Part 20

In the way of provincial journalism Norfolk was early in the field, for the _Norfolk Chronicle_ was founded in 1761, whilst the _Norwich Postman_ is said to have been the first local newspaper published in England. It has frequently been stated that the oldest provincial newspaper is the _Worcester Journal_, the first copy of which appeared in 1709; but as a matter of fact, I believe that the _Norwich Postman_ appeared some three years earlier, being first published in 1706 by T. Goddard, a bookseller of the town. It was sold for a penny, unless that sum could not be obtained, when, it is rather amusing to learn, a halfpenny would generally be accepted.

The _Newcastle-upon-Tyne Courant_ is another paper which can lay claim to a very respectable antiquity, dating as it does from 1711. Many people, in consequence, have stoutly declared that the organ in question, and not the _Worcester Journal_ (or _Worcester Postman_, as it was originally called), was in reality the first provincial newspaper; but, as I have said, it is now pretty well authenticated that from Norwich issued the first beginning of what has now become the great and influential Provincial Press.

_John Bull_, a daily paper which has long ceased to exist, was a great favourite with my father, and we children used to look upon its columns with a sort of respectful awe. In 1855 began a new era in journalism with the foundation of the _Daily Telegraph_ and the _Saturday Review_, the latter of which for many years exercised such a remarkable influence by reason of the able writers who at different times were members of its staff. Ten years later, in 1865, was founded the _Pall Mall Gazette_, which still flourishes under the very able editorship of my friend Sir Douglas Straight. It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the word “Gazette” is derived from the name of a small Venetian coin which was the price asked for the first newspaper sold in the city of Venice.

One of the most curious advertisements which has ever appeared was that inserted in the _Times_ of 10th March 1858. This stated that the secretary of the Army and Navy Club would pay the sum of £50 on the due conviction and punishment of the offender who had sent the _Punch_ cartoon of “The Crowing Colonel” (a picture very unflattering to the French army, it is hardly necessary to say), accompanied by a forged message from the club to an officer in command of a French regiment. Notwithstanding this liberal reward, the culprit was, I believe, never discovered.

Although so-called society journalism, as it exists to-day, was unheard of, the newspapers of the past occasionally inserted scraps of gossip dealing with well-known scandals and the like. In 1840 was published a somewhat amusing correspondence between Lady Seymour, the Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton tournament (to whom reference has before been made—she was afterwards Duchess of Somerset), and Lady Shuckburgh. Lady Seymour, having written to the latter to ask the character of a servant named Stedman, and whether she was a good plain cook, received the reply that Lady Shuckburgh, having a professed cook and housekeeper, knew nothing about the under-servants. Upon this, Lady Seymour wrote again to explain that she understood that Stedman, in addition to her other talents, had had some practice in cooking for the little Shuckburghs. Lady Shuckburgh instructed her house-maid to answer this as follows:—“Stedman informs me that your ladyship does not keep either a cook or a housekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a mutton chop; if so, Stedman or any other scullion will be found fully equal to cook for or manage the establishment of the Queen of Beauty.”

At the Eglinton tournament, which had taken place just a year before, Prince Louis Napoleon appeared in a broadsword encounter with a Mr. Lamb, who enacted the part of the Knight of the White Rose.

Prince Napoleon’s pretensions to the throne of France were not at that time regarded as being serious, though he himself ever entertained a fixed idea that he would one day succeed in obtaining the Imperial Crown. This conviction, which was firmly implanted in his mind, no doubt had a good deal to do with his ultimate success.

I remember him perfectly well, and suppose that I am about the last living of the partners who danced with him in the London ballrooms of some sixty years ago. An agreeable and clever talker, he could be amusing when he chose, and in later years, when Emperor, many stories were current as to his witty sayings. Perhaps the most amusing of these was the remark which he is supposed to have made at a fancy dress ball at the Tuileries, to which a certain lady had come attired in a costume which was an adornment rather than a covering. In the course of the evening the Imperial host approached this lady and, congratulating her upon her beautiful dress, at the same time inquired what it might be intended to represent. “L’Afrique, Sire,” was the reply. “Très bien,” said the Emperor, “I must then again congratulate you on the accuracy with which you have followed the progress of geographical exploration; for of your dress, as of the Dark Continent, it may truthfully be said que c’est seulement la partie centrale qui n’est pas encore découverte.”

I was little in Paris during the second Empire, but after the disastrous war of 1870 I paid a visit to France and collected a few relics of that dreadful struggle. Amongst other things I purchased a number of very amusing caricatures, some of them dealing with the humours of underground life in the cellars during the siege of Paris; in others the (very) irregular forces improvised by the so-called Government of the Commune, such as the “Voltigeurs de la Villette” and the “Chasseurs de Belleville,” were held up to ridicule.

