CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ENGLISH COLLECTION THE GIFT OF JAMES MORGAN HART PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH Cornell University Library PR 4381.H88 Lord Byron and some of his contemporarie 3 1924 013 450 964 ..,»,. The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013450964 LORD BYRON AND SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES; WITH RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, AND OF HIS VISIT TO ITALY. BY LEIGH HUNT. " It is for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth. " In the examples^ which I here bring m, of what I have heard, read, done, or said, I have forbid myself to dare to alter even the most light and indifferent circumstances. My conscienee does not falsify one tittle. What my ignorance may do, I cannot say." Montaigxe. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1828. 6C LONDON : PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, DORSET STREET. PREFACE. The reader will oblige me by letting me explain to him, how it is that the volume here offered to his perusal, came to be what it is. I think it due to myself to make the explanation ; and as a conscientious reader of the prefaces of other men, I may re- quest his indulgence without scruple. The work was originally intended to be nothing but a selection from the Author's writings, preceded by a biographical sketch. I engaged for it, together with another work, as soon as I returned to England; but the delight of finding myself among my old scenes and friends, the prospect of better health and resources, the feeling of the first taste of comfort (a novelty unknown for years), and the very dread of seeing this new piece of rose-colour in my existence vanish before the re-exertion of my brain and the ink-spots it produces be- tween me and the sun, — all conspired with bad habits of business and the sorriest arithmetic, to make me avail myself unawares of the handsome treatment of my publisher, and indulge in too long a holi- day. I wrote, but I wrote little : I had not even yet learned how A 2 IV PREFACE. much I might have done with that little, if done regularly ; and the consequence was, that time crept on, uneasiness returned, and I found myself painfully ' anxious to show my employer how much I would fain do for him.^ The worst of it was, that the sick hours which I dreaded on a renewal of work, returned upon me, aggra- vated by my not having dared to encounter them sooner ; and my anxieties became thus increased. I wished to make amends for loss of time: the plan of the book became altered; and I finally made up my mind to enlarge and enrich it with an account of Lord Byron. It had been wondered, when I returned to England, how it was that I did not give the public an account of my intimacy with Lord Byron. I was told that I should put an end to a great deal of false biography, and do myself a great service besides. My refusal of this suggestion will at least show, that I was in no hurry to do the work for my own sake ; and to say the truth, it would never have been done at all, but for the circumstances above-mentioned. I must even confess,' that such is my dislike of these personal histories, in which it has been my lot to become a party, that had I been rich enough, and could have repaid the handsome conduct of Mr. Colburn with its proper interest, my first impulse on finishing the work would have been to put it in the fire. Not that I have not written it conscientiously, and that it is not in every respect fit to appear; but it has long ceased to be within my notions of what is necessary for society, to give an unpleasant account of any man ; and as to my own biography, I soon became tired of that. It is true, I should have entered into it in PREFACE. greater detail, and endeavoured to make the search into my thoughts and actions of some use, seeing that I had begun it at all; but I was- warned off of this ground as impossible on account of others, ^nd gladly gave it up. The Byron part of the work I could not so well manage. What was to be told of the Noble Poet, involved of necessity a painful retrospect ; and humanize as I may, and as I trust I do, upon him as well as every thing else, — and certain as I am, that although I look upon this or that man as more or less pleasant and admirable, I partake of none of the ordinary notions of merit and demerit with regard to any one, — I could not conceal from myself, on looking over the manuscript, that in renewing my intercourse with him in imagi- nation, I had involuntarily felt a re-access of the spleen and in- dignation which I experienced, as a man who thought himself ill- treated. With this, to a certain extent, the account is coloured, though never with a shadow of untruth ; nor have I noticed a great deal that I should have done, had I been in the least vin- dictive, which is a vice I disclaim. If I know any two things in the world, and have any two good qualities to set off against many defects, it is that I am not vindictive, and that I speak the truth. I have not told all : for I have no right to do so. In the present case it would also be inhumanity, botli to the dead and the living. But what I have told, is not to be gainsaid. Perhaps had I felt Lord Byron's conduct less than I did, I should have experienced less of it. Flattery might have done much with him ; and I felt enough admiration of his talents, and sympathy with his common nature, to have given him all the VI PKEFACE, delight of flattery without the insincerity of it, had it been possible. But nobody, who has not tried it, knows, how hard it is to wish to love a man, and to find the enthusiasm of this longing worse than repelled. It was the death of my friend SheUey, and my own want of resources, that made me add this bitter discovery to the sum of my experience. The first time Lord Byron found I was in want, was the first time he treated me with disrespect. I am not cap- tious : I have often been remonstrated with for not showing a stronger sense of enmity and ill-usage : but to be obliged, in the common sense of the word, and disobliged at the same time, not only in my reasonablest expectations, but in the tenderest point of my nature, was what I could not help feeling, whether I had told the world of it or not. Besides, Lord Byron was not candid with me. He suffered him- self to take measures, and be open to representations, in which 1 was concerned, without letting me know; and I know of no safety of intercourse on these terms, especially where it should be all sincerity or nothing. Nevertheless, I subscribe so heartily to a doctrine eloquently set forth* by Mr. Hazlitt, — that whatever is good and true in the works of a man of genius, eminently belongs to and is a part of him, let him partake as he will of common infirmities, — that I cannot without regret think of the picture I have drawn of the infirmi- ties of Lord-rByron, common or uncommon, nor omit to set down * In the " Plain Speaker," vol. ii. p. 418. PREFACE. Vll this confession of an unwilling hand. Fecit mcerens. Let it be turn- ed against myself, if it ought. The same may be said of my re- marks on Mr. Hazlitt.* If no man reduces himself to a greater ne- cessity for it than he, by the waywardness and cruelty of his temper, no man deserves it more for the cuts and furrows which his temper ploughs in his own face, and the worship which he pays to truth and beauty when it is not upon him. When we see great men capable of being inhuman in some things, when they are all over humanity in others, and add to the precious stock of human emotion, one is frightened to think what mistakes we may commit in our own self- knowledge. I, for one, willingly concede that the reader may know me better than myself, and punish me in his thought accordingly. Let me have only the benefit of the concession. I have been forced to give up, in my time, too many dreams of self-love, to deny myself the consolation of candour. The account of Lord Byron was not intended to stand first in the book. 1 should have kept it for a climax. My own reminiscences, I fear, coming after it, wiU be like bringing back the Moselle, after devils * Since writing this Preface, the article here alluded to has been omitted, though not on Mr. HazHtt's account, or my own ; for however I might regret speaking disagreeable truths of any man, much more of one whose unquestionable love of truth would have reconciled him to the hearing them, the article had quite enough of what was panegyrical in it to do him justice. But more readers might have mistaken the object of it, than was desirable ; and Mr. Hazlitt is ready enough, at all times, -to save others the necessity of exhibiting his defects, Twenty such articles would not have put an end to the good understanding between us ; so genuine indeed is his love of truth, violently as his passions may sometimes lead him to mistake it.^ Vm PREFAGE. and Burgundy. Time also, as well as place, is violated"; and the omis- sion of ^a good part of the auto-biography, and substitution of detached portraits for inserted ones, have given altogether a different look to the publication from what was contemplated at first. But my publisher thought it best ; perhaps it is so ; and I have only to hope, that in add- ing to the attractions of the title-page, it will not make the greater part of the work seem unworthy of it. ILLUSTRATIONS. PORTRAIT OP LORD BYRON . . . .to face the title. .^ FACSIMILES of the HANDWRITING of LORD BYRON, MB. SHEL- LEY, and MR. KEATS . . . . .to face page 1 l/ PORTRAIT of the COUNTESS GUICCIOLI , . . . ■ 39 u' PORTRAIT of MR. KEATS ....... 246 e-^v PORTRAIT of MR. CHARLES LAMB . . . . . . ggg PORTRAIT of MR. LEIGH HUNT . . . . . SOS Ar-.S131'liL-E DiF l.'ORJ) B"Vl'r(J:xS POtKTIiy,, FlKOM AN Hayley, in rnnrnttrTTiptiTr --—-^^ Whether he spin hit rnniPflip'^ in rh^mm, ' -"x-y" \ nr """"Ti"nn mr-^T . i t "-n ii T ;;^ i ii ir t nmr T'AC-:SI,^IH,E (;r ivr:- .SHKllKTS I'OEim^ FROI^I a M .S. of the KETOLT OE ISIAI x^ FA'C-SIMILE OF M'? I^ExlTS.S P«ETRy,E;UOM THE ORIGIRAE :yf.s,()E :IJTPEKJ{j:N' . hM/ POjf CLud ^ fiT^A^^ cy Ixjl^ cL clu^l^ cvl tA^i^p^j^ Ol cLuoud ^^•fcfc^ kmt^ J f:^^-uuj M.fu>n^ cL liA.(ru-L ^Ju-cnT pUj. fu cc^L-i-uj. (Siu (^ iniA^ djtcC &sLfl%u^ ^t^t t 'Hd r Ccir^ <^^ I LORD BYRON AND SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES. The first time I saw Lord Byron, he was rehearsing the part of Leander, under the auspices of Mr. Jacksoji the prize-fighter. It was in the river Thames, before he went to Greece. I had been bathing, and was standing on the floating machine adjusting my clothes, when I noticed a respectable-looking manly person, who was eyeing something at a distance. This was Mr. Jackson waiting for his pupil. The latter was swimming with somebody for a wager. I forget what his tutor said of him ; but he spoke in terms of praise. I saw nothing in Lord Byron at that time, but a young man who, like myself, had written a bad volume of poems ; and though I had a sympathy with him on this account, and more respect for his rank than I was willing to suppose, my sympathy was not an agreeable one ; so, contenting myself with seeing his Lordship's head bob up and down in the water, like a buoy, I came away. B LORD BYRON. Lord Byron was afterwards pleased to regret, that I had not stayed. He told me, that the sight of my volume at Harrow had been -one of his incentives to write verses, and that he had had the same passion for friendship that I had displayed in it. To my astonishment, he quoted some of the lines, and would not hear me speak ill of them. This was when I was in prison, where I first became personally ac- quainted with his Lordship. His harbinger was Moore. Moore told me, that, besides liking my politics, he liked " The Feast of the Poets," and would be glad to make my acquaintance. I said I felt myself highly flattered, and should be proud to entertain his Lordship as well as a poor patriot could. He was accordingly invited to dinner. His friend only stipulated, that there should be " plenty of fish and vegetables for the noble bard," his Lordship at that time being Brahminical in his eating. He came, and we passed a very pleasant afternoon, talking of books, and school, and the Reverend Mr. Bowles; of the pastoral innocence of whose conversation some anecdotes were related, that would have much edified the spirit of Pope, had it been in the room. I saw nothing at first but single-hearted and agreeable qualities in Lord Byron. My wife, with the quicker eyes of a woman, was in- clined to doubt them. Visiting me one day, 'when I had a friend with me, he seemed uneasy, and asked without ceremony when he should find me alone. My friend, who was a man of taste and spirit, and the last in the world to intrude his acquaintance, was not bound to go away because another person had come in; dnd besides, he naturally felt anxious to look at so interesting a visitol' ; which was paying the latter a compliment. But his Lordship's will was disturbed, and he vented his spleen accordingly. I took it at the time for a piece of simplicity, blinded perhaps by the flattery insinuated towards myself; but my wife LORD BYRON. 3 was right. Lord Byron's nature, from the first, contained that mixture of disagreeable with pleasanter qualities, which I had afterwards but too much occasion to recognize. He subsequently called on me in the prison several times, and used to bring books for my Story of Rimini, which I was then writing. He would not let the footman bring them in. He would enter with a couple of quartos under his arm ; and give you to understand, that he was prouder of being a friend and a man of letters, than a lord. It was thus that by flattering one's vanity, he persuaded us of his own freedom from it ; for he could see very well, that I had more value for lords than I supposed. In the correspondence at the end of the present memoir, the reader will find some letters addressed to me at this period by Lord Byron. He was a warm politician, and thought himself earnest in the cause of liberty. His failure in the House of Lords is well known. He was very candid about it ; said he was much frightened, and should never be able to do any thing that way. Lords of all parties came about him, and consoled him ; he particularly mentioned Lord Sidmouth, as being unaffectedly kind. When I left prison, I was too ill to return his visits. He pressed me very much to go to the theatre with him ; but illness, and the dread of committing my critical independence, alike prevented me. His Lordship was one of a management that governed Drury-lane Theatre at that time, and that made a sad business of their direction, as amateur-managers have always done. He got nothing by it but petty vexations, and a good deal of scandal. I was then living at Paddington. I had a study looking over the fields towards Westboume Green ; which 1 mention, because, besides the pleasure I took in it after my prison, and the gratitude I owe to a fair cousin, who saved me from being burnt there one fine morning, I B 2 4 LORD BYEON. received visits in it from two persons of a remarkable discrepancy of cha- racter — Lord Byron and Mr, Wordsworth. Of Mr. Wordsworth I will speak hereafter. Lord Byron, I thought, took a pleasure in my room, as contrasted with the splendour of his great house. He had too much reason to do so. His domestic troubles were just about to become public. His appearance at that time was the finest I ever saw it, a great deal finer than it was afterwards, when he was abroad. He was fatter than before his marriage, but only just enough so to complete the manliness of his person ; and the turn of his head and countenance had a spirit and elevation in it, which though not unmixed with disquiet, gave him alto- gether a nobler look, than I ever knew him to have, before or since. His dress, which was black, with white trowsers, and which he wore but- toned close over the body, completed the succinctness and gentleman- liness of his appearance. I remember one day, as he stood looking out of the window, he resembled in a lively manner the portrait of him by Phillips, by far the best that has appeared ; I mean the best of him at his best time of life, and the most like him in features as well as expression. He sat one morning so long, that Lady Byron sent up twice to let him know she was waiting. Her Ladyship used to go on in the carriage to Henderson's Nursery Ground, to get flowers. I had not the honour of knowing her, nor ever saw her but once, when I caught a glimpse of her at the door. I thought she had a pretty earnest look, with her " pippin" face ; an epithet by which she playfully designated herself. The first visit I paid Lord Byron was just after their separation. The public, who took part with the lady, as they ought to do, (women in their relations with the other sex being under the most unhandsome dis- advantages) had, nevertheless, no idea of the troubles which her husband was suffering at that time. He was very ill, his face jaundiced with LORD BYRON. 5 bile ; the renouncement of his society by Lady Byron had disconcerted him extremely, and was, I believe, utterly unlooked for ; then the jour- nals and their attacks upon him, were felt severely ; and to crown all, he had an execution in his house. I was struck with the real trouble he manifested, compared with what the public thought of it. The adhe- rence of his old friends was also touching. I saw Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. Scrope Davies (college friends of his) almost every time I called. Mr. Rogers was regular in his daily visits ; and Lord Holland, he said, was very kind to him. Finally, he took the blame of the quarrel to himself; and he enlisted my self-love so far on the side of Lady Byron, as • to tell me that she liked my poem, and had compared his temper to that of Giovanni, my heroine's consort. In all this I beheld only a generous nature, subject perhaps to ebullitions of ill temper, but candid, sensitive, extremely to be pitied, and if a woman knew how, or was per- mitted by others to love him, extremely to be loved. What made me come the more warmly to this conclusion, was a letter which he showed me, written by Lady Byron after her departure from the house, and when she was on her way to the relations, who per- suaded her not to return. It was signed with the epithet above- mentioned ; and was written in a spirit of good-humour, and even fond- ness, which though containing nothing but what a wife ought to write, and is the better for writing, was, I thought, almost too good to show. But the case was extreme; and the compliment to me, in showing it, appeared the greater. I was not aware at that time, that with a singu- lar incontinence, towards which it was lucky for a great many people that his friends were as singularly considerate, his, Lordship was in the habit of making a confidant of every body he came nigh. I will now tell the reader, very candidly, what I think of the whole 6 LORD BYEON. of that matter. Every body knows, in the present beautiful state of the relations between the sexes, what is meant by marriages of conve- nience. They generally turn out to be as inconvenient, as persons, who are said to have arrived at years of discretion, are apt to be indiscreet. Lord Byron's was a marriage of convenience, — ^certainly at least on his own part. The lady, I have no doubt, would never have heard of it under that title. He married for money, but of course he wooed with his genius ; and the lady persuaded herself that she liked him, partly because he had a genius^ and partly because it is natural to love those who take pains to please us. Furthermore, the poet was piqued to obtain his mistress, because she had a reputation for being delicate in such matters ; and the lady was piqued to become a wife, not because she did not know the gentleman previously to marriage, but because she did, and hoped that her love, and her sincerity, and her cle- verness,' would enable her to reform him. The experiment was dange- rous, and did not succeed. Another couple might have sat still, and sacrificed their comfort to the vanity of appearing comfortable. Lord Byron had too much self-will for this, and his lady too much sincerity, — perhaps too much alarm and resentment. The excess of his moods, which out of the spleen, and even self-reproach of the moment, he indulged in perhaps beyond what he really felt, were so terrifying to a young and mortified woman, that she began to doubt whether he was in possession of his senses. She took measures, which exceedingly mortified him, for solving this doubt; and though they were on good terms when she left an uneasy house to visit her friends in the country, and Lady Byron might, I have no doubt, have been persuaded by him to return, had there been as much love, or even address, on his side, as there was a wish to believe in his merit on her's, it is no wonder that others, whom LORD BYRON. 7 she had known and loved so much longer, and who felt no interest in being blind to his defects, should persuade her to stay away. The " Farewell" that he wrote, and that set so many tender-hearted white handkerchiefs in motion, only resulted from his poetical power of assum- ing an imaginary position, and taking pity on himself in the shape of another man. He had no love for the object of it, or he would never have written upon her in so different a style afterwards. Indeed, I do not believe that he ever had the good-fortune of knowing what real love is, — meaning by love the desire that is ennobled by sentiment, and that seeks the good and exaltation of the person beloved. He could write a passage now and then, which showed that he was not incapable of it ; but the passion on which he delights to dwell, is either that of boys and girls, extremely prone and boarding-school ; or of heroines, who take a delight in sacrificing themselves to wilful gentlemen. I thought differently on this business at the time, though rather to the exculpation of the gentleman, than blame of the lady. My present conclusions were confirmed during my visit to Italy. There is no doubt, that Lord Byron felt the scandal of the separation severely. It is likely, also, that he began to long for his wife's adherence the more, when he saw that she would not return. Perhaps he liked her the better. At all events, she piqued his will, which was his tender side; the circles were loud in his condemnation; and he was in perplexity about his child; in whom, as his only representative, and the descendant of two ancient families, he took great pride to the last. But his feelings, whatever they were, did not hinder him from wreaking his resentment in a manner which every one of his friends lamented ; nor from availing himself, at a future day, of those rights 8 LORD BYRON. of matrimonial property, which the gallant and chivalrous justice of the stronger sex has decreed to itself, as a consolation for not being able to make the lady comfortable. . From the time of my taking leave of Lord Byron in England, to the moment of our meeting in Italy, I scarcely heard of him, and never from him. He had become not very fond of his reforming acquaint- ances. Shelley he knew, and lived a good deal with, in Switzerland; and he was intimate again with him in Italy ; yet, in the list of the only persons whom, on some occasion or other, he mentioned publicly as haying seen in that country, Mr. Shelley's name was omitted. I was therefore surprised, when I received the letter from my friend, which the reader wiU find in the Correspondence at the end of this memoir, and which contained a proposal from my former acquaintance, inviting me to go over, and set up a work with him. Mr. ' Shelley him- self had repeatedly invited me abroad ; and I had as repeatedly declined going, for the reason stated in my account of him. That reason was done away by the nature of this new proposal. I was ill; it was thought by many I could not live; my wife was very ill too; my family was numerous ; and it was agreed by my partner in the Exa- miner, that while a struggle was made in England to reanimate that paper, injured by the peace, and by a variety of other circum- stances^ a simultaneous endeavour should be made in Italy to secure new aid to our diminished fortunes, and new friends to the cause of liberty. My family, therefore, packed up their books, and prepared to go by sea. Of my voyage I will give an account hereafter. My business at present is to speak of Lord Byron, to whose ItaUan residence I there- fore hasten. In the harbour of Leghorn I found Mr. Trelawney. LORD BYRON. 9 He was standing with his knight-errant aspect, dark, handsome, and mustachio'd, in Lord Byron's boat, the Bolivar, of which he had taken charge for his Lordship. In a day or two I went to see the noble Bard, who was in what the Italians call villeggiatura at Monter Nero ; that is to say, enjoying a country-house for the season. I there met with a singular adventure, which seemed to make me free of Italy and stilettos, before I had well set foot in the country. The day was very hot ; the road to Monte-Nero was very hot, through dusty suburbs ; and when I got there, I found the hottest-looking house I ever saw. Not content with having a red wash over it, the red was the most unseason- able of aU reds, a salmon colour. Think of this, flaring over the country in a hot Italian sun ! But the greatest of ^11 the heats was within. Upon seeing Lord Byron, I hardly knew him, he was grown so fat ; and he was longer in recognizing me, I had grown so thin. He was dressed in a loose nankin jacket and white trowsers, his neckcloth open, and his hair in thin ring- lets about his throat ; altogether presenting a very different aspect from the compact, energetic, and curly -headed person, whom I had known in England. He took me into an inner-room, and introduced me to a young lady in a state of great agitation. Her face was flushed, her eyes lit up, and her hair (which she wore in that fashion) looking as if it streamed in disorder. This was the daughter of Count Gamba, wife of the Cavaliere Guiccioli, since known as Madame, or the Countess, Guiccioli,— all the children of persons of that rank in Italy bearing the title of their parents. The Conte Pietro, her brother, came in presently, also in a state of agitation, and having his arm in a sling. I then learned, that a quarrel having taken place among the servants, the young Count had interfered. XO LORD BYRON. and been stabbed. He was very angry; Madame Guiccioli was more so, and would not hear of the charitable comments of Lord Byron, who was for making light of the matter. Indeed there was a look in the business a little formidable ; for, though the stab was not much, the inflictor of it threatened more, and was at that minute keeping watch under the portico with the avowed intention of assaulting the first person that issued forth. I looked out of window, and met his eye glaring upward, Uke a tiger. The feUow had a red cap on, like a sans-culotte, and a most sinister aspect, dreary and meagre, a proper caitiff. Thus, it appeared, the house was in a state of blockade ; the nobility and gentry of the interior all kept in a state of impossibility by a rascally footman. How long things had continued in this state I cannot say ; but the hour was come when Lord Byron and his friends took their evening ride, and the thing was to be put an end to somehow. Fletcher, the valet, had been despatched for the police, and was not returned. It was wondered, among other things, how I had been suffered to enter the house with impunity. Somebody conceived, that the man might have taken me for one of the constituted authorities ; a comphment which few Englishmen would be anxious to deserve, and which I must disclaim any pretensions to. At length we set out, Madame Guiccioli earnestly intreating " Bairon" to keep back, and all of us waiting to keep in advance of Conte Pietro, who was exasperated. It was a curious moment for a stranger from England. I fancied myself pitched into one of the scenes jn " The Mysteries of Udolpho," with Montoni and his tumultuous companions. Every thing was new, foreign, and violent. There was the lady, flushed and dishevelled, exclaiming against the " scelerato ;" the young Count, wounded and threatening ; the assassin. LORD BYRON. 11 waiting for us with his knife ; and last, not least, in the novelty, my English friend, metamorphosed, round-looking, and jacketed, trying to damp all this fire with his cool tones, and an air of voluptuous indolence. He had now, however, put on his loose riding-coat of mazarin blue, and his velvet cap, looking more lordly than before, but hardly less foreign. It was an awkward moment for him, not knowing what might happen ; but he put a good face on the matter ; and as to myself, I was so occu- pied with the novelty of the scene, that I had not time to be frightened. Forth we issue at the door, all squeezing to have the honour of being the boldest, when a termination is put to the tragedy by the vagabond's throwing himself on a bench, extending his arms, and bursting into tears. His cap was half over his eyes ; his face gaunt, ugly, and unshaved; his appearance altogether more squalid and miserable than an Englishman would conceive it possible to find in such an establish- ment. This blessed figure recUned weeping and wailing, and asking pardon for his offence ; and to crown all, he requested Lord Byron to kiss him. The noble Lord conceived this excess of charity superfluous. He pardoned him, but said he must not think of remaining in his service ; and the man continued weeping, and kissing his hand. I was then amused with seeing the footing on which the gentry and their servants stand with each other in Italy, and the good-nature with which the fiercest exhibitions of anger can be followed up. Conte Pietro, a generous good-humoured fellow, accepted the man's hand, and shook it with great good-will ; and Madame Guiccioli, though unable to subside so quickly from her state of indignant exaltation, looked in relenting sort, as if the pitying state of excitement would be just as good as the other. In fine, she concluded by according the man her grace also, seeing my Lord had c 2 12 LORD BYEON. forgiven him. The man was all penitence and wailing, but he was obliged to quit. The police would have forced him, if he had not been dismissed. He left the country, and called in his way on Mr. Shelley, who was shocked at his appearance, and gave him some money out of his very disgust ; for he thought nobody would help such a fellow if he did not. The unpleasant part of the business did not end here. It was, remotely, one of the causes of Lord Byron's leaving Italy; for it increased the awkwardness of his position with the Tuscan Govern- ment, and gave a farther unsteadiness to his restless temper. His friends, the Gambas, who all lived with him, father as well as children, were already only upon sufferance in Tuscany. They had been expelled their native country, Romagna, for practices with the Car- bonari ; and Lord Byron, who identified himself with their fortunes, became a party to their wanderings, and to the footing on which they stood wherever they were permitted to abide. The Grand-duke's government had given him to understand, that they were at liberty to reside in Tuscany, provided as little was heard of them as possible. The fracas that happened in the street of Pisa, a little before I came, had given a shock to the tranquillity of this good understanding. Count Gamba's retinue having been the most violent persons concerned in it : and now, another of his men having caused a second disturbance, the distrust was completed. Lord Byron's residence in Tuscany was made uneasy to him. It was desired, that he should separate himself from the Gambas ; and though I believe, that even at that time, he would have been glad to do so ; and though, on the other hand, it was understood that a little courtesy on his part towards the Grand- duke and Duchess, the latter of whom was said to be particularly LORD BVRON. 13 desii-ous of seeing him at Court, would have given him a carte-hlanche for all parties, yet his pride in that instance, and his usual tendency to be led by those about him in the other, prevented his taking either of these steps ; and he returned to his house at Pisa, only to reside there two or three months longer, when he departed for Genoa. Having settled our frifend, the lachrymose ruffian, we took our drive in the barouche, in the course of which we met the police-officer, and my old acquaintance Fletcher, with his good-humoured, lack-a- daisaical face. Fletcher was for being legitimate, and having his wife out to Italy. I had made an offer to the lady to bring her with us by sea, which she politely declined ; doubtless, out of fear of the water ; but I brought him a box full of goods, which consoled him a little- I fear I am getting a little gossiping here, beyond the record ; such is the contamination of these personal histories ; but Fletcher, having by nature an honest English face, the 'round simplicity of which no sophistication had yet succeeded in ruining, ladies of various ranks in Italy, Venetian countesses, and English cook-maids, had a trick of taking a liking to it ; and the presence of Mrs. Fletcher might after- wards have saved me some trouble. This, however, is a bold conjecture. Perhaps it might have been worse. O Beaumont ! hadst thou been living in the times of this the namesake of thy fellow-dramatist — ^but I am told here, that my apostrophes wiU be getting scandalous. I returned to Leghorn ; arid, taking leave of our vessel, we put up at an hotel. Mr. Shelley then came to us from his mlleggiatura at Lerici. His town abode, as well as Lord Byron's, was at Pisa. ' I will not dwell upon the moment. We talked of a thousand things, past, present, and to come. He was the same as ever, with the exception of less hope. He could not be otherwise. But he prepared me to find others not 14 LORD BYRON. exactly what I had taken them for. I little thought at the time, how much reason I should have to remember his words. Leghorn is a polite Wapping, with a square and a theatre. The country around is uninteresting, when you become acquainted with it ; but to a stranger, the realization of any thing he has read about is a delight, especially of such things as vines Hanging from trees, and the sight of Apennines, Mr. Shelley accompanied us from Leghorn to Pisa, in order to see us fixed in our new abode. Lord.Byi'on left Monte-Nero at the same time, and joined us. We occupied the ground-floor of his Lordship's house, the Casa Lanfranchi, on the Lung'Arno. The remainder was inhabited by himself and the Gambas -, but the father and son were then absent. Divided tenancies of this kind are common in Italy, where few houses are in possession of one family. It has been said that Lord Byron por- tioned off a part of his own dwelling, handsomely fitted it up for us, and heaped on us in this, as in other matters, a variety of benefactions. In the course of my narrative I must quaUfy those agreeable fictions. In the first place. Lord Byron had never made use of the ground-floor. Formerly, it was not the custom to do so in great mansions, the splen- dour of the abode commencing up-stairs : nor is it now, where the house is occupied by only one family, and there is room for them without it ; I. unless they descend for coolness in summer-time. Of late years, espe- cially since the English have recommenced their visits, it is permitted to parlours to be respectable. In country-houses of a modern standing, I have seen them converted into the best part of the dwelling ; but the old mansions were constructed to a different end ; the retainers of the family, or the youngest branches, if it was very large, being the only persons who could with propriety live so near their mother earth. The grated LORD BYRON. 15 windows that are seen in the ground-floors of most private houses in Italy, have survived the old periods of trouble that occasioned them ; and it is doubtless to those periods that we must refer for the plebeianism of parlours. The Casa Lanfranchi is said to have been built by Michael Angelo, and is worthy of him. It is in a bold and broad style throughout, with those harmonious graces of proportion which are sure. to be found in an Italian mansion. The outside is of rough marble. Lower down the Lung'Arno, on the same side of the way, is a mansion cased with polished marble. But I have written of these matters in another work. The furniture of our apartments was good and respectable, but of the plainest and cheapest description, consistent with that character. It was chosen by Mr. Shelley, who intended to beg my acceptance of it, and who knew, situated as he and I were, that in putting about us such furniture as he used himself, he could not pay us a handsomer or more welcome compliment. When the apartments were fitted up. Lord Byron insisted upon making us a present of the goods himself. Mr. Shelley did not choose to contest the point. He explained the circum- stance to me ; and this is the amount of the splendour with which some persons have been pleased to surround me at his Lordship's expense. 1 will here mention what I have happened to omit respecting another and greater matter. Two hundred pounds were sent me from Italy, to enable me to leave England with comfort. They came from Lord Byron, and nothing was said to me of security, or any thing like it. Lord Byron had offered a year or two before, through Mr. Shelley, to send me four hundred pounds for a similar purpose, which offer I declined. I now accepted the two hundred pounds; but I found afterwards that his Lordship had had a bond for the money from Mr. Shelley. T make no 16 LORD BYKON. comment on these things. I merely state the truth, because others have mis-stated it, and because 1 begin to be sick of maintaining a silence, ■ which does no good to others, and is only turned against one's self. We had not been in the house above an hour or two, when my friend brought the celebrated surgeon, Vacc^, to see Mrs. Hunt. He had a pleasing intelligent face, and was the most gentlemanlike Itahan I ever saw. Vacc^ pronounced his patient to be in a decline ; and little hope was given us by others that she would survive beyond the year. She is now alive, and likely to live many years ; and Vacc^ is dead. I do not say this to his disparagement ; for he was very skilful, and deserved his celebrity. But it appears to me, from more than one remarkable instance, that there is a superstition about what are called declines and consumptions, from which the most eminent of the profession are not free. I suspect, that people of this tendency, with a proper mode of living, may reach to as good a period of existence as any other. The great secret in this as in aU other cases, and indeed in almost all moral as well as physical cases of Ul, is in diet. If some demi-god could regulate for mankind what they should eat and drink, he would put an end, at one stroke, to half the troubles which the world undergo, some of the most romantic sorrows with which they flatter themselves not excepted. It is by not exceeding in this point, and by keeping natural hours, that such nations as the Persians are enabled to be cheerful, even under a load of despotism ; while others, among the freest on earth, are proverbial for spleen and melancholy. Our countrymen, manly as they are, effemi- nately bewail the same climate, which the gypsy, with his ruddy cheek, laughs at, I3ut one change is linked with another ; there must be more leisure and other comforts to stand people instead of these ticklings and crammings of their despair; and the vanity of old patchwork endu- LORD BYRON. 17 ranee is loth to see any thing but vanity in the work of refor- mation. The next day, whUe in the drawing-room with Lord Byron, I had a curious specimen of Italian manners. It was like a scene in an opera. One of his servants, a young man, suddenly came in smiling, and was foUowed by his sister, a handsome brunette, in a bodice and sleeves, and her own hair. She advanced to his Lordship to welcome him back to Pisa, and present him with a basket of flowers. In doing this, she took his hand and kissed it ; then turned to the' stranger, and kissed his hand also. I thought it a very becoming, unbecoming action ; and that at least it should have been acknowledged by a kiss of another description ; and the girl appeared to be of the same opinion, at least with regard to one of us, who stood blushing and looking in her eyes, and not knowing well what to be at. I thought we ought to have struck up a quartett. But there might have ensued a quintett, not so harmonious ; and the scene was hastily concluded. It is the custom in Italy, as it was in England, for inferiors to kiss your hand in coming and going. There is an air of good will in it that is agreeable ; but the implied sense of inferiority is not so pleasant. Servants have a better custom of wishing you a good evening when they bring in lights. To this you may respond in hke manner ; after which it seems impossible for the sun to " go down on the wrath," if there is any, of either party. In a day or two Mr. SheUey took leave of us to return to Lerici for the rest of the season, meaning however to see us more than once in the interval. I spent one delightful afternoon with him, wandering about Pisa, and visiting the cathedral. On the night of the same day, he took a post-chaise for Leghorn, intending next morning to sign his will in D 18 LORD BYRON. that city, and then depart with his friend Captain Williams for Lerici. 1 earnestly entreated him, if the weather was violent, not to give way to his daring spirit, and venture to sea. He promised me he would not ; and it seems that he did set off later than he otherwise would have done, and apparently at a more favourable moment. I never beheld him more. The superstitious might discern something strange in that connexion of his last will and testament with his departure; but the will, it seems, was not to be found. The same night there was a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, which made us very anxious ; but we hoped our friend had arrived before then. When Mr. Trelawney came to Pisa, and told us he was missing, I underwent one of the sensations which we read of in books, but seldom experience : I was tonguetied with horror. The rest is told in another part of the work ; and I may be spared dwelling on the subject. From that time Italy was a black place to me. Lord B)rron requested me to look upon him as standing in Mr. Shelley's place, and said that I should find him the same friend that the other had been. My heart died within me to hear him ; I made the proper acknowledgment ; but I knew what he meant, and I more than doubted whether even in that, the most trivial part of friendship, he could resemble Mr. Shelley if he would. Circumstances unfor- tunately rendered the matter of too much importance to me at the moment. I had reason to fear : — I was compelled to try : — and things turned out as I dreaded. The public have been given to understand that Lord Byron's purse was at my command, and that I used it according to the spirit with which it was offered. / did so. Stern necessity, and a large family, compelled me ; and during our residence at Pisa, I had from him, or rather from his steward, to whom he always sent me for the money, and who doled it me out as if my LOUD BYRON. 19 disgi'aces were being counted, the sum , of seventy pounds. This sum, together with the payment of our expenses when we accom- panied him from Pisa to Genoa, and thirty pounds with which he enabled us subsequently to go from Genoa to Florence, was aU the money I ever received from Lord Byron, exclusive of the two hun- dred pounds in the first instance, which he made a debt of Mr. Shelley's' by taking his bond. I have some peculiar notions on the subject of money, as the reader will see more fully. They wiU be found to involve -considerable difference of opinion with the community in a state of things like the present, particularly in a commercial country; and many may think me as deficient in spirit on that point, as I think them mistaken in their notions of what spirit is, and mistakenly edu- cated. I may be wrong (as people say when they think themselves in the right) ; but^ in the mean time, judging even by whdt they- themselves think of the little happiness and disinterestedness that is to be found in the present state of things, I am sure they are not right ; and that the "system of mere bustle and competition ends in little good to any body. I can see an improvement in it ultimately, when the vicissitude comes which every body attributes to the nature of human society, and which nobody seems to believe in with regard to their own customs : — ^but I shall be digressing too far. Among other things, in which I differ in point of theory (for in practice I am bound to say that of late, though for other r.easons, I have totally altered in this particular), I have not had that hdiTor of being under obligation, which is thought an essential refinement in money matters, and which leads some really generous persons, as weU as some who only seek personal importance in their gene- rosity, to think they have a right to bestow favours which they D 2 20 I.OKD BYRON. would be mortified to receive. But at the same time in this as in every thing else, " the same is not the same." Men and modes make a difference : and I must say two things for myself, for which every body may give me credit, who deserves credit himself; first, that although (to my great sorrow and repentance) I have not been careful enough to enable myself to be generous' in this respect towards others, in any degree worth speaking of, nor even (with shame I say it) just to my own children (though I trust to outHve that culpability), yet I have never refused to share my last sixpence (no idle phrase in this instance) with any friend who was in want of it ; and second, that although it has been a delight to me to receive hundreds from some, I could not receive without anguish as many pence from others ; nor should I ever, by any chance, have apphed to them, but for a combination of circumstances that mixed me up with them at the moment. I do not mean to say that Lord Byron was above receiving obligations. I know not how it might have been with respect to large ones, and before all the world. Perhaps he was never reduced to the necessity of making the experiment. But he could receive some very strange and small ones, such as made people wonder over their wine ; and he could put himself to, at least, a disadvantage in larger matters, usually supposed to be reciprocal, * which made them wonder still more. If I am thought here to touch upon very private and delicate things, especially regarding a person who is no more, I must offer three more remarks to the consideration of those, and those only, whom I have just appealed to ; 1 mean, such as being speakers of truth themselves, have an instinct in discovering those that resemble them. The first is, that Lord Byron made no scrapie of talking very freely of me and mine ; second, LORD BYRON. 21 that in consequence of this freedom, as well as from the gratuitous talking of those who knew nothing about the matter, very erroneous condusions have been drawn about us , on more than one point ; and third, that it is a principle with me never to give others to understand any thing against an acquaintance, not only which 1 would not give, but which I have not given himself to understand ; a principle, to which this book will have furnished no exception.* It may be judged by this, how little 1 have been in the habit of speaking against any body, and what a nuisance it is to me to do it now. There was another thing that startled me in the Casa Lanfranchi. I had been led to consider the connexion between Lord Byron and Madame Guiccioli as more than warranted by Italian manners. Her husband was old enough to be her father. Every "body knows how shame- fully matches of this kind are permitted to take place, even in England. But in Italy they are often accompanied, and almost always followed, by compromises of a very singular description, of which nobody thinks ill; and in fine, I had been given to undeiKtand that the attach- ment was real; that it was rescuing Lord Byron from worse con- nexions ; and that the lady's family (which was true) approved it. I was not prepared to find the father and brother living in the same house ; but taking the national manners into consideration, and differing very considerably with the notions entertained respecting the intercourse of the sexes in more countries than one, I was prepared to treat with respect what I conceived to be founded in serious feelings ; and saw, * If it might appear otherwise with regard to Mr. Moore, whom I have never seen or corresponded with since his efforts against the Liberal, he has not been the less aware of the feelings entert&ined on the subject by myself and others. 32 I^ORD BYRON. even in that arrangement, something which, though it startled my English habits at first, seemed to be a still farther warrant of innocence of intention, and exception to general rules. It is true, that when the Pope sanctioned her separation from her husband, he stipulated that she should live with her father ; and as the separation took place on account of the connexion with Lord Byron, the nullification of the edict in thus adhering to the letter and violating the spirit of it, may have had an iU look in a CathoUc country. But times are altered in that matter ; and what enabled me the better to have a good opinion of the arrange- ment, was the conclusion I came to respecting the dispositions of the old Count and his son, both very natural and amiable persons, with great simphcity of manners, and such a patriotic regard for their country, as had not only committed their reputation for wisdom in the eyes of the selfish, but got them into real trouble, and driven them into banishment. And I am of opinion to this day, that they considered their conduct, in warranting the intimacy in question, not only to be justifiable but laud- able ; advantageous to dje habits of a man, of whose acquaintance they felt proud ; and perhaps even as making some amends to the lady, for the connexion which it superseded. The family came from Ravenna. The people in that quarter are more simple and unsophisticate than in the more frequented parts of Italy ; worse perhaps where they are bad, that is to say, more gross and violent; but better (at least in the northern sense of the word) where they are good ;— something more allied to the northern character and to the Germans. The women are apt to be fair, and to have fair tresses, as the lady in question had. The men also are of lighter complexions than is usual in Italy. The old Count had the look of an English country gentleman, with a paternal gossiping manner, and apparently ho sort of pride. The young one. LOUD BYRON. 23 . who has since been known and esteemed in England, and is an enthusiast and active partizan in the cause of Greece, was equally pleasing in his manners, and evinced great interest in all that regarded the progress of freedom and knowledge. He would ask, with all the zest of an English- man, what was doing by Lord Castlereagh and the House of Commons ; and when I apologized to him for running on in my bad Italian, would reassure me with the best grace in the world, and say it was delightful to him to converse with me, for I gave him " hoper The Italians are very kind to bad speakers of their language, and ought to shame us in that matter. I confess, I can never hear a foreigner speak bad English without such a tendency to laugh as puts me to the torture ; whereas I have never known an Italian's gravity disturbed by the most ludicrous mistakes, but in one instance, and then it was the idea and not the word that discommoded him. I have known them even repeat your mistakes with an unconscious look, as if they were proper expressions. I remem- ber walking once with my young acquaintance, Luigi Gianetti, of Pisa, all the way from Florence to Maiano, and holding a long ethical dis- course on the superiority of the " good clever man" to the " bad clever man," in the course of which I must have uttered a thousand malapro- pisms, not one of which did he give me a sense of by a smile. But to return to the Gambas. The way in which the connexion between the young Countess and Lord Byron had originated, and was sanctioned, was, I thought, clear enough; but unfortunately it soon be- came equally clear, that there was no real love on either side. The lady, I believe, was not unsusceptible of a real attachment, and most undoubt- edly she was desirous that Lord Byron should cultivate it, and make her as proud and as affectionate as she was anxious to be. But to hear her talk of him, she must have pretty soon discerned, that this was impos- 24 LOBD BYRON. sible : and the manner of her talking rendered it more than doubtful whether she had ever loved, or could love him, to the extent that she supposed. I believe she would have taken great pride in the noble Bard, if he would have let her ; and remained a faithful and affectionate com- panion as long as he pleased to have her so ; but this depended more on his treatment of her, and still more on the way in which he conducted himself towards others, than on any positive qualities of his own. On the other hand, he was alternately vexed and gra,tified by her jealousies. His regard being founded solely on her person, and not surviving in the shape of a considerate tenderness, had so degenerated in a short space of time, that if you were startled to hear the lady complain of him as she did, and that too with comparative strangers, you were shocked at the licence which he would allow his criticisms on her. The truth is, as I have said before, that he had never known any thing of love but the animal passion. His poetry had given this its gracefuUer aspect, when young : - — he could believe in the passion of Romeo and Juliet. But the moment he thought he had attained to years of discretion, what with the help of bad companions, and a sense of his own merits for want of comparisons to check it, he had made the wise and blessed discovery, that women might love himself though he could not return the passion ; and that all women's love, the very best of it, was nothing but vanity. To be able to love a quality for its own sake, exclusive of any reaction upon one's self-love, seemed a thing that never entered his head. If at any time, therefore, he ceased to love a woman's person, and found leisure to detect in her the vanities natural to a flattered beauty, he set no bounds to the light and coarse way in which he would speak of her. There was coarse- ness in the way in which he would talk to women, even when he was in his best humour with them. I do not mean on the side of voluptuous- LORD BYRON. 25 ness, which is rather an excess than a coarseness ; the latter being an im- pertinence, which is (the reverse of the former. I have seen him call their attention to circumstances, which made you wish yourself a hundred miles off. They were connected with any thing but the graces with which a poet would encircle his Venus. He said to me once of a friend of his, that he had been spoilt by reading Swift. He himself had cer- tainly not escaped the infection. What completed the distress of this connexion, with respect to the parties themselves, was his want of generosity in money-matters. The lady was independent of him, and disinterested ; and he seemed resolved that she should have every mode but one, of proving that she could re- main so. I will not repeat what was said and lamented on this subject. I would not say any thing about it, nor about twenty other matters, but that they hang together more or less, and are connected with the truth of a portrait which it has become necessary to me to paint. It is for- tunate that there are some which I can omit. But I am of opinion that no woman could have loved him long. Pride in his celebrity, and the wish not to appear to have been mistaken or undervalued on their own parts, might have kept up an appearance of love, long after it had ceased ; but the thing would have gone without doubt, and that very speedily. Love may be kept up in spite of great defects, and even great offences, — offences too against itself. Lord Byron, out of a certain in- stinct, was fond of painting this in his poetry. But there are certain deficiencies, which by depriving a passion of the last resources of self- love necessary to every thing human, deny to it its last consolation, — that of taking pity on itself ; and without this, it is not in nature that it should exist. Lord Byron painted his heroes criminal, wilful, even selfish in great things ; but he took care not to paint them mean in little E 26 LORD BYRON. ones. He took care also to give them a great quantity of what he was singularly deficient in, — which was self-possession : foi' when it is added, that he had no address, even in the ordinary sense of the word, — that he hummed and hawed, and looked confused, on very trivial occasions, — that he could much more easily get into a dilemma than out of it, and with much greater skill wound the self-love of others than relieve them, —the most common-place believers in a poet's attractions will begin to suspect, that it is possible for his books to be the best part of him. From the dilemma into which I thus found myself thrown, I was relieved by a very trivial circumstance. My wife knew nothing of Italian, and did not care to learn it. Madame Guiccioli could not speak English. They were subsequently introduced to one another during a chance meeting, but that was all. No proposition was made for an intimacy on either side, and the families remained separate. This, however, was perhaps the first local cause of the diminished cordiality of intercourse between Lord Byron and myself. He had been told, what was very true, that Mrs. Hunt, though living in all respects after the fashion of an English wife, was any thing but illiberal with regard to others ; yet he saw her taking no steps for a farther intimacy. He learnt, what was equally true, that she was destitute, to a remarkable degree, of all care about rank and titles. She had been used to live in a world of her own, and was, and is, I really believe, absolutely unimpressible in that respect. It is possible, that her inexperience of any mode of life but her own, may have rendered her somewhat jealous in behalf of it, and not wil- ling to be brought into comparison with pretensions, the defects of which she is acute to discern; but her indifference to the nominal and conventional part of their importance is unaffectedly real ; and it partakes of that sense of the ludicrous, which is so natural to persons to whom they are of no LORD BYRON. 27 consequence, and so provoking to those who regard them otherwise. Finally, Lord Byron, who was as acute as a woman in those respects, very speedily discerned that he did not stand very high in her good graces ; and accordingly he set her down to a very humhle rank in his own. As I oftener went to his part of the house, than he came to mine, he seldom saw her; and when he did, the conversation was awkward on his side, and provokingly self-possessed on her's. He said to her one day, " What do you think, Mrs. Hunt ? Trelawney has been speaking against my morals ! What do you think of that !" — " It is the first time," said Mrs. Hunt, " I ever heard of them." This, which would have set a man of address upon his wit, completely dashed, and reduced him to silence. But her greatest offence was in something which I had occasion to tell him. He was very bitter one day upon some friends of mine, criticis- ing even their personal appearance, and that in no good taste. At the same time, he was affecting to be very pleasant and good-humoured, and without any " offence in the world." AH this provoked me to mortify him, and I asked if he knew what Mrs. Hunt had said one day to the Shelley s of his picture by Harlowe? (It is the fastidious, scornful portrait of him, affectedly looking down.) He said he did not, and was curious to know. An engraving of it, I told him, was shown her, and her opinioo asked ; upon which she observed, that " it resembled a great school-boy, who had had a plain bun given him, instead of a plum one." I did not add, that our friends shook with laughter at this idea of the noble original, because it was " so like him." He looked as blank as possible, and never again criticised the personal appearance of those whom I regarded. It was on accounts like these, that he talked of Mrs. Hunt as being " no great things." Myself, because I did not take all his worldly common-places for granted, nor enter into the merit of his E 2 28 LORD BYRON. bad jokes on women, he represented as a " proser :" and the children, than whom, I will venture to say, it was impossible to have quieter or more respectable in the house, or any that came less in his way, he pronounced to be " impracticable." But that was the reason. I very soon found that it was desirable to keep them out of his way; and although this was done in the easiest and most natural manner, and was altogether such a measure as a person of less jealousy might have regarded as a considera- tion for his quiet, he resented it, and could not help venting his spleen in talking of them. The worst of it was, that when they did come in his way, they were nothing daunted. They had lived in a natural, not an artificial state of intercourse, and were equally sprightly, respectful, and self-possessed. My eldest boy surprised him with his address, never losing his singleness of manner, nor exhibiting pretensions of which he was too young to know any thing, yet giving him his title at due inter- vals, and appearing, in fact, as if he had always lived in the world instead of out of it. This put him out of his reckoning. To the second, who was more struck with his reputation, and had a vivacity of tempera- ment that rendered such lessons dangerous, he said, one day, that he must take care how he got notions in his head about truth and sincerity, for they would hinder his getting on i;i the world. This, doubtless, was rather intended to vent a spleen of his own, than to modify the opinions of the child ; but the peril was not the less, and I had warning given me that he could say worse things when I was not present. Thus the children became " impracticable ;" and, luckily, they remained so. One thing, among others in which, he found myself impracticable, annoyed him exceedingly ; so much so, that I would have given it up, and the rest too, if the change would not have done more harm than good. I the more readily speak of it, because it reminds me of some- LORD BYRON. 29 thing which I have omitted, and which I might reasonably be accused of omitting to my own advantage. While I was writing the " Story of Rimini," Lord Byron saw the manuscript from time to time, and made his remarks upon it; He s{)oke also to Murray respecting the publi- cation. Murray was of an opposite side in politics both to the noble Lord and myself : but he was glad to publish with his Lordship, for considerations which he found not incompatible with his political phi- losophy ; and he said that he was willing to publish for me, out of a sense of liberality and fair /dealing. A friend of mine had told me, as an instance of his superiority to mere party views, that he piqued himself upon a " Life of Napoleon" which he was about to publish, and which Avas to be very impartial. In short, Mun^ay had himself importuned me some years before to write for " The Quarterlj^ Review." I will not swear, that in putting the " Story of Rimini" into his hands, I had not something of an instinctive sense that I was securing myself against the more violent hostilities of that review. I will not swear this, because there is always something in the " last recesses of the mind," of which spectators may be better judges than ourselves. But Mr. Hazlitt, with his extra-subtleties, was out, when he thought I put Mr. Gilford's epitaph on his servant into " The Examiner," with a view to that end. The coincidence was curious, I admit ; but it was nothing more. The epitaph was sent me, as things favourable to others of the opposite party had been sent me before, with a recommendation of it to my attention, and a plain hint, that my credit for impartiality was concerned in the manner in which I should treat it. It is well known, and has been sonietimes lamented (by Mr. Hazlitt among others), that the liberal side of politics piqued itself upon the greater degree of generosity with which it could afford to speak of its enemies, and do justice to what it thought meri- 30. LORD BYRON, torious in them. I may add, that " The Examiner" was. foremost in the display of this piece of knight-errantry ; that it always spoke of Napo- leon as a great man, though it held him up as a hetrayer of the cause of freedom ; that it was among the foremost to hail Sir Walter Scott as a novelist, though it thought little of him as a poet, and scornfully as a politician ; and that at one time it was almost exclusive as a journal, in its admiration of the poetical genius of Wordsworth, of whom it never- theless felt ashamed as a renegado. Lord Byron used to accuse me of making a diversion on the town in favour of Wordsworth ; and I have reason to believe, that the poet himself was not without an opinion to the same effect. All I mean to say is, that had the epitaph written by Mr, Gifford come before me at any time, it would have met with the same reception, because I thought well of it. That I was not sorry at the coincidence (which is possible) I cannot pretend to acknowledge, because I have no recollection of the kind ; but I confess, that had I known as much of the impulses of weak men at that time as I do now, I -would not have incurred, by publishing the epitaph, a greater por- tion of malignity, than the review was at all events prepared to assail me with. My opinion of Murray's conduct is, that he was glad of the opportunity of showing his impartiality so far with, regard to one of his publications, as to allow his review to cut it up ; and I can easily enough imagine," that GifFord, or whoever the poor fellow was that did cut it up, was the more delighted with his. task, in pro- portion to the sense which he supposed me to entertain of his power. Lord Byron perhaps may have felt piqued at the review on his own account. I forget whether he ever alluded to it. I think not. He con- descended, among his other timid deferences to "the town," to be afraid of Gifford. There was an interchange of flatteries between them, not LORD BYllON. 31 the less subtle for Gifford's occasionally affecting a paternal tone of re- monstrance ; and they were " friends" to the last ; though Lord Byron, (to say nothing of that being a reason also) could not help giving him a secret hit now and then, when the church-and-state review became shy of him. Gifford thought him a wonderful young man, but wild, &c. ; and he never forgot that he was a lord. He least of all forgot it, when he affected to play the schoolmaster. On the other hand. Lord Byron was happy to regard Mr. Gifford as a wonderful old gentleman, not in- deed a born gentleman, but the more honest in his patricianisms on that account, and quite a born critic ; " sound," as the saying is ; learned and all that, and full of " good sense :" in short, one that was very sensible of his Lordship's merits, both as a poet and a peer, and who had the art of making his homage to a man of rank agreeable, by affecting inde- pendence without really feeling it. Murray he laughed at. He treated him afterwards, as he did most others, with strange alternations of spleen and good humour, of open panegyric and secret ridicule ; but at the period in question, he at least thought him an honest man — for " the tribe of jBarahhas '" who, said his Lordship, "was unquestionably a book- seller." Murray affected to patronize him; and with a simplicity worthy of Dominie Sampson, lamented that a young man with such ad- vantages should go counter in opinion to the King and his ministers ; otherwise, said he, who knows but what he might have been made a Viscount, " or even an Earl !"* Mr. Murray once did me the honour, in a stage-coach, to make a similar lamentation with regard to myself, all of course in due proportion to my rank and pretensions: but, said he, " There is Leigh Hunt : — what does he mean by writing on the side of * I quote on the authority of a Quarterly Reviewer. 32 LORD BYRON. reform and that kind of thing ? what a pity he did not come to us ! he might have made his fortune." " Oh but," said a person present, who happened to know me, " his principles were against it." '^ Principles !" exclaimed Mr. Murray, foregoing his character of Dominie Sampson, and with all the airs of a courtier ; " Principles !" as if he had never heard of such things. The courtiers had the advantage of me in one particular. They knew what it was to admire lords heartily, and they could see that I admired them more than I suspected. I dedicated the " Story of Rimini" to Lord Byron, and the dedication was a foolish one. I addressed him, as at the beginning of a letter, and as custom allo"^s in private between friends, without his title ; and I proceeded to show how much I thought of his rank, by pretending to think nothing about it. My .critics were right so far ; but they were wrong in thinking that I would have done it to every lord, and that very romantic feelings were not mixed up with this very childish mistake. I had declined, out of a notion of principle, to avail myself of more than one opportunity of being intimate with men of rank ; opportunities which, it will easily be conceived, are no very uncommon things in the life of a journalist. I confess I valued myself a little suspiciou'sly upon my self-denial. In one instance I had reason to do so, for I missed the company of a man of talents. But talents, poetry, similarity of political opinion, the flattery of early sympathy with my boyish writings, more flattering offers of friendship, and the last climax of flattery, an earnest waiving of his rank, were too much for me in the person of I^ord Byron ; and I took out, with my new friend as l\hought him, hearty payment for my philoso- phical abstinence. Now was the time, I thought, to show, that friend- ship, and talents, and poetry, were reckoned superior to rank,' even by LORD BYRON. 33 rank itself ; my friend appeared not only to allow me to think so, but to encourage me to do it. I took him at his word ; and I believe he was as much astonished at it (though nobody could have expressed himself more kindly to me on the subject*), as at this present writing I am mor- tified to record it. I discovered the absurdity I had committed, long before I went to Italy. On renewing my intercourse with Lord Byron, I made up my mind to put myself on a different footing with him, but in such a manner as he should construe handsomely towards himself, as well as respectfully towards me. I reckoned upon his approval of it, becausg_ it should be done as a matter of course, and as the result of a little more^ experience of the world, and. not out of any particular observation of his own wishes or inconsistencies ; and I reckoned upon it the more confidently, because at the time that I formed the resolution, his own personal character was not so much in my thoughts as that conventional modification of it which he inherited in common with others of his rank, and of which it was not to be expected he should get rid. Men do not easily give up any advantages they possess, real or imaginary ; and they have a good deal to say in their favour, — I mean, as far as any real difference is concerned between what is tangible in substance and tangible in the apprehension. If a man can be made happy with a title, I do not know why we should begrudge it him, or why he should think iU of it, any more than of beauty, or riches, or any thing else that has an influence upon the imagination. The only questions are, whether he wiU be the better for it in the long run; and whether his parti- * See the Correspondence. 34 LOUD BYEON. cular good is harmless or otherwise with' respect to the many. Without stopping to settle this point, I had concluded that Lord Byron had naturally as much regard for his title as any other nobleman ; perhaps more, because he had professed not to care about it. Besides, he had a poetical imagination. Mr. Shelley, who, though he had not known him longer, had known him more intimately, was punctilious in giving him his title, and told me very plainly that he thought it best for all parties. His oldest acquaintances, it is true, beliaved in this respect, as it is the custom to behave in great familiarity of intercourse. Mr. Shelley did not choose to be so familiar ; and he thought, that although I had acted differently in former times, a long suspension of inter- course would give farther warrant to a change, desirable on many accounts, quite unaflfected, and intended to be acceptable. I took care, accordingly, not to accompany my new punctilio with any air of study or gravity. In every other respect, things appeared the same as before. We laughed, and chatted, and rode out, and were as familiar as need be; and I thought he regarded the matter just as I wished. However, he did not like it. This may require some explanation. Lord Byron was very proud of his rank. M. Beyle (" Count Stendhal"), when he saw him at the opera in Venice, made this discovery at a glance; and it was a dis- covery no less subtle than true. He would appear sometimes as jealous of his title, as if he had usurped it. A friend told me, that an Italian apothecary having sent him one day a packet of medicines, addressed to " Mons. Byron," this mock-heroic mistake aroused his indignation, and he sent back the physic to learn better manners. His coat of arms was fixed up in front of his bed. I have heard that it was a joke with him to mystify the sense of the motto to his fair friend, who LORD BYRON. 35 wished particularly to know what " Crede Byron" meant. The motto, it must be acknowledged, was awkward. The version, to which her Italian helped her, was too provocative of comment to be allowed. There are mottoes, as well as scutcheons, of pretence, which must often occasion the bearers much taunt and sarcasm, especially from indig- nant ladies. Custom, indeed, and the interested acquiescence of society, enable us to be proud of imputed merits, though we contradict thi^m every day of our life: otherwise it would be wonderful how people could adorn their equipages, and be contmually sealing their letters with maxims and stately moralities, ludicrously inapplicable. It would be like wearing ironical papers in their hats. But Lord Byron, besides being a lord, was a man of letters, and he was extremely desirous of the approbation of men of letters. He loved to enjoy the privileges of his rank, and at the same time to be thought above them. It is true, if he thought you not above them yourself, he was the better pleased. On this account among others, no man was cal- culated to delight him in a higher degree than Thomas Moore ; who with every charm he wished for in a companion, and a reputation for independence and liberal opinion, admired both genius and title for their own sakes. But his Lordship did not always feel quite secure of the bon-mots of his brother wit. His conscience had taught him suspicion ; and it was a fault with him and his coterie, as it is with most, that they all talked too much of one another behind their backs. But " admiration at all events" was his real motto. If he thought you an admirer of titles, he was well pleased that you should add that homage to the other, without investigating it too nicely. If not, he was anxious that you should not suppose him anxious about the matter. When he beheld me, therefore, in the first instance, taking such pains to show my philosophy, r 2 36 LOED BYllON. he knew very well that he was secure, address him as I might ; but now that he found me grown older, and siispected from my general opinions and way of life, that my experience, though it adopted the style of the world when mixing with it, partook less of it than ever in some respects, he was chagrined at this change in my appellatives. He did not feel so at once ; but the more we associated, and the greater insight he obtained into the tranquil and unaffected conclusions I had come to on a great many points, upon which he was desirous of being thought as indifferent as myself, the less satisfied he became with it. At last, thinking I had ceased to esteem him, he petulantly bantered me on the subject. I knew, in fact, that, under all the circumstances, neither of us could afford a change back again to the old entire familiarity : he, because he would have regarded it as a triumph warranting very peculiar consequences, and such as would by no means have saved me from the penalties of the previous offence ; and I, because I was under certain disadvantages, that would not allow me to indulge him. With any other man, I would not have stood it out. " It would have ill become the very sincerity of my feelings. But even the genius of Lord Byron did not enable him to afford being conceded to. . He was so annoyed one day at Genoa at not succeeding in bantering me out of my epistolary proprieties, that he addressed me a letter beginning, " Dear Lord Hunt." This sally made me laugh heartily. I told him so ; and my unequivocal relish of the joke pacified him ; so that I heard no more on the subject. The familiarities of my noble acquaintance, which I had taken at first for a compliment and a cordiality, were dealt out in equal portions to all who came near him. They proceeded upon that royal instinct of an immeasurable distance between the parties, the safety of which, it is thought, can be compromised by no appearance of encouragement. The LORD BYRON. 37 farther you are off, the more securely the personage may indulge your good opinion of him. The greater his merits, and the more transporting his condescension, the less can you be so immodest as to have pretensions of your own. You may be intoxicated into familiarity. That is excusable, though not desirable. But not to be intoxicated any how,— not to show any levity, and yet not to be possessed with a seriousness of the pleasure, is an offence. When I agreed to go to Italy and join in setting up the proposed work, Shelley, who Avas fond of giving his friends appellations, happened to be talking one day with Lord Byron of the mystification which the name of " Leigh Hunt" would cause the Italians ; and passing from one fancy to another, he proposed that they should translate it into Ijcontius. Lord Byron approved of this conceit, and at Pisa was in the habit of calling me so. I liked it ; especially as it seemed a kind of new link with my beloved friend, then, alas ! no more. I was pleased to be called in Italy, what he would have called me there had he been alive : and the familiarity was welcome to me from Lord Byron's mouth, partly because it pleased himself, partly because it was not of a worldly fashion, and the link with my friend was thus rendered compatible. In fact, had Lord Byron been what I used to think him, he might have called me what he chose ; and I should have been as proud to be at his call, as I endeavoured to be pleased. As it was, there was sortiething not unso- cial nor even unenjoying in our intercourse, nor was there any appear- ance of constraint ; but, upon the whole, it was not pleasant : it was not cordial. There was a sense of mistake on both sides. However, this came by degrees. At first there was hope, which I tried hard to in- dulge ; and there was always some joking going forward ; some melan- ' choly mirth, which a spectator might have taken for pleasure. Our manner of life was this. Lord Byron, who used to sit up at 38 I>OBD BYKON. night, writing Don Juan (which he did under the influence of gin and water), rose late in the morning. He breakfasted ; read ; lounged about, singing an air, generally out of Rossini, and in a swaggering style, though in a voice at once small and veiled ; then took a bath, and was dressed ; and coming down-stairs, was heard, still singing, in the court-yard, out of which the garden ascended at the back of the house. The servants at the same time brought out two or three chairs. My study, a little room in a corner, with an orange-tree peeping in at the window, looked upon this court-yard. I was generally at my writing when he came down, and either acknowledged his presence by getting up and saying something from the window, or he called out " Leontius!" and came halting up to. the window with some joke, or other challenge to conversation. (Readers of good sense will do me the justice of dis- cerning where any thing is spoken of in a tone of objection, and where it is only brought in as requisite to the truth of the picture.) His dress, as at Monte-Nero, was a nankin jacket, with white waistcoat and trowserS, and a cap, either velvet or linen, with a shade to it. In his hand was a tobacco-box, from which he helped himself like imto a shipman, but for a different purpose; his object being to restrain the pinguifying im- pulses of himger. Perhaps also he thought it good for the teeth. We then lounged about, or sat and talked, Madame Guiccioli. with her sleek tresses descending after her toilet to join us. The garden was small and square, but plentifully stocked with oranges and other shrubs ; and, being well watered, looked very green and refreshing under the ItaUan sky. The lady generally attracted us up into it, if we had not been there before. Her appearance might have reminded an English spectator of Chaucer's heroine — ■•*. THE COUHTESS GUliCCIOLI. '/it-i'x-^-e^j^i^m^-^/C^..yMi''U/:'t^ /^o^rt- a. ,'-/,ly. •.'"■■'.?^>r.-4^' ^''■^,7.'^/^i ^lihlisked- by Hairy C}U'urn,,Lo*uL>n,Id^'S LORD BYIION. 3Q " Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise. Her yellow hair was braided in a tress Behind her back, a yarde long, I guess : And in the garden (as the sun uprist) She walkethup and down, where as her list :" And then, as Dryden has it : " At every turn she made a little stand. And thrust among the thorns her lily hand." Madame Guiccioli, who was at that time about twenty, was hand' some and lady-like, with an agreeable manner, and a voice not partaking too much of the Italian fervour to be gentle. She had just enough of it to give her speaking a grace. None of her graces appeared entirely free from art ; nor, on the other hand, did they betray enough of it to give you an ill opinion of her sincerity and good-humour. I was told, that her Romagnese dialect Avas observable; but to me, at that time, all Italian in a lady's mouth was^ Tuscan pearl ; and she tfoUed it over het lip, pure or not, with that sort of conscious grace, which seems to belong to the Italian language as a matter of right. I amused her with speaking bad Itahan out of Ariosto, and saying speme for speraima ; in which she goodnaturedly found something pleasant and pellegrino ; keeping all the while that considerate countenance, for which a foreigner has so much reason to be grateful. Her hair was what the poet has described, or rather blond, with an inclination to yellow ; a very fair and delicate yellow at all events, and within the limits of the poetical. She had regular features, of the order properly called handsome, in distinction to pretti- ness or to piquancy ; being well proportioned to one another, large rather than otherwise, but without coarseness, and more harmonious than in* 40 LORD BYRON. teresting. Her nose was the handsomest of the kind I ever saw ; and I have known her both smile very sweetly, and look intelligently, when Lord Byron has said something kind to her. I should not say, however, that she was a very intelligent person. Both her wisdom aud her want of wisdom were on the side of her feelings, in which there was doubt- less mingled a good deal of the self-love natural to a flattered beauty. She wrote letters in the style of the " Academy of Compliments ;" and made plentiful use, at all times, of those substitutes for address and dis- course, which flourished in England at the era of that polite compilation, and are still in full bloom in Italy. "And evermore She strewed a mi rallegro after and before." In a word, Madame Guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder, com- pressing herself artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in the eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet. When I saw her at Monte-Nero, she was in a state of excitement and exaltation, and had really something of this look. At that time also she looked no older than she was ; in which respect a rapid and very singular change took place, to the surprise of every body. In the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years. It was most likely in that interval that she discovered she had no real hold on the affections of her companion. The portrait of her by Mr. West, " In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye," is flattering upon the whole ; has a look of greater delicacy than she possessed ; but it is also very like, and the studied pretension of the atti- tude has a moral resemblance. Being a half-length, it shows her to ad- vantage ; for the fault of her person was, that her head and bust were hardly sustained by limbs of sufficient length. I take her to have been LOED BYRON. 41 a good^hearted zealous person, capable of being very natural if she had been thrown into natural circumstances, and able to show a companion, whom she was proud of, that good-humoured and grateful attachment, which the most brilliant men, if they were wise enough, would be as happy to secure, as a corner in Elysium. But the greater and more selfish the vanity, the less will it tolerate the smallest portion of it in another. Lord Byron saw, in the attachment of any female, nothing but what the whole sex were prepared to entertain for him ; and instead of allowing himself to love and be beloved for the qualities which can only be real- ized upon intimacy, and which are the only securers at last of all attach- ment, whether for the illustrious or the obscure, he gave up his comfort, out of a wretched compliment to his self-love. He enabled this adoring sex to discover, that a great man might be a very small one. It must be owned, however, as the reader wiU see presently, that Madame Guiccioli did not in the least know how to manage him, when he was wrong. The effect of these and the other faults in his Lordship's character was similar, in its proportion, upon all who chanced to come within his sphere. Let the reader present to his imagination the noble poet and any intimate acquaintance (not a mere man of the world) living together. He must fancy them, by very speedy degrees, doubting and differing with one another, how quietly soever, and producing such a painful sense of something not to be esteemed on one side, and something tor- mented between the wish not to show it and the impossibility of not feeling it on the other, that separation becomes inevitable. It has been said in a magazine, that I was always arguing with Lord Byron. No- thing can be more untrue. I was indeed almost always differing, and to such a degree, that I was fain to keep the difference to myself. I differed so much, that I argued as little as possible. His Lordship was so poor a G 42 lOUD BYRON. logician, that he did not even provoke argument. When you openly dif- fered with him, in any thing like a zealous manner, the provocation was caused by something foreign to reasoning, and not pretending to it. He did not care for argument, and what is worse, was too easily convinced at the moment, or appeared to be so, to give any zest to disputation. He grave- ly asked me one day, " What it was that convinced me in argument ?" I said, I thought I was convinced by the strongest reasoning. " For my part," said he, " it is the last speaker that convinces me." And I believe he spoke truly ; but then he was only convinced, tUl it was agreeable to him to be moved otherwise. He did not care for the truth. He admired only the convenient and the ornamental. He was moved to and fro, not because there was any ultimate purpose which he would give up, but solely because it was most troublesome to him to sit still and resist. " Mobility," he has said, in one of his notes to " Don Juan," was his weakness ; and he calls it " a very painful attribute." It is an attribute certainly not very godlike ; but it still left him as self-centered and unsympathising with his movers, as if he had been a statue or a ball. In this respect he was as totus teres atque rotwndust, as Mr. Hazlitt could desire ; and thus it was, that he was rolled out of Mr. Hazlitt's own com- pany and the Liberal. I shall come to that matter presently* Meanwhile, to return to om- mode of life. In the course of an hour or two, being an early riser, I used to go in to dinner. Lord Byron either stayed a little longer, or went up stairs to his books and his couch. When the heat of the day declined, we rode out, either on horseback or in a barouche, generally towards the forest. He was a good rider, graceful, and kept a firm seat. He loved to be told of it ; and being true, it was a pleasure to tell him. Good God ! what homage might not that man have received, and what LOUD BYRON. 43 love and pleasure reciprocated, if he could have been content with the truth, and had truth enough of his own to think a little better of his fellow-creatures! But he was always seeking for uneasy sources of satisfaction. The first day we were going out on horseback to- gether, he was joking upon the bad riding of this and that acquaint- ance of his. He evidently hoped to have the pleasure of adding me to the ; list ; and finding, when we pushed forward, that there was nothing particular in the spectacle of* my horsemanship, he said in a tone of disappointment, "Why, Hunt, you ride very well!" Tre- lawney sometimes went with us, on a great horse, smoking a cigar. We had blue frock-coats, white waistcoats . and trowsers, and velvet caps, a la Raphael; and cut a gallant figure. Sometimes, we went as far as a vineyard, where he had been accustomed to shoot ^at a mark, and where the brunette^ lived, Avho came into his drawing-room with the basket of flowers. The father was an honest-looking man, who was in trouble with his landlord, and heaved great sighs; the mother a loud swarthy woman, with hard lines in her (face.; There was a little sister, delicate-looking and melancholy, very, different from the confident though not unpleasing countenance of .the elder, who was more handsome. They all, however, seemed good-^humoured. We sat under an arbour, and had figs served, up to us, the mother ;being loud in our faces, and cutting some cKtraordinary jokes, which made me anything but merry. Upon the wihok, I was glad to come away. Madame Guiccioli was very curious on these , occasions, but could get no information. Unfortunately, she could riot see beyond a com- monrplace of any sort, nor put up with a distressing one in the hope of doing it away. The worst thing she did(-(and which; showed to G 2 44 LORD BYRON. every body else, though not to herself, that she entertained no real love for Lord Byron) was to indulge in vehement complaints of him to •his acquaintances. The first time she did so to me, I shocked her so excessively with endeavouring to pay a compliment to her understandings and leading her into a more generous policy, that she never made me her confidant again. " No wonder," she said, " that my Lord was so bad, when he had friends who could talk so shockingly." "Oh, Shelley !" thought I, " see what your friend has come to with the sentimental Italian whom he was to assist in reforming our Don Juan !" When Lord Byron talked freely to her before others, she was not affected by what would have startled a delicate Englishwoman, (a common Italian defect), but when he alluded to any thing more pardonable, she would get angry, and remonstrate, and "wonder at him;" he all the while looking as if he enjoyed her vehemence, and did not believe a word of it. A delicate lover Avould have spared her this, and at the same time have elevated her notions of the behaviour suitable for such occasions ;, but her own understanding did not inform her any better ; and in this respect I doubt whether Lord Byron's could have supplied it ; what is called sentiment having been so completely taken out of him by iU company and the world. Of an evening I seldom saw him. He recreated himself in the bal- cony, or with a book; and at night, when I went to bed, he was just thinking of setting to work with Don Juan. His favourite reading was history and travels. I think I am correct in saying that his favourite authors were Bayle and Gibbon. Gibbon was altogether a writer calcu- lated to please him. There was a show in him, and at the same time a tone of the world, a self-complacency and a sarcasm, a love of things aristocratical, with a tendency to be liberal on other points of opinion LORD BYRON. 45 and to crown all, a splendid success in authorship, and a high and pi- quant character with the fashionable world, which found a strong sym- pathy in the bosom of his noble reader. Then, in his private life. Gibbon was a voluptuous recluse ; he had given celebrity to a fo- reign residence, possessed a due sense of the merits of wealth as well as rank, and last, perhaps not least, was no speaker in Parlia- ment. I may add, that the elaborate style of his writing pleased the lover of the artificial in poetry, while the cynical turn of his sa- tire amused the genius of Don Juan. And finally, his learning and research supplied the indolent man of letters with the information which he had left at school. Lord Byron's collection of books was poor, and consisted chiefly of new ones. I remember little among them but the English works published at Basle, (Kames, Robertson, Watson's History of Philip II. &c.) and new ones occasionally sent him from England. He was anxious to show you that he possessed no Shakspeare and Milton ; " because," he said, " he had been accused of borrowing from them !" He affected to doubt whether Shakspeare was so great a genius as he has been taken for, and whether fashion had not a great deal to do with it ; an extravagance, of which none but a patrician _ author could have been guilty. However, there was a greater committal of himself at the bottom of this notion than he supposed ; and, per- haps, circumstances had really disenabled him from having the proper idea of Shakspeare, though it could not have fallen so short of the truth as he pretended. Spenser he could not read ; at least he said so. All the gusto of that most poetical of ' the poets went with him for nothing. I lent him a volume of the " Fairy Queen," and he said he would try to like it. Next day he brought it to my 46 LORD BYEON. study-window, and said, "Here, Hunt, here is yotir Spenser. I cannot see any thing in him :" and he seemed anxious that I should take it out of his hands, as if he was afraid of being accused of copying so poor a writer. That he saw nothing in Spenser is not very likely ; but I really do not think that he saw much, Spenser was too much out of the world, and he too much in it. It would have been impossible to persuade him, that Sandy s's Ovid was better than Addison's and CroxaU's. He wanted faith in the interior of poetry, to relish it, unpruned and unpopular. Besides, he himself was to be mixed up somehow with every thing, whether .to approve it or dis- approve. When he found Sandys's " Ovid" among my books, he said, " God ! what an unpleasant recollection I have of this book! I met with it on my wedding-day ; I read it while. I was waiting to go to church." Sandys, who is any thing but an anti-bridal poet, ;was thenceforward to be nobody but an old fellow who had given him an unpleasant sensation. The only great writer of past times, whom he read with avowed satisfaction, was Montaigne, as the reader may see by an article in the " New Monthly Magazine." In the same article may be seen the reasons why, and the passages that he marked in that author. Franklin he liked. He respected him for his acquisition of wealth and power ; and would have stood in awe, had he known him, of the refined worldliness of his character, and the influence it gave him. Franklin's Works, and Walter Scott's, were among his favourite residing. His liking for such of the modern authors, as he preferred in general, was not founded in a compliment to them ; but Walter' Scott, with his novels, his fashionable repute, and his ill opinion of the world whom he fell in with, enabled him to enter heartily into his merits ; and he read him over and over again ^ith, unaffected delight. .Sir Walter was his correspondent, and appears to LORD BYUON. 