THE INDICATOR. There he arriving round about doth flie, SPENSER. No. LXXIV.-WEDNESDAY, MARCII 7th, 1821. THE ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. * MR. INDICATOR,-The following piece of Biography appeared to me so very singular, that I thought it might afford some amusement to you and your readers. I have translated it from the Life of Gretry, written by himself, in three volumes, and entitled, "Memoirs and Essays upon Music." Gretry is known, I believe, in England as the composer of Richard Coeur de Lion; but the list of his works given in the above-mentioned publication enumerates no less than thirty-four operas composed by him, which are printed, and sixteen in manuscript. Hale, the subject of this extract, was an Englishman, who resided at Paris, and wrote three pieces for the French theatre, which were set to music by Gretry. Hale was introduced to the French musician by Suard as a man of good understanding, in whom a fine taste was united with originality of ideas. He must have been a perfect master of the French tongue to have written for the theatre, a circumstance which Gretry remarks as singular, and thinks that no one in reading the pieces would have believed them the production of an Englishman, the style was so clear and idiomatic. Hale's first piece, adapted to music by Gretry in 1788, was the Judgment of Midas, and was rejected at Court, where it was customary for the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to decide upon the merit of new plays! Afterwards, by desire of the Duke d'Orleans, it was performed at the house of Madame de M***, who played the part of Chloé "with as much grace as nature." At a sitting of the French Academy this performance was mentioned in very slighting terms, and the orator's opinion becoming public, Hale heard of it, and dedicated the Judgment of Midas to him in a pleasant satirical letter, which Gretry had great difficulty in persuading him to suppress. At last the piece was acted at Paris, and was well received by all but the lawyers' clerks, who were supposed to be the authors of the following printed letter sent to Gretry: * The French, with their characteristic nationality, transformed his name to D'Héle. VOL. II. "Sin, The Lawyers' Clerks invite you to a hissing of the second performance of the Judgment of Midas, in which piece they consider themselves insulted." ર Gretry adds pleasantly, the second representation of the Judgment of Midas was in truth a little stormy, but the clerks lost their suit." It was in consequence of the various success which the Judgment of Midas met with, that Voltaire wrote the following quatrain, which his niece, Madame Denis, gave to Gretry : La Cour a denigre tes chants Which may be rendered thus in English The Court has derided those songs Of the second piece which Hale wrote, Gretry says, "It is useless to praise the Jealous Lover; the public have never ceased to consider it a model of its kind."* It was, however, much disliked at the rehearsal, which took place at Versailles on the day of its first representation, and so certain did its doom appear, that when Gretry was dining with the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, several of them thought proper to condole with him; he begged them to ask the King's per mission to begin the evening with this play instead of another, which it was to have succeeded. The King consented. The fate of the Jealous Lover entirely changed in the performance, and I own,” says Gretry," that this transition from a decided failure to a brilliant success, in so short an interval, was to Hale and to myself a delicious moment." He continues, what reflections might not be made on the revolutions which a work undergoes before it is acted and judged→→→ on the uncertainty which must be felt even by authors of the greatest experience." 66 66 The third comedy which issued from the pen of Hale was named Unforeseen Events, and was the last work of that author. Gretry says, "I, more than any one, ought to regret the loss of such fine talents if death had not taken from this world, in the flower of his age, a man who not only had the clearest ideas himself, but knew better than any one how to arrange and perfect those of others, many works, without doubt, would have followed those I have mentioned." Without further introduction, I shall now endeavour to give you the Biographical Anecdotes of Hale in Gretry's own words : "Hale had passed his youth in the service of the British navy, where apparently the excessive use of strong liquors, and an accident which he informed me he had received, occasioned a weakness on his Iungs. While he was aboard, he and a party of officers got intoxicated From the description given of the plot, it is evidently taken from Mrs. Centfivre's comedy of The Wonder, although Gretry does not seem to be aware of there being such a play in English. with