Chapter 7
". . . No doubt Berry thinks that his Month's Notice, which was up last Monday, was enough. Against that I have to say, that, after giving that Notice, he told George Moor that I might stay while I pleased; and he drove me away for a week by having no one but his own blind Aunt to wait on me. What miserable little things! They do not at all irritate, but only _bore_ me. I have seen no more of Fletcher since I wrote, though he called once when I was out. I have left word at his house, that, if he wishes to see me before I go, here am I to be found at tea-time. I only hope he has taken no desperate step. I hope so for his Family's sake, including Father and Mother. People here have asked me if he is not going to give up the Business, &c. Yet there is Greatness about the Man: I believe his want of Conscience in some particulars is to be referred to his _Salwaging_ Ethics; and your Cromwells, Caesars, and Napoleons have not been more scrupulous. But I shall part Company with him if I can do so without Injury to his Family. If not, I must let him go on _under some_ '_Surveillance_': he _must_ wish to get rid of me also, and (I believe, though he says _not_) of the Boat, if he could better himself."
"LOWESTOFT, _Sunday_, _Feb._ 28, 1875. ['Letters,' p. 370.]
". . . I believe I wrote you that Fletcher's Babe, 10 months old, died of Croup--to be buried to-morrow. I spoke of this in a letter to Anna Biddell, who has written me such a brave, pious word in return that I keep to show you. She thinks I should speak to Fletcher, and hold out a hand to him, and bid him take this opportunity to regain his _Self-respect_; but I cannot suppose that I could make any lasting impression upon him. She does not know _all_."
"WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 23/76. ['Letters,' p. 396.]
". . . I do not think there is anything to be told of Woodbridge News: anyhow, _I_ know of none: sometimes not going into the Street for Days together. I have a new Reader--Son of Fox the Binder--who is intelligent, enjoys something of what he reads, can laugh heartily, and does not mind being told not to read through his Nose: which I think is a common way in Woodbridge, perhaps in Suffolk."
"WOODBRIDGE, _March_ 31/79. ['Letters, p. 435.]
". . . A month ago Ellen Churchyard told me--what she was much scolded for telling--that for some three weeks previous Mrs Howe had been suffering so from Rheumatism that she had been kept awake in pain, and could scarce move about by day, though she did the house work as usual, and would not tell me. I sent for Mr Jones at once, and got Mrs Cooper in, and now Mrs H. is better, she _says_. But as I tell her, she only gives a great deal more of the trouble she wishes to save one by such obstinacy. We are now reading the fine 'Legend of Montrose' till 9; then, after ten minutes' refreshment, the curtain rises on Dickens's Copperfield, by way of Farce after the Play; both admirable. I have been busy in a small way preparing a little vol. of 'Readings in Crabbe's Tales of the Hall' for some few who will not encounter the original Book. I do not yet know if it will be published, but I shall have done a little work I long wished to do, and I can give it away to some who will like it. I will send you a copy if you please when it is completed."
"11 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT, _Wednesday_.
"DEAR SPALDING,--Please to spend a Sovereign for your Children or among them, as you and they see good. I have lost the Faculty of choosing Presents, you still enjoy it: so do this little Office for me. All good and kind wishes to Wife and Family: a happy Xmas is still no idle word to you."
"WOODBRIDGE, _Jan._ 12, '82. ['Letters,' p. 477.]
". . . The Aconite, which Mr Churchyard used to call 'New Year's Gift,' has been out in my Garden for this fortnight past. Thrushes (and, I think, Blackbirds) try to sing a little: and half yesterday I was sitting, with no more apparel than in my rooms, on my Quarter-deck" [_i.e._, the walk in the garden of Little Grange].
"_April_ 1, 1882. ['Letters,' p. 481.]
"Thank you for your Birthday Greeting--a Ceremony which, I nevertheless think, is almost better forgotten at my time of life. But it is an old, and healthy, custom. I do not quite shake off my Cold, and shall, I suppose, be more liable to it hereafter. But what wonderful weather! I see the little trees opposite my window perceptibly greener every morning. Mr Wood persists in delaying to send the seeds of Annuals; but I am going to send for them to-day. My Hyacinths have been gay, though not so fine as last year's: and I have some respectable single red Anemones--always favourites of mine.
"Aldis Wright has been spending his Easter here; and goes on to Beccles, where he is to examine and report on the Books and MSS. of the late George Borrow at Oulton."
* * * * *
The handwriting is shaky in this letter, and it is the last of the series. It should have closed this article, but that I want still to quote one more letter to my father, and a poem:--
"WOODBRIDGE, _March_ 16, 1878. ['Letters,' pp. 410, 418.]
