HEAVITREE, NEAR EXETER
(1837-1845)
LITERARY WORK--ENGAGEMENT AND SECOND MARRIAGE--ARTICLES IN THE
_QUARTERLY REVIEW_--PREPARATIONS FOR A TOUR ON THE
CONTINENT--PROMISE TO WRITE THE _HANDBOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN
SPAIN_--DELAYS AND INTERRUPTIONS--GEORGE BORROW--REVIEWS OF THE
_ZINCALI_ AND THE _BIBLE IN SPAIN_--SUPPRESSION OF THE FIRST
EDITION OF THE _HANDBOOK_--FINAL PUBLICATION--THE _FELICIDADE_.
By his wife’s death Ford was left with the sole care of the two
daughters and the son, who alone survived out of the six children born
to them. He continued to live on at Heavitree, planning improvements in
his house and garden, busy with his books and pen. During the first few
months of 1837 he contributed two articles to the _Quarterly
Review_.[44] He also published his first independent work, _An
Historical Inquiry into the Unchangeable Character of a War in Spain_,
in which he made a lively, vigorous reply, from a Tory point of view,
to a pamphlet written in defence of Lord Palmerston’s attitude towards
Spain, _The Policy of England towards Spain_.
As usual, his work was submitted to Addington for criticism.
In your miserable days of celibacy (he writes to his friend in May
1837) you waded through much of my MSS. Now I only trouble you with
print, as you have less time to devote to those solitary
occupations. I send you the proofs of a review on Pückler Muskau.
Will you skim it over, and send it back _per_ twopenny post? If you
object to anything, or can add a barb or sting to any critical
fish-hook, do so.
You will see “Cob” in the last number of the _Quarterly_. _Viva Don
Carlos!_
Addington’s criticisms were gratefully received, and his suggestions
generally adopted. But Ford could not, if he had wished, write otherwise
than he was. He had the good sense to know, and not to attempt, the
impossible.
Many thanks for your valuable critical emendations, which have been
duly and thankfully introduced. I fear my _liberal_ education and
foreign travel will never enable me to spell either my own or any
other language. You can form no idea how very difficult it is for a
hasty, _currente calamo_, slipshod writer like me to form a
critical, sober, proper style. That stile is always in my way, as
it is in the country; I shall never, I fear, change my old into the
new stile, nor get my writing stile, _stilus_, sufficiently
pointed, although whetted on so excellent a bone as your Excellency
is. You are quite qualified to be the Editor of the _Quarterly
Review_, and I wish you were, for I wonder Lockhart overlooks the
manifest flaws you detect.
I am by no means averse to the _limæ labor_, and am really anxious
to turn out my wares in a workmanlike manner; I often take more
pains with them than you or my readers will give me credit for.
Between July 1837 and April 1838 Ford contributed nothing to the
_Review_. Beyond putting the final touches to articles already prepared
for the press, his pen was idle. He had become engaged to a lady whom he
had known intimately for several years, the Hon. Eliza Cranstoun, sister
of the tenth Lord Cranstoun. On October 7th, 1837, he writes of his
engagement to Addington:
As the affair has been the unceasing nine days’ wonder of this part
of the world, it is no longer a secret, and has been duly
communicated to Lord Essex. Therefore you may participate to the
fair partner of your joys the important secret so long concealed in
the diplomatic depths of your silent bosom, “_un secreto de
importanza_.” I hope in due time that these ladies will meet, and
like each other, and be equally of opinion, that no men make such
excellent, super-excellent husbands as those who have lived in the
world, been in Spain, and _not been_ there for three or four years.
Be assured that there is no truth in my selling my Alhambra. My
Sultana, who disposes of me, and my house, and all, is pleased with
the idea of leading a loving, rational, quiet life there. The
Moorish tower is finished, and covered with arabesque _Lienzo_
work, and is prettier than the Puerta del Vino of the Alhambra.
The marriage took place February 24th, 1838, and Mr. and Mrs. Ford began
life together at Heavitree.
HEAVITREE, _March 6, 1838_.
Your kind and friendly letter (as all indeed have been and are) was
duly and gratefully received by me, and dutifully communicated to
that sweet person in whose keeping I have placed myself and my
happiness, and, having done so, my perturbed spirit is at rest.
This ceremony took place on the 24th, at Stoke Gabriel, a beautiful
little hamlet in one of those quiet sequestered nooks on the Dart,
where the woods slope into the clear waters, a locality _dulces qui
suadet amores_. She was very nervous and affected, but went
through the trying scene with that purity, grace, and propriety
which mark all she says or does. I was nervous, but very collected,
and think few men were more aware than I was, how much and entirely
the future depends on the husband. I am not afraid of myself, and
less of her. We returned to Sandridge, and in the afternoon
proceeded quietly to this quiet cell, gladdened with the sunny
presence of a cheerful, contented mistress. She is highly pleased
with her abode _and_ (I am pleased to say) with the master. All is
placed at her _disposicion_. Indeed, since you were here so much
has been done, internally and externally, that you would not know
the place. I am in hopes, now there is a fit personage to receive
her, that some day _die gnädige Frau Gesandterrinn_ (_C.P.B._) will
honour this (her) house. The Moorish trellis-walk and the tower are
worth seeing. We are expecting Lord Cranstoun here to-day, and King
on the 10th. Strange that he should come to witness my hymeneals,
as we did his. We shall then proceed reluctantly to London. I have
got rid of my house in Jermyn Street at a sad loss of coin, but a
great gain of peace. I am still hampered with the _Casita_ in
Lowndes Street, where my children are. I hope this year to get rid
of that, and then to pitch my tent here, far from the _opes
strepitumque Romæ_. I am going to build a small Britzka, and have
bought another nag, which goes well in harness with my old horse,
you will remember. Madame rides well, and has a beautiful horse
which her brother has given her. We think of driving up to town,
and be not therefore surprised at an intimation that we may take
you in the way for a night. I will present you to my spouse, and
you will do me the same service by yours, to whom I in anticipation
offer my profound respects. I meditate an article on Spanish
Heraldry and on Bull-fighting. So farewell. Cherish your spouse,
and think no more of the past nor _las tierras calientes_.
