Chapter VII (1)

1822-1827.

A comparatively brief chapter will contain all which I desire
further to offer of my Mother’s ‘Remains.’ Her health had for
some years been giving way, but the four or five last years of
her life were years of much suffering; nor did the physicians
seem perfectly to understand her case. She now seldom woke
without what in one place she calls her ‘penal visitation of
headache;’ and I trace evidences of failing health, and of the
painfulness of all mental exertion, in the rarer entries in her
journal, and, so far as I can gather, the fewer letters which
she wrote during these years.

TO THE REV. —— ——.

Elm Lodge, Feb. 27, 1822.

I thank you for your partial opinion of ——. I hope he has already judged for himself in the spirit of the text, ‘What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’ but I should very much deprecate religion being pointed out to him chiefly by that feature you have mentioned—‘having principles and motives for action different from the world in general.’ I sincerely hope that he will have such principles and motives, and I see that he has; but I do not wish him too soon to be aware of it, _nor ever to dwell on it_. The former is dangerous as terrifying the young by apprehensions of singularity, and adding weights where we would wish to give wings; the latter is doubly hazardous, and is so at all ages. ‘Lord, I thank Thee I am not as other men,’ was, and ever will be, a pharisaical distinction.

* * * * *

_March 6, 1822._—I have just begun to read _The Spectator_ again, after a lapse of fifteen years; and am a little surprised at finding Sir Roger de Coverley only fifty-six, as when I first read them I did not understand how any one could feel any interest but that of compassion for so very old a man, except he was one’s grandfather, or among one’s own particular friends. I remember at nine years old somewhat of the same feeling for the delightful Sévigné, when her first letter mentioned her having a married daughter. I wished to shut the book; all became colourless and insipid as connected with a woman so far advanced in years.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Elm Lodge, March 21, 1822.

I sincerely regret the breach which has been made in your domestic circle, and perfectly recollect the amiable simplicity of the worthy sisters, as well as your account of the strength of their understandings, and unbroken chain of their virtues. I can enter into the added regret felt by a tender mother, when she sees those venerable trees decay that would have sheltered her young plants with that affectionate mixture of esteem and _instinctive_ fondness, only to be felt by those who have witnessed their growing infancy. But, above all, I recollect your sincere piety, and see in it the balm for all the ills of life. With only the difference of being a little sooner or a little later, it equally heals all your sorrows, and turns them into themes of sweet and hopeful resignation.

* * * * *

_June 6._—Your little work is most pleasing, and highly useful; for none, I think, can read it without an amelioration of the heart. Gratitude for one’s own temporal blessings, content with one’s situation, if raised above the pressure of want or necessity of labour, a certain dislike of frivolous expense, and views of human nature sane and practical, must be more or less excited by a close inspection of ‘the short and simple annals of the poor.’

TO MRS. HAYGARTH.

Elm Lodge, March 21, 1822.

We could not let Mr. Brigstock have this lovely spot. If you saw the Hamble, as I do every morning from my bedroom, sometimes at low tide, ‘in windings bright and mazy as the snake,’ and at high tide in one broad sheet of dazzling splendour, which, when I suddenly open my window, reminds me of a ray of the Divine presence, you would see the immense difficulty to my weak mind of parting with anything so beautiful. Mr. T. is firmer, but I think he _feels_ as much reluctance. The spring has advanced with unspeakable sweetness and brilliancy. I am covering this place—perhaps for Mr. Brigstock of the untunable name—with roses, honeysuckles, violets, and early flowers. There are already a great abundance, all my own planting, but I am spreading them in every direction.

SONNET TO THE RIVER HAMBLE.

_March 22._

The sun forsakes thee, yet thou still art fair;
In thy own graceful curvings fond to twine
Like the young tendrils of the gadding vine,
Beneath this azure sky and fragrant air.
Let others to more southern shores repair,
And boast their glowing summers; be it mine,
Pleased on thy verdant margin to recline,
Heedless what aspect alien climes may wear;
And mark the white-winged barks that swiftly glide,
Like sportive birds, along thy glassy tide;
Now by a circling wood’s theatric pride,
Now by yon Castle, firmly knit, though grey,
Which there shall stand, untouched by dim decay,
While like thy waters we shall lapse away.

* * * * *

The following letter is a reply to one of Lord Howden’s, giving
an account of a cenotaph, with its inscription, which he had
erected to the memory of Colonel St. George, his half brother,
in a church which had just been built by him on his property in
Yorkshire.

TO LORD HOWDEN.

April 5, 1822.

I sincerely thank you for the sadly pleasing satisfaction I derive from seeing you so deeply imbued with those recollections which will fade among the last of mine. It is pleasing to see springing up in acts of solemn tenderness, those seeds of friendship sown so many years since. Affection so constant it is honourable both to feel and inspire. Your inscription, in its dignified and unaffecting brevity, is perfectly consistent with truth, and says much in few words.

Honours to the dead seem particularly consonant to the spirit of the Christian religion. When the great Author and Finisher of our faith implied an approbation of costly ointment as anointing Him for His burial, and vouchsafed to lie in the tomb of the wealthy, He seemed plainly to permit us to gratify our feelings by reverence to the departed. These attentions contain, also, a tacit proof of our sense of the immortality of the soul. If the beloved who have gone before us were nothing, we should not have the same pleasure in cherishing these remembrances. We are not half so apt to think too much of the departed, as to forget them too soon; for, if we examine our own minds, we shall find we are never so innocent, so little selfish, so pious, or so charitable, as when under some affliction for the loss of a friend; and these recollections, far from unfitting us for our duty to the living, strengthen us in every good resolution.

