Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 16

"I agree with Mr. B. that the intention was to annoy him; but I fear that this was answered by his notice of the reception of the criticism.

An anonymous writer has but one means of knowing the effect of his attack. In this he has the superiority over the viper; he knows that his poison has taken effect when he hears the victim cry;--the adder is _deaf_. The best reply to an anonymous intimation is to take no notice directly nor indirectly. I wish Mr. B. could see only one or two of the thousand which I have received in the course of a literary life, which, though begun early, has not yet extended to a third part of his existence as an author. I speak of _literary_ life only;--were I to add _personal_, I might double the amount of _anonymous_ letters. If he could but see the violence, the threats, the absurdity of the whole thing, he would laugh, and so should I, and thus be both gainers.

"To keep up the farce, within the last month of this present writing (1821), I have had my life threatened in the same way which menaced Mr.

B.'s fame, excepting that the anonymous denunciation was addressed to the Cardinal Legate of Romagna, instead of to * * * *. I append the menace in all its barbaric but literal Italian, that Mr. B. may be convinced; and as this is the only 'promise to pay' which the Italians ever keep, so my person has been at least as much exposed to 'a shot in the gloaming' from 'John Heatherblutter' (see Waverley), as ever Mr.

B.'s glory was from an editor. I am, nevertheless, on horseback and lonely for some hours (_one_ of them twilight) in the forest daily; and this, because it was my 'custom in the afternoon,' and that I believe if the tyrant cannot escape amidst his guards (should it be so written), so the humbler individual would find precautions useless."

The following just tribute to my Reverend Friend's merits as a poet I have peculiar pleasure in extracting:--

"Mr. Bowles has no reason to 'succ.u.mb' but to Mr. Bowles. As a poet, the author of 'The Missionary' may compete with the foremost of his contemporaries. Let it be recollected, that all my previous opinions of Mr. Bowles s poetry were _written_ long before the publication of his _last_ and best poem; and that a poet's last poem should be his best, is his highest praise. But, however, he may duly and honorably rank with his living rivals," &c. &c. &c.

Among various Addenda for this pamphlet, sent at different times to Mr.

Murray, I find the following curious pa.s.sages:--

"It is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about '_in-door_ nature' and 'artificial images,' Pope was the princ.i.p.al inventor of that boast of the English, _Modern Gardening_. He divides this honour with Milton. Hear Warton:--'It hence appears that this _enchanting_ art of modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every nation in Europe, chiefly owes _its origin_ and its improvements to two great poets, Milton and _Pope_.'

"Walpole (no friend to Pope) a.s.serts that Pope formed _Kent's_ taste, and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted for diffusing 'a taste in laying out grounds.' The design of the Prince of Wales's garden was copied from _Pope's_ at Twickenham. Warton applauds 'his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres.' Pope was the _first_ who ridiculed the 'formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in gardening,' both in _prose_ and verse. (See, for the former, 'The Guardian.')

"'Pope has given not only some of our _first_ but _best_ rules and observations on _Architecture_ and _Gardening_.' (See Warton's Essay, vol. ii. p. 237, &c.&c.)

"Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in 'Kendal green,' and our Bucolical c.o.c.kneys, crying out (the latter in a wilderness of bricks and mortar) about 'Nature,' and Pope's 'artificial in-door habits?' Pope had seen all of nature that _England_ alone can supply. He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst the beautiful scenery of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at the country seats of Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough, Digby, and Bolingbroke; amongst whose seats was to be numbered _Stowe_. He made his own little five acres' a model to Princes, and to the first of our artists who imitated nature. Warton thinks 'that the most engaging of _Kent's_ works was also planned on the model of Pope's,--at least in the opening and retiring shades of Venus's Vale.'