The two articles to which Ford alludes at the close of the letter were
published before the end of the year. Both were full of curious
information gleaned from a wide field. The article on “Bull Fights” is
remarkably complete and exhaustive, and is especially interesting from
the personal observation which lightens the historical details. Before
publication it had been submitted to Addington for criticism.
HEAVITREE, _Aug. 16, 1838_.
Many thanks for your tororesque notices. I have finished the
paper,--_opus exegi_,--having worked incessantly for a fortnight
five or six hours a day. The MSS. goes up with this to the
printer’s. I have begged him to send you a proof: will you be so
kind as to run it over, and forward it here _per_ mail _quam
primum_? Never mind correcting the press, except _the Spanish_.
The article is long, and I am not afraid of your Excellency’s
shears, and will gladly avail myself of any proposed excisions or
additions. Any word or idea more pungent than my poor thoughts
might be pencilled in the margin. The article is extremely learned
and tororesque. I think the old subject is treated newly. I hope
Murray will treat me to £36 15_s._, as gaunt poverty flits about my
gilded ceiling. I wish you could see the dining-room, all blue,
red, yellow, and green _à la_ Mamhead, very gay and brilliant.
Madame is quite well and happy, and salutes your _dimidium vitæ
animæque_. We are going next week for a few days to Sandridge, a
place of her brother’s. I shall then hurry back to correct the
press. I intend _summing_ up with a few general remarks on the
moral tendency and effect on Spanish character produced by the
bull-fight. If you have ever philosophically cogitated thereon,
favour me with a few “‘ints.” My idea is that the Spaniards were
cruel and ferocious before they had bull-fights; that bull-fights
are rather an effect than a cause, albeit they reciprocate now;
that the savage part is lost on them from early habit; that the
sporting feeling predominates; and that strangers are hardly fair
judges, for they feel _first_ excitement, then bore, then disgust;
_bore_ the predominant. Still, the whole is magnificent, though the
details (like Paris) are miserable. I should like to have a neat
peroration, and am going to meditate on the subject in those shady
groves which hang over the clear Dart, where we as bachelors used
to toil and catch no fish, and where I caught that fish which has
swallowed up all others and all my cares besides.
_Spanish Bull-feasts and Bull-fights_ created something of a sensation
in the literary world. It was noticed with high praise in the journals
of the time, and Ford writes to thank Addington for an extract which he
had himself overlooked.
HEAVITREE, _December 5 [1838]_.
The critique is so palatable, that I beg you will not think I wrote
it myself. Pray, as you will be in franking-land, let me know
whence you extracted it. I am delighted. I want people to think
that I _could_, if I wished, write a d--d, long, dry, serious
essay, which they would _not_ read. The political pepper flavours
the _Puchero_, and it is exactly _that_ that makes Lockhart write
to me that all the world cries “Bravo!”
I am buttered by Murray, and considered a man of _deep research_.
_Dii boni!_ and people _regret_ that I “should _persifler_, and
amuse, instead of boring.”
Ford had undertaken a review of Prescott’s _Ferdinand and Isabella_, “an
admirable book,” he tells Addington, “the _best_ book ever written by a
Yankee.” But he found the task difficult. On February 9th, 1839, he
writes to Addington from his mother’s house in London:--
Your letter followed me to this foggy, careworn abode of attorneys,
and men who sow tares in the corn of human happiness. I have been
up here nearly three weeks, to my infinite worry and the fret of an
absent and disconsolate spouse, about mortgages and the devil knows
what of my own and my mother. I hope to get back again to my
pleasant house _et placens uxor_ before the end of next week.
All these breaks interfere sadly with literary pursuits. The
rolling stone gathers no moss. Prescott, promised half a year ago,
is not yet begun! In fact, I blink, bolt, shy and jib from the
task. Meanwhile, to keep my pen in, I have written a lightish
article on _Ronda and Granada_, which looks well in print, and will
come out in the next number, and Prescott in the June number.
I have read Gurwood attentively, which took six weeks, and never
were six weeks better employed. Murray tells me that the Duke cut
out as much more as would have made six more volumes. What a pity!
But they will be printed when that great man is gone. _Serus in
cœlum redeat!_
Do you know that I am _up_ in the market, and that my articles are
thought No. 1, Letter A,--clear grit? I am fed by those who usually
feed lions, and curious people are asked to meet _me_. This is not
unamusing. I have seen “Sam Slick” (Haliburton); Scrope, who wrote
that charming book on _Deer Stalking_; Jones of the Alhambra,
Marryat, etc., and I do not know who. Murray feeds well, and his
claret is particular; “Bulls” £36 15_s._; so my papers rise in
value. Lockhart’s _Ballads_ are to be republished, and I rather
think that I am to edit them. All this looks like turning author.
Who would have thought it? and to have a character for most
profound reading and research! _Dii boni!_
I met a friend of yours yesterday at Lockhart’s--Mr. Best: we had a
pleasant dinner; Scrope and Lord Selkirk, great shooters and
fishers, whose healthy exploits gave a game flavour to the blue men
around them. If I remained here, neither head, nor legs, nor
_entrañas_ could do their work. It is all very well now and then.
But _oh rus! quando te aspiciam_? Not but what, if I had £5000 a
year, I would spend three months in this metropolis to rub off
rust, keep up acquaintances, and hear the news up to Saturday
night.
Six weeks later he was still engaged on his task. He writes from
Heavitree, April 2nd, 1839:--
I have been occupied, since my return to these myrtle bowers, in a
review on Prescott’s _Ferdinand and Isabella_. I ought to have done
it long ago; but I deferred and deferred. _Mañana, mañana!_ I find
it a tougher job than I had expected, and almost think that I have
undertaken a task for which I am unfit. However, _stultorum numerus
est infinitus_, and I presume on people knowing less than myself.
It will be a mighty dull, learned, and historical affair.
I am not very well, as I cannot sleep. I never can when I write,
and believe you are right to hunt and fish, the original
_délassement_ of a gentleman.
