XLII. TO THE SAME.
Wednesday, December 17, 1794.
When I am unhappy a sigh or a groan does not feel sufficient to relieve the oppression of my heart. I give a long whistle. This by way of a detached truth.
“How infinitely more to be valued is integrity of heart than effulgence of intellect!” A noble sentiment, and would have come home to me, if for “integrity” you had substituted “energy.” The skirmishes of sensibility are indeed contemptible when compared with the well-disciplined phalanx of right-onward feelings. O ye invincible soldiers of virtue, who arrange yourselves under the generalship of fixed principles, that you would throw up your fortifications around my heart! I pronounce this a very sensible, apostrophical, metaphorical rant.
I dined yesterday with Perry and Grey (the proprietor and editor of the “Morning Chronicle”) at their house, and met Holcroft. He either misunderstood Lovell, or Lovell misunderstood him. I know not which, but it is very clear to me that neither of them understands nor enters into the views of our system. Holcroft opposes it violently and thinks it not virtuous. His arguments were such as Nugent and twenty others have used to us before him; they were nothing. There is a fierceness and dogmatism of conversation in Holcroft for which you receive little compensation either from the veracity of his information, the closeness of his reasoning, or the splendour of his language. He talks incessantly of metaphysics, of which he appears to me to know nothing, to have read nothing. He is ignorant as a scholar, and neglectful of the smaller humanities as a man. Compare him with Porson! My God! to hear Porson crush Godwin, Holcroft, etc. They absolutely tremble before him! I had the honour of working H. a little, and by my great coolness and command of impressive language certainly did him over. “Sir!” said he, “I never knew so much real wisdom and so much rank error meet in one mind before!” “Which,” answered I, “means, I suppose, that in some things, sir, I agree with you, and in others I do not.” He absolutely infests you with atheism; and his arguments are such that the nonentities of Nugent consolidate into oak or ironwood by comparison! As to his taste in poetry, he thinks lightly, or rather contemptuously, of Bowles’ sonnets; the language flat and prosaic and inharmonious, and the sentiments only fit for girls! Come, come, Mr. Holcroft, as much unintelligible metaphysics and as much bad criticism as you please, but no blasphemy against the divinity of a Bowles! Porson idolizes the sonnets. However it happened, I am higher in his good graces than he in mine. If I am in town I dine with him and Godwin, etc., at his house on Sunday.
I am astonished at your preference of the “Elegy.” I think it the worst thing you ever wrote.
“Qui Gratio non odit, amet tua carmina, Avaro!”[91]
Why, ’tis almost as bad as Lovell’s “Farmhouse,” and that would be at least a thousand fathoms deep in the dead sea of pessimism.
“The hard world scoff’d my woes, the chaste one’s pride,
Mimic of virtue, mock’d my keen distress,
[92]And Vice alone would shelter wretchedness.
Even life is loathsome now,” etc.
These two stanzas are exquisite, but the lovely thought of the “hot sun,” etc., as pitiless as proud prosperity loses part of its beauty by the time being night. It is among the chief excellences of Bowles that his imagery appears almost always prompted by surrounding scenery.
Before you write a poem you should say to yourself, “What do I intend to be the character of this poem; which feature is to be predominant in it?” So you make it unique. But in this poem now Charlotte speaks and now the Poet. Assuredly the stanzas of Memory, “three worst of fiends,” etc., and “gay fancy fond and frolic” are altogether poetical. You have repeated the same rhymes ungracefully, and the thought on which you harp so long recalls too forcibly the Εὕδεις βρέφος of Simonides. Unfortunately the “Adventurer” has made this sweet fragment an object of popular admiration. On the whole, I think it unworthy of your other “Botany Bay Eclogues,” yet deem the two stanzas above selected superior almost to anything you ever wrote; quod est magna res dicere, a great thing to say.
SONNET.[93]
Though king-bred rage with lawless Tumult rude
Have driv’n our Priestley o’er the ocean swell;
Though Superstition and her wolfish brood
Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell;
Calm in his halls of brightness he shall dwell!
For lo! Religion at his strong behest
Disdainful rouses from the Papal spell,
And flings to Earth her tinsel-glittering vest,
Her mitred state and cumbrous pomp unholy;
And Justice wakes to bid th’ oppression wail,
That ground th’ ensnared soul of patient Folly;
And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won,
Meek Nature slowly lifts her matron veil,
To smile with fondness on her gazing son!
SONNET.
O what a loud and fearful shriek was there,
As though a thousand souls one death-groan poured!
Great Kosciusko ’neath an hireling’s sword
The warriors view’d! Hark! through the list’ning air
(When pauses the tir’d Cossack’s barbarous yell
Of triumph) on the chill and midnight gale
Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell
The “Dirge of Murder’d Hope!” while Freedom pale
Bends in such anguish o’er her destined bier,
As if from eldest time some Spirit meek
Had gathered in a mystic urn each tear
That ever furrowed a sad Patriot’s cheek,
And she had drench’d the sorrows of the bowl
Ev’n till she reel’d, intoxicate of soul!
