Chapter CXIV: WOODBRIDGE, May 27/83

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

I feel minded to write you a word of Farewell before you start off for Switzerland: but I do not think it will be very welcome to you if, as usual, you feel bound to answer it on the Eve of your Departure. Why not let me hear from you when you are settled for a few days somewhere among your Mountains?

I was lately obliged to run to London on a disagreeable errand: which, however, got itself over soon after midday; when I got into a Cab to Chelsea, for the purpose of seeing Carlyle's Statue on the Embankment, and to take a last look at his old House in Cheyne Row. The Statue very good, I thought, though looking somewhat small for want of a good Background to set it off: but the old House! Shut up--neglected--'To Let'--was sad enough to me. I got back to Woodbridge before night. {263}

Since then I have had Charles Keene (who has not been well) staying with me here for ten days. He is a very good Guest, inasmuch as he entertains himself with Books, and Birds'-nests, and an ancient Viol which he has brought down here: as also a Bagpipe (his favourite instrument), only leaving the 'Bag' behind: he having to supply its functions from his own lungs. But he will leave me to-morrow or next day; and with June will come my two Nieces from Lowestoft: and then the Longest Day will come, and we shall begin declining toward Winter again, after so shortly escaping from it.

This very morning I receive The Diary of John Ward, Vicar of Stratford on Avon from 1648 to 1679--with some notices of W. S. which you know all about. And I am as ever

Sincerely yours LITTLEGRANGE.

Is not this Letter legible enough?

INDEX

Academy (Royal), pictures at, 49

Aconites, "New Year's Gifts," 211, 231

Aide (H.), 202

Anstey's 'Vice Versa,' 253

Arkwright (Mrs.), 87

Autumn colours, 112

Bagehot's Essays, 170

Barton (Bernard), 174

Basselin (Olivier), quoted, 23

Beard (Dr.), 48

Belvidere Hat, 163

Beranger, 20-22

Beuve (Sainte), Causeries, 40, 53

Blackbird _v._ Nightingale, 46

Blakesley (J. W.), Dean of Lincoln, 78, 233

Boccaccio, 117

Brown (Dr. John), 253

Burns, compared with Beranger, 20-22; quoted, 37

Burrows (General), his defeat by Ayoub Khan, 193

Calderon, 63, 185

Candide, 174

Carlyle (T.), 17; forwards Mr. Ruskin's letter to E. F.G., 19; his Kings of Norway, 61, 65; presented with a Medal and Address on his 80th birthday, 88, 91; vehement against Darwin and the Turk, 110; on Sir Walter Scott, 131; is reading Shakespeare and Boswell's Hebrides, 170; becomes very feeble, 203; is buried at Ecclefechan, 206, 207; his Reminiscences, 215, 218; his Letters to Emerson, 246, 256

Carlyle (Mrs.), her Letters, 257, 259

Carlyle (Mrs. Alexander), 163, 170, 186, 207, 215, 222

Chateaubriand's father, 59

Chorley (H. F.), his death, 11; Life of, 38, 53

Clerke Saunders, 164

Coriolanus, 139

Corneille, 73

Country church, Scene in, 46

Cowell (Professor), 155

Crabbe (G.), the Poet, quoted, 39, 43, 55, 59, 118; his portrait by Pickersgill, 39,150; article on him in the Cornhill, 58; his fancy quickened by a fall of snow, 198

Crabbe (George), Vicar of Bredfield, the poet's son, 43

Crabbe (George), Rector of Merton, the poet's grandson, 202, 225

Deffand (Madame du), 53

De Quincey (T.), on Janus Weathercock, 90

Derby Day, 186

De Soyres (John), E. F.G.'s nephew, 238

De Soyres (Mrs.), E. F.G.'s sister, her death, 168

Devrient, his Theory of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 253

Dickens (Charles), 69; E. F.G.'s admiration for him, 51, 126; his passion for colours, 54

Donne (Blanche), 48, 111, 149, 154

Donne (Charles), 95, 111, 131

Donne (Mrs. Charles), her death, 106

Donne (Mowbray), 10, 29, 39, 62, 86, 95, 111, 140, 181, 185, 193, 196, 199, 206, 207, 212, 223, 227, 242, 259, 260; visits E. F.G., 86

Donne (Valentia), 6, 18, 111, 161, 199; her marriage, 127

Donne (W. B.), mentioned, 3, 4, 6, 8, 18, 48, 60, 64, 78, 98, 102, 111, 121, 181, 207, 212, 223, 227, 229, 241; his Lectures, 10; his illness, 35, 37, 39, 42; retires from his post as Licenser of Plays, 48, 50; his successor, 50; reviews Macready's Memoirs, 75; his death, 243

Ducis, 219

Dunwich, 138

Eastern Question (the), 117

Eckermann, a German Boswell, 155

Edwards (Edwin), 139, 140, 158; his death, 155; exhibition of his pictures, 166, 168, 169

Elio (F. J.), 120

Elliot (Sir Gilbert), pastoral by, 82

Euphranor, 65

FitzGerald (Edward), parts with his yacht, 3; his reader's mistakes, 4; his house at Woodbridge, 8; his unwillingness to have visitors, 8, 9; his mother, 11; reads Hawthorne's Notes of Italian Travel, 12; Memoirs of Harness, 13; cannot read George Eliot, 15, 38, 171; his love for Sir Walter Scott, 15, 229; visits his brother Peter, 16; on the art of being photographed, 24, 25; reads Walpole, Wesley, and Boswell's Johnson, 28; in Paris in 1830, 31; cannot read Goethe's Faust, 31, 124; reads Ste. Beuve's Causeries, 40, and Don Quixote, 41, 45; has a skeleton of his own, bronchitis, 45, 47, 75; goes to Scotland, 49; to the Academy, 49; reads Dickens, 51; Crabbe, 54; condenses the Tales of the Hall, 59, 64, 118; death of his brother Peter, 64; translations from Calderon, 63; tries to read Gil Blas and La Fontaine, 66; admires Corneille, 73; reads Madame de Sevigne, 73; writes to Notes and Queries, 82; begins to 'smell the ground,' 83; his recollections of Paris, 85; reads Mrs. Trollope's 'A Charming Fellow,' 95; on framing pictures, 96, 99, 102, 106; translation of the Agamemnon, 97, 103, 107, 111; meets Macready, 103; his Lugger Captain, 104, 115, 117; prefers the Second Part of Don Quixote, 108; scissors and paste his 'Harp and Lute,' 126; reads Dickens' Great Expectations, 126; on nightingales, 128, 136, 184; wished to dedicate Agamemnon to Mrs. Kemble, 129; reads The Heart of Mid-Lothian, 130; Catullus, 135; Guy Mannering, 137; at Dunwich, 138; reads Coriolanus, 139; Kenilworth, 145; David Copperfield, 145; his Readings in Crabbe, 147, 150; reads Hawthorne's Journals, 153; at Lowestoft, 155; reads Forster's Life of Dickens, 155; and Trollope's Novels, 155, 171; Eckermann's Goethe, 155; works on Crabbe's Posthumous Tales, 164; his Quarter-deck, 167; Dombey and Son, 172, 187; Comus and Lycidas, 178; Mrs. Kemble's Records, 186; Madame de Sevigne, 186, 188; visits George Crabbe at Merton, 188, 243; his ducks and chickens, 189; his Irish cousins, 190; at Aldeburgh, 190; with his nieces at Lowestoft, 195; sends Charles Tennyson's Sonnets to Mrs. Kemble, 198; his eyes out of 'Keller,' 202, 206; reads Winter's Tale, 204; his translations of the two OEdipus plays, 205, 208; his affection for the stage, 210; his collection of actors' portraits, 210; his love for Spedding, 212; his reminiscences of a visit with Tennyson at Mirehouse, 214; reads Wordsworth, 217; sends his reader to see Macbeth, 231; feels as if some of the internal timbers were shaken, 240; reads Froude's Carlyle, 243, 245, 248; at Aldeburgh, 245, 247; meets Professor Fawcett, 247; consults Mrs. Kemble on two passages of Shakespeare, 257; goes to look at Carlyle's statue and his old house, 262

