To Bernard Barton.

BEDFORD, Septr. 8/45.

DEAR BARTON,

On Thursday I move towards Norwich; where I see Donne, hear some music, and go to Geldestone. But before this month is over, I hope to be at my Cottage again, where I have my garden to drain, and other important matters.

Do you know I have been greatly tempted to move my quarters from Boulge to this country; so exact a place have I found to suit me. But we will wait.

My noble Preacher Matthews {197} is dead! He had a long cold, which he promoted in all ways of baptizing, watching late and early, travelling in rain, etc., he got worse; but would send for no Doctor, the Lord would raise him up if it were good for him, etc. Last Monday this cold broke out into Typhus fever; and on Thursday he died! I had been out to Naseby for three days, and as I returned on Friday at dusk I saw a coffin carrying down the street: I knew whose it must be. I would have given a great deal to save his life; which might certainly have been saved with common precaution. He died in perfect peace, approving all the principles of his life to be genuine. I am going this afternoon to attend his Funeral. . . . Cromwell is to be out in October; and Laurence has been sent to Archdeacon Berners's to make a copy of Oliver's miniature.

To W. B. Donne.

GELDESTONE, Septr. 23/45.

DEAR DONNE,

I left one volume of your Swift with good Mrs. Johnson at Norwich; and the other with your Mother at Worship's house in Yarmouth. So I trust you are in a fair way to get them again.

I sat through one Concert and one Oratorio; {198} and on Thursday went to Yarmouth, which I took a great fancy to. The sands were very good, I assure you; and then when one is weary of the sea, there is the good old town to fall back on. There is Mr. Gooch the Bookseller too; he and his books a great acquisition. I called on Dawson Turner, and in an incredibly short space of time saw several books of coats of Arms, Churches, Refectories, pyxes, cerements, etc.

Manage to read De Quincey's Article on Wordsworth in the last number of Tail's Magazine. It is very incomplete, like all De Quincey's things, but has grand things in it; grand sounds of sense if nothing else. I am glad to see he sets up Daddy's early Ballads against the Excursion and other Sermons.

I intend to leave this place the end of this week; and go, I suppose, to Boulge; though I have yet a hankering to get a week by the sea, either at Yarmouth or Southwold. . . . Don't you think 3 pounds very cheap for a fine copy of Rushworth's Collections, eight volumes folio? I was tempted to buy it if only for the bargain; for I only want to look through it once.

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE. [After Sept. 1845.]

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I do beg and desire that when you next begin a letter to me you will not tear it up (as you say you have done some) because of its exhibiting a joviality insulting to any dumps of mine. What was I complaining of so? I forget all about it. It seems to me to be two years since I heard from you. If you had said that my answers to your letters were so barren as to dishearten you from deserving any more I should understand that very well. But if you really did accomplish any letters and not send them, I say, a fico for thy friendship! Do so no more. . . .

The finale of C minor is very noble. I heard it twice at Jullien's. On the whole I like to hear Mozart better; Beethoven is gloomy. Besides incontestably Mozart is the purest musician; Beethoven would have been Poet or Painter as well, for he had a great deep Soul and Imagination. I do not think it is reported that he showed any very early predilection for Music; Mozart, we know, did. They say Holmes has published a very good life of M. Only think of the poor fellow not being able to sell his music latterly, getting out of fashion, so taking to drink . . . and enact Harlequin at Masquerades! When I heard Handel's Alexander's Feast at Norwich this Autumn I wondered; but when directly afterward they played Mozart's G minor Symphony, it seemed as if I had passed out of a land of savages into sweet civilized Life.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE. [? March 1846.]

DEAR FREDERIC,

I have been wondering some time if you were gone abroad again or not. I go to London toward the end of April: can't you manage to wait in England? I suppose you will only be a day or two in London before you put foot in rail, coach, or on steamer for the Continent; and I excuse my own dastardly inactivity in not going up to meet you and shake hands with you before you start, by my old excuse; that had you but let me know of your coming to England, I should have seen you. This is no excuse; but don't put me out of your books as a frog-hearted wretch. I believe that I, as men usually do, grow more callous and indifferent daily: but I am sure I would as soon travel to see your face, and my dear old Alfred's, as any one's. But beside my inactivity, I have a sort of horror of plunging into London; which, except for a shilling concert, and a peep at the pictures, is desperate to me. This is my fault, not London's: I know it is a lassitude and weakness of soul that no more loves the ceaseless collision of Beaux Esprits, than my obese ill-jointed carcase loves bundling about in coaches and steamers. And, as you say, the dirt, both of earth and atmosphere, in London, is a real bore. But enough of that. It is sufficient that it is more pleasant to me to sit in a clean room, with a clear air outside, and hedges just coming into leaf, rather than in the Tavistock or an upper floor of Charlotte Street. And how much better one's books read in country stillness, than amid the noise of wheels, crowds, etc., or after hearing them eternally discussed by no less active tongues! In the mean time, we of Woodbridge are not without our luxuries; I enclose you a play-bill just received; I being one of the distinguished Members who have bespoken the play. We sha'n't all sit together in a Box, but go dispersed about the house with our wives and daughters.

White {201} I remember very well. His Tragedy I have seen advertised. He used to write good humorous things in Blackwood: among them, Hints to Authors, which are worth looking at when you get hold of an odd volume of Blackwood. I have got Thackeray's last book, {202} but have not yet been able to read it. Has any one heard of old Morton, and of his arrival at Stamboul, as he called it? . . .

Now it is a fact that as I lay in bed this morning, before I got your letter, I thought to myself I would write to Alfred. For he sent me a very kind letter two months ago; and I should have written to him before, but that I have looked in vain for a paper I wanted to send him. But, find it or not (and it is of no consequence) I will write to him very shortly. You do not mention if he be with you at Cheltenham. He spoke to me of being ill. . . . I think you should publish some of your poems. They must be admired and liked; and you would gain a place to which you are entitled, and which it offends no man to hold. I should like much to see them again. The whole subjective scheme (damn the word!) of the poems I did not like; but that is quite a genuine mould of your soul; and there are heaps of single lines, couplets, and stanzas, which would consume all the —-, —-, and —-, like stubble. N.B. An acute man would ask how I should like you, if I do not like your own genuine reflex of you? But a less acute, and an acuter, man, will feel or see the difference.

So here is a good sheet full; and at all events, if I am too lazy to travel to you, I am not too lazy to write such a letter as few of one's contemporaries will now take the pains to write to one. I beg you to remember me to all your noble family, and believe me yours ever,

EDW. FITZGERALD.

To W. B. Donne.

BOULGE, Sunday, March 8/46.

MY DEAR DONNE,

I was very sorry you did not come to us at Geldestone. I have been home now near a fortnight; else I would gladly have gone to Mattishall with you yesterday. This very Sunday, on which I now hear the Grundisburgh bells as I write, I might have been filled with the bread of Life from Padden's hands.

