"_Lime, June 8, 1856._--I had found the dear mother in a sadly
fragile state, so infirm and tottering that it is not safe to leave
her alone for a minute, and she is so well aware of it, that she
does not wish to be left. She cannot now even cross the room alone,
and never thinks of moving anywhere without a stick. Every breath,
even of the summer wind, she feels most intensely. '"The Lord
establish, _strengthen_ you," that must be my verse,' she says."
"_June 15._--I am afraid I cannot help being tired of the mental
solitude at home, as the dear mother, without being ill enough to
create any anxiety, has not been well enough to take any interest,
or have any share in my doings. Sometimes I am almost sick with the
silence, and, as I can never go far enough from her to allow of my
leaving the garden, I know not only every cabbage, but every leaf
upon every cabbage."
[Illustration: DRAWING-ROOM, LIME.]
"_June 29._--We have been for a week with the Stanleys at
Canterbury, and it was very pleasant to be with Arthur, who was his
most charming self."
Early in July, I preceded my mother northwards, made a little sketching
tour in Lincolnshire, where arriving with little luggage, and drawing
hard all day, I excited great commiseration amongst the people as a poor
travelling artist. "Eh, I shouldn't like to have such hard work as
_that_ on. Measter, I zay, I should'na like to be you."
At Lincoln I joined my mother, and we went on together to Yorkshire,
where my friend Rutson lent us a charming old manor-house, Nunnington
Hall near Helmsley, the centre of an interesting country, in which we
visited the principal ruined abbeys of Yorkshire. My mother entirely
recovered here, and was full of enjoyment. On our way to Harrogate, a
Quakeress with whom we travelled persecuted me with "The Enquiring
Parishioner on the Way to Salvation," and then, after looking at my
sketches, hoped that "one so gifted was not being led away by Dr.
Pusey!" At Bolton we stayed several days at the Farfield Farm, and
thence drove through Swale Dale to Richmond. On our way farther north, I
paid my first visit to my cousins at Ravensworth, and very alarming I
thought it; rejoining my mother at Warkworth, a place I have always
delighted in, and where Mrs. Clutterbuck[112] and her daughters were
very kind to us. More charming still were the next few days spent with
my kind old cousin Henry Liddell (brother-in-law of my Aunt Ravensworth)
in Bamborough Castle.
We visited Dryburgh and Jedburgh, and the vulgar commonplace villa, with
small ill-proportioned rooms looking out upon nothing at all, out of
which Sir Walter Scott created the Abbotsford of his imagination.
Charlotte Leycester having joined us, I left my mother at the Bridge of
Allan for a little tour, in the first hour of which I, Italian-fashion,
made a friendship with one with whom till her death I continued to be
most intimate.
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_Tillycoultry House, August 12, 1856._--My mother will be
surprised that, instead of writing from an inn, I should date from
one of the most beautiful places in the Ochils, and that I should
be staying with people whom, though we met for the first time a few
hours ago, I already seem to know intimately.
"When I left my mother and entered the train at Stirling, two
ladies got in after me; one old, yellow, and withered; the other,
though elderly, still handsome, and with a very sweet interesting
expression. She immediately began to talk. 'Was I a
sportsman?'--'No, only a tourist.'--'Then did I know that on the
old bridge we were passing, the Bishop of Glasgow long ago was hung
in full canonicals?' And with such histories the younger of the two
sisters, in a very sweet Scottish accent, animated the whole way to
Alloa. Having arrived there, she said, 'If we part now, we shall
probably never meet again: there is no time for discussion, but be
assured that my husband, Mr. Dalzell, will be glad to see you.
Change your ticket at once, and come home with me to Tillycoultry.'
And ... I obeyed; and here I am in a great, old, half-desolate
house, by the side of a torrent and a ruined churchyard, under a
rocky part of the Ochils.
"Mr. Dalzell met us in the avenue. He is a rigid maintainer of the
Free Kirk, upon which Mrs. Huggan (the old sister) says he spends
all his money--about £18,000 a year--and he is very odd, and passes
three-fourths of the day quite alone, in meditation and prayer. He
has much sweetness of manner in speaking, but seems quite hazy
about things of earth, and entirely rapt in prophecies and thoughts
either of the second coming of Christ or of the trials of the Kirk
part of his Church on earth.
"Mrs. Dalzell is quite different, truly, beautifully, practically
holy. She 'feels,' as I heard her say to her sister to-night, 'all
things are wrapt up in Christ.' The evening was very long, as we
dined at four, but was varied by music and Scotch songs.
"The old Catholic priest who once lived here cursed the place, in
consequence of which it is believed that there are--no little
birds!"
"_Dunfermline, August 13._--This morning I walked with Mr. Dalzell
to Castle Campbell--an old ruined tower, on a precipitous rock in a
lovely situation surrounded by mountains, the lower parts of which
are clothed with birch woods. Inside the castle is a ruined court,
where John Knox administered his first Sacrament. On the way we
passed the little burial-ground of the Taits, surrounded by a high
wall, only open on one side, towards the river Devon."