At last _Ferdinand and Isabella_ was finished and published. The article
deals more with the subject than with the book. It is, however,
important from the new lights which it throws upon the period, drawn
from the writer’s intimate knowledge, not only of the history, but of
the country and the people. Some trace of effort appears in the unusual
elaboration. But another article which was printed in the same number
of the _Quarterly_ was in Ford’s most characteristic vein. This was a
review of _Oliver Twist_. In a letter dated April 29th, 1839, he had
asked Addington’s opinion of Dickens’ style, and given his own view. “I
am inclined to think it,” he says, “the reaction from the Silver Fork
school and the Rosa Matildas, ‘_car le dégoût du beau amène le goût du
singulier_.’” He also regarded the book as a product and a sign of
democratic times. Both the literary and political theories are developed
in the _Quarterly_, where he describes “Boz” as “a lively half-bred colt
of great promise, bone and action,--sire, ‘Constantine the Great,’--dam,
‘Reform.’”
“Constantine the Great” is Constantine Henry Phipps, first Marquis of
Normanby, and the most distinguished of the “prattling scribbling
Phippses.” His kid-glove novels and romances, founded on actual
occurrences in society, tickled the curiosity of the public. Newspapers
still further pandered to the same taste; “Perry and Stewart led the way
by chronicling and posting the dinners, wooings, and marriages of high
life.” But a diet of water gruel palled, and the patient “clamoured for
beef and stout.” Sickened of the “smooth confectionery style,”
“disgusted with die-away _divorcées_ and effeminate man-milliners,” the
public fled in despair to “rude, rough, human, ‘Dusty-Bob’ nature.” Such
was Ford’s explanation of the appearance of _Oliver Twist_. As a Tory,
and an Irish mortgagee, he was no doubt pleased to treat the author of
_Matilda_, and _Yes or No_ as one of these “Catilines in politics and
literature” who had helped forward “a depraved taste” and “the
degradation of the higher classes, whether monarchical, clerical, or
aristocratical.” Not only had Lord Normanby changed sides and deserted
the Tories for the Liberals, but, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
(1835-39), his attempt to conciliate O’Connell, his patronage of the
Catholic Party, and his leniency towards political crime, had, in the
opinion of his opponents, endangered the very existence of law and
order. Politics apart, the review shows a keen appreciation of the
genius and faults of Dickens. It concludes with a just tribute to the
haunting power of George Cruikshank, for whom Ford demands admission to
the rank of a Royal Academician: “We are really surprised that such
judges as Wilkie, Landseer, Leslie, Allan, etc., have not ere now
insisted on breaking through all puny laws, and giving this man of
undoubted genius a diploma.”
The last months of the year were spent in preparations for a tour
abroad. Addington and his wife were also going, and were to meet the
Fords at Rome.
Many thanks (writes Ford, August 4th, 1839) for all your valuable
hints. I rather incline to cross over from Weymouth to Cherbourg,
or, if not so, from Southampton to Jersey and St. Malo. As I intend
to go through the south, it will be _autant de gagné sur la belle
France_. I take it we shall have bad inns between St. Malo and
Toulouse. _No hay atajo sin trabajo_ [no convenience without
inconvenience]. We shall follow your steps with due respect, and, I
hope, meet in the Eternal City.
I progress greatly in design, and am washing in skies which are
heavier than lead. I reckon on _your_ portable library and beg to
tell you that I take Shakespeare, Burton’s _Rome_, and Conder’s
_Italy_, which will always be _á la disposicion de V.E. y de mi
Señora la Esposa de V.E. (C.P.B.)_
I have just bought a charming Britzka here which was made at
Vienna, and shall therefore jog down with all my traps, pictorial
and piscatorial. I am sorry that you do not take your rod and line.
How little room they will take! and _quien sabe?_ Who knows what
trout spring in Terni’s fall? I never was so agog for migration,
and intend to go the whole Continental hog.
You will have the pleasure of seeing your old friend Sir Richard
Ottley at Naples,--he who asked us to dine at 5 to meet the Miss
Barings. We will not dine with him at Naples, be his macaroni
royal. His daughter has turned Roman Catholic: so much for taking
imaginative maidens into the glowing climes of Italian _Abates_.
We have been all gaieties here. The great squires have been giving
_déjeuners_, with archery and pine-apples, under tents. We will eat
_polpette_, drink Orvieto in the Eternal City, and grow young and
forget years and care.
Ford returned from the Continent in July 1840. Of his travels no account
exists, as he journeyed in company with Addington, who alone preserved
his letters. But he writes, September 7th, 1840, to welcome his friend
back to England from “the land of macaroni and sour crout.”
Did you (he asks) get a letter from me at Milan? It contained an
account of my Sicilian trip and of our hurried flight home. We
drove through France as hard as four horses could go, and crossed
from Havre on the 14th of July--nine months to a day.
Meanwhile we are slowly recovering from the vast scarifications and
bleedings of _Italia cum Gallia_. I am afraid to look at all the
items; I should like to see your sum total. _N’importe!_ It was a
gallant trip, and shed a flood of new light and sources of future
reading, writing, and drawing on one’s mind.
When you were in Rome I asked you to lend me your _Minaño,
diccionario de España_. I am going to do a handbook for Spain for
Murray, and we have not been able to get a Minaño in London. I will
take the greatest care of it, and send you an early copy of the
book when written and when published--when!!--for your fee. Will
you pack
[Illustration:
Antonio Chatelain Pinx Emery Walker Ph Sc.
Richard Ford
1840.]
it up and send it me _per_ coach? I hope to do the little book
before February.
_The Handbook for Travellers in Spain_, here first mentioned, seems to
have been undertaken almost in jest. In 1839, when Ford was dining with
John Murray, the publisher, his host asked him to recommend a man to
write a Spanish guide-book. “I will do it myself,” replied Ford, and
thought no more on the subject. But, after his return from abroad,
Murray definitely asked him to write the book. His estimate of the time
necessary to complete the work proved far too moderate. Instead of six
months, the myrtle and ivy-clad garden-house at Heavitree, to which he
retired as a study, was for nearly five years the scene of his labours.
