MRS. OPIE’S REMOVAL TO LADY’S LANE; LETTERS, VISITORS, AND
WRITING; SPRING ASSIZES OF 1838; MEMOIRS OF SIR. W. SCOTT;
VISITS TO LONDON AND NORTHREPPS; DEATH OF FRIENDS; ANTI-SLAVERY
CONVENTION; WINTER AND SPRING OF 1840-41; VISITS TO TOWN AND
LETTERS FROM THENCE IN 1842-43; ILLNESS; CLOSE OF 1843; LETTER
OF REMINISCENCES OF THOMAS HOGG.
Mrs. Opie returned from her trip up the Rhine at the close of November,
1835. This was her last journey; from this time her absences from home
were never of long duration, but limited to a few weeks in London, and
occasional visits to friends in the neighbourhood of Norwich. She did
not remain many months in the lodgings in St. Giles’ Street, but
transferred herself to Lady’s Lane, where she had commodious apartments,
and in which she remained until her final removal to the Castle Meadow
House. In this home she settled herself, surrounded by her Lares, the
“Portraits,” which hung around her, and appeared to great advantage,
when lighted up, at night, by wax-lights in branch lamps. The most
beautiful of them, the portrait of herself, is not described by her pen.
It was painted soon after her marriage, and was engraved (though very
indifferently) for the No. of the “Cabinet,” in which Mrs. Taylor’s
memoir of her appeared. This picture is certainly very charming, and is
also admirable as a work of art.
Bright colours Mrs. Opie delighted in, and she had a sort of passion for
prisms. She had several set in a frame, and mounted like a pole-screen;
and this unique piece of furniture stood always in her window, and was a
constant source of delight to her. “Oh! the exquisite beauty of the
prisms on my ceiling just now, (she writes) it is a pleasure to exist
only to look at it. I think that green parrots and macaws, flying about
in their native woods, must look like that.” Flowers, too, were her
constant companions; she luxuriated in them, and filled her window-sills
with stands of them, and covered her tables with bouquets; their most
luscious scents seemed not too strong for her nerves. Light, heat, and
fragrance, were three indispensables of enjoyment for her.
It has been said, with truth, that her mornings, during the latter years
of her life, were spent in an almost constant succession of receiving
visitors, and writing letters. Everybody who came to Norwich sought her;
old friends, acquaintances, and strangers hastened to pay her their
respects, and she loved to welcome all, and to give a cordial greeting
to each. The extent of her correspondence was such, that it would have
been a burden, had it not been a delight. In a letter written, in 1849,
to her friend, Miss Emily Taylor, she said, “if writing were even an
effort to me, I should not now be alive, but must have been _absolument
epuisée_; and it might have been inserted in the bills of
mortality—‘dead of letter-writing, A. Opie.’ My maid and I were
calculating the other day, how many letters I wrote in the year, and it
is not less than six in a day, besides notes.”
Her pen was also diligently employed in writing articles for various
periodicals of the day. She regretted afterwards that she had not kept a
list of the publications to which she had sent contributions, as she was
frequently applied to by friends, anxious to identify her verses, &c.
The “reminiscences,” to which reference has been occasionally made,
published in Tait and in Chambers, were written about this time.
The year 1836 seems to have been unproductive of change. We find her
recording visits to Keswick, to Northrepps, to Swanton Morley; and (as
always) to Earlham. In the following year, her revered friend, J. J.
Gurney, went on a religious visit to the United States, and was absent
nearly three years. On his return he printed, for circulation among his
friends, an account of this journey, “described in Familiar Letters to
Amelia Opie.” This interesting volume is very scarce, as only a limited
number of copies was printed, and given by the author to his friends.
This year Mrs. Opie mentions the arrival of Bishop Stanley and his
family in Norwich, as “a great acquisition;” and their friendship proved
indeed a source of much happiness to her.
The farewell letter from her venerable friend Lady Cork, written in the
spring of this year, will be read with interest.
