Part 32 (2/2)
You see, I cannot get on without writing, as boys do at school, a few nonsense verses. I begin them, and before I have written six the whim has pa.s.sed--if there is anything deserving so respectable a name in them. I shall put in a bit of information anywhere, just as it strikes me. Mr.
Abbey is to write to me as soon as he can bring matters to bear, and then I am to go to town and tell him the means of forwarding to you through Capper and Hazlewood. I wonder I did not put this before. I shall go on to-morrow; it is so fine now I must take a bit of a walk.
Sat.u.r.day [September 18].
With my inconstant disposition it is no wonder that this morning, amid all our bad times and misfortunes, I should feel so alert and well-spirited.
At this moment you are perhaps in a very different state of mind. It is because my hopes are ever paramount to my despair. I have been reading over a part of a short poem I have composed lately, called Lamia, and I am certain there is that sort of fire in it that must take hold of people some way. Give them either pleasant or unpleasant sensation--what they want is a sensation of some sort. I wish I could pitch the key of your spirits as high as mine is; but your organ-loft is beyond the reach of my voice.
I admire the exact admeasurement of my niece in your mother's letter--O!
the little span-long elf. I am not in the least a judge of the proper weight and size of an infant. Never trouble yourselves about that. She is sure to be a fine woman. Let her have only delicate nails both on hands and feet, and both as small as a May-fly's, who will live you his life on a 3 square inch of oak-leaf; and nails she must have, quite different from the market-women here, who plough into b.u.t.ter and make a quarter pound taste of it. I intend to write a letter to your wife, and there I may say more on this little plump subject--I hope she's plump. Still harping on my daughter. This Winchester is a place tolerably well suited to me. There is a fine cathedral, a college, a Roman Catholic chapel, a Methodist do., and Independent do.; and there is not one loom, or anything like manufacturing beyond bread and b.u.t.ter, in the whole city. There are a number of rich Catholics in the place. It is a respectable, ancient, aristocratic place, and moreover it contains a nunnery. Our set are by no means so hail fellow well met on literary subjects as we were wont to be. Reynolds has turn'd to the law. By the bye, he brought out a little piece at the Lyceum call'd One, Two, Three, Four: by Advertis.e.m.e.nt. It met with complete success. The meaning of this odd t.i.tle is explained when I tell you the princ.i.p.al actor is a mimic, who takes off four of our best performers in the course of the farce. Our stage is loaded with mimics. I did not see the piece, being out of town the whole time it was in progress. Dilke is entirely swallowed up in his boy. It is really lamentable to what a pitch he carries a sort of parental mania. I had a letter from him at Shanklin. He went on, a word or two about the Isle of Wight, which is a bit of hobby horse of his, but he soon deviated to his boy. ”I am sitting,” says he, ”at the window expecting my boy from ----.” I suppose I told you somewhere that he lives in Westminster, and his boy goes to school there, where he gets beaten, and every bruise he has, and I daresay deserves, is very bitter to Dilke.
The place I am speaking of puts me in mind of a circ.u.mstance which occurred lately at Dilke's. I think it very rich and dramatic and quite ill.u.s.trative of the little quiet fun that he will enjoy sometimes. First I must tell you that their house is at the corner of Great Smith Street, so that some of the windows look into one street, and the back windows into another round the corner. Dilke had some old people to dinner--I know not who, but there were two old ladies among them. Brown was there--they had known him from a child. Brown is very pleasant with old women, and on that day it seems behaved himself so winningly that they became hand and glove together, and a little complimentary. Brown was obliged to depart early. He bid them good-bye and pa.s.sed into the pa.s.sage. No sooner was his back turned than the old women began lauding him. When Brown had reached the street door, and was just going, Dilke threw up the window and called: ”Brown! Brown! They say you look younger than ever you did!” Brown went on, and had just turned the corner into the other street when Dilke appeared at the back window, crying: ”Brown! Brown! By G.o.d, they say you're handsome!” You see what a many words it requires to give any ident.i.ty to a thing I could have told you in half a minute.
I have been reading lately Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and I think you will be very much amused with a page I here copy for you. I call it a Feu de Joie round the batteries of Fort St. Hyphen-de-Phrase on the birthday of the Digamma. The whole alphabet was drawn up in a phalanx on the corner of an old dictionary, band playing, ”Amo, amas,” etc.
