A FEW OLDER FRIENDSHIPS.
It is only fair and right that I make special mention of some
friendships of many years, connected more or less with literary matters.
Among such names in the past occurs one, if not very eminent, to me at
least very kindly, that of Benjamin Nightingale, an antiquarian friend
for nearly forty years. We first became acquainted in Sotheby's auction
room, where I perceived at once his generous nature, by this token: we
had been competing for a miscellaneous lot of coins, which he
bought,--and then lifting his hat he asked me which of them I had
specially wanted; these I indicated, of course thinking that he meant me
to buy them of him,--but he immediately insisted upon giving them, if I
would allow him. This fair beginning led to better acquaintance, often
improved under our mutual roof-trees. It was his ambition to be my
Boswell, as he has sometimes told me; and probably there are bundles
somewhere of _his_ MSS. and of _our_ antiquarian letters (he wrote very
well), about which I have vainly made inquiry of a near relative, who
knew nothing about them. Some day they'll turn up.
Nightingale was much pleased to find himself recorded in my "Farley
Heath," as to both verse and prose. He has been in the Better World some
twelve years, and his widow gave me the collections he called his
Tupperiana.
I confess that the following poem wherein my genial friend figures,--and
which many judges have liked as among my best balladisms, is one reason
for this record of B.N.
_Farley Heath._
"Many a day have I whiled away
Upon hopeful Farley Heath,
In its antique soil digging for spoil
Of possible treasure beneath;
For Celts, and querns, and funereal urns,
And rich red Samian ware,
And sculptured stones and centurions' bones
May all lie buried there!
"How calmly serene, and glad have I been
From morn till eve to stay,
My men, no serfs, turning the turfs
The happy livelong day;
With eye still bright, and hope yet alight,
Wistfully watching the mould,
As the spade brings up fragments of things
Fifteen centuries old!
"Pleasant and rare it was to be there
On a joyous day of June,
With the circling scene all gay and green
Steep'd in the silent moon;
When beauty distils from the calm glad hills,
From the downs and dimpling vales;
And every grove, lazy with love,
Whispereth tenderest tales!
"O then to look back upon Time's old track,
And dream of the days long past,
When Rome leant here on his sentinel spear
And loud was the clarion's blast;--
As wild and shrill from Martyr's Hill
Echoed the patriot shout;
Or rush'd pell-mell with a midnight yell
The rude barbarian rout!
"Yes; every stone has a tale of its own,
A volume of old lore;
And this white sand from many a brand
Has polish'd gouts of gore;
When Holmbury Height had its beacon light,
And Cantii held old Leith,
And Rome stood then with his iron men
On ancient Farley Heath!
"How many a group of that exiled troop
Have here sung songs of home,
Chanting aloud to a wondering crowd
The glories of old Rome!
Or lying at length have basked their strength
Amid this heather and gorse,
Or down by the well in the larch-grown dell
Water'd the black war-horse!
"Look, look! my day-dream right ready would seem
The past with the present to join,--
For see! I have found in this rare ground
An eloquent green old coin,
With turquoise rust on its Emperor's bust--
Some Cæsar, august lord,
And the legend terse, and the classic reverse,
'Victory, valour's reward!'
"Victory--yes! and happiness,
Kind comrade, to me and to you,
When such rich spoil has crown'd our toil
And proved the day-dream true;
With hearty acclaim how we hail'd by his name
The Cæsar of that coin,
And told with a shout his titles out,
And drank his health in wine!
"And then how blest the noon-day rest,
Reclin'd on a grassy bank,
With hungry cheer and the brave old beer,
Better than Odin drank;
And the secret balm of the spirit at calm,
And poetry, hope, and health,--
Ay, have I not found in that rare ground
A mine of more than wealth?"
Another long-time friend also of the antiquarian sort was Walter
Hawkins, with whom I was intimate for many years. His private collection
of coins and curiosities was even larger and costlier than
Nightingale's, and was given by his administratrix to the United Service
Museum, where I believe the bulk of it (perhaps morally mine) still
remains in cases not yet unpacked. He died suddenly, to my great
financial loss; for he was very fond of me, offering himself sponsor and
giving his name to a son of mine; and as a rich old bachelor he used, to
make humorously half promises of benefits to come. In fact, he had
called in his lawyer to take instructions for a new will, and partly at
least had erased or destroyed the old one of a twelve years agone, when,
one raw and wintry morning, he insisted upon seeing a lady from and to
her carriage without his hat (punctilio being his _forte_ and his
fault), caught cold, took to his bed, and was dead in four days!
