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Title: Chats in the Book-Room
Author: Pym, Horace N.
Language: English
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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_
[Illustration: H.N. Pym]
[Illustration: _Walker and Boutall ph. fc._]
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!"
It was Judge Abbott who told me that when at the Bar he defended, and
successfully, a young man charged with forging and uttering bank-notes
for large values. After going fully into the case, he was entirely
convinced of his client's innocence, an impression with which he
succeeded in imbuing the court. After his acquittal, his client, to
mark his extreme sense of gratitude to his counsel's ability, insisted
upon paying him double fees. The judge's pleasure at this compliment
became modified, when it soon after proved that the said fees were
remitted in notes undoubtedly forged, and for the making of which he
had just been tried and found "not guilty!"
Speaking one day of the general ignorance of the people one met, he
very aptly quoted one of Beecher Ward's witty aphorisms, "That it
is wonderful how much knowledge some people manage to steer clear
of." Another quotation of his from the same ample source, I remember
especially pleased me. Speaking of the morbid manner in which many
dwelt persistently on the more sorrowful incidents and accidents of
their lives, he said, "Don't nurse your sorrows on your knee, but spank
them and put them to bed!"
On one visit to the States I took a letter of special commendation to
the worthy landlord of the Parker House Hotel in Boston. On arriving
I delivered my missive at the bar, was told the good gentleman was
out, was duly allotted excellent rooms, and later on sat down with
an English travelling companion to an equally excellent dinner in
the ladies' saloon. In the middle of our repast we saw a small
Jewish-looking man wending his way between the many tables in, what
is literally, the marble hall, towards us. Standing beside our table,
and regarding us with the benignant expression of an archbishop,
he carefully, though unasked, filled and emptied a bumper of our
well-iced Pommery Greno, saying, "Now, gentlemen, don't rise, but my
name's Parker!"
Upon a first visit to America few things are more striking than the
originality and vigour of some of the advertisements. One advocating
the use of some hair-wash or cream pleased us greatly by the simple
reason it gave for its purchase, "that it was both elegant and chaste."
Another huge placard represented our Queen Victoria arrayed in crown,
robes, and sceptre, drinking old Jacob Townsend's Sarsaparilla out of
a pewter pint-pot. I also saw a most elaborate allegorical design with
life-size figures, purporting to induce you to buy and try somebody's
tobacco. I remember that a tall Yankee, supposed to represent Passion,
was smoking the said tobacco in a very fiery and aggressive manner,
that with one hand he was binding Youth and Folly together with chains,
presumably for refusing him a light, whilst with the other he chucked
Vice under the chin, she having apparently been more amenable and
polite.
To note how customs change, I one day in New York entered a car in the
Broadway, taking the last vacant seat. A few minutes, and we stopped
again to admit a stout negress laden with her market purchases. The car
was hot, and I was glad to yield her my seat, and stand on the cooler
outside platform. She took it with a wide grin, saying with a dramatic
wave of her dusky paw, "You, sir, am a gentleman, de rest am 'ogs!" a
speech which would not so many years ago have probably cost her her
life at the next lamppost.
A Washington doctor once told me the following little story, which
seems to hold a peculiar humour of its own. A country lad and lassie,
promised lovers, are in New York for a day's holiday. He takes her into
one of those sugar-candy, preserved fruit, ice, and pastry shops which
abound, and asks her tenderly what she'll have? She thinks she'll try
a brandied peach. The waiter places a large glass cylinder holding
perhaps a couple of dozen of them on their table, so that they may help
themselves. These peaches, be it known, are preserved in a spirituous
syrup, with the whole kernels interspersed, and are very expensive.
To the horror of the young man, the girl just steadily worked her way
through the whole bottleful. Having accomplished this feat without
turning a hair, she pauses, when the lover, in a delicate would-be
sarcastic note, asks with effusion, if she won't try another peach? To
which the girl coyly answers, "No thank you, I don't like them, the
seeds scratch my throat!"
As is well known, most of the waiters and servants in American hotels
are Irish. Dining with a dear old Canadian friend at the Windsor Hotel
in New York, we were particularly amused by the quaint look and speech
of the Irish gentleman who condescended to bring us our dinner. He had
a face like an unpeeled kidney potato, with twinkling merry little
blue eyes. Not feeling well, I had prescribed for myself a water diet
during the meal, and hoped my guest would atone for my shortcomings
with the wine. After he had twice helped himself to champagne, the
while I modestly sipped my seltzer, my waiter's indignation at what
he supposed was nothing less than base treachery, found vent in the
following stage-aside to me: "Hev an oi, sorr, on your frind, he's
a-gaining on ye!"
Chat No. 4.
"_Give them strength to brook and bear,
Trial pain, and trial care;
Let them see Thy saving light;
Be Thou 'Watchman of their night.'_"
--Sabbath Evening Song.
Armed with a special order of the then Lord Mayor, Sir Robert Nicholas
Fowler, I sallied forth one lovely blue day in June, and timidly rang
the little brass bell beside the little green door giving into Newgate
Prison.
The gaol is now only used to house the prisoners on the days of trial,
and for executions on the days of expiation; at other times, save for
the presence of a couple of warders, it is entirely empty, and empty it
was on this my day of call.
Presenting my mandate to the very civil warder who replied to my
summons, I was (he having to guard the door) handed to his colleague's
care, to be shown the mysteries of this great silent tomb, lying so
gloomily amid the City's stir.
The first point of interest was the chapel, with that terribly
suggestive chair, standing alone in the centre of the floor opposite
the pulpit, on which the condemned used to sit the Sunday before his
dreadful death, and, the observed of all the other prisoners, heard
his own funeral sermon preached--a refinement of cruelty difficult
to understand in this very Christian country. Then followed a visit
to the condemned cells, two in number, and which are situated far
below the level of the outside street. They are small square rooms
with whitewashed walls, enlivened by one or two peculiarly ill-chosen
texts; in each is a fixed truckle bedstead, with a warder's fixed seat
on either side. The warder in attendance stated that he had passed
many nights in them with condemned prisoners, and had rarely found his
charges either restless or unable to sleep well, long, and calmly!
There is an old story told of a murderer, about whose case some doubt
was raised, and to whom the prison chaplain, as he lay under sentence
of death, lent a Bible. In due course a free pardon arrived, and as the
prisoner left the gaol, he turned to the chaplain saying, "Well, sir,
here's your Bible; many thanks for the loan of it, and I only hope I
shall never want it again."
Then we visited the pinioning room; this process is carried out by
strapping on a sort of leather strait-waistcoat, with buckles at the
back and outside sockets for the arms and wrists. While putting on one
of these, I found the leather was cold and damp; it then occurred to
me, with some horror, that it was still moist with the death-sweat of
the executed.
The scaffold stands alone across one of the yards, in a little wooden
building not inappropriately like a butcher's shop. When used, the
large shutter in front is let down, and the interior is seen to consist
of a heavy cross-beam on two uprights, a link or two of chain in the
middle, a very deep drop, with padded leather sides to deaden the sound
of the falling platform, a covered space on one side for the coffin,
and on the other a strong lever, such as is used on railways to move
the points, and which here draws the bolt, releasing the platform on
which the culprit stands; a high stool for the victim, should he prove
nervous or faint--and that is all the furniture and fittings of this
gruesome building.
The dark cell is perhaps the most dreadful part of this peculiarly
ghastly show, and after being shut in it for a few minutes, which
seemed hours, one fully understood its terrific taming power over the
most rebellious prisoners: you are literally enveloped in a sort of
velvety blackness that can be felt, which, with the absolute and awful
silence, seemed to force the blood to the head and choke one.
Upon asking the warder to tell us something of the idiosyncrasies of
the more celebrated criminals he had known, he stated that Wainright
the murderer was the most talkative, vain, and boastful person he had
seen there, that his craving for tobacco was curiously extreme, and
he was immensely gratified when the governor of the prison promised
him a large cigar the night before his execution. The promise kept, he
walked up and down the yard with the governor, detailing with unctuous
pleasure his youthful amours and deceptions, like another Pepys. "But,"
added my informant, "the pleasantest, cheeriest man we ever had to hang
in my time was Dr. Lampson, full of fun and anecdote, with nice manners
that made him friends all round. He was outwardly very brave in facing
his fate, and yet, as he walked to the scaffold, those behind him saw
all the back muscles writhing, working, and twitching like snakes in a
bag, and thus belying the calm face and gentle smile in front. Ah! we
missed him very much indeed, and were very sorry to lose him. A real
gentleman he was in every way!"
It was pleasant, and a vast relief after this strange experience, to
emerge suddenly from this dream of mad, sad, bad things into the roar
of the City streets, to see the blue sky, and find men's faces looking
once again pleasantly into our own; but, nevertheless, Newgate should
be seen by the curious, and those who can do so without coercion,
before it disappears.
Chat No. 5.
"_To all their dated backs he turns you round:
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound._"
--Pope.
It is the present fashion to extol the old bookbinders at the expense
of the living, and for collectors to give fabulous prices for a volume
bound by De Thou, Geoffroy Tory, Philippe le Noir, the two Eves
(Nicolas and Clovis), Le Gascon, Derome, and others.
Beautiful, rare, and interesting as their work is, I venture to say
that we have modern bookbinders in England and France who can, and do,
if you give them plenty of time and a free hand as to price, produce
work as fine, as original, as closely thought out, as beautiful in
design, material, and colour, as that of any of the great masters of
the craft of olden days.
For perfectly simple work of the best kind, examine the bindings of
the late Francis Bedford; and his name reminds me of a curious freak
of the late Duke of Portland in relation to this art. He subscribed
for all the ordinary newspapers and magazines of the day, and instead
of consigning them to the waste-paper basket when read, had them whole
bound in beautiful crushed morocco coats of many colours by the said
Bedford; then he had perfectly fitting oaken boxes made, lined with
white velvet, and fitted with a patent Bramah lock and duplicate keys,
each box to hold one volume, the total cost of thus habiting this
literary rubbish being about £40 a volume. Bedford kept a special staff
of expert workmen upon this curious standing order until the Duke died.
By his will he, unfortunately, made them heirlooms, otherwise they
would have sold well as curiosities, many bibliophiles liking to have
possessed a volume with so odd a history. Soon after the Duke's death I
went over the well-known house in Cavendish Square with my kind friend
Mr. Woods of King Street, and he showed me piles of these boxes, each
containing its beautifully bound volume of uselessness.
But to return to our sheepskins. I would ask, where can you see finer
workmanship than Mr. Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf puts into his enchanting
covers? He once produced two lovely pieces of softly tanned,
vellum-like leather of the purest white colour, and asked if I knew
what they were. After some ineffectual guesses, he stated that the
one with the somewhat coarser texture was a man's skin, and the finer
specimen a woman's. The idea was disagreeable, and I declined to
purchase or to have any volumes belonging to my simple shelves clothed
in such garments.
An English bookbinder who made a name in his day was Hayday; he
flourished (as the biographical dictionaries are fond of saying) in
the beginning of the present reign. I possess Samuel Rogers' "Poems"
and "Italy," in two quarto volumes, bound by him very charmingly. In
this size Turner's drawings, which illustrate these two books, are
shown to admiration, and alone galvanise these otherwise dreary works.
Hayday was succeeded by one Mansell, who also did some good work; but
I think domestic affliction beclouded his later years, and affected his
business, as I have lost sight of him for some years.
Among other English bookbinders of the present day I would name Tout,
whose simple, Quaker-like work, with Grolier tooling, is worth seeing.
Mackenzie was, in his day, a good old Scotch binder; but the treasure
I have personally found and introduced to many, is my excellent friend
Mr. Birdsall of Northampton. His specialty is supposed to be in vellum
bindings, which material he manipulates with a grace and finish very
satisfactory to see. He can make the hinges of a vellum-bound book
swing as easily as a friend's door. He spares no time, thought, or
trouble in working out suitable designs for the books entrusted to his
care. For instance, I possess Benjamin D'Israeli's German Grammar,
used by him when a boy, and to bind it as he felt it deserved, he
specially cast a brass stamp, with D'Israeli's crest, which, impressed
adown the back and on the panels, correctly finishes this interesting
memento. Then, again, when he had Beau Brummell's "Life" to work upon,
he used dies representing a poppy, as an emblem flower, a money-bag,
very empty, and a teasel, signifying the hanger-on: these show thought,
as well as a pleasant fancy, and greatly add to the interest of the
completed binding.
