Chapter 82
LITERARY FRIENDS.
Among the many literary men and women of my acquaintance there are some (for it is not possible to enumerate all) of whom I should like to make some mention; and, _place aux dâmes_, let me speak of the ladies first. In my boyhood I can recollect that astronomical wonder of womankind, _Mrs. Mary Somerville_, a great friend of my father's; she seemed to me very quiet and thoughtful, and so little self-conscious as to be humbly unregardful of her genius and her fame. Strangely enough I first met her in the same drawing-room in Grafton Street (she lived and died at Chelsea) where I acted a silent part years after in some private theatricals with _Miss Granville_ (met during my American visit in her then phase of a German Baroness), herself an authoress and a cantatrice, daughter of Dr. Granville, the well-known historian of Spas. I recollect, too, in those early times, _Mrs. Jameson_, then a celebrated writer, and a vivacious leader of literary society; and much nearer this day, _Mrs. Beecher Stowe_, whom I found too taciturn, and as if scared at the notice she excited, quite to realise one's expectation of a famous lioness. With her I have since broken a lance in the interest of Byron, whom I considered maligned in the matter of his "sweet sister," and accordingly wrote on his behalf a vindicatory fly-leaf of poetic indignation. Another lance, too, have I broken in favour of _Ouida_, as against a newspaper critic who had tried to crush her "Moths;" I had met her before that, and did my little best in her defence, receiving from her from Italy a charming letter of acknowledgment. "Ouida" is not generally known to have been the nursery name of "Louisa" de la Ramenay, just as "Boz" was of Dickens. Both "Ouida" and _Miss Braddon_, whom also I have seen as Mrs. Maxwell, remind me of that great and not seldom unfairly judged genius, Georges Sand. There remains a worthy duplicated friendship of later years, _Mr._ and _Mrs. Carter Hall_, of whose geniality and kindness I have often had experience; also _Mr._ and _Mrs. Grote_, my learned and agreeable neighbours at Albury; also _Lady Wilde_, admirable both for prose and poetry on Scandinavian subjects, and her eloquent son _Oscar_, famous for taste all the world over; and as another duplicate the Gaelic historian and cheerful singer, _Charles Mackay_, with his charming daughter, the poetess.
* * * * *
Of celebrated men whom I have not previously mentioned in this volume, there is _Rogers_, the poet, with whom I once had an interview at his artistic house in St. James's Place; _Carlyle_, of course, well known to me by books, but personally only in a single visit, when I found him in Cheyne Row cordially glad to greet me;--after a long talk, taking my leave with a hearty "God bless you, sir," his emphatic reply, as he saw me to the door, was, "And good be with you!"
It was a coincidence, proving (as many things do) the narrowness of the world, that he was living very near to the house where in my young days I had wooed my cousin.
Near at hand also (in Cheyne Walk) I have visited _Haweis_, the eloquent preacher of St. James's, Marylebone; he lives in the picturesque old-fashioned house that was Rossetti's, and when I called there last Mr. Haweis showed me the strangest and most unwieldy testimonial that any public man surely ever received, in the shape of a ton-weight bell hung in its massive frame and placed in his sanctum, which, when touched, gave out melodious thunder. This giant-gift had been sent to him from Holland in recognition of his musical genius, especially in the matter of campanology. And this word "musical" reminds me of Mr. Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked to see his famous "Straduarius," worth three hundred guineas, and found it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, though he is eloquent. Of course I have visited the great _Tennyson_ at Farringford, and remember him showing me the tree overhanging his garden fence, which "Yankees" climb to have a look at him. _Browning_ also, _tantum vidi_, I met at Moxon's, a grandly rugged poet; contrasted with the Laureate he seems to me as Wagner is to Mendelssohn. _Mortimer Collins_ has given us "a happy day" at Albury, coming in _à pied poudre_ on one of his dusty walks through Surrey, as recorded in his book; how he enjoyed his tumbler of cool claret and the ramble with my son through the Albury woods as a most genial Bohemian! _Dickens_ I have met several times, and he gave me good hints on my first American visit; a man full of impulsive kindliness and sincerely one's friend. His son _Charles_ also I have occasionally met, the worthy successor to his illustrious father: I may here state that many of the articles and poems in _Household Words_ are from the pen of my youngest daughter. _Richard Owen_, too, now worthily K.C.B., our most famous comparative anatomist, I am privileged to number among my true friends; he was one of those who stood sponsor to me when I was to receive a civil service pension. Also I knew for many years my late Surrey neighbour, _Godwin Austen_, the geologist; and I have met _Pengelly_, with whom I searched Kent's Cavern; and _Dr. Bowerbank_, the great authority as to sponges, and my then hobby choanites; he gave me certain microscopic plates of Bacilli which I was glad to transfer to my worthy and eminent friend, _Stephen Mackenzie_, Physician and Lecturer to the London Hospital. _Matthew Arnold_ also, with whose celebrated father I was in early youth nearly placed as a pupil, I have sometimes