wrote to Mrs. Kemble for permission to quote the passage from her Gossip
which is here referred to. She replied (11 Dec. 1883):--
'I have no objection whatever to your quoting what I said of Edward
Fitzgerald in the _Atlantic Monthly_, but I suppose you know that it
was omitted from Bentley's publication of my book at Edward's _own
desire_. He did not certainly knock me on the head with Dr. Johnson's
sledge-hammer, but he did make me feel painfully that I had been
guilty of the impertinence of praising.'
I did not then avail myself of the permission so readily granted, but I
venture to do so now, in the belief that the publicity from which his
sensitive nature shrank during his lifetime may now without impropriety
be given to what was written in all sincerity by one of his oldest and
most intimate friends. It was Mrs. Kemble who described him as 'an
eccentric man of genius, who took more pains to avoid fame than others do
to seek it,' and this description is fully borne out by the account she
gave of him in the offending passage which follows:--
"That Mrs. Fitzgerald is among the most vivid memories of my girlish
days. She and her husband were kind and intimate friends of my father
and mother. He was a most amiable and genial Irish gentleman, with
considerable property in Ireland and Suffolk, and a fine house in
Portland Place, and had married his cousin, a very handsome, clever,
and eccentric woman. I remember she always wore a bracelet of his
hair, on the massive clasp of which were engraved the words, '_Stesso
sangue_, _stessa sorte_.' I also remember, as a feature of sundry
dinners at their house, the first gold dessert and table ornaments
that I ever saw, the magnificence of which made a great impression
upon me; though I also remember their being replaced, upon Mrs.
Fitzgerald's wearying of them, by a set of ground glass and dead and
burnished silver, so exquisite that the splendid gold service was
pronounced infinitely less tasteful and beautiful. One member of her
family--her son Edward Fitzgerald--has remained my friend till this
day. His parents and mine are dead. Of his brothers and sisters I
retain no knowledge, but with him I still keep up an affectionate and
to me most valuable and interesting correspondence. He was
distinguished from the rest of his family, and indeed from most
people, by the possession of very rare intellectual and artistic
gifts. A poet, a painter, a musician, an admirable scholar and
writer, if he had not shunned notoriety as sedulously as most people
seek it, he would have achieved a foremost place among the eminent men
of his day, and left a name second to that of very few of his
contemporaries. His life was spent in literary leisure, or literary
labours of love of singular excellence, which he never cared to
publish beyond the circle of his intimate friends: Euphranor,
Polonius, collections of dialogues full of keen wisdom, fine
observation, and profound thought; sterling philosophy written in the
purest, simplest, and raciest English; noble translations, or rather
free adaptations of Calderon's two finest dramas, The Wonderful
Magician and Life's a Dream, and a splendid paraphrase of the
Agamemnon of AEschylus, which fills its reader with regret that he
should not have _Englished_ the whole of the great trilogy with the
same severe sublimity. In America this gentleman is better known by
his translation or adaptation (how much more of it is his own than the
author's I should like to know if I were Irish) of Omar Khayyam, the
astronomer-poet of Persia. Archbishop Trench, in his volume on the
life and genius of Calderon, frequently refers to Mr. Fitzgerald's
translations, and himself gives a version of Life's a Dream, the
excellence of which falls short, however, of his friend's finer
dramatic poem bearing the same name, though he has gallantly attacked
the difficulty of rendering the Spanish in English verse. While these
were Edward Fitzgerald's studies and pursuits, he led a curious life
of almost entire estrangement from society, preferring the
companionship of the rough sailors and fishermen of the Suffolk coast
to that of lettered folk. He lived with them in the most friendly
intimacy, helping them in their sea ventures, and cruising about with
one, an especially fine sample of his sort, in a small fishing-smack
which Edward Fitzgerald's bounty had set afloat, and in which the
translator of Calderon and AEschylus passed his time, better pleased
with the fellowship and intercourse of the captain and crew of his
small fishing craft than with that of more educated and sophisticated
humanity. He and his brothers were school-fellows of my eldest
brother under Dr. Malkin, the master of the grammar school of Bury St.
