EXETER
1833-1837
DEATH OF FERDINAND VII.--EXETER--PROJECTED BOOK ON SPAIN--PURCHASE
OF HEAVITREE HOUSE--MARRIAGE OF LORD KING AND OF ADDINGTON--FIRST
ARTICLE IN THE _QUARTERLY REVIEW_--DEATH OF MRS. FORD.
On his way to England, at the end of September 1833, Ford passed through
Madrid. There he saw the funeral of Ferdinand VII., of which he gives an
account in the following letter written to Addington from his mother’s
house in London.
[123, PARK STREET], LONDON, _Wednesday, 4th Dec., 1833_.
I am afraid I shall have left town before your return, which I am
very sorry for, as I should have much liked to have had a chat with
you in this dull and dingy capital, and to have talked over that
fair land (_alias_ brown) beyond the Pyrenees. I should have had
more to tell you than will go in a letter of our perils by sea and
by land, moving adventures and escapes. Poor old Fernando, as you
predicted, died when we were there, and we saw him duly conveyed
to the Escurial in a _coche de colleras_, with his feet projecting
out of the front windows, and the _capa_ of the _Zagal_ hanging up
behind. Alva, Medina Celi, and other grandees, riding hacks, in
gold-embroidered coats and black trousers (the under man like an
undertaker; the upper, all the tinsel of Spain, which gilds those
mean hearts that lurk beneath a star). Sad dogs they looked, _tel
maître tel valet_. Old Alagon brought up the rear. It was
archi-Spanish, a mixture of the paltry and magnificent, and no one
caring one inch about any part of it.
Villiers arrived with a good cook, and began his dinners, which
were good and agreeable. He has arrived at a rare difficult period;
but he is a very clever fellow and a complete man of the world.
I am going down to Exeter, where I have taken a house for a year,
and am going to place my children in the hands of my brother[40] to
eradicate _Santa Maria_, and teach them the architecture of the
interiors of English churches.
I met Grant the other day, who was on his way from Madrid to
Lisbon, _viâ Londres_. He told me that all your goods and chattels
were in the Downs, “all in the downs the goods were moored”; among
them is a silver vase and some coins belonging to your _servidor_,
and a _Maja_ dress with four million silver buttons belonging to
Mrs. Ford. A case of old books went at the same time, and probably
is among them; for them I wish to pay duty, if your agent would be
so good as to do so, and then all the _Roba_ may be forwarded to my
mother’s, with many thanks for all the trouble you have taken.
Grant tells me that your pension is rather undecided! God forfend!
Ruin seems to stare everybody in the face; London half-deserted,
and the roads and inns of the continent encumbered with absentees.
We are patriotic, and come home in the time of need.
The surroundings of his new home at Southernhay, Exeter, delighted him.
Writing to Addington, February 4th, 1834, he says:--
“This Exeter is quite a Capital, abounding in all that London has,
except its fog and smoke. There is an excellent institution here
with a well-chosen large Library, in which I take great pastime and
am beginning my education. There is a bookseller who has some _ten
thousand_ old tomes to tempt a poor man. However, here one has no
vices or expenses except eating clotted cream, and a _duro_ crown
piece wears a hole in your pocket before you are tempted to change
it. The dollars accumulate, and I am reading my Bible and minding
my purse. Spain is in a pretty state. Llauder[41] cannot be
trusted, as he has been true to no one, not even to himself.
Quesada is a violent man, without much statesmanlike tact; he is
piqued with what happened to him at Madrid, when they were fools
enough to set out with disgusting him. He is no Liberal in his
heart, hates the English, likes the French, believes in the
_Gazette de France_. I know him right well; he is _muy integro_,
and has a sort of straightforward common sense.
“Amarillas is, without any sort of doubt, the first man in Spain,
and of the soundest political sentiments, a true friend to England,
and most anxious to recognise the Americas, which he always told me
_must_ be the first step to the welfare of Spain. He has property
in Andalucia which has been ruined by the non-exportation of their
oils.
