The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 59

Letter 327 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, April 22, 1789. (page 414)

Dear Madam, As perhaps you have not yet seen the "Botanic Garden" (which I believe I mentioned to you), I lend it you to read. The poetry, I think, you will allow most admirable; and difficult it was, no doubt. If you are not a naturalist, as well as a poetess, perhaps you will lament that so powerful a talent has been wasted to so little purpose; for where is the use of describing in verse what n.o.body can understand without a long prosaic explanation of every article? It is still more unfortunate that there is not a symptom of plan in the whole poem. The lady-flowers and their lovers enter in pairs or trios, or etc. as often as the couples in Ca.s.sandra. and you are not a whit more interested about one heroine and her swain than about another. The similes are beautiful, fine, and sometimes sublime: and thus the episodes will be better remembered than the ma.s.s of the poem itself, which one cannot call the subject; for could one call it a subject, if any body had composed a poem on the matches formerly made in the Fleet, where, as Waitwell says, in "The Way of the World," they stood like couples in rows ready to begin a country-dance?

Still, I flatter myself you will agree with me that the author is a great poet, and could raise the pa.s.sions, and possesses all the requisites of the art. I found but a single bad verse; in the last canto one line ends e'er long. You will perhaps be surprised at meeting a truffle converted into a nymph, and inhabiting a palace studded with emeralds and rubies like a saloon in the Arabian Nights! I had a more particular motive for sending this poem to you: you will find the bard espousing your poor Africans. There is besides, which will please you too, a handsome panegyric on the apostle of humanity, Mr. Howard.(630)

Mrs. Garrick, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in her own box at Mr. Conway's play, gave me a much better account of your health which delighted me. I am sure, my good friend, you partake of my joy at the great success of his comedy. The additional character of the Abb'e pleased much: it was added by the advice of the players to enliven it; that is, to stretch the jaws of the pit and galleries. I sighed silently; for it was originally so genteel and of a piece, that I was sorry to have it tumbled by coa.r.s.e applauses. But this is a secret. I am going to Twickenham for two days on an a.s.signation with the spring, and to avoid the riotous devotion of to-morrow.

A gentleman essayist has printed what he calls some strictures on my Royal and n.o.ble Authors, in revenge for my having spoken irreverently (on Bishop Burnet's authority) of the Earl of Anglesey, who had the honour, it seems, of being the gentleman's grandfather. He asks me, by the way, why it was more ridiculous in the Duke of Newcastle to write his two comedies, than in the Duke of Buckingham to write "The Rehearsal?" Alas! I know but one reason; which is, that it is less ridiculous to write one excellent comedy, than two very bad ones. Peace be with such answerers! Adieu, my dear Madam! Yours most cordially.

(630) "I did not feel," says Miss More, in her reply, "so much gratified in reading the poem, marvellous as I think it, as I did at the kindness which led you to think of me when you met with any thing that you imagined would give me pleasure. Your strictures, which are as true as if they had no wit in them, served to embellish every page as I went on, and were more intelligible and delightful to me than the scientific annotations in the margin. The author is, indeed, a poet; and I wish, with you, that he had devoted his exuberant fancy, his opulence of imagery, and his correct and melodious versification. to subjects more congenial to human feelings than the intrigues of a flower-garden. I feel, like the most pa.s.sionate ]over, the beauty of the cyclamen, or honeysuckle; but am as indifferent as the most fashionable husband to their amours, their pleasures, or their unhappiness." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 149.-E.

Letter 328 To The Miss Berrys.

April 28, at night, 1789. (page 415)

By my not saying no to Thursday, you, I trust, understood that I meant yes; and so I do. In the mean time, I send you the most delicious poem upon earth. If you don't know what it is all about, or why; at least you will find glorious similes about every thing in the world, and I defy you to discover three bad verses in the whole stack. Dryden was but the prototype of the Botanic Garden in his charming Flower and Leaf; and if he had less meaning, it is true he had more plan: and I must own, that his white velvets and green velvets, and rubies and emeralds, were much more virtuous gentlefolks than most of the flowers of the creation, who seem to have no fear of Doctors' Commons before their eyes. This is only the Second Part; for, like my 'king's eldest daughter' in the Hieroglyphic Tales, the First Part is not born yet:--no matter. I can read this over and over again for ever; for though it is so excellent, it is impossible to remember any thing so disjointed, except you consider it as a collection of short enchanting poems,--as the Circe at her tremendous devilries in a church; the intrigue of the dear nightingale and rose; and the description of Medea; the episode of Mr. Howard, which ends with the most sublime of lines--in short, all, all; all is the most lovely poetry. And then one sighs, that such profusion of poetry, magnificent and tender, should be thrown away on what neither interests nor instructs, and, with all the pains the notes take to explain, is scarce intelligible.'

