brimful of rare and precious fancies, which leap out of him as fresh
as a fountain in the sunshine. His biographical engagement with
Bingley is for the present suspended, by his own fault, as he says. I
suppose he could not stand it any longer. But the three first numbers
are completed, and bound up in a goodly fat volume of 720 closely
printed pages. It contains twelve or fifteen lives, and more good
things of all sorts and sizes than any other book of 720 pages. It is
published by Bingley in Leeds and Whitaker in London, called
_Biographia Borealis_, costs sixteen shillings, and the notes alone
are worth the money. Wherefore, I pray you not only to get it
yourself, but likewise to make everybody else get it. No apostolic
bookcase should be without it. It should become a _household_ book;
therefore, let no one think of borrowing it, but whosoever is wise and
good let him buy or steal it. If any man should ask what are the
_politics_ of the work (a question which no Apostle, who is indeed an
Apostle, ever thought of asking but in the way of mere curiosity),
then say thou, the same politics which were held in common by Plato,
Demosthenes, Shakespeare, Bacon, Burke, and God Almighty, and let him
make what he can of the information.
Wordsworth's eyes are better, but not well, nor ever likely to be.
Reading inflames them and so does composing. I believe it was a series
of Highland Sonnets that brought on the last attack, so much worse
than any he had had before. He read me several that I had not seen nor
heard before, many of them admirably good; also a long, romantic
wizard and fairy poem, in the time of Merlin and King Arthur, very
pretty, but not of the first order. But I should not have expected
anything so good from him, which was so much out of his beat. He has
not advanced much in his knowledge of Alfred; but he is very modest in
his refusal to praise attributing his want of admiration to a
deficiency in himself, whether from the stiffness of old age, which
cannot accommodate itself to a new style of beauty, or that the
compass of his sympathies has been narrowed by flowing too long and
strongly in one direction. (_N.B._ He is not answerable for the
English that I am writing.) But he doubts not that Alfred's style has
its own beauty, though he wants the faculty to enter fully into it,
alleging as a parallel case the choruses in "Samson Agonistes" the
measure of which he has never been able to enjoy, which comes to
perhaps as high a compliment as a negative compliment can be. He spoke
so wisely and graciously that I had half a mind to try him with a poem
or two, but that would have been more perhaps than he meant. And
indeed it is always so pleasant to hear a distinguished man
unaffectedly disclaiming the office of censor, that I never think it
fair to take him at his word. I have given a copy of Alfred's second
volume to Hartley Coleridge, who, I trust, will make more of it. He
had only seen it for a few minutes, and was greatly behind the age,
though he admitted that A. T. was undoubtedly a man of genius; and was
going to say something about the _Quarterly_ in a Review of _The
Doctor_, which he was, or is, writing for Blackwood. I also sent him
yesterday a copy of Charles Tennyson, accompanied with one of my most
gentlemanly letters.
Spedding was now nearly six-and-twenty, and had no settled plan of life
before him. "For myself," he says, "I am unsettled in all my prospects and
plans. I am, in fact, doing nothing, but I flatter myself I am pausing on
the brink to take a good look at the different ways of life which are open
to me before I take the fatal plunge."
At the end of 1834 he invited Thompson, who was then at York, to visit him
at Mirehouse.
Excuses shall not be admitted, at least not such as yours. Is there
not a stage-coach which fears God, and do you _for that reason_ refuse
to employ it? You ought rather to encourage it. What is a little bile
or rheumatism, compared with the advancement of Truth, and the
conservation of the Faith that is on the earth? Moreover, every
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a coach leaves Kendal at 8 o'clock in
the morning, and arrives in Keswick about one, having traversed in the
short space of five hours many miles of the finest scenery in the
country, containing both other things and five lakes, and the
dwelling-places of Wordsworth, Hartley Coleridge, and Hamilton[104]
(more commonly known as Cyril Thornton). As for your time lost last
term, that I know, from my experience of your character, to be a
fiction of modesty: and as for your hopes of making up for it at home,
that I know, from my experience of my own character, to be humbug.
