LGTTGRS LeneRS TO

D z k d to Deso Authors ïïuthor:

LETTERS

TO DEAD AUTHORS

BY

VOLUM ES OF VERSE ANDREW LANG BY ANDREW LANG.

HELEN OF TROY. i vol. i amo...... £i-5° BALLADES AND VERSES VAIN . . . . 1.50

N E W YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1889

A ll rights reserved CONTENTS

PAGE I. T o W. M. T h ack er ay . . . i II. T o C harles D ickens . . . io III. To PlERRE DE RONSARD . . . 22 IV. To H erodotus . . . . 34 V. E pistle to M r. A lexander P ope . 46 VI. To L ucían of Sam osata . . 55 V II. To Ma Ítr e F rançoys R abelais . 66 V III. To Jane A usten .... 75 IX. To Master Isaak W alton . . 86 The River side Press, Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. X. T o M. C hapelain .... 98 X I. To S ir John M anndeville, K t . . 110 X II. To A lexandre D umas . . 119 7 X III. To T heocritus . . . -13° X IV . To E dgar A llan P oe . . . 140 X V. To S ir W alter Scott, B art. . 152 XVI. T o E usebius of C aesarea . . 162 X VII. To P ercy Bysshe S h elley . . 173 X V III. To Monsieur de M oliere, V alet de C ham bre du R oi . . 184 X IX . To R obert B urns . . • • *95 X X . To L ord Byron .... 205 XXI. To O mar K h ayyXm . . .216 X XII. To Q. H oratius F laccus . . 223 PREFACE.

S iX T E E N of these Letters, which were written at the suggestion of the editor of the ‘ St. James’s Gazette,’ appeared in that journal, from which they are now reprinted, by the editor’s kind per- mission. They have been somewhat emended, and a few additions have been made. The Letters to Horace, Byron, Isaak Walton, Chapelain, Ronsard, and Theocritus have not been published before. The gem published for the first time on the title-page is a red cornelian in the British Museum, probably Grasco- Roman, and treated in an archaistic style. It represents Hermes Psycho- gogos, with a Soul, and has some like- VI PREFACE ness to the Baptism of Our Lord, as usually shown in art. Perhaps it may be post-Christian. The gem was se- lected by Mr. A. S. Murray. LETTERS

It is, perhaps, superfluous to add that TO some of the Letters are written rather to suit the Correspondent than to ex- DEAD AUTHORS. press the writer’s own taste or opinions. The Epistle to Lord Byron, especially, is ‘ writ in a manner which is my aver­ i. sión.’ To W. M . Thackeray.

S ir, — There are many things that stand in the way of the critic when he has a mind to praise the living. He may dread the charge of writing rather to vex a rival than to exalt the subject of his applause. He shuns the appearance of seeking the favour of the famous, and would not willingly be regarded as one of the many parasites who now advertise each movement and action of contempo- rary genius. ‘ Such and such men of let­ ters are passing their summer holidays in the Val d’Aosta,’ or the Mountains 2 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS THACKERAY 3 of the Moon, or the Suliman Range, as fairest gifts combined ? If we may not it may happen. So reports our literary call you a poet (for the first of English Court Circular, and all our Précienses writers of light verse did not seek that read the tidings with enthusiasm. Lastly, crown), who that was less than a poet if the crític be quite new to the world of ever saw life with a glance so keen as letters, he may superfluously fear to vex yours, so steady, and so sane ? Your a poet or a novelist by the abundance of pathos was never cheap, your laughter his eulogy. No such doubts perplex us never forced ; your sigh was never the when, with all our hearts, we would com- púlpit trick of the preacher. Your funny mend the departed ; for they have passed people— your Costigans and Fokers — almost beyond the reach even of envy ; were not mere characters of trick and and to those pale cheeks of theirs no catch-word, were not empty comic masks. commendation can bring the red. Behind each the human heart was beat- You, above all others, were and re- ing ; and ever and again we were allowed main without a rival in your many-sided to see the features of the man. excellence, and praise of you strikes at Thus fiction in your hands was not none of those who have survived your simply a profession, like another, but a day. The increase of time only mellows constant reflection of the whole surface your renown, and each year that passes of life : a repeated echo of its laughter and brings you no successor does but and its complaint. Others have written, sharpen the keenness of our sense of and not written badly, with the stolid loss. In what other novelist, since Scott professional regularity of the clerk at was worn down by the burden of a for- his desk; you, like the Scholar Gipsy, lorn endeavour, and died for honour’s might have said that ‘ it needs heaven- sake, has the world found so many of the sent moments for this skill. There are, 4 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS THACKERAY 5 it will not surprise you, some honourable women can pardon you Becky Sharp and women and a few men who call you a Blanche Amory ; they find it harder to cynic; who speak of ‘ the withered world forgive you Emmy Sedley and Helen of Thackerayan satire ; ’ who think your Pendennis. Yet what man does not eyes were ever turned to the sòrdid as- know in his heart that the best women pects of life — to the mother-in-law who — God bless them — lean, in their char- threatens to ‘ take away her silver bread- acters, either to the sweet passiveness of basket ; ’ to the intriguer, the sneak, the Emmy or to the sensitive and jealous term agant; to the Beckys, and Barnes affections of Helen ? ’T is Heaven, not Newcomes, and Mrs. Mackenzies of this you, that made them so ; and they are world. The quarrel of these sentimen- easily pardoned, both for being a very talists is really with life, not with you ; little lower than the àngels and for their they might as wisely blame Monsieur gentle ambition to be painted, as by Buffon because there are snakes in his Guido or Guercino, with wings and harps Natural History. Had you not impaled and haloes. So ladies have occasionally certain noxious human insects, you would seen their own faces in the glass of fancy, have better pleased Mr. Ruskin ; had and, thus inspired, have drawn Romola you confined yourself to such perform­ and Consuelo. Yet when these fair ideal- ances, you would have been more dear ists, Mdme. Sand and George Eliot, de- to the Neo-Balzacian school in fiction. signed Rosamund Vincy and Horace, You are accused of never having drawn was there not a spice of malice in the a good woman who was not a doll, but portraits which we miss in your least the ladies that bring this charge seldom favourable studies ? remind us either of Lady Castlewood or That the creator of Colonei New- of Theo or Hetty Lambert. The best come and of Henry Esmond was a 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS THA CICERA Y 7

snarling cynic ; that he who designed persons, as from the odes of Sophocles Rachel Esmond could not draw a good or Aristophanes to the action of their woman : these are the chief charges (all characters on the stage. Nor, to my indifferent now to you, who were once taste, does the mere music and melan­ so sensitive) that your admirers have to choly dignity of your style in these contend against. A French crític, M. passages of meditation fall far below the Taine, also protests that you do preach highest efforts of poetry. I remember too much. Did any author but yourself that scene where Clive, at Barnes New- so frequently break the thread (seldom come’s Lecture on the Poetry of the a strong thread) of his plot to converse Affections, sees Ethel who is lost to with his reader and moralise his tale, we him. ‘And the past and its dear his­ also might be offended. But who that tories, and youth and its hopes and pas­ loves Montaigne and Pascal, who that sions, and tones and looks for ever likes the wise trifling of the one and echoing in the heart and present in the can bear with the melancholy of the memory — these, no doubt, poor Clive other, but prefers your preaching to saw and heard as he looked across the another’s p layin g! great gulf of time, and parting and Your thoughts come in, like the grief, and beheld the woman he had intervention of the Greek Chorus, as an loved for many years.’ ornament and source of fresh delight. For ever echoing in the heart and pres­ Like the songs of the Chorus, they bid ent in the memory: who has not heard us pause a moment over the wider laws these tones, who does not hear them as and actions of human fate and human he turns over your books that, for so life, and we turn from your persons to many years, have been his companions yourself, and again from yourself to your and comforters ? We have been young THACKERAY 9 8 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS wide world of fops and fools, of good and old, we have been sad and merry women and brave men, of honest ab- with you, we have listened to the mid- surdities and cheery adventurers . you night chimes with Pen and Warrington, who created the Steynes and Newcomes, have stood with you beside the death- the Beckys and Blanches, Captain Costi- bed, have mourned at that yet more gan and F. B., and the Chevalier Strong awful funeral of lost love, and with you — all that host of friends imperishable have prayed in the in most chapel sacred _you must survive with Shakespeare to our old and immortal affections, à léa l and Cervantes in the memory and affec­ souvenir / And whenever you speak for yourself, and speak in earnest, how tio n of men. magical, how rare, how lonely in our literature is the beauty of your sen- tences ! ‘ I can’t express the charm of them (so you write of George Sand ; so we may write of you) : ‘ they seem to me like the sound of country bells, pro- voking I don’t know what vein of music and meditation, and falling sweetly and sadly on the ear.’ Surely that style, so fresh, so rich, so full of surprises — that style which stamps as classical your frag­ ments of slang, and perpetually aston- ishes and delights — would alone give immortality to an author, even had he little to say. But you, with your whole DICKENS 11 am what the Americans do not call a ‘ Mugwump,’ what English politicians dub a ‘ superior person ’ — that is, I take no side, and attempt to enjoy the best of both. It must be owned that this attitude To Charles Dickens. is sometimes made a little difficult by SiR, — It has been said that every the vigour of your special devotees. man is born a Platonist or an Aristote- They have ceased, indeed, thank Hea- lian, though the enormous majority of ven ! to imitate you; and even in ‘ de­ us, to be sure, live and die without being scriptive articles ’ the touch of Mr. Gig- conscious of any invidious philosophia adibs, of him whom ‘ we almost took partiality whatever. With more truth for the true Dickens,’ has disappeared. (though that does not imply very much) The young lions of the Press no longer every Englishman who reads may be mimic your less admirable mannerisms said to be a partisan of yourself or of — do not strain so much after fantastic Mr. Thackeray. Why should there be comparisons, do not (in your manner any partisanship in the matter; and and Mr. Carlyle’s) give people nick- why, having two such good things as names derived from their teeth, or their your novéis and those of your contem- complexión ; and, generally, we are porary, should we not be silently happy spared second-hand copies of all that in in the possession ? Well, men are made your style was least to be commended. so, and must needs fight and argue But, though improved by lapse of time over their tastes in enjoyment. For in this respect, your devotees still put myself, I may say that in this matter I on little conscious airs of virtue, robust 12 l e t t e r s t o d e a d a u t h o r s DICKENS 13 manliness, and so forth, which would now picking up heart to say that ‘ they surviverntated y°U VerymUch’ and there survtve some press men who seem to cannot read Dickens,’ and that they par- ave read you a little (especially yOUr ticularly detest ‘ Pickwick.’ I believe it ater Works), and never to have reíd L y - was young ladies who first had the cour- >ng else. Now familiarity with the age of their convictions in this respect. pages of . Our Mutua, Frieñd ■ a„d ‘ Tout sied aux belles,’ and the fair, in Dombey and Son ’ does not precisely the confidence of youth, often venture constitute a liberal education, aud S on remarkable confessions. In your assumption that it does is apt quite Ú„! ‘ Natural History of Young Ladies’ I do not remember that you describe the r T e a f t t0 PreÍUC,Í“ P“ P>à agai” , Humorous Young Lady.1 She is a very tiínes” COm‘C of modern rare bird indeed, and humour generally is at a deplorably low level in England. On the other hand, Time is at iast beginnmg to sift the true admirers of Henee come all sorts of mischief, Dickens from the false. Yours Sir in arisen since you left us; and, it may be the best sense of the word, is a popu’lar said, that inordinate philanthropy, gen- success, a popular reputation. F0r ex teel sympathy with Irish murder and arson, Societies for Badgering the Poor, eveneíen PictishPicfkr VV part of Ín this a remotekingdom aad a Esotèric Buddhism, and a score of other ural household, humble and under íhe plagues, including what was once called Histheticism, are all, primarily, due to hadow °f a sorrow inevitably approach- want of humour. People discuss, with J: has found ‘David Copperfield ’ obhvmn of winter, Gf sorrow, and of sick- 1 I am informed that the Natural History of Young ness. On the other hand, people are L a d ies is attributed, by some writers, to another phi- losopher, the author of The A rt of Pluck. 1 4 LETTERS TO DE AD AUT/IORS DICKENS 15 the gravest faces, matters which prop- unto evil-doers,’ for there was commonly erly should only be stated as the wild- a malefactor occupying each of these est paradoxes. It naturally follows that, institutions. With all this we had a in a period almost destitute of humour* broad-blown comic sense. We had Ho- many respectable persons ‘ cannot read garth, and Bunbury, and George Cruik- Dickens,’ and are not ashamed to glory shank, and Gilray; we had Leech and in their shame. We ought not to be Surtees, and the creator of Tittlebat angry with others for their misfortunes ; Titmouse ; we had the Shepherd of the and yet when one meets the ct'étins who ‘ Noctes,’ and, above all, we had you. boast that they cannot read Dickens, From the old giants of English fun — one certainly does feel much as Mr. burly persons delighting in broad carica­ Samuel Weller felt when he encountered Mr. Job Trotter. ture, in decided colours, incockney jokes, in swashing blows at the more promi­ How very singular has been the his- nent and obvious human follies — from t°ry of the decline of humour. Is there these you derived the splendid high spir- any profound psychological truth to be its and unhesitating mirth of your earlier gathered from consideration of the fact works. Mr. Squeers, and Sam Weller, that humour has gone out with cruelty ? and Mrs. Gamp, and all the Pickwick- A hundred years ago, eighty years ago ians, and Mr. Dowler, and John Browdie nay, fifty years ago — we were a cruel — these and their immortal companions but also a humorous people. We had were reared, so to speak, on the beef and bull-baitings, and badger-drawings, and beer of that naughty, fox-hunting, bad- hustings, and prize-fights, and cock-fights; ger-baiting old England, which we have we went to see men hanged ; the pillory improved out of existence. And these and the stocks were no empty ‘terrors characters, assuredly, are your best; by l 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTIIORS DICKENS 17 them, though stupid people cannot read Ah, Sir, how could you — who knew so about them, you will live while there is intimately, who remembered so strangely a laugh left among us. Perhaps that well the fancies, the dreams, the suffer- does not assure you a very prolonged ings of childhood — how could you ‘ wal- existence, but on]y the future can show. low naked in the pathetic,’ and massacre The dismal seriousness of the time holocausts of the Innocents ? To draw cannot, let us hope, last for ever and tears by gloating over a child’s death- a day. Honest old Laughter, the true bed, was it worthy of you ? Was it the h a m of your inspiration, must have life kind of work over which our hearts left in him yet, and cannot die; though should melt ? I confess that Little Nell it is true that the taste for your pa- might die a dozen times, and be wel- thos, and your melodrama, and plots comed by whole legions of Àngels, and constructed after your favourite fashion I (like the bereaved fowl mentioned by (‘ Great Expectations ’ and the ‘ Tale of Pet Marjory) would remain unmoved. Two Cities’ are exceptions) may go by She was more than usual calm, and never be regretted. Were people She did not give a single dam, simpler, or only less clear-sighted, as far wrote the astonishing child who diverted as your pathos is concerned, a genera- the leisure of Scott. Over your Little tion ago ? Jeffrey, the hard-headed shal- Nell and your Little Dombey I remain !ow critic, who declared that Wordsworth more than usual calm ; and probably so ‘ would never do,’ cried, ‘wept like any- do thousands of your most sincere ad- thing,’ over your Little Nell. One still mirers. But about matter of this kind, laughs as heartily as ever with Dick and the unsealing of the fountains of Swiveller ; but who can cry over Little tears, who can argue ? Where is taste ? Nell ? where is truth ? What tears are ‘ manly, 2 l 8 LETTERS TO DE AB AUTHORS DICKENS 19

Sir, manly,’ as Fred Bayham has it; and all about, what Joñas did, what Montagu of what lamentations ought we rather Tigg had to make in the matter, what to be ashamed ? Sunt lacrymce rerum ; all the pictures with plenty of shading one has been moved in the celi where illustrate, I have never been able to com- Socrates tasted the hemlock; or by the prehend. In the same way, one of your river-banks where Syracusan arrows slew most thorough - going admirers has al- the parched Athenians araong the mire lowed (in the licence of private conver- and blood ; or, in fiction, when Colonei sation) that ‘ Ralph Nickleby and Monk Newcome said Adsum , or over the diary are too steep ; ’ and probably a cultivated of Clare Doria Forey, or where Aramis taste will always find them a little pre- laments, with strange tears, the death of cipitous. Porthos. But over Dombey (the Son), < Too steep : ’ — the slang expresses or Little Nell, one declines to snivel. that defect of an ardent genius, carried When an author deliberately sits down above itself, and out of the air we and says, ‘ Now, let us have a good cry,’ breathe, both in its grotesque and in its he poisons the wells of sensibility and gloomy imaginations. To forcé the chokes, at least in many breasts, the note, to press fantasy too hard, to fountain of tears. Out of ‘ Dombey and deepen the gloom with black over the Son there is little we care to remember indigo, that was the failingwhich proved except the deathless Mr. Toots ; just as you mortal. To take an instance in we forget the melodramàtics of ‘ Martin little : when Pip went to Mr. Pumble- Chuzzlewit.’ I have read in that book a chook’s, the boy thought the seedsman score of times ; I never see it but I revel ‘ a very happy man to have so many in it — in Pecksniff, and Mrs. Gamp, and little drawers in his shop.’ The reflec- the Americans. But what the plot is tion is thoroughly boyish ; but then you 20 LETTERS to d e a d a u t iio r s DICKENS 21 add, ‘ I wondered whether the flower- worn flesh and blood, ribbons and or- seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine ders, gowns and uniforms. May we not day to break out of those jails and almost welcome ‘ Free Education ’ ? for bloom. That is not boyish at all ; that every Englishman who can read, unless is the hard-driven, jaded literary fancy he be an Ass. is a reader the more for at work. you. ‘So we arraign her; but she,’ the Genius of Charles Dickens, how brill- iant, how kindly, how beneficent she is ! dwelling by a fountain of laughter im- perishable; though there is something of an alien salt in the neighbouring fountain of tears. How poor the world of fancy would be, how ‘dispeopled of her dreams,’ if, in some ruin of the social System, the books of Dickens were lost ; and if The Dodger, and Charley Bates,' and Mr. Crinkle, and Miss Squeers, and Sam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and Dick Swiveller were to perish, or to vanish with Menander’s men and women J We cannot think of our world without them ; and, chddren of dreams as they are, they seem more essential than great states- men, artists, soldiers, who have actually PIERRE DE RONSARD 2 3

Bellay, and Baïf, and the flower of the maidens of Anjou. Surely no rumour III. reaches thee, in that happy place ot reconciled affections, no rumour of the To Pierre de Ronsard. rudeness of Time, the despite of men, and the change which stole from thy (PRINCE OP POETS.) locks, so early grey, the crown of laureis M a s t e r AND P r i n c e o f P o e t s , __ and of thine own roses. How different As vve know what choice thou madest from thy choice of a sepulchre have been oí a sepulchre (a choice how ill fulfilled the fortunes of thy tomb! by the jealousy of Fate), so we know I will that none should break weil the manner of thy chosen immor- The marble for my sake, tality. In the Plains Elysian, among Wishful to make more fair My sepulchre! Ihe heroes and the ladies of old song, there was thy Love with thee to enjoy So didst thou sing, or so thy sweet num- her paradise in an eternal spring. bers run in my rude English. Wearied of Courts and of priories, thou didst de- Là du plaisant A vril la saison immortelle Sans esckange le suit, sire a grave beside thine own Loire, not La terre sans labeur, de sa grasse mamelle, remote from Toute chose y firoduit ; D'enbas la troupe sainte autrefois amozireuse, The caves, the founts that fall Nous honorant sur tous, From the high mountain wall, Viendra nous saluer, s'estimant bien-hettreuse That fall and flash and fleet, D e s*accomter de nous. With silver feet. There thou dwellest, with the learned Only a laurel tree lovers of old days, with Belleau, and Du Shall guard the grave of m e; 24 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS PIERRE DE ROJVSARD 25 Only Apollo’s bough Scarce more fortunate, for long, than Shall shade me now I thy monument was thy memory. Thou Far other has been thy sepulchre: not hast not encountered, Master, in the in the free air, araong the field flowers, Paradise of Poets, Messieurs Malherbe, but in thy priory of Saint Cosme, with De Balzac, and Boileau — Boileau who marble for a monument, and no green spoke of thee as Ce poète orgueilleux grass to cover thee. Restless wert thou trébuché de si haut ! in thy life ; thy dust was not to be rest- These gallant gentlemen, I make no ful in thy death. The Huguenots, ces doubt, are happy after their own fashion, nouveaux Ckrétiens qui la France ont backbiting each other and thee in the p illée, destroyed thy tomb, and the warn- Paradise of Critics. In their time they ing of the later monument, wrought thee much evil, grumbling that thou wrotest in Greek and Latin (of abi, nefaste, quam calcas humum sacra est, which tongues certain of them had but has not scared away malicious men. little skill), and blaming thy many lyric The storm that passed over France a melodies and the free flow of thy lines. hundred years ago, more terrible than What said M. de Balzac to M. Chape- the religious wars that thou didst weep lain ? ‘ M. de Malherbe, M. de Grasse, for, has swept the column from the tomb. and yourself must be very little poets, The marble was broken by violent hands, if Ronsard be a great one.’ Time has and the shattered sepulchre of the Prince brought in his revenges, and Messieurs of Poets gained a dusty hospitality from Chapelain and De Grasse are as well the museum of a country town. Better forgotten as thou art well remembered. had been the laurei of thy desire, the Men could not always be deaf to thy creeping vine, and the ivy tree. sweet old songs, nor blind to the beauty 2 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS PIERRE DE RONSARD 2 7

