At the end of May we went to lodge for a week at Windermere—where Wordsworth's new volume of Yarrow Revisited reached us. W. was then at his home: but Tennyson would not go to visit him: and of course I did not: nor even saw him.

You have, I suppose, the Carlyle Reminiscences: of which I will say nothing except that, much as we outsiders gain by them, I think that, on the whole, they had better have been kept unpublished—for some while at least. As also thinks Carlyle's Niece, who is surprised that Mr. Froude, whom her Uncle trusted above all men for the gift of Reticence, should have been in so much hurry to publish what was left to his Judgment to publish or no. But Carlyle himself, I think, should have stipulated for Delay, or retrenchment, if publisht at all.

Here is a dull and coldish Day after the fine ones we have had—which kept me out of doors as long as they lasted. Now one turns to the Fireside again. To-morrow is Equinox Day; when, if the Wind should return to North East, North East will it blow till June 21, as we all believe down here. My Eyes are better, I presume to say: but not what they were even before Christmas. Pray let me hear how you are, and believe me ever the same

E. F.G.

Oh! I doubted about sending you what I yet will send, as you already have what it refers to. It really calls for no comment from any one who does not know the Greek; those who do would probably repudiate it.



XCI. {216a}

[April, 1881.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Somewhat before my usual time, you see, but Easter {216b} comes, and I shall be glad to hear if you keep it in London, or elsewhere. Elsewhere there has been no inducement to go until To-day: when the Wind, though yet East, has turned to the Southern side of it: one can walk without any wrapper; and I dare to fancy we have turned the corner of Winter at last. People talk of changed Seasons: only yesterday I was reading in my dear old Sevigne, how she was with the Duke and Duchess of Chaulnes at their Chateau of Chaulnes in Picardy all but two hundred years ago; that is in 1689: and the green has not as yet ventured to show its 'nez' nor a Nightingale to sing. {217} You see that I have returned to her as for some Spring Music, at any rate. As for the Birds, I have nothing but a Robin, who seems rather pleased when I sit down on a Bench under an Ivied Pollard, where I suppose he has a Nest, poor little Fellow. But we have terrible Superstitions about him here; no less than that he always kills his Parents if he can: my young Reader is quite determined on this head: and there lately has been a Paper in some Magazine to the same effect.

My dear old Spedding sent me back to old Wordsworth too, who sings (his best songs, I think) about the Mountains and Lakes they were both associated with: and with a quiet feeling he sings, that somehow comes home to me more now than ever it did before.

As to Carlyle—I thought on my first reading that he must have been 'egare' at the time of writing: a condition which I well remember saying to Spedding long ago that one of his temperament might likely fall into. And now I see that Mrs. Oliphant hints at something of the sort. Hers I think an admirable Paper: {218} better than has yet been written, or (I believe) is likely to be written by any one else. Merivale, who wrote me that he had seen you, had also seen Mrs. Procter, who was vowing vengeance, and threatening to publish letters from Carlyle to Basil Montagu full of 'fulsome flattery'—which I do not believe, and should not, I am sorry to say, unless I saw it in the original. I forget now what T. C. says of him: (I have lent the Book out)—but certainly Barry Cornwall told Thackeray he was 'a humbug'—which I think was no uncommon opinion: I do not mean dishonest: but of pretension to Learning and Wisdom far beyond the reality. I must think Carlyle's judgments mostly, or mainly, true; but that he must have 'lost his head,' if not when he recorded them, yet when he left them in any one's hands to decide on their publication. Especially when not about Public Men, but about their Families. It is slaying the Innocent with the Guilty. But of all this you have doubtless heard in London more than enough. 'Pauvre et triste humanite!' One's heart opens again to him at the last: sitting alone in the middle of her Room—'I want to die'—'I want—a Mother.' 'Ah, Mamma Letizia!' Napoleon is said to have murmured as he lay. By way of pendant to this, recurs to me the Story that when Ducis was wretched his mother would lay his head on her Bosom—'Ah, mon homme, mon pauvre homme!'

Well—I am expecting Aldis Wright here at Easter: and a young London Clerk (this latter I did invite for his short holiday, poor Fellow!). Wright is to read me 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.'

And now I have written more than enough for yourself and me: whose Eyes may be the worse for it to-morrow. I still go about in Blue Glasses, and flinch from Lamp and Candle. Pray let me know about your own Eyes, and your own Self; and believe me always sincerely yours

LITTLEGRANGE.

I really was relieved that you did not write to thank me for the poor flowers which I sent you. They were so poor that I thought you would feel bound so to do, and, when they were gone, repented. I have now some gay Hyacinths up, which make my pattypan Beds like China Dishes.



XCII. {219}

[April, 1881.]

MY DEAR LADY:

This present Letter calls for no answer—except just that which perhaps you cannot make it. If you have that copy of Plays revised by John the Great which I sent, or brought, you, I wish you would cause your Maid to pack it in brown Paper, and send it by Rail duly directed to me. I have a wish to show it to Aldis Wright, who takes an Interest in your Family, as in your Prophet. If you have already dismissed the Book elsewhere—not much liking, I think, the stuff which J. K. spent so much trouble on, I shall not be surprised, nor at all aggrieved: and there is not much for A. W. to profit by unless in seeing what pains your noble Uncle took with his Calling.

It has been what we call down here 'smurring' rather than raining, all day long: and I think that Flower and Herb already show their gratitude. My Blackbird (I think it is the same I have tried to keep alive during the Winter) seems also to have 'wetted his Whistle,' and what they call the 'Cuckoo's mate,' with a rather harsh scissor note, announces that his Partner may be on the wing to these Latitudes. You will hear of him at Mr. W. Shakespeare's, it may be. There must be Violets, white and blue, somewhere about where he lies, I think. They are generally found in a Churchyard, where also (the Hunters used to say) a Hare: for the same reason of comparative security, I suppose.

I am very glad you agree with me about Mrs. Oliphant. That one paper of hers makes me wish to read her Books.

You must somehow, or somewhile, let me know your Address in Leamington, unless a Letter addressed to Cavendish Square will find you there. Always and truly yours

LITTLE G.



XCIII. {221}

May 8, [1881.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

You will not break your Law, though you have done so once—to tell me of Spedding—But now you will not—nor let me know your Address—so I must direct to you at a venture: to Marshall Thompson's, whither I suppose you will return awhile, even if you be not already there. I think, however, that you are not there yet. If still at Leamington, you look upon a sight which I used to like well; that is, the blue Avon (as in this weather it will be) running through buttercup meadows all the way to Warwick—unless those Meadows are all built over since I was there some forty years ago.