encountered; and _Shirley Brooks_, _Albert Smith_, and _Mark Lemon_, once a chief of _Punch_, who acted Falstaff without padding; and the genial _John Tenniel_, our most exquisite limner in outline; the venerable _Thomas Cooper_ also, now in his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse. My old friend from boyhood, _Owen Blayney Cole_, must not be forgotten; year after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry. _Edmund Yates_, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein he was used so hardly. I remember also how he dropped in upon me at Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from _Punch_: he adjured me "_not_ to do it! for Heaven's sake, spare me!" covering his face with his hands. "What's the matter, friend?" "_I_ wrote all these," added he, in earnest penitence, "and I vow faithfully I'll never do it again!" "Pray, don't make so rash a promise, Edmund, and so unkind a one too: I rejoice in all this sort of thing,--it sells my books, besides--'I'se Maw-worm,--I likes to be despised!'" "Well, its very good-natured of you to say so; but I really never will do it again:" and the good fellow never did--so have I lost my most telling advertisement. I must also not forget to praise that humorous novelist, the late _Frank Smedley_,--a remarkable instance of the triumph of a strong and cheerful mind over a weak and crippled body, with whom I have many reminiscences as a brother author. It was wonderful to see how he enjoyed--from his invalid chair--"the dances and delights" he could not take part in; and one day I remember finding him unusually exhilarated, as he was just come from a wedding-breakfast,--"rehearsing, rehearsing," he laughingly shouted. Poor fellow,--the victim of an accident in infancy, he lived strapped and banded with steel springs,--but as a gracious compensation Heaven gave him a seeming unconsciousness of his helpless condition, and added the happy mind to make the best of this world while looking forward to a better. And let me not neglect to record, however slightly, a few more recent authorial friendships much valued by me among my Norwood neighbours. I will begin with _J.G. Wood_, perhaps our best naturalist, especially in matters entomological. Never were there more humorous no less than instructive lectures than his, illustrated admirably as they are by his own graphic chalk-sketches on the spot: and if any one wishes to be convinced that animals have souls, let him read the said Rev. J.G. Wood's "Man and Beast." Next will I mention _Dr. Cuthbert Collingwood_, famous as a naturalist and voyager among the China seas, a poet also, well proved by his "Vision of Creation," and a thoughtful writer on religion and metaphysics. There is _Dr. Zerffi_, too, whose varied orations on history and other topics have filled our Crystal Palace with his advanced wisdom for fifteen years. There is _Birch_ the sculptor, author of the "Godiva" and "The Last Call," exhibited here, and well appreciated by me as another _Durham_,--really a metempsychosis of character. Among literary ladies here I may mention as my friends _Madame Zerffi_, _Miss Mary Hooper_, and _Miss Ellen Barlee_,--all noted in their several departments, the first as an eloquent lecturer like her husband, the second known by her domestic essays, and the third for religious writings. I will add as casually encountered by me hereabouts _George MacDonald_, whose magnificent presence in the pulpit is as memorable as his conversation at the dinner-table, and the interest of his books; and _Lord Ronald Gower_, creator of that finest group of modern statuary "the Apotheosis of Shakespeare," exhibited at the Crystal Palace, where, as well, as by correspondence, I have had with him much pleasant intercourse.
And here may come a brief memory I wrote lately of Colonel Fred. Burnaby for an American editor.
"I am asked to give a short note of personal reminiscence about my lately departed friend, Colonel _Fred. Burnaby_, with whom I was intimate for three years before his death. Every one has read his popular life, and heard of his many exploits; how alone in mid-air he navigated a balloon across the Channel; how he accomplished, in spite of State telegrams to the contrary, his adventurous and patriotic ride to Khiva in dead winter and defying perils of all sorts; how he stood six feet four in his stockings (with another foot to be added to that magnificent specimen of manhood when in jack-boots and in his plumed helmet); how he was strong enough to bind a kitchen poker round his neck, to crack cobnuts in his fingers, and to carry a pair of Shetland ponies upstairs under his arms,--how also the genial giant, quite the Arac of Tennyson's Princess, was the gentlest and kindest and least dangerous of knights-errant (unless, indeed, his just wrath was aroused by anything mean or insolent, when doubtless he could be terrible), and how he was the idolised of men, especially his own brother giants of the Royal Regiment of Blues, and naturally was also the adored of women wherever he showed himself. This Admirable Crichton had every social accomplishment, but as he was also gifted with a knowledge of many tongues, even to Turkish and Arabic, beyond the more familiar French, German, Italian, and Spanish, of course he must dare all sorts of perilous travel, if only to prove that he was no carpet-knight, no mere 'gold stick' at court, or silver-casqued statue at the Horse Guards. So he fearlessly risked his life in all ways on every possible occasion which the War Office routine gave him on holiday.