of thy roses and thy loves. When they the Muses walked with thee. We seem took the wax out of their ears that M. to mark thee wandering silent through Boileau had given thera lest they should some little village, or dreaming in the hear the singing of thy Sirens, then woods, or loitering among thy lonely they were deaf no longer, then they places, or in gardens where the roses heard the old deaf poet singing and blossom among wilder flowers, or on made answer to his lays. Hast thou river banks where the whispering pop- not heard these sounds ? have they not lars and sighing reeds make answer to reached thee, the voices and the lyres the murmur of the wàters. Such a pic­ of Théophile Gautier and Alfred de ture hast thou drawn of thyself in the Musset? Methinks thou hast marked summer afternoons. them, and been glad that the old notes Je m’en vais pourmener tantost parmy la plaine, were ringing again and the old French Tantost en un village, et tantost en un bois, lyric measures tripping to thine ancient Et tantost par les lieux solitaires et cois. J’aime fort les jardins qui sentent le sauvage, harmonies, echoing and replying to the J ’aime le flot de l’eau qui gazoüille au rivage. Muses of Horaee and Catullus. Re- turning to Nature, poets returned to Stili, methinks, there was a book in the thee. Thy monument has perished, but hand of the grave and learned poet; not thy music, and the Prince of Poets stili thou wouldst carry thy Horace, thy has returned to his own again in a glo- Catullus, thy Theocritus, through the rious Restoration. gem-like weather of the Renouveaií, Through the dust and smoke of ages, when the woods were enamelled with and through the centuries of wars we flowers, and the young Spring was strain our eyes and try to gain a glimpse lodged, like a wandering prince, in his of thee, Master, in thy good days, when great palaces hung with green : 28 LE TTERS TO DEAD A UTHORS PIERRE DE RONSARD 2Ç Orgueilleux de ses fleurs, enflé de sa jeunesse, Les plis de sa robe pourpree, Loge comme un grand Prince en ses vertes maisons I Et son teint au votre pareil. Thou sawest, in these woods by Loire Amd again, side, the fair shapes of oíd religión, La belle Rose du Printemps, hauns, Nymphs, and Satyrs, and heard’st Aubert, admoneste les hommes in the nightingale’s music the plaint Passer joyeusement le temps, Et pendant que jeunes nous sommes, of Philomel. The ancient poets carne Esbattre la fleur de nos ans. back in the train of thyself and of the In the same mood, looking far down Spring, and learning was scarce less the future, thou sangest of thy lady’s dear to thee than love ; and thy ladies age, the most sad, the most beautiful of seemed fairer for the ñames they bor- thy sad and beautiful lays; for if thy rowed from the beauties of forgotten bees gathered much honey ’t was some- days, Helen and Cassandra. How what bitter to taste, as that of the Sar- sweetly didst thou sing to them thine dinian yews. How clearly we see the oíd morality, and how gravely didst thou great hall, the grey lady spinning and teach the lesson of the Roses ! Well humming among her drowsy maids, didst thou know it, well didst thou love and how they waken at the word, and the Rose, since thy nurse, carrying thee, she sees her spring in their eyes, and an infant, to the holy font, Jet fall on they forecast their winter in her face, thee the sacred water brimmed with when she murmurs 1 ’T was Ronsard doating blossoms of the Rose ! sang of me.’ Winter, and summer, and spring, Mignonne, allons voir si la Rose, Qui ce matin avoit desdóse how swiftly they pass, and how early Sa robe de pourpre au soleil, time brought thee his sorrows, and grief A point perdu ceste vespree cast her dust upon thy head. 3 0 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS PIERRE DE RONSARD 31 Adieu ma Lyre, adieu fillettes, weather, and comfort thine old age with Jadis mes douces amourettes, Adieu, je sens venir ma fin, thy friend Gallandius. And if Buon Nul passetemps de ma jeunesse will not pay, then to try the other book- Ne m’accompagne en la vieillesse, sellers, ‘that wish to take everything Que le feu, le lict et le vin. and give nothing.’ Wine, and a soft bed, and a bright fire : Was it knowledge of this passage, to this trinity of poor pleasures we come Master, or ignorance of everything else, soon, if, indeed, wine be left to us. that made certain of the com mon stead- Poetry herself deserts us ; is it not said fast dunces of our days speak of thee as that Bacchus never forgives a renegade? if thou hadst been a starveling, neglected and most of us turn recreants to Bac­ poetaster, jealous forsooth, of Maítre chus. Even the bright fire, I fear, was Françoys Rabelais ? See how ignorantly not always there to warm thine old M. Fleury writes, who teaches French blood, Master, or, if fire there were, the literature withal to them of Muscovy, wood was not bought with thy book- and hath indited a Life of Rabelais. seller’s money. When autumn was draw- ‘ Rabelais était revètu d’un emploi hon­ ing in during thine early old age, in orable ; Ronsard était traité en subal­ 1584, didst thou not write that thou terne,’ quoth this wondrous professor. hadst never received a sou at the hands What ! Pierre de Ronsard, a gentleman of all the publishers who vended thy of a noble house, holding the revenue books ? And as thou wert about put- of many abbeys, the friend of Mary ting forth thy folio edition of 1584, thou Stuart, of the Duc d’Orléans, of Charles didst pray Buon, the bookseller, to give IX ., he is traité en subalterne, and is thee sixty crovvns to buy wood withal, jealous of a frocked or unfrocked ma­ and make thee a bright fire in winter nant like Maítre Françoys ! And then FIERRE DE RONSARD 33 32 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS

this amazing Fleury falls foul of thine forth his fables in 1697, a century and a epitaph on Maítre Françoys and cries, half after Maítre Françoys died. Bayle ‘ Ronsard a voulu faire des vers mé- quoted this fellow in a note, and ye all chants ; il n’a fait que de méchants vers.’ steal the tattle one from another in your More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, ‘ If the dull raanner, and know not whence it good Rabelais had returned to Meudon comes, nor even that Bayle would none on the day when this epitaph was made of it and mocked its author. With so over the wine, he would, methinks, have little knowledge is history written, and laughed heartily.’ But what shall be thus doth each chattering brook of a said of a Professor like the egregious « Life ’ svvell with its tribute ‘ that great M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was Mississippi of falsehood,’ Biography. despised at Court ? Was there a party 3 at tennis when the king would not fain have had thee on his side, declaring that he ever won when Ronsard was his partner ? Did he not give thee bene- fices, and many priories, and call thee his father in Apollo, and even, so they say, bid thee sit down beside him on his throne ? Away, ye scandalous folk, who teli us that there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth. Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling apothecary, who put HERODOTUS 35 than the whole of Hellas ; and they call it Britain. In that island the east wind blows for ten parts of the year, and the people know not how to cover them- IV. selves from the cold. But for the other two months of the year the sun shines To Herodotus. fiercely, so that some of them die there- To Herodotus of Halicarnassus, greet- of, and others die of the frozen mixed ing. — Concerning the matters set forth drinks; for they have ice even in the in your histories, and the tales you summer, and this ice they put to their teli about both Greeks and Barbarians, liquor. Through the whole of this island, whether they be true, or whether they be from' the west even to the east, there false, men dispute not little but a great flows a river called Thames: a great deai. Wherefore I, being concerned to river and a laborious, but not to be lik- know the verity, did set forth to make ened to the River of Egypt. search in every manner, and came in The mouth of this river, where I my quest even unto the ends of the stepped out from my ship, is exceedingly earth. For there is an island of the foul and of an evil savour by reason of Cimmerians beyond the Straits of He­ the city on the banks. Now this city racles, some three days’ voyage to a is several hundred parasangs in circum- ship that hath a fair following wind in ference. Yet a man that needed not to her sails ; and there it is said that men breathe the air might go round it in know many things from of old : thither, one hour, in chariots that run under the then, I came in my inquiry. Now, the earth ; and these chariots are drawn by island is not small, but large, greater creatures that breathe smoke and sul- 36 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS HERODOTUS 37

phur, such as Orpheus mentions in his water, following the river. To a well- ‘ Argonautica/ if it be by Orpheus. The girdled man, the land journey is but one people of the town, when I inquired of day’s travel; by the river it is longer but them concerning Herodotus of Halicar­ more pleasant. Now that river flows, nassus, looked on me vvith amazement, as I said, from the west to the east. and went straightway about their busi- And there is in it a fish called chub, ness, namely, to seek out whatsoever which they catch ; but they do not eat new thing is coming to pass all over the it, for a certain sacred reason. A l so whole inhabited world, and as for things there is a fish called trout, and this is old, they take no keep of them. the manner of his catching. They build Nevertheless, by diligence I learned for this purpose great clams of wood, that he who in this land knew most which they call weirs. Having built concerning Herodotus was a priest, and the weir they sit upon it vvith rods in dwelt in the priests’ city on the river their hands, and a line on the rod, and which is called the City of the Ford of at the end of the line a little fish. There the Ox. But whether lo, when she wore then they ‘ sit and spin in the sun,’ as a covv s shape, had passed by that way one of their poets says, not for a short in her wanderings, and thence comes the time but for many days, having rods in ñame of that city, I could not (though their hands and eating and drinking. I asked all men I met) learn aught In this vvise they angle for the fish called vvith certainty. But to me, considering trout; but whether they ever catch him this, it seemed that lo must have come or not, not having seen it, I cannot say ; thither. And novv farewell to lo. for it is not pleasant to me to speak To the City of the Priests there are things concerning which I know not the two roads: one by land; and one by truth. 38 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS HERODOTUS 3 9 Now, after sailing and rowing against Ethiopians. But as to the truth of this the stream for certain days, I came to I leave it to every man to form his own the City of the Ford of the Ox. Here opinion. the river changes his name, and is called Having come into the City of the Isis, after the name of the goddess of Priests, I went forth into the Street, and the Egyptians. But whether the Brit- found a priest of the baser sort, who for °ns brought the name from Egypt or a piece of silver led me hither and thither whether the Egyptians took it from the among the temples, discoursing of many Britons, not knowing I prefer not to say. things. But to me it seems that the Britons are Now it seemed to me a strange thing a colony of the Egyptians, or the Egyp­ that the city was empty, and no man tians a colony of the Britons. More- dwelling therein, save a few priests only, over, when I was in Egypt I saw certain and their wives, and their children, who soldieis in white helmets, who were cer- are drawn to and fro in little carriages tainly British. But what they did there dragged by women. But the priest told (as Egypt neither belongs to Britain nor me that during half the year the city Britain to Egypt) I know not, neither was desolate, for that there came some- could they teli me. But one of them re- what called ‘ The Long,’ or ‘ The Vac,’ plied to me in that line of Homer (if the and drave out the young priests. And Odyssey be Homer’s), ‘We have come he said that these did no other thing to a sorry Cyprus, and a sad Egypt.’ but row boats, and throw balls from one Others told me that they once marched to the other, and this they were made against the Ethiopians, and having de- to do, he said, that the young priests feated them several times, then came might learn to be humble, for they are back again, leaving their property to the the proudest of men. But whether he 4 0 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS HERODOTUS 41 spoke truth or not I know not, only I Egypt, and the Egyptians, and the As- set down what he told me. But to any- syrians, and the Cappadocians, and all one considoring it, this appears rather the kingdoms of the Great King. He to jump with his story— namely, that came out to me, being attired m a black the young priests have houses on the robe, and wearing on his head a square river, painted of divers colours, all of cap. But why the priests have square them empty. caps I know, and he who has been in- Then the priest, at my desire, brought itiated into the mysteries which they call me to one of the temples, that I might < Matric ’ knows, but I prefer not to teli. seek out all things concerning Herodo­ Concerning the square cap, then, let this tus the Halicarnassian, from one who be sufficient. Now, the priest received knevv. Now this temple is not the fair- me courteously, and when I asked him, est in the city, but less fair and goodly concerning Herodotus, whetber he were tban the okl temples, yet goodlier and a true man or not, he smiled, and an- more fair than the new temples ; and swered ‘Abu Goosh,’ which, in the over the roof there is the image of an tongue of the Arabians, means ‘The eagle made of stone — no small marvel, Father of Liars.’ Then he went on to but a great one, how men came to fash- speak concerning Herodotus, and he said ion him ; and that temple is called the in his discourse that Herodotus not only House of Queens. Here they sacrifice told the thing which was not, but that a boar once every year ; and concerning he did so wilfully, as one knowing the this they teli a certain sacred story which truth but concealing it. For example, I know but will not utter. quoth he, ‘ Solon never went to see Croe­ Then I was brought to the priest who sus, as Herodotus avers ; nor did those had a name for knowing most about about Xerxes ever dream dreams ; but 42 LETTERS TO DE AD A UTIIORS HERODOTUS 4 3

Herodotus, out of his abundant wicked- knew this poet, ‘ about whom everyone ness, invented these things. was talking.’ But the priest seemed not ‘ Novv behold,’ he went on, ‘ how the to know that Herodotus and Sophocles curse of the Gods falis upon Herodotus. were friends, which is proved by this, For he pretends that he saw Cadmeian that Sophocles wrote an ode in praise of inscriptions at Thebes. Novv I do not Herodotus. believe there were any Cadmeian inscrip­ Then he went on, and though I were tions there : therefore Herodotus is most to write with a hundred hands (like manifestly lying. Moreover, this Herodo­ Briareus, of whom Homer niakes men- tus never speaks of Sophocles the Athe- tion) I could not tell you all the things nian, and why not ? Because he, being that the priest said against Herodotus, a child at school, did not learn Sophocles speaking truly, or not truly, or some- by heart: for the tragedies of Sophocles times correctly and sometimes not, as could not have been learned at school often befalls mortal men. For Herodo­ before they were written, ñor can any tus, he said, was chiefly concerned to man quote a poet whom he never learned steal the lore of those who carne before at school. Moreover, as all those about him, such as Hecatseus, and then to es­ Herodotus knew Sophocles well, he could cape notice as having stolen it. Also he not appear to them to be learned by said that, being himself cunning and de- showing that he knew what they knew ceitful, Herodotus was easily beguiled also.’ Then I thought the priest was by the cunning of others, and believed making game and sport, saying first that in things manifestly false, such as the Herodotus could know no poet whom story of the Phoenix-bird. he had not learned at school, and then Then I spoke, and said that Hero­ saying that all the men of his time well dotus himself declared that he could not 44- l e t t e r s t o d e ad a u t i i o r s HERODOTUS 4 5 believe that story ; but the priest re- Branchidas, or that in Delphi, or Dodona, gardecl me not. And he said that Hero­ or of Amphiaraus at Oropus, speak to dotus had never caught a crocodile with your friends and lovers (whereof I am cold pig, nor did he ever visit Assyria, one from of old) and let men know the nor Babylon, nor Elephantine ; but, say- very truth. ing that he had been in these lands, Now, concerning the priests in the said that which was not true. He also City of the Ford of the Ox, it is to be declared that Herodotus, when he trav- said that of all men whom we know they elled, knew none of the Fat Ones of the receive strangers most gladly, feasting Egyptians, but only those of the baser them all day. Moreover, they have sort. And he called Herodotus a thief many drinks, cunningly mixed, and of and a beguiler, and ‘ the same with in­ these the best is that they cali Arch- tent to deceive,’ as one of their own deacon, naming it from one of the Poets writes. And, to be short, Hero­ priests’ offices. Truly, as Homer says dotus, I could not teli you in one day (if the Odyssey be Homer’s), ‘ when that all the charges which are now brought draught is poured into the bowl then it against you ; but concerning the truth is no pleasure to refrain.’ of these things, you know, not least, but Drinking of this wine, or nectar, He­ most, as to yourself being guilty or inno­ rodotus, I pledge you, and pour forth cent. Wherefore, if you have anything some deal on the ground, to Herodotus o show or set forth whereby you may of Halicarnassus, in the Houseof Hades. >e relieved from the burden of these And I wish you farewell, and good iccusations, now is the time. Be no be with you. Whether the priest spoke onger silent; but, whether through the truly, or not truly, even so may such Dracle of the Dead, or the Oracle of good things betide you as befall dead men. POPE 4 7 And, if one Rag of Character they spare, Comes the Biographer, and strips it bare !

V. Such, Pope, has been thy Fortune, such Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope. thy Doom. Swift the Ghouls gathered at the Poet’s F rom mortal Gratitude, decide, my Tomb, Pope, With Dust of Notes to clog each lordly Have Wits Immortal more to fear or Line, hope ? Warburton, Warton, Croker, Bowles, Wits toil and travail round the Plant of com bine! Fame, Collecting Cackle, Johnson condescends Their Works its Garden, and its Growth To interview the Drudges of your their Aim , Friends. Then Commentators, in unwieldy Dance, Though still your Courthope holds your Break down the Barriers of the trim merits high, Pleasance, And still proclaims your Poems Poetry, Pursue the Poet, like Actason’s Hounds, Biographers, un - Boswell - like, have Beyond the fences of his Garden sneered, Grounds, And Dunces edit him whom Dunces Rend from the singing Robes each bor- feared ! rowed Gem, Rend from the laurel’d Brows the Dia- They say ; what say they ? Not in vain dem, Y ou ask. 4 8 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS

To teli you what they say, behold my And still, the more he writhed, he stung Task ! the more ! ‘ Methinks already I your Tears survey ’ Oft in a Quarrel, never in the Right, As I repeat ‘ the horrid Things they say.’ 1 His Spirit sank when he was called to fight. Comes El—n first: I fancy you’ll agree Pope, in the Darkness mining like a Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he ; Mole, For E l— n’s Introduction, crabbed and Forged on Himself, as from Himself he dry, stole, Like Churchill’s Cudgel’s2 marked with And what for Caryll once he feigned to Lie, and Lie ! feel, Transferred, in Letters never sent, to ‘ Too dull to know what his own System Steele ! meant, Still he denied the Letters he had Pope yet was skilled new Treasons to writ, in ven t; And still mistook Indecency for Wit. A Snake that puffed himself and stung His very Grammar, so De Quincey his Friends, cries, Few Lied so freqüent, for such little “ Detains the Reader, and at times Ends ; defies ! ” ’ His mind, like Flesh inflamed,3 was raw and sore, Fierce E l— n thus : no Line escapes his Rage, 1 Rape ofthe Lock. And furious Foot-notes growl ’neath 2 In Mr. Hogarth’s Caricatura. 3 Ehvin’s Pope, ii. 15. every Page : 50 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS POPE 5 1

See St-ph-n next take up the woful Though, as that fabled Barque, a phan- Tale, tom Form, Prolong the Preaching, and protract the Eternal strains, ñor rounds the Cape of W a il! Storm, ‘ Sorae forage Falsehoods from the Even so Pope strove, nor ever crossed North and South, the Line But Pope, poor D ------1, lied from Hand That from the Noble separates the to Mouth ; 1 F in e ! ’ Affected, hypocritical, and vain, A Book in Breeches, and a Fop in The Learned thus, and who can quite Grain ; reply, A Fox that found not the high Clusters Reverse the Judgment, and Retort the sour, Lie ? The Fanfaron of Vice beyond his power, You reap, in armèd Hates that haunt Pope yet possessed’ — (the Praise will Your name, make you start) — Reap what you sowed, the Dragon’s ‘ Mean, morbid, vain, he yet possessed Teeth of Fame: a H e a rt! You could not write, and from unenvi- And still we marvel at the Man, and ous Tim e still Expect the Wreath that crowns the lofty Admire his Finish, and applaud his Rhyme, Skill : You still must fight, retreat, attack, de- fend, 1 ‘ Poor Pope was always a hand-to-mouth liar/ — Pope, by Leslie Stephen, 139. And oft, to snatch a Laurel, lose a Friend ! 52 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS p o p e 53

The Pity of it ! And the changing Again, your Verse is orderly, — and Taste more, — Of changing Time leaves half your • The Waves behind impel the Waves Work a Waste! before; ’ My Childhood fled your couplet’s clarión Monotonously musical they glide, tone, Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied. And sought for Homer in the Prose of But turn to Homer! How his Verses Bohn. sw eep! Stili through the Dust of that dim Prose Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call appears on Deep ; The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of This Line in Foam and Thunder issues Spears ; forth, Still we may trace what Hearts heroic Spurred by the West or smitten by the feel, North, And hear the Bronze that hurtles on the Sombre in all its s ullen Deeps, and all S te e l! Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pre- Fall, tence, The next with silver Murmur dies away, Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Like Tides that falter to Calypso’s Bay ! Skill in Fence, And great Achilles’ Eloquence doth Thus Time, with sòrdid Alchemy and show dread, A s if no Centaur trained him, but Boi- Turns half the Glory of your Gold to lea u ! L e a d ; Thus Time, — at Ronsard’s wreath that vainly bit, — 54 l e t t e r s t o d e a d a u t h o r s

Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit, Who almost left on Addison a stain, Whose knife cut cleanest with a poi- soned pain, — VI. Yet Thou (strange Fate that clings to To Ludan of Samosata. all of Thine !) When most a Wit dost most a Poet In what bower, oh Lucían, of your shine. rediscovered Islands Fortunate are you In Poetry thy Dunciad expires, now reclining; the delight of the fair, When Wit has shot ‘ her momentary the learned, the witty, and the brave ? Fires.’ In that clear and tranquil climate, whose ’T is Tragedy that watches by the Bed air breathes of ‘ violet and lily, myrtle, ‘ Where tawdry Yellow strove with dirty and the flower of the vine,’ R ed,’ Where the daisies are rose-scented, And Men, remembering all, can scarce And the Rose herself has got deny Perfum e wJiich on earth is not, To lay the Laurel where thine Ashes among the music of all birds, and the lie ! wind-blown notes of flutes hanging on the trees, methinks that your laughter sounds most silvery sweet, and that Helen and fair Charmides are stili of your company. Master of mirth, and Soul the best contented of all that have seen the world’s ways clearly, most clear-

i ' 5 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA 5 7 sighted of all that have made tranquil- the song-birds bring you flowers from lity their bride, what other laughers vales enchanted, and the shapes of the dwell with you, where the crystal and Blessed come and go, beautiful in wind- fragrant wàters wander round the shin- woven raiment of sunset hues ; there, in ing palaces and the temples of ame- a land that knows not age, nor winter, thyst ? midnight, nor autumn, nor noon, where Heine surely is with you ; if, indeed, the silver twilight of summer-dawn is it was not one Syrian soul that dwelt perennial, where youth does not wax among alien raen, Germans and Romans, spectre-pale and die ; there, my Lucían, in the bodily tabernacles of Heine and yor: are crowned the Prince of the Para­ of Lucían. But he was fallen on evil dise of Mirth. times and evil tongues; while Lucían, Who would bring you, if he had the as witty as he, as bitter in mockery, as power, from the banquet where Homer happily dowered with the magic of words, sings : Homer, who, in mockery of com- lived long and happily and honoured, mentators, past and to come, Germán imprisoned in no ‘ mattress-grave.’ With- and Greek, informed you that he was by out Rabelais, without Voltaire, without birth a Babylonian ? Yet, if you, who Heine, you would find, methinks, even first wrote Dialogues of the Dead, could the joys of your Happy Islands lacking hear the prayer of an epistle wafted to in zest; and, unless Plato came by your ‘ lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of way, none of the ancients could meet West,’ you might visit once moreaworld you in the lists of sportive dialogue. so worthy of such a mocker, so like the There, among the vines that bear world you knew so well of oíd. twelve times in the year, more excellent Ah, Lucían, we have need of you, of than all the vineyards of Touraine, while your sense and of your mockery ! Here, 58 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA 59

where faith is sick and superstition is for the universal extinction of the spe­ waking afresh ; where gods come rarely, cies, and the collapse of the Conscious ? and spectres appear at fi ve shiliings an A P u r c h a s e r : He does not loolc at interview ; where Science is popular, and all a bad lot. May one put him through philosophy cries aloud in the market- his paces ? place, and clamour does duty for govern- H e r m e s : Certainly ; try your luck. ment, and Thais and Lais are ñames of P u r c h a s e r : What is your name ? power — here, Lucían, is room and scope P e s s i m i s t : Hartmann. for you. Can I not imagine a new ‘ Auc- P u r c h a s e r : What can you teach me ? tion of Philosophers,’ and what wealth P e s s i m i s t : That Life is not worth might be made by bim who bought Living. these popular sages and lecturers at P u r c h a s e r : W onderful! Most edi- his estímate, and vended them at their fying ! How much for this lot ? own ? H e r m e s : Two hundred pounds.

