MORE WONDERS

MORE WONDERS!

AN HEROIC EPISTLE

M. G. LEWIS, Esq. M. P.

[This document was prepared by Prof. Douglass H. Thomson and appears on LitGothic by permission.]

"The times have been,

That when the brains were out the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
To push us from our stools.'' Shakespeare [1]

PRÆSCRIPT EXTRAORDINARY.

NEITHER personal animosity, nor envious pride, dictated the following epistle. It is a defence of poetical property in general, against arbitrary invasion; and more than this, it is a tribute due to degraded virtue, and the violated decency of national taste. I shall soon expect to see the tremendous History of Raw-head and Bloody-bones in print; accompanied by an instantaneous profusion of Tales of Terror, in imitation of so dreadful an original. [2] Indeed the agil somnia of Horace (that is, the extravagances of a sick imagination) could never be more properly applied than to those unnatural labours which present us with nothing but skeletons and distortions: and lead us to believe the universe itself, which we inhabit, to be no other than a great charnel-house, crowded with apparitions, hobgoblins, and spectres; nay, human nature on the whole, at a mere “Monstrum horrendum, informe, injjens, cui lumen ademptum." [3]

King James the First, of facetious though not of very glorious memory, was wont to profess (in his majesty's Counterblast to Tobacco,) " that were he to invite the devil to a dinner, he should have three dishes; first a pig, second a poll of ling and mustard, and third a pipe of tobacco for digesture." With as much solemn sincerity I avow, that were I to treat the same illustrious personage with a suitable evening's entertainment, I would either accompany his infernal highness to the representation of a new spectacle, or regale him with the perusal of a modern romance. Never did knight- errantry require the inimitable ridicule of Cervantes in Spain, more than this preposterous infatuation does the burlesque gravity of some able writer in England at this moment. It is a subject rich with materials for the exercise of real humour. Though I have endeavoured to touch on these absurdities slightly, my main object was to decry the unjust practice of imposing an olio of well-known performances on the public, under the sanction of a celebrated (or, if you please, a notorious) name ; and therefore I could not dwell so minutely as the topic might admit or deserve. In fact, this same topic, to borrow a curious expression from one of Dryden's plays,

"Like an ample shield

Has room for all, and verge enough for more.” [4]

If my verses have any attraction, I expect to be attacked by frequent swarms of the insects whom I have endeavoured to sweep away: if not, they may suggest the idea of prosecuting my design, to some more accomplished literary combatant. In either case, as they may be useful some way, I am indifferent in which way it may be. For the romantic erudition, and black-letter research, of Mr. Lewis, I entertain the most profound respect and veneration to which they can aspire. I do not in the least doubt their existence and extent: I only condemn their perversion and influence. "In some low scribbler, or in me," their baneful effects, being less diffusive, would be consequently less prejudicial; but

"If an M.P. once own the happy lines, [5]

How the wit brightens, how the sense refines!"

I am assured he will acknowledge the veracity of this assertion himself, and judge of my motive accordingly.

Thee now let poignant pleasantry assail; [6]

Thee, too tenacious of thy nurse's tale;

Thee, Lewis, I devote to satire's shrine:

Though pert facility perhaps is thine;

Thine quick conception, of the quainter kind;

And taste, to trifles awkwardly inclin'd.

But why to vice bestow a pander screen?

Why with thy monstrous births deform the scene?

Why build on blockheads an inglorious fame,
Who merely guess thy merit, by thy name ;
Who pass no further judgment, when they see
Those all-sufficient vouchers M. and P. ?
Go to: as well grave John's funereal croak
Might strive t'impart the spirit of a joke ;
Or Claremont personate the god of wine,
Claremont who " looks as he did never dine;” [7]
As thou by such vile trick aspire to raise
A splendid monument of deathless praise.

Oft, in youth's idle summer, have I stray'd
Delighted through the wild wood's leafy shade,
While from some legend's magic clue I caught
All its romantic tenderness of thought;
Oft, fondly glowing with heroic heat,
At Arthur's table took my fancied seat;
At Merlin's call, beneath unclouded skies,
Saw bloomy bow'rs and golden turrets rise;
And, as soft warblings harmoniz'd each spray,
Dissolv'd in bliss, all languishingly lay.
Soon riper reason spurn'd the specious dream,
When manhood made me choose a nobler theme;
Some theme that wider benefits pursu'd,
Some theme conducive to the public good.