Our friend Barton is certainly one of the most remarkable men of the Age. After writing to Peel two separate Sonnets, begging him to retire to Tamworth and not alter the Corn Laws, he finally sends him another letter to ask if he will be present at Lord Northampton's soiree next Saturday; Barton himself being about to go to that soiree, and wishing to see the Premier. On which Peel writes him a most good humoured note asking him to dine at Whitehall Gardens on that same Saturday! And the good Barton is going up for that purpose. {203} All this is great simplicity in Barton: and really announces an internal Faith that is creditable to this Age, and almost unexpected in it. I had advised him not to send Peel many more Sonnets till the Corn Law was passed; the Indian war arranged; and Oregon settled: but Barton sees no dragon in the way.

We have actors now at Woodbridge. A Mr. Gill who was low comedian in the Norwich now manages a troop of his own here. His wife was a Miss Vining; she is a pretty woman, and a lively pleasant actress, not vulgar. I have been to see some of the old comedies with great pleasure; and last night I sat in a pigeon-hole with David Fisher and 'revolved many memories' of old days and old plays. I don't think he drinks so much now: but he looks all ready to blossom out into carbuncles.

We all liked your Athenaeum address much; {204a} which I believe I told you before. I have heard nothing of books or friends. I shall hope to see you some time this spring.

To E. B. Cowell. {204b}

[1846]

DEAR COWELL,

I am glad you have bought Spinoza. I am in no sort of hurry for him: you may keep him a year if you like. I shall perhaps never read him now I have him. Thank you for the trouble you took. . . .

Your Hafiz is fine: and his tavern world is a sad and just idea. I did not send that vine leaf {205a} to A. T. but I have not forgotten it. It sticks in my mind.

"In Time's fleeting river The image of that little vine-leaf lay, Immovably unquiet—and for ever It trembles—but it cannot pass away." {205b}

I have read nothing you would care for since I saw you. It would be a good work to give us some of the good things of Hafiz and the Persians; of bulbuls and ghuls we have had enough.

Come and bring over Spinoza; or I must go and bring him.

From T. Carlyle.

CHELSEA, 8 April, 1846.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

I have now put the little sketch of Naseby Fight, {205c} rough and ready, into its place in the Appendix: it really does pretty well, when it is fairly written out; had I had time for that, it might almost have gone into the Text,—and perhaps shall, if ever I live to see another edition. Naseby Field will then have its due honour;—only you should actually raise a stone over that Grave that you opened (I will give you the shinbone back and keep the teeth): you really should, with a simple Inscription saying merely in business English: 'Here, as proved by strict and not too impious examination, lie the slain of the Battle of Naseby. Dig no farther. E. FitzGerald,—1843.' By the bye, was it 1843 or 2; when we did those Naseby feats? tell me, for I want to mark that in the Book. And so here is your Paper again, since at any rate you wish to keep that. I am serious about the stone!

To W. B. Donne.

BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE. [1846.]

MY DEAR DONNE,

I don't know which of us is most to blame for this long gulph of silence. Probably I; who have least to do. I have been for two months to London; where (had I thought it of any use) I should have written to try and get you up for a few days; as I had a convenient lodging, and many beside myself would have been glad to see you.

I came back a week ago; and on looking in at Barton's last evening he showed me your letter with such pleasure as he is wont to receive your letters with. And there I read all the surprising story of your moving to old Bury. When I passed through Cambridge two months ago, Thompson said (I think) that he had seen you; and that you had given up thoughts of Bury. But now you are going. As you say, you will then be nearer to us than you now are at Mattishall; especially when our Railroad shall be completed. In my journeys to and from Bedfordshire, I shall hope to stay a night at the good old Angel, and so have a chat with you.

I saw very little of Spedding in London; for he was out all day at State paper offices and Museums; and I out by night at Operas, etc., with my Mother. He is however well and immutable. A. Tennyson was in London; for two months striving to spread his wings to Italy or Switzerland. It has ended in his flying to the Isle of Wight till Autumn, when Moxon promises to convoy him over; and then God knows what will become of him and whether we shall ever see his august old body over here again. He was in a ricketty state of body; brought on wholly by neglect, etc., but in fair spirits; and one had the comfort of seeing the Great Man. Carlyle goes on fretting and maddening as usual. Have you read his Cromwell? Are you converted, or did you ever need conversion? I believe I remain pretty much where I was. I think Milton, who is the best evidence Cromwell has in his favour, warns him somewhat prophetically at the end of his Second Defence against taking on him Kingship, etc., and in the tract on the State of England in 1660 (just before it was determined to bring back Charles the Second) he says nothing at all of Cromwell, no panegyric; but glances at the evil ambitious men in the Army have done; and, now that all is open to choose, prays for a pure Republic! So I herd with the flunkies and lackies, I doubt; but am yours notwithstanding,

E. F. G.

To E. B. Cowell.

BEDFORD, Septr. 15/46.

DEAR COWELL,

Here I am at last, after making a stay at Lowestoft, where I sailed in boats, bathed, and in all ways enjoyed the sea air. I wished for you upon a heathy promontory there, good museum for conversation on old poets, etc. What have you been reading, and what tastes of rare Authors have you to send me? I have read (as usual with me) but very little, what with looking at the sea with its crossing and recrossing ships, and dawdling with my nieces of an evening. Besides a book is to me what Locke says that watching the hour hand of a clock is to all; other thoughts (and those of the idlest and seemingly most irrelevant) will intrude between my vision and the written words: and then I have to read over again; often again and again till all is crossed and muddled. If Life were to be very much longer than is the usual lot of men, one would try very hard to reform this lax habit, and clear away such a system of gossamer association: even as it is, I try to turn all wandering fancy out of doors, and listen attentively to Whately's Logic, and old Spinoza still! I find some of Spinoza's Letters very good, and so far useful as that they try to clear up some of his abstrusities at the earnest request of friends as dull as myself. I think I perceive as well as ever how the quality of his mind forbids much salutary instinct which widens the system of things to more ordinary men, and yet helps to keep them from wandering in it. I am now reading his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which is very delightful to me because of its clearness and acuteness. It is fine what he says of Christ—'nempe,' that God revealed himself in bits to other prophets, but he was the mind of Christ. I suppose not new in thought or expression.

Let me hear from you, whether you have bits of revelations from old poets to send, or not. If I had the Mostellaria here, I would read it; or a Rabelais, I would do as Morgan Rattler advised you.

To Bernard Barton.

[CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 18, 1846.]

MY DEAR BARTON,

Though my letter bears such frontispiece as the above, {209} I am no longer in Bedford, but come to Cambridge. And here I sit in the same rooms {210a} in which I sat as a smooth-chinned Freshman twenty years ago. The same prints hang on the walls: my old hostess {210b} does not look older than she did then. My present purpose is to be about a week here: then to go for a day or two to Bury, to see Donne; and then to move homewards. It is now getting very cold, and the time for wandering is over.

