/ ;?/>»c /uxTxy-t/^T/^ ■ VOLUMES OF yERSE BY ANDREW LANG. HELEN OF TROY, i vol. iimo ^1.50 BALLADES AND VERSES VAIN .... j.50 ^-JJTTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS BY ANDREW LANG NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 189 1 All rights rese>-ved ^ f\ The Riverside Press, Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Ca CONTENTS. I. To W. M. Thackeray II. To Charles Dickens . III. To Pierre de Ronsard . IV. To Herodotus V. Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope VI. To LuciAN OF Samosata VII. To MaJtre Francoys Rabelais VIII. To Jane Austen . IX. To Master Isaak Walton X. To M. Chapelain . XI. To Sir John Manndeville, Kt XII. To Alexandre Dumas XIII. To Theocritus XIV. To Edgar Allan Poe . XV. To Sir Walter Scott, Bart. XVI. To EUSEBIUS OF C/esarea . XVII. To Percy Bysshe Shelley . XVIII. To Monsieur de MoliMe, Valet DE Chambre du Roi XIX. To Robert Burns . . . . XX. To Lord Byron .... XXI. To Omar KhayyXm XXII. To Q. Horatius Flaccus . PAGE I 10 22 34 46 55 66 75 86 98 no 119 130 140 152 162 173 184 195 205 216 223 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS. I. To W. Mi Thackeray. Sir, — There are many things that stand in the way of the critic when he has a mind to praise the living. He may dread the charge of writing rather to vex a rival than to exalt the subject of his applause. He shuns the appearance of seeking the favour of the famous, and would not willingly be regarded as one of the many parasites who now advertise each movement and action of contempo- rary genius. ' Such and such men of let- ters are passing their summer holidays in the Val d'Aosta,' or the Mountains 2 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS of the Moon, or the Suliman Range, as it may happen. So reports our literary * Court Circular,' and all our Pricieuscs read the tidings with enthusiasm. Lastly, if the critic be quite new to the world of letters, he may superfluously fear to vex a poet or a novelist by the abundance of his eulogy. No such doubts perplex us when, with all our hearts, we would com- mend the departed ; for they have passed almost beyond the reach even of envy ; and to those pale cheeks of theirs no commendation can bring the red. You, above all others, were and re- main without a rival in your many-sided excellence, and praise of you strikes at none of those who have survived your day. The increase of time only mellows your renown, and each year that passes and brings you no successor does but sharpen the keenness of our sense of loss. In what other novelist, since Scott was worn down by the burden of a for- lorn endeavour, and died for honour's sake, has the wovld found so many of the THACKERAY 3 fairest gifts combined ? If we may not call you a poet (for the first of English writers of light verse did not seek that crown), who that was less than a poet ever saw life with a glance so keen as yours, so steady, and so sane ? Your pathos was never cheap, your laughter never forced ; your sigh was never the pulpit trick of the preacher. Your funny people — your Costigans and Fokers — were not mere characters of trick and catch-word, were not empty comic masks. Behind each the human heart was beat- ing ; and ever and again we were allowed to see the features of the man. Thus fiction in your hands was not simply a profession, like another, but a constant reflection of the whole surface of life : a repeated echo of its laughter and its complaint. Others have written, and not written badly, with the stolid professional regularity of the clerk at his desk ; you, like the Scholar Gipsy, might have said that ' it needs heaven- sent moments for this skill.' There are, 4 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS it will not surprise you, some honourable women and a few men who call you a cynic; who speak of 'the withered world of Thackerayan satire ; ' who think your eyes were ever turned to the sordid as- pects of life — to the mother-in-law who threatens to * take away her silver bread- basket ; ' to the intriguer, the sneak, the termagant ; to the Beckys, and Barnes Newcomes, and Mrs. Mackenzies of this world. The quarrel of these sentimen- talists is really with life, not with you ; they might as wisely blame Monsieur Buffon because there are snakes in his Natural History. Had you not impaled certain noxious human insects, you would have better pleased Mr. Ruskin ; had you confined yourself to such perform- ances, you would have been more dear to the Neo-Balzacian school in fiction. You are accused of never having drawn a good woman who was not a doll, but the ladies that bring this charge seldom remind us either of Lady Castlewood or of Theo or Hetty Lambert. The best THACKERAY $ women can pardon you Becky Sharp and Blanche Amory ; they find it harder to forgive you Emmy Sedley and Helen Pendennis. Yet what man does not know in his heart that the best women — God bless them — lean, in their char- acters, either to the sweet passiveness of Emmy or to the sensitive and jealous affections of Helen ? 'T is Heaven, not you, that made them so ; and they are easily pardoned, both for being a very little lower than the angels and for their gentle ambition to be painted, as by Guido or Guercino, with wings and harps and haloes. So ladies have occasionally seen their own faces in the glass of fancy, and, thus inspired, have drawn Romola and Consuelo. Yet when these fair ideal- ists, Mdme. Sand and George Eliot, de- signed Rosamund Vincy and Horace, was there not a spice of malice in the portraits which we miss in your least favourable studies ? That the creator of Colonel New- come and of Henry Esmond was a 6 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS snarling cynic ; that he who designed Rachel Esmond could not draw a good woman : these are the chief charges (all indifferent now to you, who were once so sensitive) that your admirers have to contend against. A French critic, M. Taine, also protests that you do preach too much. Did any author but yourself so frequently break the thread (seldom a strong thread) of his plot to converse with his reader and moralise his tale, we also might be offended. But who that loves Montaigne and Pascal, who that likes the wise trifling of the one and can bear with the melancholy of the other, but prefers your preaching to another's playing ! Your thoughts come in, like the intervention of the Greek Chorus, as an ornament and source of fresh delight. Like the songs of the Chorus, they bid us pause a moment over the wider laws and actions of human fate and human life, and we turn from your persons to yourself, and again from yourself to your TH ACKER A V 7 persons, as from the odes of Sophocles or Aristophanes to the action of their characters on the stage. Nor, to my taste, does the mere music and melan- choly dignity of your style in these passages of meditation fall far below the highest efforts of poetry. I remember that scene where Clive, at Barnes New- come's Lecture on the Poetry of the Affections, sees Ethel who is lost to him. 'And the past and its dear his- tories, and youth and its hopes and pas- sions, and tones and looks for ever echoing in the heart and present in the memory — these, no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard as he looked across the great gulf of time, and parting and grief, and beheld the woman he had loved for many years.' For ever echoing in the heart and pres- ent in the memory : who has not heard these tones, who does not hear them as he turns over your books that, for so many years, have been his companions and comforters } We have been young 8 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS and old, we have been sad and merry with you, we have listened to the mid- night chimes with Pen and Warrington, have stood with you beside the death- bed, have mourned at that yet more awful funeral of lost love, and with you have prayed in the inmost chapel sacred to our old and immortal affections, a Ual souvenir! And whenever you speak for yourself, and speak in earnest, how magical, how rare, how lonely in our literature is the beauty of your sen- tences ! ' I can't express the charm of them ' (so you write of George Sand ; so we may write of you) : ' they seem to me like the sound of country bells, pro- voking I don't know what vein of music and meditation, and falling sweetly and sadly on the ear.' Surely that style, so fresh, so rich, so full of surprises — that style which stamps as classical your frag- ments of slang, and perpetually aston- ishes and delights — would alone give immortality to an author, even had he little to say. But you, with your whole THACKERAY 9 wide world of fops and fools, of good women and brave men, of honest ab- surdities and cheery adventurers : you who created the Steynes and Newcomes, the Beckys and Blanches, Captain Costi- gan and F. B., and the Chevalier Strong — all that host of friends imperishable — you must survive with Shakespeare and Cervantes in the memory and affec- tion of men. II. To Charles Dickens. Sir, — It has been said that every man is born a Platonist or an Aristote- lian, though the enormous majority of us, to be sure, live and die without being conscious of any invidious philosophic partiality whatever. With more truth (though that does not imply very much) every Englishman who reads may be said to be a partisan of yourself or of Mr. Thackeray. Why should there be any partisanship in the matter ; and why, having two such good things as your novels and those of your contem- porary, should we not be silently happy in the possession .-' Well, men are made so, and must needs fight and argue over their tastes in enjoyment. For myself, I may say that in this matter I DICKENS 1 1 am what the Americans do not call a ' Mugwump,' what English politicians dub a ' superior person ' — that is, I take no side, and attempt to enjoy the best of both. It must be owned that this attitude is sometimes made a little difficult by the vigour of your special devotees. They have ceased, indeed, thank Hea- ven ! to imitate you ; and even in * de- scriptive articles ' the touch of Mr. Gig- adibs, of him whom ' we almost took for the true Dickens,' has disappeared. The young lions of the Press no longer mimic your less admirable mannerisms — do not strain so much after fantastic comparisons, do not (in your manner and Mr. Carlyle's) give people nick- names derived from their teeth, or their complexion ; and, generally, we are spared second-hand copies of all that in your style was least to be commended. But, though improved by lapse of time in this respect, your devotees still put on little conscious airs of virtue, robust 12 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS manliness, and so forth, which would have irritated you very much, and there survive some press men who seem to have read you a little (especially your later works), and never to have read any- thing else. Now familiarity with the pages of * Our Mutual Friend ' and ' Dombey and Son ' does not precisely constitute a liberal education, and the assumption that it does is apt (quite un- reasonably) to prejudice people against the greatest comic genius of modern times. On the other hand. Time is at last beginning to sift the true admirers of Dickens from the false. Yours, Sir, in the best sense of the word, is a popular success, a popular reputation. For ex- ample, I know that, in a remote and even Pictish part of this kingdom, a rural household, humble and under the shadow of a sorrow inevitably approach- ing, has found in ' David Copperfield ' oblivion of winter, of sorrow, and of sick- ness. On the other hand, people are Die ICE NS 13 now picking up heart to say that 'they cannot read Dickens,' and that they par- ticularly detest ' Pickwick.' I believe it vvas young ladies who first had the cour* age of their convictions in this respect. *Tout sied aux belles,' and the fair, in the confidence of youth, often venture on remarkable confessions. In your • Natural History of Young Ladies ' I do not remember that you describe the Humorous Young Lady.^ She is a very rare bird indeed, and humour generally is at a deplorably low level in England. Hence come all sorts of mischief, arisen since you left us ; and, it may be Said, that inordinate philanthropy, gen- teel sympathy with Irish murder and arson, Societies for Badgering the Poor, Esoteric Buddhism, and a score of other plagues, including what was once called ^stheticism, are all, primarily, due to want of humour. People discuss, with 1 I am infof med that the Natural History of Young Ladies is attributed, by some writers, to another phi- losopher, the author o£ The Art of Pluck. 14 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS the gravest faces, matters which prop- erly should only be stated as the wild- est paradoxes. It naturally follows that, in a period almost destitute of humour, many respectable persons ' cannot read Dickens,' and are not ashamed to glory in their shame. We ought not to be angry with others for their misfortunes ; and yet when one meets the ci-^tins who boast that they cannot read Dickens, one certainly does feel much as Mr. Samuel Weller felt when he encountered Mr. Job Trotter. How very singular has been the his- tory of the decline of humour. Is there any profound psychological truth to be gathered from consideration of the fact that humour has gone out with cruelty ? A hundred years ago, eighty years ago — nay, fifty years ago — we were a cruel but also a humorous people. We had bull-baitings, and badger-drawings, and hustings, and prize-fights, and cock-fights •, we went to see men hanged ; the pillory and the stocks were no empty * terrors DICKENS 15 unto evil-doers,' for there was commonly a malefactor occupying each of these institutions. With all this we had a broad-blown comic sense. We had Ho- garth, and Bunbury, and George Cruik- shank, and Gilray ; we had Leech and Surtees, and the creator of Tittlebat Titmouse ; we had the Shepherd of the * Noctes,' and, above all, we \\z.(S. yoic. From the old giants of English fun — burly persons delighting in broad carica- ture, in decided colours, in cockney jokes, in swashing blows at the more promi- nent and obvious human follies — from these you derived the splendid high spir- its and unhesitating mirth of your earlier works. Mr. Squeers, and Sam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and all the Pickwick- ians, and Mr. Dowler, and John Browdie — these and their immortal companions were reared, so to speak, on the beef and beer of that naughty, fox-hunting, bad- ger-baiting old England, which we have improved out of existence. And these characters, assuredly, are your best ; by 1 6 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS them, though stupid people cannot read about Ihem, you will live while there is a laugh left among us. Perhaps that does not assure you a very prolonged existence, but only the future can show. The dismal seriousness of the time cannot, let us hope, last for ever and a day. Honest old Laughter, the true lutin of your inspiration, must have life left in him yet, and cannot die ; though it is true that the taste for your pa- thos, and your melodrama, and plots constructed after your favourite fashion (' Great Expectations ' and the ' Tale of Two Cities' are exceptions) may go by and never be regretted. Were people simpler, or only less clear-sighted, as far as your pathos is concerned, a genera- tion ago .? Jeffrey, the hard-headed shal- low critic, who declared that Wordsworth 'would never do,' cried, 'wept like any- thing,' over your Little Nell. One still laughs as heartily as ever with Dick Swiveller ; but who can cry over Little NeU? DICKENS ly Ah, Sir, how could you — who knew so intimately, who remembered so strangely well the fancies, the dreams, the suffer- ings of childhood — how could you ' wal- low naked in the pathetic,' and massacre holocausts of the Innocents ? To draw tears by gloating over a child's death- bed, was it worthy of you ? Was it the kind of work over which our hearts should melt ? I confess that Little Nell might die a dozen times, and be wel- comed by whole legions of Angels, and I (like the bereaved fowl mentioned by Pet Marjory) would remain unmoved. She was more than usual calm. She did not give a single dam^ wrote the astonishing child who diverted the leisure of Scott, Over your Little Nell and your Little Dombey I remain more than usual calm ; and probably so do thousands of your most sincere ad- mirers. But about matter of this kind, and the unsealing of the fountains of tears, who can argue ? Where is taste ? where is truth ? What tears are ' manly. 