Chapter VI (2)

It grieves me that any waters should be thought necessary for Mr. Ellis; and I am particularly sorry that he intends making his visit to Harrogate a time for study. Do explain to him the danger of this. Many persons cannot with impunity even write a letter. I wish he would do as our Continental friends, who are often wiser in their generation, especially in what relates to care of themselves. They lay aside not only their wisdom, but their dignity, at those places, and take the goods the gods provide, though these may come in the shape of people who, like the witches of _Macbeth_, ‘are not inhabitants of earth’ (that is, of the _beau monde_), ‘though they are on it.’ My fears for Mr. Ellis are that he will lead a sedentary, refined, grand, and melancholy _old_ life, instead of the desultory, rambling, thought-dispelling existence which gives to these waters half their value.

I wish I could show you a bouncing, talking, conceited, squat, broad, rather plain, much adorned and little clothed Mrs. ——, who is _so_ like Punch in Petticoats, from the loud shrillness and continuance of her talk, the showiness of her dress, and the vehemence of her gestures. She whirls like a tee-totum, and rattles like the machine placed to scare birds from a cherry-tree. But I am like Mˡˡᵉ de Fontanges (_vide_ Sévigné), who said, on being offered liqueurs, ‘_Madame, ce petit garçon oublie que je suis dévote_’—only I am _myself_ forgetting my resolutions, which is worse.

* * * * *

1818.—The following little sketch was never, so far as I know,
even written out. I find it complete, but in the rough, with
the erasures and interlineations of a first draft. It was
intended to be one of a series, as is plain from a few lines
written on the same sheet of paper, in which the writer says,
‘When we abound with writers who describe every object on every
side, why should not one painter, taking up a lighter pencil
and using a fainter colour, indicate rather than detail, and
thus invite attention to real life by slight sketches, rather
than by the fulness and perfection of a finished Dutch picture?’

HOLLAND HOUSE.

BY THE GHOST OF LA BRUYÈRE.

Aurelio has no desire more powerful than that of rivalling, perhaps excelling, Holland House. Alas! poor Aurelio! In our time at least Holland House will never know a competitor. It has all that London requires—an honourable name, entwined and illustrated with recollections of Charles Fox—delightful amenity, fine understanding, and a most benevolent and upright heart in the noble host—in our hostess, who always keeps her state, talents, caprice, some beauty, and infinite imperiousness, forming a spirited contrast with one or two points in her position—in short, the zest of many contrarieties, as piquant as the infinite variety of her cook, a man, ‘take him for all in all, we ne’er shall look upon his like again.’ To have him in our mind’s eye alone, would be the torment of Tantalus; therefore, when he departs, we can only hope to forget him; for alas! the cook, like the actor, lives but in the present; unless, indeed, he succeed in giving his name to some dish which may carry it down to the remotest posterity with that of Robert, Maintenon, Véry. While such a cook covers the table, and the flower of our wits and poets surround it, while more good things are eaten and said there than in any other circle of the same magnitude in the civilized world, Holland House must ever remain unrivalled.

* * * * *

_Jan. 1, 1819._—I opened the _Anti-Jacobin_ lately, and was shocked at Canning’s lines on Mad. de Staël. At the same time, I was pleased to see how twenty years have increased our refinement, and added to the rank and prerogative of woman. All parties blame Croker for his coarse and savage _critique_ on Lady Morgan, under cover of reviewing her _France_; yet it is milk and water, both in mildness and purity, when compared with the lines on Mad. de Staël, which then lay on every young lady’s table; though now every man would reprobate, and every woman wish to disown having seen it. I see Canning always laughed at many subjects which were unfit subjects for a jest.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Feb. 22, 1819.

I can well appreciate the kindness which leads you to communicate your sorrows to me; and I think myself highly honoured by the power of infusing any portion of that balm you so well deserve to receive from the hands of friendship. I am very much impressed in reading the annals of those whom you regard, by seeing how much the stroke of final separation is lightened both to the sufferer and survivors (who are often indeed the severest sufferers), by the blameless lives, close ties of family affection, and temperate habits, which are more frequently found among those of your persuasion than any other. I do not mean to draw any inference tending to flattery: you can understand an opinion in all its bearings; and to you explanation is unnecessary.

The stings of death arising from those errors and those crimes, from which the sobriety and staid simplicity of the Friends happily keep them at a distance; the indifference of relatives, who in their career of ambition have hardly time, if their aspiring pursuits left them inclination, to watch the couch of departing life; the complicated ailments produced by the madness of luxurious tables and studied refinements of indolence and ease,—from such your Society seem in general happily exempt, and fall, like the nipped blossom or the ripened fruit, by an end, ‘without sin, without shame, and as free from pain as may be.’ Such was the end prayed for by the good Bishop Wilson, and may such be ours.

I read Buxton _On Prisons_ last Christmas. It interested me greatly; and I was happy to see another ray of light thrown on those abodes of wretchedness. The force and closeness of his reasoning are admirable. His introduction is a masterpiece: never, perhaps, was so much explained, and so many errors unanswerably confuted, in a few words. He gives a new idea of the duty of society towards prisoners. To me he was peculiarly gratifying; because I had always entertained the opinions he maintains, and had _suffered_ myself to be persuaded that in _me_ they arose from the weakness of my heart.