”Every lover admires his mistriss, though she be very deformed of herself, ill-favoured, wrinkled, pimpled, pale, red, yellow, tan'd, tallow-faced, have a swoln juglers platter face, or a thin, lean, chitty face, have clouds in her face, be crooked, dry, bald, goggle-ey'd, blear-ey'd or with staring eys, she looks like a squis'd cat, hold her head still awry, heavy, dull, hollow-mouthed, Persean hook-nosed, have a sharp Jose nose, a red nose, China flat, great nose, _nare simo patuloque_, a nose like a promontory, gubber-tushed, rotten teeth, black, uneven, brown teeth, beetle browed, a witches beard, her breath stink all over the room, her nose drop winter and summer with a Bavarian poke under her chin, a sharp chin, lave eared, with a long cranes neck, which stands awry too, _pendulis mammis, her dugs like two double jugs_, or else no dugs in the other extream, b.l.o.o.d.y faln fingers, she have filthy long unpaired nails, scabbed hands or wrists, a tan'd skin, a rotten carka.s.s, crooked back, she stoops, is lame, splea-footed, _as slender in the middle as a cow in the waste_, gowty legs, her ankles hang over her shooes, her feet stink, she breed lice, a mere changeling, a very monster, an aufe imperfect, her whole complexion savours, an harsh voyce, incondite gesture, vile gait, a vast virago, or an ugly t.i.t, a slug, a fat fustilugs, a truss, a long lean rawbone, a skeleton, a sneaker (_si qua latent meliora puta_), and to thy judgment looks like a Mard in a lanthorn, whom thou couldst not fancy for a world, but hatest, lothest, and wouldst have spit in her face, or blow thy nose in her bosome, _remedium amoris_ to another man, a dowdy, a s.l.u.t, a scold, a nasty, rank, rammy, filthy, beastly quean, dishonest peradventure, obscene, base, beggerly, rude, foolish, untaught, peevish, Irus'
daughter, Thersite's sister, Grobian's schollar; if he love her once, he admires her for all this, he takes no notice of any such errors, or imperfections of body or minde.”
There's a dose for you. Fire!! I would give my favourite leg to have written this as a speech in a play. With what effect could Matthews pop-gun it at the pit! This I think will amuse you more than so much poetry. Of that I do not like to copy any, as I am afraid it is too mal a propos for you at present; and yet I will send you some, for by the time you receive it, things in England may have taken a different turn. When I left Mr. Abbey on Monday evening, I walked up Cheapside, but returned to put some letters in the post, and met him again in Bucklesbury. We walked together through the Poultry as far as the baker's shop he has some concern in--He spoke of it in such a way to me, I thought he wanted me to make an offer to a.s.sist him in it. I do believe if I could be a hatter I might be one. He seems anxious about me. He began blowing up Lord Byron while I was sitting with him: ”However, may be the fellow says true now and then,” at which he took up a magazine, and read me some extracts from Don Juan (Lord Byron's last flash poem), and particularly one against literary ambition. I do think I must be well spoken of among sets, for Hodgkinson is more than polite, and the coffee German endeavoured to be very close to me the other night at Covent Garden, where I went at half price before I tumbled into bed. Every one, however distant an acquaintance, behaves in the most conciliating manner to me. You will see I speak of this as a matter of interest. On the next sheet I will give you a little politics.
In every age there has been in England, for two or three centuries, subjects of great popular interest on the carpet, so that however great the uproar, one can scarcely prophecy any material change in the Government, for as loud disturbances have agitated the country many times.
