Pf? djortiell Hniuersita Slibtarjj attfaca, ?feni ^ork WORDSWORTH COLLECTION MADE BY CYNTHIA MORGAN ST. JOHN ITHACA. N. Y. THE GIFT OF VICTOR EMANUEL CLASS OF 1919 1925 y \ x^^ ■< Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. » There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924104001528 *^^^^^^ ^--^^^^^^L.^-^ 1.07vrD0I^-,J^rCHARD BBITTLY&SOJir ,12)84 ALAKIC "WATTS. ^ ^arratibe oi 3§i0 Jifc. BY HIS SON, ALARIC ALFRED WATTS. * Les luttes et les souffrances de chaque homme sont pour renseignment de tous.* George Sand. WITH FOBTEJITS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 1884. [All Rights Reserved. 1 r v\J \0't<^ 1 S" ^ \A/M- /V G. o S~ X a -5— A'' CONTENTS OF VOL. 11. -♦o»- CHAPTER I. PAGE Two Friends .--...- i CHAPTER II. Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1825-1830 : Miss Jews- bury ; Mrs. Hemans ; Miss Landon ; Miss Bowles ; MissMitford ; Thomas Hood ; John Gait; Professor Wilson ; Edward Lytton Bulwer ; William Sidney Walker - 16 CHAPTER III. ' The Literary Souvenir,' 1830, 1831.—' The Man of Taste' ._..-. 45 CHAPTER IV. Art Life in Paris in 1830.— Mr. Etty, R.A. ; Mr. Uwins, R.A. ; M. Paul de la Roche ; M. Ary Scheffer - - - - - - 50 CHAPTER V. ' The Man of Taste ' {continued). — French Influences - 68 CHAPTER VI. Temper - - - - - - -77 iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGE Detraction - - - - - - 87 CHAPTER VIII. The Real Man.— 'Two Witnesses.'— The 'Cholera Morbus 'of 1832 99 CHAPTER IX. Art and Art Associations. — Mr. Beckford - - 109 CHAPTER X. Art Associations {continued), — Mr. Henry Howard, R.A. ; Mr. John Constable, R.A. - - - 118 CHAPTER XI. The Poet. — Letters of Miss Landon ; Hartley Cole- ridge ; Sir Robert Peel. — Specimens of Poetry of Middle Life - - - - - 128 CHAPTER XII. The Close of the Annuals. — Thomas Hood's ' Battle of the Annuals ' - - - - -153 CHAPTER XIIL ' The Cabinet of Modern Art.'—' The Painter's Dream' 161 CHAPTER XIV. Newspaper Enterprises - - - - - 175 CHAPTER XV. Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1830-1836 : William Howitt ; William Wordsworth ; George Barret ; Daniel Maclise ; Edward Lytton Bulwer ; Henry Howard, R.A. ; John Constable, R.A. ; Sir Martin CONTENTS. PAGE Archer Shee, P.R.A. ; James Emerson Tennent, M.P. ; Professor Wilson ; Stanley Lees Giffard, LL.D. ; W. C. Macready ; Allan Cunningham - 184 CHAPTER XVI. ' The United Service Gazette.' — The Newspaper Writer 211 CHAPTER XVII. Ember Cottage. — The Picture Gallery. — Ideals, and Realization ------ 223 CHAPTER XVIII. An Evil Dream - - - - - - 238 CHAPTER XIX. Day Breaks. — ' Smoke and Light ' - - - 254 CHAPTER XX. ' Lyrics of the Heart, and other Poems.' — Specimens of Poetry of Later Life . . _ . 259 CHAPTER XXL Later Days. — Recommencements in Life. — A Pension on the Civil List - - - - - 270 CHAPTER XXn. Retrospects.'—' Walking Stewart ' - - - 280 CHAPTER XXIIL Retrospects. — Rev; Charles Caleb Colton, the Author of'Lacon' 288 CHAPTER XXIV. Retrospects. — Mrs. Inchbald ; Dr. Kitchiner - - 302 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. PAGE Correspondence : Dr. Stanley Lees Giffard ; Sir Frederick Pollock, M.P.; Serjeant Talfourd; Leitch Ritchie ; Clinton G. Dawkins ; ' Her Majesty's Royal Warrant ' - . - - - - 309 CHAPTER XXVI. Separation - - - - - - 321 CHAPTER XXVII. Reunion. — ' Causeries de Dimanche/ — The End - 326 ALARIC WATTS: A NARRATIVE OF HIS LIFE. CHAPTER I. TWO FRIENDS. Among the contributors to my mother s Annual for children, none were more valued and valuable than AVilliam and Mary Howitt. In that work first appeared, amongst others scarcely less popular, ' The Spider and the Fly/ ' Madame Fortescue and her Cat/ ' The Three Wishes/ and that masterly little prose sketch, ' A Night Scene in a Poor Man's House,' by Mary Howitt ; and William Howitt' s ' Summer Day's Adventure of Three Schoolboys,' with its episode of Spindenloft Chapel, ' Boyhood in the Country,' ^ The Wind in a Eage/ VOL. II. 23 1^/ ALARIC WATTS, and ' The Wind in a Frolic/ But it is more especially of the friendship at this time of the two ladies, as illustrating two very distinct and, I think, interesting types of female character, that I am now to essay to speak. When I think of them together, I am irresistibly re- minded of the description of the two sisters in the /Vicar of Wakefield/ 'Olivia wished for many admirers ; Sophia to secure one. Olivia was often aff^ected by too great a desire to please ; Sophia even repressed excellence from her fears to offend. The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay ; the other with her sense when I was serious.' Between my mother and Mary Howitt, born and brought up in the same social and religious community of the Society of Friends, and born in the same year, there was naturally much in common. There was between them a concordia discors which made them eminently comple- n^entary one to the other. Mary Howitt had by far the more active and daring imagination ; my mother, perhaps, more reflection and the greater power of formulating and acting out definite conclusions. Mary Howitt, at that TWO FRIENDS. time, would certainly not have ventured to subject herself to disownment from the Society of Friends ; my mother would, as assuredly, not have dared to write ' The Seven Tempta- tions.' The former loved Nature with all her heart, and absolute contact with it was an ever- present necessity to her free spirit ; the latter loved it too, but was content to watch it and its processes afar off, from her sofa at the window, and felt on the whole, perhaps, a deeper sympathy with human nature. A walk in Kensington Gardens refreshed her spirit and fed her imagination, as a ramble in Sherwood Forest did that of her friend. Mary Howitt was physically sanguine, eager, full of enterprise, possibly a little rash ; my mother somewhat lymphatic, looking more in advance into the issues of things, prudent, inclined to be fearful. The imagination of the one led her to see all that was to be hoped, that of the latter what there was to inspire doubt, in an enterprise or course of action. Both were, in different ways, sympathetic, ardent, enthusiastic, lovers of poetry and the poetry of life. The foUowino; letters, written about this 23—2 ALARIC WATTS. time, in the freshness of their friendship, may be taken as fairly illustrating the characters of both ; though it is with that of my mother as an influence in, and integral portion of, my fathers life, that this narrative is especially concerned. From Mary Howitt. * Nottingham, November 16, 1829. 'My dear Friend, ' What have I not to say to thee ? But I fear I never can write all. Would that we sat together and could talk over the thousand things mutually interesting. But, dear Zillah, I know there is a wide difference between us. Thou hast thy established poetical faith. I am a pilgrim, and do bow the knee, ' *' Zealously at every shrine," ' I read the old ballads till my soul is ifnbued through and through with their spirit. Then Shakespeare, and Milton, and Wordsworth, till I am above the earth, and I seem to breathe an atmosphere of pure poetry, and all lighter moods are vanity. Nay, I dare to confess to thee that Shelley is a great favourite. With ten thousand faults, he has a glorious mind. Its very errors were the excess of virtues ! Dost thou know his odes to '' Liberty," to the "Skylark," and to the "West Wind"? Lord Byron the same. The last cantos of " Childe Harold," " Cain," and some other of his dramatic works, are our favourites. Do you know that volume of Keats MARY HOW ITT. containing "Lamia " and " Hyperion "? If you do not, I wish I could persuade you to read it. It is another of my great favourites. Of Keats' other writings I know nothing. I fancy them too fantas- tical, too cockneyfied, pardon the ugly word ; but '' Hyperion " is truly excellent. There is a lonely grandeur about it that haunts me for days. It is masculine, severe, and simple, and belongs to the class of the old Greek tragedies. Would that I could see it read to you ! Another of my opinions is that Campbell, excepting his Naval Odes, and some other of his smaller poems, has been overpraised. I think him cold. He is too correct, too refined; like a plain surface of pohshed marble, he has smoothed himself away till he has no character left but his faultless in- equality. I remember, however, admiring '' Gertrude " very much. Rogers is abundantly more to my mind. His " Pleasures of Memory " are far better than the '' Pleasures of Hope." I love his '' Human Life ;" and his " Italy " is to me a gallery of sculpture. ' Thou little knowest, my dear friend, my longings after and my ideas of the grandeur and sublimity of poetry ; and, when I think of the absolute nothing I have done, I am ashamed of my seeming presump- tion in speaking thus of poets who certainly have done infinitely more. But if the aspiring be an earnest of power, I shall yet realize some of my hopes. If an industrious cultivation of mind will do anything, I hope I shall spare no labour. ' I fancy thou thinkest my poem written too care- lessly, — that is, it had too many broad strokes in it ; 6 ALARIC WATTS, but ^vhile this does not approach coarseness and vulgarity, I will not yield to thee that it shall be a positive fault. I hope I told thee that we liked thy tale of the Revolution, " Toinette." Do write more, I beseech thee. Thou writest admirably, and I cannot bear that Mrs. should seem to outshine thee. Give our kind remembrances to thy husband, and thank him for calling me " Mary." ^ I am, thy sincere friend, ' Maey Howitt.' From Maey Howitt. ^Nottingham, February 18, 1830. 'My dear Friend, ' We have given you, I feel, a great deal of trouble about our concerns. AVe are, however, ex- tremely obliged, and I only regret we have not in return something to do for you. Whatever we can assist you in, and whenever you need our small ability, be sure to make the want known, and it will be a pleasure to be employed for you. I have just finished a poem I mentioned to Alaric when he was here, suggested by an outline he has of Flaxman's, a sublime thing, according to my feeling. I fancy it was called "The Coming of the Evil One." You shall see it, for I owe it all to you. I have been reading the second volume of Allan Cunningham's " Lives of the Painters/' and have been extremely pleased with it. I have the most perfect sympathy with Fuseli's imagination. It belongs to a class that I admire greatly, and his conceptions are to me full of imagination. Blake, too, — there is a sublimity in HARMONIES. many of his inventions. It was daring to think of painting " The Ancient of Days/' and might almost seem impious, (though we do not say so of Milton's putting words into God's mouth,) and yet a feeling of poetry Hke a spring-tide rushed into my mind as I read it. Dost thou know anything of his works ? That wild, incomprehensible thing he called " Orizen," seems to me very promising. ' I do not wonder at singing, good singing, I mean, bringing tears to thy eyes. It has done so unto mine many times. There is no instrument, however fine or powerful, that affects me Uke the human voice. One tone will often touch my imagi- nation more than a volume of fine writing, and call up ideas that I never could have had otherwise. It shall be no word sung, but merely a tone of the voice, — I never felt it in an instrument, — that seems to touch some chord in the mind; and awakens ideas in some way mysteriously linked to the tone, and yet totally dissimilar and entirely new. Again thanking you for your kindness, and Alaric for getting this book* well disposed of, and wishing thee quite well and thy goodman, I will say good-night. ' Thine most sincerely, ' Mary Howitt.' From Zillah M. Watts. ' Paris, Hotel de Lille, June 12, 1830. ' My dear Friend, ' I am sure thou wilt be glad to hear from me from this place, and to learn that I am very much better than when I quitted home. * ' The Book of the Seasons.' 8 ALARTC WATTS. ^ We left London, by the steam-packet, at ten in tlie morning, and arrived off Calais at ten at night ; but, in consequence of insufficient water in the harbour, were obliged to remain at its mouth for two hours before we could land. I could scarcely believe that fourteen hours' voyage, which cost ten shillings only, could land me here. We remained at Calais and Boulogne the next day, and then proceeded through a most delightful country, the lower road by Beauvais, and arrived at Paris after a journey of twenty-six hours. The country was without hedges, in extensive sweeps, sown or planted in oblong squares, with corn, rye, peas, vines, clover, etc. Their uniformity of size and variety of colour gave the plains the aspect, — excuse the ignoble simile, — of an enormous tailor s pattern-card, ' " To fashion forth the garniture Of Gog or Gargantua/' ' We drove for ten or twelve miles at a time through rows of apple-trees in full fruit, all open to the road. In short, the journey was like travelling through fairyland from its beauty and novelty. It was market-day at Beauvais, where we saw several hundred market-women in their picturesque dresses. I am in search of a doll, dressed in the costume of a Norman or Picardy peasant, for your dear little Anna Marj^ ' In my visions of continental towns I have always pictured them on a sunny afternoon. If I have not always seen them so, the dreamlike appearance which my fancy had given them has nevertheless PARIS IN 1830. 9 been completely realized. I must not forget to say that between Calais and Paris I counted no less tban fourteen roadside crosses, and often there were women praying before them. Who would not feel respect for their simple, unpretending devotion I To me the practice, which I observe to be universal in France, of leaving the churches always open, is very congenial. ' On the day of our arrival in Paris we heard that the King, in honour of his royal brother of Naples, was to review the troops at Versailles, and that the grandes eaux were to play ; and thither we repaired, notwithstanding our fatigue. I should have known the King from Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait. He looked melancholy. His manner was mild and courteous, and seemed to call for more cordiahty than it met with, for he was not received with any enthusiasm. ' On our return we paid a visit to St. Cloud to witness a fete, the peasants and their families dancing with all the grace and gaiety imaginable. Here were four or five hundred people, but no quarrelling or drunkenness. All was propriety and decorum. Indeed, the middle and lower classes of French people are in every way superior, in externals, to the English. The women all seem ladies, and look so very nice. Printed muslin, with white pelerine, and a smart bonnet, is the universal dress of the middle class. No silk! All simple and tasteful ; none of that exaggerated style of dress so common in London. No enormous sleeves; the 10 ALARIC WATTS. petticoats rather short, but not ungracefully so ; the hair always neat, and the ceinture evidently the great object of rivalry. The languid air, deemed comme il faut in England, is here unknown ; and a certain sprightliness prevails, to me very capti- vating. ' They flatter, too, very adroitly. I shall not gratify my vanity by recounting the agreeable things said of myself; but one illustration of their instinctive skill and readiness in the practice and use of this fine art, of which Alaric was the hero, will, I think, amuse thee. He was complaining somewhat angrily, — he is a little impetuous, my goodman, — of some neglect or inattention at our hotel, and poured forth his grievances in French with astonishing vigour and volubility. Madame, (it is always "iuadaone here, you under- stand ; monsieur is quite the drone in the hive,) threw into her face a look of mingled wonder and admiration, raised her eyebrows and shoulders, (you cannot conceive the eloquence of the shoulders of a Frenchwoman,) with a scarcely definable motion, and then, with a smile absolutely disarm- ing, replied, " Mais, monsieur, pourquoi ne parlez- vous pas toujours en colere ! Mon Dieu ! comme vous vous exprimez bien." ' We have been to no places of public amusement except the Galleries; the streets are enough, — I love to watch the people. A few days ago we had the opportunity, through a very obhging American friend, a Mr. Nolte, of seeing the Crown jewels. 'HAVE THE GOODNESS.' 11 I do not know how far such a sight would impress thee, but I felt a thrill when I recognised the George of our own Garter and the Golden Fleece ! We have seen many pictures. The French painters have a more picturesque imagination than our EngHsh artists. We enjoy the acquaintance of some of them, the Deverias, M. and Madame Couder, M. Scheffer, and others, whom Alaric hopes to make known in England ; also a poetess, Madame Tastu. Now, my dear friend, with much love, beheve me, ' Thy affectionate friend, 'Z. M. Watts.' From Zillah M. Watts. ^ 58, Torrington Square, ' Thursday. 'My dear Friend, ' We were much gratified by the receipt of thy last letter. In truth, it removed a very uncom- fortable weight from my mind. Before I received this letter, I had felt assured that thine had been the result rather of surprise than displeasure at my remarks on thy poem ; and I saw nothing in it that could lead to a contrary conclusion, except the " Have the goodness," etc. This expression from thee seemed to my fancy to be what a protruded shoulder would mean from a little child, or a door shut with a slight bang from a servant. However, thou hast declared thyself not offended. ' Thy husband's letter for my little book contains a world of information to London children of all 12 ALA EI C WATTS. ages, and was most acceptable, as was the " Wind in a Rage/' Pray tell him how much I feel his kindness. " Tibbie Inglis " I will, if thou pleasest, return ; not because I don't like it, but because it seems rather adapted to an annual for mature people than to juvenile readers. The ''Soldiers Widow" is very sweet. In thy simplest poetry there are sometimes turns so exquisite as to bring tears into my eyes. Such, for instance, as — ' ^* She was made for happy thoughts, Made for wit and laughter ; For singing on the hills alone With Echo singing after." Thou hast as much poetry in thee as would set up half a dozen writers ; nevertheless, sometimes, were I at thy elbow, I would whisper, " Condense ! con- dense !" Forgive me if I am too candid ; but I am as anxious about thy literary fame, as mothers are to see displayed to the best advantage the beauty of their daughters. ' I am, thy affectionate friend, ' Z. M. Watts.' From Zillah M. Watts. ' 58, Torrington Square, ' Saturday. ' My deae Feiend, ' I did indeed begin to think it long of hearing from thee ; and yet I have such perfect confidence in thy friendship and love, that not for one moment did I feel myseK neglected. I thank thee for all thy kind wishes, and will take abundant care of SPRING— ' FROM THE WINDOWS: 13 myself according to thy directions, and avoid cold as a pestilence. For myself, ' '* I cannot fear until I feel, And when I feel, I fear too late."' ' I am very anxious now for the appearance of William's " Book of the Seasons." I read it with great pleasure, almost the whole of it in the MS. and proof-sheets, and if it does not become a '' stock-book," as booksellers say, I will .give up all respect for my own judgment in such matters. We are preparing for a few months' sojourn out of town. Thou canst hardly think how much the prospect delights me ! To watch the spring advance from our own windows, is what I have longed to do for the last two years. I have not seen our proposed residence; but I can trust Alaric, for he has far more artificial wants than I have. ' Thine, with affectionate regard, ' Z. M. Watts.' From Zillah M. Watts. ' Mrs. Goodenough's Cottage, Barnes, ' June 3, 1831. ' My dear Friend, ' I cannot tell thee how much the sight of thy handwriting gladdened my heart after so long an interval of silence ! Now receive my best con- gratulations on the success of William's book. It would be an event in the life of anyone to have written such a book, and I think it highly creditable to the public to have so speedily appreciated it as 14 ALARIC WATTS. they have done. Well, my dear friend, we are now in a real cottage. I should have liked the seaside ; but moving such a tribe is no trifle, and my dear spouse, who says he can make shift with anything, has too many wants, notwithstanding, in the shape of books about him, sohd tables, easy-chairs, even pictures, to render a migration to a distance very easy to me. My brother-in-law, who has a house just by, sought out our present abode. It stands in the midst of a market-gardener s grounds, and we see nothing but green trees and a Uttle sky. I live in the open air, and, beyond nursing and play- ing with my children, I have really done nothing since we came here. My babe thrives deHghtfully. She is named, as we propose, Zillah. Her Irish nurse has made her a httle hardy thing, and the Irish ditties seem sweet music to her ears. It has all been very pleasant. ' '' One long summer day of indolence and mirth." We are within a walk of Eichmond Hill, and thither we often repair to take our tea at the little inn of the Star and Garter, and saunter home through the Park in the evening. ' The value of this quiet can only be duly appre- ciated by those who, like ourselves, have lived with- out being able to say, " This hour we shall have no idle caller; — this day, at least, we shall have to ourselves." 'I have no news to give you, my dear friend, for here I hear none; and as I must soon mix EGOTISM IN CORRESPONDENCE. 15 again in the great Babel, I am just now well pleased not to avail myself of any of tlie loopholes of my retreat, and am glad not to hear its murmurs and its roar till compelled to do so. ' Miss Ferrier has sent us her new novel, " Destiny/' I think it inferior to '' Marriage/' but it is very good. We have had a visit from our friend Captain Sherer, who asked of you and "William, as he always does. ' I long for a long letter from thee, full of thyself Egotism in letter-writing is the most valuable of all qualities. I like a letter to be about my friend and my friend's doings, and not occupied with profitless speculations about me and mine. I have done nothing about my little book, and must bestir myself. ' Thy affectionate friend, 'Z. M. Watts/ CHAPTER 11. MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. From Maria Jane Jewsbury. * 10 January, 1825. ' My dear Friend, ' I have endeavoured to get on witli my work, and am happy to say that Mrs. Watts has approved what I have done since I left Leeds ; and I hope to deserve your approbation Hkewise. I have Miss Landon's '' Improvisatrice " now before me. I have half read it, and, without one mean or jealous feel- ing:, I understand what he felt who said, " The trophies of Miltiades will not let me sleep." I read it merely as poetry, and endeavour to forget that it was written by a woman, and then I am indeed delighted with the exuberance of genius poured out in every page. No one could suppose it to be the work of a young writer. There is in it a brilliant yet condensed vigour of imagery and expression which might Avell honour an older judgment. Mrs. Watts, I rejoice to tell you, is decidedly better. Miss MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 3 7 Shaw and I, like two rival doctors, both contend for tlie credit of her amendment. ' I am, my dear friend, ' Yours very trul}^, ' M. J. Jewsbuky.' From William Howitt. ' Nottingham 5th mo., 10th, 1825. ' Respected Friend, ' Our friend Bernard Barton, about a month ago, informed me that thou hadst requested him to use his influence with any literary friend of his whom he might deem likely, to contribute to the next volume of thy elegant little work, the " Literary Souvenir," and he earnestly desired Mary and myself to forward thee something^. We are not fond of introducing ourselves where it may happen we are not quite welcome, and therefore thought not to comply with his wish; but as I am again on the point of writing to Bernard, it has struck me that to say we could not follow his suggestions might imply a doubt of his influence with thee, or of the sincerity of thy request to him. We have, therefore, copied, and sent each a piece for thy approval. We shall thank thee to inform us whether they are accept- able ; and it would give us much pleasure to hear at the same time a more favourable account of the health of thy brother, J. H. WifFen, than we have received lately. ' With best wishes, I am, ' Thine respectfully, ' Wm. Howitt.' VOL. II. ' 24 18 ALARIC WATTS. Fkom Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen. ' Woburn Abbey, January 22nd, 1826. ' My dear Alaric, ' I learn from Mary, vvlio received Cilia's letter this morning, that thou art not unaware of the em- barrassments of Hurst and Kobinson. Having re- turned from town last night, I have resolved to Avrite to thee, as it may be some satisfaction to thee to know what is thought and rumoured. Nothing in Waterloo Place, where I saw S^Dooner and Mann, indicated the embarrassment ; but from other book- sellers I gathered that they had been speculating largely in hops, and as hops had risen to a large price they would have been great gainers ; but, owing to the late storms in the money market, there were few or no buyers, so that their purchases were un- available. Bills of theirs, on other accounts, were out to a great extent, accommodation bills, those certain harbin^'ers of distress ; and the Bank refusino* discounts since the late panic, (their bills, too, for some time past having been, from length of draft and other causes, held in little reputation), coincidincr with the necessary expenses of removal to their present large estabhshment, completed their inabihty to meet the occasion. Constable and Sir Walter are in town, and whilst I was with Moyes on Saturday, he received a letter from Edinburgh apprisino- him that Constable's house had stopped payment also How many more they Avill drag in their train is MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 19^ uncertain ; several are talked of, and universal gloom and apprehension pervade the trade. ' It is a melancholy thing, I know, for thee. It is not a trifling matter to myself, £200 in " Tassos/' of books disposed of, being between us. ' Present my remembrances to Miss Jewsbury. I think her possessed of very great talent and acumen, much masculine intellect, much humour, discrimina- tion, and even profound thought. I think her capable of attaining any celebrity that she may choose to lay down to herself as an object of ambi- tion. ' Bowles writes me he is preparing a pamphlet that is to beat the vapourer in the Quarterly hollow, and Gfrind him to atoms. " I have been most inad- vertent," he says, towards Mr. Watts. I have some curiosity to see what kind of paper the Representa- tive will be. I have little doubt that Murray will make it a good thing, or rather I should, perhaps, say, will make a good thing of it, which is not quite the same. All unite in love. I hope little Alfred continues to " prodigise." ' Thy affectionate friend and brother, ' J. H. WiFFEN.' Feom Mrs. Hemans. ' Rhyllon, January 27, 1826. ' My dear Madam, ' We are extremely happy at the prospect, in good earnest, of your visiting Bronwylfa and Rhyllon. My brother desires me to assure you of the pleasure 24—2 20 ' ALARIC WATTS, with which he is looking forward to your visit, and the feehng is fully shared by the inmates of both houses. For my own part, I shall prefer the spring as the season for welcoming you to my beloved Wales to any other season of the year. I must care- fully forewarn you against drawing any romantic woodbine-covered pictures of my own residence, the aforesaid Rhyllon. It is an embodied proof how little choice and taste have in general to do with the dwellings of poets, being neither more nor less than a tall, square, bare, audacious-looking mansion, a sort of Gazebo on a large scale, possessing the amplest means of information as to what is going on in the road, and forming, as my sister says, a perfect heaii ideal of the '' house that Jack built." We have not resided here long enough to wrap ourselves in leaves and flowers ; and I fear it will be lono- before our anxious nurture of roses and honeysuckles and ivy is repaid by anything like shelter from '' day's garish eye," an eye which, to be sure, our brazen- faced windows look as if they could at any time stare out of countenance. I must not, however, complain whilst I see from those Avindows my live boys, all enjoying themselves at play in the free green fields by which we are surrounded. They have all, to my great regret, long outgrown their white frocks, and are hterally, if I except the youngest, great romping boys, whose mother begins to feel herself very much in the situation of a hen with a brood of ducklings. In the anticipation of much enjoj^ment from the personal acquaintance I hope soon to MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 21 form with you, and with, my kind regards to Mr. Watts, ' Beheve me, my dear madam, ' Very cordially and sincerely yours, ' Felicia Hemans/ Feom Miss Landok 'Dear Sir, ' I really think if you condescend to accept my services in your '' Souvenir," my first effusion will be " The Graces set Free !" Seriously, I shall be delighted to be one of your contributors. I am so glad you like the idea of the ''Troubadour." You mention works I should read, — if any others come into your head, pray refer me to them. The best way of thanking for advice is by taking it. You shall see how carefully I will rhyme all the four lines. ' As to filling up my next volume with pieces already published, perhaps there is a little vanity in saying I like the thought of its being entirely original. I like to show how much I can do in a little time. I wrote the " Improvisatrice " in less than five weeks, and during that time I often was for two or three days without touching it. I never saw the MS. till in proof-sheets a year afterwards, and I made no additions, only verbal alterations. ' I have been anything but poetical lately. How- ever interesting it may be to be ill, when I am un- well I never think of poetry. I only think. Oh dear, if I should die ! ' With my kind regards to Mrs. Watts, ' Yours, dear sir, very truly, 'L. E. L.' 22 ALARIC WATTS. From Miss Landon. ' 178, Sloane Street, 'January 31, 1826. ' Very severe illness, my dear sir, lias prevented my acknowledging your beautiful volume and letter. As to pecuniary recompense for poems given with so much pleasure, I cannot hear of it. I really did think you had been too much of a poet yourself to think of linking pounds, shillings, and pence to my unfortunate stanzas. My aid, if worth having, is at least offered freely and kindly ; Mr. Watts must have many voluntary contributors ; will he not allow me to consider myself on his hst of friends ? Henceforth I put a bar upon the subject. With regard to next year, it will be your own fault if you do not like my contributions better than the last. I will write them at as early a period as you please, either from given subjects or my o^vn, and you then may see if they meet your approval, and I shall be most happy to make any alterations or change you may wish. If not a desperate secret, who wrote that most piquant tale, " The Lovers' Quarrel '' ? and how beautiful is " Aylmer's Tomb " ! I never, even of Mrs. Hemans, read anything I liked so much. I rejoice to think of your leaving Man- chester : London must have so many agr(^ments and advantages. I heard a great deal about you from some Leeds people during my stay in the countr}^, though I did not meet any who knew you per- sonally. I like your "Literary Magnet" marvel- MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 23 lously. It is the most entertaining by far of the monthhes. I am deep in a subject which has taken great hold on my imagination. Mills's " History of Chivalry " has perfectly enchanted me. One book led to another, and I was quite amazed at the variety of romantic incident, of wild adventure with which the annals of those ages are filled. I found my " Troubadour " was a misnomer, and that the ''Golden Violet" was quite wasted in being used only as a denoument A friend pointed out in Warton the passage which alludes to Clemenza, and remarked what a good subject for a poem the contest of the different minstrels would be. On this hint I acted, and am about half-way in a work which has, at least, most deeply interested myself. I envy you the title, as I may venture to say I shall the contents, of your forthcoming volume. One question — what is Miss Jewsbury like ? I admire and like her writings very much. Now ' Believe me, dear sir, ' Yours very truly, 'Letitia E. Landon.' Fegm Miss Landon. ' Many thanks, dear sir, for your kind letter. In making my acknowledgments for your enclosure, and the liberaHty with which I have been treated, I still must regret that contributions for you should be made matters of business. I only hope and wish you may be half as well content. I think 24 ALARIC WATTS. myself so rich I am delighted. First and last, I have received between nine hundred and a thousand pounds, so I have full reason to be content. I am so glad you like the "Troubadour." With kind regards to Mrs. Watts, ' Believe me, dear sir, ' Your obliged 'Letitia Eliz. Landon/ From Thomas Hood. ' Lower Street, October 10. 'My dear Sir, ' My best thanks for the " Souvenir." We, I and my wife, have read together your poem of the '' First-born," and admire it exceedingly. I hope this will please you, as I have been pleased and gratified by the praises of Mrs. Watts. I return the proof of " A Retrospective Review " with addi- tions, which you will retain or not as you please. I am glad you like the thing so much, for I was really anxious to do something worthy of your book. The other thing I wrote, and rejected, for you will help me through a sheet of the " Whims and Oddities." I saw M for a moment yesterday, which sufficed for his telling me, in so many words, that the book would not suit him. As I had a handsome letter of introduction to him, I think he might have treated me with a little more courtesy than poor FitzAdam. But I am obliged to him for one hint, that there is a capital subject, which I had MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 25 not set down in my list, for the next of my '' Odes and Addresses to Great People." ' I observed, in a certain last Sunday's paper, a malicious attack on your " Literary Magnet." The editor of this Sunday news-waggon is a Scotchman, heretofore editor of a Dundee newspaper. To my mind it shows no signs of editorship, and is but a hulking lubber of a paper ; but it serves to wrap up twice as many parcels as any other. It plumes itself chiefly on its size, as though the mere superficial ex- tent of paper and print ensured the sioread of intelli- gence. A large sheet quotha, — a patchwork quilt rather ! Twice as big as a daily without being any better, — like a spread-eagle to an eagle au natuvel ! A little intelligence going a great way, like a puddle overflowing a Lincolnshire level. Poor in matter but prodigious, like Bankruptcy enlarged ! A Gog among newspapers, — and as wooden. ' Pray give my respects and remembrances to Mrs. Watts, and ' Believe me, ' Very truly yours, ^T. Hood.' From John Galt. ^ Canada House, London, ' February 13, 1826. 'Dear Sir, ' I duly received your obliging letter of the 20tli ult. ; but as I differ entirely from you as to 2G ALARIC WATTS. the value of any little scrap of mine which you may be pleased to accept, you must indeed excuse me from setting a price upon it. A copy of the volume in which you may allow smj communication of mine a niche is surely price enough ! It is cer- tainly one of the peculiar characteristics of these days that literature has become a profession ; but as the wine-merchant does not charge the account of his friend when he gives him an occasional glass, authors may be allowed as much hospitality in their intercourse with one another. ' I remain, my dear sir, ' Truly yours, 'John Galt/ From Peofessor Wilson. * 6, Gloucester Place, Edinburgh, ' November 29, 1828. 'Dear Sir, ' Allow me to return you my kind acknow- ledgments for your present of the plates of your " Souvenir," than which nothing can be more beauti- ful. You will observe in Blackwood a few words concerning them, which is no more than they richly deserve. Give my respectful regards to Mrs. Watts, and my thanks for her interesting little publication. Respecting your ver}^ handsome and flattering offer, I feel every good wish for the f success of your annual, but am so situated that I cannot promise to write for it. Allan Cunnino-ham MIS CELL A NEO US CORRESPONDENCE. 27 as a personal friend, and on other accounts, I am most anxious to serve. For him I shall certainly write something. If I do so for any other, it shall, in the next place, certainly be for you. Should I write for both, your offer, which was probably made on the understanding that I wrote for no other, falls to the ground. As to remuneration for contribu- tions of this kind I am perfectly indifferent ; nor would I, on any account, dream of accepting it, Avere it not that I am told all other literary men do so, in which case I might be suspected of affected contempt for money. Did I not feel that Allan Cunningham has, in nature, a claim upon every true Scotchman, no bribe could ever induce me to prefer his book to yours. Meanwhile, be assured of my esteem, and that it will always afford me satisfac- tion to speak as I think of your character and talents. ' I am, dear sir, ' Yours very truly, ' John Wilson. From Caroline Bowles. 'I thank you gratefully, my dear sir, for the parcel received from you yesterday morning. My bookshelves will indeed be greatly enriched by the beautiful copies of the " Literary Souvenir " with which you have supplied me, and your delightful little volume will be doubly valuable as the gift of its author. I have long been famihar with your charming poems ; and I must tell you I owe my first introduction to them to that most touching, 28 ALARIC WATTS. most exquisite thing, '' The Death of the First-born." I met with it in some obscure county paper. The authors name was not inserted; but the poem haunted me. Judge of my dehght on finding it, afterwards, in the first '' Souvenir/' which was sent me by a friend about six months after its publica- tion. You speak of your dehghtful poems as only '' records of feeling." They are, it is true, " records of feelmg ;" but that is not all. You have power over the full sweep of the lyre. I never could, and never can, make any but a few low notes, and those never at will. Only when the strong spell of feeling is on me it finds relief in verse, — verse wholly com- posed without being committed to paper, for with a pen in my hand I can do nothing. I have a little poem in hand, which, if I live to revise and publish, will perhaps find favour with you, though it is a piece of egotism ! Not vain egotism, God knows ! Surely there is such a thing as the egotism of mere feeling, — of a passionate longing to fix the shadows of the past ? Mrs. Howitt's praise of my verses is particularly gratifying to me. Your " Literary Magnet " first made me acquainted with the de- lightful poetry of William and Mary Howitt ; and ever since, I have sought with avidity for every line to which either of their signatures was affixed. I hope you are prospering, or have prospered, in Paris as well as in England. With best Avishes, ' I remain, my dear sir, ' Very sincerely yours, ' Car. a. Bowles.' MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 29 Feom Caeoline Bowles. ' Buckland, September 8. 'My dear Sir, ' I wish, my attempt at a sketch for the '' Souvenir " may satisfy you in some measure. I am not in the habit of writing on a given subject ; and am, indeed, afraid that my fancy is so perverse as to be most uncomfortable when so put in requisi- tion. The truth is, I grew up as undisciphned, and almost as unschooled, in all systematic education as one of the wild deer of my native forest ; and now in later life I feel the disadvantages of that early waste. Have the goodness to let me have proofs ! There is not enough of supererogatory merit in my compositions to allow for errors that admit of correction. I had a letter a few days ago from the Duchesse de Narbonne. Speaking of your projected Paris annual, she says: ^'J'aurais voulu lui etre bonne a quelque chose, mais il avait des lettres de recommandation que valaient toutes les connaissances que j'aurais pu lui procurer. Je crains cependant qu'il n'obtienne pas tout le succesv qu'il s'est promis de son voyage. Notre esprit du moment est plus tourne vers la politique, que livr^ aux cultes des Muses. Nous avons tant de mepris pour le gros bon sens de nos ancetres que ne pouvant pas refuser quelque genie aux Corneilles, Racines, etc., etc. ; nous prenons le parti de proscrire la poesie pour ne pas entendre parler des poetes. Tout ce qui n est que grace d'esprit a pen de vogue. 30 ALARIC WATTS. car helas ! nous ne sommes plus aimables. Comme il ne m'est pas prouvd que nous devenons plus essen- tiels, je le regrette." The opinion of the Duchesse coincides too much with that which I had before been led to form ; but I hope you may be able to refute crude opinions by unequivocal success. ' I am, my dear sir, ' Very sincerely yours, ' Car. a. Bowles/ From Maria Jane Jewsbury. ' 42j Grosvenor Street, Manchester, ' January 2, 1829. 'My dear Friend, ' I have just heard what has given me real concern, the sorrow in which you are now plunged. I trusted the illness mentioned in your last was only an infantine attack, and I am truly sorrowful for you that it has been a sickness " unto death." I shall hope soon to hear better accounts both of you and Mr. Watts, to whom I beg my kind regards. . . . . Miss Kelsall will doubtless have informed you of my various proceedings. I had a letter the other day from Dora Wordsworth, in which she mentions the pleasure received from some of Mr. Watts's recent poems, breathing so much tender delicacy. I have recently heard from Mary Howitt, whom you mentioned to me once. She seems a kind, generous spirit, as well as a truly poetical writer. In close intimacy I found Mrs. Hemans all MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 31 I expected. I hope to join her on my way to the north. I should much hke to visit London, but its excitement would ill agree with my state of health ; for, however I might like being secluded from sights in Wales, where there were only mountains, I should not feel so satisfied to be a recluse in London, where the sights are more connected with human character and human effort. ' Believe me, affectionately yours, ' M. J. J.' From Caroline Bowles. ' Buckland, January 11, 1827. ' Dear Sir, ' I can feelingly sympathize with your present cause of disquiet, having myself been the victim of a most iniquitous bankruptcy, in a quarter where the trust had, or ought to have been, most sacred — in the person of my guardian. A friend of mine who is going to town takes charge of this and the accompanying MS. Perhaps the little prose essay may have at least the merit of variety. Accept my best thanks for your promised gift of the portrait of Countess Guiccioli. Fearfully wroth am I with that ultra-scrupulous personage who obliged you to omit it from the " Souvenir." ' Good heavens ! if this mode takes, what a clear- ing out of picture-galleries we shall have ! What will become of half our English beauties of the second Charles's reign ! to say nothing of Cleo- patras, Fornarinas, La Vallieres, and a million 32 ALARIC WATTS. more poor canvas creatures, for whose reception it will then be an act of Christian charity to found a Magdalen Picture Hospital. God forbid that I should be so unwomanly as to tolerate, much less approve, the shadow of an offence to real modesty and virtue ! but I confess I cannot understand the scrupulousness which turns aside from the picture of Guiccioli to dwell complacently on that of Byron. ' Surely I will do my best in attempting some sketch for your next '' Souvenir." You seem to prefer prose, I think. You were very right not to insert my verses in the same volume with Mr. Dale's beautiful elegiac poem. The coincidence is singular, but I could not have stood the comparison. I had never the least idea of more than one of the thinofs I sent being inserted. I only wished you to take your choice. I never saw a finer engraving than that of the '' Florentine Girl " in the frontispiece to the " Souvenir." Martin's splendid composition and Copley Fielding's '' Goodrich Castle " are delightful specimens of genius and art. . , . ' Pray believe me, dear sir, ' Your obedient and oblig^ed servant, ' Car. a. Bowles.' From Mary Russell Mitford. ' Three Mile Cross, ^ July 3, 1827. 'My dear Sir, 'Before thanking you for your in all ways valuable packet, I must clear away some tilings MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 33 which might well have offended and alienated any- one less kind and candid than yourself. I have never received any packet, letter, or message from you since I received the "Literary Souvenir'' in London, the day after I had the pleasure of dining at your house ; but I have frequently had occasion to suspect that parcels are lost at this out-of- the-way place where they have to pass through two or three hands before reaching me, and what you say adds to this uncomfortable sense of in- security. 'In the second place, let me assure you that I never made any application to your publisher re- specting the remuneration for my last articles. I should have been ashamed of myself if I had. A friend of mine, who is some way acquainted with Mr. Andrews, wrote to me that I might, if I chose, make application to you on the subject, as ten guineas was awaiting my order. My friend is a person not at all literary; bustling, zealous, and officious, who knows nothing of the charac- ters of literary persons. She certainly meant no harm. ' I think a pretty playful scene may be made of " The Stolen Kiss." If you would like me to try, I can begin this very evening. I am quite distressed to hear what you say of Mrs. Watts and the sweet child, but earnestly hope that both are now doing well. How you can keep your head on your shoulders for so many hours' application, yet I heard of you the other day from Mr. Ventouillac VOL. II. 25 34 ALARIC WATTS. as being quite as agreeable and full of life as ever. Make my kindest remembrances to Mrs. Watts, and accept my best thanks. ' Most sincerely yours, 'M. R MiTFORD. ' P.S. — Pray don't say anything to bring my fair friend, — she is a sweet, pretty woman, — into a scrape with Mr. Andrews. She meant nothing but good to me, and no harm to anyone.' From William Jerdan. 'Brompton, December 3, 1827. 'My dear Watts, 'I have been from home, or should have replied to your letter sooner. You know the principles on which the Literary Gazette has been conducted, and my feelings with regard to fair and gentleman-like competition too entirely dli' cute, to doubt not only of my approving of your entering, should you see fit, on a weekly literary publication, but of my wishing it to succeed in your hands. I must have been a consummate block- head could I have fancied that it would be in my power to keep such a field for my own monopoly ; and, so far from thinking an honest rivalry injurious, I am persuaded it is the reverse. I am sure you will keep up the general character of this class of periodical literature, and if that be done, there is plenty of room for more than have yet appeared. MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 35 We will talk over the subject when we have the good luck to meet. ' Best regards to Mrs. Watts. ' Yours truly, 'W. Jerdan.' From Mary Russell Mitford. ' Three Mile Cross, Tuesday. 'My dear Sir, 'I thank you very sincerely for all your kindness. What caused the critique in question, I cannot even guess. I have only once seen Mr. Jordan since I met him at your house, and then all was smooth. Indeed, living at a distance from London, and from the turmoil of literary parties, one seems at least safe from offending. I believe that, the American writers are far more likely than otherwise to be pleased at finding themselves placed in an aGfreeable collection and sent forth to the British world in a creditable form. I know that I myself have always felt flattered at the extensive circulation which the Transatlantic reprints of my own works have obtained, although of profit on the American sale, neither I nor my bookseller have ever received a farthing. In short, the book seems to me as harmless as dear Mrs. Watts's ; and why it should be attacked, I cannot imagine. However, I am a peaceable person, and shall make no quarrel on the subject, much less seek to widen or per- petuate enmities. Life is too short for quarrelling, 25 — 2 36 ALARIC WATTS. and has too little of iwsitive happiness to admit of one's troubling without very great occasion the calm of one's own spirit. What you tell me of the annuals is what I have for some time feared. But it is very hard that you, who first brought them to their present state of pictorial beauty, and whose literary taste has also tended so much to raise them in value, should suffer from their increase. You shall certainly receive a story in time. By this time, I hope I may congratulate you on an acces- sion of happiness, and on the sweet mother's safety. I am interested personally in wishing it over ; for soon after Christmas I expect to be in town, and shall be much disappointed if I do not catch a glimpse of her fair face. My play is on a story that will interest you, since it is the theme of one of your finest poems — "Inez de Castro." It has been written a long time, but has waited for an actress whom we have now got in Miss Fanny Kemble. I have never seen her on the staee, though acquainted with her off; but of her talent there can be no doubt. The difference of aQfe makes it singular that we should have been educated by the same lady, she in Paris, I in London ; and even as a schoolgirl I had heard much of her remarkable ability. ' Adieu, my dear sir. Make my kindest regards to Mrs. Watts, and believe me, with the sincerest good wishes, * Very faithfully yours, 'M. R. MlTFORD.' MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 37 Feom Edward Lytton Bulwer. ' Weymouth, October 27, 1828. 