CXI.

Woodbridge:April12, [1883.]

My dear Mrs. Kemble:

I do not think you will be sorry that more than a Moon has waxed and waned since last I wrote to you. For you have seen long enough how little I had to tell, and that nevertheless you were bound to answer. But all such Apologies are stale: you will believe, I hope, that I remain as I was in regard to you, as I shall believe that you are the same toward me.

Mowbray Donne has told me two months ago that he could not get over the Remembrance of last May; and that, acting on Body as well as Mind, aged him, I suppose, as you saw. Mowbray is one of the most loyal men toward Kinsman and Friend.

Now for my own little Budget of News. I got through those Sunless East winds well enough: better than I am feeling now they both work together. I think the Wind will rule till Midsummer: ‘Enfin tant qu’il plaira à Dieu.’ Aldis Wright was with me for Easter, and we went on our usual way, together or apart. Professor Norton had sent me his Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, which we conned over together, and liked well on either side. Carlyle should not have said (and still less Norton printed) that Tennyson was a ‘gloomy’ Soul, nor Thackeray‘of inordinate Appetite,’ neither of which sayings is true: nor written of Lord Houghton as a ‘Robin Redbreast’ of a man. I shall wait very patiently till Mudie sends me Jane Carlyle—where I am told there is a word of not unkindly toleration of me; which, if one be named at all, one may be thankful for.[257]

Here are two Questions to be submitted to Mrs. Kemble by Messrs. Aldis Wright and Littlegrange—viz., What she understands by—

(1.) ‘The Raven himself is hoarse,’ etc.

(2.) ‘But thiseternalBlazon must not be,’ etc.

Mrs. Kemble (whowillanswer my letter) can tell me how she fares in health and well-being; yes, and if she has seen, or heard, anything of Alfred Tennyson, who is generally to be heard of in London at this time of year. And pray let Mrs. Kemble believe in the Writer of these poor lines as her ancient, and loyal, Subject

E. F.G.

‘The raven himself is hoarse,’ etc.

“Lady Macbeth compares the Messenger, hoarse for lack of Breath, to a raven whose croaking was held to be prophetic of Disaster. This we think the natural interpretation of the words, though it is rejected by some Commentators.”—Clark and Wright’s Clarendon Press Shakespeare.“‘Eternal Blazon’ = revelation of Eternity. It may be,however, that Sh. uses ‘eternal’ for ‘infernal’ here, as inJulius CæsarI. 2, 160: ‘The eternal Devil’; andOthelloIV. 2, 130: ‘Some eternal villain.’ ‘Blazon’ is an heraldic term, meaning Description of armorial bearings, * hence used for description generally; as inMuch AdoII. 1, 307. The verb ‘blazon’ occurs inCymbelineIV. 2, 170.”—Ibid.

“‘Eternal Blazon’ = revelation of Eternity. It may be,however, that Sh. uses ‘eternal’ for ‘infernal’ here, as inJulius CæsarI. 2, 160: ‘The eternal Devil’; andOthelloIV. 2, 130: ‘Some eternal villain.’ ‘Blazon’ is an heraldic term, meaning Description of armorial bearings, * hence used for description generally; as inMuch AdoII. 1, 307. The verb ‘blazon’ occurs inCymbelineIV. 2, 170.”—Ibid.

Thus have I written out in my very best hand: as I will take care to do in future; for I think it very bad manners to puzzle anyone—and especially a Lady—with that which is a trouble to read; and I really had no idea that I have been so guilty of doing so to Mrs. Kemble.

Also I beg leave to say that nothing in Mowbray’s letter set me off writing again to Mrs. Kemble, except her Address, which I knew not till he gave it to me, and I remain her very humble obedient Servant,

The Laird of Littlegrange—

of which I enclose a side view done by a Woodbridge Artisan for his own amusement. So that Mrs. Kemble may be made acquainted with the ‘habitat’ of the Flower—which is about to make an Omelette for its Sunday Dinner.

N.B.—The ‘Raven’ is not he that reports the news to Miladi M., but ‘one of my fellows Who almost dead for breath, etc.’

* Not, as E. F.G. had thought, the Bearings themselves.

[May, 1883.]

My dear Lady,

I conclude (from what you wrote me in your last letter) that you are at Leamington by this time; and I will venture to ask a word of you before you go off to Switzerland, and I shall have to rely on Coutts & Co. for further Correspondence between us. I am not sure of your present Address, even should you be at Leamington—not sure—but yet I think my letter will find you—and, if it do not—why, then you will be saved the necessity of answering it.

I had written to Mowbray Donne to ask about himself and his Wife: and herewith I enclose his Answer—very sad, and very manly. You shall return it if you please; for I set some store by it.

Now I am reading—have almost finished—Jane Carlyle’s Letters. I dare say you have already heard them more than enough discussed in London; and therefore I will only say that it is at any rate fine of old Carlyle to have laid himself so easily open to public Rebuke, though whether such Revelations are fit for Publicity is another question. At any rate, it seems to me thathalfher letters, andallhis ejaculations of Remorse summed up in a Preface, would have done better. There is an Article by brave Mrs. Oliphant in this month’s Contemporary Review[259](orMagazine) well worth reading on the subject; with such a Challenge to Froude as might almost be actionable in Law. We must ‘hear both sides,’ and wait for the Volume which [is] to crown all his Labours in this Cause.

I think your Leamington Country is more in Leaf than ours ‘down-East:’ which only just begins to ‘stand in a mist of green.’[260]By the by, I lately heard from Hallam Tennyson that all his Party were well enough; not having been to London this Spring because Alfred’s Doctor had warned him against London Fogs, which suppress Perspiration, and bring up Gout. Which is the best piece of news in my Letter; and I am

Yours always and a DayE. F.G.

P.S. I do not enclose Mowbray’s letter, as I had intended to do, for fear of my own not finding you.

[May, 1883.]