Aldis Wright stayed with me a whole week at Easter: and we did very well. Much Shakespeare—especially concerning that curious Question about the Quarto and Folio Hamlets which people are now trying to solve by Action as well as by Discussion. Then we had The Two Noble Kinsmen—which Tennyson and other Judges were assured has much of W. S. in it. Which parts I forget, or never heard: but it seemed to me that a great deal of the Play might be his, though not of his best: but Wright could find him nowhere.

Miss Crabbe sent me a Letter from Carlyle's Niece, cut out from some Newspaper, about her Uncle's MS. Memoir, and his written words concerning it. Even if Froude's explanation of the matter be correct, he ought to have still taken any hesitation on Carlyle's part as sufficient proof that the MS. were best left unpublisht: or, at any rate, great part of it. If you be in London, you will be wearied enough with hearing about this.

I am got back to my—Sevigne!—who somehow returns to me in Spring: fresh as the Flowers. These latter have done but badly this Spring, cut off or withered by the Cold: and now parched up by this blazing Sun and dry Wind. If you get my letter, pray answer it and tell me how you are: and ever believe me yours

LITTLEGRANGE.



XCIV.

May, [1881.]

MY DEAR LADY,

If I did not write (as doubtless I ought) to acknowledge the Playbook, I really believe that I thought you would have felt bound to answer my acknowledgment! It came all right, thank you: and A. Wright looked it over: and it has been lying ready to be returned to you whenever you should be returned to London. I assure you that I wish you to keep it, unless it be rather unacceptable than otherwise; I never thought you would endure the Plays themselves; only that you might be interested in your brave Uncle's patient and, I think, just, revision of them. This was all I cared for: and wished to show to A. W. as being interested in all that concerns so noble an Interpreter of his Shakespeare as your Uncle was. If you do not care—or wish—to have the Book again, tell me of some one you would wish to have it: had I wished, I should have told you so at once: but I now give away even what I might have wished for to those who are in any way more likely to be more interested in them than myself, or are likely to have a few more years of life to make what they may of them. I do not think that A. W. is one of such: he thought (as you may do) of so much pains wasted on such sorry stuff.

So far from disagreeing with you about Shakespeare emendations, etc., I have always been of the same mind: quite content with what pleased myself, and, as to the elder Dramatists, always thinking they would be better all annihilated after some Selections made from them, as C. Lamb did.

Mowbray Donne wrote to me a fortnight or so since that his Father was 'pretty well,' but weak in the knees. Three days ago came in Archdeacon Groome, who told me that a Friend of Mowbray's had just heard from him that his Father had symptoms of dropsy about the Feet and Ankles. I have not, however, written to ask; and, not having done so, perhaps ought not to sadden you with what may be an inaccurate report. But one knows that, sooner or later, some such end must come; and that, in the meanwhile, Donne's Life is but little preferable to that which promises the speedier end to it.

We are all drying up here with hot Sun and cold Wind; my Water-pot won't keep Polyanthus and Anemone from perishing. I should have thought the nightly Frosts and Winds would have done for Fruit as well as Flower: but I am told it is not so as yet: and I hope for an honest mess of Gooseberry Fool yet. In the meanwhile, 'Ce sera le mois de Mai tant qu'il plaira a Dieu,' and I am always your ancient

LITTLE G.



XCV.

WOODBRIDGE: TUESDAY: [End of May, 1881.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

I must write you a word of 'God Speed' before you go: before even you go to London to prepare for going: for, if I wait till then, you will be all bother with preparations, and leave-takings; and nevertheless feel yourself bound to answer. Pray do not, even if (as I suppose) still at Leamington; for you will still have plenty to think about with Daughter and Children. I do not propose to go to London to shake hands before you go off: for, as I say, you will have enough of that without me—and my blue Spectacles, which I can only discard as yet when looking on the Grass and young Leaves.

I duly sent your Book to Henry Kemble, as you desired: and received a very polite Note from him in acknowledgment.

And now my house is being pulled about my Ears by preparations for my Nieces next week. And, instead of my leaving the coast clear to Broom and Dust-pan, I believe that Charles Keene will be here from Friday to Monday. As he has long talked of coming, I do not like to put him off now he has really proposed to come, and we shall scramble on somehow. And I will get a Carriage and take him a long Drive into the Country where it is greenest. He is a very good fellow, and has lately lost his Mother, to whom he was a very pious Son; a man who can reverence, although a Droll in Punch.

You will believe that I wish you all well among your Mountains. George Crabbe has been (for Health's sake) in Italy these last two months, and wrote me his last Note from the Lago Maggiore. My Sister Jane Wilkinson talks of coming over to England this Summer: but I think her courage will fail her when the time comes. If ever you should go to, or near, Florence, she would be sincerely glad to see you, and to talk over other Days. She is not at all obtrusively religious: and I think must have settled abroad to escape some of the old Associations in which she took so much part, to but little advantage to herself or others.

You know that I cannot write to you when you are abroad unless you tell me whither I am to direct. And you probably will not do that: but I do not, and shall [not] cease to be yours always and truly

E. F.G.



XCVI.

[Nov. 1881.]

MY DEAR LADY:

I was not quite sure, from your letter, whether you had received mine directed to you in the Cavendish Square Hotel:—where your Nephew told me you were to be found. It is no matter otherwise than that I wish you to know that I had not only enquired if you were returned from abroad, but had written whither I was told you were to be found. Of which enough.

I am sorry you are gone again to Westminster, to which I cannot reconcile myself as to our old London. Even Bloomsbury recalls to me the pink May which used to be seen in those old Squares—sixty years ago. But 'enfin, voila qui est fait.' You know where that comes from. I have not lately been in company with my old dear: Annie Thackeray's Book {227a} is a pretty thing for Ladies in a Rail carriage; but my old Girl is scarce half herself in it. And there are many inaccuracies, I think. Mais enfin, voila, etc.

Athenaeum and Academy advertise your Sequel to Records. {227b} I need not tell you that I look forward to it. I wish you would insert that capital Paper on Dramatic and Theatrical from the Cornhill. {227c} It might indeed very properly, as I thought, have found a place in the Records.

Mowbray Donne wrote me a month ago that his Father was very feeble: one cannot expect but that he will continue to become more and more so. I should run up to London to see him, if I thought my doing so would be any real comfort to him: but that only his Family can be to him: and I think he may as little wish to exhibit his Decay to an old Friend, who so long knew him in a far other condition, as his friend might wish to see him so altered. This is what I judge from my own feelings.

I have only just got my Garden laid up for the winter, and planted some trees in lieu of those which that last gale blew down. I hear that Kensington Gardens suffered greatly: how was it with your Green Park, on which you now look down from such a height, and, I suppose, through a London Fog?

Ever yours LITTLE G.



XCVII.