"Khiva and Kars, and of late at last the fatal Mahdi war, had fascinations for him of danger which his thirst for active service (too much refused to him as obliged officially to be a stay-at-home) had not power to resist; and we all know how gallantly, if indeed too rashly, he fought and fell on what his Viking blood loved best as a deathbed, the field of battle. For he came of an old Teutonic family, and on his mother's side was also a direct descendant, as he told me himself, of our heroic and gigantic King Edward III., whom he is said greatly to have resembled, as the portrait at Windsor Castle proves. We were talking about ancestry and the anecdote came out naturally enough.
"In politics a strong Conservative, he, with characteristic antagonism, chose radical Birmingham for his coveted seat in Parliament, but alas! he has not lived to hazard the election. He was a neat, fluent, and epigrammatic speaker, as potent with his tongue as with his sword; and as for the pen (albeit his handwriting must have puzzled compositors), the myriads of readers who have enjoyed his stirring books in print, can testify how brilliant and eloquent he was for the matter of authorship. He told me of a new novel--of the satirico-political sort--which he had written for the press, but as yet we hear nothing definite of its publication.
"My own personal acquaintance with the familiar 'Fred. Burnaby' was confined to several hospitable dinner-parties at the house of his relative, Lady W----, my near neighbour and friend at Norwood, about which I might anecdotise to any extent; but I never allow myself to record private conversation nor to reveal domesticities. All such are sacred in my memory, and on principle I despise the modern mischief-maker whose reminiscences are practically reminuisances. On a certain public occasion, however, Burnaby stood by me, to my great pleasure and advantage, and let me record his kindness thus. When I gave my lecture on Flying at the Royal Aquarium, he most appropriately took the chair, and made some excellent remarks. Altogether, let my testimony, however brief, however inadequate, to the merits of Fred. Burnaby be this: I lost in his too sudden death a friend, as I had hoped, for many years to come, and my regrets are for him as one of the noblest of mankind. Let me add a word further, as the worthy witnessing of one, quite a kindred spirit, whose acquaintance I made some long time back, and look for great things from his energy and enterprise, and multifarious talents,--_Charles Marvin_, then the famous Eastern Pioneer, who in his book on Asia, says: "Yes, our Burnabys, our Bakers, our MacGregors, our Gordons--these are the real pillars of the Empire. These are the men who confer provinces upon England, who risk their lives to guard them. When the world is a little older, and the working man's vote is worth more than the statesman's opinion, then the splendid achievements of such men will be more generously appreciated: and the warm English feeling expended to-day on torpid, stupid, unpatriotic party politicians will be directed towards heroes whose steady undaunted patriotism, in face of public indifference and bureaucratic disdain, conveys a moral as grand as their careers."
A Dining-out Anecdote.
As I have before said, not having been much given to society, nor therefore a professional parasite of Amphitryon (though sometimes tempted to his side as "a lion," but more often vainly, for I always refused if I could), I have an instructive anecdote to give about a celebrated conversationist, whom I will not name nor indicate even by initials. One evening I found myself compelled to accompany him to a great man's banquet--_nota bene_, it was after I had well recovered speech--and so I found myself at his chambers perhaps ten minutes too soon. He called to me from his dressing-room, bidding me to amuse myself till he was ready. Now, on the study table were laid several books, open, with weights to keep them so: and I glanced from one to another to while away the time. Then up came his brougham, and off we went. At dinner my "diner-out" started a topic, whereof innocently enough I remembered instantly a suitable epigram. Not long after another subject gave me occasion to tell a witty story, which somehow came to me at the moment. My "friend" asked me with a keen glance where I had read it, and at once I recollected those open books and understood the position, resolving mischievously to outflank the manæuverer. Accordingly, at each opportunity, with seeming innocence, I "wiped his eye," as they say at a _battue_, and certainly reaped the anecdotic "_kudos_" Mr. So-and-so had cunningly contrived and hoped to achieve for himself. I confess it was vicious of me, but who could help taking the benefit of such a chance? Hosts should beware of wits who cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue than in this.
A Mormon Guest.
Quite recently I have had a visit from a young American, who brought me a letter from a so-called cousin--at all events a namesake--in the Far West, asking me to tell her about her German ancestry. My visitor was good-looking, well-dressed, fair-spoken, and gentlemanly; also well-bred and well-to-do. I will not indicate his name, but I may state that he is a near relative of the eminent electrician who illuminates so magnificently the fountains at South Kensington. Of course, as pleased with his manners and deportment, I kept him to luncheon; and finding that he hailed from Utah, naturally asked if he knew Salt Lake City and the Mormons there. Certainly; he lived not a hundred miles from the city, and those were his own people: as a Mormon himself from infancy, he had nothing but good to say of them, and we in England had been very much misled by Mrs. Stenhouse and other travellers. As to plurality of wives, not two per cent. of their whole 200,000 had more than one wife. His own father, a rich merchant and a church-hierarch, a "stake" of the tabernacle (much as we should say a pillar), had but one--his own dear mother--and he scarcely knew any one with more. It was quite a European misjudgment that many followed Brigham Young's doctrine, which never had been Joseph Smith's,--and the present chief, Taylor, had but one. He showed us many cabinet photographs of Salt Lake City, his own family, leading Mormons, and the like: especially of the Old Tabernacle, like a monstrous tortoise, and one from a finished drawing of the new, of even more tasteless architecture, being the most gigantic piece of perpendicular ever perpetrated, and full of unsightly windows. When asked about the golden book,--well he had never seen it, but believed in it thoroughly; because all the twelve apostles had seen it and he trusted their testimony. Eleven of those apostles were now dead, one only surviving. (Just as with our friends of Mr. Irving's sect at Albury, which arose in the same year as Mormonism.) We had never set eyes on the originals of our own Scriptures--in fact, they did not exist--but believed the witnessing of others, as he did. He himself was not a missionary, but would go if he was sent by the Church; though he mightn't like it, he was bound to, obey, authority, &c. &c.