I have been led to enlarge on this, partly from the pleasure of finding you think as I do, and have not adopted a cold and heartless philosophy, now so prevalent, and partly from having suffered a severe privation in the departure of my dear Miss Agar. Her deep affection for me, her excellent understanding, and her admirable heart, ever active in works of piety and charity, concur to make this an irreparable loss. I was at her bed-side during her whole illness, till the last, and after the last. It was a fine lesson of resignation and unassuming firmness.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., STOCKHOLM.

Roehampton, April 24, 1822.

I write from Roehampton, which I could not summon up courage to revisit until now. It was a melancholy moment when that bell rung at the gate, announcing a visitor, which used to give _her_ so much pleasure, when I was expected; and when I went into the house and missed her cheerful welcome; and in my room found not the flowers she used to leave; and when at night I retired without being followed by her for a short half hour, sometimes to laugh at the little shadows or flittings of vanity or peculiarity we had witnessed, but oftener to arrange some little plan of charity or kindliness, in which she took the lead.

Lord Clifden is extremely pleased with Mr. Ellis’ choice. I presume her to be one of those dignified and refined young persons, in whom the rays are so equally blended as to produce pure white; for I have always heard her described as extremely amiable, without any definite addition; and this is exactly what Lord Clifden would desire in the wife of his son, in which he is sincerely joined by your affectionate mother.

* * * * *

The following earnest _jeu d’esprit_ was written at the
commencement of the Irish famine of this year, and printed for
private circulation.

A DINNER IN 1822.

I was yesterday one of sixteen, at a dinner of that neutral tint in externals, which never excites a remark, being on the general plan adopted by ninety-nine in a hundred, from the country gentleman, or the _aspirant_ to office, of two thousand a year, to the peer of twenty or thirty, or even the more wealthy Leviathans of the East. In the small remainder we may find all those who either _entertain_, as some call it (and oh! how often is the word misapplied), with singular and princely magnificence, or who have courage to refrain from any part of the general usage, unsuitable to them.

Any difference that may exist in this universal scheme of dinner, is found in the execution, never in the plan. Some are dignified by sauces more elaborate—purer bread—hotter soup—colder water—a better regulated atmosphere—silent celerity rather than bustling officiousness in the attendants—and an air of ease and unconcern in the host and hostess, as to the _matériel_ of the performance, evincing perfect confidence in their cook, and proving their present situation to be one of facile and frequent occurrence.

Most of the guests had rather played with the first course; the habit of eating a solid dinner alone, or _en famille_, under the specious name of luncheon, having taken away all natural inclination for food at seven in the evening. Many of them had refused every dish but one or two at the second, and the _soufflé_ and _fondu_ had replaced their numerous predecessors, when Mr. Redgill, a persevering diner, one of the few better employed hitherto than in mere words, remarked how much distress there had been in Ireland, adding, ‘they will be very well off now—ships are preparing, freighted with oatmeal; but, I suppose, they’ll not like anything but potatoes.’

‘Why,’ replied Colonel O’Trigger, ‘the potato’s the finest food in the world—(some Parmesan, if you please)—where do you see such fine fellows?’ (expanding his own Hibernian chest to most sergeant-like dimensions.) ‘When they get a little milk with their potatoes—(some port, if you please; I always take it after cheese)—when they get a little milk with them, they are the happiest people in the world!’

A prudent old gentleman then said, the present subscriptions would pay all the Irish rents. Another observed that a little starvation would be very good for them, and might bring them to a due sense of gratitude to the present government. A fourth, that it would finally be a benefit as absorbing the population, which appeared to him most desirable; for, he was anxious to prove, that a plenteous harvest, whether animal or vegetable, was fraught with misery and danger, now we were no longer blest with war to carry off our superabundance: while a fifth reasoned elaborately to show that, as it was impossible wholly to relieve the starving peasantry, nothing was so merciful as to leave them to the working of events, instead of prolonging their misery by charity, which must finally be ineffectual.

This discussion was interrupted by one of more general interest—on the proper hour of the day in which fruit ought to be plucked: and on the tube of tin, lined with velvet, which insidiously solicits its fall, with soft prevailing art, at the moment of perfection, without sullying its bloom by one ungentle pressure. Sir Philip Cayenne, a short, coarse, and sultry personage, to whom a pine-apple or a bunch of grapes seemed as unsuitable as a fan, assured us he never could touch them, unless culled before sunrise, and kept in a northern aspect. From this topic, he naturally digressed to his wines—his _Greek_ wines! _his_ Tenedos! _his_ Cyprus! High and musical names! with all your delightful and shadowy associations! ye were ‘familiar in his mouth as household words,’ and, in his general spirit of appropriation, ye became his own—till his devotion to a plate of early strawberries, similar to those he told us he had bought that day for half-a-crown a dozen, suspended every other idea.

Such are the studies and pursuits of hundreds, while thousands of their fellow-subjects are expiring in the agonies of hunger—dropping down from inanition in the roads—in the ditches—in the fields—in the lime-kilns, where they sought a little temporary warmth, or the means of prolonging a miserable existence, by heating their last small pittance of coarsest food.