"MY DEAR GROOME,--I have not had any _Academies_ that seemed to call for sending severally: here are some, however (as also _Athenaeums_), which shall go in a parcel to you, if you care to see them. Also, Munro's Catullus, which has much interested me, bad Scholar as I am: though not touching on some of his best Poems. However, I never cared so much for him as has been the fashion to do for the last half century, I think. I had a letter from Donne two days ago: it did not speak of himself as other than well; but I thought it indicated feebleness.
"Eh! voila que j'ai deja dit tout ce que vient au bout de ma plume. Je ne bouge pas d'ici; cependant, l'annee va son train. Toujours a vous et a les votres, E. F. G.
"By the by, I enclose a Paper of some _stepping-stones_ in 'Dear Charles Lamb'--drawn up for my own use in reading his Letters, and printed, you see, for my Friends--one of my best Works; though not exact about Book Dates, which indeed one does not care for.
"The Paper is meant to paste in as Flyleaf before any Volume of the Letters, as now printed. But it is not a 'Venerable' Book, I doubt. Daddy Wordsworth said, indeed, 'Charles Lamb is a good man if ever good man was'--as I had wished to quote at the End of my Paper, but could not find the printed passage."
* * * * *
The poem turned up in a MS. book of my father's, while this article was writing. It is a version of the "Lucius AEmilius Paullus," already published by Mr Aldis Wright, in vol. ii. p. 483 of the 'Remains,' but the two differ so widely that lovers of FitzGerald will be glad to have it. Here, then, it is:--
A PARAPHRASE BY EDWARD FITZGERALD OF THE SPEECH OF PAULLUS AEMILIUS IN LIVY, lib. xlv. c. 41.
"How prosperously I have served the State, And how in the Midsummer of Success A double Thunderbolt from heav'n has struck On mine own roof, Rome needs not to be told, Who has so lately witness'd through her Streets, Together, moving with unequal March, My Triumph and the Funeral of my Sons. Yet bear with me if in a few brief words, And no invidious Spirit, I compare With the full measure of the general Joy My private Destitution. When the Fleet Was all equipp'd, 'twas at the break of day That I weigh'd anchor from Brundusium; Before the day went down, with all my Ships I made Corcyra; thence, upon the fifth, To Delphi; where to the presiding God A lustratory Sacrifice I made, As for myself, so for the Fleet and Army. Thence in five days I reach'd the Roman camp; Took the command; re-organis'd the War; And, for King Perseus would not forth to fight, And for his camp's strength could not forth be forced, I slipped between his Outposts by the woods At Petra, thence I follow'd him, when he Fight me must needs, I fought and routed him, Into the all-constraining Arms of Rome Reduced all Macedonia. And this grave War that, growing year by year, Four Consuls each to each made over worse Than from his predecessor he took up, In fifteen days victoriously I closed. With that the Flood of Fortune, setting in Roll'd wave on wave upon us. Macedon Once fall'n, her States and Cities all gave in, The royal Treasure dropt into my Hands; And then the King himself, he and his Sons, As by the finger of the Gods betray'd, Trapp'd in the Temple they took refuge in. And now began my over-swelling Fortune To look suspicious in mine eyes. I fear'd The dangerous Seas that were to carry back The fruit of such a Conquest and the Host Whose arms had reap'd it all. My fear was vain: The Seas were laid, the Wind was fair, we touch'd Our own Italian Earth once more. And then When nothing seem'd to pray for, yet I pray'd; That because Fortune, having reach'd her height, Forthwith begins as fatal a decline, Her fall might but involve myself alone, And glance beside my Country. Be it so! By my sole ruin may the jealous Gods Absolve the Common-weal--by mine--by me, Of whose triumphal Pomp the front and rear-- O scorn of human Glory--was begun And closed with the dead bodies of my Sons. Yes, I the Conqueror, and conquer'd Perseus, Before you two notorious Monuments Stand here of human Instability. He that was late so absolute a King Now, captive led before my Chariot, sees His sons led with him captive--but alive; While I, the Conqueror, scarce had turn'd my face From one lost son's still smoking Funeral, And from my Triumph to the Capitol Return--return in time to catch the last Sigh of the last that I might call my Son, Last of so many Children that should bear My name to Aftertime. For blind to Fate, And over-affluent of Posterity, The two surviving Scions of my Blood I had engrafted in an alien Stock, And now, beside himself, no one survives Of the old House of Paullus."
Myself, on the whole, I greatly prefer this version to Mr Aldis Wright's: still, which is the later, which the earlier, it were hard to determine on internal grounds. For, as has befallen many a greater poet, FitzGerald's alterations were by no means always improvements. One sees this in the various editions of his masterpiece, the 'Rubaiyat.' However, by a comparison of the date (1856) on the fly-leaf of my father's notebook with that of a published letter of FitzGerald's to Professor Cowell (May 28, 1868), I am led to conclude that my father's copy is an early draft.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
MISERERE.
