Chapter VI: Miss Mitford (5)

I had a letter to-day from Mr. Chorley; he has been staying all the
autumn with Sir William Molesworth, now a Cabinet Minister, but he
complains terribly about his own health, notwithstanding he has a
play coming out at the Olympic, which Mr. Wigan has taken. Mrs.
Kingsley, a most sweet person, has a cough which has forced them to
send her to the sea. You shall be sure to see both him and Mr.
Willmott if I can compass it; but we live, each of us, seven miles
apart, and these country clergymen are so tied to their parish that
they are difficult to catch. However, they both come to see me
whenever they can, and we must contrive it. You will like both in
different ways. Mr. Willmott is one of the most agreeable men in the
world, and Mr. Kingsley is charming. I have another dear friend, not
an author, whom I prefer to either,--Hugh Pearson. He made for
himself a collection of De Quincey, when a lad at Oxford. You would
like him, I think, better than anybody; but he too is a country
clergyman, living eight miles off. Poor Mr. Norton! His letters were
charming. He is connected in my mind with Mrs. Hemans, too, to whom
he was so kind. You must say everything for me to dear Mrs. Sparks.
I seem most ungrateful to her, but I really have little power of
writing letters just now. Did I tell you that Mr. ---- sent me a
poem called ----, which I am very sorry that he ever wrote. It has
shocked Mr. Bennoch even more than it did me. You must get him to
write more poems like ----. A young friend of mine has brought out a
little volume in which there is striking evidence of talent; but
none of these young writers take pains. How very pretty is that
scrap on a country church! Mrs. Browning is at Florence, but is
going to Rome. She says that your countryman, Mr. Story, has made a
charming statuette, I think of Beethoven, or else of Mendelssohn,
which ought to make his reputation. She is crazy about mediums. She
says (but I have not heard it elsewhere) that Thackeray and Dickens
are to winter at Rome, and Alfred Tennyson at Florence. Mrs.
Trollope has quite recovered, and receives as usual. How full of
beauty Mr. Hillard's book is! thank him for it again and again. Did
I tell you that they are going to engrave a portrait of me by
Haydon, now belonging to Mr. Bennoch, for the Dramatic Works? God
bless you, my very dear friend. Say everything for me to Mr. Ticknor
and Dr. Holmes and Dr. Parsons, and all my friends in Boston. Little
Henry grows a very sensible, intelligent boy, and is a great
favorite at his school. He is getting on with French.

Once more, ever yours, M.R.M.

1854.

(January, 1854.)

My Beloved Friend: They who correspond with sick people must be
content to receive such letters as are sent from hospitals. For many
weeks I have been wholly shut up in my own room, getting with
exceeding difficulty from the bed to the fireside, quite unable to
stir either in the chair or in the bed, but much less miserable up
than when in bed. The terrible cold of last summer did not allow me
to gain any strength, so that although the fire in my room is kept
up night and day, yet a severe attack of influenza came on and would
have carried me off, had not Mr. May been so much alarmed at the
state of the pulse and the general feebleness as to order me two
tablespoonfuls of champagne in water once a day, and a teaspoonful
of brandy also in water, at night, which undoubtedly saved my life.
It is the only good argument for what is called teetotalism that it
keeps more admirable medicines as medicine; for undoubtedly a
wine-drinker, however moderate, would not have been brought round by
the remedy which did me so much good. Miserably feeble I still am,
and shall continue till May or June (if it please God to spare my
life till then), when, if it be fine weather, Sam will lift me down
stairs and into the pony-chaise, and I may get stronger. Well, in
the midst of the terrible cough, which did not allow me to lie down
in bed, and a weakness difficult to describe, I finished "Atherton."
I did it against orders and against warning, because I had an
impression that I should not live to complete it, and I sent it
yesterday to London to dear Mr. Bennoch, so I suppose you will soon
receive the sheets. Almost every line has been written three times
over, and it is certainly the most cheerful and sunshiny story that
was ever composed in such a state of helplessness, feebleness, and
suffering; for the rheumatic pain in the chest not only rendered the
cough terrible (that, thank God, is nearly gone now), but makes the
position of writing one of misery. God grant you may like this
story! I shall at least say in the Preface that it will give me one
pleasure, that of having in the American title-page the names of
dear friends united with mine. Mind I don't know whether the story
be good or bad. I only answer for its having the youthfulness which
you liked in the preface to the plays. Well, dearest friend, just
when I was at the worst came your letter about the ducks and the
ducks themselves. Never were birds so welcome. My friend, Mr. May,
the cleverest and most admirable person whom I know in this
neighborhood, refuses all fees of any sort, and comes twelve miles
to see me, when torn to pieces by all the great folk round, from
pure friendship. Think how glad I was to have such a dainty to offer
him just when he had all his family gathered about him at Christmas.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this great
pleasure, infinitely greater than eating it myself would have been.
They were delicious. How very, very good you are to me!

