An Epistle to Archdeacon Nares Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature; from R. Polwhele, an honorary associate: written at Newlyn-Vicarage, near Truro; on the fourteenth of May, 1824 |
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 | An Epistle to Archdeacon Nares |  |
An Epistle to Archdeacon Nares.
I raise my voice to thee, ingenuous Nares!—
Far off, as if alike thine ear to reach
From Hecla's ashes, or Cornubia's beach!
Aye—tost beyond the limits of the world!
Remote from every Muse's genial smile,
Buried amidst the billows was our Isle!—
Such Britain was, two thousand years ago!
But is not Cornwall now, what Britain was?
In sooth, the dark Bolerium—(so to me
It seems) is half-abandon'd to the sea!
Rapt into song, from creek, or carne or clift,
To the sad echo of the rock scarce rings
One weak note, tremulous, from the dripping strings;
Whilst gay Augusta bids the numbers rise
That with responsive bosoms symphonize;
And her heaven opens in a wider arch!
These vales that sicken to polluted rills,
Each Naïd as the poisoning mineral scares,
And sigh thro' chasmy dells the summer-airs—
Here, where, along the horizon's lurid verge,
Whitens with restless foam the Atlantic surge;
Say, shall the Muse her madrigals send forth—
Her dulcet strains, to calm the blustering North?
Bends in soft whispers o'er thy gentler scene,
But mild on grove and meadow melts in showers,
Here Eurus sails around, and, wild and harsh,
Sweeps the pale upland and the sedgy marsh:
The broom, the fainting heathflowers floods o'erwhelm;
The scath'd oak whistles to the stunted elm!
Yes! the sod smokes!—the rain descends in sheets!
Here, flash'd the lightnings—there, a sunblaze fleets!
I see yon mill the sudden rays refract—
Flares, like a torch, its wintry cataract!
The huge clouds into fragments break! And, hark!
It is the sea-gull's dirge!—The quivering lark
Is mute. The martin, that had skimm'd, aloof,
The unpeopled air, distrusts the friendless roof,
The dun cold tenour of the untinted eve.
Give fancy to fling back the folds of time—
The massy Logan-stone, to hazel-rod
Trembling; tho' it might seem by demigod
Immoveable—the shaggy black Carnedde
That summons up the visionary dead!
Uncurtain'd rise the Merlins of romance—
Valour's plumed helm, and beauty's witching glance!
Of waters, hurried to our shelvy shore,
With drowning seamen and their struggling cries
May feast poetic ears—poetic eyes!
The crowd, tho' as Æolian breathings sweet!—
The music, where is no melodious ear—
The plaintive ditty, which provokes a sneer?
From Carnbre's cromlech to Brownwilley's height,
And, as I warbled once in boyish strain,
Invoke the genii of the carnes again!
And heave, unanswer'd, sigh succeeding sigh—
The sea-scoop'd caverns, fit for moody minds
To chaunt, unheard in, to the waves and winds!
The umbrageous forest and the purple vale—
The beech, whose silky shadow breathes repose,
As in full pride its summer foliage flows—
Rich in its floral dress, the extensive lawn;
And, far within its cradling wood, withdrawn,
Cool from a mossy bank the fountain-stream,
And light fawns frisking round its amber gleam:
—To greet, where rosy-wreath'd the Graces dance
Link'd with the Loves, thy Lichfield's elegance:
Where in Cathedral-state thy towers aspire.
To brighter prospects points the enamour'd Muse:
And of her classic train to science won,
In thee Augusta courts her favourite son,
Thy wit applauds, good-humour'd, sparkling, chaste,
And bows, respectful, to thy critic taste.
O London! Britain's glory, Britain's shame!
To seek, thro' storm, the halcyon breath of heaven!
And sure, 'tis heaven, where wit to virtue lends
Its lamp, and liberal converse lights up friends;
And learning opes to emulative youth
The tomes of ancient honour, candour, truth,
And knowlege that not dazzles but endears,
The prop, the solace of declining years!
The murmurs and the tramp of multitudes;
Tho', in the eternal tide, the alert, the grave,
Riches and rags roll on, wave urging wave,
Stunn'd by the dizzy whirl—the din of wheels,
And, mingle amidst crashes, screams and jars,
Dandies and tilburies, parasols and cars;
Tho' feverish revelry usurps the night,
And ball-room brilliance mocks the morning-light;—
Say, is not Europe sedulous to share
Treasures, uncounted treasures, glittering there?
And shall we not press on, thro' humming streets,
And cull, discreetly cull, “selectest sweets”?
