BIB_ID
103949
Accession number
MA 2513.11
Creator
Hayley, William, 1745-1820.
Display Date
Felpham, England, 1814 March 17.
Credit line
Purchased, 1966.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 22.5 x 18.2 cm
Notes
Place of writing inferred from contents of the letter.
Part of a small collection of thirteen autograph drafts of letters from William Hayley to Sir Walter Scott (MA 2513.1-13.)
The first page of the letter is a poem titled "The departed Dutchess / to her preeminent Bard / Sonnet" as follows "No! not to droop, and wither upon Earth / are Wreaths, my Walter, twined by Hands like thine : / Surpassing every [illegible] of Honour's Shrine! / Bright as the Flame of pure Devotion's Hearth! / While the sunk pride of Beauty and of Birth / shows the freed Spirit, (which from Grace divine / Has learn'd all human Weakness to resign) / None but immortal Gifts have real Worth. / When grateful Genius strikes his hallow'd Lyre, / To praise the Dead by virtuous Feelings driven, / To his kind Verse a Sanctity is given / Inferior only to the sainted Quire / Hailing that Soul, to whom his notes aspire / Blest as an Eccho of approving Heaven!"
Part of a small collection of thirteen autograph drafts of letters from William Hayley to Sir Walter Scott (MA 2513.1-13.)
The first page of the letter is a poem titled "The departed Dutchess / to her preeminent Bard / Sonnet" as follows "No! not to droop, and wither upon Earth / are Wreaths, my Walter, twined by Hands like thine : / Surpassing every [illegible] of Honour's Shrine! / Bright as the Flame of pure Devotion's Hearth! / While the sunk pride of Beauty and of Birth / shows the freed Spirit, (which from Grace divine / Has learn'd all human Weakness to resign) / None but immortal Gifts have real Worth. / When grateful Genius strikes his hallow'd Lyre, / To praise the Dead by virtuous Feelings driven, / To his kind Verse a Sanctity is given / Inferior only to the sainted Quire / Hailing that Soul, to whom his notes aspire / Blest as an Eccho of approving Heaven!"
Provenance
Purchased, 1966.
Summary
Congratulating him on the conclusion of "Lord of the Isles" and saying "I presume you are almost overwhelmed with a Mountain of deserved Eulogies yet I cannot refrain from sending you the few rhymes in the Front of this paper - They flowed from the Heart as I perused the exquisite Conclusion to your 'Lord of the Isles' - The whole Poem appears to me the masterpiece of your enchanting Poetry peculiarly in words ascribed to the Elder Pliny addressing a poetical imperial Friend 'Quantus in poetica es! O magna Fœcunditus anima! - I will not trespass on your Time by adding more than a cordial Benediction to yourself to my young sweetheart Sophia & to all who share your affection / ever most faithfully / your sincere old Hermit / of the South;" adding, in a postscript, "As I surmize that my last pacquet to you might peradventure be lost in travelling to be franked by one of our Secretaries of State I am tempted to make you pay for this single sheet more than it is worth - Pray forgive & do not forget me."
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