SOCIAL AND RURAL.
In such a record of personals as this, it is fortunate both for the
author and his readers if he has never been one of those literary lions
who are merely histrionic creatures of society. It is a privilege not to
have to reproduce the common small-talk of ball-rooms and
garden-parties, nor to be obliged to make the most, after a
semi-libellous fashion, of after-dinner scandals, or gossip in the
smoking-room. Not having heard them he cannot well report racy
anecdotes, whereof sundry memoirs have been too full. In the happier
condition of a partial anchoritism I have escaped clubs, London seasons,
and country mansion gaieties; as a youth and to middle manhood a
stammerer, I would not willingly court the humiliations of chattering
society, and thereafter, up to to-day, a domestic country gentleman of
literary pursuits, I have avoided (as far as possible) fashionable
gatherings of every sort, social, theological, or political. Not that I
abjure--it is far otherwise--any kind of genial intercourse with my
fellows; a few friends are my delight, but I never would belong to a
club, though sometimes specially tempted by indulgence as to terms (more
than once having been offered a free and immediate entry), nor to any
society or charity that expected of me personal publicity or active
service,--albeit, once, and once only, I had to figure as a reluctant
chairman at Exeter Hall. Privacy has ever been my preference; whence it
will clearly be inferred how much I have had to sacrifice in the way of
self-denial when forced by circumstances to enact the "old man eloquent"
before assembled hundreds, sometimes thousands, as a public reader.
People who have made themselves acquainted with my "Proverbial
Philosophy" may remember that my Essay on Speaking contrasts the misery
of the man who cannot speak with the happiness of the emancipated
orator, and I have experienced them both; whilst it may be seen in what
I have written about silence and seclusion how cordially and perhaps
foolishly, as "wearing my heart on my sleeve," I have shown that I
greatly love to be alone, especially in what I am known to call "holy
silence;" in fact, as ill-nature may like to put it, I prefer my own
quiet company to that disturbed by the talk of other people. So much,
then, as to one cause for the scantiness in this self-memoir of expected
spicy anecdotes and perilous revelations. Not but that I could make
considerable mischief, and perhaps help my publisher in sales, if I
chose to make the most of the many celebrities, both American and
English, with whom I have had intercourse both at Albury and elsewhere.
My humble hospitalities and the constant welcome I have given to
strangers, have been like their author, proverbial; but that is no
reason why our converse, free and frank as private fellowship commands,
should be produced in print; naturally the host was ever generous, and
the guest--equally, of course--appreciative.
Perhaps though, not quite always: and I am tempted here to say just one
unpleasant word about the only one of my many American guests,
hospitably, nay almost affectionately treated, who wrote home to his
wife too disparagingly of his entertainer, his son having afterwards had
the bad taste to publish those letters in his father's Life. One
comfort, however, is that in "The Memoirs of Nathaniel Hawthorne," that
not very amiable genius praises no one of his English hosts (except,
indeed, a perhaps too open-handed London one), and that he was not known
(any more than Fenimore Cooper, whom years ago I found a rude customer
in New York) for a superabundance of good nature. When at Albury,
Hawthorne seemed to us superlatively envious: of our old house for
having more than seven gables; of its owner for a seemingly affluent
independence, as well as authorial fame; even of his friends when driven
by him to visit beautiful and hospitable Wotton; and in every word and
gesture openly entering his republican and ascetic protest against the
aristocratic old country; even to protesting, when we drove by a new
weather-boarded cottage, "Ha, that's the sort of house I prefer to see;
it's like one of ours at home." That we did not take to each other is no
wonder. This, then, is my answer to the unkindly remarks against me in
print of one who has shown manifestly a flash of genius in "The Scarlet
Letter;" but, so far as I know, it was well-nigh a solitary one.
