/ ;?/>»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 
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 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 
 <Lried to turn it into an epigram. He did 
 complete the last couplet,
 
 I06 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 Helas ! pour mes peches, je n'ai sfl que trop lire 
 Depuis que tu fais imprimer. 
 
 But by no labour would M. de Pui- 
 morin achieve the first two lines of his 
 epigram. Then you remember what 
 great allies came to his assistance. I 
 almost blush to think that M. Despreaux, 
 M. Racine, and M. de Moliere, the three 
 most renowned wits of the time, con- 
 spired to complete the poor jest, and 
 madden you. Well, bubble as your 
 poetry was, you may be proud that it 
 needed all these sharpest of pens to 
 prick the bubble. Other poets, as pop- 
 ular as you, have been annihilated by an 
 article. Macaulay puts forth his hand, 
 and ' Satan Montgomery ' was no more. 
 It did not need a Macaulay, the laughter 
 of a mob of little critics was enough to 
 blow into space ; but you probably have 
 met Montgomery, and of contemporary 
 failures or successes I do not speak. 
 
 I wonder, sometimes, whether the con- 
 sensus of criticism ever made you doubt 
 for a moment whether, after all, you
 
 CHAFE LA IN 10/ 
 
 were not a false child of Apollo ? Was 
 your complacency tortured, as the com- 
 placency of true poets has occasionally 
 been, by doubts ? Did you expect pos- 
 terity to reverse the verdict of the satir- 
 ists, and to do you justice ? You an- 
 swered your earliest assailant, Liniere, 
 and, by a few changes of words, turned 
 his epigrams into flattery. But I fancy, 
 on the whole, you remained calm, un- 
 moved, wrapped up in admiration of 
 yourself. According to M. de Marivaux, 
 who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits 
 of the mighty dead, you ' conceived, on 
 the strength of your reputation, a great 
 and serious veneration for yourself and 
 your genius.' Probably you were pro- 
 tected by this invulnerable armour of an 
 honest vanity, probably you declared 
 that mere jealousy dictates the lines of 
 Boileau, and that Chapelain's real fault 
 was his popularity, and his pecuniary 
 success, 
 
 Qu'il soit le mieux rente de tous les beaux-esprits. 
 
 This, you would avow, was your of-
 
 I08 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 fence, and perhaps you were not alto- 
 gether mistaken. Yet posterity decUnes 
 to read a line of yours, and, as we think 
 of you, we are again set face to face with 
 that eternal problem, how far is popular- 
 ity a test of poetry ? Burns was a poet, 
 and popular. Byron was a popular poet, 
 and the world agrees in the verdict of 
 their own generation. But Montgomery, 
 though he sold so well, was no poet, nor, 
 Sir, I fear, was your verse made of the 
 stuff of immortality. Criticism cannot 
 hurt what is truly great ; the Cardinal 
 and the Academy left Chimene as fair 
 as ever, and as adorable. It is only 
 pinchbeck that perishes under the acids 
 of satire : gold defies them. Yet I some- 
 times ask myself, does the existence of 
 popularity like yours justify the malig- 
 nity of satire, which blesses neither him 
 who gives, nor him who takes } Are 
 poisoned arrows fair against a bad poet } 
 I doubt it, Sir, holding that, even un- 
 pricked, a poetic bubble must soon burst 
 by its own nature. Yet satire will as-
 
 CHAPELAIN 109 
 
 suredly be written so long as bad poets 
 are successful, and bad poets will assur- 
 edly reflect that their assailants are 
 merely envious, and, while their vogue 
 lasts, that Prime Ministers and the pur- 
 chasing public are the only judges. 
 Monsieur, 
 Votre tr^s humble serviteur, 
 
 Andrew Lang.
 
 XL 
 
 To Sir yohn Manndevilhy Kt. 
 
 (of the ways into ynde.) 
 
 Sir John, — Wit you well that men 
 holden you but light, and some clepen 
 you a Liar. And they say that you 
 never were born in Englond, in the town 
 of Seynt Albones, nor have seen and 
 gone through manye diverse Londes. 
 And there goeth an old knight at arms, 
 and one that connes Latyn, and hath 
 been beyond the sea, and hath seen 
 Prester John's country. And he hath 
 been in an Yle that men clepen Burmah, 
 and there bin women bearded. Now 
 men call him Colonel Henry Yule, and 
 he hath writ of thee in his great booke, 
 Sir John, and he holds thee but lightly. 
 For he saith that ye did pill your tales 
 out of Odoric his book, and that ye never
 
 SIR JOHN MANNDEVILLE III 
 
 saw snails with shells as big as houses, 
 nor never met no Devyls, but part of 
 that ye say, ye took it out of William of 
 Boldensele his book, yet ye took not his 
 wisdom, withal, but put in thine own 
 foolishness. Nevertheless, Sir John, for 
 the frailty of Mankynde, ye are held a 
 good fellow, and a merry ; so now, come, 
 I shall tell you of the new ways into 
 Ynde. 
 
 In that Lond they have a Queen that 
 governeth all the Lond, and all they ben 
 obeyssant to her. And she is the Queen 
 of Englond ; for Englishmen have taken 
 all the Lond of Ynde. For they were 
 right good werryoures of old, and wyse, 
 noble, and worthy. But of late hath 
 risen a new sort of Englishman very 
 puny and fearful, and these men clepen 
 Radicals. And they go ever in fear, and 
 they scream on high for dread in the 
 streets and the houses, and they fain 
 would flee away from all that their fathers 
 gat them with the sword. And this sort 
 men call Scuttleres, but the mean folk
 
 112 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 and certain of the womenkind hear them 
 gladly, and they say ever that English- 
 men should flee out of Ynde. 
 
 Fro Englond men gon to Ynde by 
 many dyverse Contreyes. For English- 
 men ben very stirring and nymble. For 
 they ben in the seventh climate, that is 
 of the Moon. And the Moon (ye have 
 said it yourself. Sir John, natheless, is it 
 true) is of lightly moving, for to go di- 
 verse ways, and see strange things, and 
 other diversities of the Worlde. Where- 
 fore Englishmen be lightly moving, and 
 far wandering. And they gon to Ynde 
 by the great Sea Ocean. First come 
 they to Gibraltar, that was the point of 
 Spain, and builded upon a rock ; and 
 there ben apes, and it is so strong that 
 no man may take it. Natheless did 
 Englishmen take it fro the Spanyard, 
 and all to hold the way to Ynde. For 
 ye may sail all about Africa, and past 
 the Cape men clepen of Good Hope, 
 but that way unto Ynde is long and the 
 sea is weary. Wherefore men rather go
 
 S/R JOHN MANNDEVILLE I 13 
 
 by the Midland sea, and Englishmen 
 have taken many Yles in that sea. 
 
 For first they have taken an YIe that 
 is clept Malta ; and therein built they 
 great castles, to hold it against them of 
 Fraunce, and Italy, and of Spain. And 
 from this He of Malta Men gon to Cipre. 
 And Cipre is right a good Yle, and a 
 fair, and a great, and it hath 4 principal 
 Cytees within him. And at Famagost 
 is one of the principal Havens of the 
 sea that is in the world, and Englishmen 
 have but a lytel while gone won that 
 Yle from the Sarazynes. Yet say that 
 sort of Englishmen where of I told you, 
 that is puny and sore adread, that the 
 Lond is poisonous and barren and of no 
 avail, for that Lond is much more hotter 
 than it is here. Yet the Englishmen 
 that ben werryoures dwell there in tents, 
 and the skill is that they may ben the 
 more fresh. 
 
 From Cypre, Men gon to the Lond 
 of Egypte, and in a Day and a Night 
 he that hath a good wind may come 
 8
 
 114 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 to the Haven of Alessandrie. Now the 
 Lond of Egypt longeth to the Soudan, 
 yet the Soudan longeth not to the Lond 
 of Egypt. And when I say this, I do 
 jape with words, and may hap ye under- 
 stond me not. Now Englishmen went 
 in shippes to Alessandrie, and brent it, 
 and over ran the Lond, and their soud- 
 yours warred agen the Bedoynes, and 
 all to hold the way to Ynde. For it is 
 not long past since Frenchmen let dig a 
 dyke, through the narrow spit of lond, 
 from the Midland sea to the Red sea, 
 wherein was Pharaoh drowned. So this 
 is the shortest way to Ynde there may 
 be, to sail through that dyke, if men gon 
 by sea. 
 
 But all the Lond of Egypt is clepen 
 the Vale enchaunted ; for no man may 
 do his business well that goes thither, 
 but always fares he evil, and therefore 
 clepen they Egypt the Vale perilous, 
 and the sepulchre of reputations. And 
 men say there that is one of the entrees 
 of Helle. In that Vale is plentiful lack
 
 SIR JOHN MANNDEVILLE II5 
 
 of Gold and Silver, for many misbeliev- 
 ing men, and many Christian men also, 
 have gone often time for to take of the 
 Thresoure that there was of old, and 
 have pilled the Thresoure, wherefore 
 there is none left. And Englishmen 
 have let carry thither great store of our 
 Thresoure, 9,000,000 of Pounds sterling, 
 and whether they will see it agen I mis- 
 doubt me. For that Vale is alle fulle of 
 Develes and Fiendes that men clepen 
 Bondholderes, for that Egypt from of olde 
 is the Lond of Bondage. And whatso- 
 ever Thresoure cometh into the Lond, 
 these Devyls of Bondholders grabben 
 the same. Natheless by that Vale do 
 Englishmen go unto Ynde, and they gon 
 by Aden, even to Kurrachee, at the 
 mouth of the Flood of Ynde. Thereby 
 they send their souldyours, when they 
 are adread of them of Muscovy. 
 
 For, look you, there is another way 
 into Ynde, and thereby the men of Mus- 
 covy are fain to come, if the Englishmen 
 let them not. That way cometh by De-
 
 Il6 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 sert and Wildernesse, from the sea that 
 is clept Caspian, even to Khiva, and so 
 to Merv ; and then come ye to Zulfikar 
 and Penjdeh, and anon to Herat, that 
 is called the Key of the Gates of Ynde. 
 Then ye win the lond of the Emir of the 
 Afghauns, a great prince and a rich, and 
 he hath in his Thresoure more crosses, 
 and stars, and coats that captains wearen, 
 than any other man on earth. 
 
 For all they of Muscovy, and all Eng- 
 lishmen maken him gifts, and he keep- 
 eth the gifts, and he keepeth his own 
 counsel. For his lond lieth between 
 Ynde and the folk of Muscovy, where- 
 fore both Englishmen and men of Mus- 
 covy would fain have him friendly, yea, 
 and independent. Wherefore they of both 
 parties give him clocks, and watches, and 
 stars, and crosses, and culverins, and 
 now and again they let cut the throats 
 of his men some deal, and pill his coun- 
 try. Thereby they both set up their 
 rest that the Emir will be independent, 
 yea, and friendly. But his men love him
 
 SIR JOHN MANNDEVILLE II7 
 
 not, neither love they the English, nor 
 the Muscovy folk, for they are worship- 
 pers of Mahound, and endure not Chris- 
 tian men. And they love not them that 
 cut their throats, and burn their coun- 
 try. 
 
 Now they of Muscovy ben Devyls, 
 and they ben subtle for to make a thing 
 seme otherwise than it is, for to deceive 
 mankind. Wherefore Englishmen put- 
 ten no trust in them of Muscovy, save 
 only the Englishmen clept Radicals, for 
 they make as if they loved these Dev- 
 eles, out of the fear and dread of war 
 wherein they go, and would be slaves 
 sooner than fight. But the folk of Ynde 
 know not what shall befall, nor whether 
 they of Muscovy will take the Lond, or 
 Englishmen shall keep it, so that their 
 hearts may not enduren for drede. And 
 methinks that soon shall Englishmen 
 and Muscovy folk put their bodies in 
 adventure, and war one with another, 
 and all for the way to Ynde. 
 
 But St. George for Englond, I say,
 
 Il8 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 and so enough ; and may the Seyntes 
 hele thee, Sir John, of thy Gowtes Arte- 
 tykes, that thee tormenten. But to thy 
 Boke I list not to give no credence.
 
 XII. 
 
 To Alexandre Dumas. 
 
 Sir, — There are moments when the 
 wheels of life, even of such a life as 
 yours, run slow, and when mistrust and 
 doubt overshadow even the most intrepid 
 disposition. In such a moment, towards 
 the ending of your days, you said to 
 your son, M. Alexandre Dumas, ' I seem 
 to see myself set on a pedestal which 
 trembles as if it were founded on the 
 sands.' These sands, your uncounted 
 volumes, are all of gold, and make a 
 foundation more solid than the rock. 
 As well might the singer of Odysseus, 
 or the authors of the * Arabian Nights ' 
 or the first inventors of the stories of 
 Boccaccio, believe that their works were 
 perishable (their names, indeed, have 
 perished), as the creator of * Les Trois
 
 120 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 Mousquetaires ' alarm himself with the 
 thought that the world could ever forget 
 Alexandre Dumas. 
 