I have some work by M. Marius Michel, the great French binder, whose
show-cases in the Faubourg-Saint-Germain, in Paris, were a treat to
examine. He was kind enough to let me one fine day select and take
therefrom two volumes of E. A. Poe's works translated and noted by
Beaudelaire, beautifully clothed by him; and he, at the same visit,
gave me an autograph copy of his "L'Ornamentation des Reliures
Modernes," with which, when I returned to England, I asked Mr. Birdsall
to do what he could. Set a binder to catch a binder, was in this case
our motto, and Mr. Birdsall has, I think, fairly caught out his great
rival, although I have not yet had an opportunity of taking M. Michel's
opinion upon the Englishman's work.
* * * * *
One of the leading characteristics of the present day is its craze
for work, unceasing work, work early and late, work done with a rush,
destroying nerves, and rendering repose impossible. "Late taking rest
and eating the bread of carefulness" do not go together, the bread
being as a rule anything but carefully consumed. R. L. Stevenson
somewhere says, "So long as you are a bit of a coward, and inflexible
in money matters, you fulfil the whole duty of man," and perhaps this
is the creed of the present race of over-workers. In the City of London
we see this hasting to be rich brought to the perfection of a Fine Art
(with a capital F and a capital A).
Charles Dickens, who always resolved the wit of every question into a
nutshell, makes Eugene Wrayburn, in "Our Mutual Friend," strenuously
object to being always urged forward in the path of energy.
"There's nothing like work," said Mr. Boffin; "look at the bees!"
"I beg your pardon," returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, "but will
you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred
to the bees? ... I object on principle, as a two-footed creature,
to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed creatures.
I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the
proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I
fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate
person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I
have only one." ...
"But," urged Mr. Boffin, "I said the bee, they work."
"Yes," returned Eugene disparagingly, "they work, but don't you think
they overdo it? They work so much more than they need--they make so
much more than they can eat--they are so incessantly boring and buzzing
at their one idea till Death comes upon them--that don't you think they
overdo it?"
Some time since I cut from the pages of the _St. James' Gazette_ the
following "Cynical Song of the City," which pleasantly sets forth the
present craze for work, and again proves, like Dickens' bee, that we
rather overdo it:--
"Through the slush and the rain and the fog,
When a greatcoat is worth a king's ransom,
To the City we jolt and we jog
On foot, in a 'bus, or a hansom;
To labour a few years, and then have done,
A capital prospect at twenty-one!
There's a wife and three children to keep,
With chances of more in the offing;
We've a house at Earl's Court on the cheap,
And sometimes we get a day's golfing.
Well! sooner or later we'll have better fun;
The heart is still hopeful at thirty-one.
The boy's gone to college to-day,
The girls must have ladylike dresses;
Thank goodness we're able to pay--
The business has had its successes;
We must grind at the mill for the sake of our son.
Besides, we're still youngish at forty-one.
It has come! We've a house in the shires,
We're one of the land-owning gentry,
The children have all their desires,
But _we_ must do more double-entry;
We must keep things together, no time left for fun,
Ah! had we been twenty--not fifty--one!
A Baronet! J.P.! D.L.!
But it means harder work, little pleasure;
We must stick to the City as well,
Though we're tired and longing for leisure.
We shall soon become toothless, dyspeptic, and done,
As rich as the Bank, though we can't chew a bun,
And the gold-grubber's grave is the goal that we've won
At seventy--eighty--or ninety-one."
* * * * *
Guests at Foxwold are given the opportunity, when black Monday arrives,
of catching a most unearthly and uneasily early train, which involves
their rising with anything but a lark, swallowing a hurried breakfast,
a mounting into fiery untamed one-horse shays soon after eight, and
then being puffed away through South-Eastern tunnels to the busy hum of
those unduly busy men of whom we speak.
To catch this early train, which means that you "leave the warm
precincts of your cheerful bed, nor cast one longing lingering look
behind," some of our friends most justly object, preferring the early
calm, the well-considered uprisal, the dawdled breakfast, and the
ladies' train at the maturer hour of 10.30. Our dear friend, Mr.
Anstey Guthrie, having firmly and most wisely declined the early
train and any consequent worm, one very chilly morn, as the early
risers were starting for the station, appeared at his chamber window
awfully arrayed in white, and muttering with the fervour of another
John Bradford, "There goes Anstey Guthrie--but for the grace of God,"
plunged back into his rapidly cooling couch, "and left the world to
darkness and to us."
Chat No. 6.
"_It's idle to repine, I know;
I'll tell you what I'll do instead,
I'll drink my arrowroot, and go
To bed._"--C. S. C.
My good and kind old friend Robert Baxter, who now rests from his
labours, was, during his long active life in Westminster (dispensing
law to the rich and sharing its profits with the poor), one of the most
charitable and hospitable of men.
Occasionally, however, even his goodness was taxed with such severity,
as to somewhat try his patience.
The once well-known Mrs. X---- of A----, a philanthropic but foolish
old woman, arrived late one evening, uninvited, at his house in Queen's
Square, suffering from the first symptoms of rheumatic fever. Calmly
establishing herself in the best guest-chamber, and surrounded by the
necessary maid, nurse, and doctor, she turned her kind host's dwelling
into a private hospital for many weeks. When at last she reached the
stage of convalescence, and was allowed to take daily outings and
airings, Mr. Baxter's capital old butler, Sage, had the privilege of
carrying the fair but weighty invalid downstairs to the carriage, and
upstairs to her rooms once, and often twice, a day. No small effort
for any man's strength, however athletic he might be, and Sage, be it
conceded, was a moderate giant.
The weeks dragged themselves away, and at last the welcome date for
a final flitting to her own home arrived. Sage felt that he had well
earned an extraordinary douceur for all his labours, and was not
therefore surprised when the good lady on leaving slipped into his
willing hand a suggestive looking folded-up blue slip of paper instead
of the more limited gold. Retiring to his pantry to satisfy his very
natural curiosity as to the amount of the vail so fully deserved, his
feelings may be imagined, but not described, when he found that instead
of the expected cheque, it was what, in evangelical circles, is called
a leaflet, bearing on its face the following appropriate and cheerful
text: "Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee!"
Whilst upon the subject of misapplied texts, another instance, touched
with a pleasant humour, occurs to me. Many years ago I visited for
the first time an old friend and his wife in their pleasant country
house. Upon being shown into what was evidently one of the best
guest-chambers, I was intensely delighted to find over the mantelpiece
the following framed text, in large illuminated letters: "Occupy till I
come!" Unprepared to make so long a stay, I left on the Monday morning
following, and have no doubt the generous invitation still remains to
welcome the coming guest.
Another story of a like nature was told us by Mr. Anstey Guthrie, and
is therefore worth repeating. He once saw a long procession of happy
school-children going to some feast, headed by a band of music and a
standard-bearer. The latter was staggering beneath an immense banner,
on which was painted the Lion of Saint Mark's, rampant, with mouth,
teeth, and claws ready and rapacious; underneath was the singularly
appropriate and happy legend, "Suffer little children to come unto Me."
Another capital story from the same source, which time cannot wither,
nor custom stale, is, that at some small English seaside resort a
spirited and generous townsman has presented a number of free seats for
the parade, each one adorned with an iron label stating that "Mr. Jones
of this town presented these free seats for the public's use, the sea
is his, and he made it."
[Illustration]
Chat No. 7
"_Where are my friends? I am alone;
No playmate shares my beaker:
Some lie beneath the churchyard stone,
And some--before the Speaker:
And some compose a tragedy,
And some compose a rondo;
And some draw sword for Liberty,
And some draw pleas for John Doe._"
--W. M. Praed.
"_All analysis comes late._"--Aurora Leigh.
The difficulty which has existed since Lord Tennyson's dramatic death,
of choosing a successor to the Laureateship, has partly arisen from
the presence of so many minor poets, and the absence, with one
remarkable exception, of any monarch of song.
The exception is, of course, Mr. Swinburne, who stands alone as
the greatest living master of English verse. The objections to his
appointment may, in some eyes, have importance, but time has sobered
his more erratic flights, leaving a large residuum of fine work, both
in poetry and prose, which would make him a worthy successor to any of
those gone before.
Of the smaller fry, it is difficult to prophesy which will hereafter
come to the front, and what of their work may live.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes so pathetically says:--
"Deal gently with us, ye who read!
Our largest hope is unfulfilled;
The promise still outruns the deed;
The tower, but not the spire we build.
Our whitest pearl we never find;
Our ripest fruit we never reach;
The flowering moments of the mind,
Lose half their petals in our speech."
The late Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith) was very unequal in all he
produced. Perhaps the following ballad from his volume of "Selected
Poems," published in 1894 by Longmans, is one of the best and most
characteristic he has written:--
THE WOOD DEVIL.
1.
"In the wood, where I wander'd astray,
Came the Devil a-talking to me,
O mother! mother! But why did ye tell me, and why did they say,
That the Devil's a horrible blackamoor? He
Black-faced and horrible? No, mother, no!
And how should a poor girl be likely to know
That the Devil's so gallant and gay, mother?
So gentle and gallant and gay,
With his curly head, and his comely face,
And his cap and feather, and saucy grace,
Mother! mother!
II.
And 'Pretty one, whither away?
And shall I come with you?' said he.
O mother! mother!
And so winsome he was, not a word could I say,
And he kiss'd me, and sweet were his kisses to me,
And he kiss'd me, and kiss'd till I kiss'd him again,
And O, not till he left me I knew to my pain
'Twas the Devil that led me astray, mother!
The Devil so gallant and gay,
With his curly head, and his comely face,
And his cap and feather, and saucy grace,
Mother! mother!"
Mr. Edmund Gosse's work is always scholarly and well thought out,
framed in easy, pleasant English. In some of his poems he reminds one
of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." His song of the "Wounded
Gull" is very like Dr. Holmes, both in subject and treatment:--
"The children laughed, and called it tame!
But ah! one dark and shrivell'd wing
Hung by its side; the gull was lame,
A suffering and deserted thing.
With painful care it downward crept;
Its eye was on the rolling sea;
Close to our very feet, it stept
Upon the wave, and then--was free.
Right out into the east it went
Too proud, we thought, to flap or shriek;
Slowly it steered, in wonderment
To find its enemies so meek.
Calmly it steered, and mortal dread
Disturbed nor crest nor glossy plume;
It could but die, and being dead,
The open sea should be its tomb.
We watched it till we saw it float
Almost beyond our furthest view;
It flickered like a paper boat,
Then faded in the dazzling blue.
It could but touch an English heart
To find an English bird so brave;
Our life-blood glowed to see it start
Thus boldly on the leaguered wave."
A few fortunate persons possess copies of Mr. Gosse's catalogue of his
library, and it is, I rejoice to say, on the Foxwold shelves. It is a
most charming work, reflecting on every page, by many subtle touches,
the refined humour and wide knowledge of the collector. Mr. Austin
Dobson wrote for the final fly-leaf as follows:--
"I doubt your painful Pedants who
Can read a dictionary through;
But he must be a dismal dog,
Who can't enjoy this Catalogue!"
Of the little mutual admiration and log-rolling society, whose
headquarters are in Vigo Street, no serious account need be taken.
Time will deal with these very minor poets, and whether kindly or not,
Time will prove. They may possibly be able to await the verdict with a
serene and confident patience--and so can we. An exception may perhaps
be made for some of Mr. Arthur Symon's "Silhouettes," as the following
extract will show:--
"Emmy's exquisite youth and her virginal air,
Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile,
Come to me out of the past, and I see her there
As I saw her once for a while.
Emmy's laughter rings in my ears, as bright,
Fresh and sweet as the voice of a mountain brook,
And still I hear her telling us tales that night,
Out of Boccaccio's book.
There, in the midst of the villainous dancing-hall,
Leaning across the table, over the beer,
While the music maddened the whirling skirts of the ball,
As the midnight hour drew near.