I had plenty more talk with him, and found him intelligent, modest, and in every way a remarkably agreeable young fellow: and I added to my mental _repertoire_ of better judgments that on Mormonism,--even as heretofore Mr. Sinnett has taught me not utterly to despise Buddhism, Dr. Wilkinson to revere Swedenborgianism, and a few other people I might name who are true believers, to be charitable as to other sorts of strange isms: once I met a very religious clergyman who still held by Johanna Southcote; and we have all heard how Lady Hester Stanhope had an Arab horse always ready saddled for Messiah when He is to ride into Jerusalem; and how some other person had a gold spoon and fork laid daily at his table for the sudden coming of a Divine Guest! Our personal lesson is to be tolerant of all manner of innocent enthusiasms, to hear both sides and bear with all opinions,--sometimes finding to our astonishment that black sheep may after all be whiter than they looked, and that uncharitable prejudice is but another name for ignorant folly. Before taking leave of my Mormon guest, I ought to report that he was teetotal, handsome, taciturn rather than talkative, a hunter among the Rockies, an author himself, and of course an old book-friend, so I made him happy with some autographic poetries.
With reference to "Joe Smith's" own theological creed, there is a very neat and notable _précis_ of it on p. 171 of a bright little book I have lately read, titled "Frank's Ranche, or my Holiday in the Rockies," easily accessible. That creed is so good that when I read it aloud to my homeflock they said, "Why, we believe all that!"--and as to the evil matter of many wives, not only did the original Joseph repudiate that doctrine, but his namesake son, still a chief among the Mormons, does the same, and so far has seceded from the Brigham heresy: which a son of mine says is not bigamy, but Brighamy.
A few forgotten anecdotes may here find place: take these twelve as samples of many more such trivials which memory may have at the bottom of her well, if she only dipped for them.
1. A banknote experience: when a very small child I used to be taken to the Postford paper-mill at Albury by my nurse, who had a follower (or a followed) in the foreman there. While they talked together, I was deputed to amuse myself by making banknote paper, as thus: a spoonful of pulp put into a shallow tray of wire and shaken deftly made a small oblong of paper duly impressed with Britannia and water-marked: being then dried on a flannel pad. Many years after, when I was preparing for Oxford under Mr. Holt at Postford House, there was discovered a secret cupboard in the wall of his drawing-room which was found to contain several forged plates for printing banknotes: and this discovery accounted for the recent suicide of a Mr. H----, a previous owner of the paper-mill, who evidently feared exposure and conviction. No one now is allowed to make banknote paper, except the honourable firm of Messrs. Portal, which has the monopoly thereof: but when I was a child, any one might do it, and if there was a forger handy, fraud was possible to any extent. Our "Newland's Corner" on Merrow Downs is so called from Abraham Newland, whose name is printed on old banknotes as F. May is on new ones, and who owned Postford Mill. Hence the word "Sham-Abram" for a forged note.
2. A noted piscatorial editor wishes me to record now I once caught a trout with its own eye--as thus: I was whipping the Tillingbourne, and hooked a fish foul, for it dropped off leaving an eye on the hook. In my vexation I made a cast again over the same spot where I had thrown, and actually caught that eager wounded fish with its own eye.
3. When I was a guest of Captain Hamilton at Rozelle, Ayr, he told me that he and all the crew had seen the sea-serpent!--but that his admiral had interdicted all mention of it in the log for fear of ridicule: on which I told him what I had seen of the same sort. When crossing the great Herring Pond in the _Arctic_, the passengers were all summoned on deck from dinner to see that mystery of the deep, the sea-serpent. It was very rough at the time, and certainly within a little distance some apparent monster hundreds of feet long was rolling on the top of the waves: _but_ as some portions of it spouted, we soon saw there nothing but a school of whales, the big bull leading and the cows and calves following in a line. This looked like the real thing,--but wasn't. From other evidence, however, and the Rev. J.G. Wood supplies one, I do believe there are such monsters of the deep whose nest is in the Sargasso Sea.
