LITERARY ANECDOTES OF
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
LITERARY • ANECDOTES
OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY:
CONTRIBUTIONS • TOWARDS • A
LITERARY HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
VOLUME II.
EDITED BY W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A.,
LL.D., AND THOMAS J. WISE
LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON
PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCVI
? 6
PREFACE.
IN presenting to the public the second volume of Literary
Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, the Editors beg to
draw particular attention to the section entitled The Build-
ing of The Idylls. This chapter deals exhaustively with an
interesting and but little known subject, namely the slow
up-building and gradual development of Tennyson's Idylls
of the King.
The extent to which the late Laureate altered, re-wroter
revised, and re-cast the various portions of this work —
latterly with the intent to weld the several separate Idylls
into Epic form — has been recognised by few students of
his works. All this is exhibited fully in the present Essay,
in the course of which will be found full and careful
descriptions of Enid and Nimue (i$$j}, The True and the
False (1859), The' Last Tournament (1871), and other
Tennysonian " trial books," particulars of which have never
vi PREFACE.
before been adequately recorded. It may safely be claimed
that 77/6- Building of The Idylls is a contribution to modern
Bibliography of the highest importance.
A word is called for in explanation of the section entitled
A Contribution to the Bibliography of the Writings of
Algernon Charles Swinburne. The time for a Complete
Bibliography of the works of Mr. Swinburne has not yet
arrived ; may it be long in coming ! But among the
students and collectors of modern poetical literature are
many who follow closely and keenly all that is written by
the author of Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon.
Many of the poems and essays of Mr. Swinburne have been
printed in short numbers and in pamphlet form. Some of
these separate prints are of extraordinary scarcity, and
many collectors have never had the opportunity of examin-
ing them. One at least of these, Siena, has been repro-
duced in an unauthorized manner, and copies of this
spurious reproduction have frequently been bought and
sold as examples of the genuine original issue. A sur-
prisingly large number of Mr. Swinburne's contributions
to periodical literature have never yet been collected, and
lie buried in old volumes of newspapers and magazines.
For the Collector, to enable him to detect the genuine
from the spurious ; for the Student to guide him to the
PREFACE. vii
less-known and scattered of Mr. Swinburne's writings,
this " Bibliographical List " has been compiled.
The Editors again desire to express their indebtedness
to Mr. Buxton Forman, Mr. Walter B. Slater, Mr. Clement
Shorter, and other friends, for kind help generously given.
They also repeat that they will gladly welcome any sug-
gestions, corrections, or contributions of suitable material.
.LONDON, October zotk, 1896.
CONTENTS.
THREE LETTERS CONCERNING RUSKIN'S "NOTES ON
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS." By the Rev.
F. D. MAURICE, M.A. :
PAGE
(i.) Introductory Note 3
(ii.) Letter from the Rev. F. D. Maurice to Dr. F. J. Furnivall 7
(iii.) Extract from a Letter from John Ruskin to Dr. F. J.
Furnivall • . 16
(iv. ) Letter from the Rev. F. D. Maurice to John Ruskin ... 22
(v. ) Extract from a Letter (in two parts) from John Ruskin to the
Rev. F. D. Maurice 35
(vi.) Letter from the Rev. F. D. Maurice to John Ruskin ... 39
(vii. ) Letter from John Ruskin to Dr. F. J. Furnivall ..... 44
(viil) Dr.F. J. Furnivall's conclusion to the Sheep/old correspond-
ence, with notes upon the establishment of the Working
Men's College (1854), and the printing and distribution
of Ruskin's On the Nature of Gothic Architecture ... 4&
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. A FAIRY
TALE. By CHARLOTTE BRONTE :
Introductory Note 49"
Chapter 1 53
„ II 57
HI. . 72
x - •« l.VTENTS.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, AND HER SCARCER
BOOKS. A BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE : 81
Including descriptions of :
(i.) Tlie Battle of Marathon, 1820 84
(ii.) An Essay oil Mind, with other Poems, 1826 86
(iii.) Prometheus Bound, Translated from the Greek of ^Eschylus,
and other Poems, 1833 86
(iv.) Poems. In Two Volumes. 1844 . . 87
(v.) Sonnets [from the Portuguese'}, 1847 91
(vi.) The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point, 1849 92
CARLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY, BY ELIZABETH
BARRETT BROWNING :
(i.) Introductory Note 105
(ii.) Letter from E. B. Browning to R. H. Home 106
(iii.) The Essay on Carlyle 109
MRS. BROWNING'S RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, AS EXPRESSED
IN THREE LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM
MERRY, ESQ., J.P. :
(i.) Introductory Note 123
(ii.) Letter I (dated London, November 2nd, 1843) I25
(iii.) Letter II (dated London, November \1th, 1843) J32
(iv.) Letter III (dated London, January %th, 1844) 138
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. By the Rev. GEORGE CRABBE :
(i.) Introductory Note 145
(ii.) An Introduction to the First Epistle by the learned Mar-
tinus Scriblerus ["written by Crabbe] 147
(iii.) Epistle I. From the Devil. An Epistle General .... 150
(iv.) Epistle II. From the Author. To Mira 167
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH 173
CONTENTS. xi
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. AN OPEN LETTER TO
RALPH WALDO EMERSON :
(i.) Introductory Note 191
(ii.) Lander's Letter to R. W. Emerson 195
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS : A STUDY IN TENNY-
SON :
Including bibliographical descriptions of :
(i.) Morte (f Arthur; Dora; and other Idylls, 1842 222
(ii.) Enid and Nimue : The True and the False, 1857 .... 225
(iii.) The True and the False, Four Idylls of the King, 1859 . . 238
(iv.) Idylls of the King, 1859 241
(v.) Idylls of the Hearth, 1864 243
(vi.) Enoch Arden, etc., 1864 ". 244
(vii.) Lucretius (Cambridge, Mass.), 1868 245
(viii.) The Holy Grail, and other Poems, 1870 247
(ix.) The Last Tournament, 1871 253
(x.) Gareth and Lynette, 1872 258
(xi.) Idylls of the King, 1888 267
JOHN KEATS : ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION 273
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF THE SCARCER WORKS
AND UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS OF ALGERNON
CHARLES SWINBURNE:
(i.) Editiones Principes, etc 291
(ii.) Uncollected Contributions to Periodical Literature .... 350
THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. EMILY AUGUSTA PATMORE 375
AN OLD COMMON-PLACE BOOK OF EDWARD FITZ-
GERALD'S 385
WILLIAM CORY, AUTHOR OF "IONICA" 395
xii CONTENTS.
PAGE
SUPPRESSED WORKS BY RUDYARD KIPLING 403
THE AUTHOR OF "FESTUS" AND THE SPASMODIC SCHOOL 411
TENNYSONIANA :
(L) Recollections of Tennyson 421
(ii.) The Tennysons . • 43*
(iii.) Early Recollections 434
(iv. ) Tennyson and his Publishers 438
(v.) The Origin of Tennyson's Rizpah 44<>
ANA:
Dr. John Brown and Charles Dickens 445
The Founder of the Cornhill Magazine 445
The Plan of Carlyle's Cromwell 446
Bishop Thirlwall's Appointment to St. David's 446
Tennyson as a Lecturer 448
The Retrospective Review 448
Ruskin and Emerson 448
Besant and Rice 449
Patrick Branwell Bronte as a Painter 45 1
An Unreclaimed Sonnet by Charles Lamb 45 1
On the Authorship of The Queen of My Heart 452
Sydney Dobell on the Poetry of the first Lord Lytton 454
J. M. Barrie on his Method of Work 455
The Charge of Plagiarism against the second Lord Lytton .... 455
Mr. John Morley's Early Career 457
Jane Clairmont [" Claire"} . 459
John Morley on R. W. Emerson 461
The State Recognition of Authors 461
The Cheveley Novels 467
Mr. J. A. Froude's Sermons 468
Cardinal Newman's St. Bartholomew's Eve 470-
CONTENTS. xiii
PACK
ANA — continued.
Some Early Letters of George Eliot ; treating of
(i.) The Physical Theory of Another Life 473
(ii ) Sartor Resartus 474
(iii.) Marriage 474
(iv. ) Harriet Martineau 475
Thomas Carlyle and George Gilfillan 475
INDEX. 481
ILLUSTRATIONS.
To face px't
Charlotte Bronte's The Adventures of Ernest AUmin'rt. Fac-simile of
the Inscription upon the last page of the Holograph Manuscript . on 52
Charlotte Bronte's The Adventures of Ernest Alembert. Fac-simile of
a page (in prose) of the Holograph 53
Charlotte Bronte's The Adventures of Ernest Aleinbsrt. Fac-simile of
a page (in verse) of the Holograph 74
Mrs. Browning's The Battle of Marathon. 1820. From the original
in the Library of Mr. Thomas J. Wise 85
Mrs. Browning's Sonnets (Reading, 1847). From a copy of the rare
original in the Library of Mr. Clement K. Shorter 91
Mrs. Browning's Carlyle : A Disentangled £V.>v?r. Fac-simile of a
page of the original Manuscript, with revisions by R. H. Home . . 109
Crabb's Epistle to Mira. Fac-simile of a portion of the original
Manuscript - 167
Landor's Letter to R. W. Emerson \\'$><-fi\. From a copy in the Library
of Mr. Walter B. Slater 191
Tennyson's Morle tf Arthur, 1842. From a copy of the original in the
Library of Mr. Buxton Forman 222
Tennyson's Idylls of the Hearth, 1864. From a copy of the original
in the Library of Mr. Walter B. Slater 243
Tennyson's Lucretius, 1868. From a copy of th<_> original in the Library
of Mr. Walter B. Slater 245
xvi ILL USTRA TIONS.
To fact page
Tennyson's The Last Tournament, 1871. From a copy of the original
in the Library of Mr. Thomas J. Wise 253
Sonnet To Miss IVylie, by John Keats. Fac-simile of the Holograph 281
The Undergraduate Papers, 1858. From a copy of the original in the
Library of Mr. Thomas J. Wise 291
Swinburne's The Queen Mother, &c., 1860. From a copy of the
first edition with Pickering's title in the Library of Mr. Buxton
Fonnan on 297
Fac-simile of the Wood-cut by Mr. J. Lawless, in illustration of Swin-
burne's Dead Love 3°°
The First (Quarto) Edition of Swinburne's Atalanla in Calydon. From
a copy in the Library of Mr. Thomas J. Wise 301
Swinburne's Laus Veneris. Fac-simile of a portion of the original
Manuscript 304
Laus Veneris, 1866, as originally printed in pamphlet form, with the
poet's autograph upon the reverse of the half-title on 305
Swinburne's Cleopatra, 1866. From a copy in the Library of Mr.
Thomas J. Wise, with an inscription l-y the poet upon the reverse
of the half-title 315
Swinburne's Dolores. Fac-simile of a portion of the original Manuscript 317
Swinburne's A Word for the Naiy. Fac-simile of a portion of the
original Manuscript (showing the original reading: " Strong Ger-
many, girded with guile ") 339
Swinburne's The Bride's Tragedy, 1889. From a copy of the original
in .the possession of Mr. Thomas \. Wise- 344
THREE LETTERS
CONCERNING
RUSKIN'S "NOTES ON THE
CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS.'
BY
THE REV. F. D. MAURICE, M.A.
VOL. II. B
JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE
ON
"NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF
SHEEPFOLDS."
IN October 1890, Dr. F. J. Furnivall caused to be issued
for private circulation a tiny volume which contained within
its thirty pages matter of greater interest and higher impor-
tance than is to be found in any one of the many preten-
tious volumes of Ruskiniana which have made their appear-
ance during the past decade. The work in question is an
octavo booklet entitled :
Two Letters / concerning / " Notes on the Construction of
Sheepf olds" I Addressed to \ the Rev. F. D. Maurice, M. A.
I in \^\\By\John Ruskin, LL.D., D.CL.j. . . . / With
Forewords by / F. J. Furnivall, M.A., Hon. Dr. Phil, /
London j Printed for Private Distribution only j
The major portion of the book is occupied, as the title
denotes, by two letters addressed by Mr. Ruskin to the
1 Naturally this little volume has become of considerable scarcity, and upon
more than one occasion a copy has realized some five or six guineas.
B 2
4 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
Rev. F. D. Maurice. These two letters were forwarded
through the medium of Dr. Furnivall, through whose hands
also passed the three letters written by Maurice — one
in answer to certain passages in the Sheep/olds pamphlet
itself, the other two in reply to Mr. Ruskin's own letters.
The genesis of the whole correspondence is thus detailed
by Dr. Furnivall in the Forewords? he prefixed to the book.
1 Dr. Furnivall's charming account of his first meeting with Mr. Ruskin,
given in the course of these Forewords, is so thoroughly characteristic that it
may well be repeated here : —
" It must have been in 1848, 9, or 1850 that I was one Saturday evening,
probably in May, at an ' At Home ' — Conversazione then, I suppose — in Chester
Terrace, Regent's Park, at the house of a friend whom I first met at the
Philological Society, when his sweet-natured clever wife came up to her
cousin, with whom I was chatting about the London poor, and said ' John, I
want you to come and talk to Mrs. Ruskin.' ' Not I,' said Dobbin-like John,
' I'm much too shy for such a smart body. ' As he spoke, I turnd and fol«
lowd his look at a handsome tall young woman with rosy cheeks and wavy
black hair,1 in a charming pink waterd silk dress, prettily niched from
shoulder to foot (I can see her now). Mrs. H. W. said to me, ' Will you
come, Mr. Furnivall ? ' 'I should think I would,' answered I, ' only give me
the chance. ' She did give it me. I talkt eagerly and enthusiastically about
Ruskin to his wife, and she askt me to come and see him in Park Street, at the
back of Park Lane, at half-past three next day. I put her into her brougham ;
and on Sunday afternoon, be sure, I was in Park Street to the minute. After
a short chat with the wife, I saw the door open, and John Ruskin walkt softly
in. I sprang up to take the outstretcht hand, and then and there began a
friendship which was for many years the chief joy of my life. Ruskin was a
tall slight fellow, whose piercing frank blue eye lookt through you and drew
you to him. A fair man, with rough light hair and reddish whiskers, in a
dark blue frock coat with velvet collar, bright Oxford blue stock,2 black
trousers and patent slippers — how vivid he is to me still ! The only
blemish in his face was the lower lip, which protruded somewhat : he had
been bitten there by a dog in his early youth. But you ceast to notice this
1 She was fresher and brighter than Millais shows her, as the wife in his
Order of Release.
2 Neckerchief wrapt round a stiffener.
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 5
"Early in 1851 Ruskin sent me his pamphlet, Notes on
the Construction of Sheepfolds, as for many years he sent
me all his books as they came out. I did not like the
Discipline and Excommunication part of it, as I thought it
would lead to Ministers and neighbours poking their noses
into every man's private affairs, and to a lot of hypocrisy
and intolerance. Perhaps I'd better quote a couple of
Ruskin's sentences : —
" ' / hold it for a law, palpable to common sense, and which
nothing but the cowardice and faithlessness of the Church
prevents it from putting in practice, that the conviction of any
dishonourable conduct or wilful crime, of any fraud, false-
hood, cruelty or violence, should be ground for the excommuni-
cation of any man : for his publicly declared separation from
tJie acknowledged body of the Visible Church : and that he
should not be received again therein without public confession
of his crime and declaration of his repentance' — (P. 15.
Reprint of 1875.)
" ' It seems indispensable that the authority of tJie Ministers
or Court of Ministers should extend to the pronouncing a man
Excommunicate for certain crimes against tJu Church, as
as soon as he began to talk. I never met any man whose charm of manner
at all approach! Ruskin's. Partly feminine it was, no doubt ; but the delicacy,
the sympathy, the gentleness and affectionateness of his way, the fresh and
penetrating things he said, the boyish fun, the earnestness, the interest he
showd in all deep matters, combined to make a whole which I have never
seen equalld. Association with Ruskin was a continual delight. And when
one got him to show his Turners to charming women like Mrs. Wm. Cowper
(now Lady Mount-Temple), Lady Goderich (now the Marchioness of Ripon),
Mrs. Charles Buxton (once Emily Holland), and the like, it was indeed a
pleasure to see him and them : the pictures had on those days fresh colour
and fresh light."
6 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
well as for all crimes punishable by ordinary law. There
ought, I think, to be an ecclesiastical code of laws ; and a man
ought to have jury trial, according to this code, before an
ecclesiastical judge ; in which, if lie were found guilty, as of
lying, or dishonesty, or cruelty, — much more of any actually
committed violent crime, — lie should be pronounced Excom-
municate; refused the Sacrament; and have his name written
in such a public place as an excommunicate person until he
had publicly confessed his sin and besought pardon of God for
it. The jury should always be of the laity, and no penalty
sJiould be enforced in an ecclesiastical court except this of ex-
communication'— (P. 34, Reprint of 1875.)
" Feeling that I — though I then believed myself a member
of the Establisht Church — did not desire a power of this
kind over any other member of the Church, and that I
should refuse to let any other member exercise it over me,
I sent Ruskin's Sheepfolds to F. D. Maurice, stated my
objections to it, and askt him what he thought of it ;
probably I added that I should like to send his answer to
Ruskin, who he then knew only from his books. Maurice
sent me a spirited answer, dated March i^th, 1851. After
stating 3 points wherein he agreed with Ruskin, he went
into 13 others in which he differed."
It is to be regretted that, for quite sufficient reasons
Dr. Furnivall printed Mr. Ruskin's letters only, contenting
himself with quoting three short passages from those 01
Maurice. These latter are here given in full, together
with a reprint of Mr. Ruskin's share of this most
interesting Correspondence.
JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE. 7
LETTERS.
March 2$th, 1851.!
MY DEAR FURNIVALL,
You asked me for my opinion on Mr. Ruskin's book
on Sheepfolds. I am not willing or able to pronounce upon
the spirit which dictated it, or upon the probability that it
will do good or harm. I can only tell you wherein I agree
and differ with it ; and that I am bound to do cautiously
and deliberately, for some of its doctrines would make
every thing that I have been holding and teaching since
I took orders, so utterly false, that I have a dangerous
interest in resisting them. I agree with him —
1 . That we must obtain the sense of the word " Church "
from the Bible ; that the sense of it there is uniform ; that
the Bible explains its own meaning, not worse but far
better than all other books ; that it is to be interpreted
exactly.
2. That the Clergy are not to separate themselves from
the Laity, to treat them as less holy than themselves, ever to
call themselves " the Church " ; — that Romanist, Anglican,
all, clergy are prone to these sins ; — that in committing
them they deny their proper vocation, and act as traitors
to Christ.
3. That the Church and State, according to God's con-
stitution, are united ; that all civil transactions are holy,
that civil government is holy; that the civil governors
ought to have dominion over the clergy ; that the clergy
8 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
forget their own function when they try to be above the
civil governors.
I affirm —
1. That Mr. Ruskin has not given either a strictly ety-
mological or a Scriptural force to the word " Church." The
classical sense of Ecclesia is of course " an assembly called
together by a herald " : the etymological sense, which is
the Scripture one, is " a body called out."
2. That Mr. Ruskin has not followed Scripture with
any accuracy in ascertaining what this " calling out " means :
who is the Caller-; who are the Called ?
3. That the method of Scripture exhibits GOD calling
out Abram, in whose seed all the families of the earth were
to be blessed ; calling out a family ; calling out a nation ;
calling out law-givers, priests, prophets, kings, to minister
in different offices to that nation ; sending at length the
Elect One in Whom His soul delighted, and in Whom the
calling of all the others had stood ; by Him calling out
Apostles to be witnesses of His name to all nations, begin-
ning at Jerusalem ; by Him, after He was ascended on
high, calling out a family from all tribes and kindred of
nations, and enduing them with His Spirit.
4. That of this method, Mr. Ruskin, professing to follow
Scripture exactly, has taken no notice, but has tried to
deduce a meaning from isolated texts, so sanctioning a
vulgar practice which, if it were applied to any other
subject, he would be the first to denounce as unscientific
and foolish.
5. That in consequence of this departure from his own
leading maxim, he has been forced to introduce a nomen-
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MA URICE, 9
clature which is not in Scripture, and to which he affixes a
sense of his own before he applies it to Scripture.
The phrase "visible and invisible Church" is not
Scriptural ; it belongs to the Schools ; our different
parties fight about it year after year, and will fight for ever
till they consent to exchange it for the human practical
knowledge of the Bible, or at least to test it by that
language. The Bible speaks of a Kingdom of God, a
Kingdom of Heaven. These words occur in every other
sentence of the Gospels. Christ's parables and miracles are
said to expound them. Yet we will translate them into our
miserable slip-slop of " Christian dispensation " or " visible
and invisible Church " instead of seeing whether we cannot,
by their help, translate our slip-slop into something real
and vital. If, instead of putting ourselves first and God
last, we would adopt the Scriptural mode of speaking and
thinking, and would believe that He is unfolding or un-
veiling His Kingdom, is showing men what a king is, we
should gradually (not at once, for it is long indeed before
our hasty anticipations and rash generalisations and clumsy
idols are knocked to pieces in the physical or the spiritual
world) come to find some solid ground for our talk about
the visible and invisible Church. If an invisible being is
revealing to us Himself, is revealing to us man as made
in His Image, is calling us out that we may know Him
and be like Him, the invisible must be the foundation of
the visible, not as we naturally suppose, the visible of the
invisible. Every one who thinks, knows that it is so with
himself. He knows that the invisible part of him, that
which thinks, feels, hopes, loves, that he himself, the thinker,
io JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE.
feeler, lover, is real and substantial, and that the visible
acts which he does, are the result of that which passes
within, out of sight. He knows that this is true of his
body as well as of his spirit, that all his functions and
powers are invisible, only the result of them visible. It
is the effect of utter derangement, of moral perversion and
blindness, that we act upon the opposite doctrine, that
we deduce the invisible from the visible. All God's pro-
cesses are to bring us out of this perversion into a healthy
acknowledgement of our own true state as dependent upon
our relation to Him, and not upon our relation to the
outward world, and so as to make us His servants in in-
terpreting, tilling, subduing, the outward world. But how
wilfully and shamefully we set at nought this purpose
when we speak of an invisible Church, meaning a set of
men taken out of the condition of law and humanity, and
made professors of a peculiar privilege appertaining to
themselves ! Against this accursed doctrine — which I
believe is undermining all faith, holiness, love, among us
and is making us all in our different sections and depart-
ments a set of exclusive contemptuous Pharisees — may
God give me grace to bear witness in life and in death !
I am sure the Bible is refuting it in every line. I am sure
that it is teaching us that men are brought out of narrow-
ness, exclusiveness, selfishness, into that which is free,
large, universal. I am sure it is saying that those who
yield to God's Spirit, and believe in Him, only come to
believe that which is as true of every publican and harlot
as it is of themselves. I am sure that till we know this
(alas! how little do I know it, how continually am I
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MA URICE. 1 1
disbelieving and denying it!) we are not stooping to our
Cross, we are still — whatever be our names and professions
— going about to establish our own righteousness.
6. That Mr. Ruskin, from deserting the Scriptural
method, has been obliged to make the most frightful
and detestable misrepresentation — (he complains of
courtesies and civil phrases — God forbid that I should
resort to them, especially when it is a question con-
cerning the very meaning and essence of the life of the
Son of God) — of our Lord's dealing with publicans and
sinners. He has the audacity to say that His treatment of
them was a kind of excommunication. I say he ought to
sit in sack-cloth and ashes for uttering such a sentence.
Was not the denial of the Pharisees that he ought to
"eat and drink" with publicans and sinners (mark the
words ! not preach to them,) one of the proofs that they
knew neither Him nor the Father who sent Him ? Is not
the whole argument in the i$th of St. Luke, the whole
witness which the Son bare of the Father, involved in
these acts ? If this is excommunication, — may I have in
time and eternity Christ's excommunication rather than
Mr. Ruskin's communion !
7. After this interpretation of the Gospel, it is no wonder
that he [Mr. R.] makes such havoc of the Epistles, arrang-
ing them all according to his own " visible and invisible "
hypothesis, decreeing that St. Paul shall mean only true
believers, though he speaks in those very epistles, — as you
have shown in your notes, — of fornicators, of men whose
end was destruction, whose God was their belly, &c. Of
course such passages must be hopeless stumbling-blocks,
12 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE'-
as they always have been, to the holders of this theory.
But the splendid confutation of it is furnished by Mr. Ruskin
himself. The Epistle to the Galatians (he says) is not to
the invisible Church, but to the visible. Why, the great
object of the Epistle is to confute the Judaisers, who told
the Galatians that they must not claim the privileges of
Sons of God upon the warrant of God's adoption, unless
they submitted to the law ! Their sin, their apostasy, was
this, that they would not take up the position of Sons of
God, when God had sent forth His Son made of a woman,
made under the law, that they might have it ! And no
other sin, no other apostasy, is spoken of in the New
Testament. The old Scriptures had told every Jew that
his sin consisted in forgetting his covenant, in not believing
it : the New Testament tells every Christian that that is
his sin. The Bible is consistent and harmonious ; it is our
pride, exclusiveness, Pharisaism, which sets aside its de-
clarations that we may build up a Babel for ourselves — a
Babel, with bricks for stones, and slime for mortar — where
we can make for ourselves a name, and may be out of the
reach of the floods in which we suppose God desires to
drown the Universe.
8. From this statement it is easy to perceive why Mr.
Ruskin makes so entirely light of Baptism as any sign of
the visible or invisible Church. Putting God aside, not
looking upon Him as the chooser and caller out of the
Divine Family, he must do so. For Baptism is a testimony
that the work is His, not ours ; that we are taken into
fellowship with Him, that is, into the true state of men ;
not that we get into it by some faith or act of ours ; that
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MA URICE 13
to believe, is to acknowledge the truth, not to make that
true which is otherwise not true ; that our business on
earth is to yield to God's spirit, not to fight and strive for
some position that we think desirable. Baptism is a
witness for the universality of God's good-will, for the per-
fectness of the redemption, (not of us, but of the whole
world in Christ), for the continual operation of the Holy
Spirit. It overthrows therefore the whole scheme which
rests upon a separation between the visible and invisible
members of the Church, though it brings out with a
clearness and sharpness such as no theories have reached,
the distinction between the flesh and the spirit, that in us
which confesses God and delights in Him — that in us
which is not subject to the law of God, neither can be, and
must be cut off. It brings out the distinction likewise
between the invisible in us, which is the subject of God's
operations, and the visible, that which is apparent to our
fellow-men. It shows that every family, Nation, Church,
must by its very nature be invisible as well as visible. It
justifies our iQth Article as a much nearer approximation
to the truth (I say no more) than Mr. Ruskin's. If we must
define one half of an indivisible substance [the Church]
— and for exterior logical and even practical purposes it is
important to do so, — I know not how we could get nearer
to the fact than by saying that it is a congregation of
faithful men (that is, men who have not renounced their
baptismal position), and where the word of God, and
Sacraments — the signs to men of God's adoption and con-
stitution of a family — are rightfully administered.
9. Having spoken of Mr. Ruskin's doctrine respecting
14 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
our Lord's method of excommunicating publicans, I may
be excused from dwelling very much upon his own — I
never read any scheme better contrived for enthroning, if
not canonizing, respectability and decency ; — any scheme
which less levels the hills and exalts the valleys, which less
affronts Scribes and Pharisees with the rude and terrible
sentence " O generation of vipers, who hath bidden you
to flee from the wrath to come ? " All these schemes for
excommunication remind me of the story of John Hunter
and the madman — " Let you and me jump from this high
window to the flags below." " Very good ! but any fool
can do that ; why shouldn't we go down and try to jump
up from the flags to the window ? " All people, Puseyites,
Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Irvingites, have their pet scheme
of excommunication. Burke said that though he had
passed most of his life in opposition he could always
persuade the House of Commons in his day to pass a bill
for making some offence felony without benefit of clergy.
Most of us who are in opposition to the religious parties in
this day, can persuade them, if we try, to support the ex-
communication of half the universe. The difficulty is, to
get them to consider what Communion is ; who has
established it, why it is a sin to break from it ; how we
may invite others into it.
10. Mr. Ruskin's views about the clergy and the priest-
hood are quite consistent with his views of the Church at
large, but they are not quite consistent with themselves.
He believes the minister in some sense called of God. In
what sense, does not very clearly appear. I believe that
he is called to his special office — which office I hold to be
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MA UK ICE. 15
that of presenting Christ's finished sacrifice to the Father,
and of feeding the whole family with it as the witness and
assurance that they are reconciled and redeemed, and that
Christ is with them even to the end of the world — by Him
who calls the king to his office, the member of parliament
to his office, the tailor and shoe-maker to his. I believe
we are a called people, and therefore that we have called
kings, priests, members of parliament, tailors, shoe-makers.
I hold that each is to fulfil his office, believing that he has
God's spirit given him for that end ; and that just so far as
we hold this, we shall not tread upon each other's toes or
be rivals and enemies, — that just so far as we do not hold
it we shall.
11. I do not think Mr. Ruskin values the office of the
Bishop or Father in the Church more than I do, or holds a
form of prayer to be more precious. Yet I would sooner
have cut off my hand than have written as he has about
Presbyterians and their obligation to receive Bishops and
forms of Prayer. Believing that God has established His
Church, and that He means it to be one, I hope and
believe that He will in His due time teach Presbyterians,
and teach us, not to reject anything that is necessary to its
unity. But this kind of dogmatism is more intolerable to
me when it is directed against those with whom I differ
than against myself.
12. And such dogmatism and such exclusiveness as I
find in this pamphlet, are, it seems to me, precisely the
reasons of the marvel which Mr. Ruskin deems so inex-
plicable— that the Papacy has not fallen. It cannot fall
while all its worst evils are found in Protestants. It cannot
16 JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE,
fall while they believe in a holy exclusive Church, not in a
Holy Catholic Church. True unity and universality will
drive out counterfeit unity and universality ; while unity
and universality are desired, even the counterfeit is a
witness for God's truth.
13. I will only make one more remark. What people as
utterly ignorant of painting and architecture as I am have
admired in Mr. Ruskin's books about them, is their grave,
earnest, patient spirit of investigation. We are somewhat
surprised and grieved to find that the qualities which he
thinks necessary in order to determine the relative merits
of Claude and Turner may be cast aside when the question
at issue is only how the Church of the Living God shall be
restored to efficiency, and whether ninety-nine hundredths
of mankind are to be excluded from the privileges of
Christ's redemption.
Ever yours affectionately,
F. D. MAURICE.
The foregoing letter was duly handed by Dr. Furnivall
to Mr. Ruskin, who promptly replied in a lengthy epistle
[addressed to Dr. Furnivall, and dated " 30^/2 March, 1851 "]
to the following effect : —
[1851.]
I have been reading with much respect and interest your
letter to Furnivall, and comparing it with some of your
published writings : — I am much grieved on one side that
what I have written should so far offend you ; and happy
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 17
that it should on the other, for I should be most thankful
to be proved wrong in much of what I believe : — My faith
is a dark one, yours, so far as I can understand it, a glorious
and happy one. I said, in the beginning of what I wrote
that I would not allow myself to be drawn into controversy :
nor should I, unless in the hope of being convinced of error.
If I thought your opposition to me futile, or if I did not
wish to think with you, I should not have made any com-
ment on your letter. But I covet that wide-world spirit of
yours : and if you do not think you have spent too much
time on me already, I would fain ask you to devote still an
hour or two. For in your present letter you have been too
indignant to reason. I like your indignation : but I must
have something more out of you than indignation before I
can come to be of your mind.
1. You find fault with me for not enough considering the
etymological force of eKK\r)(ria — truly I did not, nor have I
ever done so enough : I have always thought the word was
simply used as we should use the word " assembly," and that
when the idea of calling was to be implied, it was separately
expressed as in I. Cor. i. 2 : and I so far think so still ; that
is, I believe the word in St. Paul's time to have been one of
such common use that it would never have expressed, per
se, any idea of calling by God : nor do I think it was ever
intended to do so. I may be very wrong in this, and will
consider of it.
2. But while I do not enough attach the idea of " calling "
to this word, do not think I ever lost sight of the calling
itself. All that you say in your 3rd Clause I hold to the
full : but it did not appear to me to bear in the least on the
VOL. II. C
1 8 JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D, MAURICE.
matter in question. I do not— throughout the Pamphlet-
speak of the methods of Conversion : I had nothing to do
with them. All I had to examine was the practical
method of associating and governing men pretending to be
converted.
3. Answer to your 4th Clause.
This exclamation against "Isolated Texts" I always
look upon with suspicion. For I believe the Bible to have
been written for simple people, and that simple peopleozn only
look at isolated texts. I think that every necessary doctrine
is to be proved by positive texts, and not by subtle reason-
ings, of which most poor Christians are quite incapable.
This vulgar practice I think therefore the right one,
just because it is vulgar. And I have always found the
Tractarians shrink in horror from these same " Isolated
Texts."
4. Answer to your 5th Clause.
I give up my nomenclature at once if it displeases you.
I used Visible and Invisible merely as convenient and
generally recognised expressions for the Church in heaven
and on earth — or rather for my first and second senses of the
words. Had I not done so, I should have been obliged to
write " Church in the first sense," " Church in the second
sense," all through, which would have been inconvenient ;
but make this substitution, if you like it.
5. What follows, I do not in the least understand. I
certainly never deduced invisibility from visibility. I mean
very simply that I see a man behave decently and hear him
talk like a Christian. He is to me visible and hearable, an
ascertainable creature — so far. His membership with Christ
JOHN R US KIN AND F. D. MAURICE. 19
I cannot see. I call it therefore invisible. I never spoke
of " men taken out of the condition of humanity." I said
that I could not see their hearts, and that the Lord looketh
upon the heart : I meant that the Lord knoweth them that
are His — and that we don't. What is there " accursed " in
this doctrine : or what is the doctrine which you suppose
me to have meant, and which you call " accursed " ? I have
read this indignant passage three times over, and I do not
in the smallest degree understand what you are attacking.
You say " you are sure that those who yield to God's spirit
only come to believe that which is as true of every publican
and harlot as it is of themselves"
That. What ?
6. Answer to your sixth Clause.
Let me restate somewhat more clearly what I said, or
meant to say, of Christ's Excommunication — and have
patience with me.
I said that Christ always implied the inferiority of such :
and I meant to say that He proved His infinite mercy and
the all-atoning power of His death in the very fact of His
being willing to associate with — ready to hear, and able to
save — the most degraded of mankind. The whole power
and beauty of His ministry depends upon the first admission,
that those whom He came to save were indeed chief of
sinners. I now repeat that Christ invariably implies this
inferiority —
" What do ye more than others ? Do not even the
publicans, whom you think such dreadful sinners, so." " The
publicans and harlots — believed on Him." "Go into the
kingdom before you " — in which passages the whole force
C 2
20 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
depends upon their being considered as inferior. These —
Christ says — lost and sinful though they were — yet believed.
Again of the heathen : " It is not meet to take the children's
bread, &c."
And finally and chiefly, the main text, " Let him be unto
thee as an heathen man, &c."
Now, my dear Sir, you have called my representation
of this text frightful and detestable : What is yours ? It
has a meaning, I suppose — isolated though it be : — and to
give it a plain and practicable meaning is all I ask of you,
and that you must do, before you have any right to be
indignant with me.
But permit me once more to put my interpretation of it
into clear form. I find Christ associate constantly in one
breath — the heathen, publican, and harlot. Now there is a
harlot's house within six doors of me. There was a ball
there — four nights ago : and many other harlots met there
on the occasion. I did not go myself : I would not have
allowed my wife to go, if she had asked leave. I call that
excommunication : and I prevailed upon a young man of
my acquaintance who had intended to go to the meeting to
join in my excommunication — and stay away also. Was
there anything wrong in this ?
But further : if 1 had my way, this person's name should
be written up as excommunicate, at the church door up the
street. Would this be very dreadful ?
If, however, this same person were sick, or in sorrow, and
happened to hear of me as able to assist her, and asked me
to come and talk to her, I should go instantly — and eat
with her — or do anything that I could for her, without the
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 21
least fear of, or care for, compromising my own character,
and I would make my wife do the same.
In the same manner, I would not ask a pick-pocket to
dine with me : unless for some special purpose — but if the
pick-pocket were suffering or repentant, I would associate
with him to any extent.
Is there anything detestable in all this ?
Again — Lady Lincoln ran away from her husband last
year : she is received into all the best English society of Italy
together with her paramour. I don't think she is received
as a Magdalene, but as an agreeable person. I think this is
wrong : and would not receive her, until she parted from her
paramour, and declared herself penitent I don't think this
unmerciful or horrible. I do but desire that some sense of
the awfulness of presumptuous sin should be manifested
by the Church : and behold, you fly in my face like a wild
creature, and upset a whole scuttleful of ashes on my head
— as if I had said that sinners were of different flesh and
blood from the apparently righteous. I do not mean the
separation to be expressed as a "stand aside — for I am
holier," but as " I serve God — you do not. Do not therefore
wear my livery."
7. Answer to your /th Clause.
I have nothing to do with* the contents of the Epistles,
except as they bear on the question in hand : — and as to
the character of those to whom they were written, I suppose
the directions to be warrant for it : and that the writers
knew whom they intended to address.
I could give you a longer answer, but have not time.
8. Answer to your 8th Clause.
22 JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE.
Precisely because I believe conversion to be an act of
God, and not of our own, I make light of Baptism. For
Baptism I consider an act of man.
But this following page is the one which induced me to
answer your letter at all — you speak of the redemption " not
of us but of the whole world " in Christ. What do you —
what can you — mean by this ? It would be, I do not say the
happiest day of my life, but the beginning of another life
to me, if you could justify those words. I will not go
further — the rest of your letter touches on minor points ; but
pray answer me this — or if you like better to write to
Furnivall — and call me hard names to your better content
when not addressing me directly — do so though I should
not think it rude if you called me them to my face, any
more than I think an Alpine stream rude when I throw a
stone into it, and it splashes me. Only do not speak so as
to make Furnivall excommunicate me. This "being
defamed, we entreat." x
Mr. Maurice, having received Mr. Ruskin's rejoinder to
his first letter, followed it with a second, dated "April
, 1851."
MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,
Your gentleness and forgiveness are indeed a very
severe rebuke to my harsh rude language. I assure you
I feel them so, and wish to feel, as well as confess my
fault. I was betrayed into it partly by what you said
against courtesies, partly by the consciousness of a real
1 This extract from Mr. Ruskin's letter is reprinted from Dr. Furnivall's
private volume of 1890, pp. 17 — 22.
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MA URICE. 23
respect for you which made me not afraid to speak, and
partly by a certain pain that one from whom I had learned
so much, and who seemed so much formed to cultivate
all large and deep sympathies, should in this instance be
an apologist, as I thought, for narrowness and exclusive-
ness. I need scarcely add that after I had written my
criticisms I much preferred that you should see them
just as they were ; that I should never feel more at my
ease in writing to Furnivall about your opinions than to
yourself; and that I should much more fear your excom-
munication than dream of pronouncing one upon you.
One remark of yours which refers to myself I must
correct before I pass on to more important matters.
My objections to any limited view of God's love and of
human redemption do not arise from a " world-wide "
philosophy or theology. If they did, you might perhaps
have escaped the bitterness of my remarks. I feel an
intense personal interest in the subject, the same kind
of interest which the sternest Calvinist has in making
out his claim to be one of an elect few. My own con-
fidence rests upon my belonging to the elect many. I
can make out no case for myself except as being a man.
Experience of infinite faithlessness and loneliness has
driven me and drives me continually from every plea of
individual exemption or privilege. If the Love of God
failed in any case, I should believe that I had no standing
ground. And this, not because I pretend to accuse
myself of any special enormities past or present, but
because I have an abiding habitual conviction that the
internal evils which I find in myself (in myself apart
24 JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE.
from God I find nothing else,) are the roots of all the
external evils which I see in the world, and because I
cannot doubt for a moment that they are more hateful,
more directly at war with the divine nature, more directly
akin to the devilish nature, than the extortions, adulteries,
murders, which flow from them. The deeper one gets
down into the world of internal consciousness, the nearer,
surely, one gets to Hell ; — thanks be to God ! the nearer
also to Heaven.
I. My remark upon the word eKK\r)<ria is connected
in my own mind with some observations which I have
made upon the New Testament language generally.
I believe the controversy between Salmasius and his
opponents (I have never read either) respecting the
Greek of the Apostles might be settled by the decision
that they were rigidly etymological, and therefore not
classical ; that they broke loose from all the market
usages of words, and so arrived at that more latent
radical sense of them which was unperceived by writers
most studiously correct in the application of them. They
may therefore, primarily in virtue of their Pentecostal gift,
mediately in virtue of their Hebrew education, help us
to a knowledge of the Greek language which we could
not obtain without them, even from Sophocles or Plato.
Be that as it may — and I only throw out the hint for
your consideration — you must not forget how continually
St. Paul uses the words K\rjroi and e'/cXerot in manifest
connection with e'/e/cXrjo-ta, and with the clearest recog-
nition of them as cognate words. His business (as he
believed) was to teach the Gentiles that they were fellow
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 25
heirs and of the same body with the Jews. Could he
then, in becoming their doctor, forget his Jewish lore and
adapt himself to a notion which was purely and' tech-
nically Gentile ? I do not say that they could throw
this notion aside, or that it was desirable they should.
If they felt that their assembling together was the symbol
of a union as members of one body in Christ, it was
much better that they should see how their higher spiritual
wisdom interpreted what they had before, than that they
should merely substitute one for the other. I think you
will see presently how much this subject is connected
with all our differences.
2. I admit the justice of your criticism respecting
my phrase " isolated texts," No text is isolated ; the very
name should have taught me not to use such an adjective.
But I cannot hold with you that a continuous history is
less intelligible to poor and simple people than a par-
ticular sentence. Why do such people like biographies
so much better than philological disquisitions ? The
study of texts is exceedingly valuable ; but there is always
something scholastic in it ; the Bible read as a record
of God's way to man is surely in the truest sense a popular
book.
3. I am most anxious not to give up the words " visible "
and " invisible " as applicable to the Church, but on the
other hand not to assume that we understand their rela-
tion to it, and not to use them for the purpose of con-
trolling the language of Scripture which might help us
to apprehend that relation. I have not the least objection
to what you say respecting the invisibility of our mem-
26 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
bership with Christ or our membership with the Devil
or respecting the visibility of those acts which flow from
membership with Christ or membership with the Devil.
What I object to is, your speaking of a Visible Church
as consisting of one set of men, and an Invisible Church
as consisting of another set of men. I hold that all the
devilish thoughts or acts of you and me and every man
are indications that we have yielded to the devil, and
that all right acts of you and me and every man are in-
dications that Christ has been acting upon us and in us.
I do not understand any middle term between good
and evil, though I can perfectly understand the greatest
mixture of good and evil in the same act and the same
person. Still, good must come from an Invisible Will
which is perfectly and absolutely good ; and evil from
some invisible will which is in revolt against that abso-
lutely good Will. The doctrine which I called " Accursed,"
and which I said led to Pharisaism, is this, that certain
qualities or tempers of mind, certain experiences, a certain
amount of faith, entitle us to call ourselves members of
the Invisible Church and to treat other persons as, pre-
sumably at least, only members of the Visible ; whereas
I feel it the first duty of my life to tell every baptised
man that he forgets the Covenant of his God when he
does not claim his place in the Invisible Church, and that
the only possible right I have to assert my place in it, is
one which is his as well as mine.
You ask me what it is which is as true of every
pubfican and harlot as of the most holy man? In en-
deavouring to answer this question I come at once to
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 27
the point upon which you have begged information of
me, and which I feel indeed to be more important than
any other. I will base all I have to say about it — on
one text — not I believe an " isolated " one.
St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians i. 15, 16,
" When it pleased God, who had sanctified (separated) me
from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace,
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among
the Gentiles (heathen) ; immediately I conferred not with
flesh and blood:"
You will scarcely deny — (i) that this text refers to a
conversion — (2) that it refers to tJiat conversion which,
however different in its outward accidents from others, is,
in its inward essential characteristics, the type of all others
— (3) that this text explains, not its outward accidents,
but its inward essential characteristics. Let us look at
it then in that point of view. Let us assume that St.
Paul tells us here what his conversion meant, in what it
consisted.
He describes it as " God revealing or unveiling His
Son IN him." He had been an exclusive Jew, exulting
in his privileges, believing all heathens to be exiles and
outcasts from God. It is discovered to him, that in him
— Paul the Hebrew of the Hebrews, who as touching
the righteousness of the law was blameless — considered
merely as Paul, there was no good thing. But it is dis-
covered to him also by the same divine light, that Christ
is in him, that all the gentle and loving thoughts that
ever had been in him, all his desires of good, all his
abhorrence of evil, all his wish to fly from it, had pro-
28 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MA URICE.
cceded, not from himself, but from this unseen Lord,
this divine source of Life who was near him. Near him
when ? — then, at the moment of conversion ? No such
thing. Near him always. " It pleased God then to
reveal Him in me," to let me know that He was there,
and so to clear up all my past life ; to show me the in-
terpretation of all its discords and all its harmonies. But
why? "That I might preach Him among the Gentiles."
How should that help you to preach Him among the
Gentiles ? Precisely upon this ground I conceive, and
no other. He could say to every Gentile " I, the exclu-
sive Jew, have been shown that in me, that is in my flesh,
dwelleth no good thing. So it is with you. I the Jew
have been taught that the Son of God is in me. So
IS IT WITH YOU."
Does this sound very startling, very horrible to you ?
Are you going to borrow all my furious language and
tell me to sit in sackcloth and ashes for speaking so ?
Very good discipline for me I dare say ; but hear, before
you strike, another text — the Epistle to the Ephesians,
especially the 4th chapter of it. See if he does not
speak there (v. 1 8) of heathens " being alienated from the
life of God through the ignorance that is in them." See
if the whole passage does not imply that there was a
good, a light, near them to which they had been shutting
their eyes. See if he does not attribute this shutting of
the eyes to their being given over to lasciviousness (v. 19).
See therefore whether the opening of the eye in every
one thus given to lasciviousness (that is, in every publican
and harlot) must not import the discovery of that which
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 29
was as true of them as of every saint — namely, that
Christ was in them, and that if they turned to Him,
He would give them light to know Him.
The revelation or unveiling of Christ as the real ground
of Humanity, as the Son of Man and the Son of God,
in whom and for whom all things were created whether
things in Heaven or things on earth, in whom all things
consist, and in whom all things are to be gathered up,
who is the first-born of every creature, the first-begotten
from the dead, the Prince of all the kings of the earth —
this I hold to be the subject of Scripture ; this is what
I see evolving itself from the first book of it to the
last. The Gospel, as I understand it, is the good news
to man of this Revelation. It declares that the Son of
God has taken upon Him the nature of man ; that He
has proved Himself the deliverer of man from all the
plagues which affect his body or his spirit, that He has
perfectly redeemed and sanctified the soul and body of
man, suffering in them, dying in them, raising them
from the dead, ascending with them, even sitting with
them, at the right hand of God. It declares that the
Son of God has in His humanity perfectly manifested
His Father, that He is one with Him, that whatsoever
gentleness, grace, loving-kindness, sympathy, He showed
forth towards any man or towards the race of men, were
originally, essentially, in the Father of whose Person
He is the perfect and express image, whom no man can
know except in and through Him ; — that He gave up
His own will to His Father's, offering that full perfect
sacrifice with which alone a perfectly loving Being could
30 JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE.
be pleased or satisfied, thereby taking away the sin of
the world, the great sin of Self-will, the distrust of God
and disobedience to Him ; that upon the ground of this
Sacrifice all Humanity and Human Society is con-
stituted and regenerated, and that there can be no other
bond of fellowship among men but this one ; that the
Spirit of the Father and the Son, the Spirit in whom they
are and ever have been one, is given to men that they may
be one, that they may be a Society of redeemed creatures,
sacrificed, consecrated, to God, that Baptism into the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is the divine wit-
ness and assurance that this is the true condition and order
of the Universe ; that the whole baptised Church preaches
and testifies to the world of it, and declares that any
order but this is impossible and must come to nought ;
that each baptised man is called upon to believe that he
has a place in this order, and is a sign and preacher of
it ; that he is God's child in Christ, with His Spirit to
guide him, comfort him, reprove him, unite him to God,
unite him to his fellow-men.
I have stated my faith, not argued for it ; but still I
have expressed myself naturally, inevitably, in Scripture
language, for I know no other. And I would ask you to
try what I have said by as many " isolated " texts as ever
you like ; not smothering any which seem most at vari-
ance with my conclusion ; but yet now and then asking
yourself whether such as these " And not for ours only,
but for the sins of the whole world." " Who gave Him-
self a ransom for all to be testified in due time." " God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 31
that whosoever believeth in Him " (by no means suppress
this clause, but get what qualification you can] out of it)
"should not perish but have eternal (everlasting) life.''
Whether, I say, such as these do not perplex you in
their obvious literal sense — whether you have not been
obliged to resolve " world " into Jews and Gentiles, and
whether when you have done so, you have at all escaped
from the difficulty ; whether, in fact, the great " mystery,"
so he calls it (Ephes. iii. 4.), of St. Paul's mission to
the Gentiles was not, that he discovered a ground in
Christ upon which the circumcised and uncircumcised
could stand together because they were MEN.
4. And now you will see the ground, I do not say
the justification, of my ferocity about the publicans and
harlots. And you will see I think why I can most
heartily sympathise with all your rules of conduct about
your neighbours and Lady Lincoln, admiring especially
your distinctions respecting sickness and suffering, and
yet dissent altogether from your apparent interpretation
of our Lord's acts, and from the doctrine of excommuni-
cation which you attempted in your pamphlet to deduce
from them. I suspected that there was this essential
hearty humanity lurking under your exclusiveness, and
that made me stamp and swear the more fiercely at the
wolfs clothing in which you had thought fit to hide the
true fleece. I never said, or dreamed, that our Lord loved
publicans qua extortioners, or harlots qua unchaste
women ; I should have thought that, blasphemy. But
I said He loved publicans qua men, and harlots qua
women ; and that instead of excommunicating them,
32 JOHN R US KIN AND F. D. MAURICE.
He went straight to them, ate and drank with them,
claimed them as men and women. I cannot use your
language exactly and say that He waited till they were
penitents. He says the contrary Himself, " I am not
come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance " —
the repentance was not necessarily there, nor was it the
ground of His sympathy. He owried them as having
the nature he took, as being His brothers and sisters ;
and on that ground, and in that way, He awakened their
repentance. They did repent when they acknowledged
Him as their Lord and Brother. But when the maxim
and practise of the Pharisees and respectable Jews gener-
ally went to the direct excommunication of them as
excluded from God's covenant and mercy, is it not a
strange turning of things upside down to call those parts
of our Lord's conduct which most offended them [the
Pharisees], and outraged all their prejudices, an excom-
munication ? And if I am taught by the Gospels to
consider these acts as a direct assertion of communion
with men as men, and so, as an exhibition of Himself
in His character of the Son of Man and of the Son of
God also revealing the mind of His Father, may I not
storm a little when you seem to me wholly to pervert
and reverse the nature and object of them ? When I
have by clear and significant acts declared the Christian
Family to be a human and universal body, a society for
human beings as such, I have not the least objection to
post Mr. Hudson and Lady Lincoln on the Church-door
as persons who have renounced their humanity and set
up in the anti-human professions of Swindling and
JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE. 33
Harlotry. But I must have the basis of fellowship made
deep and broad before I can understand the rules upon
which it is fitting to decree separation or excision from
it. And I contend that the most useful excommunica-
tion or suspension will generally be in the case of people
with a high character and somewhat solid pretensions to
saintship. What would the act of Ambrose have been
worth if it had been directed against Constantius or
Valens ? It would have been merely taking advantage
of an opportunity to punish those whom he already
regarded as heretics. His power used against Theodosius,
the suppressor of Paganism and Arianism was sublimely
exercised.
And now for the texts — " What do ye more than
others ? Do not even the publicans the same ? " To be
sure. Publicans qua men farming the revenue and try-
ing to make the most of it, love those that love them ;
give feasts in hope of getting back feasts ; help those
who assist them in making gains by fair means or foul.
" But I say unto you, love your enemies " — love men,
human beings as such, publicans, pharisees, and all ; and
so let your righteousness exceed that of Pharisees as
well as publicans. "The publicans and harlots shall go
into the Kingdom of Heaven before you." If you can
make anything of that, you are welcome to it. But the
great stumbling-block is "Let him be unto thee as an
heathen man and a publican." And this occurs in the
Gospel of Matthew the publican ! Suppose he had taken
our Lord to say, " Deal with the sinful brother as I
deal with the class of publicans " — what must he have
VOL. II. D
34 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
thought ? " Why there can be no excommunication at
all! For he has called me a publican to the highest
office in His Kingdom " — of course he took him to
mean, " Exclude the guilty brother from your society
as the well-behaved Jews who are constantly denouncing
me for keeping company with publicans exclude them."
5. I quite understand that Baptism would seem to you
a human act, and Conversion a divine one. I have
therefore spent much of this letter in the endeavour to
show that Conversion according to St. Paul's appre-
hension and experience of it is the discovery to an in-
dividual of a truth belonging to him as one of a kind
or race, a truth involving the abnegation of his selfish,
exclusive, Adam nature. Baptism I hold to be the
fullest divine embodiment of that truth for each individual
taken into a Society, recognised as belonging to a kind.
It expresses the true state of every man ; that which
Christ has claimed for him, that which he disclaims for
himself when he becomes false and ungodly. Baptism
contains and explains the law of Conversion ; declaring
the Author, the Nature, and the Instrument of it.
I will only conclude with an expression of my hearty
and deep respect and regard, which your treatment of me
has made far more grateful and personal.
Very truly yours,
F. D. MAURICE.
P.S. If you should have any difficulty in making
out this M.S. I will gladly have it copied for you. I
preferred that it should go to you in my own hand-
writing, bad as it is.
JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE. 35
Mr. Ruskin's reply (in two parts, the earlier dated " Mat-
lock p, Easter Sunday? [1851] ) was as follows : —
" I cannot enough thank you for your kind letter. I
have not answered it hitherto, having been in a stranger's
house — my mind much taken up with other matters. I
wished to think over your letter carefully, that I might, if
possible, save you further labour in answering or refuting
me. But, interesting as your reply is, it is not a solution
of the question which troubles me ; there is much in it
which I hope to talk over with you some day, having no
time to write about it. The main points in which, as an
answer to my askings, it seems insufficient to me, I can
state quickly. I asked for a practical explanation of Christ's
meaning in the ' Let him be unto thee,' &c. It appears to
be connected with the Sermon on the Mount — it seems to
me as much a practical and simple order as any therein.
I ask you merely how I am to put it in practice ?
" You evade the question : you say, what must Matthew
the Publican have thought, who had been called to one of
the highest offices of the Church ?
" What Matthew's thoughts were is by no means to the
point. I want our Lord's meaning. Are you prepared to
substitute this which you say Matthew must have supposed
to have been his meaning in the text itself — and read it
thus ?
" ' If thy brother — &c. — go and tell him his fault, &c.
If he will not hear thee — &c. — [take two or three others].
And if he will not hear, then tell it unto the Church. But
if he will not hear the Church — call him to one of the
highest offices of the Church.'
D 2
36 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
" If you are not prepared to read the text thus, Matthew's
thoughts are not to the purpose ; and you have given no
interpretation of the text.
" Now that text should have an interpretation. At present
it lies dormant in the Bible — not a soul quotes it — thinks
of it — far less acts upon it. Everybody quotes ' Judge not
that ye be not Judged.' It is a pleasant text that, for most
people : — being a pious expression for — ' Let me alone, and
I'll let you' But the counter-text might as well not have
been written for any use we make of it.
" But the main point I would press you upon is your
inclusiveness. You ask me what I make of those texts,
' Gave Himself a ransom for all,' &c.
" Those texts are, it seems to me, as simple as they are
necessary.
"If you had bought a ship-load of slaves, and offered them
their freedom, I suppose you would do it in these terms —
' I have paid for you all; you are all free to come with me,
or stay where you are, as you choose.'
" How Christ could otherwise express Himself than thus, I
see not ; He has purchased us all. But why, for this
reason, you should put in the same category those who
accept this offer — who hold out their arms to Him to have
their fetters struck off and then wash His feet with tears —
and those who shrunk out of his way into the hold of the
ship, and with blasphemies and defiances declare they will
stay by their old owner — I see not either.
JOHN R US KIN AND F. D. MAURICE. 37
" DENMARK HILL, 2$th April [1851].
" I kept the letter by me for some days more — hoping to
be able to follow out your argument more closely. But it
now seems to me useless : for you miss the plain, simple,
and straightforward statements of Scripture to reason
abstractedly into far distance from such obscure ones as the
' to reveal his Son in me.'
" You, as a minister, are called upon to read some por-
tions of the Psalms every Sunday, and to wait for the con-
gregation's taking up every alternate verse. I always
supposed that the language of the Psalms was therefore
intended to be personally adopted by both minister and
people ; — but you cannot adopt five verses together, I sup-
pose, from one end of the book to the other, without call-
ing yourself a separate person in some way or other ; and
declaring, if not invoking, God's wrath against persons not
in such separate state. The distinction between the
righteous and wicked is the end, in express words, of
both the Old and New Testaments — it echoes in terrific
decision and inevitable plainness through every verse of
them both : as plainly as the voice of mercy which calls to
the one class to become as the other — and as surely as I
believe the Bible, I must believe it in a man's power to know
to which class he belongs — and often to know to which class
others belong also.
" And all this plain and positive Scriptural assertion you
calmly ignore — to pursue a speculative ratiocination on the
' Reveal his Son in Me.'
"In the same manner you pass over, utterly without ex-
38 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
planation, the plain texts on which I based my positions.
'With such an one not to eat' is thorough, short, un-
mistakable, English, and so are the other texts I alleged.
All I ask is practical instruction how to obey those texts.
I do not care to call the obedience excommunication, it is
an ugly word ; but I want to have the texts understood
and practised and you have not told me how you practise
them. The fact is, I always longed to meet with any one who
could explain in a merciful way the Scriptural language of
condemnation. I did conceive some hope from those very
texts you quote, that there might be some ray of hope for
all mankind, that, as you express it, one might be saved
4 only as a man.' Therefore I wrote in answer to your
first letter. But the thought I have been induced by this
correspondence to give to this special subject ends in a
more fixed conviction that, if indeed all men are to be
saved, the Bible is the falsest Book ever written by human
hand.
" I rose just now from my writing-table — feeling so
wonderstruck at the doctrine of your letter that I hardly
knew how to speak of it more. I went mechanically to my
Bible and it opened — where think you ? At the Twenty-
sixth Psalm.1
" But I will write no more — your most humble and tender
feeling cannot make you less useful — and God forbid I
should argue against it : and may He also give me
strength to make the choice betwixt this love and His
1 4. I have not dwelt with vain persons : neither will I have fellowship
with the deceitful.
5. I have hated the congregation of the wicked : and will not sit among
the ungodly, &c. , &c.
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 39
anger, which I believe offered to us all in the Strait
of Life."1
Finally Maurice closed the correspondence with the
following comparatively short letter, having made upon
Mr. Ruskin's mind an impression almost the reverse of that
which he had intended to convey.
\April 28tA [1851].
DEAR MR. RUSKIN,
I quite agree with you that we shall do each other
little good by carrying on a controversy in which, I, at
least, have utterly failed in making myself understood, nay,
have succeeded to admiration in making myself misunder-
stood. I did not intend to try my hand upon you. You
wrote a book which undermined, it seemed to me, the
Gospel which I am sent into the world to preach. Your
arguments were not as you strangely affirmed) uncon-
genial to the taste of the times, but specially in accord-
ance with it. The most popular party of the day, the one
that can and does trample upon all others has adopted
them as its own and forgiven you the offences of your
other books for the sake of your " Sheepfolds." I believed
that the thought and knowledge you had displayed in those
books would procure a respect for this to which the
thought and knowledge displayed in it, nowise entitled it.
Being therefore requested by a friend to tell him what I
felt about it, I did tell him plainly, as I may be obliged to
tell the public some day. It was merely by accident and
1 The above is also reprinted from Dr. Furnivall's private volume, pp. 23-26.
40 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
at your request that my subsequent letter was addressed to
you. I do not write now with the least dream or purpose
of conviction, but only of explanation.
I must have been most ingeniously awkward in my
attempts to express my opinion respecting the text " Let
him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican,"
seeing that I have conveyed an impression to your mind
as nearly as possible the reverse of that which I meant to
convey. I did not wish to evade the force of our Lord's
words in the least. I looked upon them as laying down a
rule for excommunication which was applicable to all times.
I took it for granted that they had that meaning and could
have no other. And therefore I said that your interpreta-
tion of the text must be wrong — our Lord must have
meant, when he said " Let the person who refuses to hear
the Church be treated as you treat heathen men and
publicans, not as / treat them," — for if He had said other-
wise He would have encouraged intercourse with them
instead of prohibiting it as he obviously designed to do. I
was not denouncing our Lord's doctrine of excommunica-
tion, I was denouncing yours. He says " If your brother
trespass against you, tell him his fault alone, then take
with you two or three men ; then if he neglect them, tell
it to the Church, then if he refuse the Church, give up all
intercourse with him." Beautiful and divine method ! for
which you and this age substitute the method of not
acknowledging men as brothers at all, of refusing inter-
course with them without telling them their fault or going
to the Church, on the assumption that they are publicans
and sinners and therefore have no part or lot in the matter.
JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE. 41
I own that in your treatment of my language I miss all
the carefulness I have admired in your observation of
nature ; perhaps it may have deserted you also in your
study of much higher and more sacred language.
But that is a trifle ; it is not a trifle whether you are right
or awfully wrong in your view about the words " Judge not."
There are no words in all Scripture which I believe strike
so directly at a sin to which this age is prone, to which you
and I are prone, as those. Let me speak plainly : they are
almost the last words I may speak to you. This you will
find out, as I have, some day. You will find that you are
deceiving yourself in thinking that that command and
those with which it is so closely associated about the mote
and the beam, are easy to observe. They are most diffi-
cult. I tremble at the way in which you speak of them.
No, Sir, — when I tell you as I do that you are in special
danger of trifling with this awful precept, delivered in such
a specially awful manner, and that I am in danger of it, I
do not strike a wretched bargain with you that you shall
overlook my sins and I will overlook yours. I mean that
you cannot give me the help I want from you in detecting
mine, because you are looking more after them than your
own. I mean that God wants you to see your evil ten-
dencies and me to see mine, and this in order that we
may effectually help each other, and that I prefer to de-
nounce your infirmities and you prefer to denounce mine.
I will not, however, submit to that stigma. Since you
force me to it, I will tell you that the tendency to judge
others seems to me a temptation peculiarly incident to any
unusual gift of the critical faculty. I believe that you
42 JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE.
possess that gift in a very remarkable degree. If you are
not on the watch against it, against the counterfeit which
always offers itself to those who have the reality — if you
persuade yourself that you have not need to avoid this evil,
but one of a quite different kind, you will discover and we
shall discover too late that the powers which God has
lent you for His service may be made instruments for the
Devil's service.
One word about my preferring a mystical passage in
St. Paul to plain passages bearing on our own life. The
subject upon which I wished especially to speak was that
of Conversion. I will tell you why. I have met, I am
meeting continually, with persons who I am sure have
experienced a most real change in their feelings and
characters. From being worldly men they have become
religious men. The maxim of their lives has been changed.
They cannot be persuaded (thank God !) that they have
been deluded, that they have not been subjects of a
divine operation. But having passed through that ex-
perience, they became satisfied. They never asked them-
selves " What was it that my conversion signified ? What
was the light which shone round about me ? What
was the darkness out of which I was brought?" They
were content to dwell on the fact of Conversion ; and
then it became necessary to protect this fact; and
to make out why and how they were different from
other men ; to fence the tables ; to find out signs and
tokens which certified that others were not partakers of
their benefits. I believe these processes of thought lead to
infinite tricks and impostures ; that the harsh judgment of
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 43
others is connected with a dangerously lenient judgment of
themselves. In time they find this out. The fences are
seen to be insecure. " We cannot make out that we are
really different from the world." What follows ? That
depends very much on circumstances. It maybe Rational-
ism ; it may be Romanism ; it is generally one or the
other or a halting between the two, a mixture of both with
certain elements of dogmatic Anglicanism or dogmatic
Evangelicalism which I believe is worse than either.
These are the perils of our time ! these are threatening not
the evil but the good ! not the unconverted but those who
felt, and rightly felt, that they had undergone a moral
change, though they are brought into sad doubt of the
fact because it has ceased to bring forth any real fruits.
Knowing these dangers not to be imaginary but most
real, I have found it most needful for myself, I hold
it most needful for every one, to ask himself, what is
involved in this Conversion, what there is in it besides
a mere influence on our consciousness, what the eye
is to see when it is opened ? For this purpose I went
to St. Paul. For this purpose, let me say it frankly,
you must go to him. I do not want you to find
my conclusions in him, but I do want you not to carry
your own with you and impart them to him. It is more
necessary that you should understand what is going on in
yourself — call it mystical, or what you please — than that
you should know how to deal with heathen men and
publicans : you will not deal honestly with them unless
you deal honestly with yourself.
I have only to add that I do read the Book of Psalms,
44 JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE.
as you say I must do, day by day ; that I find in it every
day fresh treasures ; that I love its denunciations and cries
against enemies more than any part of it ; that I should
throw my Bible into the fire, if it merely taught me about
the mercy of God, without teaching me about the perpetual
war which He is carrying on in the world and in you and
in me against everything that is unmerciful and unrighteous.
Very truly yours,
F. D. MAURICE.
The following letter addressed by Mr. Ruskin to Dr.
Furnivall on March ijth, 1851, may well be added here.
MY DEAR FURNIVALL,
Many thanks tor your notes on mine. To answer them
fully would take much more time than I have this morn-
ing : almost another pamphlet ; but to their main purport
I answer briefly.
(i.) I allow the Church (ii.) p. 2, to include tares, be-
cause with all the scrutiny that human eyes can give it, it
always must. (Remember St. Bruno's conversion.) But that
is no reason for not turning out people who are plainly not
of it : all who look like sheep will not be sheep, but at least
turn out all who do not wear sheep's clothing.
(2) and (3). The Epistles written to the invisible Church
therefore necessarily address with it multitudes not for the
time living up to their profession. This might be in ig-
norance— and all the passages you quote addressed to
persons living in crime presume this ignorance, and are the
rebuking of the fault previous to excommunication. Other-
JOHN RUSK IN AND F. D. MAURICE. 45
wise the Church is always used in my sense of it — as includ-
ing only persons living up to their profession.
(4.) You may see that I quote Thess. iii., 15, as the first
degree of excommunication, not the second.
(5.) I said in all Christian states, i.e., in Christendom.
If you let the dom be unchristian, it is Unchristiandom.
Whenever the State calls itself Christian, its government
should be pre-eminently Christian, therefore pre-eminently
part of the Church ; and the State or Whole people, is
either a majority Christian, or a majority Pagan. If the
majority and Government are Pagan, of course the state is
not the Church.
The rest of your note refers to the endless question of
authority of Scripture, into which it is vain to enter. I say
only this — If the Bible does not speak plain English enough
to define the articles of saving faith, burn it, and write
another — but don't talk of interpreting it. I will keep your
note to talk it over with you.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S. (| sheet).
I ended my note in some indignation, because really a
man of your intelligence ought to be above repeating the
stale, and a thousand times over stale, equivocation between
Authority and Belief. Is it possible you don't see the
difference between having authority to /renounce an un-
written Truth, and to announce your belief of a written
one ?
I lay my hand on the Bible, and say " I believe I read
this here." You sayj0# don't. I say: 'Then it seems to
46 JOHN RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE.
me you either lie or are judicially struck blind, and
I will have no company with you. The retort is of
course the same. Both parties call, and should call, each
other heretics, and God will see which is right at the last
day.1
The whole story of the SJieepfolds correspondence is thus
wound up by Dr. Furnivall : —
" After a while Ruskin cald on Maurice, and had a talk,
but their minds were cast in different moulds, and of course
they could not coincide. To the agnostic the whole affair
was much ado about nothing. But when, after the failure
of all our Co-operative Associations, we started the Work-
ing Men's College in 1854, I askt Ruskin to help us, he
agreed at once to organise the Art Classes, and with what
good results, let George Allen, William Ward, the friends
of the dead Bunney, and many another good worker, bear
witness. Ruskin also helpt us greatly at our start, for,
feeling that the working-men we wanted to reach, didn't
like parsons, and knew little or nothing of Maurice — who
had written nothing to ' fetch ' them — I got Ruskin to let
me reprint from the Stones of Venice his chapter ' On the
Nature of Gothic Architecture ' — ' and herein of the func-
tions of the workman in Art,' and we put a copy of this
sympathetic and noble writing on working men into the
hands of every one of the folk — some 600 — who attended
our opening meeting in Hullah's Hall at the corner of
Endell Street and Long Acre. Many of our men after-
wards told me how toucht they had been by Ruskin's
eloquent appreciation of their class."
1 This letter is reprinted from pp. 29-30 of Dr. Furnivall's private book.
CHARLOTTE BRONTE.
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST
ALEMBERT.
A FAIRY TALE.
THE
ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
A FAIRY TALE.
BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE.
READERS of Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, first
issued in 1857, and of Mr. Clement K. Shorter's recently
published Charlotte Bronte and tier Circle, cannot fail to
have followed with lively interest the account given by both
writers of the early literary endeavours made by each of
the Bronte children, and of the considerable quantity of
matter produced by them during the ten years commencing
with 1829, and ending only in 1839, when Charlotte left her
home to take up her duties as governess in the family at
Stonegappe.
Mrs. Gaskell, it is true, treats solely of the compositions
of 1829-30, and prints a list (from Charlotte's own "Cata-
logue ") of the latter's books completed up to August 3rd,
1830. Mr. Shorter proceeds much further. Having had
access to many manuscripts — some of them in his own
possession — of whose existence Mrs. Gaskell was unaware,.
VOL. II. E
50 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
and having, moreover, expended upon the papers an
amount of attention far in excess of the brief glance Mrs.
Gaskell bestowed upon them, he was enabled to extend his
list to the year 1839, and to include in it no fewer than
thirty-three titles as compared with the eighteen which
figure in Mrs. Gaskell's " Catalogue."
As Mrs. Gaskell makes mention of no manuscript of a
later date than 1830, it is highly probable that those cited
by Mr. Shorter as having been written subsequent to that
year were quite unknown to Charlotte Bronte's earlier
biographer. Upon checking Mrs. Gaskell's comments with
the actual holographs, her statements are found to be woe-
fully inexact, and one is led to opine that her acquaintance
with the manuscripts was a slight one ; that she contented
herself with turning over the papers in a rapid and cursory
fashion, and copying, as sufficient for her purpose, Charlotte's
little " Catalogue."
In one point Mrs. Gaskell fell into serious error. In the
closing paragraph upon page 86 of the first volume of her
Life, she remarks :
"As each volume contains from sixty to a hundred pages \
and tJie size of the page lithograpJied is rather less tJian tJte
average, tlie amount of the whole seems very great, if we
remember that it was all written in about fifteen mont/is."
No single one of these manuscripts extends even to sixty
pages — Mrs. Gaskell's minimum ; the bulk of them average
from twelve to sixteen pages each, only two or three having
an additional number of leaves.
One of the books which occurs both in Mr. Shorter's list
and in Mrs. Gaskell's " Catalogue " is a story entitled The
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 51
Adventures of Ernest Alembert. It is a fairy tale, produced
by Charlotte in the spring of 1830, and is thoroughly
characteristic of the style of workmanship to which she
had attained whilst yet in her fifteenth year. The story is
full of imagination of a wildly luxuriant — though some-
what extravagant — kind, and shows how very far the
creative faculty in the brain of the young authoress
leaped in advance of her power of literary expression.
Truly, the hardest task Charlotte Bronte set herself to
master whilst acquiring a knowledge of the technique of
her craft, must have been a rigid restraint in the use of
superlatives, and in the too free indulgence in those florid
descriptions which overflow the pages of these early
romances.
The manuscript of TJte Adventures of Ernest Alembert
is an octavo pamphlet of sixteen pages, measuring 7^ x 4^
inches. It is written in a free running hand, far more
readily deciphered than the minute characters employed in
the majority of these early books.1 Unlike most of these
it has no title-page, but in its stead a large portion of the
final page is occupied by an inscription, after the manner of
a colophon, of which a facsimile is given herewith.
In addition the manuscript is signed at the end, " C.
Bronte, May the 25, 1830."
The leaves are stitched in a wrapper of coarse brown
paper, with the following inscription in Charlotte's hand
upon the front : " TJte Adventures of Ernest Alembert. A
Tale by C. Bronte. May 25, 1830." Since the death of its
1 A first-rate example of Charlotte's microscopic handwriting — the first
page of The Secret — is given by Mrs. Gaskell.
E 2
52 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
writer the manuscript has been preserved by the Rev.
Arthur Bell Nicholls, Charlotte's husband, and it is his
courtesy, combined with the friendly intervention of Mr.
Clement Shorter, that has enabled the Editors to include
the story in the present work.
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CHARLOTTE BRONTES ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
FAC-SIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST
ALEMBERT.
CHAPTER I.
MANY years ago there lived in a certain country a youth
named Ernest Alembert. He came of an ancient and
noble race ; but one of his ancestors having been beheaded
in consequence of a suspicion of high treason, the family
since that time had gradually decayed, until at length the
only remaining branch of it was this young man of whom
I write.
His abode was a small cottage situated in the midst of
a little garden, and overshadowed by the majestic ruins of
his ancestral castle. The porch of his hut, adorned by the
twisting clematis and jessamine, fronted the rising sun, and
here in the cool summer mornings he would often sit and
watch its broad orb slowly appearing above the blue distant
mountains. The eminence on which his cottage was built
formed one side of a wide valley, watered by a stream
whose hoarse voice was softened into a gentle murmur
ere it reached the summit of the hill. The opposing rocks
which guarded the vale on the other side were covered by
.a wood of young ash and sycamore trees, whose branching
54 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
foliage, clothing them in a robe of living green, hid their
rugged aspect, save where some huge fragment, all grey
and moss-grown, jutted far over the valley, affording a
fine contrast to the leafy luxuriant branch which perhaps
rested on the projection, and imparting an appearance of
picturesque wildness and variety to the scene. The valley
itself was sprinkled with tall shady elms and poplars, that
sheltered the soft verdant turf ornamented by cowslips,
violets, daisies, golden cups, and a thousand other sweet
flowers, which shed abroad their perfumes when the morn-
ing and evening summer dews, or the rains of spring,
descend softly and silently on the earth. On the borders
of the stream a few weeping willows stood dipping their
long branches into the water, where their graceful forms
were clearly reflected. Through an opening in the vale
this noisy river was observed gradually expanding and
smoothing until at last it became a wide lake, in calm
weather a glassy unruffled mirror for all the clouds and
stars of heaven to behold themselves in as they sailed
through the spangled or dappled firmament. Beyond this
lake arose high hills, at noonday almost indistinguishable
from the blue sky, but at sunset glowing in the richest
purple, like a sapphire barrier to the dim horizon.
One evening in autumn as Ernest sat by his blazing fire,
and listened to the wind which roared past his dwelling,
shaking the little casement till the leaves of the wild vine
which curled around it fell rustling to the earth, he heard
suddenly the latchet of his door raised. A man clothed
in a dark mantle, with long hair, and a beard of raven
blackness, entered. At sight of this singular figure he
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 55
started up, and the stranger immediately accosted him as
follows :
" My name is Rufus Werner. I come from a great dis-
tance, and having been overtaken by darkness in the valley
I looked about for some roof where I might pass the night.