Accordingly a relative with whom he had not been on the best of terms
for years, administered to his half will, and succeeded to his
possessions. Such is life and its futile expectations.
Walter Hawkins had many peculiarities: one was this. At great cost he
was long building for himself a tomb at Kensal Green, which he would not
let me see till it was finished: he then triumphantly exhibited to my
astonished eyes a domed marble temple with four bronze angels blowing
trumpets east, west, north, and south,--and waited for my approval,
which honestly I could not give. I heard nothing more of this small
mausoleum, for he was a taciturn man: but when, some year or two after,
I went to his funeral and looked in vain for the temple-tomb, I found it
had vanished, and in its stead was a plain marble slab with his simple
name and birthday on it, and a blank left for the date of his death.
Manifestly he had repented of the vaingloriousness of those herald
angels and their dome; and practically took the hint of my dispraise in
the adoption of that humbler tombstone.
Here is another characteristic trait: some navvy had found an old rusty
anchor near the Thames Tunnel, one of Brunel's ruinous follies,--now, as
we all know, finished and utilised by a railway. This anchor, a small
one, probably lost by some "jolly young waterman," Mr. Hawkins
maintained was Roman; and he had made for it a superb crimson case lined
with satin, which hung on his drawing-room wall at Hammersmith as a
decoration. He was also proud of possessing the paw of the Arctic bear
which had attacked Captain Parry, but from which he escaped, as also did
the bear, for no one is said to have shot the beast: however, there was
the paw in proof: and there were divers other uncommon properties.
One of the most curious matters about my friend was this: the anagram of
his name in full (and he always wrote Esquire and not Esq.) exactly
describes him, with his peculiarity of greeting one with "_Oh_, I'm so
glad to see you!" and with his usual signature "W.H.," which also he
put on a medal for good conduct to youths, and gave my son one of those
"W.H. medals." Now the words "Oh, Walter Hawkins, Esquire," makes
anagrammatically, "W.H., who likes rare antiques!" exactly his
idiosyncrasy as a man and a collector.
We all know how strangely "The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone,
M.P.," spells, "I am the Whig M.P. who'll be a traitor to England's
rule:"--may it not prove to be prophetic. And still more strange is the
fact that the words "William Ewart Gladstone" spell "Erin, we will go
mad at last!" which seems only too likely. Another curious anagram is
this,--in a far different vein: "Christmas comes but once a year," makes
"So by Christ came a rescue to man." There's no end to these petty word
miracles.
But to revert to our theme and to conclude it. As a West India merchant,
Mr. Hawkins one day sent me down to Albury a hogshead of sugar and some
sacks of rice, to be given (or, as he preferred it, sold at half price
for honour's sake and not to pauperise) to my poorer neighbours for a
Christmas gift. Well, to please him, I tried to sell, and only raised
the rancour of the shopkeepers, who declared I was competing with them
as a grocer: then I gave, with the same experience that soup charity had
before taught me, to wit, that poor quarrelled with poorer, and both
with me, for more or less given. So I was glad when it all came to an
end. It is very difficult, as many a Lady Bountiful knows, to be
charitable on a wide scale: _e.g._ once, in my country life, I tried to
recommend brown bread and oatmeal; and got nothing by it but ill-will,
as if wishing to starve the poor by denial of wheat-flour.
Most of us have been checked in such silly efforts to do good through
forgetfulness of the fact that usually the poorest are the proudest.
Even the luxurious _débris_ of London Club kitchens must be flung into
swill-barrels for pigs, because starving men and women will not demean
themselves to ask for it at the buttery-hatch. Moreover, that such are
often extravagant too, everybody has found out--here's an instance: In
my legal days, I now and then of course relieved poor folk, and
sometimes passed through Seven Dials: casually, I looked in upon an old
couple to whom I had occasionally given a trifle, believing them to be
near starvation; and I found them roasting a brace of partridges--or was
it quails? for they were waistcoated with bacon,--and I had the charity
to hope they had _not_ stolen them! Anyhow, I never called there again.
