Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica Part 9

LETTER x.x.xIII.

Auchinleck, June 9, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--At this delightful season of the year, when everything is cheerful and gay, when the groves are all rich with leaves, the gardens with flowers, and the orchards with blossoms, one would think it almost impossible to be unhappy; yet such is my hard fate at present, that instead of relis.h.i.+ng the beautiful appearance of nature, instead of partic.i.p.ating the universal joy, I rather look upon it with aversion, as it exhibits a strong contrast to the cloudy darkness of my mind, and so gives me a more dismal view of my own situation. Fancy, capricious fancy will allow me to see nothing but shade. How strange is it to think, that I who lately abounded in bliss, should now be the slave of black melancholy! How unaccountable does it appear to the reasoning mind that this change should be produced without any visible cause. However, since I have been seized with _the pale cast of thought_, I know not how, I comfort myself, that I shall get free of it as whimsically. You must excuse this piece of serious sententiousness; for it has relieved me; and you may look upon it as much the same with coughing before one begins to sing, or deliver anything in public, in order that the voice may be as clear as possible.

The death of your kittens, my dear Erskine! affected me very much. I could wish that you would form it into a tragedy, as the story is extremely pathetic, and could not fail greatly to interest the tender pa.s.sions. If you have any doubts as to the propriety of their being three in number, I beg it of you to reflect that the immortal Shakespeare has introduced three daughters into his tragedy of King Lear, which has often drawn tears from the eyes of mult.i.tudes. The same author has likewise begun his tragedy of Macbeth with three witches; and Mr. Alexander Donaldson has resolved, that his collection of original poems by Scotch gentlemen, shall consist of three volumes, and no more.

I don't know, indeed, but your affecting tale might better suit the intention of an opera, especially when we consider the musical genius of the feline race: were a sufficient number of these animals put under the tuition of proper masters, n.o.body can tell what an astonis.h.i.+ng chorus might be produced. If this proposal shall be embraced, I make no doubt of its being the wonder of all Europe, and I remain,

Yours, as usual,

JAMES BOSWELL.

LETTER x.x.xIV.

New-Tarbat, June 14, 1762.

AND are YOU gloomy! oh James Boswell! has your flow of spirits evaporated, and left nothing but the black dregs of melancholy behind?

has the smile of cheerfulness left your countenance? and is the laugh of gaiety no more? oh woeful condition! oh wretched friend! but in this situation you are dear to me; for lately my disposition was exactly similar to yours. No conversation pleased me; no books could fix my attention; I could write no letters, and I despised my own poems. Tell me how you was affected; could you speak any? could you fix your thoughts upon anything but the dreary way you was in? and would not the sight of me have made you very miserable? I have lately had the epidemical distemper; I don't mean poverty, but that cold which they call the influenza, and which made its first appearance in London;[52]

whether it came to Scotland in the wagon, or travelled with a companion in a post-chaise, is quite uncertain.

[Footnote 52: "The time is wonderfully sickly; nothing but sore-throats, colds, and fevers." Horace Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu, April 29, 1762.--ED.]

Derrick's versifications are infamously bad; what think you of the Reviewers commending such an execrable performance? I have a fancy to write an ironical criticism upon it, and praise all the worst lines, which you shall send to Derrick, as the real sentiments of a gentleman of your acquaintance on reading his work. For want of something else to entertain you, I begin my criticism immediately.--To versify poetical prose has been found a very difficult task. Dr. Young and Mr. Langhorne, in their paraphrases upon the Bible (which Lord Bolingbroke tells us, is an excellent book) have succeeded but indifferently: I therefore took up Mr. Samuel Derrick's versifications from Fingal, with little expectation of being entertained; but let no man judge of a book till at least he reads the t.i.tle page; for lo! Mr. Samuel Derrick has adorned his with a very apt and uncommon quotation, from a good old poet called Virgil. I am much pleased with the candour so conspicuous in the short advertis.e.m.e.nt to the public, in which Mr. Derrick seems very willing to run snacks in reputation with Mr. MacPherson, which will greatly rejoice that gentleman, who cannot justly boast of so extensive a fame as Mr.