"_Falkland, August 14._--After drawing in beautiful ruined
Dunfermline, I drove to Kinross, and embarked in the 'Abbot' for
the castle of Loch Leven, which rises on its dark island against a
most delicate distance of low mountains.... There is a charming
oldfashioned inn here, and a beautiful old castle, in one of the
rooms of which the young Duke of Rothesay was starved to death by
his uncle."
"_St. Andrews, August 15._--This is a glorious place, a rocky
promontory washed by the sea on both sides, crowned by Cardinal
Beaton's castle, and backed by a perfect crowd of ecclesiastical
ruins. The cathedral was the finest in Scotland, but destroyed in
one day by a mob instigated by John Knox, who ought to have been
flayed for it. Close by its ruins is a grand old tower, built by
St. Regulus, who 'came with two ships' from Patras, and died in one
of the natural caves in the cliff under the castle. In the castle
itself is Cardinal Beaton's dungeon, where a Lord Airlie was
imprisoned, and whence he was rescued by his sister, who dressed
him up in her clothes."
"_Brechin, August 17._--The ruin of Arbroath (Aberbrothock) is most
interesting. William the Lion is buried before the high altar, and
in the chapter-house is the lid of his coffin in Scottish marble,
with his headless figure, the only existing effigy of a Scottish
king. In the chapter-house a man puts into your hand what looks
like a lump of decayed ebony, and you are told it is the 'blood,
gums, and intestines' of the king. You also see the skull of the
Queen, the thigh-bone of her brother, and other such relics of
royalty. Most beautiful are the cliffs of Arbroath, a scene of
Scott's 'Antiquary.' From a natural terrace you look down into deep
tiny gulfs of blue water in the rich red sandstone rock, with every
variety of tiny islet, dark cave, and perpendicular pillar; and,
far in the distance, is the Inchcape Rock, where the Danish pirate
stole the warning bell, and was afterwards lost himself; which gave
rise to the ballad of 'Sir Patrick Spens.' The Pictish tower here
is most curious, but its character injured by the cathedral being
built too near."
I have an ever-vivid recollection of a most piteous Sunday spent in the
wretched town of Brechin, with nothing whatever to do, as in those days
it would have made my mother too miserable if I had travelled at all on
a Sunday--the wretched folly of Sabbatarianism (against which our
Saviour so especially preached when on earth) being then rife in our
family, to such a degree, that I regard with loathing the recollection
of every seventh day of my life until I was about eight-and-twenty.[113]
After leaving Brechin, I saw the noble castle of Dunottar, and joined my
mother at Braemar, where we stayed at the inn, and Charlotte Leycester
at a tiny lodging in a cottage thatched with peat. I disliked Braemar
extremely, and never could see the beauty of that much-admired valley,
with its featureless hills, half-dry river, and the ugly castellated
house of Balmoral. Dean Alford and his family were at Braemar, and their
being run away with in a carriage, our coming up to them, our servant
John stopping their horses, the wife and daughters being taken into our
carriage, and my walking back with the Dean, first led to my becoming
intimate with him. I remember, during this walk, the description he
gave me of the "Apostles' Club" at Cambridge, of which Henry Hallam was
the nucleus and centre, and of which Tennyson was a member, but from
which he was turned out because he was too lazy to write the necessary
essay. Hallam, who died at twenty-two, had "grasped the whole of
literature before he was nineteen." The Alfords were travelling without
any luggage, and could consequently _walk_ their journeys anywhere--that
is, each lady had only a very small hand-bag, and the Dean had a
walking-stick, which unscrewed and displayed the materials of a
dressing-case, a pocket inkstand, and a candlestick.
On our way southwards I first saw Glamis. I did not care about the
places on the inland Scottish lakes, except Killin, where our cousin
Fanny Tatton and her friend Miss Heygarth joined us, and where we spent
some pleasant week-days and a most abominable Sunday. We afterwards
lingered at Arrochar on Loch Long, whither Aunt Kitty and Arthur Stanley
came to us from Inverary. We returned to Glasgow by the Gareloch, which
allowed me to visit at Paisley the tomb of my royal ancestress, Marjory
Bruce. At Glasgow, though we were most uncomfortable in a noisy and very
expensive hotel, my mother insisted upon spending a wretched day,
because of--Sunday! We afterwards paid pleasant visits at Foxhow and
Toft, whence I went on alone to Peatswood in Shropshire (Mr. Twemlow's),
and paid from thence a most affecting visit to our old home at Stoke,
and to Goldstone Farm, the home of my dear Nurse Lea. Hence I returned
with Archdeacon and Mrs. Moore to Lichfield, and being there when the
grave of St. Chad was opened, was presented with a fragment of his
_body_--a treasure inestimable to Roman Catholics, which I possess
still.
During the remaining weeks of autumn, before I returned to Oxford, we
had many visitors at Lime, including my new friend Mrs. Dalzell, whose
goodness and simplicity perfectly charmed my mother.
[Illustration: FROM THE DEAN'S GARDEN, CANTERBURY.]
