Horace Walpole (1717-1797) He admires in Dryden his ardour and impetuosity of mind. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Wordsworth as compared with Milton. John Keats (1795-1821) A verdict upon the literature of his own age. Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) Congratulating Dickens on “The Christmas Carol." Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) Miss Mitford (1789-1855) A lady's opinion of Lord Byron. Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) He returns to his classics and finds in them solace for grief. Wherein Plato is re-discovered and a German professor con demned. Lord Macaulay (1800-1859) Lord Macaulay (1800-1859) Charles Lever (1806-1872) William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) "The grand heroic spirit-that trumpet-stop on his organ." Those inimitable Dickens touches. He revolts against Asceticism. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) A woman and her hero. Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) The Chinese fidelity and miniature delicacy of Jane Austen. Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) Arranging the poets in the order of their morality. Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) Sophocles is a pure Greek temple, but Eschylus troubles men with his grandeur and his gloom. Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) He is not pleased with "The Idylls of the King." That Scott resembles Homer in the simplicity of his story; and that Miss Austen never goes out of the parlour. Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) Literary prejudices, together with an anecdote about his "Daddy." Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) "Pauvre et triste humanité." Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) Discovering the Brontë literature. James Smetham (1821-1889) BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON Horace Walpole to Miss Berry Berkeley Square, May 26, 1791. The rest of my letter must be literary; for we have no news. Boswell's book is gossiping, but, having numbers of proper names, would be more readable, at least by me, were it reduced from two volumes to one: but there are woful longuers, both about his hero and himself, the fidus Achates; about whom one has not the smallest curiosity. But I wrong the original Achates; one is satisfied with his fidelity in keeping his master's secrets and weaknesses, which modern led-captains betray for their patron's glory and to hurt their own enemies; which Boswell has done shamefully, particularly against Mrs. Piozzi, and Mrs. Montagu, and Bishop Percy. Dr. Blagden says justly, that it is a new kind of libel, by which you may abuse anybody, by saying some dead person said so and so of somebody alive. Often, indeed, Johnson made the most brutal speeches to living persons; for though he was good-natured at bottom, he was very ill-natured at top. He loved to dispute, to show his superiority. If his opponents were weak, he told them they were fools; if they vanquished him, he was scurrilous-to nobody more than to Boswell himself, who was contemptible for flattering him so grossly, and for enduring the coarse things he was continually vomiting on Boswell's own country, Scotland. I expected, amongst the excommunicated, to find myself, but am very gently treated. I never would be in the least acquainted with Johnson; or, as Boswell calls it, I had not a just value for him; which the biographer imputes to my resentment for the doctor's putting bad arguments (purposely, out of Jacobitism) into the speeches which he wrote fifty years ago for my father, in the Gentleman's Magazine; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson wrote till Johnson died, nor have looked at since. Johnson's blind Toryism and known brutality kept me aloof; nor did I ever exchange a syllable with him: nay, I do not think I ever was in the room with him six times in my days. Boswell came to me, said Dr. Johnson was writing the Lives of the Poets, and wished I would give him anecdotes of Mr. Gray. I said, very coldly, I had given what I knew to Mr. Mason. Boswell hummed and hawed and then dropped, "I suppose you know Dr. Johnson does not admire Mr. Gray." Putting as much contempt as I could into my look and tone, I said, "Dr. Johnson don't!humph!"—and with that monosyllable ended our interview. After the doctor's death, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Boswell sent an ambling circular-letter to me, begging subscriptions for a monument for him—the two last, I think, impertinently; as they could not but know my opinion, and could not suppose I would contribute to a monument for one who had endeavoured, poor soul! to degrade my friend's superlative poetry. I would not deign to write an answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to parish officers with a brief, that I Iwould not subscribe. In the two new volumes Johnson says, and very probably did, or is made to say, that Gray's poetry is dull, and that he was a dull man! The same oracle dislikes Prior, Swift, and Fielding. If an elephant could write a book, perhaps one that had read a great deal would say, that an Arabian horse is a very clumsy, ungraceful animal. Pass to a better chapter. HE ADMIRES IN DRYDEN HIS ARDOUR AND IMPETUOSITY OF MIND William Wordsworth to Sir Walter Scott MY DEAR SCOTT,— Patterdale, November 7, 1805. I was much pleased to hear of your engagement with Dryden; not that he is, as a poet, any great favourite of mine. I admire his talents and genius highly; but his is not a poetical genius. The only qualities I can find in Dryden that are essentially poetical, are a certain ardour and impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear. It may seem strange that I do not add to this, great command of language: that he certainly has, and of such language, too, as it is most desirable that a poet should possess, or rather that he should not be without. But it is not language that is, in the highest sense of the word, poetical, being neither of the imagination nor of the passions; I mean the amiable, the ennobling, or the intense passions. I do not mean to say that there is nothing of this in Dryden, but as little, I think, as is possible, considering how much he has written. You will easily understand my meaning, when I refer to his versification of Palamon and Arcite, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden had neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals. That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this that there is not a single image from nature in the whole body of his work; and in his translation from Virgil, whenever Virgil can be fairly said to have had his eye upon his object, Dryden always spoils the passage. |