Jasmin's visit to Paris in 1842 made his works more extensively known,
both at home and abroad. His name was frequently mentioned in the
Parisian journals, and Frenchmen north of the Loire began to pride
themselves on their Gascon poet. His Blind Girl had been translated into
English, Spanish, and Italian. The principal English literary journal,
the Athenaeum, called attention to his works a few months after his
appearance in Paris.{1} The editor introduced the subject in the
following words:
"On the banks of the Garonne, in the picturesque and ancient town of
Agen, there exists at this moment a man of genius of the first order--a
rustic Beranger, a Victor Hugo, a Lamartine--a poet full of fire,
originality, and feeling--an actor superior to any now in France,
excepting Rachel, whom he resembles both in his powers of declamation
and his fortunes. He is not unknown--he is no mute inglorious Milton;
for the first poets, statesmen, and men of letters in France have been
to visit him. His parlour chimney-piece, behind his barber's shop, is
covered with offerings to his genius from royalty and rank. His smiling,
dark-eyed wife, exhibits to the curious the tokens of her husband's
acknowledged merit; and gold and jewels shine in the eyes of the
astonished stranger, who, having heard his name, is led to stroll
carelessly into the shop, attracted by a gorgeous blue cloth hung
outside, on which he may have read the words, Jasmin, Coiffeur."
After mentioning the golden laurels, and the gifts awarded to him by
those who acknowledged his genius, the editor proceeds to mention
his poems in the Gascon dialect--his Souvenirs his Blind Girl and his
Franconnette--and then refers to his personal appearance. "Jasmin is
handsome in person, with eyes full of intelligence, of good features,
a mobility of expression absolutely electrifying, a manly figure and an
agreeable address; but his voice is harmony itself, and its changes have
an effect seldom experienced on or off the stage. The melody attributed
to Mrs. Jordan seems to approach it nearest. Had he been an actor
instead of a poet, he would have 'won all hearts his way'... On the
whole, considering the spirit, taste, pathos, and power of this poet,
who writes in a patois hitherto confined to the lower class of people
in a remote district--considering the effect that his verses have made
among educated persons, both French and foreign, it is impossible not
to look upon him as one of the remarkable characters of his age, and to
award him, as the city of Clemence Isaure has done, the Golden Laurel,
as the first of the revived Troubadours, destined perhaps to rescue his
country from the reproach of having buried her poetry in the graves of
Alain Chartier and Charles of Orleans, four centuries ago."
It is probable that this article in the Athenaeum was written by Miss
Louisa Stuart Costello, who had had an interview with the poet, in his
house at Agen, some years before. While making her tour through Auvergne
and Languedoc in 1840,{2} she states that she picked up three charming
ballads, and was not aware that they had ever been printed. She wrote
them down merely by ear, and afterwards translated Me cal Mouri into
English (see page 57). The ballad was very popular, and was set to
music. She did not then know the name of the composer, but when she
ascertained that the poet was "one Jasmin of Agen," she resolved to go
out of her way and call upon him, when on her journey to the Pyrenees
about two years later.{3} She had already heard much about him before
she arrived, as he was regarded in Gascony as "the greatest poet in
modern times." She had no difficulty in finding his shop at the entrance
to the Promenade du Gravier, with the lines in large gold letters,
"Jasmin, Coiffeur"
Miss Costello entered, and was welcomed by a smiling dark-eyed woman,
who informed her that her husband was busy at that moment dressing a
customer's hair, but begged that she would walk into his parlour at the
back of the shop. Madame Jasmin took advantage of her husband's absence
to exhibit the memorials which he had received for his gratuitous
services on behalf of the public. There was the golden laurel from the
city of Toulouse; the golden cup from the citizens of Auch, the gold
watch with chain and seals from "Le Roi" Louis Philippe, the ring
presented by the Duke of Orleans, the pearl pin from the Duchess, the
fine service of linen presented by the citizens of Pau, with other
offerings from persons of distinction.
At last Jasmin himself appeared, having dressed his customer's hair.