Besides, you write as one balancing his own desires according to a
principle of enlightened self-interest. You forget that it is not for
your own pleasure, but for my profit, that I ask you to come. Am I not
sliding daily from bad to worse? Am I not losing the race I do not
run? Am I not learning to look on all knowledge as vanity, all labour
as sorrow? for not the knowledge for which men labour is profitable,
but the labour only, and yet who can labour for that which profiteth
not? Have I not already parted with the hope, and am I not now parting
with the wish, to advance? Am I performing any duty? Am I making any
money? Am I not falling away from the Apostolic mind, notwithstanding?
Am I not taking pleasure in the shooting of snipes? Am I not in danger
of having a bad German pronunciation for evermore? Roll these things
in your mind, and then roll yourself into the coach. I will meet you
at Ambleside, if you like.
I had read the review of Wordsworth several times over: and thought
the criticism (except. excipiend.) good, and the moral philosophy
superb. The passage about the moon looking round her, etc., I of
course felt to be a blunder, though I was less surprised than sorry to
see it. It seems to me to chime in too well with what I marked as the
defect of his preface to _P. v. A._,[105] so that I fear it is not a
negligent criticism, as one might have hoped: but an opinion well
weighed and carefully adopted. I wonder what he would say to Ebenezer
Elliott, with his flowers and mountains, for a taste?
Welcome then again
Love-listening Primrose! tho' not parted long
We meet like lovers after years of pain.
Oh thou bringst blissful childhood back to me,
Thou still art loveliest in the lowest place,
Still as of old Day glows with love for thee,
And reads our heavenly Father in thy face.
Surely thy thoughts are humble and devout,
Flower of the pensive gold! for why should heaven
Deny to thee his noblest boon of thought,
If to Earth's demigods 'tis vainly given?
Answer me, Sunless Sister, Thou hast speech
Though silent Fragrance is thy eloquence,
Beauty thy language, and thy smile might teach
Ungrateful man to pardon providence.
He would call it a very bold figure of speech: figure of _speech_,
quotha! However, Philip is a noble fellow, and the apology for this
piece of criticism is so wise and so good that one can hardly regret
that an apology was needed. I have sent for the citation of Will.
Shakespeare, though rather with the desire than the expectation of
great delight. I read a few extracts in the _Atlas_, with which I was
not at all struck, or, if at all, not favourably; but that does not go
for much, as I did not know who it was by, or anything about it, and
the extracts were most probably ill-chosen. But to tell you the truth
I never took much to Landor. To be sure I never read much of him, but
I have often had the book in my hand. Perhaps I might have liked him
better if the speakers had been named Philander and Strephon, and
Philalethes and the like, instead of Bacon, and Hooker, and Raleigh,
and so following. I shall have every chance this time: for besides the
prejudice derived from your praise, I am by no means easy in feeling
no great respect for a writer of whom _P. v. A._ speaks so very
highly. There is something in Philip's intellect which commands more
than my usual reverence. More _genial_ minds I have met with, but for
strength, and integrity, and _discretion_ of understanding, I do not
know his equal. He puts me in mind of F. Malkin. We must have him
change his mind, though, about the moon and the streams. I read the
review of Coleridge in the _Quarterly_ the other day. The parts which
are not Coleridge's own might have been better, but they are well
enough.
The spring of 1835 was memorable at Mirehouse for a visit of Tennyson and
FitzGerald. That this made a vivid impression on FitzGerald is evident
from a letter which he wrote after Spedding's death to his niece, when
there was some idea of gathering together his miscellaneous essays:
"I rejoice," he says, "to hear of a Collection, or Reprint, of his
stray works.... I used to say he wrote 'Virgilian Prose.' One only of
his I did not care for; but that, I doubt not, was because of the
subject, not of the treatment: his own printed Report of a Speech he
made in what was called the 'Quinquaginta Club' Debating Society (not
the Union) at Cambridge about the year 1831. This speech his Father
got him to recall and recompose in Print; wishing always that his Son
should turn his faculties to such public Topics rather than to the
Poets, of whom he had seen enough in Cumberland not to have much
regard for: Shelley for one, at one time stalking about the mountains
with Pistols, and other such Vagaries. I do not think he was much an
admirer of Wordsworth (I don't know about Southey), and I well
remember that when I was at M_e_rehouse (as Miss Bristowe would have
us call it), with A. Tennyson in 1835, Mr. Spedding grudged his Son's
giving up much time and thought to consultations about Morte
d'Arthur's, Lords of Burleigh, etc., which were then in MS. He more
than once questioned me, who was sometimes present at the meetings,
'Well, Mr. F., and what is it? Mr. Tennyson reads, and Jem
criticizes:--is that it?' etc. This, while I might be playing Chess
with dear Mrs. Spedding, in May, while the Daffodils were dancing
outside the Hall door."