[Dec. 1881.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

I will write to you before 1881 is gone, carrying Christmas along with him. A dismal Festivity it always seems to me—I dare say not much merrier to you. I think you will tell me where, and with whom, you pass it. My own company are to be, Aldis Wright, with whom Shakespeare, etc., a London Clerk, may be—that is, if he can get sufficient Holyday—and one or two Guests for the Day.

I forget if I wrote to you since I had a letter from Hallam Tennyson, telling me of a Visit that he and his Father had been making to Warwickshire and Sherwood. The best news was that A. T. was 'walking and working as usual.'

Why, what is become of your Sequel? I see no more advertisement of it in Athenaeum and Academy—unless it appears in the last, which I have not conned over. Somehow I think it not impossible—or even unlikely—that you—may—have—withdrawn—for some reason of your own. You see that I speak with hesitation—meaning no offence—and only hoping for my own, and other sakes that I am all astray.

We are reading Nigel, which I had not expected to care for: but so far as I got—four first Chapters—makes me long for Night to hear more. That return of Richie to his Master, and dear George Heriot's visit just after! Oh, Sir Walter is not done for yet by Austens and Eliots. If one of his Merits were not his clear Daylight, one thinks, there ought to be Societies to keep his Lamp trimmed as well as—Mr. Browning. He is The Newest Shakespeare Society of Mr. Furnivall.

The Air is so mild, though windy, that I can even sit abroad in the Sunshine. I scarce dare ask about Donne; neither you, nor Mowbray—I dare say I shall hear from the latter before Christmas. What you wrote convinced me there was no use in going up only to see him—or little else—so painful to oneself and so little cheering to him! I do think that he is best among his own.

But I do not forget him—'No!'—as the Spaniards say. Nor you, dear Mrs. Kemble, being your ancient Friend (with a new name) LITTLEGRANGE!

What would you say of the OEdipus, not of Sophocles, but of Dryden and Nat Lee, in which your uncle acted!

P.S. You did not mention anything about your Family, so I conclude that all is well with them, both in England and America.

I wish you would just remember me to Mr. H. Aide, who was very courteous to me when I met him in your room.

This extra Paper is, you see, to serve instead of crossing my Letter.



XCVIII. {230}

[Feb. 1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

This week I was to have been in London—for the purpose of seeing—or offering to see—our dear Donne. For, when they told him of my offer, he said he should indeed like it much—'if he were well enough.' Anyhow, I can but try, only making him previously understand that he is not to make any effort in the case. He is, they tell me, pleased with any such mark of remembrance and regard from his old Friends. And I should have offered to go before now, had I not judged from your last account of him that he was better left with his Family, for his own sake, as well [as] for that of his Friends. However, as I said, I should have gone up on Trial even now, but that I have myself been, and am yet, suffering with some sort of Cold (I think, from some indications, Bronchial) which would ill enable me to be of any use if I got to London. I can't get warm, in spite of Fires, and closed doors, so must wait, at any rate, to see what another week will do for me.

I shall, of course, make my way to Queen Anne's, where I should expect to find you still busy with your Proof-sheets, which I am very glad to hear of as going on. What could have put it into my head even to think otherwise? Well, more unlikely things might have happened—even with Medes and Persians. I do not think you will be offended at my vain surmises.

I see my poor little Aconites—'New Year's Gifts'—still surviving in the Garden-plot before my window; 'still surviving,' I say, because of their having been out for near a month agone. I believe that Messrs. Daffodil, Crocus and Snowdrop are putting in appearance above ground: but (old Coward) I have not put my own old Nose out of doors to look for them.

I read (Eyes permitting) the Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller (translated) from 1798 to 1806 {231}—extremely interesting to me, though I do not understand—and generally skip—the more purely AEsthetic Part: which is the Part of Hamlet, I suppose. But, in other respects, two such men so freely discussing together their own, and each other's, works interest me greatly. At Night, we have The Fortunes of Nigel; a little of it—and not every night: for the reason that I do not wish to eat my Cake too soon. The last night but one I sent my Reader to see Macbeth played by a little 'Shakespearian' company at a Lecture Hall here. He brought me one new Reading—suggested, I doubt not, by himself, from a remembrance of Macbeth's tyrannical ways: 'Hang out our Gallows on the outward walls.' Nevertheless, the Boy took great Interest in the Play; and I like to encourage him in Shakespeare, rather than in the Negro Melodists.

Such a long Letter as I have written (and, I doubt, ill written) really calls for Apology from me, busy as you may be with those Proofs. But still believe me sincerely yours

Though Laird of LITTLEGRANGE.



XCIX.

[Feb. 1882.]

MY DEAR LADY:—

The same Post which brought me your very kind Letter, brought me also the enclosed.

The writer of it—Mr. Schutz Wilson—a Litterateur general—I believe—wrote up Omar Khayyam some years ago, and, I dare say, somewhat hastened another (and so far as I am concerned) final Edition. Of his Mr. Terriss I did not know even by name, till Mr. Wilson told me. So now you can judge and act as you see fit in the matter.

If Terriss and Schutz W. fail in knowing your London 'habitat,' you see that the former makes amends in proposing to go so far as Cheltenham to ask advice of you. Our poor dear Donne would have been so glad, and so busy, in telling what he could in the matter—if only in hope of keeping up your Father's Tradition.

I am ashamed to advert to my own little ailments, while you, I doubt not, are enduring worse. I should have gone to London last week had I believed that a week earlier or later mattered; as things are, I will not reckon on going before next week. I want to be well enough to 'cut about' and see the three friends whom I want to see—yourself among the number.

Blakesley (Lincoln's Dean) goes to stay in London next week, and hopes to play Whist in Weymouth Street.

Kegan Paul, etc., publish dear Spedding's 'Evenings,' {233} etc., and never was Book more worth reading—and buying. I think I understand your weariness in bringing out your Book: but many will be the Gainers:—among them yours always

LITTLEG.



C.

[Feb. 1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

I have quoted, and sent to Mr. Schutz Wilson, just thus much of your Letter, leaving his Friend to judge whether it is sufficiently encouraging to invite him to call on you. I suppose it is: but I thought safest to give your ipsissima verba.

'It is so perfectly easy for any one in London to obtain my Address, that I think I may leave the future Mercutio to do so at his leisure or pleasure.'

I dare say you are pretty much indifferent whether he ventures or not; if he does, I can only hope that he is a Gentleman, and if he be so, I do not think you will be sorry to help him in trying to keep up your Father's traditionary excellence in the part, and to save Mr. Terriss—to save Mercutio—from the contagion of Mr. Irving's treatment of Shakespeare—so far as I have seen of it—which is simply two acts of Hamlet.