Has Mrs. Craig written to you to tell you of her marriage? I will
run the risk of repetition and tell you that it is the charming
Margaret De Quincey, who has married the son of a Scotch neighbor.
He has purchased land in Ireland, and they are about to live in
Tipperary,--a district which Irish people tell me is losing its
reputation for being the most disturbed in Ireland, but keeping that
for superior fertility. They are trying to regain a reputation for
literature in Edinburgh. John Ruskin has been giving a series of
lectures on art there, and Mr. Kingsley four lectures on the schools
of Alexandria.

Nothing out of Parliament has for very long made so strong a
sensation as our dear Mr. Bennoch's evidence on the London
Corporation. Three leading articles in The Times paid him the
highest compliments, and you know what that implies. I have myself
had several letters congratulating me on having such a friend. Ah!
the public qualities make but a part of that fine and genial
character, although I firmly believe that the strength is essential
to the tenderness. I always put you and him together, and it is one
of the compensations of my old age to have acquired such friends.

Have you seen Matthew Arnold's poems? They have fine bits. The
author is a son of Dr. Arnold.

God bless you! Say everything for me to my dear American friends,
Drs. Holmes and Parsons, Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Whittier, Mrs. Sparks,
Mr. Taylor, Mr. Whipple, Mr. and Mrs. Willard, and Mr. Ticknor.
Many, very many happy years to them and to you.

Always most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

P.S. I enclose some slips to be pasted into books for my different
American friends. If I have sent too many, you will know which to
omit. I must add to the American preface a line expressive of my
pleasure in joining my name to yours. I will send one line here for
fear of its not going. Mr. May says that those ducks were amongst
the few things thoroughly deserving their reputation, holding the
same place, as compared with our wild ducks, that the finest venison
does to common mutton. I cannot tell you how much I thank you for
enabling me to send such a treat to such a friend. You will send a
copy of the prose book or the dramas, according to your own
pleasure, only I should like the two dear doctors to have the plays.

Swallowfield, January 23, 1854.

I have always to thank you for some kindness, dearest Mr. Fields,
generally for many. How clever those magazines are, especially Mr.
Lowell's article, and Mr. Bayard Taylor's graceful stanzas! Just now
I have to ask you to forward the enclosed to Mr. Whittier. He sent
me a charming poem on Burns, full of tenderness and humanity, and
the indulgence which the wise and good can so well afford, and which
only the wisest and best can show to their erring brethren. I
rejoice to hear that he is getting well again. I myself am weaker
and more helpless every day, and the rheumatic pain in the chest
increases so rapidly, and makes writing so difficult, even the
writing such a note as this, that I cannot be thankful enough for
having finished "Atherton," for I am sure I could not write it now.
There is some chance of my getting better in the summer, if I can be
got into the air, and that must be by being let down in a chair
through a trap-door, like so much railway luggage, for there is not
the slightest power of helping myself left in me,--nothing, indeed,
but the good spirits which Shakespeare gave to Horatio, and Hamlet
envied him. Dearest Mr. Bennoch has made me a superb present,--two
portraits of our Emperor and his fair wife. He all intellect,--never
was a brow so full of thought; she all sweetness,--such a mouth was
never seen, it seems waiting to smile. The beauty is rather of
expression than of feature, which is exactly what it ought to be....

M.R.M.

Swallowfield, May 2, 1854.

My Dear Friend: Long before this time, you will, I hope, have
received the sheets of "Atherton." It has met with an enthusiastic
reception from the English press, and certainly the friends who have
written to me on the subject seem to prefer the tale which fills the
first volume to anything that I have done. I hope you will like
it,--I am sure you will not detect in it the gloom of a
sick-chamber. Mr. May holds out hopes that the summer may do me
good. As yet the spring has been most unfavorable to invalids, being
one combined series of east-wind, so that instead of getting better
I am every day weaker than the last, unable to see more than one
person a day, and quite exhausted by half an hour's conversation. I
hope to be a little better before your arrival, dearest friend,
because I must see you; but any stranger--even Mr. Hawthorne--is
quite out of the question.

You may imagine how kind dear Mr. Bennoch has been all through this
long trial, next after John Ruskin and his admirable father the
kindest of all my friends, and that is saying much.

God bless you. Love to all my friends, poets, prosers, and the dear
----, who are that most excellent thing, readers. I wonder if you
ever received a list of people to whom to send one or other of my
works? I wrote such with little words in my own hand, but writing is
so painful and difficult, and I am always so uncertain of your
getting my letters, that I cannot attempt to send another. There was
one for Mrs. Sparks. I am sure of liking Dr. Parsons's book,--quite
sure. Once again, God bless you! Little Henry grows a nice boy.

Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, July 12, 1854.

Dearest Mr. Fields: Our excellent friend Mr. Bennoch will have told
you from how painful a state of anxiety your most welcome letter
relieved us. You have done quite right, my beloved friend, in
returning to Boston. The voyage, always so trying to you, would,
with your health so deranged, have been most dangerous, and next
year you will find all your friends, except one, as happy to see and
to welcome you. Even if you had arrived now our meeting would have
been limited to minutes. Dr. Parsons will tell you that fresh
feebleness in a person so long tried and so aged (sixty-seven) must
have a speedy termination. May Heaven prolong your valuable life,
dear friend, and grant that you may be as happy yourself as you have
always tried to render others!

