Jesus College, Cambridge, February 7, 1793.
I would to Heaven, my dear Miss Evans, that the god of wit, or news, or politics would whisper in my ear something that might be worth sending fifty-four miles—but alas! I am so closely blocked by an army of misfortunes that really there is no passage left open for mirth or anything else. Now, just to give you a few articles in the large inventory of my calamities. Imprimis, a gloomy, uncomfortable morning. Item, my head aches. Item, the Dean has set me a swinging imposition for missing morning chapel. Item, of the two only coats which I am worth in the world, both have holes in the elbows. Item, Mr. Newton, our mathematical lecturer, has recovered from an illness. But the story is rather a laughable one, so I must tell it you. Mr. Newton (a tall, thin man with a little, tiny, blushing face) is a great botanist. Last Sunday, as he was strolling out with a friend of his, some curious plant suddenly caught his eye. He turned round his head with great eagerness to call his companion to a participation of discovery, and unfortunately continuing to walk forward he fell into a pool, deep, muddy, and full of chickweed. I was lucky enough to meet him as he was entering the college gates on his return (a sight I would not have lost for the Indies), his best black clothes all green with duckweed, he shivering and dripping, in short a perfect river god. I went up to him (you must understand we hate each other most cordially) and sympathized with him in all the tenderness of condolence. The consequence of his misadventure was a violent cold attended with fever, which confined him to his room, prevented him from giving lectures, and freed me from the necessity of attending them; but this misfortune I supported with truly Christian fortitude. However, I constantly asked after his health with filial anxiety, and this morning, making my usual inquiries, I was informed, to my infinite astonishment and vexation, that he was perfectly recovered and intended to give lectures this very day!!! Verily, I swear that six of his duteous pupils—myself as their general—sallied forth to the apothecary’s house with a fixed determination to thrash him for having performed so speedy a cure, but, luckily for himself, the rascal was not at home. But here comes my fiddling master, for (but this is a secret) I am learning to play on the violin. Twit, twat, twat, twit! “Pray, M. de la Penche, do you think I shall ever make anything of this violin? Do you think I have an ear for music?” “Un magnifique! Un superbe! Par honneur, sir, you be a ver great genius in de music. Good morning, monsieur!” This M. de la Penche is a better judge than I thought for.
This new whim of mine is partly a scheme of self-defence. Three neighbours have run music-mad lately—two of them fiddle-scrapers, the third a flute-tooter—and are perpetually annoying me with their vile performances, compared with which the gruntings of a whole herd of sows would be seraphic melody. Now I hope, by frequently playing myself, to render my ear callous. Besides, the evils of life are crowding upon me, and music is “the sweetest assuager of cares.” It helps to relieve and soothe the mind, and is a sort of refuge from calamity, from slights and neglects and censures and insults and disappointments; from the warmth of real enemies and the coldness of pretended friends; from your well wishers (as they are justly called, in opposition, I suppose, to well doers), men whose inclinations to serve you always decrease in a most mathematical proportion as their opportunities to do it increase; from the
“Proud man’s contumely, and the spurns
Which patient merit of th’ unworthy takes;”
from grievances that are the growth of all times and places and not peculiar to this age, which authors call this critical age, and divines this sinful age, and politicians this age of revolutions. An acquaintance of mine calls it this learned age in due reverence to his own abilities, and like Monsieur Whatd’yecallhim, who used to pull off his hat when he spoke of himself. The poet laureate calls it “this golden age,” and with good reason,—
For him the fountains with Canary flow,
And, best of fruit, spontaneous guineas grow.
Pope, in his “Dunciad,” makes it this leaden age, but I choose to call it without an epithet, this age. Many things we must expect to meet with which it would be hard to bear, if a compensation were not found in honest endeavours to do well, in virtuous affections and connections, and in harmless and reasonable amusements. And why should not a man amuse himself sometimes? Vive la bagatelle!
I received a letter this morning from my friend Allen. He is up to his ears in business, and I sincerely congratulate him upon it—occupation, I am convinced, being the great secret of happiness. “Nothing makes the temper so fretful as indolence,” said a young lady who, beneath the soft surface of feminine delicacy, possesses a mind acute by nature, and strengthened by habits of reflection. ’Pon my word, Miss Evans, I beg your pardon a thousand times for bepraising you to your face, but, really, I have written so long that I had forgot to whom I was writing.
Have you read Mr. Fox’s letter to the Westminster electors? It is quite the political go at Cambridge, and has converted many souls to the Foxite faith.
Have you seen the Siddons this season? or the Jordan? An acquaintance of mine has a tragedy coming out early in the next season, the principal character of which Mrs. Siddons will act. He has importuned me to write the prologue and epilogue, but, conscious of my inability, I have excused myself with a jest, and told him I was too good a Christian to be accessory to the damnation of anything.