At length I espied a light streaming through this window.
I made the best of my way to it, and I now request shelter
from you."
Ernest, after gazing a moment at him, complied with his
demand. He closed the door, and they both seated them-
selves by the fire. They sat thus for some time without
interchanging a word, the stranger with his eyes intently
fixed on the ascending flame, apparently quite inattentive to
any other object ; and Ernest as intently viewing him, and
revolving in his mind who he might be — the cause of his
strange attire — his long beard — his unbroken taciturnity —
not unmixed with a feeling of awe allied to fear at the pre-
sence of a being of whose nature he was totally ignorant,
and who, for aught he knew, might be the harbinger of no
good to his humble dwelling. Dim, dreamlike reminis-
cences passed slowly across his mind concerning tales of
spirits who, in various shapes, had appeared to men shortly
before their deaths, as if to prepare them for the ghostly
society with which they would soon have to mingle.
At length, to relieve himself of these almost unsupport-
able thoughts, he ventured to accost his mysterious guest
by inquiring whence he came.
" From a rich and fruitful land," replied the stranger,
" where the trees bear without ceasing, the earth casts up
flowers which sparkle like jewels, the sun shines for ever,
56 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
and the moon and stars are not quenched even at noon-
day. Where the rocks lose themselves in the skies, and
the tops of the mountains are invisible by reason of the
firmament which rests upon them."
This answer, uttered in a hollow and hoarse voice, con-
vinced Ernest of the truth of his surmises ; but a charm
seemed to have been cast upon him which prevented him
from being overcome by terror, and he replied as follows :
"If what you say is true, I should like exceedingly to
follow you into your country instead of remaining here,
where I am often chilled by frost and icy winds, and
saddened by the absence of the cheering warmth of the
sun."
"If thou wilt go, thou mayst, " replied the stranger ;
and Ernest, under the influence of a secret fascination,
consented.
"To-morrow, by daybreak, we will set out," said his
guest ; and then, as the night was far advanced, they both
retired to their straw couches, after partaking of a simple
supper which Ernest had hastily provided.
CHAPTER II.
THE rising dawn found Ernest and his unknown guide
wending their way down the long valley. It was a chill,
gloomy October morning. The sky was obscured by grey
clouds, and the cold wind which whistled among the yellow
withered leaves of the wood that covered the rocks blew
occasionally some mizzling drops of rain into the faces of
the two travellers. The distant prospect of the lake and
mountains was hidden by a veil of mist, and when the sun
rose above them, his presence was only revealed by a whitish
light gleaming through the thin watery atmosphere. The
only sounds which fell on the ear were the howling of the
blast in the caverned sides of the valley, and the melancholy
murmuring of the stream as its waves beat against the
rugged stones which obstructed its passage.
They proceeded along in a straight course till they came
to the borders of the lake, where the guide stopped, saying,
" We must now cross this water." Ernest gazed at him a
moment, and then said :
" How can we ? we have no boat, and I lack the power to
swim for so long a time as it would require to cross this
lake."
58 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
No sooner had he uttered these words than a light gale
arose which ruffled and agitated the quiet surface of the
lake. Presently a tiny skiff appeared gliding over the
waves, and in a few minutes reached the bank whereon
they stood. The stranger quickly sprang into the bark,
and Ernest, though filled with terror at the conviction that
he was now in the hands of a supernatural being, felt him-
self compelled by a strong impulse to follow whither he was
led. No sooner were they seated than a large white sail
unfurled seemingly of its own accord, and in a few moments
they found themselves nearing the opposite shore, so lightly
and swiftly this fairy vessel had borne them over the lake.
No sooner had they touched the bank with their feet than
a huge billow like a mountain swept over the water. Im-
mediately the swelling waves subsided, the rising foam
vanished, and a great calm fell on the bosom of the lake.
At the same moment Ernest felt his fear pass away, and
it was succeeded by a feeling of courage against danger,
mingled with a certain curiosity to see what was to come.
After they had travelled a great distance they came to a
wide moor that stretched to the verge of the horizon. This
was perfectly level, save at one spot where tall black rocks
were seen raising their heads towards the sky. About
evening they reached these rocks, when they stopped and
sat down to rest themselves. The scene was now grand
and awful in the extreme. Around lay the dark desert
heath,' unenlivened by a single streak of verdure; its
beautiful pink flowers were withered, and their fragrance
had vanished. The mellow hum of the bee was no longer
heard about them, for he had gathered his honey and was
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 59
gone. Above rose the tremendous precipices whose vast
shadows blackened all that portion of the moor, and
deepened the frown upon the unpropitious face of nature.
At intervals from the summit of the rocks shrill screams,
uttered by some bird of prey which had built its nest upon
them, swept through the arch of heaven in which wild
clouds were careering to and fro as if torn by a horrible
tempest. The sun had long since sunk to rest, and the full
moon, like a broad shield dyed with blood, now ascended
the stormy sky. A mournful halo surrounded her, and
through that warning veil she looked from her place in the
firmament, her glorious light dimmed and obscured, till the
earth only knew by a faint ruddy tint that her white-robed
handmaiden beheld her. All the attendant train of stars
shone solemnly among the clouds, and by their abated
splendour acknowledged the presence of their peerless
queen.
After having viewed this scene some time the stranger rose,
and beckoned Ernest to follow him. This he did, until
they came to a particular part of the rocks where was seen
a profound cavern. This the stranger entered, and Ernest
felt himself impelled to enter too. The track seemed to
incline downwards, and as they went deeper and deeper
they soon lost sight of the upper world, and not a ray of
light appeared to illumine the thick darkness around them.
At length a faint grey dawn became visible, and at the
same instant a warm and gentle breeze stole past them
which softened the cold raw air of the cave. Anon they
began to behold branches of trees waving above them,
and saw that they trod upon a smooth and velvety turf. In
60 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
a short time, by the aid of the increasing light, they per-
ceived that they were in a deep gloomy forest, which, as they
advanced, gradually thinned into a pleasant shady wood,
becoming more beautiful as they passed on, until at last it
assumed the appearance of a delightful grove. From this
they soon emerged into an open and graceful country. A
wide plain was stretched before them, covered with the
most enchanting verdure. Graceful trees sprang out of
the earth bearing delicious fruits of a perfect transparency ;
others rose to a great height, casting down their branches
laden with white blossoms, and dark flourishing leaves.
Crystal fountains, that fell with a murmuring noise, were
seen glittering through bowers of roses and tall lilies. The
melody of a thousand birds was heard from groves of
myrtle and laurel which bordered a river whose waters
glided through the plain. Arching rocks of diamond and
amethyst, up which plants of immortal verdure crept,
sparkled in the light and lent variety to the lovely pro-
spect. The plain was bounded by hills, some of which rose
majestically to the heavens, covered with vines and pome-
granates, while others only gently swelled upon the sight,
and then sank into calm and peaceful valleys. Over all
this scene hung an atmosphere of crystal clearness. Not
one fleecy cloud sullied the radiant sky ; not one wreath of
mist floated over the brows of the distant mountains. The
whole land lay in stainless purity, arrayed in a robe of
spiritual and unearthly light.
When Ernest emerged from the wood, this view, bursting
at once upon his eyes, completely overpowered him. For
a long time he stood speechless, gazing intently upon it.
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 6r
His mind seemed to be elevated and enlarged by the
resplendency of the vision. All his senses were delighted ;
his hearing by the combination of sweet sounds which
poured upon it, his sight by the harmonious blending of every
colour and scene ; and his smell by the fragrant perfume
of each flower which bloomed in these everlasting fields.
At length, in ecstatic admiration, he hastened to thank his
conductor for bringing him thither, but when he turned the
stranger had gone. The forest through which he came had
vanished also, and in its stead was a vast ocean whose
extent seemed altogether boundless. Ernest, now more
than ever filled with astonishment,, remained for a while
alternating between fear and wonder ; then, rousing him-
self, he uttered the name of his guide aloud. But his voice
was only answered by a faint echo. After this he walked
a considerable distance into the country without meeting
with one visible being either human or supernatural. In a
few hours he had traversed the plain, and reached the
acclivities which bordered it, and then entered a wide
mountainous land totally different from that which he had
left. He wandered among the rocks heedless whither he
went until twilight fell, when he longed to return, but was
entirely unable to detect the way. No signs appeared of
the plain he had quitted, save that on the southern horizon
a beautiful light lingered long after sunset, and occasionally,
as the wind rose, faint melodious sounds were heard float-
ing fitfully by.
After a while, when the night had closed in, Ernest
came to the brow of a lofty precipice. Overcome with
fatigue he cast himself upon the ground and began to gaze
62 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
into the profound depth beneath him. As he lay a death-
like stillness fell upon the earth. No voice was heard in
that gloomy region, the air was untracked by any wing.
No footstep crushed the desolate sands. Echo whispered
not in the caverned rocks, and even the winds seemed to
have held their breath. At length he perceived in the
tremendous gulf a thick vapour slowly rising. It gradually
expanded, until the chasm was filled with a dense cloud
swaying to and fro as if moved by an invisible power.
Then he heard a dull hollow noise like water roaring in
subterraneous caves. By degrees the cloud rose and en-
larged, sweeping round, him till all things vanished from
his sight, and he found himself encircled by its curling
mist. Then he heard music, subdued and harmonious,
resembling the soft breathings of flutes and dulcimers.
This was suddenly broken by a flood of warlike melody
rolling from golden trumpets and great harps of silver,
which now suddenly gleamed upon him as the curtain of
clouds rent and the whole scene was revealed. A pavement
of sapphire sparkled, from which flashes of radiant purple
light proceeded, mingling with the glory of an emerald
dome that proudly arched a palace whose pillars were the
purest diamond. Vases of agate and porphyry sent up
wreaths of refined incense formed of the united fragrance
of a thousand flowers. Beings of immortal beauty and
splendour stood in shining ranks around a throne of ruby
guarded by golden lions, and sounds so sweet and enchant-
ing swelled on his ear, that Ernest, overwhelmed with the
too powerful magnificence, sank senseless on the bright
pavement. When he recovered from his swoon he found
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 63
himself no longer surrounded by the gorgeous splendour of
the fairy palace, but reposing in a wood whose branches
were just moved by a fresh moaning wind. The first sun-
beams penetrating the green umbrage lighted up the dew-
drops which glistened on tender blades of grass, or trembled
in the cups of the wild flowers which bordered a little
woodland well. When Ernest opened his eyes he beheld
standing close to him a man whom he presently recognised
to be his guide. He started up, and the stranger addressed
him as follows :
" I am a fairy. You have been, and still are, in the land
of fairies. Some wonders you have seen ; many more you
shall see if you choose to follow me still."
Ernest consented. The fairy immediately stepped into
the well, and he felt compelled to do the same. They
sank gradually downwards. By degrees the water changed
into mists and vapours ; the forms of clouds were dimly
seen floating around. These increased until at length they
were wholly enveloped in their folds. In a short time they
seemed to land, and Ernest felt his feet resting on a solid
substance. Suddenly the clouds were dissipated, and he
found himself in a lovely and enchanting island encircled
by a boundless expanse of water. The trees in the island
were beautiful ; rose laurels and flowering myrtles, creeping
pomegranates, clematis and vines, intermixed with majestic
cypresses and groves of young elms and poplars. The
fairy led him to a natural bower of lofty trees whose thick
branches mingling above formed a shady retreat from the
sun, which now glowed in meridian splendour. This bower
was on a green bank of the isle, embroidered with every
64 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
kind of sweet and refreshing flower. The sky was perfectly
free from clouds, but a milky haze softened the intense
brilliancy of its blue, and gave a more unbroken calmness
to the air. The lake lay in glassy smoothness. From its
depths arose a sound of subdued music, a breath of
harmony which just waved the blue water-lilies lying
among their dark green leaves upon its surface. While
Ernest reposed on the green turf and viewed this delightful
prospect, he saw a vision of beauty pass before him. First
he heard the melody of a horn, which seemed to come
from dim mountains that appeared to the east. It rose
again, nearer, and a majestic stag of radiant whiteness,
with branching and beaming golden horns, bounded
suddenly into sight, pursued by a train of fairies mounted
upon winged steeds, caparisoned so magnificently that rays
of light shot from them, and the whole air was illumined
with their glory. They flew across the lake swifter than
wind. The water rose sparkling and foaming about them,
agitated and roaring as if by a storm. When they had
disappeared Ernest turned towards the fairy, who still
continued with him, and expressed his admiration of the
beautiful scene which had just vanished. The fairy re-
plied that it was but a shadow compared with the things
infinitely more grand and magnificent which were still
reserved for him to behold. Ernest at these words replied
that he felt extremely impatient for the time to come
when he might see them. His conductor arose, and com-
manded Alembert to follow. This he did, and they pro-
ceeded to enter a dark and thick wood which grew on the
banks of the island. They journeyed here for several
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 65
miles, and at length emerged into an open glade of the
forest, where was a rock formed like a small temple, on
the summit of which, covered with grass and various kinds
of flowers, grew several young poplars and other trees.
This curious edifice the fairy entered alone. After re-
maining some time he reappeared, and approaching Ernest
bade him look up. Alembert instantly complied, and, as
he did so, beheld a chariot which shone as the clouds that
the sun glorifies at his setting, descending from the skies.
It was drawn by two swans, larger than the fabulous roc,
whose magnificent necks, arched like a rainbow, were sur-
rounded by a bright halo reflected from the intense radi-
ancy and whiteness of their plumage. Their expanded
wings lightened the earth under them, and, as they drew
nearer, their insufferable splendour so dazzled the senses
of Ernest that he sank in a state of utter exhaustion to
the ground.
His conductor then touched him with a small silver
wand, and immediately a strange stupor came over him,
which in a few minutes rendered him perfectly insensible.
When he awoke from this swoon he found himself in an
exceedingly wide and lofty apartment, whose vast walls
were formed of black marble. Its huge gloomy dome
was illumined by pale lamps that glimmered like stars
through a curtain of clouds. Only one window was
visible, and that, of an immense size, and arched like those
of an ancient Gothic cathedral, was veiled by ample black
drapery. In the midst arose a colossal statue, whose
lifted hands were clasped in strong supplication, and
whose upraised eyes and fixed features betokened excessive
VOL. II. F
66 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
anguish. It was rendered distinctly visible by the light
of the tapers which burned around. As Ernest gazed on
this mysterious room he felt a sensation of extreme awe,
such as he had never before experienced. He knew that
he was in a world of spirits. The scene before him
appeared like a dim dream. Nothing was clear, for a
visionary mist hovered over all things, that imparted a
sense of impenetrable obscurity to his mental as well as
his bodily eyesight.
After continuing a while in this state, amidst the most
profound silence, he heard the sweet soft tones of an
JEoYian Harp stealing through the tall pillared arches.
The subdued melody rose and filled the air with mournful
music as the wind began to moan around the dome. By
degrees these sounds sank to rest, and the deathly still-
ness returned with a more chilling and oppressive power.
It continued for a long period until its unbroken solemnity
became supernatural and insupportable. Ernest struck the
ground with his foot, but the blow produced no sound.
He strove to speak, but his voice gave forth no utterance.
At that instant a crashing peal of thunder burst. The
wild air roared round the mighty building which shook
and trembled to its centre. Then, as the wind arose,
the music swelled again, mingling its majestic floods of
sound with the thunder that now pealed unceasingly.
The unearthly tones that rolled along the blast exceeded
everything that any mortal had heard before, and Ernest
was nigh overwhelmed by the awe which their weird
majesty inspired.
Suddenly the fairy who had been his guide appeared,.
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 67
and approaching the window beckoned him to come
near. Ernest obeyed, and on looking out his eyes were
bewildered by the scene which presented itself to his view.
Nothing was visible beneath but billowy clouds, black as
midnight, rolling around a tower a thousand feet in height,
on whose terrible summit he stood. Long he gazed in-
tently on the wild vapours tossed to and fro like waves in a
storm. At times they lay in dense gloom and darkness,
then globes or flashes of fire illumined them with sudden light.
At length the thunder and the wind ceased, the clouds
slowly dispersed, and a growing brightness shone upon
them. Beyond the horizon, through the dismal piles of
mist fast passing away, a fair vision gleamed which filled
Alembert with wonder and delight. A beautiful city
appeared, whose lovely hues charmed the eye with their
mild attractive splendour. Its palaces, arches, pillars and
temples all smiled in their own gentle radiance, and a clear
wide stream (transformed by the distance into a silver
thread) which circled its crystal walls, was spanned by a
bright rainbow, through whose arch it flowed into a broad
expanse of green hills, woods, and valleys, enamelled by a
thousand flowers that sent up their united fragrance so high
that even the atmosphere around the summit of the lofty
tower was faintly perfumed by it.
" That city," said the guide, " is the abode of our Fairy
King, whose palace you may see rising above those long
groves near the southern gates."
Ernest looked in the direction indicated, but beheld only
a star of light, for the palace was formed of certain materials
too brilliant for any but the eyes of fairies to behold. He
F 2
68 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
continued some time at the window, until the prospect be-
neath, as twilight shed her dim influence over it, began to
fade. Slowly the stars looked forth one by one from the sky's
deepening azure, and the full moon as she ascended the East
gradually paled the bright orange-dye which glowed in the
Western heavens. The murmur of the aerial city died away.
Only at intervals was heard the voice of the giant Harp
breaking the stillness of eventide, and its wild mourn-
ful melody as it floated on the balmy breeze served but to
enhance the calm, sacred, and mysterious feeling of that
peaceful hour.
" We must now depart," said the fairy, turning suddenly
to Alembert, and at the same instant the latter found him-
self upon the very summit of the tower. His conductor
then, without warning, pushed him from the dizzy eminence
into the void beneath.
Ernest gave a loud shriek of terror, but his fear was in-
stantly dispelled by a delightful sensation which followed.
He seemed to sink gently and slowly downwards, borne on
a soft gale which now fanned his cheek, and guided by in-
visible beings who appeared to check the velocity of his
fall, and to moderate his descent into a quiet and easy
transition to the regions of the earth.
After a while he alighted in the fairy city, still attended
by his conductor. They proceeded along a magnificent
street, paved with the rarest gems, gorgeously sparkling in
the moonlight, until they arrived at a majestic palace of
lapis lazuli whose golden gates rolled back at their
approach, and admitted them to a wide hall floored with
the purest alabaster, richly carved and figured, and
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALE M BERT. 69
lighted by silver lamps perfumed with the most costly
odours.
Ernest was now grown weary, and the fairy led him into
another apartment more beautiful than the first. Here
was a splendid couch overhung by a canopy adorned with
emeralds, diamonds, sapphires and rubies, whose excessive
brilliancy illuminated all the room. On this couch
Alembert flung himself joyfully down to rest. In a few
moments a profound slumber closed his eyelids, and his
sleep continued undisturbed until break of day, when he
was awakened by the sweet singing of birds. He arose,
and on looking forth from his casement beheld an im-
mense garden filled with the sweetest flowers, and with
rare plants unknown among mortals. Long rows of lofty
trees, bearing fruits that sparkled like precious stones,
shaded green walks strewn with fallen blossoms. On their
fresh verdant branches sat innumerable birds, clothed in
rich and resplendent plumage, who filled the air with
delightful and harmonious warbling.
Ernest was astonished at beholding no appearance of the
city, but continued for some time listening to the enchant-
ing music of the birds, enjoying the fragrant perfume of the
blossoms, and the dark grandeur of the majestic trees that
surrounded him. This contemplation was at length in-
terrupted by his conductor, who now appeared in the
apartment. Without speaking, his guide led him from the
chamber, and when they reached the open air bade him
by a sign to look around. Ernest obeyed, and in place
of the palace he saw a high bower formed of trees whose
flowers were more lovely than the finest roses, and sweeter
70 TffE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
than lilies or camellias. The prospect then suddenly
changed, and a deep glen, embosomed in hills whose sides
were wooded, and rock-strewn, took the place of the gar-
den. A deep clear-watered river flowed past them. Into this
the fairy plunged, and Ernest, forced by an over-mastering
spell, followed him. For a long time they sank slowly down,
and nought was visible save the waters that swallowed them.
At length, leagues beneath, a new realm dawned upon
Ernest's astonished sight. Their speed now accelerated,
and soon they arrived at the abode of a Fairy King. The
palace was brilliant as a liquid diamond. A great fountain
rushing upwards from the earth parted into a thousand
arches and pillars, through whose transparent surfaces
appeared a quantity of emeralds, rubies, and other gems
which the fountain continually cast up. The palace roof
was formed of the frozen spray that proceeded like a
vapour from the living arches ever in motion. This, con-
gealed into round lucid drops, assumed the appearance of a
lofty dome, from which descended other pillars of a larger
size that seemed to support it. Over the summit of the
dome was suspended in the air a sun of insufferable bright-
ness, and from within gleamed a hundred stars sparkling
with supernatural splendour.
By reason of the translucent nature of the edifice the
interior was perfectly visible, and Ernest saw the fairy king
seated on a glittering and revolving throne. He was
surrounded by attendants, one of whom held a diamond
cup filled with the honey-dew of wild flowers. Others
played sweetly upon silver harps and lutes, or sang in more
melodious tones than the nightingale .or skylark.
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 71
It would be impossible to relate all the marvellous
adventures that befel Alembert whilst he abode in the
land of Faery. He saw their midnight revels in many
a wild glen, and witnessed how they feasted in the green
wood beneath the solemn moon. He viewed their
pleasures and their pageants, and learned the spells by
which they drew the lonely traveller into their enchanted
circlet. Often he watched their sports by the " beached
margin of the sea," and saw the rolling billows rest calmly
under the magic influence of their muttered incantations.
He heard and felt the sweet witchery of their songs
chanted at unearthly banquets, and when the sound swelled
until it reached the starlit sky, the revolving worlds
arrested their mighty courses and stood still in the
charmed heavens to attend. But this life in time grew
wearying and insupportable. He longed once more to
dwell among human kind, to hear again the language of
mortals, and to tread upon the old green grass-covered
turf, under the shade of the earthly trees he loved so well.
At length the fairies perceived that the yearning to return
was filling the bosom of Alembert, and that his heart was
straining with the desire for home. This desire they
appreciated, for they knew well that no mortal born of
mortals could for long endure the light and fleeting glories
of the land of Fays. Thus it was that they determined to
relinquish him, and to bestow upon him the crown of his
hopes. The following tells the manner in which they gave
fulfilment to his wish.
CHAPTER III.
IT was a fair and mild evening in the decline of summer,,
when all the elfin courts assembled within a dell, one of
those privileged spots which the pinching frosts and snows
of winter are unable to deprive of their everlasting green
array. The soft velvet turf served them for seats, and the
profusion of sweet flowers with which it was embroidered
shed around a refreshing perfume. The lily canopy was
raised, and the glittering table was covered with crystal
goblets brimming with nectarous dew. The song of a lark
now hymning his vespers in the cloud-wrapped dome was
all their music, and as its tones fell on the silent earth they
diffused a holy calm on all. Before the festival began
a fairy rose and advanced towards Alembert, who reposed
on the ground a little apart. Approaching him, he pre-
sented him with a goblet, and bade him drink the contents.
Ernest obeyed, and scarcely had he done so when a strange
stupor seized him, which slowly overpowered all his senses.
In a short time he sank into a profound slumber.
When he recovered from his stupor he found himself
at the entrance to a wide green vale, bounded by high
hills, whose sides were clothed with pleasant woods, which
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 73
descended to their feet, and here and there advanced a
considerable way into the valley. At intervals enor-
mous rocks were scattered, whose rugged and moss-grown
forms added a touch of romance to the delightful scene.
Nor were there wanting pleasant groves, whose cool green
shades offered welcome shelter to the toiling and travel-
wearied pilgrim. It was sunset, and not one purple cloud
was visible in all the radiant sky. The west swam in an
ocean of golden light that bathed the heavens in glory,
and poured its reflected splendour over half the world.
Eastward a long line of sober red appeared, gradually
growing softer and paler towards the point of sunrise.
Above all was a clear bright silvery blue, deepening at the
zenith, and faintly tinged with grey as it receded from the
gorgeous west. Beneath this sky the earth glowed with
tints whose warmth and mellow richness could not have
been surpassed by the loveliest scenes in Italy. Hills,
rocks, and trees shone invested in a lustrous halo of
beauty. The vale flowed with light, and a hundred flowers
stirred among their leaves as the sun shed its last beams
over them. Long Ernest lingered, gazing entranced upon
the sight. He knew that this was no delusive vision, and
that no mystery hung upon its spell. As he stood a
sound stole past him like the music of a harp. He
trembled, fearing he was still held in the power of super-
natural beings. The sound swelled, and gathering in
volume, swept solemnly down the wild glen, awakening
low sweet echoes among the frowning rocks which specked
the lovely woods in which it was embosomed.
Soon, however, Ernest's fear was dissipated, for he heard
74 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
the music accompanied by a human voice. He moved
forward a step or two, and then bent eagerly towards the
spot whence the tones issued, striving to catch the burthen
of the uttered tones. This at length he did, and this is the
song that fell upon his ears : —
" Proudly the stin has sunk to rest
Behind yon dim and distant hill ;
The busy noise of day has ceased,
A Jwly calm the air doth fill.
That softening haze ivhich veils the light
Of sunset in the gorgeous sky,
Is dusk, grey harbinger of night,
Now gliding onward silently.
No sound rings through this solemn vale
Save murmurs of those tall dark trees,
Who raise eternally their wail
Bending beneath tJie twilight breeze.
And my Jiarp peals tJie woods among
Wlten vesper lifts its quiet eye,
Co-mingling with each night-bird's song
That chants its vigils pensively.
And here I sit, until nighfs noon
Hath gemmed the Jieavens with many a star,
And sing beneath tJte wandering moon
Who comes, high journeying, from afar.
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CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
FAC-SIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE ORIGINAL . MANUSCRIPT.
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 75
Oh ! sweet to me is that still hour,
When frown the shades of nig} it aroimd,
Deepening the gloom of forest bower ;
Filling the air with awe profound.
I hush my harp, and hush my song,
Low kneeling 'neath the lofty sky,
I hark the nightingale prolong
Her strain of ivond'rous melody.
Forth gushing like a mountain rill,
So rich, so deep, so dear and free ;
SJie pours it forth o'er dale and hill,
O'er rock and river, lake and tree.
Till morn comes, and with rosy hand,
Unbars tJte golden gates of day ;
TJien, as at touch of magic wand,
TJie earth is clad in fair array.
Tlien from its couch tJie skylark springs ;
The trembling drops of glittering dew
Are scattered, as with vigorous wings
It mounts t/ie glorious arch of blue"
Before the strain ceased the hues of sunset had begun to
fade away, yet sufficient light remained for Ernest to
perceive a man of an ancient and venerable aspect seated
at the mouth of a deep cavern, under the shade of an
immense oak, whose massive limbs and dense foliage stood
in dark relief against the sky. Every leaf and twig was
76 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
dimly pencilled on the silvery blue, the outline of the trunk
and larger branches alone being clearly visible. The
stranger was clad in a long white robe and dark mantle
which partly enveloped his person, and then, falling down-
wards, swept the ground in picturesque and magnificent
folds. His robe was confined by a black girdle, down to
which his snowy beard flowed in profusion, and formed a
fine contrast to his mantle and belt. His right hand rested
upon a harp, whose chords he now and then swept with
his left, causing a few sweet transitory notes to issue there-
from, which rose and swelled in an uncertain cadence and
then died away in the distance. As Ernest approached
the harper raised his head, and demanded his name. When
Alembert had answered this question to the old man's
satisfaction, he requested permission to seat himself beside
him for a few moments that he might rest. The old man
instantly complied, and after a short pause asked him
whence he came, and whither he went, and the reason
of his being in so unfrequented and lonely a spot at such
an unaccustomed hour. Ernest in reply related the whole
of his adventures, and by the time he had completed their
recital night had closed in, and the moon had risen. His
host now arose and invited him to lodge for that night
within his cave. Alembert gladly consented, and together
they proceeded to enter. When they were seated at their
frugal supper of fruits and herbs Ernest in his turn begged
the old man to recount the circumstances of his own life.
To this request he gave a ready assent, and proceeded
to unfold the following story :
"You have told me that your latter years have been
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 77
spent among fairies. I likewise abode for a time with
supernatural beings, but theirs was a less gentle nature
than those whom you have described. When yet very
young I became embued with the spirit of adventure, and
determined to go out and seek my fortune in the world.
The quarter of the globe which I fixed upon as the first
scene of my wanderings was Asia, and accordingly I
embarked myself on board a ship bound for Odessa. In a
few days we set sail, and after a prosperous voyage arrived
at that part of the Russian dominions. From thence I
proceeded to Icherkash, where I halted a few days, and
then went on to Good-Gard — a mountain in the Caucasus.
Here I decided to venture upon crossing that stupendous
range alone. Upon communicating my intentions to some
of the natives, they solemnly warned me against such
an enterprise, assuring me that many powerful Genii held
their courts among the snows of Elborus and Kasibeck.
These words I disregarded, and as soon as extreme fatigue
would permit me I began to ascend the Good-Gard road.
With great difficulty I proceeded along this road for
several days, until I reached the towering Elborus. During
the whole of my journey this mountain had been partly
hidden from me by the minor hills that surrounded it, but
upon emerging from a gorge in the last of these a full
view of its tremendous magnitude burst upon my sight.
It was a fair and sunny afternoon in autumn when I first
beheld the sublime vision. The mountain was separated
from me only by a lovely green valley, through which
a branch of the Aragua wound its silent course. Never
shall I forget that inspiring scene. The mountain towered
78 THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT.
before me, the grandeur of its radiant summit majestically
cleaving the skies ; its yawning abysses, and clefts
sufficiently wide to engulf a city ; and its immovable
aspect firm as if its base were fixed beyond the seas. As
I gazed suddenly the mountain trembled, the top rent
asunder, and a huge, grim spirit rose from the horrible
chasm thus produced. He raised his hand to heaven, and
uttered a cry which shook all Georgia. At this mystic
appearance I sank to the ground insensible. When I
recovered from my swoon I found myself in a vast cave,
illuminated only by an opening at the top, through which
one ray of light streamed in. On looking round I perceived
an iron door fitted in the side of the cave. This, with
much difficulty, I opened, and found beyond a narrow
passage tending downwards. I entered, and continued for
several hours to follow whither it led. At length I heard
in the distance a dull noise like the roaring of the sea, and
after a while found myself borne upon the bosom of a
rushing wave. I was hurried through the waters without
fear or injury, whilst strange and ghastly scenes saluted
my wondering eyes. Anon I was walking at the bottom
of the ocean. A thousand huge monsters lay there, glaring
with fixed and solemn eyes through the tenebrous gloom.
I saw the kraken with its hundred arms, the great whale,
the sea bear, and others unknown to dwellers upon the
earth. Voiceless they glided through the regions of eternal
silence, and the black billows broke far above them in the
midst of loneliness and solitude. Unutterable were the
feelings with which I viewed the foundation of the ever-
lasting hills, and beheld the trackless pathways of the
THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT. 79
unfathomed sea. Lustrous gems glittered on every side,
groves of coral begirt each rock, myriads of pearls gleamed
constantly around, and the loveliest shells shone below
me, to be crushed at each movement of my feet. Slowly
I advanced until I espied a cavern, which opened before
me. This I entered. Instantly a wave rose behind me
and swept me swiftly down an abyss which led beneath
the arches , of a magnificent palace, larger and grander
than any that can be boasted of in the lands which rise
above the ocean's surface. There I saw, coiled in his own
vast halls, that mystic snake known among ancient Scalds
by the name of Jormandugar. He it is who holds the
earth girdled by his toils. For many days I sojourned
here, and beheld sights of which no mortal tongue can tell.
After a season I returned to the cave in Elbor, whence
I was taken by the spirit who had brought me thither.
Since then I have wandered in many regions of the earth,
mingled with the peoples of many lands, and seen the
myriad wonders of the world. At length, compelled by
age, I have retired to this valley, where I have now dwelt
in happiness and peace for twenty years."
Here the old man ended his recital. Ernest thanked
him for his narrative, adding that he likewise longed to
spend the remainder of his days in that same lovely glen.
The old man approved of his design, and for many years
they two dwelt together in perfect harmony, tranquillity,
and peace.
&
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS
A BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
VOL. II.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS :
A BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
IN that choice little collection of Epigrams of Art, Life,
and Nature, with which Mr. William Watson began his
career some twelve years since, there is the following
quatrain " Written in a volume of Christina G. Rossetti's
Poems : "
Songstress, in all times ended and begun,
Thy billowy-bosom! d fellows are not three.
Of those sweet peers, the grass is green der one ;
And blue above the other is the sea.
That is to say, in plain prose, the three great women-poets
of the world are Sappho, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and
Christina Rossetti. Well, there is no need to dispute the
position or to discuss which of the three " billowy-bosom'd
fellows " is the greatest. Our concern for the moment is
with her over whom the greenness of the Tuscan grass
G 2
84 ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING
is but typical of that greener memory which must be hers
as long as English is spoken.
It is unfortunate that there is no authoritative biography
of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and curious that so little
is generally known of the bibliography of her works. This is
partly due to her delicate reticence and that of her husband,
both of whom, for the rest, were too profoundly occupied
with the higher things of the poetic craft to have much
attention to spare for those matters of biographical and
bibliographical detail which so delight the present age. Even
the date of her birth has been a topic of doubt ; and the
three rarest of her books were long practically unknown to
those who might have been expected to know most about
them.
The Battle of Marathon, the Sonnets from the Portuguese
as printed at Reading under the plain title "Sonnets by
E. B. B.," and The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point as
separately issued for private distribution after its appear-
ance at Boston in The Liberty Bell, are three of the aves
rarissimcB of the book-collector.
Of the first the title-page runs thus : —
The I Battle of Marathon. / A Poem. /
" Behold
What care employs me now, my vows I pay
To the sweet Muses, teachers of my youth ! "
AKENSIDE.
" Ancient of days ! August Athena ! Where !
Where are thy men of might, thy grand in soul ?
Gone — glimmering through the dream of things that were.
First in the race that led to glory's goal,
They won, and passed away."
BYRON.
BATTLE OF MARATHON.
A POEM.
Mrs. Browning's 7Xc ^a«/« of Marathon.
From a copy of the excessively rare original in the Library of Mr. Thos. J. Wise.
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 85
By E. B. Barrett. / London : / printed for W. Lindsell,
87, Wimpole-street, Cavendish-square. / 1820.
The known copies of this book are four in number, which,
considering that the little poet was but some thirteen years
of age when her father had fifty copies printed for domestic
use,is not abad sprinkling of survivors — although, as we have
no record of any endeavour to gather in and destroy the
issue, as we have in the case of Pauline, any enthusiastic
collector who lives in hopes of finding a copy may hope
on without laying himself open to the charge of lunacy.
Whether, beyond those who had to read the book "in the
way of business," when a private reissue was printed in
1891, any living person has gone through the eleven pages
of preface and seventy-two of text, it is reasonable to doubt
in the absence of explicit information. Nevertheless, from
the dedication " to the Father, whose never failing kindness,
whose unwearied affection I never can repay," to the last of
the Pope's-Homeric couplets of which the four books are
composed, the work is astonishing enough for that of a
young girl ; and when we consider that it is doubtful
whether the poet was child or young girl at the time,
and that the versification and imagery are quite com-
petently done, the chief wonder that strikes us is that she
should have gone steadily on to the attainment of real
poetic creation.
It was not in her second book that she attained to that
glory of fellowship with Sappho, nor even in her third. The
second, so far as the leading poem, An Essay on Mind, is
concerned, is a piece of mechanical cleverness, reminiscent
of Pope again in point of workmanship, but of course with
86 ELIZABE TH BARRE TT BRO WNING
none of the epigrammatic wisdom, knowledge, and dexterity
which mark Pope out for imitation quite apart from the
perfection of his style. This book, though uncommon, has
long been well known and described. It is merely necessary
to note the title in passing, and that chiefly for the sake of
observing that six years had brought sufficient shyness and
diffidence to induce anonymous publication :—
An I Essay on Mind, / with / other Poems. / " Brama
assai, poco spera, e nulla chiede." / Tasso. / London : / James
Duncan, Paternoster-Row. / MDCCCXXVL
The shy fit continued over the issue of the third book,
also well known and described, but much rarer than the
second. This further anonymous venture was : —
Prometheus Bound. \ Translated from the Greek / of /
^Eschylus. I And Miscellaneous Poems, / by the Translator, /
Author of An " Essay on Mind? with other poems. / To
e&> /ca\\to-T09 — / MlMNERMUS. / 'ILyyv0€v
aeitrfiai / THEOGNIS. / — / London : / Printed and Published
by A.J. Valpy, M.A. / Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. / 1833.
Here again there was good cause for diffidence and
hesitancy in facing the public openly. For the translation
from ^Eschylus was not remarkable, and the miscellaneous
poems, while marking a considerable advance on those which
accompany An Essay on Mind, are not of that authentic
and indisputable quality which would have justified the
world in saying, " Here is a fresh claimant to the bays — a
true child of Apollo — name ! " Five years later, when The
Seraphim and other Poems came out, that acclamation must
have greeted a persistence in namelessness ; but the poet
saved the world the trouble of finding her out by avowing,
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 87
not only her authorship of this crown octavo volume
containing over 350 pages of authentic poetry, but also
her responsibility for " A Translation of the ' Prometheus
Bound.' " This fact is of more than bibliographical interest,
because it seems to leave no doubt that, up to the year 1838,
when she was 32 years old, Elizabeth Barrett Barrett had
seen no reason to recoil from the remarks she had passed
upon the worthy Potter's translations from ^Eschylus — had
felt no terror lest she herself had viewed the mighty Greek's
work through a medium not much more favourable than the
green spectacles awarded to him in her preface of 1833.
How soon " wrath gat hold upon her soul " for the sake
of TEschylus and what he had suffered at her hands, as well
as Potter's, bibliography does not reveal. Certainly we hear
no more of the translation in her collection of 1844 ; and
between the issue of that very treasurable book of 1838,
The Seraphim — treasurable none the less for its want of
rarity — and the still more treasurable Poems of 1844, she
had probably repented in sackcloth and ashes of the scant
justice done to ^Eschylus in her early womanhood. At all
events silence reigns on the subject by the end of 1844:
the collection of that year is thus described in its title-
pages :—
Poems. I By / Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, / Aiithor of" T/ie
Seraphim" etc. / " De patrie, etde Dieu, des poetes, de Fame /
Qui s'tfeve en priant." — VICTOR HUGO. / In Two Volumes /
Vol. I. [77.] / London : j Edward Moxon, Dover-street. /
MDCCCXLIV.
Here nothing was said of the Translation from ^Eschylus,
either in the title-page or in the Dedication to her father, or
88 ELIZA BE TH BA RRE TT BRO WNING
in the preface. She simply gathered together all she had
written since The Seraphim and other Poems, whether still
in manuscript or already issued in Finderis Tableaux^ her
friend Mary Russell Mitford, or in The Amaranth, Black-
wood's Magazine, The Athenaum, or elsewhere, and based
her appeal to the public on these three volumes, the most
considerable piece in which is A Drama of Exile, placed
at the opening of the 1844 collection. The three previous
volumes, and some fugitive writings to boot, were dropped
" for good and all " ; and the attempt to " extricate "
PrometJteus " from the machinery of the press" had probably
begun. It was not till 1850 that she told the world she
had succeeded in doing so, and had made a fresh translation ;
and the fact that she had this reason to congratulate herself
on her success in suppressing an early work suffices to
account for the rarity already mentioned as the most
notable thing about the book of 1833.
It is not necessary to describe further the two volumes
issued by Moxon in 1844, especially as there are things
of greater moment, bibliographically speaking, and of
higher quality critically speaking, than anything in that
charming and genuine " assemblage of poems." Of all that
Mrs. Browning left us there is nothing which has a stronger
or more abiding fascination than that series of sonnets ad-
dressed to Robert Browning, for the most part, at all events,
before she was married to him. It was not until some
years after their composition that these priceless sonnets
were exposed to the public gaze. Certainly forty-three out
of the forty- four were written by some time in .1847 > but it
was not until 1850, just j after Messrs.^ Chapman and Hall
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 89
had moved from 186 Strand to 193 Piccadilly, that the
two stout foolscap 8vo. volumes of Poems by Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, the first edition issued under her
married name and including these sonnets, appeared in a
form almost identical with that of the first collected edition
of Browning's works issued the year before from the Strand
House. Both poet and poetess had been publishing
through Moxon : the two volumes of Poems by Elizabeth
Barrett, with the allusion to Bells and Pomegranates in
Lady Geraldines Courtship, had appeared, as we have just
seen, with the Dover Street imprint in 1 844 ; and the
eighth and last number of the Bells and Pomegranates had
come out with the same imprint in 1846. The migration
to Chapman and Hall thus acquires much of the appear-
ance of a marriage ceremony in literature. The two
volumes of Browning and the two of Mrs. Browning are
not only uniform in size, print, and style of get-up, but the
same tools were used for the " blind " borders at the top
and bottom of the backs, and the oval arabesque design
stamped "blind" on the sides. It is not only as the first
edition bearing Mrs. Browning's married name that collec-
tors have prized the two volumes of 1850, — not only
as containing the first public issue of the Sonnets from
the Portuguese; for they also contain the first issue of
the second translation of the Prometheus Bound of
^Eschylus. The Prometheus of this collection is not in any
sense a reissue of the PrometJieus of 1833 : that work,
curiously immature in execution, was so carefully sup-
pressed by the translator when she became fully alive to
its shortcomings, that it is now, as we have seen, one of the
90 ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING
rarest of her books. She did not revise it, but made a
wholly new rendering with a different vocabulary and
scheme of versification, — a masterly performance for the
sake of which the two volumes of 1850 will always be dear
to the first-edition-lover, though their bulk is made up of
revised reissues. So far as the Sonnets from tJie Portuguese
are concerned, it is but the name and one of the Sonnets
which appear with no earlier imprint than that of 1850:
that one does not appear under the name among the rest,
or indeed in the same volume ; and those who have
"collected" the volumes merely as containing the first
issue of these Sonnets have come under the necessity
of reconsidering their case since the discovery of the
separate private print of 1847.
This thin foolscap octavo volume is certainly for the
intrinsic beauty of its poetry, the pleasantness of its form,
and the extreme rarity of its occurrence, combined, the
most treasurable of all possessions for the collector of
printed books by the author of Aurora Leigh. It is nearly
as rare as the precocious volume of her childhood, The
Battle of Marathon, and therefore rarer than the separate
print of TJie Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point, a poem
which, though written in her maturity and full of beauty
and the " enthusiasm of humanity," has not the calm, in-
tense depths of personal feeling or the dignity of form
which the love-sonnets have.
The private print of these Sonnets is dated between the
Moxon period of publication and the Chapman and Hall
period, and the typography differs notably from that of
Bradbury and Evans, who printed the poetess's works for
SONNETS.
The "Reading" edition of Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese.
From a copy of the rare original in the Library' of Mr. Clement K. Shorter.
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 91
both houses. The fact that it bears a Reading imprint
does not necessarily imply production in Reading, as there
is no printer's name, and a Reading stationer, as well as
any other, might have employed a London house ; but
there is something of an indefinable provincial look about
the thing, though certainly no reason why the printer need
have been ashamed of his handiwork. The book consists
of three sheets, forty-eight pages in all, of which two are
occupied by the fly-title and title and three are blank.
The fly-title is simply " Sonnets," with a blank verso. The
title is nearly as simple : —
Sonnets. / By / E. B. B. / Reading : / [not for publica-
tion.} I 1847.
The Sonnets themselves, one on a page, occupy pages 5
to 47 ; they are printed without indentation to show up the
rhyme-system, are numbered in Roman figures, and have
no titles. The word " Sonnets " above No. I. on page 5 is
rather large, as if meant for a " dropped head " : it is not
" dropped," for there was no room for such a luxury ; but
the page is distinguished by being unnumbered. The rest
of the pages have the head-line " Sonnets " in even small
capitals (Roman) and are numbered in Arabic figures in
the usual way.
To finish with the strictly bibliographical data of this
bio-bibliographical chapter, it will be well to pass for the
moment to the next little rarity in our list, The Runaway
Slave. Chronology makes this, and not the two volumes
of 1850, the first book by Mrs. Browning, — if book it may
be called, for it is very thin, — issued under her married
name.
92 ELIZABE TH BARRE TT BRO WN1NG
Its title-page reads thus : —
The I Runaway Slave / at Pilgrim's Point. / By / Eliza-
beth Barrett Browning. / London : / Edward Moxon, Dover
Street. / 1849.
This legend is repeated on the recto of a pale buff
wrapper, bearing no other marks of any kind except a
rectangular thick and thin line similar to that which the
title-page itself bears, and the same triangular grotesque
ornament of interlaced birds and leaves under the author's
name. The wrapper contains sixteen leaves in all, how
" worked " is not very clear ; for there are no signatures.
The first two leaves are blank ; the third is a fly-title read-
ing simply " The Runaway Slave," with blank verso ; then
come the title and " Advertisement," each with blank verso ;
then the poem forming pages 9 to 26 ; then a leaf with
the imprint London : / Bradbury and Evans, printers,
Whitefriars in even small capitals in the centre, with
blank verso ; and finally another blank leaf. Page 9,
where the poem begins, is not numbered, but has a
" dropped head " ( The f Runaway Slave / at Pilgrim's
Point.} and one stanza ; the rest contain two stanzas each
numbered in Roman figures, and have alternate headlines,
verso, The Runaway Slave, recto At Pilgrim's Point, and
the usual Arabic numerals. Every page with any print
on it, except the title, has a thin rectangular line round it.
The "Advertisement" subscribed "Florence, 1849," tells
the story of the booklet briefly but sufficiently : —
" The following verses were the contribution of the
Authoress to a volume entitled 'The Liberty Bell, by
Friends of Freedom,' printed in America last year for
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 93
sale at the Boston National Anti-Slavery Bazaar. It is for
the use of a few ' friends of freedom ' and of the writer on
this side of the Atlantic that the verses are now reprinted."
The book to which the poem was contributed was " an
institution " ; but that particular volume is a sufficiently
uncommon item in the bibliography of Mrs. Browning,
and has sufficient character of its own, to demand a
passing note of description. Its title-page reads as
follows : —
The I Liberty Bell. / By / Friends of Freedom. / \motto
subscribed as from " The Golden Legend, by Wynkyn de
Worde."~\ Boston : / National Anti-Slavery Bazaar, f
MDCCCXL VIII.
There are viii + 292 pages of miscellaneous contribu-
tions in prose and verse, done up sometimes in cloth
and sometimes in an elegantly designed paper wrapper
printed in gold ; and there should also be an emblematic
engraved title page between the fly-title and printed title ;
but this is sometimes wanting. Among the contributors
were Bayard Taylor, Harriet Martineau, Theodore Parker,
James Russell Lowell, Mary Carpenter, and William Lloyd
Garrison. The wrapper is interesting as establishing by a
part of its legend the solid character of the bazaar at which
the book was to be sold. The words are " Fourteenth /
Massachusetts / Anti-Slavery Fair / Faneuil Hall." It is
difficult to avoid the conclusion that Mrs. Browning's sister
Arabel had learned from this little episode in the poetess's
story, how to turn literature to account at a charity bazaar,
and had in her mind the success of the periodical Fair across
the water when she begged a poem each from her sister and
94 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
her sister's husband and printed them for sale at a bazaar
held in the interests of a Refuge for Young Destitute Girls
which she established so firmly that it still exercises its
beneficent functions. It was more than poetic justice that
the poem selected by Mrs. Browning for a part in this
philanthropic (or rather philogynic) undertaking was A
Plea for the Ragged Schools of London, which first ap-
peared in Arabel Barrett's bazaar pamphlet with Robert
Browning's seven stanzas The Twins, and formed with
that the first and only true literary marriage ceremony
of the two great poets. The pamphlet ( Two Poems I by I
Elizabeth Barrett and Robert / Browning, f London ; / Chap-
man and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. / 1854) is too well known to
collectors to need description here ; but it looks so like
The Runaway Slave when one sees them together that
it is not easy for the speculator in bio-bibliographical
minutiae to avoid the conclusion that, beside the inspira-
tion of the business-like scheme of a bazaar pamphlet,
the actual form and style which the pamphlet took in
its originator's hands were suggested by her sister's previous
contribution to a similar venture.
A complete bibliography of the writings of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, when the time comes for its compilation
and issue, will go far to show how essential print seemed to
her from her very childhood upwards, and to account for a
fact at which some have been surprised, that the complete
embodiment got from the press seemed essential to her
even in the case of the sacred Sonnets from tJte Portuguese,
to which it is now time to return, and conclude.
Mrs. Sutherland Orr has told with much delicacy in the
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 95
Life and Letters of Robert Browning how the correspondence
between these two great poets of opposite sexes, — a corre-
spondence instigated by John Kenyon, — developed into a
personal friendship, and how that friendship flowered into
love ; how it was a known impossibility to obtain Mr.
Barrett's consent to the marriage of his invalid daughter,
and how, rather than be denied and disobey, that sweet
recluse of forty summers stole out of her father's house in
Wimpole Street one afternoon, while the family was at
dinner, and, accompanied only by her maid Wilson and
the immortalized dog Flush, met Robert Browning, then
aged thirty-two, and braved the fatigues of a journey to
Italy as his wife. It has long been current that it was not
till after this event that Browning knew of the existence of
his wife's sonnets to him ; and the event took place in
December 1846. The bulk of the sonnets must have been
written before that time, during the period when most of
the writer's life was passed on the sofa from which she
indited those faintly- written letters, — tiny letters in a tiny
hand, — so eagerly desired by the autograph collector.
Tradition says that one fine day Robert Browning found
his wife's sonnets on the domestic table, and then read
them for the first time. Tradition has usually pictured the
find as of a sheaf of manuscript ; and Tradition may by
possibility be right for once ; but it seems likelier on the
whole that, when she had overcome her timorous delicacy
and made up her mind that he should read the sonnets,
she would wish him to take a readier impression of their
entirety than could be gathered from what has been called
her " fairy " manuscript. Such a desire would account for
96 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
the existence of the Reading print, and also for its extreme
scarcity. But why Reading ? It was near Reading that
the trusty Mary Russell Mitford lived, — "our friend of
Three-Mile Cross, who ' wears her heart upon her sleeve,'
and shakes out its perfumes at every moment." It is clear
that if Browning's bride wished him to read her forty-three
exquisite sonnets fluently, at a blow, she would not lay
them on the table in manuscript; and she could not get
them printed through her father ; for she was unforgiven.
Who, then, but Miss Mitford would she be likely to ask ?
And if Miss Mitford were sworn to secrecy, she would
keep her oath, even though she did " wear her heart upon
her sleeve."
This is scarcely a matter for speculation ; for Mr.
Edmund Gosse1 has given a circumstantial account of
the whole transaction, on the authority of an unnamed
friend of Browning, — an account as of a solemn secret
entrusted to that friend on the understanding that it was
to be divulged to the world after the poet's death. In
that account Browning figures as the prime mover in getting
the sonnets into print ; and Miss Mitford is roundly credited
with the mediumship. It is not expressly stated that
Browning told the mysterious friend" of Miss Mitford's part
in the matter ; and there are other friends of the poet to
whom that part of the story is new. The fact is that in
three charming pages of picturesque writing we get brought
together the floating traditions of the episode, and over
them is thrown the glamour of the personal acquaintance
1 Critical Kit-Kats / by / Edmund Gosse / Hon. M.A. of Trinity College,
Cambridge / London / William Heinemann / 1896.
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 97
between Browning and his bright chronicler. Of course
Mr. Gosse does not expect all this to be taken too seriously
or literally, and it is lawful, seeing that Critical Kit-Kats
are not history, to lean to the view that Browning first saw
the sonnets in print. The point is of considerable interest ;
and it may be hoped that, if the whole of pages I to 3 or
Critical Kit-Kats are really intended to rest on the personal
authority of Browning, at least a foot-note may be devoted
in some future edition to the record of that intention and
of the mysterious friend's name.
The sonnet which does not appear in the Reading
volume, nor among the Sonnets from the Portuguese in the
poems of 1850, is that entitled Future and Past on the
last page of Vol. I. in that collection.
My future will not copy fair my past,
I wrote that once ; and, thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To tJie white throne of God, I turned at last,
And saw instead there, THEE ; not unallied
To angels in thy soul ! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff
Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled*
I seek no copy now of life s first half !
Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
And write me new my future's epigraph,
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world !
VOL. II. H
98 ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING
The first line is, of course, quoted from that pathetic
sonnet entitled Past and Future which she had published
in the collection of 1844, when she had no hope of other
joys than those inherent in her art, her religion, and the
companionship of her father, brothers, and sisters, — when
she was a hopeless invalid almost confined to her sofa : —
My future will not copy fair my past
On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done,
Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one
Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast
Upon the fulness of the heart, at last
Saith no grace after meat. My wine Jiath run
Indeed out of my cup, and there is none
To gather up the bread of my repast
Scattered and trampled ! Yet I find some food
In earths green Jierbs, and streams that bubble up
Clear from tJie darkening ground, — content until
I sit with angels before better food.
Dear Christ ! when thy new vintage fills my cup,
This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.
How little did she think what the new vintage was to be !
A pious woman of thirty-eight — pious in the best sense —
brought up in a pious family, seeing scarcely any one else,
how should she suppose that that poet, still in his youthful
vigour, of whom she had written so appreciatively (in Lady
Geraldine's Courtship} at another page of the same 1844
collection of poems, was destined to seek her out and carry
her from her couch into the life-giving climate of Italy, and
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 99
sun her in the still more life-giving sunshine of his great
love? And how should we expect poor Mr. Barrett to
settle down to the new order of ideas ? He might certainly
have found something better to say to good John Kenyon,
the indirect author of his misfortune, than " I have no
objection to the young man, but my daughter should have
been thinking of another world." His poet-daughter, in-
deed, had spoilt him with the exquisite grace of her
blended thoughts of this world and the next. So truly
religious was she, that, like her successor Christina Rossetti
she knew of no dissociation of earth and Heaven — none
that is, in her soul ; and her father, whose great distinction
it is to have been the author of her being, could hardly be
expected to suppose that the great ultimate revelation of
love between man and woman would be with her a religious
— a deeply religious — ritual, sanctifying even the offence of
taking an irrevocable step known to be contrary to the
parental will.
The sonnet which gave rise to this reflexion was not
hastily transplanted from its original place among the
miscellaneous sonnets. In the carefully revised third
edition of 1853 it was still at the end of the first volume,
while the forty-three Sonnets from the Portuguese were still
in the second volume. It was not till 1856 that Past and
Future and Future and Past were finally divorced. In
that year the fourth edition, in three volumes, was pub-
lished ; and Future and Past then dropped its separate title
and was placed between No. 41 and No. 42 of the original
" Portuguese " series, taking thenceforth the number 42.
The history of these beautiful love-sonnets, more intimate
H 2
ioo ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
and fuller of self-revelation than an average ton of love-
letters, raises a curious speculation in the morals of editor-
ship. But for some unknown circumstances leading to the
production of a few copies printed under initials, the sonnets
might have remained in manuscript. No doubt the little
Reading volume is so scarce as to be less attainable than
many things of which manuscript copies alone existed for a
century or so. Still, a few copies, with the author's initials
only, might have taken a long while to fix the sonnets in
their place as the love-utterances of Elizabeth Barrett to
Robert Browning. Then, again, but for the happy thought
of disguising them as translations, the public would perhaps
never have seen them, whatever might have been the luck
of the few into whose hands the Reading print fell. At all
events the author made no public confession of the personal
character of the sonnets. She gave them out as sonnets
from the Portuguese, and that not till three years after the
date of the private print in which they are called Sonnets by
E.B.B. Hence we have no right derived from her own
public act or utterance to say " These are the love-sonnets
of Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning." And yet it is
constantly said ; and no one finds fault.
Now what is it that is blamed again and again in the
publication of utterances not intended for the general gaze ?
Surely it is the revelation of something regarded as too
personal and sacred to be made public property ; but, if the
thing were published as the utterance of no one in particular
to no one in particular, the objection would fall. Thus it is
not so much the utterance itself, as its localization, against
which those who adopt the anti-publication view would
AND HER SCARCER BOOKS. 101
obtain injunction. In regard to these sonnets, all Mrs.
Browning told us was, virtually, that she had found them
somewhere written in the Portuguese tongue and had trans-
lated them ; though, by the bye, the tale has been told how,
in allusion to her darkness, Browning had called her his
Portuguese, and how she in playfully responsive allusion
had described these love-sonnets as sonnets from "the
Portuguese." If that tale were true, then the authorship
and personal character would have been confessed at all
events to such as knew the poet to have called the poetess
his Portuguese. But dismiss that tale as apocryphal, and
you have to face the fact that she chose to disguise the
character of the poems, and one after another of those who
knew it have chosen to publish the same, — that is to say,
have localized the utterance and revealed the secret which
it is difficult to imagine Mrs. Browning would have wished
revealed. But the benefit done to the world by the revela-
tion must outweigh vastly any arguable wrong done to the
memory of the dead in saying " These are not sonnets from
the Portuguese : they are the love-utterances of the greatest
of English poetesses — of the greatest poetess since Sappho —
to the greatest English poet of her time, or one of the
greatest." Viewed in that light, the sonnets are of trans-
cendent import and value : the end justifies the breach of
confidence ; and so it does in other cases where what is
revealed is worth revealing.
CARLYLE :
A DISENTANGLED ESSAY
BY
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
CARLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
THE two volumes known as Home's New Spirit of tJte
Age are a perfect treasure-house of high criticism from the
hand of the greatest woman-poet of this or any other
country or century, if only we knew exactly where to light
upon her thoughts. It is that fact that gives the book, not
by any means all its value, but the exquisite freshness and
perfume of which its pages are redolent. Home was a
good critic, an excellent poet, and an honest strong thinker
by no means wanting in intellectual subtlety ; but Mrs.
Browning was a keener critic, a far better poet, at least as
strong a thinker, much more subtly intellectual, and
destined to be, in sum, a tenfold greater moral and spiritual
force in the world than the strong man to whom, before
she met Browning, she looked up with that simplicity of
literary reverence which her delightful letters to him dis-
play. That genuine respect which she from her sick room
entertained for him in his robust exercise of many vocations
under the public gaze did not, however, for a moment check
io6 CARLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY.
the voice of her own convictions ; and she certainly in-
fluenced Home's thought on many subjects. Thus it
came about that much which she wrote in one form filtered
through his mind and found printed voice in another form.
Without access to manuscripts many of which are pro-
bably destroyed, proof-sheets of which few if any are forth-
coming, and the holographs of Mrs. Browning's letters to
Home, it is next to impossible to dissect her work from his
to any considerable extent ; and there is perhaps not more
than one instance in which an entire substantive essay can
be securely disinterred — in part from A New Spirit of tlie
Age, and in part from papers separately preserved. For-
tunately that one is of great beauty, and of superlative
interest as to subject ; for it is the essay on Carlyle.
In the second volume of the Letters of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning to R. H. Home x (page 29) mention is made of
" several letters from Miss Barrett concerning Carlyle, which
were printed in the critical work previously mentioned,"
that is to say A New Spirit of the Age. Another composition,
described as a " letter," is mentioned on the same page as
not having been printed in that work because it " arrived
some days too late." Literally speaking, no letters from the
poetess to the poet about Carlyle were printed in A New
Spirit of tlie Age. The following delightful letter, given
from the holograph, doubtless refers to the Carlyle essay,—
or rather to the bulk of it.
Ah, my dear Mr. Home, you will conclude (for you may
conclude though / cannot ! ) you will conclude from certain
1 Two volumes. Bentley, 1877.
CARLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY. 107
facts that I am very like a broom ! — not Lord Brougham,
who only does a little of everything, — and not a wheeled
brougham, . . which will stop when it is bidden — and not
a new broom, . . which sweeps clean and has done with
it — but that bewitched broom in the story, — which, being
sent to draw water, drew bucket after bucket, until the
whole house was in a flood. Montaigne says somewhere,
that to stop gracefully is a sure proof of high race in a horse.
I wonder what not to stop at all is proof of, — in horse,
man, or ... woman ! —
After all I am not improving my case by this additional
loquacity. And the case is bad enough perhaps . . viz.
that you asked me to write four or five pages for your
work, and that I have written what you see ! — Well take the
sheets. — I make you a present of them to cut into pieces — . .
abbreviate in any possible way . . or put into the fire
altogether, should your judgment suggest that stronger
measure. Indeed I did not mean to write so much — I
didn't think of writing your whole book for you !
Oh — of course ! — you are free to interpolate as well as to
cut down. In fact the papers are as much yours as if you
had written them ; and I sign over my personality in them
to you herewith. Would it were better worth the having !
Ever truly yours
E. B. B.
The enclosure to this letter is clearly a considerable paper,
though the number of leaves is not specified. There is no-
thing in A New Spirit of the Age that seems to answer to the
particulars, except the Carlyle essay, and that answers down
io8 CARLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY.
to the very point of wanting the conclusion by Mrs. Brown-
ing— which conclusion is certainly none other than that
which Home records to have been too late by a few days.
In the meantime he had finished the paper differently him-
self.
There are reasons why it cannot be stated with absolute
certainty what dimensions and final form Mrs. Browning
meant to give to the essay so generously placed at Home's
disposal. Nevertheless, it is certain, first that she sent her
correspondent ten closely written and consecutively numbered
leaves of which a specimen is here reproduced in fac-simile ;
and, secondly, that she is not responsible for the
whole Carlyle section of the book. In accordance with
the permission conveyed in the foregoing letter, the
ten leaves in question were edited, interpolated, cut
up and wafered down by Home, mixed with copy of
his own ; and much care was taken to harmonize this work
of collaboration. The whole of the manuscript is now pre-
served, mounted in such a manner as to form a choice
quarto volume — to which Mr. Bookbinder Tout gave
his best attention, leather, and workmanship ; as, indeed, he
did with the Barrett-Horne manuscript on Tennyson of
which Mrs. Browning's part was published in the first
volume of Literary Anecdotes. An examination of the
Carlyle manuscript enables us, so far as the written record
goes, to disentangle the work of the two writers ; but
when that is done, and a copy of the printed essay in A
New Spirit of tJie Age has been reduced to conformity with
Mrs. Browning's ten leaves of copy as restored by elimina-
tion of Home's editorial changes and additions, the result
M«* BROWNING'S ESSAY ON CARLYLE.
FAC-SIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.
CAkLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY. 109
does not correspond in every detail with what the printed
book would be if we extracted the relative pages and simply
eliminated Home's part of this joint manuscript from
them. The variations of course point to work done on
proof-sheets ; and there is little doubt that Mrs. Browning
and Home both worked on those sheets. To guess at each
one's unseen work would be more hazardous than befits the
occasion. The ten-leaf manuscript as it reached " the
Great Orion " is therefore given in its simplicity in the follow-
ing pages with the conclusion sent after it ; and, where a
variation of interest occurs, not found in the manuscript in
either handwriting, it is set down in a foot-note, with the
distinctive mark New Spirit, whether Mrs. Browning or
whether Home, the Editors will not suggest. But the
essay, as now given, is guaranteed pure Elizabeth Barrett
Browning.
THE ESSAY.
ACCORDING to the view of the microcosmus, what is said
of the world itself, may be said of every individual in it ;
and what is said of the individual, may be predicated of the
world. Now, the individual mind has been compared to a
prisoner in a dark room, or in a room which would be dark
but for the windows of the same, meaning the senses in a
figure, — nothing being in the mind without the mediation
of the senses, as Locke held, — " except " . . as Leibnitz
acutely added in modification, . . " the mind itself." Thus
is it with the individual, and thus with the general humanity.
Except for Revelations, and genius which is a minor species
no CARL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A Y.
of Revelation, we should sit on the floor of our dark dun-
geon, between its close stifling walls, gnawing vainly with
the teeth of the mind, at the chains we wear. It is well to
talk of the progress of the public mind.1 The public mind,
— that is, the average intelligence of the many, — never does
make progress, except by imitation. Education is imitation,
and the most passive of activities. Progress implies the
most active of energies, such as genius is, and general pro-
gress implies, and indeed essentially consists of, individual
progress, men of genius working. A Ulysses must pass
with the first goat, — call him Nobody, or by his right name.
And to return to our first figure, — what the senses are to the
individual mind, men of genius are to the general mind.
Scantily assigned by Providence for necessary ends, one
original thinker strikes a window out here, and another
there ; wielding the mallet sharply, and leaving it to others
to fashion grooves and frames, and complete advantage into
convenience.
That Mr. Carlyle is one of the men of genius thus referred
to, and that he has knocked out his window from the blind
wall of his century, we may add without any fear of contra-
diction. We may say too that it is a window to the east, —
and that some men complain of a certain bleakness in the
wind which enters at it, when they should rather congratu-
late themselves and him on the aspect of the new sun beheld
through it, — the orient hope of which, he has so discovered
1 The public mind, — that is, the average intelligence of the many, — never
does make progress, except by imbibing great principles from great men,
which, after long and frequent reiteration, become part of the moral sense of
a people. — New Spirit.
CARL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A K 1 1 1
to their eyes. And let us take occasion to observe here,
and to bear in memory through every subsequent remark
we may be called upon to make, — that it has not been his
object to discover to us any specific prospect — not the
mountain to the right, nor the oak-wood to the left, nor the
river which runs down between, — but the SUN, which renders
visible all these.
When " the most thinking people " had, at the sound of
all sorts of steam-engines, sufficiently worshipped that idol
of utilitarianism which Jeremy Bentham the king had set up,
— the voice of a prophet was heard praying three times a
day, with magnanimous re-iteration, towards Jerusalem, —
towards old Jerusalem, be it observed, — and also towards
the place of sun-rising for ultimate generations. And the
voice spoke a strange language, — nearly as strange as
Bentham's own, and as susceptible of translation into
English. Not English by any means, the critics said it
spake ; nor even German, nor Greek ; although partaking
considerably more of the two last than of English, — yet if
the critics could not measure it out to you as classic
English, after the measure of Swift or Addison, or even of
Bacon and Milton, — if new words sprang gauntly in it from
savage derivatives, and rushed together in unnatural com-
binations,— if the collocation was distortion, wandering
wildly up and down, — if the consonants were everywhere in
a heap, like the " pots and pans " of Bassano, — classic or
not, English or not, — it was certainly a true language — a
language " fiepoTrwv avOpwirwv" — the significant articulation
of a living soul : God's breath was in the vowels of it. And
the clashing of these harsh compounds at last drew the bees
112 CARLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY.
into assembly, each murmuring his honey-dream. And the
hearers who stood longest to listen, became sensible of a
still grave music issuing like smoke from the clefts of the
rock. If it was not "style" and "classicism," it was some-
thing better ; it was soul-language. There was a divinity
at the shaping of these rough-hewn periods.
We dwell the longer upon the construction of Mr.
Carlyle's sentences, because of him it is pre-eminently true,
that the speech is the man. All powerful writers will leave,
more or less, the pressure of their individuality on the
medium of their communication with the public. Even the
idiomatic writers, who trust their thoughts to a customary
and conventional phraseology, and thus attain to a recog-
nized level perfection in the medium, at the expense of being
less instantly incisive and expressive (according to an
obvious social analogy), — have each an individual aspect.
But the individuality of this writer is strongly pronounced.
It is graven, — like a Queen's arrow on the poker and tongs
of her national prisons, — upon the meanest word of his
utterance. He uses no moulds in his modelling, as you
may see by the impression of his thumb-nail upon the clay.
He throws his truth with so much vehemence, that the
print of the palm of his hand is left on it. Let no man
scorn the language of Carlyle : l for if it forms part of his
idiosyncracy, his idiosyncracy forms part of his truth. And
let no man say that we recommend Carlylisms : for it is
obvious, — from our very argument, — that, in the mouth
of an imitator, they would unlearn their uses, and
conventional as Addison.
] Let no man scoff at the language of Carlyle. — New Spirit.
CARL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A Y. 113
We have named Carlyle in connection with Bentham,
and we believe that you will find in " your philosophy," no
better antithesis for one, than is the other. There is as
much resemblance between them as is necessary for anti-
thetic unlikeness. Each headed a great movement among
thinking men ; and each made a language for himself to
speak with ; and neither of them originated what they
taught. Bentham's work was done by systematizing ; and
Carlyle's, by reviving and reiterating. And as from the
beginning of the world, the two great principles of matter
and spirit have combated, — whether in man's personality,
between the flesh and the soul, — or in his speculativeness,
between the practical and the ideal, — or in his mental expres-
sion, between science and poetry, — Bentham and Carlyle
assumed the double van on opposite sides — Bentham gave
an impulse to the material energies of his age, of the stuff
of which he was himself made, — while Carlyle threw himself
before the crushing chariots, not in sacrifice, but deprecation ;
. . " Go aside — there is a spirit even in the wheels ! " . . In
brief, and to take up that classification of virtues made by
Proclus and the later Platonists, — Bentham headed such as
were 7ro\iTuca{, Carlyle exalts that which is reXea-riKij,
venerant and religious virtue.
We have observed that Carlyle is not an originator ; and
although he is a man of genius and original mind, and
although he has knocked out his window in the wall of his
century — and we know it, — we must repeat that, in a strict
sense, he is not an originator. Perhaps our figure of the
window might have been more correctly stated as the re-
opening of an old window, long bricked up or encrusted
VOL. II. T
ii4 CARL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A Y.
over, — and probably this man of a strong mallet, and suffi-
cient right hand, thought the recovery of the old window, a
better and more glorious achievement, than the making of
many new windows. His office is certainly not to "ex-
change new lamps for old ones." His quality of a " gold-
revivor " is the nearest to a novel acquirement. He tells us
what we knew, but had forgotten, or disdained to remember ;
and his reiterations startle and astonish us like informations.
We " have souls," he tells us. Who doubted it in the nine-
teenth century ; yet who thought of it in the roar of the
steam-engine ? He tells us that work is every man's duty.
Who doubted that among the factory masters ? — or among
the charity children, when spelling from the catechism of
the national church, that they will " do their duty in the
state of life to which it shall please God to call them ? "
Yet how deep and like a new sound, do the words " soul,"
" work," " duty," l strike down the thoughts of the thinkers
of the age, till the whole age vibrates ! And again he tells
us, " Have faith." Why, did we not know that we must
have " faith ? " Is there a religious teacher in the land who
does not repeat from God's revelation, year by year, day by
day . . Have faith ? or is there a quack in the land who 2
does not illustrate to our philosophy the energy of " faith ? "
And again . . "Truth is a good thing." Is that new?
Is it not written in the theories of the moralist, and of the
child ? — yes, and in the moral code of " honourable men,"
side by side with the " melancholy necessity " of the duel-
list's pistol and twelve paces ? Yet we thrill at the words
1 Strike down upon the flashing anvils of the age. — New Spirit.
8 Does not call to his assistance the energy of " faith ? "—New Spirit.
CA RL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A Y. 115
as if some new thunder of divine instruction ruffled the
starry air, — as if an angel's foot sounded down it, step by
step, coming with a message.
Thus it is obvious that Mr. Carlyle is not an originator,
but a renewer, although his medium is highly original ; and
it remains to us to recognise that he is none the less im-
portant teacher on that account, and that there was none
the less necessity for his teaching. "The great fire-heart,"
as he calls it, of human nature may burn too long without
stirring, — burn inwardly, cake outwardly, and sink deeply
into its own ashes : and to emancipate the flame clear and
bright, it is necessary to stir it up strongly from the lowest
bar. To do this, is the aim and end of all poetry of a high
order, — this, — to resume human nature from its beginning,
and return to first principles of thought and first elements of
feeling ; this, — to dissolve from eye and ear the film of habit
and convention, and to let Beauty and Truth run gushing
upon unencrusted perceptive faculties ; for as Religion
makes a man a child again innocently, — so should'poetry
make a man a child again perceptively. This is what a
poet [must] try for ; and in this aim, Carlyle is, as he has
been called, a poet, and a great one — only what the poet
does for the individual reader and the actual instincts,
Carlyle would do for Society collectively, opening out from
the individual despairing-sentimental into the social [word
obliterated by Home]. What the poet does by an emotion,
Carlyle would do by a conviction. No poet yearns more
earnestly to make the Inner Life shine out, than does
Carlyle. No poet regrets more sorrowfully, with a look
across the crowded and crushing intellects of the world, —
I 2
\
1 1 6 CARL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A Y.
that the dust rising up from men's energies, should have
blinded them to the brightness of their instincts, — and that
Understanding (according to the German view) should
take precedence of Reason, by a spiritual anachronism and
incoherence of things. He is reproached with not being
practical — Mr. Carlyle is not practical. But he is practical
for many intents of the inner life, and teaches well the
Doing of Being. " What would he make of us ? " says the
complainers. " He reproaches us with the necessities of the
age — he taunts us with the very progress of time : his re-
quirements are so impossible that they make us despair of
the republic." And this is true. If we were to give him a
sceptre, and cry " Rule over us," he would answer : " Ye
have souls ! work — believe." He would not know what else
to do with us. He would pluck, absently, at the sceptre
for the wool of the fillet to which his hands were accus-
tomed ; for he is no king, except in his own peculiar sense
of a prophet and priest-king, — and a vague prophet, be it
understood. His recurrence to first principles and elements
of action, is, in fact, so constant and passionate, that his
attention is not free for the devolvement of acts. The hand
is the gnomon by which he judges of the soul ; and little
cares he for the hand otherwise, — he will not wash your
hands for you, be sure, however he may moralize on their
blackness. Whether he writes history or philosophy or
criticism, his perpetual appeal is to those common elements
of Humanity which it is his object to cast into relief and
light. His work on the French Revolution is a great poem
with this same object, . . a return upon the life of
Humanity, and an eliciting of the pure material and initial
CARLYLE: A DISENTANGLED ESSAY. 117
element of life, out of the fire and torment of it. The work
has fitly been called graphical and picturesque ; but it is so
by force of being philosophical and poetical. For instance,
where the writer says that " Marat was in a cradle like the
rest of us," it is no touch of rhetoric, though it may seem
so, but a resumption of the philosophy of the whole work.
From the assimilations in the world, he wrings the
product of the differences ; and by that curious indivi-
dualizing of persons, which is remarkable in his historical
manner, he attempts a broad generalizing of principles.
And when he throws his living heart into an old monk's
diary, and, with the full warm gradual throbs of genius
and power, throbs out the cowled head into a glory, . .
the reason is not, as disquieted doctors may [word obli-
terated] hint . . that Mr. Carlyle regrets the cloistral ages and
defunct superstitions, — the reason is not that Mr. Carlyle
is too poetical to be philosophical, but that he is so
poetical as to be philosophical. The reason is, that
Mr. Carlyle recognizes in a manner that no mere historian
ever does, but as the true poet always will do, — the oneness
of the God-made man through every cycle of his individual
and social existence — assuming the original nature in it
and it in the present identification. He is a poet also,
by his insight into the activity of moral causes working
through the intellectual agencies of the mind. He is also a
poet in the mode. He conducts his argument with none of
your philosophical arrangements and marshalling of " for
and against " : his paragraphs come and go as they please.
