Chapter VIII: Part 8

Warren's analysis of my MS. is rather wonderful to me. Though not wholly correct (as I think, and as I will expound to you one day) it seems to me yet as exact as most of my friends who know me best could draw out from their personal knowledge. Some of his guesses (though partly right) hit upon traits of character I should conceive quite out of all possibility of solution from mere handwriting. I can understand that a man should guess at one's temperament, whether lively or slow; at one's habit of thought, whether diffuse or logical; at one's Will, whether strong and direct or feeble and timid. But whether one distrusts men, and yet trusts friends? Half of this is true, at all events. Then I cannot conceive how a man should see in handwriting such an accident as whether one knew much of Books or men; and in this point it is very doubtful if Warren is right. But, take it all in all, his analysis puzzles me much. I have sent it to old Jem Spedding the Wise. You shall have it again.

If my Mother should remain at this place you must one day come and see her and it with me. She would be very glad to receive you. Richmond and all its environs are very beautiful, and very interesting; haunted by the memory of Princes, Wits, and Beauties.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

BOULGE, _Saturday_, [1849].

MY DEAR COWELL,

How is it I have not heard from you these two months? Surely, I was the last who wrote. I was told you had influenza, or cold: but I suppose that is all over by this time. How goes on Sanscrit, Athenaeus, etc. I am reading the sixth Book of Thucydides--the Sicilian expedition--very interesting--indeed I like the old historian more and more and shall be sorry when I have done with him. Do you remember the fine account of the great armament setting off from the Piraeus for Sicily--B. 6, ch. 30, etc? If not, read it now.

One day I mean to go and pay you another visit, perhaps soon. I heard from Miss Barton you were reading, and even liking, the Princess--is this so? I believe it is greatly admired in London coteries. I remain in the same mind about [it]. I am told the Author means to republish it, with a character of each speaker between each canto; which will make the matter worse, I think; unless the speakers are all of the Tennyson family. For there is no indication of any change of speaker in the cantos themselves. What do you say to all this?

Can you tell me any passages in the Romans of the Augustan age, or rather before, telling of decline in the people's morals, hardihood, especially as regards the youth of the country?

Kind remembrances to Miladi, and I am yours ever,

E. FITZGERALD.

_To F. Tennyson_.

BEDFORD, _Dec._ 7/49.

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

Your note came to me to-day. I ought to have written to you long ago: and indeed did half do a letter before the summer was half over: which letter I mislaid. I shall be delighted indeed to have your photograph: insufficient as a photograph is. You are one of the few men whose portrait I would give a penny to have: and one day when you are in England we must get it done by Laurence; half at your expense and half at mine, I think. I wish you had sent over to me some of your poems which you told me you were printing at Florence: and often I wish I was at Florence to give you some of my self-satisfied advice on what you should select. For though I do not pretend to write Poetry you know I have a high notion of my judgment in it.

Well, I was at Boulge all the summer: came up thence five weeks ago: stayed three weeks with my mother at Richmond; a week in London: and now am come here to try and finish a money bargain with some lawyers which you heard me beginning a year ago. They utterly failed in any part of the transaction except bringing me in a large bill for service unperformed. However, we are now upon another tack. . . .

In a week I go to London, where I hope to see Alfred. Oddly enough, I had a note from him this very day on which I receive yours: he has, he tells me, taken chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Moxon told me he was about to publish another edition of his Princess, with interludes added between the parts: and also that he was about to print, but (I think) not to publish, those Elegiacs on Hallam. I saw poor old Thackeray in London: getting very slowly better of a bilious fever that had almost killed him. Some one told me that he was gone or going to the Water Doctor at Malvern. People in general thought Pendennis got dull as it got on; and I confess I thought so too: he would do well to take the opportunity of his illness to discontinue it altogether. He told me last June he himself was tired of it: must not his readers naturally tire too? Do you see Dickens' David Copperfield? It is very good, I think: more carefully written than his later works. But the melodramatic parts, as usual, bad. Carlyle says he is a showman whom one gives a shilling to once a month to see his raree-show, and then sends him about his business.

I have been obliged to turn Author on the very smallest scale. My old friend Bernard Barton chose to die in the early part of this year. . . . We have made a Book out of his Letters and Poems, and published it by subscription . . . and I have been obliged to contribute a little dapper {251} Memoir, as well as to select bits of Letters, bits of Poems, etc. All that was wanted is accomplished: many people subscribed. Some of B. B.'s letters are pleasant, I think, and when you come to England I will give you this little book of incredibly small value. I have heard no music but two concerts at Jullien's a fortnight ago; very dull, I thought: no beautiful new Waltzes and Polkas which I love. It is a strange thing to go to the Casinos and see the coarse whores and apprentices in bespattered morning dresses, pea-jackets, and bonnets, twirl round clumsily and indecently to the divine airs played in the Gallery; 'the music yearning like a God in pain' indeed. I should like to hear some of your Florentine Concerts; and I do wish you to believe that I do constantly wish myself with you: that, if I ever went anywhere, I would assuredly go to visit the Villa Gondi. I wish you to believe this, which I know to be true, though I am probably further than ever from accomplishing my desire. Farewell: I shall hope to find out your Consul and your portrait in London: though you do not give me very good directions where I am to find them. And I will let you know soon whether I have found the portrait, and how I like it.