'My dear Sir, ' I assure you that I have not forgotten the pleasure at Miss Spence's, to which you obhged me by referring, and that I am much flattered by yowv request. I have read with great admiration the httle vokime of poems which so acceptably accom- panied your letter. I cannot but express how ex- ceedingly I am struck with the lines — '' Till Reason with her flaming sword sprang up, And drove him from his Paradise of Thought/' Indeed both the longer pieces are beautiful beyond my praise. But I do not know whether I should not rather select, whether for grandeur or simpUcity, some of the smaller ones. As "Chamouni" and " Etna," for the former ; and '' Ten Years Ago " and "I Think of Thee," for the latter. I have also had great delight in reading your poems in the ^^ Souvenir." "King Pedro's Revenge" has an energy and spirit which I do not remember equalled in any ballads, if I may call that poem a ballad, but Campbell's. I like the last stanza, always the most difficult, particularly. Nor can I be silent about the exquisite lines, " The Youngling of the Flock," which touches me inexp;'essibly. ' Will you present my compliments to Mrs. Watts, whom I once had the pleasure of seeing? and beheve me, ' Yours obliged and truly, 'E. L. BULWEE.' 38 ALARIC WATTS. Feom Caroline Bowles. ^ Buckland, September 5, 1829. 'My dear Sir, ' I should be the most heartless as well as use- less creature, if I could read such a letter as I have just received from you without feeling an irresistible impulse to express to you, as far as writing can express it, how deeply sensible I am of the kind confidence and compassionate interest which prompts your more than hospitable invitation to a sick stranger whose very account of herself would have chilled the love of many a friend, and rendered him cautious in his hospitable demonstrations. I thank God there are those whose hearts dare open to their fellow- creatures before the fixed and settled rules of the ceremonial code authorize the lifting of the inter- vening barrier, — that icy barrier which we English, of all people under heaven, keep shut with most un- christian spirit, as if, instead of an ephemeral dura- tion, we could calculate on a patriarchal length of lifetime to consider and reconsider and hold back the hand of fellowship, — the hand while we hesi- tate dropping into dust. I am sure you will believe in my true gratitude for your and Mrs. Watts's kindness, though I may not hope to profit by it. I shall scarcely ever leave home again, unless it please God to bless me with a renovation, moral and physical, which I feel within me no grounds for hoping. I would willingly, if it could be, revive to something more than mere existence, if it were only to shake off those unsocial habits which have ob- MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 39 tained an almost morbid influence over me ; and which, to say truth, I have partly fallen into from heart-sickness at the crowd and tumult in which I lost some of my best days, from dread of finding myself involved in it again, and from a natural love of retirement Avhich has become perverted by circum- stances, sickness especially, into a love of solitude, or at least a longing for peace and a dread of excite- ment. But, if I ever have health and courage to move, I may see London again, and most surely one of my inducements to revisit it would be to become personally acquainted with Mrs. Watts and yourself. Whenever you feel inclined to favour me with a letter, do not check the kind impulse. Your charity will be thrice blessed. Kemember, too, that a letter from a friend is always worth paying postage for. Make my best regards to Mrs. Watts, and believe me, ' Very gratefully and sincerely yours, ' Car. a. Bowles.' From Edward Lytton Bulwer. ' Athenaeum Club, July 6, 1829. ' My dear Sir, ' I thank you most sincerely for the explana- tion you have been kind enough to give as to the opinion I understood you to have expressed respect- ing my literary attempts and their author. Every man has a right to his own opinion respecting a published work ; and I cannot feel sore at anyone for expressing disapprobation of the tendency of a work so generally attacked as "Falkland." Your 40 ALARIC WATTS. opinion is shared by many with whom I am on the most intimate footing ; and if I do not agree with them on that point, I at least have never made that disagreement a plea to fall out with them on any other. An author is often the worst judge of the moral spirit of his own works. Marmontel, in all human probability, thought his tales deserved the epithet '' moral " with which he honoured them ; and Shakespeare was, as probably, very little aware that, in the enlarged sense of the word '' moral," no writings were superior to his own. It may easily, then, be permitted to a very young man, and a very ordinary person, to make a httle mistake on the same score ; and all that I ask of my friends is this, to believe at least that the author did not mean to write an immoral book. The question whether a work is good or bad in its tendency, is merely one of criticism ; the question whether it was meant to be bad or good, comes more home, and touches the writer's individual character. You are rieht, I believe, in not liking "The Disowned;" certainly you are more right in that than in the good opinion you are pleased to express of " Pelham." The only commonly endurable thing I have ever ^vritten in prose is now in the press, and I shall indulge myself with sending you a copy. I do not say that I am sorry you should have been put to all this trouble. I am too glad, now that I have read your letter, to make you many apologies ; for the impression made by your letter is not evanescent. 'I cannot venture to condole with you on the MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 41 great loss you have sustained. Time, and the re- membrance of the many blessings spared to you, are the only real comforts which this world can give you; and before the hope of another world, before the hope of an eternity of life, of affection and of happi- ness, all human consolations shrink into nothing. I have just purchased a house in town, (36, Hertford Street,) which will, I trust, give me the opportunity to cultivate your acquaintance, and I beg you to believe me, ' My dear sir, ' Most truly yours, ' e. l. bulwer.' From Edward Lytton Bulwer. ' Woodcot House, Nettlebed, Oxon. 'July 13, 1829. ' My dear Sir, ' By mistake, a copy of '' Devereux," intended for you, was not sent some days ago. Allow me now to request your acceptance of the accompanying volumes. It will give me great pride and gratifica- tion if they contain anything you like. ^ Very truly yours, ' E. Lytton Bulw^er.' From Miss Jewsbury. 'December 11, 1830. ' My dear Friend, ' I am gettino^ anxious about Mrs. Watts. Let me have a line to know whether she is '' downstairs " 42 ALARIC WATTS. or '•' in my lady's chamber." I have hoped she was doing well, or you would not have had spirits to con- duct a contest in the Athenceum. I think a clever ji^u dJ esprit might be written, called a " Literary Litany." My petition would be for deliverance from too many literary friendships. A precious annoyance I have had about my signature being affixed to Miss Bowles's poem. I have righted myself to her, and had a most handsome letter in reply ; but I cannot do it in print, because my being cleared must com- promise the friend who did it, and though Miss Bowles and I quite believe it was an unintentional mistake, it might not find so many public believers. I am writing a paper for you that will, I think, put you in good humour with me, from life — " Reminis- cences of a Good-natured Man." I am more tired of good-nature than I can tell you. It hangs five hundred thousand mill and mile stones round one's neck. Mighty pleasant to be tossed from pillar to post, from being pilloried in this Gazette, to being guillotined in that, because one really loves peace and quietness, and likes everybody and everybody's periodicals pretty much alike, to seem compromised by one's very virtue. I am positive everybody must be somebody's partizan, and not everj^body's friend, and I shall, (unless I drown or marry,) give up peace- making and generalizing, and friendship and good- nature, in all its ramifications. I want to loiow whether you would like what I call a " ballad of society" — something in Mr. Praed's way. I have several by me ; and though I can't own them, be- MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 43 cause they assume the gentleman's character, I think one or two of them are better things than I have written for some time. My love to Mrs. Watts, and believe me, ' Very truly yours, ' M. J. J.' Feom William Sidney Walker. ' Mrs. Walker's, Turnham Green, 'May 7, 1830. ' My dear Sir, ' I have been trying my hand at prose, in the shape of an "Arabian Tale," and have just finished the first chapter, which I send you as a sample. I fear it is very, very bad, for truly no genial feelings of inspiration waited upon its manufacture. If you think it will do, (and I assure you that, although belonging to the irritable tribe, I shall be anything but angry if you think otherwise), I will complete it with all due speed. With regard to the accompany- ing packet of verse-work, I wish to ask your advice. It consists of matters written some fifteen years ago. I do not offer them to your Annual, for they would do it no credit ; but you, who Imow so much more of such matters, can perhaps inform me of some periodical which would be willing to receive them, for I do not think they are worse than a great many pieces which have so appeared. In short, I consider them in the Hght of indifferent or damaged goods, which I shall be glad to dispose of on reasonable terms, so as I can but get rid of them. Forgive me 44 ALA ETC WATTS. for the trouble I give you ; it is my ancient enemy, Necessity, which a me talia cogit Moliri." ' I write under the influence of the weather, with a heavy, sultry-day incubus upon me ; so you must excuse errors. Present my best respects to Mrs. Watts, and believe me, dear sir, ^ Your obhged servant, ' W. S. Walker.' CHAPTER III. THE 'literary souvenir/ 1830-1831. — THE MAN OF TASTE. If the best-remembered now of the contents of the * Literary Souvenir' for the years 1830 and 1831 be the popular 'Belle of the Ball- room^ of Winthrop Praed, and the most de- serving to be remembered, as I venture to think, the ' Hymn to Liberty/ of his friend Sidney Walker, noticeable papers and poetry by other writers are not wanting. The editor had spared no pains to secure variety and novelty which the increasing competition around him rendered both necessary and difficult. In addition to the old names, I notice in these volumes compositions from some of the younger race of a new age be- ginning to come to the front. Gerald Griffin, 46 ALARIC WA TTS. the author of 'The Collegians,' better known now by its dramatic equivalent, ' The Colleen Bawn,' who had recently come to England to try his fortunes in literature ; and his more successful brother author and fellow-country- man Banim, author of the popular 'Tales of the O'Hara Family.' Mrs. Norton also, whose qualities as a poet have, perhaps, scarcely re- ceived in the present day their due meed of honour, overshadowed as they may have been by the more philosophical genius of Mrs. Brown- ing. Laman Blanchard, too, of whom it is im- possible for anyone who knew him to speak without an effusion of tenderness in recallino- one of the most gentle, refined, and highly tempered natures ever doomed by a dreary 0^^, destiny to 'cut blocks with a razor' on the newspaper press. Two of the most popular novelists, that were to be, of the period inter- vening between the death of Scott and the rise of Dickens, are also represented in these volumes. The author of 'Richelieu,' Mr. G. P. R. James, whose occasional mannerisms of incident in his novels are more easy to ridicule than it is to emulate their noble and ' THE LITERARY SOUVENIR; 1830-31. 47 chivalrous spirit ; and Mrs. Gore, the author of ' Cecil/ whose novels, if they reflected the artificiality of the age, quickened in it an appreciation of lively wit not without its influence in preparing for the truer and deeper veins of humour of Dickens and Thackeray. The editor had also gone further afield, and was permitted in these volumes to introduce to a wide circle of readers in England the then comparatively unfamiliar names of Bryant \/ and Whittier. The embellishments were, I think, of more than ordinary interest and value. They included Harlow e's portrait of Mrs. Siddons in the character of Lady Mac- beth, — Harlowe was little valued in those days ; 'Jacob's Dream,' by Washington Alston, from the Petworth collection; 'The Sale of the Pet Lamb at the Cottage Door/ by Collins, E.A., the popularity of which led to a larger engraving later in mezzotint ; and ' The Brigand's Cave,' by Uwins. The brigand's wife leaning tenderly over the aristocratic little sleeping child, of some unlucky travellers, — fate left in obscurity, — while the robbers are carousing in the background. / 48 ALARIC WATTS. The volumes of the ' Literary Souvenir ' for 1830 and 1831, with their luxurious bindings J of crimson silk, which the proprietors seem to have borrowed from the ' Keepsake/ though not at first sight appearing to differ materially from those which had immediately preceded them, exhibit to the discriminating eye some characteristics worthy, and indeed needful to be noted, because illustrative of the motions of the time in such matters. An element of taste in the externals rather than in the spirit ; a fastidiousness and fashion beginning to overlie the sentiment which had been the charm of the earlier volumes. The sentiment not externally lacking ; yet a sense of a vacuum in that region present, to be felt, yet not readily definable. These and similiar books had created a custom or fashion of giving presents, and had popularized in the general public, not then deeply endowed in the region of feeling, a sense of tasteful senti- ment very valuable to it. But when the time comes, as come it will, when gifts, whether they be annuals, or wedding presents, or Christ- mas cards, begin to be made from fashion, and 'fashion: 49 not from feeling, the spirit of sentiment in the giving has evaporated, and may, perhaps, not be greatly remarked as absent, when lacking in the gift itself. These ' annual ' books, beautiful and tasteful as they are, have yet something now about them a little artificial. They seem more fitted to be turned over as a toy on the draw- ing-room table, than cherished as a memory in the little bookcase of the secret chamber. In a word, the ^Annual' has become a fashion. The change in the spirit of his book to which I am referring, was influencing, or rather had been influenced by, a change of spirit in my father^s character important to notice in the history of the man. ' I have seen,' says Gerald Griff'en, in a letter to his sister written in 1830, ' Mr. Alaric Watts reposing among all the glories of a literary lionmonger, sofas, silk cushions, paintings, portfolios, etc' Yes, it was even so ; my father had exuberated from the man of sentiment into the man of taste ! The germs of this tendency in his nature, and the risks of its growing into predominance, had been perceived in his early volume of verse by his friend Coleridge. ' I have no VOL. II. 26 50 ALARIC WATTS. objection/ the sage had said, 'to your spiritual cranium containing both the taste exquisite and the faculty divine, this in one hemisphere, and that in another ; but let the poet be kept from the connoisseur/ This advice, — like most good advice, — it was not within the will, or indeed the power, of the recipient to adopt. Had he sought to follow it he would have been as untrue to himself as to his art, to which this particular quality gave its individualitv. To have done so, would indeed have been to render him artificial, instead of securino; him from being; so. All that con- cerned him was to be true to his own real nature, and this I think he always was. The fact is, the age was moving in the same direction. I have sought in a former chapter to indicate that the imaginative literature of the age, which I have ventured to describe as the second period of the age of sentiment in England, inaugu- rated by the sonnets of Bowles, was a school in which sentiment was refined and purified by an interior spirit of taste. During the forty years wdiich had since elapsed, these characteristics had intensified, and, in doing; so, had in operation become reversed. The TASTE. 51 spirit of taste had developed and forced itself to the surface, — * For so is it ever for joy and sorrow, The Spirit to-day is the Body to-morrow ;' until it had acquired the entire predominance. This had given an exquisite refinement to the poetry of the time, though not wholly, it may be, without some sacrifice of its freshness. It was now no lono;er the a2;e of sentiment purified by taste ; it had become the age of taste vivified by a spirit, gradually passing away, of sentiment. In this state of things one of two results would seem to have become inevitable. Either the spirit of taste in the time must receive a new infusion of poetical imagination ; or it must seek satisfaction to its needs in some other direction than poetry. It found both these outlets. In 1830 appeared the first JL^^tnt of the many volumes by which the poetry of ^ */ the age was regenerated by the illustrious writer of ' The Palace of Art ;' while the gates of that palace, in its more restricted and literal sense, thrown wide open to the grieat mass of the middle-classes, largely by the 26—2 52 ALARIC WATTS. instrumentality of the description of works of which I am writing,, was ready to receive those who were unprepared at the moment to recognise the spirit of taste of which they were devotees in its new and more highly imaginative literary aspect. My father was of the latter class. He threw himself into this art sphere of life with energy and enthusiasm. A ' Diary and Daily Eemembrancer for 1830/ happily preserved, displays him in the very thick of this art life. It contains onlv one distinct entry of an event, but that is a signi- ficant one. He writes, under date ' January 21st/ ' On this day the remains of Sir Thomas Lawrence were conveyed to St. Paul's with great pomp.' But, it is filled with lists and plans and accounts, in which the life of the time seems very clearly and characteristically pourtrayed. Here, for example, are lists of subjects, or of existing pictures, suitable for future volumes of his ' Souvenir ;' susaestions for new works of an artistic nature, such as • Poetical Sketches from the Old Masters,' ' A Gallery of Modern British Art,' plan of a ' Landscape Annual,' of ' A Book of Beauties PLANS AND PROJECTS. of all Nations, being a series of engravings from the most celebrated portraits of beautiful women, from Titian s mistress to Lawrence's Duchess of Eutland ;' another, of ^ Memorials of the Poets,' of which he issued a prospectus, being views of their residences and places of resort. Some of these ideas were worked out later by others. In the ' Landscape Annual ' he was, indeed, anticipated this very year by Mr. Jennings, the print-seller, in Cheapside. The ' Book of Beauties,' though confined to portraits of contemporary beauties, and vulgar- ized in consequence, was carried out later by Mr. Charles Heath ; and the ' Memorials of the Poets,' in the popular ' Homes and Haunts of the Poets/ by his friend AVilliam Howitt. Accompanying these, and similar notes and projects, are lists of pictures of his own collec- tion, showing the prices paid for them and the sums received for others disposed of, only, I suspect, to be replaced. A similar list of some two hundred drawings, purchased by him at different times, of the modern French and English schools. A list there is of drawings, very tastefully and discriminatively selected, 54 ALARIC WATTS. headed with the suggestive words, ' Drawings to complete series for Zillah.' He would seem to have succeeded in persuading himself that he was really collecting these costly works of art for the enjoyment and gratification of his wife, who had no desire for such possessions, nor any wish in the world but to see him happy and free from care, whereunto all this was perhaps rather a circuitous route. . Some slight indications, I think, I find in this very book of a suspicion on his part that his expenditure in these matters, and perhaps generally, had been exceeding w^hat was pru- dent ; for I come upon an entry with a head- ing, with w^hich possibly some of the readers of this narrative may not be wholly unfamiliar, in the following terms: 'Moneys paid in 1829, not necessary expenses of the year, or likely to occur again/ The details of this ' extraordinary budget' amount to something like £2,000; and some of them, of an artistic and generally deco- rative character, are, I am bound to say, such as ought neither to recur, nor to have occurred, except upon the hypothesis that he was in very prosperous circumstances. Perhaps he was! A CHRISTMAS PRESENT. 55 He claims, in his preface to the volume for 1830, that a very large increase had taken place in the circulation of the work, which he had now taken into his own hands, — a circum- stance, to me, a little ominous. A rough esti- mate in this account-book shows that provision had to be made, at that time, for an annual sale of ten thousand copies. Nevertheless, on the whole, I entertain misgivings, as will have done also, I think, the mistress of all these beautiful things, as she sat devising economies, and balancing, as best she might, her domestic budget in a room the wall-paper whereof was nowhere to be seen for pictures and the backs of rare and costly books. I hope, however, that he enjoyed it all, as, to do him justice, I think he did, for he was less fearful and far-seeing than his partner ; and after all there it all was, and the expendi- ture was ' not likely to occur again.' On Christmas Day, 1831, his wife pre- sented him with the happiest Christmas gift that fortune was ever to bless him with, in a daughter, the loving comforter and sustainer of their later years. f CHAPTER IV. ART IN PARIS IN 1830. MR. ETTY, R.A. ; MR. UWINS, R.A. ; MR. PAUL DE LA ROCHE ; MR. SCHEFFER. ' In June, 1830/ my father says in some auto- biographical notes, ' Mr. Etty, R.x\., Mr. Uwins, R.A., and myself, were chance visitors in Paris at the same time, and visited tegether the Louvre and some of the studios to which I had access. Mr. Uwins was a man of refined taste and liberal sentiments, desirous to find what there was of good in everything he saw, and his taste was sufficiently catholic to enable him to appreciate a great diversity of schools and styles. Mr. Etty, on the other hand, was, or amused himself by affecting to be, prejudiced even to bigotry against all French art, of which, indeed, he possessed a ART IN PARIS IN 1830. 57 very slight knowledge. His ideas of the later French schools were almost exclusively based on the hard and tasteless prints which he had met with in England, from the carefully drawn but coldly classical pictures of David, Ingres, De Thiere, Gros, etc. Of the Eomantic School, which had then begun to assert itself, of Horace A^ernet, De la Eoche, Decamps, Delacroix, and Eugene Deveria, he had no knowledge, and seemed rather unwilling than otherwise to allow himself to be made ac- quainted with them. He used to affirm that French painters were fit only to decorate papier mache tea-boards, and ornament china, and that the careful drawino; of such men as David and Ingres did but render the deformi- ties of the composition and colouring the more glaring. French art, with him, was identified with David, and through him with the worst excesses of the Ee volution. These prejudices, originating in honesty and right-heartedness, prevented him, for a time at least, from enjoy- ing much that otherwise could not have failed to commend itself favourably to his judgment and experience. He admitted the graceful 58 ALARIC WATTS. and toucliino; character of Giroclet's " Burial of Attila ]' but observed, '' Pictures may please an untutored eye which possess few, if any, of the properties which belong to a real work of art, and this seems to me a picture of that class.'' The picture which satisfied him best of the modern French school, was the well-known " Wreck of the Medusa,'' by Gericault, the great merit of which he frankly recognised, admitting that it had in it much of the quality of Michael Angelo. ' Arrived, on our visit to the Louvre, within the Venetian compartment, our eyes were attracted by the well-known picture of Gior- gione, of the '' Music Party,'' which a young artist was engaged in cop3dng. Etty stood for a moment behind him, and after a hasty glance at the transcript observed, '' That is one of the pictures I came to Paris to see, and I am not disappointed. I shall copy that picture as well as I can, to show your French friends how we manag;e such matters in Eno;land." I should remark, that to make a good copy of this picture was, in that day, regarded as an achievement of mark. . ETTY IN PARTS. 59 • ' The necessary authorization from the Director of the Louvre, the Comte de Forbin, was easily obtained ; and a day or two after- wards Etty made his appearance at the Gallery, Michael Angelo like, carrying his own colour- box and brushes, and commenced operations. I proposed to make him known to one or two of the French artists at work around him, with whom I happened to be acquainted, but this he declined ; and so peculiar was his exterior and deportment, that I was not very unwilling that he should, as he desired, first show them what manner of man he was, through his work. ' It was the time of '' Eomanticism " in art and artists' costumes, and the outer man of more than one of my French acquaintances was sufficiently well calculated to startle the rather conventional English mind of that day ; but Etty's appearance was rough, without being; romantic. He wore a coarse blue frock- coat, the right sleeve of which bore evidences of frequent contact with his wet canvas, and cut so lonsf in the skirts as to set off in no very prepossessing fashion a rather bulky person ; blue trousers, of considerable amplitude as CO ALARIC WATTS. far as they went, displaying above a pair of thick '' Blucher boots/' coarse grey worsted stockings, a costume, it might be supposed, little adapted to one of the most sultry days of a Parisian summer. We left him very contented, looking in upon him from day to day to see how he was vindicating the honour of the English school, and we were not disappointed. At first his progress was slow, for the outline was to him the most difficult part of the work; but, this preliminary surmounted to his satisfaction, he proceeded with astonishing rapidity and success. His fellow- workers in the Gallery gathered before his easel, and w^atched with curiosity, not unmingled with admiration, the approach of this performance towards completion. ' On renewing our visit on the fifth and sixth day, it was evident that Etty had made a sensation, and I was saluted with more than one inquiry who he was ? " Qui est-ce monsieur, done, Monsieur Vast T (so it was frequently their pleasure to name me) ; " mais c'est superbe ! la couleur est vraiment extra- ordinaire T' ETTY IN PARIS. 61 * " These fellows," Ettv observed, " are not SO bad ; and know what's good, if they can't do it. That fellow with the beard, — beastly custom, — has given me some yellow, (jaune de Mars), and they keep jabbering, what they mean I believe to be civil, if I could under- stand them." Etty's copy when completed was a great success ; and becoming talked of in the studios, several distinguished French painters came expressly to see it, and spoke with generous enthusiasm of its merits. The appearance of Etty on one of these occasions I shall not soon forget. Not content with the use of his brush and his palette-knife, his finger and thumb, and now and then his coat-sleeve, ^ had been employed in modifying some bit of , colour on his canvas, and having now and \ then to protect his nose and chin from the attacks of the flies of a hot Parisian summer day, his face presented a most grotesque \ appearance, from the dabs of colour with which it was liberally bespread. ' "We dined together, — Uwins, Etty, and I, — at a restaurant in the Palais Eoyale, where Etty's prejudices against everything French^ 02 ALARIC WATTS. •J^ . ■'W(K which he had begun somewhat to modify, were reawakened by an incident with which Uwins and I were no little amused. A huge cavalry officer, in full regimentals, moustached, whiskered to the full fashion of the day, had summoned the waiter to order his dinner ; but no sooner did the obliging Armand and he set eyes upon each other than, without more ado, they flew into each other's arms, kissing each other with great affection, without the slightest embarrassment. When the first outburst of enthusiasm was over, the gentleman explained that he had recognised in Armand his frere du lait, whom he had not seen since he was a child, and of whose occupation and whereabouts he had been entirely ignorant. Etty, who had witnessed the incident with undisofuised astonishment and dismay^ was not greatly mollified by this explanation, and protested that nothing should induce him to stay long in a country which presented such unseemly manifestations. ' The next day, having at my disposal the carnage of a friend, Peter Nolte, a man well- known in Anglo-American society in those FA UL BE LA ROCHE. 63 clays in Paris, I invited Etty to accompany me on a round of calls upon some of the most eminent of the French painters, feeling satis- fied that if I could once prevail upon him to judge of their performances, and especially their remarkable facility of execution, with his own eyes, I should succeed in greatly modify- ing, if not in removing, his prejudices against French art. He resisted some time. ^' These fellows," said he, ''have a sort of finikin notion of drawing, David, the scoundrel, and Ingres too, for instance, that is well enough, so far as it goes ; but what is the use of painters who can't paint T He, however, finally agreed to accompany me, Uwins being of the party. ' Our first visit was to the studio of Paul De la Eoche, situated in a narrow dingy street, the name of wdiich I have forgotten, which, as Etty said, for inconvenience beat Buckingham Street hollow. We w^ere shown into a large room, some seventy or eighty feet long, by thirty or forty wide, and of propor- tionate height, filled with well-dressed people promenading up and down as though in a public gallery. Pupils of M. De la Roche were C4 ALARIC WATTS. occupied in different parts of the room in different studies, some copying pictures, others makina; drawinQ;s of animals. There were in the room a fine horse and a dead wolf serving as models, each surrounded by a group of ad- miring students. A large canvas was stretched on one side the atelier, before which was a large and lofty platform on which stood the master. He appeared to be about forty years of age ; a slender, graceful-looking man, with that amenity of manner which characterized the better-schooled Frenchman of that day. He received my card with Etty's name upon it, and descended to welcome us. He ex- pressed warmly his appreciation of Etty's transcript of the '' Giorgione," and professed himself thoroughly acquainted with Erty's reputation as a colourist. I interpreted, I dare say but indifferently, between them, the more so as I had on one side to make my bricks pretty much without straw, as Etty, perhaps as much from shyness as any other cause, could not be prevailed upon to respond to these obliging overtures by any similar civilities. SCHEFFER. 65 ' From De la Eoche's studio we proceeded to that of Aiy Scheffer in tlie Eue Chaptal, where we were also very cordially welcomed. His studio was of more limited extent than that of De la Eoche, but it was larger and far more commodious than the studios of artists in England at that time. He was putting his last touches on his '^ Margaret in the Chapel ;" and whilst the power of expression, for which his heads are so justly celebrated, seemed to me but very imperfectly appreciated by my companion^ he did not fail to condemn the uniform monotony of colour which pervades all Scheffer s pictures. Among several charm- ing; sketches, some of which the artist subse- quently painted and exhibited, I remem- ber '' Christ Blessing Little Children/' and ^' Paolo and Francesca di Eimini." Much as Uwins and I, more particularly, admired the sentiment of all Scheffer's pictures, we greatly preferred on the w^hole his smaller and less ambitious subjects, in which the whole effect of the story w^as concentrated on one or two heads. Amons: those which on this occasion obtained our preference was ^' Margaret Con- VOL. II. 27 GQ ALARIC WATTS. templating her Jewels," " The Children at Prayer," " The Soldier's Widow," and " The Sisters of Scio," (suggested by an incident in the AVar of Greek Independence, from which the French painters of that particular period were never tired of taking subjects for their pictures). His " Suliote Women," then in the Luxembourg, struck Uwins and myself as being, in every respect but that of colour, a charming composition. Some of his heads of Children, in all but colour, were worthy of Greuze. I remember two instances in which a head of " A Child " by SchefFer w^as sold at Christie's for upwards of two hundred guineas each, which probably together would not have cost, bought from the studio, a thousand francs. Scheffer w^as courteous and oblisinp', and we passed an hour with him very agree- ably. He showed us a portrait of his, which we did not admire, of Louis Philippe ; also a drawing from the pencil of the accomplished Princess Marie, which bore evidence, we thought, of the hand of the master, also the original model of her " Joan of Arc." ' One thing which struck us as remarkable ■was the number of small drawings for dealers FRENCH AQUA BELLES. 67 and amateurs, which were in various stages of progress, varying in price from one to eight hundred francs. I would have purchased one or two which attracted me, but was informed that they were commissioned by Madame Hutin, a well-known marcJiande de dessins in the Kue de la Paix, who had a large collec- tion of drawings, some of them of first-rate excellence, of French, German, and English artists. The rage for English aquKirelles, especially landscapes, was then so great in Paris, that two English artists of by no means first-rate power were realizing there a considerable income. Of the French land- scape-painters of that day it is difiicult to speak with respect. Isabey had a reputation in this branch of art as the French Stanfield, but his performances w^ere very inferior. Mozin was another, a pleasant and genial fellow. Of the aquarelleistes Eoqueplaii struck me as one of the best ; but although he would often receive five hundred francs for a small draw- ing in imitation of Watteau for a lady's fan, his works would have obtained little, if any, acceptance in England.' 27—2 CHAPTER V. THE MAN OF TASTE (continued). FRENCH INFLUENCES. The effect of these excursions to Paris in the years 1828, 1829, 1830 and 1831, is very distinctly recognisable in the volumes of the 'Literary Souvenir' and 'New Year's Gift' for the years 1832 and 1833. In them appear, for the first time in England, as I believe, engravings from the works of some of the principal French artists of that day ; of the brothers Alfred and Tony Johannot ; of Achille and Eugene Deveria ; of Alaux, Colin, De- camps, and Ary Scheffer. The work displays in the literature more 'romantic' tendencies, and the same influence is illustrated in the editor's own poetical contributions to it, of which I shall have to speak later. The effect THE MAN OF TASTE. 69 of these influences upon him personally, and the immediate surroundings and belonoings representing that personality, are, I think, graphically pourtrayed in the following re- miniscences of this period for which I am in- debted to his daughter-in-law : — ' I was a child when I first made the acquaint- ance of your parents. It must have been about the year 1832 or 1833. I had arrived in one of the curious cabriolets of that day, in which the driver sat at the side, from the Angel at Islington, after a night's journey in a stage-coach, on a visit to them in Torrington Square, whither my mother had preceded me. It is early morning, Sunday morning, I think, as I pass upstairs through the sleeping house to my bedroom next to my mother's, where hot coffee and other comforts await me, and where we are left to our own devices until the family breakfast hour, ten o'clock. My little bed- room seems filled more with books than bed-furni- ture, so much does the sense of them predominate in my memory over everything else. They are everywhere, on shelves, and even stowed away, tidily, as it were, in my honour, in heaps on the floor. I am, however, too restless to read, too ex- cited to sleep, too curious to remain quiet. I ven- ture to open my door and look out. All is absolute silence. Opposite is a room which I divine some- how to be the sanctum of the master of the house. 70 ALARIC WATTS. Pleasant and memorable hours am I to be permitted to pass in it. I venture to peep into it now. It has that rich, sombre aspect of antique furniture and deep crimson colouring with which one is familiar in French houses, and which, introduced from France about this time, and adopted by degrees in art circles and studios, gave, I think, the first general impulse in England to the collection of hric-a-hrac. 'A table littered with MS. proofs of engravings in various stages, proof-sheets of letter-press, speak of the practical and the present. On the chimney- piece, surrounded by curious bronze figures and medallions, a carved oaken casket, made, as I after- wards learn, of carvings from the Bucentaur, then recently broken up at Venice ; an old sword, with the handle covered with velvet that had become yellow, bound with gold thread that had become white with age, and a curious pommel encrusted with remains of gold, and incised on the blade in letters very far apart, "Andrea Ferrara, 1535.'' These and other curious things, glanced at then, seen more frequently and familiarly afterwards, make a strange impression on my memory of the quaint and the remote. ' Books are here, too, in profusion, ranged in old carved bookshelves ; but above all, and predomi- nating here above all, drawings and pictures every- where, leaning against walls, and standing on low bookcases, and against the high cane backs of carved chairs, with crimson Utrecht velvet cushions, HIS PORTRAIT. 71 converted into impromptu easels. Much of this common enough now, but then in middle- class houses, and, indeed, everywhere — for art circles and artists set fashion in such things, and do not follow it — so strange and so new. The drawings, too, not such as I had been used to see in the country, rather faint and fade of hue, of simple home scenes and home interests, but deep, rich, and varied in colouring, and each telling of itself some romantic story. A large drawing I especially recall, of Cattermole, perhaps, with many figures and full of detail, of a Robber's Cave ; " A Huguenot Gentleman arrested under a lettre de cachet,'' by Tony Johan- not ; '' Columbus presenting to Ferdinand and Isa- bella Gifts from the New World," by Deveria, remain among those which I especially recall. As this room and all these things revive in my mind, your father, as I remember him in association with them, seems to stand before me. ' He is very much as represented in Howard's portrait of him, painted about this time or a little later ; dark- eyed, with soft, glossy, abundant black hair, combed carelessly back from his temples, with a mobility of expression in the face of which it would be impossible to give in a picture any ade- quate idea, changing as it does as though in a flash of light within from the sombre and moody to a brightness and hilarity quite indescribable. I recall ever with delight the sense of contagious gaiety awakened by his singularly joyous, sonorous bursts of laughter resounding through the house. 72 ALARIC WATTS. He liaci what the French call im hel organe, a deep, flexible, and unusually musical voice in conversation, and especially in reading poetry aloud. On such occasions, it would vibrate like the strings of a violoncello, and in its turn would cause to vibrate in harmony the feelings of his auditors in unison with his own. It was a highly magnetic voice. In those comparatively early clays he must still have been slender, almost as in his youth; and this gave him, perhaps, the appearance of being taller than he really was ; and he had a certain air of fastidiousness, and of what I think in those days was termed fashion. His external man expressed what at that time was very markedly represented by him, — the spirit of the critic and connoisseur. 'Recurring to my memories of this particular morning, I know now that it must have been a Sunday, for I hear the inharmonious jangle of competing church-bells as I stand in my best frock on the balcony, outside the open French windows of the drawing-room, looking out upon the garden of the Square. I seem to smell the mignonette growing in long green boxes on the balcony, — the rudimentary window-gardening of that day, — and to wonder over the green Venetian blinds, a refine- ment which had not then made its way generally into houses in the country. In recollection, I should say the colouring of the drawing-room was crimson, white, and gold ; crimson and white striped chintz, covering sofas, armchairs, and ottomans. HIS WIFE. 73 the carpet crimson and white ; the walls of both rooms covered with pictures hung together, so as to leave little, if any, wall-paper visible. On brackets here and there, and where space was left, on low bookcases and the marble tops of buhl chiffonniers, vases, and figures in alabaster, and branch candlesticks in grey crackling china, one of which, I regret to say, became cracked china, between you and me, before this visit came to an end. 'There is a certain foreim air about the whole o that is original, and unlike anything I have seen before. 'It was on this Sunday morning that I made your mother's acquaintance. Tall, majestic almost, she seems to me in recollection, in form and carriage, fair, calm both in countenance, manners, and words, with large, soft, dove-like eyes, and eminently beau- tiful hands. There is something peculiarly refined and distinguished in her whole appearance. She wears her brown hair dressed in high loops upon the crown of the head, and puffed above the temples, as is the fashion of the day. Her dress a small- patterned damask silk, laced down the back, of an apple-green colour, which suits admirably with her fair and clear complexion, and with the faint bloom upon her cheek, as of the apple-blossom itself. Her gown is made high to the throat, which is encircled by a somewhat deep frill of muslin and lace, and the sleeves of the style then called from their shape gigot, or leg-of-mutton sleeves, with 74 ALARIC WATTS. deep black velvet cuffs ; black velvet trimming the whole dress. By her hand she leads her little son ' Here the modesty of this narrator must interpose. The foregoing picture, limned, I must admit, by a kind and partial hand, affords, I think, a faithful picture of my father and his domestic environments at this time, and may possess an interest, apart from their immediate bear- ing on this history, and that is important, as an illustration of an early stage of that love of beauty in our immediate surroundings, which has assumed such alarming proportions in the aestheticism of our own day. Of the hideous uniformity of middle-class interiors in that day it is difficult now to form an adequate idea. There was little, if any, representation in them of individual taste and opinion, prin- cipally, it may be, because there was little, if any, individuality of taste and opinion in such matters to be represented. My father's house and belongings fully and faithfully repre- sented the man ; and in this lies their value to this narrative. I have already hinted SURROUNDINGS AND CIRCUMSTANCES. 75 the wish that they had as faithfully repre- sented his circumstances and real condition of life. As a general rule, it may be affirmed that a man is rarely ruined by a single form of imprudence, otherwise, indeed, wdio of us might escape ^ perdition ' ! My father's energy and industry, and his simple, unostentatious habits in other respects, would, I think, have been sufficient to guard him from any deep and serious mischief in the affairs of life from his too great love of beautiful things, and a desire to surround himself with them. Eetrenchment in this direction would no doubt soon be found needful ; and it would have re- quired no great foresight to divine that the greater number of these valuables would have to be resigned sooner or later. But so thorough was his intuitive perception of what was intrinsically good in art, and in advance of the taste of the cultivated opinion on matters of art of that day, that whatever he had purchased could have been by him readily reconverted into money, not only without loss, but probably at considerable profit. { ^-r^ .e 7G ALARIC WATTS. Tlius, I observe, from tlie memoniiidum- book from which I have quoted, that Collins's large picture of the ' Sale of the Pet Lamb/ engraved in the ' Literary Souvenir' for 1830, cost him only sixty-five guineas ; Leslie's replica of his portrait of Sir Walter Scott, painted for Ticknor, thirty guineas ; the ' Euphuist/ by the same master, similarly engraved in 1829, the same price ; Turner's ' Ehrenbreitstein,' thirty guineas ; and Sto- thard's series of six pictures illustrating the introduction to the ^Decameron,' two hundred guineas. But, unfortunately my father permitted him- self another indulgence in life than his taste, which was not to be re-converted so advan- tageously, and which is, indeed, one of the most expensive luxuries wherewith a man can treat himself habitually or even frequently, and that was, — his temper. CHAPTER VL TEMPER. I HAVE in the preceding narrative and corres- pondence allowed some hints to transpire of that element in my father's character to which I have referred in the concluding words of my last chapter. It is needful now to deal with it more specifically, for by it, no doubt, were his fortunes and the peace of his life more or less aff*ected. Moreover, every man's character is like the last of the kings in Macbeth's vision of Banquo : ' It holds a glass Which shows us many more.' This irritability of temperament had in it a quality of periodicity linking it, as it seems to me on looking back, with some obscure form of disease more or less akin to hysteria. Its 78 ALARIC WATTS. processes would be pretty mucli in this wise. All would be bright and w^ell with, him, and no cloud visible on the horizon, when a very nice observer might remark as strange, so slight an indication as to be scarcely a degree removed from the unnoticeable, of a look at things on his part as it were aslant, or askew, instead of, as usual with him, directly and distinctly to the point. A getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, so to speak, on some unimportant matter that might form the subject of casual conversation in his domestic circle. He would be quite unconscious of this, and would readily accept rectification, and all would remain genial and serene. But so certainly as this happened, in a day or two the symptoms would recur, slightly ac- centuated ; and this process would continue at short intervals, the intensity increasing with each, for some days, when it would culminate in a paroxysm of passionate excite- ment entirely beyond his capacity to control. This over, he would, I believe, entirely forget it, and all would be bright and genial with him for a considerable period. It is worthy SYMPTOMS AND PROCESSES. 79 of note, however, that if the final issue should be precipitated by any malign concurrence of circumstance from without, whereof the commerce of life presents usually sufficient material, the atmosphere would become cleared by it for the moment ; but the process would infallibly recommence a day or two after, and vindicate its right to take its normal course • As a rule, the more gradually and uninter- ruptedly it was allowed to operate, the longer would be the interval between the attacks. With most men, this disorder, common enough, is restrained in manifestation to the outer world, in a greater or less degree, by prudence or by fear — indeed, if not so generally restrained, the business of life could scarcely be carried on ; and it is usually pretty much confined to the safe precincts of the family circle, wherein it works much disquietude, whereof the world knows nothing. My father feared no man, and was not prudent, and he did not reserve his temper for home consumption. He was, moreover, at all times of a frank and downright nature, and possessed great quickness of perception, which he was not 80 ALARIC WATTS. ready at all times, or often, to modify in expression by reflection, — indeed, I doubt whether it ever occurred to him that there could be any reason why he should refrain from saying what he perceived, or thought he perceived, to be true ; and I doubt still more whether he had the power to do so even if it had occurred to him. A man who possesses the instincts of a woman, without either her fears or her fore- sight, will often form very just estimates of men and things, and be still more often in hot water. To these considerations, purely personal, tending to make for him enemies, must be added one of more general interest, only in- directly so operating, but efficacious to that end nevertheless. There was beginning to arise at this time, in the literature of the day, a spirit of cynical intellectualism, with which — healthilv diverted for a time by the humour of Charles Dickens — the present age is more than sufficiently familiar. Against those tendencies in the time, which directed themselves to the softenino- of EMOTION AND INTELLECT. 