Chapter XIII (10)

her dialogue with Hermes, the _Star of Lethe_, as he is called by one of these prodigal phrases which Mr. Keats abounds in, which are each a poem in a word, and which in this instance lays open to us at once, like a picture, all the dim regions and their inhabitants, and the sudden coming of a celestial among them; the charming of her into woman's shape again by the God; her marriage with the beautiful Lycius; her magic palace, which those who knew the street, and remembered it complete from childhood, never remembered to have seen before; the few Persian mutes, her attendants,

----who that same year
Were seen about the markets: none knew where
They could inhabit;----

the high-wrought splendours of the nuptial bower, with the fading of the whole pageantry, Lamia, and all, away, before the glance of Apollonius,--are all that fairy land can do for us. They are for younger impressibilities. To _us_ an ounce of feeling is worth a pound of fancy; and therefore we recur again, with a warmer gratitude, to the story of Isabella and the pot of basil, and those never-cloying stanzas which we have cited, and which we think should disarm criticism, if it be not in its nature cruel; if it would not deny to honey its sweetness, nor to roses redness, nor light to the stars in Heaven; if it would not bay the moon out of the skies, rather than acknowledge she is fair.

SIR THOMAS MORE

(1820)

Of the writings of this distinguished character little is remembered at present beyond his _Utopia_, and some Epigrams. But there is extant a massive folio of his Theological Works in English, partly Practical Divinity, but for the greater part Polemic, against the grand Lutheran Heresy, just then beginning to flower. From these I many years ago made some extracts, rejecting only the antiquated orthography, (they being intended only for my own amusement) except in some instances of proper names, &c. I send them you as I find them, thinking that some of your readers may consider them as curious. The first is from a Tract against Tyndale, called the _Confutation of Tyndale's Answer_.[40] The author of _Religio Medici_ somewhere says, "his conscience would give him the lye, if she should say that he absolutely detested or hated any essence _but the Devil_." Whether Browne was not out in his metaphysics, when he supposed himself capable of hating, that is, _entertaining a personal aversion to_, a being so abstracted, or such a Concrete of all irreconcileable abstractions rather, as usually passes for the meaning of that name, I contend not; but that the same hatred in kind, which he professed against our great spiritual enemy, was in downright earnest cultivated and defended by More against that portentous phenomenon in those times, a _Heretic_, from his speeches against Luther and Tyndale cannot for a moment be doubted. His account of poor Hytton which follows (a reformado priest of the day) is penned with a wit and malice hyper-satanic. It is infinitely diverting in the midst of its diabolism, if it be not rather, what Coleridge calls,

Too wicked for a smile, too foolish for a tear.

[40] To some foregone Tract of More's, of which I have lost the
title.

----"now to the intent that ye may somewhat see what good Christian
faith Sir Thomas Hytton was of, this new saint of Tindale's
canonization, in whose burning Tindale so gaily glorieth, and which
hath his holiday so now appointed to him, that St. Polycarpus must
give him place in the Calendar, I shall somewhat show you what
wholesome heresies this holy martyr held. First ye shall understand,
that he was a priest, and falling to Luther's sect, and after that
to the sect of Friar Huskin and Zwinglius, cast off matins and mass,
and all divine service, and so became an apostle, sent to and fro,
between our English heretics beyond the sea, and such as were here
at home. Now happed it so, that after he had visited here his holy
congregations in divers corners and luskes lanes, and comforted them
in the Lord to stand stiff with the devil in their errors and
heresies, as he was going back again at Gravesend, _God considering
the great labour that he had taken already, and determining to bring
his business to his well-deserved end, gave him suddenly such a
favour and so great a grace in the visage, that every man that
beheld him took him for a thief_. For whereas there had been certain
linen clothes pilfered away that were hanging on an hedge, and Sir
Thomas Hytton was walking not far off _suspiciously in the
meditation of his heresies_: the people doubting that the beggarly
knave had stolen the clouts, fell in question with him and searched
him, and so found they certain letters secretly conveyed in his
coat, written from evangelical brethren here unto the evangelical
heretics beyond the sea. And upon those letters founden, he was with
his letters brought before the most Rev. Father in God the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and afterward as well by his Lordship as
by the Rev. Father the Bishop of Rochester examined, and after for
his abominable heresies delivered to the secular hands and burned."

What follows (from the same Tract) is _mildened_ a little by the introduction of the name of Erasmus, More's intimate friend; though by the sting in the rear of it, it is easy to see, that it was to a little temporising only, and to some thin politic partitions from these Reformers, that Erasmus owed his exemption from the bitter anathemas More had in store for them. The _love_ almost make the _hate_ more shocking by the contrast!

----"Then he (Tyndale) asketh me why I have not contended with
Erasmus, whom he calleth my darling, of all this long while, for
translating of this word _ecclesia_ into this word _congregatio_.
And then he cometh forth with his feat proper taunt, that I favour
him of likelihood for making of his Book of MORIA in my house. There
had he hit me, lo! save for lack of a little salt. I have not
contended with Erasmus my darling, because I found no such malicious
intent with Erasmus my darling, as I find with Tyndale. For had I
found with Erasmus my darling the shrewd intent and purpose, that I
find in Tyndale, Erasmus my darling should be no more my darling.
But I find in Erasmus my darling, that he detesteth and abhorreth
the errors and heresies, that Tyndale plainly teacheth and abideth
by, and therefore Erasmus my darling shall be my dear darling still.
And surely if Tyndale had either never taught them, or yet had the
grace to revoke them, then should Tyndale be my dear darling too.
But while he holdeth such heresies still, I cannot take for my
darling him that the devil taketh for his darling."

