XVII.

Little Grange:Woodbridge,May2/74.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

My Castle Clock has gone 9 p.m., and I myself am but half an hour home from a Day to Lowestoft. Why I should begin a Letter to you under these circumstances I scarce know. However, I have long been intending to write: nay, actually did write half a Letter which I mislaid. What I wanted to tell you was—and is—that Donne is goingon very well: Mowbray thinks he may be pronounced ‘recovered.’ You may have heard about him from some other hand before this: I know you will be glad to hear it at any time, from any quarter.

This my Castle had been named by me ‘Grange Farm,’ being formerly a dependency of a more considerable Château on the hill above. But a fine tall Woman, who has been staying two days, ordered me to call it ‘Little Grange.’ So it must be. She came to meet a little Niece of mine: both Annies: one tall as the other is short: both capital in Head and Heart: I knew they wouldfadgewell: so they did: so we all did, waiting on ourselves and on one another. Odd that I have another tip-top Annie on my small list of Acquaintances—Annie Thackeray.

I wonder what Spring is like in America. We have had an April of really ‘magnifique’ Weather: but here is that vixen May with its N.E. airs. A Nightingale however sings so close to my Bedroom that (the window being open) the Song is almost too loud.

I thought you would come back to Nightingale-land!

Donne is better: and Spedding has at last (I hear) got his load of Bacon off his Shoulders, after carrying it for near Forty years! Forty years long! A fortnight ago there was such a delicious bit of his in Notes and Queries,[42]a Comment on some American Commenton a passage in Antony and Cleopatra, that I recalled my old Sorrow that he had not edited Shakespeare long ago instead of wasting Life in washing his Blackamoor. Perhaps there is time for this yet: but is there the Will?

Pray, Madam, how do you emphasize the line—

‘After Life’s fitful Fever he sleeps well,’

which, by the by, one wonders never to have seen in some Churchyard? What do you think of this for an Epitaph—from Crabbe?—

‘Friend of the Poor—the Wretched—the Betray’d,They cannot pay thee—but thou shalt be paid.’[43]

This is a poor Letter indeed to make you answer—as answer you will—I really only intended to tell you of Donne; and remain ever yours

E. F.G.

Pollock is busy editing Macready’s Papers.

Lowestoft:June2/74.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Many a time have I written to you from this place: which may be the reason why I write again now—the very day your Letter reaches me—for I don’t know that I have much to say, nor anything worth forcing from you the Answer that you will write. Let me look at your Letter again. Yes: so I thought of ‘hesleeps well,’ and yet I do not remember to have heard it so read. (I never heard you read the Play) I don’t think Macready read it so. I liked his Macbeth, I must say: only he would say ‘Amen st-u-u-u-ck in his throat,’ which was not only a blunder, but a vulgar blunder, I think.

Spedding—I should think indeed it was too late for him to edit Shakespeare, if he had not gone on doing so, as it were, all his Life. Perhaps it is too late for him to remember half, or a quarter, of his own Observations. Well then: I wish he would record what he does remember: if not an Edition ofShakespeare yet so many Notes toward an Edition. I am persuaded that no one is more competent.[45a]

You see your Americans will go too far. It was some American Professor’s Note[45b]on ‘the Autumn of his Bounty’ which occasioned Spedding’s delightful Comment some while ago, and made me remember my old wish that he should do the thing. But he will not: especially if one asks him.

Donne—Archdeacon Groome told me a Fortnight ago that he had been at Weymouth Street. Donne better, but still not his former Self.

By the by, I have got a Skeleton of my own at last: Bronchitis—which came on me a month ago—which I let go on for near three weeks—then was forced to call in a Doctor to subdue, who kept me a week indoors. And now I am told that, every Cold I catch, my Skeleton is to come out, etc. Every N.E. wind that blows, etc. I had not been shut up indoors for some fifty-five years—since Measles at school—but I had green before my Windows, and Don Quixote for Company within.Que voulez-vous?

Shakespeare again. A Doctor Whalley, who wrote a Tragedy for Mrs. Siddons (which she declined), proposed to her that she should read—‘But screw your Courage to thesticking place,’ with the appropriate action of using the Dagger. I think Mrs. Siddons good-naturedly admits there may be something in the suggestion. One reads this in the last memoir of Madame Piozzi, edited by Mr. Hayward.

Blackbirdv.Nightingale. I have always loved the first best: as being so jolly, and the Note so proper from that golden Bill of his. But one does not like to go against received opinion. YourOriolehas been seen in these parts by old—very old—people: at least, a gay bird so named. But no one ever pretends to see him now.

Now have you perversely crossed the Address which you desire me to abide by: and I can’t be sure of your ‘Branchtown’? But I suppose that enough is clear to make my Letter reach you if it once gets across the Atlantic. And now this uncertainty about your writing recalls to me—very absurdly—an absurd Story told me by a pious, but humorous, man, which will please you if you don’t know it already.

Scene.—Country Church on Winter’s Evening. Congregation, with the Old Hundredth ready for the Parson to give out some Dismissal Words.

Good old Parson, not at all meaning rhyme, ‘The Light has grown so very dim, I scarce can see to read the Hymn.’

Congregation, taking it up: to the first half of the Old Hundredth—

‘The Light has grown so very dim,I scarce can see to read the Hymn.’