FitzGerald (Jane), afterwards Mrs. Wilkinson, E. F.G.'s sister, 112, 122

FitzGerald (J. P.), E. F.G.'s eldest brother, 95, 100; his illness, 141, 144; and death, 149

FitzGerald (Mrs.), E. F.G.'s mother, 11, 61, 96; her portrait by Sir T. Lawrence, 177

FitzGerald (Percy), his Lives of the Kembles, 5, 6

FitzGerald (Peter), E. F.G.'s brother, 16; his death, 64

Frere (Mrs.), 83, 87, 181

Froude (J. A.), constantly with Carlyle, 203; is charged with his biography, 208; his Life of Carlyle, 243; writes to E. F.G., 243

Fualdes, murder of, 85; play founded on, 89

Furness (H. H.), 60, 64, 66, 101, 203

Gil Blas, 66

Glyn (Miss), 97

Goethe, 31, 123, 124; his conversations by Eckermann, 155

Goethe and Schiller, correspondence of, 231

Goodwin (Professor), proposes to visit E. F.G., 192

Gordon (Mrs.), 132, 203

Gout, 7

Groome (Archdeacon), 4, 45, 199, 223

Half Hours with the Worst Authors, 31, 34

Hamlet, theory of Gervinus on, 32; the Quarto and Folio Texts of, 221

Harlowe's picture of the Trial Scene in Henry VIII., 87

Harness (Rev. W.), Memoirs of, 6, 13

Hatherley (Lord), letter from, 132

Hawthorne (Nathaniel), his Notes of Italian Travel, 12, 153

Haydn, 83

Haydon (B. R.), verses by his wife, 34

Haymarket Opera (The), 200

Hayward (A.), his translation of Faust, 124; his Select Essays, 170

Helen of Kirkconnel, 164

Helps (Sir Arthur), his death, 68

Hertford (Lord), 48, 50

Hood (T.), verses by, 87, 95

Houghton (Lord), 164, 236, 239, 257

Hugo (F. Victor), his translation of Shakespeare, 114

Hunt (Holman), The Shadow of Death, 40

Intellectual Peat, 69

Irving (Henry), in Hamlet, 74, 75; his portrait, 86; in Queen Mary, 107, 109; his reading of Eugene Aram, 124; in Much Ado about Nothing, 251, 255

Jenny (Mr.), the owner of Bredfield House, 10

Jessica, 179

Kean (Edmund), in Othello, 53

Keats (John), his Letters, 134; his Life and Letters, by Lord Houghton, 164

Keene (Charles), 225, 249, 261; at Little Grange, 242, 263

Kelly (Michael), his Reminiscences, 146

Kemble (Charles), in Othello, 53; as Falconbridge and Petruchio, 58; in As You Like It, 58; as Charles Surface, 58; as Cromwell, 87; in King John, 182

Kemble (Mrs. Charles), 61, 62; her 'Smiles and Tears,' 14; contributes to Kitchener's Cook's Oracle, 89; miniature of her as Urania, 96, 99, 100, 101, 106, 146

Kemble (Fanny), her laws of correspondence, 2; her daughter's marriage, 3; her Memoirs, 29; in America, 36, 46; her article 'On the Stage' in the Cornhill Magazine, 53, 78, 227; her letter about Macready, 57; her photograph, 61; as Louisa of Savoy, 73; writes her 'Old Woman's Gossip' in the Atlantic Monthly, 84, 92; letter from her to the Editor, 93; omitted passage from her 'Gossip,' 93-94; uses a type-writer, 94; her opinion of Portia, 95, 124; on Goethe and Portia, 123; end of her 'Gossip,' 125, 129; her Records of a Girlhood, 186; her favourite Colours, 197; her portrait by Sir T. Lawrence, 210; her Records of Later Life, 227, 228

Kemble (Henry), Mrs. Kemble's brother, 58, 109

Kemble (Henry), Mrs. Kemble's nephew, 225

Kemble (John Mitchell), 120, 153, 159

Kemble (J. P.), 179, 183; portrait of him as OEdipus, 183, 210; Plays revised by him, 220

Kerrich (Edmund), E. F.G.'s nephew, 129, 172

La Fontaine, 66

Laurence (S.), copies Pickersgill's portrait of Crabbe, 39; letter from, 90

Leigh (the Hon. Mrs.), Mrs. Kemble's daughter, 161; her marriage, 3

L'Hopital (Chancellor), quoted, 191

Little Grange, first named, 42

Lowell (J. R.), 'Among my Books,' 97, 119, 135; his Odes, 120, 122; letter from, 136; his coming to England as Minister of the United States, 174; illness of his wife, 174, 184, 186, 192

Lynn (Mary), 191, 252, 253

Macbeth quoted, 43, 68; French opera by Chelard, acted at Dublin, 81

Macready (W. C,), 27; his Memoirs edited by Sir W. F. Pollock, 38, 44, 50, 52, 68, 70, 98, 102; his Macbeth, 44, 57, 68; plays Henry IV., 58; reads Mrs. Kemble's English Tragedy, 72

Malkin (Arthur), 110, 132, 213

Malkin (Dr. B. H.), Master of Bury School, 94; Crabbe a favourite with him, 213

Marjorie Fleming, 252

Marot (Clement), quoted, 23

Matthews (Charles), his Memoir, 173

Merivale (Charles), Dean of Ely, 195, 218

Montaigne, 103, 104, 105, 117

Musset (Alfred de), Memoir of, 138; loves to read Clarissa Harlowe, 138

Napoleon, saying of, 218

Naseby, proposed monument at, 17, 27

Norton (C. E), 19, 97, 119, 123, 135, 151, 180, 183, 205, 209, 246, 256

OEdipus, by Dryden and Lee, 229

Oleander, 251

Oliphant (Mrs.), on Carlyle, 218, 220; on Mrs. Carlyle, 259

Oriole, 46

Pasta, saying of, 53

Pasta, in Medea, 181, 200

Pasteur (Le Bon), 30, 33

Peacock (E.), Headlong Hall quoted, 40

Piccolomini, 11

Pigott (E. F. S.), succeeds W. B. Donne, 50

Piozzi (Mrs.), Memoirs of, 46

Pollock (Sir W. F ), visits E. F.G., 15; edits Macready's Memoirs, 38, 44; letter from, 55; visits Carlyle, 110

Portia, 95, 124

Quixote (Don), 41, 108, 155, 182; must be read in Spanish, 114, 117

Ritchie (Mrs.), Miss Thackeray, 135

Rossi in Hamlet, 107

Rousseau on stage decoration, 110

Santley (Mrs.), 111

Sartoris (Edward), 192, 203

Sartoris (Greville), death of, 38

Sartoris (Mrs.), Mrs. Kemble's sister, 38; her illness, 140, 149; and death, 154; her Medusa and other Tales, 203

Scott (Sir Walter), his indifference to fame, 116; the easy movement of his stories, 130; Barry Cornwall's saying of him, 131; his Kenilworth, 145; the Fortunes of Nigel, 228, 231; Marjorie Fleming, 252; The Pirate, 261

Sevigne (Madame de), 73, 103, 105, 137, 184, 186, 188, 222; her Rochers, 105, 184; not shown to visitors, 188; list of her dramatis personae, 125; quoted, 190, 217

Shakespeare, edited by Clark and Wright, 68, 69

Shakespeare, 69

Shakespeare's predecessors, 223

Siddons (Mrs.), 46, 71, 183; her portrait by Sir T. Lawrence, 81; article on her in the Nineteenth Century, 134; in Winter's Tale, 204