“My brother and his family (all most super-excellent people and of
transcendental goodness) are quite well, and _the five Miss Fords_
are the dearest friends.
“I amuse myself much with old Spanish books and old Spanish
recollections, and _have my pen in my hand_. The more I read, the
more ignorant I find I am, and how the middle age of life has been
mis-spent. I am rubbing up what I knew at eighteen and nineteen; it
is an awful thing, now the world is so learned and the lower orders
walking encyclopedias, to think of writing anything and printing.
_Nous verrons_.”
Once settled at Exeter, Ford began to write an account of his Spanish
experiences. The pocketbooks, in which he had noted whatever had
impressed him in his travels or his reading, were brought out, and the
task was commenced with characteristic zest. But the book which he had
planned in 1834 was never written. Many circumstances led to the
abandonment of the design. For a time he was discouraged by Addington’s
criticisms. Then his literary ambitions were temporarily checked by the
passion for house-building and landscape-gardening; when these were
revived, they were fully occupied in the articles which, from 1836
onwards, he contributed to the _Quarterly Review_. Finally the material
which he had collected was embodied in _The Handbook for Spain_ (1845),
and the _Gatherings from Spain_ (1846).
The old pocket-books, filled with notes and sketches, revived pleasant
memories of Spain:--
EXETER, _March 10, 1834_.
I have been rubbing up my notes on the coast of Andalucia, and have
been in the _Bottegas of Xeres_, drinking the golden Consular;
thence to Tarifa, and sucked a sweet orange with Guzman _el Bueno_.
Thence to Gib., round of beef and porter at Griffiths’. So to
Malaga; all sweet wine, raisins, and Consular uniforms. I cannot
say how much the fighting one’s old battles over again delights me.
I am afraid it will delight the gentle reader less. If I were to
write familiar letters like old Howell,[42] perhaps they might do,
but the times won’t stand that now. Penny Magazines are all the
order of the day. Well! well! _dulce est desipere in loco_. I often
think that one day would take me to Falmouth, and six to Cadiz to
the society of the fair Brackybrigas, and another day _per_ steamer
to the dark-eyed _Sevillanas_. Howbeit I have done with that
bird-lime to the human race, _viscarium Diaboli_, as old St.
Ambrose has it.
EXETER, _March 15, 1834_.
I sent Head a sample of my wares, to see if the article would do
for the public. He is a learned, dry antiquarian; that is not
exactly my line. You wish me to write an entertaining book (how
easy!!), _bagatella_, with anecdotes on men and manners. _Mores
multorum vidit et urbes!_ A lady wished for scenery and sentiment.
Heigho! true lovers’ knots and moonlight. I should wish to make a
sort of _Puchero_, an _olla Andaluça_, a little dry _vacca_ à la
Cook (that _cocinero_ has just turned out two volumes which I have
sent for), a little _chorizo_ [sausage] and _jamon de las
Alfujarras_, with some good pepper, _salsa_ [sauce] _de Zandunga_.
Where you could most assist me would be in a droll account of life
at Aranjuez or la Granja, which I never saw. I am strong in
Religion (you did not know that), Arts, and all except the
Literature; but I have an excellent Spanish library, and could in
six weeks write such an essay on the matter as would appear to be
the result of a greater acquaintance with their authors than I
have. I have, indeed, turned over a good many pages in Spain, but
it has been odd out-of-the-way reading.
If you feel up to this task, it will be a _very, very_ great
obligation, and will keep my book _correct_, and, I hope, cut out
all that is offensive. I hope not to insert anything on politics,
which I neither like nor understand. I must wait and see Captain
Cook’s book. It will be heavy and correct; no taste, much industry
(the plates ought to be _wood_ blocks): it will be very ligneous,
no _pyro_ligneous _acid_--as stiff and bolt-upright as a mainmast.
I do not see any possibility of getting the book done before next
spring; it will take a year to write. I care not for Captain
Heaphy, who will sail over the surface in an ice-boat. Captain Cook
will go down _pondere suo_.
