by Thomas Moore
The most rural of these gentlemen is my friend Leigh Hunt, who lives at Hampstead. I believe that I need not disclaim any personal or poetical hostility against that gentleman. A more amiable man in society I know not; nor (when he will allow his sense to prevail over his sectarian principles) a better writer. When he was writing his “Rimini,” I was not the last to discover its beauties, long before it was published. Even then I remonstrated against its vulgarisms; which are the more extraordinary, because the author is any thing but a vulgar man. Mr. Hunt’s answer was, that he wrote them upon principle; they made part of his “system!!” I then said no more. When a man talks of his system, it is like a woman’s talking of her virtue. I let them talk on. Whether there are writers who could have written “Rimini,” as it might have been written, I know not; but Mr. Hunt is, probably, the only poet who could have had the heart to spoil his own Capo d’Opera.
With the rest of his young people I have no acquaintance, except through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without my desire), and I confess that till I had read them I was not aware of the full extent of human absurdity. Like Garrick’s “Ode to Shakspeare,” they “defy criticism.” These are of the personages who decry Pope. One of them, a Mr. John Ketch, has written some lines against him, of which it were better to be the subject than the author. Mr. Hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; but the rest of these poor creatures seem so far gone that I would not “march through Coventry with them, that’s flat!” were I in Mr. Hunt’s place. To be sure, he has “led his ragamuffins where they will be well peppered;” but a system-maker must receive all sorts of proselytes. When they have really seen life — when they have felt it — when they have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of Middlesex — when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to its sources the Nile of the New River — then, and not till then, can it properly he permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not in Wales, been near it, when he described so beautifully the “artificial” works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the “Man of Ross,” whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could hardly have preserved his honest renown.
I would also observe to my friend Hunt, that I shall be very glad to see him at Ravenna, not only for my sincere pleasure in his company, and the advantage which a thousand miles or so of travel might produce to a “natural” poet, but also to point out one or two little things in “Rimini,” which he probably would not have placed in his opening to that poem, if he had ever seen Ravenna; — unless, indeed, it made “part of his system!!” I must also crave his indulgence for having spoken of his disciples — by no means an agreeable or self-sought subject. If they had said nothing of Pope, they might have remained “alone with their glory” for aught I should have said or thought about them or their nonsense. But if they interfere with the “little Nightingale” of Twickenham, they may find others who will bear it — I won’t. Neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration for him, who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence. The delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be the consolation of my age. His poetry is the Book of Life. Without canting, and yet without neglecting religion, he has assembled all that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, “that of all the members of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a great poet, there may be a thousand born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any in story.” Here is a statesman’s opinion of poetry: it is honourable to him and to the art. Such a “poet of a thousand years” was Pope. A thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in our literature. But it can want them — he himself is a literature.
One word upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. “Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has not been able to point out above three or four mistakes in the sense through the whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a different kind.” So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst: they will never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and feeling.
The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is their vulgarity. By this I do not mean that they are coarse, but “shabby-genteel,” as it is termed. A man may be coarse and yet not vulgar, and the reverse. Burns is often coarse, but never vulgar. Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. It is in their finery that the new under school are most vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as what we called at Harrow “a Sunday blood” might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes might be the better cut, and his boots the best blackened, of the two; — probably because he made the one, or cleaned the other, with his own hands.
In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. Of my friend Hunt, I have already said, that he is any thing but vulgar in his manners; and of his disciples, therefore, I will not judge of their manners from their verses. They may be honourable and gentlemanly men, for what I know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me of Mr. Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in “Evelina.” In these things (in private life, at least,) I pretend to some small experience; because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries, down to the London boxer, the “flash and the swell,” the Spanish muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch highlander, and the Albanian robber; — to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian social life. Far be it from me to presume that there ever was, or can be, such a thing as an aristocracy of poets; but there is a nobility of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly from education, — which is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt’s little chorus. If I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should say that it is only to be defined by examples — of those who have it, and those who have it not. In life, I should say that most military men have it, and few naval; — that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers; — that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they are not pedants); that fencing-masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not an Irishism to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never make entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it. It is the salt of society, and the seasoning of composition. Vulgarity is far worse than downright blackguardism; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, “signifying nothing.” It does not depend upon low themes, or even low language, for Fielding revels in both; — but is he ever vulgar? No. You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject, — its master, not its slave. Your vulgar writer is always most vulgar, the higher, his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidcock’s was wont to say,— “This, gentlemen, is the eagle of the sun, from Archangel, in Russia; the otterer it is, the igherer he flies.” But to the proofs. It is a thi
ng to be felt more than explained. Let any man take up a volume of Mr. Hunt’s subordinate writers, read (if possible) a couple of pages, and pronounce for himself, if they contain not the kind of writing which may be likened to “shabby-genteel” in actual life. When he has done this, let him take up Pope; — and when he has laid him down, take up the cockney again — if he can.