 Than yours there has been no greater 
 nor more kindly and beneficent force in 
 modern letters. To Scott, indeed, you 
 owed the first impulse of your genius ; 
 but, once set in motion, what miracles 
 could it not accomplish .-• Our dear 
 Porthos was overcome, at last, by a su- 
 perhuman burden ; but your imagina- 
 tive strength never found a task too 
 great for it. What an extraordinary 
 vigour, what health, what an overflow of 
 force was yours ! It is good, in a day 
 of small and laborious ingenuities, to 
 breathe the free air of your books, and 
 dwell in the company of Dumas's men 
 — so gallant, so frank, so indomitable, 
 such swordsmen, and such trenchermen. 
 Like M. de Rochefort in 'Vingt Ans 
 Apres,' like that prisoner of the Bastille, 
 your genius ' n'est que d'un parti, c'est 
 du parti du grand air.' 
 
 There seems to radiate from you a
 
 ALEXANDRE DUMAS 121 
 
 still persistent energy and enjoyment ; 
 in that current of strength not only your 
 characters live, frolic, kindly, and sane, 
 but even your very collaborators were 
 animated by the virtue which went out 
 of you. How else can we explain it, 
 the dreary charge which feeble and en- 
 vious tongues have brought against you, 
 in England and at home ? They say 
 you employed in your novels and dramas 
 that vicarious aid which, in the slang of 
 the studio, the ' sculptor's ghost ' is fa- 
 bled to afford. 
 
 Well, let it be so ; these ghosts, when 
 uninspired by you, were faint and impo- 
 tent as ' the strengthless tribes of the 
 dead ' in Homer's Hades, before Odys- 
 seus had poured forth the blood that 
 gave them a momentary valour. It was 
 from you and your inexhaustible vitality 
 that these collaborating spectres drew 
 what life they possessed ; and when 
 they parted from you they shuddered 
 back into their nothingness. Where are 
 the plays, where the romances which
 
 122 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 Maquet and the rest wrote in their own 
 strength ? They are forgotten with last 
 year's snows ; they have passed into the 
 wide waste -paper basket of the world. 
 You say of D'Artagnan, when severed 
 from his three friends — from Porthos, 
 Athos, and Aramis — ' he felt that he 
 could do nothing, save on the condition 
 that each of these companions yielded 
 to him, if one may so speak, a share of 
 that electric fluid which was his gift 
 from heaven.' 
 
 No man of letters ever had so great 
 a measure of that gift as you ; none 
 gave of it more freely to all who came 
 — to the chance associate of the hour, 
 as to the characters, all so burly and 
 full - blooded, who flocked from your 
 brain. Thus it was that you failed when 
 you approached the supernatural. Your 
 ghosts had too much flesh and blood, 
 more than the living persons of feebler 
 fancies. A writer so fertile, so rapid, 
 so masterly in the ease with which he 
 worked, could not escape the reproaches
 
 ALEXANDRE DUMAS 1 23 
 
 of barren envy. Because you overflowed 
 with wit, you could not be * serious ; ' 
 because you created with a word, you 
 were said to scamp your work ; because 
 you were never dull, never pedantic, in- 
 capable of greed, you were to be cen- 
 sured as desultory, inaccurate, and prod- 
 igal. 
 
 A generation suffering from mental 
 and physical anaemia — a generation de- 
 voted to the ' chiselled phrase,' to accu- 
 mulated 'documents,' to microscopic por- 
 ings over human baseness, to minute 
 and disgustful records of what in hu- 
 manity is least human — may readily 
 bring these unregarded and railing ac- 
 cusations. Like one of the great and 
 good-humoured Giants of Rabelais, you 
 may hear the murmurs from afar, and 
 smile with disdain. To you, who can 
 amuse the world — to you who offer it 
 the fresh air of the highway, the battle- 
 field, and the sea — the world must al- 
 ways return : escaping gladly from the 
 boudoirs and the bouges, from the sur-
 
 124 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 geries and hospitals, and dead rooms, of 
 M, Daudet and M. Zola and of the wea- 
 risome De Goncourt. 
 
 With all your frankness, and with 
 that queer morality of the Camp which, 
 if it swallows a camel now and again, 
 never strains at a gnat, how healthy and 
 wholesome, and even pure, are your ro- 
 mances ! You never gloat over sin, nor 
 dabble with an ugly curiosity in the cor- 
 ruptions of sense. The passions in your 
 tales are honourable and brave, the mo- 
 tives are clearly human. Honour, Love, 
 Friendship make the threefold cord, the 
 clue your knights and dames follow 
 through how delightful a labyrinth of 
 adventures ! Your greatest books, I 
 take the liberty to maintain, are the 
 Cycle of the Valois (' La Reine Margot,' 
 * La Dame de Montsoreau,' ' Les Qua- 
 rante-cinq '), and the Cycle of Louis 
 Treize and Louis Quatorze (' Les Trois 
 Mousquetaires,' ' Vingt Ans Apres,' ' Le 
 Vicomte de Bragelonne ') ; and, beside 
 these two trilogies — a lonely monument,
 
 ALEXANDRE DUMAS 1 25 
 
 like the sphinx hard by the three pyra- 
 mids — ' Monte Cristo.' 
 
 In these romances how easy it would 
 have been for you to burn incense to 
 that great goddess, Lubricity, whom our 
 critic says your people worship. You 
 had Brantome, you had Tallemant, you 
 had Retif, and a dozen others, to furnish 
 materials for scenes of voluptuousness 
 and of blood that would have outdone 
 even the present naUiralistes. From 
 these alcoves of ' Les Dames Galantes,' 
 and from the torture chambers (M. Zola 
 would not have spared us one starting 
 sinew of brave La Mole on the rack) 
 you turned, as Scott would have turned, 
 without a thought of their profitable lit- 
 erary uses. You had other metal to work 
 on : you gave us that superstitious and 
 tragical true love of La Mole's, that de- 
 votion — how tender and how pure ! — 
 of Bussy for the Dame de Montsoreau. 
 You gave us the valour of D'Artagnan, 
 the strength of Porthos, the melancholy 
 nobility of Athos : Honour, Chivalry,
 
 126 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 and Friendship. I declare your charac- 
 ters are real people to me and old friends. 
 I cannot bear to read the end of ' Brage- 
 lonne/ and to part with them for ever. 
 * Suppose Porthos, Athos, and Aramis 
 should enter with a noiseless swagger, 
 curling their moustaches. ' How we would 
 welcome them, forgiving D'Artagnan 
 even his hateful foiirberie in the case of 
 Milady. The brilliance of your dialogue 
 has never been approached : there is wit 
 everywhere ; repartees glitter and ring 
 like the flash and clink of small-swords. 
 Then what duels are yours ! and what 
 inimitable battle-pieces ! I know four 
 good fights of one against a multitude, 
 in literature. These are the Death of 
 Gretir the Strong, the Death of Gunnar 
 of Lithend, the Death of Hereward the 
 Wake, the Death of Bussy d'Amboise. 
 We can compare the strokes of the he- 
 roic fighting-times with those described 
 in later days ; and, upon my word, I do 
 not know that the short sword of Gretir, 
 or the bill of Skarphedin, or the bow of
 
 ALEXANDRE DUMAS 12/ 
 
 Gunnar was better wielded than the ra- 
 pier of your Bussy or the sword and 
 shield of Kingsley's Hereward. 
 
 They say your fencing is unhistorical ; 
 no doubt it is so, and you knew it. La 
 Mole could not have lunged on Cocon- 
 nas 'after deceiving circle ;' for the parry 
 was not invented except by your immor- 
 tal Chicot, a genius in advance of his 
 time. Even so Hamlet and Laertes 
 would have fought with shields and axes, 
 not with small swords. But what mat- 
 ters this pedantry } In your works we 
 hear the Homeric Muse again, rejoicing 
 in the clash of steel ; and even, at times, 
 your very phrases are unconsciously Ho- 
 meric. 
 
 Look at these men of murder, on the 
 Eve of St. Bartholomew, who flee in ter- 
 ror from the Queen's chamber, and 'find 
 the door too narrow for their flight:' the 
 very words were anticipated in a line of 
 the 'Odyssey' concerning the massacre 
 of the Wooers. And the picture of 
 Catherine de Medicis, prowling 'like a
 
 128 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 wolf among the bodies and the blood,' in 
 a passage of the Louvre — the picture 
 is taken unwittingly from the ' Iliad.' 
 There was in you that reserve of primi- 
 tive force, that epic grandeur and sim- 
 plicity of diction. This is the force that 
 animates ' Monte Cristo,' the earlier 
 chapters, the prison, and the escape. In 
 later volumes of that romance, methinks, 
 you stoop your wing. Of your dramas I 
 have little room, and less skill, to speak. 
 'Antony,' they tell me, was 'the great- 
 est literary event of its time,' was a 
 restoration of the stage, ' While Vic- 
 tor Hugo needs the cast-off clothes of 
 history, the wardrobe and costume, the 
 sepulchre of Charlemagne, the ghost of 
 Barbarossa, the coffins of Lucretia Bor- 
 gia, Alexandre Dumas requires no more 
 than a room in an inn, where people 
 meet in riding cloaks, to move the soul 
 with the last degree of terror and of 
 pity.' 
 
 The reproach of being amusing has 
 somewhat dimmed your fame — for a
 
 ALEXANDRE PUMAS I 29 
 
 moment. The shadow of this tyranny 
 will soon be overpast ; and when ' La 
 Curee ' and ' Pot-Bouille ' are more for- 
 gotten than * Le Grand Cyrus,' men and 
 women — and, above all, boys — will 
 laugh and weep over the page of Alex- 
 andre Dumas. Like Scott himself, you 
 take us captive in our childhood. I re- 
 member a very idle little boy who was 
 busy with the 'Three Musketeers' when 
 he should have been occupied with 'Wil- 
 kins's Latin Prose.' ' Twenty years 
 after' (alas and more) he is still constant 
 to that gallant company ; and, at this 
 very moment, is breathlessly wondering 
 whether Grimaud will steal M. de Beau- 
 fort out of the Cardinal's prison. 
 9
 
 XIII. 
 
 To Theocritus. 
 
 'Sweet, methinks, is the whispering 
 sound of yonder pine-tree,' so, Theocri- 
 tus, with that sweet word dSt', didst thou 
 begin and strike the keynote of thy 
 songs. ' Sweet,' and didst thou find 
 aught of sweet, when thou, like thy 
 Daphnis, didst ' go down the stream, 
 when the whirhng wave closed over the 
 man the Muses loved, the man not hated 
 of the Nymphs ? ' Perchance below 
 those waters of death thou didst find, 
 like thine own Hylas, the lovely Nereids 
 waiting thee, Eunice, and Malis, and 
 Nycheia with her April eyes. In the 
 House of Hades, Theocritus, doth there 
 dwell aught that is fair, and can the low 
 light on the fields of asphodel make thee 
 forget thy Sicily .^ Nay, methinks thou
 
 THEOCRITUS 1 3 I 
 
 hast not forgotten, and perchance for po- 
 ets dead there is prepared a place more 
 beautiful than their dreams. It was well 
 for the later minstrels of another day, it 
 was well for Ronsard and Du Bellay to 
 desire a dim Elysium of their own, where 
 the sunlight comes faintly through tiie 
 shadow of the earth, where the poplars 
 are duskier, and the waters more pale 
 than in the meadows of Anjou. 
 
 There, in that restful twilight, far re- 
 mote from war and plot, from sword and 
 fire, and from religions that sharpened 
 the steel and lit the torch, there these 
 learned singers would fain have wan- 
 dered with their learned ladies, satiated 
 with life and in love with an unearthly 
 quiet. But to thee, Theocritus, no twi- 
 light of the Hollow Land was dear, but 
 the high suns of Sicily and the brown 
 cheeks of the country maidens were 
 happiness enough. For thee, therefore, 
 methinks, surely is reserved an Elysium 
 beneath the summer of a far-off system, 
 with stars not ours and alien seasons.
 