Edmunds."
{94} Mrs. Kemble's letter was written with a typewriter (see 'Further
Records,' i. 198, 240, 247). It was given by FitzGerald to Mr. F.
Spalding, now of the Colchester Museum, through whose kindness I am
enabled to quote it:--
'YORK FARM, BRANCHTOWN.
'_Tuesday_, _Dec._ 14. 1875.
'MY DEAR EDWARD FITZGERALD,
'I have got a printing-machine and am going to try and write to you upon
it and see if it will suit your eyes better than my scrawl of
handwriting. Thank you for the Photographs and the line of music; I know
that old bit of tune, it seems to me. I think Mr. Irving's face more
like Young's than my Father's. Tom Taylor, years ago, told me that Miss
Ellen Terry would be a consummate comic actress. Portia should never be
without some one to set her before the Public. She is my model woman.'
{97a} See 'Letters,' ii. 192
{97b} See the _Athenaeum_ for Jan. 1, 15, 22, 29, 1876.
{100} In her 'Further Records,' i. 250, Mrs. Kemble wrote, March 11th,
1876:--
'Last week my old friend Edward Fitzgerald (Omar Kyam, you know), sent
me a beautiful miniature of my mother, which his mother--her intimate
friend--had kept till her death, and which had been painted for Mrs.
Fitzgerald. It is a full-length figure, very beautifully painted, and
very like my mother. Almost immediately after receiving this from
England, my friend Mr. Horace Furness came out to see me. He is a
great collector of books and prints, and brought me an old engraving
of my mother in the character of Urania, which a great many years ago
I remember to have seen, and which was undoubtedly the original of
Mrs. Fitzgerald's miniature. I thought the concidence of their both
reaching me at the same time curious.'
{105} On July 22nd, 1880, he wrote to me:--"I am still reading her! And
could make a pretty Introduction to her; but Press-work is hard to me
now, and nobody would care for what I should do, when done. Mrs. Edwards
has found me a good Photo of 'nos pauvres Rochers,' a straggling old
Chateau, with (I suppose) the Chapel which her old 'Bien Bon' Uncle built
in 1671--while she was talking to her Gardener Pilois and reading
Montaigne, Moliere, Pascal, _or_ Cleopatra, among the trees she had
planted. Bless her! I should like to have made Lamb like her, in spite
of his anti-gallican Obstinacy."
{106} Mrs. Charles Donne, daughter of John Mitchell Kemble, died April
15th, 1876.
{107} First acted April 18th, 1876.
{108a} See 'Letters,' ii. 293.
{108b} See 'Letters,' ii. 198.
{109a} _Atlantic Monthly_, June 1876, p. 719.
{109b} Which opened May 10th, 1876.
{110} In one of his Common Place Books FitzGerald has entered from the
_Monthly Mirror_ for 1807 the following passage of Rousseau on Stage
Scenery--'Ils font, pour epouventer, un Fracas de Decorations sans Effet.
Sur la scene meme il ne faut pas tout dire a la Vue: mais ebranler
l'Imagmation.'
{111} For April and May 1876: 'The Latest Theory about Bacon.'
{113a} See letter of October 4th, 1875
{113b} See 'Letters,' ii. 202-205.
{113c} This card is now in my possession, 'Mr. Alfred Tennyson.
Farringford.' On it is written in pencil, "Dear old Fitz--I am passing
thro' and will call again. [The last three words are crossed out and 'am
here' is written over them]. A.T." FitzGerald enclosed it to Thompson
(Master of Trinity) and wrote on the back, 'P.S. Since writing, this
card was sent in: the Writer followed with his Son: and here we all are
as if twenty years had not passed since we met.'
{114a} About the same time he wrote to me:--"Tennyson came here suddenly
ten days ago--with his Son Hallam, whom I liked much. It was a Relief to
find a Young Gentleman not calling his Father 'The Governor' but
even--'Papa,' and tending him so carefully in all ways. And nothing of
'awfully jolly,' etc. I put them up at the Inn--Bull--as my own House
was in a sort of Interregnum of Painting, within and without: and I knew
they would be well provided at 'John Grout's'--as they were. Tennyson
said he had not found such Dinners at Grand Hotels, etc. And John
(though a Friend of Princes of all Nations--Russian, French, Italian,
etc.--who come to buy Horse flesh) was gratified at the Praise: though he
said to me 'Pray, Sir, what is the name of the Gentleman?'"