1 8 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Sir, manly,' as Fred Bayham has it ; and of what lamentations ought we rather to be ashamed ? Sunt lacryince rerum ; one has been moved in the cell where Socrates tasted the hemlock ; or by the river-banks where Syracusan arrows slew the parched Athenians among the mire and blood ; or, in fiction, when Colonel Newcome said Adsiim, or over the diary of Clare Doria Forey, or where Aramis laments, with strange tears, the death of Porthos. But over Dombey (the Son), or Little Nell, one declines to snivel. When an author deliberately sits down and says, ' Now, let us have a good cry,' he poisons the wells of sensibility and chokes, at least in many breasts, the fountain of tears. Out of ' Dombey and Son ' there is little we care to remember except the deathless Mr. Toots ; just as we forget the melodramatics of ' Martin Chuzzlewit.' I have read in that book a score of times ; I never see it but I revel in it — in Pecksniff, and Mrs. Gamp, and the Americans. But what the plot is DICKENS 19 all about, what Jonas did, what Montagu Tigg had to make in the matter, what all the pictures with plenty of shading illustrate, I have never been able to com- prehend. In the same way, one of your most thorough -going admirers has al- lowed (in the licence of private conver- sation) that ' Ralph Nickleby and Monk are too steep ; ' and probably a cultivated taste will always find them a little pre- cipitous. ' Too steep : ' — the slang expresses that defect of an ardent genius, carried above itself, and out of the air we breathe, both in its grotesque and in its gloomy imaginations. To force the note, to press fantasy too hard, to deepen the gloom with black over the indigo, that was the failing which proved you mortal. To take an instance in little : when Pip went to Mr. Pumble- chook's, the boy thought the seedsman *a very happy man to have so many little drawers in his shop.' The reflec- tion is thoroughly boyish ; but then you 20 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS add, * I wondered whether the flower- seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails and bloom.' That is not boyish at all ; that is the hard-driven, jaded literary fancy at work. ' So we arraign her ; but she,' the Genius of Charles Dickens, how brill- iant, how kindly, how beneficent she is ! dwelling by a fountain of laughter im- perishable ; though there is something of an alien salt in the neighbouring fountain of tears. How poor the world of fancy would be, how 'dispeopled of her dreams,' if, in some ruin of the social system, the books of Dickens were lost ; and if The Dodger, and Charley Bates, and Mr. Crinkle, and Miss Squeers, and Sam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and Dick Swiveller were to perish, or to vanish with Menander's men and women ! We cannot think of our world without them ; and, children of dreams as they are, they seem more essential than great states- men, artists, soldiers, who have actually DICKENS 21 worn flesh and blood, ribbons and or- ders, gowns and uniforms. May we not almost welcome ' Free Education ' ? for every Englishman who can read, unless he be an Ass. is a reader the more for you. III. To Pierre de Ronsard. (prince of poets.) Master and Prince of Poets, — As we know what choice thou madest of a sepulchre (a choice how ill fulfilled by the jealousy of Fate), so we know well the manner of thy chosen immor- tality. In the Plains Elysian, among the heroes and the ladies of old song, there was thy Love with thee to enjoy her paradise in an eternal spring. Lh du plaisant Avril la saison immortelle Sans eschajtge le suit, La terre sans labeur, de sa grasse mamelle, Toute chose y produit ; D'enbas la troupe sainte autrefois amoureuse, Notis ho7iorant stir tous, Viendra nous saltier, s'estimaiit bien-heureuse De s'accointer de nous. There thou dwellest, with the learned lovers of old days, with Belleau, and Du PIERRE DE RONSARD 2$ Bellay, and Baif, and the flower of the maidens of Anjou. Surely no rumour reaches thee, in that happy place of reconciled affections, no rumour of the rudeness of Time, the despite of men, and the change which stole from thy locks, so early grey, the crown of laurels and of thine own roses. How different from thy choice of a sepulchre have been the fortunes of thy tomb ! I will that none should break The marble for my sake. Wishful to make more fair My sepulchre ! So didst thou sing, or so thy sweet num- bers run in my rude English. Wearied of Courts and of priories, thou didst de- sire a grave beside thine own Loire, not remote from The caves, the founts that fall From the high mountain wall, That fall and flash and fleet, With silver feet. Only a laurel tree Shall guard the grave of me j ... 24 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Only Apollo's bough Shall shade me now ! Far other has been thy sepulchre : in the free air, among the field flowers, but in thy priory of Saint Cosme, with marble for a monument, and no green grass to cover thee. Restless wert thou in thy life ; thy dust was not to be rest- ful in thy death. The Huguenots, ces nouveaux Chretiens qui la France ont pilUe, destroyed thy tomb, and the warn- ing of the later monument, ABI, NEFASTE, QUAM CALCAS HUMUM SACRA EST, has not scared away malicious men. The storm that passed over France a hundred years ago, more terrible than the religious wars that thou didst weep for, has swept the column from the tomb. The marble was broken by violent hands, and the shattered sepulchre of the Prince of Poets gained a dusty hospitality from the museum of a country town. Better had been the laurel of thy desire, the creeping vine, and the ivy tree. PIERRE DE RONSARD 2$ Scarce more fortunate, for long, than thy monument was thy memory. Thou hast not encountered, Master, in the Paradise of Poets, Messieurs Malherbe, De Balzac, and Boileau — Boileau who spoke of thee as Ce poke orgueilleux trSbuchi de si haiit ! These gallant gentlemen, I make no doubt, are happy after their own fashion, backbiting each other and thee in the Paradise of Critics. In their time they wrought thee much evil, grumbling that thou wrotest in Greek and Latin (of which tongues certain of them had but little skill), and blaming thy many lyric melodies and the free flow of thy lines. What said M. de Balzac to M. Chape- lain ? * M. de Malherbe, M. de Grasse, and yourself must be very little poets, if Ronsard be a great one.' Time has brought in his revenges, and Messieurs Chapelain and De Grasse are as well forgotten as thou art well remembered. Men could not always be deaf to thy sweet old songs, nor blind to the beauty 26 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS of thy roses and thy loves. When they took the wax out of their ears that M. Boileau had given them lest they should hear the singing of thy Sirens, then they were deaf no longer, then they heard the old deaf poet singing and made answer to his lays. Hast thou not heard these sounds } have they not reached thee, the voices and the lyres of Theophile Gautier and Alfred de Musset .■* Methinks thou hast marked them, and been glad that the old notes were ringing again and the old French lyric measures tripping to thine ancient harmonies, echoing and replying to the Muses of Horace and Catullus. Re- turning to Nature, poets returned to thee. Thy monument has perished, but not thy music, and the Prince of Poets has returned to his own again in a glo- rious Restoration. Through the dust and smoke of ages, and through the centuries of wars we strain our eyes and try to gain a glimpse of thee, Master, in thy good days, when PIERRE DE RONSARD 2/ the Muses walked with thee. We seem to mark thee wandering silent through some little village, or dreaming in the woods, or loitering among thy lonely places, or in gardens where the roses blossom among wilder flowers, or on river banks where the whispering jjop- lars and sighing reeds make answer to the murmur of the waters. Such a pic- ture hast thou drawn of thyself in the summer afternoons. Je m'en vais pourmener tantost parmy la plaine, Tantost en un village, et tantost en un bois, Et tantost par les lieux solitaires et cois. J'aime fort les jardins qui sentent le sauvage, J'aime le flot de I'eau qui gazoiiille au rivage. Still, methinks, there was a book in the hand of the grave and learned poet ; still thou wouldst carry thy Horace, thy Catullus, thy Theocritus, through the gem-like weather of the Renouveau^ when the woods were enamelled with flowers, and the young Spring was lodged, like a wandering prince, in his great palaces hung with green : 28 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Orgueilleux de ses fleurs, enfle de sa jeunesse, Log^ comme un grand Prince en ses vertes maisond I Thou sawest, in these woods by Loire side, the fair shapes of old religion, Fauns, Nymphs, and Satyrs, and heard'st in the nightingale's music the plaint of Philomel. The ancient poets came back in the train of thyself and of the Spring, and learning was scarce less dear to thee than love ; and thy ladies seemed fairer for the names they bor- rowed from the beauties of forgotten days, Helen and Cassandra. How sweetly didst thou sing to them thine old morality, and how gravely didst thou teach the lesson of the Roses ! Well didst thou know it, well didst thou love the Rose, since thy nurse, carrying thee^ an infant, to the holy font, let fall on thee the sacred water brimmed with floating blossoms of the Rose ! Mignonne, aliens voir si la Rose, Qui ce matin avoit desclose Sa robe de pourpre au soleil, A point perdu ceste vespree PIERRE DE RONSARD 29 Les plis de sa robe pourpree, Et son teint au votre pareil. A-nd again, La belle Rose du Printemps, Aubert, admoneste les hommes Passer joyeusement le temps, Et pendant que jeunes nous sommes, Esbattre la fleur de nos ans. In the same mood, looking far down the future, thou sangest of thy lady's age, the most sad, the most beautiful of thy sad and beautiful lays ; for if thy bees gathered much honey 't was some- what bitter to taste, as that of the Sar- dinian yews. How clearly we see the great hall, the grey lady spinning and humming among her drowsy maids, and how they waken at the word, and she sees her spring in their eyes, and they forecast their winter in her face, when she murmurs ' 'T was Ronsard sang of me.' Winter, and summer, and spring, how swiftly they pass, and how early time brought thee his sorrows, and grief cast her dust upon thy head. 30 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Adieu ma Lyre, adieu fillettes, Jadis mes douces amourettes, Adieu, je sens venir ma fin, Nul passetemps de ma jeunesse Ne m'accompagne en la vieillesse, Que le feu, le lict et le vin. Wine, and a soft bed, and a bright fire : to this trinity of poor pleasures we come soon, if, indeed, wine be left to us. Poetry herself deserts us ; is it not said that Bacchus never forgives a renegade? and most of us turn recreants to Bac- chus. Even the bright fire, I fear, was not always there to warm thine old blood. Master, or, if fire there were, the wood was not bought with thy book- seller's money. When autumn was draw- ing in during thine early old age, in 1584, didst thou not write that thou hadst never received a sou at the hands of all the publishers who vended thy books .-' And as thou wert about put- ting forth thy folio edition of 1584, thou didst pray Buon, the bookseller, to give thee sixty crowns to buy wood withal, and make thee a bright fire in winte/ PIERRE DE RONSARD 31 weather, and comfort thine old age with thy friend Gallandius. And if Buon will not pay, then to try the other book- sellers, ' that wish to take everything and give nothing.' Was it knowledge of this passage, Master, or ignorance of everything else, that made certain of the common stead- fast dunces of our days speak of thee as if thou hadst been a starveHng, neglected poetaster, jealous forsooth, of Maitre Frangoys Rabelais ? See how ignorantly M. Fleury writes, who teaches French literature withal to them of Muscovy, and hath indited a Life of Rabelais. ' Rabelais etait revetu d'un emploi hon- orable ; Ronsard etait traite en subal- terne,' quoth this wondrous professor. What ! Pierre de Ronsard, a gentleman of a noble house, holding the revenue of many abbeys, the friend of Mary Stuart, of the Due d'Orleans, of Charles IX., he is traits en subalterne, and is jealous of a f rocked or unfrocked ma- nant like Maitre Frangoys ! And then 32 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS this amazing Fleury falls foul of thine epitaph on Maitre Frangoys and cries, * Ronsard a voulu faire des vers me- chants ; il n*a fait que de mechants vers.' More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, ' If the good Rabelais had returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the wine, he would, methinks, have laughed heartily.* But what shall be said of a Professor like the egregious M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was despised at Court ? Was there a party at tennis when the king would not fain have had thee on his side, declaring that he ever won when Ronsard was his partner ? Did he not give thee bene- fices, and many priories, and call thee his father in Apollo, and even, so they say, bid thee sit down beside him on his throne ? Away, ye scandalous folk, who tell us that there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth. Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling apothecary, who put PIERRE DE RONSARD 33 forth his fables in 1697, a century and a half after Maitre Frangoys died. Bayle quoted this fellow in a note, and ye all steal the tattle one from another in your dull manner, and know not whence it comes, nor even that Bayle would none of it and mocked its author. With so little knowledge is history written, and thus doth each chattering brook of a ' Life ' swell with its tribute * that great Mississippi of falsehood,' Biography. 