Chapter 10

"As for children," said Mrs. Wadman, "tho a principal end, perhaps, of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every parent, yet do not we all find that they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heart-aches, what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenseless mother who brings them into life?"

"I declare," said my uncle Toby, smitten with pity, "I know of none: unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God ..."

"A fiddlestick!" quoth she....

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: From the "Sentimental Journey."]

[Footnote 34: From the "Sentimental Journey."]

[Footnote 35: From "Tristram Shandy."]

[Footnote 36: From "Tristram Shandy."]

THOMAS GRAY

Born in 1716, died in 1771; educated at Eton, where he began a lifelong friendship with Horace Walpole; traveled on the Continent with Walpole in 1739; settled in Cambridge in 1741, where in 1768 he was made professor of Modern History; refused the laureateship in 1757; published his "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" in 1751; his poems and letters collected by Mason in 1775.

I

WARWICK CASTLE[37]

I have been at Warwick, which is a place worth seeing. The town is on an eminence surrounded every way with a fine cultivated valley, through which the Avon winds, and at the distance of five or six miles, a circle of hills, well wooded, and with various objects crowning them, that close the prospect. Out of the town on one side of it, rises a rock that might remind one of your rocks at Durham, but that it is not so savage, or so lofty, and that the river, which, washes its foot, is perfectly clear, and so gentle, that its current is hardly visible. Upon it stands the castle, the noble old residence of the Beauchamps and Nevilles, and now of Earl Brooke. He has sash'd the great apartment that's to be sure (I can't help these things), and being since told, that square sash-windows were not Gothic, he has put certain whim-whams within side the glass, which appearing through are to look like fret-work. Then he has scooped out a little burrow in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley Square or Argyle buildings. What in short can a lord do nowadays, that is lost in a great old solitary castle, but skulk about, and get into the first hole he finds, as a rat would do in like case.

A pretty long old stone bridge leads you into the town with a mill at the end of it, over which the rock rises with the castle upon it with all its battlements and queer ruined towers, and on your left hand the Avon strays through the park, whose ancient elms seem to remember Sir Philip Sidney, who often walk'd under them, and talk of him to this day. The Beauchamp Earls of Warwick lie under stately monuments in the choir of the great church, and in our lady's chapel adjoining to it. There also lie Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick; and his brother, the famous Lord Leicester, with Lettice, his countess. This chapel is preserved entire, tho the body of the church was burned down sixty years ago, and rebuilt by Sir C. Wren.

I had heard often of Guy-Cliff, two miles from the town; so I walked to see it, and of all improvers commend me to Mr. Greathead, its present owner. He shew'd it me himself, and is literally a fat young man with a head and face much bigger than they are usually worn. It was naturally a very agreeable rock, whose cliffs cover'd with large trees hung beetling over the Avon, which twists twenty ways in sight of it. There was the cell of Guy, Earl of Warwick, cut in the living stone, where he died a hermit (as you may see in a penny history, that hangs upon the rails in Moorfields). There were his fountains bubbling out of the cliff; there was a chantry founded to his memory in Henry the Sixth's time. But behold the trees are cut down to make room for flowering shrubs; the rock is cut up, till it is as smooth and as sleek as satin; the river has a gravel-walk by its side; the cell is a grotto with cockle-shells and looking glass; the fountains have an iron gate before them, and the chantry is a barn, or a little house. Even the poorest bite of nature that remain are daily threatened, for he says (and I am sure, when the Greatheads are once set upon a thing, they will do it) he is determined it shall be all new. These were his words, and they are fate.

II

TO HIS FRIEND MASON ON THE DEATH OF MASON'S MOTHER[38]

I break in upon you at a moment when we least of all are permitted to disturb our friends, only to say that you are daily and hourly present to my thoughts. If the worst be not yet passed, you will neglect and pardon me; but if the last struggle be over, if the poor object of your long anxieties be no longer sensible to your kindness, or to her own sufferings, allow me (at least in idea, for what could I do were I present more than this), to sit by you in silence, and pity from my heart, not her who is at rest, but you who lose her. May He who made us, the Master of our pleasures and of our pains, preserve and support you. Adieu.

I have long understood how little you had to hope.