One further curious illustration of an uncongenial guest is this:
Alexander Smith wrote a "Life Drama," full of sparkling poetic gems,
which at once made him popular, apparently with justice enough. I asked
him down to Albury, made much of him, praised warmly sundry _morceaux_
of his (which I had marked in my copy), and to my astonishment received
the brusque reply, "O, you like those, do you? I shall alter them in
next edition:" as I found afterwards he did. He was a common-looking
man, with a rough manner, and a squint. As he seemed upset,--though why
I could not guess,--I tried in other ways to please him; as, by a ramble
in the woods and a drive in the waggonette: but all would not do,--his
day came to an end as gloomily as it began. Long after, I stumbled upon
the reason. I had then for the first time read Bailey's "Festus," and
found some passages therein very similar to Alexander's; thereafter,
other little bits from some other poets (I think Tennyson was one)
struck me. Little wonder, then, that I heard no more of Smith,--who
clearly had thought himself found out,--and so received my first
ignorance of his plagiaristic tendency as if I had known all about it:
and years after Aytoun had (as I was told) avenged justice by that
cleverest of spasmodic poetries, "Firmilian, by Percy Jones"--a
burlesque on Alexander Smith, and a book which the world has too
willingly let die. Let no one, however, after all this, fancy that I am
unaware of Alexander Smith's true merit. He very neatly fitted into his
mosaic word-pictures the titbits he had culled in his commonplace-book
out of many poets, and so utilised them. A self-made and self-taught
man, "elbow to elbow," as he told me, "with Jack, Tom, and Harry in a
workshop," as a designer of patterns, he had well and wisely made the
most of his scant opportunities of culture, and it is only a pity that
he did not allude to something of this in a preface.
It is not for me to recall here much about the inevitable hospitalities
of an old country house, to which a not unkindly host often invited
English and foreign friends, whom something to do with authorship had
made celebrities. Do I not pleasantly remember the jolly haymaking, when
old Jerdan, calling out, "More hay, more hay!" covered Grace Greenwood
with a haycock overturned, and had greeted a sculptor guest
appropriately and wittily enough with "Here we are, Durham, all
mustered!" the "we" being besides others, Camilla Toulmin, George
Godwin, and Francis Bennoch? Do I not remember how much surprised we
were at the melodies whereof an old piano was capable when touched by
Otto Goldsmidt? Can I forget, also, how marvellously a young Canadian,
Joseph Macdougall, of Ottawa, extemporised on the same piano as only a
genius can (Mr. Assher was another), and sent me afterwards, as a
memory, a vast volume of American photographs, whereof he had
munificently prepaid the enormous sum of £6, 18s. for postage? And was
not our village stirred to its depths by the visit to Albury House of
two black gentlemen and a blue,--all in evening dress?
It was President Roberts of Monrovia, attended by his secretary and
chief minister; for they came cordially to return thanks to one who had
helped a little in slave emancipation, under the influences of Elliott
Cresson, Dr. Hodgkin Garrison, and others,--and, moreover, had given a
gold medal for African literature, biennially to be competed for by
emancipated slaves;--whereof I have heard very little, since (by the
volunteered assistance of Mr. Taylor, the seal engraver) I gave it many
years ago: the medal was as large as a crown piece. President Benson,
also of Liberia, a magnificent ebon specimen of humanity, visited me
with his staff, not long before his lamented death--it was said, by
murder.
Let me add now a word of kindly memory for some good friends long gone
to a better world, but once welcome guests at Albury. There was Benjamin
Nightingale, the enthusiastic antiquary; there was his _fidus Achates_,
Akerman, secretary to the Numismatic, whom I greatly pleased by enabling
him to catch a trout near my carriage gate; there was Chief Baron
Pollok, head of the Noviomagians: the eloquent Edwards Lester of
America, whose speech at a Literary Fund dinner to which I had treated
him was hailed by Hallam, Dickens, and others on the spot as _the_
speech of the Society: and the Warrens of Troy, N.Y., about whose casual
visit this singular thing happened. For the first and only time in life
I had had the strange luck to catch at Netley Pond three perch of nearly
a pound each, and a fine trout of about two: I little knew then the
final cause thereof: in those days we could not easily get fish in the
country, unless indeed we caught it: now my eminent Transatlantic
stranger friends came on a Friday, and proved to be Roman Catholics:
could any piscatorial luck have been more timely?