- H e r m e s : Whom shall we put first up P u r c h a s e r : I will write you a cheque to auction ? for the money. Come home, Pessimist,

Z e u s : That Germán in spectacles; and begin your lessons without more he seems a highly respectable man. ado.

H e r m e s : Ho, Pessimist, come down H e r m e s : Attention ! Here is a mag­ and let the públic view you. nificent article — the Positive Life, the

Z e u s : Go on, put him up and have Scientific Life, the Enthusiastic Life. done with him. Who bids for a possible place in the

H e r m e s : Who bids for the Life Mis­ Calendar of the Future ? erable, for extreme, complete, perfect, P u r c h a s e r : W hat does he call him- unredeemable perdition ? What offers self ? he has a very French air. 6 o LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA 6 1

H e r m e s : Put your own qüestions. and the Darwinian, with his notions, and P u r c h a s e r : What ’s your pedigree, the Lotzian, with his Broad Church mix­ my Philosopher, and previous perform­ ture of Religión and Evolution, and the ances ? Spencerian, with that Absolute which P o s i t i v i s t : I am by Rousseau out of is a sort of a something, might all be Catholicism, with a strain of the Evolu- offered with their divers wares ; and tion blood. cheaply enough, Lucian, you would valué P u r c h a s e r : W hat do you believe in ? them in this auction of Sects. * There P o s i t i v i s t : In Man, with a large M. is but one way to Corinth,’ as of oíd ; but P u r c h a s e r : Not in individual Man ? which that way may be, oh master of P o s i t i v i s t : By no means ; not even Hermotimus, we know no more than he always in Mr. Gladstone. All men, all did of oíd ; and still we find, of all phi­ Churches, all parties, all philosophies, losophies, that the Stoic route is most to and even the other sect of our own be recommended. But we have our Cy- Church, are perpetually in the wrong. renaics too, though they are no longer Buy me, and listen to me, and you will * clothed in purple, and crowned with always be in the right. flowers, and fond of drink and of female P u r c h a s e r : And, after this life, what flute-players.’ Ah, here too, you might have you to offer me ? laugh, and fail to see where the Pleasure P o s i t i v i s t : A distinguished position lies, when the Cyrenaics are no ‘judges in the Choir Invisible ; but not, of course, of cakes ’ (ñor of ale, for that matter), conscious immortality. and are strangers in the Courts of P u r c h a s e r : Take him away, and put Princes. ‘ To despise all things, to make up another lot. use of all things, in all things to follow Then the Hegelian, with his Notion, pleasure only : ’ that is not the manner 6 2 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA 63

of the new, if it were the secret of the best slippers had not been burned with older Hedonism. her body, are gravely investigated by the Then, turning from the philosophers Psychical Society. to the seekers after a sign, what change, Even your ignorant Bibliophile is still Lucían, would you find in them and their with us — the man without a tinge of ways ? None ; they are quite unaltered. letters, who buys up old manuscripts Stili our Perigrinus, and our Perigrina ‘because they are stained and gnawed, too, come to us from the East, or, if and who goes, for proof of valued an- from the West, they take índia on their tiquity, to the testimony' of the book- way— índia, that secular home of driv- worms.’ And the rich Bibliophile now, elling creeds, and of religión in its sacer- as in your satire, clothes his volumes in dotage. Still they prattle of Brahmins purple morocco and gay dorures, while and Buddhism ; though, unlike Peregri­ their contents are sealed to him. nus, they do not publicly burn them- As to the tòpics of satire and gay selves on pyres, at Epsom Downs, after curiosity which occupy the lady known the Derby. We are not so fortunate in as ‘ Gyp,’ and M. Plalévy in his ‘ Les the demise of our Theosophists ; and Petites Cardinal,’ if you had not ex- our pólice, less wise than the Helleno- hausted the matter in your ‘ Dialogues of dicae, would probably not permit the Im- Hetairai,’ you would be amused to find molation of the Quack. Like your Alex­ the same old traits surviving without a ander, they deal in marvels and mira­ touch of change. One reads, in Halévy’s cles, oracles and warnings. All such French, of Madame Cardinal, and, in bogy stories as those of your ‘ Philo- your Greek, of the mother of Philinna, pseudes, and the ghost of the lady who and marvels that eighteen hundred years took to table-rapping because one of her have not in one single trifle altered the 6 4 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA 6 5 mould. Still the old shabby light-loves, yore; but whether the end of their vis- the old greed, the old luxury and squalor. ion will be a laughing matter, you, for­ Still the unconquerable superstition that tunate Lucian, do not need to care. Hail now seeks to teli fortunes by the cards, to you, and farewell! and, in your time, resorted to the sor- 5 ceress with her magical ‘ bull-roarer ’ or turndun?- Yes, Lucian, we are the same vain creatures of doubt and dread, of unbelief and credulity, of avarice and pretence, that you knew, and at whom you smiled. Nay, our very ‘ social question ’ is not altered. Do you not write, in ‘The Runaways,’ ‘ The artisans vvill abandon their workshops, and leave their trades, when they see that, with all the labour that bows their bodies from dawn to dark, they make a petty and starveling pittance, while men that toil not nor spin are fl'oating in Pactolus ’ ? They begin to see this again as of

1 The Greek pó/í&os, mentioned by Lucian and Theocritus, was the magical weapon of the Austra- lians — the turtidun. RABELAIS 6 7

of all mankind; which day they rather desired than dreaded. So chanced it also with Pantagruel and Brother John and their company, VIL after they had once partaken of the se­ cret of the Dive Bouteille. Thereafter To Maitre Françoys Rabelais. they searched no longer; but, abiding at their ease, were merry, frolic, jolly, gay, OF THE COMINO OF THE COQCIGRUES. glad, and wise; only that they always

M a s t e r , — In the Boreal and Septen­ and ever did expect the awful Coming trional lands, turned aside from the of the Coqcigrues. Now concerning the noonday and the sun, there dwelt of oíd day of that coming, and the nature of (as thou knowest, and as Olaus vouch- them that should come, they knew noth- eth) a race of men, brave, strong, nim- ing; and for his part Panurge was all ble, and adventurous, who had no other the more adread, as Aristotle testifieth care but to fight and drink. There, by that men (and Panurge above others) reason of the coid (as Virgil witnesseth), most fear that which they know least. men break wine with axes. To their Now it chanced one day, as they sat at minds, when once they were dead and meat, with viands rare, dainty, and pre- gotten to Valhalla, or the place of their cious as ever Apicius dreamed of, that Gods, there would be no other pleasure there fluttered on the air a faint sound but to swig, tipple, drink, and boose till as of sermons, speeches, orations, ad- the coming of that last darkness and dresses, discourses, lectures, and the Twilight, wherein they, with their dei- like ; whereat Panurge, pricking up his ties, should do battle against the enemies ears, cried, ‘ Methinks this wind bloweth 68 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS RABELAIS 6 9

from Midlothian,’ and so feli a trem- wine of the Champagne country, sack bling. and Canary. A fig for thy Coqcigrues ! ’ Next, to their aural orífices, and the But even as he spoke there ran up avenues audient of the brain, was borne suddenly a whole legión, or rather army, a very melancholy sound as of harmo- of physicians, each armed with laryngo- niums, hymns, organ-pianos, psalteries, scopes, stethoscopes, horoscopes, micro- and the like, all playing different airs, in scopes, weighing machines, and such a kind most hateful to the Muses. Then other tools, engines, and arms as they said Panurge, as well as he might for had who, after thy time, persecuted the chattering of his teeth: ‘May I never Monsieur de Pourceaugnac ! And they drink if here come not the Coqcigrues!’ all, rushing on Brother John, cried out and this saying and prophecy of his was to him, ‘ Abstain ! Abstain ! ’ And one true and inspired. But thereon the oth- said, ‘ I have well diagnosed thee, and ers began to mock, flout, and gird at thou art in a fair way to have the gout.’ Panurge for his cowardice. ‘ Here am ‘I never did better in my days,’ said I! ’ cried Brother John, ‘ well-armed and Brother John. ‘Away with thy meats ready to stand a siege ; being entrenched, and drinks ! ’ they cried. And one said, fortified, hemmed - in and surrounded ‘ He must to Royat; ’ and another, with great pasties, huge pieces of salted ‘ Henee with him to Aix ; ’ and a third, beef, salads, fricassees, hams, tongues, ‘ Banish him to Wiesbaden ; ’ and a pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little fourth, ‘ Hale him to Gastein ; and yet tarts, jellies, pastries, trifles, and fruits another, ‘ To Barbouille with him in of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while chains ! ’ I have good wells, founts, springs, and And while others felt his pulse and sources of Bordeaux wine, Burgundy, looked at his tongue, they all wrote pre- 7 0 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS RABELAIS 7 1

scriptions for him like men mad. ‘ For Brother John fainted, falling like a thy eating,’ cried he that seemed to be oo-reat buttress of a hill, such as Tayge- their leader, ‘No soup ! ’ ‘ No soup ! ’ tus or Erymanthus. quoth Brother John ; and those cheeks While they were busy with him, oth- of hís, whereat you might have warmed ers of the frantic folk had built great your two hands in the winter solstice, platforms of wood, whereon they all grew white as lilies. ‘Nay! and no sal­ stood and spoke at once, both men and món, nor any beef nor mutton ! A little women. And of these some wore red chicken by times, but periculo tuo ! crosses on their garments, which mean- Nor any game, such as grouse, partridge, eth ‘ Salvation ; ’ and others wore white pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck; nor crosses, with a little black button of any cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor crape, to signify ‘ Purity ; ’ and others coffee, nor eau de vie; and avoid all bits of blue to mean ‘ Abstinence.’ sweets. No veal, pork, nor made dishes While some of these pursued Panurge of any kind.’ ‘ Then what may I eat ? ’ others did beset Pantagruel; asking him quoth the good Brother, whose valour very long qüestions, whereunto he gave had oozed out of the soles of his san- but short answers. Thus they asked : dals. ‘ A little cold bacon at breakfast Have ye Local Option here ? — Pan. : — no eggs,’ quoth the leader of the What ? strange folk, ‘ and a slice of toast with- May one man drink if his neighbour out butter.’ ‘And for thy drink’ — be not athirst ? — Pan. : Yea ! (‘ What ? ’ gasped Brother John) — ‘ one Have ye Free Education ? — Pan.: dessert-spoonful of whisky, with a pint What ? of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon Must they that have, pay to school and dinner. No more ! ’ At this them that have not ? — Pan. : Nay ! 72 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS RABELAIS 73 Have ye free land ?— Pan.: What ? Are you governed by the free ex­ Have ye taken the land from the pressiori of the popular will ? — Pan.: farmer, and given it to the tailor out of How ? work and the candlemaker masterless ? Are you servants of priests, púlpits, — Pan. : Nay ! and penny papers ? — Pan. : No ! Have your women folk votes ? — Now, when they heard these answers Pan. : Bosh ! of Pantagruel they all fell, sorae aweep- Have ye got religión ?— Pan. : How ? ing, some a praying, sorae a swearing, Do you go about the streets at night, some an arbitrating, some a lecturing, brawling, blowing a trumpet before some a caucussing, some a preaching, you, and making long prayers ? — Pan. : some a faith-healing, some a miracle- Nay ! working, some a hypnotising, some a Have you manhood suffrage? — Pan.: writing to the daily press ; and while Eh? they were thus busy, like folk distraught, Is Jack as good as his master? — ‘ reforming the island,’ Pantagruel burst Pan. : Nay! out a laughing; whereat they were Have you joined the Arbitration So- greatly dismayed ; for laughter killeth ciety ? — Pan.: Qiioy ? the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they Will you let another kick you, and may not endure it. will you ask his neighbour if you de- Then Pantagruel and his company serve the same ? — Pan. : Nay ? stole aboard a barque that Panurge had Do you eat what you list ? — Pan. : ready in the harbour. And having pro- A y ! visioned her well with store of meat and Do you drink when you are athirst ? good drink, they set sail for the king- — Pan. : A y ! dom of Entelechy, where, having landed, 7 4 l e t t e r s t o d e a d a u t h o r s

they were kindly entreated ; and there abide to this day; drinking of the sweet and eating of the fat, under the protec-

ti°n °f that intellectual sphere which VIII. hath in al] places its centre and nowhere its circumference. To Jane Aus ten. Such was their destiny ; there was their. end appointed, and thither the Madam, — If to the enjoyments of Coqcigrues can never come. For all your present state be lacking a view of the air of that land is full of laughter, the minor infirmities or foibles of nien, which killeth Coqcigrues ; and there I cannot but think (were the thought aboundeth the herb Pantagruelion. But permitted) that your pleasures are yet for thee, Master Françoys, thou art not incomplete. Moreover, it is certain that well liked in this island of ours, where a woman of parts who has once meddled the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce, with literature will never wholly lose cruel, and tyrannical. Yet thou hast her love for the discussion of that deli- thy friends, that meet and drink to thee cious topic, nor cease to relish what (in and wish thee well wheresoever thou the cant of our new age) is styled ‘ liter- hast found thy gyand peut-ètve. ary shop.’ For these reasons I attempt to convey to you some inkling of the present state of that agreeable art which you, madam, raised to its highest pitch of perfection. A s to your own works (immortal, as I believe), I have but little that is wholly 7 6 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS JANE AUSTEN 77 cheering to teli one who, among women numerous, include all persons of taste, of letters, was almost alone in her free- who, in your favour, are apt somewhat dom from a lettered vanity. You are to abate the rule, or shake off the habit, not a very popular author : your volumes which commonly confines them to but are not found in gaudy covers on every temperate laudation. bookstall; or, if found, are not perused ’T is the fault of all art to seem an- with avidity by the Emraas and Cather- tiquated and faded in the eyes of the ines of our generation. ’T is not long succeeding generation. The manners of since a blow was dealt (in the estimation your age were not the manners of to-day, of the unreasoning) at your character as and young gentlemen and ladies who an author by the publication of your think Scott ‘slow,’ think Miss Austen familiar letters. The editor of these ‘prim’ and ‘dreary.’ Yet, even could epistles, unfortunately, did not always you return among us, I scarcely believe take your witticisms, and he added oth- that, speaking the language of the hour, ers which were too unmistakably his as you might, and versed in its hàbits, own. While the injudicious were disap- you would win the general admiration. pointed by the absence of your exqui­ For how tame, madam, are your charac- site style and humour, the wiser sort ters, especially your favourite heroines ! were the more convinced of your wis- how limited the life which you knew dom. In your letters (knowing your and described ! how narrow the ranaeo of correspondents) you gave but the small your incidents ! how correct your gram- personal talk of the hour, for them suffi­ mar ! cient ; for your books you reserved A s heroines, for example, you chose matter and expression which are imper- ladies like Emma, and Elizabetb, and ishable. Your admirers, if not very Catherine: women remarkable neither 7 8 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS JANE AUS TEN 79 for the brilliance nor for the degradation lections vended by the plaster-of-Paris of their birth ; women wrapped up in man round the còrner. When such their own and the parish’s concerns, ig­ heroines are wooed by the nephews of norant of evil, as it seems, and unac- Dukes, where are your Emmas and Eliz- quainted with vain yearnings and inter- abeths ? Your volumes neither excite esting doubts. Who can engage his nor satisfy the curiosities provoked by fancv with their match-makings and the that modern and scientific fiction, which conductof their affections, when so many is greatly admired, I learn, in the United daring and dazzling heroines approach States, as well as in France and at and solicit his regard ? home. Here are princesses dressed in white You erred, it cannot be denied, with velvet stamped with golden fleurs-de-lys your eyes open. Knowing Lydia and — ladies with hearts of ice and lips of K itty so intimately as you did, why did fire, who count their roubles by the mil- you make of them almost insignificant lion, their lovers by the score, and even characters ? With Lydia for a heroine their husbands, very often, in figures of you might have gone far; and, had you some arithmetical importance. With devoted three volumes, and the chief of these are the immaculate daughters of your time, to the passions of Kitty, you itinerant Italian musicians, maids whose might have held your own, even now, in souls are unsoiled amidst the contamina- the circulating library. How Lyddy, tions of our streets, and whose acquain- perched on a còrner of the roof, first tance with the art of Phidias and Prax­ beheld her Wickham ; how, on her chal­ iteles, of Daedalus and Scopas, is the lenge, he climbed up by a ladder to her more admirable, because entirely derived side ; how they kissed, caressed, swung from loving study of the inexpensive col- on gates together, met at odd seasons, 80 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS JANE AUSTEN 81

in strange places, and finally eloped : all more than one lady of title, and but very this might have been put in the mouth few lords (and these unessential) in all of a jealous eider sister, say Elizabeth, your tales. Now, when we all wish to and you would not have been less popu­ be in society, we demand plenty of titles lar than several favourites of our time. in our novéis, at any rate, and we get Had you cast the whole narrative into lords (and very queer lords) even from the present tense, and lingered lovingly Republican authors, born in a country over the thickness of Mary’s legs and which in your time was not renowned the softness of K itty’s cheeks, and the for its literature. I have heard a critic blonde fluffiness of Wickham’s whiskers, remarle, with a decided air of fashion, you would have left a romance still dear on the brevity of the notice which your to young ladies. characters give each other when they Or again, you might entrance your offer invitations to dinner. ‘ An invita- students still, had you concentrated your tion to dinner next day was despatched,’ attention on Mrs. Rushworth, who eloped and this demonstrates that your acquain- with Henry Crawford. These should tance ‘ went out ’ very little, and had but have been the chief figures of ‘ Mansfield few engagements. How vulgar, too, is Park.’ But you timidly decline to tackle one of your heroines, who bids Mr. Passion. ‘ Let other pens,’ you write, Darcy ‘ keep his breath to cool his por- ‘ dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such ridge.’ I blush for Elizabeth ! It were odious subjects as soon as I can.’ Ah, superfluous to add that your characters there is the secret of your failure ! Need are debased by being invariably mere I add that the vulgarity and narrowness members of the Church of England as of the social circles you describe impair by law established. The Dissenting en- your popularity ? I scarce remember thusiast, the open soul that glides from 6 82 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS JANE AUS TEN 8 3

Esotèric Buddhism to the Salvation a man whom nobody cared anything Army, and from the Higher Pantheism about.’ There, madam, in that cruelly to the Higher Paganism, we look for in unjust performance, what a text you had vain among your studies of character. for a Tendenz-Ronian. Nay, you can al- Nay, the very words I employ are of un- low Kitty to report that a Private had known sound to you ; so hovv can you been flogged, without introducing a chap- help us in the stress of the soul’s trav- ter on Flogging in the Army. But you ailings ? formally declined to stretch your matter You may say that the soul’s travail- out, here and there, ‘ with solemn spe- ings are no affair of yours ; proving cious nonsense about something uncon- thereby that you have indeed but a nected with the story.’ No ‘padding’ lovvly conception of the duty of the nov- for Miss Austen ! In fact, madam, as elist. I only remember one reference, you were born before Analysis carne in, in all your works, to that controversy or Passion, or Realism, or Naturalism, or which occupies the chief of our attention Irreverence, or Religious Open-minded- — the great controversy on Creation or ness, you - really cannot hope to rival Evolution. Your Jane Bennet cries : ‘ I your literary sisters in the minds of a have no idea of there being so much De- perplexed generation. Your heroines sign in the vvorld as some persons imag­ are not passionate, we do not see their ine. Nor do you touch on our mighty red wet cheeks, and tresses dishevelled social question, the Land Laws, save in the manner of our frank young Mae- when Mrs. Bennet appears as a Land nads. What says your best successor, a Reformer, and rails bitterly against the lady who adds fresh lustre to a name cruelty ‘ of settling an estáte away from that in fiction equals yours ? She says a family of five daughters, in favour of of Miss Austen: ‘ Her heroines have a 8 4 LETTERS TO D E AD AUTHORS JANE AUS TEN 85

stamp of their own. They have a certain bright, sparkling with wit and animation, gentle self-respect and hnmour and hard- in which the homely heroines charm, ness of heart. . . . Love with them does the dull hours fly. and the very bores not mean a passion as much as an inter­ are enchanting.’ esé deep and silent.’ I think one pre- fers them so, and that Englishwomen should be more like Anne Elliot than Maggie Tulliver. ‘ All the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest when existence or when hope is gone,’ said Anne; perhaps she insisted on a monopoly that neither sex has all to itself. Ah, madam, what a relief it is to come back to your witty volumes, and forget the follies of to-day in those of Mr. Collins and of Mrs. Bennet! How fine, nay, how noble is your art in its delicate reserve, never insisting, never forcing the note, never pushing the sketch into the caricature! You worked without thinking of it, in the spirit of Greece, on a labour happily limited, and exquisitely organised. ‘ Dear books,’ we say, with Miss Thackeray — ‘dear books, ISAAK WALTON 8 7