The next extract is from a "Dialogue concerning Heresies," and has always struck me as a master-piece of eloquent logic, and something in the manner of Burke, when he is stripping a sophism _sophistically_; as he treats Paine, and others _passim_.

----"And not to be of the foolish mind that Luther is, which wished
in a sermon of his, that he had in his hand all the pieces of the
holy cross, and saith that, if he so had, he would throw them there
as never sun should shine on them. And for what worshipful reason
would the wretch do such villainy to the cross of Christ? because,
as he saith, that there is so much gold now bestowed about the
garnishing of the pieces of the cross, that there is none left for
poor folk. Is not this an high reason? as though all the gold, that
is now bestowed about the pieces of the holy cross, would not have
failed to have been given to poor men, if they had not been bestowed
about the garnishing of the cross. And as though there were nothing
lost, but that is bestowed about Christ's cross. Take all the gold,
that is spent about all the pieces of Christ's cross through
Christendom (albeit many a good Christen prince, and other goodly
people, hath honourably garnished many pieces thereof), yet, if all
the gold were gathered together, it would appear a poor portion, in
comparison of the gold that is bestowed upon cups. What speak we of
cups? in which the gold, albeit that it be not given to poor men,
yet is it saved, and may be given in alms when men will, _which they
never will_; how small a portion, ween we, were the gold about all
the pieces of Christ's cross, if it were compared with the gold that
is _quite cast away_ about the gilting of knives, swords, spurs,
arras, and painted clothes: and (as though these things could not
consume gold fast enough) the gilting of posts, and whole roofs, not
only in palaces of princes and great prelates, but also many right
mean men's houses. And yet, among all these things, could Luther spy
no gold that _grievously glittered in his bleared eyes_, but only
about the cross of Christ.--For that gold, if it were thence, the
wise man weeneth, it would be straight given to poor men, and that
where he daily see'th, that such as have their purse full of gold,
give to the poor not one piece thereof; but, if they give ought,
they ransack the bottom among all the gold, to seek out here an
halfpenny, or _in his country_ a brass penny whereof four make a
farthing: _such goodly causes find they, that pretend holiness for
the colour of their cloaked heresies_." [Book I., Chapter 2.]

I subjoin from the same "Dialogue" More's cunning defence of Miracles done at Saints' shrines, on Pilgrimages, &c. all which he defends, as he was bound by holy church to do, most stoutly. The _manner_ of it is arch and surprising, and the narration infinitely naive; the _matter_ is the old fallacy of confounding miracles (things happening out of nature) with natural things, the grounds of which we cannot explain. In this sense every thing is a miracle, and nothing is.

----"And first if men should tell you, that they saw before an image
of the crucifix a dead man raised to life, ye would much marvel
thereof, and so might ye well; yet could I tell you somewhat that I
have seen myself, that methinketh as great marvel, but I have no
lust to tell you, because that ye be so circumspect and ware in
belief of any miracles, that ye would not believe it for me, but
mistrust me for it.

"Nay, Sir (quod he), in good faith, if a thing seemed to me never so
far unlikely, yet if ye would earnestly say that yourself have seen
it, I neither would nor could mistrust it.

"Well (quod I), then ye may make me the bolder to tell ye. And yet
will I tell you nothing, but that I would, if need were, find you
good witness to prove it.

"It shall not need, Sir (quod he), but I beseech you let me hear it.

"Forsooth (quod I), because we speak of a man raised from death to
life. There was in the parish of St. Stephen's in Walbrook, in
London, where I dwelled before I come to Chelsith, a man and a
woman, which are yet quick and quething, and young were they both.
The eldest I am sure passeth not twenty-four. It happed them, as
doth among folk, the one to cast the mind to the other. And after
many lets, for the maiden's mother was much against it, at last they
came together, and were married in St. Stephen's church, which is
not greatly famous for any miracles, but yet yearly on St. Stephen's
day it is somewhat sought unto and visited with folk's devotion. But
now short tale to make, this young woman (as manner is in brides ye
wot well) was at night brought to bed with honest women. And then
after that went the bridegroom to bed, and every body went their
ways, and left them twain there alone. And the same night, yet abide
let me not lie, now in faith to say the truth I am not very sure of
the time, but surely as it appeared afterward, it was of likelihood
the same night, or some other time soon after, except it happened a
little before.

"No force for the time (quod he).

"Truth (quod I), and as for the matter, all the parish will testify
for truth, the woman was known for so honest. But for the
conclusion, the seed of them twain turned in the woman's body, first
into blood, and after into shape of man-child. And then waxed quick,
and she great therewith. And was within the year delivered of a fair
boy, and forsooth it was not then (for I saw it myself) passing the
length of a foot. And I am sure he has grown now an inch longer than
I.

"How long is it ago? (quod he).

"By my faith (quod I) about twenty-one years.

"Tush! (quod he), this is a worthy miracle!

"In good faith (quod I), never wist I that any man could tell that
he had any other beginning. And methinketh that this is as great a
miracle as the raising of a dead man." [Book I., Chapter 10.]

