Part 1
Chats in the Book-room
Of this Book only One Hundred and Fifty Copies were privately printed for the Author, on Arnold's Unbleached Handmade Paper, in the month of January 1896---of which this is
_No. 25_
Chats in the Book-room
By
Horace N. Pym
Editor of Caroline Fox's Journals; A Mother's Memoir; A Tour Round my Book-shelves, etc. etc.
_With Portrait by MOLLY EVANS, and Two Photogravures of the Book-room_
"If any one, whom you do not know, relates strange stories, be not too ready to believe or report them, and yet (unless he is one of your familiar acquaintance) be not too forward to contradict him."--Sir Matthew Hale.
Privately Printed for the Author in the Year 1896 by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
_To_
_My Dearly Loved Son_
_Julian Tindale Pym_
_I dedicate these "Chats in the Book-room," to which I ask him to extend that noble "Patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill," which gilds and elevates his life._
H. N. P.
Christmas, Foxwold Chase, 1895.
Table of Contents
"_Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers, That warm its creeping life-blood till the last._" O. W. Holmes.
PAGE
Introduction 1
CHAT I.
On Richard Corney Grain--His home qualities--His love for children--His benevolence--His power of pathos--His letter on a holiday 3
CHAT II.
On a portrait of General Wolfe--On the use of portraits in country-houses--On a sale at Christie's--A curious story about a curious sale 8
CHAT III.
On holiday trips--Across the Atlantic--Some humours of the voyage--Some stories told in the gun-room 18
CHAT IV.
On a private visit to Newgate prison--In Execution yard--Some anecdotes of the condemned 34
CHAT V.
On Book-binding--Some worthy members of the craft--On over-work and the modern race for wealth--Charles Dickens on work--A Song of the City--Anecdote of Mr. Anstey Guthrie 41
CHAT VI.
On an uninvited guest--Her illness--Her convalescence--Her recovery--Her gratitude--On texts in bedrooms--A welcoming banner 53
CHAT VII.
On some minor poets--On _vers de Société_--On Praed, C. S. Calverley, Locker-Lampson, and Mr. A. Dobson 58
CHAT VIII.
On Mr. Punch and his founders--Concerning portraits of Jerrold, Kenny Meadows, and Horace Mayhew--On Mr. Sala as a painter--A letter from G. A. Sala 66
CHAT IX.
On our schooldays--On Bedford, past and present--On R. C. Lehmann--A poem by him--A Christmas greeting by H. E. Luxmoore 73
CHAT X.
On John Poole, the author of "Paul Pry"--His friendship with Dickens--His letter to Dickens detailing the French Revolution of 1848 82
CHAT XI.
On Ethie Castle--Its artistic treasures--A letter from Charles II.--A true family ghost story 99
CHAT XII.
On Cardinal Manning--Dramatic effect at his _Academia_--On Poets who are never read, or "hardly ever" 108
CHAT XIII.
On a true story, called "Jane will return"--On Hamilton's "Parodies"--An unknown one, by the Rev. James Bolton 119
CHAT XIV.
On autographs--Mr. James Payn and his lay-sermons--Mrs. Charles Fox of Trebah--Her friendship with Hartley Coleridge--A letter from him--A letter from John Bright to Caroline Fox--Mr. Ruskin as a mineral collector--Five unpublished letters from him 125
CHAT XV.
On Mrs. Lyne Stephens--The story of her early life--Thackeray's sketch of her--Her art collections--A wonderful sale at Christie's--Her charities and friendships--Her death--Her funeral sermon--Her portraits 143
"_I come not here your morning hour to sadden, A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,-- I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh._" --The Iron Gate.
List of Illustrations
Portrait _To face the Title Page_
The Book-room (First View) _Page_ 58
The Book-room (Second View) " 113
Introduction.
"_Some of your griefs you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived; But what torments of pain you endured, From evils that never arrived!_"
A few years ago a little inconsequent volume was launched on partial acquaintance, telling of some ordinary books which line our friendly shelves, of some kindly friends who had read and chatted about them, some old stories they had told, and some happy memories they had awakened.
When those acquaintances had read the little book, they asked, like Oliver, for more. A rash request, because, unlike Oliver, they get it in the shape of another "Olla Podrida" of book-chat, picture-gossip, and perchance a stray "chestnut." Their good-nature must be invoked to receive it, like C. S. Calverley's sojourners--
"Who when they travel, if they find That they have left their pocket-compass, Or Murray, or thick boots behind, They raise no rumpus."
Chat No. 1.
"_Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you, With too serene a conscience drew Your easy breath, and slumbered through The gravest issue; But we, to whom our age allows Scarce space to wipe our weary brows, Look down upon your narrow house, Old friend, and miss you._" --Austin Dobson.
