to him, though perfectly conscious that Fitz was anything but a star of
the first magnitude. He says: "There was no sparkle, no brilliancy in
Fitzherbert, but I never knew a man who was so generally acceptable. He
made everybody quite easy, overpowered nobody by the superiority of his
talents, made no man think worse of himself by being his rival, seemed
always to listen, did not oblige you to hear much from him, and did not
oppose what you said." "Such characters," says Mr. Raleigh, "are the oil
of society, yet a society made wholly of such characters would have no
taste."
Tennyson's fidelity and patience with me were very much of a mystery;
possibly I may have fitted his hand as a pet walking-stick; anyhow, I was
"Man Friday to his Crusoe" as the play-actors say, and "constitutionals"
with the Poet Laureate and his dogs, a wolf-hound or a deer-hound,
Karénina or Lufra, were matters of daily occurrence in my Freshwater days.
After 5 o'clock tea I left the Poet to "his sacred half-hour," and his
pipe of tobacco. By the way, he smoked straight-stemmed Dublin clay-pipes,
and hated new pipes, which he would soak in coffee.
I believe that in the early days of our acquaintance the Poet, seeing me
with what appeared to be a notebook under my arm, suspected me of
Boswellizing, but I was duly warned and reassured him of my innocence. I
simply recorded very briefly in my diary a few of his "dicta" which I
wished to have for the benefit of my children, one of whom was a frequent
and delighted listener to the Laureate's reading of his own poems. Mary
Coleridge, at that time a shy, timid girl, was more than once asked to
dictate the particular poems she wanted him to recite. I can hear him
saying, "Give me my seven-and-sixpenny" (meaning the single volume
edition), and then we listened to the "high Orphic chant," rather than the
conventional reading of many of our favourite poems. I often asked for the
"Ode on the Duke of Wellington," and on one occasion, in the presence of
Sir Charles Stanford--then organist of Trinity College, Cambridge--the
Poet, lowering his voice at the words, "God accept him, Christ receive
him," added: "It's a mighty anthem, that's what it is." Stanford's music
to "The Voyage of Mældune" was written at Freshwater, and four of us
visitors sang a lovely quartet in that work for the first time in the
Poet's presence. It was rather nervous work, for the composer and
ourselves were anxious to satisfy the Poet in a work intended as a novelty
for the Leeds Festival. The verdict was rather enigmatical: "I like the
ripple of your music." It met with a good reception at Leeds, and Madame
Albani expressed a confident hope in my hearing that the work would become
popular. I wish the prophecy had been adequately fulfilled, but English
audiences, though, like the Athenians of old, clamouring for a new thing,
are very cautious in giving more than one or two trials to musical
novelties. It is lamentable to see works which have cost long years,
perhaps a lifetime, of skilled experience, shelved in musical libraries or
relegated to foreign audiences for adjudication of their real value.
It was my daily habit during the Easter holidays for three years to call
at Farringford at 10.30, and present myself in the Poet's sanctum, where I
found him at his desk in the very act of hatching a poem or amending an
old one. He would greet me with "Here comes my daily bread." Then I read
the newspaper or a book until we started for our morning walk. The
dialogue would begin abruptly, starting from some impressions left by our
musical rehearsals on the previous day. "Why is Stanford unable to set to
music the word 'cosmopolite'?" (See Appendix B.) The reasons seemed to me
quite intelligible, but not so to a poet as fastidious as Wordsworth when
discussing the Installation Ode with Professor Walmisley. I expect Purcell
had more than one bad half-hour with Dryden, for the laws and regulations
of musical accent may often conflict with the cadences and scansion
adopted by the poet. Sir Charles Stanford and Sir Hubert Parry (_lucida
sidera_) are rare instances of musical composers with an instinctive
appreciation of the fitness and adaptability of poetry offered for musical
treatment.
Tennyson was loyal to the core on the subject of his old university, and
amongst his constant visitors were some of my old contemporaries,
Bradshaw, Lightfoot, and Montagu Butler. These, the _fleurs fines_ of my
day, were constant topics, and I eagerly listened to his recollections of
the Cambridge men of his own generation. "Thompson" (afterwards Master of
Trinity), he said, "was the last man I saw at Cambridge. I saw him
standing at the door of the Bull Inn--his handsome face under a street
lamp. We have been friends ever since." He enjoyed the master's
witticisms, and especially "even the youngest among us is not infallible."