_To John Allen_.

BEDFORD, _Dec._ 13/49.

MY DEAR OLD ALLEN,

. . . I am glad you like the Book. {252a} You are partly right as to what I say about the Poems. For though I really do think some of the Poems very pretty, yet I think they belong to a class which the world no longer wants. Notwithstanding this, one is sure the world will not be the worse for them: they are a kind of elder Nursery rhymes; pleasing to younger people of good affections. {252b} The letters, some of them, I like very much: but I had some curiosity to know how others would like them.

_To W. B. Donne_.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., FITZROY SQUARE, LONDON. [18 _Jan_. 1850.]

DEAR DONNE,

. . . After I left Richmond, whence I last wrote to you, I went to Bedford, where I was for five weeks: then returned to spend Christmas at Richmond: and now dawdle here hoping to get some accursed lawyers to raise me some money on what remains of my reversion. This they _can_ do, and _will_ do, in time: but, as usual, find it their interest to delay as much as possible.

I found A. Tennyson in chambers at Lincoln's Inn: and recreated myself with a sight of his fine old mug, and got out of him all his dear old stories, and many new ones. He is re-publishing his Poems, the Princess with songs interposed. I cannot say I thought them like the old vintage of his earlier days, though perhaps better than other people's. But, even to you, such opinions appear blasphemies. A. T. is now gone on a visit into Leicestershire: and I miss him greatly. Carlyle I have not seen; but I read an excellent bit of his in the Examiner, about Ireland. Thackeray is well again, except not quite strong yet. Spedding is not yet returned: and I doubt will not return before I have left London.

I have been but to one play; to see the Hypocrite, and Tom Taylor's burlesque {254a} at the Strand Theatre. It was dreadfully cold in the pit: and I thought dull. Farren almost unintelligible: Mrs. Glover good in a disagreeable part. {254b} Diogenes has very good Aristophanic hits in it, as perhaps you know: but its action was rather slow, I thought: and I was so cold I could not sit it half through.

_To F. Tennyson_.

[Written from Bramford? E. F. G. was staying at this time with the Cowells.]

Direct to BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE. _March_ 7/50.

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

. . . I saw Alfred in London--pretty well, I thought. He has written songs to be stuck between the cantos of the Princess, none of them of the old champagne flavour, as I think. But I am in a minority about the Princess, I believe. If you print any poems, I especially desire you will transmit them to me. I wish I was with you to consider about these: for though I cannot write poems, you know I consider that I have the old woman's faculty of judging of them: yes, much better than much cleverer and wiser men; I pretend to no Genius, but to Taste: which, according to my aphorism, is the feminine of Genius. . . .

. . . Please to answer me directly. I constantly think of you: and, as I have often sincerely told you, with a kind of love which I feel towards but two or three friends. Are you coming to England? How goes on Grimsby! Doesn't the state of Europe sicken you? Above all, let me have any poems you print: you are now the only man I expect verse from; such gloomy grand stuff as you write. Thackeray, to be sure, can write good ballads, half serious. His Pendennis is very stupid, I think: Dickens' Copperfield on the whole, very good. He always lights one up somehow. There is a new volume of posthumous poems by Ebenezer Elliott: with fine things in it. I don't find myself growing old about Poetry; on the contrary. I wish I could take twenty years off Alfred's shoulders, and set him up in his youthful glory: . . . He is the same magnanimous, kindly, delightful fellow as ever; uttering by far the finest prose sayings of any one.

_To John Allen_.

BOULGE: _March_ 9/50.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

. . . I have now been home about three weeks, and, as you say, one sees indications of lovely spring about. I have read but very little of late; indeed my eyes have not been in superfine order. I caught a glimpse of the second volume of Southey's Life and Letters; interesting enough. I have also bought Emerson's 'Representative Men,' a shilling book of Bohn's: with very good scattered thoughts in it: but scarcely leaving any large impression with one, or establishing a theory. So at least it has seemed to me: but I have not read very carefully. I have also bought a little posthumous volume of Ebenezer Elliott: which is sure to have fine things in it.

I believe I love poetry almost as much as ever: but then I have been suffered to doze all these years in the enjoyment of old childish habits and sympathies, without being called on to more active and serious duties of life. I have not put away childish things, though a man. But, at the same time, this visionary inactivity is better than the mischievous activity of so many I see about me; not better than the useful and virtuous activity of a few others: John Allen among the number.

_To F. Tennyson_.