My dear Lady;

Stupid me! And now, after a little hunt, I find poor Mowbray’s Letter, which I had made sure of having sent you. But I should not now send it if I did not implore you not to write in case youthought fit to return it; which indeed I did ask you to do; but now I would rather it remained with you, who will acknowledge all the true and brave in it as well as I—yes, it may be laid, if you please, even among those of your own which you tell me Mowbray’s Father saved up for you. If you return it, let it be without a word of your own: and pray do not misunderstand me when I say that. You will hear of me (if Coutts be true) when you are among your Mountains again; and, if you do hear of me, I know you will—for you must—reply.

At last some feeling of Spring—a month before Midsummer. And next week I am expecting my grave Friend Charles Keene, of Punch, to come here for a week—bringing with him his Bagpipes, and an ancient Viol, and a Book of Strathspeys and Madrigals; and our Archdeacon will come to meet him, and to talk over ancient Music and Books: and we shall all three drive out past the green hedges, and heaths with their furze in blossom—and I wish—yes, I do—that you were of the Party.

I love all Southey, and all that he does; and love that Correspondence of his with Caroline Bowles. We (Boy and I) have been reading an account of Zetland, which makes me thirst for ‘The Pirate’ again—tiresome, I know—more than half of it—but what a Vision it leaves behind![261]

Now, Madam, you cannot pretend that you have to jump at my meaning through my MS. I am sure it is legible enough, and that I am ever yours

E. F.G.

You write just across the Address you date from; but I jump at that which I shall direct this Letter by.

Woodbridge,May27/83.

My dear Mrs. Kemble:

I feel minded to write you a word of Farewell before you start off for Switzerland: but I do not think it will be very welcome to you if, as usual, you feel bound to answer it on the Eve of your Departure. Why not let me hear from you when you are settled for a few days somewhere among your Mountains?

I was lately obliged to run to London on a disagreeable errand: which, however, got itself over soon after midday; when I got into a Cab to Chelsea, for the purpose of seeing Carlyle’s Statue on the Embankment, and to take a last look at his old House in Cheyne Row. The Statue very good, I thought,though looking somewhat small for want of a good Background to set it off: but the old House! Shut up—neglected—‘To Let’—was sad enough to me. I got back to Woodbridge before night.[263]

Since then I have had Charles Keene (who has not been well) staying with me here for ten days. He is a very good Guest, inasmuch as he entertains himself with Books, and Birds’-nests, and an ancient Viol which he has brought down here: as also a Bagpipe (his favourite instrument), only leaving the ‘Bag’ behind: he having to supply its functions from his own lungs. But he will leave me to-morrow or next day; and with June will come my two Nieces from Lowestoft: and then the Longest Day will come, and we shall begin declining toward Winter again, after so shortly escaping from it.

This very morning I receive The Diary of John Ward, Vicar of Stratford on Avon from 1648 to 1679—with some notices of W. S. which you know all about. And I am as ever

Sincerely yoursLittlegrange.

Is not this Letter legible enough?

Academy (Royal), pictures at, 49

Aconites, “New Year’s Gifts,” 211, 231

Aïdé (H.), 202

Anstey’s ‘Vice Versa,’ 253

Arkwright (Mrs.), 87

Autumn colours, 112

Bagehot’s Essays, 170

Barton (Bernard), 174

Basselin (Olivier), quoted, 23

Beard (Dr.), 48

Belvidere Hat, 163

Béranger, 20-22

Beuve (Sainte), Causeries, 40, 53

Blackbirdv.Nightingale, 46

Blakesley (J. W.), Dean of Lincoln, 78, 233

Boccaccio, 117

Brown (Dr. John), 253

Burns, compared with Béranger, 20-22; quoted, 37

Burrows (General), his defeat by Ayoub Khan, 193

Calderon, 63, 185

Candide, 174

Carlyle (T.), 17; forwards Mr. Ruskin’s letter to E. F.G., 19; his Kings of Norway, 61, 65; presented with a Medal and Address on his 80th birthday, 88, 91; vehement against Darwin and the Turk, 110; on Sir Walter Scott, 131; is reading Shakespeare and Boswell’s Hebrides, 170; becomes very feeble, 203; is buried at Ecclefechan, 206, 207; his Reminiscences, 215, 218; his Letters to Emerson, 246, 256

Carlyle (Mrs.), her Letters, 257, 259

Carlyle (Mrs. Alexander), 163, 170, 186, 207, 215, 222

Chateaubriand’s father, 59

Chorley (H. F.), his death, 11; Life of, 38, 53

Clerke Saunders, 164

Coriolanus, 139

Corneille, 73

Country church, Scene in, 46

Cowell (Professor), 155

Crabbe (G.), the Poet, quoted, 39, 43, 55, 59, 118; his portrait by Pickersgill, 39,150; article on him in the Cornhill, 58; his fancy quickened by a fall of snow, 198

Crabbe (George), Vicar of Bredfield, the poet’s son, 43

Crabbe (George), Rector of Merton, the poet’s grandson, 202, 225

Deffand (Madame du), 53

De Quincey (T.), on Janus Weathercock, 90

Derby Day, 186

De Soyres (John), E. F.G.’s nephew, 238

De Soyres (Mrs.), E. F.G.’s sister, her death, 168

Devrient, his Theory of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 253

Dickens (Charles), 69; E. F.G.’s admiration for him, 51, 126; his passion for colours, 54

Donne (Blanche), 48, 111, 149, 154

Donne (Charles), 95, 111, 131

Donne (Mrs. Charles), her death, 106

Donne (Mowbray), 10, 29, 39, 62, 86, 95, 111, 140, 181, 185, 193, 196, 199, 206, 207, 212, 223, 227, 242, 259, 260; visits E. F.G., 86

Donne (Valentia), 6, 18, 111, 161, 199; her marriage, 127

Donne (W. B.), mentioned, 3, 4, 6, 8, 18, 48, 60, 64, 78, 98, 102, 111, 121, 181, 207, 212, 223, 227, 229, 241; his Lectures, 10; his illness, 35, 37, 39, 42; retires from his post as Licenser of Plays, 48, 50; his successor, 50; reviews Macready’s Memoirs, 75; his death, 243