The Professorship of Greek carried with it a Canonry of Ely, and
Thompson's times of residence were rather dreaded by the new holders of
the office. His health, never of the best, was tried by the atmosphere,
and finding the loneliness of his bachelor life insupportable, he begged
an old College contemporary to pay him a visit. The friend came and was
duly installed, but the sleeping accommodation was found wanting, and in
answer to his petition for another bedroom with a good fire in it his host
observed, "So sorry, my dear fellow, but I put five of my sermons into
that bedroom, and if they have failed to dry it, nothing else will."
* * * * *
_T._ "My tailor at Cambridge was a man of the name of Law. When he made
his way into our rooms, and worried us about paying our bills, we used to
say, 'This is Law's Serious Call.' I capped this story with a similar
Oxford tradition. The name of the Oxford tailor was Joy, and the
undergraduates, soaked with port wine, used to say, 'Heaviness may endure
for a night, but Joy cometh in the morning.'"
_T._ "You cannot wonder at my horror of all the libels and slanders;
people began to slander me in early days. For example, after my marriage
we spent the honeymoon on Coniston Lake in a cottage lent to me by James
Marshall. Shortly after this, a paragraph appeared in an American
newspaper to the following effect: 'We hope, now that Mr. Tennyson is
married and has returned to his native lakes, that he will give up opium.'
The penny-a-liners evidently confounded your uncle, S. T. Coleridge, with
myself--anyhow, if he wasn't quite certain, he gave your relative the
benefit of the doubt."
"Again, I was once persuaded by an adventuress (who wrought upon me by her
tale of hopeless poverty) to hear her read in my own drawing-room. She was
in my house for exactly half an hour, and profited by her experience in
telling her audiences that she had seen me thrashing my wife, and carried
away drunk by two men-servants to my bedroom."
* * * * *
One day we visited the grave of Lord Tennyson's shepherd; he died at the
age of ninety-one. On his death-bed Hallam asked him if he would remember
in his will his two sons in Australia who had entirely ignored and
neglected him. "No," he said firmly; and he left his 17s. 6d. a year to
the poorest man in the parish of Freshwater. On his tombstone are engraved
the Laureate's own words from "In Memoriam":
God's finger touched him and he slept.
I showed Lord Tennyson some manuscript verses by my friend Bernard Drake,
who died at Madeira in 1853. He read them twice through, slowly and aloud.
I had told him of Drake's history, and then showed him the verses; their
sadness impressed him greatly:
ON ILLNESS
I
Thou roaring, roaming Sea!
When first I came into this happy isle,
I loved to listen evermore to thee,
And meditate the while.
II
But now that I have grown
Homesick, and weary of my loneliness,
It makes me sad to hear thy plaintive moan
And fills me with distress.
III
It speaks of many a friend,
Whom I shall meet no more on Life's dark road,
It warns that _here_ I must await the end
And cast no look abroad.
IV
Thou ever roaring Sea!
I love thee, for that o'er thy waters come
The stately ships, breasting them gloriously,
That bring me news of home.
V
I cannot pray for grace--
My soul is heavy, and my sickness sore--
Wilt Thou, O God, for ever hide Thy face?
O! turn to me once more.
MADEIRA, _November 30, 1853_.
Drake's career at Eton and Cambridge really interested him, for my old
friend was an ardent worshipper of the Poet in days before Tennyson's fame
had become a national asset. I showed with some pride "Of old sat Freedom
on the heights," translated into Latin Alcaics, a version very popular
with Etonians and King's men. Scholarship has made gigantic strides since
it appeared; "those who know" can read and see if we overvalued it.
OF OLD SAT FREEDOM
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
And fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fulness of her face--
Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,
And, King-like, wears the crown:
Her open eyes desire the truth.
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears;
That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and light our dreams,
Turning to scorn with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes!
_Idem--Latine redditum_
Olim insedebat montibus arduis
Disiecta cernens sub pede fulmina
Divina Libertas; superque
Astra faces agitare vidit;
Et confluentes audiit undique
Amnes, opertis in penetralibus
Exultat, et ritu Sibyllae
Mente sua latet involuta,
Sed vocis altae fragmina praepetes
Venti ferebant.--Inde novalia
Per culta discendens, per urbes
Diva homines aditura venit,
Ut vultus aegros ante oculos virûm
Sensim pateret--mox parit integram
Virtutem et altari marino
Suppositum speculatur orbem--
Quae seu deorum more acies gerit
Dextra trifurcas, seu caput induit
Regina regali corona.
