Be assured that the
decision
of these persons has nothing
to do with the question; they are altogether incompetent judges.
to do with the question; they are altogether incompetent judges.
Selection of English Letters
So be it, with my whole heart!
Thy affectionate and obliged
friend.
Our best wishes, and dear love to thy wife.
Abraham Shackleton has the melancholy satisfaction of perusing dear
Edmund Burke's account of his poor state of health. He hopes (trusts)
that a quiet resting place is prepared for him. The memory of E.
Burke's philanthropic virtues will out-live the period when his
shining political talents will cease to act. New fashions of political
sentiment will exist; but philanthropy,--_immortale manet! _
TO GEORGE CRABBE
_She writes to remind him_
Ballitore, 7th of Eleventh-month, 1816.
I believe it will surprise George Crabbe to receive a letter from an
entire stranger, whom most probably he does not remember to have ever
seen or heard of, but who cannot forget having met him at the house of
Edmund Burke, Charles Street, James's Square, in the year 1784. I
was brought thither by my father, Richard Shackleton, the friend
from their childhood of Edmund Burke. My dear father told thee that
Goldsmith's would now be the _deserted village_; perhaps thou dost not
remember this compliment, but I remember the ingenuous modesty which
disclaimed it. He admired '_The Village', 'The Library_,' and '_The
Newspaper_' exceedingly, and the delight with which he read them to
his family could not but be acceptable to the author, had he known
the sound judgement and the exquisite taste which that excellent
man possessed. But he saw no more of the productions of the Muse he
admired; whose originality was not the least charm. He is dead--the
friend whom he loved and honoured, and to whose character thou dost so
much justice in the preface to '_The Parish_ _Register_', is also gone
to the house appointed for all living. A splendid constellation of
poets arose in the literary horizon; I looked around for Crabbe. Why
does not he, who shines as brightly as any of these, add his lustre?
I had not long thought thus when, in an Edinburgh Review, I met
with reflections similar to my own, which introduced '_The Parish
Register_'. Oh, it was like the voice of a long-lost friend, and glad
was I to hear that voice again in '_The Borough_'! --still more in
'_The Tales_,' which appear to me excelling all that preceded them!
Every work is so much in unison with our own feelings, that a wish for
information concerning them and their author is strongly excited.
One of our friends, Dykes Alexander, who was in Ballitore in 1810, I
think, said he was personally acquainted with thee, and spoke highly
of thy character. I regretted I had not an opportunity of conversing
with him on this subject, as perhaps he would have been able to decide
arguments which have arisen; namely, whether we owe to truth or to
fiction that 'ever new delight' which thy poetry affords us. The
characters, however singular some of them may be, are never unnatural,
and thy sentiments so true to domestic and social feelings, as well as
to those of a higher nature, have the convincing power of reality
over the mind, and _I_ maintain that all thy pictures _are drawn from
life_. To inquire whether this be the case is the excuse which I make
to myself for writing this letter. I wish the excuse may be accepted
by thee, for I greatly fear I have taken an unwarrantable liberty in
making the inquiry. Though advanced in life, yet from an education of
peculiar simplicity, and from never having been long absent from my
retired native village, I am too little acquainted with decorum. If I
have now transgressed the rules it prescribes, I appeal to the candour
and liberality of thy mind to forgive a fault caused by a strong
enthusiasm.
PS. Ballitore is the village in which Edmund Burke was educated by
Abraham Shackleton, whose pupil he became in 1741, and from whose
school he entered the college of Dublin in 1744. The school is still
flourishing.
ROBERT BURNS
1759-1796
TO MISS CHALMERS
_Marriage with Jean_
Ellisland, near Dumfries, 16 _Sept_. 1788.
Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady M'Kenzie recovering her
health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not
think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part--
When thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand!
'My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea. ' I
do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its
fellows--rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or
impression, except where they hit in hostile collision.
I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you
and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves
much _à l'égard de moi_, I sit down to beg the continuation of your
goodness. --I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart,
I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my
soul--I will not say, more, but so much as Lady M'Kenzie and Miss
Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest, of
human kind--unfortunate, even in the shades of life--when I think I
have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in
eight days, than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight
years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world
again--I could sit down and cry like a child! --If ever you honoured me
with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. --I
am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas!
is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the
noblest souls; and a late, important step in my life has kindly taken
me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however
overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase,
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLAINY.
Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married 'my Jean'. This
was not in consequence of the attachment of romance perhaps; but I
had a long and much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery in my
determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor
have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish
manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with
the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the
handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and
the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her
creed, that I am _le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnête homme_ in
the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in
metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse.
I must except also from this last, a certain late publication of Scots
poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in
the country, as she has (O the partial lover! you will cry) the finest
'wood-note wild' I ever heard. --I am the more particular in this
lady's character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a
share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building
my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here,
is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls;
and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being
suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was
taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain.
You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle _éclat_, and
bind every day after my reapers.
To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in
a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my excise
instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency
of fortune. If I could set _all_ before your view, whatever disrespect
you in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would
approve of my idea.
I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this egotistic detail: I know
you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it.
What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery
of greatness! When fellow partakers of the same nature fear the same
God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul,
the same detestation at every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at
every thing unworthy--if they are not in the dependance of absolute
beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And if the
bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may
they not be FRIENDS? . . .
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE
_A gauger_
Ellisland, 1 _Nov_. 1789.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find
you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious
days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh. Wherever
you are, God bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver
you from evil!
I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed to an
excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. In this
I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they
call their journeymen excisemen, I was directly planted down to all
intents and purposes an officer of excise; there to flourish and bring
forth fruits--worthy of repentance.