PORTLAND COFFEE HOUSE, LONDON. _April_ 17/50.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

You tell me to write soon: and this letter is begun, at least, on the day yours reaches me. This is partly owing to my having to wait an hour here in the Coffee room of the Portland Hotel: whither your letter has been forwarded to me from Boulge. I am come up for one week: once more to haggle with Lawyers; once more to try and settle my own affairs as well as those of others for a time. . . .

I don't think of drowning myself yet: and what I wrote to you was a sort of safety escape for my poor flame . . . It is only idle and well-to-do people who kill themselves; it is ennui that is hopeless: great pain of mind and body 'still, still, on hope relies': the very old, the very wretched, the most incurably diseased never put themselves to rest. It really gives me pain to hear you or any one else call me a philosopher, or any good thing of the sort. I am none, never was; and, if I pretended to be so, was a hypocrite. Some things, as wealth, rank, respectability, I don't care a straw about; but no one can resent the toothache more, nor fifty other little ills beside that flesh is heir to. But let us leave all this.

I am come to London; but I do not go to Operas or Plays: and have scarce time (and, it must be said, scarce inclination) to hunt up many friends. Dear old Alfred is out of town; Spedding is my sheet-anchor, the truly wise and fine fellow: I am going to his rooms this very evening: and there I believe Thackeray, Venables, etc., are to be. I hope not a large assembly: for I get shyer and shyer even of those I knew. Thackeray is in such a great world that I am afraid of him; he gets tired of me: and we are content to regard each other at a distance. You, Alfred, Spedding, and Allen, are the only men I ever care to see again. If ever I leave this country I will go and see you at Florence or elsewhere; but my plans are at present unsettled. I have refused to be Godfather to all who have ever asked me; but I declare it will give me sincere pleasure to officiate for your Child. I got your photograph at last: it is a beastly thing: not a bit like: why did you not send your Poems, which are like you; and reflect your dear old face well? As you know I admire your poems, the only poems by a living writer I do admire, except Alfred's, you should not hesitate. I can have no doubt whatever they ought to be published in England: I believe Moxon would publish them: and I believe you would make some money by them. But don't send them to Alfred to revise or select: only for this reason, that you would both of you be a little annoyed by gossip about how much share each of you had in them. Your poems can want no other hand than your own to meddle with them, except in respect of the choice of them to make a volume which would please generally: a little of the vulgar faculty of popular tact is all that needs to be added to you, as I think. You will know I do not say this presumptuously: since I think the power of writing one fine line transcends all the 'Able-Editor' ability in the ably-edited Universe.

Do you see Carlyle's 'Latter Day Pamphlets'? They make the world laugh, and his friends rather sorry for him. But that is because people will still look for practical measures from him: one must be content with him as a great satirist who can make us feel when we are wrong though he cannot set us right. There is a bottom of truth in Carlyle's wildest rhapsodies. I have no news to tell you of books or music, for I scarce see or hear any. And moreover I must be up, and leave the mahogany coffee-room table on which I write so badly: and be off to Lincoln's Inn. God bless you, my dear fellow. I ask a man of business here in the room about Grimsby: he says, 'Well, all these railways are troublesome; but the Grimsby one is one of the best: railway property must look up a little: and so will Grimsby.'

_To W. B. Donne_.

BOULGE: Friday [4 _Oct_. 1850].

MY DEAR DONNE,

I have been some while intending to send you a few lines, to report my continued existence, to thank you for the Papers, which I and my dear old Crabbe read and mark, and to tell you I was much pleased with Laurence's sketch of you, which he exhibited to me in a transitory way some weeks ago. Has he been to Bury again? To Sir H. Bunbury's?

I am packing up my mind by degrees to move away from here on a round of visits: and will give you a look at Bury if you like it. I am really frightened that it is a whole year since I have seen you: and we but two hours asunder! I know it is not want of will on my part: though you may wonder what other want detains me; but you will believe me when I say it is not want of will. You are too busy to come here: where indeed is nothing to come for. I wished for Charles last Monday: for people came to shoot the three brace of pheasants inhabiting these woods: had I remembered the first of October, I would have let him know. Otherwise, I am afraid to invite the young, whom I cannot entertain.

H. Groome came over and dined with me on Wednesday: and Crabbe came to meet him; but the latter had no hearty smoker to keep him in countenance, and was not quite comfortable. H. Groome improves: his poetical and etymological ambitions begin to pale away before years that bring the philosophic mind, and before a rising family.

I liked your Articles on Pepys much. How go on the Norfolk worthies? I see by your review that you are now ripe to write them at your ease: which means (in a work of that kind) successfully.

_To F. Tennyson_.

[BOULGE], _Decr_. 31/50.

