“No, though I am always wishing to do it. Many things interfere with my poetry. In the first place I am obliged to give a lecture once a day for six months, and in the summer it is such a delight to be released, and get away into the country with my girls and boys, that I never put pen to paper till I am driven. Then Blackwood is a great care; and, greater objection still, I have been discouraged in various ways by criticism. It used to gall me to have my poems called imitations of Wordsworth and his school; a thing I could not see myself, but which was asserted even by those who praised me, and which modesty forbade I should disavow. I really can see no resemblance between the Isle of Palms and anything of Wordsworth’s. I think I have a style of my own, and as my ain barn, I think better of it than other people, and so pride prevents my writing. Until late years, too, I have been the subject of much political abuse, and for that I should not have cared if it were not disagreeable to have children and servants reading it in the morning papers, and a fear of giving them another handle in my poetry, was another inducement for not writing.”
I expressed my surprise at what he said, for, as far as I knew the periodicals, Wilson had been a singularly continued favorite.
“Yes, out of this immediate sphere, perhaps—but it requires a strong mind to suffer annoyance at one’s lips, and comfort oneself with the praise of a distant and outer circle of public opinion. I had a family growing up, of sons and daughters, who felt for me more than I should have felt for myself, and I was annoyed perpetually. Now, these very papers praise me, and I really can hardly believe my eyes when I open them and find the same type and imprint expressing such different opinions. It is absurd to mind such weathercocks; and, in truth, the only people worth heeding or writing for are the quiet readers in the country, who read for pleasure, and form sober opinions apart from political or personal prejudice. I would give more for the praise of one country clergyman and his family than I would for the admiration of a whole city. People in towns require a constant phantasmagoria, to keep up even the remembrance of your name. What books and authors, what battles and heroes, are forgotten in a day!”
My letter is getting too long, and I must make it shorter, as it is vastly less agreeable than the visit itself. Wilson went on to speak of his family, and his eyes kindled with pleasure in talking of his children. He invited me to stop and visit him at his place near Selkirk, in my way south, and promised me that I should see Hogg, who lived not far off. Such inducement was scarce necessary, and I made a half promise to do it and left him, after having passed several hours of the highest pleasure in his fascinating society.
LETTER VI.
LORD JEFFREY AND HIS FAMILY—LORD BROUGHAM—COUNT FLAHAULT—POLITICS—THE “GREY” BALL—ABERDEEN—GORDON CASTLE.
I was engaged to dine with Lord Jeffrey on the same day that I had breakfasted with Wilson, and the opportunity of contrasting so closely these two distinguished men, both editors of leading Reviews, yet of different politics, and no less different minds, persons, and manners, was highly gratifying.
At seven o’clock I drove to Moray-place, the Grosvenor-square of Edinburgh. I was not sorry to be early, for never having seen my host, nor his lady (who, as is well known, is an American,) I had some little advantage over the awkwardness of meeting a large party of strangers. After a few minutes’ conversation with Mrs. Jeffrey, the door was thrown quickly open, and the celebrated editor of the Edinburgh, the distinguished lawyer, the humane and learned judge, and the wit of the day, par excellence, entered with his daughter. A frank, almost merry smile, a perfectly unceremonious, hearty manner, and a most playful and graceful style of saying the half-apologetic, half-courteous things, incident to a first meeting after a letter of introduction, put me at once at my ease, and established a partiality for him, impromptu, in my feelings. Jeffrey is rather below the middle size, slight, rapid in his speech and motion, never still, and glances from one subject to another, with less abruptness and more quickness than any man I had ever seen. His head is small, but compact and well-shaped; and the expression of his face, when serious, is that of quick and discriminating earnestness. His voice is rather thin, but pleasing; and if I had met him incidentally, I should have described him, I think, as a most witty and well-bred gentleman of the school of Wilkes and Sheridan. Perhaps as distinguishing a mark as either his wit or his politeness, is an honest goodness of heart; which, however it makes itself apparent, no one could doubt, who had been with Jeffrey ten minutes.
To my great disappointment, Mrs. Jeffrey informed me that Lord Brougham, who was their guest at the time, was engaged to a dinner, given by the new lord advocate to Earl Grey. I had calculated much on seeing two such old friends and fellow-wits as Jeffrey and Brougham at the same table, and I could well believe what my neighbor told me at dinner, that it was more than a common misfortune to have missed it.
A large dinner-party began to assemble, some distinguished men in the law among them, and last of all was announced Lady Keith, rather a striking and very fashionable person, with her husband, Count Flahault, who, after being Napoleon’s aid-de-camp at the battle of Waterloo, offered his beauty and talents, both very much above the ordinary mark, to the above named noble heiress. I have seen few as striking-looking men as Count Flahault, and never a foreigner who spoke English so absolutely like a native of the country.