I rejoice to hear what you tell me of "Atherton." Here the
reception has been most warm and cordial. Every page of it was
written three times over, so that I spared no pains, but I was
nearly killed by the terrible haste in which it was finished, and I
do believe that many of the sheets were sent to me without ever
being read in the office. I have corrected one copy for the third
English edition, but I cannot undertake such an effort again, so, if
(as I venture to believe) it be destined to be often reprinted by
you, you must correct it from _that_ edition. I hope you sent a copy
to Mr. Whittier from me. I had hoped you would bring one to Mr.
Hawthorne and Mr. De Quincey, but I must try what I can do with Mr.
Hurst, and must depend on you for assuring these valued friends that
it was not neglect or ingratitude on my part.

Mr. Boner, my dear and valued friend, wishes you and dear Mr.
Ticknor to print his "Chamois-Hunting" from a second edition which
Chapman and Hall are bringing out. I sent my copy of the work to Mr.
Bennoch when we were expecting you, that you might see it. It is a
really excellent book, full of interest, with admirable plates,
which you could have, and, speaking in your interest, as much as in
his, I firmly believe that it would answer to you in money as well
as in credit to bring it out in America. Also Mrs. Browning (while
in Italy) wrote to me to inquire if you would like to bring out a
new poem by her, and a new work by her husband. I told her that I
could not doubt it, but that she had better write duplicate letters
to London and to Boston. Our poor little boy is here for his
holidays. His excellent mother and step-father have nursed me rather
as if they had been my children than my servants. Everybody has been
most kind. The champagne, which I believe keeps me alive, is dear
Mr. Bennoch's present; but you will understand how ill I am when I
tell you that my breath is so much affected by the slightest
exertion that I cannot bear even to be lifted into bed, but have
spent the last eight nights sitting up, with my feet supported on a
leg-rest. This from exhaustion, not from disease of the lungs.

Give the enclosed to Dr. Parsons. You know what I have always
thought of his genius. In my mind no poems ever crossed the Atlantic
which approached his stanzas on Dante and on the death of Webster,
and yet you have great poets too. Think how glad and proud I am to
hear of the honor he has done me. I wish you had transcribed the
verses.

God bless you, my beloved friend! Say everything for me to all my
dear friends, to Dr. Parsons, to Dr. Holmes, to Mr. Whittier, to
Professor Longfellow, to Mr. Taylor, to Mr. Stoddard, to Mrs.
Sparks, and above all to the excellent Mr. Ticknor and the dear
W----s.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, July 28, 1854.

My Very Dear Friend: This is a sort of postscript to my last,
written instantly on the receipt of yours and sent through Mr. ----.
I hope you received it, for he is so impetuous that I always a
little doubt his care; at least it was when sent through him that
the loss of letters to and fro took place. However, I enjoined him
to be careful this time, and he assured me that he was so.

The purport of this is to add the name of my friend, Mr. Willmott,
to the authors who wish for the advantage of your firm as their
American publishers. I have begged him to write to you himself, and
I hope he has done so, or that he will do so. But he is staying at
Richmond with sick relatives, and I am not sure. You know his works,
of course. They are becoming more and more popular in England, and
he is writing better and better. The best critical articles in The
Times are by him. He is eminently a scholar, and yet full of
anecdote of the most amusing sort, with a memory like Scott, and a
charming habit of applying his knowledge. His writings become more
and more like his talk, and I am confident that you would find his
works not only most creditable, but most profitable. I would not
recommend you to each other if it were not for your mutual
advantage, so far as my poor judgment goes. On the 25th my Dramatic
Works are to be published here. I hope they have sent you the
sheets.

I have not heard yet from any American friend, except your
delightful letter and one from Grace Greenwood, but I hope I shall.
I prize the good word of such persons as Drs. Parsons and Holmes and
Professor Longfellow and John Whittier and many others. I am still
very ill.

The Brownings remain this year in Italy. If it be very hot, they
will go for a month or two to the Baths of Lucca, but their home is
Florence. She has taken a fancy to an American female sculptor,--a
girl of twenty-two,--a pupil of Gibson's, who goes with the rest of
the fraternity of the studio to breakfast and dine at a _café_, and
yet keeps her character. Also she believes in all your rappings.

God be with you, my very dear friend. I trust you are quite
recovered.

Always affectionately yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, August 21, 1854.

My Dear Mr. Fields: Mr. Bayard Taylor having sent me a most
interesting letter, but no address, I trouble you with my reply.
Read it, and you will perhaps understand that I am declining day by
day, and that, humanly speaking, the end is very near. Perhaps there
may yet be time for an answer to this....