London, March 15th.
One thousand, eight hundred, and thirty-seven. Thanks dearest
dear friend, for your cordial letter. Yes, thank God! 91 is
quite well in health, and if my beloved friends enjoyed the same
blessing, would be perfectly content in mind. Nephews and nieces
whom you are not acquainted with, are suffering. They are folks
whose virtues you must esteem, and some whose wit you would
admire. Oh! why do you not come to town earlier in the season?
Our dear Lady Frederick is not yet in town, but there are many
of your playfellows. Yesterday dined with me, Rogers, Sydney
Smith, Granby, and more wits and worthies, such as you would
relish. * *
The picture of Hannah More is by Gainsborough; I think it a
little like her; when she was young she could not afford to have
very fine, _long, diamond_ ear-rings; nor were they the fashion
when I saw her flirting with Garrick; however, all the
connoisseurs agree that it is an excellent painting. N.B. There
is a ring on the wedding-finger, which does not resemble blessed
Hannah.
Poets are springing up like mushrooms, but the novels are sad
trash. Lord Carnarvon’s new publication much admired.
Yours more than words can express, says,
OLD M. CORK.
A short note in her pocket book written by Mrs. Opie about this time, so
much illustrates one of her peculiar excellencies, that we venture to
give it.
_J’ai toujours attaché une importance extrême à ce qu’on appelle
vulgairement les petites choses; des attentions delicates, quand
elles sont persistantes, prouvent la constante occupation de la
pensée._ “Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care
of themselves,” says the proverb; and it is applicable to
everything, I think, and particularly to human conduct, and the
formation of character. Take care of indulging in little
selfishnesses; learn to consider others in trifles; be careful
to fulfil the _minor_ social duties; and the mind, so
disciplined, will find it easier to fulfil the greater duties,
and the character will not exhibit that trying inconsistency
which one sees in great, and often in pious, persons.
At the Spring Assizes (1838) Mrs. Opie was, as usual, in the Nisi Prius
Court, she writes:—
Much did I enjoy it; one day I was there eleven hours, and all
one cause, so that I could not leave it; the next day I was in
from nine to seven again. Baron Parke was the judge, and an
admirable one he is; and he was very kind to me, having a place
saved for me, and I was admitted through the private room. I
remembered _the days of Judge Gould_. Baron Bolland was equally
civil, but to his court I could not get before the last day; and
grandly beautiful does he still look, though he has had a
paralytic stroke.
In July, writing from London, she says:—
I am here in perfect health, and much enjoying myself; yesterday
we dined at S. Hoare’s. The other day I went to call on the Miss
Berrys, the wits and beauties of former days, at their cottage
at Richmond, and they made me stay dinner, tempting me with Lord
Brougham. I had really a delightful day!
The autumn and winter, however, brought returns of her malady, and her
medical attendants said that she must expect such attacks, in which she
acquiesced, saying, “no doubt I must.” A confinement of some weeks to
her bed-room, was found so irksome, that she gladly had recourse to an
ottoman couch bed, on which she could recline, and receive her visitors,
as she said, “in state.”
The “Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott” were published at this time, and with
deepest interest did Mrs. Opie peruse these records of one whom she had
so much honoured and admired. Among her papers is one containing some
remarks upon them, written shortly after, from which we select a few
passages.
No pages of fiction, not even his own, ever excited in me more
deep interest than did the sixth and seventh volumes of the
Memoirs. I knew he was aware while writing his journal, that it
would one day meet the eye of the world, and that therefore it
must have been written with caution and under some restraint;
yet, it had to me the charm of unfettered ingenuousness. There
is through the whole of it a mournful reality, which I could not
read without intense sympathy. It is a remarkable circumstance
that he should have begun it almost at the time when he first
had reason to suspect that his commercial engagements might
possibly involve him in difficulties.
