Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) Part 34

{25} On March 30, 1873, FitzGerald wrote to Sir Frederick Pollock:--

"At the beginning of this year I submitted to be Photo'ed at last--for many Nieces, and a few old Friends--I must think that you are an old Friend as well as a very kind and constant one; and so I don't like not to send you what I have sent others.--The Artist who took me, took (as he always does) three several Views of one's Face: but the third View (looking full-faced) got blurred by my blinking at the Light: so only these two were reproduced--I shouldn't know that either was meant for [me]: nor, I think, would any one else, if not told: but the Truth- telling Sun somehow did them; and as he acted so handsomely by me, I take courage to distribute them to those who have a regard for me, and will naturally like to have so favourable a Version of one's Outward Aspect to remember one by. I should not have sent them if they had been otherwise. The up-looking one I call 'The Statesman,' quite ready to be called to the Helm of Affairs: the Down-looking one I call The Philosopher. Will you take which you like? And when next old Spedding comes your way, give him the other (he won't care which) with my Love. I only don't write to him because my doing so would impose on his Conscience an Answer--which would torment him for some little while. I do not love him the less: and believe all the while that he not the less regards me."

Again on May 5, he wrote: "I think I shall have a word about M[acready]

from Mrs. Kemble, with whom I have been corresponding a little since her return to England. She has lately been staying with her Son in Law, Mr.

Leigh (?), at Stoneleigh Vicarage, near Kenilworth. In the Autumn she says she will go to America, never to return to England. But I tell her she _will_ return. She is to sit for her Photo at my express desire, and I have given her Instructions _how_ to sit, derived from my own successful Experience. One rule is to sit--in a dirty s.h.i.+rt--(to avoid dangerous White) and another is, not to sit on a Suns.h.i.+ny Day: which we must leave to the Young.

"By the by, I sent old Spedding my own lovely Photo (_the Statesman_) which he has acknowledged in Autograph. He tells me that he begins to 'smell Land' with his Bacon."

{28a} See 'Letters,' ii. 165-7.

{28b} See letter of April 22nd, 1873.

{30} Shakespeare, Ant. & Cl., v. 2, line 6:--

'Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change.'

{31} In his 'Half Hours with the Worst Authors' FitzGerald has transcribed 'Le Bon Pasteur,' which consists of five stanzas of eight lines each, beginning:--

'Bons habitans de ce Village, Pretez l'oreille un moment,' &c.

Each stanza ends:--

'Et le bon Dieu vous benira.'

He adds: 'One of the pleasantest remembrances of France is, having heard this sung to a Barrel-organ, and chorus'd by the Hearers (who had bought the Song-books) one fine Evening on the Paris Boulevards, June: 1830.'

{34a} Haydon entered these verses in his Diary for May, 1846: 'The struggle is severe, for myself I care not, but for her so dear to me I feel. It presses on her mind, and in a moment of pain, she wrote the following simple bit of feeling to Frederick, who is in South America, on Board _The Grecian_.' There are seven stanzas in the original, but FitzGerald has omitted in his transcript the third and fourth and slightly altered one or two of the lines. He called them 'A poor Mother's Verses.'

{34b} See 'Letters,' ii. 280.

{37} Burns, quoted from memory as usual. See Globe Edition, p. 214; ed.

Cunningham, iv. 293.

{38} Greville Sartoris was killed by a fall from his horse, not in the hunting-field, 23 Oct. 1873.

{39} 'Rage' in the original. See Tales of the Hall, Book XII. Sir Owen Dale.

{40} Quoting from Peac.o.c.k's 'Headlong Hall':--

'Nature had but little clay Like that of which she moulded him.'

See 'Letters,' i. 75, note.

{42} 18 April 1874. Professor Hiram Corson endeavoured to maintain the correctness of the reading of the Folios in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2.

86-88:

'For his Bounty, There was no winter in 't. An _Anthony_ it was, That grew the more by reaping.'

Spedding admirably defended Theobald's certain emendation of 'autumn' for 'Anthony.'

{43} These lines are not to be found in Crabbe, so far as I can ascertain, but they appear to be a transformation of two which occur in the Parish Register, Part II., in the story of Phebe Dawson (Works, ii.

183):

'Friend of distress! The mourner feels thy aid; She cannot pay thee, but thou wilt be paid.'

They had taken possession of FitzGerald's memory in their present shape, for in a letter to me, dated 5 Nov. 1877, speaking of the poet's son, who was Vicar of Bredfield, he says: "It is now just twenty years since the Brave old Boy was laid in Bredfield Churchyard. Two of his Father's Lines might make Epitaph for some good soul:--

'Friend of the Poor, the Wretched, the Betray'd; They cannot pay thee--but thou shalt be paid.'

Pas mal ca, eh!"

{45a} In a letter to me dated October 29th, 1871, FitzGerald says:--

"A suggestion that casually fell from old Spedding's lips (I forget how long ago) occurred to me the other day. Instead of

'Do such business as the bitter day,'

read 'better day'--a certain Emendation, I think. I hope you take Spedding into your Counsel; he might be induced to look over one Play at a time though he might shrink from all in a Body; and I scarce ever heard him conning a page of Shakespeare but he suggested something which was an improvement--on Shakespeare himself, if not on his Editors--though don't [tell] Spedding that I say so, for G.o.d's sake."

{45b} In 'Notes and Queries,' April 18th, 1874.

{48a} Lord Hertford

{48b} Frank Carr Beard, the friend and medical adviser of d.i.c.kens and Wilkie Collins.

{49a} See Lockhart's 'Life of Scott,' vii. 394. 'About half-past one, P.M., on the 21st of September, [1832], Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day--so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.'

{49b} Dryburgh.

{49c} The North West Pa.s.sage. The 'Old Sea Captain' was Trelawny.

{50a} See 'Letters,' ii. 173-4.

{50b} E. F. S. Pigott.

{52} See 'Letters,' ii. 172.

{53a} Not _Macmillan_, but _Cornhill Magazine_, Dec. 1863, 'On the Stage.' See Letter of 24 Aug. 1875.

{53b} "Pasta, the great lyric tragedian, who, Mrs. Siddons said, was capable of giving her lessons, replied to the observation, 'Vous avez du beaucoup etudier l'antique.' 'Je l'ai beaucoup senti.'"--From Mrs.

Kemble's article 'On the Stage' ('Cornhill,' 1863), reprinted as an Introduction to her Notes upon some of Shakespeare's Plays.

{53c} 'Causeries du Lundi,' xiv. 234.

{53d} Lettre de Viard a M. Walpole, in 'Lettres de Madame du Deffand,'

iv. 178 (Paris, 1824). FitzGerald probably read it in Ste. Beuve, 'Causeries du Lundi,' i. 405.