 132 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 There, as Bion prayed, shall Spring, the 
 thrice desirable, be with thee the whole 
 year through, where there is neither 
 frost, nor is the heat so heavy on men, 
 but all is fruitful, and all sweet things 
 blossom, and evenly meted are darkness 
 and dawn. Space is wide, and there be 
 many worlds, and suns enow, and the 
 Sun-god surely has had a care of his 
 own. Little didst thou need, in thy na- 
 tive land, the isle of the three capes, lit- 
 tle didst thou need but sunlight on land 
 and sea. Death can have shown thee 
 naught dearer than the fragrant shadow 
 of the pines, where the dry needles of 
 the fir are strewn, or glades where feath- 
 ered ferns make ' a couch more soft 
 than Sleep.' The short grass of the 
 cliffs, too, thou didst love, where thou 
 wouldst lie, and watch, with the tunny 
 watcher till the deep blue sea was 
 broken by the burnished sides of the 
 tunny shoal, and afoam with their gam- 
 bols in the brine. There the Muses met 
 thee, and the Nymphs, and there Apollo,
 
 THEOCRITUS I 33 
 
 remembering his old thraldom with Ad- 
 metus, would lead once more a mortal's 
 flocks, and listen and learn, Theocritus, 
 while thou, like thine own Comatas, 
 ' didst sweetly sing.' 
 
 There, methinks, I see thee as in thy 
 happy days, 'reclined on deep beds of 
 fragrant lentisk, lowly strewn, and re- 
 joicing in new stript leaves of the vine, 
 while far above thy head waved many a 
 poplar, many an elm-tree, and close at 
 hand the sacred waters sang from the 
 mouth of the cavern of the nymphs.' 
 And when night came, methinks thou 
 wouldst flee from the merry company 
 and the dancing girls, from the fading 
 crowns of roses or white violets, from 
 the cottabos, and the minstrelsy, and the 
 Bibline wine, from these thou wouldst 
 slip away into the summer night. Then 
 the beauty of life and of the summer 
 would keep thee from thy couch, and 
 wandering away from Syracuse by the 
 sandhills and the sea, thou wouldst 
 watch the low cabin, roofed with grass,
 
 134 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 where the fishing-rods of reed were lean- 
 ing against the door, while the Mediter- 
 ranean floated up her waves, and filled 
 the waste with sound. There didst thou 
 see thine ancient fishermen rising ere 
 the dawn from their bed of dry sea- 
 weed, and heardst them stirring, drowsy, 
 among their fishing gear, and heardst 
 them tell their dreams. 
 
 Or again thou wouldst wander with 
 dusty feet through the ways that the 
 dust makes silent, while the breath of 
 the kine, as they were driven forth with 
 the morning, came fresh to thee, and 
 the trailing dewy branch of honeysuckle 
 struck sudden on thy cheek. Thou 
 wouldst see the Dawn awake in rose 
 and saffron across the waters, and Etna, 
 grey and pale against the sky, and the 
 setting crescent would dip strangely in 
 the glow, on her way to the sea. Then, 
 methinks, thou wouldst murmur, like 
 thine own Simaetha, the love-lorn witch, 
 * Farewell, Selene, bright and fair ; fare- 
 well, ye other stars, that follow the
 
 THEOCRITUS 1 35 
 
 wheels of the quiet Night.' Nay, surely 
 it was in such an hour that thou didst 
 behold the girl as she burned the laurel 
 leaves and the barley grain, and melted 
 the waxen image, and called on Selene 
 to bring her lover home. Even so, even 
 now, in the islands of Greece, the set- 
 ting Moon may listen to the prayers of 
 maidens. * Bright golden Moon, that 
 now art near the waters, go thou and 
 salute my lover, he that stole my love, 
 and that kissed me, saying " Never will 
 I leave thee." And lo, he hath left me 
 as men leave a field reaped and gleaned, 
 like a church where none cometh to 
 pray, like a city desolate.' 
 
 So the girls still sing in Greece, for 
 though the Temples have fallen, and the 
 wandering shepherds sleep beneath the 
 broken columns of the god's house in 
 Selinus, yet these ancient fires burn still 
 to the old divinities in the shrines of the 
 hearths of the peasants. It is none of 
 the new creeds that cry, in the dirge of 
 the Sicilian shepherds of our time, * Ah,
 
 136 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 light of mine eyes, what gift shall I send 
 thee, what offering to the other world ? 
 The apple fadeth, the quince decayeth, 
 and one by one they perish, the petals 
 of the rose. I will send thee my tears 
 shed on a napkin, and what though it 
 burneth in the flame, if my tears reach 
 thee at the last.' 
 
 Yes, little is altered, Theocritus, on 
 these shores beneath the sun, where 
 thou didst wear a tawny skin stripped 
 from the roughest of he-goats, and about 
 thy breast an old cloak buckled with a 
 plaited belt. Thou wert happier there, 
 in Sicily, methinks, and among vines 
 and shadowy lime-trees of Cos, than in 
 the dust, and heat, and noise of Alex- 
 andria. What love of fame, what lust of 
 gold tempted thee away from the red 
 cliffs, and grey olives, and wells of black 
 water wreathed with maidenhair } 
 
 The music of thy rustic flute 
 Kept not for long its happy country tone ; 
 
 Lost it too soon, and learned a stormy note 
 Of men contention tost, of men who groan,
 
 THEOCRITUS 1 37 
 
 Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy 
 throat — 
 It failed, and thou wast mute ! 
 
 What hadst thou to make in cities, 
 and what could Ptolemies and Princes 
 give thee better than the goat -milk 
 cheese and the Ptelean wine ? Thy 
 Muses were meant to be the delight of 
 peaceful men, not of tyrants and wealthy 
 merchants, to whom they vainly went on 
 a begging errand. * Who will open his 
 door and gladly receive our Muses within 
 his house, who is there that will not 
 send them back again without a gift? 
 And they with naked feet and looks 
 askance come homewards, and sorely 
 they upbraid me when they have gone 
 on a vain journey, and listless again in 
 the bottom of their empty coffer they 
 dwell with heads bowed over their chilly 
 knees, where is their drear abode, when 
 portionless they return.' How far hap- 
 pier was the prisoned goat-herd, Coma- 
 tas, in the fragrant cedar chest where 
 the blunt-faced bees from the meadow
 
 138 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 fed him with food of tender flowers, be- 
 cause still the Muse dropped sweet 
 nectar on his lips ! 
 
 Thou didst leave the neat-herds and 
 the kine, and the oaks of Himera, the 
 galingale hummed over by the bees, and 
 the pine that dropped her cones, and 
 Amaryllis in her cave, and Bombyca 
 with her feet of carven ivory. Thou 
 soughtest the City, and strife with other 
 singers, and the learned write still on 
 thy quarrels with Apollonius and Calli- 
 machus, and Antagoras of Rhodes. So 
 ancient are the hatreds of poets, envy, 
 jealousy, and all unkindness. 
 
 Not to the wits of Courts couldst thou 
 teach thy rural song, though all these 
 centuries, more than two thousand years, 
 they have laboured to vie with thee. 
 There has come no new pastoral poet, 
 though Virgil copied thee, and Pope, and 
 Phillips, and all the buckram band of the 
 teacup time ; and all the modish swains 
 of France have sung against thee, as 
 the son cJiallcnged Athene. They never
 
 THEOCRITUS I 39 
 
 knew the shepherd's life, the long winter 
 nights on dried heather by the fire, the 
 long summer days, when over the dry 
 grass all is quiet, and only the insects 
 hum, and the shrunken burn whispers 
 a silver tune. Swains in high -heeled 
 shoon, and lace, shepherdesses in rouge 
 and diamonds, the world is weary of all 
 concerning them, save their images in 
 porcelain, eflfigies how unlike the golden 
 figures, dedicate to Aphrodite, of Bom- 
 byca and Battus. Somewhat, Theocritus, 
 thou hast to answer for, thou that first 
 of men brought the shepherd to Court, 
 and made courtiers wild to go a Maying 
 with the shepherds.
 
 XIV. 
 
 To Edgar Allan Poe. 
 
 Sir, — Your English readers, better 
 acquainted with your poems and ro- 
 mances than with your criticisms, have 
 long wondered at the indefatigable ha- 
 tred which pursues your memory. You, 
 who knew the men, will not marvel that 
 certain microbes of letters, the survivors 
 of your own generation, still harass your 
 name with their malevolence, while old 
 women twitter out their incredible and 
 heeded slanders in the literary papers 
 of New York. But their persistent ani- 
 mosity does not quite suffice to explain 
 the dislike with which many American 
 critics regard the greatest poet, perhaps 
 the greatest literary genius, of their 
 country. With a commendable patriot- 
 ism, they are not apt to rate native
 
 EDGAR ALLAN FOE 141 
 
 merit too low ; and you, I think, are the 
 only example of an American prophet 
 almost without honour in his own coun- 
 try. 
 
 The recent publication of a cold, care- 
 ful, and in many respects admirable 
 study of your career (* Edgar Allan Poe,' 
 by George Wood berry : Houghton, Mif- 
 flin and Co., Boston) reminds English 
 readers who have forgotten it, and 
 teaches those who never knew it, that 
 you were, unfortunately, a Reviewer. 
 How unhappy were the necessities, how 
 deplorable the vein, that compelled or 
 seduced a man of your eminence into 
 the dusty and stony ways of contempo- 
 rary criticism ! About the writers of his 
 own generation a leader of that genera- 
 tion should hold his peace. He should 
 neither praise nor blame nor defend his 
 equals ; he should not strike one blow 
 at the buzzing ephemerae of letters. The 
 breath of their life is in the columns of 
 ' Literary Gossip ; ' and they should be 
 allowed to perish with the weekly adver-
 
 142 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 tisements on which they pasture. Re- 
 viewing, of course, there must needs be ; 
 but great minds should only criticise the 
 great who have passed beyond the reach 
 of eulogy or fault-finding. 
 
 Unhappily, taste and circumstances 
 combined to make you a censor ; you 
 vexed a continent, and you are still un- 
 forgiven. What ' irritation of a sensi- 
 tive nature, chafed by some indefinite 
 sense of wrong,' drove you (in Mr. Long- 
 fellow's own words) to attack his pure 
 and beneficent Muse we may never as- 
 certain. But Mr. Longfellow forgave 
 you easily ; for pardon comes easily to 
 the great. It was the smaller men, the 
 Daweses, Griswolds, and the like, that 
 knew not how to forget. * The New 
 Yorkers never forgave him,' says your 
 latest biographer ; and one scarcely mar- 
 vels at the inveteracy of their malice. 
 It was not individual vanity alone, but 
 the whole literary class that you assailed. 
 'As a literary people,' you wrote, 'we 
 are one vast perambulating humbug.'
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 1 43 
 
 After that declaration of war you died, 
 and left your reputation to the vanities 
 yet writhing beneath your scorn. They 
 are writhing and writing still. He who 
 knows them need not linger over the 
 attacks and defences of your personal 
 character ; he will not waste time on 
 calumnies, tale -bearing, private letters, 
 and all the noisome dust which takes so 
 long in settling above your tomb. 
 
 For us it is enough to know that you 
 were compelled to live by your pen, 
 and that in an age when the author of 
 ' To Helen ' and ' The Cask of Amontil- 
 lado ' was paid at the rate of a dollar a 
 column. When such poverty was the 
 mate of such pride as yours, a misery 
 more deep than that of Burns, an agony 
 longer than Chatterton's, were inevitable 
 and assured. No man was less fortunate 
 than you in the moment of his birth — 
 infelix opportunitate vitcB. Had you lived 
 a generation later, honour, wealth, ap- 
 plause, success in Europe and at home, 
 would all have been yours. Within
 
 144 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 thirty years so great a change has passed 
 over the profession of letters in America ; 
 and it is impossible to estimate the re- 
 wards which would have fallen to Edgar 
 Poe, had chance made him the contem- 
 porary of Mark Twain and of ' Called 
 Back.' It may be that your criticisms 
 helped to bring in the new era, and to 
 lift letters out of the reach of quite un- 
 lettered scribblers. Though not a scholar, 
 at least you had a respect for scholar- 
 ship. You might still marvel over such 
 words as 'objectional' in the new biog- 
 raphy of yourself, and might ask what is 
 meant by such a sentence as ' his con- 
 nection with it had inured to his own 
 benefit by the frequent puffs of himself/ 
 and so forth. 
 
 Best known in your own day as a 
 critic, it is as a poet and a writer of 
 short tales that you must live. But to 
 discuss your few and elaborate poems 
 is a waste of time, so completely does 
 your own brief definition of poetry, ' the 
 rhythmic creation of the beautiful,' ex-
 
 EDGAR ALLAN FOE 145 
 
 haust your theory, and so perfectly is 
 the theory illustrated by the poems. 
 Natural bent, and reaction against the 
 example of Mr. Longfellow, combined 
 to make you too intolerant of what you 
 call the ' didactic ' element in verse. 
 Even if morality be not seven-eighths 
 of our life (the exact proportion as at 
 present estimated), there was a place 
 even on the Hellenic Parnassus for 
 gnomic bards, and theirs in the nature 
 of the case must always be the largest 
 public. 
 