I own that in spite of the drollery, the bursts of jollity and
mirth, the wit, the humour, and all its pleasing variety, the
journal is rarely divested to me of the signs of secret
suffering. It reminds me of the royal castle at Baden Baden,
where all is splendour and gay decorations above, while beneath
lie the deep dark dungeons, concealed from the eye of day,
telling of the terrors of the secret tribunal.
After that awful year, 1825, marked in the commercial world by
the ruin of thousands, the diary becomes more a work of art,
through which nature still forces itself. He writes gaily, but
feels more and more joylessly. Never after 1826 and ’27, could
any one fancy it, in my opinion at least, the journal of a happy
man. Certainly he was not warmed by his own brilliancy, nor
enlivened by his own pleasantries; and though it was a relief to
him to write his journal, and it might be an accurate transcript
of his own sad feelings, there was “a lower deep,” a deeper
current still, which he did not allow any human eye to
penetrate, that was bearing him on its fatal tide, to imbecility
and death.
I may be wrong, but I believe Sir Walter Scott’s horrible dread
of the trials hanging over him and others, had an instantaneous
effect on his mind, and that his judgment was impaired, and his
power of self-control gone, while his imagination and invention
remained in full vigour.
Judgment is the quality which enables us “to decide on the
propriety, or impropriety of an action,” and had not Sir
Walter’s judgment been weakened, he never could have sinned so
much against propriety, (to use the gentlest word,) as to pen
down so many oaths in his diary; but had the irritation of the
moment led him so to err, he would have effaced the offensive
words, and regretted his want of self-government, if his power
of judgment had not been obscured. It his said he never swore
with his _tongue_, but in his Journal he frequently swore with
his pen, wounding alike the pious and the refined.
But, as I attribute this fault to an impaired judgment and a
weakened power of self command, the consequences of his bitter
trials, my conviction of the depth of his religious feelings
remains undiminished. He somewhere says, that such was his fear
of “becoming an enthusiast,” that he was very careful over “the
state of his mind,” (or words to that effect,) whenever, while
in a time of affliction, he was in “communion with his God”—a
proof that such communion was well known to him; and I humbly
trust that “lower deep” to which I have alluded, was illumined
and cheered by that blessed influence which devotion is
permitted to shed over the broken and supplicating heart. The
satisfaction with which he listened to the Scriptures, his
strong desire to have them read to him in his last days, and his
parting words to his son-in-law, are chiefly valuable as
indications of previous religious convictions, surviving, though
in a shattered state, the wreck of mind; and are precious as are
the broken pieces of carving from off some fine marble column in
ruins, because they give evidence of its perfection in former
days.
Early in 1839 Mrs. Opie visited her beloved friends at Northrepps, and
on her return wrote:—
I had a pleasant journey home; found my page waiting with a fly,
a fire in my chamber, and a “Sally-Lunn” cake and tea ready, and
the last number of Nickleby, such a treat! besides the _Evening
Chronicle_, full of amusing speeches. I have much enjoyed my
visit to you;
A circle may be still complete
Although it be but small!
That summer, one of these friends, Miss Buxton, died; and long and
lovingly was she remembered. This event was followed by the death of her
cousin, Mrs. Briggs, which occurred in the month of September, of the
same year. Mrs. Opie was with her during her last hours, and her
distress and grief at this painful loss were very great. She
says;—“these are the trials which make lengthened life, or long life,
so undesirable; but it is the Lord, let him do that which seemeth him
good.”
In the spring of 1840, writing to Miss Gurney, who was at that time in
Rome, she says:—
My mind ever since your departure, has been dwelling on Peter
and Paul; till I have quite convinced myself that, were I to go
to Rome, my first desire would be to see the house where Peter
lived, the place where he was crucified with his _head
downwards_, and then the house where Paul lived with the
soldier, and the rest of his _locale_: they both suffered in 66.
I love Peter better than I do Paul; and I cannot read without
tears those words of our Saviour, where He foretells his having
to undergo a violent death. Peter, by his occasional lapses,
seems to me to be the David of the disciples. * * * I am reading
with delightful interest and edification a new “Memoir of George
Fox,” the introduction to it is said to be written by Samuel
Tuke.
