It appeared with the suddenness of a pantomimic trick, stayed longer than we had a right to expect, and was as rapidly succeeded by high wind, bitter cold, and winter snow, over hill and dale.
I am not surprised that you are so well pleased with Mr. Quillinan. The more you see of him the better you will like him. You ask what are my employments. According to Dr. Johnson they are such as entitle me to high commendation, for I am not only making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, but a dozen. In plain language, I am draining a bit of spungy ground.[109] In the field where this goes on I am making a green terrace that commands a beautiful view of our two lakes, Rydal and Windermere, and more than two miles of intervening vale with the stream visible by glimpses flowing through it. I shall have great pleasure in showing you this among the other returns which I hope one day to make for your kindness.
Adieu, yours,
W.W.[110]
69. Works of Webster, &c.: Elder Poets: Dr. Darwin: 'Excursion:' Collins, &c.
LETTER TO REV. ALEXANDER DYCE.
[No date, but Postmark, 1830.]
I am truly obliged, my dear Sir, by your valuable present of Webster's Dramatic Works and the 'Specimens.'[111] Your publisher was right in insisting upon the whole of Webster, otherwise the book might have been superseded, either by an entire edition separately given to the world, or in some corpus of the dramatic writers. The poetic genius of England, with the exception of Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Pope, and a very few more, is to be sought in her drama. How it grieves one that there is so little probability of those valuable authors being read except by the curious! I questioned my friend Charles Lamb whether it would answer for some person of real taste to undertake abridging the plays that are not likely to be read as wholes, and telling such parts of the story in brief abstract as were ill managed in the drama. He thought it would not. I, however, am inclined to think it would.
The account of your indisposition gives me much concern. It pleases me, however, to see that, though you may suffer, your industry does not relax; and I hope that your pursuits are rather friendly than injurious to your health.
You are quite correct in your notice of my obligation to Dr. Darwin.[112] In the first edition of the poem it was acknowledged in a note, which slipped out of its place in the last, along with some others. In putting together that edition, I was obliged to cut up several copies; and, as several of the poems also changed their places, some confusion and omission, and, in one instance, a repetition, was the consequence. Nothing, however, so bad as in the edition of 1820, where a long poem, 'The Lament of Mary Queen of Scots,' was by mistake altogether omitted. Another unpleasantness arose from the same cause; for, in some instances, notwithstanding repeated charges to the printer, you have only two Spenserian stanzas in a page (I speak now of the last edition) instead of three; and there is the same irregularity in printing other forms of stanza.
You must indeed have been fond of that ponderous quarto, 'The Excursion,' to lug it about as you did.[113] In the edition of 1827 it was diligently revised, and the sense in several instances got into less room; yet still it is a long poem for these feeble and fastidious times. You would honour me much by accepting a copy of my poetical works; but I think it better to defer offering it to you till a new edition is called for, which will be ere long, as I understand the present is getting low.