81' manners and the purification of taste, and, naturally (for opposition requires something concr-ete at which to direct itself), against all those individuals who in any degree repre- sented those tendencies, this spirit opposed itself of its very nature. Why, in every age, in a greater or less degree, this internecine conflict between emotion and intellect should be perpetuated; why there should not be, between the two, that harmony possible only in the frank recognition by each of the entire equality of the other, must, we can only suppose, be referable to the weakness and pride of both. Certainly this antagonism is a great, — if it be not the greatest, obstacle to human progress, the most potent vivifier of human error. But to resume. All these considerations, to which perhaps may be added another, in the jealousy excited by the success of his enterprises and the popularity of his verse, presented a more than usually favourable combination of circumstances in my father's case for his endowment, sooner or later, with those blessings which we are assured, on good VOL. II. 28 82 ALARIC WATTS. authority, are the happy portion of him ' Who heareth his detractions that he may put them to the mending/ From some one or other of these causes, or all of them combined, my father had, from an early period, found himself as well abused a man in the lowest class of the weekly publica- tions of that day, whereof the preeminence in debasement may be justly assigned to the Age and the Satirist^ as were many of his more distinguished contemporaries, male and female. But he was content with his company, and felt no impulse to treat these scurrilities other- wise than with the disdain they deserved. When, however, these attacks and vilifications were taken up in the same spirit, and repeated from month to month in every variety of form that the ingenuity of very petty malignity could devise in a professedly reputable publica- tion, addressed to respectable readers, and beginning to make itself felt as an organ of advanced intellectual thought, under the fostering impatronage of Mr. Lockhart, and the ostensible editorship of Dr. Maginn, his feelings were different ; and though his pride DR. MAGINN. 85 may have protected them for a season, it could be for a season only. This publication was Frasers Magazine, then recently established by a Scotch bookseller in London. My father had had some intercourse with Maginn, and had been with him on terms as friendly as could exist between a self-respecting man, and a man who neither respected himself nor any other being or thing. He had never done Maginn an injury ; and, if I may judge from some indications in his correspondence, had been to him, on more than one occasion, a serviceable friend. But from month to month, as I have said, he found himself the object, on the part of this lively writer and his associates, of the basest and most offensive personalities. He chafed under this for some time in silence, and at length, in the peaceful retirement of Mr. Goodenough's cottage at Barnes, * How ill the scene that offers rest, And heart that cannot rest, agree !' he composed ' retaliation,' in the form of a poem, published in the ' Literary Souvenir '■ for 1832, under the title of 'The Conver- 28—2 84 ALARIC WATTS. sazlone/ This deliverance must a little have surprised some of the readers of that tasteful and decorous publication, wherein much of it was most distinctly out of place. But, un- fortunately^ when taste and temper come into competition, the victory rarely remains with the former. All that can be said is, that it was • probably his only, or most convenient, vehicle. This production contains some lines, written, I think, in his happiest vein, descriptive of the peaceful delights of his ^Tusculum,' which, after the usual custom of poets, who are for the most part better able to describe peace than to ^ ensue it/ he compares, greatly to the dis- advantage of the latter, with the world and its vanities. Deviating from this wholesome vein of thought, he proceeds to describe a literary conversazione for the purpose of de- lineating the personages, with some of whom, but for him, posterity, and even their ow^n day, might have remained w^lioUy unac- quainted, by whom he felt that he, and the virtue of the age, had been outraged. This theme he illustrates, after the fashion of writers of satire, with prose notes or pro- conversazione: 85 legomena, without which the pungency of some of the wit might have been lost to the uninstructed ; and in presence of which it might indeed almost seem to have been super- fluous. These lines, revived in recent years by an admirer of Dr. Maginn, contain the following reference to that merry gentleman : ' Who, though he wrote the LL.D. After his name, will never be A whit the graver than he is ; Less fond of drunken devilries ; Less ready for a vulgar hoax ; Addicted less to pothouse jokes ; And all the rough plebeian horse-play He will so oft without remorse play. Give him a glass or two of whisky And in a trice he grows so frisky — So full of frolic, fun, and satire — So ready dirt around to scatter — And so impartial in his blows They fall alike on friends and foes ; Nay, rather than his humour balk, His mother's son he'd tomahawk ; And so he can but set once more His boon companions in a roar. Would scruple not, good-natured elf, To libel his illustrious self : A task so difficult, I own, It can be done by him alone ; And yet, to give the deuce his due, He'd neither slander me nor you 86 ^ ALARIC WATTS. From any abstract love of malice, But only in his humorous sallies ; For of his friends he'd lose the best, Much rather than his vilest jest.' It is a serious defect in satirical productions to be, or to desire to seem to be, good- humoured. Such compositions can scarcely be good-humoured enough to disarm, and will usually prove sufficiently caustic to irritate without being sufficiently penetrating to dis- able. As a rule, the next best thing to pre- termitting them altogether, is to hit as hard as you can. CHAPTER VIL DETRACTION. To the value of the foregoing critical aphorism Dr. Maginn would seem to have been fully alive. Indeed, the fine art of making believe to be judicial, and attacking one's adversary behind the shield of a simulated impartiality, had not, in that age, been reduced to a system. He accordingly availed himself of the oppor- tunity afforded by a series of quasi biogra- phical notices of eminent literary and political characters, in course of publication in Fraser's Magazine associated with portraits now known to be from the pencil of Mr. Maclise, to in- troduce, under the title of ^ The Literary Souvenir,' a caricature and so-called biogra- phical notice of the editor of that work. The artist was evidently not personally 88 ALARIC WATTS, acquainted with the face of his sitter, and the caricature was probably derived from a portrait of my father, exhibited this year in the Eoyal Academy by his friend Mr. Howard, K.A., suitably idealized from a humorous and sarcastic point of view. He is exhibited as having just descended a staircase, having a picture under each arm, and the idea that it was designed by the artist to signify, that he is, in fact, stealing the picture, is suggested by the writer of the notice in the following words : ' AVe are not particularly sure what our friend the etcher means by exhibiting Watts in the position in which he is on the opposite page de- picted. The attitude of flying downstairs with a picture under each arm and a countenance indi- cative of caution is remarkable.' After a variety of personalities, scurril and stercoraceous, de- manding no notice from me, the artist concludes with the following paragraph affecting my father's character: 'There is not a man to whom he has been under an obligation, from Jerdan to Lockhart, from Theodore Hook to Westma- cott, from Andrews to Whitaker, from Crofton Croker to Carter Hall, from AVords worth to MR. LOCKHART. 89 Byron, from Scott to Southey, from Lanclseer to Wilkie, — from the man who fed him from charity to the man who has from equal charity supported his literary repute, whom he has not in his poor way libelled.' My father was not a man to sit down under imputations such as these, and he therefore offered to Mr. Fraser and his associates an opportunity of substantiating all or any of their assertions or insinuations in an action which he commenced against them for libel, before Lord Denman, in the Court of Queen's Bench. No attempt whatever was made to sustain any of the allegations so specifically ^hazarded' (to employ Mr. Lockhart's expres- sion in regard to them) to his prejudice. ' I was much surprised,' writes Mr, Lockhart, ^ to see the wanton use of my name hazarded in the article of Fraser s Magazine, purporting to be an account of your life. I never conferred any favour or obligation upon you, and am con- cerned that a statement so unfounded should have proceeded from Mr. Fraser s publication.' I desire further to refer in this relation to the following letters subjoined from other 90 ALARIC WATTS. distinguished men specified by name as having I conferred obligations upon him, and been by him ^ in his poor way libelled/ viz., Mr. Theodore Hook, Mr. "Wordsworth, Mr. Southey, Mr. Edwin Landseer, R.A., and Mr. David ^ Wilkie, R.A., and as regards Mr. Jerdan to vol. i. of this narrative, page 109. From Theodore Hook. * Athenaeum, Saturday. ' My dear Sir, ' Your letter having reached me here rather circuitously, I was unable sooner to reply to it. I do so now in what I am sure to be a most satis- factory manner to both of us. So far from author- izing or participating m the attack upon you to which you refer, I have not seen it. I can only assure you that if I had seen it, it would not in the slightest degree have altered the high opinion I have been taught to form of you. Assure yourself, my dear sir, that I remain, ' Yours most truly, ' Theodore Hook.' From Willimi Wordsworth. * Eydal Mount, ' November 25, 1835. 'My dear Sir, ' I lose not a moment in replying to your letter, which on your own account, and still more LETTERS OF THE 'LIBELLED: 91 on that of Mrs. Watts, has given me the deepest concern. Heavy charges, you tell me, (for I have not seen the publication alluded to), have been pre- ferred against you, in which I am brought forward as one whom you, in return for obligations re- ceived, have cheated and ill-used. Now, as to obligations, I have no hesitation in saying that you never owed any to me ; so that the imputation of ingratitude involved in the charge falls to the ground at once. The obligations ^vere wholly on my side. Nor had I ever, during such times as we have been in communication with each other, the slightest cause to complain of your behaviour towards me in any respect whatever ; and this de- claration you are at liberty to make public. I remain, my dear sir, with respect, and the best of good wishes for the recovery of Mrs. Watts's health and peace of mind, ' Very sincerely yours, ' William Wohdsworth/ Feom Egbert Southey, LL.D. ' Keswick, November 30, 1835. 'My dear Sir, ' I have just received your letter, which having been missent to Loughborough, has lost a day upon the road. That letter very much sur- prised me. Had I seen the article in Frasers Magazine, I should without delay have written to the editor to contradict the assertion relating to myself. As to any obligation which you are said to have received from me, I know of none. My ^2 ALARIC WATTS. good ojjinion and good wishes you have had, as I have had yours ; and my good word you have had, which, if worth Kttle because it has only been given in private, where alone I have had opportunities of giving it, has not been the less sincere. On the other hand, that you have done me some good offices, I know ; that you have ever done me an ill one, most assuredly I have never suspected and do not believe. ' I write amid pressing occupations, and in haste, that another post may not be lost. But this, I trust, will be received as a full and distinct refuta- tion of the calumnious charge in question, and as a proof that I continue to be, my dear sir, ' Yours, with sincere esteem and goodwill, 'Robert Southey.' From Edwin Landseer, R.A. 'My dear Sir, ' You appear angry with me ; why, I know not. I can only repeat that I have not the most remote knowledge of the libel you call public attention to ; nor do I know anything of the parties who have ventured to publish it. It is absurd in you to sup- pose for a moment that I could have anything to do with it, or that I could cherish any feeling of unkindness to you, from whom I have received so many kind attentions. ' I am, my dear sir, ' Faithfully yours, 'Edwin Landseer.' LETTERS OF THE ' LIBELLED: 93 From David Wilkie, R.A. * Kensington, June 11, 1835. 'Dear Sir, ' I regret extremely tliat any unfavourable representation should have gone abroad in regard to your treatment either of myself or any of my brother artists ; having never been sensible of any- thing but what was friendly on your part towards me, and having indeed occasion to acknowledge at your hands not only civility but extreme kindness. ' I am, dear sir, ' Very faithfully and truly yours, ' David Wilkie.' A few other letters, out of many received by him on this subject, will be found in the Miscellaneous Correspondence. The abominable insinuation sought to be conveyed by the remarks relating to the cari- cature were the more offensive, if any col- lateral circumstance could render it so, from the fact that a well-known amateur and col- lector of drawings at this time, who had some connection with one of the annuals, was de- tected in stealing drawings and had to quit the country. 94 ALA ETC WATTS. This imputation was on the trial unequivo- cally disavowed by Mr. Fraser's counsel, and the jury were invited to regard the whole affair as a capital joke, and to believe that no intention whatever had existed of conveying any other impression than that Mr. Watts was a dis- tinguished amateur of art. They, however, declined to adopt these suggestions, and re- turned a verdict for the plaintiff, with £150 damages. Mr. Fraser informed a friend of this writer that this pleasantry had mulcted him in £1,100. Nor was this all that the gibes of these gentry were to cost him. The magazine continued, for some time longer, to justify the -^ title of the ' Mud Magazine,' which had been conferred upon it by its most distinguished contributor, Mr. Carlyle, until the offending Adam was horsewhipped out of it, in the person of the unlucky publisher, by the stal- wart arm of Mr. Grantley Berkeley, who ex- hibited himself so incapable of taking a joke as to be unable to see the pleasantry of some gross remarks written by Dr. Maginn on the character of his mother. I may be allowed to PEACE. 95 add that I should have regarded this affair as adequately represented in this biography by a single paragraph if this infamous libel on my father s character had not been republished * in recent years, greatly to the surprise and pain of his family. I may perhaps conclude this notice of it with a letter of my father's, which I happened to light upon, happily illustrating the cari- cature of him, in the collection of the friend of whom I have spoken. It is addressed to Mr. Nickisson, the successor, (and I believe son-in- law), of Mr. Fraser. ' January 25, 1842. ' Sir, ' There was a feud of many years' standing between the late Mr. Fraser, or rather one or two of his magazine-writers, and myself, originating in the most unprovoked and scurrilous attacks on me. There is, however, no reason why it should be per- petuated by or towards his successor. You have sent me a book, the first I have received from your house, which I have spoken of as I think it deserves. I was sorry for the course I was com- ])elled to adopt in regard to Mr. Fraser; but the outraojeous falsehoods and malice of the statements he was cheated into publishing to my prejudice left me no alternative. With the affair I dismissed 96 ALARIC WATTS. from my mind all ill-feeling towards Mr. Fraser ; and if he did not so soon forget the dilemma in which a most unprincipled person had placed him, the fault was none of mine. I have received your book as a peace-offering from your house, and I so accept it. ' I am, sir, ' Your obedient servant, 'Alaric a. Watts. ^Mr. Nickisson, ^ Publisher, Regent Street.' ^ig «i^ «^ «t^ «f^ *t» '1^ ^r ^1^ *»* The republication a second time, in a cheap form, while this work is going through the press, of all this base and filthy buffoonery compels me to add the following letter, pub- lished in the AtJienceum of August 4, 1883 : ' 19, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. * July 31, 1883. ' Sir, ' I have observed an advertisement in your columns of a proposed reissue of a collection of papers published many years ago in a magazine, now no longer existing, containing a gross and scurrilous libel upon the character of my late father. For this libel my father recovered at the time in a court of law heavy damages, Avhich would probably have been much heavier if he had not given some provocation. No attempt whatever was made to substantiate any of the allegations and insinuations A PROTEST. 97 in question, which were, indeed, as unfounded as they were mahgnant. ' Of these facts the editor of the proposed pubh- cation possesses full knowledge. ' I am not at present aware what protection the law affords to representatives of deceased persons against such outrages, nor am I, indeed, more than moderately solicitous on the subject, entertaining as I do a strong conviction that the reputation of a man of character has been rarely injured by a libel or satisfactorily vindicated by a lawsuit. Such persons, and those who represent them, may perhaps safely content themselves with recalling the words of one of the wisest of human advisers ; ^' ' ^' Non es sanctior si laudaris ; Nee vilior si vituperaris Quod es, — hoc es." But all cannot so look at such things, and none, perhaps, at all times. Wherefore I take it to be my duty, at all events until I am more fully ad- vised, to protest in the name of good taste, good feeling, and good sense, — which are much more correlative than some writers appear to be capable of perceiving, — against the gross violation of public decency involved in the revival, in the name of " literature," of such obsolete stercoracities. ' It is difficult to avoid adverting in this connec- tion to the levity and want of consideration for in- dividual feehng which, under the impulse given, it ^ Thomae Kempensis, ' De Imitatione Christi/ Libri Quatuor. VOL. 11. 29 98 ALARIC WATTS, is greatly to be regretted, by influential examples, are beginning increasingly to characterize tbe editorship of biographies and correspondences, and by which the healthy sentiment of the age has already, on more than one occasion, been greatly revolted. ' As the most serious sufferer, perhaps, as yet, from this growing abuse, I take the liberty of ear- nestly commending the subject to the thoughtful consideration of the many honourable men and women who occupy themselves at the present day with literary criticism, and to whom, as the self- constituted guardians of and trustees for the public in such matters, it may fairly look for the protec- tion which they, and probably they alone, are capable of affording it. ' I am, sir, ' Your obedient servant, ' Alaric Alfred Watts.' CHAPTEE VIIL THE REAL MAN. If I have not hesitated to display with candour those defects in my father s character which contributed to neutralize the results of his talents and laborious industry, I may hope that what I may affirm of his virtues will be received with confidence as animated by the same spirit. That he was at times over- sensitive and irritable, petulant in spirit and unguarded in language, I have not concealed. That his practical kindness to and sympathy with all who came within the sphere of his influence was almost without bounds, I am now to affirm. Unsparing of self, fervent, not intermittent, (as are apt to be the sym- pathies of men,) ever alive, ever active, and 29—2 100 ALARIC WATTS, undepressed by unthankfulness, the spirit of benevolence, energetic and energizing, was ever in him, pouring forth without stint from the resources of a generous and even princely nature. It is rather hard upon poor humanity that it is, in its own day, most usually judged rather by its words than its works ; in some measure, perhaps, because the former are more easily put on record, transmitted, and kept in memory than the latter. The denunciations of the prophet are, by the majority of men, better remembered than the beneficent acts of the apostle ; and the warning, so perplexing, of the great Teacher, ' By your words ye shall be justified, and by your words ye shall be condemned/ receive some illustration, if not explanation, from this phenomenon. This irritability in expression combined witli benevolence in action, (an attribute, I think, of most really imaginative and sensitive natures,) in my father's case is happily illus- trated in some words of his friend Miss Jews- bury, originating in some differences between them, attributable, perhaps, to the incaution of ' TWO WITNESSES.' 101 the one and the impetuosity of the other, fevered into friction by the intermediation of that often inconvenient agency, ^ the mutual friend.' ' If I were called into a court of justice/ she says, ^ and asked my opinion of you, I should say you have the rashest temper and the kindest heart of any man I ever knew. The former makes it difficult to transact busi- ness with you ; the latter makes you delightful in domestic life. To retain anger and be in the same house with you is impossible.' Nor was this benevolent side of his character confined to the contracted area of the family circle. He possessed unusually active sympa- thies in combination with an unusually prac- tical imagination, an union which enabled him to perceive occasions for being serviceable to others, and the means of so being, in a degree which I have never seen equalled. ' If I were called upon,' says Emerson Tennent, who knew him well, in a letter now before me, ' to point out one leading foible in your character, I should say that it lay in an active manifestation of sympathy with art and literature, which, when confined within rational 102 ALARIC WATTS. limits, may be called generosity, but which in your case has amounted to extravagance. No baser act of ino;ratitude could be committed than by those who, being connected with literature or art, would seek to assail you. You have, to my knowledge, done more for the stragglers than half the titled patrons in England.' But his good offices were no more confined to those who could claim them on the ground of literary or artistic sympathies than they were to his immediate circle. An illustration of his active benevolence, under circumstances well calculated to try it, revives in my recollec- tion as I write. Comparatively few readers will recall the panic occasioned in all circles of society by the first outbreak, in 1832, of the Asiatic cholera, or ' cholera morbus,' as it was then called. No such sensations of universal terror and dismay had been awakened by any outbreak of disease since the Great Plague ; so sudden and unac- countable were its visitations to rich and poor alike, so rapid its processes, and so large the proportion of cases in which it proved fatal. ' THE CHOLERA MORE US. I 103 One heard every day of people in good health in the morning, and dead the next day. The following extracts from Lord Campbeirs letters and diaries, published by his daughter, the Hon. Mrs. Hardcastle, give in few words a vivid picture of the condition of things at this time. ' A great deal of alarm prevails in London ; the cholera is said to be in Picca- dilly ; I have signed my will. I do seriously think the House of Commons as dangerous a place as any in London. The cholera is a river or aquatic disorder, and it is certainly at Lambeth. Thousands will be ruined by it. Fruit and vegetables are hardly used, and few venture to ride in a hackney-coach.' In the country the alarm was even greater. Writing from Gloucester, where he was on circuit, he says : ' In Court we are almost overpowered by fumigations and aspersions ; most men have bottles or different charms about them ; the walls of the houses are covered with placards advertising remedies, giving cautions, and offering relio[;ious advice. At Bristol the o o people hate the doctors who are labouring for them, and believe that the sick are poisoned 104 J. ALARIC WATTS. and buried alive/ Again, writing from Abingdon, he says : ' I was wrong in saying that none of our corps have been frightened. , the orator, (who has fought a duel !) left his briefs and fled ; and Serjeant passed through from Wells for London, being afraid to attend the assizes at Bristol, giving up his briefs to his clients. This I consider very pusillanimous. Where a man's duty requires him to be, there the cholera is to be disre- garded.' I may add to this that in the metro^^olis the coflins of persons dying from this disorder, in the temporary hospitals established to receive the sick poor, were marked in chalk with the letters 'CM.' (' cholera morbus '), as a warning to the public to keep out of the way of them. In the height of this panic my father re- ceived one evenino; a messag;e from a gentle- man whom he had known when a young man, residing in Euncorn, as editor of a Chester newspaper, in the poet's corner of which had been allowed to appear the earliest eff^usions of his youthful muse. It informed him that this gentleman was lying in lodgings in London, THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE. 105 sick unto death with the ' cholera morbus/ and entreated a visit fromt him. He accompanied the messenger without delay, and arrived in time to witness the last agonies of an aggra- vated case of the disorder, and to comfort the dying man with the promise that he would protect and befriend the widow and family thus left wholly unprovided for. What to do at the moment was the difficulty. The people of the lodging-house, so sfreat was the dread of contagion, were unwilling or unable to allow them to remain^ and into no other house of the kind would they be received with the know- ledge of the truth, which my father would not permit himself to conceal. The only alternative, short of the workhouse, was to remove them to his own residence ; and this he did, with the entire concurrence and approbation of his wife, and, much to their credit at that time, without any rebellion on the part of his servants. The widow, and two sons and a daughter, remained domiciled in ■^ the family until other provision could be made for them. The upper floor of the house was assigned to them, and such measures of lOG ALARIC WATTS. domestic quarantine established as circum- stances permitted. When I remember the anguish which the loss of two children had occasioned him, and his tender solicitude, almost morbid, for those, one only an infant, that remained to him, I venture to rate as some- thing almost heroic, this act of benevolence, the most salient, perhaps, of the many manly and generous actions whereof the record is not here, by which his life was dignified and ennobled. The following letter, addressed about this time to his sister-in-law, Mary Wiff'en, may here find a suitable place, as illustrating, very characteristically, the genial and generous nature of the man. „ ' Chapter Coffee-house, St. Paul's Churchyard, 'March 2, 1832. ' My dear Mary, ' I received your affectionate letter, and thank you for the kind feelings and intentions which per- vade it. I am not so attentive to external forms as many are, and all ought to be. Perhaps, if I were, I might become a hypocrite, as many observances which you deem necessary I do not. However, we are quite agreed that amendment is needful, and I hope I am not out of the way to achieve it. As for THE REAL MAN. 107 being what some part of my family has reproached me with, a '' man of the world/' it is not so. Had I been such, I should have been a richer man. I am, however, of a happy temperament, and so perfectly sensible of the value of a good wife and children after my own heart, that I am not dispirited for long by any worldly disappointment that may over- take me. I would rather lose all I have in the world and commence life anew, than that any trouble should befall even the least of the blessed trio of dear ones who gladden my fireside. ' I am afraid that, at Woburn, poor Zillah shares the credit of some of my imprudences ; but it is only common justice to her to say that, although she is silent when the evil is irremediable, I have seldom or ever acted in contradiction to her wishes or ad- vice, without having had cause to repent it ; and there are few unwise acts of my married life that she would not have prevented if she could. As for economy, although I never refused her anything in my life, within my power to bestow, she has exer- cised her influence for her own behoof so seldom, that if I have had to blame her, it has been for not asking enough. She has often exhibited a degree of self-denial which some people would make a great parade of, as it might seem, almost unconsciously, and would at any time willingly relieve me from blame by taking it on herself. If we have had much to endure, we have also enjoyed great happiness ; the sweet has more than balanced the sour. Thus you see quarrelsome lovers settle down sometimes 108 A LA ETC WATTS. into very placid and uxorious wives and husbands. Pray give my best love to mother, and say how sensible I am of her kindness to my dear boy. ' Farewell, my dear Mary, and believe me, ' Very affectionately yours, ' Alaric a. Watts. ' Don't pay the postage of letters, or I shall be offended. We are not so poor as to grudge the postage of letters from our friends.' CHAPTER IX. I ART AND AET ASSOCIATIONS. — MR. BEOKFORD. In no quarter did my father meet with more sympathy in the annoyances which I have re- corded than from the artists of that day with whom he maintained always the most cordial and harmonious relations. His appreciation of art was not founded on a mere critical appre- hension of qualities, an intellectual discrimina- tion of differences. It proceeded from a genuine love for the thing itself, which gives ever, and alone can give, a true perception of the underlying spirit. And here it is to be remarked that the difference between true and false or formal sestheticism, — or taste to employ the equivalent of the period of which I am writing, — depends upon whether the opinion has its origin in feeling ; and is a genuine 110 ALARIC WATTS. perception founded on emotion, and not merely an intellectual apprehension of qualities. There is no real appreciation of beauty except through feeling. Indeed it may, I think, be affirmed that beauty cannot be apprehended, or even perceived, by any process purely intellectual. As I write I am reminded that I have no re- collection of ever having heard my father speak ill of a picture. He loved Art as he loved Nature. What was bad, — in other words, inharmonious or discordant, — in art, he ignored, not from lack of perception, for his perceptions were acute to a fault, but from distaste at the contemplation of it, and he had no im- pulse to dwell on it. He cared to look upon and fill his mind only with what was good, and he greatly mistrusted the genuine love of art of those, a less numerous class then than now, whose conversation before a picture is occupied, in any paramount degree, with its defects. His quickness of perception, and instinctive touch of the cultivated taste of his day in matters of art, is happily illustrated in an inci- dent which I find recorded by himself, which led to his forming the acquaintance of Mr. Beckford. 'A GOOD hit: 111 ' At the Private View/ (he says in some autobiographical notes now before me) ' of the British Institution in 1833, Mr. Barnard, the keeper, informed me that Mr. Beckford, who had just left the Gallery, had purchased a picture ; and invited me to look round the room and point out which it was. I first looked at all the pictures on the line, but although there was no dearth of excellent subjects treated by eminent artists in that year's exhibition, none of those bearing the most important names seemed to me likely to have especially recommended themselves to the fastidious taste of Mr. Beckford. I finally pitched upon a charming little group of a Madonna and Child, hung on the floor, by an entirely new hand, Charles E. Cope. It seemed a cento, or recollection, of some beauti- ful composition of Correggio or Parmigiano, and carried back the mind involuntarily to those great masters. I felt that this was the picture that had attracted Mr. Beckford's notice. I was much gratified at learning that this was, in fact, the very picture. ' The next time Mr. Beckford visited the 112 ALARIC WATTS. Gallery, Mr. Barnard mentioned the circum- stance to liim, and was requested by him to tell me how much it would please him to make my personal acquaintance. He had added, should Mr. Barnard see me in the interim, that he proposed being in the Gallery soon after one on the following day. Of this Mr. Barnard did not fail to advise me ; and on entering the room my curiosity was gratified by an introduction to this remarkable * man. After some complimentary remarks on a poem of mine, he reverted to Cope's picture, and inquired my reason for thinking it was the picture he would be likely to select. I bad no great difiiculty in satisfying him. An amateur of exceptionally fastidious taste, and cultivated in the homes of the noblest productions of the old masters, a combination by no means common in those days, was more likely, it seemed to me, to be attracted by a composition which reminded him of them, and revived the sentiment of them in his mind, • than by a modern work which, even if more original, would bear upon it the stamp of the present hour, and would suggest no such MR. BECK FORD. 113 ao;reeable associations. He admitted that such had been the feelings which had led him to prefer the picture to any other in the room ; and predicted that if the artist would in future trust more to his own resources, he could not fail to establish a distinguished reputation. ' The impression made upon my mind by Mr. Beckford's appearance and conversation will not be readily effaced. I do not re- member in the whole course of my life to have met with a person who, on so brief an acquaintance, furnished such unmistakable evi- dences of genius, not flickering in the socket, as might have been expected from his ad- vanced age, but burning with all the vividness of its original brightness, an excess of light that seemed to overpower everything around it. ' I had been often a wearied listener to that brilliant point-makiftg, into which conversa- tion in fashionable circles making pretensions to be intellectual, too often degenerates, and which paralyzes the flow of that wholesome intercommunion from which we ought to derive instruction and delight. In this verbal gladiatorship, the shallowest brain is often VOL. II. 30 114 ALARIC WATTS. the most successful ; and the "persijlage of the coxcomb is often more completely at his command than the well-digested reflections of the man of sense. As Swift has remarked, in relation to such talkers, the congregation emerges from a church that is nearly empty more freely than from one that is full. ' But to return, Mr. Beckford's conversation was to my judgment the most perfect in style that can be conceived. Vigorous and con- densed to a degree which gave to the ex- pression of his opinions the force of unelaborate aphorisms ; and these poured forth on an in- finite variety of topics with a volubility of eloquence I had never heard equalled. Nor was he, like Coleridge, satisfied with having a mere listener at his elbow. He would pause from time to time for your answer, with a deference of manner which showed that he really desired to ascertain your views^ and was willing to give due weight to them. ' When I looked upon this '' old man elo- quent,'' and noted the vigorous simplicity of his language and the benevolent spirit in which he seemed to desire to appreciate the MR. BECKFORD. 115 works of men, it seemed impossible to believe that he could ever have been other than he then appeared. Perhaps I may have felt unduly flattered by the coincidence of his opinions with mine in regard to several of the leading members of our English School of Painting ; and of some of those artists more especially whom it is now the fashion to depre- ciate, Eomney, Hoppner, West, and others. He spoke in caustic terms of Byron's poetical art criticisms, and directed my attention to the fact that his account of the Apollo Belvi- dere was borrowed from a description of the same statue in the " Flim Flams " of the elder Disraeli. We were cjuite in accord, I remem- ber, in our opinion of the gross error in judgment of the Directors of the British Institution in giving £3,000 for old Ward's picture of "Wellington Treading on the Hydra," which they kept rolled up in their cellars because they dared not exhibit so flagrant a proof of their incompetence to act as directors of the national taste. ' On parting from him at the door of the Institution, he invited me with great apparent 30—2 116 ALARIC WATTS. cordiality to visit him at Bath. Of this invi- tation 1 never availed myself; but I had several subsequent opportunities of conversing with him on topics of art and literature, at private views of pictures, and in booksellers' and printsellers' shops. The last time I met him was at Mr. Jennings' picture-gallery in Cheapside. He had just purchased, without being aware to whom it belonged, a very beautiful copy in water-colours of one of Howard's best pictures, which had been made for me for the purpose of being engraved in a work of which I was the proprietor. My reason for disposing of the cojDy had been that I had acquired the original, under somewhat peculiar circumstances. I had been one of the first, the first I believe, to suggest the establishment of a society for the dispersion of works of modern art, similar to those which has taken root in France under the desi2;na- tion of Amis des Arts. The plan of these in- stitutions was similar, though in one respect, I think, superior, to that of our own Art Union, established later. The first attempt at this sort of society was established chiefly A PRIZE IN THE LOTTERY, 111 through the instrumentality of Mr. Dominic Colnaghi, an enlightened and earnest advocate of the interests of art. Of this society I became a member. ' One morning Mr. Colnaghi and another member of the committee^ influenced perhaps by the knowledge that I was pretty well acquainted with what was going on in the studios, called upon me to request my advice as to the picture to be selected for their first prize of £100; for in this, as in the French societies, the prizes were selected by the com- mittee, a course more conducive to the inte- rests of good art, I think, than that adopted by the London Art Union of leaving the choice to the prizeholder. I had just received Mr. Derby's copy of Howard's picture, which I knew to be still in his studio, and the price exactly £100. I advised them that they could not do better than acquire it. They did so, and singularly enough, wdien the prizes were drawn, it fell to me. The picture w^as that engraved in the ' Cabinet of Modern Art,' for 1835, under the title of ^The Bath.' CHAPTER X. ART ASSOCIATIONS {continued). — henry HOWARD, R.A. — JOHN CONSTABLE, R.A. Among the distinguisliecl artists of that day, with all of whom he was more or less inti- mately acquainted, there were two especially with whom he maintained a warm friendship. These were Henry Howard and John Con- stable. Howard was eminently a representative man in the history of British art. He was born in the memorable year 1769, that nursing-mother of so much greatness, which may be said to have given birth also to the Eoyal Academy, the first exhibition of which took place in that year. At twenty- one years of age he obtained the first silver medal for the best drawing from the life, and the gold medal for the best original picture in the Schools of the Royal Academy, on the same HENRY HOWARD, R.A. 119 evening ; and Sir Joshua, in handing to him the latter, was enabled to tell him that in the opinion of the Academy his pictm^e was the best that had been presented to it since its establishment. He studied his art in Italy as the Academy Student, and those who remem- ber his works will find him often, very agree- ably to them and very honourably to him, recalled to their recollection in coming sud- denly in front of the works of Bonifazio, Giorgione, and Titian in the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. I mav remark that, at the time of which I am now speaking, the love of art was becom- ing more and more widely diffused, and was perhaps, in consequence, somewhat less dis- criminatingly exercised than when its patrons were few and cultured persons. People were beginning to buy pictures, who would not have bought them before, and naturally pre- ferred subjects which they and their friends could readily understand. The demand, there- fore, for the higher imaginative art was, at the best, but limited in England, and even in France, until the rise of Komanticism. 120 ALARIC WATTS, Imagination was represented in that day by Turkish subjects, Greek subjects, Italian sub- jects, popularized by the brigands of East- lake and Horace Yernet, and generally fancy- dress subjects ; and it was by painting such, and portraits, that artists lived. Howard, even within these limitations, sought always to give his picture a permanent value by associating with it his memories of the colour- ing and treatment of the Venetians. But he did not stop here. He loved to body forth the forms of things unseen : ' The intelligible forms of ancient Poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty That had her haunt in dale or ferny mountain. Or forest, by slow stream or pebbly spring, Or chasms, or watery dykes.' /^^ p y j His pictures on subjects founded most fre- quently on the Greek Mythology, some of the most beautiful of which were popularized by engraving in the ^Literary Souvenir/ and other ' annuals,' did much to purify and exalt the public taste and develop its somewhat sluggish imagination. HENRY HOWARD, R.A. 121 My father had a sincere admiration for HowarcVs genius and love for the man. To sit beside him in his studio in Newman Street ; to encourage by his approbation, and not less by his sympathetic criticism, the work on the easel ; to interchange quotations from the poets, Milton and Spenser especially ; to suggest subjects for fresh pictures, and some- times, more difficult and stimulating task, mottoes or titles for those already completed for exhibition, was always a pleasure and a relaxation to him. Mr. Howard, when young, must have been eminently handsome. At this time he was rather on the wane. He wore his hair, which was well sprinkled with grey, en Brutus, and low - quartered shoes with ribbons, and displayed in his manners that dignified if somewhat deprecatory urbanity of deportment in which the Academy, in its more cultivated members, retained in that day the traditions of the times of Sir Joshua. It would not, however, have been safe to presume unduly on his forbearance, or to mistake for want of independence a courtesy which had no other oriojin than a delicate sense, gracefully 1:22 ALARTC WATTS. formulated, of what was due to others. He was the only person of whom I have ever heard who had ventured to tackle Lady Holland. One day at dinner at Woburn Abbey, where they happened to be both on a visit. Lady Holland, in one of her periodical fits of temper, saw fit to make an especial victim or butt of Mr. Howard, whom she treated with iniDerious and ill-mannered dis- courtesy. He chanced to offer a remark on some work of art in Eome, when she turned upon him and, in a tone of indescribable effrontery, said, ' And pray, Mr. Howard, when and how came you in Rome ?' — as who should say. How is it that persons in your condition of life have the presumption to go to Rome ? He replied, ' I was an Academy Student in Rome, Lady Holland; I was there in 1795 — adding, after a moment's pause, ' at the same time as your ladyship.' There was a dead silence for a moment ; everybody knew what must be in everybody's mind, — that when Lady Webster ran away from her husband with Lord Holland, under circumstances more than usually fluttering to the dovecotes of Society, VERY DIGNIFIED. 123 *^ ' -— I - I, . . -■- ■ .... ■ ■ II -^— - ■ — ,.. J it was in the month of February in that year, and to that place, that the lovers directed their flight from Florence. Lady Holland was per- fectly civil to Mr. Howard during the remainder of the visit, and, to do her justice, he believed, bore him no malice. Another anecdote of this lady may have a passing interest, as showing how very grand great ladies were in that day, even in circles favouring theoretically the great Liberal doctrines of fraternity and equality. AVhen she was dissatisfied, or fancied she was, w^ith her tradespeople, it was her pleasure to have them summoned to her presence, and to dis- course with the creatures, mediately, through her page, as it were, thus : ' I am much displeased with Dill, (her ladyship's ' chief baker,') — his biscuits are as dry as shavings, and his rolls are uneatable. If he doesn't make a change, I shall.' Page, — addressing Mr. Dill, then and there in present attendance, and hearing every word, — ' Mr. Dill, my lady is much displeased with you ! She says your biscuits are as dry as shavings, and your rolls are uneatable. 124 ALAEIC WATTS. My lady says, Mr. Dill, if you don't make a change, she shall/ Dill, the delinquent, tenders to the page propitiation, which is similarly translated to her ladyship, supposed to be in entire ignorance of Dill's presence, then and there standing in front of her, and the conversation so proceeds until, by the same vicarious process, he receives his deliverance. With John Constable, my father's friendship was not less intimate than that with Howard. It is interesting to note how these two friends seem to represent and respond to two opposite and opposing sides of character in the alterna- tions and conflicts and ultimate harmonization of which his life was made up. Constable responded in an especial manner to that strong truth-loving, and in consequence somewhat combative spirit in him, which belonged, if I may so say, to the muscular element in it, now coming more and more to the front. The character and genius of Howard appealed, on the other hand, to that tender emotional part of his being; which had relation rather to its nerves. The one touched especially the JOHN CONSTABLE, R.A. 125 virility of his nature, the other that side of it that was of kin to the woman. With Mr. Constable, the bond of union, I think, was almost rather with the man than the painter, though he had a high appreciation of his genius. With him he loved to interchange letters of criticism on the art abuses of the day, or to draw round the evening fire and listen with a sympathizing ear to his friend's denunciations of the cant, ignorance, dishonesty, hypocrisy and what-not of the age. There was about Constable a ruggedness and honesty, a frank outspeakingness and fearlessness which was much in harmony with my father's character, and contributed to make them friends. Constable was not averse to controversy, and indulged in the dangerous diversion of writing pamphlets, which, as he was not wholly de- pendent upon the public who did not very generally appreciate his pictures, we may hope did good to them without doing any mischief to himself; and many evenings in the dis- cussion of these and other congenial topics did Mr. Constable spend in Torrington Square, coming early and staying late, for which he 126 ALARIC WATTS. was wont to make many needless apologies to the lady of the house, who esteemed him highly and valued his society as much as did her husband. The following anecdotes repre- sent all that remains in my recollection of what I have heard from my father of these canserief^. On one of his sketching excursions in the country, attracted by the picturesqueness of a landscape having a cottage in the foreground, he determined to make a sketch of it. He at once commenced opening his painting-box, and setting his colours, when the good woman of the cottage, who had seen him at a little dis- tance, came up to him and said, ' It's no use ; we don't want anything, my good man !' mistak- ing him for a pedlar about to exhibit his wares. Nothing disconcerted, Mr. Constable went on with his preparations, telling her that he was not a pedlar but a painter ; and that if she would go away and stand afar off at her cottage-door, he would put her into his picture. ' Ah, sir,' she said, ' now would you really ! If you had only seen me before I had the small-pox '/ Coming one day out of the Academy, after SA3f STROWGER AS A CRITIC. 