English sympathies during the Franco-German war were very generally given to the French, and a good deal of sarcastic comment was passed upon the pious utterances of the old Emperor William, whose piety was nevertheless quite sincere. Amongst other skits were published some very ribald verses supposed to be written in imitation of the Prussian King’s letters to his Queen after a victory. They began, as far as I remember:—

By Heaven’s aid, my dear Augusta, We’ve gone another awful buster; Ten thousand Frenchmen gone below, Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

At the time of the French reverses it was thought that France could scarcely recover from the effect of the terrible catastrophe which had overtaken her, but to the astonishment of the world this gloomy estimate was completely falsified, and in 1878 Europe, flocking to see the Great Exhibition, found to its surprise and delight that Paris, but a few years before bombarded and beleaguered, was, as the late George Augustus Sala wrote, “comelier, richer, gayer, and more fascinating than ever.” These words occurred in a very well written and interesting book which Mr. Sala produced after a visit to the Exhibition. It was entitled _Paris Herself Again_, and though it is now some twenty-nine years old it may still be read with pleasure. Besides containing interesting information about Paris and the ways of its inhabitants, the volume is also full of amusing illustrations by clever artists and caricaturists such as Bertall, Cham and Grévin,—names now but memories to survivors of the generation which admired a verve almost amounting to genius.

Mr. Sala was a very clever draughtsman; I rather think that it was he who drew a panoramic roll illustrating the funeral procession which accompanied the Iron Duke to his grave; this has now become scarce, and when in good condition is somewhat valuable. Mr. Sala’s knowledge of Paris was very thorough, and he had seen the pleasure-loving city under many different conditions—during the Revolution of 1848, the _coup d’état_ of 1851 (when he was nearly shot), and in addition he was all but murdered as a Prussian spy on the 4th of September 1870. Having received his early education in France he spoke French just as well as his native tongue, and was as much at home in that country as in England.

In former days there were certain well-known Englishmen who made their home in Paris, Lord Hertford and his brother, Lord Henry Seymour, and later on Sir Richard Wallace, being conspicuous examples. The last of those, however, whom I remember was Mr. Mackenzie Grieves, a gentleman of the old school who in early life had been an officer in the “Blues,” and who died not a great number of years ago. Whenever he came to England he rarely failed to pay a visit to Strathfieldsaye, and there I frequently used to meet this polished representative of all that was best in the French society of the past. Possessing the most charming manners, there was something about him which vividly recalled what one had heard of the best days of the old régime; his costume, for instance, though of extreme simplicity, had a particular note of distinction which has now totally disappeared from men’s dress. A remarkable judge of horse flesh, especially of the great Norman horses known as _percherons_, he was also well known as a perfect master of the _haute école_. His judgment in Turf matters was also held in very great respect in Paris, and his immaculate frock-coat and voluminous tie were seldom absent from Longchamps, where he had something to do with the direction of the races.

One of the principal reasons given by Mr. Mackenzie Grieves for his love of Paris was the delightful nature of its environs, as well as the charm of the Bois de Boulogne, an ideal spot for a morning ride. London, alas! has nothing to equal this, and in these days one has to go many miles out before reaching the real country.

One of the greatest changes which I have witnessed, indeed, has been the overflow of London into the pleasant fields which formerly lay quite close to what are now the inner line of suburbs. Streets and streets of uninteresting and depressing-looking little houses now cover districts which not so very long ago were quite rural. About the time I was married people used very often to drive out to the market gardens, which were then quite close, and eat fruit there. The strawberry season was the great time for these excursions. In 1840 quite large nursery gardens existed at Paddington, whilst some hundreds of acres near what is now Battersea Park were utilised for the same purpose up to much more recent times. The gardens here were especially noted for the early fruit and vegetables which they produced, as also for their asparagus, said to be the best grown in the neighbourhood of London.

Hammersmith, on the other hand, was famous for its fruit,—strawberries, raspberries, and the like, being grown in great perfection. Fulham also formerly produced a great quantity of fruit and vegetables, and though several acres of land which had previously served for this purpose were put to other uses in 1865, the ground stretching towards Hammersmith and North End was pretty well covered with market gardens as late as the ’seventies. In my childhood, of course, Chelsea and Hammersmith were considered quite in the country. As an instance of this, it may be mentioned that in the Royal Blue Book for 1826 Chelsea Farm is given as the “country residence” of Lady Cremorne. The ground occupied by this lady’s house, after being utilised for the celebrated Cremorne Gardens, has now been covered with streets.