And, while I am in Seven Dials, let me record another useful small
experience. There was a lapidary handy, who had at times cut my
beach-found choanites for me. One day I found him making scarabæi out of
bits of agate and lapis lazuli. "Who gave you an order for these," said
I. "Well, sir, I don't rightly know his name; but he was a furriner."
"Was the name Signor----?" "That's it, sir." Then I set off straight to
Sotheby's where I knew the Signor's Egyptian antiquities were soon to be
sold, and duly forewarned the auctioneer of these forgeries. I need not
detail how at the sale he put buyers on their guard, exposing the fraud,
and condemning the peccant scarabæi to extinction. I wonder how many
Grecian bronzes and copper Buddhas have been cast in Birmingham!
* * * * *
Yet another old friend for many years, so far literary in that he was a
sculptor, is to be recorded in Joseph Durham: it was he who, more than
thirty years ago, modelled in life and made in marble after death my
beautiful three-year old daughter, little Alice, epitaphed in my poems.
Of Durham's nobleness of character I can here give a charming trait. I
used to go about once a week--sometimes less often--to Alfred Place to
see how Durham was getting on with the statue (a sleeping infant), and
one day, to my astonishment, I perceived that instead of any progress
having been made in the work, it had, miraculously to me, retrograded;
not half so near completion as it was last week. As I was wondering and
perhaps not well pleased, Durham said, "I had hoped you would not call,
till I had made it look as it did last week,--and then you needn't have
known it." "Known what, friend?" "Well, only this; I came to a stain in
the marble, and as I resolved you should have everything of the best,--I
took another block, and have worked at it night and day, in hopes you
wouldn't find me out. There's the other figure, under that cloth." Now,
considering that the new block involved a cost of some twenty
pounds,--and that the old one might have been artificially doctored, and
that anyhow the risk and loss were equitably as much, mine as his,--and
further that the young sculptor had little more than daily bread, if
that,--I do say all this proves Durham to have been the noble fellow I
found him to be for years. He is long gone, like so many other friends,
to that Brighter World. His life-story in this was a touching one, as he
told it to me; and I think known to very few besides myself. In youth he
loved and was beloved; but friends and circumstances hindered; so she
married some one else who, to Durham's constant horror and indignation,
treated his wife brutally: till, one happy day, he died in some fit,
probably from his own excesses. And then--here comes the sad
climax--when Durham, having achieved fortune and fame, offered himself
to his old love, the now rich widow, she deliberately turned away with a
refusal, and broke his heart! Was it any wonder that his grief sometimes
sought the solace of voluntary forgetfulness, or that certain false
friends of his I wot of have in their teetotal Pharisaism made the evil
most of an occasional infirmity, and have blackened even with printer's
ink the memory of one of God's and Nature's true noblemen! Besides my
little daughter in marble (so charmingly asleep that, in the Royal
Academy, we heard one lady whisper to another, Hush, don't talk so loud,
you'll wake her!)--besides _that_, his _chef-d'oeuvre_, as I always
think, he modelled the bust of her father, now in the Crystal Palace
Gallery,--but would not accept any payment for it! So like Durham,--who
in many secret ways was ever generous and trying to do good: he was
always self-forgetful and only too modest. _Apropos_, I remember that
when Lord Granville asked the sculptor of Prince Albert's statue at
South Kensington "Whether the Queen, who was so well pleased, could do
anything for him"--suggestive, no doubt, of a knighthood--the dear
unselfish Durham replied, "Thank you, my Lord,--if her Majesty's
pleased, I'm satisfied." So that chance for a title was thrown
heedlessly away,--but we always called him "Sir Joe" ever after:
specially among the "Noviomagians," a band of antiquaries who used to
dine together jovially at many pretended and picturesque sites of the
undiscoverable Noviomagus, and among them I have met and numbered as my
friends Chief Baron Pollok, George Godwin, Francis Bennoch, Thomas
Wright, Thornbury and Fairholt and other noted names, some of them still
among the living.