We passed the latter part of the winter between the Penrhyns' house at
Sheen, Aunt Kitty's house of 6 Grosvenor Crescent, and Arthur Stanley's
Canonry at Canterbury. With Arthur I dined at the house of Mr. Woodhall,
a Canterbury clergyman, now a Roman Catholic priest, having been
specially invited to meet (at a huge horseshoe table) "the middle
classes"--a very large party of chemists, nurserymen, &c., and their
wives, and very pleasant people they were. I used to think Canterbury
perfectly enchanting, and Arthur was most kind and charming to me. While
there, I remember his examining a school at St. Stephen's, and asking
the meaning of bearing false witness against one's neighbour--"When
nobody does nothing to nobody," answered a child, "and somebody goes
and tells."
In returning to Oxford in 1857, I terribly missed my constant companions
hitherto--Milligan and Sheffield, who had both left, and, except perhaps
Forsyth Grant, I had no real friends left, though many pleasant
acquaintances, amongst whom I had an especial regard for Tom Brassey,
the simple, honest, hardworking son of the great contractor and
millionaire--afterwards my near neighbour in Sussex, whom I have watched
grow rapidly up from nothing to a peerage, with only boundless money and
common-sense as his aides-de-camp. The men I now saw most of were those
who called themselves the ??????--generally reputed "the fast men" of
the college, but a manly high-minded set of fellows. Most of my time was
spent in learning Italian with Count Saffi, who, a member of the
well-known Roman triumvirate, was at that time residing at Oxford with
his wife, _née_ Nina Crauford of Portincross.[114] I was great friends
with this remarkable man, of a much-tried and ever-patient countenance,
and afterwards went to visit him at Forli. I may mention Godfrey
Lushington (then of All Souls) as an acquaintance of whom I saw much at
this time, and whom I have always liked and respected exceedingly,
though our paths in life have not brought us often together since. It
was very difficult to distinguish him from his twinbrother Vernon;
indeed, it would have been impossible to know them apart, if Vernon had
not, fortunately for their friends, shot off some of his fingers.
In March (1857) I was proud to receive my aunt, Mrs. Stanley, with all
her children, Mrs. Grote, and several others, at a luncheon in my rooms
in honour of Arthur Stanley's inaugural lecture as Professor of
Ecclesiastical History, in which capacity his lectures, as indeed all
else concerning him, were subjects of the greatest interest to me, my
affection for him being that of a devoted younger brother.
I was enchanted with Mrs. Grote, whom De Tocqueville pronounced "the
cleverest woman of his acquaintance," though her exterior--with a short
waist, brown mantle of stamped velvet, and huge bonnet, full of
fullblown red roses--was certainly not captivating. Sydney Smith always
called her "Grota," and said she was the origin of the word grotesque.
Mrs. Grote was celebrated for having never felt shy. She had a passion
for discordant colours, and had her petticoats always arranged to
display her feet and ankles, of which she was excessively proud. At her
own home of Burnham she would drive out with a man's hat and a
coachman's cloak of many capes. She had an invalid friend in that
neighbourhood, who had been very seriously ill, and was still intensely
weak. When Mrs. Grote proposed coming to take her for a drive, she was
pleased, but was horrified when she saw Mrs. Grote arrive in a very high
dogcart, herself driving it. With great pain and labour she climbed up
beside Mrs. Grote, and they set off. For some time she was too exhausted
to speak, then she said something almost in a whisper. "Good God! don't
speak so loud," said Mrs. Grote, "or you'll frighten the horse: if he
runs away, God only knows when he'll stop."
On the occasion of this visit at Oxford, Mrs. Grote sat with one leg
over the other, both high in the air, and talked for two hours, turning
with equal facility to Saffi on Italian Literature, Max Müller on Epic
Poetry, and Arthur on Ecclesiastical History, and then plunged into a
discourse on the best manure for turnips and the best way of forcing
Cotswold mutton, with an interlude first upon the "harmony of shadow"
in watercolour drawing, and then upon rat-hunts at Jemmy Shawe's--a low
public-house in Westminster. Upon all these subjects she was equally
vigorous, and gave all her decisions with the manner and tone of one
laying down the laws of Athens. She admired Arthur excessively, but was
a capital friend for him, because she was not afraid of laughing--as all
his own family were--at his morbid passion for impossible analogies. In
his second lecture Arthur made a capital allusion to Mr. Grote, while
his eyes were fixed upon the spouse of the historian, and when she heard
it, she thumped with both fists upon her knees, and exclaimed loudly,
"Good God! how good!" I did not often meet Mrs. Grote in after life, but
when I did, was always on very cordial terms with her. She was, to the
last, one of the most original women in England, shrewd, generous, and
excessively vain. I remember hearing that when she published her Life of
her husband, Mr. Murray was obliged to insist upon her suppressing one
sentence, indescribably comic to those who were familiar with her
uncouth aspect. It was--"When George Grote and I were young, we were
equally distinguished by the beauty of our persons and the vivacity of
our conversation!" Her own true vocation she always declared was that of
an opera-dancer.
Arthur Stanley made his home with me during this visit to Oxford, but
one day I dined with him at Oriel, where we had "Herodotus pudding"--a
dish peculiar to that college.