fall to his sport. Nay, now have the houses so much increased, like a spread- ing sore (through the breaking of that excellent law of the Conscientious Kmg IX. and blessed Martyr, whereby buildmg To Master Isaak Walton. beyond the walls was forbidden), that the meadows are all swallowed up in streets. F a t h e r I s a a k , — When I would be And as to the River Lea, wherein you quiet and go angling it is my custom to took many a good trout, I read in the carry in my wallet thy pretty book, ‘ The news sheets that ‘ its bed is many inches Compleat Angler.’ Here, methinks, if thick in horrible filth, and the air for I find not trout I shall find content, more than half a mile on each side of it and good company, and sweet songs, fair is polluted with a horrible, sickening milkmaids, and country mirth. For you stench,’ so that we stand in dread of a are to know that trout be now scarce, new Plague, called the Cholera. And and whereas he was ever a fearful fish, so it is all about London for many miles, he hath of late become so wary that and if a man, at heavy charges, betake none but the cunningest anglers may be himself to the fields, lo you, folk are even with him. grown so greedy that none will suffer It is not as it was in your time, Fa­ a stranger to fish in his water. ther, when a man might leave his shop So poor anglers are in sore straits. in Fleet Street, of a holiday, and, when Unless a man be rich and can pay great he had stretched his legs up Tottenham rents, he may not fish, in England, and Hill, come lightly to meadows chequered henee spring the discontents of the with waterlilies and lady-smocks, and so times, for the angler is full of content, if 88 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS ISAAK WALTON 8 9 he do but take trout, but if he be driven tor in your book, ‘ Master, I can neither from the waterside, he falls, perchance, catch with the first nor second Angle: I into evil company, and cries out to di­ have no fortune.’ vide the property of the gentle folk. As So we fare in England, but somewhat many now do, even among Parliament- better north of the Tweed, where trout men, whom you loved not, Father Isaak, are less wary, but for the most part neither do I love them more than Rea- small, except in the extreme rough north, son and Scripture bid each of us be among horrid hills and lakes. Thither, kindly to his neighbour. But, behold, the Master, as methinks you may remember, causes of the ill content are not yet all went Richard Franck, that called him- expressed, for even where a man hath self Philanthropus, and was, as it were, licence to fish, he will hardly take trout the Columbus of anglers, discovering for in our age, unless he be all the more them a new Hyperborean world. But cunning. For the fish, harried this way Franck, doubtless, is now an angler in and that by so many of your disciples, is the Lake of Darkness, with Nero and exceeding shy and artful, nor will he bite other tyrants, for he followed after Crom- at a fly unless it falleth lightly, just well, the man of blood, in the old riding above his mouth, and floateth dry over days. How wickedly doth Franck boast him, for all the vvorld like the natural of that leader of the giddy multitude, ephemeris. And we may no longer angle ‘ when they raged, and became restless with vvorm for him, nor with penk or to find out misery for themselves and minnow, nor with the natural fly, as was others, and the rabble would herd them­ your manner, but only with the artificial, selves together,’ as you said, ‘ and en- for the more difficulty the more diver­ deavour to govern and act in spite of au- sión. For my part I may cry, like Via- thority.’ So you wrote; and what said go LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS ISAAK WALTON 91 Franek, that recreant angler ? Doth he angler than thou, was a worse man, who, not praise ‘ Ireton, Vane, Nevill, and writing his ‘ Dialogues Piscatorial or Martin, and the most renowned, valor- ‘ Northern Memoirs ’ five years after the ous, and victorious conqueror, Oliver world welcomed thy ‘ Compleat Angler,’ Cromwell.’ Natheless, with all his sins was jealous of thy favour with the peo- on his head, this Franek discovered ple, and, may be, hated thee for thy loy- Scotland for anglers, and my heart turns alty and sound faith. But, Master, like to him when he praises ‘ the glittering a peaceful man avoiding contention, and resolute streams of Tweed.’ thou didst never answer this blustering In those wilds of Assynt and Loch Franek, but wentest quietly about thy Rannoch, Father, we, thy followers, may quiet Lea, and left him his roaring Brora yet take trout, and forget the evils of and windy Assynt. How could this the times. But, to be done with Franek noisy man know thee — and know thee h°w harshly he speaks of thee and thy he did, having argued with thee in Staf- book. ‘ For you may dedicate your opin­ ford — and not love Isaak Walton ? A ión to what scribbling putationer you pedant angler, I call him, a plaguy an­ please ; the Compleat Angler if you will gler, so let him huff away, and turn we who telis you of a tedious fly story, ex- to thee and to thy sweet charm in fish- travagantly collected from antiqulted ing for men. authors, such as Gesner and Dubravius.’ How often, studying in thy book, have Again, he speaks of ‘ Isaac Walton, I hummed to myself that of Horace — whose authority to me seems alike au- Laudis amore tumes ? Sunt certa piacula quee te thentick, as is the general opinion of the Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello. vulgar prophet,’ &c. Certain I am that Franek, if a better So healing a book for the frenzy of fame 9 2 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTIIORS ISAAK WALTON 93 is thy discourse on meadows, and pure of the State and of the Church, which streams, and the country life. How were deprived of their heads by cruel peaceful, men say, and blessed must men, despoiled of their wealth, the pious have been the life of this oíd man, how driven, like thee, from their homes ; fear lapped in content, and hedged about by everywhere, everywhere robbery and his own bumility from the world ! They confusión : all this ruin might have an- forget, who speak thus, that thy years, gered another temper. But thou, Fa- which were many, were also evil, or ther, didst bear all with so much sweet- would have seemed evil to divers that ness as perhaps neither natural temper­ had tasted of thy fortunes. Thou wert ament, nor a firm faith, nor the love of poor, but that, to thee, was no sorrow, angling could alone have displayed. For for greed of money was thy detestation. we see many anglers (as witness Richard Thou wert of lowly rank, in an age when Franck aforesaid) who are angry men, gentle blood was alone held in regard; and myself, when I get my hooks entan- yet thy virtues made thee hosts of friends, gled at every cast in a tree, have come and chiefly among religious men, bish- nigh to swear prophane. ops, and doctors of the Church. Thy pri­ Also we see religious men that are mate life was not unacquainted with sor­ sour and fanatical, no rare thing in the row ; thy first wife and all her fair chil- party that professes godliness. But nei­ dren were taken from thee like flowers in spring, though, in thine age, new love ther private sorrow nor públic grief could abate thy natural kindliness, nor shake a and new offspring comforted thee like religión which was not untried, but had, the primrose of the later year.’ Thy private griefs might have made thee bit- indeed, passed through the furnace like :er, or melancholy, so might the sorrows fine gold. For if we find not Faith at all times easy, because of the oppositions 9 4 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS ISAAK WALTON 9 5

of Science, and the searching curiosity tears would not be bitter, nor thy tri- of men’s minds, neither was Faith a mat- umph cruel. ter of course in thy day. For the learned Thus, by God’s blessing, it befell thee and pious were greatly tossed about, like Nec turpem senectam worthy Mr. Chillingworth, by doubts wa- Degere, nec cithara carentem. vering between the Church of Rome and I would, Father, that I could get at the the Reformed Church of Engiand. The verity about thy poems. Those recom- humbler folk, also, were invited, now mendatory verses with which thou didst here, now there, by the clamours of fa- grace the Lives of Dr. Donne and others natical Nonconformists, who gave them- of thy friends, redound more to the praise selves out to be somebody, while Athe- of thy kind heart than thy fancy. But ism itself was not without many to wit- what or whose was the pastoral poem ness to it. Therefore, such a religión as of ‘ Thealma and Clearchus,’ which thou thine was not, so to say, a mere innocence didst set about printing in 1678, and of evil in the things of our Belief, but a gavest to the world in 1683 ? Thou reasonable and grounded faith, strong gavest John Chalkhill for the author’s in despite of oppositions. Happy was ñame, and a John Chalkhill of thy kin- the man in whom temper, and religión, dred died at Winchester, being eighty and the love of the sweet country and years of his age, in 1679. Now thou an angler’s pastime so conveniently com- speakest of John Chalkhill as ‘ a friend bined ; happy the long life which held of Edmund Spenser’s,’ and how could in its hand that threefold clue through this be ? the labyrinth of human fortunes ! Around Are they right who hold that John thee Church and State might fall in Chalkhill was but a ñame of a friend, ruins, and might be rebuilded, and thy borrowed by thee out of modesty, and 9 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS ISA ART V/ALTON 97 used as a cloak to cover poetry of thine Or perhaps thou wilt better love, own inditing ? When Mr. Flatman writes The lanesome Tala and the Lyne, of Chalkhill, ’t is in vvords well fitted to And Mahon wi’ its mountain rills, thine own mèrit: An’ Etterick, whose wàters twine W i’ Yarrow frae the forest hills ; Happy oíd man, whose worth all mankind knows An’ Gala, too, and Teviot bright, Except himself, who charitably shows An’ mony a stream o’ playfu’ speed, The ready road to virtue and to praise, Their kindred valleys a’ unite The road to many long and happy days. Amang the braes o’ bonnie Tweed ! However it be, in that road, by quiet So, Master, may you sing against each streams and through green pastures, other, you two good old anglers, like thou didst walk all thine almost century Peter and Corydon, that sang in your of years, and we, who stray into thy golden age. path out of the highway of life, we seem 7 to hold thy hand, and listen to thy cheer- ful voice. If our sport be worse, may our content be equal, and our praise, therefore, none the less. Father, if Mas- ter Stoddard, the great fisher of Tweed- side, be with thee, greet him for me, and thank him for those songs of his, and perchance he will troll thee a catch of our dear River. Tweed! winding and wild ! where the heart is un- bound, They know not, they dream not, who linger around, How the saddened will smile, and the wasted rewin From thee — the bliss withered within. CHAPELAIN 9 9 moral excellence that even Boileau ad- mitted, la foi, Fhonneur, la probité, do not in Parnassus avail the popular poet, and some luckless Musset or Théophile, X. Regnier or Villars attains a kind of im- To M. Chapelain. mortality denied to the man of many contemporary editions, and of a great M o n s ie u r , — You were a popular wri- commercial success. ter, and an honourable, over-educated, If ever, for the confusión of Horace, upright gentleman. Of the latter char­ any Poet was Made, you, Sir, should acter you can never be deprived, and have been that fortunately manufactured I doubt not it stands you in better article. You were, in matters of the stead where you are, than the laureis Muses, the child of many prayers. which flourished so gaily, and faded so Never, since Adam’s day, have any par­ soon. ents but yours prayed for a poet-child. Laurei is green for a season, and Love is fair for a Then Destiny, that mocks the desires day, of men in general, and fathers in partic­ But Love grows bitter with treason, and laurel out- lives not May. ular, heard the appeal, and presented M. I know not if Mr. Swinburne is cor- Chapelain and Jeanne Corbière his wife rect in his botany, but your laurel cer- with the future author of ‘ La Pucelle.’ tainly outlived not May, nor can we Oh futile hopes of men, O pectora cceca ! hope that you dwell where Orpheus and All was done that education could do for where Homer are. Some other crown, a genius which, among other qualities, some other Paradise, we cannot doubt ‘ especially lacked fire and imagination,’ it, awaited un s i bon homme. But the and an ear for verse — sad defects these IOO LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS CHAPELAIN IOI

in a child of the Muses. Your training fair, and you enjoyed a prodigious ce- in all the mechanics and metaphysics of lebrity on the score of your yet unpub- criticism might have made you exclaim, lished Epic. ‘ Who, indeed,’ says a sym- like Rasselas, ‘ Enough ! Thou hast pathetic author, M. Théophile Gautier, convinced me that no human being can ‘ who could expect less than a miracle ever be a Poet.’ Unhappily, you suc- from a man so deeply learned in the ceeded in convincing Cardinal Riche- laws of art — a perfect Turk in the Sci­ lieu that to be a Poet was well within ence of poetry, a person so well pen- your powers, you received a pensión of sioned, and so favoured by the great ? ’ one thousand crowns, and were made Bishops and politicians combined in per­ Captain of the Cardinal’s minstrels, as fect good faith to advertise your mèrits. M. de Tréville was Captain of the King’s Hard must have been the heart that Musketeers. could resist the testimonials of your skill Ah, pleasant age to live in, when good as a poet offered by the Duc de Mon- intentions in poetry were more richly tausier, and the learned Huet, Bishop of endowed than ever is Research, even Avranches, and Monseigneur Godeau, Research in Prehistòric English, among Bishop of Vence, or M. Colbert, who us niggard moderns ! How I wish I had such a genius for finance. knew a Cardinal, or, even as you did, a If bishops and politicians and prime Prime Minister, who would praise and ministers skilled in finance, and some pensión m e; but Envy be still! Your crítics, Ménage and Sarrazin and Vau- existence was more happy indeed ; you getas, if ladies of birth and taste, if all constructed odes, corrected sonnets, pre- the world in fact, combined to teli you sided at the Hotel Rambouillet, while that you were a great poet, how can we the learned ladies were still young and blame you for taking yourself seriously, 102 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS CHAPELAIN 103

and appraising yourself at the públic On the ‘ Pucelle ’ you were occupied estímate ? during a generation of mortal men. I It was not in human nature to resist marvel not at the length of yourlabours, the evidence of the bishops especially, as you received a yearly pensión till the and vvhen every minor poet believes in Epic was finished, but your Muse was no himself on the testimony of his own con- Alcmena, and no Hercules was the re­ ceit, you may be acquitted of vanity if suit of that prolonged night of creations. you listened to the plaudits of your First you gravely wrote out (it was the friends. Nay, you ventured to pro- task of five years) all the compositions in nounce judgment on contemporaries prose. Ah, why did you not leave it in whom Posterity has preferred to your that commonplace but appropriate me­ perfections. ‘ Molière,’ said you, ‘un- dium ? What says the Précieuse about derstands the nature of comedy, and you in Boileau’s satire ? presents it in a natural style. The plot In Chapelain, for all his foes have said, of his best pieces is borrowed, but not She finds but one defect, he can’t be read; without judgment ; his morale is fair, Yet thinks the world might taste his maiden’s woes, If only he would turn his verse to prose ! and he has only to avoid scurrility.’ Excellent, unconscious, popular Cha- The verse had been prose, and prose, pelain ! perhaps, it should have remained- Y e t Of yourself you observed, in a Report for this precious ‘ Pucelle,’ in the age on contemporary literature, that your when ‘ Paradise Lost ’ was sold for five ‘courage and sincerity never allowed pounds, you are believed to have re­ you to tolerate work not absolutely ceived about four thousand. Horace was good.’ And yet you regarded ‘ La Pu- wrong, mediocre poets may exist (now celle ’ vvith some complacency. and then), and he was a wise man who 104 E E T T E R S t o d e ad a u t h o r s CHAPELAIN 105

first spoke of aurea mediocritas. A t that ‘ potter hates potter, and poet hates length the great work was achieved, a poet ’ ? But contemporary spites do not work thrice blessed in its theme, that harm true genius. Who suffered more divine Maiden to whom France owes all than Moliere from cabals ? Yet neither and whom yon and Voltaire have recom- the court nor the town ever deserted pensed so strangely. In folio, in italics, him, and he is still the joy of the world. with a score of portraits and engravings, I admit that his adversàries were weaker and culs de lampe, the great work was than yours. What were Boursault and given to the world, and had a success. Le Boulanger, and Thomas Corneille and bix editions m eighteen months are fig­ De Visé, what were they all compared ures which fill the poètic heart with envy to your enemy, Boileau ? Brossette telis and admiration. And then, alas ! the a story which really makes a man pity bubble burst. A great lady, Madame de you. There was a M. de Puimorin who, .Longveille, hearing the ‘Pucelle’ read to be in the fashion, laughed at your aloud, murmured that it was ‘ perfect once popular Epic. * It is all very well indeed, but perfectly wearisome.’ Then for a man to laugh who cannot even the sàtires began, and the satirists never read.’ Whereon M. de Puimorin replied : left you till your poètic reputation was a ‘ Qu’il n’avoit que trop sü lire, depuis rag, till the mildest Abbé at Ménage’s que Chapelain s’étoit avisé de faire im­ had his cheap sneer for Chapelain. primen ’ A new horror had been added . ] make no doubt, Sir, that envy and to the accomplishment of reading since jealousy had much to do with the on- Chapelain had published. This repar­ slaught on your ‘ Pucelle.’ These quali- tee was applauded, and M. de Puimorin ties alas! are not strange to literary tried to turn it into an epigram. He did minds; does not even Hesiod teli us complete the last couplet, CHAPELAIN 107

were not a false child of Apollo ? Was your complacency tortured, as the com- placency of true poets has occasionally been, by doubts ? Did you expect pos- remember what terity to reverse the verdict of the satir- great allies came to his assistance. I ists, and to do you justice ? You an- almost blush to think that M. Despréaux, swered your earliest assailant, Linière, M. Racine, and M. de Molière, the three and, by a few changes of words, turned most renowned wits oí the time, con- his epigrams into flattery. But I fancy, spired to complete the poor jest, and on the whole, you remained calm, un- madden you. Well, bubble as your moved, wrapped up in admiration of poetry was, you may be proud that it yourself. According to M. de Marivaux, needed all these sharpest of pens to who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits prick the bubble. Other poets, as pop­ of the mighty dead, you ‘ conceived, on ular as you, have been annihilated by an the strength of your reputation, a great article. Macaulay puts forth his hand, and serious veneration for yourself and and ‘ Satan Montgomery ’ was no more. your genius.’ Probably you were pro- It did not need a Macaulay, the laughter tected by this invulnerable armour of an of a mob of little crítics was enough to honest vanity, probably you declared blow in to space ; but you probably have that mere jealousy dictates the lines of met Montgomery, and of contemporary Boileau, and that Chapelain’s real fault failures or successes I do not speak. was his popularity, and his pecuniary I wonder, sometimes, whether the con­ success, sensus of criticism ever made you doubt Qu’il soit le mieux renté de tous les beaux-esprits. for a moment whether, after all, you This, you would avow, was your of- I 08 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS CHAPELAIN 109 fence, and perhaps you were not alto- suredly be written so long as bad poets gether mistaken. Yet posterity declines are successful, and bad poets will assur- to read a line of yours, and, as we think edly reflect that their assailants are of you, we are again set face to face with merely envious, and, while their vogue that eternal problem, how far is popular- lasts, that Prime Ministers and the pur- ity a test of poetry ? Burns was a poet, chasing públic are the only judges. and popular. Byron was a popular poet, Monsieur, and the world agrees in the verdict of Votre très humble serviteur, their own generation. But Montgomery, A n d r e yv L a n g . though he sold so well, was no poet, nor, Sir, I fear, was your verse made of the stuff of immortality. Criticism cannot hurt what is truly great ; the Cardinal and the Academy left Chimène as fair as ever, and as adorable. It is only pinchbeck that perishes under the acids of satire : gold defies them. Y et I some- times ask myself, does the existence of popularity like yours justify the malig- nity of satire, which blesses neither him who gives, nor him who takes ? Are poisoned arrows fair against a bad poet ? I doubt it, Sir, holding that, even un- ¡ricked, a poètic bubble must soon burst 3y its own nature. Yet satire will as- SIR JOHN MANNDEVILLE m

saw snails with shells as big as houses, nor never met no Devyls, but part of that ye say, ye took it out of William of XI. Boldensele his book, yet ye took not his wisdom, withal, but put in thine ovvn To Sir John Manndeville, K t. foolishness. Nevertheless, Sir John, for the frailty of Mankynde, ye are held a (OF THE WAYS INTO YNDE.) good fellow, and a m erry; so now, come, S ir J o h n , — Wit you well that men I shall teli you of the new ways into holden you but light, and some clepen Ynde. you a Liar. And they say that you In that Lond they have a Queen that never were born in Englond, in the town governeth all the Lond, and all they ben of Seynt Albones, nor bave seen and obeyssant to her. And she is the Queen gone through manye diverse Londes. of Englond ; for Englishmen have taken And there goeth an old knight at arms, all the Lond of Ynde. For they were and one that connes Latyn, and hath right good werryoures of old, and wyse, been beyond the sea, and hath seen noble, and worthy. But of late hath Prester John’s country. And he hath risen a new sort of Englishman very been in an Yle that men clepen Burmah, puny and fearful, and these men clepen and there bin women bearded. Now Radicals. And they go ever in fear, and men call him Colonei Henry Yule, and they scream on high for dread in the he hath writ of thee in his great booke, streets and the houses, and they fain Sir John, and he holds thee but lightly. would flee away from all that theirfathers For he saith that ye did pill your tales gat them with the sword. And this sort out of Odoric his book, and that ye never men call Scuttleres, but the mean folk 112 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS SIR JOHN MANNDEVILLE 113

and certain of the womenkind hear them by the Midland sea, and Englishmen gladly, and they say éver that English- have taken many Yles in that sea. men should flee out of Ynde. For first they have taken an Yle that Fro Englond men gon to Ynde by is clept Malta ; and therein built they many dyverse Contreyes. For English- great castles, to hold it against them of men ben very stirring and nymble. For Fraunce, and Italy, and of Spain. And they ben in the seventh climate, that is from this Ile of Malta Men gon to Cipre. of the Moon. And the Moon (ye have And Cipre is right a good Yle, and a said it yourself, Sir John, natheless, is it fair, and a great, and it hath 4 principal true) is of lightly moving, for to go di­ Cytees within him. And at Famagost verse ways, and see strange things, and is one of the principal Havens of the other diversities of the Worlde. Where- sea that is in the world, and Englishmen fore Englishmen be lightly moving, and have but a lytel while gone won that far wandering. And they gon to Ynde Yle from the Sarazynes. Yet say that by the great Sea Ocean. First come sort of Englishmen where of I told you, they to Gibraltar, that was the point of that is puny and sore adread, that the Spain, and builded upon a rock; and Lond is poisonous and barren and of no there ben apes, and it is so strong that avail, for that Lond is much more hotter no man may take it. Natheless did than it is here. Y et the Englishmen Englishmen take it fro the Spanyard, that ben werryoures dwell there in tents, and all to hold the way to Ynde. For and the skill is that they may ben the ye may sail all about Africa, and past more fresh. the Cape men clepen of Good Hope, From Cypre, Men gon to the Lond but that way unto Ynde is long and the of Egypte, and in a Day and a Night sea is weary. Wherefore men rather go he that hath a good wind may come 1 14 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS SIR JOHN MANNDE VILLE X15 to the Haven of Alessandrie. Now the of Gold and Sil ver, for many misbeliev- Lond of Egypt longeth to the Soudan, ing men, and many Christian men also, yet the Soudan longeth not to the Lond have gone often time for to take of the of Egypt. And when I say this, I do Thresoure that there was of old, and jape with words, and raay hap ye under- have pilled the Thresoure, wherefore stond me not. Now Englishmen went there is none left. And Englishmen in shippes to Alessandrie, and brent it, have let carry thither great store of our and over ran the Lond, and their soud- Thresoure, 9,000,000 of Pounds sterling, yours warred agen the Bedoynes, and and whether they will see it agen I mis- all to hold the way to Ynde. For it is doubt me. For that Vale is alie fulle of not long past since Frenchmen let dig a Develes and Fien des that men clepen dyke, through the narrow spit of lond, Bondholderes, for that Egypt from of olde from the Midland sea to the Red sea, is the Lond of Bondage. And whatso- wherein was Pharaoh drowned. So this ever Thresoure cometh into the Lond, is the shortest way to Ynde there may these Devyls of Bondholders grabben be, to sail through that dyke, if men gon the same. Natheless by that Vale do by sea. Englishmen go unto Ynde, and they gon But all the Lond of Egypt is clepen by Aden, even to Kurrachee, at the the Vale enchaunted ; for no man may mouth of the Flood of Ynde. Thereby do his business well that goes thither, they send their souldyours, when they but always fares he evil, and therefore are adread of them of Muscovy. clepen they Egypt the Vale perilous, For, look you, there is another way and the sepulchre of reputations. And into Ynde, and thereby the men of Mus­ men say there that is one of the entrees covy are fain to come, if the Englishmen of Helle. In that Vale is plentiful lack let them not. That way cometh by De­ I l 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS S/R JOHN MANNDE VILLE II7

sert and Wildernesse, from the sea that not, neither love they the English, nor is clept Caspian, even to Khiva, and so the Muscovy folk, for they are worship- to Merv; and then come ye to Zulfikar pers of Mahound, and endure not Chris- and Penjdeh, and anon to Herat, that tian men. And they love not them that is called the Key of the Gates of Ynde. cut their throats, and burn their coun- Then ye win the lond of the Emir of the try. Afghauns, a great prince and a rich, and Now they of Muscovy ben Devyls, he hath in his Thresoure more crosses, and they ben subtle for to make a thing and stars, and coats that captains wearen, seme otherwise than it is, for to deceive than any other man on earth. mankind. Wherefore Englishmen put- For all they of Muscovy, and all Eng- ten no trust in them of Muscovy, save lishmen maken him gifts, and he keep- only the Englishmen clept Radicals, for eth the gifts, and he keepeth his own they make as if they loved these Dev­ counsel. For his lond lieth between eles, out of the fear and dread of war Ynde and the folk of Muscovy, where- wherein they go, and would be slaves fore both Englishmen and men of Mus­ sooner than fight. But the folk of Ynde covy would fain have him friendly, yea, know not what shall befall, nor whether and independent. Wherefore they of both they of Muscovy will take the Lond, or parties give him docks, and watches, and Englishmen shall keep it, so that their stars, and crosses, and culverins, and hearts may not enduren for drede. And now and again they let cut the throats methinks that soon shall Englishmen of his men some deal, and pill his coun- and Muscovy folk put their bodies in try. Thereby they both set up their adventure, and war one with another, rest that the Emir will be independent, and all for the way to Ynde. yea, and friendly. But his men love him But St. George for Englond, I say, Il8 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS and so enough; and may the Seyntes hele thee, Sír John, of thy Gowtes Arte- tykes, that thee tormenten. But to thy Boke I list not to give no credence.