Ducis, 219

Dunwich, 138

Eastern Question (the), 117

Eckermann, a German Boswell, 155

Edwards (Edwin), 139, 140, 158; his death, 155; exhibition of his pictures, 166, 168, 169

Elio (F. J.), 120

Elliot (Sir Gilbert), pastoral by, 82

Euphranor, 65

FitzGerald (Edward), parts with his yacht, 3; his reader’s mistakes, 4; his house at Woodbridge, 8; his unwillingness to have visitors, 8, 9; his mother, 11; reads Hawthorne’s Notes of Italian Travel, 12; Memoirs of Harness, 13; cannot read George Eliot, 15, 38, 171; his love for Sir Walter Scott, 15, 229; visits his brother Peter, 16; on the art of being photographed, 24, 25; reads Walpole, Wesley, and Boswell’s Johnson, 28; in Paris in 1830, 31; cannot read Goethe’s Faust, 31, 124; reads Ste. Beuve’s Causeries, 40, and Don Quixote, 41, 45; has a skeleton of his own, bronchitis, 45, 47, 75; goes to Scotland, 49; to the Academy, 49; reads Dickens, 51; Crabbe, 54; condenses the Tales of the Hall, 59, 64, 118; death of his brother Peter, 64; translations from Calderon, 63; tries to read Gil Blas and La Fontaine, 66; admires Corneille, 73; reads Madame de Sévigné, 73; writes to Notes and Queries, 82; begins to ‘smell the ground,’ 83; his recollections of Paris, 85; reads Mrs. Trollope’s ‘A Charming Fellow,’ 95; on framing pictures, 96, 99, 102, 106; translation of the Agamemnon, 97, 103, 107, 111;meets Macready, 103; his Lugger Captain, 104, 115, 117; prefers the Second Part of Don Quixote, 108; scissors and paste his ‘Harp and Lute,’ 126; reads Dickens’ Great Expectations, 126; on nightingales, 128, 136, 184; wished to dedicate Agamemnon to Mrs. Kemble, 129; reads The Heart of Mid-Lothian, 130; Catullus, 135; Guy Mannering, 137; at Dunwich, 138; reads Coriolanus, 139; Kenilworth, 145; David Copperfield, 145; his Readings in Crabbe, 147, 150; reads Hawthorne’s Journals, 153; at Lowestoft, 155; reads Forster’s Life of Dickens, 155; and Trollope’s Novels, 155, 171; Eckermann’s Goethe, 155; works on Crabbe’s Posthumous Tales, 164; his Quarter-deck, 167; Dombey and Son, 172, 187; Comus and Lycidas, 178; Mrs. Kemble’s Records, 186; Madame de Sévigné, 186, 188; visits George Crabbe at Merton, 188, 243; his ducks and chickens, 189; his Irish cousins, 190; at Aldeburgh, 190; with his nieces at Lowestoft, 195; sends Charles Tennyson’s Sonnets to Mrs. Kemble, 198; his eyes out of ‘Keller,’ 202, 206; reads Winter’s Tale, 204; his translations of the two Œdipus plays, 205, 208; his affection for the stage, 210; his collection of actors’ portraits, 210; his love for Spedding, 212; his reminiscences of a visit with Tennyson at Mirehouse, 214; reads Wordsworth, 217; sends his reader to see Macbeth, 231; feels as if some of the internal timbers were shaken, 240; reads Froude’s Carlyle, 243, 245, 248; at Aldeburgh, 245, 247; meets Professor Fawcett, 247; consults Mrs. Kemble on two passages of Shakespeare, 257; goes to look at Carlyle’s statue and his old house, 262

FitzGerald (Jane), afterwards Mrs. Wilkinson, E. F.G.’s sister, 112, 122

FitzGerald (J. P.), E. F.G.’s eldest brother, 95, 100; his illness, 141, 144; and death, 149

FitzGerald (Mrs.), E. F.G.’s mother, 11, 61, 96; her portrait by Sir T. Lawrence, 177

FitzGerald (Percy), his Lives of the Kembles, 5, 6

FitzGerald (Peter), E. F.G.’s brother, 16; his death, 64

Frere (Mrs.), 83, 87, 181

Froude (J. A.), constantly with Carlyle, 203; is charged with his biography, 208; his Life of Carlyle, 243; writes to E. F.G., 243

Fualdès, murder of, 85; play founded on, 89

Furness (H. H.), 60, 64, 66, 101, 203

Gil Blas, 66

Glyn (Miss), 97

Goethe, 31, 123, 124; his conversations by Eckermann, 155

Goethe and Schiller, correspondence of, 231

Goodwin (Professor), proposes to visit E. F.G., 192

Gordon (Mrs.), 132, 203

Gout, 7

Groome (Archdeacon), 4, 45, 199, 223

Half Hours with the Worst Authors, 31, 34

Hamlet, theory of Gervinus on, 32; the Quarto and Folio Texts of, 221

Harlowe’s picture of the Trial Scene in Henry VIII., 87

Harness (Rev. W.), Memoirs of, 6, 13

Hatherley (Lord), letter from, 132

Hawthorne (Nathaniel), his Notes of Italian Travel, 12, 153

Haydn, 83

Haydon (B. R.), verses by his wife, 34

Haymarket Opera (The), 200

Hayward (A.), his translation of Faust, 124; his Select Essays, 170

Helen of Kirkconnel, 164

Helps (Sir Arthur), his death, 68

Hertford (Lord), 48, 50

Hood (T.), verses by, 87, 95

Houghton (Lord), 164, 236, 239, 257

Hugo (F. Victor), his translation of Shakespeare, 114

Hunt (Holman), The Shadow of Death, 40

Intellectual Peat, 69

Irving (Henry), in Hamlet, 74, 75; his portrait, 86; in Queen Mary, 107, 109; his reading of Eugene Aram, 124; in Much Ado about Nothing, 251, 255