127 having been occupied with his colleagues of the Hanging; Committee in the arrang;ement of the pictures for the Exhibition, he met Sam, the Academy porter, who had been co-operat- ing in his humble way, and had just been moving into its place one of Mr. Constable's landscapes, painted in his characteristic manner with those spotty lights in it which he was so fond of introducing into his pictures. ' Well, Mr. Constable, sir ; that is a picture of yours, sir ! Wonderful, sir !' ' Glad you ap- prove of it, Sam,' said Mr. Constable, feeling in his pocket for a shilling wherewith to en- courage Sam's taste. ' Wonderful, sir ! I never see snow painted so natural in all wy life r CHAPTEE XL THE POET. The picture of my father and his life at this period would be incomplete without reference to the reputation he had acquired as a poet, — a reputation the more valuable from the small amount in quantity of the w^ork on wdiich it w^as founded. The volume of poetry announced by him in the advertisements to the ' Literary Souvenir' for 1829 remained, and was long to remain, unpublished ; and his poetical WTitings, since the publication of the third edition of his 'Poetical Sketches' in 1828, long sold out, had been confined to the casual contributions of later years to the annual volumes of the ' Literary Souvenir/ He wrote nowhere else. Some of these more mature, and perhaps more perfected compositions, had been extremely A COMPLIMENT. 129 popular, and had much, confirmed, enhanced, and extended his poetical reputation. So universally known had his poetry become, that about this time the Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, an entire stranger to him personally, selected one of his poems as an illustration, with which every person might be expected to be familiar, of the preference of the poets of the nineteenth century for purely English words. ' " Ten Years Ago," by Mr. Alaric Watts,' remarks this distinguished authority, ' has been repeatedly quoted as the most beautiful composition of its author. In this poem nineteen out of twenty of the words are of true English birth.' To the complimentary expressions of appro- bation of their compositions with which all popular writers are familiar, my father was no stranger : but his discrimination, which his pride always protected from being demoralized by his vanity, enabled him always to define to himself what was really deserving of being regarded with satisfaction from what was not so. VOL. II. 31 130 ALARIC WATTS. The following letter from Miss Lanclon, he always recalled with pride and gratification : 'Really, dear sir, I should have ten thousand times the power of expression for which your kindness gives me credit, to convey to you the gratitude and pleasure you have inspired in me. I was so absolutely enchanted when I saw your kind and flattering review ; but even that scarcely gave me the same delight as j^our letter. Perhaps I am too pleased at being praised ; but to be praised by Alaric Watts, whose " Poetical Sketches " gave rise to my own, I think it is allowable to be very vain and very happy. Pray accept my most sincere, and grateful thanks. I can never forget your kindness, — indeed, to Mr. Jordan and to yourself, I cannot but consider myself indebted for any success I may obtain. It would be ingratitude and presumption if I could for a moment forget how much I owe to your efforts. Your " Closing Scene " was the origin of all my " Poetical Sketches." I did for it what I scarcely believe I ever did for any poem, — I copied it. I am almost ashamed to confess how pleased and proud I was to see my " Improvisatrice " placed by the side of your volume in a shop-window. ' Sincerely and gratefull}^, I am, dear sir, ' Your obliged, 'Letitia Eliz. Landon.' The following letter from Hartley Coleridge, he valued, I think, even more highly : V* HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 131 ' Grasmere, May 3, 1829. 'Dear Sir, ' I am sincerely sorry that one whom, un- acquainted though I am with his person, I should be proud to reckon in the list of my friends, should have had occasion to attribute to me a want of attention to his wishes. ' Personally unknown as I am to you, and foreign as the subject may be to present business, I cannot resist the impulse to thank you for the pleasure I have received from many of your poems. They possess a beauty of moral sentiment, a tenderness of moral affection, conveyed in diction so pellucid, and imagery so accurate, that I fear not to assign them a place among those compositions which, being more loved than admired, sinking down into the quiet depths of human nature without ruffling the surface, have done, are doing, and will continue to do, a good work upon earth. Many persons, some of whom have gone to their rest, have testified to me their delight and profit in them. You may do what may render you famous ; you have already done too much to be soon forgotten. ' I am, dear sir, ' Your sincere admirer, ' H. Coleridge.' Nor, coming from an entirely different quarter, and it might be supposed order of mind, could the following letter have been received by him with indifference : 31—2 132 ALARIC WATTS. ' Whitehall, June 12, 1836. ' I did not know that Mr. Robson intended the engraving from the landscape in my posses- sion for the '' Literary Souvenir." Had I been aware of it, I should have had increased pleasure in complying with his request. ' It is not out of mere courtesy that I assure you that your name is respected by me. I have had the satisfaction of reading many of your poems. I particularly call to mind two, entitled, I think, " The First-born," and '' My own Fireside," to have written which is an honourable distinction to any- one. ' You may see the landscape either to-morrow morning at eleven, or the next day, or, indeed, at any time that may suit your convenience. ' I am, sir, ' Your obedient servant, ' Robert Peel.' The poems which he had produced since the publication of ' Poetical Sketches ' were, for the most part, of a more romantic and dramatic character than his earlier writing's. Thou2;h animated by the same general spirit of tender- ness and sentiment, they display, I think, more of the power and matured experience of middle life. I may be allowed to add a few specimens : THE DEATH OF POMPEY THE GREAT. 133 THE DEATH OF POMPEY THE GREAT. Not when his golden eagles flew, In sun-bright splendour o'er him, When he came, and saw, and overthrew. And kings bent down before him ; Not in his hour of regal pride, ' When his navies darkening Egypt's tide. To fame and conquest bore him, — Did ever Pompey's laurelled brow. To one fond heart seem bright as noAV. When a monarch, ay, almost a god, Rome's fickle legions crowned him ; When nations Avaited on his nod. And myriads thronged around him ; Cornelia sat beside his throne. His fame, wealth, honours, all her own. Hers the sole chains that bound him ; But never did her lips avow Such deep, devoted love as now. Forlorn, deserted and betrayed, An exile on the wave, Doomed of the satraps he had made Life's paltry boon to crave ; Of wealth, fame, power, even hope bereft, Spurned by his summer friends, and left No refuge but the grave, 134 ALARIC WATTS. What lifts his soul his fate above ? What, — but Cornelia s changeless love ! She looks upon Pelugium's strand, Fierce hosts are gathering there ; And she numbers each succeeding band, With a wild and troubled air ; Proud ships are dancing in the bay ; ' Is it their homage thus they pay/ She asks, ' or but a snare, — Some dark device of Coesar's hate. To seal my royal Pompey's fate T A boat comes tilting through the spray, To bear him to the shore ; One kiss, and then away, away ! One word, — and all is o'er ! Vain her entreaties ; vainer now, The bodings wild that cloud the brow Her lips may press no more ; Bright prows are stirring in the bay ; The die is cast, away, — away ! A shriek is on that noontide wave, Despairing, loud, and shrill ; Oh that her love had power to save The blood they rush to spill ! It may not be ; he looks his last, — One moment — and the struggle's past ; Even now his heart grows chill ; He draws his mantle o'er his eyes. And as he lived, great Pompey dies THE DEATH OF POMPEY THE GREAT, 135 And shouts of triumph rend the air From the slaves who mark his fall ; But the thrilling voice of that deep despair Is heard above them all ! 'Tis the requiem wild of Woman's love, The cry of blood to heaven above, — May vengeance note the call ; — And yon dastard traitors' cheeks grow pale At the dooming tones of that fearful wail. 'Tis eve ; those savage shouts are o'er, That shriek hath died away ; And far from Egypt's fatal shore, Her bark pursues its way ; — What is to her the fitful breeze, The conflict stern of the skies and seas. To the calm of yonder bay ! She'd rather seek the whirlpool's breast, Than on those blood-stained waters rest. What recks it where the casket lies. When the gem it shrined is gone, — Who bids the funeral pile arise. When the deathless soul is flown ! And yet, might honours duly paid. Truth's tears, appease a warrior's shade, For a martyr's wrongs atone ; Fall'n chief, those offerings, half divine. That incense of the heart, is thine ! 136 ALARIC WATTS. Though of all the minions of thy power, Who once meet homage paid thee ; Who fawned on thee in fortune's hour, And when it waned betrayed thee ; Not one court- parasite is near, To mourn above the bloody bier, Where traitor hands have laid thee ; Two humble friends, with duteous love, Now bend thy mangled form above. And gathering from the grasping wave, The relics of a bark Wrecked, like the glories of the brave When fortune's clouds grow dark ; They spread them for thy funeral pile, Then breathing vengeance deep the while. Kindle the glowing spark ; And flames, as bright as Truth, arise, To grace great Pompey's obsequies ! TO CAROLINE BOWLES. 137 TO CAROLINE BOWLES. I KNOW thee only in thy page Of simplest truth, by taste refined ; — But though I ne'er have seen thy face, Not seldom do I love to trace The features of thy mind ! Pure as the calm, sequestered stream, That winds its way through flowers and fern ; Now gliding here, now wandering there, Diffusing coolness everywhere. Refreshing all in turn ; — So do thy strams, serene and sweet. Well from their calm, untroubled shrine ; Winning their way from heart to heart, And healing many a mourner's smart, With balsam, half divine ! What though I ne'er have clasped thy hand, I see thee oft in Fancy's glass ; ' Edwin ' and ' Ranger ' in thy train. Pacing across the village plain, The ' Broken Bridge ' to pass. 138 ALARIC WATTS. And mark thy devious footsteps threading The ' Churchyard's ' green and grassy rise ; Now, stopping by some fresh-made grave, News of the timeless dead to crave, To make the hving wise. Or by the ' open casement sitting,' With ' autumn's latest flowers ' before thee ; Drinking thy ' Birdie's ' merry notes. Or tracking the sun as he proudly floats To his haven of rest and glory. And when grey Twilight weaves her web. And the sounds of day -life melt away ; In thy ' garden-plot ' I see thee stand, Watching the ' night- stock's ' leaves expand, Or framing some soothing lay. Some low, sweet dirge, of softest power To stir the bosom's inmost strings ; — When friends departed, pleasures fled, Or a sinless infant's dying bed. Are the themes thy fancy brings. Oh ! much I love to steal away From garish strains, that mock my heart ; To steep my soul in lays like thine. And pause o'er each wildly- witching line. Till my tears, unbidden, start. THE LAMENT OF BOABDIL EL CTIICO, 139 For thou hast ever been to me A gentle monitor and friend ; — And I have gathered from thj song, Thoughts full of balm for grief and wrong, That solace while they mend. Hence have I sought, in simple phrase. To give my gratitude a tongue ; And if one stricken heart I bring, For comfort, to the self-same spring, Not vainly have I sung. THE LAMENT OF BOABDIL EL CHICO. Adieu, proud palace of my sires ! Home of my luckless youth, adieu ! Still lingers on thy glittering spires The light their earlier grandeur knew ; — The beams of evening gild them yet ; Boabdil's brightest sun has set ! A death-like silence fills thy halls ; Hushed is the voice of revelry ; — And though on thy emblazoned walls Some stirring records still I see, — Their splendour serves but to declare How bootless those brief triumphs were. 140 ALARIC WATTS. Still winds the silver-bright Xenil Granada's gorgeous bowers among, — And wander ' at their own sweet will ' The Darro's shining waves along ; — Smiling in light as once they smiled Ere blood their crystal depths defiled. The Court of Lions still is there, But Musa's step is there no more ; Its fount still gushes on ; but where, Where are the lion hearts of yore ? Broken or scattered, like the spray Borne from its marble mouths away. And where are now the youthful train Here schooled in Honour s knightly deeds ! Who met on yon enamelled plain To try the festive tilt of reeds ? — Swept from the flowery paths of hfe, In wilder war, — in sterner strife ! Why did I brave the dream of blood That prophesied my hapless fate, Without the courage to be good. Without ambition to be great ; — And wherefore like a woman weep O'er what I wanted strength to keep ! Woe, woe to thee, Granada proud, Thy star hath sunk to rise no more ; And shouts of triumph long and loud Proclaim thy day of glory o'er ; THE LA^^ENT OF BOABDIL EL CHICO. 141 Upon La Vela's sun-touched brow The sign of conquest gUtters now ! It is the Cross that Christians call The emblem mild of faith and love ; — Of peace, and pure goodwill to all ; — Of truth, all human*'truth above ; — Yet hath it ever proved to me The sign of hate and treachery ! Before our wasted Yegas knew That symbol red of strife and toil, Ere nursed by traitor arts it grew The scoursfe of our devoted soil ; To me its saving grace did seem A glorious creed, — a godlike dream ! But I have probed the gilded cheat Of all who 'neath that banner fight, The crafty friendship, cold deceit, With which they trusting hearts requite : We fall ; — 'tis theirs to strike the blow, By one dark rebel's sin laid low ! My crime it was invoked the wrath That on my doomed race descends ; A curse must ever dog my path ; With me the Moor's broad empire ends ; I would my heart's last life-drop drain To win that birthright back again. 1 42 A LA ETC WA TTS. I go to hide my humbled head In some sequestered haunt of shame ; Some far and foreign land to tread, That hath not heard Boabdil's name : Perchance, should Fate such peace deny, A dark, inglorious death to die ! Yet, even to earn a fate like this, A weightier penance still remains ; The blood-stained, treacherous hand to kiss That fixed my fate and forged my chains ; — And, howsoe'er my soul rebel, My conqueror's bloated pomp to swell ! To bend before his saddle-bow His kingly clemency to crave ; The scoff, the scorn, the jest, the show Of every idle, gaping slave ; — And thank his mercy for a son. Whose throne, realm, birthright, — all are gone! For what is left ? A blunted spear ; A broken sword and dinted shield ; A crown he is not doomed to wear ; A sceptre he may never wield ; A blighted and dishonoured name ; A monarch's pride, — a vassal's shame ! Oh, not for this his youth was trained To sports that best beseem a king ; The foremost still where Beauty reigned To tilt the reed, or ride the ring : — THE LAMENT OF BOABDIL EL CHICO. 143 And when the mimic strife was o'er, To nerve his soul for nobler lore ! But what avail the lessons now His soaring soul so quickly caught ; That swelling heart and haughty brow Must soon a harder task be taught ; To bleed in silence, and to hide Griefs canker-worm 'neath looks of pride. A smile hath lit Zorayma's eye, She sees her long-lost son draw near, And tearless, half forgets to sigh O'er the dark chance that brings him here ; She knows, she feels, that come what will, She is a queen, — a mother still ! Whilst I who have so often burned To clasp my gallant boy again ; Each gentler thought to anguish turned, Now meet his dauntless glance with pain ; And filled with dreams of other years, Can only welcome him with tears ! Away, away, wild drops, away ! I must a sterner aspect wear ; I would not to yon slaves betray The secret of my soul's despair ; — No ; let their shouts of triumph ring, I'll meet them like Granada's King ! 144 ALARIC WATTS, Throw wide the gates, the hundred gates, That ne'er received a foe before ; For, lo ! the conqueror's pageant waits To tread the halls we tread no more. Lead on ! at length I've burst the spell ; And now, majestic pile, farewell ! LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PORTRAIT OF HIS WIFE, BY A. E. CHALON, R.A. Thou wert fair when first we met. As a youthful poet's dream ; Thou art lovely still, and yet, Where, where's the vernal gleam That around thy footsteps hung. When our hearts and hopes were young ! Thou wert joyous as the bird, When its first wild flio^ht it tries ; And thy softliest whispered word Breathed the mirth of summer skies Thou art silent now when glad ; Serious ever, — sometimes sad. Thou didst love in other years. Songs of light and joyous flow ; But the strains that stir thy tears, Are thy cherished pastime now ; Thou has learned to gather gladness From the very depths of sadness. LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PORTRAIT. 145 Yes, thy blue eye's changing light, Shed a keener radiance then ; And thy smile so dazzling bright, Ne'er can be so bright again ; — Let each faithless grace depart, Spring can never leave thy heart ! It is warm as ever still, Fond and faithful to the core ; Withering sorrow cannot chill. Would she ne'er might wring it more ! Years may dim the rose of youth, So they spare the bosom's truth. Time and his twin-sister Care, Have but lightly touched thy brow ; And the lines imprinted there. Never lovelier seemed than now ; For they breathe the spell refined Of a sorrow-chastened mind. Wherefore then should I repine That thou art not as of old ; Since maturer gifts are thine, Precious treasures, wealth untold ; Charms thy youth could never know, Graces, time alone bestow ! If we are not what we were. We have not endured in vain ; Since the present hour is fair. Why evoke the past again ! Am not I, and art not thou, Calmer, wiser, happier now ! VOL. 11. 32 146 ALARIC WATTS. THE SISTER OF CHARITY. Written after meeting a young and heautiful Meniber of the Order in the Hotel Dieic of Paris. Art thou some spirit from that blissful land Where fever never burns nor hearts are riven ? That soothing smile, those accents ever bland, Say, were they born of earth, or caught from heaven ? Art thou some seraph-minister of grace, Whose glorious mission in the skies had birth ? An angel sure in bearing, form, and face, All but thy tears, — and they belong to earth ! Oh, ne'er did beauty, in its loftiest pride, A splendour boast that may compare with thine ; Thus bending low yon sufferer's bed beside, Thy graces mortal, but thy cares divine. A woman, filled with all a woman's fears, Yet strong to wrestle with earth's wildest woe : A thing of softest smiles, and tenderest tears, That once would tremble did a breeze but blow : Leaving, perchance, some gay and happy home, Music's rich tones, the rose's odorous breath, Throughout the crowded lazar-house to roam, And pierce the haunts of Pestilence and Death. THE SISTER OF CHARITY. 147 For ever gliding with a noiseless tread, As loth to break the pain-worn slumberer's rest ; To smooth the pillow, raise the drooping head, And pour thy balsam on the bleeding breast. Or, in each calmer interval of pain, The Christian's hope and promised boon to show ; And, when all human anodynes are vain, To nerve the bosom for its final throe. To lead the thoughts from harrowing scenes like this. To that blessed shore where sin and sorrow cease ; To imp the flagging soul for realms of bliss, And bid the world-worn wanderer part in peace. A creature vowed to serve both God and man. No narrow aims thy cherished cares control ; Thou dost all faith, love, pity, watching can, To heal the body, and to save the soul. No matter Avho, so he thy service need ; No matter what the suppliant's claim may be ; Thou dost not ask his country or his creed ; To know he suffers is enough for thee. Not e'en from guilt dost thou thine aid withhold, Whose Master bled a sinful world to save ; Fearless in faith, in conscious virtue bold, 'Tis thine the sick blasphemer's couch to brave ; To note the anguish of despairing crime. Lash the wild scorpions of the soul within ; Those writhings fierce, those agonies sublime. That seem from conscience half their force to win ; 32—2 148 ALARIC WATTS. Then stand before the dark demoniac's sight, The cup of heahng in thy gentle hand ; A woman, strengthened with an angel's might, The storm of pain and passion to command ; To calm the throbbings of his fevered brow ; Cool his parched lips, his bleeding wounds to bind. And, Avith deep faith, before the Cross to bow For power to still the tumult of his mind. And it is given : thy softliest whispered word There falls like oil on a tempestuous sea ; Hard as his heart may seem, there's yet a chord Once touched, his ravings all are stilled by thee. I see thee stand and mark that wondrous change. With more than mortal triumph in thine eye ; Then blessed and blessing, turn with tears to range Where other claimants on thy pity lie. By many a faint and feeble murmur led, A willing slave, where'er the wretched call ; I see thee softly flit from bed to bed, Each wish forestalling, bearing balm to all. Performing humblest offices of love For such as know no human love beside, Still on thy healing way in mercy move. Daughter of Pity, thus for ever glide ! All peace to thee and thy devoted band, Vowed to earth's gloomy ' family of pain ;' Whose worth could e'en the' unwilling awe command Of blood-stained men who owned no other claim. TO THE MEAIORY OF GEORGE BARRET. 149 Long may ye live the cherished badge to wear, Whose snow-white folds might dignify a queen ; To fainting souls your cup of life to bear, And be the angels ye have ever been. TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE BARRET. Worthy disciple of his art divine, Whose golden sunsets, rich romantic shores, And pastoral vales, reflect fair Nature's face. In every varying charm her beauty wears, How have I loved thy pencil ! Not a grace Shed over earth from yon blue vault above. At Dawn, Noon, Sunset, Twilight, or when Night Draws o'er the sleeping world her silvery veil. But thou hast traced its source and made thine own ! Nay, not an hour that circles through the day. But thou hast marked its influence on the scene, And touched each form with corresponding light ; Till all subdued the landscape round assumes, — Like visions seen through Hope's enchanted glass, — A beauty not its own ; and ' cloud-capped towers/ And gorgeous palaces, and temples reared. As if by magic, line the busy strand Of some broad sea, that ripples on in gold To meet the setting sun ! Nor less I prize Thy solemn twilight glooms ; when to mine eye, Indefinite, each object takes the shape That fancy lists ; and in the crimsoned west, 150 ALARIC WATTS. Bright as the memory of a bhssful dream, As unsubstantial too, the daylight fades, And ' leaves the world to darkness and to me.' Primitive Painter ! Neither age, nor care, Nor failing health, — though all conspired to mar The calmness of thy soul, — could dim the power Thy pencil caught from Truth. Thou shouldst have lived, Where sunny Claude his inspiration drew. By Arno's banks, in Tempo's haunted vale ; Or learned Poussin, 'neatli the umbrageous oaks Of some old forest, bad his sylvan groups, Goddess with Mortal, Fawn with Dryad joined. To Pan's untutored music circle round. For such the themes thy chastened fancy loved : But now thy sun has set, thy twihght sunk In deepest night, and thou hast sought a sky Where never cloud or shade can vex thee more. TO THE POET CAMPBELL, ON HIS PEOPOSING TO TAKE UP HIS PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN LONDON. Dear Poet of Hope ! who hast charmed us so long With thy strains of home-music, sweet, solemn, and strong ; REMONSTRANCE TO THE POET CAMPBELL, 151 Now, smooth as the stream when 'tis chained and at rest, And the hues of the sky he hke flowers on its breast, Now sweeping in glory and might on its way, And now strugghng from shadows and darkness to day. Oh, leave not the haunts most propitious to song. For the city's wild strife and the jar of the throng ! — Though the freshness of feeling that prompted in . youth Thy heart-stirring measures hath died ; and the truth That is shrined in the soul when hfe's voyage is begun, May be something impaired ere the haven be won ; Though the visions have fled that gave light to thy spring, And thy heart and thy harp each is wanting a string ; Like the leaves on the tree that no tempest may kill, There are feelings unwithered that cling to thee still ! Alas, that a poet, so gifted, should leave Life's green vale of repose, 'mid the many to weave Lays that cannot but breathe of the source whence they spring ; How unlike the wild wood-notes he once used to sing ! What marvel his Muse's strong pinion should sink, If so turbid the waters her spirit must drink ; 152 ALARIC WATTS, Can we wonder her plumage should sully its dyes, If she trail on the earth what was formed for the skies ! No ; the Poet's a star that shines brightest apart ; Let him revel at will in the world of the heart, But the moment he strives 'mid the crush of the throng, Like a bird too much handled he loses his song; And the fools who once worshipped his light from afar, Are the first to proclaim him no longer a star ! CHAPTER XIL THE CLOSE OF THE ANNUALS. Between the years 1829 and 1835, the annuals had continued to increase and multiply. The following additions to them may be noted : the ' Comic Ofifering/ edited by Miss Louisa Sharpe ; the ^ Iris/ a religious annual, compet- ing with Mr. S. C. Hall's ' Amulet/ by the Eev. Thomas Dale, afterwards Canon of St. Paul's, and rector of St. Pancras ; and the ' Comic Annual,' written and illustrated with infinite fun and drollery by Thomas Hood. In 1831-32 he had published his exquisitely tender and delicate ' Plea for the Midsummer Fairies,' which had attracted no attention. ' Many thanks, my dear Watts,' he writes, in relation to a friendly notice of it, ' for your kind attempt to rescue my "Plea" from the "Common Pleas."' 154 ALARIC WATTS. A brochure of Hood's, published about this time without his name, but not for a moment to be mistaken for the work of any other, en- titled ' The Battle of the Annuals/ must not be overlooked here, especially as it indicates not only the competition which had arisen amongst them, but the salient characteristics of each. It is not first-rate, but it is droll, and a few verses may be quoted in illustration of this period of my narrative : ' The '' Battle of the Annuals " May yield at least some sport ; The public voice their trumpet is ; And verse and prose ih^iv forte. ' For precedence they boldly strike ; Nought can their warmth repress, — They all are volunteers, although The offspring of the Press. ' In leather trappings some appear, While others silk reveal ; And most, like knights of other days, Are armed loith plates of steel. ' The lordly " Keepsake " lauds himself And is all " vain enough f But 'neath his silken robe there peeps A garb of common stuff. HOOD'S 'BATTLE OF THE ANNUALS: 155 * In vain it boasts its gaudy hues By men of rank drawn out ; That all his contributions are Ranh nonsense, none can doubt. ' But lo ! he marches to the field, Prepared for the assault ; Goose quills are bristling in the air, The lines as usual, — licdt, ' Now from the ^' Heath " a band arise, An amazonian train, The ^' Book of Beauty " leads them forth For conquest on the plain, ' The '' Landscape " boldly '' takes the field " Like hound upon the scent ; They're all in tent ^ the "Amulet" On preaching is intent. ' The " Literary Souvenir,'^ too, Appears with Hues in lots ; " What's in a name ?" who cry, will find Taste in the name of Watts. ' The '' Comic Offering '' unfolds Her banner to the breeze, Just like a satin pincushion All full of points — that please, ' But never wound ! the leader is Far too polite, that's poz ! So honest, too ; some wish that she A little sharper was. ' And lo ! the brave ^' Forge t-Me-Not " Comes boldly in the van ; Armed at all points, the skilful Muse Bids fair to hack her man. 156 ALARIC WATTS. ' Though last, not least in our dear love ^^ The Comic" comes to claim Its meed of praise, — as at a feast, So meat succeeds the game! » Two classes of the annual established at this time, from their influence, though in very clifi'erent, not to say opposite directions, are deserving of notice. It had been usual, as will have been seen, in the ' Literary Souvenir/ and indeed in all, to introduce views from drawings by Turner and other distinguished masters of the landscape school, of interesting and beautiful scenes at home and abroad, and these had been very popular. Few persons of the middle classes in those days dreamt of going abroad, or, indeed, of leaving home at all, unless to visit friends ; and their knowledge of, and interest in, the beautiful spots of the world were wholly derived from these en- gravings in the ^ annuals/ In 1830, it occurred to Mr. Jennings, the printseller in the Poultry, that an ' annual,' the embellishments whereof should be composed entirely of such views, would be likely to be popular ; and the ' Landscape Annual,' edited by Thomas Eoscoe, son of the distinguished LANDSCAPE ANNUALS. Vol author of the ' Life of Lorenzo di Medici,' was the result. It was, as it deserved to be, eminently successful. It lasted nine years. The engravings were from drawings by David Roberts. The idea was taken up by Mr. Charles Heath, of the ' Keepsake,' who in 1833 estab- lished the ' Picturescjue Annual,' under the editorship of Leitch Ritchie, a popular and agreeable writer, who was sent abroad by the proprietors to visit the various places of which drawings for this work were made by Turner. It continued to be published, year by year, till 1841. It was edited latterly by Mrs. Gore the novelist. The influence of these annuals was eminently healthful and refining, highly conducive, as they were, to the awakening and stimulating among the great mass of the middle classes, especially in the country, of the taste for landscape art in England. It had also been usual in the ' annuals ' to introduce from time to time a portrait, usually by Sir Thomas Lawrence, of some aristocratic beauty. It gave an interest to the book, and was a compliment very well merited to the liberality with which the galleries of the 158 ALARIC WATTS. nobility were made available to the conductors of these publications in the selection for en- graving in their works, of valuable pictures of wider public interest. It occurred in the year 1835 to Mr. Heath, that an ' annual/ the engravings in which should consist exclusively of portraits of beautiful women of the aristocracy, would be likely to be acceptable to a large section of the public ; and the ' Book of Beauty/ edited by the Countess of Blessington, was the result. A ^ Book of Beauty/ edited by a countess, could not fail to be largely attractive. It was a success, lasting till 1842, and became at one time so much a fashion, that a lady of r.ank regarded the introduction of her por- trait into the ' Book of Beauty ' as almost as indispensable as her presentation at St. James's, or her marriage at St. George's. This had its disadvantages. Like the Eoman Virgin, the ' Book of Beauty ' ultimately suc- cumbed to the weight of embellishment thus imposed upon it by the fashion which it had itself invoked. The age became ' dazzled and drunk with beauty / and not only so. In these ' BOOK OF BEA UTY? 159 latter days, — how it came about it would be impertinent to inquire, — portraits began to be introduced into this ' golden book ' of female aristocratic loveliness, of ladies who, if it mav be with all delicacy put upon record, possessed only one of the qualifications for admission to its pages, and that, unfortunately, not the most important one. The memory of some of my readers will recall to them some very wonderful presentments for a work with such a title in some of its later volumes. It was, moreover, sometimes a little difficult to the poets of that age, — as human nature goes, a truth-loving class, and in that day not greatly familiar with aristocratic circles and their standards of beauty and otherwise, — to prove equal to the emotional pressure in- volved in celebrating appropriately and ade- quately the graces, not always self-evident in the portrait, of ladies with whom they had not the honour of being acquainted ; and the editress therefore found it convenient to have recourse for illustrative letterpress to these portraits to the aid of gentlemen more favoured in this, if not in other respects. IGO ALARIC WATTS. ' I have in a former chapter yentured upon the opinion that the four thousand yards of crimson silk for binding, and the 'pigs in pokes ' purchased to secure ' names ' as con- tributors to the ' Keepsake/ were the beginning of the declension of this class of work. Candour obliges me to add that it was accele- rated by the portraits of aristocratic ladies, or some of them, in Lady Blessington's annual, illustrated by the aristocratic pens of some of their admirers. The sentiment and taste of the annuals was being scorched up by fashion. CHAPTER XIIL ' CABINET OF MODERN ARt/ It is not easy to fix the precise time from which to date the gradual dissolution of any enterprise or institution, literary work or literary reputation ; to determine the moment at which an author has be2;un to be ' writing; himself out/ or a periodical has ceased to be able to command the interest of the public. Men's works and their reputations are born, as they are themselves, with the seeds of their death in them ; and they aggregate to them- selves mortality in the processes of their lives. The prima causa morhi is usually some element in them, inharmonious, artificial, in a word, not absolutely true, which accumulates around itself secondary causes, inharmonies, arti- ficialities, unrealities, from without, to which VOL. II. 33 1G2 ALARIC WATTS. with the co-operation of their adversary within they finally succumb. The annuals had now been in existence as a class for some ten years, and the public had displayed unusual constancy to them. They had appealed, in the first instance, to its senti- ment, and latterly to its taste ; for the age had been gradually developing from the one into the other, by a natural and necessary transition, of which I have spoken. To senti- ment they originally appealed ; by taste the time was coming, if it had not arrived, at which they were now to be judged. Taste is the touchstone of unreality, for with that which is artificial or inharmonious it cannot exist side by side. Now the ' annuals ' all started with a distinct fundamental under- lying unreality in them, which could not long conceal itself from the eye of taste ; and they began to lose their hold upon the public when that unreality began to be fully apprehended by it. It was professed by all, that the engravings in them were illustrative of the letterpress, wdiereas the embellishments were selected in S0LECIS3IS IN TASTE. 163 the first instance, and the literature written to illustrate them. So long as they were a novelty, and so long especially as taste regu- lated the selection of the pictures for en- graving, and the literary compositions to illus- trate them, the real state of things was not perceived ; or, if perceived, not too curiously inquired into by a general public, not as sensi- tive in such matters by many degrees as that of to-day. But, as these publications became more numerous, and the editors of some of them less careful and discriminative, anomalies, from this cause, began to obtrude themselves, and the whole class of these works suffered in consecjuence. For example, if there was a writer whose works w^ere universally known by all intelligent persons in that day, it was Walter Scott. Surely, it was an outrage upon the taste and common-sense of the judicious reader if, on turning over the pages of an annual, he should find, as in these later days he might not infrequently do, appended as an illustration to a tale of no very marked ex- cellence, a design distinctly and obviously in- tended by the artist as an illustration to 33—2 164 ALARIC WATTS. some well-known incident from the Waverley novels siicli as the glove scene in the library, from ' Eob Eoy ;' the Comitess of Derby appearing from behind the arras to the children of her friend Lady Peveril, from ' Peveril of the Peak ;* or the postmistress and her two friends examining the post letters, from the ' Antiquary ' I Solecisms such as these were far from infrequent ; they were an affront to the understanding of the intelligent reader, which he was beginning instinctively to resent. My father's taste aroused him to a recog- nition of these defects before they had been perceived, or, at all events, before they had been avowed, by his brother editors. He saw that whatever hold these publications had continued to maintain over the public taste was attributable to the Art which thev had been instrumental in so widely popularizing, and which had become, or at all events was becoming, largely through their instru- mentality, so important an element in the general development of culture in the age, and not to their Literature. He determined ' CABINET OF MODERN ART: 165 that, in so far as he was concerned, the ' annual' should now be at all events what it professed to be, and should directly and distinctly address that spirit in the age to which it was^ its real mission to appeal. In the preface to the ^ Literary Souvenir ' for 18e34, he had given notice of a proposed change in the plan of the work, which was carried out in that for the year 1835. ' With the year 1835/ says the editor in his preface to the volume for that year, ^ the '' Literary Souvenir " begins a new epoch of its existence. In separating itself from the class of publications with which it has been so long associated, laying aside their livery, and adopting a new form and, to a certain extent, a new character, a brief exposition of the views of its proprietor may not be deemed irrele- vant.' Instead of ten engravings, the work wag now to contain no less than twenty-five, selected from characteristic specimens of the modern French and English Schools. Instead of associating these pictures with stories to be written for them, but to which they were to 166 ALARIC WATTS. appear to be the illustrations^ short notices were appended to them of the works of the artists. The susceptibility of art to be illus- trated by poetry was, however, recognised ; but there was to be no mistake about the fact that the poem was suggested by the picture, not the picture by the poem. To emphasize more clearly and unmistakably the more artistic character of the work, the editor added this year to the original title of ' Literary Souvenir,' by which it had attained its popu- larity, and which he was unwilling at the outset of his experiment to sacrifice, the second title of ' Cabinet of Modern Art ;' and he dedi- cated the volume for this year to his friend Sir Martin Archer Shee, the President of the Royal Academy. With something of the same idea in his mind, he introduced the volume with a poem in which a variety of the great masterpieces of art are characterized, each in a line, as it were, as passing before the eyes of a painter in a dream. It is, I think, a highly finished and powerful illustration of that school of poetry which I venture to describe as the poetry of taste, and which has, ' GALLERY OF MODERN ART: 167 a peculiar affinity with the art of paint- ing. In the volume for the year 1836 the original title, ' Literary Souvenir/ was abandoned, leaving the title simply ' The Cabinet of Modern Art/ With that for the year 1837 the work closed a more or less successful career of twelve years. Among the seventy-five en- oTaving;s from the works of the later masters of the English School, contained in these last three volumes, will be found specimens of Romney, Sir William Beechy, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Wright of Derby, Stothard, Leslie, How^ard, Collins, Uwins, Abram Cooper, David Roberts, Westall, Martin, Danby, Stewart Newton, Penry Williams, Boning- ton, and many of these of the finest re- presentative specimens. They included the ^ Rustic Civility ' and ' Haunts of the Sea Fowl,' of Collins ; ' May Day in the time of Queen Elizabeth,' of Leslie ; WestalFs ' Storm in Harvest ;' Stothard's ' Bower of Diana ' and ' Vintage ;' LTwins's ' Punch at Naples ;' Stewart Newton's ' Importunate Author ;' Howard's ' Chaldean Peasant contem- 168 ALARIC WATTS. plating the Stars/ and an exquisitely chaste and most lovely composition by the same master, the ' Birth of Venus ;' Martin's ' Destruction of Jerusalem ;' Stephanoff 's ' The Black Prince brin2;ino; John of France Prisoner into London/ I am not aware that, up to that time, any such attempt had been made to place before the public such a representative series of the works of the English School of that age, as was realized in these volumes. The annuals continued for a longer period than might have been anticipated, to contend with one another for the suffrages of the town. They made, I think, no new point du depart after my father's attempt to improve upon them in his ' Cabinet of Modern Art.' It must be admitted that he had in this attained no such success as to encourage their imita- tion. The ' Friendship's Offering,' in the hands of Messrs. Smith and Elder, survived to link on with the age of poetry and art, then passing away, a new age, introducing to the public, through some early poems, the names of Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Euskin. The ' Keepsake/ that ' hardy annual,' under the A D RE A 21 OF AJRT. 169 editorship in later days of Miss Margaret Power, a niece of Lady Blessington, survived until the year 1856, when, by a coincidence entirely fortuitous, it was reserved for this narrator to close its eyes with some juvenile verses, which he trusts this record of the fact may not lead to their rising in judgment ao;ainst him. I may be allowed to close this chapter with the poem by my father to which I have re- ferred, wherein the poet, as representing the age, apostrophizes the forms of art it loves. THE PAINTER'S DREAM, L Heue let me rest ; a dewy fragrance breathes, In gentlest whispers, from the plains around, Whilst o'er my head, in green and graceful wreaths, The o'erarching vine its wandering shoots hath wound : What rainbow hues yon bright horizon bound ! What golden gleams yon sleeping spires invest ! Here let me pause, — it is enchanted ground ; Hence, let me brood upon yon burning Avest, Where sun-touched Florence lies, like Love on , Beauty's breast ! 170 ALARIC WATTS. 11. But not alone to chain tlie roving eye, Doth yon fair scene its magic marvels spread ; It hath a holier spell, a charm more high, — The haunt, the birthplace of the glorious dead ! There Raffaelle oft his heavenly fancy fed With thoughts and visions all too pure for earth ; There Buonarotti's dreams, of darkness bred. And Hell's wild grandeur, taste-subhmed, had birth ; Two bright but differing stars, of kindred fame and worth. III. Unequalled masters of that Art divine Which makes our visions palpable as bright ; 'Neath whose keen eye, and touch creative, shine Unnumbered shapes of wonder and delight ; — Surpassing rivals in Fame's boundless flight ; Twin heirs of Genius and her broad domain ; One, seeking sunshine in the realms of light. The other courting Horror's grisly train, And drawing strength from Hate, sublimity from Pain ! * IV. Transcendent Eaffaelle, thy accomplished mind. Irradiate, teemed with beauty, love, and grace ! What pure simplicity, by taste refined, In all thy forms, the studious eye may trace ! What seraph brightness breathes from every face Thy glowing mind hath on thy canvas poured ; THE PAINTERS DREAM. 171 How doth thy might his humbled heart abase, AVho seeks, a votary true, thy shrine adored, To win a touch, a charm, — and his despair record ! V. Nor less his fame, to whose proud hand 'twas given, The Judgment Day's terrific tale to tell ; Who, if he sometimes caught his fire from Heaven, Would oftener snatch it from the depths of Hell ; The fiercer passions owned his wondrous spell ; Titanic grief that will not yield to Time ; Kevenge, Remorse, and Hate unquenchable, The weltering offspring of Despair and Crime, Touched by his wand, uprise in agony sublime ! vi. But lo ! what Vision bursts upon my sight ! What shapes, what hues, yon opening doors un- fold ! What rainbow forms are glancing in the light Showered from yon gorgeous roof of fretted gold ! AVhence spring the dazzling tints I now behold ? Where am I, where ? — I live, I breathe again ! What glorious triumphs of the days of old Are gathered 'round : Ausonia, France, and Spain, Your brightest dreams I see ; I have not toiled in vain! VII. There Guide's Mary looks in faith on high ; There Salvi's Nun in silent prayer doth bow ; 172 ALARIC WATTS. There Claude's bright ripphng wave and sunset sky. Salvator's storm-rent rock and mountain brow, And Poussin's classic glooms are gathering now ; — There Carlo Dolci's matchless anguish droops ; There golden Titian's living beauties glow ; There graceful Watteau spreads his courtly groups ; And 'neath His ponderous cross, Del Sarto's Saviour stoops ! VIII. There bright Giorgione's blue-eyed consort shines, A rival star to Titian's gay Brunette ; There pure Correggio's reading mourner pines ; And crystal Cuyp's delicious sun hath set ; There Spagnoletto's dymg Anchoret, And Caravaggio's slaughtered Martyrs lie ; There deep, clear Euysdael's Twihght lingers yet, Romano's battle-steeds are thundering by ; And Cagliari's Feast salutes the broad blue sky ! IX. There, too, Albano's Sea Nymphs float along ; Guercino's Hagar sheds upbraiding tears ; Piombo's Lazar in his faith is strong ; And Vinci's Judith still the charger bears ; — There polished Teniers' festive evening wears ; Velasquez' Infant smiles in fadeless youth ; Zampieri's Sibyl lifts the veil of years ; Hobl3ema's sunlit slopes, and mill-stream smooth, And Rembrandt's shadowy power, reflect immortal truth ! THE PAINTERS DREAM. 173 X. And more, yet more ; the fierce Giotto there, His victim tortured, triumphs in his pain ; There Mazzuoh's Vision, bright and fair, From robber-spoilers hath escaped again ; And Berretino's Sabines shriek in vain ! There, full of faith, the good St. Bruno dies ; There Snyders' yelling bloodhounds burst their chain : There gorgeous Rubens' emblemed Triumphs rise ; And Vandyck's Charles uplifts his mild, reproachful eyes. XL The sun hath sunk behind yon city gay, Where purple hues are fleckering all the sky ; And Twilight weaves her Aveb of night and day ; And one by one the stars look out on high ; But as the feathery clouds sail slowly by The crimson flush that tracks their monarch's way, Each snow-white billow takes a deeper dye, Each silvery wreath grows brighter in the ray. Till all have shared the spell, and, smiling, passed away ! XII. And thus my heart, when I have ceased to gaze. Enchanting Florence, on thy fanes sublime. Will strive to trace the bright, immortal blaze That rises round thee from the depths of Time ! And thouGfh I leave thee for a colder clime ; 174 ALARIC WATTS. Still memory's halo, lingering pensively, Shall steep my soaring visions as they climb ; Till many an aim, wish, feeling, hope shall be To brighter issues touched by thoughts of thine and thee ! CHAPTER XIY. NEWSPAPER ENTERPPvISES. Amongst the offensive personalities contained in Dr. Maginn's attack on my father, one must, I think, have especially galled him, for two reasons — viz., it related to the then present time ; and, unlike the rest of it, it was true. ' He is now,' says this lively writer, ' head nurse of a hospital of rickety newspaperlings, which breathe but to die.' The competition amongst the ' annuals ' of which I have spoken, and their growing deca- dence in quality, had satisfied my father that the public would ere long become as weary of them as he was, perhaps, beginning to feel himself If support should be given to the more advanced and purely artistic enterprise which he was at this time (1832-33) proposing 176 ALARIC WATTS, to initiate in the ' Cabinet of Modern Art/ all would be well ; but, if not, some fresh literary occupations would have to be sought out. At this juncture Fortune took him in hand, and introduced him to a Capitalist. Of this gentleman, as I am not writino; his biography, I desire to say no more than is in- dispensable to mine. He had been interesting himself at this time in the initiation of an extensive newspaper enterprise in the interests of ^ The Throne and the Altar,' for the prac- tical organization of which the right man had certainly not at that time turned up. It was very generally understood that in this under- taking he was not acting wholly on his own initiative, and he held a position in relation to Government, unnecessary here more minutely to particularize, which may have confirmed such a supposition, and may also, no doubt, have originated it. The rumour was, — and as rumour is nothing if it be not precise, it was very confidently afiirmed, — that he had placed at his disposal, by the Carlton Club, no less a sum than £10,000 for the establishment of newspapers throughout the country in ad- NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISES. 177 vancement of Conservative opinions. That Conservative opinions stood in some need of sustainment in that day, immediately succeed- ing the passing of the Eeform Bill, cannot be doubted. ' The battle of the Constitution/ the great coming man had averred, ' must be fought in the Eegistration Courts ;' but it had to be fought previously at the fireside and in the reading-room. Such a scheme, if it had really existed, was not without a bottom of political good sense, and was assuredly per- fectly legitimate. Whether it ever did, this narrator has no means of knowing. The Capitalist always denied it, — once, I believe, on oath. This much, however, is certain, that under these favouring auspices Conservative newspapers began to crop up in localities w^here the necessity for them was more appa- rent than the demand, a phenomenon rather suggestive of political than financial objects on the part of the projectors. * Not to the wish, but to the want, Did they their gifts apply.