(Pause, as usual:Parson, mildly impatient) ‘I did not mean to read a Hymn; I only meant my Eyes were dim.’

Congregation, to second part of Old Hundredth:—

‘I did not mean to read a Hymn;I only meant my Eyes were dim.’

Parson, out of Patience, etc.:—

‘I didn’t mean a Hymn at all,—I think the Devil’s in you all.’

I say, if you don’t know this, it is worth your knowing, and making known over the whole Continent of America, North and South. And I am your trusty and affectionate old Beadsman (left rather deaf with that blessed Bronchitis)

E. F.G.

Little Grange:Woodbridge,July21, [1874.]

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I must write to you—for I have seen Donne, and can tell you that he looks and seems much better than I had expected, though I had been told toexpect well: he was upright, well coloured, animated; I should say (sotto voce) better than he seemed to me two years ago. And this in spite of the new Lord Chamberlain[48a]having ousted him from his Theatrical post, wanting a younger and more active man to go and see the Plays, as well as read them. I do not think this unjust; I was told by Pollock that the dismissal was rather abrupt: but Donne did not complain of it. When does he complain? He will now, however, leave Weymouth Street, and inhabit some less costly house—not wanting indeed so large [a] one for his present household. He is shortly going with his Daughters to join the Blakesleys at Whitby. Mowbray was going off for his Holiday to Cornwall: I just heard him speaking of Freddy’s present Address to his father: Blanche was much stronger, from the treatment of a Dr. Beard[48b](I think). I was quite moved by her warm salutation when I met her, after some fifteen years’ absence. All this I report from a Visit I made to Donne’s own house in London. A thing I scarce ever thought to do again, you may know: but I could not bear to be close to him in London for two days without assuring myself with my own Eyes how he looked. I think I observed a slight hesitation of memory: but certainly not so much as I find in myself, nor, I suppose, unusual in one’s Contemporaries. My visit to Londonfollowed a visit to Edinburgh: which I have intended these thirty years, only for the purpose of seeing my dear Sir Walter’s House and Home: and which I am glad to have seen, as that of Shakespeare. I had expected to find a rather Cockney Castle: but no such thing: all substantially and proportionably built, according to the Style of the Country: the Grounds well and simply laid out: the woods he planted well-grown, and that dear Tweed running and murmuring still—as on the day of his Death.[49a]I did not so much care for Melrose, and Jedburgh,[49b]though his Tomb is there—in one of the half-ruined corners. Another day I went to Trossachs, Katrine, Lomond, etc., which (as I expected) seemed much better to me in Pictures and Drop-scenes. I was but three days in Scotland, and was glad to get back to my own dull flat country, though I did worship the Pentland, Cheviot, and Eildon, Hills, more for their Associations than themselves. They are not big enough for that.

I saw little in London: the Academy Pictures even below the average, I thought: only a Picture by Millais of an old Sea Captain[49c]being read to byhis Daughter which moistened my Eyes. I thought she was reading him the Bible, which he seemed half listening to, half rambling over his past Life: but I am told (I had no Catalogue) that she was reading about the North West Passage. There were three deep of Bonnets before Miss Thompson’s famous Roll Call of the Guards in the Crimea; so I did not wait till they fell away.[50a]

Yours always

E. F.G.

Lowestoft:Aug.24, [1874.]

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Your letter reached me this morning: and you see I lose no time in telling you that, as I hear from Pollock, Donne is allowed £350 a year retiring Pension. So I think neither he nor his friends have any reason to complain. His successor in the office is named (I think) ‘Piggott’[50b]—Pollock thinks a good choice. Lord Hertford brought the old and the new Examiners together to Dinner: and all went off well. Perhaps Donne himself may have told you all this before now. He was to be, about this time, with the Blakesleys at Whitby or Filey. I have not heard any of these particulars from himself: nothing indeed since I saw him in London.

Pollock was puzzled by an entry in Macready’sJournal—1831 or 1832—‘Received Thackeray’s Tragedy’ with some such name as ‘Retribution.’ I told Pollock I was sure it was not W. M. T., who (especially at that time) had more turn to burlesque than real Tragedy: and sure that he would have told me of it then, whether accepted or rejected—as rejected it was. Pollock thought for some while that, in spite of the comic Appearance we keep up, we should each of us rise up from the Grave with a MS. Tragedy in our hands, etc. However, he has become assured it was some other Thackeray: I suppose one mentioned by Planché as a DramaticDilettante—of the same Family, I think, as W. M. T.

Spedding has sent me the concluding Volume of his Bacon: the final summing up simple, noble, deeply pathetic—rather on Spedding’s own Account than his Hero’s, for whose Vindication so little has been done by the sacrifice of forty years of such a Life as Spedding’s. Positively, nearly all the new matter which S. has produced makes against, rather than for, Bacon: and I do think the case would have stood better if Spedding had only argued from the old materials, and summed up his Vindication in one small Volume some thirty-five years ago.