4. Here is a curious item of my biography. When I was in Canada in 1851, at an hotel in Kingston, the waiter comes to tell me that two persons wanted to see me on special business. Admitted, there appeared a very decent man and woman dressed in their best, and with ribbons and flowers. What might they want with me? Please, Mr. Tupper, that you would marry us! My good man, I can't, I'm not a clergyman. Oh but, sir, you write religion, and we like your books, and we've come across from New York State to Canada to get married,--so please, &c. &c. Of course, I did not please, and as to marriage at all gave them Punch's celebrated advice to persons about to marry, Don't. On which the hapless pair departed sorrowfully. If I _had_ read the service over them, possibly their respectable consciences might have been satisfied,--and as with Romeo and Juliet a lay friar Lawrence would have sufficed. Moreover, there's no penalty from one State to another: and even on board ship the captain may read services, and on land the Consul marries.
5. A picture story. I am invited to a dinner where a rich New Yorker has asked some connoisseur friends to inspect his new purchase, a Raffaelle Madonna and child, for which he has just given a fabulous amount of dollars. I was asked for special judgment as an artistic Englishman. Well: the drawing was perfect; but I didn't like the colouring: I knew the picture, having seen the original somewhere on the Continent: but this couldn't be a copy, as it was less than life-size; so, while most of the other guests praised profusely, I requested to withhold my opinion of its merits till I could examine it in daylight,--which, as I was to sleep in the house, was easy next morning. When my eager host appeared, I took him alone after breakfast into his study, and proved to him what, alas! I had too truly suspected, that however well painted with the over-accuracy of a miniature and absolutely correct as was the drawing,--his prize Raffaelle was after all only an oil-coloured engraving! This he wouldn't believe, triumphantly showing me the ancient canvas at the back: but when I told him that between that canvas and the paint he would find paper, and when a penknife scratch under the frame-edge proved it,--he naturally stormed at the dealer who had taken him in, until I suggested a disgorging of the dollars, and promising my own silence as to the discovery, left him a wiser man and a grateful.
6. How often the poor letter H has crushed oratory and destroyed eloquence! Do I not remember how notably a late Lord Mayor raised the echoes of the Egyptian Hall to an explosion of laughter, by commencing grandiloquently, "When hi survey the dignity of my 'igh position," &c. &c.; and similarly what a disastrous effect a certain preacher caused in church by the announcement, "This is the hare, come let us kill him?" But we all know the mysteries of H and W: Æsop Smith wrote a fable about them, whereof this is the finale: "H," said King Cadmus, "one of my oldest friends! never can I spare your respectable presence; your ancestor is the throat-uttered Heth of Moses; even as you, dear W, are descended from the stately digamma of Homer. Believe me, I value both of you all the more for graceful ambiguities: mystery is priceless to your king, and your usage is obscure: therefore do I lay upon you higher honour. Henceforth, ye vowel magnates, and you my faithful commons consonants, take heed that no one be accounted literate or eloquent who places these my oldest friends in a dilemma. Their right use is a mystery; so be it; but woe be unto those whose innate want of taste profanes that mystery. Honour be to H, and worship be to W; and let those who misuse their secret excellences dread the vengeance of King Cadmus!"
7. Yet a seventh whimsical anecdote rises to the surface. When Prince Albert was made a fellow of Lincoln's Inn, and dined in the New Hall, I was present at the banquet. There was a roast joint and one bottle of port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more than ample: however, some thirsty souls wanted more wine for the great occasion, and the complaint found utterance ludicrously thus. When the National Anthem was sung, some young lawyer who gave the solos, with a good tenor voice and no end of dry humour, raised a gale of laughter and applause by singing very devoutly--
"Long to reign over us _Happy and glorious,_ _Three half-pints 'mong four of us,_ God save the Queen!"
Of course, plenty more bottles were the result,--and the genial Prince Albert laughed as heartily as the rest of us.
8. Yet another anecdote, in these days of professional mendicancy not uninstructive. One day when calling on the Rev. Robert Anderson, at Brighton, a begging visitor came in, calling himself a Polish refugee, and speaking broken English: Mr. Anderson in his kindness was just about to open his purse, when I said to both of them, "I happen to know a little Polish, and wish to ask a few questions:" accordingly, I rapped out at intervals, with an interrogating air, the opening lines of the Antigone of Sophocles! on which that "banished lord," stammering out that he had been out of Poland so many years that he had forgotten the language, bowed himself from the room as a--discovered, impostor.
9. The recent lamentable fire at Kegan Paul's, wherein so much authorial wealth was cremated,--and especially no fewer than six of the works of that clever authoress, Emily Pfeiffer,--reminds me of an irrevocable loss sustained by "Proverbial Philosophy" owing to Oudinot's capture of Rome in 1849: for it so happened that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna had, as instructress to his nieces, a lady who afterwards became Mrs. Robinson of South Kensington Museum: she, a great admirer of the work, translated my book for them into Italian, and had it printed at Rome, where unluckily both the whole MS. and the finished sheets were all burnt in the city's bombardment. I have since asked Mrs. Robinson if she could possibly reproduce it: but--the occasion passed, there is now neither time nor need for it, and so my Italian version has no existence, except possibly as photographed on the "blue ether" whither Professor Tyndall hopes to go. A similar fatality, we may remember, affected Sir Isaac Newton through his little dog Diamond: and my friend in old days, Gilbert Burnett, the botanist, had to rewrite his index, a heartrending labour, because a careless housemaid lit a fire with it.