 ' Music is the perfection of the soul 
 or the idea of poetry,' so you wrote ; 
 * the vagueness of exaltation aroused by 
 a sweet air (which should be indefinite 
 and never too strongly suggestive), is 
 precisely what we should aim at in po- 
 etry.' You aimed at that mark, and 
 struck it again and again, notably in 
 'Helen, thy beauty is to me,' in 'The 
 Haunted Palace,' * The Valley of Unrest,' 
 and ' The City in the Sea.' But by some 
 Nemesis which might, perhaps, have
 
 146 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 been foreseen, you are, to the world, the 
 poet of one poem — ' The Raven : ' a 
 piece in which the music is highly arti- 
 ficial, and the ' exaltation ' (what there is 
 of it) by no means particularly ' vague.' 
 So a portion of the public know little of 
 Shelley but the ' Skylark,' and those two 
 incongruous birds, the lark and the raven, 
 bear each of them a poet's name vivu' 
 per ora virum. Your theory of poetry, 
 if accepted, would make you (after the 
 author of * Kubla Khan ') the foremost 
 of the poets of the world ; at no long dis- 
 tance would come Mr. William Morris as 
 he was when he wrote ' Golden Wings,' 
 'The Blue Closet,' and 'The Sailing of 
 the Sword ; ' and, close up, Mr. Lear, the 
 author of ' The Yongi Bongi Bo,' and 
 the lay of the ' Jumbhes.' 
 
 On the other hand Homer would sink 
 into the limbo to which you consigned 
 Moliere. If we may judge a theory by 
 its results, when compared with the de- 
 liberate verdict of the world, your aes- 
 thetic does not seem to hold water. The
 
 EDGAR ALLAN FOE 1 47 
 
 * Odyssey ' is not really inferior to ' Ula- 
 lume,' as it ought to be if your doctrine 
 of poetry were correct, nor ' Le Festin 
 de Pierre ' to ' Undine.' Yet you de- 
 serve the praise of having been con- 
 stant, in your poetic practice, to your 
 poetic principles — principles commonly 
 deserted by poets who, like Wordsworth, 
 have published their aesthetic system. 
 Your pieces are few ; and Dr. Johnson 
 would have called you, like Fielding, * a 
 barren rascal.' But how can a writer's 
 verses be numerous if with him, as with 
 you, ' poetry is not a pursuit but a pas- 
 sion . . . which cannot at will be ex- 
 cited with an eye to the paltry compen- 
 sations or the more paltry commenda- 
 tions of mankind ! ' Of you it may be 
 said, more truly than Shelley said it of 
 himself, that 'to ask you for anything 
 human, is like asking at a gin-shop for a 
 leg of mutton.' 
 
 Humanity must always be, to the ma- 
 jority of men, the true stuff of poetry ; 
 and only a minority will thank you for
 
 148 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 that rare music which (like the strains 
 of the fiddler in the story) is touched on 
 a single string, and on an instrument 
 fashioned from the spoils of the grave. 
 You chose, or you were destined 
 
 To vary from the kindly race of men ; 
 
 and the consequences, which wasted your 
 life, pursue your reputation. 
 
 For your stories has been reserved a 
 boundless popularity, and that highest 
 success — the success of a perfectly sym- 
 pathetic translation. By this time, of 
 course, you have made the acquaintance 
 of your translator, M. Charles Baudelaire, 
 who so strenuously shared your views 
 about Mr. Emerson and the Transcen- 
 dentalists, and who so energetically re- 
 sisted all those ideas of ' progress' which 
 'came from Hell or Boston.' On this 
 point, however, the world continues to 
 differ from you and M. Baudelaire, and 
 perhaps there is only the choice between 
 our optimism and universal suicide or 
 universal opium-eating. But to discuss
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 1 49 
 
 your ultimate ideas is perhaps a profit- 
 less digression from the topic of your 
 prose romances. 
 
 An English critic (probably a North » 
 erner at heart) has described them as 
 'Hawthorne and delirium tremens.' I 
 am not aware that extreme orderliness, 
 masterly elaboration, and unchecked 
 progress towards a predetermined effect 
 are characteristics of the visions of de- 
 lirium. If they be, then there is a deal 
 of truth in the criticism, and a good 
 deal of delirium tremens in your style. 
 But your ingenuity, your completeness, 
 your occasional luxuriance of fancy and 
 wealth of jewel-like words, are not, per- 
 haps, gifts which Mr. Hawthorne had at 
 his command. He was a great writer — 
 the greatest writer in prose fiction whom 
 America has produced. But you and he 
 have not much in common, except a cer- 
 tain mortuary turn of mind and a taste 
 for gloomy allegories about the workings 
 of conscience. 
 
 I forbear to anticipate your verdict
 
 150 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 about the latest essays of American fic- 
 tion. These by no means follow in the 
 lines which you laid down about brevity 
 and the steady working to one single ef- 
 fect. Probably you would not be very 
 tolerant (tolerance was not your leading 
 virtue) of Mr. Roe, now your country- 
 men's favourite novelist. He is long, 
 he is didactic, he is eminently unin- 
 spired. In the works of one who is, 
 what you were called yourself, a Bos- 
 tonian, you would admire, at least, the 
 acute observation, the subtlety, and the 
 unfailing distinction. But, destitute of 
 humour as you unhappily but undeni- 
 ably were, you would miss, I fear, the 
 charm of 'Daisy Miller.' You would ad- 
 mit the unity of effect secured in ' Wash- 
 ington Square,' though that effect is as 
 remote as possible from the terror of 
 ' The House of Usher ' or the vindic- 
 tive triumph of ' The Cask of Amontil- 
 lado.' 
 
 Farewell, farewell, thou sombre and 
 solitary spirit : a genius tethered to the
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 151 
 
 hack-work of the press, a gentleman 
 among cajiaille, a poet among poetasters, 
 dowered with a scholar's taste without a 
 scholar's training, embittered by his sen- 
 sitive scorn, and all unsupported by his 
 consolations.
 
 XV. 
 
 To Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 
 
 Rodono, St. Mary's Loch : 
 Sept. 8, 1885. 
 
 Sir, — In your biography it is re- 
 corded that you not only won the favour 
 of all men and women ; but that a do- 
 mestic fowl conceived an affection for 
 you, and that a pig, by his will, had 
 never been severed from your company. 
 If some Circe had repeated in my case 
 her favourite miracle of turning mortals 
 into swine, and had given me a choice, 
 into that fortunate pig, blessed among 
 his race, would I have been converted ! 
 You, almost alone among men of letters, 
 still, like a living friend, win and charm 
 us out of the past ; and if one might call 
 up a poet, as the scholiast tried to call 
 Homer, from the shades, who would not,
 
 S/J? WALTER SCOTT 1 53 
 
 out of all the rest, demand some hours 
 of your society ? Who that ever med- 
 dled with letters, what child of the irrita- 
 ble race, possessed even a tithe of your 
 simple manliness, of the heart that never 
 knew a touch of jealousy, that envied no 
 man his laurels, that took honour and 
 wealth as they came, but never would 
 have deplored them had you missed both 
 and remained but the Border sportsman 
 and the Border antiquary ? 
 
 Were the word ' genial ' not so much 
 profaned, were it not misused in easy 
 good-nature, to extenuate lettered and 
 sensual indolence, that worn old term 
 might be applied, above all men, to ' the 
 Shirra.' But perhaps we scarcely need 
 a word (it would be seldom in use) for 
 a character so rare, or rather so lonely, 
 in its nobility and charm as that of Wal- 
 ter Scott. Here, in the heart of your 
 own country, among your own grey 
 round-shouldered hills (each so like the 
 other that the shadow of one falling on 
 its neighbour exactly outlines that neigh-
 
 154 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 hour's shape), it is of you and of your 
 works that a native of the Forest is 
 most frequently brought in mind. All 
 the spirits of the river and the hill, all 
 the dying refrains of ballad and the 
 fading echoes of story, all the memory 
 of the wild past, each legend of burn 
 and loch, seem to have combined to in- 
 form your spirit, and to secure them- 
 selves an immortal life in your song. It 
 is through you that we remember them ; 
 and in recalling them, as in treading 
 each hillside in this land, we again re- 
 member you and bless you. 
 
 It is not ' Sixty Years Since ' the echo 
 of Tweed among his pebbles fell for the 
 last time on your ear ; not sixty years 
 since, and how much is altered ! But 
 two generations have passed ; the lad 
 who used to ride from Edinburgh to 
 Abbotsford, carrying new books for you, 
 and old, is still vending, in George Street, 
 old books and new. Of politics I have 
 not the heart to speak. Little joy would 
 you have had in most that has befallen
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT 1 55 
 
 since the Reform Bill was passed, to the 
 chivalrous cry of 'burke Sir Walter.' 
 We are still very Radical in the Forest, 
 and you were taken away from many 
 evils to come. How would the cheek of 
 Walter Scott, or of Leyden, have blushed 
 at the names of Majuba, The Soudan, 
 Maiwand, and many others that recall 
 political cowardice or military incapac- 
 ity ! On the other hand, who but you 
 could have sung the dirge of Gordon, or 
 wedded with immortal verse the names 
 of Hamilton (who fell with Cavagnari), 
 of the two Stewarts, of many another 
 clansman, brave among the bravest ! 
 Only he who told how 
 
 The stubborn spearmen still made good 
 Their dark impenetrable wood 
 
 could have fitly rhymed a score of feats 
 of arms in which, as at M'Neill's Zareeba 
 and at Abu Klea, 
 
 Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, 
 As fearlessly and well. 
 
 Ah, Sir, the hearts of the rulers may 
 wax faint, and the voting classes may
 
 156 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 forget that they are Britons ; but when 
 it comes to blows our fighting men might 
 cry, with Leyden, 
 
 My name is little Jock Elliot, 
 And wha daur meddle wi' me I 
 
 Much is changed, in the country-side as 
 well as in the country ; but much re- 
 mains. The little towns of your time 
 are populous and excessively black with 
 the smoke of factories — not, I fear, at 
 present very flourishing. In Galashiels 
 you still see the little change-house and 
 the cluster of cottages round the Laird's 
 lodge, like the clachan of Tully Veolan. 
 But these plain remnants of the old 
 Scotch towns are almost buried in a 
 multitude of * smoky dwarf houses ' — a 
 living poet, Mr. Matthew Arnold, has 
 found the fitting phrase for these dwell- 
 ings, once for all. All over the Forest 
 the waters are dirty and poisoned : I 
 think they are filthiest below Hawick ; 
 but this may be mere local prejudice in 
 a Selkirk man. To keep them clean
 
 S/J? WALTER SCOTT 1 57 
 
 costs money ; and, though improve- 
 ments are often promised, I cannot see 
 much change for the better. Abbots- 
 ford, luckily, is above Galashiels, and 
 only receives the dirt and dyes of Sel- 
 kirk, Peebles, Walkerburn, and Inner- 
 lethen. On the other hand, your ill- 
 omened later dwelling, * the unhappy 
 palace of your race,' is overlooked by 
 villas that prick a cockney ear among 
 their larches, hotels of the future. Ah, 
 Sir, Scotland is a strange place. Whisky 
 is exiled from some of our caravanserais, 
 and they have banished Sir John Barley- 
 corn. It seems as if the views of the 
 excellent critic (who wrote your life 
 lately, and said you had left no descend- 
 ants, le paiivre Jiomme .') were beginning 
 to prevail. This pious biographer was 
 greatly shocked by that capital story 
 about the keg of whisky that arrived at 
 the Liddesdale farmer's during family 
 prayers. Your Toryism also was an of- 
 fence to him. 
 
 Among these vicissitudes of things
 
 158 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 and the overthrow of customs, let us be 
 thankful that, beyond the reach of the 
 manufacturers, the Border country re- 
 mains as kind and homely as ever. I 
 looked at Ashiestiel some days ago : the 
 house seemed just as it may have been 
 when you left it for Abbotsford, only 
 there was a lawn-tennis net on the lawn, 
 the hill on the opposite bank of the 
 Tweed was covered to the crest with 
 turnips, and the burn did not sing below 
 the little bridge, for in this arid summer 
 the burn was dry. But there was still 
 a grilse that rose to a big March brown 
 in the shrunken stream below Elibank. 
 This may not interest you, who styled 
 yourself 
 
 No fisher. 
 