3 IV. To Herodotus. To Herodotus of Halicarnassus, greet- ing. — Concerning the matters set forth in your histories, and the tales you tell about both Greeks and Barbarians, whether they be true, or whether they be false, men dispute not little but a great deal. Wherefore I, being concerned to know the verity, did set forth to make search in every manner, and came in my quest even unto the ends of the earth. For there is an island of the Cimmerians beyond the Straits of He- racles, some three days' voyage to a ship that hath a fair following wind in her sails ; and there it is said that men know many things from of old : thither, then, I came in my inquiry. Now, the island is not small, but large, greater HERODOTUS 35 than the whole of Hellas ; and they call it Britain. In that island the east wind blows for ten parts of the year, and the people know not how to cover them- selves from the cold. But for the other two months of the year the sun shines fiercely, so that some of them die there- of, and others die of the frozen mixed drinks ; for they have ice even in the summer, and this ice they put to their liquor. Through the whole of this island, from the west even to the east, there flows a river called Thames : a great river and a laborious, but not to be lik- ened to the River of Egypt. The mouth of this river, where I stepped out from my ship, is exceedingly foul and of an evil savour by reason of the city on the banks. Now this city is several hundred parasangs in circum- ference. Yet a man that needed not to breathe the air might go round it in one hour, in chariots that run under the earth ; and these chariots are drawn by creatures that breathe smoke and sul- 36 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS phur, such as Orpheus mentions in his ' Argonautica,' if it be by Orpheus. The people of the town, when I inquired of them concerning Herodotus of Halicar- nassus, looked on me with amazement, and went straightway about their busi- ness, — namely, to seek out whatsoever new thing is coming to pass all over the whole inhabited world, and as for things old, they take no keep of them. Nevertheless, by diligence I learned that he who in this land knew most concerning Herodotus was a priest, and dwelt in the priests' city on the river which is called the City of the Ford of the Ox. But whether lo, when she wore a cow's shape, had passed by that way in her wanderings, and thence comes the name of that city, I could not (though I asked all men I met) learn aught with certainty. But to me, considering this, it seemed that lo must have come thither. And now farewell to lo. To the City of the Priests there are two roads : one by land ; and one by HERODOTUS 37 water, following the river. To a well- girdled man, the land journey is but one day's travel ; by the river it is longer but more pleasant. Now that river flows, as I said, from the west to the east. And there is in it a fish called chub, which they catch ; but they do not eat it, for a certain sacred reason. Also there is a fish called trout, and this is the manner of his catching. They build for this purpose great dams of wood, which they call weirs. Having built the weir they sit upon it with rods in their hands, and a line on the rod, and at the end of the line a little fish. There then they * sit and spin in the sun,' as one of their poets says, not for a short time but for many days, having rods in their hands and eating and drinking. In this wise they angle for the fish called trout ; but whether they ever catch him or not, not having seen it, I cannot say ; for it is not pleasant to me to speak things concerning which I know not the truth. 38 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Now, after sailing and rowing against the stream for certain days, I came to the City of the Ford of the Ox. Here the river changes his name, and is called Isis, after the name of the goddess of the Egyptians. But whether the Brit- ons brought the name from Egypt or whether the Egyptians took it from the Britons, not knowing I prefer not to say. But to me it seems that the Britons are a colony of the Egyptians, or the Egyp- tians a colony of the Britons. More- over, when I was in Egypt I saw certain soldiers in white helmets, who were cer- tainly British. But what they did there (as Egypt neither belongs to Britain nor Britain to Egypt) I know not, neither could they tell me. But one of them re- plied to me in that Hne of Homer (if the Odyssey be Homer's), *We have come to a sorry Cyprus, and a sad Egypt.' Others told me that they once marched against the Ethiopians, and having de- feated them several times, then came back again, leaving their property to the HERODOTUS 39 Ethiopians. But as to the truth of this I leave it to every man to form his own opinion. Having come into the City of the Priests, I went forth into the street, and found a priest of the baser sort, who for a piece of silver led me hither and thither among the temples, discoursing of many things. Now it seemed to me a strange thing that the city was empty, and no man dwelling therein, save a few priests only, and their wives, and their children, who are drawn to and fro in little carriages dragged by women. But the priest told me that during half the year the city was desolate, for that there came some- what called 'The Long,' or * The Vac,' and drave out the young priests. And he said that these did no other thing but row boats, and throw balls from one to the other, and this they were made to do, he said, that the young priests might learn to be humble, for they are the proudest of men. But whether he 40 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS spoke truth or not I know not, only I set down what he told me. But to any- one considering it, this appears rather to jump with his story — namely, that the young priests have houses on the river, painted of divers colours, all of them empty. Then the priest, at my desire, brought me to one of the temples, that I might seek out all things concerning Herodo- tus the Halicarnassian, from one who knew. Now this temple is not the fair- est in the city, but less fair and goodly than the old temples, yet goodlier and more fair than the new temples ; and over the roof there is the image of an eagle made of stone — no small marvel, but a great one, how men came to fash- ion him ; and that temple is called the House of Queens. Here they sacrifice a boar once every year ; and concerning this they tell a certain sacred story which I know but will not utter. Then I was brought to the priest who had a name for knowing most about HERODOTUS 4 1 Egypt, and the Egyptians, and the As- syrians, and the Cappadocians, and all the kingdoms of the Great King. He came out to me, being attired in a black robe, and wearing on his head a square cap. But why the priests have square caps I know, and he who has been in- itiated into the mysteries which they call • Matric ' knows, but I prefer not to telL Concerning the square cap, then, let this be sufficient. Now, the priest received me courteously, and when I asked him, concerning Herodotus, whether he were a true man or not, he smiled, and an- swered *Abu Goosh,' which, in the tongue of the Arabians, means ' The Father of Liars.' Then he went on to speak concerning Herodotus, and he said in his discourse that Herodotus not only told the thing which was not, but that he did so wilfully, as one knowing the truth but concealing it. For example, quoth he, ' Solon never went to see Croe- sus, as Herodotus avers ; nor did those about Xerxes ever dream dreams ; but 42 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Herodotus, out of his abundant wicked- ness, invented these things. 'Now behold,' he went on, 'how the curse of the Gods falls upon Herodotus. For he pretends that he saw Cadmeian inscriptions at Thebes. Now I do not believe there were any Cadmeian inscrip- tions there : therefore Herodotus is most manifestly lying. Moreover, this Herodo- tus never speaks of Sophocles the Athe- nian, and why not .'' Because he, being a child at school, did not learn Sophocles by heart : for the tragedies of Sophocles could not have been learned at school before they were written, nor can any man quote a poet whom he never learned at school. Moreover, as all those about Herodotus knew Sophocles well, he could not appear to them to be learned by showing that he knew what they knew also.' Then I thought the priest was making game and sport, saying first that Herodotus could know no poet whom he had not learned at school, and then saying that all the men of his time well HERODOTUS 43 knew this poet, 'about whom everyone was talking.' But the priest seemed not to know that Herodotus and Sophocles were friends, which is proved by this, that Sophocles wrote an ode in praise of Herodotus. Then he went on, and though I were to write with a hundred hands (like Briareus, of whom Homer makes men- tion) I could not tell you all the things that the priest said against Herodotus, speaking truly, or not truly, or some- times correctly and sometimes not, as often befalls mortal men. For Herodo- tus, he said, was chiefly concerned to steal the lore of those who came before him, such as Hecateeus, and then to es- cape notice as having stolen it. Also he said that, being himself cunning and de- ceitful, Herodotus was easily beg'iiled by the cunning of others, and believed in things manifestly false, such as the story of the Phoenix-bird. Then I spoke, and said that Hero- dotus himself declared that he could not 44 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS believe that story ; but the priest re- garded me not. And he said that Hero- dotus had never caught a crocodile with cold pig, nor did he ever visit Assyria, nor Babylon, nor Elephantine ; but, say- ing that he had been in these lands, said that which was not true. He also declared that Herodotus, when he trav- elled, knew none of the Fat Ones of the Egyptians, but only those of the baser sort. And he called Herodotus a thief and a beguiler, and * the same with in- tent to deceive,' as one of their own poets writes. And, to be short, Hero- dotus, I could not tell you in one day all the charges which are now brought against you ; but concerning the truth of these things, you know, not least, but most, as to yourself being guilty or inno- cent. Wherefore, if you have anything to show or set forth whereby you may be relieved from the burden of these accusations, now is the time. Be no longer silent ; but, whether through the Oracle of the Dead, or the Oracle of HERODOTUS 45 Branchidae, or that in Delphi, or Dodona, or of Amphiaraus at Oropus, speak to your friends and lovers (whereof I am one from of old) and let men know the very truth. Now, concerning the priests in the City of the Ford of the Ox, it is to be said that of all men whom we know they receive strangers most gladly, feasting them all day. Moreover, they have many drinks, cunningly mixed, and of these the best is that they call Arch- deacon, naming it from one of the priests' offices. Truly, as Homer says (if the Odyssey be Homer's), * when that draught is poured into the bowl then it is no pleasure to refrain.' Drinking of this wine, or nectar, He- rodotus, I pledge you, and pour forth some deal on the ground, to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in the House of Hades. And I wish you farewell, and good be with you. Whether the priest spoke truly, or not truly, even so may such good things betide you as befall dead men. V. Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope. From mortal Gratitude, decide, my Pope, Have Wits Immortal more to fear or hope ? Wits toil and travail round the Plant of Fame, Their Works its Garden, and its Growth their Aim, Then Commentators, in unwieldy Dance, Break down the Barriers of the trim Pleasance, Pursue the Poet, like Actaeon's Hounds, Beyond the fences of his Garden Grounds, Rend from the singing Robes each bor- rowed Gem, Rend from the laurel'd Brows the Dia- dem, POPE 47 And, if one Rag of Character they spare, Comes the Biographer, and strips it bare ! Such, Pope, has been thy Fortune, such thy Doom. Swift the Ghouls gathered at the Poet's Tomb, With Dust of Notes to clog each lordly Line, Warburton, Warton, Croker, Bowles, combine ! Collecting Cackle, Johnson condescends To interview the Drudges of your Friends. Though still your Courthope holds your merits high. And still proclaims your Poems Poetry, Biographers, un - Boswell - like, have sneered. And Dunces edit him whom Dunces feared ! They say ; what say they ? Not in vain You ask. 48 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS To tell you what they say, behold my Task ! ' Methinks already I your Tears survey ' As I repeat ' the horrid Things they say.' ^ Comes El — n first: I fancy you'll agree Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he ; For El — n's Introduction, crabbed and dry. Like Churchill's Cudgel's ^ marked with Lie, and Lie ! * Too dull to know what his own System meant, Pope yet was skilled new Treasons to invent ; A Snake that puffed himself and stung his Friends, Few Lied so frequent, for such little Ends ; His mind, like Flesh inflamed,^ was raw and sore, 1 Rape of the Lock. 2 In Mr. Hogarth's Caricatura. 8 Elwin's Pope, ii. 15. POPE 49 And still, the more he writhed, he stung the more ! Oft in a Quarrel, never in the Right, His Spirit sank when he was called to fight. Pope, in the Darkness mining like a Mole, Forged on Himself, as from Himself he stole, And what for Caryll once he feigned to feel, Transferred, in Letters never sent, to Steele ! Still he denied the Letters he had writ, And still mistook Indecency for Wit. His very Grammar, so De Quincey cries, " Detains the Reader, and at times defies ! " ' Fierce El — n thus : no Line escapes his Rage, And furious Foot-notes growl 'neath every Page : 4 50 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS See St-ph-n next take up the woful Tale, Prolong the Preaching, and protract the Wail! * Some forage Falsehoods from the North and South, But Pope, poor D 1, lied from Hand to Mouth ; 1 Affected, hypocritical, and vain, A Book in Breeches, and a Fop in Grain ; A Fox that found not the high Clusters sour, The Fanfaron of Vice beyond his power. Pope yet possessed' — (the Praise will make you start) — *Mean, morbid, vain, he yet possessed a Heart ! And still we marvel at the Man, and still Admire his Finish, and applaud his Skill : 1 ' Poor Pope was always a hand-to-mouth liar.' '—Pope, by Leslie Stephen, 139. POPE 51 Though, as that fabled Barque, a phan- tom Form, Eternal strains, nor rounds the Cape of Storm, Even so Pope strove, nor ever crossed the Line That from the Noble separates the Fine!' The Learned thus, and who can quite reply. Reverse the Judgment, and Retort the Lie? You reap, in arm^d Hates that haunt Your name. Reap what you sowed, the Dragon's Teeth of Fame : You could not write, and from unenvi- ous Time Expect the Wreath that crowns the lofty Rhyme, You still must fight, retreat, attack, de- fend, And oft, to snatch a Laurel, lose a Friend ! 52 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS The Pity of it ! And the changing Taste Of changing Time leaves half your Work a Waste ! My Childhood fled your couplet's clarion tone, And sought for Homer in the Prose of Bohn. Still through the Dust of that dim Prose appears The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of Spears ; Still we may trace what Hearts heroic feel, And hear the Bronze that hurtles on the Steel ! But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pre- tence. Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Skill in Fence, And great Achilles' Eloquence doth show As if no Centaur trained him, but Boi- leau! POPE 53 Again, your Verse is orderly, — and more, — ' The Waves behind impel the Waves before ; ' Monotonously musical they glide, Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied. But turn to Homer ! How his Verses sweep ! Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep ; This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth. Spurred by the West or smitten by the North, Sombre in all its sullen Deeps, and all Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall, The next with silver Murmur dies away, Like Tides that falter to Calypso's Bay ! Thus Time, with sordid Alchemy and dread. Turns half the Glory of your Gold to Lead ; Thus Time, — at Ronsard's wreath that vainly bit, — 54 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit, Who almost left on Addison a stain, Whose knife cut cleanest with a poi- soned pain, — Yet Thou (strange Fate that clings to all of Thine !) When most a Wit dost most a Poet shine. In Poetry thy Dunciad expires, When Wit has shot 'her momentary Fires.' *T is Tragedy that watches by the Bed * Where tawdry Yellow strove with dirty Red,' And Men, remembering all, can scarce deny To lay the Laurel where thine Ashes Ue! VI. To Luciaii of Samosata. In what bower, oh Lucian, of your rediscovered Islands Fortunate are you now reclining ; the delight of the fair, the learned, the witty, and the brave ? In that clear and tranquil climate, whose air breathes of 'violet and lily, myrtle, and the flower of the vine/ Where the daisies are rose-scented. And the Rose herself has got Perfume which on earth is not, among the music of all birds, and the wind-blown notes of flutes hanging on the trees, methinks that your laughter sounds most silvery sweet, and that Helen and fair Charmides are still of your company. Master of mirth, and Soul the best contented of all that have seen the world's ways clearly, most clear- 56 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS sighted of all that have made tranquil- lity their bride, what other laughers dwell with you, where the crystal and fragrant waters wander round the shin- ing palaces and the temples of ame- thyst ? Heine surely is with you ; if, indeed, it was not one Syrian soul that dwelt among alien men, Germans and Romans, in the bodily tabernacles of Heine and of Lucian. But he was fallen on evil times and evil tongues ; while Lucian, as witty as he, as bitter in mockery, as happily dowered with the magic of words, lived long and happily and honoured, imprisoned in no * mattress-grave.' With- out Rabelais, without Voltaire, without Heine, you would find, methinks, even the joys of your Happy Islands lacking in zest ; and, unless Plato came by your way, none of the ancients could meet you in the lists of sportive dialogue. There, among the vines that bear twelve times in the year, more excellent than all the vineyards of Touraine, while LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA 57 the song-birds bring you flowers from vales enchanted, and the shapes of the Blessed come and go, beautiful in wind- woven raiment of sunset hues ; there, in a land that knows not age, nor winter, midnight, nor autumn, nor noon, where the silver twilight of summer-dawn is perennial, where youth does not wax spectre-pale and die ; there, my Lucian, you are crowned the Prince of the Para- dise of Mirth. Who would bring you, if he had the power, from the banquet where Homer sings : Homer, who, in mockery of com- mentators, past and to come, German and Greek, informed you that he was by birth a Bab3donian ? Yet, if you, who first wrote Dialogues of the Dead, could hear the prayer of an epistle wafted to ' lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of West,' you might visit once more a world so worthy of such a mocker, so like the world you knew so well of old. Ah, Lucian, we have need of you, of your sense and of your mockery ! Here, 58 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS where faith is sick and superstition is waking afresh ; where gods come rarely, and spectres appear at five shillings an interview ; where science is popular, and philosophy cries aloud in the market- place, and clamour does duty for govern- ment, and Thais and Lais are names of power — here, Lucian, is room and scope for you. Can I not imagine a new 'Auc- tion of Philosophers,' and what wealth might be made by him who bought these popular sages and lecturers at his estimate, and vended them at their own ? Hermes : Whom shall we put first up to auction ? Zeus : That German in spectacles ; he seems a highly respectable man. Hermes : Ho, Pessimist, come down and let the public view you. Zeus : Go on, put him up and have done with him. Hermes : Who bids for the Life Mis- erable, for extreme, complete, perfect, unredeemable perdition .'' What offers LUCIAN OF S AMOS ATA 59 for the universal extinction of the spe- cies, and the collapse of the Conscious ? A Purchaser : He does not look at all a bad lot. May one put him through his paces ? Hermes : Certainly ; try your luck. Purchaser : What is your name .'' Pessimist : Hartmann. Purchaser : What can you teach me ? Pessimist : That Life is not worth Living. Purchaser : Wonderful ! Most edi- fying ! How much for this lot } Hermes : Two hundred pounds. Purchaser : I will write you a cheque for the money. Come home, Pessimist, and begin your lessons without more ado. Hermes : Attention ! Here is a mag- nificent article — the Positive Life, the Scientific Life, the Enthusiastic Life. Who bids for a possible place in the Calendar of the Future .-' Purchaser : What does he call him- self } he has a very French air. 60 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Hermes : Put your own questions. Purchaser : What 's your pedigree, my Philosopher, and previous perform- ances ? PosiTiviST : I am by Rousseau out of Catholicism, with a strain of the Evolu- tion blood. Purchaser : What do you believe in ? PosiTiviST : In Man, with a large M. Purchaser : Not in individual Man ? PosiTiviST : By no means ; not even always in Mr. Gladstone. All men, all Churches, all parties, all philosophies, and even the other sect of our own Church, are perpetually in the wrong. Buy me, and listen to me, and you will always be in the right. Purchaser: And, after this life, what have you to offer me .-' PosiTiviST : A distinguished position in the Choir Invisible ; but not, of course, conscious immortality. Purchaser : Take him away, and put up another lot. Then the Hegelian, with his Notion, LUCIAN OF S AMOS ATA 6l and the Darwinian, with his notions, and the Lotzian, with his Broad Church mix- ture of Religion and Evolution, and the Spencerian, with that Absolute which is a sort of a something, might all be offered with their divers wares ; and cheaply enough, Lucian, you would value them in this auction of Sects. * There is but one way to Corinth,' as of old ; but which that way may be, oh master of Hermotimus, we know no more than he did of old ; and still we find, of all phi- losophies, that the Stoic route is most to be recommended. But we have our Cy- renaics too, though they are no longer ' clothed in purple, and crowned with flowers, and fond of drink and of female flute-players.' Ah, here too, you might laugh, and fail to see where the Pleasure lies, when the Cyrenaics are no 'judges of cakes ' (nor of ale, for that matter), and are strangers in the Courts of Princes. * To despise all things, to make use of all things, in all things to follow pleasure only : ' that is not the manner 62 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS of the new, if it were the secret of the older Hedonism. Then, turning from the philosophers to the seekers after a sign, what change, Lucian, would you find in them and their ways ? None ; they are quite unaltered. Still our Perigrinus, and our Perigrina too, come to us from the East, or, if from the West, they take India on their way — India, that secular home of driv- elling creeds, and of religion in its sacer- dotage. Still they prattle of Brahmins and Buddhism ; though, unlike Peregri- nus, they do not publicly burn them- selves on pyres, at Epsom Downs, after the Derby. We are not so fortunate in the demise of our Theosophists ; and our police, less wise than the Helleno- dicae, would probably not permit the Im- molation of the Quack. Like your Alex- ander, they deal in marvels and mira- cles, oracles and warnings. All such bogy stories as those of your ' Philo- pseudes,' and the ghost of the lady who took to table-rapping because one of her LUCIAN OF S AMOS ATA 63 best slippers had not been burned with her body, are gravely investigated by the Psychical Society. Even your ignorant Bibliophile is still with us — the man without a tinge of letters, who buys up old manuscripts 'because they are stained and gnawed, and who goes, for proof of valued an- tiquity, to the testimony of the book- worms.' And the rich BibHophile now, as in your satire, clothes his volumes in purple morocco and gay doniresy while their contents are sealed to him. As to the topics of satire and gay curiosity which occupy the lady known as ' Gyp,' and M. Halevy in his * Les Petites Cardinal,' if you had not ex- hausted the matter in your * Dialogues of Hetairai,' you would be amused to find the same old traits surviving without a touch of change. One reads, in Halevy's French, of Madame Cardinal, and, in your Greek, of the mother of Philinna, and marvels that eighteen hundred years have not in one single trifle altered the 54 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS mould. Still the old shabby light-loves, the old greed, the old luxury and squalor. Still the unconquerable superstition that now seeks to tell fortunes by the cards, and, in your time, resorted to the sor- ceress with her magical * bull-roarer ' or turndun} Yes, Lucian, we are the same vain creatures of doubt and dread, of unbelief and credulity, of avarice and pretence, that you knew, and at whom you smiled. Nay, our very ' social question ' is not altered. Do you not write, in 'The Runaways,' ' The artisans will abandon their workshops, and leave their trades, when they see that, with all the labour that bows their bodies from dawn to dark, they make a petty and starveling pittance, while men that toil not nor spin are floating in Pactolus ' .-' They begin to see this again as of 1 The Greek (tSu^oi, mentioned by Lucian and Theocritus, was the magical weapon of the Austra^ lians — the turndun. LUC IAN OF S AMOS AT A 6$ yore ; but whether the end of their vis- ion will be a laughing matter, you, for- tunate Lucian, do not need to care. Hail to you, and farewell ! 5 VII. To Maitre Franqoys Rabelais. OF THE COMING OF THE COQCIGRUES. Master, — In the Boreal and Septen- trional lands, turned aside from the noonday and the sun, there dwelt of old (as thou knowest, and as Olaus vouch- eth) a race of men, brave, strong, nim- ble, and adventurous, who had no other care but to fight and drink. There, by reason of the cold (as Virgil witnesseth), men break wine with axes. To their minds, when once they were dead and gotten to Valhalla, or the place of their Gods, there would be no other pleasure but to swig, tipple, drink, and boose till the coming of that last darkness and Twilight, wherein they, with their dei- ties, should do battle against the enemies RABELAIS 6 J of all mankind; which day they rather desired than dreaded. So chanced it also with Pantagruel and Brother John and their company, after they had once partaken of the se- cret of the Dive Bouteille. Thereafter they searched no longer ; but, abiding at their ease, were merry, frolic, jolly, gay, glad, and wise ; only that they always and ever did expect the awful Coming of the Coqcigrues. Now concerning the day of that coming, and the nature of them that should come, they knew noth- ing ; and for his part Panurge was all the more adread, as Aristotle testifieth that men (and Panurge above others) most fear that which they know least. Now it chanced one day, as they sat at meat, with viands rare, dainty, and pre- cious as ever Apicius dreamed of, that there fluttered on the air a faint sound as of sermons, speeches, orations, ad- dresses, discourses, lectures, and the like ; whereat Panurge, pricking up his ears, cried, ' Methinks this wind bloweth 68 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS from Midlothian,' and so fell a trem- bling. Next, to their aural orifices, and the avenues audient of the brain, was borne a very melancholy sound as of harmo- niums, hymns, organ-pianos, psalteries, and the like, all playing different airs, in a kind most hateful to the Muses. Then said Panurge, as well as he might for the chattering of his teeth : 'May I never drink if here come not the Coqcigrues!' and this saying and prophecy of his was true and inspired. But thereon the oth- ers began to mock, flout, and gird at Panurge for his cowardice. ' Here am I ! ' cried Brother John, ' well-armed and ready to stand a siege ; being entrenched, fortified, hemmed - in and surrounded with great pasties, huge pieces of salted beef, salads, fricassees, hams, tongues, pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little tarts, jellies, pastries, trifles, and fruits of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while I have good wells, founts, springs, and sources of Bordeaux wine, Burgundy, RABELAIS 69 wine of the Champagne country, sack and Canary. A fig for thy Coqcigrues ! ' But even as he spoke there ran up suddenly a whole legion, or rather army, of physicians, each armed with laryngo- scopes, stethoscopes, horoscopes, micro- scopes, weighing machines, and such other tools, engines, and arms as they had who, after thy time, persecuted Monsieur de Pourceaugnac ! And they all, rushing on Brother John, cried out to him, * Abstain ! Abstain ! ' And one said, ' I have well diagnosed thee, and thou art in a fair way to have the gout.' *I never did better in my days,' said Brother John. ' Away with thy meats and drinks ! ' they cried. And one said, * He must to Royat ; ' and another, ' Hence with him to Aix ; * and a third, 'Banish him to Wiesbaden;' and a fourth, ' Hale him to Gastein ; ' and yet another, * To Barbouille with him in chains ! ' And while others felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, they all wrofe pre-- 70 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS scriptions for him like men mad. ' For thy eating,* cried he that seemed to be their leader, ' No soup ! ' 'No soup ! ' quoth Brother John ; and those cheeks of his, whereat you might have warmed your two hands in the winter solstice, grew white as lilies. * Nay ! and no sal- mon, nor any beef nor mutton ! A little chicken by times, but periculo tuo ! Nor any game, such as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck ; nor any cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor coffee, nor eau de vie ; and avoid all sweets. No veal, pork, nor made dishes of any kind.' ' Then what may I eat ? ' quoth the good Brother, whose valour had oozed out of the soles of his san- dals. * A little cold bacon at breakfast — no eggs,' quoth the leader of the strange folk, ' and a slice of toast with- out butter.' ' And for thy drink ' — (' What > ' gasped Brother John) — ' one dessert-spoonful of whisky, with a pint of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon and dinner. No more ! ' At this RABELAIS 71 Brother John fainted, falling like a great buttress of a hill, such as Tayge- tus or Erymanthus. While they were busy with him, oth- ers of the frantic folk had built great platforms of wood, whereon they all stood and spoke at once, both men and women. And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which mean- eth * Salvation ; ' and others wore white crosses, with a little black button of crape, to signify ' Purity ; ' and others bits of blue to mean * Abstinence.' While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset Pantagruel ; asking him very long questions, whereunto he gave but short answers. Thus they asked : — Have ye Local Option here ? — Pan. : What > May one man drink if his neighbour be not athirst ? — Pan. : Yea ! Have ye Free Education ? — Pan. : What .? Must they that have, pay to school them that have not ? — Pan. : Nay ! 