duke's near neighbour, has told me, manners to write, "I thank you, mathat his grace had no fondness for dam, for your poem,' " he would neworks of imagination. The race of ver more request me to obtrude my Mæcenas is extinct in this period. compositions upon titled insolence. When my dear father was in his They had not the civility to make better days, he lived on terms of in- the least acknowledgment. tercourse and intimacy with the mar- My heart (I own it is in some requis of Stafford. Lord Sandwich spects a proud one) swelled with inand my father, in their mutual youth, dignation;-not at the neglect, for I had been on the continent together, felt it beneath my attention, and had with the affection of brothers. On expected it, but because I had been my publishing the Monody on André, obliged to give them reason to behe desired me to present one to each lieve that I desired their notice. of these lords, expressing an assured My life against sixpence, the duke belief, that the work of an old friend's of Richmond would receive a letter daughter would not be unacceptable. from me in the same manner. Ah! I, who ever thought that men of a soul like lord Heathfield's, attentive rank have seldom any taste for intel- to intellectual exertions in the closet lectual exertion, which serves not of the studious, as in the field of hosome purpose of their own interest; nour, and generous enough to enand feeling an invincible repugnance courage and throw around it the lusto paying attentions, which are like-tre of his notice, is even more rare ly to be repulsed with rude neglect, than his valour and military skill. I strongly, warmly, and even with a wish his lordship to see this letter. few proud tears, expostulated against It will explain to him the nature of the intrusion. My father never those convictions, and of those feelknew that great world, with which, ings, which must be powerful indeed, in his youth, he had much inter- ere I could hesitate a moment to folcourse. Frank, unsuspecting, inat- low his advice, though but insinuattentive to those nice shades of man-ed, on any subject. My devoted reners, those effects, resulting from spects and good wishes are his, as trivial circumstances, which develope they are yours, not periodically, but the human heart, he judged of others constantly. by his own ingenuous disposition. Benevolent, infinitely good-natured, and incapable of treating his inferiors with neglect, he thought every kindness, every civility he received, sincere every slight shown, either to himself or others, accidental. LETTER XCIV. Anna Seward to Miss Weston. Litchfield, April 15, 1788. Thus he would persist in the idea, YOUR letter, dear Sophia, is full that these lords would be gratified of entertaining matter, adorned with by such a mark of attention to them; the wonted grace and vivacity of and that I should receive their thanks. your style. For the payment of I, who had been so much less in such debts our little city is not retheir society, knew them better; that sponsible. such little great men are as capable I ought, however, to speak to you of impoliteness as they are incapable of an extraordinary being, who rangof taste for the arts:-but my obe-ed amongst us during the winter, dience was insisted upon. since he bears your name, amongst One condition, however, I made, us little folk, I mean, for he was by that, if they should not have the good no means calculated to the meridian of our pompous gentry; though, Jvinciality; and it is difficult to stand could he once have been received his bow with any discipline of feature. into their circle, they would perhaps He talks down the hours, but knows have endured his figure and his pro- nothing of their flight; eccentric in fession, and half forgive the superio- that respect, and Parnassian in his rity of his talents, in consideration contempt of the precision of eating of his extreme fondness for every times, as Johnson himself. game at cards, and of his being an admirable whist player. Now look on the other side the medal. His wit, intelligence, and The profession of this personage poetic genius, are a mine; and his is music, organist of Solihull in War- taste and real accuracy in criticism wickshire; in middle life; his height enable him to cut the rich ore they and proportion mighty slender, and produce brilliant. well enough by nature, but fidgeted He knows every body, and has and noddled into an appearance not read every thing. With a wonderfully over prepossessing; nor are his sharp retentive memory, and familiar with features and very sharp little eyes a the principles of all the sciences, his whit behind them in quizzity. Then conversation is as instructive as it is he is drest-ye gods, how he is amusing; for his ideas are always drest!-in a salmon-coloured coat, uncommon and striking, either from satin waistcoat, and small-clothes of absolute originality, or from new and the same warm aurora tint; his vio- happy combination. lently protruded chitterlin, more lux- His powers of mimicry, both in uriant in its quantity, and more accu- singing and speaking, are admirable. rately plated, than B. B.'s itself, is Nobody tells a humorous story bettwice open hemmed. ter; but, in narrating interesting That his capital is not worth a facts, his comments, though always single hair, he laments with a serio- in themselves worth attention, often comic countenance, that would make fatigue by their plenitude, and by the a cat laugh—and, in that ingenuous- suspense in which we are held con ness with which he confesses all his cerning the principal events. miserable vanities, as he emphatical- The heart of this ingenious and ly calls them, he tells us, that he had oddly compounded being is open, arfrizzed