There with the women, haggard, painted, and old,
One fresh bud in a garland withered and stale,
She, with her innocent voice and her clear eyes, told
Tale after shameless tale.
And ever the witching smile, to her face beguiled,
Paused and broadened, and broke in a ripple of fun,
And the soul of a child looked out of the eyes of a child,
Or ever the tale was done.
O my child, who wronged you first, and began
First the dance of death that you dance so well?
Soul for soul: and I think the soul of a man
Shall answer for yours in hell."
Mr. Austin Dobson and the late Mr. Locker-Lampson are perhaps the
finest writers of _vers de Société_ since Praed; whilst in the
broader school of humour C. S. Calverley, Mr. Dodgson (of "Alice in
Wonderland" fame), and the late James Kenneth Stephen, stand alone and
unchallenged; and Mr. Watson, if health serve, will go far; and so with
some pathetic words of one of these moderns we will end this somewhat
aimless chat:--
"My heart is dashed with cares and fears,
My song comes fluttering and is gone;
Oh, high above this home of tears,
Eternal joy,--sing on."
Chat No. 8.
"_Punch! in the presence of the passengers._"
Within the past year certain gentle disputes and friendly discussions
as to the origin of _Punch_, and who its first real editor was, and
whether or no Henry Mayhew evolved it with the help of suitable friends
in a debtor's prison, remind us that Foxwold possesses some rather
curious "memories" of this famous paper.
These disputes should now be put to rest for ever by Mr. Spielmann's
exhaustive "History of Mr. Punch," which, it may safely be supposed,
appeared with some sort of authority from "Mr. Punch" himself.
One of our "Odds and Ends" is a kit-kat portrait in oil of Horace
Mayhew, "Ponny," excellent both as a likeness and a work of art,
which should eventually find hanging space in the celebrated _Punch_
dining-room. There is also a pencil drawing of him, in which "the
Count," as he was called, is dressed in the smartest fashion of that
day, and crowned with a D'Orsay hat, resplendent, original, and gay.
He made a rather unhappy marriage late in his life, and found that
habits from which he was not personally free showed themselves rather
frequently in his wife's conduct. One day, in a state of emotion and
whisky and water, he pressed Mark Lemon's hand, and, bursting into
tears, murmured, "My dear friend, she drinks! she drinks!!" "All
right," was the editor's cheery reply, "my dear boy; cheer up, so do
you!"
Near by hangs a characteristic pencil sketch of Douglas Jerrold, who,
if small, was no hunchback (as has been lately stated), but was a
very neatly made, active little man, with a grand head covered with a
profusion of lightish hair, which he had a trick of throwing back, like
a lion's mane, and a pair of bright piercing blue eyes. There is an
engraving of a bust of him prefixed to his life (written by his son,
Blanchard Jerrold), which well conveys the nobility of the well-set
head. Then comes a capital drawing of Kenny Meadows in profile, and a
thoroughly characteristic Irish phiz it is.
These pencil portraits are all from the gifted hand of Mr. George
Augustus Sala, and formerly belonged to Horace Mayhew himself. Mr.
Sala, as is now well known by means of his autobiography, was once an
artist and book-illustrator, and Foxwold is the proud possessor of
the only picture in oil extant from his brush. It is called "Saturday
Night in a Gin-Palace": it is full of a Hogarthian power, and by its
execution, drawing, and colour shows that had Mr. Sala made painting
his profession instead of literature, he would have gone far and fared
well. The little picture is signed "G. A. Sala," and was found many
years ago in an old house in Brompton, when the present owner secured
it for a moderate sum, and then wrote to Mr. Sala asking if the picture
was authentic. A reply was received by the next post, in the beautiful
handwriting for which he is famous, and runs as follows:---
46 Mecklenburgh Square, W.C.,
_Tuesday, Twenty-fifth June 1878_.
"Dear Sir,
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your courteous and (to me)
singularly interesting note.
"Yes, the little old oil-picture of the 'Gin-Palace Bar' is mine
sure enough. I can remember it as distinctly as though it had been
painted yesterday. Great casks of liquor in the background; little
stunted figures (including one of a dustman with a shovel) in the
foreground. Details executed with laborious niggling minuteness;
but the whole work must be now dingy and faded to almost total
obscuration, since I remember that in painting it I only used
turpentine for a medium, the spirit of which must have long since
'flown,' and left the pigment flat or 'scaly.'
"The thing was done in Paris six-and-twenty years ago (Ap. 1852),
and being brought to London, was sold to the late Adolphus
Ackermann, of the bygone art-publishing firm of Ackermann & Co.,
96 Strand (premises now occupied by E. Rimmel, the perfumer), for
the sum of five pounds. I hope that you did not give more than
a few shillings for it, for it was a vile little daub. I was at
the time when I produced it an engraver and lithographer, and I
believe that Mr. Ackermann only purchased the picture with a view
to encourage me to 'take up' oil-painting. But I did not do so. I
'took up' literature instead, and a pretty market I have brought
my pigs to! At all events, _you_ possess the only picture in oil
extant from the brush of
Yours very faithfully,
George Augustus Sala."
_To_ H. N. Pym, Esq.
When Mr. Sala afterwards called to see the picture, he altered his mind
as to its being "a vile little daub," and found the colours as fresh
and bright as when painted. We greatly value it, if only as the cause
of a lasting friendship it started with the artist.
His own portrait by Vernet, in pen and ink, now graces our little
gallery; it is a back view, taken amidst his books, and a most
characteristic and excellent likeness of this accomplished and
versatile gentleman.[1]
One of our guest-chambers is solemnly dedicated to the honour and glory
of "Mr. Punch," and on its walls hang some original oil sketches by
John Leech, drawings by Charles Keene, Mr. Harry Furniss, Randolph
Caldecote, Mr. Bernard Partridge, Mr. Anstey Guthrie, and Mr. Du
Maurier; whilst kindly caricatures of some of the staff, and a print of
the celebrated dinner-table, signed by the contributors, complete the
decoration of a very cheery little room.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Whilst these pages are passing through the press, George Augustus
Sala has been mercifully permitted to rest from his labours. An
unfortunate adventure with a new paper brought about serious troubles,
physical and financial, and ended his useful and hard-working life
in gloom: as Mr. Bancroft (a mutual friend) observed to the editor
of this volume, "It is so sad when the autumn of such a life is
tempestuous."--_December 8, 1895._
Chat No. 9
"_Then be contented. Thou hast got
The most of heaven in thy young lot;
There's sky-blue in thy cup!
Thou'lt find thy Manhood all too fast---
Soon come, soon gone! and Age at last,
A sorry breaking-up._"
--Thomas Hood.
It was my good fortune some short time since to revisit that most
educational of English towns, Bedford, and having many years ago had
the extreme privilege of being a Bedford schoolboy, I was able to draw
a comparison between then and now.
In the good old days these admirable schools were managed in the good
old way--plenty of classics, plenty of swishing, plenty of cricket
and boating, and plenty of holidays. We sometimes turned out boys who
afterwards made their mark in the big world, and the School Registers
are proud to contain the names of such men as Burnell, the Oriental
scholar, who out-knowledged even Sir William Jones in this respect;
Colonel Fred. Burnaby, brave soldier and attractive travel writer;
Inverarity, the lion-hunter and crack shot; Sir Henry Hawkins, stern
judge and brilliant wit, and many others of like degree. Nor must we
forgot that John Bunyan here learnt sufficient reading and writing
to enable him in after years to pen his marvellous Book during his
imprisonment in Bedford Gaol, which was then situated midway on the
bridge over the river Ouse.
In that wonderful monument to the courage and enterprise of Mr. George
Smith (kindest of friends and best of publishers), "The National
Dictionary of Biography," the record is frequent of men who owed their
education and perhaps best chance in the life they afterwards made a
success, to Bedford School, but,--
"Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted,
As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred,
Yet still with their music is memory haunted,
And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard."
But if the good old School was a success in those bygone days, what
must be said for it now, when, under the Napoleon-like administration
of its present chief, the school-house has been rebuilt in its own
park, upon all the best and latest known principles of comfort and
sanitation, where a boy can, besides going through the full round
of usual study, follow the bent of his own peculiar taste, and find
special training, whether it be in horse-shoeing or music, chemistry
or wood-carving, ambulance work or drawing from the figure; whilst the
beautiful river is covered with boats, the cricket-fields and football
yards are crowded, and the bathing stations are a constant joy?
Truly the present generation of Bedford boys are much blessed in
their surroundings; and whilst they remember with gratitude the pious
founder, Sir William Harper, should strive to do credit to his name and
memory by the exercise of their powers in the battle of after-life,
having received so thorough and broad-minded a training in the happy
and receptive days of their youth.
Bedford town is now one of the most strikingly attractive in England,
with its fine river embankment, its grand old churches, its statues
erected to the memory of the "inspired tinker," Bunyan, and the prison
philanthropist, Howard, both of whom lived about a mile or so from
the town, the former at Elstow, the latter at Cardington. It was very
good and heart-restoring to revisit the hospitable old school with its
pleasant surroundings and to find, as Robert Louis Stevenson says,
that,--
"Home from the Indies, and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers they all shall come home;
Still they shall find the old mill-wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam."
* * * * *
Since printing our last little "Tour Round the Bookshelves," in
which we ventured to include some capital lines by our evergreen and
many-sided friend Rudolf Chambers Lehmann, he has again added to the
interest of our Visitors' Book under the following circumstances.
Guests and home-birds were all resting after the exhausting idleness
of an Easter holiday when they were suddenly aroused from their
day-dreams by loud cries of "Fire!" accompanied by the sound of horses
and chariots approaching the house at full speed. On looking out, like
Sister Anne or a pretty page, we were able to assuage our guests'
natural alarm by explaining that the local fire brigade were practising
upon our vile bodies and dwelling, and if fear existed, danger did not.
On their ultimately retiring, satisfied with their mock efforts, and
fortified by beer, our welcome guest wrote with his usual flying pen
the following characteristic lines to commemorate their visit:--
"FIRE! FIRE!!"
(AN EASTER MONDAY INCIDENT.)
"A day of days, an April day;
Cool air without, and cloudless sun;
Within, upon the ordered tray,
Cakes, and the luscious Sally-Lunn.
Since Pym has walked, and Guthrie climbed
To rob some feathered songster's nest,
Their toil needs tea, the hour has chimed--
Pour, lady, pour, and let them rest.
But hark! what sound disturbs their tea,
And clatters up the carriage drive?
A dinner guest? it cannot be;
No, no, the hour is only five.
What sight is this the fates disclose,
That breaks upon our startled view?
Two horses, countless yards of hose,
Nine firemen, and an engine too.
Where burns the fire? Tush, 'tis but sport;
The horses stop, the men descend,
Take hoses long, and hoses short,
And fit them deftly end to end.
Attention! lo their chieftain calls--
They run, they answer to their names,
And hypothetic water falls
In streams upon imagined flames.
Well done, ye braves, 'twas nobly done;
Accept, the peril past, our thanks;
Though all your toil was only fun,
And air was all that filled your tanks:
No, not for nought you came and dared,
Return in peace, and drink your fill;
It was, as Mrs. Pym declared,
'A highly interesting drill.'"
_April 3, 1893._
Another poet whose pen sometimes gilds our modest Record of Angels'
Visits, is a well-beloved cousin, Harry Luxmoore by name, at Eton known
so well. His Christmas greeting for 1890 shall here appear, and prove
to him how deep is Foxwold's affectionate obligation for wishes so
delightfully expressed:--
"Glooms overhead a frozen sky,
Rings underfoot a snow-ribbed earth,
Yet somewhere slumbering sunbeams lie,
And somewhere sleeps the coming birth.
Folded in root and grain is lying,
The bud, the bloom we soon may see,
And in the old year now a-dying
Is hid the new year that shall be.
O what if snows be deep? so shrouded
Matures the soil with promise rife
And sap, for all the skies be clouded,
Ripens at heart a lustier life.
Then welcome winter--while we shiver
Strength harbours deeper, and the blast
Of sounder, manlier force the giver
Strips off betimes our withered past.