It is a serious matter; but I have leisure, and nothing to do. This
place is delicious: such a climate! such clotted cream! and an
excellent public Library with all good books of reference.
EXETER, _March 26, 1834_.
You should look at Captain Cook’s book (_Sketches in Spain_: Boone,
Bond Street), dry, painstaking and accurate, better than I had
expected by far. He understands the people better than the
pictures. There he breaks down lamentably. But he is without taste,
and does not know a Murillo from a mainmast. You will see a
splendid sentence on old Ferdinand’s patronage of the Arts in
giving the pictures to the Museum. I have always heard that it was
the deed of the _Portuguesa_ and the Ms. de Santa Cruz, who was
_Major duomo_. The D. of [?] told me that he and Santa Cruz spent
days in rummaging them out. Ferdinand had sent them to the Devil to
make room for some new French paper.
EXETER, _April 20, 1834_.
I enclose you a batch of MSS. which will remind you of the
despatches of Mark.
The greatest act of real friendship you can show me is by not
scrupling to use your pencil as freely as a surgeon would his
knife, when he really thought the patient’s recovery required it. I
write in haste always, and am more troubled to restrain and keep in
matter, than for want of it.
I want the book to run easy, to read easy, to be light and
pleasant, not dry and pedantic. I get on but slowly, and do not see
land. I feel the matter grow upon my hands in proportion as I get
on. It is like travelling in the Asturias; when you get up one
mountain, you see five or six higher before you. However, the coast
is clear, and that able circumnavigator, Cook, will be drier than
the Mummy of Cheops before my sheets will be dampt for printing.
Do not forget to throw into an _omnium-gatherum_ any odd remarks
about Madrid. If you get a copybook, when any stray _dyspeptic_
observation occurs, book it, and I will work it up, as a gipsy does
the stolen children of a gentleman, so that the parent shall not
recognise it.
Addington’s criticism was in some respects discouraging. His diplomatic
caution was probably alarmed at Ford’s outspoken vigour, and he does not
seem to have read enough between the lines to recognise Ford’s real love
for Spain and the Spanish people. Ford’s reply shows his surprise at the
impression which he had produced on Addington.
_Sunday Evening_, EXETER, _May 4, 1834_.
Your letter has knocked the breath out of my body, the ink out of
my pen, the pen out of my hand. You have settled my _cacoethes_. I
had no idea I was anything but a friend to the Spaniards. I do not
think them brave, or romantic, but with many super-excellent
qualities, all of which I should have duly praised. You cut out my
wit! Head cuts out my poetry! and I shall cut the concern. What is
to be done? I can’t write like Cook; I really wish to take in a
very wide haul, and have very great materials. Religion must come
in, or the Arts must go out. Politics and Poetry I care nothing
for. Wit (if there is any),--it is not wit but a trick of stringing
words together, and I cannot write a common letter, or say
anything, without falling into these sort of absurdities. It would
not be my book, if it was not so. I have a horror of _flippancy_.
That is what I fear most, and am most likely to run into. There you
may carbonado me, and I will kiss the rod. If you read the MSS., do
not spare your pencil, and I will make great sacrifices to please
you. Remember you only see an excursion. My early chapters on
Seville will be historical, _prosaical_, and artistical.
I should like you to read Faure or Bory St. Vincent,[43] and see
how _they_ handle the Spaniards,--or some of the older works. Mine
is milk and water to Napier. I always thought you prejudiced
_against_ the Spaniards rather than in their favour, poor
innocents! All about the grandees at Madrid, if you have stumbled
on that, I will cut out with pleasure. At the same time, if you
don’t agree in the book, I cannot be so right as I imagined, and
had better have nothing to do with the concern, but read other
people’s works instead of their reading mine.
I have not the presumption to suppose my opinion to be worth yours
in many important subjects. On some I think it is,--the lighter and
more frivolous. I am a humble-minded author, as Head will tell you,
very docile, and not at all irritable. I care not how much you cut
out, as I have written for four volumes, and would rather write
_two_.