Our Queen was estimable in essentials; but she was not beloved even by her family, if we except her good, kind husband. We cannot be surprised if she was little regretted by her people. Her age and sufferings had prepared the good, and the unfeeling do not see that any affectation of sorrow is called for.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.

London, March 10, 1819.

I wish to send you Rogers’ new poem. It is rather too largely entitled _Human Life_: it is the _beau ideal_ of the life of an English country gentleman, from his cradle to his tomb, and is exquisitely touched; but to relish it one must love the country, and love one’s children, and be alive to all the minutiæ of domestic life; for though our country gentleman is a _soldier_ and a _senator_, yet his retirement forms by far the longest, as well as the most beautiful, part of the poem. It is not much relished in my little London—is called flat, prosaic, and dull; but _the public_ have bought it with avidity.

TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

London, March 18, 1819.

I should feel ungrateful if I deferred thanking you for the pleasure your last poem has given me. You deserve the peculiar gratitude of every fond mother, for you have divined, embodied, and immortalized the tenderest and the purest feelings of her existence. In looking back, the only days I earnestly desire to recall, are those which glided away while I was ‘girt with growing infancy,’ and read in the eyes and the smiles of my children, who were affectionate and beautiful, a promise of happiness, such as this world can never fulfil.

You have given us the _beau ideal_ of the life of an English gentleman, and conquered the very difficult task of rendering highly poetical that of which the original, divested of the beautiful colouring you have thrown upon it, is daily before our eyes. Without availing yourself of distance of time, or of place, of excitement, or of an appeal to any but our best feelings, you, like our own Apelles, have given to portraits of simple, unsophisticated, virtuous English nature, the dignity of historic painting, and the graces of fiction.

They who can read your thirty-eighth page without tears, I should suppose are few.[60] To me it was peculiarly affecting from the circumstances of my past life; but I must not allow myself to select gems from the casket, and now with much difficulty I shall restrain myself from saying more.

It is so pleasant both to feel and to express admiration, that I know you will forgive me for having thus obtruded mine.

* * * * *

_March 24, 1819, London._—The Automaton chess-player faces the spectators, seated at what appears to be a table, upon which his chess-board is placed. He wears a rich Turkish habit, sleeves and vest of gold stuff, a dark green mantle like a lady’s triangular shawl, trimmed with fur, a white turban and heron’s feather. His right hand is extended gracefully on the table, his attitude is dignified, his aspect grave, and his countenance of that class we of the present day often designate as a Kemble face. One is surprised on first viewing him, at feeling a strong impression of sadness, and somewhat of awe, from his complete immobility, as connected with so close an imitation of life. After a few minutes, one of the spectators, who has engaged him many nights before, ventures to attack this representation of destiny, and concedes to him the right of opening the game.

A slight noise is heard of winding up, and the fateful figure raises its left hand—‘that hand whose motion is not life,’ for Lord Byron’s expressions must cross us everywhere we go. This inauspicious hand, which bears some resemblance to the talon of a bird of prey, although covered with a white glove, now lifts its pawn, and drops it in another place with a slight, but hard and bony noise. The humble-looking opponent plays his best, but his schemes are thwarted, and his pieces inexorably taken, the Automaton always putting them aside before he places his own, differing in this alone from the living player, in whom these movements are usually simultaneous. The game goes on, the spectators take part with their fellow-mortal—whisper—advise. He is puzzled with their hints, and somewhat appalled by engaging an unknown and mysterious power. The very buzz and delay of winding up increases his embarrassment. Once when he was slower than usual, the handsome right hand tapped on the table as if to reprove his tardiness; and the poor player seemed fearful of having made his opponent wait too long. At last the talon-like hand, after pouncing like a bird of prey upon several of his adversary’s best pieces with an alarming air of unwavering volition, checks his king and castle. The Automaton, secure of a speedy victory, nods his head with an air of conscious superiority, like the statue in _Don Juan_. A few moves finish the game, which has lasted about half an hour, and a fresh adversary advances to a fresh defeat.

This invincible champion is engaged for above a hundred nights. He has never yet been conquered in England. This is the triumph of mechanism; no one has yet discovered, or made any plausible guess how the impulse of the real player is communicated to the figure. Many persons seem to think it owes its power of playing chess better than all its opponents to its original formation; and that its capability of motion and skill in the game are inseparably united. Some only admire how neatly he takes up his pieces. After he has played, he and his table—for they are one and indivisible—are rolled away, and succeeded by an Automaton Trumpeter, who is complete from top to toe, and represents a large portion of mankind, for he holds up his head, is a fine military figure, dresses well, _se présente bien_, beats time correctly, and plays two marches in good tune. Many come in, aye, and go out too, of the world, in this their vocation, who do little more.

There is no visible communication between the Automaton chess-player and any human being. The lower part of the table, which is shaped like a chest on the side where it meets the eye of the spectators, is not large enough to admit a man, nor could any one so placed view the chess-board. He and it are rolled about without mystery or hesitation. His possessor walks or stands near him, with apparent carelessness, and lays down the pieces he has taken from his adversary in the course of the game, but has no other communication. He plays by day, and the room in an evening is fully lighted. There is some little trick, however, in the Automaton’s appearing invincible, as he allows but an hour in the evening, and half that time in the morning, for any game; and it is easy to conceive that a skilful player, who might not be capable of always winning, might in every instance have the power of protracting a game so as not to lose it within an hour.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Salthill, May 17, 1819.

I seize a quiet hour at Salthill, where we came yesterday for the purpose of breathing a little fresh air, and sitting under the shade of the lime-trees, to converse with you in peace, to ask of the health and welfare of your friends and family, and to complain a little of my own—I mean of my health, which has never been passable for four-and-twenty hours together since I left the country. You, I am sure, wonder why I came to town, and why I stay there; but you must know London operates as a magnet when one is absent from it, and is full of the _glue_ Mad. de Sévigné speaks of as abounding in the society of _les dévots du Faubourg_—I forget which,—when one is in it. Be dissipated or domestic, sick or well, good or bad, wise or foolish, London, once tasted, will be required again and again. This is a mystery, and I leave it to wiser heads to explain. It is a good hint to country gentlemen not to be too anxious to give their wives a sip of this enchanted Cup.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.

London, July 2, 1819.

_Mazeppa_, like some portraits of the Regent by Cosway, is rather a description of the Horse and his Rider than _vice versâ_. The horse is certainly the hero. Where he and Mazeppa are united, all the pictures of this new Centaur are hold, impressive, and energetic. We are breathless with suspense and terror during Mazeppa’s perilous course, which recals, and perhaps excels in force and beauty, that of Leonora’s unknown horseman. It seems as if the author had tried his strength, in awaking so deep an interest without displaying any other feeling of the mind than the mere instinct of self-preservation, as in ancient Greek tragedies our sympathy is excited by an excess of physical suffering alone. Mazeppa’s indifference to the fate of his mistress is something worse than I could have expected even from the proverbial ingratitude of man.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Cheltenham, Aug. 8, 1819.

My recollections of Anna Seward are as favourable as gratitude for the most sedulous desire on her part to receive with marked kindness the visitor introduced by her Llangollen friends can make them. You shall have them copied _verbatim_ from my journal when I return.[61] Her genius seemed of an order calculated to take much higher flights than she ever accomplished. The growth of her wing was impeded by ‘too much cherishing.’ She lived in the relaxing atmosphere of a country town, where she was indubitably superior to all the women and most of the men in mental gifts and attainments, and though not absolutely beautiful, her personal attractions were considerable—two circumstances adverse to the expansion of talent. ‘_Trop d’encouragement lasse le génie_,’ says Mad. de Staël, an accurate observer of external life and internal feelings; and the more personal advantages a woman possesses, the farther she is removed by man from that tone of equality which would tend to her improvement. While young he too often looks at her as his prize or his prey, his friend, his enemy, or his victim, to render her even-handed justice. And when old, he considers it as something inherently ridiculous that she should wither away, according to the universal law of nature, and deems her change ‘from fair to foul’ (as Lord Byron uncivilly calls it, when speaking of his mistress) a fit subject for all his powers of ridicule. A country town also is a nursery of much vanity in those who are superior to their companions. Each remarkable person is usually unrivalled in his own department; and the dissipation is more constant, more from morning till night, and more _dozy_ and stupefying than in a capital. Her _Letters_, I own, I had not patience to read through. Her account of living characters seemed to me prolix and dull, though I had no right to complain, being dismissed with the laconic phrase of ‘amiable, lovely, and accomplished.’ It would have required much higher sauce to bribe me to go through the book.

TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.

Cheltenham, Aug. 8, 1819.

If I were in danger, I could not be removed in a better time, _provided it is suitable to my eternal interests_; for I should leave all the people I most love prosperous and happy, and all, except your dear self, in good health. I have a sufficiency for all my boys, and the most complete union and affection in my family; and I should escape the steep part of the down hill, for as yet many circumstances have combined to hide from me that I was going down. My husband being much younger than the husbands of my cotemporaries, my children being young, the cheerfulness of my temper when well, and my freedom from the common cares of advancing years, have all combined to keep me in a comfortable atmosphere of youthfulness, which could not have lasted many years longer. Besides, from the multifarious accidents of life, a few added years might give me the pain of losing some of the dear objects of my affection. So, to return, _provided it were suitable to my eternal interests_, I could not go in a better time; yet, I assure you, I would much prefer staying with those I love.

* * * * *

_Oct., 1819._—A letter full of the most awful details relative to the Duke of Richmond’s death. They shall not darken this paper. On so awful an infliction, from which no care can insure us, and which may at any moment occur to us or ours, it is best not to fix our eyes too steadily. One circumstance only it may not be wholly unprofitable to keep in mind. The bite was inflicted by an _irritated_ animal—a fox, which had been confined, escaped to the woods, was retaken, and became enraged at being again subject to confinement. I remember the Duke of Richmond in Ireland, when, as Col. Lennox, he was an object of universal admiration to the young of both sexes. His duel with the Duke of York seemed to have something in it chivalrous, displaying a recklessness of all selfish considerations. We knew little of the particulars, but this mystery increased our respect. He was supposed to excel in all manly exercises, and that was a higher praise in those days than it is in these more intellectual times. He was said to be the finest formed man in England, and his playing at cricket was praised as an exquisite display of grace, strength, and skill. When Lord Buckingham was Secretary in Lord Westmoreland’s Administration, he gave parties in the Phœnix Park, where the _élite_ of the young men played cricket, while Lady Westmoreland and a few young women, either of the highest station or selected from the beauties of that time (and in those days beauty was itself a dignity), sat in a tent as spectators. The writer is ashamed to say, that such is her propensity to _ennui_ under the smallest constraint or continuity of enforced pleasure, she has suffered greatly under the delights of these parties, and was too well prepared to answer the question, ‘_Est-ce que je m’amuse?_’ Yet by those who never were invited how much were they desired; how much were the initiated envied by those who were hopeless of admission. Cricket was succeeded by a dinner; cards and dancing filled up the interval till the appearance of a supper, twin brother to the dinner; and then by the light of the waning moon or rising dawn, we parted to drive through the beautiful scenery of the Park.