 But a well-wisher 
 
 To the game 1 
 
 Still, as when you were thinking over 
 Marmion, a man might have ' grand 
 gallops among the hills ' — those grave 
 wastes of heather and bent that sever 
 all the watercourses and roll their sheep-
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT 1 59 
 
 covered pastures from Dollar Law to 
 White Combe, and from White Combe 
 to the Three Brethren Cairn and the 
 Windburg and Skelf - hill Pen. Yes, 
 Teviotdale is pleasant still, and there is 
 not a drop of dye in the \s2Xqx, purior 
 electro, of Yarrow. St. Mary's Loch lies 
 beneath me, smitten with wind and rain 
 — the St. Mary's of North and of the 
 Shepherd. Only the trout, that see a 
 myriad of artificial flies, are shyer than 
 of yore. The Shepherd could no longer 
 fill a cart up Meggat with trout so much 
 of a size that the country people took 
 them for herrings. 
 
 The grave of Piers Cockburn is still 
 not desecrated : hard by it lies, within a 
 little wood ; and beneath that slab of old 
 sandstone, and the graven letters, and 
 the sword and shield, sleep ' Piers Cock- 
 burn and Marjory his wife.' Not a hun- 
 dred yards off was the castle-door where 
 they hanged him ; this is the tomb of 
 the ballad, and the lady that buried him 
 rests now with her wild lord.
 
 l6o LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 Oh, wat ye no my heart was sair, 
 
 When I happit the mouls on his yellow hair; 
 
 Oh, wat ye no my heart was wae, 
 
 When I turned about and went my way I ^ 
 
 Here too hearts have broken, and there 
 is a sacredness in the shadow and be- 
 neath these clustering berries of the 
 rowan-trees. That sacredness, that rev- 
 erent memory of our old land, it is 
 always and inextricably blended with 
 our memories, with our thoughts, with 
 our love of you. Scotchmen, methinks, 
 
 1 Lord Napier and Ettrick points out to me that, 
 unluckily, the tradition is erroneous. Piers was not 
 executed at all. William Cockburn suffered in Edin- 
 burgh. But the Border Minstrelsy overrides history. 
 
 Criminal Trials in Scotland, by Robert Pitcaim, 
 Esq. Vol. i. part i. p. 144, A. D. 1530. 17 Jac. V. 
 
 May 16. William Cokburne of Henderland, con- 
 victed (in presence of the King) of high treason com- 
 mitted by him in bringing Alexander Forestare and 
 his son. Englishmen^ to the plundering of Archibald 
 Somervile ; and for treasonably bringing certain 
 Englishmen to the lands of Glenquhome ; and for 
 common theft, common reset of theft, out-putting and 
 in-putting thereof. Sentence. For which causes and 
 crimes he has forfeited his life, lands, and goods, 
 movable and immovable ; which shall be escheated 
 to the King. Beheaded.
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT l6l 
 
 who owe so much to you, owe you most 
 for the example you gave of the beauty 
 of a hfe of honour, showing them what, 
 by Heaven's blessing, a Scotchman still 
 might be. 
 
 Words, empty and unavailing — for 
 what words of ours can speak our 
 thoughts or interpret our affections ! 
 From you first, as we followed the deer 
 with King James, or rode with William 
 of Deloraine on his midnight errand, did 
 we learn what Poetry means and all the 
 happiness that is in the gift of song. 
 This and more than may be told you 
 gave us, that are not forgetful, not un- 
 grateful, though our praise be unequal 
 to our gratitude. Fungor inani munerel 
 II
 
 XVI. 
 
 To Eusebius of Ccesarea. 
 
 (CONCERNING THE GODS OK THE HEATHEN.) 
 
 Touching the Gods of the Heathen, 
 most reverend Father, thou art not ig- 
 norant that even now, as in the time of 
 thy probation on earth, there is great 
 dissension. That these feigned Deities 
 and idols, the work of men's hands, are 
 no longer worshipped thou knowest ; 
 neither do men eat meat offered to idols. 
 Even as spoke that last Oracle which 
 murmured forth, the latest and the only 
 true voice from Delphi, even so 'the fair- 
 wrought court divine hath fallen ; no 
 more hath Phoebus his home, no more 
 his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of 
 water; nay, the sweet -voiced water is 
 silent.* The fane is ruinous, and the 
 images of men's idolatry are dust
 
 EUSEBIUS OP C^SAREA 163 
 
 Nevertheless, most worshipful, men 
 do still dispute about the beginnings of 
 those sinful Gods : such as Zeus, Athene, 
 and Dionysus : and marvel how first they 
 won their dominion over the souls of the 
 foolish peoples. Now, concerning these 
 things there is not one belief, but many; 
 howbeit, there are two main kinds of 
 opinion. One sect of philosophers be- 
 lieves — as thyself, with heavenly learn- 
 ing, didst not vainly persuade — that the 
 Gods were the inventions of wild and 
 bestial folk, who, long before cities were 
 builded or life was honourably ordained, 
 fashioned forth evil spirits in their own 
 savage likeness ; ay, or in the likeness 
 of the very beasts that perish. To this 
 judgment, as it is set forth in thy Book 
 of the Preparation for the Gospel, I, 
 humble as I am, do give my consent. 
 But on the other side are many and 
 learned men, chiefly of the tribes of the 
 Alemanni, who have almost conquered 
 the whole inhabited world. These, be- 
 ing unwilling to suppose that the Hel-
 
 1 64 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 lenes were in bondage to superstitions 
 handed down from times of utter dark- 
 ness and a bestial life, do chiefly hold 
 with the heathen philosophers, even 
 with the writers whom thou, most ven- 
 erable, didst confound with thy wisdom 
 and chasten with the scourge of small 
 cords of thy wit. 
 
 Thus, like the heathen, our doctors 
 and teachers maintain that the Gods of 
 the nations were, in the beginning, such 
 pure natural creatures as the blue sky, 
 the sun, the air, the bright dawn, and 
 the fire ; but, as time went on, men, for- 
 getting the meaning of their own speech 
 and no longer understanding the tongue 
 of their own fathers, were misled and 
 beguiled into fashioning all those lam- 
 entable tales : as that Zeus, for love of 
 mortal women, took the shape of a bull, 
 a ram, a serpent, an ant, an eagle, and 
 sinned in such wise as it is a shame 
 even to speak of. 
 
 Behold, then, most worshipful, how 
 these doctors and learned men argue,
 
 EUSEBIUS OF CMS ARE A 1 65 
 
 even like the philosophers of the hea- 
 then whom thou didst confound. For 
 they declare the Gods to have been nat- 
 ural elements, sun and sky and storm, 
 even as did thy opponents ; and, like 
 them, as thou saidst, * they are nowise 
 at one with each other in their explana- 
 tions.' For of old some boasted that 
 Hera was the Air ; and some that she 
 signified the love of woman and man ; 
 and some that she was the waters above 
 the Earth ; and others that she was the 
 Earth beneath the waters ; and yet oth- 
 ers that she was the Night, for that 
 Night is the shadow of Earth : as if, 
 forsooth, the men who first worshipped 
 Hera had understanding of these things ! 
 And when Hera and Zeus quarrel un- 
 seemly (as Homer declareth), this meant 
 (said the learned in thy days) no more 
 than the strife and confusion of the ele- 
 ments, and was not in the beginning an 
 idle slanderous tale. 
 
 To all which, most worshipful, thou 
 didst answer wisely : saying that Hera
 
 l66 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 could not be both night, and earth, and 
 water, and air, and the love of sexes, and 
 the confusion of the elements ; but that 
 all these opinions were vain dreams, and 
 the guesses of the learned And why 
 — thou saidst — even if the Gods were 
 pure natural creatures, are such foul 
 things told of them in the Mysteries as 
 it is not fitting for me to declare. ' These 
 wanderings, and drinkings, and loves, 
 and corruptions, that would be shameful 
 in men, why,' thou saidst, ' were they 
 attributed to the natural elements ; and 
 wherefore did the Gods constantly show 
 themselves, like the sorcerers called 
 were-wolves, in the shape of the perish- 
 able beasts?' But, mainly, thou didst 
 argue that, till the philosophers of the 
 heathen were agreed among themselves, 
 not all contradicting each the other, they 
 had no semblance of a sure foundation 
 for their doctrine. 
 
 To all this and more, most worshipful 
 Father, I know not what the heathen 
 answered thee. But, in our time, the
 
 EUSEBIUS OF C^SAREA 1 6/ 
 
 learned men who stand to it that the 
 heathen Gods were in the beginning the 
 pure elements, and that the nations, for- 
 getting their first love and the signifi- 
 cance of their own speech, became con- 
 fused and were betrayed into foul sto- 
 ries about the pure Gods — these learned 
 men, I say, agree no whit among them- 
 selves. Nay, they differ one from an- 
 other, not less than did Plutarch and 
 Porphyry and Theagenes, and the rest 
 whom thou didst laugh to scorn. Bear 
 with me, Father, while I tell thee how 
 the new Plutarchs and Porphyrys do 
 contend among themselves ; and yet 
 these differences of theirs they call ' Sci- 
 ence ' ! 
 
 Consider the goddess Athene, who 
 sprang armed from the head of Zeus, 
 even as — among the fables of the poor 
 heathen folk of seas thou never knew- 
 est — goddesses are fabled to leap out 
 from the armpits or feet of their fathers. 
 Thou must know that what Plato, in the 
 Cratylus,' made Socrates say in jest,
 
 1 68 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 the learned among us practise in sad 
 earnest. For, when they wish to explain 
 the nature of any God, they first examine 
 his name, and torment the letters thereof, 
 arranging and altering them according 
 to their will, and flying off to the speech 
 of the Indians and Medes and Chaldeans, 
 and other Barbarians, if Greek will not 
 serve their turn. How saith Socrates ? 
 * I bethink me of a very new and inge- 
 nious idea that occurs to me ; and, if I 
 do not mind, I shall be wiser than I 
 should be by to-morrow's dawn. My no- 
 tion is that we may put in and pull out 
 letters at pleasure and alter the accents.' 
 Even so do our learned — not at pleas- 
 ure, maybe, but according to certain 
 fixed laws (so they declare) ; yet none 
 the more do they agree among them- 
 selves. And I deny not that they dis- 
 cover many things true and good to be 
 known ; but, as touching the names of 
 the Gods, their learning, as it standeth, 
 is confusion. Look, then, at the god- 
 dess Athene : taking one example out
 
 EUSEBJUS OF CMSAKEA 1 69 
 
 of hundreds. We have dwelling in our 
 coasts Muellerus, the most erudite of the 
 doctors of the Alemanni, and the most 
 golden - mouthed. Concerning Athene, 
 he saith that her name is none other 
 than, in the ancient tongue of the Brach- 
 manae, Ahand, which, being interpreted, 
 means the Dawn. ' And that the morn- 
 ing light,' saith he, * offers the best start- 
 ing-point ; for the later growth of Athene 
 has been proved, I believe, beyond the 
 reach of doubt or even cavil.' ^ 
 
 Yet this same doctor candidly lets us 
 know that another of his nation, the 
 witty Benfeius, hath devised another 
 sense and origin of Athene, taken from 
 the speech of the old Medes. But Mu- 
 ellerus declares to us that whosoever 
 shall examine the contention of Benfeius 
 ' will be bound, in common honesty, to 
 confess that it is untenable.' This, Fa- 
 ther, is 'one for Benfeius,' as the saying 
 goes. And as Muellerus holds that these 
 
 1 ' The Lesson of Jupiter.' — Nineteenth Century, 
 October, 1885.
 
 I70 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 matters ' admit of almost mathematical 
 precision,' it would seem that Benfeius is 
 but a Dumvikopf, as the Alemanni say, 
 in their own language, when they would 
 be pleasant among themselves. 
 
 Now, wouldst thou credit it ? despite 
 the mathematical plainness of the facts, 
 other Alemanni agree neither with Muel- 
 lerus, nor yet with Benfeius, and will 
 neither hear that Athene was the Dawn, 
 nor yet that she is ' the feminine of the 
 Zend Thrdetdna atJiwydna.' Lo, you ! 
 how Prellerus goes about to show that 
 her name is drawn not from Ahand and 
 the old Brachmanae, nor athwydna and 
 the old Medes, but from 'the root aXB^ 
 whence alQrip, the air, or a.B, whence av^os, 
 a flower.' Yea, and Prellerus will have 
 it that no man knows the verity of this 
 matter. None the less he is very bold, 
 and will none of the Dawn ; but holds 
 to it that Athene was, from the first, 
 ' the clear pure height of the Air, which 
 is exceeding pure in Attica.' 
 
 Now, Father, as if all this were not
 
 EUSEBIUS OF C^SAREA I /I 
 
 enough, comes one Roscherus in, with a 
 mighty great volume on the Gods, and 
 Furtwaenglerus, among others, for his 
 ally. And these doctors will neither 
 with Rueckertus and Hermannus, take 
 Athene for ' wisdom in person ; ' nor 
 with Welckerus and Prellerus, for ' the 
 goddess of air; ' nor even, with Muelle- 
 rus and mathematical certainty, for 'the 
 Morning-Red : ' but they say that Athene 
 is the 'black thunder -cloud, and the 
 .lightning that leapeth therefrom'! I 
 make no doubt that other Alemanni 
 are of other minds : qiiot Alemanni tot 
 sefitenticB. 
 