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

If you knew how glad I am to hear from you, you would write to me oftener. You see I make a quick return whenever I get an epistle from you. I should indeed have begun to indite before, but I had not a scrap of serviceable paper in the house: and I am only this minute returned from a wet walk to Woodbridge bringing home the sheet on which I am now writing, along with the rest of a half-quire, which may be filled to you, if we both live. I now count the number of sheets: there are nine. I do not think we average more than three letters a year each. Shall both of us, or either, live three years more, beginning with the year that opens to-morrow? I somehow believe _not_: which I say not as a doleful thing (indeed you may look at it as a very ludicrous one). Well, we shall see. I am all for the short and merry life. Last night I began the sixth Book of Lucretius in bed. You laugh grimly again? I have not looked into it for more than a year, and I took it up by mistake for one of Swift's dirty volumes; and, having got into bed with it, did not care to get out to change it.

The delightful lady . . . is going to leave this neighbourhood and carry her young Husband {261} to Oxford, there to get him some Oriental Professorship one day. He is a delightful fellow, and, _I_ say, will, if he live, be the best Scholar in England. Not that I think Oxford will be so helpful to his studies as his counting house at Ipswich was. However, being married he cannot at all events become Fellow, and, as so many do, dissolve all the promise of Scholarship in Sloth, Gluttony, and sham Dignity. I shall miss them both more than I can say, and must take to Lucretius! to comfort me. I have entirely given up the _Genteel_ Society here about; and scarce ever go anywhere but to the neighbouring Parson, {262a} with whom I discuss Paley's Theology, and the Gorham Question. I am going to him to-night, by the help of a Lantern, in order to light out the Old Year with a Cigar. For he is a great Smoker, and a very fine fellow in all ways.

I have not seen any one you know since I last wrote; nor heard from any one: except dear old Spedding, who really came down and spent two days with us, me and that Scholar and his Wife in their Village, {262b} in their delightful little house, in their pleasant fields by the River side. Old Spedding was delicious there; always leaving a mark, I say, in all places one has been at with him, a sort of Platonic perfume. For has he not all the beauty of the Platonic Socrates, with some personal Beauty to boot? He explained to us one day about the laws of reflection in water: and I said then one never could look at the willow whose branches furnished the text without thinking of him. How beastly this reads! As if he gave us a lecture! But you know the man, how quietly it all came out; only because I petulantly denied his plain assertion. For I really often cross him only to draw him out; and vain as I may be, he is one of those that I am well content to make shine at my own expense.

Don't suppose that this or any other ideal day with him effaces my days with you. Indeed, my dear Frederic, you also mark many times and many places in which I have been with you. Gravesend and its [Greek text] shrimps cannot be forgotten. You say I shall never go to see you at Florence. I have said to you before and I now repeat it, that if ever I go abroad it shall be to see you and my Godchild. I really cannot say if I should not have gone this winter (as I hinted in my last) in case you had answered my letter. But I really did not know if you had not left Florence; and a fortnight ago I thought to myself I would write to Horatio at Cheltenham and ask him for news of you. As to Alfred, I have heard of his marriage, etc., from Spedding, who also saw and was much pleased with her indeed. But you know Alfred himself never writes, nor indeed cares a halfpenny about one, though he is very well satisfied to see one when one falls in his way. You will think I have a spite against him for some neglect, when I say this, and say besides that I cannot care for his In Memoriam. Not so, if I know myself: I always thought the same of him, and was just as well satisfied with it as now. His poem I never did greatly affect: nor can I learn to do so: it is full of finest things, but it is monotonous, and has that air of being evolved by a Poetical Machine of the highest order. So it seems to be with him now, at least to me, the Impetus, the Lyrical oestrus, is gone. . . It is the cursed inactivity (very pleasant to me who am no Hero) of this 19th century which has spoiled Alfred, I mean spoiled him for the great work he ought now to be entering upon; the lovely and noble things he has done must remain. It is dangerous work this prophesying about great Men. . . . I beg you very much to send me your poems, the very first opportunity; as I want them very much. Nobody doubts that you ought to make a volume for Moxon. Send your poems to Spedding to advise on. No doubt Alfred would be best adviser of all: but then people would be stupid, and say that he had done all that was good in the Book--(wait till I take my tea, which has been lying on the table these ten minutes)--Now, animated by some very inferior Souchong from the village shop, I continue my letter, having reflected during my repast that I have seen two College men you remember since I last wrote, Thompson and Merivale. The former is just recovering of the water cure, looking blue: the latter, Merivale, is just recovering from--Marriage!--which he undertook this Midsummer, with a light-haired daughter of George Frere's. Merivale lives just on the borders of Suffolk: and a week before his marriage he invited me to meet F. Pollock and his wife at the Rectory. There we spent two easy days, and I heard no more of Merivale till three weeks ago when he asked me to meet Thompson just before Christmas. . . . Have you seen Merivale's History of Rome, beginning with the Empire? Two portly volumes are out, and are approved of by Scholars, I believe. I have not read them, not having money to buy, nor any friend to lend.