The month of June, in this year, was the time appointed for the Meeting
of the Anti-Slavery Convention in London; the announcement of this
proposed Meeting had excited great interest in the friends of Abolition,
and more than four hundred delegates assembled on the occasion. Mrs.
Opie was present, and among her papers is one giving an account of the
proceedings in the first day’s sitting, in which she enters at
considerable length into the addresses of the various speakers, and the
measures they proposed, and ends by saying:—
Thus concluded the first day’s meeting, and if the benefits
resulting from it be in any proportion to the intense interest
which (as I believe) it excited in all who were present, then
Millions yet unborn may bless
The meeting of that day.
The introductory remarks prefixed to her account of the second day’s
sitting of the Convention are interesting, as they contain her own
personal impressions of some of the actors in the scene, in short and
graphic sketches, she writes thus:—
I entered the Hall of the Convention at so early an hour this
morning, that I was able to obtain the same advantageous
situation as on the preceding day.
By arriving so early, I was enabled to see each delegate take
his seat, and I observed the entrance of some of the Americans
with more interest than I did the preceding day, because I had
learnt more of their personal history.
To Henry Grew my attention had been particularly drawn on the
first day of the meeting, even before he had addressed the
chairman; because the arrangement of his hair, and the
expression of his countenance, realized my idea of the
Covenanters of old, and his speech did not weaken this
impression; therefore I was not surprised when I was assured, by
a countryman of his, that he not only resembled in appearance
one of those pious men, but that, under similar circumstances,
he would probably have acted and died as they did.
But, till this second morning, I did not know, that in Wendell
Phillips, the young Secretary with the pale golden hair parted
on his open forehead, I beheld “the very young speaker”
mentioned in the “Martyr Age” of America, “on whose lips hung,
for the space of three minutes, the fate of the Abolitionists in
Boston.” The dark eyed, dark bearded, intelligent looking young
Secretary opposite to him, was pointed out to me as being one of
the fifty young men, students in the Lane Seminary at
Cincinnati, in Ohio, who left that College, because the
president and professors thought proper to prohibit all free
inquiry among the students in their leisure hours, and had more
particularly forbidden them to discuss the question of Slavery.
In J. G. Birney, the American gentleman sitting to the left hand
of the President’s chair, with the thoughtful brow, the
dignified and manly bearing, and with an expression of calm
deliberate firmness in his countenance, I now knew that I beheld
one of whom his country might indeed be proud. He was once a
slave-holder; but, being convinced, at an early age, that the
religion of Jesus forbade him to remain so, he emancipated his
slaves and had them educated; and when, on the death of his
father, he became entitled to half of the paternal inheritance,
he chose to take that half in the slaves his father had left;
and when they became his, he emancipated them also.
“But who is that,” said a friend to me, “with the dark, thick,
curly hair, and a plain brown frock coat, who, though he looks
somewhat like a Quaker cannot be one, because he answers to the
title of Colonel?” “That is,” replied I, “Colonel Jonathan
Miller, from Vermont, who, though he looks like a man of peace,
in some measure is, or has been, a man of war, as he fought for
the Greeks at Missolonghi, and has in his possession the sword
of Lord Byron. That broad, brown beaver hat of his, might be
worn by a plain Friend; still, I must say that I have seen him
wear it on one side, in a manner rather unusual in our meetings;
but I have looked upon that hat with much respect, as well as on
himself, since I have been informed that he wears it in order
that a runaway slave in his own country may know, if he sees it,
that he has a friend, and protector nigh.”