It gave me great pleasure as a Guernseyman to have been chiefly
accessory to a duplicate in bronze of the Good Prince's statue by Durham
being set up at the Pierhead of St. Peter's Port. Interest was exerted
by me to get royal permission for a new cast from the original,
Government giving the metal of old cannons; a collection from house to
house was made throughout the island, granite to any extent was on the
spot, meetings were held, and I had the pleasure to see Durham's grand
work inaugurated there, and to find him welcomed by all the
"Sixties"--ay, and the "Forties" too--with the hospitality for which
Sarnia was in those days proverbial.
* * * * *
In this brief record of my literary life, I ought not to ignore sundry
true and constant book-friends known to me only by correspondence, and
that in some cases through many years. I cannot touch them all, and
shrink even from mentioning one or two, for fear of seeming to omit
others; but I will endeavour to do my best and wisest in the matter.
Foremost, then, among those unseen favourers of your author is the
Baroness Stanislas von Barnekow, of Engelholme, in Sweden; with whom
during fifteen years I have interchanged certainly fifty letters, if not
more, hers at least being full of the utmost kindliness, cleverness, and
(for a foreigner) even truly poetic eloquence. This tribute to her
talents and warm feelings is only a debt of gratitude. She it was who
voluntarily translated into Swedish my two first series of "Proverbial
Philosophy," and many of my lyrics in "Cithara;" and naturally I was
willing to answer her in kind (for the Baroness is an excellent and
well-known poetess in her own land), but, as unfortunately the Swedish
tongue is not among my few accomplishments, I was glad to turn to a
diligent and authorial eldest daughter of mine, who learnt the language
for me, and responded to our unseen friend with many of her poems
rendered into English verse, as she had similarly favoured mine in
Swedish. My said daughter afterwards improved upon the idea by several
more like translations, since published in book-form, as some from the
Sagas, and in particular many original poems of much merit from the pen
of King Oscar and Princess Eugenie, which greatly pleased them, as their
photographs and autographs testified; the Baroness's brother, Count Von
Wrede, who is the King's Chamberlain, having kindly given facilities. I
trust that my old "friend unseen," Stanislas, will not be displeased by
this proof that I remember with appreciation her many expressions of
esteem for my unworthiness.
Next, I do not know that I have mentioned the late learned Norman poet,
_George Métivier_, as having long ago translated my "Proverbial
Philosophy" into French; he died at a great age, I think past ninety,
and was highly honoured by his native Guernsey, through life and death;
I remember him with much gratitude for his labour of love in respect of
my book. Through many years also I have corresponded with another Norman
poet, _John Sullivan_, whose very clever French poems I have often
versified into English for him, and he has returned the compliment by
sending translated fly-leaves of mine over the Gallic world.
Let one more in this authorial category be the excellent and learned
_Canon R.C. Jenkins_, whom I have known from his childhood, and who in
these latter years has routed out for me, chiefly out of Zedler's
"Genealogical Encyclopædia," the heraldry and ancestry of my own
Thuringian pedigree; the Canon being one of our keenest antiquaries in
that line, and having German at his fingers' ends. He comes, as I do,
from old Lutheran stock, and is full both of prose and poetry of a high
class. My best regards to him and his.
The _Rev. Wm. Barnes_, of Dorset dialect fame, is another memory; as
also in years past the late _Chevalier de Chatelain_, a relative of my
Norwood friend, _Victor de Pontigny_, a well-known musical authority.
No doubt I have corresponded with most of the literary men of my day,
from Tennyson to--well, I will not sound a bathos, but I do not publish
private notes without permission, and in fact there would be no end of
such printed amenities of literature battledored and shuttlecocked from
one to another. I may, however, mention as a good habit of mine (is it
not a good one?) that, whenever I like a book, I take leave to thank its
author, and have usually received, _en révanche_, warm letters of their
gratitude from many, especially if young ones. Surely it is proper in a
veteran so to encourage a juvenile or even a mature brother, should he
seem to deserve it. As also, be it known, that sometimes I have taken up
the pen faithfully and honestly to rebuke: in these realistic and
atheistic days there are some modern writers, both of prose and poetry,
older or younger, who have reason to thank me for timely
expostulations,--if they have attended to my friendly strictures.