I believe that one reason for your not quite understanding my
illness is, that you, if you have seen long and great sickness at
all, which is doubtful, have seen it with an utter prostration of
the mind and the spirits,--that your women are languid and
querulous, and never dream of bearing up against bodily evils by an
effort of the mind. Even now, when half an hour's visit is utterly
forbidden, and half that time leaves me panting and exhausted, I
never mention (except forced into it by your evident disbelief) my
own illness either in speaking or writing,--never, except to answer
Mr. May's questions, or to join my beloved friend, Mr. Pearson, in
thanking God for the visitation which I humbly hope was sent in his
mercy to draw me nearer to him; may he grant me grace to use
it!--for the rest, whilst the intelligence and the sympathy are
vouchsafed to me, I will write of others, and give to my friends, as
far as in me lies, the thoughts which would hardly be more worthily
bestowed on my own miserable body.

You will be sorry to find that the poor Talfourds are likely to be
very poor. A Reading attorney has run away, cheating half the town.
He has carried off £4,000 belonging to Lady Talfourd, and she
herself tells my friend, William Harness (one of her kindest
friends), that that formed the principal part of the Judge's small
savings, and, together with the sum for which he had insured his
life (only £5,000), was all which they had. Now there are five young
people,--his children,--the widow and an adopted niece, seven in
all, accustomed to every sort of luxury and indulgence. The only
glimpse of hope is, that the eldest son held a few briefs on circuit
and went through them creditably; but it takes many years in England
to win a barrister's reputation, and the poorer our young men are
the more sure they are to marry. Add the strange fact that since the
father's death (he having reserved his copyrights) not a single copy
of any of his books has been sold! A fortnight ago I had a great
fright respecting Miss Martineau, which still continues. James Payn,
who is living at the Lakes, and to whom she has been most kind, says
he fears she will be a great pecuniary sufferer by ----. I only hope
that it is a definite sum, and no general security or
partnership,--even that will be bad enough for a woman of her age,
and so hard a worker, who intended to give herself rest; but observe
these are only _fears_. I _know_ nothing. The Brownings are detained
in Italy, she tells me, for want of money, and cannot even get to
Lucca. This is my bad news,--O, and it is very bad that sweet Mrs.
Kingsley must stay two years in Devonshire and cannot come home. I
expect to see him this week. John Ruskin is with his father and
mother in Switzerland, constantly sending me tokens of friendship.
Everybody writes or sends or comes; never was such kindness. The
Bennochs are in Scotland. He sends me charming letters, having, I
believe, at last discovered what every one else has known long.
Remember me to Mr. Ticknor. Say everything to my Athenian friends
all, especially to Dr. Holmes and Dr. Parsons.

Ever, dear friend, your affectionate M.R.M.

September 26, 1854.

My Very Dear Friend: Your most kind and interesting letter has just
arrived, with one from our good friend, Mr. Bennoch, announcing the
receipt of the £50 bill for "Atherton." More welcome even as a sign
of the prosperity of the book in a country where I have so many
friends and which I have always loved so well, than as money,
although in that way it is a far greater comfort than you probably
guess, this very long and very severe illness obliging me to keep a
third maid-servant. I get no sleep,--not on an average an hour a
night,--and require perpetual change of posture to prevent the skin
giving way still more than it does, and forming what we emphatically
call bed-sores, although I sit up night and day, and have no other
relief than the being, to a slight extent, shifted from one position
to another in the chair that I never quit. Besides this, there are
many other expenses. I tell you this, dear friend, that Mr. Ticknor
and yourself may have the satisfaction of knowing that, besides all
that you have done for many years for my gratification, you have
been of substantial use in this emergency. In spite of all this
illness, after being so entirely given over that dear Mr. Pearson,
leaving me a month ago to travel with Arthur Stanley for a month,
took a final leave of me, I have yet revived greatly during these
last three weeks. I owe this, under Providence, to my admirable
friend, Mr. May, who, instead of abandoning the stranded ship, as is
common in these cases, has continued, although six miles off, and
driving four pair of horses a day, ay, and while himself hopeless of
my case, to visit me constantly and to watch every symptom, and
exhaust every resource of his great art, as if his own fame and
fortune depended on the result. One kind but too sanguine friend,
Mr. Bennoch, is rather over-hopeful about this amendment, for I am
still in a state in which the slightest falling back would carry me
off, and in which I can hardly think it possible to weather the
winter. If that incredible contingency should arise, what a
happiness it would be to see you in April! But I must content myself
with the charming little portrait you have sent me, which is your
very self. Thank you for it over and over. Thank you, too, for the
batch of notices on "Atherton."....

Dr. Parsons's address is very fine, and makes me still more desire
to see his volume; and the letter from Dr. Holmes is charming, so
clear, so kind, and so good. If I had been a boy, I would have
followed their noble profession. Three such men as Mr. May, Dr.
Parsons, and Dr. Holmes are enough to confirm the predilection that
I have always had for the art of healing.