We will talk over the matter when I come to town, which will be
soon. Meanwhile, read the MSS., and cut away. Spare not my
pungency, and correct my mistakes. Cut out all that is flippant,
personal, or offensive (the grandees, I admit, is both). Remember
you have only the rough sketch. I have two years before me, and the
lean kine of reflection will eat up the fat ones of the overflowing
of young conceit and inexperience. I wish to write an amusing,
instructive, and, more than all, a gentlemanlike book. I hold
myself lucky that you and Head see it, and will abide by your
dictations, and kiss the rod and your hand.
But the discouragement was not great enough to divert Ford from his
enterprise. The criticism did not cool his friendship. He was eager to
persuade Addington to settle near him, and once more sings the praises
of Exeter.
EXETER, _Saturday evening, 14 June, 1834_.
Now that the show is over, and all the caps and gowns, stars and
garters no more, I venture to indite you an epistle from the green
fields of Devon; right pleasing and fresh are they after the dusty
treadmill of _la Corte_. There are houses of all sorts from £50 a
year to £_250_; one at that price is beautiful and fit for a
Plenipo. (I have not fixed on anything myself, having been chiefly
in bed with an infernal _urticaria_, _alias_ a nettle-rash.) The
women, God be praised! are very ugly. Meat at 6_d_. a pound, butter
seldom making 1_s_.; I am told in the London Buttometer it reaches
18_d_. A Mr. Radford, who has a place to sell, has one gardener,
who looks after two acres and three horses, all for a matter of £15
or so a year. Servants go twice to church of a Sunday, and masters
read family prayers, and make them work their bodies like galley
slaves, _per contra_ the benefit conferred on their souls.
The town is _pueblo levitico de hidalguia y algo aficionado a la
Iglesia y al Rey absoluto_; otherwise quiet and literary:
clergymen, physicians, colonels, plain £1000-a-year folk, given to
talk about quarter sessions and the new road bill (if you will
allow them). Otherwise a man goes quietly down hill here, _oblitus
et obliviscendus_, reads his books (or those of the Institution),
goes to church, and gets rich, which is very pleasurable and a
novel feeling--better than the _romance_ of youth.
Once more the manuscript passed to and fro between the friends. But a
new and absorbing interest for a time diverted Ford’s energies from
literature. In the late summer of 1834 he bought an Elizabethan
cottage, called Heavitree House, near Exeter, standing in about twelve
acres of land. Here he gradually rebuilt and enlarged the house, laid
out the ground in terraces and gardens with Moorish-patterned flower
borders, and planted pines from the Pincian and cypresses from the
Xenil. The first mention of the purchase, in his correspondence with
Addington, occurs in a letter written from Oxford, September 13th, 1834.
I am wandering (he says) _inter Academiæ silvas_, to my great
delight, poring over old books in the Bodleian, and copying
barge-boards and gable-ends, in order to ruin myself as
expeditiously as possible at Heavitree.
Within and without, as time went on, he made the house and gardens
express his varied tastes. Old houses in and about Exeter furnished many
of the treasures which enriched his home. Thus the fireplace in the hall
came from an ancient house pulled down in Rack Street; the gates, the
staircase, much of the panelling and carved woodwork were brought from
“King John’s Tavern.” The cornice of the bathroom had once adorned the
Casa Sanchez in the Alhambra; the old Register chest from Exeter
Cathedral formed the case of the bath. Here, too, he stored his curious
library and exhibited many of the spoils of his foreign
travels--pictures, etchings, engravings, and specimens of Majolica ware.
For the moment books were laid aside for building and gardening. His
letters are filled with his new pleasure. In April 1835 the house began
to be habitable, although he is still “ashamed of it as _in presenti_;
there are beds but no kitchen,” and “it will hardly hold the
accumulation of books. I am sighing,” he adds, “to drink the sweet
waters of the Nile; and when my book is written, when my house is built,
and when I am ruined, shall go and economise in hundred-gated Thebes.”