To Alexandre Dumas.

S ir , — There are moments when the wheels of life, even of such a life as yours, run slow, and when mistrust and doubt overshadow even the most intrèpid disposition. In such a moment, towards the ending of your days, you said to your son, M. Alexandre Dumas, ‘ I seem to see myself set on a pedestal which trembles as if it were founded on the sands.’ These sands, your u'ncounted volumes, are all of gold, and make a foundation more solid than the rock. As well might the singer of Odysseus, or the authors of the ‘ Arabian Nights ’ or the first inventors of the stories of Boccaccio, believe that their works were perishable (their ñames, indeed, have perished), as the creator of ‘ Les Trois 120 LETTEKS TO DE AD AUTHORS ALEXANDRE DUMAS I 21

Mousquetaires ’ alarm himself with the stili persistent energy and enjoyment ; thought that the world could ever forget in that current of strength not only your Alexandre Dumas. characters live, frolic, kindly, and sane, Than yours there has been no greater but even your very collaborators were nor more kindly and beneficent forcé in animated by the virtue which went out modera letters. To Scott, indeed, you of you. How else can we explain it, ovved the first impulse of your genius ; the dreary charge which feeble and en- but, once set in motion, what miracles vious tongues have brought against you, could it not accomplish ? Our dear in England and at home ? They say Porthos was overeóme, at last, by a su- you employed in your novéis and dramas perhuman burden; but your imagina- that vicarious aid which, in the slang of tive strength never found a task too the studio, the ‘ sculptor’s ghpst’ is fa- great for it. What an extraordinary bled to afford. vigour, what health, what an overflow of Well, let it be so; these ghosts, when forcé was yours ! It is good, in a day uninspired by you, were faint and impo­ of small and laborious ingenuities, to tent as ‘ the strengthless tribes of the breathe the free air of your books, and dead ’ in Homer’s Hades, before Odys- dwell in the company of Dumas’s men seus had poured forth the blood that — so gallant, so frank, so indomitable, gave them a momentary valour. It was such swordsmen, and such trenchermen. from you and your inexhaustible vitality Like M. de Rochefort in ‘ Vingt A n s that these collaborating spectres drew Après,’ like that prisoner of the Bastille, what life they possessed; and when your genius ‘ n’est que d’un parti, c’est they parted from you they shuddered du parti du grand air.’ back into their nothingness. Where are There seems to radiate from you a the plays, where the romances which 122 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS ALEXANDRE DEMAS 123

Maquet and the rest wrote in their own of barren envy. Because you overflowed strength ? They are forgotten with last with wit, you could not be ‘ serious ; year s snovvs ; they have passed into the because you created with a word, you wide waste-paper basket of the world. were said to scamp your work ; because You say of D’Artagnan, when severed you were never dull, never pedantic, in- from his three friends— from Porthos, capable of greed, you were to be cen- Athos, and Aramis — ‘ he felt that he sured as desultory, inaccurate, and prod- could do nothing, save on the condition igak that each of these companions yielded A generation suffering from mental to him, if one may so speak, a share of and physical anaemia — a generation de- that electric fluid which was his gift voted to the ‘ chiselled phrase,’ to accu- from heaven.’ mulated ‘ documents,’ to microscopio por- No man of Jetters ever had so great ings over human baseness, to minute a measure of that gift as you ; none and disgustful records of what in hu- gave of it more freely to all who carne manity is least human — may readily — to the chance associate of the hour, bring these unregarded and railing ac- as to the characters, all so burly and cusations. Like one of the great and full - blooded, who flocked from your good-humoured Giants of Rabelais, you brain. Thus it was that you failed when may hear the murmurs from afar, and you approached the supernatural. Your smile with disdain. To you, who can ghosts had too much flesh and blood, amuse the world — to you who offer it more than the living persons of feebler the fresh air of the highway, the battle- fancies. A writer so fertile, so rapid, field, and the sea — the world must al- so masterly in the ease with which he ways return : escaping gladly from the worked, could not escape the reproaches boudoirs and the bouges, from the sur- 124 l e t t e r s to d e ad a u t h o r s ALEXANDRE DUMAS 12$

geries and hospitals, and dead rooms, of like the sphinx hard by the three pyra- M. Daudet and M. Zola and of the wea- mids — ‘ Monte Cristo.’ risome De Goncourt. In these romances how easy it would With a ll. your frankness, and with have been for you to burn incense to tbat queer morality of the Camp which, that great goddess, Lubricity, whom our if it swallows a camel now and again, critic says your people worship. You never strains at a gnat, how healthy and had Brantóme, you liad Tallemant, you wholesome, and even puré, are your ro­ had Rétif, and a dozen others, to furnish mances ! You never gloat over sin, nor materials for scenes of voluptuousness dabble with an ugly curiosity in the cor- and of blood that would have outdone ruptions of sense. The passions in your even the present naturalistes. From tales are honourable and brave, the mo­ these alcoves of ‘ Les Dames Galantes, tives are clearly human. Honour, Love, and from the torture chambers (M. Zola Friendship make the threefold cord, the would not have spared us one starting due your knights and dames follow sinew of brave La Mole on the rack) through how delightful a labyrinth of you turned, as Scott would have turned, adventures! Your greatest books, I without a thought of their profitable lit- take the liberty to maintain, are the erary uses. You had other metal to work Cycle of the Valois (‘ La Reine Margot,’ on : you gave us that superstitious and 'L a Dame de Montsoreau,’ ‘ Les Qua- tragical true love of La Mole’s, that de- rante-cinq ’), and the Cycle of Louis votion — how tender and how puré ! — / Treize and Louis Ouatorze (‘Les Trois of Bussy for the Dame de Montsoreau. Mousquetaires,’ ‘ Vingt Ans Après,’ ‘ Le You gave us the valour of D’Artagnan, Vicomte de Bragelonne’); and, beside the strength of Porthos, the melancholy these two trilogies — a lonely monument, nobility of A th o s: Plonour, Chivalry, 126 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS ALEXANDRE DUMAS 127 and Friendship. I declare your charac- Gunnar was better wielded than the ra- ters are real people to me and old friends. pier of your Bussy or the sword and I cannot bear to read the end of ‘ Brage- shield of Kingsley’s Hereward. lonne,’ and to part vvith them for ever. They say your fencing is unhistorical; ‘ Suppose Porthos, Athos, and Aramis no doubt it is so, and you knew it. La should enter with a noiseless swagger, Mole could not have lunged on Cocon- curling their moustaches.’ Howwe would nas ‘after deceiving c ir c le for the parry welcome them, forgiving D ’Artagnan was not invented except by your immor­ even his hateful fourberie in the case of tal Chicot, a genius in advance of his Milady. The brilliance of your dialogue time. Even so Hamlet and Laertes has never been approached : there is wit would have fought with shields and axes, everywhere; repartees glitter and ring not with small swords. But what mat- like the flash and clink of small-swords. ters this pedantry ? In your works we Then what duels are yours! and what hear the Homèric Muse again, rejoicing inimitable battle-pieces ! I know four in the clash of steel; and even, at times, good fights of one against a multitude, your very phrases are unconsciously Ho­ in literature. These are the Death of merie. Gretir the Strong, the Death of Gunnar Look at these men of murder, on the of Lithend, the Death of Hereward the Eve of St. Bartholomew, who flee in ter­ Wake, the Death of Bussy d’Amboise. ror from the Queen’s chamber, and ‘ find W e can compare the strokes of the he­ the door too narrow for their flight:’ the roic fighting-times with those described very words were ánticipated in a line of in later days; and, upon my word, I do the ‘Odyssey’ concerning the massacre not know that the short sword of Gretir, of the Wooers. And the picture of or the bill of Skarphedin, or the bow of Catherine de Médicis, prowling ‘ like a 128 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS ALEXANDRE DUMAS 129 wolf among the bodies and the blood,’ in moment. The shadow of this tyranny a passage of the Louvre — the picture will soon be overpast; and when ‘ La is taken unwittingly from the ‘ Uiad.’ Curée ’ and ‘ Pot-Bouille ’ are more for- There was in you that reserve of primi­ gotten than ‘ Le Grand Cyrus,’ men and tive forcé, that epic grandeur and sim- women — and, above all, boys — will plicity of diction. This is the forcé that laugh and weep over the page of Alex­ animates ‘ Monte Cristo,’ the earlier andre Dumas. Like Scott himself, you chapters, the prison, and the escape. In take us captive in our childhood. I re- later volumes of that romance, methinks, member a very idle little boy who was you stoop your wing. Of your dramas I busy with the ‘Three Musketeers’ when have little room, and less skill, to speak. he should have been occupied with ‘ Wil- ‘Antony,’ they teli me, was ‘ the great- kins’s Latin Prose.’ ‘ Twenty years est literary event of its time,’ was a after’ (alas and more) he is still constant restoration of the stage. ‘ While Vic­ to that gallant company; and, at this tor Hugo needs the cast-off clothes of very moment, is breathlessly wondering history, the wardrobe and costume, the whether Grimaud will steal M. de Beau­ sepulchre of Charlemagne, the ghost of fort out of the Cardinal’s prison. Barbarossa, the coffins of Luçretia Bor- 9 gia, Alexandre Dumas requires no more than a room in an inn, where people meet in riding cloaks, to move the soul with the last degree of terror and of pity.’ The reproach of being amusing has somewhat dimmed your fame — for a THEOCRITUS 13* hast not forgotten, and perchance for po- ets dead there is prepared a place more beautiful than their dreams. It was well for the later minstrels of another day, it XIII. was well for Ronsard and Du Bellay to desire a dim Elysium of their own, where To TlieocrittiS. the sunlight comes faintly through the shadow of the earth, where the poplars * S w e e t , methinks, is the whisperíng sound of yonder pine-tree,’ so, Theocri­ are duskier, and the waters more pale tus, with that sweet word àèv, didst thou than in the meadows of Anjou. begin and strike the keynote of thy There, in that restful twilight, far re­ songs. ‘ Sweet,’ and didst thou find mote from war and plot, from sword and aught of sweet, when thou, like thy fire, and from religions that sharpened Daphnis, didst ‘ go down the stream, the Steel and lit the torch, there these when the whirling wave closed over the learned singers would fain have wan- man the Muses loved, the man not hated dered with their learned ladies, satiated of the Nymphs ? ’ Perchance belovv with life and in love with an unearthly those wàters of death thou didst find, quiet. But to thee, Theocritus, no twi­ like thine own Hylas, the lovely Nereids light of the Hollow Land was dear, but waiting thee, Eunice, and Malis, and the high suns of Sicily and the brown Nycheia with her April eyes. In the cheeks of the country maidens were House of Hades, Theocritus, doth there happiness enough. For thee, therefore, dwell aught that is fair, and can the low methinks, surely is reserved an Elysium light on the fields of asphodel make thee beneath the summer of a far-off system, forget thy Sicily ? Nay, methinks thou with stars not ours and alien seasons. 132 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS THEOCRITUS 133 There, as Bion prayed, shall Spring, tbe remembering his old thraldom with A d­ thrice desirable, be with thee the whole metus, would lead once more a mortal’s year through, where there is neither flocks, and listen and learn, Theocritus, frost, nor is the heat so heavy on nien, while thou, like thine own Comatas, but all is fruitful, and all sweet things ‘ didst sweetly sing.’ blossom, and evenly meted are darkness There, methinks, I see thee as in thy and dawn. Space is wide, and there be happy days, ‘ reclined on deep beds of many worlds, and suns enow, and the fragrant lentisk, lovvly strewn, and re- Sun-god surely has had a care of his joicing in new stript leaves of the vine, own. Little didst thou need, in thy na­ while far above thy head waved many a tive land, the isle of the three capes, lit­ poplar, many an elm-tree, and close at tle didst thou need but sunlight on land hand the sacred wàters sang from the and sea. Death can have shown thee mouth of the cavern of the nymphs/ naught dearer than the fragrant shadow And when night came, methinks thou of the pines, where the dry needles of wouldst flee from the merry company the fir are strewn, or glades where feath- and the dancing giris, from the fading ered ferns make ‘ a couch more soft crowns of roses or white violets, from than Sleep.’ The short grass of the the cottabos, and the minstrelsy, and the cliffs, too, thou didst love, where thou Bibline wine, from these thou wouldst wouldst lie, and watch, with the tunny slip away into the summer night. Then watcher till the deep blue sea was the beauty of life and of the summer broken by the burnished sides of the would keep thee from thy couch, and tunny shoal, and afoam with their gam- wandering away from Syracuse by the bols in the brine. There the Muses met sandhills and the sea, thou wouldst thee, and the Nymphs, and there Apollo, watch the low cabin, roofed with grass, 134 l e t t e r s t o d e ad a u t h o r s THEOCRITUS 135

where the fishing-rods of reed were lean- wheels of the quiet Night.’ Nay, surely ing against the door, while the Mediter- it was in such an hour that thou didst ranean floated up her waves, and filled behold the giri as she burned the laurel the waste with sound. There didst thou leaves and the barley grain, and melted see thine ancient fishermen rising ere the waxen image, and called on Selene the dawn from their bed of dry sea- to bring her lover home. Even so, even weed, and heardst them stirring, drowsy, now, in the islands of Greece, the set­ among their fishing gear, and heardst ting Moon may listen to the prayers of them teli their dreams. maidens. ‘ Bright golden Moon, that Or again thou wouldst wander with now art near the wàters, go thou and dusty feet through the ways that the salute my lover, he that stole my love, dust makes silent, while the breath of and that kissed me, saying “ Never will the kine, as they were driven forth with I leave thee.” And lo, he hath left me the morning, came fresh to thee, and as men leave a field reaped and gleaned, the trailing dewy branch of honeysuckle like a church where none cometh to struck sudden on thy cheek. Thou pray, like a city desolate.’ wouldst see the Dawn awake in rose So the giris still sing in Greece, for and saffron across the wàters, and Etna, though the Temples have fallen, and the grey and pale against the sky, and the wandering shepherds sleep beneath the setting crescent would dip strangely in broken columns of the god’s house in the glow, on her way to the sea. Then, Selinus, yet these ancient fires burn still methinks, thou wouldst murmur, like to the old divinities in the shrines of the thine own Simaetha, the love-lorn witch, hearths of the peasants. It is none of ‘ Farewell, Selene, bright and fair; fare- the new creeds that cry, in the dirge of well, ye other stars, that follow the the Sicilian shepherds of our time, ‘ Ah, 136 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS THEOCRITUS 137

Iight of mine eyes, what gift shall I send Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy thee, what offering to the other world ? throat — It failed, and thou wast mute! The apple fadeth, the quince decayeth, and one by one they perish, the pètals What hadst thou to make in cities, of the rose. I will send thee my tears and what could Ptolemies and Princes shed on a napkin, and what though it give thee better than the goat-milk burneth in the flame, if my tears reach cheese and the Ptelean wine ? Thy thee at the last.’ Muses were meant to be the delight of Yes, little is altered, Theocritus, on peaceful men, not of tyrants and wealthy these shores beneath the sun, where merchants, to whom they vainly went on thou didst wear a tawny skin stripped a begging errand. ‘ Who will open his from the roughest of he-goats, and about door and gladly receive our Muses within thy breast an oíd cloak buckled with a his house, who is there that will not plaited belt. Thou wert happier thcre, send them back again without a gift? in Sicily, methinks, and among vines And they with naked feet and looks and shadowy lime-trees of Cos, than in askance come homewards, and sorely the dust, and heat, and noise of Alex­ they upbraid me when they have gone andria. What love of fame, what lust of on a vain journey, and listless again in gold tempted thee away from the red the bottom of their empty coffer they cliffs, and grey olives, and wells of black dwell with heads bowed over their chilly water wreathed with maidenhair ? knees, where is their drear abode, when portionless they return.’ How far hap­ The music of thy rústic flute pier was the prisoned goat-herd, Coma­ Kept not for long its happy country tone ; Lost it too soon, and learned a stormy note tas, in the fragrant cedar chest where Of men contention tost, of men who groan, the blunt-faced bees from the meadow 138 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS THEOCRITUS 139

fed him with food of tender flowers, be- knew the shepherd’s life, the long winter cause still the Muse dropped svveet nights on dried heather by the fire, the nectar on his lips ! long summer days, when over the dry Thou didst leave the neat-herds and grass all is quiet, and only the insects the kine, and the oaks of Himera, the hum, and the shrunken burn whispers galingale hummed over by the bees, and a silver tune. Swains in high-heeled the pine that dropped her cones, and shoon, and lace, shepherdesses in rouge Amaryllis in her cave, and Bombyca and diamonds, the world is weary of all with her feet of carven ivory. Thou concerning them, save their images in soughtest the City, and strife with other porcelain, effigies how unlike the golden singers, and the learned write still on figures, dedicate to Aphrodite, of Bom­ thy quarrels with Apollonius and Calli­ byca and Battus. Somewhat, Theocritus, machus, and Antagoras of Rhodes. So thou hast to answer for, thou that first ancient are the hatreds of poets, envy, of nien brought the shepherd to Court, jealousy, and all unkindness. and made courtiers wild to go a Maying Not to the wits of Courts couldst thou with the shepherds. teach thy rural song, though all these centuries, more than two thousand years, they have laboured to vie with thee. There has come no new pastoral poet, though Virgil copied thee, and Pope, and Phillips, and all the buckram band of the teacup tim e; and all the modish swains of France have sung against thee, as the sou challenged Atheiie. They never EDGAR ALLAN POE I4I

