“How charming is divine Philosophy,
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute.”
No—not for myself—feeling grateful as I do to have got into a state of mind to relish them properly. Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced—Even a Proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it. I am ever afraid that your anxiety for me will lead you to fear for the violence of my temperament continually smothered down: for that reason I did not intend to have sent you the following sonnet—but look over the two last pages and ask yourselves whether I have not that in me which will bear the buffets of the world. It will be the best comment on my sonnet; it will show you that it was written with no Agony but that of ignorance; with no thirst of anything but Knowledge when pushed to the point though the first steps to it were through my human passions—they went away and I wrote with my Mind—and perhaps I must confess a little bit of my heart—
Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell:
No God, no Deamon of severe response
Deigns to reply from heaven or from Hell.—
Then to my human heart I turn at once—
Heart! thou and I are here sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain!
Why did I laugh? I know this being’s lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads:
Yet could I on this very midnight cease,[92]
And the world’s gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, fame and Beauty are intense indeed
But Death intenser—Death is Life’s high meed.
I went to bed and enjoyed an uninterrupted sleep. Sane I went to bed and sane I arose.
[April 15.]
This is the 15th of April—you see what a time it is since I wrote; all that time I have been day by day expecting Letters from you. I write quite in the dark. In the hopes of a Letter daily I have deferred that I might write in the light. I was in town yesterday, and at Taylor’s heard that young Birkbeck had been in Town and was to set forward in six or seven days—so I shall dedicate that time to making up this parcel ready for him. I wish I could hear from you to make me “whole and general as the casing air.”[93] A few days after the 19th of April[94] I received a note from Haslam containing the news of his father’s death. The Family has all been well. Haslam has his father’s situation. The Framptons have behaved well to him. The day before yesterday I went to a rout at Sawrey’s—it was made pleasant by Reynolds being there and our getting into conversation with one of the most beautiful Girls I ever saw—She gave a remarkable prettiness to all those commonplaces which most women who talk must utter—I liked Mrs. Sawrey very well. The Sunday before last your Brothers were to come by a long invitation—so long that for the time I forgot it when I promised Mrs. Brawne to dine with her on the same day. On recollecting my engagement with your Brothers I immediately excused myself with Mrs. Brawne, but she would not hear of it, and insisted on my bringing my friends with me. So we all dined at Mrs. Brawne’s. I have been to Mrs. Bentley’s this morning, and put all the letters to and from you and poor Tom and me.[95] I found some of the correspondence between him and that degraded Wells and Amena. It is a wretched business; I do not know the rights of it, but what I do know would, I am sure, affect you so much that I am in two minds whether I will tell you anything about it. And yet I do not see why—for anything, though it be unpleasant, that calls to mind those we still love has a compensation in itself for the pain it occasions—so very likely to-morrow I may set about copying the whole of what I have about it: with no sort of a Richardson self-satisfaction—I hate it to a sickness—and I am afraid more from indolence of mind than anything else. I wonder how people exist with all their worries. I have not been to Westminster but once lately, and that was to see Dilke in his new Lodgings—I think of living somewhere in the neighbourhood myself. Your mother was well by your Brothers’ account. I shall see her perhaps to-morrow—yes I shall. We have had the Boys[96] here lately—they make a bit of a racket—I shall not be sorry when they go. I found also this morning, in a note from George to you and my dear sister a lock of your hair which I shall this moment put in the miniature case. A few days ago Hunt dined here and Brown invited Davenport to meet him, Davenport from a sense of weakness thought it incumbent on him to show off—and pursuant to that never ceased talking and boring all day till I was completely fagged out. Brown grew melancholy—but Hunt perceiving what a complimentary tendency all this had bore it remarkably well—Brown grumbled about it for two or three days. I went with Hunt to Sir John Leicester’s gallery; there I saw Northcote—Hilton—Bewick, and many more of great and Little note. Haydon’s picture is of very little progress this year—He talks about finishing it next year. Wordsworth is going to publish a Poem called Peter Bell—what a perverse fellow it is! Why will he talk about Peter Bells—I was told not to tell—but to you it will not be telling—Reynolds hearing that said Peter Bell was coming out, took it into his head to write a skit upon it called Peter Bell. He did it as soon as thought on, it is to be published this morning, and comes out before the real Peter Bell, with this admirable motto from the “Bold Stroke for a Wife” “I am the real Simon Pure.” It would be just as well to trounce Lord Byron in the same manner. I am still at a stand in versifying—I cannot do it yet with any pleasure—I