Week after week he sat at his inky deal table, clad in his Spanish
jacket of black sheepskin, surrounded by shelves laden with
parchment-clad folios and quartos, by pigeon-holes crammed with notes to
repletion, and by piles of manuscript which gradually encumbered the
chairs and floor. Here he entertained his visitors with his
book-rarities, and poured forth his complaints, half serious, half
humorous, of the slavery to which he had condemned himself.
In spite of its modest title, the _Handbook_ is really a most
entertaining encyclopedia of Spanish history and antiquities, religion
and art, life and manners. But the slavery might have been less
protracted if it had been mitigated by fewer distractions. Nor had Ford
acquired the habit of prolonged labour on a lengthy subject. Review
writing had encouraged him in the short bursts of literary industry,
concentrated on a comparatively restricted field, which were most
congenial to his natural tastes and character. No doubt, as time went
on, and as he realised the magnitude of his task, he grew heartily weary
of the _Handbook_. But it may be doubted whether the form is not the
best that, under the circumstances, he could have chosen. At all events,
no trace of effort appears in the lively vivacious style which
communicated to the reader a prodigious mass of information in the
easiest possible manner.
More than two months passed before the book was begun. Even then it was
interrupted by other literary work.
HEAVITREE, _13 September, 1840_.
The Minaños are duly arrived, and to-morrow will leave this library
for a den in a cottage here in my garden, where I am going to
retire and compose _Handbook_. What a mass of matter the said
Minaño contains, and how will it be simmered down into a gallipot
guide-book?
I have no news yet of the macaroni; but it is in London. Let me
know how you feel as to sharing in the _rotuli_. There is no
delicacy in refusing, if the taste be swamped by eating German sour
crout, as there are more amateurs for that article hereabouts than
for Rafaello ware. By the way, I could indeed turn one honest penny
by those pots and plates, having been offered _guineas_ for what
cost _scudi_, and having weeded my collection very nearly to the
amount of the prime cost. The marbles are still in the agents’
custody, as I have nowhere to put them here. But buying what one
does not want is the veritable malaria of the Via Babuino.
The weather is so delicious that I have not the heart to begin
work. I take a lesson every day in drawing, and am going through
the whole of my sketches, which then will be put in a huge book. It
is wonderful, as in the case of Spain, how they carry you back to
scenes long forgotten, and awaken a million events hived in the
brain, which, like dewdrops on the boughs, only fall when touched!
There’s a go!
I don’t wonder at the contending elements that are now fermenting
in your noddle. They will all settle down into a delicious elixir
to sweeten future existence, and make cheerful the domestic
fireside when a lull comes--which will happen, and indeed ought to
happen, as we can’t be always living on cayenne and lollypops.
_November 6, 1840._
I assure you I have been so scared about war, and the exposed site
of Heavitree between Exmouth and Exeter, that I have been
meditating moving up land my Wilsons and _roba fina_. However, I
think the storm is clearing away. _Vive_ Louis Philippe!
While you are hunting of foxes, I am going to hunt through Minaño.
I begin Spanish Handbook next week.
_Wednesday, November 18, 1840._
The Minaños frighten me, like the great Genius did the Arabian
fisherman. How am I to get this mass into the small pot or
duodecimo handbook?
Handbook lingers. I have made no progress, and am tempted to give
it up. I am all for the sublime and beautiful, sententious and
sesquipedalian. I can’t cool my style to the tone of a way-bill.
Gradually the work shaped itself in his mind and in print.
“Part of Handbook” (he writes, January 14th, 1841) “is gone to
press.” “I am meditating” (he says, February 16th, 1841) “a serious
go at the Handbook, and have got about forty pages of preliminary
remarks in print, which I am told are amusing. I have written them
off like a letter, _sermone pedestri_, without, however, forgetting
the _ajo y cibolla_ [garlic and onion].”
On March 26th, 1841, the first batch was sent to Addington.
“I send you a few sheets of Handbook. If your eyes will permit you
to run through it, pray correct any error or make any suggestion. I
have done about fifty pages (letterpress) more. The object I have
is to combine learning with facetiousness, _utile dulci_.”
_April 11, 1841_.
The print is damnable, and what is worse is the enormous quantity
it takes to a page. All this preliminary part, which will run to
two hundred pages, is an after-thought of mine. Murray only
bargained for distances and mere lionizing. It appears to me that
the traveller in a _Venta_ will thank me for an amusing bit of
reading. How often have I cursed Starke[45] for the contrary, and I
hope to give a true insight into Spanish manners.
_May 4, 1841._
I have already expunged the bits that you objected to, and the
sheets read all the better for it. I grieve deeply that the print
is so execrable. But you cannot tell what a service your sound
censorship is. I write _currente calamo_ in a sort of
slip-slap-and-shod style both as to matter and language. It comes
boiling over like a soda-water bottle, and I cannot help it. I
daresay that, if I had more time, I should make it _worse_, as it
would be more laboured.
_November 3, 1841._
I am not so bigoted a Carlist as to think all reform a wilderness.
But my antiquarian, artistical and _romantic_ predilections make me
grieve at seeing barbarous destructives overturning in an hour the
works of ages of taste and magnificence. This age can only destroy:
witness cheap, compo churches _versus_ cathedrals.
I am getting very slowly on. But I hope it may be done by May or
June. I intend in a short preface to allude to the “state of
transition” of the moment. But some things are fixed--country,
ruins, battlefields, history of the past. All that can be pointed
out. I am only afraid it will be _too_ good.
_November 18, 1841._
I am sick of Handbook. I meditate bringing out the first volume,
the _preliminary_ and the most difficult, early next spring. It is
nearly completed. It is a series of essays, and has plagued me to
death. The next volume will be more mechanical and
matter-of-fact--what Murray wanted; and I am an ass for my pains.
I have been throwing pearly articles into the trough of a
road-book. However, there will be stuff in it.
Weary of the _Handbook_, Ford turned from it with relief to a subject
after his own heart. In 1841 George Borrow published his _Zincali; or an
Account of the Gypsies in Spain_. Interested both in the writer and his
work, his own mind absorbed in Spanish life, Ford laid aside the
_Handbook_ to write an article on the book, which he had himself
recommended to Murray for publication. His article ultimately appeared
in the _British and Foreign Review_ (No. XXVI., p. 367).