{114b} On September 11th, 1877, he wrote to me: 'You ought to have
Hugo's French Shakespeare: it is not wonderful to see how well a German
Translation thrives:--but French Prose--no doubt better than French
Verse. When I was looking over King John the other day I knew that
Napoleon would have owned it as the thing he craved for in the Theatre:
as also the other Historical Plays:--not Love of which one is sick: but
the Business of Men. He said this at St. Helena, or elsewhere.'
{115} It was in 1867. See 'Letters,' ii. 90, 94.
{116} Life, vi. 215. Letter to Lockhart, January 15th, 1826.
{117a} These expressions must not be looked for in the Decameron, as
'emendato secondo l'ordine del Sacro Concilio di Trento.'
{117b} See 'Letters,' ii. 203. In a letter to me dated November 4th,
1876, he says:--
"I have taken refuge from the Eastern Question in Boccaccio, just as the
'piacevoli Donne' who tell the Stories escaped from the Plague. I
suppose one must read this in Italian as my dear Don in Spanish: the
Language of each fitting the Subject 'like a Glove.' But there is
nothing to come up to the Don and his Man."
{118} Book XVIII., vol. vii. p. 188.
{119a} See 'Letters,' ii. 208.
{119b} Gillies' Memoirs of a Literary Veteran. See Letters, ii. 197,
199.
{120a} An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876.
{120b} Mr. Wade, author of _The Jew of Aragon_, which failed. Mrs.
Kemble says (_Atlantic Monthly_, December 1876, p. 707):--
"I was perfectly miserable when the curtain fell, and the poor young
author, as pale as a ghost, came forward to meet my father at the side
scene, and bravely holding out his hand to him said, 'Never mind, Mr.
Kemble, I'll do better another time.'"
{120c} Francisco Javier Elio, a Spanish General, was executed in 1822
for his seventies against the liberals dining the reactionary period 1814-
1820.
{122a} _Atlantic Monthly_, February 1877, p. 222.
{122b} Holbrook, near Ipswich. That she had also some of the family
humour is evident from what she wrote to Mr. Crabbe of her brother's
early life. 'As regards spiritual advantages out of the house he had
none; for our Pastor was one of the old sort, with a jolly red nose
caused by good cheer. He used to lay his Hat and Whip on the Communion
Table and gabble over the service, running down the Pulpit Stairs not to
lose the opportunity of being invited to a good dinner at the Hall.' It
was with reference to his sister's husband that FitzGerald in
conversation with Tennyson used the expression 'A Mr. Wilkinson, a
clergyman.'
'Why, Fitz,' said Tennyson, 'that's a verse, and a very bad one too.' And
they would afterwards humorously contend for the authorship of the worst
line in the English language.
{123} _Atlantic Monthly_, February 1877, pp. 210, 211, and pp. 220, 221.
{124a} See note to Letter of Dec. 29_th_ 1875.
{124b} For November 1875, in an article called 'The Judgment of Paris,'
p. 400.
{125a} See 'Letters,' ii. 217. This is in my possession.
{125b} It came to an end in April 1877. In a letter to Miss St. Leger,
December 31st, 1876 ('Further Records,' ii. 33), Mrs. Kemble says, 'You
ask me how I mean to carry on the publication of my articles in the
_Atlantic Magazine_ when I leave America; but I do not intend to carry
them on. The editor proposed to me to do so, but I thought it would
entail so much trouble and uncertainty in the transmission of manuscript
and proofs, that it would be better to break off when I came to Europe.
The editor will have manuscript enough for the February, March, and April
numbers when I come away, and with those I think the series must close.
As there is no narrative or sequence of events involved in the
publication, it can, of course, be stopped at any moment; a story without
an end can end anywhere.'