As I told you, I know nothing—even hitherto heard nothing of Mr. Terriss. His friend, S. Wilson, I have never seen neither. And I hope you will think I have done fairly well in my share of the Business.

Fanny Kerrich, my Niece, and a capital Woman, comes to me to-day, not more for the purpose of seeing myself, than my Brother's Widow who lives alone in a dismal place three miles off. {234a} I am still wheezy, and want to get in order so as to visit my few friends in London next week. {234b}

You see there is no occasion for you to answer this: for, even if I have done amiss, it is past recall; and I am none the less ancient Friend

LITTLEG.!



CI.

[March, 1882.]

MY DEAR LADY,

It is very kind of you to break through your rule of Correspondence, that you may tell me how it was with you that last Evening. I was aware of no 'stupidity' on your side: I only saw that you were what you called 'a little tired, and unwell.' Had I known how much, I should of course have left you with a farewell shake of hands at once. And in so far I must blame you. But I blame myself for rattling on, not only then, but always, I fear, in a manner that you tell me (and I thank you for telling me) runs into occasional impertinence—which no length of acquaintance can excuse, especially to a Lady. You will think that here is more than enough of this. But pray do you also say no more about it. I know that you regard me very kindly, as I am sure that I do you, all the while.

And now I have something to say upon something of a like account; about that Mr. Schutz Wilson, who solicited an Introduction to you for his Mercutio, and then proposed to you to avail himself of it. That I thought he had better have waited for, rather than himself proposed; and I warned you that I had been told of his being somewhat of a 'prosateur' at his Club. You, however, would not decline his visit, and would encourage him, or not, as you saw fit.

And now the man has heaped coals of fire on my head. Not content with having formerly appraised that Omar in a way that, I dare say, advanced him to another Edition: he (S.W.) now writes me that he feels moved to write in favour of another Persian who now accompanies Omar in his last Avatar! I have told him plainly that he had better not employ time and talent on what I do not think he will ever persuade the Public to care about—but he thinks he will. {236} He may very likely cool upon it: but, in the meanwhile, such are his good Intentions, not only to the little Poem, but, I believe, to myself also—personally unknown as we are to one another. Therefore, my dear Lady, though I cannot retract what I told you on such authority as I had,—nevertheless, as you were so far prejudiced in his favour because of such service as he formerly was to me, I feel bound to tell you of this fresh offer on his part: so that, as you were not unwilling to receive him on trial before, you may not be less favourably disposed toward him now; in case he should call—which I doubt not he will do; though be pleased to understand that I have no more encouraged him to do so now than at first I did.

What a long Story!—I still chirp a little in my throat; but go my ways abroad by Night as well as by Day: even sitting out, as only last night I did. The S.W. wind that is so mild, yet sweeps down my garden in a way that makes havoc of Crocus and Snowdrop; Messrs. Daffodil and Hyacinth stand up better against it.

I hear that Lord Houghton has been partly paralysed; but is up again. Thompson, Master of Trinity, had a very slight attack of it some months ago; I was told Venables had been ill, but I know not of what, nor how much; and all these my contemporaries; and I, at any rate, still yours as ever

E. F.G.



CII.

LITTLEGRANGE: WOODBRIDGE, March 31, [1882.]

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:—

It is not yet full Moon: {237a}—but it is my 74th Birthday: and you are the only one whom I write to on that great occasion. A good Lady near here told me she meant to pay me a visit of congratulation: and I begged her to stay at home, and neither say, nor write, anything about it. I do not know that [I] have much to say to you now that I am inspired; but it occurred to me that you might be going away somewhere for Easter, and so I would try to get a word from you concerning yourself before you left London.

The Book? 'Ready immediately' advertised Bentley near a fortnight ago: to-morrow's Academy or Athenaeum will perhaps be talking of it to-morrow: of all which you will not read a word, I 'guess.' I think you will get out of London for Easter, if but to get out of the way. Or are you too indifferent even for that?

Satiated as you may have been with notices and records of Carlyle, do, nevertheless, look at Wylie's Book {237b} about him: if only for a Scotch Schoolboy's account of a Visit to him not long before he died, and also the words of his Bequest of Craigenputtock to some Collegiate Foundation. Wylie (of whom I did not read all, or half) is a Worshipper, but not a blind one. He says that Scotland is to be known as the 'Land of Carlyle' from henceforward. One used to hear of the 'Land of Burns'—then, I think, 'of Scott.'

There is already a flush of Green, not only on the hedges, but on some of the trees; all things forwarder, I think, by six weeks than last year. Here is a Day for entering on seventy-four! But I do think, notwithstanding, that I am not much the better for it. The Cold I had before Christmas, returns, or lurks about me: and I cannot resolve on my usual out-of-door liberty. Enough of that. I suppose that I shall have some Company at Easter; my poor London Clerk, if he can find no more amusing place to go to for his short Holyday; probably Aldis Wright, who always comes into these parts at these Seasons—his 'Nazione' being Beccles. Perhaps also a learned Nephew of mine—John De Soyres—now Professor of some History at Queen's College, London, may look in.

Did my Patron, Mr. Schutz Wilson, ever call on you, up to this time? I dare say, not; for he may suppose you still out of London. And, though I have had a little correspondence with him since, I have not said a word about your return—nor about yourself. I saw in my Athenaeum or Academy that Mercutio did as usual. Have you seen the Play?

I conclude (from not hearing otherwise from Mowbray) that his Father is much as when I saw him. I do not know if the Papers have reported anything more of Lord Houghton, and I have not heard of him from my few correspondents.

But pray do you tell me a word about Mrs. Kemble; and beg her to believe me ever the same

E. F.G.



CIII.

[Spring, 1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I scarce think, judging by my old Recorder the Moon, that it is a month since I last wrote to you. But not far off, neither. Be that as it may, just now I feel inclined to tell you that I lately heard from Hallam Tennyson by way of acknowledgment of the Programme of a Recital of his Father's verse at Ipswich, by a quondam Tailor there. This, as you may imagine, I did for fun, such as it was. But Hallam replies, without much reference to the Reading: but to tell me how his Father had a fit of Gout in his hand while he was in London: and therefore it was that he had not called on you as he had intended. Think of my dear old Fellow with the Gout! In consequence of which he was forbidden his daily allowance of Port (if I read Hallam's scrawl aright), which, therefore, the Old Boy had stuck to like a fine Fellow with a constancy which few modern Britons can boast of. This reminded me that when I was on my last visit to him, Isle of Wight, 1854, he stuck to his Port (I do not mean too much) and asked me, who might be drinking Sherry, if I did not see that his was 'the best Beast of the two.' So he has remained true to his old Will Waterproof Colours—and so he was prevented from calling on you—his hand, Hallam says, swelled up like 'a great Sponge.' Ah, if he did not live on a somewhat large scale, with perpetual Visitors, I might go once more to see him.