It were tedious to enumerate all those whom I was now able to
point out to others, and was interested in observing myself;
among these, however, I must name the learned Professors Deane
and Adam, and J. C. Fuller, an Englishman by birth, but now an
American citizen; a delegate, whose short, but shrewd and pithy
speeches often amused the hearers. Nor can I omit to mention,
with more especial notice, Captain Charles Stuart, one of the
delegates from Jamaica, with his fine picturesque head, covered
with clustering curls of iron grey, and his deep toned powerful
voice, sounding like a minute gun, when he rose from his distant
seat, and said, “No,” or “Chair;” but when he spoke at some
length, his voice seemed to be a sort of musical thunder. He is
honourably distinguished as being one of the most devoted
friends of the oppressed. There was, sitting near this
gentleman, one from Ohio, whom I had long known and esteemed; a
tall, mild looking man, with finely chiselled features, and an
expression which, in that convention at least, seemed often to
denote he had less communion with earthly things, than “with
things above.” He, and the serious, sensible looking man beside
him, a minister, and his colleague, came over to England more
than a year ago, to plead in behalf of the Oberlin Institute: a
blessing has attended their labours; and humble as their
demeanour is, there were no men in that meeting more worthy to
be welcomed by their oppressed countrymen, as friends and
benefactors, than William Dawes and John Keep.
Mrs. Opie afterwards sat to Haydon, who was then painting his picture of
the Convention. In the life of the painter we find the following entries
in his diary:—
“(July 31st.) A. Opie sat, and a very pleasant hour and a half
we had. (Again, the following day,) A. O. sat, a delightful
creature; she told me she heard Fuseli say of Northcote, ‘he
looks like a rat who has seen a cat.’”
Mr. Haydon, as he looked at the assemblage of portraits in this picture,
pronounced it to be his opinion that “such a number of honest heads were
never seen together before.”
The winter and spring were passed by Mrs. Opie much as usual. While
suffering from occasional attacks of pain, nevertheless her constant
thought and care were exerted in behalf of others. That she sometimes
felt these claims too much, is evident from many of her notes. In one of
them dated 3rd mo., 1841, she says:—
I am weary of having to give the little time I may have yet to
live, to the business of others; it saddens me. (And again.) Two
letters, involving me in writing and trouble; but be it so! it
is a favour to be made useful to others, and my life here seems
passing away in writing letters on others’ business; well, the
time may soon come, when I cannot work.
That this was not imaginary pressure, was abundantly evident to those
who saw her day by day; and among her papers, after her decease, were
found an inconceivable multitude of applications for charity, or
acknowledgments of favours received, &c., &c.
During her customary visit to London this year, she wrote home:—
33, Bruton Street, Berkeley Square,
5th mo., 14th, 1841, night.
MY DEAR C. L.,
* * * * * * We had such a charming meeting at Exeter Hall last
second day, (Monday,) Lord John Russell in the chair! it was the
British and Foreign School Meeting. I never saw or heard Lord
John to such advantage, and all the speakers (except Clay, the
M.P. for the Tower Hamlets) spoke exceedingly well; indeed Lord
John was excessively applauded, and he felt it at his heart, I
am sure. Even Burnet, the witty and sarcastic, was courteous on
this occasion; and, with tact and courtesy, contrived, while
returning thanks to the Duke of Bedford for his annual £100, and
eulogizing the late Duke for the same, and the House of Russell
generally, to let the audience know that the Duchess of Bedford
was present, in one of the galleries; on which she was cheered
and applauded, and had to rise and curtsey, and she was cheered
again when she went away.
I have dined with Sydney Smith at the Bishop of Durham’s, and
breakfasted with him at Miss Rogers’, (breakfasts are the _ton_
now,) and he, Rogers, and Babbage kept up a pleasant running
fire. I sat between S. S. and his more charming brother, and
wished to hear the latter, but in vain. At my cousin Edward’s, I
sat by Lockhart, who is always charming in my eyes, and was
then, particularly agreeable. To-day was the Anti-Slavery
meeting, to which I looked forward with interest, mixed with
dread; and not without reason, for Chartists were there, and
some climbed upon the platform, and one was allowed to speak.