Since we made our last "Tour Round the Book-shelves," death has removed one of the kindest friends, and most genial companions, of the Book-room. In Richard Corney Grain, Foxwold has lost one of its pleasantest and most welcome guests, and it is doubtful, well as the public cared for and appreciated his genius, if it knew or suspected how generous a heart, and how wide a charity, moved beneath that massive frame. When rare half-holidays came, it was no uncommon thing for Dick Grain to dedicate them to the solace and amusement of some hospital or children's home, where, with a small cottage piano, he would, moving from ward to ward, give the suffering patients an hour's freedom from their pain, and some happy laughs amid their misery.
One day, after a series of short performances in the different parts of one of our large London hospitals, he was about to sing in the accident ward, when the secretary to the hospital gravely asked him "Not to be too funny in this room, for fear he'd make the patients burst their bandages!"
Dick Grain was never so happy, so natural, or so amusing as when, of his own motion, he was singing to a nursery full of children in a country house.
Those who knew him well were aware that, delightful as were all his humorous impersonations, he had a graver and more impressive side to his lovable and admirable character, and that he would sometimes, when sure he would be understood, sing a pathetic song, which made the tears flow as rapidly as in others the smiles had been evoked.
Who that heard it will forget his little French song, supposed to be sung by one of the first Napoleon's old Guard for bread in the streets. He sang in a terrible, hoarse, cracked voice a song of victory, breaking off in the middle of a line full of the sound of battle to cough a hacking cough, and beg a sous for the love of God!
Subjoined is one of his friendly little notes, full of the quiet happy humour that made him so welcome a guest in every friend's house.
Hothfield Place, Ashford, Kent.
"My dear Pym,
I shall be proud to welcome you and Mrs. Pym on Wednesday the 26th, but why St. George's Hall? Why not go at once to a play and not to an entertainment? Plays at night. Entertainments in the afternoon. Besides, we are so empty in the evenings now, the new piece being four weeks overdue. Anyhow, I hope to see you at 8 Weymouth Street on Nov. 26th, at any hour after my work, say 10.15 or 10.30, and so on, every quarter of an hour.
"I am dwelling in the Halls of the Great, waited on by powdered menials, who rather look down on me, I think, and hide my clothes, and lay things out I don't wish to put on, and button my collar on to my shirt, and my braces on to my----, and when I try to throw the braces over my shoulders I hit my head with the buckle, and get my collar turned upside down, and tear out the buttons in my endeavours to get it right; and they fill my bath so full, that the displacement caused by my unwieldy body sends quarts of water through the ceiling on to the drawing-room--the Red Drawing-room. Piano covered with the choicest products of Eastern towns. Luckily the party is small, so we only occupy the Dragon's Blood Room, so perhaps they won't notice it. But a truce to fooling till Nov. 26.--Yours sincerely,
R. Corney Grain."
_Nov. 16, 1890._
He was one of the most gifted, warmest-hearted friends; his cynicism was all upon the surface, and was never unkind, the big heart beat true beneath. His premature death has eclipsed the honest gaiety of this nation--"he should have died hereafter."
Chat No. 2.
"_Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life, Is worth an age without a name._" --Old Mortality.
A picture hangs at Foxwold of supreme interest and beauty, being a portrait of General Wolfe by Gainsborough. Its history is shortly this--painted in Bath in 1758, probably for Miss Lowther, to whom he was then engaged, and whose miniature he was wearing when death claimed him; it afterwards became the property of Mr. Gibbons, a picture collector, who lived in the Regent's Park in London, descending in due course to his son, whose widow eventually sold it to Thomas Woolner, the R.A. and sculptor; it was bought for Foxwold from Mrs. Woolner in 1895.
The great master has most wonderfully rendered the hero's long, gaunt, sallow face lit up by fine sad eyes full of coming sorrow and present ill-health. His cocked hat and red coat slashed with silver braid are brilliantly painted, whilst his red hair is discreetly subdued by a touch of powder.
One especial interest that attends this picture in its present home is, that within two miles of Foxwold he was born, and passed some youthful years in the picturesque little town of Westerham, his birthplace, and that his short and wonderful career will always be especially connected with Squerryes Court, then the property of his friend George Warde, and still in the possession of that family.
Until recently no adequate or satisfactory life of Wolfe existed, but Mr. A. G. Bradley has now filled the gap with his beautiful and affecting monograph for the Macmillan Series of English Men of Action: a little book which should be read by every English boy who desires to know by what means this happy land is what it is.
