Letter XIII.
May 27th, 1824.
Nearly four years have elapsed since I began this
series of reminiscences, and I have only written twelve letters, which bring me
only into the twelfth year of my age. Alas! this is not the only case in which
I feel that the remaining portion of my life,
were it even
to be protracted longer than there is reason to expect upon the most favourable
calculation of chances, must be too short for the undertakings which I have
sometimes dreamt of completing. It is, however, the case in which I can with
least inconvenience quicken my speed; and frail as by humiliating experience I
know my own resolutions to be, I will nevertheless endeavour to send off a
letter from this time forth, at the end of every month. Matter for one more
will be afforded before I take leave of poor old William
Williams; and that part of it which has no connection with
myself, will not be the least worth relation.
It was a good feature in his character that he had a
number of poor retainers, who used to drop in at school hours, and seldom went
away empty handed. There was one poor fellow, familiarly called Dr.
Jones, who always set the school in a roar of laughter. What his
real history was I know not; the story was, that some mischievous boys had
practised upon him the dreadfully dangerous prank of giving him a dose of
cantharides, and that he had lost his wits in consequence. I am not aware that
it could have produced this effect, though it might very probably have cost him
his life. Crazy, however, he was, or rather half-crazed, and it was such a
merry craziness that it would have been wishing him ill to have wished him
otherwise. The bliss of ignorance is merely negative; there was a positive
happiness in his insanity; it was like a perpetual drunkenness, sustained just
at that degree of pleasurable excitement, which, in the sense of present
enjoyment, is equally re-
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gardless of the future and of the
past. He fancied himself a poet, because he could produce, upon demand, a rhyme
in the sorryest doggrel; and the most celebrated
improvisatore was never half so vain of his talent as
this queer creature, whose little figure of some five feet two I can perfectly
call to mind, with his suit of rusty black, his more rusty wig, and his old
cocked hat. Whenever he entered the schoolroom, he was greeted with a shout of
welcome; all business was suspended; he was called upon from all sides to give
us a rhyme; and when the master’s countenance offered any encouragement,
he was entreated also to ask for half a holyday, which, at the price of some
doggrel, was sometimes obtained. You will readily believe he was a popular
poet.
The talent of composing imitative verses has become so
common in our days, that it will require some evidence to make the next
generation believe what sort of verses were received as poetry fifty years ago,
when any thing in rhyme passed current. The magazines, however, contain proof
of this; the very best of them abounding in such trash as would be rejected now
by the provincial newspapers. Whether the progress of society, which so greatly
favours the growth and development of imitative talent, is equally favourable
to the true poetical spirit, is a question which I may be led to consider
hereafter. But as I had the good fortune to grow up in an age when poets,
according to the old opinion, were born and not made, and as at the time to
which this part of my reminiscences relates, the bent of my nature had
decidedly shown itself, I may here make some
observations
upon the grounds and consequences of that opinion.
In the earliest ages certain it is, that they who
possessed that gift of speech which enabled them to clothe ready thoughts in
measured or elevated diction, were held to be inspired. False oracles were
uttered in verse, and true prophecies delivered in poetry. There was,
therefore, some reason for the opinion. A belief akin to it, and not improbably
derived from it, prevails, even now, among the ignorant; and was much more
prevalent in my childhood, when very few of the lower classes could write or
read, and when in the classes above them, those who really were ignorant, knew
that they were so. Slight of hand passed for magic in the dark ages, slight of
tongue for inspiration; and the ignorant, when they were no longer thus to be
deluded, still looked upon both as something extraordinary and wonderful.