 Yea, as thou saidst of the learned 
 
 heathen, OuSe yap dAAi^XoiS cri'/A^wva rfiVtTio- 
 
 XoyovaLv. Yet these disputes of theirs 
 they call ' Science ' ! But if any man 
 says to the learned : ' Best of men, you 
 are erudite, and laborious and witty ; 
 but, till you are more of the same mind, 
 your opinions cannot be styled knowl- 
 edge. Nay, they are at present of no 
 avail whereon to found any doctrine con-
 
 1/2 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 cerning the Gods' — that man is railed 
 at for his ' mean ' and ' weak ' arguments. 
 Was it thus, Father, that the heathen 
 railed against thee ? But I must still 
 believe, with thee, that these evil tales 
 of the Gods were invented 'when man's 
 life was yet brutish and wandering ' (as 
 is the life of many tribes that even now 
 tell like tales), and were maintained in 
 honour of the later Greeks ' because 
 none dared alter the ancient beliefs of 
 his ancestors.' Farewell, Father; and 
 all good be with thee, wishes thy well- 
 wisher and thy disciple.
 
 XVII. 
 
 To Percy Bysshe Shelley, 
 
 Sir, — In your lifetime on earth you 
 were not more than commonly curious 
 as to what was said by 'the herd of 
 mankind,' if I may quote your own 
 phrase. It was that of one who loved 
 his fellow-men, but did not in his less 
 enthusiastic moments overestimate their 
 virtues and their discretion. Removed 
 so far away from our hubbub, and that 
 world where, as you say, we * pursue our 
 serious folly as of old,' you are, one may 
 guess, but moderately concerned about 
 the fate of your writings and your repu- 
 tation. As to the first, you have some- 
 where said, in one of your letters, that 
 the final judgment on your merits as a 
 poet is in the hands of posterity, and 
 that you fear the verdict will be ' Guilty,'
 
 174 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 and the sentence 'Death.' Such appre- 
 hensions cannot have been fixed or fre- 
 quent in the mind of one whose genius 
 burned always with a clearer and stead- 
 ier flame to the last. The jury of which 
 you spoke has met : a mixed jury and a 
 merciful. The verdict is ' Well done,' 
 and the sentence Immortality of Fame. 
 There have been, there are, dissenters ; 
 yet probably they will be less and less 
 heard as the years go on. 
 
 One judge, or juryman, has made up 
 his mind that prose was your true prov- 
 ince, and that your letters will outlive 
 your lays. I know not whether it was 
 the same or an equally well - inspired 
 critic, who spoke of your most perfect 
 lyrics (so Beau Brummell spoke of his 
 ill-tied cravats) as 'a gallery of your fail- 
 ures.' But the general voice does not 
 echo these utterances of a too subtle in- 
 tellect. At a famous University (not 
 your own) once existed a band of men 
 known as 'The Trinity Sniffers.' Per- 
 haps the spirit of the sniffer may still
 
 PERCy B VSSHE SHELLE Y 1 7 5 
 
 inspire some of the jurors who from 
 time to time make themselves heard in 
 your case. The ' Quarterly Review,' I 
 fear, is still unreconciled. It regards 
 your attempts as tainted by the spirit of 
 'The Liberal Movement in English Lit- 
 erature ; ' and it is impossible, alas! to 
 maintain with any success that you were 
 a Throne and Altar Tory. At Oxford 
 you are forgiven ; and the old rooms 
 where you let the oysters burn (was not 
 your founder, King Alfred, once guilty 
 of similar negligence .^) are now shown 
 to pious pilgrims. 
 
 But Conservatives, 't is rumoured, are 
 still averse to your opinions, and are be- 
 lieved to prefer to yours the works of 
 the Reverend Mr. Keble, and, indeed, of 
 the clergy in general. But, in spite of 
 all this, your poems, like the affections 
 of the true lovers in Theocritus, are still 
 'in the mouths of all, and chiefly on the 
 lips of the young.' It is in your lyrics 
 that you live, and I do not mean that 
 every one could pass an examination in
 
 176 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 the plot of ' Prometheus Unbound.* 
 Talking of this piece, by the way, a 
 Cambridge critic finds that it reveals in 
 you a hankering after life in a cave — 
 doubtless an unconsciously inherited 
 memory from cave-man. Speaking of 
 cave-man reminds me that you once 
 spoke of deserting song for prose, and 
 of producing a history of the moral, in- 
 tellectual, and political elements in hu- 
 man society, which, we now agree, be- 
 gan, as Asia would fain have ended, in a 
 cave. 
 
 Fortunately you gave us ' Adonais ' 
 and 'Hellas' instead of this treatise, and 
 we have now successfully written the 
 natural history of Man for ourselves. 
 Science tells us that before becoming a 
 cave-dweller he was a Brute ; Experience 
 daily proclaims that he constantly re- 
 verts to his original condition. Lhoinnte 
 est un mediant animal, in spite of your 
 boyish efforts to add pretty girls ' to the 
 list of the good, the disinterested, and 
 the free.'
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1 77 
 
 Ah, not in the wastes of Speculation, 
 nor the sterile din of Politics, were ' the 
 haunts meet for thee.' Watching the 
 yellow bees in the ivy bloom, and the 
 reflected pine forest in the water-pools, 
 watching the sunset as it faded, and the 
 dawn as it fired, and weaving all fair 
 and fleeting things into a tissue where 
 light and music were at one, that was 
 the task of Shelley ! * To ask you for 
 anything human,' you said, ' was like 
 asking for a leg of mutton at a gin- 
 shop.' Nay, rather, like asking Apollo 
 and Hebe, in the Olympian abodes, to 
 give us beef for ambrosia, and port for 
 nectar. Each poet gives what he has, 
 and what he can offer ; you spread be- 
 fore us fairy bread, and enchanted wine, 
 and shall we turn away, with a sneer, be- 
 cause, out of all the multitudes of sing- 
 ers, one is spiritual and strange, one has 
 seen Artemis unveiled } One, like An- 
 chises, has been beloved of the Goddess, 
 and his eyes, when he looks on the com- 
 mon world of common men, are, like the 
 12
 
 178 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 eyes of Anchises, blind with excess of 
 light. Let Shelley sing of what he saw, 
 what none saw but Shelley ! 
 
 Notwithstanding the popularity of 
 your poems (the most romantic of things 
 didactic), our world is no better than the 
 world you knew. This will disappoint 
 you, who had ' a passion for reforming it' 
 Kings and priests are very much where 
 you left them. True, we have a poet 
 who assails them, at large, frequently 
 and fearlessly ; yet Mr. Swinburne has 
 never, like ' kind Hunt,' been in prison, 
 nor do we fear for him a charge of trea- 
 son. Moreover, chemical science has 
 discovered new and ingenious ways of 
 destroying principalities and powers. 
 You would be interested in the methods, 
 but your peaceful Revolutionism, which 
 disdained physical force, would regret 
 their application. 
 
 Our foreign affairs are not in a state 
 which even you would consider satisfac- 
 tory ; for we have just had to contend 
 with a Revolt of Islam, and we still find
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1 79 
 
 in Russia exactly the qualities which 
 you recognised and described. We have 
 a great statesman whose methods and 
 eloquence somewhat resemble those you 
 attribute to Laon and Prince Athanase. 
 Alas ! he is a youth of more than sev- 
 enty summers ; and not in his time will 
 Prometheus retire to a cavern and pass 
 a peaceful millennium in twining buds 
 and beams. 
 
 In domestic affairs most of the Re- 
 forms you desired to see have been car- 
 ried. Ireland has received Emancipa- 
 tion, and almost everything else she can 
 ask for. I regret to say that she is still 
 unhappy ; her wounds unstanched, her 
 wrongs unforgiven. At home we have 
 enfranchised the paupers, and expect 
 the most happy results. Paupers (as 
 Mr. Gladstone says) are ' our own flesh 
 and blood,' and, as we compel them to 
 be vaccinated, so we should permit them 
 to vote. Is it a dream that Mr. Jesse 
 Collings (how you would have loved that 
 man ]) has a Bill for extending the price-
 
 l80 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 less boon of the vote to inmates of Pau- 
 per Lunatic Asylums ? This may prove 
 that last element in the Elixir of po- 
 litical happiness which we have long 
 sought in vain. Atheists, you will regret 
 to hear, are still unpopular ; but the new 
 Parliament has done something for Mr. 
 Bradlaugh. You should have known our 
 Charles while you were in the ' Queen 
 Mab ' stage. I fear you wandered, later, 
 from his robust condition of intellectual 
 development. 
 
 As to your private life, many biogra- 
 phers contrive to make public as much 
 of it as possible. Your name, even in 
 life, was, alas ! a kind of ducdame to 
 bring people of no very great sense into 
 your circle. This curious fascination has 
 attracted round your memory a feeble 
 folk of commentators, biographers, anec- 
 dotists, and others of the tribe. They 
 swarm round you like carrion-fiies round 
 a sensitive plant, like night-birds bewil- 
 dered by the sun. Men of sense and 
 taste have written on you, indeed ; but
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY l8l 
 
 your weaker admirers are now disputing 
 as to whether it was your heart, or a less 
 dignified and most troublesome organ, 
 which escaped the flames of the funeral 
 pyre. These biographers fight terribly 
 among themselves, and vainly prolong 
 the memory of 'old unhappy far-off 
 things, and sorrows long ago.' Let us 
 leave them and their squabbles over what 
 is unessential, their raking up of old let- 
 ters and old stories. 
 
 The town has lately yawned a weary 
 laugh over an enemy of yours, who has 
 produced two heavy volumes, styled by 
 him 'The Real Shelley.' The real Shel- 
 ley, it appears, was Shelley as conceived 
 of by a worthy gentleman so prejudiced 
 and so skilled in taking up things by the 
 wrong handle that I wonder he has not 
 made a name in the exact science of 
 Comparative Mythology. He criticises 
 you in the spirit of that Christian Apol- 
 ogist, the Englishman who called you * a 
 damned Atheist ' in the post-office at 
 Pisa He finds that you had *a little
 
 1 82 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 turned-up nose,' a feature no less impor- 
 tant in his system than was the nose of 
 Cleopatra (according to Pascal) in the 
 history of the world. To be in harmony 
 with your nose, you were a 'phenome- 
 nal ' liar, an ill-bred, ill-born, profligate, 
 partly insane, an evil-tempered monster, 
 a self-righteous person, full of self-appro- 
 bation — in fact you were the Beast of 
 this pious Apocalypse. Your friend Dr. 
 Lind was an embittered and scurrilous 
 apothecary, 'a bad old man.* But enough 
 of this inopportune brawler. 
 
 For Humanity, of which you hoped 
 such great things, Science predicts ex- 
 tinction in a night of Frost. The sun 
 will grow cold, slowly — as slowly as 
 doom came on Jupiter in your ' Prome- 
 theus,' but as surely. If this nightmare 
 be fulfilled, perhaps the Last Man, in 
 some fetid hut on the ice-bound Equa- 
 tor, will read, by a fading lamp charged 
 with the dregs of the oil in his cruse, the 
 poetry of Shelley. So reading, he, the 
 latest of his race, will not wholly be de-
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1 83 
 
 prived of those sights which alone (says 
 the nameless Greek) make life worth en- 
 during. In your verse he will have sight 
 of sky, and sea, and cloud, the gold of 
 dawn and the gloom of earthquake and 
 eclipse. He will be face to face, in 
 fancy, with the great powers that are 
 dead, sun, and ocean, and the illimitable 
 azure of the heavens. In Shelley's po- 
 etry, while Man endures, all those will 
 survive ; for your ' voice is as the voice 
 of winds and tides,' and perhaps more 
 deathless than all of these, and only per- 
 ishable with the perishing of the human 
 spirit.
 
 XVIII. 
 
 To Monsieur de MolUre, Valet de Chant- 
 bre dit Roi. 
 
 Monsieur, — With what awe does a 
 writer venture into the presence of the 
 great Moliere ! As a courtier in your 
 time would scratch humbly (with his 
 comb!) at the door of the Grand Mon- 
 arch, so I presume to draw near your 
 dwelling among the Immortals. You, 
 like the king who, among all his titles, 
 has now none so proud as that of the 
 friend of Moliere — you found your do- 
 minions small, humble, and distracted ; 
 you raised them to the dignity of an em- 
 pire : what Louis XIV. did for France 
 you achieved for French comedy ; and 
 the baton of Scapin still wields its sway 
 though the sword of Louis was broken 
 at Blenheim. For the King the Pyre-
 
 MONSIEUR DE MOLIERE 1 85 
 
 nees, or so he fancied, ceased to exist ; 
 by a more magnificent conquest you 
 overcame the Channel. If England 
 vanquished your country's arms, it was 
 through you that Yxz.x\.CQferiitn victoreni 
 ccpit, and restored the dynasty of Com- 
 edy to the land whence she had been 
 driven. Ever since Dryden borrowed 
 • L'Etourdi,' our tardy apish nation has 
 lived (in matters theatrical) on the spoils 
 of the wits of France. 
 
