have no great desire to go. I hear of nothing new in any way worth going up for. I have never yet heard the famous Jenny Lind, whom all the world raves about. Spedding is especially mad about her, I understand: and, after that, is it not best for weaker vessels to keep out of her way? Night after night is that bald head seen in one particular position in the Opera house, in a stall; the miserable man has forgot Bacon and philosophy, and goes after strange women. There is no doubt this lady is a wonderful singer; but I will not go into hot crowds till another Pasta comes; I have heard no one since her worth being crushed for. And to perform in one’s head one of Handel’s choruses is better than most of the Exeter Hall performances. I went to hear Mendelssohn’s Elijah last spring: and found it wasn’t at all worth the trouble. Though very good music it is not original: Haydn much better. I think the day of Oratorios is gone, like the day for painting Holy Families, etc. But we cannot get tired of what has been done in Oratorios more than we can get tired of Raffaelle. Mendelssohn is really original and beautiful in romantic music: witness his Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Fingal’s Cave.
I had a note from Alfred three months ago. He was then in London: but is now in Ireland, I think, adding to his new poem, the Princess. Have you seen it? I am considered a great heretic for abusing it; it seems to me a wretched waste of power at a time of life when a man ought to be doing his best;
and I almost feel hopeless about Alfred now. I mean, about his doing what he was born to do. . . . On the other hand, Thackeray is progressing greatly in his line: he publishes a Novel in numbers—Vanity Fair—which began dull, I thought: but gets better every number, and has some very fine things indeed in it. He is become a great man I am told: goes to Holland House, and Devonshire House: and for some reason or other, will not write a word to me. But I am sure this is not because he is asked to Holland House. Dickens has fallen off in his last novel, [238] just completed; but there are wonderful things in it too. Do you ever get a glimpse of any of these things?
As to public affairs, they are so wonderful that one does not know where to begin. If England maintains her own this year, she must have the elements of long lasting in her. I think People begin to wish we had no more to do with Ireland: but the Whigs will never listen to a doctrine which was never heard of in Holland House. I am glad Italy is free: and surely there is nothing for her now but a Republic. It is well to stand by old kings who have done well by us: but it is too late in the day to begin Royalty.
If anything could tempt me so far as Italy, it would certainly be your presence in Florence. But I boggle about going twenty miles, and cui bono? deadens me more and more.
July 2. All that precedes was written six weeks ago, when I was obliged to go up to London on business. . . . I saw Alfred, and the rest of the sçavans. Thackeray is a great man: goes to Devonshire House, etc.: and his book (which is capital) is read by the Great: and will, I hope, do them good. I heard but little music: the glorious Acis and Galatea; and the redoubtable Jenny Lind, for the first time. I was disappointed in her: but am told this is all my fault. As to naming her in the same Olympiad with great old Pasta, I am sure that is ridiculous. The Exhibition is like most others you have seen; worse perhaps. There is an ‘Aaron’ and a ‘John the Baptist’ by Etty far worse than the Saracen’s Head on Ludgate Hill. Moore is turned Picture dealer: and that high Roman virtue in which he indulged is likely to suffer a Picture-dealer’s change, I think. Carlyle writes in the Examiner about Ireland: raves and foams, but has nothing to propose. Spedding prospers with Bacon. Alfred seemed to me in fair plight: much dining out: and his last Poem is well liked I believe. Morton is still at Lisbon, I believe also: but I have not written to him, nor heard from him. And now, my dear Frederic, I must shut up. Do not neglect to write to me sometimes. Alfred said you ought to be in England about your Grimsby Land.
[? 1848.]
My dear Cowell,
. . . I do not know that I praised Xenophon’s imagination in recording such things as Alcibiades at Lampsacus; [240] all I meant to say was that the history was not dull which does record such facts, if it be for the imagination of others to quicken them. . . . As to Sophocles, I will not give up my old Titan. Is there not an infusion of Xenophon in Sophocles, as compared to Æschylus,—a dilution? Sophocles is doubtless the better artist, the more complete; but are we to expect anything but glimpses and ruins of the divinest? Sophocles is a pure Greek temple; but Æschylus is a rugged mountain, lashed by seas, and riven by thunderbolts: and which is the most wonderful, and appalling? Or if one will have Æschylus too a work of man, I say he is like a Gothic Cathedral, which the Germans say did arise from the genius of man aspiring up to the immeasurable, and reaching after the infinite in complexity and gloom, according as Christianity elevated and widened men’s minds. A dozen lines of Æschylus have a more Almighty power on me than all Sophocles’ plays; though I would perhaps rather save Sophocles, as the consummation of Greek art, than Æschylus’ twelve lines, if it came to a choice which must be lost.