Skeat (Professor), his Inaugural Lecture, 153

Southey's Correspondence with Caroline Bowles, 261

Spanish Tragedy (The), scene from, 62

Spedding (James), is finishing his Life and Letters of Bacon, 27; has finished them, 42, 51: his note on Antony and Cleopatra, 43, 45; emendation of Shakespeare, 45; paper on Richard III., 74; his opinion of Irving's Hamlet, 74; and Miss Ellen Terry's Portia, 74, 77; will not see Salvini in Othello, 74; on The Merchant of Venice, 77, 80, 176, 201; the Latest Theory about Bacon, 111; Shakespeare Notes, 189; his Preface to Charles Tennyson Turner's Sonnets, 197; his accident, 212; and death, 214; his Evenings with a Reviewer, 233: Mrs. Cameron's photograph of him, 250

Stephen (Leslie), 58; his 'Hours in a Library,' 118

Taylor (Tom), 166, 193; his death, 192; his Memoir of Haydon, 194

Tennyson (A.), in Burns's country, 22; changes his publisher, 37; his Queen Mary, 77; mentioned, 82, 113, 160, 193, 228, 239; his Mary Tudor, 107, 109; visits E. F.G. at Woodbridge, 113, 114; the attack on him in the Quarterly, 116; his Harold, 122; portrait of him, 134; his saying of Clarissa Harlow, 138; of Crabbe's portrait by Pickersgill, 151; used to repeat Clerke Saunders and Helen of Kirkconnel, 164; The Falcon, 169; The Cup, 206, 208; his saying of Lycidas, 178; his eyes, 183; Ballads and other Poems, 201; with E. F.G. at Mirehouse, 214; The Promise of May, 251, 253

Tennyson (Frederick), visits E. F.G., 16; his saying of blindness, 183; his poems, 197

Tennyson (Hallam, now Lord), 114, 228, 239, 260

Tennyson (Lionel), 98; his marriage, 135

Terry (Miss Ellen), as Portia, 74, 77; Tom Taylor's opinion of her, 95

Thackeray (Minnie), death of, 90

Thackeray (Miss), 99; her Old Kensington, 13, 15, 39; meets E. F.G. at the Royal Academy, 16; her Village on the Cliff, 38; on Madame de Sevigne, 227; on Miss Edgeworth, 250

Thackeray (W. M.), 38, 120; not the author of a Tragedy, 51; his Drawings published, 'The Orphan of Pimlico,' etc., 91; his pen and ink drawing of Mrs. Kemble as Louisa of Savoy, 73

Thurtell, the murderer, 152

Tichborne trial, 28, 36

Tieck, 'an Eyewitness of John Kemble' in The Nineteenth Century, 179, 183

Trench (Archbishop), his Translation of Calderon, 185; E. F.G. sends him his Crabbe, 185

Tunbridge Wells, 57

Turner (Charles Tennyson), his Sonnets, 151, 197

'Twalmley' ('the Great'), 75, 102, 116

Two Noble Kinsmen (The), 221

Urania, 146

Wade (T.), author of the Jew of Aragon, 120

Wainewright (T. G.), 90

Wales (Prince of), Thanksgiving service for his recovery, 10

Ward (John), Vicar of Stratford on Avon, his diary, 263

Wesley (John), his Journal one of E. F.G.'s hobbies, 28, 186

Whalley (Dr.), his reading of a passage in Macbeth, 46

Wilkinson (Mrs.), E. F.G.'s sister, 112, 122, 169, 225

Wilson (H. Schutz), 232, 233, 235

Wister (Mrs.), Mrs. Kemble's daughter, 6, 36, 252, 254

Woodberry (G. E.), his article on Crabbe, 180

Wylie (W. H.), on Thomas Carlyle, 237

Footnotes:

{3a} Mrs. Kemble's daughter, Frances Butler, was married to the Hon. and Rev. James Wentworth Leigh, now Dean of Hereford, 29th June 1871.

{3b} See 'Letters,' ii. 126.

{6} Fitzgerald's Lives of the Kembles was reviewed in the _Athenaeum_, 12th August 1871, and the 'Memoirs of Mr. Harness,' 28th October.

{7} Macbeth, ii. 2, 21.

{9} In writing to Sir Frederick Pollock on November 17th, 1871, FitzGerald says:--

'The Game-dealer here telling me that he has some very good Pheasants,
I have told him to send you a Brace--to go in company with Braces to
Carlyle, and Mrs. Kemble. This will, you may think, necessitate your
writing a Reply of Thanks before your usual time of writing: but don't
do that:--only write to me now in case the Pheasants don't reach you;
I know you will thank me for them, whether they reach you or not; and
so you can defer writing so much till you happen next upon an idle
moment which you may think as well devoted to me; you being the only
man, except Donne, who cares to trouble himself with a gratuitous
letter to one who really does not deserve it.

'Donne, you know, is pleased with Everybody, and with Everything that
Anybody does for him. You must take his Praises of Woodbridge with
this grain of Salt to season them. It may seem odd to you at
first--but not perhaps on reflection--that I feel more--nervous, I may
say--at the prospect of meeting with an old Friend, after all these
years, than of any indifferent Acquaintance. I feel it the less with
Donne, for the reason aforesaid--why should I not feel it with you who
have given so many tokens since our last meeting that you are well
willing to take me as I am? If one is, indeed, by Letter what one is
in person.--I always tell Donne not to come out of his way here--he
says he takes me in the course of a Visit to some East-Anglian
kinsmen. Have you ever any such reason?--Well; if you have no better
reason than that of really wishing to see me, for better or worse, in
my home, come--some Spring or Summer day, when my Home at any rate is
pleasant. This all sounds mock-modesty; but it is not; as I can't
read Books, Plays, Pictures, etc. and don't see People, I feel, when a
Man comes, that I have all to ask and nothing to tell; and one doesn't
like to make a Pump of a Friend.'

{10a} At the Royal Institution, on 'The Theatre in Shakespeare's Time.' The series consisted of six lectures, which were delivered from 20th January to 24th February 1872. On 18th February 1872, Mrs. Kemble wrote: 'My dear old friend Donne is lecturing on Shakespeare, and I have heard him these last two times. He is looking ill and feeble, and I should like to carry him off too, out of the reach of his too many and too heavy cares.'--'Further Records,' ii. 253.

{10b} 27th February, 1872, for the recovery of the Prince of Wales.

{10c} Mr. Jenney, the owner of Bredfield House, where FitzGerald was born. See 'Letters,' i. 64.

{11} H. F. Chorley died 16th February 1872.

{13a} Perhaps Widmore, near Bromley. See 'Further Records,' ii. 253.

{13b} 'Old Kensington,' the first number of which appeared in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for April 1872.

{15} He came May 18th, 1872, the day before Whitsunday.

{16a} F. T. came August 1st, 1872.

{16b} See 'Letters,' ii. 142-3.

{19a} Miss Harriet St. Leger.

{19b} April 14th, 1873. See 'Letters,' ii. 154.

{23a} Probably the piece beginning--

'On plante des pommiers es bords
Des cimitieres, pres des morts, &c

Olivier Basselin ('Vaux-de-Vire,' ed Jacob, 1858, xv. p. 28)

On Oct 13th, 1879, FitzGerald wrote of a copy of Olivier (ed. Du Bois, 1821) which he had sent by me to Professor Cowell: "If Cowell does not care for Olivier--the dear Phantom!--pray do you keep him. Read a little piece--the two first Stanzas--beginning 'Dieu garde de deshonneur,' p. 184--quite beautiful to me; though not classed as Olivier's. Also 'Royne des Flours, &c,' p. 160. These are things that Beranger could not reach with all his Art; but Burns could without it."

{23b} De Damoyselle Anne de Marle (Marot, 'Cimetiere,' xiv ):--

'Lors sans viser au lieu dont elle vint,
Et desprisant la gloire que l'on a
En ce bas monde, icelle Anne ordonna,
Que son corps fust entre les pauures mys
En cette fosse. Or prions, chers amys,
Que l'ame soit entre les pauures mise,
Qui bien heureux sont chantez en l'Eglise.'

