LETTER 416. TO MR. MURRAY. "Dear Moray, 66 "Ravenna, Marzo, 1821. In my packet of the 12th instant, in the last sheet (not the half sheet), last page, omit the sentence which (defining, or attempting to define, what and who are gentlemen) begins, I should say at least in life that most military men have it, and few naval; that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers,' &c. &c. I say, omit the whole of that sentence, because, like the cosmogony, or creation of the world,' in the Vicar of Wakefield,' it is not much to the purpose. 66 In the sentence above, too, almost at the top of the same page, after the words 'that there ever was, or can be, an aristocracy of poets,' add and insert these words-'I do not mean that they should write in the style of the song by a person of quality, or parle euphuism; but there is a nobility of thought and expression to be found no less in Shakspeare, Pope, and Burns, than in Dante, Alfieri, &c. &c. and so on. Or, if you please, perhaps you had better omit the whole of the latter digression on the vulgar poets, and insert only as far as the end of the sentence on Pope's Homer, where I prefer it to Cowper's, and quote Dr. Clarke in favour of its accuracy. 66 Upon all these points, take an opinion; take the sense (or nonsense) of your learned visitants, and act thereby. I am very tractable in PROSE. "Whether I have made out the case for Pope, I know not; but I am very sure that I have been zealous in the attempt. If it comes to the proofs, we shall beat the blackguards. I will show more imagery in twenty lines of Pope than in any equal length of quotation in English poesy, and that in places where they least expect it. For instance, in his lines on Sporus, now, do just read them over the subject is of no consequence (whether it be satire or epic) — we are talking of poetry and imagery from nature and art. Now, mark the images separately and arithmetically: "1. The thing of silk. 2. Curd of ass's milk. 3. The butterfly. 4. The wheel. 5. Bug with gilded wings. 6. Painted child of dirt. 7. Whose buzz. 8. Well-bred spaniels. 9. Shallow streams run dimpling. 10. Florid impotence. 11. Prompter. Puppet squeaks. 12. The ear of Eve. 13. Familiar toad. 14. Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad. 15. Fop at the toilet. 16. Flatterer at the board. 21. A reptile all the rest. 23. Pride that licks the dust. Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, "Now, is there a line of all the passage without the most forcible imagery (for his purpose)? Look at the variety at the poetry of the passage- -at the imagination: there is hardly a line from which a painting But this is nomight not be made, and is. thing in comparison with his higher passages in the Essay on Man, and many of his other poems, serious and comic. such an unjust outcry in this world as that which these fellows are trying against Pope. There never was "Ask Mr. Gifford if, in the fifth act of The Doge,' you could not contrive (where the following lines in Marino Faliero's anthe sentence of the Veil is passed) to insert swer? "But let it be so. It will be in vain: The veil which blackens o'er this blighted name, And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments, Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits Which glitter round it in their painted trappings, Your delegated slaves the people's tyrants. Which will be best, 'pictured purple,' or or painted purple?' know. 'painted trappings,' or 'pictured trappings,' Perpend, and let me "Yours truly, &c. little: you will all hear soon enough of a "P. S.-Upon public matters here I say general row throughout Italy. There never was a more foolish step than the expedition to Naples by these fellows. "I wish to propose to Holmes, the miniature painter, to come out to me this spring. I will pay his expenses, and any sum in reason. I wish him to take my daughter's picture (who is in a convent) and the Countess G.'s, and the head of a peasant girl, which latter would make a study for Raphael. It is a complete peasant face, but an Italian peasant's, and quite in the Raphael Fornarina style. Her figure is tall, but rather large, and not at all comparable to her face, which is really superb. She is not seventeen, and I am anxious to have her face while it lasts. Madame G. is also very handsome, but it is quite in a different style — com These lines- perhaps from some difficulty in introducing them were never inserted in the Tragedy. pletely blonde and fair- - very uncommon in Italy; yet not an English fairness, but more like a Swede or a Norwegian. Her figure, too, particularly the bust, is uncommonly good. It must be Holmes: I like him be cause he takes such inveterate likenesses. There is a war here; but a solitary traveller, with little baggage, and nothing to do with politics, has nothing to fear. Pack him up in the Diligence. Don't forget." LETTER 417. TO MR. HOPPNER. "Ravenna, April. 3. 1821. "Thanks for the translation. I have sent you some books, which I do not know whether you have read or no- you need not return them, in any case. I enclose you also a letter from Pisa. I have neither spared trouble nor expense in the care of the child; and as she was now four years old complete, and quite above the control of the servants and as a man living without any woman at the head of his house cannot much attend to a nursery — I had no resource but to place her for a time (at a high pension too) in the convent of Bagna-Cavalli (twelve miles off), where the air is good, and where she will, at least, have her learning advanced, and her morals and religion inculcated. 