You do not say a word about Skelton; and I regret much your disappointment in respect of Middleton.

I remain, my dear Sir,
Faithfully, your much obliged,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[159]

[159] Memoirs, ii. 350-1.

104. Presidency of Royal Dublin Society:  Patronage of Genius:  Canons of Criticism:  Family News.

LETTER TO SIR WILLIAM R. HAMILTON.

Rydal Mount, Dec. 21 [1837].

MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,

The papers had informed me of the honour conferred upon you, and I was intending to congratulate you on the occasion, when your letter arrived.  The electors have done great credit to themselves by appointing you, and not a little by rejecting the ultra-liberal Archbishop, and that by so decided a majority.  We are much pleased that your sister, who we conclude is well, has sent her Poems to press, and wish they may obtain the attention we are sure they will merit.  Your own two Sonnets, for which I thank you, we read, that is Mrs. W. and myself (Dora is in the South), with interest.  But to the main purport of your letter.  You pay me an undeserved compliment in requesting my opinion, how you could best promote some of the benefits which the Society, at whose head you are placed, aims at.  As to patronage, you are right in supposing that I hold it in little esteem for helping genius forward in the fine arts, especially those whose medium is words.  Sculpture and painting may be helped by it; but even in those departments there is much to be dreaded.  The French have established an Academy at Rome upon an extensive scale; and so far from doing good, I was told by every one that it had done much harm.  The plan is this:  they select the most distinguished students from the school or academy at Paris and send them to Rome, with handsome stipends, by which they are tempted into idleness, and of course into vice.  So that it looks like a contrivance for preventing the French nation and the world at large profiting by the genius which nature may have bestowed, and which left to itself would in some cases, perhaps, have prospered.  The principal, I was indeed told the only, condition imposed upon these students is, that each of them send annually some work of his hands to Paris.  When at Rome, I saw a good deal of English artists.  They seemed to be living happily and doing well, tho’, as you are aware, the public patronage any of them receive is trifling.

Genius in poetry, or any department of what is called the Belles Lettres, is much more likely to be cramped than fostered by public support:  better wait to reward those who have done their work, tho’ even here national rewards are not necessary, unless the labourers be, if not in poverty, at least in narrow circumstances.  Let the laws be but just to them and they will be sure of attaining competence, if they have not misjudged their own talents or misapplied them.