Every year London grows bigger and bigger, and the day now seems to be not far distant when the road to southern watering-places, such as Brighton, will run through an almost unbroken line of villas. Of late there seems to be a tendency to live more and more out of London, City men and others making a practice of travelling up and down every day, journeys which can now be made in perfect comfort and convenience. Luxury in travelling, as in most other things, has much increased.

Marvellous it is how, within my lifetime, the general standard of comfort amongst all classes has been raised, though not, I fear, with any particular increase of contentment. The so-called necessaries of life have become very much multiplied, and there is now a universal craving for amusement which was quite unknown in old days. Everything is comparative, and the luxury of to-day becomes the necessity of to-morrow. The life of the poorer classes living in the country, notwithstanding the fact that wages were lower than at present, was certainly not an unhappy one in old days, when there was a bond of sympathy existing between landlord and tenantry which is now, except in some few cases, a thing of the past. Classes were then more strictly defined, and the farmers, the majority of them sturdy yeomen of far more distinguished descent than most of the brand-new Peers of to-day, would have laughed to scorn any idea of calling themselves gentlemen; now, however, it would seem that every one is a gentleman or a lady.

Universal and, as many think, misdirected education has completely destroyed the picturesque side of village life, and in the place of the quaint old traditions and picturesque beliefs handed down by their forefathers, modern villagers possess a rudimentary smattering of all sorts of useless knowledge, which, imperfectly assimilated, serves but to render them loutish copies of the townsmen whom it is their ambition to imitate.

Students and archæologists, it is true, do their best to preserve some record of the old country traditions and ways which have been so ruthlessly destroyed. How dignified and spiritual was the idea which many of them conveyed! Take, for instance, the old belief which formerly prevailed amongst Norfolk fisher-folk, that deaths mostly occurred at the falling of the tide. From this East Anglian legend was it that Dickens drew his beautiful picture of the death of Barkis. “People can’t die along the coast,” said Mr. Peggotty, “except when the tide’s pretty nigh out. They can’t be born unless it’s pretty nigh in—not properly born till flood. He’s agoing out with the tide—he’s agoing out with the tide.” And so Peggotty and David Copperfield watched by Barkis’s bed till, it being low water, the latter went out with the tide.

At rural weddings in some parts of Norfolk it was formerly the custom to strew the path of the happy couple with fern leaves, and to greet them on their exit from church with wedding peals rung on all the handbells of the village, whilst in more remote times an elder sister was by an old custom obliged to dance in a hog’s trough should her younger sister marry before her. Country maidens in Norfolk who were desirous of a swain used also to recite the following spell, “a clover of two”—that is, a piece of clover with but two leaves—being supposed to possess much magical power:—

A clover, a clover of two, put in your right shoe, The first young man you meet in field, street, or lane You’ll have him or one of his name.

As has been said, the advent of the school board rang the death-knell of rural tradition and legend, and the rustic of to-day considers himself far above any such superstitions. Strange old tales and folklore handed down from long-dead generations have little interest for the villager of to-day, who seems to spend a good part of his time lolling about the village street, and flattening his nose against the shop windows, which seem mostly to be filled with those brilliantly coloured tins of foreign preserved meats and provisions which our ancestors, happily for themselves, never knew. The countryman takes his pleasures more sadly than of yore. His rough old amusements and sports are gone; about the only excitement which penetrates into rural life being furnished by some realistically dished-up tragedy or _cause célèbre_ imbibed through the medium of a halfpenny paper.

The folklore of East Anglia has been very thoroughly recorded in various publications, amongst them the _East Anglian Magazine_, which for some time was edited by the late Miss Mary Henniker, who for so many years lived in the little house in Berkeley Street, familiar to a large circle as the residence of her universally popular younger sister. Her death, which occurred but a few months ago, was the cause of much sincere and genuine regret to all her friends. Miss Helen Henniker, though in latter years labouring under considerable physical disability, ever retained an extraordinary amount of good-natured vitality. She was, indeed, one of those people whom it is difficult to realise as being dead. Bright, vivacious, and good-natured to a quite unusual degree, “Helen,” as she was affectionately called, possessed a most comprehensive knowledge of all the different types which make up that motley crowd known as London society. She was welcome everywhere, and the disappearance of this kindly and original personality called forth many a sincere expression of real grief.

Within the last few years death has robbed me of many valued friends, some, like that most kindly of men, Lord Haliburton, dying after severe illness, and others, like my dear cousin Sir Spencer Walpole, suddenly struck down in the apparent fulness of health and strength. Sir Spencer, who attained a position of some eminence as a painstaking and accurate writer of contemporary history, was by nature a man of most judicial and well-balanced mind, and was an almost unique instance, as he himself would admit, of what I may call a serious Walpole, for the majority of my family, since the days of Sir Robert, have never been conspicuous for any particular mental stability. Mayhap some of the southern blood of old Pierre Lombard, a native of Nîmes, whose daughter was our ancestress, is the cause of this. Sir Spencer himself used to say that this erratic and impulsive temperament had in his case been modified by the marriage of his great-grandfather to a lady of Dutch nationality, and his even temper and calm mental outlook would certainly seem to have justified such a supposition.