72 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Have ye free land? — Pan.: What? Have ye taken the land from the farmer, and given it to the tailor out of work and the candlemaker masterless ? — Pan. : Nay ! Have your women folk votes ? — Pan. : Bosh ! Have ye got religion ? — Pan. : How ? Do you go about the streets at night, brawling, blowing a trumpet before you, and making long prayers ? — Pan. : Nay! Have you manhood suffrage? — Pan. : Eh? Is Jack as good as his master ? — Pan. : Nay ! Have you joined the Arbitration So- ciety ? — Pan. : Qiioy ? Will you let another kick you, and will you ask his neighbour if you de- serve the same ? — Pan. : Nay ? Do you eat what you list ? — Pan. : Ay! Do you drink when you are athirst ? — Pan. : Ay ! RABELAIS 73 Are you governed by the free ex- pression of the popular will ? — Pan. : How ? Are you servants of priests, pulpits, and penny papers ? — Pan. : No ! Now, when they heard these answers of Pantagruel they all fell, some a weep- ing, some a praying, some a swearing, some an arbitrating, some a lecturing, some a caucussing, some a preaching, some a faith-healing, some a miracle- working, some a hypnotising, some a writing to the daily press ; and while they were thus busy, like folk distraught, ' reforming the island,' Pantagruel burst out a laughing ; whereat they were greatly dismayed ; for laughter killeth the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they may not endure it. Then Pantagruel and his company stole aboard a barque that Panurge had ready in the harbour. And having pro- visioned her well with store of meat and good drink, they set sail for the king- dom of Entelechy, where, having landed, 74 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS they were kindly entreated ; and there abide to this day ; drinking of the sweet and eating of the fat, under the protec- tion of that intellectual sphere which hath in all places its centre and nowhere its circumference. Such was their destiny ; there was their end appointed, and thither the Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues ; and there aboundeth the herb Pantagruelion. But for thee, Master Fran^oys, thou art not well liked in this island of ours, where the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce, cruel, and tyrannical. Yet thou hast thy friends, that meet and drink to thee and wish thee well wheresoever thou hast found \^y grand peut-itre. VIII. To Jane Austen. Madam, — If to the enjoyments of your present state be lacking a view of the minor infirmities or foibles of men, I cannot but think (were the thought permitted) that your pleasures are yet incomplete. Moreover, it is certain that a woman of parts who has once meddled with literature will never wholly lose her love for the discussion of that deli- cious topic, nor cease to relish what (in the cant of our new age) is styled ' liter- ary shop.' For these reasons I attempt to convey to you some inkling of the present state of that agreeable art which you, madam, raised to its highest pitch of perfection. As to your own works (immortal, as I believe), I have but little that is wholly •j6 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS cheering to tell one who, among women of letters, was almost alone in her free- dom from a lettered vanity. You are not a very popular author : your volumes are not found in gaudy covers on every bookstall ; or, if found, are not perused with avidity by the Emmas and Cather- ines of our generation. 'T is not long since a blow was dealt (in the estimation of the unreasoning) at your character as an author by the publication of your familiar letters. The editor of these epistles, unfortunately, did not always take your witticisms, and he added oth- ers which were too unmistakably his own. While the injudicious were disap- pointed by the absence of your exqui- site style and humour, the wiser sort were the more convinced of your wis- dom. In your letters (knowing your correspondents) you gave but the small personal talk of the hour, for them suffi- cient ; for your books you reserved matter and expression which are imper- ishable. Your admirers, if not very JANE AUSTEN 'Jf numerous, include all persons of taste, who, in your favour, are apt somewhat to abate the rule, or shake off the habit, which commonly confines them to but temperate laudation. 'Tis the fault of all art to seem an- tiquated and faded in the eyes of the succeeding generation. The manners of your age were not the manners of to-day, and young gentlemen and ladies who think Scott 'slow,' think Miss Austen 'prim' and 'dreary.' Yet, even could you return among us, I scarcely believe that, speaking the language of the hour, as you might, and versed in its habits, you would win the general admiration. For how tame, madam, are your charac- ters, especially your favourite heroines ! how limited the life which you knew and described ! how narrow the range of your incidents ! how correct your gram- mar ! As heroines, for example, you chose ladies like Emma, and Elizabeth, and Catherine : women remarkable neither y8 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS for the brilliance nor for the degradation of their birth ; women wrapped up in their own and the parish's concerns, ig- norant of evil, as it seems, and unac- quainted with vain yearnings and inter- esting doubts. Who can engage his fancy v/ith their match-makings and the conduct of their affections, when so many daring and dazzling heroines approach and solicit his regard ? Here are princesses dressed in white velvet stamped with golden fleurs-de-lys — ladies with hearts of ice and lips of fire, who count their roubles by the mil- lion, their lovers by the score, and even their husbands, very often, in figures of some arithmetical importance. With these are the immaculate daughters of itinerant Italian musicians, maids whose souls are unsoiled amidst the contamina- tions of our streets, and whose acquain- tance with the art of Phidias and Prax- iteles, of Daedalus and Scopas, is the more admirable, because entirely derived from loving study of the inexpensive col- JANE AUSTEN 79 lections vended by the plaster-of-Paris man round the corner. When such heroines are wooed by the nephews of Dukes, where are your Emmas and Eliz- abeths ? Your volumes neither excite nor satisfy the curiosities provoked by that modern and scientific fiction, which is greatly admired, I learn, in the United States, as well as in France and at home. You erred, it cannot be denied, with your eyes open. Knowing Lydia and Kitty so intimately as you did, why did you make of them almost insignificant characters } With Lydia for a heroine you might have gone far ; and, had you devoted three volumes, and the chief of your time, to the passions of Kitty, you might have held your own, even now, in the circulating library. How Lyddy, perched on a corner of the roof, first beheld her Wickham ; how, on her chal- lenge, he climbed up by a ladder to her side ; how they kissed, caressed, swung on gates together, met at odd seasons, 8o LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS in Strange places, and finally eloped ; all this might have been put in the mouth of a jealous elder sister, say Elizabeth, and you would not have been less popu- lar than several favourites of our time. Had you cast the whole narrative into the present tense, and lingered lovingly over the thickness of Mary's legs and the softness of Kitty's cheeks, and the blonde fluffiness of Wickham's whiskers, you would have left a romance still dear to young ladies. Or again, you might entrance your students still, had you concentrated your attention on Mrs. Rushworth, who eloped with Henry Crawford. These should have been the chief figures of ' Mansfield Park.' But you timidly decline to tackle Passion. * Let other pens,' you write, 'dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can.' Ah, there is the secret of your failure ! Need I add that the vulgarity and narrowness of the social circles you describe impair your popularity ? I scarce remember JANE AUSTEN 8 1 more than one lady of title, and but very few lords (and these unessential) in all your tales. Now, when we all wish to be in society, we demand plenty of titles in our novels, at any rate, and we get lords (and very queer lords) even from Republican authors, born in a country which in your time was not renowned for its literature. I have heard a critic remark, with a decided air of fashion, on the brevity of the notice which your characters give each other when they offer invitations to dinner. 'An invita- tion to dinner next day was despatched,' and this demonstrates that your acquain- tance ' went out ' very little, and had but few engagements. How vulgar, too, is one of your heroines, who bids Mr. Darcy ' keep his breath to cool his por- ridge.' I blush for Elizabeth ! It were superfluous to add that your characters are debased by being invariably mere members of the Church of England as by law established. The Dissenting en- thusiast, the open soul that glides from 6 82 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Esoteric Buddhism to the Salvation Army, and from the Higher Pantheism to the Higher Paganism, we look for in vain among your studies of character. Nay, the very words I employ are of un- known sound to you ; so how can you help us in the stress of the soul's trav- ailings ? You may say that the soul's travail- ings are no affair of yours ; proving thereby that you have indeed but a lowly conception of the duty of the nov- elist. I only remember one reference, in all your works, to that controversy which occupies the chief of our attention — the great controversy on Creation or Evolution. Your Jane Bennet cries : * I have no idea of there being so much De- sign in the world as some persons imag- ine.' Nor do you touch on our mighty social question, the Land Laws, save when Mrs. Bennet appears as a Land Reformer, and rails bitterly against the cruelty * of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of JANE AUSTEN 83 a man whom nobody cared anything about.' There, madam, in that cruelly unjust performance, what a text you had for a Tendenz-Roman. Nay, you can al- low Kitty to report that a Private had been flogged, without introducing a chap- ter on Flogging in the Army. But you formally declined to stretch your matter out, here and there, ' with solemn spe- cious nonsense about something uncon- nected with the story.' No 'padding' for Miss Austen ! In fact, madam, as you were born before Analysis came in, or Passion, or Realism, or Naturalism, or Irreverence, or Religious Open-minded- ness, you really cannot hope to rival your literary sisters in the minds of a perplexed generation. Your heroines are not passionate, we do not see their red wet cheeks, and tresses dishevelled in the manner of our frank young Mae- nads. What says your best successor, a lady who adds fresh lustre to a name that in fiction equals yours } She says of Miss Austen : ' Her heroines have a 84 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Stamp of their own. They have a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hard- ness of heart. . . . Love with them does not mean a passion as much as an inter- est, deep and silent.* I think one pre- fers them so, and that EngHsh women should be more Hke Anne Elliot than Maggie Tulliver. ' All the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest when existence or when hope is gone,' said Anne ; perhaps she insisted on a monopoly that neither sex has all to itself. Ah, madam, what a relief it is to come back to your witty volumes, and forget the follies of to-day in those of Mr. Collins and of Mrs. Bennet ! How fine, nay, how noble is your art in its delicate reserve, never insisting, never forcing the note, never pushing the sketch into the caricature ! You worked without thinking of it, in the spirit of Greece, on a labour happily limited, and exquisitely organised. 'Dear books,' we say, with Miss Thackeray — 'dear books, JANE AUSTEN 85 bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores are enchanting.' IX. To Master Isaak Walton. Father Isaak, — When I would be quiet and go angling it is my custom to carry in my wallet thy pretty book, ' The Compleat Angler.' Here, methinks, if I find not trout I shall find content, and good company, and sweet songs, fair milkmaids, and country mirth. For you are to know that trout be now scarce, and whereas he was ever a fearful fish, he hath of late become so wary that none but the cunningest anglers may be even with him. It is not as it was in your time. Fa- ther, when a man might leave his shop in Fleet Street, of a holiday, and, when he had stretched his legs up Tottenham Hill, come lightly to meadows chequered with waterlilies and lady-smocks, and so ISAAK WALTON 87 fall to his sport. Nay, now have the houses so much increased, like a spread- ing sore (through the breaking of that excellent law of the Conscientious King and blessed Martyr, whereby building beyond the walls was forbidden), that the meadows are all swallowed up in streets. And as to the River Lea, wherein you took many a good trout, I read in the news sheets that ' its bed is many inches thick in horrible filth, and the air for more than half a mile on each side of it is polluted with a horrible, sickening stench,' so that we stand in dread of a new Plague, called the Cholera. And so it is all about London for many miles, and if a man, at heavy charges, betake himself to the fields, lo you, folk are grown so greedy that none will suffer a stranger to fish in his water. So poor anglers are in sore straits. Unless a man be rich and can pay great rents, he may not fish, in England, and hence spring the discontents of the times, for the angler is full of content, if 88 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS he do but take trout, but if he be driven from the waterside, he falls, perchance, into evil company, and cries out to di- vide the property of the gentle folk. As many now do, even among Parliament- men, whom you loved not, Father Isaak, neither do I love them more than Rea- son and Scripture bid each of us be kindly to his neighbour. But, behold, the causes of the ill content are not yet all expressed, for even where a man hath licence to fish, he will hardly take trout in our age, unless he be all the more cunning. For the fish, harried this way and that by so many of your disciples, is exceeding shy and artful, nor will he bite at a fly unless it falleth lightly, just above his mouth, and floateth dry over him, for all the world like the natural ephemeris. And we may no longer angle with worm for him, nor with penk or minnow, nor with the natural fly, as was your manner, but only with the artificial, for the more difficulty the more diver- sion. For my part I may cry, like Via- ISAAK WALTON 89 tor in your book, ' Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second Angle : I have no fortune.' So we fare in England, but somewhat better north of the Tweed, where trout are less wary, but for the most part small, except in the extreme rough north, among horrid hills and lakes. Thither, Master, as methinks you may remember, went Richard Franck, that called him- self Philanthropus, and was, as it were, the Columbus of anglers, discovering for them a new Hyperborean world. But Franck, doubtless, is now an angler in the Lake of Darkness, with Nero and other tyrants, for he followed after Crom- well, the man of blood, in the old riding days. How wickedly doth Franck boast of that leader of the giddy multitude, 'when they raged, and became restless to find out misery for themselves and others, and the rabble would herd them- selves together,' as you said, 'and en- deavour to govern and act in spite of au- thority.' So you wrote ; and what said 90 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Franck, that recreant angler ? Doth he not praise ' Ireton, Vane, Nevill, and Martin, and the most renowned, valor- ous, and victorious conqueror, Oliver Cromwell.' Natheless, with all his sins on his head, this Franck discovered Scotland for anglers, and my heart turns CO him when he praises 'the glittering and resolute streams of Tweed.' In those wilds of Assynt and Loch Rannoch, Father, we, thy followers, may yet take trout, and forget the evils of the times. But, to be done with Franck, how harshly he speaks of thee and thy book. ' For you may dedicate your opin- ion to what scribbling putationer you please ; the Compleat Angler if you will, who tells you of a tedious fly story, ex- travagantly collected from antiquated authors, such as Gesner and Dubravius.' Again, he speaks of ' Isaac Walton, whose authority to me seems alike au- thentick, as is the general opinion of the vulgar prophet,' &c. Certain I am that Franck, if a better ISAAK WALTOAT 9I angler than thou, was a worse man, who, writing his ' Dialogues Piscatorial ' or ' Northern Memoirs ' five years after the world welcomed thy * Compleat Angler,' was jealous of thy favour with the peo- ple, and, may be, hated thee for thy loy- alty and sound faith. But, Master, like a peaceful man avoiding contention, thou didst never answer this blustering Franck, but wentest quietly about thy quiet Lea, and left him his roaring Brora and windy Assynt. How could this noisy man know thee — and know thee he did, having argued with thee in Staf- ford — and not love Isaak Walton ? A pedant angler, I call him, a plaguy an- gler, so let him huff away, and turn we to thee and to thy sweet charm in fish- ing for men. How often, studying in thy book, have I hummed to myself that of Horace — Laudis amore tumes ? Sunt ccrta piacula qua