praise, I was characteristically,
almost constitutionally, indifferent. In sympathy alone I found at
once nourishment and stimulus; and for sympathy _alone_ did my heart
crave. They knew, too, how long and faithfully I have acted on the
maxim, never to admit the _faults_ of a work of genius to those who
denied or were incapable of feeling and understanding the _beauties_;
not from wilful partiality, but as well knowing that in _saying_ truth
I should, to such critics, convey falsehood. If, in one instance, in
my literary life I have appeared to deviate from this rule, first,
it was not till the fame of the writer (which I had been for fourteen
years successfully toiling like a second Ali to build up) had been
established; and secondly and chiefly, with the purpose and, I may
safely add, with the _effect_ of rescuing the necessary task from
Malignant Defamers, and in order to set forth the excellences and the
trifling proportion which the defects bore to the excellences. But
this, my dear sir, is a mistake to which affectionate natures are too
liable, though I do not remember to have ever seen it noticed--the
mistaking those who are desirous and well pleased to be loved _by_
you, for those who love you. Add, as a more general cause, the fact
that I neither am nor ever have been of any party. What wonder, then,
if I am left to decide which has been my worst enemy, the broad,
pre-determined abuse of the _Edinburgh Review_, &c. , or the cold and
brief compliments, with the warm _regrets_, of the _Quarterly_? After
all, however, I have now but one sorrow relative to the ill success of
my literary toils (and toils they have been, _though not undelightful
toils_), and this arises wholly from the almost insurmountable
difficulties which the anxieties of to-day oppose to my completion
of the great work, the form and materials of which it has been the
employment of the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years
to mature and collect.
If I could but have a tolerably numerous audience to my first, or
first and second Lectures on the _History of Philosophy_, I should
entertain a strong hope of success, because I know that these lectures
will be found by far the most interesting and _entertaining_ of any
that I have yet delivered, independent of the more permanent interest
of rememberable instruction. Few and unimportant would the errors of
men be, if they did but know, first, _what they themselves meant_;
and, secondly, what the _words_ mean by which they attempt to convey
their meaning, and I can conceive no subject so well fitted to
exemplify the mode and the importance of these two points as the
History of Philosophy, treated as in the scheme of these lectures.
TO THE SAME
_The Great Work described_
_Jan. _ 1821.
. . . I have already the _written_ materials and contents, requiring
only to be put together from the loose papers and commonplace or
memorandum books, and needing no other change, whether of omission,
addition, or correction, than the mere act of arranging, and the
opportunity of seeing the whole collectively bring with them of course
(1) Characteristics of Shakespeare's dramatic works, with a critical
review of each play; together with a relative and comparative critique
on the kind and degree of the merits and demerits of the dramatic
works of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger. The
History of the English Drama; the accidental advantages it afforded
to Shakespeare, without in the least detracting from the perfect
originality or proper creation of the Shakespearian Drama; the
contradistinction of the latter from the Greek Drama, and its still
remaining _uniqueness_, with the causes of this, from the combined
influences of Shakespeare himself, as man, poet, philosopher, and
finally, by conjunction of all these, dramatic poet; and of the age,
events, manners, and state of the English language. This work, with
every art of compression, amounts to three volumes of about five
hundred pages each. (2) Philosophical Analysis of the Genius and Works
of Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, and Calderon, with similar, but
more compressed criticisms on Chaucer, Ariosto, Donne, Rabelais, and
others, during the predominance of the Romantic Poetry. In one large
volume. These two works will, I flatter myself, form a complete code
of the principles of judgement and feeling applied to works of Taste;
and not of Poetry only, but of Poesy in all its forms, Painting,
Statuary, Music, &c. , &c. (3) The History of Philosophy considered
as a Tendency of the Human Mind to exhibit the Powers of the Human
Reason, to discover by its own Strength the Origin and Laws of Man and
the World, from Pythagoras to Locke and Condillac. Two volumes.
(4) Letters on the Old and New Testament, and on the Doctrine
and Principles held in common by the Fathers and Founders of the
Reformation, addressed to a candidate for Holy Orders, including
advice on the Plan and Subjects of Preaching, proper to a Minister of
the Established Church.
To the completion of these four works, I have literally nothing more
to do than to _transcribe_; but, as I before hinted, from so many
scraps and _sibylline_ leaves, including margins of books and blank
pages, that, unfortunately, I must be my own scribe, and not done by
myself, they will be all but lost; or perhaps (as has been too often
the case already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for
this purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let
fly against the luckless bird from whom they had been plucked or
moulted.