I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious, gauger,
will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory
nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife
and children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting these
kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision for
widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a _poet_.
For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which
I once heard a recruiting sergeant give to a numerous, if not a
respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock. --'Gentlemen,
for your further and better encouragement, I can assure you that
our regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and
consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for
preferment. '
You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and
disagreeable circumstances in my business; but I am tired with and
disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life.
Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with
pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious foolish man
mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar
property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal
fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does
ruin many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead; and is, almost
without exception, a constant source of disappointment and misery. . . .
TO FRANCIS GROSE
_Witch tales_
Dumfries, 1792.
Among the many witch stories I have heard relating to Alloway Kirk, I
distinctly remember only two or three.
Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind and bitter blasts
of hail--in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take
the air in--a farmer, or farmer's servant, was plodding and plashing
homeward, with his plough irons on his shoulder, having been getting
some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the Kirk
of Alloway, and being rather on the anxious look-out in approaching
a place so well known to be a favourite haunt of the devil and the
devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering
through the horrors of the storm and stormy night a light, which, on
his nearer approach, plainly showed itself to proceed from the haunted
edifice. Whether he had been fortified from above, on his devout
supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the
immediate presence of Satan; or whether, according to another custom,
he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to
determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay, into, the
very kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished.
The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight
business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or
cauldron, depending from the roof over the fire, simmering some heads
of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c. , for the
business of the night. It was in for a penny, in for a pound, with the
honest ploughman; so, without ceremony, he unhooked the cauldron from
off the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it
on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the
family, a living evidence of the truth of the story.
Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as
follows: On a market day, in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick,
and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway Kirkyard,
in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about
two or three hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been
detained by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was
the wizard hour between night and morning.
Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet
as it is a well-known fact that to turn back on these occasions is
running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced
on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirkyard he was
surprised and entertained through the ribs and arches of an old Gothic
window which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches,
merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was
keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer,
stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the
faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the
gentleman was dressed tradition does not say, but that the ladies were
all in their smocks; and one of them, happening unluckily to have a
smock which was considerably too short to answer all the purposes of
that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involuntarily
burst out with a loud laugh: 'Weel luppen, Maggy wi' the short sark! '
and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of
his speed. I need not mention the universally known fact, that no
diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream.
Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for,
notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against
he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the
middle of the stream, the pursuing vengeful hags were so close at his
heels, that one of them actually sprang to seize him; but it was too
late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail,
which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a
stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the
unsightly tailless condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last
hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick
farmer not to stay too late in Ayr markets.
The last relation I shall give you, though equally true, is not so
well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene; but as
the best authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it.
On a summer's evening, about the time that nature puts on her sables
to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging
to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway Kirk, had just
folded his charge and was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in
the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of men and women, who
were busy pulling stems of the plant ragwort. He observed that as each
person pulled a ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and called out,
'Up, horsie', on which the ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the
air, with its rider. The foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort and
cried with the rest, 'Up, horsie', and, strange to tell, away he flew
with the company. The first stage at which the cavalcade stopped was
a merchant's wine-cellar in Bordeaux, where, without saying by your
leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until
the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to
throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals.
The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the
liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse he
fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging
to the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him what he
was, he said he was such-a-one's herd in Alloway, and by some means or
other getting home again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous
tale.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
1770-1850
TO SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT
_A brother's character_
Grasmere, 20 _Feb_. 1805.
Having spoken of worldly affairs, let me again mention my beloved
brother. It is now just five years since, after a separation of
fourteen years (I may call it a separation, for we only saw him four
or five times, and by glimpses), he came to visit his sister and me
in this cottage, and passed eight blessed months with us. He was then
waiting for the command of the ship to which he was appointed when he
quitted us. As you will have seen, we had little to live upon, and he
as little (Lord Lonsdale being then alive). But he encouraged me to
persist, and to keep my eye steady on its object. He would work for me
(that was his language), for me and his sister; and I was to endeavour
to do something for the world. He went to sea, as commander, with
this hope; his voyage was very unsuccessful, he having lost by it
considerably. When he came home, we chanced to be in London, and saw
him. 'Oh! ' said he, 'I have thought of you, and nothing but you; if
ever of myself, and my bad success, it was only on your account. ' He
went again to sea a second time, and also was unsuccessful; still
with the same hopes on our account, though then not so necessary,
Lord Lowther having paid the money. Lastly came the lamentable voyage,
which he entered upon, full of expectation, and love to his sister
and myself, and my wife, whom, indeed, he loved with all a brother's
tenderness. This is the end of his part of the agreement--of his
efforts for my welfare! God grant me life and strength to fulfil mine!
I shall never forget him--never lose sight of him: there is a bond
between us yet, the same as if he were living, nay, far more sacred,
calling upon me to do my utmost, as he to the last did his utmost
to live in honour and worthiness. Some of the newspapers carelessly
asserted that he did not wish to survive his ship. This is false. He
was heard by one of the surviving officers giving orders, with all
possible calmness, a very little before the ship went down; and when
he could remain at his post no longer, then, and not till then,
he attempted to save himself. I knew this would be so, but it was
satisfactory for me to have it confirmed by external evidence. Do not
think our grief unreasonable. Of all human beings whom I ever knew, he
was the man of the most rational desires, the most sedate habits, and
the most perfect self-command. He was modest and gentle, and shy even
to disease; but this was wearing off. In everything his judgements
were sound and original; his taste in all the arts, music and poetry
in particular (for these he, of course, had had the best opportunities
of being familiar with), was exquisite; and his eye for the beauties
of nature was as fine and delicate as ever poet or painter was gifted
with, in some discriminations, owing to his education and way of life,
far superior to any person's I ever knew. But, alas! what avails it?
