The Queen’s death has been so long expected as to make no impression on the little circle around me. I feel for those who must regret her; but no woman who reigned so long has ever taken so little root in the hearts of her people. Her own supposed heartlessness chilled all the warmer feelings.
We have a miraculous young poet in our neighbourhood—son to Sir George Dallas. He has excited the wonder and admiration of Dr. Parr, Scott, Southey, Rogers, and about ten others, who all declare, in reply to a circular letter of Sir George’s, that no one at his age—now past eighteen—ever wrote Greek, Latin, and English verse so well. I think his ear is admirable, his verses always musical, and showing a wide range of thought. There are who do not think, maugre all this, that he will ever be a great poet. None of his verses ever stick—to the heart or the memory. His manners are simple, pleasing, and well-bred. He is not vain; but I suspect that praise is become to him less a pleasure received than a want supplied.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Bursledon Lodge, Nov., 1818.
I have had a conversation with our new friend, which, considering his relative situation, gives me serious concern. I find that he is an unbeliever; that he has filled his memory with every trite, pert, and often confuted argument against the character of the Bible, beginning with the Creation, and ending with the most solemn and sublime of our doctrines. This is a melancholy case, and in my mind destroys that species of confidence which you give or withhold, not from reasoning, but from feeling. He started from Genesis with a remark how absurd it was—(Moses, wise in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, what people are they who assume a superiority over thee!)—well, how absurd it was to say that the light was created first, and then the sun and moon. Would not common modesty make any one suppose that one did not perfectly understand the passage, rather than accuse a narrative of absurdity, which has been read with reverence by the wisest of the uninspired, and written, perhaps, by the wisest of the inspired? Happily, I found a complete reply to this in King’s Morsels of Criticism.... These very circumstances are among those which prove the truth of the Bible—this simplicity of narrative, which, going straight to the point, stops not to clear up those trifling difficulties, which a willing mind will not cavil at, and a diligent mind will endeavour to comprehend. I have given him the book, and hope to find answers for all his petty objections. It is safe to look for them in good writers, and unsafe and unseemly, perhaps, in a woman to enter the lists of controversy herself.
Nov. 31, 1818.—Perhaps I may not live to want this book;[59] if not, I request my dear F—— will use it during the year 1819. It will remind him of one who loved him well.
I am now in good health and spirits, and therefore what I say to him here cannot be attributed to gloom. I beg of him to remember that I have never found any pleasure wholly unmixed with some little disquiet, except that of trying to do good, to increase the happiness, or lessen the misery of others; nor any pain so severe as the recollection of having in any instance done wrong.