off the scanty crop three dent, and melting as even female thousand years ago. tenderness; and we find in it a scruThis loss is, however, supplied by pulous veracity, and an engaging a wig, for the perfection of which he dread of being intrusive. He has sits an hour and a half every day un- no vices, and much active virtue. der the hands of the frizzeur, that it For these good dispositions he is may be plumed out like a pigeon greatly respected by the genteel faupon steady and sailing flight-and milies round Solihull, and (for his. it is always powdered with mare- comic powers doubtless) his society chall,is much sought after by them. “Sweet to the sense, and yellow to the sight." field, did he often come. Indeed, Hither, while he staid in LitchA hat furiously cocked and pinched, I found myself perpetually seduced, too small in the crown to admit his by his powers of speeding time, to head, sticks upon the extremest sum- give up more of that fast-fleeting posmit of the full-winged caxon. session to him than I could conveni His voice has a scrannel tone, his ently spare. articulation is hurried, his accent Our first interview proved, by misdistinguished by Staffordshire pro-take, embarrassing and ridiculous. Mr. Dewes being upon a visit to me, [ers of mind, or respecting their provhe and I were soberly weighing, in ing injurious to the happiness of our respective balances, the quantity their possessor. I have generally, of genius that enriched the reign of though not always, found, that where Anne, and the liberal portions of it there is most genius there is most that our own times may boast. goodness; and the inexhaustible 66 It was evening, the grey hour, that sources of delight that, closed to flings half an image on the strain- common understandings, are open to ing sight." Comparing the dead elevated ones, must inevitably tend and the living by other light than to give them a superior degree of that of candles, we had not called for happiness. them. Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides In bolts our servant Edward, who has been long too much my admirahad seen as indistinctly as I was tion, in point of elegance, for me to about to see. "" Madam, here's think, with you, that the letters from young Mr. Weston."'-"Indeed!" Scotland, in Mrs. Piozzi's publicaexclaimed I, and, starting up, rushed tion, however charming, are to be towards the personage who followed named with it in the strength, or in him, crying out, "Dear Joe, I am graces of style. vastly glad to see you."166 My name So miss P. 2s Joseph Weston, madam." The Eloisadevil it is, thought I; for the voice, and the accompanying wriggle, with which he bowed very low, were not May the heroic spirit of this enterour Joe's voice or bow. prise be as much for her happiness as it is to her honour!—Adieu. "Lord bless me, sir," said I, drawing back, "I have a friend of your name, for whom, in this dusky hour, I took you." He then told me, that he had lately passed an can now say with "Rise Alps between us, and whole oceans roll." LETTER XCV. evening with Mr. Saville, who had Anna Seward to Thomas Swift, Esq. kindly assured him I should pardon an intrusion which had been the wish Litchfield, June 5, 1788. of years. IT was more than compliment From that period, October last, when I said I should be glad to see Weston has been much in Litchfield, you. There is much interest for my where genius and merit are, to the imagination in such an interview. generality of its inhabitants, as dust I admire your poetic genius, and I in the balance against inferior station love your candour, as much as I and exterior inelegance. Yet with- despise and hate the insensibility of in these walls, and at our theatre, the age to poetic excellence. It this finical, but glowing disciple of has no patrons amongst the splenthe Muses, passed many animated did and the powerful. The race of hours. Mæcenas is extinct. We find sena He has the theatric mania upon torial oratory their sole and univerhim, in all its ardour. The enclosed sal passion. Absorbed in that purvery ingenious prologue he taught suit, they can spare no hour of atRoxwell, who has a fine person and tention for the Muses and their votaharmonious voice, to speak very de-ries. Never was there a period, in lightfully. which the nymphs of the Castalian I by no means think with you on fountain had a more numerous train ; the general abuse of the higher pow-[never were they more bounteous with VOL. IV. Nos. 59 & 60. P their glowing inspirations. If we and solidity of that boy's mind, his have neither a Shakspeare nor a Mil- taste, his judgment, astonish me, if ton, it is because the fastidiousness possible, even more than the vigour of criticism will not permit those and grace of his fancy. He is a wild and daring efforts, which, fear-warm admirer of your Temple, and less of bombast and obscurity, often has written a sonnet to express his enveloped by them, and always ha- sense of its excellence. I hope, ere zarding every thing, enabled our this time, he has sent it to you. I great masters to reach their now charged him to send it to the Genunapproachable elevations in the dra- tleman's Magazine. matic and epic line. Lyric poetry Except my translations of Horace, has risen higher in this than in any and some letters, signed Benvolio, in age. that publication, together with a few Suffer me to observe, that you sonnets, epitaphs, ballads, &c. that ought not to be discouraged by the crept into that and other public paapathy of the public taste. It is fa- pers, I have printed nothing but the tal to the profits of authorship; but Elegy on Cook, which I gave to "fame is the spur that the clear spi- Dodsley, Monody on André, and the rit doth raise" and