{25} On March 30, 1873, FitzGerald wrote to Sir Frederick Pollock:--

"At the beginning of this year I submitted to be Photo'ed at last--for
many Nieces, and a few old Friends--I must think that you are an old
Friend as well as a very kind and constant one; and so I don't like
not to send you what I have sent others.--The Artist who took me, took
(as he always does) three several Views of one's Face: but the third
View (looking full-faced) got blurred by my blinking at the Light: so
only these two were reproduced--I shouldn't know that either was meant
for [me]: nor, I think, would any one else, if not told: but the Truth-
telling Sun somehow did them; and as he acted so handsomely by me, I
take courage to distribute them to those who have a regard for me, and
will naturally like to have so favourable a Version of one's Outward
Aspect to remember one by. I should not have sent them if they had
been otherwise. The up-looking one I call 'The Statesman,' quite
ready to be called to the Helm of Affairs: the Down-looking one I call
The Philosopher. Will you take which you like? And when next old
Spedding comes your way, give him the other (he won't care which) with
my Love. I only don't write to him because my doing so would impose
on his Conscience an Answer--which would torment him for some little
while. I do not love him the less: and believe all the while that he
not the less regards me."

Again on May 5, he wrote: "I think I shall have a word about M[acready] from Mrs. Kemble, with whom I have been corresponding a little since her return to England. She has lately been staying with her Son in Law, Mr. Leigh (?), at Stoneleigh Vicarage, near Kenilworth. In the Autumn she says she will go to America, never to return to England. But I tell her she _will_ return. She is to sit for her Photo at my express desire, and I have given her Instructions _how_ to sit, derived from my own successful Experience. One rule is to sit--in a dirty Shirt--(to avoid dangerous White) and another is, not to sit on a Sunshiny Day: which we must leave to the Young.

"By the by, I sent old Spedding my own lovely Photo (_the Statesman_) which he has acknowledged in Autograph. He tells me that he begins to 'smell Land' with his Bacon."

{28a} See 'Letters,' ii. 165-7.

{28b} See letter of April 22nd, 1873.

{30} Shakespeare, Ant. & Cl., v. 2, line 6:--

'Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change.'

{31} In his 'Half Hours with the Worst Authors' FitzGerald has transcribed 'Le Bon Pasteur,' which consists of five stanzas of eight lines each, beginning:--

'Bons habitans de ce Village,
Pretez l'oreille un moment,' &c.

Each stanza ends:--

'Et le bon Dieu vous benira.'

He adds: 'One of the pleasantest remembrances of France is, having heard this sung to a Barrel-organ, and chorus'd by the Hearers (who had bought the Song-books) one fine Evening on the Paris Boulevards, June: 1830.'

{34a} Haydon entered these verses in his Diary for May, 1846: 'The struggle is severe, for myself I care not, but for her so dear to me I feel. It presses on her mind, and in a moment of pain, she wrote the following simple bit of feeling to Frederick, who is in South America, on Board _The Grecian_.' There are seven stanzas in the original, but FitzGerald has omitted in his transcript the third and fourth and slightly altered one or two of the lines. He called them 'A poor Mother's Verses.'

{34b} See 'Letters,' ii. 280.

{37} Burns, quoted from memory as usual. See Globe Edition, p. 214; ed. Cunningham, iv. 293.

{38} Greville Sartoris was killed by a fall from his horse, not in the hunting-field, 23 Oct. 1873.

{39} 'Rage' in the original. See Tales of the Hall, Book XII. Sir Owen Dale.

{40} Quoting from Peacock's 'Headlong Hall':--

'Nature had but little clay
Like that of which she moulded him.'

See 'Letters,' i. 75, note.

{42} 18 April 1874. Professor Hiram Corson endeavoured to maintain the correctness of the reading of the Folios in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 86-88:

'For his Bounty,
There was no winter in 't. An _Anthony_ it was,
That grew the more by reaping.'

Spedding admirably defended Theobald's certain emendation of 'autumn' for 'Anthony.'

{43} These lines are not to be found in Crabbe, so far as I can ascertain, but they appear to be a transformation of two which occur in the Parish Register, Part II., in the story of Phebe Dawson (Works, ii. 183):

'Friend of distress! The mourner feels thy aid;
She cannot pay thee, but thou wilt be paid.'

They had taken possession of FitzGerald's memory in their present shape, for in a letter to me, dated 5 Nov. 1877, speaking of the poet's son, who was Vicar of Bredfield, he says: "It is now just twenty years since the Brave old Boy was laid in Bredfield Churchyard. Two of his Father's Lines might make Epitaph for some good soul:--

'Friend of the Poor, the Wretched, the Betray'd;
They cannot pay thee--but thou shalt be paid.'

Pas mal ca, eh!"

{45a} In a letter to me dated October 29th, 1871, FitzGerald says:--

"A suggestion that casually fell from old Spedding's lips (I forget
how long ago) occurred to me the other day. Instead of

'Do such business as the bitter day,'

read 'better day'--a certain Emendation, I think. I hope you take Spedding into your Counsel; he might be induced to look over one Play at a time though he might shrink from all in a Body; and I scarce ever heard him conning a page of Shakespeare but he suggested something which was an improvement--on Shakespeare himself, if not on his Editors--though don't [tell] Spedding that I say so, for God's sake."

{45b} In 'Notes and Queries,' April 18th, 1874.

{48a} Lord Hertford

{48b} Frank Carr Beard, the friend and medical adviser of Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

{49a} See Lockhart's 'Life of Scott,' vii. 394. 'About half-past one, P.M., on the 21st of September, [1832], Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day--so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.'

{49b} Dryburgh.

{49c} The North West Passage. The 'Old Sea Captain' was Trelawny.

{50a} See 'Letters,' ii. 173-4.

{50b} E. F. S. Pigott.

{52} See 'Letters,' ii. 172.

{53a} Not _Macmillan_, but _Cornhill Magazine_, Dec. 1863, 'On the Stage.' See Letter of 24 Aug. 1875.

{53b} "Pasta, the great lyric tragedian, who, Mrs. Siddons said, was capable of giving her lessons, replied to the observation, 'Vous avez du beaucoup etudier l'antique.' 'Je l'ai beaucoup senti.'"--From Mrs. Kemble's article 'On the Stage' ('Cornhill,' 1863), reprinted as an Introduction to her Notes upon some of Shakespeare's Plays.

{53c} 'Causeries du Lundi,' xiv. 234.

{53d} Lettre de Viard a M. Walpole, in 'Lettres de Madame du Deffand,' iv. 178 (Paris, 1824). FitzGerald probably read it in Ste. Beuve, 'Causeries du Lundi,' i. 405.

{54} Cedars, not yew. See Memoirs of Chorley, ii. 240.

{55} In Tales of the Hall, Book XI. ('Works,' vi. 284), quoted from memory.

{56} Virgil, AEn. vi. 127.

{57a} Referring to the well-known print of 'Remarkable Characters who were at Tunbridge Wells with Richardson in 1748.'

{57b} James Spedding.

{59a} In the original draft of Tales of the Hall, Book VI.

{59b} See Memoirs of Chateaubriand, written by himself, Eng. trans. 1849 p. 123. At the Chateau of Combourg in Brittany, 'When supper was over, and the party of four had removed from the table to the chimney, my mother would throw herself, with a sigh, upon an old cotton-covered sofa, and near her was placed a little stand with a light. I sat down by the fire with Lucile; the servants removed the supper-things, and retired. My father then began to walk up and down, and never ceased until his bedtime. He wore a kind of white woollen gown, or rather cloak, such as I have never seen with anyone else. His head, partly bald, was covered with a large white cap, which stood bolt upright. When, in the course of his walk, he got to a distance from the fire, the vast apartment was so ill-lighted by a single candle that he could be no longer seen, he could still be heard marching about in the dark, however, and presently returned slowly towards the light, and emerged by degrees from obscurity, looking like a spectre, with his white robe and cap, and his tall, thin figure.'