I have been sunning myself in Dickens—even in his later and very inferior ‘Mutual Friend,’ and ‘Great Expectations’—Very inferior to his best: but with things better than any one else’s best, caricature as they may be. I really must go and worship at Gadshill, as I have worshipped at Abbotsford, thoughwith less Reverence, to be sure. But I must look on Dickens as a mighty Benefactor to Mankind.[52]

This is shamefully bad writing of mine—very bad manners, to put any one—especially a Lady—to the trouble and pain of deciphering. I hope all about Donne is legible, for you will be glad of it. It is Lodging-house Pens and Ink that is partly to blame for this scrawl. Now, don’t answer till I write you something better: but believe me ever and always yours

E. F.G.

Lowestoft:October4/74.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Do, pray, write your Macready (Thackeray used to say ‘Megreedy’) Story to Pollock: Sir F. 59 Montagu Square. I rather think he was to be going to Press with his Megreedy about this time: but you may be sure he will deal with whatever you may confide to him discreetly and reverently. It is ‘Miladi’ P. who worshipped Macready: and I think I never recovered what Esteem I had with her when I told her I could not look on him as a ‘Great’ Actor at all. I see in Planché’s Memoirs that when your Father prophesied great things of him to your Uncle J. P. K., the latter said, ‘Con quello viso?’ which ‘viso’ did very well however in parts not positively heroic. But one can’t think ofhim along with Kean, who was heroic in spite of undersize. How he swelled up in Othello! I remember thinking he looked almost as tall as your Father when he came to Silence that dreadful Bell.

I think you agree with me about Kean: remembering your really capital Paper—inMacmillan[53a]—about Dramatic and Theatric. I often look to that Paper, which is bound up with some Essays by other Friends—Spedding among them—no bad Company. I was thinking of your Pasta story of ‘feeling’ the Antique, etc.,[53b]when reading in my dear Ste. Beuve[53c]of my dear Madame du Deffand asking Madame de Choiseul: ‘Youknowyou love me, but do youfeelyou love me?’ ‘Quoi?vous m’aimez donc?’ she said to her secretary Wiart, when she heard him sobbing as she dictated her last letter to Walpole.[53d]

All which reminds me of one of your friends departed—Chorley—whose Memoirs one now buys from Mudie for 2s.6d.or so. And well—well—worth to those who recollect him. I only knew him by Face—and Voice—at your Father’s, and yourSister’s: and used to think what a little waspishDilettanteit was: and now I see he was something very much better indeed: and I only hope I may have Courage to face my Death as he had. Dickens loved him, who did not love Humbugs: and Chorley would have two strips of Gadshill Yew[54]put with him in his Coffin. Which again reminds me that—à proposof your comments on Dickens’ crimson waistcoat, etc., Thackeray told me thirty years ago, that Dickens did it, not from any idea of Cockney fashion: but from a veritable passion for Colours—which I can well sympathize with, though I should not exhibit them on my own Person—for very good reasons. Which again reminds me of what you write about my abiding the sight of you in case you return to England next year. Oh, my dear Mrs. Kemble, you must know how wrong all that is—tout au contraire, in fact. Tell me a word about Chorley when next you write: you said once that Mendelssohn laughed at him: then, he ought not. How well I remember his strumming away at some Waltz in Harley or Wimpole’s endless Street, while your Sister and a few other Guests went round. I thought then he looked at one as if thinking ‘Do you think me then—a poor, red-headed Amateur, as Rogers does?’ That old Beast! I don’t scruple to say so.

I am positively looking over my everlasting Crabbe again: he naturally comes in about the Fall of theYear. Do you remember his wonderful ‘October Day’?[55]

‘Before the Autumn closed,When Nature, ere her Winter Wars, reposedWhen from our Garden, as we looked above,No Cloud was seen; and nothing seem’d to move;When the wide River was a Silver Sheet,And upon Ocean slept the unanchor’d fleet:When the wing’d Insect settled in our Sight,And waited Wind to recommence her flight.’

And then, the Lady who believes her young Lover dead, and has vowed eternal Celibacy, sees him advancing, a portly, well to do, middle aged man: and swears she won’t have him: and does have him, etc.

Which reminds me that I want you to tell me if people in America read Crabbe.

Farewell, dear Mrs. Kemble, for the present: always yours

E. F.G.

Have you the Robin in America? One is singing in the little bit Garden before me now.

59Montagu square,London, W.5Oct./74.

My dear Fitz,

It is very good of Mrs. Kemble to wish totell me a story about Macready, and I shall be glad to know it.

Only—she should know that I am not writing his life—but editing his autobiographical reminiscences and diaries—and unless the anecdote could be introduced to explain or illustrate these, it would not be serviceable for my present purpose.

But for its own sake and for Macready’s I should like to be made acquainted with it.

I am making rapid way with the printing—in fact have got to the end of what will be Vol. I. in slip—so that I hope the work may be out by or soon after Christmas, if the engravings are also ready by that time.

It will be, I am sure, most interesting—and will surprise a great many people who did not at all know what Macready really was.

You last heard of me at Clovelly—where we spent a delightful month—more rain than was pleasant—but on the whole charming. I think I told you that Annie Thackeray was there for a night—and that we bound her over not to make the reading public too well acquainted with the place, which would not be good for it.

Since then—a fortnight at St. Julians—and the same time at Tunbridge Wells—I coming up to town three times a week—

Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis,[56]

and as there are other points of resemblance—so it is natural that the Gates of Justice should be open even during the Vacation—just a little ajar—with somebody to look after it, which somebody it has been my lot to be this year.