Jenny (Mr.), the owner of Bredfield House, 10

Jessica, 179

Kean (Edmund), in Othello, 53

Keats (John), his Letters, 134; his Life and Letters, by Lord Houghton, 164

Keene (Charles), 225, 249, 261; at Little Grange, 242, 263

Kelly (Michael), his Reminiscences, 146

Kemble (Charles), in Othello, 53; as Falconbridge and Petruchio, 58; in As You Like It, 58; as Charles Surface, 58; as Cromwell, 87; in King John, 182

Kemble (Mrs. Charles), 61, 62; her ‘Smiles and Tears,’ 14; contributes to Kitchener’s Cook’s Oracle, 89; miniature of her as Urania, 96, 99, 100, 101, 106, 146

Kemble (Fanny), her laws of correspondence, 2; her daughter’s marriage, 3; her Memoirs, 29; in America, 36, 46; her article ‘On the Stage’ in the Cornhill Magazine, 53, 78, 227; her letter about Macready, 57; her photograph, 61; as Louisa of Savoy, 73; writes her ‘Old Woman’s Gossip’ in the Atlantic Monthly, 84, 92; letter from her to the Editor, 93; omitted passage from her ‘Gossip,’ 93-94; uses a type-writer, 94; her opinion of Portia, 95, 124; on Goethe and Portia, 123; end of her ‘Gossip,’ 125, 129; her Records of a Girlhood, 186; her favourite Colours, 197; her portrait by Sir T. Lawrence,210; her Records of Later Life, 227, 228

Kemble (Henry), Mrs. Kemble’s brother, 58, 109

Kemble (Henry), Mrs. Kemble’s nephew, 225

Kemble (John Mitchell), 120, 153, 159

Kemble (J. P.), 179, 183; portrait of him as Œdipus, 183, 210; Plays revised by him, 220

Kerrich (Edmund), E. F.G.’s nephew, 129, 172

La Fontaine, 66

Laurence (S.), copies Pickersgill’s portrait of Crabbe, 39; letter from, 90

Leigh (the Hon. Mrs.), Mrs. Kemble’s daughter, 161; her marriage, 3

L’Hôpital (Chancellor), quoted, 191

Little Grange, first named, 42

Lowell (J. R.), ‘Among my Books,’ 97, 119, 135; his Odes, 120, 122; letter from, 136; his coming to England as Minister of the United States, 174; illness of his wife, 174, 184, 186, 192

Lynn (Mary), 191, 252, 253

Macbeth quoted, 43, 68; French opera by Chélard, acted at Dublin, 81

Macready (W. C,), 27; his Memoirs edited by Sir W. F. Pollock, 38, 44, 50, 52, 68, 70, 98, 102; his Macbeth, 44, 57, 68; plays Henry IV., 58; reads Mrs. Kemble’s English Tragedy, 72

Malkin (Arthur), 110, 132, 213

Malkin (Dr. B. H.), Master of Bury School, 94; Crabbe a favourite with him, 213

Marjorie Fleming, 252

Marot (Clément), quoted, 23

Matthews (Charles), his Memoir, 173

Merivale (Charles), Dean of Ely, 195, 218

Montaigne, 103, 104, 105, 117

Musset (Alfred de), Memoir of, 138; loves to read Clarissa Harlowe, 138

Napoleon, saying of, 218

Naseby, proposed monument at, 17, 27

Norton (C. E), 19, 97, 119, 123, 135, 151, 180, 183, 205, 209, 246, 256

Œdipus, by Dryden and Lee, 229

Oleander, 251

Oliphant (Mrs.), on Carlyle, 218, 220; on Mrs. Carlyle, 259

Oriole, 46

Pasta, saying of, 53

Pasta, in Medea, 181, 200

Pasteur (Le Bon), 30, 33

Peacock (E.), Headlong Hall quoted, 40

Piccolomini, 11

Pigott (E. F. S.), succeeds W. B. Donne, 50

Piozzi (Mrs.), Memoirs of, 46

Pollock (Sir W. F ), visits E. F.G., 15; edits Macready’s Memoirs, 38, 44; letter from, 55; visits Carlyle, 110

Portia, 95, 124

Quixote (Don), 41, 108, 155, 182; must be read in Spanish, 114, 117

Ritchie (Mrs.), Miss Thackeray, 135

Rossi in Hamlet, 107

Rousseau on stage decoration, 110

Santley (Mrs.), 111

Sartoris (Edward), 192, 203

Sartoris (Greville), death of, 38

Sartoris (Mrs.), Mrs. Kemble’s sister, 38; her illness, 140, 149; and death, 154; her Medusa and other Tales, 203

Scott (Sir Walter), his indifference to fame, 116; the easy movement of his stories, 130; Barry Cornwall’s saying of him, 131; his Kenilworth, 145; the Fortunes of Nigel, 228, 231; Marjorie Fleming, 252; The Pirate, 261

Sévigné (Madame de), 73, 103, 105, 137, 184, 186, 188, 222; her Rochers, 105, 184; not shown to visitors, 188; list of her dramatis personæ, 125; quoted, 190, 217

Shakespeare, edited by Clark and Wright, 68, 69

Shakespeare, 69

Shakespeare’s predecessors, 223

Siddons (Mrs.), 46, 71, 183; her portrait by Sir T. Lawrence, 81; article on her in the Nineteenth Century, 134; in Winter’s Tale, 204

Skeat (Professor), his Inaugural Lecture, 153

Southey’s Correspondence with Caroline Bowles, 261

Spanish Tragedy (The), scene from, 62

Spedding (James), is finishing his Life and Letters of Bacon, 27; has finished them, 42, 51: his note on Antony and Cleopatra, 43, 45; emendation of Shakespeare, 45; paper on Richard III., 74; his opinion of Irving’s Hamlet, 74; and Miss Ellen Terry’s Portia, 74, 77; will not see Salvini in Othello, 74; on The Merchant of Venice, 77, 80, 176, 201; the Latest Theory about Bacon, 111; Shakespeare Notes, 189; his Preface to Charles Tennyson Turner’s Sonnets, 197; his accident, 212; and death, 214; his Evenings with a Reviewer, 233: Mrs. Cameron’s photograph of him, 250