He proceeds, like a poet, rather by association than by
uses of logic. His illustrations not only illustrate but
1 1 8 CARL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A Y.
bear a part in the reasoning, — the images standing out,
like grand and beautiful Caryatides, to sustain the heights
of the argument. Of his language we have spoken.
Somewhat too slow and involved for eloquence, and too
individual to be classical, it is yet the language of a gifted
poet, the colour of whose soul eats itself into the words.
It is impossible to part from this subject without
touching upon a point of it we have already glanced at by
an illustration, when we said that his object was to discover
the sun, and not to specify the landscape. He is, in fact,
somewhat indefinite in his ideas of " faith " and " truth."
In his ardour for the quality of belief, he is apt to separate
it from its objects ; and although in the remarks on toler-
ance in his " Hero Worship " he guards himself strongly
from an imputation of latitudinarianism yet we cannot say
but that he sometimes overleaps his own fences, and sets
us wondering whither he would be speeding. This is the
occasion of some disquiet to such of his readers as discern
that the truth itself is a more excellent thing than our
belief in the truth ; and that, a priori, our belief does not
make the truth. But it is the effect, more or less, of every
abstract consideration that we are inclined to hold the
object of abstraction some moments longer in its state
of separation and analysis than is at all necessary or desir-
able. And, after all, the right way of viewing the matter
is that Mr. Carlyle intends to teach us something, and not
everything; and to direct us to a particular instrument,
and not to direct us in its specific application. It would be
a strange reproach to offer to the morning star, that it does
not shine in the evening.
CARL YLE : A DISENTANGLED ESS A Y. 119
For the rest, we may congratulate Mr. Carlyle and
the dawning time. We have observed that individual
genius is the means of popular advancement. A man
of genius gives a thought to the multitude, and the
multitude spread it out as far as it will go, until another
man of genius brings another thought, which attaches itself
to the first, because all truth is assimilative, and perhaps
even reducible to that monadity of which Parmenides
discoursed. Mr. Carlyle is gradually amassing a greater
reputation than might have been looked for at the hands
of this polytechnic age, and has the satisfaction of witness-
ing with his living eyes the outspread of his thought
among nations. That this Thought — the ideas of this
prose poet — should make way with sufficient rapidity
for him to live to see the progress, is a fact full of
hope for the coming age ; even as the other fact, of its
first channel furrowing America (and it is a fact that
Carlyle was generally read there before he was truly recog-
nized in his own land), is replete with favourable promise
for that great country, and indicative of a noble love
of truth in it passing the love of dollars.
END OF THE ESSAY.
THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
OF
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
MRS. BROWNING'S RELIGIOUS OPINIONS,
AS EXPRESSED IN THREE LETTERS,
ADDRESSED TO WM. MERRY, ESQ., J.P.
IN 1843 Mr. Merry, of "The Highlands," near Reading,
a friend of Miss Mitford, published through G. Lovejoy,
London Street, Reading, and Whittaker and Hamilton,
London, a little pamphlet on " Predestination and Election,
Considered Scripturally." x In this he dealt with the seven-
teenth article of the Church of England, and contested the
Calvinistic interpretation. Mr. Merry's point is familiar.
His objection is not to election so much as to reprobation.
Difficult passages " should be brought by the Christian
mind at once to the great test of Scriptural revelation on
the nature of God's known attributes, and when thus held
up to the pure light of a gospel abounding in assurances
of His unerring justice and mercy, all that is doubtful will
disappear like mists before the effulgence of the sun." He
sums up as follows : —
1 Predestination / and / Election, / Considered Scripturally. I By I William
Merry, Esq. / / Reading: / Printed and Published by G. Lovejoy,
London- Street ; / and Whittaker and Hamilton, London. / 1843. Duodecimo,
pp. 76.
124 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
" Inasmuch, therefore, as all who ' search the scriptures,'
or hear the gospel preached, find themselves therein
instructed how to ' repent and turn to God, and do works
meet for repentance' (Acts 26, 20), we may be firmly
assured, that there does not live one human being, so
taught, who is shut out from the pale of Christian salva-
tion by predestiny, partial favour, or any other than his
own wilful and inexcusable unbelief ; (inexcusable, for it is
beyond conception that man should be so earnestly
appealed to, and encouraged to believe in God, holy and
true, and yet not be enabled to obey the gracious
bidding ;) not one who is not equally and vitally interested
in the offer of mercy, or who is denied sufficient means for
the acceptance of that gospel which was preached to the
poor, the ' glad tidings of great joy which are for all people,'
and who has not grateful cause to join, the 'Heavenly
Host ' in their hymn of praise, ' Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men.' "
It will be remembered that these letters were written
three years before Miss Barrett married. She was then, as
always, in delicate health, but evidently had recovered
from the extreme prostration of previous years. To this
recovery her friendship with Miss Mitford had in no small
degree contributed.
Cordial thanks are due to Mr. Robert Barrett Browning
for his courteous permission to print these letters.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 125
LETTER I.
50 WIMPOLE STREET,
LONDON.
November 2nd, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
If you did not threaten me up to the top of your
actual threat I should still have gratitude enough in me to
answer your kind note, and acknowledge your gift of a
work upon a great subject, believe me. You never thought
to the contrary for a moment, I am sure. But you did
think, and with reason, that I should decline a controversy
with you upon a subject which I profess not to understand,
and upon which I believe (considering the bare fact that
persons of equal piety and spiritual instruction otherwise,
do differ upon it directly) that the Church is not instructed
by the Holy Spirit to come to a definite understanding.
You charge me, however, too earnestly to leave me free to
the silence, which (after thanking you) I should choose. I
will speak openly, as you desire it, and so when it comes to
the worst, I must remain, as the contract renders it, Mr.
Merry's friend, which will not leave me inconsolable.
Your book (to begin from the beginning) is written in a
spirit so amiable and conciliating — so Christian-heartedly,
to use a more applicable expression — that it almost
reconciles me to the controversial character of its subject.
126 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
It is a book likely to do good to many with whom it would
fail in particular persuasion, and again and again as I read
along, I felt— " That is true,"— that is rightly put,"—" we
should remember that ! "
And now, from the construction of that last sentence,
you will think that I disagree with you altogether — and I
do disagree with you — but not altogether.
The truth is, dear Mr. Merry, that Arminians in general
would call me a Calvinist, while Calvinists would call me
an Arminian. I certainly do not believe in particular
redemption and predestination in the strong Calvinistic
view of them. I believe so far in particular grace, as that
no human being can be saved, " except the Father draw
him," except the Saviour redeem him, except the Holy
Spirit " list " to breathe on him. And I believe so far in
free will and responsibility, as that every human being who
is lost, will stand in the midst of his fulfilled experience
and witness before the universe, " Woe is me, for / have
sinned ; it is by my own choice that I am here."
That there is contradiction in this, apparent contradic-
tion, I do not deny ; but my impression of scriptural
revelation is, that these two points, apparently con-
tradictory as they are, are equally revealed by God ; and
that the key of the reconciling interpretation is in Christ's
hand, with the Keys of Death and Hades, far beyond the
reach of ours. Probably the turning point of the whole
argument lies in a distinction (as you suggest) between
God's fore-knowledge and His pre-ordination — although
you are probably aware that when human metaphysicians
begin to inquire into the several natures of these acts, they
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 1 27
both seem to merge, under the crown of deity, in pre-
ordination— nothing being an object of knowledge with
God which had not been an object of ordination by Him.
And thus, " within the deepest depth a deeper depth," we
fall from the mystery of predestination to the mystery of
the origin of evil — and if you write another book upon
that, dear Mr. Merry, you will charge me perhaps, at
the hazard of forfeiting your friendship, to follow it
up with the appendix of a private controversy. Will
you ?
Ah ! you do not think me pert and light and perverse, I
hope, upon these solemn things. It is because they are
solemn to me ; serious and important to me ; it is because
I have resolved them seriously, and according to the best
powers of my mind ; it is because I have again and again
sought with humility and earnestness for the meaning of
God's will in relation to these great points, that I now sink
back ashamed and afraid, and willing not to be wise
beyond what is written. Let us believe, let us pray, and
may God be blessed that we know enough to believe as
that and pray. And "When the end cometh, whatever
may have been the measure of grace, the measure of 'justice
to every living soul, will be such as a divine knowledge of
our very thoughts will render perfect." I agree with you
perfectly, it is admirably said. For the rest, you will be
patient with me while I very humbly doubt whether your
book is successful in the interpretation of the Church of
England articles against the Calvinistic theory. I am not
myself a member of the Church of England, and there-
fore whichever way the articles may lean, is of the less
128 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
importance to me. But certainly, if words mean anything,
and if the obvious meaning of the words of the seventeenth
article is to be received in all honesty, why it is a
Calvinistic article, and could scarcely by any imaginable
change of expression (according to my apprehension of it)
be rendered more Calvinistic. I am bold enough to think,
my dear friend, that it is your will, and not your reason,
which consents unaware to this anti-Calvinistic rendering.
If Bishop Mant endeavours to colour the interpre-
tation anti-Calvinistically, you will admit with an all-
conquering candour, that other bishops would colour it
Calvinistically ; and that nearly the whole evangelical
party of the Church of England does receive the article
in the Calvinistic sense. In the obvious meaning of the
words, my impression is, that they do so rightly receive
and apprehend it, and that any Calvinist among them
would be puzzled if called upon to compose another article,
in other words, than those used in the Church of England,
yet as Calvinistic in the full bearing and expression.
The view of the nature of Faith, commonly called
Calvinistic, is, in my view of it, altogether scriptural, and
very important to be held strongly. By an expression or
two you seem to reject it, but as you open out your own
view it grows to be absolutely Calvinistic, and I could not
express my own creed upon the point in question in
preciser words, I think.
The Arminian view, held and preached on the subject of
works by the majority of Church of England divines, and
by the whole Puseyite party, is, is it not? that man is
saved by his works, and not by Christ's work — by works
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 129
rather than faith — while the Calvinistic view that man is
saved by faith in Christ's work, and not by works of his
own ; by a living faith, the blossom of which is good works,
is opposed to the other, and comprises the great good
news of the New Testament. " That human virtues,
however excellent and indispensable as an evidence of faith,
and as such ' pleasing in God's sight,' do not and cannot
form the groundwork of man's justification," is all that the
Calvinistic body contends for, however they may be
commonly misrepresented on this point of doctrine. There
may be indeed a very small number of persons anti-
nomians in a worse sense, but the class is very small
indeed, and I believe that when the individuals of it begin
to explain their own meanings, they are for the most part
convicted of meaning something very different and more
scriptural indeed, than their actual profession. To call a
faith which will not work, faith, is to call a corpse, a man,
or a parricide, an affectionate child. Good works are as
absolutely a consequence of faith as salvation is — but the
quarrel is whether salvation turns upon faith or upon works
as a ground-work ; and thus your language is perfectly
satisfactory to those who hold faith to be the ground-
work.
There is only one work which brings salvation, and that
is Christ's upon the Cross. And He saves us that we may
work, and not because we work. Is it not so ?
For the rest, I differ from you in holding fast what is
called " the final perseverance of the saints," believing that
the general spirit of scriptural promise is for it, although a
few passages may seem to militate against it.
VOL. II. K
1 3o THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
Will you permit me to add to these divers boldnesses,
one more, greater than the rest, in the expression of a deep
regret that you should have embodied in your book the
very objectionable (as it appears to me) extract from Mr.
Hare, to become " elect of God " by baptizing, and a
" member of Christ by virtue of a sacrament ! "
Is this scriptural, in whatever light we record it ?
And now if I have not sinned against the liberty granted
to me, beyond forgiveness, will you favour me, and be one
with me consciously (as I trust we are actually) in the
brotherhood of Jesus Christ ? " To walk together as far as
we are agreed," is the duty of all Christians, and should be
the pleasure of those who differ the most widely, so that
" unity of the Church " which is now " hid in Christ," yet
talked of so much and so vainly, may be guessed at a
little in its right sense, by the world.
But for you and me, we do not differ after all the most
widely, while it is peculiarly pleasant for one of us (that is
I), to walk together agreed with the other. I respect and
thank you for this employment of talent, generously
offered and usefully in the great cause of religion ; so
much do I respect and thank you, as to take courage to
wish that your next work may avoid the rocks of con-
troversy, and be content to lead us into some green meadow
beside those living waters. We do not require so much to
know more (and every controversy perhaps which has eaten
deep into the heart of the Church, refers obliquely to
something unknown, unrevealed), as to feel and think more
upon what we know — and the simplest and plainest
scriptural subject will reward the thinker and earnest
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 131
writer, more abundantly, in all probability, than the hardest
subject, as ground for work and musing.
I have written too much now, instead of too little, I am
sure. Yet I must observe that poor Calvin, who has the
credit of certain opinions, when extended to the uttermost
could not hold them more strongly than Luther did, who
grasped with his two most pugnacious fists, the dreadful
doctrine of Reprobation.
May God bless you and lead you into all truth, and
beautify the truth to you in love !
I remain, with much esteem,
Always and faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT.
When I have used in these little sheets the term " The
Church," I meant of course the Church of Christ generally,
and not any particular denomination of Christians. Christ's
Church is one — and we, alas ! " are many."
Faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT.
K 2
132 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
LETTER II.
50 WIMPOLE STREET,
LONDON.
November 17 'tk, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
If my infinitesimal sheets go on in an approach to ad
infinitum, they are an equivalent to the unity of your great
sheet; and in factmyletterwasaslong,Icalculate,asyourown.
For yours, I thank you much and cordially. I appreciate the
kindness you extend to me, and in beginning a new sheet
I am not going to plunge into a controversy, being under a
vow not to do it, and being content to pass with you for a
" rational person " and no Calvinist in any true sense of
predestination after all. My creed is that controversy does
harm, and I might say my experience is that it does harm
— for I have given no superficial attention in former years
to this very subject, and read the arguments (such as they
are) of logicians on both sides, and gone carefully through
the Scriptures with a reference to the points in question.
My own inference is that the manner of election and pre-
destination (those being Scriptural words, and therefore
undeniable ventricles of some truth) is not revealed — although
the total dependence of man upon God is revealed, as is
his debility and corruption without the operation of the
Holy Ghost and the word of Christ Jesus.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 1 33
Nearly the whole of the second page of your letter
satisfies me perfectly, and so does much of your book ;
however, I may yearn to cut certain pages from out of the
heart of it, — the truth being, my dear friend, that you are
as slack an Arminian as ever I can be a Calvinist ; and
that you fall into contradictions by being too spiritual
yourself for those you walk with. That extract for
instance ! — And then you do not and cannot prove your
position that the Church of England is anti-Calvinistic, on
the ground of the Arminian interpretation being supported
by certain members of that Church, because it is to be met
on another ground of the Calvinistic interpretation being
supported by other members of that Church. The knife
cuts two ways. In regard to the Articles . . to the
doctrines generally of the Church of England, I reverence
them, on the whole, as Christ's own doctrines ; and receive
them as pure and spiritual. They are the doctrines in the
gross, of all Christians, under whatever denominations they
may class themselves — and the Baptists, Congregationalists,
Wesleyan Methodists, &c., hold them with as firm a hand
as your bishops.
Ah ! you smile at me for my schism ! — And 7, after you
said you smiled, did not smile but quite laughed out, to
find you "astonished" at that recreancy. Why, did you
(never hear that I was — a schismatic ? And can you not
,
imagine in your musing mind that a " rational person "
thinking and feeling a little, as all responsible persons
should, on the most important of all subjects, might (with-
out being by any means a " controversialist by profession ")
class himself or herself with the particular class of Chris-
134 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
tians which appears to approach nearest his or her view of
Scriptural truth ? For instance, suppose that I received
the Church of England definition of a Church, i.e. " a con-
gregation of godly persons " — too fully to believe in the
propriety of a National Church — and suppose my view of
the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper embraced a simple
obedience to the command of the Lord that we " do this in
remembrance of Him" — with no " mystery beyond except
the depth of God's love," — and suppose I preferred, by
temperament and reflection, a simpler form of worship and
teaching than are to be met with in your assemblies —
and suppose, even suppose, that I believed the word
'' bishop" in the Scripture to mean a working minister, —
would you blame me for approaching what appeared to
me the purest form of truth ? — would you esteem me unjus-
tified in my deed, for leaving what appeared to me the
impure form of truth ? I appeal to your reverence for
Truth, — my dear friend and brother, in the Unity of the
Church of Christ, I believe, — and I believe that I do not
sin against it schismatically, as long as I love Christ, and
recognise in Him the brotherhood of all Believers. As
there are many mansions in Heaven, so are there many
Churches on earth : and the true sin of schism is (accord-
ing to my perception of it) a sin against the unity of all
the Churches of Christendom, and more or less.
And now I come to what has interested me not the least
in your letter — the words about my dear friend Miss Mit-
ford. Can it be really true that she goes to no place of
worship? I had not even feared it. Oh, yes, — in the
course of our long correspondence, and in the liberty which
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 135
she has constantly permitted to me, I have often entered
upon the subject of religion with her, taking the opportu-
nities as they were presented. Sometimes she has not
answered me, — and sometimes, particularly at the period
of her father's death, she did so almost satisfactorily.
Certainly at that period she expressed definitely that her
hope for him and herself was in Christ alone, and that in
prayer and the sense of the great Hereafter lay the whole
of her personal consolation. Still, I will not tell you that
I am contented altogether — I love her too much. She has
not. I fear, distinct views — and perhaps, perhaps, her in-
terest in the subject (now that the moment of emotion
which brings us all to the feet of God, is past) may not be
strong enough to admit of much long and steady reflec-
tion. How can I be contented ? More especially how
can I be contented after what you tell me ? Dear Mr.
Merry, if you are able to do any good, do it ! And you,
who have the opportunity of personal communication with
her, must have occasions of useful intervention, to which
any intimacy by correspondence is weak and inadequate.
If you and I (for instance) were in this room together at
this moment, you might fasten me down to a controversy
on Predestination, and I might not be able to run away !
It is so easy to escape from a subject in a correspondence, —
and so difficult face to face ! Oh, if you could only open
the gifted mind fully, serenely, to the living truths on
which depend not only a " happy futurity " but a happy
present, what a benediction would be due to you both
from herself and from all who love her ! I should tell you
that sometimes I have felt happy, and sometimes unhappy
136 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
in relation to her religious state — and, also, that she was
more vividly affected by her visit to the Roman Catholic
Bishop and Chapel near Bath, than she ever appeared to
me to be by any cause of the kind. I had asked her (for-
give me) to go to hear Mr. Jay, the Nonconformist at Bath,
who has been the means of doing much good, — but she
went to the Roman Catholic Chapel instead, and was too
pleased to leave me quite satisfied. If she were a person
of different habits of mind, I should quite have trembled
when she talked lightly of "going to be a Catholic." I
tell you all, dear Mr. Merry, — and if you prove to be the
instrument of doing the good to which you aspire, I shall
be the first to thank God for you ! — for her ! ! and for me !
It seems to me (in reference to your kind question) that
everybody must be tired of hearing of me, — and that to be
so long ill, without dying, is a decided case of black letter
in the body. According to Plato, I should have been put
to death long ago as a chronic patient — and really I feel a
little ashamed of being alive. No wonder, therefore, that
I should be silent about myself whenever I can ! Yet just
the reason why I should thank you for your enquiry, and
reply to it by an assurance of my being considerably better
upon the whole, however confined by necessity to my sofa,
and one room ; still my prospects change while my position
remains the same, and I begin to understand that it may
be God's will (who has caused me to survive much trial of
body, and mental agonies without a name) to keep me in
the world to watch, wait, and perhaps work far, far longer
than once (and that not very long ago) I could have believed
either possible or endurable.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 137
May He bless you in your work, and in your joys ! I
thank you all for your kindness to me, and entreat you to
suffer me to walk by your side, as far as we are agreed,
as an affectionate, however unworthy a Christian, sister
should.
Faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT.
138
THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
LETTER III.
50 WIMPOLE STREET,
LONDON.
January 8M, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I hasten to reply to your kind letter because the
matter of it will not suffer me to be more patient. With
all my heart I rejoice in the effect likely to follow on those
wise suggestions, which the true bravery of your friendship
ventured ; and with all my mind I subscribe to the
discretion of your delicacy which would refrain from
obtruding in anything after the good has been done. I
perfectly understand the advantage of silence, both on my
part and yours, and I feel also that you will need no
further recompense than the consciousness of having been
made an instrument of doing good, either from the person
benefited, or from society. May God's blessing wait upon
the performance of this obvious duty of public prayer, and
open out vista beyond vista of mercy and joy for our
friend.
That she is not a Unitarian I know, and I thank G(
she is not. For the rest, if the Gospel is preached simpl)
in the place of worship to which she is about to go, let
hope that the want of an attractive medium will not
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 139
felt very drearily by her, and that the Spirit of God will
give of His beauty and fragrance to the least word.
I have not referred to your personal affliction in these
two pages, dear Mr. Merry, but I have thought of it all the
while I was writing. And my thought was (if I may tell
it) that your reflections upon this good which you have
done must have carried a sweetness into your sadness, and
modified it with the most persuasive earthly comforting
there is in the world. As for the species of sadness, I
know what it is. I had heard of your affliction from Miss
Mitford, and felt what the depth of it must be. Blessed
are they, nevertheless, who have a double lot, the consola-
tions of Heaven, as well as the sorrows of the earth !
And yet more blessed they who in addition to their
personal consolations have the privilege of giving a gift,
or teaching a truth, or suggesting a hope to their fellows,
while suffering the common lot of grief! And as to my
being Pope Joan the second — why, believe me, I have no
manner of pretension to any such dignity, as you would
say if you knew me better. If we do not think and feel
for ourselves in matters of religion, we may as well give
away our responsibility to the priest like other Roman
Catholics, and cease to call ourselves Protestant Christians.
And it is very clear to me that every man or woman of us
all is bound to receive into practice the truth he or she
consciously discerns, and as he or she consciously discerns
it. The true schismatic is the other he or she who shall
refuse to tolerate the brother or sister in Christ, on account
of his or her holding a truth, or a form, in a different
manner from the holding of his truth, or form. The
Universal Church of Christ is one and indivisible ; and
1 40 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF
large should be the heart of its members, even as Christ's
heart to them all. But the Churches of Christ are many,
and the ministrations of the one Spirit are many, and the
aspects of truth to the human mind are many indeed.
Also there may be schism (according to my view of the
term) as in a separate Church, for instance, where the
members of a Baptist Church differ and divide, or where
the members of a Church of England differ and divide, as
in the present actual case of the Puseyites and the Evan-
gelical party. But the Baptist Christian is no schismatic
towards the Church of England Christian, nor vice versa ;
nor can either be considered a schismatic towards the
Universal Christian Church. Do you not believe, my dear
friend, in the unity of the Church, pure and undivided, in
the midst of the sects ? Is the dissenter a schismatic in
your eyes, because he does not belong to your National
Church when in Christ's eyes he is a member of the
indivisible Church ? For this last position is no begging
of the question as long as you admit (as I am sure you do)
that the believer, let him be dissenter or not, is safe in
Christ.
Will you — if I read your Liturgy — read Binney's pam-
phlet on " Schism " for me ? Will you promise to do it ?
For the rest, what if every word of the Liturgy were
taken from Scripture ! The argument of the deduction
does not favour you with the Church of Rome, to whom
that Liturgy belongs. Without reading any book, I will
admit at once that much of the Liturgy is from Scripture,
and that it is (with some reserved points for objection)
as beautiful a Liturgy as could be written or read,
but why should not we, for whom Christ died, and
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 141
in whom the Spirit maketh intercession, speak to God out
of the fulness of our hearts ? If the spirit crieth Abba in
us, why should not we cry it with our lips, without reading
a form of speech from a Prayer Book ? Was the publican's
prayer a " beautiful Liturgy," or invented or arranged by
men ? And where many publicans meet together, who
shall forbid that all " being agreed " they all " pray to-
gether " as well and unitedly as you of " the Church " ?
So I entreat you to consider these things. The mystery
of love in unity is very little understood — our hearts are not
large enough for the comprehensiveness of Christ's Divine
Heart ; and perhaps when we are free from the body, and
the Heavenly surprise brightens round us, nothing will
astonish us more than a perception of the real character of
our former divisions. The crooked shall be straight, and
the rough places plain, in a new sense yet unconceived of.
You shake your head perhaps : never mind — you will smile
perhaps, then !
In all this I would not appear to arrogate any peculiar
degree of large-heartedness to myself. We all have our
prejudice — some on one subject, some on another — and I,
consciously to myself, with the rest. Only I would aspire
to love, even as to truth ; and in speaking of Christ's
Church, I would not lift one denomination over the head of
another. I would reverence tJie Churches. Also I am not
a Baptist but a Congregational Christian in the holding of
my private opinions. Altogether you will be gentle and
not call me Pope Joan any more. Shall it not be so ?
And now I come to speak of Mr. Reade, and of my
reasons for troubling you in such a hurry with Pope
142 THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF E. B. BROWNING.
Joanisms, is my eagerness to explain my whole mind
respecting his message to me. I am very sorry (I need
scarcely tell you I hope) that Mr. Reade should lie under
the impression of my being aggrieved by any word of his,
or any supposed word of his — and certainly to nobody
in the world did I ever complain of his speaking such
a word. The faults of my writings are unfortunately
such obvious ones that the very poet does not deny
them ; and the best friends of the said poet can
give no offence to her by admitting them. Will you say
this from me to Mr. Reade ? It will convince him that if
the bird in the air misapprehended the matter, he (Mr.
Reade) was at least wrong in supposing me offended, or
even ruffled, or thrown into any attitude of complaint what-
ever, by the hypothesis of a criticism from him. Whatever
I said about the hypothetical criticism was simply historical,
only by no means intended for tradition ; and I am much
vexed that it should have come to that estate.
Beg Mr. Reade to forget as fast as possible everything
which has been unpleasant to him in this matter, and to
accept the expression of my regret in exchange for his
kindness. And this is all with which I shall trouble you
for the present.
For the sake of the truth which we both love, forgive
the differences of opinion which it is as difficult for me to
prevent as for you.
And believe me none the less on their account,
Faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT.
THE REVEREND GEORGE CRABBE.
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES.
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES BY CRABBE.
ALTHOUGH the Rev. George Crabbe's poetry is essentially
a product of the nineteenth century, he had done a con-
siderable mass of work in verse and prose before the close
of the eighteenth. Born at Aldeburgh in Suffolk in 1754,
he began his career as a man of letters before the third
quarter of the century had passed. His Inebriety, a Poem,
published at Ipswich in 1775, was but the last of a long
series of juvenilities. In the year 1780, in the course of
which he issued anonymously The Candidate, a Poetical
Epistle to tJie Editors of tJie Monthly Review, he was doing
his utmost to make a living in London as a man of letters.
Engaged to be married to Miss Sarah Elmy, to whom he
gave the poetic name of " Mira," he kept for her a circum-
stantial journal of his proceedings, from which, as edited by
his son in the Life prefixed to the standard edition of his
works, we learn that he addressed to her a Poetical Epistle
in the spring of 1 780. From this work, never yet published,
the poet's biographer quoted ten disjointed lines, whereby
the composition is positively identifiable as the second of
the following Epistles. This, though familiarly written and
VOL. II. L
146 REV. GEORGE CRAB BE.
sent to Miss Elmy at her home, was worked into one of the
many literary projects of this busy period, unquestionably
meant for publication. In the seventeen folio pages of
which the manuscript consists, the Epistle to Mira, yoked
with a General Epistle from the Devil, and a preface by
" Martinus Scriblerus," is beautifully written ; but neither
its caligraphy nor its subject appears to have tempted the
publishers of the period ; and the manuscript remained as
a curious relic to pass into the collection of Mr. Buxton
Forman. Crabbe was over twenty-five years old when this
work was produced ; it cannot therefore be classed as a
juvenile work ; indeed it was only one year earlier than
that typical poem of his first period of maturity, The
Library. It is worth recalling that the passage in the
Epistle to Mira, including the couplet —
Of substance I've thought, and the various disputes,
On the Nature of Man, and the Nations of Brutes,
refers to another undertaking, a treatise in prose which the
poet entitled A Plan for the Examination of our Moral and
Religious Opinions, of which his son records that only
the " first rough draught " was preserved. In printing the
Poetical Epistles from the holograph, the characteristic
spelling, pointing, and capitalling are followed save in cases
of positive error ; for they add to the interest which the
work derives from the great eminence attained by Crabbe
in the present century as the author of those extraordinary
transcripts of English life and experience, The Parish
Register, The Borough, and Tales of the Hall.
POETICAL EPISTLES.
(BY THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE.)
<i.) FROM THE DEVIL. AN EPISTLE GENERAL.
(2.) FROM THE AUTHOR.
An Introduction to the former of these, by the learned
Martinus Scriblerus.
PERADVENTURE it may surprize thee, Reader, that an
Author of our Dignity and Importance, should stoop to the
servile employment of introducing to the World, the flimsy
Production of an anonymous Scribler ; unless thou art in-
deed persuaded that the great Personage above mentioned
should have prevailed upon us to recommend his Labours
to an Age not extremely partial to poetical Composition.
But whatever Intimacy we may be favoured with in either
" Profound " we are in this Case, totally innocent of any
Intention to deceive thee, for we apprehend did the Genius
aforesaid, think proper to add the Sin of Rhyme to his
other Failings, he has too great a Correspondence and
Reputation among Mankind, to need our Solicitations in
his Favour, were we ever so well disposed to grant them :
L 2
148 REV. GEORGE CRAB BE.
but knowing of no due Authority which any man hath to
accuse Satan of this Infirmity, we judge it both Cruel and
unnecessary, to load him with so heavy a Charge, as would
in all probability render him more odious to Company
in general, than any other Accusation he now labours
under.
We are however aware of this Objection, that as the
" Devil is ab Origine " the Author of Evil, so Poetry as one
Species of it, may properly be placed to his Account ; but
as our argument principally relates to the Piece before us,
we shall waive all general Discourse ; and observe only
that our Reasoning went no farther, than to show, (whatever
may be his Talent for Poetry), that we have no right to
affix his Name, in a particular Manner to any one
Publication.
The very title of the Work, we have thought proper to
introduce to our Acquaintance, for besides that it is an
Approved Custom amongst Editors, we did not choose our
honest and venerated Name, should appear to countenance
a Falsity.
As pure Compassion is our motive for recommending
this little Work to our learned Friends, so would we have
its real Author sensible of the Honour we do him, and not
with an Author-like spirit, carp at our Emendations, at the
Time we are studiously aiming at his Benefit. Nor could
we allow the Title he has chosen to pass at any rate, did
he not assure us he can think of no other so likely to take
with the humour of the Town.
It having occurred to us, that the judicious Authors of a
periodical Publication, called the World, did in their first
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 149
Paper, counsel their Readers against being witty — purely
for the Wit's sake — at their Expence, and more particularly
did guard them against such Expressions of pretended Dis-
approbation as these, " 'tis a vile World," " a sad World,"
&c., so gentle Friends we would borrow a Thought from the
excellent Mr. Fitz-Adam, and advise ye, not to abuse our
Author with the Terms " poor Devil," " dull Devil," " stupid
Devil," and so forth, notwithstanding we do agree that it shall
be imputed unto ye for wit when ye shall say of the ensueing
Poem, "it is devilish good," devilish clever and such-like.
And to all our Brethren, the real Critics, and Judges of
Literary productions, we would, towards that before us
recommend Lenity ; it is a first performance and of a
young Author ; and albeit there shall be found blemishes
and Failings therein, we do in a certain Degree perceive
Beauties not altogether unworthy our Approbation, the
which if ye likewise behold, and point out to the Public
after a friendly Sort, ye shall do well.
EPISTLE IST.
YE Mortals, Whom Poets with Verses perplex
Whom Churchmen misguide, and Philosophers vex,
Whose Heads are disturbed, with the Tenets of Schools,
Whom Terror betrays, and whom Conscience befools,
From the Regions below, with a Heart full of Love,
I send to my excellent Subjects above,
And tho' 'tis Advice that now dictates my Strain
I must freely confess, I've no Cause to complain.
With Pleasure I hear, how the Demon of War
Is hurling his blessed Confusion from far,
Has bade the slow Spaniard to Battle advance
And has got a good Footing in England and France,
It delights me to find, the Designs of the Dutch
Are to move for a Peace, but to hinder it much,
For my trusty Disciples of Holland are known
To have no kind of Feeling, for aught but their own,
And the Kingdoms around, are as far as I see
Just acting the Part, they have borrow'd from me.
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 151
Nor is it without a great Share of Delight
I find so much wrong, is confounded with Right
Where Justice alone on one Party is clear
Why Truth may prevail and a Peace may be near,
But where Good and Evil are properly mixed
The Cause is obscure, and Destruction more fix'd,
Since each on the first will rest all their Pretensions,
The latter to stretch, to its utmost Dimensions.
With much Satisfaction, I likewise confess,
I behold so much Deviltry drop from the Press,
But this is a Subject I will not say much on
Because what hereafter I purpose, to touch on,
At present to all, in their several Degrees
I pay my Respect, in such Verses as these,
And my rough-moving Lines, should your Critics condemn,
I shall talk in a much rougher Language to them.
Ye Monarchs ! Ye Rulers of Nations attend,
To a Ruler your Equal ! the first Monarch's Friend !
Whose Empire at least is as large as your own,
As crowded his Army, as splendid his Throne,
His Spirit as great, and whatever his Cause
A greater Obedience is paid to his Laws ;
152 REV. GEORGE CRABBE.
Attend and receive your Instructions from me
Though a Counsellor famous, I covet no fee ;
Prefer me before, all your ignoble Tribe
What Mortal in Black ever acts without Bribe ?
Let Empire unbounded your Bosoms possess
You're as noble as Caesar, and scorn to be less.
Be your Counsellors such, as may aid your Designs !
Good Jockeys, great Gamblers, rare Judges of Wines
And then should you happen to fail in your Ends
Your People may lay all the Blame on your Friends
And say "'tis a pity a Monarch so just
Such a pack of damn'd Villainous Fellows should trust."
Nor judge in this Case my Advice is confin'd,
Be it common as Air, and as free as the Wind,
Obey'd in the Climes, which Sol scarce can appear in
Caress'd in the Countries he passes the year in,
Nor would I like him from my Friends fly away
Wherever I'm courted I constantly stay,
To Spain, France, or Flanders extending my Care
And England ! in spite of my Enemies there.
With its monarch of old I was social and free
And the Present must die — that's some Comfort to me.
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 153
Believe me my Brethren — for when I advise
I always speak Truth, tho' the Father of Lies —
Tis a foolish Mistake to imagine Mankind
Were not for their Monarch's good Pleasure design'd.
We know and believe they're as truly his own
As the Farmer's his Beast, or the wheat he has sown,
And he's a most stupid, and scandalous Block
Who would not be part of so noble a Stock,
To fetch and to carry, be curried and fed
As his Master has Work, or his Master has Bread.
Ye Statesmen, I next to your Honours apply
Ye know the old Subject ; ye ken who am I !
I would give each Advice how to act in his Station
But most have without it entire Approbation,
Nay let us confess, and give Mortals their due
We borrow a great many Maxims from you!
And would ne'er have you heed what your Satirists say
Who expose to the World all your pensions and pay.
Such Wretches by jealous Emotions betray 'd
Are as knavish as you, and yet never get paid.
Sejanus politely his Compliments sends
To show he remembers his very good Friends
154 REV. GEORGE CRAB BE.
And tells you, with Grief which his Feelings betray
He hears ye are some of ye veering away
If this and there's Reason to fear it be true
I'd have ye consider what end ye pursue
You'll find you've a very bad bargain at last
Despis'd for the present and damn'd for the past.
Ye Commons your Nation's most able Protectors,
Ye generous Elected, ye well paid Electors,
Your Patron here greets you and though but in Song
He praises the Path ye have mov'd in so long,
A Path he has form'd with such exquisite Care
That it leads you directly he need not say where.
At a Crisis important to Europe and us
It becomes us, my Friends, to act constantly thus
To stick to our Cause with a strong perseverence,
Else Nobody knows what may happen a year hence,
For in Times of Disturbance, 'tis frequently seen,
That Virtue's more busy than when they're serene.
And from a good Spirit in brisk fermentation,
A Clear settled Habit may reign in each Nation,
The which to prevent 'tis my serious Command,
You carefully lend each his Heart and his Hand.
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 155.
In England I've studied that People's Condition
And seen the Contents of each County's petition,
By which I collect ; with a Logic my own
The Seeds of Dissension are properly sown,
And I'm not without Hope, but if suffer'd to grow
I may reap in due Time, what I taught you to sow,
But I'm sorry to find, that in spite of my Care
For that Country's Estate, I've my Enemies there,
Whom, though I've attended with studious Skill
I don't know a people have us'd me so ill.
Go Wretches ingrate see my Subjects in France
With what excellent skill, they my Business advance
Do they stick to Agreements, or such Kind of Things ?
Is there Truth in their Courtiers, or Faith in their Kings ?
Their Notions of Honour, or keeping of Treaties
Are govern'd by that kind of Body their Fleet is
While you of a Nation I take such Delight in
Are inferior in Fraud, tho' you beat them at fighting.
Ye Spirits uncurb'd by the Dictates of Schools,
The Lectures of Priests or Morality's Rules,
Or the pitifull Dreams, of the Herd we dispise
The Puritan dull, and the Prelate precise,
1 56
REV. GEORGE CRAB BE.
Ye learned Philosophers, Deists devout
Who know not the Depth of the Thing you're about.
But I'm willing to own it, 'tis proper you should
And Satan here thanks you, ye've done him much Good.
Before ye began to reform Men's Opinions
How bounded my Realm, how restrain'd my Dominions
But now since 'tis clear that there's no revelation
I've a pretty good Footing my Friends in the Nation
And I'd have you go on with each learn'd Dissertation
For our firmest Adherents, we commonly call
The Man who believes there's no Devil at all
And as you so clearly convince your attendants
We're nothing, and all our good Company send hence
Your learned Opinion I find as I read it
Advances my Gain, whilst it shatters my Credit,
As Bankrupts who wilfully plunge into Shame
To gain in their purse, what they lose in their Fame.
For the learned the wise and the deep-sighted Few,
I've an excellent Work which I'd have ye pursue !
Your Genius may mend a dull Devil's Designs,
May alter my Manner, and polish -my Lines
The Scheme is exalted ! is quite in your walk
And I care not in what kind of Language I talk.
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 157
Tis to prove to Mankind, to whom pleasures belong,
Your Moralists, too, as your Pastors are wrong
That not to Religion alone is confin'd
Our work but a full Reformation's design'd,
Till your Country all Kinds of Enjoyment excell in
And becomes much the Kind of a Place which we
dwell in.
But first you'll my Congratulations receive
For the exquisite Pleasure your arguments give
Which we hear with a vast deal of Joy and Delight
At Coachmakers' Hall, almost every Night,
And are so entertain'd with the things in that Style
That we'd thoughts of erecting our Houses-Carlisle ;
But the Motion was quash'd on a due recollection
Our good Subjects here ev'ry Party and Sect shun,
That we have the same Constant Business in View
And can never dissent in opinion like you
Nor suffer we here any Authors to write
And to talk of the State, why 'tis deemed unpolite,
And the Point Revelation, that's banish'd your Creed
Would not move a Debate where we all are agreed.
Nor have we a Subject, which Satan can reckon
Is fit for a Genius among us to speak on.
158 REV. GEORGE CRAB BE.
But by Way of Digression, we can but admire
That your Ladies to argue should cooly desire
Should one at a Time any Subject discuss
They ne'er could be brought to that Order with us,
But they still altogether their Subjects pursue
With the Knack which they formerly had among you
And we marvel that Men of Discretion can teach,
To such Lips the all conquering Graces of Speech !
But my Plan to return to, ye Sages assist,
Let's our Heads lay together, our Arguments twist,
And prove by the Light, we thought proper to kindle
In our dearly beloved our Toland and Tindal !
With Arguments all unresisted as these
That men have a right to do just what they please,
And because I shall chance my own Worth to proclaim
My Actions, my Spirit, my Merit and Fame,
With Modesty such as as you can but approve
I shall speak in the Words of, my Vot'ries above.
Yet again to digress, you must never suppose
But even the learned are sometimes my Foes,
Nor is it a volatile Genius alone
Or eccentric Attempt, that proclaims you my own,
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 159
There was Priestley they told me had wrote in my Cause
And publish'd good Things with a deal of Applause,
But 'tis mere Imposition, he scribble for me !
He scrawl in my Favour ! No damn him not he !
Yet 'tis some Consolation that Blunderers make
His meanings so strange, that they're ours by Mistake.
And now having settled the principal Points
Your Master the Head of his Prophet anoints
And judging all Conscience no more in the Way
Thus bids you to sing or thus bids you to say.
"What pictures of Life do the Dogmatists paint
What a dull Dissertation comes forth from the Saint
How they roar against Sin and contribute to drub
Every Demon from Earth, both in Pulpit and Tub,
Enjoyment how plaguily low do they rate it
How rail at all Pleasure, and tell you they hate it
As Jockeys designing to purchase your Horse
Will assure you no Mortal on Earth has a worse,
Display ev'ry Failing with exquisite Skill
Yet bestride him themselves with a hearty good Will.
"Twere well if the Earth had their Censure engross'd
But the Devil engages their Spleen to his Cost !
160 REV. GEORGE CRABBE.
Poor Devil ! from whom half our Blissings accrue
But the Saints give to no one the Qualities due
Else how might they praise without Flatt'ry's Appear-
ance
His Honour, his Spirit, his known Perseverance,
How seldom his Friendship's remember'd to alter
How he smiles on the Block, and how softens the
Halter,
The Friends to his Cause, he with Spirit supports,
Attends them at Tyburn, conveys them to Courts,
With noble Profusion gives all he can give
And scorns to forsake them, so long as they live,
In mystery deep, a great Metaphysician !
In history known, and a rare Politician,
A merry Companion, yet sage in due Places
He knows good Behaviour and studies the Graces,
Can the Springs of good Humour and Harmony feel,
Not Stanhope himself could be half so genteel,
Is the last to disturb them where people are gay
And the first to drive stupid Reflection away ;
Then spare him ye Preachers, without whose assist
ance
Your dull Congregations as well were at Distance,
Retract your Abuse, wheresoever you've spread it
And lament your Attack on a Gentleman's Credit."
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 161
" Would you know the vile Sources of Sorrow and
Grief
We're fully persuaded We'll tell you the Chief
But first 'tis but right we our Talents should use
To take from the Guiltless a Load of abuse."
" Our Moralists tell us indulg'd Inclinations
Breed all our Disasters, and nurse our Vexations,
That Sin Satan's Daughter as Milton has told us
Has dealt to Mankind all the Plagues which enfold us.
'Tis false — I acquit her with lenient Sentence,
The Plagues they describe are the Plagues of Repent-
ance,
And surely 'tis hard we should blame her for Woes,
She strives to keep from us wherever she goes,
To bully Devotion and banter her Laws
To seduce a Weak Mind, and to plead in the Cause
A Friend to betray, or a Father to wound
And revel in Folly's fantastical round
Are Vices they cry — but they make a Man known,
Give Honour, give Pleasure, and Fame and Renown,
Are Gentlemen's Actions, and Joy must accrue
From Actions which Gentlemen so often do ;
And in spite of what Moralists tell us I find
The antient Philosophers were of our Mind,
VOL. II. M
i62 REV. GEORGE CRAB BE.
Who each in his Way, though to wisdom akin
Have labour'd to beautify some kind of Sin.
Then why should we fear on dull Morals to trample
Who're blest with the Boon of such noble Example ? "
"To Sickness and cruel Disease are assign'd
A part of the Sorrows which trouble Mankind,
But do we not see how Mankind are agreed
To be sick unto Death when there can be no Need ?
Why faints the soft Nymph ? Why the Vapours and
Spleen ?
What can Nameless Complaints and Infirmities mean ?
The pain of a Moment, the Headache at will
Or the languor that's cur'd without Julep or Pill ?
Why riots the Youth so unhappily sleek ?
Why poisons the Maid the pure Blood in her Cheek ?
How happens it Mortals are jumbled together
Without Care in Crowds and in all kinds of Weather ?
Or why press the Throng at Assemblies so thick
If people had not a Delight to be sick?"
" What then are the Causes of human Distress ?
Let Pedants and Preachers have Grace to confess,
There's nothing such varied Disasters can hit
Like Religion and Virtue, Good Nature and Wit."
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 163
" Religion, what horrid Opinions it starts,
How it cramps our Ambition, and deadens our Hearts,
Continually plagues us with Lectures from Heaven
And robs us the Year round of one Day in seven,
Denies to the Passions the Flowers in their Road,
And carps at the varying Designs of the Mode,
It teaches few Fashions but such as we find
Have been hiss'd from good Company Time out of
Mind,
Affords us no rule for the Cut of a Coat
Nor winks at the Science of cutting a. Throat,
A tenth of each Man's Cultivation commands
And threatens us all in Return for our Lands,
Still presses the More like a Dun for Neglect
And is never contented with civil Respect,
Intrudes in the Dance, and grows grave in the Song
And conjures up Conscience with all 'her dull Throng."
" And Virtue, what's Virtue ? an obstinate Cur
Who clings to a Rock and refuses to stir,
Whose Lectures on Life are a plague beyond bearing
So he snaps at your Heels, till you're quite out of
hearing ;
But hearken to him and he'll tell you the Fancies
Which please the poor School-Boy in Tales and Romances,
M 2
164 REV. GEORGE CRABBE.
How he and his Friends, have defeated the Crimes
Of voluptuous Aspirers in horrible Times,
By Patience and Prating done wonderfull Things
To Women consumptive, and Death-alarm'd Kings.
But tell me when Virtue got any Man Pension'd
Or procur'd him a Title, that's fit to be mention'd
Or taught him to talk for the Praise of the Nation
Or dictated Themes for a publick Oration ?
Did it ever a Brilliant Assembly advance
Or import sound Politeness and Claret from France ?
Not this ; but it hobbles in Gait and in speech
And laught at by all is still aiming to teach,
From the gentle ' in modo ' will angrily flee
But sternly adhere to the hatefull ' in re.' "
"And what is a properer Object of Satire
Than that most ridiculous Failing Good nature ?
Do you know a Man laugh'd at by all his Acquaint-
ance
Despis'd and disdain'd by the People he maintains ?
Too grave for a Wit, and too mean for a Beau,
A Clown who does nothing as other Men do,
An Awkwardly-generous, blundering Thing
Who stoops to a Beggar and stares on a King,
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 165
A Creature who makes no Distinction at all
'Twixt a Speech in the Vestry and one in the Hall,
Leoni who warbles, or Porters who bawl.
His Heart without Judgment, his Head without Rule
And merely for want of Discretion a Fool,
Whose Mind with a pitiful Tale is possess'd,
Who is every one's Friend, yet is every one's Jest,
Who blunders thro' Life without forming a Plan,
Is that poor stupid Mortal — a good natur'd Man."
" But of all the vile Things which torment or molest us
Wit a thousand times worse than the worst of the rest is,
Poison that banish'd from every Table
As far as the People of Fashion are able
To the Bookworms in Schools, and the Grooms of the
Stable.
A Man who has Wit, is more proud than the Devil
Is never so welcome, is never so civil,
With Absolute Tenets as stern as the Church's
He lashes the failings his wealth can not purchase,
Is ever awakening his Enemies' Slumber,
Lamenting his Foes, yet increasing their Number,
So dirty no Gentleman cares to go near him
And sensible Women, don't know how to bear him
166 REV. GEORGE CRABBE.
His Wit is rebellious, and as a Man's Wife
If it conquers him once, 'tis his Master for Life,
And though there are things it may chance to produce-
If it takes the right turn of an excellent use,
Yet 'tis plain to be seen it extinguishes Merit
And dashes the Efforts of Genius and Spirit"
But not to perplex you with tedious Instruction.
I hope this may serve for a good Introduction
And leaving the rest of the Business to you
Beloved, and Trusty ! I bid you adieu !
•
M
EPISTLE 2ND.
TO MlRA.
'TIS by Contrast we shine ; without Withers and Prynne
What had Butler or Wits of that Century been ?
Or how without Dunces had Dryden or Pope
The strengths of their great Reputation kept up ?
The Pleasures we share from the Dawning of Light
Are doubled by Thoughts of its following Night,
And Virtue and Sweetness like yours shall repay us
For poring so long over Satan's Affairs,
At your Company then do not think to repine,
You the fairer appear — for by Contrast we shine.
What a Life, my dear Maid, do the Heavens decree
For the Dreamers of Dreams, for the Learned ! for me,
Where pale Disappointment awakes to molest
The Study-vex'd Head, and the Sorrow-torn Breast
1 68 REV. GEORGE CRABBE.
Pity much though you blame the dull Spleen of your
Swain
Who has Cause to deplore, and he thinks to complain
That Fortune has soil'd the gay Dress of each Dream
That Time has o'erthrovvn every fairy-built Scheme
That thinking has slacken'd the Force of his Nerves
And his Study has met with the Fate it deserves.
What a Plague was my Meaning to add to my own
The Cares of a Kind which I need not have known
When Nature and Fortune had given their Part
Twas stupid to borrow Dejection from Art
And with Trouble a pretty large Portion before
To pilfer Perplexities out of her Store.
See the Fate of Ambition — contented with Rhyme
I had softened the Features of Sorrow and Time,
Had play'd with the Evils I might not refuse
And soften'd their Frowns with the Tears of the
Muse,
Had mov'd in Life's Path with a Sigh and a Song
And laugh'd at her Rubs as I stumbled along,
But smitten with Science I've laboured to lay
A thousand impediments more in my way,
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 169
And because my poor Muse was too gentle a Guide
To smooth the rough Way, and to sing by my Side
I've coveted Learning, a dangerous Thing
To drag through the Road, and who never could sing.
Of Substance I've thought, and the various Disputes
On the Nature of Man, and the Notions of Brutes,
Of simple and complex Ideas I've read
How they rose into Life and spring up in my Head,
That the Frolicks I love, and the Fashions I hate
Are from Causes without, and they rule not innate ;
I've studied with stupid Attention and Skill
The Destiny's Law, and the Bounds of the Will ;
Of Systems confuted, and Systems explain'd,
Of Science disputed, and Tenets maintain'd,
How Matter, and Spirit dissent or unite,
How vary the Natures of Fire and of Light,
How Bodies excentric, concentric shall be,
How Authors divide where they seem to agree,
How dissenting unite, by a Touch of the Quill
Which bodies a Meaning in what Form they will ;
These and such Speculations, on these Kind of Things
Have robb'd my poor Muse of her Plume and her Wings,
i/o REV. GEORGE CRAB BE.
Consum'd the Phlogiston, you us'd to admire,
The Spirit extracted, extinguish'd the Fire,
Let out all the Aether so pure and refin'd
And left but a mere Caput-Mortuum behind.
Ah ! Priestley, thou Foe to my Numbers, what need,
To shock my poor Muses ? Thou dost not my Creed
With Schemes, Dissertations, and Arguments strong
Which I know not how right, and I care not how
wrong,
Thou great Necessarian must I suppose
The Flight of my Verse, is o'er rul'd by thy prose ?
And that Matters have been unavoidably led
That thou must have written, and I must have read ?
'Tis certain ! — for what but a Bias of Fate
Could have tied me so long to the Subjects I hate ?
O ! blest be the Time, when, my Mira, we stray 'd
Where the Nightingale perch'd, and the wanton winds
play'd,
Where these were the Secrets of Nature we knew,
That her Roses were red, and her Vi'lets were blue,
That soft was the Gloom of the Summer-swell'd shade
And melting the Fall of the dying Cascade.
TWO POETICAL EPISTLES. 171
Blest the Song shall repeat be the Pleasures that reign
In the plenty-prest Vale, on the green-vested Plain,
Give Locke to the Winds, and lay Hume on the Fire,
Let Metaphysicians in Darkness expire,
And Fatalists, Fabulists, Logicians fall by
The Laws which Necessity modulates all by.
Let the Slumber of Sense, and the Silence of Spleen
Lay hold upon Priestley that learned Machine
Or what will to us my dear Maid be the same,
May we cease to admire each ostensible Name,
And blest with those Pleasures the Muses desire
See Learning unenvied to Students retire.
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE
MEREDITH.
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE
MEREDITH.
The following article appeared in the " Leader" January
5///, 1856, and was from the pen of George Eliot.
No act of religious symbolism has a deeper root in nature
than that of turning with reverence towards the East. For
almost all our good things — our most precious vegetables,
our noblest animals, our loveliest flowers, our arts, our
religious and philosophical ideas, our very nursery tales
and romances have travelled to us from the East. In an
historical as well as in a physical sense, the East is the
land of the morning. Perhaps the simple reason of this
may be that when the earth first began to move on her
axis, her Asiatic side was towards the sun — her Eastern
cheek first blushed under his rays. And so this priority
of sunshine, like the first move in chess, gave the East the
precedence, though not the pre-eminence in all things ;
just as the garden slope that fronts the morning sun yields
the earliest seedlings, though those seedlings may attain
a hardier and more luxuriant growth by being trans-
planted. But we leave this question to wiser heads.
" Felix qui potent rerum cognoscen causas"
1 76 GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH.
(Excuse the novelty of the quotation.) We have not
carried our reader's thoughts to the East that we may
discuss the reason why we owe it so many good things, but
that we may introduce him to a new pleasure, due, at least
indirectly, to that elder region of the earth. We mean The
Shaving of Shagpat, which is indeed an original fiction
just produced in this western island, but which is so in-
tensely Oriental in its conception and execution, that the
author has done wisely to guard against the supposition
of its being a translation, by prefixing the statement that it
is derived from no Eastern source, but is altogether his
own.
T/te Shaving of Shagpat, is a work of genius, and of
poetical genius. It has none of the tameness which belongs
to mere imitations manufactured with servile effort or
thrown off with sinuous facility. It is no patchwork of
borrowed incidents. Mr. Meredith has not simply imitated
Arabian fictions, he has been inspired by them, he has used
Oriental forms, but only as an Oriental genius would have
used them who had been " to the manner born." Goethe,
when he wrote an immortal work under the inspiration of
Oriental studies, very properly called it West-ostliche — West-
eastern — because it was thoroughly Western in spirit,
though Eastern in its forms. But this double epithet would
not give a true idea of Mr. Meredith's work, for we do
not remember that throughout our reading we were once
struck by an incongruity between the thought and the form,
once startled by the intrusion of the chill north into the
land of the desert and the palm. Perhaps more lynx-eyed
critics, and more learned Orientalists, than we, may detect
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH. 177
discrepancies to which we are blind, but our experience
will at least indicate what is likely to be the average
impression. In one particular, indeed, Mr. Meredith differs
widely from his models, but that difference is a high merit ;
it lies in the exquisite delicacy of his love incidents and
love scenes. In every other characteristic — in exuberance
of imagery, in picturesque wildness of incident, in signifi-
cant humour, in aphoristic wisdom, the Shaving of Shagpat
is a new Arabian Night. To two-thirds of the reading
world this is sufficient recommendation.
According to Oriental custom the main story of the book,
— The Shaving of Shagpat — forms the setting to several
minor tales, which are told on pretexts more or less plausible
by the various dramatis persona. We will not forestall the
reader's pleasure by telling him who Shagpat was, or what
were the wondrous adventures through which Shibli
Bagarag, the wandering barber, became Master of the
Event and the destroyer of illusions, by shaving from
Shagpat the mysterious identical which had held men in
subjection to him. There is plenty of deep meaning in the
tale for those who cannot be satisfied without deep mean-
ings, but there is no didactic thrusting forward of moral
lessons, and our imagination is never chilled by a sense of
allegorical intention predominating over poetic creation.
Nothing can be more vivid and concrete than the narrative
and description, nothing fresher and more vigorous than
the imagery. Are we reading how horsemen pursued their
journey ? We are told that they " flourished their lances
with cries, and jerked their heels into the flanks of their
steeds, and stretched forward till their beards were mixed
VOL. II. N
1 78 GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH.
with the tossing manes, and the dust rose after them
crimson in the sun." Is it a maiden's eyes we are to see ?
They are " dark, under a low arch of darker lashes, like
stars on the skirts of storm." Sometimes the images are
exquisitely poetical, as when Bhanavar looks forth " on the
stars that were above the purple heights and the blushes of
inner heaven that streamed up the sky ; " sometimes ingeni-
ous and pithy : for example, " she clenched her hands an
instant with that feeling which knocketh a nail in the coffin
of a desire not dead." Indeed, one of the rarest charms of
the book is the constant alternation of passion and wild
imaginativeness with humour and pithy, practical sense.
Mr. Meredith is very happy in his imitation of the lyrical
fragments which the Eastern tale-tellers weave into their
narrative, either for the sake of giving emphasis to their
sententiousness, or for the sake of giving a more intense
utterance to passion, a loftier tone to description. We will
quote a specimen of the latter kind from the story of
Bhanavar the Beautiful. This story is the brightest gem
among the minor tales, and perhaps in the whole book. It
is admirably constructed and thoroughly poetic in its
outline and texture.
Bhanavar gazed on her beloved, and the bridal dew over-
flowed her underlids, and she loosed her hair to let it flow,,
part over her shoulders, part over his, and in sighs that
were to the measure of music she sang :
" I thought not to love again!
But now I love as I loved not before ;
I love not : I adore !
0 my belovtd, kiss, kiss me ! waste thy kisses like a rain.
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH. 179
Are not thy red lips fain ?
Ok, and so softly they greet!
Am I not sweet?
Sweet must 1 be for thee, or, sweet in vain :
Sweet to thee only, my dear love!
The lamps and censers sink, but cannot cheat
Those eyes of thine that shoot above,
Trembling lustres of the dove !
A darkness drowns all lustres : still I see
Thee, my love, thee!
Thee, my glory of gold, from head to feet !
Oh, how the lids of the world close quite when our lips meet!"
Almeryl strained her to him and responded :
" My life was midnight on the mountain side ;
Cold stars were on the heights :
There in my darkness, I had lived and died,
Content with little lights.
Sudden I saw the heavens flush -with a beam,
And I ascended soon,
And evermore over mankind supreme -
Stood silver in the moon"
And he fell playfully into a new metre, singing :
" Who will paint my beloved
In musical word or colour?
Earth with an envy is moved:
Sea-shells and roses she brings,
Gems from the green ocean-springs,
Fruits with the fairy bloom-dews,
Feathers of Paradise hues,
Waters with jewel-bright falls,
Ore from the Genii-halls :
All in their splendour approved ;
All ; but, matched with my beloved,
Darker, denser, and duller."
N 2
i8o GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH.
Then she kissed him for that song, and sang :
" Once to be beautiful was my pride,
And I blusKd in love -with my own bright brow.
Once, when a wooer was by my side,
I worshiped the object that had his vow ;
Different, different, different now,
Different now is my beauty to me:
Different, different, different now I
For I prize it alone because prized by thee. "
Almeryl stretched his arm to the lattice, and drew it
open, letting in the soft night wind, and versed to her in
the languor of deep love :
" Whether we die or we live
Matters it now no more ;
Life has nought further to give ;
Love is its crown to its core.
Come to us either, we're rife, —
Death or life!
Death can take not away,
Darkness and light are the same :
We are beyond the pale ray,
Wrapt in a rosier jlame ;
Welcome which will to our breath, —
Life or death!"
An example of Mr. Meredith's skill in humorous apologue
is the Punishment of Khipil the Builder, which is short
enough to be quoted without much mutilation : —
They relate that Shahpesh, the Persian, commanded the
building of a palace and Khipil was his builder. The work
lingered from the first year of the reign of Shahpesh even to
his fourteenth. One day Shahpesh went to the riverside,
where it stood, to inspect it. Khipil was^sitting on a marble
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH. 181
slab among the stones and blocks ; round him stretched
lazily the masons and stonecutters and slaves of burden ;
and they with the curve of humorous enjoyment on their
lips, for he was reciting to them adventures, interspersed
with anecdotes and recitations and poetic instances, as was
his wont. They were like pleased flocks whom the shepherd
hath led to a pasture freshened with brooks, there to feed
indolently ; he, the shepherd, in the midst.
Now the King said to him, " O, Khipil, show me my
palace where it standeth, for I desire to gratify my sight
with its fairness."
Khipil abased himself before Shahpesh, and answered,
" 'Tis even here, O King of the age, where thou delightest
the earth with thy foot and the ear of thy slave with sweet-
ness. Surely a site of vantage, one that dominateth earth,
air, and water, which is the builder's first and chief requisi-
tion for a noble palace, a palace to fill foreign kings and
sultans with the distraction of envy ; and it is, O Sovereign
of the time, a site, this site I have chosen to occupy the
tongues of travellers and awaken the flights of poets ! "
Shahpesh smiled and said, " The site is good ! I laud the
site ! Likewise I laud the wisdom of Ebn Busroe, when he
exclaims : —
' ' Be sure where Virtue faileth to appear,
For her a gorgeous mansion men will rear ;
And day and night her praises will be heard
Where never yet she spake a single word!"
Then said he, " O Khipil, my builder, there was once a
farm servant that, having neglected in the seed time to sow,
182 GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH.
took to singing the richness of his soil when it was harvest,
in proof of which he displayed the abundance of weeds that
coloured the land everywhere. Discover to me now the
completeness of my halls and apartments, I pray thee, O
Khipil, and be the excellence of thy construction made
visible to me ? "
Quoth Khipil, " To hear is to obey." He conducted
Shahpesh among the unfinished saloons and imperfect
courts and roofless rooms, and by half-erected obelisks, and
columns pierced and chipped, of the palace of his building.
And he was bewildered at the words spoken by Shahpesh ;
but now the King exalted him and admired the perfection
of his craft, the greatness of his labour, the speediness of
his construction, his assiduity ; feigning not to behold his
negligence.
Presently they went up winding balusters to a marble
staircase, and the King said, " Such is thy devotion and
constancy to toil, O Khipil, that thou shalt walk before me
here."
He then commanded Khipil to precede him, and Khipil
was heightened with the honour. When Khipil had paraded
a short space he stopped quickly, and said to Shahpesh,
" Here is, as it chanceth, a gap, O King ! and we can go no
further this way."
Shahpesh said, " All is perfect, and it is my will thou
delay not to advance."
Khipil cried, "The gap is wide, O mighty King, and
manifest, and it is the one incomplete part of thy palace."
Then said Shahpesh, "O Khipil, I see no distinction
between one part and another ; excellent are all parts in
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH. 183
beauty and proportion, and there can be no part incomplete
in this palace that occupieth the builder fourteen years in
its building : so advance, and do my bidding."
Khipil yet hesitated, for the gap was of many strides, and
at the bottom of the gap was a deep water, and he one that
knew not the motion of swimming. But Shahpesh ordered
his guard to point their arrows in the direction of Khipil,
and Khipil stepped forth hurriedly, and fell into the gap,
and was swallowed by the water below. When he rose the
third time succour reached him, and he was drawn to land
trembling, his teeth chattering. And Shahpesh praised
him, and said, " This is an apt contrivance for a bath,
Khipil, O my builder ! well conceived ; one that taketh by
surprise ; and it shall be thy reward daily when much talk-
ing hath fatigued thee."
Then he bade Khipil lead him to the hall of state. And
when they were there Shahpesh said, " For a privilege, and
as a mark of my approbation, I give thee permission to sit
in the marble chair of yonder throne, even in my presence,
O Khipil."
Khipil said, " Surely, O King, the chair is not yet
executed."
And Shahpesh exclaimed, " If this be so, thou art but
the length of thy measure on the ground, O talkative one ! "
Khipil said, " Nay, 'tis not so, O King of splendours !
blind that I am ! Vender's indeed the chair."
And Khipil feared the King, and went to the place where
the chair should be, and bent his body in a sitting posture,
eyeing the King, and made pretence to sit in the chair of
Shahpesh.
1 84 GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH.
Then said Shahpesh, "As a token that I approve thy
execution of the chair, thou shalt be honoured by remaining
seated in it one day and one night, but move thou to the
right or to the left, showing thy soul insensible of the honour
done thee, transfixed shalt thou be with twenty arrows and
five."
The King then left him with a guard of twenty-five of
his bodyguard, and they stood around him with bent bows,
so that Khipil dared not move from his sitting posture.
And the masons and the people crowded to see Khipil
sitting in his master's chair, for it became rumoured about.
When they beheld him sitting upon nothing, and he
trembling to stir for fear of the loosening of the arrows,
they laughed so that they rolled upon the floor of the hall,
and the echoes of laughter were a thousandfold. Surely
the arrows of the guard swayed with the laughter that shook
them.
Now when the time had expired for his sitting in the
chair Shahpesh returned to him, and he was cramped,
pitiable to see ; and Shahpesh said, " Thou hast been
exalted above men, O Khipil ! for that thou didst execute
for thy master has been found fitting for thee."
Then he bade Khipil lead the way to the noble gardens
of dalliance and pleasure that he had contrived and planted.
And Khipil went in that state described by the poet, when
we go draggingly with remonstrating members,
" Knowing a dreadful strength behind
And a dark fate before."
They came to the gardens, and behold they were full of
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH. 185
weeds and nettles, the fountains dry, no tree to be seen — a
desert. And Shahpesh said, " This is indeed of admirable
design, O Khipil ! Feelest thou not the coolness of the
fountains ? their refreshingness ? Surely I am grateful to
thee ! And these flowers, pluck me now a handful and tell
me of their perfume."
Khipil plucked a handful of the nettles that were there
in the place of flowers, and put his nose to them before
Shahpesh till his nose was reddened ; and desire to rub it
waxed in him, and possessed him, and became a passion,
so that he could scarce refrain from rubbing it even in the
King's presence. And the King encouraged him to sniff
and enjoy their fragance, repeating the poet's words : —
" Met kinks I am a lover and a child,
A little child and happy lover, both !
When by the breath of flowers I am beguiled
From sense of pain, and lulled in odorous sloth.
So I adore them, that no mistress sweet »
Seems worthier of the love that they awake :
In innocence and beauty more complete,
Was never maiden cheek in morning lake.
Oh, while I live, surround me with fresh flowers !
Oh, when I die, then bury me in their bowers."
And the King said, " What sayest thou, O my builder ?
that is a fair quotation applicable to thy feelings, one that
expresseth them."
Khipil answered, " 'Tis eloquent, O great King ! compre-
hensiveness would be its portion, but that it alludeth not to
the delight of chafing."
Then Shahpesh laughed, and cried, " Chafe not ! it is an
ill thing and a hideous ! This nosegay, O Khipil, is for thee
1 86
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH.
to present to thy mistress. Truly she will receive thee well
after its presentation ! I will have it now sent in thy name,
with word that thou followest quickly. And for thy nettled
nose, surely if the whim seize thee that thou desirest its
chafing, to thy neighbour is permitted what to thy hand is
refused.
So the King set a guard upon Khipil to see that his
orders were executed, and appointed a time for him to
return to the gardens.
At the hour indicated Khipil stood before Shahpesh
again. He was pale, saddened ; his tongue drooped like
the tongue of a heavy bell, that when it soundeth giveth
forth mournful sounds only ; he had also the look of one
battered with many beatings. So the King said, " How
of thy presentation of the flowers of thy culture, O
Khipil ? "
He answered, " Surely, O King, she received me with
wrath, and I am shamed by her."
And the King said, " How of my clemency in the matter
of the chafing."
Khipil answered, " O King of splendours ! I made petition
to my neighbours whom I met, accosting them civilly and
with imploring, for I ached to chafe, and it was the very
raging thirst of desire to chafe that was mine, devouring
intensity of eagerness for solace of chafing. And they
chafed me, O King, yet not in those parts which throbbed
for the chafing, but in those which abhorred it."
Then Shahpesh smiled, and said, " 'Tis certain that the
magnanimity of monarchs is as the rain that falleth, the
sun that shineth : and in this spot it fertilizeth richness, in
GEORGE ELIOT ON GEORGE MEREDITH, 187
that it" encourages rankness. So cut thou but a weed, O
Khipil, and my grace is my chastisement."
We hope we have said, if not enough to do justice to
<( The Shaving of Shagpat," enough to make our readers
desire to see it. They will find it, compared with the other
fictions which the season has provided, to use its own
Oriental style, " as the apple tree among the trees of the
wood."
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
AND
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
W. s. LANDOR
It. W. EMEUSOX.
Lander's Letter to Emerson.
Fiom a copy in the Library of Mr. Walter B. Slater.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
AN OPEN LETTER TO
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
IN May, 1833, at the well-known Tuscan Villa of the
" Grand Old Pagan," Walter Savage Landor and Ralph
Waldo Emerson first met. Some three-and-twenty years
later, Emerson published his English Traits. In this book,
as will be seen from the following paragraphs, Landor was
treated with a freedom not quite mannerly : —
"On the I5th May I dined with Mr. Landor. I found him noble and
courteous, living in a cloud of pictures at his Villa Gherardesca, a fine house
commanding a beautiful landscape. I had inferred from his books, or magni-
fied from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath — an untamable
petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but
certainly on this May day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind, and he was
the most patient and gentle of hosts. He praised the beautiful cyclamen
which grows all about Florence ; he admired Washington, talked of Words-
worth, Byron, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher. To be sure, he is decided
in his opinions, likes to surprise, and is wall content to impress, if possible,
his English whim upon the immutable past. No great man ever had a great
son, if Philip and Alexander be not an exception ; and Philip he calls the
greater. In art he loves the Greeks, and in sculpture, them only. He prefers
the Venus to everything else, and, after that, the head of Alexander in the
192 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
gallery here. He prefers John of Bologna to Michael Angelo ; in painting,
Raffaelle ; he shares the growing taste for Perugino and the early masters.
The Greek histories he thinks only good; and after them, Voltaire's. I could
not make him praise Mackintosh, nor my more recent friends ; Montaigne
very cordially, — and Charron also, which seemed to me undiscriminating. He
thought Degerando indebted to ' Lucas on Happiness ' and ' Lucas on Holi-
ness.' He pestered me with Southey ; but who is Southey ?
' ' He invited me to breakfast on Friday. On Friday I did not fail to go,
and this time with Greenough.* He entertained us at once with reciting
half a dozen hexameter lines of Julius Caesar's ! — from Donatus, he said. He
glorified Lord Chesterfield more than was necessary, and undervalued Burke,
and undervalued Socrates ; designating as the three greatest men, Washington,
Phocion, and Timoleon, — much as our pomologists, in their lists, select the
three or six best pears ' for a small orchid ; ' and he did not even omit to
remark the similar termination of their names. '.A great man,' he said,
' should kill his hundred oxen, not knowing whether they would be consumed
by gods and heroes, or whether the flies would eat them.'
"I had visited Professor Amici, who had shown me his microscopes,
magnifying (it was said) two thousand diameters ; and I spoke of the uses to
which they were applied. Landor despised entomology, yet in the same
breath said 'the sublime was in a grain of dust.' I suppose I teased him
about recent writers, but he professed never to have heard of Herschel, not
even by name. One room was full of pictures, which he likes to show,
especially one piece, standing before which he said 'he would give fifty
guineas to the man who would swear it was a Domenichino. ' I was more
curious to see his library, but Mr. H., one of the guests, told me that Landor
gives away his books, and has never more than a dozen at a time in his house.
"Mr. Landor carries to its height the love of freak which the English
delight to indulge, as if to signalize their commanding freedom. He has a
wonderful brain, despotic, violent, and inexhaustible, meant for a soldier, — by
what chance converted to letters, in which there is not a style nor a tint not
known to him, yet with an English appetite for action and heroes ? The thing
done avails, not what is said about it. An original sentence, a step forward,
is worth more than all the censures. Landor is strangely undervalued in
England ; usually ignored ; and sometimes savagely attacked in the Reviews.
The criticism may be right, or wrong, and is quickly forgotten ; but year after
year the scholar must still go back to Landor for wisdom, wit, and imagina-
tion that are unforgetable. "
These paragraphs would appear to have roused Landor
to a pitch of considerable excitement, and he forthwith
* Greenough, the sculptor, then resident in Florence.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 193.
proceeded to deliver his thoughts to his pen. The open
Letter to Emerson was rapidly composed, and as rapidly
printed, and duly " published " by a certain E. Williams, a
local newsvendor at Bath.
One thing the reader will remark upon perusing the
Letter is the striking and unusual restraint exhibited by
its author. It lacks entirely the force and vehemence,
the fierceness and invective, which pervade and fill the
many pieces of self-assertive writing put forth by
Landor when aroused and on his defence ; — and yet its
periods are vigorous enough.
The title-page of the pamphlet (which is a tall, old-
fashioned duodecimo) reads as follows : —
Letter \ from / W. S. Landor \ to \ R. W. Emerson. / Bath : /
Published by E. Williams, / Circulating Library and News Agent, /
42, Milson Street, / and all Booksellers.
The collation is : Title-page, as above (with imprint — " Bath ; /
Printed by Hayward and Payne, Express Office, / Green
Street) on the reverse, pp. 1-2 ; and Text pp. 3-23.
There are no head-lines, the pages being numbered
centrally.
This brochure, though not to be classed among the
considerable rarities of Landoriana, is yet by no means
common, and it is only at lengthened intervals that it
occurs for sale. It is to be feared that the collectors
of Emersoniana upon the other side of the Atlantic have
absorbed a goodly proportion of the copies available —
survivors of a doubtless scanty original issue — and that
but few examples are left now for the lovers of Landor
here.
VOL. II. 0
194 WALTER S. LANDOR AND RALPH W. EMERSON.
Although Forster reprinted a portion of it, the Letter
has never been included in any collected edition of its
author's writings In January of last year it was privately
reproduced, in an issue restricted to 108 copies, for the
members of the Rowfant Club, in a small octavo of 83
pages, bearing the following Title-page : —
Landor's / Letter to Emerson. / With an Appendix / containing /
Emerson's Paper from The Dial. / Edited, with an Intro-
ductory Note, I By Samuel Arthur Jones, / for the Rowfant
Club. / Cleveland: / The Rowfant Club / MDCCCXCV*
It is from an immaculate copy of the original Bath
edition in the unrivalled Landor collection formed by Mr.
Walter Brindley Slater, that the Letter is reprinted here.
* Thanks are due to Mr. Paul Lemperly, of Cleveland, Ohio, for sending
to Mr. Wise a gift copy of this delightful reprint of Landor's book. From this
copy the Rowfant Club edition has been described above.
TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
MY DEAR SIR,
Your English Traits have given me great pleasure ; and
they would have done so even if I had been treated by you
with less favour. The short conversations we held at my
Tuscan Villa were insufficient for an estimate of my
character and opinions. A few of these, and only a few, of
the least important, I may have modified since. Let me
run briefly over them as I find them stated in your pages.
Twenty-three years have not obliterated from my memory
the traces of your visit, in company with that intelligent
man and glorious sculptor, who was delegated to erect a
statue in your capital to the tutelary genius of America. I
share with him my enthusiastic love of ancient art ; but I
am no exclusive, as you seem to hint I am. In my hall at
Fiesole there are two busts, if you remember, by two artists
very unlike the ancients, and equally unlike each other ;
Donatello and Fiamingo ; surveying them at a distance is
the sorrowful countenance of Germanicus. Sculpture at
the present day flourishes more than it ever did since the
age of Pericles ; and America is not cast into the shade by
O 2
196 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
Europe. I do prefer Giovanni da Bologna to Michael
Angelo, who indeed in his conceptions is sublime, but often
incorrect, and sometimes extravagant, both in sculpture and
painting. I confess I have no relish for his prodigious
giblet pie in the Capella Sistina, known throughout the
world as his Last Judgement. Grand in architecture, he
was no ordinary poet, no lukewarm patriot. Deplorable,
that the inheritor of his house and name is so vile a
sycophant, that even the blast of Michael's trumpet could
not rouse his abject soul.