"It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and he could ride (he rode to Oxford from London at a stretch), and he was famous for an exquisite eye. On a tree at Lord Bathurst's is carved, 'Here Pope sang,'--he composed beneath it. Bolingbroke, in one of his letters, represents them both writing in a hayfield. No poet ever admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has done, as I will undertake to prove from his works, prose and verse, if not antic.i.p.ated in so easy and agreeable a labour. I remember a pa.s.sage in Walpole, somewhere, of a gentleman who wished to give directions about some willows to a man who had long served Pope in his grounds: 'I understand, sir,' he replied: 'you would have them hang down, sir, _somewhat poetical_.' Now if nothing existed but this little anecdote, it would suffice to prove Pope's taste for _Nature_, and the impression which he had made on a common-minded man. But I have already quoted Warton and Walpole (_both_ his enemies), and, were it necessary, I could amply quote Pope himself for such tributes to _Nature_ as no poet of the present day has even approached.

"His various excellence is really wonderful: architecture, painting, _gardening_, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered, that English _gardening_ is the purposed perfectioning of n.i.g.g.ard _Nature_, and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch, double-post-and-rail, Hounslow-heath and Clapham-common sort of a country, since the princ.i.p.al forests have been felled. It is, in general, far from a picturesque country. The case is different with Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and I except also the lake counties and Derbyshire, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear Harrow on the Hill, and some spots near the coast. In the present rank fertility of 'great poets of the age,' and 'schools of poetry'--a word which, like 'schools of eloquence' and of 'philosophy,' is never introduced till the decay of the art has increased with the number of its professors--in the present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts of Naturals;--the Lakers, who whine about Nature because they live in c.u.mberland; and their _under-sect_ (which some one has maliciously called the 'c.o.c.kney School'), who are enthusiastical for the country because they live in London. It is to be observed, that the rustical founders are rather anxious to disclaim any connection with their metropolitan followers, whom they ungraciously review, and call c.o.c.kneys, atheists, foolish fellows, bad writers, and other hard names, not less ungrateful than unjust. I can understand the pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of Windermere to what Mr. B * * terms '_entusumusy_' for lakes, and mountains, and daffodils, and b.u.t.tercups; but I should be glad to be apprised of the foundation of the London propensities of their imitative brethren to the same' high argument.' Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge have rambled over half Europe, and seen Nature in most of her varieties (although I think that they have occasionally not used her very well); but what on earth--of earth, and sea, and Nature--have the others seen?

Not a half, nor a tenth part so much as Pope. While they sneer at his Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of Windsor except its _brick_?

"When they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of Middles.e.x--when they have overpa.s.sed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not till then, can it properly be permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not _in Wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the '_artificial_' works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the 'Man of Ross,' whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could hardly have preserved his honest renown.

"If they had said nothing of _Pope_, they might have remained 'alone with their glory' for aught I should have said or thought about them or their nonsense. But if they interfere with the little 'Nightingale' of Twickenham, they may find others who will bear it--_I_ won't. Neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration for him, who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence. The delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be the consolation of my age. His poetry is the Book of Life. Without canting, and yet without neglecting, religion, he has a.s.sembled all that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, 'That of all the members of mankind that live within the compa.s.s of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a _great poet_ there may be a _thousand_ born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any in story.' Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: it is honourable to him and to the art. Such a 'poet of a thousand years' was _Pope_. A thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in our literature. But it can _want_ them--he himself is a literature.

"One word upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. 'Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has _not been_ able to point out above three or four mistakes _in the sense_ through the whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a different kind.' So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst; they will never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and feeling.

"The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is their _vulgarity_. By this I do not mean that they are coa.r.s.e, but 'shabby-genteel,' as it is termed. A man may be _coa.r.s.e_ and yet not _vulgar_, and the reverse. Burns is often coa.r.s.e, but never _vulgar_.

Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. It is in their _finery_ that the new under school are _most_ vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as what we called at Harrow 'a Sunday blood'

might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes might be better cut, and his boots the best blackened, of the two;--probably because he made the one or cleaned the other with his own hands.