 In one respect, to be sure, times and 
 manners have altered. While you lived, 
 taste kept the French drama pure ; and 
 it was the congenial business of English 
 playwrights to foist their rustic gross- 
 ness and their large Fescennine jests 
 into the urban page of Moliere. Now 
 they are diversely occupied ; and it is 
 their affair to lend modesty where they 
 borrow wit, and to spare a blush to the 
 cheek of the Lord Chamberlain. But 
 still, as has ever been our wont since 
 Etherege saw, and envied, and imitated 
 your successes — still we pilfer the plays
 
 1 86 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 of France, and take our bien, as you said 
 in your lordly manner, wherever we can 
 find it. We are the privateers of the 
 stage ; and it is rarely, to be sure, that a 
 comedy pleases the town which has not 
 first been 'cut out' from the country- 
 men of Moliere. Why this should be, 
 and what * tenebriferous star' (as Para- 
 celsus, your companion in the ' Dia- 
 logues des Morts,' would have believed) 
 thus darkens the sun of English humour, 
 we know not ; but certainly our depend- 
 ence on France is the sincerest tribute 
 to you. Without you, neither Rotrou, 
 nor Corneille, nor 'a wilderness of mon- 
 keys ' like Scarron, could ever have 
 given Comedy to France and restored 
 her to Europe. 
 
 While we owe to you, Monsieur, the 
 beautiful advent of Comedy, fair and 
 beneficent as Peace in the play of Aris- 
 tophanes, it is still to you that we must 
 turn when of comedies we desire the 
 best. If you studied with daily and 
 nightly care the works of Plautus and
 
 MOK'SIEUR DE MOLIMRE 1 87 
 
 Terence, if you 'let no musty bouquin 
 escape you ' (so your enemies declared), 
 it was to some purpose that you laboured, 
 Shakespeare excepted, you eclipsed all 
 who came before you ; and from those 
 that follow, however fresh, we turn : we 
 turn from Regnard and Beaumarchais, 
 from Sheridan and Goldsmith, from Mus- 
 set and Pailleron and Labiche, to that 
 crowded world of your creations. ' Cre- 
 ations ' one may well say, for you antici- 
 pated Nature herself : you gave us, be- 
 fore she did, in Alceste a Rousseau who 
 was c. gentleman not a lacquey ; in a mot 
 of Don Juan's, the secret of the new Re- 
 ligion and the watchword of Comte, 
 r amour de Vhumaniti. 
 
 Before you where can we find, save 
 in Rabelais, a Frenchman with humour ; 
 and where, unless it be in Montaigne, 
 the wise philosophy of a secular civilisa- 
 tion? With a heart the most tender, 
 delicate, loving, and generous, a heart 
 often in agony and torment, you had to 
 make life endurable (we cannot doubt it)
 
 1 88 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 without any whisper of promise, or hope, 
 or warning from Religion. Yes, in an 
 age when the greatest mind of all, the 
 mind of Pascal, proclaimed that the only 
 help was in voluntary blindness, that the 
 only chance was to hazard all on a bet 
 at evens, you. Monsieur, refused to be 
 blinded, or to pretend to see what you 
 found invisible. 
 
 In Rehgion you beheld no promise of 
 help. When the Jesuits and Jansenists 
 of your time saw, each of them, in Tar- 
 tufe the portrait of their rivals (as each 
 of the laughable Marquises in your play 
 conceived that you were girding at his 
 neighbour), you all the while were mock- 
 ing every credulous excess of Faith. In 
 the sermons preached to Agnes we 
 surely hear your private laughter ; in 
 the arguments for credulity which are 
 presented to Don Juan by his valet we 
 listen to the eternal self-defence of su- 
 perstition. Thus, desolate of belief, you 
 sought for the permanent element of life 
 — precisely where Pascal recognised all
 
 MONSIEUR DE MOLI^RE 1 89 
 
 that was most fleeting and unsubstan- 
 tial — in divertissement; in the pleas- 
 ure of looking on, a spectator of the ac- 
 cidents of existence, an observer of the 
 follies of mankind. Like the Gods of the 
 Epicurean, you seem to regard our life 
 as a play that is played, as a comedy ; 
 yet how often the tragic note comes in ! 
 What pity, and in the laughter what 
 an accent of tears, as of rain in the 
 wind ! No comedian has been so kindly 
 and human as you ; none has had a 
 heart, like you, to feel for his butts, and 
 to leave them sometimes, in a sense, su- 
 perior to their tormentors. Sganarelle, 
 M. de Pourceaugnac, George Dandin, 
 and the rest — our sympathy, somehow, 
 is with them, after all ; and M. de Pour- 
 ceaugnac is a gentleman, despite his 
 misadventures. 
 
 Though triumphant Youth and mali- 
 cious Love in your plays may batter and 
 defeat Jealousy and Old Age, yet they 
 have not all the victory, or you did not 
 mean that they should win it. They go
 
 igO LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
 off with laughter, and their victim with 
 a grimace ; but in him we, that are past 
 our youth, behold an actor in an unending 
 tragedy, the defeat of a generation. Your 
 sympathy is not wholly with the dogs 
 that are having their day ; you can throw 
 a bone or a crust to the dog that has had 
 his, and has been taught that it is over 
 and ended. Yourself not unlearned in 
 shame, in jealousy, in endurance of the 
 wanton pride of men (how could the 
 poor player and the husband of Celimene 
 be untaught in that experience ?), you 
 never sided quite heartily, as other com- 
 edians have done, with young prosperity 
 and rank and power. 
 
 I am not the first who has dared to 
 approach you in the Shades ; for just 
 after your own death the author of ' Les 
 Dialogues des Morts * gave you Paracel- 
 sus as a companion, and the author of 
 ' Le Jugement de Pluton ' made the 
 'mighty warder* decide that *Moliere 
 should not talk philosophy.' These wri- 
 ters, like most of us> 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.
 
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 — Wertiierism — the French Revolution — Goethe and his 
 Works. 
 
 "Every intelligent American reader will instantly wish to read 
 this book through, and many will say that it is the clearest and 
 wisest and most genuine book that Carlyle ever produced. We 
 could have no work from his hand which embodies more clearly 
 and emphatically his literary opinions than his rapid and graphic 
 survey of the great writers and great literary epochsof the world." 
 
 — Dostoit Herald,
 
 SELECTED VOLUMES OF ESSA YS. 
 
 ALICE MORSE EARLE. 
 
 The Sabbath in Puritan New England, 
 (i2mo, $1.25.) 
 
 Contents : The Church Militant — Seating the Meeting — 
 The Length of the Service — The Icy Temperature — The 
 Noon-House — The Deacon's Office — The Church Music — 
 Interruptions of the Service — Authority of the Church and 
 the Ministers — Ordination of the Ministers — The Minister's 
 Pay — etc., etc. 
 
 " She writes with a keen sense of humor, and out of the full 
 stores of adequate knowledge and plentiful explorations among old 
 pamphlets, letters, sermons, and that treasury, not yet run dry in 
 New England, family traditions. The book is as sympathetic as 
 it is bright and humorous."— TXr Independent. 
 
 HENRY T. FINCK. 
 
 Chopin, and Other Musical Essays. i2mo, 
 $1.50.) 
 
 Contents: Chopin, the Greatest Genius of the 
 Pianoforte — How Composers Work — Schumann as Mirrored 
 in his Letters — Music and Morals — Italian and German Vocal 
 Styles — German Opera in New York. 
 
 " Written from abundant knowledge ; enlivened by anecdoto 
 and touches of enthusiasm, suggestive, stimulating." — Botteit 
 Post. 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 The Spanish Story of the Armada, and 
 OTHER Essays, Historical and Descriptive. 
 (i2mo. ^1.50.) 
 
 Contents : The Spanish Story of the Armada — Antonio 
 Perez : An Unresolved Historical Riddle — Saint Teresa — 
 The Templars — The Norway Fjords — Norway Once More. 
 
 Short Studies on Great Subjects. (Half 
 leather, i2mo, 4 vols., each $1.50.) 
 CONTENTS : 
 
 Vol. I. The Science of History — Times of Erasmus and 
 Luther — The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish 
 Character — The Philosophy of Catholicism — A Plea for the 
 Free Discussion of Theological Difficulties — Criticism and the
 
 SELECTED VOLUMES OF ESSAYS. 
 
 Gospel History — The Book of Job — Spinoza — The Dissolu- 
 Gospel History — The Bool< of Job — Spinoza — The Dissolu- 
 tion of Monasteries — England's Forgotten Worthies — Homer 
 — The Lives of the Saints — Representative Man — Reynard 
 the Fox — The Cat's Pilgrimage — Fables — Parable of the 
 Bread-fruit Tree — Compensation. 
 
 Vol. H. Calvinism — A Bishop of the Twelfth Century 
 —Father Newman on "The Grammar of Assent" — Con- 
 ditions and Prospects of Protestantism — England and Her 
 Colonies — A Fortnight in Kerry— Reciprocal Duties in State 
 and Subject — The Merchant and His Wife — On Progress — 
 The Colonies Once More — Education — England's War — 
 The Eastern Question — Scientific Method Applied to History. 
 
 Vol. 111. Annals of an English Abbey — Revival of 
 Romanism — Sea Studies — Society in Italy in the Last Days 
 of the Roman Republic — Lucian — Divus Caesar — On the 
 Uses of a Landed Gentry — Party Politics — Leaves from a 
 South African Journal. 
 
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 Times of Thomas Becket — Origen and Celsus— A Cagliostro 
 of the Second Century — Cheneys and the House of Russell 
 —A Siding at a Railway Station. 
 
 "All the papers here collected are marked by the qualities 
 which have made Mr. Froude the most popular of living 
 English historians — by skill in argumentative and rhetorical ex- 
 position, by felicities of diction, by contagious earnestness, and by 
 the rare power of fusing the results of research in the imagination 
 ^ SO as to produce a picture of the past at once exact and vivid." 
 
 ~N. Y. Sun. 
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Gleanings of Past Years, 1843- 1879. (7 
 vols., i6mo, each $1.00.) 
 
 Contents ; Vol. I., The Throne and the Prince Consort. 
 The Cabinet and Constitution — Vol. II., Personal and 
 Literary — Vol. III., Historical and Speculative — Vol. IV., 
 Foreign — Vol. V. and VI., Ecclesiastical — Vol. Vll., Miscel- 
 laneous. 
 
 "Not only do these essays cover a long period of time, they 
 also exhibit a very wide range of intellectual effort. Perhaps their 
 most striking feature is the breadth of genuine intellectu;il sym< 
 pathy, of which they afford such abundant evidence,"— AW^x*.
 
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 ROBERT GRANT. 
 
 The Reflections of a Married Man. (lamo, 
 doth, $i.oo; paper, 50 cents.) 
 
 A delicious vein of humor runs through this new book by 
 the author of "The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl," who 
 takes the reader into his confidence and gives a picture of 
 married life that is as bright and entertaining as it is amusing. 
 The experiences described are so typical, that it is singular 
 that they have never got into print before. 
 
 E. J. HARDY. 
 
 The Business of Life : A Book for Everyone. 
 — How TO BE Happy Though Married: Being 
 a Handbook to Marriage — The Five Talents of 
 Woman : A Book for Girls and Women — 
 Manners Makyth Man. (Each, i2mo, $1.25.) 
 
 "The author has a large store of apposite quotations and 
 anecdotes from which he draws with a lavish hand, and he has the 
 art of brightening his pages with a constant play of humor that 
 makes whatiie says uniformly QM.tx\3Xx\.\xiz''— Boston Advertittr. 
 
 W. E. HENLEY. 
 
 Views and Reviews. Essays in Appreciation : 
 Literature. (i2mo, $1.00.) 
 
 Contents : Dickens — Thackeray — Disraeli — Dumas — 
 Meredith — Byron — Hugo — Heine — Arnold — Rabelais — 
 Shakespeare — Sidney — Walton — Banville — Berlioz — Long- 
 fellow — Balzac — Hood — Lever — Congreve — Tolstoi — Field- 
 ing, etc., etc. 
 
 " Interesting, original, keen and felicitous. His criticism will 
 be found suggestive, cultivated, independent."— M Y. Tribun*. 
 