punch; and his thirst during the night was so great that he drank a Bottle of spirits, which the motion of the vessel had rolled towards him. He lived, however, very soberly at Paris; all other tastes and passions seemed annihilated in him, to animate that of love. The loss of his fortune had occasioned his coming to Paris to conceal Iris indigence, and a lady of that city dissipated the remainder of his property. It was then he became occupied for the theatre, and constantly fre quented the Café du Caveau (the cellar) at the Palais Royale. Hale spoke little, but always well; he never thought it worth his while to talk upon subjects which are supposed to be generally known, but would interrupt the common-place chatterer by saying in a dry towe that is printed. He marked his approbation of what was said by a slight nod of the head, If they put him out of patience by their nonsense, he crossed his legs, compressing them with all his might, took the pinch of snuff, which he always carried between his finger and thumb, and looked another way. * "The judgment he pronounced upon new pieces was irrevocable; and the newsmongers founded their bets upon his political conjectures. It is easy to believe that Hale expected from other men the same clearness of intellect which he himself possessed, and which is conspicuous in his works; he had not the power of invention, but there were few things which did not improve in his hands; he was slow in his productions-I will not say he was idle, indeed no one can be so who is constantly reflecting, but he had within him that rigid yet consolatory principle of criticism, which a hundred times rejects, before it once pronounces, that is well done. Many people have quoted, and still continue to quote him, as a model of ingratitude; but I firmly believe, that absorbed in his own ideas, he merely forgot his benefactors as he would have done his own benefactions. Being forced to fight with a man who insulted him, after having lent him money which he could not repay, Hale, after disarming him, said with true English phlegm, If I were not your debtor, I would kill you; if we had witnesses, I would wound you; as we are alone, I forgive you?? "Soon after I sent him a sum of money from the Duke d'Orleans, at whose house I had brought out the Judgment of Midas; he did not answer my note, but merely said to the servant, very well.' After having met him twenty times, at last I said to him, I suppose you received'———Yes,' said he, and I was not astonished that, he did not add a word of thanks. The first day of the representation of the Jealous Lover at Paris, he wrote to me the following note: I am not able to come to your house, come therefore to me directly, and bring with you about ten louis, without which I must go to prison, instead of this night attending the opera.' His bed was surrounded by bailiffs, for Hale had suffered judgment to go by default, in an action which had been brought 9 *This trait in Hale reminds one of those pleasant lines in Goldsmith's Retalias tion, where, speaking of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he says To cozcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing Hle shifted his trumpet, and only tovk snuff". against him by the woman who had squandered the remainder of his fortune, and who yet exacted the rent of the room she had given him at her house.ent multo Ue pehadde biedog 66 It was with the same confidence and nonchalance, that being one day at the house of a friend, he put on some clothes of which he stood in need, and went away. His friend came in soon after, and wishing to change his dress, could not find all he wanted. Hale was the only person who had been in the apartment, but no one dared to suspect, him. At night, however, the gentleman met him at the coffer-house, and putting his hand on Hale's knee, said to him, Are not those my pantaloons?'- Yes,' said he, 'I had none.' 6 "It is far from my intention to throw ridicule on the character of such a man; he could not blush for actions which were in him the result of fixed and unalterable principles. I knew him for a long while nearly naked, yet pity was not the sentiment he inspired; his noble countenance, and the tranquillity depicted on it, seemed to say, 'I am a man: what more do I need !' "If the termination of a slow disorder, not painful, but which never spares it victim, had been protracted but for a fortnight, Hale would have left us another work, and this work would have insured him the competence due to superior talent. It was designed for the Trianon theatre. "A few days before his death, he crawled to see me ; I was confined to my bed on account of my old complaint (expectoration of blood); he comforted me, and assured me that he felt better every day, and should not be long before he wrote the piece for the Trianon, which he was eager to finish, as he wished to set out for Venice. Hale