The last speaker had to be silenced by a policeman; at length,
generally called for, rose O’Connell, in his might and majesty,
and the magical music of his voice hushed the jarring elements
to peace. He is a marvellous person! But how I took myself in; I
had a ticket for a side gallery, and I chose the one nearest to
that side of the platform where O’Connell usually sits. Alas!
when the _thunder_ proclaimed his approach, I saw him come in at
the other side. He never sat there before; and he had a lady
with him, his own dear daughter. However, when he spoke, he came
near the middle of the platform; but, had I been in my usual
place, I should have always seen him and heard every word, which
I could not do to-day. He certainly must have been ill, though
he looks blooming; for he is excessively shrunk: but he looks
all the better for it. He spoke admirably, but I thought his
voice less powerful than usual. To-night he holds, at the Crown
and Anchor, a meeting for Repeal. He said several unguarded
things, but still the charm predominated.
I found a friend at the door when I went out, who took me to see
the Reform Club House, that splendid erection, which will cost
£70,000, and the first person I saw there was O’Connell! To be
sure we had a cordial meeting and shaking of hands. He said he
had seen me at the meeting, and I had heard him, as well as seen
him. By the bye, Lucy, he would have made such a fine drawing!
He had wrapt a cloak round his manly form; and his loss of flesh
(of which he had far too much) makes his neck look longer; and
his cheeks being less round, his face appears less flat; the
nose is much handsomer than I thought it was. I reckon on
hearing him again on the 17th, at the Aborigines’ Protection
Society.
On the 18th I dine at Lord Stanley’s, (of Alderley,) and on the
19th Yearly Meeting begins, and will probably last nine days or
ten. I have now been well some days. I threw physic to the dogs
last week, and felt my lassitude go with it; and now, I trust,
the fatigues of our Holy Week will prove none to me; but that it
will be as reviving and welcome as the Holy Week, at Rome and
Edinburgh, to those who keep it holy, and are, during its term,
devoted to their duties.
Farewell! Please, Miss, to answer this.
Affectionately thine,
A. OPIE.
Again, June 26th, she wrote:—
* * * I was at the House of Lords. The Queen’s reading was more
perfect than ever, and her quiet, self-possession, her grace and
dignity, are beyond praise. She wore a circlet of diamonds only,
no crown, and she looked so well! It was pretty to see Prince
Albert hand her up and down the Throne, and lead her in and out.
There were seventy-six Peeresses. It was a fine sight
altogether.
In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Opie was again in London. Her notes give a
lively record of the two months she spent there. Yearly Meeting she
attended as usual; and on the 10th May she writes:—
I dined to-day in company with Lord Brougham, and sat between
him and my cousin Edward; he was in high spirits, and talked
incessantly and well, and was very entertaining and interesting:
I never saw him pleasanter. We were, indeed, evidently so merry
and happy at the bottom of the table, that those at the top sat
silent, and endeavouring to catch the words that fell from the
eloquent man’s lips. Again. (6th mo., 11th.) Every night this
week I shall have dined out, and in parties of a most agreeable
description; of my visit to the Duke of Sussex, and our
interesting _tête à tête_, I can’t write. The Duchess shewed me
all over the Palace, and the long row of Bibles. The room is
fifty feet long, and the Bibles are in all languages.
Shortly after (June 24th) she wrote, referring to the general state of
want and suffering then prevalent:—
Appeals to national generosity, for aught but national distress
and starving populations, in our three countries, ought, in my
opinion, to be now suspended, and speculations, however
benevolent, also; we are, I think, accountable to our distressed
countrymen for expenditures of the sort. The accounts from
Ireland, which I read the other day, brought tears into my eyes.
This summer Mrs. Opie paid her usual visits to the coast, and, after her
return home, we find in one of her notes the following entry:—
The weather seems so hot here! I pine almost for the fresh sea
breezes. I like the book I borrowed, (Lives of Physicians,) it
delights me to read how generous those great physicians were;
how patriotic, and full of care for others! I feel proud of the
faculty!
