CHAPTER XVI.

DEPARTMENTS OF EXPRESSION - EPISTLE.

Nothing gives so just an idea of an age as genuine letters; nay, history waits for its last seal from them.-HORACE WALPOLE.

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EXT to the essay, which we are to consider presently, the letter is the most agreeable as well as the most instructive form of the minor literature. On the one hand, it is the most familiar species of writing, and approaches the nearest to ordinary conversation; on the other, its written disclosures help us to a knowledge of individual character and of the movements of mankind, affording interesting pictures of the times, and materials for literary and political history. Of no slight historical value, for instance, are the earliest English specimens, the correspondence of the Paston family during the era of the wars of York and Lancaster. Treating, in plain and artless language, of private affairs, they explain and illuminate incidentally much of the national, domestic, and social condition and the course of public events.

As the English became a literary people, familiar letters served as a vehicle for the feelings, opinions, and reflections of our authors. Bishop Hall, in a dedication to the son of James I, claims the honor of introducing 'this new fashion of discourse by epistles, new to our language, usual to others; and as novelty is never without plea of use, more free, more familiar.' James Howell gave us his own times, as well as his own history, in 'Familiar letters, domestic and foreign, historical, political, and philosophical, upon emergent occasions.' Perhaps our most famous

contribution of letters is that of Pope, who, though ever mindful of the public regard, reveals to us his personal qualities—his refinement, his delicacy of judgment, his critical taste, his wit, his generous sensibility, his conceit, his affectation, his passion for intrigue and stratagem. When the letter-writer casts his eye toward the public, while appearing to write only for his friends, the product, according to the well-known phrase, is apt to smell too much of the lamp. The censure of artificiality falls less heavily on Swift; very lightly, or not at all, on Gray, Cowper, and Burns. I once thought Swift's letters,' said Cowper, 'the best that could be written, but I like Gray's better. His humor, or his wit, or whatever it is to be called, is never ill-natured or offensive, and yet, I think, equally poignant with the Dean's.' Perhaps no long collection of letters can be continuously read with the same sustained interest as Cowper's own. They are so manifestly sincere and unstudied that there could be no need of his assurance: 'Now upon the faith of a poor creature, I have said all that I have said without the least intention to say one word of it when I began; but it is thus with my thoughts: when you shake a crab-tree, the fruit falls: good for nothing indeed when you have got it, but still the best that is to be expected of a crab-tree.' The slack correspondent who complains that he has nothing to write about, should learn from Cowper how much may be made out of how little. No one has told more completely, in these fragments of the human mind,' the story of his life, including its deplorable frailties, than Robert Burns, whose letters possess an imperishable charm. The following, to an old Irvine friend, may not be out of place here:

EDINBURGH, 30th Dec., 1787.

MY DEAR SIR,-I have met with few things in life which have given me more pleasure than Fortune's kindness to you since those days in which we met in the vale of misery; as I can honestly say

that I never knew a man who more truly deserved it, or to whom my heart more truly wished it. I have been much indebted since that time to your story and sentiments, for steeling my mind against evils, of which I have had a pretty decent share. My Will-o'-wisp fate you know: do you recollect a Sunday we spent together in Eglinton Woods? You told me, on my repeating some verses to you, that you wondered I could resist the temptation of sending verses of such merit to a magazine. It was from this remark I derived that idea of my own pieces which encouraged me to endeavour at the character of a poet. I am happy to hear that you will be two or three months at home. As soon as a bruised limb will permit me, I shall return to Ayrshire, and we shall meet; 'and faith I hope we'll not sit dumb, nor yet cast out!'

I have much to tell you 'of men, their manners, and their ways'; perhaps a little of the other sex. Apropos, I beg to be remembered to Mrs. Brown. There, I doubt not, my dear friend, but you have found substantial happiness. I expect to find you something of an altered, but not a different, man: the wild, bold, generous young fellow composed into the steady, affectionate husband, and the fond, careful parent. For me, I am just the same Will-o'-wisp being I used to be. About the first and fourth quarters of the moon, I generally set in for the trade wind of wisdom; but about the full and change, I am the luckless victim of mad tornadoes, which blow me into chaos. Almighty love still reigns and revels in my bosom; and I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow, who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of a savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. You may guess of her wit by the following verses, which she has sent me the other day.