III

ON HIS OWN WRITINGS[39]

To your friendly accusation I am glad I can plead not guilty with a safe conscience. Dodsley told me in the Spring that the plates from Mr. Bentley's designs were worn out, and he wanted to have them copied and reduced to a smaller scale for a new edition. I dissuaded him from so silly an expense, and desired he would put in no ornaments at all. The "Long Story" was to be totally omitted, as its only use (that of explaining the prints) was gone: but to supply the place of it in bulk, lest my works should be mistaken for the works of a flea, or a pismire, I promised to send him an equal weight of poetry or prose: so, since my return hither, I put up about two ounces of stuff, viz., the "Fatal Sisters," the "Descent of Odin" (of both which you have copies), a bit of something from the Welch, and certain little Notes, partly from justice (to acknowledge the debt where I had borrowed anything), partly from ill temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward I was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor. This is literally all; and with all this, I shall be but a shrimp of an author. I gave leave also to print the same thing at Glasgow; but I doubt my packet has miscarried, for I hear nothing of its arrival as yet.

To what you say to me so civilly, that I ought to write more, I reply in your own words (like the Pamphleteer, who is going to confute you out of your own mouth), What has one to do when turned of fifty, but really to think of finishing? However, I will be candid (for you seem to be so with me), and avow to you, that till four-score-and-ten, whenever the humor takes me, I will write, because I like it; and because I like myself better when I do so. If I do not write much, it is because I can not. As you have not this last plea, I see no reason why you should not continue as long as it is agreeable to yourself, and to all such as have any curiosity or judgment in the subject you choose to treat. By the way let me tell you (while it is fresh) that Lord Sandwich, who was lately dining at Cambridge, speaking (as I am told) handsomely of your book, said, it was pity you did not know that his cousin Manchester had a genealogy of Kings, which came down no lower than to Richard III, and at the end of it were two portraits of Richard and his son, in which that king appeared to be a handsome man. I tell you it as I heard it; perhaps you may think it worth inquiring into....

Mr. Boswell's book[40] I was going to recommend to you, when I received your letter: it has pleased and moved me strangely, all (I mean) that relates to Paoli. He is a man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell's truth I have not the least suspicion, because I am sure he could invent nothing of this kind. The true title of this part of his work is, a Dialogue between a Green-Goose and a Hero.

IV

HIS FRIENDSHIP FOR BONSTETTEN[41]

Never did I feel, my dear Bonstetten, to what a tedious length the few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and expectation, till you had left me; nor ever knew before with so strong a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude of the mind. I am grown old in the compass of less than three weeks, like the Sultan in the Turkish tales, that did but plunge his head into a vessel of water and take it out again, as the standers by affirmed, at the command of a Dervish, and found he had passed many years in captivity, and begot a large family of children.

The strength and spirits that now enable me to write to you, are only owing to your last letter a temporary gleam of sunshine. Heaven knows when it may shine again! I did not conceive till now, I own, what it was to lose you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own condition before I possest the happiness of your friendship. I must cite another Greek writer to you, because it is much to my purpose; he is describing the character of a genius truly inclined to philosophy. "It includes," he says, "qualifications rarely united in one single mind, quickness of apprehension and a retentive memory, vivacity and application, gentleness and magnanimity"; to these he adds an invincible love of truth, and consequently of probity and justice. "Such a soul," continues he, "will be little inclined to sensual pleasures, and consequently temperate; a stranger to illiberality and avarice; being accustomed to the most extensive views of things, and sublimest contemplations, it will contract an habitual greatness, will look down with a kind of disregard on human life and on death; consequently, will possess the truest fortitude. Such," says he, "is the mind born to govern the rest of mankind."

But these very endowments, so necessary to a soul formed for philosophy, are often its ruin, especially when joined to the external advantages of wealth, nobility, strength, and beauty; that is, if it light on a bad soil, and want its proper nurture, which nothing but an excellent education can bestow. In this case he is depraved by the public example, the assemblies of the people, the courts of justice, the theaters, that inspire it with false opinions, terrify it with false infamy, or elevate it with false applause; and remember, that extraordinary vices and extraordinary virtues are equally the produce of a vigorous mind: little souls are alike incapable of the one and the other.

If you have ever met with the portrait sketched out by Plato, you will know it again: for my part, to my sorrow I have had that happiness. I see the principal features, and I foresee the dangers with a trembling anxiety. But enough of this, I return to your letter. It proves at least, that in the midst of your new gaieties I still hold some place in your memory, and, what pleases me above all, it had an air of undissembled sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable friend, to shew me your heart simply and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to weep over it, as I now do, no matter whether from joy or sorrow.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: From a letter to Thomas Wharton, dated "Stoke Pogis, September 18, 1754."]