T. Wells was very pleasant—I like the old-fashioned place—and can always people the Pantiles (they call it the Parade now) with Dr. Johnson and the Duchess of Kingston, and the Bishop of Salisbury and the foreign baron, and the rest.[57a]

Miladi and Walter are at Paris for a few days. I am keeping house with Maurice—Yours, W. F. Pk.

We have J. S.’s[57b]seventh volume—and I am going to read it—but do not know where he is himself. I have not seen the ‘white, round object—which is the head of him’ for some time past—not since—July.—

Woodbridge:Novr.17/74.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Your Letter about Megreedy, as Thackeray used to call him, is very interesting: I mean as connected with your Father also. Megreedy, with all his flat face, managed to look well as Virginius, didn’t he? And, as I thought, well enough in Macbeth, except where hewouldstand with his mouth open (after theWitches had hailed him), till I longed to pitch something into it out of the Pit, the dear old Pit. How cameheto play Henry IV. instead of your Father, in some Play I remember at C. G., though I did not see it? How well I remember your Father in Falconbridge (Young, K. John) as he looked sideway and upward before the Curtain fell on his Speech.

Then his Petruchio: I remember his looking up, as the curtain fell at the end, to where he knew that Henry had taken me—some very upper Box. And I remember too his standing with his Hunting spear, looking with pleasure at pretty Miss Foote as Rosalind. He played well what was natural to him: the gallant easy Gentleman—I thought his Charles Surface rather cumbrous: but he was no longer young.

Mrs. Wister quite mistook the aim of my Query about Crabbe: I asked if he were read in America for the very reason that he is not read in England. And in the OctoberCornhillis an Article upon him (I hope not by Leslie Stephen), so ignorant and self-sufficient that I am more wroth than ever. The old Story of ‘Pope in worsted stockings’—why I could cite whole Paragraphs of as fine texture as Molière—incapable of Epigram, the Jackanapes says of ‘our excellent Crabbe’—why I could find fifty of the very best Epigrams in five minutes. But now do you care for him? ‘Honour bright?’ as Sheridan used to say. I don’t think I ever knew a Woman who did like C., except my Mother. What makes People (this stupid Reviewer among them) talk of worsted Stockings isbecause of having read only his earlier works: when he himself talked of his Muse as

‘Muse of the Mad, the Foolish, and the Poor,’[59a]

the Borough: Parish Register, etc. But it is his Tales of the Hall which discover him in silk Stockings; the subjects, the Scenery, the Actors, of a more Comedy kind: with, I say, Paragraphs, and Pages, of fine Molière style—only too often defaced by carelessness, disproportion, and ‘longueurs’ intolerable. I shall leave my Edition of Tales of the Hall, made legible by the help of Scissors and Gum, with a word or two of Prose to bridge over pages of stupid Verse. I don’t wish to try and supersede the Original, but, by the Abstract, to get People to read the whole, and so learn (as in Clarissa) how to get it all under command. I even wish that some one in America would undertake to publish—in whole, or part by part—my ‘Readings in Crabbe,’ viz., Tales of the Hall: but no one would let me do the one thing I can do.

I think you must repent having encouraged such a terrible Correspondent as myself: you have the remedy in your own hands, you know. I find that the Bronchitis I had in Spring returns upon me now: so I have to give up my Night walks, and stalk up and down my own half-lighted Hall (like Chateaubriand’s Father)[59b]till my Reader comes. Ever yours truly

E. F.G.

Novr.21.

I detained this letter till I heard from Donne, who has been at Worthing, and writes cheerfully.

Lowestoft,Febr.11/75.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Will you please to thank Mr. Furness for the trouble he has taken about Crabbe. The American Publisher is like the English, it appears, and both may be quite right. They certainly are right in not accepting anything except on very good recommendation; and a Man’s Fame is the best they can have for that purpose. I should not in the least be vext or even disappointed at any rejection of my Crabbe, but it is not worth further trouble to any party to send across the Atlantic what may, most probably,be returned with thanks and Compliments. And then Mr. Furness would feel bound to ask some other Publisher, and you to write to me about it. No, no! Thank him, if you please: you know I thank you: and then I will let the matter drop.

The Athenæum told me there was a Paper by Carlyle in the January Fraser—on the old Norway Kings. Then People said it was not his: but his it is, surely enough (though I have no Authority but my own Judgment for saying so), and quite delightful. If missing something of his Prime, missing also all his former ‘Sound and Fury,’ etc., and as alive as ever. I had thoughts of writing to him on the subject, but have not yet done so. But pray do you read the Papers: there is a continuation in the February Fraser: and ‘to be continued’ till ended, I suppose.

Your Photograph—Yes—I saw your Mother in it, as I saw her in you when you came to us in Woodbridge in 1852. That is, I saw her such as I had seen her in a little sixpenny Engraving in a ‘Cottage Bonnet,’ something such as you wore when you stept out of your Chaise at the Crown Inn.

My Mother always said that your Mother was by far the most witty, sensible, and agreeable Woman she knew. I remember one of the very few delightful Dinner parties I ever was at—in St. James’ Place—(was it?) a Party of seven or eight, at a round Table, your Mother at the head of the Table, and Mrs. F. Kemble my next Neighbour. And really the (almost)only other pleasant Dinner was one you gave me and the Donnes in Savile Row, before going to see Wigan in ‘Still Waters,’ which you said wasyourPlay, in so far as you had suggested the Story from some French Novel.