Miss Costello describes his manner as well-bred and lively, and his
language as free and unembarrassed. He said, however, that he was ill,
and too hoarse to read. He spoke in a broad Gascon accent, very
rapidly and even eloquently. He told the story of his difficulties and
successes; how his grandfather had been a beggar, and all his family
very poor, but that now he was as rich as he desired to be. His son,
he said, was placed in a good position at Nantes, and he exhibited his
picture with pride. Miss Costello told him that she had seen his name
mentioned in an English Review. Jasmin said the review had been sent
to him by Lord Durham, who had paid him a visit; and then Miss Costello
spoke of Me cal Mouri, as the first poem of his that she had seen. "Oh,"
said he, "that little song is not my best composition: it was merely my
first."
His heart was now touched. He immediately forgot his hoarseness, and
proceeded to read some passages from his poems. "If I were only well,"
said he, "and you would give me the pleasure of your company for some
time, I would kill you with weeping: I would make you die with distress
for my poor Margarido, my pretty Franconnette." He then took up two
copies of his Las Papillotos, handed one to Miss Costello, where the
translation was given in French, and read from the other in Gascon.
"He began," says the lady, "in a rich soft voice, and as we advanced we
found ourselves carried away by the spell of his enthusiasm. His
eyes swam in tears; he became pale and red; he trembled; he recovered
himself; his face was now joyous, now exulting, gay, jocose; in fact, he
was twenty actors in one; he rang the changes from Rachel to Bouffe;
and he finished by relieving us of our tears, and overwhelming us with
astonishment. He would have been a treasure on the stage; for he is
still, though his youth is past, remarkably good-looking and striking;
with black, sparkling eyes of intense expression; a fine ruddy
complexion; a countenance of wondrous mobility; a good figure, and
action full of fire and grace: he has handsome hands, which he uses with
infinite effect; and on the whole he is the best actor of the kind I
ever saw. I could now quite understand what a Troubadour or jongleur he
might be; and I look upon Jasmin as a revived specimen of that extinct
race."
Miss Costello proceeded on her journey to Bearn and the Pyrenees, and on
her return northwards she again renewed her acquaintance with Jasmin
and his dark-eyed wife. "I did not expect," she says, "that I should be
recognised; but the moment I entered the little shop I was hailed as an
old friend. 'Ah' cried Jasmin, 'enfin la voila encore!' I could not but
be flattered by this recollection, but soon found that it was less on
my own account that I was thus welcomed, than because circumstances had
occurred to the poet that I might perhaps explain. He produced several
French newspapers, in which he pointed out to me an article headed
'Jasmin a Londres,' being a translation of certain notices of
himself which had appeared in a leading English literary journal the
Athenaeum.... I enjoyed his surprise, while I informed him that I knew
who was the reviewer and translator; and explained the reason for the
verses giving pleasure in an English dress, to the superior simplicity
of the English language over modern French, for which he had a great
contempt, as unfitted for lyrical composition.{4} He inquired of me
respecting Burns, to whom he had been likened, and begged me to tell him
something about Moore.
"He had a thousand things to tell me; in particular, that he had only
the day before received a letter from the Duchess of Orleans, informing
him that she had ordered a medal of her late husband to be struck, the
first of which should be sent to him. He also announced the agreeable
news of the King having granted him a pension of a thousand francs. He
smiled and wept by turns as he told all this; and declared that, much as
he was elated at the possession of a sum which made him a rich man for
life (though it was only equal to 42 sterling), the kindness of the
Duchess gratified him still more.
"He then made us sit down while he read us two new poems; both charming,
and full of grace and naivete; and one very affecting, being an address
to the King, alluding, to the death of his son.
"As he read, his wife stood by, and fearing that we did not comprehend
the language, she made a remark to that effect, to which he answered
impatiently, 'Nonsense! don't you see they are in tears?' This was
unanswerable; we were allowed to hear the poem to the end, and I
certainly never listened to anything more feelingly and energetically
delivered.
"We had much conversation, for he was anxious to detain us; and in the
course of it, he told me that he had been by some accused of vanity.
'Oh!' he exclaimed, 'what would you have? I am a child of nature, and
cannot conceal my feelings; the only difference between me and a man of
refinement is, that he knows how to conceal his vanity and exaltation at
success, while I let everybody see my emotions.'
"His wife drew me aside, and asked my opinion as to how much money
it would cost to pay Jasmin's expenses, if he undertook a journey to
England. 'However,' she added, 'I dare say he need be at no charge, for
of course your Queen has read that article in his favour, and knows
his merit. She probably will send for him, pay all the expenses of his
journey, and give him great fetes in London!" Miss Costello, knowing the
difficulty of obtaining Royal recognition of literary merit in England,
unless it appears in forma pauperis, advised the barber-poet to wait
till he was sent for--a very good advice, for then it would be never!