How strange it is, that a man should have been inspired with such enthusiasm of poetry by poring through a microscope, and peeping through the keyholes of all the seraglios of all the flowers in the universe I hope his discoveries may leave any impression but of the universal polygamy going on in the vegetable world, where, however, it is more gallant than amongst the human race; for you will find that they are the botanic ladies who keep harams, and not the gentlemen. Still, I will maintain that it is much better that we should have two wives than your s.e.x two husbands. So pray don't mind Linnaeus and Dr. Darwin: Dr. Madan had ten times more sense. Adieu! Your doubly constant Telypthorus.

(631) "Modern ears," says Mr. Matthias, in the Pursuits of Literature, "are absolutely debauched by such poetry as Dr.

Darwin's, which marks the decline of simplicity and true taste in this country. It is to England what Seneca's prose was to Rome: abundat dulcibus vitiis. Dryden and Pope are the standards of excellence in this species of writing in our language; and when young minds are rightly inst.i.tuted in their works, they may, without much danger, read such glittering verses as Dr. Darwin's.

They will then perceive the distortion of the sentiment, and the harlotry of the ornaments." To the short-lived popularity of Dr.

Darwin, the admirable poem of "The Loves of the Triangles'" the joint production of Mr. Canning and Mr. Frere, in no small degree contributed.-E.

Letter 329 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, June 23, 1789. (PAGE 416)

I am not a little disappointed and mortified at the post bringing me no letter from you to-day; you promised to write on the road.

I reckon you arrived at your station on Sunday evening: if you do not write till next day, I shall have no letter till Thursday!

I am not at all consoled for my double loss: my only comfort is, that I flatter myself the journey and air will be of service to you both. The latter has been of use to me, though the part of the element of air has been chiefly acted by the element of water, as my poor hayc.o.c.ks feel! Tonton (632) does not miss you so much as I do, not having so good a taste; for he is grown very fond of me, and I return it for your sakes, though he deserves it too, for he is perfectly good-natured and tractable; but he is not beautiful, like his " G.o.d-dog,(633) as Mr. Selwyn, who dined here on Sat.u.r.day, called my poor late favourite; especially as I have had him clipped. The shearing has brought to light a nose an ell long; an as he has now nasum rhinocerotis, I do not doubt but he will be a better critic in poetry than Dr. Johnson, who judged of harmony by the principles of an author, and fancied, or wished to make others believe, that no Jacobite could write bad verses, nor a Whig good.

Have you shed a tear over the Opera-house?(634) or do you agree with me, that there is no occasion to rebuild it? The nation has long been tired of operas, and has now a good opportunity of dropping them. Dancing protracted their existence for some time; but the room after. was the real support of both, and was like what has been said of your s.e.x, that they never speak their true meaning but in the postscript of their letters. Would not it be sufficient to build an after-room on the whole emplacement, to which people might resort from all a.s.semblies? It should be a codicil to all the diversions of London; and the greater the concourse, the more excuse there would be for staying all night, from the impossibility of ladies getting their coaches to drive up. To be crowded to death in a waiting-room, at the end of an entertainment, is the whole joy; for who goes to any diversion till the last minute of it? I am persuaded that, instead if retrenching St. Athanasius's Creed, as the Duke of Grafton proposed, in order to draw good company to church, it would be more efficacious if the Congregation were to be indulged with an After-room in the vestry; and, instead of two or three being gathered together, there would be all the world, before the prayers would be quite over.

Thursday night

"Despairing, beside a clear stream A shepherd forsaken was laid;"--

not very close to the stream, but within doors in sight of it; for in this damp weather a lame old Colin cannot lie and despair with any comfort on a wet bank: but I smile against the grain, and am seriously alarmed at Thursday being come, and no letter!