In country houses the best decoration is portraits, portraits, and always portraits. In the town by all means show fine landscape and sea-scape--heathery hills and blue seas--fisher folks and plough boys--but when from your windows the happy autumn fields and glowing woods are seen, let the eye returning to the homely walls be cheered with the answer of face to face, human interests and human features leading the memory into historic channels and memory's brightest corners. How pleasant it is in the room where, in the spirit, we now meet, to chat beneath the brilliant eyes of R. B. Sheridan, limned by Sir Joshua, or to note with a smile the dignified importance of Fuseli, painted by Harlow, or to turn to the last portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted by himself, and of which picture Mr. Ruskin once remarked, "How deaf he has drawn himself."
Of the fashion in particular painters' works, Christie's rooms give a most instructive object-lesson. It is within the writer's memory when Romneys could be bought for £20 apiece, and now that they are fetching thousands, the wise will turn to some other master at present neglected, and gather for his store pictures quite as full of beauty and truth, and whose price will not cause his heirs to blaspheme.
A constant watchful attendance at Christie's is in itself a liberal education, and it seldom happens that those who know cannot during its pleasant season find "that grain of gold" which is often hidden away in a mass of mediocrity. And then those clever, courteous members of the great house are always ready to give the modest inquirer the full benefit of their vast knowledge, and, if necessary, will turn to their priceless records, and guide the timid, if appreciative, visitor into the right path of selection.
What a delightful thing it is to be present at a field-day in King Street. The early lunch at the club--the settling into a backed-chair at the exactly proper angle to the rostrum and the picture-stand. (The rostrum, by the way, was made by Chippendale for the founder of the house.) At one o'clock the great Mr. Woods winds his way through the expectant throng, and is promptly shut into his pulpit, the steps of which are as promptly tucked in and the business and pleasure of the afternoon begins. Mr. Woods, dominating his audience
"As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,"
gives a quick glance round the big room, now filled with well-known faces, whose nod to the auctioneer is often priceless. Sir William Agnew rubs shoulders with Lord Rosebery, and Sir T. C. Robinson whispers his doubts of a picture to a Trustee of the National Collection; old Mr. Vokins extols, if you care to listen, the old English water-colourists, to many of whom he was a good friend, and Mr. George Redford makes some notes of the best pictures for the Press; but Mr. Woods' quiet incisive voice demands silence as Lot 1 is offered with little prefix, and soon finds a buyer at a moderate price.
The catalogues, which read so pleasantly and convey so much within a little space, are models of clever composition, beginning with items of lesser interest and carefully leading up to the great attractions of the afternoon, which fall to the bid of thousands of guineas from some great picture-buyer, amidst the applause of the general crowd.
A pure Romney, a winsome Gainsborough, a golden Turner, or a Corot full of mystery and beauty, will often evoke a round of hand-clapping when it appears upon the selling-easel, and a swift and sharp contest between two or three well-known connoisseurs will excite the audience like a horse-race, a fencing bout, or a stage drama.
The history of Christie's is yet to be written, notwithstanding Mr. Redford's admirable work on "Art Sales," and when it is written it should be one of the most fascinating histories of the nineteenth century; but where is the Horace Walpole to indite such a work? and who possesses the necessary materials?
One curious little history I can tell concerning a sale in recent years of the Z---- collection of pictures and _objets d'art_, which will, to those who know it not, prove "a strange story."
A former owner, distinguished by his social qualities and position, in a fit of passion unfortunately killed his footman. The wretched victim had no friends, and was therefore not missed, and the only person, besides his slayer, aware of his death, and how it was caused, was the butler. The crime was therefore successfully concealed, and no inquiries made. But after a little time the butler began to use his knowledge for his own personal purposes.
Putting the pressure of the blackmailer upon his unhappy master, he began to make him sing, by receiving as the price of his silence, first a fine picture or two, then some rare china, followed by art furniture, busts, more pictures, and more china, until he had well-nigh stripped the house.
Still, like the daughter of the horse-leech, crying, "Give, give!" he made his nominal master assign to him the entire estates, reserving only to himself a life interest, which, in his miserable state of bondage, did not last long.
The chief butler on his master's death took his name and possessions, ousting the rightful heirs; and after enjoying a wicked, but not uncommon, prosperity with his stolen goods for some years, he also died in the odour of sanctity, and went to his own place.
His successors, hearing uneasy rumours, determined to be rid of their tainted inheritance; so placed all the pictures and pretty things in the sale-market, and otherwise disposed of their ill-gotten property.
Chat No. 3.
"_Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat, Wary of the weather, and steering by a star? Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat, To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar._" --R. L. Stevenson.
The best holiday for an over-worked man, who has little time to spare, and who has not given "hostages to fortune," is to sail across the herring-pond on a Cunarder or White Star hotel, and so get free from newspapers, letters, visitors, dinner-parties, and all the daily irritations of modern life.
Those grand Atlantic rollers fill the veins with new life, the tired brain with fresh ideas; and the happy, idle days slip away all too soon, after which a short stay in New York or Boston City, and then back again.
