Letter 289 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(542) June 22, 1785. (page 365)

Since I received your book,(543) Sir, I scarce ceased from reading till I had finished it; so admirable I found it, and so full of good sense, brightly delivered. Nay, I am pleased with myself too for having formed the same opinions with you on several points, in which we do not agree with the generality of men. On some topics, I confess frankly, I do not concur with you: Considering how many you have touched, it would be wonderful if we agreed on all, or I should not be sincere if I said I did.

There are others on which I have formed no opinion; for I should give myself an impertinent air, with no truth, if I pretended to have any knowledge of many subjects, of which, young as you are, you seem to have made yourself master. Indeed, I have gone deeply into nothing, and therefore shall not discuss those heads which we differ most: as probably I should not defend my own opinions well. There is but one part of your work to which I will venture any objection, though you have considered it much, and I little, very little indeed, with regard to your proposal, which to me is but two days old: I mean your plan for the improvement of our language, which I allow has some defects, and which wants correction in several particulars. The specific amendment which you propose, and to which I object, is the addition of a's and O's to our terminations. To change s for a in the plural number for our substantives and adjectives would be so violent an alteration, that I believe neither the power of Power nor the power of Genius would be able, to effect it. In most cases I am convinced that very strong innovations are more likely to make impression than small and almost imperceptible differences, as in religion, medicine, politics, etc.; but I do not think that language can be treated in the same manner, especially in a refined age. When a nation first emerges from barbarism, two or three masterly writers may operate wonders; and the fewer the number of writers, as the number is small at such a period, the more absolute is their authority. But when a country has been polishing itself for two or three centuries, and when consequently authors are innumerable, the most supereminent genius (or whoever is esteemed so, though without foundation,) possesses very limited empire, and is far from meeting implicit obedience. Every petty writer will contest very novel inst.i.tutions: every inch of change in language will be disputed; and the language will remain as it was, longer than the tribunal which should dictate very heterogeneous alterations. With regard to adding a or o to final consonants, consider, Sir, should the usage be adopted, what havoc it would make! All our poetry would be defective in metre, or would become at once as obsolete as Chaucer; and could we promise ourselves, that, though we should have better harmony and more rhymes, we should have a new crop of poets, to replace Milton, Dryden, Gray, and, I am sorry you will not allow me to add, Pope! You might enjoin our prose to be reformed, as you have done by the Spectator in your thirty-fourth Letter; but try Dryden's Ode by your new inst.i.tution.

I beg your pardon for these trivial observations: I a.s.sure you I could write a letter ten times as long, if I were to specify all I like in your work. I more than like most of it; and I am charmed with your glorious love of liberty, and your other humane and n.o.ble sentiments. Your book I shall with great pleasure send to Mr. Colman: may I tell him, without naming you, that it is written by the author of the comedy I offered to him? He must be struck with your very handsome and generous conduct in printing your encomiums on him, after his rejecting your piece. It is as great as uncommon, and gives me ,,Is good an opinion of your heart, Sir, as your book does of your great sense. Both a.s.sure me that you will not take ill the liberty I have used in expressing my doubts on your plan for amending our language, or for any I may use in dissenting from a few other sentiments in your work; as I shall in what I think your too low opinion of some of the French writers, of your preferring Lady Mary Wortley to Madame de S'evign'e, and of your esteeming Mr. Hume a man of a deeper and more solid understanding than Mr. Gray. In the two last articles it is impossible to think more differently than we do. In Lady Mary's Letters, which I never could read but once, I discovered no merit of any sort; yet I have seen others by her (unpublished)(544) that have a good deal of wit; and for Mr. Hume give me leave to say that I think your opinion, "that he might have ruled a state," ought to be qualified a little; as in the very next page you say, his History is "a mere apology for prerogative," and a very weak one. If he could have ruled a state, one must presume, at best, that he would have been an able tyrant; and yet I should suspect that a man, who, sitting coolly in his chamber, could forge but a weak apology for the prerogative, would not have exercised it very wisely. I knew personally and well both Mr. Hume and Mr. Gray, and thought there was no degree of comparison between their understandings; and, in fact, Mr. Hume's writings were so superior to his conversation, that I frequently said he understood nothing till he had written upon it. What you say, Sir, of the discord in his history from his love of prerogative and hatred of churchmen, flatters me much; as I have taken notice of that very unnatural discord in a piece I printed some years ago, but did not publish, and which I will show to you when I have the pleasure of seeing you here; a satisfaction I shall be glad to taste, whenever you will let me know you are at leisure after the beginning of next week. I have the honour to be, Sir, etc.