Why do you not send me your new Poem? Or is it too big to send as a letter? Or shall I buy it? which I shall be glad to do. . . .

All the preceding was written four days ago: cut short by the sudden entrance of Moore, whom I have been lionizing ever since. He goes away to London to-day. . . .

Moore is delighted with a Titian and Giorgione at the Fitzwilliam. I have just left him to feed upon them at his ease there, while I indite a letter to you.

To W. B. Donne.

[31 Oct. 1846.]

MY DEAR DONNE,

. . . I only got home to-day: and found one letter on my table from Ireland. I did not notice it had a black edge and seal: saw it was from Edgeworthstown: written in the hand of Edgeworth's wife, who often wrote down from his dictation since his eyes became bad. But she tells me that he is dead after twelve days illness! I do not yet feel half so sorry as I shall feel: I shall constantly miss him. {211a}

To E. B. Cowell.

[End of 1846.]

DEAR COWELL,

The weather is so ungenial, and likely to be so, that I put off my journey to Ipswich till next week. I do not dislike the weather for my part: but one is best at home in such: and as I am to stay two days with the Hockleys, I would fain have tolerably fair days, and fair ways, for it: that one may get about and so on. One does not mind being cooped up in one's own room all day. I think of going on Monday. Shall you be at home next week?

I have read Longus and like him much. Is it the light easy Greek that pleases one? Or is it the story, the scenery, etc.? Would the book please one if written in English as good as the Greek?

The lines from Nonnus are very beautiful. It is always a pleasure to me to get from you such stray leaves from gardens I shall never enter.

I have been doing some of the dialogue, {211b} which seems the easiest thing in the world to do but is not. It is not easy to keep to good dialectic, and yet keep up the disjected sway of natural conversation. I talk, you see, as if I were to do some good thing: but I don't mean that. But any such trials of one's own show one the art of such dialogues as Plato's, where the process is so logical and conversational at once: and the result so plain, and seemingly so easy. They remain the miracles of that Art to this day: and will do for many a day: for I don't believe they will ever be surpassed; certainly not by Landor.

Yours ever,

E. F. G.

[Postmark WOODBRIDGE, Jan. 13, 1847.]

DEAR COWELL,

I am always delighted to see you whenever you can come, and Friday will do perfectly well for me. But do not feel bound to come if it snow, etc. In other respects I have small compunction, for I think it must do you good to go out, even to such a desert as this.

I have not got Phidippus into any presentible shape: and indeed have not meddled with him lately: as the spirit of light dialogue evaporated from me under an influenza, and I have not courted it back yet. Luckily I and the world can very well afford to wait for its return. I began Thucydides two days ago! and read (after your example) a very little every day, i.e. have done so for two days. Your Sanscrit sentences are very fine. It is good for you to go on with that. We hear Mr. Nottidge {213} is dying: who can be sorry for him!

Yours,

E. F. G.

* * * * *

Early in 1847 Carlyle received a communication from an unknown correspondent, who professed to have in his possession a number of letters written by Cromwell and other documents, which if genuine were certainly of importance. As I published in the Historical Review for April 1886 all the evidence which exists on the subject, I shall not further dwell upon it here, except to say that I am not in the least convinced by the arguments which have been put forward that the thirty- five letters of Cromwell which Carlyle printed in Fraser's Magazine for 1847 were forged by his imperfectly educated correspondent William Squire. Squire was living at Yarmouth at this time, and as FitzGerald was frequently in his neighbourhood Carlyle asked him to endeavour to see him and examine the papers which he professed to have. In reply to Carlyle's letter he wrote as follows in February 1847.

DEAR CARLYLE,

When I go into Norfolk, which will be some time this Spring, I will go to Yarmouth and see for Mr. Squire, if you like. But if he is so rusty as you say, and as I also fancy, I doubt if he will open his treasures to any but to you who have already set him creaking. But we shall see. Some of his MS. extracts are curious and amusing. He writes himself something like Antony Wood, or some such ancient book-worm. It is also curious to hear of the old proud angry people about Peterboro', who won't show their records.

I have not seen the lives of the Saints you spoke of in a former letter. But when I go to London I must look out for a volume. I have begun to read Thucydides, which I never read before, and which does very well to hammer at for an hour in a day: though I can't say I care much for the Greeks and their peddling quarrels; one must go to Rome for wars.

Don't you think Thackeray's Mrs. Perkins's Ball very good? I think the empty faces of the dance room were never better done. It seems to me wonderful that people can endure to look on such things: but I am forty, and got out of the habit now, and certainly shall not try to get it back ever again.

I am glad you and Mrs. Carlyle happen to be in a milder part of England during this changeable and cold season. Yet, for my own sake, I shall be sorry to see the winter go: with its decided and reasonable balance of daylight and candlelight. I don't know when I shall go to London, perhaps in April. Please to remember me to Mrs. Carlyle.

To S. Laurence.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.

[June 20, 1847.]

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

I have had another letter from the Bartons asking about your advent. In fact Barton's daughter is anxious for her Father's to be done, and done this year. He is now sixty-three; and it won't do, you know, for grand- climacterical people to procrastinate—nay, to proannuate—which is a new, and, for all I see, a very bad word. But, be this as it may, do you come down to Woodbridge this summer if you can; and that you can, I doubt not; since it is no great things out of your way to or from Norwich.

The means to get to Ipswich are—A steamboat will bring you for five shillings (a very pretty sail) from the Custom House to Ipswich, the Orwell steamer; going twice a week, and heard of directly in the fishy latitudes of London Bridge. Or, a railroad brings you for the same sum; if you will travel third class, which I sometimes do in fine weather. I should recommend that; the time being so short, so certain: and no eating and drinking by the way, as must be in a steamer. At Ipswich, I pick you up with the washerwoman's pony and take you to Woodbridge. There Barton sits with the tea already laid out; and Miss about to manage the urn; plain, agreeable people. At Woodbridge too is my little friend Churchyard, with whom we shall sup off toasted cheese and porter. Then, last and not least, the sweet retirement of Boulge: where the Graces and Muses, etc.

I write thus much because my friends seem anxious; my friend, I mean, Miss Barton: for Barton pretends he dreads having his portrait done; which is 'my eye.' So come and do it. He is a generous, worthy, simple- hearted, fellow: worth ten thousand better wits. Then you shall see all the faded tapestry of country town life: London jokes worn threadbare; third rate accomplishments infinitely prized; scandal removed from Dukes and Duchesses to the Parson, the Banker, the Commissioner of Excise, and the Attorney.

Let me hear from you soon that you are coming. I shall return to Boulge the end of this week.

P.S. Come if you can the latter part of the week; when the Quaker is most at leisure. There is a daily coach from Woodbridge to Norwich.

To T. Carlyle.