I dread one of you being ill. Mr. Batt(635) and the Abb'e Nicholls(636) dined with me to-day, and I could talk of you en pais de connoissance. They tried to persuade me that I have no cause to be in a fright about you; but I have such perfect faith in the kindness of both of you, as I have in your possessing every other virtue, that I cannot believe but some sinister accident must have prevented my hearing from you. I wish Friday was come! I cannot write about any thing else till I have a letter.

(632) A dog of Miss Berry's left in Walpole's care during their absence in Yorkshire.-M.B.

(633) The dog which had been bequeathed to Mr. Walpole by Madame du Deffand at her death, and which was likewise called Tonton.

See ant'e, p. 275, letter 217.-M.B.

(634) on the night of the 17th, the Opera-house was entirely consumed by fire.-E.

(635) Thomas Batt, Esq. then one of the commissioners for public accounts.-E.

(636) The Rev. Norton Nicholls, rector of Lound and Bradwell in the county of Suffolk; one of the most elegant scholars and accomplished gentlemen of the day. He died in November 1809, in his sixty-eighth year. " It was his singular good fortune," says Mr. Dawson Turner, , to have been distinguished in his early life by the friendship of Gray the poet; while the close of his days was cheered and enlivened and dignified by the friendship, and almost constant society, of a Man scarcely inferior to Gray in talent and acquirements Mr. Mathias; who has embalmed his memory in an Italian Ode and a biographical Memoir; which latter is a beautiful specimen of that kind of composition.,, They will both be found in the fifth volume of Nicholls's Ill.u.s.trations of Literature.-E.

Letter 330 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, June 23, 1789. (PAGE 418)

Madam Hannah, You are an errant reprobate, and grow wickeder and wickeder every day. You deserve to be treated like a negre; and your favourite Sunday, to which you are so partial that you treat the other poor six days of the week as if they had no souls to be saved, should, if I could have my will, "shine no Sabbath-day for you." Now, don't simper, and look as innocent as if virtue would not melt in your mouth. Can you deny the following charges?--I lent you "The Botanic Garden," and you returned it without writing a syllable, or saying, -where you were or whither you was going; I suppose for fear I should know how to direct to you. Why, if I did send a letter after you, could not you keep it three months without an answer, as you did last year?

In the next place, you and your nine accomplices, who, by the way, are too good in keeping you company, have clubbed the prettiest poem imaginable,(637) and communicated it to Mrs.

Boscawen, with injunctions not to give a copy of it; I suppose, because you are ashamed of having written a panegyric. Whenever you do compose a satire, you are ready enough to publish it; at least, whenever you do, you will din one to death with it. But now, mind your perverseness: that very pretty novel poem, and I must own it is charming, have you gone and spoiled, flying in the faces of your best friends the Muses, and keeping no measures with them. I'll be shot if they dictated two of the best lines with two syllables too much in each--nay, you have weakened one of them,

"Ev'n Gardiner's mind"

is far more expressive than steadfast Gardiner's; and, as Mrs.

Boscawen says, whoever knows any thing of Gardiner, could not want that superfluous epithet; and whoever does not, would not be the wiser for your foolish insertion--Mrs. Boscawen did not call it foolish, but I do. The second line, as Mesdemoiselles the Muses handed it to you, Miss, was,

"Have all be free and saved--"

not, "All be free and all be saved:" the second all be is a most unnecessary tautology. The poem was perfect and faultless, if you could have let it alone. I wonder how your mischievous flippancy could help maiming that most new and beautiful expression, "sponge Of sins;" I should not have been surprised, as you love verses too full of feet, if you have changed it to "that scrubbing-brush of sins."

Well! I will say no more now: but if you do not order me a copy of "Bonner's Ghost" incontinently, never dare to look my printing house in the face again. Or come, I'll tell you what; I will forgive all your enormities, if you will let me print your poem.

I like to filch a little immortality out of others, and the Strawberry press could never have a better opportunity. I will not haggle for the public will be content with printing only two hundred copies, of which you shall have half, and I half. It shall cost you nothing but a yes, I only propose this, in case you do not mean to print it yourself. Tell me sincerely which you like. But as to not printing it at all, charming and unexceptionable as it is, you cannot be so preposterous.(638) I by no means have a thought of detracting from your own share in your own poem; but, as I do suspect that it caught some inspiration from your perusal of "The Botanic Garden," so I hope you will discover that my style is much improved by having lately studied Bruce's travels. There I dipped, and not in St. Giles's pound, where one would think this author had been educated.