I have made acquaintance (he tells Addington, January 14th, 1841)
with an extraordinary fellow, _George Borrow_, who went out to
Spain to convert the _gipsies_. He is about to publish his failure,
and a curious book it will be. It was submitted to my perusal by
the hesitating Murray.
Borrow is done (he writes November 3rd, 1841), and I daresay will
soon be printed. I took the greatest pains with it, and Lockhart,
on reading a portion, wrote to me that it was “perfect”--a great
word from a man not prodigal of praise.
In an undated letter to John Murray, he says:
I have written a very careful review of Borrow’s _Gypsies_, with
which Lockhart seems well pleased. The book has created a great
sensation far and wide. I was sure it would, and I hope you think
that when I read the MS. my opinion and advice were sound.
I have now a letter from Borrow telling me that he has nearly
completed his _Bible in Spain_. I have given him much advice,--to
avoid Spanish historians and _poetry_ like Prussic acid; to stick
to himself, his biography, and queer adventures. He writes: “I
shall attend to all your advice. The book will consist entirely of
my personal adventures, travels, etc., in that country during five
years. I met with a number of strange characters, all of whom I
have introduced; the most surprising of them is my Greek servant,
who accompanied me in my ride of 1500 miles.”
The author writes again, November 8th: “_The Bible in Spain_ is a
rum, very rum, mixture of gipseyism, Judaism, and missionary
adventure, and I have no doubt will be greedily read.”
I have some thoughts of asking him down here with his MS., and
pruning it a little for him.
An early copy of _The Bible in Spain_ seems to have been given to Ford
by John Murray. In a letter[46] to the publisher he thus describes its
character.
I read Borrow with great delight all the way down per rail, and it
shortened the rapid flight of that velocipede. You may depend upon
it that the book will sell, which, after all, is the rub. It is the
antipodes of Lord Carnarvon, and yet how they tally in what they
have in common, and that is much--the people, the scenery of
Galicia, and the suspicions and absurdities of Spanish
Jacks-in-office, who yield not in ignorance or insolence to any
kind of red-tapists, hatched in the hot-beds of jobbery and
utilitarian mares-nests. Borrow spares none of them. I see he hits
right and left, and floors his man whenever he meets him. I am
pleased with his honest sincerity of purpose and his graphic abrupt
style. It is like an old Spanish ballad, leaping _in medias res_,
going from incident to incident, bang, bang, bang, hops, steps, and
jumps like a cracker, and leaving off like one, when you wish he
would give you another touch or _coup de grâce_.
He really puts me in mind of Gil Blas; but he has not the sneer of
the Frenchman, nor does he gild the bad. He has a touch of Bunyan,
and, like that enthusiastic tinker, hammers away, _à la Gitano_,
whenever he thinks he can thwack the Devil or his man-of-all-work
on earth--the Pope. Therein he resembles my friend and everybody’s
friend--_Punch_--who, amidst all his adventures, never spares the
black one.
However, I am not going to review him now; for I know that Mr.
Lockhart has expressed a wish that I should do it for the
_Quarterly Review_. Now, a wish from my liege master is a command.
I had half engaged myself elsewhere, thinking that he did not quite
appreciate such a _trump_ as I know Borrow to be. He is as full of
meat as an egg, and a fresh-laid one--not one of your Inglis breed,
long addled by over-bookmaking. Borrow will lay you golden eggs,
and hatch them after the ways of Egypt; put salt on his tail and
secure him in your coop, and beware how any poacher coaxes him with
‘raisins’ or reasons out of the Albemarle preserve.
When you see Mr. Lockhart tell him that I will do the paper. I owe
my entire allegiance to the _Q. R._ flag.... Perhaps my
understanding the _full force_ of this “gratia” makes me
over-partial to this wild Missionary; but I have ridden over the
same tracks without the tracts, seen the same people, and know that
he is true, and I believe that he believes all that he writes to be
true.
Before the book appeared, Ford had already begun a review of the
work,[47] the progress of which he reports to Addington: “Borrow has
got,” says a letter dated June 28th, 1842, “a very singular book coming
out--_The Bible in Spain_--the place where one would be the least likely
to meet it.” “How gat it there?” he asks later (November 21st), and
describes the book as “a sort of Gil Blas and Bunyan rolled together.”
His review came out in the _Edinburgh Review_ for February 1843 (vol.
lxxvii. pp. 105-38).
I have been very busy (he writes, December 16th, 1842) about
Borrow’s _Bible in Spain_. It is a most curious book, and mind you
read it, if you can steal a moment. In the last _Quarterly_ there
is a paper by Lockhart, principally extracts, which will only give
you a slight notion of the contents of the _chorizo_ [sausage]. The
first sentence will amuse you, in which Lockhart grieves that he
let slip my gipsy paper.[48] I would have done one for the
_Quarterly Review_, but he only could give me five days. That was
enough to write with _a pair of scissors_, but not quite for such a
paper as the subject deserved. So I have done a _grandis et verbosa
epistola_, which has been offered to the _Ed. Rev._, and graciously
accepted with many civil speeches. It is very careful, enters into
the philosophy of Spanish fanaticism, etc., very anti-Gallican.
Borrow, writing to John Murray, February 25th, 1843, alludes to the
_Edinburgh_ article as “exceedingly brilliant and clever, but rather too
epigrammatic, quotations scanty and not correct. Ford is certainly a
most astonishing fellow; he quite flabbergasts me--handbooks, reviews,
and I hear that he has just been writing a ‘Life of Velasquez’ for the
_Penny Cyclopædia_.” But Ford’s infidelity to the orthodox organ
provoked a characteristic note from the Duke of Wellington: “My dear Mr.
Ford,” he wrote, “you think the Lord will forgive your former
Whiggishisms: I daresay He may, but the Devil will have his due, and the
contributions to the _Edinburgh_ are items in his account.” With these
and many other interruptions, the _Handbook_ had made slow progress.
Still, in its first draft, it was approaching completion.