{126} See letter of December 29th, 1875.
{127a} 15, Connaught Square. See 'Further Records,' ii. 42, etc.
{127b} Valentia Donne marred the Rev. R. F. Smith, minor Canon of
Southwell, May 24th, 1877.
{131a} 'We might say in a short word, which means a long matter, that
your Shakespeare fashions his characters from the heart outwards, your
Scott fashions them from the skin inwards, never getting near the heart
of them.'--Carlyle, 'Miscellanies,' vi. 69 (ed. 1869), 'Sir Walter Scott'
{131b} Procter, 'Autobiographical Fragments,' p. 154.
{134a} February 9th, 1878.
{134b} It was not in the _Fortnightly_ but in the _Nineteenth Century_.
{134c} This portrait is in my possession. FitzGerald fastened it in a
copy of the 'Poems chiefly Lyrical' (1830) which he gave me bound up with
the 'Poems' of 1833. He wrote underneath, 'Done in a Steamboat from
Gravesend to London, Jan: 1842.'
{135a} Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus by H. A. J. Munro.
{135b} See 'Letters,' ii. 233, 235, 236, 238, 239.
{136} See 'Letters,' ii. 247.
{138a} See 'Letters,' ii. 243.
{138b} See 'Letters,' ii. 248.
{145} See 'Letters,' ii. 265.
{146} II. 166 (ed. 1826).
{149} John Purcell FitzGerald died at Boulge, May 4th, 1879.
{151a} See letter of May 5th, 1877.
{151b} In a letter to me dated May 7th, 1879, he says:--
'I see by Athenaeum that Charles Tennyson (Turner) is dead. _Now_
people will begin to talk of his beautiful Sonnets: small, but
original, things, as well as beautiful. Especially after that
somewhat absurd Sale of the Brothers' early Editions.'
{152} Gay, _The Beggar's Opera_, Act III, Air 57.
{153} Professor Skeat's Inaugural Lecture, in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for
February 1879, pp. 304-313.
{154} Mrs. Sartoris, Mrs. Kemble's sister, died August 4, 1879. See
'Further Records,' ii. 277.
{155} Edwin Edwards, who died September 15. See 'Letters,' ii. 277.
{157} In a letter to me of September 29 1879, he says, "My object in
going to London is, to see poor Mrs. Edwards, who writes me that she has
much collapsed in strength (no wonder!) after the Trial she endured for
near three years more or less, and, you know, a very hard light for the
last year . . .
"Besides her, Mrs. Kemble, who has lately lost her Sister, and returned
from Switzerland to London just at a time when most of her Friends are
out of it--_she_ wants to see me, an old Friend of hers and her Family's,
whom she has not seen for more than twenty years. So I do hope to do my
'petit possible' to solace both these poor Ladies at the same time."
{158} On September 11 he wrote to me, 'Ah, pleasant Dunwich Days! I
should never know a better Boy than Edwards, nor a braver little Wife
than her, were I to live six times as long as I am like to do.'
{160} See letter of October 4, 1875.
{161} Mrs. Leigh's son, Pierce Butler, was born on Sunday, November 2,
1879.
{162} See 'Letters,' ii. 326.
{163a} Mrs. Kemble appears to have adopted this suggestion. In her
'Records of a Girlhood,' ii. 41, she says of Sir Thomas Lawrence, 'He
came repeatedly to consult with my mother about the disputed point of my
dress, and gave his sanction to her decision upon it. The first dress of
Belvidera [in _Venice Preserved_], I remember, was a point of nice
discussion between them. . . . I was allowed (not, however, without
serious demur on the part of Lawrence) to cover my head with a black hat
and white feather.'
{163b} William Mason.
{166} November 10, 1879.
{168} Mrs. De Soyres died at Exeter, December 11, 1879.
{169} Played at St. James's Theatre, December 18, 1879.
{171} 'The Duke's Children.'
{173} Probably the 'Records of Later Life,' published in 1882.
{174} On 1st February 1880, FitzGerald wrote to me:--"Do you know what
'Stub Iron' is? (I do), and what 'Heel-taps' derives from, which Mrs.
