MY DEAR RICHARDSON, LEIGH HUNT. Kennington, Jany. 14. What need I say to the Selections from my verses? You may always do with them and with me what you please. * In reply to your letter of the 10th instant, which I have just received, I beg to assure you that you are at perfect liberty to make any use of my published works you think fit, and that I shall feel much honored by that which you propose respecting them. I am afraid I have to ask your pardon for a very strange neglect ;-you were so kind as to send me from India a copy of a very delightful work of yours, for which I have not yet thanked you. It arrived while I was on one of my long circuits; the letter attending it was mislaid; when I wished to reply to it I could not find the address; and the hurry and whirl of business shut it out too long from my thoughts. I am glad, however, to believe, from your late communication, that you have forgiven this very blameable inattention and will allow me to subscribe myself, Well knowing your discernment, and fearing only your partiality, I am far from any objection to your wishes. Indeed, I can desire no higher honor, in the present or any future age, than you are about to confer on me. Had I received the book you sent me from India, I should instantly have expressed my gratitude. Perhaps no man is to be quite believed who ex * Mr. Landor received the book soon after this letter was written. See page 130. presses a contempt for his own poetry, but I swear to you I should not feel a single pang if all mine were lost irrecoverably. My invention and energy, the two main props of poetry, and both of which belong to no poet of our days excepting Keats,-are to be found in my prose only, if indeed there, but there I imagine them to be. Possibly you may not have met with my later attempts at verse. There is an Idyl printed about a year ago in Blackwood at the end (if I remember), of an Imaginary Conversation between Southey and Porson; and I believe another, a sort of sequel, will appear in Hood's next Magazine. Mr. Ward informs me that this extraordinary and admirable writer is dying, and expresses a wish for the little assistance I can give him. I devoted ten entire hours to transcribing a thing-which I hope may do. Believe me, my dear Sir, very sincerely yours, D. L. Richardson, Esq. Jersey. W. S. LANDor. JOANNA BAILLIE. Hampstead, Jan. 14, 1845. DEAR SIR, I have had the honor of receiving your letter with a request for permission to insert in your next edition of "Selections from the British Poets," some extracts from my Miscellaneous pieces, which I readily grant. I shall send as you desire a spare copy of my Fugitive verses," and you may choose from them what you like best. I am sorry to learn that bad health has been the cause of your return from India; I hope the mild air of Jersey has entirely restored you, and wishing you all the good wishes of the season and success to your present undertaking, of which there can be little doubt from the very great approbation your former edition has attracted, I remain, dear Sir, very sincerely yours, D. L. Richardson, Esq. Jersey. J. BAILLIE. L.-Moore's hand-writing is neat, but rather too minute. Tennyson's might take its place beside Leigh Hunt's or Southey's. Tal fourd's has nothing peculiar about it. Joanna Baillie's is mas wilful, as if he scorned the culine, and Landor's is wild and writing-master, and took a pleasure in setting all his rules at defiance. No. XXX. ANGLO-INDIAN SOCIETY. J.-I do not wonder at Lord 's contempt for man kind. His strong sagacity must have easily penetrated the designs and disguises of sycophants and intriguers. Men in power have fine opportunities for the study of human nature. Sir Robert Walpole used to say that he knew the price of every patriot in the House of Commons. C.-I do not deny that persons in high station with an extensive patronage at their disposal, must be shocked with examples of meanness and hypocrisy; but do they not also see more instances of great merit than men in private life? Individuals of extraordinary talent and information, and even of extraordinary disinterestedness, of genuine patriotism and heroic courage, are often brought into personal contact with the legislators of a large country. If the man in power sees more servility and baseness, he also sees more intellect and energy and perhaps more virtue than are usually met with in the narrow circle of domestic life. His scene is more diversified with lights and shadows. J. But the shadows greatly predominate over the lights. The scene upon the whole is gloomy enough. C.-I do not think so;-they who are best acquainted with mankind, and can take the widest views, have generally the most favorable opinion of human nature. It is your shallow smart observer-your acute but not wise worldling-who is most suspicious of human virtue. S.-Just so. People who judge of mankind from some peculiar point of view or from their own limited personal knowledge of certain classes (as is the case with lawyers and party politicians) form partial and erroneous judgments. They are like certain painters who represent not general or abstract na ture, but local or accidental peculiarities. Rembrandt, though not a bad painter, but, on the contrary, a very fine one, in his way, yet had his powers contracted, from having been born and bred in a mill, which admitted only one peculiar light, by which alone he studied. A student of the moral world may have been exposed to a similar accident; he may have been born and bred where all the light was in one direction. J.-I think the sternest painters" are "the best." Swift and Rochefoucault saw more of the innermost springs of the human heart than such fanciful optimists as Lamb and Hunt, whose speculations are pleasing poetry, but indifferent philosophy. I always liked Hazlitt better than either of the two latter writers, because he was a good hater," had a keen sense of the folly and baseness of the world, and an understanding too healthy and vigorous to indulge in Utopian dreams of human perfectibility. How noble is the hearty satire of Dryden ! How delicate and true the irony of Pope! The heavy flail of Churchill thickens the air with chaff. Even the pious and gentle Cowper could evince upon certain occasions" the strong antipathy of good to bad." Did not these men read human nature better than Hunt and Lamb? S. By no means. Dryden, Pope, and Churchill knew society better than Lamb and Hunt, but they did not know human nature half so well. As to Cowper, with all his personal amiabilities, his naturally acute and observant mind was narrowed by a gloomy sectarianism. The sweet-souled Shakspeare knew more of human nature than all other authors put together, and yet what truthful and charming portraits of humanity he has given us! C.-Religious sectarians can never be regarded as fair judges of human nature. Who would estimate the character of mankind by the judgment of a rigid Calvinist? His imagination is diseased; all his feelings are morbid. He hates wickedness a great deal more than he loves goodness. He hunts a criminal. He takes a keen pleasure in the pursuit and capture. He is proud to be in at the death and dissection. He would be out of his element if he were not in a sporting country. 66 S.-I love Leigh Hunt for his humanities" they are quite genuine, though he is perhaps too fond of ringing that favorite word in our ears. It would be a glorious world to all, could all men look upon it in the light that he does. J.-Oh, what can a closet-student like Hunt know of human life? It is true that he has resided long in the greatest city in the world, but he has lived in solitude in the midst of mighty crowds. S.-Men who live in comparative solitude are generally better observers than those who mix with the busy throng. A spectator sees more of a battle than the combatants, and can judge of it better. Men of the world act much and think little, men in retirement act little and think much. If the retired thinker has fewer objects for study, than the man of the world, he has more leisure for calm and concentrated observation and reflection. It is not essential to a dramatist's success that he should have been a busy actor himself on the great stage of the world. Sensitive, studious, silent observers seem to see through the mere man of the world by a sort of intuition, and often amuse themselves with reading the secrets of his heart, while he is regarding them with pity and contempt, for their apparently childish ignorance and simplicity. C.-What do you think, S―, of British Indian Society? S. It is vastly inferior to society in England. C.-Well, I confess this used to be my own opinion before I revisited my native land after an absence of a quarter of a century. I then found that human nature is human nature in the streets of London as it is in those of Calcutta, and that the wide difference which I was accustomed to see between an Englishman in India and an Englishman at home was all illusion. S.-You are mistaken in regarding it as an illusion. It was no such thing Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Though the general groundwork or original character of an |