(542) Now first collected.

(543) His "Letters of Literature," published this year under the name of Heron. "It had been well for Mr. Pinkerton's reputation," observes Mr. Dawson Turner ,had these Letters never been published at all. In a copy now before me, lately the property of one of our most eminent critics, Mr. Fark, I read the following very just quotation, in his handwriting: 'Multa venust'e, multa tenuiter multa cuni bile.' Mr. Pinkerton himself, in his 'Walpoliana,' admits that Heron's Letters was 'a book written in early youth, and contained many juvenile crude ideas long since abandoned by its author.' Would that the crudeness of many of the ideas were the worst that was to be said of it! but we shall find, in the course of this correspondence, far heavier and not less just complaints. The name of Heron, here a.s.sumed by Mr. Pinkerton, was that of his mother."-E.

(544) See vol. iii. p. 217, letter 155.-E.

Letter 290 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(545) June 26, 1785. (page 367)

I have sent your book to Mr. Colman, Sir, and must desire you in return to offer my grateful thanks to Mr. Knight, who has done me an honour, to which I do not know how I am ent.i.tled, by the present of his poetry, which is very cla.s.sic, and beautiful, and tender, and of chaste simplicity. To your book, Sir, I am much obliged on many accounts; particularly for having recalled my mind to subjects of delight, to which. it was grown dulled by age and indolence. In consequence of your reclaiming it, I asked myself whence you feel so much disregard for certain authors whose fame is established: you have a.s.signed good reasons for withholding your approbation from some, on the plea of their being imitators: it was natural, then, to ask myself again, whence they had obtained so much celebrity. I think I have discovered a cause, which I do not remember to have seen noted; and that cause I suspect to have been, that certain of those authors possessed grace:--do not take me for a disciple of Lord Chesterfield, nor Imagine that I mean to erect grace into a capital ingredient of writing; but I do believe that it is a perfume that will preserve from putrefaction, and is distinct even from style, which regards expression. Grace, I think, belongs to manner. It is from the charm of grace that I believe some authors, not in Your favour, obtained part of their renown; Virgil in particular: and yet I am far from disagreeing with you on his subject in general. There is such a dearth of invention in the -,Eneid, (and when he did invent, it was often so foolishly,) so little good sense, so little variety, and so little power over the pa.s.sions, that I have frequently said, from contempt for his matter, and from the charm of his harmony, that I believe I should like his poem better, if I was to hear it repeated, and did not understand Latin. On the other hand, he has more than harmony: whatever he utters is said gracefully, and he enn.o.bles his images, especially in the Georgics; or at least it is more sensible there from the humility of the subject. A Roman farmer might not understand his diction in agriculture; but he made a Roman courtier Understand farming, the farming of that age, and could captivate a lord of Augustus's bedchamber, and tempt him to listen to themes of rusticity. On the contrary, Statius and Claudian, though talking of war, would make a soldier despise them as bullies. That graceful manner of thinking in Virgil seems to me to be more than style, if I do not refine too much; and I admire, I confess, Mr. Addison's phrase, that Virgil "tossed about his dung with an air of majesty." A style may be excellent without grace: for instance, Dr. Swift's. Eloquence may bestow an immortal style, and one of more dignity; yet eloquence may want that ease, that genteel air that flows from or const.i.tutes grace. Addison himself was master of that grace, even in his pieces of humour, and which do not owe their merit to style; and from that combined secret he excels all men that ever lived, but Shakspeare, in humour, by never dropping into an approach towards burlesque and buffoonery', when even his humour descended to characters that in any other hands would have been vulgarly low. Is not it clear that Will Wimble(546) was a gentleman, though he always lived at a distance from good company . Fielding had as much humour, perhaps, as Addison; but, having no idea of grace, is perpetually disgusting.

His innkeepers and parsons are the grossest of their profession and his gentlemen are awkward, when they should be at their ease.

The Grecians had grace in every thing; in poetry, in oratory, in statuary, in architecture, and, probably, in music and painting.