Say, do we view that universal mart—
That central spot of science and of art,
Those high-bred circles, fashion's prime resort,
All the fine effluence of a polisht court,
Triumphal banners and barbaric spoils
Hath shed its animating ray, once more
In splendour to eclipse an Azincourt,—
Now pleased to give, in this domestic calm,
To letter'd worth its purer, nobler palm;—
(There, if the Muse her faultless forms dispense,
And modern grace meet old magnificence);—
—Without the intenser thought, that spurns controul
From every vulgar object, and the soul
From gross—from mean mortality abstracts,
Despising clamours, clarions, routs or racks,
Or bids it smile on all the world beside,
And to itself return with conscious pride?
Behold, in each pursuit, keen appetite—
In every aspiration daring thought;
Each work still nearer to perfection brought;
A lustrous finish in the Historic line,
In fancy the Promethean spark divine.
Whilst wit—while talents little of a piece,
And studiousness and skill, and Taste correct,
The pliant soul, the strong rough Intellect,
Pertness amid sterility of brain,
And Fancy of its crude conceptions vain,
Light airiness, a mind reserv'd and close,
Invention quick, and efforts operose,
The Passion, that betrays abundant bile,
The habitual simper, and the specious smile,
And envy, to destroy a rival's fame
That shoots its arrows with insidious aim,
And Ridicule that leers and laughter flings,
Arm'd at all points with sly satiric stings—
While such, with principles to effervesce,
To fume or flame, would vainly coalesce—
Whilst, feeble from disease or fast decay,
They fret and vapour out their poor short day;—
'Tis yours, who rear on adamantine base
The column'd strength of grandeur and of grace,
In regal goodness bless the auspicious beams;—
'Tis yours, by no low partial biass bent,
To give free scope to high-soul'd sentiment;
Dejected merit to its place to raise,
And cheer young genius in its rude essays,—
As sweet esteem excites its trembling fires,
And the head sanctions what the heart inspires.
If selfishness in social union sink;
If all tend equal to the common weal;
And Virtue to the compact fix her seal;
Their silken bands with flowers if Pleasure twine;—
Precarious is their life—a progeny
Tho' fair in promise, only born to die
Where no kind Patron rivets every tie—
Fraternal spirits that flutter and expire,
Where fed—where shelter'd by no fostering Sire.
“The feast of reason, and the flow of soul”—
Such, whilst thy genius, Pope! transcendent shone,
Such, while the world of wit was all thine own!
But genius fades, an evanescent flame;
And wit must perish with our mortal frame!
The rich—the titled—all revered his powers!
Then kindred talents, in collision blazed;
And candour censur'd, admiration prais'd!
'Tis past! That loftier tone of life is fled—
And all lie number'd with the silent Dead;—
Save a choice few, who, hovering yet below,
On friendship lost a tear of love bestow!—
Perhaps, “with many a feeling too refined,”
The haunts of cordial joy would fain explore,
And mourn the shadow of those haunts no more;
Pursue their phantom thro' the trophied gloom,
And chase a shivering glimpse from tomb to tomb!
Of Princes, can give back to torpid age
Its buoyant lightness and its brisker blood,
Or brace, with nerves anew, decrepitude;
The morning freshness of the mental bloom,
Not for a little moment, sceptred sway
Can rescue genius “snatched too soon away;”—
'Tis yours, conspicuous above all, to trace
Perennial Truth, in race that follows race,
To welcome those who “build the genuine rhyme,”
Thro' fame's broad vista, fair in future time!
And when, in many a harmonist, the fire
Of Inspiration shall have waked the lyre,
When he whose pencil drew “Remorse” so well,
In tragic painting shall himself excell;
When darker ages, from the Historian bright,
Like “golden Leo's,” shall spring forth to light,
To former credit antiquarian lore;
Another Coleridge shall his Albion charm,
In fancy fertile, in affection warm;
Again Mathias win the critic's prize,
And other Turners—other Roscoes rise.
We can discern, at most, with aching eye,
An image indistinct of Time gone by!—
'Tis but the same, less lovely to the sight,
The Past reflected in a fainter light!
How pleasant to recal our Classic day;
To court, once, once again, the Aonian maids
O'ercanopied in Academus' shades;
To bound in transport to the brightening view—
To bound in transport, as when life was new!
O thou, of Academus' sons the first—
Thou, to whose care we see the willing Nine
In recent state their edifice resign —
With kindling eye, to Wolsey's pictur'd hall,
And bade the meanest of her votaries join
In cloystral shade his orisons with thine,
And speed him to theatric pomp, where round
In cluster'd rows, the electrifying sound
That issued from thy tongue, thrill'd every soul,
And pæans of applause burst forth as thunders roll
The very sun-tint that illumed the leaves,
O Burgess! when down Christ-Church avenue
My quickening steps thy silver tassel drew!
A mitre for thy more distinguish'd meed!
Yet tassels idly glisten—mitres fade!
The unwithering crown of life shall gird thy head!
In orient light, the groves of Academe!