merit too low ; and you, I think, are the only example of an American prophet almost without honour in his own coun­ try. XIV. The recent publication of a coid, care- ful, and in many respects admirable To Edgar Alian Poe. study of your career (‘ Edgar Alian Poe,’ S IR> Your English readers, better by George Woodberry : Houghton, Mif- acquainted with your poems and ro­ flin and Co., Boston) reminds English mances than with your criticisms, have readers who have forgotten it, and long wondered at the indefatigable ha- teaches those who never knew it, that tred which pursues your memory. You, you were, unfortunately, a Reviewer. who knew the men, will not marvel that How unhappy were the necessities, how certain microbes of letters, the survivors deplorable the vein, that compelled or of your own generation, still harass your seduced a man of your eminence into ñame with their malevolence, while oíd the dusty and stony ways of contempo- women twitter out their incredible and rary criticism ! About the writers of his heeded slanders in the literary papers own generation a leader of that genera­ of New York. But their persistent ani- tion should hold his peace. He should mosity does not quite suffice to explain neither praise ñor blame ñor defend his the dislike with which many American equals ; he should not strike one blovv critics regard the greatest poet, perhaps at the buzzing ephemeras of letters. The the greatest literary genius, of their breath of their life is in the columns of country. With a commendable patriot- ‘ Literary Gossip ; ’ and they should be ism, they are not apt to rate native allowed to perish with the weekly adver- 142 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS EDGAR ALLAN ROE 143 tisements on wbich they pasture. Re- After that declaration of war you died, viewing, of course, there must needs be ; and left your reputation to the vanities but great minds should only criticise the yet writhing beneath your scorn. They great who have passed beyond the reach are writhing and writing still. He who of eulogy or fault-finding. knows them need not linger over the Unhappily, taste and circumstances attacks and defences of your personal combined to make you a censor; you character; he will not waste time on vexed a continent, and you are stili un- calumnies, tale - bearing, prívate letters, forgiven. What ‘ irritation of a sensi­ and all the noisome dust which takes so tive nature, chafed by some indefinite long in settling above your tomb. sense of wrong,’ drove you (in Mr. Long- For us it is enough to know that you fellow’s own words) to attack his pure were compelled to live by your pen, and beneficent Muse we may never as- and that in an age when the author of certain. But Mr. Longfellow forgave ‘ To H elen’ and ‘ The Cask of Amontil- you easily; for pardon comes easily to lado ’ was paid at the rate of a dollar a the great. It was the smaller men, the column. When such poverty was the Daweses, Griswolds, and the like, that mate of such pride as yours, a misery knew not how to forget. ‘ The New more deep than that of Burns, an agony Yorkers never forgave him,’ says your longer than Chatterton’s, were inevitable latest biographer; and one scarcely mar- and assured. No man was less fortunate vels at the inveteracy of their malice. than you in the moment of his birth — It was not individual vanity alone, but infelix opportunitate vites. Had you lived the whole literary class that you assailed. a generation later, honour, wealth, ap­ ‘As a literary people,’ you wrote, ‘ we plause, success in Europe and at home, are one vast perambulating humbug.’ would all have been yours. Within 144 l e t t e r s t o d e a d a u t h o r s EDGAR ALLAN POE 145 thirty years so great a change has passed haust your theory, and so perfectly is over the profession of letters in America; the theory illustrated by the poems. and it is impossible to estimate the re- Natural bent, and reaction against the wards which would have fallen to Edarar example of Mr. Longfellow, combined Poe, had chance made him the contem- to make you too intolerant of what you porary of Mark Twain and of ‘ Called call the ‘ didàctic ’ element in verse. Back.’ It may be that your criticisms Even if morality be not seven-eighths helped to bring in the new era, and to of our life (the exact proportion as at lift letters out of the reach of quite un- present estimatedj, there was. a place lettered scribblers. Though not a scholar, even on the Hellenic Parnassus for at least you had a respect for scholar- gnomic bards, and theirs in the nature ship. You might still marvel over such of the case must always be the largest words a s ‘ objectional’ in the new biog- públic. raphy of yourself, and might ask what is ‘ Music is the perfection of the soul meant by such a sentence as ‘ his con- or the idea of poetry,’ so you wrote; nection with it had inured to his own * the vagueness of exaltation aroused by benefit by the freqüent puffs of himself,’ a sweet air (which should be indefinite and so forth. and never too strongly suggestive), is Best known in your own day as a precisely what we should aim at in po­ critic, it is as a poet and a writer of etry.’ You aimed at that mark, and short tales that you must live. But to struck it again and again, notably in discuss your few and elaborate poems ‘ Helen, thy beauty is to me,’ in ‘ The is a waste of time, so completely does Haunted Palace,’ ‘ The Valley of Unrest,’ your own brief definition of poetry, ‘ the and ‘ The City in the Sea.’ But by some rhythmic creation of the beautiful,’ ex­ Nemesis which might, perhaps, have IO 146 LETTERS TO DEAD AU TU ORS EDGAR ALLAN POE 147 been foreseen, you are, to the world, the «Odyssey ’ is not really inferior to ‘ Ula- poet of one poem — ‘ The Raven : ’ a lume,’ as it ought to be if your doctrine piece in which the music is highly arti­ of poetry were correct, ñor ‘ Le Festín ficial, and the ‘ exaltation ’ (what there is de Pierre’ to ‘ Undine.’ Yet you de- of it) by no means particularly ‘ vague.’ serve the praise of having been con­ So a portion of the públic know little of stant, in your poètic practice, to your Shelley but the ‘ Skylark,’ and those two poètic principies — principies commonly incongruous birds, the lark and the raven, deserted by poets who, like Wordsworth, bear each of them a' poet’s ñame vivi* have published their assthetic system. per ora virum. Your theory of poetry, Your pieces are few ; and Dr. Johnson if accepted, would make you (after the would have called you, like Fielding, ‘ a author of ‘ Kubla K h an ’) the foremost barren rascal.’ But how can a writer s of the poets of the world ; at no long dis- verses be numerous if with him, as with tance would come Mr. William Morris as you, ‘ poetry is not a pursuit but a pas- he was when he wrote ‘ Golden Wings,’ sion . . . which cannot at will be ex- -The Blue Closet, and ‘ The Sailing of cited with an eye to the paltry compen- the Sword ; and, cióse up, Mr. Lear, the sations or the more paltry commenda- author of ‘ The Yongi Bongi Bo,’ and tions of mankind! ’ Of you it may be the lay of the ‘ Jumblies.’ said, more truly than Shelley said it of On the other hand Homer would sink himself, that ‘ to ask you for anything into the limbo to which you consigned human, is like asking at a gin-shop for a Moliere. If we may judge a theory by leg of mutton.’ its results, when compared with the de­ Humanity must always be, to the ma- liberate verdict of the world, your ms- \ority of men, the true stuff of poetry , thetic does not seem to hold water. The and only a minority will thank you for 148 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS EDGAR ALLAN POE 149

that rare music which (like the strains your ultimate ideas is perhaps a profit- of the fiddler in the story) is touched on less digression from the topic of your a single string, and on an instrument prose romances. fashioned from the spoils of the grave. An English critic (probably a N ortV You chose, or you vvere destined erner at heart) has described them as ‘ Hawthorne and delirium tremens.’ I To vary from the ldndly race of men ; am not aware that extreme orderliness, and the consequences, which wasted your masterly elaboration, and unchecked life, pursue your reputation. progress towards a predetermined effect For your stories has been reserved a are characteristics of the visions of de­ boundless popularity, and that highest lirium. If they be, then there is a deal success the success of a perfectly sym- of truth in the criticism, and a good pathetic translation. By this time, of deal of delirium tremens in your style. course, you have made the acquaintance But your ingenuity, your completeness, of your translator, M. Charles Baudelaire, your occasional luxuriance of fancy and who so strenuously shared your views wealth of jewel-like words, are not, per­ about Mr. Emerson and the Transcen- haps, gifts which Mr. Hawthorne had at dentalists, and who so energetically re- his command. He was a great writer sisted all those ideas of ‘ progress’ which the greatest writer in prose fiction whom ‘ carne from Heli or Boston.’ On this America has produced. But you and he point, however, the world continues to have not much in common, except a cer- differ from you and M. Baudelaire, and tain mortuary turn of mind and a taste perhaps there is only the choice between for gloomy allegories about the workings °ur optimism and universal suicide or of conscience. universal opium-eating. But to discuss I forbear to anticipate your verdict 15° LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS

about the latest essays of American fic- tion. These by no means follow in the lines which you laid dovvn about brevity and the steady working to one single ef- fect. Piobably you would not be very tolerant (tolerance vvas not your leading virtue) of Mr. Roe, now your country- men’s favourite novelist. He is long, he is didàctic, he is eminently unin- spired. In the works of one who is, what you vvere called yourself, a Bos- tonian, you would admire, at least, the acute observation, the subtlety, and the unfailing distinction. But, destitute of humour as you unhappily but undeni- ably were, you would miss, I fear, the charm of ‘ Daisy Miller.’ You would ad- mit the unityof effect secured in ‘Wash­ ington Square,’ though that effect is as remote as possible from the terror of ‘ The House of Usher ’ or the vindic- tive triumph of ‘ The Cask of Amontil- lado.’ Farewell, farewell, thou sombre and solitary spirit: a genius tethered to the SIR WALTER SCOTT 153

out of all the rest, demand some hours of your society ? Who that ever med- dled with letters, what child of the irrita­ ble race, possessed even a tithe of your XV. simple manliness, of the heart that never knew a touch of jealousy, that envied no To Sir Walter Scott, Bart. man his laureis, that took honour and wealth as they came, but never would Rodono, St. Mary’s Loch: Sept. 8, 1885. have deplored them had you missed both and remained but the Border sportsman S ir, — In your biography it is re- and the Border antiquary ? corded that you not only won the favour Were the word ‘ genial ’ not so much of all men and women; but that a do­ profaned, were it not misused in easy mèstic fowl conceived an affection for good-nature, to extenuate lettered and you, and that a pig, by his will, had sensual indolence, that worn old term never been severed from your company. might be applied, above ali men, to ‘ the If some Circe had repeated in my case Shirra.’ But perhaps we scarcely need her favourite miracle of turning mortals a word (it would be seldom in use) for into swine, and had given me a choice, a character so rare, or rather so lonely, into that fortunate pig, blessed among in its nobility and charm as that of Wal­ his race, would I have been converted! ter Scott. Here, in the heart of your You, almost alone among men of letters, own country, among your owh grey stili, like a living friend, win and charm round-shouldered hilis (each so like the us out of the past; and if one might call other that the shadow of one falling on up a poet, as the scholiast tried to call its neighbour exactly outlines that neigh- Homer, from the shades, who would not, 154 l e t t e r s to d e ad aüthors S/R WALTER SCOTT 155 bour’s shape), it is of you and of your since the Reform Bill was passed, to the works that a native of the Forest is chivalrous cry of ‘ burke Sir Walter.’ most frequently brought in mind. All We are still very Radical in the Forest, the spirits of the river and the hill, all and you were taken away from many the dying refrains of bailad and the evils to come. How would the cheek of fading echoes of story, all the memory Walter Scott, or of Leyden, have blushed of the wild past, each legend of burn at the ñames of Majuba, The Soudan, and locb, seem to have combined to in- Maiwand, and many others that recali form your spirit, and to secure them- political cowardice or military incapac- selves an immortal life in your song. It ity ! On the other hand, who but you is through you that we remember them ; could have sung the dirge of Gordon, or and in recalling them, as in treading wedded with immortal verse the ñames each hillside in this land, we again re­ of Hamilton (who fell with Cavagnari), member you and bless you. of the two Stewarts, of many another It is not ‘ Sixty Years Since ’ the echo clansman, brave among the bravest ! of Tweed among his pebbles fell for the Only he who told how last time on your ea r; not sixty years The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood since, and how much is altered ! But two generations have passed ; the lad could have fitly rhymed a score of feats who used to ride from Edinburgh to of arms in which, as at M’Neill’s Zareeba Abbotsford, carrying new books for you, and at Abu Klea, and old, is still vending, in George Street, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well. old books and new. Of politics I have not the heart to speak. Little joy would Ah, Sir, the hearts of the rulers may you have had in most that has befallen wax faint, and the voting classes may 156 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS SIR WALTER SCOTT 157 forget that they are Britons ; but when costs money ; and, though improve- it comes to blows our fighting men might ments are often promised, I cannot see cry, with Leyden, much change for the better. Abbots- My name is little Jock Elliot, ford, luckily, is above Galashiels, and And wha daur meddle wi’ me! only receives the dirt and dyes of Sel­ kirk, Peebles, Walkerburn, and Inner- Much is changed, in the country-side as lethen. On the other hand, your ill- well as in the country ; but much re- 'omened later dwelling, ‘ the unhappy mains. The little towns of your time palace of your race,’ is overlooked by are populous and excessively black with villas that prick a cockney ear among the smoke of factories — not, I fear, at their larches, hotels of the future. Ah, present very fiourishing. In Galashiels Sir, Scotland is a strange place. Whisky y°u still see the little change-house and is exiled from some of our caravanserais, the cluster of cottages round the Laird’s and they have banished Sir John Barley- lodge, like the clachan of Tully Vedan. corn. It seems as if the views of the But these plain remnants of the old excellent critic (who wrote your life Scotch towns are almost buried in a lately, and said you had left no descend- multitude of ‘ smokydwarf houses ’ — a ants, le pauvre homme !) were beginning living poet, Mr. Matthew Arnold, has to prevail. This pious biographer was found the fitting phrase for these dwell- greatly shocked by that capital story ings, once for all. All over the Forest about the keg of whisky that arrived at -he wàters are dirty and poisoned : I the Liddesdale farmer’s during family :hink they are filthiest below H aw ick; prayers. Your Toryism also was an of- aut this may be mere local prejudice in fence to him. i. Selkirk man. To keep them clean Among these vicissitudes of things 158 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS STR WALTER SCOTT 159 and the overthrow of customs, let us be covered pastures from Dollar Law to thankful that, beyond the reach of the White Combe, and from White Combe manufacturers, the Border country re- to the Three Brethren Cairn and the mains as kind and homely as ever. I Windburg and Skelf-hill Pen. Yes, looked at Ashiestiel some days ago : the Teviotdale is pleasant still, and there is house seemed just as it may have been not a drop of dye in the water, purior when you left it for Abbotsford, only electro, of Yarrow. St. Mary's Loch lies there was a lawn-tennis net on the lawn, beneath me, smitten with wind and rain the hill on the opposite bank of the — the St. Mary’s of North and of the Tweed was covered to the crest with Shepherd. Only the trout, that see a turnips, and the burn did not sing below myriad of artificial flies, are shyer than the littie bridge, for in this arid suramer of yore. The Shepherd could no longer the burn was dry. But there was still fili a cart up Meggat with trout so much a grilse that rose to a big March brown of a size that the country people took in the shrunken stream below Elibank. them for herrings. This may not interest you, who styled The grave of Piers Cockburn is still yourself not desecrated : hard by it lies, within a No fisher, But a well-wisher littie wood; and beneath that slab of old To the game! sandstone, and the graven letters, and the sword and shield, sleep 1 Piers Cock­ Still, as when you were thinking over burn and Marjory his wife.’ Not a hun- Marmion, a man might have ‘ grand dred yards off was the castle-door where gallops among the hills ’ —• those grave they hanged him ; this is the tomb of wastes of heather and bent that sever the bailad, and the lady that buried him all the watercourses and roll their sheep- rests now with her wild lord. l6 o LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS S/R WALTER SCOTT l6l Oh, wat ye no my heart was sair; who owe so much to you, owe you most When I happit the mouls on his yellow hair; Oh, wat ye no my heart was wae, for the example you gave of the beauty When I turned about and went my way ! 1 of a life of honour, showing them what, Here too hearts have broken, and there by Heaven’s blessing, a Scotchman still is a sacredness in the shadow and be- might be. neath these clustering berries of the Words, empty and unavailing — for rowan-trees. That sacredness, that rev­ what words of ours can speak our erent memory of our old land, it is thoughts or interpret our affections ! always and inextricably blended with From you first, as we foliowed the deer our memòries, with our thoughts, with with King James, or rode with William our love of you. Scotchmen, methinks, of Deloraine on his midnight errand, did we learn what Poetry means and all the 1 Lord Napier and Ettrick points out to me that, happiness that is in the gift of song. unluckily, the tradition is erroneous. Piers was not executed at all. William Cockburn suffered inEdin- This and more than may be told you burgh. But the Border Minstrelsy overrides history. gave us, that are not forgetful, not un- Criminal Trials in Scotland, by Robert Pitcairn, grateful, though our praise be unequal Esq. Vol. i. part I. p. 144, A. D. 1530. 17 Jac. V. May 16. William Colcburne of Henderland, con- to our gratitude. Fungor inani munere! victed (in presence of the King) of high treason com- ii mitted by him in bringing Alexander Forestare and his son, Englishmen, to the plundering of Archibald Somervile ; and for treasonably bringing certain Englishmen to the lands of Glenquhome; and for common theft, common reset of theft, out-putting and in-putting thereof. Sentence. For which causes and crimes he has forfeited his life, lands, and goods, movable and immovable; which shall be escheated to the King. Beheaded. EUSEBIUS OF CFESAREA 163

Nevertheless, most worshipful, men do still dispute about the beginnings of those sinful Gods: such as Zeus, Athene, XVI. and Dionysus: and marvel how first they won their dominión over the souls of the To Eusebius o f Ccesarea. foolish peoples. Now, concerning these things there is not one belief, but many; (CONCERNING THE GODS OF THE HEATHEN.) howbeit, there are two main kinds of

T o u c h in g the Gods of the Heathen, opinión. One sect of philosophers be- most reverend Father, thou art not ig­ lieves — as thyself, with heavenly learn- norant that even now, as in the time of ing, didst not vainly persuade— that the thy probation on earth, there is great Gods were the inventions of wild and dissension. That these feigned Deities bestial folk, who, long before cities were and idols, the vvork of men’s hands, are builded or life was honourably ordained, no longer worshipped thou knowest ; fashioned forth evil spirits in their own neither do men eat meat offered to idols. savage likeness ; ay, or in the likeness Even as spoke that last Oracle which of the very beasts that perish. To this murmured forth, the latest and the only judgment, as it is set forth in thy Book true voice from Delphi, even so ‘ the fair- of the Preparation for the Gospel, I, wrought court divine hath fallen; no humble as I am, do give my consent. more hath Phoebus his home, no more But on the other side are many and his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of learned men, chiefly of the tribes of the water; nay, the sweet - voiced water is Alemanni, who have almost conquered silent.’ The fane is ruinous, and the the whole inhabited world. These, be- images of men’s idolatry are dust. ing unwilling to suppose that the Hel- 16 4 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS EUSEBIUS OF CESAREA 165 lenes were in bondage to superstitions even like the philosophers of the hea­ handed down from times of utter dark- then whom thou didst confound. For ness and a bestial life, do chiefly hold they declare the Gods to have been nat­ with the heathen philosophers, even ural elements, sun and sky and storm, with the writers whom thou, most ven­ even as did thy opponents j and, like erable, didst confound with thy wisdom them, as thou saidst, ‘ they are nowise and chasten with the scourge of small at one with each other in their explana- cords of thy wit. tions.1 bor of old some boasted that Thus, like the heathen, our doctors Hera was the A ir; and some that she and teachers maintain that the Gods of signified the love of woman and man , the nations were, in the beginning, such and some that she was the wàters above pure natural creatures as the blüe sky, the Earth ; and others that she was the the sun, the air, the bright dawn, and Earth beneath the wàters ; and yet oth­ the fire; but, as time went on, men, for- ers that she was the Night, for that getting the meaning of their own speech Night is the shadow of Earth: as if, and no longer understanding the tongue forsooth, the men who first worshipped of their own fathers, were misled and Hera had understanding of these things! beguiled into fashioning all those lam­ And when Hera and Zeus quarrel un- entable tales : as that Zeus, for love of seemly (as Homer declareth), this meant mortal women, took the shape of a bull, (said the learned in thy days) no more a ram, a serpent, an ant, an eagle, and' than the strife and confusión of the ele­ sinned in such wise as it is a shame ments, and was not in the beginning an even to speak of. idle slanderous tale. Behold, then, most worshipful, how To all which, most worshipful, thou these doctors and learned men argue, didst answer wisely: saying that Hera l6 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS EUSEBI US OF CAESAREA l6j

could not be both night, and earth, and learned men who stand to it that the water, and air, and the love of sexes, and heathen Gods were in the beginning the the confusión of the elements ; but that pure elements, and that the nations, for- all these opinions were vain dreams, and getting their first love and the signifi- the guesses of the learned And why cance of their own speech, became con- thou saidst — even if the Gods were fused and were betrayed into foul sto- pure natural creatures, are such foul ries about the pure Gods — these learned things told of them in the Mysteries as men, I say, agree no whit among them­ it is not fitting for me to declare. ‘ These selves. Nay, they differ one from an- wanderings, and drinkings, and loves, other, not less than did Plutarch and and corruptions, that would be shameful Porphyry and Theagenes, and the rest in men, why,’ thou saidst, ‘ were they whom thou didst laugh to scorn. Bear attributed to the natural elements ; and with me, Father, while I teli thee how wherefore did the Gods constantly show the new Plutarchs and Porphyrys do themselves, like the sorcerers called contend among themselves ; and yet were-wolves, in the shape of the perish- these differences of theirs they call ‘ Sci­ able beasts?’ But, mainly, thou didst ence ’ ! argue that, till the philosophers of the Consider the goddess Athene, who heathen were agreed among themselves, sprang armed from the head of Zeus, not all contradicting each the other, they even as — among the fables of the poor had no semblance of a sure foundation heathen folk of seas thou never knew- for their doctrine. est — goddesses are fabled to leap out To all this and more, most worshipful from the armpits or feet of their fathers. Father, I know not what the heathen Thou must know that what Plato, in the answered thee. But, in our time, the 'Cratylus,’ made Socrates say in jest, 16 8 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS EUSEBIUS OF CMS AREA 169

the learned among us praciise in sad of hundreds. We have dwelling in our earnest. For, when they wish to explain coasts Muellerus, the most erudite of the the nature of any God, they first examine doctors of the Alemanni, and the most his ñame, and torment the letters thereof, golden - mouthed. Concerning Athene, arranging and altering them according he saith that her name is none other to their will, and flying off to the speech than, in the ancient tongue of the Brach- of the Indians and Medes and Chaideans, manae, Ahanà, which, being interpreted, and other Baibarians, if Greek will not means the Dawn. ‘ And that the morn- serve their'turn. How saith Socrates? ing light,’ saith he, ‘ offers the best start- ‘ I bethink me of a very new and inge­ ing-point; for the later growth of Athene niolis idea that occurs to m e; and, if I has been proved, I believe, beyond the do not mind, I shall be wiser than I reach of doubt or even cavil.’ 1 should be by to-morrow’s davvn. My no- Yet this same doctor candidly iets us ti°n is that we may put in and pulí out know that another of his nation, the letters at pleasure and alter the accents.’ witty Benfeius, hath devised another Even so do our learned — not at pleas­ sense and origin of Athene, taken from ure, may be, but according to certain the speech of the old Medes. But Mu­ fixed laws (so they declare); yet none ellerus declares to us that whosoever the more do they agree among them- shall examine the contention of Benfeius selves. And I deny not that they dis- ‘ will be bound, in common honesty, to cover many things true and good to be confess that it is untenable.’ This, Fa- known ; but, as touching the ñames of ther, is ‘ one for Benfeius,’ as the saying the Gods, their learning, as it standeth, goes. And as Muellerus holds that these is confusión. Look, then, at the god- 1 ‘The Lesson of Júpiter.’ — Nineteenth Century, dess Athene : taking one example out October, 1885. 170 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA 171 matters ‘ admit of almost mathematical enough, comes one Roscherus in, with a precisión,’ it would seem that Benfeius is mighty great volume on the Gods, and but a Dummkopf, as the Alemanni say, Furtwaenglerus, among others, for his in their own language, when they would ally. And these doctors will neither be pleasant among themselves. with Rueckertus and Hermannus, take Now, wouldst thou credit it ? despite Athene for ‘ wisdom in person ; ’ nor the mathematical plainness of the facts, with Welckerus and Prellerus, for ‘ the other Alemanni agree neither with Muel- goddess of air; ’ nor even, with Muelle- lerus, nor yet with Benfeius, and will rus and mathematical certainty, for ‘ the neither hear that Athene was the Dawn, Morning-Red : ’ but they say that Athene nor yet that she is ‘ the feminine of the is the ‘ black thunder-cloud, and the Zend Thràetàna athwyàna.' Lo, you ! lightning that leapeth therefrom ’ ! I how Prellerus goes about to show that make no doubt that other Alemanni her name is drawn not from Ahanà and are of other minds : quot Alemanni tot the old Brachmanse, nor athwyàna and sent entice. the old Medes, but from ‘ the root aid, Yea, as thou saidst of the learned whence aWr¡p, the air, or ¿6, whence àvflos, heathen, O iS è yap aWr/Xon avpcfrwva v

