The Purcell Papers, vol 1 | Page 4

a thousand year,?If life were passed with you.
'Wise men have said "Man's lot on earth
Is grief and melancholy,"?But where thou art, there joyous mirth?Proves all their wisdom folly.
'If fate withhold thy love from me,
All else in vain were given;?Heaven were imperfect wanting thee,?And with thee earth were heaven.'
A few days after, he sent the following sequel:
'My dear good Madam,?You can't think how very sad I'm.?I sent you, or I mistake myself foully,?A very excellent imitation of the poet Cowley,?Containing three very fair stanzas,?Which number Longinus, a very critical man, says,?And Aristotle, who was a critic ten times more caustic,?To a nicety fits a valentine or an acrostic.?And yet for all my pains to this moving epistle,?I have got no answer, so I suppose I may go whistle.?Perhaps you'd have preferred that like an old monk I had pattered on?In the style and after the manner of the unfortunate Chatterton; Or that, unlike my reverend daddy's son,?I had attempted the classicalities of the dull, though immortal Addison.?I can't endure this silence another week;?What shall I do in order to make you speak?
Shall I give you a trope
In the manner of Pope,
Or hammer my brains like an old smith?To get out something like Goldsmith??Or shall I aspire on?To tune my poetic lyre on?The same key touched by Byron,?And laying my hand its wire on,?With its music your soul set fire on?By themes you ne'er could tire on?
Or say,
I pray,
Would a lay
Like Gay
Be more in your way?
I leave it to you,?Which am I to do??It plain on the surface is?That any metamorphosis,?To affect your study?You may work on my soul or body.?Your frown or your smile makes me Savage or Gay?In action, as well as in song;?And if 'tis decreed I at length become Gray,?Express but the word and I'm Young;?And if in the Church I should ever aspire?With friars and abbots to cope,?By a nod, if you please, you can make me a Prior--?By a word you render me Pope.?If you'd eat, I'm a Crab; if you'd cut, I'm your Steel,?As sharp as you'd get from the cutler;?I'm your Cotton whene'er you're in want of a reel,?And your livery carry, as Butler.
I'll ever rest your debtor
If you'll answer my first letter;
Or must, alas, eternity
Witness your taciturnity?
Speak--and oh! speak quickly
Or else I shall grow sickly,
And pine,
And whine,
And grow yellow and brown
As e'er was mahogany,
And lie me down
And die in agony.
P.S.--You'll allow I have the gift
To write like the immortal Swift.'
But besides the poetical powers with which he?was endowed, in common with the great Brinsley,?Lady Dufferin, and the Hon. Mrs. Norton,?young Sheridan Le Fanu also possessed an?irresistible humour and oratorical gift that,?as a student of Old Trinity, made him a?formidable rival of the best of the young debaters?of his time at the 'College Historical,' not a?few of whom have since reached the highest?eminence at the Irish Bar, after having long?enlivened and charmed St. Stephen's by their?wit and oratory.
Amongst his compeers he was remarkable for?his sudden fiery eloquence of attack, and ready?and rapid powers of repartee when on his?defence. But Le Fanu, whose understanding was?elevated by a deep love of the classics, in which?he took university honours, and further heightened?by an admirable knowledge of our own?great authors, was not to be tempted away by?oratory from literature, his first and, as it?proved, his last