Now, you will, I know, answer me (unless your hand be like his!) and then you will tell me how you are, and how your Party whom you were expecting at Leamington when last you wrote. I take for granted they arrived safe, in spite of the Wind that a little alarmed you at the time of your writing. And now, in another month, you will be starting to meet your American Family in Switzerland, if the Scheme you told me of still hold—with them, I mean. So, by the Moon's law, I shall write to you once again before you leave, and you—will once more answer!

I shall say thus much of myself, that I do not shake off the Cold and Cough that I have had, off and on, these four months: I certainly feel as if some of the internal timbers were shaken; which is not to be wondered at, nor complained of. {241a} Tell me how you fare; and believe me

Your sincere as ancient

LITTLEGRANGE.

I now fancy that it must be Bentley who delays your Book, till Ballantine & Co. have blown over. {241b}



CIV.

Whitmonday, [May 29th, 1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Not full moon yet, but Whitsun the 29th of May, {241c} and you told me of your expecting to be in Switzerland. And when once you get there, it is all over with full moons as far as my correspondence with you is concerned.

I heard from Mowbray that his Father had been all but lost to him: but had partially recovered. Not for long, I suppose: nor need I hope: and this is all I will say to you on this subject.

I have now Charles Keene staying Whitsuntide with me, and was to have had Archdeacon Groome to meet him; but he is worn out with Archidiaconal Charges, and so cannot come. But C. K. and I have been out in Carriage to the Sea, and no visitor, nor host, could wish for finer weather.

But this of our dear Donne over-clouds me a little, as I doubt not it does you. Mowbray was to have come down for three days just now to a Friend five miles off: but of course—you know.

Somehow I am at a loss to write to you on such airy topics as usual. Therefore, I shall simply ask you to let me know, in as few lines as you care to write, when you leave England: and to believe me, wherever you go,

Your sincere Ancient E. F.G.



CV.

WOODBRIDGE, June 24, [1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

You wrote me that you had bidden Blanche to let you know about her Father: and this I conclude that she, or some of her family have done. Nevertheless, I will make assurance doubly sure by enclosing you the letters I received from Mowbray, according to their dates: and will send them—for once—through Coutts, in hopes that he may find you, as you will not allow me to do without his help. Of that Death {243a} I say nothing: as you may expect of me, and as I should expect of you also; if I may say so.

I have been to pay my annual Visit to George Crabbe and his Sisters in Norfolk. And here is warm weather come to us at last (as not unusual after the Longest Day), and I have almost parted with my Bronchial Cold—though, as in the old Loving Device of the open Scissors, 'To meet again.' I can only wonder it is no worse with me, considering how my contemporaries have been afflicted.

I am now reading Froude's Carlyle, which seems to me well done. Insomuch, that I sent him all the Letters I had kept of Carlyle's, to use or not as he pleased, etc. I do not think they will be needed among the thousand others he has: especially as he tells me that his sole commission is, to edit Mrs. Carlyle's Letters, for which what he has already done is preparatory: and when this is completed, he will add a Volume of personal Recollections of C. himself. Froude's Letter to me is a curious one: a sort of vindication (it seems to me) of himself—quite uncalled for by me, who did not say one word on the subject. {243b} The job, he says, was forced upon him: 'a hard problem'—No doubt—But he might have left the Reminiscences unpublisht, except what related to Mrs. C.—in spite of Carlyle's oral injunction which reversed his written. Enough of all this!

Why will you not 'initiate' a letter when you are settled for a while among your Mountains? Oh, ye Medes and Persians! This may be impertinent of me: but I am ever yours sincerely

E. F.G.

I see your Book advertised as 'ready.'



CVI. {245a}

[August, 1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have let the Full Moon {245b} go by, and very well she looked, too—over the Sea by which I am now staying. Not at Lowestoft: but at the old extinguished Borough of Aldeburgh, to which—as to other 'premiers Amours,' I revert—where more than sixty years ago I first saw, and first felt, the Sea—where I have lodged in half the houses since; and where I have a sort of traditional acquaintance with half the population. 'Clare Cottage' is where I write from; two little rooms—enough for me—a poor civil Woman pleased to have me in them—oh, yes,—and a little spare Bedroom in which I stow a poor Clerk, with his Legs out of the window from his bed—like a Heron's from his nest—but rather more horizontally. We dash about in Boats whether Sail or Oar—to which latter I leave him for his own good Exercise. Poor fellow, he would have liked to tug at that, or rough-ride a horse, from Boyhood: but must be made Clerk in a London Lawyer's Office: and so I am glad to get him down for a Holyday when he can get one, poor Fellow!

The Carlyle 'Reminiscences' had long indisposed me from taking up the Biography. But when I began, and as I went on with that, I found it one of the most interesting of Books: and the result is that I not only admire and respect Carlyle more than ever I did: but even love him, which I never thought of before. For he loved his Family, as well as for so long helped to maintain them out of very slender earnings of his own; and, so far as these two Volumes show me, he loved his Wife also, while he put her to the work which he had been used to see his own Mother and Sisters fulfil, and which was suitable to the way of Life which he had been used to. His indifference to her sufferings seems to me rather because of Blindness than Neglect; and I think his Biographer has been even a little too hard upon him on the score of Selfish disregard of her. Indeed Mr. Norton wrote to me that he looked on Froude as something of an Iago toward his Hero in respect of all he has done for him. The publication of the Reminiscences is indeed a mystery to me: for I should [have] thought that, even in a mercantile point of view, it would indispose others, as me it did, to the Biography. But Iago must have bungled in his work so far as I, for one, am concerned, if the result is such as I find it—or unless I am very obtuse indeed. So I tell Mr. Norton; who is about to edit Carlyle's Letters to Emerson, and whom I should not like to see going to his work with such an 'Animus' toward his Fellow-Editor.

Yours always, E. F.G.

Faites, s'il vous plait, mes petits Compliments a Madame Wister.



CVII. {247}

ALDEBURGH: Sept. 1, [1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Still by the Sea—from which I saw The Harvest Moon rise for her three nights' Fullness. And to-day is so wet that I shall try and pay you my plenilunal due—not much to your satisfaction; for the Wet really gets into one's Brain and Spirits, and I have as little to write of as ever any Full Moon ever brought me. And yet, if I accomplish my letter, and 'take it to the Barber's,' where I sadly want to go, and, after being wrought on by him, post my letter—why, you will, by your Laws, be obliged to answer it. Perhaps you may have a little to tell me of yourself in requital for the very little you have to hear of me.