tc Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello. So healing a book for the frenzy of fame 92 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS is thy discourse on meadows, and pure streams, and the country life. How peaceful, men say, and blessed must have been the life of this old man, how lapped in content, and hedged about by his own humility from the world ! They forget, who speak thus, that thy years, which were many, were also evil, or would have seemed evil to divers that had tasted of thy fortunes. Thou wert poor, but that, to thee, was no sorrow, for greed of money was thy detestation. Thou wert of lowly rank, in an age when gentle blood was alone held in regard ; yet thy virtues made thee hosts of friends, and chiefly among religious men, bish- ops, and doctors of the Church. Thy pri- vate life was not unacquainted with sor- row ; thy first wife and all her fair chil- dren were taken from thee like flowers in spring, though, in thine age, new love and new offspring comforted thee like 'the primrose of the later year.' Thy private griefs might have made thee bit- ter, or melancholy, so might the sorrows ISAAJiT WALTON 93 of the State and of the Church, which were deprived of their heads by cruel men, despoiled of their wealth, the pious driven, like thee, from their homes ; fear everywhere, everywhere robbery and confusion : all this ruin might have an- gered another temper. But thou. Fa- ther, didst bear all with so much sweet- ness as perhaps neither natural temper- ament, nor a firm faith, nor the love of angling could alone have displayed. For we see many anglers (as witness Richard Franck aforesaid) who are angry men, and myself, when I get my hooks entan- gled at every cast in a tree, have come nigh to swear prophane. Also we see religious men that are sour and fanatical, no rare thing in the party that professes godliness. But nei- ther private sorrow nor public grief could abate thy natural kindliness, nor shake a religion which was not untried, but had, indeed, passed through the furnace like fine gold. For if we find not Faith at all times easy, because of the oppositions 94 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS of Science, and the searching curiosity of men's minds, neither was Faith a mat- ter of course in thy day. For the learned and pious were greatly tossed about, like worthy Mr. Chillingworth, by doubts wa- vering between the Church of Rome and the Reformed Church of England. The humbler folk, also, were invited, now here, now there, by the clamours of fa- natical Nonconformists, who gave them- selves out to be somebody, while Athe- ism itself was not without many to wit- ness to it. Therefore, such a religion as thine was not, so to say, a mere innocence of evil in the things of our Belief, but a reasonable and grounded faith, strong in despite of oppositions. Happy was the man in whom temper, and religion, and the love of the sweet country and an angler's pastime so conveniently com- bined ; happy the long life which held in its hand that threefold clue through the labyrinth of human fortunes ! Around thee Church and State might fall in ruins, and might be rebuilded, and thy ISAAJC WALTON 95 tears would not be bitter, nor thy tri- umph cruel. Thus, by God's blessing, it befell thee Nee turpent senectam Degere, nee cithara carentem. I would, Father, that I could get at the verity about thy poems. Those recom- mendatory verses with which thou didst grace the Lives of Dr. Donne and others of thy friends, redound more to the praise of thy kind heart than thy fancy. But what or whose was the pastoral poem of 'Thealma and Clearchus,' which thou didst set about printing in 1678, and gavest to the world in 1683 } Thou gavest John Chalkhill for the author's name, and a John Chalkhill of thy kin- dred died at Winchester, being eighty years of his age, in 1679. Now thou speakest of John Chalkhill as ' a friend of Edmund Spenser's,' and how could this be } Are they right who hold that John Chalkhill was but a name of a friend, borrowed by thee out of modesty, and 96 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS used as a cloak to cover poetry of thine own inditing ? When Mr. Flatman writes of Chalkhill, 't is in words well fitted to thine own merit : Happy old man, whose worth all mankind knows Except himself, who charitably shows The ready road to virtue and to praise, The road to many long and happy days. However it be, in that road, by quiet streams and through green pastures, thou didst walk all thine almost century of years, and we, who stray into thy path out of the highway of life, we seem to hold thy hand, and listen to thy cheer- ful voice. If our sport be worse, may our content be equal, and our praise, therefore, none the less. Father, if Mas- ter Stoddard, the great fisher of Tweed- side, be with thee, greet him for me, and thank him for those songs of his, and perchance he will troll thee a catch of our dear River. Tweed ! winding and wild ! where the heart is un- bound. They know not, they dream not, who linger around, How the saddened will smile, and the wasted rewin From thee — the bliss withered within. ISAAK WALTON 97 Or perhaps thou wilt better love, The lanesome Tala and the Lyne, And Mahon wi' its mountain rills, An' Etterick, whose waters twine Wi' Yarrow frae the forest hills ; An' Gala, too, and Teviot bright. An' mony a stream o' playfu' speed, Their kindred valleys a' unite Amang the braes o' bonnie Tweed I So, Master, may you sing against each other, you two good old anglers, like Peter and Corydon, that sang in your golden age. 7 X. To M. Chapelain. Monsieur, — You were a popular wri- ter, and an honourable, over - educated, upright gentleman. Of the latter char- acter you can never be deprived, and I doubt not it stands you in better stead where you are, than the laurels which flourished so gaily, and faded so soon. Laurel is green for a season, and Love is fair for a day, But Love grows bitter with treason, and laurel out- lives not May. I know not if Mr. Swinburne is cor- rect in his botany, but your laurel cer- tainly outlived not May, nor can we hope that you dwell where Orpheus and where Homer are. Some other crown, some other Paradise, we cannot doubt it, awaited icn si bon honwie. But the CHAPELAIN 99 moral excellence that even Boileau ad- mitted, la foi, riiomteur, la probity, do not in Parnassus avail the popular poet, and some luckless Musset or Theophile, Regnier or Villars attains a kind of im- mortality denied to the man of many contemporary editions, and of a great commercial success. If ever, for the confusion of Horace, any Poet was Made, you, Sir, should have been that fortunately manufactured article. You virere, in matters of the Muses, the child of many prayers. Never, since Adam's day, have any par- ents but yours prayed for a poet-child. Then Destiny, that mocks the desires of men in general, and fathers in partic- ular, heard the appeal, and presented M. Chapelain and Jeanne Corbi^re his vrife with the future author of * La Pucelle.' Oh futile hopes of men, O pcctora C(2ca ! All was done that education could do for a genius which, among other qualities, 'especially lacked fire and imagination,' and an ear for verse — sad defects these lOO LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS in a child of the Muses. Your training in all the mechanics and metaphysics of criticism might have made you exclaim, like Rasselas, ' Enough ! Thou hast convinced me that no human being can ever be a Poet.' Unhappily, you suc- ceeded in convincing Cardinal Riche- lieu that to be a Poet was well within your powers, you received a pension of one thousand crowns, and were made Captain of the Cardinal's minstrels, as M. de Treville was Captain of the King's Musketeers. Ah, pleasant age to live in, when good intentions in poetry were more richly endowed than ever is Research, even Research in Prehistoric English, among us niggard moderns ! How I wish I knew a Cardinal, or, even as you did, a Prime Minister, who would praise and pension me ; but Envy be still ! Your existence was more happy indeed ; you constructed odes, corrected sonnets, pre- sided at the Hotel Rambouillet, while the learned ladies were still young and CHAPE LA IN 1 01 fair, and you enjoyed a prodigious ce- lebrity on the score of your yet unpub- lished Epic. * Who, indeed,' says a sym- pathetic author, M. Theophile Gautier, * who could expect less than a miracle from a man so deeply learned in the laws of art — a perfect Turk in the sci- ence of poetry, a person so well pen- sioned, and so favoured by the great ? ' Bishops and politicians combined in per- fect good faith to advertise your merits. Hard must have been the heart that could resist the testimonials of your skill as a poet offered by the Due de Mon- tausier, and the learned Huet, Bishop of Avranches, and Monseigneur Godeau, Bishop of Vence, or M. Colbert, who had such a genius for finance. If bishops and politicians and prime ministers skilled in finance, and some critics. Menage and Sarrazin and Vau- getas, if ladies of birth and taste, if all the world in fact, combined to tell you that you were a great poet, how can we blame you for taking yourself seriously. 102 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS and appraising yourself at the public estimate ? It was not in human nature to resist the evidence of the bishops especially, and when every minor poet believes in himself on the testimony of his own con- ceit, you may be acquitted of vanity if you listened to the plaudits of your friends. Nay, you ventured to pro- nounce judgment on contemporaries whom Posterity has preferred to your perfections. ' Moli^re,' said you, ' un- derstands the nature of comedy, and presents it in a natural style. The plot of his best pieces is borrowed, but not without judgment ; his morale is fair, and he has only to avoid scurrility.' Excellent, unconscious, popular Cha- pelain ! Of yourself you observed, in a Report on contemporary literature, that your 'courage and sincerity never allowed you to tolerate work not absolutely good.* And yet you regarded * La Pu- celle ' with some complacency. CHAPELAIN 103 On the ' Pucelle ' you were occupied during a generation of mortal men. I marvel not at the length of your labours, as you received a yearly pension till the Epic was finished, but your Muse was no Alcmena, and no Hercules was the re- sult of that prolonged night of creations. First you gravely wrote out (it was the task of five years) all the compositions in prose. Ah, why did you not leave it in that commonplace but appropriate me- dium } What says the Precieuse about you in Boileau's satire } In Chapelain, for all his foes have said, She finds but one defect, he can't be read ; Yet thinks the world might taste his maiden's woes, If only he would turn his verse to prose ! The verse had been prose, and prose, perhaps, it should have remained. Yet for this precious * Pucelle,' in the age when ' Paradise Lost ' was sold for five pounds, you are believed to have re- ceived about four thousand. Horace was wrong, mediocre poets may exist (now and then), and he was a wise man who 104 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS first spoke of aurea vtediocritas. At length the great work was achieved, a work thrice blessed in its theme, that divine Maiden to whom France owes all, and whom you and Voltaire have recom- pensed so strangely. In folio, in italics, with a score of portraits and engravings, and culs de lavipe, the great work was given to the world, and had a success. Six editions in eighteen months are fig- ures which fill the poetic heart with envy and admiration. And then, alas ! the bubble burst. A great lady, Madame de Longveille, hearing the ' Pucelle ' read aloud, murmured that it was ' perfect indeed, but perfectly wearisome.' Then the satires began, and the satirists never left you till your poetic reputation was a rag, till the mildest Abbe at Menage's had his cheap sneer for Chapelain. I make no doubt, Sir, that envy and jealousy had much to do with the on- slaught on your ' Pucelle.' These quali- ties, alas,! are not strange to literary minds ; does not even Hesiod tell us CHAPELAIN 105 that ' potter hates potter, and poet hates poet ' ? But contemporary spites do not harm true genius. Who suffered more than Moliere from cabals ? Yet neither the court nor the town ever deserted him, and he is still the joy of the world. I admit that his adversaries were weaker than yours. What were Boursault and Le Boulanger, and Thomas Corneille and De Vise, what were they all compared to your enemy, Boileau ? Brossette tells a story which really makes a man pity you. There was a M. de Puimorin who, to be in the fashion, laughed at your once popular Epic. * It is all very well for a man to laugh who cannot even read.' Whereon M. de Puimorin replied : * Qu'il n'avoit que trop sil lire, depuis que Chapelain s'etoit avise de faire im- primer.' A new horror had been added to the accomplishment of reading since Chapelain had published. This repar- tee was applauded, and M. de Puimorin feel that, after all, MONSIEUR DE MOLI^RE I91 the comedies of the Contemplateiir, of the translator of Lucretius, are a philos-. ophy of life in themselves, and that in them we read the lessons of human ex- perience writ small and clear. What comedian but Moliere has com- bined with such depths — with the indig- nation of Alceste, the self-deception of Tartufe, the blasphemy of Don Juan — such wildness of irresponsible mirth, such humour, such wit ! Even now, when more than two hundred years have sped by, when sq much water has flowed under the bridges and has borne away so many trifles of contemporary mirth {cetera fiuminis ritu ferunttir), even now we never laugh so well as when Masca- rille and Vadius and M. Jourdain tread the boards in the Maison de Moliere. Since those mobile dark brows of yours ceased to make men laugh, since your voice denounced the ' demoniac * man- ner of contemporary tragedians, I take leave to think that no player has been more worthy to wear the canons of Mas- 192 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS carille or the gown of Vadius than M. Coquelin of the Comedie Fran9aise. In him you have a successor to your Mas- carille so perfect, that the ghosts of play- goers of your date might cry, could they see him, that Moliere had come again. But, with all respect to the efforts of the fair, I doubt if Mdlle. Barthet, or Mdme. Croizette herself, would reconcile the town to the loss of the fair De Brie, and Madeleine, and the first, the true Celi- mene, Armande. Yet had you ever so merry a sonbrette as Mdme. Samary, so exquisite a Nicole .-' Denounced, persecuted, and buried hugger-mugger two hundred years ago, you are now not over-praised, but more worshipped, with more servility and os- tentation, studied with more prying cu- riosity than you may approve. Are not the Molieristes a body who carry adora- tion to fanaticism .