I used to think what a deep current of melancholy was under your Mother’s Humour. Not ‘under,’ neither: for it came up as naturally to the surface as her Humour. My mother always said that one great charm in her was, her Naturalness.

If you read to your Company, pray do you ever readtheScene in the ‘Spanish Tragedy’ quoted in C. Lamb’s Specimens—such a Scene as (not being in Verse, and quite familiar talk) I cannot help reading to my Guests—very few and far between—I mean by ‘I,’ one who has no gift at all for reading except the feeling of a few things: and I can’t help stumbling upon Tears in this. Nobody knows who wrote this one scene: it was thought Ben Jonson, who could no more have written it than I who read it: for what else of his is it like? Whereas, Webster one fancies might have done it. It is not likely that you do not know this wonderful bit: but, if you have it not by heart almost, look for it again at once, and make others do so by reading to them.

The enclosed Note from Mowbray D[onne] was the occasion of my writing thus directly to you. And yet I have spoken ‘de omnibus other rebus’ first. But I venture to think that your feeling on the subject will be pretty much like my own, and so, no use in talking.

Now, if I could send you part of what I am now packing up for some Woodbridge People—some—some—Saffron Buns!—for which this Place is notable from the first day of Lent till Easter—A little Hamper of these!

Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, do consider this letter of mine as an Answer to yours—your two—else I shall be really frightened at making you write so often to yours always and sincerely

E. F.G.

Lowestoft,March11/75.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I am really ashamed that you should apologize for asking me a Copy of Calderon, etc.[64a]I had about a hundred Copies of all those things printedwhenprinted: and have not had a hundred friends to give them to—poor Souls!—and am very well pleased to give to any one who likes—especially any Friend of yours. I think however that your reading of them has gone most way to make your Lady ask. But, be that as it may, I will send you a Copy directly I return to my own Château, which I mean to do when the Daffodils have taken the winds of March.[64b]

We have had severe weather here: it has killed myBrother Peter (not John, my eldest) who tried to winter at Bournemouth, after having wintered for the last ten years at Cannes. Bronchitis:—which (sotto voce) I have as yet kept Cold from coming to. But one knows one is not ‘out of the Wood’ yet; May, if not March, being, you know, one of our worst Seasons.

I heard from our dear Donne a week ago; speaking with all his own blind and beautiful Love for his lately lost son; and telling me that he himself keeps his heart going by Brandy. But he speaks of this with no Fear at all. He is going to leave Weymouth Street, but when, or for where, he does not say. He spoke of a Letter he had received from you some while ago.

Now about Crabbe, which also I am vext you should have trouble about. I wrote to you the day after I had your two Letters, with Mr. Furness’ enclosed, and said that, seeing the uncertainty of any success in the matter, I really would not bother you or him any more. You know it is but a little thing; which, even if a Publisher tried piece-meal, would very likely be scouted: I only meant ‘piece-meal,’ by instalments: so as they could be discontinued if not liked. But I suppose I must keep my Work—of paste, and scissors—for the benefit of the poor Friends who have had the benefit of my other Works.

Well: as I say, I wrote and posted my Letter at once, asking you to thank Mr. Furness for me. I think this must be a month ago—perhaps you hadmy Letter the day after you posted this last of yours, dated February 21. Do not trouble any more about it, pray: read Carlyle’s ‘Kings of Norway’ in Fraser and believe me ever yours

E. F.G.

I will send a little bound Copy of the Plays for yourself, dear Mrs. Kemble, if you will take them; so you can give the Lady those you have:—but, whichever way you like.

Lowestoft,March17/75.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

This bit of Letter is written to apprise you that, having to go to Woodbridge three days ago, I sent you by Post a little Volume of the Plays, and (what I had forgotten) a certain little Prose Dialogue[65]done up with them. This is more than you wanted, but so it is. The Dialogue is a pretty thing in some respects: but disfigured by some confoundedsmartwriting in parts: And this is all that needs saying about the whole concern. You must not think necessary to say anything more about it yourself, only that you receive the Book. If you do not, in a month’s time, I shall suppose it has somehow lost its way over the Atlantic:and then I will send you the Plays you asked for, stitched together—and those only.

I hope you got my Letter (which you had not got when your last was written) about Crabbe: for I explained in it why I did not wish to trouble you or Mr. Furness any more with such an uncertain business. Anyhow, I must ask you to thank him for the trouble he had already taken, as I hope you know that I thank you also for your share in it.

I scarce found a Crocus out in my Garden at home, and so have come back here till some green leaf shows itself. We are still under the dominion of North East winds, which keep people coughing as well as the Crocus under ground. Well, we hope to earn all the better Spring by all this Cold at its outset.

I have so often spoken of my fear of troubling you by all my Letters, that I won’t say more on that score. I have heard no news of Donne since I wrote. I have been trying to read Gil Blas and La Fontaine again; but, as before, do not relish either.[67]I must get back to my Don Quixote by and by.

Yours as ever

E. F.G.

I wonder if this letter will smell of Tobacco: for it is written just after a Pipe, and just before going to bed.

