Sept. 11.—Mr. Hayley received me with the most cordial politeness, showed me beautiful miniatures and pictures of all kinds; fine portraits of Gibbon, Cowper, Charlotte Smith, Romney, and an enamelled miniature from his own Serena. He was politely pleased with my songs, and made me give him seven, at two intervals of my visit. He showed a strong desire to amuse, and succeeded—and would have equally succeeded with less exertion.
Sept. 12.—When Peter asked concerning John, ‘Lord, and what shall this man do?’ our Saviour answered, ‘What is that to thee? follow thou me.’ When bewildered in speculations as to the future lot of others, this answer has sounded from the depths of my heart, as addressed to me. It strikes at the root of the pride which erects itself into a judge of the acts and intentions of Supreme Wisdom, not only towards ourselves, but others. We are not satisfied with the assurance that to us who have received the revelation of our hopes and duties, happiness, eternal in its duration, and inexpressible in its intensity, is offered to all who sincerely seek it; but we almost reproach God for not making the gift general, unconditional. We seem to accuse the Supreme Being of partiality towards ourselves; we ask, What hath this man done? and the pride of human nature advances like a boundless ocean, in successive waves foaming and thundering against that rock, the existence of evil, but ever leaving that rock in all its strength for future ages and generations to beat against in vain.
Who utter the deepest complaints against the evils of life? They who are most distinguished by its blessings. Youth and genius are amongst the most clamorous of the complainants. I hope and believe that misery is not so miserable as it appears. I have suffered, and I know the alleviations which attend each species of suffering I have endured; alleviations I could not have imagined in the case of another.
Oct. 11, London.—Just returned from St. James’s Chapel. I hope no foreign clinquant or frippery magnificence will ever alter the simple and noble worship of that chapel, a monument, among many others, of our good old King’s admirable taste—nothing done for show, and the whole distinction arising from the highest excellence in that art of which the use has been sanctified by revelation to the use of religion. ‘Oh Lord, whither shall I go then from thy presence?’ was exquisitely sung. The aërial purity of Knyvett’s voice, differing in the quality of its tone from any mortal music or sound the earth owns, was delightfully suited to a being who speaks of taking the wings of the morning and dwelling in the uttermost parts of the sea. While I deprecate adding to this simple worship, I am equally averse to taking aught away. I should be sorry to find the scientific and affecting music of Handel, Purcell, and Croft, resigned for the unison singing of our Dissenters, pathetic on its first hearing, but soon cloying and insipid for want of variety; and I should deplore changing our majestic, expressive, pathetic liturgy, for the extempore prayers of any individual, however highly gifted. Yet even the last of these changes is within the limits of possibility, and the former is more than probable.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
Bursledon Lodge, Nov., 1818.
I should be ‘dull as the fat weed that rots itself in ease on Lethe’s wharf,’ had I not been delighted with your last. In fact, your letters give me so much pleasure, they give me some pain; for I always regret I have not an audience to whom I could read them, stealing a modest eye round the applauding circle.
I have been much indisposed, but am to-day pretty well, saving a cough, which proceeds from the malaria of Bursledon church, which is damp by nature, and was yesterday close from people, and people of a class who are unconscious of hair-brushes, honey-water, and Eau de Cologne. You know the sort of air, composed of the living and the dead, in a close country church with a large burying-place. I am always a little the worse for it.
You have given me carte blanche as to your charities; but I never recollect we are two distinct personages, except when I am to spend your money; and on this subject I feel myself so miserably chiche (excuse a vulgar gallicism from the vocabulary of nurses and abigails), that I am ashamed to see how little I give for you in proportion to what I ought. Be so good, therefore, as to specify a sum for the purpose, which I will then feel it my duty to bestow.