■* Any scrap of your handwriting (so few are these), any an- ecdote even remotely touching on your life, any fact that may prove your house MONSIEUR DE MO LI R RE 193 was numbered 1 5 not 22, is eagerly seized and discussed by your too minute his- torians. Concerning your private life, these men often write more like mali- cious enemies than friends ; repeating the fabulous scandals of Le Boulanger, and trying vainly to support them by grubbing in dusty parish registers. It is most necessary to defend you from your friends — from such friends as the veteran and inveterate M. Arsene Hous- saye, or the industrious but puzzle- headed M. Loiseleur. Truly they seek the living amorig the dead, and the im- mortal Moliere among the sweepings of attorneys' offices. As I regard them (for I have tarried in their tents) and as I behold their trivialities — the exercises of men who neglect Moliere's works to write about Moliere's great-grandmoth- er's second-best bed — I sometimes wish that Moliere were here to write on his devotees a new comedy, * Les Molier- istes.' How fortunate were they. Mon- sieur, who lived and worked with you, 13 194 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS who saw you day by day, who were at- tached, as Lagrange tells us, by the kindest loyalty to the best and most hon- ourable of men, the most open-handed in friendship, in charity the most delicate, of the heartiest sympathy ! Ah, that for one day I could behold you, writing in the study, rehearsing on the stage, musing in the lace-seller's shop, strolling through the Palais, turning over the new books at Billaine's, dusting your ruffles among the old volumes on the sunny stalls. Would that, through the ages, we could hear you after supper, merry with Boileau, and with Racine, — not yet a traitor, — laughing over Chapelain, combining to gird at him in an epigram, or mocking at Cotin, or talking your favourite philosophy, mindful of Des- cartes. Surely of all the wits none was ever so good a man, none ever made life so rich with humour and friendship. XIX. To Robert Burns, Sir, — Among men of Genius, and es- pecially among Poets, there are some to whom we turn with a peculiar and un- feigned affection ; there are others whom we admire rather than love. By some we are won with our will, by others con- quered against our desire. It has been your peculiar fortune to capture the hearts of a whole people — a people not usually prone to praise, but devoted with a personal and patriotic loyalty to you and to your reputation. In you every Scot who is a Scot sees, admires, and compliments Himself, his ideal self — independent, fond of whisky, fonder of the lassies ; you are the true represen- tative of him and of his nation. Next year will be the hundredth since the 196 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS press of Kilmarnock brought to light its solitary masterpiece, your Poems ; and next year, therefore, methinks, the rev- enue will receive a welcome accession from the abundance of whisky drunk in your honour. It is a cruel thing for any of your countrymen to feel that, where all the rest love, he can only admire ; where all the rest are idolators, he may not bend the knee ; but stands apart and beats upon his breast, observing, not adoring — a critic. Yet to some of us — petty souls, perhaps, and envious — that loud indiscriminating praise of * Robbie Burns ' (for so they style you in their Change-house familiarity) has long been ungrateful ; and, among the treasures of your songs, we venture to select and even to reject. So it must be! We can- not all love Haggis, nor 'painch, tripe, and thairm,' and all those rural dainties which you celebrate as * warm-reekin, rich ! ' * Rather too rich,' as the Young Lady said on an occasion recorded by Sam Weller. ROBERT BURNS IQ/ Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware That jaups in luggies ; But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer, Gie her a Haggis ! You have given her a Haggis, with a vengeance, and her ' gratefu' prayer ' is yours for ever. But if even an eternity of partridge may pall on the epicure, so of Haggis too, as of all earthly delights, Cometh satiety at last. And yet what a glorious Haggis it is — the more em- phatically rustic and even Fescennine part of your verse ! We have had many a rural bard since Theocritus ' watched the visionary flocks,' but you are the only one of them all who has spoken the sincere Doric. Yours is the talk of the byre and the plough-tail ; yours is that large utterance of the early hinds. Even Theocritus minces matters, save where Lacon and Comatas quite outdo the swains of Ayrshire. ' But thee, Theoc- ritus, wha matches } ' you ask, and your- self out-match him in this wide rude re- gion, trodden only by the rural Muse. 198 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS * Thy rural loves are nature's sel' ; ' and the wooer of Jean Armour speaks more like a true shepherd than the elegant Daphnis of the ' Oaristys.' Indeed it is with this that moral crit- ics of your life reproach you, forgetting, perhaps, that in your amours you were but as other Scotch ploughmen and shepherds of the past and present. Et- trick may still, with Afghanistan, offer matter for idylls, as Mr. Carlyle (your antithesis, and the complement of the Scotch character) supposed ; but the morals of Ettrick are those of rural Sic- ily in old days, or of Mossgiel in your days. Over these matters the Kirk, with all her power, and the Free Kirk too, have had absolutely no influence whatever. To leave so delicate a topic; you were but as other swains, or, ai ' that Birkie ca'd a lord,' Lord Byron ; only you combined (in certain of your fetters) a libertine theory with your prac- tice ; you poured out in song your auda- cious raptures, your half-hearted repent ROBERT BURNS 199 ance, your shame and your scorn. You spoke the truth about rural lives and loves. We may like it or dislike it ; but we cannot deny the verity. Was it not as unhappy a thing, Sir, for you, as it was fortunate for Letters and for Scotland, that you were born at the meeting of two ages and of two worlds — precisely in the moment when bookish literature was beginning to reach the people, and when Society was first learning to admit the low-born to her Minor Mysteries } Before you how many singers not less truly poets than yourself — though less versatile not less passion- ate, though less sensuous not less simple — had been born and had died in poor men's cottages ! There abides not even the shadow of a name of the old Scotch song-smiths, of the old ballad - makers. The authors of * Clerk Saunders,' of ♦The Wife of Usher's Well,' of 'Fair Annie,' and ' Sir Patrick Spens,' and *The Bonny Hind,' are as unknown to us as Homer, whom in their directness 200 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS and force they resemble. They never, perhaps, gave their poems to writing • certainly they never gave them to the press. On the lips and in the hearts of the people they have their lives ; and the singers, after a life obscure and un- troubled by society or by fame, are for- gotten. * The Iniquity of Oblivion blindly scattereth his Poppy.' Had you been born some years earlier you would have been even as these un- named Immortals, leaving great verses to a little clan — verses retained only by Memory. You would have been but the minstrel of your native valley : the wider world would not have known you, nor you the world. Great thoughts of inde- pendence and revolt would never have burned in you ; indignation would not have vexed you. Society would not have given and denied her caresses. You would have been happy. Your songs would have lingered in all ' the circle of the summer hills ; ' and your scorn, your satire, your narrative verse, would have ROBERT BURNS 20I been unwritten or unknown. To the world what a loss ! and what a gain to you ! We should have possessed but a few of your lyrics, as When o'er the hill the eastern star • Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo ; And owsen frae the furrowed field, Return sae dowf and wearie O ! How noble that is, how natural, how un- consciously Greek ! You found, oddly, in good Mrs. Barbauld, the merits of the Tenth Muse: In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives Even Sappho's flame ! But how unconsciously you remind us both of Sappho and of Homer in these strains about the Evening Star and the hour when the Day /Aerevio-o-cTo fSovXv Toi'Se ? Had you lived and died the pas- toral poet of some silent glen, such lyr- ics could not but have survived ; free, too, of all that in your songs reminds us of the Poet's Corner in the ' Kirkcud- bright Advertiser.' We should not have read how 202 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Phoebus, gilding the brow o' moming, Banishes ilk darksome shade I Still we might keep a love-poem unex- celled by Catullus, Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly. Never met — or never parted, We had ne'er been broken-hearted. But the letters to Clarinda would have been unwritten, and the thrush would have been untaught in ' the style of the Bird of Paradise.' A quiet life of song, fallentis sctnita vitcB, was not to be yours. Fate other- wise decreed it. The touch of a lettered society, the strife with the Kirk, discon- tent with the State, poverty and pride, neglect and success, were needed to make your Genius what it was, and to endow the world with 'Tam o' Shanter,' the 'Jolly Beggars,' and 'Holy Willie's Prayer.' Who can praise them too highly — who admire in them too much the humour, the scorn, the wisdom, the unsurpassed energy and courage } So ROBERT BURNS 203 powerful, so commanding, is the move- ment of that Beggars' Chorus, that, me- thinks, it unconsciously echoed in the brain of our greatest living poet when he conceived the Vision of Sin. You shall judge for yourself. Recall : Here 's to budgets, bags, and wallets ! Here 's to all the wandering train ! Here 's our ragged bairns and callets ! One and all cry out. Amen ! A fig for those by law protected ! Liberty 's a glorious feast ! Courts for cowards were erected ! Churches built to please the priest I Then read this : Drink to lofty hopes that cool — Visions of a perfect state : Drink we, last, the public fool. Frantic love and frantic hate. Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance^ While we keep a little breath ! Drink to heavy Ignorance Hob and nob with brother Death ! Is not the movement the same, though the modern speaks a wilder reckless- ness ? 204 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS So in the best company we leave you, who were the Hfe and soul of so much company, good and bad. No poet, since the Psalmist of Israel, ever gave the world more assurance of a man ; none lived a life more strenuous, engaged in an eternal conflict of the passions, and by them overcome — 'mighty and might- ily fallen.' When we think of you, By- ron seems, as Plato would have said, re- mote by one degree from actual truth, and Musset by a degree more remote than Byron. XX. To Lord Byron. My Lord, (Do you remember how Leigh Hunt Enraged you once by writing My dear Byro7i ?) Books have their fates, — as mortals have who punt, And yours have entered on an age of iron. Critics there be who think your satin blunt. Your pathos, fudge ; such perils must environ Poets who in their time were quite the rage. Though now there 's not a soul to turn their page. 206 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Yes, there is much dispute about your worth, And much is said which you might like to know By modern poets here upon the earth, Where poets live, and love each other so ; And, in Elysium, it may move your mirth To hear of bards that pitch your praises low, Though there be some that for your credit stickle, As — Glorious Mat, — and not inglori- ous Nichol. This kind of writing is my pet aversion, I hate the slang, I hate the personali- ties, I loathe the aimless, reckless, loose dis- persion. Of every rhyme that in the singer's wallet is, I hate it as you hated the Excursion, But, while no man a hero to his valet is, LORD BYRON. 20/ The hero 's still the model ; I indite The kind of rhymes that Byron oft would write. There's a Swiss critic whom I cannot rhyme to, One Scherer, dry as sawdust, grim and prim. Of him there 's much to say, if I had time to Concern myself in any wise with him. He seems to hate the heights he cannot climb to. He thinks your poetry a coxcomb's whim, A good deal of his sawdust he has spilt on Shakspeare, and Moliere, and you, and Milton. Ay, much his temper is like Vivien's mood, Which found not Galahad pure, nor Lancelot brave ; Cold as a hailstorm on an April wood, He buries poets in an icy grave, 208 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS His Essays — he of the Genevan hood ! Nothing so good, but better doth he crave. So stupid and so solemn in his spite He dares to print that Moli^re could not write ! Enough of these excursions ; I was say- ing That half our English Bards are turned Reviewers, And Arnold was discussing and assay- ing The weight and value of that work of yours, Examining and testing it and weighing, And proved, the gems are pure, the gold endures. While Swinburne cries with an exceed- ing joy, The stones are paste, and half the gold, alloy. In Byron, Arnold finds the greatest force, LORD BYRON 209 Poetic, in this later age of ours His song, a torrent from a mountain source. Clear as the crystal, singing with the showers, Sweeps to the sea in unrestricted course Through banks o'erhung with rocks and sweet with flowers ; None of your brooks that modestly me- ander. But swift as Awe along the Pass of Brander. And when our century has clomb its crest. And backward gazes o'er the plains of Time, And counts its harvest, yours is still the best. The richest garner in the field of rhyme (The metaphoric mixture, 't is confest, Is all my own, and is not quite sub- lime). But fame 's not yours alone ; you must divide all 2IO LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS The plums and pudding with the Bard of Rydal ! Wordsworth and Byron, these the lordly names And these the gods to whom most in- cense burns. * Absurd ! ' cries Swinburne, and in an- ger flames, And in an ^Eschylean fury spurns With impious foot your altar, and ex- claims And wreathes his laurels on the golden urns Where Coleridge's and Shelley's ashes lie, Deaf to the din and heedless of the cry. For Byron (Swinburne shouts) has never woven One honest thread of life within his song ; As Offenbach is to divine Beethoven So Byron is to Shelley {This is strong !), LORD BYRON 211 And on Parnassus' peak, divinely cloven, He may not stand, or stands by cruel wrong ; For Byron's rank (the Examiner has reckoned) Is in the third class or a feeble second. * A Bernesque poet ' at the very most, And never earnest save in politics — The Pegasus that he was wont to boast A blundering, floundering hackney, full of tricks, A beast that must be driven to the post By whips and spurs and oaths and kicks and sticks, A gasping, ranting, broken- winded brute, That any judge of Pegasi would shoot ; In sooth, a half-bred Pegasus, and far gone In spavin, curb, and half a hundred woes. And Byron's style is * jolter-headed jar- gon;' His verse is 'only bearable in prose/ 212 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS So living poets write of those that are gone, And o'er the Eagle thus the Bantam crows ; And Swinburne ends where Verisopht began, By owning you *a very clever man.' Or rather does not end : he still must utter A quantity of the unkindest things. Ah ! were you here, I marvel, would you flutter O'er such a foe the tempest of your wings ? *Tis 'rant and cant and glare and splash and splutter ' That rend the modest air when Byron sings. There Swinburne stops : a critic rather fiery. Animis ccelestibus tantcmie ires? But whether he or Arnold in the right is, LORD BYRON 21 3 Long is the argument, the quarrel long; Non nobis est to settle tantas lites ; No poet I, to judge of right or wrong : But of all things I always think a fight is The most unpleasant in the lists of song; When Marsyas of old was flayed, Apollo Set an example which we need not follow. The fashion changes ! Maidens do not wear. As once they wore, in necklaces and lockets A curl ambrosial of Lord Byron's hair ; 'Don Juan ' is not always in our pock- ets — Nay, a New Writer's readers do not care Much for your verse, but are inclined to mock its Manners and morals. Ay, and most young ladies To yours prefer the 'Epic' called 'of Hades'! 