The Romans, it is true, were their imitators; but, having grace too, imparted it to their copies, which gave them a merit that almost raises them to the rank of originals. Horace's Odes acquired their fame, no doubt, from the graces of his manner and purity of his style, the chief praise of Tibullus and Propertius, who certainly cannot boast of more meaning than Horace's Odes.

Waller, whom you proscribe, Sir, owed his reputation to the graces of his manner, though he frequently stumbled, and even fell flat; but a few of his smaller pieces are as graceful as possible: one might say that he excelled in painting ladies in enamel, but could not succeed in portraits in oil, large as life.

Milton had such superior merit, that I will only say, that if his angels, his Satan, and his Adam have as much dignity as the Apollo Belvidere, his Eve has all the delicacy and 'graces of the Venus of Medicis; as his description of Eden has the colouring of Albano. Milton's tenderness imprints ideas as graceful as Guido's Madonnas: and the Allegro, Penseroso, and Comus might be denominated from the three Graces; as the Italians gave similar t.i.tles to two or three of Petrarch's best sonnets.

Cowley, I think, would have had grace, (for his mind was graceful,) if he had had any ear, or if his taste had not been vitiated by the pursuit of wit; which, when it does not offer itself naturally, degenerates into tinsel or pertness. Pertness is the mistaken affectation of grace, as pedantry produces erroneous dignity: the familiarity of the one, and the clumsiness of the other, distort or prevent grace. Nature, that furnishes samples of all qualities ', and on the scale of gradation exhibits all possible shades, affords us types that are more apposite than words. The eagle is sublime, the lion majestic, the swan graceful, the monkey pert, the bear ridiculously awkward. I mention these, as more expressive and comprehensive than I could make definitions of my meaning; but I will apply the swan only, under whose wings I will shelter an apology for Racine, whose pieces give me an idea of that bird. The colouring of the swan is pure; his att.i.tudes are graceful; he never displeases you when sailing on his proper element. His feet may be ugly, his notes hissing, not musical, his walk not natural; he can soar, but it is with difficulty:--still, the impression the swan leaves is that of grace. So does Racine.

Boileau may be compared to the dog, whose sagacity is remarkable, as well as its fawning on its master, and its snarling at those it dislikes. If Boileau was too austere to admit the pliability of grace, he compensates by good sense and propriety. He is like (for I will drop animals) an upright magistrate, whom you respect, but whose justice and severity leaves an awe that discourages familiarity. His copies of the ancients may be too servile; but if a good translator deserves praise, Boileau deserves more. He certainly does not fall below his originals; and, considering at what period he wrote, has greater merit still. By his imitations he held out to his countrymen models of taste, and banished totally the bad taste of his Predecessors.

For his Lutrin, replete with excellent poetry, wit, humour, and satire, he certainly was not obliged to the ancients. Excepting Horace, how little idea had either Greeks or Romans of wit and humour! Aristophanes and Lucian, compared with moderns, were, the one a blackguard, and the other a buffoon. In my eyes, the Lutrin, the Dispensary, and the Rape of the Lock, are standards of grace and elegance, not to be paralleled by antiquity; and eternal reproaches to Voltaire, whose indelicacy in the Pucelle degraded him as much, when compared with the three authors I have named, as his Henriade leaves Virgil, and even Lucan whom he more resembles, by far his superiors.

The Dunciad is blemished by the offensive images of the games but the poetry appears to me admirable; and though the fourth book has obscurities, I prefer it to the three others; it has descriptions not surpa.s.sed by any poet that ever existed, and which surely a writer merely ingenious(547) will never equal.

The lines on Italy, on Venice, on Convents, have all the grace for which I contend as distinct from poetry, though united with the most beautiful; and the Rape of the Lock, besides the originality of great part of the invention, is a standard of graceful writing.

In general, I believe that what I call grace, is denominated elegance; but by grace I mean something higher. I will explain myself by instances--Apollo is graceful, Mercury elegant.

Petrarch, perhaps, owed his whole merit to the harmony of his numbers and the graces of his style, They conceal his poverty of meaning and want of variety. His complaints, too, may have added an interest, which, had his pa.s.sion been successful, and had expressed itself with equal sameness, would have made the number of his sonnets insupportable. Melancholy in poetry, I am inclined to think, contributes to grace, when it is not disgraced by pitiful lamentations, such as Ovid's and Cicero's in their banishments. We respect melancholy, because it imparts a similar affection, pity. A gay writer, who should only express satisfaction without variety, would soon be nauseous.