"In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. * * They may be honourable and _gentlemanly_ men, for what I know, but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me of Mr. Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead a.s.sembly, in 'Evelina.' In these things (in private life, at least) I pretend to some small experience: because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries, down to the London boxer, the '_flash and the swell_,' the Spanish muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch Highlander, and the Albanian robber;--to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian social life. Far be it from me to presume that there are now, or can be, such a thing as an _aristocracy_ of _poets_; but there _is_ a n.o.bility of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly from education,--which is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's little chorus. If I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should say that it is only to be defined by _examples_--of those who have it, and those who have it not. In _life_, I should say that most _military_ men have it, and few _naval_; that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers; that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they are not pedants); that _fencing_-masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not _an Irishism_ to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never _make_ entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it. It is the _salt_ of society, and the seasoning of composition. _Vulgarity_ is far worse than downright _black-guardism_; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, 'signifying nothing.' It does not depend upon low themes, or even low-language, for Fielding revels in both;--but is he ever _vulgar_? No. You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master, not its slave. Your vulgar writer is always most vulgar the higher his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidc.o.c.k's was wont to say, 'This, gentlemen, is the _Eagle_ of the _Sun_, from Archangel in Russia: the _otterer_ it is, the _igherer_ he flies.'"

In a note on a pa.s.sage relative to Pope's lines upon Lady Mary W.

Montague, he says--

"I think that I could show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was also greatly to blame in that quarrel, _not_ for having rejected, but for having encouraged him; but I would rather decline the task--though she should have remembered her own line, '_He comes too near, that comes to be denied._' I admire her so much--her beauty, her talents--that I should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name of _Mary_, that as Johnson once said, 'If you called a dog _Harvey_, I should love him;' so, if you were to call a female of the same species 'Mary,' I should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the same s.e.x with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman: she could translate _Epictetus_, and yet write a song worthy of Aristippus. The lines,

"'And when the long hours of the public are past, And we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last, May every fond pleasure that moment endear.'

Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear!

Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud, Till,' &c. &c.

There, Mr. Bowles!--what say you to such a supper with such a woman? and her own description too? Is not her '_champaigne and chicken_' worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that this stanza contains the '_puree_' of the whole philosophy of Epicurus:--I mean the _practical_ philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master; for I have been too long at the university not to know that the philosopher was himself a moderate man. But after all, would not some of us have been as great fools as Pope? For my part, I wonder that, with his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, he did no more,--instead of writing some lines, which are to be condemned if false, and regretted if true."

LETTER 424. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, May 11. 1821.

"If I had but known your notion about Switzerland before, I should have adopted it at once. As it is, I shall let the child remain in her convent, where she seems healthy and happy, for the present; but I shall feel much obliged if you will _enquire_, when you are in the cantons, about the usual and better modes of education there for females, and let me know the result of your opinions. It is some consolation that both Mr. and Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley have written to approve entirely my placing the child with the nuns for the present. I can refer to my whole conduct, as having neither spared care, kindness, nor expense, since the child was sent to me. The people may say what they please, I must content myself with not deserving (in this instance) that they should speak ill.

"The place is a country town in a good air, where there is a large establishment for education, and many children, some of considerable rank, placed in it. As a _country_ town, it is less liable to objections of every kind. It has always appeared to me, that the moral defect in Italy does _not_ proceed from a _conventual_ education,--because, to my certain knowledge, they come out of their convents innocent even to _ignorance_ of moral evil,--but to the state of society into which they are directly plunged on coming out of it. It is like educating an infant on a mountain-top, and then taking him to the sea and throwing him into it and desiring him to swim. The evil, however, though still too general, is partly wearing away, as the women are more permitted to marry from attachment: this is, I believe, the case also in France.

And after all, what is the higher society of England? According to my own experience, and to all that I have seen and heard (and I have lived there in the very highest and what is called the _best_), no way of life can be more corrupt. In Italy, however, it is, or rather _was_, more _systematised_; but _now_, they themselves are ashamed of _regular_ Serventism. In England, the only homage which they pay to virtue is hypocrisy. I speak of course of the _tone_ of high life,--the middle ranks may be very virtuous.

"I have not got any copy (nor have yet had) of the letter on Bowles; of course I should be delighted to send it to you. How is Mrs. H.? well again, I hope. Let me know when you set out. I regret that I cannot meet you in the Bernese Alps this summer, as I once hoped and intended. With my best respects to madam, I am ever, &c.