1 I had also another reason ;- things were and are in such a state here, that I had no reason to look upon my own personal safety as particularly insurable; and I thought the infant best out of harm's way, for the present. "It is also fit that I should add that I by no means intended, nor intend, to give a natural child an English education, because with the disadvantages of her birth, her after settlement would be doubly difficult. Abroad, with a fair foreign education and a portion of five or six thousand pounds, she might and may marry very respectably. In England such a dowry would be a pittance, while elsewhere it is a fortune. It is, besides, my wish that she should be a Roman Catholic, which I look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of Christianity. I have now explained my notions as to the place where she now is it is the best I could find for the present; but I have no prejudices in its favour. "I do not speak of politics, because it seems a hopeless subject, as long as those scoundrels are to be permitted to bully 1 With such anxiety did he look to this essential part of his daughter's education, that notwithstanding the many advantages she was sure to derive from the kind and feminine superintendence of Mrs. Shelley, his apprehensions, lest her feeling upon religious subjects might states out of their independence. me, "P. S. Believe Yours ever and truly. There is a report here of a change in France; but with what truth is not yet known. the best opinion' of her countrywomen; and "P. S.- My respects to Mrs. H. I have at my tinie of life, (three and thirty, 22d January, 1821,) that is to say, after the life I have led, a good opinion is the only rational one which a man should entertain of the whole sex-up to thirty, the worst possible opinion a man can have of them in general, the better for himself. Afterwards, it is a matter of no importance to them, nor to him either, what opinion he entertains—his day is over, or, at least, should be. 66 You see how sober I am become." Expect not life from pain nor danger free, Nor deem the doom of man reversed for thee.' You know my opinion of that secondhand school of poetry. You also know my high opinion of your own poetry, because it is of no school. I read Cenci - but, besides that I think the subject essentially undramatic, I am not an admirer of our old dramatists as models. I deny that the English have hitherto had a drama at all. Your Cenci, however, was a work of power, and poetry. As to my drama, pray revenge yourself upon it, by being as free as I have been with yours. 66 I have not yet got your Prometheus, which I long to see. I have heard nothing of mine, and do not know that it is yet published. I have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not like. Had I known that Keats was dead -or that he was alive and so sensitive-I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry, to which I was provoked by his attack upon Pope, and my disapprobation of his own style of writing. "You want me to undertake a great poem -I have not the inclination nor the power. As I grow older, the indifference not to life, for we love it by instinct - but to the stimuli of life, increases. Besides, this late failure of the Italians has latterly disappointed me for many reasons, some public, some personal. My respects to Mrs. S. "Yours ever. [Keats died at Rome in February, 1821, whither he had gone for the benefit of his health. His complaint was a consumption, under which he had lingered for some time; but his death was accelerated by a cold caught in his voyage to Italy. At the time of his death he had just completed his twenty-fourth year. "A loose, slack, not well-dressed youth met me," says Coleridge, “in a lane "Well, have you published the Tragedy? and does the Letter take? "Is it true, what Shelley writes me, that poor John Keats died at Rome of the Quarterly Review? I am very sorry for it, though I think he took the wrong line as a poet, and was spoilt by Cockneyfying, and suburbing, and versifying Tooke's Pantheon and Lempriere's Dictionary. I know, by experience, that a savage review is hemlock to a sucking author; and the one on me (which produced the English Bards, &c.) knocked me down-but I got up again. Instead of bursting a blood-vessel, I drank three bottles of claret, and began an answer, finding that there was nothing in the article for which I could lawfully knock Jeffrey on the head, in an honourable way. However, I would not be the person who wrote the homicidal article for all the honour and glory in the world, though I by no means approve of that school of scribbling which it treats upon. "You see the Italians have made a sad business of it—all owing to treachery and disunion amongst themselves. It has given me great vexation. The execrations heaped upon the Neapolitans by the other Italians are quite in unison with those of the rest of Europe. "Yours, &c. "Ravenna, April. 28. 1821. "You cannot have been more disappointed than myself, nor so much deceived. I have been so at some personal risk also, Howwhich is not yet done away with. ever, no time nor circumstances shall alter my tone nor my feelings of indignation against tyranny triumphant. The present business has been as much a work of treachery as of cowardice, though both may have done their part. If ever you and I meet again, I will have a talk with you upon the subject. At present, for obvious reasons, I can write but little, as all letters are opened. In mine they shall always find my sentiments, but nothing that can lead to the oppression of others. "You will please to recollect that the Neapolitans are nowhere now more execrated than in Italy, and not blame a whole | people for the vices of a province. That would be like condemning Great Britain because they plunder wrecks in Cornwall. And now let us be literary ; a sad falling off, but it is always a consolation. If Othello's occupation be gone,' let us take to the next best; and, if we cannot contribute to make mankind more free and wise, we may amuse ourselves and those who like it. What are you writing? I have been scribbling at intervals, and Murray will be publishing about now. "Lady Noel has, as you say, been dangerously ill, but it may console you to learn that she is dangerously well again. 66 I have written a sheet or two more of Memoranda for you; and I kept a little Journal for about a month or two, till I had filled the paper-book. I then left it off, as 1" Aye, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are," &c. &c. 2 I had not, when I wrote, seen this pamphlet, as he supposes, but had merely heard from some friends, that his pen had "run a-muck" in it, and that I myself had not escaped a slight graze in its career. 