Come bud and bloom, come fruit and flower,
Come weal, come woe, as best may be,
Still may the New Year's hidden dower
Be good for you and Horace, and all the little
ones, and good for me."
Chat No. 10.
"_My ears are deaf with this impatient crowd:
Their wants are now grown mutinous and loud._"
--Dryden.
The following graphic account of the rising in Paris in 1848 was
written by John Poole to Charles Dickens, and was recently found
amongst the papers of Mrs. John Forster, the widow of the well-known
writer, Dickens' friend and biographer, and is, I think, worthy of
print.
John Poole was a sometime celebrated character, having written that
evergreen play "Paul Pry," as well as "Little Pedlington," and other
humorous works mostly now forgotten.
As he grew old poverty came to bear him company, and was only prevented
from causing him actual suffering by the usual generosity of Dickens
and other members of that charmed circle, further aided by a small
Government grant, obtained for him by the same faithful friend from
Lord John Russell.
The letter is addressed to
CHARLES DICKENS, Esq.,
No. 1 Devonshire Terrace,
York Gate, Regent's Park,
LONDON,
and deals with the celebrated uprisal of the French mob, when a force
of 75,000 regulars and nearly 200,000 National Guards was massed round
Paris to resist it. The carnage was terrible, some 8000 persons being
killed on both sides, and 14,000 insurgents made prisoners.
It was only by General Cavaignac's firmness and tactful management
under Lamartine's directions, that the mob was reduced and the
Republican Government established. The general was afterwards nearly
elected President of the French Republic, receiving 1,448,000 votes,
but Prince Louis Napoleon beat him, and, as history tells, held the
reins in various capacities for the next twenty eventful years.
Poole's letter, as that of an eye-witness, gives a remarkably clear
impression of the scene as it appeared in his orbit. Dickens, on
receiving it, evidently sent it the round of his friends, and it then
remained in John Forster's possession until his death.
"(Paris), _Saturday, 8 Jul 1848_.
"My dear Dickens,
I wrote to you through the Embassy on the 22nd June, giving you an
address for the three last Dombeys, and enclosing a catalogue of
the ex-King's wine; and on the 16th I sent you a word in a letter
to Macready. Dombeys not yet arrived, and I shall wait no longer
to acknowledge their arrival (as I have been doing), but at once
proceed to give you a few lines. Since the day of my writing to
you I have lived four years: Friday (the 23rd), Saturday, Sunday,
Monday, each a year.
"The proceedings of the three days of February were mere
child's-play compared with these. Never shall I forget them, for
they showed me scenes of blood and death. Friday morning the
'_rappel_' was beat--always a disagreeable hint. Presently I
heard discharges of musketry, then they beat the '_générale._' My
_concierge_ ran into my room, and, with a long white face, told me
the mob had erected huge barricades in the Faubourg-Saint-Denis,
and above, down to the Porte St. Denis, and that tremendous
fighting was going on there. (The Porte St. Denis bears marks of
the fray.) 'Then, Madame Blanchard,' I said, 'as you seem to be
breaking out again, I shall take a _sac-de-nuit_, and say adieu to
you till you shall have returned to your good behaviour.'--'But
monsieur could not get away for love or money--the insurgents have
possession of the Chemin de Fer, and had torn up the rails as far
as St. Denis.' This was what she had been told, so I went out to
ascertain the fact.
"Impossible to approach that quarter, and difficult to turn the
corner of a street without interruption--groups of fifteen,
twenty, thirty, fifty, in blouses, dotted all about. Towards
evening matters seemed rather more tranquil, and between six and
seven o'clock I contrived (though not easily) to make my way
to Sestels, in the Rue St. Honoré (one of the very best of the
second-rate restaurateurs in Paris, 'which note'). The large
saloon was filled with men in uniform, National Guards chiefly,
and only two women there. I was there about an hour, and in that
time three dead bodies were carried past on covered litters. It
was thought the disturbances were pretty well over, as a powerful
body of troops had been ordered down to the scene of action.
"At about eight o'clock I went out for the purpose of making
a visit in the Rue d'Enghien, but found the whole width of
the Boulevard Montmartre, which, as you know, leads to the
Boulevard St. Denis, defended by a compact body of National
Guards--impassable! Between nine and ten o'clock three regiments
of cavalry, with cannon--a long, long procession--marched in the
direction of the scene of insurrection. This was a comforting
sight, and as such everybody seemed to consider it, and I went
home. And this was Midsummer Eve!--Walpurgis Night!
"The next day, Saturday, Midsummer Day, I never shall forget!
Sleep had been hopeless--the night had been disturbed by the
frequent beating of the '_générale_' and the cry '_Aux Armes!_'
Every now and then I looked up at the sky, expecting to see it
red from some direful conflagration. Day came, and soon the
firing of musketry was heard, now from the direction of the
Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, now from the Faubourg-Saint-Marceaux.
Then came the heavy booming of cannon--death in every echo! From
twelve till nearly one, and again after a pause, it was dreadful.
(I cannot make 'fun' of this, like the facetious correspondent of
the _Morning Post_. Who is he? Surely he must be an ex-reporter
for the Cobourg Play-house, with his vulgar, ill-timed play-house
quotations. I am utterly disgusted and revolted at the tasteless
levity with which he describes scenes of blood and destruction and
death, and so treats of matters, all of which require grave and
sober handling. And then he describes, as an eye-witness, things
which, happen though they did, I am certain he could not have been
present to see.)
"Well, as we were soon to be in a state of siege, and strictly
confined to home, I can tell you nothing but what I saw here on
this very spot. One event is a remembrance for life. In this
house lived General de Bourgon, one of what they call the 'old
Africans.' In the course of the morning General Korte (another
of them) called on him, and said, 'I dare say Cavaignac has
plenty to do. I will go and ask him if we can be of any service
to him. If we can, I will send for you, so keep yourself in the
way.' He was in Paris 'on leave,' and had no horse with him, so
he sent Blanchard (the _concierge_) to the _manège_, which is in
the next street, to inquire whether they had a horse that would
'stand fire.' Yes; but they would not let it go out. The next
message intimated that they must send it, or it would be taken by
force. At about two o'clock, going out, I met, coming out of his
apartments on the second floor (I, you know, am on the fourth),
General de Bourgon, in plain clothes, accompanied by his wife and
his sister-in-law--the latter a very beautiful woman, somewhat in
the style of Mrs. Norton. As usual, we exchanged _bon-jours_ in
passing. I went as far as the boulevard at the end of the street.
There was a strong guard at the 'Hôtel des Affaires Étrangères,'
and there I was stopped. An officer of the National Guard asked
me whether I was proceeding in the direction of my residence.
Answering in the negative, he said (but with great courtesy),
'Then, sir, I advise you to return; it is in your interest I do
so; besides' (pointing in the direction where was heard a heavy
firing), 'd'ailleurs, monsieur, ce n'est pas aujourd'hui un jour
de promenade.'
"I returned, and tried by the Place Vendôme, but about half-way
up the Rue de la Paix was again stopped. After loitering about
for an hour, and unable to get anything in the shape of positive
information, I returned home. Shortly after three I saw the
General de Bourgon in full uniform, and on horseback. He proceeded
a few paces, stopped to have one of his stirrup-leathers adjusted,
and then, followed by an orderly, went off at a brisk trot. Soon
afterwards a guard was placed in the middle and at each end of
this street; no one was allowed to loiter, or to quit it but with
good reason, and only then was passed on by one sentinel to the
next, so from that moment I was not out of the house till Monday
morning.
"At about half-past six the street--usually a noisy one--being
perfectly still, I heard the measured tramp of feet approaching
from the direction of the boulevard. I went to the window, and saw
about fifteen or eighteen soldiers, some bearing, and the rest
guarding, a litter, on which was stretched a wounded officer.
He was bare-headed, his black stock had been removed, his coat
thrown wide open, and over his left thigh was spread a soldier's
grey greatcoat. To my horror the procession stopped at this door.
It was the General brought home desperately wounded! I ran down
and saw him brought up to his apartment, crying out with agony at
every shake he received on the winding, slippery staircase. On
the following Friday (the 30th), at eleven o'clock at noon, after
severe suffering, he died. In the course of the day I saw him; his
neck was uncovered, and the eyes open (a painter had been making
a sketch of him)--he looked like one in placid contemplation.
Previously to the fatal result, at one of my frequent visits of
inquiry, I saw Madame de Bourgon (the sister-in-law). She replied
mournfully, but without apparent emotion, 'We are in hopes they
will be able to perform the amputation to-morrow.' (They could
not.) 'But see! he has passed his life, as it were, on the field
of battle--twelve years in Africa--and to fall in this way! But it
was his duty to go out.'
"'And, madame, how is she?'
"'Eh, mon Dieu, monsieur! how would you have her be? But a
soldier's wife must be prepared for these things.'
"(She, the sister-in-law, is the wife of the general's brother,
Colonel de Bourgon.) His friend, General Korte, too, was wounded,
but not dangerously.
"In all the African campaigns only two generals were killed, in
these street fights six! But the insurgents fought at tremendous
advantage. On that said Saturday afternoon two incidents occurred,
trifling if you will, but they struck me. A large flight of crows
passed over, taking a direction towards the prison of St. Lazare,
showing that fighting was murderous; and a rainbow (one of the
most beautiful I ever saw) rested like an arch on the line of roof
of the opposite houses. Beneath it seemed to come the noise of the
fight; the sign of peace and the sounds of war and death. Mrs.
Norton could make a verse or two out of this. This was Midsummer's
Day!
"Our Midsummer Night's dreams were not pleasant, believe me.
No--there was no sleep on that night--a night of terrible
anxiety. Paris was in a state of siege--no one allowed to be
out of the house, nor a window permitted to be opened. All
night was heard in ceaseless round, from the sentinel under my
very window--'Sentinelle prenez garde à vous.' I can hardly
describe by words the peculiar tone in which this was uttered,
but the syllable 'nelle' was accented, and the word 'vous' was
uttered briskly and sharply, like a sort of bark. This was
given _fortissimo_--repeated by the next _forte_--beyond him,
_piano_--further on, _pianissimo_--till it returned, louder
and louder, and then died away again, and so on, and on, and
on till daybreak. Then was beat the '_rappel_'--then the
'_générale_'--then again the firing.
"This was Sunday morning, and from five o'clock till ten at
night was not the happiest, but the longest day of my life. Any
sort of occupation was out of the question. Each hour appeared a
day. Impossible to get out, or to receive a visit, or to send a
message, or to procure any reliable information as to what was
going on, or how or when these doings were likely to end. All
was doubt, uncertainty, dread and anxiety intolerable. The only
information to be procured was from the bearers of some wounded
men as they passed now and then to the Ambulance (the temporary
hospital established at the Church of the Assumption). But no two
accounts were alike. I was suffering deep anxiety concerning a
good kind French family of my acquaintance, living within a five
minutes' walk of this place. 'Could I by any possibility procure a
commissionaire to carry a note for me? I'll give him five francs
(the hire being ten sous).' 'Not, sir,' said my _concierge_, 'if
you would give a hundred!' The poor general wanted some soldiers
from the barracks (next to the Assumption) to carry an order
for him. After great difficulty the wife of the _concierge_ was
allowed to go and fetch one; but she was searched for ammunition
by the first sentinel, and then passed on thus and back again
from one to another. No post in--no letters--no newspapers.
At length, at a month's end, night came. That night like the
last--'Sentinelle prenez garde à vous,' &c. &c.
"On Monday morning (26th), after a sleepless night--for, for any
means we had of knowing to the contrary, the insurgents might at
any moment be expected to attack this quarter, a quarter marked
down by them for fire and pillage--at about eight o'clock, I
lay down on a sofa and slept soundly till ten; I awoke, and was
struck by the appalling silence! This is a noisy street. Always
from about seven in the morning till late in the day one's head
is distracted by the shrill cries of itinerant traders (to these
are now added the cries of the vendors of cheap newspapers),
the passage of carriages and carts of all descriptions,
street-singers, organ-grinders endless, the screeching of parrots
and barking of dogs exposed for sale by a _grocer_ on the
opposite side of the way, together with the swarming of his and
his neighbour's dirty children--all was hushed; not a footfall,
'not (a line that is not often applicable here) a drum was
heard.' Yes, I repeat it, this universal silence was appalling!