Writing April 16th, 1834, he says:
The move from Southernhay to Heavitree was accomplished in three
most sunny days. All the books and other traps duly conveyed into
Myrtle Bower to the tune of a triple bob major of the village
bells. I have already begun digging, and moving plants; to-morrow
comes my man of mortar to plan the kitchen. My pink thorn will be
out in a month: quite a nosegay. You can’t think how snug my upper
drawing-room looks, now it is full of books, ormolu, drawings, etc.
I expect to see you here very shortly, as London must be detestable
now O’Connell rules the land.
The work of destruction (he writes a week later) proceeds as
rapidly as Dr. Bowring or Lord Johnico could desire. The removal of
the cob has let in a flood of light and a side view over my
extensive landed estate. A part is preserved, overmantled with
ancient ivy (the harbour of slugs, black-beetles, and earwigs),
which is to be converted into a Moorish ruin, and tricked out with
veritable _azulejo_ from the Alhambra. The myrtles only want an
Andalucian _muchacha_ to be shrubs worthy of Venus. The foundations
of the kitchen will be laid on a rock on Monday next. Meanwhile my
cook roasts meat admirably with a nail and a string.
I have no vote, or I would go ten miles on foot to record my
contempt for that aristocratical prig, that levelling lordling.
I have given up the pen for the hoe and spade, all a-delving and
digging. I hope, however, in a week or so, that the _obra_ will be
so far planned and definitely arranged as to send me back to my old
books, which I find the best and surest of resources.
For one brief interval Ford was swept from his garden into the
excitement of political life. On April 8th, 1835, Sir Robert Peel and
his colleagues resigned office over the question of the Irish Church and
Irish Tithes. Under Lord Melbourne a new Government was formed, in which
Lord John Russell, as Home Secretary, was a member of the Cabinet.
Ministers offered themselves for re-election, and Lord John found his
seat in South Devonshire threatened by Mr. Parker. The contest was
keenly fought, excitement ran high, but in the end Mr. Parker won by
twenty-seven votes, and Lord John eventually found a seat at Stroud.
HEAVITREE HOUSE, _May 3 [1835], Friday Evening_.
We had a drenching rain this morning; it had not rained for many
weeks (it seldom rains except when testy gentlemen come down in
July), but just when Lord Johnny came forward, the heavens poured
forth their phials by buckets. The little man, “the widow’s mite,”
could not be heard for the sweet acclamations of “O’Connell,” “The
tail,” “Cut it short,” “Here’s the Bishop coming.” At every
sentence was a chorus, “That’s a new lie.” All Devon was assembled.
The Parker _mob_ very noisy and violent, but all yeomen and
substantial farmers. Johnny’s crew a sad set, hired at 2/6ᵈ per
man. He was supported by Lord Ebrington and Dr. Bowring.
Bulteel proposed Johnny; seconded by Lillifant, a sort of a
methodist, a member of the temperance society, which occasioned
much fun and cries of “Heavy wet,” “Brandy.” Parker (a
dandy-looking youth) was proposed in a loud, bold, and successful
speech by Baldwin Fulford, Jr., and seconded in a quieter and
gentlemanlike manner by Stafford Northcote (_fils_, the
Wykehamist). By this time I was so wet that I made off for
Heavitree, and found my myrtles just washed by a shower, etc.
I dined yesterday with all the Rads, and sat next to Dr. Bowring.
They do not seem over-confident. The Conservatives say that Parker
has a numerical majority, as far as promises go, of 700. They say
the Rads are spending money by sackfuls in inducing Parkerites not
to vote at all.
I dined the other day with _Episcopus_, who made grateful mention
of your Excellency, and rejoices in the prospect of your arrival.
So you are in for it, and have nothing to do but to give me notice,
when my niggar shall stand at the _Ship_ in Heavitree to conduct
you to my _house_. It is in a rare state of external
mortarification; but the interior is tolerable, and there is ample
accommodation for man and beast, master and man, or nags, and
plenty of wholesome food for the mind and body.