^ That under such circumstances these news- papers, or most of them, should have fallen VOL. II. 34 178 ALARIC WATTS. into the valetudinarian condition described by Dr. Maginn, seems more than probable. In my father the Capitalist had certainly discovered the right man for conductino; such an enterprise. He possessed not only great energy and experience, but considerable powers of construction and organization, derived, as such powers only can be derived, from a lively practical imagination. He would, moreover, put his heart into it, for he was from convic- tion, or, more correctly speaking, from in- stinctive sympathy, — for which as a definition the former is very apt to do duty, — a good Tory. All these qualities he was prepared to invest in the enterprise, if only thereby he might secure a livelihood. The Capitalist was to find, naturally, either from his own zeal in the sood cause or from sources more occult, the capital. It might be supposed that, among the arrangements for the initiation of these various undertakings all over the country, the most important, as affecting the person who was to set them going, w^ould not have been over- MUCH TOO DELICATE. 179 looked. Some few guineas a week attached, I believe, to the editorship of two moribund London newspapers, the Alfred and the Old England, which had been established before his entry on the scene of action, and to this inheritance, during their last hours, he entered by right of succession. Further than this nothing was done or settled, and the fact is very significant and characteristic of both parties to the transaction. My father possessed that extreme sensibility to the apprehension of small annoyances, and that super-sensitive delicacy which makes it with some natures difficult, except under ex- citement (when it is usually better to be silent), to say what may be a disagreeable thing ; and he sometimes subjected himself to controversy in which both parties had come to feel it a point of honour or principle not to give way, in relation to matters which were originally only a question of difference of opinion, to which neither would probably have attached vital importance, and on which either might have given way without loss of dignity, still less of anything more substantial. The 34—2 180 ALARIC WATTS. discussion of a matter of business was often evaded by him till it could be put off no longer, then made the subject of letter, in which, from the same indisposition to look things fully in the face, and present them fully to the face of others, the details were not laid down with sufficient precision, and on which later, when final adjustment arose, differences of opinion as to construction, fairly maintain- able on both sides, would often arise like- wise. With this temperament, he contented him- self to be satisfied that he had established, or was establishing, a credit account, the precise extent of which he perhaps never very accu- rately defined to himself. He was encouraged in this temporizing method of looking at affairs by the habit of mind of the other party to these transactions. I recall very vividly an occasion on which, returning home after having disposed to this gentleman of a literary enter- prise of some value, he mentioned to his wife that he had been occupied one whole hour in gettins; some acknowledmient in writino; of the amount agreed to be credited to him on NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISES. 181 . — _ — , — - ■ I ■ * this account, and could even then only obtain from the Capitalist, with the greatest difficulty, initials to a brief memorandum. To return to my narrative, to which this digression is not needless. Not much was to be done in the way of keeping alive the ^ newspaperlings ' already established. They breathed but to die. It was easier to reoriginate than to reinvigorate ; and the effect of a vigorous initiative to that end was soon apparent. An extensive crop of Conservative newspapers sprang up in all directions, some of which flourish to this day. Of these are, or were, the Surrey Standard^ the Sussex Agricultural Express^ the Gloucestershire Chronicle^ the Worcestershire Guardian^ the Leicester Herald^ the Dover Telegraphy the West Devon Conservative, the Oxford Conser- vative^ the Bridgwater Alfred^ the Blackburn Standardy the West Kent Guardian. My father s recollection of the readiness displayed by some of his contemporaries on the provin- cial press, in the early days of his editorship of the Leeds Intelligencer^ to adopt as their own offspring his literary and political articles, 182 ALARIC WATTS. suggested to him a plan for providing the newspapers now in course of establishment by him, at all events during their nonage, with suitable pabulum of this description from head- quarters. He arranged, therefore, that the newspaper, with the title and leading articles set up, should be printed at a printing- office, established by the Capitalist aforesaid for the purpose, at No. 1, Crane Court, Fleet Street, and that the local intelligence and local politics should be added in the country, by the local bookseller and printer by whom the paper was published, and who was, titularly, its proprietor. This was the origin of what, in the printing trade, is, I believe, designated ' Partly-printed newspapers.' For the credit of having originated this method of newspaper issue there have been many claimants. For whatever it may ;be worth, it belongs to my father, and certainly not to a newspaper com- pany established in 1850, as claimed some years since by a writer in a leading journal. An allusion to my father in relation to his newspaper work, in Mr. James Grant's ' History of the Newspaper Press,' may here find a THE ' standard: 183 place. I may observe that he never occupied, on the Standard newspaper, the position usually understood in newspaper parlance by the term ' sub -editor.' The nature of his rela- tions with the editor-in-chief are shown in a letter of Dr. Giffard, which will be found in the ^ Correspondence.' ^ "While Dr. GifFard/ says Mr. Grant, ^ in the earlier days of the Standard new^spaper was the sole editor, Mr. Alaric Watts was sub-editor. I was for several years intimately acquainted with Mr. Watts, and found him a most gentle- manly and agreeable man, remarkable for the amount of his newspaper, as well as general literary information. Indeed, it would have been passing strange if he had been surpassed for the amount he possessed of the former, for I unhesitatingly affirm that no one editor, before or since his day, has been the means of starting more newspapers than he. I Vv^ill not undertake to say what the number was, but it could not have been less than twenty. The only two journals still existing which I re- member as having been commenced by Mr. Watts, are the Manchester Courier and United Service Gazetted CHAPTER XV. MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE, 1830-1836. From William Howitt. ' Nottingham, 8th month, 9, 1830. 'Dear Alaric, ' Ten thousand thanks for thy munificent present. I shall not say another word against thy giving the books to us, for I see it is of no use. You are determined that we shall be over head and ears in debt to you, and therefore so it must be, for I see no mode of avoiding it. The edition of Byron is truly a noble one. One volume of the Scott is wanting ; perhaps you will be able to find it. The whole will be doubly valuable to us as your kind gift. You have managed very cleverly to skip over the Channel in such good time. It will be rather pleasanter to watch the progress of popular feeling on this side. Those Bourbons are such incorrigible blockheads, that if they take them by the heels and slmg them all into the sea, I for one shall not fret about them. ' No proof of '' The Book of the Seasons " has been sent to you since your departure. Pray let ' REMARKABLE ERAS: 185 them know that you are back, that they may go on. There were two calendars yet wanting, which shall be sent up with the next proofs. 'Dear Alaric, if we were to set about all the things that thou art contriving for us, we must turn regular scribes : and there is not much time as things are, for scribbling. However, Mary has caught fire, and says she should very much like to undertake a volume for the Juvenile Library. The one she would prefer would be " Remarkable Eras," — a book which should point out the great and most influential epochs in the history of the world, from the very creation to the French revolution. ' What dost thou think of it ? Give our kindest regards to Zillah. Mary is delighted that the articles have satisfied her. She was not aware that ^^The Little Fisher Girl " is for the "Souvenir." Had she been, she says, she should not have had the audacity to have done it as she did. ' With our united and warmest regard, I am thy obliged and affectionate friend, ' W. HOWITT.' Feom Alaric a. Watts. 'Dear Williaini, ' I have just received your letter, and, as my parcel Avas not sent off, I add a few lines. I did not, thanks to the speed of letters sent by private hand, receive your former letter till after I had written from Barnes. With regard to '' Calmet/' 186 ALARIC WATTS. you shall pay for it, if you will have it so ; but at present I have not paid for it myself. ^ With regard to the few volumes I have sent you, or any little trouble I may have taken, or may take, for you, are not such trifles very much more than set off by my obligations to you ? ' Say not another word on such subjects, unless you desire me to consider by what right I tax the time and talents of Mary and yourself for my service. * I enclose you a beautiful etching from Scheffer, intended for Zillah's book. ' It will be impossible for us to leave town after having idled so long. With kind love to all at home, ' Believe me, ' Affectionately yours, 'Alaric a. Watts.' Feom William Howitt. 'Nottingham, 9th mo., 7, 1830. ' My deah Feiend, ' All my letters now I am obliged to begin with thanks, thanks, thanks. Truly you good people might have nothing to do but to think how you can oblige us. I wish it lay in our way to make you an3^thing like a tythe of a recompense for your continual kindness ; but it does not, and, I am afraid, never will. ' I return the proofs which we were glad to see in progress again. There will be two more very short HOMES OF THE POETS. 187 calendars of insects, and then the calendars will be altogether nearly over, which I shall be glad of. ' We are exceedingly delighted with the plan of thy projected work. It cannot fail in thy hands of being most valuable. Thy first part is par- ticularly interesting. I am glad thou hast got Milton's place at Chalfont. As to my mentioning any residences, etc., of poets, it would be easy to name many, but not so easy, I dare say, to hit on one thou hast missed. Of Greek poets very small traces of habitation would be found, of course ; nor many Latin, unless you have Virgil's Tomb, the remains of Horace's Sabine Farm, and Statius's Villa. Of the Italian ones I should think you would get several, as well as French. Voltaire's house at Ferney ; and if Rousseau can be reckoned a poet, there is a wild place in Staffordshire, Wootton Lodge, where Hume fixed him during his abode in England, should be had by all means. Of English poets, Chaucer's Donnington Castle ; Cowper's Olney ; Sir David Lindsay's Mount, near Cupar, Fifeshire, — are beautiful places now; but whether there be any vestiges of the " Lyon King at Arms," is perhaps doubtful. Johnson's birth- place, at Lichfield, perhaps not picturesque enough. Thou hast Burns's cottage. Shalt thou honour Hogg's "Stye" at Altrive, or Allan Eamsay's Pye in Edinburgh ? Mrs. Hemans's house in Wales is, I am told, a staring place, as bad as Southey's. Crabbe's place of birth you will have seen in the Pocket Books ; and if you give Moore's, you may take your 188 ALARIC WATTS. choice of picturesque cottages all over the country. In the article on Byron, there ought to be New- stead and Hucknal Torkard. ^ I am, dear friend, ' Yours affectionately, 'William Howitt/ From Caroline Bowles. 'Buckland, October 2, 1831. ' Indeed, my dear sir, I had been informed that it was not your intention to continue the " Literary Souvenir,'' and I gave regretful credit to the report, pressed upon me as it has been by the shoal of other annuals, not any of which, however, have attained equal literary merit. I shall be glad to see my old friend's face again, and wish I could send you something better worth insertion than the accompanying scraps. I am very glad that Mrs. Watts and your " wee things " have derived benefit from your long excursion. ' But what shall I say to yow of the employment"^^ which has engrossed your hours of rural retire- ment? Alas, my dear sir, do you not belie the kindliness of your own nature, the bent of your own genius, in pouring gall from a source whence, I am sure, sweet and pure waters flow most naturally ? I do not question your 2^oive7\ It is your success I deprecate, for when ever was the satirist whose heart was bettered, or whose spirit calmed and comforted, by the triumphs of his angry '^ ' The Conversazione.' W!9 GOOD ADVICE. 189 muse ? Remember you have called me '' Monitress and Friend!" so you must not be offended at the matter-of-fact nature which prompts me to speak honestly in the character you honoured me by assigning to me. Your charming poetry has so often soothed and won me from myself, when only such strains, breathing such pure and holy feeling, could have done so, that I shrink from the thought of meeting you in another character, — and from that of the waste of talent and power you will incur by condescending to enter the lists with persons below contempt. Perhaps I am unfitted by nature for competent judgment in such matters; but one thing I am sure of, — and the experience of every day that brings me nearer to the end of all things confirms me in that faith, — that iDeace on earth should be the highest desideratum of mortal creatures, and happiness hereafter. Now, I should like to know I have not offended you with my plain speaking. Set it down to stupidity, or any- thing you like but wilful impertinence. ' Pray give my best regards to Mrs. Watts, and believe me, my dear sir, ' Yours very sincerely, 'Car. a. Bowles.' From William Wordsworth. ' My dear Sir, ' I have to thank you, I presume, for a copy of the " Souvenir " for 1832, just received. ]\fy eyes are so subject to inflammation that I can read but 190 ALARIC WATTS. little, so that I have yet only been able to cast my eyes over this elegant volume, with the exception of three pieces, with all of which I have been much pleased ; namely : Mrs. Watts's '' Choice ;" Mrs. Hewitt's " Infancy, Youth, and Age ;" and your own '^Conversazione" — a great deal too clever for the subjects which you have here and there con- descended to handle. The rest of the volume I shall hope to peruse at leisure. I fear the state of the times must affect the annuals, as well as all other literature. I am told, indeed, that many of the booksellers are threatened with ruin. I enclose i a sonnet for your next volume, if you choose to insert it. It would have appeared with more advantage in this year's, but was not written in time. It is proper I should mention that it has been sent to Sir Walter Scott and one or two of my other friends ; so that you had best not print it till towards the latter sheets of your volume, lest it should steal by chance into publication, for which I have given no permission. Should that happen I will send you some other piece. ' I remain, my dear sir, ' Sincerely your obliged, ' Wm. Wordsworth. ' P.S. — The compliment Avith which you had dis- tinguished me I had seen in several of the news- papers before the '' Souvenir '' reached me. Allow me to express my pleasure at a notice so flatterino*. ' ART AND NATURE. 191 Feom George Barret. ' 162, Devonshire Place, Edgeware Road, ' September 1, 1834. 'My dear Sir, ' As I have so often been accused of repeat- ing tlie effect of sunset, which I admit, and of imitating Claude, which I deny, I, as you request, take up my pen to refute the one, and to account for the other. When I first came to this house, it appeared too small to accommodate my family, but after having viewed the extensive prospect it afforded me of the splendid effects of the afternoon sun, which sets immediately opposite my window, I felt so forcibly the advantages to me, as an artist, that I took it, and have continued to reside here for the last twenty-four years. ' Thus situated, I should have evinced but little feehng either for my Art or the glorious effects of sunset had I not attempted to represent them ; and I do assure you that in my endeavours to accom- plish this, so desirable an object, neither Claude nor his pictures ever entered my head. It was, indeed, always too full of the gorgeous effects of the true original, to admit of any copy, however good, occupying my mind. After having studied this effect for many years, taking Nature constantly for my guide, I should have been dull indeed had I not produced something to remind the spectator of what had given him also pleasure to contemplate in Nature. That I have in some degree succeeded I have reason to hope, from the ready sale of my 192 ALARIC WATTS. afternoon effects, both in oil and water-colour, in the Exhibitions, and from the circumstance that nearly all the commissions I have been favoured with have been either for this effect or that of twi- light, which I have studied with ever-increasing assiduity and pleasure. ' It requires but little reflection, — notwithstanding all that has been urged against imitation, — to per- ceive that improvement and excellence depend mainly upon it, for otherwise man would always re- main in his original ignorance. Excellence, in fact, is derived from this source, and what appears to be original is nothing more than imitation concealed by great skill. In the Arts, the beginner imitates that which others have executed, and if there be within him that spark called Genius, his mind will expand as he proceeds ; he will soon throw off the restraint that copying pictures imposes upon him, and he will then with ardour search for the truth in Nature where only it is to be found in its pristine purity. ' Now as to landscape-painting where something superior to mere imitation is aimed at. By the term here, in a confined sense, I mean the copying of individual objects or local scenes which depends upon a correct eye and mechanical skill, and may be taught ; whereas the application of means to a higher purpose cannot, — any more than poetry or painting in the literal acceptation of the word. It must be the result of innate fine feeliuGf. Nature, indeed, supplies the means, but it is the "inind that enforces the charm. ART AND NATURE. 193 ' It appears to me, then, that the painter who has the true feehng for his Art seeks in Nature equally with the poet for the means to enable him to ex- press his ideas. With this view he not only makes himself acquainted with her general appearance, but also with her details and the various effects presented to him in the course of his studies. These he stores up in his mind, and when any happy thought occurs, he is thus prepared to re- alize it. ^Pictures resulting from this source of study, I may venture to say, will convey more fully the appearance of Nature than any view of a particular place can do, which will be at most the imitation of a local spot or scene, not of general nature. ' It is this view of the Arts that has influenced me in my efforts. I love to contemplate the dawn when stillness reigns on every side, and, undisturbed, to watch the kindling tints as the glorious sun ap- proaches the horizon. I admire the effects of mid- day light, when beneath the shade of stately trees I rest secure from its dazzling blaze. Still more do I admire the saffron glow of the afternoon sun. But the twilight, the solemn, sober twilight is to me supreme ; for this is the time when the imagination, unfettered, takes its flight. This is the hour when, to the eye of fancy, shady groves, towers, palaces, and lakes are conjured up, with, perhaps, some object moving in the deep shade, uncertain to the sight, so as to stimulate and delight the pensive mind. But return to the spot the following day, and view it in VOL. II. 35 194 ALARIC WATTS. the glare of midday sunsliine. You will then find, perhaps, that the shady grove is now nothing more than a common clump of trees ; your towers, stacks of chimneys ; palaces, brick houses ; the lake, a stagnant pool, and the mysterious object a harmless cow or donkey. Still, tliis is the effect that is so pleasing to the majority of persons. There is plenty to look at; they can point out and reckon each individual object ; all is upon the optic nerve, and penetrates no deeper. But I must refrain. ' I am, my dear sir, ' Very truly yours, ' Geoege Barret.' From Daniel Maclise. ' 63, Upper Charlotte Street, ' Fitzroy Square. 'Dear Sir, ' I am very mucli obliged by your kindness, and flattered by your good opinion. 'I should infinitely prefer painting a ne^v subject altogether to making a copy of Salvator, and I fear you may think it odd that I should ask as much as thirty guineas for doing either. ' The simple fact is that, for the first time, I have pictures bespoke, three of some consideration, and one I have promised to exhibit at Liverpool in August, and I rather hesitate, and have, indeed, re- fused to undertake any matter requiring hasty com- pletion. Still, the privilege of being classed with such grand names as you have attached to your beautiful book, all tributaiy to 3'our own, is a re- MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE, 195 ward in itself, and I should feel it an honour to be included. ' I am, dear sir, with many thanks, ' Yours very respectfully, 'Daniel Maclise/ From Edward Lytton Bulwer. 'Dear Sir, 'I am astonished at the contents of your letter. I never used any epithet whatsoever of a depreciatory, or hostile, character respecting your satire. As regards the new Monthly Magazine, and the notice of the annuals, I had not read yours, or, indeed, any of them, when the review was sent me ; but I knew I could depend on the honesty and talent of the reviewer. The passage relating to your satire certainly only accuses you of want of judgment in condescending to notice the attacks of such paltry animals as Maginn and Fraser in a work like the '' Souvenir," dedicated to the gentler arts. I will frankly own, however, that if I personally had read the satire at the time, I should, while agreeing with the reviewer in blaming the choice of your vehicle, have spoken very highly of the general wit and frequent justice of the satire, though I think you also, as all satirists are some- times, as unjust as at — others the reverse. ' Truly yours, 'E. L. Bulwer.' 35—2 196 ALARIC WATTS. From Henry Howard, R.A. 'Newman Street, June 1, 1835. ' My dear Sir, ' If the exhibition of your portrait has in any degree contributed to draw upon you the gross and scurrilous attack which has been made upon you, 1 shall ever regret having been tempted to send it to Somerset House. In asking you to sit I was actuated solely by motives of esteem for yourself, and a wish to pay a compliment to Mrs. Watts, in requesting her acceptance of the picture. ' It is now some years that I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance, and in that time I have had abundant opportunities of being convinced of your regard for the arts, and of the kind feeling which you have always been disposed to show to artists in general. For myself, it would be dis- honest as well as ungrateful to deny the uniform and friendly attentions for which I am indebted to you. Do not let this miserable attack, insulting and malignant as it is, annoy you beyond measure, — or rather beyond what it deserves ; in which case, perhaps, it will not annoy you at all. ' Believe me always, ' Yours faithfully and attached, 'Henry Howard.' From John Constable, K.A. ' Charlotte Street, June 8, 1835. 'My dear Sir, ' I am sorry beyond measure at having heard that you have been so unjustly and cruelly attacked, MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 197 and that, too, on a point in which I beheve you to merit the greatest possible good-feeling from us all collectively as artists. I can only assure you that I have always had individually this feeling towards you; and I should say that you are the last person who could, with any degree of justice, be assailed in this way, your whole literary career being distinguished by a marked attention and courtesy towards the profession in general. Your notice of me and my works, even before I had the pleasure of knowing you, bears testimony to your good wishes towards us. Hoping, my dear sir, that these abominable slanders will not for a moment disturb you, ' I remain always, ' Most truly and most sincerely yours, 'John Constable.' Feom Thomas Uwins, R.A. ' AthenEeum, June 9, 1835. ' My dear Sir, ' The history of my connection with you is one of kindness, liberality, and honourable conduct on your part, and a grateful endeavour to respond adequately and effectively to such conduct on mine. You were my first patron on my return to my native country, after an absence of many years. You were the first person who had spirit enough to purchase a picture in a public exhibition, of an almost for- gotten artist ; and you have continued, ever since, to encourage my efforts by openly expressed approbation. 198 ALARIC WATTS. and, what is more valuable to an artist, by purcbas- ing, from time to time, either in exhibitions or on the easel, various works of my pencil. In all these transactions there has never been any difficulty or bargaining between us. You have paid me at once my price, and have always acted towards me as if yoii were the party obliged. In one instance (and I should be wanting in gratitude if I omitted the mention of the circumstance), you allowed me to dispose of a picture Avhich you had purchased, or, rather, which was executed for you, at an advanced price, — a price more in accordance with the pubhc estimation of its merits, — giving up the right you might legally and justly have claimed, and putting the additional sum into my pocket. These, sir, are the simple facts of my acquaintance and connection with you. I might add that, in the choice of engravers to execute the different plates from my pictures, you have always consulted my partialities and my wishes ; but this is only part of the general kindness and gentlemanlike conduct of which I have already spoken. ' I am, my dear sir, ' Your very humble servant, 'Thomas Uwins.' From Sir Martin Archer Shee, P.K.A. ^ Cavendish Square, June 11, 1835. 'My dear Sir, ' I lose no time in expressing my regret that a gentleman, whose talents contribute so much to MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 199 adorn the literature of tlie day, should have cause to complain of the press, or of those who are employed upon it. I can only say, that for many years, during which I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance, I have always considered you as a writer of distinguished attainments both in poetry and prose ; unimpeachable in your honour and character as a gentleman ; and as liberally zealous as promptly active in promoting the interests of the fine arts, and the reputation of the British school. If my testimony to this effect can be con- sidered of any value, you may, my dear sir, command it in any way, and upon any occasion on which you may require it ; for I beg you believe me, with high respect and esteem, ' Yery sincerely and faithfully yours, ' Martin Archer Shee/ From John Martin. '• 20, AUsop Terrace, New Road, /June 9, 1835. 'My dear Sir, ' I am hurt beyond measure to hear of so scandalous a libel upon you. I have not seen the article in question, but I lose not an instant in replying to your letter, and giving the most positive and unequivocal denial to the statement respecting your treatment of artists, so far as I am individually concerned. I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance for nearly twelve years, I beheve, and in the whole period we have never had the slightest 200 ALABIC WATTS. ground for difference ; we have been, on the contrary, upon the most friendly footing. In all the pro- fessional transactions I have had with you, so far from your having acted with the most distant degree of meanness, your conduct towards me has ever been most handsome and honourable. I can quote as an example, that on a very recent occasion, Avhen an individual had sold you two of my draw- ings with the copyright, you wrote to me to ascertain whether he was authorized by me to sell the copy- right, and Avhether you had my permission to have them engraved ; and I am satisfied, from the general tenour of your conduct, that you would not have availed yourself of your right if I had objected. That the propagators of so slanderous an attack upon private character will be punished is not to bo for a moment doubted. ' Believe me, my dear sir, 'Your faithful and sincere friend, 'John Martix.' From James Emerson Tennent, M.P. ' Library, House of Commons, 'February 5, 1836. 'My dear Sir, ' It is only within these few days that my attention has been directed to those attacks which have been made upon yom' personal and literary character in one of the London periodicals ; and I beg to assure you that ignorance of their existence has alone prevented me from sooner offering you my indignant contradiction of those aspersions, so MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE, 201 far as I am personally concerned, or so far as my humble testimony can enhance your private and public reputation. . ' It would be ridiculous in me to volunteer any testimony of mine, in addition to that which the nation has already borne to your literary acquire- ments, and genius as a poet ; and I regard your well-earned fame in both capacities as the most satisfactory reason by which to account for the un- generous and unmerited slander with which j^ou have been assailed. It is painful to me, my dear sir, to retire from the outwork of your reputation, to defend you from assailants on your very hearth. Of the happiness of that home which has been thus cruelly invaded, no man is better qualified, from the acquaintance of years, to speak feelingly than myself ; but I consider that it would be an insult to you, and worse than insulting to one whose feel- ings I regard even more, to Mrs. Watts, to make a parade, even for the purpose of panegyric, of those domestic virtues whose chief merit is that they shine brightest in retirement. It is, however, open to me to say, that some of those hours of my varied life to which I look back with the most unalloyed delight, were those spent in the midst of that happy little circle, which, in days when we were oftener thrown together, surrounded your ever-cheerful and hospitable fireside. ' I remain, ' Ever very sincerely yours, ' James Emeeson Tennext. 202 ALARIC WATTS. ' P-S. — I can assure you that I write this letter from my heart. No baser act of ingratitude could be committed than by those who being connected with literature or art would seek to assail yoii. You have, to my knowledge, done more for the strngglers than half the titled patrons in England ; and I have never yet known or heard you spoken of in other terms than you would have been rejoiced to hear.' From Professoe, Wilson. ' G, Glo'ster Place, Edinburgh, ' November 4, 1835. ' My dear Sir, ' Understanding from the Messrs. Blackwood that some aspersions have been thrown on your character, because of your occasional contributions to the periodical bearing the name of their excellent father, allow me to say that, to my certain hioiu- ledge, everything that passed between him and you in connection with that work was highly honour- able to your character. ' I am, my dear sir, ' Yours with esteem, 'JoHx Wilson.' From Robert Blackwood. * Edinburgh, November G, 1835. ' My dear Sir, 'I am well acquainted with your corre- spondence with my lamented father, and with your contributions to the magazine, and beg leave to say MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 203 that my brother and myself entertain towards you the same sentiments of respect which our father always did, and that we know that your character is highly esteemed by all the chief supporters of Maga. ' I am, my dear sir (for self and brother)^ ' Yours very truly, ' Robert Blackwood.' Feom Stanley Lees Giffard, LL.D. ' 12, Panton Street, Thursday. ' My dear Sir, ' I thank you for your recollection about the books, which I believe are mine. I am greatly de- lighted with the noble fragment which you sent me, and which I return. I have always thought and said to others that, with as much good sense and imagination as anybody, you have more com- mand of the genuine English verse than any suc- cessor of Lord Byron. I hope earnestly that you will proceed with this work, and without loss of time ; for besides the more public and general in- terest, I am impatient to have my opinion, which is also the opinion of a friend who highly values and admires you, I am impatient, I say, to have our opinion vindicated. I do not know if I can be of use in the way of notes ; if I can, command me, but let me know the kind of notes you wish for. In looking over the last page to dry it, I observe that I have omitted the name of the common friend with whose good opinions I would provoke you. It 204 ALARIC WATTS. is Mr. Michael Thomas Sadler, of Leeds. Believe me, ' Your faithful and obliged friend and servant, ' Stanley Lees Giffard/ From the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, Canon of Salisbury. ^ Canonry House, Salisbury, 'February 2, 1836. ' My dear Sir, ' Many years ago, when I was brutally at- tacked on account of my edition of " Pope," you, though an entire stranger, stood forth voluntarily in my vindication, for which I always felt, and feel now, gratitude of no ordinary kind ; and I answer as promptly and as readily, that, since I have known you, you have ever, so far as my knowledge goes, behaved with the courtesy of a perfect gentle- man, anxious and most ready, as it alwaj^s appeared to me, on all occasions, to render any service or to do any kindness to others, and to literary characters in particular. ' I remain, your obliged and sincere fiTend, 'William L. Bowles.' From W. C. Macready. 'Elstree, January 28, 1836. 'My dear Sir, ' No one can regret more than myself the pain which the late attacks upon you have caused Mrs. Watts and yourself For both your sakes I wish you could have looked upon them with mora MISCELLANEOUS CORBESPONDENCE. 205 indifference, as whatever doubts they may have excited in the minds of strangers, the opinion of those who know you must always furnish you with a satisfactory and triumphant vindication. The ac- quaintance of many years enables me to offer my humble testimony to those honourable and amiable qualities which have made it so estimable to me, and which induce me so earnestly to desire its con- tinuance. ' Believe me to be, my dear sir, ' With truth and cordiality, yours, 'W, C. Macready.' Feom William Howitt. •Nottingham, January 26, 1836. ' My dear Friend, ' No one saw with more indignation than ourselves the infamous attack upon you in Frasers Magazine. The treatment which I have uniformly received at your hands may be pretty well under- stood by the simple fact that our acquaintance began more than a dozen years ago, entirely through literary transactions, and has gone on and improved into, I trust, mutual esteem and friendship. Living as we do so far from the capital, there are many occasions on which a personal friend can render the most important services to an author, and on all such occasions we have found you the same prompt, honourable, and generous adviser and assistant. Such is my simple and honest testimony to your invariable conduct towards us ; standing as 206 ALARIC WATTS. Ave do at the very opposite poles in politics, which occasions coldness and distrust among so many. 'We shall always remember with the warmest feelings those who gave us the right hand of fellow- ship when it was of the utmost consequence to us ; and especially yoii, who were the first to do so, and who have always shown the same ready zeal on every occasion that seemed to present itself ' I am, my dear friend, ' Yours truly, 'William Howitt.' From John Hernajman, Esq. ' Tynemouth, Northumberland, ' June G, 1835. 'My dear Sir, ' As Frasers Magazine is regularly sent to my office for the use of the Xeivcastlc Journal, I am generally tempted in an idle hour to run through its pages, and you Avill not be surprised that my attention has been particularly arrested by the vulgar, infamous, and malignant article in reference to yourself and family, which appears in the number for the present month. If the article to which I have adverted were of an ordinarily libellous cha- racter, I should not, perhaps, have deemed it neces- sary to trouble you with any communication on the subject ; but when I see that the writer has thought proper to make prominent allusion to your connection with the Leeds Intelligencer, at a period when I was joint and its only acting proprietor, I feel I should be a traitor to the friendship which MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 207 lias subsisted between us during a long series of years, if I did not freely come forward and express my perfect readiness to state, in any way that may be serviceable to you, what w^ere, and what were not, the circumstances which existed in reference to your connection with that journal. I perceive your slanderer states, that at a certain period you '•' got employment " on the Leeds Intelligencer, and then insinuates that you '' were sped from it." Than the latter calumny, nothing can be more un- founded. Your engagement with myself and late respectable partner was sought by ourselves, at a higher rate of remuneration than had ever before been paid to the editor of a provincial journal. It commenced in 1822, and continued for about three years ; I am quite sure, with honour to yourself and every advantage to the interest of the paper. Your duties did require your undivided attention, and I well recollect that your pecuniary resources were not confined to the remuneration which you received for your services upon our establishment. The whole period of the connection alluded to was one of uninterrupted harmony ; and I can never cease to reflect upon the cordial intercourse which pre- vailed between you and me, but with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. When your connection with the Leeds Intelligencer ceased, it was your oivn free choice, with the view of prosecuting more important objects elsewhere; and it took place with the full knowledge, consent, and good under- standing of the parties concerned. During the 208 ALARIC WATTS, many years that have elapsed since our partmg, the friendship previously subsisting has not been interrupted for a single hour. ' Believe me, my dear sir, ' Always most faithfully yours, MoHN Hernamax/ From Stanley Lees Giffard, LL.D. ^ Myddleton Square, June 12, 1835. ' My dear Sir, ' Any office of friendship from me is a peremptory debt which you have a right to demand on private grounds ; but a testimony to your worth and talents, you are entitled to demand from every man who knows both as well as I do, thouQfh not, as I am, bound by the obligation of private friend- ship. I shall therefore cheerfully render my testi- mony in whatever mode you, upon consideration, may point out as the best. That testimony amounts to this : that I know no man whose integrity is more pure ; no man whose genius is of a higher order ; whose conduct, in all the relations of life, is more deserving of admiration ; no man in whose friendship I feel more highly honoured. ' This affair gives me very great pain. I cannot advise you to forego a legal vindication ; but the effect of giving more publicity to the attack, while it cannot raise your high character, will not fail to do mischief to our common cause. I cannot for<~dve the unthinking fool who has created the difficulty for mere wantonness of malice. To my services MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 209 you are, however, entitled as a matter of right ; use them at your pleasure, and believe me, my dear sir, ever with sincere respect, ' Your faithful humble servant, ' Stanley Lees Giffard/ From Allan Cunningham. ^ Belgrave Place, ' October 10, 183G. ' My dear Sir, ' I enclose the verses to which I alluded ; they are about war, and not about acts of peace, but I think the subject a good one, and worthy the pen of a better writer. Should you like them well enough to print them, be so good as to send me a printed sheet, that I may make them as correct as I can. ' I almost envy you your country air and the neighbourhood of the Hewitts — husband and wife are both alike extraordinary ; but Mary long since captivated me by the perfect simplicity and truth of her poetry. Her sentiment is even superior to her language, a rare beauty in these times, when the leaves conceal the fruit on so many of the trees of knowledge. ' Your letter was perfectly satisfactory, and had it been less so I could have excused you, for in the haste of composition one says things, whiles, that on less hurry and more reflection one would avoid; and sometimes expressions are used, not meant to give pain, that offend. For my own part, I have VOL. XL 36 210 ALARIC WATTS. ever endeavoured to steer my course quietly, and, though stricken, not to endeavour to strike again, lest my temper should be aroused, and my fireside peace be invaded. ' Give our respects to Mrs. Watts ; when we come to Hampton Court, which we sometimes do to see our friends Sir Andrew and Lady Halliday, we will exfend our walk to Thames Ditton. ' I remain, my dear sir, ' Very truly yours, ' Allan Cunningham.' CHAPTER XVI. THE ^UNITED SERVICE GAZETTE.' The only newspaper of tliose estcablishecl by my father at this season in which he had any personal interest, was that last referred to by Mr. Grant in the passage of his ' History of the Newspaper Press/ to which I have referred, viz. the United Service Gazette, a newspaper addressed to the special interests of the army and navy. This newspaper, one of the earliest of the class newspapers now so numerous, he edited from its establishment by him in 1833 until the dissolution of his partnership in it, with the ^ Capitalist,' under a decree of the Court of Chancery in 1841, and with signal success. It still exists and flourishes. I do not know what it was that suo;Q;ested this enterprise to him, as he had not, in so far 36—2 212 ALARIC WATTS. as I am aware, any military or naval con- nections, or any experience of, or antecedent interest in, such matters. His success in it happily illustrates, I think, the remark of Johnson, that a man who has mind may apply himsell successfully to one thing as well as another. Certain it is that he found no diffi- culty in throwing himself into this work, and brinsinsf it to a successful issue, with the same energy and interest which had characterized his earlier efforts in the artistic and more purely literary enterprise of the ' Literary Souvenir/ The United Service Gazette made, I think I may affirm without injustice to another naval and military newspaper long extinct, established curiously enough on the same day, the first serious attempt at dealing with the abuses and anomalies which deformed, in that day, in so many directions the administration of the army and na^y. The days of cor- ruption and nepotism in their grossest forms had no doubt largely passed away ; but very wonderful things were sometimes done not- withstanding even then. A CLOSE BOROUGH. 213 During a considerable portion of the time of which I am writing, the Admiralty was under the control of a nobleman of highly estimable personal character, but who happened also to be the chief of a large and prolific sept, which had already supplied many able and distinguished ofiicers to the service of the country, and from which a somewhat more than adequate supply would appear to ha,ve been at all times on hand. The naval service, under this administration, was not unlike the Scotch village at which a traveller, arriving late at night, sought vainly the accommodation of a bed, ' Is there no Christian,' he inquired, ' who would give a stranger a night's shelter 1 ' Na, na !' was the answer ; ' there are nae Christians here. We're a Johnstones and Jardines !' It was the time, also, at which, under the auspices of a gallant and highly distinguished ' Master- General of the Ordnance,' the militarv schools and public departments were invested and carried by a brigade of valiant Cornish- men, second only in number to that which had proposed to offer such ample security for 214 ALARIC WATTS. the neck of their countryman, Bishop Tre- lawney. When nepotism exists, victims must exist also. Jobbery on the one side is very apt to shake hands with political austerity on the other. The scape-goat of the services in that day, — and for how long since ! — was that honourable corps the Eoyal Marines, whose motto,p6r mare, per terram, represented truly a perpetual and laborious service, with no well-defined position. Offered up it ever was, a continuous sacrifice, to the economical appetites, which then, as now, intermittently devoured the public mind, — a perpetual offering to the necessities of "^Dowb.' Of the claims of the Eoyal Marines to the same fair dealino; as the sister services, the United Service Gazette was an unwearying advocate. The officers of this corps at a later period presented my father with a piece of plate, in testimony of their regard for him •personally and their gratitude for his exertions to obtain justice for it. The construction of ships was as fruitful a source of controversy then as it has been ever since. The principles of security and SALVATION AND DESTRUCTION. 215 speed, instead of being in alliance, as would seem desirable, were at war, then, as they have been ever since. The ' broad bottoms ^ of Sir Robert Seppings had given place to the 'peg-tops' of Sir William Symonds, which in their turn were the object of the unceas- ing gunnery of 'The School of Naval Archi- tecture.' A three-decker might have floated in the ink expended, if not wasted, in these con- troversies. The same elaborate discussions as to the most effectual and scientific methods of destroy- ing human life occupied the columns of the United Service Gazette then, as they occupy them no doubt now. I remember a distin- guished 'gunner' en retraite, author of a tract for the conversion to Christian courses of flymen at Brighton, under the Baxterian title of ' Cobwebs to catch Horseflies,' full of benevo- lent work, and instant in prayer and Christian exhortation, to whom the United Service Gazette was indebted for a series of instruc- tive papers, designed to exhibit the happiest methods, under a great variety of hypothetical circumstances, of burning and devastating the 216 ALARIC WATTS. house property of one's neighbour, and annihi- lating, with the smallest risk of reprisals, our fellow- creatures employed in attempting to preserve it. I do not imagine that any sense of incongruity in these varied labours ever exercised the mind of this worthy gentleman and gallant officer, who was never wearied of exhorting his friend and correspondent to be less bellicose, and to exercise a little more Christian charity in dealing with the per- versities of the Whig Board of Admiralty of 1835-41. The judgments of courts-martial, too, especi- ally in the navy, were a pregnant source of controversy in those days, some of them being wonderful indeed, estimated by the ordinary laws of evidence ; and suggesting to the mind at times the idea that court-martial law then, and ' crowner s-quest ' law in the days of Shake- speare, must have been founded on the same general principles of jurisprudence. To the critical examination of these decisions did the United Service Gazette, under my father's editorship, always seriously incline ; some- times, I have no doubt, to the ultimate rectifi- SOME OF HIS CONTRIBUTORS. 217 cation of injustice, now and then, I fear, to the manufacture of spurious martyrs. On more than one such occasion my father's well- intentioned efforts in the cause of justice to the oppressed, left him very much in the position of the physician who, from motives of benevolence and a love of science, had applied himself with success to the resuscita- tion of the criminal wdio had been hanged for highway robbery, and found entailed upon him the obligation of providing this ill-omened offspring with maintenance ever afterwards. The United Service Gazette sustained from time to time a staff of officers of this description, who contributed, it is to be feared, in exchange for the guinea or two a week which they were permitted to draw from it, little but the evidence that her Majesty's service had been not ill rid of them. These and other subjects arising from time to time afforded abundant exercise for all the zeal, energy, and public spirit, and party spirit too, it must be confessed, which an editor could throw into them ; and little sparing was he of all these qualities. His reputation 218 ALARIC WATTS. as a writer and man of taste, which he took care that the portion of his journal at disposal for literary and artistic criticism should not discredit, gave a weight, perhaps, to his news- paper, w^hich, like everything he ever wrote, was published in his ow^n name. It procured for him the frank correspondence of many members of both services, and of both branches of the legislature, of rank and attainments, which might probably not have been so readily accorded to an editor less known and respected as an able and trustworthy public writer. Among such I call to mind the late Lord Shrewsbury, then Viscount Ingestre, a captain in the Navy ; the Earl of Strafford ; General Sir Charles Napier ; Admiral Sir George Cock- burn ; General Sir Howard Douglas ; Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Ogle ; General Sir Willoughby Cotton ; Admiral Hawker, author of 'Letters of a Flag Officer;' Colonel Mitchell, author of the ' Life of Wallenstein,' a very able writer ; Captain Marry at, the novelist ; Sir Francis Burdett ; Sir Harris Nicolas ; Captain Frederick Eobertson, E.A., etc., etc. Even more assistance of this description THE BENCH AND THE PRESS. 