Kemble asks, and I cannot tell her." This is probably the query referred
to.
{175} Beginning 'As men may children at their sports behold!'--Tales of
the Hall, book xxi., at the end of 'Smugglers and Poachers.'
{176} In the _Cornhill Magazine_, March 1880, 'The Story of the Merchant
of Venice.'
{179} 'An Eye-witness of John Kemble,' by Sir Theodore Martin. The eye-
witness is Tieck.
{180a} This letter was written on a Tuesday, and April 6 was a Tuesday
in 1880. Moreover, in 1880, at Easter, Donne's house was in quarantine.
FitzGerald probably had the advanced sheets of the _Atlantic Monthly_ for
May from Professor Norton as early as the beginning of April.
{180b} The _Atlantic Monthly_ for May 1880, contained an article by Mr.
G. E. Woodberry on Crabbe, 'A Neglected Poet.' See letter to Professor
Norton, May 1, 1880, in 'Letters,' ii. 281.
{181a} No. 39, where FitzGerald's father and mother lived. See 'Records
of a Girlhood,' iii. 28.
{181b} See 'Letters,' ii. 138.
{183a} It was Queen Catharine. When Mrs. Siddons called upon Johnson in
1783, he "particularly asked her which of Shakespeare's characters she
was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character
of Queen Catharine, in _Henry the Eighth_, the most natural:--'I think so
too, Madam, (said he;) and when ever you perform it, I will once more
hobble out to the theatre myself.'"--Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (ed.
Birkbeck Hill), iv. 242.
{183b} See letters of February and December 1881.
{184a} See 'Letters,' ii. 244, 249.
{184b} On June 30, 1880, he wrote to me, 'Half her Beauty is the liquid
melodiousness of her language--all unpremeditated as a Blackbird's.'
{186} See letter of May 5, 1877.
{187} In a letter to me of the same date he wrote: 'Last night when Miss
Tox was just coming, like a good Soul, to ask about the ruined Dombey, we
heard a Splash of Rain, and I had the Book shut up, and sat listening to
the Shower by myself--till it blew over, I am sorry to say, and no more
of the sort all night. But we are thankful for that small mercy.
'I am reading through my Sevigne again--welcome as the flowers of May.'
{188a} On June 9, 1879, FitzGerald wrote to me: "I was from Tuesday to
Saturday last in Norfolk with my old Bredfield Party--George, not very
well: and, as he has not written to tell me he is better, I am rather
anxious. You should know him; and his Country: which is still the old
Country which we have lost here; small enclosures, with hedgeway timber:
green gipsey drift-ways: and Crome Cottage and Farmhouse of that
beautiful yellow 'Claylump' with red pantile roof'd--not the d---d Brick
and Slate of these parts."
{188b} See 'Letters,' ii. 290.
{190} See letter of Madame de Sevigne to Madame de Grignan, June 15,
1689.
{191} In one of FitzGerald's Common Place Books he gives the story thus:
"When Chancellor Cheverny went home in his Old Age and for the last time,
'Messieurs' (dit-il aux Gentilshommes du Canton accourus pour le saluer),
'Je ressemble au bon Lievre qui vient mourir au Gite.'"
{192a} Tom Taylor died July 12, 1880.
{192b} On July 16 FitzGerald wrote to me: 'Not being assured that you
were back from Revision, I wrote yesterday to Cowell asking him--and you,
when returned--to call on Professor Goodwin, of American Cambridge, who
goes to-morrow to your Cambridge--to see--if not to stay with--Mr. Jebb.
Mr. Goodwin proposed to give me a look here before he went to Cambridge:
but I told him I could not bear the thought of his coming all this way
for such a purpose. I think you can witness that I do not wish even old
English Friends to take me except on their way elsewhere: and for an
American Gentleman! It is not affectation to say that any such proposal
worried me. So what must I do but ask him to be sure to see Messrs.