It was the will of God that he should be taken away. . . .
I trust in God that I shall not want fortitude; but my loss is great
and irreparable. . . .
TO WALTER SCOTT
_Dryden_
Patterdale, 7 _Nov_. 1805.
MY DEAR SCOTT,
I was much pleased to hear of your engagement with Dryden: not that he
is, as a poet, any great favourite of mine: I admire his talents and
genius highly, but his is not a poetical genius. The only qualities
I can find in Dryden that are _essentially_ poetical, are a certain
ardour and impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear. It may seem
strange that I do not add to this, great command of language: _that_
he certainly has, and of such language too, as it is most desirable
that a poet should possess, or rather that he should not be without.
But it is not language that is, in the highest sense of the word,
poetical, being neither of the imagination nor of the passions; I mean
the amiable, the ennobling, or the intense passions. I do not mean to
say that there is nothing of this in Dryden, but as little, I think,
as is possible, considering how much he has written. You will easily
understand my meaning, when I refer to his versification of _Palamon
and Arcite_, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden had
neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever
his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing
subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men or
of individuals, That his cannot be the language of imagination, must
have necessarily followed from this,--that there is not a single image
from nature in the whole body of his works; and in his translation
from Virgil, wherever Virgil can be fairly said to have had his _eye_
upon his object, Dryden always spoils the passage.
But too much of this; I am glad that you are to be his editor.
His political and satirical pieces may be greatly benefited by
illustration, and even absolutely require it. A correct text is the
first object of an editor, then such notes as explain difficult or
obscure passages; and lastly, which is much less important, notes
pointing out authors to whom the poet has been indebted, not in the
fiddling way of phrase here and phrase there, (which is detestable as
a general practice), but where he has had essential obligations either
as to matter or manner.
If I can be of any use to you, do not fail to apply to me. One thing
I may take the liberty to suggest, which is, when you come to the
fables, might it not be advisable to print the whole of the Tales of
Boccace in a smaller type in the original language? If this should
look too much like swelling a book, I should certainly make such
extracts as would show where Dryden has most strikingly improved upon,
or fallen below, his original. I think his translations from Boccace
are the best, at least the most poetical, of his poems. It is many
years since I saw Boccace, but I remember that Sigismunda is not
married by him to Guiscard (the names are different in Boccace in both
tales, I believe--certainly in Theodore, &c. ). I think Dryden has much
injured the story by the marriage, and degraded Sigismunda's character
by it. He has also, to the best of my remembrance, degraded her still
more, by making her love absolute sensuality and appetite; Dryden had
no other notion of the passion. With all these defects, and they are
very gross ones, it is a noble poem. Guiscard's answer, when first
reproached by Tancred, is noble in Boccace--nothing but this: _Amor
può molto più che ne voi ne io possiamo_. This, Dryden has spoiled. He
says first very well, 'the faults of love by love are justified,' and
then come four lines of miserable rant, quite _à la Maximin_.
TO LADY BEAUMONT
_The destiny of his poems_
Coleorton, 21 _May_, 1807.
MY DEAR LADY BEAUMONT,
Though I am to see you so soon, I cannot but write a word or two, to
thank you for the interest you take in my poems, as evinced by your
solicitude about their immediate reception. I write partly to thank
you for this, and to express the pleasure it has given me, and partly
to remove any uneasiness from your mind which the disappointments you
sometimes meet with, in this labour of love, may occasion. I see that
you have many battles to fight for me--more than, in the ardour and
confidence of your pure and elevated mind, you had ever thought of
being summoned to; but be assured that this opposition is nothing more
than what I distinctly foresaw that you and my other friends would
have to encounter. I say this, not to give myself credit for an eye of
prophecy, but to allay any vexatious thoughts on my account which this
opposition may have produced in you.
It is impossible that any expectations can be lower than mine
concerning the immediate effect of this little work upon what is
called the public. I do not here take into consideration the envy and
malevolence, and all the bad passions which always stand in the way of
a work of any merit from a living poet; but merely think of the pure,
absolute, honest ignorance in which all worldlings of every rank and
situation must be enveloped, with respect to the thoughts, feelings
and images on which the life of my poems depends. The things which I
have taken, whether from within or without, what have they to do with
routs, dinners, morning calls, hurry from door to door, from street to
street, on foot or in carriage; with Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, Mr. Paul
or Sir Francis Burdett, the Westminster election or the borough of
Honiton? In a word--for I cannot stop to make my way through the hurry
of images that present themselves to me--what have they to do with the
endless talking about things nobody cares anything for except as far
as their own vanity is concerned, and this with persons they care
nothing for but as their vanity or _selfishness_ is concerned? --what
have they to do (to say all at once) with a life without love? In such
a life there can be no thought; for we have no thought (save thoughts
of pain) but as far as we have love and admiration.
It is an awful truth, that there neither is, nor can be, any genuine
enjoyment of poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons who
live, or wish to live, in the broad light of the world--among
those who either are, or are striving to make themselves, people of
consideration in society. This is a truth, and an awful one, because
to be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to
be without love of human nature and reverence for God.