HEAVITREE, _Jan. 10, 1843_.
How you must have disported in rural idleness. _Oh Rus!_ Here we
have enough of it, and too much of local festivities. How the
excise can fall off I can’t imagine. Here Belly is the god of all
classes. The squires are not scared with the tariff, which by the
way has done me no good in any respect, nor any one else that I can
hear of, while the income tax is a real, tangible, awful evil.
Drawing flourishes, and I am now making a Spanish volume, and have
begun with Toledo, glorious, rock-built, imperial Toledo!
I meditate coming up to town at Easter with my two girls, who are
now assuming the _toga muliebris_, having discarded their
governess. The next step is a husband, and, when once a grandpapa,
I shall consider the 5th act of the _comedia imbrogliata_ as fast
approaching. I shall bring up the Spanish drawings, and, if any
should revive in your Excellency recollections of pleasant days
gone by, I shall be proud to make you any you may select for your
private portfolio.
Borrow is a queer chap. I believe that an extra number of the
_Edinburgh_ is to come out next month, when my article will appear.
I have just got an application to write the life of Velazquez for
the _Penny Cyclopædia_. Murray will sigh for his _Handbook_ as you
do for the country; but I am so interrupted that I have never
fairly gone to work, and, as it is, at least two-thirds of what I
have got together must be exscinded, but they are a useful mass of
work got up for any future object.
HEAVITREE, _27th Feb., /43_.
The enclosed will amuse, if not _convince_ you. I believe Borrow to
be honest, albeit a _Gitano_. His biography will be passing strange
if he tells the _whole_ truth. He is now writing it by my advice.
Have you found time to run through my paper in the last _Edinburgh
Review_, which the critic_ee_ lauds so much and _pour cause_? The
value of a thing is, however, just what it will _bring_, and the
thirty-two pages brought me £_44_, well and truly paid by the canny
Scot, Napier, who does not throw away cash without “_value
received_.” Verily the Whigs pay well, and will _do_ Murray by
seducing his light troops. Hayward (also a Quarterly reviewer like
me) figures in the last blue and bluff; _proh pudor! et nummos!_
his paper on “Advertising” is droll.
I have invested my £44 in Château Margaux.
_Handbook_ is done--that is, I have done my _own hobby_, and have
covered a haycock of reams with the past and present of Spain:
antiquities, art, history, manners, scenery, battles, and what not.
Now comes the _rub_, to cut out all that is good and simmer it down
to a way-bill. I _shy_ and “gib” like a Pegasus in a dung-cart.
WEYMOUTH, _July 30, 1843_.
I am here with all my family, first and second,[49] great and
small, having been dabbling in brick, mortar, and paint at
home--wild vagaries you will
[Illustration:
Marianne Houton, del Emery Walker Ph. Sc.
Margaret Henrietta Ford
1854.]
say for a man who _lives_ on an Irish mortgage; but those who have read
Milesian and Iberian annals will take things coolly: _son cosas de
España y Irlanda_, where peace and order are the exception, not the
rule, and where row and blarney are as wholesome as fire to the
salamander. I, however, wish we had a _government_. It would have been
just as easy, instead of reading a sentence from a king’s speech, to
have declared mooting repeal high treason.
There is no conciliating an enemy. Knock him down. “Hit him hardest in
the weakest point,” _once_ said the Iron Duke. Now enemies sneer and
despise, and good friends are cooled and stand aloof. Peel’s
unpopularity in the far west is daily increasing; _low_ prices will ruin
us all.
I set out to-morrow for town, having a week’s absence. I shall bring up
Minaño, _con muchas y muchissimas gracias_. I have kept it an
unconscionable while; but it has produced a bairn, which I shall beg
your acceptance of: not much of a bairn, a Spanish parturition, a mouse
from a mountain.
Minaño’s book, whatever people may say, is an admirable compilation.
_Handbook_ is _written_. Poor old Murray’s death has deranged the types
in Albemarle Street, and these _rows_ in Spain are
not favourable to the man with the notebook; however, I shall
settle something this next week.
HEAVITREE, _Oct. 10, 1843_.
While you have been up to your middle in No. 6548, I have been
boating and catching mackerel at Weymouth, eating Portland mutton,
and dreaming of George III. Now the falling leaf has warned us to
see the warm household and penates. The _Domus_ has been painted,
and a new wing added, which is not paid for. The _placens uxor_ is
well and much improved by sea air; the _chiquilla_ is in stupendous
force, and rejoicing in a new hoop.
We shall have the railroad open to this place next May, and then
you and Madame might run down and rusticate here amid the myrtles
and forget Downing Street. I was rather idle at Weymouth; ’tis the
quality of a watering-place; but now I am simmering and resimmering
at Handbook; which although done, waits the _imprimatur_ of Murray.
The times are out of joint as regards Spanish travelling. I met a
man yesterday at dinner just returned from a tour in Spain. Nothing
can exceed the dilapidation and demoralisation. This new outbreak
has come like the war after Ferdinand VII.’s death, to blight the
improvements which quiet was producing. That French influence and
Christina gold effected the matter, no one doubts in Spain. The
French are hated and the English not unpopular.
Borrow writes me word that his _life_ is nearly ready, and that it
will run the _Bible_ hull down. If he tells truth, it will be a
queer thing. I shall review it for the _Edinburgh_. There is
nothing new here; the harvest has been splendid, and there is cider
enough to make the country drunk. The farmers are in better
spirits; if the Government did but know their strength and act, all
would go well, but the house is on fire in many places, and not a
bucket moved: _Vaya! vaya! il faut cultiver son jardin_.
HEAVITREE, _Dec. 28th, 1843_.
We are all here, pursuing the same uniform vegetable existence for
which Devonians are renowned, and none the worse for the routine.
It has been somewhat varied by my bringing out _two_ Daughters,
which, in point of satin slips, ball flounces, and trimmed
nightcaps, is nearly equivalent to a marriage trousseau. The bills,
combined with those of Eton, have reduced my _Irish_ 5 per cents.
to almost an unknown quantity. Such is the perverse tendency of
expenditure to advance in a more rapid ratio than increase of
income. Ireland just now seems quiet; so is Vesuvius. If Dan
carries the day, I shall be shot up, or rather be shot down, light
as the _scoriæ_ by which Pompeii was covered over; but I have no
fears whatever.