Diabolical Possession was a rag of the old abomination, which this Contunder of Heresies thought himself obliged no less to wrap tightly about the loins of his faith, than any of the _splendiores panni_ of the old red Harlot. But (read with allowance for the belief of the times) the narrative will be found affecting, particularly in what relates to the parents of the damsel, "rich, and sore abashed."

----"Amongst which (_true miracles_) I durst boldly tell you for
one, the wonderful work of God, that was within these few years
wrought, in the house of a right worshipful knight, Sir Roger
Wentworth, upon divers of his children, and specially one of his
daughters, a very fair young gentlewoman of twelve years of age, in
marvellous manner vexed and tormented by our ghostly enemy the
devil, her mind alienated and raving with despising and blasphemy of
God, and hatred of all hallowed things, with knowledge and
perceiving of the hallowed from the unhallowed, all were she nothing
warned thereof. And after that moved in her own mind, and monished
by the will of God, to go to our Lady of Ippiswitche. In the way of
which pilgrimage, she prophesied and told many things done and said
at the same time in other places, which were proved true, and many
things said, lying in her trance, of such wisdom and learning, that
right cunning men highly marvelled to hear of so young an unlearned
maiden, when herself wist not what she said, such things uttered and
spoken, as well learned men might have missed with a long study, and
finally being brought and laid before the Image of our Blessed Lady,
was there in the sight of many worshipful people so grievously
tormented, and in face, eyen, look and countenance, so griesly
changed, and her mouth drawn aside, and her eyen laid out upon her
cheeks, that it was a terrible sight to behold. And after many
marvellous things at the same time shewed upon divers persons by the
devil through God's sufferance, as well all the remnant as the
maiden herself, in the presence of all the company, restored to
their good state perfectly cured and suddenly. And in this matter no
pretext of begging, no suspicion of feigning? no possibility of
counterfeiting, no simpleness in the seers, her father and mother
right honourable and rich, _sore abashed to see such chances in
their children_, the witnesses great number, and many of great
worship, wisdom and good experience, the maid herself too young to
feign [and the fashion itself too strange for any man to feign],
and the end of the matter virtuous, the virgin so moved in her mind
with the miracle, that she forthwith for aught her father could do,
forsook the world, and professed religion in a very good and godly
company at the Mynoresse, where she hath lived well and graciously
ever since." [Book I., Chapter 16.]

I shall trouble you with one Excerpt more, from a "Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation;" because the style of it is solemn and weighty; and because it was written by More in his last imprisonment in the Tower, preparatory to his sentence. After witnessing his treatment of Sir John Hytton, and his brethren, we shall be inclined to mitigate some of our remorse, that More should have suffered death himself _for conscience sake_. The reader will not do this passage justice, if he do not read it as part of a sermon; and as putting himself into the feelings of an auditory of More's Creed and Times.

----"But some men now when this calling of God [any tribulation]
causeth them to be sad, they be loth to leave their sinful lusts
that hang in their hearts, and specially if they have any such kind
of living, as they must needs leave off, or fall deeper in sin: or
if they have done so many great wrongs, that they have many 'mends
to make, that must (if they follow God) 'minish much their money,
then are these folks (alas) woefully bewrapped, for God pricketh
upon them of his great goodness still, and the grief of this great
pang pincheth them at the heart, and of wickedness they wry away,
and fro this tribulation they turn to their flesh for help, and
labour to shake off this thought, and then they mend their pillow,
and lay their head softer, and assay to sleep; and when that will
not be, then they find a talk awhile with them that lie by them. If
that cannot be neither, then they lie and long for day, and then get
them forth about their worldly wretchedness, the matter of their
prosperity, the self-same sinful things with which they displease
God most, and at length with many times using this manner, God
utterly casteth them off. And then they set nought neither by God
nor Devil. * * * But alas! when death cometh, then cometh again
their sorrow, then will no soft bed serve, nor no company make him
merry, then must he leave his outward worship and comfort of his
glory, and lie panting in his bed as if he were on a pine-bank, then
cometh his fear of his evil life and his dreadful death. Then cometh
the torment, his cumbered conscience and fear of his heavy judgment.
Then the devil draweth him to despair with imagination of hell, and
suffereth him not then to take it for a fable. And yet if he do,
then findeth it the wretch no fable. * * * Some have I seen even in
their last sickness set up in their death-bed underpropped with
pillows take their play-fellows to them, and comfort themselves with
cards, and this they said did ease them well to put fantasies out of
their heads; and what fantasies trow you? such as I told you right
now of, their own lewd life and peril of their soul, of heaven and
of hell that irked them to think of, and therefore cast it out with
cards' play as long as ever thy might, till the pure pangs of death
pulled their heart fro their play, and put them in the case they
could not reckon their game. And then left them their gameners, and
slily slunk away, and long was it not ere they galped up the ghost.
And what game they came then to, that God knoweth and not I. I pray
God it were good, but I fear it very sore."

* * * *.

THE CONFESSIONS OF H. F. V. H. DELAMORE, ESQ.

(1821)

SACKVILLE-STREET, _25th March, 1821_.

Mr. Editor,--A correspondent in your last number,[41] blesses his stars, that he was never yet in the pillory; and, with a confidence which the uncertainty of mortal accidents but weakly justifies, goes on to predict that he never shall be. Twelve years ago, had a Sibyl prophesied to me, that I should live to be set in a worse place, I should have struck her for a lying beldam. There are degradations below that which he speaks of.

