Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 19

Well then: about 1826, or 7, Professor Airy (now our Astronomer Royal) and his Brother William called on the Daddy at Rydal. In the course of Conversation Daddy mentioned that sometimes when genteel Parties came to visit him, he contrived to slip out of the room, and down the garden walk to where 'The Party's' travelling Carriage stood. This Carriage he would look into to see what Books they carried with them: and he observed it was generally 'WALTER SCOTT'S.' It was Airy's Brother (a very veracious man, and an Admirer of Wordsworth, but, to be sure, more of Sir Walter) who told me this. It is this conceit that diminishes Wordsworth's stature among us, in spite of the mountain Mists he lived among. Also, a little stinginess; not like Sir Walter in that! I remember Hartley Coleridge telling us at Ambleside how Professor Wilson and some one else (H. C. himself perhaps) stole a Leg of Mutton from Wordsworth's Larder for the fun of the Thing.

Here then is a long Letter of old world Gossip from the old Home. I hope it won't tire you out: it need not, you know.

P.S. By way of something better from the old World, I post you Hazlitt's own Copy of his English Poets, with a few of his marks for another Edition in it. If you like to keep it, pray do: if you like better to give it to Hazlitt's successor, Mr. Lowell, do that from yourself.

_To Mrs. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.

_April_ 8/76.

. . . If you go to Brittany you must go to my dear Sevigne's 'Rochers.'

If I had the 'Go' in me, I should get there this Summer too: as to Abbotsford and Stratford. She has been my Companion here; quite alive in the Room with me. I sometimes lament I did not know her before: but perhaps such an Acquaintance comes in best to cheer one toward the End.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.

_June_ 10 {196}, [1876].

MY DEAR SIR,

I don't know that I should trouble you so soon again--(only, don't trouble yourself to answer for form's sake only)--but that there is a good deal of Wordsworth in the late Memoir of Haydon by his Son. All this you might like to see; as also Mr. Lowell. And do you, or he, know of some dozen very good Letters of Wordsworth's addressed to a Mr.

Gillies who published them in what he calls the Life of a Literary Veteran some thirty years ago, {197} I think? This Book, of scarce any value except for those few Letters, and a few Notices of Sir Walter Scott, all good, is now not very common, I think. If you or Mr. Lowell would like to have a Copy, I can send you one, through Quaritch, if not per Post: I have the Letters separately bound up from another Copy of long ago. There is also a favorable account of a meeting between Wordsworth and Foscolo in an otherwise rather valueless Memoir of Bewick the Painter. I tell you of all this Wordsworth, because you have, I think, a more religious regard for him than we on this side the water: he is not so much honoured in his own Country, I mean, his Poetry. I, for one, feel all his lofty aspiration, and occasional Inspiration, but I cannot say that, on the whole, he makes much of it; his little pastoral pieces seem to me his best: less than a Quarter of him. But I may be wrong.

I am very much obliged to you for wis.h.i.+ng me to see Mr. Ticknor's Life, etc. I hope to make sure of that through our Briareus-handed Mudie; and have marked the Book for my next Order. For I suppose that it finds its way to English Publishers, or Librarians. I remember his Spanish Literature coming out, and being for a long time in the hands of my friend Professor Cowell, who taught me what I know of Spanish. Only a week ago I began my dear Don Quixote over again; as welcome and fresh as the Flowers of May. The Second Part is my favorite, in spite of what Lamb and Coleridge (I think) say; when, as old Hallam says, Cervantes has fallen in Love with the Hero whom he began by ridiculing. When this Letter is done I shall get out into my Garden with him, Sunday though it be.

We have also Memoirs of G.o.dwin, very dry, I think; indeed with very little worth reading, except two or three Letters of dear Charles Lamb, 'Saint Charles,' as Thackeray once called him, while looking at one of his half-mad Letters, and remember[ing] his Devotion to that quite mad Sister. I must say I think his Letters infinitely better than his Essays; and Patmore says his Conversation, when just enough animated by Gin and Water, was better than either: which I believe too. Procter said he was far beyond the Coleridges, Wordsworths, Southeys, etc. And I am afraid I believe that also.

I am afraid too this is a long letter nearly [all] about my own Likes and Dislikes. 'The Great Twalmley's.' {198} But I began only thinking about Wordsworth. Pray do believe that I do not wish you to write unless you care to answer on that score. And now for the Garden and the Don: always in a common old Spanish Edition. Their coa.r.s.e prints always make him look more of the Gentleman than the better Artists of other Countries have hitherto done.

Carlyle, I hear, is pretty well, though somewhat shrunk: scolding away at Darwin, The Turk, etc.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE, _Septr._ 10/76.