[Footnote 38: Written on March 28, 1767. The tenderness of this brief letter of condolence will recall the inscription which Gray placed on the tomb of his own mother in Stoke Pogis church-yard--the tomb in which he himself was afterward buried "She was the careful, tender mother of many children," says the inscription, "only one of whom had the misfortune to survive her."]

[Footnote 39: From a letter to Horace Walpole, dated "Pembroke College, February 25, 1768."]

[Footnote 40: This refers to Boswell's visit to Corsica in 1766. The book he wrote was his "Journal of a Tour to Corsica, with Memoirs of Pascal Paoli."]

[Footnote 41: From a letter to Bonstetten, dated "Cambridge, April 12, 1770." Bonstetten was a Swiss philosopher and essayist who had formed a close friendship with Gray and many other eminent English men of culture. Bonstetten left England in March of the year in which this letter was written, Gray going with him as far as London, where he pointed out in the street the "great bear," Samuel Johnson, and saw Bonstetten safely into a coach bound for Dover.]

HORACE WALPOLE

Born in 1717, died in 1797; third son of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister; educated at Eton and Cambridge; traveled with Thomas Gray in 1739-41; entered Parliament in 1741; settled at Strawberry Hill in 1747; made fourth Earl of Orford in 1791; author of many books, but best known now for his letters.

I

HOGARTH[42]

Hogarth was born in the parish of St. Bartholomew, London, the son of a low tradesman, who bound him to a mean engraver of arms on plate; but before his time was expired he felt the impulse of genius, and felt it directed him to painting, tho little apprized at that time of the mode nature had intended he should pursue. His apprenticeship was no sooner expired than he entered into the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to great excellence. It was character, the passions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. In coloring he proved no greater a master; his force lay in expression, not in tints and chiaroscuro. At first he worked for booksellers, and designed and engraved plates for several books; and, which is extraordinary, no symptom of genius dawned in those plates. His "Hudibras" was the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet what made him then noticed now surprizes us, to find so little humor in an undertaking so congenial to his talents. On the success, however, of those plates, he commenced painter, a painter of portraits: the most ill-suited employment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the methods he chose of painting families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him prodigious business for some time. It did not last: either from his applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehending that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love. He had already dropt a few of his smaller prints on some reigning follies; but as the dates are wanting on most of them, I can not ascertain which, tho those on the South Sea and "Rabbit Woman" prove that he had early discovered his talent for ridicule, tho he did not then think of building his reputation or fortune on its powers.

His "Midnight Modern Conversation" was the first work that showed his command of character; but it was "The Harlot's Progress," published in 1729 or 1730, that established his fame. The pictures were scarce finished, and no sooner exhibited to the public, and the subscription opened, than above twelve hundred names were entered on his book. The familiarity of the subject and the propriety of the execution made it tasted by all ranks of people. Every engraver set himself to copy it, and thousands of imitations were dispersed all over the kingdom. It was made into a pantomime, and performed on the stage. The "Rake's Progress," perhaps superior, had not so much success, from want of novelty; nor, indeed, is the print of "The Arrest" equal in merit to the others.

The curtain was now drawn aside, and his genius stood displayed in its full luster. From time to time he continued to give those works that should be immortal, if the nature of his art will allow it. Even the receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. Many of his plates he engraved himself, and often expunged faces etched by his assistants when they had not done justice to his ideas.

Not content with shining in a path untrodden before, he was ambitious of distinguishing himself as a painter of history. But not only his coloring and drawing rendered him unequal to the task; the genius that had entered so feelingly into the calamities and crimes of familiar life deserted him in a walk that called for dignity and grace. The burlesque turn of his mind mixt itself with the most serious subjects. In his "Danaë," the old nurse tries a coin of the golden shower with her teeth to see if it is true gold; in the "Pool of Bethesda," a servant of a rich ulcerated lady beats back a poor man that sought the same celestial remedy. Both circumstances are justly thought, but rather too ludicrous. It is a much more capital fault that "Danaë" herself is a mere nymph of Drury. He seems to have conceived no higher idea of beauty.