BOULGE. June 29/47.

DEAR CARLYLE,

Last week I went over to Yarmouth and saw Squire. I was prepared, and I think you were, to find a quaint old gentleman of the last century. Alas for guesses at History! I found a wholesome, well-grown, florid, clear- eyed, open-browed, man of about my own age! There was no difficulty at all in coming to the subject at once, and tackling it. Squire is, I think, a straight-forward, choleric, ingenuous fellow—a little mad—cracks away at his family affairs. 'One brother is a rascal—another a spend-thrift—his father was of an amazing size—a prodigious eater, etc.—the family all gone to smithers,' etc. I liked Squire well: and told him he must go to you; I am sure you will like him better than the London penny-a-liners. He is rather a study: and besides he can tell you bits of his Ancestor's journal; which will indeed make you tear your hair for what is burned—Between two and three hundred folio pages of MSS. by a fellow who served under Oliver; been sent on secret service by him; dreaded him: but could not help serving him—Squire told me a few circumstances which he had picked up in running over the Journal before he burnt it; and which you ought to hear from himself before long. Dreadful stories of Oliver's severity; soldiers cut down by sabre on parade for 'violence to women'—a son shot on the spot just before his Father's house for having tampered with Royalists—no quarter to spies—noses and ears of Royalists slit in retaliation of a like injury done to Roundheads;—many deeds which that ancient Squire witnessed, or knew for certain, and which he and his successor thought severe and cruel:—but I could make out nothing unjust—I am very sure you would not. The Journalist told a story of Peterboro' Cathedral like yours in your book about Ely:—Oliver marching in as the bells were ringing to service: bundling out canons, prebendaries, choristers, with the flat of the sword; and then standing up to preach himself in his armour! A grand picture. Afterwards they broke the painted windows which I should count injudicious;—but that I sometimes feel a desire that some boys would go and do likewise to the Pusey votive windows; if you know that branch of art.

Ancestor Squire got angry with Oliver toward the end of the Journal; on some such account as this—Cromwell had promised him a sum of money; but the ancestor got taken prisoner by pirate or privateer before he went to claim the money; had to be redeemed by Oliver; and the redemption money was subtracted from the whole sum promised by Oliver when payment-time came. This proceeding seemed to both Squires, living and dead, shabby; but one not belonging to the family may be permitted to think it all fair.

On the whole, I suspect you would have used Ancestor Squire as you have used many others who have helped you to materials of his kind; like a sucked orange: you would have tossed him into the dirt carelessly, I doubt; and then what would Squire minor have said? Yet he himself did not like all his Ancestor had done; the secret service, which our Squire called 'spy-age'; going to Holland with messages and despatches which he was to deliver to some one who was to meet him on the quay, and show him a gold ring; the man with the gold ring supposed to be the Stadtholder! I tried to persuade our friend there was no great shame in being an agent of this sort; but he said with a light rap on the table that he wouldn't do such a thing.

I have now told you something of what remains in my head after our conference; but you must see the man. What gave us the idea of his being old was his old-fashioned notions; he and his family have lived in Peterboro' and such retired places these three hundred years; and amazing as it may seem to us that any people should be ashamed that their ancestors fought for Low Church, yet two hundred years are but as a day in a Cathedral Close. Nothing gives one more the idea of the Sleeping Palace than that. Esto perpetua! I mean, as long as I live at least. When I expressed wonder to Squire that his wife's friends, or his Peterboro' friends, should be so solicitous about the world's ever knowing that their ancestors had received letters from Cromwell, he very earnestly assured me that he knew some cases in which persons' advancement in public life had been suddenly stopt by the Queen or her ministers, when it got wind that they were related in any way to Cromwell! I thought this a piece of dotage, as I do now; but I have heard elsewhere of some one not being allowed to take the name of Cromwell; I mean not very many years back; but more likely under a George than under a Victoria.

I think Squire must be a little crazy on this score; that is, the old dotage of a Cathedral town superstition worked up into activity by a choleric disposition. He seems, as I told you, of the sanguine temperament; and he mentioned a long illness during which he was not allowed to read a book, etc., which looks like some touch of the head. Perhaps brain fever. Perhaps no such thing, but all my fancy. He was very civil; ordered in a bottle of Sherry and biscuits: asked me to dine, which I could not do. And so ends my long story. But you must see him.

Yours,

E. F. G.

He spoke of a portrait of Oliver that had been in his family since Oliver's time—till sold for a few shillings to some one in Norwich by some rascal relation. The portrait unlike all he has seen in painting or engraving: very pale, very thoughtful, very commanding, he says. If he ever recovers it, he will present you with it; he says if it should cost him 10 pounds—for he admires you. {220}

To Bernard Barton.

EXETER, August 16/47.

MY DEAR BARTON,

. . . Here I am at Exeter: a place I never was in before. It is a fine country round about; and last evening I saw landscape that would have made Churchyard crazy. The Cathedral is not worth seeing to an ordinary observer, though I dare say Archaeologists find it has its own private merits. . . .

Tell Churchyard we were wrong about Poussin's Orion. I found this out on my second visit to it. What disappointed me, and perhaps him, at first sight, was a certain stiffness in Orion's own figure; I expected to see him stalk through the landscape forcibly, as a giant usually does; but I forgot at the moment that Orion was blind, and must walk as a blind man. Therefore this stiffness in his figure was just the right thing. I think however the picture is faulty in one respect, that the atmosphere of the landscape is not that of dawn; which it should be most visibly, since Morning is so principal an actor in the drama. All this seems to be more addressed to Churchyard, who has seen the picture, than to you who have not.

I saw also in London panoramas of Athens and the Himalaya mountains. In the latter, you see the Ganges glittering a hundred and fifty miles off; and far away the snowy peak of the mountain it rises from; that mountain 25,000 feet high. What's the use of coming to Exeter, when you can see all this for a shilling in London? . . . And now I am going to the Cathedral, where the Bishop has a cover to his seat sixty feet high. So now goodbye for the present.

GLOUCESTER, Augst. 29/47.

MY DEAR BARTON,

. . . After I wrote to you at Exeter, I went for three days to the Devonshire coast; and then to Lusia's home in Somersetshire. I never saw her look better or happier. De Soyres pretty well; their little girl grown a pretty and strong child; their baby said to be very thriving. They live in a fine, fruitful, and picturesque country: green pastures, good arable, clothed with trees, bounded with hills that almost reach mountain dignity, and in sight of the Bristol Channel which is there all but Sea. I fancy the climate is moist, and I should think the trees are too many for health: but I was there too little time to quarrel with it on that score. After being there, I went to see a parson friend in Dorsetshire; {222} a quaint, humorous man. Him I found in a most out-of- the-way parish in a fine open country; not so much wooded; chalk hills. This man used to wander about the fields at Cambridge with me when we both wore caps and gowns, and then we proposed and discussed many ambitious schemes and subjects. He is now a quiet, saturnine, parson with five children, taking a pipe to soothe him when they bother him with their noise or their misbehaviour: and I!—as the Bishop of London said, 'By the grace of God I am what I am.' In Dorsetshire I found the churches much occupied by Puseyite Parsons; new chancels built with altars, and painted windows that officiously displayed the Virgin Mary, etc. The people in those parts call that party 'Pugicides,' and receive their doctrine and doings peacefully. I am vext at these silly men who are dishing themselves and their church as fast as they can.