47 have returned the regard ; though, if I remember, the dedication of " The Mystery" frightened him. They did not hold each other in the less esti- mation, the one for being a lord, and the other a lover of lords : neither did Sir Walter's connexion with the calumniating press of Edinburgh at all shock his noble friend. It added rather " a fearful joy" to his es- teem ; carrying with it a look of something "bloody, bold, and resolute :" at the same tim^e, more resolute than bold, and more death-dealing than either ; — a sort of available other-man's weapon, which increased the sum of his power, and was a set-off against his character for virtue. The first number of the Liberal was now on the anvU, and Mr. Shelley's death had given me a new uneasiness. The reader will see in Mr. Shelley's Letters, that Lord Byron had originally proposed a work of the kind to Mr. Moore ; at least, a periodical work of some sort, which they were jointly to write. Mr. Moore doubted the beatitude of such divided light, and dechned it. His Lordship then proposed • it through Mr. Shelley to me. I wrote to both of them to say, that T should be happy to take such an opportu- nity of restoring the fortunes of a battered race of patriots ; and as soon as we met in Pisa, it was agreed that the work should be political, and assist in carrying on the good cause. The title of Liberal was given it by Lord Byron. We were to share equally the profits, the work being printed and published by my brother ; and it was confidently anticipated that money would pour in upon all of us. Enemies however, had been already at work. Lord Byron was alarmed for his credit with his fashionable friends; among whom, although , on the liberal side, patriotism was less in favour, than the talk about it. This man wrote to him, and that wrote, and 48 LORD BYRON. another came. Mr. Hobhouse rushed over the Alps, not knowing which was the more awful, the mountains, or the Magazine. Mr- Murray wondered, Mr. Gifford smiled, (a lofty symptom !) and Mr. Moore (tu quoque, Horati !) said that the Liberal had " a taint" in it! This however was afterwards. But Lord Byron, whd was as fond as a footman of communicating unpleasant intelligence, told us from the first, that his " friends" had all been at him ; friends, whom he afterwards told me he had " libelled aU round," and whom (to judge of what he did by some of them) he continued to treat in the same impar- tial manner. He surprised my friend, Mr. Brown, at Pisa, by volunteer- ing a gossip on this matter, in the course of which he drew a comparison between me and one of his " friends," to whom, he said, he had been accused of preferring me ; " and," added he, with an air of warmth, " so I do." The meaning of this was, that the person in question was out of favour at the moment, and I was in. Next day the tables may have been turned. I met Mr. Hobhouse soon after in the Casa Lanfranchi. He was very polite and complimentary ; and then, if his noble friend was to be behevedj did all he could to destroy the connexion between us. One of the arguments used by the remonstrants with his Lordship was, that the connexion was not " gentlemanly ;" a representation which he professed to treat with great scorn, whether birth or manners were con- cerned ; and I will add, that he had reason to do so. It was a ridiculous assumption, which, like aU things of that sort, was to tell upon the mere strength of its being one. The manners of such of his Lordship's friends as I ever happened to meet with, were, in fact, with one excep- tion, nothing superior to their birth, if two such unequal things may be put on a level. It is remarkable (and, indeed, may account for the cry about gentility, which none are so given to as the vulgar,) that they LORD BYRON. 49 were almost all persons of humble origin ; one of a race of booksellers ; another the son of a grocer ; another, of a glazier ; and a fourth, though the son of a baronet, the grandson of a linen-draper. Readers who know any thing of me, or such as I care to be known by, will not suspect me of undervaluing tradesmen or the sons of tradesmen, who may be, and very often are, both as gentlemanly and accomplished as any men in England^ It did not require the Frenchman's discovery, (that, at a certain remove, every body is related to every body else,) to make a man think sensibly on this point now-a-days. Pope was a linen-draper's son, and Cowley a grocer's. Who would be coxcomb enough to venture to think the worse on that account of either of those illustrious men, whether for wit or gentility; and both were gentlemen as well as wits. But when persons bring a charge upon things indifferent, which, if it attaches at all, attaches to none but themselves who make it, the thing indifferent becomes a thing ridiculous. Mr. Shelley, a baronet's son, was also of an old family: and, as to his manners, though they were in general those of a recluse, and of an invalid occupied with his thoughts, they were any thing but vulgar. They could be, if he pleased, in the most received style of his rank. He was not incapable, when pestered with moral vulgarity, of assuming even an air of aristocratic pride and remoteness. Some of Lord Byron's friends would have given him occasion for this twenty times in a day. They did wisely to keep out of his way. As to my birth, the reader may see what it was in another part of the volume ; and my man- ners I leave him to construe kindly or otherwise, according to his own. There is nothing on the part of others, from which I have suffered so much in the course of my life, as reserve and disingenuousness. Had Lord Byron, incontinent in every thing else, told me at once, that in case it did not bring him an influx of wealth, he could not find it in his H 50 LORD BYRON. heart to persist in what was objected to by a cdterie on the town, — or had his friends, whom he " libelled all round," and some of whom returned him the compliment, been capable of paying me or themselves the compliment of being a little sincere with me, and showing me any reasons for supposing that the work would be injurious to Lord Byron (for I will imagine, for the sake of argument, that such might have been the case), I should have put an end to the design at once. As it was, though his Lordship gave in before lon^, and had undoubtedly made up his mind to do so long before he announced it, yet not only did the immediate influence prevail at first over the remoter one, but it is a mis- take to suppose that he was not mainly influenced by the expectation of profit. He expected very large returns from " The Liberal." Readers in these days need not be told that periodical works, which have a large sale, are a mine of wealth. Lord Byron had calculated that matter well ; and when it is added, that he loved money, adored notoriety, and natu- rally entertained a high opinion of the effect of any new kind of writing which he should take in hand, nobody will beUeve it probable (nobody who knew him will believe it possible) that he should voluntarily con- template the rejection of profits which he had agreed to receive. He would have beheld in them the most delightful of all proofs, that his reputation was not on the wane. For here, after all, lay the great secret, both of what he did and what he did not do. He was subje.ct, it is true, to a number of weak impulses ; would agree to this thing and propose another, purely out of incontinence of will ; and offer to do one day what he would bite his fingers off" to get rid of the next. But this plan of a periodical pubUcation was no sudden business ; he had proposed it more than once, and to different persons ; and his reasons for it were, that he thought he should get bpth money and fame. A pique with " The LOKD BYRON. 51 Quarterly Review," and his Tory admirers, roused his regard for the opposite side of the question. He thought to do himself good, and chagrin his critics, by assisting an enemy. The natural Toryism of some pretended lovers of liberty first alarmed him by a hint, that he might possibly not succeed. He supported his resolution by the hopes I have just mentioned, and even tried to encourage himself into a pique with his friends; but the failure of the large profits — the non-appearance of the golden visions he had looked for, — of the Edinburgh and Quarterly returns, — of the solid and splendid proofs of this new country which he should conquer in the regions of notoriety, to the dazzling of aU men's eyes and his own, — this it was, this was the bitter disappointment which made him determine to give way, and which ultimately assisted in car- rying himl as far as Greece, in the hope of another redemption of his honours. From the moment he saw the moderate profits of " The Liberal," (quite enough to encourage perseverance, if he had had it, but not in the midst of a hundred wounded vanities and inordinate hopes,) he resolved to have nothing farther to do with it in the way of real assistance. He made use of it only for the publication of some things which his Tory bookseller was afraid to put forth. Indeed, he began with a contribution of that sort ; but then he thought it would carry every thing before it. It also enabled him to make a pretence, with his friends, of doing as little as possible ; while he secretly indulged himself in opposition both to them and his enemies. It failed ; and he then made an instrument of the magazine, in such a manner as to indulge his own spleen, and maintain an appearance of co-operation, while in reality he did nothing for it but hasten its downfal. There were undoubtedly other causes which conspired to this end ; but they were of minor importance, and would gradually have been done H 2 52 LOUD BYUON. away, had he possessed spirit and independence enough to persevere. It was thought that Mr. Shelley's co-operation would have hurt the magazine ; and so it might in a degree ; till the public became too much interested to object to it ; but Mr. Shelley was dead, and people were already beginning to hear good of him and to like him. Extinctus ama- hitur. I myself, however, who was expected to write a good deal, and probably to be inspired beyond myself by the delight and grandeur of my position, was in very bad health, and as little conscious of delight and grandeur as possible. I had been used to write under trying circumstances ; but latterly I had been scarcely able to write at all ; and at the time I never felt more oppressed in my life with a sense of what vpas to be done. Then the publisher was a much better patriot than man of business : he was also new to his work as a bookseller ; and the trade (who can do more in these matters than people are aware of) set their faces against him ; particularly Lord Byron's old publisher, who was jea- lous and in a frenzy. To crown all, an article (the " Vision of Judgment") was sent my brother for insertion, which Avould have frightened any other publisher, or at least set him upon garbling and making stars. My brother saw nothing in it but Lord Byron, and a prodigious hit at the Tories ; and he prepared his machine accordingly fpr sending forward the blow unmitigated. Unfortunately it recoiled, and played the devil with all of us. I confess, for my part, having been let a little more into the interior in these matters, that had I seen the article, before it was published, I should have advised against the appearance of certain passages ; but Lord Byron had no copy in Italy. It was sent, by his direction, straight from Mr. Murray to the publisher's ; and the first time I beheld it, was in the work that I edited. That first number of" The Liberal" got us a great number of enemies. LORD BYllON. 53 some of a nature which we would rather have had on our side ; a great many because they felt their self-love wounded as authors, and more out of a national prejudice. The prejudice is not so strong as it was upon the particular subject alluded to ; but it is the least likely to wear out, because the national vanity is concerned in it, and it can only be conquered by an admission of defects. What renders the ease more inveterate is, that none partake of it more strongly than the most violent of its op- ponents. In addition to the scandal excited by the " Vision of Judg- ment," there was the untimely seasonableness of the epigrams upon poor Lord Castlereagh. Lord Byron wrote them. They arose from the im- pulse of the moment; were intended for a newspaper, and in that more fugitive medium, would have made a comparatively fugitive impression. Arrested in a magazine, they were kept longer before the eyes of the public, and what might have been pardoned as an impulse, was regarded with horror as a thing deliberate. Politicians in earnest, and politicians not in earnest, were mortified by the preface ; all the real or pretended orthodox, who can , admire a startling poem from a state-minister (Goethe), were vexed to see that Mr. Shelley could translate it ; and aU the pretenders in literature were vexed by the attack upon Hoole, and the article headed " Khyme and Reason ;" in which latter, I fear, even a wit, whom I could name, was capable of iindirig an iU intention. I be- gan to think so when I heard of his criticisms, and saw his next poem. But the " Vision of Judgment," with which none of the articles were to be compared, and which, in truth, is the best piece of satire Lord Byron ever put forth, was grudged us the more, and roused greater hostility on that account. Envy of the .silliest kind, and from the silliest people, such as it is really degrading to be the object of, pursued us at every turn; and when Mr. Hazlitt joined us, alarm as well as envy was at its height. 54 LORD BYRON. After all, perhaps, there was nothing that vexed these people, more than their inability to discover which were Lord Byron's articles, and which not. It betrayed a secret in the shallows of criticism, even to themselves, and was not to be forgiven. The work struggled on for a time, and then, owing partly to private circumstances, which I had explained in my first writing of these pages, but which it has become unnecessary to record, was quietly dropped. I shall only mention, that Lord Byron, after the failure of the "great profits," had declared his intention of receiving nothing from the work till it produced a certain sum ; and that I unex- pectedly turned out to be in the receipt of the whole profits of the pro- prietorship, which I regarded, but too truly, as one of a very ominous description. All which publickly concerns the origin and downfal of the Magazine the readers are acquainted with, excepting perhaps the political pique which Mr. Hobhouse may have felt against us, and the critical one which has been attributed to Mr. Moore. Mr. Hazlitt is supposed to have had his share in the offence ; and certainly, as far as writing in the work was concerned, he gave stronger reasons for it than I could do. But he shall speak for himself in a note, at the hazard of blowing up my less gunpowder text.* Mr. Hobhouse was once called upon by the * " At the time/' says Mr. Hazlitt, " that Lord Byron thought proper to join with Mr. Leigh Hunt and Mr. Shelley in the publication called The Liberal, Blackwood's Muga- zine overflowed, as might be expected, with tenfold gall and bitterness ; the John Bull was outrageous, and Mr, black in the face, at this unheard-of and disgraceful union. But who would have supposed that Mr. Thomas Moore and Mr. Hobhouse, those staunch friends and partisans of the people, should also be thrown into almost hysterical agonies of well-bred horror at the coalition between their noble and ignoble acquaintance — between the patrician and ' the newspaper-man ?' Mr. Moore darted backwards and forwards from Cold-Bath-Fields Prison to the Examiner office, from Mr. Longman's to Mr. Murray's shop in a state of ridiculous trepidation, to see what was to be done to prevent this degradation of the aristocracy of letters, this indecent encroachment of plebeian pretensions, this undue LORD BYRON, 55 electors of Westminster for an explicit statement of his opinions on the subject of reform.. He gave a statement which was thought not to be extension of patronage and compromise of privilege. The Tories were shocked that Lord Byron should grace the popular side by his direct countenance and assistance ; the Whigs were shocked that he should share his confidence and counsels with any one who did not unite the double recommendations of birth and genius — but themselves ! Mr. Moore had lived so long among the great, that he fancied himself one of them, and regarded the indig- nity as done to himself. Mr. Hobhouse had lately been blackballed by the Clubs, and must feel particularly sore and tenacious on the score of public opinion. Mr. Shelley's father, however, was an elder baronet than Mr. Hobhouse'sj Mr. Leigh Hunt was ' to the full as genteel a man' as Mr. Moore, in birth, appearance, and education ; the pursuits of all four w6re the same — the Muse, the public favour, and the public good. Mr. Moore was himself invited to assist in the undertaking, but he professed an utter aversion to, and warned Lord Byron against, having any concern with joint publications, as of a very neutralizing and levelling description- He might speak from experience. He had tried his hand in that Ulysses' bow of critics and politicians, the Edinburgh Review, though his secret had never transpired. Mr. Hobhouse, too, had written Illustrations of Child^ Harold '{a sort of part- nership concern) — yet, to quash the publication of The Liberal, he seriously proposed that his noble friend should write once a-week, in his own name, in the Exdminer. The Liberal scheme, he was afraid, might succeed ; the newspaper one he knew could not. I have been whispered, that the member for Westminster (for whom I once gave an inefiectual vote) has also conceived some distaste for me — I do not know why, except that I was at one time named as the writer of the famous Trecenti Juravimus Letter to Mr. Canning, which appeared in the Examiner, and was afterwards suppressed. He might feel the disgrace of such a supposition : I confess I did not feel the honour. The cabal, the bustle, the significant hints> the confidential rumours were at the height, when, after Mr. Shelley's death, I was invited to take a part in this obnoxious publication (obnoxious alike to friend and foe) ,• and when the Essay on the Spirit of Monarchy appeared, (which must indeed have operated like a bomb-shell thrown into the coteries that Mr. Moore frequented, as well as those that he had left,) this gentleman wrote off to Lord Byron, to say that, ' there was a taint in The Liberal, and that he should lose no time in getting out of it.' And this, from Mr. Moore to Lord Byron— the last of whom had just involved the publication, against which he was cautioned as having a taint in it, in a prosecution for libel by his Vision of Judgment, and the first of whom had scarcely written any thing all his life that had not a taint in it. It is true, the Holland-house party might be somewhat staggered by a jeurd' esprit that set their Blackstone and De Lolme theories at defiance, and that they could as little write as answer. But it was 56 LORD BYRON. explicit, or even intelligible; and I had the misfortune, in "The Exa- miner," to be compelled to say that I was among the number of the dull not that. Mr. Moore also complained that ' I had spoken against Lalla Rookh,' though he had just before sent me his ' Fudge Family.' Still it was not that. But at the time he sent me that very delightful and spirited publication, my little bark was seen ' hulling on the flood,' in a kind of dubious twilight, and it was not known whether I might not prove a vessel of gallant trim. Mr. Blackwood had not then directed his Grub- street battery against me : but as soon as this was the case, Mr. Moore was willing to " whistle me down the wind and let me prey at fortune ;'' not that I " proved haggard," but the contrary. It is sheer cowardice and want of heart. The sole object of the rest is not to stem the tide of prejudice and falsehood, but to get out of the way themselves. The instant another is assailed (however unjustly,) instead of standing manfully by him, they cut the con- nection as fast as possible, and sanction by their silence and reserve the accusations they ought to repel. Saute qui peut — every one has enough to do to look after his own reputation or safety without rescuing a friend or propping up a falling cause. It is onjy by keeping in the background on such occasions (like Gil Bias, when his friend Ambrose Lamela was led by in triumph to the auto-da fe) that they can escape the like honours and a summary punishment. A shower of mud, a flight of nicknames (glancing a little out of their original direction) might obscure the last glimpse of royal favour, or stop the last gasp of popularity. Nor could they answer it to their noble friends and more elegant pursuits, to be received in such com- pany, or .to have their names coupled with similar outrages. Their sleek, glossy, aspiring pretensions should not be exposed to vulgar contamination, or to be trodden under foot of a swinish multitude. Their birthday suits (unused) should not be dragged through the iennel, nor their "tricksy" laurel wreaths stuck in the pillory. This would make them equally unfit to be taken into the palaces or the carriages of peers. If excluded from both, what would become of them ? The only way, therefore, to avoid being implicated in the abuse poured upon others, is to pretend that is just — the way not to be made the object of the hue and cry raised against a friend, is to aid it by underhand whispers. It is pleasant neither to partici- pate in disgrace nor to have honours divided. The more Lord Byron confined his intimacy and friendship to a few persons of middling rank, but of extraordinary merit, the more it must redound to his and their credit. The lines of Pope, " To view with scornful, yet with jealous eyes. And hate for arts which caused himself to rise," — might still find a copy in the breast of more than one scribbler of politics and fashion. Mr. Moore might not think without a pang of the author of " Rimini," sitting at his ease with the author of " Childe Harold; " Mr. Hobhouse might be averse to see my dogged prose bound up LORD BYRON. 57 perceptions. A few days afterwards, meeting him in St. James's-street, he said he wondered at my coming to that conclusion, and asked nie how it could happen. I did not enter into the origin of the phe- nomenon, but said that I could not help it, and that the statement did appear to me singularly obscure. Since that time, I believe, I never saw him till we met in the Casa Lanfranchi. As to Mr. Moore, he did not reUsh, I know, the objection which I had made to the style of " LaUa Rookh ;" but then he had told me so ; he encouraged me to speak freely; he had spoken freely himself; and I felt all the admiration of him, if not of his poem, which candour, in addition to wit, can excite. I never suspected that he would make this a ground of quarrel with me in after-times ; nor do I now wish to give more strength to Lord Byron's way of representing things on this point than on any other. There may be as little foundation for his reporting that Mr. Moore would never forgive Hazlitt for saying that he " ought not to have written ' Lalla Rookh,' even for three thousand guineas ;" a condemnation which, espe- cially with the context that follows it, involves a compliment in its very excess.* But Mr. Moore was not candid, when he wrote secretly to in the same volume with his Lordship's splendid verse; and assuredly it would not facilitate his admission to the Clubs, that his friend Lord Byron had taken the Editor of " The Exa- miner " by the hand, and that their common friend, Mr, Moore, had taken no active steps to prevent it !" — Plain Speaker, vol. ii. p. 437. " * Mr. Moore ought not to have written " Lalla Rookh," even for three thousand guineas. His fame is worth more than that. He should have minded the advice of Fadladeen. It is not, however, a failure, so much as an evasion and a consequent disappointment of public expectation. He should have left it to others to break conventions with nations, and faith with the world. He should, at any rate, have kept his with the public. " LaUa Rookh " is not what people wanted to see whether Mr. Moore could do ; namely, whether he could write a long epic poem. It is four short tales. The interest, however, is often high-wrought and tfagic, but the execution still turns to the effeminate and voluptuous side. Fortitude of mind I 58 LORD BYRON. Lord Byron, to induce him to give up the Magazine ; and to tell him, there was " a taint" in it. He says he ought to have recollected, that Lord Byron always showed the letters that were written to him. This regret he has expressed to a mutual friend ; but I do not see how it mends the matter. And what did he mean by " a taint ?" Was it a taint of love— (very loth am I to put two such words together, but it is for him to explain the inconsistency) — Was it a taint of love, or of libel ? or of infidelity ? or of independence f And was the taint the greater, because the independence was true? Yes: Mr. Hazlitt has explained that matter but too well. Towards the end of September, Lord Byron and myself, in different parties,- left Pisa for Genoa. He was restless, as he had always been; Tuscany was uncomfortable to him ; and at Genoa he would hover on the borders of his inclination for Greece. Perhaps he had already made arrangements' for going there. We met at Lerici on our way. He had an illness at that place ; and all my melancholy was put to its height by seeing the spot my departed friend had lived in, and his solitary mansion on the sea-shore. The place is wild and retired, with a bay and rocky eminences ; the people suited to it, something between inhabitants of sea and land. In the summer-time they will be up all night, dabbling in the water, and making wild noises. Here Mr. Trelawney joined us. He took me to the Villa Magni (the house just alluded to) ; and we paced over its, empty rooms, and neglected garden. The sea fawned upon the shore, as though it could do no harm.' is the first requisite of a tragic or epic writer. Happiness of nature and felicity of genius are the pre-eminent characteristics of the bard of Erin. If he is not perfectly contented' with what he is, all the world beside is. He had no temptation to risk any thing in adding to the love and admiration of his age, and more than one country." — Lectures on the English Poets, . 301. LORD BYRON, 59 At Lerici we had an earthquake. It was the strongest we experi- enced in Italy. At Pisa there had been a dull intimation of one, such as happens in that city about once in three years. In the neighbourhood of Florence we had anoither, pretty smart of its kind, but lasting only for an instant. It was exactly as if somebody with a strong hand had jerked* a pole up against the ceiling of the lower room, right under one's fe6t. This was at Maiano, among th^. Fiesolan hills. People came out of their rooms, and inquired of one another what was the matter ; so that it was no delusion. At Lerici nobody could have mistaken, I was awakened at dawn with an extraordinary sensation, and directly afterwards the earthquake took place. It was strong enough to shake the pictures on the wall ; and it lasted a suflScient time to resemble the rolling of a waggon under an archway, which it did both in noise and movement. I got up, and went to the window. The people were already collecting in the open place beneath it ; and I heard, in the clear morning air, the word Terremato repeated from one to another. The sensation for the next ten minutes or quarter of an hour, was very great. You expected the shock to come again, and to be worse. However, we had no more of it. We congratulated ourselves the more, because there was a tower on a rock just over our heads, which would have stood upon no cere- mony with our inn. They told us, if I remember, that they h^d an earthquake on this part of the coast of Italy, about once every five years. Italy is a land of volcanoes, more or less subdued. It is a great grapery, built over a flue. From Lerici, we proceeded part of our way by water, as far as Sestri. Lord Byron and Madame Guiccioli went in a private boat; Mr. Trelawney in another; and myself and family in a felucca. It was pretty to see the boats with their white sails, gliding by the rocks, I 2 60 LORD BYRON. over that blue sea. A little breeze coming on, our gallant seamen were afraid, and put into Porto Venere, a deserted town a short distance from Lerici. I asked them if they really meant to put in, upon which they looked very determined on that point, and said, that " Englishmen had no sense of danger." I smiled internally to think of the British Channel. I thought also of the thunder and lightning in this very sea, where they might have seen British tars themselves astonished with fear. In Italy, Englishmen are called " the mad English," from the hazards they run. They like to astonish the natives by a little superfluous peril. If you see a man coming furiously down the street on horseback, you may be pretty certain he is an Englishman. An English mail-coach, with that cauliflower of human beings a-tpp of it, lumping from side to side, would make the hearts of a Tuscan city die within them. Porto Venere is like a petrified town in a story-book. The classical name took us, and we roamed over it. It was curious to pass the houses one after the other, and meet not a soul. Such inhabitants as there are, confine themselves to the sea-shore. After resting a few hours, we put forth again, and had a lazy, sunny passage to Sestri, where a crowd of people assailed us,, like savages at an island, for our patronage and portmanteaus. They were robust, clamorous, fishy fellows, like so many children of the Tritons in Raphael's pictures ; as if those plebeian gods of the sea had been making love to Italian chambermaids. Italian goddesses have shown a taste not unsimilar, and more condescending; and English ones too in Italy, if scandal is to be believed. But Naples is the head-quarters of this overgrowth of wild luxury. Marini, a Neapolitan, may have had it in his eye, when he wrote that^fine sonnet of his, full of aboriginal gusto, brawny LORD BYRON. 61 and bearded, about Proteus pursuing Cymothoe. (See Parnaso Italiano, torn. 41, p. 10.) Liking every thing real in poetry, I should be tempted to give a specimen ; but am afraid of Mr. Moore. From Sestri we proceeded over the maritime part of the Apennines to Genoa. Their character is of the least interesting sort of any mountains, being neither distinct nor wooded ; but barren, savage, and coarse; without any grandeur but what arises from an excess of that appearance. They lie in a succession of great doughy billows, like so much enormous pudding, or petrified mud. Genoa again ! With what different feehngs we beheld it the first time ! Mrs. Shelley, who preceded us to the city, had found houses both for Lord Byron's family and my own at Albaro, a neighbouring village on a hUl. We were to live in the same house with her; and in the Casa Negro to we accordingly found an English welcome. There were forty rooms in it, some of them such as would be considered splendid in England, and all neat and new, with borders and arabesques. The balcony and staircase were of marble ; and there was a little flower-garden. The rent of this house was twenty pounds a-year. Lord Byron paid four-and-twenty for his, which was older and more imposing, with rooms in still greater plenty, and a gOod piece of ground. It was called the Casa Saluzzi.* Mr. Landor and his family had occupied a house in the same village — the Casa Pallavicini. He has recorded an interesting dialogue that took place in it.f Of Albaro I have given an account in another work. * Any relation to " Saluces," whose " Markis " married the patient Griselda ? Saluces was in the maritime Apennines, by Piedmont^ and might have originated a family of Genoese nobles. Classical and romantic associations abound so at every turn in Italy, that upon the least hint a book speaketh. t Imaginary Conversations, Vol. i. p. 17f. Second Edition. 62 LORD BYRON. The Genoese post brought us the first number of " The Liberal," accompanied both \y^ith hopes and fears, the latter of which were too speedily "realized. Living now in a separate house from Lord Byron, I saw less of him than before ; and under all the circumstances, it was as well. It was during our residence in this part of Italy, that the remaining numbers of " The Liberal" were published. I did what I could to make him persevere ; and have to take shame to myself, that in my anxiety on that point, I persuaded him to send over " The Blues" for insertion, rather than contribute nothing. It is the only thing con^ nected with " The Liberal" that I gave myself occasion to regret. I cannot indeed boast of my communications to it. Illness and unhappi- ness must be my excuse. They are things under which a man does not always write his worst. They may even supply him with a sort of fevered inspiration ; but this was not my case at the time. The only pieces I would save, if I could, from oblivion, out of that work, are the " Rhyme and Reason," the " Lines to a Spider," and the copy of verses entitled " Mahmoud." The little gibe on his native, place, out of " Al Hamadani," might accompany them. I must not omit, that Lord Byron would have put his "Island" in it, and I believe another poem, if I had thought it of use. It would all have been so much dead weight ; espe- cially as the readers, not being certairi it was contributed by his Lord- ship, would not have known whether they were to be enraptured or indiiferent. By and by he would have taken them out, published them by themselves, and then complained that they would have sold before, if it had not been for " The Liberal." What he should have done for the work was to stand by it openly and manfully, to make it the obvious channel of his junction with the cause of freedom, to contribute to it not LOED BrRON. 63 his least popular or his least clever productions, but such as the nature of the work should have inspired and recommended, or in default of being able to do this (for perhaps he was not fitted to write for a periodical work) he should have gained aU the friends for it he could, not among, those whom he "libelled all round," but among thousands of readers aU prepared to admire, and love him, and think it an honour to fight under his banner. But he had no real heart in the business, nor for any thing else but a feverish notoriety. It was by this he was to shake at once the great world and the small ; the mountain and the mouse ; the imagina- tions of the public, and the approving nod of the " men of wit and fashion about town." Mr. Hazlitt, habitually paradoxical, sometimes pastoral, and never without the self-love which he is so fond of discern- ing in others, believed at the moment that a lord had a liking for him, and that a lord and ,a sophisticate poet would put up with his sincerities about the aristocratical and the primitive. It begat in him a love for the noble Bard ; and I am not sure that he has got rid, to this day, of the notion that it was returned. He was taken in, as others had been, and as all the world chose and delighted to be, as long as the flattering self-reflec- tion was allowed a remnant to act upon. The mirror was pieced at Mis- solonghi, and then they could expatiate at large on the noble lord's image and, their own! Sorry cozenage ! Poor and melancholy conclusion to come to respecting great as well ais Uttle ; and such as would be frightful to thtink of, if human nature, after all, were not better than they pretend. Lord Byron in tiruth was afraid of Mr. Hazlitt ; he admitted him like a courtier, for fear he should be treated by him as an enemy; but when he beheld such articles as the " Spirit of Monarchy," where the "taint" of polite corruption was to be exposed, and the First Acquaint- 64 LORD •BYRON. ance with Poets, where Mr. Wordsworth was to be exalted above depre- ciation, " In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite — " (for such was Mr. Hazlitt's innocent quotation) his Lordship could only wish him out again, and take pains to show his polite friends that he had nothing in common with so inconsiderate a plebeian. Mr. Hazlitt is a little too angry with Mr. Moore. He ought to include himself, who undertook to be stUl more independent of high life, and who can afford better to be mistaken. A person who knew Mr. Moore well, told me, that asking him one day how he should feel, if the King were to offer to make him a baronet, the author of the " Irish Melodies" replied, " Good God ! how those people can annihilate us !" I told this answer to Mr. Hazlitt, who justly admired the candour of it. It would have been more admirable, however, if the poet were to omit those innocent scoffs at the admirers of lords and titles, with which he sometimes thinks fit to mystify himself : and the philosopher's admiration of candour would be better, if he were always candid himself, and now and then a little philosophic. I passed a melancholy time at Albaro, walking about the stony alleys, and thinking of Mr. Shelley. My intercourse with Lord Byron, though less than before, was considerable ; and we were always, as the phrase is, " on good terms." He knew what I felt, for I said it. I also knew what he thought, for he said that, " in a manner ;" and he was in the habit of giving you a good deal to understand, in what he did not say. In the midst of all his strange conduct, he professed a great personal regard. He would do the most humiliating things, insinuate the bitterest, both of me and my friends, and then affect to do all away with a LORD •BYRON. 65 soft word, protesting that nothing he ever said was meant to apply to myself. I will take this opportunity of recording some more anecdotes as they occur to me. We used to walk in the grounds of the Casa Saluzzi, talking for the most part of indifferent matters, and endeavouring to joke away the consciousness of our position. We joked even upon our differences of opinion. It was a jest between us, that the only book that was unequivocally a favourite on both sides, was BosweU's " Life of John- son." I used to talk of Johnson when I saw him out of temper, or wished to avoid other subjects. He asked me one day, how I should have felt in Johnson's company. I said it was difficult to judge ; because, living in other times, and one's character being modified by them, I could not help thinking of myself as I was now, and Johnson as he was in times previous : so that it appeared to me that I should have been somewhat Jacobinical in his company, and not disposed to put up with his ipse dixits. He said, that " Johnson would have awed him, he treated lords with so much respect." This was better said than it was meant to be, and I have no doubt was very true. Johnson would have made him a bow like a churchwarden ; and Lord Byron would have been in a flutter of worshipped acquiescence. He liked to imitate Johnson, and say, " Why, Sir," in a high mouthing way, rising, and looking about him. Yet he hardly sefemed to relish Peter Pindar's imitations, excellent as they were. I used to repeat to him those laughable passages out of " Bozzy and Piozzy." Dear Dr. Johnson, (It is Mrs. Thrale who speaks) — " Dear Dr. Johnson was in size an ox. And of his uncle Andrew learnt to box, ♦ K t)6 LORD BYllON. A man to wrestlers and to bruisers dear. Who kept the ring in Smithfield a whole year. The Doctor had an uncle toOj ador'd By jumping gentry, called Cornelius Ford ; Who jump'd in boots, which jumpers never choose, Far as a famous jumper jump'd in shoes." See also the next passage in the book — " At supper rose a dialogue on witches," which I would quote also, only I am afraid Mr. Moore would think I was trespassing on the privileges of high life. Again ; Madame Piozzi says, - " Once at our house, amidst our Attic feast, We liken'd our acquaintances to beasts : As for example — some to calves and hogs. And some to bears and monkeys, cats, and dogs< We said, (which charm'd the Doctor much, no doubt,) His mind was like, of elephants the snout ,* That could pick pins up, yet possess'd the vigour Of trimming well the jacket of a tiger." Bozzjfm When Johnson was in Edinburgh, my wife To please his palate, studied for her life ; With ev'ry rarity she fiU'd her house. And gave the Doctor, for his dinner, grovs^. Piozzi, Dear Doctor Johnson left off drinks fermented. With quarts of chocolate and cream contented ; , Yet often down his throat's prodigious gutter, Poor man ! he pour'd whole floods of melted butter^" At these passages, which make me laugh so for the thousandth time, that I can hardly write them. Lord Byron had too invincible a relish of a good thing not to laugh also, but he did it uneasily. The cause is left to the reader's speculation. LORD BYRON. 67 With the commiseration about the melted Butter, we agreed heartily. When Lord Castlereagh killed himself, it was mentione,d in the papers that he had taken his usual tea and buttered toast for breakfast. I said there was no knowing how far even so little a thing as buttered toast might not have fatally assisted in exasperating that ill state of stomach, which is found to accompany melancholy. As " the last feather breaks the horse's back," so the last injury done to the organs of digestion may make a man kill himself. He agreed with me entirely in this; and said, the world were as much in the wrong, in nine cases out of ten, respecting the immediate causes of suicide, as they were in their notions about the harmlessness of this and that food, and the quantity of it. Like many other wise theorists on this subject, he had wilfully shut his eyes to the practice, though I do not mean to say he was excessive in eating and drinking. He had only been in the habit, latterly, of taking too much for his particular temperament; a fault, in one respect, the most pardonable in those who are most aware of it, the uneasiness of a sedentary stomach tempting them to the very indulgence that is hurt- ful. I know what, it is ; and beg, in this, as on other occasions, not to be supposed to imply any thing to my own advantage, when I am upon points that may be construed to the disadvantage of others. But he had got fat, and then went to the other extreme. He came to me one day out of another room, and said, with great glee, " Look here ! what do you say td this?" at the same time doubling the lapells of his coat one over the other : — " three months ago," added he, " I could not button it." Sometimes; though rarely, with a desperate payment of his virtue, he would make an Outrageous dinner; eating all sorts of things that were unfit for him, and suffering accordingly next day. He once sent to Paris for one of the travelling pies they make there — things that distribute indigestion by K 2 68 LORD BYRON. return of post, and cost-three or four guineas. Twenty crowns, I think, he gave for it. He tasted, and dined. The next day he was fain to make a present of six-eighths of it to an envoy : — " Lord Byron's compliments, and he sends his Excellency a pasty that has seen the world." He did not write this; but this was implied in his compliment. It is to be hoped his Excellency had met the pasty before. It is a credit to my noble acquaintance, that he was by far the pleasantest when he had got wine in his head. The only time I invited myself to dine with him, I told him I did it on that account, and that I meant to push the bottle so, that he should intoxicate me with his good company. He said he would have a set-to ; but he never did it. I be- lieve he was afraid. It was a little before he left Italy ; and there was a point in contest between us (not regarding myself) which he thought perhaps I should persuade him to give up. When in his cups, which was not often, nor immoderately, he was inclined to be tender ; but not weakly so, nor Jachrymose. I know not how it might have been with every body, bi^t he paid me the compliment of being excited to his very best feelings ; and when I rose late to go away, he would hold me down, and say witb, a look of intreaty, " Not yet." Then it was that I seemed to talk with the proper natural Byron as he ought to have been ; and there was not a sacrifice I could not have made to keep him in that temper; and see his friends love him, as much as the world admired. Next morning it was all gone. His intimacy with the worst part of mankind had got him again in its chilling crust ; and nothing remained but to despair and joke. In his wine he would volunteer an imitation of somebody, generally of Incledon. He was not a good mimic in the detail ; but he could give a lively broad sketch ; and over his cups his imitations were goodnaturedj LORD BYRON. 69 whicli was seldom the case at other times. His Incledori was vocal. I made pretensions to the oratorical part; and between us, we boasted that we made up the entire phenomenon. Mr. Mathews would have found it defective ; or rather, .he would not ; for had he been there, we should judiciously have secreted our pretensions, and had the trup like- ness. We just knew enough of the matter, to make proper admirers. Good God ! The mention of this imitation makes me recollect under what frightful circumstances of gaiety we returned from performing an office more than usually melancholy on the sea-shore. I dare allow my- self only to allude to it. But we dined and drank after it, — dined little, and drank much. Lord Byron had not shone that day, even in his cups. For myself, I had bordered uppn emotions which I have never suffered myself to indulge, and which foolishly as well as impatiently render calamity, as somebody termed it, " an affront, and not a misfortune." The barouche drove rapidly through the forest of Pisa. We sang, we laughed, we shouted. I even felt a gaiety the more shocking, because it was real and a relief. What the coachman thought of us, God knows ; but he helped to make up a ghastly trio. He was a good-tempered fel- low, and an affectionate husband and father ; yet he ha Very truly and aff'ectionately, Byron. P. S. Not a word from Moore for these two months. Pray let me have the rest of Rimini. You have two excellent points in that poem — originality and Italianism. I will back you as a bard against half the fellows on whom you have thrown away much good criticism and eulogy : but don't let your bookseller publish in quarto^ it is the worst size possible for circulation. I say this on bibliopolical authority. Again, yours ever, B. LETTER X. January 29th, 1816. DEAR HUNT, I return ' vour extract with thanks for the perusal, and hope you are by this time on the verge of publication. My pencil-marks on the margin of your former MSS. I never thought worth the trouble of 160 LORD BYRON. decyphering, but I had no such meaning as you imagine for their being withheld from Murray, from whom I differ entirely as to the terms of your agreement ; nor do I think you asked a piastre too much for the poem. However, 1 doubt not he will deal fairly by you on the whole : he is really a very good fellow, and his faults are merely the leaven of his " trade" — " the trade !" the slave-trade of many an unlucky writer. The said Murray and I are just at present in no good humour with each other; but he is not the worse for that : I feel sure that he will give your work as fair or a fairer chance in every way than your late pub- lishers ; and what he can't do for it, it will do for itself. Continual laziness and occasional indisposition have been the causes of rpy negligence (for I deny neglect) in not writing to you immediately. These are excuses : I wish they may be more satisfactory to you than they are to me. I opened my eyes yesterday morning on your compli- ment of Sunday. If you knew what a hopeless and lethargic den of dulness and drawling our hospital is during a debate, and what a mass of corruption in its patients, you would wonder, not that I very seldom speak, but that I ever attempted it, feeling, as I trust I do, independently. However, when a proper spirit is manifested '• without doors," I wiU endeavour not to be idle within. Do you think such a time is coming? Methinks there are gleams of it. My forefathers were of the other side of the question in Charles's days, and the fruit of it was a title and the loss of an enormous property. If the old struggle comes on, I may lose the one and shall never regain the other, but no matter ; there are things, even in this world, better than either. Very truly. Ever yours, B. LORD BYUON. Jgl LETTER XI. Feb. 26th, 1816. DEAR HUNT, Your letter would have been answered before, had I not thought it probable that, as you were in town for a day or so, I should have seen you. I don't mean this as a hint at reproach for not calling, but merely that of course I should have been very glad if you had called in your way home or abroad, as I always would have been, and always shall be. With regard to the circumstance to which you allude, there is no reason why you should not speak openly to me on a subject already sufficiently rife in the mouths and minds of what is called " the World." — Of the " fifty reports," it follows that forty-nine must have more or less error and exaggeration ; but I am sorry to say, that on the main and essential point of an intended, and, it may be, an inevitable separation, I can contradict none. At present I shall say no more— but this is not from want of confidence ; in the meantime, I shall merely request a suspension of opinion. Your prefatory letter to " Rimini," I accepted as it was meant — as a public compliment and a private kindness. I am only sorry that it may perhaps operate against you as an inducement, and, with some, a pretext, for attack on the part of, the political and personal enemies of both : — not that this can be of much consequence, for in the end the work must be judged by its merits, and in that respect you are well armed. Murray tells me it is going on well, and, you may depend upon it, there is a substratum of poetry which is a foundation for solid and durable fame. The objections {if there be objections, for this is a presumption, and not an assumption,) wUl be Y 162 LORD BYRON. merely as to the mechanical part, and such, as I stated before, the usual consequence of either novelty or revival. I desired Murray to forward to you a pamphlet with two things of mine in it, the most part of both of them, and of one in particular, written before others of my composing, which have preceded them in publication ; they are neither of them of much pretension, nor intended for it. You will perhaps wonder at my dwelling so much and so frequently on former subjects and scenes ; but the fact is, that I found them fading fast from my memory ; and I was, at the same time, so partial to their pkiee, (and events connected with it,) that I have stamped them, while I could, in such colours as I could trust to now, but might have confused and misapplied hereafter, had I longei- delayed the attempted deli- neation. LETTER XII. March 14, 1816. DEAR HUNT, I send you six orchestra tickets for Drury Lane, countersigned by me, which makes the admission free — which I explain, that the door- keeper may not impose upon you ; they are for the best place in the house, but can only be used one at a time. I have left the dates un- filled, and you can take your own nights, which I should suppose would be Kean's : the seat is in the orchestra. I have inserted the name of Mr. H -, a friend of yours, in case you like to transfer to him— do not fc«?get to fill up the dates for such days as you choose to select. Yours, ever truly, Byron. LORD BYRON. 163 FRAGMENTS OF LETTERS, The rest of which has been mutilated or lost. FRAGMENT I. good of "Rimini." — Sir Henry Englefield, a mighty man in the blue circles, and a very clever man any where, sent to Murray, in terms of the highest eulogy ; and with regard to the common reader, my sister and cousin (who are now aU my family, and the last since gone away to be married) were in fixed perusal and delight with it, and they are " not critical," but fair, natural, unaffected, and understanding persons. Frere, and all the arch-literati, I hear, are also unanimous in a high opinion of the poem. " I hear this by the way — but I will send." FRAGMENT II. With regard to the E. B. I have no concealments, nor desire to have any, from you or yours : the suppression occurred (I am as sure as I can be of any thing) in the manner stated : I have never regretted y 2 164 LORD BYRON. ' that, but very often the composition — that is the humeur 6i a grekt deal in it. As to the quotation you allude to, I have no right, nor indeed desire, to prevent it ; but, on the contrary, in common with all other writers, I do and ought to take it as a compliment. The paper on the Methodists was sure to raise the bristles of the godly. I redde it, and agree with the writer on one point, in which you and he perhaps diflfer ; that an addiction to poetry is very generally the result of " an uneasy mind in an uneasy body ;" disease or deformity have been the attendants of many of our best. Collins mad — Chat- tertoij, / think, mad — Cowper mad — Pope crooked — Milton blind — Gray — (I have heard that the last was afflicted by an incurable and very grievous distemper, though not generally known) and others . I have somewhere redde, however, that poets rarely go mad. I suppose the writer means that their insanity effervesces and evaporates in verse^may be so. I have not had time nor paper to attack your system, which ought to bje done, were it only because it is a system. So, by and by, have at you. Yours ever, Byron. CONTEMPORARY MEMOIRS. MR. MOORE. I THOUGHT Thomas Moore, when I first knew him, as delightful a person as one could imagine. He could not help being an interesting, one ; and his sort of talent has this advantage in it, that being of a description intelligible to all, the possessor is equally sure of present and future fame. I never received a visit from him, but I felt as if I had been talking with Prior or Sir Charles Sedley. His acquain- tance with Lord Byron began by talking of a duel. With me it com- menced in as gallant a way, though of a different sort. I had cut up an opera of his, (the Blue Stocking,) as unworthy of so great a wit. He came to see me, saying I was very miich in the right ; and an inter- course took place, which I might have enjoyed to this day, had he valued his real fame as much as I did. I mean to assume nothing in saying this, either as a dispenser of reputation, or as a man of undisputed reputation 166 MR. MOOKE. myself, I live too much out of the world, and differ too plainly with what is in it, to pretend to be either one or the other. But Mr. Moore, in his serious as well as gayer verses, talked a great deal of independence and openness, and the contempt of commonplaces ; and on this account he owed it to his admirers not to disappoint them. He was bound to them the more especially, when they put hearty faith in him, and when they thought they paid him a compliment in being independent themselves. The reader has seen to what I allude. At the time I am speaking of, my acquaintance, perhaps, was of some Uttle service to Mr. Moore ; at least, he thought so. I am sure I never valued myself on any service which a very hearty admiration of his wit and independence could render him. It was involuntary on my part ; I could not have helped it ; and at all times, the advantage of personal intercourse would have been on my side. Mr. Moore was lively, polite, bustling, full of amenities and ac- quiescences, into which he contrived to throw a sort of roughening of cordiality, like the crust of old port. It seemed a happiness to him to say " Yes." There was just enough of the Irishman in him to fla- vour his speech and manner. He was a little particular, perhaps, in his orthoepy, but not more so than became a poet ; and he appeared to me the last man in the world to cut his country, even for the sake of high life. As to his person, all the world knows that he is as little of stature, as he is great in wit. It is said, that an illustrious personage, in a fit of playfulness, once threatened to put him into the wine-cooler ; a proposition, which Mr. Moore took to be more royal than polite. A Spanish gentleman, whom I met on the Continent, and who knew him well, said, in his energetic English, which he spoke none the worse for a wrong vowel or so: "Now, there's Mooerr, Thomas Mooerr ; I look MR. MOOBE. 167 upon Mooerr as an active little men:' This is true. He reminds us of those active little great men who abound so remarkably in Clarendon's history. Like them> he would have made an excellent practical partisan, and it would have done him good. Horseback, and a little Irish fight- ing, would have seen fair play with his good living, and kept his look as juvenile as his spirit. His forehead is bony and full of character, with " bumps" of wit, large and radiant, enough to transport a phren- ologist. His eyes are as dark and fine, as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves; his mouth generous and good-humoured, with dimples ; his nose sensual, prominent, and at the same time the reverse of aquiline. There is a, very peculiar character in it, as if it were looking forward, and scenting a feast or an orchard. The face, upon the whole^ is Irish, not unruffled with care and passion; but festivity is the pre- dominant expression. When Mr. Moore was a child, he is said to have been eminently handsome, a cupid for a picture ; and notwithstanding the tricks which both joy and sorrow have played with his face, you can fancy as much. It was a recollection, perhaps, to this effect, that induced his friend, Mr. Atkinson, to say, oiie afternoon, in defending him from the charge of libertinism, " Sir, they may talk of Moore as they please ; but I tell you what ; I always consider him," (and this argument he thought conclusive,) " I always consider my friend, Thomas Moore, as an iiifant, sporting on the bosom of Venus." There was no contesting this ; and, in truth, the hearers were very little disposed to contest it, Mr. Atkinson having hit upon a defence which was more logical in spirit than chronological in the imagje. . When conscience comes, a man's impulses must take thought ; but till then,- poetry is only the eloquent and irresistible developement of the individual's nature ; and Mr. Moore's wildest verses were a great deal more innocent than could enter into 168 MR. MOORE. the imaginations of the old libertines who thought they had a right to use them. I must not, in this portrait, leave out his music. He plays and sings with great taste on the piano-forte, and is known as a graceful composer. His voice, which is a little hoarse in speaking, (at least, I used to think so,) softens into a breath, like that of the flute, when singing." In speaking, he is emphatic in rolling the letter r, perhaps out of a despair of being able to get rid of the national peculiarity. The structure of his versification, when I knew him, was more artifi- cial than it has been since ; and in his serious compositions suited him better. He has hardly faith enough in what he does, to give way to his impulses, except when they are Uvely ; and. artificial thoughts de- mand a similar embodiment. But he contemplated the fine, easy-playing, muscular style of Dryden, with a sort of perilous pleasure. I remember his quoting with delight a couplet of Dryden's, which came with a par- ticular grace out of his mouth : Let honour and prefennent go for gold : But glorious beauty isn't to be sold. Beside the pleasure I took in Mr. Moore's society as a man of wit, I had a great esteem for him as a man of candour and independence. His letters were full of all that was pleasant in him. As I was a critic at that time, and in the habit of giving my opinion of his works in the Examiner, he would write me his opinion of the opinion, with a mixture of good-humour, admission, and deprecation, so truly delightful, and a sincerity of criticism on my own writings so extraordinary for so cour- teous a man, though with abundance of balm and eulogy, that never any subtlety of compliment could surpass it; and with all my self- MR. MOORE. 169 confidence, I never ceased to think that the honour was on my side, and that I could only deserve such candour of intercourse by being as ingenuous as himself. This admiring regard for him he completed by his behaviour to an old patron of his, who, not thinking it polite to retain him openly by his side, proposed to facilitate his acceptance of a place under the Tories ; an accommodation which JMr. Moore rejected as an indignity. If any body at that time had told me, that our new and cordial Anacreon, who counted a lofty spirit among his luxuries, could do a disingenuous thing, or sacrifice a cause or a free sentiment on the fat altars of aristocracy, — a sweet-smeUing savour unto a lord, — I should have answered, that aU that might be in the common course of the prose of this life ; but that nobody knew what superiority there was to conventional deductions in the very weaknesses of a poet.* I remember our astonishment in Italy (Lord Byron's included) at the flaming panegyric passed by Mr. Moore upon England, and all things English, at a dinner in Paris. It was his farewell dinner, if I recollect, when leaving Paris for London. Either the English pane- gyric or ' the Irish Melodies were certainly jnuch in the wrong ; nor is it easy to decide what Captain Rock would have said to it. But the invective against Rousseau and poor Madame de Warens, in Mr. Moore's Rhymes on the Road, was still more startling. Madame de Warens is not a person to be approved of in aU respects, perhaps in very few. She had a kind heart, but a dangerous, iU-regulated will, and might at least have abstained from loving the sour-faced gardener, and sacrificing her natural love of truth to degrading secrecies. But * For the circumstance which more immediately occasioned these remarks, see p. 58. 170 MB,. MOORE, Hobody thinks otherwise of her than she was; and Mr. Moore's de- nouncevnent was, to say the least of it, superfluous. These things may be safely left to the heart of the community. The evil mixed with them may even suggest a better good, if discussed handsomely and sincerely. Madame de Warens was a means of setting one of the most extraordinary minds that have appeared in the world, upon speculations not the less interesting to humanity, because coteries, not so good as herself, choose to cant about them. Mr. Granger, the bio- graphical painter of portraits, who jvas a clergyman, and did not think it necessary to . show a " zeal beyond knowledge," would have been charitable enough to caU her " open-hearted," which is an epithet he does not scruple to give even to the meretricious Duchess of Cleveland. Mr. Moore, on the other hand, instead of taking her along with him as he ought to do, and trying how kindly he can unite his own moral improvement with that of " exquisite mothers " in general, thinks fit to shake his Anacreon laurels at her, and call her a naughty woman. I would have done, if I were he, with this two-o'clock-in-the-morning penitence, with maudlin tears in its eyes ; and set myself to the task of reformation in a more masculine and social style. It is not handsome of him ; it is hot grateful ; it is not gallant. Human beings are all worth being mentioned with common humanity; and we make poor amends for offences we may have committed ourselves, by reproaching those who have sinned with us. The great thing in this world, is to learn what to do, and how to carry humanity forward ; not to reproach any one ; no, not even ourselves. We should reproach ourselves only for petty and useless feelings, and the want of a real sympathy. If Mr. Moore, as he once told me he did, thinks it useless to attempt im- provement in this world, he is at least not very reasonable in thinking MR. MOORE. '• 171 it necessary to repeat maudlin commonplaces, for the sake of their eternal reproduction ; for they do nothing else. The world wiU con- tinue to laugh with his gaieties, and think nothing of his gravities ; let him give as many premiums for pleasure and penitence, as he may. A word respecting the suppression of Lord Byron's autobiography. The public have seen a letter of Mr. Moore's, stating how it was that the manuscript of his friend's Life came to be destroyed, and how his Lordship's family would have reimbursed him for the loss of the profits ; an offer which, from feelings and considerations " unnecessary" then " to explain," he " respectfully but peremptorily declined." The meaning of this is, that Lord Byron presented Mr. Moore with the Life for the purpose of turning it into money ; that Mr. Moore did so, and got two thousand guineas for it, (a poor sum, by the by, if it was all he was to have) : and that although he had no objection to receive money in this way, he had in any other. I do not insinuate that he might as well have accepted the money then offered ; but Mr. Moore, on this and other occasions, has been willing to give the commercial British public to understand, that he has a horror of pecuniary obligations, though it seems he has no objection to pecuniary's worth. This, I con- fess, is a splitting of hairs, which I do not understand. If a friend is worth being obliged to, I do not see how a man is less obliged, or has less reason to be so, by accepting his manuscripts than his money. It is an escape, not from the thing, but the name ; and if I were the obliger, I confess I should draw a different conclusion from what Lord Byron may have done, respecting the real regard or spirit of the man, who thought so- ingeniously of my Life, and so awfully of my guineas. That the tenure of the noble Bard's respect in this matter was indeed very precarious, is evident from the bill he brought in z 2 172 ME. MOORE. against Mr. DaUas; a leaf from the ledger* of his Lordship's memory, which, I think, must have startled Mr. Moore. Mr. Dallas having made a preposterous statement of the value of his zeal and advice, in encouraging Lord Byron to be a poet, and observed that it far outweighed, in his opinion, the six or seven hun- dred pounds obtained by the copyright of " Childe Harold," which the noble Bard had given him, his Lordship makes a per contra state- ment, as creditor, in the following " Memorandum. Two hundred pounds before I was twenty years old. Copyright of CMlde Harold, 600/. Copyright of Corsair, 500/. And 50/. for his nephew on entering the army; in all 1350/. and not 6 or 700/. as the worthy accountant reckons." Here the noble Lord is clearly of opinion, that money and money's worth are one and the same thing. He was therefore pre- pared, could occasion have possibly arisen, to bring in a similar ac- count to Mr. Moore, for the sum of 2000/. The truth is, Mr. Moore's notion in this matter is a commonplace ; and I used to think him higher above commonplaces than he is. I should look upon myself as more tied, and rendered more dependent, by living as he does among the great, and flattering the mistakes of the vulgar, than by accepting thousands from individuals whom I loved. When I came to know Lord Byron as I did, I could no more have accepted his ma- nuscripts than his money, unless 1 could prove to myself that I had a right to them in the way of business. Till then, I would as soon have MK. MOOEE. 173 taken the one as the other, if 1 took any. The reader shall see what I have done in that way, and I am not ashamed of it, though I confess I would willingly have to make the acknowledgment to a different state of society. One does not like to be thought ill of by any body ; but if I am to choose, I would rather have the good construction of half a dozen individuals really generous, than the good word of all the multitudes, who are agreed only to flatter, to feed on, and to fight shy of one another. As it is not pleasant to leave off speaking of such a man with an ill taste in one's mouth, (the champagne indeed in the thought of him hardly allows it to be possible,) 1 will conclude this notice with a memo- randum of him fourteen years ago. It is one of my prison recollections. I remember when I was showing him and Lord Byron the prison-garden, a smart shower came on, which induced Moore to button up his coat, and push on for the interior. He returned instantly, blushing up to the eyes. He had forgotten the lameness of his noble friend. " How much better you behaved," said he to me afterwards, " in not hastening to get out of the rain ! I quite forgot, at the moment, whom I was walking with." I told him, that the virtue was involuntary on my part, having been occupied in conversation with his Lordship, which he was not ; and that to forget a man's lameness involved a compliment in it, which the sufferer could not dislike." " True," says he ; " but the devil of it was, that I was forced to remember it, by his not coming up. I could not in decency go on ; and to return was very awkward." This anxiety appeared to me very amiable. MR. SHELLEY. WITH A CRITICISM ON HIS GENIUS, AND MR. TRELAWNEY'S NARRATIVE OF HIS LOSS AT SEA. Mr. Shelley, when he died, was in his thirtieth year. His figure was tall and slight, and his constitution consumptive. He was subject to violent spasmodic pains, which would sometimes force him to lie on the ground till they were over ; but he had always a kind word to give to those about him, when his pangs allowed him to speak. In this organization, as well as in some other respects, he resembled the German poet, Schiller. Though well-turned, his shoulders were bent a little, owing to premature thought and trouble. The same causes had touched his hair with grey: and though his habits of temperance and exercise gave him a remarkable degree of strength, it is not supposed that he could have lived many years. He used to say, that he had Uved three times as long as the calendar gave out ; which he would prove, between jest and earnest, by some remarks on Time, " That would have puzzled that stout Stagyrite." Like the Stagyrite's, his voice was high and weak. His eyes were large MR. SHELLEY. 175 and animated, with a dash of' wildness in them ; his face small, but well- shaped, particularly the mouth and chin, the turn of which was very sen- sitive and graceful. His complexion was naturally fair and delicate, J with a colour in the cheeks. He had brown hair, which, though tinged with grey, surmounted his face well, being in considerable quantity, and tending to a curl. His side-face upon the whole was deficient in strength, and his features would not have told well in a bust ; but when fronting and looking at you attentively, his aspect had a cer- tain seraphical character that would have suited a portrait of John the Baptist, or the angel M'hom Milton describes as holding a reed "tipt with fire." Nor would the most religious mind, had it known him, have objected to the comparison ; for, with all his scepticism, Mr. Shelley's disposition may be truly said to have been any thing but irreligious. A person of much eminence for piety in our times has well observed, that the greatest want of religious feeling is not to be found among the greatest infidels, but among those who never think of religion but as a matter of course. The leading feature of Mr. Shelley's character, may be said to have been a natural piety. He was pious towards nature, towards his friends, towards the whole human race, towards the meanest insect of the forest. He did himself an injustice with the public, in using the popular name of the Supreme Being incon- siderately. He identified it solely with the most vulgar and tyrannical notions of a God made after the worst human fashion; and did not suflficiently reflect, that it was often us^d by a juster devotion to ex- press a sense of the great Mover of the universe. An impatience in contradicting worldly and pernicious notions of a supernatural power, led his own aspirations to be misconstrued ; for though, in the severity of his dialectics, and particularly in moments of despondency, he some- 176 MR. SHELLEY. times appeared to be hopeless of what he most desired, — and though he justly thought, that a Divine Being would prefer the increase of bene- volence and good before any praise, or even recognition of himself, (a reflection worth thinking of by the intolerant,) yet there was in reality no belief to which he clung with more fondness than that of some great pervading " Spirit of Intellectual Beauty ;" as may be seen in his aspirations on that subject. He said to me in the cathedral at Pisa, while the organ was playing, " What a divine religion might be found out, if charity were really niade the principle of it, instead of faith !" Music affected him deeply. He had also a delicate perception of the beauties of sculpture. It is not one of the least evidences of his con- scientious turn of mind, that with the inclination, and the power, to surround himself in Italy with all the graces of life, he made no sort of attempt that way ; finding other use for his money, and not always satisfied with himself for indulging even in the luxury of a boat. When he bought elegancies of any kind, it was to give away. Boating was his great amusement. He loved the mixture of action and repose which he found in it; and delighted to fancy himself gliding away to Utopian isles, and bowers of enchantment. But he would give up any pleasure to do a deed of kindness. " His life," says Mrs. Shelley, " was spent in the contemplation of nature, in arduous study, or in acts of kindness and affection. He was an elegant scholar, and a pro- found metaphysician. Without possessing much scientific knowledge, he was unrivalled in the justness and extent of his observations on- natural objects : he knew every plant by its name, and was familiar with the history and habits of every production of the earth : he could interpret, without a fault, each appearance in the sky ; and the varied phenomena of heaven and earth filled him with deep emotion. He made MR. SHELLEY. 177 his study and reading-room of the shadowed copse, the stream, the lake, and the waterfall." — Preface to his Posthumous Poems, p. 14. " The comparative solitude," observes the same lady, " in which Mr. Shelley lived, was the occasion that he was personally known to few ; and his fearless enthusiasm in the cause which he considered the most sacred upon earth, the improvement of the moral and physical state of mankind, was the chief reason why he, like other illustrious reformers, was pursued by hatred and calumny. No man was ever more devoted than he to the endeavour of making those around him happy; no man ever possessed friends more unfeignedly attached to him. Before the critics contradict me, let them appeal to any one who had ever known him. To see him was to love him." — Ihid. This is a high cha- racter, and I, for one, know it was deserved. I should be glad to knoWj how many wives of Mr. Shelley's calumniators could- say "as much of their husbands ; or how many of the critics would believe them, if they did. Mr. Shelley's comfort was a sacrifice to the perpetual contradiction between the professions of society and their practice ; between " the shows of things and the desires of the mind." Temperament and early circumstances conspired to make him a reformer, at a time of life when few begin to think for themselves ; and it was his misfortune, as far as immediate reputation was concerned, that he was thrown upon society with a precipitancy and vehemence, which rather startled them with fear for themselves, than allowed them to become sensible of the love and zeal that impelled him. He was like a spirit that had darted out of its orb, and found itself in another planet. I used to tell him that he had come from the planet Mercury. When I heard of the catas. trophe that overtook him, it seemed as if this spirit, not sufficiently constituted like the rest of the world, to obtain their sympathy, yet 2 A 178 MR. SHELLEY. gifted with a double portion of love for all living things, had been found dead in a sohtary corner of the earth, its wings stiffened, its warm heart cold ; the relics of a misunderstood nature, slain by the ungenial elements. That the utility, however, of so much benevolence was not lost to the world, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to its occasional mode of showing itself, will be evinced, I hope, by the following pages. Mr. Shelley was the eldest son of Sir Timothy SheUey, 'Baxt. of Castle-Goring, in Sussex ; and was born at Field- Place, in that county, the 4th of August, 1792.* It is difficult, under any circumstances, to speak with proper delicacy of the living connexions of the dead ; but it is no violation of decorum to observe (what, indeed, the reader knows already, if he knows any thii^g of Parliament,) that the family connexions of Mr. Shelley belonged to a small party in the House of Commons, itself belonging to another party. They were Whig Aristocrats ; a distinction that, within a late period, has been handsomely merged by some of the beai"ers of it into the splendour of a more prevaiUng universaUty. To a man of genius, endowed with a metaphysical acuteness to discern truth and falsehood, and a strong sensibility to give way to his sense of it, such an origin, however * Gibbon has a note in his Decline and Fall, in which, with a greater degree of romance than might have been expected of him^ even with all his self-love as a man of letters, he "exhorts" the noble family of the Spensers to consider the Fairy Queen as the "brightest jewel in their coronet.'' The Shelleys are of old standing, and have branched out into three several baronetcies, one of which has become the representative of the kindred of Sir Philip Sidney. Mr. Shelley had a respect for that distinction, carelessly as he contemplated the other family honours. He would have allowed no claim for superiority to be put in there. But if I had a right to speak like Gibbon, and if affection might be allowed to anticipate the voice of posterity, I would " exhort" in like manner the race of the Shelleys to pierce through the din of existing prejudices, and consider no sound so fair as the name of their aspiring kinsman. MR. SHELLEY. 179 respectable in the ordinary point of view, was not the very luckiest that could have happened, for the purpose of keeping him within ordinary bounds. With what feelings is Truth to open its eyes upon this world among the most respectable of our mere party gentry ? Among licensed contradictions of all sorts ? among the Christian doctrines and the worldly practices ? Among fox-hunters and their chaplains ? among beneficed loungers, noli-episcoparian bishops, rakish old gentlemen, and more startling young ones, who are old in the foUy of knowingness ? In short, among all those professed demands of what is right and noble, mixed with real inculcations of what is wrong and full of hypocrisy, which have been so admirably exposed by Mr. Bentham, and which he has fortunately helped some of our best living statesmen to leave out of the catalogue of their ambitions. Mr. Shelley began to think at a very early age, and to think too of these anomalies. He saw, that at every step in life some compromise was expected between a truth which he was told not to violate, and a co- louring and double-meaning of it, which forced him upon the violation. Doubtless there are numbers of young men who discern nothing of all this ; and who, comparatively speaking, become respectable tellers of truth in spite of it. These are the honourable paj:t of the orthodox ; good-natured fathers and husbands, conscientious clergymen, respectable men in various walks of life, who, thinking they abide by the ideas that have been set before them, really have very few ideas of any thing, and are only remarkable for affording specimens of every sort of common- place, comfortable or unhappy. On the other hand, numbers of young men get a sense of this confusion of principles, if not with a direct and logical consciousness, yet with an instinct for turning it to account. Even some of these, by dint of a genial nature, and upon the same 2 A 2 180 MR. SHELLEY. principle on which a heathen priest would eschew the vices of his mythology, turn out decent members of society. But how many others are spoilt for ever ! How many victims to this confusion of truth and falsehood, apparently flourishing, but really callous or unhappy, are to be found in all quarters of the community ; men who profess opinions which contradict their whole lives ; takers of oaths, which they dispense with the very thought of ; subscribers to articles which they doubt, or even despise ; triflers with their hourly word for gain ; expedient statesmen ; ready hirelings of power ; sneering disbelievers in good ; teachers to their own children of what has spoilt themselves, and has rendered their existence a dull and selfish iiiockery. Whenever a character like Mr. Shelley's appears in society, it must be considered with reference to these systems. Others may consent to be spoilt by them, and to see their fellow-creatures spoilt. He was a looker-on of a different nature. With this jumble, then, of truth and falsehood in his head, and a genius born to detect it, though perhaps never quite able to rid itself of the injury, (for if ever he deviated into an error unworthy of him, it was in occasionally condescending, though for the kindest purposes, to use a little doublej-dealing,) Mr. Shelley was sent to Eton, and after- wards to the University of Oxford. At Eton, a Quarterly Reviewer recollects him setting trees on fire with a burning-glass ; a proceeding which the critic sets down to his natural taste for destruction. A more impartial and not less philosophic observer might have attributed it to the natural curiosity of genius. Perhaps, if the Reviewer recollected Mr. Shelley, Mr. Shelley no less recollected him as one of the school- tyrants against whom he rose up, in opposition to the system of fagging. Against this custom he formed a conspiracy ; and for a time made it pause, at least as far as his own person was concerned. Mr. Shelley's MR. SHELLEY. 181 feelings at this period of his life are touchingly and powerfully described in the dedication of the Revolt of Islam. " Thoughts of great deeds weie mine, dear Friend, when first The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass. I do remember well the hour which burst My spirit's sleep : a fresh May-day it was. When I walked forth upon the glittering grass, And wept, I knew not why ; until there rose From the near school-room, voices, that, alas ! Were but one echo from a world of woes — The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. " And then I clasped my hands, and look'd around — But none was near to moclc my streaming eyes. Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground, — So without shame I spake ; ' I will be wise. And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power ; for I grow weary to behold The selfish and the strong still tyrannise Without reproach or check.' I then controlled My tears ; my heart grew calm, and I was meek and boldi " And from that hour did I, with earnest thought. Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore ; Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught I cared to learn ; but from that secret store Wrought linked armour for my soul, before It might walk forth to war among mankind." Mr. Shelley retained all his kindness and energy, but corrected, as he here aspires to do, the irritability of his temper. No man, by the account of all who lived with him, ever turned it into greater sweetness. The Reviewer, by the usual process of tyranny, became a slave. Mr. Shelley, I believe, was taken from Eton before the regular period for leaving school. His unconventional spirit, penetrating, sincere, and 182 MR. SHELLEY. demanding the reason and justice of things, was found to be inconve- nient. At Oxford it was worse. Logic was there put into his hands ; and he used it in the most uncompromising manner. The more im- portant the proposition, the more he thought himself bound to investigate it : the greater the demand upon his assent, the less, upon their own principle of reasoning, he thought himself bound to grant it. The result was expulsion. Conceive a young man of Mr. Shelley's character, with no better experience of the kindness and sincerity of those whom he had perplexed, thrown forth into society, to form his own judgments, and pursue his own career. It was " Emilius out in the World," but formed by his own tutorship. There is a Novel, under that title, written by the German, La Fontaine, which has often reminded me of him. The hero of another, by the same author, called the " TteprohateJ' still more resem- bles him. His way of proceeding was entirely after the fashion of those guileless, but vehement hearts, which not being well replied to by their teachers, and finding them hostile to inquiry, add to a natural love of truth all the passionate ardour of a generous and devoted protection of it. Mr. Shelley had met with Mr. Godwin's " Political Justice ;" and he seemed to breathe, for the first time, in an open and bright atmosphere. He resolved to square all his actions by what he conceived to be the strictest justice, without any consideration for the opinions of those, whose little exercise of that virtue towards himself, ill-fitted them, he thought, for better teachers, and as ill warranted him in deferring to the opinions of the world whom they guided. That he did some extraor- dinary things in consequence, is admitted : that he did many noble ones, and all with sincerity, is well known to his friends, and will be admitted by all sincere persons. Let those who are so fond of exposing Mil. SHELLEY. 183 their own natures, by attributing every departure from ordinary conduct to bad motives, ask themselves what conduct coul^d be more extraor- dinary in their eyes, and at the same time less . attributable to a bad motive, than the rejection of an estate for the love of a principle. Yet Mr. Shelley rejected one. He had only to become a yea and nay man in the House of Commons, to be one of the richest men in Sussex. He decUned it, and lived upon a comparative pittance. Even the fortune that he would ultimately have inherited, as secured to his person, was petty in the comparison. We will relate another anecdote, which the conventional wUl not find it so difficult to quarrel with. It trenches upon that extraordinary privilege to indulge one sex at the expense of the other, which they guard with so jealous a care, and so many hypocritical faces. The question, we allow, is weighty. We are far from , saying it is here settled : but very far are they themselves from having settled it ; as their own writings and writhings, their own statistics, morals, romances, tears, and even jokes will testify. The case, I understood, was this ; for I am bound to declare that I forget who told it me ; but it is admirably in character, and not likely to be invented. Mr. Shelley was present at a ball, where he was a person of some importance. Numerous vil- lage ladies were there, old and young ; and none of the passions were absent, that are accustomed to glance in the eyes, and gossip in the tongues, of similar gatherings together of talk and dress. In the front were seated the rank and fashion of the place. The virtues diminished, as the seats went backward; and at the back of all, unspoken to, but not unheeded, sat blushing a damsel who had been seduced. We do not inquire by whom ; probably by some well-dressed gentleman in the room, who thought himself entitled nevertheless to the conversation of 184 MR. SHELLEY. the most flourishing ladies present, and who naturally thought so, because he had it. That sort of thing happens every day. It was ex- pected, that the young squire would take out one of these ladies to dance. What is the consternation, when they see him making his way to the back benches, and handing forth, with an air of consolation and tenderness, the object of all the virtuous scorn of the room ! the person whom that other gentleman, wrong as he had been towards her, and " wicked" as the ladies might have allowed him to be towards the fair sex in general, would have shrunk from touching, ! — Mr. Shelley, it was found, was equally unfit for school-tyrannies, for universities, and for the chaste orthodoxy of squires' tables. So he went up to town. The philosophic observer will confess, that our young author's ex- periences in education, politics, and gentlemanly morality, were not of a nature to divert him from his notions of justice, however calculated to bring him into trouble. Had he now behaved himself pardonably in the eyes of the orthodox, he would have gone to London with the resolution of sowing his wild oats, and becoming a decent member of society ; that is to say, he would have seduced a few maid-servants, or at least haunted the lobbies ; and then bestowed the remnant of his constitution upon some young lady of his own rank in life, and settled into a proper church-and-king man, perhaps a member of the Suppression of Vice. This is the proper routine, and gives one a right to be di- dactic. Alas ! Mr. SheUey did not do so ; and bitterly had he to repent, not that he did not do it, but that he married while yet a stripling, and that the wife whom he took was not of a nature to appreciate his under- standing, or perhaps to come from contact with it, uninjured in what she had of her own. They separated by mutual consent, after the birth of two children. To this measure his enemies would hardly have ME. SHELLF.Y. 185 demurred ; especially as the marriage was disapproved by Mr. Shelley's family, and the lady of inferior rank. It might have been regarded even as something like making amends. But to one thing they would strongly have objected. He proceeded, in the spirit of Mil- ton's doctrines, to pay his court to another lady. We wish we could pursue the story in the same tone : but now came the greatest pang of Mr. Shelley's life. He was residing at Bath, when news came to him that his wife had destroyed herself. It was a heavy blow to him ; and he never forgot it. Persons who riot in a debauchery of scandal, delighting in endeavouring to pull down every one to their own standard, and in repeating the grossest charges in the grossest words, have taken advantage of this passage in Mr. Shelley's life, to show their total ignorance of his nature, and to harrow up, one would think, the feelings of every person connected with him, by the most wanton promulgation of names, and the most odious falsehoods. Luck- ily, the habitual contempt of truth which ever accompanies the love of calumny, serves to refute it with all those whose good opinion is worth having. So leaving the scandal in those natural sinks, to which all the calumnies and falsehoods of the time hasten, we resume our remarks with the honourable and the decent. As little shall we dwell upon the conduct of one or two persons of better repute, who instead of being warned against believing every malignant rumour by the nature of their own studies, and as if they had been jealous of a zeal in behalf of mankind, which they had long been accused of merging in speculations less noble, did not disdain to circulate tbe gossip of the scandalous as far as other countries, betraying a man to repulses, who was yearning with the love of his species ; and confounding times, places, and cir- cumstances, in the eagerness of their paltry credulity. Among other 2 B 186 MR. SHELLEY. falsehoods it was stated, that Mr. Shelley, at that time living with his wife, had abruptly communicated to her his intention of separating ; upon which the other had run to a pond at the end of the garden, and drowned herself. The fact, as we have seen, is, that they had been living apart for some time, during which the lady was accountable to no one but herself. We could relate another story of the catastrophe that took place, did we not feel sincerely for all parties concerned, and wish to avoid every species of heart-burning. Nobody Could lament it more bit- terly than Mr. Shelley. For a time, it tore his being. to.pieces; nor is there a doubt, that however deeply he was accustomed to reason on the nature and causes of evil, and on the steps necessary to be taken for opposing it, he was not without remorse for having no better exercised his judgment with regard to the degree of intellect he had allied himself with, and for having given rise to a premature independence of conduct in one unequal to the task. The lady was greatly to be pitied ; so was the survivor. Let the school-tyrants, the University refusers of argument^ and the orthodox sowers of their wild oats, with myriads of unhappy women behind them, rise up in judgment against him. Honester men will not be hindered from doing justice to sincerity, wherever they find it ; nor be induced to blast the memory of a man of genius and benevo- lence, for one painful passage in his life, which he might have avoided, had he been no better than his calumniators. On the death of this unfortunate lady, Mr. Shelley married the daughter of Mr. Godwin ; and resided at Great Marlow, in Bucking- hamshire, where he was a blessing to the poor. His charity, though liberal, was not weak. He inquired personally into the circumstances of the petitioners ; visited the sick in their beds, (for he had gone the round Mil. SHELLEY. 187 of the Hospitals on purpose to be able to practise on occasion) ; and kept a regular list of industrious poor, whom he assisted with small sums to make up their accounts.* At Marlow he wrote the Eemlt of Islam. V * " Another anecdote remains, not the least in interest." (I was speaking, in the Lite- rary Examiner, of an adventure of Mr. Shelley's, at the time he was on a visit to me at Hampstead.) Some years ago, when a house (on the top of the Heath) " was occupied by a person whose name I forget, (and I should suppress it in common humanity, if I did not,) I was returning home to my own, which was at no great distance from it, after the Opera. As I approached my door, I heard strange and alarming shrieks, mixed with the Toice of a man. The next day, it was reported by the gossips, that Mr. Shelley, no Christian, (for it was he, who was there,) had brought some ' very strange female ' into the house, no better of course than she ought to be. The real Christian had puzzled them. Mr. Shelley, in coming to our house that night, had found a woman lying near the top of the hill, in fits. It was a fierce winter night, with snow upon the ground ; and winter loses nothing of its fierceness at Hampstead. My friend, always the promptest as well as most pitying on these occasions, knocked at the first houses he could reach, in order to have the woman taken in. The invariable answer was, that they could not do it. He asked for an outhouse to put her in, while he went for a doctor. Impossible ! In vain he assured them she was no im- postor. They would not dispute the point with him ; but doors were closed, and win- dows were shut down. Had he lit upon worthy Mr. Park, the philologist, he would as- suredly have come, in spite of his Calvinism. But he lived too far off. Had he lit upon yon, .dear B n, or your neighbour D e, you would either of you have jumped up from amidsrt; your books or your bed-clothes, and have, gone out with him. But the paucity. of Chris- ' tians is astonishing, considering the number of them. Time flies ; the poor woman is iii con- vulsions ; her son, a young man, lamenting over her. At last my friend sees a carriage driv- ing up to a house at a little distance. The knock is given ; the warm door opens ; servants and ligbts pour forth. Now, thought he, is the time. He puts on his best address, which any body might recognize for that of the highest gentleman as well as an iiiteresting indi- vidual, and plants himself in the way of an elderly person, who is stepping out of the carriage with his family. He tells his story. They only press on the faster. ' WiU you go and «ee her ?' ' No, Sir ; there 's no necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it : impostors swarm every where : the thing cannot be done : Sir, your conduct is extraordinary.' ' Sir,' cried Mr* Shelley at last, assuming a very different appearance, and forcing the flourishing house- holder to stop out of astonishment, ' I am sorry to say that ymir conduct hnot extraordinary : and if my own seems to amaze you, I will tell you something that may amaze you a little 2 B 2 188 MR. SHELLEY. Queen Mob was an earlier production, written at the age of seventeen or eighteen, when he married ; and it was never published with his con- sent. He regretted the publication when it did take place some years afterwards, and stated as much in the newspapers, considering it a crude performance, and as not sufficiently entering into thie important ques- tions it handled. Yet upon the strength of this young and unpublished work, he was deprived of his two children. The reader perhaps is not aware, that in this country of England, where the domestic institutions are boasted of as so perfect, and are apt to be felt as so melancholy, —where freedom of opinion is so much cried up, and the tribunals take so much pains to put it down, — where writers and philosophers in short, and what . may be called the uncon- stituted authorities, have done so much for aU the world, and the con- stituted authorities, particularly the lawyers, have done so little for more, and I hope will frighten you. It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the patience of the poor and wretched : and if ever a convulsion comes in this country, (which is very probable,) recollect what I tell you; — you will have your house, that you refuse to put the miserable woman into, burnt over your head.' ' God bless me, Sir ! Dear me. Sir !' Exclaimed the frightened wretch, and fluttered into his mansion. The woman was then brought to our house, which was at some distance, and down a bleak path ; and Mr. S. and her son were obliged to hold her, till the doctor could arrive. It appeared that she had been attending this son in London, on a criminal charge made against him, the agita- tion of which had thrown her into the fits on her return. The doctor said that she would inevitably have perished, had she lain there a short time longer. The next -day my friend sent mother and son comfortably home to Hendon, where they were well known, and whence they returned him thanks full of gratitude. Now go, ye Pharisees of all sorts, and try if ye can still open your hearts and your doors like the good Samaritan. This man was himself too brought up in a splendid mansion, and might have revelled and rioted in all worldly goods. Yet this was one of the most ordinary of his actions." MR. SHELLEY. 