Stephen (Leslie), 58; his ‘Hours in a Library,’ 118

Taylor (Tom), 166, 193; his death, 192; his Memoir of Haydon, 194

Tennyson (A.), in Burns’s country, 22; changes his publisher, 37; his Queen Mary, 77; mentioned, 82, 113, 160, 193, 228, 239; his Mary Tudor, 107, 109; visits E. F.G. at Woodbridge, 113, 114; the attack on him in the Quarterly, 116; his Harold, 122; portrait of him, 134; his saying of Clarissa Harlow, 138; of Crabbe’s portrait by Pickersgill, 151; used to repeat Clerke Saunders and Helen of Kirkconnel, 164; The Falcon, 169; The Cup, 206, 208; his saying of Lycidas, 178; his eyes, 183; Ballads and other Poems, 201; with E. F.G. at Mirehouse,214; The Promise of May, 251, 253

Tennyson (Frederick), visits E. F.G., 16; his saying of blindness, 183; his poems, 197

Tennyson (Hallam, now Lord), 114, 228, 239, 260

Tennyson (Lionel), 98; his marriage, 135

Terry (Miss Ellen), as Portia, 74, 77; Tom Taylor’s opinion of her, 95

Thackeray (Minnie), death of, 90

Thackeray (Miss), 99; her Old Kensington, 13, 15, 39; meets E. F.G. at the Royal Academy, 16; her Village on the Cliff, 38; on Madame de Sévigné, 227; on Miss Edgeworth, 250

Thackeray (W. M.), 38, 120; not the author of a Tragedy, 51; his Drawings published, ‘The Orphan of Pimlico,’ etc., 91; his pen and ink drawing of Mrs. Kemble as Louisa of Savoy, 73

Thurtell, the murderer, 152

Tichborne trial, 28, 36

Tieck, ‘an Eyewitness of John Kemble’ in The Nineteenth Century, 179, 183

Trench (Archbishop), his Translation of Calderon, 185; E. F.G. sends him his Crabbe, 185

Tunbridge Wells, 57

Turner (Charles Tennyson), his Sonnets, 151, 197

‘Twalmley’ (‘the Great’), 75, 102, 116

Two Noble Kinsmen (The), 221

Urania, 146

Wade (T.), author of the Jew of Aragon, 120

Wainewright (T. G.), 90

Wales (Prince of), Thanksgiving service for his recovery, 10

Ward (John), Vicar of Stratford on Avon, his diary, 263

Wesley (John), his Journal one of E. F.G.’s hobbies, 28, 186

Whalley (Dr.), his reading of a passage in Macbeth, 46

Wilkinson (Mrs.), E. F.G.’s sister, 112, 122, 169, 225

Wilson (H. Schütz), 232, 233, 235

Wister (Mrs.), Mrs. Kemble’s daughter, 6, 36, 252, 254

Woodberry (G. E.), his article on Crabbe, 180

Wylie (W. H.), on Thomas Carlyle, 237

[3a]Mrs. Kemble’s daughter, Frances Butler, was married to the Hon. and Rev. James Wentworth Leigh, now Dean of Hereford, 29th June 1871.

[3b]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 126.

[6]Fitzgerald’s Lives of the Kembles was reviewed in theAthenæum, 12th August 1871, and the ‘Memoirs of Mr. Harness,’ 28th October.

[7]Macbeth, ii. 2, 21.

[9]In writing to Sir Frederick Pollock on November 17th, 1871, FitzGerald says:—

‘The Game-dealer here telling me that he has some very good Pheasants, I have told him to send you a Brace—to go in company with Braces to Carlyle, and Mrs. Kemble. This will, you may think, necessitate your writing a Reply of Thanks before your usual time of writing: but don’t do that:—only write to me now in case the Pheasants don’t reach you; I know you will thank me for them, whether they reach you or not; and so you can defer writing so much till you happen next upon an idle moment which you may think as well devoted to me; you being the only man, except Donne, who cares to trouble himself with a gratuitous letter to one who really does not deserve it.‘Donne, you know, is pleased with Everybody, and with Everything that Anybody does for him. You must take his Praises of Woodbridge with this grain of Salt to season them. It may seem odd to you at first—but not perhaps on reflection—that I feel more—nervous, I may say—at the prospect of meeting with an old Friend, after all these years, than of any indifferent Acquaintance. I feel it the less with Donne, for the reason aforesaid—why should I not feel it with you who have given so many tokens since our last meeting that you are well willing to take me as I am? If one is, indeed, by Letter what one is in person.—I always tell Donne not to come out of his way here—he says he takes me in the course of a Visit to some East-Anglian kinsmen. Have you ever any such reason?—Well; if you have no better reason than that of really wishing to see me, for better or worse, in my home, come—some Spring or Summer day, when my Home at any rate is pleasant. This all sounds mock-modesty; but it is not; as I can’t read Books, Plays, Pictures, etc. and don’t see People, I feel, when a Man comes, that I have all to ask and nothing to tell; and one doesn’t like to make a Pump of a Friend.’

‘Donne, you know, is pleased with Everybody, and with Everything that Anybody does for him. You must take his Praises of Woodbridge with this grain of Salt to season them. It may seem odd to you at first—but not perhaps on reflection—that I feel more—nervous, I may say—at the prospect of meeting with an old Friend, after all these years, than of any indifferent Acquaintance. I feel it the less with Donne, for the reason aforesaid—why should I not feel it with you who have given so many tokens since our last meeting that you are well willing to take me as I am? If one is, indeed, by Letter what one is in person.—I always tell Donne not to come out of his way here—he says he takes me in the course of a Visit to some East-Anglian kinsmen. Have you ever any such reason?—Well; if you have no better reason than that of really wishing to see me, for better or worse, in my home, come—some Spring or Summer day, when my Home at any rate is pleasant. This all sounds mock-modesty; but it is not; as I can’t read Books, Plays, Pictures, etc. and don’t see People, I feel, when a Man comes, that I have all to ask and nothing to tell; and one doesn’t like to make a Pump of a Friend.’

