Star of high promise!—not to this dark age
Do thy mild light and loveliness belong;
For it is blind, intolerant, and wrong;
Dead to empyreal soarings, and the rage
Of scoffing spirits bitter war doth wage
With all that bold integrity of song.
Yet thy clear beam shall shine through ages strong
To ripest times a light and heritage.
And there breathe now who dote upon thy fame,
Whom thy wild numbers wrap beyond their being,
Who love the freedom of thy lays—their aim
Above the scope of a dull tribe unseeing—
And there is one whose hand will never scant
From his poor store of fruits all thou canst want.
November 1818. turn over.
I turn’d over and found a £25 note. Now this appears to me all very proper—if I had refused it I should have behaved in a very bragadochio dunderheaded manner—and yet the present galls me a little, and I do not know whether I shall not return it if I ever meet with the donor after, whom to no purpose I have written. I have your Miniature on the Table George the great—it’s very like—though not quite about the upper lip. I wish we had a better of your little George. I must not forget to tell you that a few days since I went with Dilke a shooting on the heath and shot a Tomtit. There were as many guns abroad as Birds. I intended to have been at Chichester this Wednesday—but on account of this sore throat I wrote him (Brown) my excuse yesterday.
Thursday [December 31].
(I will date when I finish.)—I received a Note from Haslam yesterday—asking if my letter is ready—now this is only the second sheet—notwithstanding all my promises. But you must reflect what hindrances I have had. However on sealing this I shall have nothing to prevent my proceeding in a gradual journal, which will increase in a Month to a considerable size. I will insert any little pieces I may write—though I will not give any extracts from my large poem which is scarce began. I want to hear very much whether Poetry and literature in general has gained or lost interest with you—and what sort of writing is of the highest gust with you now. With what sensation do you read Fielding?—and do not Hogarth’s pictures seem an old thing to you? Yet you are very little more removed from general association than I am—recollect that no Man can live but in one society at a time—his enjoyment in the different states of human society must depend upon the Powers of his Mind—that is you can imagine a Roman triumph or an Olympic game as well as I can. We with our bodily eyes see but the fashion and Manners of one country for one age—and then we die. Now to me manners and customs long since passed whether among the Babylonians or the Bactrians are as real, or even more real than those among which I now live—My thoughts have turned lately this way—The more we know the more inadequacy we find in the world to satisfy us—this is an old observation; but I have made up my Mind never to take anything for granted—but even to examine the truth of the commonest proverbs—This however is true. Mrs. Tighe and Beattie once delighted me—now I see through them and can find nothing in them but weakness, and yet how many they still delight! Perhaps a superior being may look upon Shakspeare in the same light—is it possible? No—This same inadequacy is discovered (forgive me, little George, you know I don’t mean to put you in the mess) in Women with few exceptions—the Dress Maker, the blue Stocking, and the most charming sentimentalist differ but in a slight degree and are equally smokeable. But I’ll go no further—I may be speaking sacrilegiously—and on my word I have thought so little that I have not one opinion upon anything except in matters of taste—I never can feel certain of any truth but from a clear perception of its Beauty—and I find myself very young minded even in that perceptive power—which I hope will increase. A year ago I could not understand in the slightest degree Raphael’s cartoons—now I begin to read them a little—And how did I learn to do so? By seeing something done in quite an opposite spirit—I mean a picture of Guido’s in which all the Saints, instead of that heroic simplicity and unaffected grandeur which they inherit from Raphael, had each of them both in countenance and gesture all the canting, solemn, melodramatic mawkishness of Mackenzie’s father Nicholas. When I was last at Haydon’s I looked over a Book of Prints taken from the fresco of the Church at Milan, the name of which I forget—in it are comprised Specimens of the first and second age of art in Italy. I do not think I ever had a greater treat out of Shakspeare. Full of Romance and the most tender feeling—magnificence of draperies beyond any I ever saw, not excepting Raphael’s. But Grotesque to a curious pitch—yet still making up a fine whole—even finer to me than more accomplish’d works—as there was left so much room for Imagination. I have not heard one of this last course of Hazlitt’s lectures. They were upon ‘Wit and Humour,’ ‘the English comic writers.’
Saturday, Jany. 2nd [1819].