Not a person, save the still guards on duty, was to be seen. The
shops were all closed, and, but for this circumstance, it seemed
like a Sunday! Strange! (and I find it was the same with many
other persons to whom I have mentioned the circumstance) I was
uncertain during these anxious days as to the day of the week.
At about eleven o'clock the _concierge_ came to tell me that the
insurrection was at an end. In less than an hour there was heard
a sharp fusillade and a heavy cannonade in the direction of the
Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. The insurgents had strengthened themselves
at that point (she came to say), but that, so far as she could
learn, General Cavaignac had at length resolved, by bombarding the
_quartier_, to suppress the insurrection before the day should
end. _And he did!_
"Frequently during the day parties of tired soldiers, scarcely
able to walk, passed on their way from the scene of action to
their barracks or their bivouac; wounded men were every now and
then brought to the Ambulance close by--one a Cuirassier, who, as
the guard saluted him, smiled faintly, and just raised his hand
in sign of recognition, which fell again at his side; and, most
striking of all, bands of prisoners from among the insurgents!!
Among them such hideous faces! scarcely human! No one knows whence
they come. Like the stormy petrel, they only are seen in troubled
times. I saw some such in the days of February, but never before,
nor afterwards, till now. Imagine O. Smith, well "made-up"
for one of the bloodiest and most melodramatic of his bloody
melodramas--a Parisian dandy compared with some of these. Some of
them naked to the waist, smeared with blood, hair and beard matted
and of incalculable growth, bloodshot eyes, scowling ferocious
brutes, their tigers' mouths blackened with gunpowder--creatures
to look at and shudder! And into their hands was Paris and its
peaceable honest inhabitants threatened to fall. With this I end.
Ever, my dear Dickens,
Cordially and sincerely yours,
John Poole.
"I began this on Saturday, and have been writing it, as best as I
can, till now, Tuesday, three o'clock. Pray acknowledge the receipt
when or if you receive it. This is a general letter to you all. If
Forster thinks any paragraph of this worthy the _Examiner_, he may
use it. Why does not the rogue write to me? Has he, or can he have,
taken huff at anything? though I cannot imagine why or at what. But
_nobody_ writes to me. I can and will, some day, tell you a comic
incident connected with all this, but it would not have been in
keeping with the rest of this letter. Paris is now quiet, but very
dull."
Chat No. 11.
"_All round the house is the jet black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame._
_Now my little heart goes a-beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogie in my hair;
And all round the candle the crooked shadows come
And go marching along up the stair._
_The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
The shadow of the child that goes to bed--
All the wicked shadows coming, tramp, tramp, tramp,
With the black night overhead._"
--R. L. Stevenson.
On the beautiful rocks of Red Head, near Arbroath, and surrounded by
the glamour of Sir Walter Scott's "Antiquary," which was written in
the alongside village of Auchmithie, and the plot and incidents of
which are principally placed here, stands Ethie Castle, the Scotch
home of the Earls of Northesk, and once one of the many residences of
Cardinal Beaton, whose portrait by Titian hangs in the hall.
Many of the quaint old rooms have secret staircases at the bed-heads
leading to rooms above or below, and forming convenient modes of
escape if the occupants of the middle chambers were threatened with
sudden attack. There are also some dungeon-like rooms below, with
walls of vast thickness, and "squints" through which to fire arrows
or musket-balls. The castle has been greatly improved and partly
restored by its last owner, without removing or destroying any of its
characteristic points.
Searching, when a guest there some years ago, amongst the literary and
other curious remains, which add a great charm to this most interesting
house, the writer was impressed with the following characteristic
letter from Charles II. to the then Lord Northesk, which he was
permitted to copy, and now to print. The letter is curious, as showing
the evident belief that the King held in his Divine right to interfere
with his subjects' affairs.
It is a holograph, beautifully written in a small clear hand --- not
unlike that of W. M. Thackeray --- and has been fastened with a seal,
still unbroken, no larger than a pea, but which nevertheless contains
the crown and complete royal arms, and is a most beautiful specimen
of seal-engraving. It would be interesting to know if this seal still
exists amongst the curiosities at Windsor Castle:---
Whitehall, _20 Nov. 1672_.
"My Lord Northesk,
I am so much concerned in my L^d Balcarriess that, hearing he
is in suite of one of your daughters, I must lett you know, you
cannot bestow her upon a person of whose worth and fidelity I
have a better esteeme, which moves me hartily to recommend to you
and your Lady, your franck compliance with his designe, and as I
do realy intend to be very kinde to him, and to do him good as
occasion offers, as well for his father's sake as his owne, so if
you and your Lady condescend to his pretension, and use him kindly
in it, I shall take it very kindly at your hands, and reckon it to
be done upon the accounte of
Your affectionate frinde,
Charles R."
_For the_ Earle of Northesk.
Looking at the fine portrait of the recipient of this royal request,
which hangs in the castle, and the stern, unrelenting expression of
the otherwise handsome face, it is not difficult to presume that he
somewhat resented this interference with his domestic plans. No copy of
Lord Northesk's reply exists, but its contents may be guessed by the
second letter from Whitehall, this time written by Lord Lauderdale:--
Whitehall, _18 Jany. 1673_.
"My Lord,
Yesterday I received yours of the 7th instant, and, according to
your desire, I acquainted the King with it. His Majesty commanded
me to signify to you that he is satisfied. For as he did recommend
that marriage, supposing that it was acceptable to both parties,
so he did not intend to lay any constraint upon you. Therfor he
leaves you to dispose of your daughter as you please. This is by
His Majesty's command signified to your Lordship by,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most humble servant,
Lauderdale."
Earl Northesk.
As, however, the marriage eventually did take place, let us hope that
the young couple arranged it themselves, without any further expression
of Royal wishes by the evidently well-meaning, if somewhat imperative,
King.
Ethie has, of course, its family legends and ghosts--what old Scotch
house is without them?--but the following, which I am most kindly
permitted to repeat, is so curious in its modern confirmation, that it
is well worth adding to the store of such weird narratives.
Many years ago, it is said that a lady in the castle destroyed her
young child in one of the rooms, which afterwards bore the stigma of
the association. Eventually the room was closed, the door screwed up,
and heavy wooden shutters were fastened outside the windows. But those
who occupied the rooms above and below this gruesome chamber would
often hear, in the watches of the night, the pattering of little feet
over the floor, and the sound of the little wheels of a child's cart
being dragged to and fro; a peculiarity connected with this sound
being, that one wheel creaked and chirruped as it moved. Years rolled
by, and the room continued to bear its sinister character until the
late Lord Northesk succeeded to the property, when he very wisely
determined to bring, if possible, the legend to an end, and probe the
ghostly story to its truthful or fictitious base.
Consequently he had the outside window shutters removed, and the
heavy wall-door unscrewed, and then, with some members of his family
present, ordered the door to be forced back. When the room was open
and birds began to sing, it proved to be quite destitute of furniture
or ornament. It had a bare hearth-stone, on which some grey ashes still
rested, and by the side of the hearth was a child's little wooden
go-cart on four solid wooden wheels!
Turning to his daughter, my lord asked her to wheel the little carriage
across the floor of the room. When she did so, it was with a strange
sense of something uncanny that the listeners heard one wheel creak and
chirrup as it ran!
Since then the baby footsteps have ceased, and the room is once more
devoted to ordinary uses, but the ghostly little go-cart still rests at
Ethie for the curious to see and to handle. Many friends and neighbours
yet live who testify to having heard the patter of the feet and the
creak of the little wheel in former days, when the room was a haunted
reality, but now the
"Little feet no more go lightly,
Vision broken!"
[Illustration]
Chat No. 12
"_I work on,
Through all the bristling fence of nights and days,
Which hedge time in from the eternities._"
--Mrs. Browning.
The late Cardinal Manning always felt a great interest in our parish of
Brasted. In former times it formed part of Hever Chase, the property
of Sir Thomas Boleyn (the father of Queen Anne Boleyn), who lived at
Hever Castle, about four miles from Brasted, a fine Tudor specimen of
domestic architecture, which is now somewhat jealously shown to the
public on certain days. Hever Castle is the original of Bovor Castle,
immortalised by Mr. Burnand in his wonderful "Happy Thoughts."
The Cardinal's father, who was at one time an opulent city merchant,
and sometime Governor of the Bank of England, owned the estate of
Combe Bank, formerly the English location of the Argyll family, whose
Duke sat in the House of Lords, until quite a recent date, as Baron
Sundridge, the name of the adjacent village.
In Sundridge Church are some family busts of the Argylls by Mrs. Dawson
Damer, who stayed much at Combe Bank, and who lies buried with all her
graving and sculpting tools in Sundridge churchyard.
The Cardinal and his elder brother, Charles Manning, passed some
youthful years in this house, and when financial trouble overtook
their father, and he was obliged to part with the property, it became
the ever-present desire and day-dream of the elder son to succeed in
life and repurchase the place. He succeeded well in life, and enjoyed a
very long and happy one; but he never became the owner of Combe Bank,
the hope to do so only fading with his life.
He owned, or leased, a pleasant old house at Littlehampton; and if
his brother, the Cardinal, was in need of rest, he would lend it to
him, when the Cardinal's method of relaxation was to go to bed in a
sea-looking room, and, with window open, read, write, and contemplate
for some three or four days and nights, and then arise refreshed like a
giant, and return to the manifold duties waiting for him in town.
The Cardinal's home in London was formerly the Guard's Institute in
the Vauxhall Bridge Road, which, failing in its first intention, was
purchased as the palace for the then newly-elected Cardinal-Archbishop
of Westminster. It proved to be rather a dreary, draughty,
uncomfortable abode, but having the advantage of a double staircase and
some large reception rooms, was useful for the clerical assemblies he
used to invoke.
I had the privilege, without being a member of his church, of being
allowed to attend the meetings of the _Academia_ which the Cardinal
held every now and then during the London season. His friends would
gather in one of the big rooms a little before eight in the evening,
and sit in darkened circles around a small centre table, before which
a high-backed carved chair stood. The entire light for the apartment
proceeded from two big silver candlesticks on the table. As the clock
chimed eight, the Cardinal, clothed in crimson cassock and skull-cap,
would glide into the room, and standing before the episcopal chair,
murmur a short Latin prayer, after which the discussion of the evening
would begin; when all that wished had had their little say, the
Cardinal replied to the points raised by the various speakers, and
closed the debate; after which he held a sort of informal reception,
welcoming individually every guest.
No one but a Rembrandt could give the beautiful effect of the
half-lights and heavy black shadows of this striking gathering, with
its centre of colour and light in the tall red figure of the Cardinal,
his noble face and picturesque dress forming a mind-picture which can
never fade from the memory. The strong theatrical effect, combined
with the real simplicity of the scene, the personal interest of many of
those who took part in the discussion, the associations with the past,
the speculation whither the innovation of the installation of a Roman
Catholic Archbishop in Westminster was tending, giving the observer
bountiful food for much solemn thought.
Upon our book-shelves repose four volumes of the Cardinal's sermons,
preached when a member of the Church of England, and Archdeacon of
Chichester. They were bought at Bishop Wilberforce's sale, who was
the Cardinal's brother-in-law, and contain the autograph of William
Wilberforce, the bishop's eldest brother. Upon the same shelf will
be found a copy of "Parochial Sermons" by John Henry Newman, Vicar
of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford. This volume formerly belonged to
Bishop Stanley, and came from the library of his celebrated son, Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley, sometime Dean of Westminster.
* * * * *
A good book might be written by one who is duly qualified on "the Poets
who are not read." It would not be flattering to the ghosts of many
of the departed great, but there is so much assumption on the part of
the general reader, that he knows them all, has read them all, and
generally likes them all, which if examined into closely would prove
a snare and a delusion, that one is tempted to administer some gentle
interrogatories upon the subject. First and foremost, then, who now
reads Byron? His works rest on the shelves, it is true, but are they
ever opened, except to verify a quotation? Does the general reader
of this time steadily go through "Childe Harold," "Don Juan," and
his other splendid works. Not death but sleep prevails, from which
perchance one day he may awake and again enjoy his share of fame and
favour. It is the fashion with many persons to express the utmost
sympathy with and acute knowledge of the work of Robert Browning, but
we doubt if many of these could pass a Civil Service examination in the
very poems they name so glibly. He is so hard to understand without
time and close study, that few have the inclination to give either in
these days of pressure, worry, and rush.