{64a} 'The Mighty Magician' and 'Such Stuff as Dreams are made of.'

{64b} See Winter's Tale, iv. 4, 118-120.

{65} 'Euphranor.'

{67} See 'Letters,' ii. 180.

{68} Sir Arthur Helps died March 7th, 1875.

{69} The Passage of Carlyle to which FitzGerald refers is perhaps in 'Anti-Dryasdust,' in the Introduction to Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. 'By very nature it is a labyrinth and chaos, this that we call Human History; an _abatis_ of trees and brushwood, a world-wide jungle, at once growing and dying. Under the green foliage and blossoming fruit-trees of To-day, there lie, rotting slower or faster, the forests of all other Years and Days. Some have rotted fast, plants of annual growth, and are long since quite gone to inorganic mould; others are like the aloe, growths that last a thousand or three thousand years.' Ste. Beuve, in his 'Nouveaux Lundis' (iv. 295), has a similar remark: 'Pour un petit nombre d'arbres qui s'elevent de quelques pieds au-dessus de terre et qui s'apercoivent de loin, il y a partout, en litterature, de cet humus et de ce detrius vegetal, de ces feuilles accumulees et entassees qu'on ne distingue pas, si l'on ne se baisse.' At the end of his copy FitzGerald has referred to this as 'Carlyle's Peat.'

{71} In The Gamester. See 'Macready's Reminiscences,' i. 54-57.

{72a} In Rowe's Tamerlane. See 'Macready's Reminiscences,' i. 202.

{72b} Probably the English Tragedy, which was finished in October 1838. See 'Records of Later Days,' ii. 168.

{74} In the _Transactions of the New Shakspere Society_ for 1875-76. The surviving editor of the 'Cambridge Shakspeare' does not at all feel that Spedding's criticism 'smashed' the theory which was only put forward as a tentative solution of a perhaps insoluble problem.

{75a} See 'Letters,' ii. 177.

{75b} See 'Letters,' ii. 198, 228, and Boswell's 'Johnson' (ed. Birkbeck Hill), iv. 193.

{77} FitzGerald wrote to me about the same time:

"Spedding has (you know) a delicious little Paper about the Merchant
of Venice in July _Fraser_:--but I think he is wrong in subordinating
Shylock to the Comedy Part. If that were meant to be so, Williams
['the divine Williams,' as some Frenchman called Shakespeare]
miscalculated, throwing so much of his very finest writing into the
Jew's Mouth, the downright human Nature of which makes all the Love-
Story Child's play, though very beautiful Child's play indeed."

{78} 'On the Stage,' in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for December 1863 Reprinted as an Introduction to Mrs. Kemble's 'Notes upon some of Shakespeare's Plays.'

{79} See his 'Life and Letters,' p. 46.

{80} In the _Cornhill Magazine_ for July 1875, The Merchant of Venice at the Prince of Wales's Theatre.

{82a} 'The Enterprising Impresario' by Walter Maynard (Thomas Willert Beale), 1867, pp 273-4.

{82b} Beginning, 'A spirit haunts the year's last hours.' It first appeared in the poems of 1830, p. 67, and is now included in Tennyson's Collected Works. See 'Letters,' ii. 256.

{82c} By Sir Gilbert Elliot, father of the first Lord Minto. The query appeared 25 Sept. 1875 ('N. & Q.' 5th Series, iv. 247), and two answers are given at p. 397, but not by E. F.G.

{83} See 'Letters,' ii. 185.

{84} The _Atlantic Monthly_ for August, September, and October 1875.

{85a} _Atlantic Monthly_, August 1875, p. 167, by T. S. Perry.

{85b} _Ibid._, p. 240.

{86} From Oct. 30 to Nov. 4.

{87a} The Trial of Queen Katharine in _Henry VIII_. Charles Kemble acted Cromwell.

{87b} _Atlantic Monthly_, August 1875, p. 165.

{88a} 'The Exile,' quoted from memory.

{88b} See letter of August 24, 1875.

{89} _Atlantic Monthly_, August 1875, p. 156.

{90a} Thomas Griffiths Wainewright. De Quincey's account of him is in his essay on Charles Lamb ('Works,' ed. 1862, viii. 146). His career was the subject of a story by Dickens, called 'Hunted Down.'

{90b} Minnie Thackeray (Mrs. Leslie Stephen) died Nov. 28.

{91} About the same time he wrote to me:--

'A dozen years ago I entreated Annie Thackeray, Smith & Elder, &c., to
bring out a Volume of Thackeray's better Drawings. Of course they
wouldn't--now Windus and Chatto have, you know, brought out a Volume
of his inferior: and now Annie T. S. & E. prepare a Volume--when it is
not so certain to pay, at any rate, as when W. M. T. was the Hero of
the Day. However, I send them all I have: pretty confident they will
select the worst; of course, for my own part, I would rather have any
other than copies of what I have: but I should like the World to
acknowledge he could do something beside the ugly and ridiculous.
Annie T. sent me the enclosed Specimen: very careless, but full of
Character. I can see W. M. T. drawing it as he was telling one about
his Scotch Trip. That disputatious Scotchman in the second Row with
Spectacles, and--teeth. You may know some who will be amused at
this:--but send it back, please: no occasion to write beside.'

{92} When I was preparing the first edition of FitzGerald's Letters I wrote to Mrs. Kemble for permission to quote the passage from her Gossip which is here referred to. She replied (11 Dec. 1883):--

'I have no objection whatever to your quoting what I said of Edward
Fitzgerald in the _Atlantic Monthly_, but I suppose you know that it
was omitted from Bentley's publication of my book at Edward's _own
desire_. He did not certainly knock me on the head with Dr. Johnson's
sledge-hammer, but he did make me feel painfully that I had been
guilty of the impertinence of praising.'

I did not then avail myself of the permission so readily granted, but I venture to do so now, in the belief that the publicity from which his sensitive nature shrank during his lifetime may now without impropriety be given to what was written in all sincerity by one of his oldest and most intimate friends. It was Mrs. Kemble who described him as 'an eccentric man of genius, who took more pains to avoid fame than others do to seek it,' and this description is fully borne out by the account she gave of him in the offending passage which follows:--

"That Mrs. Fitzgerald is among the most vivid memories of my girlish
days. She and her husband were kind and intimate friends of my father
and mother. He was a most amiable and genial Irish gentleman, with
considerable property in Ireland and Suffolk, and a fine house in
Portland Place, and had married his cousin, a very handsome, clever,
and eccentric woman. I remember she always wore a bracelet of his
hair, on the massive clasp of which were engraved the words, '_Stesso
sangue_, _stessa sorte_.' I also remember, as a feature of sundry
dinners at their house, the first gold dessert and table ornaments
that I ever saw, the magnificence of which made a great impression
upon me; though I also remember their being replaced, upon Mrs.
Fitzgerald's wearying of them, by a set of ground glass and dead and
burnished silver, so exquisite that the splendid gold service was
pronounced infinitely less tasteful and beautiful. One member of her
family--her son Edward Fitzgerald--has remained my friend till this
day. His parents and mine are dead. Of his brothers and sisters I
retain no knowledge, but with him I still keep up an affectionate and
to me most valuable and interesting correspondence. He was
distinguished from the rest of his family, and indeed from most
people, by the possession of very rare intellectual and artistic
gifts. A poet, a painter, a musician, an admirable scholar and
writer, if he had not shunned notoriety as sedulously as most people
seek it, he would have achieved a foremost place among the eminent men
of his day, and left a name second to that of very few of his
contemporaries. His life was spent in literary leisure, or literary
labours of love of singular excellence, which he never cared to
publish beyond the circle of his intimate friends: Euphranor,
Polonius, collections of dialogues full of keen wisdom, fine
observation, and profound thought; sterling philosophy written in the
purest, simplest, and raciest English; noble translations, or rather
free adaptations of Calderon's two finest dramas, The Wonderful
Magician and Life's a Dream, and a splendid paraphrase of the
Agamemnon of AEschylus, which fills its reader with regret that he
should not have _Englished_ the whole of the great trilogy with the
same severe sublimity. In America this gentleman is better known by
his translation or adaptation (how much more of it is his own than the
author's I should like to know if I were Irish) of Omar Khayyam, the
astronomer-poet of Persia. Archbishop Trench, in his volume on the
life and genius of Calderon, frequently refers to Mr. Fitzgerald's
translations, and himself gives a version of Life's a Dream, the
excellence of which falls short, however, of his friend's finer
dramatic poem bearing the same name, though he has gallantly attacked
the difficulty of rendering the Spanish in English verse. While these
were Edward Fitzgerald's studies and pursuits, he led a curious life
of almost entire estrangement from society, preferring the
companionship of the rough sailors and fishermen of the Suffolk coast
to that of lettered folk. He lived with them in the most friendly
intimacy, helping them in their sea ventures, and cruising about with
one, an especially fine sample of his sort, in a small fishing-smack
which Edward Fitzgerald's bounty had set afloat, and in which the
translator of Calderon and AEschylus passed his time, better pleased
with the fellowship and intercourse of the captain and crew of his
small fishing craft than with that of more educated and sophisticated
humanity. He and his brothers were school-fellows of my eldest
brother under Dr. Malkin, the master of the grammar school of Bury St.
Edmunds."