She concludes her recollections with this remark: "I left the happy
pair, promising to let them know the effect that the translation of
Jasmin's poetry produced in the Royal mind. Indeed, their earnest
simplicity was really entertaining."
A contributor to the Westminster Review{5} also gave a very favourable
notice of Jasmin and his poetry, which, he said, was less known in
England than it deserved to be; nor was it well known in France since
he wrote in a patois. Yet he had been well received by some of the most
illustrious men in the capital, where unaided genius, to be successful,
must be genius indeed; and there the Gascon bard had acquired for
himself a fame of which any man might well be proud.
The reviewer said that the Gascon patois was peculiarly expressive
and heart-touching, and in the South it was held in universal honour.
Jasmin, he continued, is what Burns was to the Scottish peasantry; only
he received his honours in his lifetime. The comparison with Burns,
however, was not appropriate. Burns had more pith, vigour, variety,
and passion, than Jasmin who was more of a descriptive writer. In some
respects Jasmin resembled Allan Ramsay, a barber and periwig-maker, like
himself, whose Gentle Shepherd met with as great a success as Jasmin's
Franconnette. Jasmin, however, was the greater poet of the two.
The reviewer in the Westminster, who had seen Jasmin at Agen, goes on
to speak of the honours he had received in the South and at Paris--his
recitations in the little room behind his shop--his personal
appearance, his hearty and simple manners--and yet his disdain of
the mock modesty it would be affectation to assume. The reviewer thus
concludes: "From the first prepossessing, he gains upon you every
moment; and when he is fairly launched into the recital of one of his
poems, his rich voice does full justice to the harmonious Gascon. The
animation and feeling he displays becomes contagious. Your admiration
kindles, and you become involved in his ardour. You forget the little
room in which he recites; you altogether forget the barber, and rise
with him into a superior world, an experience in a way you will never
forget, the power exercised by a true poet when pouring forth his living
thoughts in his own verses....
"Such is Jasmin--lively in imagination, warm in temperament, humorous,
playful, easily made happy, easily softened, enthusiastically fond of
his province, of its heroes, of its scenery, of its language, and of
its manners. He is every inch a Gascon, except that he has none of
that consequential self-importance, or of the love of boasting and
exaggeration, which, falsely or not, is said to characterise his
countrymen.
"Born of the people, and following a humble trade, he is proud of both
circumstances; his poems are full of allusions to his calling; and
without ever uttering a word in disparagment of other classes, he
everywhere sings the praises of his own. He stands by his order. It is
from it he draws his poetry; it is there he finds his romance.
"And this is his great charm, as it is his chief distinction. He invests
virtue, however lowly, with the dignity that belongs to it. He rewards
merit, however obscure, with its due honour. Whatever is true or
beautiful or good, finds from him an immediate sympathy. The true is
never rejected by him because it is commonplace; nor the beautiful
because it is everyday; nor the good because it is not also great. He
calls nothing unclean but vice and crime, He sees meanness in nothing
but in the sham, the affectation, and the spangles of outward show.
"But while it is in exalting lowly excellence that Jasmin takes especial
delight, he is not blind, as some are, to excellence in high places. All
he seeks is the sterling and the real. He recognises the sparkle of the
diamond as well as that of the dewdrop. But he will not look upon paste.
"He is thus pre-eminently the poet of nature; not, be it understood, of
inanimate nature only, but of nature also, as it exists in our thoughts,
and words, and acts of nature as it is to be found living and moving in
humanity. But we cannot paint him so well as he paints himself. We well
remember how, in his little shop at Agen, he described to us what he
believed to be characteristic of his poetry; and we find in a letter
from him to M. Leonce de Lavergne the substance of what he then said to
us:
"'I believe,' he said, 'that I have portrayed a part of the noble
sentiments which men and women may experience here below. I believe
that I have emancipated myself more than anyone has ever done from
every school, and I have placed myself in more direct communication with
nature. My poetry comes from my heart. I have taken my pictures from
around me in the most humble conditions of men; and I have done for my
native language all that I could.'"