Erratic, and sometimes lacking balance to the verge of eccentricity, the Walpoles were ever a somewhat curious race, their chief characteristic, perhaps, being an intense love of frivolity combined with a real liking for literature and art. For music, however, few of us have cared at all, whilst most have positively hated its more serious side. As a rule, too indolent to grasp the political laurels which their intellects were in several cases easily capable of winning, and not by nature fitted for a public career, the Walpoles have now for many generations scarcely attempted to emerge from the humdrum backwaters of private life, the founder of our fortunes, Sir Robert, remaining the first and last great politician which the family has produced. Nevertheless, there is a compensation in that very nature which has rendered serious effort so unattractive to us, for with something of the child’s dislike of order and restraint, we have also the counterbalancing advantage of the child’s buoyancy of disposition and easy forgetfulness of trouble, retained in some cases to an age when others of more serious temperament have long ceased to take an interest in anything at all. And now, with these somewhat egotistical reflections, I will take leave of my readers, only hoping that their patience will not have been overtaxed by the perusal of these Notes, Memories, and Recollections.

APPENDIX

SOME SECRET NEGOTIATIONS OF THE PRETENDER WITH SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

Some little time ago my nephew, Lord Orford, discovered in his library at Wolterton some rather interesting old papers dealing with certain negotiations which appear to have at one time been afoot between the Pretender and Sir Robert Walpole. It is said that a picture formerly existed at Houghton in which both Sir Robert (as a youth) and his father were shown wearing the Stuart tartan, but notwithstanding this my ancestor has always been regarded as an uncompromising upholder of the Hanoverian succession. Nevertheless, it would appear from the correspondence which he discovered that at one time Sir Robert was not altogether disinclined to learn the Pretender’s proposals, though of course he may have only done this from diplomatic reasons. The principal portion of the documents in question consists of a memorandum drawn up by a certain Mr. Thomas Carte, whose name is well known to historical students. A non-juring clergyman, he had strong Jacobite leanings, and is known to have been much interested in the Stuart cause. My nephew’s father, Mr. Frederick Walpole, appears to have made some inquiries about him of his friend Mr. Whitwell Elwin, the well-known editor of the _Quarterly Review_, for the following letter was found appended to the correspondence:—

BOOTON RECTORY, NORWICH, _March 18, 1865_.

DEAR MR. WALPOLE—I have been an age in answering your letter owing to my reading the name of Thomas Carte as Thomas Lart. I could not remember that I had ever heard of the name of the latter gentleman, and I searched books and indexes in vain in order to discover what my memory would not supply. Five minutes ago I took up your note, and again scrutinised the word, when all of a sudden it flashed upon me that the name was Carte, though your C is very indistinct. You will find an account of him in any English Biographical Dictionary. If you want any details beyond what an ordinary book of reference will supply you must come to me again. Andrew Stone was sub-preceptor to George 3. when Prince of Wales. There are stories of him in Horace Walpole, Mahon’s History, and other books. He was chiefly noted, I think, for his supposed Jacobite bias in early days. You must not assume that I shall be always as dilatory in answering questions. I should have written at once if I could have solved your problem.

Two or three months, I presume, will bring an election which will carry you into Parliament, and long may you flourish there. I do not hear a word of East Norfolk. If Stracey is goose enough to stand it will only end in a fall. He will have no support worth the name. I was delighted to hear that you and Lord O. were one again.—Believe me, ever sincerely yours,

W. ELWIN.

At the beginning of the memorandum is the following note in Sir Robert Walpole’s handwriting:—

This Paper was delivered to me, the 15th of Sept. 1739, at nine o’clock at night at my house at Chelsea,[2] by Mr. Tho. Cart, a non-jurying Clergyman, as a Copy of Heads, etc., drawn up by Him, by order of the Pretender, as explanatory of some conferences held by Him at Rome upon the subject of the security of the Church of England and delivered to the Pretender by Him in July last.

R. WALPOLE.

The memorandum itself, which is somewhat lengthy, appears to have been drawn up with a view to satisfying Sir Robert that in the event of the Pretender being placed upon the throne of England no attempt would be made to interfere with the privileges of the Protestant Church. It begins:—

HEADS OFFERED TO CONSIDERATION IN RELATION TO THE SECURITY AND ADVANTAGE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND