Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 42

ii. p. 483.

{107} See p. 105.

{109} The Agamemnon.

{110} FitzGerald frequently referred to a story from Wesley's Journal, which he quotes in Polonius, p. LXX. 'A gentleman of large fortune, while we were seriously conversing, ordered a servant to throw some coals on the fire. A puff of smoke came out. He threw himself back in his chair, and cried out, "O Mr. Wesley, these are the crosses I meet with every day!"'

{111} The Holy Grail.

{116a} Printed in the East Anglian Notes and Queries for 1869 and 1870.

{116b} The partners.h.i.+p was dissolved in June 1870.

{118a} Ten years before, Nov. 2, 1860, FitzGerald wrote to his old friend, the late Mr. W. E. Crowfoot of Beccles: 'I have been reading with interest some French Memoirs towards the end of the last century: when the French were a cheerful, ingenious, witty, trifling people; they had not yet tasted of the Blood of the Revolution, which really seems to me to have altered their character. The modern French Novels exhibit Vengeance as a moving Virtue: even toward one another: can we suppose they think less well of it towards us? In this respect they are really the most barbarous People of Europe.

{118b} 29 Oct. 1870.

{120} Gilbert's Palace of Truth.

{122a} Edwin Edwards.

{122b} Cornhill, June 1870. 'A Clever Forgery,' by Dr. W. Pole.

{127} Thirty Years' Musical Recollections, vol. i. p. 162.

{128} In 1879 he wrote to Professor Cowell, 'O, Sir Walter will fly over all their heads "come aquila" still!'

{133} Not 'Yaffil' but 'yaffingale.'

{135a} In Hamlet, ii. 2. 337, 'Whose lungs are tickle o' the sear.'

{135b} 'Read rascal in the motions of his back, And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee.'--_Sea Dreams_.

{136} Thus far written in pencil by Carlyle himself. The rest of the letter except the signature and postscript is in Mr. Froude's hand.

{139a} This appears to be a mistake.

{139b} At Whitsuntide.

{139c} As Thackeray used to call Carlyle.

{140} Old Kensington.

{141a} In 1873 he wrote to Miss Thackeray,

'Only yesterday I lighted upon some mention of your Father in the Letters of that mad man of Genius Morton, who came to a sudden and terrible end in Paris not long after. He was a good deal in Coram Street, and no one admired your Father more, nor made so sure of his '_doing something_' at last, so early as 1842. A Letter of Jan. 22/45 says: "I hear of Thackeray at Rome. Once there, depend upon it, he will stay there some time. There is something glutinous in the soil of Rome, that, like the sweet Dew that lies on the lime-leaf, ensnares the b.u.t.terfly Traveller's foot." Which is not so bad, is it? And again, still in England, and harping on Rome, whose mere name, he says, "moves the handle of the Pump of Tears in him" (one of his grotesque fancies), he suddenly bethinks him (Feb. 4/45). "This is the last day of Carnival, Thackeray is walking down the Corso with his hands in his Breeches pockets: stopping to look at some little Child.

At night, millions of Moccoletti, dasht about with endless Shouts and Laughter, etc."'

{144} Byron's verses on Rogers.

{145} In Fraser's Magazine, May 1870.

{146a} Inferno, Canto V. 127.

{146b} F. C. Brooke of Ufford.

{146c} Probably a frontispiece to Omar Khayyam which was never used.

{147} Roqueplan, La Vie Parisienne.

{148} Salons Celebres, p. 97, ed. 1882.

{149a} Q. Rev. No. LXVII. p. 216.

{149b} Wherstead.

{150} Euphranor.

{153} 31st March, when the letter was probably finished.

{160} Cent. III. section 238.

{161} In June 1871 he wrote to me, 'One Improvement I persist in recommending for your Chapel: but no one will do it. Instead of Lucretius' line (which might apply to Shakespeare, etc.) at the foot of Newton's Statue, you should put the first words of Bacon's Novum Organum, (h.o.m.o) 'Naturae Minister et Interpres': which eminently becomes Newton, as he stands, with his Prism; and connects him with his great Cambridge Predecessor, who now (I believe) sits in the Ante-Chapel along with him.'

{162} Agamemnon.

{163a} Written in French, 22 July 1873.

{163b} The Family of Love, vol. viii p. 43.

{163c} Ibid. p. 40.

{164} Tacitus, by W. B. Donne, in Ancient Cla.s.sics for English Readers, 1873.

{165} Ann. XIV. 10.

{169} In January 1874, Donne wrote to Thompson, 'You probably know that our friend E. F. G. has been turned out of his long inhabited lodgings by a widow weighing at least fourteen stone, who is soon to espouse, and sure to rule over, his landlord, who weighs at most nine stone--"impar congressus." "Ordinary men and Christians" would occupy a new and commodious house which they have built, and which, in this case, you doubtless have seen. But the FitzGeralds are not _ordinary_ men, however _Christian_ they may be, and our friend is now looking for an alien home for himself, his books, pictures, and other "rich moveables."'

{170} See Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. I. 137.

{171} A copy of Pickersgill's portrait of Crabbe.

{172} Dryburgh.

{173} Dryburgh.

{174} See the Chronicle of the Drum.

{184} Chapter IV.