from a Day to Lowestoft. Why I should begin a Letter to you under these
circumstances I scarce know. However, I have long been intending to
write: nay, actually did write half a Letter which I mislaid. What I
wanted to tell you was--and is--that Donne is going on very well: Mowbray
thinks he may be pronounced 'recovered.' You may have heard about him
from some other hand before this: I know you will be glad to hear it at
any time, from any quarter.
This my Castle had been named by me 'Grange Farm,' being formerly a
dependency of a more considerable Chateau on the hill above. But a fine
tall Woman, who has been staying two days, ordered me to call it 'Little
Grange.' So it must be. She came to meet a little Niece of mine: both
Annies: one tall as the other is short: both capital in Head and Heart: I
knew they would _fadge_ well: so they did: so we all did, waiting on
ourselves and on one another. Odd that I have another tip-top Annie on
my small list of Acquaintances--Annie Thackeray.
I wonder what Spring is like in America. We have had an April of really
'magnifique' Weather: but here is that vixen May with its N.E. airs. A
Nightingale however sings so close to my Bedroom that (the window being
open) the Song is almost too loud.
I thought you would come back to Nightingale-land!
Donne is better: and Spedding has at last (I hear) got his load of Bacon
off his Shoulders, after carrying it for near Forty years! Forty years
long! A fortnight ago there was such a delicious bit of his in Notes and
Queries, {42} a Comment on some American Comment on a passage in Antony
and Cleopatra, that I recalled my old Sorrow that he had not edited
Shakespeare long ago instead of wasting Life in washing his Blackamoor.
Perhaps there is time for this yet: but is there the Will?
Pray, Madam, how do you emphasize the line--
'After Life's fitful Fever he sleeps well,'
which, by the by, one wonders never to have seen in some Churchyard? What
do you think of this for an Epitaph--from Crabbe?--
'Friend of the Poor--the Wretched--the Betray'd,
They cannot pay thee--but thou shalt be paid.' {43}
This is a poor Letter indeed to make you answer--as answer you will--I
really only intended to tell you of Donne; and remain ever yours
E. F.G.
Pollock is busy editing Macready's Papers.
XVIII.
LOWESTOFT: _June_ 2/74.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
Many a time have I written to you from this place: which may be the
reason why I write again now--the very day your Letter reaches me--for I
don't know that I have much to say, nor anything worth forcing from you
the Answer that you will write. Let me look at your Letter again. Yes:
so I thought of '_he_ sleeps well,' and yet I do not remember to have
heard it so read. (I never heard you read the Play) I don't think
Macready read it so. I liked his Macbeth, I must say: only he would say
'Amen st-u-u-u-ck in his throat,' which was not only a blunder, but a
vulgar blunder, I think.
Spedding--I should think indeed it was too late for him to edit
Shakespeare, if he had not gone on doing so, as it were, all his Life.
Perhaps it is too late for him to remember half, or a quarter, of his own
Observations. Well then: I wish he would record what he does remember:
if not an Edition of Shakespeare yet so many Notes toward an Edition. I
am persuaded that no one is more competent. {45a}
You see your Americans will go too far. It was some American Professor's
Note {45b} on 'the Autumn of his Bounty' which occasioned Spedding's
delightful Comment some while ago, and made me remember my old wish that
he should do the thing. But he will not: especially if one asks him.
Donne--Archdeacon Groome told me a Fortnight ago that he had been at
Weymouth Street. Donne better, but still not his former Self.
By the by, I have got a Skeleton of my own at last: Bronchitis--which
came on me a month ago--which I let go on for near three weeks--then was
forced to call in a Doctor to subdue, who kept me a week indoors. And
now I am told that, every Cold I catch, my Skeleton is to come out, etc.
Every N.E. wind that blows, etc. I had not been shut up indoors for some
fifty-five years--since Measles at school--but I had green before my
Windows, and Don Quixote for Company within. _Que voulez-vous_?
Shakespeare again. A Doctor Whalley, who wrote a Tragedy for Mrs.
Siddons (which she declined), proposed to her that she should read--'But
screw your Courage to the _sticking place_,' with the appropriate action
of using the Dagger. I think Mrs. Siddons good-naturedly admits there
may be something in the suggestion. One reads this in the last memoir of
Madame Piozzi, edited by Mr. Hayward.
_Blackbird_ v. _Nightingale_. I have always loved the first best: as
being so jolly, and the Note so proper from that golden Bill of his. But
one does not like to go against received opinion. Your _Oriole_ has been
seen in these parts by old--very old--people: at least, a gay bird so
named. But no one ever pretends to see him now.