Especially the power of arranging words in a manner altogether different from
the common manner of speech, and of disposing syllables so as to produce a
harmony which is felt by the dullest ear (a power which has now become an easy,
and therefore is every day becoming more and more a common acquirement),
appeared to them what it originally was in all poets, and always will be in
those who are truly such; and even now, though there are none who regard its
possessor with superstitious reverence, there are many who look upon him as one
who, in the constitution of his mind, is different from themselves. As no
madman ever pretended to a religious call, without finding some open-eared
listeners ready to
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believe in him and become his
disciples; so, perhaps, no one ever composed verses with facility, who had not
some to admire and applaud him in his own little circle. This was the case even
with so poor a creature as Dr. Jones. And to the
intoxication of conceit, which the honest admiration of the ignorant has
produced in half-crazed rhymers like him, it is owing that some marvellous
productions have found their way to the press. Dr. Jones,
by whom I have been led into this digression, was a doggrelist of the very
lowest kind. One other such I once met with, when I was young enough to be
heartily amused at an exhibition which, farcical as it was, would now make me
mournful. He was a poor engraver, by name
Coyte; very simple, very industrious, very poor, and completely
crazed with vanity, because he could compose off-hand, upon any subject, such
rhymes as the bellman’s used to be. Bedford’s
father used occasionally to relieve him, for he was married and could earn but
a miserable livelihood for his family. I saw him on one of his visits to
Brixton, in the year 1793, when he was between forty and fifty years of age.
His countenance and manner might have supplied
Wilkie with a worthy subject.
Mr.
Bedford (there never lived a kinder-hearted man) loved
merriment, and played him off, in which
Grosvenor and
Horace
joined, and I was not backward. We gave him subjects upon which he presently
wrote three or four sorry couplets. No creature was ever more elated with
triumph than he was at the hyperbolical commendations which he received; and
this, mingled with the genuine humility which the sense of his
condition occasioned, produced a truly comic mixture in
his feelings and gesticulations. What with pleasure, inspiration, exertion, and
warm weather (for it was in the dog-days), he perspired as profusely, though I
dare say not as fragrantly, as an elephant in love; and literally overflowed at
eyes and mouth, frothing and weeping in a salivation of happiness. I think this
poor creature published “
A
Cockney’s Rambles in the Country,” some twelve or
fourteen years ago, for such a pamphlet I saw advertised, by Joseph
William Coyte; and I sent for it at the time, but it was too
obscure to be found.
These are examples of the very humblest and meanest
rhymesters, who nevertheless felt themselves raised above their companions,
because they could rhyme. I have been acquainted with poets in every
intermediate degree between Jones and Wordsworth; and their conceit has almost
uniformly been precisely in an inverse proportion to their capacity. When this
conceit acts upon low and vulgar ignorance, it produces direct craziness, as in
the instances of which I have been speaking. In the lower ranks of middle life
I have seen it, without amounting to insanity, assume a form of such
extravagant vanity that the examples which have occurred within my own
observation, would be deemed incredible if brought forward in a farce.—Of
these in due time. There is another more curious manifestation of the same
folly, which I do not remember ever to have seen noticed; but which is well
worthy of critical observation, because it shows in its full extent, and
therefore in puris naturalibus, a
fault which is found
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in by much the greater part of modern
poetry—the use of words which have no signification where they are used,
or which, if they mean any thing, mean nonsense—the substitution of sound
for sense. I could show you passage after passage in contemporary
writers—the most popular writers, and some of them the most popular
passages in their works, which when critically, that is to say, strictly but
justly, examined, are as absolutely nonsensical as the description of a
moonlight night in
Pope’s
Homer.
Pope himself intended
that for a fine description, and did not perceive that it was as absurd as his
own “
Song by a Person of
Quality.” Now, there have been writers who have possessed the
talent of stringing together couplet after couplet in sonorous verse, without
any connection, and without any meaning, or any thing like a meaning; and yet
they have had all the enjoyment of writing poetry, have supposed that this
actually was poetry, and published it as such. I know a man who has done this,
who made me a present of his poem; yet he is very far from being a fool; on the
contrary, he is a lively pleasant companion, and his talents in conversation
are considerably above par. The most perfect specimen I ever saw of such verses
was a poem called “The Shepherd’s
Farewell,” printed in quarto, some five-and-thirty years ago.
Coleridge once had an imperfect copy
of it. I forget the author’s name; but when I was first at Lisbon, I
found out that he was a schoolmaster, and that poor Paul
Berthon had been one of his pupils. Men of very inferior power
may imitate the manner of good
writers with great success;
as, for example, the two Smiths have done; but I do not believe that any
imitative talent could produce genuine nonsense verses, like those of
“The Shepherd’s Farewell.” The
intention of writing nonsensically would appear, and betray the purport of the
writer. Pure, involuntary, unconscious nonsense is inimitable by any effort of
sense.