[10a]At the Royal Institution, on ‘The Theatre in Shakespeare’s Time.’ The series consisted of six lectures, which were delivered from 20th January to 24th February 1872. On 18th February 1872, Mrs. Kemble wrote: ‘My dear old friend Donne is lecturing on Shakespeare, and I have heard him these last two times. He is looking ill and feeble, and I should like to carry him off too, out of the reach of his too many and too heavy cares.’—‘Further Records,’ ii. 253.

[10b]27th February, 1872, for the recovery of the Prince of Wales.

[10c]Mr. Jenney, the owner of Bredfield House, where FitzGerald was born. See ‘Letters,’ i. 64.

[11]H. F. Chorley died 16th February 1872.

[13a]Perhaps Widmore, near Bromley. See ‘Further Records,’ ii. 253.

[13b]‘Old Kensington,’ the first number of which appeared in theCornhill Magazinefor April 1872.

[15]He came May 18th, 1872, the day before Whitsunday.

[16a]F. T. came August 1st, 1872.

[16b]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 142-3.

[19a]Miss Harriet St. Leger.

[19b]April 14th, 1873. See ‘Letters,’ ii. 154.

[23a]Probably the piece beginning—

‘On plante des pommiers ès bordsDes cimitieres, près des morts, &c

Olivier Basselin (‘Vaux-de-Vire,’ ed Jacob, 1858, xv. p. 28)

On Oct 13th, 1879, FitzGerald wrote of a copy of Olivier (ed. Du Bois, 1821) which he had sent by me to Professor Cowell: “If Cowell does not care for Olivier—the dear Phantom!—pray do you keep him. Read a little piece—the two first Stanzas—beginning ‘Dieu garde de deshonneur,’ p. 184—quite beautiful to me; though not classed as Olivier’s. Also ‘Royne des Flours, &c,’ p. 160. These are things that Béranger could not reach with all his Art; but Burns could without it.”

[23b]De Damoyselle Anne de Marle (Marot, ‘Cimetière,’ xiv ):—

‘Lors sans viser au lieu dont elle vint,Et desprisant la gloire que l’on aEn ce bas monde, icelle Anne ordonna,Que son corps fust entre les pauures mysEn cette fosse. Or prions, chers amys,Que l’ame soit entre les pauures mise,Qui bien heureux sont chantez en l’Église.’

[25]On March 30, 1873, FitzGerald wrote to Sir Frederick Pollock:—

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

Again on May 5, he wrote: “I think I shall have a word about M[acready] from Mrs. Kemble, with whom I have been corresponding a little since her return to England. She has lately been staying with her Son in Law, Mr. Leigh (?), at Stoneleigh Vicarage, near Kenilworth. In the Autumn she says she will go to America, never to return to England. But I tell her shewillreturn. She is to sit for her Photo at my express desire, and I have given her Instructionshowto sit, derived from my own successful Experience. One rule is to sit—in a dirty Shirt—(to avoid dangerous White) and another is, not to sit on a Sunshiny Day: which we must leave to the Young.

“By the by, I sent old Spedding my own lovely Photo (the Statesman) which he has acknowledged in Autograph. He tells me that he begins to ‘smell Land’ with his Bacon.”

[28a]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 165-7.

[28b]See letter of April 22nd, 1873.

[30]Shakespeare, Ant. & Cl., v. 2, line 6:—

‘Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change.’

[31]In his ‘Half Hours with the Worst Authors’ FitzGerald has transcribed ‘Le Bon Pasteur,’ which consists of five stanzas of eight lines each, beginning:—

‘Bons habitans de ce Village,Prêtez l’oreille un moment,’ &c.

Each stanza ends:—

‘Et le bon Dieu vous benira.’

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

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

[34b]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 280.

[37]Burns, quoted from memory as usual. See Globe Edition, p. 214; ed. Cunningham, iv. 293.

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

[39]‘Rage’ in the original. See Tales of the Hall, Book XII. Sir Owen Dale.

[40]Quoting from Peacock’s ‘Headlong Hall’:—

‘Nature had but little clayLike that of which she moulded him.’

See ‘Letters,’ i. 75, note.

[42]18 April 1874. Professor Hiram Corson endeavoured to maintain the correctness of the reading of the Folios in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 86-88:

‘For his Bounty,There was no winter in ’t. AnAnthonyit was,That grew the more by reaping.’

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

[43]These lines are not to be found in Crabbe, so far as I can ascertain, but they appear to be a transformation of two which occur in the Parish Register, Part II., in the story of Phebe Dawson (Works, ii. 183):

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

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

‘Friend of the Poor, the Wretched, the Betray’d;They cannot pay thee—but thou shalt be paid.’

Pas mal ça, eh!”

[45a]In a letter to me dated October 29th, 1871, FitzGerald says:—

“A suggestion that casually fell from old Spedding’s lips (I forget how long ago) occurred to me the other day. Instead of‘Do such business as the bitter day,’

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

‘Do such business as the bitter day,’

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

[45b]In ‘Notes and Queries,’ April 18th, 1874.

[48a]Lord Hertford

[48b]Frank Carr Beard, the friend and medical adviser of Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

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

[49b]Dryburgh.

[49c]The North West Passage. The ‘Old Sea Captain’ was Trelawny.

[50a]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 173-4.

[50b]E. F. S. Pigott.

[52]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 172.

[53a]NotMacmillan, butCornhill Magazine, Dec. 1863, ‘On the Stage.’ See Letter of 24 Aug. 1875.

[53b]“Pasta, the great lyric tragedian, who, Mrs. Siddons said, was capable of giving her lessons, replied to the observation, ‘Vous avez dû beaucoup étudier l’antique.’ ‘Je l’ai beaucoup senti.’”—From Mrs. Kemble’s article ‘On the Stage’ (‘Cornhill,’ 1863), reprinted as an Introduction to her Notes upon some of Shakespeare’s Plays.

[53c]‘Causeries du Lundi,’ xiv. 234.

[53d]Lettre de Viard a M. Walpole, in ‘Lettres de Madame du Deffand,’ iv. 178 (Paris, 1824). FitzGerald probably read it in Ste. Beuve, ‘Causeries du Lundi,’ i. 405.