Expetit, insequiturque verum.
Quae mille victrix experientiam
Collegit annos: o Dea, sic tibi
Aeterna si duret iuventus
Neu lacrymis oculi madescant;
Sic enitebis, sic dabis aureos
Dies alumnis, aurea somnia;
Sic ore divino refelles
Quae properat malesuadus error.
* * * * *
When distinguished visitors came to the Island, who were on terms of
friendship with the Poet, I gave him warning that I should not appear on
the scene and spoil their pleasure; but to this condition he would not
assent, and I can recall frequent occasions when I must have been a fly in
the ointment, and the Jowetts, Bradleys, and distinguished Americans would
have wished me at Jericho. Once I felt entirely at my ease, for I
determined to start the subject of Dr. Johnson, worshipped by me from my
boyhood. I knew my Birkbeck Hill pretty well by heart, having quite
recently read the six volumes of his edition of Boswell, notes and all, to
a blind friend who rejoiced in hearing them. Further than that, I had made
a pilgrimage to Lichfield, and by the kindness of a Mr. Lomax, who owned
the relics, had examined and handled a varied assortment of goods and
chattels, once undoubtedly the property of the great Samuel. The pedigree
was thus accounted for by my courteous showman. After Dr. Johnson's death,
Barber, his black servant, migrated from London to Lichfield, "bringing
his sheaves with him"; amongst the _spolia opima_ were a huge teapot and a
manuscript copy of Devotions. Fortified with the recollections of this
pilgrimage, and some out-of-the-way facts told to me by the residentiary
Canon, my dear old friend Bishop Abraham, I started on a two hours' walk
with the Poet and Professor Jowett. It was easy to lead up to the theme of
conversation--there was no difficulty whatever. I thought of Johnson's own
plan of extinguishing subjects which he intended at all costs to avoid.
When Mrs. Neale asked his opinion of the conversational powers of Charles
James Fox, "he talked to me one day at the Club," said he, "concerning
Catiline's conspiracy, so I withdrew my attention and thought about Tom
Thumb." Every moment of that afternoon walk, Dr. Johnson was our theme,
and we capped one another with long quotations from Boswell. Jowett
chirped, the Poet gave wonderful emphasis and point to the oracles, often
pausing suddenly in his walk, and cross-examining me on my remembered
version of the actual words. I noted the upshot of our talk. Lord Tennyson
agreed with the Master of Balliol "that Boswell was a man of real genius,
and resembled Goldsmith in many points of character."
Miss L----, Doctor Johnson's godchild, used to tell a disagreeable story
about him. Tennyson said about this:
_T._ "One should not lay stress on these oddities and angularities of
great men. They should never be hawked about."
* * * * *
_T._ "'Break, break' was made one early summer morning, in a Lincolnshire
lane. 'Crossing the Bar' cost me five minutes one day last November."
* * * * *
_T._ "At ten years of age I wrote an epic poem of great length--it was in
the 'Marmion' style. I used to rush about the fields, with a stick for a
sword, and fancied myself a conqueror advancing upon an enemy's country."
* * * * *
_T._ "My prize poem 'Timbuctoo' was an altered version of a work I had
written at home and called 'The Battle of Armageddon.' I fell out with my
father, for I had no wish to compete for the prize and he insisted on my
writing. To my amazement, the prize was awarded to me. I couldn't face the
public recitation in the Senate House, feeling very much as Cowper felt;
Merivale declaimed my poem for me in the Senate House."
* * * * *
_T._ "Arthur Hallam said to me in 1832: 'To-day I have seen the last
English King going in State to the last English Parliament.'"
* * * * *
I believe that one of Tennyson's first idylls was addressed to Miss K.
Bradshaw, sister of my beloved friend Henry Bradshaw (fellow and librarian
of King's College, Cambridge), whose relationship to the Judge who
condemned Charles I. was rather a tender point with H. B., both at Eton
and King's.
Because she bore the iron name
Of him who doomed his king to die,
I deemed her one of stately frame
And looks to awe her stander by.
But find a maiden, tender, shy,
With fair blue eyes and winning sweet,
And longed to kiss her hand, and lie
A thousand summers at her feet.
* * * * *
I pressed the Poet more than once to put on record his own interpretation
of passages in "In Memoriam" and others which needed the authority of his
own explanation. "Surely you took 'four square to all the winds that blow'
from Dante's
Ben tetragono ai colpi della Ventura?"