This is quite a characteristic touch. She was almost jealous for the
credit and good name of the medical profession; and very anxious that
its members should be held in high esteem, and their services liberally
remunerated.
The winter of this, and the early spring of the following year, found
Mrs. Opie occasionally suffering from her disorder; but enjoying the
supports and consolations of christian faith and trust.
In one of her notes she says:—
My trials are afflictive to nature; but I have long known and
experienced that there is support in entire submission to God’s
will, in little as well as in great trials; and, when I can
buckle on that armour, I feel as if I could walk erect and
securely.
In May she was, as usual, in London; and, writing thence, says:—
Yearly Meeting has engrossed me as much as ever, for I never
missed _one_ sitting since I obtained the great privilege of
belonging to it; one which I feel more and more every year, is
the last thing increasing age will cause me to forego.
In a note, dated July 12th, she says:—
I have struck up a friendship with “Sam Slick,” alias Judge
Haliburton; but, alas! one of the American delegates carries
away with him a large piece of my heart! It is grievous to make
acquaintances with people, learn to love and admire them, and
then bid them farewell for ever! Almost all the American
delegates, and their wives, came to me on the 10th, to tea and
supper. I had Colonel Thompson, and Serjeant Thompson, and an
Andalusian traveller to meet them, and willing to be pleased,
they were so.
This summer seems to have been a very happy and busy one; the following
extract, from a note, gives a peep at one of her mornings:—
(8th mo., 16th.) I have seemed lately to want for many
necessary and proper purposes, the most precious of all
things—time. Other people’s business, and my own pleasures have
prevented my writing before. At ten I must be out shopping; at
eleven to the Magdalen; at two I must drive to see my aunt and
say farewell! and then I am off to Ketteringham, to a five
o’clock dinner, as E. Sidney lectures at seven.
At the close of the year, she suffered again from an attack of her old
disorder. One of her latest notes, (12mo., 11th,) says:—
Alas! I am in my room still, forbidden to leave it. Dr. Hull
attributes my relapse to my efforts of last week; I had hoped I
was out of the wood, but no such thing. Long live Don Jorge! he
is my delight both night and morning, and my happiest hours are
spent in his society.[41]
The following letter of “Reminiscences” was written to her friend at
Northrepps at this time:—
Norwich, 12th mo., 16th, 1843.
MY DEAREST A.,
* * * * I will begin, if I do not finish my account of poor
Thomas Hogg, in whose christian end I rejoice. I think it was in
1816, ’17 or ’18, that Lady Cork was full of a sort of holy man,
a poet, whom she had picked up in a ditch, a poor, half-starved
man, whom she and Mrs. B. invited to their houses, and fed and
clothed; and Lady C. prevailed on him to come to London, and she
made up a bed for him in her stables.
He did come, and his arrival was made known to me. He had
written a poem on Hope, in heroic verse, and I was to see it. I
think he was a hedger and ditcher, and made verses while he
worked. I had, then, the worldly custom of receiving company on
a first day morning, after I returned from church; and a full
_levée_ I had, consisting of persons on their way to the parks
and gardens, whither, on that day, I never went myself. Well, my
friends were beginning to come, on first day, when my astonished
footman (a better sort of butler) came up to me, and said,
“Ma’am, here is Lady C. has sent her footman with a man in a
slop, who is, she says, to come up and see you.” Quite right,
(said I,) shew him up; and I told my wondering guests who was
coming.
The poor man entered; he was a short, thick, middle-aged, ruddy
looking man, clad in a very handsome slop of unbleached linen,
very handsomely worked round the neck and at the wrists; and I
received him very kindly, and seated him by me. Perry, of the
_Morning Chronicle_, was one of my visitors, and some half dozen
ladies and one or two gentlemen, who seemed inclined to laugh.