* * * * *

_Nov. 10._—Yesterday evening I tried to read Boccaccio, in order to find a tale to amuse my children. The language may be very fine and very pure, but the stories in general are so cumbrously told, so loaded with unnecessary circumstance, so coarsely indecent, and so brutally cruel, that I cannot but wonder at the reputation of this work. Impurity without wit, and _dénouements_ of assault and battery, are to be found in almost every page of the tales that mean to be gay. Yet a few of them are charming, and I love to see the mine where Shakespeare found so much valuable ore.

* * * * *

_Nov. 19._—An amendment in health disposes us to look on all around us with a favourable eye. I am not surprised that the gradual recovery of spirits incident to humanity, when it begins to ‘wear down’ a great sorrow, has sometimes induced men hastily to marry, without much apparent temptation, when the first affliction for a beloved wife was fading into calm regret. This action has been a theme for obloquy to all professors of sentiment, somewhat more than it deserves. It is rather a symptom of that easiness of being pleased which attends recovery of mind or body, than one of fickleness. Last winter I found this house disagreeable, dark, confined, small. I was going down the hill, as to health. This year, in the gloomy month of November, I think it comfortable, compact, convenient; I am ascending in the scale, and see a better prospect around me.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.

London, Dec., 1819.

I fear Lord Carysfort will not long be one of this world. When I saw him yesterday his Bible was before him. He seemed like a traveller consulting the map of his approaching journey. There is no end to the feelings and reflections awakened by the sight of a friend in a precarious state of health, reading his Bible. I love the emphatic cottage expression, _his_ Bible, _her_ Bible—that claim of property in this Book, which is peculiar, I believe, to the English language in common life.

We are all reading Lord John Russell’s _Life of the Lord Russell_—an interesting work, written in a tone of temper, candour, and moderation worthy of the subject. Burnet’s _History_, and Lady Russell’s _Letters_, have furnished the gems, but they are well set, and the book is honourable to its author. Miss Bury, Lord Orford’s niece, has edited a few of Lady Russell’s letters, omitted in the first collection of hers, published half a century before our time. These letters have all a certain degree of interest from the lustre of _her_ name, and of _his_ to whom they were addressed; for most of them are to her husband, and they are preceded by a pleasing and well written _Life of Lady Russell_, by the editor. The whole is scarcely worth offering to the public as a volume, though the memoir and a few of the letters might have graced a miscellaneous collection.

* * * * *

_Dec. 24, 1819._—Dear Mrs. C—— closed her long and virtuous life on the 15th, with a calmness and resignation often granted to the evening of such a day. She suffered no pain or uneasiness, and was favoured with a renovation of those mental faculties which so long lay dormant. She was an only child, and educated with the most unbounded indulgence; married very young to one whom she immediately accompanied to the bosom of his family, in another kingdom. Transplanted, when little more than a child and eminently beautiful, to a distance from all her friends and advisers, her conduct was irreproachable as a young wife, a young mother, and a young widow. In her second marriage to one who in years might have been her father, she showed the same discretion and affectionate propriety of conduct that distinguished the earlier part of her life. Her character was of that tranquil, unassuming order which dazzles not at first, but shines more brightly the longer it is examined. She was esteemed, respected, and beloved. Her beauty was not the majestic, nor the brilliant; it neither awed nor dazzled; but it was feminine loveliness of the most attractive, winning description. Her delicate and finely formed features, of delightful expression, were set off by a thousand graces of voice, language, manners, and deportment. She was anxious to be loved, and pleased at being admired. She was religious, kind-hearted, hospitable, social, gentle, prudent; and neither severity nor envy ever approached her heart. In my connexion with her I never remember aught but kindness, partial kindness, approving, applauding, nay, even admiring, from the first hour in which she adopted me to the last of our intercourse.

TO THE LADY FANNY PROBY.

Bursledon Lodge, Dec., 1819.

Your good wishes have been fulfilled as to the health and spirits of your friend. I have had but one day of painful headache since my return to the little green nest, which is now almost entirely overgrown by the luxuriance of this summer’s extraordinary spirit of vegetation. We are beginning to cut our way out, as they do in the forests of America; but, as far as good will goes, with more difficulty; for though we both acknowledge in theory the necessity of admitting the breeze and the sunbeam, yet each patronizes every particular tree, shrub, or plant, which the other proposes to remove. I hope you can give me a favourable account of Lady —— and her _latest treasure_, and that you now enjoy the pleasure of seeing her free from the anxiety and apprehension that, even in her serene well-regulated mind, must occur on the eve of an event of so mixed a nature. It is really the ‘web of mingled yarn,’ where fear and hope, pain and pleasure, are more closely and abruptly mingled and entwined than in any other incident of common recurrence.