Upon this I shall insist elsewhere; at present let me confine myself
to my object; which is to make you, my dear friend, as easy-hearted
as myself with respect to these poems. Trouble not yourself upon their
present reception; of what moment is that compared with what I trust
is their destiny? --to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to
daylight, by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the
gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, and therefore, to
become more actively and securely virtuous; this is their office,
which I trust they will faithfully perform, long after we (that is,
all that is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves. I am well aware
how far it would seem to many I overrate my own exertions, when I
speak in this way, in direct connexion with the volume I have just
made public.
I am not, however, afraid of such censure, insignificant as probably
the majority of those poems would appear to very respectable persons.
I do not mean London wits and witlings, for these have too many foul
passions about them to be respectable, even if they had more intellect
than the benign laws of Providence will allow to such a heartless
existence as theirs is; but grave, kindly-natured, worthy persons,
who would be pleased if they could. I hope that these volumes are
not without some recommendations, even for readers of this class: but
their imagination has slept; and the voice which is the voice of my
poetry, without imagination, cannot be heard. . . .
My letter (as this second sheet, which I am obliged to take,
admonishes me) is growing to an enormous length; and yet, saving that
I have expressed my calm confidence that these poems will live, I have
said nothing which has a particular application to the object of it,
which was to remove all disquiet from your mind on account of the
condemnation they may at present incur from that portion of my
contemporaries who are called the public. I am sure, my dear Lady
Beaumont, if you attach any importance to it, it can only be from an
apprehension that it may affect me, upon which I have already set you
at ease; or from a fear that this present blame is ominous of their
future or final destiny. If this be the case, your tenderness for me
betrays you.
Be assured that the decision of these persons has nothing
to do with the question; they are altogether incompetent judges. These
people, in the senseless hurry of their idle lives, do not _read_
books, they merely snatch a glance at them, that they may talk about
them. And even if this were not so, never forget what, I believe, was
observed to you by Coleridge, that every great and original writer, in
proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste
by which he is to be relished; he must teach the art by which he is to
be seen; this, in a certain degree, even to all persons, however wise
and pure may be their lives, and however unvitiated their taste. But
for those who dip into books in order to give an opinion of them, or
talk about them to take up an opinion--for this multitude of unhappy
and misguided, and misguiding beings, an entire regeneration must
be produced; and if this be possible, it must be a work of time. To
conclude, my ears are stone-dead to this idle buzz, and my flesh as
insensible as iron to these petty stings; and after what I have said,
I am sure yours will be the same. I doubt not that you will share with
me an invincible confidence that my writings (and among them these
little poems) will co-operate with the benign tendencies in human
nature and society, wherever found; and that they will in their degree
be efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier. Farewell.
I will not apologize for this letter, though its length demands an
apology. . . .
TO SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT
_The language of poetry_
[c. 1807. ]
MY DEAR SIR GEORGE,
I am quite delighted to hear of your picture for _Peter Bell_; I was
much pleased with the sketch, and I have no doubt that the picture
will surpass it as far as a picture ought to do. I long much to see
it. I should approve of any engraver approved by you. But remember
that no poem of mine will ever be popular; and I am afraid that the
sale of _Peter_ would not carry the expense of the engraving, and that
the poem, in the estimation of the public, would be a weight upon
the print. I say not this in modest disparagement of the poem, but in
sorrow for the sickly taste of the public in verse. The _people_ would
love the poem of _Peter Bell_, but the _public_ (a very different
being) will never love it. Thanks for dear Lady B. 's transcript from
your friend's letter; it is written with candour, but I must say a
word or two not in praise of it. 'Instances of what I mean,' says your
friend, 'are to be found in a poem on a Daisy' (by the by, it is on
_the_ Daisy, a mighty difference! ) 'and on _Daffodils reflected in the
Water_'. Is this accurately transcribed by Lady Beaumont? If it
be, what shall we think of criticism or judgement founded upon, and
exemplified by, a poem which must have been so inattentively perused?
My language is precise; and, therefore, it would be false modesty to
charge myself with blame.
Beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the _breeze_.
The _waves beside_ them danced, but they
Outdid the _sparkling waves_ in glee.
Can expression be more distinct? And let me ask your friend how it
is possible for flowers to be _reflected_ in water when there are
_waves_? They may, indeed, in _still_ water; but the very object of my
poem is the trouble or agitation, both of the flowers and the water.
I must needs respect the understanding of every one honoured by your
friendship; but sincerity compels me to say that my poems must be more
nearly looked at, before they can give rise to any remarks of much
value, even from the strongest minds. With respect to this individual
poem, Lady B. will recollect how Mrs. Fermor expressed herself upon
it. A letter also was sent to me, addressed to a friend of mine, and
by him communicated to me, in which this identical poem was singled
out for fervent approbation. What then shall we say? Why, let the poet
first consult his own heart, as I have done, and leave the rest
to posterity--to, I hope, an improving posterity. The fact is, the
English _public_ are at this moment in the same state of mind with
respect to my poems, if small things may be compared with great, as
the French are in respect to Shakespeare, and not the French alone,
but almost the whole Continent. In short, in your friend's letter,
I am condemned for the very thing for which I ought to have
been praised, viz. , that I have not written down to the level of
superficial observers and unthinking minds. Every great poet is
a teacher: I wish either to be considered as a teacher, or as
nothing. . . .
SIR WALTER SCOTT
1771-1832
TO HIS MOTHER
_Marriage with Miss Carpenter_
[1797. ]
MY DEAR MOTHER,
I should very ill deserve the care and affection with which you
have ever regarded me, were I to neglect my duty so far as to omit
consulting my father and you in the most important step which I
can possibly take in life, and upon the success of which my future
happiness must depend. It is with pleasure I think that I can avail
myself of your advice and instructions in an affair of so great
importance as that which I have at present on my hands. 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.
friend.