Such writers as these, if they were cross-examined, would
be found to imagine that they composed under the real influence of poetical
inspiration; and were Taylor the pagan
to set about heathenizing one of them, I am persuaded
that he would not find it difficult to make him believe in the Muses. In fact,
when this soul of conceit is in action, the man is fairly beside himself. An
innate self-produced inebriety possesses him; he abandons himself to it, and
while the fit lasts is as mad as a March hare. The madness is not permanent;
because such inspiration, according to received opinion, only comes on when the
rhymester is engaged in his vocation. And well it is when it shows itself in
rhyme; for the case is very different with him who has the gift of uttering
prose with the same fluency, and the same contempt of reason. He in good
earnest sets up for an inspired messenger; he has received a
call; and there are not only sects, but societies, in this country
ready to accredit him, and take him into employ, and send him forth with a
roving commission, through towns and villages, to infect others with the most
infectious of all forms of madness, disturb the peace of families, and prepare
the way for another attempt to over-
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throw the Established
Church—another struggle, which will shake these kingdoms to their centre.
Dr. Jones has led me into a long digression, upon which I
should not have entered if I had foreseen that it would have extended so far.
Another of Williams’s visitors, and an equally
popular one, was a glorious fellow, Pullen by name, who
during the age of buckskin made a fortune as a breeches-maker, in Thomas
Street. If I could paint a portrait from memory, you should have his likeness.
Alas, that I can only give it in words! and that that perfect figure should at
this hour be preserved only in my recollections! Sic
transit gloria mundi! His countenance expressed all that
could be expressed by human features, of thorough-bred vulgarity, prosperity,
pride of purse, good living, coarse humour, and boisterous good nature. He wore
a white tie-wig. His eyes were of the hue and lustre of scalded gooseberries,
or oysters in sauce. His complexion was the deepest extract of the grape; he
owed it to the Methuen treaty; my uncle,
no doubt, had seen it growing in his rides from Porto; and Heaven knows how
many pipes must have been filtered through the Pullenian system, before that
fine permanent purple could have been fixed in his cheeks. He appeared always
in buckskins of his own making, and in boots. He would laugh at his own jests
with a voice like Stentor, supposing
Stentor to have been hoarse; and then
he would clap old Williams on the back with a hand like a
shoulder of mutton for breadth and weight. You may imagine how great a man we
thought him. They had probably been boon com-
panions in
their youth, and his visits seldom failed to make the old man lay aside the
schoolmaster. He was an excellent hand at demanding half a holyday; and when he
succeeded, always demanded three cheers for his success, in which he joined
with all his might and main. If I were a believer in the Romish purgatory, I
should make no doubt that every visit that he made to that schoolroom, was
carried to the account of his good works. Some such set off he needed; for he
behaved with brutal want of feeling to a son who had offended him, and who, I
believe, would have perished for want, if it had not been for the charity of
John Morgan’s mother; an
eccentric but thoroughly good woman, and one of those people whom I shall
rejoice to meet in the next world. This I learnt from her several years
afterwards. At this time Pullen was a widower between
fifty and sixty; a hale strong-bodied man, upon whom his wine-merchant might
reckon for a considerable annuity, during many years to come. He had purchased
some lands adjacent to the Leppincott property near
Bristol, in the pleasantest part of that fine neighbourhood.
Sir Henry Leppincott was elected member for
the city, at that election in which
Burke was turned out. He died soon afterwards; his son was a
mere child; and Pullen, the glorious
Pullen, in the plenitude of his pride, and no doubt in
a new pair of buckskins, called on the widow; introduced himself as the owner
of the adjacent estate; and upon that score, without farther ceremony, proposed
marriage as an arrangement of mutual fitness. Lady
Leppincott, of course, rang the bell,
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and
ordered the servants to turn him out of the house. This is a story which would
be deemed too extravagant in a novel; and yet you would believe it without the
slightest hesitation, if you had ever seen the incomparable breeches-maker.