211) might he have secured, could he have per- suaded himself to give to his newspaper a less political and in some sort less personal character than he was at all times willino- to do. But if you would attract the confidence and sympathy of men, whatever you love and hate you must love and hate forcibly. The world excuses much to men whom it feels to be in earnest. Thus it was that those whom he had offended by his strictures, often un- guarded in expression, and sometimes, it may be feared, without adequate foundation, were frequently converted into friends, and even warm friends, by the frankness with which he was at all times ready to receive their reclama- tions, and to repair any pain or injury which his impetuosity might have led him to occasion. It was not always, however, that recourse was had to this sensible method of adjusting matters in dispute. Not infrequently the parties aggrieved addressed themselves with more or less success to a criminal information in one of the courts of law. The chances on the whole would be in their favour. The judges of that day, even the most liberal of 220 ALARIC WATTS. them politically, were by no means auspicious to the press, regarding it possibly with some jealousy as a self-constituted judicial tribunal^ not to be lightly encouraged. At all events, the presumption in any case would be adverse to the journalist, instead of, as now, being favourable to him. I would refer to a letter of Sir Frederick Pollock, the late Lord Chief Baron, w^ho had been my father's counsel in one of these actions, which will be found in his ' Corres- pondence,' as illustrating this phase of the judicial public opinion of that day. The judge to whose remarks it especially refers was Lord Chief Justice Denman, a Liberal, politically, of the purest water. I am sensible that this sketch of my father's work, extending over eight years of editorship of the United Service Gazette, does but scanty justice to its extent and usefulness. I believe that there are few of the more important reforms which have taken place in the ad- ministration of the army and navy in later years, of which some adumbration may not be discovered in it. THE NEWSPAPER WRITER. 221 But, of all classes of labour, there is no class the visible results of which it is less easy to define, so as to render of interest to the g;eneral reader, than that of a writer for the newspaper press. Dealing with topics arising from day to day, it may now be said from hour to hour, such a writer may possess, from instinct or cultivation, but he must not display, a mastery of principles w^herein the events originate of which he is treating, which belong to all time. Like the Lady of Brank- some in the ' Lay,' he may have derived from the resources of his own higher knowledge in- formation which he dare not employ, in defer- ence to the ignorance to which he is compelled to address himself. Observation he may dis- cover, but not foresight ; judgment may be permitted to him, but not wisdom. He is compelled to contract his intellectual powers, and repress his aspirations, in order to assimi- late with, for thereby only may he conduct and direct, the less elevated average of in- tellect and virtue to which it is his mission to appeal. He may often find himself, by reference to such considerations, constrained 222 ALARIC WATTS. to discountenance as chimerical much that in liis innermost heart he may feel to be the offspring of the higher intuitions in which he believes ; and, more degrading still, he will be compelled continually to flatter a public opinion iiliperfectly instructed, and still more imper- fectly desirous of instruction, which he cannot respect. For these sacrifices he receives, as a reward, the consciousness of contributing in some sort a mite to the treasury of human progress, possibly a coterie reputation^ his daily bread, and — oblivion. CHAPTER XVIL EMBER COTTAGE. — THE CLOUDS COLLECT. In tlie year 1836 my father relinquished his residence in London, and took up his abode between Hampton Court and Esher, in the parish of Thames Ditton, at a house then known as Ember Lodge or Ember Cottage, taking its name from the neighbouring man- sion of Ember Court. A square, somewhat gaunt-looking house of the early Georgian period, but painted white, with expressionless windows, nestled, with its garden, in the bosom of a thickly-planted nurseryman's cherry-orchard covering a con- siderable number of acres. To the right, to the left, and closing up on the high palings of the kitchen-garden and out-offices behind, ex- tends this little wood, beautiful and very 224 ALARIC WATTS, odorous in spring with its wealth of snowy blossom ; later on in the year rich with abundance of crimson fruit hanofinof accom- modatingly over the high black pales ; not the less beautiful in winter, when covered with hoar-frost or masses of snow. Attractive always, and giving a peculiar sense of solitude of its own to the little demesne — an isolation not greatly broken by a lane in front, termi- nating some few hundred yards farther on in a footbridge over the Ember, a tributary of ^ The sullen Mole which creepeth underneath,' debouching; into the Thames a mile or two distant at Hampton Court bridge. No sound to be heard all the day long but the wheels of an occasional visitor's carriage or tradesman's cart coming to the house ; the baying of the Newfoundland dog and clank of his chain in the courtyard ; and the clappers of the boys employed in frightening the birds from their food in the orchard. Very soothing and re- freshino; to world-worn visitors from the great city, access whereunto not easy by Sunbury coach once a day, no South-Western Eailway then existent so far ; but perhaps a little dull EMBER COTTAGE, 225 for a constant abiding-place, especially in the season of floods in the winter. High black palings, surmounted by a higher wall within of clipped laurels ; visible only to the passing stranger the two upper rows of the aforesaid expressionless windows, brightened a little by green and white striped sun-blinds. Not an attractive house, nor poetical nor picturesque, seen from the outside, but im- proving on nearer acquaintance. A corridor-like conservatory, clothed with old vine and flagged with black and white marble, leads from the front door opening into the lane to the French windows of the drawing-room, and forms the entrance-hall to the house. It is new and original-looking, the Crystal Palace of 1851 not having as yet popularized such erections. It cuts the front garden into two divisions, making ^ parteri^e on either side in the Italian style. Here and there a vase or a statue, amidst the thick leafiness of small beds of rich black earth, filled with tall rose-trees, fuchsias, and geraniums^ and hedged round with borders of old box. A rather sleepy, very reposeful VOL. II. 37 226 ALARIC WATTS. spirit over all, and poetical withal^ difficult to embody in words. So much for the outer and inner courts of this modest paradise. Now as to the innermost. Indoors, the house had been originally divided into a number of small, old-fashioned rooms, and had perhaps at some period been enlarged from a cottage, which indeed its tenant at this time is still pleased to term it. Some changes have been made by re- moving walls and partitions so as to give air and space. In virtue of these judicious arrangements, there is formed on the ground- floor in front, with the conservatory or en- trance-hall thereunto directly leading, a double drawino;-room, extendins; from one end of the house to the other, and above it a library of the same dimensions. Dining-room and other apartments and offices suitable to a ' cottage of gentility,' call for no especial notice ; though one, the walls thereof entirely covered with old mezzotints after Fuseli, Northcote, Hamilton, Westall, and Stothard, remains very fresh in the memory of this narrator. More- over, in every room, even in bath-rooms and THE PICTURE GALLERY. 227 store-rooms, tumbling out when doors are opened of every closet and cupboard, books, everywhere books. In the two rooms of which I have spoken, drawing-room and library, are concentrated the literary and artistic treasures of the house. Beautiful and valuable things, gradually ac- cumulated during fifteen vears of the life of a ' man of taste ' of that day. On all the walls pictures and low bookshelves, so that only haply may any scrap be seen of the papering, between the mouldings of the frames. It is an interesting collection ; but a catalogue of it would not advance this narrative, though a glance at it may, and is indeed in some sort needful thereto. The pictures are all oil-paint- ings, the drawings ' collected for Zillah,' and otherwise, being relegated to portfolios and print-cases, from sheer want of space. Here is the Boccaccio series of Stothard, at different times engraved in the ' Literary Souvenir,' as indeed had been many of the others. 'The supper at the fountain ;' the ladies and gentlemen reclining on the grassy slope of a hillside recounting their stories ; the ladies 37—2 228 A LA EI C WATTS. culling flowers beneath rose-tinted blossom- ing almond-trees ; all Watteau-like, yet more graceful than Watteau, because more simple, and of sentiment more refined. Others of Stothard, ^ Euphros/ne/ 'The Muses/ 'The Adoration of the Magi/ in his Eaphaelesque manner, and others now forgotten, testify to the appreciation of the pure and beautiful work of this master on the part of the col- lector of them, which had led Mr. Eogers the poet to congratulate himself on having such an ally in his efl*orts to induce the public to value him. Of I^eslie there are no less than six specimens : ' Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church / ' May Day in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,' a sketch in oils ; ' The Euphuist/ a finished study, greatly improved, of the two principal figures in the latter, engraved in the 'Literary Souvenir' for 1829, of which I have given a more particular description ; ' Heads of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,' (the latter a portrait of Chantrey the sculptor ;) and the portrait of Sir Walter Scott, engraved in the same volume, to which also I have ah^eady more particularly referred. Those THE DECORUMS. 229 two casts on plinths in the corners, of busts of Scott and Wordsworth, are from the original moulds, the gift, as the incised inscriptions show, of Sir Francis Chantrey^ K.A., to Alaric AVatts. Howard, with a certain affinity to Stothard, more ethereal on one side in his conceptions, more artificial perhaps in his results, with more of the inner life, it may be, and more of the external, and in con- sequence of these extremes, more challeng- ing criticism, more of the poet and at the same time more of the academician, — Howard is too near in every respect to my father in taste and sentiment not to be fully repre- sented in his gallery. Here are his ' Chaldean Shepherd contemplating the Stars,' and be- holding in them with his seer's eyes the passage of the gods across the firmament ; ' Fairies dancing on the Seashore ;' ' The Bath,' my father's lottery prize ; ' Venus seated on a Sea-shell, clothed by the Graces.' The goddess being necessarily unclothed, other- wise she would not require to be clothed by the Graces or any other tirewomen, the introduction of this picture into his ' Cabinet 230 ALARIC WATTS, of Modern Art' for the year 1837 greatly exercised that class of the community, whose modesty, like that of that virtuous personage Lady Wishfort, in Congreve's comedy, hath * a mortal terror at the apprehension of offending against decorums/ It is an exqui- sitely chaste and beautiful composition, and wholly free from just reproach, as indeed was all the work of the artist, and indeed of the age. ' The Importunate Author,' by Stewart Newton, a sketch in oils, engraved in the ' Cabinet of Modern Art ' for 1836, an elegant piece of comedy of the Leslie school, is here. M. Trissotin, of poetic fame, has waylaid his patron just as he is going from home, and insists upon entertaining him with a few of his sonnets. The high-breeding of the courtier, formulated on the most exquisite traditions of the Hotel Eambouillet, prescribes absolute resignation in these afflictive circumstances, but does not exclude a sidelong glance at his jewelled watch, which the poet is far too deeply absorbed in his conceits to perceive. Very beautiful all these things, and many like them, now forgotten or profitless to IDEALS AND REALIZATION. 231 enumerate, and sustaining withal to those in the condition, usually a passing one, in which the eye can satisfy the heart. To their present possessors, at all events, a realization to a fuller extent than their youthful day-dreams had ever conceived of the poetical cottage in the wood, with all its solitary simplicity without, its beautiful plenishing within ; — the ideal of the two young lovers, in the Park at Woburn, some fifteen years earlier. . But, so is it with our ideals in life, that while they are realizing, we are changing. In my father, by this time, that more peculiarly muscular quality in his nature which, in my description of his early manhood, I noted as underlying his more nervous and sensitive characteristics, then in the ascendant, had advanced, and was for a long time more and more to advance, to the front of his life, the poetical, artistic life within him receding, and more and more to recede. His outer man was in the same way now beginning to correspond with these changes in the man spiritual. The physique had broadened and strengthened. From the face now looked 232 A LA RIC WA TTS. forth, not taste and sentiment, not poetry and connoisseurship ; but power, energy, reso- lution, and a strong determined will. Some- thing is there in the aspect, of sternness possible to be misunderstood, were it not modified by a genial, underlying humour, dormant in the curves of the mouth. The hair alone unchanged, and so to continue to the last day of his life, unthinnecl, silky, and free from the slightest tinge of grey. I am indebted for the following; sketch of my mother in these days to the loving memory of her daughter-in-law : ' I think,' she says, ' that even so early as in those years at Ember, your mother had begun to attire herself in black. Yes ! I recall her to myself in those days, dressed in her black brocaded silk made high to the throat, with the invariable frill round the neck, fastened with a pale rose-coloured ribbon, pale rose- coloured ribbons in her cap. So I remember her softly and gradually maturing into the calm dignity of serene later life. I see her with a book in her soft taper fingers, which appeared too delicately formed even to support A PORTRAIT. 233 SO slight a weight, reclining upon a sofa in the window of that pleasant drawing-room, now reading, now meditating, now taking up needlework from her never far off work-basket, or household books from her desk. ^ This harmonious blending of the housewifely and purely domestic and externally practical, with the meditative, the speculative, and the purely intellectual, must have surprised many of her acquaintances, especially if their know- ledge of her were of a mere surface kind ; but there assuredly it was, and the one never seemed to overlap or conflict with the other. ' Or it may be a cold, brisk, sunny spring morning, and the round centre-table is drawn nearer to the hearth. It is covered with writing materials, and several half- written pages are scattered over her blotting-book. She leans back in her chair with an abstracted air, whispering softly over and over again to her- self lines of poetry ; and sometimes she smiles in the same still abstraction, and sometimes I notice tears in her gentle eyes.' The change in spirit in her from that of the 234 ALA RIC WA TTS. clays of lier early womanhood, can scarcely be more faithfully delineated than in her own words. The following poems, among others written in these years, were published later in a volume with those of her husband. THE REQUIEM OF YOUTH. Oh, whither does the spirit flee That makes existence seem A day-dream of reality, Reality a dream ? We enter on the race of life, Like prodigals we live, To learn how much the world exacts For all it hath to give. The fine gold soon becometh dim. We prove its base alloy ; And hearts enamoured once of bliss Ask peace instead of joy. Spectres dilate on every hand That seemed but tiny elves ; We learn mistrust of all, when most We should suspect ourselves. HER REALIZATION. 235 But why lament the common lot That all must share so soon ; Since shadows lengthen with the day, That scarce exist at noon. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. The doors unfold ! I gaze with breathless thrill ; All that my fancy pictured there appears ; Strange that stone walls should have the power to fill The heart with gladness, and the eye with tears ; Like a tired child that gains its mother's breast, I enter in, and feel my soul at rest ! I might not speak, too sacred seemed the spot : I could not sigh, for peace was with me then ; The world with all its idle cares forgot ; Oh, were thine architects but sinful men ! An atmosphere of heaven seemed breathing 'round, Thy walls bade welcome, though Avithout a sound. Silence descended like a brooding dove ; Priest and procession, all had passed away ; Motion was not, save that the hand of love Pointed from twilight to the perfect day ! I stilled my heart, and held my breath to hear Words that seemed whispering to my dreaming ear. 236 ALARIC WATTS. ' Hatli love of glory taught thine heart to sigh, Honour's bright wreath, the thirst for high renown, Lured thee, from step to step, to climb on high. Then clashed the chalice and the votary down ? Foiled, crushed, and trampled spirit, draw thee near, A Avorld-rejected heart is cherished here ! ' Hath love beguiled thee with his promise fair, Bliss unalloyed, affection's self unchilled. Won thy young heart to give thee back despair, — A poisoned cup from sweetest flowers distilled ? — Leave withered hopes for those that ne'er grow sere, A love unchangeable is promised here. ' Gifted of nature, spendthrift of the mind, A golden idol is thy master-taste ; Let go each cherished sin, howe'er refined. The hidden talent, feelings run to waste ; Dreamer awake, shake oft' thy coward fear, Gird up thy loins, and know thy strength is here ! ' Regretful spirit, brooding o'er the past. Achievements high conceived, but never won ; Draw near, and down thy heavy burthen cast. Remorse for " good received, and evil done :" Give passion utterance and free way the tear, Sorrow that worketh joy awaits thee here ! ' Heart-broken prodigal, why stand afar ? This House of Refuge, is it not for thee ! World-spent and wearied with life's ceaseless jar, Shake off* thy bondage, triumph, and be free : Welcome awaits thee, plenteous is the cheer ; Peace to thee, weary one, thy rest is here ! HER REALIZATION. 237 ' Sorrowful spirit, whatsoe'er the grief That forged thy fetter, make that grief thy plea ; He who in suffering was the Martyr-Chief, Hath balm for all, whate'er the wound may be ; A shadowy path leads to a cloudless sphere. But tiU ye gain it, know your home is here T CHAPTER XVIIL AN EVIL DREAM. Not for the biographer is the motto of the sundial, 'Horas non numero nisi serenas.' Not for him, any more than for it, a record without shadow. I have already hinted that when we have succeeded in realizing; our ideal of the outer things of life, we find, not unusually, that it has brought with it a companion whom we had never invited to accompany it, whom indeed we had never dreamt of associating with it, whose name is Indifference. Well is it if this be all. But if it should have happened, as perhaps it most frequently will, that the realization of our desires has been unduly precipitated by our impatience, an- CARE ON THE COACH-BOX. 239 other even less welcome visitant is apt to present itself in the person of Care. This latter troublesome interloper had now begun to occupy a seat beside the driver of the modest equipage whereon the possessor of all these beautiful and costly things conveyed himself home three times a week from his newspaper offices in London. Descending before him, it meets him on the threshold, and looks down upon him from the walls on which he has hung so much of the money, which, more prudently employed, would pro- bably have more than sufficed to spare him these ghastly visitations altogether. I have already sufficiently indicated the suspicion that at no period of my father's life, during which he had enjoyed entire control of his own actions, was he wholly free from debt. The extraordinary success of the earlier volumes of the ' Literary Souvenir ' would have enabled him, had he fully availed him- self of it, to set himself straight with the world ; and to some extent, no doubt, it had so done. Something, however, he would have felt safe in leaving; to the fortunes then so 240 A LA RIC WA TTS. smiling, in prospect, of a happy future, for it is always difficult to human nature to realize the precariousness of prosperity, and with this particular description of foresight he w^as certainly not endowed. When, therefore, his enterprise of the ' Literary Souvenir ' began to be less profitable, — a condition of things which may perhaps be safely dated back to the day when its publishers were content to resign it into his own hands, — debt was more likelv to accumulate than diminish. The ex- penses of one year's enterprise would possibly be left to be defrayed from the profits, gradually diminishing, of that of the year following ; so that when the work ceased alto- gether there would be a balance against him, without funds for meeting it. These difficulties he would doubtless seek to encounter, as they arose from time to time, from such resources, and by recourse to such expedients, as might chance to be available. But. thouo;h debt, like other enemies, is most successfully dealt with in detail, it must alw^ays, to that end, be first reconnoitred en masse; and to this a man in embarrassment is not readily brought to AN EVIL DREAM, 241 reconcile himself. The greater lessons of life are usually learnt in catastrophes from which, if we would only believe the lessons of an- tececlent circumstance, we might be pre- served. That we are saved by belief is a practical fact, and not merely a theological dogma. How long my father might have continued to skirmish with his difficulties I cannot con- jecture. Fortunately, perhaps, his attention was suddenly arrested to them, as a w^hole, by the incident of his being one morning; arrested himself on the threshold of his beautiful home, at the suit of a paper-maker. Goaded by circumstance into self-examina- tion, my father proceeded now to give his affairs a tardy attention, and having satisfied himself, or persuaded himself that he had so done, that £1,500 would set him straight with the world, he proposed to his creditors to pay them that sum, in satisfaction of their claims, by annual payments of £500, insuring his life for £1,500 as a security. This proposal was readily accepted. His debts were, for the most part, to persons who had largely benefited by their VOL. 11. 38 242 ALARIC WATTS. transactions with him, and none were unfriendly. His own solicitor, who was also the solicitor to the Capitalist, or one of them, — he had, indeed, made them acquainted, — prepared the deed ; the latter was the principal trustee. His pecuni- ary circumstances had opportunely improved by the renewal of his connection with the Standard newspaper, as adlatus to his friend Dr. Giffard, the then editor ; and his income from this and other sources, and the editor- ship of the United Service Gazette, amounted to at least £1,000 a year, a considerable income for a literary man of that day. With patience and prudence, peace, and even pros- perity, seemed yet attainable. The first of the three years wore on, and by the 31st December, 1841, the first annual pay- ment of £500 had been duly made, and a policy of insurance for £1,000, to secure the balance, had been effected and handed over to the trustees. It remained only now to divide the money, and to this end alone was w\anting the particulars of the claim of the Capitalist. Some months passed, and the deed w^as exhibited to my father with the amount claimed by this CLOUDS COLLECT. 243 personage set down in ^pencil, tentatively as it might seem, at something over £3,000. This claim upon his estate my father indig- nantly repudiated, probably not without some superfluous heat of language. He had never, he averred, received from this gentleman any moneys which, upon any possible computation, could amount to any such sum. That some advances had been made on his account he was prepared to admit. These advances had been disbursed through the ' mutual friend,' — the solicitor for both parties, — in paying, not press- ing creditors, but creditors holding valuable securities in works of art^ and in taking up such securities. These, he claimed, had to be accounted for. Moreover, there was a set-oif on his side of services rendered in the estab- lishment of the various newspapers before re- ferred to, for which he had never received a farthing of remuneration, and in respect of which alone, as he alleged, were any advances made to him or on his account. Between claims and averments so contradic- tory, advanced by persons beginning to feel embittered one against the other, and both 38—2 244 ALARIC WATTS. men of strong will, tliere seemed little mean for agreement. No doubt, if only temper could be eliminated and a simple desire on both sides for what was right assured, an accountant, with the aid of a gentle- man from Christies', might speedily have brought things to a settlement. Such, how- ever was not to be. The Capitalist responded to my father's objections to his claim in a highly practical spirit, by seizing control of the partnership property, the United Service Gazette, by a coup de main, leaving his partner to his remedy in the Court of Chancery ; while at the same moment, the friendly solicitor, who had his election to make between his two clients, threw in his lot, like a prudent man, with that of the most powerful, and commenced an action for his own bill, challenging the deed which he had himself drawn and executed on the ground that the insurance provided by it to be effected by way of collateral security had been taken out for £1,000 instead of £1,500. My father, in whom resolution and stomach for fight were never lacking, joined issue with both his antagonists^ challenging, in his turn. IN CHANCERY. 245 the account of the Capitalist, to qualify himself for which he had to purchase, in the name of a friend, some of his own debts ; and carrying the attorney from Court to Court until the Lord Chancellor of the day, Lord Cottenham, relieved him from further contention by a judgment in his favour, the terms of which, as they affected his former confidential adviser, and then antagonist, I have no desire now to revive. It is rig;ht to state that until this dis- pute my father had never had the smallest difi^erence either with the man of wealth or the solicitor, who had acted for him in entire har- mony, in so far as he knew or suspected, up to that time. Into the details of these lawsuits, extend- ing over and wasting the energies and resources of some seven years, I have little heart to enter ; nor could I render a record of them of the smallest interest or utility to any human being. They resolve themselves practically into a nightmare,— a shifting picture, as it were, of painful and profitless vicissitude ; of alternate expectation and disappointment ; of 24G ALAEIC WATTS. endless iteration and reiteration ; of delay and postponement, (for everybody's convenience ex- cept that of the parties concerned) ; of wearing suspense and realization without result; of reverses that seemed to do no mischief, and of triumphs which seemed to do no good. Nor was there lacking in this nightmare that strange characteristic of all dreams in which reasoning the most illogical presents to the mind no difficulty ; and conclusions and combinations the most inconsequent and in- harmonious suggest to the distempered eye, fevered by fantasy,. no logical incoherence or in- herent incongruities. My father possessed, in the ordinary affairs of life, excellent sense and quick discernment ; his solicitor in this lawsuit, the late Mr. Michael Smith, of the firm of Bailey, Shaw and Smith, of 5, Berners Street, w^as highly experienced, and an acute as well as upright adviser. His immediate friends, of whom I must make grateful mention of the late Mr. Charles and Mr. Edward Baldwin, the then proprietor of the Standard, were clear-headed men of business. Nevertheless, there is no intelligent reader of this narrative HER SHARE, 247 who will not have anticipated the result to which they were blind. At that time, I can recall only one person who possessed the saga- city to perceive that my father was creeping to ruin, as surely as a snail in a waggon -rut, and that was, — his wife. For her had been reserved in this drama the part which belongs to woman in so much of the tragedy of life, — that of the chorus, with an addition which it did not suggest itself to the Greek dramatist to assign to it. It was for her, not alone to anticipate what she was powerless to arrest, but also to sustain a share of burdens which she had in no way contributed to cumulate. To wail warn- ingly at TTttTraJ, iraTToi ; but also to suffer con- sequences which her warnings might have averted. Surely the saddest feature of all human unwisdom, is the sorrow in which it involves the wise and the innocent. And yet, I scarcely know wherefore I permit myself to cast blame on my father for his action in these affairs. ^ I was obliged,' he might truly have said with the Chancery suitor in Dickens's masterly romance on this 248 ALARIC WATTS. subject, ^ to go into this accursed Chancery. I was forced there because the law forced me, and would not let me go anywhere else.' Into the Court of Chancery the law had driven him, and I am now broadly to indicate how he fared there. How he sought Justice, and found her fitfully, the presentment of her there being, very largely, a phantom or illusory appearance ; how Equity declined to have anything to do with him until she had remitted him to Law, to have issues tried thereby which it was not her august function to determine ; how Law, modestly incom- petent to deal finally with anything, after much cutting of chaff, sent him back again to Equity, may be adequately realized by those who have suffered from these pedantries, but can only be understood, if understood in any quarter, by the priests of such mysteries. In furtherance of these and cognate futilities, — ' proceedings ' falsely called, seeing that they proceeded nowhere, gyrating only in a vicious circle of fantasy, — my father found himself compelled from time to time to divest himself of all the beautiful possessions which he had DISPERSALS. 249 taken such delight in accumulating. His pic- tures and other artistic valuables found their way to Christies', — that inevitable bourn of so much tasteful self-indulgence. His books dis- persed themselves to the winds in a five days' sale at Puttick and Simpson's, It was all in vain ! Vainly he expended possessions how really more precious than these, and impossible to reacquire, — time, health, energy of life, with which Providence had so richly endowed him ; peace of mind and the repose of home, which he prized so dearly and was gifted with such capacity to enjoy. All in vain ! Vainly he fulfilled the engagements which he had con- tracted with his creditors, paying over from year to year, until all was satisfied, the sums which he had engaged to pay ! In vain, shunning delights and living laborious days, he worked and waited ! How long this condition of things might have lasted, — it continued seven years, prac- tically advancing matters in no respect, — would, if no fateful interposition had arisen, have depended, we may assume, upon the quantity of Equity capable of being purchased for the 250 ALARIC WATTS. amount of moneys in Court. Fortunately for everybody concerned, — except the solicitors, — my father's private affairs, much confused and conglomerated in and by all these mystifica- tions, collapsed altogether. He and Justice shook hands at length, by the wholly unlooked- for contingency of a creditor of that auspicious name, — Mr. Justice, an attorney, — not in sympathy with the sluggish processes of Equity, intervening with some proceedings of a more summary and effectual character on his own account, and precipitating my father into the only Court capable apparently of adjusting his affairs, — the Court of Bankruptcy. Thence emerging, endowed by way of viaticum with a certificate of the first-class, and kindly expres- sions of respect and sympathy from a presiding judge, he recommenced life, denuded of every- thing, and in that respect very much in the condition in which he had originally entered it, but happily restored to a waking condition out of a dreary dream. Having given my own epitome of this wearisome season of my father's life, I will venture to close it with his own. The A UTOBIOGRAPIIICAL, 251 following stanzas are selected from a poem, written by him at the close of this period. ' Evil days have overtaken With their storm-charged clouds my way, And my soul, till now unshaken, Shrinks within its coil of clay. Even the Muse, invoked not often, Save to soothe the spirit's wrong, — Pride to tame, or grief to soften, — Half withholds the power of song. ' Stormy skies are lowering o'er me, Raging billows gird me round. And the gloom that spreads before me Grows but more and more profound ; Not a beacon-light is left me To my distant port a clue. Fate at one fell swoop hath reft me Of my chart and compass too. % % % % "^ "^ -^ ' Like a gallant ship succumbing. That no more obeys her helm. Bide I now the tenth wave coming With its mandate to overwhelm ; O'er my hopes a clean breach making. Sweeps that flood of wrack and wrong ; Rending stays and bulwarks breaking Which I once believed so strong. ' Once of old my glad way winning. Youth and Hope both led me on ; Now once more the world beginning, Hope and Youth alike are gone ; 252 ALARIC WATTS. Sad experiencGj bought how dearly, Cruel, seldom to be kind ; Like the stern-light shows too clearly But the track we leave behind.^ ^ Friends with whom in youth I started On life's first adventurous way, Once so warm and genial hearted, One by one have dropped away ! Some, earth's vain turmoil exchanging For the land that knows no wrong ; Others, Fortune^s smiles estranging. From the weak, when they grew strong ! /T 7r ^ 7p 7p Tp 7P ^Many aj-ear ambition dulling, Irksome labour claimed my pen. At the oar incessant pulling ^Mid the stir and strife of men ! From more calm pursuits diverted, To a task I plied in vain, Tastes abandoned, haunts deserted, Which though late I seek again. ^ Long Fate's adverse current cleavinsr With a bold and sturdy stroke. Hoping still, and still believing, Did I bear that galling yoke ! Day and night not seldom toiling. Wanting that which sweetens toil ; Life of half its joys despoiling. Bartering peace for wild turmoil. ' Manhood's vigorous prime exhausted. All the flowering years of life ; Health impaired, acquirements wasted In that long and fruitless strife ; * ' To most men Experience is like the stern-lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed.'— Coleridge. HOPE, 253 Just as Fortune's tide was turning, And my respite all but won ; For the hard-earned haven yearning, But for others' sakes alone ; ' Lawless Rapine hundred-handed, Sordid, cunning, bold and strong. With her base familiars banded, Falsehood, Fraud, Revenge and Wrong, Of that poor reward bereft me. Swept my household gods away ; Ravaged even my hearth and left me, Save in heaven, no single stay. ' But the great and just Redresser — Who may 'scape unscathed His frown ! — Who can strike the rich oppressor In his rampant triumph down. May vouchsafe me His protection, Sweeten even this bitter cup ; And from profitless dejection Lift my trampled spirit up !' CHAPTER XIX. DAY BREAKS. In the thick of these perplexities, my father's publishers, Messrs. Longmans, who had ex- pended large sums on the illustrated edition of his poems which had been advertised but not actually completed for publication for many years, and were naturally desirous to realize, became rather pressing on the subject of its publication. Being publishers and not poets, they could scarcely perhaps be expected to comprehend why a man who can write poetry at all, should not be able to write it as well at one time as another ; or to possess more than a qualified solicitude as to whether what was written, so that the work were completed, should be of DAYBREAKS. 255 adequate excellence to fulfil the requirements of a taste more fastidious than their own. In this view, their clerk in charge of the poetical department, or whatsoever more im- portant branch of their establishment included the lighter arts, waited upon him, finally giving it up as a bad job, from time to time for ' copy.' Their principal clerk, Mr. Hunts- man, a name of excessively ill omen under the circumstances, suggested to him again and again, in the clerkliest caligraphy, every con- sideration which his practical experience could devise as likely to arouse and stimulate the sluggish Muse. The proximity of a season unusually promising in the book-trade ; the close of the season as afi^ording a brief interval for final revision and completion ; the serious consequences to ultimate profits of accruing interest. These considerations proving unavailing, the principal partner appeared upon the scene with the hint of an action for specific performance. It was all useless. The spirit of poetry had departed, and was not to be won back by such wooings as these. 256 ALAEIC WATTS. Suddenly, the inspiration lacking in the poet developed in the publisher, — and with the happiest results. ' You will recollect, my dear sir/ writes the late Mr. Thomas Longman, 22nd January, 1848, 'the fable of the old man who having tried smooth words to get the boys out of his apple-tree, tried the virtue of stones.' Let me reverse the process, and, having alluded to law, beg your accept- ance of a box of what I believe you will find to be really fine cigars. AVill you not let Exfumo dare liicem be your motto V Here are some extracts from the poet's answer, the first verses he had written for years. ^ Last evening by my fireside seated Watching a vagrant spark ascending, Just as in sadness Td repeated, '' How much this vile world wants amending f When all my feelings seemed to jar, And nought to concord could reduce 'em, I wished Td but a good cigar Exfumo dare lucem, ' When, — being averse to single knocks, — I heard a loud one with a frown, Till Betsy entered with a box From Messrs. Longmans, Green and Brown, Brimful of most delicious weeds, (What makes my good wife so abuse 'em), In this the moment of my needs, Exfumo dare lucem. SMOKE AND LIGHT, 257 'With every whiff my bosom's stirred, My soul is lapped in Lydian airs, And buoyant as a new-fledged bird I more than half forget my cares ; And Fancy plumes her ruffled wing, And crotchets lively, — pray excuse 'em, — Each inspiration seems to bring Ex fumo dare hicem. ' A truant from Aonian bowers, I've wandered long with labour vain ; With withered hopes and wasted powers I seek those much-loved haunts again. But, — bitter recollections crowd Upon my brain, so, to diffuse 'em, I think rU blow another cloud. Ex fumo dare lucem, ^ Lo ! as the graceful wreath ascends. What visions rise of long ago, When Poets were my cherished friends And all my hopes were in '' the Kow," Of lettered dinners, lacking now The feast of wit, — the flow of wine, Each evening when I used to show ^ At six, at number thirty-nine. ' I see them still — a jovial band, The worthy chef and partners four. Each with a bard on either hand, Coleridge and Campbell, Crabbe and Moore. Small wits would lower down adjoin, And help the side and corner dishes, While Rees would carve the huge sirloin. Brown help the soup, and Green the fishes. ' And Orme, — round oily man of fun. Whose jests w^ould cure perversest vapours, — In the '' glass case ^' till set of sun Would rub his hands and read the papers ; VOL. II. 39 258 ALARIC WATTS. For bards who'd always bows gradated As much or little sold the Poem, And, when they'd been by critics slated, Had always the review to show 'em. ' The talk that seasoned such nights' sitting Did I record I'd surely mar it, To clothe it now in language fitting Would need Moore's wit and Longman's claret ; But, charmed, as when the angel ended, Leaving his voice in Adam's ear, I seem, in heart and spirit mended. These sportive sallies still to hear. •^ % ii- % % -^ % ^ Lo ! now my third cigar is smoked, And sure 'tis time my song were ended, For since my Muse I first invoked I half believe the world is mended — At least amended 'tis to me. For past shortcomings, pray excuse 'em ; There's fire they say where smoke we see — Ex f unto dare lucem,^ From this time the spirit of poetry began gradually to reawaken in him. At Christmas, 1850, was published the collective edition of his poems, ' Lyrics of the Heart and other poems, with forty engrav- ings on steel.' It had a laro-e sale in Eng- land and America, and has now been for many years out of print, ^y CHAPTER XX. ' LYRICS OF THE HEART, AND OTHER POEMS / In my remarks on the poetry of sentiment and taste, I reserved one of its essential character- istics for reference later. This was its personal character. It was the poetry of experience rather than the poetry of imagination. In this respect it has a certain affinity with pre-Raphaelite art, owing its origin to the weariness in the public mind^ of the vague- ness of abstract personations, and a desire for simple truth. It had its defects in the temptation wdiicli it afforded the writer to delineate himself, rather as he might desire to appear, than as he actually was, and to introduce into poetry an artificiality more real than that from which it had emancipated itself ; but in its essential qualities, apart 39—2 260 ALARIC WATTS. from these accidental accretions, it was emi- nently purifying and invigorating. ' The objections/ my father observes, in his pre- face to the collective edition of his poems of which I am now to speak, ' which have been m;ged against poetry of a purely personal character, have been answered by an abler pen than mine. '' Egotism/' says Coleridge, '' is only to be condemned when it offends against time and place, as in a history or an epic poem. To censure it in a monody or a sonnet, is almost as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. ... If I should judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm that the most interesting passages in our most interesting poems are those in which the author develops his own feelings.'' ' My father's poetry divides itself into three classes, representing pretty accurately the divisions of human life and its experiences in self-acting, healthy natures. In the poems written in the first period, or in happier re- trospective moments in the second, (for states and stages of life overlap each other,) it seeks to express the tender emotions of an ingenuous 'LYRICS OF THE HEART: 261 and sensitive nature, of love in its spring and summer seasons, of youth and younger man- hood, " The voice of love, ere passion deepens it,' and the tender feehno;s arising; in the relations of husband and wife, parent and child. In the second period it pourtrays the sensi- bilities wounded in the turmoil of life, the pangs of mortified pride or disappointed anticipations, the resentments inspired by active enmities or lukewarm friendships, — experiences from which no human life is excused, unless the nature be either a very happy or a very shallow one. The few poems written in the third period indicate that the great lesson of experience has been learned by the writer, and that the inner being has surely entered, or is entering, the region in which resignation and practical trust in Divine Providence are readjusting the burdens and elucidating the problems of life. My father's claims, as respects his poems, he thus defines in his preface to this volume : ' Confined, as for the most part they are, to appeals to the domestic affections, conveyed in lansfuage which addresses itself rather to the 262 ALARIC WATTS. heart than to the head, and asserting no claim to the more exalted attributes of purely ima- ginative poetry, I seek to secure for them no appreciation which can be considered incon- sistent with such pretensions.' ^ Deem it not strange/ he says, in some stanzas in the ^ Envoy ' to this volume, addressed to his wife, — ' Deem it not strange, I should prefer the string That best accords with gentle themes like these, And leave the realms of Fancy's wilder wing To sing of home and home-bred sympathies, Content with few and simple notes to please, And win a poet's meed from hearts like thine, All unambitious prouder wreaths to seize, The Muse's loftier vision I resign. So that her twilight tears and sunset smiles be mine. ' The youthful lover's hopes and fears to tell ; Of childhood's budding bloom and happy death ; Of those high thoughts that bid the soft heart swell When glowing Faith resigns her sainted breath ; To catch the hues from Pity's dew-sprent wreath, And bid them live a moment in my lay ; To mourn some old umbrageous oak beneath O'er joys that wither like the waning day. And wear their loveliest smiles even whilst they fade away. ' Or haply murmuring of some peaceful cot. The home of pleasures pure, pursuits refined. Some quiet nook, some calm sequestered spot, Radiant with triumphs of the heart and mind. Where Poesy and Painting sit enshrined, 'LYRICS OF THE HEART: 263 Where Art and Nature yield their treasures chaste And charm their votaries with their spells combined, Where Genius' self by Truth and Fancy graced Doth not disdain to own the plastic hand of Taste. ' Such are the simple songs I bring thee here, Songs that a few may prize, that all may feel. Records of bliss and woe, of hope and fear, Of lowly lives like tranquil streams that steal, And in their wanderings dark or bright reveal The shade or sunshine of their chequered way ; Such is the offering that with duteous zeal. And love time-hallowed at thy feet I lay, — Where could my votive Muse such well-earned homage pay ? Of my father's poems of early and middle life, specimens liave been already given. The following paraphrases from Scripture, published for the first time in the volume now in question, may serve to indicate that his hand had not lost its cunning as a workman or 'maker/ but had rather gained, in power and simplicity of workmanship, in his later days. KUTH. Intreat me not to leave thee so, Or turn from following thee ; Where'er thou goest I will go, Thy home my home shall be ! 264 ALARIC WATTS. The path thou treadest, hear my vow, By me shall still be trod ; Thy people be my people now ; Thy God shall be my God ! Reft of all else, to thee I cleave, Content if thou art nigh ; Whene'er thou grievest I will grieve, And where thou diest, die ! And may the Lord, Whose hand hath wrought This weight of misery. Afflict me so, and more, if aught But death part thee and me ! HYMN OF TRIUMPH OVER BABYLON. How hath the fierce oppressor fall'n. The Golden City ceased ; The sceptre of his power been broke. The trampled heart released ! The staff the wicked loves to wield, That long hath ruled the land, At length, by an almighty blow, Is shivered in his hand ! And he who, in his wanton wrath, In heaven's and man's despite. His people, with continual stroke, For ever joyed to smite ; HYMN OF TRIUMPH OVER BABYLON. 265 Who ruled them, m his anger stern, With terror's iron rod, Now hes all prostrate 'neath the arm Of an avenging God ! And the whole Earth rejoice th, At length, to be at rest ; The halcyon Peace, long scared away. Once more becomes her guest ; And, in the fulness of their hearts. In their deliverance strong. The gladness of all living things Is breaking forth in song ! Ay, even to her inmost heart, Creation owns the spell ; The fir-trees bow rejoicingly That none come up to fell ; The cedars dark of Lebanon At length have found a voice. And seem, through all their spreading boughs, To murmur forth ' Rejoice !' Hell from beneath is moved for thee, To bid thee welcome there. And stirreth up the dead once more To gaze on thy despair ; The chief ones of the nations' choice. The mighty kings of earth. Are hfted up from their dread thrones To mock thee with their mirth ! 266 ALARIC WATTS. And they shall speak to thee and say, With cold, derisive smile, The pointed finger of their scorn. Slow-moving all the while ; Art thou, stupendous in thy guilt. Thus weak and powerless grown ; Where is the sceptre of thy rule. And where thy vaunted throne ! Thy pomp is brought down to the grave ; Voices that hymned thy fame, Have died into an echo. Or but breathe another's name ; — Thy festal banquets all are o'er. And o'er thy prostrate form. Insatiate Death hath spread his board. The reveller the worm ! Son of the Morning, Lucifer ! How hast thou ceased from heaven ; A star so bright, at dawn of day. To be extinct at even ! Thou, who didst strive, with impious pride, God's throne above to climb. From that empyrean height to fall. With ruin more sublime ! Oh, who can look upon thee now. Nor ask is this the man Who made the mightiest kingdoms quake. The trembling earth groAV wan ; HYMN OF TRIUMPn OVER BABYLON. 