3 It may be sufficient to say of the use to which both Lord Byron and Mr. Bowles thought it worth their while to apply my name in this controversy, that, as far as my own knowledge of the subject extended, I was disposed to agree with neither of the extreme opinions into which, as things grew busy, and, afterwards, too gloomy to set down without a painful feeling. This I should be glad to send you, if I had an opportunity; but a volume, however small, don't go well by such posts as exist in this Inquisition of a country. 66 I have no news. As a very pretty woman said to me a few nights ago, with the tears in her eyes, as she sat at the harpsichord, Alas! the Italians must now return to making operas.' I fear that and maccaroni are their forte, and motley their only wear.' However, there are some high spirits among them still. Pray write. "And believe me, &c." LETTER 422. TO MR. MOORE. 66 Though I wrote to you on the 28th ultimo, I must acknowledge yours of this day, They are sublime, as well with the lines.' as beautiful, and in your very best mood and They are also but too true. Howmanner. ever, do not confound the scoundrels at the heel of the boot with their betters at the top of it. I assure you that there are some loftier spirits. "Nothing, however, can be better than your poem, or more deserved by the Lazzaroni. They are now abhorred and disclaimed nowhere more than here. We will talk over these things (if we meet) some day, and I will recount my own adventures, some of which have been a little hazardous, perhaps. "So, you have the Letter on Bowles?? got I do not recollect to have said any thing of you that could offend, - certainly, nothing intentionally. As for **, I meant him a compliment. I wrote the whole off-hand, without copy or correction, and expecting then every day to be called into the field. What have I said of you? I am sure I forget. It must be something of regret for your approbation of Bowles. And did you Would I had not approve, as he says? known that before! I would have given him some more gruel.3 My intention was to it appeared to me, my distinguished friends had diverged; -neither with Lord Byron in that spirit of partisanship which led him to place Pope above Shakspeare and Milton, nor with Mr. Bowles in such an application of the "principles " of poetry as could tend to sink Pope, on the scale of his art, to any rank below the very first. Such being the middle state of my opinion on the question, it will not be difficult to understand how one of my controversial friends should be as mistaken in supposing me to differ altogether from his views, as the other was in taking for granted that I had ranged myself wholly on his side. make fun of all these fellows; but how I succeeded, I don't know. "As to Pope, I have always regarded him as the greatest name in our poetry. Depend upon it, the rest are barbarians. He is a Greek Temple, with a Gothic Cathedral on one hand, and a Turkish Mosque and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles about him. You may call Shakspeare and Milton pyramids, if you please, but I prefer the Temple of Theseus or the Parthenon to a mountain of burnt brick-work. It was at this time that he began, under the title of" Detached Thoughts," that Book of Notices or Memorandums, from which, in the course of these pages, I have extracted so many curious illustrations of his life and opinions, and of which the opening article is as follows: "Amongst various Journals, Memoranda, Diaries, &c. which I have kept in the course of my living, I began one about three months ago, and carried it on till I had filled one paper-book (thinnish), and two sheets or so of another. I then left off, partly because I thought we should have some business here, and I had furbished up my arms and got my apparatus ready for taking a turn with the patriots, having my drawers full of their proclamations, oaths, and resolutions, and my lower rooms of their hidden weapons, of most calibres, and partly because I had filled my paper-book. "But the Neapolitans have betrayed themselves and all the worid; and those who would have given their blood for Italy can now only give her their tears. 66 Some day or other, if dust holds together, I have been enough in the secret (at least in this part of the country) to cast perhaps some little light upon the atrocious treachery which has replunged Italy into barbarism: at present, I have neither the time nor the temper. However the real Italians are not to blame; merely the scoundrels at the heel of the boot, which the Hun ["No saint in the course of his religious warfare," says Boswell, “was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves than Johnson. He said one day, talk now wears, and will trample them to ashes with for their servility. I have risked myself with the others here, and how far I may or may not be compromised is a problem at this moment. Some of them, like Craigengelt, would tell all, and more than all, to save themselves.' But, come what may, the cause was a glorious one, though it reads at present as if the Greeks had run away from Xerxes. Happy the few who have only to reproach themselves with believing that these rascals were less rascaille' than they proved! -Here in Romagna, the efforts were necessarily limited to preparations and good intentions, until the Germans were fairly engaged in equal warfare. -as we are upon their very frontiers, without a single fort or hill nearer than San Marino. Whether hell will be paved with those 'good intentions,' I know not; but there will probably be good store of Neapolitans to walk upon the pavement, whatever may be its composition. Slabs of lava from their mountain, with the bodies of their own damned souls for cement, would be the fittest causeway for Satan's Corso."" I "Ravenna, May 10. 1821 "I HAVE just got your packet. I am obliged to Mr. Bowles, and Mr. Bowles is obliged to me, for having restored him to good humour. He is to write, and you to publish, what you please,- motto and subject. desire nothing but fair play for all parties. Of course, after the new tone of Mr. Bowles, you will not publish my defence of Gilchrist : it would be brutal to do so after his urbanity, for it is rather too rough, like his own attack upon Gilchrist. You may tell him what I say there of his Missionary (it is praised, as ing to an acquaintance on this subject, Sir, hell is paved with good intentions."- Life, vol. v. p. 305. ed. 1835.' |