The study of character on board is always pleasant and instructive, and sometimes a happy friendship is begun which lasts beyond the voyage.
Then, again, the cliques into which the passengers so naturally fall, is funny to watch. The reading set, who early and late occupy the best placed chairs, and wade through a vast mass of miscellaneous literature, and are only roused therefrom by the ringing summons to meals; then there is the betting and gambling set, who fill card and smoking room as long as the rules permit, coming to the surface now and then for breath, and to see what the day's run has been, or to organise fresh sweepstakes; then there is often an evangelical set, who gather in a ring upon the deck, if permitted, and sing hymns, and address in fervid tones the sinners around them; then there are the gossips (most pleasant folk these), the flirts, the deck pedestrians, those who dress three times a day, and those who dress hardly at all: and so the drama of a little world is played before a very appreciative little audience.
I remember on such a journey being greatly interested in the study of a delightful rugged old Scotch engineer, whose friendship I obtained by a genuine admiration for his devotion to his engines, and his belief in their personality. It was his habit in the evening, after a long day's run, to sit alongside these throbbing monsters and play his violin to them, upon which he was a very fair performer, saying, "They deserved cheering up a bit after such a hard day's work!" This was a real and serious sentiment on his part, and inspired respect and an amused admiration on ours.
The humours of one particular voyage which I have in my memory, were delightfully intensified by the presence on board of a very charming American child, called Flossie L----, about fourteen years old, who by her capital repartees, acute observation, and pretty face, kept her particular set of friends very much alive, and made all who knew her, her devoted slaves and admirers.
Her remark upon a preternaturally grave person, who marched the deck each day before our chairs, "that she guessed he had a lot of laughter coiled up in him somewhere," proved, before the voyage was over, to be quite true.
It was this gentleman who, one morning, solemnly confided to a friend that he was a little suspicious of the drains on board!
Americanisms, which are now every one's property, were at this time--I am speaking of twenty years ago--not so common, and glided from Flossie's pretty lips most enchantingly. To be told on a wet morning, with half a gale of wind blowing, "to put on a skin-coat and gum-boots" to meet the elements, was at that day startling, if useful, advice. She professed a serious attachment for a New York cousin, aged sixteen, "Because," she said, "he is so dissolute, plays cards, smokes cigars, reads novels, and runs away when offered candy." Her quieter moments on deck were passed in reading 'Dombey and Son,' which, when finished, she pronounced to be all wrong, "only one really nice man in the book--Carker--and he ought to have married Floey."
Mr. Hugh Childers, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was a passenger on board our boat, and having with infinite kindness and patience explained to the child our daily progress with a big chart spread on the deck and coloured pins, was somewhat startled to see her execute a _pas seul_ over his precious map and disappear down the nearest gangway, with the remark, "My sakes, Mr. Childers, how terribly frivolous you are!"
She had a youthful brother on board, who, one day at dinner, astonished his table by coolly saying, as he pointed to a most inoffensive old lady dining opposite to him, "Steward, take away that woman, she makes me sick!"
A stout and amiable friend of Flossie's, who shall be nameless in these blameless records, on coming in sight of land assumed, and I fear did it very badly, some emotion at the first sight of her great country, only to be crushed by her immediate order, given in the sight and hearing of some hundred delighted passengers, "Sailor, give this trembling elephant an arm, I guess he's going to be sick!" Luckily for him the voyage was practically over, but for its small remnant he was known to every one on board as the trembling elephant.
One day a pleasant little American neighbour at dinner touched one's sense of humour by naïvely saying, "If you don't remove that nasty little boiled hen in front of you, I know I must be ill."
Then there was a dull and solemn prig on board, who at every meal gave us, unasked, and _apropos des bottes_, some tremendous facts and statistics to digest, such as the number of shrimps eaten each year in London, or how many miles of iron tubing go to make the Saltash bridge. Finding one morning on his deck-chair, just vacated, a copy of Whitaker's Almanack and a volume of Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor," we recognised the source of his elucidations, and promptly consigned his precious books to a watery grave. Of that voyage, so far as he was concerned, the rest was silence.
Upon remarking to an American on board that the gentleman in question was rather slow, he brought down a Nasmyth hammer with which to crack his nut by saying, "Slow, sir; yes, he's a big bit slower than the hour hand of eternity!"
I remember on another pleasant voyage to Boston meeting and forming lasting friendship with the late Judge Abbott of that city, whose stories and conversation were alike delightful. He spoke of a rival barrister, who once before the law courts, on opening his speech for the defence of some notorious prisoner, said, "Gentlemen, I shall divide my address to you into three parts, and in the first I shall confine myself to the _Facts_ of this case; secondly, I shall endeavour to explain the _Law_ of this case; and finally, I shall make an all-fired rush at your passions!"