Much as thyself I praise the merry elves,
But wish not fairy-tales to load our shelves;
Nor yet have offer'd, with presumptuous pride,
To push, for Geoffry, [8] Juvenal aside:
Though oft my breast has felt a rapt'rous thrill,
Touch'd by the plume of Ludovico's quill; [9]
Though oft with Dante I have lov'd to dwell
Mid the dread woes of Ugolino's cell, [10]
And o'er the fabled scroll of grief severe
Heav'd the big sigh or stream'd the ardent tear.
But when those fatal fantasies pervert
The wayward sense, not meliorate the heart;
When the numb'd soul is steep'd in stupid trance,
And ev'n the scriptures dwindle to romance; [11]
I curse the madness of a guilty taste,
By thee with more than vulgar glory grac'd;
Avert my fondness from such nauseous whims,
Preferring to Child Waters [12] David's hymns.

Like conj'rer's bag, how many a maniac's scull
Is with newts, toads, and asps, completely full!
Sure that the horrid medley will go down,
He spews his various garbage on the town;

Till sprightly belles are frighten'd into fits,

And beaus (if blest with any) lose their wits.

Perversely ridden by some scribbling imp,

Did I, a kraken, challenge you, a shrimp?

When first you made the gaping million drunk,

Did I expose the baldness of your Monk?

Did I discover the mysterious hole

From which your putrid carcases you stole?

And while those " spirits from the vasty deep” [13]

You call'd aloud, did I not only sleep?

In pity I forbear, as carrion prey,

To taint my nostrils with your hideous play; [14]

Where incident and language, point and plot,

And all but loathsome spectacle's forgot;

Drawbridge and dungeon, knight and trusty squire,

Squalid consumption, spectre cloth'd in fire,

Illumin'd altars, and "chimeras dire.” [15]

Smit with the frenzy of a foreign race

Who all their beauty in distortion place,

Who couple contraries with equal ease

As taylors munch their cucumbers with peas,

Was't not enough to filch their flimsy style,

But thou must rob the worthies of our isle; [16]

Those dauntless spirits whose exalted fire,
Shall bid eternity their works admire;
Those heirs of honour who, divinely brave,
Fought as they sung ; o'er whose illustrious grave,
The muse hath hung th' imperishable wreath
Whose golden blooms ambrosial sweetness breathe;
Those bright phenomena of former days,
Crown'd with sure profit, and as certain praise;
When charming poesy was all their own,
And Germans, but for dulness, quite unknown ?
Ev'n now, when star-eyed Learning has unfurl'd
Her pictur'd banner o'er th' applauding world,
That Briton who affects the German school
Is (lo the aptness of the rhyme !) a fool.

Yet wisely (and, I wot, by shrewd advice)
Thou sell'st thy tome at an enormous price. [17]
How few can reach it in this troublous time!
For now a guinea touches the sublime.
Shillings, indeed, your middling folks may bring;
Bui, ah ! that guinea is a serious thing.
Paper nor type affords such true delight
As that small portrait to the partial sight:
And yet the vassal mob may wish to sport
Their taste as freely as the mob at court.
Say to what use, should charity prevail,
Wilt thou apply the surplus of the sale ?

Wilt thou bestow some Chatterton his bread, [18]
And bid one drooping genius lift his head :
Or rather, to renew the holy game,
A Covent-garden sisterhood reclaim;
New nuns elect, debarr'd from wanton wiles,
Or friars of the order of St. Giles; [19]
Refit old abbeys mouldering in decay,
With wooden crosses plant the public way,
Encowl at once each pocket-picking chap,
And proudly raise at Holborn a La Trappe. [20]

How couldst thou gut each stall, and grub, and glean,

Like the vile vamper of a magazine ;
Nay, for the bliss of being bought and read,
Rob at one pull the living and the dead ?
Oh, witness all ye gods ! no pen of mine
Had pour'd the stricture of one sober line,
If Southey only felt thy plund'ring rage,
If only Southey's ballads deck'd thy page:
Congenial Southey, who has made poor Joan, [21]
As though in travail, through his volume groan.
And set so oft all necromancy loose;
Glorious competitor of mother Goose.