MY DEAR SIR,

When your Letter reached me a few days ago I looked up Gillies: and found the Wordsworth Letters so good, kindly, sincere, and modest, that I thought you and Mr. Lowell should have the Volume they are in at once. So it travels by Post along with this Letter. The other two volumes shall go one day in some parcel of Quaritch's if he will do me that Courtesy; but there is, I think, little you would care for, unless a little more of 'Walter Scott's' generosity and kindness to Gillies in the midst of his own Ruin; a stretch of Goodness that Wordsworth would not, I think, have reached. However, these Letters of his make me think I ought to feel more filially to my Daddy: I must dip myself again in Mr. Lowell's excellent Account of him with a more reverent Spirit. Do you remember the fine Picture that Haydon gives of him sitting with his grey head in the free Benches of some London Church? {199} I wonder that more of such Letters as these to Gillies are not preserved or produced; perhaps Mr.

Lowell will make use of them on some future occasion; some new Edition, perhaps, of his last volume. I can a.s.sure you and him that I read that volume with that Interest and Pleasure that made me sure I should often return to it: as indeed I did more than once till--lent out to three several Friends! It is now in the hands of a very civilized, well-lettered, and agreeable Archdeacon, {200} of this District.

I bought Mr. Ticknor's Memoirs in an Edition published, I hope with due Licence, by Sampson Low. What a just, sincere, kindly, modest Man he too! With more shrewd perception of the many fine folks he mixed with than he cared to indulge in or set down on Paper, I fancy: judging from some sketchy touches of Macaulay, Talfourd, Bulwer, etc. His account of his Lord Fitzwilliam's is surely very creditable to English n.o.bility.

Macaulay's Memoirs were less interesting to me; though I quite believe in him as a brave, honest, affectionate man, as well (of course) as a very powerful one. It is wonderful how he, Hallam and Mackintosh could roar and bawl at one another over such Questions as Which is the Greatest Poet? Which is the greatest Work of that Greatest Poet? etc., like Boys at some Debating Society.

You can imagine the little dull Country town on whose Border I live; our one merit is an Estuary that brings up Tidings of the Sea twice in the twenty-four hours, and on which I sail in my Boat whenever I can.

I must add a P.S. to say that having written my half-yearly Letter to Carlyle, just to ask how he was, etc., I hear from his Niece that he has been to his own Dumfries, has driven a great deal about the Country: but has returned to Chelsea very weak, she says, though not in any way ill.

He has even ceased to care about Books; but, since his Return, has begun to interest himself in them a little again. In short, his own Chelsea is the best Place for him.

Another reason for this other half Sheet is--that--Yes! I wish very much for your Translation of the Vita Nuova, which I did read in a slovenly (slovenly with Dante!) way twenty or thirty years ago, but which I did not at all understand. I should know much more about it now with you and Mr. Lowell.

I could without 'roaring' persuade you about Don Quixote, I think; if I were to roar over the Atlantic as to 'Which is the best of the Two Parts'

in the style of Macaulay & Co. 'Oh for a Pot of Ale, etc.,' rather than such Alarums. Better dull Woodbridge! What bothered me in London was--all the Clever People going wrong with such clever Reasons for so doing which I couldn't confute. I will send an original Omar if I find one.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE. _October_ 5/76.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I bought Clemencin's Quixote after all: but have looked little into him as yet, as I had finished my last Reading of the Don before he came . . .

I fear his Notes are more than one wants about errors, or inaccuracies of Style, etc. Cervantes had some of the n.o.ble carelessness of Shakespeare, Scott, etc., as about Sancho's stolen d.i.c.ky. {202} But why should Clemencin, and his Predecessors, decide that Cervantes changed the t.i.tle of his second Part from 'Hidalgo' to 'Caballero' from negligence? Why should he not have intended the change for reasons of his own? Anyhow, they should have printed the t.i.tle as he printed it, and pointed out what they thought the oversight in a Note. This makes one think they may have altered other things also: which perhaps I shall see when I begin another Reading: which (if I live) won't be very far off. I think I almost inspired Alfred Tennyson (who suddenly came here a Fortnight ago) to begin on the Spanish. Yes: A. T. called one day, after near twenty years' separation, and we were in a moment as if we had been together all that while. He had his son Hallam with him: whom I liked much: unaffected and unpretentious: so attentive to his Father, with a humorous sense of his Character as well as a loving and respectful. It was good to see them together. We went one day down the Orwell and back again by Steamer: but the weather was not very propitious. Altogether, I think we were all pleased with our meeting.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Novr._ 8/76.