When a few days after I told of my sport to a neighbour (it was Captain
Russell of the Cleveland family), a great angler, he, of course, without
imputation of my veracity, hinted that he wished I might have such luck
again, as he would then come and dine with me. I answered at once, "Come
to-morrow, and see what I may have caught." He did,--and I produced from
the same old mill-head a three-pound trout,--to his astonishment, as it
had been my own to have caught it. I have never had such luck before or
since, though always a zealous angler in an unprofessional way.
Let me not forget here also the beautiful "Albury Waltz," composed in
my drawing-room by Miss Armstrong, and published--it must be twenty
years ago now--by Robert Cocks, New Burlington Street: wherein by
request I originated the idea of song words for the dancers. This
singing as you danced has been often done since, but I suppose no one
then thought of it but myself since King David. I need say little more
about Albury visitors:--for many years there were plenty of them,--but
if one put down a tenth part of what even the faithless memory of old
age still retains, there would be no end to such inexhaustible
recordings.
And here is an Alburian anecdote which may amuse, as illustrative of the
mental calibre of some of those myriads of untutored rustics whom our
partisan governors have made politically equal with the wisest in the
land. Three young friends came to spend a day with us, and for fun
brought in their pockets the absurd noses popular at Epsom races. We
came upon some turf-diggers, and my visitors mounted their masks to
mystify them. The clodpoles looked scared and very quiet, till I went up
to one of them who knew me,--of course I was in my natural
physiognomy,--and I said to him, "My friend, these are foreigners:" and
the poor ignoramus staring at those portentous noses said seriously,
"Ees, I sees they be." Clearly he thought all "furriners" were so
featured.
Another specimen of agricultural intelligence is this: A labourer in my
field one day said to me, "Master, please to tell me where Jerusalem is,
because me and my mates have been disputing about it, and I says as its
in Ireland, because the Romans goes there!" He meant the Roman
Catholics! and he might have heard also that St. John's Pat-mos was in
fact an Irish bog, Pat's-moss: many of our legislative constituency
being found to believe _that_.
But not only is the common labourer thus dense: take these two instances
of country guests at my table. One whom I had asked to meet two
Americans told me of his disappointment at not finding them--red men!
And another (this time a provincial parson) wanted me to expostulate
with my friend Hatchard (afterwards Bishop of Mauritius) because he
meditated in his philanthropy giving a drinking fountain to Guildford.
"Only think, a drinking fountain! surely you cannot approve?" The poor
man supposed it was one of those pumping apparatuses for spirits
presided over by barmaids! It is manifest that the schoolmaster was not
so much abroad a few years ago as he has been since board schools have
arisen.
Amongst other specialities of ancient Albury House, which has 1561 on a
weathercock and 1701 on a kitchen wing, is the same peculiarity which
Tennyson told me at Farringford vexes him in his own less ancient
dwelling,--and which Pindar of old declared to be the privilege of
poets. We are, and have been for generations, a very house-hive of bees:
the whole front of two gables has them under its oak floors and panelled
walls throughout,--and when guests sleep in certain rooms they have to
be forewarned that the groans at midnight are not those of perturbed
spirits, but the hum and bustle of multitudinous bees. We cannot drive
them away, nor destroy them utterly,--as often has been attempted; and
if we did, the worry would be only worsened, as in that case hornets
would come and succeed to the sweet heritage of bee-dom. When the
stuccoed front of our house was demolished, to show the oaken pattern
(but it had to be re-roughcast to keep out the weather), there were
pailsful of honey carried off by the labourers, of course not without
wounds and strife: but in ordinary times it is a strange fact that our
bees never sting their hosts; be careful only to remain quiet, and there
is no war between man and bee. Two years ago a great comb was built
outside an eaveboard, probably because there was no room for more comb
inside. It is curious that it should have survived two hard winters. Is
not all this apposite, as suited (let Pindar and Tennyson bear witness)
to a poet's home?