As to luxury, I know that the words, too much, and, too little, are high treason against property. But, though no tangible line can be drawn, though Lear is right when he says,

‘Oh, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous;
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s;’

yet, surely, less general profusion, with more charity and some self-denial, which the luxurious might well practise as the parent of fresh enjoyment, would become our Christian profession, and our present state. All are embarked on a stormy sea: the winds whistle in our shrouds, the sky wears an ominous aspect, and whether we can or cannot avoid the rocks that surround us, let us at least treat our fellow-passengers with kindness, and mitigate the sufferings we are not yet called on to endure.

* * * * *

_June, 1822._—Among the many consolations, most of which fail to console, a few, I think, have been overlooked, which may, at least for a few moments, lighten the chain of years, that chain to which every revolution of the sun adds a new link, some painful and heavy, others brilliant and elastic. The treasures of recollection—that best cabinet of curiosities, better than diamonds, or gems, or Alduses, or Caxtons, or visiting-tickets, or even franks, all of which have been sought by indefatigable collectors—the treasures of recollection can only be obtained from the hand of time.

To have been presented at a Drawing room to the late King and Queen, is a recollection worth having. To have encountered in the benignant eye of majesty that of the best husband and best father in his dominions—to have received, perhaps, his cordial approbation—to have seen the monarch softened to the mind’s eye by viewing him as a sharer in the same affectionate ties which tame the pride of greatness, not alone by the tenderness they infuse, but by making it vulnerable at so many points. A Drawing room in the last reign seemed an epitome of the country. All was quietly cheerful; and an air of freedom, a something which reminded one of a land of liberty, was blended with the whole arrangement. The King and Queen were as parents surrounded by their children. They kept no state. They circulated about the room, as anxious to speak to all as each individual was to be addressed by them. Their state was in the minds of their subjects, and their guards in their hearts’ affections.

Is it not worth something to have seen Mrs. Siddons in her days of magnificence—Mrs. Siddons, who has lent to the very syllables of her name an elevation and a charm so strong that no effort of mind could now effect their separation—so strong that none who saw her in the splendour of her meridian ever pronounced that name without a tone and a manner more softened and raised than their habitual discourse.

She sometimes gave vitality to a line which stamped it for ever, while all surrounding recollections have faded away. I remember her saying to a servant who had betrayed her, in some play no longer acted—

‘There’s gold for thee; but see my face no more.’

I am sorry that this is the moment in which she comes most strongly on my recollection. I wish it had been in one of Shakespeare’s plays; but so it is. There is no giving an adequate impression of the might, the majesty of grace she possessed, nor of the effect on a young heart of the deep and mysterious tones of her voice. Kemble as Coriolanus, when she was Volumnia, equalled the highest hopes of acting.

And is it not also much to recollect Kemble, when he, too, was after the high Roman fashion, and the last of the Romans? Some persons begin now to praise him for his classical and erudite performance of certain characters, as though he had been denied the power of touching the tenderer sympathies of our nature; but who has seen him in _The Stranger_ or Penruddock, and not shed tears from the deepest sources? His tenderly putting away the son of his treacherous friend and inconstant, but unhappy, mistress, examining his countenance, and then exclaiming, with a voice which developed a thousand mysterious feelings, ‘You are very like your mother,’ was sufficient to stamp his excellence in the pathetic line of acting. But in this respect Mrs. Siddons was a disadvantage to him. I enter into no comparison between their merits; but it would have been fair to remember that the sorrows of a woman formed to be admired and revered, are in general more touching, more softening, than those of a warrior, a philosopher, or a statesman; and because Kemble did not make us weep and wail, like his incomparable sister, we did not do justice to his powers of moving the passions. I always saw him with pain descend to the Stranger. It was like the Genius in the Arabian tale going into the vase. First, it seemed so unlikely _he_ should meet with such an affront, and this injured the probability of the piece; and next, the Stranger is never really dignified, and one is always in pain for him, poor gentleman! And though the character is at times highly pathetic, in the next five minutes there is something so glaringly introduced for stage effect as to produce an unpleasant interruption of the current of feeling.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., STOCKHOLM.

(With a box of sauces and spices, and _The Cook’s Oracle_).

London, June 26, 1822.

Various means of increasing your powers of pleasing accompany this letter. Accept a didactic volume, showing you how to make the best use of them. Neither Walter Scott nor Lord Byron have had so quick and profitable a sale. It is thought the best book of cookery extant; but, as it unveils the secrets of the trade, professional cooks would willingly burn, stew, bake, boil, mince, hash, broil, pound, fry, baste, hang, quarter, cut up, or otherwise execute it and its author. If the _Oracle_ is the first that speaks on the subject in Sweden, I shall think myself a national benefactor.

I hope you have read every word of Sir James Mackintosh’s speeches on the Criminal Code and the Alien Bill—both admirable; the first a _chef-d’œuvre_, and touching on many points of interest—Napoleon, and the Code which would immortalize him, were his victories forgot—Charles Fox, and his inextinguishable philanthropy—our native _sœurs de la charité_, with that meek and energetic woman at their head, who has raised the character of her sex. All these are panegyrized with taste and selection—the whole speech vivified by arguments, illustrations, facts, and quotations, apt but not commonplace; while good temper, and a simplicity which refrains from any appeal to the passions, shows his calm sincerity in the cause of humanity, and his willingness to sacrifice all the brilliancy that satire and pathos might give, rather than lose the strong hold a plain statement always best retains on an English audience.