To F. Tennyson.

[LEAMINGTON, 4 Sept. 1847.]

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I believe I must attribute your letter to your having skipped to Leghorn, and so got animated by the sight of a new place. I also am an Arcadian: have been to Exeter—the coast of Devonshire—the Bristol Channel—and to visit a Parson in Dorsetshire. He wore cap and gown when I did at Cambridge—together did we roam the fields about Granchester, discuss all things, thought ourselves fine fellows, and that one day we should make a noise in the world. He is now a poor Rector in one of the most out-of-the-way villages in England—has five children—fats and kills his pig—smokes his pipe—loves his home and cares not ever to be seen or heard of out of it. I was amused with his company; he much pleased to see me: we had not met face to face for fifteen years—and now both of us such very sedate unambitious people! Now I am verging homeward; taking Leamington and Bedford in my way.

You persist in not giving me your clear direction at Florence. It is only by chance that you give the name 'Villa Gondi' of the house you describe so temptingly to me. I should much like to visit you there; but I doubt shall never get up the steam for such an expedition. And now know that, since the last sentence was written, I have been to Cheltenham, and called at your Mother's; and seen her, and Matilda, and Horatio: all well: Alfred is with the Lushingtons and is reported to be all the better for the water-cure. Cheltenham seemed to me a woeful place: I had never seen it before. I now write from Leamington; where I am come to visit my Mother for a few days. . . .

All the world has been, as I suppose you have read, crazy about Jenny Lind: and they are now giving her 400 pounds to sing at a Concert. What a frightful waste of money! I did not go to hear her: partly out of contradiction perhaps; and partly because I could not make out that she was a great singer, like my old Pasta. Now I will go and listen to any pretty singer whom I can get to hear easily and unexpensively: but I will not pay and squeeze much for any canary in the world. Perhaps Lind is a nightingale: but I want something more than that. Spedding's cool blood was moved to hire stalls several times at an advanced rate: the Lushingtons (your sister told me) were enraptured: and certainly people rushed up madly from Suffolk to hear her but once and then die. I rather doubted the value of this general appreciation. But one cause of my not hearing her was that I was not in London for more than a fortnight all the Spring: and she came out but at the close of my fortnight. . . .

. . . You are wrong, as usual, about Moore and Eastlake: all the world say that Moore had much the best of the controversy, and Eastlake only remains cock of the walk because he is held up by authority. I do not pretend to judge which of the two is right in art: but I am sure that Moore argues most logically, and sets out upon finer principles; and if two shoemakers quarrelled about the making of a shoe, I should be disposed to side with him who argued best on the matter, though my eyes and other senses could not help me to a verdict. Moore takes his stand on high ground, and appeals to Titian, Michel Angelo, and Reynolds. Eastlake is always shifting about, and appealing to Sir Robert Peel, Etty, and the Picture-dealers. {225} Now farewell. Write when you can to Boulge.

To S. Laurence.

[1847.]

DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I assure you I am deeply obliged to you for the great trouble you have taken, and the kindness you have shewn about the portrait. In spite of all our objections (yours amongst the number) it is very like, and perhaps only misses of being quite like by that much more than hairbreadth difference, which one would be foolish to expect to see adequated. Perhaps those painters are right who set out with rather idealising the likeness of those we love; for we do so ourselves probably when we look at them. And as art must miss the last delicacy of nature, it may be well to lean toward a better than our eyes can affirm.

This is all wrong. Truth is the ticket; but those who like strongly, in this as in other cases, love to be a little blind, or to see too much. One fancies that no face can be too delicate and handsome to be the depository of a noble spirit: and if we are not as good physiognomists as we are metaphysicians (that is, intimate with any one particular mind) our outward eyes will very likely be at variance with our inward, or rather be influenced by them. Very instructive all this!

I wish you would come to me to-night for an hour at ten: I don't know if any one else will be here.

To T. Carlyle.

ALDERMAN BROWNE'S, BEDFORD. [20 Septr. 1847.]

DEAR CARLYLE,

I was very glad of your letter: especially as regards that part in it about the Derbyshire villages. In many other parts of England (not to mention my own Suffolk) you would find the same substantial goodness among the people, resulting (as you say) from the funded virtues of many good humble men gone by. I hope you will continue to teach us all, as you have done, to make some use and profit of all this: at least, not to let what good remains to die away under penury and neglect. I also hope you will have some mercy now, and in future, on the 'Hebrew rags' which are grown offensive to you; considering that it was these rags that really did bind together those virtues which have transmitted down to us all the good you noticed in Derbyshire. If the old creed was so commendably effective in the Generals and Counsellors of two hundred years ago, I think we may be well content to let it work still among the ploughmen and weavers of to-day; and even to suffer some absurdities in the Form, if the Spirit does well upon the whole. Even poor Exeter Hall ought, I think, to be borne with; it is at least better than the wretched Oxford business. When I was in Dorsetshire some weeks ago, and saw chancels done up in sky-blue and gold, with niches, candles, an Altar, rails to keep off the profane laity, and the parson (like your Reverend Mr. Hitch {227}) intoning with his back to the people, I thought the Exeter Hall war-cry of 'The Bible—the whole Bible—and nothing but the Bible' a good cry: I wanted Oliver and his dragoons to march in and put an end to it all. Yet our Established Parsons (when quiet and in their senses) make good country gentlemen, and magistrates; and I am glad to secure one man of means and education in each parish of England: the people can always resort to Wesley, Bunyan, and Baxter, if they want stronger food than the old Liturgy, and the orthodox Discourse. I think you will not read what I have written: or be very bored with it. But it is written now.

I am going to-day into the neighbourhood of Kimbolton: but shall be back here by the end of the week: and shall not leave Bedford till next Monday certainly. I may then go to Naseby for three days: but this depends. I would go and hunt up some of the Peterboro' churchmen for you; but that my enquiries would either be useless, or precipitate the burning of other records. I hope your excursion will do you good. Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding's life is a very ticklish one.

To E. B. Cowell.

[1847]

DEAR COWELL,

. . . I am only got half way in the third book of Thucydides: but I go on with pleasure; with as much pleasure as I used to read a novel. I have also again taken up my Homer. That is a noble and affecting passage where Diomed and Glaucus, being about to fight, recognize each other as old family friends, exchange arms, and vow to avoid each other henceforth in the fray. (N.B. and this in the tenth year of the war!) After this comes, you know, the meeting of Hector and Andromache, which we read together; altogether a truly Epic canto indeed.