For the next eighteen months there are but few allusions in Ford’s
letters to his literary plans, and still fewer to politics. Heavitree
was the absorbing occupation of his life.
“Since you have been gone” (he writes to Addington, June 21st,
1833), “I have laid the axe to the foot of the trees, and have cut
down some twenty apples in my orchard, which has let in a great
deal of light and sun, and rejoiced the green grass below. The
weather delicious; thermometer 79 in the shade. I sit under my
drooping elm and cock up my head when I read the works of Socrates,
Plato, and Lady Morgan.
“‘Les deux tiers de ma vie sont écoulés. Pourquoi m’inquieter sur
ce qui m’en reste? La plus brillante fortune ne mérite point les
tourments que l’on se donne. Le meilleur de tous les biens, s’il y
a des biens, c’est le repos, la retraite, et un endroit qui soit sa
domaine.’ There’s a black cat for your Excellency to swallow!”
Beyond his cob walls Ford scarcely cared, even in mind, to travel. But
in the affairs of his friends he was still deeply interested, and
especially in the marriages of Lord King and of Addington. On July 8th,
1835, Lord King (cr. 1838 Earl of Lovelace) was married to Augusta Ada,
only daughter of Byron.
“The Baron’s bride” (he writes in June) “will be worthy of himself
in name and fortune. I guessed who she was by his sighs and
unpremeditated discoveries. La Bruyère says, ‘In friendship a
secret is confided; in love _il nous échappe_.’ _Viva el Amor!_”
A few days later Ford returns to the subject:
‘Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart!’ From the Baron’s
account she must be perfection, such a perfection as her father’s
fancy and fine phrenzy rolling would have imagined. She is highly
simple, hateth the city and gay world, and will not be likely to
turn up her nose at you and me, the respectable aged friends of her
lord.
I believe the Baron has all the elements of domestic felicity in
his composition, and it will go hard even if he did not make a good
wife out of bad materials. But when the _prima materia_ is worthy
of himself, we must expect a scion worthy of the descendants of
Locke and Byron, the union of philosophical esteem with poetic
ardour.
The book does not progress as much as the chimneys. I never go
beyond my cob walls, have never been out fishing, and probably
never shall until you reappear in these regions.
Little more than a year later, Ford was writing to congratulate
Addington on his engagement.
HEAVITREE, _October 13, 1836_.
DEAR ADDINGTON,
You are right. From 20 to 40 a man takes a wife, as a mistress; and
sometimes makes a mistake, gets tired, and wants to change horses.
From 40 to 50 (sometimes 55) a man hugs a spouse to his bosom, for
comfort and sweet companionship. When the hopes of youth, the
heyday of manhood, the recklessness of health and prosperity are
waning,--when he begins to know how few things answer, and how hard
it is to depend on one’s own resources to pass well through the
long day and longer night,--then it is not good to be alone. You
have felt that, and have now chosen the right moment. Your wild
oats are sown, a good crop of experience reaped, and you have found
(and there is no mistake) that the solitary, selfish system won’t
do.
Happy, thrice happy are you to be able to bind yourself in those
golden threads, woven by friendship, esteem and love! For love, a
_sine quâ non_, must be tempered to become durable. _Felix quem
faciunt aliena pericula cautum._
You will find, after having had your own way so long, how much more
it tends to peace of mind to give up and be nicely managed and
taken care of. You may amuse yourself with the superintendence of
your cellar, and keep a bottle of Valdepeñas for those old friends
who may occasionally drop in, and twaddle about that fair land
peopled by devils incarnate, male and female.
I have no news. I am content to dig in my garden; like Candide, _il
faut cultiver son jardin_--an innocent, refreshing occupation,
which gives health to the body, peace to the mind, oblivion for the
past, hopes for the future;--to do no more harm, if possible, and
as much good,--to bury resentments and cultivate peace and
goodwill, read my Bible and mind my purse, and thank my stars that
matters are no worse.