{94} Mrs. Kemble's letter was written with a typewriter (see 'Further Records,' i. 198, 240, 247). It was given by FitzGerald to Mr. F. Spalding, now of the Colchester Museum, through whose kindness I am enabled to quote it:--

'YORK FARM, BRANCHTOWN. '_Tuesday_, _Dec._ 14. 1875.

'MY DEAR EDWARD FITZGERALD,

'I have got a printing-machine and am going to try and write to you upon it and see if it will suit your eyes better than my scrawl of handwriting. Thank you for the Photographs and the line of music; I know that old bit of tune, it seems to me. I think Mr. Irving's face more like Young's than my Father's. Tom Taylor, years ago, told me that Miss Ellen Terry would be a consummate comic actress. Portia should never be without some one to set her before the Public. She is my model woman.'

{97a} See 'Letters,' ii. 192

{97b} See the _Athenaeum_ for Jan. 1, 15, 22, 29, 1876.

{100} In her 'Further Records,' i. 250, Mrs. Kemble wrote, March 11th, 1876:--

'Last week my old friend Edward Fitzgerald (Omar Kyam, you know), sent
me a beautiful miniature of my mother, which his mother--her intimate
friend--had kept till her death, and which had been painted for Mrs.
Fitzgerald. It is a full-length figure, very beautifully painted, and
very like my mother. Almost immediately after receiving this from
England, my friend Mr. Horace Furness came out to see me. He is a
great collector of books and prints, and brought me an old engraving
of my mother in the character of Urania, which a great many years ago
I remember to have seen, and which was undoubtedly the original of
Mrs. Fitzgerald's miniature. I thought the concidence of their both
reaching me at the same time curious.'

{105} On July 22nd, 1880, he wrote to me:--"I am still reading her! And could make a pretty Introduction to her; but Press-work is hard to me now, and nobody would care for what I should do, when done. Mrs. Edwards has found me a good Photo of 'nos pauvres Rochers,' a straggling old Chateau, with (I suppose) the Chapel which her old 'Bien Bon' Uncle built in 1671--while she was talking to her Gardener Pilois and reading Montaigne, Moliere, Pascal, _or_ Cleopatra, among the trees she had planted. Bless her! I should like to have made Lamb like her, in spite of his anti-gallican Obstinacy."

{106} Mrs. Charles Donne, daughter of John Mitchell Kemble, died April 15th, 1876.

{107} First acted April 18th, 1876.

{108a} See 'Letters,' ii. 293.

{108b} See 'Letters,' ii. 198.

{109a} _Atlantic Monthly_, June 1876, p. 719.

{109b} Which opened May 10th, 1876.

{110} In one of his Common Place Books FitzGerald has entered from the _Monthly Mirror_ for 1807 the following passage of Rousseau on Stage Scenery--'Ils font, pour epouventer, un Fracas de Decorations sans Effet. Sur la scene meme il ne faut pas tout dire a la Vue: mais ebranler l'Imagmation.'

{111} For April and May 1876: 'The Latest Theory about Bacon.'

{113a} See letter of October 4th, 1875

{113b} See 'Letters,' ii. 202-205.

{113c} This card is now in my possession, 'Mr. Alfred Tennyson. Farringford.' On it is written in pencil, "Dear old Fitz--I am passing thro' and will call again. [The last three words are crossed out and 'am here' is written over them]. A.T." FitzGerald enclosed it to Thompson (Master of Trinity) and wrote on the back, 'P.S. Since writing, this card was sent in: the Writer followed with his Son: and here we all are as if twenty years had not passed since we met.'

{114a} About the same time he wrote to me:--"Tennyson came here suddenly ten days ago--with his Son Hallam, whom I liked much. It was a Relief to find a Young Gentleman not calling his Father 'The Governor' but even--'Papa,' and tending him so carefully in all ways. And nothing of 'awfully jolly,' etc. I put them up at the Inn--Bull--as my own House was in a sort of Interregnum of Painting, within and without: and I knew they would be well provided at 'John Grout's'--as they were. Tennyson said he had not found such Dinners at Grand Hotels, etc. And John (though a Friend of Princes of all Nations--Russian, French, Italian, etc.--who come to buy Horse flesh) was gratified at the Praise: though he said to me 'Pray, Sir, what is the name of the Gentleman?'"

{114b} On September 11th, 1877, he wrote to me: 'You ought to have Hugo's French Shakespeare: it is not wonderful to see how well a German Translation thrives:--but French Prose--no doubt better than French Verse. When I was looking over King John the other day I knew that Napoleon would have owned it as the thing he craved for in the Theatre: as also the other Historical Plays:--not Love of which one is sick: but the Business of Men. He said this at St. Helena, or elsewhere.'

{115} It was in 1867. See 'Letters,' ii. 90, 94.

{116} Life, vi. 215. Letter to Lockhart, January 15th, 1826.

{117a} These expressions must not be looked for in the Decameron, as 'emendato secondo l'ordine del Sacro Concilio di Trento.'

{117b} See 'Letters,' ii. 203. In a letter to me dated November 4th, 1876, he says:--

"I have taken refuge from the Eastern Question in Boccaccio, just as the 'piacevoli Donne' who tell the Stories escaped from the Plague. I suppose one must read this in Italian as my dear Don in Spanish: the Language of each fitting the Subject 'like a Glove.' But there is nothing to come up to the Don and his Man."

{118} Book XVIII., vol. vii. p. 188.

{119a} See 'Letters,' ii. 208.

{119b} Gillies' Memoirs of a Literary Veteran. See Letters, ii. 197, 199.

{120a} An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876.

{120b} Mr. Wade, author of _The Jew of Aragon_, which failed. Mrs. Kemble says (_Atlantic Monthly_, December 1876, p. 707):--

"I was perfectly miserable when the curtain fell, and the poor young
author, as pale as a ghost, came forward to meet my father at the side
scene, and bravely holding out his hand to him said, 'Never mind, Mr.
Kemble, I'll do better another time.'"

{120c} Francisco Javier Elio, a Spanish General, was executed in 1822 for his seventies against the liberals dining the reactionary period 1814- 1820.

{122a} _Atlantic Monthly_, February 1877, p. 222.

{122b} Holbrook, near Ipswich. That she had also some of the family humour is evident from what she wrote to Mr. Crabbe of her brother's early life. 'As regards spiritual advantages out of the house he had none; for our Pastor was one of the old sort, with a jolly red nose caused by good cheer. He used to lay his Hat and Whip on the Communion Table and gabble over the service, running down the Pulpit Stairs not to lose the opportunity of being invited to a good dinner at the Hall.' It was with reference to his sister's husband that FitzGerald in conversation with Tennyson used the expression 'A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman.'