Upon neglected shelves Cowper and Crabbe lie dusty and unopened--the
only person who read Crabbe in these days was the late Edward
FitzGerald; and it is a small class apart that still looks up to
Wordsworth. The stars of Keats and Shelley, it is true, are just now in
the ascendant, and may so remain for a little while.
It is difficult and dangerous, we are told, to prophesy unless we know,
but our private opinion is that Lord Tennyson's fame has been declining
since his death, and that a large portion of his poems and all his
plays will die, leaving a living residuum of such splendid work as
"Maud," "In Memoriam," and some of his short poems.
America has furnished us with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose charm
and finish is likely to continue its hold upon our imagination;
then there is the Quaker poet Whittier, who will probably only live
in a song or two; and Longfellow, whose popularity has a long time
since declined. He once wrote a sort of novel or romance called
"Hyperion," which showed his reading public for the first time that he
was possessed of a gentle humour, which does not often appear in his
poems. For instance, one of his characters, by name Berkley, wishing to
console a jilted lover, says--
"'I was once as desperately in love as you are now; I adored, and was
rejected.'
"'You are in love with certain attributes,' said the lady.
"'Damn your attributes, madam,' said I; 'I know nothing of attributes.'
"'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you have been drinking.'
"So we parted. She was married afterwards to another, who knew
something about attributes, I suppose. I have seen her once since, and
only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I hate a baby in a yellow
gown. How glad I am she did not marry me."
The fate of most poets is to be cut up for Dictionaries of Quotations,
for which amiable purpose they are often admirably adapted.
Chat No. 13.
_"She will return, I know she will,
She will not leave me here alone._"
Staying many years ago in a pleasant country-house, whilst walking home
after evening church my host remarked, as we passed in the growing
darkness a house from which streamed a light down the path from the
front door, "Ah! Jane has not yet returned." The phrase sounded odd,
and when we were snugly ensconced in the smoking-room, he that evening
told me the following story, which, however, then stopped midway, but
to which I am now able to add the sequel.
A certain John Manson (the name is, of course, fictitious), an elderly
wealthy City bachelor, married late in life a young girl of great
beauty, and with no friends or relations.
She found her husband's country home, in which she was necessarily much
alone, very dull, and she thought that he was hard and unsympathising
when he was at home; whereas, although a curt, reserved manner gave
this impression, he was really full of love for, and confidence in his
young wife, and inwardly chafed at and deplored his want of power to
show what his real feelings were.
The misunderstanding between them grew and widened, like the poetical
"rift within the lute," and soon after the birth of her child, a girl,
she left her home with her baby, merely leaving a few lines of curt
farewell, and was henceforth lost to him. His belief in her honesty
never wavered; and night after night, with his own hand, he lighted and
placed in a certain hall-window a lamp which thus illuminated the path
to the door, saying, "Jane will return, poor dear; and it's sure to be
at night, and she'll like to see the light."
Years passed by, and Jane made no sign, the light each evening shining
uselessly; and still a stranger to her home, she died, leaving her
daughter, now a beautiful girl of twenty, and marvellously like what
her mother was when she married.
The husband, unaware of the death of his wife, himself came to lay
him for the last beneath his own roof-tree, and still his one cry
was, "Jane will return." It seemed as if he could not pass in peace
from this world's rack until it was accomplished--when, lo! a miracle
came to pass; for the daughter arrived one evening with a letter from
her mother, written when she was dying, and asking her husband's
forgiveness, and the light still beamed from the beacon window.
The old man was only semi-conscious, and mistaking his child for her
mother, with a strong voice cried out, "I knew you'd come back," and
died in the moment of the joy of her supposed return.
By a curious coincidence, since writing this true story, which was
told to me in 1865, some of the incidents, in an altered form, have
found a place in Mr. Ian Maclaren's popular book, "Beside the Bonnie
Brier Bush." It would be interesting to know from whence he drew his
inspiration, and whether his story should perchance trace back to a
common ancestor in mine.
* * * * *
A few years ago Mr. Walter Hamilton published, in six volumes, the most
complete collection of English parodies ever brought together. Amongst
others, he gave a vast number upon the well-known poem by Charles Wolfe
of "Not a drum was heard." Page after page is covered with them, upon
every possible subject; but the following one, written by an "American
cousin" many years ago, and which was not accessible to Mr. Hamilton,
is perhaps worth repeating and preserving. He called it "The Mosquito
Hunt," and it runs as follows, if my memory serves me faithfully, I
having no written note of it:--
"Not a sound was heard, but a horrible hum,
As around our chamber we hurried,
In search of the insect whose trumpet and drum
Our delectable slumber had worried.
We sought for him darkly at dead of night,
Our coverlet carefully turning,
By the shine of the moonbeam's misty light,
And our candle dimly burning.
About an hour had seemed to elapse,
Ere we met with the wretch that had bit us;
And raising our shoe, gave some terrible slaps,
Which made the mosquito's quietus.
Quickly and gladly we turned from the dead,
And left him all smash'd and gory;
We blew out the candle, and popped into bed,
And determined to tell you the story!"
Chat No. 14.
"_The welcome news is in the letter found,
The carrier's not commissioned to expound:
It speaks itself._"
--Dryden.
A pleasant hour may perhaps be passed in searching through the
family autograph-box in the book-room. Its contents are varied and
far-fetched. A capital series of letters from that best and most genial
of correspondents, James Payn, are there to puzzle, by their very
difficult calligraphy, the would-be reader. Mr. Payn, a dear friend
to Foxwold, is now a great invalid, and a brave sufferer, keeping,
despite his pain, the same bright spirit, the same brilliant wit,
and delighting with the same enchanting conversation. Out of all his
work, there is nothing so beautiful as his lay-sermons, published in
a small volume called "Some Private Views;" and but a little while
since he wrote, on his invalid couch, a most affecting study, called
"The Backwater of Life;" it has only up to the present time appeared
in the _Cornhill Magazine_, but will doubtless be soon collected with
other work in a more permanent form. It is a pathetic picture of how
suffering may be relieved by wit, wisdom, and courage.
As Mr. Leslie Stephen well says in his brother's life, "For such
literature the British public has shown a considerable avidity ever
since the days of Addison. In spite of occasional disavowals, it
really loves a sermon, and is glad to hear preachers who are not bound
by the proprieties of the religious pulpit. Some essayists, like
Johnson, have been as solemn as the true clerical performer, and some
have diverged into the humorous with Charles Lamb, or the cynical with
Hazlitt."[2]
In Mr. Payn's lay-sermons we have the humour and the pathos, the tears
being very close to the laughter; and they reflect in a peculiarly
strong manner the tender wit and delicate fancy of their author.
But to return to our autograph-box. Here we find letters from such
varied authors as Josef Israels, the Dutch painter, Hubert Herkomer, W.
B. Richmond, Mrs. Carlyle, Wilkie Collins, Dean Stanley, and a host of
other interesting people. Perhaps a few extracts, where judicious and
inoffensive, may give an interest to this especial chat.
The late Mrs. Charles Fox of Trebah was in herself, both socially and
intellectually, a very remarkable woman. Born in the Lake Country, and
belonging to the Society of Friends, she formed, as a girl, many happy
friendships with the Wordsworths, the Southeys, the Coleridges, and
all that charmed circle of intellect, every scrap of whose sayings and
doings are so full of interest, and so dearly cherished.
These friendships she continued to preserve after her marriage, and
when she had exchanged her lovely lake home for an equally beautiful
and interesting one on the Cornish coast, first at Perran and
afterwards at Trebah.
One of her special friendships was with Hartley Coleridge, who indited
several of his sonnets to his beautiful young friend.
The subjoined letter gives a pleasant picture of his friendly
correspondence, and has not been included in the published papers by
his brother, the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, who edited his remains.
"Dear Sarah,
If a stranger to the fold
Of happy innocents, where thou art one,
May so address thee by a name he loves,
Both for a mother's and a sister's sake,
And surely loves it not the less for thine.
Dear Sarah, strange it needs must seem to thee
That I should choose the quaint disguise of verse,
And, like a mimic masquer, come before thee
To tell my simple tale of country news,
Or,--sooth to tell thee,--I have nought to tell
But what a most intelligencing gossip
Would hardly mention on her morning rounds:
Things that a newspaper would not record
In the dead-blank recess of Parliament.
Yet so it is,--my thoughts are so confused,
My memory is so wild a wilderness,
I need the order of the measured line
To help me, whensoe'er I would attempt
To methodise the random notices
Of purblind observation. Easier far
The minuet step of slippery sliding verse,
Than the strong stately walk of steadfast prose.
Since you have left us, many a beauteous change
Hath Nature wrought on the eternal hills;
And not an hour hath past that hath not done
Its work of beauty. When December winds,
Hungry and fell, were chasing the dry leaves,
Shrill o'er the valley at the dead of night,
'Twas sweet, for watchers such as I, to mark
How bright, how very bright, the stars would shine
Through the deep rifts of congregated clouds;
How very distant seemed the azure sky;
And when at morn the lazy, weeping fog,
Long lingering, loath to leave the slumbrous lake,
Whitened, diffusive, as the rising sun
Shed on the western hills his rosiest beams,
I thought of thee, and thought our peaceful vale
Had lost one heart that could have felt its peace,
One eye that saw its beauties, and one soul
That made its peace and beauty all her own.
One morn there was a kindly boon of heaven,
That made the leafless woods so beautiful,
It was sore pity that one spirit lives,
That owns the presence of Eternal God
In all the world of Nature and of Mind,
Who did not see it. Low the vapour hung
On the flat fields, and streak'd with level layers
The lower regions of the mountainous round;
But every summit, and the lovely line
Of mountain tops, stood in the pale blue sky
Boldly defined. The cloudless sun dispelled
The hazy masses, and a lucid veil
But softened every charm it not concealed.
Then every tree that climbs the steep fell-side--
Young oak, yet laden with sere foliage;
Larch, springing upwards, with its spikey top
And spiney garb of horizontal boughs;
The veteran ash, strong-knotted, wreathed and twined,
As if some Dæmon dwelt within its trunk,
And shot forth branches, serpent-like; uprear'd
The holly and the yew, that never fade
And never smile; these, and whate'er beside,
Or stubborn stump, or thin-arm'd underwood,
Clothe the bleak strong girth of Silverhow
(You know the place, and every stream and brook
Is known to you) by ministry of Frost,
Were turned to shapes of Orient adamant,
As if the whitest crystals, new endow'd
With vital or with vegetative power,
Had burst from earth, to mimic every form
Of curious beauty that the earth could boast,
Or, like a tossing sea of curly plumes,
Frozen in an instant----"
"So much for verse, which, being execrably bad, cannot be excused,
except by friendship, therefore is the fitter for a friendly
epistle. There's logic for you! In fact, my dear lady, I am so
much delighted, not to say flattered, by your wish that I should
write to you, that I can't help being rather silly. It will be
a sad loss to me when your excellent mother leaves Grasmere;
and to-morrow my friend Archer and I dine at Dale End, for our
farewell. But so it must be. I am always happy to hear anything of
your little ones, who are such very sweet creatures that one might
almost think it a pity they should ever grow up to be big women,
and know only better than they do now. Among all the anecdotes
of childhood that have been recorded, I never heard of one so
characteristic as Jenny-Kitty's wish to inform Lord Dunstanville
of the miseries of the negroes. Bless its little soul! I am truly
sorry to hear that you have been suffering bodily illness, though
I know that it cannot disturb the serenity of your mind. I hope
little Derwent did not disturb you with his crown; I am told he is
a lovely little wretch, and you say he has eyes like mine. I hope
he will see his way better with them. Derwent has never answered
my letter, but I complain not; I dare say he has more than enough
to do.[3] Thank you kindly for your kindness to him and his lady.
