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Suffolk Record Office, Bury St. Edmunds 317/3. Copy in BL Add. MS 28268, ff. 445–46
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editors wish to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
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After some prefatory matter as follows, I hope to have time to fill this sheet with the poetical notions which I believe I mentioned in my last.
* * * * *
I send you a feast from Nat, but I cannot begrudge you the pleasure which I have had before
you. Mr Gedge no doubt will show you the plate of Honington Green; I had two this
morning from Mr Hurst, and pointed out to them where either Mr B___ or the engraver had
misplaced the pantry window; they say it might be easily amended by punching
out, as it is called, and it will be a very popular and desirable ornament to a
Book of such admirable merit as Nat's is likely to prove.
We all know that a good cook will reject such ingredients as he finds to have a tendency to flatten his flavours and spoil his broth; so, in this sense of the matter, there is an art in Poetry, though I do not like the expression. I mean then to state what, according to my notion are bad ingredients in composition and first, Inversion of Sentences, which may be instanced by recurring to a line in the
The conclusion of poetical pieces, and the conclusion of sections and divisions therein certainly ought to improve, line by line, so as to finish with a twang, as the Boy said of his whip. A weak line at a close, is like a dying note of a weak voice when it should be full and sonorous; and full of soul; I could easily find instances but will leave the application to be made as you read whatever may next come into your hand.
I have perhaps an unfounded aversion to tying three lines together in a measure where the ear expects but two. In Dryden's Virgil I find it very frequent, and cannot see the advantage of it, you will of course not wonder that there are none to be found in what I have ventured into the world; and as I have thus far succeeded without, will not begin now.
The choice of phrases in Ballads and Songs, and perhaps more in serious pieces, is of much importance; a common use of old worn out words I do not like, such as erst, whilom, and a thousand more; and yet to take up and use a word but just getting into circulation, newly adopted, or new coined, is like placing a new bright penny piece among a range of old ones, it will look like a broken rank, and besides run great hazard of rousing the risibility that arises from contempt rather than the smile due to true humour, suppose by way of illustrating this point, I had said originally in the Suffolk Ballad
Perhaps Chorus: [Chorus] [Chorus] [Chorus] [Chorus] [Chorus] [Chorus] Text from Lucy Broadwood, Breeches will one day be as old fashioned as doublet
and jerkin, as in another case though the song says 'With good old leathern
bottle, and ale that looks so brown'
Compound Epithets I do not much like; because they are often such
as we never use in conversation; there are three in my 'Word to the young
ladies'
Something of this kind may be traced in some pictures which I have occasionally seen, which indeed relates more to the foregoing wrong adaptation of words, than to compound epithets—A scene extremely rustic, the Death of the Fox in a Cottage-yard would you there expect to see up against the wall what in London are called Bird-bottles for the sparrows to build in? Country people know sparrows too well; the same picture has the error of chimney pots to the cottage, which I never saw in reality; these are London and Country ideas mixed.
With regard to Adulation, and short-lived subjects, you may, and
I know others will remark that out of all my numerous
friends, none have got even a Sonnet from me, flattery is a poor way of paying
debts, and as readers do not know the parties though the writer does, they
cannot feel as they would on general subjects; and as to their stability what do
we know of who were the friends of Cowley or Prior? or if we wish to know let us
know in prose where the authors have not the privelege of lying. The Duke of Grafton gave me
most fatherly advice on this head, which only would have given me an high
opinion of his sincerity and penetration.
I own that I have resolutely endeavoured to get at the disposal of my own pieces, I have burnt several, and my proof of the wisdom of the deed is by referring you to one which is now irrecoverable, a foolish story called John Brown printed in the [MS torn], though I left it out of my collection, how can I leave [MS torn] future collections when I am gone;—look sharp Robin.
Call this letter [Ms torn] my time is expired, and my pen weary so I have no more to say and may omit to refer [MS torn]