Our best wishes, and dear love to thy wife.
Abraham Shackleton has the melancholy satisfaction of perusing dear
Edmund Burke's account of his poor state of health. He hopes (trusts)
that a quiet resting place is prepared for him. The memory of E.
Burke's philanthropic virtues will out-live the period when his
shining political talents will cease to act. New fashions of political
sentiment will exist; but philanthropy,--_immortale manet! _
TO GEORGE CRABBE
_She writes to remind him_
Ballitore, 7th of Eleventh-month, 1816.
I believe it will surprise George Crabbe to receive a letter from an
entire stranger, whom most probably he does not remember to have ever
seen or heard of, but who cannot forget having met him at the house of
Edmund Burke, Charles Street, James's Square, in the year 1784. I
was brought thither by my father, Richard Shackleton, the friend
from their childhood of Edmund Burke. My dear father told thee that
Goldsmith's would now be the _deserted village_; perhaps thou dost not
remember this compliment, but I remember the ingenuous modesty which
disclaimed it. He admired '_The Village', 'The Library_,' and '_The
Newspaper_' exceedingly, and the delight with which he read them to
his family could not but be acceptable to the author, had he known
the sound judgement and the exquisite taste which that excellent
man possessed. But he saw no more of the productions of the Muse he
admired; whose originality was not the least charm. He is dead--the
friend whom he loved and honoured, and to whose character thou dost so
much justice in the preface to '_The Parish_ _Register_', is also gone
to the house appointed for all living. A splendid constellation of
poets arose in the literary horizon; I looked around for Crabbe. Why
does not he, who shines as brightly as any of these, add his lustre?
I had not long thought thus when, in an Edinburgh Review, I met
with reflections similar to my own, which introduced '_The Parish
Register_'. Oh, it was like the voice of a long-lost friend, and glad
was I to hear that voice again in '_The Borough_'! --still more in
'_The Tales_,' which appear to me excelling all that preceded them!
Every work is so much in unison with our own feelings, that a wish for
information concerning them and their author is strongly excited.
One of our friends, Dykes Alexander, who was in Ballitore in 1810, I
think, said he was personally acquainted with thee, and spoke highly
of thy character. I regretted I had not an opportunity of conversing
with him on this subject, as perhaps he would have been able to decide
arguments which have arisen; namely, whether we owe to truth or to
fiction that 'ever new delight' which thy poetry affords us. The
characters, however singular some of them may be, are never unnatural,
and thy sentiments so true to domestic and social feelings, as well as
to those of a higher nature, have the convincing power of reality
over the mind, and _I_ maintain that all thy pictures _are drawn from
life_. To inquire whether this be the case is the excuse which I make
to myself for writing this letter. I wish the excuse may be accepted
by thee, for I greatly fear I have taken an unwarrantable liberty in
making the inquiry. Though advanced in life, yet from an education of
peculiar simplicity, and from never having been long absent from my
retired native village, I am too little acquainted with decorum. If I
have now transgressed the rules it prescribes, I appeal to the candour
and liberality of thy mind to forgive a fault caused by a strong
enthusiasm.
PS. Ballitore is the village in which Edmund Burke was educated by
Abraham Shackleton, whose pupil he became in 1741, and from whose
school he entered the college of Dublin in 1744. The school is still
flourishing.
ROBERT BURNS
1759-1796
TO MISS CHALMERS
_Marriage with Jean_
Ellisland, near Dumfries, 16 _Sept_. 1788.
Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady M'Kenzie recovering her
health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not
think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part--
When thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand!
'My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea. ' I
do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its
fellows--rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or
impression, except where they hit in hostile collision.
I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you
and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves
much _à l'égard de moi_, I sit down to beg the continuation of your
goodness. --I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart,
I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my
soul--I will not say, more, but so much as Lady M'Kenzie and Miss
Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest, of
human kind--unfortunate, even in the shades of life--when I think I
have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in
eight days, than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight
years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world
again--I could sit down and cry like a child! --If ever you honoured me
with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. --I
am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas!
is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the
noblest souls; and a late, important step in my life has kindly taken
me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however
overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase,
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLAINY.
Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married 'my Jean'. This
was not in consequence of the attachment of romance perhaps; but I
had a long and much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery in my
determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor
have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish
manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with
the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the
handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and
the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her
creed, that I am _le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnête homme_ in
the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in
metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse.
I must except also from this last, a certain late publication of Scots
poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in
the country, as she has (O the partial lover! you will cry) the finest
'wood-note wild' I ever heard. --I am the more particular in this
lady's character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a
share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building
my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here,
is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls;
and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being
suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was
taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain.
You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle _éclat_, and
bind every day after my reapers.
To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in
a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my excise
instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency
of fortune. If I could set _all_ before your view, whatever disrespect
you in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would
approve of my idea.
I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this egotistic detail: I know
you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it.
What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery
of greatness! When fellow partakers of the same nature fear the same
God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul,
the same detestation at every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at
every thing unworthy--if they are not in the dependance of absolute
beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And if the
bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may
they not be FRIENDS? . . .
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE
_A gauger_
Ellisland, 1 _Nov_. 1789.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find
you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious
days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh. Wherever
you are, God bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver
you from evil!
I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed to an
excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. In this
I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they
call their journeymen excisemen, I was directly planted down to all
intents and purposes an officer of excise; there to flourish and bring
forth fruits--worthy of repentance.