{Music score: p133.jpg}
"_Lord_, _have mercy_."
1. LORD, who wast content to die, That poor sinners may draw nigh _cres._ To the throne of grace on high, _p_ _Miserere_, _Domine_.
2. Who dost hear my every groan, Intercedest at the throne, _cres._ Making my poor prayers Thine own, _p_ _Miserere_, _Domine_.
3. When some sorrow, pressing sore, Tells me, that life nevermore _cres._ Can be, as it was of yore, _p_ _Miserere_, _Domine_.
4. Let me hear the Voice, that said, "It is I, be not afraid"; _cres._ So the sorrow shall be stay'd, _p_ _Miserere_, _Domine_.
5. When the hour of death is nigh, And the watchers, standing by, _cres._ Raise the supplicating cry, _p_ _Miserere_, _Domine_.
6. Take me to Thy promised rest, Number me among the blest, _p_ Poor, and yet a welcomed guest. _f_ _Alleluia_, _Domine_.
Footnotes:
{5} I remember once walking from Alton to Petersfield, and passing unwittingly through Selborne.
{8} This was the Samuel Henley, D.D., that translated Beckford's 'Vathek' from the French.
{11} She was hanged on 26th June 1815, for attempting to poison her master's family; and her story, reprinted from 'Maga,' forms a chapter in Paget's 'Paradoxes and Puzzles' (1874). That chapter I read to my father the summer before his death. It disappointed him, for he had always cherished the popular belief in her innocence.
{12} I am reminded of a case, long afterwards, where a clergyman had obtained a wealthy living on the condition that the retiring rector should, so long as he lived, receive nearly half the tithes. An aged man at the time the bargain was struck, that rector lived on and on for close upon twenty years; and his successor would ever and again come over to see my father, and ask his "advice." "What could I advise him?" said my father; "for we live in Suffolk, not Venice, so a bravo is out of the question."
{17} A writer in the 'Athenaeum' (I could make a shrewd guess at his name), after quoting the whist story, goes on: "Dr Belman was the country doctor who, on being asked what he thought of Phrenology, answered with equal promptitude and gravity, 'I never keep it and never use it. But I have heard that, given every three hours in large doses, it has been very efficacious in certain cases of gout.'"
{20} In 1881 the population was exactly 400. Ten years before it had been 470, ten years later had sunk to 315.
{22} I don't think it was Tom who employed that truly Suffolk simile--"I look upon this here chapel as the biler, yeou togither as the dumplins, and I'm the spoon that stars yeou up."
{31} Nicknames are very common--"Wedgy," "Shadder," "Stumpy," "Buskins," "Colly," &c.
{33} Seemed.
{39} Amazed.
{42} Word forgotten.
{43a} Something.
{43b} Thrandeston.
{43c} Heard.
{43d} Flung.
{43e} Amazingly.
{43f} Loins.
{44a} Heat.
{44b} Do you two.
{44c} Head.
{44d} Do you always keep.
{44e} _Dutfen_, bridle in cart harness.
{52a} This story is less unknown than its fellows, for in 1878 Mr FitzGerald got some copies of it reprinted at Woodbridge to give to his friends. I may well, however, republish it, for since the appearance of FitzGerald's '_Letters_,' in which it is referred to (pp. 427, 428), I have had many requests for copies,--requests with which I was unable to comply, myself having only one copy.
{52b} _Mawther_, girl.
{52c} Word.
{52d} Do.
{53} Quiet.
{55} Halesworth.
{56a} Something.
{56b} Fr. _journee_, one day's work without halt, ending about 3 P.M.
{57} Query, would not the burning of 'Pickwick' and 'Bleak House' by the common hangman do more to appease Nonconformist susceptibility than even Disestablishment? 'Salem Chapel,' again, and 'Adam Bede.' Fancy 'Adam Bede '_without_ Mr Irwine, who yet is not held up for a model parson.
{58a} "Robin Cook's wife" evidently refers to some well-known character, and is doubtless intended to personify "England."
{58b} The "old mare" is some old institution, and probably embodies the "Established Church."
{58c} The mare was not perfect. What institution is, that has its alloy of humanity? Lookers-on see _these_ failings and _stare_.
{58d} But the "sore back"! It evidently alludes to some special ailment, one which would make it difficult for any one to _ride_ her.
{58e} So an "old sack" was thrown over her. Some such measures have from earliest times been found necessary to enable each occupant of the different _sees_ to keep his _seat_ and maintain order. In older times "Canons" were made; of late other measures have been taken--_e.g._, "An Act for the Regulation of Divine Service." The sack was then "hullt on,"--thrown on,--but roughly, not gently. This is noteworthy.