Foscolo’s Lectures are concluded, which I regret, though I learned little from them. But it was something to hear a language one wished to improve in, although one brought scarce any recollections away. The atmosphere was of the deepest cerulean tint—authors, blue ladies, chemists, politicians, poets, with a slight infusion of _couleur de rose_. Foscolo’s merits induced many to subscribe who, from other avocations, could only look in once or twice; and for him it has been successful, both as to fame and profit. He made these lectures subservient to his great object of awakening a horror of despotism with infinite ingenuity; and to one who had once remarked this primary view, there was a double source of amusement in listening to him.

* * * * *

_July, 1822._— ... Who can talk of public speaking and not mention Mr. Irving, the chief subject of conversation, for whom people brave pressure, fatigue, and the most intolerable heat? Young men, in their eagerness to hear him, make parties ‘to board the pews;’ that is, to jump in over the sides, in defiance of locks, sextonesses, and private property. Lady Jersey says he is perfect; and Mrs. Canning, whose opinion begins to be quoted (‘what a kind of being is circumstance’), and who is said to be a dissenter, declares herself ‘entirely satisfied with his doctrine;’ while Colonel Abercrombie professes he could bring twenty preachers from Scotland of superior powers.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., STOCKHOLM.

Elm Lodge, July 19, 1822.

Like you, I have been reading _The Fortunes of Nigel_. It is a clever book, more so than most of the last Walter Scotts; but it does seem written, like Hodge’s razors, solely to sell; for the author is not affectionately attached to any of his characters, as if he had interested himself in the composition. The fine Rembrandt painting of the miser and his daughter, and the adventures connected with them, dignify the whole book. Martha’s character beautifully marks the force of plain sense and strict principle in exciting intense interest under a variety of disadvantages of person and situation. The miser stealing in at night, and putting forth his withered finger for the piece of money on the table of one peculiarly under his protection, would be a fine subject for Wilkie. The danger Nigel and Martha incur of being themselves suspected and seized as authors or accomplices of the murder, is well indicated, and we are fully impressed with it, though it is never once mentioned.

What can we say of the misery of Ireland? At first it created watchful nights, cheerless days, and a sort of reluctant shame at sitting down to a table amply spread. But the awful continuance of famine, which ought to make it more appalling, has blunted the edge of these feelings.

TO THE LADY FANNY PROBY.

Elm Lodge, Sept., 1822.

Were you not electrified by the frightful news of Lord Londonderry having _so_ concluded his eventful life? It was more painful to me than I could have supposed possible. The intervening years, during which I only _heard_ of him, seemed to vanish, and I saw him the calm, engaging, mild, dignified person I once knew, and could hardly believe what had occurred. ‘O _Time_, thou beautifier of the dead!’ may be true, but I think, ‘O _Death_, thou beautifier of the departed!’ is far more just; for time sometimes wears away the sudden beauty with which those are invested in our minds, who have just passed away from this state of existence.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Roehampton, Oct. 7, 1822.

Your kind letter feelingly pourtrays the lights and shades of human life. It describes two most affecting strokes of final separation as to this world—softened, however, by the piety and resignation of the departed, and the consciousness of past kindness in the survivors, the only real sources of consolation, except those living waters from whence flows comfort, unexpected, inexhaustible, and indescribable.

Of these calamities I hope the severity is passing away, though I know from experience how deep must have been the wound which divided you from your early friend; while, on the contrary, the happy marriage of your daughter seems the foundation and commencement of future felicity. May you enjoy as much of it as is consistent with the conditions of human life.

I am now in the very spot where I felt so many pangs at this season last year; and I am pleased to see in her whom Providence has sent to take my dear friend’s place, one whom she would, I think, have chosen out of a thousand. She is grand-daughter, on one side, of Lord Carlisle, a man of taste and letters; on the other, of the admired Duchess of Devonshire, whose pictures she resembles. Her gentleness, good sense, amiable simplicity of manners, her unaffected grace, and watchful acquiescence in all the orderly, quiet, retired, and literary habits of the house, are delightful.

Pray let me soon have a line about your young lovers; I love to hear of happiness. I smiled at reading in your letter, ‘I am no manœuvrer.’ It is as if the sun should say, ‘I do not shed darkness.’ At the same time, I am pleased to find thus incidentally that your new relation unites, with more essential points, those which the world thinks worth seeking after.

* * * * *

The following letter is a reply to one from a friend of her
youth, giving an account of a painful and perilous operation
just undergone.

TO MRS. ——.

Roehampton, Oct. 9, 1822.

There are certain unexpected feelings in which admiration, pity, sorrow, and surprise, are so intimately blended as to make it impossible for us to describe them. Such your letter, which is now before me, and of which I shall never forget even the shape and character, is well calculated to excite. For a moment it stunned me, and when tears brought back the more precise consciousness of all you have so nobly endured, the crowd of ideas and images that pressed upon me, gave to minutes the fulness of years.

Why did you not write for me? Perhaps you know not that as a nurse I have perfect self-command, and that the care of those I love never injured my health; nay, that the privation of sleep, and the watchfulness it induces, seems to do me good. Your being capable of passing so much time alone on this awful occasion, proves to me that you have indeed a Friend, who is a very present help in trouble. Philosophy seeks witnesses, Christianity endures, nay, chooses, solitude.