Now have you perversely crossed the Address which you desire me to abide
by: and I can't be sure of your 'Branchtown'? But I suppose that enough
is clear to make my Letter reach you if it once gets across the Atlantic.
And now this uncertainty about your writing recalls to me--very
absurdly--an absurd Story told me by a pious, but humorous, man, which
will please you if you don't know it already.
_Scene_.--Country Church on Winter's Evening. Congregation, with the Old
Hundredth ready for the Parson to give out some Dismissal Words.
_Good old Parson_, not at all meaning rhyme, 'The Light has grown so very
dim, I scarce can see to read the Hymn.'
_Congregation_, taking it up: to the first half of the Old Hundredth--
'The Light has grown so very dim,
I scarce can see to read the Hymn.'
(Pause, as usual: _Parson_, mildly impatient) 'I did not mean to read a
Hymn; I only meant my Eyes were dim.'
_Congregation_, to second part of Old Hundredth:--
'I did not mean to read a Hymn;
I only meant my Eyes were dim.'
_Parson_, out of Patience, etc.:--
'I didn't mean a Hymn at all,--
I think the Devil's in you all.'
I say, if you don't know this, it is worth your knowing, and making known
over the whole Continent of America, North and South. And I am your
trusty and affectionate old Beadsman (left rather deaf with that blessed
Bronchitis)
E. F.G.
XIX.
LITTLE GRANGE: WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 21, [1874.]
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I must write to you--for I have seen Donne, and can tell you that he
looks and seems much better than I had expected, though I had been told
to expect well: he was upright, well coloured, animated; I should say
(_sotto voce_) better than he seemed to me two years ago. And this in
spite of the new Lord Chamberlain {48a} having ousted him from his
Theatrical post, wanting a younger and more active man to go and see the
Plays, as well as read them. I do not think this unjust; I was told by
Pollock that the dismissal was rather abrupt: but Donne did not complain
of it. When does he complain? He will now, however, leave Weymouth
Street, and inhabit some less costly house--not wanting indeed so large
[a] one for his present household. He is shortly going with his
Daughters to join the Blakesleys at Whitby. Mowbray was going off for
his Holiday to Cornwall: I just heard him speaking of Freddy's present
Address to his father: Blanche was much stronger, from the treatment of a
Dr. Beard {48b} (I think). I was quite moved by her warm salutation when
I met her, after some fifteen years' absence. All this I report from a
Visit I made to Donne's own house in London. A thing I scarce ever
thought to do again, you may know: but I could not bear to be close to
him in London for two days without assuring myself with my own Eyes how
he looked. I think I observed a slight hesitation of memory: but
certainly not so much as I find in myself, nor, I suppose, unusual in
one's Contemporaries. My visit to London followed a visit to Edinburgh:
which I have intended these thirty years, only for the purpose of seeing
my dear Sir Walter's House and Home: and which I am glad to have seen, as
that of Shakespeare. I had expected to find a rather Cockney Castle: but
no such thing: all substantially and proportionably built, according to
the Style of the Country: the Grounds well and simply laid out: the woods
he planted well-grown, and that dear Tweed running and murmuring still--as
on the day of his Death. {49a} I did not so much care for Melrose, and
Jedburgh, {49b} though his Tomb is there--in one of the half-ruined
corners. Another day I went to Trossachs, Katrine, Lomond, etc., which
(as I expected) seemed much better to me in Pictures and Drop-scenes. I
was but three days in Scotland, and was glad to get back to my own dull
flat country, though I did worship the Pentland, Cheviot, and Eildon,
Hills, more for their Associations than themselves. They are not big
enough for that.
I saw little in London: the Academy Pictures even below the average, I
thought: only a Picture by Millais of an old Sea Captain {49c} being read
to by his Daughter which moistened my Eyes. I thought she was reading
him the Bible, which he seemed half listening to, half rambling over his
past Life: but I am told (I had no Catalogue) that she was reading about
the North West Passage. There were three deep of Bonnets before Miss
Thompson's famous Roll Call of the Guards in the Crimea; so I did not
wait till they fell away. {50a}
Yours always
E. F.G.
XX.
LOWESTOFT: _Aug._ 24, [1874.]
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
Your letter reached me this morning: and you see I lose no time in
telling you that, as I hear from Pollock, Donne is allowed 350 pounds a
year retiring Pension. So I think neither he nor his friends have any
reason to complain. His successor in the office is named (I think)
'Piggott' {50b}--Pollock thinks a good choice. Lord Hertford brought the
old and the new Examiners together to Dinner: and all went off well.