I hope the friendship of Friends will not obstruct his rising in
the Church, and that he will consult his own interest prudently,
paying court to the powers that be, yet never so far committing
himself as to miss an opportunity of ingratiating himself with
the powers that may be. Let him not utter, far less write, any
sentence that will not bear a twofold interpretation! For the
present let his liberality go no further than a very liberal
explanation of the words consistency and gratitude may carry
him; let him always be honest when it is his interest to be so,
and sometimes when it may appear not to be so; and never be a
knave under a deanery or a rectory of five thousand a year! My
best remembrances to your husband, and kisses for Juliet and
Jenny-Kitty, though she did say she liked Mr. Barber far better
than me. I can't say I agree with her in that particular, having a
weak partiality for
Your affectionate friend,
Hartley Coleridge."
Another friend of the Fox family was the late John Bright, and the
following letter to the now well-known Caroline Fox of Penjerrick will
be read with interest:--
Torquay, 10 _mo._ 13, 1868.
"My dear Friend,
I hope the 'one cloud' has passed away. I was much pleased with
the earnestness and feeling of the poem, and wished to ask thee
for a copy of it, but was afraid to give thee the trouble of
writing it out for me.
"For myself, I have endeavoured only to speak when I have had
something to say which it seemed to me ought to be said, and I did
not feel that the sentiment of the poem condemned me.
"We had a pleasant visit to Kynance Cove. It is a charming
place, and we were delighted with it. We went on through Helston
to Penzance: the day following we visited the Logan Rock and the
Land's End, and in the afternoon the celebrated Mount--the weather
all we could wish for. We were greatly pleased with the Mount,
and I shall not read 'Lycidas' with less interest now that I have
seen the place of the 'great vision.' We found the hotel to which
you kindly directed us perfect in all respects. On Friday we came
from Penzance to Truro, and posted to St. Columb, where we spent a
night at Mr. Northy's--the day and night were very wet. Next day
we posted to Tintagel, and back to Launceston, taking the train
there for Torquay.
"We were pressed for time at Tintagel, but were pleased with what
we saw.
"Here, we are in a land of beauty and of summer, the beauty beyond
my expectation, and the climate like that of Nice. Yesterday we
drove round to see the sights, and W. Pengelly and Mr. Vivian
went with us to Kent's Cavern, Anstey's Cove, and the round of
exquisite views. We are at Cash's Hotel, but visit our friend
Susan Midgley in the day and evening. To-morrow we start for
Street, to stay a day or two with my daughter Helen, and are to
spend Sunday at Bath. We have seen much and enjoyed much in our
excursion, but we shall remember nothing with more pleasure than
your kindness and our stay at Penjerrick.
"Elizabeth joins me in kind and affectionate remembrance of you,
and in the hope that thy dear father did not suffer from the 'long
hours' to which my talk subjected him. When we get back to our
bleak region and home of cold and smoke, we shall often think of
your pleasant retreat, and of the wonderful gardens at Penjerrick.
Believe me,
Always sincerely thy friend,
John Bright."
_To_ Caroline Fox,
Penjerrick, Falmouth.
There are few men whose every uttered word is regarded with greater
respect and interest than Mr. Ruskin. It is well known that he has
always been a wide and careful collector of minerals, gems, and fine
specimens of the art and nature world. One of his various agents,
through whom at one time he made many such purchases, both for himself
and his Oxford and Sheffield museums, was Mr. Bryce Wright, the
mineralogist, and to him are addressed the following five letters:--
Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire,
_22nd May '81_.
"My dear Wright,
I am very greatly obliged to you for letting me see these opals,
quite unexampled, as you rightly say, from that locality--but
from that locality _I_ never buy--my kind is the opal formed in
pores and cavities, throughout the mass of that compact brown
jasper--this, which is merely a superficial crust of jelly on the
surface of a nasty brown sandstone, I do not myself value in the
least. I wish you could get at some of the geology of the two
sorts, but I suppose everything is kept close by the diggers and
the Jews at present.
"As for the cameos, the best of the two, 'supposed' (by whom?) to
represent Isis, represents neither Egyptian nor Oxonian Isis, but
only an ill-made French woman of the town bathing at Boulogne, and
the other is only a 'Minerve' of the Halles, a _petroleuse_ in a
mob-cap, sulphur-fire colour.
"I don't depreciate what I want to buy, as you know well, but it
is not safe to send me things in the set way 'supposed' to be
this or that! If you ever get any more nice little cranes, or
cockatoos, looking like what they're supposed to be meant for,
they shall at least be returned with compliments.
"I send back the box by to-day's rail; put down all expenses to my
account, as I am always amused and interested by a parcel from you.
"You needn't print this letter as an advertisement, unless you
like!
Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin."
Brantwood, _23rd May_.
"My dear Wright,
The silver's safe here, and I want to buy it for Sheffield, but
the price seems to me awful. It must always be attached to it
at the museum, and I fear great displeasure from the public for
giving you such a price. What is there in the specimen to make it
so valuable? I have not anything like it, nor do I recollect its
like (or I shouldn't want it), but if so rare, why does not the
British Museum take it.
Ever truly yours,
J. Ruskin."
Brantwood, _Wednesday_.
"My dear Wright,
I am very glad of your long and interesting letter, and can
perfectly understand all your difficulties, and have always
observed your activity and attention to your business with much
sympathy, but of late certainly I have been frightened at your
prices, and, before I saw the golds, was rather uneasy at having
so soon to pay for them. But you are quite right in your estimate
of the interest and value of the collection, and I hope to be
able to be of considerable service to you yet, though I fear it
cannot be in buying specimens at seventy guineas, unless there is
something to be shown for the money, like that great native silver!
"I have really not been able to examine the red ones yet--the
golds alone were more than I could judge of till I got a quiet
hour this morning. I might possibly offer to change some of the
locally interesting ones for a proustite, but I can't afford any
more cash just now.
Ever very heartily yours,
J. Ruskin."
Brantwood,
_3rd Nov. or 4th (?), Friday_.
"Dear Wright,
My telegram will, I hope, enable you to act with promptness about
the golds, which will be of extreme value to me; and its short
saying about the proustites will, I hope, not be construed by you
as meaning that I will buy them also. You don't really suppose
that you are to be paid interest of money on minerals, merely
because they have lain long in your hands.
"If I sold my old arm-chair, which has got the rickets, would
you expect the purchaser to pay me forty years' interest on the
original price? Your proustite may perhaps be as good as ever
it was, but it is not worth more to me or Sheffield because you
have had either the enjoyment or the care of it longer than you
expected!
"But I am really very seriously obliged by the _sight_ of it, with
the others, and perhaps may make an effort to lump some of the new
ones with the gold in an estimate of large purchase. I think the
gold, by your description, must be a great credit to Sheffield and
to me; perhaps I mayn't be able to part with it!
Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin."
Herne Hill, S.E., _6 May '84_.
"My dear Bryce,
I can't resist this tourmaline, and have carried it off with me.
For you and Regent Street it's not monstrous in price neither; but
I must send you back your (pink!) apatite. I wish I'd come to see
you, but have been laid up all the time I've been here--just got
to the pictures, and that's all.
Yours always,
(much to my damage!)
J. R."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] "Life of Sir T. FitzJames Stephen," by his Brother, Leslie Stephen.
Smith, Elder & Co., 1895.
[3] The Rev. Derwent Coleridge was at the time keeping a school at
Helston, which was within an easy distance of Perran, where Mrs. Fox
was at this time living.
Chat No. 15.
"_Scarcely she knew, that she was great or fair,
Or wise beyond what other women are._"
--Dryden.
An oval picture that hangs opposite Sheridan's portrait is a fine
presentment of the Marquis de Ségur, by Vanloo.
The Marquis was born in 1724, and eventually became a marshal of
France, and minister of war to Louis XVI. After his royal master's
execution he fell into very low water, and it was only by his calm
intrepidity in very trying circumstances that he escaped the
guillotine. His memoirs have from time to time appeared, generally
under the authority of some of his descendants. This interesting
portrait belonged to the family of de Ségur, and was parted with by the
present head of the house to the late Mrs. Lyne Stephens, who gave it
to us.
The history of this admirable woman is deeply interesting in every
detail. She was the daughter of Colonel Duvernay, a member of a good
old French family, who was ruined by the French Revolution of 1785.
Born at Versailles in the year 1812, her father had the child named
Yolande Marie Louise; and she was educated at the Conservatoire in
Paris, where they soon discovered her wonderful talent for dancing.
This art was encouraged, developed, and trained to the uttermost; and
when, in due time, she appeared upon the ballet stage, she took the
town by storm, and at once came to the foremost rank as the well-known
Mademoiselle Duvernay, rivalling, if not excelling, the two Ellsslers,
Cerito, and Taglioni.
She made wide the fame of the Cachucha dance, which was specially
rearranged for her; and the world was immediately deluged with her
portraits, some good, some bad, many very apocryphal, and many very
indifferent.
In one of W. M. Thackeray's wonderful "Roundabout Papers," which
perhaps contain some of the most beautiful work he ever gave us, he
thus recalls, in a semi-playful, semi-pathetic tone, his recollections
of the great _danseuse_. "In William IV.'s time, when I think of
Duvernay dancing in as the Bayadère, I say it was a vision of
loveliness such as mortal eyes can't see nowadays. How well I remember
the tune to which she used to appear! Kaled used to say to the Sultan,
'My lord, a troop of those dancing and singing girls called Bayadères
approaches,' and to the clash of cymbals and the thumping of my heart,
in she used to dance! There has never been anything like it--never."
After a few years of brilliant successes she retired from the stage
she had done so much to grace and dignify, and married the late Mr.
Stephens Lyne Stephens, who in those days, and after his good old
father's death, was considered one of the richest commoners in England.
He died in 1860, after a far too short, but intensely happy, married
life; and having no children, left his widow, as far as was in his
power, complete mistress of his large fortune. They were both devoted
to art, and being very acute connoisseurs, had collected a superb
quantity of the best pictures, the rarest old French furniture, and the
finest china.
The bulk of these remarkable collections was dispersed at Christie's
in a nine-days'-wonder sale in 1895, and proved the great attraction
of the season, buyers from Paris, New York, Vienna, and Berlin eagerly
competing with London for the best things.
Some of the more remarkable prices are here noted, as being of
permanent interest to the art-loving world, and testifying how little
hard times can affect the sale of a really fine and genuine collection.
As a rule, the prices obtained were very far in excess of those paid
for the various objects, in many cases reaching four and five times
their original cost.
A pair of Mandarin vases sold for 1070 guineas. The beautiful Sèvres
oviform vase, given by Louis XV. to the Marquis de Montcalm, 1900
guineas. A pair of Sèvres blue and gold Jardinières, 5-1/4 inches high,
1900 guineas. A clock by Berthoud, 1000 guineas. A small upright Louis
XVI. secretaire, 800 guineas. Another rather like it, 960 guineas. A
marble bust of Louis XIV., 567 guineas. Three Sèvres oviform vases,
from Lord Pembroke's collection, 5000 guineas. A single oviform
Sèvres vase, 760 guineas. A pair of Sèvres vases, 1050 guineas. A
very beautiful Sedan chair, in Italian work of the sixteenth century,
600 guineas. A clock by Causard, 720 guineas. A Louis XV. upright
secretaire, 1320 guineas. "Dogs and Gamekeeper," painted by Troyon,
2850 guineas. "The Infanta," a full-length portrait by Velasquez, 4300
guineas. A bust of the Infanta, also by Velasquez, 770 guineas. "Faith
presenting the Eucharist," a splendid work by Murillo, 2350 guineas.
"The Prince of Orange Hunting," by Cuyp, 2000 guineas. "The Village
Inn," by Van Ostade, 1660 guineas. A fine specimen of Terburg's work,
1950 guineas. A portrait by Madame Vigée le Brun, 2250 guineas.
A lovely portrait by Nattier, 3900 guineas. Watteau's celebrated
picture of "La Gamme d'Amour," 3350 guineas. A pair of small Lancret's
Illustrations to La Fontaine brought respectively 1300 guineas and 1050
guineas. Drouais' superb portrait of Madame du Barry, 690 guineas; and
a small head of a girl by Greuze sold for 710 guineas.