But why, by letter'd felony unaw'd,
Immortal Dryden of his right defraud? [22]
Known in all lands, in every tongue display'd,
Great hapless bard whose talent was his trade.
Why, not so long elaps'd from mortal day
Wrest his green laurels from the brow of Gray? [23]
But chief from Burns, whose needy friends remain
To reap the profits of his recent strain,
Why pluck his purest gem, his richest grace, [24]
Which candour wishes in its proper place ?
Here let me shed a tear, to feeling true,
To him, the son of native Humour, due;
To whom fair Fancy gave the pow'r, and smil'd,
Best to depict the wonderful, the wild ;
Yet who, 'mid vauntings of capricious pride,
With all his fame a slighted victim died.
Divulge what "foul fiend" hurried thee along,
From Percy to purloin his ancient song;
To baffle his research and curious care,
And leave the prelate's pious Reliques bare. [25]
'Twas almost sacrilege ; and by saint Paul,
Doth loudly for austerest penance call:

A fiery ordeal at least I think,

Or an eternal fast from pen and ink.

But now, with honest wrath too justly warm,

Let Fancy lend her intellectual charm;

While, sure your ghostly worship to delight,

I recollect a vision of the night,

And drier maxims featously improve

By a mere dream—since dreams descend from Jove.

When ev'ry sense by pow'rful Sleep was seal'd,

And o'er the brain his poppy-dews prevail'd,

In my lone study, lo ! methought I sat,

Grave as an owl, and pensive as a cat.

Before my sight, in pompous garment gay,

Fresh from the press thy Tales of Wonder lay;

And much I gloated, with lascivious eyes,

On its white form, gilt edge, and comely size:

When sudden from the lab'ring shelves around

I heard at first a small, still, solemn sound,

That louder wax'd anon :—and now I view'd

Descending from their cells the motley brood;

An animated host of various hue;

Pale-yellow, chesnut-brovvn, cerulean blue,

And glowing red as if inflam'd by rage;

All cover'd with the rev'rcnd dust of age.

Fierce they approach'd, and (oh, extremest grief!)

Each from the stranger-volume tore a leaf

Indignant tore; and while my anxious mind

Quick doubts involv'd, scarce "left a wreck behind;” [26]

Then to their several seats alertly fled,

Mutt'ring low curses on thy fated head.

Curious to know what lucubration rare

Those vellum-vested knaves would deign to spare,

Thy tome, all tatter'd as it was, I took:

Good heav'n, how much unlike the former book!

For they had pick'd the meat, but spurn'd the bone;

And left thee only Southey's and—thy own.

Pleas'd by the civil censure of the joke,

I shook my sides with laughter, and awoke.

The man who makes morality his aim,

No servile lacquey of a short-liv'd fame;

Who from the plenteous store of knowledge flings

On peasants honour, or contempt on kings; [27]

Who never stoop'd to yelp with mongrel throat

A statesman's praise, nor pawn'd his venal vote;

Who ne'er his conscience villainously sold,

To change his thread-bare frieze for cloth of gold;

Who ne'er could truck integrity for pelf,

Consummate traitor—traitor to himself;

Who with a brave disdain eschews the bow’r

Of syren pleasure, and the bait of pow'r;

Who, with a gen'rous openness of mind,

Renders his genius useful to mankind;

Who, filling the rude hind with mental food,
The sweet profusion pours of fair and good;
Though secret foes his stubborn truth assail,
Tried at the bar, or pining in a jail;
Against his peace though hell's black imps conspire,—

Him do I rev'rence, him do I admire;
And, half represt by some low coward fear,
Ask in a sigh, why is not H— here ?
Not the grim scavenger condemn'd to scrape
Some German rubbish into form and shape;
Who monthly prints at the express desire
Of a dull duke, and figures an esquire;
Not the collegiate drudge whose puny praise
Rests on the ruins of remoter days;
Content, with prosody's familiar aid,
Bad English in worse Latin to degrade;
His Gradus ad Parnassum in one hour
Completely rifled of each Roman flow'r,
'Till (bust of Maro* tremble from thy base!) Virgil
Each cantab wonders at his classic grace;
Swears, Livy, he disputes the palm with thee,
And half denies thy patavinity. [28]
One who well knew the soul's minutest springs
(Squire Ovid) in harmonious numbers sings:

"Intently to have learn'd each lib'ral art,

Refines the morals, and reforms the heart." [29]

But liberal arts in vain to those are taught

Who turn their very learning to a fault.