[54]Cedars, not yew. See Memoirs of Chorley, ii. 240.

[55]In Tales of the Hall, Book XI. (‘Works,’ vi. 284), quoted from memory.

[56]Virgil, Æn. vi. 127.

[57a]Referring to the well-known print of ‘Remarkable Characters who were at Tunbridge Wells with Richardson in 1748.’

[57b]James Spedding.

[59a]In the original draft of Tales of the Hall, Book VI.

[59b]See Memoirs of Chateaubriand, written by himself, Eng. trans. 1849 p. 123. At the Château of Combourg in Brittany, ‘When supper was over, and the party of four had removed from the table to the chimney, my mother would throw herself, with a sigh, upon an old cotton-covered sofa, and near her was placed a little stand with a light. I sat down by the fire with Lucile; the servants removed the supper-things, and retired. My father then began to walk up and down, and never ceased until his bedtime. He wore a kind of white woollen gown, or rather cloak, such as I have never seen with anyone else. His head, partly bald, was covered with a large white cap, which stood bolt upright. When, in the course of his walk, he got to a distance from the fire, the vast apartment was so ill-lighted by a single candle that he could be no longer seen, he could still be heard marching about in the dark, however, and presently returned slowly towards the light, and emerged by degrees from obscurity, looking like a spectre, with his white robe and cap, and his tall, thin figure.’

[64a]‘The Mighty Magician’ and ‘Such Stuff as Dreams are made of.’

[64b]See Winter’s Tale, iv. 4, 118-120.

[65]‘Euphranor.’

[67]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 180.

[68]Sir Arthur Helps died March 7th, 1875.

[69]The Passage of Carlyle to which FitzGerald refers is perhaps in ‘Anti-Dryasdust,’ in the Introduction to Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches. ‘By very nature it is a labyrinth and chaos, this that we call Human History; anabatisof trees and brushwood, a world-wide jungle, at once growing and dying. Under the green foliage and blossoming fruit-trees of To-day, there lie, rotting slower or faster, the forests of all other Years and Days. Some have rotted fast, plants of annual growth, and are long since quite gone to inorganic mould; others are like the aloe, growths that last a thousand or three thousand years.’ Ste. Beuve, in his ‘Nouveaux Lundis’ (iv. 295), has a similar remark: ‘Pour un petit nombre d’arbres qui s’élèvent de quelques pieds au-dessus de terre et qui s’aperçoivent de loin, il y a partout, en littérature, de cet humus et de ce détrius végétal, de ces feuilles accumulées et entassées qu’on ne distingue pas, si l’on ne se baisse.’ At the end of his copy FitzGerald has referred to this as ‘Carlyle’s Peat.’

[71]In The Gamester. See ‘Macready’s Reminiscences,’ i. 54-57.

[72a]In Rowe’s Tamerlane. See ‘Macready’s Reminiscences,’ i. 202.

[72b]Probably the English Tragedy, which was finished in October 1838. See ‘Records of Later Days,’ ii. 168.

[74]In theTransactions of the New Shakspere Societyfor 1875-76. The surviving editor of the ‘Cambridge Shakspeare’ does not at all feel that Spedding’s criticism ‘smashed’ the theory which was only put forward as a tentative solution of a perhaps insoluble problem.

[75a]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 177.

[75b]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 198, 228, and Boswell’s ‘Johnson’ (ed. Birkbeck Hill), iv. 193.

[77]FitzGerald wrote to me about the same time:

“Spedding has (you know) a delicious little Paper about the Merchant of Venice in JulyFraser:—but I think he is wrong in subordinating Shylock to the Comedy Part. If that were meant to be so, Williams [‘the divine Williams,’ as some Frenchman called Shakespeare] miscalculated, throwing so much of his very finest writing into the Jew’s Mouth, the downright human Nature of which makes all the Love-Story Child’s play, though very beautiful Child’s play indeed.”

[78]‘On the Stage,’ in theCornhill Magazinefor December 1863 Reprinted as an Introduction to Mrs. Kemble’s ‘Notes upon some of Shakespeare’s Plays.’

[79]See his ‘Life and Letters,’ p. 46.

[80]In theCornhill Magazinefor July 1875, The Merchant of Venice at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre.

[82a]‘The Enterprising Impresario’ by Walter Maynard (Thomas Willert Beale), 1867, pp 273-4.

[82b]Beginning, ‘A spirit haunts the year’s last hours.’ It first appeared in the poems of 1830, p. 67, and is now included in Tennyson’s Collected Works. See ‘Letters,’ ii. 256.

[82c]By Sir Gilbert Elliot, father of the first Lord Minto. The query appeared 25 Sept. 1875 (‘N. & Q.’ 5th Series, iv. 247), and two answers are given at p. 397, but not by E. F.G.

[83]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 185.

[84]TheAtlantic Monthlyfor August, September, and October 1875.

[85a]Atlantic Monthly, August 1875, p. 167, by T. S. Perry.

[85b]Ibid., p. 240.

[86]From Oct. 30 to Nov. 4.

[87a]The Trial of Queen Katharine inHenry VIII. Charles Kemble acted Cromwell.

[87b]Atlantic Monthly, August 1875, p. 165.

[88a]‘The Exile,’ quoted from memory.

[88b]See letter of August 24, 1875.

[89]Atlantic Monthly, August 1875, p. 156.

[90a]Thomas Griffiths Wainewright. De Quincey’s account of him is in his essay on Charles Lamb (‘Works,’ ed. 1862, viii. 146). His career was the subject of a story by Dickens, called ‘Hunted Down.’

[90b]Minnie Thackeray (Mrs. Leslie Stephen) died Nov. 28.