All civilised countries become gradually more enlightened, and there should be a continual change for the better. Look at this country at present, and remember it when it was even thought impious to doubt the justice of a trial by combat. From that time there has been a gradual change. Three great changes have been in progress: first for the better, next for the worse, and a third for the better once more. The first was the gradual annihilation of the tyranny of the n.o.bles, when kings found it their interest to conciliate the common people, elevate them, and be just to them. Just when baronial power ceased, and before standing armies were so dangerous, taxes were few, kings were lifted by the people over the heads of their n.o.bles, and those people held a rod over kings. The change for the worse in Europe was again this: the obligation of kings to the mult.i.tude began to be forgotten. Custom had made n.o.blemen the humble servants of kings. Then kings turned to the n.o.bles as the adorners of their power, the slaves of it, and from the people as creatures continually endeavouring to check them. Then in every kingdom there was a long struggle of kings to destroy all popular privileges. The English were the only people in Europe who made a grand kick at this. They were slaves to Henry VIII, but were freemen under William III at the time the French were abject slaves under Louis XIV. The example of England, and the liberal writers of France and England, sowed the seed of opposition to this tyranny, and it was swelling in the ground till it burst out in the French Revolution. That has had an unlucky termination. It put a stop to the rapid progress of free sentiments in England, and gave our Court hopes of turning back to the despotism of the eighteenth century. They have made a handle of this event in every way to undermine our freedom. They spread a horrid superst.i.tion against all innovation and improvement. The present struggle in England of the people is to destroy this superst.i.tion. What has roused them to do it is their distresses. Perhaps, on this account, the present distresses of this nation are a fortunate thing though so horrid in their experience. You will see I mean that the French Revolution put a temporary stop to this third change--the change for the better--Now it is in progress again, and I think it is an effectual one. This is no contest between Whig and Tory, but between right and wrong. There is scarcely a grain of party spirit now in England. Right and wrong considered by each man abstractedly, is the fas.h.i.+on. I know very little of these things. I am convinced, however, that apparently small causes make great alterations. There are little signs whereby we may know how matters are going on. This makes the business of Carlisle the bookseller of great amount in my mind. He has been selling deistical pamphlets, republished Tom Paine, and many other works held in superst.i.tious horror. He even has been selling, for some time, immense numbers of a work called The Deist, which comes out in weekly numbers. For this conduct he, I think, has had about a dozen indictments issued against him, for which he has found bail to the amount of many thousand pounds. After all, they are afraid to prosecute. They are afraid of his defence; it would be published in all the papers all over the empire. They shudder at this. The trials would light a flame they could not extinguish. Do you not think this of great import? You will hear by the papers of the proceedings at Manchester, and Hunt's triumphal entry into London. It would take me a whole day and a quire of paper to give you anything like detail. I will merely mention that it is calculated that 30,000 people were in the streets waiting for him. The whole distance from the Angel at Islington to the Crown and Anchor was lined with mult.i.tudes.
As I pa.s.sed Colnaghi's window I saw a profile portrait of Sandt, the destroyer of Kotzebue. His very look must interest every one in his favour. I suppose they have represented him in his college dress. He seems to me like a young Abelard--a fine mouth, cheek bones (and this is no joke) full of sentiment, a fine, unvulgar nose, and plump temples.
On looking over some letters I found the one I wrote, intended for you, from the foot of Helvellyn to Liverpool; but you had sailed, and therefore it was returned to me. It contained, among other nonsense, an acrostic of my sister's name--and a pretty long name it is. I wrote it in a great hurry which you will see. Indeed I would not copy it if I thought it would ever be seen by any but yourselves.
Give me your patience, sister, while I frame Exact in capitals your golden name, Or sue the fair Apollo, and he will Rouse from his heavy slumber and instil Great love in me for thee and Poesy.
Imagine not that greatest mastery And kingdom over all the realms of verse Nears more to Heaven in aught than when we nurse And surety give to love and brotherhood.
Anthropopagi in Oth.e.l.lo's mood; Ulysses storm'd, and his enchanted belt Glowed with the Muse: but they are never felt Unbosom'd so, and so eternal made, Such tender incense in their laurel shade To all the recent sisters of the Nine, As this poor offering to you, sister mine.
Kind sister! aye, this third name says you are; Enchanted has it been the Lord knows where; And may its taste to you, like good old wine, Take you to real happiness, and give Sons, daughters, and a home like honied hive.
Foot of Helvellyn, June 27.
I sent you in my first packet some of my Scotch letters. I find I have one kept back, which was written in the most interesting part of our tour, and will copy part of it in the hope you will not find it unamusing. I would give now anything for Richardson's power of making mountains of molehills.
Incipit epistola caledoniensa--
”Dunancullen.”
(I did not know the day of the month, for I find I have not added it.
Brown must have been asleep). ”Just after my last had gone to the post”
(before I go any further, I must premise that I would send the identical letter, instead of taking the trouble to copy it; I do not do so, for it would spoil my notion of the neat manner in which I intend to fold these three genteel sheets. The original is written on coa.r.s.e paper, and the soft one would ride in the post bag very uneasy. Perhaps there might be a quarrel)[106]
I ought to make a large ”?” here, but I had better take the opportunity of telling you I have got rid of my haunting sore throat, and conduct myself in a manner not to catch another.
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