Tell me which you like the best of the above two. I have written one to Godwin, but the mediocrity of the eight first lines is most miserably magazinish! I have plucked, therefore, these scentless road-flowers from the chaplet, and entreat thee, thou river god of Pieria, to weave into it the gorgeous water-lily from thy stream, or the far-smelling violets on thy bank. The last six lines are these:—
Nor will I not thy holy guidance bless
And hymn thee, Godwin! with an ardent lay;
For that thy voice, in Passion’s stormy day,
When wild I roam’d the bleak Heath of Distress,
Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way,—
And told me that her name was Happiness.
Give me your minutest opinion concerning the following sonnet, whether or no I shall admit it into the number. The move of bepraising a man by enumerating the beauties of his polygraph is at least an original one; so much so that I fear it will be somewhat unintelligible to those whose brains are not του ἀμείνονος πηλοῦ. (You have read S.’s poetry and know that the fancy displayed in it is sweet and delicate to the highest degree.)
TO R. B. SHERIDAN, ESQ.
Some winged Genius, Sheridan! imbreath’d
His various influence on thy natal hour:
My fancy bodies forth the Guardian Power,
His temples with Hymettian flowerets wreath’d;
And sweet his voice, as when o’er Laura’s bier
Sad music trembled through Vauclusa’s glade;
Sweet, as at dawn the lovelorn serenade
That bears soft dreams to Slumber’s listening ear!
Now patriot Zeal and Indignation high
Swell the full tones! and now his eye-beams dance
Meanings of Scorn and Wit’s quaint revelry!
Th’ Apostate by the brainless rout adored,
Writhes inly from the bosom-probing glance,
As erst that nobler Fiend beneath great Michael’s sword!
I will give the second number as deeming that it possesses mind:—
As late I roamed through Fancy’s shadowy vale,
With wetted cheek and in a mourner’s guise,
I saw the sainted form of Freedom rise:
He spake:—not sadder moans th’ autumnal gale—
“Great Son of Genius! sweet to me thy name,
Ere in an evil hour with altered voice
Thou badst Oppression’s hireling crew rejoice,
Blasting with wizard spell my laurell’d fame.
Yet never, Burke! thou drank’st Corruption’s bowl!
Thee stormy Pity and the cherish’d lure
Of Pomp and proud precipitance of soul
Urged on with wild’ring fires. Ah, spirit pure!
That Error’s mist had left thy purged eye;
So might I clasp thee with a Mother’s joy.”
ADDRESS TO A YOUNG JACKASS AND ITS TETHERED MOTHER.[94]
Poor little foal of an oppressed race!
I love the languid patience of thy face:
And oft with friendly hand I give thee bread,
And clap thy ragged coat and pat thy head.
But what thy dulled spirit hath dismay’d,
That never thou dost sport upon the glade?
And (most unlike the nature of things young)
That still to earth thy moping head is hung?
Do thy prophetic tears anticipate,
Meek Child of Misery, thy future fate?
The starving meal and all the thousand aches
That “patient Merit of the Unworthy takes”?
Or is thy sad heart thrill’d with filial pain
To see thy wretched mother’s lengthened chain?
And truly, very piteous is her lot,
Chained to a log upon a narrow spot,
Where the close-eaten grass is scarcely seen,
While sweet around her waves the tempting green!
Poor Ass! thy master should have learnt to show
Pity best taught by fellowship of Woe!
For much I fear me that He lives like thee
Half-famish’d in a land of Luxury!
How askingly its steps towards me bend!
It seems to say, “And have I then one friend?”
Innocent foal! thou poor, despis’d forlorn!
I hail thee Brother, spite of the fool’s scorn!
And fain I’d take thee with me in the Dell
Of high-souled Pantisocracy to dwell;
Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his bride,
And Laughter tickle Plenty’s ribless side!
How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,
And frisk about, as lamb or kitten gay.
Yea, and more musically sweet to me
Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be,
Than Banti’s warbled airs, that soothe to rest
The tumult of a scoundrel Monarch’s breast!
How do you like it?
I took the liberty—Gracious God! pardon me for the aristocratic frigidity of that expression—I indulged my feelings by sending this among my Contemporary Sonnets:
Southey! Thy melodies steal o’er mine ear
Like far-off joyance, or the murmuring
Of wild bees in the sunny showers of Spring—
Sounds of such mingled import as may cheer
The lonely breast, yet rouse a mindful tear:
Waked by the song doth Hope-born Fancy fling
Rich showers of dewy fragrance from her wing,
Till sickly Passion’s drooping Myrtles sear
Blossom anew! But O! more thrill’d I prize
Thy sadder strains, that bid in Memory’s Dream
The faded forms of past Delight arise;
Then soft on Love’s pale cheek the tearful gleam
Of Pleasure smiles as faint yet beauteous lies
The imaged Rainbow on a willowy stream.
God love you and your mother and Edith and Sara and Mary and little Eliza, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and
S. T. Coleridge.
[The following lines in Southey’s handwriting are attached to this letter:—
What though oppression’s blood-cemented force
Stands proudly threatening arrogant in state,
Not thine his savage priests to immolate
Or hurl the fabric on the encumber’d plain
As with a whirlwind’s fury. It is thine
When dark Revenge masked in the form adored
Of Justice lifts on high the murderer’s sword
To save the erring victims from her shrine.
To Godwin.]