A few years later Mr. Angus B. Reach, a well-known author, and a
contributor to Punch in its earlier days, was appointed a commissioner
by the Morning Chronicle to visit, for industrial purposes, the
districts in the South of France. His reports appeared in the Chronicle;
but in 1852, Mr. Reach published a fuller account of his journeys in a
volume entitled 'Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone.'{6}
In passing through the South of France, Mr. Reach stopped at Agen.
"One of my objects," he says, "was to pay a literary visit to a very
remarkable man--Jasmin, the peasant-poet of Provence and Languedoc--the
'Last of the Troubadours,' as, with more truth than is generally to be
found in ad captandum designations, he terms himself, and is termed by
the wide circle of his admirers; for Jasmin's songs and rural epics are
written in the patois of the people, and that patois is the still almost
unaltered Langue d'Oc--the tongue of the chivalric minstrelsy of yore.
"But Jasmin is a Troubadour in another sense than that of merely
availing himself of the tongue of the menestrels. He publishes,
certainly, conforming so far to the usages of our degenerate modern
times; but his great triumphs are his popular recitations of his poems.
Standing bravely up before an expectant assembly of perhaps a couple
of thousand persons--the hot-blooded and quick-brained children of the
South--the modern Troubadour plunges over head and ears into his
lays, evoking both himself and his applauding audiences into fits of
enthusiasm and excitement, which, whatever may be the excellence of the
poetry, an Englishman finds it difficult to conceive or account for.
"The raptures of the New Yorkers and Bostonians with Jenny Lind are
weak and cold compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At
a recitation given shortly before my visit to Auch, the ladies present
actually tore the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them
into extempore garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting
minstrel; while the editors of the local papers next morning assured
him, in floods of flattering epigrams, that humble as he was now, future
ages would acknowledge the 'divinity' of a Jasmin!
"There is a feature, however, about these recitations which is still more
extraordinary than the uncontrollable fits of popular enthusiasm which
they produce. His last entertainment before I saw him was given in one
of the Pyrenean cities, and produced 2,000 francs. Every sous of this
went to the public charities; Jasmin will not accept a stiver of
money so earned. With a species of perhaps overstrained, but certainly
exalted, chivalric feeling, he declines to appear before an audience to
exhibit for money the gifts with which nature has endowed him.
"After, perhaps, a brilliant tour through the South of France,
delighting vast audiences in every city, and flinging many thousands of
francs into every poor-box which he passes, the poet contentedly returns
to his humble occupation, and to the little shop where he earns his
daily bread by his daily toil as a barber and hair-dresser. It will
be generally admitted that the man capable of self-denial of so truly
heroic a nature as this, is no ordinary poetaster.
"One would be puzzled to find a similar instance of perfect and absolute
disinterestedness in the roll of minstrels, from Homer downwards; and,
to tell the truth, there does seem a spice of Quixotism mingled with
and tinging the pure fervour of the enthusiast. Certain it is, that
the Troubadours of yore, upon whose model Jasmin professes to found his
poetry, were by no means so scrupulous. 'Largesse' was a very prominent
word in their vocabulary; and it really seems difficult to assign any
satisfactory reason for a man refusing to live upon the exercise of the
finer gifts of his intellect, and throwing himself for his bread upon
the daily performance of mere mechanical drudgery.
"Jasmin, as may be imagined, is well known in Agen. I was speedily
directed to his abode, near the open Place of the town, and within
earshot of the rush of the Garonne; and in a few moments I found
myself pausing before the lintel of the modest shop inscribed Jasmin,
Perruquier, Coiffeur des jeunes Gens. A little brass basin dangled above
the threshold; and looking through the glass I saw the master of the
establishment shaving a fat-faced neighbour. Now I had come to see and
pay my compliments to a poet, and there did appear to me to be something
strangely awkward and irresistibly ludicrous in having to address,
to some extent, in a literary and complimentary vein, an individual
actually engaged in so excessively prosaic and unelevated a species of
performance.
"I retreated, uncertain what to do, and waited outside until the shop
was clear. Three words explained the nature of my visit, and Jasmin
received me with a species of warm courtesy, which was very peculiar and
very charming; dashing at once, with the most clattering volubility and
fiery speed of tongue, into a sort of rhapsodical discourse upon poetry
in general, and the patois of it, spoken in Languedoc, Provence, and
Gascony in particular.