Lowestoft:April9/75.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I wrote you a letter more than a fortnight ago—mislaid it—and now am rather ashamed to receive one from you thanking me beforehand for the mighty Book which I posted you a month ago. I only hope you will not feel bound to acknowledge [it] when it does reach you, I think I said so in the Letter I wrote to go along with it. And I must say no more in the way of deprecating your Letters, after what you write me. Be assured that all my deprecations were for your sake, not mine; but there’s an end of them now.

I had a longish letter from Donne himself some while ago; indicating, I thought,somedebility of Mind and Body. He said, however, he was going on very well. And a Letter from Mowbray (three or four days old) speaks of his Father as ‘remarkably well.’ But these Donnes won’t acknowledge Bodily any more than Mental fault in those they love. Blanche had been ill, of neuralgic Cold: Valentia not well: but both on the mending hand now.

It has been indeed the Devil of a Winter: and even now—To-day as I write—no better than it was three months ago. The Daffodils scarce dare take April, let alone March; and I wait here till a Green Leaf shows itself about Woodbridge.

I have been looking over four of Shakespeare’s Plays, edited by Clark and Wright: editors of the ‘Cambridge Shakespeare.’ These ‘Select Plays’ are very well done, I think: Text, and Notes; although with somewhat too much of the latter. Hamlet, Macbeth, Tempest, and Shylock—I heard them talking in my room—all alive about me.

By the by—How didyouread ‘To-morrow and To-morrow, etc.’ All the Macbeths I have heard took the opportunity to become melancholy when they came to this: and, no doubt, some such change from Fury and Desperation was a relief to the Actor, and perhaps to the Spectator. But I think itshouldall go in the same Whirlwind of Passion as the rest: Folly!—Stage Play!—Farthing Candle; Idiot, etc. Macready used to drop his Truncheon when he heard of the Queen’s Death, and stand with his Mouth open for some while—which didn’t become him.

I have not seen his Memoir: only an extract or two in the Papers. He always seemed to me an Actor by Art and Study, with some native Passion to inspire him. But as to Genius—we who have seen Kean!

I don’t know if you were acquainted with Sir A. Helps,[68]whose Death (one of this Year’s Doing) is much regretted by many. I scarcely knew him except at Cambridge forty years ago: and could never relish his Writings, amiable and sensible as they are. I suppose they will help to swell that substratum ofIntellectualPeat(Carlyle somewhere calls it)[69]from [which] one or two living Trees stand out in a Century. So Shakespeare above all that Old Drama which he grew amidst, and which (all represented by him alone) might henceforth be left unexplored, with the exception of a few twigs of Leaves gathered here and there—as in Lamb’s Specimens. Is Carlyle himself—with all his Genius—to subside into the Level? Dickens, with all his Genius, but whose Men and Women act and talk already after a more obsolete fashion than Shakespeare’s? I think some of Tennyson will survive, and drag the deader part along with it, I suppose. And (I doubt) Thackeray’s terrible Humanity.

And I remain yours ever sincerely,A very small Peat-contributor,E. F.G.

I am glad to say that Clark and Wright BowdlerizeShakespeare, though much less extensively than Bowdler. But in one case, I think, they have gone further—altering, instead of omitting: which is quite wrong!

Lowestoft:April19/75.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Yesterday I wrote you a letter: enveloped it: then thought there was something in it you might misunderstand—Yes!—the written word across the Atlantic looking perhaps so different from what intended; so kept my Letter in my pocket, and went my ways. This morning your Letter of April 3 is forwarded to me; and I shall re-write the one thing that I yesterday wrote about—as I had intended to do before your Letter came. Only, let me say that I am really ashamed that you should have taken the trouble to write again about my little, little, Book.

Well—what I wrote about yesterday, and am to-day about to re-write, is—Macready’s Memoirs. You asked me in your previous Letter whether I had read them. No—I had not: and had meant to wait till they came down to Half-price on the Railway Stall before I bought them. But I wanted to order something of my civil Woodbridge Bookseller: so took the course of ordering this Book, which I am now reading at Leisure: for it does not interest me enoughto devour at once. It is however a very unaffected record of a very conscientious Man, and Artist; conscious (I think) that he was not a great Genius in his Profession, and conscious of his defect of Self-control in his Morals. The Book is almost entirely abouthimself,hisStudies,hisTroubles,hisConsolations, etc.; not from Egotism, I do think, but as the one thing he had to consider in writing a Memoir and Diary. Of course one expects, and wishes, that the Man’s self should be the main subject; but one also wants something of the remarkable people he lived with, and of whom one finds little here but that ‘So-and-so came and went’—scarce anything of what they said or did, except on mere business; Macready seeming to have no Humour; no intuition into Character, no Observation of those about him (how could he be a great Actor then?)—Almost the only exception I have yet reached is his Account of Mrs. Siddons, whom he worshipped: whom he acted with in her later years at Country Theatres: and who was as kind to him as she was even then heart-rending on the Stage. He was her Mr. Beverley:[71]‘a very young husband,’ she told him: but ‘in the right way if he would study, study, study—and not marry till thirty.’ At another time, when he was on the stage, she stood at the side scene, called out ‘Bravo, Sir, Bravo!’ and clapped her hands—all in sight of the Audience, who joined in her Applause. Macready also tells of her falling into such a Convulsion, as itwere, in Aspasia[72a](what a subject for such a sacrifice!) that the Curtain had to be dropped, and Macready’s Father, and Holman, who were among the Audience, looked at each other to see which was whitest! This was the Woman whom people somehow came to look on as only majestic and terrible—I suppose, after Miss O’Neill rose upon her Setting.

