I hear little music but what I make myself, or help to make with my Parson’s son and daughter. We, with not a voice among us, go through Handel’s Coronation Anthems! Laughable it may seem; yet it is not quite so; the things are so well-defined, simple, and grand, that the faintest outline of them tells; my admiration of the old Giant grows and grows: his is the Music for a Great, Active, People. Sometimes too, I go over to a place elegantly called Bungay, where a Printer [265] lives who drills the young folks of a manufactory there to sing in Chorus once a week. . . . They sing some of the English Madrigals, some of Purcell, and some of Handel, in a way to satisfy me, who don’t want perfection, and who believe that the grandest things do not depend on delicate finish. If you were here now, we would go over and hear the Harmonious Blacksmith sung in Chorus, with words, of course. It almost made me cry when I heard the divine Air rolled into vocal harmony from the four corners of a large Hall. One can scarce comprehend the Beauty of the English Madrigals till one hears them done (though coarsely) in this way and on a large scale: the play of the parts as they alternate from the different quarters of the room.
I have taken another half sheet to finish my letter upon: so as my calculation of how far this half-quire
is to spread over Time is defeated. Let us write oftener, and longer, and we shall not tempt the Fates by inchoating too long a hope of letter-paper. I have written enough for to-night: I am now going to sit down and play one of Handel’s Overtures as well as I can—Semele, perhaps, a very grand one—then, lighting my lantern, trudge through the mud to Parson Crabbe’s. Before I take my pen again to finish this letter the New Year will have dawned—on some of us. ‘Thou fool! this night thy soul may be required of thee!’ Very well: while it is in this Body I will wish my dear old F. T. a happy New Year. And now to drum out the Old with Handel. Good Night.
New Year’s Day, 1851. A happy new Year to you! I sat up with my Parson till the Old Year was past, drinking punch and smoking cigars, for which I endure some headache this morning. Not that we took much; but a very little punch disagrees with me. Only I would not disappoint my old friend’s convivial expectations. He is one of those happy men who has the boy’s heart throbbing and trembling under the snows of sixty-five.
To G. Crabbe.
[Geldestone, Feb. 11, 1851.]
My dear George,
I send you an Euphranor, and (as you desire it) Spedding’s Examiner. [266] I believe that I should be
ashamed of his praise, if I did not desire to take any means to make my little book known for a good purpose. I think he over-praises it: but he cannot over-praise the design, and (as I believe) the tendency of it.
60 Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
[Feb. 27, 1851.]