Chapter I: Front Matter

Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/englishlands04mitc

Project Gutenberg has the other three volumes of this work.
I: Fom Celt to Tudor
see https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54168
II: From Elizabeth to Anne
see https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54142
III: Queen Anne and the Georges
see https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37226

ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS

The Later Georges to Victoria

* * * * * *

ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS

_By Donald G. Mitchell_

I. From Celt to Tudor II. From Elizabeth to Anne III. Queen Anne and the Georges IV. The Later Georges to Victoria

_Each 1 vol., 12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50_

AMERICAN LANDS AND LETTERS

From the Mayflower to Rip Van Winkle

_1 vol., square 12mo, Illustrated, $2.50_

* * * * * *

ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS

The Later Georges to Victoria

by

DONALD G. MITCHELL

New York Charles Scribner’S Sons MDCCCXCVII

Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner’S Sons

Trow Directory Printing and Bookbinding Company New York

_FORECAST._

The printers ask if there is to be prefatory matter.

There shall be no excuses, nor any defensive explanations: and I shall only give here such forecast of this little book as may serve as a reminder, and appetizer, for the kindly acquaintances I meet once more; and further serve as an illustrative _menu_, for the benefit of those newer and more critical friends who browse tentatively at the tables of the booksellers.

This volume--the fourth in its series of English Lands and Letters--opens upon that always delightful country of hills and waters, which is known as the Lake District of England;--where we found Wordsworth, stalking over the fells--and where we now find the maker of those heavy poems of _Thalaba_ and _Madoc_, and of the charming little biography of Nelson. There, too, we find that strange creature, De Quincey, full of a tumult of thoughts and language--out of which comes ever and anon some penetrating utterance, whose barb of words fixes it in the mind, and makes it rankle. Professor Wilson is his fellow, among the hills by Elleray--as strenuous, and weightier with his great bulk of Scottish manhood; the _Isle of Palms_ is forgotten; but not “Christopher in his Shooting Jacket”--stained, and bespattered with Highland libations.

A Londoner we encounter--Crabb Robinson, full of gossip and conventionalities; and also that cautious, yet sometimes impassioned Scottish bard who sang of _Hohenlinden_, and of _Gertrude of Wyoming_. Next, we have asked readers to share our regalement, in wandering along the Tweed banks, and in rekindling the memories of the verse, the home, and the chivalric stories of the benign master of Abbotsford, for whom--whatever newer literary fashions may now claim allegiance and whatever historic _quid-nuncs_ may say in derogation--I think there are great multitudes who will keep a warm place in their hearts and easily pardon a kindred warmth in our words.

After Dryburgh, and its pall, we have in these pages found our way to Edinboro’, and have sketched the beginners, and the beginnings of that great northern quarterly, which so long dominated the realm of British book-craft, and which rallied to its ranks such men as Jeffrey and the witty Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh and the pervasive and petulant Brougham--full of power and of pyrotechnics. These great names and their quarterly organ call up comparison with that other, southern and distinctive Quarterly of Albemarle Street, which was dressed for literary battle by writers like Gifford, Croker, Southey, and Lockhart.

The Prince Regent puts in an appearance in startling waistcoats and finery--vibrating between Windsor and London; so does the bluff Sailor-King William IV. Next, Walter Savage Landor leads the drifting paragraphs of our story--a great, strong man; master of classicism, and master of language; now tender, and now virulent; never quite master of himself.

Of Leigh Hunt, and of his graceful, light-weighted, gossipy literary utterance, there is indulgent mention, with some delightful passages of verse foregathered from his many books. Of Thomas Moore, too, there is respectful and grateful--if not over-exultant--talk; yet in these swift days there be few who are tempted to tarry long in the “rosy bowers by Bendemeer.”

From Moore and the brilliant fopperies of “The First Gentleman of Europe,” we slip to the disorderly, but pungent and vivid essays of Hazlitt--to the orderly and stately historic labors of Hallam, closing up our chapter with the gay company who used to frequent the brilliant salon of the Lady Blessington--first in Seamore Place, and later at Gore House. There we find Bulwer, Disraeli (in his flamboyant youth-time), the elegant Count d’Orsay, and others of that train-band.