Have you read the new _Tales of my Landlord_? The catastrophe of the _Bride of Lammermoor_ is unnatural, and so shocking, that its truth should rather have been a reason for consigning it to oblivion, than for embodying it in a work of imagination. In _Montrose_ we meet an _oglio_ of all the strange and horrid events contained in Walter Scott’s notes to a former work, yet it has to me, as far as I have gone, a sort of wild interest.

I have just received verses as wonderful, with reference to the age of the writer, as any can be; an _Ode to the Duke of Wellington_, and other poems, Greek, Latin, and English, written between the age of eleven and fourteen, by the youngest son of Sir George Dallas. They are, I believe, allowed to be the best ever written by a boy so young; yet they do not inspire with the idea that young Dallas will be a great poet. They are more to be admired for finished neatness and exact knowledge of the technical part of poetry than for strong impressions of nature and of life. Their merits are more the effects of a fine ear, and a memory filled by what has been said by other poets, than of deep feeling and close observation of realities.

* * * * *

_Dec. 13, 1819._—I saw Lord —— yesterday. He is said to have been much afflicted by the loss of his valuable wife. Oh how I envied one who, after such an affliction, in looks, in voice, in calmness, in propriety of manner, is exactly as before, in less than three months. I know that time wears down the appearance of every sorrow in us all, but happy are they in whom this effect is so soon produced. This is not, as some might think, a criticism in masquerade, or an assumption of superior sensibility. No, it is a real expression of a simple feeling. If we examine the cause of our criticizing a too rapid forgetfulness of the departed, we may find it proceeds from selfishness; we do not like to be reminded how soon we may be forgotten ourselves.

* * * * *

_Dec. 31._—It is not wholly our refinement, as we are apt to think, which has banished social and sprightly amusements from our drawing-rooms. Commerce, contracts, loans, and war prices have poured an influx of wealth into hands not hitherto in contact with the Corinthian pillars of society. Many persons were suddenly raised, as well by wealth as by alliances, places, and Court favours, to mingle with those, of whom some boast a long line of distinguished ancestors, others all the advantages of the best education, and not a few unite both. The patricians were not delighted with the intimacy with such persons which playing at cards for a low stake, private acting, domestic dancing without the formality of previous preparation, or small plays, naturally produced; nor in general could the merely wealthy shine, where ease, sprightliness, and accomplishment were required. Accordingly they invited their noble friends to splendid dinners in apartments of Eastern magnificence; and from the moment these invitations were accepted, our English nobility declined from those habits of simple enjoyment by which they were formerly distinguished. They were disinclined to be much inferior in _recherche_ and expense to these new acquaintances, and invited them to entertainments more luxurious and more formal than they had themselves habitually given—more luxurious from contagion, more formal, in part to preserve their own dignity—thus adding insensibly to the far-sought delicacies of the table, and the ornament of their houses; till at last all society, saving Almack’s, which is a ‘bright particular star,’ and that dignified delightful scene of dozing, the Ancient Music, has taken one uniform colour. The duke, the commoner, the contractor, all _entertain_, as it is called, in gay apartments, full of pomp and gold;

‘And one eternal dinner swallows all.’

TO A SON (aged 14).

Bursledon Lodge, Feb., 1820.

Our good King’s death made an impression of melancholy on my mind, though I had only seen him in the usual way at the Queen’s Drawing-rooms. But I can never forget the paternal benevolence of his manner—banishing awe, without diminishing reverence. When presented to him, I partook of the usual feeling experienced by all who have lived to womanhood in a country where they never could see a king, and I was intimidated at the idea of being under the eye of a monarch; but the kindliness of his manner soon removed all my little feminine bashfulness; and from that day, whenever I went to the Drawing-room, I used to watch for his approach with pleasure.

His character, I think, will take a high place in history. He was sometimes, I believe, mistaken in the line of his duty; but he always pursued the road his conscience pointed out; and if we weigh his conduct with his temptations, and consider his justice, temperance, piety, purity, domestic affections, humility, and patience, I know not whether we could safely say, his dominions contained a better man.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.

Bursledon Lodge, Feb., 1820.

Our fears are now gradually subsiding. They were artfully excited by both extremes—by the Radicals, and by the friends of arbitrary power. _Both_ have gained their point. Strong and unpopular laws have passed; and discontent has increased. I pity the Moderates, the constitutional Whigs, the temperate zone, in short. Between the _frottement_ of opposite tendencies to anarchy and despotism, they have a chance of being _un peu froissé_. As I rank my best friends and myself in this class, I look on it with double interest.

I do not like to talk or write of our good King’s death. Some noble mind will, I hope, do justice to his admirable qualities. They were so equally tempered, and his line of conduct so undeviating, that it requires meditation to see the full beauty of a character which was not set off by contrast, nor affected us with any surprise. It is too much the custom to blame him individually for the wars we have _endured_—for war is but another name for suffering, to the victors as well as the vanquished. If he erred on this point, he erred with a great proportion of his people, and some of the strongest minds in his dominions.