"P.S. I gave to a musician_er_ a letter for you some time ago--has he presented himself? Perhaps you could introduce him to the Ingrains and other dilettanti. He is simple and una.s.suming--two strange things in his profession--and he fiddles like Orpheus himself or Amphion: 'tis a pity that he can't make Venice dance away from the brutal tyrant who tramples upon it."

LETTER 425. TO MR. MURRAY.

"May 14. 1821.

"A Milan paper states that the play has been represented and universally condemned. As remonstrance has been vain, complaint would be useless. I presume, however, for your own sake (if not for mine), that you and my other friends will have at least published my different protests against its being brought upon the stage at all; and have shown that Elliston (in spite of the writer) _forced_ it upon the theatre. It would be nonsense to say that this has not vexed me a good deal, but I am not dejected, and I shall not take the usual resource of blaming the public (which was in the right), or my friends for not preventing--what they could not help, nor I neither--a _forced_ representation by a speculating manager. It is a pity that you did not show them its _unfitness_ for the stage before the play was _published_, and exact a promise from the managers not to act it. In case of their refusal, we would not have published it at all. But this is too late.

"Yours.

"P.S. I enclose Mr. Bowles's letters: thank him in my name for their candour and kindness.--Also a letter for Hodgson, which pray forward. The Milan paper states that I '_brought forward the play!!!_' This is pleasanter still. But don't let yourself be worried about it; and if (as is likely) the folly of Elliston checks the sale, I am ready to make any deduction, or the entire cancel of your agreement.

"You will of course _not_ publish my defence of Gilchrist, as, after Bowles's good humour upon the subject, it would be too savage.

"Let me hear from you the particulars; for, as yet, I have only the simple fact.

"If you knew what I have had to go through here, on account of the failure of these rascally Neapolitans, you would be amused; but it is now apparently over. They seemed disposed to throw the whole project and plans of these parts upon me chiefly."

LETTER 426. TO MR. MOORE.

"May 14. 1821.

"If any part of the letter to Bowles has (unintentionally, as far as I remember the contents) vexed you, you are fully avenged; for I see by an Italian paper that, notwithstanding all my remonstrances through all my friends (and yourself among the rest), the managers persisted in attempting the tragedy, and that it has been 'unanimously hissed!!' This is the consolatory phrase of the Milan paper, (which detests me cordially, and abuses me, on all occasions, as a Liberal,) with the addition that _I_ 'brought the play out' of my own good will.

"All this is vexatious enough, and seems a sort of dramatic Calvinism--predestined d.a.m.nation, without a sinner's own fault. I took all the pains poor mortal could to prevent this inevitable catastrophe--partly by appeals of all kinds up to the Lord Chamberlain, and partly to the fellows themselves. But, as remonstrance was vain, complaint is useless. I do not understand it--for Murray's letter of the 24th, and all his preceding ones, gave me the strongest hopes that there would be no representation.

As yet, I know nothing but the fact, which I presume to be true, as the date is Paris, and the 30th. They must have been in a _h.e.l.l_ of a hurry for this d.a.m.nation, since I did not even know that it was published; and, without its being first published, the histrions could not have got hold of it. Any one might have seen, at a glance, that it was utterly impracticable for the stage; and this little accident will by no means enhance its merit in the closet.

"Well, patience is a virtue, and, I suppose, practice will make it perfect. Since last year (spring, that is) I have lost a lawsuit, of great importance, on Rochdale collieries--have occasioned a divorce--have had my poesy disparaged by Murray and the critics--my fortune refused to be placed on an advantageous settlement (in Ireland) by the trustees--my life threatened last month (they put about a paper here to excite an attempt at my a.s.sa.s.sination, on account of politics, and a notion which the priests disseminated that I was in a league against the Germans,)--and, finally, my mother-in-law recovered last fortnight, and my play was d.a.m.ned last week! These are like 'the eight-and-twenty misfortunes of Harlequin.' But they must be borne. If I give in, it shall be after keeping up a spirit at least. I should not have cared so much about it, if our southern neighbours had not bungled us all out of freedom for these five hundred years to come.

"Did you know John Keats? They say that he was killed by a review of him in the Quarterly--if he be dead, which I really don't know.