I hear little music but what I make myself, or help to make with my Parson's son and daughter. We, with not a voice among us, go through Handel's Coronation Anthems! Laughable it may seem; yet it is not quite so; the things are so well-defined, simple, and grand, that the faintest outline of them tells; my admiration of the old Giant grows and grows: his is the Music for a Great, Active, People. Sometimes too, I go over to a place elegantly called _Bungay_, where a Printer {265} lives who drills the young folks of a manufactory there to sing in Chorus once a week. . . . They sing some of the English Madrigals, some of Purcell, and some of Handel, in a way to satisfy me, who don't want perfection, and who believe that the _grandest_ things do not depend on delicate finish. If you were here now, we would go over and hear the Harmonious Blacksmith sung in Chorus, with words, of course. It almost made me cry when I heard the divine Air rolled into vocal harmony from the four corners of a large Hall. One can scarce comprehend the Beauty of the English Madrigals till one hears them done (though coarsely) in this way and on a large scale: the play of the parts as they alternate from the different quarters of the room.

I have taken another half sheet to finish my letter upon: so as my calculation of how far this half-quire is to spread over Time is defeated. Let us write oftener, and longer, and we shall not tempt the Fates by inchoating too long a hope of letter-paper. I have written enough for to-night: I am now going to sit down and play one of Handel's Overtures as well as I can--Semele, perhaps, a very grand one--then, lighting my lantern, trudge through the mud to Parson Crabbe's. Before I take my pen again to finish this letter the New Year will have dawned--on some of us. 'Thou fool! this night thy soul may be required of thee!' Very well: while it is in this Body I will wish my dear old F. T. a happy New Year. And now to drum out the Old with Handel. Good Night.

New Year's Day, 1851. A happy new Year to you! I sat up with my Parson till the Old Year was past, drinking punch and smoking cigars, for which I endure some headache this morning. Not that we took much; but a very little punch disagrees with me. Only I would not disappoint my old friend's convivial expectations. He is one of those happy men who has the boy's heart throbbing and trembling under the snows of sixty-five.

_To G. Crabbe_.

[GELDESTONE, _Feb_. 11, 1851.]

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I send you an Euphranor, and (as you desire it) Spedding's Examiner. {266} I believe that I should be ashamed of his praise, if I did not desire to take any means to make my little book known for a good purpose. I think he over-praises it: but he cannot over-praise the design, and (as I believe) the tendency of it.

60 LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, [_Feb_. 27, 1851.]

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . My heart saddens to think of Bramford all desolate; {267a} and I shall now almost turn my head away as any road, or railroad, brings me within sight of the little spire! I write once a week to abuse both of them for going. But they are quite happy at Oxford.

I felt a sort of horror when I read in your letter you had ordered the Book {267b} into your Club, for fear some one might guess. But if _your_ folks don't guess, no one else will. I have heard no more of it since I wrote to you last, except that its sale does not stand still. Pickering's foreman blundered in the Advertisements; quoting an extract about the use of the Book, when he should have quoted about its amusement, which is what the world is attracted by. But I left it to him. As it would be a real horror to me to be known as the writer, I do not think I can have much personal ambition in its success; but I should sincerely wish it to be read for what little benefit it may do. . . .

I have seen scarce anybody here: Thackeray only once; neither Tennyson nor Carlyle. Donne came up for a day to see as to the morality of the 'Prodigal Son' {268} at Drury Lane, which the Bishop of London complained of. Donne is deputy Licenser for Jack Kemble. I went to see it with him; it was only stupid and gaudy.

BOULGE, Tuesday, _May_ the something, 1851.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I am ashamed you should have the trouble of asking me to Merton so often, and so in vain. I might give you a specious reason for not going now . . . but I will honestly confess I believe I should not have accompanied your Father in his Voyage to your house, had the sky been quite clear of engagement. Why, I cannot exactly say: my soul is not packed up for Merton yet, though one day it will be; and I have no such idea of the preciousness of my company as to have any hesitation in letting my friends wait any length of time before I go to occupy their easy chairs. The day will come, if we live. I have had a very strong invitation to Cambridge this week; to live with my old friends the Skrines in Sidney College. But why should we meet to see each other grown old, etc.? (I don't mean this quite seriously.) Ah, I should like a drive over Newmarket Heath: the sun shining on the distant leads of Ely Cathedral.

_To F. Tennyson_.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, [25 _August_, 1851.]