I am an admirer of Pietro Perugino, and more than an
admirer of Raffaelle ; but I could never rank the Madonna
della Seggiola among the higher of his works ; I see no
divinity in the child, and no such purity in the Virgin as he
often expressed in her. I have given my opinion as freely
on the Transfiguration. The cartoons are his noblest
works : they place him as high as is Correggio in the
Dome of Parma : nothing has been, or is likely to be,
higher.
Among my cloud of pictures you did not observe a little
Masaccio (one of his two easel-pieces) representing Saint
Jerome. The idea of it is truer than Domenichino's.
The last of the Medici Grandukes, Giovanni Gaston, sent
to the vicinity of Parma and Correggio an old Florentine,
who was reputed to be an excellent judge of painting. He
returned with several small pieces on canvas, which the
painters at that time in Florence turned into ridicule, and
which were immediately thrown into the Palazzo Vecchio.
About a quarter of a century ago, the chambers of this
Palazzo were cleared of their lumber, and I met in the Via
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 197
degli Archibugieri a tailor who had two small canvases
under his arms, and two others in his hands. He had given
a few paoli for each ; I offered him as many francesconi.
He thought me a madman ; an opinion which I also heard
expressed as I sat under the shade of a vast old fig tree,
while about twenty labourers were extirpating three or four
acres of vines and olives, in order to make somewhat like a
meadow before my windows. The words were " Matti sono
tutti gli Inglesi, ma questo poi " * * * followed by a shrug
and an aposiopesis. I acquired two more cerotti, as they
had been called, painted by the same master ; three I have
at Bath, and three remain at my villa in Tuscany. Mr.
George Wallis, who accompanied Soult in that Marshal's
Eclectic Review of the Spanish Galleries, pronounced them
to be Correggios. What is remarkable, one is a landscape.
It would indeed be strange if he, who painted better than
any before or since, should have produced no greater
number of works than are attributed to him by Mengs. I
have seen several of which I entertain no doubt. Raffaelle
is copied more easily ; so perhaps is Titian, if not Giorgione.
On this subject the least fallible authority is Morris More,
who however could not save our National Gallery from
devastation.
Curious as I was in collecting specimens of the earlier
painters, I do not prefer them to the works either of their
nearer successors or to those of the present day. My
Domenichino, about which I doubted, has been authenti-
cated by M. Cosveldt ; my Raffaelle is by M. Dennistoune,
who was wrong only in believing it had been called a por-
trait of the painter. It is in fact the portrait of the only
198 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
son of that Doni whose wife's is in the Tribuna at Florence.
He died in boyhood ; and the picture was long retained in
his mother's family, the Strozzi, and thrown into a bed-
chamber of the domestics as a piece of robaccia and
anticaglia.
We will now walk a little way out of the gallery. Let
me say, before we go farther, that I do not think " the
Greek historians the only good ones." Davila, Machiavelli,
Voltaire, Michelet, have afforded me much instruction and
much delight. Gibbon is worthy of a name among the
most enlightened and eloquent of the ancients. I find no
fault in his language ; on the contrary, I find the most
exact propriety. The grave, and somewhat austere, be-
comes the historian of the Roman Republic ; the grand, and
somewhat gorgeous, finds its proper place in the palace of
Byzantium. Am I indifferent to the merits of our own
historians ? indifferent to the merits of him who balanced
with equal hand Wellington and Napoleon ? No ; I
glory in my countryman and friend. Is it certain that I
am indiscriminating in my judgment on Charron ? Never
have I compared him with Montaigne ; but there is much
of wisdom, and, what is remarkable in the earlier French
authors, much of sincerity in him.
I am sorry to have "pestered you with Southey" and to
have excited the inquiry, " Who is Southey ? " I will
answer the question. Southey is the poet who has written
the most imaginative poem of any in our own times,
English or Continental ; such is the Curse of KeJiama.
Southey is the proseman who has written the purest prose ;
Southey is the critic the most cordial and the least in-
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 199
vidious. Show me another, of any note, without captious-
ness, without arrogance, and without malignity.
" Slow rises worth by poverty deprest."
But Southey raised it.
Certainly you could not make me praise Mackintosh.
What is there eminently to praise in him ? Are there not
twenty men and women at the present hour who excel him
in style and genius ? • His reading was extensive : he had
much capacity, less comprehensiveness and concentration
I know not who may be the " others of your recent friends "
whom you could not excite me to applaud. I am more
addicted to praise than censure. We English are
generally as fierce partizans in literary as in parliamentary
elections, and we cheer or jostle a candidate of whom we
know nothing. I always kept clear of both quarters. I
have votes in three counties, I believe I have in four, and
never gave one. I would rather buy than solicit or canvass,
but preferably neither. Nor am I less abstinent in the
turbulent contest for literary honors. Among the many
authors you have conversed with in England, did you find
above a couple who spoke not ill of nearly all the rest ?
Even the most liberal of them, they who concede the most,
subtract at last the greater part of what they have con-
ceded, together with somewhat beside. And this is done,
forsooth, out of fairness, truthfulness, &c !
The nearest the kennel are the most disposed to splash
the polished boot.
I never envied any man anything but waltzing, for which
I would have given all the little talents I had acquired. I
200 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
dared not attempt to learn it ; for, although I was active
and my ear was accurate, I felt certain I should have been
unsuccessful. Even the shameless (and I am not among
those) have somewhat of shame in one part or other ; and
here lay mine.
We now come to Carlyle, of whom you tell us " he wor-
ships a man that will manifest any truth to him." Would
he have patience for the truth to be manifested ? or would
he accept it then ? Certainly the face of truth is very
lovely, and we take especial care that it shall never lose
it[s] charms by familiarity. He declares that " Lander's
principle is mere rebellion?
Quite the contrary is apparent and prominent in many
of my writings. I always was a Conservative ; but I would
•eradicate any species of evil, political, moral, or religious,
as soon as it springs up, with no reference to the blockheads
who cry out " What would you substitute in its place ? "
When I pluck up a dock or a thistle, do I ask any such a
question ? I have said plainly, more than once, and in
many quarters, that I would not alter or greatly modify the
English Constitution. I denounced at the time of its
enactment the fallacy of the Reform Bill. And here I beg
pardon for the word fallacy, instead of Jiumbug, which
entered into our phraseology with two other sister graces,
Sham and Pluck. I applaud the admission of new peers ;
and I think it well that a large body of them should be
hereditary. But it is worse than mere popery that we
should be encumbered by a costly and heavy bench of
Cardinals, under the title of Bishops, and that their revenues
should exceed those in the Roman States. I would send a
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 201
beadel after every Bishop who left his diocese, without the
call of his Sovran, the head of the Church, for some peculiar
and urgent purpose relating to it solely. I would surround
the throne with splendour and magnificence, and grant as
large a sum as a thousand pounds weekly for it, with two
palaces ; no land but what should be rented. The highest
of the nobility would be proud of service under it, without
the pay of menials. I approve the expansion of our peer-
age ; but never let its members, adscititious or older, think
themselves the only nobility; else peradventure some of
them may be reminded that there are among us men whose
ancestors stood in high places, and who did good service to
the country, when theirs were cooped up within borough-
walls, or called on duty from the field as serfs and villains.
Democracy, such as yours in America, is my abhorrence.
Republicanism far from it ; but there are few nations cap-
able of receiving, fewer of retaining, this pure and efficient
form. Democracy is lax and disjointed ; and whatever is
loose wears out the machine. The nations on the Ebro,
and the mountaineers of Biscay, enjoyed it substantially for
century after century. Holland, Ragusa, Genoa, Venice,
were deprived of it by that Holy Alliance whose influence
is now withering the Continent, and changing the features
of England. We are losing our tensity of sinew ; we are
germanising into a flabby and effete indifference. It ap-
pears to me that the worst calamity the world has ever
undergone, is the prostration of Venice at the feet of
Austria. The oldest and the truest nobility in the world
was swept away by Napoleon. How happily were the
Venetian States governed for a thousand years, by the
202 WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR AND
brave and circumspect gentlemen of the island city ! All
who did not conspire against its security were secure. Look
at the palaces they erected ! Look at the Arts they culti-
vated ! Look, on the other side, at the damp and decaying
walls ; enter ; and there behold such countenances as you
will never see elsewhere. These are not among the
creatures whom God will permit any Deluge to sweep
away. Heretofore, a better race of beings has uniformly
succeeded to a viler though a vaster ; and it will be so
again.
Rise, Manin ! rise, Garibaldi ! rise, Mazzini ! Compose
your petty differences, quell your discordances, and stand
united ! Strike, and spare not ; strike high. " Miles,
faciemferi" cried the wisest and most valiant of the Roman
race.
I have enjoyed the conversation of Carlyle within the
room where I am writing. It appeared at that time less
evidently than now that his energy goes far beyond his
discretion. Perverseness is often mistaken for strength',
and obstinacy for consistency. There is only one thing in
which he resembles other writers, namely, in saying that
which he can say best, and with most point. You tell us,
"he does not read Plato." Perhaps there may be a
sufficient reason for it.
Resolved to find out what there is in this remarkable
philosopher, I went daily for several weeks into the
Magliabechian library at Florence, and thus refreshing my
neglected Greek, I continued the reading of his works in
the original from beginning to end. The result of this
reading may be found in several of the Imaginary Conversa-
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 203
tions. That one of them between Lord Chesterfield and
Lord Chatham contains observations on the cacophony of
some sentences ; and many more could have been added
quite as exceptionable. Even Attic honey hath its im-
purities.
" He (Carlyle) took despairing or satirical views of
literature at this moment."
I am little fond of satire, and less addicted to despair.
It seems to me that never in this country was there a
greater number of good writers than now ; and some are
excellent. Our epic is the novel or romance. I dare not
praise the seven or eight of both sexes who have written
these admirably ; if I do, the ignavum fuci pecus would
settle on me. All are glad to hear the censure, few the
praise, of those who labour in the same vineyard.
We are now at Rydal Mount.
Wordsworth's bile is less fervid than Carlyle's : it comes
with more saliva about it, and with a hoar'ser expectora-
tion. " Lucretius he esteems a far higher poet than
Virgil."
The more fool he ! " not in his system, which is nothing,,
but in his power of illustration."
Does a power of illustration imply the high poet ? It is
in his system (which, according to Wordsworth, is nothing'}
that the power of Lucretius consists. Where then is its
use ? But what has Virgil in his Eclogues, in his Georgics,
or in his ^neid, requiring illustration ? Lucretius does
indeed well illustrate his subject ; and few even in prose
among the philosophers have written so intelligibly ; but
the quantity of his poetry does not much exceed three:
204 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
hundred lines in the whole : one of the noblest specimens
of it is a scornful expostulation against the fear of death.
Robert Smith, brother of Sidney, wrote in the style of
Lucretius such Latin poetry as is fairly worth all the rest in
that language since the banishment of Ovid. Even Lucre-
tius himself nowhere hath exhibited such a continuation of
manly thought and of lofty harmony.
We must now descend to Wordsworth once again.
He often gave an opinion on authors which he never had
read, and on some which he could not read ; Plato for in-
stance. He speaks contemptuously of the Scotch. The
first time I ever met him, and the only time I ever con-
versed with him longer than a few minutes, he spoke con-
temptuously of Scott, and violently of Byron. He chattered
about them incoherently and indiscriminately. In reality,
Scott had singularly the power of imagination and of con-
struction : Byron little of either ; but this is what Words-
worth neither said nor knew. His censure was hardened
froth. I praised a line of Scott's on the dog of a traveller
lost in the snow (if I remember) on Skiddaw. He said it
was the only good one in the poem, and began instantly to
recite a whole one of his own upon the same subject. This
induced me afterward to write as follows on a flyleaf in
Scott's poems,
" Ye who have lungs to mount the Muse's hill,
Here slake your thirst aside their liveliest rill :
Asthmatic Wordsworth, Byron piping hot,
Leave in the rear, and march with manly Scott."
I was thought unfriendly to Scott for one of the friendliest
things I ever did toward an author. Having noted all the
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 205
faults of grammar and expression in two or three of his
volumes, I calculated that the number of them, in all, must
amount to above a thousand. Mr. Lockhart, who married
his daughter, was indignant at this, and announced, at the
same time (to prove how very wrong I was) that they were
corrected in the next edition.
Poor Scott ! he bowed his high intellect and abased the
illustrious rank conferred on him by the unanimous acclaim
of nations, before a prince who was the opprobrium of
his country for enduring so quietly and contentedly his
Neronianism.
Scott's reading was extensive, but chiefly within the
range of Great Britain and France ; Wordsworth's lay,
almost entirely, between the near grammar school and
Rydal Mount. He would not have scorned, although he
might have reviled, the Scotch authors, if he ever had read
Archibald Bower, or Hume, or Smollet or Adam Smith ;
he would have indeed hated Burns ; he would never have
forgiven Beattie that incomparable stanza,
' ' O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms that Nature to her votary yields,
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves and garniture of fields,
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of Heaven :
O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ? "
Nor would he have endured that song of Burns, more
animated than the odes of Pindar,
" Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled."
206 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
He would have been horrified at the Doric-Scotch of " wha
/ia' ; " yet what wool in the mouth were have and with !
Gerald Massey too must have fared ill with him ; and the
gentle and graceful Tennyson's dress-shoes might have
stood in danger of being trodden on by the wooden.
Wordsworth's walk was in the'; lowlands of poetry, where
the wooden shoe is most commodious. The vigorous and
animated ascend their high battle-field neither in that nor
in the slipper, but press on, and breathe hard, evKvrjfjuSes.
When Hazlitt was in Tuscany he often called on me,
and once asked me whether I had ever seen Wordsworth.
I answered in the negative, and expressed a wish to
know something of his appearance.
" Sir," said Hazlitt, " have you ever seen a horse ? "
" Assuredly." " Then, Sir, you have seen Wordsworth."
When I met him some years after at a friend's on the
lake of Waswater, I found him extremely civil. There was
equinity in the lower part of his face : in the upper was
much of the contemplative, and no little of the calculating.
This induced me, when, at a breakfast where many were
present, he said he " would not give five shillings for all
Southey's poetry," to tell a friend of his that he might
safely make such an investment of his money and throw
all his own in. Perhaps I was too ill-humoured ; but my
spirit rose against his ingratitude toward the man who
first, and with incessant effort and great difficulty, brought
him into notice. He ought to have approached his poetical
benefactor as he did the
" illustrious peer,
With high respect and gratitude sincere."
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 207
Southey would have been more pleased by the friendliness
of the sentiment than by the intensity of the poetry in
which it is expressed ; for Southey was the most equitable,
the most candid, the most indulgent of mankind. I was
unacquainted with him for many years after he had com-
mended, in the Critical Review, my early poem, " Gebir."
In the letters now edited by Mr. Warter, I find that in the
Whitehaven Journal there was inserted a criticism, in which,
on the strength of this poem, I am compared and preferred
to Gothe. I am not too much elated. Neither in my
youthful days nor in any other have I thrown upon the
world such trash as " Werter " and " Wilhelm Meister," nor
flavoured my poetry with the corrugated spicery of meta-
physics. Nor could he have written in a lifetime any
twenty, in a hundred or thereabout, of my " Imaginary
Conversations." My poetry I throw to the Scotch terriers
growling at my feet. Fifty pages of Shelley contain more
of pure poetry than a hundred of Gothe, who spent the
better part of his time in contriving a puzzle, and in spin-
ning out a yarn for a labyrinth. How different in features,
both personal and poetical, are Gothe and Wordsworth !
In the countenance of Gothe there was something of the
elevated and august ; less of it in his poetry ; Words-
worth's physiognomy was entirely rural. With a rambling
pen he wrote admirable paragraphs in his longer poem,
and sonnets worthy of Milton : for example,
"Two voices are there," &c.,
which is far above the highest pitch of Gothe. But his
unbraced and unbuttoned impudence in presence of our
208 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
grand historians, Gibbon and Napier, must be reprehended
and scouted. Of Gibbon I have delivered my opinion ; of
Napier too, on whom I shall add nothing more at present
than that he superseded the Duke, who intended to
write the history of his campaigns, and who (his nephew
Capt. William Wellesley tells me) has left behind him
" Memoirs.''
I never glorified Lord Chesterfield ; yet he surely is
among the best of our writers in regard to style, and
appears to have formed Horace Walpole's and Sterne's, a
style purely English. His Letters were placed by Beres-
ford, Archbishop of Tuam, in the hands of his daughters.
This I remember to have been stated to me by his son. A
polished courtier and a virtuous prelate knew their value ;
and perhaps the neglect of them at the present day is
one reason why a gentleman is almost as rare as a man of
genius.
I am not conscious that I underrate Burke : never have
I placed any of his parliamentary contemporaries in the
same rank with him. His language is brilliant, but not
always elegant ; which induced me once to attribute to him
the Letters of Junius. I am now more inclined to General
Lee as author. Lord Nugent, an inquisitive and intelligent
reader, told me he never could " worm out the secret "
from his uncle Mr. Thomas Grenville, who, he believed,
knew it. Surely it is hardly worth the trouble of a single
hour's research. We have better things weekly in the
Examiner, and daily in the Times.
I do not " undervalue Socrates." Being the cleverest of
the Sophists, he turned the fraternity into ridicule : he
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 209
eluded the grasp of his antagonist by anointing with the
oil of quibble all that was tangible and prominent. To
compare his philosophy (if indeed you can catch it) with
the philosophy of Epicurus and Epictetus, whose systems
meet, is insanity.
I do not " despise entomology." I am ignorant of it ;
as indeed I am of almost all science.
I love also flowers and plants ; but I know less about
them than is known by a beetle or a butterfly.
I must have been misunderstood, or have been culpably
inattentive, if I said " I knew not Herschell \sic\ by name."
The father's I knew well, from his giving to a star the
baptismal one of that pernicious madman who tore America
from England, and who rubbed his hands when the de-
spatches announced to him the battle of Bunker's Hill, in
which he told his equerry that his soldiers had "got well
peppered" Probably I had not then received in Italy the
admirable writings of the great Herschell's greater son.
Phocion, who excites as much of pity as of admiration,
was excellent as a commander and as an orator, but was
deficient and faulty as a politician. No Athenian had, for
so long a period, rendered to his country so many and such
great services. He should have died a short time earlier ;
he should have entered the temple with Demosthenes. On
the whole, I greatly prefer this last consistent man, although
he could not save his country like Epaminondas and like
Washington.
I make no complaint of what is stated in the following
page, that " Landor is strangely undervalued in England."
I have heard it before, but I never have taken the trouble
p
2io WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR AND
to ascertain it. Here 1 find that I am " savagely attacked
in the Reviews." Nothing more likely ; I never see them ;
my acquaintances lie in a different and far distant quarter.
Some honours have, however, been conferred on me in the
literary world. Southey dedicated to me his Kehama ;
James his Attila : he and Dickens invited me to be god-
father to their sons. Moreover, I think as many have
offered me the flatteries of verse as ever were offered to
any one but Louis the Fourteenth.
P. 19. I think oftener with Alfieri than with any other
writer, and quite agree with him that " Italy and England
are the only countries worth living in." The only time I
ever saw Alfieri, was just before he left this country for
ever. I accompanied my Italian master, Parachinetti, to
a bookseller's, to order the Works of Alfieri and Metas-
tasio, and was enthusiastic, as most young men were, about
the French Revolution. " Sir," said Alfieri, " you are a
very young man ; you are yet to learn that nothing good
ever came out of France, or ever will. The ferocious
monsters are about to devour one another ; and they can
do nothing better. They have always been the curse of
Italy ; yet we too have fools among us who trust them."
Such were the expressions of the most classical and
animated poet existing in the present or past century, of him
who could at once be a true patriot and a true gentleman.
There was nothing of the ruffianly in his vigour ; nothing of
the vulgar in his resentment; he could scorn without a scoff;
he could deride without a grimace. Had he been living
in these latter days, his bitterness would have overflowed,
not on France alone, nor Austria in addition, the two
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 211
beasts that have torn Italy in pieces, and are growling over
her bones ; but more, and more justly, on those constitutional
governments which, by abetting, have aided them in their
aggressions and incursions. We English are the most
censurable of all. Forbear, in pity forbear, to say, what I
am afraid is too true, that we are a litter of blind lick-
spittles, waiting to be thrown with a stone about the neck
into the next horsepond. Will historians be credited,
some centuries hence, when they relate what our country-
men in the present have done against the progress of free-
dom throughout Europe ? The ministers of England have
signed that Holy Alliance which delivered every free State
to the domination of arbitrary and irresponsible despots.
The ministers of England have entered more recently into
treaties with usurpers and assassins. And now, forsooth, it
is called assassination to remove from the earth an assassin ;
the assassin of thousands ; an outlaw, the subverter of his
country's, and even of his own, laws. The valiant and the
wise of old thought differently. Even now there are some,
and they are not devoid of intellect, who are of opinion
that the removal of an evil at the least possible cost is
best. They would not expose an army when one brave
man could do the thing effectually : they would not im-
poverish a nation, nor maim and decimate the strong sup-
ports, nor leave destitute and desolate the fathers of its
families, rather than strike a single blow which would
sound the hour of their deliverance and security.
Impressed by these sentiments, which never have varied
a tittle in the long course of my existence, I openly avowed
that I had reserved insurance money, to a small extent, in
P 2
212 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
favour of the first tyrannicide. My words are circulated in
America and on our continent, and well received and
widely echoed. I regret that here in England are some
professing to be the friends of liberty and justice, who
stand forward as shields and bucklers to the enemies
of both. Surely wit and wisdom might be better employed.
Permit me to repeat my words, written in a letter to Mr.
White.
" Sir, I have only one hundred pounds of ready money,
and am never likely to have at my disposal as much in
future. Of this I transmit five to you, toward the acquisition
of the ten thousand muskets to be given, in accordance
with your manifesto, ' to the first Italian province which
shall rise.' The remaining ninety-five I reserve for the
family of the first patriot who asserts by action the dignity
of tyrannicide. Abject men have cried out against me for
my commendation of this ancient virtue, the highest of
which a man is capable, and now the most important and
urgent.
" Is it not an absurdity to remind us that usurpers will
rise up afresh ? Do not all transgressors ? And must we
therefor lay aside the terrors of chastisement, or give a
ticket of leave to the most atrocious criminals ? Shall one
enslave millions ? Shall laws be subverted, and we then
be told that we act against them, or without their sanction,
when none are left us, and we lay prostrate the subverter ?
Three or four blows, instantaneously and simultaneously
given, may save the world many years of warfare, of dis-
cord, and of degradation. It is everywhere unsafe to rob a
citizen ; shall it be safe anywhere to rob a people? Im-
RALPH WALDO EiMERSON. 213
pelled unconsciously by a hand invisible, the hand of
eternal justice, even the priest teaches the schoolboy the
glory that always hath accompanied the tyrannicide. At
the recital, he strikes the desk with his ferule, and the boy
springs up at once into the man."
Such are the sentiments I last avowed on reading how a
brave man, with his two inoffensive children, were murdered
by the usurper of the Hungarian crown, the abolitionist of
Hungarian laws, and the persecutor and hangman of
Hungarian patriots. Bearing these cruelties in memory,
and seeing many more such daily before his eyes, let any
true Englishman read the narrative of Colonel Tiirr, and
then ask his own heart whether the atrocities there detailed
can fail to excite the execration of every honourable man,
and the chastisement of the perpetrator. There was a time,
and I should be sorry to think it ended with Sydney, when
the man who upheld the dignity of his fellow man, and who
would strike down a felon in feathers and bedizened with
stars and crosses, experienced far other treatment than
contumely and buffoonery. Poerio and Kossuth and Tiirr,
it seems to me, are greatly more deserving of our sympathy
than their oppressors ; yet these oppressors, being Poten-
tates, we connive at them and coax them, and at last say,
" Now, pray ! pray ! don't ! our own people will get angry
'with us, and force us into demonstrations." Meanwhile, it
is only in set speeches to gain popularity, that a few of the
ministry, and other members of parliament, warm up again
a stale side-dish of pity for the exiled and imprisoned.
We once taught other nations ; may other nations soon
teach us ! There is no great man in existence ; shall it be
214 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND
said there is no brave one ? The Crimea contradicts this,
even to the face of our commanders. In the Athen<zum
you will find a paragraph, well worthy of notice, on the
best of these.
" While our readers were admiring the modesty which
led ' the heroes of Kars ' to ignore all merits except their
oivn, a letter was on its way from the Bosphorus, and has
been this week printed in the Times, from General Kmety,
in which the aged soldier addresses Sir W. F. Williams, in
a tone of calm remonstrance worthy of his fame, on the
historical suppression under which he, in common with
others, is made to labor. Injustice of this sort, however,
works its own cure. We hear with satisfaction that a sub-
scription is being raised in the name of General Guyon,
with a view to present that distinguished officer with a
sword of honour."
The sword of honour was the sword he carried ; the
other may be laid across his coffin. The valiant and
virtuous Guyon is no more. It is now a year since I read a
letter from the most affectionate of wives, announcing that
his heart was broken. Even her love could no longer sup-
port it. What then must be the weight of grief under
which it at last was crushed ! But he had fought against
Austria ; and Austria is German ; German is England too.
We may now expect that Orsini be demanded from us,
and delivered up to the perjured Apostolic Majesty. No
intercession was made by our Court for the cousin of our
Queen ; he had committed the heinous crime of asserting
the cause of freedom.
And we are now called sticklers for assassination, who
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 215
by one sweep of the arm would deliver a nation from its
oppressor, and hurl down the tower that overhangs the
dungeon ! It was the lictor who carried the axe ; he was
no assassin ; he bore before the magistrate the symbol of
unity and of law.
Only one man worthy of notice reprehends me. Ah
Manin ! Manin ! when he of ebullient blood sits down
again after exertion, he is apt to take cold so as to keep
his room.
No one is more averse than I am to interference with
other governments ; but it is our duty to insist on the
observance of the treaties they have made with us. Let
the people of each be their own defenders and avengers. I
must repeat what already is declared in several of my
writings, that I have no fondness for innovation. What-
ever is changed should rest, if possible, on what has been
tried. Edifices are corroded and crumble first in their ex-
terior and ornamental parts, leaving the foundation, if ever
solid, the more solid the longer it hath stood. Far as our
English Constitution is from absolute perfection, farther is
it from that region of earthquakes where chance and
change are causing by their indomitable fire incessant
eruptions and oscillations. Certain it is, however, that we
shall not rest where we are ; but uncertain is it whether,
when Enceladus hath shaken his shoulder and turned his
side, we shall then rest long.
Accept this memorial, which your name will render of
less brief duration, of the esteem in which you are held
by
WALTER LANDOR.
2 1 6 WAL TER S. LAN DOR AND RALPH W. EMERSON.
P. S. If you have not received our Morning Advertiser,
you will ask for it, and will read with indignation the con-
duct of Lord Clarendon toward Colonel Tiirr. It was
hoped that the family of Villiers had left its earlier titles
in abeyance. Here is evidence of the contrary.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS
A STUDY IN TENNYSON.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS:
A STUDY IN TENNYSON.
FROM some points of view it is difficult to exaggerate
the importance of the gift which the late Lord Tennyson
made to his own time and the future in the course of his
mere dealings with blank verse as a medium for poetic
narrative, in the Idylls of the King and some few other
poems of like individual scope. From other points of
view it is but too easy to exaggerate, and notably from
the point of view of connexity and continuity. It is safe
to predict that the Twentieth Century will sooner or later
laugh at the Nineteenth for the claims to which it has
listened with complacency that these beautiful works in
mosaic shall be regarded as a great whole, even as a com-
plete epic. There will be no laughter over the place
assigned to Tennyson as a singer whose voice never sank
below the true pitch and tone of song during the best part
of sixty years ; a man of a masculine and patriotic mind,
of high spiritual culture, perfect in mastery of the lyric art,
220 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
always making for righteousness, perhaps now and again
too consciously, — and altogether more completely a poet,
and nothing but a poet, than any Englishman of his century
who had the luck of long life. The laughter will be at the
foolish people who try to persuade themselves first am
then the world that the Idylls of the King evidence, beside
all these other qualities, the sustained strength of wrist
and sweep of mental vision needful for epic rank as well
as lyric. Now it happens that the history of the building
of the Idylls is full of bibliographical as well as critical
interest, — that it can be set down now more clearly than
twenty or thirty years hence, because there are still people
alive who know something about the facts behind the
many books, common or rare, concerned in the history.
Whether the Idylls are to be considered as a great poem or
as a series of beautiful poems, there can be no dispute as
to their fulness of high poetry appealing to the deepest
instincts of our nature in a way that was almost ex-
clusively reserved to Tennyson. To which of the two
classes the book belongs — great poem or beautiful series —
the tale of their genesis will itself show clearly enough.
For these reasons it is that the tale is here offered to the
literary historians of the future.
How soon or how quickly Tennyson became familiar
with the Morte d* Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory and the
Mabinogion has not yet been divulged, if indeed it is
known. Certain it is that The Lady of Shalott., publishe
in the Poems of 1833, deals, though in a very different
manner, with the story of Elaine, "the lily maid
Astolat," — Astolat and Shalott being but different forms
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 221
of one place-name, — and that before putting forth those
two priceless volumes of 1842, in which he gathered up
what he thought best of his published and unpublished
work, he had seen how truly epic in its nature was the
story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table. He saw in especial the capabilities of legendary
splendour in the ending of Arthur s earthly work, and his
supernatural passage to " the Island Valley of Avilion " ;
and, having formed his theory as to the manner in which
blank verse should be treated, he plunged into the very
catastrophe and close of his visioned epic. But whether
he ever saw right through from beginning to end how that
epic should shape itself is to say the least doubtful. Be
that as it may, he saw the earthly end of Arthur in epic
fulness and dignity — even if with a thought too much of
reflexion, — he pulled himself greatly together, and wrote
out the close of his possible epic in the metre and manner
he had well-nigh perfected, — and then breathed.
The second volume of the 1842 collection contains, it
will be remembered, a considerable mass of blank verse,
showing how fruitfully Tennyson had studied, since issuing
his lyrical volumes of 1830 and 1833, the adaptabilities of
that medium both for the dignity of historic or legendary
themes and for the tenderness and pathos of domestic
subjects. An appeal to the public on this basis alone,
without intermixture of lyric metres, would certainly have
established his reputation as a master of the whole craft,
with the few if not with the many ; but perhaps he was
well advised in not making the venture he seems at one
time to have contemplated, and in relying instead on the
222 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
collection which went through four editions in four years
and contained an extraordinary variety of work both in
lyric metres and in blank verse.
One of the rarest of what we may call the Tennysonian
essays or trial books is the thin volume of 1842, forming
the only tangible evidence of the blank-verse project. It
contains eight poems in that metre which were ultimately,
in the same year, interspersed through the second volume
of the Poems. These eight are Morte a" Arthur, Dora, The
Gardener's Daughter, Audley Court, Walking to the Mail,
St. Simeon Stylites, Ulysses, and Godiva. There are but
seventy-one pages, all told ; and seldom has so much first-
rate work been brought within so small a compass. More-
over, with the exception of St. Simeon Stylites, all is good
reading as well as good work. The bibliographical de-
scription need not detain us long : there is a fly-title
reading simply Morte d' Arthur, as if that were all ; the
title-page is as follows : —
Morte d' Arthur ; / Dora; / and ot/ier Idyls. / By / Alfred
Tennyson. / London : / Edward Moxon, Dover Street. /
MDCCCXLIL
On the verso is the imprint " London :/ Bradbury and
Evans, Printers, Whitefriars." The poems occupy pages
i to 66: each has a dropped head without any page-
number ; and the rest of the pages are numbered in the
usual way and head-lined with the titles of the poems
both on rectos and on versos. Page 67 has a little
note set centrally between two long lines and reading
thus : —
" The author thinks it right to state that the Idyl of
tfORTE D'ARTHUR
DORA;
Tennyson's Morle d'Arthur, 1842
From a copy of the extremely rare original in the Library of Mr. Kuxton Forman.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 223
" Dora ' was- suggested in part by one of Miss Mitford's
Pastorals."
On the back of this, in the centre, the imprint is repeated.
In the two-volume collection, the corresponding note
happens to come on a verso ; and the imprint is below it, at
the foot of the page. The note itself is longer, because
there were by that time two confessions of indebtedness to
make : —
" The Idyl of ' Dora ' was partly suggested by one of
Miss Mitford's pastorals ; and the ballad of Lady Clare by
the novel of ' Inheritance.' "
It is a point of some slight interestvthat in 1842 Tennyson
preferred the spelling Idyl with one /, and that five years
later, in The Princess, the same preference held in describ-
ing how Ida read " a small sweet Idyl." But the real point
of critical interest is in the classification of the episode from
the Arthurian legends as an idyll, which we get in the title-
page of the trial booklet, as if the poet had already made
up his mind against encountering the mental strain and
stress of the epic method. In the booklet of idylls Morte
d? Arthur appears without the tags1 supplied for its public
debut, importing that one Everard Hall, poet, had written
an Arthurian epic, and thrown it in the fire, from which his
friend Francis Allen rescued the eleventh book. In truth/
it is much more like a fragment of an abandoned epic than
1 Godiva is similarly without the introductory lines telling how the poet
"waited for the train at Coventry." There is no other textual variation,
except the misprint running for cunning in the lines
The little wide-mouth' 'd heads upon the spout
Had running eyes to see.
224 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
an idyll, and is far more direct, forthright, and clear of
view than any of the subsequent Arthurian poems, most
of which follow the method of starting with some picture
or salient incident and then going back in the story to work
forward again to the initial picture or incident, passing on
again to some rounded close to the particular story in hand.
It is true that the same directness characterizes both Dora
and TJie Gardener s Daughter ; which are really more idyllic
than The Idylls of the King. These last, indeed, are narra-
tive poems of a kind for which a better name than idyll might
have been found : the form and treatment are peculiarly
Tennyson's own ; and they have but little in common with
Theocritus beyond their tenderness and clear-cut comeli-
ness. It was some years before Tennyson recurred in public
either to the epic scheme or to the idyllic, — although, as
will be seen before this gossip closes, he did ultimately
recur both to the early grouping of 1842 and to the notion
of an epic. The Princess, issued in 1847, had nothing of
either kind ; nor had In Memoriam, published in 1850, or
Maud, put forth in 1855. But in the same volume with
Maud was an exquisitely balanced idyll, The Brook, still,
by the bye, spelt with one 1, — an idyll as tender and
pastoral in its feeling as any Tennyson ever published,
albeit the form is mainly monologue.
With the Arthurian or legendary idyll, which is a thing
apart, he was very seriously occupied in 1857, and had
gone so far as to get another trial volume privately printed.
This was called Enid and Nimue ; or, The True and the
False, a title indicating clearly enough how the poet's mind
was tending to over-inform these legendary poems with
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 22J
ulterior purpose. Its contents are none other than the
Enid and Vivien which came out two years later with
Elaine and Guinevere ; but there was vastly more than the
unhappy title altered, as a collation with the copy in the
British Museum shows. The title-page of this book reads
as follows : —
Enid and Nimue : / The True and the False. / By /
Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., / Poet Laureate. / London: /
Edward Moxon, Dover Street. / 1857.
On the verso of the title is the imprint, " London : /
Bradbury and Evans, Printers, Whitefriars." Besides the
title, this foolscap octavo volume has 139 pages, Enid
occupying pages I to 96, which are head-lined Enid, and
Nimue occupying pages 97 to 139, which are head-lined
Nimue.
It is a serious undertaking to collate Enid and Nimue
with the received text of the two tales published in 1859
as two of the four Idylls of the King and called Enid and
Vivien, but now known as three out of twelve Idylls of the
King and called The Marriage of Geraint, Geraint and
Enid, and Merlin and Vivien. The collation is both
interesting and fruitful ; but too fruitful for all the fruit
to be displayed on this occasion. A selection of variorum
readings must serve. The first of interest is in the line
which now stands
To cleanse this common sewer of all his realm
in which the word shore stands for sewer in the 1857
version, — a provincialism commonly enough heard to this
day, but even then very seldom seen. When the poet
Q
226 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
substituted the orthodox sewer for shore in 1859, he
curiously enough employed the word in another sense in
the same page, substituting stores for ford in the line which
stood thus in 1857 —
And fifty knights rode with them, to the ford
Of Severn. . .
The line which from 1859 onward reads
At this he hiirtd his huge limbs out of bed
stands thus in the 1857 volume : —
At this he snatched his great limbs from the bed,
and a few lines further on we read,
' And you put on your worst and meanest dress
And ride with me.' And Enid wonder'd at htm :
But then bethought her of a faded silk,
which lines were changed and expanded in 1859 t°
And you put on your worst and meanest dress
And ride with me.' And Enid asKd, amazed,
' If Enid errs, let Enid learn kerfattlt.'
But he, '/ charge you, ask not but obey.'
Then she bethought her of a faded silk,
which expansion now stands further altered by the sub-
stitutions of thou, thy, and thee for you, your and you. The
verse printed in 1857
Who said, ' The sparrow-hawk, you ask that know
was altered in 1859 to
Who told him, scouring still, ' The sparrow-hawk ! '
And a few lines further on, the man who from 1859 has
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 227
been " riveting a helmet " is described as " riveting a ' skull-
cap ' " — the unwarlike nature of the head-gear usually so
called having doubtless for the moment escaped notice,
though why iron should not make as good a skull-cap
as silk or velvet is hard to say.
The lines of 1859
' Hark, by the bird's song you may learn the nest''
Said Yniol ; ' Enter quickly? Entering then,
Right o'er a mount of newly-fallen stones,
The dusky-raftered many-cobweb' d Hall,
which still stand so but for the change of you to ye in the
first line and the spelling of hall with a small h in the last
wanted the third line in 1857; an<3 the next paragraph,
" He spake : the Prince," &c. (7 lines) is wanting altogether ;
while the next but one, in lieu of
So Enid took his charger to the stall ;
And after went her way across the bridge,
has the three opening lines —
Then Enid took the knighfs horse to the stall.
And littered him and gave him hay and corn
And after went her way across the bridge,
and three lines further on the " youth, that following with
a costrel" bore "the means of goodly welcome," in the
1859 book, appears in that of 1857 as
A yotith, that following in a costrel bore, &c.
The knowledge that a costrel is a labourer's wooden
receptacle for drink was not so general that the poet could
afford to leave any doubt whether the youth was in it of
only bringing something in it : hence the change of text.
Q 2
228 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
Where Yniol exclaims (1859 and onwards)—
So grateful is the noise of noble deeds
To noble hearts who see but acts of wrong:
Oh never yet had woman such a fair
Of suitors as this maiden :
Enid and Nimu'e reads —
For but to hear of these is grateful to us
Who see but acts of violence, such a fair
Of suitors had this maiden ;
and in Geraint's brief reply of three lines the middle line
of that first version is
That if, as I suppose, your nephew fights
one of the few prosaic lines Tennyson was ever guilty of,
not altered in 1859, but now standing
That if the sparrow-hawk, this nephew, fights.
The object of substituting, a little further on,
Beheld her first in field, awaiting him
for the original
Beheld her there before him in the field,
was of course to make it clear that she was before him in
time — not merely before his face. The change has no
other value. The value of the slight changes in Enid's
little soliloquy on the subject of clothes is far other, and
wholly artistic. In Enid and Nimue we read —
Sweet Aeavem, how much shall I discredit him !
Would he but tarry with us a day or two ;
and later,
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 229
Yet if he could but rest a day or two,
Myself would -work my fingers to the bone,
Far rather than so much discredit him.
All which, being too familiar and homely, was altered in
1859. "Sweet heavens " became " Sweet heaven " in the
first line ; and the rest became
Wmild he could tarry with us here a while ! . . .
Yet if he could but tarry a day or two,
Myself would work eye dim, and finger lame
Far liefer than so much discredit him.
A passage like that shows something of the process of
sophistication that actually got the mastery of the poet in
this matter of the Idylls ; and yet those particular changes
are excellent in themselves. So also it may be said of the
speech in which, near the close of what is now The Wedding
of Geraint, the Prince tells Enid's mother his reasons for
taking his bride to court in her homely clothes. In that
speech there was much divergence between the 1857 and
1859 texts. The end stood thus in Enid and Nimue- —
Grant me pardon for my thoughts^
I have not kept them long. I promise you
That when we come once more, as come -we shall,
To see you, she shall wear your noble gift,
Here at your own warm hearth, with, on her knee,
Who knows? another gift of the high God,
Which maybe shall have leant d to lisp you thanks.
Then smiled the mother, pleased, and half in tears,
To hear him talk so solemnly and -well:
And brought a mantle down and wrapt her in it,
And claspt and kiss'd her, and they rode away.
In the Idylls of the King of 1859 it stood thus :
230 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
Grant me pardon for my thoughts:
And for my strange petition I -will make
Amends Jiereafter by some gaudy-day,
When your fair child shall wear your costly £ift
Beside your own warm hearth, with, on lier knees,
Who knows? another gift of the high God,
Which, maybe, shall have leartfd to lisp yon thanks,
He spoke: the mother smiled, but half in tears,
Then brought a mantle down, &c.
ending as before.
The changes in the second portion of the poem were far
less considerable than those in the first. Several are "very
significant, such as that in the remark of the bandit that
Geraint's horses and arms are " all in charge of a mere
girl " (altered to " all in charge of whom ? a girl ") or the
simile for Limours crossing the room and looking at his
feet
Like one that tries old ice if it will bear,
altered in 1859 to
Like him who tries the bridge he fears may fail,
or the last line of Enid's cunning excuse,
To-night I am quite weary and worn out —
altered to
Leave me to-night : I am weary to the death,
In the scene at quitting the inn, the line
Then tending her rough Lord, tho' all unasKd
was originally printed
Then thd he had not astfd her, tending him,
THE. BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 231
and a little further down an unsyntactical sentence of 1857
was put to rights in 1859 :
I charge you, Enid, more especially,
That whatsoever thing you see or hear
Or fancy (tho1 1 count it of small use
To charge you) that you speak not but obey !
Thus Enid and Nimuc ; but in the Idylls (1859) the second
line is
What thing soever you may hear, or see,
so that there is but one " that," and the two parts of the
sentence accord. In the 1859 book and onward, Enid is
relieved of the roughest of " her rough lord's " taunts, the
line
Well-nigh as honest as a weeping wife ;
This appeared in 1857 in the paragraph opening with
Then like a stormy sunlight smiled Geraint^
but no doubt it was felt that there was quite enough of
hard speech without that.
In the passage where Doorm's men put the wounded
Geraint on a "litter-bier," the 1857 book says they took
him to Doorm's hall
And laid him on a litter in the hall,
but the 1859 book, to show that they did not even handle
him in doing so, particularizes that they
Cast him and the bier in which he lay
Down on an oaken settle in the hall.
Enid's brief speech after the death of Doorm is longer
232 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
by a line in the 1857 than in the 1859 version, and is
improved in the shortening : —
She only pray1 d him, ' Fly my Lord at once
Before these thieves return and murder you,
Your charger is without, my palfrey lost
For ever.'1 ' TAen,' he answered, ' shall you ride
Behind me.'
became
She only prayed him, ' Fly, they will return
And slay you ; fly, your charger is without,
My palfrey lost.'' ' Then, Enid, shall you ride
Behind mt.'
In realizing this project the prince "lent an arm" to help
her up in 1857, but"reach'd a hand " in 1859 — one °f
many cases in which a familiar expression is changed for
a less familiar to give distance. In the next paragraph
"purer pleasure . . . than Enid proved" (1857) '1S im-
measurably inferior to " purer pleasure . . . than lived
through her" (1859) ; and so it is with the two lines about
the dead Doorm —
Submitting to the judgment of the King?
' He hath submitted to the King of Kings —
which were altered to
Submit, and hear the judgment of the King*
' He hears the judgment of the King of Kings?
In the last paragraph but one a slightly affected
construction common to the 1857 and 1859 books was
done away with in revising for a later edition :
The blameless King went forth and cast his eyes
On whom his father Uther left in charge
was altered to
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 233
The blameless King went forth and cast his eyes
On each of all whom Uther left in charge.
In the concluding lines "the ford of Severn " (1857) again
became " the shores of Severn " (1859) ; and last, but not
least, the record of Enid and Nimue that Geraint fell
At Long-port, fighting for the blameless King,
was elaborated into the renowned passage wherein in 1859
we were told that he fell
Against the heathen of the Northern Sea,
In battle, fighting for the blameless King.
This was perhaps one of the most telling changes which
the late Laureate ever made.
The second paragraph of Nimue opens thus in the
private print of 1857 :
The wily Nimue stole from Arthur's court :
She hated all the knights becatise she deemed
They winked and jested when her name was named.
for once, when Arthur walking all alone
And troubled in his heart about the Queen,
Had met her, she had spoken to the King
With reverent eyes, mock-loyal shaken voice,
And flttttered adoration, and at last
Had hinted at the some who prized him more
Than who should prize him most :
this in the volume of 1859 was rendered thus :
The wily Vivien stole from Arthur's court :
She hated all the knights, and heard in thought
Their lavish comment when her name was named.
For once, when Arthur walking all alone,
Vext at a rumour rife about the Queen,
Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair,
Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood
234 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
With reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice,
And flutter 'd adoration, and at last
With dark sweet hints of some who prized him more
Than who should prize him most ; . . .
In the final text, the rumour is not about the Queen,,
but is
a rumour issued from herself,
Of some corruption crept among the knights.
In the same paragraph the lines
And vivid smiles, and faintly-venonfd points
Of slander, glancing here and grazing there ;
and
Perceiving that she was but half disdaiit d,
were not in Enid and Nimue, but were added in the Idylls^
The argument about her possible treachery if Merlin
should teach her the charm has a passage in 1857 which
was more than once altered :
0, if you think this wickedness in me,
That I should prove it on you unawares,
To make you, lose your use and name and fame,
That makes me too indignant. Then our bond
Had best be loosed for ever : . . .
In 1859 " too indignant " was altered to " most indignant,"
which is not much better. The present words are " passing
wrathful " ; and the third line has gone, no doubt because
of the word " make."
There is a curious piece of fastidious heraldry which is
not without its lesson in craftsmanship: in Nimue (1857)
the youth painting a shield on the shore is recorded to-
have depicted
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 235
An Eagle, noir in azure, volant, armed
Gules ; and a scroll beneath ' I follow fame.''
In Vivien (1859) the lines are :
Azure, an Eagle rising or, the Sun
In dexter chief; the scroll " I follow fame,"
A little further on the 1857 reading —
The feet unsolder 'd 'from their ankle-bones —
was changed in 1859 to
The feet unmortised from their ankle-bones.
The line
And made her goodman jealoits -with good cause
was inserted in 1859 after "she had her pleasure in it"—
originally the end of a sentence. Concerning the " babble "
of the Round Table about Nimue, hinted at by Merlin, she
exclaims (1857),
The filthy swine ! What do they say of me ?
Vivien, a little more polite, asks (1859),
What dare the full-fed liars say of me ?
And at the end of the same speech —
Not one of them should touch me : filthy swine !
became
Not one of all the drove should touch me : swine !
A few pages before the end Nimue says,
/ ask yoti, is it patent to the child,
but Vivien says, " is it clamour'd by the child." The burst
of stormy utterance with which Nimue works upon the
magician as the catastrophe approaches is this —
236 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS
1 Cruel, the love that I have wasted on you !
O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,
Or seeming shameful, for what shame in trust,
So love be true, and not as yours is — nothing
Poor Nimue had not done to pleasure him
Who calld her what he calfd her — all her crime
The master-wish to prove him wholly hers.''
Vivien (1859), with the subtlest difference, cries thus :
' O crueller than was ever told in tale,
Or sung in song ! 0 vainly lavished love !
O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,
Or seeming shameful, for what shame in love,
So love be true, and not as yours is — nothing
Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust
IVho calfd her what he call 'd her — all her crime,
All — all — the wish to prove him wholly hers.'
Again, Nimue reads as follows :
She paused, she hung her head, she wept afresh ;
And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm
In silence, and he looked and in him died
His anger, and he half believed her true.
Pitied the heaving shoulder,
and so on ; but in the first edition of the Idylls this is
most admirably elaborated thus :
' She paused, she turned away, she hung her head,
The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid
Slipt and uncoiPd itself, she wept afresh,
And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm
In silence, while his anger slowly died
Within him, till he let his wisdom go
For ease of heart, and half believed her true :
CalFd her to shelter in the hollow oak,
' Come from the storm? and having no reply
Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face
Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief 'or shame ; . . .
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS, 237
In the same paragraph, where Nimu'e reads —
Around her waist in pity, not in love,
Vivien reads,
About her, more in kindness than in love,
and in the next paragraph, where Nimu'e reads —
I cannot grant yoti aught which your gross heart
Would reckon worth acceptance. I will go.
In truth but one thing now could make me stay ;
That proof of trtist so often justly asKd,
How justly after that vile name of yours
I find with grief:
Vivien reads more fully —
What should be granted which yotir own gross heart
Would reckon worth the taking ? I will go.
In truth but one thing now — better have died
Thrice than have asKd it once — could make me stay —
That proof of trust — so often asKd in vain !
How justly, after that vile term of yours,
I find with grief!
How many copies of Enid and Nimu'e were printed, and
of these how many were allowed to survive the issue of the
published Idylls of the King, who shall say ? If the rumour
repeated by the anonymous editor of the late Mr. R. H.
Shepherd's posthumous Bibliography of Tennyson be well
founded, only six were printed. But who is answerable
for the rumour ? The change of name from Nimu'e to
Vivien was not hastily decided on. Mr. William Harris
Arnold, of New York, possesses a volume, of which the
following is the title-page : —
238 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
The I True and tJie False. / Four Idylls of the King. /
By Alfred Tennyson, f P.L., D.C.L. / London: f Edward
Moxon & Co., Dover Street. / 1859.
This is described as having a half-title, " The / True and
the False. / Four Idylls of the King." The second Idyll is
Nimue, that name being used throughout in the text and
head-lines instead of Vivien. The pagination is that of
the ordinary 1859 edition of the Idylls of tJte King, though
the typographical arrangement of the lines is not always
identical. This book clearly marks another stage in the
proceedings ; and yet one more is marked by the precious
little volume in the Forster Library. Of this, the fly-title,
title, and pagination correspond with Mr. Arnold's copy ;
but it contains beside the component parts of that book,
and inserted so as to break into the order of the book
itself, the texts of Enid and Nimue in an earlier state ;
while, as regards Nimue, the name has disappeared wholly
from the book itself except in the contents, and given place
to Vivien.
The full description of the Forster book after the fly-title
and title as given above is as follows : it has a table of
contents : —
PAGE
ENID i
NIMUE ioi
ELAINE 147
GUINEVERE 225
but the word Nimue is struck through in ink. The text of
Enid occupies pages I to 97 as in the published book.
The line
Take my salute,' unknightly -with flat hand
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 239
is the last line on page 83 ; and on each page up to 96 the
last line is that forming the first line of the next page in
the published book. This text of Enid is followed by a
set of pulls of the poem on printing paper (not proof-
paper), probably belonging to an earlier state than those
in the British Museum book. They have no fly-title or
title, the " dropped head " on page I is bolder than that
ultimately adopted, and they are paged up to 95. On
their 86th page there is this most notable variation from
other texts : —
Submitting to the judgment of the King.''
Doorm is disbanded by the King of Fears
And suffers judgment from the King of Kings.
The book proper goes on with the fly-title Vivien, and the
text of Vivien, pages 101 to 144 as in the Idylls. This is
followed by the pulls of Nimue on thinner paper, pages 98
to 1 39, without fly-title or title, much revised in Tennyson's
writing and marked for over-running. Then comes the
Elaine fly-title of the book proper, the text of Elaine pages
147 to 222, the fly-leaf of Guinevere, and the text pages
225 to 261, all corresponding with the published Idylls of
the King, but with slight textual and typographical varia-
tions.
Of the Idylls with the general title The True and the
False, an authority who should be well informed, says
there were " twelve or so." Of these, one copy certainly
perished ; and the tale is one of honour and sacrifice.
Mr. Coventry Patmore, who was then a contributor
to The Edinburgh Review, was among^ the inner circle
of friends and critics to whom copies were entrusted.
240 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
These were sent out to writers in certain leading critical
journals to elicit opinions and hints, on the strict under-
standing that the copies should be returned. Through
some misunderstanding the copy sent to Mr. Patmore was
not recalled ; and he found it in his possession no great
while ago. Although the author of T/ie Angel in the
House had a very keen perception of the extreme interest
and value of this piece of literary treasure-trove, he did not
feel that he could honourably keep it in his collection.
He therefore settled all scruples by casting it into the
fire, and with it a similar antenatal Maud, of which other
copies are extant — a book entrusted to him in circum-
stances like those in which he received the Enid and
Nimue. It is not recorded that the stoical poet of the
Angel stood
This way and that dividing the swift mind
In act to throw ;
and those who know him best will certainly conclude that
the moment his verdict was given it was also executed.
Still, who can help thinking of the bold Sir Bedivere's
arguments ? —
And if indeed least the brand away,
Surely a preciotts thing, one worthy note,
Should tints be lost for ever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good should follow this if this were done ?
What harm undone ?
Let each answer for himself.
The title The True and the False would assuredly have
proved repellant, whether used as a main title or as a sut
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 241
title ; and, whatever may be said as to the propriety of the
term idyll as used by Tennyson for his Arthurian poems,
there can be no doubt as to the happiness of the inspiration
which devised the title Idylls of the King, first as a sub-
title, and then left it as the sole title. It was pretty, it
was provocative of speculation, it was reminiscent of much
charming work from the same hand, and it gave no indica-
tion of preachment. Although the book is not rare its
title must be given for the sake of completeness of record :
it is —
Idylls of the King. / By / Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., /
Poet Laureate. / ' Flos regum Arthurus! / Joseph of
Exeter. / London : / Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street. /
1859.
and it consists of fly-title, title, contents, fresh fly-title for
Enid, 261 pages of text including the fly-titles to Vivien,
Elaine, and Guinevere, and finally a blank leaf. It usually
contains an eight-page catalogue of Moxon's publications
stitched between the primrose-coloured end-papers of the
;cto cover.
The Idylls of tJie King were as successful as Maud had
;n the reverse. Maud, indeed, was caviare ; but here
is something that every one might read ; and every one
lid. It was a plain book of really interesting short
stories in verse, full of beauties, and not making any
special demands on the intellect, though excellently
medicinal as all good work is. It was a modest book with
no parade of any scheme or theory — no preface, no dedica-
tion, nothing but the poems ; and it did not matter which
you read first. It was one of those comfortable little
R
242 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
green-cloth-covered foolscap octavos of Moxon's in which
the cultivated section of the middle class thirty years ago
so much delighted ; and a clean, perfectly preserved copy
of the first edition in the original cloth cover is a very
desirable thing to have, if not very uncommon. It is
necessary to have something else with it, — a later edition
or the works in some form, — because among the many
admiring readers was the Prince Consort ; and when the
book was republished in 1862 after the death of His Royal
Highness, it was dedicated to his memory in those touching
^verses of which every one knows the first line at least —
These to his memory since he held them dear.
These, mark, not this, as yet Of course the most
fortunate in respect of this Dedication are those who
happen to have secured the leaflet on which it was printed
separately — not for sale, but to be given away to possessors
of original undedicated copies. This, of course, has no
title : it is just a pull from the types of the new edition,
.and is on quarter-sheets of paper like a piece of notepaper.
Mr. Shepherd says it was issued thus before the book ; but
this is at least questionable. The natural process would
be to lift the four pages of type out after printing the book,
and make them up fresh for the leaflet The popularity of
the Idylls of the King on both sides of the Atlantic was
unbounded, and might well tempt the Laureate to other
ventures in verse capable of a similar labelling. Between
1859 an<3 J864 he was working upon blank verse poems, —
still building at the idyll as a happy form of verse-tale.
Sea-Dreams, an Idyll, appeared in Macmillan's Magazine for
Tennyson's Idylls of the Hearth.
From a copy of the rare original in the Library of Mr Walter B. Slater.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 243
January 1860, a poem classifiable with Dora, The Gardeners
Daughter, and The Brook, though less excellent than either
of those ; and Tithonus, classifiable on equal terms with
the Ulysses of 1842, came out in February 1860 in The
Cornhill Magazine. By 1864 Tennyson had completely
ready for publication two important domestic poems in
blank verse, — Enoch Arden and Ay Inter's Field. These
were printed, in a volume similar to the Idylls of the King,
with Sea-Dreams, Tithonus, and fifteen other pieces not
idyllic, and were about to be issued under the admirable
title Idylls of the Hearth, when a change of plan took
place. With that title the book was actually printed,
though it is of extreme rarity in that state, and was not
positively known to collectors till some nine or ten years
ago, when a parcel of five copies was sold among other
effects of Mrs. Moxon's. One of these copies was de-
fective ; and one had the edges trimmed. Of those which
were perfect and uncut one passed into the collection of
Mr. Walter Slater and one into that of Mr. Buxton Forman.
There is also a copy in the British Museum. The title-
page of this book is as follows : —
Idylls of the Hearth. I By j Alfred Tennyson, P. L.,
D.C.L. I London : / Edward Moxon and Co., Dover Street. /
1864.
Besides the title there is a leaf bearing a list of contents
on the recto. Then comes Enoch Arden (pages T to 50),
Ay Inter's Field (pages 51 to 95), Sea-Dreams (pages 96 to
1 1 3), The Grandmother (reprinted from Once a Week, pages
114 to 127), and Northern Farmer — Old Style (pages 128
;to 136). These five follow each other without divisional
R 2
244 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
fly-titles but are themselves followed by two groups (form-
ing pages 137 to 178, plus a final blank leaf) with the
respective fly-titles Miscellaneous and Experiments. It is
pretty clear that the term Idylls of the Hearth was meant
to cover not only Enoch Arden, Ay Inter's Field, and Sea-
Dreams, which are in blank verse, but also The Grand-
mother and Northern Farmer which are in rhyming
anapaestic stanzas. Their subjects are clearly " of the
hearth " ; and it may be that the unidyllic character of
their stanzas set Tennyson against the charming general
title which he had devised, and put him to his wits to find
another. This he seems to have abandoned ; for he simply
made one of the poems lend its name to the bookful, — the
volume issuing under the title Enoch Arden, etc. The
mechanical change was very slight : the title-page and
" Contents," two leaves, formed the whole of the preliminary
matter before the eleven sheets and a quarter of which the
rest of the book is composed. These two leaves formed
a quarter-sheet ; and it was simply necessary to substitute
one quarter sheet for another, to leave no trace that any
change had been made. The " Contents " was, to this end,
reprinted with a title-page, — reading thus : —
Enoch Arden, / etc. f By f Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., /
Poet Laureate. / London : / Edward Moxon and Co., Dover
Street, f 1864.
This book must have circulated enormously, for it is still,,
after thirty-two years, quite common in the original green
cloth, with Moxon's eight-page catalogue of August 1864
stitched between the primrose end-papers of the recto-
cover.
LUCRETIUS
AURED TEN.NTSOX
CtMBUDCl. MASS
Tennyson's Lucretius.
From a copy of the original in the Library of Mr. W. B. Slater.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 245
Tennyson's next considerable work was again in blank
verse. By no possible stretch of language could Lucretius
be claimed as an idyll, whether " of the King " or " of the
Hearth"; but it shows, equally with Enoch Arden and
Aylmer's Field, that the resources of blank verse had by
no means been exhausted in the Idylls of the King ; for,
while Enoch Arden exceeds these in the gorgeousness of its
landscapes, Lucretius strikes out nobler and fuller rhythms.*
The late Poet Laureate was not, it is generally supposed,
either a quick or an industrious worker: but between 1864
*As the editor of Mr. Shepherd's Bibliography does not seem to be aware of
the existence of a separate issue of Lucretius, it will be well to record it here.
A copy was sold among the books of Mr. Alfred Crampon on the 4th of June
1896 ; and some one appears to have paid the sum of £,\z for it. The title-
page reads thus :
Lucretius / By / Alfred Tennyson / Poet Laureate / Cambridge, Mass. /
Printed for Private Circulation / 1 868.
It consists of fly-title, title, a two-page prefatory note, and 21 pages of
text, — a small quarto of three sheets and a half according to the signatures, but
perhaps really a royal or imperial i6mo. At the foot of page 27 is the im-
print " University Press, Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co."
The book is bound in plain brown cloth, unblocked, with bevelled edges, and
is lettered along the back "Tennyson^s Lucretius, 1868."
The auctioneers' catalogue says that " only twenty copies were printed in
the United States, and, when reprinted in England in 1870, many alterations
were made." If this was meant to imply that the little brown book was the
first form in which Lucretius appeared, the purchaser may have parted with
his money only to repent him when he learns the truth. Unquestionably rare
and desirable as the book is, it clearly purports to be a reprint, though the
first edition in book form. Lucretius appeared simultaneously in Macmillan's
Magazine and an American Magazine called Every Saturday, in May 1868.
There were some lines in Every Saturday which were expunged from the
proofs of Macmillan ; and they were also left out when the poem was repub-
lished by Tennyson in the Holy Grail volume. In the prefatory note to the
American private issue, it is stated that a few copies only are reprinted for
;friends, in default of an issue by the Laureate in book form.
246 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
and 1870 he appears to have been, for him, somewhat busy
making or polishing idylls, and mainly "of the King."
Beside Lucretius and The Window, or the Loves of the
Wrens, a very small handful of minor poems represents
the printed output of that interval. By this time other
poets of high repute were not contenting themselves with
collections of small poems. The Brownings had not only
their dramas but Aurora Leigh and The Ring and the Book
to plead ; Morris had his Jason and Swinburne his Ata-
lanta and Chastelard. Either Tennyson or his publisher
must have realized that complete and self-consistent poems
of some magnitude were in request. At all events in 1869
it became known that the Laureate had some more Idylls
of the King ready for publication. Both poet and printers
had plenty to do in 1869. No fewer than three separate
undertakings were in hand, — The Holy Grail and other
Poems, the beautiful little first English edition of the
Works, in ten volumes, and a new edition of the Idylls of
tJie King including The Holy Grail and the other new
ones. It is of some consequence to get this matter quite
right, as Mr. Shepherd's Bibliography, wrong and imper-
fect in numerous points, is particularly at fault here. In
describing the " Miniature or Cabinet Edition ... in ten
small half-crown volumes, in blue paper wrappers " under
the date 1871, he says, "This was the first collected edition
of Tennyson's works published in England." As a matter
of fact the first ten-volume edition was published simul-
taneously with The Holy Grail volume; like that, it was
dated 1870, and on each of its ten title-pages ; the volumes
were bound in limp purple cloth, enclosed in a neat purple
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 247
case ; and the published price was not ten half-crowns, but
£2 $s. The 1871 edition in half-crown volumes was a
mere reissue of the Pocket Edition of 1870. The volume
of eight rearranged Idylls of the King was no doubt ready
as soon as the other two books ; but, although dated 1869,
while they are dated 1870, it was not published till after
them. This may have been arranged out of respect to the
first-edition-collectors, who would have been sore if the
new Idylls could not have a proper standing in the library ;
or it may have been, as the other two books were out in
December 1869, to give The Holy Grail and the Pocket-
volume set every advantage derivable from the certainty
that a large number would be given away as Christmas
presents. The gravamen of the matter is in the fact that
it was the Pocket-edition which first gave the public the
extended series of Idylls of tJie King (eight in number
including the revised and enlarged Morte d* Arthur), in the
order in which we were then directed to read them as a
whole. The dates on the title-pages make it look as if the
thick foolscap 8vo. volume issued immediately afterwards
at 1 2s. could claim that honour ; but it is not so ; and this
is not the only instance of the kind which nineteenth
century bibliography has to reveal.
The Holy Grail volume is common enough ; but its
details are significant in this story of the building of the
Idylls. The title is—
The Holy Grail / And other Poems f By Alfred Tennyson,
D.C.L. I Poet Laureate / " Flos Regum Arthur us" / Joseph of
Exeter \ \Straharis book-mark] Strahan and Co., Publishers I
56 Lndgate Hill, London / 1870 / All rights resetted
248 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
Before the title-page are a blank leaf and a fly-title with
a note on the verso : after the title is a list of contents
divided into two sections by a short line — the Idylls separ-
ated from the Miscellaneous. Then follow T/ie Coming' of
Arthur, The Holy Grail, Pelleas and Ettarre, and The
Passing of Arthur, occupying with their separate fly-titles
158 pages. Then comes a fly-title, Miscellaneous, and then
pages 161 to 222 of poems including Lucretius. A leaf to
spare in the last sheet is occupied by advertizements of
Tennyson's works. TJte Coming of Arthur, TIte Holy
Grail, and Pelleas and Ettarre were new poems ; but The
Passing of Arthur was of course the noble Morte d' Arthur,
stripped again of the tags with which it appeared in the
second issue of 1842, and enlarged to the extent of 145
verses at the beginning and 24 at the end. The new
introduction gave some account of the " battle in the west,"
which was originally " taken as fought," before the opening
line —
So all day long tlie noise of battle rolled.
The special value of the fresh matter lay in the disposal
of Modred, as the last man felled by Arthur with Excalibur.
But this story wherein " the bold Sir Bedivere " figures so
conspicuously in the third person was not very happily
introduced by the five verses —
That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
First made and latest left of all the knights,
Told, when the man was no more than a voice
In the -white winter of his age, to those
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.
But, however inappropriately these lines stand as intro-
ducing the idea of a new narrator between the Idyll of
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 249
Guinevere and the heroic Passing of Arthur, certain it is
that, in the winter of 1869-70, the poet challenged criticism
afresh upon his Arthurian poems as a single completed
work. Not only did the repetition of the motto, "Flos
Regum Arthurus," which the Idylls of 1859 had borne,
serve to connect with those the four in the Holy Grail
volume, but, as already said, the series was consolidated in
the Pocket-edition ; and a plain statement on the subject
was made on the page facing the title of The Holy Grail
and other Poems. That statement is as follows : —
" These four ' Idylls of the King ' are printed in their
present form for the convenience of those who possess the
former volume.
" The whole series should be read, and is to-day published
in the following order : —
THE COMING OF ARTHUR.
SfjE &0unU Cable.
GERAINT AND ENID.
MERLIN AND VIVIEN.
LANCELOT AND ELAINE.
THE HOLY GRAIL.
PELLEAS AND ETTARRE.
GUINEVERE.
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. *
" * This last, the earliest written of the poems, is here
connected with the rest in accordance with an early project
of the author's."
250 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
It was not stated in the book what day was referred to
in the second paragraph of the announcement. It simply
meant whatever day might be chosen for the delivery of
the book to the retail booksellers, and that it was to be
delivered on the same day as the ten-volume edition, which
was advertized on the last page of the book as " now
ready." The one-volume " Idylls complete " was not adver-
tized in the Holy Grail book.
Simultaneously with all this concerted preparation for
an appeal on a new basis, and doubtless as a part of the
" concert," a brief was being held by the late Dean Alford
to assert the fresh claim in a criticism of the Arthurian
poems. This the Very Reverend gentleman did in an
article which finally passed through the press at the very
time when the other preparations drew to a close, namely
December 1869, and which appeared in Mr. Strahan's own
magazine, The Contemporary Review, for January 1870.
The Dean, who must have had the unpublished idylls by
him for some time to have executed so elaborate a criticism,
said that the whole of these poems, old and new, were to be
regarded as " a great connected poem, dealing with the very
highest interests of man," and that King Arthur figured
forth " the higher soul of man," which phrase he explained
as synonymous with various other current phrases. He
said it meant " the highest part of man — that which leads
and commands — that which is alone receptive of kindling
from heaven — this it is which the ages educate — this which
is susceptible of defeat, corruption, postponement of its
high aims and upward progress, — but which, in the long
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 251
run of the world's complete history, we have faith to
believe shall prove to have been well led, through all its
compound action and passion, by Him who has the hearts
of men in His hand."
This higher soul " in its purity, in its justice, in its noble-
ness, in its self-denial," the Dean alleged Tennyson to figure
forth by the King. In the King's coming — in " his founda-
tion of the Round Table — his struggles, and disappoint-
ments, and departure," Dean Alford saw "the conflict
continually maintained between the spirit and the flesh ; "
and in the " pragmatical issue " he recognized the " bearing
down in history, and in individual man, of pure and lofty
Christian purpose by the lusts of the flesh, by the corruptions
of superstition, by human passions and selfishness." But,
he continued, " in history likewise, and preeminently in the
individual human life, though the high soul of man is sur-
rounded and saddened and outwardly defeated by these
adverse and impure influences, yet in the end shall it
triumph, and pass into glory. This is the theme which we
trace through the Idylls of the King, and, tracing it, we
regard it as simply ridiculous and beside the purpose to
speak of the four which were, or the eight which are, as
insulated groups or pictures. One noble design rules, and
warms, and unites them all." Not merely figurative is the
expression " we trace," for in the article in question the next
and principal step is to trace through the newly arranged
idylls the workings of that design ; and most lovingly is
this done — such allegorical significance as may be found in
the poems in question being brought forth to the light
thoroughly.
252 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
But the most significant part of the claim was that,
according to the Dean's explicit assurance, he did not put
it forward as a mere invention of his own, the poet's
intention being, he implied, known to him for such as he
had expounded. It was on that known intention, and that
•only, that the claim of the poems to be regarded as a
complete whole was based ; and the Dean recorded his
belief that this general design constituted " the essential
unity of the whole collection."
The terms of the confession were fatal to the claim, even
if there had been no history behind it and none to follow.
The conditions described are incompatible with that epic
frankness which is indispensable to the continuity and
connexity of a great poem dealing ostensibly with high
action and the movements and passions of human beings.
The inspired Dean's trumpet-blast justified at least the
belief that, whatever their aims and scope, the Idylls of the
King were at last finished, and the expectation that the
poet would not turn his attention any more in the direction
of the Arthurian legends. Nevertheless, before the next
year had run its course, there was yet another Idyll to add
to the completed poem !
TJie Last Tournament, a thing for which, in its separate
capacity, to be grateful, marks another characteristic change
of plan beside the change in the main design. How the
Tournament compares for rarity with the Morte d Arthur,
Dora, &c., the Idylls of the Hearth, or Enid and Nimue, it
is not easy to guess, so little being positively known about
these private or preliminary issues of Tennyson's. The
.author of Tennysoniana had not succeeded in setting eyes
Tennyson's The Last Tournament.
From a copy of the rare original in the Library of Mr. T. J. Wise.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 253
on either one of the four save Idylls of the Hearth ; but he
and others interested in such matters had of course heard
the rumour current in 1871 that the Laureate had yet
another " Idyll of the King " coming out singly. Why it
did not do so, in book form, remains a topic of speculation ;
but it certainly never did come out publicly, although
the few copies known have every appearance of intention
to publish. The title-page of these copies reads thus : —
The I Last Tournament. / By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L. /
Poet Laureate. / Strahan & Co. / ^Ludgate Hill, London /
1871. / [All rig/its reserved}
There is a fly-title reading The Last Tournament ; on
the back of the title-page is a central imprint, " Printed by
Virtue and Co., City Road, London." Facing this (p. 5^
but not numbered) is the following note : —
" The place of this poem among the Idylls of the King is
between Pelleas and Ettarre and Guinevere. In the con-
cluding volumes of the Library Edition the whole series
will appear in its proper shape and order."
The back of this is blank ; and a second fly-title identical'
with the first makes up the half sheet. The poem occupies
pages 9 to 54, all numbered in Arabic figures in the usual
way, and with a uniform head-line, The Last Tournament,
— except page 9 itself, which, having a " dropped head "
instead of a head-line, has no figure at the top. At the
foot of page 54 the imprint is repeated ; and the half-sheet
is this time completed by a blank leaf. The type, paper,
and style of page are identical, or as nearly so as the lay eye
can see, with those of the Holy Grail volume which had
been issued two years before and the Gareth and Lynette*
254 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
volume in which The Last Tournament was itself published
in 1872. The text, however, is not quite identical, either
with that which accompanied Garetk and Lymtte, or with
that which did, after all, appear in 1871 in The Con-
temporary Review. There are three minute points of
variation from one or other of the published texts in the
first five lines, which read : —
Dagotut, the fool, whom Gawain in his moods
Had made mock-knight of Arthurs Table Round,
At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods,
Danced like a wit her1 d leaf before the Hall.
And toward him from the Hall, with harp in hand, . . .
Came Tristram. . . .
In The Contemporary, moods is reprinted in the first line,
and Hall with a big H in the fourth, but with a small h in
the fifth. The published edition reads mood for moods and
Jiall with a small h both times. Though moods is a charac-
teristic variation, mood is clearly the better reading. But
the next is less characteristic : it is on the third page of the
poem, where Guinevere tells Arthur of the loss of the
diamonds from the tarn on the day when the dead Elaine
went by —
. . . ye look amazed,
Not knowing they were lost as soon as. given —
Slid from my hands, when I was leaning out
Above the river — as that tmhappy child
Past in her barge
The word as forms, it is true, a very characteristic rhythm ;
but the broken spasmodic narration without it is more
characteristic ; and perhaps the printer's reader chanced the
insertion and it got through from the absence of final
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 255
revision. At all events it disappeared in The Contemporary
and the Gareth volume, and has not reappeared since. At
page 1 5 of the unpublished book, the second line is
Friends, thrtf your manhood and your fealty, —
without the word now at the end. As fealty is marked for
pronunciation in three syllables, it is possible that now was
an afterthought. It appears in all later versions ; and, as
the rhythm and sense are both enriched, the chances are
that it was broken off at press when the early copies were
pulled. At page 22 (line 4) we read —
But under her black brows a swarthy dame
Laugh' d shrilly,
which is also the reading of The Contemporary ; whereas
the volume of 1872 (page 104) has one for dame. The
word Hell which appears with a capital in the 1871 book
and The Contemporary is spelt with a small h in the 1872
volume (page no) ; and it is the other way with the word
king at page 30 (1871), which did not get a capital till 1872
(page 112).
At page 39, what may be called the editio princeps, even
though it were but a few copies pulled for the poet and his
publisher before the types were distributed on a change of
plan, confirms the received reading in a contested passage : —
Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard
The hounds of Mark,
in which certain critics have advocated the substitution of
rocky for roky, not knowing, of course, that roky or roaky is
good old English for misty. However, that error has not
yet found place in the text, though no doubt some editor of
256 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
the future will yet refuse the poet the use of a word now
become provincial. At page 40, the last line but one reads
(1871)-
Mark's -way, my soul I — but eat not thou with him,
and that is the reading in The Contemporary ; but in the
Gareth volume (page 122) the line is
MarKs way, my Soul! — but eat not thou with Mark.
At page 47 is a bad misprint, Here for Her in the noble
passage in which Isolt resents Tristram's form of blessing —
May God be with thee, sweet, when eld and gray,
And past desire !
On this somewhat gross benediction she comments : —
How darest thou, if lover, push me even
In fancy from thy side, and set me far
In the gray distance, half a life away,
Her to be loved no more ?
Though most unusual, the use of Her in apposition to the
me of the first line, is of admirable cogency ; and there is
not a word to be said for the printer's silly emendation,
Here to be loved no more. The right reading was restored ia
The Contemporary and has remained in force ever since.
The most important reading of 1871, sacrificed in 1872, and
not restored in the final text of the Idylls, is in the
catastrophe (page 53):
He rose, he turned, then, flinging round her neck,
Claspt it ; but while he bow"d himself to lay
Warm kisses in the hollow of her throat,
Out of the dark, just as the lips had toucKd,
Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek —
' MarKs way,' said Mark, and clove him thrtf the brain.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 257
When the second and third of these wonderful verses were
altered in 1872 (Gareth &c., page 135) to
Claspt itt and cried ' Thine Order, O my Queen ! '
But, while he bow 'd to kiss the jewelCd throat,
there was an immeasurable loss of force ; but the late
Laureate was prone to err on the side of coldness in
passages of this kind ; and, unless his drafts still exist,
it is to be assumed that many a nobly frank touch in the
portrayal of passion has been lost for ever from the Idylls
through just such revision as this. It would be easy to
believe that Tennyson took fright at this passage as he did
at a warmer passage still in Lucretius — which appeared in
America but not in England — and that the projected
booklet was held back on that account ; but that theory
would be insufficient, seeing that when the rumoured pro-
mise of a single new Idyll was fulfilled by the issue of
TJie Last Tournament in The Contemporary Review for
December 1871, that passage was unaltered, although the
number went through several editions. On the whole, a
more plausible supposition would be that the original
project of a fresh Idyll in a volume by itself was quickly
abandoned in favour of two, and that, Gareth and Lynette
not being finished to the poet's satisfaction, The Last
Tournament was allowed to go out in the magazine just to
re-try the critics in a quieter manner while Gareth was
under that revision and castigation of which so much
evidence is shown throughout the works. That the Tourna-
ment was not considered in need of further castigation is
clear from the fact that it remained practically unaltered
to the end, but for the two verses in the catastrophe.
s
258 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
That Mr. Strahan was on terms of friendship with the
poet, and would have been able to expound his mind on
such a subject, may be judged from the fact that a copy
of the first edition of Gareth and Lynette &c. (1872) is
extant with the autograph inscription on the fly-title,
"Ar Strahan from A. Tennyson." But Mr. Strahan also
is gathered to his fathers ; and, after all, the why and the
wherefore do not much matter. The note in The Con-
temporary is differently worded from that in the 1871
booklet — thus : " This poem forms one of the ' Idylls of the
King.' Its place is between 'Pelleas' and 'Guinevere.'"
The reference is of course to the Pocket volume edition
of the works and to the volume known at that time as
"Idylls of the King — collected," in which, as we have
seen, the four original Idylls of 1859 with the four
given in the Holy Grail volume of 1870 had been printed
in 1 869, and issued as a single work ; and there was a
similar reference in the prefatory note to Gareth and
Lynette &c.
"Of these two Idylls, GARETH follows THE COMING
OF ARTHUR, and THE LAST TOURNAMENT immediately
precedes GUINEVERE.
" The concluding volumes of the Library Edition will
contain the whole series in its proper shape and order."
So then, although our consolidated epic of idylls had
been before the public in at least three issues and had
been expounded as a great connected poem by a dis-
tinguished dignitary of the Church, it was not the real and
final consolidated epic of idylls after all ; and we must now
make out our bill of fare anew to see how it looks.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 259
The Order of 1872.
THE COMING OF ARTHUR.
£f)e 3&mnU Cable.
GARETH AND LYNETTE.
GERATNT AND ENID.
MERLIN AND VIVIEN.
LANCELOT AND ELAINE.
THE HOLY GRAIL.
PELLEAS AND ETTARE.
THE LAST TOURNAMENT.
GUINEVERE.
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR.
The poet was of course as good as his word, and put the
poems in this order in the Library Edition which Mr.
Strahan issued in 1872 and 1873 in six volumes. To this
text of the Idylls was added the noble concluding address
to the Queen, in which Tennyson made his own confession,
practically confirming Dean Alford's statement as to the
spiritual-allegoric character of the work. The address
looks very much like an afterthought when one examines
the book. The last page of The Passing of Arthur is
closed with the words The End, and followed by a blank
leaf, after which the address, unpaged, follows ; and after
its last line there is an ornament instead of the words
TJie End. The imprint of the Chiswick Press on a
separaf e leaf comes next, and then another blank, so that
S 2
260 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
the address and imprint are inserted between the end of
the Idylls and a blank leaf.
Meantime, on the unsettling and resettling of the epic of
idylls, Rumour at once began to be busy. (Rumour is
always tart and sometimes false.) This time Rumour saw
that the eight Idylls which had grown to ten had had their
sequence interfered with, and that nobody was a bit the
worse for the change — not even Arthur or Guinevere ; and
Rumour slyly remarked, " Ah ! these epics ! It's only a
question of arithmetic how many books there should be.
The Laureate has certainly some up his sleeve. We shall
have more anon. He is bound to make the tale of them
up to twelve now. In fact we have been assured that that
is his intention — and within a very short time ! "
But then, as Mr. Rider Haggard once remarked, " a
strange thing happened." It occurred to some one else to
treat ancient legend in an idyllic manner. Who beside the
author of TJie Coming K. can have had the demoniac
cleverness to do it, is hard to say ; but at the close of
December 1872, in the January number of BlackivoocTs
Magazine, appeared Sir Tray: an Arthurian Idyll, in
which the manner and method of legendary narrative
which the Laureate had made his own were, in their super-
ficial characteristics, so successfully applied to the story
which we all know from our infancy as Old Mother Hubbard,
that those to whom the Laureate's extreme sensitiveness
was known felt sure that there would be surcease of Idylls,
" of the King " at all events, for some time to come. Thus
the bard of Hubbard :
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 261
The widowed Dame of HubbarcFs ancient line
Turned to her cupboard, cornered angle-wise
Betwixt this wall and that, in qtiest of aught
To satisfy the craving of Sir Tray,
Prick-eared companion of her solitude,
Red-spotted, dirty-white, and bare of rib,
Who followed at her high and pattering heels^
Prayer in his eye, prayer in his slinking gait,
Prayer in his pendulous pulsating tail.
Wide on its creaking jaws revolved the door,
The cupboard yawned, deep-throated, thinly set
For teeth, with bottles, ancient canisters,
And plates of various pattern, blue or white ;
Deep in the void she thrust her hooked nose
Peering near-sighted for the wished-for bone,
While her short robe of samite, tilted high,
The thrifty darnings of her hose revealed ; —
The pointed feature travelled o'er the delf
Greasing its tip, biit bone or bread found none.
Wherefore Sir Tray abode still dinner less,
Licking his paws beneath the spinning-wheel,
And meditating much on savoury meats.
This, of course, is much more filled out from
. Old Mother Hubbard
She went to her cupboard
To fetch her poor dog a bone ;
But when she got there
The clipboard was bare
And so the poor dog had none —
much more elaborated on the ancient legend than Tennyson
was accustomed to enlarge upon Malory or the Mabin-
ogion : but the inference that you might make what you
liked of any legend good or bad, by sophistication of
language, rhythm, metre, pause, and all that goes to make
up manner, was quite irresistible. And when, instead of
the homely statement —
262 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
She went to the undertaker to get htm a coffin
And when she came back the dog was laughirf
the poet of Blackwood told of one Sir Waldgrave that
Up a by -lane the undertaker dwelt ;
There day by day he plied his merry trade,
And all his undertakings undertook :
there was no help for it but to give the parodist his wicked
way, and smile. After this it was no surprise to read that
With cheerful hammer he a coffin tapt,
While hollow, hollow, hollow, rang the wood,
And, as he sawed and hammered, thus he sang :
Wood, hammer, nails, ye build a house for him,
Nails, hammer, wood, ye build a house for me,
Paying the rent, the taxes, and the rates.
I plant a human acorn in the ground,
And therefrom straightway springs a goodly tree,
Budding for me in bread and beer and beef.
O Life, dost thou bring Death or Death bring thee ?
Which of the twain is bringer, which the brought ?
Since men must die that other men may live.
O Death, for me thou plump 'st thine hollow cheeks,
MaKst of thine antic grin a pleasant smile,
And pranK st full gaily in thy winding-sheet.
This is followed by some admirable verbal fooling, as when
the Dame mentions that Sir Tray is dead :
Wagless the tail that waved to welcome me —
and the undertaker replies :
Oft have I noted, when the jest went round,
Sad* twos to see the wag forget his tale —
Sadder to see the tail forget its wag.
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 263
But the crowning triumph of the parodist, or satirist, or
whatever he pleases to be called, was in the hat episode,
where instead of
She went to the hatter's to buy him a hat
But when she came back he -was feeding the cat.
we get the following exquisite drollery :—
Anon the Dame, her primal transports o'er,
Bethoiight her of the wisdom of Sir Tray,
And his fine wit, and then it shameful seemed
That he bareheaded 'neat A the sky should go
While empty skulls of fools went thatched and roofed ;
" A hat" she cried, " would better Jit those brows
Than many a courtiers that fve wotted of;
And thou shall have one, an' my tender toes
On which the corns do shoot, and these my knees
Wherethrc? rheumatic twinges swiftly dart,
Will bear me to the city yet again.
And thou shalt wear the hat as Arthtir wore
The Dragon of the great Pendragonship"
Whereat Sir Tray did seem to smile, and smote
Upon the chair-back with approving tail.
Then up she rose, and to the Hatter's went, —
" Hat me" qiwth she, " your very newest hat ! "
And so they hatted her, and she returned
Home through the darksome wold, and raised the latch
And marked, full lighted by the ingle-glow,
Sir Tray, with spoon in hand, and cat on knee,
Spattering the mess about the chaps of Puss.
From tht\ time of this trenchant attack the doings of the
Laureate in respect of Idylls of the King were extremely
unobtrusive for a while. In 1874 his new publishers,
Messrs. Henry S. King & Co., brought out the " Cabinet
Edition " of his works ; and in this a considerable addition
was made to Vivien — now called Merlin and Vivien;
264 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
between the first and second paragraphs a hundred and
fifty new verses were inserted. The Coming of Arthur was
also increased. But the number of idylls still hung at ten.
It was only by counting the preliminary dedication to the
memory of Prince Albert and the exordium addressed to
the Queen that the magic number twelve could be arrived
at ; and, whether because of the barking of the watch-dog
Sir Tray, or for some other reason, so the books of the
epic of idylls had to be counted by all who deemed twelve
books to be as indispensable to an epic as five acts to a
tragedy.
With his new publishers Tennyson began to occupy new
ground. In 1875 appeared Queen Mary, a Drama, in verse
and prose, facing the title-page of which there was an
advertizement to the effect that Messrs. King & Co. had in
hand a new edition of the works — " The Author's Edition "
— of which the third volume was T/te Idylls of the King
(Complete}. These Idylls "complete" are also offered for
sale in advertizements at the end of Harold, the companion
drama which followed Queen Mary in 1877, and again in
the completed poem of The Lover's Tale, as published in
1879. In the meantime Messrs. King's Library Edition
had been coming out ; and the 5th and 6th volumes (1877)
consisted of the Idylls of tJte King arranged as in Mr.
Strahan's Library Edition, printed, indeed, apparently from
the same stereotyped plates. So far as these two volumes
are concerned the plates of the first Library Edition,
Strahan's, did not require much manipulation to print the
Library Edition of King & Co. in 1877. The words "In
six Volumes / Vol. v. [vi.] " were removed from the half-
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 265
titles ; the lower half of the title-pages altered ; in Vol. V.
the new pages of Merlin and Vivien which had been added
in 1874 (Cabinet Edition) were introduced — eight pages —
upsetting pp. 229-37 altogether, but leaving what were
pp. 230-74 in 1873 to be pp. 238-82 in 1877 ; and in Vol.
VI. a fly-title and a new head ornament, head-lines and
pagination were put in 1877 to the Dedication to the
Queen, which appeared in 1873 with a blank leaf separating
it from TIte Passing of Arthur, and with no head ornament,
head-lines or paging, but with a Chiswick Press ornamental
imprint on a separate leaf at the end. This of course
disappears in 1877; a°d the words T/ie End are transferred
from the close of TJie Passing of Arthur to the close of the
lines to the Queen.
In 1880 the veteran poet gave forth that astonish-
ingly fresh and varied book Ballads and other Poems, still
with no addition to the Idylls. But the advertizements in
respect of the Idylls look as if things were getting unsettled
again ; for one edition is offered in which they are mentioned
as " collected " instead of " complete," while in another they
are set down in the following order : —
The Coming of Arthur. Pelleas and Ettarre.
Geraint and Enid. Guinevere.
Merlin and Vivien. Passing of Arthur.
Lancelot and Elaine. Gareth and Lynette.
The Holy Grail. The Last Tournament.
Then came more plays. In 1882 TJie Promise of May,
in prose and verse, was produced at the Globe Theatre.
It was not then published, though privately printed copies
266 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
unquestionably exist. In 1884 appeared in one volume
The Cup and TJie Falcon, at the end of which Idylls of the
King (Collected} were offered at 6s. They are also adver-
tized in the same way at the end of Becket, published the
same year. That is a goodly row of volumes free from
new Idylls of the King to add to the completed work ; and
in this same year, 1884, the Laureate's newest publishers,
Messrs. Macmillan & Co., issued a uniform crown 8vo
edition, beautifully printed at the Clark Press in Edin-
burgh. And here we are reminded of that early idyll
project of 1842, never, it seems, quite abandoned. As long
ago as 1872, in the first volume of the Library edition of
Strahan, a group of poems had been given at the end,
headed English Idylls and other Poems, and composed of
TJie Epic, Morte d' Arthur, The Gardener's Daughter ; or,
the Pictures, Dora, Audley Court, Walking to tJie Mail,
Edwin Morris ; or, the Lake, St. Simeon Stylites, The
Talking Oak, Love and Duty, The Golden Year, and
Ulysses. In the first volume of the crown octavo series of
Macmillan (1884) the final group is called simply English
Idylls, and consists of the first eight of those mentioned
above only. This means that the little book of 1842 is
simply altered by the restoration of the Morte d* Arthur
tags and the substitution of the idyllic Edwin Morris for
the classic Ulysses and the mediaeval Godiva. In the same
edition appeared, in the third volume, the eight Idylls of the
Round Table once more in the authorized order of 1 869-72,
duly preceded by the Dedication and TJie Coming of
Arthur, and duly followed by TJie Passing of Art Jiur and
the noble verses to the Queen, the words End of " The
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 267
Round Table " being printed after the last line of Guinevere.
Nevertheless, for all the appearance of consolidation on a
basis of ten all told, the interval was at an end. In 1885
appeared Tiresias and other Poems, without any advertize-
ments whatever, but with what was ultimately to be a new
Idyll of tJie King. That title was not even mentioned in
connexion with the new aspirant to it — Balin and Balan,
which was simply inserted between that admirable dialect
Monologue The Spinsters Sweet-arts and the Prologue to
The CJiarge of the Heavy Brigade, with this foot-note —
" An introduction to ' Merlin and Vivien.' " This was so
unobtrusive as not necessarily to scare the holders of the
charming edition of the works issued in 1884, or put them
out of conceit of their consolidated Idylls as given in the
third volume. But it could not be for long, and at length
the Idyll worshippers who thought Lord Tennyson had yet
another " up his sleeve " for an ultimate twelfth book, or
rather, to be inserted somewhere and make the eleventh
become the twelfth, received a rude shock. When the
complete crown octavo series of 1884 became the complete
crown octavo series of 1888, the third volume was that
pretty book with the frontispiece representing Queen
Guinevere " From the Marble by Thomas Woolner, R. A.,"
— a book having also its own separate saleable existence.
Its title reads thus : —
Idylls of the King / By / Alfred / Lord Tennyson f
D.C.L., P.L. I London / Macmillan and Co. / And New
York I 1888.
Between the title-page and table of contents, this edition
has a programme in the following form : —
26S THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
Idylls of the King
In Twelve Books
'Flos Regum Arthurus'
JOSEPH OF EXETER.
Dedication
The Coming of Arthur.
Cfje Hounli Cable.
Gareth and Lynette.
The Marriage of Geraint.
Geraint and Enid.
Balin and Balan.
Merlin and Vivien.
Lancelot and Elaine.
The Holy Grail.
Pelleas and Ettarre.
The Last Tournament.
Guinevere.
The Passing of Arthur.
To the Queen.
A glance at this programme discovers ingenuity galore.
To include the new Idyll Balin and Balan among the rest of
the Idylls without further ceremony would have left the
number at either eleven or thirteen, according as the dedi-
cation and exordium were counted or not. Thirteen is an
unfortunate number at any table ; and King Arthur's Round
Table could scarcely be made an exception. Eleven would
fall short of the mystic number wanted for the completion
of the already more than once completed. Something had
to be done ; and, literally, the judgment of Solomon was
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 269
displayed in the doing of that something ; it was only, after
all, a matter of arithmetic ; and why should not one of the
Laureate's pet children be cut in two as well as the overlaid
baby of the woman who appeared to claim her own before
Solomon ? Which, then ? The longest, of course. So
Geraint and Enid, being far and away the longest of the
lot, the executioner's sword fell there ; and there was none
found to stay judgment. Of course, the wags were not
going to let the matter pass ; and one has recorded in
idyllic blank verse what is supposed to have taken place
at the interview between the poet and his publisher when
the time came to use Balin and Balan for the purpose of
completing yet once again the Idylls of the King. It is not
necessary to give the account entire as it appears in that
quaint little item of Tennysoniana called TJte Undoing of
Enid: an Idyll of tJie King, never yet issued otherwise
than privately ; but it is worth while to quote the passage
in which the poet figures as solving the arithmetical diffi-
culty placed before him by the publisher : —
" Now therefore take my Enid, which I love,
First-born and largest far of all the brood
Of knight-mashed maidens and of Queen-mashed knights
Wherewith I teemed, — -for thou reniemberest how
In fifty-seven, before the riotous brain
Had gendered all these Idylls of the King
Or guessed what form or number they should take,
Her I sent forth with Nimue and none else,
And after called that other Vivien — name
That owned a subtler effluence and stole
More lissome-cadenced twixt the lips and teeth,
Redolent of lechery, treachery, spite, and guile, —
Take tliou this tale of Enid which 1 love
And cleave it cleanly as may be cloven of man
270 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
Into two several sections, shearing through
The midmost centre, which is light to find
Even as the midriff figured in the print
Thou hast seen upon the Almanack of Moore,
Thus shall there be two tales where only one
Was, and the deed which must be wrought, be wrought.
Then, for a man may not do all things dry,
Lo I this gold coin I have harboured in my pouch,
Given by an idiot many a year agone
For whom I penned a single line of verse
Imperishable — ten syllables that cost
Two shillings each if figures purport aught —
Silver the shillings, but the verse was gold
And therefore gold the piece he bought withal —
Take this well-earned and guarded coin and buy
In bell-shaped fiask from Eastern France a full
And solemn measure of the grape that foams
And sparkles, — with two beakers of fit form ;
So we may drink the Wedding of Geraint,
Rehallowing all these Idylls of the King
In their twelve sections — mystic, wonderful —
A joy for all men, epic fame for me,
And last for me and thee increase of gold."
So lightly past that other on his ways.
In point of fact, our wag was probably misinformed as to
the need for any serious consultation ; for had he turned
the pages of Geraint and Enid as current in the seventies,
he would have found a mysterious division in it, — a simple
Roman figure II. set between the lines
And now this morning when he said to her,
" Put on you worst and meanest dress" she found
And took it, and arrayed herself therein. . .
and the seven lines on " the true and the false " which have
survived unaltered from the Enid and Nimue volume of
1857 till to-day. There and in the early editions of the
THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS. 271
Idylls the passage is left frankly amid the paragraphs of
the tale ; but the caesura made in the collected editions of
the works appears to indicate an early doubt whether this
Idyll might not be called on to do double duty at some
time or other. Mechanically, its existence left the con-
version of the 1884 edition into that of 1888 a simple
matter enough. It was only necessary to alter the heading
and head-lines of pages 85-118 from Geraint and Enid
to The Marriage of Geraint^ start a new poem with the old
title, and a somewhat large " dropped head " and small
amount of verse on page 119, set up Balin and Balan uni-
formly with the stereotyped plates, inserting it between
Geraint and Enid and Merlin and Vivien, and " plug " the
plates with fresh page-numbers from page 120 to the end
of the book ; and the thing was done. The book remains
a monument of vacillation and misdirected ingenuity — a
treasure house of high thought, fine song, chastened speech,
vivid landscape, with, in certain parts, a nobly realized por-
traiture of " mythic Uther's deeply wounded son." But a
purblind ambition and an insufficient knowledge of himself
must have led the great poet thus wide from the true uses
of his unsurpassed gifts in song-craft ; and it is, perhaps,
this very ambition and defective self-criticism that left him
unhappy even in the exercise of the speech and metre
which he created, so that pages and pages of it are sophis-
ticated, " clouded with a doubt " ; and the doubt is of the
sincerity and integrity of the book as a whole. As to its
sincerity, the subject is too wide for discussion in a mere
gossip such as this. Its integrity has always, to critics on
one side, seemed wounded by the diversity of method
272 THE BUILDING OF THE IDYLLS.
and manner. Concerning the marked difference of style
between The Coming of Arthur and T lie Passing of Arthur
and the other Idylls, Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, in The
Athenczum of the i$th of August 1896, reports an utterance
of Lady Tennyson, who died on the loth of that month.
Two days before her death Lady Tennyson told her son,
for record in the life of his father, that the poet said The
Coming of Arthur and TJie Passing of Arthur "are
purposely simpler in style than the other idylls as dealing
with the awfulness of birth and death." No doubt he had
come to think so, or he would not have said it ; but such
a purpose by no means justifies itself as a matter of course,
and is not likely to affect the verdict of the Twentieth
Century on the position of the book.
JOHN KEATS:
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION.
JOHN KEATS:
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION.
ALTHOUGH the little volume of Poems which Keats
published through the Olliers in 1817 was a failure at the
time, it cannot have been very long before it became scarce.
A complete transcript of it exists in the hand-writing of
the poet's friend and fellow student Henry Stephens. This
transcript was made in 1828 for a birthday present; and
why that method should have been preferred to the pur-
chase of the pretty little printed book if the transcriber
could have obtained a copy of the volume for his purpose,
it is difficult to see. The manuscript book contains, besides
the poems published in 1817, a few miscellaneous pieces by
Keats, and a good number of blank leaves, as if the inten-
tion had been to make as complete a companion as possible
to the Lamia volume. If that were so, the opportunities of
Stephens to copy fugitive and unpublished work of Keats's
between the time at which he began his labour of love and
the eve of the birthday which it was to grace, must have
been strictly limited ; for the poems additional to those of
1 8 1 7 fill no more than ten of the small octavo pages ; two of
T 2
276 JOHN KEATS:
these are in another hand, seemingly that of the recipient
of the gift ; and only one sonnet not already known
publicly is to be found in this curious birthday present.
The book is very neatly written, and is bound in orange-
coloured morocco, gilt at the back with a scroll pattern not
unpleasingly designed, and lettered " Keats' Poems." The
sides are plain but for a thick and a thin rectangular line ;
and the edges of the leaves are gilt. The title — for the
book is duly furnished with a title-page — runs thus :
" Poems / by / John Keats / with several never / yet
published / ' What more felicity can fall to creature / Than
to enjoy delight with Liberty ? ' / Fate of the Butterfly.
Spenser. / London / written by H. Stephens / for / I. J.
Towers. / 1828."
On the verso of the first end-paper is written the inscrip-
tion " I. I. [sic] Towers / a little Birthday gift from / her
Brother / 5 October / 1828." Who that brother was we
are not left to guess ; for one of the poems added to
Stephens's copies is the Sonnet on TJie Flower and the
Leaf, headed here On / Chaucer's " Floure and tJie Leafe" /
written in my brother's Chaucer / by the lamented young
Poet ; and we know that that sonnet was written in Charles
Cowden Clarke's copy of Chaucer. Hence it would seem
that, although the neat-handed scrivener Stephens knew he
was working for the benefit of Clarke's married sister, it
was Clarke himself who had the book bound and gave it
to her.
Between Sleep and Poetry and the ten pages of fugitive
poems, Stephens wrote this note : — " The poems here
following have never been published, or have merely ap-
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION. 277
peared in periodical works. And have not before been
collected." The poems are (i) the Sonnet On a Picture of
Leander, subscribed "In the gem" (2) The Human Seasons
and (3) To Ailsa Rock, both subscribed as from The Literary
Pocket-Book ', (4) the Fragment " Welcome joy and
welcome sorrow," subscribed " 1818," (5) the Sonnet "The
church bells toll a melancholy sound," subscribed " Written
by J. K. in 15 minutes," (6) the new sonnet which will be
given anon, (7) the Flower and Leaf Sonnet, subscribed
"J. K. Feby. 1817," and (8) the Stanzas "In a drear-
nighted December," " subscribed simply " J. K."
The crumbs of information thus furnished are but few
and small ; and of textual variation there is nothing, — so
that practically all we gain beside the sonnet from the
finding of the volume, now lodged among the Keats books,
manuscripts, and relics of Mr. Buxton Forman, is the
pretty little episode of devotion of two men of the Keats
circle to the memory of their friend, and delectation of the
sister of one of them. Of the value of the sonnet itself
let the reader now judge.
ONE OF KEATS'S "NONSENSE SONNETS."
Before he went to feed with owls and bats
Nebuchadnezzar had an ugly dream,
Worse than an Hus'ifs wJien she thinks Jier cream
Made a Naumachia for mice and rats
So scared, he sent for tliat " Good King of Cats "
Young Daniel, who soon did pluck away the beam
From out his eye and said he did not deem
The sceptre worth a straw — his Cushions old door mats.
278 JOHN KEATS:
A horrid nightmare similar somewhat
Of late has haunted a most motley crew
Most loggerheads and Chapmen — we are told
That any Daniel thd lie be a sot
Can make the lying lips turn pale of hue
By belching out "ye are that head of Gold"
There it is just as Stephens left it, and probably much
as Keats left it ; though, if he had read a second time the
manuscript from which Stephens copied it, he would
doubtless either have torn it up or given it a little more
clearness and polish for the sake of two or three good
phrases in it. It is unquestionably Keats's, even if in his
worst manner, — the manner of the sonnet on Mrs.
Reynolds's Cat and the sonnet on the Bagpipe, which it
most closely resembles in style and versification. It will
be for some future editor of Keats's works to decide
whether he will put a full stop at the end of the fourth
line, delete soon in line 6 or read " who soon plucked
away," as Keats would have done if he had revised it ;
whether he will leave that misplaced Alexandrine line 8
as it is or not, deal with the two jingling mosts in lines 10
and 1 1, and if so, how ; attempt to clear up the sense of the
last line, probably mis-transcribed by Stephens ; and
finally whether he will endeavour to establish the situation
and circumstances, as for instance by proving that the
sonnet refers to the Blackwood literary faction of the early
nineteenth century, and is a mild vendetta for the notorious
" Cockney School " articles in which Keats and his friend
Hunt had been so truculently handled.
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION. 279
Having cast upon the growing cairn of Keats a stone
and some very small pebbles in the shape of a new sonnet
and a minor fact or two, it is now the duty of the editors
of Literary Anecdotes to unfold a tale which will have the
effect of taking two stones off the said cairn. The neces-
sity for so doing illustrates the advantage of selections and
the disadvantage of complete editions. The selector can
scarcely be mistaken about a poet's masterpieces ; but the
compiler of a complete edition may only too easily fall
into one of many traps, especially when he is dealing with
the poet's juvenilia, in which all his assimilative tendencies
find vent. Several of the acknowledged poems of Keats
published in the 1817 volume might just as well be by one
or other of the poets who influenced him in his youth and
early manhood : nothing in the Lamia volume could be by
any one but Keats. Hence, while Keats at his maturest is
unmistakable and no other is mistakable for Keats at
his best, Keats at his least mature is not to be judged
simply by the internal evidence of style, metre, rhythm,
and so on. If the lost translation of the ^Eneid which he
made before he left school came to light, it is not by
internal evidence that its authenticity would be established,
but by the handwriting, or other external matters duly
vouched for. If it turned up in the autograph of George
or Thomas Keats, with a distinct statement that it was
copied from a manuscript translation made by John, there
would be a strong presumption that, in so considerable a
matter, his brothers were not mistaken. But a small poem
assimilative of the style of Moore, or Mrs. Tighe, occurring
in the hand of George or Tom, and attributed to John
38o JOHN KEATS:
would call for more circumspection. John Keats might
copy some verses of one of these authors into the same
commonplace book with early pieces of his own ; and
George or Tom might recopy them in perfect good faith,
and ascribe them to their illustrious brother. It is precisely
in that way that a sonnet to which Keats has no claim
whatever found its way into the standard editions of his
works.
The late Lord Houghton had a manuscript sonnet
purporting to be by Keats, but believed by his Lordship to
be "one of George Byron's forgeries, — also a poem of
which the first line is :
What sylph-like form before my eyes,
which he thought might be genuine, — and further a song
commencing " Stay, ruby-breasted warbler, stay" of which
the authenticity was at least doubtful. These three poems,
though included in the Aldine edition, have since been
rejected from the tale of Keats's works, — the sonnet because
it is by Laman Blanchard and is included in his collected
works, the poem " WJtat sylph-like form" because of its
unlikeness to Keats, its suspicious connexion with the
George Byron forgeries, and the reasonable expectation
that it will sooner or later be identified as the work of one
of Keats's less known contemporaries, — and the " ruby-
breasted warbler" song because it is believed to be by
George Keats, and not by John.
But, although these poems are duly excluded from the
standard editions of the present day, those very editions
when brought before the " holy inquisition " of literary
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KEAT'S SONNET TO MISS WYLlfc .
FAT.-SIM1LE OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION. 281
judgment have their own confession of larceny from other
poets to make. While the Library Edition of 1883 was
in course of production, a volume came into Mr. Buxton
Forman's hands of the nature of a scrap-book or common-
place book. In fact it had been used successively for both
purposes ; and transcripts of poems by Keats and others, in
the handwriting of George Keats, were sometimes left un-
covered and sometimes covered up by scraps of various
kinds pasted over them. The book appears to have be-
longed to Mrs. George Keats, to whom, when she was
Georgiana Augusta Wylie, the poet had addressed the
sonnet " To G. A. W." — of which a holograph manuscript
by Keats, headed To Miss Wylie, was pasted into the
book, — the initials J. K. being subscribed by George Keats.
Among the poems transcribed by George is a sonnet
written in sickness, which is assigned to the year 1819 and
initialled J. K. The text is as follows : —
Brother belov'd if health shall smile again,
Upon this "wasted form and fevered cheek :
If e'er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength regain,
Well may thy brow the placid glow retain
Of sweet content and thy pleas' d eye may speak
The conscious self -applause, but should I seek
To utter what this heart can feel, Ah! vain
Were the attempt ! Yet kindest friends while o'er
My couch ye bend, and watch with tenderness
The being whom yotir cares could e'en restore,
From the cold grasp of Death, say can you guess
The feelings which these lips can ne'er express ;
Feelings, deep fix1 d in grateful memory's store.
Misgivings as to the merits of this production as a
mature work of Keats might well reduce an editor to form
282 JOHN KEATS:
a theory [in justification of the acceptance of George's
attribution. The theory put forward was that the date
had been inserted from memory, as it was an impossible
poem for that year of Keats's greatest heights in verse,
and that it had been written in or about February 1820,
when Keats was in a state of utter physical and mental
prostration, and was actually forbidden to write. As an
alternative it was suggested that the sonnet was written
later in the year, when the vitality of the poet was clean
gone, and that it was a reply to a letter sent by George on
hearing of John's illness, a letter reproaching himself for
leaving his elder brother in indifferent health, to rush back
to America and endeavour to mend his own fortunes.
The originator of that theory has now found occasion to
repent that he accepted even such good evidence as that
of George Keats, whose high intelligence and complete
intimacy with his brother left but little room, it is true, to do
otherwise. Nevertheless, the fact that George was wrong
has been wrung by the afore-named holy inquisition from
one of Keats's well-nigh forgotten literary heroines, who,
duly racked, has revealed the truth. In Keats's earlj
poem To Some Ladies occur the funny stanzas : —
If a cherub on pinions of silver descending
Had brought me a gem from the fretwork of heaven ;
And smiles, -with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending,
The blessings of Tigke had melodiously given ;
It had not created a warmer emotion
Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with from you,
Than the shell, from the bright golden sands of the ocean
Which the emerald waves at your feet gladly threw.
Poor Mrs. Tighc ! She had had her Psyche, or the
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION. 283
Legend of Love, printed for private distribution in 1805, in
an exquisite little pocket volume produced at the Chisvvick
press, and now of extreme rarity. She had died in 1810,
at the comparatively early age of thirty-six ; and in 1811
PsycJie .with a few minor poems and sonnets had been
placed before the public in a sumptuous quarto volume
with such adornment of frontispiece as the skill of the once
renowned engraver to Queen Charlotte, the modest and
retiring Caroline Watson, could convey from Romney's
portrait of the poetess, as copied by John Camerford the
miniaturist. Either this volume or one of the many octavo
reprints of it Keats had certainly read ; for the traces of
the influence of Psyche, a poem well worth reading even
now for its individual charm, are clearly stamped upon his
own thought. But he must have done more than read
Psyclie : he must, one would think, have copied out, for his
own edification or 'that of his brothers, the sonnet printed
above, which occurs in the quarto of 1811, and also at
page 237 of the octavo of the same and later dates, headed
" Addressed to my BrotJier, 1805." " Must have copied" is
scarcely too strong an expression ; for how else can George
Keats have been misled into the supposition that it was
the work of John Keats ? No doubt the poet lived long
enough himself to have reckoned it as anything rather than
one of " the blessing of Tighe " sent from " the fretwork of
heaven " that this very flat sonnet was doomed to appear
among his own works, and to reduce one of his editors to
ignominious recantation.
The second part of the tale to be unfolded is more
serious. It affects those delightful couplets, signed
284 JOHN KEATS:
" XXX," which Leigh Hunt published under the title Vox
et Prcsterea Nihil in The Indicator for the ipth of January
1820, and which, with much circumstance, were gathered
into the Library Edition of Keats, with the suggestion that
they should be regarded as a rejected passage of Endymion,
originally intended for the Third Book, to come between
lines 853 and 854. These couplets were the subject of a
correspondence between Keats's editor and Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, who took the keenest interest in the formation of
a full edition and sound text of Keats. The editor was
led to attribute the lines to Keats solely by internal evi-
dence. There was nothing else to do more than speculate
about. Consulted on the subject, Rossetti wrote : —
" I remember setting eyes in my earliest days on the
passage you send me, and doubtless came to the conclusion
that it must be by Keats, though it had for me no
such charm as attached to the wondrous Belle Dame sans
Merci^ also published in TJte Indicator with signature
Caviare. . . I can well understand Keats's rejecting this
passage ; since, . though replete with a general luscious
beauty, it is quite without such supreme value in imagina-
tive treatment as (despite some Cockney syllabification)
the passage which I suppose to have preceded it. Is there
.any language in which X is called anything like Keat?
In such case the XXX might represent Keats."
As to the meaning of the mystical letters XXX, there
was further correspondence ; and Rossetti wrote thus in
a later letter : —
" I should think that triple X almost certainly stands for
Triplex in relation to Diana — Luna — Hecate. Keats's
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION. 285.
text-book was of course Lempriere, and much bearing
that way is to be found under those headings there. Keats
speaks of the triple character of Diana at the end of the
Sonnet to Homer."
This was certainly a plausible suggestion ; nor was it to
be forgotten that Endymion, when his heart was divided
between Diana, as known to him, and the fair Indian, in
whose form she disguised herself, exclaimed, " I have a
riple soul " ; or that the poet himself had three public
names, John Keats, Caviare, and Lucy Vaughan Lloyd.
lossetti's explanation also ran parallel with a name which
Ceats's schoolfellow, Cowper, applied to Charles Covvden
larke, namely, " Three Hundred," in allusion to his three
nitial C's. However, notwithstanding the plausibility of
he suggestion, and difficult as it is to imagine any one but
Ceats writing the delicious couplet,
Like the low voice of Syrinx -when she ran
Into the forests from Arcadian Pan :
o strongly resembling a couplet in Endymion as published"
)y Keats : —
Telling us how fair, trembling Syrinx fled
Arcadian Pan, with such a horrid dread —
notwithstanding internal evidence and probable speculation,
t remains to be said that the whole passage must, after
ill, be yielded to a poet whom Keats did not much affect,
lamely, Bryan Waller Procter (" Barry Cornwall "). How
:ompletely and unjustly that excellent man's poetry is
brgotten or ignored in the present day is evident from the
act that, although his beautiful verses have stood for thir-
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE BIBLIO-
GRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF
ALGERNON CHARLES SWIN-
BURNE.
u
The Undergraduate Papers.
From a copy of the extremely rare original in the Library of Mr. Thomas J. Wise.
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF THE
SCARCER WORKS AND UNCOL-
LECTED WRITINGS OF ALGERNON
CHARLES SWINBURNE.
PART I.
EDITIONES PRINCIPES, ETC.
CO
[UNDERGRADUATE PAPERS: 1858.]
Undergraduate Papers,/ 18587 "And gladly wolde we
learn and gladly teach."/ Chaucer./ [Arms of the Uni-
versity^ Oxford :/ Printed and Published by W. Mansell,
High Street.
Collation: — Demy octavo, pp. ii+i86, consisting of title-page,
as above (with blank reverse), pp. i-ii, and Text pp.
1-186. There are head-lines throughout. Beyond that
upon the title-page there is no imprint.
Issued in three Numbers, the second Number having been divided
into four Parts, as follows : —
U 2
292 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
December, 1857.
February
and March,
1858.
March and April, 1858.
The four parts composing No. 2 are each marked Price Fourpence
at foot. No notice of price appears upon either of the completed
Numbers. Mr. Swinburne has informed the writer that the three
Numbers were issued stitched in pale blue paper wrappers, printed.
Unhappily no single specimen of these wrappers is at present
forthcoming.
The Undergraduate Papers was edited by the late Prof. John Nicoll,
and should, perhaps, more fitly have been included in the second part
of this list, with works contributed to by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
The volume, however, is of so much interest, and contains moreover
so large a bulk of Mr. Swinburne's writing, that it may very properly
be described at greater length, and in the present connexion.
Mr. Swinburne contributed the following four articles to the pages
of the Undergraduate Papers; not Jive, as incorrectly stated by Mr.
Richard Herne Shepherd : —
The Early English Dramatists — No. i., Mar low and Webster.
.... pp. 7—15.
Queen Yseult. Canto i. " Of the birth of Sir Tristram, and how
he voyaged into Ireland." .... pp. 41 — 50.
The Monomaniac's Tragedy, and other Poems. (By Ernest
Wheldrake, Author of "Eve, a Mystery") London, 1858. .
pp. 97— I02.t
Church Imperialism. (" A terrific onslaught on the French Empire
and its Clerical supporters."} .... pp. 134 — 137.
The following letter by Prof. Nichol is invaluable, by reason of its
account of the history of the Undergraduate Papers : —
* By a printer's error this number is marked (at foot of page 103) No. 4,
Part 2, instead of No. 2, Part 4.
t A review of an imaginary volume of poems. The considerable extracts
of verse (including a Sonnet on Louis Napoleon) " quoted " in the course of the
review are, of course, Mr. Swinburne's own composition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 293
14, Montgomerie Crescent, Kelvinside, Glasgow.
December 2yd, 1883.
Dear Sir,
Thanks for the Bibliography ',* which is very interesting,
though quite inaccurate as regards " The Undergraduate Papers" I
saw the mis-statement about Mr. Swinburne's editorship in " The
Athenceum? but left it to him, if he thought fit, to correct it. So now
I must refer you to him to attach his initials, if he thinks fit, to his four
contributions — one of them a very amusing parody.
I give the initials of the papers of George Rankine Luke, our " chief
of men'''' in our college days, now almost misty in the past — also those
of the late Prof. T. H. Green. You can, if you please, apply to Prof.
A. V. Dicey for his. As to G. Birkbeck Hill (author of "" Johnson and
his circle " — a Life of his uncle Sir Rowland, &*c.), he gave me the motto
for the series, for I was solely responsible for the originating and edit-
ing the whole affair, and myself wrote about a third of the three
numbers. I did not expect it to last long, and had towards the close to
leave it for Degree work ; but we paid the contributors at the usual
rate while it lasted. Most of them — the main exception being the Editor
— have since made some mark, and for their sake the few attainable
copies (I know only of my own, and that is now lent to Mrs. Green)
may be of some interest. The publication was to our set what " The
Germ " was to Rossettts — with which Swinburne about that time became
associated. He was very obliging about contributions, but I do not
remember his advising me about the management, being some years my
junior, which does not count now, but did then.
The authority for giving the names of the writers of anonymous
articles, during their lives, must come from themselves. Prof. Dicey1 s
address is All Souls, Oxford ; Hills, The Poplars, Bingfield, Reading.
Yours very truly,
John Nichol.
In a letter, at present unpublished, and addressed to one of the
Editors of the present volume, Mr. Swinburne writes as follows
regarding the Undergraduate Papers : —
As you may care to know, I may tell you that in the three
numbers of the luckless " Undergraduate Papers" I published, as far
* A copy of R. H. Shepherd's Bibliography of S-winburne, which Prof.
Nichol's correspondent had forwarded to him.
294
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
as I remember, four ' crudities] certainly no more : a paper on Mar low
and Webster; some awful doggerel on the subject of Tristram and
Iseult ; a boyish bit of Burlesque; and a terrific onslaught on the
French Empire and its Clerical supporters — which must no doubt have
contributed in no inconsiderable degree to bring about its ultimate
collapse. If ever you do see these worthless rarities, please remember
that they were literally a boy's work — legally an infant's. The article
on the Dramatists, as far as I remember, was the only thing of any
sort of value (except as showing a youngster's honest impulses, and
sympathies, and antipathies) — and that I think must have shown that
before leaving Eton I had plunged as deep as a boy could dive into the
line of literature which has always been my favourite. But when I
think of the marvellous work that Rossetti (whose acquaintance I
made just afterwards) had done at the same age, I am abashed at the
recollection of my own rubbish
In point of interest the Undergraduate Papers stands second only
to The Germ in the list of private and semi-private magazine rarities
which includes The Snob, The Gownsman, The Gads Hill Gazette,
The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, and others. In the matter of
scarcity it passes them all. No more than three perfect copies can at
present be located, whilst the British Museum possesses two out of
the three numbers only. The copy employed by the Editors of the
present work was formerly the property of Mr. W. Mansell, who
printed and published it. This copy (which was the one consulted
by Mr. R. Herne Shepherd when preparing his Bibliography oj
Swinburne) is now in the collection of Mr. Thomas J. Wise.
By way of an example of Mr. Swinburne's contribution to tl
Undergraduate Papers, here are some stanzas from Queen Yseult :
To the king came Tristram then,
To Moronde the evil man,
Treading softly as he can.
Spake he loftily in place :
A great light was on his face :
' Listen, king, of thy free grace.
I am Tristram, Roland's son ;
By thy might my lands were won,
All my lovers were undone.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE.
Died by thee queen Blancheflour,
Mother mine in bitter hour,
That was white as any flower.
Tho1 they died not well aright,
Yet> for thou art belted knight,
King Moronde, I bid thee fight?
A great laughter laughed they all,
Drinking wine about the hall,
Standing by the outer wall.
But the pale king leapt apace,
Caught his staff that lay in place
And smote Tristram on the face.
Tristram stood back paces two,
All his face was reddened so,
Round the deep mark of the blow.
Large and bright his king's eyes grew :
As knight Roland's sword he drew,
Fiercely like apardheflew.
And above the staring eyes
Smote Moronde the king flatwise,
That men saw the dear blood rise.
At the second time he smote,
All the carven blade, I wot,
With the blood was blurred and hot.
At the third stroke that he gave,
Deep the carven steel he drave,
Thro1 king Moronde 's heart it clave.
Well I ween his wound was great
As he sank across the seat,
Slain for Blancheflour the sweet.
Then spake Tristram, praising God',
In his father3 s place he stood,
Wiping clean the smears, of blood,
296 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
That the sword, while he did pray,
At the throne's foot he might lay ;
Chtist save all good knights, I say.
Then spake all men in his praise,
Speaking words of the old days,
Sweeter words than sweetest lays.
Said one ' to the dead queen* s hair,
And her brows so straight and fair ,
S0 the lips of Roland were.1
For all praised him as he stood,
That such things none other could
Than the son of kingly blood.
Round he looked with quiet eyes ;
' When ye saw king Moronde rise,
None beheld me on this wise.1
At such words as he did say,
Bare an old man knelt to pray;
' Christ be with us all to-day.
This is Tristram the good lord ;
Knightly hath he held his word,
Warring with his father's sword.1
Then one brought the diadem,
Clear and golden like pure flame ;
And his thanks did grace to them.
Next in courteous wise he bade
That fair\honour should be made
Of the dear queen that was dead.
So in her great sorrow's praise
A fair tomb he bade them raise,
For a wonder to the days.
And between its roof and floor
Wrote he two words and no more,
Wrote Roland and Blancheflour.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE.
297
(2.)
[THE QUEEN-MOTHER AND ROSAMOND : 1860.]
The Queen-Mother. / Rosamond. / Two Plays. / By Algernon
Charles Swinburne / [Dolphin and Anchor] London / Basil
Montagu Pickering / Piccadilly / 1860.
THE QUEEN-MOTHER
ROSAMOND
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. x + 217; consisting of half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. iii-iv ; Dedication (to Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
with blank reverse), pp. v-vi. ; list of Dramatis Persona
(with blank reverse), pp. vii-viii ; Fly-title to The Queen-
Mother , pp. ix-x ; Text of The Queen- Mother pp. 1-160;
Fly-title to Rosamond-* and Text of Rosamond pp. 161-
217. There are head-lines throughout, pages 2-160 being
headed The Queen-Mother; and pages 162-217, Rosamond*
* Curiously this leaf is not included in the pagination of the book.
298 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
There is an imprint — " Chisivick Press : — Whittingham and
WilkinS) / Tooks Court, Chancery Lane" at the foot of the
last page. At the end of the book is inserted a leaf con-
taining the following list of Errata : —
Page 190, line iS,for purplest seat, read purplest beat.
Page 204, line 12, for premi, read premie.
Page 209, line 30, /0r God help, read God help !
Issued in dark purple sand-grained cloth boards, with white paper
back-label ; which reads : — " T/ie / Queen- / Mother / Rosamond /
Two plays I By I A. G* Swinburne / Pickering / 1861. t " It is
stated, upon good authority, that less than twenty copies of the
book had passed into circulation before it was withdrawn, and the
above title-page cancelled.
{Moxoris Issue.)
Upon the eve of publication, and before any but a few ' review ;
copies had been sent out, arrangements were made to transfer The
Queen Mother^ &c., to Edward Moxon, who issued the work without
further delay. The sheets already prepared for Pickering were
employed, but the title-page was cancelled, and replaced with a second,
which reads as follows : —
The Queen-Mother / and Rosamond / By / Algernon Charles
Swinburne / London / Edward Moxon and Co., Dover
Street / 1860.
Issued in dark green sand-grained cloth boards, with white paper
back-label; which reads : — I The Queen- / Mother, / and I Rosamond.
I Two Plays: / By / A. C. Swinburne / E. Moxon and Co. /
1860. The letterpress of this label is in red.
* A misprint for C.
f Again an error — Moxon had his issue of the book out already before the
close of 1860.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 299
(Hotteris Issue.)
Moxon continued to have The Queen Mother in his care until 1866,
when the fierce outcry raised over Poems and Ballads, and his extreme
nervousness thereat, brought about a second migration, and the two
books, together with Chastelard, passed into the hands of John Camden
Hotten, whose successors, Messrs. Chatto and Windus, have con-
tinued to act as Mr. Swinburne's publishers until the present day.
The original sheets had not yet become exhausted, and Hotten,
cancelling Moxon's title-page, again issued them with one of his own.
This reads as follows : —
The Queen Mother / and Rosamond / By / Algernon
Charles Swinburne / London / John Camden Hotten,
Piccadilly/ 1866.
Issued in dark green sand-grained cloth boards, with white paper
back-label ; which reads : — The / Queen-Mother, / and / Rosa-
mond. I Two Plays : / By / A. C. Swinburne / J. C. Hotten. /
1866. The letter-press of this label is again in red.
When making conveyance of his stock over to Hotten, Moxon must
have handed him labels as well as quires, — for occasionally copies of
the book occur having Moxon's label with Hotteris title-page.
(Second Edition.}
For the Second Edition of The Queen Mother and Rosamond the book
was re-set throughout. The Title-page reads : —
The Queen-Mother / and Rosamond. / By / Algernon
Charles Swinburne. / Second Edition. / London : / John
Camden Hotten, Piccadilly. / 1868.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. viii + 233 ; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse), pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with
blank reverse), pp. iii-iv ; Dedication (with blank reverse),
pp. v-vi ; list of Persons Represented (with blank reverse),
pp. vii-viii ; and Text, pp. 1-233. There are head-lines
throughout, but no imprint occurs anywhere in the volume.
300 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
Issued in green straight-grained cloth boards, lettered in gilt across
the back : " Queen- / Mother / and / Rosamond / Swinburne /
1868."
(3-)
[DEAD LOVE: 1864.]
Dead Love. / By / Algernon C. Swinburne. / London / John
W. Parker and Son, West Strand. / 1864.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. 1 5 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with im-
print— " London : / Savill and Edwards, Printers, Chandos
Street, / Covent Garden." — in the centre of the reverse),
pp. 3-4; and Text pp. 5-15. The head-line is Dead Love
throughout, on both sides of the page. The imprint is
repeated at the foot of p. 1 5.
Issued in brick-red coloured paper wrappers, with the title-page
reproduced upon the front. There is a copy in the British Museum.
A little book of great rarity, and of extreme interest. The story (in
prose) had previously appeared in Once-a-Week, vol. vii, October 1862,
pp. 432-434, where it was accompanied by an illustration upon wood by
M. J. Lawless, here reproduced in fac-simile. The story has never
been reprinted, and in all probability never will be.
(4-)
[ATALANTA IN CALYDON: 1865.]
Atalanta in Calydon. / A Tragedy. / By / Algernon Charles
Swinburne. / Tou? £&Wa? e5 Bpav KarOavtav Se Tra? avrjs /
Tfj KOI a-Kta,' TO fjLrjSev et? ovSev pe-rrei. f Eur. Fr. Mel 2O. (537-)
/ London : / Edward Moxon & Co., 44, Dover Street./ 1865.
Collation : — Small Quarto, pp. xii + 1 1 1 ; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse), pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with
(imprint — " London : / Richard Barrett, Printer, / Mark
ATALANTA IN CALYDON
ALlitPNON CHARlTs SWINBURNE
;••"-• ->*• -*.-.* -..fc
i«. . . .. .*. j,^,. ^
•» f. M > .u.)
The First (Quarto) Edition of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydoti.
From a copy of the original in the possession of Mr. T. J. Wise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 301
Lane " — in the centre of the reverse), pp. iii-iv ; Dedi-
cation "To the Memory of Walter Savage Landor" &c.
(with blank reverse), pp. v-vi ; twenty lines of Greek verse,
p. vii ; p. viii is blank ; fifty-six lines of Greek verse, pp. ix-x ;
list of Dramatis persona p. xi ; quotation from ^Eschylus,
p. xii; Argument pp. xiii-xiv*; and Text pp. i-m. The
head-line is Atalanta in Calydon throughout, on both sides
of the page.
Issued in white buckram boards, bevelled ; and lettered across the
back — " Atalanta / in / Calydon / Swinburne / 1865." Upon the
front cover are impressed three ornaments in gold, designed by
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is said that of the first edition of this
book only One Hundred copies were printed.
A portion of the manuscript of Atalanta in Calydon is in the pos-
session of Mr. C. Fairfax Murray.
(Second Edition?)
The second edition of Atalanta in Calydon was also issued in 1865,
but with no statement upon its title-page to denote that it was other
than the first edition.
The wording of the Title-page follows precisely that of
the Quarto described above.
Collation: — Post octavo, pp. xiv +130; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse) pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as detailed above
under the original issue (with imprint — " London : /
Bradbury, Evans, and Co., / Printers, Whitefriars." — in
the centre of the reverse) pp. iii-iv; Dedication (with
blank reverse) pp. v-vi; 'twenty lines of Greek verse,
p. vii ; p. viii is blank ; fifty-six lines of Greek verse,
pp. ix-x ; list of Dramatis persona p. xi ; quotation from
^Eschylus, p. xii; Argument pp. xiii-xiv; and Text
* These preliminary pages are incorrectly enumerated, the second page of
the leaf containing this Argument being numbered " xii."
302 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
pp. 1-130. The head-line is Atalanta in Calydon
throughout, upon both sides of the page. The imprint is
repeated at the foot of p. 130.
Issued in purple straight-grained cloth boards, lettered across the
back — "Atalanta / in / Calydon / Swinburne / 1865."
Save for the following three misprints the Text is identical with
that of the Quarto : —
P. vii, line 18, dirtSwicf should be an-e' #<»**.
P. vii, line 19, AeA0oi>p „ AeX$ovy.
P. 47, line 15,
Sun, and light among green hills ^ and day
should be
Sun, and clear light among green hills, and day.
In copies 'made up' later these errors were corrected by means of
cancel-leaves.
(Third Edition.')
Atalanta in Calydon : / A Tragedy. / By / Algernon
Charles Swinburne. / Tou<? £oWa9 ev &pav Kardavtav Se Tra?
avrjp / Trj real <rKia' TO fjujSev 619 ovSev peTrei. / Eur. Fr. Mel.
2O- (5 37-) / A New Edition. / London : / Chatto & Windus,
Piccadilly. / 1875.
Collation : — Crown 8vo, xvi + 98.
Issued in dark blue cloth, lettered in gilt across the back, uniform
with Mr. Swinburne's later books.
(German Translation.)
Atalanta in Calydon. / Eine Tragodie / von / Algernon
Charles Swinburne. / Deutsch / von / Albrecht Graf
Wickenburg. / Wien 1878. / Verlag von L. Rosner
Collation : — Crown 8vo, pp. xxii + 80.
Issued in paper wrappers, with the Title-page reproduced upon
the front.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 303
(5-)
[CHASTELARD : 1865.]
Chastelard ; / A Tragedy. / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. / [Quotations from (i) Ronsard, and (2) The Queen's
Marie.] London : / Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street. /
1865.
Collation: — Post octavo, pp. via + 219; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse) pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with
imprint — " London : / Bradbury and Evans, Printers,
Whitefriars " — in the centre of the reverse) pp. iii-iv ;
Dedication To Victor Hugo (with blank reverse) pp. v-vi ;
list of Dramatis persona (with extract from Maundevill's
Voiage and Travaile upon the reverse) pp. vii-viii ; and
Text pp. 1-219. The head-line is Chastelard throughout,
upon both sides of the page. Each of the five Acts is
preceded by a fly-title, with blank reverse. The imprint
is repeated at the foot of the last page.
Issued in 'purple straight-grained cloth boards, lettered in gilt
across the back — " Chastelard / Swinburne / 1865."
(Hot/en's issue.}
In the following year, 1866, the copies remaining in hand were
passed over to John Camden Hotten, who cancelled the title-page,
and replaced it with one bearing his own name, as follows : —
Chastelard ; / A Tragedy. / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. / [Quotations from Ronsard and The Queen's Marie]
I London : / John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly. / 1866.
Issued in cloth boards identical with those of Moxon's issue, the
date at the foot of the back, however, being 1866.
A portion only of the sheets were made up in 1866, the re-
mainder being held in quires until 1868, when they also were put
into cloth boards, the date upon the back, at foot, being changed
to " 1868."
304 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(German translation.}
Chastelard. / Tragodie / von / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. / Dutsch / von / Oskar Horn. / Bremen, 1873. /
Verlag von T. Kiihtmann's Buckhandlung.
Collation : — Post 8vo, pp. iv + 195.
Issued in paper wrappers, lettered both upon the front cover, and
up the back.
(6.)
[LAUS VENERIS : 1866.]
Laus Venerls. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. / Lon-
don : / Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street. / 1866.
Collation : — Octavo, pp. 28 ; consisting of Half-title (with blank re-
verse) pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with imprint — " Lon-
don : / Bradbury, Evans, and Co., Printers, Whitefriars " —
in the centre of the reverse), pp. 3-4 ; passage from Livre
des grandes merveilles d1 amour, escript en latin etenfran$oys
par Maistre Antoine Gaget. 1530, p. 5 ; p. 6 is blank ; and
Text pp. 7-28. The head-line is Laus Veneris throughout,
on both sides of the page.
Issued in plain paper wrappers, of various colours.
Laus Veneris -was also included in Poems and Ballads, Moxon, 1866,
pp. 11-30, and has been retained in each succeeding edition. The
pamphlet, Mr. Swinburne has stated, was issued some months previous
to the publication of that volume. Very few copies were printed, most
of which were distributed amongst private friends. " In fact," said
Mr. Swinburne, " it was more an experiment to ascertain the public
taste — and forbearance ! — than anything else. Moxon, I well remem-
ber, was terribly nervous in those days, and it was only the wishes of
mutual good friends, coupled with his own liking for the ballads, that
finally induced him to publish the book [Poems and Ballads'] at all."
The original Manuscript of Laus Veneris has fortunately been pre-
served, and is now in Mr. Wise's Swinburne collection. It is written
a
&oj>
*^S-'
O
*
£4^ L&nrd.
o-^^y
SWINBURNE'S LAUS VENERIS.
0
0
OO/c^i
FAC-SIMILE OF A PORTION i OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE.
305
upon sixteen sheets of blue foolscap, mostly upon one side of the paper
only. A fac-simile of a portion of one of the pages is given here-
with. The Manuscript (which is bound in red levant Morocco, by
Riviere) is freely corrected, and contains moreover a number of
cancelled stanzas, of which here is one : —
The scent and shadow dead above me make
The very soul in all my senses ache;
My lips burn, yea mine eyes burn up with heat,
My face is turned to dust for my pain's sake.
the first edition of Laus Veneris no copy is to be found in the
ritish Museum. The only example of this exceptionally interesting
ittle volume which has come into the market in recent years figured
one of Messrs. Robson & Co.'s catalogues, priced £30.
X
306 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(French Translation!)
Laus Veneris / Poeme de / Swinburne / traduit par /
Francis Viele-Griffin / Paris / Edition du Mercurc de
France / 15, rue de L' Echande-St.-Germain / MDCCCXCV.
Collation : — 241110, pp. 105.
Issued in paper wrappers, printed in three colors. The edition
was limited to 283 copies. The Translation is in French Prose.
(7-)
[POEMS AND BALLADS : 1866.]
Poems and Ballads. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. /
London : / Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street. / 1866.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. viii + 344 ; consisting of Title-page,
as above (with imprint : " London : / Bradbury, Evans,
and Co., Printers, Whitefriars" in the centre of the re-
verse), pp. i-ii ; Dedication (" To my Friend Edward
Burne Jones"}, with blank reverse, pp. iii-iv; Contents pp.
v-vii; p. viii is blank; and Text pp. 1-344. There are
head-lines throughout. The imprint is repeated at the foot
of the last page. The book has no half-title.
Issued in green straight-grained cloth boards, lettered in gilt across
the back : "Poems / 6-1 / Ballads / Swinburne / London / Moxon"
CONTENTS.
pp.
A Ballad of Life i — 4
A Ballad of Death 5—9
Laus Veneris u — 30
Also printed in pamphlet form : Laus fattens. By Algernon Charles Swinburne.
London: 8vo, 1866, pp. 28. [See ante, No. 6.]
Phaedra 31—39
The Triumph of Time 40— 55.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 307
PP.
Les Noyades 56 — 59
A Leave-taking 60 — 61
Itylus 62 — 64
Anactoria 65 — 76
Hymn to Proserpine 77 — 84
Ilicet 85—90
Hermaphroditus 91 — 93
Fragoletta 94 — 96
Rondel 97
Satia Te Sanguine 98 — 101
A Litany 102 — 107
A Lamentation 108 — 113
Anima Anceps 114 — 115
In the Orchard 116 — 118
A Match 119 — 121
Faustina 122 — 129
Previously printed in The Spectator, May -$\st, 1862, pp. 606-607.
A Cameo 130
Song before Death 131
Rococo 132 — 135
Stage Love 136
The Leper 137 — 143
A Ballad of Burdens 144 — 147
Rondel 148
Before the Mirror 149 — 152
Erotion 153 — 154
In Memory of Walter Savage Landor 155 — 157
A Song in time of Order 158 — 160
Previously printed in The Spectator, April 26t/t, 1862, p. 466.
A Song in time of Revolution 161 — 165
Previously printed in The Spectator, June 2%th, 1862, p. 718.
To Victor Hugo 166 — 173
Before Dawn 174 — 177
Dolores 178 — 195
Also printed in pamphlet form : Dolores. By Algernon Charles Swinburne. London :
Zvo, 1867, //. 23.
The Garden of Proserpine 196—199
X 2
308 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
PP.
Hesperia 200 — 206
Love at Sea 207 — 208
April „ 209 — 211
Before Parting 212 — 213
Previously printed in The Spectator, May ijth, 1862, p. 550.
The Sundew 214—216
Previously printed in The Spectator, July 26(/t, 1862, p. 830.
Fe"lise , 217—229
An Interlude 230 — 232
Hendecasyllabics 233 — 234
Sapphics 235 — 238
At Eleusis 239 — 247
August 248 — 250
Previously printed in The Spectator, September 6th, 1862, p. 997.
A Christmas Carol 251 — 254
The Masque of Queen Bersabe 255—273
St. Dorothy 274—291
The Two Dreams 292—308
Aholibah 309—315
Love and Sleep 316
Madonna Mia 317 — 320
The King's Daughter 321 — 323
After Death 324—326
Previously printed in The Spectator, May nth, 1862, pp. 578-9.
May Janet 327—328
The Bloody Son 329—333
Previously printed in Once-a-Week, vol. vi., February is*/*, 1862, pp. 215-6, under
the title of The Fratricide.
The Sea-Swallows .' 334 — 336
The Year of Love 337 — 339
Dedication 340 — 344
(H otter! s Issue.)
Edward Moxon was not destined to retain for long the honour of
publishing the first series of Poems and Ballads. He was rendered
nervous (unwisely and needlessly nervous, as the event proved) by the
unreasoning and hysterical criticism flung at the book, and the storm
BIBLIOGRAPHY OP SWINBURNE. 3°9
of opposition roused by certain of its contents. He resigned his com-
mission as Mr. Swinburne's publisher, and allowed the Poems and
Ballads, together with Chastetardand the Queen Mother and Rosamond,
to pass into the hands of John Camden Rotten.*
Hotten promptly reissued them, having cancelled Moxon's title-page,
and supplied the book with one of his own. This reads as follows : —
Poems and Ballads. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. /
London : / John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly. / 1866.
How many copies were so converted it is impossible to say, but
copies of the original sheets with Moxon's or with Hotten's title-pages
seem to occur with about equal frequency, if allowance be made for
the large number of copies of the Second Edition which are incor-
rectly catalogued and sold as " first edition with Hotten's title."
(Second Edition.}
The demand for Poems and Ballads must have been fairly brisk, for
before the close of the year the quire stock received from Moxon had
become exhausted, and Hotten had reprinted the work. There is
absolutely nothing upon the face of the volume to distinguish it from
copies of the earlier issue, or to denote that it is a second edition.
The title-page is ^.fete-simile of the one prepared by Hotten to accom-
pany the copies in quires he had received from Moxon, whilst the body
of the book, pp. 1-344, is a page for page and line for line reprint.
The eight preliminary pages, however, differ from those of the earlier
issue, and should collate as follows : —
Half-title (with blank reverse) pp. i-ii ; Title-page (with imprint —
" London : / Savill and Edwards, Printers , Chandos Street ^
I Covent Garden" in the centre of the reverse) pp. iii-iv ;
Dedication (with blank reverse) pp. v-vi ; and Contents
pp. vii-viii.
Another minor point by which it is possible to discern a copy of
Hotten's reprint from an example made up from the original sheets, is
* When it is remembered that so recently as 1841 Moxon had been prose-
cuted, and heavily fined, for publishing Shelley's Queen Mab, some excuse
may be found for his extreme caution in the matter of Poems and Ballads.
310 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
that Moxon's original issue has Bradbury, Evans and Co.'s imprint at
the foot of p. 344, whilst in Hotten's edition this page bears no imprint.
The paper, also, of the latter is much whiter and heavier, and the
complete volume is therefore some 20 per cent, thicker than the origi-
nal book. Notwithstanding these variations, however, Hotten's reprint
is constantly (no doubt from ignorance upon the part of the vendor)
being offered as " original sheets with Hotten's title."
Why Hotten omitted to place the words "Second Edition" upon
his reprint of Poems and Ballads it is impossible to say. The omission
was no oversight ; Hotten was far too wide-awake for that to happen.
It is at least open to suspicion that the motive which prompted the
omission of these words from the title-page of the second edition of
Notes on Poems and Reviews, also caused them to be omitted from
the title-page of Poems and Ballads..
(Third Edition.}
Poems and Ballads / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne /
{Publishers' device] / A New Edition / London / Chatto and
Windus, Piccadilly / 1878.
Collation : — Crown 8vo, pp. ix + 338.
Issued in dark blue cloth, gilt lettered, uniform with Mr. Swin-
burne's later books.
(First American Edition.}
Already in 1866, the year in which it first appeared in London,
Poems and Ballads was reprinted in America under the following
title-page : —
Laus Veneris, / and other / Poems and Ballads. / By / Alger-
non Charles Swinburne. / New York / Carleton, Publisher,
413, Broadway. / London : Moxon & Co, / MDCCCLXVI.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. viii + 328.
Issued in brown cloth boards, gilt lettered; the edges of the leaves
being trimmed and coloured dark blue.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF S WINB URNE. 3 1 1
The text is identical with the London editions.
Why the book was published under the above title it is difficult to
say. Possibly the discussion raised by Laus Veneris here in London
had awakened curiosity in the States, and the publishers looked to
excite a larger sale for their book by distinctly showing that the chief
offending poem was not excluded from its pages.
{French Translation?)
Gabriel Mourey / Poems et Ballades / de / A. C. Swinburne /
Notes sur Swinburne / par / Guy de Maupassant / {Pub-
lisher's device] Paris / Nouvelle Libraire Parisienne / Albert
Savine, fiditeur / 12, rue des Pyramides, 12 / 1891 / Tous
droits reserves.
Collation : — Crown 8vo, pp. xxvi + 372.
Issued in yellow paper wrappers, with the title-page reproduced
upon the front ; lettered across the back ; and p. iv of the cover
filled with advertisements.
(Rossettfs " Criticism.")
In dealing with Poems and Ballads the following book must be
duly noted : —
Swinburne's / Poems and Ballads. / A Criticism / by /
William Michael Rossetti. / [Quotation from Shelley *] /
London : / John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly. / 1866. / [All
rights reserved.]
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 80 — including Half-title, Title, and
a two-paged Prefatory Note.
Issued in green cloth boards, gilt lettered.
" Let us for a moment stoop to the arbitration of popular breath. Let us
ssume that Homer -was a drunkard, that Virgil was a flatterer, that Horace
was a coward, that Tasso was a madman. Observe in what a ludicrous chaos
the imputations of real or fictitious crime have been confused in the contemporary
calumnies against poetry and Poets.'"
312 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
This " Criticism " has never been reprinted in any shape or form.
Subsequently to the sheets of Poems and Ballads passing into the
hands of Mr. John Camden Hotten an idea grew up in the minds of
second-hand booksellers that certain of the contents of the volume
had been withdrawn by the author, and the book was frequently
catalogued and sold as " containing poems afterwards suppressed."
Such an advertisement appearing in the catalogue of Mr. Russell
Smith drew from Mr. Swinburne the following very decisive letter,
which was printed in The Athenaum for March \Qth, 1877 : —
BALLADS AND POEMS.
In Mr. Russell Smith's catalogue of books for this current month of
March, 1877, I find entered as No. 1058 a copy of my 'Poems and
Ballads* published eleven years since by Moxon <&•» Co., and here
announced as " the ORIGINAL EDITION, containing pieces not after-
wards reprinted " — and priced accordingly at upwards of three times
its original cost. There never was any such edition. It is only because
I now for the first time see this preposterous little lie in actual print,
under the mistaken warrant of a name so long and so justly respected
among bookbuyers and booksellers as that of Russell Smith, that I now
fot the first time think it worth while to snuff" out a report which I
never before imagined that any man of sense could believe or that
any man of credit could repeat. There is not one "piece" there is
not one line, there is not one word, there is not one syllable in
any one copy ever printed of that book which has ever been
changed or cancelled since the day of publication. I write this with a
copy open before my eyes, bearing on the title-page the imprint of
Moxon <Sr» Co., and differing otherwise from the copies which bear the
imprint of the late Mr. Hotten, or of his successors, Messrs. Chatto <Sr»
Windus, in no single point whatever beyond the correction of one letter,
and t/tat one Greek, at p. 84 ( tyfor <£), where the word •^xaptov (occur-
ring in a citation from Epictetus) had been stupidly misprinted
<pvx<ipiov. If any collector thinks this variation of text worth up-
wards of one pound sterling disbursed in good English money, he seems
to me more enviable for superfluity of cash than commendable for suf-
ficiency of sense. But if henceforward any man buys or sells a copy of
the volume now before me, on the understanding that it contains any
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF S WINB URNE. 3 1 3
other letter not contained in any later issue, the purchaser will find him-
self to be a dupe, and the -vendor will know himself to be a swindler.
A. C. SWINBURNE.
Despite the above letter (probably in ignorance of it) it is still by
no means unusual for second-hand booksellers to catalogue the first
edition of the first series of Poems and Ballads with Moxon's title-
page, as " containing poems suppressed in later issues."
(8.)
[NOTES ON POEMS AND REVIEWS : 1866.]
Notes on Poems and / Reviews. / By / Algernon Charles
Swinburne. / [Two quotations from (i) Frederic le Grand,
and (2) Carlyle.] / London : / John Camden Hotten,
Piccadilly. / 1866.
Collation : — Octavo, pp. 23 : consisting of Half-title (with blank
reverse) pp. 1-2 ; Title-page (with imprint : " London : /
Savill and Edwards, Printers, Chandos Street, / Covent
Garden," in the centre of the reverse) pp. 3-4 ; and
Text pp. 5-23. There are no head-lines, the pages being
numbered centrally.
Issued stitched, and without wrappers.
(Second Edition.}
Nothing appears upon the Title-page of this — the second — issue of
the Notes on Poems and Reviews to distinguish it from the First
Edition. It may, however, be easily recognised by the imprint, which
reads : " London : / Savill, Edwards and Co., Printers, Chandos
Street, / Covent Garden." There are in addition many minor
mechanical variations throughout. The reason for the absence of any
notification that the pamphlet is a Second Edition is readily accounted
for. Hotten printed the first edition (consisting, it is believed, of
500 copies) and duly paid the author his royalty upon them. Finding
3M A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
the demand for the booklet continue he promptly reprinted it ; and,
in order to obviate the necessity of paying the additional royalty,
suppressed the fact that he had published another edition, and
refrained from placing the words Second Edition upon the title-page.
The number so reprinted must have been very large, as up to last
year (1895) the pamphlet was still procurable at the published price of
One Shilling from Messrs. Chatto & Windus, successors to John
Camden Hotten. The brochure is consequently of no pecuniary value
whatever, whilst examples of the genuine first issue are of very much
greater scarcity than is generally supposed, most of the copies sold as
" First Editions " being in reality specimens of the spurious second
issue. The variation in the imprint, however, removes any difficulty
in deciding whether an example be a copy of this spurious issue, or a
genuine princeps.
In a letter (addressed to Mr. T. J. Wise, and at present unpublished)
regarding this, and other, matters, Mr. Swinburne has written the
following amusing paragraph regarding John Camden Hotten : —
"... The moral character of the worthy Mr. Hotten was —
I was about, very inaccurately ', to say — ambiguous. He was a service-
able sort of fellow in his way, but decidedly what Dr. Johnson would
have called ' a shady lot,' and Lord Chesterfield 'a rum customer?
When I heard that he had died of a surfeit of pork-chops, I observed
that this was a serious argument against my friend Sir Richard
Burton's views of cannibalism as a wholesome and natural method of
diet:9
(9.)
[CLEOPATRA: 1866.]
Cleopatra. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. / London : /
John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly. / 1866.
Collation : — Square fcap. octavo, pp. 1 7 ; consisting of Half-
title (with blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above
(with blank reveJse), pp. 3-4; extract from "T. Hayman,
fall of Antony, 1655 " [an imaginary play], with blank
reverse, pp. 5-6 ; and Text pp. 7-1 7. The head-line is
Cleopatra throughout, on both sides of the page. At the
ALonwoM aumu nrantiua
K>n» CAMHZK HOTIXH, HccAratY
Swinburne's Cleopatra, 1866.
From a copy of the rare original in the Library of Mr. Thos. J. Wise.
2
BIBLIOGRAPH Y OF S WINB URNE. 3 1 5
foot of p. 17 is the following imprint: "Printed by J.
Andrews, Clements Lane, E.G."
Issued in plain wrappers, of which there are two varieties : (A) a
thickish paper, of a pale buff colour ; and (B) thin flimsy paper,
of a dark brown colour. In a recent bookseller's catalogue a copy
of this pamphlet was offered at Fifteen Guineas !
Also printed in the Cornhill Magazine, Vol. xiv, September, 1866,
pp. 331-333. The poem was accompanied by a full-page illustration,
drawn upon wood by Frederick Sandys.
In a letter, at present unpublished, Mr. Swinburne has written the
following statement regarding Cleopatra : —
" Mr. George Meredith, I remember, strongly (and no doubt justly}
remonstrated with me for producing such a farrago of the most obvious
commonplaces of my ordinary style — as it was in '66, or thereabouts.
The verses were never intended for reproduction or preservation, but
simply scribbled off as fast as might be to oblige a friend whose work I
'mired— just as in the preceding year I had written a few lines on his
icture of1 Spring* which appeared in the Royal Academy catalogue of
t year. I should no more have thought of reproducing the one im-
•ovisation than the other. My impression is that the best thing about
the poem [' Cleopatra '] is the motto— from an imaginary ' Fall of
Antony] 1655. This was really a chipping from the first (under-
graduate) sketch of 'Chastelard? If I were not a bit of a bibliomaniac
tyself, I should be shocked to think of your wasting good money on
~h a trumpery ephemeral?
A signed MS. note inscribed by Mr. Swinburne in Mr. T. J.
Wise's copy of Cleopatra states that the poem was " written to illus-
trate a drawing by F. Sandys,- in which Cleopatra is represented as
treading on a consecrated vestment"
The poem has been entirely dropped by its author, and is not
included in any of his collected volumes, neither is there any reason
to anticipate that it ever will be. Here, therefore, is a specimen of
the verses : —
Her mouth is fragrant as a vine,
A vine with birds in all its doughs;
Serpent and scarab for a sign
316 .A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
Between the beauty of her brows
And the amorous deep lips divine.
Under those low large lids of hers
She hath the histories of all time;
The fruit of foliage-stricken years ;
The old seasons with their heavy chime
That leaves its rhyme in the world's ears.
******
His face, who was and was not he,
In whom, alive, her life abode ;
The end, when she gained heart to see
Those ways of death wherein she trod,
Goddess by god, with Antony.
The Manuscript of Cleopatra is in the possession of Mr. C. Fairfax
Murray.
(10.)
[DOLORES: 1867.]
Dolores. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. / London : /
John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly, / 1867.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 23 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4; and Text pp. 5-23. The head-line is
Dolores throughout, on both sides of the page. There is
no imprint.
Issued in plain paper wrappers, of various colours. The pamphlet
was reserved for private circulation only.
Dolores had appeared previously in Poems and Ballads, Moxon 1866,
pp. 178-195, and has since retained its position in every edition of
that work. Why it should have been reprinted separately can only
be conjectured. Mr. Swinburne himself has no recollection of the
circumstances under which it was produced.
JL
C.
^/
a
JLaff,
SWINBURNE'S DOLORES
FAC-SIMILE OF A PORTION OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF S WINB URNE. 3 1 7
The Manuscript of Dolores is in the Library of Mr. Walter B.
Slater. It is written upon nine sheets of foolscap paper (one white,
and the remainder blue), water-marked 1864. The majority of the
leaves are written upon both sides. A fac-simile of a portion of one
of the pages is given herewith.
(II.)
[A SONG OF ITALY: 1867.]
A / Song of Italy. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. /
London : / John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly. / 1867.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 66 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4 ; Dedication To Joseph Mazzini (with
blank reverse) pp. 5-6 ; and Text pp. 7-66. There is no
imprint. The head-line is A Song of Italy throughout
upon both sides of the page.
Issued in green cloth boards, lettered across the back — "A /
Song / of / Italy / Swinburne / 1867." A number of "remainder "
copies were put up in bright blue cloth boards, lettered as
above.*
In 1875 the Song was reprinted in Songs of Two Nations, pp. 1-33.
The Manuscript of A Song of Italy is still preserved. It is written
upon 45 pages of small Svo. paper, and was recently advertised
for sale in one of Messrs. Robson & Co.'s catalogues ; the price
asked was ^52 los.
(12.)
[AN APPEAL TO ENGLAND : 1867.]
An Appeal / to / England / Against the Execution of the /
Condemned Fenians. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne, /
* Hotten must have printed something like three thousand copies of A
Song of Italy. In 1884 a remainder of 300 copies appeared upon the market ;
and again in 1892 a second remainder, said to consist of upwards of 2000
copies, appeared. It is therefore desirable that the book should be obtained
in green cloth,'as originally put up in 1867. Both of the " remainders " were
in blue.
3i8 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
Author of Poems and Ballads, / Atalanta in Calydon, /
Chastelard, &c. / Manchester : / Reprinted from the
"Morning Star." / 1867.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 1 1 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with
blank reverse), pp. 3-4; and Text pp. 5-11. The
head-line is An Appeal throughout, on both sides of the
page. There is no imprint.
Issued in mottled-grey paper wrappers, with the title-page
(enclosed in a plain ruled frame) reproduced upon the front.
A note in the British Museum Catalogue states that the pamphlet
was printed by the Committee formed to obtain a reprieve for
the three condemned Fenians, and was circulated gratuitously.
An Appeal to England first appeared in The Morning Star, for
Friday, November "2.2nd, 1867, from whence it was widely copied by
the contemporary press. It was afterwards included in Songs before
Sunrise, 1871, pp. 253-257.
" The scene in which the ' Men of Manchester ' played their part
was the closing one of the Fenian insurrection of '67. The Man-
chester police arrested two leading Fenians, Kelly and Deasy. Their
comrades resolved to attempt a rescue. On the i8th of September
the two men were being conveyed from the court to the county gaol,
when, with a ' Stand and surrender ! ' the prison van was stopped on
the highway by a handful of armed Fenians. Most of the police fled
and the rescue party tried the door of the van. But it was locked,
and Sergeant Brett, the policeman in charge within, courageously
refused to hand out the keys. There was not a moment to waste
Time meant liberty. Already the police were rallying, a crowd was
forming, the precious opportunity was slipping away. Unable to
burst in the door, the Fenians hit on the only expedient which
remained. They blew the lock open with a pistol shot. That was
the object, as every one believes, but unhappily the result was homi-
cide. At the moment of the shot Brett was bending down to peer
through the keyhole. Wounded to death, he sank, and a woman
within, taking the keys from his pocket, handed them out. In a
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 319
moment the rescue was effected. The little ring of Fenians who had
been guarding the retreat with threatening pistols, did not fire a shot
in their own defence. They scattered and fled. They were pursued
by a furious crowd. Five of them were caught and struck down.
The five were tried for the wilful murder of Brett. Panic was in the
air ; an example was called for. The men were found guilty and
condemned to death. The voice of reason, of justice, of moderation,
was raised in vain. It had eloquent exponents. John Stuart Mill
and John Bright pleaded with all their power, but in vain. Two of
the men, whose responsibility was disproved, were pardoned ; but
Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged. That was in November,
1867. Just before the end Mr. Swinburne published his eloquent
Appeal."— From the Pall Mall Gazette.
(X3-)
[WILLIAM BLAKE : 1868.]
William Blake. / A Critical Essay. / By / Algernon Charles
Swinburne. / [ Vignette] / " Going to and fro in the Earth'' /
With illustrations from Blake's Designs in Facsimile, /
Coloured and Plain. / London : / John Camden Hotten,
Piccadilly. / 1868 / [All rights reserved].
Collation : — Octavo, pp. viii + 304 ; consisting of printed Title-
page (with blank reverse) pp. i-ii ; Dedication To William
Michael Rossetti, pp. iii-iv ; Contents (with blank reverse)
pp. v-vi ; Lists of Illustrations p. vii ; List of Authorities
p. viii; and Text pp. 1-304. There are head-lines
throughout. The imprint — "Bradbury, Evans, and Co.,
Printers, Whitefriars " — is at the foot of the last page.
Issued in blue cloth boards, lettered in gilt across the back —
" William / Blake / A Critical / Essay / Swinburne."
Illustrations.
FRONTISPIECE. Gateway with eclipse. A reduction of plate 70,
from "JERUSALEM."
320 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
TITLE-PAGE. A design of borders, selected from those in "JERU-
SALEM" (plates 5, 19, &c.), with minor details
from "MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL," and
" BOOK OF THEL."
P. 200. Title from " THE BOOK OF THEL."
P. 204. Title from " MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL."
P. 208. Plate 8, from the SAME (selected to show the artist's
peculiar method of blending text with minute
design).
P. 224. The Leviathan. From " MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN
AND HELL."
P. 258. From " MILTON." Male figures; one in flames.
P. 276. Female figures. A reduction of Plate 81 from
" JERUSALEM."
P. 282. Design with bat-like figure. A reduction of Plate 33
from "JERUSALEM."
(M.)
[NOTES ON THE ROYAL ACADEMY: 1868.]
Notes / on the / Royal Academy Exhibition, / 1868. /
Part I. by / Wm. Michael Rossetti. / Part II. by / Algernon
C. Swinburne. / " Desiring this man's art, and that man's
scope." — Shakespeare. / London : / John Camden Hotten,
Piccadilly. / (All Rights Reserved.).
Collation : — Octavo, pp. iv + 51 ; consisting of Title-page, as
above (with a Note to the Reader upon the reverse)
pp. i-ii ; Preface, by W. M. Rossetti, pp. iii-iv ; Part I of
Text, by W. M. Rossetti, pp. 1-30 ; Part II of Text, by
A. C. Swinburne, pp. 31-51. There are head-lines through-
out. The imprint — " London : / Savill, Edwards and Co.,
Printers, Chandos Street, / Covent Garden " — is upon the
reverse of the last page.
Issued in buff paper wrappers, having the title upon p. i, and
the remaining three pages filled with 'advertisements.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF S WINS URNE 32 1
With the exception of a note upon the late Sir Frederick Leighton's
Acme and Septimus (p. 33), and a considerable notice of the late
Sir John E. Millais (pp. 33-35), the portion of the above book sup-
plied by Mr. Swinburne was reprinted in Essays and Studies ; 1875,
pp. 358-380.
(I5-)
[SIENA: 1868.]
Siena. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. / London : /
John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly / 1868. / (All rights
reserved.)
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 15: consisting of Title-page (with
blank reverse) pp. 1-2, and Text pp. 3-15. There is
no imprint. The head-line is Siena throughout, upon
both sides of the page.
Issued in orange-coloured paper wrappers, unlettered.
Siena first appeared in Lippincotfs Magazine, for June 1868, pp.
622-629, and was reprinted in pamphlet form simply in order to
secure the English copyright. Mr. Swinburne has informed Mr. Wise
that only six copies were printed, one of which was sold, and the
others distributed privately. Of these six copies four only can now
be traced. The pamphlet, therefore, is one of the rarest of the first
editions of Mr. Swinburne's writings, the copies which constantly
occur for sale belonging invariably to the second, published, edition
described below. The poem was afterwards included in Songs before
Sunrise, pp. 191-204. The prose notes which accompanied Siena in
Lippincotfs Magazine, did not re-appear in either of the pamphlets of
1868 ; only a portion of them, also, were preserved when the poem
was reprinted in Songs before Sunrise.
(Second— or Spurious — Edition.)
This, the first published, edition of Siena has hitherto been generally
accepted as the original semi-private pamphlet. Mr. Swinburne gave
no authority to Mr. John Camden Hotten to reprint and publish the
poem ; and, upon being appealed to for information upon the subject.
Y
322 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
was only able to suggest that when the pamphlet in question was
issued, Rotten (who was himself the purchaser of the only copy sold),
finding a demand for his (Mr. Swinburne's) writings even in those
early days, at once caused it to be reprinted as precisely as possible,
and it is known that he sold the booklets readily at five or ten shillings
apiece. No difficulty need be experienced in distinguishing copies of
he two issues. The types used for both are very similar, but the
paper of the published edition is somewhat thinner and smoother
than that of the earlier version ; the wrapper also is thinner, smoother,
and much brighter in colour. Examples of both issues are in the
British Museum, and should be inspected by any one interested in the
matter. When the two tracts are placed side by side, the difference
between them is immediately apparent.
(Italian Translation.)
C. A.* Swinburne / Siena / Traduzione di Salomone
Menasci / Firenze / Tipografia Co-operativa / Via Monalda,
No. i / 1890.
Collation : — Square crown octavo, pp. 15, consisting of Title-page,
as above (with "Estratto dal Periodico veta Nuova,
Anno ii., N. 46, 47," upon the centre of the reverse),
pp. 1-2; and Text pp. 3-15. There are no head-lines,
the pages being numbered centrally.
Issued in pale blue paper wrappers, with the title reproduced
upon the front cover.
(16.)
[ODE ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE FRENCH RE-
PUBLIC: 1870.]
Ode / on the / Proclamation / of the / French Republic, /
September 4th, 1870. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. /
cuXivov al\ivov etVe, TO 8' ev viKdroj. f London : / F. S.
Ellis, 33, King Street, Covent Garden. / 1870.
* An obvious misprint of " A. C." Swinburne.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 323
Collation : — Octavo, pp. 23 ; consisting of Half-title (with blank
reverse) pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank reverse)
pp. 3-4 ; Dedication A Victor Hugo (with blank reverse)
pp. 5-6 ; and Text pp. 7-23. There are head-lines
throughout. There is no imprint, but the printer's device
is placed upon the centre of the reverse of p. 23.
Issued in stiff orange-red coloured paper wrappers, with the Title,
surrounded by a plain ruled frame, reproduced upon the front, the
words Price One Shilling being added at the top, above the rule.
The Ode was reprinted in Songs of Two Nations, 1875, pp. 39-51.
[SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE: 1871.]
Songs Before Sunrise. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. /
London: / F. S. Ellis, 33, King Street, Covent Garden. / 1871.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. viii + 287 ; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse pp. i-ii; Title-page, as above (with
blank reverse), pp. iii-iv ; Dedication To Joseph Mazzini,
pp. v-vi; Contents pp. vii-viii; Text pp. 1-284; and Notes
pp. 285-287. There are head-lines throughout, each page
being headed with the title of the poem occupying it. The
imprint — " London : / Savill, Edwards and Co., Printers,
Chandos Street, / Covent Garden " — occurs upon the reverse
of the last page.
Issued in dark blue cloth boards, lettered across the back —
" Songs I before / Sunrise f Swinburne." The covers also bear
seven ornaments, stamped in gold, from designs by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti.
Twenty-five Large Paper (demy 8vo.) copies were also issued.
These were printed upon Whatman's hand-made paper, and bound in
white cloth boards, lettered as above.
Y 2
324
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
CONTENTS.
PP.
Dedication, To Joseph Mazzini v — vi
Prelude I — 9
Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by time, &*c.
The Eve of Revolution 10 — 29
The Watch in the Night 30—37
Previously printed in The Fortnightly Review, vol. iv. New Series, December, 1868,
pp. 30-37-
Super Flumina Babylonis 38 — 44
Previously printed in The Fortnightly Review, vol. vi. New Series, October, 1869,
pp. 386-389.
The Halt before Rome 45 — 59
Previously printed in The Fortnightly Review, vol. n. New Series, November, 1867,
PP- 539-54°-
Mentana : First Anniversary 60 — 63
Blessed among Women 64 — 72
The Litany of Nations «... 73—81
Hertha 82 — 92
Before a Crucifix 93 — 101
Tenebrae 102 — 108
Hymn of Man 109 — 124
The Pilgrims 125 — 129
Armand Barbes 130 — 131
Quia Multum Amavit 132 — 139
Genesis 140 — 142
To Walt Whitman in America 143 — 149
Christmas Antiphones 150 — 163
A New Year's Message . . . 164 — 166
Mater Dolorosa 167 — 170
Mater Triumphalis 171 — 178
A Marching Song 179 — 190
Siena 191—204
Previously printed in pamphlet form, as follows : Siena, / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne.
London: 1868, Svo, pp. 15. [Second Edition same date.] Also printed in Lippincott's
Magazine, June 1868, pp. 622-629, where the poem was accompanied by a series of prose
notes, some of which do not appear elsewhere. An Italian translation was issued in Florence
in 1890. [See ante, No. 15.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY OP SWINBURNE. 325
PP.
Cor Cordium 205
In San Lorenzo 206
Tiresias 207—223
The Song of the Standard 224—22?
On the Downs 229— 23 c
Messidor 236 — 239
Ode on the Insurrection in Candia 240 — 2^c
Previously printed in The Fortnightly Review, vol. i. New Series, March, 1867,
pp. 284-289.
"NonDolet" 251
Eurydice 252
An Appeal 253 — 25
Previously printed in The Morning Star, Friday, November 22nd, 1867, — whence it w
widely copied by the contemporary press. Also printed in pamphlet form : An Appeal / to
England / Against the Execution of the \ Condemned Fenians.} By I Algernon Charles
Swinburne. I .... I Manchester / 1867. 8vo, pp. n. [See ante, No. 12.]
Perinde ac Cadaver 258 — 262
Monotones 263 — 264
The Oblation 265
A Year's Burden 266 — 270
Epilogue . 271 — 284
Notes • . . 285—287
(18.)
[UNDER THE MICROSCOPE : 1872.]
Under / the Microscope. / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. / London : / D. White, 22, Coventry Street, W. /
1872.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. iv + 88 ; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse) pp. i.-ii. ; Title-page, as above (with
imprint: "London: / Savill, Edwards and Co., Printers,
Chandos Street, / Covent Garden" upon the centre of the
reverse), pp. iii.-iv. ; and Text pp. 1-88.
Issued in stone-coloured paper wrappers, with the title-page
326
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(enclosed in an ornamental ruled frame) reproduced upon the
front — " Price Two Shillings and Sixpence " being added at foot.
Inserted at the end is a slip with the following Errata : —
Page 32, last line but one— for monsieurs, read messieurs.
„ 61, line 19— for IloXXdf, read IIoXw.
„ 72, line i%—for Hugos, read Hugo's.
„ „ line if)— for Brownings, read Browning's.
Upon examining any copy of Under the Microscope it will be
observed that Sig. D 5 (pp. 41-42) is a cancel-leaf. The original
leaf was wisely suppressed, as certain of the expressions used in
relation to the characters of Tennyson's Idylls of the King were
unduly harsh. The following passage, describing "the courteous
and loyal Gawain of the old romancers " as " the very vilest figure in
all that cycle of strumpets and scoundrels, broken by, here and there,
an imbecile, which Mr. Tennyson has set revolving round the figure of
his central wittol," is unjust as well as severe. It is believed that only
two copies of this cancelled leaf were preserved.
The manner in which the copies of Under the Microscope have been
absorbed is remarkable. Five hundred copies were printed in 1872,
and until quite recent years examples of these were readily obtainable
at 5,r. or js. 6d. each. Now copies occur at increasingly lengthened
intervals, and find a prompt and ready sale at fifty shillings, and
even three guineas each.
[LE TOMBEAU DE T.HEOPHILE GAUTIER : 1873.]
Le Tombeau / de / Thdophile Gautier / [Publisher's device.]
Paris / Alphonse Lemerre, Editeur / 27-29, Passage
Choiseul, 27-29 / MDCCCLXXIII.
Collation: — Post quarto, pp. vi + 179; consisting of Half-title
(with printer's device upon the reverse) pp. i-ii ; Title-
page, as above (with blank reverse) pp. iii-iv ; Au Lecteur
pp. v-vi; Text pp. 1-176; and Index pp. 177-179. The
head-line is Le Tombeau / de Theophile Gautier through-
out. There is no printer's imprint.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 327
Issued in 'vegetable parchment' wrappers, with the title-page
reproduced upon the front. Also lettered across the back — " Le /
Tombeau / de / Theophile / Gautier / Prix / 10 francs / Alphonse /
Lemerre / £diUur / 1873." Some few copies have an etched
portrait of Theophile Gautier as frontispiece.
The following pieces among the contents are by Mr. Swin-
burne : —
PP.
(1) Sonnet (with a copy of " Mademoiselle de Maupin") . 155
Reprinted in Poems and Ballads, Second Series, 1878, p. 97.
(2) Memorial Verses on the Death of The'ophile Gautier . . 156-164
Also printed in The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xiii, New Series, January, 1873,
pp. 68-73.
Reprinted in Poems and Ballads, Second Series, 1878, pp. 84-96.
(3) Ode : " Quelle fleur, 6 mort, quel joyau, quel chant " . . 165-167
Reprinted in Poems and Ballads, Second Series, 1878, pp. 232-234.
(4) Sonnet : " Pour mettre une couronne au front d'une
chanson" 168
Reprinted in Poems and Ballads, Second Series, 1878, pp. 230-231.
(5) In Obitum Theophili Poetse Clarissimi i6o/
Reprinted in Poems and Ballads, Second Series, 1878, pp. 235-236.
(6) eViypa/ifuira eVtrv/t/Sidta els 0(o(f)i\bv 170-172
These Greek verses (56 lines in all) have never been reprinted.
The whole of the above six contributions are signed " Sw/'n-
burne."
(20.)
[BOTHWELL: 18/4.]
Bothwell : / A Tragedy. / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. / London: / Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly. / 1874.
Collation: — Crown octavo, pp. viii + 532; consisting of Half-
title (with quotation from ^Eschylus, Chs. 585-601, upon
the reverse), pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with imprint —
" London : Printed by / Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street
Square / and Parliament Street"— upon the reverse), pp.
328 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
iii-iv ; Dedication To Victor Hugo (a Sonnet, in French —
with blank reverse), pp. v-vi; Dramatis Personse (with
blank reverse), pp. vii-viii ; and Text, pp. 1-532. Each
of the five Acts is preceded by a fly-title. The head-line
is Bothwell throughout, upon both sides of the page.
The imprint is repeated at the foot of p. 532.
Issued in dark purple cloth boards, lettered in gilt across the
back—" Bothwell / Swtnturne / Chatto & Windus."
(Issue in two volumes?)
In the following year, 1875, a few remaining copies of the
original sheets of Bothwell were put up in two volumes, each with
a separate title-page, as follows : —
Bothwell : / A Tragedy. / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. / In Two Volumes. / Vol. I. [Vol. II.] / London : /
Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly. / 1875.
Collation : — Vol. I contains the eight preliminary pages detailed
above (the new being substituted for the old title-page),
and pp. 1-240 of Text ; that is the text of Acts I and II.
Vol. II contains title-page, and pp. 241-532 of Text;
being the text of Acts III, IV, and V.
The volumes were issued in dark blue cloth boards, uniform with
the majority of Mr. Swinburne's later works; lettered in gilt
across the back : " Bothwell / Swinburne / Vol. I. [Vol. II.} /
Chatto 6- Windus."
Copies of Bothivell made up into two volumes, as described above,
are exceedingly uncommon ; and their value very considerably ex-
ceeds that of the ordinary one-volume issue.
A German translation of Mr. Swinburne's Bothwell has recently
been completed by Theodore Gritz, the translator of Petofi's lyrical
poems, for which translation he was elected member of the Hungarian
Literary Society, Kisfaludi-Ta'rsagdg. '
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 329
(21.)
[SONGS OF Two NATIONS: 1875.]
Songs of Two Nations / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne /LA Song of Italy / II. Ode on the Proclamation
of the French Republic /III. Dirae / London / Chatto and
Windus, Piccadilly / 1875.
Collation: — Crown octavo, pp. viii+78; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse), pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with
imprint — " London : / Printed by / Spottiswoode and Co.,
New-Street Square { and Parliament Street" — in the
centre of the reverse), pp. iii-iv; two four-line introduc-
tory stanzas, p. v ; p. vi is blank ; Table of Contents,
pp. vii-viii; and Text, pp. 1-78. Pages 1-51 have head-
lines, each page being headed with the title of the poem
occupying it : pages 56-78 are numbered centrally. The
imprint is repeated at the foot of the last page.
Issued in dark blue cloth boards, lettered across the back —
" Songs I of I Two I Nations / Swinburne"
Contents.
pp.
A Song of Italy 3-33
Previously printed in separate form : London, 1867, 8vo., pp. 66. [See ante, No. n.]
Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic 39-51
Previously printed in pamphlet form : London, 1870, 8vo., pp. 23. [See ante, No. 16.]
Dirae 55-78
PP.
i. A Dead King. ... 55
ii. A Year After .... 56
iii. Peter's Pence from Pe-
rugia 57
iv. Papal Allocution . . 58
v. The Burden of Aus-
tria 59
pp.
vi. Locusta 60
vii. Celaeno 61
viii. A Choice 62
ix. The Augurs .... 63
x. A Counsel 64
xi. The Moderates . . 65
xii. Intercession . . . 66-69
330 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
PP.
xiii. The Saviour of So-
ciety 70-71
xiv. Mentana : Second
Anniversary. . . 72-73
PP.
xv. Mentana: Third An-
niversary .... 74-75
xvi. The Descent into
Hell ...... 76-77
xvii. Apologia .... 78
Previously printed— partly in The Fortnightly Review, and partly in The Examiner
for 1873.
The Song, Ode, and Dirce are each preceded by a Fly-title, the two
former having each in addition a leaf with a separate Dedication.
Pages 2, 4, 34, 36 and 52 are blank.
(22.)
[AUGUSTE VACQUERIE : 1875.]
Auguste Vacquerie / Par / Swinburne / Paris / Michel
LeVy Freres, Editeurs / Rue Auber, 3, Place de L'Opeia /
Librairie Nouvelle / Boulevard des Italiens, 15, au coin de
la Rue de Grammont / 1875.
Collation : — Octavo, pp. 2 7 ; consisting of Half-title (with Trans-
lator's note and Printer's imprint upon the reverse), pp.
1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank reverse), pp. 3-4 ;
and Text, pp. 5-27. There are head-lines throughout:
" Auguste Vacquerie, Aujcurd'hui et JDemain."
Issued in brick-red coloured paper wrappers, with the title-page
reproduced upon the front. The pamphlet is by no means
common.
The Essay (in English), of which the above is a somewhat free
French translation, originally appeared in The Examiner, for Novem-
ber 6th, 1875, pp. 1247-1250. It was reprinted in Miscellanies, 1886,
PP. 303-317.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 331
(23.)
[ERECHTHEUS: 1876.]
Erechtheus : / A Tragedy. / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. / [Two Greek quotations, (l) from Pindar, and (2)
from sSEschylus.] / London : / Chatto and Windus, Picca-
dilly. / 1876.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. viii+ 107 ; consisting of Half-title
(with the publishers' device upon the reverse), pp. i-ii ;
Title-page, as above (with imprint — " London : / Printed by
William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street / and Charing
Cross ") upon the reverse, pp. iii-iv; Dedication " To My
Mother " (with blank reverse), pp. v-vi ; list of Persons
(with blank reverse), pp. vii-viii ; Text, pp. 1-105 ;
p. 106 is blank; and Notes, p. 107. The head-line is
"Erechtheus" throughout, on both sides of the page.
The imprint is repeated upon the reverse of p. 107.
Issued in dark blue cloth boards, lettered in gilt across the back :
" Erechtheus / Swinburne / Chatto 6* Windus"
(240
[NOTE ON THE MUSCOVITE CRUSADE : 1876.]
Note / of / An English Republican / on the / Muscovite
Crusade. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. / ' Non tali
auxilio, nee defensoribus istis / Tempus eget.' — Virg. j£n.
ii. 521. / [Publishers' Device} / London : / Chatto & Windus,
Piccadilly. / 1876.
Collation : — Octavo, pp. 24 ; consisting of Title-page, as above
(with imprint — " London : Printed by / Spottiswoode and
Co., New-Street Square / and Parliament Street" — in the
332 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
centre of the reverse), pp. 1-2 ; and Text, pp. 3-24.
There are head-lines throughout.
Issued in mottled-grey paper wrappers, with the title-page (enclosed
within a plain ruled frame) reproduced upon the front ; the words
'•'•Price One Shilling " being added at foot, below the rule. The
remaining three pages of the wrappers are filled with advertise-
ments of Messrs. Chatto and Co.'s publications.
(250
[A NOTE ON CHARLOTTE BRONTE: 1877.]
A Note / on / Charlotte Bronte / By / Algernon Charles
Swinburne / \PublisIiers' Device] / London : / Chatto &
Windus, Piccadilly / 1877 / All Rights Reserved.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. vi + 97 ; consisting of Half-title
(with list of Mr. Swinburne's Works upon the reverse), pp.
i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with imprint — " London :
Printed by / Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square /
and Parliament Street " — upon the reverse), pp. iii-iv ;
Dedication To Theodore Watts (with blank reverse), pp.
v-vi ; and Text, pp. 1-97. The head-line is " Charlotte
Bronte " throughout, upon both sides of the page. The
imprint is repeated at the foot of p. 97.
Issued in cloth boards of a bright purple colour, lettered in gilt
across the back — " A / Note I on I Charlotte / Bronte / Swin-
burne " — the publishers' device being added at foot. Some copies
' made up ' later were put into dark blue cloth boards, uniform
with other of Mr. Swinburne's later works, and lettered as above.
(26.)
[THE HEPTALOGIA: 1880.]
Specimens of Modern Poets / The Heptalogia / or / The
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 333
Seven against Sense / A Cap with Seven Bells. / I. The
Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell / II. John Jones /III. The
Poet and the Woodlouse / IV. The Person of the House
(Idyl CCCLXVi) / V. Last Words of a Seventh-rate Poet f
VI. Sonnet for a Picture / VII. Nephelidia / London: /
Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly / 1880 / [77?* right of
translation is reserved].
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. vi+ 102 ; consisting of Half-title
(with imprint : " London : Printed by / Spottiswoode and
Co., New-Street Square / and Parliament Street," in the
centre of the reverse) pp. i.-ii. ; Title-page as above
(with blank reverse), pp. iii.-iv. ; Contents (with blank
reverse), pp. v.-vi. ; and Text pp. 1-102. Each of the
seven poems is preceded by a fly-title (with blank reverse).
There are head-lines throughout. The imprint is repeated
at the foot of the last page.
Issued in smooth dark blue cloth boards, uniform with the
majority of Mr. Swinburne's later books ; and lettered The / Hepta-
logia, in gilt across the back, with the publishers' device in gilt
at the foot.
The following is a list of the seven Parodies, with the names of the
Poets to whom they severally apply : —
I. The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell Alfred Tennyson.
II. John Jones Robert Browning.
III. The Poet and the Woodlouse Walt. Whitman.
IV. The Person of the House (Idyl CCCLXVI) Coventry Patmore.
V. Last Words of a Seventh-rate Poet Robert, Lord Lytton
(" Owen Meredith ").
VI. Sonnet for a Picture Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
VII. Nephelidia Algernon Charles Swinburne
It may without hesitation now be stated that Mr. Swinburne has
admitted the authorship of The Heptalogia, but has at the same time
expressed his determination never to republish the volume.
334 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(270
[STUDIES IN SONG: 1880.]
Studies in Song / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne /
[Publishers' device] / London / Chatto & Windus, Picca-
dilly / 1880 / All rights reserved.
Collation : Crown octavo, pp. iv + 2 1 2 ; consisting of Half-title
(with list of Works by Mr. Swinburne upon the reverse),
pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with imprint — " London :
Printed by / Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square /
and Parliament Street " — upon the reverse), pp. iii-iv ;
Contents (with blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; and Text, pp.
1-2 1 2, each of the thirteen poems being preceded by a fly-
title. Two of these are in addition preceded by Dedica-
tions in verse ; the Song for the Centenary of Walter
Savage Landor being dedicated to Mrs. Lynn Linton, and
By the North Sea to Theodore Watts. There are head-
lines throughout, each page being headed with the title of
the poem occupying it. The imprint is repeated at the
foot of the last page.
Issued in dark blue cloth boards, uniform with other of Mr.
Swinburne's later books. Lettered in gilt across the back —
" Studies I in / Song / Swinburne / [Publishers' device\ / Chatto &>
Contents.
pp.
Song for the Centenary of Walter Savage Landor .... 1-65
[Included in the above is the Dedication to Mrs. Lynn Linton — with blank
reverse— -pp. 3-4 ; also a series of Notes, pp. 63-65. P. 66 is blank.]
Grand Chorus of Birds from Aristophanes, attempted in
English Verse after the original Metre ....... 67-74
Previously printed in The Athenaum, October y>th, 1880, p. 568.
OffShore ........ .......... 75-93
After Nine Years (To Joseph Mazzini) ........ 95-101
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 335
pp.
For a Portrait of Felice Orsini 103-106
Evening on the Broads 107-124
The Emperor's Progress (On tJte Bitsts of Nero in the Uffizj) 125-130
The Resurrection of Alcilia 131-134
The Fourteenth of July 135-138
[On the refusal by the French Senate of the plenary amnesty demanded by
Victor Hugo, in his speech of July yd, 1880, for the surviving
exiles of the Commune.]
Previously printed in The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xxviii, New Series,
August, 1880, p. 199.
The Launch of the Livadia 139-144
Six Years Old H5-I49
A Parting Song 151-159
By the North Sea 161-212
[Included in the above (By the North Sea) is the separate Dedication to Theodore
Watts— with blank reverse— pp. 163-164.)
(28.)
[ODE A LA STATUE DE VICTOR HUGO : 1882.]
Ode a la Statue / de / Victor Hugo / Par / Algernon
Charles Swinburne / Traduction / de / Tola Dorian /
[Publisher 's device] / Paris / Alphonse Lemerre, Editeur /
Passage Choiseul, 27-29 / 1882.
Collation: — Post quarto, pp. 19; consisting of Half-title (with
Certificate of Issue * upon the reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-
page, as above (printed in red and black, with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4 ; Letter, in French4 to Madame Tola
Dorian, signed " Algernon Charles Swinburne" and dated
" Paris, 22 Novembre, 1882" (with blank reverse), pp.
5-6; and Text, pp. 7-19. The head-line is Ode a la
Statue de Victor Hugo throughout, upon both sides of the
page. The imprint (which is placed upon the reverse of
* This Certificate states that " Ce livre a ete tire" a 200 exemplaires,
dont 25 nume'rote's sur papier dujapon?
336
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
p. 19) reads: "A Paris / De Presses de D. Jouanst /
Imprimeur brevete / Rue Saint- Honor e, 338."
Issued in ' vegetable parchment ' wrappers, with the Title-page
(again printed in red and black) reproduced upon the front.
The original of the above Ode (under the title of " The Statue of
Victor Hugo") appeared first in The Gentleman1 s Magazine, for
September ; 1881, pp. 284-290. It was afterwards included in Tristram
of Lyonesse, and other Poems, 1882, pp. 191-202. The translation
described above is the only form in which the Ode has been published
as a separate book.
(29.)
[A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS: 1883.]
A Century of Roundels / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne / [Publishers' device] / London / Chatto & Windus,
Piccadilly / 1883 / [All rights reserved].
Collation: — Square crown octavo, pp. xii+ioo; consisting of
Half-title (with list of Mr. Swinburne's works upon the
reverse), pp. i-ii ; Title-page, as above (with imprint upon
the reverse — " London : Printed by / Spottiswoode and Co.,
New-Street Square / and Parliament Street "), pp. iii-iv ;
Dedication To Christina G. Rossetti (with blank reverse),
pp. v-vi ; Contents, pp. vii-xi ; p. xii is blank ; and Text,
pp. i-ioo. The imprint is repeated at the foot of the last
page.
Issued in dark blue cloth boards, lettered — " A f Century I of I
Roundels / Swinburne / Chatto &> Windus " — across the back.
Six special copies were also privately printed, upon white drawing
paper, for the purpose of marginal illustration. They were bound in
white cloth boards, with uncut edges.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 337
(30.)
[A WORD FOR THE NAVY : 1887.]
A / Word for the Navy / A Poem / by / Algernon Charles
Swinburne / " He laid his hand upon ' the Ocean's mane,' /
And played familiar with his hoary locks." / London /
Charles Ottley, Landon, & Co. / 1887.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 16 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4 ; and Text pp. 5-16. The head-line
is A Word for the Navy throughout, on both sides of the
page. At the foot of p. 16 is the following imprint —
"T. Rignall, Printer, Whitefriars, March, 1887."
Issued (in March 1887) in pale green paper wrappers, lettered
" A / Word for the Navy " upon the centre of the front cover.
It is said that not more than twenty-five copies were printed.
(Another Edition!)
In the same year (1887) A Word for the Navy was again issued in
pamphlet form, but with nothing upon its title-page to denote that it
was a second edition. However, as it was not published until August,
whilst the one described above had appeared already in March, that
pamphlet must undoubtedly be considered as the Editio Princeps of
the work.
A Word for the Navy / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne /
[printers' device] / London / George Redway / MDCCCL-
XXXVII.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. 16; consisting of Half-title (with
certificate of issue on the reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page,
as above (with imprint on reverse — " Chiswick Press : —
C. Whittingham and Co. / Tooks Court, Chancery Lane "),
PP' 3~4 ; and Text pp. 5-16. There is a head-line
Z
338 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
A Word for the Navy throughout, on both sides of the
page. The imprint is repeated at the foot of p. 16.
Issued (in August 1887) in stiff mottled-grey paper wrappers,
with the title reproduced upon the front. On p. 3 of the cover
is an advertisement of Mr. Herne Shepherd's Bibliography of
Swinburne. Two hundred and fifty copies were printed, all upon
Whatman's hand-made paper. The published price was Five
Shillings.
It is worth recording that Mr. Redway's edition of the poem had
been set up in type, but immediately withdrawn, two months before
it was actually published. Two copies of the proofs of this earlier
intended issue have been preserved, one of which is in the Library of
the British Museum. It is noteworthy that in this earlier draft the
second line of stanza iv. ran Strong Germany, girded with guile ; the
reading of the published version being Dark Muscovy, girded *with
guile. The manuscript reads Dark Germany, as also does the
Editio Princeps of the work.
Also printed in Sea Song / and / River Rhyme I from Chaucer to
Tennyson / selected and edited by / Estelle Davenport Adams / With
a new poem I by I Algernon Charles Swinburne / With twelve
Etchings / London / George Redway / MDCCCLXXXVII ; pp. vii.-viii.
(Popular Edition.}
One Penny / A Word / for / the Navy / By / Algernon
Charles Swinburne / Popular Edition / London / George
Redway / MDCCCXCVI.
Collation : — Crown octavo, pp. 16 ; consisting of Title-page, as
above, p. i ; Publisher's Note p. 2 ; abbreviated title *
p. 3 ; p. 4 is blank; and Text pp. 5-16.
Issued (on January 2$rd, 1896) stitched, and without wrappers.
* A Word for the Navy / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne / London /
George Redway / MDCCCXCVI.
SWINBURNE'S A WORD FOR THE NAVY.
FA C •£ i M !LE OF A PORTION OF THE ORI G1HAL MANUSCRIPT.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 339
The " Publisher's Note " is somewhat misleading. It states that :
" This Poem was issued by me ten years ago, and circulated at a high
price among a limited number of book collectors. It is now re-issued with
a few alterations rendered desirable by change of national circumstances."
The statement that the poem was re-issued " with a few alterations
rendered desirable by change of national circumstances," means that
the line [stanza ii, line iv]
Strong Germany, girded with guile
replaced the
Dark Muscovy, girded with guile
of Mr. Redway's edition of 1887.
But this was no new reading, the words Strong Germany appearing,
as has already been stated, in the original Manuscript, in the Editio
Princeps, described above, and also in the early proofs of the Redway
edition. The most that can be said for the popular edition is that it
has the original reading restored.
The history of this poem, prior to its publication, is interesting. In
the year 1886 Mr. George Redway became possessed of a volume of
letters in Mr. Swinburne's autograph, addressed to Mr. Charles
Augustus Howell, at one time private secretary to John Ruskin. A
number of these letters their writer desired to recover, and the final
outcome of the negotiations was that Mr. Redway handed to Mr. Swin-
burne such of the letters as he desired to retain, receiving in return the
Copyright and Manuscript of A Word for the Navy. This MS. (which
occupies 3^ pages of blue foolscap paper) was sold by Mr. Redway to
Messrs. J. Pearson & Co., and duly figured in their catalogue at the price
of ^25. It is now in Mr. Wise's Swinburne collection. The remainder
of the letters above mentioned were sold by Mr. Redway to Mr.
Walter B. Slater, in whose hands they still remain.
A Word for the Navy is the only one of Mr. Swinburne's writings
the copyright of which he has parted with.
(3I-)
[THE QUESTION : 1887.]
The Question / MDCCCLXXXVII / A Poem / by / Algernon
Z 2
340 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
Charles Swinburne / London / Charles Ottley, Landon,
& Co. / 1887.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 15 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4; and Text pp. 5-15. The head-line
is The Question throughout, on both sides of the page.
The imprint, which occurs at the foot of p. 15, is :
"T. Rignall, Printer, Whitefriars, May, 1887."
Issued in pale green paper wrappers, lettered " The Question "
upon the centre of the front cover. Twenty-five copies only are
said to have been printed.
Also printed in The Daily Telegraph, Friday, April 2.gth, 1 887.
The Question has been dropped by its author, and is not included
in any of Mr. Swinburne's collected volumes ; and, considering the
controversial nature of the subject treated, it is in the highest degree
improbable that it will ever be revived. It contains some bitter
verses addressed to Mr. Gladstone : —
The hoary henchman of the gang
Lifts hands that never dew or rain
May cleanse from Gordons blood again,
Appealing : pity's tender est pang
Thrills his pure heart with pain.
Grand helmsman of the clamorous crew,
The good grey recreant quakes and weeps
To think that crime no longer creeps
Safe toward its end: that murderers too
May die when mercy sleeps.
The dower that Freedom brings the slave
She weds is vengeance : why should we,
Whom equal laws acclaim as free,
Think shame, if men too blindly brave
Steal, murder, skulk, and flee ?
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 341
At kings they strike in Russia : there
Men take their life in hand who slay
Kings : these, that have not heart to lay
Hand save on girls whose ravaged hair
Is made the patriofs prey.
Be it ours to undo a woful past,
To bid the bells of concord chime,
To break the bonds of suffering crime,
Slack now, that some would make more fast
Such teaching comes of time.
(32.)
[THE JUBILEE: 1887.]
The Jubilee / MDCCCLXXXVii / By / Algernon Charles
Swinburne / London / Charles Ottley, Landon, & Co. /
1887.
Collation: — Square post octavo, pp. 21; consisting of Half-title
(with blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with
blank reverse), pp. 3-4; and Text pp. 5-21. The
head-line is The Jubilee throughout, on both sides of the
page. Immediately after the text is a leaf with the follow-
ing imprint upon its recto : " T. Rignall, Printer, White-
friars, June, 1887."
Printed on thick Dutch (Van Gelder) hand-made paper; and
issued in pale green paper wrappers, lettered " The Jubilee'" upon
the centre of the front cover. Twenty-five copies only are reported
to have been printed. One of these is in the British Museum.
The Jubilee also appeared in The Nineteenth Century, vol. xxi, June
1 887, pp. 781-791-
I* Reprinted — under the amended title of " The Commonweal, 1887"
— in Poems and Ballads, Third Series, 1889, pp. 7-23.
342 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(33-)
[GATHERED SONGS : 1887.]
Gathered Songs / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne /
London / Charles Ottley, Landon, & Co. / 1887.
Collation : — Small quarto, pp. 34 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse) pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4 ; Table of Contents (with blank reverse),
pp. 5-6; and Text pp. 5-34. There are head-lines
throughout, each page being headed with the title of the
poem occupying it. Immediately succeeding the text is
a leaf having the following imprint upon its recto :
"T. Rignall, Printer, Whitefriars, July, 1887."
Printed on Dutch ( Van Gelder) hand-made paper ; and issued in
pale green paper wrappers, lettered " Gathered Songs " upon the
centre of the front cover.
In a copy of the last issue of the late Richard Herne Shep-
herd's Bibliography of Swinburne (published by George Redway
in the Spring of 1877), corrected in manuscript with a view to the
production of a revised and enlarged edition, is a statement that
" twenty-five copies only of this book have been printed. They
are not offered for sale."
Contents.
PP.
The Commonweal 7 — 16
Previously printed in The Times, Thursday, July \st, 1886, p. 9, col. 5.
[Not reprinted in any later collected volume.]
The Interpreters 17—21
Previously printed in The English Illustrated Magazine, vol. iii., October, 1885,
PP- 3-4-
Reprinted in Poems and Ballads, Third Series, 1889, pp. 112-115.
In a Garden 23—27
cviously printed in The English Illustrated Magazine, vol. iv., December, 1886,
pp. 131-132.
printed in Poems and Ballads, Third Series, 1889, pp. 83-84.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 343
PP.
A Ballad of Bath 29—34
Previously printed in The English Illustrated Magazine, vol. iv., February, 1887,
PP- 37I-372-
Reprinted in Poems and Ballads, Third Series, 1889, pp. 80-82.
Each poem is preceded by a Fly-title (with blank reverse) which is included
in the pagination.
(34.)
[UNPUBLISHED VERSES : 1888.]
Unpublished Verses / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne /
[1866 1].
Collation ; — Octavo, pp. iv ; consisting of Title, as above (with
blank reverse), pp. i-ii ; and the Text of the Verses
(eighteen lines in all) pp. iii-iv.
These lines :
As the refluent sea-weed moves in the languid exuberant stream,
Stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea, frc.,
are certainly the work of Mr. Swinburne, and were written in or about
the year 1866. But the leaflet described above was not issued by
him ; neither was it printed with his authority or consent. It is a
simple piracy, and was printed at the instance of the late Richard
Herne Shepherd. The leaflet was offered for sale by Mr. Shepherd
at the price of 4^. 6d., he stating that only twelve copies had been
struck off. This statement was entirely untrue. The number printed
must have been considerable, as not only did the leaflet figure in the
catalogues of more than twelve booksellers within a few weeks of the
date of its issue, but one firm of booksellers alone bought some thirty
copies at half-a-crown each, upon the understanding that these con-
stituted the entire remainder.
But, as with his pirated editions of Tennyson's Lovers Tale, &c., so
with Mr. Swinburne's Verses. No sooner had the stock of copies in his
hands become exhausted, than he reprinted the leaflet in facsimile,
1 This very misleading date upon the title-page of the leaflet signifies that
the Verses were written in 1 866, not that they were published in that year.
They were printed and circulated in March 1888.
344 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
and was thus enabled to continue to supply copies of it to any would-be
buyer, the price gradually falling to 6d., and even 4^., per copy. One
gentleman still holds a parcel of something like sixty copies which he
bought from Mr. Shepherd for twenty-five shillings, Mr. Shepherd
having pressed him to purchase them as a favour to himself.
There need be no difficulty in detecting the difference between copies
of the two printings of these Verses : the name Algernon Charles
Swinburne upon the first page measures exactly two inches in the first
issued leaflet ; in the reprint they measure two inches and three-eighths.
But as the whole thing is a worthless piracy, and neither issue is of the
smallest pecuniary value, it matters but little which variety one may
chance to possess.
The Manuscript of the Verses is still extant, and was quite recently
in the market.
(35-)
[THE BRIDE'S TRAGEDY: 1889.]
The / Bride's Tragedy. / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne, / London: Printed Privately: 1889.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 1 5 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4; and Text pp. 5-15. The head-line is
The Bride's Tragedy throughout, on both sides of the
page.
Issued in plain paper wrappers, of a pale buff colour. Printed
upon hand-made paper, uniform with The Ballad of Dead Men's
Bay.
Also printed in The Athenceum, No. 3202 (March qth, 1889), p. 311.
The Bride's Tragedy was afterwards included in Poems and Ballads,
Third Series, 1889, pp. 160-166.
(36.)
- [THE BALLAD OF DEAD MEN'S BAY: 1889.]
The Ballad / of / Dead Men's Bay. / By / Algernon Charles
Swinburne. / London: / Printed Privately : 1889.
Swinburne's The Bride's Tragedy.
From a copy of the original in the possession of Mr. Thos. J. Wise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 345
Collation: — Post octavo, pp. 14; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4; and Text pp. 5-14. The head-line
throughout is : The Ballad of / Dead Men's Bay. There
is an imprint: " Printed Privately: 1889," at the foot of
the last page.
Issued in paper wrappers, of a pale buff colour, with the title-page
reproduced upon the front. There is a copy in the British
Museum.
The Ballad -was also printed in The Athenceum, No. 3229 (September
\tfh, 1889), pp. 352-353.
Afterwards included in Astrophel, and other Poems, 1894, pp.
214-221.
(37-)
[THE BROTHERS : 1889.]
The / Brothers. / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne. /
Printed: 1889.
Collation : — Post octavo, pp. 8 ; consisting of Half-title (with blank
reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank reverse),
pp. 3-4 ; and Text pp. 5-8. There are no head-lines, the
pages being numbered centrally. There is also no imprint.
Issued in plain thin blue paper wrappers.
The Brothers first appeared in The People, No. 428, for December
•2-znd, 1889. It was afterwards included in Astrophel, and other Poems,
1894, pp. 204-209. The separate edition, described above, is an
exceedingly rough and unsightly production. It was printed at the
newspaper office from the types of The People. A few copies only
were so struck off, and distributed privately. One of these copies is
in the British Museum.
(38.)
[A SEQUENCE OF SONNETS : 1890.]
A Sequence of Sonnets / on the Death of Robert Browning
346 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
By / A. C. Swinburne / London / Printed for Private
Circulation / MDCCCXC.
Collation: — Square octavo, pp. 13; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4 ; Prefatory Note (with blank reverse), pp.
5-6 ;* and Text pp. 7-13. The head-line is A Sequence of
Sonnets throughout, on both sides of the page. There is
no imprint.
Issued in dark slate coloured paper wrappers, with the title-page
reproduced upon the front.
These Sonnets also appeared in The Fortnightly Review for
January, 1890. They were afterwards reprinted in Astrophel, and
other Poems, 1894, pp. 136-142. There is a copy of the pamphlet in
the British Museum.
Robert Browning died at Asolo on December I2th, 1889.
* This Prefatory Note states that " A few copies only have been printed in
this separate form more befitting the occasion." It may safely be prophesied
that these "few copies," forming as they do a connecting link between two of
the foremost poets of the age, will at no distant date prove to occupy a con-
spicuous position in the list of modern poetical rarities.
(39-)
[THE BALLAD OF BULGARIE : 1893.]
The / Ballad of Bulgarie / By / Algernon Charles Swin-
burne / London / Printed for Private Circulation /
MDCCCXCIII.
Collation: — Post octavo, pp. 15; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; leaf with blank recto, and with a
portrait of the poet (to face the Title-page) upon the
reverse, pp. 3-4 ; Title-page, as above (with blank reverse),
pp. 5-6 ; leaf with a Note upon its recto, and blank
reverse, pp. 7-8 ; and Text pp. 9-15. There is no imprint.
The head-line is The Ballad of Bulgarie throughout
upon both sides of the page.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 347
Issued in plain paper wrappers, of a pale orange colour.
The Ballad of Bulgarie appeared only in the private pamphlet here
described. It has never been reprinted in any shape or form, and
it is in the highest degree improbable that it ever will be revived. The
following lines, extracted as a specimen of the Ballad, will therefore be
of interest : —
The gentle Knight, Sir John de Bright,
(Of Brummagemnte was he^
Forth would he prance with lifted lance
For love of Bulgarie,
No lance in hand for the other land,
Sir Bright would ever take ;
For wicked works, save those of Turks,
No head of man would break;
But that Bulgarie should not be free,
This made his high heart quake.
From spur to plume a star of doom,
(Few knights be like to him,)
How shone from far that stormy star,
His basnet broad of brim !
' Twos not for love of Cant above,
Nor Cotton 's holy call,
But a lance would he break for Bulgary's sake,
And Termagant should sprawl.
The mother-maid, Our Lady of Trade,
His spurs on heel she bound,
She belted the brand for his knightly hand,
Full wide the silk went round;
And the brand was bright as his name, to smite
The spawn of false Mahound.
His basnet broad that all men awed
No broader was to see,
From brim to brim that shadowed him
As forth to fight rode he,
South-east by south, with his war-cry in mouth,
" St. John for Bulgarie ! "
***#***
348 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
Ha! Beauseant! said Sir Bright ', Gods Bread!
And by God's mother dear!
By my halidom / nay, I might add, perfay !
What catiff wights be here f
The? Sir Thomas look black and Sir William go back
What tongue is mine to wag
By the help of our Lady, the' matters look shady,
It shall Jight for the Red Cross flag;
Shout, gentlemen, for sweet Saint Penn !
Up, gallants, for Saint George !
(His name in his day was Fox, by the way)
Till the P ay nim fiend disgorge,
Till he loosen his hold of the shrines of old
That yet his clutch is on,
Till the Sepulchre Blest by our arms repossessed,
As soon as his own shall be gone,
And the mount of night that Olivet bright,
Strike, strike for Sweet Saint John!
The prefatory Note reads thus : — The following lines -were sent by Mr.
Swinburne to an evening newspaper in December, 1876, but withheld from
publication. They are here printed from the poefs manuscript without the
slightest emendation, either in punctuation or any other matter.
A copy of this interesting booklet is preserved in the British
Museum. Another is included in the important collection of Mr-
Swinburne's writings possessed by Mr. Edmund Gosse, and is duly
described (p. 172), in the beautiful Catalogue of his Library.
(40.)
[GRACE DARLING: 1893.]
Grace Darling / By / Algernon Charles Swinburne /
London / Printed only for Private Circulation / 1893.
Collation : — Post quarto, pp. 20 ; consisting of Half-title (with
blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4 ; Certificate of Issue (with blank reverse),
pp. 5-6; Dedication to Grace Darling, in four lines of
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 349
verse (with blank reverse), pp. 7-8 ; and Text pp. 9-20.
The head-line is Grace Darling throughout, upon both
sides of the page. Facing the last page is a leaf with the
following imprint upon its recto : '•'•London: / " Printed by
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, / Bread Street Hill, and
Bungay, Suffolk. / 1893."
Issued in white ' Japanese Vellum ' boards, lettered in gilt up
the back : " Grace Darling — A, C. Swinburne — 1893." Thirty
copies only were printed upon Whatman's hand-made paper, and
three upon fine Vellum.
Grace Darling also appeared in the Summer number of The Illus-
trated London News (June 1893), pp. 1-4, accompanied by six
illustrations. The poem was reprinted in A strophe I, and other Poems,
1894, pp. 69-79.
350 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
PART IL
UNCOLLECTED CONTRIBUTIONS TO
PERIODICAL LITERATURE.
The Editors of " Literary Anecdotes" can hardly suppose that they have
succeeded in tracing every one of Mr. Swinburne's uncollected fugitive -writings ;
they would therefore be grateful for a note of any item which may chance to be
absent from the following list.
w
Prater's Magazine, Vol. xxxix, No. 231, March 1849, p. 258.
STANZAS. (" Where shall I follow thee, wild floating
Symphony ?") [Four stanzas, 16 lines in all.]
(2.)
Eraser's Magazine, Vol. xxxix, No. 233, May 1849, p. 544.
LINES. (" To struggle when Hope is banished"} [Six
stanzas, 24 lines in all.]
(3-)
Eraser's Magazine, Vol. xliii, No. 253, January 1851, p. 15.
STANZAS. (" Oh ! sing no Song of a joyous mood"}
[Three stanzas, 27 lines in all.]
(40
Eraser's Magazine, Vol. liii, No. 3i8,/««£ 1856, p. 631.
PEACE. (" Peace, Peace ! How soon shall we forget")
[Six stanzas, 24 lines in all.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 351
(5-)
The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, Edited by John
Francis Waller, LL.D., London, 1857, p. 979.
WILLIAM CONGREVE. [Prose article.]
(6-)
The Spectator, June 7th, 1862, pp. 632-633.
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR REGARDING MR. GEORGE
MEREDITH'S Modern Love.
Reprinted in George Meredith / Some Characteristics / By f Richard
Le Gallienne / . . . 1890, pp. xxiv-xxvii.
(7-)
The Spectator, September 6th, 1862, pp. 998-1000.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE : Les Fleurs du Mai. [Prose
article.]
(8.)
The Royal Academy Catalogue, 1865, p. 20.
GENTLE SPRING. [A Sonnet— 14 lines.]
O virgin mother ! of gentle days and nights. &c.
Written to accompany a picture by Frederick Sandys, bearing
that title, included in the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1865.
(9-)
The Children of the Chapel. A Tale. By the Author of The Chorister
Brothers, Mark Dennis, etc. [Miss Gordon = Mrs. Disney Leith.]
. . . London: 1864. [Second Edition, 1865.]
Most of the fragments of verse scattered throughout the pages
of this volume were by Mr. Swinburne, particularly the lengthy
poem of 38 lines (pp. 104-105), commencing :
Your mouths were hot -with meat, your lips were
sweet with ivine,
There was gold upon your feet, on your heads
was gold most fine.
352 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
The other long poem (pp. 61-63) commencing :
I am mickle of might,
I am seemly of sight,
My name is Vain Delight
If ye would know :
is not the work of Mr. Swinburne.
Mr. Swinburne's poems have never appeared elsewhere than in
the two editions of this little book.
(10.)
Report of the Seventy-seventh Anniversary Dinner of the Royal Literary
Fund, 1866, p. 27.
SPEECH IN REPLY TO THE TOAST The Imaginative Liter-
ature of England.
The dinner was held at Willis's Rooms, on Wednesday, May
2nd, 1866.
(II.)
The Athenceum, October ^th, 1869, p. 463.
EDITORS SUB-EDITED.
A letter, signed and dated, disavowing the authorship of a note
on p. 1 50 of Christabel and the Lyrical and Imaginative Poems of
S. T. Coleridge, Arranged and Introduced by A. C. Swinburne,
London, 1869.
(12.)
The Daily Telegraph, Friday, October "22nd, 1869, p. 5, col. 6.
VICTOR HUGO AND ENGLISH ANONYMS.
A letter to the Editor, signed and dated, criticising a review of
the writer's Victor Hugo : " L'Homme qui Rit," which had
appeared in The Times for October i^th, 1869.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 353
(I3-)
The Dark Blue, Vol i, No. *>,July 1871, pp. 568-577.
SIMEON SOLOMON : Notes on his Vision of Love, and
other studies.
/
(I4-)
The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xii, New Series, December 1872, pp.
751-753-
MR. JOHN NICHOL'S Hannibal: A Historical Drama.
[Prose article.]
(I5-)
The Spectator, May ^\st, 1873, p. 697.
MR. SWINBURNE'S SONNETS IN The Examiner.
A letter, signed and dated, addressed to the Editor of The
Spectator.
(16.)
The Examiner, June *jth, 1873, PP- 585-586.
CHRISTIANITY AND IMPERIALISM. [Prose article.]
The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xvii, New Series, February 1875, pp.
217-232.
AN UNKNOWN POET.
An account of Charles Wells, and his dramatic Poem Joseph
and his Brethren.
This article was inserted as an Introduction to the 1876 reprint
of Joseph and his Brethren, the extracts only being omitted
[See post, No. 29.]
A A
354 A CONTRIBUTION 70 THE
(18.)
The Examiner, April \Qth, 1875, P- 4°8-
MR. SWINBURNE AND HIS CRITICS.
A letter, signed and dated, to the Editor of The Examiner.
The Athencsum, No. 2483, May igth, 1875, p. 720.
THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE.
A letter, signed, and dated " 3, Great James Street, May 26,
1875," addressed to the Editor of The Athenizum.
A vigorous protest against the action of The Society for the
Suppression of Vice in regard to an edition of Rabelais published
by Messrs. Chatto and Windus.
(20.)
Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, Vol. iii, Edinburgh, 1875,
pp. 469-474.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. [Prose article.]
(21.)
The Examiner, November 2oth, 1875, p. 1304.
EPITAPH ON A SLANDERER. [One stanza of 4 lines.]
He whose heart and soul and tongue
Once above-ground stunk and stung,
Now, less noisome than before,
Stinks here still, but stings no more.
'
(22.)
The Works of George Chapman, 3 Vols., 1875, Vol. i, pp. ix-lxxi.
AN ESSAY ON THE POETICAL AND DRAMATIC WORKS
OF GEORGE CHAPMAN.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF S WINS URNE. 3 5 5
(23-)
The Examiner, December nth, 1875, p. 1388.
THE DEVIL'S DUE.
A letter (signed " Thomas Maitland? and dated " St. Kilda
December 28, 1875") regarding Mr. Robert Buchanan's pseu-
donymous attack in The Fleshly School of Poetry [then not yet
reissued under its author's name], and the Earl of Southesk's
Jonas Fisher.
It is said that concurrently with its appearance in the columns
of The Examiner, The Devil's Due was printed in pamphlet
form for private distribution, but was rigidly suppressed in
consequence of the unexpected result of the action for libel
brought by Mr. Robert Buchanan against Mr. P. A. Taylor,
M.P., the Proprietor of The Examiner. If such a pamphlet
does exist it must be of the utmost rarity, as no copy is known
to the Editors of Literary Anecdotes, who have instituted a
lengthy search in the hopes of finding a stray example. In any
case if printed at all it must have been distributed at the instance
of the Editor of The Examiner, as it was certainly not issued
upon Mr. Swinburne's initiative.
(24-)
The Athenceum, No. 2516, January l$th, 1876, p. 87.
A DISCOVERY.
A note, signed, ridiculing Mr. F. G. Fleay's article Who wrote
11 Henry VI"?
(25-)
The Academy, January \^th, 1876, pp. 53-55.
" KING HENRY VIII.," AND THE ORDEAL BY METRE.
A letter, signed and dated, addressed to the Editor of The
Academy.
A A 2
35$ A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(26.)
The Academy, January zgt/t, 1876, p. 98.
SIR HENRY TAYLOR'S LYRICS.
A letter, signed and dated, addressed to the Editor of Jhe
Academy.
(27-)
The Examiner, April 1st, 1876, pp. 381-383.
REPORT OF THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE
NEWEST SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY. [Prose article.]
(28.)
The Athenaum, No. 2533, May i^th, 1876, p. 664.
CHARLES LAMB'S LETTERS TO GODWIN.
A letter, signed, addressed to the Editor of The Athenceum, and
dated " 3, Great James Street, Bedford Row"
(29.)
Joseph and his Brethren. A Dramatic Poem, By Charles Wells,
London, 1876.
AN INTRODUCTION, BY A. C. SWINBURNE.
Reprinted from The Fortnightly Review, for February, 1875.
[See ante, No. 17.]
(30.)
The Academy, November z^th, 1876, p. 520.
MR. FORMAN'S EDITION OF SHELLEY. [Prose article.]
The Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, 1876, Vol. v, pp
396-397.
GEORGE CHAPMAN. [Prose article.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 357
(32.)
The Athentzum, No. 2570, January zyth, 1877, p. 117.
THE "ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE."
A letter, signed, but not dated, addressed to the Editor of The
AthencEum.
(33-)
7*he Athenaum^ No. 2574, February 24^, 1877, p. 257.
VICTOR HUGO: "LA SIESTE DE JEANNE."
A letter, signed, to the Editor of The Athenczum, dated
"February ijth, 1877."
(34-)
The Athenaum, No. 2576, March loth, 1877, pp. 319-320.
" BALLADS AND POEMS."
A letter, signed, refuting the statement that any of the pieces
originally published in the first edition of the first series of Poems
and Ballads had been suppressed. [See ante, pp. 312-313,
where this very decisive letter is given at length.]
(35-)
The Athenaum^ No. 2578, March 24*%, 1877, p. 383.
" POEMS AND BALLADS."
A second letter, signed, upon the same subject as the foregoing.
(36.)
The Athencsum, April itfh, 1877, pp. 481-482.
"THE COURT OF LOVE."
A letter, signed and dated, addressed to the Editor of The
Athenaum.
358 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(37-)
The Athenaum, No. 2590, June \6th, 1877, p. 768.
NOTE ON A QUESTION OF THE HOUR.
A signed protest against the publication of Zola's LAssommoir
in La Rtpublique des Lettres.
(38.)
Edgar Allan Poe : A Memorial Volume. By Sara Sigour-
ney Rice. 4to. Baltimore, 1877.
A letter, signed and dated, addressed to Miss Sara S. Rice.
The letter is given vs\ facsimile.
(39-)
The Pall Mall Gazette, July \*>th, 1877.
NOTE ON THE WORDS "irremeable" AND "perdurable."
(40.)
The Tatler, Vol. 2, August 2$th, to December 2gtA, 1877, pp. 13-15,
37-38,61-63,85-86, 109-111, I33-I35> i57-i6o, 181-183, 205-207,
229-231, 253-256, 277-280, 301-303, 325-327, 349-351, 373-376,
397-400, 421-425, 445-447-
A YEAR'S LETTERS. BY MRS. HORACE MANNERS.
A novel in Thirty Chapters (the story being related in the form
of Letters), together with a Prologue of Five Chapters. The
whole preceded by a prefatory letter " To the Author" the
ironical tone of which may be gathered from the following
extract : —
Dear Madam,
I have read your manuscript with due care and attention
and regret that 1 cannot but pass upon it a verdict anything but
favourable. A long sojourn in France, it appears to me, has
vitiated your principles and confused your judgtnent. Whatever
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 359
may be the case abroad, you must know that in England mar-
riages are usually prosperous ; that among us divorces are
unknown, and infidelities incomprehensible. The wives and
mothers of England are exempt, through some inscrutable and
infallible law of nature, from the errors to which women in
other countries are but too fatally liable. If I understand aright
the somewhat obscure drift of your work, you bring upon the
stage at least one married Englishwoman who prefers to her
husband another man. This may happen on the Continent : in
England it cannot happen. You are not, perhaps, aware that
some years since it was proposed to establish among us a Divorce
Court. In a very few months it collapsed, amid the jeers and
hoots of a Christian and matrimonial people. There were no
cases to be tried. England passed through the furnace of this
experiment, and came out pure. Tested by the final and inevit-
able verdict of public opinion, the Divorce Court was found
superfluous and impertinent. Look in the English papers and
you will see no reports, no trials, no debates on this subject.
Marriage in England is indissoluble, is sacred, is fortunate in
every instance. Only a few pet verse and fanciful persons still
venture to imagine or suggest that a British household can be
other than the chosen home of constancy and felicity. ... /
recommend you, therefore, to suppress, or even to destroy, this
book, for two reasons : it is a false picture of domestic life in
England, because it suggests as possible the chance that a mar-
ried lady may prefer some stranger to her husband, which is
palpably and demonstrably absurd. It is also, as far as I can
see, deficient in purpose and significance. Morality, I need not
add, is the soul of art ; a picture, a poem, or story must be judged
by the lesson it conveys. If it strengthens our hold upon fact, if
it heightens our love of tntth, if it rekindles our ardour for the
right, it is admissible as good; if not, what shall we say of it?
I remain Madam,
yours sincerely,
********
Buried in Chapter xx (p. 326 of The Tatler) is the following set
of verses, not elsewhere printed : —
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
I.
Fair face, fair head, and goodly gentle brows,
Sweet beyond speech and bitter beyond measure ;
A thing to make all -vile things -virtuous,
Fill fear with force andpairis heart's blood with pleasure ,
Unto thy love my love takes flight, and flying
Between thy lips alights and falls to sighing.
II.
Breathe, and my soul spreads wing upon thy breath ;
Withhold it, in thy breath's restraint I perish ;
Sith life indeed is life, and death is death,
As thou shalt choose to chasten them or cherish;
As thou shalt please ; for what is good in these
Except they fall and flower as thou shalt please ?
HI.
Day's eye, spring 's forehead, pearl above pearls' price,
Hi<te me in thee where sweeter things are hidden,
Between the rose-roots and the roots of spice,
Where no man walks but holds his foot forbidden ;
Where summer snow, in August apple-closes,
Nor frays the fruit nor ravishes the roses.
Yea, life is life, for thou hast life in sight ;
And death is death, for thou and death are parted.
I love thee not for love of my delight,
But for thy praise, to make thee holy-hearted;
Praise is love's raimenl, love the body of praise,
The topmost leaf and chap let of his days.
V.
I love thee not for love's sake, nor for mine
Nor for thy souFs sake merely, nor thy beauty s;
But for that honour in me which is thine,
To make men praise me for my loving duties;
Seeing neither death nor earth nor time shall cover
The soul that lived on love of such a lover.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE, 361
VI.
So shall thy praise be more than all it is,
As thou art tender and of piteous fashion.
Not that I bid thee stoop to pluck my kiss,
Too pale a fruit for thy red moutKs compassion;
But till love turn my soul's pale cheeks to red,
Let it not go down to the dusty dead.
(4L)
The Athenceum, No. 2611, November loth, 1877, p. 597.
LAST WORDS OF THE ' AGAMEMNON.'
A letter to the Editor of The Athenczum, signed but not dated,
regarding Robert Browning's translation of the Agamemnon.
(42.)
The Athenaum, No. 2623, February ind, 1878, p. 156.
•LOVE, DEATH, AND REPUTATION.'
A note, signed, regarding one of the pieces in Charles and
Mary Lamb's Poetry for Children — which piece Mr. Swinburne
shows to be merely a rhymed version of a passage in Webster's
Duchess of Malfi.
(430
The Athenceum, No. 2624, February gth, 1878.
NOTE ON A PASSAGE OF SHELLEY,
i.e., Prometheus Unbound, Act 3, Scene I, lines 40-41.
" Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw
Into a dew with poison?
(440
The Academy, January loth, 1880, p. 28.
MR. SWINBURNE'S "STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE."
A letter, signed, and dated "January ^rd, 1880," addressed to
362 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
the Editor of The Academy, regarding Prof. Dowden's criticism
of Mr. Swinburne's Study of Shakespeare.
(45-)
The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xxvii, New Series, June 1 880,
pp. 761-768.
VICTOR HUGO: "RELIGIONS ET RELIGION." [Prose
article.]
(46.)
The Academy, No. 426, July yd, 1880, p. 9.
A letter, signed, addressed to the Editor of The Academy, and
dated "June -2.6th, 1880."
(47.)
T/te Pall Mall Gazette, December 6th, 1880.
ON A PASSAGE IN LORD BEACONSFIELD'S "£NDY-
MION." [Prose Note, in French.]
Reprinted from Le Rappel.
(48.)
The Academy, January \$th, 1881.
MR. SWINBURNE'S NEW VOLUME.
A note on the misquotation, by The Academy reviewer, of a
passage in Studies in Song.
(49-)
Le Rappel, Paris, Fevrier 19, 1881.
THOMAS CARLYLE.
A letter in French, signed and dated, addressed to the Editor
of Le Rappel.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 363
(50.)
The Athenceum, No. 2,808, August zoth, 1881, pp. 238-239.
SEVEN YEARS OLD. [Seven stanzas, 49 lines in all.]
The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xxx, No. clxxx, New Series, December
1881, pp. 715-717.
DISGUST : A Dramatic Monologue. [Twelve stanzas, 66
lines in all.]
A parody of Lord Tennyson's Despair : a Dramatic Monologue,
which had appeared in The Nineteenth Century for November,
1881.
Disgust has never been reprinted in any shape or form.
(52.)
The Athenaum, No. 2889, March \Qth, 1883, p. 314.
A COINCIDENCE.
A letter, signed, to the Editor of The Athentzum, regarding
Mr. A. H. Bullen's edition of the tragedy of Sir John van Olden
Bamavelt.
(53-)
Le Rappel, Paris, Lundi 26 Mars, 1883.
LA QUESTION IRLANDAISE.
A letter, in French, signed "***,» and dated " Londres, 21
Mars, 1883."
(54-)
Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, Vol. xv, Edinburgh,
1883, pp. 556-558.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOW. [Prose article.]
364 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(55-)
Pall Mall Gazette, December 2%th, 1883, p. 3.
A letter to the Editor denying the authorship of, and also all
knowledge of, the poem Dolorida, which had been ascribed to
him in a recent issue of the Pall Mall. [See post, p. 374, where
this highly important letter is given in full.]
(560
The Spectator, March zgtk, 1884, p. 411.
Ditto April $th, 1884, p. 441.
Ditto April \2th, 1884, p. 486.
Ditto April 26th, 1884, p. 550.
STEELE OR CONGREVE?
Four letters, each signed and dated, addressed to the Editor of
The Spectator.
(57-)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xix, January 1886, pp. 138-153.
THOMAS MIDDLETON. [Prose article.]
Reprinted, with some revisions, as an Introduction to Middleton
in " The Mermaid Series of the Best Plays of t he Old
Dramatists," 1887, pp. vii.-xxxviii. [See/0.r/, No. 71.]
(58-590
The Pall Mall Gazette, Vol. xliii, No. 6510, January 26*%, 1886,
pp. 1-2.
The Pall Mall Gazette, Vol. xliii, No. 6511, January 27^, 1886, p. 2.
THE BEST HUNDRED BOOKS.
Two signed letters by Mr. Swinburne, in addition to the list of
a hundred books.
Also printed in Pall Mall Gazette "Extra? No. 24, The Best
Hundred Books, pp. 9-10.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 365
(60.)
The Nineteenth Century ', Vol. xix,June 1886, pp. 861-881
JOHN WEBSTER. [Prose article.]
(61.)
The Athenceum, No. 3080, November 6th, 1886, pp. 600-601.
THE LITERARY RECORD OF The Quarterly Review.
A letter addressed to the Editor of The Athenceum, signed, and
dated '•'•November 1st, 1886."
(62.)
The Athenceum, No. 3082, November zoth, 1886, p. 671.
THE LITERARY RECORD OF The Quarterly Review.
A second letter, upon the same subject as the foregoing,
addressed to the Editor of The Athenceum, signed, and dated
"November \-tfh, 1886."
(630
Sultan Stork, and other Stories and Sketches by William Makepeace
Thackeray, London, 1887 [published December 1886], pp. vii. and viii.
THACKERAY AND Frasers Magazine.
Two letters, signed and dated.
(64.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxi, No. 119, January 1887,
pp. 81-103.
THOMAS DEKKER. [Prose article.]
(65)
The Athenceum, February igth, 1887, p. 257.
PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. (Dated "February \$th,
1887.") [A sonnet — 14 lines.]
66
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(66.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxi, March 1887, pp. 415-427.
CYRIL TOURNEUR. [Prose article.]
(67.)
The Times, Friday, May 6th, 1887.
A RETROSPECT.
A letter, signed and dated, addressed to the Editor of The
Times.
(68.)
The St. James's Gazette, Friday, May 6th, 1887, p. 5.
UNIONISM AND CRIME.
A letter, signed, " A Gladstonite? addressed to the Editor of
The St. James's Gazette.
(69.)
The Times, Wednesday, May nth, 1887, p. 14, col. 5.
MAZZINI AND THE UNION.
A letter, signed and dated, addressed to the Editor of The
Times.
" Epipsychidion," by Percy Bysshe Shelley ; with an Introduction
by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A., 1887, pp. Ixi-lxvi.
NOTE ON Epipsychidion. By Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Reprinted, with revisions, from Essays and Studies, 1875, pp.
229-230.
(71.)
The " Mermaid Series " of the Best Plays of the Old Dramatists,
Edited by Havelock Ellis. Thomas Middleton, 1887, pp. vii.-xxxviii.
INTRODUCTION, by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Reprinted, with some amount of revision, from The Nineteenth
Century, Vol. xix, January 1886, pp. 138-153. [See ante,
No. 57.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 367
(72.)
The Athenczum, December ijth, 1887.
MAY, 1885. [Three stanzas, 1 1 lines in all.]
(73-)
The Nineteenth Century, No. 131, January 1888, pp. 127-129.
DETHRONING TENNYSON. A contribution to the Tenny-
son-Darwin controversy. [Prose article.]
(74-)
The Nineteenth Century, No. 134, April 1888, pp. 603-616.
BEN JONSON. [Prose article.]
(75-)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxiv, No. 140, October 1888,
PP- 531-547-
JOHN MARSTON. [Prose article.]
(76.)
The Athenaum, No. 3216, June i$th, 1889, p. 758.
GIORDANO BRUNO. Tune 9th, 1889. [Two sonnets, 28
lines.]
(77-)
The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xlvi, New Series, No. cclxxi,
July ist, 1889, pp. 1-23.
PHILIP MASSINGER. [Prose article.]
(78.)
The St. James's Gazette, Vol. xix, No. 2844, Thursday, July i8th
1889, p. 7.
THE BALLAD OF TRUTHFUL CHARLES.* [Four stanzas
28 lines in all.]
* Charles Stewart Parnell.
368 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(790
The Pall Mall Gazette, September 2tfh, 1889, p. 4.
VICTOR HUGO AND MR. SWINBURNE.
A communication from the Rev. H. R. Haweis so entitled,
containing, inter alia, a letter from Mr. Swinburne to Mr.
Haweis, dated " Holmwood, February i^th, 1870."
(80.)
The Athenceum, No. 3267, June 7th, 1890, p. 736.
BEATRICE. [A Sonnet — 14 lines.]
(81.)
The Fortnightly Review, Vol. xlviii, New Series, No. cclxxxiv,
August 1890, pp. 165-167.
RUSSIA : AN ODE. Written after reading the account of
" Russian Prisons," in The Fortnightly Review for July
1890. [Three sections, 78 lines in all.]
(82.)
The Athenceum, No. 3329, August i$th, 1891, p. 224.
NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1889.* [A Sonnet — 14 lines.]
(830
The Fortnightly Review, No. cciv, New Series, April 1892,
pp. 500-507.
RICHARD BROME. [Prose article.]
"No Englishman will need to be reminded of the date on which West-
minster Abbey was honoured by the funeral of Robert Browning." — Note by
Mr. Swinburne, printed at the head of his Sonnet.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 369
(84.)
The Athenccum, No. 3,379, fuly y>th, 1892, p. 159.
THE CENTENARY OF SHELLEY, July 22, 1892. [A
sonnet — 14 lines.]
Widely reprinted by the contemporary daily and weekly press.
(85.)
The Fortnightly Review, Vol. Hi., No. cccxii., New Series,
December, 1892, pp. 830-833.
THE NEW TERROR. (A "protest against the issue of
posthumous falsehoods and blundering absurdities such as
disfigure the 'Autobiographical Notes of the Life of
William Bell Scott:")
(86.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxv, No. 205, March, 1894, pp.
523—524.
ELEGY. ("As a vesture shalt thou change them, said the
prophet"} [Seven stanzas, 56 lines in all.]
(87-)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxvi, No. -209, July, 1894, p. I.
CARNOT. [A Sonnet — 14 lines.]
(88.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxvi, No. 210, August, 1894,
pp. 3i5-3i°-
DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO (B.C. 280). Done into
English by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
VOL. II. B B
370 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(89.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxvi, No. 214, December, 1894,
pp. 1008 — 1010.
To A BABY KINSWOMAN. [Ninety lines.]
(90.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxvii, No. 216, February, 1895,
pp. 367-368.
A NEW YEAR'S EVE. (Christina Rossetti died December
2gt/i, 1894.) [Ten stanzas, 40 lines in all.]
(9I-)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxvii., No. 218, April, 1895,
pp. 646-656.
THE HISTORICAL AND CLASSICAL PLAYS OF THOMAS
HEYWOOD. [Prose article.]
(92.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxviii, No. 221, July, 1895, pp. 1-2.
CROMWELL'S STATUE.* [Eight stanzas, 32 lines in all.]
* Refused by the House of Commons on the \"]th of June, 1895.
(93-)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxviii, No. 223, September, 1895,
pp. 397-410.
THE ROMANTIC AND CONTEMPORARY PLAYS OF
HEYWOOD. [Prose article.]
(94-)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxviii, No. 225, November, 1895,
PP- 7I3-7H.
TRAFALGAR DAY. [Eight stanzas, 32 lines in all.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 371
(95-)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxix, No. 228, February, 1896
pp. 181-184.
ROBERT BURNS. [Eighteen stanzas, 108 lines in all.]
(96.)
Pall Mall Gazette, February 26th, 1896, pp. 1-2.
REMINISCENCE: LEIGHTON, BURTON, AND MRS. SAR-
TORIS. Vichy, September, 1869. [Nine stanzas, 63 lines
in all.]
" A light has passed that never shall pass away." &>c.
(97-)
The Pageant. Edited by C. Hazelwood Shannon, and J. W.
Gleeson White. London, 4to, 1896, p. i.
A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS. [Three stanzas, 1 1 lines in all.]
The volume also contains (p. 101) a full-page portrait of
Algernon Charles Swinburne — a chalk drawing by Will
Rothenstein.
(98.)
The Sketch, April ist, 1896.
A LETTER, addressed to Mr. Clement K. Shorter, regret-
ting the writer's inability to be present at the dinner of
the Omar Khayyam Club, held in March, 1886. The
letter was read aloud by the Chairman at the dinner in
question.
(99-)
The Athenceum,No. 3,581, June \^th, 1896, p. 779.
IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI. [Four stanzas, 16 lines
in all.]
B B 2
372
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
(100.)
The Athenaum, No. 3585, July nth, 1896, p. 64.
PROLOGUE TO "THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR
FAUSTUS." [Forty-eight lines.]
Recited on the Revival of Marlowe 's Play by the Elizabethan
Stage Society, July -2nd, 1896.
(101.)
The Daily Chronicle, March $isf, 1896, p. 3.
THE GOLDEN AGE.
A review of a work of fiction so entitled, by Mr. Kenneth
Grahame.
(102.)
The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xl, No. 235, September, 1896,
pp. 341-344-
THE HIGH OAKS: Barking Hall,/«/j/ 19, 1896. [Twelve
stanzas, 108 lines in all.]
*»* These verses were written for the birthday of the Author's mother.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE. 373
APPENDIX.
WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
INFELICIA. By Adah Isaacs Menken. London: 1868.
With engraved portrait, and numerous designs drawn
on wood by Alfred Concanen. I2mo., pp. viii+J4i.
During recent years it has been a more or less generally accepted
fact that Mr. Swinburne is the author of a considerable number of the
poems contained in the above volume. This, however, is not the
case. Mr. Swinburne is not to be held responsible for any one of the
thirty-one poems of which the book is composed.
In a copy of Infelicia which recently occurred for sale, the following
interesting letter addressed by Adah Menken to her publisher was
inserted : —
Dear Mr. Hotten,
How long to wait for the 'proofs.' You do not forget ? WJien
am I to see you ? When will you advertise the book ? Remember I ask
these questions merely from curiosity. The affair is all decidedly yours.
I am satisfied with all you have done except tJie portrait, I do not find it
to be in character with the volume. It looks affected. Perhaps I am a
little vain — all women are — but the picture is certainly not beautiful. I
have portraits that I think beautiful. I dare say they are not like me,
but I posed for them. Do tell me, man ami, can we not possibly have
another made ?
Your friend,
MENKEN.
Infelicia is a covetable book, were it only for its Dickens interes ;
but it has no place in a collection of the writings of Algernon Charles
Swinburne.
374 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWINBURNE.
(2.)
In the Album of Adah Menken [1883]. A doubled leaflet,
containing the following stanzas on pp. 3-4 (four lines on
each page) : —
DOLORIDA.
Combien de temps, dis, la belle,
Dis, veux-tu nfetrefidele ? —
Pour une nuit,pour unjour,
Mon amour.
1} Amour nous flatte et nous louche
Du doigt, de Fceil, de la bouche,
Pour un jour, pour une nuit,
Et Jenfuit.
The above lines are not by Mr. Swinburne. Not only has Mr.
Swinburne stated verbally that he did not write them, but the following
very emphatic letter addressed by him to the Editor of The Pall
Mall Gazette, and printed in that paper on December 2%th, 1883
(p. 3), places the matter beyond any possible doubt or question : —
" From ' The Pall Mall Gazette ' / derive the information that ' Mr.
A. C. Swinburne contributes ' Dolorida ' to a ^Christmas Annual*
entitled ' Walnuts and Wine? * This announcement I presume to be
a seasonable freak of jocose invention, and the contribution announced
to be simply an example of Christmas burlesque ; but in case any too
innocent reader should imagine it to be anything else, I may perhaps as
well mention that the annual and the editor, the contributor and the
contribution, are all alike unknown to your obedient servant."
If, as has been stated, these lines exist in Mr. Swinburne's auto-
graph, such ' autograph ' must be an impudent forgery.
The leaflet containing Dolorida was printed and sold by t;he late
Richard Herne Shepherd ; and, in addition to the lines being incor-
rectly attributed to Mr. Swinburne, the leaflet itself is a worthless
piracy. The number of copies printed must have been large, as con-
siderably more than a hundred can certainly be traced to-day.
* Walnuts and Wine : a Christmas Annual. Edited by Augustus M.
Moore. 1883. Dolorida appears on p. 3, accompanied by a translation in
English verse by George Moore.
-THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE.'
EMILY AUGUSTA PATMORE.
"THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE."
EMILY AUGUSTA PATMORE.
IN spite of a cheap edition of Coventry Patmore's most
popular poem, the lady of The Angel in the House must
still be classed among old-fashioned heroines. In days
when huge crinolines disfigured our English girls, when
hansom cabs were thought very improper for ladies'
use, when women's suffrage was only whispered about by
a few philosophers, and when many bright eyes were
dimmed by crying over Martin Tupper's pathetic plati-
tudes, a young lady's library was not complete without
The Angel in the House, Faithful for Ever, and The
Victories of Love. Very few of the present generation have
read these books, but they have seen the volumes in their
mother's boudoir, and they have heard enough of their old
repute to feel some interest in the woman who inspired them.
Emily Augusta Andrews was the fifth daughter and
eighth child of the Reverend Edward Andrews, D.D.,
Independent Minister. She was born on the 29th of
February, 1824, at Beresford House, Walworth, when her
father was at the height of his popularity as preacher in
Beresford Chapel. Her childhood was passed in the
378 " THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE?
pleasant house crowded with brothers and sisters, and
gently ruled by her invalid mother, Elizabeth Honor
Andrews, and by a kind old grandmother who thought the
universe existed for " the Doctor " and his belongings. A
large garden well-stocked with fruit and flowers was a
paradise for the children. The big chapel with its grand
organ and beautiful stained glass and altar pictures was
full of mystery. After dark the door between the house
and the great gallery was passed on tip-toe, and only
grown-up people dared to open it. On Sunday the awe
was overcome, and in holiday garb the children sat in the
family pew, to hear their father's voice as he read the finest
of the Church prayers, and preached in a style particularly
calculated to impress young people. Mrs. Andrews was
an accomplished musician, and always played the organ
herself. Years afterwards when our heroine had children
of her own, and her health was failing, the recollection of
the old home was so fascinating that she longed to return
to it, and was allowed to live for a time in a part of the
house which Dr. Andrews had built for the use of his
father-in-law, and which the then owners were willing to
let in apartments. It was not the same as the old home.
Parents were dead, and brothers and sisters scattered all
over the world. Strangers occupied the old rooms and the
dear old garden. New doctrines were preached in the
chapel. The organ was silent. The pictures were covered
with white cloths. Yet she preferred those lodgings to
any others, and stayed there as long as it was possible
to do so.
In 1830 Mrs. Andrews died, and the motherless little
" THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE." 379
girl was subsequently sent to a boarding-school in Walworth
where her younger sister Georgiana had been for some years.
Here she was very happy, and attended Beresford Chapel
with the rest of the school. After a short time she was
removed to Plaistow, where she lived with Dr. and Mrs.
Temple. Dr. Temple was a Nonconformist minister, and
Mrs. Temple, a beautiful and very gentle woman, was a
sister of Dr. Andrews. The neighbourhood and the formal
style of living were not so healthy as what she had been
accustomed to, and very soon Emily showed signs of a
consumptive tendency. In 1841 Dr. Andrews died, and the
care of his orphan children fell upon his eldest daughter,
Mrs. Charles Orme, who placed Emily, now eighteen years
•of age, with congenial people in the North of London,
where she was nominally governess, but really a friend of
the family. An enthusiastic friendship sprang up between
the young teacher and her pupils which lasted through life.
Mrs. Orme did not allow her sister to waste her youth in
monotonous occupations, although she was happy and well
cared for. In 1845 sne sent ner to Germany with Mrs.
Vigers, the sister of Laman Blanchard, the essayist and
poet. On her return from this tour she and Georgiana
were taken by Mrs. Orme to live with her as daughters of
the house and to find in their eldest sister a second mother.
Amongst the literary men whom Mrs. Orme delighted to
gather round her was the young poet Coventry Patmore
He had published a volume of poems in 1844, some of
which were afterwards republished with " Tamerton Church
Tower" in 1853. He and his two brothers, George and
Gurney, became constant visitors at the house.
38o " THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE."
At this time Emily Augusta Andrews was a very lovely
girl with great animation, the sweetest of tempers, and a
well-informed mind. Her figure was tall and graceful.
Her dark hair was thick and wavy, and her large eyes,
brilliant complexion and classical features were remark-
able. Her nose was a little too high, and after Thomas
Woolner had immortalised her in marble, Mrs. Thomas
Carlyle, with characteristic tartness, said she was always
trying to look like a medallion. She did not try to look
statuesque ; she could not help it. She would have been
more beautiful if the outline of her face had been less
marked.
In 1846 another continental tour was arranged with
Mrs. Vigers, but this time in France. From Dieppe they
went by diligence to Rouen, Paris, Versailles and Fontaine-
bleau, staying several weeks in each place, and seeing
something of French society. More than one young man
became the devoted admirer of English beauty, but Emily
Andrews returned heart whole from her wanderings. In
March, 1847, her relatives left the south of London for
Hampstead, and shortly afterwards Emily became engaged
to Coventry Patmore. They were married on the nth of
September, 1847, in the parish church of St. John's, Hamp-
stead, and spent their honeymoon, some of the incidents
of which are described in The Angel in tJie House, at
Hastings. Mr. Patmore held an appointment at the
British Museum, and he and his wife lived in various parts
of London at convenient distances from his work. Her
first three children were healthy, and she seemed to enjoy
her increasing domestic cares. She was full of energy and
" THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE? 381
originality, and could make her home beautiful by the
work of her own hands. " Everything in this house," she
said on one occasion, " has been done by these two little
hands." Her children's dresses, the decorations in her
rooms, the arrangement of her garden, her own picturesque
costumes, all were the result of careful thought and never-
flagging effort. Besides these home-duties and the ad-
ditional task of teaching her children, she often undertook
matters of greater responsibility. She was the authoress
of a little book on the management of servants, and of a
volume of verses similar in style to those by Jane Taylor.
Here is a specimen of her nursery songs, written down
just as she sang them to her own little ones : —
THE BUTTERFLY.
Tell me, little Butterfly, what you saw there in the sky ?
Would it always be as blue if I went as high as you ?
Tell me, do you ever go where the wind begins to blow,
Where the rain is kept, and where snow is made, and
angels are ?
Is it very strange to be up away so far from me ?
THE Cow.
Pretty Moo-cow, will you tell
Why you like the fields so well ?
You never pluck the daisies white,
Nor look up to the sky so bright ;
So tell me, Moo-cow, tell me true,
Are you happy when you moo ?
382 " THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE."
She also wrote Nursery Tales, and helped in editing the
Children's Garland, a collection of poems suitable for
children, published by Macmillan.
During all these years she was accustomed to visit and
to receive some of the most interesting men and women of
the day. Thackeray, Tennyson, Barry Cornwall, Monckton
Milnes, Mrs. Proctor, Miss Mulock, William Allingham,
and many more were intimately known to her, and were
attracted by her sympathetic nature. Others, such as
Cardinal Manning and Aubrey de Vere, she knew as
her husband's friends, but she could not approve their
influence. In her sturdy Protestantism she was like Lucy
Snowe in Villette, and made no secret of her opinions.
Amongst her own particular friends none were more valued
than the two beautiful daughters of Dr. and Mrs. Jackson,
Mary and Julia. Mary afterwards married the Rev. Her-
bert Fisher, and Julia was the second wife of Mr. Leslie
Stephen. They dressed in the straight folds, and with the
simple knot of hair approved by the pre-Raphaelite school
of artists, of which Mrs. Patmore was a faithful disciple.
For John Ruskin and his parents sat in the Beresford
Chapel, and she had known Woolner, F. G. Stephens,
Holman Hunt, John Brett, and John Millais, from her
girlhood. Amongst her simple pleasures the growing
popularity of these old friends was one of the most
valued.
Such a busy life gradually told on the fragile constitution,
and the old weakness which had first shown itself at Plaistow
was again apparent. Three younger children were born,
and she became more and more a confirmed invalid. The
" THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE." 383
brilliant literary society which had at one time been her
delight now wearied her, and she wanted to see only old
friends and relations. Her younger sister Georgiana, who
had married George Patmore, the brother of Coventry, and
had gone abroad, in two years returned to England a
widow, and was often staying with Emily trying to lighten
the burden of her life, and accompanying her to various
places in a hopeless search for health. At last the weary
traveller settled with her husband and family in a lovely
cottage at North End.Hampstead, near an old-fashioned inn
called the " Bull and Bush." The cottage belonged to the
late Mrs. Craik, then Dinah Mulock, and had a pretty garden
with a very large pear-tree. At first Mrs. Patmore was
strong enough to walk along the London-road to meet the
friends who came to see her. Then she contented herself
with the garden, and enjoyed sitting under the tree. When
the end was very near she could not leave her room, but
only heard the birds through her open window. Her
second boy, then being educated at Christ's Hospital, used
to visit her and sing the hymns she most loved — those that
had been favourites at Beresford Chapel. She died on the
5th of July, 1862, and was buried in Hendon Churchyard
at the spot selected by herself and her husband a few weeks
before her last attack of illness. Her six children survived
her, her eldest daughter Emily Honoria and her youngest
son Henry having since died.
Those who have heard of her husband and children
having entered the Roman Catholic Church since her death
may hastily suppose that her influence was not lasting,
and that the effect of her personal beauty and interesting
384
" THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE:
surroundings made people exaggerate her power. But those
who knew her best will not believe this. The beauty of
her life and the charm which her refined and intellectual
nature gave to the simplest domestic details converted
many to a belief in that higher standard of home, which is
now often taken for granted. She was the bright, poetical,
artistic wife, who dressed gracefully and rejoiced in her
good looks because they made others happy. At the same
time she was the practical wife, who strove to keep a bright
hearth without overstepping her income, and who under-
stood something of cooking and needlework. Her artistic
perception kept her from believing that nothing could be
beautiful unless it was costly, and her good sense preserved
her from the folly of expecting to satisfy a healthy
appetite from an empty blue china dish. Her influence for
good went far beyond her own little family circle. She
was always teaching by example, and there are many now
reaping the advantage of those silent lessons.
AN OLD COMMONPLACE BOOK
OF EDWARD FITZGERALD'S.
VOL. II. C C
AN OLD COMMONPLACE BOOK
OF EDWARD FITZGERALD'S.
IT is a long, thin book, with a marbled cover, worn
black leather back, and time-stained pages ; and it was
given to its present owner as waste paper, many years ago,
by a girl who lived at Farlingay, when Edward Fitzgerald
was constantly staying there. The water-mark in the
paper is 1831, no extract is dated until more than half-
way through, the last entry being made in 1840. Fitz-
gerald evidently carried it about with him, as entries are
made in different places, London — Boulge — Geldestone,
where his sister lived — Halverstown.
Of the large number of pages given up to extracts from
Bryant's Mythology, Wilkinson's Egyptians, Parson's Ac-
count of the Peopling of the World after the Flood, and
Testimonies of Great Authors concerning tJte Origin of the
Greeks, and of the Latin and Greek quotations, I cannot
speak. There are a few lines from Dante in the original,
and some French from Pascal's P ensues and the Annales de
Bourgogne. On the very first page Fitzgerald has copied
from an old Edinburgh Review for 1816 a crushing
C C 2
388 AN OLD COMMONPLACE BOOK
denunciation of " German Literature," which proceeds in
this way : —
" They write, not because they are full of a subject, but because they think
it is a subject upon which, with due pains and labour, something striking may
be written. So they read and meditate — and having, at length, devised some
strange and paradoxical view of the matter, they set about establishing it with
all their might and main. . . . They are universal undertakers, and complete
encyclopedists, in all moral and critical science. No question can come before
them but they have a large apparatus of logical and metaphysical principles
ready to play off upon it ; and the less they know of the subject, the more
formidable is the use they make of their apparatus. In poetry they have at
one time gone to the utmost lengths of violent effect, and then turned round
with equal extravagance to the laborious production of no effect at all. The
truth is that they are naturally a slow, heavy people, and can only be put in
motion by some violent and oft-repeated impulse, under the operation of which
they lose all command over themselves, and nothing can stop them, short of
the last absurdity," &c.
Further on, he admits into his pages " Margaret's Song
while she undresses herself" — in Hayward's Translation.
To turn to English. One set of quotations, from Hall's
Chronicles, and a work entitled Letters, &c., from the
Bodleian Library, London, 1813, consists of shrewd char-
acter sketches of such worthies as Cardinals Beaufort and
Wolsey, Prynne, James Harrington, and William Harvey,
who "was wont to say that man was but a great
mischievous baboon, and that the Turks were the only
people who knew how to manage women." Of this kind
are the quotations from the Annales de Bourgogne, and
there are also portraits of Baxter and Cranmer from Edin-
burgh Reviews. Fitzgerald seems to have been attracted
by any account or incident which displayed distinct traits
of character ; he has copied such from Crabbe's Life, Lock-
hart's Scott, and Thirlwall's Greece. There are only two
OF EDWARD FITZGERALD'S. 389
quotations from novels in the book, one from Joseph
Andrews, where Adams " strongly asserted there was no
such thing as pleasure in the world. At which Pamela
and her husband smiled on one another," and this from
Tremaine —
" ' I will have my revenge, however, like the stork,' continued Tremaine,
good-humouredly, ' for when Mr. Careless does me the honour to dine with
me at Woodington, he shall have nothing but kickshaws.'
" ' That's not the way I have been used to be treated at Woodington,'
rejoined Careless ; ' nor did I ever see there what I never thought I should
have lived to see at Lord Bellenden's, as I did t'other day. ' This he uttered
with a loud and long-drawn sigh.
' Pray what ? ' asked Tremaine.
' A round of beef sent to the sideboard,' added Careless.
' Monstrous ! ' remarked the Doctor.
' It will lose his brother the county,' said Careless, seriously.
: Tremaine stared, and remarked' ' that the county must be little worth
having if it depended upon that.'
" ' Why, what should it depend upon ? ' said Careless.
" 'I should have thought,' said Tremaine, drawing up, 'upon integrity of
character, sound principles of patriotism, and extensive connections. '
" ' Why, true,' answered Careless, ' but principles are best seen, I always
think, in manners and customs ; and if a person departs from the customs of
his ancestors, how do I know that he has not lost their principles too ? ' "
All this subtracted, what remains is, perhaps, of more
interest, because it is possible to gather from it, if partially
and obscurely, something of Edward Fitzgerald's habits of
thought at that time, as it is probable that he copied many
of the passages because they reflected some of his own
beliefs and feelings. With two or three exceptions, one
characteristic is common to all, including the poems,
namely, that they are chosen for the thought they convey,
and not for beauty of form or expression.
One of the first things of interest is a long catalogue of
390 AN OLD COMMONPLACE BOOK
collections of poetry, principally Elizabethan, from 1559 to
about 1680. Poems follow from some of these, particularly
from England's Helicon, England's Parnassus, Wit's Re-
creations, Churchyard's Jane Shore — "very fine" and W.
Browne. Their subjects are mostly either love and friend-
ship, or the freedom, and simple, natural delights of
country life. Among these, unnamed, are Herrick's charm-
ing lines beginning —
" Sweet country life, to such unknown,
Whose lives are others, not their own ! "
To one beautiful poem, " A Hymn for a Widower," from
G. Withers' Hallelujah, altered to suit his own case by the
second Earl of Bridgewater, "worthily recorded for his
deep love for his good wife," Fitzgerald appends this com-
ment : " Lord Bridgewater did as he had prayed to do, and
he left written upon his tomb that he had sorrowfully worn
out a widowhood of twenty-three years." It contains these
lines :
' ' Yet neither life nor death should end
The being of a faithfull friend. "
Fitzgerald had previously quoted from Montrose's " Song
to his Lady," its " golden law " —
" True love begun shall never end ;
Love one, and love no more."
He seems to have sympathised with such expressions of
romantic, passionate affection, and, bearing in mind his
statement to his correspondent, Allen, " My friendships are
more likes loves, I think," it is easy to believe that he found
OF EDWARD FITZGERALD'S. 391
in the beautiful passage on Perfect Love in the facsimile
the embodiment of his own secret creed.
From several passages, particularly from Owen Feltham
and Dr. Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth, one
conjectures that Fitzgerald had a haunting sense of Time's
continual speed, of the slipping from our grasp of day
after day, of the shortness and insecurity of life, brooding
over which gives such a feeling of unrest, and comes at
length to paralyse effort. It is this mood which finds
utterance, so despairing in E. A. Foe's " Dream Within a
Dream," so splendid in this passage of De Quincey's which
I copy from the Commonplace Book : —
"The English Country Dance was still in estimation at the Courts of
Princes. Now of all dances, this is the only one, as a class, of which you can
truly describe the motion to be continuous, that is, not intermitting or fitful,
but unfolding its fine magic with the equality of light in its diffusion through
free space. And the reader may comprehend, if he should not happen experi-
mentally to have felt, that a spectacle of young men and women flowing
through the mazes of such an intricate dance under a full volume of music,
taken with all the circumstantial adjuncts of such a scene in rich men's halls —
the blaze of lights and jewels, the life, the motion, the sea-like undulation of
heads, the interweaving of the figures, the self-revolving both of the dance and
of the music, never ending, still beginning, and the continual regeneration of
order upon a system of motions which seem for ever to approach the brink of
confusion ; that such a spectacle with such circumstances may happen to be
capable of exciting and sustaining the very grandest emotions of philosophic
melancholy to which the human mind is open. The reason is in part, that
such a scene presents a sort of masque of human life, with its whole equipage,
of pomps and glories, its luxury of sights and sounds, its hours of golden youth,
and the interminable revolution of ages hurrying after ages, and one generation
treading over the flying footsteps of the other : whilst all the while the over-
ruling music attempers the mind to the spectacle, the subject (as a German
would say) to the object, the beholder to the vision."
On the next page is another passage from De Quincey,
392
AN OLD COMMONPLACE ROOK
in which he speaks of the years in which he was a slave to
opium : —
" Years through which a shadow as of sad Eclipse sate and rested on my
faculties, years through which I was careless of all but those who lived
within my inner circle, within my heart of hearts ... as much abstracted
from all which concerned the world outside as though I had lived with the
darlings of my heart in the centre of Canadian forests, and all men else in the
centre of Hindostan."
In the Letters (p. 54) Fitzgerald writes to Bernard Bar-
ton: —
"I found here a number of Taifs Magazine for August last" (1839)
"containing a paper on Southey, Wordsworth, etc., by De Quincey. Incom-
plete and disproportioned like his other papers ; but containing two noble
passages, one on certain years of his own life when opium shut him out of the
world, the other on Southey's style."
Three closely-written pages are filled with sentences
from Owen Feltham, who seems to have been a favourite
writer of Fitzgerald's. The following is perhaps the
best : —
"Whatsoever is rare and passionate carries the soule to the thought of
Eternitie. And by Contemplation, gives it some glimpse of more absolute
perfection, than here 'tis capable of. When I see the Royaltie of a State-
show, at some unwonted Solemnitie, my thoughts present me something more
Royall than this. When I see the most enchanting beauties that earth can
shew mee, I yet thinke there is something farre more glorious ; methinkes I
see a kind of higher perfection peeping through the frailty of a face. When
I hear the ravishing straines of a sweet-tuned Voice, married to the Warbles
of the Artfull Instrument ; I apprehend by this a higher Diapason ; and doe
almost believe I hear a little Deity whispering through the pory substance of
the tongue. But this I can but grope after : I can neither finde, nor say,
what it is."
He occasionally adds a brief remark, such as : —
OF EDWARD FITZGERALD'S. 393
"The Essay on Poverty is very fine, teaching deep consideration for the
miseries and temptations of the poor."
This—
' ' He is twice an asse that is a Riming one. He is sometimes the less
unwise, that is unwise but in Prose" —
he calls " very acute." (I fancy I hear each Young Author
exclaim : ' " Let the galled jade wince : my withers are un-
wrung!"')
The remaining sentences consist mostly of maxims, such
as one might choose as a guide to conduct.
There are two quotations from Jeremy Taylor's Liberty
of Prophesying. In the first, Taylor says that he has
examined the reasoning of his book with all severity ;
yet, should he be found to be mistaken, that will be but
evidence in his defence, and a further argument for the
necessity of mutual toleration, if one so confident as he of
the truth and justice of his case can have been deceived.
The second is the passage which Hallam quotes as show-
ing Taylor's fearless mode of grappling with his argu-
ment : —
" Since no churches believe themselves infallible, that only excepted which
all other churches say is most of all deceived, it were strange if in so many
articles which make up their several bodies of confessions, they had not
mistaken in something or other."
Two more passages deal with religion. The first, from
Rowland Hill, on Prayer, breathes a spirit of sweet and
childlike trust in a Heavenly Father. The second, the last
in the book, and the last we shall quote, seems, from
394
AN OLD COMMONPLACE BOOK.
Fitzgerald's care in noting the exact time of writing, to
have been invested with special interest for him.
"DEEDS WITHOUT WORDS.
" ' One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to duty, is worth
all the mere good thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers, in which idle
people indulge themselves. It will give us more comfort on our death-bed to
reflect on one deed of self-denying mercy, purity, or humility, than to recollect
the shedding of many tears, and the recurrence of frequent transports, and
much spiritual exultation. These latter feelings come and go ; they may, or
may not, accompany hearty obedience ; they are never tests of it ; but good
actions are the fruits of faith and assure us that we are Christ's ; they comfort
us as an evidence of the Spirit working in us' (Newman's Paroch. Serm.t
vol. i., 218). Geldestone, April 26, 1840. Sunday evening, half-past nine
o'clock."
WILLIAM CORY.
WILLIAM CORY.
WILLIAM CORY, or to give him the earlier name by which
he is better known, William Johnson, was born about 1820
of an old Devonshire stock. From his father, formerly in
the navy, he inherited a fervid patriotism, which held
England to be the noblest and most generous of nursing
mothers.
He was educated as a King's scholar at Eton, and went
on in due course to King's College, Cambridge. At that
time Kingsmen were debarred by statute from entering for
the Tripos examinations. William Johnson, probably the
best man of his year, was awarded the Chancellor's medal
for an English poem in 1843, the Camden medal for a
Latin hexameter poem and the Craven Scholarship in
1844, became Fellow of King's, and shortly afterwards
went back to Eton as a master. Though pre-eminent as a
scholar and composer in Greek and Latin, he was also an
accurate and philosophical student in history and moral
science. Indeed, he was examiner at Cambridge for the
Moral Science Tripos in 1852 and 1853, arjd was offered,
we believe privately, the professorship of Modern History
in 1860, on the death of Sir James Stephen.
398 WILLIAM CORY.
To the general public he is best known as the author of
fonica, a volume of verse published in 1891. Most of
the poems, however, contained in this volume, together
with others omitted in publication, had already been
printed in 1858 and 1877, in two slender volumes under
the same title, and had for some years been fetching a
considerable price at book sales. The second of these
volumes is additionally curious from the fact that it con-
tains few capital letters and no stops, spaces being substi-
tuted. Of the additional poems, the imitations of Horace
had seen the light in magazines. The poems are
characterised by a culture and a refinement that require,
as it were, an initiation to understand. The book, being
what it is, could hardly hope to appeal to a wide circle.
Some selections from lonica appear in Ward's English
Poets. Still, his poetry was to him as a wdpepyov, as to
Heine, a sacred plaything. He never dignified it into a
vocation.
William Cory was the author in more recent years of
a book in two volumes, entitled A Guide to Modern
History. The book is brilliant but eccentric. Many
pages are mere strings of epigrammatic allusions ; it is the
kind of work that is impressive in quotations, but disap-
points further reference. Besides this, he contributed an
essay to a remarkable volume entitled Essays on a
Liberal Education, which contains essays by Professor
Henry Sidgwick, Professor Seeley, Archdeacon Farrar,
and others ; this is by far the most captivating and
characteristic expression of William Johnson's genius ; it
deals with the education of the reasoning faculties, but for
WILLIAM CORY. 399
its insight, poetry, and suggestiveness might be read with
pleasure by readers totally without technical interest in the
subject.
He contributed a few pages — the character of Dr. Haw-
trey — to Mr. Maxwell Lyte's History of Eton College, a
passage that deserves a place in any anthology of English
prose for its insight and pathos, its masterly delineation of
a complex character.
But it was as a teacher and a talker that William John-
son most impressed himself on his generation ; there are
many among a very distinguished roll of pupils, containing
such names as Lord Rosebery, Lord Halifax, Mr. Edward
Lyttelton, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, and Mr. Julian Sturgis
who attribute the first quickening not only of intellectual
life, but of serious enthusiasm, to him. Yet William
Johnson can hardly be described as a successful general
teacher ; in the first place he was not a good disciplinarian,
though, on the whole, dreaded by the boys for his powers
of penetrating irony. It was with a division of from fifty
to sixty boys, in a small and dingy room, that a teacher,
whose every third sentence was an epigram, whose lectures,
had they been delivered to a University audience, would
have attracted professed students and curious listeners
alike, spent deliberately and with enthusiasm the best
hours of the best years of his life.
Here, standing astride on his crooked yet sturdy legs, a
book held up close to his eye, he would comment, lecture,
question, to the perpetual delight and encouragement of
the few who were wise enough to feel what a teacher they
had, and sensible enough to secure seats close to him ; of
400 WILLIAM CORY.
what was going on in further corners of the room, as long
as the boys kept their peace, he was almost totally ignorant
occasionally flinging a book, the nearest volfime at hand,
if a boy was either flagrantly unoccupied or suspiciously
absorbed.
His short sight was almost phenomenal. The legend of
h s pursuing a black hen some way down Eton High-street
one day when a high wind was blowing, under the impres-
sion that it was his hat, which all the time was perched
securely on his head, is probably apocryphal, but certainly
characteristic.
He would watch the school cricket matches through
spectacles and eye-glasses (the spectacles themselves so
strong that no one else could stand them), with the added
aid of a binocular glass. For the games themselves, though
no athlete, he was an enthusiast, connected as they are so
closely with the spirit and honour of the school. " I cheer
the games I cannot play," he wrote in lonica ; and again
after a defeat in a gallantly-contested match at Lord's, in
an exquisite little poem, never published, but well known
to his contemporaries, he wrote —
" I'd rather have the lads that lost,
So they be lads like ours."
How to be patriotic without being insular, how to be
political without being local, was a constant pre-occupa-
tion. He was fond of quoting the law of Solon, which
punished with confiscation of property those who in a
political sedition could be proved to have taken neither side.
He grasped the paradoxical principle that human nature
WILLIAM CORY. 401
must be educated into sj'mpathy by antipathy, that party
spirit is the only guarantee for public spirit ; and it was
this feeling that gave him his intense interest in and
accurate knowledge of all English engagements by land
and sea. Once, it is related, an old soldier found his way
into William Johnson's pupil-room, which opened on to
the road, and began a whining tale about the battle of
Balaclava. " What regiment ?" said Johnson. " The I ith
Hussars." "What were you doing at 10.30 on the morn-
ing of the 25th — ? " The man thought for a moment and
then made a statement. "Right," said Johnson, and
handed him half a sovereign. The counterpart of the
story is that another tramp with a similar tale ventured
on the same experiment ; the same catechism ensued ; the
impostor faltered ; he was promptly ejected, with a sharp
physical reminder to tell the truth. Again, it is told of
him that he went to Plymouth to visit a friend in a man-
of-war. The sailors who were rowing the gig looked with
good-humoured contempt at the little landsman, wrapped
in a cloak, peering through his glasses at the great hulks
swinging on the tide ; but their feelings rapidly gave way
to respect, and respect to amazement, when it transpired
that the stranger not only knew the position in which
every one of the aforesaid hulks lay, but the engagements
they had seen, and the names of their commanders. His
pupils will not forget the face with which he would look
out into the street, when the " stately music of the Guards "
was going past : " Brats, the British Army ! " he would
say. But he was no mere Jingo sentimentalist. It was as
certain that Cory would take an original view of any
VOL. II. D D
4O2
WILLIAM CORY.
question as it was that ninety-nine out of a hundred people
would take the commonplace view. And yet he was saved
from being paradoxical by his extraordinary accuracy.
Never was any one so indomitable in an argument. He
had the facts at his fingers' ends, and withal all the down-
rightness and the humour of his great namesake ; but he
had not often to use the butt-end of the pistol, because the
pistol seldom missed fire.
In 1871 he left Eton, changing his name to Cory on his
accession to some small property, and lived for a while in
Devonshire, at his brother's estate of Halsdon, where he
also married ; his wife and only son survive him. We
may say in passing that his brother also changed his name
on succeeding to this property, from Johnson to Furse, and
is the well-known Canon of Westminster. For some years
he lived in Madeira, but latterly at Hampstead, in great
seclusion. His letters have all this time been treasured by
his friends. In these he gave himself profusely and in-
tently, but with delicate adaptation to his correspondent.
They would form probably the best memorial of a man of
whom his pupils and contemporaries say that they cannot
exaggerate the greatness of his ability, his genius, and his
loyalty. And yet he has hardly left a name.
THE SUPPRESSED WORKS OF
RUDYARD KIPLING.
D D 2
THE SUPPRESSED WORKS OF
RUDYARD KIPLING.
IT is happily not our business to record Mr. Kipling's
contributions to Indian journalism. Many of them have
not been reprinted — will never be reprinted. Two little
collections have been issued and suppressed. The first is
The City of Dreadful Night, a description of Calcutta,
which occupies eight chapters, and is followed by Among
the Railway Folk, The Gisidih Coal Fields, and In an Opium
Factory. This had a considerable circulation in this country
and in India before it was withdrawn. The other is entitled,
Letters of Marque, Vol. I., and was published after The
City of Dreadful Night. So far as we know, it was never
sold in this country, although it was circulated some weeks
in India. Both books were issued by the publishers in
perfect good faith while Mr. Kipling was on his travels, but
they were thought by the author and his friends too imma-
ture for separate publication. Many passages, however,
show the writer at his best, though the whole has evidently
been written currente calamo. From the Letters of Marque
we venture to make some extracts.
406 THE SUPPRESSED WORKS
THE TAJ.
There is a story of a Frenchman ' who feared not God
nor regarded man/ sailing to Egypt for the express pur-
pose of scoffing at the Pyramids and — though this is
hard to believe — at the great Napoleon who had warred
under their shadow ! It is on record that that blasphemous
Gaul came to the Great Pyramid and wept through mingled
reverence and contrition, for he sprang from an emotional
race. To understand his feelings, it is necessary to have
read a great deal too much about the Taj, its designs and
proportions, to have seen execrable pictures of it at the
Simla Fine Arts Exhibition, to have had its praises sung
by superior and travelled friends till the brain loathed the
repetition of the word, and then sulky with want of sleep,
heavy-eyed, unwashen and chilled, to come upon it sud-
denly. Under these circumstances everything, you will
concede, is in favour of a cold, critical, and not too impartial
verdict. As the Englishman leaned out of the carriage he
saw first an opal-tinted cloud on the horizon, and later cer-
tain towers. The mists lay on the ground, so that the
splendour seemed to be floating free of the earth ; and the
mists rose in the background, so that at no time could
everything be seen clearly. Then as the train sped forward,
and the mists shifted and the sun shone upon the mists, the
Taj took a hundred new shapes, each perfect and each
beyond description. It was the Ivory Gate through which
all good dreams come ; it was the realisation of the ' glim-
mering halls of dawn' that Tennyson sings of; it was
veritably the ' aspiration fixed,' the ' sigh made stone ' of a
OF RUDYARD KIPLING. 407
lesser poet ; and over and above concrete comparisons, it
seemed the embodiment of all things pure, all things holy,
and all things unhappy. That was the mystery of the
building. It may be that the mists wrought the witchery,
and that the Taj seen in the dry sunlight is only as guide-
books say a noble structure. The Englishman could not
tell, and has made a vow that he will never go nearer the
spot for fear of breaking the charm of the unearthly
pavilions.
" It may be, too, that each must view the Taj for himself
with his own eyes ; working out his own interpretations of
the sight. It is certain that no man can in cold blood and
colder ink set down his impressions if he has been in the
least moved.
" To the one who watched and wondered that November
morning the thing seemed full of sorrow — the sorrow of
the man who built it for the woman he loved, and the
sorrow of the workmen who died in the building — used up
like cattle. And in the face of this sorrow the Taj flushed
in the sunlight and was beautiful, after the beauty of a
woman who has done no wrong."
AMBER, QUEEN OF THE PASS.
" And what shall be said of Amber, Queen of the Pass
— the city that Jey Singh bade his people slough as snakes
cast their skins. The Globe-Trotter will assure you that
it must be 'done' before anything else, and the Globe-
Trotter is, for once, perfectly correct. Amber lies between
six and seven miles from Jeypore among the ' tumbled
408 THE SUPPRESSED WORKS
fragments of the hills,' and is reachable by so prosaic a
conveyance as a ticca-ghari, and so uncomfortable a one as
an elephant. He is provided by the Maharaja, and the
people who make India their prey, are apt to accept his
services as a matter of course.
" Rise very early in the morning, before the stars have
gone out, and drive through the sleeping city till the pave-
ment gives place to cactus and sand, and educational and
enlightened institutions to mile upon mile of semi-decayed
Hindu temples — brown and weather-beaten — running down
to the shores of the great Man Sagar Lake, wherein are
more ruined temples, palaces and fragments of causeways.
The water-birds have their homes in the half-submerged
arcades and the •mugger nuzzles the shafts of the pillars. It
is a fitting prelude to the desolation of Amber. Beyond
the Man Sagar the road of to-day climbs up-hill, and by
its side runs the huge stone-causeway of yesterday — blocks
sunk in concrete. Down this path the swords of Amber
went out to kill. A triple wall rings the city, and, at the
third gate, the road drops into the valley of Amber. In
the half light of dawn, a great city sunk between hills and
built round three sides of a lake is dimly visible, and one
waits to catch the hum that should rise from it as the day
breaks. The air in the valley is bitterly chill. With the
growing light Amber stands revealed, and the traveller sees
that it is a city that will never wake. A few meenas live in
huts at the end of the valley, but the temples, the shrines,
the palaces and the tiers on tiers of houses are desolate.
Trees grow in and split open the walls, the windows are
filled with brushwood, and the cactus chokes the street.
OF RUDYARD KIPLING. 409
The Englishman made his way up the side of the hill to
the great palace that overlooks everything except the red
fort of Jeighur, guardian of Amber. As the elephant
swung up the steep roads paved with stone and built out
on the sides of the hill, the Englishmen looked into empty
houses where the little grey squirrel sat and scratched its
ears. The peacock walked upon the house-tops and the
blue pigeon roosted within. He passed under iron-studded
gates whereof the hinges were eaten out with rust, and by
walls plumed and crowned with grass, and under more
gateways, till, at last, he reached the palace and came
suddenly into a great quadrangle where two blinded,
arrogant stallions, covered with red and gold trappings,
screamed and neighed at each other from opposite ends of
the vast space. . . .
" From the top of the palace you may read if you please
the Book of Ezekiel written in stone upon the hillside.
Coming up, the Englishman had seen the city from below
or on a level. He now looked into its very heart — the
heart that had ceased to beat. There was no sound of men
or cattle, or grindstones in those pitiful streets — nothing but
the cooing of the pigeons. At first it seemed that the
palace was not ruined at all — that presently the women
would come up on the house-tops and the bells would ring
in the temples. But as he attempted to follow with his eye
the turns of the streets, the Englishman saw that they died
out in wood tangle and blocks of fallen stone, and that
some of the houses were rent with great cracks, and
pierced from roof to road with holes that let in the morn-
ing sun. The drip-stones of the eaves were gap-toothed,
410 SUPPRESSED WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING.
and the tracery of the screens had fallen out, so that zenana
rooms lay shamelessly open to the day. On the outskirts
of the city, the strong walled houses dwindled and sank
down to mere stone-heaps and faint indications of plinth
and wall, hard to trace against the background of stony
soil. The shadow of the palace lay over two-thirds of the
city, and the trees deepened the shadow. ' He who has
bent him o'er the dead' after the hour of which Byron
sings, knows that the features of the man become blunted
as it were — the face begins to fade. The same hideous
look lies on the face of the Queen of the Pass, and when
once this is realised, the eye wonders that it could have
ever believed in the life of her. She is the city 'whose
graves are set in the side of the pit, and her company is
round about her graves,' sister of Pathros, Zoan and No.
" Moved by a thoroughly insular instinct, the Englishman
took up a piece of plaster and heaved it from the palace
wall into the dark streets below. It bounded from a house-
top to a window-ledge, and thence into a little square, and
the sound of its fall was hollow and echoing, as the sound
of a stone in a well. Then the silence closed up upon the
sound, till in the far away courtyard below the roped stallions
began screaming afresh. There may be desolation in the
great Indian Desert to the westward, and there is desolation
upon the open seas ; but the desolation of Amber is beyond
the loneliness either of land or sea."
THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS "
AND THE SPASMODIC SCHOOL.
THE AUTHOR OF "FESTUS"
AND THE SPASMODIC SCHOOL.
MR. PHILIP JAMES BAILEY, the author of Festus, has
often been called the father of the Spasmodic School. He
energetically repudiates the title and was induced in 1893
to set forth his views in the following letter : —
" As regards the especial school of poetry to which you
refer, I am only so far interested or concerned with the
members of it as to acknowledge, along with both public
and publicist, the generally bright colouring, pure morality,
happy imagery, and exquisite similitudes manifest in one
or two of their poems ; but I have no sympathy with their
works specially, nor with their ways : as indicated also by
such of them as still continue with us, for I look upon
them as a permanent class in literature; any more than
with the startling or awful titles which are blazoned forth
in the advertisements of their works.
" Given a crude and hasty treatment by an aspirant after
poetical ' fame,' of what sounds as a lofty or ambitious
topic ; the world being never so full as now of a respect-
ably educated mass of litterateurs ; and without waiting to
414 THE AUTHOR OF * FESTUS*
discover by self-examination whether their mental calibre
and culture as a whole be adequate to the handling of such
matters as are not seldom selected by them, they hasten
to complete their periodical rotation round themselves or
the idol of their imitation, with almost mechanical regularity ;
and are suitably applauded and rewarded. But as showing
any true mark of real study in the construction and
elaboration of a well-considered and elevated theme, there
is a plentiful lack in the great majority of them.
" On the other hand, to one early trained to meta-
physical and poetical studies, in their highest school, as
regards the former ; and as to the latter, accustomed to
view and to discuss such studies according to well-known
aesthetic rules, and the best classical exemplars both
ancient and modern, a young receptive and imaginative
mind might very easily be supposed to be imbued with'
tastes and tendencies of a character that might under
favourable circumstances readily develop into a life-long
pursuit, and a persistent purpose which nothing could
shake nor divert.
" When therefore is shown, as is obvious to any one who
has only read even the preface to the recent Jubilee edition
of Festus, that no more orderly and methodical poem
is to be found in the whole range of English literature ; no
vaster nor more comprehensive theme ; no poetical scheme
embracing spiritual, ethical, physical and metaphysical
bearings more consistently wrought together in relation to
inter-dependent parts ; nor, considering the extent of its
compass, more fitly compacted as a whole ; and when now
in supplement to what is there written in regard to the
AND THE SPASMODIC SCHOOL. 415
simple entirety of the work, its original constitution and
construction ; its design and scope, characterisation and
machinery ; its solutions of such vexed questions as the
nature, origin, end, and endurance of evil ; transitional, not
eternal ; phenomenal, not essential ; the necessary imper-
fection of all created Being ; the ontological identity of
unity and infinity ; and many other illustrations of pure
and mixed theology ; of terrestrial ambition united with
the perfectibility of civil society ; and the pacification of
the world in the interests of a spiritually minded humanity ;
we may suppose added under the final heading of the
prefatory analysis above alluded to, a special differentiation
of the work which follows, in its spiritual teachings and
conclusions, from those insisted upon by the majority of
writers who have advisedly chosen the illustration of such
themes as are implied in the outline of a religio-philosophic
faith — and poetry can in no instance aspire to any higher
position — by Milton, for instance, not to go further back,
in his confused Arianism, and, through Satan's success, his
virtual Dualism ; by Byron, in his intermittent scepticism
and reiterated Manicheism ; by Shelley, in his rapid and
irrational atheism : in the infuriated predictions of ever-
lasting torments to be inflicted upon all sinners, angelical
or human, dilated on with horrible ingenuity by Young
both in his Night Thoughts and in Judgment Day \ and by
the author of The Course of Time (the writer's contemporary
and almost class-fellow) in his frequently sublime, but too
often gloomy and somewhat bigoted literalness as regards
his conceptions of Divine and morally equitable retribution
in the world to come ; there is a feeling of deep dissatis-
416 THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS"
faction should occupy the mind of a student of Poetical
Divinity.
" But, if extending our view beyond our own English
poetical cycle of bards and divines, we include, through
translation, that vast jumble of Greek and Gothic fable laid
before the world by Goethe in his divisional, and therefore
aesthetically unsatisfactory production, Faust ; the author
of which, abandoning altogether the motive and purport
of the original national legend he had set himself to handle
the very core of which was the hard and harsh ecclesiastical
dogma of the inefficacy of repentance, after any supposed
compact with the powers of evil, opposed to the prophetic
teachings of the Bible ; and after showing the learned
Doctor, in company with Mephistopheles, an evil imp it
appears of a mean and subordinate class, teaching and
preaching a sensuous and impure Pantheism to the victim
of their united attentions ; she, after such undermining of
her moral nature, beguiled into the commission of parricide,
constructive fratricide, and finally of infanticide, only it is
painfully evident over-conscious of a somewhat too volun-
tary sacrifice ; and concluding the first section of the story
with the death in jail, and the announcement by a divine
voice from heaven of the unconditional salvation of the
interesting heroine, commences the second segments of the
story (not the shadow of a trace being visible from first to
last of the circumstances attending the close of the hero's
mortal career, and of his pitiful compunction and repent-
ance, made so much of by Marlowe and in the primitive
tradition) with the resuscitation of the amiable and ever-
fascinating Faust, in an Elysium or fairyland sort of scene,
AND THE SPASMODIC SCHOOL. 417
where he endeavours to while away the time by a double
adultery with Helen of Troy, and other repulsive incidents
as the results of such a brilliant invention ; until after the
smothering of Mephistopheles by the celestial saints
beneath showers of roses, and the separation of Faust's
humanity into elements partly perishable and partly divine ;
the whole terminates in the worshipful glorification of
eternal wifelihood ; a fact, of which in the respective cases
of Margaret and Helen of Troy he had shown such a keen
and delicate appreciation.
" From considerations and reflections connected with
studies of this nature, and the dissatisfaction and disap-
pointment necessarily attendant upon the conclusions to be
drawn from them, the author of Festus may, he trusts, be
regarded as not altogether unjustified in his desire to
illustrate an alternative theory, not only of Divinity, but
Humanity, in a future spiritual condition, purificatory and
progressive, both of them more in accord with our present
day beliefs as to the nature and perfections of Deity, and
His more probable mode of dealing by providential and
remedial process with all His rational creation, if erring
still amenable to the gracious influences of Divine omni-
potence and benevolence ; an alternative, at all events,
unique among works of imagination ; and neither in itself,
be it allowable to hope, incredible, nor unworthy of
celebration.
" In this light, and as completive of what may be called
a synoptic view of the moral evangels of various poetical
messengers (some of them named above), the work may
now be regarded, and will repay the study of any reader
VOL. II. E E
4i8
THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS."
interested in serious and elevated thought. It is not
criticism of it that is wanted. There are volumes of it,
several of the writers of which, from the cheery and
voluminous balladist of his day to the literary Caliban of
the current hour, have endeavoured to perpetuate, with an
eye to their own renown, their self-inflicted stigmata of
ignorance and incompetence.
" Of our two chief contemporaries in verse recently
passed away, they neither of them said anything about
myself as a friend or writer but what was good in itself
or kind and just ; one of them, beside that tribute of high
admiration of my work with which the world has for many
years been familiar, gave me some advice which he was
fully qualified to give ; and the other said he had himself
written too much, but that I had not written enough. I
did not grudge them their approval by the million ; they
did not grudge me theirs.
" I am, very sincerely yours,
"Pn. JAS. BAILEY.
" The Elms, The Ropewalk, Nottingham.
"March loth, 1893."
TENNYSONIANA.
E E 2
TENNYSONIANA.
I. RECOLLECTIONS OF TENNYSON,
SIXTY years ago, when I [Robert Roberts] was a little
boy, six years of age, and read everything I could lay
hands on, I chanced to see a review of a new volume
of poems by Alfred Tennyson, in which was quoted the
"Death of the Old Year." I think it must have been
in the Stamford Mercury, as that was the only paper 1
should be likely to see as a boy at home. The poem made
a great impression upon me. It was different from any
I had read before, and lines of it have continued to
float in my memory ever since, particularly
" To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post haste,
But he'll be dead before."
This roused a vivid picture in my mind of a youth riding
across the snowy waste, on a dark night, eager to reach a
house with closed doors and a light shining through the
windows far into the distance, and I imagined his disap-
pointment when he found he had arrived too late. Other
lines which struck me were
422 TENNYSONIANA.
" There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door. "
But most particularly of all the line
" Close up his eyes : tie up his chin."
The last expression puzzled me. I could not understand
how a year could have a " chin," which shows that at that
age I was about on a level with some critics who seem no
better able to fathom the poet's mind, but " wallow in the
mud of literalness." After being thus introduced to the
writings of Tennyson, an interest was aroused which has
not faded, but increased with years, and although so much
has been written about him that it is difficult to say any-
thing fresh, yet as " within this region I subsist," I am able
to relate a few things which have fallen under my personal
observation.
In an interview about ten years ago with the old Parish
Clerk of Bag Enderby, who was then aged eighty-
six, I asked him if he could remember anything about
Tennyson. "Tennyson," said he. "D'ya mean tha owd
doctor ? " Said I, " Not the doctor particularly, but any
of the Tennyson family." He replied, "Tha doctor was
a fine owd gentleman. I remember on 'im dying. It's a
strange long time agoa, an' he's in a fine big tomb agean
the church."
I asked, " Do you remember any of the family, any of
the sons — Charles or Alfred ? " He began to think, stared
vacantly, and, as the past dimly rose before him, slowly
said, " Y-e-e-s, I do remember Master Alfred, sewer-ly ; he
TENNYSONIANA. 423
was alus walkin' about tha lanes and closins wi' a book in
'is 'and ; but when he grew up he wornt at 'oam much ;
assiver he went up to Lunnun or some big place, and when
he yeust ta cum 'oame fur a bit one o' tha sarvants teld me
he yeust ta goa upstairs in a top room, an' 'ing a mat ower
'is doar. I doant kna' what fur, but they sed he didn't
want ta 'ear noa noise."
I tried many of the villagers, but the principal things
which they remembered were, that the poet's father was a
" fine man, wi' a big beard ; " by which was meant a big,
powerful man, and that Alfred was always " dawdlin' about
wi' a book." According to rustic notions, such a young
fellow ought to have been rabbiting or rat-catching, or
indulging in some other " sport."
I have often felt astonished how very little is remembered
of the Tennysons in their old home, which shows how little
they were in harmony with their human surroundings.
" Tha owd doctor " certainly made a stronger impression on
the villagers than Alfred. In the mind of the old clerk the
principal event of his life was his death. This bears out the
general impression that Alfred's father was a studious and
retired man, seldom seen but on Sundays. Many years
ago, an old housekeeper gave me a very vivid description
of him, " glowering " in his study, the walls of which were
covered " wi' 'eathen gods and goddesses wi'out cloas ;
and of his habit of lying in bed till three or four o'clock in
the afternoon.
I well remember " Lawyer " Selwood, the father of the late
Lady Tennyson. He was a tall, thin, gentlemanly man,
with a pleasant expression and quiet manners, always
24 TENNYSONIANA.
dressed in a black frock coat. Almost every day, about
three o'clock, it was his custom to take a country walk past
our house, which was in the outskirts of Horncastle, and he
always had a daughter on each arm. The daughters were
rather small, shy, sensitive-looking girls : and as their father
was tall, and walked with a long springy step, or, as our
townspeople said, " with a loup," they had great difficulty
in keeping up with him. His devotion to his motherless
girls and their affection for him were subjects of general
remark.
With customary exaggeration a recent writer says that
Mr. Selwood's house is " one of the best in Horncastle, and
easily recognisable as the residence of the principal in-
habitant." This is all stuff, and of a piece with Lord
Houghton's description of the father of Keats as a member
of the " upper middle class," when he was in reality a livery
stable keeper, or something of the kind. It is a fairly good
house, but there are many better in the town, and Mr.
Selwood, though always recognised as a gentleman, and
respected by every one, could not correctly be described as
the " principal " inhabitant.
An old lady of more than eighty years of age, the wife
of a respectable tradesman, and who had been parlour-maid
in the family many years, remembers the Miss Selwoods as
very kind and gentle. " One of them made me this," said
she, pointing to a little card-board figure standing on her
chimney-piece, representing an old woman seated darning
a stocking. She is wearing a blue gown, checked apron,
and mob cap. By pulling a string the arm can be made to
move. It is fixed in a broad piece of wood painted black,
TENNYSONIANA. 425
to enable it to stand up securely. On the back is written,
" A. Selwood." I was so much amused with it, that the old
lady (to whom I had been a friend) begged my acceptance
of it ; and when I expressed reluctance to deprive her of it,
she pressed it upon me, saying, as she was an old woman,
some one would soon be getting it, and I might as well
have it as any one else. I have it now, and esteem it an
interesting relic.
It is well known that the Poet-Laureate showed a decided
taste for literature at a very early age, and that when quite
a boy he wrote a little tale. This tale was once mine, but
as its chief merit was its curiosity, I exchanged it for some-
thing I valued more, although it was certainly interesting.
It consisted of about half-a-dozen octavo leaves, stitched in
a piece of brown wrapping paper, with the title, Mungo the
American written on the cover, in a boyish hand, and
at the bottom was given the name of the publishers,
" Longman & Co." ! an amusing instance of the child being
" father of the man." It is many years since I glanced
through it, and therefore my recollection is somewhat
misty, but plot there was none ; it was merely an incident,
and related how Mungo was traversing the mighty Prairie
and lost his sword (a rather unusual thing one would
think). He wandered about in great agitation, searching
for it amid poetical surroundings, but all in vain. A con-
siderable time elapsed, and again Mungo was journeying in
a wide waste land, when he espied a hut, towards which he
hastened for guidance or for water. As he stood in the
doorway, he beheld his sword hanging upon the opposite
wall. He -started, but recovered himself, and asked the
426 TENNYSONIANA.
solitary inhabitant whence he obtained that sword. The
answer did not prove satisfactory ; or, as this was long
anterior to the advent of the modern " interviewer," Mungo's
question was naturally resented as an unwarrantable intru-
sion into the privacy of domestic life. But, whatever the
cause, there ensued a short and sharp conflict — the sudden
crack of a pistol, " alarums and excursions ; " finally Mungo
snatched the weapon from its place and " slew him with the
sword." So he regained possession of his long-lost trusty
blade. The sun set : or threw its slanting beams over the
prairie — or something of that sort — as Mungo departed
from the scene of the fray. Beyond the slight touches
indicated above, there were no Tennysonian character-
istics, unless a somewhat inflated style may be considered
one. The manuscript is now in Mr. Wise's collection.
My old friend, the late W. B. Philpot, vicar of South
Berstead, who was once curate to Charles Tennyson
Turner, at Grasby, told me the following characteristic
anecdote, which was related by his rector. It seems it
was the custom of the two brothers, when quite boys, to
practice making verses as they walked in the fields ; and as
they wished to be in company, but did not want to distract
each other's attention, they agreed to walk one on each side
of a hedge. One day as they were thus engaged, Alfred
called to his brother over the hedge, " Charles ! I have
made such a splendid line ! Listen ! — ' A thousand brazen
chariots rolled over a bridge of brass.' " A resonant line,
but lacking the polish which was afterwards so character-
istic of him. An illustration of the well-known saying that
" genius has an infinite capacity for taking pains."
7ENNYSONIANA. w
Alfred Tennyson drew well. I have seen a series of
portraits copied by him from Eraser's Magazine in pen and
ink, which were remarkably spirited and clever. With them
were some copies from Bell's Gallery of Comicalities, which
was a clever series of caricatures published in a newspaper
form about fifty years ago, and very popular. I think
there were half a dozen sheets of them, at either fourpence
or sixpence each. I suppose they are now worth five
shillings each sheet, or more. I have seen many other
sketches by him, and all spirited and clever.
A good deal has been said about the purchase and pub-
lication by Jacksons, of Louth, of the Poems by Two
Brothers. I knew these printers, and very respectable,
prosperous, shrewd tradesmen they were, but not educated
men in the modern sense of the word, and, as it seemed to
me, quite incapable of judging of the merit of a volume of
poems. Then how came they to give ten pounds, and
afterwards a second ten pounds, for a volume of poems by
two schoolboys ? I think the explanation is this : I have
said they were very " shrewd " men, and these schoolboys
were the grandsons of the Rev. Stephen ffytche, vicar of
Louth, one of the richest and most influential men in the
place. In a country town like Louth the vicar can put
much good business in the hands of any printer whom he
favours. No doubt the Jacksons had received in this way
substantial benefits from the vicar, and partly out of good
feeling and partly out of policy, behaved liberally to the
two youths with such influential connections. And the
printing of the book would be a very inexpensive affair, as
it could be done in slack time, when auctioneers' bills and
428 TENNYSONIANA.
such like miscellaneous printing was scarce. Then, again,
the acquaintances and friends of the vicar were sure to take
a good quantity, so there could be very little risk in the
transaction. I remember, that nearly twenty years ago,
Basil Montagu Pickering told me he came down to Louth
and bought the few remaining copies from the Jacksons.
At that time, I believe, Pickering asked about 30^. for a
copy, which would now be worth from £15 to £20. He
told me the MS. of the volume was then offered to him for
£100.
I once bought somewhere in this country an edition of
the poems in two volumes, 1842, in which against the
lines,
" O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,"
was written in pencil, " his cousin, and the palest girl I ever
saw." Pickering, who had done me many friendly actions,
asked me to let him have it, wanting it, he said, to make
his set complete, and so I did. To show that Tennyson
was not the reserved and ungenial man that some are
pleased to represent him, I give the following anecdote
which I know to be true. Five or six years ago Colonel
Baylay, R.A., was with Major Cameron in the Isle of
Wight, and they were invited to dine with Tennyson.
After dinner, while in the smoking-room, it came out
in course of conversation that Colonel Baylay, whose
father was a Lincolnshire rector, was well acquainted with
the dialect of the county, and, at Tennyson's request, he
sang some Lincolnshire songs, of which the following is a
specimen :
TENNYSONIANA. 429
IT'S TIME I BEGUN TO GET MARRIED.
"It's time I begun ta git married,
O, git married,
It's time I begun ta git married,
Me bewty begins ta deca-a-a-a-a-a-y.
Me bewty begins ta decay.
Me father's got twenty bright ginnees,
O, bright ginnees,
Me father's got twenty bright ginnees
Besides a fat hog in tha st-y-y-y-y.
Besides a fat hog in tha sty.
Me muther she sent me a bundle,
O, a bundle,
Me muther she sent me a bundle,
A porringer ma-ade o' sum cla-a-a-a-y.
A porringer ma-ade o' sum clay.
Me bruther 'e ses 'e is willin',
O, Vs willin',
Me bruther 'e ses 'e is willin',
That I should hev all wen 'e di-i-i-i-i-ies.
That I should hev all wen 'e dies.
And they're all ta be 'ed at me weddin',
O, me weddin',
And they're all ta be 'ed at me weddin',
Me weddin', weddin' da-a-a-a-ay.
Me weddin', weddin' da. "
Tennyson was highly delighted, and recited several of
his own poems, being pleased to meet with a person so
well acquainted with his native county. This account was
given me by Col. Baylay's sister, and I have written it
down at her dictation. This incident shows that the poet
was not only a genial man, but kindly also, and could
430 TENNYSONIANA.
sympathise with the humours and enjoy the rude songs of
the Lincolnshire peasantry.
It is very amusing to the natives of the county to read
the ridiculous guesses as to who were intended by various
characters, and which are the places described in the
Laureate's writings. Two only need be mentioned : The
Northern Farmer and the Moated Grange. Old John
Baumber, who has been pointed out as the original, had
none of the characteristics of the Northern Farmer. He
was a respectable man, quite equal to the average " Wold
farmers," who are the cream of farmers. I recollect him
distinctly, and can, in imagination, see him now, with his
ruddy face, his brown cloth coat, red waistcoat, drab kersey-
mere breeches and gaiters, and rather broad-brimmed hat.
I never heard any of the " strange tales " which one writer
says are told of him. And, unfortunately, he did not get
rich. As for his house being the " Moated Grange," it
reminds one of the French Academician's definition of a
crab, as " a red fish, which walks backward," when another
Academician remarked, " An excellent definition, but, unfor-
tunately, a live crab is not red, it is not a fish, and it does
not walk backwards." So John Baumber's house is not
lonely, but close to the church, the rectory, and the high
road. It never had a moat, and as for the " level -.vaste "
and " rounding grey" the country is woody and undulating.
The much talked of " glen " also is just by, and it is but a
very ordinary small affair. When I was a boy some huge
holly trees growing in the hedge of John Baumber's farm,
next the road, attracted my notice much, because a large
quantity of his poultry were accustomed to roost in them
TENNYSONIANA. 431
for the night, which I considered a very extraordinary
thing ; and whenever my father drove past with me to-
wards the end of the day, long before we got to the spot,
I began to wonder if the chickens would be there. But
several " moated granges " still exist in the county. On a
visit to my brother not long since, we passed three in one
afternoon's drive, though not looking for them.
II. THE TENNYSONS.
THE Tennysons have been settled in Holderness from a
very early period. I [Florence Peacock] am not aware
whether the parish registers of the district have been
searched with the view of tracing their genealogy, but
until this has been done it will be impossible to say how
far back legal evidence of their presence in Yorkshire
may be procured.
Thomas Tenison, D.D., who was Archbishop of Canter-
bury from 1695 to 1716, is believed to have been a member
of the Tennyson family, but there is no direct proof of the
fact. It may, however, be said that the unusual manner in
which he spelt his name is no indication that the tie of
blood was distant, for long after the time at which he
flourished, nay, till within living memory, it was no un-
common thing for brothers to vary the orthography of
their surname. There can be but little doubt that both
Tennyson and Tenison are merely altered forms of Dennis-
son — that is, the son of Dennis.
The grandfather of the late Poet Laureate was George
432 TENNYSONIANA.
Tennyson, of Bayons Manor, near Market Rasen, in Lin-
colnshire, whose mother, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of
George Clayton, was, through her mother, Dorothy Hilde-
yard, of Kelstern, a descendant of an illustrious race, since
the Hildeyards inherited the blood of the Earls of Scars-
dale, who were also Barons d'Eyncourt, a member of their
house having wedded an heiress of the blood of that noble
family.
The late poet was also descended in another line from
the d'Eyncourts, who sprang from Walter d'Eyncourt, one
of the mighty men of war serving under the Conqueror at
the Battle of Hastings. Walter d'Eyncourt is said to have
been a near relation of Remigius, the great Norman eccle-
siastic, who removed the episcopal see from Dorchester to
Lincoln, and thus became the first of that long line of
prelates who have ever since ruled the diocese. The d'Eyn-
court pedigree can be traced directly down from this
Walter into the fifteenth century, when it became extinct
in the male line.
There has always been a tradition in Lincolnshire to the
effect that the reason Bayons Manor passed to a younger
child and not to the heirs of the elder son was attributable
to the extreme anxiety of George Tennyson to " found a
family," which led him to make Charles, a man much given
to politics — he represented Lambeth in Parliament for
many years, and was a member of the Privy Council — the
successor to his estates. The Laureate's grandfather him-
self possessed intellectual gifts of no despicable order. In
early life he was a solicitor at Market Rasen, head of the
firm of Tennyson, Mayne, and Vane; but as he lived
TENNYSONIANA. 433
during the extreme agricultural depression, consequent on
the war with our American colonies, which threw many
estates into the market, he was enabled to add much to his
possessions by judicious investments in farms and small
holdings ; he [also took an active part in the great en-
closures of uncultivated waste, at the end of the last century,
for he was almost the only local lawyer who had a com-
petent knowledge of manorial rights and customs, for which
reason he was frequently employed, not only in Lincoln-
shire, but in the neighbouring counties, to make the needful
arrangements for enclosure Acts, and to get them passed
through Parliament. In his latter years Mr. Tennyson sat
more than once in Parliament, representing Bletchingley.
He died on the 4th of July, 1835, and a story told in the
neighbourhood of Bayons Manor more than fifty years ago,
related that the first time the nightingale was heard to sing
in that part of Lincolnshire was on the evening of the day
of his burial. There can be but few persons now alive who
remember the great Lincolnshire lawyer ; he was godfather
to the present writer's grandfather, and his godson, who
knew him well, had a high opinion of his legal abilities, and
indeed of his capacity for business in the widest sense of
that rather vague term. Probably the only serious mistake
he ever made, if mistake it [really were, as tradition repre-
sents, was when he left Bayons Manor to his younger son
under the belief that the descendants of the elder one were
not so likely to become prominent in the eyes of the world.
He possessed an amount of culture somewhat rare among
the "practical" men of that age; in 1807 a ploughman on
his estate unearthed the extraordinary number of 5,700
VOL. II. F F
434 TENNYSONIANA.
silver coins of Henry II., as fresh as though they had just
come from the mint, and Mr. Tennyson presented a
specimen of each separate type to the national collection
in the British Museum, recognising, as few landowners
even yet do, the duty of preserving the antiquities of the
country for the benefit of future ages.
So much for the Laureate ancestry. Occasionally an
amusing reminiscence of the poet himself is to be met with
in the native county which he quitted so many years ago.
For instance, an old woman who was once a servant in the
house of one of his relations, observed in speaking of him
to a friend of the writer, " that Mr. Alfred was very quiet,
but he often said ' thank you ' " for any service she had to
do for him, such as " taking a candle into another room
when he was going to study." She also remarked, " He be
used for to screw a little glass into his eye when he had his
dinner, a sort of thing I never see now-a-days, but they say
as some folks wears them in some places. You see, Miss
F , I remember all this very well ; but then, when I
was there, I didn't know at all 'at he was tryin* for to be a
poet:'
III. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.
IN Tennyson's Poems > published by Effingham Wilson
in 1830, there are some very fine verses under the heading
Isabel. These were written to his mother, and not a word
was over-praise to those who knew her personally.
" Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity."
TENNYSONIANA. 435
As a slight illustration of this rare quality we recall an
afternoon in Alfred's house at Twickenham, lent, after he
had left it, to his mother and the unmarried children then
residing with her. She was accustomed in those days to
boast of her " thirty-six feet of sons," being herself a tiny
woman of delicate, fairy-like mould. One of her big boys
swept the froth from a tumbler of ale on to the neat parlour
carpet. " The energy of youth," said Mrs. Tennyson, with
her quiet smile.
The tiny stature was not inherited by any of her children.
Sons and daughters were all of the same large type. Many
residents in Edinburgh remember the tall and somewhat
ungainly figure of Mrs. Lushington, wife of the small and
slight Professor of Greek at Glasgow University. Mrs.
Lushington had a few strange ballads, which she would sing,
if duly pressed, at Edinburgh gatherings. One was of a
man lost in the snow, and there was sufficient ambiguity in
words and music to admit of the audience saying with
Calverley, " And as for the meaning, it's just what you
please."
One marked characteristic of the Laureate's mother was
the loyalty with which she stood by all her children. An
enthusiastic hero-worshipper once said to her, " How proud
you must be of Alfred ! " " Yes," replied the gentle little
lady. "But Charles and Frederick have written very
beautiful verses too."
The daughter who has been most in the minds of Tenny-
sonian readers is of course Emily, who was engaged to be
married to Arthur Hallam, the inspirer of" In Memoriam."
She was a woman of warm sympathies and rich nature.
F F 2
436 TENNYSONIANA.
She married Captain Jesse, a very typical English sailor,
and had two sons. The eldest, Arthur, named after the
Laureate's friend, is in the Civil Service. The second son
Eustace, became a clergyman in the Church of England.
His unpublished poems are in a melancholy strain, not
likely to be generally popular, but in character and general
habits of mind he is particularly Tennysonian. Mrs. Jesse
died at Margate.
That Mrs. Tennyson, the Laureate's mother, had her
troubles, may be gathered from certain lines in Isabel :
" A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
Till in its onward current it absorbs
With swifter movement and in purer light
The vexed eddies of its wayward brother,
A leaning and upbearing parasite,
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite. "
And the success of her endeavours to perform the heavy
duties thus cast upon her may be read in the Bishop of
Exeter's account of her son Alfred's estimate of her when
speaking under the sorrowful effect of her burial at High-
gate. Almost in the same words he spoke in Isabel'.
" . . . . The world hath not another
***#***
Of such a finish'd, chasten'd purity."
Of recent years Lord Tennyson has been talked of in the
bated breath with which men speak of a peer of the realm.
But in the sixties and even the seventies he was known by
his own friends as " a very good fellow." Travelling with
TENNYSONIANA. 437
chosen companions, such men as Thomas Woolner and
Palgrave, he was at an inn once, and the great question
arose of the possible bill of fare. After hearing what the
others ordered, Tennyson added, " Potatoes." The worthy
host had none, and said there were none in the village. The
poet was so insistent that a man and cart had to be
despatched for a distance of many miles, and the simple
but indispensable root was at last served, after many hours
of delay and at no inconsiderable expense.
At a literary supper party given in London somewhere
about 1860, at which the brothers Charles and Henry
Kingsley were present, and many other kindred spirits, the
talk turned on the definition of " humbug." Alfred
Tennyson moved as if to speak, and the rest of the company
were silenced in expectation. It was like that supper party
a century before, when the companion of poor crushed
Oliver Goldsmith offended him with, " Hush ! Dr. Shonson
pekins to speak." Tennyson said in his unrivalled organ
voice, " Humbug. It is a lie."
About 1863-4-5 he took a keen interest in scientific
investigation, especially astronomical. At the house of
Mr. J. -Norman Lockyer, F.R.S., and elsewhere, he found
opportunities of scientific talk and experiment which
interested him very deeply. One night a little crowd of
notables, including the late Lord Rosse and Professor
Huxley, were analysing with a powerful telescope a
nebulous mass. The effect was a
" Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."
Many wise and foolish things were said by the observers
43« TENNYSONIANA.
after the wondrous spectacle, and the Laureate's remark
was rather dashed with bathos. " What are the county
families after this ? " he asked. There was a dry old
Scotchman present, and he muttered, "But we're nae
speakin' aboot county families at a' ! "
One more anecdote of Lord Tennyson in the old days.
It is said that he and the Duke of Argyll were walking
over his acres at Freshwater. After enumerating his
possessions in our tiny southern island, he asked, " How
many acres have you in Argyleshire ? " The Duke, unwilling
to crush him with numbers, replied, " Well, in Scotland we
generally measure in square miles." E.
IV. TENNYSON AND HIS PUBLISHERS.
KNOWING that Mr. Tennyson was about to take his
books out of the hands of Messrs. Moxon and Son,
Mr. Strahan wrote to him proposing that his firm, Strahan
and Co., should become the publishers. To this Mr.
Tennyson replied, appointing an interview at Farringford.
Mr. Strahan went down, and the matter was arranged one
night after dinner, Mr. Tennyson smoking, and talking
over the contract and other matters with Mr. Strahan,
until four in the morning, in the top of the tower (at
Farringford).
The terms of the contract were, that Strahan and Co.
should pay Mr. Tennyson, for a period of five years, a sum
of five thousand pounds per annum for the right to publish
the books which had already appeared at the date of the
TENNYSONIANA, 439
contract, and, in addition, that they should have the right
to issue any new works on commission, the commission
being ten per cent.
Notwithstanding the large sum agreed to be paid, Strahan
and Co. made a profit on the transaction during the years
they had the books. During the time they had Lord
Tennyson's books they only published three new ones,
The Holy Grail (1869), T/te Window, or Songs of the
Wrens, published in December, 1870, though dated 1871
upon the title-page, and Gareth and Lynette (1872).
Of The Holy Grail they got rid of forty thousand copies
within a short time after publication.* The book was pub-
lished at 7-y. 6d., and the nett proceeds — less 10 per cent,
commission to Strahan and Co. — went to Mr. Tennyson.
The book would, of course, cost for paper and print about
fourpence, binding another fourpence, and they would get
about 4^. 6d. a copy, which, after deducting cost of produc-
tion and publishers' commission, would leave about 3-y. to
Lord Tennyson. Forty thousand copies at 3<r. amounts to
six thousand pounds.
The small edition in ten volumes in a box was Mr.
Strahan's idea. It was also his idea that some should be
done in purple and some in the usual green. A portion of
the stock was bound in purple, not against Lord Tennyson's
wishes, but with his consent, he having passed the whole
matter.
When Messrs. Strahan and Co. published Mr. Tenny-
son's books, In Memoriam sold considerably better than
* Curiously enough the same number of copies (forty thousand) were
printed of the first edition of Idylls of the King, published by Moxon in 1859.
440 TENNYSONIANA.
any one of the others, that is, of course, of the old
books.
Sir Arthur Sullivan received five hundred pounds for set-
ting T/te Window, or the Songs of the Wrens, and after
this had been deducted from the proceeds of the book it
was treated as a commission-book, Strahan and Co.
receiving ten per cent, on the nett proceeds.
The transfer of Lord Tennyson's books from Strahan
and Co. to Henry S. King was conducted by Mr. Strahan,
who arranged the terms between Lord Tennyson and
Mr. King. He was to pay four thousand pounds a year for
the old books, and Mr. Strahan particularly stipulated on
behalf of Mr. King, that he should have the right to publish
a complete edition of all the poems at "js. 6d., which was to
be included in the annual payment. The firm sold one
hundred thousand copies of the complete edition at 7$. 6d.
Strahan and Co. did not have the right to publish a com-
plete edition in one volume, and did not, while they had the
books, wish to do so, as each book sold separately to their
entire satisfaction.
V. THE ORIGIN OF TENNYSON'S "RIZPAH."
The following letter was addressed to the Bookman, and
published in that periodical in December 1892 : —
" Sir, — I beg to send you an extract from The History
of Brighton and its Environs, by Alderman Henry Martin,
published by John Beal, Brighton, in 1871, in which I think
I see the germ of Tennyson's poem of ' Rizpah.' I do not
know that attention has been drawn to this before. On
TENNYSONIANA. 441
the night of 3<Dth October, 1792, the mail from Brighton
was robbed, at Goldstone Bottom, by two men, named
Rock and Howell, the whole extent of the booty being
half a sovereign, enclosed in a letter. The book (page 174)
goes on to say : ' Rock was a simple inoffensive fellow,
aged about twenty-four, who had been the dupe of Howell,
a man forty years old. Rock lived with his mother at a
cottage at Old Shoreham, on the site now occupied by
Adur Lodge. The two men were found guilty at the
Horsham Spring Assizes, and were sentenced to be exe-
cuted near the spot where the robbery had been effected.
The bodies were afterwards each enclosed in a skeleton
dress and hung upon a gibbet. When the elements had
caused the clothes and the flesh to decay, the aged mother
of Rock, night after night, in all weathers — and especially
in tempestuous weather — visited the lonely spot, and it was
noticed that on her return she always brought something
away with her in her apron. Upon being watched, it was
discovered that the bones of the hanging men were the
object of her search, and as the wind and rain scattered
them on the ground, she collected the relics and conveyed
them to her home ; and, when the gibbets were stripped of
their horrid burthen, in the dead silence of the night she
interred them, deposited in a chest, in the hallowed ground
of Old Shoreham Church.' — Your obedient servant,
" J. W. D'ALBEVILLE.
SHOREHAM, SUSSEX,
" 22nd November, 1892."
ANA.
ANA.
Dr. John Brown and Charles Dickens.
As is well-known the author of Rab and His Friends
was an enthusiastic admirer of Thackeray, but he did not
relish the writings of Dickens. In early life Dr. Brown
spent a year as an assistant surgeon at Chatham. Long
after he met Charles Dickens for the first and only time.
The conversation turned on nationalities, and Dickens said
that he had been cured of any cockney prejudice against
Scotchmen which he might have had by the heroic conduct
of a young Scotch surgeon which he had witnessed at
Chatham during the cholera time. Strange to say this
young surgeon was none other than the friend to whom he
was telling the story.
The Founder of the "Cornhill" Magazine.
On April I4th, 1882, Mr. Harry Wooldridge died after
many years of suffering. He was for a long period
manager of the publishing department of Messrs. Smith,
Elder & Co., in which capacity he founded the Cornhill
Magazine, and was the compiler of two small religious
446 ANA.
works, The Divine Teacher and The Sure Resting Place.
(See Academy, April 22nd, 1882.)
The Plan of Carlyle's " Cromwell."
Mr. G. S. Venables in his prefatory notice to Spedding's
Evenings with a Reviewer, states that the plan of
Carlyle's History of Oliver Cromwell was borrowed
from that of Spedding's Life of Bacon. Reviewing the
work in the Academy ', Mr. S. R. Gardiner took exception
to this statement, and characterises it as " wild." (See
Academy, March i8th, 1882.) Professor Lushington wrote
(Academy, April ist, 1882), the statement on which Mr.
Gardiner comments, if understood as the writer meant it, is
strictly true ; it might perhaps have been worded in a
manner less open to possible misapprehension. If
instead of " borrowed from the cumbrous arrangements of
the Life of Bacon" Mr. Venables had written " borrowed
from the plan which Spedding had early conceived, had
communicated to Carlyle and afterwards carried out in
his Life of Bacon " the averment would have been unim-
peachable. Mr. Venables was intimately acquainted with
both, and has been told by Spedding over and over again
that the plan of Carlyle's Cromwell was professedly
taken from his, as a circumstance in which Spedding took
some pride.
Bishop Thirlwall's Appointment to St. David's.
In a letter to the Academy, February 4th, 1882, Pro-
fessor Bain maintains that Thirlwall's appointment to the
See of St. David's depended on three Radicals, the most
ANA. 447
important of the three in all probability being John Mill.
Dr. Bain was informed by Grote, the historian, that the
appointments were actually managed by Charles Buller,
who had two men to promote — Thirlwall and Waddington.
The vacancy in the See of St. David's concurred with a
vacancy in the Deanery of Durham, and Grote was of
opinion that Waddington should have been Bishop and
Thirlwall Dean. He added, with unusual emphasis, " If
that had been so it is as sure as any could be that
Waddington would have died Archbishop of Canterbury."
How did Lord Melbourne come to take Charles Buller's
advice as to the appointment of a Bishop ? In 1837
Melbourne deliberately passed over Thirlwall when the
See of Norwich was vacant because the Bishops of Ely
and Chichester gave a verdict of want of confidence in
his orthodoxy. Three years after, however, Archbishop
Howley being appealed to, stated that he saw no objection
to Thirlwall's promotion, and it took place accordingly.
He was moved to this second appeal by Buller, and in all
probability Buller was influenced by John Stuart Mill.
Mill had a prodigiously high opinion of Thirlwall's ability
as a member of the Speculative Debating Society. He
admired his supposed liberality of mind, and had warmly
welcomed his History of Greece. Buller never per-
formed any public act of importance without consulting
Mill and being guided by him, and in alluding to Thirl-
wall immediately after his promotion he used these words :
" Whom we now with exultation call Bishop Thirlwall."
448 ANA.
Tennyson as a Lecturer.
About 1855, when most of the eminent writers of the
day were lecturing, it was stated by the Critic, December
1st, 1855, that Tennyson was going to inform the Isle of
Wight about Crashaw and George Herbert. But no lecture
was ever delivered.
The " Retrospective Review."
Early in 1853 there died Mr. Henry Southern, Her
Majesty's minister at the Court of the Brazils. It is stated
by the Critic (April 1st, 1853) that] " Mr. Southern first
became known in the higher class of critical literature.
He was one of the earlier editors of the Westminster
Review. He planned as well as edited the Retrospective
Review, and the pages of the Spectator lost by his removal
to diplomatic service under Sir George Villiers in Spain."
Ruskin and Emerson.
The following letter was addressed to Alexander Ire-
land : —
BRANTWOOD, g(A February, 1883.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am extremely flattered and obliged
by the gift of your books, especially the paper on Scott and
the Encheirdion. I have never cared much for Emerson,
he" is little more to me than a clever gossip, and his egoism
reiterates itself to provocation. Still, I am extremely glad
you have given these careful notes of him. All his friends
seem to have loved him much.
With very sincere thanks,
Believe me respectfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
ANA. 449
Besant and Rice.
The following appeared in a Rochdale Observer for Sep-
tember 3Oth, 1893 : —
" Some of the readers of this column of mine will perhaps
remember that about three weeks ago I indulged in a little
gossip arising out of a passage in an old Christmas story
called Shepherds All and Maidens Fair, which appeared
in a volume of stories by Besant and Rice. I spoke of some
words in the story which, as it appeared in that volume,
had been altered since I saw the passage many years ago in
the original form in which the story appeared as a Christ-
mas number. And I branched off into a little speculation
touching the respective characteristics of the two distin-
guished collaborateurs. Since then Mr. Walter Besant
has favoured me with a pleasant little note touching my
remarks. He says that he has always thought it a pity that
Mr. Rice left no book wholly written by himself. He goes
on, however, to say that there was a novel written entirely
by Mr. Rice which appeared in the pages of Once a Week in
or about the year 1870. It was printed as ' By the Editor.'
For at that time Mr. Rice was the editor and proprietor of
Once a Week. I am not sure whether he purchased the
copyright direct from Bradbury and Evans, who, it may be
remembered, started the magazine in opposition to Charles
Dickens when the great novelist extinguished Household
Words and ran All the Year Round in the place of it. It
has been said that Once a Week never was at any part of its
career a good paying property. If that is so it is a matter
for some surprise, seeing that not very long before it was in
the hands of Mr. Rice, that extraordinary strong novel,
VOL. II. G G
450 ANA.
Foul Play, written in collaboration between Charles
Reade and Dion Boucicault, was run through its columns
— a novel that ought to have made the future of any pub-
lication whatever. The proprietorship of Once a Week
afterwards passed into the hands of George Manville Fenn,
and for some two or three years more was, I believe, the
burden of his life, seeing that it appeared to be impossible
to make ends meet with it. Having lost a good deal more
money in it than he could afford, Mr. Fenn, not being able
to find a purchaser for the magazine, let it die. When it
was decently buried, Mr. Fenn recovered his old spirits
and took a new lease in life, and continues to be up to the
present moment one of the happiest, as well as one of the
most industrious of successful story-writers.
" Mr. Besant tells me that he has sometimes thought of
re-editing and re-publishing that story of Mr. Rice's, but
that there is this difficulty about it, that Mr. Rice had told
him that part of it was written hurriedly, and that he would
like to overhaul and re-write portions of it if it were to be
reprinted. Turning to the question of the little alteration
in the paragraph of Shepherds All and Maidens Fair, Mr.
Besant tells me that he has not the least recollection of
having made any alteration in it, and he adds that perhaps
Mr. Rice altered it himself after the appearance of the
work as a Christmas story. With regard to my observa-
tion regarding Ready-money Mortiboy, that according to
my recollection Mr. Rice spoke of Mr. Besant as being its
author, Mr. Besant says that he certainly ought not to
be spoken of as its author, for the original conception
of Ready-money Mortiboy was Mr. Rice's, and many
ANA. 451
if not most of the incidents were Mr. Rice's in-
vention."
Patrick Branwell Bronte as a Painter.
In Devvsbury, at the residence of Mr. J. Ingram, of Fair-
fields, there are three interesting oil-paintings by Branwell
Bronte, one of Mrs. Ingram, who was then Miss Hartley.
Mr. Eyre Crowe, A.R.A., inspected these portraits, and
wrote the following letter to Mr. Yeats : —
" THE BULL, WAKEFIELD, November 2&tk, 1893.
" DEAR SIR, — The Bronte Portraits. Allow me to thank you very sincerely
for your kind response to my desire to see the Patrick [Branwell] Bronte
portraits, in the possession of Mr. Ingram. I went in company with your
worthy secretary, Mr. Lee, who kindly brought me to the house. The
portraits are very interesting. The colour is very good, and as studies of
family character, capital. If inclined to be critical, a habit which grows upon
one who inspects, I should say the drawing, which in the heads is good, is in
the other portions strangely out of proper contour of line. The cleverness was
evidently innate, and would have developed with culture. But probably
bread-winning was more important than severe drudgery over the rudiments.
I quite enjoyed going over the so-called Dewsbury Moor with Mr. Lee, who
pointed out the localities made famous by the young painter's sister, Charlotte
Bronte.
' ' Believe me, yours gratefully,
" (Signed) EYRE CROWE."
An Unreclaimed Sonnet of Charles Lamb's.
Mr. W. H. Conington, writing to the Bookman in Feb-
ruary, 1 894, said : —
"There cannot, I think, be the slightest hesitancy in
assigning the following poem to Charles Lamb ; his inti-
macy with the Burney family is too well known to need
mention, and the signature is one he frequently employed,
G G 2
452 ANA.
and regarded as his by right ; while personally I should be
quite satisfied with the internal evidence of style, by itself
as regards this sonnet.
SONNET
To Miss Burney, on her Character of Blanch
in Country Neighbours, a tale.
Bright spirits have arisen to grace the BURNEY name,
And some in letters, some in tasteful arts,
In learning some have borne distinguished parts ;
Or sought through science of sweet sounds their fame :
And foremost she, renowned for many a tale
Of faithful love perplexed, and of that good
Old man who, as Camilla's guardian, stood
In obstinate virtue clad like coat of mail.
Nor dost thou, SARAH, with unequal pace
Her steps pursue. The pure romantic vein
No gentler creature ever knew to feign
Than thy fine Blanch, young with an elder grace,
In all respects without rebuke or blame,
Answering the antique freshness of her name.
C. L.
The reference in the third line is probably to the Rev.
Charles Burney, a celebrated scholar in his day. In the
next line the reference is, of course, to Charles Burney the
celebrated musician and friend of Johnson, father of the
above and of Frances Burney, Madame D'Arblay, whose
novel Camilla is, it is hardly necessary to add, referred to
in lines 6-8."
On the Authorship of "The Queen of My Heart."
The Eclectic Review, 1851 (ii.), p. 66, contains the
following passage : "It is curious to observe the wisdom
ANA. 453
and penetration of those who have at all mingled in
literary society. They read an author, study his peculiarities
and style, and imagine they perfectly understand his whole
system of thought, and could detect one mistake instantly.
But to show that even authors themselves are not always
infallible judges, we will relate an anecdote which has never
yet been made public, though, having received it from
an undoubted source, we venture to vouch for its veracity.
Shelley, whose poems many years ago were so much read
and admired, necessarily excited much discussion in literary
circles. A party of literary men were one evening engaged
in canvassing his merits, when one of them declared that
he knew the turns of Shelley's mind so well that amongst a
thousand anonymous pieces he would detect his, no matter
when published. Mr. James Augustus St. John, who was
present, not liking the blustering tone of the speaker, re-
marked that he thought he was mistaken, and that it would
amongst so many, be difficult to trace the style of Shelley.
Every one present, however, sided with his opponent, and
agreed that it was perfectly impossible that any one could
imitate his style. A few days after a poem, entitled ' To
the Queen of My Heart,' appeared in the London Weekly
Review, with Shelley's signature, but written by Mr. St. John
himself. The same coterie met and discussed the poem
brought to their notice, and prided themselves much upon
their discrimination ; said they at once recognised the ' style
of Shelley, and could not be mistaken, his soul breathed
through it — it was himself.' And so ' The Queen of My
Heart ' was settled to be Shelley's ! and to this day it
is numbered with his poems (see Shelley's Works, edited by
454 ANA.
Mrs. Shelley, vol. iv., p. 166. It deceived even his wife),
and very few are in the secret that it is not actually his.
The imitation was perfect and completely deceived every
one, much to the discomfiture of all concerned."
We forwarded the passage to Professor Dowden, who
has kindly sent us the following note in reply: "The
passage from the Eclectic Review is new to me, and is
very interesting. Mrs. Shelley first printed and then
rejected 'Queen of My Heart.' Medwin had previously
printed it as Shelley's. Forman prints it among Juvenilia.
Garnett rejects it. I printed it, but with great misgivings,
and with a footnote to warn the reader that it is of doubt-
ful authenticity, placing it, as Forman does, among the
Juvenilia. It ought never to have been mistaken for a
poem of Shelley's maturity, and Medwin's authority is the
only ground for admitting it among Shelley's poems. I do
not believe he wrote it."
Sydney Dobell on the Poetry of the First Lord Lytton.
Sydney Dobell's criticisms on the strenuous attempts
made by the first Lord Lytton to write poetry are worth
recalling. They are quoted from a letter of Dobell's in
Gilfillan's Third Gallery of Literary Portraits (p. 390).
" The author is an orator, and has tried to be a poet.
Dickens's John the Carrier was perpetually on the verge
of a joke, but never made one ; Bulwer's relation to poetry
is of the same provoking kind. The lips twitch, the face
glows, the eyes light ; but the joke is not there. An ex-
quisite savoir fairs has led him within sight of the intuitions
of poetic instinct. Laborious calculation has almost stood
ANA.
455
for sight but his maps and charts are not the earth and
the heavens. His vision is not a dream, but a nightmare ;
you have Parnassus before you ; but the light that never
was on sea or shore is wanting. The whole reminds
you of a lunar landscape, rocks and caves and to spare,
but no atmosphere. It is fairy land travelled by dark."
J. M. Barrie on his Method of Work.
The following is Mr. J. M. Barrie's answer to a request
to tell readers how he worked. It was written on a
crumpled sheet which had evidently once contained
tobacco.
JOURNALISM. FICTION.
2 pipes, I hour 8 pipes, i ounce
2 hours, I idea 7 ounces, I week
i idea, 3 pars 2 weeks, I chap
3 pars, i leader 20 chaps, i nib.
2 nibs, i novel.
The Charge of Plagiarism against the Second Lord
Lytton.
Little was said in the memoirs of the late Lord Lytton
about the charges of plagiarism brought against him.
The greater part of Lucile was described as nothing more
nor less than a marvellously exact translation from George
Sand's Lavinia. Here are two parallel passages : —
" Lavinia," page 278.
"Des rideaux de basin bien blanc recevaient 1'ombre mouvante des sapins
qui secouaient leurs chevelures noires au vent de la nuit, sous 1'humide regard
de la lune. De petits seaux de bois d'olivier verni etaient remplis des plus
belles fleurs de la montagne. Lavinia avail cueilli elle-meme, dans les plus
tiesertes vallees, et sur les plus hautes cimes, ces bella-dones au sein vermeil,
456 ANA.
ces aconits au cimier d'azur, au calice vene'neux ; ces silenes blancs et roses,
dont les petales sont si delicatement decoupe"s ; ces pales saponaires ; ces
clochettes si transparentes et plissees com me de la mousseline ; ces valerianes
de pourpre ; toutes ces sauvages filles de la solitude, si embaumees et si
fraiches, que le chamois craint de les fletrir en les effleurant en sa course, et
que 1'eau des sources inconnue au chasseur les couche a peine sous son flux
nonchalant et silencieux."
" Lucile," page 70.
" In the white curtains waver'd the delicate shade
Of the heaving acacias in which the breeze played.
O'er the smooth wooden floor, polish'd dark as a glass,
Fragrant white Indian matting allow'd you to pass.
In light olive baskets, by window and door,
Some hung from the ceiling, some crowding the floor,
Rich wild flowers, plucked by Lucile from the hill,
Seem'd the room with their passionate presence to fill :
Blue aconite, hid in white roses, reposed ;
The deep bella-donna its vermeil disclosed ;
And the frail saponaire, and the tender blue-bell,
And the purple valerian — each child of the fell
And the solitude flourish'd, fed fair from the source
Of waters the huntsman scarce heeds in his course,
Where the chamois and izard, with delicate hoof,
Pause or flit through the pinnacled silence aloof."
It will be admitted that these lines show the ability of a
consummate translator.
Another accusation, not disproved so far as we know,
concerned his National Songs of Servia. " Whether they
be weeds or wild flowers," said Owen Meredith, " I have at
least gathered them in their native soil amidst the solitude
of the Carpathians, and along the shores of the Danube."
It was shown, however, that they were translated from a
French translation of selections from the Servian songs
collected by Stephanowitsch in 1824, these selections, how-
ever being translated avowedly not from the Servian.
ANA.
457
originals, but from the German translations of the Fraulein
Jacob. It was also shown that " Owen Meredith " was so
ignorant of Servian that he scarcely ever wrote a Servian
word without mis-spelling it to an extent not possible to
any one acquainted with the merest elements of the
grammar of the Servian tongue. These exposures had a
very damaging effect on the poet's reputation, then growing
rapidly, as may be observed from the complete change of
tone on the part of critics generally, and the comparatively
limited sale of his books.
Mr. John Morley's Early Career.
In a comparatively little known book, Reminiscences of a
Literary and Clerical Life, by the Rev. Frederick Arnold,
there are some interesting notices of the academic and
early literary career of Mr. John Morley, whom Mr.
Arnold first knew at Lincoln College, Oxford, and whom
he befriended when he took to authorship as a profession.
Mr. Morley early lost his father, who was a surgeon at
Blackburn. " He was very young," Mr. Arnold says, " when
he came up to Lincoln from Cheltenham College, and we
used to wonder whether such cleverness could last. He
has disappointed some hopes, for at one time there ap-
peared a probability of his taking orders " — an intimation
which may well surprise those who have read his bio-
graphies of Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. It does not
even appear that his renunciation of a clerical career arose
from scepticism. " I believe," Mr. Arnold says, " that the
great reason why he did not take holy orders was that he
graduated so early that he would have some years to wait
458 ANA.
before he could do so, and in those years he drifted entirely
into literature." We are not told that Mr. Morley dis-
tinguished himself in any way at Oxford. " He spent a
good deal of time at the Union," where he spoke pretty
frequently, " but not," according to Mr. Arnold, " with con-
spicuous success. His matter was always good, but he
was inornate and ineloquent." On leaving Oxford, he had
a long struggle in London as a man of letters. Mr. Arnold,
who then combined literature and clericalism, gives a
curious instance of the aid which he afforded to his former
college friend during his earlier life in London. The Rev.
Henry Christmas projected a work on the Archbishops of
Canterbury. He engaged Mr. Arnold to write some por-
tions of it, and " I tired at the work and handed it over to
Morley, who did something at it " — rather a strange employ-
ment for such a pen. Ultimately the production of the
work devolved on Dr. Hook. On becoming editor of the
then declining Literary Gazette, Mr. Arnold placed Mr.
Morley on his staff, and he bears testimony to the con-
scientiousness and commendable diligence of his friend and
assistant. " Morley and I," he adds, " at this time com-
bined some tutorial work with literature. He took a
mastership at a well-known school at Charlton, in Kent,
with the late Mr. Pritchett, who became Vicar, and .oddly
enough, a pupil which (sic] he had at Paris subsequently
became a pupil of my own. It was during his residence
in Paris that he chiefly acquired his remarkable insight
into French literature." The next steps in Mr. Morley's
varied career were his formation of a connection with the
Saturday Review and his editorship of the expiring Morning
ANA. 459
Star, a Radical London newspaper which enjoyed the
patronage of the late John Bright. It was doubtless
owing to the acquaintance which he thus formed with
Mr. Bright that he was once enabled to say to Mr.
Arnold, " I confess I felt a little elated to-day when I
walked arm-in-arm down Whitehall with a Cabinet
Minister." Mr. Morley's subsequent political and literary
career belongs to the category of " Things generally
known."
Jane Clairmont [" Claire," the mother of Byron's Allegra].
Some attention was attracted by Mr. William Graham's
article on Jane Clairmont in the Nineteenth Century, August,
1893, and it may be well to record a word of warning.
Briefly, nothing is new in the article save one statement,
and that is untrue. The statement is that, when Shelley
and Mary were accompanied by Jane on their journey to
Geneva, they were aware of her relations with Byron. This
has been hinted at and suggested time after time ; now it
is put forward as a fact on the evidence of a chat with
Jane. It is, we repeat, entirely false. Sufficient docu-
mentary evidence exists in the handwriting of Shelley.
Mary, and Jane herself, to prove beyond all question
that the Shelleys were quite ignorant of Jane's relations
with Byron till shortly before the birth of Allegra. There
is extant a letter written by Jane to Byron, in which she
begs and entreats him to shield her, and not to allow her
condition to come to Shelley's and Mary's ears. When
there are these direct statements and letters, we need hardly
appeal to the whole atmosphere of the history of these
460 ANA.
months, or to the surprise and anger expressed by Shelley
on his discovery of what had taken place.
The old and filthy lie connecting Shelley with Jane is
revived in the article, the chief point being the amount of
money left in Shelley's will to Jane. The writer evidently
does not know that the sum actually received by Jane
Clairmont was left her in error, that is, there was a palpable
error in the drafting of Shelley's will, the sum Shelley in-
tended her to have being left to Jane twice over, so that
she received, by a legal flaw, just double the money destined
for her use. Shelley's will did not come into effect till
long after his death ; and the error could not be rectified.
The writer in the Nineteenth Century says that Jane was
always shut up, and would give no information to any
one but himself, a total stranger. This is absurd. Cer-
tainly Jane was "closed" to the Shelley Revivalists of
1858-59, but for good reasons. Hogg, Hookham, Medwin,
Middleton, Oilier, &c., who worked that Revival, made
every effort to deify Mary, and find excuses for her
attitude towards her husband. Claire, they said, tempted
Shelley to flirtation, and justified Mary in scolding the
poet ! No wonder Jane refused to communicate with
them, but to others she opened her mind freely ; and years
before any Nineteenth Century interviewer can have seen
her, her Shelley tale was told fully out. Some regard the
whole " Graham " farrago of nonsense as a jocular fiction.
Another surmise is that the hero of the piece, who poses as
flirting with a spruce old lady, was himself deceived, and
only flirted with her niece and executrix, the late Miss Paola
Clairmont. But if there were ever any interviews between
ANA. 461
that hero and the aged Claire, it should be remembered,
also, that in her old age her memory greatly failed. Before
then she had given varying accounts of certain events, and
nothing she said at the end should be accepted without
verification. It is a pity the business should ever have
been stirred up again. She is falsely stated to have sold
relics to Shelley collectors. In fact, she guarded till her
death Shelley's letters to herself and Godwin, his hair,
some pinches of his ashes, his inkstand, diaries, note-books
and other papers and relics. Her niece Paola sold Mr.
Buxton Forman the whole save one or two things which
had disappeared mysteriously.
John Morley on Emerson.
Emerson has had few more appreciative critics than Mr.
John Morley. That being so, Mr. Morley would probably
be amused were he to read to-day the notes of a youthful
lecture on " Reading," delivered by him in his native town
of Blackburn in 1 864, as reported in Pitman's Popular Lec-
turer and Reader of that year. Speaking of those whose
minds are like sieves, and whose only " object is to drench
the mind in a certain quantity of words," he declares there
is no more benefit for these to be " derived from Bacon or
Shakespeare than from Martin Tupper or Ralph Waldo
Emerson? It would be interesting to know at what period
he found this coupling of names incongruous.
The State Recognition of Authors.
In the Author for October, 1891, Mr. how Sir Walter
Besant argued in favour of the State recognition of Authors.
462 ANA.
The following extracts are fairly representative of his
contention : —
" Now for all these branches [i.e., medicine, architecture,
painting, literature, music, acting, sculpture, science, teach-
ing]— for every noble calling — I claim the right of national
recognition, in whatever way the nation can or does exercise
that recognition. Especially I claim it for literature,
because of all noble callings it is the one which has been
the least recognised. ... I want [for literature] whatever
honours the State has to bestow — the very highest. ... In
whatever way the State chooses to recognise great services,
it is bound in that way to recognise a great poet. . . . Not
that writers will do better work, but that the world will
begin to think more highly of its writers, and will begin to
value their work more, and will be influenced more readily
by them when it sees that they are recognised by the
State."
The editor of the Bookman addressed several eminent
men of letters on the subject, and their replies are as
follows : —
I find it by no means easy to weigh the advantages
against the disadvantages of bestowing on men distin-
guished in science and literature the same honours, orders,
and titles which are now bestowed by the Sovereign, on
the advice of the Ministers, on civil servants, military
officers, Colonials, old Indians, medical men, painters,
aldermen, and nouveaux riches. The immense number of
titles and decorations bestowed by foreign governments on
all sorts of people, and on literary and scientific men among
the rest, has certainly exercised a bad and demoralising
ANA. 463
influence. A few causes celebres in France and Russia have
lately shown what corrupt influences are at work to secure
such distinctions, but the mischief is far greater than
appears on the surface. How is even the most consci-
entious Sovereign to know who is the greatest Sanskritist,
or Bacteriologist, or Essayist, or Folk-lorist, except from
courtiers or journalistic logrollers, who infest the back-stairs
of palaces or the back-stairs of newspaper offices — and I
wonder which stairs are the dirtier of the two. And yet it
seems a disgrace to any country not to recognise literary and
scientific merit, when every other kind of merit receives
recognition from the Sovereign.
I know of one way only out of all difficulties that beset
the giving of orders and titles. The Order pour le Merite
in literature and science is the most valued distinction in
Germany. Bismarck, who had all other orders, did not
obtain the Order pour le Mtrite. Moltke was proud to
wear it. It was founded by Frederick the Great, but the
election of the knights rests entirely with the knights
themselves. No one can be a candidate, no canvassing is
possible. The number of actual knights is limited to
twenty for science and ten for art for the whole of Ger-
many. No addition can be made to that number. When
a vacancy occurs a new knight is chosen by those who are
his peers, and the Sovereign simply confirms their choice
and bestows the insignia on the new knight. There are
also foreign members, but they are elected not by the
knights, but by the members of the Prussian Academy.
There is one other order of the same kind, the Maximilian
Order in Bavaria, but the number of knights is fifty, and I
464 ANA.
believe the King occasionally claims a certain influence in
the elections. Men of science in Germany who will wear
no other decoration, wear the Order pour le Merite and the
Order of Maximilian. Macaulay, after he had been made
Peer, called the Order pour le Me"rite his highest distinction.
Carlyle accepted it after having declined the Grand Cross
of the Bath. The Queen has given permission once for all
that it should be worn at the Court of St. James's.
Something of the same kind might be tried in England.
The difficulty would be how to select the first twenty
knights. Their lives ought to be immediately insured.
Another coveted distinction for men of literature and
science in Germany and France is to be elected member of
a Royal Academy. In this case also the number of
Academicians is strictly limited, and no payment exacted
from its members. On the contrary, they generally receive
a small honorarium. The Royal Society, if reformed in
that sense, might easily occupy the same position in
England which the Institut occupies in France, and the
Royal Academies in the different states of Germany.
F. MAX MULLER.
I have little right to express an opinion as to the bestowal
of honours by the state on literary men. One side only of
the argument — that of " the author " — is known to me.
Regarding as I do the efforts of Mr. Besant to establish just
relations between authors and publishers as most righteous
and praiseworthy, it is with regret that, in the present
controversy, I cannot, without misgiving, range myself on
his side.
ANA. 465
In the desire and effort to obtain such honours, is it not
to be feared that, as matters now stand, the pushing and
plausible man, with a smooth tongue and a thick skin,
would, in too many cases, have the advantage over the
more retiring man of real merit ?
While, moreover, on the part of the public, there would
be the danger of taking the symbol for the reality, on the
part of the author the purer ideal might run the risk of
being supplanted by, or mixed up with, aspirations of an
inferior kind.
JOHN TYNDALL.
HIND HEAD,
November loth.
I have to acknowledge your letter of the 8th inst, but
the subject of it is one on which I am rather at a loss for
the means of forming an opinion, as I have not read the
discussion been Mr. Besant and the Spectator.
My impression (I give it you for what it is worth, since
I have not followed the discussion) is, that our great literary
men, great poets in particular, are among the foremost and
most prominent lights of the world, and benefactors of
mankind ; worthy, therefore, beyond question, of all honour.
But their greatest honour is the power they exercise over
the minds of men, and the monumentum are perennius
which they erect to themselves. When titular or other
dignities are conferred, in recognition of their merits,
upon such men as Lord Tennyson, Lord Macaulay, and
Sir Walter Scott, it is they who do honour to the dignity,
rather than the dignity to them. I doubt whether it is
not a little infra dig. to complain that more honours of this
H H
466 ANA.
sort ought to be conferred, and upon all sorts of literary
eminence ; nor am I sure that (if they were) the really
great would always be well discriminated from the merely
successful. It requires time to set the true stamp upon
literary greatness ; and 'there are rewards of another sort,
which successful men in every popular branch of literature
(even when they do not rise to absolute greatness) have
abundantly before them ; while, on the other hand, in lines
of work which are less popular, reputations are not so easily
made, nor so sure to be understood and recognised while
an author lives.
SELBORNE.
BLACKMOOR, PETERSFIELD,
November i^tk, 1891.
I daresay it would be very interesting that literature
should be honoured by the State. But I don't see how
it could be satisfactorily done. The highest flights of the
pen are often, indeed mostly, the excursions and revela-
tions of souls unreconciled to life ; while the natural ten-
dency of a government would be to encourage acquiescence
in life as it is. However, I have not thought much about
the matter.
THOMAS HARDY.
My own leaning is towards a literature moving quite
independently of Government favour, and if honorary dis-
tinctions come, I hardly think it is for literary men to take
the initiative in asking for them.
I think the higher literature in England meets with a very
adequate social recognition, but it is exceedingly underpaid
ANA. 467
judging by the standard of the emoluments earned by equal
ability and labour in other fields.
WALTER LECKY.
38, ONSLOW GARDENS, S.W.,
November ijtk, 1891.
The Cheveley Novels.
There are few more curious incidents in the annals of
publishing than the appearance of the Cheveley Novels.
The secrecy which surrounded their authorship, the pro-
minence which so eminent a firm as Messrs. Blackwood
gave to their announcement, the support given at first by
influential critics, and their ultimate collapse, have hardly
faded from the public memory, Their author, Mr. Valen-
tine Durrant, died at Bournemouth in the beginning of
1892.
Were it permissible to tell the story of the author and
his books, it would take its place among the romances of
literature. As it is, it must suffice to say that Valentine
Durrant was the son of a baker in Brighton. There he
dabbled in literature and ultimately came to London, and
lived in great poverty and suffering at Fulham. The friend
who printed the Cheveley Novels for him seems to have
been in ignorance of his condition, and to have left him to
his resources during this time. In 1874 he began contri-
buting to a now defunct boys' magazine, and afterwards
published the Cheveley Novels. His other books were
Souls and Cities, His Child Friend, and The Record of
Rtit/t. It is not likely that these would have all been pub-
lished without the aid of the friend who spent much money
H H 2
468 ANA.
in backing his works. Mr. Durrant had a grant from the
Royal Literary Fund to enable him to rmove to Bourne-
mouth in the last year of his life.
Mr. J. A Froude's Sermon.
Of Mr. Froude's ministrations in the Church of England
during that period of his career, there survives a memorial
of a date three years later than the publication of his life
of St. Neot. It is a tiny opuscule of some twenty pages,
and on its title-page fringed with lines of mourning-black,
we read : " A sermon preached at St. Mary's Church on
the death of the Rev. George May Coleridge, the second
Sunday after Trinity, 1847. By the Rev. J. A. Froude,
M.A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Torquay : ' E.
Croydon, Bookseller, 1847." In the course of the sermon
which is throughout perfectly orthodox in tone and expres-
sion, the preacher speaks of his close intimacy with and
affection for the deceased cleric. " His father in the flesh,"
Mr. Froude said, "was my father in the spirit in Holy
Baptism, and when the old man went down into the grave
the son took the promises on himself which the father had
made." Mr. Coleridge was probably a scion of the famous
family of that name. He was a devoted parish priest, and
doubtless a very High Churchman, since among his merits
prominence was given by the preacher to his friend's insti-
tution of a twice-a-day service. Mr. Froude appears to have
been residing in Torquay for a short time before he preached
the sermon, and possibly was a coadjutor of his friend in
good works done in the parish and even in the actual
services of the church there. The preacher displays
ANA. 469
throughout a devout serenity and resignation, while ex-
pressing the deepest regret for the loss which he and his
friend's flock had sustained, and the language is very simple.
The only passage in the sermon which would, in secular
phrase, be called " striking," is the following : " It," the
death of their pastor, said Mr. Froude, addressing the con-
gregation directly, " has been so sudden ; his years gave us
no note to prepare ourselves to lose him ; he was in the
flower of his days. Five weeks ago he was here where I
am now standing ; it was his last sermon. Do you re-
member it ? He was speaking to you of the sufferings of
the past winter, and pointing to the rich promise of abund-
ance with which the earth appeared to be bursting ; the
long bitter cold seemed at last to have passed away, and
the sunshine to be warming us all into life again, and hope
and happiness ; and he was bidding you remember the
merciful change in some especial way, and pray to God to
be thankful for it as you ought. It was very strange ; as
we went into church, the day was so beautiful ; the sun was
shining as he went up into the pulpit, but as he came to
speak of the bright and happy contrast of the present with
what we have just passed through, the clouds swept up over
the sky, the rain began to fall, the lightning flashed, and the
thunder rolled over the church. What a bitter emblem of
the suddenness with which our summer has been overcast.
The blossom to which he was pointing on the apple trees
has scarcely set for the fruit, and spring and autumn,
summer and winter, sunshine and rain, are all alike to him
now."
Copies of this sermon are doubtless very rare. There is
470 ANA.
one in the library of the British Museum. The authorities
there value it so highly that they have not, as they usually do,
bound it in the same volume with a number of other pulpit
discourses, but keep it separate in its original paper cover,
and allow it to be perused only in the interior recesses of
the library, under vigilant supervision.
Cardinal Newman's " St. Bartholomew's Eve."
The British Museum has become possessed of the
extremely scarce poem, by J. H. Newman and J. W.
Bowden, entitled " St. Bartholomew's Eve : A Tale of the
Sixteenth Century. In Two Cantos. Oxford : Printed
and published by Munday and Slatter, Herald Office, High
Street, 1821." It belonged to the Rev. Dr. Bloxam, of
Beeding Priory, Hurstpierpoint, and it bears the inscription,
" John R. Bloxam, D.D. With the Affectionate Regards
of John H. Newman." An envelope addressed to Dr.
Bloxam by Newman is pasted in ; it has the postal mark,
' Birmingham, Feb. 20, /83." Pencil notes in the margin
assign the shares of the two authors. Bowden begins and
goes on to line 65. Newman commences and goes on
thus :
" 'Mid the recesses of that pillared wall
Stood reverent Clement's dark confessional.
Here Rapine's son, with superstition pale,
Oft through the grated lattice told his tale ;
Here blood-stained Murder falter'd, tho' secure
Of absolution from a faith impure —
Mistaken worship ! can the outward tear
Make clean the breast devoid of godly fear !
Shall pomp and splendour holy love supply,
The grateful heart, the meek submissive eye ?
ANA. 471
Mistaken worship ! when the priestly plan
In servile bondage rules degraded man,
Proclaims on high in proud imperious tone
Devotion springs from ignorance alone ;
And dares prefer to sorrow for the past
The scourge of penance or the groan of fast !
— Where every crime a price appointed brings
To sooth (sic} the churchman's pride, the sinner's stings,
Where righteous grief and penitence are made
A holy market and a pious trade ! "
Another passage by Newman may be. given from the
second canto :
" There is in stillness oft a magic power
To calm the breast when struggling passions lower ;
Touched by its influence, in the soul arise
Diviner feelings kindred with the skies.
Through this the Arab's kindling thoughts expand,
When arching skies on all sides kiss the sand.
For this the hermit seeks the silent grove
To court the inspiring glow of heavenly love.
— It is not solely in the freedom given
T' abstract our thoughts and fix the soul on heaven ;
There is a spirit singing aye in air
That lifts us high above each mortal care ;
No mortal measure swells that silent sound,
No mortal minstrel breathes such tones around ;
— The angels' hymn — the melting harmony
That guides the rolling bodies through the sky —
And hence perchance the tales of saints who viewed
And heard angelic choirs in solitude,
By most unheard, because the busy din
Of pleasure's courts the heedless may not win ;
Alas ! for man ; he knows not of the bliss,
The heav'n attending such a life as this."
Four pages of notes are added. The first is by Newman,
and runs thus :
472 ANA.
" Canto the First.
Note I, page 5, line I,
The sun has risen.
I take this opportunity of introducing a short sketch of the
massacre of St. Bartholomew. It may be thought by many
an unnecessary task, and some will not fail to deem it as
presuming to suppose that our learned University is
unacquainted with the full particulars. This I thought
myself, when I published the first canto ; but an earnest
and attentive canvassing of the opinions of those who have
done me the honour to peruse my publication has convinced
me of my mistake ; and since I have done my best to
please, I hope I shall be pardoned if I be in error. The
year of our Lord 15/2 will ever be branded with infamy and
recollected with horror as the date of this most barbarous
and cold-blooded massacre. The queen-mother, Catherine
de Medici, actuated by zeal or ambition, conceived this
design so pleasing to the Court of Rome ; and her weak and
ill-fated son Charles the Ninth was made the tool of her
bloodthirsty intentions. The hour of twelve according to
Voltaire, of three according to Sully, was the time
appointed for the commencement of the assassination,
and the clock of the church of St. German 1'Auxerrois
awakened the pious Catholics of Paris to deeds of
treachery and murder. Coligny, Lord High Admiral
of France, was one of the first that was (sic} martyred.
30,000 Huguenots shared his fate throughout the
empire, and it was only a motive of policy that spared
the Protestant King of Navarre, afterwards the famous
Henry the Fourth, who had lately married the King'
ANA. 473
sister. Charles died not long after, a victim to a most
miserable disease ; his dying moments were haunted with
the visions of a distempered imagination or a guilty con-
science, and he seemed to wish to atone for his conduct
towards the Protestants by appointing his brother-in-law of
Navarre his successor. The poetry of Voltaire and the
prose of Sully exhibit two Frenchmen speaking in abhor-
rence of the deeds of their countrymen ; and this single
circumstance is perhaps more convincing in respect to the
atrocity of the massacre than the most laboured declamation
of the historian."
The last note is also by Newman, and contains the fol-
lowing curious sentence :
" Paley in his moral philosophy supposes that the happi-
ness of the lower and sedentary orders of animals, as of
oysters, periwinkles, etc., consists in perfect health : I should
prefer to say, it consists in the silence they enjoy."
It may be added that in the British Museum Catalogue
the pencil notes assigning authorship are ascribed to Dr.
Bloxam. Is this certain ?
From Some Early Letters of George Eliot.
We make some extracts from a few letters written by
George Eliot to an early school friend.
THE PHYSICAL THEORY OF ANOTHER LIFE.
"FOLESHILL, May 2ist, 1841.
" Leaving this fruitless subject, I will not omit to tell you
that you have instrumentally furnished me with the best
soother under a rather severe attack of influenza in Tlie
474 ANA.
Physical T/teory of AnotJier Life, which I had lent to a
friend without reading it myself until about a month ago,
when I nestled in my father's arm-chair and forgot headache,
cough, and all their etceteras in the rapture this precious
book caused me, as intense as that of any school-girl over
her first novel."
SARTOR RESARTUS.
" FOLESHILL, December l6tA, 1841.
" Have you, dear Patty, read any of T. Carlyle's books ?
He is a grand favourite of mine, and I venture to recom-
mend to you his Sartor Resartus. I dare say a barrister
of your acquaintance has it. His soul is a shrine of the
brightest and purest philanthropy, kindled by the live coal
of gratitude and devotion to the Author of all things. I
should observe that he is not ' orthodox.' "
MARRIAGE.
" FOLESHILL, April 2ist, 1845.
" What should you say to my becoming a wife ? Should
you think it a duty to ascertain the name of the rash man
that you might warn him from putting on such a matri-
monial hair-shirt as he would have with me? I did
meditate an engagement, but I have determined, whether
wisely or not I cannot tell, to defer it, at least for the pre-
sent. My health is not of the strongest — dreadful head-
aches come now and then to me as well as to the rest of
mankind, but idleness is my chief disease, and my most
salutary medicine the exhortation, ' Work while it is day.'
ANA. 475
I and father go on living and loving together as usual, and
it is my chief source of happiness to know that I form one
item of his. So now you know my state, or at least its
outward, material part. The spirit varies far more
than the forms under which it lives and works, and our
souls live two years while our bodies live but two months.
Nay, the experience of a week, of a day, may make one
grey in wisdom or in sadness as well as in hair. Perhaps
you would find some symptoms of age creeping over me if
you were with me now, and you would accuse me of being
too old for five-and-twenty, which is a sufficiently venerable
sum of years in the calendar of young ladies generally.
But I can laugh and love and fall into a fit of enthusiasm
still, so there is some of the youthful sap left."
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
I
" FOLESHILL, April 2ist, 1845.
I dined last week with Harriet Martineau at Mrs. Brace-
bridge's of Atherstone. She is a charming person — quite
one of those great people whom one does not venerate the
less for having seen. Full of mesmerism and its marvels, as
you may suppose.
Thomas Carlyle and George Gilfillan.
The following letter was addressed by Carlyle to Thomas
Aird, then editor of the Dumfries Herald. It referred to
a review of his French Revolution by George Gilfillan.
Carlyle evidently imagined that the criticism was by Aird
himself. The letter is in three pieces worn through at the
476 ANA.
folds across the whole sheet, and some words on the last
page are thereby illegible.
CHELSEA, \ith October, 1840.
MY DEAR AIRD, — Yesterday a Herald reached me with
one Article in it which I did not fail to notice ! It is not,
in general, seemly or convenient that the reviewed make
any answer to his reviewer ; but the present is a case
worthy beyond most of forming an exception to such a
rule.
You will not laugh at me when I tell you that I read the
Paper with very great pleasure. It is a noble panegyric ;
a picture painted by a Poet, which means with me a man of
Insight and Heart — decisive, sharp of outline, in hues bor-
rowed from the sun ! I find an enormous exaggeration of
all features ; but the resemblance, so far as I may judge, is
altogether good. It is rare indeed to find oneself mirrored
so in a brother-soul ; and one of the truest pleasures when
by a happy chance it does offer itself. Not many things
have ever been written about me in which I could see my
own image with so many features that I knew to be mine.
Reviews for most part have next to no resemblance, the
reviewers being blockheads ; in that case, whether they are
loud with censure or loud with eulogy goes for absolutely
nothing ; one has to hand them aside, like a letter mis-
directed ; they do one neither ill nor good. This present
is an altogether different business !
For the rest, it is really a truth, one never knows whether
praise be really good for one ; whether it be not, in
very fact, the worst poison that could be administered.
ANA. 477
Blame, or even vituperation, I have always found a safer
article. In the long run a man has and is, just what he is
and has, — the world's notion of him has not altered him at
all. Except, indeed, if it have poisoned him with self-
conceit, and made a caput-mortuum of him ! — I will not
thank you for so much praise ; but I will right heartily for
being a brave, true-hearted man and loving me so well :
this is an entirely lawful pleasure. That a craftsman
recognise so generously his fellow-craftsman, and his work,
seems to me, even were I not the object of it, a most brave
thing.
You spoke rightly of my Edinburgh Reviewer ; a dry,
sceptical, mechanical lawyer (one Merivale, I hear), with his
satchel of Dictionaries dangling at his back — with the heart
of him torpid or dead, and the head of him consequently not
alive. His notion of Robespierre's " religion " struck me,
as it does you, the product of a heart dead. Kill the heart
rightly, no head then knows rightly what to believe ; has
then any right sense of true and false left in it ! His
notion of Dumouriez's campaign, taken up in this place, at
this time of day is enormous — little inferior to R.'s religion
itself. But it does not equal a third thing which I found in
that article, which I wonder no Iconoclast, radical or other
took note of; this namely: that "hunger" is universal,
perennial and irremediable among the lower classes of
society — unknown only among the horses and domestic
animals ; that enlightened liberal government means a
judicious combining of those who are not hungry to sup-
press those who are, and lock them up from revolting !
" The pigs are to die, no conceivable help for that ; but we,
478 ANA.
by God's blessing, will at least keep down their squealing ! "
It struck me as the most infernal proposition, written down
in that cold way, I had ever had presented to me in human
language — wwattended with its fit corollary, the duty of
" universal simultaneous suicide," and a giving up of this
God's creation on the part of Adam's race as a bad job !
I did not .... Scotland this summer ; and I got
nowhither, except for one short week down into Sussex. I
trust always I shall be able to get away altogether some
day. The sight of a silent green field with the great silent
sky over it : ah me, why should it be denied to any mortal
man ?
My wife is in general better this year than usual ; though
complaining a little these two days. She sends many kind
remembrances .... to clip out the Article and preserve it
among her valuables. " An excessively clever thing ! "
Adieu, dear Aird. My pen is bad, my paper and time
are both done to-day. Live happy, busy ; remembering us
now and then. Yours always truly,
T. CARLYLE.
INDEX.
INDEX.
A Century of Roundels. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 336
A Note on Charlotte Bronte. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 332
A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of Robert Browning. By A. C. Swin-
burne—
Collation of the First Edition, 345
"Forming a connecting link between two of the foremost poets of the
age," 346
A Song of Italy. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 317
The original Manuscript still preserved, 317
A Word for the Navy. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 337
Collation of the Second Edition, 337
Collation of the Popular Edition, 338
Description of the original Manuscript, 339
Fac-simile of a portion of the Manuscript, facing 339
The variations in its text, 339
A Year's Letters. A novel, in thirty chapters, by A. C. Swinburne, 358
Agamemnon, The. Letter from A. C. Swinburne to the Editor of The
Athenaum regarding R. Browning's translation of, 361
Alembert, The Adventures of Ernest, by Charlotte Bronte, 53
Alfieri.
" I oftener think with Alfieri than with any other writer " (Landor), 210
Allegra (Byron's natural daughter), 459
Allen, George, 46
An Appeal to England. By A. C. Swinburne. —
Account of the circumstances which induced the poem, 319
Collation of the only separate Edition, 317
I I
482 INDEX.
An Essay on Mind, by E. B. Browning —
Collation of the First Edition, 86
An old Commonplace Book of Edward Fitzgerald, 385
Andrews, the Rev. Edward, D.D. —
The father of Emily Augusta Patmore, 377
Arnold, Frederick. His Reminiscences of a Literary and Clerical Lije, 457
Atalanta in Calydon. By A. C. Swinburne —
A portion of the MS. in the possession of Mr. C. F. Murray, 301
Collation of the First (410) Edition, 300
Collation of the Second Edition, 301
Collation of the Third Edition, 302
Collation of a German translation, 302
Auguste Vacquerie. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the only separate Edition, 330
Authors, The State Recognition of, 461
Bailey, Philip James (the author of Festus) —
Letter from him repudiating his title to be called " The father of the
Spasmodic School," 413
Barrett, Elizabeth Barrett. (See Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.)
Barrie, J. M., on his Method of Work, 45$
Barton, Bernard, 392
Battle of Marathon, The, by E. B. Browning —
Collation of the First Edition, 84
The reprint of 1891, 85
" Written when the little poet was but some thirteen years of age," 85
Baudelaire, Charles. Prose article by A. C. Swinburne upon his (C. B.'s)
Fleurs du Mai, 351
Besant, Sir Walter—
And James Rice, 449
His Argument in favour of the State Recognition of Authors, 461
Bibliography of Swinburne, A Contribution to the, 289
Bishop ThirlwalFs Appointment to St. David's, 446
Both-well. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 327
Collation of the Issue in Two Volumes, 328
German translation recently completed, 328
Bright, John, 458
" The gentle knight, Sir John de Bright" 347
Bronte, Charlotte—
A Note on, by A. C. Swinburne, 332
Fac-similes of her signature, 52, 79
Her Adventures of Ernest Alembert, 53
INDEX. 483
Bronte, Charlotte — continued: —
Her Catalogue of her early Manuscript Books, 50
Proudly the sun had sunk to rest. A poem by, 74
Bronte, Patrick Branwell —
Three interesting Oil-paintings by, 451
Brown, Dr. John, and Charles Dickens, 445
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett —
Her Essay upon Carlyle, 103
Her Religious Opinions, 1 21
Her Scarcer Books. A Bio-Bibliographical Note. Including descriptions of:
(i.) The Battle of Marathon, 1820, 84
(ii. ) An Essay on Mind, -with other Poems, 1826, 86
(iii. ) Prometheus Bound, Translated from the Greek cf ^Eschyius,
and other Poems, 1833, 86
(iv. ) Poems. In Two Volumes, 1844, 87
(v. ) Sonnets [from the Portuguese'], 1847, 91
(vi.) The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point, 1849, 92
Three Letters addressed to Mr. Merry, J.P. —
(i.) dated London, November 2nd, 1843, 125
(ii.) dated London, November ijfh, 1843, 132
(iii.) dated London, January 8tA, 1844, 138
Browning, Robert —
A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of, by A. C. Swinburne, 345
Died at Asolo on December 12th, 1889, 346
Letter from A. C. Swinburne to the Editor of The Athentzttm regarding
R. B.'s translation of the Agamemnon, 361
Carlyle, Thomas, a letter, in French, regarding T. C., addressed by A. C.
Swinburne to the Editor of Le Rappel, 362
A "disentangled Essay" upon, by E. B. Browning, 103
His Cromwell, The plan of, 446
Letter to Thomas Aird referring to a review of The French Revolution by
George Gilfillan, which appeared in The Dumfries Herald, 476
Caviare — a pen-name adopted by John Keats, 285
Charles Lamb's Letters to Godwin. A letter regarding, addressed by A. C.
Swinburne to the Editor of The Athenaum, 356
Chastelard. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, with Moxon's Title, 303
Collation of the First Edition, with Hotten's Title, 303
Collation of a translation into German, 304
Cheveley Novels, The, 467
Clairmont, Jane —
" Closed " to the Shelley Revivalists of 1858-9, 460
I I 2
484 INDEX.
Clairmont, Jane — continued: —
Graham's (William) Ninleentk Century article on, refuted, 459
Shelley's connexion with Jane " an old and filthy lie," 460
Shelley's Will, a palpable error in the bequest to Jane, 460
Cleopatra : 1866. By A. C. Swinburne-
Collation of the First Edition, 314
Extract from a letter of Mr. Swinburne's regarding, 315
The MS. in the possession of Mr. C. F. Murray, 316
The poem " entirely dropped by its author," 315
Congreve, William. Prose article by A. C. Swinburne upon ; printed in The
Imperial Dictionary of National Biography, 351
Cory, William. (See Johnson, William.)
Crabbe, The Rev. George—
Two Poetical Epistles :
(i) From the Devil. An Epistle General, 150
(ii) From the Author to Mira, 167
Fac-simile of a portion of the Manuscript, facing 167
Cromwell, Carlyle's, The Plan of, 446
Cromwell s Statue. By A. C. Swinburne, 370
Dead Love, 1864. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the only separate Edition, 380
Fac-simile of the wood-cut by M. J. Lawless, which accompanied the
story when it appeared in Once-a- Week, facing 300
Delphic Hymn to Apollo. By A, C. Swinburne, 369
Dethroning Tennyson. A contribution to the Tennyson-Darwin controversy.
By A. C. Swinburne, 367
Dickens, Charles, and Dr. John Brown, 445
Disgust : A Dramatic Monologue. By A. C. Swinburne —
A Parody of Lord Tennyson's Despair, 363
Never reprinted in any shape or form, 363
Dobell, Sydney, on the First Lord Lytton, 454
Dolores: 1867. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the only separate Edition, 316
Description of the original Manuscript, 317
Fac-simile of a portion of the original Manuscript, facing 31 7
Dolorida —
Printed and circulated by R. H. Shepherd, 374
The poem not by A. C. Swinburne, 374
Translated into English verse by George Moore, 374
Dowden, Prof. Edward —
Note from, regarding The Queen of My Heart, a poem attributed to
P. B. Shelley, 454
INDEX. 485
Durrant, Valentine —
Author of the Cheveley Novels, 467
Died at Bournemouth, early in 1892, 467
Eliot, George, on George Meredith, 173
Extracts from some early Letters of —
(i. ) The Physical Theory of Another Life, 473
(ii. ) Sartor Resartus, 474
(Hi.) Marriage, 474
(iv.) Harriet Martineau, 475
Emerson, Ralph Waldo —
John Morley on, 461
Landor's Open Letter to, 195
Letter from John Ruskin to Alexander Ireland regarding, 448
Enid and Nimue : The True and the False, by Alfred Tennyson —
Description of the edition of 1857, 225
Epipsychidion, by P. B. Shelley—
A Note on, by A. C. Swinburne, 368
Epitaph on a Slanderer, by A. C. Swinburne, 354
Erechtheus: A Tragedy, by A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 331
Ernest Alembert, The Adventures of, by Charlotte Bronte, 53
" Fair face, fair head, and goodly gentle brows." A poem, of six stanzas, by A.
C. Swinburne, contained in the novel A Year's Letters, 360
Festus, the Author of, and the Spasmodic School, 41 1
Fitzgerald, Edward, an old Commonplace Book of, 385
Forman, H. Buxton, 461
Froude, James Anthony, M.A. —
His " Sermon preached at St. Mary's Church on the death of the Rev. George
May Coleridge . . . Torquay: 1847," 468
Furnivall, Dr. F. J., 3
His account of his first meeting with John Ruskin, 4
Letter from John Ruskin to, 44
Printed and distributed Ruskin's On the Nature of Gothic Architecture,
46
Started the Working Men's College in 1854, 46
Gathered Songs, by A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 342
Gaskell, Mrs.—
Her Life of Charlotte Bronte, 49
" Her statements found to be woefully inexact," 50
Seriously in error regarding Charlotte Bronte's early Manuscripts, 50
Gentle Spring. A Sonnet by A. C. Swinburne, 351
486 INDEX.
Gladstone, W. E.—
Verses addressed to, by A. C. Swinburne, 340
Gosse, Edmund —
His account of Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, 96
His Critical Kit-Kats, 96, 97
The Catalogue of his Library, 348
Gothe, J. W.—
" Fifty pages of Shelley contain more of pure poetry than a hundred of
Gothe " (Landor), 207
" Spent the better part of his time in contriving a puzzle, and in spinning
out a yarn for a labyrinth " (Landor), 207
Grace Darling. By A. C. Swinburne-
Collation of the First Edition, 348
Thirty copies only printed, 349
Graham, William —
A refutation of inaccurate statements made in the account of his Interview
with Jane Clairmont, printed in The Nineteenth Century, August,
1893, 459
Hardy, Thomas, upon the State Recognition of Authors, 466
Haweis, Rev. H. R. —
"Victor Hugo and Mr. Swinburne," 368
Hotten, John Camden —
Letter to him from Adah Isaacs Menken, 373
Home, R. H., 105
Hullah's Hall. The opening meeting of the Working Men's College held at, 46
Hunt, J. H. Leigh, 284
Idylls of the Hearth, by Alfred Tennyson —
Description of the Edition of 1864, 243
Idylls of the King, by Alfred Tennyson —
Description of the Edition of 1859, 241
Ditto ditto 1888, 267
In the Album of Adah Menken —
A poem (Dolorida) attributed to A. C. Swinburne, 374
Mr. Swinburne's letter repudiating the authorship of, 374
Printed and circulated by R. H. Shepherd, 374
In Memory of Aurelio Saffi. By A. C. Swinburne, 371
Infelicia —
By Adah Isaacs Menken,1 373
" Covetable, were it only for its Dickens interest," 373
Not contributed to by A. C. Swinburne, 373
Ireland, Alexander —
Letter from John Ruskin to, regarding R. W. Emerson, 448
INDEX. 487
Jane Clainnont. (See Clairmont, Jane.)
Johnson, William [=" William Cory"] —
Born about 1820, 397
Changed his name to Cory on his accession to a small property, 402
Contributed to Essays on a Liberal Education, 398
Published lonica in 1858, 1877, and 1891, 398
Wrote A Guide to Modern History, 398
Keats, John —
A letter regarding his Ode to a Nightingale, by A. "C. Swinburne, 357
"Addition and Subtraction," 273
An unpublished Sonnet by him, 277
Fac-simile of the MS. of a Sonnet by \a.m, facing 281
The couplets Vox et Pnxterea Nihil (printed in The Indicator- {at January,
V)th, 1820) not by Keats, 284
1\i& Sonnet " Brother beloif d if health shall smile again " not by Keats, 281
Kipling, Rudyard — Suppressed Works of, 403
Letters of Marque, 406
The City of Dreadful Night, 406
Lamb, Charles. An unclaimed Sonnet by, 45 1
Landor, Walter Savage. His open Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 195
" Last Words on the Agamemnon." A letter by A. C. Swinburne to the Editor
of The Athenaum regarding Robert Browning's translation of, 361
Laus Veneris. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the only separate Edition of 1866, 304
Collation of a translation into French, 306
Description of the original Manuscript, 304
No copy to be found in the British Museum, 305
Le Tombeau de Thtophile Gautier. Contributed to by A.' C. Swinburne.
Collation of, 326
Lecky, William, upon the State Recognition of Authors, 467
Lemperley, Paul, 194
Letter to R. W. Emerson, Lander's, 195
Description of the First Edition, 193
Description of the Rowfant Club Edition, 194
Fac-simile of the Title-page of the first Edition, facing, 191
Letters ofjunius.
Landor " inclined to General Lee as author," 208
Letters of Marque. By Rudyard Kipling ; suppressed —
The Taj and Amber, Queen of the Pass, extracted from Letters of Marque,
quoted 406-410
Lticretius, by Alfred Tennyson —
Description of the Edition of 1868, 245
488 INDEX.
Lucy Vanghan Lloyd — a pen-name of John Keats, 285
Lytton, The First Lord —
" An orator, and has tried to be a poet," 454
Sydney Dobell's criticisms on his " strenuous attempts " to write poetry,
454
Lytton, The Second Lord —
Charges of Plagiarism against, 455-7
Lucile "nothing more than a marvellously exact translation from George
Sand's Lavinia" 455
National Songs of ' Servia " translated from a French translation of selec-
tions from the Servian Songs collected by Stephanowitsch in 1824,"
456
Martineau, Harriet. George Eliot's description of, 475
Maurice, Rev. F. D. Correspondence with John Ruskin concerning Notes on
the Construction of Sheep/olds, 3
Letter to Dr. Fumivall dated March 2$th, 1851, 7
Letter to John Ruskin, dated April $th, 1851, 22
Letter to John Ruskin, dated April zWi, [1851], 39
Mazzini and the Union. A letter, so entitled, addressed by A. C. Swinburne
to the Editor of The Times, 366
Menken, Adah Isaacs —
Her Infelicia, 373
Letter from her to John Camden Hotten, 373
Lines (Dolorida) in her Album not by A. C. Swinburne, 374
Meredith, George —
George Eliot on G. M., 173
His Shaving of Shagpat, 176
Letter from A. C. Swinburne regarding his (G. M.'s) Modern Love, 351
Merry, William, J.P. Three letters from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to,
121
Mill, John Stuart, 447
Mitford, Mary Russell, 123
Modern Love (George Meredith's). Letter from A. C. Swinburne to the
Editor of The Spectator regarding, 351
Morley, John —
His Early Career, 457
Editor of The Morning Star, 459
On Ralph W. Emerson, 461
Morte cf Arthur ; Dora ; and other Idylls, by Alfred Tennyson —
Description of the Edition of 1842, 222
Miiller,wF. Max, upon the State Recognition of Authors, 464
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 301, 316
INDEX. 489
Newman, Cardinal, J. H. —
His poem St. Bartholomew's Eve: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century.
Oxford, 1821, 470
Nicholls, Rev. Arthur Bell. The husband of Charlotte Bronte, 52
Note on the Muscovite Crusade. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 331
Nc'es on Poems and Reviews. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 313
Description of Hotten's Second (spurious) Edition, 313
Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds. John Ruskin and F. D. Maurice on, 3
Notes on the Royal Academy. By W. M. Rossetti, and A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 320
Ode a la Statue de Victor Hugo. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the only separate Edition, 335
On the Nature of Gothic Architecture, by John Ruskin. Printed and dis-
tributed at the opening meeting of the Working Men's College, 46
"Owen Meredith" [the Second Lord Lytton] "so ignorant of Servian that
he scarcely ever wrote a Servian word without mis-spelling it," 457
Parnell, Charles Stewart. The Ballad of Truthful Charles [i.e. C. S. P.], by
A. C. Swinburne, 368
Patmore, Emily Augusta —
Bom at Walworth, February 2<)th, 1824, 377
Buried in Hendon Churchyard, 383
Could not approve the influence of Cardinal Manning or Aubrey de
Vere, 382
Died at Hampstead, Ju!y $tk, 1862, 383
Her Nursery Songs,— The Butterfly, and The Cow, 381
Like Lucy Snowe in Villette, 382
Married Coventry Patmore in September, 1847, 380
The eighth child of Rev. Edward Andrews, D.D., 377
The Heroine of The Angel in the House, 377
Wrote Nursery Tales, and edited the Children's Garland, 382
fams and Ballads, 1866. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition with Moxon's title, 306
Collation of the First Edition with Hotten's title, 308
Collation of the Second Edition, 309
Collation of the Third Edition, 310
Collation of the First American Edition, 311
Collation of a French Translation, 311
Letter from the Author repudiating the statement that certain of the
poems were suppressed, 312
W. M. Rossetti's Criticism, 311
490 INDEX.
Prometheus Bound, and other Poems, by E. B. Browning —
Collation of the First Edition, 86
Re-translated in 1850, 88
Proudly the sun has sunk to rest. A poem by Charlotte Bronte, 74
Queen of my Heart, The. The Authorship of, 452
Attributed to James Augustus St. John, 453
Said not to be the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 454
Recollections of Tennyson, 421
Rice, James, and Sir Walter Besant, 449
Rizpah, Tennyson's, the origin of, 440
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 284
Rossetti, Christina G., 83
Rossetti, William Rossetti, His Criticism of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads,
1866, 311
His Notes on the Royal Academy, 1868, 320
Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point, The, by E. B. Browning —
Collation of the only separate Edition (1849), 92
Ruskin, John —
Correspondence with Rev. F. D. Maurice concerning Notes on the Con-
struction of Sheepfolds, 3
Helped in the Art Classes at the Working Men's College, 46
Letter to Alexander Ireland regarding R. W. Emerson, 448
Ruskin, Mrs. John (afterwards Lady Millais). Dr. Furnivall's description of, 4
Sartor Resartus. George Eliot "ventures to recommend" it, 474
Scott, William Bell. A " protest," by A. C. Swinburne, against certain
statements made in the Autobiographical Notes o/W. B. S., 369
Sea Song and River Rhyme from Chaucer to Tennyson. Edited by E. D.
Adams, 1887, 338
Selbourne, Lord, upon the State Recognition of Authors, 466
Shelley, Percy Bysshe —
A Note on his Epipsychidion, by A. C. Swinburne, 366
" Fifty pages of Shelley contain more of pure poetry than a hundred of
Gothe" (Landor), 207
The Centenary of P. B. S. A Sonnet by A. C. Swinburne, 369
Shorter, Clement King, 52
His Charlotte Bronte and her Circle, 49
His copy of the Reading edition of Mrs. Browning's Sonnets, 1847,
facing p. 91
Siena : 1838, by A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 321
Collation of the Second (spurious) Edition, 321
Collation of an Italian Translation, 322
INDEX. 491
Sir Henry Taylor's Lyrics. A letter regarding, addressed by A. C. Swinburne
to the Editor of The Academy, 356
Sir Tray ; a Parody on The Idylls of the King, 261
Slater, Walter Brindley, 194, 317, 339
Songs Before Sunrise, by A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 323
Songs of Two Nations, by A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 329
Sonnets [from the Portuguese], by E. B. Browning —
A "circumstantial account of," given by Edmund Gosse, 96
Description of the Edition of 1847, 91
"The love-sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning," 100
" Of transcendent import and value," 101
Southern, Henry —
Died early in 1853, 448
Planned and edited The Retrospective Review, 448
Studies in Song, by A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 334
Swinburne, Algernon Charles. A contribution to the bibliography of the writ-
ings of, 289
Includes descriptions of the following works —
Undergraduate Papers : 1858, 291
The Queen- Mother and Rosamond: 1 860, 297
Dead Love: 1864, 300
Atalanta in Calydon: 1865, 300
Chastelard: 1865, 303
Laus Veneris: 1 866, 304
Poems and Ballads : 1866,306
Notes on Poems and Reviews : 1866, 313
Cleopatra: 1866, 314
Dolores: 1867, 316
A Song of Italy: 1867, 317
An Appeal to England: 1867, 317
William Blake: 1868, 319
Notes on the Royal Academy : 1868, 320
Siena: 1868, 321
Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic : 1870, 322
Songs Before Sunrise: 1871, 323
Under the Microscope : 1872,325
Le Tombeau de Thfophile Gautier: 1873, 326
Both-well: 1874, 327
Songs of Two Nations: 1875, 329
492 INDEX.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles — continued: —
Auguste Vacquerie: 1875, 330
Erechtheus: 1876, 331
Note on the Muscovite Crusade : 1876, 331
A Note on Charlotte Bronte: 1877, 332
The Heptalogia: 1880, 332
Studies in Song: 1880, 334
Ode a la Statue de Victor Hugo: 1882, 335
A Century of Roundels : 1883, 336
A Word for the Navy : 1887, 337
The Question: 1887, 339
The Jubilee: 1887, 341
Gathered Songs : 1887, 342
Unpublished Verses: 1888, 343
The Bride's Tragedy: 1889, 344
The Ballad of Dead Men's Bay : 1889, 344
The Brothers: 1889,345
A Sequence of Sonnets : 1 890, 345
The Ballad of Bulgarie : 1893,346
Grace Darling: 1893, 348
Uncollected Contributions to Periodical Literature (1849-1896), 350
APPENDIX : Works attributed to A. C. Swinburne—
(L) Infelicia (By Adah Isaacs Menken), 373
(iL) Dolorida, 374
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord —
As a Lecturer, 448
His Despair: a Dramatic Monologue, parodied by A. C. Swinburne,
363
The Building of the Idylls : a Study in Tennyson. Including bibliographical
descriptions of :
(i.) Morte d? Arthur ; Dora; and other Idylls, 1842, 222
(ii.) Enid and Nimue : The True and the False, 1857, 225
(iii.) The True and the False, Four Idylls of the King, 1859, 238
(iv.) Idylls of the King, 1859, 241
(v.) Idylls of the Hearth, 1864, 243
(vi.) Enoch Arden, etc., 1864, 244
(vii.) Lucretius (Cambridge, Mass.), 1868, 245
(viii.) The Holy Grail, and other Poems, 1870, 247
(ix.) The Last Tournament, 1871, 253
(x.) Idylls of the King, 1888, 267
Tennysoniana —
(L) Recollections of Tennyson, 421
INDEX
493
Tennysoniana — continued : —
(ii.) The Tennysons, 431
(iii. ) Early Recollections, 434
(iv. ) Tennyson and his publishers, 438
(v.) The origin of Tennyson's Rizpah, 440
"Thackeray and Fraser's Magazine." Two letters, so entitled, by A. C. Swin-
burne, printed in Sultan Stork and other Stories, 1887, 365
The Adventures of Ernest Alembert, by Charlotte Bronte, 53
A fairy tale produced in the spring of 1830, 51
Description of the original Manuscript, 51
Fac-simile of a page of the Manuscript — prose, facing 53
Fac-simile of a page of the Manuscript — verse, facing 74
Fac-simile of "an inscription, after the manner of a colophon," 51
The Manuscript "preserved by the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls," 52
The story "full of imagination of a wildly luxuriant kind," 51
" The Angelin the House " (Emily Augusta Patmore), 375
The Ballad of Bulgarie. By A. C. Swinburne—
A brief extract from, 347
Collation of the First (and only) Edition, 347
Described in the Catalogue of the Library of Edmund Gosse, 348
"Improbable that it will ever be revived," 347
The Ballad of Dead Men's Bay. By A. C. Swinburne-
Collation of the First Edition, 345
The Bride's Tragedy. By A. C. Swinburne-
Collation of the First Edition, 344
The Brothers. By A. C. Swinburne-
Collation of the First Edition, 345
Printed at the newspaper office from the types of The People, 345
The Children of the Chapel. By Miss Gordon = Mrs. Disney Leith, 351
Mr. Swinburne the author of most of the poems contained in it, 35 1
The City of Dreadful Night. By Rudyard Kipling ; suppressed, 406
The Common-weal. By A. C. Swinburne —
"Eight hundred years and twenty-one" &c. Originally published (in
1887) under the title of The Jubilee, 341
The Commonweal. By A. C. Swinburne —
"Men whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in union."
Published (in 1887) in Gathered Songs, and never reprinted, 342
The Comhill Magazine. The Founder of, 445
The Devil's Due. By A. C. Swinburne—
A letter regarding The Flashy School of Poetry and f anas Fisher, 355
Said to have been printed in pamphlet form, but no copy now forth,
coming, 355
494 INDEX.
The Heptalogia. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 332
The authorship acknowledged by Mr. Swinburne, 333
The Holy Grail, by Alfred Tennyson-
Description of the edition of 1870, 248
7 he Jubilee. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 341
Reprinted under the amended title of The Commonweal, 541
The Last Tournament, by Alfred Tennyson —
Description of the edition of 1871, 253
The Queen-Mother and Rosamond. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition with Pickering's title, 297
Collation of the First Edition with Moxon's title, 298
Collation of the First Edition with Hotten's title, 299
Collation of the Second Edition, 299
The Question. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 340
" Has been dropped by its Author," 340
The Suppressed Works of Rudyard Kipling, 403
The Undoing of Enid : an Idyll of the King, 269
The True and the False, Four Idylls of the King, by Alfred Tennyson —
Description of the edition of 1859, 238
Thirlwall's (Bishop) Appointment to St. David's, 446
' ' Thomas Maitland "—
The signature attached by A. C. Swinburne to The Devil's Due, 355
Trafalgar Day. By A. C. Swinburne, 370
Tourneur, Cyril. Four letters regarding, by A. C. Swinburne ; printed in
The Spectator, March and April, 1887, 365
Two Letters concerning " Notes on the Construction of Sheepf olds," 3
Two Poems [i.e. The Twins, and A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London^,
by E. B. and R. Browning, 94
Tyndal, John, Upon the State Recognition of Authors, 465
Uncollected Contributions to Periodical Literature. A. C. Swinburne's,
35°
Undergraduate Papers, 1858.
Collation of the First (and only) Edition, 291
Edited by the late Prof. John Nichol, 292
Extract from a letter from Mr. Swinburne regarding, 293
Letter from the late Prof. J. Nichol regarding, 293
Only three perfect copies at present located, 294
Swinburne contributed four articles to, 292
The British Museum copy imperfect, 294
INDEX. 495
Under the Microscope. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 325
Passage suppressed, by means of a cancel-leaf, before publication, 326
Unionism and Crime. A letter by A. C. Swinburne, addressed to the Editor
of The St. James's Gazette, 366
Unpublished Verses : 1881. By A. C. Swinburne—
"As the refluent sea-weed moves in the languid exuberant stream."
" A simple piracy," printed by R. H. Shepherd, 343
Description of the leaflet, 343
Reprinted in fac-simile by R. H. Shepherd, 343
The Manuscript still extant, 344
Ward, William, 46
Watson, William —
His quatrain "Written in a volume of Christina G. Rossetti's Poems," 83
William Blake. A Critical Essay. By A. C. Swinburne —
Collation of the First Edition, 319
Wooldridge, Harry, the founder of the Cornhill Magazine, 445
Woolner, Thomas —
His bust of Emily Augusta Patmore, 380
Working Men's College, The. Started by Dr. Furnivall, &c., 46
Wordsworth, William —
His " Two voices are there" "far above the highest pitch of Gothe"
(Landor), 207
" With a rambling pen he wrote Sonnets worthy of Milton " (Landor)»
207
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