LETTER XXV. MR. GRAY TO MR. MASON. Cambridge, May, 1757. You are so forgetful of me that I should not forgive it, but that I suppose Caractacus may be the better for it. Yet I hear nothing from him neither, in spite of his promises: there is no faith in man, no not in a Welchman; and yet Mr. Parry* has been here, and scratched out such ravishing blind harmony, such tunes of a thousand years old, with names enough to choak you, as have set all this learned body a dancing, and inspired them with due reverence for my old Bard, his countryman, whenever he shall appear. Mr. Parry, you must know, has put my Ode in motion again, and has brought it at last to a conclusion. 'Tis to him, therefore, that you owe the treat which I send you inclosed; namely, the breast and merry-thought, and rump too of the chicken which I have been chewing so long, that I would give the world for neck-beef or cow-heel. You will observe, in the beginning of this thing, some alterations of a few words, partly for improvement, and partly to avoid repetitions of like words and rhymes; yet I have not got rid of them all; the six last lines of the fifth stanza are new, tell me whether they will do. I am well aware of many weakly things towards the conclusion, * A capital performer on the Welch harp, and who was either born blind, or had been so from his infancy. but I hope the end itself will do; give me your full and true opinion, and that not upon deliberation, but forthwith. Mr. Hurd himself allows that Lyon port is not too bold for Queen Elizabeth. I have got the old Scotch Ballad on which Douglas* was founded; it is divine, and as long as from hence to Aston. Have you never seen it? Aristotle's best rules are observed in it, in a manner that shews the author had never read Aristotle. It begins in the fifth act of the play: you may read it two-thirds through without guessing what it is about; and yet, when you come to the end, it is impossible not to understand the whole story. I send you the two first stanzas. LETTER XXVI. MR. GRAY TO MR. HURD.† Stoke, August 25, 1757. I Do not know why you should thank me for what you had a right and title to ; but attribute it to the excess of your politeness; and the more so, because almost no one else has made me * He had a high opinion of this first drama of Mr. Home. In a letter to another friend, dated August 10, this year, he says, "I am greatly struck with the tragedy of Douglas, though it has infinite faults: the author seems to me to have retrieved the true language of the stage, which had been lost for these hundred years; and there is one scene (between Matilda and the old peasant) so masterly, that it strikes me blind to all the defects in the world." The Ballad, which he here applauds, is to be found in Mr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. III. p. 89, a work published after the date of this letter. + Now Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry. A present of his two Pindaric odes just then published. the same compliment. As your acquaintance in the University (you say) do me the honour to admire, it would be ungenerous in me not to give them notice, that they are doing a very unfashionable thing; for all people of condition are agreed not to admire, nor even to understand. One very great man, writing to an acquaintance of his and mine, says that he had read them seven or eight times; and that now, when he next sees him, he shall not have above thirty questions to ask. Another (a peer) believes that the last stanza of the second ode relates to King Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell. Even my friends tell me they do not succeed, and write me moving topics of consolation on that head. In short, I have heard of nobody but an actor and a doctor of divinity that profess their esteem for them.* Oh yes, a lady of quality, (a friend of Mason's) who is a great reader. She knew there was a compliment to Dryden, but never suspected there was any thing said about Shakespear or Milton, till it was explained to her; and wishes that there had been titles prefixed to tell what they were about. From this mention of Mason's name you may think, perhaps, we are great correspondents. No * This was written August 25, 1757. An extract from a letter of Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton, dated October 7, 1757, mentions another admirer, whom he knew how to value. "Dr. Warburton is come to town, and I am told likes them extremely; he says the world never passed so just an opinion upon any thing as upon them; for that in other things they have affected to like or dislike: whereas here they own they do not understand, which he looks upon to be very true; but yet thinks they understand them as well as Milton or Shakespear, whom they are obliged, by fashion, to admire. Mr. Garrick's complimentary verses to me you have seen; I am told they were printed in the Chronicle of last Saturday. The Critical Review is in raptures; but mistakes the Æolian lyre for the harp of Æolus, and on this pleasant error founds both a compliment and a criticism. This is all I have heard that signifies any thing," Ꭱ such thing; I have not heard from him these two months. I will be sure to scold in my own name, as well as in yours. I rejoice to hear you are so ripe for the press, and so voluminous; not for my own sake only, whom you flatter with the hopes of seeing your labours, both public and private, but for yours too; for to be employed is to be happy. This principle of mine (and I am convinced of its truth) has, as usual, no influence on my practice. I am alone, and ennuyé to the last degree, yet do nothing. Indeed I have one excuse; my health (which you have so kindly inquired after) is not extraordinary, ever since I came hither. It is no great malady, but several little ones, that seem brewing no good to me. It will be a particular pleasure to me to hear whether Content dwells in Leicestershire, and how she entertains herself there. Only do not be too happy, nor forget entirely the quiet ugliness of Cambridge. LETTER XXVII. MR. GRAY TO MR. MASON. Stoke, Sept. 28, 1757. I HAVE (as I desired Mr. Stonhewer to tell you) read over Caractacus twice, not with pleasure only, but with emotion. You may say what you will; but the contrivance, the manners, the interests, the passions, and the expression, go beyond the dramatic part* of your Elfrida, many * In the manuscript now before him, Mr. Gray had only the first ode, the others were not then written; and, although the dramatic part was brought to many leagues. I even say (though you will think me a bad judge of this) that the world will like it better. I am struck with the chorus, who are not there merely to sing and dance, but bear throughout a principal part in the action; and have (beside the costume, which is excellent) as much a character of their own, as any other person. I am charmed with their priestly pride and obstinacy, when, after all is lost, they resolve to confront the Roman general, and spit in his face. But now I am going to tell you what touches me most from the beginning. The first opening is greatly improved: the curiosity of Didius is now a very natural reason for dwelling on each particular of the scene before him; nor is the description at all too long. I am glad to find the two young men are Cartismandua's sons. They interest me. far more. I love people of condition. They were men before that nobody knew: one could not make them a bow if one had met them at a public place. I always admired that interruption of the druids to Evelina, Peace, virgin, peace, &c. and chiefly the abstract idea personified (to use the words of a critic) at the end of it. That of Caractacus, Would save my queen, &c. and still more that, I know it, reverend a conclusion, yet it was afterwards in many places altered. He was mistaken with regard to the opinion the world would have about it. That world, which usually loves to be led in such matters, rather than form an opinion for itself, was taught a different sentiment; and one of its leaders went so far as to declare, that he never knew a second work fall so much below a first from the same hand. To oppose Mr. Gray's judgment to his, I must own gives me some satisfaction; and to enjoy it I am willing to risk that imputation of vanity, which may probably fall to my share for having published this letter. I must add, however, that some of my friends advised it for the sake of the more general criticisms which they thought too valuable to be suppressed. |