I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious, gauger,
will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory
nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife
and children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting these
kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision for
widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a _poet_.
For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which
I once heard a recruiting sergeant give to a numerous, if not a
respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock. --'Gentlemen,
for your further and better encouragement, I can assure you that
our regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and
consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for
preferment. '
You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and
disagreeable circumstances in my business; but I am tired with and
disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life.
Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with
pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious foolish man
mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar
property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal
fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does
ruin many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead; and is, almost
without exception, a constant source of disappointment and misery. . . .
TO FRANCIS GROSE
_Witch tales_
Dumfries, 1792.
Among the many witch stories I have heard relating to Alloway Kirk, I
distinctly remember only two or three.
Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind and bitter blasts
of hail--in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take
the air in--a farmer, or farmer's servant, was plodding and plashing
homeward, with his plough irons on his shoulder, having been getting
some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the Kirk
of Alloway, and being rather on the anxious look-out in approaching
a place so well known to be a favourite haunt of the devil and the
devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering
through the horrors of the storm and stormy night a light, which, on
his nearer approach, plainly showed itself to proceed from the haunted
edifice. Whether he had been fortified from above, on his devout
supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the
immediate presence of Satan; or whether, according to another custom,
he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to
determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay, into, the
very kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished.
The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight
business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or
cauldron, depending from the roof over the fire, simmering some heads
of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c. , for the
business of the night. It was in for a penny, in for a pound, with the
honest ploughman; so, without ceremony, he unhooked the cauldron from
off the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it
on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the
family, a living evidence of the truth of the story.
Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as
follows: On a market day, in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick,
and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway Kirkyard,
in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about
two or three hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been
detained by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was
the wizard hour between night and morning.
Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet
as it is a well-known fact that to turn back on these occasions is
running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced
on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirkyard he was
surprised and entertained through the ribs and arches of an old Gothic
window which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches,
merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was
keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer,
stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the
faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the
gentleman was dressed tradition does not say, but that the ladies were
all in their smocks; and one of them, happening unluckily to have a
smock which was considerably too short to answer all the purposes of
that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involuntarily
burst out with a loud laugh: 'Weel luppen, Maggy wi' the short sark! '
and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of
his speed. I need not mention the universally known fact, that no
diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream.
Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for,
notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against
he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the
middle of the stream, the pursuing vengeful hags were so close at his
heels, that one of them actually sprang to seize him; but it was too
late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail,
which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a
stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the
unsightly tailless condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last
hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick
farmer not to stay too late in Ayr markets.
The last relation I shall give you, though equally true, is not so
well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene; but as
the best authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it.
On a summer's evening, about the time that nature puts on her sables
to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging
to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway Kirk, had just
folded his charge and was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in
the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of men and women, who
were busy pulling stems of the plant ragwort. He observed that as each
person pulled a ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and called out,
'Up, horsie', on which the ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the
air, with its rider. The foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort and
cried with the rest, 'Up, horsie', and, strange to tell, away he flew
with the company. The first stage at which the cavalcade stopped was
a merchant's wine-cellar in Bordeaux, where, without saying by your
leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until
the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to
throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals.
The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the
liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse he
fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging
to the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him what he
was, he said he was such-a-one's herd in Alloway, and by some means or
other getting home again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous
tale.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
1770-1850
TO SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT
_A brother's character_
Grasmere, 20 _Feb_. 1805.
Having spoken of worldly affairs, let me again mention my beloved
brother. It is now just five years since, after a separation of
fourteen years (I may call it a separation, for we only saw him four
or five times, and by glimpses), he came to visit his sister and me
in this cottage, and passed eight blessed months with us. He was then
waiting for the command of the ship to which he was appointed when he
quitted us. As you will have seen, we had little to live upon, and he
as little (Lord Lonsdale being then alive). But he encouraged me to
persist, and to keep my eye steady on its object. He would work for me
(that was his language), for me and his sister; and I was to endeavour
to do something for the world. He went to sea, as commander, with
this hope; his voyage was very unsuccessful, he having lost by it
considerably. When he came home, we chanced to be in London, and saw
him. 'Oh! ' said he, 'I have thought of you, and nothing but you; if
ever of myself, and my bad success, it was only on your account. ' He
went again to sea a second time, and also was unsuccessful; still
with the same hopes on our account, though then not so necessary,
Lord Lowther having paid the money. Lastly came the lamentable voyage,
which he entered upon, full of expectation, and love to his sister
and myself, and my wife, whom, indeed, he loved with all a brother's
tenderness. This is the end of his part of the agreement--of his
efforts for my welfare! God grant me life and strength to fulfil mine!
I shall never forget him--never lose sight of him: there is a bond
between us yet, the same as if he were living, nay, far more sacred,
calling upon me to do my utmost, as he to the last did his utmost
to live in honour and worthiness. Some of the newspapers carelessly
asserted that he did not wish to survive his ship. This is false. He
was heard by one of the surviving officers giving orders, with all
possible calmness, a very little before the ship went down; and when
he could remain at his post no longer, then, and not till then,
he attempted to save himself. I knew this would be so, but it was
satisfactory for me to have it confirmed by external evidence. Do not
think our grief unreasonable. Of all human beings whom I ever knew, he
was the man of the most rational desires, the most sedate habits, and
the most perfect self-command. He was modest and gentle, and shy even
to disease; but this was wearing off. In everything his judgements
were sound and original; his taste in all the arts, music and poetry
in particular (for these he, of course, had had the best opportunities
of being familiar with), was exquisite; and his eye for the beauties
of nature was as fine and delicate as ever poet or painter was gifted
with, in some discriminations, owing to his education and way of life,
far superior to any person's I ever knew. But, alas! what avails it?