Not the pert fop who, in a fairy trance,

Will before breakfast drivel a romance;

Nay, if you kindly grant him twice that time,

Will metamorphose his romance to rhyme;

No: (although ordain'd in that huge house to sit, [30]

Renown'd for policy, if not for wit;

Where flies the quick reply, the smart remark,

Should whig meet whig, and jostle in the dark);

Not ev'n thyself, O Lewis! do I prize

When, vainly learn'd, unprofitably wise,

In futile schemes thy brighter parts are lost,

And the state's welfare by a goblin crost.

Hence ye light tribe who weave the gaudy clue

Which puzzled reason seldom can pierce through!

Ye silky sonneteering fribbles, hence;

Disown'd by poesy, disdain'd by sense!

Close to sage Bedlam fix your lineal throne,

And 'mid craz'd brethren make Moorfields your own. [31]

Hear thou the voice of taste, of judgment hear!

Let their fair forms in wonted light appear;

Let Nature's self, consummate linguist, plead;
Be chaste propriety from phrenzy freed;
Thy ill example instantly remove,
Divorc'd from follies far beneath thy love.
When thou hast sprinkled holy water down,
And wasted pailfulls on this precious town;
When thou hast exercis'd each hare-brain'd rogue,
Proclaiming nonsense is no more the vogue;
Each boarding-school of beastly novels clear'd,
Clean of pollution as a bridegroom's beard;
But chiefly go'st thyself at night to bed
Compos'd, without one spectre in thy head;
And I no more am stunn'd, in list'ning lanes,
With river-queens, mad Molls, and crazy Janes ;
Then will I change my tune to notes of praise,
Nor blend the bitter ivy with the bays.

Note on the text: This attack on Lewis’s Tales of Wonder first appeared in pamphlet form in 1801 (London: J. Barker) under the pseudonym “Mauritius Moonshine” and was reviewed by the Monthly Mirror 9 (Feb. 1801): 108-109; The Poetical Register (1802): 448-449; The Critical Review (1802): 469; and the Antijacobin Review (1801): 416-419. In a letter to Sydney Owensen (Lady Morgan) dated Feb. 2, 1801, Thomas Dermody claimed authorship of the piece “under the signature of ‘Mauritius Moonshine’” (Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Ed. W. Hepworth Dixon. Vol 1. Second ed. London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1863: 201). Both this letter and the review in the Monthly Mirror date this parody sometime before February 1801, making it the earliest satiric response to Lewis’s collection, which, though dated “1801,” had appeared in November or December of 1800. “More Wonders” later appears The Harp of Erin, Containing the Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Dermody (London: for Richard Phillips, 1807), the copy text of this on-line edition. Dermody’s original notes to the poem are indicated by bold font; the other notes are supplied by the current editor.

Thomas Dermody was born in 1775 in Ennis, the county town of Clare, Ireland and by most accounts displayed early talent in poetry and foreign languages but led a dissipated life, dying young and impoverished at the age of 27 in 1802. See James Grant Raymond, The Life of Thomas Dermody: Interspersed with Pieces of Poetry, Many Exhibiting Unexampled Prematurity of Genuine Poetical Talent (London: William Miller), 1806.

1. From Macbeth 4.3. 77-81.

2. There exists the possibility that Dermody’s expectation of “an instantaneous profusion of Tales of Terror, in imitation of so dreadful an original [meaning Tales of Wonder]” refers to his belief, in general terms, that many will follow Lewis’s lead in the writing and parody of Gothic ballads. But this statement very well might refer to a specific volume, the anonymous Tales of Terror, which appears later in June, 1801. It is unclear how Dermody would know of this volume or whether he contributed to its writing.

3. From The Aeneid 3. 658: “A monster frightful, formless, immense, with sight removed.”

4. From Don Sebastian 1.1. 354-355.

5. In their attacks on Lewis’s Gothic writing, critics repeatedly call attention to the fact that Lewis served as a Member of Parliament. See, for example, Coleridge’s

Review of The Monk: “Yes! the author of the Monk signs himself a LEGISLATOR! We stare and tremble.”