[91]About the same time he wrote to me:—

‘A dozen years ago I entreated Annie Thackeray, Smith & Elder, &c., to bring out a Volume of Thackeray’s better Drawings. Of course they wouldn’t—now Windus and Chatto have, you know, brought out a Volume of his inferior: and now Annie T. S. & E. prepare a Volume—when it is not so certain to pay, at any rate, as when W. M. T. was the Hero of the Day. However, I send them all I have: pretty confident they will select the worst; of course, for my own part, I would rather have any other than copies of what I have: but I should like the World to acknowledge he could do something beside the ugly and ridiculous. Annie T. sent me the enclosed Specimen: very careless, but full of Character. I can see W. M. T. drawing it as he was telling one about his Scotch Trip. That disputatious Scotchman in the second Row with Spectacles, and—teeth. You may know some who will be amused at this:—but send it back, please: no occasion to write beside.’

[92]When I was preparing the first edition of FitzGerald’s Letters I wrote to Mrs. Kemble for permission to quote the passage from her Gossip which is here referred to. She replied (11 Dec. 1883):—

‘I have no objection whatever to your quoting what I said of Edward Fitzgerald in theAtlantic Monthly, but I suppose you know that it was omitted from Bentley’s publication of my book at Edward’sown desire. He did not certainly knock me on the head with Dr. Johnson’s sledge-hammer, but he did make me feel painfully that I had been guilty of the impertinence of praising.’

I did not then avail myself of the permission so readily granted, but I venture to do so now, in the belief that the publicity from which his sensitive nature shrank during his lifetime may now without impropriety be given to what was written in all sincerity by one of his oldest and most intimate friends. It was Mrs. Kemble who described him as ‘an eccentric man of genius, who took more pains to avoid fame than others do to seek it,’ and this description is fully borne out by the account she gave of him in the offending passage which follows:—

“That Mrs. Fitzgerald is among the most vivid memories of my girlish days. She and her husband were kind and intimate friends of my father and mother. He was a most amiable and genial Irish gentleman, with considerable property in Ireland and Suffolk, and a fine house in Portland Place, and had married his cousin, a very handsome, clever, and eccentric woman. I remember she always wore a bracelet of his hair, on the massive clasp of which were engraved the words, ‘Stesso sangue,stessa sorte.’ I also remember, as a feature of sundry dinners at their house, the first gold dessert and table ornaments that I ever saw, the magnificence of which made a great impression upon me; though I also remember their being replaced, upon Mrs. Fitzgerald’s wearying of them, by a set of ground glass and dead and burnished silver, so exquisite that the splendid gold service was pronounced infinitely less tasteful and beautiful. One member of her family—her son Edward Fitzgerald—has remained my friend till this day. His parents and mine are dead. Of his brothers and sisters I retain no knowledge, but with him I still keep up an affectionate and to me most valuable and interesting correspondence. He was distinguished from the rest of his family, and indeed from most people, by the possession of very rare intellectual and artistic gifts. A poet, a painter, a musician, an admirable scholar and writer, if he had not shunned notoriety as sedulously as most people seek it, he would have achieved a foremost place among the eminent men of his day, and left a name second to that of very few of his contemporaries. His life was spent in literary leisure, or literary labours of love of singular excellence, which he never cared to publish beyond the circle of his intimate friends: Euphranor, Polonius, collections of dialogues full of keen wisdom, fine observation, and profound thought; sterling philosophy written in the purest, simplest, and raciest English; noble translations, or rather free adaptations of Calderon’s two finest dramas, The Wonderful Magician and Life’s a Dream, and a splendid paraphrase of the Agamemnon of Æschylus, which fills its reader with regret that he should not haveEnglishedthe whole of the great trilogy with the same severe sublimity. In America this gentleman is better known by his translation or adaptation (how much more of it is his own than the author’s I should like to know if I were Irish) of Omar Khayyám, the astronomer-poet of Persia. Archbishop Trench, in his volume on the life and genius of Calderon, frequently refers to Mr. Fitzgerald’s translations, and himself gives a version of Life’s a Dream, the excellence of which falls short, however, of his friend’s finer dramatic poem bearing the same name, though he has gallantly attacked the difficulty of rendering the Spanish in English verse. While these were Edward Fitzgerald’s studies and pursuits, he led a curious life of almost entire estrangement from society, preferring the companionship of the rough sailors and fishermen of the Suffolk coast to that of lettered folk. He lived with them in the most friendly intimacy, helping them in their sea ventures, and cruising about with one, an especially fine sample of his sort, in a small fishing-smack which Edward Fitzgerald’s bounty had set afloat, and in which the translator of Calderon and Æschylus passed his time, better pleased with the fellowship and intercourse of the captain and crew of his small fishing craft than with that of more educated and sophisticated humanity. He and his brothers were school-fellows of my eldest brother under Dr. Malkin, the master of the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds.”

[94]Mrs. Kemble’s letter was written with a typewriter (see ‘Further Records,’ i. 198, 240, 247). It was given by FitzGerald to Mr. F. Spalding, now of the Colchester Museum, through whose kindness I am enabled to quote it:—

‘York Farm,Branchtown.‘Tuesday,Dec.14. 1875.

‘My dear Edward FitzGerald,

‘I have got a printing-machine and am going to try and write to you upon it and see if it will suit your eyes better than my scrawl of handwriting. Thank you for the Photographs and the line of music; I know that old bit of tune, it seems to me. I think Mr. Irving’s face more like Young’s than my Father’s. Tom Taylor, years ago, told me that Miss Ellen Terry would be a consummate comic actress. Portia should never be without some one to set her before the Public. She is my model woman.’

[97a]See ‘Letters,’ ii. 192

[97b]See theAthenæumfor Jan. 1, 15, 22, 29, 1876.

[100]In her ‘Further Records,’ i. 250, Mrs. Kemble wrote, March 11th, 1876:—

‘Last week my old friend Edward Fitzgerald (Omar Kyam, you know), sent me a beautiful miniature of my mother, which his mother—her intimate friend—had kept till her death, and which had been painted for Mrs. Fitzgerald. It is a full-length figure, very beautifully painted, and very like my mother. Almost immediately after receiving this from England, my friend Mr. Horace Furness came out to see me. He is a great collector of books and prints, and brought me an old engraving of my mother in the character of Urania, which a great many years ago I remember to have seen, and which was undoubtedly the original of Mrs. Fitzgerald’s miniature. I thought the concidence of their both reaching me at the same time curious.’

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