Samuel Derrick. The dedication is very elegant, though, I am apt to think, the author has neither praised Lord Pomfret nor himself enough; two worthy people, who, in my opinion, deserve it. But at last, we come to the poems themselves: and here I might indulge myself in warm and indiscriminate applause; but let it be my ambition to trace Mr. Derrick step by step through his wonderful work; let me pry both into the kitchen and dining-room of his genius, to use the comparison of the great Mr. Boyle. The first lines, or the exordium of the battle of Lora, are calmly sublime, and refined with simplicity. In the eighth line, our author gives the epithet of posting to the wind, which is very beautiful: however, to make it natural, it ought to be applied, in poetical justice, to that wind which wafts a packet-boat. I had almost forgot, the sixth line says, "the voice of songs, a tuneful voice I hear." Now, I should be glad to know, whether these same songs be a man or a woman. Lines 23 and 24.

"In secret round they glanc'd their kindled eyes, Their indignation spoke in bursting sighs."

It seems to me improbable, that a pair of kindled eyes could glance in secret; and I cannot think that sighs are the language of indignation.

Lines 57, 58, 59.

"So on the settled sea blue mists arise, In vapory volumes darkening to the skies, They glitter in the sun."

These mists that glitter and are dark at the same time, are very extraordinary, and the contrast is lovely and new. Line 67th begins--"His post is terror."--This is a post, that, I believe, none of our members of Parliament would accept. Lines 175, 176,

"An hundred steeds he gives that own the rein, Never a swifter race devour'd the plain."

Devoured the plain! if this is not sublime, then am I no critic; however, its lucky for the landed interest, that the breed of those horses is lost; they might do very well, I confess, in the Highlands of Scotland; but a dozen of them turned loose near Salisbury would be inconceivably hurtful. I'm tired of this stuff; if you think it worth the while you may end it and send it to Derrick; but let your part be better than mine, or it won't do. "Grief for thy loss drank all my vitals dry"--I laughed heartily at that line.

In this letter I have bestowed my dulness[53] freely upon you; you have had my wit, and you must take my stupidity into the bargain; as when we go to the market, we purchase bones as well as beef; and when we marry an heiress, we are obliged to take the woman as well as the money; and when we buy Donaldson's collection, we pay as dear for the poems of Mr.

Lauchlan MacPherson, as we do for those written by the incomparable Captain Andrew.

[Footnote 53: "If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your wors.h.i.+p."--"Much Ado about Nothing." Act iii., scene 5.--ED.]

You are in Edinburgh, I imagine, by this time, if the information of Mr.

Alexander Donaldson may be depended upon. I shall be in town one night soon on my way to Kelly, for the H----s of D---- threaten an invasion upon this peaceful abode. Farewell.

Yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

LETTER x.x.xV.

Edinburgh, June 19, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--You have upon many occasions made rather too free with my person, upon which I have often told you that I princ.i.p.ally value myself. I feel a strong inclination to retaliate. I have great opportunity, and I will not resist it. Your figure, Erskine, is amazingly uncouth. The length of your body bears no manner of proportion to its breadth, and far less does its breadth bear to its length. If we consider you one way, you are the tallest, and if we consider you another way, you are the thickest man alive. The crookedness of your back is terrible; but it is nothing in comparison of the frightful distortions of your countenance. What monsters have you been the cause of bringing into the world! not only the wives of sergeants and corporals of the 71st regiment, but the unhappy women in every town where you was quartered, by looking at you have conceived in horror.

Natural defects should be spared; but I must not omit the large holes in your ears, and the deep marks of the iron on your hands. I hope you will allow these to be artificial. Nature nails no man's ears to the pillory. Nature burns no man in the hand. As I have a very sincere friends.h.i.+p for you, I cannot help giving you my best advice with regard to your future schemes of life. I would beseech you to lay aside all your chimerical projects, which have made you so absurd. You know very well, when you went upon the stage at Kingston in Jamaica, how shamefully you exposed yourself, and what disgrace and vexation you brought upon all your friends. You must remember what sort of treatment you met with, when you went and offered yourself to be one of the fathers of the inquisition at Macerata, in the room of Mr. Archibald Bower;[54] a project which could enter into the head of no man who was not utterly dest.i.tute of common sense.