I have made a new Acquaintance here. Professor Fawcett (Postmaster General, I am told) married a Daughter of one Newson Garrett of this Place, who is also Father of your Doctor Anderson. Well, the Professor (who was utterly blinded by the Discharge of his Father's Gun some twenty or twenty-five years ago) came to this Lodging to call on Aldis Wright; and, when Wright was gone, called on me, and also came and smoked a Pipe one night here. A thoroughly unaffected, unpretending, man; so modest indeed that I was ashamed afterwards to think how I had harangued him all the Evening, instead of getting him to instruct me. But I would not ask him about his Parliamentary Shop: and I should not have understood his Political Economy: and I believe he was very glad to be talked to instead, about some of those he knew, and some whom I had known. And, as we were both in Crabbe's Borough, we talked of him: the Professor, who had never read a word, I believe, about him, or of him, was pleased to hear a little; and I advised him to buy the Life written by Crabbe's Son; and I would give him my Abstract of the Tales of the Hall, by way of giving him a taste of the Poet's self.

Yes; you must read Froude's Carlyle above all things, and tell me if you do not feel as I do about it. Professor Norton persists {248} in it that I am proof against Froude's invidious insinuations simply because of my having previously known Carlyle. But how is it that I did not know that Carlyle was so good, grand, and even loveable, till I read the Letters, which Froude now edits? I regret that I did not know what the Book tells us while Carlyle was alive; that I might have loved him as well as admired him. But Carlyle never spoke of himself in that way: I never heard him advert to his Works and his Fame, except one day he happened to mention 'About the time when Men began to talk of me.'

I do not know if I told you in my last that (as you foretold me would be the case) I did not find your later Records so interesting as the earlier. Not from any falling off of the recorder, but of the material.

The two dates of this Letter arise from my having written this second half-sheet so badly that I resolved to write it over again—I scarce know whether for better or worse. I go home this week, expecting Charles Keene at Woodbridge for a week. Please to believe me (with Compliments to Mrs. Wister)

Yours sincerely always E. F.G.



CVIII. {249}

WOODBRIDGE: Oct. 17, [1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I suppose that you are returned from the Loire by this time; but as I am not sure that you have returned to the 'Hotel des Deux Mondes,' whence you dated your last, I make bold once more to trouble Coutts with adding your Address to my Letter. I think I shall have it from yourself not long after. I shall like to hear a word about my old France, dear to me from childish associations; and in particular of the Loire endeared to me by Sevigne—for I never saw the glimmer of its Waters myself. If you were in England I should send you an account of a tour there, written by a Lady in 1833—written in the good old way of Ladies' writing, without any of the smartness, and not too much of the 'graphic' of later times. Did you look at Les Rochers, which, I have read, is not to be looked into by the present owner? {250a}

Now for my 'Story, God bless you,' etc., you may guess where none is to be told. Only, my old Housekeeper here has been bedded for this last month, an illness which has caused her great pain, and at one time seemed about to make an End of her. So it may do still: but for the last few days she has suffered less pain, and so we—hope. This has caused much trouble in my little household, as you may imagine—as well on our own account, as on hers.

Mowbray Donne wrote me that his Edith had been seriously—I know not if dangerously—ill; and he himself much out of sorts, having never yet (he says, and I believe) recovered from his Father's death. Blanche, for the present, is quartered at Friends' and Kinsfolk's houses.

Aldis Wright has sent me a Photograph, copied from Mrs. Cameron's original, of James Spedding—so fine that I know not whether I feel more pleasure or pain in looking at it. When you return to England, you shall see it somehow.

I have had a letter or two from Annie Ritchie, who is busy writing various Articles for Magazines. One concerning Miss Edgeworth in the Cornhill is pleasant reading. {250b} She tells me that Tennyson is at Aldworth (his Hampshire house, you know), and a notice in Athenaeum or Academy tells that he is about to produce 'a Pastoral Drama' at one of the smaller Theatres! {251a}

You may have seen—but more probably have not seen—how Mr. Irving and Co. have brought out 'Much Ado' with all eclat.

It seems to me (but I believe it seems so every year) that our trees keep their leaves very long; I suppose because of no severe frosts or winds up to this time. And my garden still shows some Geranium, Salvia, Nasturtium, Great Convolvulus, and that grand African Marigold whose Colour is so comfortable to us Spanish-like Paddies. {251b} I have also a dear Oleander which even now has a score of blossoms on it, and touches the top of my little Greenhouse—having been sent me when 'haut comme ca,' as Marquis Somebody used to say in the days of Louis XIV. Don't you love the Oleander? So clean in its leaves and stem, as so beautiful in its flower; loving to stand in water, which it drinks up so fast. I rather worship mine.

Here is pretty matter to get Coutts to further on to Paris—to Mrs. Kemble in Paris. And I have written it all in my best MS. with a pen that has been held with its nib in water for more than a fortnight—Charles Keene's recipe for keeping Pens in condition—Oleander- like.

Please to make my Compliments to Mrs. Wister—my good wishes to the young Musician; {252a} and pray do you believe me your sincere as ever—in spite of his new name—

LITTLEGRANGE.



CIX.

[Nov., 1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

You must be homeward-bound by this time, I think: but I hope my letter won't light upon you just when you are leaving Paris, or just arriving in London—perhaps about to see Mrs. Wister off to America from Liverpool! But you will know very well how to set my letter aside till some better opportunity. May Mrs. Wister fare well upon her Voyage over the Atlantic, and find all well when she reaches her home.

I have been again—twice or thrice—to Aldeburgh, when my contemporary old Beauty Mary Lynn was staying there; and pleasant Evenings enough we had, talking of other days, and she reading to me some of her Mudie Books, finishing with a nice little Supper, and some hot grog (for me) which I carried back to the fire, and set on the carpet. {252b} She read me (for one thing) 'Marjorie Fleming' from a Volume of Dr. Brown's Papers {253a}—read it as well as she could for laughing—'idiotically,' she said—but all the better to my mind. She had been very dismal all day, she said. Pray get some one to read you 'Marjorie'—which I say, because (as I found) it agrees with one best in that way. If only for dear Sir Walter's sake, who doated on the Child; and would not let his Twelfth Night be celebrated till she came through the Snow in a Sedan Chair, where (once in the warm Hall) he called all his Company down to see her nestling before he carried her upstairs in his arms. A very pretty picture. My old Mary said that Mr. Anstey's 'Vice Versa' made her and a friend, to whom she read it, laugh idiotically too: but I could not laugh over it alone, very clever as it is. And here is enough of me and Mary.

