Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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(unpublished)(544) that have a good deal of wit; and for Mr.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

(542) Now first collected.

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

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

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

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

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

Waller, whom you proscribe, Sir, owed his reputation to the
graces of his manner, though he frequently stumbled, and even
fell flat; but a few of his smaller pieces are as graceful as
possible: one might say that he excelled in painting ladies in
enamel, but could not succeed in portraits in oil, large as life.
Milton had such superior merit, that I will only say, that if his
angels, his Satan, and his Adam have as much dignity as the
Apollo Belvidere, his Eve has all the delicacy and 'graces of the
Venus of Medicis; as his description of Eden has the colouring of
Albano. Milton's tenderness imprints ideas as graceful as
Guido's Madonnas: and the Allegro, Penseroso, and Comus might be
denominated from the three Graces; as the Italians gave similar
titles to two or three of Petrarch's best sonnets.

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

Boileau may be compared to the dog, whose sagacity is remarkable,
as well as its fawning on its master, and its snarling at those
it dislikes. If Boileau was too austere to admit the pliability
of grace, he compensates by good sense and propriety. He is like
(for I will drop animals) an upright magistrate, whom you
respect, but whose justice and severity leaves an awe that
discourages familiarity. His copies of the ancients may be too
servile; but if a good translator deserves praise, Boileau
deserves more. He certainly does not fall below his originals;
and, considering at what period he wrote, has greater merit
still. By his imitations he held out to his countrymen models of
taste, and banished totally the bad taste of his Predecessors.
For his Lutrin, replete with excellent poetry, wit, humour, and
satire, he certainly was not obliged to the ancients. Excepting
Horace, how little idea had either Greeks or Romans of wit and
humour! Aristophanes and Lucian, compared with moderns, were,
the one a blackguard, and the other a buffoon. In my eyes, the
Lutrin, the Dispensary, and the Rape of the Lock, are standards
of grace and elegance, not to be paralleled by antiquity; and
eternal reproaches to Voltaire, whose indelicacy in the Pucelle
degraded him as much, when compared with the three authors I have
named, as his Henriade leaves Virgil, and even Lucan whom he more
resembles, by far his superiors.

The Dunciad is blemished by the offensive images of the games but
the poetry appears to me admirable; and though the fourth book
has obscurities, I prefer it to the three others; it has
descriptions not surpassed by any poet that ever existed, and
which surely a writer merely ingenious(547) will never equal.
The lines on Italy, on Venice, on Convents, have all the grace
for which I contend as distinct from poetry, though united with
the most beautiful; and the Rape of the Lock, besides the
originality of great part of the invention, is a standard of
graceful writing.

In general, I believe that what I call grace, is denominated
elegance; but by grace I mean something higher. I will explain
myself by instances--Apollo is graceful, Mercury elegant.
Petrarch, perhaps, owed his whole merit to the harmony of his
numbers and the graces of his style, They conceal his poverty of
meaning and want of variety. His complaints, too, may have added
an interest, which, had his passion been successful, and had
expressed itself with equal sameness, would have made the number
of his sonnets insupportable. Melancholy in poetry, I am
inclined to think, contributes to grace, when it is not disgraced
by pitiful lamentations, such as Ovid's and Cicero's in their
banishments. We respect melancholy, because it imparts a similar
affection, pity. A gay writer, who should only express
satisfaction without variety, would soon be nauseous.

Madame de S`evign`e shines both in grief and gaiety. There is
too much sorrow for her daughter's absence; yet it is always
expressed by new terms, by new images, and often by wit, whose
tenderness has a melancholy air. When she forgets her concern,
and returns to her natural disposition-gaiety, every paragraph
has novelty; her allusions, her applications are the happiest
possible. She has the art of making you acquainted with all her
acquaintance, and attaches you even to the spots she inhabited.
Her language is correct, though unstudied; and, when her mind is
full of any great event, she interests you with the warmth of a
dramatic writer, not with the chilling impartiality of an
historian. Pray read her accounts of the death of Turenne, and
of the arrival of King James in France, and tell me whether you
do not know their persons as if you had lived at the, time, For
my part, if you will allow me a word of digression, (not that I
have written with any method,) I hate the cold impartiality
recommended to historians: "Si Vis me flere, dolendum est prim`um
ipsi tibi:" but, that I may not wander again, nor tire, nor
contradict you any more, I will finish now, and shall be glad if
you will dine at Strawberry Hill next Sunday and take a bed
there, when I will tell you how many more parts of your book have
pleased me, than have startled my opinions, or perhaps
prejudices. I have the honour to be, Sir, with regard, etc.

(545) Now first collected.

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

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

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

You thank me much more than the gift deserved, Sir: my editions;
of such pieces as I have left, are waste paper to me. I will not
sell them at the ridiculously advanced prices that are given for
them: indeed, only such as were published for sale, have I sold
at all; and therefore the duplicates that remain with me are to
me of no value, but when I can oblige a friend with them. Of a
few of my impressions I have no copy but my own set; and, as I
could give you only an imperfect collection, the present was
really only a parcel of fragments. My memory was in fault about
the Royal and Noble Authors. I thought I had given them to you.
I recollect now that I only lent you my own copy; but I have
others in town, and you shall have them when I go thither. For
Vertue's manuscript I am in no manner of haste. I heard on
Monday, in London, that the Letters were written by a Mr.
Pilhington, probably from a confounded information of Maty's
Review; my chief reason for calling on you twice this week, was
to learn what you had heard, and shall be much obliged to you for
farther information; as I do not care to be too inquisitive,'
lest I should be suspected of knowing more of the matter.