So little had he eyes to his own deficiencies, that he believed he had discovered the principle of grace. With the enthusiasm of a discoverer he cried, "Eureka!" This was his famous line of beauty, the groundwork of his "Analysis," a book that has many sensible hints and observations, but that did not carry the conviction nor meet the universal acquiescence he expected. As he treated his contemporaries with scorn, they triumphed over this publication, and imitated him to expose him. Many wretched burlesque prints came out to ridicule his system. There was a better answer to it in one of the two prints that he gave to illustrate his hypothesis. In "The Ball," had he confined himself to such outlines as compose awkwardness and deformity, he would have proved half his assertion; but he has added two samples of grace in a young lord and lady that are strikingly stiff and affected. They are a Bath beau and a country beauty.

But this was the failing of a visionary. He fell afterward into a grosser mistake. From a contempt of the ignorant virtuosi of the age, and from indignation at the impudent tricks of picture-dealers, whom he saw continually recommending and vending vile copies to bubble collectors, and from having never studied, indeed having seen, few good pictures of the great Italian masters, he persuaded himself that the praises bestowed on those glorious works were nothing but the effects of prejudice. He talked this language till he believed it; and having heard it often asserted, as is true, that time gives a mellowness to colors and improves them, he not only denied the proposition, but maintained that pictures only grew black and worse by age, not distinguishing between the degrees in which the proposition might be true or false. He went further; he determined to rival the ancients, and unfortunately chose one of the finest pictures in England as the object of his compensation. This was the celebrated "Sigismonda" of Sir Luke Schaub, now in the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, said to be painted by Correggio, probably by Furino, but no matter by whom. It is impossible to see the picture, or read Dryden's inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul animated both. After many essays Hogarth at last produced his "Sigismonda," but no more like "Sigismonda" than I to Hercules. Hogarth's performance was more ridiculous than anything he had ever ridiculed. He set the price of £400 on it, and had it returned on his hands by the person for whom it was painted. He took subscriptions for a plate of it, but had the sense at last to suppress it. I make no more apology for this account than for the encomiums I have bestowed on him. Both are dictated by truth, and are the history of a great man's excellences and errors. Milton, it is said, preferred his "Paradise Regained" to his immortal poem.

The last memorable event of our artist's life was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes; in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offense by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was the more surprizing, as he had all his life avoided dipping his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative offer that was made to engage him in a set of prints against the head of a court party. Without entering into the merits of the cause, I shall only state the fact. In September, 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his print of _The Times_. It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe _North Briton_. On this the painter exhibited the caricature of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged in the war, and wrote his epistle to Hogarth, not the brightest of his works, and in which the severest strokes fell on a defect that the painter had neither caused nor could amend--his age; and which, however, was neither remarkable nor decrepit, much less had it impaired his talents, as appeared by his having composed but six months before one of his most capital works, the satire on the Methodists. In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter--_Et vitulâ tu dignus et hic_. Never did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity.

Mr. Hogarth, in the year 1730, married the only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, by whom he had no children. He died of a dropsy in his breast at his house in Leicester Fields, October 26, 1764.

II

THE WAR IN AMERICA[43]

In spite of all my modesty, I can not help thinking I have a little something of the prophet about me. At least we have not conquered America yet. I did not send you immediate word of our victory at Boston, because the success not only seemed very equivocal, but because the conquerors lost three to one more than the vanquished. The last do not pique themselves upon modern good breeding, but level only at the officers, of whom they have slain a vast number. We are a little disappointed, indeed, at their fighting at all, which was not in our calculation. We knew we could conquer America in Germany, and I doubt had better have gone thither now for that purpose, as it does not appear hitherto to be quite so feasible in America itself. However, we are determined to know the worst, and are sending away all the men and ammunition we can muster. The Congress, not asleep, neither, have appointed a generalissimo, Washington, allowed a very able officer, who distinguished himself in the last war. Well, we had better have gone on robbing the Indies! it was a more lucrative trade.

III

THE DEATH OF GEORGE II[44]

The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I can not expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is dead. But I can pretty well tell you what I like best to be able to say to you on this occasion, that you are in no danger. Change will scarce reach to Florence when its hand is checked even in the capital. But I will move a little regularly, and then you will form your judgment more easily.

This is Tuesday; on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect health, and rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called for and drank his chocolate. At seven, his _valet de chambre_ heard a groan. He ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bed-chamber he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess Amelia; but they only told the latter that the King was ill and wanted her. She had been confined some days with a rheumatism, but hurried down, ran into the room without further notice, and saw her father extended on the bed. She is very purblind, and more than a little deaf. They had not closed his eyes; she bent down close to his face, and concluded he spoke to her, tho she could not hear him--guess what a shock when she found the truth.