In addition to these--of my GREAT WORK, to the preparation of which
more than twenty years of my life have been devoted, and on which
my hopes of extensive and permanent utility, of fame, in the noblest
sense of the word, mainly rest--that, by which I might,
As now by thee, by all the good be known,
When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave,
Which self-surviving I might call my own,
Which folly cannot mar, nor hate deprave--
The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame,
Might make me dear to Him from whom they came.
Of this work, to which all my other writings (unless I except my
Poems, and these I can exclude in part only) are introductory and
preparative; and the result of which (if the premises be, as I, with
the most tranquil assurance, am convinced they are--insubvertible,
the deductions legitimate, and the conclusions commensurate, and only
commensurate, with both) must finally be a revolution of all that has
been called _philosophy_ or metaphysics in England and France, since
the era of the commencing predominance of the mechanical system at
the restoration of our second Charles, and with this the present
fashionable views, not only of religion, morals, and politics but
even of the modern physics and physiology. You will not blame the
earnestness of my expressions, nor the high importance which I attach
to this work: for how, with less noble objects, and less faith in
their attainment, could I stand acquitted of folly, and abuse of time,
talents, and learning in a labour of three-fourths of my intellectual
life? Of this work, something more than a volume has been dictated
by me, so as to exist fit for the press, to my friend and enlightened
pupil, Mr. Green; and more than as much again would have been evolved
and delivered to paper, but that, for the last six or eight months,
I have been compelled to break off our weekly meeting, from the
necessity of writing (alas! alas! of attempting to write) for
purposes, and on the subjects, of the passing day. Of my poetic works
I would fain finish the _Christabel_! Alas! for the proud time when I
planned, when I had present to my mind, the materials, as well as
the scheme, of the Hymns entitled _Spirit_, _Sun_, _Earth_, _Air_,
_Water_, _Fire_ and _Man_; and the Epic Poem on what still appears
to me the one only fit subject remaining for an epic poem--Jerusalem
besieged and destroyed by Titus.
TO THE SAME
_Reminiscences_
4 March, 1822.
My Dearest Friend,
I have been much more than ordinarily unwell for more than a week
past--my sleeps worse than my vigils, my nights than my days;
--The night's dismay
Sadden'd and stunned the intervening day;
but last night I had not only a calmer night, without roaming in my
dreams through any of Swedenborg's Hells _modérés_; but arose this
morning lighter and with a sense of _relief_. . . .
I shall make you smile, as I did dear Mary Lamb, when I say that you
sometimes mistake my position. As individual to individual, from
my childhood, I do not remember feeling myself either superior or
inferior to any human being; except by an act of my own will in cases
of real or imagined moral or intellectual superiority. In regard to
worldly rank, from eight years old to nineteen, I was habituated,
nay, naturalised, to look up to men circumstanced as you are, as my
superiors--a large number of our governors, and almost _all_ of those
whom we regarded as greater men still, and whom we saw most of, _viz. _
our committee governors, were such--and as neither awake nor asleep
have I any other feelings than what I had at Christ's Hospital,
I distinctly remember that I felt a little flush of pride and
consequence--just like what we used to feel at school when the boys
came running to us--'Coleridge! here's your friends want you--they are
quite _grand_,' or 'It is quite a _lady_'--when I first heard who you
were, and laughed at myself for it with that pleasurable sensation
that, spite of my sufferings at that school, still accompanies any
sudden reawakening of our school-boy feelings and notions. And oh,
from sixteen to nineteen what hours of Paradise had Allen and I in
escorting the Miss Evanses home on a Saturday, who were then at a
milliner's whom we used to think, and who I believe really was, such
a nice lady;--and we used to carry thither, of a summer morning, the
pillage of the flower gardens within six miles of town, with Sonnet
or Love Rhyme wrapped round the nose-gay. To be feminine, kind, and
genteelly (what I should now call neatly) dressed, these were the only
things to which my head, heart, or imagination had any polarity, and
what I was then, I still am.
God bless you and yours.
ROBERT SOUTHEY
1774-1843
TO JOSEPH COTTLE
_Question of copyrights_
Greta Hall, 20 _April_, 1808.
My dear Cottle,. . .
What you say of my copyrights affected me very much. Dear Cottle, set
your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to be at rest. These were
yours, fairly bought, and fairly sold. You bought them on the chance
of their success, which no London bookseller would have done; and had
they not been bought, they could not have been published at all.