Following quickly upon these, we have asked our readers to fare with us along the old and vivid memories of Newstead Abbey--to track the master-poet of his time, through his early days of romance and marriage--through his journeyings athwart Europe, from the orange groves of Lisbon to the olives of Thessaly--from his friendship with Shelley, and life at Meillerie with its loud joys and stains--through his wild revels of Venice--his masterly verse-making--his quietudes of Ravenna (where the Guiccioli shone)--through his passionate zeal for Greece, and his last days at Missolonghi, with one brief glimpse of his final resting-place, beside his passionate Gordon mother, under the grim, old tower of Hucknall-Torkard. So long indeed do we dwell upon this Byronic episode, as to make of it the virtual _pièce de résistance_ in the literary _menu_ of these pages.

After the brusque and noisy King William there trails royally into view that Sovereign Victoria, over whose blanched head--in these very June days in which I write--the bells are all ringing a joyous Jubilee for her sixtieth year of reign. But to our eye, and to these pages, she comes as a girl in her teens--modest, yet resolute and calm; and among her advisers we see the suave and courtly Melbourne; and among those who make parliamentary battle, in the Queen’s young years, that famed historian who has pictured the lives of her kinsfolk--William and Mary--in a way which will make them familiar in the ages to come.

We have a glimpse, too, of the jolly Captain Marryat cracking his for’castle jokes, and of the somewhat tedious, though kindly, G. P. R. James, lifting his chivalric notes about men-at-arms and knightly adventures--a belated hunter in the fields of ancient feudal gramarye.

And with this pennant of the old times of tourney flung to the sharp winds of these days, and shivering in the rude blasts--where anarchic threats lurk and murmur--we close our preface, and bid our readers all welcome to the spread of--what our old friend Dugald Dalgetty would call--the _Vivers_.

D. G. M.

EDGEWOOD, June 24, 1897.

_CONTENTS._

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

THE LAKE COUNTRY, 2

ROBERT SOUTHEY, 5

HIS EARLY LIFE, 11

GRETA HALL, 15

THE DOCTOR AND LAST SHADOWS, 20

CRABB ROBINSON, 24

THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 28

MARRIAGE AND OTHER FLIGHTS, 34

CHAPTER II.

CHRISTOPHER NORTH, 40

WILSON IN SCOTLAND, 45

THOMAS CAMPBELL, 52

A MINSTREL OF THE BORDER, 59

THE WAVERLEY DISPENSATION, 65

GLINTS OF ROYALTY, 77

CHAPTER III.

A START IN LIFE, 83

HENRY BROUGHAM, 87

FRANCIS JEFFREY, 92

SYDNEY SMITH, 96

A HIGHLANDER, 103

REST AT CANNES, 107

CHAPTER IV.

GIFFORD AND HIS QUARTERLY, 113

A PRINCE REGENT, 118

A SCHOLAR AND POET, 125

LANDOR IN ITALY, 132

LANDOR’S DOMESTICITIES, 136

FINAL EXILE AND DEATH, 138

PROSE OF LEIGH HUNT, 142

HUNT’S VERSE, 147

AN IRISH POET, 152

LALLA ROOKH, 157

CHAPTER V.

THE “FIRST GENTLEMAN,” 165

HAZLITT AND HALLAM, 168

QUEEN OF A SALON, 173

YOUNG BULWER AND DISRAELI, 178

THE POET OF NEWSTEAD, 187

EARLY VERSE AND MARRIAGE, 193

CHAPTER VI.

LORD BYRON A HUSBAND, 201

A STAY IN LONDON, 206

EXILE, 212

SHELLEY AND GODWIN, 216

BYRON IN ITALY, 223

SHELLEY AGAIN, 225

JOHN KEATS, 229

BURIED IN ROME, 233

PISA AND DON JUAN, 237

MISSOLONGHI, 241

CHAPTER VII.

KING WILLIAM’S TIME, 252

HER MAJESTY VICTORIA, 255

MACAULAY, 259

IN POLITICS AND VERSE, 265

PARLIAMENTARIAN AND HISTORIAN, 270

SOME TORY CRITICS, 277

TWO GONE-BY STORY TELLERS, 281

_ENGLISH LANDS, LETTERS, & KINGS._