Perry and Hogg nodded at each other, and P. said, “I have just
been seeing Mr. Hogg at Lady Cork’s; and Mr. H., I find has a
kind of divining power—he knows who persons are, by their
countenances. On the Countess of Mornington’s (Duke of W.’s
mother) asking him what he thought she was, he said she was, he
saw, a woman of great courage. ‘I am the mother of a _Hero_,’
was her reply.” Still I saw Hogg did not like Perry, and he soon
interrupted him, saying to me, “I am come to read you a poem of
mine, for I hear you are a poet—a poem on Hop.” (I ought to say
his dialect was quite new to me.) “Oh! by all means,” I replied,
“ah! a poem on _hops_; you are a Kentish man perhaps.” “No,” he
thundered out, “on Hop, Hop.”—and I had then wit enough to
understand he meant _Hope_. “Better and better, (said I,) where
is your poem?” “I will go fetch it—it is outside the door;” and
he went for it. When he was gone, Perry took his seat, by me,
and we were talking of this strange visitant, when he returned,
and instantly exclaimed to P. “that’s _my_ place;—what do you
mean by taking it? get up!” and really, had P. resisted, it
seemed likely that a blow would have followed the words; but
Perry obeyed, and while Hogg was reading his manuscript, I went
to the chimney-piece and took down a large bottle of lavender
water, which, as it was a hot day, I carried round to the
company, and then offered it to him also, to smell at. “No, no,”
said he, “if I took any it would be in a glass;” evidently
taking it for a dram: and I had difficulty in keeping my guests
from indecorous mirth; at last the poor man (in whose bright eye
I thought I read more than incipient insanity) began to read;
but with such difficulty, (for it was not in his own
hand-writing,) that I humbly requested to be allowed to read it
for him, and he consented; and I did read it, and really was
surprised to find how good many of the lines were; and I own, I
did improve some of them, when the measure halted, by adding
words. He seemed much pleased, poor man, and we got through the
whole. Some of the guests who were there at the first, stole
away, ’ere I had done; and others coming in, I pointed them to a
chair, while they listened, and looked, in utter astonishment!
It was a scene indeed! When the MS. was returned, my servant
came up to tell Mr. H. that Lady Cork had sent her servant to
see him back to her house; “tell the fellow I will not go yet,
and I can go alone;” and he re-seated himself. Not long after,
came in my cousin T. A. The servant had told him Lady C. had
sent a poor crazy man to me, and I could not get rid of him; so
he hastened up, to rid me of the guest he supposed to be forced
on me, by the Countess; but when I met him smiling, and told him
Mr. H. had come to read me a pretty poem, he with difficulty
suppressed a laugh, and sat down meekly. But soon after came up
another message, “Madam, Lady C. has sent another servant for
Mr. H.; and says he must come directly!” “Must! I won’t come; I
know my way,” was Hogg’s reply; and the bard of Hope had almost
thrown me into Despair—the despair of getting rid of him,—when
I bethought me to try to convince him civility obliged him to go
to Lady C., as I was sure she wished much to introduce him and
his poem to others of her friends; and, at last, I prevailed on
him to go, my cousin most politely seeing him downstairs. I saw
him no more; and, I think, two days afterwards, the poor man,
sick to death of London, and of being made a show of, took
French leave, one morning early; and I believe he took with him
both Lady C.’s gifts, the _blanket_ and the _blouse_.
It was a pleasure to me, in after years, to read an account of
the poor wanderer’s having found pious friends in the last days
of his life, and that he died the death of a Christian.[42]
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[41] The “Bible in Spain” was published this year.
[42] In the 23rd volume of the “Christian Observer,” No. 1, there is a
“Brief Memoir of Thomas Hogg,” giving an affecting account of this poor
and pious man’s end: he died in great want, but full of christian hope
and peace in believing. That he was no common man, is apparent from the
few details there recorded. One remark he made may, perhaps, be deemed
worthy of record here. The divisions unhappily prevalent in the Church
of Christ, being lamented in his hearing, he said, in his native
sprightly manner, “No matter, there are two sides to the river.” Some
parts of his Poem are given in the article from which we quote. He died
at the age of 65, in 1818.—E.