It was the will of God that he should be taken away. . . .
I trust in God that I shall not want fortitude; but my loss is great
and irreparable. . . .
TO WALTER SCOTT
_Dryden_
Patterdale, 7 _Nov_. 1805.
MY DEAR SCOTT,
I was much pleased to hear of your engagement with Dryden: not that he
is, as a poet, any great favourite of mine: I admire his talents and
genius highly, but his is not a poetical genius. The only qualities
I can find in Dryden that are _essentially_ poetical, are a certain
ardour and impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear. It may seem
strange that I do not add to this, great command of language: _that_
he certainly has, and of such language too, as it is most desirable
that a poet should possess, or rather that he should not be without.
But it is not language that is, in the highest sense of the word,
poetical, being neither of the imagination nor of the passions; I mean
the amiable, the ennobling, or the intense passions. I do not mean to
say that there is nothing of this in Dryden, but as little, I think,
as is possible, considering how much he has written. You will easily
understand my meaning, when I refer to his versification of _Palamon
and Arcite_, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden had
neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever
his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing
subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men or
of individuals, That his cannot be the language of imagination, must
have necessarily followed from this,--that there is not a single image
from nature in the whole body of his works; and in his translation
from Virgil, wherever Virgil can be fairly said to have had his _eye_
upon his object, Dryden always spoils the passage.
But too much of this; I am glad that you are to be his editor.
His political and satirical pieces may be greatly benefited by
illustration, and even absolutely require it. A correct text is the
first object of an editor, then such notes as explain difficult or
obscure passages; and lastly, which is much less important, notes
pointing out authors to whom the poet has been indebted, not in the
fiddling way of phrase here and phrase there, (which is detestable as
a general practice), but where he has had essential obligations either
as to matter or manner.
If I can be of any use to you, do not fail to apply to me. One thing
I may take the liberty to suggest, which is, when you come to the
fables, might it not be advisable to print the whole of the Tales of
Boccace in a smaller type in the original language? If this should
look too much like swelling a book, I should certainly make such
extracts as would show where Dryden has most strikingly improved upon,
or fallen below, his original. I think his translations from Boccace
are the best, at least the most poetical, of his poems. It is many
years since I saw Boccace, but I remember that Sigismunda is not
married by him to Guiscard (the names are different in Boccace in both
tales, I believe--certainly in Theodore, &c. ). I think Dryden has much
injured the story by the marriage, and degraded Sigismunda's character
by it. He has also, to the best of my remembrance, degraded her still
more, by making her love absolute sensuality and appetite; Dryden had
no other notion of the passion. With all these defects, and they are
very gross ones, it is a noble poem. Guiscard's answer, when first
reproached by Tancred, is noble in Boccace--nothing but this: _Amor
può molto più che ne voi ne io possiamo_. This, Dryden has spoiled. He
says first very well, 'the faults of love by love are justified,' and
then come four lines of miserable rant, quite _à la Maximin_.
TO LADY BEAUMONT
_The destiny of his poems_
Coleorton, 21 _May_, 1807.
MY DEAR LADY BEAUMONT,
Though I am to see you so soon, I cannot but write a word or two, to
thank you for the interest you take in my poems, as evinced by your
solicitude about their immediate reception. I write partly to thank
you for this, and to express the pleasure it has given me, and partly
to remove any uneasiness from your mind which the disappointments you
sometimes meet with, in this labour of love, may occasion. I see that
you have many battles to fight for me--more than, in the ardour and
confidence of your pure and elevated mind, you had ever thought of
being summoned to; but be assured that this opposition is nothing more
than what I distinctly foresaw that you and my other friends would
have to encounter. I say this, not to give myself credit for an eye of
prophecy, but to allay any vexatious thoughts on my account which this
opposition may have produced in you.
It is impossible that any expectations can be lower than mine
concerning the immediate effect of this little work upon what is
called the public. I do not here take into consideration the envy and
malevolence, and all the bad passions which always stand in the way of
a work of any merit from a living poet; but merely think of the pure,
absolute, honest ignorance in which all worldlings of every rank and
situation must be enveloped, with respect to the thoughts, feelings
and images on which the life of my poems depends. The things which I
have taken, whether from within or without, what have they to do with
routs, dinners, morning calls, hurry from door to door, from street to
street, on foot or in carriage; with Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, Mr. Paul
or Sir Francis Burdett, the Westminster election or the borough of
Honiton? In a word--for I cannot stop to make my way through the hurry
of images that present themselves to me--what have they to do with the
endless talking about things nobody cares anything for except as far
as their own vanity is concerned, and this with persons they care
nothing for but as their vanity or _selfishness_ is concerned? --what
have they to do (to say all at once) with a life without love? In such
a life there can be no thought; for we have no thought (save thoughts
of pain) but as far as we have love and admiration.
It is an awful truth, that there neither is, nor can be, any genuine
enjoyment of poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons who
live, or wish to live, in the broad light of the world--among
those who either are, or are striving to make themselves, people of
consideration in society. This is a truth, and an awful one, because
to be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to
be without love of human nature and reverence for God.
Upon this I shall insist elsewhere; at present let me confine myself
to my object; which is to make you, my dear friend, as easy-hearted
as myself with respect to these poems. Trouble not yourself upon their
present reception; of what moment is that compared with what I trust
is their destiny? --to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to
daylight, by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the
gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, and therefore, to
become more actively and securely virtuous; this is their office,
which I trust they will faithfully perform, long after we (that is,
all that is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves. I am well aware
how far it would seem to many I overrate my own exertions, when I
speak in this way, in direct connexion with the volume I have just
made public.