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

Why do you never write to me? I am sure I wrote last: I constantly am thinking of you, and constantly wishing to see you. Perhaps you are in England at this very hour, and do not let me know of it. _When_ I wrote to you last I cannot remember; whether in Winter or Spring. I was in London during January and February last, but have been vegetating down here ever since. Have not been up even to see the Great Exh.--one is tired of writing, and seeing written, the word. All the world, as you know, goes in droves: you may be lounging in it this very hour, though I don't mean to say you are one of a drove. It is because there are so few F. Tennysons in the world that I do not like to be wholly out of hearing of the one I know. . . . My own affairs do not improve, and I have seen more and more of the pitiful in humanity . . . but luckily my wants decrease. I am quite content never to buy a picture or a Book; almost content not to see them. One could soon relapse into Barbarism. I do indeed take a survey of old Handel's Choruses now and then; and am just now looking with great delight into Purcell's King Arthur, real noble _English_ music, much of it; and assuredly the prototype of much of Handel. It is said Handel would not admire Purcell; but I am sure he adapted himself to English ears and sympathies by means of taking up Purcell's vein. I wish you were here to consider this with me; but you would grunt dissent, and smile bitterly at my theories. I am trying to teach the bumpkins of the united parishes of Boulge and Debach to sing a second to such melodies as the women sing by way of Hymns in our Church: and I have invented (as I think) a most simple and easy way of teaching them the little they need to learn. How would you like to see me, with a bit of chalk in my hand, before a black board, scoring up semibreves on a staff for half a dozen Rustics to vocalize? Laugh at me in Imagination. . . .

Almost the only man I hear from is dear old Spedding, who has lost his Father, and is now, I suppose, a rich man. This makes no apparent change in his way of life: he has only hired an additional Attic in Lincoln's Inn Fields, so as to be able to bed a friend upon occasion. I may have to fill it ere long. Merivale (you know, surely) is married, and has a son I hear. He lives some twenty miles from here. . . .

Now, my dear Frederic, this is a sadly dull letter. I could have made it duller and sadder by telling you other things. But, instead of this, let me hear from you a good account of yourself and your family, and especially of my little Godson. Remember, I have a right to hear about him. Ever yours, dear old Grimsby,

E. F. G.

[19 CHARLOTTE ST., FITZROY SQUARE, _Dec_. 1851.]

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

I have long been thinking I would answer a long and kind letter I had from you some weeks ago, in which you condoled with me about my finances, and offered me your house as a Refuge for the Destitute. I can never wonder at generosity in you: but I am sorry I should have seemed to complain so much as to provoke so much pity from you. I am not worse off than I have been these last three years; and so much better off than thousands who deserve more that I should deserve to be kicked if I whined over my decayed fortunes. If I go to Italy, it will be to see Florence and Fred. Tennyson: I do not despair of going one day: I believe my desire is gathering, and my indolence warming up with the exhilarating increase of Railroads.

But for the present here I am, at 19 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, come up to have a fresh squabble with Lawyers, and to see to an old College friend who is gone mad, and threatens to drive his wife mad too, I think. Here are troubles, if you like: I mean, these poor people's. Well, I have not had much time except to post about in Omnibi between Lincoln's Inn and Bayswater: but I have seen Alfred once; Carlyle once; Thackeray twice; and Spedding many times. I did not see Mrs. A.: but am to go and dine there one day before I leave. Carlyle has been undergoing the Water System at Malvern, and says it has done him a very little good. He would be quite well, he says, if he threw his Books away, and walked about the mountains: but that would be 'propter vitam, etc.' Nature made him a Writer: so he must wear himself out writing Lives of Sterling, etc., for the Benefit of the World. Thackeray says he is getting tired of being witty, and of the great world: he is now gone to deliver his Lectures {272} at Edinburgh: having already given them at Oxford and Cambridge. Alfred, I thought looking pretty well. Spedding is immutably wise, good, and delightful: not so immutably well in Body, I think: though he does not complain. But I will deal in no more vaticinations of Evil. I can't think what was the oracle in my Letters you allude to, I mean about the three years' duration of our lives. I have long felt about England as you do, and even made up my mind to it, so as to sit comparatively, if ignobly, easy on that score. Sometimes I envy those who are so old that the curtain will probably fall on them before it does on their Country. If one could save the Race, what a Cause it would be! not for one's own glory as a member of it, nor even for its glory as a Nation: but because it is the only spot in Europe where Freedom keeps her place. Had I Alfred's voice, I would not have mumbled for years over In Memoriam and the Princess, but sung such strains as would have revived the [Greek text] to guard the territory they had won. What can 'In Memoriam' do but make us all sentimental? . . .

My dear Frederic, I hope to see you one day: I really do look forward one day to go and see you in Italy, as well as to see you here in England. I know no one whom it would give me more pleasure to think of as one who might perhaps be near me as we both go down the hill together, whether in Italy or England. You, Spedding, Thackeray, and only one or two more. The rest have come like shadows and so departed.

_To G. Crabbe_.

[_Feb_. 27, 1852.]

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I rejoice in your telling me what you think; or I should rejoice if these books were of importance enough to require honest advice. I think you may be very right about the length of the Preface; {273} that I do not think you right about the reasoning of it you may suppose by my ever printing it. It is to show _why_ Books of that kind are dull: what sort of writers ought to be quoted, etc.; proverbial writers: and what constitutes proverbiality, etc. Well, enough of it all: I am glad you like it on the whole. As to Euphranor I do wish him not to die yet: and am gratified you think him worthy to survive a little longer. That is a good cause, let my treatment of it be as it will.