Note to the passage in page . relative to Pope’s lines upon Lady Mary W. Montague.] I think that I could show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was also greatly to blame in that quarrel, not for having rejected, but for having encouraged him: but I would rather decline the task — though she should have remembered her own line, “He comes too near, that comes to be denied.” I admire her so much — her beauty, her talents — that I should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name of Mary, that as Johnson once said, “If you called a dog Harvey, I should love him;” so, if you were to call a female of the same species “Mary,” I should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the same sex with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman: she could translate Epictetus, and yet write a song worthy of Aristippus. The lines,
“And when the long hours of the public are past,
And we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last,
May every fond pleasure that moment endear!
Be banish’d afar both discretion and fear!
Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd,
He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud,
Till,” &c. &c.
There, Mr. Bowles! — what say you to such a supper with such a woman? and her own description too? Is not her “champaigne and chicken” worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that this stanza contains the “purée” of the whole philosophy of Epicurus: — I mean the practical philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master; for I have been too long at the university not to know that the philosopher was himself a moderate man. But, after all, would not some of us have been as great fools as Pope? For my part, I wonder that, with his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, he did no more, — instead of writing some lines, which are to be condemned if false, and regretted if true.
DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME I.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.
NOTICES OF THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON.
LETTER 1. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 2. TO MR. PIGOT.
LETTER 3. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 4. TO MR. PIGOT.
LETTER 5. TO MR. PIGOT.
LETTER 6. TO MR. PIGOT.
LETTER 7. TO MR. PIGOT.
LETTER 8. TO THE EARL OF CLARE.
LETTER 9. TO MR. PIGOT.
LETTER 10. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.
LETTER 11. TO MR. FALKNER.
LETTER 12. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 13. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 14. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 15. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 16. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 17. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 18. TO MISS —— .
LETTER 19. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 20. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 21. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 22. TO MR. HENRY DRURY.
LETTER 23. TO MR. HARNESS.
LETTER 24. TO MR. BECHER.
LETTER 25. TO MR. BECKER.
LETTER 26. TO MR. JACKSON.
LETTER 27. TO MR. JACKSON.
LETTER 28. TO MR. JACKSON.
LETTER 29. TO MR. BECHER.
LETTER 30. TO THE HONOURABLE MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 31. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 32. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 33. TO MR. HARNESS.
LETTER FROM CHARLES SKINNER MATTHEWS, ESQ. TO MISS I.M. “London, May 22. 1809.
LETTER 34. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 35. TO MR. HENRY DRURY.
LETTER 36. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 37. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 38. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 39. TO MR. RUSHTON.
LETTER 40. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 41. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 42. TO MR. HENRY DRURY.
LETTER 43. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 44. TO MR. HENRY DRURY.
LETTER 45. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 46. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 47. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 48. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 49. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 50. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 51. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 52. TO MRS. BYRON.
LETTER 53. TO MR. HENRY DRURY.
VOLUME II.
NOTICES OF THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON.
LETTER 54. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 55. TO DR. PIGOT.
LETTER 56. TO MR. SCROPE DAVIES.
TO —— BOLTON, ESQ.
LETTER 57. TO MR. BOLTON.
LETTER 58 TO MR. BOLTON.
LETTER 59. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 60. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 61. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 62. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 63. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 64. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 65. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 66. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 67. TO MR. MURRAY.
TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 68. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 69. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 70. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 71. TO MR. DALLAS.
LETTER 72. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 73. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 74. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 75. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 76. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 77. TO MR. HARNESS.
LETTER 78. TO MR. HARNESS.
LETTER 79. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 80. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 81. TO MR. HARNESS.
LETTER 82. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 83. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 84. TO ROBERT RUSHTON.
LETTER 85. TO ROBERT RUSHTON.
LETTER 86. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 87. TO MASTER JOHN COWELL.
LETTER 88. TO MR. ROGERS.
LETTER 89. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 90. TO MR. HODGSON.
LETTER 91. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 92. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.
LETTER 93. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.
LETTER 94. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 95. TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
LETTER 96. TO LORD HOLLAND.
TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 97. TO LORD HOLLAND.
TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 99. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 100. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 103. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 105. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 107. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 108. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 109. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.
LETTER 110. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 111. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 112. TO LORD HOLLAND.
LETTER 113. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 114. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 115. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 116. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 117. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.
TO MR. MURRAY.
TO MR. ROGERS.
LETTER 120. TO MR. MURRAY.
TO ——
LETTER 121. TO MR. MURRAY.
TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 122. TO W. GIFFORD, ESQ.
LETTER 123. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 124. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 125. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 126. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 127. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 128. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 129. TO MR. CROKER.
LETTER 130. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 131. TO MR. MURRAY.
/> LETTER 132. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 133. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 134. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 135. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 136. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 137. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 138. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 139. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 140. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 141. TO MR. MOORE.
LETTER 142. TO MR. MOORE.
JOURNAL, BEGUN NOVEMBER 14. 1813.
LETTER 143. TO MR. MURRAY.
LETTER 144. TO MR. GIFFORD.
LETTER 145. TO MR. MURRAY.
TO MR. MURRAY.
TO MR. MURRAY.
TO MR. MURRAY.