To ensure us good living besides.
Ye refiners, take angels and sylphs for your pains;
But grant me, ye gods! flesh and blood and blue veins,
And dear Dolly—dear Dolly Haynes.
I should not omit mentioning here an incident which at the time extremely amused me. A friend of mine, a barrister, whose extravagant ideas of refinement have frequently proved a source of great entertainment to me, was also a most enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Thomas Moore’s writings, prose and verse. I had read over to him the foregoing rather “of earthy” composition, to which he listened with a shrug of the shoulders and a contraction of the upper lip; and I was desirous of drawing out his opinion thereon by adverting to his own favourite bard.
“Here,” said I, “we have a fine illustration of the natural progress from refinement to sensuality—the amalgamation of which principles is so beautifully depicted by Mr. Thomas Moore in his ‘Loves of the Angels.’”
“Your observation is just,” replied my friend: “I cannot conceive why those elegant amours have been so much carped at—since their only object is to prove that flesh and blood is in very high estimation even with the spirituals.”
“What a triumph to mortality!” replied I.
“And why,” continued he, “should people be so very sceptical as to the authenticity of these angelic love-matches? surely there are no negative proofs; and are we not every day told by the gravest authorities that we are bound at our peril to believe divers matters not an atom more intelligible? For my part, I can’t comprehend why a poet should not be as credible a witness as a bishop on matters that are equally and totally invisible to both of them.”
“True,” observed I, smiling; “and the more so, as poets, generally residing nearer the sky than any other members of society, are likely to get better information.”