189 any body but themselves,*— the reader is perhaps not aware, that in this extraordinary country, any man's children may be taken from him to- morrow, who holds a diflFerent opinion from the Lord Chancellor in faith and morals. Hume's, if he had any, might have been taken. Gib- bon's might have been taken. The virtuous Condorcet, if he had been an Englishman and a father, would have stood no chance. Plato, for his Republic, would have stood as little ; and Mademoiselle de Gournay might have been torn from the arms of her adopted father Montaigne, convicted beyond redemption of seeing farther than the walls of the Court of Chancery. That such things are not done often, we believe : that they may be done oftener than people suspect, we must unfortunately believe also ; for they are transacted with closed doors, and the details are forbidden to transpire. ]\Ir. Shelley was con- victed of holding the unpublished opinions, which his public teachers at the University had not thought fit to reason him out of. He was * Always excepting BacoHj who can hardly be called a lawyer. His profession was but an accident in his life. It was in philosophy that he lived and moved and had his being ; and with it he has moved the world. Experiment was that standing ground which Aristotle desired without knowing it, and on which the great lever has at last been fixed. Mechanical philosophy has not only moved ; it will inevitably alter the world ; and moral improvements^ of all sorts, will follow. Two other lawyers' names must be added not unworthy to follow Bacon's; tliat of Mr. Bentham, who had no sooner entered the profession, than he got out of it; and that of Henry Brougham ; who, though he remains a lawyer, presents the singular spectacle of a lawyer, equally active in his lesser calling and his greater, and consenting, per- haps, to realize the gains of the one, only that he may secure the power of j)ursuing the noblest of all ambitions in the other. Mr. Brougham was " meant for mankind;" and luckily he has not been prevented, by the minuter demands on his eyesight, from looking abroad and knowing it. His world is the world it ought to be, — the noble planet, capable of being added to the number of other planets which have perhaps worked out their moral beauty ; — not a mere little despairing corner of it, entitled a court of justice. 190 MR. SHELLEY. also charged with not being of the received opinions with regard to the intercourse of the sexes ; and his children, a girl and a boy, were taken from him. The persons who succeeded in bereaving him, did not suc- ceed in their application to have the children put under their own management. They were transferred to the care of an old, and I dare say respectable, clergyman of the Church of England ; and have long received aU the helps to sincerity and perfection, which Mr. Ben- tham has pointed out in his remarks on that establishment. The rest depends on the natural strength of their understandings, and what reflections they may make when they compare their father's practical Christianity with the theories they will see contradicted all round them. The circumstance deeply affected Mr. Shelley : so much so, that he never afterwards dared to trust himself with mentioning his children to the friend who stood at his side throughout the business, and who was the dearest friend that he had.* But what additional love it gene- rated in him towards our estabhshments, and their mode of reasoning, the reader may guess. The friend in question, who had first won his regard by the liberal opinions expressed in the Examiner, and by the unusual mode of advising him not to print a volume of juvenile poems, (an advice which still more unusually was taken,) has given, in that paper, an interesting account of Mr. Shelley's manner of * The boy is since dead ; and Mr. Shelley's son by his second wife, the daughter of Mr. Godwin, is heir to the baronetcy. It seldom falls to the lot of a child to have illustrious descent so heaped upon him ; his mother a woman of talents, his father a man of genius, his grandfather, Mr. Godwin, a writer secure of immortality ; his grandmother, Mr. Godwin's wife, the celebrated Mary WoUstonecraft ; and on the side of Mr. Shelley's ancestors he par- takes of the blood of the intellectual as well 3s patrician family of the Sackvilles. MR. SHELLEY. 191 life at this period. I quote from memory, but am correct in the sub- stance. Mr. Shelley, owing to the freedom of his inquiries, as well as to the malignity of his enemies, was said to be keeping a seraglio. His friend, who partook of some of his opinions, partook of the scan- dal. This keeper of a seraglio, who in fact was extremely difficult to please in such matters, and who had no idea of love unconnected with sentiment, passed his days like a hermit. He rose early in the morning, walked and read before breakfast, took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the greater part of the morning, walked and read again, dined on vegetables (for he took neither meat nor wine,) con- versed with his friends (to whom his house was ever open,) again walked out, and usually finished with reading to his wife till ten o'clock, when he went to bed. This was his daily existence. His book was generally Plato, or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, or the Bible, in which last he took a great, though peculiar, and often admiring interest. One of his favourite parts was the book of Job. The wri- tings attributed to Solomon he thought top Epicurean, in the modern sense of the word ; and in his notions of St. Paul, he a,greed with the writer of the work entitled " Not Paul but Jesus." For his Christianity, in the proper sense of the word, he went to the gospel of St. James, and to the sermon on the Mount by Christ himself, for whose truly divine spirit he entertained the greatest reverence. There was notlung which embittered his reviewers against him more than the knowledge of this fact, and his refusal to identify their superstitions and worldly use of the Christian doctrines with the just idea of a great Re- former and advocate of the many; one, whom they would have been the first to cry out against, had he appeared now. His want of faith, indeed. 192 MR. SHELLEY. in one sense of the word, and bis exceeding faith in the existence of goodness and the great doctrine of charity, formed a comment, the one on the other, very formidable to the less troublesome constructions of the orthodox. Some alarmists at Marlow said, that if he went on at this rate, he would make all the poor people infidels. He went on, till ill health and calumny, and the love of his children, forced him abroad. During his residence at Marlow, Mr. Shelley published a " Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote" throughout England; for which purpose, as an earnest of his sincerity, he offered to contribute a hundred pounds. This hundred pounds (which owing to his liberal habits he could very ill spare at the time) he would have done hi-s best to supply, by saving and economizing. It was not uncommon with him to give away all his ready money, and be compelled to take a journey on foot or on the top of a stage, no matter during what weather. His constitution, though naturally consumptive, had attained, by temperance and exercise, to a surprising power of resisting fatigue. As an instance of his extraordinary generosity, an acquaintance of his, a man of letters, enjoyed from him at that period a pension of a hundred a-year; and he continued to enjoy it, till fortune rendered it . superfluous. But the princeliness of his dispo- sition was seen most in his behaviour to his friend, the writer of this memoir, who is proud to relate, that Mr. Shelley once made him a pre- sent of fourteen hundred pounds, to extricate him from debt. I was not extricated, for I had not yet learnt to be careful : but the shame of not being so, after such generosity, and the pain which my friend afterwards underwent, when I was in trouble and he was helpless, were the first causes of my thinking of money-matters to any purpose. His last sixpence MR. SHELLEY. 193 was ever at my service, had I chosen to share it : his house in Italy- would ever have been shared with me, had I thought it right to go thither. I went at last, with happy views for all ; and of the three who set up a work against tyranny, am the only one that survive. It is remarkable, that in a poetical epistle written some years ago, and published in the volume of " Posthumous Poems," Mr. Shelley, in alluding to his friend's circumstances, which for the second time were then straitened, only makes an affectionate lamentation that he himself is poor ; never once hinting, that he had already drained his purse for his friend. From Marlow, Mr. Shelley went with his wife and a new family to Italy, where he lived in his usual quiet and retired manner. He had become acquainted with Lord Byron during a former visit to the Con4- tinent ; and the acquaintance was now renewed. He visited his Lord- ship at Venice ; but it was only latterly that he saw much of him, when they both lived at Pisa. He had the highest admiration of his Lord- ship's genius ; but they differed, as might be expected, on many other points. Lord Byron thought his philosophy too spiritual and romantic. Mr. Shelley thought his Lordship's too material and despairing. The noble Lord often expressed the highest opinion of his companion's vir- tues, and of his freedom from selfishness. An account has been pub- lished of a voyage to Sicily, in which Mr. Shelley is described as be- having with want of courage. To those who knew him, it is unne- cessary to repeat, that the whole account is a fabrication, voyage and all. Lord Byron and he never were in Sicily, nor ever sailed together, except on the Lake of Geneva! Mr, Shelley's bravery was remarkable and was the ultimate ruin of him. In a scuffle that took place on horseback, in the streets of Pisa, with a hoj-headed dragoon, he be- 2 c 194 MK. SHELLEY. haved with a courage so distinguished, and with so much thought for every body but himself, that Lord Byron wondered upon what principle a man could be induced to prefer any other person's life in that manner, before his own. The solution of the difficulty was to be found in their different views of human nature. Mr. Shelley would have lost his life with- pleasure, to set an example of disinterestedness: Lord Byron could do striking public things. Greece, and an admiring public, still re-echo them. But the course of his Lordship's studies had led him to require, that they should be mixed up with other stimu- lants. A very melancholy period of my narrative is now arrived. In June 1822, I arrived in Italy, in consequence of the invitation to set up a work with my friend and Lord Byron. Mr. Shelley was passing the summer season at a house he had taken for that purpose on the Gulf of Lerici. He wrote to me at Genoa to say that he hoped " the waves would never part us again ;" and on hearing of my arrival at Leghorn, came thither, . accompanied by Mr. Williams, formerly of the 8th Dragoons, who was then on a visit to him. He came to welcome his friend and family, and see us comfortably settled at Pisa. He accordingly went with us tp that city, and after remaining in it a few days, took leave on the night of the 7th July, to return with Mr. Williams to Lerici, meaning to come back to us shortly. In a day or two the voyagers were missed. The. after- noon of the 8th had been stormy, with violent squalls from the south- west. A night succeeded, broken up with that tremendous thunder and lightning, which appals the stoutest seaman in the Mediterranean, drop- ping its bolts in all directions more like melted brass, or liquid pillars of fire, than any thing- we conceive of lightning in our northern climate. MR. SHELLEY. 195 The suspense and anguish of their friends need ©ot be dwelt upon. A dreadful interval took place of more than a week, during which every inquiry and every fond hope were exhausted. At the end of that period our worst fears were confirmed. The following narrative of the particu- lars is from the pen of Mr. Trelawney, a friend of Lord Byron's, who had nof long been acquainted with Mr. SheUey ; but entertained the deepest regard for him. On the present, occasion, nothing could surpass his generous and active sympathy. During the whole of the proceedings that took place, Mr. Shelley's and Mr. Williams's friends were in-i debted to Mr. Trelawney for every kind of attention : the great burden of inquiry fell upon him ; and he never ceased his good offices, either then or afterwards, tiU he had done every thing that could have been expected to be done, either of the humblest or the highest friend. MR. TRELAWNEY'S NARRATIVE OF THE LOSS OF THE BOAT CONTAIN- ING MR. SHELLEY AND MR. WILLIAMS, ON THE 8TH OF JULY, 1822, OFF THE COAST OF ITALY. (NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.) " Mr. Shelley, Mr. Williams (formerly of the 8th Dragoons), and one seaman, Charles Vivian, left VUla Magni near Lerici, a small town situate in the Bay of Spezia, on the 30th of June, at twelve o'clock, and arrived the same night at Leghorn. Their boat had been built for Mr. Shelley at Genoa by a captain in the navy. It was twenty-four feet long, eight in the beam, schooner-rigged, with gaft topsails, &c. and drew four feet water. On Monday, the 8th of July, at the same hour, they got uiider weigh to return home, having on board a quantity of household articles, four hun- dred dollars, a small canoe, and some books and manuscripts. At half 2 C 2 196 MR. SHELLEY, jjast twelve they made all sail out of the harbour Avith a light anld favourable breeze, steering direct for Spezia. I had likewise weighed anchor to accompany them a few miles out in Lord Byron's schooner, the Bolivar; but there was some demur about papers from the guard- boat ; and they, fearful of losing the breeze, sailed without me. I re-an- chored, and watched my friends, till their boat became a speck on the horizon, which was growing thick and dark, with heavy clouds moving rapidly, and gathering in the south-west quarter. I then retired to the cabin, where I had not been half an hour, before a'man on deck told me, a heavy squall had come on. We let go another anchor. The boats and vessels in the roads were scudding past us in aU directions to get into the harbour ; and in a moment, it blew a hard gale from the south-west, the sea, from excessive smoothness, foaming, breaking, and getting up into a very heavy sweU. The wind, having shifted, was now directly against my friends. I felt confident they would be obliged to bear off for Leghorn ; and being anxious to hear of their safety, stayed on board till a late hour, but saw nothing of them. The violence of the wind did not continue above an hour ; it then gradually subsided ; and at eight o'clock, when I went on shore, it was almost a calm. It, however, blew hard at intervals during the night, with rain, and thunder and lightning. The lightning struck the mast of a vessel close to us, shivering it to splinters, kiUing two men, and wounding others. From these circum- stances, becoming greatly alarmed for the safety of the voyagers, a note was dispatched to Mr. Shelley's house at Lerici, the reply to which stated that nothing had been heard of him and his friend, which augmented our fears to such a degree, that couriers were dispatched on the whole line of coast from Leghorn to Nice, to ascertain if they had put in any where, or if there had been any wreck, or indication of losses ty sea. I MR. SHELLEY. 197 immediately started for Via Reggio, having lost sight of the boat in that direction. My worst fears were almost confirmed on my arrival there, by news that a small canoe, two empty water-barrels, and a bottle, had been found on the shore, which things I recognised as belonging to the boat. I had still, however, warm hopes that these articles had been thrown overboard to clear them from useless lumber in the storm ; and it seemed a general opinion that they had missed Leghorn, and put into Elba or Corsica, as nothing more was heard for eight days. This state of suspense becoming intolerable, I returned from Spezia to Via Reggio, where my worst fears were confirmed by the information that two bodies had been washed on shore, one on that night very near the town, which, by the dress and stature, I knew to be Mr. Shelley's. Mr. Keats's last volume of " Lamia," " Isabella," &c. being open in the jacket pocket, confirmed it beyond a doubt. The body of Mr. Williams was subse- quently found near a tower on the Tuscan shore, about four miles from his companion. Both the bodies were greatly decomposed by the sea, but identified beyond a doubt. The seaman, Charles Vivian, was not found for nearly three weeks afterwards. His body was interred in the spot on which a wave had washed it, in the vicinity of Massa. " After a variety of applications to the Lucchese and Tuscan Go- vernments, and our Ambassador at Florence, I obtained, from the kind- ness and exertions of Mr. Dawkins, an order to the officer commanding the tower of Migliarino, (near to which Lieutenant Williams had been cast, and buried in the sand,) that the body should be at my disposal. I likewise obtained an order to the same effect to the Commandant at Via Reggio, to deliver vxp the remains of Mr. SheUey, it having been decided by the friends of the parties that the bodies should be reduced to ashes by fire, as the readiest mode of conveying them to the places 198 ' MR. SHELLEY. where the deceased would have wished to repose, as well as of removing aU objections respecting the Quarantine Laws, which had been urged against their disinterment. Every thing being prepared for the requisite purposes, I embarked on board Lord Byron's schooner with my friend Captain Shenley, and sailed on the 13th of August. After a tedious passage of eleven hours, we anchored off Via Reggio, and feU in with two small vessels, which I had hired at Leghorn some days before for the purpose of ascertaining, by the means used to recover sunken vessels, the place in which my friend's boat had foundered. They had on board the captain of a fishing-boat, who, having been overtaken in the same squall, had witnessed the sinking of the boat, without (as he says) the possibility of assisting her. After dragging the bottom, in the place which he indicated, for six days without finding her, I sent them back to Leghorn, and went on shore. The Major commanding the town, with the Captain of the port, accompanied me to the Governor. He received us very courteously, and did not object to the removal of our friend's remains, but to burning them, as the latter was not specified in the order. However, after some little explanation, he assented, and we gave the necessary directions for making every preparation to commence our pain- ful undertaking next morning." It was thought that the whole of these melancholy operations might have been performed in one day : but the calculation turned out to be erroneous. Mr. Williams's remains were commenced with. Mr. Tre- lawney and Captain Shenley were at the tower by noon, with proper persons to assist, and were joined shortly by Lord Byron and myself. A portable furnace and a tent had been prepared. " Wood," continues Mr. Trelawney, " we found in abundance on the beach, old trees and MR. SHELL5EY. 199 parts of wrecks. Within , a few paces of the spot where the body lay, there was a rude-built shed of straw, forming a temporary shelter for soldiers at night, when performing the coast-patrole duty. The grave was at high-water mark, some eighteen paces from the surf, as it was then breaking, the distance about four miles and a half from Via Reggio. The magnificent bay of Spezia is on the right of this spot, Leghorn on the left, at equa,l distances of about twenty-two miles. The headlands, projecting boldly and far into the sea, form a deep and dangerous gulf, with a heavy swell and a strong current generally running right into it. A vessel embayed in this gulf, and overtaken by one of the squalls so common upon the coast of it, is almost certain to be wrecked. The loss of small craft is great ; and the shallowness of the water, and breaking of the surf, preventing, approach to the shore, or boats going out to assist, the loss of lives is in proportion. It was in the centre of this bay, about four or five miles at sea, in fifteen or sixteen fathom water, with a light breeze under a crowd of sail, that the boat of our friends was suddenly taken clap aback by a sudden and very violent squall ; and it is supposed that in attempting to bear up under such a press of canvass, all the sheets fast, the hands unprepared, and only three persops on board, the boat filled to leeward, and having two tons of ballast, and not being decked, went down on the instant ; not giving them a moment to prepare them- selves by even taking off their boots, or seizing an oar. Mr. Williams was the only one who could swim, and he but indifferently. The spot where Mr. WiQiams's body lay was well adapted for a man of his imaginative cast of mind, and I wished his remains to rest undisturbed ; but it was willed otherwise. Before us was the sea, with islands ; behind us the Apennines ; beside us, a large tract of thick wood, stunted and twisted into fantastic 200 MR. SHELLEY. shapes by the sea-breeze. The heat was intense, the sand being so scorched as to render standing on it painful." Mr. Trelawney proceeds to describe the disinterment and burning of Mr. Williams's remains. Calumny, which never shows itself grosser than in its charges of want of refinement, did not spare even these melancholy ceremonies. The friends of the deceased, though they took no pains to publish the proceeding, were accused of wishing to make a sensation ; of doing a horrible and unfeeling thing, &c. The truth was, that the nearest connexions, both of Mr. Shelley and Mr. WUliams, wished to have their remains interred in regular places of burial ; and that for this purpose they could be removed in no other manner. Such being the case, it is admitted that the mourners did not refuse them- selves the little comfort of supposing, that lovers of books and antiquity, like Mr. ^ell-ey and his friend, would not have been sorry to foresee! this part of their fate. Among the materials for burning, as many of the gracefuller and more classical articles as could be procured — frank- incense, wine, &c. were not forgotten. The proceedings of the next day, with Mr. Shelley's remains, exactly resembled those of the foregoing, with the exception of there being two assistants les;s. The inaccuracies of Captain Medwin on this subject I have noticed before. On both days, the extraordinary beauty of the flame arising from the funeral pile was noticed. The weather was beautifully fine. The Mediterranean, now soft and lucid, kissed the shore as if to make peace witl^ it. The yellow sand and blue sky in- tensely contrasted with one another : marble mountains touched the air with coolness, and the flame of the fire bore away towards heaven in vigorous amplitude, waving and quivering with a brightness of incon- MR. SHELLEY. 201 ceivable beauty. It seemed as though it contained the glassy essence of vitality. You might have expected a seraphic countenance to look put of it, turning once more, before it departed, to thank the friends that had done their duty. Among the various conjectures respecting this lamentable event, a suspicion was not wanting, that the boat had been run down by a larger one, with a view to plunder it. Mr. Shelley was known to have taken money on board. Crimes of that nature had occurred often enough to warrant such a suspicion ; and they could be too soon washed out of the consciences of the ignorant perpetrators by confession. But it was lost in the more probable conclusions arising from the weather. One bitter consolation to the friends of Mr. Shelley was, that his death, as far as Ke alone was concerned, was of a nature he would have preferred to many others, probably to any. A reflectit)n, more pleasing, reminded them, that in the rapid decomposition occasioned by the sea and the fire, the mortal part of him was saved from that gradual corruption, which is seldom contemplated without shuddering by a lively imagination. And yet the same imagination and suffering which make us cling to life at one time, and give us a horror of dissolution, can render the grave desirable and even beautiful at another. Mr. Shelley's remains were taken to Rome, and deposited in the Protestant burial-ground, near those of a child he had lost in that city, and of Mr. Keats. It is the cemetery he speaks of in the preface to his Elegy on the death of his young friend, as calculated to " make one in love with death, to think that one shpuld be buried in so sweet a place." A like tenderness of patience, in one who possessed a like energy, made Mr,^^eats- say on his death-bed, that he " seemed to feel the daisies growing over him." 2 D 202 ME. SHELLEY. These are the feelings that servile critics ridicule, and that all other human beings respect. The generous reader will be glad to hear, that the remains of Mr. Shelley were attended to their final abode by some of the most respectable English resi4ents in Rome. He was sure to awaken the sympathy of gallant and accomplished spirits wherever he went, alive or dead. The remains of Mr. Williams were taken to England. Mr. Williams was a very intelligent, good-hearted man, and his death was deplored by friends worthy of him. The writer who criticised the " Posthumous Poems," in the " Edin- burgh Review," does justice to the excellence of Mr. Shelley's inten- tions, and acknowledges him to be one of those rare persons called men of genius; but accuses him of a number of faults, which he attri- butes to the predominance of his will, and a scorn of every thing re- ceived and conventional. To this cause he traces the faults of his poetry, and what he conceives to be the errors of his philosophy. Furthermore, he charges Mr. Shelley with a want of reverence for antiquity, and quotes a celebrated but not unequivocal passage from Bacon, where the Philosopher, according to the advice of the Prophet, recommends us to take our stand upon the ancient ways, and see what road we are to take for progression. He says Mr. Shelley had " too little sympathy with the feelings of others, which he thought he had a right to sacrifice, as well as his own, to a grand ethical experiment ; and asserts that if a thing were old and established, this was with him a certain proof of its having no solid foundation to rest upon : if it was new, it was good and right: every paradox was to him a self-evident truth: every prejudice an undoubted absurdity. The weight of authority, the sanction of ages, the common consent of mankind, were vouchers only for ignorance, error, and imposture. Whatever shocked the feelings of others, conciliated Mil. SHEI.LEY. 203 his regard; whatever was light, extravagant, and vain, was to him a proportionable relief from the dulness and stupidity of established opinions." This is caricature ; and caricature of an imaginary original. Alas ! Mr. Shelley was so little relieved by what was light and vain, (if I understand what the Reviewer means by those epithets,) and so little disposed to quarrel with the common consent of mankind, where it seemed reasonably founded, that at first he could not endure even the comic parts of Lord Byron's writings, because he thought they tended to produce mere volatility instead of good; and he afterwards came to relish them, because he found an accord with them in the bosoms of society. Whatever shocked the feeling of others so little conciliated his regard, that with the sole exception of matters of religion (which is a point on which the most benevolent Reformers, authors of " grand ethical experiments," in all ages, have thought themselves warranted in hazard- ing alarm and astonishment,) his own feelings were never more violated than by disturbances given to delicacy, to sentiment, to the affections. If ever it seemed otherwise, as in the subject of his tragedy of the Cenci, it was only out of a more intense apprehensiveness, and the right it gave him to speak. He saw, in every species of tyranny and selfish will, an image of all the rest of the generation. That a love of paradox is occasionally of use to remind commonplaces of their weakness, and to prepare the way for liberal opinions, nobody knows better or has more unequivocally shown than Mr^ Shelley's critic ; and yet I am not aware that Mr. Shelley was at aU addicted to paradox ; or that he loved any contradiction, that did not directly contradict some great and tyrannical abuse. Prejudices that he thought innocent, no man was more inclined to respect, or even to faU in with. He was prejudiced in favour of the dead languages ; he had a theoretical an- 2 D 2 204 MR, SHELLEY. tipathy to innovations in style ; he had almost an English dislike of the French and their literature, a philosopher or two ejfcepted : it cost him much to reconcile himself to manners that were not refined; and even with regard to the prejudices of superstition, or the more poetical sides of popular 'faith, where they did not interfere with the daily and waking comforts of mankind, he was for admitting them with more than a spirit of tt)leration. It would be hazardous to affirm that he did not believe in spirits and genii. This is not setting his face against *' every received mystery, and all traditional faith." He set his face, not against a mystery nor a self-evident, proposition, but against what- ever he conceived to be injurious to human good, and whatever his teachers would have forced down his throat, in defiance of the inquiries they had suggested. His opposition to what was established, as I have said before, is always to be considered with reference to that feature in his disposition, and that fact in his history. Of antiquity and au- thority he was so little a scorner, that his opinions, novel as some of them may be thought, are all to be found in writers, both ancient arid modern, and those not obscure ones or empirical, but men of the greatest and wisest, and best names, — Plato and Epicurus, Montaigne, Bacon, Sir Thomas More. Nothing in him was his own, but the genius that impelled him to put philosophical speculations in the shape of poetry, and a subtle and magnificent style, abounding in Hellenisms, and by no means exempt (as he acknowledged) from a tendency to imitate whatever else he thought beautiful, in ancient or modern writers. But Mr. Shelley was certainly definite in his object : he thought it was high time for society to come to particulars : to know what they would have. With regard to marriage, for instance, he was tired with Mil. SHELLEY. . 205 the spectacle continually presented to his eyes, of a community always feeling sore upon that point, and cowed, like a man by his wife, from attempting some real improvement in it. There was no end, he thought, of setting up this new power, and pulling down that, if the one, to all real home purposes, proceeded just as the other did, and nothing was gained to society but a hope and a disappointment. This, in his opinion, was not the kind of will to be desired, in opposition to one with more definite objects. We must not, he thought, be eternally generalizing, shiUy-shallying, and coquetting between public submission and private independence ; but let a generous understanding and acknowledgment of what we are in want of, go hand in hand with our exertions in behalf of change ; otherwise, when we arrive at success, we shall find success itself in hands that are but physically triumphant — hands that hold up a victory on a globe, a splendid commonplace, as a new-old thing for us to worship. This, to be sure, is standing super vias antiquas ; but not in order to " make progression." The thing is all to be done over again. If there is " something rotten in the state of Denmark," let us mend it, and not set up Sweden or Norway, to knock down this rotten- ness with rottenness of their own ; continually waiting for others to do our work, and finding them do it in such a manner, as to deliver us bound again into the hands of the old corruptions. We must be our own deliverers. An Essay on the Disinterestedness of Human Action is much ; but twenty articles to show that the most disinterested person in the world is only a malcontent and a fanatic, can be of no service but to baffle conduct and resolution, in favour of eternal theory and the talking about it. Mr. Shelley had no doubt a great deal of will ; but the mistake of the Reviewer lies in giving it an antipathetical, instead of a sympathetic 206 Mil. SHEIXEY, character. This may be the fault of some reformers. It may also be a fault of others to lament the want of will in their brethren at one time, and the excess of it at another, but particularly the want ; satirizing the sparing and fastidious conduct of the better part of the lovers of free- dom, " the inconsistent, vacillating good," and bewailing the long mis- fortunes of the world, which a few energetic persons might put an end to by a resolute and unconditional exercise of their free agency. The writer in question is not exempt from these inconsistencies. I do not accuse him of want of sympathy. On the contrary, 1 think the antipa- thies which he has sometimes given way to so strangely, and the will which he at other times recommends, and at all times sets an example of, arise out of the impatience of his very sympathy with mankind. This it is, which together with his own extraordinary amount of talent, and the interesting evidences of it which continually appear, has for so long a time kept his friends in good blood with him, whatever mood he has happened to be in ; though he has tried them, of late, pretty hard. But this it is also, which ought to have led him into a different judgment with regard to Mr. Shelley. A greater portipn of will among reformers is desirable ; but it does not follow that an occasional excess of it (if such) can or does do the mischief he supposes, or furnishes any excuse worth mention for the outcries and pretended arguments of the opposite party. If he will have a good deal of will, he must occasion- ally have an excess of it. The party in question, that is to say, all the bad systems and governments existing, with all their slaves and depend- ents, have an infinite wiU of their own, which they already make use of, with* all their might, to put down every endeavour against it : and the world in general is so deafened with the noise of ordinary things, and the great working of the system which abuses it, that an occasional ex- MR. SHELLEY. 207 cess in the lifting up of a reforming voice appears to be necessary to make it listen. It requires the example of a spirit not so prostrate as its own, to make it believe that all hearts are not alike kept under, and that the hope of reformation is not everywhere given up. This is the excuse for such productions as Werter, the Stranger, and other appeals to the first principles of sympathy and disinterestedness. This is the excuse for the pai'adoxes of Rousseau ; for the extravagances of some of the Grecian philosophers (which were necessary to call the attention to all parts of a question) ; and if I did not wish to avoid hazarding misconception, and hurting the feelings, however unreasonably, of any respectable body of men, I might add stronger cases in point ; cases, in which principles have been pushed to their greatest and most impracticable excess, for the pur- pose, we are told, of securing some attention to the reasonable part of them. Mr. SheUey objected to the present state of the intercourse of the sexes, and the vulgar notions of the Supreme Being. He also held with Sir Thomas More, that a community , of property was desirable ; an opinion, which obtained him more ill-will, perhaps, than any other, at least in the class among which he was born. The Reviewer implies, that he put forth some of these objections alarmingly or extravagantly. Be it so. The great point is to have a question discussed. The advocates of existing systems of aU sorts are strong enough to look to the defence ; whereas, those who suffer by them are so much intimidated by their very sufferings, as to be afraid to move, lest they should be worse off than they are at present. They do not want to know their calamity ; they know it well enough. They require to be roused, and not always to sit groaning over, or making despairing jests of their condition. If a friend's excess excites them to differ with him, they are stiU incited to look at the question. His sympathy moves them to be ashamed of their 208 MR. SHELLEY. passiveness, and to consider what may be done. We need not fear, that it will be too inuch. At the very least, matters will find their level. If we are our own masters under Providence ; if Nature works with us for tools, and intends amelioration through the means of our knowledge, we are roused to some purpose. If not, or if we are to go so far and no farther, no farther shall we go. The sweet or bitter waters of humanity will assuredly find where to settle. The Reviewer, still acknowledging the genius of Mr. Shelley, and his benevolent intentions, finds the same fault with his poetry as with his philosophy, and traces it to the same causes. Of all my friend's writings, the poetical parts are those which I should least conceive to subject him to the charge of want of sympathy. Is the quarrelling with constituted authorities and received calamities, the same thing as scorn- ing the bistter part of what exists ? Is the quitting the real world for the ideal in search of consolation, the same thing as thrusting one's foot against it in contempt, and flying off on the wings of antipathy ? And what did Mr. Shelley carry thither when he went ? A perpetual con- sciousness of his humanity ; a chnging load of the miseries of his fellow- creatures. The Witch of Atlas, for example, is but a personification of the imaginative faculty in its most airy abstractions ; and yet the author cannot indulge himself long in that fairy region, without dreaming of mortal strife. If he is not in this world, he must have visions of it. If fiction is his reality by day, reality will be his fiction during his slum., bers. The 'truth is, Mr. Shelley was in his whole being, mental and phy- sical, of an extreme delicacy and sensibility. He felt every part of his nature intensely ; and his impulse, object, and use in this world, was to remind others of some important points touching our common nature and endeavours, by affording a more than ordinary example of their effect MR. SHELLEY. 209 upon himself. It may be asked, who are to be reminded ? how many ? To which we answer, those who have been reminded already, as well as the select portion who remain to be so ; never mind how few, provided they are reminded to some purpose. Mr. Shelley's writings, it is admit- ted, are not calculated to be popular, however popular in their ultimate tendency, or cordial in their origin. They are, for the most part, too abstract and refined. But " fit audience though few," is the motto o^ the noblest ambition ; and it is these audiences that go and settle the world. Mr. Shelley's poetry is invested with a dazzling and subtle radiance, which blinds the common observer with light. Piercing beyond this, we discover that the characteristics of his poetical writings are an exceeding sympathy with the whole universe, material and intellectual ; an ardent desire to benefit his species ; an impatience of the tyrannies and superstitions that hold them bound; and a regret that the power of one loving and enthusiastic individual is not proportioned to his will, nor his good reception with the world at all proportioned to his love. His poetry is either made up of all these feelings united, or is an attempt to escape from their pressure into the widest fields of ima- gination. I say an attempt, — because, as we have seen, escape he does not ; and it is curious to observe how he goes pouring forth his bafiled affections upon every object he can think of, bringing out its beauties and pretensions by the light of a radiant fancy, and resolved to do the whole detail of the universe a sort of poetical justice, in default of being able to make his fellow-creatures attend to justice political. From this arises the fault of his poetry, which is a want of massiveness, — of a proper distribution of light and shade. The whole is too full of glit- tering points; of images touched and illustrated alike, and brought 2 E 210 MB. SHELLEY. put into the same prominence. He ransacks every thing like a bee, grappling with it in the same spirit of penetration and enjoytnent, till you lose sight of the field he. entered upon, in following him into his subtle recesses. He is also too fond, in his larger works, of repeating the same images, drawn from the material universe and the sea. Wlien he is obhged to give up these peculiarities, and to identify- his feelings and experience with those of other people, as in his dramatic poems, the fault no longer exists. His object remains,— that of increasing the wisdom and happiness of mankind : but he has laid aside his wingsj and added to the weight and purpose of his body: the spiritual part of him is invested with ordinary flesh and blood. In truth, for ordinary or immediate purposes, a great deal of Mr. Shelley's poetry ought to have been written in prose. It consists of philosophical speculations, which required an introduction to the understandings of the commu- nity, and not merely, as he thought, a recommendation to their good will. The less philosophic he becomes, reverting to his own social feelings, as in some of the pathetic complaints before us; or appeal- ing to the common ones of mankind upon matters immediately agi- tating them, as in the " Ode to Naples ;" or giving himself fairly up to the sports of fancy, as in the " Witch of Atlas," or " The Trans- lations from Goethe and Homer;" the more he dehghts and takes • with him, those who did not know whether to argue, or to feel, in some of his larger works. The common reader is baffled with the perplexing mixture of passion and calmness ; of the severest reasoning, and the wildest fiction; of the most jstartling appearances of dissent, and the most conventional calls upon sympathy. ^ But in all his writings there is a wonderful sustained sensibility, and a language lofty and fit for it. He has; the art of using the stateliest words and the most learned , idioms," MR. SHELLEY. 211 without incurring the charge of pedantry; so that passages of more splendid and sonorous writing are not to be selected from any writer, since the time of Milton : and yet when he descends from his ideal worlds, and comes home to us in our humbler bowers, and our yearnings after love and affection, he attunes the most natural feelings to a Style so proportionate, and withal to a modulation so truly musical, that there is nothing to surpass it in the lyrics of Beaumont and Fletcher. Let the reader, whom these pages may have rendered more desirous of knowing Mr. Shelley, turn to the volume in question, and judge for himself in what sort of spirit it was that he wrote the " Witch of Atlas," the " Ijctter" to a Friend at p. 59, part of the " Ode to Naples," the "Song" at p. 141, a "Lament," the "Question," "Lines to an Indian Air," " Stanzas written in dejection near Naples," Lines on a " Faded Violet," "Lines to a Critic," "To-morrow," "Good Night," "Love's Philosophy," the " Stanzas" at p. 214, and the " Translations frbn* Goethe and Homer." ' The verses " On the Medusa's Head of Lebnardo da Vinci" are perhaps as fine as any thing in the book, for poAver. Tlie poetry seems sculptured and grinning, like the subject. The words are cut with a knife. But love is the great inspirer of Mr. Shelley. His very abstract ideas are in love. " The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling Were stored with magic treasures — sounds of air. Which had the power all spirits of compelling. Folded in cells of crystal silence there ; Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling Will never die — yet ere we are aware. The feeling and the sound are fled and gone. And the regret they leave remains alone. 2 E 2 212 MR. SHELLEy. " And there lay Visions swift, and $weeti and quaint; Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis ; Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint With the soft burthen of intensest bliss. We have heard of ladies falUng in love with Lord Byron, upon the strength of Don Juan. These must be ladies in towns. If ever a more sequestered heroine could become enamoured of a poet out of the mere force of sentiment, or at least desire to give him exceeding comfort and consolation, it would be such a poet as Mr. Shelley. The most physical part of the passion acquires, from his treatment of it, a grace and purity inexpressible. It is curious to see with what fearlessness, in the conscious dignity of this power, he ventures to speak of things that would defy all mention from a less ingenuous lip. The " Witch of Atlas," will be liked by none but poets, or very poetical readers. Spen- ser would have liked it : Sir Kenelm Digby would have written a com- ment upon it. Its meanings are too remote, and its imagery too wild, to be enjoyed by those who cannot put on wings of the most subtle conception, and remain in the uttermost parts of idealism. Even those who can, will think it something too dreamy and involved. They will discover the want of light and shade, which I have before noticed, and which leaves the picture without its due breadth and perspective. It is the fault of some of Mr. Shelley's poems, that they look rather like store-houses of imagery, than imagery put into proper action. We have the misty regions of wide air, " The hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder, — " which Milton speaks of ; but they are too much in their elementary state, as if just about to be used, and moving in their first chaos. To a MR. SHELLEY. 313 friend, who pointed out to him this fault, Mr. Shelley said, that he would consider it attentively, and doubted not he should profit by the advice. He scorned advice as little as he did any other help to what was just and good. He could both give and take it with an exquisite mix- ture of frankness and' delicacy, that formed one of the greatest evidences of his superiority to common virtue. I have mentioned before, that his temper was admirable. He was naturally irritable and violent ; but had so mastered the infirmity, as to consider every body's inclinations before his own. Mr. Trelawney pronounced him to be a man absolutely with- out selfishness. In his intercourse with myself, nothing delighted him more than to confound the limits of our respective property, in money- matters, books, apparel, &c. He would help himself without scruple to whatever he wanted, whether a book or a waistcoat ; and was never better- pleased, than at finding things of his own in his friend's possession. The way in which Mr. Shelley's eye darted " from heaven to earth," and the sort of call at which his imagination was ever ready to descend, is well exemplified in the following passage of the Letter at p. 59. The unhappy mass of prostitution which exists in England, contrasted with something which seems to despise it, and which, in more opinions than his, is a main cause of it, was always one of the subjects that at a moment's notice would overshadow the liveliest of his moods. The picturesque line in italics is beautifully true. The poet is writing to a friend in London. " Unpavilioned heaven is fair, Whether the moon, into her chamber gone. Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan Climbs with dimmish'd beams the azure steep ; Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, Piloted by the many-wandering blast, And the rare stars rvsh through them, dim and fast. 214 MB. SHELLEY. All this is beautiful in every land. But what see you beside? A shabby stand Of hackney coaches — a brick house or wall. Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl Of our unhappy politics ; or worse. A wretched woman, reeling by, whose curse Mix'd with the watchman's, partner of her trade, You must accept in place of serenade." These miserable women, sometimes indeed owing to the worst and most insensible qualities on their own parts, but sometimes also to the best and most guileless, are at such a dreadful disadvantage compared with those who are sleeping at such an hour in their comfortable homes, that it is difficult to pitch our imaginations among the- latter, for a refuge from the thought of them. Ileal love, however, even if it be unhappy, provided its sorrow be without contempt and sordidness, will furnish us with a transition less startling. The following Lines to an Indian Air, make an exquisite serenade. " I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low. And the stars are shining bright ; I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me — who knows how ? To thy chamber-window, sweet ! " The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream — The champak odours fall, Like sweet thoughts in a. dream ; MR. SHELLEY. 2J5 The nightingale's complaint It dies upon her hearty As I must upon thine. Beloved as thou art ! " O lift me from the grass ! I die, I faint, I fail ! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and vi^hite, alas ' My heart beats loud and fast ; Oh ! press it close to thine again Where it will break at last.'' I know not that two main parts of Mr. Shelley's poetical genius, the descriptive and the pathetic, ever vented themselves to more touching purpose than in the lines Written in Dejection near Naples. The brilliant yet soft picture with which they commence, introduces the melancholy ob- server of it in a manner extremely affecting. He beholds what delights others, and is willing to "behold it, though it delights him not. He even apologizes for "insulting" the bright day he has painted so beautifully, with his " untimely moan." The stanzas exhibit, at once, minute obser- vation, the widest power to generalize, exquisite power to enjoy, and admirable patience at the want of enjoyment. This latter combination forms the height of the amiable, as the former does of the intellectual character. The fourth stanza will strongly move the reader of this memoir. " The sun is warm, the sky is clear. The waves are dancing fast and bright. Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple moon's. transparent light; ('' 216 MB. SHELLEr. I' ri., ii\iMM (^\\iu YK-i^Mi' 6jX iA ^ lx;\ J. # * • « » * ' ' Around its unexpanded buds ; Like maiii/ a voice of one delight. The winds, the birds, the ocean floods. The Citj/'s voice itself is soft, like Solitude's. " I see the deep's untrampled floor With "green and purple sea- weeds strown ; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown. I sit upon the sands alone ; The lightning of the noon-tide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion. How sweet ! did any heart now share in my emotion. " Alas ! I have nor hope, nor health. Nor peace within, nor calm around. Nor that content surpassing wealth, The sage in meditation found. And walked with inward glory crowned ; Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround ; Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; — To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. " Yet now despair itself is mild, ^ Ev'n as the winds and waters are ; I could lie down like a tired child, "^ And toetp aW'iy the hfe (f care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death, like sleep, might steal on me. And I might feel rn the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its l^st mofiofony. t Aline is wanting in the Edition. MU. SHELLEY. 217 " Some might lament that I were cold. As I when this sweet day is done. Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan : They might lament, for I am one Whom men love not, and yet regret ; Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set. Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet." The pieces, that call to mind Beaumont and Fletcher, are such as the following : — " Music, when soft voices die. Vibrates in the memory ; Odours, when sweet violets sicken. Live within the sense they quicken. " Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead. Are heap'd for the beloved's bed ; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone. Love itself shall slumber on." " Love's Philosophy" is another. It has been often printed ; but for the same reason wiU bear repetition. The sentiment must be understood with reference to the delicacy as well as freedom of Mr. Shelley's opi- nions, and not as supplying any excuse to that heartless libertinism which no man disdained more. The poem is here quoted for its grace and ^ lyrical sweetness. t " The fountains mingle with the river. And the river with the ocean ; The winds of heaven mix for ever. With a sweet emotion : 2 r 218 MR. SHELLEY. Nothing in the world is single ; All things by a law divine In one dnother's being mingle — Why not I with thine ? " See the mountains kiss high heaven. And the waves clasp one another ; No sister flower would be forgiven. If it disdain'd its brother : And the sunlight clasps the earthy And the moonbeams kiss the sea ; What are all these kissings worth. If thou kiss not me ? Mr. Shelley ought to have written nothing but dramas, interspersed with such lyrics as these. Perhaps had he lived, he would have done so ; for, after aU, he was but young ; and he had friends of that opinion, whom he was much inclined to agree with. The fragment of the tragedy of Charles the First, in this volume, makes us long for more of it. With all his republicanism, he would have done justice to Charles, as well as to Pym and Hampden. His completest production is unqiiestionably the tragedy of the "Cenci." The objections to the subject are, on the face of them, not altogether unfounded ; but they ought not to weigh with those who have no scruple in grappling with any of the subjects of our old English drama ; still less, if they are true readers of that drama, and • know how to think of the great ends of poetry in a liberal and masculine manner. " Cenci" is the personification of a will, maddened, like a Ro- man emperor's, by the possession of impunity ; deadened to all sense of right and wrong by degrading notions of a Supreme Being ; and conse- quently subjected to the most frightful wants, and knowing no pleasure MR. SHELLEY. 2l9 but in sensuality or malignity. The least of his actions becomes villain- ous, because he does it in defiance of principle. On the other hand, his death by the hand of his outraged daughter produces a diflPerent meeting of extremes, because it results, however madly, from horror at the viola- tion of principle. The reader refuses to think that a daughter has slain d, father, precisely because a dreadful sense of what a father ought not to have done has driven her to it, and because he sees that in any other situation she would be the most exemplary of children. This remark is made for the benefit of the curious reader, and to vindicate Mr. Shelley from having taken up a subject out of pure scorn of his feelings : a strange policy in any author, and not surely to be found in him. Consi- dering what an excellent production the Cenci is, it is certainly difficult to help wishing that the subject had been of a nature to startle no- body ; but it may. be as truly added, that such a subject could have been handled by no other writer in a manner less offensive, or miore able to suggest its own vindication. The Translations that conclude the " Posthumous Poems," are mas- terly. That of the "Hymn to Mercury," containing the pranks of the Deity when young, abounds in singular animal spirits, a careless yet exuberant feeling of mixed power and indifference, of the zest of new- born life, and a godlike superiority to its human manifestations of it, such as we might suppose to take place before vice and virtue were thought of, or only thought of to afford pastime for mischievous young gods, who were above the necessity of behaving themselves. I will con- fine myself, however, to the quotation of a passage or two from the scenes put of Goethe's " Faust." They contain the Prologue in Heaven, which Lord Leveson Gower has omitted in his translation, and the 31ay- day Night, which he has abridged, and thought untranslatable. The 2 F 2 220 MR. SHELLEY. Prologue in Heaven is remarkable for the liberties which a privy-coun- sellor and gentleman with a star at his breast (for such the original poet is) may take with the scriptural idea of the Divinity, and yet find readers to eulogize and translate him. It is a parody on the beginning of the Book of Job. Not that I believe the illustrious German intended any disrespect to loftier conceptions of a Deity. The magnificent Hymn that precedes it, shows he can do justice to the noblest images of creation, and improve what other poets have ^-epeated to us of the songs of angels. Mr. Shel- ley's opinion of the Book of Job (on which he thought of founding a tragedy) was not the less exalted, (nor, I dare say, Goethe's either,) because he could allow himself to make this light and significant com- ment on the exordium. But it is worth while noticing these sort of discrepancies ; and to observe also, how readily they shall be supposed without being comprehended for the sake of one man, and how little comprehended or supposed either for the toleration of another. SCBNE — THE HARTZ MOUNTAIN, A DESOLATE COUNTRY. Faust, Mephistophiks. Meph, Would you not like a broomstick ? As for me, I wish I had a good stout ram to ride ; For we are still far from th' appointed place. Faust. This knotted staff is help enough for me. Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good Is there in making short a pleasant way ? To creep along the labyrinths of the vales, And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs Precipitate themselves in waterfalls, Is the true sport that seasons such a path. Already Spring kindles the birchen spray. MR. SHELLEY. 231 And the hoar pines already feel her breath ; Shall she not work also within our limbs ? Meph. Nothing of such an influence do I feel. My body is all wintry, and I wish The flowers upon our path were frost and snow. But see ; how Melancholy rises now Dimly uplifting her belated beam. The blank unwelcome round of the red moon. And- gives so bad a light, that every step One stumbles 'gainst some crag. With your permission, I'll call an Ignis-Fatuus to our aid; I see one yonder burning jollily. Halloo, my friend ! may I request that you Would favour us with your bright company ? Why should you blaze away there to no purpose ? Pray, be so good as light us up this way. Ignis-Fatuus. With reverence be it spoken, I will try To overcome the lightness of my nature : Our course, you know, is generally zig-zag. Meph. Ha ! ha ! your worship thinks you have to deal With men. Go strait on, in the Devil's name. Or I shall puff your flickering light out. Ignis-Fatuus. ~ Well, I see you are the master of the house ; I will accommodate myself to you. Only consider, that to-night this ipiountain Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lanthorn Shows you his way, though you should miss your own. You ought not to be too exact with him. , Faust, Mephistophiles, and Ignis-Fatuus, in alternate chorus. The limits of "the sphere of dream, The bounds of true and false, are past. Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam, Lead us onward, far and fast, To the wide, the desert waste. 222 MR. SHELLEY. But see how swift advance and shift Trees behind trees, row by row, — How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift Their frowning foreheads as we go. The giant-snouted crags, ho ! ho ! How they snort, and how they blow I Through the mossy sods and stones. Stream and streamlet hurry down ; A rushing throng ! A sound of song Beneath the vault of heaven is blown ! A profound living critic (I forget his name) has discovered, that the couplet in italics is absurd — crags having no snouts properly so called, and being things by no means alive or blowing ! The plot now thickens. Every thing is vivified like the rocks ; every thing takes a devilish aspect and meaning ; the winds rise ; the stragglers of the Devil's festival begin to appear, and the travellers feel themselves in the " witch element." Faust. How The children of the wind rage in the air ! With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck ! » « » * * Meph. Dost thou not hear ? Strange accents are ringing Aloft, afar, anear. The witches are singing ! The torrent of the raging wizard song Streams the whole mountain along. Chorus of Witches, The stubble is yellow, the corn is green. Now to the Brocken the witches go ; The mighty multitude here may be seen Gathering, wizard and witch, below. Sir Urean is sitting aloft in the air ; Hey over stock, and hey over stone ! 'Twixt witches and incubi what shall be done ? Tell it who dare ! tell it who dare ! MR. SHELLEY. A Voice. Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine, Old Baubo rideth alone. Chorus. Honour her to whom honour is due, Old Mother Baubo ! honour to you ! An able sow, with old Baubo upon her. Is worthy of gJory, and worthy of honour The legion of witches is coming behind. Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind. A Voice. Which way coraest thou ? A Voice. Over Ilsenstein ; The owl was awake in the white moonshine ; I saw her at rest in her downy nest, And she stared at me with her broad, bright eye. Voices. And you may now as well take your course on to Hell, Since you ride by so fast, on the headlong blast. A Voice. She dropped poison upon me, as I past. Here are the wounds. Chorus of Witches. Come away ! come along ! The way is wide, the way is long. But what is that for a Bedlam throng .'' Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom. The child in the cradle lies strangled at home. And the mother is clapping her hands. Semi-chorus of Wizards — 1st. — We glide in Like snails when the women are all away. From a house once given over to sin, Woman has a thousand steps to stray. Semi-chorus — 2nd. — A thousand steps must a woman take. Where a man but a single step will make. Voices above. Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee ! * Voices below. With what joy would we fly through the upper sky ! We are washed, we are 'nointed, stark naked are we : But our toil and our pain are for ever in vain. * A gentleman, who reads German, informs me that there must either be a of thfe transcriber here, or that Mr. Shelley for the moment had left untrans concluding word of the line ; which is not a proper name, but means a sea of r 224 MR. SHELLEY. Both Chorusses, The wind is still, the stars are fled. The melancholy moon is dead ; The magic notes, like spark on spark. Drizzle, whistling through the dark. Come away ! Voices below. Stay, oh, stay ! Voices above. Out of the crannies of the rocks, Who caUs ? Voice below. Oh let me join your flocks ! I three hundred years have striven To catch your skirt, and mount to heaven, And stUI in vain. Oh, might I be In company akin with me ! Both Chorusses. Some on a ram, and some on a prong, On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along ; Forlorn is the wight, who can rise not to-night, A Half- Witch below. I have been tripping this many an hour ; Are the others already so far before } No quiet at home, and no peace abroad ! And less methinks is found by the road. Chorus of Witches. Come onward, away ! aroint thee, aroint ! A witch to be strong must anoint, anoint — Then every trough will be boat enough ; With a rag for a sail, he can sweep through the sky, — Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly ? Both Chorusses. We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground ; Witch legions thicken around and around ; Wizard swarms cover the heath all over. {Th descend.) Meph. What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling ; What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling ; What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning ; As heaven and earth were overturning. There is a true witch element about us ; Take hold on me, or we shall be divided : — Where are you ? Faust, X from a distance.) Here! Mil. SHELLEY. 22.5 Mepk. What! I must exert my authority in the house; Place for young Voland! pray make way, good peoi)le. Take hold on me. Doctor, and with one step Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd : They are too mad for people of my sort. Just there shines a peculiar kind of light — Something attracts me in those bushes. Come This way : we shall slip down there in a minute. Faust. Spirit of Contradiction ! Well, lead on — 'Twere a wise feat, indeed, to wander out Into the Brocken upon May-day night,' And then to isolate oneself in scorn. Disgusted with the humours of the time. Meph. See yonder, round a many-coloured flame A merry club is huddled altogether : Even teith svch little people as sit there. One would not be alone, Faust. Would that I were Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, Where the blind million rush impetuously To meet the evil ones ! there might I solve Many a riddle that torments me. Meph. Yet Many a riddle there is tied anew Inextricably. Let the great world rage We wUl stay here, safe in the quiet dwellings. It 's an old custom. Men have ever built Their own small world in the great world of all. Observe, here, how the author ridicules alike useless inquiries and a selfish passiveness. The great business of life is to be social and benefi- cent. The witches and their May-game are selfish and vulgar passions of all sorts, hardened into malignity, and believing only in the pleasures of the will. Their turmoil is in vain. Theiy highest and most supersti- 2 G 226 MR. SHELLEY. tious reach to heaven recoils only into disappointment, and a sense of hell. But the author proceeds to have a gird also at dry, mechanical theorists, imalive to sentiment and fancy. No sophistication escapes him. Take a passage or two, eminently infernal. Meph. {to Faust, who has seceded from the dance.') Why did you let that fair girl pass by you. Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance } Faust. A red mouse in the middle of her singing Sprung from her mouth. Meph.' That was all right, my friends- Be it enough that the mouse was not grey. Do not disturb your hour of happiness With close consideration of such trifles. This is an image of bad and disgusting passions detected in one whom we love, and in the very midst and heart of our passion ! — The follow- ing may be interpreted to shadow forth either the consequences of seduc- tion, or the miserable regret with which a man of the world calls to mind his first love, and his belief in goodness. Faust. Then saw I — Meph. What ? Faust. Seest thou not a pale, Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away ? She drags herself now forward with slow steps, And seems as if she moved with shackled feet : I cannot overcome the thought that she Is like poor Margaret. Meph. Let it be — pass on-s— No good can come of it — it is not well To meet it — it is an enchanted phantom, A lifeless idol : with its numbing look MR. SHELLEY. 2217 It freezes up the blood of man ; and they Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone, Like those who saw Medusa. Fmisf. Oh too true ! Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse Which no beloved hand has closed, alas ! That is the heart which Margaret yielded to me — Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed ! Meph. It is all magic : poor deluded fool ! She looks to every one like his first love. Faust. Oh what delight ! what woe ! I cannot turn My looks from her sweet piteous countenance. How strangely does a single blood-red line. Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife. Adorn her lovely neck ! Meph. Ay, she can carry Her head under her arm, upon occasion ; Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures End in delusion. * So do not end the pleasures given us by men of genius with great and beneficent views. So does not end the pleasure of endeavouring to do justice to their memories, however painful the necessity. Some good must be done them, however small. Some pleasure cannot but be real- ized, for a great principle is advocated, and a deep gratitude felt. I dif- fered with Mr. SheUey on one or two important points ; but I agreed with him heartily on the most important point of all, — the necessity of doing good, and of discussing the means of it freely. I do not think the world so unhappy as he did, or what a very different and much more contented personage has not hesitated to pronounce it, — a " vale of blood and tears." But I think it quite unhappy enough to require that we should aU set our shoulders to the task of reformation ; and this for two reasons : first, that if mankind can effect any thing, they can only effect 2 G 2 228 MB. SHELLEY. it by trying, instead of lamenting and being selfish ; and second, that if no other good come of our endeavours, we must always be the better for what keeps human nature in hope and activity. That there are mon- strous evils to be got rid of, nobody doubts : that we never scruple to get rid of any minor evil that annoys us, any obstacle in our way, or petty want of comfort in our dwellings, we know as certainly. Why the larger ones should be left standing, is yet to be understood. Sir Walter Scott may have no objection to his " vaje of blood and tears," provided he can look down upon it from a decent aristocrat! cal height, and a weU-stocked mansion ; but others have an inconvenient habit of levelling themselves with humanity, and feeling for their neighbours : and it is lucky for Sir Walter himself, that they have so ; or Great Bri- tain would not enjoy the comfort she does in her northern atmosphere. The conventional are but the weakest and most thankless children of the imconventional. They live upon the security the others have obtained for them. If it were not for the reformers and innovators of old, the Hamp- dens, the Miltons, and the Sydneys, life in this country, with all its cares, would not be the convenient thing it is, even for the lowest re- tainers of the lowest establishment. A feeling of indignation will arise, when we think of great spirits like those, contrasted with the mean ones that venture to scorn their wisdom and self-sacrifice ; but it is swallowed up in what absorbed the like emotions in their own minds> — a sense of the many. The mean spirit, if we knew aU, need not be denied even his laugh. He may be too much in want of it. But the greatest unhappiness of the noble-minded has moments of exqui- site relief. Every thing of beautiful and good that exists, has a kind face for him when he turns to it ; or reflects the happy faces of others that enjoy it, if he cannot. He can extract consolation out of discom- MR. SHELLF.Y. 229 fiture itself, — if the good he sought otherwise, can come by it. Mr. Shelley felt the contumelies he underwent, with great sensibility ; and he expressed himself accordingly ; but I know enough of his nature to be certain, that he would gladly have laid down his life to ensure a good to society, even out of the most lasting misrepresentations of his benevolence. Great is the pleasure to me to anticipate the day of jus- tice, by putting an end to this evil. The friends whom he loved may now bid his brave and gentle spirit repose ; for the human beings whom he laboured for, begin to know km. LETTERS FROM MR. SHELLEY TO MR. LEIGH HUNT. [I EEGRET extremely, on the reader's account, as well as my own, that I have not taken better and more grateful care of the letters which my friend wrote to me. I know not how they were lost. I thought I had preserved them better. What I can lay before the public, I do.J LETTER, I. Lyons, March 22, 1818. MY DEAK FRIEND, Why did you not wake me that night before we left England, you and Marianne ? I take this as rather an unkind piece of kindness in you ; but which, in consideration of the six hundred miles between us, I forgive. MR. SHELLEY. 231 We have journeyed towards the spring that has been hastening to meet us from the south ; and though our weather was at first abomina- ble, we have now warm sunny days, and soft winds, and a sky of deep azure, the most serene I ever saw. The lieat in this city io-day, is like that of London in the midst of summer. My spirits and health sympathize in the change. Indeed, before I left London, my spirits were as feeble as my health, and I had demands upon them which I found difficult to supply. I have read Fohage : — with most of the poems I was already familiar. What a delightful poem the " Nymphs" is ! especially the second part. It is truly poetical, in the intense and em- phatic sense of the word.* If six hundred miles were not between us, I should say what pity that glib was not omitted, and that the poem is not as faultless as it is beautiful. But for fear I should spoil your next poem, 1 wiU not let slip a word on the subject. Give my love to Marianne and her sister, and tell Marianne she defrauded me of a kiss by not waking me when she went away, and that as I have no better mode of conveying it, I must take the best, and ask you to pay the debt. When shall I see you all again ? Oh that it might be in Italy ! I confess that the thought of how long we may be divided, makes me very melancholy. Adieu, my dear friends. Write soon. * _ Ever most affectionately your's, P. B. S. * The reader will pardon my retention of these passages, for the sake of liim who wrote them. The poem here mentioned did not deserve what Mr. Shelley said of it. I had not been careful enough in writing it, — had not brooded sufficiently over my thoughts to con- centrate them into proper imagination ; perhaps was unable to do so. But the subject lay in those sequestered paths of beauty and mythology, which Mr. Shelley was fond of. 232 MK. SHEIJ-EY. LETTER II. Livorno, August 15, 1819. MY DEAR FKIEND, How good of you to write to us so often, and such kind letters ! But it is like lending to a beggar. What can I offer in return ? * Though surrounded by suffering and disquietude, and latterly almost overcome by our strange misfortune,f I have not been idle. My Pro- metheus is finished, and I am also on the eve of completing another work, totally different from any thing you might conjecture that I should write, of a more popular kind ; and, if any thing of mine could deserve attention, of higher claims. " Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, tUl thou approve the performance." I send you a little poem to give to Oilier for publication, but without my name : Peacock will correct the proofs. I wrote it with the idea of offering it to the Examiner, but I find it is too long.:]: It was com- posed last year at Este : two of the characters you will recognize ; the third is also in some degree a painting from nature, but, with re- spect to time and place, ideal. You will find the little piece, I think, in some degree consistent with your own ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be written. I have employed a certain familiar style of language to express the actual way in which people talk with each other, whom education and a certain refinement of sentiment have * Such is the way in which the most generous of men used to talk to those whom he had obliged. ■|- The taking away of his children by the Court of Chancery. X " Julian and Maddalo," printed in the Posthumous Poems. Maddalo is Lord Byron ; Julian himself. MR. SHELLEY. 233 placed above the use of vulgar idioms. I use the word vulgar in its most extensive sense j the vulgarity of rank and fashion is as gross in its way, as that of poverty, and its cant terms equally expressive of base conceptions, and therefore equally unfit for poetry. Not that the familiar style is to be admitted in the treatment of a subject whoUy ideal, or in that part of any subject which relates to common life, where the passion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundaries of that which is ideal. Strong passion expresses itself in metaphor, bor- rowed from objects alike remote or near, and casts over all the shadow of its own greatness. * But what am I about ? if my grandmother sucks eggs, was it I who taught her ? If you would really correct the proof, I need not trouble Peacock, who, I suppose, has enough. Can you take it as a compliment that I prefer to trouble you ? I do not particularly wish this poem to "be known as mine, but, at aU events, I would not put my name to it. I leave you to judge whether it is best to throw it in the fire, or to publish it. So much for self — self, that burr that wiH stick to one. Your kind expressions about my Eclogue gave me great pleasure ; indeed, my great stimulus in writing is to have the approbation of those who feel kindly towards me. The rest is mere duty. I am also delighted to hear that you think of us, and form fancies about us. We cannot yet come home. ******** Most affectionately yours, P. B. Shelley. * Let me admire with the reader (I do not pretend to be under the necessity of calling his attention to it) this most noble image. + " Rosalind and Helen." 2 H 234 MR. SHELLEY. LETTER III. Livorno, September 3d, 1819. MY DEAR FRIEND, At length has arrived Ollier's parcel, and with it the portrait. What a delightful present ! It is almost yourself, and we sate talking with it, and of it, all th6 evening It is a great pleasure to us to possess it, a pleasure in a time of need ; coming to us when there are few others. How we wish it were you, and not your picture ! How I wish we w?re with you ! This parcel, you know, and all its letters, are now a year old ; some older. There are all kinds of dates, from March to August, 1818, and " your date," to use Shakspeare's expression, " is better in a pie or a pudding, than in your letter." " Virginity," ParoUes says, — but letters are the same thing in another shape. With it came, too. Lamb's works. I have looked at none of the other books yet. What a lovely thing is his " Hosamond Gray !" how- much kndwledge of the sweetest and deepest part of our nature in it ! When I think of such a mind as Lamb's, — when I see how unnoticed remahi things of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame ? I haye seen too little of Italy and of pictures. Perhaps Peacock has shown you some of my letters to him. But at Rome I was very ill, seldom able to go out without a carriage; and though I kept horses for two months there, yet there is so much to see ! Perhaps I attended more MR. SHELLEY. 23.5 to sculpture than painting, — its forms being more easily intelligible than those of the latter. Yet I saw the famous works of Raphael, whom I agree with the whole world in thinking thie finest painter. Why, I can tell you another time. With respect to Michael Angelo, I dissent, and think with astonishment and indignation on the common notion that he equals, and in some respects exceeds Raphael. He seems to me to have no sense of moral dignity and loveliness ', and the energy for which he has been so much praised, appears to me to be a certain rude, external, me- chanical quality, in comparison with any thing possessed by Raphael ; or even much inferior artists. His famous painting in the Sixtine Chapel, seems to me deficient in beauty and majesty, both in the conception and the execution. He has been called the Dante of painting ; but if we fimd some of the gross and strong outlines, which are employed in the few most distasteful passages of the Inferno, where shall we find your Francesca, — where, the spirit coming over the sea in a boat, like Mars rising from the vapours of the horizon, — where, Matilda gathering flow- ers, and all the exquisite tenderness, and sensibility, and ideal beauty, in which Dante excelled all poets except Shakspeare ? As to Michael Angelo's Moses — but you have seen a cast of that in England. 1 write these things. Heaven knows why ! I have written something and finished it, dijfferent from any thing else, and a new attempt for me ; and I mean to dedicate it to you.* I should not have done so without your approbation, but I asked your picture last night, and it smiled assent. If I did not think it in some degree worthy of you, I would not make you a public offering of it. I expect to have to write to you soon about it. If Oilier is not turned • " The Cenci." 2 H 2 236 MR. SHELLEY. Christian, Jew, or become infected with the Murrain, he will publish it. Don't let him be frightened, for it is nothing which by any courtesy of language can be termed either moral or immoral. Mary has written to Marianne for a parcel, in which I beg you will make Oilier enclose what you know would most interest me, — your " Calendar," (a sweet extract from which I saw in the Examiner,) and the other poems belonging to ychi ; and, for some friends of mine, my Eclogue. This parcel, which must be sent instantly, will reach me by October; but don't trust letters to it, except just a line or so. When you write, write by the post. Ever your affectionate, P. B. S. My love to Marianne and Bessy, and Thornton too, and Percy, &c., and if you could inaagine any way in which I could be useful to them here, tell me. I will inquire about the Italian chalk. You have no idea of the pleasure this portrait gives us. LETTER IV. Livorno, Sept. 27th, 1819. MY DEAR FRIEND, We are now on the point of leaving this place for Florence, where we have taken pleasant apartments for six months, which brings us to the 1st of April ; the season at which new flowers and new thoughts spring forth upon the earth and in the mind. What is then our,destina- MR. SHELLEY. 237 tion is yet undecided. I have not yet seen Florence, except as one sees the o\itside of the streets ; but its physiognomy indicates it to be a city, which, though the ghost of a republic, yet possesses most amiable quali- ties. \ wish you could meet us there in the spring, and we would try to muster up a " lieta brigata," which, leaving behind them the pestilence of remembered misfortunes, might act over again the pleasures of the inter- locutors in Boccaccio. I have been lately reading this most divine writer. He is in the high sense of the word a poet, and his language has the rhythm and harmony of verse. I think him not equal certainly either to Dante or Petrarch, but far superior to Tasso and Ariosto, the children of a later and of a colder day. I consider the three first as the produc- tions of the vigour of the infancy of a new nation, as rivulets from the same spring as that which fed the greatness of the Republics of Florence and Pisa, and which checked the influence of the German emperors, and from which, through obscurer channels, Raphael and Michael Angelo drew the light and the harmony of their inspiration. When the second-rate poets of Italy wrote, the corrupting blight of tyranny was already hang- ing on every bud of genius. Energy and simplicity and imity of idea were no more. In vain do we seek, in the fine passages of Ariosto or Tasso, any expression which at all approaches, in this respect, to those of Dante and Petrarch. How much do I admire Boccaccio ! What descriptions of nature are there in his little introductions to every new day ! It is the morning of life, stripped of that mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us. Boccaccio seems to me to have possessed a deep sense of the fair ideal of human life, considered in its social relations. His more serious theories of love agree especially with mine. He often expresses things lightly too, which have serious meanings of a very beau- 288 MR. SHELLEY. tiful kind. He is a moral casuist, the opposite of the ready-made and worldly system of morals. • ***** * * It would give me much pleasure to know Mr. Lloyd. When I was in Cumberland, I got Southey to borrow a copy of " Berkeley" from him, and I remember observing some pencil notes in it, probably written by Lloyd, which I thought particularly acute. Most affectionately your friend, P. B. S. LETTER V. Firenze, Dec. 2, 1819. MY DEAll FRiteND, Yesterday morning Mary brought me a little boy. She suffered but two hours' pain, and is now so well that it seems a wonder that she stays in bed. The babe is also quite well, and has begun to suck. You may imagine this is a great relief and a great comfort to me, amongst aU my misfortunes, past, present, and to come. Since I last wrote to you, some circumstances have occurred, not necessary to explain by letter, which make my pecuniary condition a very difficult one. The physicians absolutely forbid my travelling to England in the winter, but I shall probably pay you a visit in the spring. With what pleasure, among all the other sources of regret and dis- comfort with which England abounds for me, do I think of looking on the original of that kind and earnest face which is now opposite Mary's MR. SHELLEY. 239 bed. It will be the only thing which Mary wUl envy me, or wiU need to envy me, in that journey ; for I shall come alone. Shaking hands with you is worth all the trouble ; the rest is clear loss. I will teU you more about myself and my pursuits, in my next letter. Kind love to Marianne, Bessy, and aU the children. Poor Mary begins (for the first time) to look a little consoled. For we have spent, as you may imagine, a miserable five months. Good bye, my dear Hunt, Your aflPectionate Friend, P. B. S. I have had no letter from you for a month. LETTER VI. Florence, Dec. 23, 1819. MY DEAR HUNT, WTiy don't you write to us ? I was preparing to send you some- thing for your " Indicator," but I have been a drone instead of a bee in this business, thinking that perhaps, as you did not acknowledge any of my late enclosures, it would not be welcome to you, whatever I. might send. What a state England is in ! But you will never write politics. I don't wonder ; — but I wish, then, that you would write a paper in " The Examiner," on the actual state of the country, and what, under all the circumstances of the conflicting passions and interests of men, we are to expect. Not AV^hat we ought to expect, or what, if so and so were to 240 MR. SHELLEY. happen, we might expect, — but what, as things are, there is reason to believe will come; — and send it me for my information. Every word a man has to say is valuable to the pubUc now ; and thus you wiU at once gratify your friend, nay, instruct, and either exhilarate him or force him to be resigned, — and awaken the minds of the people. I have no spirits to write what I do not know whether you will care much about : I know well, that if I were in great misery, poverty, &c., you would think of nothing else but how to amuse and reHeve me. You omit me if I am prosperous. * * * * I could laugh if I found a joke, in order to put you in good-humour with me after my scolding ; — in good-humour enough to write to us. ****** Affectionate love to and from all. This ought not only to be the Vale of a letter, but a superscription over the gate of Ufe. Your sincere Friend, P. B. Shelley. • I send you a sonnet. I don't expect you to publish it, but you may show it to whom you please. LETTER VII. December, 1819. MY DEAR FRIEND, Two letters, both bearing date Oct. 20, arrive on the same day :— one is always glad of twins. We hear of a box arrived at Genoa with books and clothes ; it must be yours. Meanwhile the babe is wrapped in flannel petticoats, and we MR. SHELLEY. 241 get on with him as we can. He is small, healthy, and pretty. Mary is recovering rapidly. Marianne, I hope, is quite recovered. You do not tell me whether you have received my lines on the Manchester affair. They are of the exotic species, and are meant, not for « The Indicator," but « The Examiner." I would send for the former, if you like, some letters on such subjects of art as suggest them- selves in Italy. Perhaps 1 will, at a venture, send you a specimen of what I mean next post. I enclose you in this a piece for " The Exa- miner ;" or let it share the fate, whatever that fate may be, of the " Mask of Anarchy." I am sorry to hear that you have -employed yourself in translating " Aminta," though I doubt not it wiU be a just and beautiful transla- tion. You ought to write Amintas. You ought to exercise your fancy in the perpetual creation of new forms of gentleness and beauty. ****** With respect to* translation, even / wiU not be seduced by it ; although the Greek plays, and some of the ideal dramas of Calderon, (with which I have lately, and with inexpressible wonder and delight, become acquainted,) are perpetually tempting me to throw over their perfect and glowing forms the grey veil of my own words. And you know me too well to suspect, that I refrain from the belief that what I would substitute for them would deserve the regret which yours would, if suppressed, I have confidence in my moral sense alone ; but that is a kind of originality. I have only translated the Cyclops of Euripides when I could absolutely do nothing else, and the Symposium of Plato, which is the delight and astonishment of all who read it: — I mean, the original, or so much of the original as is seen in my translation, not the translation itself. ******* 2 I 242 MR. SHELLEY. I think I Have an accession of strength since my residence in Italy, though the disease itself in the side, whatever it inay be, is not sub- dued. Some day we shall all return froin Italy. I fear that in Eng- land things will be carried violently by the rulers, and that they will not have learned to yield in time to the spirit of the age. The great thing to do is to hold the balance between popular impatience and tyrannical obstinacy ; to inculcate with fervour both the right of resist- ance and the duty of forbearance. You know, my principles incite me to take all the good I can get in politics, for ever aspiring to something more. I am one of those whom nothing will fully satisfy, but who am ready to be partially satisfied by all that is practicable. We shall see.* Give Bessy a thousand thanks from me for writing out in that pretty neat hand your kind and powerful defence. Ask what she would like best from Itahan land ? We mean to bring you all, something ; and Mary and I have been wondering what it shall be. Do you, each of you, choose. ****** Adieu, my dear friend, Your's affectionately ever, P. B. S. * Mr. Shelley would have been pleased to see the change that took place under the admi- nistration of Mr. Canning, — a change, which is here described by anticipation. MR. SHELLEY. 243 LETTER VIII. Pisa, August 26th, 1821. MY DEAREST FRIEND, Since I last MTote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at Ravenna. The result of this visit was a determination on his part to come and live at Pisa, and I have taken the finest palace on the Lung' Arno for him. But the material part of my visit consists in a message which he desires me to give you, and which I think ought to add to your determination — for such a one I hope you have formed — of restor- ing your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these " regions mild of calm and serene air." He proposes that you should come and go shares with him and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions, and share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was never brought to bear. There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage, must, from various yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As to myself, I am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other and effectuate the arrangement ; since (to entrust you with a secret which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord Byron,) nothing would in- duce me to share in the profits, and still less in the borrowed splendour, of such a partnership.* You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a different manner, but in the same proiportion, equal stocks of reputation and success : do not let my frankness with you, nor * Mr. Shelley afterwards altered his mind ; but he had a reserved intention underneath it, which he would have endeavoured to put in practice, had his friend allowed him, 2 I 2 244 MR. SHELLEY. my belief that you deserve it more than Lord Byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station in modern literature, which the universal voice of my contemporaries forbids me either to stoop or as- pire to, I am, and I desire to be, nothing. I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your journey ; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense of the word;' and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself. I, as you know, have it not : but I suppose that at last I shall make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the many obligations he has conferred on me. I know I need only ask. I think I have never told you how very much I like your Amyntas ; it almost reconciles me to Translations. In another sense I still demur. You might have written another such poem as the " Nymphs," with no great access of effort.* I am full of thoughts and plans, and should do something if the feeble and irritable frame which incloses it was willing to obey the spirit. I fancy that then I should do great things. Before this you will have seen " Adonais." Lord Byron, I suppose from * In one of Lord Byron's letters, having a quarrel with the memory of Mr. Shelley, and being angry with me for loving it so entirely, his Lordship teUs me that I was mistaken if I thought Mr. Shelley entertained a very high opinion of my poetry. I answered, that I had already had the mortification of making that discovery ; upon which he expressed his vexation at having told it me. I did not add, that I believed Mr. Shelley's opinion of- my poetry to have decreased since his becoming used to his Lordship's libels of his " friends all round," and that he had latterly exhibited an uneasy suspicion that his intimacy had had an ill effect upon his kindlier views of things in general. But I must own, that I never looked upon Mr. Shelley's real opinion of my poetry as any thing very great ; though his affection for me, and his sympathy with the world I lived in, poetical as well as political, sometimes Jed him to persuade himself otherwise. I suspect he had a very accurate notion of it ; greater than what vulgar critics would think just, but as little as a due appreciation of poetry, properly so called, could admit. MB. SHELLEY. M5 modesty on account of his being mentioned in it, did not say a word of " Adonais," though he was loud in his praise of " Prometheus :" and, what you will not agree with him in, censure of the " Cenci." Cer- tainly, if " Marino Faliero" is a drama, the "Cenci" is not: but that between ourselves. Lord Byron is reformed, as far as gallantry goes, and lives with a beautiful and sentimental Italian lady, who is as much attached to him as may be. I trust greatly to his intercourse with you, for his creed to become as pure as he thinks his conduct is. He has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker of aristocracy wants to be cut out. ****** MR. KEAT^. WITH A CRITICISM ON HIS WRITINGS. Mr. Keats, when he died, had just completed his four-and-twentieth year. He was under the middle height; and his lower limbs were small in comparison with the. upper, but neat and well-turned. His shoulders were very broad for his size : he had a face, in which energy and sensibility were remarkably mixed up, an eager power checked and made patient by ill-health. Every feature was at once strongly cut, and delicately alive. If there was any faulty expression, it was in the mouth, which was not without something of a character of pug- nacity. The face was rather long than otherwise ; the upper lip projected a little over the under; the chin was bold, the cheeks sunken ; the eyes mellow and glowing ; large, dark and sensitive. At the recital of a noble action, or a beautiful thought, they would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled. In this, there was ill health as well as imagination, for he did not like these betrayals of emotion ; and he had great personal as well as moral courage. His hair, of a brown colour, was fine, and hung in natural ringlets. The head was a puzzle for the phrenologists, being remarkably small in the skull ; a singularity which he had in common with Lord Byron and Mr. Shelley, none of Mil. KEATS. 24,7 whose hats I could get on. Mr. Keats was sensible of the disproportion above noticed, between his upper and lower extremities ; and he would look at his hand, which was faded, and swollen in the veins, and say it was the hand of a man of fifty. He was a seven month's child : his mother, who was a lively woman, passionately fond of amusement, is supposed to have hastened her death by too great an inattention to hours and seasons. Perhaps she hastened that of her son. Mr. Keats's origin was of the humblest description ; he was born October 29, 1796, at a livery-stables in Moorfields, of which his grand- father was the proprietor. I am very incurious, and did not know this tin the other day. He never spoke of it, perhaps out of a personal sore- ness which the world had exasperated. After receiving the rudiments of a classical education at Mr. Clarke's school at Enfield, he was bound apprentice to Mr. Hammond, a surgeon, in Church-street, Edmonton ; and his enemies having made a jest even of this, he did not like to be reminded of it ; at once disdaining them for their meanness, and him- self for being sick enough to be moved by them. Mr. Clarke, junior, his schoolmaster's son, a reader of genuine discernment, had encouraged Avith great warmth the genius that he saw in the young poet ; and it was to Mr. Clarke I was indebted for my acquaintance with him. I shall never forget the impression made upon me by the exuberant specimens of genuine though young poetry that were laid before me, and the promise of which was seconded by the fine fervid countenance of the writer. We became intimate on the spot, and I found the young poet's heart as warm as his imagination. We read and walked together, and used to write verses of an evening upon a given subject. No imaginative pleasure was left unnoticed by us, or unenjoyed ; from the recollection of the bards and patriots of old, to the luxury of a summer rain at our window, or the clicking of the coal in winter-time. Not long after- \ 248 MR. KEA.TS. wards, having the pleasure of entertaining at dinner Mr. Godwin, Mr. \JIazlitt, and Mr. Basil Montague, I showed them the verses of my young friend, and they were pronounced to be as extraordinary as I thought them. One of them was that noble sonnet on first reading Chapman's Homer, which terminates with so energetic a calmness, and which completely announced the new poet taking possession. As Mr. - Keats's first juvenile volume is not much known, I will repeat the son., net here, as a remarkable instance of a vein prematurely masculine. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. Much have I travelled in the realms of gold. And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; Round many western islands have I been. Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold ; Oft of one wide expanse had I been told. That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne ; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene. Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold. Then felt I like some watcher of the skies. When a new planet swims into his ken. Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific — and aU his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise. Silent, upon a peak in Darien, Modem criticism has made the public well acquainted with the merits of Chapman. The retainers of some schools of poetry may not see very far into his old oracular style ; but the poets themselves (the true test of poetical merit) have always felt the impression. Waller professed that he could never read him without a movement of transport ; and Pope, in the preface to his translation, says that he was animated by a daring fiery MR. KEATS. 249 spirit, something like what we may conceive of Homer himself " before he arrived at years of discretion." Chapman certainly stands upon np ceremony. He blows as rough a blast as Achilles could have desired to , hear, very different from the soft music of a parade. " The whales exult" under his Neptune, playing unwieldy gambols ; and his Ulysses issues out of the shipwreck, " soaked to the very heart ;" tasting of sea- weeds and salt-water, in a style that does not at all mince the matter, or consult the proprieties of Brighton. Mr. Keats's epithets of " loud and bold," showed that he understood him thoroughly. The men of Cortez staring at each other, and the eagle eyes of their leader looking out upon the Pacific, have been thought too violent a picture for the dignity of the occasion ; but it is a case that requires the exception. Cortez's " eagle eyes" are a piece of historical painting, as the reader may see by Titian's portrait of him. The last line, " Silent — upon a peak in Darien," makes the mountain a part of the spectacle, and supports the emotion of the rest of the sonnet upon a basis of gigantic tranquillity. The volume containing this sonnet was published in 1817, when the author was in his twenty-first year. The poem with which it begins, was suggested to him by a delightful summer-day, as he stood beside the gate that leads from the Battery on Hampstead Heath into a field by Caen Wood ; and the last poem, the one " On Sleep and Poetry," was occasioned by his sleeping in one of the cottages in the Vale of Health, the first one that fronts the valley, beginning from the same quarter. I men- tion these things, which now look trivial, because his readers will not think them so twenty years hence. It was in the beautiful lane, running from the road between Hampstead and Highgate to the foot of Highgate Hill, 2 K 250 MR. KEATS. that, meeting me one day, he first gave me the volume. If the admirer of Mr. Keats's poetry does not know the lane in question, he ought to become acquainted with it, both on his author's account and its own. It has been also paced by Mr. Lamb and Mr. Hazlitt, and frequented, like the rest of the beautiful neighbourhood, by Mr. Coleridge ; so that instead of Millfield Lane, which is the name it is known by " on earth," it has sometimes been called Poets' Lane, which is an appellation it richly deserves. It divides the grounds of Lords Mansfield and South- ampton, running through trees and sloping meadows, and being rich in the botany for which this part of the neighbourhood of London has always been celebrated. I recommend it, contrary to the interests of my solitude ; but the mischief done me by sociality pleases me, as usual, still better. " A drai-nless shower Of light is poesy ; 'tis the supreme of power ; 'Tis might half slumb' ring on its own right arm. These are some more of the lines in a book, in which feeble critics thought they saw nothing but feebleness. • Here are four more, out of a profusion of mixed youth and beauty :— the writer is speaking of some engraved portraits, that adorned the room he slept in : — " Great Alfred's too, with anxious, pitying eyes. As if he always list^n'd to the sighs Of the goaded world ; and Kosciusko's, worn With horrid sufF 'ranee, — mightily forlorn." But there were political opinions in the. boolc ; and thes.e not according with the opinions of the then governjnent authorities, th^ \yriter was found to be a very absurd person, and not to b? borne. His youth, ME. KEATS. 251 and the sincerity natural to youth, to say nothing of personal predilec- tions, which are things that nobody has a right to indulge in but the affectionate followers of office, all told against instead of for him in the eyes of a servile weakness, jealous of independence in others, and (to say the truth) not very capable of discerning the greatest talent. To admire and comment upon the genius that two or three hundred years have applauded, and to discover what will partake of the applause two or three hundred years hence, are processes of a very different descrip- tion. Accordingly, when Mr. Keats, in 1818, published his next volume, his poetic romance entitled " Endymion," the critical authorityj then reigning at the west end, showed it no mercy. What completed the matter was, that his publisher, in a fright, went to the critic to conciliate him ; as if the greater and inore insolent the opportunity of trampling, the petty tyrant would not be the happier to seize it. Mr. Gifford gave his visitor very plainly to understand that such would be the case. Such it was ; and though the bookseller, who in reality had a better taste than the critic, and very properly felt piqued to support his author, stood by him in the publication of another volume, the sale of both volumes was neutralized in that gratuitous acquiescence with the critics, in which the public have since learnt not to be quite so trusting. " Endymion," it must be allowed, was not a little calculated to per.* plex the critics. It was a wilderness of sweets, but it was truly a wil- derness ; a domain of young, luxuriant, uncompromising poetry, where the " weeds of glorious feature" hampered the petty legs accustomed to the lawns and trodden walks, in vogue for the last hundred years; lawns, as Johnson says, " shaven by the scythe, and levelled with the roUer;" walks, which, being public property, have been re-consecrated, Uke 2 K 2 252 MK. KEATS. Kensington Gardens, by the beadles of authority, instead of the Pans and Sylvans. Mr. Wordsworth knew better than the critics, but he did not choose to say any thing. He stood upon equivocal footing himself, his greatest poetical recommendation arising from the most prosaical action of his life, to wit, his acceptance of the office of Distributor of Stamps. Mr. Keats, meeting him one day at Mr. Haydon's, — the same day when Lamb said that good thing about Voltaire*,^our young poet was induced to repeat to the older one the Hymn to Pan out of "En- dymion ;" upon which Mr. Wordsworth said it was a " very pretty piece of Paganism." A new poet had come up, who " Had sight of Proteus coming from the sea ;" and certainly " the world was not too much with him." But this, which is a thing desired by Lake Poets in their abstractions, is a presumption in the particular, and not to be countenanced. " Such sights as youth- ful poets dream" must cease, when their predecessors grow old ; when they get jealous as fading beauties, and have little annuities for be- having themselves. The great fault of " Endymion," next to its unpruned luxuriance, (or before it, rather, for it was not a fault on the right side,) was the wilfulness of its rhymes. The author had a just contempt for the monotonous termination of every-day couplets ; he broke up his lines in order to distribute the rhyme properly ; but going only upon the ground of his pontempt, and not having yet settled with himself any principle of versification, the very exuberance of his ideas led him to make use of the first rhymes that offered ; so that, by a new meeting of extremes, the effect was as artificial, and much more obtrusive than the • See the Memoir of Mr, Lamb. MR. KEATS. 253 one under the old system. Dry den modestly confessed, that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. Mr. Keats, in. the tyranny of his wealth, forced his rhymes to help him, whether they would or not ; and they obeyed him, in the most singular manner, with equal promptitude and ungainness. " Endymion," too, was not without its faults of weak- ness, as well as of power. Mr. Keats's natural tendency to pleasure, as a poet, sometimes degenerated, by reason of his ill health, into a poetical effeminacy. There are symptoms of it here and there in all his pro- ductions, not excepting the gigantic grandeur of Hyperion. His lovers grow " faint" with the sight of their mistresses ; and Apollo, when he is superseding his divine predecessor, and undergoing his transformation into a Divus Major, suffers a little too exquisitely among his lilies. But Mr. Keats was aware of this contradiction to the real energy of his na- ture, and prepared to get rid of it. What is more, he said as much in the Preface to " Endymion," and in a manner calculated to conciliate all critics who were worth touching his volume ; but not such were those, from whom the public were to receive their notions of him. Let the leader see it, and wish, if he has hitherto read nothing but criticism upon him, that he had seen it before. " Knowing," says Mr. Keats, " within myself, the manner in which this poem has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public. " What manner I mean will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt rather than a deed accomplished. The two first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible are not of such completion as to warrant their passing the press ; nor should they, if I thought a year's castigation would do them any good ; it will not ; the foundations are 254 MR. KEATS- too sandy. It is just that this youngster should die away: a sad thought for me, if I had not some hope that while it is dwindling I may be plotting, and fitting myself for verses fit to live. " This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a punishment : but no feeling man will be forward to inflict it : he will leave me alone, with the conviction that there is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the desire I have to Conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do look with a zealous eye, to the honour of English literature. " The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imaginatiqil of man is healthy ; but there is a space between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted : thence proceed mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages. " I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful my- thology of Greece, and dulled its brightness : for I wish to try it once more before I bid it farewell. " Teignmouth, April 10, 1818." An organized system of abuse had come up at this period, of a nature with which it was thought no department of literature had hitherto been polluted. The mistake was natural, after a long interval of decorum ; but similar abuses have always taken place, when society was not better occupied, or when jealousy and party spleen paid an adversary the compliment of thinking itself sufficiently provoked. A MB. KEATS. 255 shelf full of scandal might be collected against Dryden and Pope. " The life of a wit," said Steele, " is a warfare upon earth ;" and he had good reason to know it. There was a man of the name of Baker, who made it his business to assail him with criticisms and personalities. The wits themselves too often assailed one another, and in a manner worthy of their calumniators, of which there is humiliating evidence in the lives of Addison and Swift. Even Shakspeare was not without his libeller. Somebody in his time accused him, in common with his fellow play- wrights, of irreligion, — nay, of personal arrogance, and of taking himself for the only " Shake-scene" of the theatre. The new taste in calumny, however, surpassed all the other, by its avowed contempt for truth and decency. It seemed to think, that by an excess of impudence it would confound objection, and even buUy itself out of the last lingerings of conscience ; and the public, who were mean enough to enjoy what they condemned, enabled the plot to succeed. The lowest and falsest per- sonalities were a trifle. Privacies were invaded, in a way to make the stoutest hearts tremble for the gentlest and most pitiable ; and with an instinct common to the despicable, every delicacy was taken advan- tage of, that could secure impunity to offence. Even cowardice itself was avowed as a thing profitable. In short, never before was seen such a conspiracy between a reckless love of importance, cold calculation, and party and private resentment. Not being tied down by hard logic or Calvinism, the Scotch, it was said, were resolved to show how diiS- cult it was for them to understand any other principle. Having no throats to cut as Jacobites or Puritans, they must run a muck as Draw- cansirs in literature. Not being able to be Reevers of Westburn Flat, they were to plunder people of their characters, and warm the chill 256 MR. KEATS. poverty of their imaginations at the blushes and distresses of private life.f Unfortunately, soine, of the knaves were not destitute of talent : the younger were tools of older ones, who kept out of sight. * * « * * * * * ' Sir Walter Scott calls this, I believe, a re-action in favour of legiti- mate ideas. Legitimate ideas are obliged to him for the compliment, and are very much his humble servants : but I doubt whether the Govern- ment of 1828 will agree with him, as the Pittites did ; and a present Government is a great thing, as the Reviewers have found out. Your absent deity is nothing to your prcesens divus. The contrivers of this system of calumny thought that it suited their views, trading, political, and personal, to attack the writer of the present work. They did so, and his friends with him, Mr. Keats among the number. Had the hostihty been fair, I was a fair object of attack, having not only taken a warm part in politics, but in a very thoughtless and immature spirit attacked people critically, Sir Walter among them. But then I did it openly : my books were not published without a name; and word was always left at the Examiner office, where I was to be found, in case explanation was demanded of any thing I wrote in the paper. I therefore treated these anonymous assailants with indifference in the first instance, and certainly should not have noticed them at all, had not another person chosen to call upon them in my name. Cir- cumstances then induced me to make a more peremptory caU: it was not answered ; and the two parties retreated, they into their meanness, and I into my contempt. I have since regretted, on Mr, Keats's t I confess that one Burns or one Thomson is enough to sweeten all Scotland in my imagi- nation ; which is saying a good deal, after what Edinburgh has done for it. MR. KEATS. 257 account, that I did not take a more active part. The scorn which the public and they would feel for one another, before long, was evident enough; but, in the mean time, an injury, in every point oif vi^w, was done to a young and sensitive nature, to which 1 ought to have been more alive. The truth was, I never thought about it ; nor, I believe, did he, with a view to my taking any farther notice. I was in the habit, though a public man, of living in a world of abstractions of my own, and I regarded him as a nature still more abstracted, and sure of un- sought renown. Though a politician, (such as I was,) I had scarcely a political work in my library. Spensers and Arabian Tales filled up the shelves, as they do now ; and Spenser himself was not a remoter spirit in my eyes, from all the commonplaces of life, than my new friend. Our whole talk was made up of idealisms. In the streets we were in the thick of the old woods. I little suspected at that time, as I did after- wards, that the hunters had struck him ; that a delicate organization, which already anticipated a premature death, made him feel his am- bition thwarted by these feUows ; and that the very impatience of being impatient was resented by him, and preyed on his mind. Had he said but a word to me on the subject, I would have kept no measures with them. There were dehcacies on other subjects, which I had leave to merge in greater ones, had I chosen it ; and, in a case like this, it should have been done. In every thing but this reserve, which was encouraged by my own incuriousness, (for I have no reserve myself with those whom I love,)— in every other respect but this, Mr. Keats and I were friends of the old stamp, between whom there was no such thing as obli- gation, except the pleasure of it. He enjoyed the usual privilege of 2 L 258 MH. KEATS. greatness with all whom he knew, rendering it delightful to be obliged by him, and an equal, but not a greater delight, to oblige. It was a pleasure to his friends to have him in their houses, and he did not grudge it. When " Endymion" was published, he was living at Hampstead with his friend Mr. Charles Brown, who attended him most affection- ately through a severe illness, and with whom, to their great mutual enjoyment, he had taken a journey into Scotland. The lakes and mountains of the North delighted him exceedingly. He beheld them with an epic eye. Afterwards, he went into the South, and luxuriated in the Isle of Wight. On Mr. Brown's leaving England a second time, to visit the same quarter, 3Ir. Keats, who was too ill to accompany hiin, came to reside with me, when his last and best volume of poems ap- peared, containing Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and the noble fragment of Hyperion. I remember Charles Lantib's delight and ad- miration on reading this work; how pleased 'he was with the designation of Mercury as " the star of Lethe" (rising, as it were, and glittering, as he came upon that pale region) ; with the fine daring anticipation in that passage of the second poem, — " So the two brothers and their murdered man Rode past fair Florence ;" and with the description, at once delicate and gorgeous, of Agnes praying beneath the painted window. This last (which should be called, par eiccellence, the Prayer at the Painted Window) has been often quoted ; but for the benefit of those who are not yet acquainted with the author's genius, farther than by means of these' pages, I cannot resist repeating it. It throws a light upon one's book. MR. KEATS. 259 " A casement high and triple-arch'd there was, All garlanded with carven imag'ries Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, And diamonded with panes of quaint device. Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings ; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, A'shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. " Full on this casement shone the wintry moon. And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast. As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon ; Rose bloom fell on her hands, together press'd, And on her silver cross soft amethyst. And on her hair a glory, like a saint : She seem'd a splendid angel, newly dress'd, Save wings, for heaven." The whole volume is worthy of this passage. Mr. Keats is no half-painter, who has only distinct ideas occasionally, and fills up the rest with com- monplaces. He feels all as he goes. In his best pieces, every bit is precious ; and he knew it, and laid it on as carefully as Titian or Gior- gione. Take a few more samples. « LOVERS. " Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air, Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart, Only to meet again more close, and share The inward fragrance of each other's heart." BEES. " Bees, the little almsmen of spring bowers." 2 L 2 260 MR. KEATS. A DELICATE SUPPEE. " And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep In blanched linen, smooth and lavender'd, While he from forth the closet brought a heap Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd ; With jellies soother than the creamy curd, And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon ; Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd From Fez ; and spiced dainties, every one, From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon." These are stanzas, for which Persian kings would fill a poet's mouth with gold. I remember Mr. Keats reading these lines to me with great relish and particularity, conscious of what he had set forth. The melody is as sweet as the subject, especially at " Lucent syrops tinet with cinnamon," and the conclusion. Mr. Wordsworth would say that the vowels were not varied enough ; but Mr. Keats knew where his vowels were not to be varied. On the occasion above alluded to, Mr. Wordsworth found fault with the repetition of the concluding sound of the parti- ciples in Shakspeare's line about bees. The singing masons building roofs of gold. , This, he said, was a line which Milton would never have written. Mr. Keats thought, on the other hand, that the repetition was in harmony with the continued note of the singers, and that Shakspeare's negligence (if negligence it was) had instinctively felt the thing in the best manner. The assertion about Milton startles one, considering the tendency of that great poet to subject his nature to art ; yet I have dipped, while writing MR. KEATS. 261 this, into " Paradise Lost," and at the second chance have lit on the following : , The gray Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danced, Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon. But opposite, in levelled west, was set His mirrour, with full force borrowing her light. The repetition of the e in the fourth line is an extreme case in point, being monotonous to express one-ness and evenness. Milton would have rehshed the supper which his young successor, like a page for him, has set forth. It was Mr. Keats who observed to me, that Milton, in various parts of his writings, has shown himself a bit of an epicure, and loves to talk of good eating. That he was choice in his food, and set store by a good cook, there is curious evidence to be found in the proving of his Will ; by which it appears, that dining one day " in the kitchen," he complimented Mrs. Milton, by the appropriate title of " Betty," on the dish she had set before him ; adding, as if he could not pay her too well for it, " Thou knowest I have left thee aU." Henceforth let a kitchen be illustrious, should a gentleman choose to take a cutlet in it. But houses and their customs were different in those days. CALAMITIES FOLLOWING CALAMITIES. There was a listening fear in her regard. As if calamity had but begun ; As if its vanward clouds of evil days Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear Was with its stored thunder labouring up. This is out of the fragment of " Hyperion," which is truly like the 262 MR. KEATS. fragment of a former world. There is a voice in it grander than any that has been uttered in these times, except in some of Mr. Wordsworth's sonnets ; though the author, in a noble verse, has regretted its inadequacy to his subject. Oh how frail To that large utterance of the early Gods ! OAKS CHARMED BY THE STARS. As when upon a tranced summer-night. Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods. Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars. Dream, and so dream all night without a stir. Save from one gradual solitary gust Which comes upon the silence, apd dies off. As if the ebbing air had but one wave ; So came these words and went. A GOD RECLINING IN SORROW. And all along a dismal rack of clouds. Upon the boundaries of day and night. He stretch'd himself, in grief and radiance faint. THE ELDER GODS DETHRONED. Mnemosyne was straying in the world ; Far from her throne had Phoebe wandered ; And many else were free to roam abroad ; But for the main here found they covert drear. Scarce images of life, one here, one there, Lay vast and edgeways ; like a dismal cirque Of Druid stones upon a forlorn moor, When the chill rain begins at shut of eve, In dull November, and their chancel vault, The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night. But I shall fill my book with quotations. A criticism, entering more into the nature of the author's genius, may be found by any one who MR. KEATS. 263 wishes to see it, in the " Indicator." One or two passages, however, in the fine lyrical pieces in this volume, must be noticed. One is on a sculptured vase, representing a procession with music ; upon which the author says, with an intensity of sentiment, at once original in the idea, and going home, like an old thought, to the heart — ■ " Heard melodies are sweety but those unheard Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on ; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd. Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone : Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou can'st not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss. Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve ; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss ; For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair. Upon this beautiful passage, a sapient critic observed, that he should like to know how there could be music unheard. The reader wiU be more surprised to know who it was that asked what was the meaning, in the following ode, of a beaker, "full of the warm south'' As Mr. Keats's poems are in few hands, compared to what they will be, I will not apologize for transcribing the whole of a beautiful poem, which in a very touching manner falls in with the poetical biography of the author, having been composed by him while he lay sleepless and suffer- ing under the illness which he felt to be mortal. 'ode to a nightingale. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe- wards had sunk : 264 MR. KEATS. *Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, — That thou, light- winged Dryad pf the trees. In most melodious plot Of beechen green and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. Oh for a draught of vintage that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth. Tasting of Flora and the country green ; Dance, and Provenp al song, and sunburnt mirth I Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim. And purple-stained mouth ! That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim ; — Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known. The weariness, the fever, and the fret, Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; Where palsy shakes a few sad, last, grey hairs ; Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ; Where stUl to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs ; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes. Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away ! away ! for I will fly to thee. Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards. But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards : Already with thee ! tender is the night, And haply, the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry fays ; But here there is no light. Save what from heaven is \nth the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. MR. KEATS. 265 I cannot see what flowers are at my feet. Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs But in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet, Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine. Fast fading violets covered up in leaves ; And mid-May's eldest child. The coming musk-rose full of dewy wine. The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen ; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death ; Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme. To take into the air my quiet breath. Now more than ever seems it rich to die. To cease upon the midnight with no pain. While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy ! StiU wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — To thy high requiem become a sod. Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird ! No hungry generations tread thee down ; The voice 1 hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clowli : Perhaps the self-same song that found path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home. She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; The same that ofttime hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn — Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self. Adieu ! the Fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf ! 2 Jl 266 MR. KEATS. Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill side ; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley glades. Was it a vision, or a waking dream ? Fled is that music : — Do I wake or sleep ? It was Lord Byron, at that time living in Italy, drinking its wine, and basking in its sunshine, who asked me what was the meaning of a beaker " fuU of the warm south." It was not the word beaker that puzzled him. College had made him intimate enough with that. But the sort of poetry in which he excelled, was not accustomed to these poetical concentrations. At the moment also, he was willing to find fault, and did not wish to discern an excellence different from his own. When I told him, that Mr. Keats admired his " Don Juan," he expressed both surprise and pleasure, and afterwards mentioned him with respect in a canto of it. He could not resist, however, making undue mention of one of the causes that affected his health. A good rhyme about particle and article was not to be given up. I told him he was mistaken in attributing Mr. Keats's death to the critics, though they had perhaps hastened, and certainly embittered it ; and he promised to alter the pas- sage : but a joke and a rhyme together ! Those Italian shrugs of the shoulders, which I hope wiU never be imported among us, are at once a lamentation and an excuse for every thing ; and I cannot help using one here. At all events, I have kept my promise, to make the erratum myself in case it did not appear. Mr.' Keats had felt that his disease was mortal for two or three years before he died. He had a constitutional tendency to consumption ; a close attendance to the death-bed of a beloved brother, when he ought to have been nursing himself in, bed, gave it a blow which he felt MR. KEATS. 267 for months ; and meanwhile the rascally critics came up, and roused an indignation in him, both against them and himself, which he could ill afford to endure. All this trouble was secretly aggravated by a very tender circumstance, which I can but allude to thus publicly, and which naturally subjected one of the warmest hearts and imaginations that ever existed, to all the pangs, that doubt, succeeded by dehght, and delight, succeeded by hopelessness in this world, could inflict. Seeing him once change countenance in a manner more alarming than usual, as he stood sUently eyeing the country out of window, I pressed him to let me know how he felt, in order that he might enable me to do what I could for him : upon which he said, that his feelings were almost more than he could bear, and that he feared for his senses. I proposed that we should take a coach, and ride about the country together, to vary, if possible, the immediate impression, which was sometimes ' all that was formidable, and would come to nothing. He acquiesced, and was re- stored to himself. It was nevertheless on the same day, sitting on the bench in Well Walk, at Hampstead, nearest the heath,* that he told me, with unaccustomed tears in his eyes, that " his heart was breaking. ' A doubt, however, was upon him at the time, which he afterwards had reason to know was groundless ; and during his residence at the last house that he occupied before he went abroad, he was at times more than tranquil. At length, he was persuaded by his friends to try the milder climate of Italy ; and he thought it better for others as well as himself that he should go. He was accompanied by Mr. Severn, a young artist of great promise, who has since been weU known as the principal EngUsh student at Rome, and who possessed aU that could recommend him for a companion, — old acquaintanceship, great animal spirits, active tenderness, and a mind capable of appreciating that of the poet. They went first * The one against the wall. 2 M 2 268 MR. KKATS. to Naples, and afterwards to Rome ; where, on the 27th of December, 1820, our author died in the arms of his friend, completely worn out, and longing for the release. He suffered so much in his lingering, that he used to watch the countenance of the physician for the favourable and fatal sentence, and express his regret when he found it delayed. Yet no impatience escaped him. He was manly and gentle to the -last, and grateful for all services. A httle before he died, he said that he " felt the daisies growing over him." But he made a still more touching remark respecting his epitaph. " If any," he .said, " were put over him, he wished it to consist of nothing but these words : ' Here lies one, whose name was writ in water:'" — so little did he think of the more than promise he had given ; — of the fine and lasting things he had added to the stock of poetry. The physicians expressed their astonishment that he had held out so long, the lungs turning out, on inspection, to have been almost obhterated. They said he must have lived upon the mere strength of the spirit within him. He was interred in the English burying-ground at Rome, near the monument of Caius Cestius, where his friend and poetical mourner, Mr. Shelley, was shortly to join him. So much for the mortal life of as true a man of genius as these latter times have seen ; one of those who are too genuine and too original to be properly appreciated at first, but whose time for applause will infallibly arrive with, the many, and has already begun in all poetical quarters. I venture to prophesy, as I have done elsewhere, that Mr. Keats will be known hereafter in English literature, emphatically, as the Young Poet; and that his volumes wiU be the sure companions, in field and grove, of all those who know what a luxury it is to hasten, with a favourite volume against one's heart, out of the strife of com- monplaces into the haven of solitude and imagination. MR. KEATS TO MR. LEIGH HUNT. Margate^ May 10th. / MY DEAR HUNT, The little gentleman that sometimes lurks in a gossip's bowl, ought to have come in the very likeness of a roa^:ted crab, and choaked me outright for not having answered your letter ere this : however, you must not suppose that I was in town to receive it : no, it followed me to the Isle of Wight, and I got it just as I was going to pack up for Margate, for reasons which you anon shall hear. On arriving at this treeless affair, I wrote to my brother George to request C. C. C. to do the thing you wot of respecting Rimini ; and George tells me he has undertaken it with great pleasure ; so I hope there has been an under- standing between you for many proofs : C. C. C. is well acquainted with Bensley. Now why did you not send the key of your cupboard, which, I know, was full of papers ? We would have locked them all in a trunk, together with those you told me to destroy, which indeed I did not do, for fear of demolishing receipts, there not being a more unpleasant thing in the world (saving a thousand and one others) than to pay a bill twice. Mind you, old W 's a " very varmint," shard- ed in covetousness :— and now I am upon a horrid subject-^what a 270 ME. KEATS. horrid one you were upon last Sunday, and weU you handled it. * ***** ^ * * * * What is to be the end of this ? I must mention Hazlitt's Southey. that he had left out the grey hairs ; or that they had been in any other newspaper not coneluding with such a thunderclap-! That sentence about making a page of the feeling of a whole life, appears to me like a whale's back in the sea of prose. I ought to have said a word on ' Shakspeare's Christianity. There are two (passages) which 1 have not looked over with you, touching the thing : the one for, the other against : that in favour is in Measure for Measure, Act. ii. Scene 2. Isab. " Alasj alas ! Why all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; And he that might the 'vantage best have took, Pound out the remedy.'' That against is in " Twelfth Night," Act. iii. Scene 2. Maria. " For there is no Christian that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness." Before I come to the Nymphs, I must get through all disagree- ables. I went to the Isle of Wight, thought so much about poetry, so lortg together, that I could not get to sleep at night ; and, more- over, I know not how it is, I could not get wholesome food. By this means, in a week or so, I became not over capable in my upper stories, and set off pell-meU for Margate, at least a hundred and fifty miles, because, forsooth, I fancied I should like my old lodgings here, and could contrive to do without trees. Another thing, I was too much in solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in MR. KEATS. 271 continual burning of thought, as an only resource. However, Tom is with me at present, and we are very comfortable. We intend, though, to get among some trees. How have you got on among them ? How are the Nymphs ? 1 suppose they have led you a fine dance. Where are you now? — in Judea, Cappadocia, or the parts of Lydia about Cyrene ? * * * * I wager you have given several new turns to the old saying, " Now the maid was fair and plea- sant to look on," as well as made a little variation in "Once upon a time." Perhaps, too, you have rather varied, " Here endeth the first lesson." * * T^ * "51? ^ y^ I have asked myself so often why I should be a poet more than other men, seeing how great a thing it is,— how great things are to be gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of Fame, — that at last the idea has grown so monstrovisly beyond my seeming power of attainment, that the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaeton. Yet 'tis a disgrace to fail, even in a huge attempt ; and at this moment I drive the thought from me. I began my poem about a fortnight since, and have done some every day, except travelling ones. Perhaps I may have done a good deal for the time, but it appears such a pin's point to me, that I will not copy any out. When I consider that so many of these pin-points go to form a bodkin-point, [God send I end not my life with a bare bodkin, in its modern sense!] and that it requires a thousand bodkins to make a spear bright enough to throw any light to posterity, I see nothing but continual up-hill journeying. Now is there any thing more unpleasant (it may come among the thousand and one) than to be so journeying and to miss the goal at last? But I intend to whistle all these cogitations into the sea, where I hope they wiU breed storms violent enough to block up all exit from Russia. Does 272 MK. KEATS. Shelley go on telling strange stories of the death of kings ? * TeU him, there are strange stories of the death of poets. Some have died before they were conceived. " How do you make that out, Master Vellum ?" Does Mrs. S. cut bread and butter as neatly as ever ? Tell her to pro- cure some fatal scissors^ and cut the thread of life of all to-be-disap- pointed poets. Does Mrs. Hunt tear linen as straight as ever ? Tell her to tear from the book of life all blank leaves. Remember me to them all ; to Miss K. and the little ones all. Your sincere friend, JOHN KEATS, alias JUNKETS, f You shall hear where we move. * Mr. Shelley was fond of quoting the passage here alluded to in Shakspeare, and of apply- ing it in the most unexpected manner. " For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground. And tell strange stories of the deaths of kings." Going with me to town once in the Hampstead stage, in which our only companion Mas an old lady, who sat silent and' stiff after the English fashion, he startled her into a look of the most ludicrous astonishment by saying abi'uptly ; '.' Hunt, ' For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,' " &c. The old lady looked on the coach-floor, as if she expected to see us take x)ur seats accordingly. The reader who has perused the preceding notice of Mr. Keats, will be touched by the melancholy anticipations that follow, and that are made in so good-humoured a manner, t An appellation that was given him in play upon his name, and in allusion to his friends of Fairy-land. MR. DU:B0IS.— MR. CAMPBELL.— MR. THEODORE HOOK. MR. MATHEWS.— MESSRS. JAMES & HORACE SMITH. I FORGET how I became acquainted with Mr. Hill, proprietor of the Monthly Mirror; but at his house at Sydenham 1 used to meet his editor Mr. Dubois ; Mr. Campbell, who was his neighbour ; and the two Smiths, authors of " The Rejected Addresses." Once or twice I ^w also Mr. Theodore Hook, and Mr. Mathews the comedian. Our host (and I thought him no older the other day than he was then) was a jovial bachelor, plump and rosy as an abbot ; and no abbot could have presided over a more festive Sunday. The wine flowed merrily and long ; the discourse kept pace with it ; and next morning, in re- turning to town, we felt ourselves very thirsty. A pump by the road side, with a plash round it, was a bewitching sight. Dubois was one of those wits, who like the celebrated Eachard, have no faculty of gra?vity. His handsome hawk's -eyes looked blank at a speculation ; but set a joke or a piece of raillery in motion, and they sparkled with wit and malice. Nothing could be more trite or common- place than his serious observations. Acquiescences they should rather have been called ; for he seldom ventured upon a gravity, but in echo of another's remark. If he did, it was in defence of orthodoxy ; of which he was a great advocate. But his quips and cranks were infinite. He 2 N 274 MR. CAMPBELL. was also an excellent scholar. He, Dr. King, and Eachard, would have made a capital trio over a table, for scholarship, mirth, drinking, and religion. He was intimate with Sir Philip Francis, and gave the public a new edition of the Horace of Sir Philip's father. The literary world knew him well also as the writer of a popular novel in the ge- nuine Fielding manner, entitled Old Nick. Mr. Dubois held his editorship of the Monthly Mirror very cheap. He amused himself with writing notes on Athenaeus, and was a lively critic on the theatres ; but half the jokes in his Magazine were written for his friends, and must have mystified the uninitiated. His notices to correspondents were often made up of this bye-play ; and made his friends laugh, in proportion to their obscurity to every one else. When I use the past tense in writing these sketches, it is because I speak of past times. Mr. Dubois is living still, to scatter his anonymous pleasantries ; jmd if my eyes did not deceive me the other day, when I met him, he affords another instance of the juvenility of the social. If the bottle does not stand with him, time does : but then, I remember, he was festive in good taste ; no gourmand ; and had a strong head withal. I do not know whether such men ever last as long as the unsophisticate ; but they certainly last as long, and look a great deal younger, than the cark- ing and severe. Long may my old acquaintance last, to prove the superiority of a lively mixture of the good and iU of this life, over a sulky one ; and if the gout must come after all, may he be as learned and pleasant over it, as his friend Lucian. They who know Mr. Campbell only as the author of " Gertrude of Wyoming," and the " Pleasures of Hope," would not suspect him to be a merry companion, overflowing with humour and anecdote, and any MR. Campbell; 275 thing but fastidious. These Scotch poets have always something in reserve. It is the only point in which the major part of them resemble their countrymen. The mistaken character which the lady formed of Thomson from his " Seasons," is weU known. He let part of the secret out in his " Castle of Indolence ;" and the more he let out, the more honour it did to the simplicity and cordiality of the poet's nature, though not always to the elegance of it. Allan Ramsay knew his friends Gay and Somerville as well in -their writings, as he did when he came to be personally acquainted with them ; but Allan, who had bustled up from a barber's shop into a bookseller's, was " a cunning shaver ;" and nobody would have guessed the author of the " Gentle Shepherd" to be penu- rious. Let none suppose that any insinuation to that effect is intended against Mr. Campbell. He is one of the few men whom I could at any time walk half-a-dozen miles through the snow to spend an afternoon with ; and I could no more do this with a penurious man, than I could with a sulky one. I know but of one fault he has, besides an extreme cautiousness in his writings ; and that one is national, a matter of words, and amply overpaid by a stream of conversation, lively, piquant, and liberal, not the less interesting for occasionally betraying an intimacy with pain, and for a high and somewhat strained tone of voice, like a man speaking with suspended breath, and in the habit of subduing his feelings. No man, I should guess, feels more kindly towards his fellow- creatures, or takes less credit for it. When he indulges in doubt and sarcasm, and speaks contemptuously of things in general, he does it, partly, no doubt, out of actual dissatisfaction, but more perhaps than he suspects, out of a fear of being thought weak and sensitive ; which is a blind that the best men very commonly practise. Mr. Campbell 3 N 2 276 MR. CAMPBELL. professes to be hopeless and sarcastic, and takes pains all the while to set up an university. When 1 first saw this eminent person, he gave me the idea of a French Virgil. Not that he is like a Frenchman, much less the French translator of Virgil. I found him as handsome, as the Abbe DeliUe is said to have been ugly. But he seemed to me to embody a French- man's ideal notion of the Latin poet; something a little more Cut and dry than I had looked for ; compact and elegant, critical and acute, with a consciousness of authorship upon him ; a taste over-anxious not to commit itself, and refining and diminishing nature as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the French Tragedian in his hand. His skuU. was sharply cut and fine ; with plenty, according to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative organs : and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered solitude, and a bridal properly got up, both according to law and luxury, commend us to the lovely " Gertrude of Wyoming." His face and person were rather on a small scale ; his features regular ; his eye lively and penetrating ; and when he spoke, dimples played about his mouth, which nevertheless had something restrained and close in it. Some gentle, puritan seemed to have crossed the breed, and to have left a stamp on his face, such as we often see in the female Scotch face rather than the male. But he appeared not at all grateful for this; and when his critiques and his VirgUianism were over, very unlike a puritan he talked ! He seemed to spite his restrictions ; and out of the natural largeness of his sympathy with things high and low, to break at once out of Delille's Virgil into Cotton's, like a boy let loose from school. When I have the pleasure of hearing him now, MR. THEODORE HOOK. 277 I forget his Virgilianisms, and think only of the delightful companion, the unaffected philanthropist, and the creator of a beauty worth all the heroines in Racine. Mr. Campbell has tasted pretty sharply of the good and ill of the present state of society, and for a book-man has beheld strange sights. He witnessed a battle in Germany from the top of a convent (on which battle he has written a noble ode) ; and he saw the French cavalry enter a town, wiping their bloody swords on the horses' manes. Not along ago he was in Germany again, I beheve to purchase books ; for in addition to his classical scholarship, and his other languages, he is a reader of German. The readers there, among whom he is popular, both for his poetry and his love, of freedom, crowded about him with affectionate zeal ; and they gave him, what he does not dislike, a good dinner. There is one of our writers who has more fame than he ; but not one who enjoys a fame equally wide, and without drawback. Like many of the great men in Germany, Schiller, Wieland, and others, he has not scrupled to become editor of a magazine ; and his name alone has given it among all circles a recommendation of the greatest value, and such as makes it a grace to write under him. I remember, one day at Sydenham, Mr. Theodore Hook came in unexpectedly to dinner, and amused us very much with his talent at extempore verse. He was then a youth, tall, . dark, and of a good person, with small eyes, and features more round than weak ; a face that had character and humour, but no refinement. His extempore verses were really surprising. It is easy enough to extemporize in Italian — one only wonders, how in a language in which every thing conspires to render verse-making easy and it is difficult to avoid rhyming, this talent should be so mucli cried up — ^but in English it is another matter. I 276 MB. THEODORE HOOK. know but of one other person besides Mr. Hook, who can extemporize in English ; and he wants the power, perhaps the confidence, to do it in public. Of course, I speak of rhyming. Extempore blank verse, with a little practice, would be found as easy in English,, as rhyming is in Italian. In Mr. Hook the faculty was very unequivocal. He could not have been aware of aU the visitors, still less of the subject of conversation when he came in, and he talked his full share tiU called upon ; yet he ran his jokes and his verses upon us all in the easiest manner, saying something characteristic of every body, or avoiding it with a pun, and introducing so agreeably a piece of village scandal upon which the party had been rallying Mr. Campbell, that the poet, though not unjealous of his dignity, was perhaps the most pleased of us all. Mr. Hook after- wards sat down to the piano-forte, and enlarging upon this subject, made an extempore parody of a modern opera, introducing sailors and their clap-traps, rustics, &c. and making the poet and his supposed flame the hero and heroine. He parodied music as weU as words, giving us the most received cadences and flourishes, and calling to mind (not without some hazard to his filial duties) the commonplaces of the pastoral songs and duetts of the last half-century ; so that if Mr. Dignum, the Damon of Vauxhall, had been present, he would have doubted whether to take it as an afiront or a compliment. I have since been unable to help wishing, perhaps not very wisely, that Mr. Campbell would be a little less careful and fastidious in what he did for the public ; for, after all, an author may reasonably be sup- posed to do best that which he is most inclined to do. It is our busi- ness to be grateful for what a poet sets before us, rather than to be wishing that his peaches were nectarines, or his Falernian Champagne. Mr. Campbell, as an author, is all for refinement and classicality, not ME. THEODORE HOOK. 279 however without a great deal of pathos and kixurious fancy. His merry jongleur, Mr. Hook, has as little propensity, perhaps, as can be imagined, to any of these niceties : yet I confess, from the mere pleasure of the recollection of the evening I passed with him, I have been unable to repress a wish, as little wise as the other ; to wit, that he had stuck to his humours and farces, for which he had real talent, instead of writing politics. Among the visitors at Sydenham, was Mr. Mathews the comedian. I have had the pleasure of seeing him there more than once, and of witnessing his imitations, which, admirable as they are on the stage, are still more so in a private room. Once and away his wife used to come with him, with her handsome eyes ; and charitably make tea for us. The other day I had the pleasure of seeing them at their own table ; and I thought that while Time, with unusual courtesy, had spared the sweet countenance of the one, he had given more force and interest to that of the other in the very ploughing of it up. Strong lines' have been cut, and the face has stood them well. I have seldom been more surprised than in coming close to Mr. Mathews on that occasion, and in seeing the bust that he has in his Gallery of his friend Mr. Liston. Some of these comic actors, like comic writers, are as unfarcical as can be imagined in their interior. The taste for humour comes to them by the force of contrast. The last time I had seen Mr. Mathews, his face appeared to me insignificant to what it was then. On the former occasion, he looked like an irritable in-door pet : on the latter, he seemed to have been grappling with' the world, and to have got vigour by it. His face had looked out upon the Atlantic, and said to the old waves, " Buffet on ; I have seen trouble as well as you." The paralytic affection, or' what- ever it was, that twisted his mouth when young, had formerly appeared 280 MR. MATHEWS. to be master of his face, and given it a character of indecision and alarm. It now seemed a minor thing ; a twist in a piece of old oak. And what a bust was Mr. Liston's ! The mouth and chin, with the throat under it, hung like an old bag ; but the upper part of the head is as fine as pos- sible : there is a speculation, a look-out, and even an elevation of cha- racter in it, as unlike the Liston on the stage, as Lear is to King Pippin. One might imagine Laberius to have had such a face. The reasons why Mr. Mathews's imitations are still better in private than in public are, that he is more at his ease personally, more secure of his audience (" fit though few"), and able to interest them with traits of private character, which could not be introduced on the stage. He gives, for instance, to persons who he thinks will take it rightly, a picture of the manners and conversation of Sir Walter Scott, highly creditable to that celebrated person, and calculated to add regard to admiration. His commonest imitations are not superficial. Something of the mind and character of the individual is always insinuated, often with a dramatic dressing, and plenty of sauce piquante. At Sydenham he used to give us a dialogue among the actors, each of whom found fault with another for some defect or excess of his own, — Kemble objecting to stiffness, Munden to grimace, and so on. His represen- tation of Incledon was extraordinary : his nose seemed actually to become aquiline. It is a pity I cannot put upon paper, as represented by Mr. Mathews, the singular gabblings of that actor, the lax and sailor-like twist of mind, with which every thing hung upon him ; and his profane pieties in quoting the Bible ; for which, and swearing, he seemed to have an equal reverence. He apj)eared to be charitable to every body but Mr. Braham. He would be described as saying to his friend Holman, for instance, " My dear George, don't be abusive. MR. MATHEWS. 281 George ; — don't insult, — don't be indecent, by G— d ! You should take the beam out of your own eye,— what the devil is it ? you know, in the Bible ; something" (the a very broad) " about a beam, my dear George ! and— and— and — a mote :— you 'U find it any part of the Bible ; yes, George, my dear boy, the Bible, by G— d ;" (and then with real fervour and reverence) " the Holy Scripture, G— d d— me !" He swore as dreadfully as a devout knight-errant. Braham, whose trumpet blew * down his wooden walls, he could not endure. He is represented as saying one day, with a .strange mixture of imagination and matter-of- fact, that " he only wished his beloved master, Mr. Jackson, could come down from Heaven, and take the Exeter stage to London, to hear that d — d Jew !" As Mr. Hook made his extempore verses on us, so Mr. Mathews one day gave an extempore imitation of us all round, with the exception of a fierce young critic, who happened to be present, and in whose appearance and manner he pronounced that there was no handle for mimicry. This may have been intended as a politeness towards a comparative stranger, perhaps as a piece of policy ; and the laughter was not missed by it. At aU events, the critic was both good- humoured and self-satisfied enough to have borne the mimicry ; and no harm would have come of it. One morning, after stopping all night, 1 was getting up to breakfast, when I heard the noise of a little boy having his face washed. Our host was a merry bachelor, and to the rosiness of a priest might, for aught I knew, have added the paternity ; but I had never heard of it", and still less expected to find a child in his house. More obvious and obstreperous proofs, how- ever, of the existence of a boy with a dirty face, could not have been met with. You heard the child crying and objecting ; then the wo- man remonstrating'; then the cries of the child were snubbed and 2 o 282 MESSRS. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. swallowed up in the hard towel ; and at intervals out came his voice bubbling and deploring, and was again swallowed up. At breakfast, the child being pitied, I ventured to speak about it, and was laughing and sympathizing in perfect good faith, when Mr. Mathews came in, and I found that the little urchin was he. The same morning he gave us his immortal imitation of old Tate Wilkinson, patentee of the York Theatre. Tate had been a little too merry in his youth, and was very melancholy in old age. He had a wandering mind and a decrepid body; and being manager of a theatre, a husband, and a rat-catcher, he would speak, in his wanderings, "variety of wretchedness." He would interweave, for instance, all at once, the subjects of a new en- gagement at his theatre, the rats, a veal-pie, Garrick and Mrs. Sid- dons, and Mrs. Tate and the doctor. I do not pretend to give a spe- cimen : Mr. Mathews alone can do it ; but one trait I recollect, de- scriptive of Tate himself, which will give a good notion of him. On coming into the room, Mr. Mathews assumed the old manager's ap- pearance, and proceeded towards the window, to reconnoitre the Tstate of the weather, which was a matter of great importance to him. His hat was like a hat worn the wrong way, side foremost, looking sadly crinkled and old ; his mouth was desponding, his eye staring, and his whole . aspect meagre, querulous, and prepared for objection. This miserable object, grunting and hobbling, and helping himself with any thing he can lay hold of as he goes, creeps up to the Avindow ; and giving a glance at the clouds, turns round with an ineflfable look of despair and acquiescence, ejaculating " Uh Christ !" Of James Smith, a fair, stout, fresh-coloured man with round fea- tures, I recollect little, except that he used to read to us trim verses, with rhymes pat as butter. The best of his verses are in the Rejected MESSES. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. 283 Addresses; and they are excellent. Isaac Hawkins Browne with his Pipe of Tobacco, and aU the rhyming jeux-d'esprit in all the Tracts, are extinguished in the comparison; not excepting the Probationary Odes. Mr. Fitzgerald finds himself bankrupt in non sequiturs ; Grabbe knoweth not which is which, himself or his parodist ; and Lord Byron confessed to me, that the summing up of his philosophy, to wit, that " Nought is every thing, and every thing is nought," was very posing. Mr. Smith would sometimes repeat after dinner, with his brother Horace, an imaginary dialogue, stuffed full of incongruities, that made us roll with laughter. His ordinary verse and prose are too fuU of the ridicule of city pretensions. To be superior to any thing, it should not always be running in one's head. His brother Horace was delicious. Lord Byron used to say, that this epithet should be applied only to eatables ; and that he wondered a friend of his, who was critical in matters of eating, should use it in any other sense. I know not what the present usage may be in the cir- cles, but classical authority is against his Lordship, from Cicero down- wards ; and I am content with the modem warrant of another noble wit, the famous Lord Peterborough, who in his fine, open way, said of Fenelon, that he was such a " delicious creature," he was forced to get away from him, " else he would have made him pious !" I grant there is something in the word delicious, which may be said to comprise a reference to every species of pleasant taste. It is at once a quintes- sence and a miscellany ; and a friend, to deserve the epithet, ought to be capable of delighting us as much over our wine and fruit, as on graver occasions. Fenelon himself could do this, with all his piety ; or rather he could do it because his piety was of the true sort, and re- 2 o 2 284 MESSRS. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. lished of every thing that was sweet and affectionate. The modesty of my friend Horace Smith (which is a manly one, and has no hectic pre- tensions to what it deprecates) will pardon me this reference to a greater name. He must allow me to add, at some hazard of disturbing him, that a finer nature, except in one instance, I never was acquainted with in man ; nor even in that instance, all circumstances considered, have I a right to say that those who knew him as intimately as I did the other person, would not have had the same reasons to love him. The friend I speak of had a very high regard for Mr. Horace Smith, as may be seen by the following verses, the initials in which the reader has now the pleasure of filling up : — " Wit and sense. Virtue and human knowledge, all that might Make this dull world a business of delight, Are all combined in H. S." Mr. Horace Smith differed with Mr. Shelley on some points ; but on others, which all the world agree to praise highly and to practise very little, he agreed so entirely, and showed so unequivocally that he did agree, that (with the exception of one person (V.N.) too diffident to gain such an honour from his friends) they were the only two men I ever 'knew, from whom I could receive advice or remonstrance with perfect comfort, because I could be sure of the unmixed motives and entire absence of self-reflection, with which it would come from them. * Mr. Shelley said to me once, " I know not what Horace Smith must take me for sometimes : I am afraid he must think me a strange feUow ; but » With all his vagaries I must add Mr. Hazlitt, who is quite capable, when he chooses, of giving genuine advice, and making you sensible of his disinterestedness. Mr. Lamb could do it too ; but for interference of any sort he has an abhorrence. MESSRS. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. 285 is it not odd, that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker ! And he writes poetry too," continued Mr. Shelley, his voice rising in a fervour of as- tonishment ; " he writes poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is still generous !" Mr. Slielley had reason to like him. Horace Smith was one of the few men, who, through a cloud of detraction, and through all that difference of conduct from the rest of the world, which naturally excites obloquy, discerned the greatness of my friend's character. Indeed, he became a witness to the very unequivocal proof of it, which I mentioned elsewhere. The mutual esteem was accordingly very great, and arose from circumstances most honourable to both parties. " I believe," said Mr. Shelley on another occasion, " that I have only to say to Horace Smith that I want a hundred pounds or two, and he would send it me without any eye to its being returned ; such faith has he that I have something within me beyond what the world supposes, and that I could only ask his money for a good purpose." And he would have sent for it accordingly, if the person for whom it was intended had not said nay. I will now mention the circumstance, which first gave my friend a regard for Mr. Smith. It concerns the person just men- tioned, who is a man of letters. It came to Mr. Smith's knowledge, some years ago, that this person was suffering bitterly under a pecuniary trouble. He knew little of him at the time, but had met him occasion- ally ; and he availed himself of this circumstance to write him a letter as fuU of delicacy and cordiality as it could hold, making it a matter of grace to accept a bank-note of 100/. which he enclosed. I speak on the best authority, that of the obliged person himself ; who adds that he not only did accept the money, but felt as light and happy under the 286 MESSRS. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. obligation, as he has felt miserable under the very report of being obliged to some ; and he says, that nothing could induce him to withhold his name, but a reason which the generous would excuse. From his friends in private he has no reason to conceal it, and he does not, as I can testify : and there is one thing more which he says he will conceal from nobody ; which is, that subsequently to that obligation, he incurred others from the friend in question, which not only taxed his friend's kindness, but his pa- tience ; and that notwithstanding these trials, the other was still so gene- rous to discern in him what was well-intentioned from what was badly managed, and has retained to this hour so kind an opinion of him, that he never makes a step in better management (for his slow progress in which he has had more excuses than most people, in sickness, temperament, and a total want of education for it,) but he is accompanied, and assisted, with the hope of pleasing him before long, with the sight of the fruits of it. Such friends, and such only, (including those whose wish to- act like them is as unequivocal as their inability,) are the friends that do a man all the good that can be done him, because they are not only generous to his virtues, but as humane to his faults as other people are to their own. For my part, I scarcely ever write a page which the public thinks worth reading, and vfhich they like because it serves to keep them in heart with nature and mankind, but Horace Smith is one of those friends whom I fancy myself talking with, and whom I wish to gratify. It is such as he that a humanist would have the world become, and that fur- nish a proof that the wish is not founded in impossibility. Swift said, that if the world contained a dozen Arbuthnots, he would burn his books. I am convinced, that the world contains hundreds of Arbuth- nots, if education would but do their natures justice, Give me the edu- cation of a community, in which mutual help instead of selfish rivalry MESSRS. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. 287 was the principle inculcated, and riches regarded not as the end but the means, and I would undertake, not upon the strength of my own ability, but on the sole ground of the absence of what is at present taught us, to fill the place full of Arbuthnots and Horace Smiths ; not indeed, as to wit and talent, but with all tTieir geniality and ?ense and open-heartedness ; with the same reasonableness of gain, and readiness of enjoyment. When Mr. Horace Smith sees this account of himself, he wiU think that too much has been said of his generosity : and he would be right, if society were constituted otherwise than it is. Actions of this kind are not so common in trading communities as in others ; because people learn to taste the value of every sixpence that passes through their hands. And for the same reason they are more extravagantly admired ; sometimes with a fatuity of astonishment, sometimes with an envy that seeks relief in sarcasm. All these excesses of homage are painful to a man, who would fain have everybody as natural and gene- rous as himself; but the just tribute must not be withheld on that account ; otherwise there would be still fewer counteractions to the selfishness so abundantly taught us. At the period in question, I have said that Mr. Smith was a stockbroker. He left business with a fortune, and went to live in France, where, if he did not increase, he did not seriously diminish it ; and France added to the pleasant stock of his knowledge. On returning to England, he set about exerting himself in a manner equally creditable to his talents and interesting to the public. I will not insult either the modesty or the understanding of Mr. Horace Smith, by comparing him with the author of " Old Mortality" and " Guy Mannering :" but I will venture to say, that the earliest of his 288 MESSRS. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. novels, " Brambletye House," ran a hard race with the novel of " Wood- stock," and that it contained more than one character not unworthy of the best volumes of Sir Walter. I allude to the ghastly troubles of the Regicide in his lone house; the outward phlegm and merry inward malice of Winky Boss (a happy name),, who gravely smoked a pipe with his mouth, and laughed with his eyes ; and, above all, to the character of the princely Dutch merchant, who would cry out that he should be ruined, at seeing a few nutmegs dropped from a bag, and would then go and give a thousand ducats for an antique. This is hitting the high mercantile character to a nicety, — minute and careful in its means, princely in its ends. If the ultimate effect of commerce {permulti tran- sibunt, &c.) were not something very different from what its pursuers imagine, the character would be a dangerous one to society at large, because it throws a gloss over the spirit of money-getting, which in a thousand instances to 6ne is a debasing spirit ; but meanwhile nobody could paint it better, or has a right to recommend it more, than he who has been the first to make it a handsome portrait. The personal appearance of Mr. Horace Srhith, like that of all the individuals I ever met with, is highly indicative of his character. His figure is good and manly, inclining to the robust ; and his countenance extremely frank and cordial, sweet without weakness. I have been told, he is irascible. If so, his city training is in fault, not he. He has not a jot of it in his appearance. MR. FUSELL— MR. BONNYCASTLE.-MR. KINNAIRD. At the hospitable table of Mr. Hunter the bookseller, in St. Paul's Church-yard, I became acquainted with the survivors of the literary party that used to dine with his predecessor, Mr. Johnson. They came, as of old, on the Friday. The most regular were Mr. Fuseli, and Mr. Bonny castle. Now and then, Mr. Godwin was present: oftener Mr. Kinnaird the magistrate, a great lover of Horace. Fuseli was a small man, with energetic features, and a white head of hair. Our host's daughter, then a little girl, used to call him the white- headed lion. He combed his hair up from the forehead, and as his whiskers were large, his face was set in a kind of hairy frame, which, in addition to the fierceness of his look, really gave him an aspect of that sort. Otherwise, his features were rather sharp than round. He would have looked much like an old officer, if his face, besides its real energy, had not affected more. There was the same defect in it as in his pic- tures. ConscioTis of not having all the strength he wished, he endea- voured to make out for it by violence and pretension. He carried this so far, as to look fiercer than usual when he sat ' for his picture. His friend and engraver, Mr. Houghton, drew an admirable likeness of him in this state of dignified extravagance. He is sitting back in his chair, 2 p 290 MR. FUSELI. leaning on his hand, but looking ready to pounce withal. His notion of repose was like that of Pistol : " Now, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap." Agreeably to this over-wrought manner, he was reckoned, I believe, hot quite so bold as he might have been. He painted horrible pictures, as children tell horrible stories-; and was frightened at his own lay- figures. Yet he would hardly have talked as he did about his terrors, had he been as timid as some supposed him. With the affected, im- pression is the main thing, let it be produced how it may. A student of the Academy told me, that Mr. Fuseli coming in one night, when a solitary candle had been put on the floor in a corner of the room, to produce some effect or other, he said it looked " like a damned soul." This Avas by way of being Dantesque, as Michael Angelo was. He was an ingenious caricaturist of that master, making great bodily displays of mental energy, and being ostentatious with his limbs and muscles, in proportion as he could not draw them. A leg or arm was to be thrust down one's throat, because he knew we should dispute the truth of it. In the indulgence of this wilfulness of purpose, generated partly by impatience of study, partly by want of sufficient genius, and, no doubt, also by a sense of superiority to artists who could do nothing but draw correctly, he cared for no time, place, or circumstance, in his pictures. A set of prints, after his designs, for Shakspeare and Cowper, exhibit a chaos of mingled genius and absurdity, such as perhaps was never before seen, and afford an hour's entertainment of the most ludicrous description. He, endeavoured to bring Michael Angelo's apostles and prophets,. with their superhuman ponderousness of intention, into the MR. rusEi.i. 291 commonplaces of modem life. A Student reading in a Garden, is all over intensity of muscle ; and the quiet tea-table scene in Cowper, he has turned into a preposterous conspiracy of huge men and women, aU bent on showing their thews and postures, with dresses as fantastical as their minds. One gentleman, of the existence of whose trowsers you are not aware tiU you see the terminating line at the ankle, is sitting and looking grim on a sofa, with his hat on, and no waistcoat. Yet there is real genius in his designs for Milton, though disturbed, as usual, by strainings after the energetic. His most extraordinary mistake, after all, is said to have been on the subject of his colouring. It is a sort of livid green, like brass diseased. Yet they say, that when praised for one of his pictures, he would modestly answer, " It is a pretty colour." One would have thought this a joke, if remarkable stories were not told of the mistakes made by other people with regard to colour. Sight seems the least agreed upon, of all the senses. Mr. Fuseli was lively and interesting in conversation, but not without his usual faults of violence and pretension.. Nor was he always as de- corous as an old man ought to be ; especially one whose turn of mind is not of the lighter and more pleasurable cast. The licences he took were coarse, and had not sufficient regard to his company. Certainly they went a great deal beyond his friend Armstrong ; to whose account, I believe, Mr. Fuseli's passion for swearing was laid. The poet conde- scended to be a great swearer, and Mr. Fuseli thought it energetic to swear like him. His friendship with Mr. Bonnycastle had something childlike and agreeable in it. They came and went away together, for years, like a couple of old schoolboys. They also, like boys, rallied one another, and sometimes made a singular display of it, — Fuseli at least, 2 p 2 292 MJl. BONNYCASTLE, for it was he that was the aggressor. I remember, one clay, Bonnycastle told a story of a Frenchman, whom he had received at his house at Woolwich, and who invited him in return to visit him at Paris, if ever he should cross the water. " The Frenchman told me," said he, " that he had a superb local. When I went to Paris I called on him, and found he had a good prospect out of his window ; but his superb local was at a hair-dresser's up two pair of stairs." " Veil, veil !" said Fuseli impa- tiently, (for though he spoke and wrote English remarkably well, he never got rid of his Swiss pronunciation) — " VeU — vay not — vay not- — Vat is to hinder his local being superb for all thtatV " I don't see," returned Bonnycastle, " how a barber's in an alley can be a superb local." " You doan't ! Veil — but thtat is not thte barber's faull^-It is your's." " How do you make that out ? I 'm not an alley." " No ; but you 're coarsedly eegnorant." " I may be as ignorant as you are polite ; but you don't prove any thing." " Thte thtevil I doan't ! Did you not say he had a faine prospect out of window ?" " Yes, he had a prospect fine enough." " Veil, thtat constituted his superb local. A superb local is not a barber's shop, by Goade ! but a faine situation. But that is your coarsed eegnorance of thte language." Another time, on Mr. Bonnycastle's saying that there were no lono-er any Auto da Fes, Fuseli said he did not know that. "At aU events," said he, " if you were to go into Spain, they would have an auto-da-f6 immadiately, oan thte strength of your appearance." Bonnycastle was a good fellow. He was a tall, gaunt, long-headed man, with large, features and spectacles, and a deep internal voice, with a twang of rusticity in it ; and he goggled over his plate, like a horse. I have often thought that a bag of corn would have hung well on him. MR. BONNYCASTLE. 293 His laugh was equine, and showed his teeth upwards at the sides. Mr. Wordsworth would have thought it ominous. Mr. Bonny castle was passionately fond of quoting Shakspeare, and telling stories ; and if the Edinburgh Review had just come out, would give us all the jokes in it. He had once an hypochondriacal disorder of long duration, but had entirely outlived it. He said he should never forget the com- fortable sensation given him one night during this disorder, by his knocking a landlord, that was insolent to him, down the man's stair- case. On the strength of this piece of energy (having first ascertained that the offender was not killed) he went to bed, and had a sleep of unusual soundness. Perhaps he thought more highly of his talents, than the amount of them strictly warranted ; a mistake to which scien- tific men appear to be more liable than others, the universe they work in being so large, and their universality (in Bacon's sense of the word) being at the same time so small. But the delusion was not only pardonable, but desirable, in a man so zealous in the performance of his duties, and so much of a human being to all about him, as Mr. Bonnycastle was. It was delightful one day to hear him speak with complacency of a translation which had appeared of one of his books in Arabic, and which began by saying, on the part of the translator, that " it had pleased God, for the advancement of human knowledge, to raise us up a Bonnycastle." Some of his stories were a little romantic, and no less authentic. He had an anecdote of a Scotchman, who boasted of being descended from the Admirable Crichton; in proof of which, the Scotchman said he had "a grit quantity of table-leenen in his possassion, marked A. C. Admirable Creechton." 294 Mil. KINNAIRD. Mr. Kinnaird, tlie magistrate, was a stout sanguine man, under the middle height, with a fine lamping black eye, lively to the last, and a person that "had increased, was increasing, and ought to have been diminished ;" which is by no means what he thought of the prerogative. Next to his bottle, he was fond of his Horace ; and in the intervals of business at the police-office, would enjoy both in his arm-chair. Between t)ie vulgar calls of this kind of magistracy, and the perusal of the urbane Horace, there must be a gusto of contradiction, which the bottle, per- haps, is required to render quite palatable. Fielding did not love his bottle the less for being obhged to lecture the drunken. Nor did his son, who succeeded him in taste and office. I know not how the late laureat, Mr. Pye, managed ; — another man of letters, who was fain to accept a situation of this kind. Having been a man of fortune, and a Member of Parliament, and loving Horace to boot, he could hardly have done without his wine. I saw him once in a state of scornful indigna- tion at being interrupted in the perusal of a manuscript by the monitions of his pohce officers, who were obliged to remind him over and over again that he was a magistrate, and that the criminal multitude were in waiting. Every time the door opened, he threatened and he implored. " Otium divos rogat in patenti Prensus." Had you quoted this io Mr. Kinnaird, his eyes would have sparkled with good fellowship : he would have finished the verse and the bottle with you, and proceeded to as many more as your head could stand. Poor fellow ! the last time I saw him, he was an apparition formidably sub- stantial. The door of our host's dining-room opened without my MR. KINNAIUD. 395 hearing it, and happening to turn round, I saw a figure in a great coat, literally almost as broad as it was long, and scarcely able to articu- late. He was dying of a dropsy, and was obliged to revive himself, before he was fit to converse, by the wine that was killing him. But he had cares besides, and cares of no ordinary description ; and for my part I will not blame even his wine for killing him, unless his cares could have done it more agreeably. After dinner that day, he was compa- ratively himself again, quoted his Horace as usual, talked of lords and courts with a relish, and begged that God save the King might be played to him on the piano-forte ; to which he listened, as if his soul had taken its hat off. I beheve he would have liked to have died to God save the King, and to have " waked and found those visions true." 2 P 4 MR. CHARLES LAMB. Charles Lamb has a head worthy of Aristotle, with as fine a heart as ever beat in human bosom, and limbs very fragile to sustain it. There is a caricature of him sold in the shops, which pretends to be a likeness. P— r went into the shop in a passion, and asked the man what he meant by putting forth such a libel. The man apologized, and said that the artist meant no offence. The face is a gross misrepre- sentation. ' Mr. Lamb's features are strongly yet delicately cut : he has a fine eye as well as forehead ; and no face carries in it greater marks of thought and feeling. It resembles that of Bacon, with less worldly vigour, and more sensibility. As his frame, so is his genius. It is as fit for thought as can be, and equally as unfit for action ; and this renders him melancholy, apprehensive, humorous, and wUling to make the best of every thing as it is, both from tenderness of heart and abhorrence of alteration. His understanding is too great to admit an absurdity ; his frame is not strong^ enough to deliver it from a fear. His sensibility to strong contrasts is the foun- dation of his humour, which is that of a wit at once melancholy and willing to be pleased. He will beard a superstition, and shudder at the old phantasm while he does it. One could imagine him cracking a jest in the teeth of a ghost, and melting into thin air himself, out of a sympathy with the awful. His humour and his knowledge both, are those of Hamlet, of Moli^re, of Carlin, who shook a city with laughter. MR. CHAllLES LAMB. , 297 and, in order to divert his melancholy, was recommended to go and hear himself. Yet he extracts a real pleasure out of his jokes, because good- . heartedness retains that privilege, when it fails in every thing else. I should say he condescended to be a punster, if condescension were a word befitting wisdom like his. Being told that somebody had lampooned him, he said, " Very well ; I '11 Lamb-pun him." His puns ai'e admirable, and often contain as deep things as the wisdom of some who have greater names. Such a man,^or instance, as Nicole the Frenchman, was a baby to him. He would have cracked a score of jokes at him, worth his whole book of sentences ; pelted his head with pearls. Nicole would not have un- derstood him, but Rochefoucault would, and Pascal too ; and some of our old Englishmen would have understood him §till better. He would have been worthy of hearing Shakspeare read one of his scenes to him, hot from the brain. Commonplace finds a great comforter in him, as long as it is good-natured ; it is to the ill-natured or the dictatorial only that he is startling. Willing to see society go on as it does, because he despairs of seeing it otherwise, but not at all agreeing in his interior with the common notions of crime and punishment, he " dumbfounded" a long tirade one evening, by taking the pipe out of his mouth, and asking the speaker, " Whether he meant to say that a thief was not a good man ?" To a person abusing Voltaire, and indiscreetly opposing his cha- racter to that of Jesus Christ, he said admirably well, (though he by no means overrates Voltaire, nor wants reverence in the other quarter,) that " Voltaire was a very good Jesus Christ for the French." He likes to see the church-goers continue to go to church, and has written a tale in his sister's admirable little book (Mrs. Leicester's School) to encourage; the rising generation to do so : but to a conscientious deist he has nothing to object ; and if an atheist found every other door shut against him, he 2 Q 298 ME. CHAELES LAMB. would assuredly not find his. I believe he would have the world remain precisely as it is, provided it innovated no farther ; but this spirit in him is any thing but a worldly one, or for his own interest. He hardly con- , templates with patience the fine new buildings in the Regent's Park ; and, privately speaking, he has a grudge against official heaven-expounders, or clergymen. He would rather, however, be with a crowd that he dislikes, than feel himself alone. He said to me one day, with a face of solemn- ity, " What must have been that man's feelings who thi^ught himself the first deist r Finding no footing in certainty, he delights to con- found the borders of theoretical truth and falsehood. He is fond of telling wild stories to children^ engrafted on things about them ; writes letters to people abroad, telling them that a friend of theirs has come out in genteel comedy ; and persuaded G. D. that Lord Castlereagh was the author of Waverley ! The same excellent person, walking one evening out of his friend's house into the New River, Mr. Lamb (who was from home at the time) wrote a paper under his signature of Elia (now no longer anonymous), stating, that common friends would have stood dallying on the bank, have sent for neighbours, &c. ; but that he, in his. magnanimity, jumped in and rescued his friend after the old noble fashion. He wrote in the same magazine two Lives of Liston and Munden, which the public took for' serious, and which exhibit an extra- ordinary jumble of imaginary facts and truth of bye-painting. Munden he makes born at " Stoke-Pogeis ;" the very sound of which is like the actor speaking and digging his words. He knows how many false con- clusions and pretensions are made by men who profess to be guided by facts only, as if facts could not be misconceived, or figments taken for them ; and therefore one day, when somebody was speaking of a person who valued himself on being a matter-of-fact man, " Now," says he, " I MR. CHARLES LAMB. 299 value myself on being a matter-of-lie man." This does not hinder his being a man of the greatest veracity, in the ordinary sense of the word ; but " truth," he says, " is precious, and ougiit not to be wasted on every body." Those who wish to have a genuine taste of him, and an insight into his modes of life, should read his essays on Hogarth and King Lear, his article on the London Streets, on Whist-Playing, which he loves, and on Saying Grace Before Meat, which he thinks a strange moment to select for being grateful. He said once to a brother whist-player, who was a hand more clever than clean, and who had enough in him to afford the joke, " M., if dirt were trumps, what hands you would hold !" This is an article very short of what I should wish to write on my friend's character ; but perhaps I could not do it better. There is something in his modesty as well as wisdom, which hinders me from saying more. He has seen strange faces of calamity ; but they have not made him love those of his fellow-creatures the less. The ingenious artist who has presented the public with his, will excuse one of his friends for thinking that he has done more justice to the moral than the intellectual character of it ; which, in truth, it is very difficult to do*, whether with pencil or with pen. A celebrated painter has said, that no one but Raphael could have done fuU justice to Raphael's face : which is a remark at once startling and consolatory to us inferior limners. 2 Q 2 MR. COLERIDGE. Mr. Lamb's friend, JMr. Coleridge, is as little fitted for action as he, but on a different account. His person is of a good height, hut as sluggish and solid as the other's is light and fragile. He has, perhaps, suffered it to look old before its time, for want of exercise. His hair, too, is quite white (though he cannot much exceed fifty); and as he gene- rally dresses in black, and has a very tranquil demeanour, his appear- ance is gentlemanly, and begins to be reverend. Nevertheless, there is something invincibly young in the look of his face : it is round and fresh-coloured, with agreeable features, and an open, indolent, good- natured mouth. This boy-like expression is very becoming to one who dreams as he did when he was a child, and who passes his life apart from the rest of the world, with a book, and his flowers. His forehead is prodigious, — a great piece of placid marble ; and his fine eyes, in which all the activity of his mind seems to concentrate, move under it with a sprightly ease, as if it were pastim.e to them to carry all that thought. And it is pastime. Mr. Hazlitt says, that Mr. Coleridge's genius appears to him like a spirit, all head and wings, eternally floating about in £etherialities. He gives me a different impression. I fancy him a good-natured wizard, very fond of earth, and conscious of reposing with weight enough in his easy chair, but able to conjure his eetherialities about him in the twinkling of an eye. He can also change them by thousands, and dismiss them as easily when his dinner comes. It is a mighty intellect put upon a sensual body ; and the reason why he does MR. COLERIDGE. 301 little more with it than talk and dream, is that it is agreeable to such a body to do little else. I do not mean that Mr. Coleridge is a sensualist in an ill sense. He is capable of too many innocent pleasures, to take any pleasure in the way that a man of the world would take it. The idlest things he did would have a warrant. But if all the senses, in their time, have not found lodging in that humane plenitude of his, never beUeve they did in Thomson or in Boccaccio. Two affirmatives in him make a negative. He is very metaphysical and very corporeal ; and he does nothing. His brains plead all sorts of questions before him, and he hears them with so much impartiality, (his spleen not giving him any trouble,) that he thinks he might as well sit in his easy chair and hear them for ever, without coming to a conclusion. It has been said that he took opium to deaden the sharpness of his cogitations. I wUl undertake to afl&rm, tliat if he ever took any thing to deaden a sensation within him, it was for no greater or more marvellous reason than other people take it ; which is, because they do not take enough exercise, and so plague their heads with their livers. Opium, perhaps, might settle an uneasiness of this sort in Mr. Coleridge, as it did in a much less man with a much greater body, the Shadwell of Dryden. He would then resume his natural ease, and sit, and be happy, till the want of exercise must be again supplied. The vanity of criticism, Uke all our other vanities, ex- cept that of dress, (which so far has an involuntary philosophy in it,) is always forgetting that we are at least half made up of body. Mr. Hazhtt is angry that Mr. Coleridge is not as zealous in behalf of liberty as he used to be when young. I am sorry for it, too ; and, if other men, as well as Mr. Hazlitt, did not keep me in heart, should think that the world was destined to be repeatedly lost, for want either of persever- ance or calmness. But Mr. Coleridge had less right to begin his zeal 302 MR. COLERIDGE. in favour of liberty, than he had to leave it off. He should have be- thought himself first, whether he had the courage not to get fat. As to the charge against him, of eternally probing the depths of 'his own mind, and trying what he can make of them out of the or- dinary road of logic and philosophy, I see no harm in a man's taking this new sort . of experiment upon him, whatever little chance there may be of his doing any thing with it. He is but one man ; his facul- ties incline him to the task, and are suitable to it ; and it is impossible to say what new worlds may be laid open, some day or other, by this ap- parently hopeless process. The fault of Mr. Coleridge, like that of all thinkers indisposed to action, is, that he is too content with things as they are, — at least, too fond of thinking that old corruptions are full of good things, if the world did but understand them. Now, here is the dilemma ; for it requires an understanding like his own to refine upon and turn them to good as he might do ; and what the world require is not metaphysical refinement, but a hearty use of good sense. Mr. Cole- ridge, indeed, can rfifine his meaning, so as to accommodate it with great good-nature to every one that comes across him ; and doubtless he finds more agreement of intention among people of different opinions, than they themselves are aware of, which it is good to let them see. But when not enchained by his harmony, they fall asunder again, or go and commit the greatest absurdities for want of the subtle connecting tie ; as may be seen in the books of his disciple Mr. Irving, who, eloquent in one page, and reasoning in a manner that a child ought to be ashamed of in the next, thinks to avail himself now-a-days of the old menacing tone of damnation without being thought a quack or an idiot, purely because Mr. Coleridge showed him last Friday that damnation was not what its preachers took it for. With the same subtlety and good-nature of in- MR. COLEKIUGE. . 303 terpsetation, Mr. Coleridge will persuade a Deist that he is a Christian, arid an Atheist that he believes in God : all which would be very good, if the world could get on by it, and not remain stationary ; but, mean- while, millions are wretched with having too little to eat, and thousands with having too much ; and these subtleties are like people talking in their sleep, when they should be up and helping. However, if the world is to remain always as it is, give me to all eternity new talk of Coleridge, and new essays of Charles Lamb. They will reconcile it beyond all others ; and that is much. Mr. Coleridge is fat, and begins to lament, in very delightful verses^ that he is getting infirm. There is no old age in his verses. I heard him the other day, under the grove at Highgate, repeat one of his me- lodious lamentations, as he walked up and down, his voice undulating in a stream of music, and his regrets of youth sparkling with visions ever young. At the same time, he did me the honour to show me, that he did not think so ill of all modern liberalism as some might suppose, denouncing the pretensions of the money-getting in a style which I should hardly venture upon, and never could equal ; and askings with a triumphant eloquence, what chastity itself were worth, if it were a casket, not to keep love in, but hate, and strife, and worldliness ? On the same occasion, he built up a metaphor out of a flower, in a style surpassing the famous passage in Mil'ton ; deducing it from its root in religious mystery, and carrying it up into the bright consummate flower, " the bridal chamber of reproductiveness." Of aU " the Muse's mys- teries," he is as great a high-priest as Spenser; and Spenser himself might have gone to Highgate to hear him talk, and thank him for his " Ancient Mariner." His voice does not always sound very sincere ; but perhaps the humble and deprecating tone of it, on those occasions, 304 ME. COLERIDGE. is out of consideration for his hearer's infirmities, rather than produced by his own. He recited his " Kubla Khan," one morning, to Lord Byron, in his Lordship's house in Piccadilly, when I happened to be in another room. I remember the other's coming away from him, highly struck with his poem, and saying how wonderfully he talked. This is the impression of every body w^ho hears him. It is no secret that Mr. Coleridge lives in the Grove at Highgate with a friendly family, who have sense and kindness enough to know that they do themselves an honour by looking after the comforts of such a man. His room looks upon a delicious prospect of wood and meadow, with coloured gardens under the window, like an embroidery to the mantle. I thought, when I first saw it, that he had taken up his dwell- ing-place like an abbot. Here he cultivates his flowers, and has a set of birds for his pensioners, who come to breakfast with him. He may be seen taking his daily stroll up and down, with his black coat and white locks, and a book in his hand; and is a great acquaintance of the little children. His main occupation, I believe, is reading. He loves to read old folios, and to make old voyages with Purchas and Marco Polo ; the seas being in good visionary condition, and the vessel well-stocked with botargoes. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. FAMILY PORTKAITS. — CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR'S FATHER. My ancestors, on the father's side, were Tories and Cavaliers, who fled from the tyranny of Cromwell', and settled in Barbadoes. For several generations, ■ himself included, they were clergymen. My grandfather was Rector of St. Michael's, in Bridgetown, Barbadoes. He was a good- natured man, and recommended the famous Lauder to the mastership of the free-school there ; influenced, no doubt, partly by his pretended repentance, and partly by sympathy with his Toryism. Lauder is said to have been discharged for misconduct. I never heard that ; but I have heard that his appearance was decent, and that he had a wooden leg : which is an anti-climax befitting his history. My grandfather was admired and beloved by his parishioners, for the manner in which he discharged his duties. He died at an early age, in consequence of a fever taken in the hot and damp air, while officiating incessantly at burials S R 306 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. during a mortality. His wife was an O'Brien, very proud of her de- scent fron^ the kings of Ireland. She was as good-natured and beloved as her husband, and very assiduous in her attentions to the negroes and to the poor, for whom she kept a set of medicines, like my Lady Boun- tiful. They had two children besides my father ; Anne Courthope, who died unmarried ; and Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Dayrell, Esq. of Barba- does, father by a first marriage of the barrister of that name. I mention both of these ladies, because they will come among my portraits. To these their children, the worthy rector and his wife were a little too indulgent. When my father was to go to the American Continent to school, the latter dressed up her boy in a fine suit of laced clothes, such as we see on the little gentlemen in Hogarth, but so splendid and costly, that when the good pastor beheld him, |ie was moved to utter an expostulation. Objection, however, soon gave way before the pride of aU parties ; and my father set off for school, ready spoilt, with "plenty of money to spoil him more. He went to college at Philadelphia, and became the scape-grace whd smuggled in the wine, and bore the brunt of the tutors. My father took the degree of Master of Arts both at Philadelphia and New York. When he spoke the farewell oration on leaving college, two young ladies fell in love with him, one of whom he afterwards married. He was fair and handsome, with delicate features, a small aquiline nose, and blue eyes. To a gj-aceful address he joined a remarkably fine voice, which he modulated with great effect. It was in reading, with this voice, the poets and other classics of England, that he completed the conquest of my mother's heart. He used to spend his evenings in this manner with her and her family,— a noble way of courtship ; and my grandmother RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFEr 307 became so. hearty in his cause, that she succeeded in carrying it against her husband, who wished his daughter to marry a wealthy neighbour. . My father was intended, I believe, to carry on the race of clergy- men, as he afterwards did ; but he went, in the first instance, into the law. The Americans united the practice of attorney and barrister. My father studied the law under articles to one of the chief persons in the profession ; and afterwards practised with distinction himself^ At this period (by which time all my brothers, now living, were born) the Revolution broke out ; and he entered with so much zeal into the cause of the British Government, that besides pleading for Loyalists with great fervour at the bar, he wrote pamphlets equally full of party warmth, which drew on him the popular odium. His fortunes then came to a crisis in America. Early one morning, a great concourse of people appeared before his house. He came out, — or was brought. They put him into a cart prepared for the purpose, (conceive the anxiety of his wife !) and, after parading him about the streets, were joined by a party of the Revolutionary soldiers with drum and fife. The mul- titude then went with him to the house of Dr. Kearsley, a staunch Tory, who shut up the windows, and endeavoured to prevent their getting in. The Doctor had his hand pierced by a bayonet, as it entered between the shutters behind which he had planted himself. He was dragged out, and put into the cart all over blood ; but he lost none of his intrepidity ; for he answered all their reproaches and outrage with vehement reprehensions ; and by way of retaliation on the " Rogue's March," struck up " God save the King." My father gave way as little as the Doctor. He would say nothing that was dictated to hirn, nor renounce a single opinion ; but, on the other hand, he maintained a 2 R 2 308 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. tranquil air, and endeavoured to persuade his companion not to add to their irritation. This was to no purpose. Dr. Kearsley continued in- furiate, and more than once fainted from loss of blood and the violence of his feehngs. The two Loyalists narrowly escaped tarring and fea- thering. A tub of tar, which had been set in a conspicuous place in one of the streets for that purpose, was overturned by an officer intimate with our family. My father, however, did not escape entirely from personal injury. One of the stones thrown by the mob gave him such a severe blow on the head, as not only laid him swooning in the cart, but dimmed his sight for life, so as to oblige him from that time to wear spectacles. At length, after being carried through every street in Philadelphia, the two captives were deposited, in the evening, in a prison in Market- street. What became of Dr. Kearsley, I cani^ot say. My father, by means of a large sum of money given to the sentinel who had charge of him, was enabled to escape at midnight. He went immediately on board a ship in the Delaware, that belonged to my grandfather, and was bound for the West Indies. She dropped down the river that same night ; and my father went first to Barbadoes, and afterwards to England, where he settled. My mother was to follow my father as soon as possible, which she was not able to do for many months. The last time she had seen him, he was a lawyer and a partisan, going out to meet an irritated populace, On her arrival in England, she beheld him in a pulpit, a clergyman, preaching tranquillity. When my father came over, he found it im- possible to continue his profession as a lawyer. Some actors, who heard him read, advised him to go on the stage ; but he was too proud for that, and Avent into the church. He was ordained by the celebrated Ijowth, then Bishop of London ; and he soon became so popular that RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 309 the Bishop sent for him, and remonstrated against his preaching so many charity sermons. He said it was ostentatious in a clergyman, and that he saw his name in too many advertisements. My father thought it strange, but acquiesced. It is true, he preached a great many of these sermons. ' I am told, that for a whole year he did nothing else : and perhaps there was something in his manner a little startling to the simplicity of the Church of England. I remember when he came to that part of the Litany where the reader prays for deliverance •' in the hour of death and at the day of judgment," he used to make a pause at the word "death," and drop his voice on the rest of the sentence. The effect was striking ; but repetition must have hurt it. I am afraid it was a little theatrical. His delivery, however, was so much admired by those who thought themselves the best judges, that Thomas Sheri- dan, father of the late Sheridan, came up to him one day after service, in the vestry, and complimented him on having profited so well from his Treatise on Reading the Liturgy. My father was obliged to teU him, that he had never seen it. I do not know whether it was Lowth,-- but it was some Bishop, to whom my father one day, in the midst of a warm discussion, being asked " if he knew who he was ?" replied, with a bow, " Yes, my Lord ; dust and ashes." Doubtless the new clergyman was warm and im- prudent. In truth, he made a great mistake when he entered the profession. By the nature of the tenure, it was irretrievable ; and his whole life after was a series of errors, arising from the unsuitabUity of his position. He was fond of divinity ; but it was as a speculator, and not as a dogmatist, or one who takes upon trust. He was ardent in the cause of Church and State ; but here he speculated too, and soon began to modify his opinions, which got him the Ul-will of the Go- 310 UECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. vernmeiit. He delighted his audiences in the pulpit; so much so, that he had crowds, of carriages at the door. One of his congregaitions had an engraving made of him ; and a lady of the name of Cooling,. who was member of another, left him by will the sum of £500, as a testis mony of the pleasure and advantage she had derived from his discourses.; But unfortunately, after dehghting his hearers in the pulpit, he would delight some of them a little too much over the table. He Was neither witty nor profound ; but he had all the substitutes for wit that animal spirits could supply : he was shrewd, spirited, and showy ; could flatr ter. without grossness; had stories to tell of lords whom he knew ; and when the bottle was to circulate, it did not stand with him. All this was dangerous to a West Indian who had an increasing family, and was to make his way in the Church. It was too much for him ; and he added another to the list of those who, though they might suffice equally for thernselves and others in a more considerate and contented st^te of society, and seem born to be the delights of it, are only lost and thrown out in a system of things, which, by going upon the ground of individual aggrandizement^ compels dispositions of a more sociable and reasonable nature either to become parties concerned, or be ruined in the refusal. It is doubtless incumbent on a husband and father to be careful under aU circumstances ; and it is very easy for most people to talk of the necessity of being so, and to recommend it to others, especially when they have been educated to that habit. Let those fling the first stone, who, with real inclination and talent for other things, (for the inclination may not be what they take it for,) confine them- selves industriously to the duties prescribed them. There are more victims to errors committed by society themselves, than society choose to suppose. But I grant that a man is either bound to tell them so. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 311 or to do as they do. My father unluckily had neither uneasiness enough in his blood, nor imagination enough in lieu of it, to enter sufficiently into the uneasiness of others^ and so grapple vigorously with his fortune for their sakes ; neither, on the other hand, had he enough energy of speculation to see what could be done towards rendering the world a little wiser : and as to the pride of cutting a figure a little above hiis neighbours, which so many men mistake for a better principle of action, he could dispense with that. As it was, he should have been kept at home in Barbadoes. He was a true exotic, and ought not to have beeil transplanted. He might have preached there, and quoted Horace, and been gentlemanly, and drank his claret, and no harm done. But, in a bustling, commercial state of society, where the enjoyment, such as it is, consists in the bustle, he was neither very likely to succeed, nor to meet with a good construction, nor to end his pleasant ways with pleasing either the*world or hiixiself. It was in the pulpit of Bentinck Chapel, Lisson Green, Paddingtoi), that my mother found her husband officiating. He published a volume of sermons preached there, in which there is little but elegance of diction and a graceful morality. His delivery was the charm ; and, to say the truth, he charmed every body but the owner of the chapel, who looked upon rent as by far the most eloquent production of the pulpit. The speculation ended with the preacher's being horribly in debt. Friends, however, were lavish of their assistance, ^hree of my brothers were sent to school ; the other, at her earnest entreaty, went to live (which he did for some years) with Mrs. Spencer, a sister of Sir Richard Worsley, and a delicious little old woman, the delight of aU the children of her ac- quaintance. My father and mother took breath, in the mean time, undet the friendly roof of Mr, West, who had married her aunt. The aunt 312 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. and niece were much of an age, and both fond of books.* Mrs. West, indeed, ultimately became a martyr to them ; for the physician declared that she lost the use of her limbs by sitting in-doprs. From Newman Street my father went to live in Ham pstead Square, whence he occasionally used to go and preach at Southgate. The then Duke of Chandos had a seat in the neighbourhood of Southgate. He heard my father preach, and was so much pleased with him, that he requested him to become tutor to his nephew, Mr. Leigh ; which my father did, and remained with his Grace's family for several years. The Duke was Master of the Horse, and originated the famous epithet of " heaven-born minister," applied to Mr. Pitt, which occasioned a good deal of raillery. I have heard my father describe him as a man of great sweetness of nature, and good-breeding. Mr. Leigh, who died not long since. Member of Parliament for Addlestrop, was son of the Duke's sister. Lady Caroline. He had a taste for poetry, which has been inherited by his son and heir, Mr. Chandos Leigh ; and, like him, published a volume of poems. He was always very kind to my father, and was, I believe, a most amiable man. It was from him I received my name. . I was born at Southgate in a house now a boarding-school and called Eagle-Hall: a magnificent name for a "preacher's modest mansion ;" but I suppose it did not bear it then. To be tutor in a ducal family is one of the roads to a bishoprick. My father was thought to be in the highest way to it. He was tutor in the house not only of a Duke, but of a State-officer, for whom the King had a personal regard, His manners were of the highest order; his principles in Church and State as orthodox, to all appearance, as could' be wished ; and he had given up flourishing prospects in America for their sake : but his West Indian temperament spoiled all. He also, as he RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 313 became acqifainted with the Government, began to doubt its perfections ; and the King, whose minuteness of information respecting the personal affairs of his subjects is well known, was doubtless prepared with questions which the Duke was not equally prepared to answer, and perhaps did not hazard. My father, meanwhile, was getting more and more distressed. He removed to Hampstead ' a second time : from Hampstead he crossed the water ; and the first room I have any recollection of, is a prison. Mr. West (which was doubly kind in a man by nature cautious and timid) again and again took the liberty of representing my father's circumstances to the King. It is weU known that this artist enjoyed the confidence of his Majesty in no ordinary degree. The King would converse half a day at a time with him, while he was painting. His Majesty said he would speak to the bishops ; and again, on a second application, he said my father should be provided for. My father him- self also presented a petition ; but all that was ever done for him, was the putting his name on the Loyalist Pension List for a hundred-a year ; — a sum which he not only thought extremely inadequate for the loss of seven or eight times as much in America, a cheaper country, but which he felt to be a poor acknowledgment even for the active zeal he had evinced, and the things he had said and written ; especially as it cataie late, and he was already involved. Small as it was, he was obliged to mortgage it ; and from this time till the arrival of some relations from the West Indies, several years afterwards, he under- went a series of mortifications and distresses, not without great reason for self-reproach. Unfortunately for Others, it might be said of him, what Lady Mary Wortley said of her kinsman, Henry Fielding, " that give him his leg of mutton and bottle of wine, and in the very thick ' 2 s 314 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. of calamity he would be happy for the time being." Too well able to seize a passing moment of enjoyment, he was always scheming, never performing; always looking forward with some romantic plan which was sure to succeed, and never put in practice. I believe he wrote more titles of non-existing books than Rabelais. At length, he found his mistake. My poor fathei* ! He grew deeply acquainted with prisons, and began to lose his graces and his good nanie, and became irritable with conscious error, and almost took hope out of the heart that loved him, and was too often glad to escape out of its- society. Yet such an art had he of making his home comfortable when he chose, and of settling himself to the most tranquil pleasures, that if she could have ceased to look forward about her children, I believe, with all his faults, those evenings would have brought unmingled satisfaction to her, when after settling the little apartment, brightening the fire, and bringing out the coffee, my mother knew that her husband was going to read Saurin or Barrow to her, with his fine voice, ai;id unequivocal enjoyment. We thus struggled on between quiet and disturbance, between placid readings and frightful knocks at the door, and sickness, and ca- lamity, and hopes which hardly ever forsook us. One of my brothers went to sea,— a great blow to my poor mother. The next was articled to an attorney. My brother Robert became pupil to an engraver, and my brother John apprentice to Mr. Reynell, the printer, Avhose kindly manners, and deep iron voice, I well remember and respect. I had also a regard for the speaking-trumpet, which ran all the way up his tall house, and conveyed his rugged whispers to his men. And his goodly wife, proud of her husband's grandfather, the Bishop; never shall I ■ forget how much I loved her for her portly smiles and good dinners, and RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 315 how often she used to make me measure heights with her fair daughter Caroline, and found me wanting • which I thought not quite so hos- pitable. As my father's misfortunes, in the first instance, were owing to feel- ings the most respected, so the causes of them subsequently (and the reader wiU be good enough to keep this in mind) were not unmixed with feelings of the kindest nature. He hampered himself greatly with becoming security for other people ; and, though unable to settle himself to any regular work, his pen was always at the service of those who required it for memorials or other helps. As to his children, he was healthy and sanguine, and always looked forward to being able to do something for them ; and something for them he did, if it was only in grafting his animal spirits on the maternal stock, and setting them an example of independent thinking. But he did more. He really took great care, considering his unbusin ess-like habits, towards settling them in some line of life. It is our faults, not his, if we have not been all so successful as we might have been : at least, it is no more his fault than that of the West Indian blood of which we all partake, and which has disposed all of us, more or less, to a certain aversion from business. And if it may be some vanity in us, at least it is no dishonour to our turn of mind, to hope, that we may have been the means of circulating more knowledge and entertainment in society, than if he had attained the bishoprick he looked for, and left us ticketed and labelled among the acquiescent. Towards the latter part of his life, my father's affairs were greatly retrieved by the help of his sister, Mrs. Dayrell, who came over with a property from Barbadoes. My aunt was generous ; part of her property came among us also by a marriage ; and my father's West Indian sun 2 s 2 316 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOB'S LIFE. was again warm upon him. On his sister's death, to be sure, his struggles recommenced, though nothing in comparison to what they had been. Recommence, however, they did; and yet so sanguine was he in his intentions to the last, and so accustomed had my mother been to try to believe in him, and to persuade herself she did, that, not long before she died, he made the most solemn promises of amendment, which by chance I could not help overhearing, and which she received with a tenderness and a tone of joy, the remembrance of which brings the tears into my eyes. My father had one taste well suited to his profession, and in him, I used to think, remarkable. He was very fond of sermons, which he was rarely tired of reading, or my mother of hearing. I have mentioned the effect which these used to have upon her. When she died, he could not bear Jo think she was dead ; yet retaining, in the midst of his tears, his indestructible tendency to seize on a cheering reflection, he turned his very despair into consolation ; and in saying " She is not dead, but sleeps," I verily believe the image became almost a literal thing with him. Besides his fondness for sermons, he was a great reader of the Bible. His copy of it is scored with manuscript ; and I believe he read a portion of it every morning to the last, let him have been as right or as wrong as he pleased for the rest of the day. This was not hypocrisy : it was habit, arid real fondness ; though, while he was no hypocrite, he was not, I must confess, remarkable for being explicit about himself; nor did he cease to dogma,tise in a sort of official manner upon faith and virtue, lenient as he thought himself bound to be to particular instances of frailty. To young people, who had no secrets from him, he was espe- cially indulgent, as I have good reason to know. He delighted to show his sense of a candour in others, which I believe he would have practised himself, had he been taught it early. For many years before his death. IIECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOIl'S LIFE. 317 he had greatly relaxed in the orthodoxy of his religious opinions," and had totally changed his political. Both he and my mother had become Republicans and Unitarians. They were also Universalists, and great admirers of INIr. Winchester, particularly my mother.* My father was willing, however, to hear all sides of the question, and used to visit the chapels of the most popular preachers of all denominations. His favourite among them, 1 think, was Mr. Worthington, who preached at a chapel in Long Acre, and had a strong natural eloquence. Politics and divinity occupied almost all the conversation that I heard at our fire-side. It is a pity my father had been so spoilt a child, and had got so much out of his sphere ; for he could be contented with Uttle. He was one of the last of the gentry who retained the old fashion of smoking. He indulged in 'it every night before he went to bed, which he did at an early hour ; and it was pleasant to see him sit in his tran- quil and gentlemanly manner, and relate anecdotes of " my Lord North" and the Rockingham administration, interspersed with those mild puffs and urbane resumptions of the pipe. How often have I thought of him under "this aspect, and longed for the state of society that might have encouraged him to be more successful! Had he lived twenty years longer, he would have thought il was coming. He died in the year 1809, aged fifty-seven, and was buried in the church-yard in Bishops- gate Street. I remember they quarrelled over his coffin for the per- quisites of the candles ; which put me upon a great many reflections, on him and the world. * " The Universalists cannot, properly speaking, be called a distinct sect, as they are fre- quently found scattered amongst various denominations. They are so named from holding the benevolent opinion that all mankind, nay, even the demons themselves, will be finally restored to happiness, through the mercy of Almighty GoA."— History of All Religions and Religious Ceremonies, p. 263. 318 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S L,TFR. FAMILY rORTUAlTS CONTINUED. — THE AUTHOR'S MOTHER. My grandfather, by my mother's side, was Stephen Shewell, mer- chant of Philadelphia, who sient out his " argosies." His mother was a quaker ; and he himself, I believe, descended from a quaker stock. He had ships trading to England, Holland, and the West Indies, and used to put his sons and nephews in them as captains, probably to sa\^ charges ; for, in every thing but stocking his cellars with provision, he was penurious. For sausages and " botargoes," (first authors, perhaps, - of the jaundice in our blood,) Friar John would have commended him. As Chaucer says, " It snowed, in his house of meat and drink," On that side of the family we seem all sailors and rough subjects, with a mitigation of quakerism ; as, on the father's, we are Creoles and claret- drinkers, very polite and clerical. My grandmother's maiden name was Bickley. I believe her family came from Buckinghamshire. The coat of arms are three half moons ; which I happen to recollect, because of a tradition we had, that an honourable augmentation was made to them of three wheat-sheaves, in reward of some gallant achievement performed in cutting off a convoy of provisions by Sir William Bickley, a partizan of the House of Orange, who w^s made a Banneret. My grandmother was an open-hearted, cheerful woman, of a good healthy blood, and as generous as her hus- IIECOLLECTIONS OP THE AUTHOr's LIFE. 319 band Avas otherwise. The family consisted of five daughters and two sons. One of the daughters died unmarried : the three surviving ones are now wives, and mothers of famihes, in Philadelphia. They and their husbands, agreeably to the American law of equal division, are in the receipt of a pretty property in lands and houses; our due share of which, some inadvertence on our parts appears to have forfeited. I confess I often wish, at the close of a morning's work, that people were not so excessively delicate on legal points, and so afraid of hurting the feehngs of others, by supposing it possible for them to want a little of their grandfather's money. But I believe I ought to blush, while I say this : and I do. — One of my uncles died in England, a mild, excellent creature, more fit for solitude than the sea. The other, my uncle Stephen, a fine handsome fellow of great good-nature and gallantry, was never heard of, after leaving the port of Philadelphia for the West Indies. He had a practice of crowding too much sail, which is supposed to have been his destruction. They said he did it " to get back to his ladies." My uncle was the means of saving his namesake, my brother Stephen, from a singular destiny. Some Indians, who came into the city to traffic, had been observed to notice my brother a good deal. It is supposed they saw in his tall little person, dark face, and long black hair, a resemblance to themselves. One day they enticed him' from my grandfather's house in Front Street, and tak- ing him to the Delaware, which was close by, were carrying him off across the river, when his uncle descried them and gave the alarm. His threats induced them to come back ; otherwise, it is thought, they in- tended to carry him into their own quarters, and bring him up as an Indian ; so that instead of a rare character of another sort, — an attorney 320 RECOIXECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFEI who would rather compound a quarrel for his clients than get rich by it, — we might have had for a brother the Good Buffalo, Bloody Bear, or some such grim personage. I will indulge tmy self with the liberty of observing in this place, that with great diversity of character among us, with strong points of dispute even among ourselves, and with the usual amount, though not perhaps exactly the like nature, of infirmi- ties common to other people, — some of us, may be, with greater, — we are all persons yvho inherit the power of making sacrifices for the sake of what we consider a principle. My grandfather, though intimate with Dr. Franklin, was secretly on the British side of the question, when the American war broke out. He professed to be neutral, and to attend only to business ; but his neutraUty did not avail him. One of his most valuably laden ships was burnt in the Delaware by the Revolutionists, to prevent its getting into the hands of the British ; and besides making free with his botar- goes, they despatched every now and then a file of soldiers to rifle his house of every thing else that could be serviceable : linen, blankets, &c. And this, unfortunately, was only a taste of what he was to suffer ; for, emptying his mercantile stores from time to time, they paid him vnth their continental currency, paper-money: the depreciation of which was so great as to leave him, at the close of the war, bankrupt of every thing but some houses, which his wife brought him ; they amounted to a sufficiency for the family support : and thus, after all his cunning neutralities, and his preference of individual to public good, he owed all that he retained to a generous and unspeculating woman. His saving grace, however, was not on every possible occasion confined to his money. He gave a very strong instance (for him) of his partiality RECOLLECTIOKS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 321 to the British cause, by secreting in his house a gentleman of i the name of Slater, who commanded a small armed vessel on the Delaware, and who is now residing in London. Mr. Slater had been taken prisoner, and confined at some miles distance from Philadelphia. He contrived to make his escape, and astonished my grandfather's family by appearing before them at night, drenched in the rain, which descends in torrents in that climate. They secreted him for several months, in a room at the top of the house. My mother, at that time, was a brunette with fine eyes, a tall lady- like person, and hair blacker than is seen of English growth. It was supposed, that the Anglo-Americans already began to exhibit the in- fluence of climate in their appearance. The late Mr. West told me, that if he had met myself or any of my brothers in the streets, he should have pronounced, without knowing us, that we were Americans. A likeness has been discovered between us and some of the Indians in his pictures. My mother had no accomplishments but the two best of all, a love of nature and of books. Dr. Franklin offered to teach her the guitar ; but she was too bashful to become his pupil. She regretted this afterwards, partly no doubt for having missed so illustrious a master. Her first child, who died, was named after him. I know not whether the anecdote is new; but I have heard, that when Dr. Franklin in- vented the Harmonica, he concealed it from his wife, till the instrument was fit to play ; and then woke her with it one night, when she took it for the music of angels. Among the visitors at my grandfather's house, besides Franklin, was Thomas Paine ; whom I have heard my mother speak of, as having a countenance that inspired her with terror. I believe his aspect was not captivating ; but most likely his, 21 T 322 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOE's LIFE. political and religious opinions did it no good in the eyes of the fair loyalist. My mother was diffident of her personal merit, but she had great energy of principle. When the troubles broke out, and my father tdok that violent part in favour of the King, a letter w^as received by her from a person high in authority, stating, that if her husband would desist from opposition to the general wishes of the Colonists, he should remain in security ; but that if he thought fit to do otherwise, he must suffer the consequences which inevitably awaited him. The letter concluded with advising her, as she valued her husband's and family's happiness, to use her influence with him to act accordingly. To this, " in the spirit of old Rome and Greece," as one of her sons has proudly and justly observed, (I will add, of Old England, and though contrary to her opinions then, of New America too) my mother replied, that she knew her husband's mind too well, to suppose for a moment that he would so degrade himself; and that the writer of the letter entirely mistook her, if he thought her capable of endeavour- ing to persuade him to any action contrary to the convictions of his heart, whatever the consequences threatened might be. Yet the heart of this excellent woman, strong as it was, was already beating with anxiety for what might occur; and on the day when my father was seized, she fell into a fit of the jaundice, so violent, as to affect her ever afterwards, and subject a previously fine constitution to every ill that came across it. It was about two years before my mother could set. off with her children for England. She embarked in the Earl of Effingham frigate. Captain Dempster ; who from the moment she was drawn up the sides RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 323 of the vessel with her little boys, conceived a pity and respect for her, and paid her the most cordial attention. In "truth, he felt more pity for her than he chose to express ; for the vessel was old and battered, and he thought the voyage not without danger. Nor was it. They did very well till they came off the Scilly islands, when a storm arose which threatened to sink them. The ship was with difficulty kept above water. Here my mother again showed how courageous her heart could be, by the very strength of its tenderness. There was a lady in the vessel, who had betrayed weaknesses of various sorts during the voyage ; and who even went so far as to resent the superior opinion, which the gallant Captain could not help entertaining of her feUow-passenger. My mother, instead of giving way to tears and lamentations, did aU she could to keep up the spirits of her children. The lady in question did the reverse ; and my mother, feeling the necessity of the case, and touched with pity for children in the same danger as her own, was at length moved to break through the deUcacy she had observed, and ex- postulate strongly with her, to the increased admiration of the Cap- tain, who congratulated himself on having a female passenger so truly worthy of the name of woman. Many years afterwards, near the same spot, and during a similar danger, her son, the writer of this book, with a wife and seven children around him, had occasion to call her to mind ; and the example was of service, even to him, a man. It was thought a miracle that the JEarl of Effingham was saved. It was driven into Swansea bay : and borne along, by the heaving might of the waves, into a shallow, where no vessel of so large a size ever appeared be- fore ; nor could it ever have got there, but by so unwonted an over- lifting. 2 T 2 324 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOE'S LIFE. Having been born nine years later than the youngest of my bro- thers, I have no recollection of my mother's earlier aspect. Her eyes were always fine, and her person lady-like ; her hair also retained its colour for a long period ; but her brown complexion had been ex- changed for a jaundiced one, which she retained through life ; and her cheeks were sunken, and her mouth drawn down with sorrow at the corners. She retained the energy of her character on great occasions ; but her spirit in ordinary was weakened, and she looked at the bustle and discord of the present state of society with a frightened aversion. My father's danger, and the war-whoops of the Indians, which she heard in Philadelphia, had shaken her soul as well as frame. The sight of two men fighting in the streets would drive her in tears down another road ; and I remember when we lived near the Park, she would take me a long circuit out of the way, rather than hazard the spectacle of the soldiers. Little did she think of the timidity into which she was thus inoculating me, and what difficulty I should have, when I went to school, to sustain all those fine theories, and that unbending resistance to oppression, which she inculcated upon me. However, perhaps it ultimately turned out for the best. One must feel more than usual for the sore places of h|Umanity, even to fight properly in their be- half. Never shall I forget her face, as it used to appear to me coming up the cloisters, with that weary hang of the head on one side, and that melancholy smile ! One holiday, in a severe winter, as she was taking me home, she was petitioned for charity by a woman, sick and iU clothed; It was in Blackfriars' Road ; I think about midway. My mother, with the tears in her eyes, turned up a gate-way, or some such place, and beckoning the woman to follow, took off her flannel petticoat, UECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 325 and gave it her. It is supposed that a cold which ensued, fixed the rheumatism upon her for life. Actions like these have doubtless been often performed, and do not of necessity imply any great virtue in the performer ; but they do, if they are of a piece with the rest of the cha- racter. Saints have been made for actions no greater. The reader will allow me to quote a passage out of a poem of mine, because it was suggested by a recollection I had upon me of this excel- lent woman. It is almost the only passage in that poem worth repeat- ing : which I mention, in order that he may lay the quotation purely to its right account, and not suppose I am anxious to repeat my verses because I fancy I cannot write bad ones. In every thing but the word " happy," the picture , is from life. The bird spoken of is the nightin- gale, — the " Bird of wakeful glow Whose louder song is like the voice of life. Triumphant o'er death's image ; but whose deep. Low, lonelier note is like a gentle wife, A poor, a pensive, yet a happy one. Stealing, when day-light's common tasks are done. An hour for mother's work ; and singing low. While her tired husband and her children sleep." I have spoken of my mother during my father's troubles in En- gland. She stood by him through them all ; and in every thing did more honour to marriage, than marriage did good to either of them : for it brought little happiness to her, and too many children to both. Of his changes of opinion, as well as of fortune, she partook also. She became an Unitarian, an Universalist, a Republican: and in her new opinions, as in her old, was apt, I suspect, to be a little too peremp- 326 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR's LIFE. tory, and to wonder at those who could be of the other side. It was her only fault. I believe she would have mended it, had she lived till now. I have been thought, in my time, to speak in unwarrantable terms of kings and princes. I think I did, and that society is no longer to be bettered in that manner, but iii a much calmer and nobler way. But I was witness, in my childhood, to a great deal of suffering ; I heard of more all over the world ; and kings and princes bore a great share in the causes to which they were traced. Some of those causes were not to be denied. It is now understood, on all hands, that the continuation of the American war was owing to the personal stubbornness of the King. My mother, in her indignation at him, for being the cause of so much unnecessary bloodshed, thought that the unfortunate malady into which he fell, was a judgment on him from Providence. The truth is, it was owing to mal-organization, and to the diseases of his father and mother. Madness, indeed, considered as an overwrought state of the wiU, may be considered as the natural malady of kings. They are in a false position, with regard to the rest of society ; and their marriages with none but each other's families tend to give the race its last deterio- ration. But in the case of the late unhappy monarch, the causes were obvious. My mother would now have reasoned better. She would have increased her stock of experience and observation ; and in addi- tion to her excellent understanding, she would have had the light of modern philosophy, by which Christianity itself is better read. After • aU, her intolerance was only in theory. When any thing was to be done, charity in her always ran before faith. If she could have served and benefited the King himself personally, indignation i^^ould soon have given way to humanity. She had a high opinion of every RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 327 thing that was decorous and feminine on the part of a wife ; yet when a poor violent woman, the wife of a very amiable and exemplary preacher, went so far on one occasion as to bite his hand in a fit of jealous rage as he was going to ascend his pulpit, (and he preached with it in great pain,) she was the only female of all her acquaintance that continued to visit her ; alleging, that she wanted society and comfort so much the more. She had the highest notions of chastity ; yet when a servant came to her, who could get no place because she had had a child, my mother took her into her family, upon the strength of her candour and her destitute condition, and was served with an affectionate gratitude. My mother's favourite books were " Dr. Young's Night Thoughts," (which was a pity,) and Mrs. Howe's " Devout Exercises of the Heart." She was very fond of poetry, and used to hoard my verses in her pocket- book, and encourage me to write, by showing them to the Wests, and the Thorntons; the latter, her dearest friends, loved and honoured her to the last : and I believe they retain their regard for the family, po- litics notwithstanding. My mother's last illness was very long, and was tormented with rheumatism. I en\j my brother Robert the recol- lection of the filial attentions he paid her ; but they shall be as much known as I can make them, not because he is my brother, (which is nothing), but because he was a good son, which is much; and every good son and mother will be my warrant. My other bro- thers, who were married, were away with their families ; and I, who ought to have attended more, was as giddy as I was young, or rather a great deal more so. I attended, but not enough. How often have we occasion to wish that we could be older or younger than we are, 328 UECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOB's LIFE. according as we desire to have the benefit of gaiety or experience ! — Her greatest pleasure during her decay was to lie on a sofa, looking at the setting sun. She used to liken it to the door of heaven ; and fancy her lost children there, waiting for her. She died in the fifty- third year of her age, in a little miniature house which stands in a row behind the church that has been since built in Somers Town ; and was buried, as she had always wished to be, in the church-yard of Hampstead. FAMILY PORTRAITS CONTINUED. — THE LATE MR. WEST, AND HIS GALLERY. The two principal houses at which I visited when a boy, tiU the arrival of our relations from the West Indies, were Mr. West's (late Pre- sident of the Academy) in Newman-street, and Mr. Godfrey Thornton's (of the celebrated mercantile family) in Austin Friars. How I loved the graces in one, and every thing in the other ! Mr. West had bought his house, not long, I believe, after he came to England ; and he had added a gallery at the back of it, terminating in a couple of lofty rooms. The gallery was a continuation of the hall-passage, and, together with the rooms, formed three sides of a garden, very small but elegant, with a grass-plot in the middle, and busts upon stands under an arcade. In the interior, the gallery made an angle at a little distance as you went up it ; then a shorter one, and then took a longer stretch into the two rooms ; and it was hung with his sketches and other pictures aU RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 329 the way. In a corner between the two angles, and looking down the longer part of the gallery, was a study, with casts of Venus and Apollo on each side the door. The two rooms contained the largest of his pictures ; and in the farther one, after stepping softly down the gallery, as if respecting the dumb Hfe on the walls, you generally found the mild and quiet artist at his work; happy, for he thought himself immortal. I need not enter into the merits of an artist who is so well known, and has been so often criticised. He was a man with regular, mild features ; and, though of Quaker origin, had the look of what he was, a painter to a court. His appearance was so gentlemanly, that the moment he changed his gown for a coat, he seemed to be fuU dressed. The simplicity and self-possession of the young Quaker, not having time enough to grow stiff, (for he went early to study at Rome,) took up, I suppose, with more ease than most would have done, the urbanities of his new position. And what simplicity helped him to, favour would retain. Yet this man, so well bred, and so indisputably clever in his art, (whatever might be the amount of his genius,) had received so careless, or so homely an education when a boy, that he could hardly read. He pro- nounced also some of his -words, in reading, with a puritanical barbarism, such as halve for have, as some people pronounce when they sing psalms. But this was perhaps an American custom. My mother, who both read and spoke remarkably well, would say. halve, and shaul (for shall), when she sung her hymns. But it was not so well in reading lectures at the Academy. Mr. West would talk of his art all day long, painting aU the while. On other subjects he was not so fluent; and on political and religious matters he tried hard to maintain the reserve common with^ those about a court. He succeeded ill in both. There were always 2 u 330 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. strong suspicions of his leaning to his native side in politics ; and during Bonaparte's triumph, he could not contain his enthusiasm for the Re- publican chief, going even to Paris to pay him his homage, when First Consul. The admiration of high colours and powerful effects, natural to a painter, was too strong for him. How he managed this matter with the higher powers in England, I cannot say. Probably -he was the less heedful, inasmuch as he was not very carefully paid. I believe he did a great deal for the late King, with very little profit. The honour in these cases is too apt to be thought enough. Mr. West certainly kept his love for Bonaparte no secret ; and it was no wonder, for the conqueror ex- pressed an admiration of his pictures. He thought his smile enchanting, and that he had the handsomest leg and thigh he had ever seen. He was present when the " Venus de Medicis" was talked of, the French having just then taken possession of her. Bonaparte, Mr. West said, turned round to those about him, and said, with his eyes lit up, " She 's coming !" as if he had been talking of a living person. I believe he retained for the Emperor the love that he had had for the First Consul, a wedded love, " for better, for worse." However, I believe also that he retained it after the Emperor's downfal ; which is not what every painter did. But I am getting out of my chronology. The quiet of Mr. West's gallery, the tranquil, intent beauty of the statues, and the subjects of some of the pictures, particularly Death on the Pale Horse, the Deluge, the Scotch King hunting the Stag, Moses on Mount Sinai, Christ Healing the Sick, (a sketch,) Sir Philip Sidney giving up the Water to the Dying Soldier, the Installation of the Knights of the Garter, and Opheha before the King and Queen, (one of the best things he ever did,) made a great impression upon me. My mother and I used to go down RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, 331 the gallery together, as if we were treading on wool. She was in the habit of stopping to look at some of the pictures, particularly the Ueluge aTid the Ophelia, with a countenance quite awe-stricken. She used also to point out to me the subjects relating to liberty and patriot- ism, and the domestic affections. Agrippina bringing home the Ashes of Germanicus was a great favourite with her. I remember, too, the awful delight afforded us by the Angel slaying the Army of Senna- cherib ; a bright figure lording it in the air, with a chaos of human beings below. As Mr. West was almost sure to be found at work in the farthest room, habited in his white w^oollen gown, so you might have predicated, with equal certainty, that Mrs. West was sitting in the parlour reading. I used to think, that if I had such a parlour to sit in, I should do just as she did. It was a good-sized room, with two windows looking out on the little garden I spoke of, and opening to it from one of them by a flight of steps. The garden with its busts in it, and the pictures which you knew were on the other side of its wall, had an Italian look. The room was hung with engravings and coloured prints. Among them was the Lion's Hunt, from Rubens; the Hierarchy with the Godhead, from Raphael, which I hardly thought it right to look at ; and two screens by the fire-side, containing prints, from Angelica Kauffman, of the Loves of Angelica and Medoro, which I could have looked at frota morning to night. Angelica's intent eyes, I thought, had the best of it; but I thought so without knowing why. This gave me a love for Ariosto before I knew him. I got Hoole's translation, but could make nothing of it. Angelica Kauffman seemed to me to have done much more for her namesake. She could see farther into a pair of eyes than Mr. Hoole with his spectacles. This reminds me that I could make as little 2u 2 332 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOn's MFE. of Pope's Homer, which a schoolfellow of mine was always reading, and which I was ashamed of not heing able to like. It was not that I did not admire Pope ; but the words in his translation always took precedence in my mind of the things, and the unvarying sweetness of his versification tired me before I knew the reason. This did not hinder me afterwards from trying to imitate it ; nor from succeed ing, as every body else succeeds. It is his wit and closeness that are the difficult things, and that make him what he is ; — a truism, which the mistakes of critics on divers sides have made it but too warrantable to repeat. Mrs. West and my mother used to talk of old times, and Philadel- phia, and my father's prospects at court. I sat apart with a book, from which I stole glances at Angelica. I had a habit at that time of holding my breath, which forced me every now and then to take long sighs. Mrs. West would offer me a bribe not to sigh. I would earn it once or twice ; but the sighs were sure to return. These wagers I did not care for ; but I remember being greatly mortified when Mr. West offer- ed me half-a-crown if I would solve the old question of " Who was the father of Zebedee's children?" and I could not tell him. He never made his appearance till dinner, and returned to his painting-room directly after it. And so at tea-time. The talk was very quiet ; the neighbour- hood quiet ; the servants quiet ; I thought the very squirrel in the cage would have made a greater noise any where else. James the porter, a fine taU fellow, who figured in his master's pictures as an apostle, was as quiet as he was strong. Standing for his picture had become a sort of religion with him. Even the butler, with his little twinkling eyes, full of pleasant conceit, vented his notions of himself in half tones and RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ACITHOIl'S LIFE. 333 whispers. This was a strange fantastic person. He got my brother Robert to take a likeness of him, small enough to be contained in a shirt pin. It was thought that his twinkling eyes, albeit not young, had some fair cynosure in the neighbourhood. What was my brother's amazement, when, the next time he saw him, the butler said, with a face of enchanted satisfaction, "Well, Sir, you see!" making a movement at the same time with the frill at his waistcoat. The miniature that was to be given to the object of his affections, had been given accordingly^ It was in his own bosom. EARLY FRIENDS. — FAMILY OF THE THORNTONS. Notwithstanding my delight with the house at the West end of the town, it was not to compare with my beloved one in the City, There was quiet in the one ; there were beautiful statues and pictures ; and there was my AngeUca for me, with her intent eyes, at the fire-side. But, besides quiet in the other, there was cordiality, and there was music, and a family brimful of hospitality and good-nature, and dear Almeria T. (now Mrs. P- e,) who in vain pretends that she is grow- ing old, which is what she never did, shaU, would, might, should, or could do. Those were indeed holidays, on which I used to go to Austin Friars. The house (such at least are my boyish recollections) was of the description I have been ever fpndest of, — ^large, rambling, old- 334 IlECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. fashioned, solidly built, resembling the mansions about Highgate and other old villages. It was furnished as became the house of a rich merchant and a sensible man, the comfort predominating over the co&t- lihess. At the back was a garden with a lawn ; and a private door opened into another garden, belonging to the Company of Drapers ; So that, what with the secluded nature of the street itself, and these verdant places behind it, it was truly rus in urhe, and a retreat. When I turned down the archway, I held my mother's hand tighter with pleasure, and was full of expectation, and joy, and respect. My first delight was in mounting the staircase to the rooms of the young ladies, setting my eyes on the comely and sparkling countenance of my fair friend with her romantic name, and turning over, for the hundredth time, the books in her library. What she did with the volumes of the Turkish Spy, what they meant, or what amusement she could extract from them, was an eternal mystification to nie. Not long ago, meeting with a copy of the book accidentally, I pounced upon my old acquaint- ance, and found him to contain better and more amusing stuff than people would suspect from his dry look and his obsolete politics.* The face of tenderness and respect with which A used to welcome my mother, springing forward with her fine buxom figure to supply the strength which the other wanted, and showing what an equality of love there may be between youth and middle-age, and rich and poor, I should * The Turkish Spy is a sort of philosophical newspaper in volumes ; and, under a mask of bigotry, speculates very freely on all subjects. It is said to have been written by an Italian Jesuit of the name of Marana. The first volume has been attributed, however, to Sir Roger Manley, father of the author of the Atalantis ; and the rest to Dr. Midgeley, a friend of his. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 335 never cease to love her for, had she not been, as she was, one of the best-natured persons in the world in every thing. I have not seen her now for many years ; but with that same face, whatever change she may pretend to find it, she will go to Heaven ; for it is the face of her spirit. A good heart never grows old. Of George T , her brother, who will pardon this omission of his worldly titles, whatever they may be, I have a similar kind of recollec- tion, in its proportion ; for, though we knew him thoroughly, we saw hkn less. The sight of his face was an additional sunshine to my holiday. He was very generous and handsome-minded ; a genuine human being. Mrs. T , the mother, a very lady-like woman, in a delicate state of health, we usually found reclining on a sofa, always ailing, but always with a smile for us. The father, a man of a large habit of body, panting with asthma, whom we seldom saw but at din- ner, treated us with all the family delicacy, and would have me come and sit next him, which I did with a mixture of joy and dread ; for it was painful to hear him breathe. I dwell the more upon these atten- tions, because the school that I was in held a sort of equivocal rank in point of what is called respectability ; and it was no less an honour to another, than to ourselves, to know when to place us upon a hberal footing. Young as I was, I felt this point strongly ; and was touched with as grateful a tenderness towards those who treated me handsomely, as I retreated inwardly upon a proud consciousness of my Greek and Latin, when the supercilious would have humbled me. Blessed house ! May a blessing be upon your rooms, and your lawn, and your neigh- bouring garden, and the quiet old monastic name of your street ! and may it never be a thoroughfare ! and may all youf inmates be happy ! 336 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. Would to God one could renew, at a moment's notice, the happy hours we have enjoyed in past times, with the same circles, and in the' same houses ! A planet with such a privilege would be a great lift nearer Heaven. What prodigious evenings, reader, we would have of it! What fine pieces of childhood, of youth, of manhood — ay, and of age, as long as our friends lasted ! The old gentleman in Gil Bias, who complained that the peaches were not so fine as they used to be when he was young, had more reason than appears on the face of it. He missed not only his former palate, but the places he ate them in, and those who ate them with him. I have been told, that the cranberries I have met with since must be as fine as those I got with the T.'s ; as large and as juicy ; and that they came from the same place. For all that, I never ate a cranberry-tart since I dined in Austin-Friars. FAMILY PORTRAITS RESUMED. — MORE WEST INDIANS. — A SCHOOL- BOY'S FIRST LOVE. I SHOULD have fallen in love with A. T., had I been old enough. As it was, my first flame, or my first notion of a flame, which is the same thing in those days, was for my giddy cousin Fan. a quick- silver West Indian. Her mother, the aunt I spoke of, had just come from Barbadoes with her two daughters and a sister. She was a woman of a princely spirit ; and having a good property, and every wish to make her relations more comfortable, she did so. It became RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 337 holiday with us all. My mother raised her head ; my father grew young again ; my cousin Kate conceived a regard for one of my brothers, and married him ; and for my part, besides my pictures and Italian garden at Mr. West's, and my beloved old English house in Austin Friars, I had now another paradise in Great Ormond-street. My aunt had something of the West Indian pride, but all in a good spirit, and was a mighty cultivator of the gentilities, inward as weU as outward. I did not dare to appear before her with dirty hands, she would have rebuked me so handsomely. For some reason or other, the marriage of my brother and his cousin was kept secret a little while. I became acquainted with it by chance, coming in upon a holiday, the day the ceremony took place. Instead of keeping me out of the secret by a trick, they very wisely resolved upon trusting me with it, and relying upon my honour. My honoUr happ'ened to be put to the test, and I came off with flying colours. It is to this circumstance I trace the religious idea I have ever since entertained of keeping a secret. I -went with the bride and bridegroom to church, and remember kneeling apart and weeping bitterly. My tears were unaccountable to me then. Doubtless they were owing to an instinctive sense of the great change that was taking place in the lives of two human beings, and of the unalterableness of the engagement. Death and Life seem to come together on these occasions, like awful guests at a feast, and look one another in the face. It was not with such good effect that my aunt raised my notions of a schoolboy's pocket-money to half-crowns, and crowns, and half- guineas. My father and mother were both as generous as daylight ; but they could not give what they had not. I had been unused to spending, and accordingly I spent with a vengeance. I remember a ludicrous 2 X 338 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOU'S LIFE. instance. The first half-guinea that I received brought about me a consultation of companions to know how to get rid of it. One shilling was devoted to pears, another to apples, another to cakes, and so on, all to be bought immediately, as they were; till coming to the. sixpence; and being struck with a recollection that I ought to do some- thing useful with that, I bought sixpenn'orth of shoe-strings : these, no doubt, vanished like the rest. The next half-guinea came to the knowledge of the master : he interfered, which was one of his proper actions ; and my aunt practised more self-denial in future. Our new family from abroad were true West Indians, or, as they would have phrased it, " true Barbadians born." They were generous, warm-tempered, had great good-nature; were proud, but not unplea-- santly so; lively, yet indolent; temperately epicurean in their diet; fond of company, and dancing, and music; and lovers of show, but far from withholding the substance. I speak, chiefly of the mother and daughters. My other aunt, an elderly maiden, who . piqued herself on the delicacy of her hands and ankles, and made you understand how many suitors she had refused (for which ,she expressed any thing but repentance, being extremely vexed), was not deficient in complexional good-nature ; but she was narrow-minded, and seemed to care for nothing in the world but two things: first, for her elder niece Kate, whomi she had helped to nurse; and second, for a becoming set-out of coffee and buttered toast, particularly of a morning, when it was taken up to her in bedi with a salver and other necessaries of life. • Yes ; there was one more indispensable thing, — slavery. It was frightful to hear her small mouth and little mincing tones assert the necessity not only of slaves, but of robust corporal punishment to keep them to their duty. But she did this, because her want of ideas could do no otherwise. Having RECOI.LKCTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 339 had slaves, she wondered how any body could object to so natural and lady-like an establishment. Late in life, she took to fancying that every polite old gentleman was in love with her ; and thus she lived on, till her dying moment, in a flutter of expectation. The black servant must have puzzled this aunt of mine sometimes. AU the wonder of which she was capable, he certainly, must have roused, not without " a quaver of consternation." This man had come over with them from the West Indies. He was a slave On my aunt's estate, and as such demeaned himself, tiU he learnt that there was no such thing as a slave in England; that the moment a man sets his foot on English ground he was free. I cannot help smiling to think of the bewildered astonishment into which his first overt-act, in consequence of this know- ledge must have put my poor aunt Courthope (for that was her Christian name). Most likely it broke out in the shape of some remonstrance about his fellow-servant. He partook of the pride common to all the Barbadians, black as well as white ; and the maid-servants tormented him. I remember his coming up in the parlour one day, and making a ludicrous representation of the affronts put upon his office and person, interspersing his chattering and gesticulations with explanatory dumb show. One of them was a pretty girl, who had manoeuvred till she got him stuck in a corner ; and he insisted upon telling us all that she said and did. His rfespect for himself had naturally increased since he became free ; but he did not know what to do with it. Poor Samuel was not ungenerous, after his fashion. He also wished, with his freedom,, to acquire a free- man's knowledge, but stuck fast at pothooks and hangers. To frame a written B he pronounced a thing impossible. Of his powers on the violin he made us more sensible, not without frequent remonstrances, which it must have taken all my aunt's good-nature to make her repeat. 2x2 340 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. He had left two wives in Barbadoes, one of whom was brought to-bed of a son a little after he came away. For this son he wanted a name, that was to be new, sounding, and long. - They referred him to the reader of Homer and Virgil. With classical names he was well acquainted, Mars and Venus being among his most intimate friends, besides Jupiters and Adonises, and Dianas with large families. At length we succeeded with Neoptolemus. He said he had never heard it before ; and he made me write it for him in a great text hand, that there might be no mistake. My aunt took a country house at Merton, in Surrey, where I passed three of the happiest weeks of my life. It was the custom at our school, in those days, to allow us only one set of unbroken holidays during the whole time we were there, — I mean, holidays in which we remained away from school by night as well as by day. The period was always in August. Imagine a schoolboy passionately fond of the green fields, who had never slept out of the heart of the city for years.' It was a compensation even for the pang of leaving my friend ; and then what letters I would write to him ! And what letters I did write! What full measure of affection, pressed down, and running over ! I read, vvalked, had a garden and orchard to run in ; and fields that I could have rolled in, to have my will of them. My father accompanied me to Wimbledon to see Home Tooke, who patted me on the head. I felt very differently under his hand, and under that of the Bishop of London, when he confirmed a crowd of us in St. Paul's. Not that I thought of politics, though I had a sense of his being a patriot ; but patriotism, as well as every thing else, was connected in my mind with something classical, and Home Tooke held his political reputation with iaie by the same tenure that he held his fame for learning and gram- matical knowledge. " The learned Home Tooke" was the designation RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 341 by which I styled him in some verses I wrote ; in which verses, by the way, with a poetical licence which would have been thought more clas- sical by Queen Elizabeth than my master, I called my aunt a " nymph." In the ceremony of confirmation by the Bishop, there was something too official, and like a despatch of business, to excite my veneration. My head only anticipated the coming of his hand, with a thrill in the scalp : and when it came, it tickled me. My cousins had the celebrated Dr. Callcott for a music-master. The doctor, who was a scholar and a great reader, was so pleased with me, one day for being able to trans- late the beginning of Xenophon's Anabasis, (one of our school-books,) that he took me out with him to Nunn's, the bookseller's in Great Queen Street, and made me a present of " Schrevelius's. Lexicon." When he came down to Merton, he let me ride his horse. What days were those ! Instead of being roused against my will by a bell, I jumped up with the lark, and strolled " out of bounds." Instead of bread and Avater for breakfast, I had coffee and tea, and buttered toast : for dinner, not a hunk of bread and a modicum of hard meat, or a bowl of pretended broth, but fish, and fowl, and noble hot joints, and puddings, and sweets, and Guava jellies, and other West Indian mysteries of peppers and preserves, and wine : and then I had tea ; and I sat up to supper like a man, and lived so well, that I might have been very ill, had I not run about all the rest of the day. My strolls about the fields with a book were full of happiness: only my dress used to get me stared at by the villagers. Walking one day by the little- river Waridle, I came upon one of the loveliest girls I ever beheld, standing in the water with bare legs, washing some linen. She turned, as she was stooping, and showed a blooming oval face with blue eyes, on either side of which flowed a profusion of flaxen locks. With the exception of the colour 342 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHORS LIJb'E. of the hair, it was like Raphael's own head turned into a peasant girl's. The eyes were full of gentle astonishment at the sight of me ; and mine must have wondered no less. However, I was prepared for such wonders. It was only one of my poetical visions realized, and I .ex- pected to find the world full of them. What she thought of my blue skirts and yellow stockings, is not so dear. She did not, however, haunt me with my " petticoat," as the girls in the streets of London would do, making me blush, as I thought they ought to have done instead. My beauty in the brook was too gentle and diffident: at least I thought so, and my own heart did not contradict me. I then took every beauty for an Arcadian, and every brook for a fairy stream ; and the reader would be surprised, if he knew to what an extent I have a similar tendency stiU. I find the same possibilities by another path. I do not remember whether an Abb6 Paris, who taught my cousins French, used to see them in the country ; but I never shall forget him in Ormond Street. He was an emigrant, very gentlemanly, with a face of remarkable benignity, and a voice that became it. He spoke English in a slow manner, that was very graceful. I shall never forget his saying one day, in answer to somebody who pressed him on the subject, and in the mildest of tones, that without doubt it was impossible to be saved out of the pale of the Catholic Church. This made a strong imptession upon me. One contrast of thii§ sort reminds me of another. My aunt Courthope had something growing out on one of her knuckles, which she was afraid to let a surgeon look at. There was a Dr. Chap- man, a West India physician, who came to see us, a person of great suavity of manners, with aU that air of languor and want of energy which the West Indians often exhibit. He was in the habit of inquiring, with the softest voice in the world, how my axmt's hand was ; and coming IIECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 343 one day upon us in the midst of dinner, and sighing forth his usual question, she gaA'e it him over her shoulder to look at. In a moment she shrieked, and the swelling was gone. The meekest of doctors had done it away with his lancet. I had no drawback on my felicity at Merton, with the exception of an occasional pang at my friend's absence, and a new vexation that sur- prised and mortified me. I had been accustomed at school to sleep with sixty boys in the room, and some old night-fears that used to haunt me were forgotten. No manticoras there ! — no old men crawling on the floor ! What was my chagrin, when on sleeping alone, after so long a period, I found my terrors come back again ! — not, indeed, in all the same shapes. Beasts could frighten me no longer ; but I was at the mercy of any other ghostly fiction that I presented to my mind crawling or ramping. I struggled hard to say nothing about it ; but my days began to be discoloured with fear of my nights ; and with unutterable humi- liation I begged that the footman might be allowed to sleep in the same room,, Luckily, my request was attended to in the kindest and most reconcihng manner. I was pitied for my fears, but praised for my candourr— a balance of qualities, which, I have reason to believe, did me a service far beyond that of the moment. Samuel, who, fortunately for my shame, had a great respect for fear of this kind, had his bed removed accordingly into my room. He used to entertain me at night with stories of Barbadoes and the negroes; and in a few days I was re^ assured and happy. It was then (Oh shame that, I must speak of fair lady after confessing a heart so faint!) — it was then that I fell in love with my cousin Fan. However, I would have fought all her young acquaintances round for her, timid as I was, and little inclined to pugnacity. 344 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. Fanny was a lass of fifteen, with little laughing eyes, and a mouth like a plum. I was then (I feel as if I ought to be ashamed tO say it) not more than thirteen, if so old ; but I had read Tooke's Pantheon, and came of a precocious race. My cousin came of, one too, and was about to be married to a handsome young fellow of three-and-twenty. I thought notWng of this, for nothing could be more innocent than my intentions. I was not old enough, or grudging enough, or whatever it was, even to be jealous. 1 thought every body must love Fanny D ; and if she did not leave me out in permitting it, I was satisfied'. It was enough for me to be with her as long as I could; to gaze on her with delight, as she floated hither and thither ; and to sit on the stiles in the neighbouring fields, thinking of Tooke's Pantheon. My friend- ship was greater than my love. Had my favourite schoolfellow been ill, or otherwise demanded my return, I should certainly have chosen his society in preference. Three-fourths of my heart were devoted to friendship ; the rest was in a vague dream of beauty, and female cousins, and nymphs, and green fields, and a feeling which, though of a warm nature, was full of fear and respect. Had the jade put me on the least equality of footing as to age, I know not what change might have been wrought in me ; but though too young herself for the serious duties she was about to bring on her, and fuU of sufficient levity and gaiety not to be uninterested with the little black-eyed schoolboy that lingered about her, my vanity was weU paid off by her's, for she kept me at a distance by calling me petit gargon. This was no better than the assumption of an elder sister in her teens over a younger one ; but the latter feels it, nevertheless ; and I persuaded myself that it was particularly cruel. I wished the Abb6 Paris at Jamaica with his French. There would she come, in her frock and RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 315 tucker, (for she had not yet left ofF either,) her curls dancing, and her hands clasped together in the enthusiasm of something to tell me, and when I flew to meet her, forgetting the difference of ages, and alive only to my charming cousin, she would repress me with a little fillip on the cheek, and say, " Well, petit gar^on, what do you think of that ?" The worst of it was, that this odious French phrase sat insufferably well upon her plump little mouth. She and 1 used to gather peaches before the house were up. I held the ladder for her; she mounted like a fairy, and when I stood doating on her, as she looked down and threw the fruit in my lap, she would cry, " Petit gar^on, you will let 'em all drOp !" On my return to school, she gave me a locket for a keepsake, in the shape of a heart ; which was the worst thing she ever did to the petit gar^on, for it touched me on my weak side, and looked like a sentiment. I believe I should have had serious thoughts of becoming melancholy, had I not, in returning to school, returned to my friend, and so found means to occupy my craving for sympathy. However, I wore the heart a long while. I have sometimes thought there was more in her French than I imagined ; but I believe not. She naturally took herself for double my age, with a lover of three-and-twenty. Soon after her marriage, fortune separated us for many years. My passion had almost as soon died away ; but I have loved the name of Fanny ever since ; and when I met her again, which was under circumstances of trouble on her part, I could not see her without such an emotion as I was fain to confess to a person " near and dear," who forgave me for it, which is one of the reasons I have for loving the said person so well. Yes ; the black ox trod on the fairy foot of my light-hearted cousin Fan. ; of her whom I could no more have thought of in conjunction with sorrow, than of a ball-room with a 2 Y 346 UECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. tragedy. To know that she was rich, and admired, and abounding in mirth and music, was to me the same thing as to know that she existed. How often have I wished myself rich in turn, that I might have re- stored her to all the graces of life ! She is generous, and would not have grudged me the satisfaction. A SCHOOLMASTER OF THE OLD LEAVEN: WITH AN ACCOUNT OF CHRIST-HOSPITAL. To describe so well-known a school as Christ-Hospital, would to thou- sands of readers be superfluous ; but to such as are unacquainted with the City, or with a certain track of reading, it still remains a curiosity, Thousands, indeed, have gone through the City and never suspected that in the heart of it lies an old cloistered foundation, where a boy may grow up, as I did, among six hundred others, and know as little of the very neighbourhood as the world does of him. But it is highly interesting on other accounts. Perhaps there is not a foundation in the country so truly English, taking that word to mean what Englishmen wish it to mean ; — something solid, unpretending, of good character, and free to all. More boys are to be found in it, who issue from a greater variety of ranks, than in any other school in the kingdom; and as it is the most various, so it is the largest, of aU the free-schools. Nobility do not go there, except as boarders. Now and then, a boy of a noble fapaily may be met with, and he is reckoned an interloper, and against the charter ; but the sons of poor RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 347 gentry and London citizens abound ; and with them, an equal share is given to the sons of tradesmen of the very humblest description, not omitting servants. I would not take my oath, — but I have a very vivid recollection, that in my time there were two boys, one of whom went up into the drawing-room to his father, the master of the house ; and the other, down into the kitchen to his father, the coachman. One thing, however, I know to be certain, and that is the noblest of all: it is, that the boys themselves, (at least it was so in my time,) had no sort of feeling of the difference of one another's ranks out of doors. The cleverest boy was the noblest, let his father be who he might. In short, Christ-Hospital is weU known and respected by thousands, as a nursery of tradesmen, of merchants, of naval officers, of scholars, of some of the most eminent persons of the day ; and the feeling among the boys them- selves is, that it is a medium, far apart indeed, but equally so, between the patrician pretension of such schools as Eton and Westminster, and the plebeian submission of the charity schools. In point of University honours, it claims to be equal with the greatest : and though other schools can show a greater abundance of eminent names, I know not where will be many who are a greater host in themselves. One original author is worth a hundred transwriters of elegance : and such a one is to be found in Richardson, who here received what education he pos- sessed. Here Camden also received the rudiments of his. Bishop Stil- lingfleet, according to the Memoirs of Pepys, lately published, was brought up in the school. We have had many eminent scholars, two of them Greek Professors, to wit, Barnes, and the present Mr. Scholefield, the latter of whom attained an extraordinary succession of University honours. The rest are Markland ; Dr. Middleton, late 2 Y 2 348 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, Bishop of Calcutta ; and Mr. Mitchell, the translator of ," Aristo- phanes." Christ-Hospital, I believe, has sent out more living writers, in its proportion, than any other school, '^here is Dr. Richards, author of the " Aboriginal Britons ;" Dyer, whose life has been one un- broken dream of learning and goodness, and who used to make us wonder with passing through the school-room (where no other person in "town-clothes" ever appeared) to consult books in the library; Le Grice, the translator of " Longus ;" Home, author of some well-known' productions in controversial divinity ; Surr, the novelist, (not in the Grammar school;) James White, the friend of Charles Lamb, and not unworthy of him, author of " Falstaff's Letters :" (this was he who used to give an anniversary dinner to the chimney-sweepers, merrier, though not so magnificent as Mrs. Montagu's.) Pitman, a celebrated preacher, editor of some school-books, and religious classics ; Mitchell, before men- tioned ; myself, who stood next him ; Barnes, who came next, the Editor of the Times, (than whom no man (if he had cared for it) could have been more certain of attaining celebrity for wit and literature;) Townsend, a prebendary of Durham, author of " Armageddon," aiid several theological works ; Gilly, another of the Durham prebendaries, who wrote the other day the " Narrative of the Waldenses.;" Scargill, an Unitarian minister, author of some tracts on Peace and War, &c. ; and lastly, whom I have kept by way of climax, Coleridge, and Charles Lamb, two of the most original geniuses, not only of the day, but of the country. We have had an ambassador among us ; but as he, I understand, is ashamed of us, we are hereby more ashamed of him, and accordingly omit him. In the time of Henry the Eighth^ Christ-Hospital was a monastery RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOE's LIFE. 349 of Franciscan Friars. Being dissolved among the others, J^dward the Sixth, moved by a sermon of Bishop Ridley's, assigned the revenues of it to the maintenance and education of a certain number of poor orphan children, born of citizens of London. I believe there has been no law passed to alter the letter of this intention ; which is a pity, since the alteration has taken place. An extension of it was probably very good, and even demanded by circumstances. I have reason, for one, to be grateful for it. But tampering with matters-of-fact among chil- dren is dangerous. They soon learn to distinguish between allowed poetical fiction, and that, which they are told, under severe penalties, never tO be guilty of ; and this early sample of contradiction between the thing asserted and the obvious fact, can do no good even in an establishment so plain-dealing in other respects, as Christ-Hospital. The place is not only designated as an Orphan-house in its Latin title, but the boys, in the prayers which they repeat every day, implore the pity of Hea- ven upon " us poor orphans." I rememb&r the perplexity this caused me at a very early period. It is jtrue, the word orphan may be used in a sense implying destitution of any sort ; but this was not its original meaning in the present instance ; nor do the younger boys give it the benefit of that scholarly interpretation. There was another thing, (now, I be- lieve, done away,) which existed in my time, and perplexed me still more. It seemed a glaring instance of the practice likely to result from the other assumption, and made me prepare for a hundred falsehoods and deceptions, which, mixed up with contradiction, as most things in society are, I sometimes did find and oftener dreaded. I allude to a foolish custom they had, in the ward which I first entered, and which was the only one that the company at the public suppers were in the 350 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR's LIFE. habit of going into, of hanging up, by the side of every bed, a clean white napkin^ which was supposed to be the one used by the occupiers. Now these napkins were only for show, the real towels being of the largest and coarsest kind. If the masters had been asked about them, they would doubtless have told the truth ; perhaps the nurses would have done so. But the boys were not aware of this. There they saw these " white lies" hanging before them, a conscious imposition ; and I well remember how alarmed I used to feel, lest any of the company should direct their inquiries to me. Speaking of "wards" and "nurses," I must enter into a more parti- cular account of the school. Christ- Hospital (for this is its proper name, and not Christ's Hospital) occupies a considerable portion of ground between Newgate Street, Giltspur Street, St. Bartholomew's, and Little Britain. There is a quadrangle with four cloisters, a cloister running out of these to the Sick Ward ; a portico supporting the Writing School; a kind of street, with the counting-house, and some other houses ; and a large open space, presenting the Grammar School. The square inside the cloisters is called the Garden, and most likely was the monastery garden. Its only delicious crop, for many years, has been pavement. The large area is also misnbrnered the Ditch ; the town-ditch, I suppose, having formerly had a tributary stream that way. One side of the quadrangle is occupied by the Hall, or eating-room, one of the noblest in England, adorned with enormously long paintings by Verrio and others, and with an organ. Another side contained the library of the monks, and was built or repaired by the famous Whittington, whose arms are still to be seen outside. In the* cloisters a number of persons lie buried, besides the officers of the house. Among them is Isabella, wife of Edward the Second, the RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LitE. 351 " she-wolf of France." I was not aware of this circumstance then ; but many a time, with a recollection of some lines in " Blair's Grave" upon me, have I ran as hard as I could at night-time from my ward to another, in order to borrow the next volume of some ghostly romance. In one of the cloisters was an impression resembling a gigantic foot, which was attributed by some to the angry stamping of the ghost of a beadle's wife! , A beadle was a higher sound to us than to most, as it involved ideas of detected apples in church-time, " skulking''' (as it was called) out of bounds, and a power of reporting us to the masters. ^. But fear does not stand upon rank and ceremony. The wards, or sleeping-rooms, are twelve, and contained, in my time, rows of beds on each side, partitioned off, but connected with one another, and each having two boys to sleep in it. Down the middle ran the binns for holding bread and other things, and serving for a table when the meal was not taken in the hall ; and over the binns hung a great homely chandelier. To each of these wards a nurse was. assigned, who was the widow of some decent liveryman of London, and who had the charge of looking after us at night-time, seeing to our washing, &c. and carving for us at dinner: all which gave her a good deal of power, more than her name warranted. They were; however, almost invariably very decent people, and per- formed their duty; which was not always the case with the young ladies, their daughters. There were five schools ; a grammar-school, a mathematical or navigation-school (added by Charles the Second,) a writ- ing, a drawing, and a reading-school. Those Avho could not read when they came on the foundation, went into the last. There were few in the last-but-one, and I scarcely know what they did, or for what object. The writing-school was for those who were intended for trade and com- 352 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. tnerce; the mathematical for boys who went as midshipmen into the naval and East India service ; and the grammar-school for such as were designed for the Church, and to go to the University. The writing-school was by far the largest ; and, what is very curious, (which is not the case now,) all these schools were kept quite distinct, so that a boy might arrive at the age of fifteen in the grammar-school, and not know his multiplication-table. But more of this, on a future occasion. Most of these schools had several masters ; besides whom there was a stew- ard, who took care of our subsistence, and had a general superintend- ance over all hours and circumstances not connected with schooling. The masters had almost all been in the school, and might expect pen- sions or livings in th^ir old age. Among those, in my time, the ma- thematical master was Mr. Wales, a man well known for his science, who had been round the world with Captain Cook ; for which we highly venerated him. He was a good man, of plain simple manners, with a heavy large person and a benign countenance. When he was in Otaheite, the natives played him a trick while bg,thing, and stole his small-clothes ; which we used to think an enormous liberty, scarcely credible. The name of the steward, a thin stiif man of invincible for- mality of demeanour, admirably fitted to render encroachment impossible, was Hathaway. We of the grammar-school used to call him " the Yeo- man," on account of Shakspeare's having married the daughter of a man of that name, designated as '• a substantial yeoman." Our dress was of the coarsest and quaintest kind, but was respected out of doors, and is so. It consisted of a blue drugget gown, or body, with ample coats to it ; a yellow vest underneath in winter-time ; small- clothes of Russia duck ; yellow stockings ; a leathern girdle ; and a little black worsted cap, usually carried in the hand. I believe it was the RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 353 ordinary dress of children in humble life, during the reign of the Tudors. We used to flatter ourselves that it was taken from the monks ; and there went a monstrous tradition, that at one period it consisted of blue velvet with silver buttons. It was said also, that during the blissful era of the blue velvet we had roast mutton for supper ; but that the small- clothes not being then in existence, and the mutton suppers too luxu- rious, the eatables were given up for the inefFables. A malediction, at heart, always followed the memory of him who had taken upon himself to decide so preposterously. To say the truth, ■ we were not too well fed at that time, either in quantity or quality ; and we could not enter with our then hungry imaginations into those re- mote philosophies. Our breakfast was bread and water, for the beer was too bad to drink. The bread consisted of the half of a three-halfpenny loaf, according to the prices then current. I suppose it would now be a good two-penny one ; certainly not a three-penny. This was not much foj: growing boys, who had nothing to eat from six or seven o'clock the preceding evening. For dinner, we had the same quantity of bread, with meat only every other day, and that consisting of a small slice, such as would be given to an infant of three or four years old. Yet even that, with all our hunger, we very often left half-eaten ; the meat was so tough. On the other days, we had a milk-porridge, ludicrously thin ; or rice-milk, which was better. There were no vegetables or puddings. Once a month we had roast-beef; and twice a year, (I blush to think of the eagerness with which it was looked for !) a dinner of pork. One* was roast, and the other boiled ; and on the latter occa. sion we had our only pudding, which was of pease. I blush to remem'- ber this, not on account of our poverty, but on account of the sordidness of the custom. There had much better have been none. For supper 2 z 354 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOB'S LIFE. we had a like piece of bread, with butter or cheese ; and then to bed, " with what appetite we might." Our routine of life was this. We rose to the call of a bell, at six in summer, and seven in winter ; and after combing ourselves, and washing our hands and faces, went, at the call of another bell, to break- fast. All this took up about an hour. From breakfast we proceeded to school, where we remained till eleven, winter and summer, and then had an hour's play. Dinner took place at twelve. Afterwards was a little play till one, when we again went to school, and remained till five ih Slimmer and four in winter. At six was the supper. We used to play after it in summer till eight. In winter we proceeded from supper to bed. On Sundays, the school-time of the other days was occupied with church, both morning and evening ; and as the Bible was read to us every day before every meal, and on going to bed, besides prayers and graces, we at least rivalled the monks in the religious part of our duties. The effect was certainly «ot what was intended. The Bible perhaps was read thus frequently in the first instance, out of contradiction to the papal spirit that had so long kept it locked up ; but, in the eighteenth century, the repetition was not so desirable among a parcel of hungry boys, aniious to get their modicum to eat. On Sunday, what with the long service in the morning, the service again after dinner, and the inaudible and indifferent tones of some of the preachers, it was unequivocally tiresome. I, for one, who had been piously brought up, and continued to have religion inculcated on me by father and mother, began secretly to become as indifferent as I thought the preachers ; and, though the morals of the school were in the main excellent and exemplary, we all felt instinctively, without knowing it, that it was the orderliness and example of the general system that RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOli'S LIFE. 355 kept US SO, and not the religious part of it ; which seldom entered our heads at all, and only tired us when it did. I am not begging any question here, or speaking for or against. I am only stating a fact. Others may argue, that, however superfluous the readings and prayers might have been, a good general spirit of religion must have been incul- cated, because a great deal of virtue and religious charity is known to have issued out of that school, and no fanaticism. I shall not dispute the point. The case is true ; but not the less true is what I speak of. Latterly there came, as our parish clergyman, Mr. Crowther, a nephew of the celebrated Richardson, and worthy of the talents and virtues of his kinsman, though inclining to a mode of faith which is supposed to produce more faith than charity. But, till then, the persons who were in the habit of getting up in our church pulpit and reading-desk, might as weU. have hummed a tune to their diaphragms. They inspired us with nothing but mimicry. The name of the morning-reader was Salt. He was a worthy man, I believe, *'dnd might, for aught we knew, have been a clever one ; but he had it all to himself. He spoke in his throat, with a sound as if he was weak and corpulent ; and was famous among us for saying " Murracles" instead of " Miracles." When we imitated him, this was the only word we drew upon : the rest was unintelligible suffocation. Our usual evening preacher was Mr. Sandiford, who had the reputation of learning and piety. It was of no use to us, except to make us associate the ideas of learning and piety in the pulpit with inaudible hum-drum. Mr. Sandiford's voice was hollow and low, and he had a habit of dipping up and down over his book, like a chicken drinking. Mr. Salt was eminent with us for a single word. Mr. Sandiford sur- passed him, for he had two famous audible phrases. There was, it is true, no great variety in them. One was " the dispensation of Moses :" 2 z 2 356 RECOLLECTIONS OP THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. the Other (with a due interval of hum), " the Mosaic dispensation." These he used to repeat so often, that in our caricatures of him they sufficed for an entire portrait. The reader may conceive a large church, (it was Christ Church, Newgate Street,) with six hundred boys, seated Uke charity-children up in the air, on each side the organ, Mr. Sandiford humming in the valley, and a few maid-servants who formed his afternoon congregation. We did not dare to go to sleep. We were not allowed to read. The great boys used to get those that sat be- hind them to play with their hair. Some whispered to their neigh- bours, and the others thought of their lessons and tops. I can safely say, that many of us would have been good listeners, and most of us attentive ones, if ^he clergyman could have been heard : -as it was, I talked as well as the rest, or thought of my exercise. Sometimes we could not help joking and laughing over our weariness ; and then the fear was, lest the steward had seen us. It was part of the business of the steward to preside over the boys in church-time. He sat aloof, in a place where he could view the whole of his flock. There was a ludicrous kind of revenge we had of him, -whenever a particular part of the Bible was read. This was the parable of the Unjust Steward., The boys waited anxiously till the passage commenced ; and then, as if by a general conspiracy, at the words, " thou unjust steward," the whole school turned their eyes upon this unfortunate officer, who sat " Like Teneriff oi Atlas, unremoved." We persuaded ourselves, that the more unconscious he looked, the more he was acting. By a singular chance, there were two clergymen, occa- sional preachers in our pulpit, who were as loud and stai-tling, as the RECOLLECTIONS OF THE A.UTHOU's LIFE. 357 others w^re somniferous. One of them, with a sort of flat, high voice, had a remarkable way of making a ladder of it, climbing higher and higher to the end of the sentence. It ought to be described by the gamut, or written up-hill. Perhaps it was an association of ideas that has made us recollect one particular passage. It is where Ahab consults the Prophets, asking them whether he shall go up to Ramoth Gilead to battle. " Shall I go against Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall I for- bear? and they said. Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king." He used to give this out in such a manner, that you might have fancied him climbing out of the pulpit, sword in hand. The other was a tall, thin man, with a noble voice. He would com- merfce a prayer in a most stately and imposing manner, full both of dignity and feeling; and then, as if tired of it, hurry over all the rest. Indeed, he began every prayer in this way, and was as sure to hurry it ; for which reason, the boys hailed the sight of him, as they knew they should get sooner out of church. When he commenced, in his noble style, the band seemed to tremble against his throat, as though it had been a sounding-board. Being able to read, and knowing a little Latin, I was put at once into the Under Grammar School. How much time I wasted there in learning the accidence and syntax, I cannot say ; but it seems to me a long while. My grammar seemed always to open at the same place. Things are managed differently now, I believe, in this as weU as in a great many other respects. Great improvements have been made in the whole establishment. The boys feed better, learn better, and have longer holidays in the country. In my time, they never slept out of the school but on one occasion, during the whole of their stay ; this was for three weeks in summer-time, which I have spoken of, and which they were bound 358 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. to pass at a certain distance from London. They now have tliese holidays with a reasonable frequency ; and they all go to the different schools, instead of being confined, as they were then, some to nothing but writing and cyphering, and some to the languages. It has been doubted by some of us elders, whether this system will beget such temperate, proper students, with pale faces, as the other did. I dare say, our successors are not afraid of us. I had the pleasure, not long since, of dining in com- pany with a Deputy Grecian, who," with a stout rosy -faced person,* had not failed to acquire the scholarly turn for joking, which is common to a classical education ; as well as those simple, becoming manners, made up of modesty and proper confidence, which have been often remarked as distinguishing the boys on this foundation. " But what is a Deputy Grecian ?" Ah, reader ! to ask that question, and at the same time to know any thing at all worth knowing, would at one time, according to our notions, have been impossible. When I entered the school, I was shown three gigantic boys, young men rather, (for the eldest was between seventeen and eighteen,) who, I was told, were going to the University. These were the Grecians. They are the three head boys of the Grammar School, and are understood to have their destiny fixed for the Church. The next class to these, and like a CoUege of Cardinals to those three Popes, (for every- Grecian was in our eyes infallible,) are the Deputy Grecians. The former were supposed to have completed their Greek studies, and were deep in Sophocles and Euripides. The latter were thought equally competent to tell you any thing respecting Homer and Demosthenes. These two classes and the head boys of the Navigation School, held a certain rank over the whole place, both in school and out. Indeed, the whole of the Navigation School, upon the strength of cultivating their valour for the navy, and RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 359 being called King's Boys, had succeeded in establishing an extraordinary pretension to respect. This they sustained in a manner as laughable to call to mind, as it was grave in its reception. It was an etiquette among them never to move out of a right line as they walked, whoever stood in their way. I believe there was a secret understanding with Grecians and Deputy Grecians, the former of whom were unquestionably lords pa- ramount in point of fact, and stood and walked aloof when aU the rest of the school were marshalled in bodies. I do not remember any clashing between these great civil and naval powers ; but I remember weU my astonishment when I first beheld some of my httle comrades overthrown by the progress of one of these very straight-forward personages, who walked on with as tranquil and unconscious a face, as if nothing had happened. It was not a fierce-looking push ; there seemed to be no intention in it. The insolence lay in the boy's appearing not to know that such an inferior human being existed. It was always thus, wherever they came. If aware, the boys got out of their way; if not, down they went, one or more ; away rolled the top or the marbles, and on walked the future captain — In maiden navigation, frank and free. They wore a badge on the shoulder, of which they were very proud, though in the streets it must have helped to confound them with charity boys. For charity boys, I must own, we all had a great contempt, or thought so. We did not dare to know that there might, have been a little jealousy of our own position in it, placed as we were midway between the homeliness of the common charity school and the dignity of the foundations. We called them " chk%y-wags," and had a particular scorn and hatred of their nasal tone in singing. 360 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. The under grammar-master was the Reverend Mr. Field. He was a good-looking man, very gentlemanly, and always dressed at the neatest. I believe he once wrote a play. He had the reputation of being admired by the ladies. A man of a more handsome incompetence for his situa- tion perhaps did not exist. He came late of a morning ; went away soon in the afternoon ; and used to walk up and down, languidly bearing his cane, as if it was a lily, and hearing our eternal Dominuses and As inpnesenti's with an air of ineffable endurance. Often, he did not hear at all. It was a joke with us, when any of our friends came to the door and we asked his permission to go to them, to address him Avith some pre- posterous question, wide of the mark ; to which he used to assent. We would say, for instance, " Are you not a great fool, sir ?" or " Isn't your daughter a pre;tty girl ?" to which he would reply, " Yes, child." When he condescended to hit us with the cane, he made a face as if he was taking physic. Miss Field, an agreeable-looking girl, was one of the goddesses of the school ; as far above us, as if she had lived on Olympus. Another was Miss Patrick, daughter of the lamp-manufacturer in New- gate Street. I do not remember her face so well, not seeing it so often ; but she abounded in admirers. I write the names of these ladjes at full length, because there is nothing that should hinder their being pleased at having caused us so many agreeable visions. We used to identify them with the picture of Venus in Tooke's Pantheon. School was a newer scene to me than to most boys : it was also a more startling one. I was not prepared for so great a multitude ; for the ab- sence of the tranquillity and security of home ; nor for those exhibitions of strange characters, conflicting wiUs, and violent, and, as they appeared to me, wicked passions, which were to be found, in little, in this epitome of the great world. I was confused, frightraied, and made solitary. My RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 36l mother, as I have observed before, little thought how timid she had helped to render her son, in spite of those more refined theories of cou- rage and patriotic sentiments which she had planted in him. I will not mention the name of the other master, the upper" one, who I am now about to speak of, and whom I have designated at the head of this paper as a schoolmaster of the old leaven. I will avoid it, not because I can thus render it unknown, but because it will remain less known than it would otherwise. I wUl avoid it also, because he was a conscientious man in some things, and undoubtedly more mistaken than malignant; and last, riot least, because there may be inheritors of his name, whos6 natures, modified by other sources, and not liable to the same objections, might be hurt in proportion to their superiority. He was a short stout man, incUning to punchiness, with large face and hands, an aquiline nose, long upper lip, and a sharp mouth. His eye was close and cruel. The spectacles threw a balm over it. Being a clergyman, he dressed in black, with a powdered wig. His clothes were cut short ; his hands hung out of the sleeves, with tight wristbands, as if ready for execution : and as he generally wore grey worsted stockings, very tight, with a little balustrade leg, his whole appearance presented something formidably succinct, hard, and mechanical. In fact, his weak side, and undoubtedly his natural destination, lay in carpentery ; and he accordingly carried, in a side-pocket made on purpose, a carpenter's rule. The only merits of this man consisted in his being a good verbal scholar, and acting up to the letter of time and attention. I have seen him nod at the close of the long summer school-hours, perfectly wearied out ; and should have pitied him, if he had taught us to do any thing but fear. Though a clergyman, very orthodox, and of rigid morals, 3 A 362 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. he indulged' himself in an oath, which was " God's-my-life !" When you were out in your lesson, he turned upon you with an eye like a fish ; and he had a trick of pinching you under the chin, and by the lobes of the ears, tiU he would make the blood come. He has many times lifted a boy off the ground in this way. He was indeed a proper tyrant, passionate and capricious ; would take violent likes and dislikes to the same boys ; fondle some without any apparent reason, though he had a leaning to the servile, and perhaps to the sons of rich people, and would persecute others in a manner truly frightful. I have seen him beat a sickly-looking, melancholy boy (C n) about the head and ears, till the poor fellow, hot, dry-eyed, and confused, seemed lost in bewilderment. C n, not long after he took orders, died out of his senses. I do not attribute that catastrophe to the master ; and of course he could not have wished to do him any lasting mischief. He had no imagination of any sort. But there is no saying how far his treatment of the boy might have contributed to prevent his cure. Masters, as well as boys, have escaped the chance of many bitter re- flections, since a wiser and more generous intercourse has increased between them. I have some stories of this man, that will completely show his cha- racter, and at the same time relieve the reader's indignation by some- thing ludicrous in their excess. We had a few boarders at the school ; boys, whose parents were too rich to let them go on the foundation. Among them, in my time, was Garlton, a son of Lord Dorchester ; Macdonald, one of the Lord Chief Baron's sons ; and R , the son of a rich merchant. Carlton, who was a fine fellow, manly and full of good sense, took his new master and his caresses very coolly, and did not want them. Little Macdonald also could dispense with them, and RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR's LIFE. 36'J would put on his delicate gloves after lesson, with an air as if he re- sumed his patrician plumage. R. was meeker, and willing to be encouraged ; and there would the master sit, with his arm round his tall waist, helping him to his Greek verbs, as a nurse does bread and milk to an infant ; and repeating them, when he missed, with a fond pa- tience, that astonished us criminals in drugget. Very different was the treatment of a boy on the foundation, whose friends, by some means or other, had prevailed on the master to pay him an extra attention, and try to get him on. He had come into the school at an age later than usual, and could hardly read. There was a book used by the learners in reading, called " Dialogues between a Missionary and an Indian." It was a poor performance, fuU of incon- clusive arguments and other commonplaces. The boy in question used to appear with this book in his hand in the middle of the school, the master standing behind him. The lesson was to begin. Poor , whose great fault lay in a deep-toned di'awl of his syllables and the omis- sion of his stops, stood half-looking at the book, and half-casting his eye towards the right of him, whence the blows were to proceed. The master looked over him ; and his hand was ready. I am not exact in my quotation at this distance of tinie ; but the spirit of one of the pas- sages that I recollect, was to the following purport, and thus did the teacher and his pupil proceed. Master.* " Now, young man, have a care ; or I 'U set you a swinging task." (A common phrase of his.) Pupil. (Making a sort of heavy bolt at his calamity, and never remembering his stop at the word Missionary.) " Missionary Can you see the wind ?" (Master gives a slap on the cheek.) 3 A 2 364 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. Pupil. (Raising his voice to a cry, still forgetting his stop.) " In- dian No!" Master. " God's-my-life, young man ! have a care how you provoke me." Pupil. (Always forgetting the stop.) " Missionary How then do you know that there is such a thing ?" (Here a terrible thump.) PupU. (With a shout of agony.) " Indian Because I feel it." One anecdote of his injustice will suffice for all. It is of ludicrous enormity ; nor do I beheve any thing more flagrantly wilful was ever done by himself. I heard Mr. C , the sufferer, now a most respectable person in a government office, relate it with a due rehsh, long after quitting the school. The master was in the habit of " spiting" C ; that is to say, of taking every opportunity to be severe with him, nobody knew why. One day he comes into the school, and finds him placed in the middle of it with three other boys. ■ He was not in one of his worst humours, and did not seem inclined to punish them, till he saw his antagonist. " Oh, oh ! Sir," said he ; " what, you are among them, are you ?" and gave him an exclusive thump on the face. He then turned to one of the Grecians, and said, " I have not time to flog all these boys ; make them draw lots, and I 'U punish one." The lots were drawn, and C 's was favourable. " Oh, oh !" re- turned the master, when he saw them, " you have escaped, have you. Sir?" and pulling out his watch, and turning again to the Grecian observed, that he found he had time to punish the whole three ; " and, Sir," added he to C , with another slap, " I '11 begin with you" He then took the boy into the library and flogged him ; and, on issuing forth again, had the face to say, with an air of indifference, " I have RECOLLECTIONS OF. THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 365 not time, after all, to punish these two other boys : let them take care how they provoke me another time." Often did I wish that I was a fairy, in order to play him tricks like a Caliban. We used to sit and fancy what we should do with his wig ; how we would hamper and vex him ; " put knives in his pillow, and halters in his pew." To venture on a joke in our own mortal persons, was like playing with Polyphemus. One afternoon, when he was nodding with sleep over a lesson, a boy of the name of M , who stood behind him, ventured to take a pin, and begin advancing with it up his wig. The hollow, exhibited between the wig and the nape of the neck, invited him. The boys encouraged this daring act of gallantry. Nods, and becks, and then whispers of "Do it, M. !" gave more and more valour to -his hand. On a sudden, the master's head falls back ; he starts, with eyes like a shark ; and seizing the unfortunate culprit, who stood helpless in the attitude of holding the pin, caught hold of him, fiery with passion. A " swinging task" ensued, which kept him at home all the holidays. One of these tasks would consist of an impossible quantity of Virgil, which the learner, unable to retain it at once, wasted his heart and soul out to " get up," till it was too late. Sometimes, however, our despot got into a dilemma, and then he did not know how to get out of it. A boy, now and then, would be roused into open and fierce remonstrance. I recollect S., now one of the mildest of preachers, starting up in his place, and pouring forth on his asto- nished hearer a torrent of invectives and threats, which the other could only answer by looking pale, and uttering a few threats in return. Nothing came of it. He did not like such matters to go before the governors. Another time, Favell, a Grecian, a youth of high spirit, whom he had struck, went to the school-door, opened it, and turning 366 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOll's LIFE. round with the handle in his grasp, told him he would never set foot again in the place, unless he promised to treat him with more delicacy. « Come back, child ; come back !" said the other, pale, and in a faint voice. There was a dead silence. Favell came back, and nothing more was done. A sentiment, unaccompanied with something practical, would have been lost upon him. D , who went afterwards to the Military College at Woolwich, played him a trick, apparently between jest and earnest, which amused us exceedingly. He was to be flogged ; and the dreadful door of the library was approached. (They did not invest the books with flowers, as Montaigne recommends.) Down falls the criminal, and twisting himself about the master's legs, which he does the more when the other attempts to move, repeats without ceasing, " Oh, good God, Sir; consider my father. Sir; my father, Sir; you know my father." The point was felt to be getting ludicrous, and was given up. P -, now a popular preacher, was in the habit of entertaining the boys that way. He was a regular wag ; and would snatch his jokes out of the very flame and fury of the master, like snap-dragon. Whenever the other struck him, he would get up ; and half to avoid the blows, and half render them ridiculous, begin moving about the school-room, making all sorts of antics. When he was struck in the face, he would clap his hand with afiected vehemence to the place, and cry as rapidly, " Oh Lord !" If the blow came on the arm, he would grasp his arm, with a similar exclamation. The master would then go, driving and kicking him, while the patient accompanied every blow with the same comments and illustrations, making faces to us by way of index. What a bit of the golden age was it, when the Reverend Mr. Stee- vens, one of the under grammar-masters, took his place, on some oc^ RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR's LIFE. 367 casion, for a short time ! Mr. Steevens was short and fat, with a hand- some, cordial face. You loved him as you looked at him ; and seemed as if you should love him the more, the fatter he became. I stammered when I was at that time of life ; which was an infirmity, that used to get me into terrible trouble with the master. Mr. Steevens used to say, on the other hand, " Here comes our little black-haired friend, who stammers so. Now let us see what we can do for him." The conse- quence was, I did not hesitate half so much as with the other. When I did, it was out of impatience to please him. Such of us were not liked the better by the master, as were in fa- vour with his wife. She was a sprightly good-looking woman,, with black eyes ; and was beheld with transport by the boys, whenever she appeared at the school-door. Her husband's name, uttered in a mingled tone of good-nature and imperativeness, brought him down from his seat with smiling haste. Sometimes he did not return. On entering the school one day, he found a boy eating cherries. " Where did you get those cherries ?" exclaimed he, thinking the boy had nothing to say for himself. " Mrs. gave them me, Sir." He turned away, scowling with disappointment. Speaking Of fruit, reminds me of a pleasant trait on the part of a Grecian of the name of Le Grice. He was the maddest of all the great boys in my time ; clever, full of address, and not hampered with modesty. Remote rumours, not lightly to be heard, fell on our ears, respecting pranks of his amongst the nurse's daughters. He was our Lord Rochester. He had a fair handsome face, with deUcate aqui- line nose, and twinkling eyes. I remember his astonishing me, when I was " a new boy," with sending me for a bottle of water, which he pro- ceeded to pour down the back of G. a grave Deputy Grecian. On the master's asking him one day, why he, of all the boys, had given up no 368 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. exercise, (it was a particular exercise that they were bound to do in the course of a long set of holidays,) he said he had had " a lethargy." The extreme impudence of this puzzled the master ; and I believe nothing came of it. But what 1 alluded to about the fruit, was this. Le Grice was in the habit of eating apples in school-time, for which he had been often rebuked. One day, having particularly pleased the master, the latter, who was eating apples himself, and who would now and then with great ostentation present a boy with some half-penny token of his man- suetude, called out to his favourite of the moment ; — " Le Grice, here is an apple for you." Le Grice, who felt his dignity hurt as a Grecian, but was more pleased at having this opportunity of mortifying his re^ prover, replied, with an exquisite tranquillity of assurance, " Sir, I never eat apples." For this, among other things, the boys adored him. Poor fellow ! He and Favell (who, though very generous, was said to be a little too sensible of an humble origin,) wrote to the Duke of York when they were at College, for commissions in the army. The Duke good- naturedly sent them. Le Grice died a rake in the West Indies. FaveU was killed in one of the battles in Spain, but not before he had distin- guished himself as an officer and a gentleman. The Upper Grammar School was divided into four classes, or forms. The two under ones were called Little and Great Erasmus ; the two upper were occupied by the Grecians and Deputy Grecians. We used to think the title of Erasmus taken from the great scholar of that name ; but the sudden appearance of a portrait among us, bearing to be the likeness of a certain Erasmus Smith, Esquire, shook us terribly in this opinion, and was a hard trial of our gratitude. We scarcely relished this perpetual company of our benefactor watching us, as he seemed to do, with his omnipresent eyes. I believe he was a rich merchant, and that IIECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. SGQ the forms of Little and Great Erasmus were really named after him. It was but a poor consolation to think that he himself, or his great-uncle, might have been named after Erasmus. • Little Erasmus learnt Ovid ; Great Erasmus, Virgil, Terence, and the Greek Testament. The De- puty Grecians were in Homer, Cicero, and Demosthenes ; the Grecians in the Greek plays and the mathematics. When a boy entered the Upper School, he was understood to be in the road to the University, provided he had inclination and talents for it; but as only one Grecian a-vear went to College, the drafts out of Great and Little Erasmus into the writing-school were numerous. A few also became Deputy Grecians without going farther, and entered the world from that form. Those who became Grecians, always went to the University, though . not always into the Church; which was reckoned a departure from the contract. When I first came to school, at seven years old, the names of the Grecians were Allen, Favell, Thomson, and Le Grice, brother of the Le Grice above-mentioned, and now a clergyman in Cornwall. Charles Lamb had lately been Deputy Grecian ; and Coleridge had left for the University. The master, inspired by his subject with an eloquence beyond himself, once called himj " that sensible fool, Col&idge ;" pronouncing the word like a dactyl. Coleridge must have alternately delighted and bewildered him. The compliment, as to the bewildering, was returned ; if not the delight. The pupil, I am told, says he dreams of the mastei^ to this day, and that his dreams are horrible. A bon-mot of his is recorded, very characteristic both of pupil and master. Coleridge, when he heard of his death, said, " It was lucky that the cherubim who took him to heaven were nothing but faces and wings, or he would infallibly have flogged them by the way." This is his esoterical opinion of him. His outward and subtler opinion, or opinion exoterical, he has favoured the 3 B 370 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S IJFE. public with in his Literary Life. He praises him, among other things, for his good taste in poetry, and his not suffering the boys to get into the commonplaces of Castalian streams, Invocations to the Muses, &c. Certainly there were no such things in our days, — at least, to the best of my remembrance. But I do not think the master saw through them, out of a perception of any thing farther. His objection to a commonplace must have been itself commonplace. 1 do not remember seeing Coleridge when I was a child. Lamb's visits to the school, after he left it, I re- member well, with his fine intelligent face. Little did I think I should have the pleasure of sitting with it in after-times as an old friend, and seeing it careworn and still finer. Allen, the Grecian, was so hand- some, though in another and more obvious way, that running one day against a barrow-woman in the street, and turning round to appease her in the midst of her abuse, she said, " Where are you driving to, you great hulking, good-for-nothing, — beautiful fellow, God bless you !" Le Grice the elder was a wag, like his brother, but more staid. He went into the Church as he ought to do, and married a rich widow. He pub- lished a translation, a,bridged, of the celebrated pastoral of Longus ; and report at school made him the author of a little anonymous tract on the Art of Poking the Fire. Few of us cared for any of the books that were taught ; and no pains were taken to make us do so. The boys had no helps to information, bad or good, except what the master afforded them respecting manu- factures ; — a branch of knowledge, to' which, as I have before observed, he had a great tendency, and which was the only point on which he was enthusiastic and gratuitous. I do not blame him for what he taught us of this kind ; there was a use in it, beyond what he was aware of : but it was the only one on which he volunteered any assistance. In IIECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. ' 371 this he took evident delight. I remember, in explaining pigs of iron or lead to us, he made a point of crossing one of his legs with the other, and, cherishing it up and down with great satisfaction, and saying, " A pig, children, is about the thickness of my leg." Upon which, with a slavish pretence of novelty, we all looked at it, as if he had not told us so a hundred times. In every thing else, we had to hunt out our own knowledge. He would not help us with a word, till he had ascer- tained that we had done all we could to learn the meaning of it our- selves. This discipline was useful ; and, in this and every other respect, we had aU the advantages which a mechanical sense of right, and a rigid exaction of duty, could afford us ; but no farther. The only superfluous grace that he was guilty of, was the keeping a manuscript book, in which, by a rare luck, the best exercise in English verse was occasionally copied out for immortality ! To have verses in " the Book" was the rarest and highest honour conceivable to our imaginations. I did not care for Ovid at that time. I read and knew nothing of Horace ; though I had got somehow a liking for his character. Cicero I disliked, as I cannnot help doing still. Demosthenes I was inclined to admire, but did not know why, and would very willingly have given up him and his difficulties together. Homer I regarded Avith horror, as a series of lessons, which I had to learn by heart before I understood him. When I had to conquer, in this way, lines which I, had not construed, I had recourse to a sort of artificial memory, by which I associated the Greek words with sounds that had a meaning in English. Thus, a passage about Thetis I made to bear on some circumstance that had taken place in the' school. An account of a battle was converted into a series of jokes ; and the master, while I was saying my lesson to him in trepi- dation, little suspected what a figure he was often cutting in the text. 3 B 2! 372 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHORS LIFE, The only classic I remember having any love for, was Virgil; and that was for the episode of Nisus and Euryalus. But there were three books I read in whenever I could, and that have often got me into trouble. These were Tooke's " Pantheon," Lempriere's " Classical Dictionary," and Spence's " Poly metis," the great folio edition with plates. Tooke was a prodigious favourite with us. I see before me, as vividly now as ever, his Mars and Apollo, his Venus and Aurora, which I was continually trying to copy ; the Mars, coming on furiously in his car ; Apollo, with his radiant head, in the midst of shades and foun- tains ; Aurora with her's, a golden dawn ; and Venus, very handsome, we thought, and not looking too*modest, in " a slight cymar." It is curious how completely the graces of the Pagan theology overcame with us the wise cautions and reproofs that were set against it in the pages of Mr. Tooke. Some years after my departure from school, happening to look at the work in question, I was surprised to find so much of that matter in him. When I came to reflect, I had a sort of recollection that we used occasionally to notice it, as something inconsistent with the rest of the text, — strange, and odd, and like the interference of some pedantic old gentleman. This, indeed, is pretty nearly the case. The author has also made a strange mistake about Bacchus, whom he represents, both in his text and his print, as a mere beUy-god ; a corpulent child, like the Bacchus bestriding a tun. This is any thing but classical. The truth is, it was a sort of pious fraud, like many other things palmed upon an- tiquity. Tooke's " Pantheon" was written originally in Latin by the Jesuits. Our Lempriere was a fund of entertainment. Spence's " Po- lymetis" was not so easily got at. There was also something in the text that did not invite us ; but we admired the fine large prints. However, Tooke was the favourite. 1 cannot divest myself of a notion, to this RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOE'S LIFE. 373 day, that there is something really clever in the picture of Apollo. The Minerva we " could not abide ;" Juno wa§ no favourite, for all her throne and her peacock ; and we thought Diana too pretty. The instiijct against these three goddesses begins early. I used to wonder how Juno and Minerva could have the insolence to dispute the apple with Venus. In those times, Cooke's edition of the British Poets came up. I had got an odd volume of Spenser ; and I fell passionately in love with Collins and Grey. How 1 loved those little sixpenny numbers contain- ing whole poets ! I doated on their size ; I doated on their type, on their ornaments, on their wrappers containing lists of other poets, and on the engravings from Kirk. I bought them over and over again, and used to get up select sets, which disappeared like buttered crumpets ; for I could resist neither giving them away, nor possessing them. When the master tormented me, when I used to hate and loathe the sight of Homer, and Demosthenes, and Cicero, I would comfort myself with thinking of the sixpence in my pocket, with which I should go out to Paternoster-row, when school was over, and buy another number of an English poet. I was already fond of verses. The first 1 remember writing were in honour of the Duke of York's " Victory at Dunkirk ;" which victory, to my great mortification, turned but to be a defeat. I compared him with Achilles and Alexander; or should rather say, trampled upon those heroes in the comparison. I fancied him riding through the field, and shooting right and left of him ! Afterwards, when in Great Erasmus, I wrote a poem called " Winter," in consequence of reading Thomson ; and when Deputy Grecian, I completed some hun- dred stanzas of another, called the " Fairy King," which was to be in emulation of Spenser! I also wrote a long poem in irregular Latin 374 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. verses, (such as they were,) entitled " Thor;" the consequence of reading Gray's Odes, and Mallett's Northern Antiquities. EngHsh verses were the only exercise I performed with satisfaction. The,ues, or prose essays, I wrote so badly, that the master was in the habit of contemptuously crumpling them up in his hand, and calling out, " Here, children, there is something to amuse you." Upon which the servile part of the boys would jump up, and seize the paper ; and be amused accordingly. The essays must have been very absurd, no doubt ; but those who would have tasted the ridicule best, were the last to move. There was an absurdity in giving us such essays to write. They were upon a given subject, generally a moral one, such as ambition, or the love of money : and the regular process in the manufacture was this. You wrote out the subject very fairly at top. Quid non mortalia, &c. or Crescit amor nummi. Then the ingenious thing was to repeat this apothegm in as many words and round-about phrases, as possible ; which took up a good bit of the paper. Then you attem])ted to give a reason or two, why " amor nummi" was bad ; or on what accounts heroes ought to eschew ambition ;— after which naturally came a few examples, got out of " Plutarch," or the " Selectae e Profanis ;" and the happy moralist concluded with signing his name. Somebody speaks of schoolboys going about to one another on these occasions, and asking for " a little sense." That was not the phrase with us:, it was "a thought;" — "P — p-, can you give me a thought ?"— " C , for God's sake, help me to a thought, for it only wants ten minutes to eleven." It was a joke with P , who knew my hatred of themes, and how I used to hurry over them, to come to me at a quarter to eleven, and say, " Hunt, have you hegun your theme ?" — " Yes, P ." He then, when the quarter of an hour had expired and the bell tolled, came again, and, with a sort of rhyming formula to RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 375 the Other question, said, " Hunt, have you done your theme ?"— " Yes, P — ^." How I dared to trespass in this way upon the patience of the master, I cannot conceive. I suspect, that the themes appeared to him more absurd than careless. Perhaps another thing perplexed him. The master was rigidly orthodox ; the school-establishment also was orthodox and high tory ; and there was just then a little perplexity, arising from the free doctrines inculcated by the books we learnt, and the new and alarming echo of them struck on the ears of power by the French Revolution. My father was ,in the habit of expressing his opinions. He did not conceal the new tendency which he felt to modify those which he entertained respecting both Church and State. His unconscious son at school, nothing doubting or suspecting, repeated his eulogies of Timoleon and the Gracchi, with alia schoolboy's enthusiasm ; and the master's mind was not of a pitch to be superior to this unwitting annoy- ance. It was on these occasions, I suspect, that he crumpled up my themes with a double contempt, and an equal degree of perplexity. There was a better exercise, consisting of an abridgement of some paper in the " Spectator." We made, however, little of it, and thought it very difficult and perplexing. In fact, it was a hard task for boys, utterly unacquainted with the world, to seize the best points out of the writings of masters in experience. It only gave the " Spectator" an unnatural gravity in our eyes. A common paper for selection, because reckoned one of the easiest, was the one beginning, " I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth." I had heard this paper so often, and was so tired with it, that it gave me a great inclination to prefer mirth to cheerfulness. My books were a never-ceasing consolation to me, and such they have never ceased to be. My favourites, out of school, were Spenser, 376 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. Collins, Gray, and the " Arabian Nights." Pope I admired more than loved ; Milton was above me ; and the only play of Shakspeare's with which I was conversant was Hamlet, of which I had a delighted awe. Neither then, however, nor at any time, have I been as fond of the drama as of any other species of writing, though I have privately tried my hand several times — farce, comedy, and tragedy ; and egre- giously failed in all. Chaucer, one of my best friends, I was not ac- quainted with till long afterwards. Hudibras I remember reading through at one desperate plunge, while I lay incapable of moving, with two scalded legs. I did it as a sort of achievement, driving on through the verses without understanding a twentieth part of them, but now and then laughing immoderately at the rhymes and similes, and catching a bit of knowledge unawares. I had a schoolfellow, of the name of Brooke, afterwards an officer in the East India service, — a grave, quiet boy, with a fund of manliness and good humour at bottom. He would pick out the ludicrous couplets, like plums ; — such as those on the astrologer. Who deals in destiny's dark counsels. And sage opinions of the moon sells ; And on the apothecary's shop — With stores of deleterious med'cines. Which whosoever took is dead since. He had the little thick duodecimo edition, with Hogarth's plates, dirty, and well read, looking like Hudibras himself. I read through, at the same time, and with little less sense of it as a task, Milton's " Paradise Lost." The divinity of it was so much " Heathen Greek" to us. Un- luckily, 1 could not taste the beautiful " Heathen Greek" of the style. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOB's LIFE. 377 INIilton's heaven made no impression ; nor could I enter even into the earthly catastrophe of his man and woman. The only two things I thought of were their happiness in Paradise, where (to me) they eternally remained ; and the strange malignity of the devil, who instead of getting them out of it, as the poet represents, only served to bind them closer. He seemed an odd shade to the picture. The figure he cut in the en- gravings was more in my thoughts, than any thing said of him in the poem. He was a sort of human wild beast, lurking about the garden in which they liv^ ; though, in consequence of the dress given him in some of the plates, this man with a tail occasionally confused himself in my imagination with a Roman general. I could make little of it. I believe the plates impressed me altogether much more than the poem. Perhaps they were the reason why I thought of Adam and Eve as I did, the pictures of them in their paradisaical state being more numerous than those in which they appear exiled : besides, in their exile they were together ; and this constituting the best thing in their paradise, I suppose I could not so easily get miserable with them when out of it. The scald that I speak of, as confining me to bed, was a bad one. I will give an account of it, because it furthers the elucidation of our school manners. I had then become a monitor, or one of the chiefs of a ward, and was sitting before the fire one evening, after the boys had gone to bed, wrapped up in the perusal of the " Wonderful Magazine," and having in my ear at the same time the bubbhng of a great pot, or rather cauldron, of water, containing what was by courtesy called a bread-pudding ; being neither more nor less than a loaf or two of our bread, which, with a little sugar mashed up with it, was to serve for my supper. And there were eyes, not yet asleep, which would look 8 c 378 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIEE. at it out of their beds, and regard it as a very lordly dish. From this dream of bliss I was roused up on the sudden by a great cry, and a horrible agony in my legs. A " boy," as a fag was called, wishing to get something from the other side of the fire-place, and not choosing either to go round behind the table, or to disturb the illustrious legs of the monitor, had endeavoured to get under them or between, and so pulled the great handle of the pot after him. It was a frightful sen- sation. The whole of my being seemed collected in one fiery torment into my legs. Wood, the Grecian, (now FeUow of Pfembroke, at Cam- bridge,) who was in our ward, and who was always very kind to me, (led, I believe, by my inclination for verses, in which he had a great name,) came out of .his study, and after helping me off with my stock- ings, which was a horrid operation, the stockings being vefy coarse, took me in his arms to the sick ward. I shall never forget the enchanting relief occasioned by the cold air, as it blew across the square of .the sick ward. I lay there for several weeks, not allowed to move for some time; and caustics became necessary before I got well. The getting well was delicious. I had no tasks — no master ; plenty of books to read ; and the nurse's daughter {ahsit calumnia) brought me tea and buttered toast, and encouraged me to play on the flute. My playing consisted of a few tunes by rote ; my fellow-invalids (none of them in very desperate case) would have it rather than no playing at all ; so we used to play, and tell stories, and go to sleep, thinking of the blessed sick holiday we should have next day, and of the bowl of milk and bread for breakfast, which was alone worth being sick for. The sight of Mr. Long's probe was not so pleasant. We preferred seeing it in the hands of his pupU, Mr. Vin- cent, whose manners, quiet and mild, had double effect on a set of boys EECOLLECTIONS OP THE AUTHOU'S LIFE. 379 more or less jealous of the mixed humbleness and importance of their school. This is most likely the same Mr. Vincent who now lectures at St. Bartholomew's. He was dark, like a West Indian, and I used to think him handsome. Perhaps the nurse's daughter taught me to think so, for she was a considerable observer. I was fifteen when I put off my band and ,blue skirts for a coat and neckcloth. I was then first Deputy Grecian ; and had the honour of going out of the school in the same rank, at the same age, and for the same reason, as my friend Charles Lamb. The reason was, that I hesi- tated in my speech. I did not stammer half so badly as I used ; and it is very seldom that I halt at a syllable now ; but it was understood that a Grecian was bound to deliver a public speech before he left school, and to go into the Church afterwards ; and as I could do neither of these things, a Grecian I could not be. So I put on my coat and waistcoat, and, what was stranger, my hat ; a very uncomfortable addition to my sensations. For eight years I had gone bareheaded ; save, now and then, a few inches of pericranium, when the little cap, no larger than a crumpet, was stuck on one side, to the mystification of the old ladies in the streets. I then cared as little for the rains as I did for any thing else. I had now a vague sense of worldly trouble, and of a great and serious change in my condition ; besides which, I had to quit tnyold cloisters, and my playmates, and long habits of aU sorts ; so that, what was a very happy moment to schoolboys in general, was to me one of the most painful of my life. I surprised my schoolfellows and the master with the melancholy of my tears. I took leave of my books, of my friends, of my seat in the Grammar School, of my good-hearted 3 c 2 380 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOE S LIFE. nurse and her daughter, of my bed, of the cloisters, and of the very pump out of which I had taken so many delicious draughts, as if I should never see them again, though I meant to come every day. The fatal hat was put on ; my father was come to fetch me : We, hand in hand, with strange new steps and slow, Through Holborn took our meditative way. THE ATJTHOK'S FIRST TUBLISHED VEBSES. CHARACTER OF DR.. FRANKLIN. — PORTRAITS OF MAURICE AND MR. LLWYD. For some time after I left school, I did nothing but visit my school- fellows, haunt the bookstalls, and write verses. My father collected my verses, and published them with a large list of subscribers, numbers of whom belonged to his old congregations. I was as proud perhaps of the book at that time, as I am ashamed of it now. The French Revolu- tion had not then, as afterwards, by a natural consequence, shaken up and refreshed the sources of thought all over Europe. At least, I was not old enough, perhaps was not able, to get out of the trammels of the regular imitative poetry and versification taught in the schools. My book was a heap of imitations, some of them clever enough for a youth of sixteen, but absolutely worthless in every other respect. However, the critics were very kind ; and as it was unusual at that time to pub- lish at so early a period of life, my age made me a kind of " Young RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 381 Roscius " in authorship. I was introduced to hterati, and shown about among parties. My father taking me to see Dr. Raine, Master of the Charter House, the doctor, who was very kind and pleasant, but who probably drew none of our deductions in favour of the young writer's abilities, warned me against the perils of authorship ; adding, as a final dehortative, that " the shelves were full." It was not till we came away, that I thought of an answer, which I conceived would have " annihilated" him. " Then, Sir," (I should have said, thought I) "we will make another." Not having been in time Avith this repartee, I felt all that anguish of undeserved and unnecessary defeat, which has been so pleasantly described in the Miseries of Human Life. This, thought I, would have been an answer befitting a poet, and calculated to make a figure in biography. A mortification that I encountered at a house in Cavendish Square, affected me less, though it surprised me a good deal more. I had been held up, as usual, to the example of the young gentlemen, and the astonishment of the ladies, when, in the course of the dessert, one of mine host's daughters, a girl of exuberant spirits and not of the austerest breeding, came up to me, and, as if she had discovered that I was not so young as I pretended to be, exclaimed, " What a beard you have got !" at the same time convincing herself of the truth of her discovery by taking hold of it ! Had I been a year or two older, I should have taken my revenge. As it was, I know not how I behaved; but the next morning I hastened to have a beard no longer. I was now a man, and resolved not to be out of countenance next time. Not long afterwards, my grandfather, sensible of the new fame in his family, but probably alarmed also at the consequences to which 382 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. it might lead, sent me word, that if I would come to Philadelphia, " he would make a man of me." I sent word, in return, that " men grew in England as well as America |" an answer which repaid me for the loss of my apothegm at Dr. Raine's. I was very angry with him for his niggardly conduct to my mother. I could not help, for some "time, identifying the whole American character with his ; an injustice which helped to colour my opinions for a stiU longer time. Partly on the same account, I acquired a dislike for his friend Dr. Franklin, author of " Poor Richard's Almanack ;" a heap, as it appeared to me, of " scoun- drel maxims."* I think I now appreciate Dr. Franklin as I ought ; but * Thomson's phrase, in the " Castle of Indolence," speaking of a miserly money-getter : — " ' A penny saved is a penny got :' Firm to this scoundrel maxim keepeth he, Ne of its rigour will he bate a jot, Till it hath quench'd his fire and banished his pot." The reader will not imagine that I suppose all money-makers to be of this description. I have good reason to know otherwise. Very gallant spirits have I met with among them, who only take to this mode of activity for want of a better, and are as generous in disbursing, as they are vigorous in acquiring. You may always know the common run, as in other in- stances, by the soreness with which they feel attacks on the body corporate. From observations of this nature on the part of a writer, who is neither fond of money, nor competent to an ordinary calculation, the reader will make all the drawbacks that the confession of that incompetency will allow : at the same time, it may be worth his while to consider that, for a reason which could be easily given, improvements of the most wholesale nature, in the condition of mankind, have not been accustomed to issue out of hands the most occupied in detail ; and this is particularly remarkable in affairs of trade and commerce, the very changes which have ultimately been turned to the greatest advantage by the parties the most concerned, having been in the first instance opposed by no persons with so much violence. Of this fact, the revolutions in South America have furnished the latest, and not the least, remarkable proof. Extremes, however, meet oftener than they are supposed to do. The greatest calculators I ever met with, were men who had come to the conclusion that the greatest of all the advan- RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOU'S LIFE. 383 although I can see the utiUty of such pubhcations as his Almanack for a rising commercial state, and hold it useful as a memorandum to uncalculating persons like myself, who happen to live in an old one, I think it has no business either in commercial nations long established, or in others who do not found their happiness in that sort of power. Franklin, with all his abilities, is but at the head of those who think that man lives " by bread alone." He will commit none of the follies, none of the intolerances, the absence of which is necessary to the per- fection of his system ; and in setting his face against these, he discoun- tenances a great number of things very inimical to higher speculations. But he was no more a fit representative of what human nature largely requires, and may reasonably hope to attain to, than negative represents positive, or the clearing away a ground in the back- settlements, and set- ting to work upon it, represents the work in its completion. Something of the pettiness and materiality of his first occupation always stuck to him. He took nothing for a truth or a matter-of-fact that he could not handle, as it were, like his types ; and yet, like all men of this kind, he was liable, when put out of the ordinary pale of his calculations, to fall into the greatest errors, and substitute the integrity of his reputation for that of whatsoever he chose to do. From never doing tages of calculation consisted in knowing how much better the world could do without it. They even hoped that by means of the knowledge of this fact, explained by calculation itself, the world would ultimately be brought to their opinion; and certainly, if any thing could do it with some, that would be the way ; but it is experiment, recommended by the progress of opinion, and hastened and forced by necessity, that must produce this and all other changes. For the assertion that Dr. Franklin cut off his son with a shilling, my only authority is family tradition. It is observable, however, that the friendliest of his biographers are not only forced to admit that he seemed a little too fond of money, but notice the mysterious secrecy in which his family history is involved. 384 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. wrong in little things, he conceived that he could do no wrong in great; and, in the most deliberate act of his life, he showed he had grievously mistaken himself. He was, I allow, one of the cardinal great men of his time. He was Prudence. But he was not what he took himself for, — all the other Virtues besides ; and, inasmuch as he was defi- cient in those, he was deficient even in his favourite one. He was not Temperance ; for, in the teeth of his capital recommendations of that virtue, he did not scruple to get burly and big with the enjoyments that he cared for. He was not Justice ; for he knew not how to see fair play between his own wisdom and that of a thousand wants and aspirations, of which he knew nothing ; and he cut off his son with a shilling, for differing with him in politics. Lastly, he was not Fortitude; for, having few passions and no imagination, he knew not what it was to be severely tried ; and if he had been, there is every reason to conclude, from the way in which he treated his son, that his self-love would have been the part in which he felt the torture;. and that as his Justice was only arithmetic, so his Fortitude Avould have been nothing but stubbornness. If Frank- lin had been the only great man of his time, he would merely have contributed to make the best of a bad system, and so hurt the world by prolonging it ; but, luckily, there were the French and English philo- sophers besides, who saw farther than he did, and provided for higher ' wants I feel grateful to him, for one, inasnmch as he extended the sphere of liberty, and helped to clear the earth of the weeds of sloth and ignorance, and the wild beasts of superstition ; but when he comes to build final homes for us, there I rejoice that wiser hands interfere. His line and rule are not every thing. They are not .even a tenth part of it. Cocker's numbers are good ; but those of Plato and Pythagoras have their merits too, or we should have been made of dry bones and tangents RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 38.5 and not had the fancies in our heads, and the hearts beating in our bosoms, that make us what we are. We should not even have known that Cocker's numbers were worth any thing ; nor would Dr. Franklin himself have played on the harmonica, albeit he miist have done it in a style very different from that of Milton or Cimarbsa. Finally, the writer of this passage on the Doctor would not have ventured to give his opinion of so great a man in so explicit a manner. I should not have ventured to give it, had I not been backed by so many powerful interests of humanity, and had I not suffered in common, and more than in com- mon, with the rest of the world, from a system which, under the guise of economy and social advantage, tends to double the love of wealth and the hostility of competition, to force the best things down to a level with the worst, and to reduce mankind to the simplest and most mechanical law of their nature, divested of its heart and soul, — the law of being in motion. AU the advantages of the present system of money-making, which may be called the great lay superstition of modern times, might be obtained by a fifth j)art of the labour, if more equally distributed. The rest is pure vanity and vexation of spirit, or the indulgence of a false notion of superiority, or the more melancholy necessity produced by • wars and taxation, to which this very notion gives rise. Among those with whom my book made me acquainted, was the late Rev. Mr. Maurice, of the British Museum, author of " Indian An^ tiquiti?s." I mention him more particularly, as I do others, because he had a character of his own, and makes a portrait. I had seen an en- graving of him, representing a slender, prim-eyed, enamel-faced person, very tightly dressed and particular, with no expression but that of pro- priety, and born to be an archbishop. What was my surprise, when I beheld a short, chubby, good-humoured companion, with boyish features, 3 D 386 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOu's 1.IFE. and a lax dress and manner, heartily glad to see you, and tender over his wine ! He was a sort of clerical Horace : he might, by some freak of the minister, have been made a bishop ; and. he thought he deserved it for having proved the identity of the Hindoo with the Christian Tri- nity, which was the object of his book ! But he began to despond on that point, when I knew him ; and he drank as much wine for sorrow, as he would, had he been made a bishop, for joy. He was a man of a social and overflowing nature ; more fit, in truth, to set an example of charity than faith, and would have made an excellent Bramin of the B,ama-Deeva worship. His Hymns to the deities of India, were as good as Sir William Jones's, and his attention to the amatory theology of the country (allowing for his deficiency in the language) as close. He was not so fortunate as ^ir WiUiam in retaining a wife whom he loved. I have heard him lament, in very genuine terms, his widowed condition, and the task of finishing the great manuscript catalogue of the Museum books, to which his office had bound him. This must have been a tor- ture, physical as well as moral; for he had weak eyes, and wrote with a magnifying glass as big round as the palm of his hand. With this, in a tall thick handwriting, as if painting a set of rails, he was to finish the folio catalogues, and had produced the seven volumes of Indian An- tiquities ! Nevertheless, he seemed to lament his destiny, rather in order to accommodate the weakness of his lachrymal organs, than out of any internal uneasiness ; for with the aspect he had the spirits of a boy ; and his laughter would follow his tears with a happy incontinence. He was always catching cold, and getting weU of it after dinner. Many a roast fowl and bottle of wine have I enjoyed with him in his rooms at the British Museum; and if I thought the reader, as well as myself, had not a regard for him. I would not have thus opened their doors. They UECOLLECTIONS OF THE ArTHOR'S LIFE. 387 consisted of the first floor in the turret nearest Museum-street, I never pass them, without remembering how he used to lay. down his magni- fying glass, take both my hands, and condescend to anticipate the pleasant chat we should have about authors and books over his wine ; — I say, conde- scend, because, though he did not affect any thing of that sort, it was a remarkable instance of his good-nature, and his freedom from pride, to place himself on a level in this manner with a youth in his teens, and pre- tend that I brought him as much amusement as he gave. Owing to the exclusive notions I entertained of friendship, I mystified him by answer- ing the " Dear Sirs" of his letters in a more formal manner. I fear it in- duced him to make unfavourable comparisons of my real disposition with my behaviour at table ; and it must be allowed, that having no explanation on the subject, he had a right to be mystified. Somehow or other, (I believe it was because a new Dulcinea called me elsewhere,) the acquaintance dropped, and I did not see him for many years. He died, notwithstanding his wine and his catarrhs, at a good old age, writing verges to the last, and showing what a young heart he retained by his admiration of nature : and undoubtedly this it was that enabled him to live so long ; for, though the unfeeling are apt to outlast the sen- sitive during a sophisticate and perplexing state of society, it is astonivsh- ing how long a cordial pulse will keep playing, if allowed reasonably to have its way. Were- the lives of mankind as natural as they should be, and their duties made as cheerful, the Maurices and the Horaces would outlast all the formalists buttoned up in denial, as surely as the earth spins round, and the pillars fall. I wish I could relate half the stories Mr. Maurice told me. He told them well, and I should have been glad to repeat them in his own words. 3 D 2 388 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. I recollect but one, which I shall tell for his. sake, though it is not without a jest". I hope it is not old. He said there was a gentleman, not very robust, but an enthusiast for nature and good health, who en- tertained a prodigious notion of the effects of smelling to fresh earth.* Accordingly, not to go too nicely about the matter, but to do it like a man, he used to walk every morning to Primrose-Hill ; and, digging a hole of a good depth in the ground, prostrate himself, and put his head in it. The longer he kept his head immersed, the more benefit he thought he derived ; so that he would lie for s.everal minutes, and look like a Persian worshipping the sun. One day some thieves set upon him, and, retaining his head under that salutary restriction, picked his pockets. Mr. Maurice got me permission to read in the Museum ; which I did regularly for some time. It was there I began to learn Italian. I ob- tained the same privilege for a person who became one of its most en- thusiastic visitors, and who is worth describing. His name is Llwyd (for he would account it treason to his country to write it Lloyd), and he is author, among other pieces, of a poem entitled " Beaumaris Bay," which obtained a great deal of praise from the critics. 1 say, " is," because I hope he is alive to read this account of himself, and to attribute * Bacon had a notion of this sort, and would have a piece of earth brought him fresh out of the ground to smell to ; but then he put wine to it. I fancy I hear Mr. Maurice exclaim- ing, "Ah, he was a great mah!" There was a pomp and altitude in the ways of Bacon, and all in the highest taste, that serves almost to reconcile us to Cowley's conceit, in styling him " Nature's Lord Chancellor." His house and gardens were poetically magnificent. He had the flowers in season always put upon his table; sometimes had music in the next room while he was writing ; and would ride out in an open chariot during the rain, with his head bare, saying " he felt the spirit of the universe upon him !" RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, 389 it (as he assuredly will do) to its proper motives. Mr. Llwyd was pro- bably between thirty and forty when I knew him. His face and manner of speaking were as ancient British as he could desire ; but these merits he had in common with others. What rendered him an extraordinary person was, that he had raised himself, by dint of his talents and integrity, from the situation of a gentleman's servant to a footing with his su- periors, and they were generous and wise enough to acknowledge it. From what I was told, nothing could be better done on all sides. They encouraged, and, T believe, enabled him to make good his position ; and he gave the best proof of -his right to it, by the delicacy of his ac- quiescence. His dress was plain and decent, equally remote from sor- didness and pretension; and his manners possessed that natural good- breeding, which results from the wish to please and the consciousness of being respected. Mr. Llwyd came to London at certain periods, took an humble lodging, and passed his time in visiting his friends, and reading at the Museum. His passion was for the antiquities of his native country. If you looked over his book, it was most probably full of the coat-armour of Wynnes and Prices. I was indebted to him for an introduction to his friend Mr. Owen, translator of the Paradise Lost into Welsh. Both of them were of the order of Bards ; and Mr. Owen carried the same seal of his British origin in his face and manners, and appeared to possess the same simplicity and goodness. Furthermore, he had a Welsh harp in his room, and I had the satisfaction of hearing him play upon it. He was not very like Gray's bard ; and instead of Conway's flood, and a precipice, and an army coming to cut our throats, we had tea and bread and butter, and a snug parlour with books in it. Notwithstanding my love of Gray, and a. considerable wish to see a proper iU-used bard, I 390 BECOLLECTIONS OP THE AUTHOE'S LIFE. thought this a better thing, though I hardly know whether my friends did. I am not sure, with all their gopd-nature, whether they would not have preferred, a good antiqviarian death, with the opportunity of calling King Edward a ra,scal, and playing their harps, at him, to all the Saxon conveniences of modern times. THE author's first PROSE. — CHARACTER OF VOLTAIRE. — MORE VERSES. MR. BELL, OF THE " WEEKLY MESSENGER." — BA5>INI, AN ITALIAN OPERA POET. — ORIGIN OF THE PAPER CALLED THE " NEWS," AND. ACCOUNT OF THE THEATRICALS IN IT. It was not long after this period, that I ventured upon publishing my first prose, which consisted of a series of essays under the title of '' The Traveller, by Mr. Town, Junior, Critic and Celjsqr-General." They came out in the evening paper of that name ; and were, imitations, as the reader will guess, of the « Connoisseur," which professed to be written by Mr. 'J^own, Critic and Censor-General. I offered them with fear and trembUng to Mr. Quin, the Editor of the « Traveller," and was asto- nished at the gaiety with which he accepted them. What astonished me more, was a perquisite of five or six copies of the paper, which I enjoyed every Saturday when my essays appeared, arjd -w^ith which I used, to, re-issue from Bolt-Gourt in a state of transport. I had been told, but could npt RECOLLECTIONS OF THfe AUTHOR's LIFE. 391 easily conceive, that the Editor of a new evening paper would be happy to fill up his pages with any decent writing ; but Mr. Quin praised me besides, and I could not behold the long columns of type, written by myself, in a public paper, without thinking there must be some merit in them, besides that of being a stop-gap. They were lively, and showed a tact for writing ; but nothing more. There was something, however, in my writings at that period, and for some years afterwards, which, to ob- servers, might have had an interest beyond what the author supplied, and amounted to a sign of the times. I allude to a fondness for imitating Voltaire. I had met with translations of several of his pieces on the book-stalls; and being prepared by a variety of circumstances, already noticed, to think that existing opinions and institutions might be fallible, I was transported with the 'gay courage and unquestionable humanity of that extraordinary person, and soon caught the tone of his cunning implications and provoking turns. Voltaire, in an essay written by himself in the English language, has said of Milton, in a passage which would do honour to our best writers, that when the poet saw the Adamo of Andreini at Florence, he " pierced through the absur- dity of the plot tp the hidden majesty of the subject." It may be said of himself, that he pierced through the conventional majesty of a great many subjects, to the hidden absurdity of the plot. He could not build as he could destroy. He was the merry general of an army of pioneers. But he laid the axe to a heap of savage abuses ; pulled the corner-stones out of dungeons and inquisitions; bqwed and mocked the most tyrannical absurdities out of countenance ; and raised one pro- digious peal of laughter at superstition, from Naples to the Baltic. He was the fiirst man who got the power of opinion and common sense 392 IIECOLLECTIOXS OP THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, openly recognized as a great reigning authority ; and who made the acknowledgment of it a point of wit and cunning, with those who had hitherto thought they had the world to themselves. I admired him more then than I do now ; I thought he had more imagination, and a deeper insight into all the wants and capabilities of mankind. But though I think less of him as one who understands all they want, I think now, more than ever, that he cannot be too highly appreciated as one who understood what they want not. I differ with himi in many points, moral, political, and religious ; and I state this, not to make out that my difference is of any value, but to, show that those who honestly differ with a man, can afford to do him justice ; and that the true way of regarding Voltaire, in order to do him this justice, and ourselves too, is to look at him in the broad light of the great opposer of «?o^wa ; leaving us, in our still broader light, if we have it, to retain whatever good he omitted, and to add whatever improvement we can discover. It is enough, that he has taught us not to dictate and arrogate on the one hand, and not to submit to any thing uninquired into or inhuman on the other. An abridgment that I picked up of the Philosophical Dictionary (a translation) was for a long while my text-book, both for opinion and style. I was also a great admirer of Ij'Ingenu, or the Sincere Huron ; and the Essay on the Philosophy of History. In the character of the Sincere Huron I thought I found a resemblance to my own, as most readers do in those of their favourites : and this piece of self-love helped me to discover as much gqod-heartedness in Voltaire as I discerned wit. Candide, I confess, I could not like. I enjoyed passages ; but the laugh- ter was not as good-humoured as usual ; there was a view of things in it, which I never entertained then or afterwards, and into which the RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 393 author had been led, rather in order to provoke Leibnitz, than because it was natural to him ; and, to crown my unwiUing dislike, the book had a coarseness, apart from graceful and pleasurable ideas, which I have never been able to endure. There were passages in the abridg- ment of the Philosophical Dictionary which I always passed over ; but the rest delighted me beyond measure. I have not seen it for years till the other day, having used in the meantime a French copy of the work itself ; but I can repeat passages out of it now, and wiU lay two or three short ones before the reader, as specimens of what made such an impression upon me. They are in Voltaire's best manner ; which consists in an artful intermixture of the conventional dignity and real absurdity of what he is exposing, the tone being as grave as the dignity seems to require, and the absurdity coming out as if unintentionally and by the by. Speaking of the Song of Solomon, (of which, by the way, his criticism is very far from being in the right, though he puts it so pleasantly,) he thinks he has the royal lover at a disadvantage with his comparisons of noses to towers, and eyes to fishpools, and then concludes with observing, " All this, it must be confessed, is not in the taste of the Latin poet ; but then a Jew is not obliged to write like Virgil." Now it would not be difficult to show, that Eastern and Western poetry had better be two things than one ; or, at least, that they have a right to be so, and can lay claim to their own beauties ; but, at the same time, it is impossible to help laughing at this pretended admission in Solomon^s favour, and the cunning introduction of the phrase " a Jew," contrasted with the dignity of the name of Virgil. In another part of the same article on Solomon, where he speaks of the many thousands of chariots which the Jewish monarch possessed, 3 E 394 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOll'S LIFE. (a quantity that certainly have a miraculous appearance, though, per- haps, explainable by a good scholar,) he says he cannot conceive, for the life of him, what Solomon did with such a multitude of carriages, " unless," adds he, " it was to take the ladies, of his seraglio an airing on the borders of the lake of Genesareth, or along the brook Cedron ; a charming spot of ground, except that it is dry nine months in the year, and the ground a little stony." At these passages I used to roll with laughter; and 1 cannot help laughing now, writing as I am, alone by my fire-side. They teU nothing, except against those who con- found every thing the most indifferent, relating to the great men of the Bible, with something sacred ; and who have thus done more harm to their own distinctions of sacred and profane, than all which has been charged on the ridicule they occasion. The last quotation shall be from the admirable article on War, which made a profound impression on me. You cannot help laughing at it : the humour is high and triumphant ; but th-e laugh ends in very serious reflections on the nature of war, and the very doubtful morality of those who make no scruple, when it suits them, of advocating the (jertainty of calamity in some things, while they protest against the least hazard of it in others. Voltaire notices the false and frivolous pre- tensions, upon which princes subject their respective countries to the miseries of war, purely to obMge their own cupidity and ambition. One of them, he says, finds in some old document a claim or pretence of some relation of his to some piece of land in the possession of amother. He gives the other notice of his claim ; the other will not hear of it : so the prince in question " picks up a great many men, who have nothing to do and nothing to lose ; hinds their hats with coarse white worsted. Jive sous to th'e ell; turns them to the right and left, and marches RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 395 awmj with them to glory r Now the glory and the white worsted, the po- tentate who is to have an addition to his coffers, and the poor soul who is to be garnished for it with a halo of bobbin, " five sous to the ell," here come into admirable contrast. War may be necessary on some occasions, till a wiser remedy be found ; and ignoble causes may bring into play very noble passions ; but it is desirable that the world should take the necessity of no existing system for granted, which is accom- panied with horrible evils. This is a lesson which Voltaire has taught us; and it is invaluable. Our author terminates his ridicule on War with a sudden and startling apostrophe to an eminent preacher on a very different subject. The familiar tone of the reproof is very pleasant. " Bourdalone, a very bad sermon have you made against Love ; against that passion which consoles and restores the human race ; but not a word, bad or good, have you said against this passion that tears us to pieces." (I quote from memory, and am not sure of my words in this extract; but the spirit of them is the same.) He adds, that all the miseries ever produced in the world by Love, do not come up to the cala- mities occasioned by a single campaign. If he means Love in the abstract, unconnected with the systems by which it has been regulated in different parts of the world, he is probably in the right ; but the miscalculation is enormous, if he includes those. The seventy thousand prostitutes alone in the streets of London^ which we are told are the inevitable accompaniment, and even safeguard, of the virtuous part of our system, (to say nothing of the tempers, the jealousies, the chagrins, the falsehoods, the quarrels, and the repeated murders which afflict and astonish us even in that,) most probably experience more bitterness of heart every day of their lives, than is caused by any one campaign, however wild and flagitious. 3 E 2 396 RECOLLECTIONS OE THE. AUTHOR'S LIFE. Besides Voltaire and the " Connoisseur," I was very fond at that time of " Johnson's Lives of the Poets," and a great reader of Pope. My admiration of the " Rape of the Lock" led me to write a long mock- heroic poem, entitled the " Battle of the Bridal Ring," the subject of which was a contest between two rival orders of spirits, on whoin to bestow a lady in marriage. I venture to say, that it would hav^e been well spoken of by the critics, and was not worth twopence. I recollect one couplet, which wiU serve to show how I mimicked^ the tone of my author. It was an apostrophe to Mantua, — " Mantua, of great and small the long renown. That now a Virgil giv'st, and now a gown." Dryden I read too, but not with that relish for his nobler versifica- tion which I afterwards acquired. Dramatic reading, with all my love of the play, I never Avas fond of ; yet, in the interval of my departure from school, and my getting out of my teens, I wrote two farces, a comedy, and a tragedy ; and the plots of all (such as they were) were inventions. The hero of my tragedy was the JEarl of Surrei/ (Howard, the poet) who was put to death by Henry the Eighth. I forget what the comedy was upon. ,The title of one of the farces was the " Beau Miser," which may explain the nature, of it. The other was called " A Hundred a Year," and turned upon a hater of the country, who upon having an annuity to that amount given him, on pondition of his never going out of London, becomes a hater of the town. In the last scene, his annuity died a jovial death in a country-tavern ; the bestow er entering the room just as my hero had got on a table, with a glass in his hand, to drink confusion to the metropolis. All these pieces were, I doubt not, as bad as need be. About ten years ago, being sleepless one night with a fit of RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 397 enthusiasm, in consequence of reading about the Spanish play of the Cid in Lord Holland's " Life of Guillen de Castro," I determined to write a tragedy on the same subject, which was accepted at Drury Lane. Per- , haps the conduct of this piece was not without merit, the conclusion of each act throwing the interest into the succeeding one ; but I had greap doubts of all the rest of it ; and on receiving it from Mr. EUiston to make an alteration in the third act, very judiciously proposed by him, I looked the whole of the play over again, and convinced myself it was unfit for the stage : I therefore withheld it. I had made my hero too much like the beau ideal of a modern reformer, instead of the half god- like, half -bigoted soldier that he Was, 1, began afterwards to re-cast the play, but grew tired and gave it up. The Cid would make a delicious character for the stage, or in any work ; not, indeed, as Corneille de- claimed him, nor as inferior writers might adapt him to the reigning taste ; but taken, I mean, as he was, with the noble impulses he received from nature, the drawbacks with which a bigoted age qualified them, and the social and open-hearted pleasantry (not the least evidence of his no- bleness) that brings forth his heart, as it were, in . flashes through the stern armour. But this would require a strong hand, and readers ca- pable of grappling with it. In the meantime, they should read of him in Mr. Southey's Chronicle of the Cid, (an admirable summary from the old Spanish writers,) and in the delightful verses at the end of it, trans- lated from an old Spanish poem by Mr. Hookham Frere, with a tri- umphant force and fidelity, that you know to be true to the original at once. It seems to me, that if I could live my life over again, and command a proper quantity of health and muscles from my an- cestors, or a gymnasium, I could write some such poem myself, and make a book of it. All that I pretend at present, when I think what 398 ^RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. a poem ought to be, is to be a reader not unworthy. As to the dramai, I am persuaded I have no sort of talent for it ; though I can paint a portrait or so in dialogue pretty well out of history, as in the imaginary conversations of Pope and Swift, that have appeared in the New Monthly Magazine. At the period I am speaking of, circumstances introduced me to the acquaintance of Mr. Bell, the Proprietor of the " Weekly Messenger." In his house in the Strand, I used to hear of politics and dramatic criticism, and of the persons who wrote them. Mr. Bell had been well known as a bookseller, and a speculator in elegant typography. It is to him the public are indebted for the small edition of the Poets that preceded Cooke's, and which, with all my predilections for that work, was un- questionably superior to it. Besides, it included Chaucer and Spenser. The omission of these in Cooke's edition was as unpoetical a sign of the times, as the existing familiarity with their names is the reverse. It was thought a mark of good sense ! As if good sense, in matters of litera- ture, did not consist as much in knowing what was poetical in poetry, as brilliant in wit. Mr. Bell was upon the whole a remarkable person. He was a plain man, with a red face, and a nose exaggerated by iritem- perance ; and yet there was something not unpleasing in his counte- nance, especially when he spoke. He had sparkling black eyes, a good- natured smile, gentlemanly manners, and one of the most agreeable voices I ever heard. He had no acquirements, perhaps not even gram- ruar ; but his taste in putting forth a publication, and getting the best artists to adorn it, was new in those times, and may be admired in any ; and the same taste was observable in his house. He knew nothing of poetry. He thought the Delia Cru scans fine people, because they were EECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 399 known in the circles ; and for Milton's Paradise Lost he had the same epithet as for Mrs. Crouch's face, or the phaeton of Major Topham : he -thought it " pretty." Yet a certain liberal instinct, and turn for large dealing, made him include Chaucer and Spenser in his edition ; he got Stothard to adorn the one, and Mortimer the other ; and in the midst, I suspect, of very equivocal returns, published a British Theatre with em- bellishments, and a similar edition of the plays of Shakspeare, — the in- correctest work, according to Mr. Chalmers, that ever issued from the press. Unfortunately for Mr. Bell, he had as great a taste for neat wines and ankles, as for pretty books ; and, to crown his misfortunes, the Prince of Wales, to whom he was bookseller, once did him the honour to partake of an entertainment at his house. He afterwards became a bankrupt. He was one of those men whose temperarhent and turn for enjoyment throw a sort of grace over whatsoever they do, standing them in stead of every thing but prudence, and some- times everi supplying them with the consolations which imprudence itself has forfeited. After his bankruptcy he set up a newspaper, which became profitable to every body but himself. He had become so used to lawyers and bailiffs, that the more his concerns flourished, the more his debts flourished with them. It seemed as if he would have been too happy without them ; too exempt from the cares that beset the prudent. The first time I saw him, he was standing in a chemist's shop, waiting till the road was clear for him to issue forth. He had a toothache, for which he held a handkerchief over hia mouth; and while he kept a sharp look-out with his bright eye, was alternately groaning in a most gentlemanly manner over his gums and addressing some polite words to the shopman. I had not then been introduced 400 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOU'S LIFE. to him, and did not know his person ; so that the effect of his voice upon me was unequivocal. I liked him for it, and wished the bailiff at the devil. In the office of the " Weekly Messenger," I saw one day a person who looked the epitome of squalid authorship. He was wretchedly dressed and dirty ; and the rain, as he took his hat off, came away from it as from a spout. This was a man of the name of Badini, who had been poet at the Opera, and was then editor of the " Messenger." He was afterwards sent out of the country under the Alien Act, and became reader of the English papers to Bonaparte. His intimacy with some of the first families in the country, among whom he had been a teacher, is supposed to have been of use to the French government. He wrote a good idiomatic English style, and was a man of abilities. I had never before seen a poor author, such as are described in books ; and the spectacle of the reality startled me. Like other authors, however, who are at once very poor and very clever, his poyerty was his own fault. When he received any money, he disappeared, and was understood to spend it in alehouses. We heard that in Paris he kept his carriage. I have since met with authors of the same squalid description ; but they were destitute of ability, and had no more right to profess literature as a trade, than alchemy. It is from these that the common notions about the poverty of the profession are taken. One of them, poor fellow ! might have cut a figure in Smollett. He was a proper ideal author, in rusty black, out at elbows, thin and pale. He brought me an ode abolit an eagle ; for which the publisher of a magazine, he said, had had " the inhumanity" to offer him half-a-crown. His necessity for money he did not deny ; but his great anxiety was to know whether, as a poetical composition, his ode was not worth more. " Is that poetry. Sir ?" cried RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 401 he : " that 's what I want to know — is that poetry V rising from his chair, and staring and trembling in all the agony of contested ex- cellence. My brother John, at the beginning of the year 1805, set up a paper, called the " News," and I went to live with him in Brydges-street, and write the theatricals in it. It was he that invented the round window in the office of that paper, to attract attention. I say, the paper was his own, but it is a singular instance of my incuriousness, that I do not know to this day, and most likely never did, whether he had any share in it or not. Upon reflection, my impression is, that he had not. At all events, he was the printer and publisher, and he occupied the house. It was the custom at that time for editors of papers to be intimate with actors and dramatists. They were often proprietors, as well as editors ; and, in that case, it was not expected that they should escape the usual intercourse, or wish to do so. It was thought a feather in the cap of aU parties ; and with their feathers they tickled one another. The newspaper man had consequence in the green-room, and plenty of tickets for his friends ; and he dined at amusing tables. The dramatist secured a good-natured critique in his journal, sometimes got it written himself, or, according to Mr, Reynolds, was even himself the author of it. The actor, if he was of any eminence, stood upon the same ground of reciprocity ; and not to know a pretty actress, would have been a want of the knowing in general. Upon new performers, and upon writers not yet introduced, a journalist was more impartial; and sometimes, where the proprietor was in one interest more than another, or for some , personal reason grew offended with an actor, or set of actors, a criticism would occasionally be hostile, and even severe. An editor, too, would 3 F 402 RECOT.I.ECTIONS OF THE AUTHOU's LIFE. now and then suggest to his employer the policy of exercising a freer authority, and obtain influence enough with him to show symptoms of it. I believe Mr. Bell's editor, who was more clever, was also more im- partial than most critics ; though the publisher of the " British Theatre," and patron of the " Delia Cruseans," must have been hampered with literary intimacies. The best chance for an editor, who wished to have any thing like an opinion of his own, was the appearance of a rival news- paper with a strong theatrical connexion. Influence was here threatened with dimintitidn. It was to be held up on other grounds ; and the critic was permitted to find out,, that a bad play was not good, or an actress's petticoat of the lawful dimensions. Puffing and plenty of tickets were, however, the system of the day. It was an interchange of amenities over the dinner-table ; a flattery of power on the one side, and puns on the other; and what the- public took for a criticism on a play, was a draft upon the box-office, or reminiscences of last Thursday's salmon and lobster-sauce. Things are altered now. Editors of newspapers (with one or two scandalous exceptions, and they make a bullying show of independence) are of a higher and more independent order; and proprietors are wealthier, and leave their editors more to themselves. Tickets are ac- cepted from the theatres ; but it is upon an understanding that theatri- cal criticism of any sort is useful to both parties. At the time when the " News" was set up, there was no such thing, strictly speaking, as im- partial newspaper criticism ; there was hardly any criticism at all — I mean, any attempt at it, or articles of any length. The best critiques were to be found in weekly papers, because their corruption was of less importance. For the most part the etiquette was, to write as short and as favourable a paragraph on the new piece as could be ; to say that Bannister was KKCOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 403 "^ excellent," and Mrs. Jordan " charming ;" to notice the *• crowded house," or invent it, if necessary ; and to conclude by observing, that " the whole went ofF with eclat" If a lord was in the boxes, he was noticed as well as the actors ;— a thing never done now, except as a help to a minor theatre. Lords may sit by dozens in the boxes at Covent Garden, and an editor take no more notice of them than chorus-singers. For the rest, it was a critical religion in those times to admire Mr. Kemble ; and at the period in question. Master Betty had appeared, and been hugged to the hearts of the town as the young Roscius. We saw that independence in theatrical criticism would be a great novelty. We announced it, and nobody believed us : — we stuck to it, and the town believed every thing we said. The proprietors of the " News," of whom I knew so little that I cannot recollect with certainty any one of them, very handsomely left me to myself. My retired and scholastic habits kept me so ; and the pride of success confirmed my independence with regard to others. I was then in my twentieth year, an early period at that time for a writer. The usual exaggeration of report made me younger than I was ; and after being a " young Roscius" poetical, I was now looked upon as one critical. To know an actor per- sonally, appeared to me a vice not to be thought of ; and I would as lief have taken poison as accepted a ticket from the theatres. Good God ! To think of the grand opinion I had of myself in those days, and what little reason I had for it ! Not to accept the tickets was very proper, considering that I bestowed more blame than praise. There was also more good-nature than I supposed in not allowing myself to know any actors ; but the vanity of my position had greater weight with me than any thing else, and I must have proved it to discerning eyes by the small quantity of information I brought to my task, and the ostentation, with 3 F 2 404 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. which I produced it. I knew almost as little of the drama, as the young Roscius himself. Luckily I had the advantage of him in knowing how unfit he was for his office ; and probahly he thought me as much so, though he could not have argued upon it; for I was in the minority respecting his merits, and the balance just then trembling on the beam ; the " News," I believe, hastened the settlement of the question. I wish with all my heart we had let him alone, and he had got a little more money. However, he obtained enough to create him a provision for life. His position, which appeared so brilliant at first, had a remarkable cruelty in it. Most men begin life with struggles, and have their vanity sufficiently knocked about the head and shoulders, to make their kinder fortunes the more welcome. Mr. Betty had his sugar first, and his physic afterwards. He began life with a double childhood, with a new and extraordinary felicity added to the natural enjoyments of his age ; and he lived to see it speedily come to nothing, and to, be taken for an ordinary person. I am told that he acquiesces in his fate, and agrees that the town weYe mistaken. If so, he is no ordinary person still, and has as much right to our respect for his good sense, as he is declared on aU hands to deserve it for his amiableness. I have an anecdote of him to both purposes, which exhibits him in a very agreeable light. A living writer, who, if he had been criticising in another what he did himself, would have attributed it to an overweening opinion of his good word, hap- pened to be at a party where Mr. Betty was present; and in coming away, when they were all putting on their great coats, he thought fit to compliment the dethroned favourite of the town, by telling him that he recollected him in old times, and had been " much pleased with him." Mr. Betty, who appears to have shown all the address which the other wanted, looked at his unlucky memorialist, as much as to say " You RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIVE. 405 don't tell me so !" and then starting into a tragical attitude, exclaimed " Oh, memory ! memory !" I was right aJjQut Master Betty, and I am sorry for it; though the town was in fault, not he. I think I was right also about Mr. Kemble; but I have no regret upon that score. He flourished long enough after my attacks on his majestic dryness and deliberate nothings ; and Mr. Kean would have taken the public by storm, whether they had been prepared for him or not : ^ " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Mr. Kemble faded before him, like a tragedy ghost. I never denied the merits which that actor possessed. He had the look of a Roman ; made a very good ideal, though not a very real Coriolanus, for his pride was not sufficiently blunt and unaffected ; and in parts that suited his natural deficiency, such as Penruddock and the Abbe de I'Ep^e, would have been altogether admirable' and interesting, if you could have for- gotten that their sensibility, in his hands, was not so much repressed, as wanting. He was no more to be compared to his sister, than stone is to flesh and blood. There was much of the pedagogue in him. He made a great fuss about trifles ; was inflexible on a pedantic reading : in short, was rather a teacher of elocution than an actor ; and not a good teacher^ on that account. There was a merit in his idealism, as far as it went. He had, at least, faith in something classical and scholastic, and he made the town partake of it ; but it was all on the surface — a hoUow trophy : and I am persuaded, that he was a very dull person, apd had no idea in his head but of a stage Roman, and the dignity he added to his profession. 406 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOE'S XIFE. But if I was right about Mr. Kemble, whose admirers I plagued enough, I was not eqtially so about the Hving dramatists, whom I plagued more. I laid all the deficiencies of the modern drama to their account, and treated them like a parcel of mischievous boys, of whom I was the schoolmaster and whipper-in. I forgot that it was I who was the boy, and that they knew twenty times more of the world than I did. Not that I mean to say their comedies were excellent, or that my commonplaces about the superior merits of Gongreve and Sheridan were not weU founded : but there was more talent in their " five-act farces " than I supposed ; and I mistook, in great measure, the defect of the age, — its dearth of dramatic character, — for that of the writers who were to draw upon it. It is true, a great wit, by a laborious process, and the help of his acquirements, might extract a play or two from it, as was Sheridaji's own case ; but there was a great deal of imitation even in Sheridan, and he was fain to help himself to a little originality out of the characters of his less formalized countrymen, his own included. It is remarkable, that the three most amusing dramatists of the last age, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and O'Keeffe, were all Irishmen, and all had characters of their own. Sheridan, after aU, was Swift's Sheridan come to life again in the person of his grandson, with the oratory of Thomas Sheridan, the father, superadded and brought to bear. Goldsmith, at a disadvantage in his breeding, but full of address with his pen, drew upon his own absurdities and mistakes, and filled his dramas with ludicrous perplexity. O'Keeffe was all for whim and impulse, but not without a good deal of conscience ; and, accordingly, in his plays we have a sort of young and pastoral taste of life in the very midst of its sophistications. Animal spirits, quips and cranks, credulity, and good intention, are triumphant throughout, and make a delicious mixture. It is a great credit BECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 407 to O'Keeffe, that he ran sometimes close upon the borders of the senti- mental drama, and did it not only with impunity but advantage : but sprightliness and sincerity enable a man to do every thing with advan- tage. It is a pity that as much cannot be said of Mr. Colman, who, after taking more license in his writings than any body, has become a Licenser ex offixAo, and seems inclined to license nothing but cant. When this writer got into the sentimental, he made a sad business of it, foa* he had no faith in sentiment. He mouthed and overdid it, as a man does when he is telling a lie. At a farce he was admirable ; and remains so, whether writing or licensing. Morton seemed to take a colour from the writers all round him, especially from O'Keeffe and the sentimentalists. His sentiment was more in earnest than Mr. Colman's, yet somehow not happy either. There was a gloom in it, and a smack of the Old Bailey. It was best when he put it in a shape of humour, as in the paternal and inextinguishable tailorism of Old Rapid in a Cure for the Heart-Ache. Young Rapid, who .complains that his father " sleeps so slow," is also a pleasant fellow and worthy of O'Keeffe. He is one of the numerous crop that sprang up from Wild Oats, but not in so natural a soil. The character of the modern drama at that time was singularly commercial ; nothing but gentlemen in distress, and hard landlords, and generous in- terferers, and fathers who got a great deal of money, and sons who spent it. I remember the whole wit of Mr. H 's play ran upon prices, bonds, and post-obits. You might know what the pit thought of their pound-notes by the ostentatious indifference with which the heroes of the pieces gave them away, and the admiration and pretended approval with which the spectators observed it. To make a present of a hundred pounds was as if a man had uprooted and given away an Egyptian pyramid. 