Expression: too uniformly lofty, I think, for Ode. Do you, would Mr. Lowell, agree? I should not say so, did I not admire the work very much. You are very good to speak of sending me his new Volume: but why should you? My old Athenæum will tell me of it here, and I will be sure to get it.
You see --- has come out with another Heroic Poem! And the Athenæum talks of it as a Great Work, etc., with (it seems to me) the false Gallop in all the Quotations. It seems to me strange that ---, ---, and ---, should go on pouring out Poem after Poem, as if such haste could prosper with any but First-rate Men: and I suppose they hardly reckon themselves with the very First. I feel sure that Gray’s Elegy, pieced and patched together so laboriously, by a Man of almost as little Genius as abundant Taste, will outlive all these hasty Abortions. And yet there are plenty of faults in that Elegy too, resulting from the very Elaboration which yet makes it live. So I think.
I have been reading with real satisfaction, and delight, Mr. L. Stephen’s Hours in a Library: only, as I have told his Sister in law, I should have liked to put in a word or two for Crabbe. I think I could furnish L. S. with many Epigrams, of a very subtle sort, from Crabbe: and several paragraphs, if not pages, of comic humour as light as Molière. Both which L. S. seems to doubt in what he calls ‘our excellent Crabbe,’ who was not so ‘excellent’ (in the goody sense) as L. S. seems to intimate. But then
Crabbe is my Great Gun. He will outlive ---, --- and Co. in spite of his Carelessness. So think I again.
His Son, Vicar of a Parish near here, and very like the Father in face, was a great Friend of mine. He detested Poetry (sc. verse), and I believe had never read his Father through till some twenty years ago when I lent him the Book. Yet I used to tell him he threw out sparks now and then. As one day when we were talking of some Squires who cut down Trees (which all magnanimous Men respect and love), my old Vicar cried out ‘How scandalously they misuse the Globe!’ He was a very noble, courageous, generous Man, and worshipped his Father in his way. I always thought I could hear this Son in that fine passage which closes the Tales of the Hall, when the Elder Brother surprises the Younger by the gift of that House and Domain which are to keep them close Neighbours for ever.
Here on that lawn your Boys and Girls shall run,
And gambol, when the daily task is done;
From yonder Window shall their Mother view
The happy tribe, and smile at all they do:
While you, more gravely hiding your Delight,
Shall cry—‘O, childish!’—and enjoy the Sight.
By way of pendant to this, pray read the concluding lines of the long, ill-told, Story of ‘Smugglers and Poachers.’ Or shall I fill up my Letter with them? This is a sad Picture to match that sunny one.
As men may children at their sports behold,
And smile to see them, tho’ unmoved and cold,
Smile at the recollected Games, and then
Depart, and mix in the Affairs of men;
So Rachel looks upon the World, and sees
It can no longer pain, no longer please:
But just detain the passing Thought; just cause
A little smile of Pity, or Applause—
And then the recollected Soul repairs
Her slumbering Hope, and heeds her own Affairs.
I wish some American Publisher would publish my Edition of Tales of the Hall, edited by means of Scissors and Paste, with a few words of plain Prose to bridge over whole tracts of bad Verse; not meaning to improve the original, but to seduce hasty Readers to study it.
What a Letter, my dear Sir! But you encourage me to tattle over the Atlantic by your not feeling bound to answer. You are a busy man, and I quite an idle one, but yours sincerely,