I and Drew sat up at your Father's till 3 (a.m.) last Tuesday: at the old affair of Calvinism, etc. It amuses them: else one would think it odd they did not see how they keep on fighting with Shadows, and slaying the slain.

I am really going next week from home, towards that famous expedition to Shropshire {274} which I mean to perform one day. I write after walking to Woodbridge: and hear that Mr. Cana has called in my absence to announce that 'the Hall' is let; to a Mr. Cobbold, from Saxmundham, I think, who has a farm at Sutton. I met Tom (_young_ Tom) Churchyard in Woodbridge, who tells me he is going to America on Monday! He makes less fuss about it than I do about going to Shropshire.

HAM, _June_ 2/52.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . Order into your Book Club 'Trench on the Study of Words'; a delightful, good, book, not at all dry (unless to fools); one I am sure you will like. Price but three and sixpence and well worth a guinea at least.

In spite of my anti-London prejudices, I find this Limb of London (for such it is) very beautiful: the Thames with its Swans upon it, and its wooded sides garnished with the Villas of Poets, Wits, and Courtiers, of a Time which (I am sorry to say) has more charms to me than the Middle Ages, or the Heroic.

I have seen scarce any of the living London Wits; Spedding and Donne most: Thackeray but twice for a few minutes. He finished his Novel {275} last Saturday and is gone, I believe, to the Continent.

_To F. Tennyson_.

GOLDINGTON, BEDFORD, _June_ 8/52.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

It gave me, as always, the greatest pleasure to hear from you. Your letter found me at my Mother's house, at Ham, close to Richmond; a really lovely place, and neighbourhood, though I say it who am all prejudiced against London and 'all the purtenances thereof.' But the copious woods, green meadows, the Thames and its swans gliding between, and so many villas and cheerful houses and terraced gardens with all their associations of Wits and Courtiers on either side, all this is very delightful. I am not heroic enough for Castles, Battlefields, etc. Strawberry Hill for me! I looked all over it: you know all the pictures, jewels, curiosities, were sold some ten years ago; only bare walls remain: the walls indeed here and there stuck with Gothic woodwork, and the ceilings with Gothic gilding, sometimes painted Gothic to imitate woodwork; much of it therefore in less good taste: all a Toy, but yet the Toy of a very clever man. The rain is coming through the Roofs, and gradually disengaging the confectionary Battlements and Cornices. Do you like Walpole? did you ever read him? Then close by is Hampton Court: with its stately gardens, and fine portraits inside; all very much to my liking. I am quite sure gardens should be formal, and unlike general Nature. I much prefer the old French and Dutch gardens to what are called the English.

I saw scarce any of our friends during the three weeks I passed at Ham. Though I had to run to London several times, I generally ran back as fast as I could; much preferring the fresh air and the fields to the smoke and 'the wilderness of monkeys' in London. Thackeray I saw for ten minutes: he was just in the agony of finishing a Novel: which has arisen out of the Reading necessary for his Lectures, and relates to those Times--of Queen Anne, I mean. He will get 1000 pounds for his Novel. He was wanting to finish it, and rush off to the Continent, I think, to shake off the fumes of it. Old Spedding, that aged and most subtle Serpent, was in his old haunt in Lincoln's Inn Fields, up to any mischief. It was supposed that Alfred was somewhere near Malvern: Carlyle I did not go to see, for I really have nothing to tell him, and I have got tired of hearing him growl: though I do not cease to admire him as much as ever. I also went once to the pit of the Covent Garden Italian Opera, to hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, of which I had only heard bits on the Pianoforte. But the first Act was so noisy, and ugly, that I came away, unable to wait for the better part, that, I am told, follows. Meyerbeer is a man of Genius: and works up _dramatic_ Music: but he has scarce any melody, and is rather grotesque and noisy than really powerful. I think this is the fault of modern music; people cannot believe that Mozart is _powerful_ because he is so Beautiful: in the same way as it requires a very practised eye (more than I possess) to recognize the consummate power predominating in the tranquil Beauty of Greek Sculpture. I think Beethoven is rather spasmodically, than sustainedly, grand.

Well, I must take to my third side after all, which I meant to have spared you, partly because of this transparent paper, and my more than usually bad writing. I came down here four days ago: and have this morning sketched for you the enclosed, the common that lies before my Bedroom window, as I pulled up my blind, and opened my shutter upon it, early this morning. I never draw now, never drew well; but this may serve to give a hint of poor old dewy England to you who are, I suppose, beginning to be dried up in the South. W. Browne, my host, tells me that your Grimsby Rail is looking up greatly, and certainly will pay well, sooner or later: which I devoutly hope it may.