I am not, however, afraid of such censure, insignificant as probably
the majority of those poems would appear to very respectable persons.
I do not mean London wits and witlings, for these have too many foul
passions about them to be respectable, even if they had more intellect
than the benign laws of Providence will allow to such a heartless
existence as theirs is; but grave, kindly-natured, worthy persons,
who would be pleased if they could. I hope that these volumes are
not without some recommendations, even for readers of this class: but
their imagination has slept; and the voice which is the voice of my
poetry, without imagination, cannot be heard. . . .
My letter (as this second sheet, which I am obliged to take,
admonishes me) is growing to an enormous length; and yet, saving that
I have expressed my calm confidence that these poems will live, I have
said nothing which has a particular application to the object of it,
which was to remove all disquiet from your mind on account of the
condemnation they may at present incur from that portion of my
contemporaries who are called the public. I am sure, my dear Lady
Beaumont, if you attach any importance to it, it can only be from an
apprehension that it may affect me, upon which I have already set you
at ease; or from a fear that this present blame is ominous of their
future or final destiny. If this be the case, your tenderness for me
betrays you.
Be assured that the decision of these persons has nothing
to do with the question; they are altogether incompetent judges. These
people, in the senseless hurry of their idle lives, do not _read_
books, they merely snatch a glance at them, that they may talk about
them. And even if this were not so, never forget what, I believe, was
observed to you by Coleridge, that every great and original writer, in
proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste
by which he is to be relished; he must teach the art by which he is to
be seen; this, in a certain degree, even to all persons, however wise
and pure may be their lives, and however unvitiated their taste. But
for those who dip into books in order to give an opinion of them, or
talk about them to take up an opinion--for this multitude of unhappy
and misguided, and misguiding beings, an entire regeneration must
be produced; and if this be possible, it must be a work of time. To
conclude, my ears are stone-dead to this idle buzz, and my flesh as
insensible as iron to these petty stings; and after what I have said,
I am sure yours will be the same. I doubt not that you will share with
me an invincible confidence that my writings (and among them these
little poems) will co-operate with the benign tendencies in human
nature and society, wherever found; and that they will in their degree
be efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier. Farewell.
I will not apologize for this letter, though its length demands an
apology. . . .
TO SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT
_The language of poetry_
[c. 1807. ]
MY DEAR SIR GEORGE,
I am quite delighted to hear of your picture for _Peter Bell_; I was
much pleased with the sketch, and I have no doubt that the picture
will surpass it as far as a picture ought to do. I long much to see
it. I should approve of any engraver approved by you. But remember
that no poem of mine will ever be popular; and I am afraid that the
sale of _Peter_ would not carry the expense of the engraving, and that
the poem, in the estimation of the public, would be a weight upon
the print. I say not this in modest disparagement of the poem, but in
sorrow for the sickly taste of the public in verse. The _people_ would
love the poem of _Peter Bell_, but the _public_ (a very different
being) will never love it. Thanks for dear Lady B. 's transcript from
your friend's letter; it is written with candour, but I must say a
word or two not in praise of it. 'Instances of what I mean,' says your
friend, 'are to be found in a poem on a Daisy' (by the by, it is on
_the_ Daisy, a mighty difference! ) 'and on _Daffodils reflected in the
Water_'. Is this accurately transcribed by Lady Beaumont? If it
be, what shall we think of criticism or judgement founded upon, and
exemplified by, a poem which must have been so inattentively perused?
My language is precise; and, therefore, it would be false modesty to
charge myself with blame.
Beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the _breeze_.
The _waves beside_ them danced, but they
Outdid the _sparkling waves_ in glee.
Can expression be more distinct? And let me ask your friend how it
is possible for flowers to be _reflected_ in water when there are
_waves_? They may, indeed, in _still_ water; but the very object of my
poem is the trouble or agitation, both of the flowers and the water.
I must needs respect the understanding of every one honoured by your
friendship; but sincerity compels me to say that my poems must be more
nearly looked at, before they can give rise to any remarks of much
value, even from the strongest minds. With respect to this individual
poem, Lady B. will recollect how Mrs. Fermor expressed herself upon
it. A letter also was sent to me, addressed to a friend of mine, and
by him communicated to me, in which this identical poem was singled
out for fervent approbation. What then shall we say? Why, let the poet
first consult his own heart, as I have done, and leave the rest
to posterity--to, I hope, an improving posterity. The fact is, the
English _public_ are at this moment in the same state of mind with
respect to my poems, if small things may be compared with great, as
the French are in respect to Shakespeare, and not the French alone,
but almost the whole Continent. In short, in your friend's letter,
I am condemned for the very thing for which I ought to have
been praised, viz. , that I have not written down to the level of
superficial observers and unthinking minds. Every great poet is
a teacher: I wish either to be considered as a teacher, or as
nothing. . . .
SIR WALTER SCOTT
1771-1832
TO HIS MOTHER
_Marriage with Miss Carpenter_
[1797. ]
MY DEAR MOTHER,
I should very ill deserve the care and affection with which you
have ever regarded me, were I to neglect my duty so far as to omit
consulting my father and you in the most important step which I
can possibly take in life, and upon the success of which my future
happiness must depend. It is with pleasure I think that I can avail
myself of your advice and instructions in an affair of so great
importance as that which I have at present on my hands. 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.
