# The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt/Blue-Stocking Revels; or, the Feast of the Violets

BLUE-STOCKING REVELS;
OR,
THE FEAST OF THE VIOLETS.
CANTO I.
Shewing what sort of rebuke Apollo gave his Nymphs, and how gods furnish houses.
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* ↑ The "Feast of the Poets."
* ↑ Sir William Knighton has died since these verses were written. I had hoped, by this mention of his name, to give a moment's pleasure to one whose skill, manners, and liberality were worthy of a profession eminent for its friendliness to men of letters; and who, in zealously discharging his duties in the highest quarter, did not forget the least influential of his acquaintances.—With regard to "Smith," it may be allowed me to mention, considering the numerous respectable Smiths existing, doubtless, in the medical as in other professions, that the name of the most eminent of them, Dr. Southwood Smith, is here intended.
* ↑ It hardly need be observed, that the word "Genius," here used in its mythological sense, does not, of necessity, imply that higher order of faculty, which gifts the possessors with something peculiar to them, and leaves a gap when they are gone. And as little does it imply equality of faculty. The difference of degree, in this respect, among the ladies ensuing, is as great, as specification of it would be ungallant. All the criticisms which follow relate to the individuals themselves only, and insinuate no comparison with others, whether of preference or the reverse. I take this opportunity of adding, that for obvious reasons no mention is made of anonymous writers
* ↑ Authoress of the tragedy founded on early Christian history entitled "Vivia Perpetua."
* ↑ Authoress of "Traits of Nature" "Country Neighbours," &c. A niece of Madame d'Arblay.
* ↑ Miss Cullen, authoress of "Home," &c., a descendant, if I mistake not, of the great and good Scottish physician.
* ↑ See translations of sonnets from Petrarch in Ugo Foscolo's masterley Essays on that poet, particularly the one about the pilgrim. Lady Dacre is celebrated for her powers in sculpture, especially in animals. A horse, after a model of hers, full of grace and fire, is well known in the plaster-cast shops. The names which follow in the text are those of reigning female artists and amateurs.
* ↑ The following is the passage alluded to. It is from one of the lady's novels, but I cannot remember which, having made the extract some time ago, without adding the reference. As it is a female who speaks, the caution is given with respect to men only; but it need not be added, that it equally applies to the love professed by man or woman:— "We are too apt to think only how we are treated; too little accustomed to observe what is the treatment of others by the same person. Watch and weigh. If a man speak evil of his friends to you, he will also speak evil of you to his friends. Kind and caressing words are easily spoken, and pleasant to hear; but the man who hears a kind heart, hears it to all, and not to one only. He who appears to love only the friend he speaks to, and slanders or speaks coldly of the rest, loves no one but himself." Every one of these sentences is a jewel.
* ↑ Mrs. Opie's Tales ("Simple Tales," "Tales of Real Life," &c.) and her admirable novel, "Temper," are all printed in good, comfortable-sized, portable volumes, not too big for the pocket, yet with a largish type; so that, in every respect, they may literally be said to furnish some of the easiest reading in the language.
* ↑ See a charming stanza in Ariosto, a picture by itself, in which he describes this adventure,—a fiction, I believe, of his own. (Orlando Furioso. Canto xv. st. 57.) A collection of additions to ancient mythology by modern poets, Ariosto, Spenser, and others, would make a delightful book.
* ↑ I find this word, accompanied by a due relish of it, in some papers on Dancing in the New Monthly Magazine. (See the number for May, 1836.) There is no language like the Italian for a happy magniloquence between jest and earnest. What a word is this pavoneggiàndosi for expressing the stately flow of an imitation of the peacock, with that lift too and sudden movement in the midst of it, marked by the accent! But I must not be tempted into these luxuries of annotation.
* ↑ Alluding to the accounts of the mausoleum, in particular, built by one of the Mogul emperors for his mistress, the walls of which were of marble, flowered, as here described, with jewellery.
* ↑ See a curious speculation in Tucker's "Light of Nature Pursued," in which a guess is made at the mode of speech in a future state.
* ↑ Frances Brooke, authoress of "Rosina," "Emily Montague," &c. &c., "as remarkable," says Gorton's Biographical Dictionary, "for the suavity and gentleness of her manners, as for her literary talents." She had the candour, in a dispute with Garrick, to confess publicly that she was in the wrong.
* ↑ Anne, Countess of Winchelsea, in the time of Pope, whom she knew. Gay introduces her among Pope's welcomers home from Greece (his finish of the Iliad) as —"Winchelsea, still meditating song." Her poems, amidst a good deal of inferior matter, contain evidences of a true feeling for nature, which has obtained the praise of Wordsworth. "It is remarkable," says he, in the Essay in his Miscellaneous Poems, "that excepting a passage or two in the 'Windsor Forest' of Pope, and some delightful pictures in the Poems of Lady Winchelsea, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the 'Paradise Lost,' and the 'Seasons,' does not contain a single new image of external nature." In Mr. Dyce's "Specimens of British Poetesses" are to be found two of her best specimens, the "Nocturnal Reverie," and the truly philosophical and fine-hearted effusion entitled the "Spleen;" but I am surprised that he has omitted her "Petition for an Absolute Retreat," a charming aspiration after one of those sequestered states of felicity which poets love to paint. It is equally beautiful for its thoughts, its pictures, and the music of the burthen which it repeats at the close of each paragraph.