cerning the Gods’— that manis railed atforhis ‘mean’ and ‘weak’ arguments. Was it thus, Father, that the heathen railed against thee ? But I must still believe, with thee, that these evil tales XVII. of the Gods were invented ‘ when man’s life was yet brutish and wandering ’ (as To Percy Bysshe Shelley. is the life of many tribes that even now S ir, — In your lifetime on earth you teli like tales), and were maintained in were not more than commonly curious honour of the later Greeks ‘ because as to what was said by ‘ the herd of none dared alter the ancient beliefs of mankind,’ if I may quote your own his ancestors.’ Farewell, Father; and phrase. It was that of one who loved all good be with thee, wishes thy well- his fellow-men, but did not in his less wisher and thy disciple. enthusiastic moments overestimate their virtues and their discretion. Removed so far away from our hubbub, and that world where, as you say, we ‘ pursue our serious folly as of oíd,’ you are, one may guess, but moderately concerned about the fate of your writings and your repu- tation. As to the first, you have some- where said, in one of your letters, that the final judgment on your mèrits as a poet is in the hands of posterity, and that you fear the verdict will be ‘ Guilty,’ 174 l e t t e r s t o d e ad a u t h o r s PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY 175 and the sentence ‘ Death.’ Such appre- inspire some of the jurors who from hensions cannot have been fixed or fre­ time to time make themselves heard in qüent in the mind of one whose genius your case. The ‘ Quarterly Review,’ I burned always with a clearer and stead- fear, is still unreconciled. It regards ier flarae to the last. The jury of which your attempts as tainted by the spirit of you spoke has m et: a mixed jury and a ‘The Liberal Movement in English Lit- merciful. The verdict is ‘ Well done,’ erature; ’ and it is impossible, alas! to and the sentence Immortality of Fame. maintain with any success that you were There have been, there are, dissenters ; a Throne and Altar Tory. At Oxford yet probably they will be less and less you are forgiven; and the old rooms heard as the years go on. where you let the oysters burn (was not One judge, or juryman, has made up your founder, King Alfred, once guilty his mind that prose was your true prov- of similar negligence ?) are now shown ince, and that your letters will outlive to pious pilgrims. your lays. I know not whether it was But Conservatives, ’t is rumoured, are the same or an equally well-inspired still averse to your opinions, and are be- crític, who spoke of your most perfect lieved to prefer to yours the works of lyrics (so Beau Brummell spoke of his the Reverend Mr. Keble, and, indeed, of ill-tied cravats) as ‘ a gallery of your fail- the clergy in general. But, in spite of ures.’ But the general voice does not all this, your poems, like the affections echo these utterances of a too subtle in- of the true lovers in Theocritus, are still tellect. A t a famous University (not ‘ in the mouths of all, and chiefly on the your own) once existed a band of men lips of the young.’ It is in your lyrics known as ‘ The Trinity Sniffers.’ Per- that you live, and I do not mean that haps the spirit of the sniffer may still every one could pass an examination in '176 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS PERCY B YSSHE . S H E L L E Y 1 77 the plot of ‘ Prometheus Unbound.’ Ah, not in the wastes of Speculation, Talking of this piece, by the way, a nor the sterile din of Politics, were ‘ the Cambridge crític finds that it reveáis in haunts meet for thee.’ Watching the you a hankering after life in a cave — yellow bees in the ivy bloom, and the doubtless an unconsciously inherited reflected pine forest in the water-pools, memory from cave-man. Speaking of watching the sunset as it faded, and the cave-man reminds me that you once dawn as it fired, and weaving all fair spoke of deserting song for prose, and and fleeting things into a tissue where of producing a history of the moral, in­ light and music were at one, that was tel·lectual, and political elements in hu­ the task of Shelley ! ‘To ask you for man society, which, we now agree, be- anything human,’ you said, ‘ was like gan, as Asia would fain have ended, in a asking for a leg of mutton at a gin- cave. shop.’ Nay, rather, like asking Apollo Fortunately you gave us ‘Adonais’ and Hebe, in the Olympian abodes, to and ‘ Helias’ instead of this treatise, and give us beef for ambrosia, and port for we have now successfully written the nectar. Each poet gives what he has, natural history of Man for ourselves. and what he can offer; you spread be­ Science tells us that before becoming a fore us fairy bread, and enchanted wine, cave-dweller he was a Brute; Experience and shall we turn away, with a sneer, be- daily proclaims that he constantly re- cause, out of all the multitudes of sing- verts to his original condition. L'homme ers, one is spiritual and strange, one has est un méchant animal, in spite of your seen Artemis unveiled ? One, like A n ­ boyish efforts to add pretty girls ‘ to the chises, has been beloved of the Goddess, list of the good, the disinterested, and and his eyes, when he looks on the com- the free.’ mon world of common men, are, like the 12 178 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLE Y 1 7 9 eyes of Anchises, blind with excess of in Rússia exactly the qualities which light. Let Shelley sing of what he saw, you recognised and described. We have what none saw but Shelley ! a great statesman whose methods and Notwithstanding the popularity of eloquence somewhat resemble those you your poems (the most romàntic of things attribute to Laon and Prince Athanase. didàctic), our world is no better than the Alas ! he is a youth of more than sev- world you knew. This will disappoint enty summers ; and not in his time will you, who had ‘ a passion for reforming it.’ Prometheus retire to a cavem and pass Kings and priests are very much where a peaceful millennium in twining buds you left them. True, we have a poet and beams. who assails them, at large, frequently In domèstic affairs most of the Re- and fearlessly; yet Mr. Swinburne has forms you desired to see have been car- never, like ‘ kind Hunt,’ been in prison, ried. Ireland has received Emancipa- nor do we fear for him a charge of trea- tion, and almost everything else she can son. Moreover, Chemical Science has ask for. I regret to say that she is still discovered new and ingenious ways of unhappy ; her wounds unstanched, her destroying principalities and powers. wrongs unforgiven. A t home we have You would be interested in the methods, enfranchised the paupers, and expect but your peaceful Revolutionism, which the most happy results. Paupers (as disdained physical forcé, would regret Mr. Gladstone says) are ‘ our own flesh their application. and blood,’ and, as we compel them to Our foreign affairs are not in a state be vaccinated, so we should permit them which even you would consider satisfac- to vote. Is it a dream that Mr. Jesse tory; for we have just had to contend Collings (how you would have loved that with a Revolt of Islam, and we still find man !) has a Bill for extending the price- l8o LETTERS TO D E AD AUTHORS PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY l8l less boon of the vote to inmates of Pau­ your weaker admirers are now disputing per Lunatic Asylums ? This may prove as to whether it was your heart, or a less that last element in the Elixir of po- dignified and most troublesome organ, litical happiness which we have long which escaped the flames of the funeral sought in vain. Atheists, you vvill regret pyre. These biographers fight terribly to hear, are stili unpopular; but the new among themselves, and vainly prolong Parliament has done something for Mr. the memory of ‘ old unhappy far - off Bradlaugh. You should have knovvn our things, and sorrows long ago.’ Let us Charles while you vvere in the ‘ Queen leave them and their squabbles over what Mab ’ stage. I fear you wandered, later, is unessential, their raking up of old let- from his robust condition of intel·lectual ters and old stories. development. The town has lately yawned a weary A s to your private life, many biogra- laugh over an enemy of yours, who has phers contrive to make públic as much produced two heavy volumes, styled by of it as possible. Your name, even in him ‘ The Real Shelley.’ The real Shel- life, was, alas ! a kind of ducdame to ley, it appears, was Shelley as conceived bring people of no very great sense into of by a worthy gentleman so prejudiced your circle. This curious fascination has and so skilled in taking up things by the attracted round your memory a feeble wrong handle that I wonder he has not folk of commentators, biographers, anec- made a name in the exact Science of dotists, and others of the tribe. They Comparative Mythology. He criticises swarm round you like carrion-flies round you in the spirit of that Christian Apol- a sensitive piant, like night-birds bewil- ogist, the Englishman who called you ‘ a dered by the sun. Men of sense and damned Atheist ’ in the post-office at taste have written on you, indeed ; but Pisa. He finds that you had ‘ a little i 82 l e t t e r s t o d e ad a u t h o r s PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 183

turned-up nose,’ a feature no less impor­ prived of those sights which alone (says tant in his system than was the nose of the nameless Greek) make life worth en- 'Cleopatra (according to Pascal) in the during. In your verse he will have sight history of the world. To be in harmony of sky, and sea, and cloud, the gold of vvith your nose, you were a ‘ phenome- dawn and the gloom of earthquake and nal ’ liar, an ill-bred, ill-born, profligate, eclipse. He will be face to face, in partly insane, an evil-tempered monster, fancy, with the great powers that are a self-righteous person, full of self-appro- dead, sun, and ocean, and the illimitable bation — in fact you were the Beast of azure of the heavens. In Shelley’s po­ this pious Apocalypse. Your friend Dr. etry, while Man endures, all those will Lind was an embittered and scurrilous survive; for your ‘ voice is as the voice apothecary, ‘ a bad oíd man.’ But enough of winds and tides,’ and perhaps more of this inopportune brawler. deathless than all of these, and only per- For Humanity, of which you hoped ishable with the perishing of the human such great things, Science predicts ex- spirit. tinction in a night of Frost. The sun will grow cold, slowly — as slowly as doom came on Júpiter in your ‘ Prome­ theus, but as surely. If this nightmare be fulfilled, perhaps the Last Man, in some fetid hut on the ice-bound Equa­ tor, will read, by a fading lamp charged with the dregs of the oil in his cruse, the poetry of Shelley. So reading, he, the latest of his race, will not wholly be de- MONSIEUR DE MOLIÈRE 1 8 5

nees, or so he fancied, ceased to exist; by a more magnificent conquest you overcame the Channel. If England vanquished your country’s arms, it was XVIII. through you that France ferum victorem cepit, and restored the dynasty of Com­ To Monsieur de Molière, Valet de Cham­ edy to the land whence she had been bre du R oí. driven. Ever since Dryden borrowed ‘ L ’Etourdi,’ our tardy apish nation has M o n s ie u r , — With what awe does a lived (in matters theatrical) on the spoils writer venture into the presence of the great Molière ! As a courtier in your of the wits of France. In one respect, to be sure, times and time vvould scratcb humbly (with his manners have altered. While you lived, comb!) at the door of the Grand Mon- arch, so I presume to draw near your taste kept the French drama puré ; and it was the congenial business of English dwelling among the Immortals. You, playwrights to foist their rustic gross- like the king who, among ali his titles, ness and their large Fescennine jests has now none so proud as that of the into the urban page of Molière. Now friend of Molière — you found your do- they are diversely occupied; and it is minions small, humble, and distracted ; you raised them to the dignity of an em­ their affair to lend modesty where they borrow wit, and to spare a blush to the pire : what Louis XIV. did for France cheek of the Lord Chamberlain. But you achieved for French comedy; and the baton of Scapin still wields its sway still, as has ever been our wont since Etherege saw, and envied, and imitated though the svvord of Louis was broken at Blenheim. For the King the Pyre- your successes— still we pilfer the plays 18 6 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS MONSIEUR DE MOLIÈRE 1 8 7

of F ranee, and take our bien, as you said Terence, if you ‘let no musty bonquin in your lordly manner, wherever we can escape you ’ (so your enemies declared), find it. We are the privateers of the it was to some purpose that you laboured. stage; and it is rarely, to be sure, that a Shakespeare excepted, you eclipsed all comedy pleases the town which has not who came before you ; and from those first been ‘ cut out ’ from the country- that follow, ’nowever fres.h, we turn : we men of Molière. Why this should be, turn from Regnard and Beaumarchais, and what ‘ tenebriferous star’ (as Para- from Sheridan and Goldsmith, from Mus­ celsus, your companion in the ‘ Dia­ set and Pailleron and Labiche, to that logues des Morts,’ would have believed) crowded world of your creations. ‘ Cre- thus darkens the sun of English humour, ations ’ one may well say, for you antici- we know not; but certainly our depend- pated Nature herself: you gave us, be­ ence on France is the sincerest tribute fore she did, in Alceste a Rousseau who to you. Without you, neither Rotrou, was a gentleman not a lacquey; in a mot nor Corneille, nor ‘ a wilderness of mon- of Don Juan’s, the secret of the new Re­ keys ’ like Scarron, could ever have ligión and the watchword of Comte, given Comedy to France and restored l'amour de I''humanité. her to Europe. Before you where can we find, save While we owe to you, Monsieur, the in Rabelais, a Frenchman with humour; beautiful advent of Comedy, fair and and where, unless it be in Montaigne, beneficent as Peace in the play of Aris­ the wise philosophy of a secular civilisa- tophanes, it is still to you that we must tion ? With a heart the most tender, turn when of comedies we desire the delicate, loving, and generous, a heart best. If you studied with daily and often in agony and torment, you had to nightly care the works of Plautus and make Ufe endurable (we cannot doubt it) l 8 8 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS MONSIEUR DE MOLIÈRE 189

without any whisper of promise, or hope, that was most fleeting and unsubstan- or warning from Religión. Yes, in an tial — in divertissemetit; in the pleas- age when the greatest mind of all, the ure of looking on, a spectator of the ac­ mind of Pascal, proclaimed that the only cidents of existence, an observer of the help was in voluntary blindness, that the follies of mankind. Like the Gods of the only chance was to hazard all on a bet Epicurean, you seem to regard our life at evens, you, Monsieur, refused to be as a play that is played, as a comedy; blinded, or to pretend to see what you yet how often the tràgic note comes in ! found invisible. What pity, and in the laughter what In Religión you beheld no promise of an accent of tears, as of rain in the help. When the Jesuits and Jansenists wind! No comedian has been so kindly of your time saw, each of them, in Tar- and human as you ; none has had a tufe the portrait of their rivals (as each heart, like you, to feel for his butts, and of the laughable Marquises in your play to leave them sometimes, in a sense, su­ conceived that you were girding at his perior to their tormentors. Sganarelle, neighbour), you all the while were mock- M. de Pourceaugnac, George Dandin, ing every credulous excess of Faith. In and the rest — our sympathy, somehow, the sermons preached to Agnès we is with them, after a ll; and M. de Pour­ surely hear your prívate laughter; in ceaugnac is a gentleman, despite his the arguments for credulity which are misadventures. presented to Don Juan by his valet we Though triumphant Youth and mali- listen to the eternal self-defence of su- cious Love in your plays may batter and perstition. Thus, desolate of belief, you defeat Jealousy and Oíd Age, yet they sought for the permanent element of life have not all the victory, or you did not — precisely where Pascal recognised all mean that they should win it. They go I 9 0 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS MONSIEUR DE MOLIÈRE 191

off with laughter, and their victim with the comedies of the Contemplateur, of a grimace ; but in him we, that are past the translator of Lucretius, are a philos­ our youth, behold an actor in an unending ophy of life in themselves, and that in tragedy, thedefeat of ageneration. Your them we read the lessons of human ex­ sympathy is not wholly with tbe dogs perience writ small and clear. that are having their day ; you can throw What comedian but Molière has com- a bone or a crust to the dog that has had bined with such depths — with the indig- his, and has been taught that it is over nation of Alceste, the self-deception of and ended. Yourself not unlearned in Tartufe, the blasphemy of Don Juan — shame, in jealousy, in endurance of the such wildness of irresponsible mirth, wanton pride of men (how could the such humour, such wit ! Even now, poor player and the husband of Célimène when more than two hundred years have be untaught in that experience ?), you sped by, when so much water has flowed never sided quite heartily, as other com- under the bridges and has borne away edians have done, with young prosperity so many trifles of contemporary mirth and rank and power. (cetera fluminis ritu feruntur), even now I am not the first who has dared to we never laugh so well as when Masca- approach you in the Shades ; for just rille and Vadius and M. Jourdain tread after your own death the author of ‘ Les the boards in the Maison de Molière. Dialogues des Mojts ’ gave you Paracel- Since those mobile dark brows of yours sus as a companion, and the author of ceased to make men laugh, since your ‘ Le Jugement de Pluton ’ made the voice denounced the ‘ demoniac’ man- ‘ mighty warder ’ decide that ‘ Moliere ner of contemporary tragedians, I take should not talk philosophy.’ These wri- leave to think that no player has been ters, like most of us, feel that, after all, more worthy to wear the canons of Mas- IQ2 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS MONSIEUR DE MOLIÈRE 193

carille or the gown of Vadius than M. was numbered 15 not 22, is eagerly seized Coquelin of the Comédie Française. In and discussed by your too minute his- him you have a successor to your Mas- torians. Concerning your private life, carille so perfect, that the ghosts of play- these men often write more like mali- goers of your date might cry, eould they cious enemies than friends; repeating see him, that Molière had come again. the fabulous scandals of Le Boulanger, But, with all respect to the efforts of the and trying vainly to support them by fair, I doubt if Mdlle. Barthet, or Mdme. grubbing in dusty parish registers. It Croizette herself, would reconcile the is most necessary to defend you from town to the loss of the fair De Brie, and your friends— from such friends as the Madeleine, and the first, the true Céli- veteran and inveterate M. Arsène Hous- mène, Armande. Yet had you ever so saye, or the industrious but puzzle- merry a soubrette as Mdme. Samary, so headed M. Loiseleur. Truly they seek exquisite a Nicole ? the living among the dead, and the im­ Denounced, persecuted, and buried mortal Molière among the sweepings of hugger-mugger two hundred years ago, attorneys’ offices. A s I regard them you are now not over-praised, but more (for I have tarried in their tents) and as worsbipped, with more servility and os- I behold their trivialities — the exercises tentation, studied with more prying cu- of men who neglect Molière’s works to riosity than you may approve. Are not write about Molière’s great-grandmoth- the Molièristes a body who carry adora- er’s second-best bed—-I sometimes wish tion to fanaticism ? Any scrap of your that Molière were here to write on his handwriting (so few are these), any an- devotees a new comedy, ‘ Les Molièr­ ecdote even remotely touching on your istes.’ How fortunate were they, Mon- life, any fact that may prove your house sieur, who lived and worked with you, *3 194 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS who saw you day by day, who were at- tached, as Lagrange telis us, by the kindest loyalty to the best and most hon- ourable of men, the most open-handed in XIX. friendship, in charity the most delicate, of the heartiest sympathy! Ah, that To Robert Bums. for one day I could behold you, writing in the study, rehearsing on the stage, S ir, — Among men of Genius, and es- musing in the lace-seller’s shop, strolling pecially among Poets, there are sorae to through the Palais, turning over the new whom we turn with a peculiar and un- books at Billaine’s, dusting your ruffles feigned affection ; there are others whom among the old volumes on the sunny we admire rather than love. By some stalls. Would that, through the ages, we are won with our will, by others con- we could hear you after su'pper, merry quered against our desire. It has been with Boileau, and with Racine, — not your peculiar fortune to capture the yet a traitor,— laughing over Chapelain, hearts of a whole people — a people not combining to gird at him in an epigram, usually prone to praise, but devoted with or mocking at Cotin, or talking your a personal and patriòtic loyalty to you favourite philosophy, mindful of Des­ and to your reputation. In you every cartes. Surely of all the wits none was Scot who is a Scot sees, admires, and ever so good a man, none ever made life compliments Himself, his ideal self — so rich with humour and friendship. independent, fond of whisky, fonder of the lassies ; you are the true represen- tative of him and of his nation. Next year will be the hundredth since the I 9 6 L E T T E R S TO DE AD AUTHORS ROBERT BURNS 197 press of Kilmarnock brought to light its Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware solitary masterpiece, your Poems ; and That jaups in luggies; But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer, next year, therefore, raethinks, the rev- Gie her a Haggis I enue will receive a welcome accession from the abundance of whisky drunk in You have given her a Haggis, with a your honour. It is a cruel thing for any vengeance, and her ‘ gratefu’ prayer ’ is of your countrymen to feel that, where yours for ever. But if even an eternity all the rest love, he can only admire ; of partridge may pall on the epicure, so where all the rest are idolators, he may of Haggis too, as of all earthly delights, not bend the knee; but stands apart and cometh satiety at last. And yet what a beats upon his breast, observing, not glorious Haggis it is — the more em- adoring — a critic. Y et to some of us — phatically rústic and even Fescennine petty souls, perhaps, and envious — that part of your verse! We have had many loud indiscriminating praise of ‘ Robbie a rural bard since Theocritus ‘ watched Burns ’ (for so they style you in their the visionary flocks,’ but you are the Change-house familiarity) has long been only one of them all who has spoken the ungrateful ; and, among the treasures of sincere Doric. Yours is the talk of the your songs, we venture to select and byre and the plough-tail; yours is that even to reject. So it must be! We can- large utterance of the early hinds. Even not all love Haggis, nor ‘ painch, tripe, Theocritus minees matters, save where and thairm,’ and all those rural dainties Lacon and Comatas quite outdo the which you celebrate as ‘ warm-reekin, swains of Ayrshire. ‘ But thee, Theoc­ rich ! ’ ‘ Rather too rich,’ as the Young ritus, wha matches ? ’ you ask, and your- Lady said on an occasion recorded by self out-match him in this wide rude re­ Sam Weller. gión, trodden only by the rural Muse. ROBERT BURNS 199 I9 8 L E T T E R S TO D E AD AUTHORS ‘ Thy rural loves are nature’s sel’ ; ’ and ance, your shame and your scorn. You the wooer of Je an Armour speaks more spoke the truth about rural lives and like a true shepherd than the elegant loves. We may like it or dislike i t ; but Daphnis of the ‘ Oaristys.’ we cannot deny the verity. Indeed it is with this that moral crít­ Was it not as unhappy a thing, Sir, ics of your life reproach you, forgetting for you, as it was fortunate for Letters perhaps, that in your amours you were and for Scotland, that you were born at but as other Scotch ploughmen and the meeting of two ages and of two shepherds of the past and present Et- worlds — precisely in the moment when tnck may stili, with Afghanistan, offer bookish literature was beginning to reach matter for idylls, as Mr. Carlyle (your the people, and when Society was first antithesis, and the complement of the learning to admit the low-born to her Scotch character) supposed ; but the Minor Mysteries ? Before you how many morals of Ettrick are those of rural Sic- singers not less truly poets than yourself ily in old days, or of Mossgiel in your — though less versatile not less passion- days. Over these matters the Kirk, ate, though less sensuous not less simple with all her power, and the Free Kirk — had been born and had died in poor too, have had absolutely no influence mens cottages ! There abides not even whatever. To leave so delicate a topic the shadow of a name of the old Scotch you were but as other swains, or, as song-smiths, of the old bailad - makers. that Birkie ca’d a lord,’ Lord Byron • The authors of ‘ Clerk Saunders.’ of only you combined (in certain of your ‘ The Wife of Usher’s Well,’ of ‘ Fair letters) a libertine theory with your prae­ Annie,’ and ‘ Sir Patrick Spens,’ and fice p you poured out in song your auda- 'The Bonny Hind,’ are as unknown to Cious raptures, your half-hearted repent- us as Homer, whom in their direetness 200 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS ROBERT BURNS 201

and forcé they resemble. Tbey never, been unwritten or unknown. To the perhaps, gave tbeir poems to writing • world what a loss ! and what a gain to certainly they never gave them to the you! We should have possessed but a press. On the lips and in the hearts of few of your lyrics, as the people they have their lives; and When o’er the hill the eastern star the singers, aftér a life obscure and un- Telis bughtin-time is near, my jo ; troubled by society or by fame, are for- And owsen frae the furrowed field, Return sae dowf and wearie O ! gotten. ‘ The Iniquity of Oblivion blindly scattereth his Poppy.’ How noble that is, how natural, how un- Had you been born some years earlier consciously G reek! You found, oddly, you would have been even as these un- in good Mrs. Barbauld, the mèrits of the named Immortals, leaving great verses Tenth Muse: to a little clan — verses retained only by In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives Memory. You would have been but the Even Sappho’s fíame ! minstrel of your native valley: the wider But how unconsciously you remind us World would not have known you, nor both of Sappho and of Homer in these you the world. Great thoughts of inde- strains about the Kvening Star and the pendence and revolt would never have hour when the Day yuereiiWero (3ov\v- burned in you ; indignation would not róiSs? Had you lived and died the pas­ have vexed you. Society would not have toral poet of some silent glen, such lyr­ given and denied her caresses. You ics could not but have survived ; free, would have been happy. Your songs too, of all that in your songs reminds us would have lingered in all ‘ the circle of of the Poet’s Còrner in the ‘ Kirkcud- the summer hills ; ’ and your scorn, your bright Advertiser.’ We should not have satire, your narrative verse, would have read how 202 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS ROBERT BURNS 203