 J. G. HOLLAND. 
 
 Titcomb's Letters to Young People, Single 
 AND Married — Gold-Foil, Hammered from 
 Popular Proverbs — Lessons in Life: A Series 
 of Familiar Essays — Concerning the Jones 
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 Every-Day Topics, First Series, Second Series. 
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 " Dr. Holland will always find a congenial audience in the 
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 the darker and fiercer passions, but delights in the sweet images 
 that cluster around the domestic hearth. He cherishes a strong 
 fellow-feeling with the pure and tranquil life in the modest social 
 circles of the American people, and has thus won his way to the 
 companionship of many friendly hearts." — N, Y, Trtbunt, 
 
 WILLIAM RALPH INGE. 
 
 Society in Rome under the C^^sars. (i2mo, 
 $1.25.) 
 
 " Every page is brimfiil of interest. The pictures of life in 
 Rome imder the Caesars are graphic and thoroughly intelligible." 
 
 — Chicago Herald. 
 
 ANDREW LANG. 
 
 Essays in Little. (Portrait, 12 mo, $1.00.) 
 
 Contents : Alexandre Dumas — Mr. Stevenson's Works 
 — ^Thomas Haynes Bayly — Theodore de Banville — Homer 
 and the Study of Greek — The Last Fashionable Novel — • 
 Thackeray — Dickens — Adventures of Buccaneers — The Sagas 
 — Kingsley — Lever — Poems of Sir Walter Scott — Bunyan — 
 Letter to a Young Journalist — Kipling's Stories. 
 
 "One of the most entertaining and bracing of booVf. It ought 
 to win every vote and please every class of readers." 
 
 — Spectator (London). 
 
 Letters TO Dead Authors. (i6mo, $1.00.) 
 
 Letters to Thackeray — Dickens — Herodotus — Pope-^ 
 Rabelais — Jane Austen — Isaak Walton — Dumas — Theocritus 
 — Poe — Scott — Slielley — Moliere — Burns, etc., etc. 
 
 "The book is one of the luxuries of the literary taste. It is meant 
 for the exquisite palate, and is prepared by one of the ' knowing ' 
 kind. It is an astonishing little volume."— A^, Y, Evening Post. 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER. 
 
 The English Novel and the Principle of 
 ITS Development. (Crown 8vo, $2.00.) 
 
 "The critical and analytical portions of his work are always 
 in high key, suggestive, brilliant, rather dogmatic and not free 
 from caprice. . , But when all these abatements are made, the 
 lectures remain lofty in tone and full of original inspiration." 
 
 — Independent,
 
 SELECTED VOLUMES OF ESS A YS. 
 
 The Science of English Verse. (Crown, 8vo, 
 $2.00.) 
 
 "It contains much sound practical advice to the makers of 
 verse. The work shows extensive reading and a refined tast* 
 both in poetry and in music." — Nation. 
 
 BRANDER MATTHEWS. 
 
 French Dramatists of the 19TH Century 
 (New Edition, 8vo, $1.50.) 
 
 Contents : Chronology — The Romantic Movement — 
 Hugo — Dumas — Scribe — Augier — Dumas fils — Sardou — 
 Feuillet — Labiche — Meilhac and Halevy — Zola and the 
 Tendencies of French Drama — A Ten Years' Retrospect : 
 1881-1891. 
 
 " Mr. Matthews writes with authority of the French stage. 
 Probably no other writer of English has a larger acquaintance 
 with the subject than he. His style is easy and graceful, and the 
 book is delightful reading." — N. V. Times. 
 
 The Theatres of Paris. (Illustrated, i6mo, 
 $1.25.) 
 
 "An interesting, gossipy, yet instructive little book." 
 
 — Aca<Unty (London). 
 
 DONALD G. MITCHELL. 
 
 English Lands, Letters and Kings. Vol. I., 
 From Celt to Tudor. Vol. 11., From Elizabeth 
 to Anne. (Each, i2mo, $1.50.) 
 
 " Cri'-p, sparkling, delicate, these brief talks about authors, 
 great and small, about kings and queens, schoolmasters and 
 people, whet the taste for more, tn ' Ik Marvel's ' racy, sweet, 
 delightful prose, we see the benefits of English literature assimi- 
 lated." — Literary World. 
 
 Reveries of a Bachelor ; or, A Book of the 
 Heart — Dream Life : A Fable of the Seasons. 
 (Cameo Edition, each, with etching, i6mo, 
 
 $L25.) 
 
 " Beautiful examples of the art [of book makmg]. The vein 
 of sentiment in the text is one of which youth never tires." 
 
 — The Nation. 
 
 Seven Stories with Basement and Attic- 
 Wet Days at Edgewood, with Old Farmers, 
 Old Gardeners and Old Pastorals — Bound
 
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 Palaces, with Hints for their Improvement — 
 My Farm of Edgewood, A Country Book. 
 (Each, i2mo, $1.25.) 
 
 "No American writer since the days of Washington Irving 
 uses the English language as does ' Ik Marvel.' His books are 
 as natural as spring flowers, and as refreshing as summer rains." 
 
 — Boston Transcript, 
 
 GEORGE MOORE. 
 
 Impressions and Opinions. (i2mo, $1.25.) 
 
 Contents: Balzac — Turgueneff — " Le Reve " — Two 
 Unknown Poets — An Actress of the i8th Century — Mummer 
 Worship — Our Dramatists and their Literature — Note on 
 "Ghosts" — On the Necessity of a Theatre Libre — Meissonier 
 and the Salon Julian — Art for the Villa — Degas, etc., etc. 
 
 " Both instructive and entertaining . . . still more interest- 
 ing is the problem of an English 'Ihiatre Libre, of which Mr. 
 Moore is an ingenious advocate. The four concluding essays, 
 which treat of art and artists, are all excellent." 
 
 — Saturday Review (London). 
 
 F. MAX MiJLLER. 
 
 Chips from a German Workshop. Vol. I., 
 Essays on the Science of Religion — Vol. II., 
 Essays on Mythology, Traditions and Customs 
 — Vol. III., Essays on Literature, Biographies 
 and Antiquities — Vol. IV., Comparative Phi- 
 lology, Mythology, etc. — Vol.V., On Freedom, 
 etc. (5 vols., each, crown 8vo, $2.00.) 
 
 "These books afford no end of interesting extracts ; ' chips ' by 
 the cord, that are full both to the intellect and the imagination; 
 but we must refer the curious reader to the volumes themselves. 
 He will find in them a body of combined entertainment and in- 
 struction such as has hardly rver been brought together in so 
 compact a form." — N. V. Evening Post, 
 
 Biographical Essays. (Crown 8vo, $2.00.) 
 
 Contents: Rammoliun Roy — Keshub Chunder Sen — 
 Dayananda Sarasvatt — Bunyiu Nanjio — Kenjiu Kasawara — 
 Mohl — Kingsley. 
 
 " Max Miiller is the leading authority of the world in Hindoo 
 literature, and his volume on Oriental reformers will be acceptable 
 to scholars and literary people of all classes." — Chicago Trilrunt,
 
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 THOMAS NELSON PAGE. 
 
 The Old South, Essays Social and Political. 
 (i2mo. With portrait, $1.25.) 
 
 Contents : The Old South — Authorship in the South 
 before the War — Life in Colonial Virginia — Social Life in the 
 South before the War — Old Yorktown — The Old Virginia 
 Lawyer — The South's Need of a History — The Negro 
 Question. 
 
 These essays reveal a new and charming side of Mr. 
 Page's versatility. He knows his Virginia as Lowell knew 
 his New England. 
 
 AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 
 
 My Note-Book: Fragmentary Studies in 
 Thieoiogy and Subjects Adjacent Thereto ( 1 2mo, 
 §1.50) — Men and Books; or, Studies in Homi- 
 letics (8vo, $2.00) — My Portfolio ( 1 2mo, $ i . 50) 
 — My Study, and Other Essays (i2mo, $1.50) 
 
 " His great and varied learning, his wide outlook, his prof(7>..d 
 sympathy with concrete men and women, the lucidity *nd beiuty 
 of his style, and the fertility of his thought, will secure for him a 
 place among the great men of American Congregationalism." 
 
 —N, y. Tributu. 
 
 NOAH PORTER, LL.D. 
 
 Books and Reading. (Crown 8vo, $2.00). 
 
 "It is distinguished by all the rare acumen, discriminating 
 taste and extensive literary knowledge of the author. The chief 
 departments of literature are reviewed in detail." — N, Y. Times, 
 
 PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. 
 
 Literature and Poetry. (With portrait, 
 8vo, $3.00.) 
 
 Contents : Studies on the English Language — ^The Poetry 
 of the Bible — Dies Irae — Stabat Mater — Hymns of St- 
 Bernard — The University, Ancient and Modern — Dante 
 Alighieri, The Divina Commedia. 
 
 " There is a great amount of erudition in the collection, but 
 the style is so simple and direct that the reader does not reali2e 
 that he is following the travels of a close scholar through many 
 learned volumes in many ditTcrect languages." — Chautauquan.
 
 SELECTED VOLUMES OF ESSA YS, 
 
 EDMOND SCHERER. 
 
 Essays on English Literature. (With 
 Portrait, i2mo, $1.50.) 
 
 Contents : George Eliot (three essays)— J. S. Mill — 
 Shakespeare — Taine's History of English Literature — Shakes- 
 peare and Criticism — Milton and " Paradise Lost " — Laurence 
 Sterne, or the Humorist — Wordsworth — Carlyle — 
 " Endymion." 
 
 " M. Scherer had a number of great qualities, mental and moral 
 which rendered him a critic of English literature, in particular, 
 whose views and opinions have not only novelty and freshness, 
 but illumination and instruction for English readers, accustomed 
 to conventional estimates from the English stand-point." 
 
 — Literary World. 
 
 WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D. 
 
 Literary Essays. (8vo, $2.50.) 
 
 " They bear the marks of the author's scholarship, dignity and 
 polish of style, and profound and severe convictions of truth and 
 righteousness as the basis of culture as well as character." 
 
 — Chicago Interior, 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 
 Across the Plains, with Other Essays and 
 Memories. (i2mo, $1.25.) 
 
 Contents : Across the Plains : Leaves from the Note- 
 book of an Emigrant between New York and San Francisco — 
 The Old Pacific Capital— Fontainebleau : Village Commu- 
 nities of Painters — Epilogue to an Inland Voyage — Contri- 
 bution to the History of Life — Education of an Engineer — ^ 
 The Lantern Bearers — Dreams — Beggars — Letter to a Young 
 Man proposing to Embrace a Literary Life^A Christmas 
 Sermon. 
 
 Memories and Portraits. (i2mo, $1.00.) 
 
 Contents : Some College Memories — A College Magazine 
 — An Old Scotch Gardener — Memoirs of an Islet — Thomas 
 Stevenson — Talk and Talkers — The Character of Dogs — A 
 Gossip on a Novel of Dumas — A Gossip on Romance — A 
 Humble Remonstrance,
 
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 ViRGiNiBUS PuERisQUE, and Other Papers. 
 (i2mo, $i.oo.) 
 
 Contents : Virginibus Puerisque — Crabbed Age and 
 Youth — An Apology for Idlers— Ordered South — Aes Triplex 
 — El Dorado — The English Admirals — Some Portraits by 
 Raeburn — Child's Play — Walking Tours — Pan's Pipes— A 
 Plea for Gas Lamps. 
 
 Familiar Studies of Men and Books. (i2mo, 
 $1.25.) 
 
 Contents : Victor Hugo's Romances — Some Aspects of 
 Robert Bums — Walt Whitman — Henry David Thoreau — 
 Yoshida-Thorajiro— Franqois Villon — Charles of Orleans- 
 Samuel Pepys — John Knox and Women. 
 
 "If there are among our readers any lover of good books to 
 whom Mr. Stevenson is still a stranger, we may advise them to 
 make his acquaintance through either of these collections of essays. 
 The papers are full of the rare individual charm which gives a 
 distinction to the lighest products of his art and fancy. He is a 
 notable writer of good English, who combines in a manner 
 altogether his own the flexibility, freedom, quickness and sug- 
 gestiveness of contemporary fashions with a grace, dignity, and 
 high-breeding that belong rather to the past." — N, Y. Tribune, 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE, D.D. 
 
 The Poetry of Tennyson. {New and En- 
 larged Edition. With Portrait, i2mo, $2.00.) 
 
 Contents : Tennyson's First Flight — The Palace of Art : 
 Milton and Tennyson — Two Splendid Failures — The Idylls 
 of the King — The Historic Triology — The Bible in Tennyson 
 — Fruit from an Old Tree — On the Study of Tennyson — 
 Chronology — List of Biblical Quotations. 
 
 "The two new chapters and the additional chronological matter 
 have greatly enriched the work." — T. B. 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 
 
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