* ↑ Lady Ann Barnard, of the house of Balcarres, authoress of "Auld Robin Grey,"—the most beautiful ballad that ever was written.
* ↑ Sulpicia; respecting whom, after all, there is much dispute.
* ↑ Vittoria Colonna, the chief Italian poetess, famous for her adoring constancy to the memory of her husband, the Marquis of Pescara, a distinguished soldier.
* ↑ Gaspara Stampa, another celebrated Italian poetess, whose writings are full of the passion she entertained, not with a like return, for Collaltino di Collalto, Conte di Trevigi, an eminent soldier. It has been generally supposed that she died of her love; but she did a much wiser thing,—transferred it to a more loving person.
* ↑ Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre, sister of Francis the First, and grandmother of Henry the Fourth—authoress of the set of tales called "The Heptameron."
* ↑ Louise Charly, generally called Louisa Labe, or La Belle Cordière, wife of a rope-maker at Lyons, celebrated for her numerous accomplishments; which included Greek and Latin, as well as wit and the guitar.
* ↑ Madame de Stahl, an attendant on the Duchess du Maine in the time of the Regency, here called by her maiden name of de Launay (which she bore almost all her life) to distinguish her from Madame de Stael. Her autobiography is perhaps unique for candour and self-knowledge.
* ↑ Which charmed Rousseau with their expression, in spite of the small-pox, and their own not very great beauty in other respects. But every one's mind, such as it is, looks out through the eyes,—those windows of the habitation of the soul; and Rousseau thought he discovered, in hers, the natural, affectionate woman, in the midst of a selfish and artificial generation. Madame d'Houdetot wrote, in the decline of life, some touching verses on love, beginning "Jeune j'aimai."
* ↑ Wife of an Italian actor in Paris, and authoress of numerous popular novels, remarkable for their good-hearted liberality of sentiment. She was a friend and correspondent of Garrick. She is said to have died in a state approaching to want.
* ↑ Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle in the time of Cromwell and Charles the Second. With an ill-regulated judgment, and fantastic notions of her dignity, personal and conventional, she possessed real genius and knowledge, and great consideration for others. She was one of those people who seem to have had a fool for one parent and a sage for the other.
* ↑ Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, sister of the late Earl Spencer, and mother of the present Duke, who so well sustains the reputation of the ever liberal and graceful house of Cavendish. See, in Mr. Dyce's collection above noticed, the Duchess's "Ode on the Passage of Mount Saint Gothard," which excited the enthusiasm of Coleridge—"O lady, nurs'd in pomp and pleasure, Where gat you that heroic measure?"
* ↑ Jane Elliot, authoress of the exquisite lament for the battle of Flodden, called the "Flowers of the Forest," which Sir Walter Scott had such difficulty in believing a modern production. It is like the sullenness of a still morning in the country, before rain.
* ↑ See, in Aikin's "Miscellanies" her admirable essay upon "Inconsistency in our Expectations;" and in Mr. Dyce's collection, "A Summer Evening's Meditation." containing, among other beauties, the following sublime passage:"This dead of midnight is the noon of thought; And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars."
* ↑ See it vindicated in a manner at once the most pleasant and affecting in that beautiful book, the "Pentameron" of Mr. Landor
* ↑ Sir John Suckling, the most genuine poet of his class, stood midway between the sentiment of the first Charles's time and the careless gallantry of the second. His "Ballad on a Wedding" is as fresh as a painting done yesterday; and will remain so, as long as animal spirits and a taste for nature exist. He is the inventor of "Sessions of the Poets." It is recorded of him, that he once gave a supper to the ladies of his acquaintance, at which, upon the covers being removed, one of the courses turned out to consist of haberdashery and other such amenities; doubtless of a taste and costliness proportioned to the spirit of the entertainer.
* ↑ The appellation of "Blue-Stockings" is understood to have originated, as here described, in the dress of the excellent old Benjamin Stillingfleet (grandson of the Bishop) as he used to appear at the parties of Mrs. Montagu, in Portman-square. He was jilted by a mistress to whose remembrance he remained faithful; and in spite of a disappointment which he thus deeply felt, remained, to the last, one of the most amiable of men, and entertaining of companions. See his "Literary Life and Select Works," published by Longman, in the year 1811. "Mr. Stillingfleet," (says a passage quoted in it from Bisset's Life of Burke) "almost always wore blue worsted stockings, and whenever he was absent from Mrs. Montagu's evening parties, as his conversation was very entertaining, the company used to say, "We can do nothing without the blue stockings," and by degrees the assemblies were called Blue-Stocking Clubs, and learned bodies Blue Stockings."-Vol. i. p. 237.
* ↑ The word "gentle" is here to be understood in its fine old sense as implying, in the inner nature, all which gentle manners ought to imply, and which, when really gentle, they do. Such is the meaning of the word in Chaucer, Spenser and Shakspeare; in Mr. Wordsworth's "Gentle lady married to the Moor;" and in the "cor gentile" and "Donna gentil" of the Italians.