I hope you got safe and sound to London: as I did to this place
yesterday. Those good Tetter people! I have got an attachment to them
somehow. I left Jane {146b} in a turmoil as to which picture of
W[ilkinson] she was to take. I advised her to take a dose of Time, which
always operates so gently.
I have been down to Woodbridge to-day and had a long chat with
Churchyard, whom I wish you had seen, as also his Gainsborough sketches.
He is quite clear as to Gainsborough's general method, which was (he
says) to lay all in (except the sky, of course) with pure colour, quite
unmixed with white. The sketch he has is certainly so; but whether it
ever could have been wrought up into a deep finish, I don't know. C.
says yes it could: that Gainsborough began nearly all his pictures so. He
has tried it over and over again (he says) and produced exactly the same
effect with pure colour, laid on very thin over a light brown ground:
asphaltum and blue producing just such a green as many of the trees in
this sketch are of. The sky put in afterwards.
He thinks this the great secret of landscape painting. He shewed me the
passage quoted by Burnet {147} from Rubens' maxims (where and what are
they?) 'Begin by painting in your shadows lightly, taking care that _no_
white be suffered to glide into them--_it is the poison of a picture
except in the lights_. If ever your shadows are corrupted by the
introduction of this baneful colour, your tones will no longer be warm
and transparent, but heavy and leaden. It is not the same in the lights:
they may be loaded with colour as much as you think proper.'
Here is a technical letter, you see, from a man who is no artist, and
very ignorant, as you think, I dare say. Try a head in this way. You
have tried a dozen, you say. Very well then.
I will send up your cloak, which is barely bigger than a fig leaf, when I
can. On Saturday I give supper to B. Barton and Churchyard. I wish you
could be with us. We are the chief wits of Woodbridge. And one man has
said that he envies our conversations! So we flatter each other in the
country.
* * * * *
Of FitzGerald's way of life at this time I have the following notes which
were given me by the late Rev. George Crabbe, Rector of Merton, the
grandson of the poet, at whose house he died.
'FitzGerald was living at Boulge Cottage when I first knew him: a
thatched cottage of one storey just outside his Father's Park. No one
was, I think, resident at the Hall. His mother would sometimes be
there a short time, and would drive about in a coach and four black
horses. This would be in 1844, when he was 36. He used to walk by
himself, slowly, with a Skye terrier. I was rather afraid of him. He
seemed a proud and very punctilious man. I think he was at this time
going often of an evening to Bernard Barton's. He did not come to us,
except occasionally, till 1846. He seemed to me when I first saw him
much as he was when he died, only not stooping: always like a grave
middle-aged man: never seemed very happy or light-hearted, though his
conversation was most amusing sometimes. His cottage was a mile from
Bredfield. He was very fond, I think, of my Father; though they had
several coolnesses which I believe were all my Father's fault, who
took fancies that people disliked him or were bored by him. E. F. G.
had in his cottage an old woman to wait on him, Mrs. Faiers; a very
old-fashioned Suffolk woman. He was just as careful not to make her
do anything as he was afterwards with Mrs. Howe. {149} He would never
ring the bell, if there was one, of which I am not sure. Sometimes he
would give a little dinner--my Father, Brooke, B. Barton,
Churchyard--everything most hospitable, but not comfortable.
'In 1846 and 1847 he does not seem to have come much to Bredfield.
Perhaps he was away a good deal. He was often away, visiting his
mother, or W. Browne, or in London, or at the Kerriches'. In 1848,
1849, and 1850 he was a great deal at Bredfield, generally dropping in
about seven o'clock, singing glees with us, and then joining my Father
over his cigar, and staying late and often sleeping. He very often
arranged concerted pieces for us to sing, in four parts, he being
tenor. He sang very accurately but had not a good voice.
'While E. F. G. was at Boulge, he always got up early, eat his small
breakfast, stood at his desk reading or writing all the morning, eat
his dinner of vegetables and pudding, walked with his Skye terrier,
and then often finished the day by spending the evening with us or the
Bartons. He did not visit with the neighbouring gentlefolks, as he
hated a set dinner party.'
_To F. Tennyson_.
BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _February_ 24/44.