The whole night were those images before my eyes, and thankfulness for your escape in my heart. Your letter reached me in the evening of yesterday; till to-day I could not bring my thoughts to the discipline they required before they could be offered to the person whose trial had so deeply engaged them. Even now I can scarcely refrain from making inquiries, describing feelings, and entering into details which I know would at present be unfit for my dearest friend. I do sincerely thank the all-wise Disposer of events for the calmness, courage, and serenity, with which you were endowed. ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.’ No human reason could bestow on a tender and delicate woman, accustomed to every indulgence, and with nerves shaken by former events, such unshrinking firmness.

In a day or two I shall be capable of addressing you on common topics. At present I feel overcome with a sense of reverence for your patience and courage, and a kind of reluctance to mix them in my thoughts with baser matter. Adieu, my dear ——, and believe me, with that glow of affection which is excited by the sufferings of those we love, ever, ever yours.

* * * * *

_Oct. 26, 1822, Elton Hall._—Went to Burleigh, an extensive Gothic building, stored with a rather poor, but very large, collection of pictures, china, curiosities, and relics of every description, including Queen Elizabeth’s watch, needle-book, and the busk of her stays, King William’s pocket-handkerchief, &c. &c. &c. We saw the picture of the Cottage Marchioness, and we all agreed it was she who appeared to have made the _mésalliance_, and not her lord, when we contrasted her spirited, yet gentle, countenance and elegance of air with his heavy form and dull face.

BURLEIGH.

In reverent guise this ancient pile survey,
Girded with oaks, whose tinted foliage gleams
With autumn’s golden hue, while length’ning streams
Between their hoary trunks the western ray;
As lingering smiles the cloudless star of day,
Full on these halls are flung his parting beams,
Where Time’s ennobling touch has furnished themes
That rouse the soul through centuries to stray.
I see our maiden Queen beside me sweep,
And shrinking feel the lightning of her glance,
Or view her lofty form relaxed in sleep,
The mind’s vast power subdued as in a trance;
Till all these splendid scenes in dimness fade,
Lost in the glory circling round her shade.

TO MRS. TUITE.

Elton Hall, Oct. 29, 1822.

I write from Lord Carysfort’s, where I am paying a long-promised visit, in which my love of home, and my various ties, have prevented me from indulging myself, during many years of hopes and intentions. Like some other hopes, its fulfilment has been deferred too late to be attended with the enjoyment which would formerly have accompanied its fruition, as I found Lord Carysfort in a wretched state of health, and recollect with surprise that the advanced and enfeebled person I behold, is one with whom I have danced in all the contagious gaiety of the ball-room, and whom I have seen dancing with the lovely, and then youthful, Queen of Prussia. He is, however, as agreeable as ever, when he does converse. His finely furnished mind, expanding in so many directions, and full of taste and feeling, is a continual feast. His very prejudices, which are numerous, and the mistaken opinions he forms in consequence of extreme sensibility, give a zest and novelty to his conversation. You are always doubtful what he will think or say—never absolutely on _terra firma_; you are sailing on a rapid river, always feel the motion of the boat, and are aware that the next reach may give you a prospect quite unexpected. Lady Carysfort loses nothing of the impression of sense and dignity in her first _abord_ by a closer inspection. Her uniform kindness to me, is as a sister’s and mother’s mixed might be. It is pleasant to find an acquaintance merely incidental, thus ripen into a friendship of more than twenty years.

* * * * *

1822.—I am disposed to think the following is the recasting
of a ballad in the Irish language. There are several Scotch
variations of the same.

Who will shoe my little foot? who will glove my little hand?
All shivering and chill at your castle gate I stand.
The rain rains on my yellow locks, the dew has wet my skin;
My babe lies cold within my arms; Lord Gregory, let me in.

Oh, the night is far too murky, and the hour is far too late,
To open for a stranger Lord Gregory’s castle gate.

Oh, and don’t you remember one night on yonder hill,
When we changed rings together, sore, sore against my will?
Mine was of pure gold, and yours was but of tin;
Mine was true to the heart, yours false and hollow within.
The rain rains on my yellow locks, the dew has wet my skin;
My babe lies cold within my arms; Lord Gregory, let me in.

Oh, the night is far too murky, and the hour is far too late,
To open for a stranger Lord Gregory’s castle gate.

Oh, and don’t you remember one night by yonder cross,
When we changed cloaks together, and still to my loss?
Yours was the woollen grey, and mine the scarlet fine,
Yours bore an iron clasp, and mine a silken twine.
The rain rains on my yellow locks, the dew has wet my skin;
My babe lies cold within my arms; Lord Gregory, let me in.

Oh, the night is far too murky, and the hour is far too late,
To open for a stranger Lord Gregory’s castle gate.

Your castle gate is closed, but I behold your moat,
And there your cruel eyes shall see my body float.

TO MADAME DE STIERNELD.[67]

Jan. 26, 1823.

We have all been a little disappointed in Moore’s _Loves of the Angels_. The first angel’s story is that of a Bond-street _beau_; the second, an adaptation of the tale of Jupiter and Semele; the third, an account of an earthly couple, and a pair not of the very first order. Yet, with all this poverty of conception, the details are very beautiful, and the whole poem, like the wings of the angels he describes, sparkling with brilliant prettinesses.