There are many reasons, Sir, why I cannot come into your idea of
printing Greek. In the first place, I have two or three
engagements for my press; and my time of life does not allow me
to look but a little way farther. In the next, I cannot now go
into new expenses of purchase: my fortune is very much reduced,
both by my brother's death, and by the late plan of reformation.
The last reason would weigh with me, had I none of the others.
My admiration of the Greeks was a little like that of the mob on
other points, not from sound knowledge. I never was a good Greek
scholar; have long forgotten what I knew of the language; and, as
I never disguise my ignorance of any thing, it would look like
affectation to print Greek authors. I could not bear to print
them, without owning that I do not Understand them; and such a
confession would perhaps be as much affectation as unfounded
pretensions. I must, therefore, stick to my simplicity, and not
go out of my line. It is difficult to divest one's self of
vanity, because impossible to divest one's self of self-love. If
one runs from one glaring vanity, one is catched by its opposite.
Modesty can be as vain-glorious on the ground, as Pride on a
triumphal car. Modesty,
however, is preferable; for, should she contradict her
professions, still she keeps her own secret, and does not hurt
the pride of others. I have the honour to be, Sir, with great
regard, yours.

(548) Now first collected.

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

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

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

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

(549) Now first collected.

(550) it is impossible to say with certainty what is the work
here alluded to; but most Probably, it was Ailred's Life of St.
Ninian of which it appears, from a letter from the Rev. Rogers
Ruding, dated August 4, 1785, that Mr. Pinkerton obtained at this
time a transcript through him from the manuscript in the Bodleian
Library. Pinkerton speaks of this manuscript, in the second
volume of his Early Scottish History, p. 266, as "a meagre piece,
containing very little as to Ninian's Pikish Mission." The
letter alluded to from Mr, Ruding, shows Pinkerton to have turned
his mind to the antiquities of Scotland with great
earnestness.-D. T.

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

You are too modest, Sir, in asking my advice on a point on which
you could have no better guide than your own judgment. if I
presume to give you my opinion, it is from zeal for your honour.
I think it would be below you to make a regular answer to
anonymous scribblers in a Magazine: you had better wait to see
whether any formal reply is made to your book, and whether by any
avowed writer; to whom, if he writes sensibly and decently, you
may condescend to make an answer. Still, as you say you have
been misquoted, I should not wish you to be quite silent, though
I should like better to have you turn such enemies into ridicule.
A foe who misquotes you, ought to be a welcome antagonist. He is
so humble as to confess, when he censures what you have not said,
that he cannot confute what you have said; and he is so kind as
to furnish you with an opportunity of proving him a liar, as you
may refer to your book to detect him.

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

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

(551) Now first collected.

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

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

(552) Now first printed.

(553) The Due de Nivernois' translation of Walpole's Essay on
Gardening.-E.

Letter 295 To The Earl Of Buchan.(554)
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 23, 1785. (page 373)

Your lordship is too condescending when you incline to keep up a
correspondence with one who can expect to maintain it but a short
time, and whose intervals of health are resigned to idleness, not
dedicated, as they have sometimes been, to literary pursuits: for
what could I pursue with any prospect of accomplishment? or what
avails it to store a memory that must lose faster than it
acquires? Your lordship's zeal for illuminating your country and
countrymen is laudable; and you are young enough to make a
progress; but a man who touches the verge of his sixty-eighth
year, ought to know that he is unfit to contribute to the
amusement of more active minds. This consideration, my lord,
makes me much decline correspondence; having nothing new to
communicate, I perceive that I fill my letters with apologies for
having nothing to say.

If you can tap the secret stores of the Vatican, your lordship
will probably much enrich the treasury of letters. Rome may have
preserved many valuable documents, as for ages intelligence from
all parts of Europe centred there; but I conclude that they have
hoarded little that might at any period lay open the share they
had in the most important transactions. History, indeed, is
fortunate when even incidentally and collaterally it light's on
authentic information.

Perhaps, my lord, there is another repository, and nearer, which
it would be worth while to endeavour to penetrate: I mean the
Scottish College at Paris. I have heard formerly, that numbers
Of papers, of various sorts, were transported at the Reformation
to Spain and Portugal: but, if preserved there, they probably are
not accessible yet. If they were, how puny, how diminutive,
would all such discoveries, and others which we might call of far
greater magnitude, be to those of Herschel, who puts up millions
of covies of worlds at a beat! My conception is not ample enough
to take in even a sketch of his glimpses; and, lest I should lose
myself in attempting to follow his investigations, I recall my
mind home, and apply it to reflect on what we thought we knew,
when we imagined we knew something (which we deemed a vast deal)
pretty correctly. Segrais, I think, it was, who said with much
contempt, to a lady who talked of her star, "Your star! Madam,
there are but two thousand stars in all; and do you imagine that
you have a whole one to yourself?" The foolish dame, it seems,
was not more ignorant than Segrais himself. If our system
includes twenty millions of worlds, the lady had as much right to
pretend to a whole ticket as the philosopher had to treat her
like a servant-maid who buys a chance for a day in a state
lottery.