My best compliments to our friend Allan. Adieu!

R. B.

The letters of Lord Byron evince, even better than his poems, his command of vigorous English, while they also display his perplexing mixture of good and evil, his glory and his condemnation. The following is characteristic:

NEWSTEAD ABBEY, Sept. 20, 1814.

Here's to her who long

Hath waked the poet's sigh!

The girl who gave to song

What gold could never buy.

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My dear Moore, I am going to be married — that is, I am accepted, and one usually hopes the rest will follow. My mother of the Gracchi (that are to be) you think too straight-laced for me, although the paragon of only children, and invested with 'golden opinions of all sorts of men,' and full of most blessed conditions' as Desdemona herself. Miss Milbanke is the lady, and I have her father's invitation to proceed there in my elect capacity,- which, however, I cannot do till I have settled some business in London, and got a blue coat.

She is said to be an heiress, but of that I really know nothing certainly, and shall not inquire. But I do know that she has talents and excellent qualities, and you will not deny her judgment, after having refused six suitors and taken me. Now, if you have anything to say against this, pray do: my mind's made up, positively fixed, determined, and therefore I will listen to reason, because now it can do no harm. Things may occur to break it off, but I will hope not. In the meantime, I tell you (a secret, by-theby, at least, till I know she wishes it to be public) that I have proposed and am accepted. You need not be in a hurry to wish me joy, for we mayn't be married for months. I am going to town tomorrow; but expect to be here, on my way there, within a fortnight.

If this had not happened, I should have gone to Italy. In my way down, perhaps, you will meet me at Nottingham, and come over with me here. I need not say that nothing will give me greater pleasure. I must, of course, reform thoroughly; and, seriously, if I can contribute to her happiness, I shall secure my own. She is so good a person, that-that-in short, I wish I was a better.

Ever, etc.

Contemporary with Pope, the centre of an admiring circle, the glass of fashion and the mould of form,' lived the celebrated Miss Pierrepont, better known under the name and title of Lady Mary Wortley Montague; a woman of cultivated intellect, good-natured wit, lively in

description, clever and amusing in gossip, able when in earnest, to throw maxims of common sense and worldly wisdom into plain, forceful words; yet, withal, too masculine, writing out of the clearness of the head rather than the abundance of the heart.

Walpole's letters — three thousand or more in number - would be worth more if two-thirds of them had been destroyed. We can only mention the full, clear, kindly Southey, the genial Sir Walter Scott, the grotesquely humorous Charles Lamb, the droll Sidney Smith, the pen of Hood, dipped alike 'in the springs of laughter and the sources of tears.' The list of these might be supplemented by the names of many others, lately passed away, or living, whose correspondence, priceless to its direct recipients, would find its value justly estimated by posterity.

Of course, a letter should be properly dated, addressed, signed, and superscribed; should be legible, grammatical, and perspicuous; properly keyed, and correct, but unaffected. Let a clear head dictate the promptings of a free heart. When most careless and confidential, remember the sentiments of Landor: 'I think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or a silly note to you, as one in a bad hand or on coarse paper. Familiarity ought to have a worse name, if it relaxes in its attentiveness to please.' Howell's conception of the epistolary style is

excellent:

It was a quaint difference the ancients did put betwixt a letter and an oration; that the one should be attired like a woman, the other like a man. The latter of the two is allowed large side-robes, as long periods, parentheses, similes, examples, and other parts of rhetorical flourishes: but a letter or epistle should be short-coated and closely crouched; a hungerskin becomes a letter more handsomely than a gown. Indeed we should write as we speak, and that is a true and familiar letter which expresseth one's mind, as if he were discoursing with the party to whom he writes in succinct and