Perhaps Donne himself may have told you all this before now. He was to
be, about this time, with the Blakesleys at Whitby or Filey. I have not
heard any of these particulars from himself: nothing indeed since I saw
him in London.
Pollock was puzzled by an entry in Macready's Journal--1831 or
1832--'Received Thackeray's Tragedy' with some such name as
'Retribution.' I told Pollock I was sure it was not W. M. T., who
(especially at that time) had more turn to burlesque than real Tragedy:
and sure that he would have told me of it then, whether accepted or
rejected--as rejected it was. Pollock thought for some while that, in
spite of the comic Appearance we keep up, we should each of us rise up
from the Grave with a MS. Tragedy in our hands, etc. However, he has
become assured it was some other Thackeray: I suppose one mentioned by
Planche as a Dramatic _Dilettante_--of the same Family, I think, as W. M.
T.
Spedding has sent me the concluding Volume of his Bacon: the final
summing up simple, noble, deeply pathetic--rather on Spedding's own
Account than his Hero's, for whose Vindication so little has been done by
the sacrifice of forty years of such a Life as Spedding's. Positively,
nearly all the new matter which S. has produced makes against, rather
than for, Bacon: and I do think the case would have stood better if
Spedding had only argued from the old materials, and summed up his
Vindication in one small Volume some thirty-five years ago.
I have been sunning myself in Dickens--even in his later and very
inferior 'Mutual Friend,' and 'Great Expectations'--Very inferior to his
best: but with things better than any one else's best, caricature as they
may be. I really must go and worship at Gadshill, as I have worshipped
at Abbotsford, though with less Reverence, to be sure. But I must look
on Dickens as a mighty Benefactor to Mankind. {52}
This is shamefully bad writing of mine--very bad manners, to put any
one--especially a Lady--to the trouble and pain of deciphering. I hope
all about Donne is legible, for you will be glad of it. It is Lodging-
house Pens and Ink that is partly to blame for this scrawl. Now, don't
answer till I write you something better: but believe me ever and always
yours
E. F.G.
XXI.
LOWESTOFT: _October_ 4/74.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
Do, pray, write your Macready (Thackeray used to say 'Megreedy') Story to
Pollock: Sir F. 59 Montagu Square. I rather think he was to be going to
Press with his Megreedy about this time: but you may be sure he will deal
with whatever you may confide to him discreetly and reverently. It is
'Miladi' P. who worshipped Macready: and I think I never recovered what
Esteem I had with her when I told her I could not look on him as a
'Great' Actor at all. I see in Planche's Memoirs that when your Father
prophesied great things of him to your Uncle J. P. K., the latter said,
'_Con quello viso_?' which '_viso_' did very well however in parts not
positively heroic. But one can't think of him along with Kean, who was
heroic in spite of undersize. How he swelled up in Othello! I remember
thinking he looked almost as tall as your Father when he came to Silence
that dreadful Bell.
I think you agree with me about Kean: remembering your really capital
Paper--in _Macmillan_ {53a}--about Dramatic and Theatric. I often look
to that Paper, which is bound up with some Essays by other
Friends--Spedding among them--no bad Company. I was thinking of your
Pasta story of 'feeling' the Antique, etc., {53b} when reading in my dear
Ste. Beuve {53c} of my dear Madame du Deffand asking Madame de Choiseul:
'You _know_ you love me, but do you _feel_ you love me?' '_Quoi_? _vous
m'aimez donc_?' she said to her secretary Wiart, when she heard him
sobbing as she dictated her last letter to Walpole. {53d}
All which reminds me of one of your friends departed--Chorley--whose
Memoirs one now buys from Mudie for 2_s._ 6_d._ or so. And
well--_well_--worth to those who recollect him. I only knew him by
Face--and Voice--at your Father's, and your Sister's: and used to think
what a little waspish _Dilettante_ it was: and now I see he was something
very much better indeed: and I only hope I may have Courage to face my
Death as he had. Dickens loved him, who did not love Humbugs: and
Chorley would have two strips of Gadshill Yew {54} put with him in his
Coffin. Which again reminds me that--_a propos_ of your comments on
Dickens' crimson waistcoat, etc., Thackeray told me thirty years ago,
that Dickens did it, not from any idea of Cockney fashion: but from a
veritable passion for Colours--which I can well sympathize with, though I
should not exhibit them on my own Person--for very good reasons. Which
again reminds me of what you write about my abiding the sight of you in
case you return to England next year. Oh, my dear Mrs. Kemble, you must
know how wrong all that is--_tout au contraire_, in fact. Tell me a word
about Chorley when next you write: you said once that Mendelssohn laughed
at him: then, he ought not. How well I remember his strumming away at
some Waltz in Harley or Wimpole's endless Street, while your Sister and a
few other Guests went round. I thought then he looked at one as if
thinking 'Do you think me then--a poor, red-headed Amateur, as Rogers
does?' That old Beast! I don't scruple to say so.