10. And this further reminds me of the perils to which an author's MSS. are perpetually exposed; _e.g._, before I put a spring lock on my study at Albury (where, by the way, I wrote several of my early Proverbial chapters with a child on my knee) I used to find my papers regularly put out of order by the maid arranging the room; and upon my cautioning her not to destroy anything, I was horrified by the unconscious Audrey's instant reply, "O sir! I never burns no papers but what is spoilt by being written on." Again, I remember to have cautioned my Suffolk friend, Mrs. Crabtree, who had a fine library, not to keep her servants short of firepaper, as they might possibly help themselves out of bound books; whereat she was indignant, as if I was traducing a favourite menial: however, I went round with her, unfortunately proving the delinquency by exhibiting several handsome volumes with middle leaves torn out!--Once more, in the prehistoric days when we sported with loose powder and shot and paper wadding, I was a guest for some days in September with James Maclaren at Ticehurst, and recollect his horror at finding that the luncheon sandwiches were wrapped in some of his most precious MSS.--for he was writing a treatise on finance, and these leaves were covered with calculations--and that his shooting-party were ramming down their charges with the recorded labour of his brains! It was at Maclaren's that I once tasted squirrel; his woods were infested with the pretty creatures, which the keeper shot, and after keeping the skin gave the carcase to the cook: it tasted like very nutty rabbit: but I protested it was a greater outrage than lark-pudding, which I had recently seen at the Judges' Sentence dinner at Newgate, and said it was a shame to eat the sweet songsters. At Maclaren's I learnt the origin of "high" as applied to eatables. His game-larder was a tower of many bars, the lowest containing a to-day's shooting, the next yesterday's, and so forth, always moving up; hence the stalest were at the top, and so most serviceable as least fresh. Trench on words would approve this reason for "high" game.
11. _Providence._
I.
"Lo! we are led; we are guided and guarded Carefully, kindly, by night and by day; Punish'd belike, or haply rewarded, As we go wrong or go right on the way; Wisdom and Mercy, twin angels of kindness, Take by both hands the child lost in the night, Leading him safely, in spite of his blindness, Guiding him well through the dark to the light.
II.
"All things are ordered,--the least as the greatest; Motes have their orbits as fixt as a star,-- And thou may'st mark, if humbly thou waitest, Providence working in all things that are: Nothing shall fail in its ultimate object, Good must outwrestle all evil at last; God is the King, and creation His subject, And the great future shall ransom the past.
III.
"Ay, and this present,--perplexing, degrading-- None may despise it as futile or worse; Swift as it flieth, dissolving and fading, 'Tis the wing'd seed of some blessing or curse. Telescope, microscope,--which hath most wonder? Infinite great, or as infinite small? Musical silence, or world-splitting thunder?-- He that made all things inhabits them all.
IV.
"Yea; for this present,--each inch and each second Hath its own soul in a thought or a word; Ev'n as I watch, God's finger hath beckon'd, Ev'n as I wait, God's whisper is heard! Trifles, some judge them, that finger, that whisper,-- But on such pivots vast issues revolve; Those are the watchful reminders of Mizpah, Jazer and Bethel, Life's secret to solve!
V.
"Mizpah,--for carefulness, honour, uprightness; Jazer,--by penitence, meekness, and faith; Bethel,--in foretastes of gladness and brightness,-- These are the keynotes to life out of death: Providence bidding, and prudence obeying, Thou shalt have peace from beginning to end,-- Thankfully, trustfully, instantly praying, Walking with God as thy Father and Friend."
12. Apropos to my mention of Mortimer Collins' visit to Albury on another page, I make this extract from his "Pen Sketches by a Vanished Hand," vol. i. pp. 167, 168:--
"_A Walk through Surrey._
"At Albury I called upon a poet,--one whom critics love to assail, but who derides critics and arrides the public. Pleasant indeed is the fine old house, with emerald lawn and stately trees, wherein he resides. Not Horace in his Sabine farm, nor Catullus at Tiburs, had a more poetic retreat than the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" at Albury. But, like Catullus, the advent of May had set the poet longing for a flight far away:
"'Jam ver egelidos refert tepores, Jam coeli furor æquinoctialis Jucundis Zephyri silescit auris; Jam mens prætrepidans avet vagari Jam læti studio pedes vigescunt.'
And he was about to take wing for sea-side resorts, and the soft cyclades of the Channel, beloved by Victor Hugo.
"Right hospitable was he; a bottle of cool claret cheered the dusty wayfarer, and an hour's pleasant talk was even more cheering. Hence I walked through Albury Park towards Gomshall."
The exquisite bit from Catullus will best excuse my otherwise egotistical quotation.