The severity of the frost continues. The pert sparrow, the twinkling water-wagtail, the silent lark, are feeding in perfect tameness outside our windows. Every leaf is covered with a smooth crystal case, which can be slipped off like a sheath, retains the mark of every fibre, and looks like a splendid diamond _aigrette_.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., STOCKHOLM.

Elm Lodge, Feb. 9, 1823.

In the depth of my present retirement I can talk to you only of public events. Are they not highly interesting? Two such names as Greece and Spain engaged in contests, both for liberty, _one_ for existence; France on the verge of some change, from merely natural causes—the advanced age and ill health of her monarch; Russia collecting all her strength to act the part of the King of Beasts, _Tollo, sum Leo_, whenever any opportunity offers; Italy holding her breath for a time. In England, ‘motley’s your only wear;’ suicide from distress of mind attendant on ruined fortunes common among three-fourths of our population, and an exulting air of prosperity beaming around the remainder, who are profiting by low prices and increased possessions; Cobbett consorting with the magnates of the land, consulted and addressed by the patrons and superiors of those who hissed him to silence four years since. The singularities of Ireland are more singular, you know, than of any other country. Four years since, the populace threw stones at their constant and well-tried friend and protector, Grattan; while now a powerful party have shown animosity against the dignified Wellesley, whose presence was expected to heal all dissensions. He is, however, supported by all _but_ that party, and, upon the whole, I believe the play-house riot was productive of a great mass of happiness, by giving the writers, talkers, and partisans of our talkative, expansive, and party-loving countrymen, a _débouche_ for their effusions. It is certain no single bottle ever inspired so many words.

TO THE SAME.

Elm Lodge, Feb. 23, 1823.

Politics are interesting enough now to occupy a large portion of one’s mind, particularly when one feels that politics are but humanity on a large scale. Instead of seeing one steady machine of government going slowly but surely on to its purpose, with occasional attacks from systematic bodies of foes, whose opposition one might calculate, and who now slightly retarded its movements, now were crushed by its progress, we have a complete orrery, and do not in the least know what planet or what comet will draw attention next. Canning has been eclipsed by Robinson, whose speech announcing the remission of two millions of taxes has been admired more than any other of the opening Session. It may owe this in some degree to the subject of its communication, which found an echo in every pocket through the kingdom.

* * * * *

_March 29, 1823._—Temporary separations between parents and children being designed by Providence for frequent occurrence, bring with them unexpected sources of consolation, and a new set of pleasures, not so constant, but perhaps more vivid, than any which attend even the delightful intercourse between them. An unexpected letter, the conversation of a stranger who has seen one’s child within a short space of time, and is like the Bologna diamond of _Werther_, the knowledge of their progress in virtue, intellect, or even in worldly prosperity, which seems peculiarly their own when at a distance from us, and the rapture of reunion, are all pleasures of the highest order.

TO MRS. TUITE.

London, April 20, 1823.

I am just embarked in Campan’s voluminous memoirs, and regret the time I must give to her sensible gossip—for such it is—not a _lueur_ of genius; I know, too, she _must_ be partial, and her volume contains as much as half Hume’s _History_. But every one is reading her; and as there are now few amusements, fewer invitations, and no spare money, all the world is occupied with books; and not to be qualified to talk of Mad. Campan is to abdicate your place in conversation. I saw a very fine performance of _Esther_ by her _élèves_ when I first went to Paris. I cannot imagine it to have been better performed at Saint Cyr.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., STOCKHOLM.

April 29, 1823.

We are all reading Mad. Campan and Las Casas. The embers of the old French Court, and the short-lived splendour of that which in all respects was _unique_, shine out in both these works in their different degrees. The lovers of minute gossip—and they are many—delight in knowing on which side Louis XVI. got out of bed, and with what _étoffe_ Marie Antoinette lined her flannel bathing-dress; while others are gratified, after having read O’Meara’s book, by finding a new and deeper vein displayed in the mind of that wonderful man who has occupied us since his death more than all the living great ones he has left.

I have at last received _Ariosto_, and hope you will be pleased with it. It is a work I never did read through. As far as I can judge from the brilliant passages which everybody knows, Rose seems a spirited and faithful translator, except in the opening stanza. That beautiful and dignified enumeration, which keeps your attention in breathless suspense, while it goes on like a fine procession, and which falls so harmoniously on the ear, is sadly vulgarized by the commonplace

‘Of loves and ladies, knights and arms, I sing.’

TO THE SAME.

Elm Lodge, May 29, 1823.

This fine though cold weather finds your mother at Elm Lodge for a week, among blooms and verdure of the highest beauty, with an intention of returning next Saturday to Montague Square. This week would be called a little oasis in the desert of the town season by some who consider London as a heartless, dissipated, hot rendezvous, where so much pleasure is to be swallowed—no matter with what distaste—and so many ‘things to be done,’ only because others do them. You and I, however, look on London with other eyes, as the centre of wholesome, well-regulated liberty, of unfettered social intercourse, and of constantly-recurring opportunities and facilities for improvement at all ages. Would we were there together to enjoy them as heretofore. Nothing can be purer than the present predominating pleasures of town, for all those who are not in the dinner vortex—seeing fine pictures all the morning, and hearing fine music all the evening.