I am positively looking over my everlasting Crabbe again: he naturally
comes in about the Fall of the Year. Do you remember his wonderful
'October Day'? {55}
'Before the Autumn closed,
When Nature, ere her Winter Wars, reposed
When from our Garden, as we looked above,
No Cloud was seen; and nothing seem'd to move;
When the wide River was a Silver Sheet,
And upon Ocean slept the unanchor'd fleet:
When the wing'd Insect settled in our Sight,
And waited Wind to recommence her flight.'
And then, the Lady who believes her young Lover dead, and has vowed
eternal Celibacy, sees him advancing, a portly, well to do, middle aged
man: and swears she won't have him: and does have him, etc.
Which reminds me that I want you to tell me if people in America read
Crabbe.
Farewell, dear Mrs. Kemble, for the present: always yours
E. F.G.
Have you the Robin in America? One is singing in the little bit Garden
before me now.
XXII.
59 MONTAGU SQUARE, LONDON, W.
5 _Oct._/74.
MY DEAR FITZ,
It is very good of Mrs. Kemble to wish to tell me a story about Macready,
and I shall be glad to know it.
Only--she should know that I am not writing his life--but editing his
autobiographical reminiscences and diaries--and unless the anecdote could
be introduced to explain or illustrate these, it would not be serviceable
for my present purpose.
But for its own sake and for Macready's I should like to be made
acquainted with it.
I am making rapid way with the printing--in fact have got to the end of
what will be Vol. I. in slip--so that I hope the work may be out by or
soon after Christmas, if the engravings are also ready by that time.
It will be, I am sure, most interesting--and will surprise a great many
people who did not at all know what Macready really was.
You last heard of me at Clovelly--where we spent a delightful month--more
rain than was pleasant--but on the whole charming. I think I told you
that Annie Thackeray was there for a night--and that we bound her over
not to make the reading public too well acquainted with the place, which
would not be good for it.
Since then--a fortnight at St. Julians--and the same time at Tunbridge
Wells--I coming up to town three times a week--
Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis, {56}
and as there are other points of resemblance--so it is natural that the
Gates of Justice should be open even during the Vacation--just a little
ajar--with somebody to look after it, which somebody it has been my lot
to be this year.
T. Wells was very pleasant--I like the old-fashioned place--and can
always people the Pantiles (they call it the Parade now) with Dr. Johnson
and the Duchess of Kingston, and the Bishop of Salisbury and the foreign
baron, and the rest. {57a}
Miladi and Walter are at Paris for a few days. I am keeping house with
Maurice--Yours, W. F. Pk.
We have J. S.'s {57b} seventh volume--and I am going to read it--but do
not know where he is himself. I have not seen the 'white, round
object--which is the head of him' for some time past--not since--July.--
XXIII.
WOODBRIDGE: _Novr._ 17/74.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
Your Letter about Megreedy, as Thackeray used to call him, is very
interesting: I mean as connected with your Father also. Megreedy, with
all his flat face, managed to look well as Virginius, didn't he? And, as
I thought, well enough in Macbeth, except where he _would_ stand with his
mouth open (after the Witches had hailed him), till I longed to pitch
something into it out of the Pit, the dear old Pit. How came _he_ to
play Henry IV. instead of your Father, in some Play I remember at C. G.,
though I did not see it? How well I remember your Father in Falconbridge
(Young, K. John) as he looked sideway and upward before the Curtain fell
on his Speech.
Then his Petruchio: I remember his looking up, as the curtain fell at the
end, to where he knew that Henry had taken me--some very upper Box. And
I remember too his standing with his Hunting spear, looking with pleasure
at pretty Miss Foote as Rosalind. He played well what was natural to
him: the gallant easy Gentleman--I thought his Charles Surface rather
cumbrous: but he was no longer young.
Mrs. Wister quite mistook the aim of my Query about Crabbe: I asked if he
were read in America for the very reason that he is not read in England.
