Letters to Dead Authors / by Andrew Lang
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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 .