408 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. Mr. Reynolds was not behindhand with his brother dramatists, ■ in drawing upon the taste of the day for gains and distresses. It appears, by his Memoirs, that he had too much reason for so doing. He was perhaps the least ambitious, and the least vain, (whatever charges to the contrary his animal spirits might have brought on him,) of 9II the writers of that period. In complexional vivacity he certainly did not yield to any of them ; his comedies, if they were fugitive, were genuine representations of fugitive manners, and went merrily to their death ; and there is one of them, the " Dramatist," founded upon something more lasting, which promises to remain in the collections, and deserves it : which is not a little to say of any writer. I never wish for a heartier laugh than I have enjoyed, since I grew wiser, not only in see- ing, but in reading the vagaries of his dramatic hero, and his mysti- fications of. " Old Scratch." When 1 read the good-humoured Memoirs of this writer the other day, I felt quite ashamed of the ignorant and boyish way in which I used to sit in judgment upon his faults, without being aware of what was good in him ; and my repentance was increased by the very proper manner in which he speaks of his critics, neither denying the truth of their charges in letter, nor admitting them alto- gether in spirit ; in fact, showing that he knew very well what he was about, and that they, whatsoever they fancied to the contrary, did not. Mr. Reynolds, agreeably to his sense and good-humour, never said a word to his critics at the time. Mr. Thomas Dibdin, not quite so wise, wrote me a letter, which Incledon, I am told, remonstrated with him for sending, saying, it would do him no good with the "d boy." And he was right. I published it, with an answer ; and only thought that I made dramatists " come bow to me." Mr. Colman at- tacked me in a prologue, which by a curious chance Fawcptt spoke KECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOr's LIFE. 409 right in my teeth, the box I sat in happening to be directly opposite him. I laughed at the prologue ; and only looked upon Mr, Colman as a great monkey, pelting me with nuts, which I ate. Attacks of this kind were little calculated to obtain their end with a youth who persuaded himself that he wrote for nothing but the public good ; who mistook the impression which any body of moderate talents can make with a newspaper, for the result of something peculiarly his own ; and . who had just enough scholarship to despise the want of it, or what appeared to be the want of it, in others, I do not pretend to think that the criticisms in the " News" had no merit at all. They show- ed an acquaintance with the style of Voltaire, Johnson, and others; were not unagreeably sprinkled with quotation ; and, above all, were written with more care and attention than was customary with news- papers at that time. The pains I took to round a period with nothing in it, or to invent a simile that should appear off-hand, would have done honour to better stuff. On looking over the articles the other day, for the first time perhaps these twenty years, I found them less absurd than 1 had imagined ; and began to fear that, with all their mistakes, my improvement since had not been free from miscalculation. ' If so, God knows how I should have to criticise myself twenty years hence ! But there is a time of life, at which we cannot well experience more, at least so as to draw any healthy and useful deductions from our experience : and when a man has come to this, he is as wise, after his fashion, as he ever will be. The world require neither the ill-informed confidence of youth, nor the worse diffidence or obstinacy of old age, to teach them ; but a comparison of mutual experiences ; enough wisdom for acknowledging, that we are none of us as wise or as happy as we might be ; and a little more (which is the great point to arrive at) for 3 G 410 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. setting to work and trying if we cannot be otherwise, Methinks We have been beating blindly upon this point long enough, and might as well open our eyes to it. THE EXAMINEE.. — ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHORS IMPRISONMENT. At the beginning of the year 1808, my brother John and myself set up the weekly paper of the Examiner, in joint partnership. The spirit of the theatrical criticism continued the same as in the News, for several years ; by which time reflection, and the society of better critics, had made me wiser. In politics I soon got interested, as a man ; though I never could bear them, as a writer. It was against the grain that I was encouraged to begin them ; and against the grain I ever afterwards sat down to write, except when the subject was of a very general des- cription and I could introduce philosophy and the belles lettres. People accused me of conspiring with Cobbett and my gallant namesake, Henry Hunt; when the fact is, I never beheld ' either of them: so private a public man have I been. I went criminally late to my political ar- ticle ; gave a great deal of trouble to printers and newsmen, for which I am heartily sorry ; and hastened back as fast as I could to my verses and books, among which I had scarcely a work upon politics. The progress of society has since deeply interested me, and I should do better now, because I have better learnt the value of time, and politics have taken with me a wider and kindlier aspect : but owing to a dispute of a very painful nature, in which every body thought himself in the right, RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 411 and was perhaps more or less in the wrong, I have long ceased to have any hand in the Examiner, and latterly to have any property in it. I shall therefore say nothing more of the paper, except that I was very much in earnest in all I wrote ; that I was in a perpetual fluctuation, during the time, of gay spirits and wretched health, which conspired to make me a sensitive observer, and a very bad man of business ; and that L think precisely as I did on aU subjects when I last wrote in it : — with this difference, — that I am inclined to object to the circumstances that make the present state of society what it is, still more ; and to individuals - who are the creatures of those circumstances, not at all. I proceed to the story of my imprisonment ; which concerns others as well as myself, and contains some deUneations of character ; but as it has been told before in the same words, I shall print it with marks of quotation. I need not add, after what has been said at the close of the last paragraph, that the exordium would have been a little different now had it been newly written : but I let it stand, because it was written as conscientiously and with as free a spirit, as it would be written stiU. I no longer think I have a right to quarrel with indivi- duals or their characters, any more than they have with one's own ; and besides objecting to the right or utility of the thing, I have observed that those are loudest against others, who can the least bear to have any thing said of themselves ; which is a fault I am willing to value myself upon not being charged with. Enough remains, in aU conscience, to oppose and object to, if we prefer our utility to our spleen ; and quite enough to show we are independent, and not likely to be bribed. " Some of my readers may remember that my brother and myself were sentenced to a two years' imprisonment for a libel on the Prince Regent ; I say, without hesitation, a libel; since the word means no more, now-a- 3 G 2 412 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, % days, either for a man or against him, than its original signification of ' a little book.' Let those thank themselves that such is the case, who by their own confusion of terms and penalties, and their application of one and the same word to the lowest private scandal and the highest impulses of public spirit, have rendered honest men not ashamed of it. It is remarkable, that the same Whig Judge (Lord EUenborough) who had directed the Jury to find us innocent on a prior occasion, when we were indicted for saying that ' of all Monarchs since the Revolution, the successor of George the Third (then reigning) would have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular,' Irad now the task of giving them a very different intimation, because we thought that the Regent had not acted up to his opportunities. I was provoked to write the Hbel by the interest I took in the disappointments of the Irish nation, which had very particular claims on the promises of his Royal Highness ; but what, perhaps, embittered it most in the palate of that illustrious Personage, was its contradiction of an awkward panegyric which had just appeared on him from the pen of some foolish person in the ' Morning Post,' calling him, at his time of life, a charmer of all hearts and an Adonis of loveliness. At another time, I should have laughed at this in a rhyme or two, and remained free; the courts of law having a ju- dicious instinct against the reading of merry rhymes ; but the two things coming together, and the Irish venting their spleen pretty stoutly over their wine at the dinner on St. Patrick's Day, (indeed they could not well be more explicit, for they groaned and hissed when his name was men- tioned,) I. wrote an attack equally grave and vehement, and such as every body said would be prosecuted. Little did I foresee, that, in the course of a few years, this same people, the Irish, would burst into an enthu- siasm of joy and confidence;, merely because the illustrious Personage RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 413 paid them a visit ! I will not say they were rightly served, in finding that nothing came of it, for I do not think so ; especially as we are not bound to take the inhabitants of a metropolis as representatives of the wretched millions in oth'er parts of the country, who have since been in worse state than before. But this I may be allowed to say, that if ever I regretted having gone to prison in their behalf, it was then and then only. " Between the verdict and the passing of sentence, a circumstance occurred, not of so singular a nature, perhaps, as it may seem. We were given to understand, through the medium of a third person, but in a manner emphatically serious and potential, that if we would abstain in future from commenting upon the actions of the royal Personage, means would be found to prevent our going to prison. The same offer was afterwards repeated, as far as the payment of a fine was concerned, upon our going thither. I need not add, that we declined both. We do not mean to affirm, that these offers came directly or indirectly from the quarter in which they might be supposed to originate ; but we know the immediate quarter from which they did come ; and this we may affirm, that of all the ' two hundred and fifty particular friends,' who dined on one occasion at Carlton House, and delighted the public with that amazing record of attachment, his Royal Highness had not one more zealous or liberal in his behalf " The expectation of a prison was in one respect very formidable to me ; for I had been a long time in a bad state of health ; and when notice was given that we were to be brought up for judgment, I had just been advised by the physician to take exercise every day on horseback, and go down to the sea-side. I was resolved, however, to do no disgrace either to the courage which I really possessed, or 414 KECOLLECTXONS OF TH£ AUTHOE's LIFE. to an example which I can better speak of in any other . place than this. I accordingly put my countenance in its best trim: I made a point of wearing my best apparel ; put on my new hat and gloves, and descended into the legal arena to be sentenced gallantly. As an instance of the imagination which I am accustomed to mingle with every thing, I was at that time reading a little work, to which Milton is indebted, the Comus of Erycius Puteanus ; and this, which is a satire on ' Bacehuses and their revellers;,' I pleased .myself with having in my pocket. It is necessary, on passing sentence for a libel, to read over again the words that composed it. This was the business of Lord EUenborough, who baffled the attentive audience in a very ingenious manner by affecting every instant to hear a noise, and call- ing upon the Officers of the Court to prevent it. Mr. Garrow, the At- torney-General, (who had succeeded Sir Vicary Gibbs at a very cruel moment, for the indictment had been brought by that irritable person, and was the first against us which took effect,) behaved to us with a politeness that was considered extraordinary. Not so Mr. Justice Grose, who delivered the sentence. To be didactic and old womanish belonged to his office; but to lecture us on pandering to the public appetite for scandal, was what we could not so easily bear. My brother,, as I had been the writer, expected me, perhaps, to be the spokesman ; and speak I certainly should have done, had not I been prevented by the dread of a hesitation in my speech, to which I had been subject when a boy, and the fear of which (perhaps idly, for I hesitate least among strangers, and very rarely at all) has been the main cause, I believe, that I have ap- peared and acted in public less than any other public man. There is reason to think, that Lord EUenborough was still less easy than our- selves. He knew that we were acquainted with his visits to Carlton- house and Brighton, (sympathies not eminently decent in a Judge,) and RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, 415 the good things he had obtained for his kinsmen, and we could not help preferring our feelings at the moment to those which induced him to keep his eyes fixed on his papers, which he did almost the whole time of our being in Court, never turning them once to the place on which we stood. There were divers points besides those, on which he had some reason to fear that we might choose to return the lecture of the Bench. He did not even look at us, when he asked, in the course of his duty, whether it was our wish to make any remarks. I answered, that we did not wish to make any there, and Sir Nash proceeded to pass sentence. At the sound of two years' imprisonment in separate jaUs, my brother and myself instinctively pressed each other's arm. It was a heavy blow : but the pressure that acknowledged it, encouraged the resolution to bear it ; and I do not believe either of us interchanged a word afterwards on the subject. *' We parted in hackney-coaches for our respective abodes, accompa- nied by two tipstaves apiece. I cannot help smiling to think of a third person whom I had with me, when I contrast his then situation with his present : but he need not be alarmed. 1 will not do him the injustice either of hurting or recommending him by the mention of his name. He was one of the best-natured fellows in the world, and I dare say he is so still ; but, as Strap says, ' Non omnia possumus omnes.' *' The tipstaves prepared me for a singular character in my jailer. His name was Ives. I was told he was a very self-wiUed personage, not the more accommodating for being in a bad state of health, and that he called every body Mister. ' In short,' said one of the tipstaves, ' he is one as may be led, but he 'U never be druv.^ " The sight of the prison-gate and the high wall was a dreary business. I thought of my horseback and the downs of Brighton ; but congratu- lated myself, at all events, that I had come thither with a good consci- 416 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR's LIFE. ence. After waiting in the prison-yard as long as if it had been the antiroom of a minister, I was at length ushered into the presence of the great man. He was in his parlour, which was decently furnished, and had a basin of broth before him, which he quitted on my appearance, and rose with much solemnity to meet me. He seemed about fifty years of age ; had a white night-cap on, as if he was going to be hung ; and a great red face, which looked ready to burst with blood. Indeed, he was not allowed by his physician to speak in a tone above a whisper. The first thing he said was, ' Mister, I 'd ha' given a matter of a hun- dred pounds, that you had not come to this place — a hundred pounds !' The emphasis which he laid on the word ' hundred' was enormous. I forget what I answered. I endeavoured, as usual, to make the best of things; but he recurred over and over again to the hundred pounds; and said he wondered, for his .part, what the; Government meant by sending me there, for the prison was not a prison fit for a gentleman. He often repeated this opinion afterwards, adding, with a peculiar nod of his head, * and Mister, they knows it.' I said, that if a gentleman deserved to be sent to prison, he ought not to be treated with a greater nicety than any one else : upon which he corrected me, observing very properly, (though, as the phrase is, it was one word for the gentleman and two for his own apartments,) that a person who had been used to a better mode of lodging and living than ' low people,' was not treated with the same justice, if forced to live exactly as they did. 1 told him his observation was very true ; which gave him a favourable opinion of my understanding: for I had many occasions of remarking, that, ab- stractedly considered, he looked upon nobody whomsoever as his supe- rior, speaking even of the members of the Royal Family as persons whom he knew very well, and estimated no more than became him. IIECOLLECTIONS OP THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 417 One Royal Duke had lunched in his parlour, and another he had laid under some polite obligation. ' They knows me,' said he, ' very well. Mis- ter ; and. Mister, I knows them.' This concluding sentence he uttered with great particularity and precision. He was not proof, however, against a Greek Pindar, which he happened to light upon one day among my books. Its unintelligible character gave him a notion that he had got somebody to deal with, who might really know something which he did not. Perhaps the gilt leaves and red morocco binding had their share in the magic. The upshot was, that he always showed himself anxious to appear well with me, as a clever fellow, treating me with great civility on all occasions but one, when I made him very angry by disappointing him in a money amount. The Pindar was a mystery that staggered him. I remember very well, that giving me a long account one day of something connected with his business, he happened to catch with his eye the shelf that contained it, and whether he saw it or not, abruptly finished by observing, ' But, Mister, you knows all these things as well as I do.' Upon the whole, my new acquaintance was as strange a person as I ever met with. A total want of education, together with a certain vulgar acuteness, conspired to render him insolent and pedantic. Dis- ease sharpened his tendency to violent fits of passion, which threatened to suffocate him ; and then in his intervals of better health, he would issue forth, with his cock-up-nose and his hat on one side, as great a fop as a jockey. I remember his coming to my rooms, about the middle of my imprisonment, as if on purpose to insult over my ill health with the contrast of his own convalescence, putting his arms in a gay manner a-kimbo, and telhng me I should never live to go out, whereas he was ridilig about as stout as ever, and had just been in the country. He died before I left prison. The word jail, in deference to the way in 3 H 418 ^ BECOLLECTTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LI?E. which it is sometimes spelt, he called gole ; and Mr. Brougham he always gpoke of as Mr. Bruffam. He one day apologized for this mode of pro- nunciation, or rather gave a specimen of his vanity and self-will, which will show the reader at once, the high notions a jailer may entertain of himself : ' I find,' said he, ' that they calls him Broom ; but. Mister,' (assuming a look from which there was to be no appeal,) ' I calls him Bruffam .'" " Finding that my host did not think the prison fit for me, I asked if he would let me have an apartment in his house. He pronounced it impossible ; which was a trick to enhance the price. I could not make an offer to please him ; and he stood out so long, and, as he thought, so cunningly, that he subsequently overreached himself by his trickery ; as the readers will see. His object was to keep me among the prisoners, till he could at once sicken me of the place, and get the per- mission of the magistrates to receive me into his house ; which was a thing he reckoned upon as a certainty. He thus hoped to secure him- self in all quarters ; for his vanity was almost as strong as his avarice; he was equally fond of getting money in private, and of the approbation of the great men he had to deal with in public ; and it so happened, that there had been no prisoner, above the poorest condition, before my arrival, with the exception of Colonel Despard. From abusing the prison, he then suddenly fell to speaking well of it, or rather of the room occupied by the Colonel; and said that another correspond- ing with it would make me a capital apartment. ' To be sure,' said he, ■ there is nothing but bare v^alls, and I have no bed to put in it.' I replied, that of course I should not be hindered from having my • own bed from home. He said, 'No; and if it rains,' observed he, 'you have only to put up with want of light for a time.' ' What!' RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 419 exclaimed I, ' are there no windows ?' ' Windows, Mister !' cried he ; ' no windows in a prison of this sort ; no glass, Mister ; but excellent shutters.^ " It was finally agreed, that I should sleep for a night or two in a garret of the jailer's house, tiU my bed could be got ready in the prison and the windows glazed. A dreary evening followed, which, however, let me completely into the man's character, and showed him in a variety of lights, some ludicrous and others as melancholy. There was a full-length portrait, in the room, of a little girl, dizened out in her best. This, he told me, was his daughter; whom he had disinhe- rited for disobedience. I tried to suggest a few reflections to him capable of doing her service ; but disobedience, I found, was an offence doubly irritating to his nature, on account of his sovereign habits as a jailer; and seeing his irritability likely to inflame the ple- thora of his countenance, I desisted. Though not allowed to speak above a whisper, he was extremely willing to talk ; but at an early hour I pleaded my own state of health, and retired to bed. " On taking possession of my garret, I was treated with a piece of delicacy, which I never should have thought of finding in a prison. When I first entered its walls, I had been received by the under-jailer, a man who appeared an epitome of aU that was forbidding in his office. He was short and very thick, had a hook nose, a great severe counte- nance, and a bunch of keys hanging on his arm. A friend once stopped short at sight of him, and said, in a melancholy tone, ' And this is the jailer!' Honest old Cave! thine outside would have been unworthy of thee, if upon farther acquaintance I had not found it a very hearty outside,— ay, and, in my eyes, a very good-looking one, and as fit to contain the milk of human kindness that was in thee, as the husk of a 3 H 2 420 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. cocoa. Was, did I say ? I hope it is in thee still ; I hope thou art alive to read this paper, and to perform, as usual, a hundred kind offices, as exquisite in their way as they are desirable and unlocked for. To finish at once the character of this man, — I could never prevail on him to accept any acknowledgment of his kindness,, greater than a set of tea-things, and a piece or two of old furniture which I could not well carry away. I had indeed the pleasure of leaving him in possession of a room I had papered; but this was a thing unexpected, and which neither of us had supposed could' be done. Had I been a Prince, I would have forced on him a pension. Being a journahst, I made him accept an Examiner weekly, which, I trust, he still lives to relish his Sunday pipe with. " This man, in the interval between my arrival and introduction to the head jailer, had found means to give me farther information respecting my new condition, and to express the interest he took in it. I thought Uttle of his offers at the; time. He behaved with the greatest air of deference to his principal ; moving as fast as his body would allow him, to execute his least intimation ; and holding the candle to him while he read, with an obsequious zeal. But he had spoken tq his wife about me, and his wife I found to be as great a curiosity as himself. Both were more like the romantic jailers drawn in some of our modern plays, than real Horsemonger-lane palpabilities. The wife, in her person, was as hght and fragile as the husband was sturdy. She had the nerves of a fine lady, and yet went through the most unpleasant duties with the patience of a martyr. Her voice and look seemed to plead for a softness like their own, as if a loud reply would have shattered her. Ill health had made her a Methodist, but this did not hinder her sympathy with an invalid who was none, or her love for her husband, who was as little RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 421 of a saint as need be. Upon the whole, such an extraordinary couple, so apparently unsuitable, and yet so fitted for one another ; so apparently vulgar on one side, and yet so naturally delicate on both ; so misplaced in their situation, and yet for the good of others so admirably put there, I have never met with, before or since. " It was the business of this woman to lock me up in my garret ; but she did it so softly the first night, that I knew nothing of the matter. The night following, I thought I heard a gentle tampering witii the lock. I tried it, and found it fastened. She heard me as she was going down- stairs, and said the next day, " Ah, Sir, I thought I should have turned the key, so as for you not to hear it ; but I found you did." The whole conduct of this couple towards us, from first to last, was of a piece with this singular delicacy. " My bed was shortly put up, and I slept in my new room. It was on an upper story, and stood in a corner of the quadrangle, on the right hand as you enter the prison-gate. The windows (which had now been accommodated with glass, in addition to their " excellent shutters") were high up, and barred ; but the room was large and airy, and there was a fireplace. It was designed for a common room for the prisoners on that story ; but the cells were then empty. The cells were ranged on either side of the arcade, of which the story is formed, and the room opened at the end of it. At night-time the door was locked ; then another on the top of the staircase, then another on the mid- dle of the staircase, then a fourth at the bottom, a fifth that shut up the little yard belonging to that quarter, and how many more, before you got out of the gates, I forget: but I do not exaggerate when I say there were at least ten or eleven. The firf^t night I slept there, I listened to them, one after the other, till the weaker part of my 422 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTItOIl's LIFE. heart died within me. Every fresh turning of the key seemed a ma- lignant insult to my love of liberty. I was alone, and away from my family ; I, who have never slept from home above a dozen times in my life, and then only from necessity. Furthermore, the reader will bear in mind that I was iU. With a great flow of natural spirits, I was subject to fits of nervousness, which had latterly taken a more continued shape. I felt one of them coming on, and having learned to anticipate and break the force of it by sudden exercise, I took a stout walk of I dare say fourteen or fifteen miles, by pacing backwards and forwards for the space of three hours. This threw me into a state in which rest, for rest's sake, became pleasant. I got hastily into bed, and slept without a dream tiU morning. By the way, I never dreamt of prison but twice all the time I was there, and my dream was the same on both occasions. " It was on the second day of my imprisonment that I saw my wife, who could not come to me before. To say that she never reproached me for these and the like taxes upon our family prospects, is to say little. A world of comfort for me was in her face. There is a note in the fifth volume of my Spenser, which I was then reading, in these words : — ' February 4th, 1813.' The line to which it refers is this : — ' Much dearer be the thingSj which come through hard distresse.' " I now applied to the magistrates for permission to have my wife and children with me, which was granted. Not so my request to move into the jailer's house. Mr. Holme Sumner, on occasion of a petition from a subsequent prisoner, told the House of Commons, that my room had a view over the Surrey hills, and that I was very well content with it. I could not feel obliged to him for this postliminious piece of enjoy- RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, 423 ment, especially when 1 remembered that Mr. Holme Sumner had done all in his power to prevent my removal out of the room, precisely (as it appeared to us) because it looked upon nothing but the felons, and because I was not contented. In fact, you could not see out of the windows at all, without getting on a chair ; and then, all that you saw was the miserable men, whose chains had been clanking from daylight. The perpetual sound of these chains wore upon my spirits, in a manner to which my state of health allowed me reasonably to object. The yard also in which I exercised w&s very small. The jailer proposed that I should be allowed to occupy apartments in his house, and walk occa- sionally in the prison garden ; adding, that I should certainly die if I had not ; and his opinion was seconded by that of the medical man. Mine host was sincere in this, if in nothing else. Telling us, one day, how warmly he had put it to the magistrates, and insisted that I should not survive, he turned round upon me, and, to the Doctor's astonish- ment, added, ' nor. Mister, will you.' I believe it was the opinion of many ; but Mr. Holme Sumner argued, perhaps, from his own sensations, which were sufficiently iron. Perhaps he concluded also, like a proper ministerialist, that if I did not think fit to flatter the magistrates a little, and play the courtier, my wants could not be very great. At all events, he came up one day with the rest of them, and after bowing as well as he could to my wife, and piteously pinching the cheek of an infant in her arms, went down and did all he could to prevent our being com- fortably situated. The Doctor then proposed that I should be removed into the prison infirmary ; and this proposal was granted. Infirmary had, 1 confess, an, awkward sound even to my ears. I fancied a room shared with other sick persons, not the best fitted for companions; but the good-natured 424 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. doctor (his name was Dixon) undeceived me.* The infirmary was di- vided into four wards, with as many small rooms attached to them. The two upper wards were occupied, but the two on the ground flod)r had never been used : and one of these, not very providently (for I had not yet learned to think of money) I turned into a noble room. I papered the walls with a trellis of roses ; I had the ceiling coloured with clouds and sky ; the barred windows were screened with Venetian blinds ; and when my bookcases were set up with their busts, and flowers and a piano-forte made their appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer room on that side the water. I took a pleasure, when, a stranger knocked at the door, to see him come in and stare ^bout him. The surprise on issuing from the Borough, and passing through the avenues of a jail, was dramatic. Charles Lamb declared there was no other such room except in a fairy tale. " But I had another surprise ; which was a garden. There was a little yard outside the room, railed off" from another belonging to the neighbouring ward. This yard I' shut in with green palings, adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a nursery, and even contrived to have a grass-plot. The earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple-tree, from which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be perfect. A poet from Derbyshire f told me he had seen no such heart's-ease. I bought . the ' Parnaso Italiano ' while in prison, and used often to think of a passage in it, while looking at this miniature piece of horticulture : — * I may venture to speak of him with this grateful epithet, for I verily believe he thought me dying, and he never interchanged a word with me except on the matter in question. t Thomas Moore ; with whom and Lord Byron I was too angry, when I wrote this article, to mention them as visitors of me by name. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 425 Mio picciol orto, A me sei vigna, e campo, e selva, e prato. — Baldi. My little garden^ To me thou 'rt vineyard, field, and meadow, and wood. Here I wrote and read in fine weather, sometimes under an awning. In autumn, my trellises were hung with scarlet runners, which added to the flowery investment. I used to shut my eyes in my arm-chair, and affect to think myself hundreds of miles off. But my triumph was in issuing forth of a morning. A wicket out of the garden led into the large one belonging to the prison. The latter was only for vegetables ; but it con- tained a cherry-tree, which I saw twice in blossom. * * « ***♦**♦* " I entered prison the third of February, and removed to my new apartments the 16th of March, happy to get out of the noise of the chains. When I sat amidst my books, and saw the imaginary sky over- head and my paper roses about me, I drank in the quiet at my ears, as if they were thirsty. The little room was my bed-room. I after- wards made' the two rooms change characters, when my wife lay in. Permission for her continuance with me at that period was easily ob- tained of the Magistrates, among whom a new-comer made his appear- ance. This was another good-natured man — the late Earl of Rothes, then Lord Leslie. He heard me with kindness ; and his actions did not belie his countenance. The only girl I have among seven children was born in prison,* I cannot help blessing her when I speak of it. Never shall I forget my sensations: for I was obliged to play the physician * The reader will be good enough to bear in mind, that this account of my imprisonment is quoted from another publication. I have now eight children, three of whom are girls. 3 I 426 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. myself, the hovir having taken us by surprise. But her mother found many unexpected comforts ; and during the whole time she was in bed, which happened to be in very fine weather, the garden door was set open, and she looked upon the trees and flowers. A thousand recollec- tions rise within me at every fresh period of my imprisonment, such as I cannot trust myself with dwelling upon. " These rooms, and the visits of my friends, were the bright side of my captivity. I read verses without end, and wrote almost as many. I had also the pleasure of hearing that my brother had found comfort- able rooms in Coldbath-fields, and a host who really deserved that name as much as a jailer could. The first year of my imprisonment was a long pull up-hill ; but never was metaphor so literally verified, as by the sensation at the turning of the second. In the first year, all the prospect was that of the one coming : in the second, the days began to be scored off, like those of children at school preparing for a holiday. When I was fairly settled in my new apartments, the jaUer (I beg pardon of his injured spirit — I ought to have called him Governor) could hardly express his spleen at my having escaped his clutches, his astonishment was so great. Besides, though I treated him handsomely, he had a little lurking fear of the Examiner upon him ; so he contented himself with getting as much out of me as he could, and boasting of the grand room which he would very willingly have prevented my enjoying. My friends were allowed to be with me tiU ten o'clock at night, when the under-turnkey, a young man, with his lantern, and much ambitious gentUity of deportment, came to see them out. I believe we scattered an urbanity about the prison, till then unknown. Even W. H. (Mr. Hazlitt, who there first did me the pleasure of a visit) would stand interchanging amenities at the threshold, which I had great difficulty in RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AtlTHOIl's LIFE. 427 making him pass. I know not which kept his hat off with the greater pertinacity of deference, I to the diffident cutter-up of Dukes and Kings, or he to the amazing prisoner and invahd who issued out of a bower of roses. There came T. B. (my old friend and schoolfellow, Barnes,) who always reminds me of Fielding. It was he that introduced me to A. (Alsager) the kindest of neighbours, a man of business, who contrived to- be a .scholar and a musician. -He loved his leisure, and yet would start up at a moment's notice to do the least of a prisoner's bid- dings. Other friends are dead since that time, and others gone. I have tears for the kindest of them ; and the mistaken shall not be reproached, if I can help it. But what return can I make to the L's (Lambs), who came to comfort me in all weathers, hail or sunshine, in daylight or in darkness, even in the dreadful frost and snow of the beginning of 1814 ? I am always afraid of tdlking about them, lest my tropical tem- perament should seem to render me too florid. AVhat shall I say to Dr. G. one of the most liberal of a generous profession, who used to come so many times into that out-of-the-way wOrld to do me good ? Great disappointment, and exceeding viciousness, may talk as they please of the badness of human nature ; for my part, I am on the verge of forty, and I have seen a good deal of the world, the dark side as well as the light, and I say that human nature is a very good and kindly thing, and capable of all sorts of excellence. Art thou not a refutation of all that can be said against it, excellient Sir John Swinburne ? another friend whom I made in prison, and whose image^ now before my imagi- nation, fiUs my whole frame with emotion. I could kneel before him and bring his hand upon my head, like a son asking his father's blessing. It was during my imprisonment that another S. (Mr. Shelley) afterwards my friend of friends, now no more, made me a princely oiBPer, which at 3 1 2 428 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE< that time I stood in no need of. I will take this opportunity of men- tioning, that some other persons, not at all known to us, offered to raise money enough to pay the fine of £1000. We declined it, with proper thanks ; and it became us to do so. But, as far as my own feelings were concerned, I have no merit ; for I was destitute, at that time, of even a proper instinct with regard to money. It was not long afterwards that I was forced to call upon friendship for its assistance ; and nobly was it afforded me ! Why must I not say every thing upon this subject, showing my improvidence for a lesson, and their generosity for a comfort to mankind?* — To some other friends, near and dear, I may not even return thanks in this place for a thousand nameless attentions, which they make it a business of their existence to bestow on those they love. I might as soon thank my own heart. Their names are trembling on my pen, as that is beating at the recollection. But one or two others, whom I have not seen for years, and who by some possibility (if indeed they ever think it worth their while to fancy any thing on the subject) might suppose themselves forgotten, I may be suffered to remind of the pleasure they gave me. A third S. (M. S. who afterwards saw us so often near London) is now, I hope, enjoying the tranquillity he so richly deserves ; and so, I trust, is a fourth, C; S. whose face, or rather some- thing like it (for it was not easy to match her own), I am continually meeting with in the country of her ancestors. Her veil, and her baskets of flowers, used to come through the portal, like light. " I must not omit the honour of a visit from the venerable Mr. Ben- tham, who is justly said to unite the wisdom of a sage with the simpli- city of a child. He found me playing at battledore, in which he took a part, and with his usual eye towards improvement, suggested an amend- ment in the constitution of shuttle-cocks. I remember the surprise of * I hare since said it, in this book. RECOLLECTIONS OP THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 429 the Governor at his local knowledge and vivacity. ' Why, Mister,' said he, ' his eye is everywhere at once.' " It was intimated to me that Mr. Sou they intended to pay me a visit. I showed a proper curiosity to see the writer who had helped to influence my opinions in favour of liberty ; but, in the mean time, there was a report that he was to be Poet Laureat. I contradicted this report in the Examiner with some warmth. Unluckily, Mr. Southey had ac- cepted the ofBce the day before; and the consequence was, he never itiade his appearance. At this period he did me the honour to compare me with Camille Desmoulins. He has since favoured me with sundry lectures and cuttings-up for adhering to his own doctrine. They say he is not sorry. I am sure I am not ; and there is an end of the matter. (Little T. L. H. is his humble servant, but cannot conceive how he has incurred his commiseration). " All these comforts were embittered by unceasing ill health, and by certain melancholy reveries, which the nature of the place did not help to diminish. During the first six weeks, the sound of the felons' chains, mixed with what I always took for horrid execrations or despair- ing laughter, was never out of my ears. When I went into the Infir- mary, which stood by itself between the inner jail and the prison walls, gallowses were occasionally put in order by the side of my windows, and afterwards set up over the prison gates, where they were still visible. The keeper one day, with an air of mystery, took me into the upper ward, for the purpose, he said, of gratifying me with a view of the country from the roof. Something prevented his showing me this ; but the spectacle he did show me I shall never forget. It was a stout coun- try girl, sitting in an absorbed manner, her eyes fixed on the fire. She was handsome, and had a little hectic spot in either cheek, the effect of some gnawing emotion. He told me, in a whisper, that she was there 430 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. for the murder of her bastard child. I could have knocked the fellow down for his unfeelingness in making a show of her: but, after all, she did not see us. She heeded us not! There was no object before her, but what produced the spot in her cheek. The gallows, on which she was executed, must have been brought out within her hearing; — ^but perhaps she heard that as little. To relieve the reader, I will give him another instance of the delicacy of my friend the under-jaUer. He always used to carry up her food to the poor girl himself ; because, as he said, he did not think it a fit task for younger men. This was a melan- choly case. In generalj the crimes were not of such a staggering de- scription, nor did the criminals appear to take their situation to heart. I found by degrees, that fortune showed fairer play than I had supposed to aU classes of men, and that those who seemed tO have most reason to be miserable, were not always so. Their criminality was generally pro- portioned to their want of thought. My friend Ca,ve, who had become a philosopher by the force of his situation, said to me one day, when a new batch of criminals came in, ' Poor ignorant wretchies. Sir !' At evening, when they went to bed, I used to stand in the prison garden, listening to the cheerful songs with which the felons entertained one another. The beaters of hemp were a stUl merrier race. Doubtless the good hours and simple fare of the prison contributed to make the blood of its inmates run better^ particularly those who were forced to take exercise. At last, I used to pity the debtors more than the criminals ; yet even the debtors had their gay parties and joUy songs. Many a time (for they were my neighbours) have I heard them roar out the old ballad in Beaumont and Fletcher : — ' He that drinks and goes to bed sober, Falls, as the leaves doj and dies in October.' To say the truth, there was an obstreperousness in their mirth, that RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOU's LIFE. 431 looked more melancholy than the thoughtlessness of the lighter-feeding felons. " On the 3d of February, 1815, I was free. When my family, the preceding summer, had been obliged to go down to Brighton for their health, I felt ready to dash my head against the wall, at not being able to follow them. I would sometimes sit in my chair, with this thought upon me, tUl the agony of my impatience burst out at every pore. I would not speak of it, if it did not enable me to show how this kind of suffering may be borne, and in what sort of way it terminates. All fits of nervousness ought to be anticipated as much as possible with exercise. Indeed, a proper healthy mode of life would save most people from these effeminate ills, and most likely restore even those who inherit them. — It was novv^ thought that I should dart out of my cage Hke a bird, and feel no end in the delight of ranging. But partly from ill- health, and partly from habit, the day of my liberation brought a good deal of pain with it. An illness of a long standing, which required very different treatment, had by this time been burnt in upon me by the iron that enters into the soul of the captive, wrap it in flowers as he may ; and I am ashamed to say, that after stopping a little at the house of my friend A., I had not the courage to continue looking at the shoals of people passing to and fro, as the coach drove up the Strand. The whole business of life appeared to me a hideous impertinence. The first pleasant sensation I experienced was when the coach turned into the New-road, and I beheld the old hills of my affection standing where they used to do, and breathing me a welcome. " It was very slowly that I recovered any thing like a sensation of health. The bitterest evil I suffered was in consequence of having been confined so long in one spot. The habit stuck to me, on my return home, in a very extraordinary manner, and made, I fear, some of my RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOE'S LIFE. friends think me ungrateful. They did me an injustice ; but it was not their fault; nor could I wish them the bitter experience which alone makes us acquainted with the existence of strange things. This weakness I outlived; but I have never properly recovered the general shock given my constitution. My natural spirits, however, have always struggled hard to, see me reasonably treated. Many things give me exquisite pleasure, which seem to affect other men but in a very minor degree ; and I enjoyed, after all, such happy moments with my friends, even in prison, that in the midst of the beautiful climate in which I am now writing,* I am sometimes in doubt whether I would not rather be there than here." On leaving prison, I published the Story of Rimini, and became a worse newspaper man than before. HI health prevented my attending the theatres and writing the theatrical articles ; and at length, instead of throwing into the Examiner what forces remained to me, in some new shape, (as I ought to have enabled myself to do,) I was impelled by necessity to publish a small weekly paper, on the plan of the periodical essayists. From this (though it sold very well for a publication which no pains were taken to circulate) I reaped more honour than profit ; and the Indicator {I fear) is the best of my works : — so hard is it for one who has grown up in the hope of being a poet, to confess that the best things he has done have been in prose. The popularity of that work, however, evinced by the use made of it in others, and, above all, the good opinion expressed of it by such men as Mr. Lamb and Mr. Hazlitt, have long served to reconcile me to this discovery. I have more than consoled myself by thinking that it is not impossible it may be found some day or other in the train of a body of writers, among whom I am "proud to be less:" and it has enabled me perhaps to come ♦ This account was written in Italy. VISIT TO ITALY. 433 to a true estimate of my station as an author, which I take to be some- where between the prose of those town-writers and the enthusiasm of the old poets ; not, indeed, with any thing hke an approach to the latter, except in my love of them ; nor with any pretence to know half as much of wit and the town as the former did ; but not altogether un- original in a combination of the love of both, nor in the mixed colours of fancy and familiarity which it has enabled me to throw over some of the commonplaces of life. But enough of this attempt at a self-estimate, always perhaps difficult, and, at any rate, sure to be disputed. There are things I care more for in the world than myself, let me be thought of as I may. So I proceed to new adventures. THE author's VISIT TO ITALY, RESIDENCE THERE, AND RETURN TO ENGLAND, The reader has seen what it was that induced me to take a voyage to Italy. It, was not very discreet to go many hundred miles by sea in winter-time with a large family ; but a voyage was thought cheaper than a journey by land. Even that, however, was a mistake. It, was by Shelley's advice that I acted : and, I believe, if he had recommended a balloon, I should have been inclined to try it. " Put your music and your books on board a vessel," (it was thus that he wrote to us,) " and you will have no more trouble." The sea was to him a pastime ; he fancied us bounding over the waters, the merrier for being tossed ; and thought that our wilj would carry us through any thing, as it ought to do, seeing that we brought with us nothing but good things,— books, music, and sociality. It is true, he looked to our coming in autumn, and not in winter; and so we should have done, but for the delays 3 K 434 VISIT TO ITALY. of the captain. We engaged to embark in September, and did not set ofF till November the l6th. I have often thought that a searvoyage, which is generally the duUest thing in the world, both in the experiment and the description, might be turned to very different account on paper, if the narratoris, instead of imitating the dulness of their predecessors^ and recording that it was four o'clock P.M. when they passed Cape St. Vincent, and that on such and such-a-day they beheld a porpus or a Dutchman, would look into the interior of the floating-house they inhabited, and tell us about the seamen and their modes of living; what adventures they have had,— their characters and opinions,— how they eat, drink, and sleep^ &c. ; what they do in fine weather, and how they endure the sharpness, the squalid- ness, and inconceivable misery of bad. With a large family around me to occupy my mind, I did not think of this tiU too late : but I am sure that this mode of treating the subject would be interesting ; and what I remember to such purpose, I wiU set down. Our vessel was a small brig of a hundred and twenty tons^ burden, a good tight sea-boat, nothing more. Its cargo consisted of sugar; but it took in also a surreptitious stock of gunpowder, to the: amount of fifty barrels, which was destined for Greece. Of this intention we knew nothing, tiU the barrels were sent on board from a place up the river ; otherwise, so touchy a companion would have been objected; to, my wife; who was in a shattered state of health, never ceasing to entertain appre- hensions on account of it, except when the storms that came upon us pre- sented a more obvioiis peril. There were nine men to the crew, includ- ing the mate. ' We numbered as many souls, though with smaller bodies, in the cabin, which we had entirely to ourselves ; as well we rnight, for it was small enough. On the afternoon of the 15th of November (1821), VISIT TO ITALY. 435 we took leave of some dear friends, who accompanied us on board ; and next morning were awakened by the motion of the vessel, making its way through the shipping in the river. The new life in which we thus, as it were, found ourselves enclosed, the clanking of iron, and the cheerly cries of the seamen, together with the natural vivacity of the time of day, presented something animating to our feehngs ; but while we thus moved off, not without encouragement, we felt that the friend whom we were going to see was at a great distance, while others were very near, whose hands it would be a long while before we should touch again, perhaps never. We hastened to get up and busy ourselves ; and great as well as small found a novel diversion in the spectacle that presented itself from the deck, our vessel threading its way through the others with gliding bulk. The next day it blew strong from the South-east, and even in the river (the navigation of which is not easy) we had a foretaste of the alarms and bad weather that awaited us at sea. The pilot, whom we had taken in over-night, (and who was a jovial fellow with a whistle like a blackbird, which, in spite of the dislike that sailors have to whisthng, he was always indulging,) thought it prudent to remain at anchor till two in the afternoon ; and at six, a vessel meeting us carried aw;ay the jib- boom, and broke in one of the bulwarks. My wife, who had had a respite from the most alarming part of her illness, and whom it was sup- posed that a sea- voyage, even in winter, might benefit, again expectorated blood with the fright ; and I began to i-egret that I had brought iny family into this trouble. — Even in the river we had a foretaste of the sea ; and the curse of being at sea to a landman is, that you know no- thing of what is going forward, and can take no active part in getting rid of your fears, or in " lending a hand." The business of these small 3 K 2 436 VISIT TO ITALY. vessels is not carried on with the orderliness and tranquillity of greater ones, or of men-of-war. The crew are not very wise ; the captain does not know how to make them so ; the storm roars ; the vessel pitches and reels ; the captain, over your head, stamps and swears, and announces all sorts of catastrophes. Think of a family hearing all this, and parents in alarm for their children ! On Monday, the 19th, we passed the Nore, and proceeded down Channel amidst rains and squalls. We were now out at sea ; and a rough taste we had of it. I had been three times in the Channel be- fore, once in hard weather ; but I was then a bachelor, and had only myself to think of. Let the reader picture to his imagination the little back-parlour of one of the shops in Fleet-street, or the Strand, attached or let into a great moving vehicle, and tumbling about the waves from side to side, now sending all the things that are loose, this way, and now that. This will give him an idea of a cabin at sea, such as we occupied. It had a table fastened down in the middle ; places let into the walls on each side, one over the other, to hold beds; a short, wide, sloping window, carried off over a bulk, and looking out to sea ; a bench, or locker, run- ning under the bulk from one side of the cabin to the other ; and a little fireplace opposite, in which it was impossible to keep a, fire on account of the wind. The weather, at the same time, was bitterly cold, as well as wet. On one side the fireplace was the door, and on the other a door leading into a petty closet dignified with the title of the state-room. In this room we put our servant, the captain sleeping in another closet out- side. The births were occupied by the children, and my wife and myself lay, as long as we could manage, to do so, on the floor. Such was the trim, with boisterous wet weather, cold days, and long evenings, on which •we set out on our sea-adventure. VISIT TO ITALY. 437 At six o'clock in the evening of the 19th, we .came to in the Downs, in a line with Sandown Castle. The wind during the night increasing to a gale, the vessel pitched and laboured considerably ; and the whole of the next day it blew a strong gale, with hard squalls from the westward. The day after, the weather continuing bad, the captain thought proper to run for Ramsgate, and took a pilot for that purpose. Captains of vessels are very unwilling to put into harbour, on account of the payment they have to make, and the necessity of supporting the crew for nothing while they remain. Many vessels are no doubt lost on this account ; and a wonder is naturally expressed, that men can persist in putting their lives into jeopardy in order to save a few pounds. But when -we come to know what a seaman's life is, we see that nothing but the strongest love of gain (whether accompanied or not by the love of spending) could in- duce a man to take a voyage at all ; and he is naturally anxious to save, what he looks upon as the only tangible proof, that he is not the greatest fool in existence. His life, he thinks, is in God's keeping ; but his money is in his own. To be sure, a captain who has been to sea fifty times, and has got rich by it, will go Bgain, storms or vows to the contrary notwithstanding, because he does not know what to do with himself on shore ; but unless he had the hope of adding to his stock, he would blunder into some other way of business, rather than go, as he would think, for nothing. Occupation is his real necessity, as it is that of other money-getters ; but the mode of it, without the visible advantage, he would assuredly give up. I never met with a seaman (and [ have put the question to several) who did not own to me, that he hated his profes- sion. One of them, a brave and rough subject, told me, that there was not a " pickle" of a midshipman, not absolutely a fool, who would not confess that he had rather eschew a second voyage, if he had but the courage to make the avowal. 438 VISIT TO ITALY. I know not what the Deal pilot, whom we took on board in the Downs, thought upon this point ; but if ever there was a bold fellow, it was he ; and yet he could eye a squaD. with a grave look. I speak not so much from what he had to do on the present occasion, though it was a nice business to get us into Ramsgate harbour: but he had the habit of courage in his face, and was altogether one of the most interest- ing-looking persons I have seen. The Deal boatmen are a weU-known race ; reverenced for their matchless intrepidity, and the lives they, have saved. Two of them came on board the day before, giving opinions of the weather, which the captain was loth to take, and at the same time insinuating some little contraband notions, which he took better. I thought how little these notions injured the fine manly cast of their countenances, than which nothing could be more self-possessed and even innocent. They seemed to understand the first principles of the thing, without the necessity of enquiring into it ; their useful and noble lives standing them in stead of the pettier ties and sophisms of the inte- rested. Our pilot was a prince, even of his race. He was a tall man in a kind of frock-coat, thin but powerful, with high features, and an ex- pression of countenance fit for an Argonaut. When he took the rudder in hand, and stood alone, guiding the vessel towards the harbour, the crew being all busied at a distance from him, and the captain, as usual, at his direction, he happened to put himself into an attitude the most graceful as well as commanding conceivable ; and a new squaU coming up in the horizon, just as we were going to turn in, he gave it a look of lofty suUenness, threat, as it were, for threat, — which was the most magnificent aspect of resolution I 6ver beheld. Experience and valour assumed their rights, and put themselves on a par with danger. In we turned, to the admiration of the spectators who had come down to the pier, and to the satisfaction of all on board, except the poor captain, VISIT TO ITALY. 439 who, though it was his own doing, seemed, while gallantly congratula- ting the lady, to be eyeing, with sidelong pathos, the money that was departing from him. We stopped; for a change of weather, nearly three weeks at Rams- gate, where we had visits from more than one London friend, to whom I only wish we could give a tenth part of the consolation when they are in trouble, which they afforded us. At Ramsgate I picked up Condor- cet's View of the Progress of Society, which I read with a transport of gratitude to the author, though it had not entered so deeply into the matter as I supposed. But the very power to persevere in hopes fot mankind, at a time of life when individuals are in the habit of reconcil- ing their selfishness and fatigue by choosing to think iU of them, is a great good; in any man, and achieves a great good if it act only upon one other person. A few such instances of perseverance would alter the world. For some days we remained on board, as it was hoped that we should be able to set sail again. Ramsgate harbour is very shallow ; and though we lay in the deepest part of it, the vessel took to a new and ludicrous species of dance, grinding and thumping upon the chalky ground. The consequence was, that the metal pintles of the rudder were all broken, and new ones obliged to be made; which the sailors told us was very lucky, as it proved -the rudder not to be in good con- dition, and it might have deserted us at sea. We lay next a French vessel, smaller than our own, the ci'ew of which became amusing subjects of remark. Xhey were always whistling, singing, and joking. The mf n shaved themselves elaborately, and cultivated heroic whiskers ; strut- ting up and down, when at leisure, with their arms folded, and the air of naval officers. A woman or two, with kerchiefs and little curls, com- pleted the picture. They all seemed very merry and good-humoured: At length, tired of waiting on board, we took a quiet lodging at the 440 VISIT TO ITALY. other end of the town, and were pleased to finfi ourselves sitting still, and secure of a good rest at night. It is something, after being at sea, to find oneself not running the fork in one's eye at dinner, or suddenly sliding down the floor to the other end of the room. My wife was in a very weak state; but the rest she took was deep and tranquil, and I resumed my walks, Few of the principal bathing-places have any thing worth looking at in the neighbourhood, and Ramsgate has less than most. Pegwell Bay is eminent for shrimps. Close by is Sir William Garrow, and a little farther on is Sir William Curtis. The sea is a grand sight, but it becomes tiresome and melancholy, — a great monotonous idea. I was destined to see it grander, and dislike it more. On Tuesday the 11th of December, we set forth again, in company with nearly a hundred vessels, the white sails of which, as they shifted and presented themselves in different quarters, made an agreeable spec- tacle, exhibiting a kind of noble minuet. My wife was obhged to be carried down to the pier in a sedan ; and the taking leave, a second time, of a dear friend, rendered our new departure a melancholy one. I would have stopped and waited for summer-time, had not circum- stances reAdered it advisable for us to persevere; and my wife herself fully agreed with me, and even hoped for benefit, as well as a change of weather. Unfortunately, the promise to that effect lasted us but a day. The winds recommenced the day following, and there ensued such a continuity and vehemence of bad weather as rendered the winter of 1821 memorable in the shipping annals. It strewed the whole of the north-western coasts of Europe with wrecks. The reader may re- member that winter : it was the one in which Mount Hecla burst out again into flame, and Dungeness lighthouse was struck with lightning. The mole at Qenoa was dilapidated. Next year there were between VISIT TO ITALY. 441 14 and 15,000 sail less upon Lloyd's books; which, valued at an average at £1500, made a loss of two niillions of money ;— the least of all the losses, considering the feelings of survivors. Fifteen hundred sail tcolliers) were wrecked on the single coast of Jutland. Of this turmoil we were destined to have a sufficient experience; and I will endeavour to give the reader a taste of it, as he sits comfort- ably in his arm-chair. He has seen what sort of cabin we occupied. I will now speak of the crew and their mode of living, and what sort of trouble we partook in common. He may encounter it himself after- wards if he pleases, and it may do him good ; but agahi I exhort him not to think of taking a family with him. ■ Our captain, who was also proprietor of the vessel, had been mas- ter of a man-of-war, and was more refined in his manners than captains of small merchantmen are used to be. He was a clever seaman, or he would not have occupied his former post ; and I dare say he conducted us well up and down Channel. The crew, when they were exhausted, ac- cused him of a wish of keeping us out at sea, to save charges, — perhaps unjustly ; for he became so alarmed himself, or was so little able to enter into the alarms of others^ that he would openly express his fears before my wife and children. He was a man of connexions superior to his ealHng; and the consciousness of this, together with success in life, and a good complexion and set of features which he had had in his time, rendered him, though he was getting old, a bit of a coxcomb. When he undertook to be agreeable, he assumed a cleaner dress, and a fidgetty.sort of eflPeminacy, which contrasted very ludicrously with his old clothes and his doleful roughness during a storm. While it was foul weather, he was roaring and swearing at the men, like a proper captain of a brig, and then grumbling and saying, " Lord bless us and 3 L 4412 VISIT TO ITALY. save us !" in the cabin-. If a glimpse of promise re-appeared, he put on a coat and aspect to correspond, was constantly putting compliments to the lady, and telling stories of other fair passengers whom he had con- veyed charmingly to their destination. He wore powder ; but this not being sufficient always to conceal the colour of his hair, he told us it had turned grey when he was a youth, from excessive fright in being left upon a rock. This confession made me conclude that he was a brave man, in spite of his exclamations. I saw him among his kindred, and he appeared to be an object of interest to some respectable maiden sisters, whom he treated kindly, and for whom all the money, perhaps, that he scraped together, was intended. He was chary of his " best biscuit," but fond of children; and was inclined to take me for a Jonah for not reading the Bible, while he made love to the maid-servant. Of such incongruities are people made, from the Great Captain to the small ! Our mate was a tall handsome young man, with a countenance of great refinement for a seaman. He was of the humblest origin: yet a certain gentility was natural in him, as he proved by a hundred little circumsjiances of attention to the women and children, when consolation was wanted, though he did not do it ostentatiously or with melancholy. If a child was afraid, he endeavoured to amuse him with stories. If the women asked him anxiously how things were going on, he gave them a cheerful answer ; and he contrived to show by his manner that he did not do so in order to make a show of his courage at their expense. He was attentive without officiousness, and cheerful with quiet. The only fault I saw in him, was a tendency to lord it over a Genoese boy, an apprentice to the captain, who seemed ashamed of being among VISIT TO ITALY. 443 the crew, and perhaps gave hhnself airs. But a little tyranny will creep into the best natures, if not informed enough, under the guise of a manly superiority ; as may be seen so often in upper boys at school. The little Genoese was handsome, and had the fine eyes of the Italians. Seeing he was a foreigner, when we first went on board, we asked him whether he was not an Italian. He said, no; he was a Genoese. It is the Lombards, I believe, that are more particularly understood to be Italians, when a distinction of this kind is made; but I never heard it afterwards. He complained to me one day, that he wanted books and poetry; and said that the crew were a "hrutta gente." I afterwards met him in Genoa, when he looked as gay as a lark, and was dressed like a gentleman. His name was a piece of music, — Luigi Rivarola. There was another foreigner on board, a Swede, as rough a subject and Northern, as the Genoese was full of the " sweet South." He had the reputation of being a capital seaman, which enabled him to grumble to better advantage than the others. A coat of the mate's, hung up to dry, in a situation not perfectly legal, was not to be seen by him without a comment. The fellow had an honest face withal, but brute and fishy, not unlike a Triton's in a picture. He gaped up at a squall, with his bony look, and the hair over his eyes, as if he could dive out of it in case of necessity. Very different was a fat, fair-skinned carpenter, with a querulous voice, who complained on all occasions," and in private was very earnest with the passengers to ask the captain to put into port. And very different again from him was a jovial strait- forward seaman, a genuine Jack Tar, with a snub nose and an under lip thrust out, such as we see in caricatures. He rolled about with the vessel, as if his feet had suckers; and he had an oath and a jest every 3 L 2 444 VISIT TO ITALY. morning for the bad weather. He said he would have been " d — d" before he had come to sea this time, if he had known what sort of weather it was to be ; but it was not so bad for him, as for the gentle- folks with their children. The crew occupied a little cabin at the other end of the vessel, into which they were tucked in their respective cribs, like so many herrings; The weather was so bad, that a portion of them, sometimes all, were up at night, as well as the men on watch. The business of the watch is to see that all is safe, and to look out for vessels ahead; He is very apt to go to sleep, and is sometimes waked with a pail of water chucked over him. The tendency to sleep is very natural, and the sleep in" fine weather delicious. Shakspeare may well introduce a sailor boy sleeping on the top-mast, and enjoying a luxury that wakeful kings might envy. But there is no doubt that the luxury of the watcher is often the de- struction of the vessel. The captains themselves, glad to get to rest, are careless. When we read of vessels run down at sea, we are sure to find it owing to negligence. This was the case with regard to the steam- vessel, the Comet, which excited so much interest the other day. A passenger, anxious and kept awake, is surprised to see the eagerness with which every seaman, let the weather be what it may, goes to bed when it comes to his turn. Safety, if they can have it ; but sleep at all events. This seems to be their motto. If they are to be drowned, they would rather have the two beds together, the watery and the worsted. Dry is too often a term inapplicable to the latter. In our vessel, night after night, the wet penetrated into the seamen's births ; and the poor fellows, their limbs stiff and aching with cold, aind their hands blistered with toil, had to get into beds as wretched as if a pail of water had been thrown over them. VISIT TO ITALY. 445 Such were the lives of our crew from the 12th till the 22nd of De- cember, during which time we were beaten up and down Channel, twice touching the Atlantic, and driven back again like a hunted ox. One of the gales lasted, without intermission, fifty-six hours ; blowing all the whUe, as if it would " split its cheeks." The oldest seaman on board had never seen rougher weather in Europe. In some parts of the world, both East and West, there is weather of sudden and more outrageous vio- lence ; but none of the crew had experienced tempests of longer duration, nor more violent for the climate. The worst of being at sea in weather hke this, next to your inability to dp any thing, is the multitude of petty discomforts with which you are surrounded. You can retreat into no comfort, great or small. Your feet are cold ; you can take no exerdse: on account, of the motion of the vessel ; and a fire will not keep in. You cannot sit in one posture. You lie down, because you are sick ; or if others are more sick, you must keep your legs as weU as you can, to help them. At meals, the plates and dishes slide away, now to this side, now that ; making you laugh, it is true ; but you laugh more out of satire than merriment. Twenty to one you are obliged to keep your beds, and chuck the cold meat to one another; or the oldest and strongest does it for the rest, desperately remaining at table, and performing aU the slides, manoeuvres, and sudden rushes, which the fantastic vidsiee of the cabin's movements has taught him. Tea, (which, for the refreshment it affords in toil and privation, may be called the traveller's wine) is taken as despe^ rately as may be, provided you can get boiling water ; the cook making his appearance, when he can, with bis feet asunder, clinging to the floor, and swaying to and fro with the kettle. (By the by, I have not men- tioned our cook ; he was a Mulatto, a merry knave, constantly drunk. But the habit of drinking, added to a quiet and sly habit of uttering his 446 VISIT TO ITALY. words, had inade it easy to him to pretend sobriety when he was most intoxicated ; and I believe he deceived the whole of the people on board, except ourselves. The captain took him for a special good fellow, and felt particularly grateful for his refusals of a glass of rum ; the secret of which was, he could get at the rum whenever he liked, and was never- without a glass of it in his oesophagus. He stood behind you at meals, kneading the floor with his feet, as the vessel rolled ; drinking in all the jokes, or would-be jokes, that were uttered ; and laughing like a dumb goblin. The captain, who had eyes for nothing but what was right before him, seldom noticed his merry devil ; but if you caught his eye, there he was, shaking his shoulders without a word, while his twinkling eyes seemed to run over with rum and glee. This fellow, who swore horrid oaths in a tone of meekness, used to add to my wife's horrors by descending, drunk as he was, with a lighted candle into the " Lazaret," which was a hollow under the cabin, opening with a trap- door, and containing provisions and a portion of the gunpowder. The portion was small, but sufficient, she thought, with the assistance of his candle, to blow us up. Fears for her children occupied her mind from morning till night, when she sank into an uneasy sleep. While she was going to sleep I read, and did not close my eyes till towards morning, thinking (with a wife by my side, and seven children around me) what I should do in case of the worst. My imagination, naturally tenacious, and exasperated by ill health, clung, not to every relief, but to every shape of ill that I could fancy. I was tormented with the consciousness of being unable to divide myself into as many pieces as 1 had persons requiring assistance ; and must not scruple to own that 1 suffered a con- stant dreiad, which appeared to me very unbecoming a man of spirit. However, I expressed no sense of it to any body. I did my best to do VISIT TO ITALY. 447 my duty and keep up the spirits of those about me ; and your nervous- ness being a great dealer in your joke fantastic, I succeeded apparently with all, and certainly with the cliildren. The most uncomfortable thing in the vessel was the constant wet. Below it penetrated, and on deck you could not appear with dry shoes but they were speedily drenched. Mops being constantly in use at sea, (for seamen are very clean in that respect, and keep their vessel as nice as a pet infant,) the sense of wet was always kept up, whether in wetting or drying ; and the vessel, tumbling about, looked like a wash-house in a fit. We had a goat on board, a present from a kind friend, anxious that we should breakfast as at home. The storms frightened away its milk, and Lord Byron's dog afterwards bit off its ear. But the ducks had the worst of it. These were truly a sight to make a man hypochondriacal. They were kept in miserable narrow coops, over which the sea constantly breaking, the poor wretches were drenched and beaten to death. Every morning, when I came upon deck, some more were killed, or had their legs and wings broken. The captain grieved, for the loss of his ducks, and once went so far as to add to the number of. his losses by putting one of them out of its misery ; but nobody seemed to pity them otherwise. This was not inhumanity, but want of thought. The idea of pitying live-stock when they suffer, enters with as much difficulty into a head uneducated to that purpose, as the idea of pitying a diminished piece of beef or a stolen pig. I took care not to inform the children how much the creatures suffered.. My family, with the exception of the eldest boy, who was of an age to acquire . experience, always remained below ; and the children, not aware of any danger, (for I took care to qualify what the captain said, and they implicitly believed me) were as gay, as confinement and uneasy beds would allow them to be. With the poor ducks I made them out- 448 .VISIT TO ITALY. rageously merry one night, by telling them to listen when the next sea broke over us, and they ■ would hear Mr. P., an acquaintance of theirs, laughing. The noise they made with their quacking, when they* gathered breath after the suffocation of the salt water, was exactly like what I said: the children listened, and at every fresh agony there Was a shout. Being alarmed one night by the captain's open expression of his ap- prehension, I prepared the children for the worst that might happen, by telling them that the sea sometimes broke into a cabin, and then there was a dip over head and ears for the passengers, after which they laughed and made merry. The only time I expressed apprehension to any body was to the mate, one night when we were wearing ship off the Scilly rocks, and every body was in a state of anxiety. I asked him, in case of the worst, to throw open the lid. of the cabin-stairs, that the sea might pour in upon us as fast as possible. He begged me not to have any sad thoughts, for he said, I should give them to him, and he had none at present. At the same time, he turned and severdy rebuked the carpenter, who was looking doleful at the helm, for putting notions into the heads of the passengers. The captain was unfortunately out of hearing. I did wrong, at that time, not to " feed better," as the phrase is. My temperance was a little ultra-theoretical and excessive ; and the mate and I were the only men on board who drank no spirits. Perhaps there were not many men out in those dreadful nights in the Channel, who could say as much. The mate, as he afterwards let me know, felt the charge upon him too great to venture upon an artificial state of courage ; and I feared that what couriage was left me, might be bewildered. The consequence was, that from previous illness and constant excitation, my fancy was sickened into a kind of hypochondriacal investment VISIT TO ITALY. 449 and shaping of things about me. A little more, and I might have imagined the fantastic shapes which the action of the sea is constantly interweaving out of the foam at the vessel's side, to be sea-snakes, or more frightful hieroglyphics. The white clothes that hung up on pegs in the cabin, took, in the gloomy light from above, an aspect like things of meaning ; and the winds and rain together, as they ran blind and howling along by the vessel's side, when I was on deck, appeared like frantic spirits of the air, chasing and shrieking after one another, and tearing each other by the hair of their heads. " The grandeur of the glooms" on the Atlantic was majestic indeed : the healthiest eye would have seen them with awe. The sun rose in the morning, at once fiery and sicklied over; a livid gleam played on the water, Uke the reflection of lead ; then the storms would recom- mence ; and during partial clearings off, the clouds and fogs appeared standing in the sky, moulded into gigantic shapes, like antediluvian won- ders, or visitants from the zodiac ; mammoths, vaster than have yet been thought of; the first ungainly and stupendous ideas of bodies and legs, looking out upon an unfinished world. These fancies were ennobhng, from their magnitude. The pain that was mixed with, some of the others, I might have displaced by a fillip of the blood. Two days after we left H-amsgate, the wind blowing violently from the south-west, we were under close-reefed topsails ; but on its veering to westward, the captain was induced to persevere, in hopes that by coming round to the north-west, it would enable him to clear the Channel. The ship laboured very much, the sea breaking over her ; and the pump was constantly going. The next day, the 14th, we shipped a great deal of water, the pump going as before. The fore-topsail and foresail were taken in, and the 3 M 450 VISIT TO ITALY, storm staysail set ; and the captain said we were " in the hands of God." We now wore ship to southward. On the 15th, the weather was a httle moderated, with fresh gales and cloudy. The captain told us to-day how his hair turned white in a shipwreck ; and the mate entertained us with an account of the extraor- dinary escape of himself and some others from an American pirate, who seized their vessel, plundered and made it a wreck, and confined them under the hatches, in the hope of their going down with it. They escaped in a rag of a boat, and were taken up by a Greek vessel, which treated them with the greatest humanity. The pirate was afterwards taken, and hung at Malta, with five of his men. This story, being tragical without being tempestuous, and terminating happily for our friend, was very welcome, and occupied us agreeably. I tried to get up some ghost stories of vessels, but could hear of nothing but the Flying Dutchman : nor did I succeed better on another occasion. This dearth of supernatural adventure is remarkable, considering the superstition of sailors. But their wits are none of the liveliest to be acted upon ; and then the sea blunts while it mystifies ; and the sailor's imagination, driven in, like his body, to the vessel he inhabits, admits only the petty wonders that come directly about him in the shape of storm-announcing fishes and birds. His superstition is that of a blunted and not of an awakened ignorance. Sailors had rather sleep than see visions. On the 16th, the storm was alive again, with strong gales and heavy squalls. We set the fore storm staysail anew, and at night the joUy- boat was torn from the stern. The afternoon of the 17th brought us the gale that lasted fifty-six hours, " one of the most tremendous," the captain said, " that he had VISIT TO ITALY. 451 ever witnessed." All the sails were taken in, except the close-reefed topsail and one of the trysails. At night, the wind being at south-west, and Scilly about fifty miles riorth by east, the trysail sheet was carried away, and the boom and sail had a narrow escape. We were now continually wearing ship. The boom was unshipped, as it was ; and it was a melancholy sight to see it lying next morning, with the sail about it, like a wounded servant who had been fighting. The morning was occupied in getting it to rights. At night we had hard squalls with lightning. We lay to under main-topsail untU the next morning, the 19th, when at ten o'clock we were enabled to set the reefed foresail, and the captain prepared to run for Falmouth ; but finding he could not get in till night, we hauled to the wind, and at three in the afternoon wore ship to south-westward. It was then blowing heavUy ; and the sea, breaking over the vessel, constantly took with it a part of the bulwark. I believe we had long ceased to have a duck ahve. The poor goat had contrived to find itself a comer in the long-boat, and lay frightened and shivering under a piece of canvass. I afterwards took it down in the cabin to share our lodging with us ; but not having a birth to give it, it passed but a sorry time, tied up and slipping about the floor. At night we had lightning again, with hard gales, the wind being west and north-west, and threatening to drive us on the French coast. It was a grand thing, through the black and turbid atmosphere, to see the great fiery eye of the lighthouse at the Lizard Point ; it looked like a good genius with a ferocious aspect. Ancient mythology would have made dragons of these noble structures, — dragons with giant glare, Warning the seaman off the coast. .8 M 2 452 VISIT TO ITALY. The captain could not get into Falmouth : so he wore ship, and stood to the westward with fresh hopes, the wind having veered a little to the north ; hut, after having run above fifty miles to the south and west, the wind veered again in our teeth, and at two o'clock on the ,20th, we were reduced to a close-reefed main-topsail, which, being new, fortu- nately held, the wind blowing so hard .that it could not be taken in without the greatest risk of losing it. The sea was very heavy, and the rage of the gale tremendous, accompanied with lightning. The children on these occasions slept, unconscious of their danger. My wife slept too, from exhaustion. I remember, as I lay awake that night, looking about to see what help I could get from imagination, to furnish a moment's respite from the anxieties that beset me, 1 cast my eyes- on the poor goat ; and recollecting how she devoured some choice bis- cuit I gave her one day, I got up, and going to the cupboard took out as much as I could find, and occupied myself in seeing her eat. She munched the fine white biscuit out of my hand, with equal appetite and comfort ; and I thought of a saying of Sir PhiUp Sidney's, that we are never perfectly miserable when we can do a good-natured action. I will not dwell upon the thoughts that used to pass through my mind respecting my wife and children. Many times, especially when a little boy of mine used to weep in a manner equally sorrowful and good-tempered, have I thought of Prospero and his infant Miranda in the boat, — " me and thy crying self;" and many times of that similar divine fragment of Simonides, a translation of which, if I remember, is to be found in the " Adventurer." It seemed as if T had no right to bring so many little creatures into such jeopardy, with peril to their lives and all future enjoyment ; but sorrow and trouble suggested other VISIT TO ITALY. 453 reflections too : — consolations, which even to be consoled with is calamity. However, I will not recall those feelings any more. Next to tragical thoughts like these, one of the modes of tormenting oneself at sea, is to raise those pleasant pictures of contrast, dry and firm-footed, which our friends are enjoying in their warm rooms and radiant security at home. I used to think of them one after the other, or several of them Jogether, reading, chatting, and laughing, playing music, or complaining that they wanted a little movement and must danc'e ; then retiring to easy beds amidst happy families; and perhaps, as the wind howled, thinking of us. Perhaps, too, they thought of us sometimes in the midst of their merriment, and longed for us to share it with them. That they did so, is certain ; but, on the other hand, what would we not have given to be sure of the instant at which they were making these reflec- tions ; and how impossible was it to attain to this, or to any other dry- ground satisfaction ! Sometimes I could not help smiling to think how Munden would have exclaimed, in the character of Croaker, " We shall aU be blown up !" The gunpowder I seldom thought of. I had other fish to fry: but it seemed to give my feet a sting sdmetimes, as I remem- bered it in walking the deck. The demand for dry land was consi- derable. That is the point with landsmen at sea ; — something unwet, unconfined, but, above all, firm, and that enables you to take your own steps, -physical and moral. Panurge has it somewhere in Rabelais, but 1 have lost the passage. But I must put an end to this unseasonable mirth.—" A large vessel is coming right down upon us ;— lights— lights !" This was the cry at eleven o'clock at night, on the 21st December, the gale being tremen- dous, and the sea to match. Lanthorns were handed up from the cabin, 454 VISIT TO ITALY. and, one after the other, put out. The captain thought it was owing to the wind and the spray ; but it was the drunken steward, who jolted them out aS he took them up the ladder. We furnished more, and con- trived to see them kept in ; apd the captain afterwards told me that we were the salvation of his vessel. The ship, discerning us just in time, passed ahead, looking very huge and terrible. Next morning, we saw her about two miles on our lee-bow, lying to under trysails. It was an Indiaman. There was another vessel, a smaller, near us in the night. I thought the Indiaman looked very comfortable, with its spacious and powerful body : but the captain said we were better off a great deal in our own sea-boat ; which turned out to be too true, if this was the same Indiaman, as some thought it, which was lost the night following off the coast of Devonshire. The crew said, that in one of the pauses of the wind they heard a vessel go down. We were at that time very near land. At tea-time the keel of our ship grated against something, per- haps a shoal. The captain afterwards very properly made light of it ; but at the time, being in the act of raising a cup to his mouth, I remember he turned prodigiously grave, and, getting up, went upon deck. Next day, the 22nd, we ran for Dartmouth, and luckily succeeding this time, found ourselves, at 12 o'clock at noon, in the middle of Dart^ mouth harbour. — " Magno telluris amore Egresei, optata potiuntur Troes arena." " The Trojans, worn with toils^ and spent with woes. Leap on the welcome land, and seek their wish'd repose." Dryden had never been at sea, or he would not have translated the passage in that meek manner. Virgil knew better ; and besides, he had VISIT TO ITALY. ' 455 the proper ancient hydrophobia to endear his fancy to the dry ground. He says, that the Trojans had got an absolute affection for terra firma, and that they now enjoyed what they had longed for. Virgil, it must be confessed, talks very tenderly of the sea for an epic poet. Homer grapples, with it in a very different style. The Greek would hardly have recognized his old acquaintance ^neas in that pious and frightened personage, who would be designated, I fear, by a modern sailor, a psalm-singing milksop. But Homer, who was a traveller, is the only poet among the ancients, who speaks of the sea in a mo- dern spirit. He talks of brushing the waves merrily ; and likens them, when they are dark, to his Chian wine. But Hesiod, though he relates with a modest grandeur that he had once been to sea, as far as from Aulis to Chalcis, is shocked at the idea of any body's ventur- ing upon the water except when the air is delicate and the water harm- less. A spring voyage distresses him, and a winter he holds to be senseless. Moschus plainly confesses, that the very sight of the ocean makes him retreat into the woods ; the only water he loves being a fountain to listen to, as he lies on the grass. Virgil took a trip to Athens, during which he may be supposed to have undergone all the horrors which he holds to be no disgrace to his hero. Horace's distress at his friend's journey, and amazement at the hardhearted rascal who could first venture to look upon the sea on ship-board, are well known. A Hindoo could not have a greater dread of the ocean. Poor Ovid, on his way to the place of his exile, wonders how he can write a line. These were delicate gentlemen at the court of Augustus ; and the an- cients, it may be said, had very small and bad vessels, and no compass. But thek moral courage appears to have been as poor in this matter as their physical. Nothing could have given a Roman a more exalted idea 456 ' VISIT TO ITALY. of Caesar's courage, than his famous speech to the pilot ; — " You carry Caesar and his fortunes !" The poets, who take another road to glory, and think no part of humanity alien from them, spoke out in a different' manner. Their office being to feel with all, and their nature disposing them to it, they seem to think themselves privileged to be bold or timid, according to circumstances ; and doubtless they are so, imagination being the moving cause in both instances. They perceive also, that the boldest of men are timid under circumstances in which they have no experience; and this' helps the agreeable insolence of their candour. Rochester said, that every man would confess himself a coward, if he had but courage enough to do so ; — a saying worthy of an ingenious debauchee, and as false with respect to individuals, as it is perhaps true with regard to the circumstances under which any one may find himself. The same person who shall turn pale in a storm at sea, shall know not what it is to fear the face of man ; and the most fearless of sailors shall turn pale (as I have seen them do) even in storms of an unusual description. I was once in a scuffle with a party of fisher- men on the Thames, when, in the height of their brutal rage, they were checked and made civil by the mention of the word law. Rochester talked like the shameless coward tiiat he had made himself ; but even Sir Philip Sidney, the flower of chivalry, who would have gone through any danger out of principle, (which, together with the manly habits that keep a man brave, is the true courage,) does not scruple to speak, with a certain dread, of ships and their strange lodgings. " Certainly," says he, in his " Arcadia," (Book II.) " there is no danger carries with it more horror, than that which grows in those floating kingdoms. For that dweEing-place is unnatural to mankind ; VISIT TO ITALY. 457 and then the terribleness. of the continual motion, the desolation of the far being from comfort, the eye and the ear having ugly images ever before them, doth still vex the mind, even when it is best armed against it." Ariosto, a soldier as well as poet, who had fought bravely in the wars, candidly confesses that he is for taking no sea voyages, but is content to explore the earth with Ptolemy, and travel in a map. This, he thinks, is better than putting up prayers in a storm. (Satire 3. Chi vuol andar intorno, &c.) But the most amusing piece of candour on this point is that of Berni, in his " Orlando Innamorato," one of the models of the Don Juan style. Berni was a good fellow, for a rake ; and bold enough, though a courtier, to refuse aiding a wicked master in his iniquities. He was also stout of body, and a great admirer of stout achievements in others; which he dwells upon with a masculine relish. But the sea he cannot abide. He probably got a taste of it in the Adriatic, when he was at Venice. He is a fine describer of a storm, and puts a hero of his at the top of one in a very elevated and potent man- ner : (See the description of Bodomonte, at the beginning of one of his cantos.) But in his own person, he disclaims all partnership with such exaltations ; and earnestly exhorts the reader, on the faith of his expe- rience, not to think of quitting dry land for an instant. " Se vi poteste un uomo immaginare, II qual non sappia quel che sia paura ; E se volete un bel modo trovare Pa spaventar ogni anima sicura ; Quando e fortuna, mettetel' in mare. Se non lo teme, se non se ne cura, Colui per pazzo abbiate^ e non ardito, Perch' e diviso da la morte un dito, 3 N 458 VISIT TO ITALY. " E un' orribil cosa il mar crocciato : E meglio udirlo, che fame la prova. Creda ciascun a chi dentro v' 6 stato; E per provar, di terra non si mova." Canto 64, si. 4. Reader, if you suppose that there can be, In nature, one that 's ignorant of fear ; And if you 'd show the man, as prettily As possible, how people can feel queer, — When there 's a tempest, clap him' in the sea. If he 's not frightened, if he doesn't care. Count him a stupid idiot, and not brave. Thus with a straw betwixt him and the grave. A sea in torment is a dreadful thing : Much better lie and listen to, than try it. Trust one who -knows its desperate pummelling; And while on terra firma, pray stick by it. Full of Signer Berni's experience, and having, in the shape of our children, seven more reasons than he had to avail ourselves of it, we here bade adieu to our winter voyage, and resolved to put forth again in a better season. It was a very expensive change of purpose, and cost us more trouble than I can express ; but I had no choice, seeing my wife was so ill. A few days afterwards, she was obliged to have forty ounces of blood taken from her at once, to save her life. Dartmouth is a pretty, forlorn place, deserted of its importance. Chaucer's " Schippman" was born there, and it still produces excellent seamen ; but, instead of its former dignity as a port, it looks like a petty town deserted of its neighbourhood, and left to grow wild and solitary. The beautiful vegetation immediately about it, added to the bare hiUs in the background, completes this look of forlornness, and produces an VISIT TO ITALt". 459 effect like that of the grass growing in the streets of a metropolis. The harbour is landlocked with hills, and wood, and a bit of an old castle at the entrance ; forming a combination very picturesque. Among the old families remaining in that quarter, the Prideaux, relations of the eccle- siastical historian, live in this town; and going up a- solitary street on the hill-side, I saw on a door the name of Wolcot, a memorandum of a different sort. Peter Pindar's family, like the divine's, are from Cornwall. We left Dartmouth, where no ships were in the habit of sailing for Italy, and went to Plymouth ; intending to set off again with the beginning of spring, in a vessel bound for Genoa. But the mate of it, who, I believe, grudged us the room we should deprive him of, contrived to teU my wife a number of dismal stories, both of the ship and its captain, who was an unlucky fellow that seemed marked by fortune. Misery had also made him a Calvinist, — the most mi- serable of all ways of getting comfort ; and this was no additional recommendation. To say the truth, having a pique against my fears on the former occasion, I was more bent on allowing myself to have none on the present ; otherwise, I should not have thought of putting forth again till the fine weather was complete. But the reasons that prevailed before, had now become stiU more imperative; my wife being confined to her bed, and undergoing repeated bleedings: so, till summer we waited. Plymouth is a proper modern commercial town, unpicturesque in itself, with an overgrown suburb, or dock, which has become a town distinct, and other suburbs carrying other towns along the coast. But the country up the river is beautiful ; and Mount-Edgecumbe is at hand, with its enchanted island, like a piece of old poetry by the side of new money-getting. Lord Lyttleton, 3 N 2 460 . VISIT TO ITALY. in some pretty verses, has introduced the gods, with Neptune at their head, and the nymphs of land and sea, contesting for the proprietor- ship of it; — a dispute which Jupiter settles by saying, that he made Mount-Edgecumbe for them all. But the best compliment paid it was by the Duke de Medina Sidonia, admiral or the Spanish Ar- mada, who, according to Fuller, marked it out from the sea, as his territorial portion of the booty, "But," says Fuller, "he had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than those which were to be made of a skin of a bear not killed." In the neighbour- hood is a seat of the Carews, the family of the historian of Cornwall, and kinsmen of the poet. Near it, on the other side of the river, was the seat of the KiUigrews; another family which became cele- brated in- the annals <)f wit and poetry.* The tops of the two mansions looked at one another over the trees. In the grounds of the former is a bowhng-green, the scene of a once fashionable amusement, now grown out of use ; which is a pity. Fashion cannot too much identify itself with what is healthy ; nor has England been " merry England," since late hours and pallid faces came into vogue. But our sedentary thoughts, it is to be hoped, will help to their own remedy, and in the end leave us better off than before. The sea upon the whole had dorie me good, and I found myself able to write again, though by driblets. We lived very quietly at Stonehouse, opposite Mount-Edgecumbe, nursing our hopes for a new voyage, and expecting one of a very different, complexion in sailing towards an Italian summer. My wife kept her bed almost the whole * Worthies of England; Vol. i. p. 208. Edit. 1811. VISIT TO ITALY. 