Yet, as I often think, it is not the poetical imagination, but bare Science that every day more and more unrolls a greater Epic than the Iliad; the history of the World, the infinitudes of Space and Time! I never take up a book of Geology or Astronomy but this strikes me. And when we think that Man must go on to discover in the same plodding way, one fancies that the Poet of to-day may as well fold his hands, or turn them to dig and delve, considering how soon the march of discovery will distance all his imaginations, [and] dissolve the language in which they are uttered. Martial, as you say, lives now, after two thousand years; a space that seems long to us whose lives are so brief; but a moment, the twinkling of an eye, if compared (not to Eternity alone) but to the ages which it is now known the world must have existed, and (unless for some external violence) must continue to exist. Lyell in his book about America, says that the falls of Niagara, if (as seems certain) they have worked their way back southwards for seven miles, must have taken over 35,000 years to do so, at the rate of something over a foot a year! Sometimes they fall back on a stratum that crumbles away from behind them more easily: but then again they have to roll over rock that yields to them scarcely more perceptibly than the anvil to the serpent. And those very soft strata which the Cataract now erodes contain evidences of a race of animals, and of the action of seas washing over them, long before Niagara came to have a distinct current; and the rocks were compounded ages and ages before those strata! So that, as Lyell says, the Geologist looking at Niagara forgets even the roar of its waters in the contemplation of the awful processes of time that it suggests. It is not only that this vision of Time must wither the Poet's hope of immortality; but it is in itself more wonderful than all the conceptions of Dante and Milton.

As to your friend Pliny, I don't think that Time can use his usual irony on that saying about Martial. {230a} Pliny evidently only suggests that 'at non erunt aeterna quae scripsit' as a question of his correspondent; to which he himself replies 'Non erunt fortasse.' Your Greek quotations are very graceful. I should like to read Busbequius. {230b} Do you think Tacitus affected in style, as people now say he is?

* * * * *

In the Notes to his edition of Selden's Table Talk, published in 1847, Mr. Singer says, 'Part of the following Illustrations were kindly communicated to the Editor by a gentleman to whom his best thanks are due, and whom it would have afforded him great pleasure to be allowed to name.' It might have been said with truth that the 'greater part' of the illustrations were contributed by the same anonymous benefactor, who was, I have very little doubt, FitzGerald himself. I have in my possession a copy of the Table Talk which he gave me about 1871 or 1872, with annotations in his own handwriting, and these are almost literally reproduced in the Notes to Singer's Edition. Of this copy FitzGerald wrote to me, 'What notes I have appended are worth nothing, I suspect; though I remember that the advice of the present Chancellor {231} was asked in some cases.'

To E. B. Cowell.

GELDESTONE, Jan. 13/48.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I suppose you have seen Carlyle's thirty-five Cromwell letters in Fraser. I see the Athenaeum is picking holes with them too: and I certainly had a misgiving that Squire of Yarmouth must have pieced out the erosions of 'the vermin' by one or two hotheaded guesses of his own. But I am sure, both from the general matter of the letters, and from Squire's own bodily presence, that he did not forge them. Carlyle has made a bungle of the whole business; and is fairly twitted by the Athenaeum for talking so loud about his veneration for Cromwell, etc., and yet not stirring himself to travel a hundred miles to see and save such memorials as he talks of.

BOULGE, Wednesday. [Jan. 25, 1848.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

I liked your paper on the Mesnavi {232} very much; both your criticism and your Mosaic legend. That I may not seem to give you careless and undistinguishing praise, I will tell you that I could not quite hook on the latter part of Moses to the former; did you leave out any necessary link of the chain in the hiatus you made? or is the inconsequence only in my brains? So much for the legend: and I must reprehend you for one tiny bit of Cockney about Memory's rosary at the end of your article, which, but for that, I liked so much.

So judges Fitz-Dennis; who, you must know by this time, has the judgment of Moliere's old woman, and the captiousness of Dennis. Ten years ago I might have been vext to see you striding along in Sanscrit and Persian so fast; reading so much; remembering all; writing about it so well. But now I am glad to see any man do any thing well; and I know that it is my vocation to stand and wait, and know within myself whether it is done well.

I have just finished, all but the last three chapters, the fourth Book of Thucydides, and it is now no task to me to go on. This fourth book is the most interesting I have read; containing all that blockade of Pylos; that first great thumping of the Athenians at Oropus, after which they for ever dreaded the Theban troops. And it came upon me 'come stella in ciel,' when, in the account of the taking of Amphipolis, {233} Thucydides, [Greek text], comes with seven ships to the rescue! Fancy old Hallam sticking to his gun at a Martello tower! This was the way to write well; and this was the way to make literature respectable. Oh, Alfred Tennyson, could you but have the luck to be put to such employment! No man would do it better; a more heroic figure to head the defenders of his country could not be.

To S. Laurence.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, [30 Jan. 1848.]

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

How are you—how are you getting on? A voice from the tombs thus addresses you; respect the dead, and answer. Barton is well; that is, I left him well on Friday: but he was just going off to attend a Quaker's funeral in the snow: whether he has survived that, I don't know. To-morrow is his Birth-day: and I am going (if he be alive) to help him to celebrate it. His portrait has been hung (under my directions) over the mantel-piece in his sitting room, with a broad margin of some red stuff behind it, to set it off. You may turn up your nose at all this; but let me tell you it is considered one of the happiest contrivances ever adopted in Woodbridge. Nineteen people out of twenty like the portrait much; the twentieth, you may be sure, is a man of no taste at all.

I hear you were for a long time in Cumberland. Did you paint a waterfall—or old Wordsworth—or Skiddaw, or any of the beauties? Did you see anything so inviting to the pencil as the river Deben? When are you coming to see us again? Churchyard relies on your coming; but then he is a very sanguine man, and, though a lawyer, wonderfully confident in the promises of men. How are all your family? You see I have asked you some questions; so you must answer them; and believe me yours truly,

E. FITZGERALD.

To John Allen.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, March 2/48.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

. . . Every year I have less and less desire to go to London: and now you are not there I have one reason the less for going there. I want to settle myself in some town—for good—for life! A pleasant country town, a cathedral town perhaps! What sort of a place is Lichfield?

I say nothing about French Revolutions, which are too big for a little letter. I think we shall all be in a war before the year; I know not how else the French can keep peace at home but by quarrelling abroad. But 'come what come may.'

My old friend Major Moor died rather suddenly last Saturday: {235} and this next Saturday is to be buried in the Church to which he used to take me when I was a boy. He has not left a better man behind him.