I know not whether you have seen Mr. Angerstein’s collection. It is now shown by tickets, given by his heir to a long list of acquaintance on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Six Claudes, with more than the usual imaginative elegance and poetic grace of that most delightful painter; were I Dame Nature, I would never sit for my picture to any other hand; for he not only represents her as perfectly beautiful, but as adorned with the highest taste and in the sweetest humour.

There are also the originals of Hogarth’s _Mariage à la Mode_, which strongly prove how much his pictures lose by being translated into engravings. As his style admits not exquisite outline, much of the beauty of his youthful figures arises from their colouring; and in the diminution of their good looks by hard black and white, we lose some of the charm and much of the probability of the story. In the engraving, the lawyer is so plain that it is difficult to consider him as a lover; not so in the painting, where he is whispering the bride with a dark-eyed handsome countenance of intense and glowing interest, and where, from due management of colours, even his flowing dress has some degree of beauty. Whimsically characteristic is his double occupation; for he is mending a pen, from long habit mechanically; and this neither interrupts nor is interrupted by—his making love.

The contrast between the fathers is much more striking, when we see the complexion of the full-fed gouty peer, and compare it with that of the penurious citizen; and the death-scene of the lady is far more impressive. The darned and dirty table-cloth, the squalor of the furniture and apartment, her ghastly paleness, and the stained complexion of the withered and weeping nurse, add a force to this picture I never dreamt of from the engraving.

There is also a Scotch merry-making by Wilkie, full of rustic humour and glee, with occasional touches of tenderness and a general tone of beauty. A young girl endeavouring to draw her father from a revel, where he has already drank too much, is full of sweetness; and while she presses his arm in the tenderest manner on one side, a more ardent, not more anxious, pleader on the other, in the shape of a jovial youth, has amicably seized the old man by the collar, and endeavours to allure him from her gentle grasp.

Canova, you see, is settling down into his due place; a fine sculptor, but not quite a Praxiteles, not the finest of all sculptors, ancient or modern.

* * * * *

_June 1, 1823._—Left, perhaps for ever, certainly for two years, the dearest spot to me in the world—a home dearer to my children than any home I ever saw to any other human beings—beautiful, and every day becoming more so under the minute touches of affectionate assiduity. However, in two years there are but 365 + 365 = 730 days, and one of them is past: 730 - 1 = 729.

* * * * *

_June 2._—730 - 2 = 728. The only home I have ever known rushed on my first waking thoughts, as one not to be seen for two years. Shall we enjoy it then as now? How many things may happen in two years. What a considerable part they are of the time in which I can hope to enjoy any pleasure from externals. When we meet _persons_ after a long absence, they very often do not seem the same from some change in them, in us, in both. Will it not be the same as to a _place_? Will not my dear boys, for whose sake I love it, lose their keen relish for its pleasures and its beauties?

* * * * *

_June 7._—The Green Fever has not subsided. On opening my eyes I long for the song of the birds, the hush of the trees, the smell of the flowers, the sounds and sights and sense of beauty. I comprehend the calenture, when the sailor, under the heat of a burning sun, leaps from the stifling deck to the green fields he fancies undulating beneath him, and finds no repose but that of death.

SONNETS.

I.

ON THE DEATH OF TWO INFANT SISTERS—TWINS.

_July 28, 1823._

Sweet buds of being, ye have passed away
To bloom for ever in a fairer clime,
Escaped the blasts of earth and grasp of time;
As cradled in a mother’s arms ye lay,
In this bright hope ye smiled serenely gay,
Soft as the tender plumage of the dove—
Ye seraph-sisters, whose brief life of love
Shone like the dawn of your celestial day.
Your bark of joy scarce touched this chilling shore,
Your vests of clay ye but a moment wore,
Ye sparkled like twin drops of morning dew,
Reflecting heaven’s own tints of rainbow hue,
And then, blest pair, endured no painful strife,
But, sweetly smiling, languished into life.

II.

UPON A GRECIAN VASE SCULPTURED IN BASALT, SIMILAR IN DESIGN TO THE PORTLAND VASE, AND SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES OR ELYSIAN FIELDS, A FEMALE FIGURE IS SEEN, IN A THOUGHTFUL ATTITUDE, TO WHOM A YOUTH DESCENDS FROM ANOTHER REGION.

Springs not the gentle sadness of her brow
From her own sorrow, but man’s general doom.
This youthful bride, nipped in her dewy bloom,
Was torn from him, whose passion’s early glow
Bade every flower that crowns existence blow,
To scent her path. Lo! in her bridal room,
While hymeneal garlands breathe perfume,
The mourners’ choral dirge is heard to flow.
He, desolate, who could not long endure
This widowed world, forsook the upper air,
Seeking for death, pale sorrow’s only cure;
But found Elysian groves, and found _her_ there,
With immortality—by love enjoyed,
To meaner hopes and hearts a cheerless void.

TO THE LADY FANNY PROBY.

London, July 31, 1823.

You were not, I hope, out on any of your charitable excursions in the late dreadful thunder and lightning—a spectacle which I find always treated with surprising levity. I had an aunt who always locked herself into some closet or press—I believe, that the lightning might not find her out. Are we not a little in the opposite extreme, when we avow feeling no apprehension whatever of what may bring the severest infliction, and is always expected to accompany that day which must come at some time, and may come at any time? You will say I am writing _de la pluie et du beau temps_; but I see so little upon earth that I must go to the atmosphere for subjects.