Phoebus, gilding the brow o’ morning, powerful, so commanding, is the move- Banishes ilk darksome shade ! ment of that Beggars’ Chorus, that, me- Stili we might keep a love-poem unex- thinks, it unconsciously echoed in the celled by Catullus, brain of our greatest living poet when he conceived the Vision of Sin. You Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, shali judge for yourself. R ecali: Never met — or never parted, Iíere ’s to budgets, bags, and wallets ! We had ne’er been broken-hearted. l·lere ’s to all the wandering train ! Here ’s our ragged bairns and callets ! But the letters to Clarinda would have One and all cry out, Amen ! been unwritten, and the thrush would have been untaught in ‘ the style of the A fig for those by law protected ! Bird of Paradise.’ Liberty ’s a glorious feast! Courts for cowards were erected ! A quiet life of song, fallentis semita Churches built to please the priest! vita, was not to be yours. Fate other- Then read this : wise decreed it. The touch of a lettered society, the strife with the Kirk, discon- Drink to lofty hopes that cool — Visions of a perfect state : tent with the State, poverty and pride, Drink we, last, the públic fool, neglect and success, were needed to Frantic love and frantic hate. make your Genius what it was, and to endow the world with ‘ Tam o’ Shanter,’ Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, the ‘ Jolly Beggars,’ and ‘ Ploly Willie’s While we keep a little breath! Brayer.’ Who can praise them too Drink to heavy Ignorance Hob and nob with brother Death ! highly — who admire in them too much the humour, the scorn, the wisdom, the Is not the movement the same, though unsurpassed energy and courage ? So the modern speaks a wilder reckless- ness ? 204 l e t t e r s to d e a d au th o rs

So in the best company we leave you, who were the life and soul of so much company, good and bad. No poet, since the Psalmist of Israel, ever gave tbe world more assurance of a man ; none XX. lived a life more strenuous, engaged in an eternal conflict of the passions, and To Lord Byron. by them overeóme— ‘ mighty and might- My L ord, ily fallen.’ When we think of you, By- (Do you remember how Leigh ron seems, as Plato would have said, re- Hunt mote by one degree from actual truth, Enraged you once by writing My dear and Musset by a degree more remote than Byron. Byron ?) Books have their fates, — as mortals have who punt, And yours have entered on an age of iron. Critics there be who think your satin blunt, Your pathos, fudge ; such perils must environ Poets who in their time were quite the rage, Though now there’s not a soul to turn their page. 2 o 6 l e t t e r s t o d e ad a u t h o r s LORD BYRON. 207

Yes, there is much dispute about your The hero ’s still the model ; I indite worth, The kind of rhymes that Byron oft would And much is said which you might write. like to know By modern poets here upon the earth, There’s a Swiss crític whom I cannot Where poets live, and love each other rhyme to, so ; One Scherer, dry as sawdust, grim And, in Elysium, it may move your and prim. mirth Of him there’s much to say, if I had To bear of bards that pitch your time to praises low, Concern myself in any wise with him. Though there be some that for your He seems to hate the heights he cannot credit stickle, climb to, A s — Glorious Mat, — and not inglori- He thinks your poetry a coxcomb’s ous Nichol. whim, A good deal of his sawdust he has spilt This kind of writing is my pet aversión, on I hate the slang, I hate the personali- Shakspeare, and Molière, and you, and ties, Milton. I loathe the aimless, reckless, loose dis­ persión, Ay, much his temper is like Vivien’s Of every rhyme that in the singer’s mood, wallet is, Which found not Galahad pure, nor I hate it as you hated the Excursión, Lancelot brave; But, while no man a hero to his valet Coid as a hailstorm on an April wood, is, He buries poets in an icy grave, LORD BYRON 2 0 9 2 0 8 l e t t e r s t o d e ad a u t h o r s

His Essays — he of the Genevan hcod! Poètic, in this later age of ours Nothing so good, but better doth he His song, a torrent from a mountain crave. source, So stupid and so solemn in his spite Clear as the crystal, singing with the He dares to print that Molière could not showers, write ! Sweeps to the sea in unrestricted course Through banks o’erhung with rocks Enough of these excursions ; I was say- and sweet with flowers ; ing None of your brooks that modestly me- That half our English Bards are turned ander, Reviewers, But swift as Awe along the Pass of And Arnold was discussing and assay- Brander. ing The weight and valué of that work of And when our century has clomb its yours, crest, Examining and testing it and weighing, And backward gazes o’er the plains of And proved, the genis are pure, the Time, gold endures. And counts its harvest, yours is still the While Swinburne cries with an exceed- best, ing joy, The richest garner in the field of The stones are paste, and half the gold, rhyme alloy. (The metaphoric mixture, ’t is confest, Is all my own, and is not quite sub­ In Byron, Arnold finds the greatest lime). forcé, But fame’s not yours alone ; you must divide all LORD BYRO N 2 1 1 210 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS And on Parnassus’ peak, divinely cloven, The plums and pudding with the Bard of R ydal! He may not stand, or stands by cruel wrong; For Byron’s rank (the Examiner has W ordsworth and Byron, these the lordly ñames reckoned) And these the gods to whom most in­ Is in the third class or a feeble second. cense burns. ‘ Absurd ! ’ cries Swinburne, and in an- / A Bernesque poet ’ at the very most, ger flames, And never earnest save in polítics And in an yEschylean fury spurns The Pegasus that he was wont to boast A blundering, floundering hackney, With impious foot your altar, and ex- claims full of tricks, A beast that must be driven to the post And wreathes his laureis on the golden urns By whips and spurs and oaths and Where Coleridge’s and Shelley’s ashes kicks and sticks, lie, A gasping, ranting, broken-winded brute, Deaf to the din and heedless of the cry. That any judge of Pegasi would shoot;

In sooth, a half-bred Pegasus, and far For Byron (Swinburne shouts) has never woven gone One honest thread of life within his In spavin, curb, and half a hundred song; woes. As Offenbach is to divine Beethoven And Byron’s style is ‘ jolter-headed jar- So Byron is to Shelley (T his is gon ; ’ strong!), His verse is * only bearable in prose. 212 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS LORD BYRO N 213

So living poets write of those that are Long is the argument, the quarrel gone, long; And o’er the Eagle thus the Bantam Non nobis est to settle tantas lites ; crows; No poet I, to judge of right or wrong: And Swinburne ends where Verisopht But of all things I always think a fight began, is By owning you ‘a very clever man.’ The most unpleasant in the lists of song; Or rather does not end : he still must When Marsyas of old was flayed, Apollo utter Set an example which we need not A quantity of the unkindest things. follow. Ah ! were you here, I marvel, would you flutter The fashion changes ! Maidens do not O er such a foe the tempest of your wear, wings ? A s once they wore, in necklaces and T is ‘rant and cant and glare and splash lockets and splutter ’ A curi ambrosial of Lord Byron’s hair; That rend the modest air when Byron ‘ Don Juan ’ is not always in our pock- sings. ets — There Swinburne stops : a crític rather Nay, a N e w W r i t e r ’s readers do not care fiery. Much for your verse, but are inclined A n im is caelestibus tantcene irce ? to mock its Manners and morals. Ay, and most But whether he or Arnold in the right young ladies is, To yours prefer the ‘ E pic’ called ‘ of Hades’ ! 214 LEl'TERS TO DEAD AUT/IORS LORD BYR O N 215

I do not blame them; I ’m inclined to Like him at length thy peace dost think thou inherit ; That with the reigning taste ’t is vain Beholding whom, men think how fairer to quarrel, far And Burns might teach his votaries to Than all the steadfast stars the wander- drink, ing star!1 And Byron never meant to make them moral. i Mr. Swinburne’s and Mr. Arnold’s diverse views of Byron will be found in the Selectious by Mr. Arnold You yet have lovers true, who will not and in the Nineteenth Century. shrink k rom lauding you and giving you the laurel; The Germans too, those men of blood and iron, Of all our poets chiefly swear by Byron.

Farewell, thou Titan fairer than the gods ! Farewell, farewell, thou swift and lovely spirit, Thou splendid warrior with the world at odds, Unpraised, unpraisable, beyond thy m erit; Chased, like Orestes, by the furies’ rods, OMAR KHAYYÁM 2 1 7

You were a Saint of unbelieving days, Liking your Life and happy in men s Praise; XXI. Enough for you the Shade beneath the Bough, To Omar Khayyám. Enough to watch the wild World go its Ways. W is e Omar, do the Southern Breezes fling Dreadless and hopeless thou of Heaven Above your Grave, at ending of the Spring, or Hell, Careless of Words thou hadst not Skill The Snowdrift of the petáis of the Rose, to spell, Content to know not all thou knowest The wild vvhite Roses you were wont to sing ? now, What ’s Death ? Doth any Pitcher dread Far ín the South I know a Land divine,1 the Well ? And there is many a Saint and many a Shrine, The Pitchers we, whose Maker makes And over all the shrines the Blossom them ill, blows Shall He torment them if they chance Of Roses that were dear to you as wine. to spill ? Nay, like the broken potsherds are we 1 1 he hills above San Remo, where rose-bushes cast are planted by the shrines. Ornar desired that his Forth and forgotten, — and what will be grave might be where the wind would scatter rose- leaves over it. w ill! 2 1 8 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS OMAR KHAYYÁM. 2 1 9

So still were we, before the Months be- Yea, thou wert singing when that Arrow gan clave That rounded us and shaped us into Man. Through helm and brain of him who So still we sh a ll be, surely, at the could not save last, His England, even of Harold God- Dreamless, untouched of Blessing or of win’s son ; Ban ! The high tide murmurs by the Hero’s grave ! 1 Ah, strange it seems that this thy com- mon thought — And thou wert wreathing Roses— who How all things have been, ay, and shall can teli ? — be nought — Or chanting for some giri that pleased Was ancient Wisdom in thine ancient thee well, East, Or satst at wine in Nashàpür, when In those old Days when Senlac fight was dun fought, The twilight veiled the field where Har­ old fe ll! Which gave our England for a captive Land The salt Sea-waves above him rage and To pious Chiefs of a believing Band, roam! A gift to the Believer from the Priest, Along the white Walls of his guarded Tossed from the holy to the bloochred Home Hand!1 1 Per mandata Ducis, R e x h ic, IIe ral de¡ quiescis, Ut custos maneas littoris et pelagi. 1 Omar was contemporary with the battle of Hast- ings. 220 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS OMAR KHAYYÁM 221

No Zephyr stirs the Rose, but o’er the Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes wave or fears, The wild Wind beats the Breakers into And now! — she listens in the wilder- Foam ! ness To thee, and half believeth what she And dear to hiim, as Roses were to hears ! thee, Rings long the Roar of Onset of the Hadst thou the S ecret ? Ah, and who Sea ; may teli ? The Swarís Path of his Fathers is his ‘ An hour we have,’ thou saidst ‘ Ah, grave: waste it well! ’ His sleep, methinks, is sound as thine An hour we have, and yet Eternity can be. Looms o’er us, and the thought of Heaven or Heli! His was the A ge of Faith, when all the West Nay, we can never be as wise as thou, Looked to the Priest for torment or for O idle singer ’neath the blossomed rest; bough. And thou wert living then, and didst Nay, and we cannot be content to not heed die. The Saint who banned thee or the Saint We cannot shirk the qüestions ‘ Where ? who blessed ! and ‘How?’

Ages of Progressi These eight hun- Ah, not from learned Peace and gay dred years Content 222 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS

Shall we of England go the way he went — The Singer of the Red Wine and the Rose — XXII. Nay, otherwise than his our Day is spent! To Q. Horatius Flaccus.

Serene he dwelt in fragrant Nashápür, I n what manner of Paradise are we to But we must wander while the Stars conceive that you, Horaee, are dwelling, endure. or what región of immortality can give you such pleasures as this life afforded ? H e knew the Se c r e t: we have none that knows, The country and the town, nature and No Man so sure as Omar once was sure! men, who knew them so well as you, or who ever so wisely made the best of those two worlds ? Truly here you had good things, nor do you ever, in ali your poems, look for more delight in the life beyond ; you never expect consolation for present sorrow, and when you once have shaken hands with a friend the part- ing seems to you eternal. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam cari capitis ? So you sing, for the dear head you mourn has sunk for ever beneath the 2 2 4 L E T T E R S t o d e ad a u t h o r s Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS 225

wave. Virgil might wander forth bear- song. In him, we fancy, there was a ing the golden branch ‘the Sibyl doth to happier mood than your melancholy pa- singing men allow,’ and might visit, as tience. ‘ Not, though thou wert sweeter one not wholly without hope, the dim of song than Thracian Orpheus, with dwellings of the dead and the unborn. that lyre whose lay led the dancing trees, To him was it permitted to see and sing not so would the blood return to the ‘ mothers and men, and the bodies out-, empty shade of him whom once with worn of mighty heroes, boys and un- dread wand the inexorable god hath wedded maids, and young men borne to folded with his shadowy flocks; but pa- the funeral fi re before their parents’ eyes.’ tience lighteneth what heaven forbids us The endless caravan swept past him—- to undo.’ ‘ nrany as fluttering leaves that drop and D u r u m , sed levius Jit patientia ! fall in autumn woods when the first frost begins; many as birds that flock land- It was all your philosophy in that last ward from the great sea when now the sad resort to which we are pushed so chill year drives them o’er the deep often — and leads them to sunnier lands.’ Such ‘ With close-lipped Patience for our only friend, things was it given to the sacred poet to Sad Patience, too near neighbour of Despair.’ behold, and the happy seats and sweet The Epicurean is at one with the pleasances of fortunate souls, where the Stoic at last, and Horace with Marcus larger light clothes all the plains and Aurelius. ‘ To go away from among dips them in a rosier gleam, plains with men, if there are gods, is not a thing to their own new sun and stars before un- be afraid o f; but if indeed they do not known. Ah, not frustra pius was Virgil, exist, or if they have no concern about as you say, Horace, in your melancholy human affairs, what is it to me to live in Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS 22/ 226 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Your melancholy moral was but meant a universe devoid of gods or devoid of to heighten the joy of thy pleasant life, providence ? ’ when wearied Italy, after all her wars A n excellent philosophy, but easier to and civic bloodshed, had won a peaceful those for whom no Hope had dawn or haven. The harbour might be treach- seemed to set. Yet it is harder than erous; the prince might turn to the common, Horace, for us to think of you, tyrant; far away on the wide Roman still glad somewhere, among rivers like marches might be heard, as it were, Liris and plains and vine-clad hills, that the endless, ceaseless monotone of beat- Solemque suum, sua sidera norunt. ing horses’ hoofs and marching feet of It is hard, for you looked for no such men. They were coming, they were near- thing. ing, like footsteps heard on wool; there was a sound of multitudes and millions Omnes una manet nox E t calcanda semel via leti. of barbarians, all the North, officina gen­ tium , mustering and marshalling her peo- You could not teli Maecenas that you ples. But their coming was not to be to- would meet him again; you could only day, nor to-morrow; nor to-day was the promise to tread the dark path with him. budding princely sway to blossom into Ibim us, ibim us, the blood-red flower of Nero. In the U tcunque prcecedes, suprem um Iuli between the two tempests of Repub- Carpere iter comites parati. lic and Empire your odes sound ‘ like Enough, Horace, of these mortuary linnets in the pauses of the wind.’ musings. You loved the lesson of the What joy there is in these songs! roses, and now and again would speak what delight of life, what an exquisite somewhat like a death’s head over thy Hellenic grace of art, what a manly na- temperate cups of Sabine ordinaire. 228 LE T T E R S TO D EA D AUTHORS Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS. 2 2 9 ture to endure, what tenderness and round contented, and find all very good constancy of friendship, what a sense o£ save the need to leave all behind. Even all that is fair in the glittering stream, that you take with an Italian good-hu- the músic of the waterfall, the hum of mour, as the folk of your sunny country bees, the silvery grey of the olive woods bear poverty and hunger. on the hillside! How human are all D u r u m , sed levius fit patientia ! your verses, Horace! what a pleasure is To them, to you, the loveliness of your yours in the straining poplars, swaying land is, and was, a thing to live for. in the wind! what gladness you gain None of the Latin poets your fellows, from the white crest of Soracte, beheld or none but Virgil, seem to me to have through the fluttering snowflakes while known so well as you, Horace, how the logs are being piled higher on the happy and fortunate a thing it was to hearth. You sing of women and wine be born in Italy. You do not say so, — not all whole-hearted in your praise like your Virgil, in one splendid passage, of them, perhaps, for passion frightens numbering the glories of the land as a you, and ’t is pleasure more than love lover might count the perfections of his that you commend to the young. Lydia mistress. But the sentiment is ever in and Glycera, and the others, are but your heart and often on your lips. passing guests of a heart at ease in it- Me nec tam patiens Lacedaemon, self, and happy enough when their facile Nec tam Larissae percussit campus opimae, reign is ended. You seem to me like a Quam domus Albuneae resonantis man who welcomes middle age, and is Et praeceps Anio, ac Tiburni lucus, et uda Mobilibus pomaria rivis.1 more glad than Sophocles was to ‘ flee from these hard masters’ the passions. 1 ‘ Me neither resolute Sparta nor the rich Laris- In the ‘fallow leisure of life you glance saean plain so enraptures as the fane of echoing Albu- 230 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS 2 3 1 So a poet should speak, and to every honour of Rome, as Gordon for the hon- singer his own land should be dearest. our of England. Beautiful is Italy with the grave and delicate outlines of her sacred hilis/ her Fertur pudiere conjujis osculum, Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor, dark groves, her little cities perched like Ab se removisse, et virilem eyries on the crags, her rivers gliding Torvus humi posuisse voltum: under ancient walls; beautiful is Italy, Donec labantes consilio patres her seas, and her suns : but dearer to me Firmaret auctor nunquam alias dato, the long grey wave that bites the rock Interque maerentes amicos below the minster in the north ; dearer Egregius properaret exui. is the barren moor and black peat-water Atqui sciebat, qum sibi barbarus swirling in tanny foam, and the scent of Tortor pararet: non aliter tamen bog myrtle and the bloom of heather, Dimovit obstantes propinquos, and, watching over the lochs, the green Et populum reditus morantem, round-shouldered hills. Quam si clientum longa negotia In affection for your native land, Hor­ Dijudicata lite relinqueret, aee, certainly the pride in great Romans Tendens Venafranos in agros Aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum.1 dead and gone made part, and you were, in all senses, a lover of your country, 1 ‘They say he put aside from him the pure lips of your country’s heroes, your country’s his wife and his little children, like a man unfree, and gods. None but a patriot could have with his brave face bowed earthward sternly he waited till with such counsel as never mortal gave he might sung that ode on Regulus, who died, as strengthen the hearts of the Fathers, and through his our own hero died, on an evil day for the mourning friends go forth, a hero, into exile. Yet well he knew what things were being prepared for him nea, the headlong Anio, the grove of Tibur, the or* at the hands of the tormenters, who, none the less, put chards watered by the vvandering rills/ aside the kinsmen that barred his path and the people 2 3 2 LETTERS TO DE AD AUTHORS Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS 2 3 3

We talk of the Greeks as your teach- of rústic tradition, the faith handed ers. Your teacbers they were, but that down by the homely elders, with that poem could only have been written by a you never broke. Clean hands and a Roman! The strength, the tenderness, pure heart, these, with a sacred cake and the noble and monumental resolution shining grains of salt, you could offer to and resignation — these are the gift of the Lares. It was a benignant religión, the lords of human things, the masters of uniting oíd times and new, men living the world. and men long dead and gone, in a kind Your country’s heroes are dear to you, of service and sacrifice solemn yet fa­ Horace, but you did not síng them ’bet- miliar. ter than your country’s Gods, the pious protecting spirits of the hearth, the farm, Te nihil attinet Tentare m ulta ccede bidentium the field, kindly ghosts, it may be, of Parvos coronantem marino Latin fathers dead or Gods framed in the Rore deos fragilique myrto. image of these. What you actually be- lieved we know not,you knew not. Who Immunis aram si tetigit manus, knows what he believes ? Parcus Dco- Non sumptuosa blandior hostia M ollivit aversos Penates nan cultor you bowed not often, it may Farre pio et saliente m ica! be, in the temples of the state religión and before the statues of the great Olym- pians ; but the pure and pious worship 1 1 Thou, Phidyle, hast no need to besiege the gods with slaughter so great of sheep, thou who crownest that would fain have held him back, passing through thy tiny deities with myrtle rare and rosemary. If but their midst as he might have done, if, his retainers’ the hand be clean that touches the altar, then richest weary business ended and the suits adjudged, he were sacrifice will not more appease the angered Penates faring to his Venafran lands or to Dorian Tarentum.’ than the duteous cake and salt that crackles in the blaze.’ 234 L E T T E R S t o d e a d a u t h o r s

Farewell, dear Horace; farewell, thou vvise and lcindly heathen; of mortals the most human, the friend of my friends and of so many generations of men. '