A few more anecdotes about literary men and things may here find place. Take these respecting _Thackeray_, and _Leech_, both of which immortal humorists were my schoolfellows at the Charterhouse; but, as I have said, they having the misfortune to be merely lower-form boys, and your present scribe ranging as a dignified Emeritus, of course there was then a great gulf between us, pleasantly to be bridged over in after life. Thackeray's career has long been fully detailed in public, and I can have little to add of much consequence; but I call to mind how that quiet small cynic--so gigantic in all senses afterwards--used to caricature Bob Watki and the other masters on the fly-leaves of his classbooks, to the scandal of myself and other responsible monitors; these illustrated classics having since been sold by auction at high prices. But "My School-Days" have recorded all that.
As to Leech, who probably adorned his books similarly, he, being a day-boy and allowed for safety to scuttle out of the playground before school broke up, came not equally under our surveillance in those days; but long years after, when that genial and witty friend and true gentleman was my guest at Albury, I had great delight in his company, and he helped cleverly to illustrate (along with divers other artists) my "Crock of Gold" and "Proverbial Philosophy," and in part "The Anglo-Saxon." I remember a characteristic little anecdote about him, as thus:--
We went angling together to Postford Pond, on a fine hot day, thinking less of possible sport than of sandwiches and sherry, and an idle lounge on a sloping bank in the shade, and haply (though for myself I am no smoker) the calmly contemplative cigar. As we lay there, in _dolce-far-niente_ fashion, all at once Leech jumped up with a vigorous "Confound that float! can't it leave me at peace? I've been watching it bobbing these five minutes, and now it's out of sight altogether--hang it!" With that hearty exclamation of disgust pulling up a brilliant two-pound perch, the glory of the day! Next week's _Punch_ had a pleasant comic sketch of this petty incident, thereby immortalised by the famous "bottled leech."
It always struck me that Tenniel and he were a well-matched pair, in kindliness, cleverness, and good looks; and I never can think of one without the other--_arcades ambo; par nobile fratrum_.
Thackeray lived to have his full revenge of Dr. Birch, in our day the reigning tyrant of Charterhouse; and Russell well deserved his castigation both by pen and pencil.
Let me also give a brace of home sketches of Longfellow. I have had two principal interviews with him in his beautiful home at Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the wide interval between those visits of twenty-five years. Of the first of these I record a few words from my American MS. journal in 1851, adding some unwritten thoughts and recollections. On April 16th, then, in the year just named, Longfellow wrote to me cordially, and with much kindly appreciation, and soon after, calling on me at Boston, took me off in his carriage over the flooded lowlands to the ancient (for America) University of Cambridge, where the Queen Anne-like colleges are nestled in fine old elms. He treated me, of course, most hospitably, and had asked several friends to meet the traveller; but one, a chief guest, was otherwise engaged, and so I missed Lowell, to my great disappointment. It is not my "form" to detail private conversation, nor to describe the Lares and Penates of sacred domesticity; but I may reveal generally that I spent several golden hours of intellectual communion with the Abbott Laurences, Ticknor, Fields, Prescott, and Everett--illustrious names, which will sufficiently indicate the reception they gave me. At this time of day I cannot remember the thousand "winged speeches" that flew about that genial board, and, as I failed, from conscientious motives, to record them in my journal, I will not invent, after thirty-four years have passed over my memory, with their crowds of other words and fancies. Be this enough: I recollect to have asked Longfellow why he wrote Excelsi_or_, and not the more grammatical Excelsi_us_, as the title to one of his most famous poems. The reason is a curious one; he wrote those stirring verses, by request, on the motto for the New York coat-of-arms, which is legended not quite accurately, Excelsi_or_. And when, in the same line of thought, I inquired why he named a German story "Hyperion," with no apparent reason from classical associations, he pertinently enough answered me by pronouncing the name _huper-iown_, ("going higher"), the story being a tale of progress in human character.
And now to leap over twenty-five years, at which interval I paid my second visit to America in 1876, when again I had the privilege of being Longfellow's guest in the same historic abode where Washington had once his headquarters. My kind-hearted host insisted on my occupying the same arm-chair I had before, and which since, he said, had been the throne of Dickens and Thackeray, and every book-celebrity that had visited Cambridge. Among invited guests unable to come was Oliver Wendell Holmes, but I soon after made up for this loss by having a long talk with that shrewd and amusing writer at Boston; and once more, alas! no Lowell, whom I missed again, though I had waited for him that quarter of a century! Longfellow, out of compliment (so he kindly said) to his English guest, had specially provided pheasants and Stilton cheese, among such more Transatlantic delicacies as wild venison (from Tupper Lake, in the Adirondacks), and canvas-back ducks from Baltimore; to say less of terrapin soup, whereof the unhatched eggs of tortoises are the _bonne-bouche_! After dinner he gave me an apple from Beaupré, Evangeline's farm, the pips whereof I sent to Albury for planting. Longfellow was much interested to hear that my collateral ancestor had married Martha, the heiress of "the Vineyard" in Rhode Island. Mr. Fields, on this festive occasion, recited some of Mark Twain's humour, and I had to give sundry of my American ballads, and the host himself his exquisite "Psalm of Life;" my "Venus," in reply to his "Mars," having appeared, and been praised by him, some years before. And this meagre record is all I care, or have space, to give of that feast of reason and flow of soul.