[41] Elia:--Chapter on Ears.

I come of a good stock, Mr. Editor. The Delamores are a race singularly tenacious of their honour; men who, in the language of Edmund Burke, feel a stain like a wound. My grand uncle died of a fit of the sullens for the disgrace of a public whipping at Westminster. He had not then attained his fourteenth year. Would I had died young!

For more than five centuries, the current of our blood hath flowed unimpeachably. And must it stagnate now?

Can a family be tainted backwards?--can posterity purchase disgrace for their progenitors?--or doth it derogate from the great Walter of our name, who received the sword of knighthood in Cressy field, that one of his descendants once sate * * * * * * * * * * *?

Can an honour, fairly achieved in _quinto Edwardi Tertii_, be reversed by a slip _in quinquagesimo Georgii Tertii_?--how stands the law?--what _dictum_ doth the college deliver?--O Clarencieux! O Norroy!

Can a reputation, gained by hard watchings on the cold ground, in a suit of mail, be impeached by hard watchings on the cold ground in other circumstances--was the endurance equal?--why is the guerdon so disproportionate?

A priest mediated the ransom of the too valorous Reginald, of our house, captived in Lord Talbot's battles. It was a clergyman, who by his intercession abridged the period of my durance.

Have you touched at my wrongs yet, Mr. Editor?--or must I be explicit as to my grievance?

Hush, my heedless tongue.

Something bids me--"Delamore, be ingenuous."

Once then, and only once----

Star of my nativity, hide beneath a cloud, while I reveal it!

Ancestors of Delamore, lie low in your wormy beds, that no posthumous hearing catch a sound!

Let no eye look over thee, while thou shalt peruse it, reader!

Once----

these legs, with Kent in the play, though for far less ennobling considerations, did wear "cruel garters."

Yet I protest it was but for a thing of nought--a fault of youth, and warmer blood--a calendary inadvertence I may call it--or rather a temporary obliviousness of the day of the week--timing my Saturnalia amiss.----

Streets of Barnet, infamous for civil broils, ye saw my shame!--did not your Red Rose rise again to dye my burning cheek?

It was but for a pair of minutes, or so--yet I feel, I feel, that the gentry of the Delamores is extinguished for ever.----

Try to forget it, reader.----

(Signed) HENRY FRANCIS VERE HARRINGTON

DELAMORE.

THE GENTLE GIANTESS

(1822)

The widow Blacket, of Oxford, is the largest female I ever had the pleasure of beholding. There may be her parallel upon the earth, but surely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from the maid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such uneasiness. She hath Atlantean shoulders; and, as she stoopeth in her gait--with as few offences to answer for in her own particular as any of Eve's daughters--her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all the peccadillos that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth her waist--or what she is pleased to esteem as such--nearly up to her shoulders, from beneath which, that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainous declivity, emergeth. Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, who follow her about in shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting up and riding.--But her presence infallibly commands a reverence. She is indeed, as the Americans would express it, something awful. Her person is a burthen to herself, no less than to the ground which bears her. To her mighty bone, she hath a pinguitude withal, which makes the depth of winter to her the most desirable season. Her distress in the warmer solstice is pitiable. During the months of July and August, she usually renteth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, whereinto she descendeth when Sirius rageth. She dates from a hot Thursday--some twenty-five years ago. Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Two doors, in north and south direction, and two windows, fronting the rising and the setting sun, never closed, from every cardinal point, catch the contributory breezes. She loves to enjoy what she calls a quadruple draught. That must be a shrewd zephyr, that can escape her. I owe a painful face-ach, which oppresses me at this moment, to a cold caught, sitting by her, one day in last July, at this receipt of coolness. Her fan in ordinary resembleth a banner spread, which she keepeth continually on the alert to detect the least breeze. She possesseth an active and gadding mind, totally incommensurate with her person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises and pastimes. I have passed many an agreeable holiday with her in her favourite park at Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightful ambulatory excursions by the aid of a portable garden chair. She setteth out with you at a fair foot gallop, which she keepeth up till you are both well breathed, and then she reposeth for a few seconds. Then she is up again, for a hundred paces or so, and again resteth--her movement, on these sprightly occasions, being something between walking and flying. Her great weight seemeth to propel her forward, ostrich-fashion. In this kind of relieved marching I have traversed with her many scores of acres on these well-wooded and well-watered domains. Her delight at Oxford is in the public walks and gardens, where, when the weather is not too oppressive, she passeth much of her valuable time. There is a bench at Maudlin, or rather, situated between the frontiers of that and * * * * * *'s college--some litigation latterly, about repairs, has vested the property of it finally in * * * * * *'s--where at the hour of noon she is ordinarily to be found sitting--so she calls it by courtesy--but in fact, pressing and breaking of it down with her enormous settlement; as both those Foundations, who, however, are good-natured enough to wink at it, have found, I believe, to their cost. Here she taketh the fresh air, principally at vacation times, when the walks are freest from interruption of the younger fry of students. Here she passeth her idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with a book--blest if she can but intercept some resident Fellow (as usually there are some of that brood left behind at these periods); or stray Master of Arts (to most of them she is better known than their dinner bell); with whom she may confer upon any curious topic of literature. I have seen these shy gownsmen, who truly set but a very slight value upon female conversation, cast a hawk's eye upon her from the length of Maudlin grove, and warily glide off into another walk--true monks as they are, and ungently neglecting the delicacies of her polished converse, for their own perverse and uncommunicating solitariness! Within doors her principal diversion is music, vocal and instrumental, in both which she is no mean professor. Her voice is wonderfully fine; but till I got used to it, I confess it staggered me. It is for all the world like that of a piping bulfinch, while from her size and stature you would expect notes to drown the deep organ. The shake, which most fine singers reserve for the close or cadence, by some unaccountable flexibility, or tremulousness of pipe, she carrieth quite through the composition; so that her time, to a common air or ballad, keeps double motion, like the earth--running the primary circuit of the tune, and still revolving upon its own axis. The effect, as I said before, when you are used to it, is as agreeable as it is altogether new and surprising. The spacious apartment of her outward frame lodgeth a soul in all respects disproportionate. Of more than mortal make, she evinceth withal a trembling sensibility, a yielding infirmity of purpose, a quick susceptibility to reproach, and all the train of diffident and blushing virtues, which for their habitation usually seek out a feeble frame, an attenuated and meagre constitution. With more than man's bulk, her humours and occupations are eminently feminine. She sighs--being six foot high. She languisheth--being two feet wide. She worketh slender sprigs upon the delicate muslin--her fingers being capable of moulding a Colossus. She sippeth her wine out of her glass daintily--her capacity being that of a tun of Heidelburg. She goeth mincingly with those feet of hers--whose solidity need not fear the black ox's pressure. Softest, and largest of thy sex, adieu! by what parting attribute may I salute thee--last and best of the Titanesses--Ogress, fed with milk instead of blood--not least, or least handsome, among Oxford's stately structures--Oxford, who, in its deadest time of vacation, can never properly be said to be empty, having thee to fill it.