I have no good news to tell you of dear Mr. K----. His sweet wife
(Mr. Ticknor will remember her) has been three times at death's door
since he saw her here, and must spend at least two winters more at
Torquay. But I don't believe that he could stay here even if she
were well. Bramshill has fallen into the hands of a Puseyite parson,
who, besides that craze, which is so flagrant as to have made dear
Mr. K---- forbid him his pulpit, is subject to fits of raving
madness,--one of those most dangerous lunatics whom an age (in which
there is a great deal of false humanity) never shuts up until some
terrible crime has been committed. (A celebrated mad-doctor said the
other day of this very man, that he had "homicidal madness.") You
may fancy what such a Squire, opposing him in every way, is to the
rector of the parish. Mr. K---- told me last winter that he was
driving him mad, and I am fully persuaded that he would make a large
sacrifice of income to exchange his parish. To make up for this, he
is working himself to death, and I greatly fear that his excess of
tobacco is almost equal to the opium of Mr. De Quincey. With his
temperament this is full of danger. He was only here for two or
three days to settle a new curate, but he walked over to see me, and
I will take care that he receives your message. His regard for me
is, I really believe, sincere and very warm. Remember that all this
is in strict confidence. The kindness that people show to me is
something surprising. I have not deserved it, but I receive it most
gratefully. It touches one's very heart. Will you say everything for
me to my many kind friends, too many to name? I had a kind letter
from Mrs. Sparks the other day. The poets I cling to while I can
hold a pen. God bless you.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Can you contrive to send a copy of your edition of "Atherton" to Mr.
Hawthorne? Pray, dear friend, do if you can.

October 12, 1854

My Very Dear Friend: I can hardly give you a greater proof of
affection, than in telling you that your letter of yesterday
affected me to tears, and that I thanked God for it last night in my
prayers; so much a mercy does it seem to me to be still beloved by
one whom I have always loved so much. I thank you a thousand times
for that letter and for the book. I enclose you my own letter to
dear Dr. Parsons. Read it before giving it to him. I could not help
being amused at his having appended my name to a poem in some sort
derogating from the fame of the only Frenchman who is worthy to be
named after the present great monarch. I hope I have not done wrong
in confessing my faith. Holding back an opinion is often as much a
falsehood as the actual untruth itself, and so I think it would be
here. Now we have the book, do you remember through whom you sent
the notices? If you do, let me know. You will see by my letter to
Dr. Parsons that ---- dined here yesterday, under K----'s auspices.
He invited himself for three days,--luckily I have Mr. Pearson to
take care of him,--and still more luckily I told him frankly
yesterday that three days would be too much, for I had nearly died
last night of fatigue and exhaustion and their consequences.
To-night I shall leave all to my charming friend. There is nobody
like John Ruskin for refinement and eloquence. You will be glad to
hear that he has asked me for a letter to dear Mr. Bennoch to help
him in his schools of Art,--I mean with advice. This will, I hope,
bring our dear friend out of the set he is in, and into that where I
wish to see him, for John Ruskin must always fill the very highest
position. God bless you all, dear friends!

Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

Love to all my friends.

You have given me a new motive for clinging to life by coming to
England in April. Till this pull-back yesterday, I was better,
although still afraid of being lifted into bed, and with small hope
of getting alive through the winter. God bless you!

October 18, 1854.

My Very Dear Friend: Another copy of dear Dr. Parsons's book has
arrived, with a charming, most charming letter from him, and a copy
of your edition of "Atherton." It is very nicely got up indeed, the
portrait the best of any engraving that has been made of me, at
least, any recent engraving. May I have a few copies of that
engraving when you come to England? And if I should be gone, will
you let poor K---- have one? The only thing I lament in the American
"Atherton" is that a passage that I wrote to add to that edition has
been omitted. It was to the purport of my having a peculiar pleasure
in the prospect of that reprint, because few things could be so
gratifying to me as to find my poor name conjoined with those of the
great and liberal publishers, for one of whom I entertain so much
respect and esteem, and for the other so true and so lively an
affection. The little sentence was better turned much, but that was
the meaning. No doubt it was in one of my many missing letters. I
even think I sent it twice,--I should greatly have liked that little
paragraph to be there. May I ask you to give the enclosed to dear
Dr. Parsons? There are noble lines in his book, which gains much by
being known. Dear John Ruskin was here when it arrived, and much
pleased with it on turning over the leaves, and he is the most
fastidious of men. I must give him the copy. His praise is indeed
worth having. I am as when I wrote last. God bless you, beloved
friend.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

December 23, 1854.

Your dear affectionate letter, dearest and kindest friend, would
have given me unmingled pleasure had it conveyed a better account of
your business prospects. Here, from what I can gather, and from the
sure sign of all works of importance being postponed, the trade is
in a similar state of depression, caused, they say, by this war,
which but for the wretched imbecility of our ministers could never
have assumed so alarming an appearance. Whether we shall recover
from it, God only knows. My hope is in Louis Napoleon; but that
America will rally seems certain enough. She has elbow-room, and,
moreover, she is not unused to rapid transitions from high
prosperity to temporary difficulty, and so back again. Moreover,
dear friend, I have faith in you..... God bless you, my dear friend!
May he send to both of you health and happiness and length of days,
and so much of this world's goods as is needful to prevent anxiety
and insure comfort. I have known many rich people in my time, and
the result has convinced me that with great wealth some deep black
shadow is as sure to walk, as it is to follow the bright sunshine.
So I never pray for more than the blessed enough for those whom I
love best.