Devrient's Theory of Shakespeare's Sonnets (which you wrote me of) I cannot pretend to judge of: what he said of the Englishwomen, to whom the Imogens, Desdemonas, etc., were acceptable, seems to me well said. I named it to Aldis Wright in a letter, but what he thinks on the subject—surely no otherwise than Mrs. Kemble—I have not yet heard. My dear old Alfred's Pastoral troubles me a little—that he should have exposed himself to ridicule in his later days. Yet I feel sure that his aim is a noble one; and there was a good notice in the Academy {253b} saying there was much that was fine in the Play—nay, that a whole good Play might yet be made of it by some better Playwright's practical Skill.

And here is the end of my paper, before I have said something else that I had to say. But you have enough for the present from your ancient E. F.G.—who has been busy arranging some 'post mortem' papers.



CX.

WOODBRIDGE: March 6, [1883.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have asked more than one person for tidings of you, for the last two months: and only yesterday heard from M. Donne that he had seen you at the Address to which I shall direct this letter. I wrote to you about mid-November, desiring Coutts to forward my letter: in which I said that if you were in no mood to write during the time of Mrs. Wister's departure for America (which you had told me was to be November end) you were not to trouble yourself at all. Since which time I have really not known whether you had not gone off to America too. Anyhow, I thought better to wait till I had some token of your 'whereabout,' if nothing more. And now Mowbray tells me that much, and I will venture another Letter to you after so long an interval. You must always follow your own inclination as to answering me—not by any means make a 'Duty' of it.

As usual I have nothing to say of myself but what you have heard from me for years. Only that my (now one year old) friend Bronchitis has thus far done but little more than to keep me aware that he has not quitted me, nor even thinks of so doing. Nay, this very day, when the Snow which held off all winter is now coming down under stress of N.E. wind, I feel my friend stirring somewhat within.

Enough of that and of myself. Mowbray gives me a very good report of you—Absit Nemesis for my daring to write it!—And you have got back to something of our old London Quarters, which I always look to as better than the new. And do you go to even a Play, in the old Quarters also? Wright, who was with me at Christmas, was taken by Macmillan to see 'Much Ado,' and found, all except Scenery, etc. (which was too good) so bad that he vowed he would never go to see Sh. 'at any of your Courts' again. Irving without any Humour, Miss Terry with simply Animal Spirits, etc. However, Wright did intend once more to try—Comedy of Errors, at some theatre; but how he liked it—I may hear if he comes to me at Easter.

Now this is enough—is it not?—for a letter: but I am as always

Sincerely yours,

E. F.G.



CXI.

WOODBRIDGE: April 12, [1883.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

I do not think you will be sorry that more than a Moon has waxed and waned since last I wrote to you. For you have seen long enough how little I had to tell, and that nevertheless you were bound to answer. But all such Apologies are stale: you will believe, I hope, that I remain as I was in regard to you, as I shall believe that you are the same toward me.

Mowbray Donne has told me two months ago that he could not get over the Remembrance of last May; and that, acting on Body as well as Mind, aged him, I suppose, as you saw. Mowbray is one of the most loyal men toward Kinsman and Friend.

Now for my own little Budget of News. I got through those Sunless East winds well enough: better than I am feeling now they both work together. I think the Wind will rule till Midsummer: 'Enfin tant qu'il plaira a Dieu.' Aldis Wright was with me for Easter, and we went on our usual way, together or apart. Professor Norton had sent me his Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, which we conned over together, and liked well on either side. Carlyle should not have said (and still less Norton printed) that Tennyson was a 'gloomy' Soul, nor Thackeray 'of inordinate Appetite,' neither of which sayings is true: nor written of Lord Houghton as a 'Robin Redbreast' of a man. I shall wait very patiently till Mudie sends me Jane Carlyle—where I am told there is a word of not unkindly toleration of me; which, if one be named at all, one may be thankful for. {257}

Here are two Questions to be submitted to Mrs. Kemble by Messrs. Aldis Wright and Littlegrange—viz., What she understands by—

(1.) 'The Raven himself is hoarse,' etc.

(2.) 'But this eternal Blazon must not be,' etc.

Mrs. Kemble (who will answer my letter) can tell me how she fares in health and well-being; yes, and if she has seen, or heard, anything of Alfred Tennyson, who is generally to be heard of in London at this time of year. And pray let Mrs. Kemble believe in the Writer of these poor lines as her ancient, and loyal, Subject

E. F.G.

'The raven himself is hoarse,' etc.

"Lady Macbeth compares the Messenger, hoarse for lack of Breath, to a raven whose croaking was held to be prophetic of Disaster. This we think the natural interpretation of the words, though it is rejected by some Commentators."—Clark and Wright's Clarendon Press Shakespeare.

"'Eternal Blazon' = revelation of Eternity. It may be, however, that Sh. uses 'eternal' for 'infernal' here, as in Julius Caesar I. 2, 160: 'The eternal Devil'; and Othello IV. 2, 130: 'Some eternal villain.' 'Blazon' is an heraldic term, meaning Description of armorial bearings, * hence used for description generally; as in Much Ado II. 1, 307. The verb 'blazon' occurs in Cymbeline IV. 2, 170."—Ibid.

Thus have I written out in my very best hand: as I will take care to do in future; for I think it very bad manners to puzzle anyone—and especially a Lady—with that which is a trouble to read; and I really had no idea that I have been so guilty of doing so to Mrs. Kemble.

Also I beg leave to say that nothing in Mowbray's letter set me off writing again to Mrs. Kemble, except her Address, which I knew not till he gave it to me, and I remain her very humble obedient Servant,

THE LAIRD OF LITTLEGRANGE—

of which I enclose a side view done by a Woodbridge Artisan for his own amusement. So that Mrs. Kemble may be made acquainted with the 'habitat' of the Flower—which is about to make an Omelette for its Sunday Dinner.

N.B.—The 'Raven' is not he that reports the news to Miladi M., but 'one of my fellows Who almost dead for breath, etc.'

* Not, as E. F.G. had thought, the Bearings themselves.



CXII.

[May, 1883.]

MY DEAR LADY,

I conclude (from what you wrote me in your last letter) that you are at Leamington by this time; and I will venture to ask a word of you before you go off to Switzerland, and I shall have to rely on Coutts & Co. for further Correspondence between us. I am not sure of your present Address, even should you be at Leamington—not sure—but yet I think my letter will find you—and, if it do not—why, then you will be saved the necessity of answering it.

I had written to Mowbray Donne to ask about himself and his Wife: and herewith I enclose his Answer—very sad, and very manly. You shall return it if you please; for I set some store by it.

Now I am reading—have almost finished—Jane Carlyle's Letters. I dare say you have already heard them more than enough discussed in London; and therefore I will only say that it is at any rate fine of old Carlyle to have laid himself so easily open to public Rebuke, though whether such Revelations are fit for Publicity is another question. At any rate, it seems to me that half her letters, and all his ejaculations of Remorse summed up in a Preface, would have done better. There is an Article by brave Mrs. Oliphant in this month's Contemporary Review {259} (or Magazine) well worth reading on the subject; with such a Challenge to Froude as might almost be actionable in Law. We must 'hear both sides,' and wait for the Volume which [is] to crown all his Labours in this Cause.

