Part 27 (1/2)
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 pa.s.sed eight blessed months with us. He was then waiting for the command of the s.h.i.+p 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! G.o.d 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 a.s.serted that he did not wish to survive his s.h.i.+p. This is false. He was heard by one of the surviving officers giving orders, with all possible calmness, a very little before the s.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d that he should be taken away....
I trust in G.o.d that I shall not want fort.i.tude; 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 pa.s.sions; I mean the amiable, the enn.o.bling, or the intense pa.s.sions. 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 impa.s.sioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage.
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 ill.u.s.tration, and even absolutely require it. A correct text is the first object of an editor, then such notes as explain difficult or obscure pa.s.sages; 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 appet.i.te; Dryden had no other notion of the pa.s.sion. With all these defects, and they are very gross ones, it is a n.o.ble poem. Guiscard's answer, when first reproached by Tancred, is n.o.ble in Boccace--nothing but this: _Amor pu molto piu 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 _a 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sions 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 n.o.body 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 G.o.d.
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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.sions 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 cla.s.s: but their imagination has slept; and the voice which is the voice of my poetry, without imagination, cannot be heard....