"Jasmin is a well-built and strongly limbed man of about fifty, with
a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, overhanging two
piercingly bright black-eyes, and features which would be heavy, were
they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of the facial
muscles, sending a never-ending series of varying expressions across
the dark, swarthy visage. Two sentences of his conversation were quite
sufficient to stamp his individuality.
"The first thing which struck me was the utter absence of all the
mock-modesty, and the pretended self-underrating, conventionally assumed
by persons expecting to be complimented upon their sayings or doings.
Jasmin seemed thoroughly to despise all such flimsy hypocrisy. 'God only
made four Frenchmen poets,' he burst out with, 'and their names are,
Corneille, Lafontaine, Beranger, and Jasmin!'
"Talking with the most impassioned vehemence, and the most redundant
energy of gesture, he went on to declaim against the influences of
civilisation upon language and manners as being fatal to all real
poetry. If the true inspiration yet existed upon earth, it burned in the
hearts and brains of men far removed from cities, salons, and the clash
and din of social influences. Your only true poets were the unlettered
peasants, who poured forth their hearts in song, not because they wished
to make poetry, but because they were joyous and true.
"Colleges, academies, schools of learning, schools of literature, and
all such institutions, Jasmin denounced as the curse and the bane of
true poetry. They had spoiled, he said, the very French language. You
could no more write poetry in French now than you could in arithmetical
figures. The language had been licked and kneaded, and tricked out, and
plumed, and dandified, and scented, and minced, and ruled square, and
chipped--(I am trying to give an idea of the strange flood of epithets
he used)--and pranked out, and polished, and muscadined--until, for
all honest purposes of true high poetry, it was mere unavailable and
contemptible jargon.
"It might do for cheating agents de change on the Bourse--for squabbling
politicians in the Chambers--for mincing dandies in the salons--for the
sarcasm of Scribe-ish comedies, or the coarse drolleries of Palais Royal
farces, but for poetry the French language was extinct. All modern
poets who used it were faiseurs de phrase--thinking about words and not
feelings. 'No, no,' my Troubadour continued, 'to write poetry, you must
get the language of a rural people--a language talked among fields,
and trees, and by rivers and mountains--a language never minced or
disfigured by academies and dictionary-makers, and journalists; you
must have a language like that which your own Burns, whom I read of in
Chateaubriand, used; or like the brave, old, mellow tongue--unchanged
for centuries--stuffed with the strangest, quaintest, richest, raciest
idioms and odd solemn words, full of shifting meanings and associations,
at once pathetic and familiar, homely and graceful--the language which
I write in, and which has never yet been defiled by calculating men of
science or jack-a-dandy litterateurs.'" The above sentences may be
taken as a specimen of the ideas with which Jasmin seemed to be actually
overflowing from every pore in his body--so rapid, vehement, and loud
was his enunciation of them. Warming more and more as he went on, he
began to sketch the outlines of his favourite pieces. Every now and
then plunging into recitation, jumping from French into patois, and
from patois into French, and sometimes spluttering them out, mixed up
pell-mell together. Hardly pausing to take breath, he rushed about the
shop as he discoursed, lugging out, from old chests and drawers, piles
of old newspapers and reviews, pointing out a passage here in which the
estimate of the writer pleased him, a passage there which showed how
perfectly the critic had mistaken the scope of his poetic philosophy,
and exclaiming, with the most perfect naivete, how mortifying it was
for men of original and profound genius to be misconceived and
misrepresented by pigmy whipper-snapper scamps of journalists.
"There was one review of his works, published in a London 'Recueil,' as
he called it, to which Jasmin referred with great pleasure. A portion of
it had been translated, he said, in the preface to a French edition of
his works; and he had most of the highly complimentary phrases by
heart. The English critic, he said, wrote in the Tintinum, and he looked
dubiously at me when I confessed that I had never heard of the organ in
question.
"'Pourtant,' he said, 'je vous le ferai voir,' and I soon perceived that
Jasmin's Tintinum was no other than the Athenaeum!
"In the little back drawing-room behind the shop, to which the poet
speedily introduced me, his sister {it must have been his wife}, a meek,
smiling woman, whose eyes never left him, following as he moved with a
beautiful expression of love and pride in his glory, received me
with simple cordiality. The walls were covered with testimonials,
presentations, and trophies, awarded by critics and distinguished
persons, literary and political, to the modern Troubadour. Not a few of
these are of a nature to make any man most legitimately proud. Jasmin
possesses gold and silver vases, laurel branches, snuff-boxes, medals
of honour, and a whole museum of similar gifts, inscribed with such
characteristic and laconiclegends as 'Au Poete, Les Jeunes filles de
Toulouse reconnaissantes!' &c.