"At the end of May," he writes to Mrs. Kemble, "we went to lodge for a
week at Windermere--where Wordsworth's new volume of _Yarrow
Revisited_ reached us. W. was then at his home, but Tennyson would not
go to visit him: and of course I did not: nor even saw him."
In the summer of 1835 Thompson spent the Long Vacation at the Lakes, and
Spedding was engaged in securing lodgings for him and his pupils, while
Tennyson was still at Mirehouse.
"I am going," he writes, "with Alfred, I believe, to Buttermere, and
so have not time to tell you how much I am rejoiced that your destiny
should have dragged you hither--nor to discuss the London Review--nor
to tell you about Fitz and Alfred Tennyson, and Hartley Coleridge,
and W. W., etc., only that Alfred is very gruff and unmanageable, and
the weather very cold. He desires to be remembered. Fitz is gone."
A few days later he says:
Alfred left us about a week since, homeward bound, but meaning to
touch at Brookfield's on his way. The weather has been much finer
since he went; certainly, while he was here, our northern sun did not
display himself to advantage. Nevertheless, I think he took in more
pleasure and inspiration than any one would have supposed who did not
know his almost personal dislike of the Present, whatever it may be.
Hartley Coleridge is mightily taken with him; and, after the fourth
bottom of gin, deliberately thanked Heaven (under me, I believe, or me
under Heaven, I forget which) for having brought them acquainted. Said
Hartley was busy with an article on "Macbeth," to appear (the
vegetable spirits permitting) in the next _Blackwood_. He confessed to
a creed touching Destiny which was new to me: denying Free Will (if I
understood him right) _in toto_; but at the same time maintaining that
man is solely and entirely answerable for whatever evil he does: not
merely that he is to suffer for it, which I could understand, but that
he is _answerable_ for it which I do not. Now this, I think, is not
fair. I could not get Alfred to Rydal Mount, he would and would
not--sulky one, although Wordsworth was hospitably minded towards him;
and would have been more so had the state of his household permitted,
which I am sorry to say is full of sickness.... By a letter from D. D.
H[eath] received to-day I infer that _Subscription no Bondage_ is out;
which I shall accordingly send for. I am sorry it is not to be
understood in the sense of "Killing no Murder," which seems to me,
till I be further enlightened, the only sort of construction which
will make sense of it. D. D. H. looketh on this pamphlet as the final
cause of the system of subscription at Oxford, and, now that the
effect hath been accomplished doth heartily wish that custom may be
discontinued. Euge, D. D. H.! For myself, since Alfred went, my time
has been chiefly employed (that is, all my time which was not occupied
in exercising the puppies) upon three several books: to wit, _Ralph
Esher_, a sort of novel by Leigh Hunt, containing a most graceful and
lively portraiture of Charles II.'s times, a good deal of rot about
Truth and Love, and a good deal of metaphysics, hard to understand in
parts, but in parts (to me, at least) very deep and touching. Item,
_Isaac Comnenus_, a Play (Murray, 1827): by Henry Taylor, as Southey
who lent me the book informs me; a work much in the tone and [style
of] _P. v. A._, and though far behind in design and execution by [no
means] an unworthy precursor. It has some passages as fine as anything
in _Philip_. Item, thirdly and lastly, Basil Montagu's _Life of
Bacon_, a work of much labour both on the writer's part and the
reader's, but well meant, and if not itself a good one containing all
the materials necessary for a good one, which is saying a great deal.