And in the October _Cornhill_ is an Article upon him (I hope not by
Leslie Stephen), so ignorant and self-sufficient that I am more wroth
than ever. The old Story of 'Pope in worsted stockings'--why I could
cite whole Paragraphs of as fine texture as Moliere--incapable of
Epigram, the Jackanapes says of 'our excellent Crabbe'--why I could find
fifty of the very best Epigrams in five minutes. But now do you care for
him? 'Honour bright?' as Sheridan used to say. I don't think I ever
knew a Woman who did like C., except my Mother. What makes People (this
stupid Reviewer among them) talk of worsted Stockings is because of
having read only his earlier works: when he himself talked of his Muse as
'Muse of the Mad, the Foolish, and the Poor,' {59a}
the Borough: Parish Register, etc. But it is his Tales of the Hall which
discover him in silk Stockings; the subjects, the Scenery, the Actors, of
a more Comedy kind: with, I say, Paragraphs, and Pages, of fine Moliere
style--only too often defaced by carelessness, disproportion, and
'longueurs' intolerable. I shall leave my Edition of Tales of the Hall,
made legible by the help of Scissors and Gum, with a word or two of Prose
to bridge over pages of stupid Verse. I don't wish to try and supersede
the Original, but, by the Abstract, to get People to read the whole, and
so learn (as in Clarissa) how to get it all under command. I even wish
that some one in America would undertake to publish--in whole, or part by
part--my 'Readings in Crabbe,' viz., Tales of the Hall: but no one would
let me do the one thing I can do.
I think you must repent having encouraged such a terrible Correspondent
as myself: you have the remedy in your own hands, you know. I find that
the Bronchitis I had in Spring returns upon me now: so I have to give up
my Night walks, and stalk up and down my own half-lighted Hall (like
Chateaubriand's Father) {59b} till my Reader comes. Ever yours truly
E. F.G.
_Novr._ 21.
I detained this letter till I heard from Donne, who has been at Worthing,
and writes cheerfully.
XXIV.
LOWESTOFT, _Febr._ 11/75.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
Will you please to thank Mr. Furness for the trouble he has taken about
Crabbe. The American Publisher is like the English, it appears, and both
may be quite right. They certainly are right in not accepting anything
except on very good recommendation; and a Man's Fame is the best they can
have for that purpose. I should not in the least be vext or even
disappointed at any rejection of my Crabbe, but it is not worth further
trouble to any party to send across the Atlantic what may, most probably,
be returned with thanks and Compliments. And then Mr. Furness would feel
bound to ask some other Publisher, and you to write to me about it. No,
no! Thank him, if you please: you know I thank you: and then I will let
the matter drop.
The Athenaeum told me there was a Paper by Carlyle in the January
Fraser--on the old Norway Kings. Then People said it was not his: but
his it is, surely enough (though I have no Authority but my own Judgment
for saying so), and quite delightful. If missing something of his Prime,
missing also all his former 'Sound and Fury,' etc., and as alive as ever.
I had thoughts of writing to him on the subject, but have not yet done
so. But pray do you read the Papers: there is a continuation in the
February Fraser: and 'to be continued' till ended, I suppose.
Your Photograph--Yes--I saw your Mother in it, as I saw her in you when
you came to us in Woodbridge in 1852. That is, I saw her such as I had
seen her in a little sixpenny Engraving in a 'Cottage Bonnet,' something
such as you wore when you stept out of your Chaise at the Crown Inn.
My Mother always said that your Mother was by far the most witty,
sensible, and agreeable Woman she knew. I remember one of the very few
delightful Dinner parties I ever was at--in St. James' Place--(was it?) a
Party of seven or eight, at a round Table, your Mother at the head of the
Table, and Mrs. F. Kemble my next Neighbour. And really the (almost)
only other pleasant Dinner was one you gave me and the Donnes in Savile
Row, before going to see Wigan in 'Still Waters,' which you said was
_your_ Play, in so far as you had suggested the Story from some French
Novel.
I used to think what a deep current of melancholy was under your Mother's
Humour. Not 'under,' neither: for it came up as naturally to the surface
as her Humour. My mother always said that one great charm in her was,
her Naturalness.
If you read to your Company, pray do you ever read _the_ Scene in the
'Spanish Tragedy' quoted in C. Lamb's Specimens--such a Scene as (not
being in Verse, and quite familiar talk) I cannot help reading to my
Guests--very few and far between--I mean by 'I,' one who has no gift at
all for reading except the feeling of a few things: and I can't help
stumbling upon Tears in this. Nobody knows who wrote this one scene: it
was thought Ben Jonson, who could no more have written it than I who read
it: for what else of his is it like? Whereas, Webster one fancies might
have done it. It is not likely that you do not know this wonderful bit:
but, if you have it not by heart almost, look for it again at once, and
make others do so by reading to them.