Adieu! Your friend, or mortal foe, as you behave on the present occasion.

(637) "Bishop Bonner's Ghost;" to which was prefixed the following argument:--"In the garden of the palace at Fulham is a dark recess; at the end of this stands a chair which once belonged to Bishop Bonner. A certain Bishop of London more than two hundred years after the death of the aforesaid -Bonner just as the clock of the Gothic chapel had struck six undertook to cut with his own hand a narrow walk through this thicket, which is since called 'The Monk's Walk.' He had no sooner begun to clear the way, than lo! suddenly up started from the chair the Ghost of Bonner; who, in a tone of just and bitter indignation, uttered the following verses."-E.

(638) Miss More, in her reply, says--"I send this under cover to the Bishop of London, to whom I write your emendations, and desire they may be considered as the true reading. What is odd enough, I did write both the lines so at first but must go a-tinkering them afterwards. I do not pretend that I am 'lot flattered by your obliging proposal of printing these slight verses at the Strawberry press. YOU must do as you please, I believe. What business have I to think meanly of verses You have commended?" Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 159.-E.

Letter 331 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1789. (PAGE 419)

Were there any such thing as sympathy at the distance of two hundred miles, you would have been in a mightier panic than I was; for, on Sat.u.r.day se'nnight, going to open the gla.s.s case in the Tribune, my foot caught in the carpet, and I fell with my whole (si weight y a) weight against the corner of the marble altar, on my side, and bruised the muscles so badly, that for two days I could not move without screaming.(639) I am convinced I should have broken a rib, but that I fell on the cavity whence two of my ribs were removed, that are gone to Yorkshire. I am much better both of my bruise and of my lameness, and shall be ready to dance at my own wedding when my wives return. And now to answer your letter. If you grow tired of the Arabian Nights, you have no more taste than Bishop Atterbury,(640) who huffed Pope for sending him them or the Persian Tales, and fancied he liked Virgil better, who had no more imagination than Dr.

Akenside. Read Sinbad the Sailor's Voyages, and you will be sick of AEneas's. What woful invention were the nasty poultry that dunged on his dinner, and ships on fire turned into Nereids! a barn metamorphosed into a cascade in a pantomime is full as sublime an effort of genius. I do not know whether the Arabian Nights are of Oriental origin or not:(641) I should think not, because I never saw any other Oriental composition that was not bombast without genius, and figurative without nature; like an Indian screen, where you see little men on the foreground, and larger men hunting tigers above in the air, which they take for perspective. I do not think the Sultaness's narratives very natural or very probable, but there is a wildness in them that captivates. However, if you could wade through two octavos(642) of Dame Piozzi's thoughts and so's and I trow's, and cannot listen to seven volumes of Scheherezade's narrations, I will sue for a divorce infibro Parna.s.si, and Boccalini shall be my proctor. The cause will be a counterpart to the sentence of the Lacedoemonian, who was condemned for breach of the peace, by saying in three words what he might have said in two.

You are not the first Eurydice that has sent her husband to the devil, as you have kindly proposed to me; but I will not undertake the jaunt, for if old Nicholas Pluto should enjoin me not to look back to you, I should certainly forget the prohibition like my predecessor. Besides, I am a little too close to take a voyage twice which I am so soon to repeat; and should be laughed at by the good folks on the other side of the water, if I proposed coming back for a twinkling Only. No; I choose as long as I can

"Still with my fav'rite Berrys to remain."(643)

So you was not quite satisfied, though you ought to have been transported, with King's College Chapel, because it has no aisles, like every common cathedral. I suppose you would object to a bird of paradise, because it has no legs, but shoots to heaven in a trait, and does not rest on earth. Criticism and comparison spoil many tastes. You should admire all bold and unique essays that resemble nothing else; the Botanic Garden, the Arabian Nights, and King's Chapel are above all rules: and how preferable is what no one can imitate, to all that is imitated even from the best models! Your partiality to the pageantry of popery I do not approve, and I doubt whether the world will not be a loser (in its visionary enjoyments) by the extinction of that religion, as it was by the decay of chivalry and the proscription of the heathen deities. Reason has no invention; and as plain sense will never be the legislator of human affairs, it is fortunate when taste happens to be regent.