'Why, Fitz,' said Tennyson, 'that's a verse, and a very bad one too.' And they would afterwards humorously contend for the authorship of the worst line in the English language.

{123} _Atlantic Monthly_, February 1877, pp. 210, 211, and pp. 220, 221.

{124a} See note to Letter of Dec. 29_th_ 1875.

{124b} For November 1875, in an article called 'The Judgment of Paris,' p. 400.

{125a} See 'Letters,' ii. 217. This is in my possession.

{125b} It came to an end in April 1877. In a letter to Miss St. Leger, December 31st, 1876 ('Further Records,' ii. 33), Mrs. Kemble says, 'You ask me how I mean to carry on the publication of my articles in the _Atlantic Magazine_ when I leave America; but I do not intend to carry them on. The editor proposed to me to do so, but I thought it would entail so much trouble and uncertainty in the transmission of manuscript and proofs, that it would be better to break off when I came to Europe. The editor will have manuscript enough for the February, March, and April numbers when I come away, and with those I think the series must close. As there is no narrative or sequence of events involved in the publication, it can, of course, be stopped at any moment; a story without an end can end anywhere.'

{126} See letter of December 29th, 1875.

{127a} 15, Connaught Square. See 'Further Records,' ii. 42, etc.

{127b} Valentia Donne marred the Rev. R. F. Smith, minor Canon of Southwell, May 24th, 1877.

{131a} 'We might say in a short word, which means a long matter, that your Shakespeare fashions his characters from the heart outwards, your Scott fashions them from the skin inwards, never getting near the heart of them.'--Carlyle, 'Miscellanies,' vi. 69 (ed. 1869), 'Sir Walter Scott'

{131b} Procter, 'Autobiographical Fragments,' p. 154.

{134a} February 9th, 1878.

{134b} It was not in the _Fortnightly_ but in the _Nineteenth Century_.

{134c} This portrait is in my possession. FitzGerald fastened it in a copy of the 'Poems chiefly Lyrical' (1830) which he gave me bound up with the 'Poems' of 1833. He wrote underneath, 'Done in a Steamboat from Gravesend to London, Jan: 1842.'

{135a} Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus by H. A. J. Munro.

{135b} See 'Letters,' ii. 233, 235, 236, 238, 239.

{136} See 'Letters,' ii. 247.

{138a} See 'Letters,' ii. 243.

{138b} See 'Letters,' ii. 248.

{145} See 'Letters,' ii. 265.

{146} II. 166 (ed. 1826).

{149} John Purcell FitzGerald died at Boulge, May 4th, 1879.

{151a} See letter of May 5th, 1877.

{151b} In a letter to me dated May 7th, 1879, he says:--

'I see by Athenaeum that Charles Tennyson (Turner) is dead. _Now_
people will begin to talk of his beautiful Sonnets: small, but
original, things, as well as beautiful. Especially after that
somewhat absurd Sale of the Brothers' early Editions.'

{152} Gay, _The Beggar's Opera_, Act III, Air 57.

{153} Professor Skeat's Inaugural Lecture, in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for February 1879, pp. 304-313.

{154} Mrs. Sartoris, Mrs. Kemble's sister, died August 4, 1879. See 'Further Records,' ii. 277.

{155} Edwin Edwards, who died September 15. See 'Letters,' ii. 277.

{157} In a letter to me of September 29 1879, he says, "My object in going to London is, to see poor Mrs. Edwards, who writes me that she has much collapsed in strength (no wonder!) after the Trial she endured for near three years more or less, and, you know, a very hard light for the last year . . .

"Besides her, Mrs. Kemble, who has lately lost her Sister, and returned from Switzerland to London just at a time when most of her Friends are out of it--_she_ wants to see me, an old Friend of hers and her Family's, whom she has not seen for more than twenty years. So I do hope to do my 'petit possible' to solace both these poor Ladies at the same time."

{158} On September 11 he wrote to me, 'Ah, pleasant Dunwich Days! I should never know a better Boy than Edwards, nor a braver little Wife than her, were I to live six times as long as I am like to do.'

{160} See letter of October 4, 1875.

{161} Mrs. Leigh's son, Pierce Butler, was born on Sunday, November 2, 1879.

{162} See 'Letters,' ii. 326.

{163a} Mrs. Kemble appears to have adopted this suggestion. In her 'Records of a Girlhood,' ii. 41, she says of Sir Thomas Lawrence, 'He came repeatedly to consult with my mother about the disputed point of my dress, and gave his sanction to her decision upon it. The first dress of Belvidera [in _Venice Preserved_], I remember, was a point of nice discussion between them. . . . I was allowed (not, however, without serious demur on the part of Lawrence) to cover my head with a black hat and white feather.'

{163b} William Mason.

{166} November 10, 1879.

{168} Mrs. De Soyres died at Exeter, December 11, 1879.

{169} Played at St. James's Theatre, December 18, 1879.

{171} 'The Duke's Children.'

{173} Probably the 'Records of Later Life,' published in 1882.

{174} On 1st February 1880, FitzGerald wrote to me:--"Do you know what 'Stub Iron' is? (I do), and what 'Heel-taps' derives from, which Mrs. Kemble asks, and I cannot tell her." This is probably the query referred to.

{175} Beginning 'As men may children at their sports behold!'--Tales of the Hall, book xxi., at the end of 'Smugglers and Poachers.'

{176} In the _Cornhill Magazine_, March 1880, 'The Story of the Merchant of Venice.'

{179} 'An Eye-witness of John Kemble,' by Sir Theodore Martin. The eye- witness is Tieck.

{180a} This letter was written on a Tuesday, and April 6 was a Tuesday in 1880. Moreover, in 1880, at Easter, Donne's house was in quarantine. FitzGerald probably had the advanced sheets of the _Atlantic Monthly_ for May from Professor Norton as early as the beginning of April.

{180b} The _Atlantic Monthly_ for May 1880, contained an article by Mr. G. E. Woodberry on Crabbe, 'A Neglected Poet.' See letter to Professor Norton, May 1, 1880, in 'Letters,' ii. 281.

{181a} No. 39, where FitzGerald's father and mother lived. See 'Records of a Girlhood,' iii. 28.

{181b} See 'Letters,' ii. 138.

{183a} It was Queen Catharine. When Mrs. Siddons called upon Johnson in 1783, he "particularly asked her which of Shakespeare's characters she was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen Catharine, in _Henry the Eighth_, the most natural:--'I think so too, Madam, (said he;) and when ever you perform it, I will once more hobble out to the theatre myself.'"--Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (ed. Birkbeck Hill), iv. 242.

{183b} See letters of February and December 1881.

{184a} See 'Letters,' ii. 244, 249.

{184b} On June 30, 1880, he wrote to me, 'Half her Beauty is the liquid melodiousness of her language--all unpremeditated as a Blackbird's.'

{186} See letter of May 5, 1877.

{187} In a letter to me of the same date he wrote: 'Last night when Miss Tox was just coming, like a good Soul, to ask about the ruined Dombey, we heard a Splash of Rain, and I had the Book shut up, and sat listening to the Shower by myself--till it blew over, I am sorry to say, and no more of the sort all night. But we are thankful for that small mercy.

'I am reading through my Sevigne again--welcome as the flowers of May.'

{188a} On June 9, 1879, FitzGerald wrote to me: "I was from Tuesday to Saturday last in Norfolk with my old Bredfield Party--George, not very well: and, as he has not written to tell me he is better, I am rather anxious. You should know him; and his Country: which is still the old Country which we have lost here; small enclosures, with hedgeway timber: green gipsey drift-ways: and Crome Cottage and Farmhouse of that beautiful yellow 'Claylump' with red pantile roof'd--not the d---d Brick and Slate of these parts."