Mrs. Estan the actress, whom you must remember, was at
that time preparing to make her first appearance on the stage, at the Bristol
Theatre. The part she had chosen was Letitia Hardy in “The Belle’s Stratagem,” and in
that part she had to dance a minuet de le
cour, to perfect herself in which, and perhaps for the sake
of accustoming herself to figure away before an audience, she came to our
school on two or three dancing-days, and took lessons there,—a
circumstance too remarkable to be forgotten in a schoolboy’s life.
Walters, the dancing-master, was not a little proud of
his pupil. That poor man was, for three years the plague of my life, and I was
the plague of his. In some unhappy mood he prevailed on my mother to let me
learn to dance, persuading himself as well as her, that I should do credit to
his teaching. It must have been for my sins that he formed this opinion: in an
evil hour for himself and for me was it formed; he would have had much less
trouble in teaching a bear, and far better success. I do not remember that I
set out with any dislike or contempt of dancing; but the unconquerable
incapacity which it was soon evident that I possessed, produced both, and the
more he laboured to correct an incorrigible awkwardness, the more awkwardly of
course I performed. I verily believe the fiddlestick was applied as much to my
head as to the fiddle-
strings, when I was called out. But
the rascal had a worse way than that of punishing me. He would take my hands in
his, and lead me down a dance; and then the villain would apply his thumb-nail
against the flat-surface of mine, in the middle, and press it till he left the
mark there; this species of torture I suppose to have been his own invention,
and so intolerable it was that at last, whenever he had recourse to it, I
kicked his shins. Luckily for me he got into a scrape by beating a boy
unmercifully at another school, so that he was afraid to carry on this sort of
contest; and giving up at last all hope of ever making me a votary of the
graces or of the dancing Muse, he contented himself with shaking his head and
turning up his eyes in hopelessness, whenever he noticed my performance. I had
always Tom Madge for my partner; a poor fellow long since
dead, whom I remember with much kindness. He was as active as a squirrel, but
every limb seemed to be out of joint when he began to dance. We were always
placed as the last couple, and went through the work with the dogged
determination of never dancing more when we should once be delivered from the
dancing-master—a resolution which I have piously kept, even unto this
day.
Williams, who read well himself and prided himself upon
it, was one day very much offended with my reading, and asked me scornfully who
taught me to read. I answered my aunt. “Then,” said he
“give my compliments to your aunt; and tell her that my old horse,
that has been dead these twenty years, could have taught you as
well.” I delivered the
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message faithfully, to
her great indignation. It was never forgotten or forgiven, and perhaps it
accelerated the very proper resolution of removing me. My
uncle made known his intention of placing me at
Westminster. His connection with Christ Church naturally led him to prefer that
to any other school, in the hope that I should get into college, and so be
elected off to a studentship. But as I was in feeble health, and, moreover, had
been hitherto very ill taught, it was deemed advisable that I should be placed
for twelve months under a clergyman competent to prepare me for a public
school.
Before I take leave of Williams, two
or three memoranda upon the slip of paper before me, must be scored off. There
was a washing-tub in the playground, with a long towel on a reel beside it;
this tub was filled every morning for the boarders to perform their ablutions,
all in the same water, and whoever wished to wash hands or face in the course
of the day, had no other. I was the only boy who had any repugnance to dip his
hands in this pig-trough. There was a large cask near, which received the
rain-water; but there was no getting at the water, for the top was covered, and
to have taken out the spiggot would have been a punishable offence. I, however,
made a little hollow under the spiggot, to receive the drippings, just deep
enough to wet the hands, and there I used to wash my hands with clean water
when they required it. But I do not remember that any one ever followed my
example. I had acquired the sense of cleanliness and the love of it, and they
had not.
A time was remembered when there were wars of school
against school, and a great battle which had taken place in the adjoining park
between Williams’s boys and , my first master. At both schools
I heard of this, and the victory was claimed by both: for it was an old affair,
a matter of tradition, (not having been noticed in history,) long before my
generation, or any who were in the then school, but remembered as an event
second only in importance, if second, to the war of Troy.
It was fully believed in both these schools, and at
Corston, that no bastard could span his own wrist. And I have no doubt this
superstition prevailed throughout that part of England.