Your sacred glooms, to many a friendship dear!
Nor the proud discipline, that mark'd the Dean
Of “sterner stuff,” could disenchant your scene;
Warm'd by whose wing, how numerous the resort
Of Alma's tribes! I ponder'd on the fires
Of fervent youth; nor sons disgraced their sires!—
Shall not your shades, above the rest, disclose
An ACLAND, blazoning with the o'erpassing fame
Of worth and talents, his escutcheon'd name?
New radiance around London's “towred head;”
Or raptur'd midst his woods and waterfalls,
Or generous in his hospitable halls,
Where Devon spreads her combes, or swells her vales,
And here, where Cornwall braves the westering gales;
Here, where, the wayworn minstrel to entice
To mantling cups, once bloom'd his old Trerice.
Those bowers—for Cornwall is not all—a wild!
Far in this solitude my walks descry;
'Midst those gray turrets, he may fling, perchance,
On “the lone wanderer,” one regretful glance—
A humble Vicar, yet perhaps too proud,
Not prone to mingle with the ignoble crowd,
Who tunes, in deep accord, the heroic strings
To his hoar fathers, much attach'd to Kings!
The last-left harp in all the “pensive plain”—
A harp, to rouse—tho' democrats deride
The Poet's zeal, his Cornwall's honest pride—
The pride which circles round her PRINCE's throne,
And claims, with patriot-warmth, that PRINCE, her own!
The humble Vicar of Newlyn has presumed to address this familiar Epistle to the “Canon Residentiary of Lichfield and Archdeacon of Stafford.”—But it is an Epistle, he trusts, to a sincere friend.
Those eminent booksellers, the Hatchards, in Piccadilly, were honoured (and deservedly honoured) by the first meetings of “The Royal Society of Literature.” The Society have now Apartments in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.
Of course, in conversation. And oral wit, it is conceived, is fugitive enough, whether with or without a Patron. But, under the wings of Princes, the επεα πτεροεντα will be generated more rapidly, will shine more brilliantly, and will have a better chance of being perpetuated as transmitted from one set of men to another, their certain successors:—the πτημα εις αει of the establishment. And, for composition, it will always acquire strength and splendour from emulation fostered by patronage.
A chosen few, providentially permitted to remain a little longer upon earth —to shew the present generation what Knowlege is, as contrasted with Philosophism. —Simplicity with Affectation,—Benevolence and Candour with caustic and unfeeling Criticism.—In correcting the prevailing errors in Philology and Taste, the influence of the Royal Society of Literature will probably be found beneficial beyond all calculation.
Of the celebrated Literary Club in Gerard-Street, which consisted of forty-four noblemen and gentlemen of high station in rank and learning, two only survive—Earl Spenser and Lord Stowell.
And of the Essex-Street-Club (thirteen of whom attended Johnson's funeral) three only are now living—Mr. Nichols, Mr. Chamberlain Clark, and Mr. Jodrell.
From the “Ten Royal Associates,” Coleridge, Mathias, Turner and Roscoe are by no means invidiously selected. The author is not aware, that “the Ten are not equally worthy of the high distinction which they enjoy.
The Right Hon. William Wyndham,—Lord Grenville, D. C. L.—F. R. S.— F. A. S.—Chancellor of the University of Oxford.—His lordship is here introduced as of Christ Church, Oxford, and as of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature.
Bishop Burgess, President of “the Royal Society of Literature.” above is a picture, exact from memory.
Hall, Dean of Christ Church, of the same standing, to a day, with the writer of this Epistle—in this sense, his “equal.”
Sir T. D. Acland, Bart. gentleman commoner of Christ Church, a member of “the Royal Society of Literature,” and of their “Council,” and possessor of that venerable mansion, Trerice, in this parish of Newlyn—a happy coincidence of circumstances and situations, to the writer of this Epistle; which, after his excursive views of Lichfield, London and Oxford, restores him to his own County, and his own parish, and at the same time brings the Epistle to a just conclusion.
See Milton's L' Allegro— “Towred cities please us then,” and in his “Lib. Eleg.” “turrigerum caput,” as applied to London. The lines, where this expression occurs, discover Milton's strong attachment to the city.—
Turrigerum late conspicienda caput,
Tu nimium felix intra tua mænia claudis
Quicquid formosi pendulus orbis habet.”—
See Warton's Milton, Edit. ii. pp. 429, 430.
Always remarkable for their fidelity to their Kings. To Charles I. they sacrificed a very large part of their patrimony:—of which the remnant, in the hands of the writer of this Epistle is held chiefly under the Duke of Cornwall. And, whether to the Duke, the Prince or the King, his fourteen children have been carefully taught allegiance, and have imbibed loyalty, from precept and example, an hereditary principle.
| An Epistle to Archdeacon Nares | |