_Handbook_ is about to be printed. All these civil wars in Spain
are not very attractive to the wayfaring man, who purchases in
Albemarle Street; but I dare swear that ere April the goodly
tomes--now two--will decorate Murray’s shop. The task has indeed
been severe, yet a serious pleasure, a great occupation,--somewhat
indeed too much, as the mind ought not to be kept on a perpetual
strain. I shall “_couper mon bâton_” and pen; when it is done, _his
artem cestumque repono_.
_Asi va el mundo._ I am lamenting over the silent and rapid flight,
and the _desengaño_ of all things. It is lucky that there is no
_San Yuste_ in this Protestant land, or (as one, now _en la gloria
esta_, used to say) I might be tempted to turn hermit and count my
beads. What a charming place after all Sⁿ Yuste was! and what
capital trout fishing!
OULTON HALL, LOWESTOFT, _26 Jan. /44_.
_Handbook_ goes forthwith to press.
I am here on a visit to _El Gitano_; two “rum coves,” in a queer
country. This is a regular Patmos, an _ultima Thule_; placed in an
angle of the most unvisited, out-of-the-way portion of England.
His house hangs over a lonely lake covered with wild fowl, and is
girt with dark firs, through which the wind sighs sadly; however,
we defy the elements, and chat over _las cosas de España_, and he
tells me portions of his life, more strange even than his book. We
scamper by day over the country in a sort of gig, which reminds me
of Mr. Weare on his trip with Mr. Thurtell (Borrow’s old
preceptor); “Sidi Habismilk” is in the stable, and a Zamarra
[sheepskin coat] now before me, writing as I am in a sort of
summer-house called _La Mezquita_, in which _El Gitano_ concocts
his lucubrations, and _paints_ his pictures, for his object is to
colour up and poetise his adventures.
Writing to Ford from Oulton Hall, February 9th, 1844, Borrow says:
Almost as soon as I got back from Norwich the weather became very
disagreeable, a strange jumble of frost, fog, and wet. I am glad
that during your stay here it has been a little more favourable. I
still keep up, but not exactly the thing. You can’t think how I
miss you and our chats by the fireside. The wine, now I am alone,
has lost its flavour, and the cigars make me ill. I am very
frequently in my valley of the shadows, and had I not my summer
jaunt to look forward to, I am afraid it would be all up with your
friend and _Batushka_ [little father]. I still go on with my
_Life_, but slowly and lazily. What I write, however, is _good_. I
feel it is good, strange and wild as it is.
Ford’s correspondence with Addington is resumed.
HEAVITREE, _May 23, 1844_.
As your Excellency is naturally a studier of human character, I
think you will be edified by beholding me in a new phase, that of
Church-building and drawing up reports thereanent; so I enclose you
the particulars.
Mrs. Ford and myself are about to quit these bemyrtled bowers on
Monday next: we proceed to Eton, where my son and heir is to figure
in the Montem Saturnalia, in a red coat, cocked hat and sword, and
to be brought back,--oh sight painful to parents! drunk in a
wheelbarrow. There is nothing like spending £250 a year in giving
one’s boy a liberal good education. Hawtrey has bidden us to the
feastings which he gives to sundry Papas and Mamas.
_Handbook_ is slowly printing. The _Mañana_ of Spain has infected
even Albemarle Street; but we have got well to page 264 of Vol. I.
The rail is now open, and Exeter is 7-1/2 hours from London. We
hope some day that you and _mi Señora_ (_c.p.b._) may be tempted
to come and see us and the New Church.
I have been suffering from influenza in common with almost
everybody. The bright sun and cold north-east winds remind me of
Madrid.
But Ford was not at the end of his labours. The first edition of the
Handbook was cancelled, in deference to Addington’s advice, at a cost to
Ford of £500 and the toil of re-writing a considerable portion of the
work.
_Sept. 26, 1844._
Visions of Joinville, Narvaez, and the Pope breaking Murray’s
presses and _écrase_-ing my head have haunted me since your letter.
Alas! alas! the Preface which you condemn is drawn very mild, and
was written purposely to _soften_ more severe castigations on
events, historians, and nationalities. What is a man to do who
wishes to write the truth, when, at every step in Spain, he meets a
French ruin, and, at every page in a Spanish or French book, a
libel against us?
I have told the _truth_. I wish I had not. I have, however, said
nothing more than Southey, Napier, Schepeler[50], and the Duke. But
I am quite averse to getting into hot water or ill words, and must
reconsider the subject, and either cancel much, or make
complimentary _amendes honorables_ in the subsequent sheets.
My spouse thinks with you, and I have such a high opinion of you as
a man of the world and of sound judgment, and know you to be so
kind, true, and good a friend, that I am now going to write to
Murray.
At first Ford hoped that he could substitute for the objectionable
passages artistic or antiquarian information. In December 1844 he writes
to Addington that already four sheets (_i.e._ 64 pages) had been
cancelled. He adds that “we are all in a snowy surplice.” This
description of a snowstorm was suggested by the attempt of the Bishop of
Exeter to do away with the black gown, and by the excitement which the
step had created in Exeter. He refers to the subject in a letter dated
January 20th, 1845.
HEAVITREE, _Jan. 26, /45_.
I enclose you a very characteristic letter from Don Jorge [Borrow],
which please to return. It would be well if he could allay the evil
spirit that is broken loose here; the flocks are rising against the
shepherds, more like wolves than lambs. The thing is much more
serious, and lies deeper than many imagine; it is no _mob_ affair.
The entire mass of the middling classes and rich tradesmen are the
leaders; the lower and better classes stand aloof. The disquieted
are not only urged by a violent, no-popery, protestant feeling, but
by a democratic element, probably unknown to themselves, which
resists dignities and anything, even a surplice, being dictated to
them. The mob, the real [Greek: polykephalon], is quiet, having
work and cheap food. The gentry attach no importance to the black
or white vesture, nor do their clergy ever, in fact, rule them. But
with the middling, and a numerous, class, these clerical crotchets
are not shadows, but realities and dangers. The church coach will
be upset, unless great temper and management be shown (and that
will _not_ be shown); the dissentients are ripe for a free church.