BOULGE, Friday.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

. . . I suppose by a 'Minster Pool' in Lichfield you mean a select coterie of Prebends, Canons, etc. These would never trouble me. I should much prefer the society of the Doctor, the Lawyer (if tolerably honest) and the singing men. I love a small Cathedral town; and the dignified respectability of the Church potentates is a part of the pleasure. I sometimes think of Salisbury: and have altogether long had an idea of settling at forty years old. Perhaps it will be at Woodbridge, after all!

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, May 4, 1848.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

When you talk of two idle men not taking the trouble to keep up a little intercourse by letters, you do not, in conscience, reflect upon me; who, you know, am very active in answering almost by return of post. It is some six months since you must have got my last letter, full of most instructive advice concerning my namesake; of whom, and of which, you say nothing. How much has he borrowed of you? Is he now living on the top of your hospitable roof? Do you think him the most ill-used of men? I see great advertisements in the papers about your great Grimsby Railway. . . . Does it pay? does it pay all but you? who live only on the fine promises of the lawyers and directors engaged in it? You know England has had a famous winter of it for commercial troubles: my family has not escaped the agitation: I even now doubt if I must not give up my daily two-pennyworth of cream and take to milk: and give up my Spectator and Athenaeum. I don't trouble myself much about all this: for, unless the kingdom goes to pieces by national bankruptcy, I shall probably have enough to live on: and, luckily, every year I want less. What do you think of my not going up to London this year; to see exhibitions, to hear operas, and so on? Indeed I do not think I shall go: and I have no great desire to go. I hear of nothing new in any way worth going up for. I have never yet heard the famous Jenny Lind, whom all the world raves about. Spedding is especially mad about her, I understand: and, after that, is it not best for weaker vessels to keep out of her way? Night after night is that bald head seen in one particular position in the Opera house, in a stall; the miserable man has forgot Bacon and philosophy, and goes after strange women. There is no doubt this lady is a wonderful singer; but I will not go into hot crowds till another Pasta comes; I have heard no one since her worth being crushed for. And to perform in one's head one of Handel's choruses is better than most of the Exeter Hall performances. I went to hear Mendelssohn's Elijah last spring: and found it wasn't at all worth the trouble. Though very good music it is not original: Haydn much better. I think the day of Oratorios is gone, like the day for painting Holy Families, etc. But we cannot get tired of what has been done in Oratorios more than we can get tired of Raffaelle. Mendelssohn is really original and beautiful in romantic music: witness his Midsummer Night's Dream, and Fingal's Cave.

I had a note from Alfred three months ago. He was then in London: but is now in Ireland, I think, adding to his new poem, the Princess. Have you seen it? I am considered a great heretic for abusing it; it seems to me a wretched waste of power at a time of life when a man ought to be doing his best; and I almost feel hopeless about Alfred now. I mean, about his doing what he was born to do. . . . On the other hand, Thackeray is progressing greatly in his line: he publishes a Novel in numbers—Vanity Fair—which began dull, I thought: but gets better every number, and has some very fine things indeed in it. He is become a great man I am told: goes to Holland House, and Devonshire House: and for some reason or other, will not write a word to me. But I am sure this is not because he is asked to Holland House. Dickens has fallen off in his last novel, {238} just completed; but there are wonderful things in it too. Do you ever get a glimpse of any of these things?

As to public affairs, they are so wonderful that one does not know where to begin. If England maintains her own this year, she must have the elements of long lasting in her. I think People begin to wish we had no more to do with Ireland: but the Whigs will never listen to a doctrine which was never heard of in Holland House. I am glad Italy is free: and surely there is nothing for her now but a Republic. It is well to stand by old kings who have done well by us: but it is too late in the day to begin Royalty.

If anything could tempt me so far as Italy, it would certainly be your presence in Florence. But I boggle about going twenty miles, and cui bono? deadens me more and more.

July 2. All that precedes was written six weeks ago, when I was obliged to go up to London on business. . . . I saw Alfred, and the rest of the scavans. Thackeray is a great man: goes to Devonshire House, etc.: and his book (which is capital) is read by the Great: and will, I hope, do them good. I heard but little music: the glorious Acis and Galatea; and the redoubtable Jenny Lind, for the first time. I was disappointed in her: but am told this is all my fault. As to naming her in the same Olympiad with great old Pasta, I am sure that is ridiculous. The Exhibition is like most others you have seen; worse perhaps. There is an 'Aaron' and a 'John the Baptist' by Etty far worse than the Saracen's Head on Ludgate Hill. Moore is turned Picture dealer: and that high Roman virtue in which he indulged is likely to suffer a Picture-dealer's change, I think. Carlyle writes in the Examiner about Ireland: raves and foams, but has nothing to propose. Spedding prospers with Bacon. Alfred seemed to me in fair plight: much dining out: and his last Poem is well liked I believe. Morton is still at Lisbon, I believe also: but I have not written to him, nor heard from him. And now, my dear Frederic, I must shut up. Do not neglect to write to me sometimes. Alfred said you ought to be in England about your Grimsby Land.

To E. B. Cowell.

[? 1848.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I do not know that I praised Xenophon's imagination in recording such things as Alcibiades at Lampsacus; {240} all I meant to say was that the history was not dull which does record such facts, if it be for the imagination of others to quicken them. . . . As to Sophocles, I will not give up my old Titan. Is there not an infusion of Xenophon in Sophocles, as compared to AEschylus,—a dilution? Sophocles is doubtless the better artist, the more complete; but are we to expect anything but glimpses and ruins of the divinest? Sophocles is a pure Greek temple; but AEschylus is a rugged mountain, lashed by seas, and riven by thunderbolts: and which is the most wonderful, and appalling? Or if one will have AEschylus too a work of man, I say he is like a Gothic Cathedral, which the Germans say did arise from the genius of man aspiring up to the immeasurable, and reaching after the infinite in complexity and gloom, according as Christianity elevated and widened men's minds. A dozen lines of AEschylus have a more Almighty power on me than all Sophocles' plays; though I would perhaps rather save Sophocles, as the consummation of Greek art, than AEschylus' twelve lines, if it came to a choice which must be lost. Besides these AEschyluses trouble us with their grandeur and gloom; but Sophocles is always soothing, complete, and satisfactory.

To W. B. Donne.

BOULGE, Decr. 27, [1848.]

MY DEAR DONNE,

You have sent me two or three kind messages through Barton. I hear you come into Suffolk the middle of January. My movements are as yet uncertain; the lawyers may call me back to London very suddenly: but should I be here at the time of your advent, you must really contrive to come here, to this Cottage, for a day or two. I have yet beds, tables, and chairs for two: I think Gurdon is also looking out for you.

I only returned home a few days ago, to spend Christmas with Barton: whose turkey I accordingly partook of. He seems only pretty well: is altered during the last year: less spirits, less strength; but quite amiable still.

I saw many of my friends in London, Carlyle and Tennyson among them; but most and best of all, Spedding. I have stolen his noble book {241} away from him; noble, in spite (I believe, but am not sure) of some adikology in the second volume: some special pleadings for his idol: amica Veritas, sed magis, etc. But I suppose you will think this the intolerance of a weak stomach.