"The number of garlands of immortelles, wreaths of ivy-jasmin (punning
upon the name), laurel, and so forth, utterly astonished me. Jasmin
preserved a perfect shrubbery of such tokens; and each symbol had,
of course, its pleasant associative remembrance. One was given by the
ladies of such a town; another was the gift of the prefect's wife of
such a department. A handsome full-length portrait had been presented
to the poet by the municipal authorities of Agen; and a letter from M.
Lamartine, framed, above the chimney-piece, avowed the writer's belief
that the Troubadour of the Garonne was the Homer of the modern world.
M. Jasmin wears the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and has several
valuable presents which were made to him by the late ex-king and
different members of the Orleans family.
"I have been somewhat minute in giving an account of my interview with
M. Jasmin, because he is really the popular poet--the peasant poet of
the South of France--the Burns of Limousin, Provence, and Languedoc. His
songs are in the mouths of all who sing in the fields and by the cottage
firesides. Their subjects are always rural, naive, and full of rustic
pathos and rustic drollery. To use his words to me, he sings what the
hearts of the people say, and he can no more help it than can the birds
in the trees. Translations into French of his main poems have appeared;
and compositions more full of natural and thoroughly unsophisticated
pathos and humour it would be difficult to find.
"Jasmin writes from a teeming brain and a beaming heart; and there is a
warmth and a glow, and a strong, happy, triumphant march of song about
his poems, which carry you away in the perusal as they carried away the
author in the writing. I speak, of course, from the French translations,
and I can well conceive that they give but a comparatively faint
transcript of the pith and power of the original. The patois in which
these poems are written is the common peasant language of the South-west
of France. It varies in some slight degree in different districts, but
not more than the broad Scotch of Forfarshire differs from that of
Ayrshire. As for the dialect itself, it seems in the main to be a
species of cross between old French and Spanish--holding, however, I am
assured, rather to the latter tongue than to the former, and
constituting a bold, copious, and vigorous speech, very rich in its
colouring, full of quaint words and expressive phrases, and especially
strong in all that relates to the language of the passions and
affections.
"I hardly know how long my interview with Jasmin might have lasted, for
he seemed by no means likely to tire of talking, and his talk was too
good and too curious not to be listened to with interest; but the
sister {or wife} who had left us for a moment, coming back with the
intelligence that there was quite a gathering of customers in the shop,
I hastily took my leave, the poet squeezing my hand like a vice,
and immediately thereafter dashing into all that appertains to
curling-irons, scissors, razors, and lather, with just as much apparent
energy and enthusiasm as he had flung into his rhapsodical discourse on
poetry and language!"
It is scarcely necessary to apologise for the length of this extract,
because no author that we know of--not even any French author--has given
so vivid a description of the man as he lived, moved, and talked, as
Mr. Reach; and we believe the reader will thank us for quoting from an
almost entirely forgotten book, the above graphic description of the
Gascon Poet.
Endnotes for Chapter XIII.
{1} The Athenaeum, 5th November, 1842. 'The Curl-papers of Jasmin, the
Barber of Agen.' ('Las Papillotos de Jasmin, Coiffeur.')
{2} 'A Pilgrimage to Auvergne, from Picardy to Velay.' 1842.
{3} 'Bearn and the Pyrenees.' 1844.
{4} "There are no poets in France now", he said to Miss Costello. "There
cannot be. The language does not admit of it. Where is the fire, the
spirit, the expression, the tenderness, the force, of the Gascon? French
is but the ladder to reach the first floor of the Gascon; how can you
get up to a height except by means of a ladder?"
{5} Westminster Review for October, 1849.
{6} Published by David Bogue, Fleet Street. 1852. Mr. Reach was very
particular about the pronunciation of his name. Being a native of
Inverness, the last vowel was guttural. One day, dining with Douglas
Jerrold, who insisted on addressing him as Mr. Reek or Reech, "No," said
the other; "my name is neither Reek nor Reech,but Reach," "Very well,"
said Jerrold, "Mr. Reach will you have a Peach?"