And very dearly do I love my American friends,--you best of
all,--but all very dearly, as I have cause. Say this, please, to Dr.
Parsons and Dr. Holmes (admiring their poems is a sort of touchstone
of taste with me, and very, very many stand the test well) and dear
Bayard Taylor, a man soundest and sweetest the nearer one gets to
the kernel, and good, kind John Whittier, who has the fervor of the
poet ingrafted into the tough old Quaker stock, and Mr. Stoddard,
and Mrs. Lippincott, and Mrs. Sparks, and the Philadelphia Poetess,
and dear Mr. and Mrs. W----, and your capital critics and orators.
Remember me to all who think of me; but keep the choicest tenderness
for yourself and your wife.

Do you know those books which pretend to have been written from one
hundred to two hundred years ago,--"Mary Powell" (Milton's
Courtship), "Cherry and Violet," and the rest? Their fault is that
they are too much alike. The authoress (a Miss Manning) sent me some
of them last winter, with some most interesting letters. Then for
many months I ceased to hear from her, but a few weeks ago she sent
me her new Christmas book,--"The Old Chelsea Bun House,"--and told
me she was dying of a frightful internal complaint. She suffers
martyrdom, but bears it like a saint, and her letters are better
than all the sermons in the world. May God grant me the same
cheerful submission! I try for it and pray that it be granted, but I
have none of the enthusiastic glow of devotion, so real and so
beautiful in Miss Manning. My faith is humble and lowly,--not that I
have the slightest doubt,--but I cannot get her rapturous assurance
of acceptance. My friend, William Harness, got me to employ our kind
little friend, Mr. ----, to procure for him Judge Edmonds's
"Spiritualism." What an odious book it is! there is neither respect
for the dead nor the living. Mrs. Browning believes it all; so does
Bulwer, who is surrounded by mediums who summon his dead daughter.
It is too frightful to talk about. Mr. May and Mr. Pearson both
asked me to send it away, for fear of its seizing upon my nerves. I
get weaker and weaker, and am become a mere skeleton. Ah, dear
friend, come when you may, you will find only a grave at
Swallowfield. Once again, God bless you and yours!

Ever yours, M, R.M.

"_BARRY CORNWALL_"
_And Some Of His Friends_.

* * * * *

"_All, all are gone, the old familiar faces_."
CHARLES LAMB.

"_Old Acquaintance, shall the nights
You and I once talked together,
Be forgot like common things?_"

* * * * *

"_His thoughts half hid in golden dreams,
Which make thrice fair the songs and streams
Of Air and Earth_."

* * * * *

"_Song should breathe of scents and flowers;
Song should like a river flow;
Song should bring back scenes and hours
That we loved,--ah, long ago!_"
BARRY CORNWALL.

VII. "BARRY CORNWALL" AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS.

There is no portrait in my possession more satisfactory than the small one of Barry Cornwall, made purposely for me in England, from life. It is a thoroughly honest resemblance.

I first saw the poet five-and-twenty years ago, in his own house in London, at No. 13 Upper Harley Street, Cavendish Square. He was then declining into the vale of years, but his mind was still vigorous and young. My letter of introduction to him was written by Charles Sumner, and it proved sufficient for the beginning of a friendship which existed through a quarter of a century. My last interview with him occurred in 1869. I found him then quite feeble, but full of his old kindness and geniality. His speech was somewhat difficult to follow, for he had been slightly paralyzed not long before; but after listening to him for half an hour, it was easy to understand nearly every word he uttered. He spoke with warm feeling of Longfellow, who had been in London during that season, and had called to see his venerable friend before proceeding to the Continent. "Wasn't it good of him," said the old man, in his tremulous voice, "to think of _me_ before he had been in town twenty-four hours?" He also spoke of his dear companion, John Kenyon, at whose house we had often met in years past, and he called to mind a breakfast party there, saying with deep feeling, "And you and I are the only ones now alive of all who came together that happy morning!"

A few months ago,[*] at the great age of eighty-seven, Bryan Waller Procter, familiarly and honorably known in English literature for sixty years past as "Barry Cornwall," calmly "fell on sleep." The schoolmate of Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel at Harrow, the friend and companion of Keats, Lamb, Shelley, Coleridge, Landor, Hunt, Talfourd, and Rogers, the man to whom Thackeray "affectionately dedicated" his "Vanity Fair," one of the kindest souls that ever gladdened earth, has now joined the great majority of England's hallowed sons of song. No poet ever left behind him more fragrant memories, and he will always be thought of as one whom his contemporaries loved and honored. No harsh word will ever be spoken by those who have known him of the author of "Marcian Colonna," "Mirandola," "The Broken Heart," and those charming lyrics which rank the poet among the first of his class. His songs will be sung so long as music wedded to beautiful poetry is a requisition anywhere. His verses have gone into the Book of Fame, and such pieces as "Touch us gently, Time," "Send down thy winged Angel, God," "King Death," "The Sea," and "Belshazzar is King," will long keep his memory green. Who that ever came habitually into his presence can forget the tones of his voice, the tenderness in his gray retrospective eyes, or the touch of his sympathetic hand laid on the shoulder of a friend! The elements were indeed so kindly mixed in him that no bitterness or rancor or jealousy had part or lot in his composition. No distinguished person was ever more ready to help forward the rising and as yet nameless literary man or woman who asked his counsel and warm-hearted suffrage. His mere presence was sunshine to a new-comer into the world of letters and criticism, for he was always quick to encourage, and slow to disparage anybody. Indeed, to be _human_ only entitled any one who came near him to receive the gracious bounty of his goodness and courtesy. He made it the happiness of his life never to miss, whenever opportunity occurred, the chance of conferring pleasure and gladness on those who needed kind words and substantial aid.