"No, it was not in my mind." Again, I quoted his expression, "hollow
shapes enclosing hearts of flame," thinking it had arisen from Beckford's
_Vathek_. The answer was "No, merely spectral visions."
_T._ "Some of my poems depend on single sayings, single lines which have
served me for a theme. My poem of 'The Brigand' is founded on a story told
in the Autobiography of that great and gallant gentleman, Walter Scott."
* * * * *
_T._ "Edward FitzGerald and I used to weary of the hopelessly prosaic
lines in some books of 'The Excursion,' and we had a contest, the prize
for which was to be for the weakest line by mutual consent that we could
either of us invent. FitzGerald declared the line was his--it really was
mine--'A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman.'" I wish I could have told him of Jem
Stephen's commentary on "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," "That is no
reason why we should lie about Heaven in our old age." Among other
passages he quotes with admiration Wordsworth's lines on the "Simplon
Pass."
* * * * *
_T._ "I am sorry that I am turned into a school-book at Harrow; the boys
will say of me, 'That horrible Tennyson.' The cheapness of English
classics makes the plan acceptable to schoolmasters and parents."
He quoted with approval Byron's line--
Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so.
"He was quite right. I, too, was so overdosed with Horace as a boy, that I
don't do him justice now I am old. I suppose Horace was the most popular
poet that ever lived?"
* * * * *
Rough dissonant words in great poets were a trial to him; he declared that
those horrid words, _Eingeweide_ and _Beschützer_, are the ruin of
Goethe's otherwise perfect lyrics.
_T._ "At Weimar the Grand Duchess sent an apology for not receiving me in
person. After visiting Goethe's study, bedroom and sitting-room, I was
shocked by the meanness of the streets, and the horrid smells in the town
itself. I felt as tetchy and vexed as Macbeth with his 'out, out, brief
candle,' a passage so utterly misunderstood by Macready, who dropped his
voice and gave the words a pathos that I _am quite sure_ was never
intended."
* * * * *
_T._ "_The Tempest_ has been dreadfully damaged by scenes intercalated by
some common stage-adapter. At one time of my life I thought the Sonnets
greater than the Plays. Some of the noblest things are in _Troilus and
Cressida_."
Perseverance, dear my Lord, keeps honour bright, etc.
* * * * *
_T._ "Have you observed a solecism in Milton's _Penseroso_?
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And _love_ the high embowed roof
With antique pillars massy proof, etc."
_T._ "I do not remember getting from your cousin Hartley Coleridge the
Sonnet you speak of, still less can I account for its being in the Library
in the South Kensington Museum."
This Sonnet is headed
SONNET TO ALFRED TENNYSON
_After meeting him for the first time_
Long have I known thee as thou art in song,
And long enjoyed the perfume that exhales
From thy pure soul, and odour sweet entails,
And permanence on thoughts that float along
The stream of life to join the passive throng
Of shades and echoes that are memory's being,
Hearing we hear not, and we see not seeing
If Passion, Fancy, Faith, move not among
The never frequent moments of reflection.
Long have I view'd thee in the chrystal sphere
Of verse, that like the Beryl makes appear
Visions of hope, begot of recollection.
Knowing thee now, a real earth-treading man
Not less I love thee, and no more I can.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
_T._ "I liked Hartley Coleridge, 'Massa' Hartley' as the rustics called
him. He was a lovable little fellow. Once he said to me, 'Had I been
Colonel Burns (the Poet's eldest son) I would have kicked Wordsworth for
delivering that preachment.' On one occasion Hartley, who was very
eccentric, was asked to dine with the family of a stiff Presbyterian
clergyman residing in the Lake district. The guests, Trappist fashion, sat
a long time in the drawing-room waiting for the announcement of dinner.
Not a word was uttered, and Hartley was bored to extinction. At last he
suddenly jumped up from the sofa, kissed the clergyman's wife, and rushed
out of the house. He was wonderfully eloquent, and, I fancy, resembled his
father in that respect."
* * * * *
_T._ "I doubt that fine poem 'Kubla Khan' having been written in sleep; I
have often imagined new poems in my sleep, but I couldn't remember them in
the morning. Your uncle's words: 'Tennyson has no sense of rhythm and
scansion,' have been constantly quoted against me. The truth is that in my
youth I used no hyphens in writing composite words, and a reader might
fancy that from this omission I had no knowledge of the length and measure
of words and expressions."