{59a} "Corn in the sieve" evidently refers to some more _palatable_ measure than the "old sack." "Give her some oats, do not give her the sack only." Perhaps the Ecclesiastical Commissioners may represent the present givers of corn.
{59b} But all in vain, whether to enable the riders to mount on the "sore back," or for prolonging her life. "She chanced for to die." _The Church disestablished_.
{59c} And lies in the highroad, a prize for all comers.
{59d} But by "dead as a nit" evidently is meant more than _disestablished_; it means also _disendowed_. Else, what of "all the dogs in the town," each craving and clamouring for his bone? It was so three hundred years ago. Each dog "_spook_ for a bone," and _got it_.
{59e} "All but the Parson's dog." The poor vicars never got back a bit of the impropriate tithes; the seats of learning got comparatively little. The "dogs about town" got most. Then, in the last touching words, "the Parson's dog he went wi' none," yet still singing, "Folderol diddledol, hidum humpf."
{62} Something.
{63} Quiet.
{68} A copy of his will lies before me; it opens:--"In the name of God, Amen. I, Robinson Groome, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, mariner, being of sound mind and disposing disposition, and considering the perils and dangers of the seas and other uncertainties of this transitory world, do, for the sake of avoiding controversies after my decease, make this my Will," &c.
{69} Years before, FitzGerald and my father called together at Ufford. The drawing-room there had been newly refurnished, and FitzGerald sat himself down on an amber satin couch. Presently a black stream was seen trickling over it. It came from a penny bottle of ink, which FitzGerald had bought in Woodbridge and put in a tail-pocket.
{70} Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald. (3 vols. Macmillan, 1889; 2d ed. of Letters, 2 vols. 1894.) Reference may also be made to Mr Wright's article in the 'Dictionary of National Biography'; to another, of special charm and interest, by Professor Cowell, in the new edition of Chambers's Encyclopaedia; to Sir Frederick Pollock's Personal Reminiscences; to the Life of Lord Houghton; to an article by Edward Clodd in the 'English Illustrated Magazine' (1894); to the 'Edinburgh Review' (1895); and to FitzGerald's Letters to Fanny Kemble in 'Temple Bar' (1895).
{76} This was the hymn--its words, like the music, by my father--that is printed at the end of this volume.
{81} Reprinted in vol. ii. of the American edition of FitzGerald's Works.
{87} That letter is one item in the printed and manuscript, prose and verse, contents of four big Commonplace Books, formed by the late Master of Trinity, and given at his death by Mrs Thompson to my father. They included a good many unpublished poems by Lord Tennyson, Frederic Tennyson, Archbishop Trench, Thackeray, Sir F. Doyle, &c. My father gave up the _Tennysoniana_ to Lord Tennyson.
{90} Suffolk for "I daresay."
{94} So I wrote six years since, and now a rose tree does grow over it, a rose tree raised in Kew Gardens from hips brought by William Simpson, the veteran artist traveller, from Omar's grave at Naishapur, and planted here by my brother members of the Omar Khayyam Club on 7th October 1893 ('Concerning a Pilgrimage to the Grave of Edward FitzGerald.' By Edward Clodd Privately printed, 1894).
{98} I append throughout the page of the published letters that comes nearest in date.
{101} Mr Dove was the builder of Little Grange.
{103} His voice was unforgetable. Mr Mowbray Donne quotes in a letter this passage from FitzGerald's published Letters: "What bothered me in London was--all the Clever People going wrong with such clever Reasons for so doing which I couldn't confute." And he adds: "How good that is. I can hear him saying 'which I couldn't confute' with a break on his tone of voice at the end of 'couldn't.' You remember how he used to speak--like a cricket-ball, with a break on it, or like his own favourite image of the wave falling over. A Suffolk wave--that was a point."
{104} _Posh_ was the nickname of a favourite sailor, the lugger's skipper, as _Bassey_ was Newson's. _Posser_, mentioned presently, was, Mr Spalding thinks, Posh's brother, at any rate a fisherman and boatman, with whom Mr FitzGerald used to sail in Posh's absence.
{105} A second-hand boat that Posh bought at Southwold before the building of the "Meum and Tuum."
{108} This Levi it was, the proprietor of a fish-shop at Lowestoft, that used always to ask FitzGerald of the welfare of his brother John: "And how is the General, bless him?"
"How many times, Mr Levi, must I tell you my brother is no General, and never was in the army?"
"Ah, well, it is my mistake, no doubt. But anyhow, bless him."
{113} An extra large mackerel.--Sea Words and Phrases.
{121} An odd contrast all this to the calmness with which your ordinary Christian discharges (his duty and) a drunken servant, or shakes off a disreputable friend.
{122} Compare the old folk rhyme--
"A whistling woman and a crowing hen Are hateful alike to God and men."