A Letter Book

"The Great God Pan" piece ("A Musical Instrument"), one of the last, was perhaps her very best. But he may have been thinking of Poems before Congress, which are poor enough.

41

Lucy, daughter of that curious Quaker banker's clerk Bernard Barton, whose poetry is negligible, but who must have had some strong personal attraction. For he was a favourite correspondent of two of the greatest of contemporary letter-writers, Lamb and FitzGerald, though he constantly misunderstood their letters; he received from Byron – on an occasion likely to provoke one of the "noble poet's" outbursts of pseudo-aristocratic insolence – a singularly wise and kindly answer; and having as a perfect stranger lectured Sir Robert Peel he was – invited to dinner!

42

Some have attempted to make a distinction, alleging that there are Franceses who can be called "Fanny" and others who can not. But it is doubtful whether this holds. Of two great proficients of "letter-stuff" in overlapping generations Fanny Burney was eminently a "Fanny." Fanny Kemble, though always called so, was not.

43

She was the niece of Mrs. Siddons and of John Kemble, generally considered the greatest tragic actor and actress we have had; the daughter of Charles Kemble, a player and manager of long practice and great ability; while she had yet another uncle and any number of more distant relations in the profession.

44

See Prefatory Note on her letters infra, for an illustration of what is said of her here and of Mrs. Carlyle a little further.

45

Gray may not produce this effect of slight repulsion on everyone: but on the other hand it is pretty generally admitted that the more you read Walpole the more does the prejudice, which Macaulay and others have helped to create against him, crumble and melt.

46

They grow more and more numerous; a fresh batch having been announced while this Introduction was being written.

47

I see that Mr. Paul also has made special reference to this letter and no wonder. From the time of its first publication I have regarded it as matchless. But it seems to me that while it is lawful to mention it, it should not have been published and that to republish it here would be at least questionable.

48

The present writer remembers as a boy reading (he supposes in the newspaper to which it was addressed but is not sure) this very remarkable epistle of Reade's to an editor: "Sir, you have brains of your own and good ones. Do not echo the bray of such a very small ass as the…" There was more, but this was the gist of it. Whether it has ever reappeared he cannot say.

49

Anthony Trollope did not choose to make his Autobiography a "Life-and-Letters." But he has used the inserted letter very freely and sometimes with great effect in his novels, for instance Mr. Slope's to Eleanor Harding in Barchester Towers.

50

In his Essay mentioned in Preface.

51

The "Answer to the Introductory Epistle" of The Monastery.

52

This plan was older than the "novel by letters," and had, as noticed above, been largely used in the sixteenth and seventeenth century "heroic" romance.

53

There is of course a class exactly opposite to the love-letter – that of more or less modified hate or at least dislike. Johnson's epistle to Chesterfield is an example of the dignified form of this; Hazlitt's to Gifford of the undignified. But considering our deserved reputation for humour we are less strong than might be expected in letters which make the supposed writer make himself ridiculous. Sydney Smith's "Noodle's Oration" is the sort of thing in another kind: and some of the letters in the Spectator class of periodical are fun in the kind itself. Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters comes near. But we have nothing like the famous Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, which are the very triumph of the style.

54

See the extensive classification of the Greeks, as noticed and reproduced before.

55

The "Letter to Sir W. Windham" of the one and the "Letter to a noble Lord" of the other, have ample justification. Letters on a Regicide Peace, great as they are in themselves, have less claim to their title. But it was a favourite with both writers.

56

The King was William and the Queen Mary, which limits considerably the otherwise rather illimitable "concerning the kingdom."

57

This word is of course a vox nihili, being neither French nor English. But it has usage in its favour, and I do not see that it is improved by writing it "dishabille." If anyone prefers the actual French form he can add the accents.

58

The account of the journey with Lintot the publisher is sometimes quoted in disproof of this. It is amusing, but has still to some tastes Pope's factitiousness without the technical charm of his verse to carry it off.

59

There is one small but rather famous class of letters which perhaps should receive separate though brief notice. It is that of laconic and either intentionally or unintentionally humorous utilisations of the letter-form. Of one sort Captain Walton's "Spanish fleet taken and destroyed as per margin" is probably the most noted type: of another the equally famous rejoinder of the Highland magnate to his rival "Dear Glengarry, When you have proved yourself to be my chief, I shall be happy to admit your claim. Meanwhile I am Yours, Macdonald." In pure farce of an irreverent kind, the possibly apocryphal interchange between a Royal Duke and a Right Reverend Bishop, "Dear Cork, Please ordain Stanhope, Yours, York," and "Dear York, Stanhope's ordained. Yours, Cork," has the palm as a recognised "chestnut." But these things are only the frills if not even the froth of the subject; and those who imitate them should exercise caution in the imitation. The police-courts, and even more exalted, but still more unwholesome abodes of Justice, have sometimes been the consequences of misguided satire in letters. Even in Captain Walton's case the Spaniards are said to have endeavoured to show that his ironical laconism (which, moreover, tradition has perhaps exaggerated in form) was not strictly in accordance with fact.

60

Wild olive, with more peaceful uses, was also the usual material for the unpeaceful club, or quarter-staff, often iron-shod, of the ancients. It was probably like the lathi which the mild Hindoo takes with him to political meetings. The πέλεκυς of the ancients was generally double-bladed, hence the limitation here. This would be lighter and more convenient to carry in the belt.

61

Of course "the enemies'."

62

Synesius addresses his letters to Hypatia τῇ φιλοσὸφῳ – "To the Philosophess." This contains at least two of the unapproachable "portmanteau" words in which Greek, and especially late Greek abounds – φιλοχωρῶν, "loving one's country," and μεταναστεύειν, a rare and complicated compound in which I have ventured to see a hint of ironic intention. He feels that he will be a sort of shirker or deserter (μετὰ often imparts this meaning) but he will be coming to her.

63

This necessity of annotating beyond suitable limits was what prevented me, after due re-reading for the purpose, from giving any letter of Cicero's.

64

Admoneo in Latin not unfrequently has our commercial sense of "advise" = inform, or remind of a fact. It will be remembered that in Elizabethan English this sense was not limited to business, as in "Art thou aviséd of that."

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