I have not read all the notes. In fact I believe they are all
contained in the text. I should think that on a moderate computation,
half the two volumes is a reprint of the other half, for if there are
a few pages which are printed twice over, there are many half and
quarter pages which are repeated four or five times. I should half
like to review it.
If he had acted on his own suggestion we might not have had Macaulay's
_Essay_, and certainly should not have had the _Evenings with a Reviewer_.
This is the first intimation of his interest in what was to be the work of
his life. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Henry
(afterwards Sir Henry) Taylor, the author of _Philip van Artevelde_, which
influenced his occupation for the next six years.
"At this time," says Sir Henry in his Autobiography, "I obtained
another relief, and in obtaining it obtained a friend for life. James
Spedding was the younger son of a Cumberland squire who had been a
friend of my father's in former, though I think they had not met in
latter days. In the notes to _Van Artevelde_ I had quoted a passage
from an admirable speech of his spoken in a debating club at Cambridge
when he was an undergraduate. This led to my making his acquaintance;
and when some very laborious business of detail had to be executed, I
obtained authority to offer him the employment with the remuneration
of £150 a year. He was in a difficulty at the time as to the choice of
a profession, and feeling that life without business and occupation
of some kind was dangerous, was glad to accept this employment as one
which might answer the purpose well enough, if he proved suited to it,
and if not might be relinquished without difficulty and exchanged for
some other. I wrote to Mr. Southey, 24th January 1836:
"'Spedding has been and will be invaluable, and they owe me much for
him. He is regarded on all hands, not only as a man of first-rate
capacity, but as having quite a genius for business. I, for my part,
have never seen anything like him in business on this side Stephen....
When I contemplate the easy labours of Stephen and one or two others I
am disposed to think that there are giants in _these_ days.'
"For six years Spedding worked away with universal approbation, and
all this time he would have been willing to accept a post of précis
writer with £300 a year, or any other such recognised position, and
attach himself permanently to the office. But none such was placed at
his disposal ... and he took the opportunity of the Whig government
going out in 1841 to give up his employment. He then applied himself
to edit the works and vindicate the fame of Lord Bacon. In 1847, on
Sir James Stephen's retirement, the office of Under Secretary of State
with £2000 a year was offered to him by Lord Grey, before it was
offered to me, and he could not be induced to accept it. He could not
be brought to believe, what no one else doubted, that he was equal to
the duties.
"Be this as it may, the fact that the man being well known and close
at hand for six years, who could have been had for £300 a year in
1841, should have been let slip, though he was thought worth £2000 a
year in 1847, if not a rare, is a clear example of the little heed
given by the Government of this country to the choice and use of
instruments."
The exact date of Spedding's beginning work at the Colonial Office is not
known, but it must have been between the middle of June 1835 and the end
of August,[106] for by that time he found that Downing Street was "no
place for the indulgence of the individual genius." In a letter to
Thompson he writes:
I did take the liberty of insinuating a scoff at a Spanish Governor in
one of my Despatches, but H. T. said it was clever and would not do.
Said H. T. rises day by day in my esteem. He is not the least stiff or
awful, but very gentle and majestic. He has a great deal of P. v. A.
in him. But we do not talk much except on matters of business, which,
however, rises in his hands to the dignity of statesmanship. I have
not yet ascertained the contingencies on which my stay here depends,
but I should think it probable that I may in the end have the offer of
a permanent appointment in the office. If I have, I mean to take it,
purely from a sense of duty; that I may have a nominal employment to
satisfy impertinent enquiries withal, and perhaps also (as I dream in
my more romantic moments) that I may have a real employment to
discipline my own soul withal. The prospect of its leading to wealth
or dignity is so small under present circumstances as not to be worth
taking into account, yet not exactly so neither, for any prospect of
any thing to come, however faint and distant, dignifies an employment
with a relationship to the future and the indefinite.
I meant to have gone to Kitlands to-day, but the coach was full.