In this zoological connection (for bees are zoa) let me record that
there is a legend of a fox having been killed in our drawing-room (on
the ground-floor with French windows) during some tenancy in my
absence,--only fancy the havoc of such a strife! but all had been
cleared up before our return. Also, it is memorable (and I saw it
myself) that a hard-pressed stag from Sir Gilbert Heathcote's hunt took
refuge in our harness-room,--to the extreme horror of a gardener's boy,
who thought it was a mad donkey,--and no wonder, for as those brave
barbarian sportsmen get the antlers sawn off for fear of wounds to
themselves or their nobler dogs, the poor scared creature with its
uncrowned head and loppity ears is very donkey-like.
Let me give another like homely anecdote of past days.
We are all now so wrapt in security as country dwellers, guarded by the
rural police everywhere, that the following ludicrous incident may seem
hardly worth a word; but in the good old days, when poor Jack was such a
highway brigand that my nurses feared to take the children off the
premises, and when burglars were not infrequent callers at remote
residences, what happened long ago, on a certain dark winter's night, at
Albury, may amuse. Long after all had gone to bed, we heard with
trepidation stealthy steps crunching the snow round the house, and
_something_ that now and then touched the ground-floor doors and
windows, as if quietly trying to get in: at last _it_ fumbled at the
ancient hanging handle of the outside kitchen-door! Now was the time for
Paterfamilias to show his pluck, in the universal scare; so, armed
_cap-a-pied_, with candles held in the rear by the terrified household,
he valorously drew the bolts and flung open the heavy oaken door,--to
greet--his children's donkey, escaped somehow from its stable, and
trying to get indoors that cold night for warmth. Laugh as we might, and
as you may, the test of courage was all the same; and if this donkey
story is pounced upon by some critic or comic as a weak link in my chain
of autobiography, I only hope he will behave as bravely if a real
ruffian tries his doors and windows by night; by no means an improbable
hypothesis in these days of communistic radicalism.
The old house itself may deserve a word. It came to me as a--shall I
say?--matrimony, from my mother; if patrimony means from a father, why
not matrimony from a mother? her great-uncle, Anthony Devis, having
bought it in 1780. He was a remarkable man in his way and before his
age; a good landscape painter (as Pilkington avouches), a collector of
pictures and curiosities,--mostly sold by executors at his death, aged
eighty-nine, though a full gallery remains at Albury; a carver too, and
a constructor of cabinets,--whereof two fine specimens (inlaid with
brecciated jaspers, and made of ebony and cedar from his own
turning-lathe) decorate our large drawing-room; and the oldest folk in
our village still remember the good old gentleman who always had
gingerbread in his pockets for them as children, and who was known by
them as the "man mushroom," seeing he was the first who ever had an
umbrella in the place! There was, however, another and a better reason
for this name, inasmuch as he built for himself an outer painting-room
on a hilltop near which he called Mushroom Hall, because it was just
like one (as a picture in our drawing-room testifies), being a circular
turret surmounted by a flat broad dome, with overshadowing eaves all
round. This strange summer-house has long vanished.
Anthony came of a good old stock paternally, as the civic archives of
Preston, in Lancashire, testify; and his mother was Ann Blackburne, of
Marrick Abbey, Yorkshire,--the title-deeds whereof, old slip parchments
and maps from Henry II. to Henry VIII., I found in a chest at Albury,
and years after transmitted them to Lord Beaumont, the present owner;
albeit, as a boy, I had been allowed to cut off the seals and paste them
in a copy-book! All these deeds, and the history thereof, I had printed
in Nichols's Antiquariana.
* * * * *
The prominent feature of our village, so far as religion is concerned,
has for nearly fifty years been the fact of its being the headquarters
of the party originated by Edward Irving,--a full history whereof,
impartially and ably written by Mr. Miller of Bicester (whose
hospitality I have enjoyed for some days at Kineton), will be found at
Kegan Paul's, if any wish to read it. I have always lived on kindly
terms with my neighbours, though not quite of their faith; excellent
are many of them, and I am glad to number such among my friends,
specially as on neither side we meddle with each other's peculiar
opinions. I have known nearly all their twelve apostles, men of mark and
learning (especially John Tudor, a great Hebraist, and who was skilled
even in Sanscrit and the arrow-headed characters), and eleven of them
are among the dead, one only surviving in a vigorous old age to meet
(may it be so) the Lord at His coming.