never began to write until he had the whole of his work arranged in his mind. I had remarked in his productions, that when he said I have finished,' there remained no longer any doubt with him as to the incidents, the situations, or the manner in which he would conduct them. I can therefore be certain, that the work which I regret was absolutely terminated, and that, as the great Racine said, there remained nothing but to write it. Of what kind is your new piece?' said I. It is a Portuguese subject,' answered he, and I think you will like it. He died a few days afterwards, thinking more of the situations of his opera thau of his own. He had in his hands a book of the post-roads: he was going to rejoin the object of his love, and while choosing a route by which he might avoid the highest mountains, took quietly that road wherein terminates humanity." O, B. 6 NAUTICAL POETRY. SIR, Having some little notion of authorship myself, I can very easily conceive that as Editor of a periodical paper you are sometimes reduced to a low ebb of matter, paddling along with difficulty among little shallows of thought, or quite becalmed, and whistling for a breeze of fancy. In this belief I take the liberty of suggesting, that there is a species of poetry very little attended to, but very well worth attention, which, when a time such as I have alluded to shall next arrivo, it will be a laudable effort of the Indicator to introduce to proper notice. Enough has been said of every other kind of poetry. The Epic, the Dramatic, the Lyric, and the Pastoral, have had their full share of comment and eulogium. But nobody writes about the Nauti cal! And yet this is a distinct species of poetry, distinct in its images and associations, which are likewise as grand as they are peculiar. I am at a loss to account not only for the neglect of the very little which has been written of this kind, but for the scarcity itself. I am not a poet myself; my ideas have not been trained to run in couples; my thoughts fly like swallows, without order or controal, and not like wild geese, in forms and figures. Nevertheless, prosaic as I am, I cannot go down the River to Ramsgate or Margate, or sail from Dover, to the Downs, without feeling myself as it were oppressed by the magnitude, sublimity, and novelty of the scene. The sea itself, that mate rial representative of eternity, is an inexhaustible source of ideas. When I have called to mind the many fine things which have been said by poets sitting under trees, by little prattling brooks, on the sides of hills, in flowery groves and bowers, &c. &c., I cannot imagine why no poet has tried the inspiration of sitting at the bow of a fine vessel on a clear evening, when the sun has just sunk, and a fresh breeze is blowing abaft, the gulls flying round, the white cliffs declining into the horizon, the sailors sitting about with their arms folded as the vessel scuds along before the wind, listening to one who, with a clear voice and a Kentish dialect, sings " Loose every sail to the breeze;" while at intervals is heard the splash of the lead line, and the finely toned chaunt of the man who heaves it" and a half four." It seems somewhat strange that readers, who can enter with spirit into the c circumstances of village life, its cares, its loves, and its merrymakings, who read Crabbe, and Bloomfield, and Goldsmith, and Cunningham, and Burns, and who admire Morland's pictures, should deal so fastidiously with the homely part of a seafaring life, Nautical Poetry may be divided into two parts: you may find names for them, if you please. One treats of the subject as connected with the world, developes its associates and its consequences, carries us into the depths of its mysteries, places us under huge rocks in wave-worn caverns, brings us acquainted with the inhabitants of the deep, shews us the wonders of a storm, and so stretches our minds to the grasp of Ocean's majesty, that we no longer retain sufficient tension to keep ships and sailors without our regard. The other, not presuming beyond the facts as they appear, confines itself to a description of matters immediately connected with human life. The business of a sailor, his introduction to the sea, his perils, his toils, his hopes, and his reward; the structure, beauty, and management of his ship; these are the principal objects on which the minor division of Nautical Poetry dilates. Shipwreck of Falconer, though partaking of both, belongs rather to the nobler species. It is some time since I read it; but if I recollect rightly, it has the fault of being enveloped in a pompous fiction of persons, and overloaded with classical allusions. Of the minor species are those sea songs which flutter on railings, and engage all the learn ing of pretty Polls and Sues, and in which, to say the truth, the circumstances are pretty nearly of one and the same kind. The hero The |