I do not think I told you my Father was dead; like poor old Sedley in Thackeray's Vanity Fair, all his Coal schemes at an end. He died in March, after an illness of three weeks, saying 'that engine works well' (meaning one of his Colliery steam engines) as he lay in the stupor of Death. I was in Shropshire at the time, with my old friend Allen; but I went home to Suffolk just to help to lay him in the Grave.

Pray do send me your Poems, one and all: I should like very much to talk them over with you, however much you might resent me, who am no Poet, presuming to advise you who as certainly are one. That you ought to publish some of these Poems (as I think, somewhat condensed, or, at least, curtailed) I am more and more sure, having seen the very great pleasure, and deep interest, some of them have caused when read to persons of very different talents and tastes.

And now, my dear Frederic, farewell for the present. Remember, you cannot write to me too often, as far as I am concerned.

Don't write Politics--I agree with you beforehand.

_To W. B. Donne_.

BOULGE, _August_ 10/52.

MY DEAR DONNE,

It is very good of you to write to me, so much as you have to do. I am much obliged to you also for taking the trouble to go and see my Mother. You may rely on it she feels as pleased with your company as she says she is: I do not know any one who has the power of being so agreeable to her as yourself.

And dear old Thackeray is really going to America! I must fire him a letter of farewell.

The Cowells are at Ipswich, and I get over to see them, etc. They talk of coming here too. I have begun again to read Calderon with Cowell: the Magico we have just read, a very grand thing. I suppose Calderon was over-praised some twenty years ago: for the last twenty it has been the fashion to underpraise him, I am sure. His Drama may not be the finest in the world: one sees how often too he wrote in the fashion of his time and country: but he is a wonderful fellow: one of the Great Men of the world.

* * * * *

In October 1852 Thackeray sailed for America and before leaving wrote to FitzGerald the letter which he copied for Archdeacon Allen. I shall I trust be pardoned for thinking that others will be the better for reading the words of 'noble kindness' in which Thackeray took leave of his friend.

[BOULGE, 22 _Nov._ 1852.]

MY DEAR ALLEN,

I won't send you Thackeray's own letter because it is his own delegation of a little trust I would not hazard. But on the other side of the page I write a copy: for your eyes only: for I would not wish to show even its noble kindness to any but one who has known him as closely as myself.

_From W. M. Thackeray to E. F. G._

_October_ 27, 1852.

MY DEAREST OLD FRIEND,

I mustn't go away without shaking your hand, and saying Farewell and God Bless you. If anything happens to me, you by these presents must get ready the Book of Ballads which you like, and which I had not time to prepare before embarking on this voyage. And I should like my daughters to remember that you are the best and oldest friend their Father ever had, and that you would act as such: as my literary executor and so forth. My Books would yield a something as copyrights: and, should anything occur, I have commissioned friends in good place to get a Pension for my poor little wife. . . . Does not this sound gloomily? Well: who knows what Fate is in store: and I feel not at all downcast, but very grave and solemn just at the brink of a great voyage.

I shall send you a copy of Esmond to-morrow or so which you shall yawn over when you are inclined. But the great comfort I have in thinking about my dear old boy is that recollection of our youth when we loved each other as I do now while I write Farewell.

Laurence has done a capital head of me ordered by Smith the Publisher: and I have ordered a copy and Lord Ashburton another. If Smith gives me this one, I shall send the copy to you. I care for you as you know, and always like to think that I am fondly and affectionately yours

W. M. T.

I sail from Liverpool on Saturday Morning by the Canada for Boston.

* * * * *

That the feelings here expressed were fully reciprocated by FitzGerald is clear from the following words of a letter written by him to Thackeray to tell him of a provision he had made in his will.

'You see you can owe me no thanks for giving what I can no longer use
"when I go down to the pit," and it would be some satisfaction to me,
and some diminution of the shame I felt on reading your letter, if
"after many days" your generous and constant friendship bore some sort
of fruit, if not to yourself to those you are naturally anxious
about.'

I have not been able to ascertain the exact time at which FitzGerald began his Spanish studies; but it must have been long before this, for in 1853 the first-fruits of them appeared in the 'Six Dramas from Calderon freely translated by Edward FitzGerald,' the only book to which he ever put his name. It was probably in 1853 that he took up Persian, in which, as in Spanish, his friend Cowell was his guide.

_To G. Crabbe_.

BOULGE, _July_ 22/53.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Your account of the Doctor's warnings to your Cousin in your first note delighted me greatly: as it did your Father to whom I read it last night. For, on coming home from Aldbro' (where I had been for a day) I found to my great surprise your Father smoking in my room, with a bottle of Port (which he had brought with him!). The mystery was then solved; that, after his own dinner, Mr. --- was announced, and your Father dreading lest he should stay all the Evening declared he had most important business, first at Woodbridge, then, on second thoughts, with me; and so decamped.