Lord A. has left us after a short visit. He was more alive to general subjects than he has been for some time, not being so much smothered in petticoats as he was lately. There passed a moment when his society was all composed of us ‘fair defects,’ and certainly his mind requires stronger food than the pap we can offer him. I never knew a man live entirely with women who did not suffer from it more or less.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Feb., 1820.

I do not believe Hayley is a man of bad character; he is loved and admired by some of the most respectable. I paid him a visit last autumn; a friend of his brought me to his little villa, near Bognor, by appointment. He lives in the prettiest nutshell possible, a miniature paradise; no _luxe_ about it, except that of extreme neatness; and fine pictures; Romney, painted by the artist himself, Cowper, Charlotte Smith, Gibbon, and others of celebrity, graced his walls; and he pleased himself and me by showing me beautiful portraits of his wife, his mother, and other relations. We then walked round his small garden, strolled on his velvet lawn, and returned to drink coffee, which he always does at two, the coffee being accompanied with various other matters for his guests. Afterwards we returned to his drawing-room and pianoforte, where he showed me several songs, chiefly _sacred_, of which the words were either by Cowper or himself, and he seemed pleased that I could play and sing them at sight; for I still retain my voice, and, though I have no time to practise, it does not seem inclined to leave me, which I wonder at. I think he said he was seventy-five. He _did_ lately marry a young wife, but _that_ ‘crime,’ according to Sheridan, ‘carries the punishment along with it;’ they soon quarrelled, and parted, for the bard who sang so sweetly the ‘Triumphs of Temper,’ is said to be somewhat irritable and irascible; the lady was so too, and expected he would have done nothing for the rest of his life but sing her praises. His look and manner denote impatience, curbed by good breeding; and his nieces seem much afraid of him; so, I perceived, did his visitors and old friends. I think his manner and the expression of his face create awe rather than put one at one’s ease. At least such was the impression upon me.

TO A FRIEND.

Bursledon Lodge, Feb. 10, 1820.

I cannot defer a moment in writing to you on an event so interesting as our dear ——’s marriage. I have been informed that, as to the externals of life, her choice is not that which her parents would naturally have made. In this there is one bright side, that it is her unbiassed choice—unbiassed not only by the wishes of others, but by any of those mixed motives, calculations of ambition or interest, which so often lead to disappointment, and sometimes induce the young to part with their liberty, where they do not _love_ so much as they ought, either for their own happiness or that of their husbands. Those women who choose for themselves undoubtedly become the best wives, and I am sure, from the warmth and tenderness of ——’s disposition, that her affection as a daughter will receive a strong accession from her grateful sense of your kindness and that of Mr. —— in yielding to her on this important point. Of that she will feel the merit still more, if she herself becomes a mother.

I am anxious to hear from you, for I know by experience, that for one’s children one hopes to attain opposite advantages, both from the right hand and from the left; and that any event respecting them which does not almost unite irreconcileable blessings, displeases one at first; but a little time passes away, imagination ceases to operate, every feature in the prospect bears its due proportion, and one is somewhat surprised on recollecting one’s first uneasiness and displeasure.

TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.

Bursledon Lodge, Feb. 17, 1820.

I hope the circumstances of ——’s intended marriage are more favourable than Mrs. —— represents them. In one’s first vexation one sees only the dark side, and one overlooks every little sunny spot. I wrote, as you advised, but I thought it kindest to write immediately, because your dear self, and many others, have found comfort from being presented at the first moment of intense feeling with a different view of things from their own. Besides, she might have felt embarrassment in announcing a circumstance of some mortification (some one says, women always feel as if a misfortune were a disgrace), and I thought a peace-making letter might spare her this slight pain, and be of some little use. As to —— and her lover having behaved so ill, though I am now a mother, not a daughter, I still think, and even more than I did then, that we owe great indulgence in these cases to the young, when the feeling is love, the purpose marriage, and the parties unmarried. This is an opinion every one acts upon, though few have the sincerity to own it. Therefore parents would save themselves much trouble by being mild and gentle at first.

* * * * *

_March 15, 1820._—I see that last Sunday deprived me of an old and tried friend, E—— C——. His love for Colonel St. George, his friendly and almost fatherly regard for the young girl who, as St. George’s wife, was at once brought from retirement and quiet to the turmoil of a most dissipated capital, the vivid affection in which he _seemed_ enwrapt for a short period on the commencement of my widowhood, which he allowed me to repress without painful explanations, the original foundation of friendship which all this left behind, and his late efficient kindness to my dear Charles, will often revive in my recollection. There was an individuality about him which is rare, and is becoming more so every day. His manly frankness, his good nature, doubly valuable because one saw it sprang from a vigorous root, his spirit of enjoyment, simplicity, classical taste, and quick intelligence, made him a most pleasant companion. He was self-poised; his manner was alike to all, the same in all society, because he valued not more than they deserved those adventitious circumstances which are dependent on the breath of a circle. Though his life was devoted to his profession, and perhaps shortened by his attention to its duties, he was without ambition, sought neither honours nor emoluments, and he closed it retired in the bosom of his family, towards whom a long absence had not impaired his affection.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

London, March 22, 1820.