Recollect that _you_ are not a man of many cares new taken up, and
therefore may find time to shower your wiser meditations upon a sheet
of paper, which addressed to me under cover to "R. W. Hay, Esq., Under
Secretary of State, Colonial Office, Downing Street," will not be lost
upon one who sometimes did but observe and wonder, but has now to
enquire and dispatch.
Thompson had been with a reading party at Keswick during the summer, but
had proved a bad correspondent.
"I have heard," Spedding writes in November, "occasionally from
Mirehouse dim intimations of your supposed existence; and latterly I
have seen Martineau, to whom I have carefully pointed out the weak
points in your character, which he had not observed. I have reason to
believe that I am rising rapidly in public estimation, and I have only
to pray that I may not become too sufficient for my place. My sense of
Duty has already been appealed to in the most flattering manner, to
draw me to the undertaking of nobler business, which, being capable
of, I have no right (it is said) to decline. My capacity, it would
seem, is beyond doubt; and, as it has been evinced without any effort
or observation of mine, perhaps the best way after all will be to let
it have its own way and trouble my soul no more about it. Turn it
adrift in the world, leave it to find its own market and provide its
own goods, and if my soul (which would be a stranger in such
pilgrimage) should return in after years to enquire after it, who
knows how great she may find it grown? P. v. A. is away for his
holidays. If you can suggest a good subject for a dramatic romance out
of English or Scotch history between the Conquest and the time of
Elizabeth, you shall thereby do him a good turn, and perhaps get
praised in a note. Helps has just been here asking for information
about Cambridge in general, more particularly about you and Blakesley.
I could only tell him what I knew of you, which you must confess is
not much to your credit. Sterling has established himself and his
family in Bayswater, and gives tea parties to the wiser minds. I am
going thither to-night. Garden (I understand from himself, writing
from Carstairs) is to curatise in Cornwall. D. D. H. thinks there is
humour in an equity draft.... My own career is as far from being
marked out as ever. There is no present prospect of a vacancy here,
and I cannot get any body to advise me to accept it if there were."
In the following year Thompson was appointed to the Head Mastership of the
recently founded Leicester and Leicestershire Collegiate School, and at
the opening ceremony on August 9, 1836, he delivered an address, of which
Spedding says:
I have read your speech, not with the distant and respectful
admiration, the wonder broken off, which I am apt to call _faith_, but
with the deliberate admiration of a man who understands and strongly
assents. I see your audience had sense enough to utter loud cheers,
but I want to know whether they had sense enough to see that such a
speech ought not to be let pass away in a newspaper, but to be
provided with some permanent, portable, and self-subsisting existence.
If the proceedings of the day are to be published in a pamphlet, I
should like to invest money in a few copies. If not, I shall think
about printing your part of them in a legible shape on my own
account.... G. Farish is going to Madeira, with Sterling, I believe.
James F. speaks hopefully of the latter, but is more alarmed about his
brother.
In a letter to Allen we get a glimpse of Tennyson:
Alfred Tennyson has reappeared, and is going to-day or to-morrow to
Florence, or to Killarney, or to Madeira, or to some place where some
ship is going--he does not know where. He has been on a visit to a
madhouse for the last fortnight (not as a patient), and has been
delighted with the mad people, whom he reports the most agreeable and
the most reasonable persons he has met with. The keeper is Dr. Allen
(any relation of yours?), with whom he had been greatly taken!
Again writing to Thompson in October 1840 he says:
I have been studying Alfred Tennyson's MSS., and I send you a copy of
a poem which I think he once repeated to you and me, and which we
neither of us much entered into. Reading it again the other day, I was
surprised with the power and beauty of it, and I now think it wants
nothing but a better name, or, I should rather say, a historical
foundation. I would have it put into the mouth of some noted man
(among the many such that must have been) involved in a marriage which
he does not like, in violation of a pre-existing attachment. The
imagining of such situations for the mere purpose of entering into the
feelings which belong to them has something unwholesome in it, to my
fancy; but the situation being given (whether in fact or fiction),
there is no harm in turning it into poetry.
In 1840 Lord Lyndhurst was a candidate for the office of High Steward of
the University of Cambridge in opposition to Lord Lyttelton. Spedding
voted for the latter.