every poetic Louisa, printed by Jackson in this writer ought to remember, that the town, Monody on Lady Millar, printlaurel never flourishes till it is plant- ed by Robinson, and Ode to General ed upon the grave of genius;-that Elliot. Some other poems of mine, Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso which obtained the wreath at B. were not known to Pope till he was Easton, may be found in the last voin middle life-so strangely had lume of that collection. I hate ever even they fallen into that temporary to think of printers and booksellers oblivion, whither it is perpetually-so little integrity have I found the fate of poetry to fall; but, to amongst them. If I was on terms whatever deserves that name, the with Jackson, I would gladly order hour of emerging will come: "So sinks the day-star in the ocean's bed, him to send you the collection you wish, but I have resolved never more to have any thing to say, or give any order, either to him or Robin son. not Mere verses, it is true, sink, like lead, A set of spirited and witty essays in the mighty waters, never more to are just come out, entitled Variety; rise; but your Temple has no native their principal author is one of my alacrity in sinking. friends. Numbers 25 and 26 are Cary, literally but just fifteen, is a mine. Do not stare at my apparent miracle. I never saw him, nor heard vanity. Those numbers are of him till after his Ode to General among the witty essays of this colElliot came out. My acquaintance lection. Wit was never my talent. with him is not of four months date. Thank you for your ingenious His school-fellow and friend, Lister, prologue; but the passage on music an inhabitant of this place, has po- is not, perhaps, all it should be. It etic talents of nearly twin excellence. confounds the distinctions between There is only a month's difference poetry and music. Of the latter the in their age. You suspect my hav- ancients knew nothing more than ing assisted Cary. Upon my honour, melody. The principles of harmoI never saw any thing of his that has nic combination, by which all the been published before it was sent great independent effects of the sciaway to be printed. The strength ence are produced, were utterly un "Nothing went before so great, known to them. We hear much, it and his every way various excellenis true, of the powers that music cies bear the same comparison to possessed over the passions in Greece: the pretty, sweet, lazy, unvaried but, in reality, those powers were compositions of the Italian school, given by the poetry they conveyed, breathing no other passions than to which music was merely a pleas- love and jealousy, as the plays of ing vehicle. We all know that the Shakspeare bear to those of Racine, Grecian bards, with Homer at the Otway, Dryden, Rowe, Voltaire, and head of them, sung their own com- our modern tragedies on the French positions to the harp. It must have model. Poetry itself, though so been a simple, little varied, and pro- much the elder science,-for music bably spontaneous melody, to which has been a science only since the so long a poem as the Iliad could be harmonic combinations were discoadapted. Doubtless the varieties vered,-possesses not a more inhechiefly resulted from the alternately rent empire over the passions than softened tones, and heightened ener- music, of which Handel is the mighty gies of the voice, and by the changes master; than whom of the countenance. When the ancients spoke of music, they meant it generally as another term for poetry. So much yet of this equivocal ex- When I speak of that empire, it pression remains, that we talk even must be remembered, that a certain of the modern poets striking the mal-conformation of the auricular lyre. By that expression, you know, membrane as inevitably frustrates we do not mean that they are musi- this effect, upon even the most suscians. ceptible heart and clearest intellect, Since the harmonic principles were as mediocrity of talents, and dulness discovered, music has been a great of perception, frustrate the effects of independent science, capable of a poetry. Where the ear does not sublime union with fine poetry, and readily distinguish and recognise greatest when thus united; but ca- melodies, no sensibility of heart, no pable also of giving fascinating grace strength of imagination, will disclose and awful grandeur to the plainest the magic of the harmonic world. and most unpoetic language, pro- Milton knew music scientifically, vided it is not so coarse or absurd as and felt all its powers. To Sam. to force ludicrous images upon the Johnson, the sweetest airs and most mind, which must ever counteract all superb harmonies were but unmeanits elevating effects. ing noise. I often regret that MilIt is, therefore, improper, when ton and Handel were not contemporawe speak upon music as a science, ries; that the former knew not the which obtained in Handel the ne delight of hearing his own poetry plus ultra of its excellence, when we heightened as Handel has heightenseek to do honour to him, and its ed it. To produce the united effects other great, though to him subordi- resulting from the combination of nate masters, at once the rivals and perfect poetry with perfect music, it the friends of our poets; it is, I say, was necessary that Milton's strains improper to confound the two arts should be set by Handel, and sung by beginning with examples so far by Saville. Of all our public singback as that period, in which it is ers, while many are masterly, many impossible to separate them. elegant, many astonishing, he only Handel is as absolute a monarch is sublime: a superiority given by of the human passions as Shakspeare, his enthusiastic perception of poetic, |