Madame de S'evign'e shines both in grief and gaiety. There is too much sorrow for her daughter's absence; yet it is always expressed by new terms, by new images, and often by wit, whose tenderness has a melancholy air. When she forgets her concern, and returns to her natural disposition-gaiety, every paragraph has novelty; her allusions, her applications are the happiest possible. She has the art of making you acquainted with all her acquaintance, and attaches you even to the spots she inhabited.

Her language is correct, though unstudied; and, when her mind is full of any great event, she interests you with the warmth of a dramatic writer, not with the chilling impartiality of an historian. Pray read her accounts of the death of Turenne, and of the arrival of King James in France, and tell me whether you do not know their persons as if you had lived at the, time, For my part, if you will allow me a word of digression, (not that I have written with any method,) I hate the cold impartiality recommended to historians: "Si Vis me flere, dolendum est prim'um ipsi tibi:" but, that I may not wander again, nor tire, nor contradict you any more, I will finish now, and shall be glad if you will dine at Strawberry Hill next Sunday and take a bed there, when I will tell you how many more parts of your book have pleased me, than have startled my opinions, or perhaps prejudices. I have the honour to be, Sir, with regard, etc.

(545) Now first collected.

(546) See Spectator, No. 109. Will Wimble was a Yorkshire gentleman, whose name was Thomas Morecroll-E.

(547) Pinkerton had said Of Pope, that "he could only rank with ingenious men," and that his works are superabundant with superfluous and unmeaning verbiage - his translations even replete with tautology, a fault which is to refinement as midnight is to noonday; and, what is truly surprising, that the fourth book of the Dunciad, his last publication, is more full of redundancy and incorrectness than his Pastorals, which are his first."-D. T.

Letter 291 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(548) Strawberry Hill, July 27, 1785. (page 371)

You thank me much more than the gift deserved, Sir: my editions; of such pieces as I have left, are waste paper to me. I will not sell them at the ridiculously advanced prices that are given for them: indeed, only such as were published for sale, have I sold at all; and therefore the duplicates that remain with me are to me of no value, but when I can oblige a friend with them. Of a few of my impressions I have no copy but my own set; and, as I could give you only an imperfect collection, the present was really only a parcel of fragments. My memory was in fault about the Royal and n.o.ble Authors. I thought I had given them to you.

I recollect now that I only lent you my own copy; but I have others in town, and you shall have them when I go thither. For Vertue's ma.n.u.script I am in no manner of haste. I heard on Monday, in London, that the Letters were written by a Mr.

Pilhington, probably from a confounded information of Maty's Review; my chief reason for calling on you twice this week, was to learn what you had heard, and shall be much obliged to you for farther information; as I do not care to be too inquisitive,'

lest I should be suspected of knowing more of the matter.

There are many reasons, Sir, why I cannot come into your idea of printing Greek. In the first place, I have two or three engagements for my press; and my time of life does not allow me to look but a little way farther. In the next, I cannot now go into new expenses of purchase: my fortune is very much reduced, both by my brother's death, and by the late plan of reformation.

The last reason would weigh with me, had I none of the others.

My admiration of the Greeks was a little like that of the mob on other points, not from sound knowledge. I never was a good Greek scholar; have long forgotten what I knew of the language; and, as I never disguise my ignorance of any thing, it would look like affectation to print Greek authors. I could not bear to print them, without owning that I do not Understand them; and such a confession would perhaps be as much affectation as unfounded pretensions. I must, therefore, stick to my simplicity, and not go out of my line. It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity, because impossible to divest one's self of self-love. If one runs from one glaring vanity, one is catched by its opposite.

Modesty can be as vain-glorious on the ground, as Pride on a triumphal car. Modesty, however, is preferable; for, should she contradict her professions, still she keeps her own secret, and does not hurt the pride of others. I have the honour to be, Sir, with great regard, yours.

(548) Now first collected.

Letter 292 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(549) Strawberry Hill, August 18, 1785. (page 372)

I am sorry, dear Sir, that I must give you unanswerable reasons why I cannot print the work you recommend.(550) I have been so much solicited since I set up my press to employ it for others, that I was forced to make it a rule to listen to no such applications. I refused Lord Hardwicke to print a publication of his; Lady Mary Forbes, to print letters of her ancestor, Lord Ess.e.x; and the Countess of Aldborough, to print her father's poems, though in a piece as small as what you mention.