[Footnote *: October, 1874.]

His equals in literature venerated and loved him. Dickens and Thackeray never ceased to regard him with the deepest feeling, and such men as Browning and Tennyson and Carlyle and Forster rallied about him to the last. He was the delight of all those interesting men and women who habitually gathered around Rogers's famous table in the olden time, for his manner had in it all the courtesy of genius, without any of that chance asperity so common in some literary circles. The shyness of a scholar brooded continually over him and made him reticent, but he was never silent from ill-humor. His was that true modesty so excellent in ability, and so rare in celebrities petted for a long time in society. His was also that happy alchemy of mind which transmutes disagreeable things into golden and ruby colors like the dawn. His temperament was the exact reverse of Fuseli's, who complained that "_nature_ put him out." A beautiful spirit has indeed passed away, and the name of "Barry Cornwall," beloved in both hemispheres, is now sanctified afresh by the seal of eternity so recently stamped upon it.

It was indeed a privilege for a young American, on his first travels abroad, to have "Barry Cornwall" for his host in London. As I recall the memorable days and nights of that long-ago period, I wonder at the good fortune which brought me into such relations with him, and I linger with profound gratitude over his many acts of unmerited kindness. One of the most intimate rambles I ever took with him was in 1851, when we started one morning from a book-shop in Piccadilly, where we met accidentally. I had been in London only a couple of days, and had not yet called upon him for lack of time. Several years had elapsed since we had met, but he began to talk as if we had parted only a few hours before. At first I thought his mind was impaired by age, and that he had forgotten how long it was since we had spoken together. I imagined it possible that he mistook me for some one else; but very soon I found that his memory was not at fault, for in a few minutes he began to question me about old friends in America, and to ask for information concerning the probable sea-sick horrors of an Atlantic voyage. "I suppose," said he, "knowing your infirmity, you found it hard work to stand on your immaterial legs, as Hood used to call Lamb's quivering limbs." Sauntering out into the street, he went on in a quaintly humorous way to imagine what a rough voyage must be to a real sufferer, and thus walking gayly along, we came into Leadenhall Street. There he pointed out the office where his old friend and fellow-magazinist, "Elia," spent so many years of hard work from ten until four o'clock of every day. Being in a mood for reminiscence, he described the Wednesday evenings he used to spend with "Charles and Mary" and their friends around the old "mahogany-tree" in Russell Street. I remember he tried to give me an idea of how Lamb looked and dressed, and how he stood bending forward to welcome his guests as they arrived in his humble lodgings. Procter thought nothing unimportant that might serve in any way to illustrate character, and so he seemed to wish that I might get an exact idea of the charming person both of us prized so ardently and he had known so intimately. Speaking of Lamb's habits, he said he had never known his friend to drink immoderately except upon one occasion, and he observed that "Elia," like Dickens, was a small and delicate eater. With faltering voice he told me of Lamb's "givings away" to needy, impoverished friends whose necessities were yet greater than his own. His secret charities were constant and unfailing, and no one ever suffered hunger when he was by. He could not endure to see a fellow-creature in want if he had the means to feed him. Thinking, from a depression of spirits which Procter in his young manhood was once laboring under, that perhaps he was in want of money, Lamb looked him earnestly in the face as they were walking one day in the country together, and blurted out, in his stammering way, "My dear boy, I have a hundred-pound note in my desk that I really don't know what to do with: oblige me by taking it and getting the confounded thing out of my keeping." "I was in no need of money," said Procter, "and I declined the gift; but it was hard work to make Lamb believe that I was not in an impecunious condition."

Speaking of Lamb's sister Mary, Procter quoted Hazlitt's saying that "Mary Lamb was the most rational and wisest woman he had ever been acquainted with." As we went along some of the more retired streets in the old city, we had also, I remember, much gossip about Coleridge and his manner of reciting his poetry, especially when "Elia" happened to be among the listeners, for the philosopher put a high estimate upon Lamb's critical judgment. The author of "The Ancient Mariner" always had an excuse for any bad habit to which he was himself addicted, and he told Procter one day that perhaps snuff was the final cause of the human nose. In connection with Coleridge we had much reminiscence of such interesting persons as the Novellos, Martin Burney, Talfourd, and Crabb Robinson, and a store of anecdotes in which Haydon, Manning, Dyer, and Godwin figured at full length. In course of conversation I asked my companion if he thought Lamb had ever been really in love, and he told me interesting things of Hester Savory, a young Quaker girl of Pentonville, who inspired the poem embalming the name of Hester forever, and of Fanny Kelly, the actress with "the divine plain face," who will always live in one of "Elia's" most exquisite essays. "He had a _reverence_ for the sex," said Procter, "and there were tender spots in his heart that time could never entirely cover up or conceal."