mean, however, to look round on my resources and means, and see what I can do without poetry—To that end I shall live in Westminster—I have no doubt of making by some means a little to help on, or I shall be left in the Lurch—with the burden of a little Pride—However I look in time. The Dilkes like their Lodgings at Westminster tolerably well. I cannot help thinking what a shame it is that poor Dilke should give up his comfortable house and garden for his Son, whom he will certainly ruin with too much care. The boy has nothing in his ears all day but himself and the importance of his education. Dilke has continually in his mouth “My Boy.” This is what spoils princes: it may have the same effect with Commoners. Mrs. Dilke has been very well lately—But what a shameful thing it is that for that obstinate Boy Dilke should stifle himself in Town Lodgings and wear out his Life by his continual apprehension of his Boy’s fate in Westminster school, with the rest of the Boys and the Masters. Every one has some wear and tear. One would think Dilke ought to be quiet and happy—but no—this one Boy makes his face pale, his society silent and his vigilance jealous—He would I have no doubt quarrel with any one who snubb’d his Boy—With all this he has no notion how to manage him. O what a farce is our greatest cares! Yet one must be in the pother for the sake of Clothes food and Lodging. There has been a squabble between Kean and Mr. Bucke—There are faults on both sides—on Bucke’s the faults are positive to the Question: Kean’s fault is a want of genteel knowledge and high Policy. The former writes knavishly foolish, and the other silly bombast. It was about a Tragedy written by said Mr. Bucke which, it appears, Mr. Kean kick’d at—it was so bad—After a little struggle of Mr. Bucke’s against Kean, Drury Lane had the Policy to bring it out and Kean the impolicy not to appear in it. It was damn’d. The people in the Pit had a favourite call on the night of “Buck, Buck, rise up” and “Buck, Buck, how many horns do I hold up.” Kotzebue the German Dramatist and traitor to his country was murdered lately by a young student whose name I forget—he stabbed himself immediately after crying out Germany! Germany! I was unfortunate to miss Richards the only time I have been for many months to see him.
Shall I treat you with a little extempore?—
When they were come into the Faery’s Court
They rang—no one at home—all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faerys do
For Faries be as humans lovers true.
Amid the woods they were so lone and wild,
Where even the Robin feels himself exil’d,
And where the very brooks, as if afraid,
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
‘No one at home!’ the fretful princess cry’d;
‘And all for nothing such a dreary ride,
And all for nothing my new diamond cross;
No one to see my Persian feathers toss,
No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool,
Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule.
Ape, Dwarf, and Fool, why stand you gaping there,
Burst the door open, quick—or I declare
I’ll switch you soundly and in pieces tear.’
The Dwarf began to tremble, and the Ape
Star’d at the Fool, the Fool was all agape,
The Princess grasp’d her switch, but just in time
The dwarf with piteous face began to rhyme.
‘O mighty Princess, did you ne’er hear tell
What your poor servants know but too too well?
Know you the three great crimes in faery land?
The first, alas! poor Dwarf, I understand,
I made a whipstock of a faery’s wand;
The next is snoring in their company;
The next, the last, the direst of the three,
Is making free when they are not at home.
I was a Prince—a baby prince—my doom,
You see, I made a whipstock of a wand,
My top has henceforth slept in faery land.
He was a Prince, the Fool, a grown-up Prince,
But he has never been a King’s son since
He fell a snoring at a faery Ball.
Your poor Ape was a Prince, and he poor thing
Picklock’d a faery’s boudoir—now no king
But ape—so pray your highness stay awhile,
’Tis sooth indeed, we know it to our sorrow—
Persist and you may be an ape to-morrow.’
While the Dwarf spake the Princess, all for spite,
Peel’d the brown hazel twig to lilly white,
Clench’d her small teeth, and held her lips apart,
Try’d to look unconcern’d with beating heart.
They saw her highness had made up her mind,
A-quavering like the reeds before the wind—
And they had had it, but O happy chance
The Ape for very fear began to dance
And grinn’d as all his ugliness did ache—
She staid her vixen fingers for his sake,
He was so very ugly: then she took
Her pocket-mirror and began to look
First at herself and then at him, and then
She smil’d at her own beauteous face again.
Yet for all this—for all her pretty face—
She took it in her head to see the place.
Women gain little from experience
Either in Lovers, husbands, or expense.
The more their beauty the more fortune too—
Beauty before the wide world never knew—
So each fair reasons—tho’ it oft miscarries.
She thought her pretty face would please the fairies.
‘My darling Ape I won’t whip you to-day,
Give me the Picklock sirrah and go play.’
They all three wept but counsel was as vain
As crying cup biddy to drops of rain.
Yet lingering by did the sad Ape forth draw
The Picklock from the Pocket in his Jaw.
The Princess took it, and dismounting straight
Tripp’d in blue silver’d slippers to the gate
And touch’d the wards, the Door full courteously
Opened—she enter’d with her servants three.
Again it clos’d and there was nothing seen
But the Mule grazing on the herbage green.
End of Canto XII.
Canto the XIII.