The Ancient Music was delightful to-day—the singing middling. I, who have heard Mrs. Billington’s ‘They have triumphed gloriously,’ like a brilliant and magnificent rainbow, can only be _astonished_ by the clearness and sweetness of Mrs. Salmon’s or Miss Stephens’ exertions. I was delighted with Jomelli’s Berenice, from _Lucio Vero_. The recitative is sublimely pathetic, and the _moans_ of the accompaniment make it absolutely a fine duet. I allow that in the song the voice accompanies the instrument; but this is no more a defect, when it suits the situation, than Satan being Milton’s hero. I met Rogers and Henry Sanford; both of whom were amusing. The poet was unfeignedly glad to see me, gave me a seat, and sat by me. I went late, and but for his exertions in bringing me to a place I had not seen, should not have found one for some time, as it was quite full. He recommended to me Grétry _On Music_. I tried to make him say a word in honour of H——; dumb as the dead! his countenance even did not show that he heard me.

Do not order anything unpleasant, or say anything in the way of reproof to the tenants, while you are in Ireland. Let your arrows fly like the Parthians’.

TO MRS. —— (a god-daughter).

London, March 29, 1820.

You are aware I am acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. —— having given but a reluctant consent to your marriage. This occurs so often in the course of events, without any cause to blame either side, that there is no indelicacy in my mentioning it. All I wish to graft on it is this—_You_ have carried your point; if I may so express myself, _you_ have gained the victory; _they_ are in the novel and irksome situation of having given up their wishes, and given them up to _one_ whom they have been accustomed to expect should yield to _them_. Let me, then, entreat you not to take the smallest offence at anything that may occur on their part, particularly during this moment of unavoidable irritation; and on your side, recollect that every concession, every small quiet attention, every degree of _filial humility_, is honourable and becoming to an affectionate daughter and a young wife. Mr. —— will have sufficient complaisance for you cheerfully to concur in this pleasing task. When I think of your dear father’s advanced age, how I grieve there should be a shadow of coldness between him and the beloved of his heart. _You_ may put an end to it when you please. Believe a mother on this head. Our children would be omnipotent in their influence over us, if they knew the effect of the most trifling proof of their affection.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

London, March 29, 1820.

I made my _débût_ as a diner-out at ——’s yesterday. He sacrifices his good sense at the shrine of party, loudly boasting of ultra-Toryism, and crying, ‘My Tory principles go farther than yours; I am really a Tory; _I_ think the Manchester meeting _was_ illegal’ (by the bye, that discussion is quite gone by). This was chiefly addressed to a quiet guest, who avowed different principles, but seemed determined not to argue with his Amphitryon. F——, H——, and his ministerial friends appear to shrink from his assistance, and to deprecate his entering into discussion. Lady R. seemed displeased that Lord —— should be a peer, and Sir John nothing—but a baronet; asked me spitefully where Lady —— was _now_, as if she was not most probably with her husband. I repaid her by telling her how much the King loved _his Lordship_, and what fine things _his Majesty_ had said of him to me. She returned this blow by talking of women who died suddenly of water on the chest, and bringing it home to such invalids as I am—and so do ladies carry on the war. Mrs. F. has discovered that our relations came to London too late in life, and had much better fix somewhere else, politely inferring that it will not be in their power to pierce the dense column of good society. She intended to please me, on common family principles.... You may see I have been associating too much with women, having descended from general and elevating subjects to those which are particular and lowering, from _la vie intérieure_ to its opposite.

I sang pretty well, as some tell me with polite surprise; but as I know I _must_ grow old, and am anxious to preserve the amusement of singing a few years longer, I enjoy the sweet, and am insensible to the bitter, of the compliment. The truth is, my timidity, or _mauvaise honte_, or what you will, is weaker, and less depresses my voice, which therefore seems stronger.

* * * * *

_April, 1820._—Attended Dr. Crotch’s lecture on music at the Royal Institution.

‘The student should distrust his own taste, and also that of any master who advises a scholar to copy _him_ exclusively. He must distrust the oracles of fashion. Fashion can operate neither as a guide, nor yet as a beacon, being sometimes right, and sometimes wrong. He must carefully distinguish applause from fame. The first may be given from various causes, independent of merit, and may be only temporary; while fame is the consolidated opinion of the best judges, increasing from year to year, till in the lapse of time it bears down, as it rolls along, the opposition which interest, prejudice, or fashion may have raised. The works of the best ancient masters stand on this firm foundation, and therefore ought to be the student’s chief study. If he does not admire them at first, let him dwell upon them till he does.

‘But some will say, The best music is that which naturally pleases those who have not studied the science. This is not the case. Among a number of hearers, the majority will be best pleased by music of an inferior kind; and something analogous to this takes place in all the arts. The finest efforts of art will only appear such to the finest judges, who are always rare. A good ear and good general taste is not sufficient to qualify a man for being a judge of music. We often hear such an one desire to be lulled to sleep by what pleases him most. If he was really a judge, the best music would much more probably keep him awake. Vocal performers are bad judges of instrumental, and instrumental of vocal music.