Well, but what I wrote about yesterday—a passage about you yourself. I fancy that he and you were very unsympathetic: nay, you have told me of some of his Egotisms toward you, ‘who had scarce learned the rudiments of your Profession’ (as also he admits that he scarce had). But, however that may have been, his Diary records, ‘Decr. 20 (1838) Went to Covent Garden Theatre: on my way continued the perusal of Mrs. Butler’s Play, which is a work of uncommon power. Finished the reading of Mrs. Butler’s Play, which is one of the most powerful of the modern Plays I have seen—most painful—almost shocking—but full of Power, Poetry and Pathos. She is one of the most remarkable women of the present Day.’

So you see that if he thought you deficient in the Art which you (like himself) had unwillingly to resort to, you were efficient in the far greater Art of supplying that material on which the Histrionic must depend. (N.B.—Which play of yours? Not surely the ‘English Tragedy’ unless shown to him in MS.?[72b]Come: I have sent you my Translations: you should give me your Original Plays. When I get home, I will send you an old Scratch by Thackeray of yourself in Louisa of Savoy—shall I?)

On the whole, I find Macready (so far as I have gone) a just, generous, religious, and affectionate Man; on the whole, humble too! One is well content to assure oneself of this; but it is not worth spending 28s.upon.

Macready would have made a better Scholar—or Divine—than Actor, I think: a Gentleman he would have been in any calling, I believe, in spite of his Temper—which he acknowledges, laments, and apologizes for, on reflection.

Now, here is enough of my small writing for your reading. I have been able to read, and admire, some Corneille lately: as to Racine—‘Ce n’est pas mon homme,’ as Catharine of Russia said of him. Now I am at Madame de Sévigné’s delightful Letters; I should like to send you a Bouquet of Extracts: but must have done now, being always yours

E. F.G.

Lowestoft:May16/75

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I have been wishing to send you Carlyle’s Norway Kings, and oh! such a delightful Paper ofSpedding’s on the Text of Richard III.[74]But I have waited till I should hear from you, knowing that youwillreply! And not feeling sure, till I hear, whether you are not on your way to England Eastward ho!—even as I am now writing!—Or, I fancy—should you not be well? Anyhow, I shall wait till some authentic news of yourself comes to me. I should not mind sending you Carlyle—why, yes! Iwillsend him! But old Spedding—which is only a Proof—I won’t send till I know that you are still where you were to receive it—Oh! such a piece of musical criticism! without the least pretence to being Musick: as dry as he can make it, in fact. But he does, with utmost politeness, smash the Cambridge Editors’ Theory about the Quarto and Folio Text of R. III.—in a way that perhaps Mr. Furness might like to see.

Spedding says that Irving’s Hamlet is simply—hideous—a strong expression for Spedding to use. But—(lest I should think his condemnation was only the Old Man’s fault of depreciating all that is new), he extols Miss Ellen Terry’s Portia as simplya perfect Performance: remembering (he says) all the while how fine was Fanny Kemble’s. Now, all this you shall read for yourself, when I have token of your Whereabout, and Howabout: for I will send you Spedding’s Letter, as well as his Paper.

Spedding won’t go and see Salvini’s Othello, becausehe does not know Italian, and also because he hears that Salvini’s is a different Conception of Othello from Shakespeare’s. I can’t understand either reason; but Spedding is (as Carlyle[75a]wrote me of his Bacon) the ‘invincible, and victorious.’ At any rate, I can’t beat him. Irving I never could believe in as Hamlet, after seeing part of his famous Performance of a Melodrama called ‘The Bells’ three or four years ago. But the Pollocks, and a large World beside, think him a Prodigy—whom Spedding thinks—a Monster! To this Complexion is the English Drama come.

I wonder if your American Winter has transformed itself to such a sudden Summer as here in Old England. I returned to my Woodbridge three weeks ago: not a leaf on the Trees: in ten days they were all green, and people—perspiring, I suppose one must say. Now again, while the Sun is quite as Hot, the Wind has swerved round to the East—so as one broils on one side and freezes on t’other—and I—the Great Twalmley[75b]—am keeping indoors from an Intimation of Bronchitis. I think it is time for one to leave the Stage oneself.

I heard from Mowbray Donne some little while ago; as he said nothing (I think) of his Father, I conclude that there is nothing worse of him to be said. He (the Father) has a Review of Macready—laudatory, I suppose—in the Edinburgh, andMr.Helen Faucit (Martin) as injurious a one in the Quarterly: the reason of the latter being (it is supposed) becauseMrs.H. F. is not noticed except just by name. To this Complexion also!

Ever yours,E. F.G.

Since writing as above, your Letter comes; as you do not speak of moving, I shall send Spedding and Carlyle by Post to you, in spite of the Loss of Income you tell me of which would (I doubt) close upmythoughts some while from such speculations. I do not thinkyouwill take trouble so to heart. Keep Spedding for me: Carlyle I don’t want again. Tired as you—and I—are of Shakespeare Commentaries, you will like this.