267 Who o'er her splendid cities passed Like a consuming flame, And of their primal grandeur left No record but a name ! The kings of all the nations In their tombs of glory lie, Whilst thou art from thy grave cast out, The scorn of every eye ! Despised, abandoned of the world, The passer-by to greet. Like the corse of one untimely slain, And trodden under feet ! Thou shalt not share their burial-place. Nor join in their renown, Because thou hast destroyed the land, And struck thy people down : For this iniquity a curse Shall to thy children cling, Far sharper than the serpent's tooth, Or Death's envenomed sting ! The seed of evil-doers Shall ne'er possess the land ; Nor fill the world with cities, But shall drop away like sand ; Never again to reunite. In strength to be as one ; The name, the remnant, and the race, Forgot, — like Babylon ! 268 ALARIC WATTS. The permanent value of every form of poetry depends upon the spirit within it. While desiring to claim for my father's verse no more than he claimed for it himself, — though more may, I think, be claimed for it, — I may permit myself a word of protest against the spirit in which the poetry of that class and age has been estimated by some modern critics. It is surely matter for regret that in an age in which large and catholic views of great subjects are in every direction recognised to be needful and sought to be enforced, in which mind everywhere is claiming to liberate itself from all narrowing superstitions, the canons of poetical criticism should be rather contracting than expanding, until the honoured name of poetry is being denied by some of those who claim to lead thought in this direction, to all metrical composition that does not fall within one or two classes and categories of the divine art which happen to respond to the popular senti- ment of the moment. Such criticism, however, is the criticism of the hour, and not of the day ; the poetical theology of the priest, and not of the seer. It ' THE poet: 269 belongs to the ' eiclolatiy of the den/ not to the healthy worship of the sunlight. He may, I venture to affirm, be regarded as entitled to the honourable designation of a poet, who, by the harmonious and rhythmical employment of language, has awakened or quickened the sensibilities of an age, or deve- loped its human sympathies ; who has given voice, and therefore relief, to the complaints of its unrest, a language to any of the many tender varieties of its emotions ; who has dared to express himself that others might no longer be ashamed of feelings which they had not possessed the courage to avow, or the nice discrimination to formulate ; who has thus o-iven eyes to the blind and articulate expres- sion to the dumb ; and whose heart, if I may be permitted the analogy, has been pierced that * the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.' CHAPTER XXL LATER DAYS. The biographer labours under this disadvantage as compared with the novelist, that in his work the interest usually culminates in the middle of the book, instead of at the end. The later years of the lives of most men are mainly of value to themselves. In the interval of twelve years which elapsed between the cessation of the 'Cabinet of Modern Art ' and my father's more direct association with art and literature in 1837, and his emanci- pation from his Chancery suit troubles in 1850, a great change had come over the public taste as respects both. The poetry of sentiment and experience had succumbed to the poetry of imagination and intellect ; and the pre- Raphaelite movement was giving new forms, LATER DAYS. 271 as a preliminary to the manifestation of a new spirit, to the science of Art. With neither of these changes could my father readily bring himself into harmony. He loved the definite in poetry and the indefinite in art. The new order reversed these charac- teristics, and with it he was not in sym- pathy. His nature was too self-contained to be able to recognise with readiness new aspects of things unacceptable to a standard already formulated ; for mind, while it develops what it already possesses, best by independence, can only progress, in connection with, and, in some sort, subordination to, the minds of others. He felt that, for practical purposes, outside him- self, his work was done, — and he was right. Nevertheless, during the next dozen years he did a considerable amount of that descrip- tion of literary labour, useful, but involving no particular individuality, always open to men of literary experience and reputation willing to engage in it, which his varied read- ing and industry and knowledge of his craft rendered both easy and agreeable to him. The only work of this description of interest to 272 ALARIC WATTS. particularize was a biographical sketch of the life of Turner, prefixed to a collection of en- gravings from plates originally published in the ' Landscape Annual/ reissued by Mr. Bohn under the ingenious title of ' Liber Fluviorum.' Upon this work^ as admirably illustrating ' The power of art without the show/ I would willingly stake his reputation as a master of manly, vigorous, unaffected English prose composition. In the year 1853 his kind friend Lord Ellesmere gave him timely notice of the ap- proaching retirement, from the secretaryship to the Trustees of the National Gallery^ of General Thwaites^ and proposed to him to offer himself for the post, promising to do all that might lie in his power to ensure his success. He was known personally to others of the trustees, and probably by reputation to all ; and had the situation remained upon the foot- ing on which it had been held by General Thwaites, it is likely that he might have ob- tained it. It having, however, been deter- mined to reorganize the constitution of the LA TER DA YS. 273 National Gallery, its administration by trustees was abolished, and General Thwaites' place was not filled up. At different times, Lord Derby at the Treasury, Lord Clarendon at the Foreign Office, and Lord Lytton during his brief ad- ministration of the Colonial Office, responded kindly and encouragingly to the expression of his desire for employment ; but posts suit- able for him were not numerous, and, for such as there were, candidates were not likely to be few. An opportunity for public employment, of a more modest description than those to which these efforts were directed, happened to arise at this time in the public office with which his son was connected. Some hesita- tion w^as felt in proposing it to him. He had occupied a position before the public suf- ficiently prominent to render his acceptance of such an employment an admission of failure in life, which no man likes to make. But my father had, in his nature, real dignity, and his pride, to do him justice, was of the true and not the false description. He accepted the proposal, when made to him by his son, VOL. II. 40 274 ALARIC WATTS. without hesitation, and found himself, after an interval of forty years, once more practically a temporary clerk in a public office. About the same time he was advised by some of his friends to allow an application to be made on his behalf to the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, to recommend him to the Queen for a pension on the Civil List. He had entertained always a strong opinion of the indelicacy and unseemliness of those memorials and testimonials, to which persons of any eminence in literature, science, and art are so frequently invited to give the su^^port of their signatures by persons seeking to obtain these pensions ; and had had more than once to excuse himself from affixing his signature to such representations, on the plea that he had no title to intrude his advice upon the Minister on such a matter. While he shrank, therefore, altogether from permitting himself to be made the subject of any such experiment, however kindly intentioned, he felt quite at liberty himself to place before Lord Aberdeen a state- ment of the grounds on which he permitted himself to hope that he might be regarded as CIVIL LIST PENSION. 275 eligible, at all events, for sucli a mark of Royal favour, and there to leave it. This application was favourably received, and on the 7th January, 1854, he was honoured by the receipt from Lord Aberdeen of a warrant under the Eoyal sign-manual^ conferring upon him, * in consideration of his services to litera- ture and art,' a pension of one hundred pounds a year. Some misapprehension appears to exist in the public mind as to the nature and quality of pensions on the Civil List. It appears to be sometimes regarded as a fund for the ad- vantage exclusively of literary persons, and sometimes even as a compassionate fund. It is neither the one nor the other. It is simply the Pension Fund of the Country, out of which is provided those rewards to persons who, to employ the language of Parliament in regard to them, ' have merited the gratitude of their country,' which were formerly granted by the grace and favour, and at the sole discretion, without Ministerial responsibility, of the Sovereign individually. It may well be be- lieved that under such circumstances these 40—2 276 ALARIC WATTS. rewards will have sometimes been capriciously bestowed, rather with reference to the tastes and sympathies of the Monarch, or the neces- sities of a favom^ite Minister, than to the claims for actual public services of the beneficiary. In 1834 the House of Commons passed a resolution ' that it is the duty of the respon- sible advisers of the Crown to recommend to his Majesty, for grants of pensions, such per- sons only as have just claims on the Royal beneficence, or who, by their personal services to the Crown, by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science or attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country/ This definition of the State pensioner of the future was formulated into law by the Act of 1837 (1 and 2 Vict.^ c. 2) which empowered the Crown to grant in pensions, to persons fall- ing within any of the classes above prescribed, a sum not exceeding £1200 a year, in each year. A return of pensions so granted in the preceding twelve months, with a statement of A REVIVAL. 277 the grounds for the grant in each case, is annually laid before Parliament. To return to my narrative. His simple personal requirements provided for ; with occupations that afforded him leisure for literary studies and pursuits ; and sur- rounded by his family — my father began to enjoy at length the repose of spirit and peace of mind he so much needed. The necessity for daily attendance, during fixed hours, gave a healthy stimulus and direction to a sense of duty always strong in him, and followed very directly when clearly perceived. He attended with regularity, and transacted the business devolving upon him with cheerfulness and good humour ; and the favourable effect of a regular occupation without care, if without much to interest, was soon apparent in the im- provement which took place in his general health and spirits. Slowly, but assuredly, his interest began to revive in the poetical studies and pursuits of his earlier years. He had always, even in his most anxious times, interested himself in the current literature of the day, and had derived 278 ALARIC WATTS. from it that distraction from tlie anxieties of the outer life which is one of the most useful effects of its ministrations. But, for poetry, whether of others or of his own production, he had seemed, while the cares and contentions of his later middle life w^ere weighing him dow^n or had left their shadow upon him, to have lost all zest and even interest in it. Poetry requires, in order to be enjoyed, either the enthusiasm and love of the new which are the happy endowments of youth and younger manhood, or the calmness and freedom from the oppression of outer things w^hich are among the compensations of age. It is the interme- diate period of perturbation without enthusiasm, of activity without enjoyment, that is inimical to poetry. Now, under the happier influences of pre- vailing peace and renovated health, he re- verted to his early pursuits and interests. He re-read with care and delight the great master- poets, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Dryden especially, and his copies of these and other poets are fi.lled with marginal notes and refer- ences made in these years, indicating the en- A NEW CYCLE, 279 joyment, and industry stimulated by it, with which he had renewed, with all the experience and matured judgment of age, the delightful studies of his youth. It was as though he were commencing a new cycle of life on parallel lines with the old, but on a higher, calmer plane, and out of the currents which perturb and distract the mind, and the contentions with which it is the duty and needful exercise of earlier life to discipline and fit itself for the serene exercises of age. J On his son's marriage, in 1859, with the elder daughter of his friends William and Mary Howitt, he gave up his residence in St. John s Wood, and somewhat later took a house in Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, where he resided till his decease in the year 1864. CHAPTER XXII. RETROSPECTS. ' WALKING STEWART.' In these later days, my father s thoughts turned much, as do the latter-day thoughts of most persons, to the friends and acquaintances of his early and middle life ; and he began to gather together his reminiscences of the many interesting persons whom he had known, with a view to an autobiography. Some of his notes I have already utilized ; one or two, more per- fected than the others, I have reserved for this place in my narrative^ as illustrating the tone and spirit of his mind at this season, as well as affording information concerning some curious persons. ' While residing with the Ruspinis, in Pall Mall/ he writes, ' I made the acquaintance of " Walking Stewart," or, as he was sometimes ' WALKING STEWART: 281 designated^ '' Philosopher Stewart/' and visited him frequently at his residence in Cockspur Street. ' This gentleman, who was of an old Scotch family, had entered, early in life, the service of the East India Company. Disappointed of the rapid advancement upon which a sanguine and perhaps somewhat restless tem- perament had led him to calculate, he quitted this employment and embarked in the service of Hyder Ali, by whom he was employed in a military capacity, and advanced to the rank of a general officer. The skill and energy which he displayed, and his great power of exercising influence over the minds of others, inspired after a while the jealousy of his Asiatic rivals and the suspicions of the despot, and obliged him to take french leave of the Court of Hyderabad, and seek service elsewhere. This he soon found with the Nabob of Arcot, by whom he was employed in a civil capacity, and finally as Prime Minister. He saved in this service the modest sum of £3,000, which he invested in an annuity and came home. On his way he traversed a great part of Persia / / y 282 ALARIC WATTS. and Turkey on foot. In crossing the Persian Gulf, in a Mohammedan vessel, a storm arose, which the crew attributed to the Giaour, and, after consultation, decided on heaving him overboard. With some difficulty he persuaded them to modify this resolution, and to com- promise matters by immuring him in a hen- coop and suspending him at the main-yard till the storm abated. He travelled not only in the East and in Europe, but also in America, chiefly on foot ; and much it is to be regretted / that he could never be induced to record his adventures for publication. ' He was, however, less reticent in the promulgation of his philosophy, which he developed in a number of volumes, the titles of some of which were as extraordinary as the doctrines which they were designed to enunciate and popularize. Though eminently shrewd and sensible in the practical affairs of life, he was perfectly wild when he began to converse on religious topics. His theory seemed to involve the rejection not only of revealed but also of natural religion truly so called. Kind-hearted and benevolent in ,.4 ' WALKING STEWART.' 283 the highest degree, it was his whim to ascribe his sympathies for his race to feelings of mere selfishness. He supposed that there was a continual transmutation of constituent atoms between all bodies brought within the sphere of reciprocal influence, and that the process was regular and invariable. He denied that there was any manifestation of intelligence in the structure of the globe or of the bodies on its surface, and disclaimed wholly any belief in the existence of a superintending deity. His motive to virtue, independently of a regard to the moral fitness of things, seems to have been derived from the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls which he had probably imbibed in India. ' On his return from his travels, Mr. Stewart invested the bulk of his property in the French funds ; but the French Eevolution occurring shortly afterwards, it was entirely absorbed, and he was left in a state of comparative in- digence. After the '' Peace of Amiens " he accepted the compromise ofl^ered to the English creditors by the French Government, and com- muted his claims into an annuity of £100. 284 ALARIC WATTS. Other claims, however, of an apparently much less originally promising character were now to restore his fortunes. Conversing one evening with a fellow-lodger, — in the house in which he dwelt, in a single apartment, — who happened to be a solicitor's clerk, he was led to mention the services which he had rendered to the Nabob of Arcot, and some claims, substantiated by a voluminous mass of papers which he held against that impecunious potentate, whose affairs had just then been taken in hand by the East India Company. This conversation resulted in the sale by him of those claims to the employers of his fellow-lodger, an eminent firm, for no less a sum than £10,000. ' With this sum he purchased an annuity of £1,000, and removed to a more commodious residence in the house of a widow lady, who, with a son just articled to a solicitor, and a daughter of some seventeen years of age, had taken a house in Cockspur Street for the pur- pose of letting lodgings. It was indeed a fortunate event for this amiable family that our benevolent philosopher should have been led to take up his abode amongst them. His ' WALKING STEWART: 285 first step, after furnishing his apartments handsomely and even magnificently, was to provide the best masters for the young lady, who became, under his auspices, a highly accomplished person. He commenced about this time a series of private concerts on Sunday and Tuesday evenings, at which he secured the assistance of the best performers, for the enjoyment of himself and his friends. The refreshments provided were of the best description, and limited only in kind, viz., bread, butter, cheese, and ale, of every variety. Scotch bread, French bread, German bread, brown bread, fancy bread, home-made bread, and as many descriptions of cheeses and ales, were to be found on his hospitable table in profusion. 'An ascetic himself, he would sit in a far corner of the room, now courting the opinion of some gow^met on some novel impor- tation, some new specimen of his eatables and drinkables ; now encouraging, in simple kindly fashion, some less exacting friend or modest stranger. '' That Stilton," I hear him say, '' ought to be good, for our friend Watts 286 ALARIC WATTS. went with me to choose it. Dodds, my dear fellow, let us have some of the Kennet ale : it is four years old. These are some milk-rolls, madam, and here are Lemanns biscuits. I offer you but a limited bill of fare, but you are welcome ; and I endeavour to get the best of everything of its kind." On opera nights the board was always spread for the interval between the opera and the ballet, and his habitues would flock in to taste his old October and ripe Stilton. On these occasions the house was a sort of Liberty Hall. He disliked cere- mony and leave-taking, so that his guests were expected to come and go as they pleased. ' One of his most cherished friends was Eobert Owen of New Lanark, who was always wel- comed with great cordiality, and was a general favourite with the younger guests. His manners exhibited the beau ideal of bonhomie, genial to all, and, to the young, most kind and paternal. Another frequent guest was an old Kepublican named Bailey, who had been con- fined in the Temple at Paris with Pichegru. He had met Wordsworth in Paris, and having i [ warned him that his connection with the WALKING STEWART: 287 '^ Mountain " rendered his situation there at that time perilous, the poet^ he said, decamped with great precipitation. ' Another visitor was the Eev. Charles Caleb Colton, the author of '' Lacon ; or. Many s^ Things in a Few Words ;" and it was at one of these conversazioni that I made the acquaintance of that remarkable man, who is, however, too interesting and individual a personage to be introduced at the close of a chapter/ / CHAPTER XXIIL EETEOSPECTS. — REV. CHARLES CALEB COLTOIST, THE AUTHOR OF ' LACON.' ' It was in the year 1816/ my father continues, ' that I made the acquaintance, at one of Mr. Stewart's soirees, of Colton, the author of ^'Lacon ; or, Many Things in a Few Words/' a work which enjoyed great popularity in its day, and indeed long after, for it has been often re- I j printed, and will continue a favourite with ^"^*^ / ' P^^sons of literary discrimination, so long as forceful thoughts, expressed in brilliant and epigrammatic language, shall retain their value amongst us. ' I well remember the occasion on which the venerable philosopher introduced me to a military-looking gentleman, whom he described as Mr. C. C. Colton, author of a remarkably clever work (this was '^ Lacon," as yet unpub- RETROSPECTS. 289 lisliecl), portions of which he had read with much interest. ' Thegentleman to whom I was presented I n-^ ^^^''^'^ felt at once to be no ordinary man. His keen, • ryy cold grey eye was occasionally overshadowed^,^^,^' ^j by a corrugation of the brow, almost amount- , .^^ ing to a scowl, indicative, however, as it ^ seemed to me, less of any absolute severity of disposition than of habitual intensity of thought, a view in which I was confirmed when I knew him better. His complexion was saturnine, and of unvarying paleness. Even when excited by his recitations of passages from some of his finest poems, his face ex- hibited no trace of increased animation. Indeed, I never saw features so perfectly im- passive ; it seemed as though nothing could discompose them. His nose was hooked, like the beak of a bird ; his cheek-bones higlr and prominent. His mouth was singularly variable in expression, although the satirical element predominated. His forehead was by no means remarkable, either for its expansive- ness or phrenological beauty. It wanted, if I remember aright, both breadth and height. VOL. II. 41 290 ALARIC WATTS. His eye was cold and crafty, and the thickness of his lips seemed to denote sensuousness and an absence of deep feeling. Its shrewdness of expression was indicative rather of extraor- dinary astuteness than of high mental intelli- gence. His chin was what Lavater would have characterized as an intellectual chin. One of his arms had been shattered by the burst- ing of a fowling-piece. His voice was of great volume and melody, and he read poetry with much effect. His costume was a frock-coat, then seldom worn by clergymen, richly braided, and he wore a black stock. In short, his general appearance had much in it of a military character. ^ The eloquence of Mr. Colton's conversation inspired me with an earnest desire to cultivate his acquaintance, and as our route lay in the same direction, — I was residing at the time in the Belgrave Road, Pimlico^ — we agreed to continue our conversation in walkino; home together. On our separation at a small street at the top of Grosvenor Place, he tendered me his card; (writing on it an address in pencil,) begging that I would breakfast with him on A HASTY CONCLUSION. 291 the following morning. I repaired in due time to the address given, when I was puzzled and surprised to find that the number in the street corresponding with it was a squalid and poverty-stricken-looking marine-store shop, at which old iron, rags, glass bottles, and kitchen- stuff were advertised, for sale and purchase, by a bill in the dirty window. I felt clear that there must be some mistake, and^ after in- quiring fruitlessly at every other house in the street, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Colton had, in fact, been mystifying me ; and returned home breakfastless, not by any means pleased at having been made the object of, as it seemed to me, so very witless a practical joke. ' It was not very long before, at another of Mr. Stewart's soirees, I found myself again in the same room with Mr. Colton, and, while I was debating in what terms I should address him, if at all, he came straight up to me, and began to reproach me, not without asperity, for not having fulfilled my engagement. On my retorting upon him the expression of my surprise that he should have made an appoint- 41— 292 ALARIC WATTS. ment with me at a rag-and-bone shop, when professing to invite me to his residence to breakfast, he laughed very good-humouredly, replying, '' Why, my young friend, it was all right ; that is my castle ! I live there. I composed there the poems you profess so highly to admire ; and if you could have made up your mind to put into your pocket, for once, your supersensitive delicacy, you would have found, I hope, a comfortable breakfast, and I am sure a cordial reception." ' Anxious to atone for my inadvertency, I took an early opportunity of responding to Mr. Colton's renewed civilities ; and having made my way, not without difficulty and dis- taste, through the miscellaneous cliifons which occupied the shop, and up a narrow and dingy staircase, I found myself in an apartment on the first floor, where I was very cordially wel- comed by the poet and philosopher. I can truly say that the most exaggerated description of a Grub Street author's garret would scarcely have been inappropriate as a picture of Mr. Colton's apartment. It contained three chairs, one of which only, Mr. Colton's own easy- A POET AT HOME. 293 chair, well cushioned and comfortable, was fit for service, so that I was fain to take my place upon the window-seat. Mr. Colton was writing at a deal table in an old baize dressing-gown, and employing for inkstand a broken wine- glass. In these and other respects, the room bore all the appearance of having been fur- nished from the shop. ^ With all these disadvantages, its occupant bore the stamp of a gentleman and a man of the world. He had nothing about him, save in externals, of the recluse and the beggar. I was soon at home, and engaged with my host in conversation on the current topics of the day, on all of which, notwithstanding the retirement in which he seemed to live, he appeared to possess the best and latest informa- tion. On every subject on which we conversed, he spoke with fluency and efiect, displaying great judgment and sagacity, much refinement of taste and vigour of mind, and frequently with real fire and eloquence. I was induced by my interest in his conversation, and at his urgent instance, to pass with him a great portion of the day, to which he gave an agree- 294 ALARIC WATTS. able aspect of festivity by concocting a '' hock- cup/' all the needful ingredients of which he seemed to have at hand ; and I remember to this day the perfume of the wine filling the room when the cork was drawn. It was old Johannisberg. ' When Colton quitted the single room, at which I first visited him, at the marine-store shop in Pimlico, he took the second-floor front room of Sparks's office for hiring servants, in Princes Street, Leicester Square. It was a mean apartment, poorly furnished, and a very slight improvement on his old quarters. ' My brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Wilfen, having expressed to me a desire to make the acquaint- ance of the author of '' Lacon/' I took him with me, one fine afternoon, to Princes Street for the purpose. We found a far from " neat-handed Phyllis" preparing the table for the poet's dinner, but were urged by him to remain and take a glass of wine, as we had already dined. I, who knew my man, at once accepted the invitation. The cloth having been laid on a small deal table, the only one in the room, and a jug of Burton ale fetched from Stone's A T DINNER. - 205 in Panton Street, dinner, consisting of a teal, which was danglino; before the fire wlien we entered, was dished; and then there appeared an old woman with a white delf basin, covered with a saucer, nearly filled with young green peas, which must have borne at that time the price in Covent Garden Market of something like half a guinea a pint. A couple of glasses of old hock again, some rusks^ and piece of cheese, made up the dinner. The cloth with- drawn, the fire repaired, and the hearth swept into something bearing the semblance of com- fort, we drew our chairs round the fire, and I awaited with some curiosity the next scene of the drama, in which we were to participate. Rising from his armchair, Mr. Colton un- locked a large deep drawer at the bottom of a turn-up bedstead, and, rummaging amongst a quantity of sawdust, disinterred three bottles — a bottle of port, a bottle of claret, and a bottle of hock, — his favourite wine. Three odd wine-glasses, and as many half-pint tumblers, were produced. The wine was drawn, the corks handed round, and we set to work at our symposium. 29G ALARIC WATTS. ' An admirable raconteur , Colton poured forth in rich volume the stores of his highly culti- vated mind, seasoning judicious criticism with apt anecdote, and varying quotations of poetry with pun and jest, combining all with an affluence of illustration and a readiness of application which I have never heard excelled, unless in the conversation of Mr. Beckford. Now reading, in a full sonorous voice, some of the finest passages and finest similes of English poetry — not forgetting his own simile of the n/ '' Conder of Cotopaxo," of which he was very proud — and now perusing to us some unpub- lished Laconism or epigram, or criticism of his own writing ; the bottles circulating all the time with hospitable alacrity. In the course of conversation Colton spoke, with a degree of heart for which I might not have given him credit, of his affection for his mother, to whom, he said, he owed his intellectual tastes, his love of poetry, and his thirst for literary ad- venture. ' My brother had recently printed a specimen of a translation, which he ultimately com- pleted, of the " Jerusalem Delivered " of Tasso ; ANOTHER ' CA USERIE: 297 and I was struck with the critical sagacity with which Colton had, at once, observed for commendation the judicious manner in which the translator had interfused into his narrative the simple and vigorous diction of the Eliza- bethan writers, then little read, with that of the more elegant and refined writers of our own times. He demurred, however, to the stanza selected, which was one line, and that an Alexandrine, longer than the original. '' It is better,'' he observed, " in translation not to have to mark time to avoid passing your author on his road." ' Before we separated, Colton accepted my invitation to meet Wiffen again at dinner, a few days afterwards, at my lodgings at Brompton, when we had again a very agree- able evening. We passed in review most of our contemporaries, and recited much verse. He did not hesitate to avow his belief that his own simile of the " Conder of Cotopaxo " was one of the finest extant, and, not to monopolize altogether the praise of the evening, he w^as pleased to commend very warmly a simile of mine, in a little volume of poems just pub- 298 ALARIC WATTS. lishecl, in which, writing of a day-dreamer, I had said — ' " He would dwell Intently on the past, and oft evoke Bright shapes of visionary bliss from out The inmost depths of his day-dreaming soul, Till Reason with her flaming sword sprang up And drove him from his paradise of thought." This, he was good enough to affirm, deserved to be classed with those similes which he re- garded as of the highest class, by reason of their beins derived from the immaterial world. He repeated several, amongst them that from Campbeirs '' Gertrude of Wyoming," in which the English lad, led by the Indian, is described as being ' " Like morning brought by night." He prized, he said, this order of simile the most highly of any, and regretted that the great body of English poetry contained so few of them. We spoke of the controversy, which had recently been dividing the world of letters, between Bowles and Byron as to the rank among English poets to be assigned to Pope, and expressed his opinion that, in argument, the parson had the better of the peer. A CONTRETEMPS. 299 ' An amusing contretemps occurred during the evening, which might have been embar- rassing if Mr. Colton had not been a man of good sense as well as a man of the world. He had proceeded, after dinner, to amuse himself by a cursory glance at my little library, taking down first one volume, then another, and ex- patiating with much eloquence on the re- spective merits of the various works. At length, as evil hap would have it, he came on his own " Lacon," with which he had presented me, and which I had in my turn destined for my wife that was to be, for whose benefit I had annotated it rather copiously and very freely. The book opened, as it chanced, upon an eloquent passage of the writer s in repro- bation of avarice, to which I had appended the following note : ''It would scarcely be conceived that the author of this axiom is one of the most avaricious of men.'' He observed, good-humouredly, " You don't flatter your friends ; nor are you on this occasion entirely accurate, because you have confounded penu- riousness with avarice. If, as you perhaps observe, I think well in some particulars to 300 ALARIC WATTS. live in a style which may seem to you scarcely in accordance with my means, and what you may be pleased to regard as my position in society, it is rather because I am a philosopher than a miser, and care not to expend money on matters which afford me no gratification. But let us turn to matters on which we are better agreed. You have been attacking Byron on the score of originality. The inquiry is one of great interest, and entirely legitimate ; but you have done wrong in describino; these coin- cidences as plagiarisms. The poets have all been borrow^ers, but have repaid their debts with princely prodigality. There is hardly an important example which you have adduced, in which Byron has not so greatly improved upon his original as to become entitled to a patent of his own." ' This led us to speak of variorum editions of poets ; Warton and Dunster's " Notes on Milton's Minor Poems ;" Todd's edition of Milton ; and Gilbert Wakefield and Joseph Warton on Pope and Gray. Colton cordially assented to the value to be set on such editions. '' They are useful,'' he remarked, A NOBLE SIMILE. 301 as poetical studies ; and in proportion to our love of a poet is our desire to be introduced to the society lie has frequented. As for imita- tions/' he said, '' to read with earnestness the works of great poets without being inspired, more or less, with their sentiments and forms of expression, was, he thought, as impossible as to pass through an orangery, in full bloom, without carrying away^ as well as imbibing, something of its perfume." ' I may perhaps observe that I have heard much of Colton s latituclinarian opinions ; but it is right to declare that neither on this, nor on any occasion on which I was in his company, did he let fall any sentiment or opinion in the slightest degree inconsistent with his position as a clergyman. Of women he always spoke with respect and esteem. ' Among the passages recited by him from some of his own poems, I call to mind the following beautiful simile : ' ^' And as the Sun of human Hope goes down, Then Faith more clearly shows her heavenly crown ; Through the dark prospect brighter burns the prize, As night that hides the Earth reveals the Skies.'' ' c^. i . CHAPTER XXIV. EETROSPECTS. MRS. INCHBALD. — DR. KITCHINER. ' It was, I think, in the summer of 1820 that worthy John Taylor, of the Sun newspaper, took me to Kensington to see Mrs. Inchbald, the author of ^^ A Simple Story ;'' and a greater oddity it has never been my lot to look upon. She was seated at a table which was covered with papers, and I could not help being re- minded by the way in which she received us, and the tout ensemble^ of Roderick Random's first introduction to the literary and eccentric aunt of the beautiful Narcissa. She catechized me on a great variety of literary topics, not forgetting her own writings, of which I was able to give a tolerable account. She offered us a glass of cherry brandy and a biscuit, and read to us while we discussed her hospitality MBS. INCHBALD. 303 a portrait she had drawn of herself, for she was then engaged in writing her life, which I thought sufficiently overcharged. She showed me many of the complimentary letters which had been addressed to her, and promised me many choice relics if I w^ould call upon her again ; but I did not feel tempted to do so, which I now rather regret. 'I could discover small remains of the beauty which had proved so seductive and dangerous to Mr. Harris, the manager ; but she had not forgotten it herself, if we might judge from a very handsome description of her person which she read to us. ' What savoury reminiscences,' my father says, continuing these notes, ' arise with every mention of the author of " The Cook's Oracle ;" and yet how few remain who can speak from personal recollection of Dr. Kitchiner's re- cherche little dinners and grotesque evening reunions in Warren Street, Fitzroy Square I Dr. Kitchiner was the son of a wealthy coal- merchant who was a magistrate for Middlesex, and possessed a considerable property in houses and wharves adjacent to the Thames. 304 ALARIC WATTS. AVhen I made liis acquaintance in 1822 lie must have been upwards of sixty years of age. lie was educated at Eton and at the Uni- versity of Glasgow, where he obtained his diploma, and entered upon the medical pro- fession rather for the name of the thing than from any disposition to the drudgery of so laborious a vocation or from any necessity to practise, having inherited from his father a handsome competence. He had a knowledge of many things, which he took up from time to time as hobbies. Books were his study rather than men ; and from them he contrived to pick up many odd, and not a few useful ideas, which had been overlooked by otherwise better-informed predecessors in the healing art. He was a wise man in small things, observant of those trifles which well-informed men are sometimes apt to overlook, but which, when thoroughly observed, become frequently the foundation for useful maxims and apo- theo-ms of practical everyday life. He had, moreover, a humorous oddity of language, a certain epigrammatic common-sense in which his precepts were conveyed, which were often DR. KITCHINER. 305 stored up in the mind, and became really useful maxims of common life, when deeper knowledge and profounder philosophy might not have been remembered. ' He wrote books upon music, spectacles and eyes, carriages, natural history, cooking, and those occasionally useful concomitants ''dinner- pills,'' each and all containing shrewd, sensible, and orioinal remarks and counsel But he interested himself mainly in affairs of tlie kitchen, to the details of which he devoted a great deal of experimental attention. This was his prevailing passion. His knowledge of the art and mystery of cooking was con- siderable, and had been conscientiously and laboriously acquired, for he trusted nothing to the experience of others, but ate his way through every dish the composition of which was described in his " Gastronomic Pharma- copoeia." His ruling idea was the importance of the stomach upon the general health, and the influence upon the stomach of a well-cooked, well-arranged, well-ordered dietary. Much would naturally be expected of the dinners of so accomplished a gastronomist, and they ni VOL. II. 4'-^ 20C ALARIC WATTS. no way belied either his experience as a cook or his wisdom as a physician. They were simple and unostentatious, rather remarkable for the scrupulous care with which the material was selected and prepared than for variety of detail At his ordinary dinners, even when he invited a friend, three plats, including the piece de resistance, usually re- presented the substantial portion of the enter- tainment. He prided himself greatly upon his sauces, which were concocted of very appe- tizing materials and with much judgment in the harmonization of the condiments. I re- member an amusing circumstance occurring at one of his dinners, at which I was present, con- nected with these sauces. ' He was in a particularly good-humour with his company on this evening, and, not content with the condiments already on the table, he produced from a drawer in his side- board a small bottle of sauce of a special and superexcellent description, upon the qualities and merits of which he was proceed- ing to expatiate, when one of his guests, anxious to lose no time in profiting by his TOO MUCH, AND TOO OLD. 307 good luck, took up the bottle, and before the good doctor could interpose, had poured at least a teaspoonful on his plate. ''God bless my soul ! my dear friend, do you know what youVe done ? You've spoilt your steak and wasted a guinea's worth of my sauce ! One drop, sir ! one drop on the gravy was all that was needful !" ' His wines were similarly limited always to port, sherry, and claret ; but they were of fine qualit}^, though not of extreme age, about which he was of opinion that there was amongst connoisseurs much foolish fanaticism. He used to rejoice in now and then offering a favoured friend a teaspoonful of Oporto wine that had survived the Fire of London ; and when his friend remarked, as he could not fail to do if he were at all conscientious, that it was more like bilge-water than wine, he would laugh with great good-humour, and say : '' That's yoiir old wine, sir ! Now let me offer you a glass of mine." He was fanciful in his regularity, and, it need scarcely be said, waited dinner for no man. Everybody re- members the story of the framed card over his 42—2 ^08 ALARIC WATTS. dining-room chimney-piece, '' Come at seven^ go at eleven/' altered by some profane jester into '^ Go it at eleven/' an emendation which tlie doctor, who rather preferred to monopolize the joking at his own house, was not very well pleased. The arrangements of his drawing-room were eccentric. Instead of a comfortable armchair, you would probably be invited to sit clown on the back of a tiger or some other stuffed quadruped of alarming aspect. For a young lady, a gazelle or chamois might be offered. Prominent in the room was an old spinet which had belonged to Handel, and on wdiicli it was agreeable to the doctor to be asked to play. Tea and coffee were circulated by '' neat-handed Phy- lises," who were not restrained by any very great severity of discipline, but were per- mitted, like honest Diggory, to participate in the merriment of the company at the '' Story of Old Grouse in the Gunroom," or any other that particularly struck their fancy.' CHAPTER XXV. COERESPONDENCE. Fkom Stanley Lees Giffard, LL.D. 'October 10,1839. ' My dear Sir, ' I have taken tlie additional liberty with you, to propose prolonging my leave of absence to the end of this week. My apology is in the arrear of private letters and of private business I have to dispose of, and the necessity of reading up the politics of the last ten weeks, of which I am as profoundly ignorant as if I had passed the time in New Zealand. This confession implies that I have not read the Standard during that period ; and if I were disposed to make a complimentary use of the truth, I would remind you that this omission was the highest compliment I could pay to your talents and principles. Such are my obliga- tions to Mr. Baldwin and his son, that if I could for a moment suspect their interests endangered, I should feel myself the most base of men, though even in the near prospect of death, as was the case 310 ALAEIC WATTS. in July, if I relaxed my vigilant care of those interests. In truth, it was in the firm belief that I had but a very few days to live, that I resigned my place as principal editor of the Standard to you, with an expectation that my friends in Bridge Street would feel the advantage of securing your services as my permanent successor; and, had it not been for your kind offer, I should have died in harness, I firmly believe, before this. Having said so much, I need not say how much I shall rejoice in your continued connection with the Standard. You and I have known each other for fifteen or sixteen years, a very great part of the allotted hfe of man, and we have never had a dif- ference of pohtical or private opinion. The best proof of my estimate of your talent is, however, my prevalent opinion of your writings before I knew you, and could be biassed by personal affec- tion. ' I remain, ever sincerely yours, ' S. L. GiFFAED.' From Sir Frederick Pollock, M.P. ' Temple, November 29, 1839. *My dear Sir, ' The interposition of the Court in the case of Mr. I expected. The kind of judgment delivered I did not expect ; it did not embarrass, but it disappointed me. You know, and I believe, that never did there occur an instance of a public journalist taking up a question of a public nature from motives more pure and honest than the SERJEANT TALFOURD. 311 present ; the parties were unknown to him ; his assistance was unbought and nnsohcited, and was afforded solely from what belonged to the justice of the case, the credit of the Navy, and the honour of our common nature. But is it no rcAvard, is it no countervailing satisfaction, or rather, ought it not to be a source of hiofh gratification and honour- able pride, to have elicited this passage, which should be printed in capital letters, wherever the subject is recorded or quoted ? — '' I feel that there is nothing like an imputation reflecting on the character of the young man who has been dis- missed the service " (Lord Denman). I heard this with feelings that overpowered me, and I wish the father and the son had been there to hear it too ; and to you, who had been the cause of this triamph of truth and justice, this single sentence ought to bear with it consolation for all the rest of the judgment. ' Believe me, ' Faithfully yours, 'Fred. Pollock.' Feom Serjeant Talfourd. ' 3, Serjeants^ Inn, April 24, 1845. 'Mr. Serjeant Talfourd presents his compliments to Messrs. Bailey, Shaw, and Smith, and begs per- mission to express his i*espect for Mr. Alaric A. Watts, as a man of letters, and his sympathy with him in the unmerited misfortunes which have at- tended his connection with Mr. , by returning 312 ALARIC WATTS. his fees in the cause tried this morning, by a cheque, which he will feel obliged by their carry- ing to the credit of Mr. Watts.' From Leitch PiiTCHiE. ' Edinburgh, December 6, 1852. ' My dear Watts, ' My intercourse with Turner, I regret to say, was extremely slight, notwithstanding the duration of our business connection for three years. You are aware that, before then, the Annuals were chiefly miscellanies of tales and poetry; and when our plan of original tours was commenced, it was con- sidered that it would be dangerous to their popu- larity as drawing-room books, to have much to do either with useful details or thoughtful speculation. For this reason my continental tours were a mere selfish enjoyment. I wandered a great deal on foot in the most erratic manner. Sometimes I escaped from my own custody for a week at a time, and at last caught myself, perhaps, at a village wedding. Such being the case, you will feel that I could not think of Turner for a companion, one of the most prosaic of souls in everything but his art. Heath wanted me to arrange that we should travel together ; but I never mentioned the subject, nor did he. I was curious in observing, however, what lie made of the objects he selected for sketching, and was frequently surprised to find what a forcible idea he conveyed of the place without a single correct detail. His exaggerations, when it suited his A GENTLE PROTEST. 313 purpose, were wonderful ; bolstering up, for instance, with two or three stories the spire or rather stunted cone of a village church ; and, when I returned to London, I never failed to roast him on the subject. He took all in good-humour, indeed with great glee, never attempting to defend himself otherwise than by carrying the war into the enemy's country. In my account of the notorious Gilles de Retz, I had attempted to identify that prototype of Blue Beard with the hero of the nursery story, very absurdly stating that his beard was so intensely black as to seem to have a shade of blue. This, as you may well suppose, tickled the great colorist hugely ; and his only reply to my bantering, given forth in gleams of fun from his little sharp pig's eyes, was " Blue beard ! Blue beard !" ' I am, my dear Watts, ' Yours very sincerely, 'Leitch RiTcmE.' From Alaric A. Watts, to Maetin Tuppee, Esq. \/ ' 12, Bridge Eoad, St. John's Wood, 'December IG, 1854. ' Sir, ' There is an old and wholesome Scotch adage, '' Let every herring hang by his own head," which does not seem to have been " dreamed of in your philosophy," if the advertisement of a volume from your pen entitled "Lyrics of the Heart," etc., contained in a list of new works to be published, be authorized by you. ^1* ALARIC WATTS. 'Many years ago, an illustrated edition of my poems was announced by me under the title of " Lyrics of the Heart," and was published by Messrs. Longman and Co. in 1851. I must, therefore, beg leave to protest against your appropriation of a title which, if there be any property in such matters, I have a right to vindicate to myself. ' The volume on behalf of which I make this reclamation was, owing to the number and expen- sive character of its embellishments, pubhshed at an unusually high price ; and when a cheaper edi- tion is called for, a confusion will inevitably arise i between the two titles, which it can hardly be your object to create. Your vineyard, to judge from the number of your editions, is doubtless a large one, and high up the sacred mountain. Pray, then, refrain from your proposed incursion on the diminu- tive plot of ground at the foot of Parnassus, which has been so long preoccupied by me, and the posses- sion of which I have so far been allowed to retain undisturbed. ' Awaiting the favour of your reply, ' I have the honour to be, sir, ' Your obedient servant, 'Alaeic a. Watts.' Feom Clinton G. Dawkins. ' Downing Street, ' December 5, 1853. ' I have great j^leasure in informing you, by desire of Lord Aberdeen, that his lordship has 'HER MAJESTY'S WARRANT. 