Wright and Cowell when he got to Cambridge: and spend part of one of his
days there in going to Bury, and (even if he cared not for the Abbey with
its Abbot Samson and Jocelyn) to sit with a Bottle of light wine at the
Angel window, face to face with that lovely Abbey gate. Perhaps Cowell,
I said, might go over with him--knowing and loving Gothic--that was a
liberty for me to take with Cowell, but he need not go--I did not hint at
you. I suppose I muddled it all. But do show the American Gentleman
some civilities, to make amends for the disrespect which you and Cowell
told me of in April.'
{193} The defeat of General Burrows by Ayoub Khan, announced in the
House of Commons, July 28, 1880. On July 29 further telegrams reported
that General Burrows and other officers had arrived at Candahar after the
defeat.
{194} The date should be September 19, which was a Sunday in 1880. Full
moon was on September 18.
{197} In her 'Further Records,' i. 295, Mrs. Kemble says, 'Russia
leather, you know, is almost an element of the atmosphere of my rooms, as
all the shades of violet and purple are of their colouring, so that my
familiar friends associate the two with their notions of my habitat.'
{198} See 'Life of Crabbe,' p. 262.
{200} See 'Letters,' ii. 295.
{201a} On 'The Story of the Merchant of Venice' in the _Cornhill
Magazine_ for March 1880.
{201b} 'Ballads and other Poems,' 1880.
{202} _Kelter_, condition, order. Forby's 'Vocabulary of East Anglia.'
{203a} See 'Letters,' ii. 110
{203b} 'Medusa and other Tales' (1868), republished in 1880 with a
preface by her daughter, Mrs. Gordon.
{205} Full moon February 14th.
{206a} Acted at the Lyceum, January 3rd, 1881.
{206b} For February 1881.
{210} See letters of April 23rd, 1880, and December 1881.
{211a} See 'Letters,' ii. 180, 320.
{211b} Printed in 'Letters,' ii. 298-301.
{214} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 305-7.
{216a} Printed in 'Letters,' ii. 310-312.
{216b} April 17th was Easter Day in 1881.
{217} Madame de Sevigne writes from Chaulnes, April 17th, 1689, 'A peine
le vert veut-il montrer le nez; pas un rossignol encore; enfin, l'hiver
le 17 d'Avril.'
{218} In _Macmillan's Magazine_ for April 1881.
{219} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 313.
{221} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 312.
{227a} On Madame de Sevigne.
{227b} Published in 1882 as 'Records of Later Life.'
{227c} See letter of August 24th, 1875.
{230} Partly printed in 'Letters,' ii. 320-1.
{231} The correct date is 1794-1805.
{233} 'Evenings with a Reviewer.' The Reviewer was Macaulay, and the
review the Essay on Bacon.
{234a} At Boulge.
{234b} He was in London from February 17th to February 20th.
{236} See 'Letters,' ii. 324-6.
{237a} Full moon April 3rd, 1882.
{237b} 'Thomas Carlyle. The Man and His Books.' By W. H. Wylie. 1881,
p. 363.
{241a} On May 7 FitzGerald wrote to me from Lowestoft:
"I too am taking some medicine, which, whatever effect it has on me,
leaves an indelible mark on Mahogany: for (of course) I spilled a lot
on my Landlady's Chiffonier, and found her this morning rubbing at the
'damned Spot' with Turpentine, and in vain."
And two days later:
"I was to have gone home to-day: but Worthington wishes me to stay, at
any rate, till the week's end, by which time he thinks to remove what
he calls 'a Crepitation' in one lung, by help of the Medicine which
proved its power on the mahogany. Yesterday came a Cabinet-maker, who
was for more than half an hour employed in returning that to its
'sound and pristine health,' or such as I hope my Landlady will be
satisfied with."
{241b} Serjeant Ballantine's 'Experiences of a Barrister's Life'
appeared in March 1882.
{241c} Full moon was June 1st, 1882.
{243a} W. B. Donne died June 20th, 1882.
{243b} This letter is in my possession, and as it indicates what Mr.
Froude's plan originally was, though he afterwards modified it, I have
thought it worth while to give it in full.
'5 ONSLOW GARDENS, S.W.
'_May_ 19.
'DEAR MR. FITZGERALD,