214 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS I do not blame them ; I 'm inclined to think That with the reigning taste *t is vain to quarrel, And Burns might teach his votaries to drink, And Byron never meant to make them moral. You yet have lovers true, who will not shrink From lauding you and giving you the laurel ; The Germans too, those men of blood and iron. Of all our poets chiefly swear by Byron. Farewell, thou Titan fairer than the gods ! Farewell, farewell, thou swift and lovely spirit. Thou splendid warrior with the world at odds, Unpraised, unpraisable, beyond thy merit ; Chased, like Orestes, by the furies' rods, LORD BYRON 21 5 Like him at length thy peace dost thou inherit ; Beholding whom, men think how fairer far Than all the steadfast stars the wander- ing star ! ^ ^ Mr. Swinburne's and Mr. Arnold's diverse views of Byron will be found in the Selections by Mr. Arnold and in the Nineteenth Century, XXI. To Omar Khayyam. Wise Omar, do the Southern Breezes fling Above your Grave, at ending of the Spring, The Snowdrift of the petals of the Rose, The wild white Roses you were wont to sing ? Far in the South I know a Land divine,^ And there is many a Saint and many a Shrine, And over all the shrines the Blossom blows Of Roses that were dear to you as wine. 1 The hills above San Remo, where rose-bushes are planted by the shrines. Omar desired that his grave might be where the wind would scatter rose- leaves over it. OMAR KHAYYAM 21/ You were a Saint of unbelieving days, Liking your Life and happy in men's Praise ; Enough for you the Shade beneath the Bough, Enough to watch the wild World go its Ways. Dreadless and hopeless thou of Heaven or Hell, Careless of Words thou hadst not Skill to spell. Content to know not all thou knowest now. What 's Death ? Doth any Pitcher dread the Well ? The Pitchers we, whose Maker makes them ill. Shall He torment them if they chance to spill ? Nay, like the broken potsherds are we cast Forth and forgotten, — and what will be will! 2l8 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS So Still were we, before the Months be- gan That rounded us and shaped us into Man, So still we shall be, surely, at the last, Dreamless, untouched of Blessing or of Ban! Ah, strange it seems that this thy com- mon thought — How all things have been, ay, and shall be nought — Was ancient Wisdom in thine ancient East, In those old Days when Senlac fight was fought. Which gave our England for a captive Land To pious Chiefs of a believing Band, A gift to the Believer from the Priest, Tossed from the holy to the blood-red Handli * Omar was contemporary with the battle of Hast- ings. OMAR KHAYYAM. 219 Yea, thou wert singing when that Arrow clave Through helm and brain of him who could not save His England, even of Harold God- win's son ; The high tide murmurs by the Hero's grave ! ^ And thou wert wreathing Roses — who can tell ? — Or chanting for some girl that pleased thee well. Or satst at wine in Nashapur, when dun The twilight veiled the field where Har- old fell ! The salt Sea-waves above him rage and roam! Along the white Walls of his guarded Home ^ Per mandata Ducis, Rex hie, Heralde, quteseis, Ut custos maneas littoris et pelagi. 220 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS No Zephyr stirs the Rose, but o'er the wave The wild Wind beats the Breakers into Foam ! And dear to him, as Roses were to thee, Rings long the Roar of Onset of the Sea ; The Swans Path of his Fathers is his grave : His sleep, methinks, is sound as thine can be. His was the Age of Faith, when all the West Looked to the Priest for torment or for rest; And thou wert living then, and didst not heed The Saint who banned thee or the Saint who blessed ! Ages of Progress ! These eight hun- dred years OMAR KHAYYAM 221 Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes or fears, And now ! — she listens in the wilder- ness To thee, and half believeth what she hears ! Hadst thou the Secret ? Ah, and who may tell ? 'An hour we have,* thou saidst. *Ah, waste it well ! ' An hour we have, and yet Eternity Looms o'er us, and the thought of Heaven or Hell ! Nay, we can never be as wise as thou, O idle singer 'neath the blossomed bough. Nay, and we cannot be content to die. We cannot shirk the questions * Where ? ' and * How ? ' Ah, not from learned Peace and gay Content 222 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Shall we of England go the way he went — The Singer of the Red Wine and the Rose — Nay, otherwise than his our Day is spent ! Serene he dwelt in fragrant Nashapflr, But we must wander while the Stars endure. He knew the Secret : we have none that knows, No Man so sure as Omar once was sure ! XXII. To Q. Horatitis Flaccus. In what manner of Paradise are we to conceive that you, Horace, are dwelling, or what region of immortality can give you such pleasures as this life afforded ? The country and the town, nature and men, who knew them so well as you, or who ever so wisely made the best of those two worlds ? Truly here you had good things, nor do you ever, in all your poems, look for more delight in the life beyond ; you never expect consolation for present sorrow, and when you once have shaken hands with a friend the part- ing seems to you eternal. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam cari capitis ? So you sing, for the dear head you mourn has sunk for ever beneath the 224 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS wave. Virgil might wander forth bear- ing the golden branch 'the Sibyl doth to singing men allow,' and might visit, as one not wholly without hope, the dim dwellings of the dead and the unborn. To him was it permitted to see and sing * mothers and men, and the bodies out-. worn of mighty heroes, boys and un- wedded maids, and young men borne to the funeral fire before their parents' eyes.' The endless caravan swept past him — 'many as fluttering leaves that drop and fall in autumn woods when the first frost begins ; many as birds that flock land- ward from the great sea when now the chill year drives them o'er the deep and leads them to sunnier lands.' Such things was it given to the sacred poet to behold, and the happy seats and sweet pleasances of fortunate souls, where the larger light clothes all the plains and dips them in a rosier gleam, plains with their own new sun and stars before un- known. Ah, not fntstra pins -w^is Virgil, as you say, Horace, in your melancholy Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS 22$ song. In him, we fancy, there was a happier mood than your melancholy pa- tience. ' Not, though thou wert sweeter of song than Thracian Orpheus, with that lyre whose lay led the dancing trees, not so would the blood return to the empty shade of him whom once with dread wand the inexorable god hath folded with his shadowy flocks ; but pa- tience lighteneth what heaven forbids us to undo.' Durum,, sed levius fit patientia ! It was all your philosophy in that last sad resort to which we are pushed so often — • With close-lipped Patience for our only friend, Sad Patience, too near neighbour of Despair.' The Epicurean is at one with the Stoic at last, and Horace with Marcus Aurelius. 'To go away from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of ; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in 226 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS a universe devoid of gods or devoid of providence ? * An excellent philosophy, but easier to those for whom no Hope had dawn or seemed to set. Yet it is harder than common, Horace, for us to think of you, still glad somewhere, among rivers like Liris and plains and vine-clad hills, that Solemque suum, sua sidera norunt. It is hard, for you looked for no such thing. Omnes una manet nox Et calcanda semel via leti. You could not tell Maecenas that you would meet him again ; you could only promise to tread the dark path with him. Ibimus, ibimus, Utcunque prcecedes, supremum Carper e iter com ties parati. Enough, Horace, of these mortuary musings. You loved the lesson of the roses, and now and again would speak somewhat like a death's head over thy temperate cups of Sabine ordinaire. Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS 22/ Your melancholy moral was but meant to heighten the joy of thy pleasant life, when wearied Italy, after all her wars and civic bloodshed, had won a peaceful haven. The harbour might be treach- erous ; the prince might turn to the tyrant ; far away on the wide Roman marches might be heard, as it were, the endless, ceaseless monotone of beat- ing horses' hoofs and marching feet of men. They were coming, they were near- ing, like footsteps heard on wool ; there was a sound of multitudes and millions of barbarians, all the North, officina gen- tium, mustering and marshalling her peo- ples. But their coming was not to be to- day, nor to-morrow ; nor to-day was the budding princely sway to blossom into the blood-red flower of Nero. In the lull between the two tempests of Repub- lic and Empire your odes sound 'like linnets in the pauses of the wind.' What joy there is in these songs ! what delight of life, what an exquisite Hellenic grace of art, what a manly na- 228 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS ture to endure, what tenderness and constancy of friendship, what a sense of all that is fair in the glittering stream, the music of the waterfall, the hum of bees, the silvery grey of the olive woods on the hillside ! How human are all your verses, Horace ! what a pleasure is yours in the straining poplars, swaying in the wind ! what gladness you gain from the white crest of Soracte, beheld through the fluttering snowflakes while the logs are being piled higher on the hearth. You sing of women and wine — not all whole-hearted in your praise of them, perhaps, for passion frightens you, and 't is pleasure more than love that you commend to the young. Lydia and Glycera, and the others, are but passing guests of a heart at ease in it- self, and happy enough when their facile reign is ended. You seem to me like a man who welcomes middle age, and is more glad than Sophocles was to 'flee from these hard masters ' the passions. In the 'fallow leisure of life you glance Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS. 229 round contented, and find all very good save the need to leave all behind. Even that you take with an Italian good-hu- mour, as the folk of your sunny country bear poverty and hunger. Durtim, sed levins fit patientia I To them, to you, the loveliness of your land is, and was, a thing to live for. None of the Latin poets your fellows, or none but Virgil, seem to me to have known so well as you, Horace, how happy and fortunate a thing it was to be born in Italy. You do not say so, like your Virgil, in one splendid passage, numbering the glories of the land as a lover might count the perfections of his mistress. But the sentiment is ever in your heart and often on your lips. Me nee tam patiens Lacedaemon, Nee tam Larissae percussit campus opimae, Quam domus Albuneae resonantis Et praeceps Anio, ac Tiburni lucus, et uda Mobilibus pomaria rivis.^ ^ ' Me neither resolute Sparta nor the rich Laris- saean plain so enraptures as the fane of echoing Albu- 230 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS So a poet should speak, and to every singer his own land should be dearest. Beautiful is Italy with the grave and delicate outlines of her sacred hills, her dark groves, her little cities perched like eyries on the crags, her rivers gliding under ancient walls ; beautiful is Italy, her seas, and her suns : but dearer to me the long grey wave that bites the rock below the minster in the north ; dearer is the barren moor and black peat-water swirling in tanny foam, and the scent of bog myrtle and the bloom of heather, and, watching over the lochs, the green round-shouldered hills. In affection for your native land, Hor- ace, certainly the pride in great Romans dead and gone made part, and you were, in all senses, a lover of your country, your country's heroes, your country's gods. None but a patriot could have sung that ode on Regulus, who died, as our own hero died, on an evil day for the nea, the headlong Anio, the grove of Tibur, the or chards watered by the wandering rills.' Q. If O J? A Tiers FLA ecus 23 1 honour of Rome, as Gordon for the hon- our of England. Fertur pudicae conjujis osculum, Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor, Ab se removisse, et virilem Torvus humi posuisse voltum : Donee labantes consilio patres Firmaret auctor nunquam alias dato, Interque masrentes amicos Egregius properaret exul. Atqui sciebat, quae sibi barbarus Tortor pararet : non aliter tamen Dimovit obstantes propinquos, Et populum reditus morantem, Quam si clientum longa negotia Dijudicata lite relinqueret, Tendens Venafranos in agros Aut Lacedasmonium Tarentum.^ 1 ' They say he put aside from him the pure lips of his wife and his little children, like a man unfree, and with his brave face bowed earthward sternly he waited till with such counsel as never mortal gave he might strengthen the hearts of the Fathers, and through his mourning friends go forth, a hero, into exile. Yet well he knew what things were being prepared for him at the hands of the tormenters, who, none the less, put aside the kinsmen that barred his path and the people 232 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS We talk of the Greeks as your teach- ers. Your teachers they were, but that poem could only have been written by a Roman ! The strength, the tenderness, the noble and monumental resolution and resignation — these are the gift of the lords of human things, the masters of the world. Your country's heroes are dear to you, Horace, but you did not sing them bet- ter than your country's Gods, the pious protecting spirits of the hearth, the farm, the field, kindly ghosts, it may be, of Latin fathers dead or Gods framed in the image of these. What you actually be- lieved we know xvol^you knew not. Who knows what he believes .<* Parens Deo- rum alitor you bowed not often, it may be, in the temples of the state religion and before the statues of the great Olym- pians ; but the pure and pious worship that would fain have held him back, passing through their midst as he might have done, if, his retainers' weary business ended and the suits adjudged, he were faring to his Venafran lands or to Dorian Tarentum.' Q. HO RATI US FLA ecus 233 of rustic tradition, the faith handed down by the homely elders, with that you never broke. Clean hands and a pure heart, these, with a sacred cake and shining grains of salt, you could offer to the Lares. It was a benignant religion, uniting old times and new, men living and men^long dead and gone, in a kind of service and sacrifice solemn yet fa- miliar. Te nihil attinet Tentare multa cade bidentium Parvos coronantem marino Rare deos fragilique myrto, Immuttis aram si tetigit manus, Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos Penates Farre pio et saliente tnica}- 1 'Thou, Phidyle, hast no need to besiege the gods with slaughter so great of sheep, thou who crownest thy tiny deities with myrtle rare and rosemary. If but the hand be clean that touches the altar, then richest sacrifice will not more appease the angered Penates than the duteous cake and salt that crackles in the olaze.' 234 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS Farewell, dear Horace ; farewell, thou wise and kindly heathen ; of mortals the most human, the friend of my friends and of so many generations of men. ESSAYS LITERARY, SOCIAL, HISTORICAL, MUSICAL, 'BIOGRAPHICAL, DRAMATIC, POLITICAL BY Stevenson Carlyle SCHERER Froude BiRRELL Gladstone Lang Henley Holland Ik Marvel H. Adams Matthews Brownell Boyesen R. Grant FiNCK Max Muller Lanier George Moore T. N. Page AND others Charles 5cribner's Sons, Publishers 743-745 Broadway, New York ' »»»>»»» v list of volumes of essaVs on literature, art, music, etc., published by charles scribner's sojsts, 743-745 BROADWA V, NEW y6>igir.(< <««««<» HENRY ADAMS. Historical Essays. (i2mo, $2.00.) 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Aldrich. o-^SfP^j^^&miJ^m^l^M THE FOREGOING VOLUMES OP ESSAYS ARE FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS, OR WILL BE SENT POSTPAID, ON RECEIPT OF PRICE, BY THE PUBLISHERS, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 743-745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. ®®@^g®®SgM}>-o PN 511 L35 1891 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. 3 1205 02337 0776 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 062 743 8 i>t^i -^ ^'^.:^#. .. -y- --'/if.;