[Footnote 54: The author of the "History of the Popes." He had been a professor in the University of Macerata, and a Counsellor of the Inquisition. He became a Protestant, and died in England.--ED.]

You tell me, that your intention at present is, to take orders in the Church of England; and you hope I will approve of your plan: but I must tell you honestly, that this is a most ridiculous hair-brained conceit.

Before you can be qualified for the smallest living, you must study nine years at Oxford; you must eat at a moderate computation, threescore of fat beeves, and upwards of two hundred sheep; you must consume a thousand stone of bread, and swallow ninety hogsheads of porter. You flatter yourself with being highly promoted, because you are an Earl's brother, and a man of genius. But, my dear friend, I beg it of you to consider, how little these advantages have already availed you. The army was as good a scene for you to rise in as the church can be; and yet you are only a lieutenant in a very young regiment.

I seriously think, that your most rational scheme should be, to turn inn-keeper upon some of the great roads: you might have an elegant sign painted of Apollo and the Muses, and entertainment for men and horses, by THE HONOURABLE ANDREW ERSKINE, would be something very unusual, and could not fail to bring numbers of people to your house. You would by this means have a life of most pleasing indolence, and would never want a variety of company, as you would constantly dine and sup with your guests. Men of fas.h.i.+on would be glad to receive you as their equal; and men of no fas.h.i.+on would be proud to sit at table with one who had any pretension to n.o.bility. I hope the honest concern which I shew for your real welfare, will convince you how much I am,

My dear Sir,

Your most affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

LETTER x.x.xVI.

Kelly, July 5, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--Vanity has, in all former ages, been reckoned the characteristic of poets; in our time, I think they are more particularly distinguished by modesty; I have carefully perused their works, and I have never once found them throwing out either thought, sentiment, or reflection of their own; convincing proof of their humility; they seem all to allow that the ancients, and some few of the earlier moderns, were much better writers than themselves; therefore they beg, borrow, and steal from them, without the smallest mercy or hesitation. In some things, however, they are quite original; their margins and prices are larger than any ever known before; and they advertise their pieces much oftener in the newspapers than any of their predecessors. You compliment me highly on my elegies, and tell me that I have even dared to be original now and then; and you ask me very seriously, how I come to be so well acquainted with the tender pa.s.sion of love.--Ah, Sir, how deceitful are appearances! under a forbidding aspect and uncouth form, I conceal the soul of an Oroondates, a soul that thrills with the most sensible emotions at the sight of beauty. Love easily finds access where the mind is naturally inclined to melancholy; we foster the pleasing delusion, it grows up with our frame, and becomes a part of our being; long have I laboured under the influence of that pa.s.sion; long vented my grief in unavailing sighs. Besides, your thin meagre man is always the most violent lover; a thousand delusions enter his paper-skull, which the man of guts never dreams of. In vain does Cupid shoot his arrows at the plump existence, who is entrenched in a solid wall of fat: they are buried like shrimps in melted b.u.t.ter; as eggs are preserved by mutton-tallow, from rottenness and putrefaction, so he, by his grease, is preserved from love. Pleased with his pipe, he sits and smokes in his elbow-chair; totally unknown to him is the ardent pa.s.sion that actuates the sentimental soul: alas! unhappy man! he never indulged in the pleasing reverie which inspires the spindle-shanked lover, as he strays through nodding forest by gliding stream; if he marries, he chooses a companion fat as himself; they lie together, and most musical is their snore, they melt like two pounds of b.u.t.ter in one plate in a suns.h.i.+ny-day.

Pray, Boswell, remember me kindly to honest Johnston. Let me know if his trees are growing well, at his paternal estate of Grange; if he is as fond of Melvil's Memoirs[55] as he used to be; and if he continues to stretch himself in the sun upon the mountains near Edinburgh.

I ever am,

Yours most affectionately,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

[Footnote 55: Sir James Melville. Born 1535, died 1607. His "Memoirs"

were published in 1683.--ED.]

LETTER x.x.xVII.