Small pieces of china of no remarkable merit, but bearing a greatly
enhanced value from belonging to this celebrated collection, obtained
wonderful prices. For example:--
A Sang-de Boeuf Crackle vase, 12-1/2 inches high, 280 guineas. A
pair of china Kylins, 360 guineas. A circular Pesaro dish, 155
guineas. A pair of Sèvres dark blue oviform vases, 1000 guineas.
Three Sèvres vases, 1520 guineas. Two small panels of old French
tapestry, 285 guineas. Another pair, 710 guineas. A circular
Sèvres bowl, 13 inches in diameter, 300 guineas.
The ormolu ornaments of the time of Louis XIV. brought great sums; for
instance--
An ormolu inkstand sold for 72 guineas. A pair of wall lights, 102
guineas. A pair of ormolu candlesticks, 400 guineas. Another pair,
500 guineas. A pair of ormolu andirons, 220 guineas.
Little tables of Louis XV. period also sold amazingly.
An oblong one, 21-1/2 inches wide, 285 guineas. An upright
secretaire, 580 guineas. A small Louis XVI. chest of drawers, 315
guineas. A pair of Louis XVI. mahogany cabinets, 950 guineas. A
pair of Louis XVI. bronze candelabra brought 525 guineas; and an
ebony cabinet of the same time fetched the extraordinary price of
1700 guineas; and a little Louis XV. gold chatelaine sold for 300
guineas.
The grand total obtained by this remarkable sale, together with some of
the plate and jewels, amounted to £158,000!
For thirty-four years, as a widow, Mrs. Lyne Stephens administered,
with the utmost wisdom and the broadest generosity, the large trust
thus placed in her most capable hands. Building and restoring churches
for both creeds (she being Catholic and her late husband Protestant);
endowing needy young couples whom she considered had some claim upon
her, if only as friends; further adding to and completing her art
collections, and finishing and beautifying her different homes in
Norfolk, Paris, and Roehampton.
Generous to the fullest degree, she would warmly resent the least
attempt to impose upon her. An amusing instance of this occurred many
years ago, when one of her husband's relations, considering he had
some extraordinary claim upon the widow's generosity, again and again
pressed her for large benevolences, which for a season he obtained.
Getting tired of his importunity, she at last declined to render
further help, and received in reply a very abusive letter from the
claimant, which wound up by stating that if the desired assistance
were not forthcoming by a certain date, the applicant would set up
a fruit-stall in front of her then town-house in Piccadilly, and so
shame her into compliance with his request. She immediately wrote him
a pretty little letter in reply, saying, "That it was with sincere
pleasure she had heard of her correspondent's intention of pursuing for
the first time an honest calling whereby to earn his bread, and that if
his oranges were good, she had given orders that they should be bought
for her servants' hall!"
During the Franco-German war of 1870 she remained in Paris in her
beautiful home in the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, and would daily sally
forth to help the sufferings which the people in Paris were undergoing.
No one will ever know the vast extent of the sacrifice she then made.
Her men-servants had all left to fight for their country, and she was
alone in the big house, with only two or three maids to accompany her.
During the Commune she continued her daily walks abroad, and was always
recognised by the mob as a good Frenchwoman, doing her utmost for the
needs of the very poor. Her friend, the late Sir Richard Wallace, who
was also in Paris during these troubles, well earned his baronetcy by
his care of the poor English shut up in the city during the siege; but
although Mrs. Lyne Stephens' charity was quite as wide and generous as
his, she never received, nor did she expect or desire it, one word of
acknowledgment or thanks from any of the powers that were.
She died at Lynford, from the result of a fall on a parquet floor,
on the 2nd September 1894, aged 82, full of physical vigour and
intellectual brightness, and still remarkable for her personal beauty;
finding life to the last full of many interests, but impressed by
the sadness of having outlived nearly all her early friends and
contemporaries.
She lingered nearly three weeks after the actual fall, during which her
affectionate gratitude to all who watched and tended her, her bright
recognition when faces she loved came near, her quick response to all
that was said and done, were beautiful and touching to see, and very
sweet to remember. Her last words to the writer of these lines when
he bade her farewell were, "My fondest love to my beloved Julian;"
our invalid son at Foxwold, for whom she always evinced the deepest
affection and sympathy.
In her funeral sermon, preached by Canon Scott, himself an intimate
friend, in the beautiful church she had built for Cambridge, to a
crowded and deeply sympathetic audience, he eloquently observed:
"Greatly indeed was she indebted to God; richly had she been
endowed with gifts of every kind; of natural character, of special
intelligence, of winning attractiveness, which compelled homage from
all who came under the charm of her influence; with the result of
widespread renown and unbounded wealth.... Therefore it was that the
blessing of God came in another form--by the discipline of suffering
and trial. There was the trial of loneliness. Soon bereft, as she was,
of her husband, of whose affection we may judge by the way in which
he had laid all he possessed at her feet; French and Catholic, living
amongst those who were not of her faith or nation, though enjoying
their devoted friendship. With advancing years, deprived by death even
of those intimate friends, she was lonely in a sense throughout her
life.... Nor must it be omitted that her great gift to Cambridge was
not merely an easy one out of superfluous wealth, but that it involved
some personal sacrifice. Friends of late had missed the sight of costly
jewels, which for years had formed a part of her personal adornment.
What had become of a necklace of rarest pearls, now no longer
worn?--They had been sacrificed for the erection of this very church."
Again, in a Pastoral Letter by the Roman Catholic Bishop of
Northampton to his flock, dated the 28th of November 1894, he says:
"We take occasion of this our Advent pastoral, to commend to your
prayers the soul of one who has recently passed away, Mrs. Lyne
Stephens. Her innumerable works of religion and charity during her
life, force us to acknowledge our indebtedness to her; she built
at her sole cost the churches of Lynford, Shefford, and Cambridge,
and she gave a large donation for the church at Wellingborough. It
was she who gave the presbytery and the endowment of Lynford, the
rectory at Cambridge, and our own residence at Northampton. By a large
donation she greatly helped the new episcopal income fund, and she was
generous to the Holy Father on the occasion of his first jubilee. Our
indebtedness was increased by her bequests, one to ourselves as the
Bishop, one for the maintenance of the fabric of the Cambridge Church,
another for the Boy's Home at Shefford, and a fourth to the Clergy
Fund of this Diocese. Her name has been inscribed in our _Liber Vitæ_,
among the great benefactors whether living or dead, and for these we
constantly offer up prayers that God may bless their good estate in
life, and after death receive them to their reward."
To the inmates of Foxwold she was for nearly a quarter of a century
a true and loving friend, paying them frequent little visits, and
entering with the deepest sympathy into the lives of those who also
loved her very dearly.
The house bears, through her generosity, many marks of her exquisite
taste and broad bounty, and her memory will always be fragrant and
beautiful to those who knew her.
There are three portraits of her at Roehampton. The first, as a most
winsome, lovely girl, drawn life-size by a great pastellist in the
reign of Louis Philippe; the second, as a handsome matron, in the happy
years of her all too short married life; and the last, by Carolus
Duran, was painted in Paris in 1888. This has been charmingly engraved,
and represents her as a most lovely old lady, with abundant iron-grey
hair and large violet eyes, very wide apart. She was intellectually
as well as physically one of the strongest women, and she never had a
day's illness, until her fatal accident, in her life. Her conversation
and power of repartee was extremely clever and brilliant. A shrewd
observer of character, she rarely made a mistake in her first estimate
of people, and her sometimes adverse judgments, which at first
sight appeared harsh, were invariably justified by the history of
after-events.
Her charity was illimitable, and was always, as far as possible,
concealed. A simple-lived, brave, warm-hearted, generous woman, her
death has created a peculiar void, which will not in our time be again
filled:--
"For some we loved, the loveliest and the best,
That from his Vintage, rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup, a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest."
The Index
"_Studious he sate, with all his books around,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound;
Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there;
Then wrote, and flounder'd on, in mere despair._"
--Pope.
America. Humours of a voyage to, 18.
Baxter, Robert. His hospitality, 53.
Bedford Town and Schools, 73.
Binders and their work, 41.
Bradley, A. G. Life of Wolfe, 10.
Bright, John. Letter from, 134.
Calverley, C. S., 2.
Charles II. and Lord Northesk, 101.
Christie's. A sale at, 11.
Christie's. Lyne Stephens sale, 148.
Coleridge, Hartley. Letter from, 129.
Combe Bank, 109.
Craze, modern. For work, 48.
Cunarder. On board a, 18.
"Cynical Song of the City," 50.
Dickens. On over-work, 48.
Dobson, Austin, 63.
Ethie Castle and its ghost story, 104.
Fox, Caroline. John Bright's letter to, 134.
Fox, Mrs. Charles, of Trebah, 128.
Fox, Mrs. Charles, and Hartley Coleridge, 129.
Foxwold and its early train, 51.
French Revolution of 1848, 85.
Gainsborough's portrait of Wolfe, 8.
Ghost story at Ethie, 104.
Gosse, Edmund. Poem by, 61.
Grain, R. Corney. Sketch of, 3.
" " His charity, 4.
" " Letter from, 6.
Guthrie, Anstey. Bon-mot of, 52.
Hamilton's parodies, 123.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 59.
Humours of an Atlantic voyage, 18.
"Jane will return." A true story, 119.
Jerrold, Douglas. Drawing of, 68.
Laureateship, The, 58.
Lehmann, R. C. Poem by, 78.
Letter from John Bright, 134.
" " Hartley Coleridge, 129.
" " Charles II., 101.
" " R. Corney Grain, 6.
" " Lord Lauderdale, 102.
Letter from John Poole, 83.
" " John Ruskin, 137.
" " G. A. Sala, 69.
Longfellow. Extract from, 117.
Lyne Stephens, Mrs., 144.
" " Sketch of her life, 145.
" " Her art collections, 147.
" " Thackeray's sketch of her, 145.
" " Her death, 154.
" " Her funeral sermon, 155.
" " Great sale at Christie's, 148.
Lytton, Robert, Lord. Poem by, 60.
Manning, Cardinal, 109.
Manning, Charles John, 109.
Mayhew, Horace, 67.
Meadows, Kenny. Drawing of, 68.
Newgate. Visit to, 34.
Northesk, Lord, and Charles II., 101.
Parody. An unknown one, 123.
Payn, Mr. James. His lay-sermons, 126.
Poets who are not read, 115.
Poole, John. Letter from, 83.
Portland, Duke of, and his books, 42.
Portraits of Mrs. Lyne Stephens, 159.
_Punch._ Memorials of, 66.
" Portraits of writers to, 66.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua. Portrait by, 11.
Ruskin, John. Letters from, 137.
Sala, G. A. Letter from, 69.
" " Picture by, 69.
Sales at Christie's, 11, 148.
Schools, Bedford, 73.
Ségur, Marquis de. Portrait of, 143.
Sheridan, R. B. Portrait of, 11.
Stevenson, R. L., 77.
Stories. American, 18.
Scott, Canon. Sermon by, 155.
Symon, Arthur. Poem by, 63.
Texts, inappropriate, 55, 56, 57.
Thackeray's description of Mrs. Lyne Stephens, 145.
Westerham. Birthplace of Wolfe, 9.
Wolfe, General. Portrait of, 9.
Woods, Mr. Thomas H., 13.
Work, modern. Craze for, 48.
Z---- sale of pictures, 15.
* * * * *
The Reader (_loquiter_).
"_Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door;
Sir, let me see your works and you no more!_"
--Pope.
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| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| In this etext the caret ^ represents a superscript character. |
| |
| Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. |
| |
| Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant |
| form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. |
| |
| Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. |
| |
| Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved to the beginning of |
| the chat in which they occurred. The List of Illustrations |
| paginations were not corrected. |
| |
| Other corrections: |
| |
| -- Page 89: 'Hotel des Affaires Étrangers,' changed to 'Hôtel des |
| Affaires Étrangères,' |
| -- Page 125: Caligraphy changed to calligraphy. |
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