Here is a letter that seems to me something tremendous in its fun and
pathos:--
1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, London, 2d March,
1843.
My Dear Felton: I don't know where to begin, but plunge headlong
with a terrible splash into this letter, on the chance of turning up
somewhere.
Hurrah! Up like a cork again, with the "North American Review" in my
hand. Like you, my dear ----, and I can say no more in praise of it,
though I go on to the end of the sheet. You cannot think how much
notice it has attracted here. Brougham called the other day, with
the number (thinking I might not have seen it), and I being out at
the time, he left a note, speaking of it, and of the writer, in
terms that warmed my heart. Lord Ashburton (one of whose people
wrote a notice in the "Edinburgh," which they have since publicly
contradicted) also wrote to me about it in just the same strain. And
many others have done the like.
I am in great health and spirits and powdering away at Chuzzlewit,
with all manner of facetiousness rising up before me as I go on. As
to news, I have really none, saving that ---- (who never took any
exercise in his life) has been laid up with rheumatism for weeks
past, but is now, I hope, getting better. My little captain, as I
call him,--he who took me out, I mean, and with whom I had that
adventure of the cork soles,--has been in London too, and seeing all
the lions under my escort. Good heavens! I wish you could have seen
certain other mahogany-faced men (also captains) who used to call
here for him in the morning, and bear him off to docks and rivers
and all sorts of queer places, whence he always returned late at
night, with rum-and-water tear-drops in his eyes, and a complication
of punchy smells in his mouth! He was better than a comedy to us,
having marvellous ways of tying his pocket-handkerchief round his
neck at dinner-time in a kind of jolly embarrassment, and then
forgetting what he had done with it; also of singing songs to wrong
tunes, and calling land objects by sea names, and never knowing
what o'clock it was, but taking midnight for seven in the evening;
with many other sailor oddities, all full of honesty, manliness, and
good temper. We took him to Drury Lane Theatre to see Much Ado About
Nothing. But I never could find out what he meant by turning round,
after he had watched the first two scenes with great attention, and
inquiring "whether it was a Polish piece." ...
On the 4th of April I am going to preside at a public dinner for the
benefit of the printers; and if you were a guest at that table,
wouldn't I smite you on the shoulder, harder than ever I rapped the
well-beloved back of Washington Irving at the City Hotel in New
York!
You were asking me--I love to say asking, as if we could talk
together--about Maclise. He is such a discursive fellow, and so
eccentric in his might, that on a mental review of his pictures I
can hardly tell you of them as leading to any one strong purpose.
But the annual Exhibition of the Royal Academy comes off in May, and
then I will endeavor to give you some notion of him. He is a
tremendous creature, and might do anything. But, like all tremendous
creatures, he takes his own way, and flies off at unexpected
breaches in the conventional wall.
You know H----'s Book, I daresay. Ah! I saw a scene of mingled
comicality and seriousness at his funeral some weeks ago, which has
choked me at dinner-time ever since. C---- and I went as mourners;
and as he lived, poor fellow, five miles out of town, I drove C----
down. It was such a day as I hope, for the credit of nature, is
seldom seen in any parts but these,--muddy, foggy, wet, dark, cold,
and unutterably wretched in every possible respect. Now, C---- has
enormous whiskers, which straggle all down his throat in such
weather, and stick out in front of him, like a partially unravelled
bird's-nest; so that he looks queer enough at the best, but when he
is very wet, and in a state between jollity (he is always very jolly
with me) and the deepest gravity (going to a funeral, you know), it
is utterly impossible to resist him; especially as he makes the
strangest remarks the mind of man can conceive, without any
intention of being funny, but rather meaning to be philosophical. I
really cried with an irresistible sense of his comicality all the
way; but when he was dressed out in a black cloak and a very long
black hat-band by an undertaker (who, as he whispered me with tears
in his eyes--for he had known H---- many years--was "a character,
and he would like to sketch him"), I thought I should have been
obliged to go away. However, we went into a little parlor where the
funeral party was, and God knows it was miserable enough, for the
widow and children were crying bitterly in one corner, and the other
mourners--mere people of ceremony, who cared no more for the dead
man than the hearse did--were talking quite coolly and carelessly
together in another; and the contrast was as painful and distressing
as anything I ever saw. There was an independent clergyman present,
with his bands on and a Bible under his arm, who, as soon as we were
seated, addressed ---- thus, in a loud, emphatic voice: "Mr. C----,
have you seen a paragraph respecting our departed friend, which has
gone the round of the morning papers?" "Yes, sir," says C----, "I
have," looking very hard at me the while, for he had told me with
some pride coming down that it was his composition. "Oh!" said the
clergyman. "Then you will agree with me, Mr. C----, that it is not
only an insult to me, who am the servant of the Almighty, but an
insult to the Almighty, whose servant I am." "How is that, sir?"
said C----. "It is stated, Mr. C----, in that paragraph," says the
minister, "that when Mr. H---- failed in business as a bookseller,
he was persuaded by _me_ to try the pulpit, which is false,
incorrect, unchristian, in a manner blasphemous, and in all respects
contemptible. Let us pray." With which, my dear Felton, and in the
same breath, I give you my word, he knelt down, as we all did, and
began a very miserable jumble of an extemporary prayer. I was really
penetrated with sorrow for the family, but when C---- (upon his
knees, and sobbing for the loss of an old friend) whispered me,
"that if that wasn't a clergyman, and it wasn't a funeral, he'd have
punched his head," I felt as if nothing but convulsions could
possibly relieve me.....
Faithfully always, my dear Felton,