These I recollect at once, besides others whose recommendations do not immediately occur to my memory; though I dare to say they do remember them, and would resent my breaking my rule. I have other reasons which I will not detail now, as the post goes out so early: I will only beg you not to treat me with so much ceremony, nor ever use the word humbly to me, who am in no ways ent.i.tled to such respect.

One private gentleman is not superior to another in essentials: I fear the virtues of an untainted young heart are preferable to those of an old man long conversant with the world; and in the soundness of understanding you have shown and will show a depth which has not fallen to the lot of Your sincere humble servant.

(549) Now first collected.

(550) it is impossible to say with certainty what is the work here alluded to; but most Probably, it was Ailred's Life of St.

Ninian of which it appears, from a letter from the Rev. Rogers Ruding, dated August 4, 1785, that Mr. Pinkerton obtained at this time a transcript through him from the ma.n.u.script in the Bodleian Library. Pinkerton speaks of this ma.n.u.script, in the second volume of his Early Scottish History, p. 266, as "a meagre piece, containing very little as to Ninian's Pikish Mission." The letter alluded to from Mr, Ruding, shows Pinkerton to have turned his mind to the antiquities of Scotland with great earnestness.-D. T.

Letter 293 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(551) Strawberry Hill, Sept. 17, 1785. (page 372)

You are too modest, Sir, in asking my advice on a point on which you could have no better guide than your own judgment. if I presume to give you my opinion, it is from zeal for your honour.

I think it would be below you to make a regular answer to anonymous scribblers in a Magazine: you had better wait to see whether any formal reply is made to your book, and whether by any avowed writer; to whom, if he writes sensibly and decently, you may condescend to make an answer. Still, as you say you have been misquoted, I should not wish you to be quite silent, though I should like better to have you turn such enemies into ridicule.

A foe who misquotes you, ought to be a welcome antagonist. He is so humble as to confess, when he censures what you have not said, that he cannot confute what you have said; and he is so kind as to furnish you with an opportunity of proving him a liar, as you may refer to your book to detect him.

This is what I would do; I would specify, in the same Magazine in which he has attacked you, your real words, and those he has imputed to you; and then appeal to the equity of the reader. You may guess that the shaft comes from somebody whom you have censured; and thence you may draw a fair conclusion, that you had been in the right to laugh at one who was reduced to put his own words into your mouth before he could find fault with them; and, having so done, whatever indignation he has excited in the reader must recoil on himself, as the offensive pa.s.sages will come out to have been his own, not yours. You might even begin with loudly condemning the words or thoughts imputed to you, as if you retracted them; and then, as if you turned to your book, and found that you had said no such thing there as what you was ready to retract, the ridicule would be doubled on your adversary.

Something of this kind is the most I would stoop to; but I would take the utmost care not to betray a grain of more anger than is imp lied in contempt and ridicule. Fools can only revenge themselves by provoking; for then they bring you to a level with themselves. The good sense of your work will support it; and there is scarce reason for defending it, but, by keeping up a controversy, to make it more noticed; for the age is so idle and indifferent, that few objects strike, unless parties are formed for or against them. I remember many years ago advising some acquaintance of mine, who were engaged in the direction of the Opera, to raise a compet.i.tion between two of their singers, and have papers written pro and con.; for then numbers would go to clap and hiss the rivals respectively, who would not go to be pleased with the music.

(551) Now first collected.

Letter 294 George Colman, Esq.(552) Strawberry Hill, Sept. 19, 1785. (page 374)

Sir, I beg your acceptance of a little work just printed here; and I offer it as a token of my grat.i.tude, not as pretending to pay YOU for your last present. A translation, however excellent, from a very inferior Horace,(553) would be a most inadequate return; but there is so much merit in the enclosed version, the language is so pure, and the imitations of our poets so extraordinary, so Much more faithful and harmonious than I thought the French tongue could achieve, that I flatter myself you will excuse my troubling You with an old performance of my own, when newly dressed by a master hand. As, too, there are not a great many copies printed, and those only for presents, I have a particular pleasure in making you one of the earliest compliments.