Philpotti has been considerably in the wrong; he would have made a
splendid Hildebrand or Loyola, but the age of railroads and steam
will smash mitres and tracts. The war of opinions which has been
now raged for ten years is coming to a crisis. I take our tradesmen
in Exeter to be types of those throughout England, and Foolometers;
and as they have acted, so will all their like. The train is laid,
and a spark may ignite it.
Eventually Ford found that his wisest course was to withdraw the first
edition of the _Handbook_. He writes from London, where he was laid up
by somewhat serious illness, February 19th, 1845: “I have quite
determined on cancelling _Handbook_, and reprinting it _minus_
political, military, and religious discussions, and to omit mention of
disagreeables, and only make it smooth and charming.” On these lines the
book was recast.
_April 30, 1845._
I am leading the life of a true _Devoto á la Santissima Hygeia_. I
sleep at Exmouth, rise at six, walk on the beach, listening to the
ripple of the waves, and inhaling the morning sea-impregnated
breezes. I come home to breakfast at seven; at half-past mount my
steed, and come clipping over here, _ganando horas_, in about an
hour, nine miles, and such hills! then, while hot as a horseshoe, I
hiss under a shower-bath, and occupy the morning until two in
Handbooky and gentle exercise of the mind. At two I dine, _en
famille_, on _rôti_ and a pint of Bordeaux; after dinner is
dedicated to sauntering on the terrace and listening to the gentle
discourse of Mrs. Ford, when in a sweet disposition, and at other
times to lectures, _à la_ Mrs. Caudle, on gastronomic excesses and
consequent pains and penalties. At five I remount, and jog
leisurely back again through sweet, shady, and verdurous lanes. A
butter-and-egg pace favours meditation and sentiment which is akin
to the season, when Nature puts on her new livery of spring, which
we can’t. Arrived at Exmouth, I again wander on the lonely shore
and watch the sunsets, which are transcendental, the heaven and the
earth all crimson; then I count the pretty stars as they come out
coyly one by one for their evening’s pleasure, _tomando el fresco_.
All this air and _belles pensées_ naturally conduce to hunger and
thirst, and at eight I sit down to _two_ mutton chops, _nada más_,
_ni menos_, and another pint of claret. Then I peruse the _Morning
Post_ of the day, and soon the gentle, oblivious style and absence
of thought steal over my senses, and then to bed, to sleep sound
and short, and then up again: _asi gira la vida_. The most
pendulous uvula yields to such a bracing winding-up system:
_hominem sic erigo_. I will duly advise you whether Don Jorge will
meet me in London.
The _Handbook_ was published in the summer of 1845. Released from his
labour, Ford was preparing to spend a holiday abroad, when Exeter was
convulsed by a famous trial, which took place at the July assizes.
In February 1845 a Brazilian schooner named the _Felicidade_ was
captured in the Bight of Benin by H.M. _Wasp_. Though fitted for the
slave trade, she had no slaves on board. In charge of a prize crew she
was making for Sierra Leone, when she met the _Echo_, a brigantine full
of slaves. She captured the _Echo_, took on board some of the crew as
prisoners, and resumed her course. The prisoners from the _Echo_
overpowered and killed the prize crew of _Felicidade_, seized the
schooner, and made off. The _Felicidade_, however, was recaptured by
H.M. _Star_. Suspicions were aroused, and ten of the prisoners were sent
home to be tried for murder on the high seas. Mr. Baron Platt overruled
the objections that the slave trade was not piracy by Brazilian law, and
that the _Felicidade_, being wrongfully taken, was not a British ship.
The jury found seven of the men guilty, and they were sentenced to
death. An appeal was however allowed on the legal points; Platt’s
decision was reversed and the prisoners released. Ford describes the
trial to Addington in an undated letter of July 1845.
I will secure the _Western Times_. Nothing can have been so bad as
Platt, or his vulgar platitudes. The defence too, was miserable.
Manning, _un Burro cargado de leyes_, broke down, and Collier, a
young advocate, _proved_ his clients’ guilt, by over-examination;
and what think you of a peroration like this--“Will you hang up
these foreigners like ropes of onions (_? ajos_) and cast them then
as carrion to the crows?” Mr. Godson, who came down special, made
sad hash or ash with the Queen’s Alphabet: “Suppose this case Hay
and B. on the ’igh seas,” etc. The facts were too clear to admit of
a doubt, and seven have been found guilty. It is a sad thing for
our peaceable, _unslave-dealing_ city to be horrified with such a
wholesale execution, and they ought to be hung on the African
coast. If they are _not_ hung, the exasperation of the cruising
Jacks is so great that they will _Pelissier_ the next slave prize
to avenge their murdered comrades. A Frenchman on the jury did all
he could to save the prisoners from _la perfide Albion_. An
_attaché_ also of the Brazilian Mission was down here, abusing the
witnesses in their vernacular until stopt. What think you of the
Spanish and Portuguese Government refusing to pay for more than one
counsel, who was chosen because a nephew of the Portuguese Consul?
Thus ten men’s lives were risked to put 5 guineas in a relation’s
pocket. _Vaya! un empeño!_ Drewe was so annoyed that he retained
Manning (who understands Spanish) at his own cost.
I forgot to say that these Spaniards were made a regular show of by
the magistrates, who gave orders by hundreds to see them in the
jail, until Drewe, the High Sheriff, stopt the spectacle. The
pirates thought that they _had_ been tried, and came here expecting
to be hung. One was a monstrous handsome fellow, and all the ladies
are interested for him, as he realised the Corsair, while his
bronzed cheek, raven locks and flashing eyes contrasted with the
pudding-headed, clotted-cream, commonfaced Devonians. Another
culprit was the facsimile of a monk of Zurbaran; the rest were a
savage South America set. Of course nothing has occupied people
here but _Cosas de España_, and your humble servant, _quasi_ one of
the gang, was at a premium and a sort of lion.