* * * * *
_T._ "Burns was a great genius, but dreadfully coarse sometimes. When he
attempts to write in pure English, he breaks down utterly." He quoted many
things of Burns's: "O my Luv's like a red, red rose," and "Gae fetch to me
a pint o' wine," etc., with the greatest admiration, and "Mary Morison"
and "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," etc. "They have utterly ruined
the lilt of the last," he said, "when they added words for the musical
setting."
* * * * *
He was fond of talking about great pictures and fine sculpture. Birket
Foster joined us one day, and Tennyson asked him to define the word
"picturesque," and to say why tumble-down cottages in the Isle of Wight
were such favourite subjects with painters. B. F. answered that it was the
breaking of the straight line. We talked of Frederick Walker, and B. F.
told us many stories of his wit and conscientiousness. "I mean to paint a
picture," said he, "the key-note of which is to be onion-seed."
* * * * *
Primrose Day.--_T._ "All the floral displays for which we Isle of Wighters
suffer are based on a mistaken version of the Queen's meaning, when she
sent a wreath of primroses for Lord Beaconsfield's grave, inscribed with
'His favourite flower.' She meant Prince Albert's, not Lord
Beaconsfield's partiality for the flower in question."
* * * * *
_T._ "I could imitate the hoot of an owl, and once practised successfully
enough to attract one which flew in through my window. The bird soon made
friends with me, would sit on my shoulder and kiss my face. My pet monkey
became jealous, and one day pushed the owl off a board that I had had
raised some feet from the ground. The owl was not hurt, but he died
afterwards a Narcissus death from vanity. He fell into a tub of water
contemplating his own beauty, and was drowned."
* * * * *
The Poet admired Carlyle's _French Revolution_, but he seemed surprised at
my having read Carlyle's _Frederick the Great_; the length of it had been
too much for him. I was vexed by the author's omission of an account of
Sebastian Bach's famous interview with the king at Potsdam, and pressed on
my old friend Sir George Grove to inquire the reasons of so strange an
omission. He ascertained that Carlyle not only knew the fact, but the
actual day and date of the occurrence. The omission, therefore, was really
of malice aforethought. Quantz, the flute-player, has his appropriate
niche in the monumental work, but the great Sebastian is out of it
altogether; the tootler takes the cake and be hanged to him.
* * * * *
Great sailors and soldiers were very favourite subjects. The Poet had
personally known well one naval officer who had served with Nelson.
_T._ "Among many odd letters I have received,[69] an American curate wrote
to me that he made a sudden resolution one Sunday that he would read 'The
Charge of the Light Brigade' instead of his ordinary sermon. An old
Dorsetshire soldier who had fought at Balaclava, happened to be in the
congregation, though the preacher was unaware of the fact. The verses had
the happy result of the soldier giving up a bad, reckless life, and
completely reforming. My poem was never meant to convey any spiritual
lesson, but the very curious fact of the chance soldier and the parson's
sudden resolution has often set me thinking."
* * * * *
_T._ "Twice, I am glad to say, I have been taken into battle; once by Sir
Fenwick Williams of Kars; another officer wrote after a fight: 'I escaped
with my life and my Tennyson.' I admire General Hamley, a good writer and
accomplished soldier."
* * * * *
_T._ "When the Prince Regent explored the field of Waterloo with the Duke
himself as guide, the Duke's horse plunged and threw his rider. The Prince
remarked, 'I can now say what nobody else in the world can, that I saw the
Duke of Wellington overthrown on the Field of Waterloo.' His Grace was not
over pleased with the observation."
* * * * *
_T._ "Keats would have become one of the very greatest of all poets, had
he lived. At the time of his death there was apparently no sign of
exhaustion or having written himself out; his keen poetical instinct was
in full process of development at the time. Each new effort was a steady
advance on that which had gone before. With all Shelley's splendid imagery
and colour, I find a sort of _tenuity_ in his poetry."
* * * * *
_T._ "'Locksley Hall' is thought by many to be an autobiographical sketch;
it's nothing of the sort--not a word of my history in it. Read
FitzGerald's _Euphranor_ and let me know what you think of it."
* * * * *
One day we talked of Winchester and the rather meagre list of great men
educated there. I rejoiced in the college boasting of an _alumnus_ in Lord
Seaton, the famous leader of the 52nd Regiment at Waterloo. "I remember,"
_T._ said, "addressing a coachman by whose side I was sitting as we drove
in a coach through that place, and I asked him, 'What sort of a place is
Winchester?' Answer: 'Debauched, sir, debauched, like all other Cathedral
cities.'"
* * * * *