{188b} See 'Letters,' ii. 290.

{190} See letter of Madame de Sevigne to Madame de Grignan, June 15, 1689.

{191} In one of FitzGerald's Common Place Books he gives the story thus: "When Chancellor Cheverny went home in his Old Age and for the last time, 'Messieurs' (dit-il aux Gentilshommes du Canton accourus pour le saluer), 'Je ressemble au bon Lievre qui vient mourir au Gite.'"

{192a} Tom Taylor died July 12, 1880.

{192b} On July 16 FitzGerald wrote to me: 'Not being assured that you were back from Revision, I wrote yesterday to Cowell asking him--and you, when returned--to call on Professor Goodwin, of American Cambridge, who goes to-morrow to your Cambridge--to see--if not to stay with--Mr. Jebb. Mr. Goodwin proposed to give me a look here before he went to Cambridge: but I told him I could not bear the thought of his coming all this way for such a purpose. I think you can witness that I do not wish even old English Friends to take me except on their way elsewhere: and for an American Gentleman! It is not affectation to say that any such proposal worried me. So what must I do but ask him to be sure to see Messrs. Wright and Cowell when he got to Cambridge: and spend part of one of his days there in going to Bury, and (even if he cared not for the Abbey with its Abbot Samson and Jocelyn) to sit with a Bottle of light wine at the Angel window, face to face with that lovely Abbey gate. Perhaps Cowell, I said, might go over with him--knowing and loving Gothic--that was a liberty for me to take with Cowell, but he need not go--I did not hint at you. I suppose I muddled it all. But do show the American Gentleman some civilities, to make amends for the disrespect which you and Cowell told me of in April.'

{193} The defeat of General Burrows by Ayoub Khan, announced in the House of Commons, July 28, 1880. On July 29 further telegrams reported that General Burrows and other officers had arrived at Candahar after the defeat.

{194} The date should be September 19, which was a Sunday in 1880. Full moon was on September 18.

{197} In her 'Further Records,' i. 295, Mrs. Kemble says, 'Russia leather, you know, is almost an element of the atmosphere of my rooms, as all the shades of violet and purple are of their colouring, so that my familiar friends associate the two with their notions of my habitat.'

{198} See 'Life of Crabbe,' p. 262.

{200} See 'Letters,' ii. 295.

{201a} On 'The Story of the Merchant of Venice' in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for March 1880.

{201b} 'Ballads and other Poems,' 1880.

{202} _Kelter_, condition, order. Forby's 'Vocabulary of East Anglia.'

{203a} See 'Letters,' ii. 110

{203b} 'Medusa and other Tales' (1868), republished in 1880 with a preface by her daughter, Mrs. Gordon.

{205} Full moon February 14th.

{206a} Acted at the Lyceum, January 3rd, 1881.

{206b} For February 1881.

{210} See letters of April 23rd, 1880, and December 1881.

{211a} See 'Letters,' ii. 180, 320.

{211b} Printed in 'Letters,' ii. 298-301.

{214} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 305-7.

{216a} Printed in 'Letters,' ii. 310-312.

{216b} April 17th was Easter Day in 1881.

{217} Madame de Sevigne writes from Chaulnes, April 17th, 1689, 'A peine le vert veut-il montrer le nez; pas un rossignol encore; enfin, l'hiver le 17 d'Avril.'

{218} In _Macmillan's Magazine_ for April 1881.

{219} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 313.

{221} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 312.

{227a} On Madame de Sevigne.

{227b} Published in 1882 as 'Records of Later Life.'

{227c} See letter of August 24th, 1875.

{230} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 320-1.

{231} The correct date is 1794-1805.

{233} 'Evenings with a Reviewer.' The Reviewer was Macaulay, and the review the Essay on Bacon.

{234a} At Boulge.

{234b} He was in London from February 17th to February 20th.

{236} See 'Letters,' ii. 324-6.

{237a} Full moon April 3rd, 1882.

{237b} 'Thomas Carlyle. The Man and His Books.' By W. H. Wylie. 1881, p. 363.

{241a} On May 7 FitzGerald wrote to me from Lowestoft:

"I too am taking some medicine, which, whatever effect it has on me,
leaves an indelible mark on Mahogany: for (of course) I spilled a lot
on my Landlady's Chiffonier, and found her this morning rubbing at the
'damned Spot' with Turpentine, and in vain."

And two days later:

"I was to have gone home to-day: but Worthington wishes me to stay, at
any rate, till the week's end, by which time he thinks to remove what
he calls 'a Crepitation' in one lung, by help of the Medicine which
proved its power on the mahogany. Yesterday came a Cabinet-maker, who
was for more than half an hour employed in returning that to its
'sound and pristine health,' or such as I hope my Landlady will be
satisfied with."

{241b} Serjeant Ballantine's 'Experiences of a Barrister's Life' appeared in March 1882.

{241c} Full moon was June 1st, 1882.

{243a} W. B. Donne died June 20th, 1882.

{243b} This letter is in my possession, and as it indicates what Mr. Froude's plan originally was, though he afterwards modified it, I have thought it worth while to give it in full.

'5 ONSLOW GARDENS, S.W.
'_May_ 19.

'DEAR MR. FITZGERALD,

'Certainly you are no stranger to me. I have heard so often from
Carlyle, and I have read so much in his letters, about your exertions,
and about your entertainment of him at various times, that I can
hardly persuade myself that I never saw you.

'The letters you speak of must be very interesting, and I would ask
you to let me see them if I thought that they were likely to be of use
to me; but the subject with which I have to deal is so vast that I am
obliged to limit myself, and so intricate that I am glad to be able to
limit myself. I shall do what Carlyle desired me to do, _i.e._ edit
the collection of his wife's letters, which he himself prepared for
publication.

'This gift or bequest of his governs the rest of my work. What I have
already done is an introduction to these letters. When they are
published I shall add a volume of personal recollections of his later
life; and this will be all. Had I been left unencumbered by special
directions I should have been tempted to leave his domestic history
untouched except on the outside, and have attempted to make a complete
biography out of the general materials. This I am unable to do, and
all that I can give the world will be materials for some other person
to use hereafter. I can explain no further the conditions of the
problem. But for my own share of it I have materials in abundance,
and I must avoid being tempted off into other matters however
important in themselves.

'I may add for myself that I did not seek this duty, nor was it
welcome to me. C. asked me to undertake it. When I looked through
the papers I saw how difficult, how, in some aspects of it, painful,
the task would be.

'Believe me,
'faithfully yours,
'J. A. FROUDE.'

{245a} Printed in 'Letters,' ii. 332.

{245b} July 30th.

{247} Printed in 'Letters,' ii. 333.

{248} Here begins second half-sheet, dated 'Monday, Sept. 5.'

{249} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 335.

{250a} See letter of June 23rd, 1880.

{250b} Reprinted in 'A Book of Sibyls,' 1883.

{251a} _The Promise of May_ was acted at the Globe Theatre, November 11th, 1882.

{251b} See letter of November 13th, 1879.

{252a} Mrs. Wister's son.

{252b} See letter of March 28th, 1880.

{253a} 'John Leech and other Papers,' 1882.

{253b} November 18th, 1882.

{257} See 'Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle,' ii. 249.

{259} For May 1883: 'Mrs. Carlyle.'

{260} Tennyson's 'Brook.'

{261} In a letter to Sir Frederick Pollock, March 16th, 1879, he says:--

"I have had Sir Walter read to me first of a Night, by way of Drama;
then ten minutes for Refreshment, and then Dickens for Farce. Just
finished the Pirate--as wearisome for Nornas, Minnas, Brendas, etc.,
as any of the Scotch Set; but when the Common People have to talk, the
Pirates to quarrel and swear, then Author and Reader are at home; and
at the end I 'fare' to like this one the best of the Series. The Sea
scenery has much to do with this preference I dare say."

{263} See 'Letters,' ii. 344.