I long to see your papers, and dare say they are charming. At the same
time, just because they are sure to be charming (and notwithstanding
their kindness to me, notwithstanding that I live in a glass house
myself, warmed by such rare stoves!) I am a little in fear that your
generosity and excess of kindness may run the risk of lowering the
ideal of poetry in England by lifting above the mark the names of some
poetasters. Do you know, you take up your heart sometimes by mistake,
to admire with, when you ought to use it only to love with? and this
is apt to be dangerous, with your reputation and authority in matters
of literature. See how impertinent I am! But we should all take care
to teach the world that poetry is a divine thing, should we not? that
is, not mere verse-making, though the verses be pretty in their way.
Rather perish every verse _I_ ever wrote, for one, than help to drag
down an inch that standard of poetry which, for the sake of humanity
as well as literature, should be kept high. As for simplicity and
clearness, did I ever deny that they were excellent qualities? Never,
surely. Only, they will not _make_ poetry; and absolutely vain they
are, and indeed all other qualities, without the essential thing,
the genius, the inspiration, the insight--let us call it what we
please--without which the most accomplished verse-writers had far
better write prose, for their own sakes as for the world's--don't you
think so? Which I say, because I sighed aloud over many names in your
list, and now have taken pertly to write out the sigh at length. Too
charmingly you are sure to have written--and see the danger! But Miss
Fanshawe is well worth your writing of (let me say that I am sensible
warmly of that) as one of the most witty of our wits in verse, men or
women. I have only seen manuscript copies of some of her verses, and
that years ago, but they struck me very much; and really I do not
remember another female wit worthy to sit beside her, even in French
literature. Motherwell is a true poet. But oh, I don't believe in your
John Clares, Thomas Davises, Whittiers, Hallocks--and still less in
other names which it would be invidious to name again. How pert I am!
But you give me leave to be pert, and you know the meaning of it all,
after all. Your editor quarrelled a little with me once, and I with
him, about the 'poetesses of the united empire,' in whom I couldn't or
wouldn't find a poet, though there are extant two volumes of them, and
Lady Winchilsea at the head. I hold that the writer of the ballad of
'Robin Gray' was our first poetess rightly so called, before Joanna
Baillie.