I think your Leamington Country is more in Leaf than ours 'down-East:' which only just begins to 'stand in a mist of green.' {260} By the by, I lately heard from Hallam Tennyson that all his Party were well enough; not having been to London this Spring because Alfred's Doctor had warned him against London Fogs, which suppress Perspiration, and bring up Gout. Which is the best piece of news in my Letter; and I am

Yours always and a Day E. F.G.

P.S. I do not enclose Mowbray's letter, as I had intended to do, for fear of my own not finding you.



CXIII.

[May, 1883.]

MY DEAR LADY;

Stupid me! And now, after a little hunt, I find poor Mowbray's Letter, which I had made sure of having sent you. But I should not now send it if I did not implore you not to write in case you thought fit to return it; which indeed I did ask you to do; but now I would rather it remained with you, who will acknowledge all the true and brave in it as well as I—yes, it may be laid, if you please, even among those of your own which you tell me Mowbray's Father saved up for you. If you return it, let it be without a word of your own: and pray do not misunderstand me when I say that. You will hear of me (if Coutts be true) when you are among your Mountains again; and, if you do hear of me, I know you will—for you must—reply.

At last some feeling of Spring—a month before Midsummer. And next week I am expecting my grave Friend Charles Keene, of Punch, to come here for a week—bringing with him his Bagpipes, and an ancient Viol, and a Book of Strathspeys and Madrigals; and our Archdeacon will come to meet him, and to talk over ancient Music and Books: and we shall all three drive out past the green hedges, and heaths with their furze in blossom—and I wish—yes, I do—that you were of the Party.

I love all Southey, and all that he does; and love that Correspondence of his with Caroline Bowles. We (Boy and I) have been reading an account of Zetland, which makes me thirst for 'The Pirate' again—tiresome, I know—more than half of it—but what a Vision it leaves behind! {261}

Now, Madam, you cannot pretend that you have to jump at my meaning through my MS. I am sure it is legible enough, and that I am ever yours

E. F.G.

You write just across the Address you date from; but I jump at that which I shall direct this Letter by.



CXIV.

WOODBRIDGE, May 27/83.

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:

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

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

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

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

Sincerely yours LITTLEGRANGE.

Is not this Letter legible enough?



INDEX

Academy (Royal), pictures at, 49

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

Aide (H.), 202

Anstey's 'Vice Versa,' 253

Arkwright (Mrs.), 87

Autumn colours, 112

Bagehot's Essays, 170

Barton (Bernard), 174

Basselin (Olivier), quoted, 23

Beard (Dr.), 48

Belvidere Hat, 163

Beranger, 20-22

Beuve (Sainte), Causeries, 40, 53

Blackbird v. Nightingale, 46

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

Boccaccio, 117

Brown (Dr. John), 253

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

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

Calderon, 63, 185

Candide, 174

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

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

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

Chateaubriand's father, 59

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

Clerke Saunders, 164

Coriolanus, 139

Corneille, 73

Country church, Scene in, 46

Cowell (Professor), 155

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

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

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

Deffand (Madame du), 53

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

Derby Day, 186

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

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

Devrient, his Theory of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 253

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

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

Donne (Charles), 95, 111, 131

Donne (Mrs. Charles), her death, 106

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

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

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

Ducis, 219

Dunwich, 138

Eastern Question (the), 117

Eckermann, a German Boswell, 155

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

Elio (F. J.), 120

Elliot (Sir Gilbert), pastoral by, 82

Euphranor, 65

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frere (Mrs.), 83, 87, 181

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

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

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

Gil Blas, 66

Glyn (Miss), 97

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

Goethe and Schiller, correspondence of, 231

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

Gordon (Mrs.), 132, 203

Gout, 7

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

Half Hours with the Worst Authors, 31, 34

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

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

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

Hatherley (Lord), letter from, 132

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

Haydn, 83

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

Haymarket Opera (The), 200

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

Helen of Kirkconnel, 164

Helps (Sir Arthur), his death, 68

Hertford (Lord), 48, 50

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

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

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

Hunt (Holman), The Shadow of Death, 40

Intellectual Peat, 69

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

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

Jessica, 179

Kean (Edmund), in Othello, 53

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

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

Kelly (Michael), his Reminiscences, 146

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

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

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

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

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

Kemble (John Mitchell), 120, 153, 159

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

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

La Fontaine, 66

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

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

L'Hopital (Chancellor), quoted, 191

Little Grange, first named, 42

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

Lynn (Mary), 191, 252, 253

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

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

Malkin (Arthur), 110, 132, 213

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

Marjorie Fleming, 252

Marot (Clement), quoted, 23

Matthews (Charles), his Memoir, 173

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

Montaigne, 103, 104, 105, 117

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

Napoleon, saying of, 218

Naseby, proposed monument at, 17, 27

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

OEdipus, by Dryden and Lee, 229

Oleander, 251

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

Oriole, 46

Pasta, saying of, 53

Pasta, in Medea, 181, 200

Pasteur (Le Bon), 30, 33

Peacock (E.), Headlong Hall quoted, 40

Piccolomini, 11

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

Piozzi (Mrs.), Memoirs of, 46

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

Portia, 95, 124

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

Ritchie (Mrs.), Miss Thackeray, 135

Rossi in Hamlet, 107

Rousseau on stage decoration, 110

Santley (Mrs.), 111

Sartoris (Edward), 192, 203

Sartoris (Greville), death of, 38

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

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

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

Shakespeare, edited by Clark and Wright, 68, 69

Shakespeare, 69

Shakespeare's predecessors, 223

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

Skeat (Professor), his Inaugural Lecture, 153

Southey's Correspondence with Caroline Bowles, 261

Spanish Tragedy (The), scene from, 62

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tennyson (Lionel), 98; his marriage, 135

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

Thackeray (Minnie), death of, 90

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

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

Thurtell, the murderer, 152

Tichborne trial, 28, 36

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

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

Tunbridge Wells, 57

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

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

Two Noble Kinsmen (The), 221

Urania, 146

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

Wainewright (T. G.), 90

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Footnotes:

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

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

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

{7} Macbeth, ii. 2, 21.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

{19a} Miss Harriet St. Leger.

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

{23a} Probably the piece beginning—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change.'

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

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

Each stanza ends:—

'Et le bon Dieu vous benira.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See 'Letters,' i. 75, note.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pas mal ca, eh!"

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

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

'Do such business as the bitter day,'

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

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

{48a} Lord Hertford

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

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