With _Charles Kingsley_, however seldom we met, I had strong sympathy in many ways, as a man of men, to be loved and admired; but chiefly we could feel for each other in the matter of stammering,--a sort of affliction not sufficiently appreciated. Kingsley conquered his infirmity, as I did mine, and rose to frequent eloquence in his public ministrations: privately his speech would often fail him, and was his "thorn in the flesh" to the end.
I remember a most pleasant day spent with him about the fishponds and cascades of Wotton,--and I noted how skilfully he threw the fly some five-and-twenty feet under the bushes, to the wonder of a gaping trout, soon to find its lodging in the creel: and our kind host may still recollect, as I do, how charming was our intercourse that day with the genial author of "Yeast," "Alton Lock," "Hypatia," "Westward ho!" and other of our favourites. I have met Kingsley later, in his cloistered nest, as Canon of Westminster, and remember how heartily he expressed his abundant charity for all sorts of miserable sinners, especially about one of whom I came to speak, for there never lived a more universal excuser of human imperfection than Charles Kingsley. His bust, very like him, is in a side chapel of the Abbey, near the west door. With the learned and eloquent Canon Farrar, too, I have held converse in the same Broad Sanctuary, though but briefly. Harrison Ainsworth has often crossed my orbit. In particular, as a very early contributor to his magazine (wherein, by the way, my "Flight upon Flying" originally appeared, to be afterwards reproduced at the Royal Aquarium a year or two ago), I was among his invited guests at Kensal Manor house, for the inauguration of his magazine, meeting Douglas Jerrold, Blanchard, Albert Smith, and others of like note. Also, at Lord Mayor's feasts we have periodically met, and at Literary Fund dinners. I may mention that when we came near one another a few years since, at the Mansion-House, an American friend with me was startled at the resemblance between Ainsworth and myself: in fact, our photographic portraits have often been mutually sold for each other, and I remember in a shop window seeing my name written under a photo clearly not myself, however like; and my daughter with me said "It must be a mistake, for you never had such a waistcoat as that," it being a brilliant plaid: so we went in to set matters right, and the shopman, in correcting the mistake, observed he didn't wonder, we were so alike: furthermore, on the outside cover of a cheap edition of Ainsworth's "James II.," his portrait is the very counterpart of one painted, by Rochard, long years ago, of myself.
I was well acquainted, fifty-five years ago, with three eminent men, who afterwards became viceroys, as their fellow classman and collegian at Christ Church. At that time two of them were only younger sons in their "pupa" or pupil phases of Ramsay and Bruce, and wore the same commoner's gown as myself; the third, though a "tuft" by courtesy, had not yet come to his heritage. All these three succeeded one another in the high position of a Governor-General of India, and were famous architects of our imperial greatness. I remember on either side of me in Biscoe's memorable Aristotle class before mentioned, the young Ramsay, afterwards Dalhousie, that great pro-consul who annexed a third of our Indian Empire; and the young Bruce, afterwards Elgin, famous from Canada to China; the former slim, ascetic, and reserved; the latter a perfect contrast, being stout, genial, and outspoken; while Canning, tall and good-looking, with curly dark hair and florid complexion, is mentionable also for his fluency of speech and cordiality of manner--hereditaments, doubtless, of his distinguished father. Of Lord Elgin I have many pleasant memories, especially when he hospitably received me at Toronto, whither he had recently migrated from Montreal (as I thought unwisely), because the French Canadians there had insulted him. In this connection I may give an anecdote to the point. Soon after my return from America in 1851 I dined with my neighbour at Albury, Henry Drummond, the humoursome M.P., always not a little good-naturedly mischievous. He knew that I had not approved of Lord Elgin's petulant removal of his viceroyal establishment from Montreal to Toronto, and cunningly resolved to draw me out before witnesses on the matter. Now I had taken in to dinner an elderly Scotch lady unknown to me, and sat next to her of course. Soon my lively host somewhat unfairly asked me about my visit to Canada, and what I thought of the then notorious flight of the Governor to far distant Toronto,--forcing me to express my disapproval, which naturally as an honest man I did, on which my left-hand neighbour, a lady of rank whom I knew, whispered "Mind what you are saying, you took in his mother." Accordingly, I had frankly to turn and say, "And I'm sure Lady Elgin will agree with me, and you too, Mr. Drummond, for no captain should fly from his post because he's laughed at." This candid speech was fortunately applauded all round the table, and not least by the friendly Countess and the baffled mischief lover.
Lord Elgin most kindly interested himself in the restoration of the Brock monument at Queenstown Heights, which had then recently been damaged by gunpowder, and is since rebuilt: my good reason for asking his aid being that Sir Isaac Brock was my near relative (his mother bearing my name), and that he had saved Canada by his death in victory.