ELIA.

LETTER TO AN OLD GENTLEMAN WHOSE EDUCATION HAS BEEN NEGLECTED

_To the Editor of the London Magazine_

(1823)

Dear Sir,--I send you a bantering Epistle to an Old Gentleman whose Education is supposed to have been Neglected. Of course, it was _suggested_ by some Letters of your admirable Opium-Eater; the discontinuance of which has caused so much regret to myself in common with most of your readers. You will do me injustice by supposing, that in the remotest degree it was my intention to ridicule those Papers. The fact is, the most serious things may give rise to an innocent burlesque; and the more serious they are, the fitter they become for that purpose. It is not to be supposed, that Charles Cotton did not entertain a very high regard for Virgil, notwithstanding he travestied that Poet. Yourself can testify the deep respect I have always held for the profound learning and penetrating genius of our friend. Nothing upon earth would give me greater pleasure than to find that he has not lost sight of his entertaining and instructive purpose.

I am, dear Sir, yours and _his_ sincerely,

ELIA.

MY DEAR SIR,--The question which you have done me the honour to propose to me, through the medium of our common friend Mr. Grierson, I shall endeavour to answer with as much exactness as a limited observation and experience can warrant.

You ask--or rather, Mr. Grierson in his own interesting language asks for you--"Whether a person at the age of sixty-three, with no more proficiency than a tolerable knowledge of most of the characters of the English alphabet at first sight amounts to, by dint of persevering application, and good masters,--a docile and ingenuous disposition on the part of the pupil always pre-supposed--may hope to arrive, within a presumable number of years, at that degree of attainments, which shall entitle the possessor to the character, which you are on so many accounts justly desirous of acquiring, of a _learned man_."

This is fairly and candidly stated,--only I could wish that on one point you had been a little more explicit. In the mean time, I will take it for granted, that by a "knowledge of the alphabetic characters," you confine your meaning to the single powers only, as you are silent on the subject of the diphthongs, and harder combinations.

Why truly, Sir, when I consider the vast circle of sciences--it is not here worth while to trouble you with the distinction between learning and science--which a man must be understood to have made the tour of in these days, before the world will be willing to concede to him the title which you aspire to, I am almost disposed to reply to your inquiry by a direct answer in the negative.

However, where all cannot be compassed, a great deal that is truly valuable may be accomplished. I am unwilling to throw out any remarks that should have a tendency to damp a hopeful genius; but I must not in fairness conceal from you, that you have much to do. The consciousness of difficulty is sometimes a spur to exertion. Rome--or rather, my dear Sir, to borrow an illustration from a place, as yet more familiar to you--Rumford--Rumford--was not built in a day.

Your mind as yet, give me leave to tell you, is in the state of a sheet of white paper. We must not blot or blur it over too hastily. Or, to use an opposite simile, it is like a piece of parchment all be-scrawled and be-scribbled over with characters of no sense or import, which we must carefully erase and remove, before we can make way for the authentic characters or impresses, which are to be substituted in their stead by the corrective hand of science.

Your mind, my dear Sir, again resembles that same parchment, which we will suppose a little hardened by time and disuse. We may apply the characters, but are we sure that the ink will sink?

You are in the condition of a traveller, that has all his journey to begin. And again, you are worse off than the traveller which I have supposed--for you have already lost your way.

You have much to learn, which you have never been taught; and more, I fear, to unlearn, which you have been taught erroneously. You have hitherto, I dare say, imagined, that the sun moves round the earth. When you shall have mastered the true solar system, you will have quite a different theory upon that point, I assure you. I mention but this instance. Your own experience, as knowledge advances, will furnish you with many parallels.

I can scarcely approve of the intention, which Mr. Grierson informs me you had contemplated, of entering yourself at a common seminary, and working your way up from the lower to the higher forms with the children. I see more to admire in the modesty, than in the expediency, of such a resolution. I own I cannot reconcile myself to the spectacle of a gentleman at your time of life seated, as must be your case at first, below a Tyro of four or five--for at that early age the rudiments of education usually commence in this country. I doubt whether more might not be lost in the point of fitness, than would be gained in the advantages which you propose to yourself by this scheme.

You say, you stand in need of emulation; that this incitement is no where to be had but at a public school; that you should be more sensible of your progress by comparing it with the daily progress of those around you. But have you considered the nature of emulation; and how it is sustained at those tender years, which you would have to come in competition with? I am afraid you are dreaming of academic prizes and distinctions. Alas! in the university, for which you are preparing, the highest medal would be a silver penny, and you must graduate in nuts and oranges.

I know that Peter, the Great Czar--or Emperor--of Muscovy, submitted himself to the discipline of a dock-yard at Deptford, that he might learn, and convey to his countrymen, the noble art of shipbuilding. You are old enough to remember him, or at least to talk about him. I call to mind also other great princes, who, to instruct themselves in the theory and practice of war, and set an example of subordination to their subjects, have condescended to enrol themselves as private soldiers; and, passing through the successive ranks of corporal, quarter-master, and the rest, have served their way up to the station, at which most princes are willing enough to set out--of General and Commander-in-Chief over their own forces. But--besides that there is oftentimes great sham and pretence in their show of mock humility--the competition which they stooped to was with their co-evals, however inferior to them in birth. Between ages so very disparate, as those which you contemplate, I fear there can no salutary emulation subsist.

Again, in the other alternative, could you submit to the ordinary reproofs and discipline of a day-school? Could you bear to be corrected for your faults? Or how would it look to see you put to stand, as must be the case sometimes, in a corner?

I am afraid the idea of a public school in your circumstances must be given up.

But is it impossible, by dear Sir, to find some person of your own age--if of the other sex, the more agreeable perhaps--whose information, like your own, has rather lagged behind their years, who should be willing to set out from the same point with yourself, to undergo the same tasks--thus at once inciting and sweetening each other's labours in a sort of friendly rivalry. Such a one, I think, it would not be difficult to find in some of the western parts of this island--about Dartmoor for instance.

Or what if, from your own estate--that estate which, unexpectedly acquired so late in life, has inspired into you this generous thirst after knowledge, you were to select some elderly peasant, that might best be spared from the land; to come and begin his education with you, that you might till, as it were, your minds together--one, whose heavier progress might invite, without a fear of discouraging, your emulation? We might then see--starting from an equal post--the difference of the clownish and the gentle blood.

A private education then, or such a one as I have been describing, being determined on, we must in the next place look out for a preceptor:--for it will be some time before either of you, left to yourselves, will be able to assist the other to any great purpose in his studies.

And now, my dear Sir, if in describing such a tutor as I have imagined for you, I use a style a little above the familiar one in which I have hitherto chosen to address you, the nature of the subject must be my apology. _Difficile est de scientiis inscienter loqui_, which is as much as to say that "in treating of scientific matters it is difficult to avoid the use of scientific terms." But I shall endeavour to be as plain as possible. I am not going to present you with the _ideal_ of a pedagogue, as it may exist in my fancy, or has possibly been realized in the persons of Buchanan and Busby. Something less than perfection will serve our turn. The scheme which I propose in this first or introductory letter has reference to the first four or five years of your education only; and in enumerating the qualifications of him that should undertake the direction of your studies, I shall rather point out the _minimum_, or _least_, that I shall require of him, than trouble you in the search of attainments neither common nor necessary to our immediate purpose.

He should be a man of deep and extensive knowledge. So much at least is indispensable. Something older than yourself, I could wish him, because years add reverence.

To his age and great learning, he should be blest with a temper and a patience, willing to accommodate itself to the imperfections of the slowest and meanest capacities. Such a one in former days Mr. Hartlib appears to have been, and such in our days I take Mr. Grierson to be; but our friend, you know, unhappily has other engagements. I do not demand a consummate grammarian; but he must be a thorough master of vernacular orthography, with an insight into the accentualities and punctualities of modern Saxon, or English. He must be competently instructed (or how shall he instruct you?) in the tetralogy, or first four rules, upon which not only arithmetic, but geometry, and the pure mathematics themselves, are grounded. I do not require that he should have measured the globe with Cook, or Ortelius, but it is desirable that he should have a general knowledge (I do not mean a very nice or pedantic one) of the great division of the earth into four parts, so as to teach you readily to name the quarters. He must have a genius capable in some degree of soaring to the upper element, to deduce from thence the not much dissimilar computation of the cardinal points, or hinges, upon which those invisible phenomena, which naturalists agree to term _winds_, do perpetually shift and turn. He must instruct you, in imitation of the old Orphic fragments (the mention of which has possibly escaped you), in numeric and harmonious responses, to deliver the number of solar revolutions, within which each of the twelve periods, into which the _Annus Vulgaris_, or common year, is divided, doth usually complete and terminate itself. The intercalaries, and other subtle problems, he will do well to omit, till riper years, and course of study, shall have rendered you more capable thereof. He must be capable of embracing all history, so as from the countless myriads of individual men, who have peopled this globe of earth--_for it is a globe_--by comparison of their respective births, lives, deaths, fortunes, conduct, prowess, &c. to pronounce, and teach you to pronounce, dogmatically and catechetically, who was the richest, who was the strongest, who was the wisest, who was the meekest man, that ever lived; to the facilitation of which solution, you will readily conceive, a smattering of biography would in no inconsiderable degree conduce. Leaving the dialects of men (in one of which I shall take leave to suppose you by this time at least superficially instituted), you will learn to ascend with him to the contemplation of that unarticulated language, which was before the written tongue; and, with the aid of the elder Phrygian or Æsopic key, to interpret the sounds by which the animal tribes communicate their minds--evolving moral instruction with delight from the dialogue of cocks, dogs, and foxes. Or marrying theology with verse, from whose mixture a beautiful and healthy offspring may be expected, in your own native accents (but purified) you will keep time together to the profound harpings of the more modern or Wattsian hymnics.

Thus far I have ventured to conduct you to a "hill-side, whence you may discern the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming."[42]

With my best respects to Mr. Grierson, when you see him,

I remain, dear Sir, your obedient servant,

ELIA.

_April 1, 1823._

[42] Milton's Tractate on Education, addressed to Mr. Hartlib.

RITSON _VERSUS_ JOHN SCOTT THE QUAKER

(1823)

Critics I read on other men,
And Hypers upon them again.--_Prior._

I have in my possession Scott's "Critical Essays on some of the Poems of several English Poets,"--a handsome octavo, bought at the sale of Ritson's books; and enriched (or deformed, as some would think it) with MS. annotations in the handwriting of that redoubted Censor. I shall transcribe a few, which seem most characteristic of both the writers--Scott, feeble, but amiable--Ritson, coarse, caustic, clever; and, I am to suppose, not amiable. But they have proved some amusement to me; and, I hope, will produce some to the reader, this rainy season, which really damps a gentleman's wings for any original flight, and obliges him to ransack his shelves, and miscellaneous reading, to furnish an occasional or make-shift paper. If the sky clears up, and the sun dances this Easter (as they say he is wont to do), the town may be troubled with something more in his own way the ensuing month from its poor servant to command.

ELIA.

DYER'S RUINS OF ROME

----The pilgrim oft
At dead of night 'mid his oraison hears
Aghast the voice of time disparting towers,
Tumbling all precipitate down-dashed,
Rattling around, loud-thund'ring to the moon;
While murmurs sooth each awful interval
Of ever-falling waters.

_Scott_

There is a very bold transposition in this passage. A superficial reader, not attending to the sense of the epithet _ever_, might be ready to suppose that the _intervals_ intended were those between the _falling of the waters_, instead of those between the _falling of the towers_.

_Ritson_

A beauty, as in Thomson's Winter--

----Cheerless towns, far distant, never blest,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,
With news of human kind.[43]
----Where the broad-bosom'd hills,
Swept with perpetual clouds, of Scotland rise,
Me fate compels to tarry.

A superficial person--Mr. Scott, for instance, would be apt to connect the last clause in this period with the line foregoing--"bends to the coast of Cathay with news," &c. But has a reader nothing to do but to sit passive, while the connexion is to glide into his ears like oil?

[43] May I have leave to notice an instance of the same agreeable
discontinuity in my friend Lloyd's admirable poem on Christmas?

DENHAM'S COOPER'S HILL

The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That, had the self-enamour'd youth gaz'd here,
So fatally deceived he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face had seen.

_Scott_

The last two lines have more music than Denham's can possibly boast.

_Ritson_

May I have leave to conjecture, that in the very last line of all, the word "the" has erroneously crept in? I am persuaded that the poet wrote "his." To my mind, at least, this reading, in a surprising degree, heightens the idea of the extreme clearness and transparency of the stream, where a man might see _more than his face_ (as it were) in it.

COLLINS'S ORIENTAL ECLOGUES

_Scott_

The second of these little pieces, called Hassan, or the Camel Driver, is of superior character. This poem contradicts history in one principal instance; the merchants of the east travel in numerous caravans, but Hassan is introduced travelling alone in the desart. But this circumstance detracts little from our author's merit; adherence to historical fact is _seldom_ required in poetry.

_Ritson_

It is _always_, where the poet unnecessarily transports you to the ends of the world. If he must plague you with exotic scenery, you have a right to exact strict local imagery and costume. Why must I learn Arabic, to read nothing after all but Gay's Fables in another language?

_Scott_

Abra is introduced in a grove, wreathing a flowery chaplet for her hair. Shakspeare himself could not have devised a more natural and pleasing incident, than that of the monarch's attention being attracted by her song:

Great Abbas chanced that fated morn to stray,
By love conducted from the chace away.
Among the vocal vales he heard her song----

_Ritson_

Ch--t?

* * * * *

O stay thee, Agib, for my feet deny,
No longer friendly to my life, to fly----

_Scott_

From the pen of Cowley, such an observation as Secander's, "that his feet were no longer friendly to his life," might have been expected; but Collins rarely committed such violations of simplicity.

_Ritson_

Pen of Cowley! impudent goose-quill, how darest thou guess what Cowley would have written?

GRAY'S CHURCH-YARD ELEGY

Save where the beetle wheels----

_Scott_

The beetle was introduced in poetry by Shakspeare * * *. Shakspeare has made the most of his description; indeed, far too much, considering the occasion:

----to black Hecate's summons
The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hum
Hath rung night's yawning peal.----

The imagination must be indeed fertile, which could produce this ill-placed exuberance of imagery. The poet, when composing this passage, must have had in his mind all the remote ideas of Hecate, a heathen Goddess, of a beetle, of night, of a peal of bells, and of that action of the muscles, commonly called a gape or yawn.

_Ritson_

Numbscull! that would limit an infinite head by the square contents of thy own numbscull.

_Scott_

The great merit of a poet is not, like Cowley, Donne, and Denham, to say what no man but himself has thought, but what every man besides himself has thought; but no man expressed, or, at least, expressed so well.

_Ritson_

In other words, all _that_ is poetry, which Mr. Scott has thought, as well as the poet; but _that_ cannot be poetry, which was not obvious to Mr. Scott, as well as to Cowley, Donne, and Denham.

_Scott_

Mr. Mason observes of the language in this part [the Epitaph], that it has a Doric delicacy. It has, indeed, what I should rather term a _happy rusticity_.

_Ritson_

Come, see
Rural felicity.

GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE

No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled--
All but yon widow'd solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced, in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,

_Scott_

Our author's language, in this place, is very defective in correctness. After mentioning the general privation of the "bloomy flush of life," the exceptionary "all but" includes, as part of that "bloomy flush," an aged decrepit matron; that is to say, in plain prose, "the bloomy flush of life is all fled but one old woman."

_Ritson_

Yet Milton could write:

Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bell-man's drowsy charm--

and I dare say he was right. O never let a quaker, or a woman, try their hand at being witty, any more than a Tom Brown affect to speak by the spirit!

_Scott_

----Aaron Hill, who, although, in general, a bombastic writer, produced some pieces of merit, particularly the Caveat, an allegorical satire on Pope.

_Ritson_

Say rather his verses on John Dennis, beginning "Adieu, unsocial excellence!" which are implicitly a finer satire on Pope than twenty Caveats. All that Pope could or did say against Dennis, is there condensed; and what he should have said, and did not, for him, is there too.[44]

[44]

ON THE DEATH OF MR. DENNIS

Adieu, unsocial excellence! at last
Thy foes are vanquish'd, and thy fears are past:
Want, the grim recompense of truth like thine,
Shall now no longer dim thy destined shrine.
The impatient envy, the disdainful air,
The front malignant, and the captious stare,
The furious petulance, the jealous start,
The mist of frailties that obscured thy heart--
Veil'd in thy grave shall unremember'd lie;
For these were parts of Dennis born to die.
But there's a nobler deity behind;
His reason dies not, and has friends to find:

THOMSON'S SEASONS

_Address to the Angler to spare the young fish_

If yet too young, and easily deceived,
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,
Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space
He has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven,
Soft disengage, and back into the stream
The speckled infant throw.----

_Scott_

The praise bestowed on a preceding passage, cannot be justly given to this. There is in it an attempt at dignity above the occasion. Pathos seems to have been intended, but affectation only is produced.

_Ritson_

It is not affectation, but it is the mock heroic of pathos, introduced purposely and wisely to attract the reader to a proposal, which from the unimportance of the subject--a poor little fish--might else have escaped his attention--as children learn, or may learn, humanity to animals from the mock romantic "Perambulations of a Mouse."

HAYMAKING

----Infant hands
Trail the long rake; or, with the fragrant load
O'er-charged, amid the kind oppression roll.

_Scott_

"Kind oppression" is a phrase of that sort, which one scarcely knows whether to blame or praise: it consists of two words, directly opposite in their signification; and yet, perhaps, no phrase whatever could have better conveyed the idea of an easy uninjurious weight--

_Ritson_

--and yet he does not know whether to blame or praise it!

Though here revenge and pride withheld his praise,
No wrongs shall reach him through his future days;
The rising ages shall redeem his name,
And nations read him into lasting fame.

In his defects untaught, his labour'd page
Shall the slow gratitude of Time engage.
Perhaps some story of his pitied woe,
Mix'd in faint shades, may with his memory go,
To touch fraternity with generous shame,
And backward cast an unavailing blame
On times too cold to taste his strength of art,
Yet warm contemners of too weak a heart.
Rest in thy dust, contented with thy lot,
Thy good remember'd, and thy bad forgot.
* * * * * * *

SHEEP-SHEARING

----By many a dog
Compell'd----
* * * * *

The clamour much of men, and boys, and dogs----
* * * * *

_Scott_

The mention of _dogs_ twice was superfluous; it might have been easily avoided.

_Ritson_

Very true--by mentioning them only once.

_Scott_

Nature is rich in a variety of minute but striking circumstances; some of which engage the attention of one observer, and some that of another.

_Ritson_

This lover of truth never uttered a truer speech. Give me a lie wth a spirit in it.

* * * * *

Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense.----

_Scott_

The bombastic "immense smile of air, &c.," better omitted.

_Ritson_

Qute Miltonic--"enormous bliss"--and both, I presume, alike _caviare_ to the Quaker.

* * * * *