‘Music may be divided into the sublime, the beautiful, the ornamental. From “To Thee, Cherubim,” to “the majesty of Thy glory,” in Handel’s _Te Deum_ on the battle of Dettingen, is sublime. Pergolesi’s “Dove sei,” in _Eurydice_, is beautiful. Handel’s Fifth Harpsichord Lesson is ornamental. The sources of the sublime are awe, magnitude or extent, simplicity, and intricacy. A chorus of heavenly beings uniting in praise of their Creator, is an awful and sublime idea, awakened by many of Handel’s compositions. The full effect of an orchestra reaching to the heights and depths of musical sound, gives an idea of vastness and extent. Simplicity from the powerful effect it conveys of a single feeling, creates conceptions of intensity and force. Thus the unadorned columns of a Grecian temple are sublime in their simplicity and reiteration; while in a Gothic cathedral, the intricacy of infinitude gives the same result of sublimity.’[62]

* * * * *

_April 9._—A conversation passed at Lord Clifden’s on the delusive opinion that authors were best known by their works, and on the possibility of a Revolution in England. The combination of these two ideas produced the following extract from a Review, supposed to be carried on a century hence by the descendants of some of our noble families, then obliged to write for subsistence, and edited in Birmingham, then become one of the chief seats of literature.

* * * * *

From an article in _The Birmingham Review_ of 1920, on Howard’s _Lives of the Poets_:—

It is lamentable that the late civil wars have destroyed nearly all the private memoirs of those writers who flourished in the 19th century. The number of libraries burnt by the insurgents, or made into ball-cartridges by both parties, or bought up by charitable associations and boiled down into jelly, to make nourishing soups for the poor during the years of famine, have left us no materials from whence to collect any account of that pleasing versifier, Rogers, who forms a sort of link between the minor poets of the time and such powerful writers as Scott and Byron. Yet, in fact, an author is best known by his works; and we do not hesitate to pronounce Samuel Rogers one of the mildest of men, wholly without gall, and partaking largely of the quality our friends the French call _bonhomie_. There are no strokes of wit, vivacity, or powerful imagination in his writings; but so much mildness, and such exquisite feeling for all the tendernesses of domestic life, as speak him one whom to know was to love, who never suffered a sharp word to pass his lips, and in whom his friends could have had no fault to lament but an excess of meekness. Indeed, this is strongly proved in his permitting his _Jaqueline_ to be bound up in most unequal alliance with Byron’s _Lara_ and an offensive preface, in which the latter jocosely, but rudely, establishes a comparison between them.

Some have suggested that it is probable he may have been Byron’s domestic chaplain. We know this _noble_ author (to speak in the jargon of those days), after being suspected of philosophical principles, became extremely superstitious, having even proceeded so far as to publish a volume of hymns, a change that may have been caused by his grief for the elopement of his wife, which seems, from his pathetic ‘_Farewell_,’ to have affected him deeply. We cannot, however, adopt this opinion, as _The Revᵈ._ was always prefixed to the names of the national clergy, till that order was dissolved by the seventeenth General Assembly in 1870. Rogers may, however, have been one of the numerous Dissenters of his time. We think we see him, with an affectionate wife, and half a dozen rosy children like himself, free from envy or solicitude, his honest face beaming with health and cheerfulness, retired and contented—‘the world forgetting, by the world forgot.’

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.

London, April 19, 1820.

I met Rogers and Jekyll at Roehampton; a pleasant _duo_, who keep time and tune together, and, in the language of musicians, mark their points. Take a fragment of Rogers:—

So, Mr. Wilmot, you are going to the Duchess of ——’s?

_Mr. Wilmot._—Yes, immediately.

_R._—How _fat_ you’ll grow.

_Mr. W._—_Fat_, how so?

_R._—You will sleep so much. They go to bed so early.

_Mr. W._—No, I never go to bed early.

_R._—You will, indeed.

_Mr. W._—No. I always read in my own room.

_R._—You will not. _Measure your candle._

(_Exit Mr. Wilmot._) _Rogers_ (_to the remaining circle_).—That Mr. Wilmot is a sensible man. I don’t say so from my own knowledge; not the least. He wrote a book, too. That, you’ll say, was _nothing_. And printed it. I don’t say that from my own knowledge either, for I never read it, never met anybody that had.

* * * * *

_April, 1820._—Reflections for my sons.—May I learn to be humbly thankful for the blessings showered upon me; for an active and healthful body, a mind capable of receiving instruction, a liberal education, wise teachers, affectionate relations, and more than a sufficiency of all the goods of this life; for birth in a free country, far from the seat of war; for having been hitherto preserved from the commission of great crimes; and, above all, for the knowledge of the will of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. When I may be disposed not to have a due sense of these blessings, let me turn my thoughts to the sufferers in occupations of severe labour, in painful disorders, in extreme penury, in sorrows by the side of a dying friend, in sorrows from the wickedness and ingratitude of those whom they love; in the agonies of starvation, in the horrors of remorse, in hopeless and helpless anguish on the field of battle; in infamy, in dungeons, in chains, in slavery, in torture.

Let these reflections check in me that spirit of discontent prosperity may produce, and impress on me thy commands, O God, that all those who are fortunate in this world should watch over and relieve their afflicted brethren; thy declaration that Thou wilt punish those who neglect this duty so repeatedly enjoined in thy Holy Word. Let me, therefore, avoid all those acts which would incapacitate me from assisting the poor and helpless; and let me not give this assistance from compassion alone, but because Thou hast commanded it, and because Our Blessed Lord has vouchsafed to accept it as an evidence of our faith and our love.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.

London, May, 1820.