I also went to plays and concerts which I could scarce afford: but I thought I would have a Carnival before entering on a year of reductions. I have been trying to hurry on, and bully, Lawyers: have done a very little good with much trouble; and cannot manage to fret much though I am told there is great cause for fretting.

Farewell for the present: come and see me if we be near Woodbridge at the same time: remember me to all who do remember me: and believe me yours as ever,

E. F. G.

To S. Laurence.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, Febr: 9/49.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

Roe promised me six copies of his Tennyson. {242} Do you know anything of them? Why I ask is, that, in case they should be at your house, I may have an opportunity of having them brought down here one day. And I have promised them nearly all to people hereabout.

Barton is out of health; some affection of the heart, I think, that will never leave him, never let him be what he was when you saw him. He is forced to be very abstemious . . . but he bears his illness quite as a man; and looks very demurely to the necessary end of all life. {243} Churchyard is pretty well; has had a bad cough for three months. I suppose we are all growing older: though I have been well this winter, and was unwell all last. I forget if you saw Crabbe (I mean the Father) when you were down here.

You may tell Mr. Hullah, if you like, that in spite of his contempt for my music, I was very much pleased, with a duett of his I chanced to see—'O that we two were maying'—and which I bought and have forced two ladies here to take pains to learn. They would sing nicely if they had voices and were taught.

Fragment of Letter to J. Allen.

I see a good deal of Alfred, who lives not far off me: and he is still the same noble and droll fellow he used to be. A lithograph has been made from Laurence's portrait of him; my portrait: and six copies are given to me. I reserve one for you; how can I send it to you?

Laurence has for months been studying the Venetian secret of colour in company with Geldart; and at last they have discovered it, they say. I have seen some of Laurence's portraits done on his new system; they seem to be really much better up to a certain point of progress: but I think he is apt, by a bad choice of colours, to spoil the effect which an improved system of laying on the colours should ensure. But he has only lately begun on his new system, of which he is quite confident; and perhaps all will come right by and by.

I have seen Thackeray three or four times. He is just the same. All the world admires Vanity Fair; and the Author is courted by Dukes and Duchesses, and wits of both sexes. I like Pendennis much; and Alfred said he thought 'it was quite delicious: it seemed to him so mature,' he said. You can imagine Alfred saying this over one's fire, spreading his great hand out.

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, June 19, 1849.

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

I often think of you: often wish to write to you—often intend to do so—determine to do so—but perhaps should not do so for a long time, but that this sheet of thin paper happens to come under my fingers this 19th of June 1849. You must not believe however that it is only chance that puts me up to this exertion; I really should have written before but that the reports we read of Italian and Florentine troubles put me in doubt first whether you are still at Florence to receive my letter: and secondly whether, if you be there, it would ever reach your hands. But I will brace myself up even to that great act of Friendship, to write a long letter with all probability of its miscarrying. Only look here; if it ever does reach you, you must really write to me directly: to let me know how you and yours are, for I am sincerely anxious to know this. I saw great reports in the paper too some months back of Prince Albert going to open Great Grimsby Docks. Were not such Docks to be made on your land? and were you not to be a rich man if they were made? And have you easily consented to forego being paid in money, and to accept in lieu thereof a certain quantity of wholly valueless shares in said Docks, which will lead you into expense, instead of enriching you? This is what I suppose will be the case. For though you have a microscopic eye for human character, you are to be diddled by any knave, or set of knaves, as you well know.

Of my own affairs I have nothing agreeable to tell. . . . When I met you in London, I was raising money for myself on my reversionary property: and so I am still: and of course the lawyers continue to do so in the most expensive way; a slow torture of the purse. But do not suppose I want money: I get it, at a good price: nor do I fret myself about the price: there will be quite enough (if public securities hold) for my life under any dispensation the lawyers can inflict. As I grow older I want less. I have not bought a book or a picture this year: have not been to a concert, opera, or play: and, what is more, I don't care to go. Not but if I meet you in London again I shall break out into shilling concerts, etc., and shall be glad of the opportunity.

After you left London, I remained there nearly to the end of December; saw a good deal of Alfred, etc. Since then I have been down here except a fortnight's stay in London, from which I have just returned. I heard Alfred had been seen flying through town to the Lushingtons: but I did not see him. He is said to be still busy about that accursed Princess. By the by, beg, borrow, steal, or buy Keats' Letters and Poems; most wonderful bits of Poems, written off hand at a sitting, most of them: I only wonder that they do not make a noise in the world. By the by again, it is quite necessary your poems should be printed; which Moxon, I am sure, would do gladly. Except this book of Keats, we have had no poetry lately, I believe; luckily, the —-, —-, —-, etc., are getting older and past the age of conceiving—wind. Send your poems over to Alfred to sort and arrange for you: he will do it: and you and he are the only men alive whose poems I want to see in print. By the by, thirdly and lastly, and in total contradiction to the last sentence, I am now helping to edit some letters and poems of—Bernard Barton! Yes: the poor fellow died suddenly of heart disease; leaving his daughter, a noble woman, almost unprovided for: and we are getting up this volume by subscription. If you were in England you must subscribe: but as you are not, you need only give us a share in the Great Grimsby Dock instead.

Now there are some more things I could tell you, but you see where my pen has honestly got to in the paper. I remember you did not desire to hear about my garden, which is now gorgeous with large red poppies, and lilac irises—satisfactory colouring: and the trees murmur a continuous soft chorus to the solo which my soul discourses within. If that be not Poetry, I should like to know what is? and with it I may as well conclude. I think I shall send this letter to your family at Cheltenham to be forwarded to you:—they may possibly have later intelligence of you than I have. Pray write to me if you get this; indeed you must; and never come to England without letting me know of it.

To George Crabbe. {247}

TERRACE HOUSE, RICHMOND, October 22/49.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

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

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

To E. B. Cowell.

BOULGE, Saturday, [1849].

MY DEAR COWELL,

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

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

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

Kind remembrances to Miladi, and I am yours ever,

E. FITZGERALD.

To F. Tennyson.

BEDFORD, Dec. 7/49.

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

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

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

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

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

To John Allen.

BEDFORD, Dec. 13/49.

MY DEAR OLD ALLEN,

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

To W. B. Donne.

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

DEAR DONNE,

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

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

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

To F. Tennyson.

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

Direct to BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE. March 7/50.

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

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

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

To John Allen.

BOULGE: March 9/50.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

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

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

To F. Tennyson.

PORTLAND COFFEE HOUSE, LONDON. April 17/50.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

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

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

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

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

To W. B. Donne.

BOULGE: Friday [4 Oct. 1850].

MY DEAR DONNE,

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

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

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

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

To F. Tennyson.

[BOULGE], Decr. 31/50.

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

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

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