The Elizabethan apartment is finished and furnished. _Esta casa
esta muy a la disposicion de V.E. y de mi Señora (cuyos pies beso)
la Esposa de V.E._ I beg you will speak kindly of me to your fair
bride, as I am anxious to stand well in her opinion. I have had the
good fortune hitherto to have lost neither of two old friends who
have recently married.
If your Reading plan fails, there are really some very nice places
within 5 and 8 miles of Exon, cheap and delightful. You can make
the place your headquarters, if you have a fancy to look for
habitations amid the green valleys of Devon.
So, with the best and sincerest wishes for the unmixed and long
happiness of Bride and Bridegroom, and it can hardly fail to be so,
believe me,
Ever most truly yours,
RICHARD FORD.
Addington was married on November 17th, 1836, to Eleanor Anne, eldest
daughter of T. G. Bucknall Estcourt, M.P. Meanwhile Heavitree rapidly
approached completion. Three weeks later Ford announces (December 9th,
1836) that his house was ready. “Heavitree,” he says, “is finished and
furnished, and really is a little gem in its way. The _Episcopus_ has
been to dine here, and, as he dines nowhere, it is rather an honour and
has infused an odour of sanctity over my cell.”
It is not perhaps singular, after so long a devotion to building, that
the first article which Ford contributed to the _Quarterly Review_
should have been dedicated to “Cob Walls.” The substance of the article
seems from the following letter (February 27th, 1837) to have been a
paper read before the Exeter _Athenæum_. Among the audience was William
Nassau Senior, whose praise led Lockhart to ask to publish it in the
_Quarterly_.
Cob, depend upon it, is indestructible. I am about next week to
read a learned paper on that very subject at the Athenæum, which I
will send you, with a chapter on Spanish Comedy.
The house at Heavitree is now in really a very habitable state, and
the gardens beginning to put on their spring livery. I was heartily
glad to get out of that plague-stricken, foggy,
heart-and-soul-withering city of London, where I was detained more
than a month by the illness of my boy, who is still far from well
and unable to return to his tutor. I am occupied in the parental
task of teaching him chess and the Greek alphabet. I saw very few
of our mutual friends in London, as I was, like the rest of
mankind, under the lowering influenza.
I have no news here,--leading a humdrum life amid my flowers and
books, with a clean tongue and dirty hands, _oblitus et
obliviscendus_.
Ford’s article on “Cob Walls” well illustrates his literary methods. The
mass of miscellaneous learning, which is concentrated on an unpromising
subject, is so humorously handled as to be entirely free from pedantry.
He traces the use of the material from the time of Cain to that of
modern peasants in France and Spain, from the walls of Babylon to the
white villages of Andalusia. Finally he hazards the bold speculation
that it was introduced into the West of England by Phœnician traders.
But, interspersed with doubtful theories and historical and classical
lore, are clear directions and practical rules for the composition and
employment of a material which is almost indestructible, if it is
protected from damp above and below, or has, to quote the Devonshire
saying, a good hat and a pair of shoes.
Encouraged by his success, Ford was already engaged on other literary
subjects, when his work was interrupted by the death of his wife, who
had long been in delicate health. The news is communicated to Addington
in the following letter:--
_Monday_ [_15 May, 1837_], 123, PARK STREET [LONDON].
You will be sadly shocked with the melancholy import of this
letter; indeed I am so overwhelmed that I hardly know how to
express myself. My poor wife died yesterday morning! She, as you
know, never was well, and latterly has suffered from excruciating
headaches which deprived her entirely of rest. Last Sunday week she
was seized
[Illustration: Emery Walker Ph Sc.
Harriet Ford
first wife of Richard Ford
1830.]
with a sort of paralysis of the brain and loss of speech. She
remained a few days sensible and recognising those who came into
the room; but on Friday all consciousness was gone, and she
yesterday morning at quarter past 9 breathed her last. I am
dreadfully afflicted.