Yesterday Mr. and Mrs. D. and myself dined at Mrs. Brawne’s—nothing particular passed. I never intend hereafter to spend any time with Ladies unless they are handsome—you lose time to no purpose. For that reason I shall beg leave to decline going again to Redall’s or Butler’s or any Squad where a fine feature cannot be mustered among them all—and where all the evening’s amusement consists in saying ‘your good health, your good health, and YOUR good health—and (O I beg your pardon) yours, Miss ——,’ and such thing not even dull enough to keep one awake—With respect to amiable speaking I can read—let my eyes be fed or I’ll never go out to dinner anywhere. Perhaps you may have heard of the dinner given to Thos. Moore in Dublin, because I have the account here by me in the Philadelphia democratic paper. The most pleasant thing that occurred was the speech Mr. Tom made on his Father’s health being drank. I am afraid a great part of my Letters are filled up with promises and what I will do rather than any great deal written—but here I say once for all—that circumstances prevented me from keeping my promise in my last, but now I affirm that as there will be nothing to hinder me I will keep a journal for you. That I have not yet done so you would forgive if you knew how many hours I have been repenting of my neglect. For I have no thought pervading me so constantly and frequently as that of you—my Poem cannot frequently drive it away—you will retard it much more than you could by taking up my time if you were in England. I never forget you except after seeing now and then some beautiful woman—but that is a fever—the thought of you both is a passion with me, but for the most part a calm one. I asked Dilke for a few lines for you—he has promised them—I shall send what I have written to Haslam on Monday Morning—what I can get into another sheet to-morrow I will—There are one or two little poems you might like. I have given up snuff very nearly quite—Dilke has promised to sit with me this evening, I wish he would come this minute for I want a pinch of snuff very much just now—I have none though in my own snuff box. My sore throat is much better to-day—I think I might venture on a pinch. Here are the Poems—they will explain themselves—as all poems should do without any comment—
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
At a touch sweet pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth:
Then let winged fancy wander
Towards heaven still spread beyond her—
Open wide the mind’s cage door,
She’ll dart forth and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy, let her loose!
Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the spring
Fades as doth its blossoming:
Autumn’s red-lipped fruitage too
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with kissing. What do then?
Sit thee in an ingle when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter night:
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the Ploughboy’s heavy shoon:
When the night doth meet the moon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish vesper from the sky.
Sit thee then and send abroad
With a Mind self-overaw’d
Fancy high-commission’d; send her,—
She’ll have vassals to attend her—
She will bring thee, spite of frost,
Beauties that the Earth has lost;
She will bring thee all together
All delights of summer weather;
All the faery buds of May,
On spring turf or scented spray;
All the heaped Autumn’s wealth
With a still mysterious stealth;
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup
And thou shalt quaff it—Thou shalt hear
Instant harvest carols clear,
Bustle of the reaped corn
Sweet Birds antheming the Morn;
And in the same moment hark
To the early April lark,
And the rooks with busy caw
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt at one glance behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White plumed lilies and the first
Hedgerow primrose that hath burst;
Shaded Hyacinth alway
Sapphire Queen of the Mid-may;
And every leaf and every flower
Pearled with the same soft shower.
Thou shalt see the fieldmouse creep
Meagre from its celled sleep,
And the snake all winter shrank
Cast its skin on sunny bank;
Freckled nest eggs shalt thou see
Hatching in the hawthorn tree;
When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest
Quiet on its mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the Beehive casts its swarm—
Acorns ripe down scattering
While the autumn breezes sing,
For the same sleek throated mouse
To store up in its winter house.
O, sweet Fancy, let her loose!
Every joy is spoilt by use:
Every pleasure, every joy—
Not a Mistress but doth cloy.
Where’s the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz’d at? Where’s the Maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where’s the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where’s the face
One would meet in every place?
Where’s the voice however soft
One would hear too oft and oft?
At a touch sweet pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let then winged fancy find
Thee a Mistress to thy mind.
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres’ daughter
Ere the God of torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide:
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe’s when her Zone
Slipp’d its golden clasp, and down
Fell her Kirtle to her feet
While she held the goblet sweet,
And Jove grew languid—Mistress fair!
Thou shalt have that tressed hair
Adonis tangled all for spite;
And the mouth he would not kiss,
And the treasure he would miss;
And the hand he would not press
And the warmth he would distress.
O the Ravishment—the Bliss!
Fancy has her there she is—
Never fulsome, ever new,
There she steps! and tell me who
Has a Mistress so divine?
Be the palate ne’er so fine
She cannot sicken. Break the Mesh
Of the Fancy’s silken leash;
Where she’s tether’d to the heart.
Quickly break her prison string
And such joys as these she’ll bring,
Let the winged fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
I did not think this had been so long a Poem. I have another not so long—but as it will more conveniently be copied on the other side I will just put down here some observations on Caleb Williams by Hazlitt—I meant to say St. Leon, for although he has mentioned all the Novels of Godwin very freely I do not quote them, but this only on account of its being a specimen of his usual abrupt manner, and fiery laconicism. He says of St. Leon—
“He is a limb torn off society. In possession of eternal youth and beauty he can feel no love; surrounded, tantalised, and tormented with riches, he can do no good. The faces of Men pass before him as in a speculum; but he is attached to them by no common tie of sympathy or suffering. He is thrown back into himself and his own thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own breast—without wife or child or friend or Enemy in the world. This is the solitude of the soul, not of woods or trees or mountains—but the desert of society—the waste and oblivion of the heart. He is himself alone. His existence is purely intellectual, and is therefore intolerable to one who has felt the rapture of affection, or the anguish of woe.”
As I am about it I might as well give you his character of Godwin as a Romancer:—