I am reading Hayley’s _Life_—flat and pompous, but with green spots. According to his own statement, he was but an indifferent husband; and I think I can spy out he was not much better as a son. He, or his biographer—for it is a sort of partnership—is ever making demands on your wonder, and introducing the commonest circumstance as a remarkable incident. All that relates to Cowper is of course interesting.

Town is extremely thin; but the cricket-ground to-day was a gay and pretty sight, a certain number of the families and friends of the Harrow and Eton players having attended; just enough to embellish, not crowd, the scene. Twenty-two of the flower of English youth, dressed in plain white, in different attitudes of swiftness exertion or repose, on English verdure, all enjoyment and animation, under the temperate beauty of a summer sky just veiled by light clouds, had a very Elysian appearance; and as the words of the players were inaudible to us, though at no great distance, there was a sweet stillness, almost silence, just broken by their quiet tread and the gentle applause of the lookers on.

TO MRS. HAYGARTH.

Elton Hall, Oct., 1823.

Mr. T. has returned to me after a pleasant visit to Ireland. He described the journey and passage as so improved by fine roads and those prosaic conveyances, the steam-boats, as to be now quite a party of pleasure. He saw nothing new in Ireland, but the fearful increase of our hungry and idle population, appearing to baffle all hope of finding employment commensurate with their numbers, and proving the truth of that expressive phrase, that the attempt is like the race of the tortoise with the hare; but alas! not likely to be so successful. He was glad, however, to see more just opinions prevalent on the subject, in all ranks, than heretofore, and to find that all agreed as to the _willingness_ of the people to work, and the impropriety, except in extreme and rare cases, of giving them charity in any shape but that of employment.

Mr. Haygarth is not, I hope, satisfied with Rose’s opening of _Ariosto_. I own I never did nor could read the original work through, nor took any pains to conquer my reluctance; as by snatching the beautiful passages, which everyone is ready to point out, one avoids all which is said to be offensive. But I have always admired the grace and dignity of the enumeration of the first stanza, the attention so beautifully awakened by the procession of lofty images in the most musical verse; and vulgarizing this down, as Rose has done, to

‘Of loves and ladies, knights and arms, I sing,’

appears to me in the opening quite disrespectful to the author he translates, and to his readers.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

London, Nov. 11, 1823.

Allow me in great haste to express a wish you would reconsider the paper on bankruptcies. Its whole tendency seems to be that of softening down the demerit of an action which spreads distress and ruin, to which the temptations are numerous, and which is so lightly visited by the law, that it is doubly unsafe to relax the force of opinion that remains against it. While crimes of violence are every day becoming more rare, crimes of fraud are so rapidly increasing, that, if we wish to trim the boat, we should rather try to impress firm principles of honesty than to spread that softness which is making swift progress, and is almost afraid to express sentiments of blame with regard to any human action.

The humanity and mild habits of the times make it quite unnecessary to increase our tenderness for the bankrupt, while the frightful extent and number of fraudulent failures, prove that any such attempt, if an indulgence to the few, would be cruelty to the many. I do not think we can possibly call it ‘hardened’ to disapprove of extravagance and want of precaution, because some persons have, in consequence of ruined fortunes, suffered insanity, epileptic fits, &c. &c. Gambling produces the like effects; but we do not think it ‘hardened’ to blame gamblers.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., STOCKHOLM.

London, Nov. 11, 1823.

I shall send your last production either to _The London Magazine_, or to Miss Baillie’s _Bouquet by Living Authors_, if she intends to tie up a second; which it is said she will do, having cleared for the benefit of a distant friend fifteen hundred guineas by the first. Sir Humphry Davy’s contribution, called Human Life, is a very fine bird’s-eye view of existence, chiefly as connected with the Deity—commencing from, and returning to, the Divine Essence—in the enjoyment of whose favour, and the possession of knowledge, he makes our heaven to consist; but with so little reference to the feelings of mere humanity, that one may humbly conjecture (if allowed to speculate on so awful a subject) minds like his are destined to rank among the Cherubim who _know_ most; while those who are less divided from their fellow mortals by victories in science, will be classed among the Seraphim who _love_ most; this rabbinical distinction being very striking, and at least probable.

A lady spoke the other day of the impossibility of knowing her own sex till she saw them in the company of men; and cited one whom she thought all gentleness, propriety, and delicacy, during some days passed in a country house, till at last a man came to nail down the carpets. _A man_, like Ithuriel’s spear, makes some women start up in their own shape, and so it was here. She immediately displayed forwardness, affectation, and coquetry in all their varying forms. How often we are reminded of this story.

I hear the Dowager Lady —— will certainly marry Mr. ——. As we heard from one to whom her physician announced it, that she bore her lord’s death ‘like a Lion,’ one is the less surprised that she should so soon have made a second choice.

TO THE SAME.

London, Jan. 1, 1824.

Alas! I knew the sad news of Mad. de Stierneld’s departure a little before your letter confirmed it. Her house, all covered with announcements of its being on sale, first surprised me; but there we were only directed to another and smaller habitation, where we thought the Baron had removed on changing his former house, which I knew was not quite approved. The quivering lip and sorrowing countenance of the servant, when I inquired if _she_ was at home, spoke the whole truth at once, and never did I so much regret one whom I had so seldom seen, _passée comme une fleur que le vent emporte_. Nature is at war with excellence, and seldom does one so faultless run the usual career of life. How deeply do I feel for her sorrowing mother. Tell me what other children she has.