DEAR SIR, TO THE REV. MR. COLE. 1 Strawberry Hill, March 9, 1765. I HAD time to write but a short note with the Castle of Otranto, as your messenger called on me at four o'clock, as I was going to dine abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. You will even have found some traits to put you in mind of this place. When you read of the picture quitting its panel, did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland, all in white, in my gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what was the origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the beginning of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle, (a very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story,) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it—add, that I was very glad to think of anything, rather than politics. In short, I Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto. London: printed for Thomas Lownds, in Fleet Street, 1765.”—E. "As, in his model of a Gothic modern mansion, Mr. Walpole had studiously endeavoured to fit to the purposes of modern convenience or luxury the rich, varied, and complicated tracery and carving of the ancient cathedral, so, in the Castle of Otranto, it was his object to unite the marvellous turn of incident and imposing tone of chivalry exhibited in the ancient romance, with that accurate display of human character and contrast of feelings and passions, which is, or ought to be, delineated in the modern novel." Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 307.-E. 2 "The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint Of your own footsteps- voices from the urn Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern, As if to ask how you can dare to keep A vigil there, where all but death should sleep." Don Juan, c. xvi. st. 18.-E. was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening, I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour after one in the morning, when my hand and fingers were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness; but if I have amused you, by retracing with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content, and give you leave to think me as idle as you please. You are, as you have long been to me, exceedingly kind, and I should, with great satisfaction, embrace your offer of visiting the solitude of Blechely, though my cold is in a manner gone, and my cough quite, if I was at liberty: but as I am preparing for my fresh journey, and have forty businesses upon my hands, and can only now and then purloin a day, or half a day, to come hither. You know I am not cordially disposed to your French journey, which is much more serious, as it is to be much more lasting. However, though I may suffer by your absence, I would not dissuade what may suit your inclination and circumstances. One thing, however, has struck me, which I must mention, though it would depend on a circumstance, that would give me the most real concern. It was suggested to me by that real fondness I have for your MSS. for your kindness about which I feel the utmost gratitude. You would not, I think, leave them behind you: and are you aware of the danger you would run, if you settled entirely in France? Do you know that the King of France is heir to all strangers who die in his dominions, by what they call the Droit d'Aubaine? Sometimes by great interest and favour, persons have obtained a remission of this right in their lifetime and yet that, even that, has not secured their effects from being embezzled. Old Lady Sandwich1 had obtained this remission, and yet, though she left everything to the present lord, her grandson, a man for whose rank one 'Elizabeth, second daughter of John Wilmot Earl of Rochester, and sister and co-heiress of Charles third Earl, and widow of Edward Montagu third Earl of Sandwich, who died 20th October 1729.-E. should have thought they would have had regard, the King's officers forced themselves into her house, after her death, and plundered. You see, if you go, I shall expect to have your MSS. deposited with me. Seriously, you must leave them in safe custody behind you. Lord Essex's trial is printed with the State Trials. In return for your obliging offer, I can acquaint you with a delightful publication of this winter, A Collection of Old Ballads and Poetry, in three volumes, many from Pepys's Collection at Cambridge.1 There were three such published between thirty and forty years ago, but very carelessly, and wanting many in this set: indeed, there were others, of a looser sort, which the present editor, who is a clergyman, thought it decent to omit. When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to go a step out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at Old Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by one, for two, three, five, or six shillings a-piece from different farm-houses in Herefordshire. I have long envied and coveted them. Edited by the Rev. Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic ballads, songs, and pieces of early poets, under the title of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we cannot regret that the execution of it devolved upon Dr. Percy alone; of whose labours, as an editor, it might be said, Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit." Sir W. Scott; Prose Works, vol. xvii. p. 120.-E. 2 The work was entitled "A Collection of Old Ballads, corrected from the best and most ancient copies extant, with Introductions, historical, critical, or humorous." Sir Walter Scott observes, that the editor was an enthusiast in the cause of old poetry, and selected his matter without much regard to decency, as will appear from the following singular preface to one or two indelicate pieces of humour:-" One of the greatest complaints made by the ladies against the first volume of our collection, and, indeed, the only one which has reached my ears, is the want of merry songs. I believe I may give a pretty good guess at what they call mirth in such pieces as these, and shall endeavour to satisfy them." Prose Works, vol. xvii. p. 122.-E. There may be such in poor cottages, in so neighbouring a county as Cheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase or carriage; and should be glad even of a couple such for my cloister here. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard in any village, think of me, and step into the first cottage you see-but don't take further trouble than that. I long to know what your bundle of manuscripts from Cheshire contains. My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that belongs to them. Madame Danois, in the Fairy Tales, used to tapestry them with jonquils; but as that furniture will not last above a fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback. I have decided that the outside shall be of treillage, which, however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth:1 but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don't know, what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories, and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture. But, good night! you see how one gossips, when one is alone, and at quiet on one's own dunghill!-Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such trifling as Ambition never is happy enough to know! Ambition orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two over a bower. Yours ever. The Bower of Rosamond is said, or rather fabled, to have been a retreat built at Woodstock by Henry II. for the safe residence of his mistress, Rosamond Clifford; the approaches of which were so intricate, that it could not be entered without the guidance of a thread, which the King always kept in his own possession. His Queen, Eleanor, having, however, gained possession of the thread, obtained access to, and speedily destroyed her fair rival.-E. TO MONSIEUR ELIE DE BEAUMONT.1 Strawberry Hill, March 18, 1765. SIR, WHEN I had the honour of seeing you here, I believe I told you that I had written a novel, in which I was flattered to find that I had touched an effusion of the heart in a manner similar to a passage in the charming letters of the Marquis de Roselle. I have since that time published my little story, but was so diffident of its merit, that I gave it as a translation from the Italian. Still I should not have ventured to offer it to so great a mistress of the passions as Madame de Beaumont, if the approbation of London, that is, of a country to which she and you, Sir, are so good as to be partial, had not encouraged me to send it to you. After I have talked of the passions, and the natural effusions of the heart, how will you be surprised to find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures! How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But you must remember, Sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable laws. All that Aristotle or his superior commentators, your authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like 1 M. Elie de Beaumont was admitted an advocate at the French bar in 1762. The weakness of his voice militated against his success as a pleader, but the beauty and eloquence with which he drew up his Mémoires, and especially the one in favour of the unfortunate Calas family, gained him great reputation. He was born in 1732, and died in 1786. E. 2 A French epistolary novel written by Madame Elie de Beaumont. She also wrote the third part of "Anecdotes de la Cour et du Règne de Edouard II." She was born at Caen in 1729, and died in 1783.-E. |