315 recommended to Her Majesty to confer upon you a pension on the Civil List of one hundred pounds a year, and that Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to comply with this recommendation. ' I have the honour to be, sir, ' Your obedient servant, ' Clinton G. Dawkins.' From Francis J. H. Cavendish. ' Foreign Office, ' December 20, 1853. ^SlR, ' Lord Clarendon desires me to express to you his gratification on learning that Her Majesty has granted you a pension ; and I am to add that his lordship does not suppose that it will disqualify you from receiving an official appointment on some future occasion. ' I am, sir, ' Your obedient servant, 'Francis J. H. Cavendish.' Her Majesty's Eoyal Warrant. ' Whereas We are graciously pleased to grant and allow to Mr. Alaric Alexander Watts an Annuity or Yearly Pension of one hundred pounds, in con- sideration of his services to Literature and Art; Our Will and Pleasure is that there be given and crranted, and We do hereby give and grant unto the •"16 ALARIC WATTS. said Alaric Alexander Watts the said Annuity or Yearly Pension of one hundred pounds, the same to be paid to him out of our Civil List Kevenues, to commence and take effect from the 1st day of July, 1853, and from thenceforth to be payable to him Quarterly, free and clear of all deductions whatsoever, on the 1st day of October, 1st day of January, 1st day of April, and 1st day of July in each and every succeeding year during Our pleasure, and a rateable proportion of the said Pension to the day of his decease. ' And for so doing this shall be Your Warrant. ' Given at Our Court at Windsor, this 3rd day of Januar}^ 1S54, in the seventeenth year of Our Keign. ' By Her Majesty's Command, ' Elcho. 'Alfeed Heevey.' ^ To the Commissioners of Our Treasury.' Feom Alaeic a. Watts, to Mes. Newnham. ' 2, Blenheim Crescent, Kensington Park, ^February 10, 1865. ' My deae Feiend, ' Your kind letter addressed to my son lias only this moment been put into my hands. Pray pardon oin^ apparent remissness, and accept our most affectionate regards, and believe me when I say with what loving sincerity we reciprocate the feelings expressed in j'our letter. Among the A PICTURE OF HER, 317 friends lost to us by estrangement, accident, or destiny, ' '' Blown, like the morning clouds, a thousand ways/' you have never been forgotten, still less discarded from our hearts. On the contrary, your name has been often on our lips, and never mentioned Avith- out affectionate sympathy. After undergoing much vicissitude, including many worldly troubles and vexations, we have settled down into a state of comparative comfort and repose ; and though my dear wife was sixty-five years of age on the 3rd of ' this month, and I shall be sixty-seven on the 16th \/ of March, we have not lost either our interest in life or the vigour of intellectual sympathies which you knew us to possess many years ago ; while w^e have gained, I hope, the larger experience and knowledge which incessant reading, and very little writing, may be expected to afford. We are not without cares even more corroding than those at- tendant on a migration " from the blue bed to the brown," or " the mutilated courtesy " from the kady of any squire or lord, but a cheerful spirit, warm hearts, the love of poetry undiminished by any popular neglect of our own, and a bright fireside, are still vouchsafed to us ; all of which wdll be rendered more vivid when we see you once more in our circle. '' The mother," as I now call her, in honour of her age and dignities, is from home. ' She promises to write to you soon. She begs me to add that she hopes, as do I, that you will not ao\ain visit London without coming to see us, and 318 ALARIC WATTS. hearing from our own lips how true is the affection we bear you. ' Beheve me, with truest regard, ' Your affectionate friend, 'Alaric a. Watts.' From Mrs. Alaric A. Watts, to Mrs. Newnham. 'My dearest Friend, ' I can hardly tell you how truly rejoiced I was to receive your letter. Since we last met, how much has happened, and how much has been undergone by us all ! How little is life what our fancy promises it in youth ; and how much need- less pain do we impose upon om^selves by our struggles against being disenchanted! Yes ! my old friend.s the poets are lively in my mind as ever, but I do not find that I can now take in new poets ; and, truth to say, feel a little jealous on behalf of the good men and true of a bygone age to wdiom I owe so much. Yet " blessings be on them and eternal praise," old and young, for in a certain sense they are the "salt of the earth," and help to neutralize in the hearts of men its gross corrup- tions. ' You say truly, dear friend, nothing short of a personal meeting can now satisf}^ the w^ants of our hearts. Hoav much we shall have to say ; and yet strong feeling makes "ine dumb ! I cannot help thinking the good old Puritan was right w^ho re- corded in his journal, "This day, much troubled J 1 PICTURE OF HER, 319 with a dumb devil " — I am sure I am, sometimes. I read a good deal, in my small way, and take a vivid interest in the social and political questions, and even philosophies, of the day. Yes, including Spiritualism. I read all that comes out on it, and cannot doubt the facts, though I am often sur- prised at some of its revealments. I have seen some extraordinary things at the house of a friend of my son, Mr. Virtue Tebbs ; the medium, a Miss Nichols. ' How many things, this among the number, should I like to discuss with you ! I always feel that with you, whatever 1 may say, yon will never say, to 3^ourself or others. How odd ! And what a relief it is to be able to show ourselves as we are, and give one's fancies and vagaries an airing. I often think how unjust we are to each other ; we hold friends and acquaintance at arm's-length, and then say we are little understood. What we want is more faith in lower things, as well as higher. If we had the courage to speak out, how much nearer we should become to each other, and hoAV much more happiness there would be in the world ! What Cowper says of the British character is true ; ^ ^' God lays a wholesome curb upon our pride To fear each other,^ — fearing none beside." ' My brother, — I was staying at Woburn when your letter reached me, — desired me to give his kind regards to you. How often has he asked for news of his friend and correspondent, Fanny Ross ^ 320 ALARIC WATTS. For the last eighteen years he has been occupied . with his reprints of the Spanish Protestant writers of the time of the Reformation. Sitting over his books and papers, he looks like an attenuate monk of the Middle Ages, a comparison not in other respects very appropriate. A poor man of his village said of him, " Mr. Wiffen is so thin I always think I see his soul through his body." He is, however, well. 'Now, dearest Fanny, Avith kindest regards, or rather love, to your sister, ' Believe me, ' Your very affectionate friend, 'ZiLLAH M. Watts.' CHAPTER XXVL SEPAEATION. One afternoon towards the close of the month of March, 1864, my father paid me a visit at my office, when I remarked an expression in his face that a little perplexed me as being something new and strange ; something, I could scarcely define what, in which I failed to recognise him. It was as though another and an older man were looking out of his eyes and manifesting a presence in the lineaments of his ever- expressive and singularly mobile features. I had thought I knew him in every possible aspect of his countenance, but some- thing there was here that I did not know. Something, too, a little worn and distressful, which inspired solicitude. The impression made upon me was suf- VOL. 11. 43 322 ALARIC WATTS. ficiently distinct to determine me to urge upon him, on the first convenient occasion, to give himself rest and more freedom, by with- drawing from his official employment, which had, by this time, more than served its pur- pose, and to confine himself to such congenial literary occupations as might interest him and leave him fuller liberty. But the gratification of remembering that I had taken steps for thus anticipating his wishes and requirements * I was not to enjoy. Two or three days after, and before we had asfain met, he w^as seized with a slight stroke of paralysis, and had an awkw^ard fall. He rallied speedily, and was soon out of his room. In the interval, a cir- cumstance, if I may so describe it, happened which evidently made an impression upon him, and which he mentioned to me at the time as I sat by his bedside. 'You know,' he said, 'the convent bell which rings every day at noon V I knew it perfectly. 'This morning, after it had ceased, I heard a voice which said, '' This is thy pass- ing bell !" It was a clear distinct voice, and I looked round in surprise, expecting to see that A PROFESSION OF FAITH. 323 your mother was in the room. There was no person/ Observing him to be impressed, though in no degree depressed or agitated, I made no attempt to undervalue the incident or to treat it as an hallucination, which indeed I did not believe it to be. I ventured, how- ever, to take the opportunity, which the cir- cumstance seemed to present, of obtaining from him an assurance, needless to me, but which I thought might at some future time afford comfort to others, on a subject on which, though we had lived together in the same house on the most tender terms that could subsist between father and son, for thirty- five years, I had, I believe, never before ap- proached him, viz., as to his belief, as a Christian, in the mediatorial office of the Saviour. His face lit up in an instant, and, in response to the inquiry which my remark suggested, he replied, with fervour : ' Oh, that I do !' It was the first and only profession of dogmatic religious belief that I ever heard him utter. He was well enough the next day to quit his A o 9 324 ALA RIG WATTS. room ; and on the evening of the day follow- ing, when I visited him again, he appeared to be 23rogressing favourably under the excellent nursing of his wife and daughter. His manner, I observed, was grave and serious, but ex- quisitely serene ; rather more subdued than when in his usual health, but calm and cheer- ful ; and I cjuitted him without apprehension. On the following day he experienced a second seizure, from which he was not to recover. He passed away on the third day, peacefully and without suffering, the 5th Aj^ril, 1864, N in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His remains were interred on the terrace of the cemetery at Highgate. His funeral was quite private, no invitations or notifications respecting it having been sent to any person. It was noticed, however, that circumstance had so ordered it that representa- tion should not be lacking thereat, in simple fashion, of every form and phase of the labours of his useful life. Poetry and the pursuits of general literature, in the person of his friend AVilliam Howitt, who had walked across from his residence on the West Hill to pay a last tribute of regard to his memory. Art, if I may be LIFE AND DEATH. 325 permitted to say so, by his daughter-in-law, whose early career as an art student and artist, in a day when few Ladies studied or practised art as a profession, he had watched and encouraged with affectionate interest. The Newspaper Press, in which he had expended so much of the vigour of his life, by his early associate in some of such labours, the late Mr, Serjeant O'Brien, who presented himself at the grave quite unexpectedly, with marks of tenderness and emotion which his friend's family can never forget. Even his later days of modest official employment were not with- out representation in the person of a friend of his son's, Mr. F. G. Bailey. While testimony to the spirit of active and zealous benevolence and helpfulness to others, ungrudging, un- sparing of self, which had conspicuously marked, without let or intermission, every period of his life, was supplied by the presence, also unexpected, of the widow and daughter of a gentleman engaged for many years in literary occupations like himself, to whom, in his life, and to whose family after his death, he had been ever a constant and serviceable friend. CHAPTER XXVIL EEUNIOIS^. Of tlie later days of the loving helpmeet for more than forty years of the subject of the foregoing narrative, a few reminiscences may, I hope, have an interest to its readers, and fitly and gracefully close it. In 1865, having to quit her house, she was sorely tempted by another in the neighbour- hood, which, however, was larger than she required, and more costly than she could afford. ' My deaeest Feiend/ (she says, writing to her friend the late Mrs. Newnham, in the thick of this dilemma), — ' I have been so unwell that I have been obliged to ask the doctor to try and mend me. A galvanic shock, in the way of a notice from my landlord, who wants my house for himself, acted as a counter-irritation, and infused a certain amount CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING. 327 of strength into me ; so now, on the whole, I am as well as can be expected: but I tlimk much may be said on behalf of the Rechabites, who never aspired to settled habitations. We have seen many houses. One is, — oh, Fanny! — a very covetable house ; but then it is £120 a year. It would hold us well from garret to cellar ; good reception and dming rooms looking into a bowery garden, and, at its price, very cheap ; but it has a presumptuous staircase, and ought to have a manservant. I only wish I could bewitch somebody to take it, and let Zillah and me have a niche in it. Forgive this egotism, but I can think of nothing but how I am to be sheltered. Pray that I may think of some- thing beyond my own well-being ; and be especially thankful yourself for having a house of your own. ' Ever thine, 'Z. M. w; It happily chanced that her daughter-in- lav^5 in a house-hunting expedition on her behalf, had noticed this very house and its capabilities for holding two families with separate establishments; and she proposed to her husband to take it, and that we should all make a home there together. This, — if I may adopt the judicious language of Mr. Bos- well, on a somewhat analogous occasion, — ' I cannot but gratefully mention as one of a 328 ALARIC WATTS. thousand obligations which I owe her since the great obligation of her being pleased to accept me as her husband.' This arran2;ement carried out, the remaining; years of my mother's life, watched over by the tender solicitude of her daushter, and with her daughter-in-law at hand to minister further, as occasion might serve, to her comfort and enjoyment, were peaceful and hajDpy, and free from care. I visited her daily, a compliment which she usually returned on her way down to her eaiiy dinner on Sunday. Some Notes I have preserved of these caiiseries. She was an admirable causeuse to the last, full of interest in the literature, and politics, and social and religious movements of the day. i Her distinguishing charm was, I think, her singular and perfect repose of manner, asso- ciated as it was with an extreme mobility of mind. Proceeding from genuine repose of spirit, and not being merely formal or conventional, this serenity was eminently restful in its effect on others. It seemed, as it were, to commu- nicate itself ; and her friends, especially when they were in any trouble, would bring their CA USERIES DE DIMANCHE: 329 < n burdens and repose themselves in its influence, as people sun themselves in the sunshine. Nor were practical sympathy and sage counsel lack- ing ; the wisdom usually conveyed by way of suggestion or in metaphor, to which the poetical and metaphysical side of her nature made her always partial. She so expressed herself almost intuitively. This method, — as she was far from belonging to that class of persons capable of sympathy only with those with whom it is in intellectual accord, — some of her friends would not always readily ap- prehend. ' My dear/ she once observed to a mighty notable lady enlarging on the demerits of her cook, ' one has no right to expect all the virtues under heaven for thirty pounds a year.' ' My dear^ I give guineas' was the reply of this practical woman. Subjoined are the Notes referred to : February 20, 1870. — My mother sat with me this morning. We spoke of Bessie Parkes and the ' Woman Movement/ with which she had a general though cautious sympathy; and this led to a re- ference to Mary WoUstonecraft. ' I remember/ she said, ' Mrs. Basil Montagu telhng me an anecdote of Godwin which ilhistrates forcibly the coldness 330 ALARIC WATTS. of his external nature, or, at all events, the extent to which he allowed his feelings to be overcome by his crotchets or purely intellectual opinions. At the time of Mary Wollstonecraft's confinement, Godwin had gone on an excursion to Barnes, and ; did not reach home till the important event had taken place. In answer to his inquiry how she felt, she replied : " Oh, I am now in heaven !" To which he rejoined : "By which expression I under- stand you to mean that you experience a sensible relief from suffering ?" The idea of heaven,' she added, ' must have been very repugnant to a man who could have paused nicely to qualify the expres- sions of one so dear to him at such a time.' Mrs. Basil Montagu was present. Keferred to Eaton Stannard Barrett's poem, ' Woman,' as containing some admirable lines ; quoting — ' She, when disciples shrank, could danger brave ; Last at His cross — and earliest at His grave.' March 6, 1870. — We spoke of Wordsworth. She observed that she knew no poetry so reposeful as Wordsworth's ; and this wholly irrespective of the sentiment or subject-matter of the particular poem. 'Wordsworth,' she added, 'said to me once that j he was sure he should be appreciated later, but not ' by the upper classes.' This led us to speak of the extreme delicacy and refinement noticeable in the writings of poets who have sprung from the people, such as Hogg, and Clare, and the prose of Miller, the basket-maker; and how favourably, in this ' CA USEEIES DE DIMANCRE: 331 respect, tlieir writings often compare with those of writers born in the higher classes of society. She observed, ' It is not so dif3Eicult to account for. The essence of refinement is simphcity. In the higher classes the spirit of poetry has more complexity and artificiality to contend with, in purifying and simplifying the mind.' This led us, by a natural transition, to speak of poets of society, and I asked her about Praed. She did not seem to have much, at the moment, to tell, beyond the fact that he was a frequent visitor in Torrington Square, and that he was very lively and agreeable. Of his friend Sidney Walker she had more to say, noticing his tenderness of spirit, and his desire for marriage, but observing that he seemed to her a person whose needs were rather the matured solicitude of a mother than the companionship of a wife. She mentioned that on one occasion, when he was about, in his purblind, sidelong, aimless fashion, to cross a crowded thoroughfare, a young lady, supposing him to be blind, stepped forward, compassionately took him by the hand and led him across. It would be difficult to determine who was most em- barrassed by this adventure, he, at having to offer his acknowledgments to a strange lady for so unex- pected a piece of complaisance; or she, at finding that her obliging overtures had been made to a man with his eyes open, however incapable apparently of utilizing them. The lady, as might be anticipated, was the first to recover herself. Bhnd, notwith- 332 ALARIC WATTS, standing tlie evidence of her senses, she judiciously determined he should continue to be. ' The blind, sir/ she said, as he v^as stammering out his thanks, ' have a claim upon our warmest sympathies/ — and fled. Mentioned having found herself in a similar scrape by putting her hand on the arm of a gentle- man in the street whom she had mistaken for an old friend, and Avho proved to be a stranger. ' What did he say V ' He said, being a Frenchman, just what he ought to have said, '' Madam, it is I who have to deplore that I have not the honour to be your friend." ' She spoke this morning of the terror of invasion that pervaded the country in her youth. Bonaparte was always coming ; and she well remembered an old laundress rushing into her mother's kitchen, horror-stricken, with the intelligence that the French were at HockclifFe, a village about five miles on the London side of Woburn. A number of French prisoners were at that time interned at Northampton, with liberty of walking one mile from the town in any direction, but no farther. They were of the better class, and conducted themselves with great propriety. Those who were in circumstances to do so, visited the county families ; and marriages with them were not infrequent. Others gave lessons in languages and dancing, or made trinkets in straw- work. This must have been about the year 1807. She remembered later, their mother, whose CA USERIES DE DIMANCIIE: 333 Quaker training had never contracted her sym- pathies, coming one morning early into the room Avhere the sisters slept, and, throwing up the window and letting in the light of the just risen sun, ex- claimed, 'Up with you, girls ! The Allies have entered Paris r Noticed that a great improvement m personal neatness in the habits of women took place after the peace. Previously, ladies in the middle class in the country were much in the habit of going about all the morning with the hair in curl-papers ; but, by degrees, when the Continent was thrown open, a great improvement took place, especially in the dressing of the hair. She thinks we are indebted more than we are aware to the French for improved habits of personal neatness of exterior. Referred to the visit of the Duchess of Oldenburg, the sister of the Emperor Alexander, at the time of the peace, as having given an impetus in the country to French fashions in dress. The Duchess was a woman of superior intelligence, and travelled much in the country at this time, carry- ing, so to speak, the Continent with her wherever she went. Observed, however, a i^roi^os of fashion in dress, / that ' high fashion is usually low art.' Ayril 24, 1870. — We spoke to-day of ' poetry and poets.' She said she had been looking through 'Campbell's Specimens,' but found in them less that struck her than, from her recollection of what she used to think good, she had anticipated. Re- ferred with admiration to Mrs. Greville's 'Prayer for Indifference,' quoting the verse — 334 ALARIC WATTS. ' Nor ease, nor peace that heart can know, That, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy or woe, And, turning, — trembles too.' This led to a reference to persons who had written one good poem. She instanced Logan's ' Ode to the Cuckoo ;' Ritchie's ' Lines on Quitting Eng- land ;' and Herbert Knowles's ' Lines written in Richmond Churchyard;' and mentioned, as an illustration of Southey's ever-ready generosity of nature, his having written to make inquiry about Knowles, from reading this poem, with a view to serve him. From this we were led to speak of persons entitled to a kind thought from lovers of poetry. She instanced the stranger, whoever he was, who, struck by the young Blue-coat boy's conversa- tion, made Coleridge free of a circulating library. Also Mr. Martin, of the George Inn, at Woburn, who would take no payment from Sam, Cowper's servant, for his breakfast, from respect for the fame of his master. Of this Mr. Martin she mentioned that her mother, who lived next door to the George, had purchased of him an old secretary. On opening a secret drawer, she found in it a Bank of En^iand note, and went in with it to her neighbour to return it. He, however, said he knew nothing of it, that it was none of his, that she had bought the affair as it stood, and that the note was her property, and not his. This Mr. Martin must have been a man of spirit, and deserved to make his fortune, as he did. CAUSERIES DE DIMANCHE: 335 ContinuinGf the conversation, she observed : ' Cowper took the starch out of English poetry;' \/ and added, ' My Aunt Tanner, who hved at Olney, was acquainted with Cowper. She used to say, "You always knew when he Avas coming, by his dog— ^ " Beau trotting on before." ' This led her to speak of interesting persons whom she had known in the earlier years of her married life ; and she mentioned Mr. Northcote, the painter, at whose studio in Argyll Place she said they were frequent visitors. She described him as far from disagreeable, and alwaj^s very ready to talk of the distinguished people he had known. ' '' You remember Sir Joshua, ma'am ?" he said to me one day. '' Oh no, Mr. Northcote !" " Well, he must have been before your time ;" and he then went on to speak of the Prince of Wales. '' He would often come to my studio and see my pictures, and very free of his remarks he'd be upon them," said the old gentleman, ^'but he never bought one. I said to him one day, when he had been very free indeed, and had a little put me out, I said, 'When your Koyal Highness shall have been pleased to purchase one of my pictures you will be in a better position to find fault with them.' He didn't seem to take it amiss, but he never bought one." ' Mr. Northcote,' my mother added, ' indulged himself in violent prejudices against his brother artists, especially against AVestall. " My dear 336 ALARIC WATTS. ma'am/' he said to me one day, speaking of his brother Royal Academician, "I would like to see that man hanged !" " Oh, Mr. Northcote !" " I would, ma'am ! That is, if he persisted in his affectations on the scaffold, — which he would, ma'am — Avhich he Avould !" ' Westall,' said my mother, who knew him well, ' was a small, fidgety man, a ferret of a man, as it were. He Avas, however, a man of taste and refine- ment (which is probably what Mr. Northcote meant by " his affectations "), and in addition to being a painter of real genius, wrote good verse.' A royal anecdote to cap Mr. Northcote's my mother has left, communicated to her by Mr. Westall, which I hope I may not be indiscreet in putting on record. Mr. Westall had the honour of teaching drawing to her present Majesty. One day, after the lesson, the young princess said to him, ' Mr. Westall, what do you do on Sunday ?' The courtly but conscientious painter replied, ' Your Royal Highness, I'm afraid I do very often what I am sure you never do, and would not approve. I paint on Sunday !' ' Oh, do you ?' said Mr. Westall's pupil. ' I'm so glad, because sometimes, do you know, when I can get a little time to myself on Sunday, I paint too !' Reverting to Mr. Northcote, she mentioned that, after his death, a cast was taken of his hands, when it was noticed that the right hand had in his last moments assumed the position of holding the brush. ' CA USERIES DE DIMANCHE: 337 May 5, 1870. — We spoke to-day of Dickens's ' Hard Times.' She remarked, with reference to the Gradgrind and Bounderby system of training youth, that so severe was the discipHne of the Society of Friends in her day in the repression of the imagina- tive faculty, that she scarcely ventured in her old age to indulge it without a momentary hesitation, as though she were doing wrong. Speaking of this aspect of the Quakerism of her youth, she, quoting from Pope, described its members then, — as those * For whom the Fates, severely kind, ordain A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain ; Their life a long dead calm of fixed repose, No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.' Referred to the greater independence in children of their parents, at the present day, as compared with her youth. She quoted an observation of Hannah More, whose practical sagacity she regarded with high esteem, that all models held up to children in their classical and historical studies being directed to displaying the virtues of Republics and the beauties of Freedom, it was not a matter of surprise that they should grow more and more indisposed to respect the restraints of obedience when not capable of being enforced. From Hannah More she adverted to Dr. Johnson, and to poetry and the poets, and spoke of Young's ' Night Thoughts,' now so strangely neglected. She referred to Johnson's criticism on this poem, in which he observes that the excellence of this work was not exactness, but copiousness ; that particular VOL. 11. 44 338 ALARIC WATTS. lines were not to be regarded, and that its power was as a whole. She found it difficult to com- prehend the rationale of this criticism, observing that the merits and demerits of the poem seemed to her the very reverse. That it was in particular lines that it excelled, and that its copiousness was its defect. I noticed, as she was leaving me, that she had come down this morning holding in her hand ' Law's Serious Call ' and one of her tradesmen's books, and I made rather merry at her expense over the anomalous character of her Sabbath morning exercises. She laughed, and turning back at the door, quoted, ^ Heaven in her eyes, and in her hand the keys.' Sunday, May 12, 1870. — We spoke to-day of servants. She said she had no great sjinpathy with the general disparagement of domestic servants, of which so large a part of the conversa- tion of some ladies is composed. Considering their imperfect education, their limited opportunities of acquiring knowledge of the world, and the monotony and unavoidable confinement of their lives, she thought that their fidelity and sense of duty, as a class, was very admirable. She added, that there was no portion of people's expenditure for which they got such good value as that applied to pay- ment of servants' wages. This led to some stories of servants. The Yorkshire girl whom she engaged as a general servant when they first went to Leeds, and who insisted on departing the next morning, ' CA US FRIES DE DIMANCHE: 339 assigning to a friend for this peremptory step the following excellent reasons, ' I don't like t' mester, I don't like t' mestress ; and there's na clock, and there's na bellus/ Also of one who, being asked if she were willing to make herself generally useful, replied, ' Anything, ma'am, except sit for draperies.' She had lived with an artist. Also of Coleridge's maid, who, being reproved for wasting paper in lighting fires, justified herself on the plea, ' It is only The Friend,' of which venture of the poet the house contained no doubt an ample stock, which possibly could not then be turned to much more profitable account. She was, as may be inferred from her conversa- tion, well read in the poets, and possessed an excellent memory ; indeed, I have heard her say, that in her youth the memory alone was cultivated. She was very happy in quotation, and would observe that, for that particular, the poets were to her what the Bible was to some of her friends. I remember her returning one evening from the house of a friend, where she had been capping quotations very happily, when a draggled girl came out of a public- house as she passed. The gentleman who was escorting her home observed, ' I think that would beat you.' She replied immediately, — there was no waiting to think with her, — from her favourite Crabbe : * So girls who heed not dress are skilled in gin.' As I write, I recall an instance of her fertility of illustration in this respect. She had accompanied 44—2 340 ALARIC WATTS. US on a country visit to a house placed at our dis- posal by the kindness of a friend, Madame Bodichon, built in a Sussex wood, of which only so much had been cleared as was needful for the house and offices, and to give vistas of the beautiful distant country. Her daughter-in-law, paying her a morning visit in her room, found her lying, as was her wont, with all sorts of books collected around her, placidly gazing out of the open window, and enjoying the sunshine and fresh air playing round the creeping-plants on the sill She turned, and welcomed her visitor with, — ' There was no garden round about, Yet flowers were growing free, The cowslip and the daffodil Upon the forest lea. * The butterfly went flitting by, The bees were in the flowers, And [here a musical hum to make out the cadence] sat steadfastly As she had sat for hours.' ' Where is that from V she inquired. My wife could not at the moment remember. ' Oh, degenerate daughter ! It is in Mary Hewitt's " Forest Scene intheDaysofWickliffe."' I would willingly linger over these reminis- cences to introduce a fresh detail here, to lay a fresh touch there ; but I am warned against the temptation, a too ready yielding to which has how often converted what the artist might have A DREAM. 341 hoped would leave upon the eye the impression of a happy sketch, into an unsuccessful picture. As time wore on, the physical infirmities of age increased upon her ; but the clearness of her mind and the brightness of her spirit remained unimpaired, while her strong self- control enabled her will to replace in some degree, from resources of its own, the gradual loss of vital force, which was beginning more and more to increase to her the burden of life. In the early days of December, 1873, she took a cold, which intensified into an inflammation of the lungs, from which, notwithstanding all the skill and attention of her kind friend and physician, Mr. Tapson, of Gloucester Gardens, she was not to recover. She saw her doctor first on the 5th December, and passed away gently in the early morning of the 13th De- v^ comber, 1873, in her sleep. It was the end she had desired, having always felt a certain dread of the physical process by which the being passes from the life of time to that of eternity. Her remains are interred in the same grave as her husband, on the terrace of the cemetery at Highgate. 342 ALARIC WATTS. One morning, at the commencement of her illness, but before any apprehensions were entertained of the result, she called her daughter-in-law into her room, which was next to ours, and said to her^ ^ I have seen Alaric. He came to me last night in a dream, and said, '' I have taken a house for us, with which I am sure that you will be pleased. There is only one thing that you will not like, — it is eight miles' drive from the railway terminus/' ' It was in the early morning, before sunrise of the ninth day from that on which her illness had pronounced itself, that she reached her new home and joined him. ^ In My Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself ; that where I am, there ye may be also.' THE END. BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON. PRICE 5s. A U R O E A : A VOLUME OF VERSE. By a. a. and a. M. H. WATTS. 'll7rEpOJTl]6elQ aVTOQ 6 Ki'pto^ vtto tlvoq, TTOTS i'l^u ai'TOv i) jSacnkua, eIttev, "Orav Etjrai Ta Svo, tV, Kal to t^w cog to egoj, Kal to dpasv /JLETCl Ttjg 9r]\ElaQ, OVTE dpGEV OVTE OrjXv, Clement op Rome. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1, Paternoster Square. OPINIONS OP THE PRESS. i; ' Since the prophetic books of Blake broke upon a generation lulled by the sleepy trivialities of Hayley, no j)oetic utterances ., have offered the reader a riddle more sphinx-like than is supplied I by *' Aurora." That there is matter worth getting at behind we have convinced ourselves, but the most ardent student can never be sure that he has fully mastered the subject, or wrung from the verses the whole of their meaning. Throughout all the poems runs one apparent purpose ; a protest against the assumption that our knowledge and hopes are limited by the perceptions of the senses. ' The theme is illustrated with considerable power. Much of the imagery emplo3^ed is equally bold and striking ; and the music of some of the lines is admirably fitted to the sense.' — AthencBum. ' In this collection of pieces we find a mystical and exceedingly suggestive discussion of the great problems of life and death, which will always form the most attractive subjects for poets who aspire to a realization of something more than the outward and visible aspects of men and their surroundings. It is a great pleasure in a volume of this kind to find that while we are occasionally carried to heights where it is difficult to realize our position, we are spared from ever being suddenly dropped into commonplace. * The whole book is a revelation of refined fancy, never dis- appointing after the key-note of the volume has been mastered.' — Manchester Guardian. * That unseen but visible presence which guides the brain and the hand of the poet serves to distinguish his productions from those of the mere versifier. Two writers affix their initials to the various poems comprised in this very able volume. •X- -jf ■«■ •«• ^ -:«. ' In the poem entitled '' Illumination " we find the key-note to many ideas which are puzzling and perplexing. E. Cartier supplies the epigraph, *' II y a une peinture mystique parce qu'il y a une vie et une science mystique. L'Art ne revele que ce que I'esprit voit et Tesprit ne voit que ce qui est." . . . There is much food for reflection in "Lost and Found." They amply justify our en- comiums on verses intellectual, energetic, and moving along with true choral force, full of profound thought, and instinct with the spirit of harmony. A more tender vein of thought is opened us in the '' Magic Glass," a poem which, conceived in the spirit of the poetry of the seventeenth century, embodies much of its sim- plicity of style and fidelity to nature. A sense of the bounties and beauties of Nature is generally a distinguishing feature of the volume, as in the dulcet lines " Psychometry." *We willingly accord to its authors a loft}^ purpose and intellectual attainments which have found profitable development in the culture of song.' — Morning Post. ' The writers of this volume of verse have many strange and beautiful fancies touching the natural and supernatural, and many of them they embody in forms of idealized grace. *We confess that in some of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity they see a meaning which was not seen, or if seen was not acknowledged, by the inspired writers.' — Standard, * We must honestly confess to having been puzzled by "Aurora." It is a very taking volume of verse, because it is so sweet and musical ; but what does it mean ? The diflSculty is this : Is it a subtle exposition of Catholicism, or is it an equally subtle attempt to undermine that faith by a skilful use, in another sense, of the hope and the language which one associates with it ? We rather incline to the latter hypothesis. In any case the verse is admir- able ; and one poem, the " Holy Heart," is almost beyond praise. As to " Le Sang Real " we decline to speak ; it is either beautiful exceedingly, or of no worth ; — as it was meant.' — Grapldc, *** Aurora: a Volume of Verse," is the joint work of two authors, A. M. and A. A. A. A. has the more powerful mind undoubtedly, and yet he is the lesser poet. His choice of metres is bad, and his versification defective. The two writers dwell much on the spirit of good and evil, its union and perpetual stru<^cde — on the material and spiritual — on life and death. These themes naturally lend themselves to a little mysticism, of which both authors have availed themselves largely. A. M. delights in allegories and dreams, through which often runs a vein worked out with skill and fancy. A. A. finds a more con- genial form in conundrums. We use the word advisedly, and yet with some hesitation, for there is often real dignity in his conceptions and purpose, and we cannot help feeling a little irritated with ourselves for so constantly exclaiming involuntarily, *' We give it up !" ** Aurora " is not by any means a commonplace book; and its authors write with sufficient power to claim a respectful hearing.* — Examiner, ' With this unpretending title we are introduced to one of the most remarkable volumes of poetry we have met with for some time. It is the work apparently of two authors, who sign their names respectively, ** A. A." and ''A. M." There is one spirit common to these two contributors. Both are fond of dwelling on the hidden meaning of things — the mystic influences and forces that underlie common life — the strange fantastic visions of dream-land — the higher life that is dawning now, and is awaiting fuller development in the future. The opening and closing poems are both entitled *' Aurora," and are both by A. A. — and the bright prophetic spirit which finds glowing and rapturous expression in these two poems is to some extent the key-note of the volume. ' The poems by "A. M." are less philosophic, but more pictorial, and with richer warmth of feeling. The first of them, *'The Repose of the Fair Maid Patience," although it has evidently a symbolic meaning beneath the surface, is throughout full of the most lovely and rapturous word-painting of beautiful and familiar objects in nature, and the same absorption in nature is seen in other poems of this writer. ■X- -X- -Sf -X- -Jt -Jf ' Our readers will rightly infer, from our descriptions of these poems, that most of them will not disclose their wealth of meaning, but they are poems which one can linger over with a certain sense of exhilaration — as one sees definite ideal shapesslowly loom into distinctness as we patiently watch them.' — Nonconformist. ' There is through the whole book a weighty style of evasive- ness and latent meaning which distinguished some of the works of the Poet Laureate. It is well worth reading.' — City Observer, ' This is a book that has a decided gusto of its own. One cannot read the poems withovit having the taste of them in the mouth for a little while after. They are unmistakably quaint, with an admixture of the dreamy. The writer has borrowed from medieval art not a little of its quaint phantasy, and has inter- woven this into the texture of a mind that has naturally a decided power in rendering whatever is intricate and evanescent in asso- ciation. Many of the titles indicate this — ''The Repose of the Fair Maid Patience," "Limbo," **The Generations of Death," *^ Eastward in Eden," '^ The Woman curious after Death," ''The City of the Rose." But we must free the author from any charge of affectation. A certain stupidity prevails nowadays in finding obscure what is not essentially so. Everything that is remote and complex in suggestion takes more or less effort to apprehend, i i< An inner kernel of sweet joy, that needetli a husk's defence." * We should, however, have liked something more of a clue to several of the allegories, which are provoking because the characters are distinct, while we do not know what is symbolized under each. Some of the pieces are, however, quite explicit ; and some, like the dainty one '* Moccolo," give a sufficient hint of their meaning for the special effect to be produced. The poems generally show great powers of condensation. If they are by different authors, — a husband and wife, perhaps, — they exhibit wonderful unanimity of spirit and style,' — Scotsman. *The subjects of most of these pieces are characteristically young. They are without force, reality, or power of grasp. As to what they mean, not one in ten of them, as far as we can dis- cover, has any meaning. The writer should not, we think, have printed his immature sketches.' — Literary Cliurcliman. ' There is a modesty in this volume of poems which attracts our attention. It has no notes, no preface, no dedication, and no name on the title-page. Initials indeed there are attached to >i each poem, and a Greek motto from Clemens Romanus seems to point at a joint production by man and wife. A degree of reserve and mystery characterizes the productions of both, and it is evident that they belong to a school, — if indeed they do not form one. They seem to be of one mind with Sir Thomas Browne, y^ who says : '' The severe school shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is a picture of the invisible, wherein, as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substances in . that invisible fabric 1" The volume is highly suggestive, and leaves conclusions to be drawn without overt and unseemly efforts to fasten them on the reader's mind. This partial reticence is very graceful, and perfectly accords with the subject ; — not the Hellenic Goddess opening with her rosy fingers the gates of the East ; but that better and brighter Dawn which the authors of these poems believe is even now ushering in an age more wonderful and excellent than any that have gone before. * * -K- 5\: -x- * * We feel it impossible in a brief review to do justice to this pregnant volume.' — Westminster Gazette, ^ A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CORBECTED BY THE AUTHORESS, WITH SEVERAL NEW CHAPTERS. Croivn 8vo, 2 vols. Cloth. Price 10s. Qcl AN AETSTUDEISTT IN MUNICH. By anna MAEY HOWITT- WATTS. London : De la Rue and Co., 110, Bunhill Row. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 'Mary Howitt's daugliter passed a twelvemontli in Munich as a student of painting ; and these volumes give an account of her daily life and what she saw. Compiled, or more properly ex- tracted, from family letters, the narrative has the freshness of conversation with come of its minuteness, and presents a very charming reflex of thought and feeling, as well as a picture of Bavarian life, and of what is to be seen in the great Art-City of Germany The book is remarkable in itself, and full of promises for the future. So interesting and informing a work from such apparently slender materials is a 7xtra avis. An Art Student in Munich reminds one of Washington Irving's descrip- tive narrative. The lady-painter is indeed less quaint and elaborate ; she is also looser in the texture of her production ; but she is more natural and real The letters run upon an infinite variety of topics. Bits of scenery in Munich and its vicinity, with figures and small adventures — national and art festivals — public dances, concerts, and other assemblies ; the daily life of the people, and many singular characters such as might, generally speaking, be found in London or anywhere, but all thoroughly German, and consequently fresh Then again there are peasant festivals — relics of the middle ages, public parties, as it were, at which royalty assisted, galleries of art and artists ; and last, but by no means least in interest, either in reality or description, a regular miracle-play of the Middle Ages. ' — Spectator. ' Since *' Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau " we have had no local hand-book so airy and buoyant, so efiervescent and diaphanous, as this young lady's Munich experiences. No vulgar German viand made up of questionable ingredients is here ; but a vol au vent of choice and delicate materials. Wonder, delight, girlish enthusiasm, deep and varied emotion, sudden transition from the picturesque and pathetic to the playful and familiar scenes of artistic blended with those of domestic Bavarian life, keep the reader in a perpetual participation of the fair student's own genuine enjoyments.' — Globe. 6 ' A lively, glowing, and individual picture of foreign scenery and manners studied from one particular point, sucli as we have not reviewed for many a day. No book, perhaps, has been pub- lished fuller of written pictures than this since the '' Letters from the Baltic." ' — Athenceum. * A curious account is given of a miracle-play — a description of dramatic performance which still exists in Bavaria, and which is customarily performed by the peasants in the village districts. This play, which consisted of a solemn pantomime founded on various parts of the New Testament, seems to have greatly im- pressed the observer, who speaks of the earnest solemnity of the performance, and the effect produced by the childlike rendering of the sublime Christian tragedy by the Bavarian peasantry. 'Several of the chapters — such as **Bits of Munich Life," '' Autumnal Rambles," *' All Souls' Day,'' *' The Consecration of the Basilica" — are good traceries of scenery and ceremonial ; while others, relating to "Student Life," ''The Schafflers' Dance and Carnival," "Student Lights and Shadows," etc, are lively and animating, while the general descriptions form agreeable holiday reading for those who, having a taste for art, find pleasure in visits to foreign studios and vistas of foreign life.' — The Nation. ' This highly interesting work contains many word-pictures,- graphic and brilliant, made by Miss Howitt, during a late sojourn in the King of Bavaria's beautiful little Art-City, for the purposes of study. ' All is fresh, and pervaded throughout by a spirit of intense earnestness. With a true artist's eye for all that is grand or beautiful in scenery, art, or life, nothing escapes her observation ; and she also possesses the rare faculty of presenting it in good terse, racy English. One might almost believe, to borrow Thackeray's simile, "pens were fitch-brushes, and words bladders of paint !" 'The great Kaulbach, under whom she studied, " with his un- bounded imagination, philosophic thought, and studious research," is brought prominently forward, and we rejoice to see him thus worthily introduced to our countrymen. 'There is so much variety, and all so good, that we feel it diffi- cult to select passages. We have glorious descriptions of nature in every other page ; incidents of travel ; foreign manners and customs ; quaint traits of character ; the street architecture of Munich ; sledging excursions ; visits to cathedrals, picture galleries, and artists' studios ; the casting in bronze of the Bavaria, etc. ' As the work of a lady, for its spirit of noble earnestness, combined with all that is womanly, we would recommend it as inculcating how much can be accomplished in any walk by a single true-hearted individual.' — Amei^ican Paper, .■•'::.}y-^o^:%:i^^'^^^ * .'.^^-^-v -- ,