6. Omitted are the first 80 lines of the epistle, in which Dermody makes “peace” with other poets, novelists, actors, pedants, patrons, and critics before turning to his real target: Lewis.

7. Spenser. The Faerie Queene 1.9. 306. A description of Despair looking “as he did never dine.”

8. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the chronicler. His Historia Regum Britanniae was a frequent sourcebook for Gothic tales.

9. Ariosto.

10. From the Inferno, canto 33.

11. Possibly a reference to a passage in The Monk that most drew critical alarm: Lewis’s observation that explicitly sexual passages in scripture made the text

unsuitable for his heroine Antonia’s reading (“annals of a brothel would scarcely furnish a greater choice of indecent expressions”).

12.A celebrated old ballad of that title. Included in Percy’s Reliques (1765).

13. From Henry IV Part I (3.1. 51), a particularly apt quotation for Dermody’s satire. In response to the bogus sorcerer Glendower’s claim that he can summon

“spirits from the vasty deep,” Hotspur replies “Why, so can I, or so can any man; / But will they come when you do call for them?”

14. The Castle Spectre, Lewis’s hugely popular Gothic melodrama appearing at Drury Lane, 1797.

15. From Paradise Lost, 2. 628: “Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.”

16. Dermody here turns from his attacks on the horrible and German-inspired machinery of The Monk and Castle Spectre and begins his case against Tales of

 Wonder and an especially vexatious matter for the critics: Lewis’s inclusion of many canonical British poets (elaborated several lines later on) in volume two of the

 first edition. These additions, actually Lewis’s attempt to supply a pedigree for the Gothic ballad, resulted in some critics derisively labeling his collection “Tales of

Plunder.”

17. Another sore point for critics: the high price of the two-volume set, especially considering that most of volume two consisted of previously published poetry.

18. Gifted young poet (1752-1770) who, impoverished and despairing, took his life at the age of seventeen.

19. Early Christian hermit (c. 650-710) renowned for his piety

20. Holborn: an area of central London, once infamous for its “molly houses” (taverns or rooms where homosexual males met); La Trappe: monastery in Soligny-la-Trappe, Orne, France, and the house of the Reformed Cistercians or Trappists, to whom it gave its name.

21. A poem entitled Joan of Arc (an epic poem, 1796). Seven of Southey’s ballads appear in the first edition of Tales of Wonder (they were removed in the one-volume second edition). For information about Southey’s participation in Lewis’s collection, see Appendix B of the Broadview edition of Tales of Wonder.

22. John Dryden’s “Theodore and Honoria” and “Dreams” appear as ballads # 39 and #40 in volume II of the first edition of Tales of Wonder.

23. Thomas Gray’s “The Fatal Sisters” and “The Descent of Odin” appear as ballads # 41 and #42 in volume II of the first edition of Tales of Wonder.

24. Robert Burns’ “Tam o’ Shanter” leads off the second volume of Tales of Wonder.

25. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, written and collected by Dr. Percy. Lewis took eight ballads from Thomas Percy’s Reliques (first printed 1765; Lewis used a 1794 London edition printed by John Nichols).

26. From The Tempest 4.1. 152.

27. In its review of “More Wonders,” the ever vigilant Antijacobin Review (1801) objected to this couplet and its criticism of the monarchy (418).

28. The “collegiate drudge” relies upon such “familiar” aids as a Gradus ad Parnassum (“Steps to Parnassus”—a kind of Latin dictionary and primer) to write his bad poetry, as the bust of Maro (Virgil) looks on disapprovingly and “cantabs” (short for Cantabrigian, “of Cambridge) dim-wittedly admire his grace; these cantabs also swear that the drudge poet competes with the Roman historian Livy for literary honors (the “palm”). “Patavinity”: the use of local or provincial words, such as used by Livy; so called from Patavium, now Padua, the place of his birth.

29. “Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes / Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.” From Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters from Pontus) 2.9.47-48.

30. meaning the house of Parliament, the third reference to Lewis being an M.P.

31. Bedlam was a hospital for the mentally ill located near the Moorfields section of London.