MY DEAR SIR,

'Vita Nuova' reached me safe, and 'siempre verde,' untarnished by its Voyage. I am afraid I liked your account of it more than itself: I mean, I was more interested: I suppose it is too mystical for me. So I felt when I tried to read it in the original twenty years ago: and I fear I must despair of relis.h.i.+ng it as I ought now I have your Version of it, which, it seems to me, must be so good. I don't think you needed to bring in Rossetti, still less Theodore Martin, to bear Witness, or to put your Work in any other Light than its own.

After once more going through my Don Quixote ('siempre verde' too, if ever Book was), I returned to another of the Evergreens, Boccaccio, which I found by a Pencil mark at the Volume's end I had last read on board the little s.h.i.+p I then had, nine years ago. And I have shut out the accursed 'Eastern Question' by reading the Stories, as the 'lieta Brigata' shut out the Plague by telling them. Perhaps Mr. Lowell will give us Boccaccio one day, and Cervantes? And many more, whom Ste. Beuve has left to be done by him. I fancy Boccaccio must be read in his Italian, as Cervantes in his Spanish: the Language fitting either 'like a Glove'

as we say. Boccaccio's Humour in his Country People, Friars, Scolds, etc., is capital: as well, of course, as the easy Grace and Tenderness of other Parts. One thinks that no one who had well read him and Don Quixote would ever write with a strain again, as is the curse of nearly all modern Literature. I know that 'Easy Writing is d---d hard Reading.'

Of course the Man must be a Man of Genius to take his Ease: but, if he be, let him take it. I suppose that such as Dante, and Milton, and my Daddy, took it far from easy: well, they dwell apart in the Empyrean; but for Human Delight, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Boccaccio, and Scott!

Tennyson (a Man of Genius, who, I think, has crippled his growth by over- elaboration) came suddenly upon me here six weeks ago: and, many years as it was since we had met, there seemed not a Day's Interval between. He looked very well; and very happy; having with him his eldest Son, a very nice Fellow, who took all care of 'Papa,' as I was glad to hear him say, not 'Governor' as the Phrase now is. One Evening he was in a Stew because of some nasty Paragraph in a Newspaper about his not allowing Mr.

Longfellow to quote from his Poems. And he wrote a Note to Mr. L. at once in this room, and his Son carried it off to the Post that same Night, just in time. So my House is so far become a Palace, being the Place of a Despatch from one Poet to the other, all over that Atlantic!

We never had the trees in Leaf so long as this Year: they are only just rusty before my window, this Nov. 8. So I thought they would die of mere Old Age: but last night came a Frost, which will hasten their End. I suppose yours have been dying in all their Glory as usual.

You must understand that this Letter is to acknowledge the Vita Nuova (which, by the by, I think ought to be the t.i.tle on the t.i.tle page as well as outside), so do not feel obliged to reply, but believe me yours truly,

E. F. G.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

WOODBRIDGE.

_Sat.u.r.day_, _Nov._ 76.

. . . You spoke once of even trying Walpole's Letters; capital as they are to me, I can't be sure they would much interest, even if they did not rather disgust, you: the Man and his Times are such as you might not care for at all, though there are such men as his, and such Times too, in the world about us now. If you will have the Book on your return home, I will send you a three-volume Collection of his Letters: that is, not a Third part of all his collected Letters: but perhaps the best part, and quite enough for a Beginning. I can scarce imagine better Christmas fare: but I can't, I say, guess how you would relish it. N.B. It is not gross or coa.r.s.e: but you would not like the man, so satirical, selfish, and frivolous, you would think. But I think I could show you that he had a very loving Heart for a few, and a very firm, just, understanding under all his Wit and Fun. Even Carlyle has admitted that he was about the clearest-sighted Man of his time.

_To John Allen_.

LOWESTOFT. _Decr._ 9/76.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

It was stupid of me not to tell you that I did not want Contemporary back. It had been sent me by Tennyson or his son Hallam (for I can't distinguish their MS. now), that I might see that A. S. Battle fragment: {206} which is remarkable in its way, I doubt not. I see by the Athenaeum that A. T. is bringing out another Poem--another Drama, I think--as indeed he hinted to me during his flying visit to Woodbridge. He should rest on his Oars, or s.h.i.+p them for good now, I think: and I was audacious to tell him as much. But he has so many Wors.h.i.+ppers who tell him otherwise. I think he might have stopped after 1842, leaving Princesses, Ardens, Idylls, etc., all unborn; all except The Northern Farmer, which makes me cry. . . .

I dare say there are many as good, if not better, Arctic accounts than 'Under the Northern Lights,' but it was pleasant as read out to me by the rather intelligent Lad who now serves me with Eyes for two hours of a Night at Woodbridge. . . . I am, you see at old Quarters: but am soon returning to Woodbridge to make some Christmas Arrangements. Will Peace and Good Will be our Song this year? Pray that it be so.

_To Miss Thackeray_.