During our walk we stepped into Christ's Hospital, and turned to the page on its record book where together we read this entry: "October 9, 1782, Charles Lamb, aged seven years, son of John Lamb, scrivener, and Elizabeth his wife."

It was a lucky morning when I dropped in to bid "good morrow" to the poet as I was passing his house one day, for it was then he took from among his treasures and gave to me an autograph letter addressed to himself by Charles Lamb in 1829. I found the dear old man alone and in his library, sitting at his books, with the windows wide open, letting in the spring odors. Quoting, as I entered, some lines from Wordsworth embalming May mornings, he began to talk of the older poets who had worshipped nature with the ardor of lovers, and his eyes lighted up with pleasure when I happened to remember some almost forgotten stanza from England's "Helicon." It was an easy transition from the old bards to "Elia," and he soon went on in his fine enthusiastic way to relate several anecdotes of his eccentric friend. As I rose to take leave he said,--

"Have I ever given you one of Lamb's letters to carry home to America?"

"No," I replied, "and you must not part with the least scrap of a note in 'Elia's' handwriting. Such things are too precious to be risked on a sea-voyage to another hemisphere."

"America ought to share with England in these things," he rejoined; and leading me up to a sort of cabinet in the library, he unlocked a drawer and got out a package of time-stained papers. "Ah," said he, as he turned over the golden leaves, "here is something you will like to handle." I unfolded the sheet, and lo! it was in Keats's handwriting, the sonnet on first looking into Chapman's Homer. "Keats gave it to me," said Procter, "many, many years ago," and then he proceeded to read, in tones tremulous with delight, these undying lines:--

"Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many Western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

I sat gazing at the man who had looked on Keats in the flush of his young genius, and wondered at my good fortune. As the living poet folded up again the faded manuscript of the illustrious dead one, and laid it reverently in its place, I felt grateful for the honor thus vouchsafed to a wandering stranger in a foreign land, and wished that other and worthier votaries of English letters might have been present to share with me the boon of such an interview. Presently my hospitable friend, still rummaging among the past, drew out a letter, which was the one, he said, he had been looking after. "Cram it into your pocket," he cried, "for I hear ---- coming down stairs, and perhaps she won't let you carry it off!" The letter is addressed to B.W. Procter, Esq., 10 Lincoln's Inn, New Square. I give the entire epistle here just as it stands in the original which Procter handed me that memorable May morning. He told me that the law question raised in this epistle was a sheer fabrication of Lamb's, gotten up by him to puzzle his young correspondent, the conveyancer. The coolness referred to between himself and Robinson and Talfourd, Procter said, was also a fiction invented by Lamb to carry out his legal mystification.

"_Jan'y_ 19, 1829.

"My Dear Procter,--I am ashamed to have not taken the drift of your
pleasant letter, which I find to have been pure invention. But jokes
are not suspected in Boeotian Enfield. We are plain people, and our
talk is of corn, and cattle, and Waltham markets. Besides I was a
little out of sorts when I received it. The fact is, I am involved
in a case which has fretted me to death, and I have no reliance
except on you to extricate me. I am sure you will give me your best
legal advice, having no professional friend besides but Robinson and
Talfourd, with neither of whom at present I am on the best terms. My
brother's widow left a will, made during the lifetime of my brother,
in which I am named sole Executor, by which she bequeaths forty
acres of arable property, which it seems she held under Covert
Baron, unknown to my Brother, to the heirs of the body of Elizabeth
Dowden, her married daughter by her first husband, in fee simple,
recoverable by fine--invested property, mind, for there is the
difficulty--subject to leet and quit rent--in short, worded in the
most guarded terms, to shut out the property from Isaac Dowden the
husband. Intelligence has just come of the death of this person in
India, where he made a will, entailing this property (which seem'd
entangled enough already) to the heirs of his body, that should not
be born of his wife; for it seems by the Law in India natural
children can recover. They have put the cause into Exchequer Process
here, removed by Certiorari from the Native Courts, and the question
is whether I should as Executor, try the cause here, or again
re-remove to the Supreme Sessions at Bangalore, which I understand I
can, or plead a hearing before the Privy Council here. As it
involves all the little property of Elizabeth Dowden, I am anxious
to take the fittest steps, and what may be the least expensive. For
God's sake assist me, for the case is so embarrassed that it
deprives me of sleep and appetite. M. Burney thinks there is a Case
like it in Chapt. 170 Sect. 5 in Fearn's _Contingent Remainders_.
Pray read it over with him dispassionately, and let me have the
result. The complexity lies in the questionable power of the husband
to alienate in usum enfeoffments whereof he was only collaterally
seized, etc."

[On the leaf at this place there are some words in another hand.--F.]