461 time, and lost a great deal of blood; but the repose, together with the sea-air, was. of service to her, and enabled her to receive be- nefit on resuming our journey. Thus quietly we lived, and thus should have continued, agreeably to both of our inclinations; but some friends of the Examiner heard of our being in the neighbour- hood, and the privatest of all public men (if I may be ranked among the number) found himself complimented by his readers, - face to face, and presented with a silver cup. I then had a taste of the Plymouth hospitality, . and found it friendly and cordial to the last degree, as if . the seaman's atmosphere . gave a new spirit to the love of books and liberty. Nor, as the poet would say, was music wanting; nor fair faces, the crown of welcome. Besides the landscapes in the neigh- bourhood, I had the pleasure of seeing some beautiful ones in the paint- ing-room of Mr. Rogers, a very clever artist and intelligent man, who has travelled, and can think for himself. But my, great Examiner friend, who has since become a personal one, was Mr. Hine, now master of an academy near the Metropolis, and the most attentive and energetic per- son of his profession that I ever met with. My principal visitors indeed at Plymouth consisted of schoolmasters ; — one of those signs of thei times, which has not been so ill regarded since the accession of a lettered and liberal minister to the government of this country, as they were under the, supercilious ignorance, and (to say the truth) weU-founded alarm of his footmanlike predecessors. The Devonshire people, as far as 1 had experience of them, were pleasant and good-humoured.. Queen Elizabeth said of their gentry, that they were " all born courtiers with a becoming confidence." I know not how that may be, though she had a good specimen in Sir Walter 462 VISIT TO ITALY. Raleigh, and a startling one in Stukeley.* But the private history of modern times might exhibit instances of natives of Devonshire winning their way into regard and power by the force of a well-constituted mix- ture of sweet and strong ; and it is curious, that the milder climate of that part of England should have produced more painters, perhaps, of a superior kind, than any other two counties can show. Drake, Jewel, Hooker, and old Fortescue, were also Devonshire-men ; William Browne, the most genuine of Spenser's disciples ; and Gay, the enjoying and the good-hearted, the natural man in the midst of the sophisticate. We left Plymouth on the 13th of May, 1822, accompanied by some of our new friends who would see us on board; and set sail in a fresh vessel, on our new summer voyage, a very different one from the last. Short acquaintances sometimes cram as much into their intercourse, as to take the , footing of long ones; and our parting was not without pain. Another shadow was cast on the female countenances by the observation of our boatman, who, though an old sailor who ought to have known better, bade us remark how heavily laden our ship was, and how deep she lay in the water : so little can ignorance afford to miss an opportunity of being important. Our new captain, and, I believe, all his crew, were Welsh, with the exception of one sailor, an unfortunate Scotchman, who seemed pitched among them to have his nationality put to the. torture; Jokes were unceasingly cracked on the length of his person, the oddity *■ See Us wild history in Fuller, p. 284, as above. " So confident was his ambition/' says the biographer, " that he blushed not to tell Queen Elizabeth, that he preferred rather to be sovereign of a mole-hiU, than the highest subject to the greatest king in Christendom ; adding, moreover, that he was assured he should be a prince before his death. ' I hope,' said Queen Elizabeth, ' that I shall hear from you when you are stated in your principality.' — ' I will write unto you,' quoth Stukeley. — ' In what language ?' said the Queen. He returned, ' In the style of princes— ^o our Dear Sister.' " VISIT TO ITALY. 463 of his dialect, and the uncouth manner in which he stood at the hehn. It was a new thing to hear Welshmen cutting up the barbarism of the " Modern Athetis ;" but they had the advantage of the poor fellow in wit, and he took it with a sort of sulky patience, that showed he was not destitute of one part of the wisdom of his countrymen. To have made a noise would have been to bring down new shouts of laughter ; so he pocketed the affronts as well as he might, and I could not help fancying that his earnings lay in the same place more securely than most of those about him. The captain was choleric and brusque, a temperament which was none the better for an -inclination to plethora ; but his enthusiasm in behalf of his brother tars, and the battles they had fought, was as robust as his frame ; and he surprised me with writing verses on the strength of it. Very good heart and impart verses they were too, and would hav& cut as good a figure as any in one of the old magazines. While he read them, he rolled the r's in the most rugged style, and looked as if he could have run them down the throats of the enemy. The objects of his eulogy he called " our gallant herroes^ We took leave of Plymouth with a fine wind at North-east ; and next day, on the confines of the Channel, spoke the Two Sisters, of Guernsey, from Rio Janeiro. On a long voyage, ships lose their longi- tude ; and our information enabled the vessel to enter the Channel with security. Ships approaching and parting from one another, present a fine spectacle, shifting in the light, and almost looking con- scious of the grace of their movements. Sickness here began to pre- vail again among us, with all but myself, who am never sea-sick. I mention it in order to notice a pleasant piece of thanks which I received from my eldest boy, who, having suffered, dreadfully in the former voyage, was grateful for my not having allowed him to eat butter in the 464 VISIT TO ITALY. interval. I know not whether my paternity is leading me here into too trifling a matter ; but I mention the circumstance, because there may be intelligent children among my readers, with whom it may tu m to account. We were now on the high Atlantic, with fresh health and hopes, and the prospect of an easy voyage before us. Next night, the 15th, we saw, for the first time, two grampuses, who interested us extremely with their unwieldy gambols. They were very large, — in fact, a small kind of whale ; but they played about the vessel like kittens, dashing round, and even under it, as if in scorn of its progress. The swiftness of fish is inconceivable. The smallest of them must be enormously strong: the largest are as gay as the least. One of these grampuses. fairly sprang out of the water, bolt upright. The same day, we were becalmed in the Bay of Biscay ; — a pleasant surprise. A calm in the Bay of Biscay, after what we had read and heard of it, sounded to us like repose in a boihng cauldron. But a calm, after all, is not repose : it is a very un- resting and unpleasant thing, the ship taking a great gawky motion from side to side, as if playing the buffoon ; and the sea heaving in huge oily- looking fields, like a carpet lifted. Sometimes it looks striped into great ribbons ; but the sense of it is always more or less unpleasant, and to impatient seamen' must be torture. The next day we were still becalmed. A sm al shark played all day long about the vessel, but was shy of the bait. The sea was swelling, and foul with putrid substances, which made us think what it would be if a calm continued a month. Mr. Coleridge has touched upon that matter, with the hand of a master, in his " Ancient Mariner." (Here are three words in one sentence beginning with M and ending with R ; to the great horror of Mr, Words\yorth, provided he does me the honour VISIT TO ITALY. 465 of reading me. But the compliment to Mr. Coleridge shall be the greater, since it is at my own expense.) During a calm, the seamen, that they may not be idle, are employed in painting the vessel:— an operation that does not look well amidst the surrounding aspect of sickness and faintness. The favourite colours are black and yellolv ; I believe, because they are the least expensive. They are certainly the most ugly. On the, 17th, we had a fine breeze at north-east. There is great enjoyment in a beautiful day at sea. You quit all the discomforts of your situation for the comforts ; interchange congratulations with the seamen, who are all in good humour ; seat yourself at ease on the deck, enjoy the motion, the getting on, the healthiness of the air ; watch idly for new sights ; read a little, or chat, or give way to a day-dream ; then look up again, and expatiate on the basking scene around you, with its ripples blue or green, and gold, — what the old poet beautifully calls the innumerable smile of the waters. " TloVTim Ti KVftiUruV Prometheus Vinctus. The appearance of another vessel sets conjecture alive : — it is " a Dane," " a Frenchman," " a Portuguese," and these words have a new effect upon us, as if we became intimate with the country to which they belong. A more striking effect of the same sort is produced by the sight of a piece of land ;— it is Flamborough Head, Ushant, Cape Orte- gal:_you see a part of another country, one perhaps on which you have never set foot ; and this is a great thing : it gives you an advan- tage : others have read of Spain or Portugal ; you have seen it, and are a grown man and a traveller, compared with those little children of 3 o 466 VISIT TO ITALY. books. These novelties affect the dullest ; but to persons of any ima- gination, and such as are ready for any pleasure or consolation that nature offers them, they are like pieces of a new morning of life. The world seems begun again, and our stock of knowledge recommencing on a new plan. Then at night-time, there are those beautiful fires on the water, by the vessel's side, upon the nature of which people seem hardly yet agreed. Some take them for animal decay, some for living animals, others for electricity. Perhaps aU have to do with it. In a fine blue sea, the foam caused by the vessel at night, seems full of stars : the white ferment, with the golden sparkles in it, is beautiful beyond conception. You look over, and devour it with your eyes, as you would so much ethereal syllabub. Finally, the stars in the firmament issue forth, and the moon, always the more lovely the farther you get south ; or when there is no moon on the sea, the shadows at a little distance become grander and more solemn, and you watch for some huge fish to lift himself in the middle of them, — a darker mass, breath- ing and spouting water. The fish appear very happy. Some are pursued indeed, and others pursue ; there is a world of death as well as life going on. The mack- arel avoids the porpus, and the porpus eschews the whale ; there is the sword-fish, who runs a-muck ; and the shark, the cruel scavenger. These are startling commonplaces : but it is impossible, on reflection, to sepa- rate the idea of happiness from that of health and activity. The fishes are not sick or sophisticate ; their blood is pure, their strength and agility prodigious ; and a little peril, for aught we know, may serve to keep them moving, . and give a relish to their vivacity. I looked upon the sea as a great tumbling wilderness, full of sport. To eat fish VISIT TO ITALY. 467 at sea, however, hardly looked fair, though it was the fairest of occa- sions : it seemed as if, not being an inhabitant, I had no right to the produce. I did not know how the dolphins might take it. At night- time, lying in a bed beneath the level of the water, I fancied some- times that a fellow looked at me as he went by with his great side- long eyes, gaping objection. It was strange, I thought, to find one- self moving onward cheek by jowl with a porpus, or yawning in concert with a shark. On the 21st, after another two days of calm, and one of rain, we passed Cape Finisterre. There was a heavy swell and rolling. Being now on the Atlantic, with not even any other name for the part of it that we sailed over to interrupt the widest association of ideas, I thought of America, and Columbus, and the chivalrous squadrons that set out from Lisbon, and the old Atlantis of Plato, formerly supposed to exist off the coast of Portugal. It is curious, that the Portuguese have a tradition to this day, that there is an island occasionally seen off the coast of Lisbon. The story of the Atlantis looks like some old immemorial tradition of a country that has really existed ; nor is it difficult to suppose that there was formerly some great tract of land, or CA'^en con- tinent, occupying these now watery regions, when we consider the flue* tuation of things, and those changes of dry to moist, and of lofty to low, which are always taking place all over the globe. Off the coast of Corn- wall, the mariner, it has been said, now rides over the old country of Lyones, or whatever else it was called, if that name be fabulous ; and there are stories of doors and casements, and other evidences of occu- pation, brought up from the bottom. These indeed have lately been denied, or reduced to nothing : but old probabilities remain. In the Eastern seas, the gigantic work of creation is visibly going on, by 3 o 2 468 VISIT TO ITALY. means of those little creatures, the cdral worms ; and new lands will as assuredly be inhabited there after a lapse of centuries, as old ones have vanished in fhe West. " So, in them all, raignes mutabilitie." 22. Fine breeze to-day from the N.E. A great shark went by. One longs to give the feUow a great dig in the mouth. Yet he is only going " on his vocation." Without him, as without the vultures on land, something would be amiss. It is only moral pain and inequahty which it is desirable to alter, —that which the mind of man has an in- vincible tendency to alter. To-day the seas reminded me of the " marmora pelagi," of Catullus. They looked, at a little distance, like blue water petrified^ You might have supposed, that by some sudden catastrophe, the great ocean had been turned into stone ; and the mighty animals, whose remains we find in it, fixed there for ever. A shoal of porpuses broke up the fancy. Waves might be classed, as clouds have been ; and more determination given to pictures of them. We ought to have waves and wavelets, billo.ws, fluctuosities, &c., a marble sea, a sea weltering. The se^ varies its look at the immediate side of the vessel, according as the progress is swift or slow. Sometimes it is a crisp and rapid flight, hissing ; sometimes an interweaving of the foam in snake-like characters ; some- times a heavy weltering, shouldering the ship on this side and that. In what is called " the trough of the sea," which is a common state to be in during violent weather, the vessel literally appears stuck and labouring in a trough, the sea looking on either side like a hill of yeast. This was the gentlest sight we used to have in the Channel ; very* different from our summer amenities. VISIT TO ITALY. 469 A fine breeze all night, with many porpuses. Porpuses are sup- posed to portend a change of weather, of some sort, bad or good : they are not prognosticators of bad alone. At night there was a " young May moon," skimming between the dark clouds, like a slender boat of silver. I was upon deck, and found the watcher fast asleep. A vessel might have tipped us all into the water, for any thing that he knew, or perhaps cared. There ought to be watchers on board ship, exclusively for that office. It is not to be expected that sailors, who have been up and at work all day, should hot sleep at night, especially out in the air" It is as natural to these children of the sea, as to infants carried out of doors. The sleeper, in the present instance, had a pail thrown over him one night, which only put him in a rage, and perhaps made him sleep out of spite next time. He was a strong, hearty Welsh lad, healthy and good-looking, in whose veins life coursed it so happily, that, in order to put him on a par with less fortunate constitutions, fate seemed to have brought about a state of warfare between him and the captain, who thought it absolutely necessary to be always giving him the rope's end. Poor John used to dance and roar with the sting of it, aijd take care to deserve it better next time. He was unquestionably " very aggravat- ing," as the saying is ; but, on the other hand, the rope was not a Uttle provoking. 23. A strong breeze from the N. and N. E., with clouds and rain. The foam by the vessel's side was fuU of those sparkles I have mentioned, like stars in clouds of froth. On the 24th, the breeze increased, but the sky was fairer, and the moon gave a hght. We drank the health of a friend in England, whose birthday it was ; being great observers of that part' of religion. The 25th brought us beautiful weather, with a wind right from the north, so that we ran down the remainder of the 470 VISIT TO ITALY. ' coast of Portugal in high style. Just as we desired it too, it changed to N. W., so as to enable us to turn the Strait of Gibraltar merrily. Cape St. Vincent, (where the battle took place,) just before you come to Gibraltar, is a beautiful lone promontory jutting out upon the sea, and crowned with a convent : it presented itself to my eyes the first thing when I came upon deck in the morning, — clear, solitary, biind-looking ; feeling, as it were, the sea air and the solitude for ever, like something between stone and spirit. It reminded me of a couplet, written not long beforej of — " Ghastly castle, that eternally Holds its blind visage out to the lone sea." Such things are beheld in one's day-dreams, and we almost start to find them real. Between the Cape and Gibraltar were some fishermen, ten or twelve in a boat, fishing with a singular dancing motion of the line. These were the first " Southrons" we had seen in their own domain ; and they interested us accordingly. One man took off his cap. In return for this politeness, the sailors joked them in bad Portuguese, and shouted with laughter at the odd sound of their language when they replied. A seaman, within his ship and his limited horizon, thinks he contains the whole circle of knowledge. Whatever gives him a hint of any thing else, he looks upon as absurdity ; and is the first to laugh at his own ignorance, without knowing it, in another shape. That a Por- tuguese should not be able to speak English, appears to him the most ludicrous thing in the world ; while, on his part, he afffects to think it a condescension to speak a few rascally words of Portuguese, though he is in reality very proud of them. The more ignorance and ina- bility, the more pride and intolerance. A servant-maid whom we took with us to Italy, could not " abide" the disagreeable sound of VISIT TO ITALY. 471 Tuscan ; and professed to change the word granie into grochy, because it was prettier. All this corner of the Peninsula is rich in ancient and modern in- terest. There is Cape St. Vincent, just mentioned; Trafalgar, more illustrious ; Cadiz, the city of Gerypn ; Gibraltar, and the other pillar of Hercules ; Atlantis, Plato's Island, which he puts hereabouts ; and the , Fortunate Islands, Elysian Fields, or Gardens of the Hesperides, which, under different appellations, and often confounded with one another, lay in this part of the Atlantic, according to Pliny. Here, also, if we are to take Dante's word for it, Ulysses found a grave, not unworthy of his life in the " Odyssey." Milton ought to have 'come this way from Italy, instead of twice going through France : he would have found himself in a world of poetry, the unaccustomed grandeur of the sea keeping it in its original freshness, unspoilt by the commonplaces that beset us on shore : and his descriptions would have been still finer for it. It is observable, that MUton does not deal much in descriptions of the ocean, a very epic part of poetry. He has been at Homer and ApOllonius, more than at sea. In one instance, he is content with giving us an ancient phrase in one half of his line, and a translation of it in the other : " On the clear hyaline, — the glassy sea." The best describer of the sea, among our English poets, is Spenser, who was conversant with the Irish Channel. Shakspeare, for an inland poet, is wonderful ; but his astonishing sympathy with every thing, animate and inanimate, made him lord of the universe, without stirring from his seat. Nature brought her shows to him like a servant, and drew back for his eye the curtains of time and place. Milton and Dante speak of the ocean as of a great plain. Shakspeare talks as if he had ridden upon it, and felt its unceasing motion. 47-2 VISIT TO ITALY. " The still-vext Bermoothes." What a presence is there in that epithet ! He draws a rocky island with its waters about it, as if he had lived there all his life ; and he was the first among our dramatists to paint a sailor,— as he was to lead the way in those national caricatures of Frenchmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen. " YoUj by whose aid," says Prospero, — " Weak masters though ye be, I have be-dimmed The noon-tide sun, called forth the mutinous winds, And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault Set roaring war." He could not have said it better, had he been buffeted with all the blind- ing and shrieking of a Channel storm. As to Spenser, see his compa- risons of " billows in the Irish sounds ;" his " World of waters^ wide and deep," in the first book, — much better than " the ocean floor" {suol marino) of Dante ; and all the sea-pictures, both fair and stormy, in the wonderful twelth canto of Book the Second, with its fabulous ichthyology, part of which I must quote here for the pleasure of poetical readers : for the seas ought not to be traversed without once adverting to these other shapes of their terrors — " All dreadfull pourtraicts of deformitie ; Spring-headed hydras, and sea-shouldering whales ; Great whirle-pooles which all fishes make to flee ; Bright scolopendras, armed with silver scales ; Mighty monoceros with immeasured tayles.* * This is the smisurato^ of the Italians. In the " Orlando Innamorato," somebody comes riding on a smisurato caxallone, an immeasurable horse. VISIT TO ITALY. 473 " The dreadful! fish that hath deserved the name Of Death, and like him looks in dreadfull hew. ; The griesly wasserman, that makes his game The flying ships with swiftness to pursew ; The horrible sea-satyre, that doth shew His fearefuU face in time of greatest storm; Huge ziffius, whom mariners eschew No less than rocks, as travellers informe ; (How he loads his verses with a weight of apprehension, as if it was all real !) And greedy rosmarines, with visages deforme. " All these, and thousand thousands many more, And more deformed monsters, thousand-fold. With dreadfull noise and hollow rumbling rore Came rushing, in the fomy waves enroll'd, Which seemed to fly, for feare them to behold. No wonder if these did the knight appall ; For all that here on earth we dreadfull hold, Be but as bugs to fearen babes withsdl, Compared to the creatures in the sea's entrall." Five dreadfulls in the course of three stanzas, and not one too many, any more than if a beheving child were talking to us. Gibraltar has a noble look, tall, hard, and independent. But you do not wish to live there : — it is a fortress, and an insulated rock, and this is but a prison. The inhabitants feed luxuriously, with the help of their fruits and smugglers. The first sight of Africa is an achievement. Voyagers in our situ- ation are obliged to be content with a mere sight of it ; but that is much. They have seen another quarter of the globe. " Africa !" They look at it, and repeat the word, till the whole burning and savage territory, with its black inhabitants and its lions, seems put into their possession. Ceuta 3 P 474 VISIT TO ITALY. and Tangier bring the old Moorish times before you ; " Ape's Hill," which is pointed out, sounds fantastic and remote, " a wilderness of monkies ;" and as all shores, on which you do not clearly distinguish objects, have a solemn and romantic look, you get rid of the petty effect of those vagabond Barbary States that occupy the coast, and think at once of Africa, the country of deserts and wild beasts, the " dry-nurse of lions ;" as Horace, with a vigour beyond himself, calls it. At Gibraltar you first have a convincing proof of the rarity of the southern atmosphere, in the near look of the Straits, which seem but a few miles across, though they are thirteen. But what a crowd of thoughts face one on entering the Mediter- ranean ! Grand as the sensation is, in passing through the classical and romantic memories of the sea off the western coast of the Peninsula, it is little compared with this. Countless generations of the human race, from three quarters of the world, with all the religions, and the mytho- logies, and the genius, and the wonderful deeds, good and bad, that have occupied almost the whole attention of mankind, look you in the face from the galleries of that ocean-floor, rising one above another, till the tops are lost in heaven. The water at your feet is the same water that bathes the shores of Europe, of Africa, and of Asia, — of Italy and Greece, and the Holy Land, and the lands of chivalry and romance, and pastoral Sicily, and the Pyramids, and old Crete, and the Arabian city of Al Cairo, glittering in the magic lustre of the Thousand and One Nights. This soft air in your face, comes from the grove of " Daphne hj Orontes ;" these lucid waters, that part from before you like oil, are the same from which Venus arose, pressing them out of her hair. In that quarter Vulcan fell— " Dropt from the zenith like a falling star :" VISIT TO ITALY. 475 and there is Circe's Island, and Calypso's, and the promontory of Plato, and Ulysses wandeiing, and Cymon and Miltiades fighting, and Regulus crossing the sea to Carthage, and " Damasco and Morocco, and Trebisond ; And whom Biserta sent from Afric shore, When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell By Fontarabia." The mind hardly separates truth from fiction in thinking of all these things, nor does it wish to do so. Fiction is Truth in another shape, and gives as close embraces. You may shut a door upon a ruby, and render it of no colour ; but the colour shall not be the less enchanting for that, when the sun, the poet of. the world, touches it with his golden pen. What we glow at and shed tears over, is as real as love and pity. At night the moon arose in a perfection of serenity, and restored the scene to the present moment. I could not help thinking, however, of Anacreon (poets are of aU moments), and fancying some connexion with moonlight in the very sound of that beautiful verse in which he speaks of the vernal softness of the waves : — '■ Apalunetai galena." I write the verse in English characters, that every reader may taste it. All our Greek beauties why should schools engross ? I used to feel grateful to Fielding and Smollett, when a boy, for writing their Greek in English. It is like catching a bit of a beautiful song, though one does not know the words. 3 p 2 476 VISIT TO ITALY. 27. Almost a calm. We proceeded at no greater rate than a mile an hour. I kept repeating to myself the word Mediterranean ; not the word in prose, but the word in verse, as it stands at the beginning of the line : " And the sea Mediterranean." We saw the niountains about Malaga, topped with snow. Velez Malaga is probably the place at which Cervantes landed on his return from captivity at Algiers. (See Don Quixote, Vol. ii. p. 208. Sharpe's edition.) I had the pleasure of reading the passage, ^while crossing the line betwixt the two cities. It is something to sail by the very names of Granada and Andalusia. There was a fine sunset over the hills of Granada. I imagined it lighting up the Alhambra. The clouds were like great wings of gold and yellow and rose-colour, with a smaller minute sprinkle in one spot, like a shbwer of glowing stones from a volcano. You see very faint imitations of such lustre in Eng- land. A heavy dew succeeded ; and a contrary wind at south-east, but very mild. At night, the reflection of the moon on the water was like silver snakes. We had contrary winds for several days in succession, but nothing to signify after our winter. On the 28th we saw a fire at night on the coast of Granada, and similar lights ^n the hills. The former was perhaps made by smugglers, the latter in burning charcoal or heath. A gull came to us next day, hanging in the air, like the dove in the pic- ture, a few yards distance from the trysail, and occasionally dipping in the water for fish. It had a small head, and long beak, like a snipe's ; wings tipped with black. It reminded us of Mr, Coleridge's poem ; which my eldest boy, in the teeth of his father's rhymes, has the impu- VISIT TO ITALY. 477 dence to think (now, as he did then) the finest poem in the world. We may say of the « Ancient Mariner," what is only to be said of the very finest poems, that it is equally calculated to please the imaginations of the most childlike boy and the profoundest man ; extremes, which meet in those super;human places; and superhumaUj in a sense exquisitely human, as well as visionary. I believe Mr. Coleridge's young admirer would have been as much terrified at shooting this albatross, as the one the poet speaks of ; not to mention that he could not be quite sure it was a different one. 30. Passed Cape de Gata. My wife was very ill, but gladly observed that illness itself was not illness, compared to what she experienced in the winter voyage. She never complained, summer or winter. It is very distressing not to be able to give perfect comfort to patients of this generous description. The Mediterranean Sea, after the Channel, was like a bason of gold fish ; but when the winds are contrary, the waves of it have a short uneasy motion, that fidget the vessel, and make one long for the nobler billows of the Atlantic. The wind too was singu- larly unpleasant, — moist and feverish. It continued contrary for several days, but became more agreeable, and sunk almost into a calm on the 3d of June. It is difficult for people on shore, in spite of their geogra- phical knowledge, not to suppose that the view is very extensive at sea. Intermediate objects being out of the way, and the fancy taking wing like the dove of Noah, they imagine the " ocean-floor," as the poets call it, stretching in an interminable level all round, or bounded by an enor- mous horizon ; whereas, the range of vision is limited to a circumference of about fourteen miles, and the uninterrupted concave of the horizon all round, completes the look of enclosure and limitation. A man on the top of a moderate hill, may .see four or five times as far as from the 478 VISIT TO ITALY. mainmast of a man-of-war. In the thin atmosphere of the south, the horizon appears to be still more circumscribed. You seem to have but a few miles around you, and can hardly help fancying that the sea is on a miniature scale, proportioned to its delicacy of behaviour. On the day above-mentioned, we saw the land between Cape St. Martin and Alicant. The coast hereabouts is all of the same rude and grey character. From this night to the next it was almost a calm, when a more favourable wind sprang up at east-south-east. The books with which I chiefly amused myself in the Mediterranean, were " Don Quix- ote," (for reasons which will be obvious to the reader,) " Ariosto" and " Berni," (for similar reasons, their heroes having to do with the coasts of France and Africa,) and Bayle's admirable " Essay on Comets," which I picked up at Plymouth. It is the book that put an end to the super- stition about comets. It is full of amusement, like all his dialectics ; and holds together a perfect chain-armour of logic, the handler of which may also cut his fingers with it at every turn, almost every link contain- ing a double edge. A generation succeeds quietly to the good done it ty such works, and its benefactor's name is sunk in the washy, church- warden pretensions of those whom he has enriched. As to what seems defective in Bayle on the score of natural piety, the reader may supply that. A benevolent workj tending to do away real dishonour to things supernatural, will be no hindrance to any benevolent addition which others can bring it ; nor would Bayle, with his good-natured face, and the scholarly simplicity of his life, have found fault with it. But he was a soldier, after his fashion, with the qualities, both positive and negative, fit to keep him one ; and some things must be dispensed with, in such a case, on the side of what is desirable, for the sake of the part VISIT TO ITALY. 4^0 that is taken in the overthrow of what is detestable. Him whom inqui- sitors hate, angels may love. All day, on the 5th, we were ofF the island of Yvica. The wind was contrary again till evening. Yvica was about ten miles off, when nearest. It has a barren look, with its rock in front. Spain was in sight ; before and beyond. Cape St. Martin. The high land of Spain above the clouds had a look really mountainous. After having the sea to ourselves for a long while, we saw a vessel in our own situation, beating to wind and tide. Sympathy is sometimes cruel as well as kind. One likes to have a companion in misfortune. At night fell a calm. 6th. It was a grand thing this evening, to see on one side of us the sunset, and on the other night already on the sea. " E,uit oceano nox." It is not true that there is no twilight in the south, but it is very brief ; and before the day is finished on one side, night is on the other. You turn, and behold it unexpectedly, — a black shade that fills one end of the horizon, and seems at once brooding and coming on. One sight like this, to a Hesiod or a Thales, is sufficient to fill poetry for ever with those images of brooding, and of raven wings, and the birth of Chaos, which are associated with the mythological idea of night. To-day w& hailed a ship bound for Nice, which would not tell us the country she came from. Questions put by one vessel to another are frequently refused an answer, for reasons of knavery or supposed policy. It was curious to hear our rough and informal captain speaking through his trumpet with all the precision and loud gravity of a preacher. There is a formula in use on these occasions, that has an old and scriptural effect. A ship descried, appears to the sailors like a friend visiting them in prison. All hands are interested : all eyes turn to the same quarter; the business 480 VISIT TO ITALY. of the vessel is suspended ; and such as have licence to do so, crowd on the gangway ; the captain, with an air of dignity, having his trumpet brought him. You think that " What cheer, ho !" is to follow, or " Well, my lads, who are you ; and where are you going ?" Not so : the captain applies his mouth with a pomp of preparation, and you are startled with the following primitive shouts, all uttered in a high formal tone, with due intervals between, as if a Calvinistic Stentor were ques- tioning a man from the land of Goshen. - " What is your name ?" " Whence come you ?" " Whither are you bound?" After the question " What is your name ?" all ears are bent to listen. The answer comes, high and remote, nothing perhaps being distinguished of it but the vowels. The " Sall-of-Hym," you must translate into the SaUy of Plymouth. " Whence come you ?" All ears bent again. " Myr " or " Mau," is Smyrna or Malta. " Whither are you bound ?" All ears again. No answer. " D — d if he '11 tell," cries the captain, laying down at once his trumpet and his scripture. 7th. Saw the Colombrettes, and the land about Tortosa. Here com- mences the classical ground of Italian romance. It was on this part of the west of Spain, that the Paynim chivalry used to land, to go against Charlemagne. Here Orlando played the tricks that got him the title of Furioso ; and from the port of Barcelona, Angelica and Medoro took ship for her dominion of Cathay. I confess I looked at these shores with a human interest, and could not help fancying that the keel of our vessel was crossing a real line, over which knights and lovers had passed. And so they have, both real and fabulous ; the former not less roman- tic, the latter scarcely less real ; to thousands, indeed, much more so ; VISIT TO ITALY. 481 for who knows of hundreds of real men and women, that have crossed these waters, and suffered actual passion on those shores and hills ? and who knows not Orlando and all the hard blows he gave, and the harder blow than all given him by two happy lovers ; and the lovers themselves, the representatives of all the young love that ever was ? I had a grudge of my own against Angelica, looking upon myself as jilted by those fine eyes which the painter has given her in the English pic- ture ; for I took her for a more sentimental person ; but I excused her, seeing her beset and tormented by all those very meritorious knights, who thought they earned a right to her by hacking and hewing ;- and I more than pardoned her, when I found that Medoro, besides being young and handsome, was a friend and a devoted follower. But what of that ? They were both young and handsome ; and love, at that time of life, goes upon no other merits, taking all the rest upon trust in the generosity of its wealth, and as willing to bestow a throne as a ribbon, to show the aU-sufficiency of its contentment. Fair speed your sails over the lucid waters, ye lovers, on a lover-like sea ! Fair speed them, yet never land ; for where the poet has left you, there ought ye, as ye are, to be living for ever — for ever gliding about a summer-sea, touch- ing at its flowery islands, and reposing beneath its moon. The blueness of the water about these parts was excessive, especially in the shade next the vessel's side. The gloss of the sunshine was there taken off, and the colour was exactly that of the bottles sold in the shops with gold stoppers. In the shadows caused by the more transparent medium of the sails, an exquisite radiance was thrown up, like light struck out of a great precious stone. These colours, contrasted with the yellow of the horizon at sunset, formed one of those spectacles of beauty, which it is difficult to believe not intended to delight many more spec- 3 Q 4821 VISIT TO ITALY. tators than can witness them with human eyes. Earth and sea are full of gorgeous pictures, Avhich seem made for a nobler and certainly a more numerous admiration, than is found among ourselves. Individuals may roam the loveliest country for a summer's day, and hardly meet a person bound on the same enjoyment as themselves. Does human nature flatter itself that all this beauty was made for its dull and absent eyes, gone elsewhere to poke about for pence ? Or, if so, is there not to be discerned in it a new and religious reason for being more alive to the wholesome riches of nature, and less to those carking cares and unneigh- bourly emulations of cities ? 8th. Calm till evening, when a fairer wind arose, which continued all night. There was a divine sunset over the mouth of the Ebro, — ma- jestic, dark-embattled clouds, with an intense sun venting itself above and below like a Shekinah, and the rest of the heaven covered with large flights of little burnished and white clouds. It was what is called in England a mackarel sky, — an appellation which may serve to show how much inferior it is to a sky bf the same mottled description in the south. All colours in the north are comparatively cold and fishy. You have only to see a red cap under a Mediterranean sun, to be convinced that our painters will never emulate those of Italy as our poets have done. They are birds of a different clime, and are modified accordingly. They do not live upon the same lustrous food, and wiU never show it in their plumage. Poetry is the internal part, or sentiment, of what is material ; and therefore, our thoughts being driven inwards, and rendered imagi- native by these very defects of climate which discolour to us the exter- nal world, we have had among us some of the greatest poets that ever existed. It is observable, that the greatest poets of Italy came from Tuscany, where there is a great deal of inclemency in the seasons. The VISIT TO ITALY. 483 painters were from Venice, Rome, and other quarters ; some of which, though more northern, are more genially situated. The hills about Florence made Petrarch and Dante well acquainted with winter ; and they were also travellers, and unfortunate. These are mighty helps to reflection. Titian and Raphael had nothing to do but to paint under a blue sky half the day, and play with their mistress's locks all the rest of it. Let a painter in cloudy and bill-broking England do this, if he can. 9th. Completely fair wind at south-west. Saw Montserrat. The sun, reflected on the water from the lee studding-sail, was like shot silk. At half-past seven in the evening, night was risen in the east, while the sun was setting opposite. « Black night has come up abeady," said the captain- A fair breeze aU night and aU next day, took us on at the rate of about five miles an hour, very refreshing after the calms and foul winds. We passed the Gulf of Lyons still more pleasantly than we did the Bay of Biscay, for in the latter there was a calm. In both of these places, a little rough handling is generally looked for. A hawk settled on the main-yard, and peered about the birdless main; 11. Light airs not quite fair, tiU noon, when they returned and were somewhat stronger. (I am thus particular in my daily notices, both to complete the reader's sense of the truth of my narrative, and to give him the benefit of them in case he goes the same road.) The land about Toulon was now visible, and then the Hieres Islands, a French paradise of oranges and sweet airs — " Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles." The perfume exhaling from these and other flowery coasts is no fable, as every one knows who has passed Gibraltar and the coast of Genoa. M. le Franc de Pompignan, in some verses of the commonest French 3 Q 2 484 VISIT TO. ITALY. manufacture, tells us, with respect to the Hieres Islands, that Vertumnus, Pomona, Zephyr, &c. " reign there always," and that the place is " the asylum of their loves, and the throne of their empire." Very private and puhlic ! " Vertumne, Pomone, Z6phyre Avec Flore y regnent toujours ; C'est I'asyle de leurs amours, Et le trone de leur empire." It was the coast of Provence we were now looking upon, the land of the Troubadours. It seemed but a short cut over to Tripoli, where Geoffrey Rudel went to look upon his mistress and die. But our at- tention was called off by a less romantic spectacle, a sight unpleasant to an Englishman, — the union flag of Genoa and Sardinia hoisted on a boat. An independent flag of any kind is something ; a good old battered and conquered one is much ; but this bit of the Holy Alliance livery, patched up among his brother servants, by poor Lord Castlereagh, and making its bow in the very seas where Andrew Doria feasted an Emperor and refused a sovereignty, was a baulk, of a very melancholy kind of burlesque. The Sardinian was returning with empty wine casks from the French coast ; a cargo, which, at the hour of the day when we saw it, probably bore the liveHest possible resemblance to the heads whom he served. The wind fell in the evening, and there was a dead calm all night. At eleven o'clock, a grampus was heard breathing very hard, but we could not see it on account of the mists, the only ones we had experienced in the Mediterranean. These sounds of great fish in the night-time are very imposing, the creature displacing a world of water about it, as it dips and rises at intervals on its billowy path. VISIT TO ITALY. 485 12th. During the night we must have crossed the path which Bona- parte took to Antibes from Elba. We went over it as unconsciously as he now travels round with the globe in his long sleep. Talking with the captain to-day, I learnt that his kindred and he monopolize the whole employment of his owner, and that his father served in it thirty- three years out of fifty. There is always something respectable in con- tinuity and duration, where it is maintained by no ignoble means. If this family should continue to be masters and conductors of vessels for two or three generations more, especially in the same interest, they wUl have a sort of moral pedigree to show, far beyond those of many proud families, who do nothing at all because their ancestors did something a hundred years back. T will here set down a memorandum, with regard to vessels, which may be useful. The one we sailed in was marked A. I. in the shipping list : that is to say, it stood in the first class of the first rank of sea- worthy vessels ; and it is in vessels of this class that people are always anxious to sail. In the present instance, the ship was worthy of the rank it bore : so was the one we buffeted the Channel in ; or it would not have held out. But this mark of prime worthiness, A. I., a vessel is allowed to retain only ten years ; the consequence of which is, that many ships are built to last only that time ; and goods and lives are often entrusted to a weak vessel, instead of one which, though twice as old, is in twice as good condition. The best way is to get a friend who knows something of the matter, to make inquiries ; and the sea-worthiness of the captain himself, his standing with his employ- ers, &c. might as well be added to the list. l.Sth. The Alps ! It was the first time I had seen mountains. They had a fine sulky look, up aloft in the sky,— cold, lofty, and distant. I 486 VISIT TO ITALY. used to think that mountains would impress me but little ; that by the same process of imagination reversed, by which a brook can be fancied a mighty river, with forests instead of verdure on its banks, a mountain could be made a mole-hill, over which we step. But one look convinced me to the contrary, I found I could elevate, better than I could pull down, and I was glad of it. It was not that the sight of the Al^s was necessary to convince me of " the being of a God," as it is said to have done Mr. Moore, or to put me upon any reflections respecting infinity and first causes, of which I have had enough in my time ; but I seemed to meet for the first time a grand poetical thought in a material shape, — to see a piece of one's book-wonders realized, — something very earthly, yet standing between earth and heaven, like a piece of the antediluvian world looking out of the coldness of ages. I remember reading in a Review a passage from some book of travels, which spoke of the author's standing on the sea-shore, and being led by the silence, and the abstraction, and the novel grandeur of the objects around him, to think of the earth, not in its geographical divisions, but as a planet in con- nexion with other planets, and rolling in the immensity of space. With these thoughts I have been familiar, as I suppose every one has been who knows what solitude is, and has an imagination, and perhaps not the best health. But we grow used to the mightiest aspects of thought, as we do i,o the immortal visages of the moon and stars : and therefore the first sight of the Alps, though much less things than any of these, and a toy, as I thought, for imagination to recreate itself with after their company, startles us like the disproof of a doubt, or the verification of an early dream, — a ghost, as it were, made visible by daylight, and giving us an enormous sense of its presence and materiality. VISIT TO ITALY. 487 In the course of the day, we saw the table-land about Monaco. It brought to my mind the ludicrous distress of the petty prince of that place, when on his return from interchanging congratulations with his new masters — the legitimates, he suddenly met his old master, Napoleon, on his return from Elba. Or did he meet him when going io Elba ? I forget which ; but the distresses and confusion of the . Prince were at all events as certain, as the superiority and amusement of the great man. In either case, this was the natural division of things, and the circumstances would have been the same. A large grampus went by, heaping the water into clouds of foam. Another time, we saw a shark with his fin above water, which, I believe, is his constant way of going. The Alps were now fully and closely seen, and a glorious sunset took place. There was the greatest grandeur and the loveliest beauty. Among others was a small string of clouds, like rubies with facets, a very dark tinge being put here and there, as if by a painter, to set off the rest. Red is certainly the colour of beauty, and ruby the most beautiful of reds. It was in no commonplace spirit that Marlowe, in his list of precious stones, called them " beauteous rubies," but with exquisite gusto : — " Bags of fiery opals^ sapphires, amethysts. Jacinths, hard topas, grass-green emeralds. Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds," &ci They corrie upon you, among the rest, like the women of gems. All these colours we had about us in our Mediterranean sunsets ; and as if fortune would add to thepi by a freak of fancy, a little shoal of fish, sparkling as silver, leaped out of the water this afternoon, like a sprinkle of shillings. They were the anchovies, or Sardinias, that we eat. They 488 VISIT TO ITALY. give a burlesque title to the sovereign of these seas, whom the Tuscans call " King of the Sardinias." We were now sailing up the angle of the Gulf of Genoa, its shore looking as Italian as possible, with groves and white villages. The names too were alluring, — Oneglia, Albenga, Savona ; the last, the birth- place of a sprightly poet, (Frugoni,) whose works I was acquainted with. The breeze was the strongest we had had yet, and not quite fair, but we. made good head against it ; the queen-like city of Genoa, crowned with white palaces, sat at the end of the Gulf, as if to receive us in state ; and at two o'clock, the waters being as blue as the sky, and all hearts rejoicing, we entered our Italian harbour, and heard Italian words. Luckily for us, these first words were Tuscan. A pilot-boat came out. Somebody asked a question which we did not hear, and the captain replied to it. " Va bene," said the pilot in a fine open voice, and turned the head of the boat with a tranquil dignity. " Va bene," thought I, indeed. " AH goes well" truly. The words are delicious, and the omen good. My family have arrived so far in safety ; we have but a little more voyage to nlake, a few steps to measure back in this calm Mediterranean ; the weather is glorious ; Italy looks like what we expected; in a day or two we shall hear of our friends : health and peace are before us, pleasure to others and profit to ourselves ; and it is hard if we do not enjoy again, before long, the society of all our friends, both abroad and at home. In a day or two we received a letter from Mr. SheUey, saying that winds and waves, he hoped, would never part us more. I intended to put below, in a note, what remarks I had made in another publication, respecting the city of Genoa ; but they have been re-published in the compilation noticed in this work, purporting to VISIT TO ITALY. 489 be an account of the " Life and Times of Lord Byron." It is a compli- ment a little on the side of the free order of things, but such as I have never been inclined to complain of, especially where the compiler, as in the present instance, is polite in his petty larceny, and helps himself to your property in the style of Du Val. In the harbour of Genoa, we lay next a fine American vessel, the captain of which, I thought, played the great man in a style beyond any thing I had seen in our English merchantmen. On the other side of us, was an Englishman, as fragile as the other was stout-buUt. Yet the captain, who was a strange fish, with a dialect more uncouth than any of us had heard, talked of its weathering the last winter capir tally, and professed not to care any thing for a gale of wind, which he called a "gal o' wined." We here met with our winter vessel, looking as gay and summery as you please, and having an awning stretched over the deck, under which the captain politely invited us to dine. I went, and had the pleasure of meeting our friend the mate, and a good-natured countryman, residing at Genoa, who talked much of a French priest whom he knew, and whom he called " the prate." Our former companions, in completing their voyage, had had" a bad time of it in the gulf of Lyons, during which the ship was com- pletely under water, the cook-house and bulwarks^ &c. were carried away, and the men were obliged to be taken aft into the cabin two nights together. We had reason to bless ourselves that my wife was pot there ; for this would infallibly have put an end to her. On the 28th of June, we set s^il for Leghorn. The weather was still as fine as possible, and our concluding trip as agreeable ; with the exception of a storm of thunder and. lightning one night, which was the completest I ever saw. Our newspaper friend, « the oldest man living," 3 11 490 VISIT TO ITALY. ought to have been there to see it. The lightning fell in all parts of the sea, like . piUars ; or like great melted fires, suddenly dropt from a giant torch. Now it pierced the sea, like rods ; now fell like enormous flakes or tongues, suddenly swallowed up. At one time, it seemed to confine itself to a dark corner of the ocean, making foriAidable shows of gigantic and flashing lances, (for it was the most perpendicular lightning I ever saw) : then it dashed broadly at the whole sea, as if it would swe^p us away in flame ; and then came in random portions about the vessel, tread- ing the waves hither and thither, hke the legs of fiery spirits descending in wrath. I then had a specimen (and confess I was not sorry to see it) of the fear which could enter even into the hearts of our " gallant heroes," when thrown into an unusual situation. The captain, almost the only man unmoved, or apparently so, (and I really believe he was as •fearless on all occasions, as his native valour, to say nothing of his brandy and water, could make him) was so exasperated with the unequivocal alarm depicted in the faces of some of his crew, that he dashed his hand contemptuously at the poor fellow at the helm, and called him a coward. For our parts, having no fear of thunder and lightning, and not being fuHy aware perhaps of the danger to which vessels are exposed on these occasions, particularly if like our Channel friend they carry gunpowder (as most of them do, more or less) we were quite at our ease, compared with our inexperienced friends about us, who had never witnessed. any thing of the like before, even in books. Besides, we thought it impos- sible for the Mediterranean to play us any serious trick, — that sunny and lucid basin, which we had beheld only in its contrast with a north- em and a winter sea. Little did we think, that in so short a space of time, and somewhere about this very spot, a catastrophe would take VISIT TO ITALY. 491 place, that should put an end to aU sweet thoughts both of the Medi- terranean and the South. Our residence at Pisa and Genoa has been already described, I must therefore request the reader to indulge me in a dramatic license, and allow us to grow three years older in the course of as many lines. By this time he will suppose us leaving Genoa for Flo- rence. We were obliged to travel in the height of an Italian summer ; which did no good to any of us. The children, living temperately, and not having yet got any cares on their shoulders, which temperance could not remove, soon recovered. It was otherwise with the rest ; but there is a habit in being ill, as in every thing else ; and we dis- posed ourselves to go through our task of endurance, as cheerfully as might be. In Genoa you heard nothing in the streets but the talk of money. I hailed it is a good omen in Florence, that the two first words which caught my ears, were Flowers and Women (Fiori and Don,ne). The night of our arrival we put up at an hotel in a very public street, and were kept awake (as agreeably as fever would let us be) by songs and o-uitars. It was one of th^ pleasantest pieces of the south we had ex- perienced : and, for the moment, we lived in the Italy of books. One performer, to a jovial accompaniment, sang a song about somebody's fair wife (bianca moglie), which set the street in roars of laughter. From, the hotel we -went into a lodging in the street of Beautiful Women — Via deUe BeUe Donne— a name which it is a sort of tune to pronounce. We there heard one night a concert in the street ; and looking out, saw music-stands, books, &c. in regular order, and amateurs perfori^ing as in a room. Opposite our lodging was an inscription on a house pur- 3 R 2 492 VISIT TO ITALY. porting that it was the Hospital of the Monks of Vallombrosa* Wher- ever you turned was music or a graceful memory. From the Via delle BeUe Donne we went to live in the Piazza Santa Croce, next to the church of that name containing the ashes of Michael Angelo. On the other side of it was the monastery, in which Pope Sixtus V. went stooping as if in decrepitude ; " looking," as he said afterwards, "for the keys of St. Peter." We lodged in the house of a Greek, who came from the island of Andros, and was called Dionysius ; a name, which has existed there perhaps ever since the god who bore it. Our host was a proper Bacchanalian^ always drunk, and spoke faster than I ever heard. He had a " fair Andrian" for his mother, old and ugly, whose name was Bella. The church of Santa Croce would disappoint you as much inside as out, if the presence of the remains of Great Men did not always cast a mingled shadow of the awful and- beautiful over one's thought. Any large space also, devoted to the purposes of religion, though the religion be false, disposes the mind to the loftiest of* speculations. The vaulted sky out of doors appears small, compared with the opening into immensity represented by that very enclosure^— that largier dwelling than common, entered by a little door ; and we take off our hats, not so much out of earthly respect, as with the feeling that there should be nothing between our heads and the air of the next world. Agreeably to our old rustic propensities, we did not stop long in the city. We left Santa Croce to live at Maiano, a village on the slope of one of the Fiesolan hills, about two miles off. I passed there a very disconsolate time ; yet the greatest comfort 1 experienced in Italy was from living in that neighbourhood, and thinking, as I went about, of Boccaccio. Boccaccio's father had a house at Maiano, sup- VISIT TO ITALY. 493 posed to have been situate at the Fiesolan extremity of the hamlet. That divine writer (whose sentiment outweighed his levity a hundred fold, as a fine face is oftener serious than it is merry) was so fond of the place, that he has not only laid the two scenes of the Decameron on each side of it, with the valley his company resorted to in .the middle, but has made the two little streams that embrace Maiano, the Af&ico and the Mensola, the hero and heroine of his Nimphale Fiesolano. A lover and his vestal mistress are changed into them, after the fashion of Ovid. The scene of another of his works is on the banks of the Mug- none, a river a little distant : and the Decameron is full of the neigh- bouring villages. Out of the windows of one side of our house, we saw the turret of the Villa Gherardi, to which his "joyous company" resorted in the first instance ;— a house belonging to the Macchiavelli was nearer, a little to the left ; and further to the left, among the blue hills, was the white village of Settignano, where Michael Angelo was born. The house is still remaining in possession of the family. From our win- dows on the other side we saw, close to us, the Fiesole of antiquity and of Milton, the site of the Boccaccio-house before-mentioned still closer, the Valley of Ladies at our feet ; and we looked over towards the quarter of the Mugnone and of a house of Dante, and in the distance beheld the mountains of Pistoia. Lastly, from the terrace in front, Florence lay clear and cathedralled before us, with the scene of Redi's Bacchus rising on the other side of it, and the ViUa of Arcetri, illus- trious for Galileo. But I stuck to my Boccaccio haunts, as to an old home. I lived with the divine human being, with his friends of the Falcon and the Basil, and my own not unworthy melancholy ; and went about the flowering lanes and hills, solitary indeed, and sick to the heart, but not unsus- 494 VISIT TO ITALY. tained. In looking back to such periods of one's existence, one is sur- prised to find how much they surpass many occasions of mirth, and what a rich tone of colour their very darkness assumes, as in some fine old painting. My almost daily walk was to Fiesole, through a path skirted with wild myrtle and cyclamen ; and I stopped at the cloister of the Doccia, and sat on the pretty melancholy platform behind it, reading, or looking through the pines down to Florence. In the Valley of Ladies, I found some English trees (trees not vine and olive) and even a meadow ; and these, while I made them furnish me with a bit of my old home in the north, did no injury to the memory of Boccaccio, who is of all countries, and finds his home wherever we do ourselves, in love, in the grave, in a desert island. But I had other friends too not far off, English, and of the right sort. My friend, Mr. Brown, occupied for a time the little convent of St. Baldassare, near Maiano, where he represented the body corporate of the former possessors with all the joviality of a comfortable natural piety. The closet- in his study, where the church treasures had most likely been kept, was filled with the humanities of modern literature, not less Christian for being a little sceptical : and we had a zest in fan- cying that we discoursed of love and wine in the apartments of the Lady Abbess. I remember I had the pleasure of telling an Italian gentleman there the joke attributed to the Reverend Mr. Sydney Smith, about sitting next a man at table, who had " a seven-parson power;" and he understood it, and rolled with laughter, crying out — " Oh, ma bello ! ma bellissimo !" There, too, I had the pleasure of dining in company with an English beauty, (Mrs. W.) who appeared to be such as Boccaccio might have admired, capable both of mirth and gravity ; and she had a child with her that reflected her graces. The appearance of one of VISIT TO ITALY. 4,95 these young English mothers among Italian women, is like domes- ticity among the passions. It is a pity when you return to England, that the generality of faces do not keep up the charm. You are then too apt to think, that an Italian beauty among English women would look like poetry among the suUens. My friend B. removed to Florence ; and together with the books and newspapers, made me a city visitor. I there became acquainted with Mr. Landor, to whose talents I had made the amende honorable the year before ; and with Mr. Kirkup, an English artist, who is poor enough, I fear, neither in purse nor accomplishment, to cultivate his profession as he ought ; and so beloved by his friends, that they must get at a distance from him before they can tell him of it. And yet I know not why they should ; for a man of a more cordial generosity, with greater delicacy in showing it, I have never met with : and such men deserve .the compliment of openness. They know how to receive it. To the list of my acquaintances, I had the honour of adding Lord Dillon, who in the midst of an exuberance of temperament more than national, conceals a depth of understanding, and a genuine humanity of know- ledge, to which proper justice is not done in consequence. The vege- tation and the unstable ground divert suspicion from the ore beneath it. 1 remember his saying something one evening about a very ill-used description of persons in the London streets, for which Shakspeare might have taken him by the hand ; though the proposition came in so startling a shape, that the company were obliged to be shocked in self-defence. The gallant Viscount is not the better for being a Lord. I never knew, or read of a clever man, that was. It makes the most natural men ar- tificial, and perplexes them with contradictory ambitions. A proper Lord, being constituted of nothing, judiciously consents to remain so. 496 VISIT TO ITALY. and avoids trenching upon realities. I must also take leave to doubt, whether RoScommon will not remain the greatest poet among the Dil- lons, notwithstanding the minaccie of EzzeUno. But his Lordship is not the less worthy of a race of intelligent men and noble adventurers. He is a cavalier of the old school of the Meadowses and Newcastles, with something of the O'Neal superadded ; and instead of wasting his words upon tyrants or Mr. Pitt, ought to have been eternally at the head of his brigade, charging on his war-horse, and meditating romantic stories. Mr. Landor, who has long been known to scholars as a Latin poet beyond the elegance of centos, and has lately shown himself one of our most powerful writers of prose, is a man of a vehement nature, with great delicacy of imagination. He is like a stormy mountain pine, that should produce lilies. After indulging the partialities of his friendships and enmities, and trampling on kings and ministers, he shall cool himself, like a Spartan worshipping a moon-beam, in the patient meekness of Lady Jane Grey. I used to think he did wrong in choosing to write Latin verse instead of English. The opinions he has expressed on that sub- ject, in the eloquent treatise appended to his Latin poems, will, I am sure, hardly' find a single person to agree with them. But as an indivi- dual, working out his own case, I think he was right in giving way to the inspiration of his scholarship. Independent, learned, and leisurely, with a temperament, perhaps, rather than a mind, poetical, he walked among the fields of antiquity, till he beheld the forms of poetry with the eyes of their inhabitants ; and it is agreeable, as a variety, among the crowds of ordinary scholars, especially such as affect to think the great modern poets little ones because they are not ancient, to have one who can really faiiCy and feel with Ovid and CatuUus, as well as read them. VISIT TO ITALY. 497 Mr. Landor has the veneration for all poetry, ancient or modern, that belongs to a scholar who is himself a poet. He loves Chaucer and Spenser, as well as Homer. That he deserves the title, the reader will be convinced on opening his book of " Idyls," where the first thing he en- counters will be the charming duel between Cupid and Pan, full of fancy and archness, with a deeper emotion at the end. His " Lyrics," with the exception of a pretty vision about Ceres and her poppies, (which is in the spirit of an Idyl,) do not appear to me so good : but upon the whole though it is a point on which I am bound to speak with diffidence, he seems to me by far the best Latin poet we possess, after Milton ; more in good taste than the incorrectness and diffuseness of Cowley ; and not to be lowered by a comparison with the mimic elegancies of Addison. Vincent Bourne, I conceive to be a genuine hand ; but I know him only in a piece or two. Mr. Landor was educated at Rugby, and became afterwards the friend and favourite pupil of Dr. Parr. With a library, the smaUness of which surprised me, and which he must furnish out, when he writes on English subjects, by the help of a rich memory,:— he lives, among his paintings and hospitalities, in a style of unostentatious elegance, very becoming a scholar that can afford it. The exile, in which he chooses to- continue at present, is as different from that of his friend Ovid, as his Tristia would have been, had he thought proper to write any. Augustus would certainly have found no whining in him, much less any worship. He has some fine children, with whom he plays like a real schoolboy, being, in truth, as ready to complain of an undue knock, as he is to laugh, shout, and scramble ; and his wife (I really do not know whether I ought to take these liberties, but the nature of the book into which I have been beguiled must excuse me, and ladies must take the consequence 3 s 498 VISIT TO ITALY. of being agreeable), — his wife would have made Ovid's loneliness quite another thing, with her face radiant with good-humour. Mr. Landor's conversation is lively and tinaffected, as full of scholarship or otherwise as you may desire, and dashed now and then with a little superfluous will and vehemence, when he speaks of his likings and dislikes. His laugh is in peals, and climbiiig : he seems to fetch every fresh one from a higher story^ Speaking of the Latin poets of antiquity, I was struck with an observation of his; that Ovid was the best-natured of them all. Horace's perfection that way he doubted. He said, that Ovid had a greater range of pleasurable ideas, and was prepared; to do justice to every thing that came in his way. Ovid was fond of noticing his rivals in wit and genius, and has recorded the names of a great number of his friends ; whereas Horace seems to confine his eulogies to such' as were rich or in fashion, and well received at court. When the " Liberal" was put an end to, I had contributed some articles to a new work set up by my brother, called the " Literary Ex- aminer." Being too ill at Florence to continue these, I did what I could, and had recourse to the lightest and easiest translation I could think of, which was that of Redi's " Bacco in Toscana." I believe it fell dead-born from the press. Like the wines it recorded, it would not keep. Indeed it was not very likely that the English public should take much interest in liquors not their own, and' enthusiastic allusions to times and places with which they had no sympathy. Animal spirits also require to be read by animal spirits, or at least by a melancholy so tempered as to consider thein rather as desirable than fantastic :^-per- haps my own relish of the original was not sprightly enough at the time to do it justice; and, at all events, it is Irefquisite that what a man does say in his vivacity should not be doubly spoilt in the conveyance. VISIT TO ITALY. 499 Bell's Edition of Shakspeare, is said to have been the worst edition ever put forth of a British author. Perhaps the translation of the " ?acchus in Tuscany" was the worst ever printed. It was mystified with up- wards of fifty mistakes. At Maiano, I wrote the articles whjch appeared in the " Examiner," under the title of the « Wishing Cap." It was a very genuine title. When I put on ray cap, and pitched myself in imagination into the thick of Covent-Garden, the pleasure I received was so vivid,— I turned the corner of a street so much in the ordinary course of things, and was so tangibly present to the pavement, the shop-windows, the people, and a thousand agreeable recollections which looked me naturally in the face, that sometimes when I walk there now, the impression seems hardly more real. I used to feel as if I actually pitched my soul there, and that spiritual eyes might have seen it shot over from Tuscany into York- street, like a rocket. It is much pleasanter, however, on waking up, to find soiil and body together in one's favourite neighbourhood : yes, even .than ' among thy olives and vines, Boccaccio ! I not only missed " the town" in Italy ; I missed my old trees, — oaks and elms. Tuscany, in point of. wood, is nothing but an olive-ground and Vineyard. I saw there, how it was, that some persons when they return from Italy say it has no wood, and some a great deal. The fact is, that many parts of it, Tuscany included, has no wood to speak of; and it Wants larger trees in- terspersed with the smaller ones, in the manner of our hedge-row elms. A tree of a reasonable height is a Godsend, The olives are low and hazy-looking, like dry sallows. You have plenty of those; but to an Englishman, looking from a height, they appear little better than brush- wood. Then there are no meadows, no proper green lanes (at least, I saw none), no paths leading over field and style, no hay-fields in June, 3 s 2 500 VISIT TO ITALY. nothing of that luxurious combination of green and russet, of grass, wild flowers, and woods, over which a lover of Nature can sti'oU for hours with a foot as fresh as the stag's ; unvexed with chalk, dust, and an eternal public path ; and able to lie down, if he will, and sleep in clover. In short, (saving a little more settled weather,) we have the best part of Italy in books, be it what it may ; and this we can enjoy in England. Give me Tuscany in Middlesex or Berkshire, and the Valley of Ladies between Harrow and Jack Straw's Castle. The proud names and flinty ruins above the Mensola may keep their distance. Boccac- cio shall build a bower for us, out of his books, of all that we choose to import ; and we will have daisies and fresh meadows besides. An Italian may prefer his own country after the same fashion ; and he is right. I knew a young Englishwoman, who, having grown up in Tuscany, thought the landscapes of her native country insipid, and could not imagine how people could live without walks in vineyards. To me Italy has a certain hard taste in the mouth. Its mountains are too bare, its outlines too sharp, its lanes too stony, its voices too loud, its long summer too dusty. I longed to bathe myself in the grassy balm of my native fields. But I was ill, uncomfortable, in a perpetual fever ; and critics, if they are candid, should give us a list of the infirmities, under which they sit down to estimate what they differ with. What returns of sick and wounded we should have at the head of some of our periodicals ! Before I left Italy, I had the pleasure of frightening the Tuscan go- vernment by proposing to set up a compilation from the English Maga- zines. They are rarely seen in that quarter, though our countrymen are numerous. In the year 1825, two hundred English families were said to be resident in Florence. In Rome, visitors, though not famihes, were more numerous ; and the publication, for little cost,' might have been VISIT TO ITALY. 501 sent all over Italy. The plan was to select none but the very best ar- ticles, and follow them with an original one commenting upon their beauties, and making the English in Italy well acquainted with our living authors. But the Tuscan authorities were fairly struck with con- sternation. " You must submit the publication to a censorship." — '* Be it so." — " But you must let them see every sheet, before it goes to press, in order that there may be no religion or politics." — " Very well : — to please the reverend censors, I will have no religion ; politics also are out of the question." — "Ay, but politics may creep in." — " They shall not." — " Ah, but they may creep in, without your being aware ; and then what is to be done ?" — " Why, if neither the editor nor the censors are aware, I do not see that any very vivid impression need be apprehended with regard to the public." — " That appears very plausible ; but how if the censors do not understand English ?" — " There indeed you have me. All I can say is, that the English understand the censors, and I see we must drop our intended work." — This was the substance of a discourse I had with the bookseller, after communication with the authorities. The prospectus had been drawn out ; the bookseller had rubbed his hands at it, thinking of the money which the Byrons and Walter Scotts of Eng- land were preparing for him ; but he was obliged to give in. " Ah," said he to me in his broken English, as he sat in winter-time with cold feet and an irritable face, pretending to keep himself warm by tantalizing the tip of his fingers over a little basin of charcoal,—" A,h, you are veree happee in England ; you can get so much money as you please." It was a joyful day that enabled us to return to England. I will quote a lecter which a friend has preserved, giving an account of the first part of our journey ; for these things are best told while the im- pression is most lively. * * * * * * i>02 VISIT TO ITALY. " I had a proper Bacchanalian parting with Florence. A stranger and I cracked a bottle together in high style. ' He ran against me with a flask of wine in his hand, aiid divided it gloriously between us. It was impossible to be angry with his good-humoured face ; so we com- plimented one another on our joviality, and parted on the most flourish- ing terms. In the evening I cracked another flask, with equal absti- nence of inside. Mr. Kirkup (whom you have heard me speak of) made me a present of a vine stick. He came to Maiano, with Mr. Brown, to take leave of us ; so we christened the stick, as they do a seventy-four, and he stood roc?-father. " We set off next morning at six o'clock. I took leave of Maiano with a dry eye, Boccaccio and the Valley of Ladies notwithstanding. But the grave face of Brown (who had stayed all night, and' was to continue doing us good after we had gone, by seeing to our goods and chattels,) was not so easily to be parted with. I was obliged to gulp down a sensation in the throat, such as men cannot very well afford to confess " in these degenerate days," especially to a lady. So I beg you will have a respect for it, and know it for what it is. Old Lear and Achilles made nothing of owning to it. But before we get on, I must make you acquainted with our mode of travelling. " We go not by post, but by Vettura ; that is to say, by easy stages of thirty or forty miles a day, in a travelling carriage^ the box of which is turned into a chaise, with a calash over it. It is drawn by three horses, occasionally assisted by mules. We pay about eighty-two guineas English, for which sum ten of us (counting as six, because of the number of children,) are taken to Calais ; have a breakfast and dinner every day on the road ; are provided with five beds at night, each containing two persons ; and are to rest four days .during the VISIT TO ITALY. 503 journey, without farther expense, in whatever poi'tibns ahd plades. we think fit. Our breakfast consists of coffee, bread, fruit, milk, and eggs; plenty of each: the dinner of the four indispensable Italian dishes, something roast, something boiled, something fried, and what they call an umido, which is a hash, or something of that sort ; together with vegetables, wine, and fruit. Care must be taken that the Vetturino does not crib from this allowance by degrees, otherwise the dishes grow fewer and smaller ; meat disappears on a religious principle, it being magro day, on which " nothing is to be had ;" and the vegetables ad- hering to their friend the meat in his adversity, disappear likewise. The reason of this is, that the Vetturino has a conflicting interest within him; It is his interest to please you in hope of other custom ; and it his interest to make the most of the sum of mohey, which his master allows him for expenses. Withstand, however, any change at first, and good behaviour may be reckoned upon. We have as pleasant a little Tuscan to drive us, as I ever met with. He began very handsomely ; but finding us willing to make the best of any little deficiency, he could not resist the temptation of giving up the remoter interest for the nearer' one. We found our profusion diminish accordingly ; and at Turin, after cunningly asking us, whether we cared to have an inn not of the v6ry' highest description, he has brought us to one (?f which it can only be said that it is not of the very lowest. The landlord showed us into sordid rooms on a second story. I found it necessary to be base and make a noise ; upon which little Gigi looked frightened, and the landlord looked slavish and bowed us into his best. We shall have no more of this. Our rogue has an excellent temper, and is as honest a rogue, 1 will undertake to say, as ever puzzled a formalist. He makes us laugh with his resemblance to Mr. Lamb; whose countenance, a little joVialized, he engrafts upon an 504 VISIT TO ITALY. active little body and pair of legs, walking about in his jack-boots as if they were pumps. But he must have some object in life, to carry him so many times over the Alps: — this of necessity is money. You may guess that we could have dispensed with some of the fried and roasted ; but to do this, would be to subject ourselves to other diminutions. Our bargain is reckoned a good one. The coachmaster says, (believe him who will,) that he could not have afforded it, had he not been sure at this time of the year, that somebody would take his coach back again ; so many persons come to winter in Italy. " Well, now that you have all the prolegomena, right and tight, we will set off again. We were told to look for a barren road from Florence to Bologna, but were most agreeably disappointed. The vines and olives disappeared, which was a relief to us. Instead of these, and the comparatively petty ascents about Florence, we had proper swelling Apennines, valley and mountain, with fine sloping meadows of green, interspersed with wood. We stopped to refresh ourselves at noon at an inn called Le Masclj/ere, where there is a very elegant prospect, a mix- ture of nature with garden ground ; and slept at Covigliaio, where three tall buxom damsels waited upon us, who romped during supper with the men-servants. One of them had a nicer voice than the others, upon the strength of which she stepped about with a jaunty air in a hat and feathers, and made the aimahle. A Greek came in with a long beard ; which he poked into all the rooms by way of investigation ; as he could speak no language but his own. I asked one of the girls why she looked so frightened ; upon which she shrugged her shoulders and said, " Oh Dio .'" as if Blue Beard -had come to put her in his seraglio. " Our vile inn knocked us up ^ so I would not write any more yes- terday. Little Gigi came up yesterday evening with a grave face, to VISIT TO ITALY. 505 tell US that he was not aware till that moment of its being part of his duty, by the agreement, to pay expenses during our days of stopping. He had not looked into the agreement till then ! The rogue ! So we lectured him, and forgave him for his good temper : and he is to be very honest and expensive in future. This episode of the postilion has put me out of the order of my narration. " To resume then. Next morning the 11th, we set off at five, and passed a volcanic part of the Apennines, where a flame issues from the ground. We thought we saw it. The place is called Pietra Mala. Here we enter upon the Pope's territories, as if his Holiness kept the keys of a very different place from what he pretends. We refreshed at Poggioli, in sight of a church upon a hill, called the Monte dei Formi- coli. They say all the ants in the neighbourhood come into the church on a certain day, in the middle of the service, and make a point of dying during the mass ; but the postilion said, that for his part he did not believe it. Travelling makes people sceptical. The same even- ing we got to Bologna, where we finished for the present with moun- tains. The best streets in Bologna are furnished with arcades, very sensible things, which we are surprised to miss in any city in a hot country. They are to be found, more or less, as you travel north- wards. The houses are all kept in good-looking order, owing, I be- lieve, to a passion the Bolognese have for a gorgeous anniversary, against which every thing animate and inanimate puts on its best. I could not learn what it was. Besides tapestry and flowers, they bring out their pictures to hang in front of the houses. Many cities in Italy disappoint the eye of th^ traveller. The stucco and plaister outside the houses gets worn, and, together with the open windows,^ gives them a squalid and deserted appearance. But the 3 T ' 506 VISIT TO ITALY. name is always something. If Bologna were nothing of a city, it would still be a fine sound and a sentiment ; a thing recorded in art» in poetry, in stories of all sorts. We passed next day over a flat coun- try, and dined at JModena, which is neither so good-looking a city, nor so well sounding a recollection as Bologna : but it is still Modena,. the native place of Tassoni. I went to the cathedral to get sight of the Secchia which is hung up there, but found the doors shut; and as ugly a pile of building as a bad cathedral could make. The lions be- fore the doors, look as if some giant's children had made them in sport, wretchedly sculptured, and gaping as if in agony at their bad legs. It was a disappointment to me not to see the Bucket. The Secchia Kapita is my oldest Italian acquaintance, and I reckoned upon saying to the hero of it ' Ah, ha ! There you are !' There is something provoking and yet something fine too, in flitting in this manner from city to city. You are vexed at not being able to stop and see pictures, &;c. ; but you have a sort of royal taste of great pleasures in passing. The best thing one can do to get at the interior of any thing in this hurry, is to watch the countenances of the people. I thought the looks of the Bolognese and Modenese singularly answered to their character in books. What is more singular, is the extraordinary difference, and nationaUty of aspect, in the people of two cities at so little distance from one another. The Bolognese have a broad steady look, not without geniality and richness. You can imagine them to give birth to painters. The Modenese are crusty looking and carking, with a dry twinkle at you, and a narrow mouth. They are critics and satirists, on the face of them. For my part, I never took very kindly to Tassoni, for all my young acquaintance with him ; and in the war which he has celebrated, I am now, whatever I was before, decidedly for the Bolognese.'' VISIT TO ITALY. 507 On the 12th of September, after dining at Modena, we slept at Reggio, where Ariosto was born. His father was captain of the citadel. Boiardo, the poet's precursor, was born at Scandiano, not far off. I ran, before the gates were shut, to get a look at the citadel, and was much , the better for not missing it. Poets leave a greater charm than any men upon places they have rendered famous, because they sympathize more than any other men with localities, and identify themselves with the least beauty of art or nature, — a turret, an old tree. The river Ilissus at Athens is found to be a sorry brook ; but it runs talking for ever of Plato and Sophocles. At Parma, I tore my hair mentally, (much the pleasantest way,) at not being able to see the Correggios. Piacenza pleased one to be in it, on account of the name. But a list of places in Italy is always like a succession of musical chords. Parma, Piacenza, Vo'ghera, Tortona, Feli- zana, — sounds like these make a road-book- a music-book. At Asti, a pretty place with a " west-end," full of fine houses, I went to look at the Alfieri palace, and tried to remember the poet with pleasure : but I could not like him. To me, his austerity is only real in the unplea- santest part of it. The rest is affected. The human heart is a tough business in his hands ; and he thumps and turns it about in his short, vio- lent, and pounding manner, as if it were an iron on a blacksmith's anvil. He loved liberty like a tyrant, and the Pretender's widow like a lord. The first sight of the Po, and the mulberry-trees, and meadows, and the Alps, was at once classical, and Italian, and northern ; and made us feel that we were taking a great new step nearer home. Poirino, a pretty little place, with a name full of pear-trees, presented us with a sight like a passage in Boccaccio. This was a set of Dominican friars with the chief at their head, issuing out of two coaches, and proceeding .along the cor- 3 T 21 508 VISIT TO ITALY. ridor of the inn to dinner, each holding a bottle of wine in his hand, with the exception of the abbot, who held two. The wine was doubtless their own, that upon the road not being sufficiently orthodox. Turin is a noble city, like a set of Regent Streets, made twice as tall. We found here the most military-looking officers we remember to have seen, fine, tall, handsome fellows, whom the weather had beaten but not conquered, very gentlemanly, and combining the officer and soldier as completely as could be wished. They had served under Bor naparte. When I saw them, I could understand how it was that the threatened Piedmontese revolution was more dreaded by the legiti- mates than any other movement in Italy. It was betrayed by the heir- apparent, who is said to be as different a looking person, as the reader might suppose. The royal aspect in the Sardinias is eminent among the raffish of the earth. At Turin was the finest dancer I ever saw, a girl of the name of De' Martini. M. Laurent should invite her over. She appeared to me to unite the agility of the French school, with all that you would expect from the Italian. Italian dancers are in general as indifferent, as the French are celebrated : but the French have no mind with their bodies : they are busts in barbers' shops, stuck upon legs in a fit. You wonder how any lower extremities so lively can leave such an absence of all expression in the upper. Now De' Martini is a dancer all over, and does not omit her face. She is a body not merely saltatory, as a machine might be, but full of soul. When she came bounding on the stage, in two or three long leaps like a fawn, I should have thought she was a Frenchwoman, but the style undeceived me. She came bounding in front, as if she would have pitched herself into the arms of the pit ; then made a sudden drop, and addressed three enthusiastic courtesies to the pit and AaSIT TO ITALY. 509 boxes, with a rapidity and yet a grace, a self-abandonment yet a self- possession, quite extraordinary, and svich, as to do justice to it, should be described by a poet uniting the western ideas of the sex with eastern license. Then she is beautiful both in face and figure, and I thought was a proper dancer to appear before a pit full of those fine fellows I have just spoken of. She seemed as complete in her way as themselves. In short, I never saw any thing like it before ; and did not wonder, that she had the reputation of turning the heads of dozens wherever she went. At Sant-Ambrogio, a little town between Turin and Susa, is a proper castle-topped mountain a la Badcliffe, the only one we had met with, Susa has some remains connected with Augustus; but Augustus is nobody, or ought to be nobody, to a traveller in modern Italy. He, and twenty like him, never gave me one sensation, all the time I was there ; and even the better part of the Romans it is difficult to think of. There is something formal and cold about their history, in spite of Virgil and Horace, and even in spite of their own violence, which does not har- monize with the south. And their poets, even the best of them, were copiers of the Greek poets, not originals like Dante and Petrarch. So we slept at Susa, not thinking of Augustus, but listening to waterfalls, and thinking of the Alps. Next morning we beheld a sight worth living for. We were now ascending the Alps ; and while yet in the darkness before the dawn, we beheld the sunshine of day basking on the top of one of the mountains^ We drank it into our souls, and there it is for ever. Dark as any hour may be, it seems as if that sight were left for us to look up to, and feel a hope. The passage of the Alps (thanks to Bonaparte, whom a moun- taineer,' with brightness in his eyes, called " Napoleone di felice me- 510 VISIT TO ITALY. liioria") is now as easy as a road in England. You look up towards airy galleries, and down upon villages that appear like toys, and feel some- what disappointed at roUittg over it all so easily. The moment we passed the Alps, we found ourselves in France. At Lanslebourg, French was spoken, and amorous groups gesticulated on the papering and curtains. Savoy is a glorious country, a wonderful intermixture of savage precipices and pastoral meads : but the roads are still uneven and bad. The river ran and tumbled, as if in a race with our tumbling carriage. At one time you are in a road like a gigantic rut, deep down in a valley ; and at another, up in the air, wheeling along a precipice, I know not how many times as high as Saint Paul's. At Chambery I could not resist going to see the house of Rousseau and Madame de Warens, while the coach stopped. It is up a beautiful lane, where you have trees all the way, sloping fields on either side, and a brook ; as fit a scene as could be desired. I met some Germans coming away, who congratulated me on being bound, as they had been, to the house of " Jean Jacques." The house itself is of the humbler genteel class, not fitted to conciliate Mr. Moore ; but neat and white* with, green blinds. The httle chapel, that cost its mistress so much, is stiU remaining. We proceeded through Lyons and Auxerre to Paris. Beyond Lyons, we met on the road the statue of Louis XIV. going to that city to overawe it with royal brass. It was an equestrian statue, covered up, guarded with soldiers, and looking on the road like some .mysterious heap. Don Quixote would have attacked it, and not been thought mad : so much has romance done for us. The natives would infallibly have looked .quietly on. There was a riot about it at Lyons> soon after its arrival. Statues rise and fall ; but a little on the other side of Lyons, our postilion exclaimed, " Monte Bianco !" and -turning VISIT TO ITALY. 511 round, I beheld, for the first time, Mont Blanc, which had been hidden from us, when near it, by a fog. It looked like a turret in the sky, amber-coloured, -golden, belonging to the wall of some etherial world. This, too, is in our memories for ever, — an addition to our stock,— a light for memory to turn to, when it wishes a beam upon its face. At Paris we could stop but two days, and I had but two thoughts in my head ; one of the Revolution, the other of the times of Moli^e and Boileau. Accordingly, I looked about for the Sorbonne, and went to see the place where the guillotine stood ; where thousands of spirits underwent the last pang; many guilty, many innocent, — but all the victims of a re-action against tyranny, such as will never let tyranny be what it was, unless a convulsion of nature should swallow up know- ledge, and make the world begin over again. These are the thoughts that enable us to bear such sights, and that serve to secure what we hope for. Paris, besides being a beautiful city in the quarter that strangers most look to, the Tuileries, Quai de Voltaire, &c., delights the eye of a man of letters by its heap of book-stalls. There is a want perhaps of old books ; but the new are better than the shoal of Missals and Lives of the Saints that disappoint the lover of duodecimos on the stalls of Italy ; and the Rousseaus and Voltaires are endless ; edition upon edition in all shapes and sizes, in intellectual battle-array, not to be put down, and attracting armies into desertion. I thought, if I were a bachelor, not an Englishman, and had no love for old friends and fields, I could live very well for the rest of my life in a lodging above one of the bookseller's shops on the Quai de Voltaire, where I should look over the water to the Tuileries, and have the Elysian fields in my eye for my evening walk. 512 VISIT TO ITALY. I lited much what httle I saw of the French people. They are ac- cused of vanity; and doubtless they have it, and after a more obvious fashion than other nations ; but their vanity at least includes the wish to please ; other people are necessary to them ; they are not wrapped up in themselves ; not sulky, not too vain even to tolerate vanity. Their vanity is too much confounded with self-satisfaction; There is a good deal of touchiness, I suspect, among them, — a good deal of ready-made heat, prepared to fire up in case the little commerce of flattery and sweet- ness is not properly carried on. But this is better than ill temper, or an egotism not to be appeased by any thing short of subjection. On the other hand, there is more melancholy than one could expect, especially in old faces. Consciences in the south are frightened in their old age, per- haps for nothing. In the north, 1 take it, they are frightened earlier, perhaps from equal want of knowledge. The worst in France is, (at least, from all that I saw) that fine old faces are rare. There are multi- tudes of pretty girls ; but the faces of both sexes fall off deplorably as they advance in life ; which is not a good symptom. Nor do the pretty faces, while they last, appear to contain much depth, or sentiment, or firmness of purpose. They seem made like their toys, not to last, but to break up. Fine faces in Italy are as abundant as cypresses. How- ever, in both countries, the inhabitants appeared to us naturally amiable, as well as intelligent ; and without disparagement to the angel faces which you meet with in England, and some of which are perhaps even finer than any you see elsewhere, I could not help thinking, that as a race of females, the aspects both of the French and Italian women announced more sweetness and reasonableness of intercourse, than those of my fair and serious countrywomen. A Frenchwoman looked as if she wished to please you at any rate, and to be pleased herself. She is too YISIT TO ITALY. 513 •onscious ; and her coquetry is said, and I believe with truth, to pro- mise more than an Englishman would easily find her to perform : but at any rate she thinks of you somehow, and is smiling and good-humoured. An Italian woman appears to think of nothing, not even herself. Exist- ence seems enough for her. But she also is easy of intercourse, smiling when you speak to her. and very unaffected. Now in simplicity of character the Italian appears to me to have the advantage of the English women, and in pleasantness of intercourse both Italian and French. When I came to England, after a residence of four years abroad, I was shocked at the succession of fair sulky faces which I met in the streets of London. They all appeared to come out of unhappy homes. In truth, our virtues, or our climate, or whatever it is, sit so uneasily upon us, that it is surely worth while for our philosophy to enquire whether in some points, or some degree of a point, we are not a httle mistaken. Gypseys will hardly allow us to lay it to the climate. It was a blessed moment, nevertheless, when we found ourselves among those dear sulky faces, the countrywomen of dearer ones, not sulky. On the 12th of October, we set out from Calais in the steam- boat, which carried us rapidly to London, energetically trembling all the way und6r us, as if its burning body partook of the fervour of our desire. Here, in the neighbourhood of London, we are ; and may we never be without our old fields again in this world, or the old " familiar faces" in this world or in the next. THE END. 3 U LOUDON : PRINTED BY S. AND 11. BENTLEY, DOKSET-STKEET. ■v'^'''i 'i'-;'ii!ii;-'"A'''j''ii2i^S