Lowestoft:July22/75.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I have abstained from writing since you wrote me how busily your Pen was employed for the Press: I wished more than ever to spare you the trouble of answering me—which I knew you would not forgo. And now you will feel called upon, I suppose, though I would fain spare you.

Though I date from this place still, I have been away from it at my own Woodbridge house for two months and more; only returning here indeed tohelp make a better Holiday for a poor Lad who is shut up in a London Office while his Heart is all for Out-of-Door, Country, Sea, etc. We have been having wretched Holyday weather, to be sure: rain, mist, and wind; St. Swithin at his worst: but all better than the hateful London Office—to which he must return the day after To-morrow, poor Fellow!

I suppose you will see—if you have not yet seen—Tennyson’s Q. Mary. I don’t know what to say about it; but the Times says it is the finest Play since Shakespeare; and the Spectator that it is superior to Henry VIII. Pray do you say something of it, when you write:—for I think you must have read it before that time comes.

Then Spedding has written a delicious Paper in Fraser about the late Representation of The Merchant of Venice, and his E. Terry’s perfect personation of his perfect Portia. I cannot agree with him in all he says—for one thing, I must think that Portia made ‘a hole in her manners’ when she left Antonio trembling for his Life while she all the while [knew] how to defeat the Jew by that knowledge of the Venetian Law which (oddly enough) the Doge knew nothing about. Then Spedding thinks that Shylock has been so pushed forward ever since Macklin’s time as to preponderate over all the rest in a way that Shakespeare never intended.[77]But, if Shakespeare did notintend this, he certainly erred in devoting so much of his most careful and most powerful writing to a Character which he meant to be subsidiary, and not principal. But Spedding is more likely to be right than I: right or wrong he pleads his cause as no one else can. His Paper is in this July number of Fraser: I would send it you if you had more time for reading than your last Letter speaks of; Iwillsend if you wish.

I have not heard of Donne lately: he had been staying at Lincoln with Blakesley, the Dean: and is now, I suppose, at Chislehurst, where he took a house for a month.

And I am yours ever and sincerelyE. F.G.

Woodbridge,Aug.24, [1875.]

Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, you will have to call me ‘a Good Creature,’ as I have found out a Copy of your capital Paper,[78]and herewith post it to you. Had I not found this Copy (which Smith & Elderpolitely found for me) I should have sent you one of my own, cut out from a Volume of Essays by other friends, Spedding, etc., on condition that you should send me a Copy of such Reprint as you may make of it in America. It is extremely interesting; and I always think that your Theory of the Intuitiveversusthe Analytical and Philosophical applies to the other Arts as well as that of the Drama. Mozart couldn’t tell how he made a Tune; even a whole Symphony, he said, unrolled itself out of a leading idea by no logical process. Keats said that no Poetry was worth [anything] unless it came spontaneously as Leaves to a Tree, etc.[79]I have no faith in your Works of Art done on Theory and Principle, like Wordsworth, Wagner, Holman Hunt, etc.

But, one thing you can do on Theory, and carry it well into Practice: which is—to write your Letter on Paper which does not let the Ink through, so that (according to your mode of paging) your last Letter was crossed: I really thought it so at first, and really had very hard work to make it out—some parts indeed still defying my Eyes. What I read of your remarks on Portia, etc., is so good that I wish to keep it: but still I think I shall enclose you a scrap to justify my complaint. It was almost by Intuition, not on Theory, that I deciphered what I did. Pray you amend this. My MS. is bad enough, and on that very account I would avoid diaphanous Paper. Are you not ashamed?

I shall send you Spedding’s beautiful Paper on the Merchant of Venice[80]if I can lay hands on it: but at present my own room is given up to a fourth Niece (Angel that I am!) You would see that S[pedding] agrees with you about Portia, and in a way that I am sure must please you. But (so far as I can decipher that fatal Letter) you say nothing at all to me of the other Spedding Paper I sent to you (about the Cambridge Editors, etc.), which I must have back again indeed, unless you wish to keep it, and leave me to beg another Copy. Which to be sure I can do, and will, if your heart is set upon it—which I suppose it is not at all.

I have not heard of Donne for so long a time, that I am uneasy, and have written to Mowbray to hear. M[owbray] perhaps is out on his Holyday, else I think he would have replied at once. And ‘no news may be the Good News.’

I have no news to tell of myself; I am much as I have been for the last four months: which is, a little ricketty. But I get out in my Boat on the River three or four hours a Day when possible, and am now as ever yours sincerely

E. F.G.

[Oct.4, 1875]

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I duly received your last legible Letter, and Spedding’s Paper: for both of which all Thanks. But you must do something more for me. I see by Notes and Queries that you are contributing Recollections to some American Magazine; I want you to tell me where I can get this, with all the back Numbers in which you have written.

I return the expected favour (Hibernicé) with the enclosed Prints, one of which is rather a Curiosity: that of Mrs. Siddons by Lawrence when he wasætat.13. The other, done from a Cast of herself by herself, is only remarkable as being almost a Copy of this early Lawrence—at least, in Attitude, if not in Expression. I dare say you have seen the Cast itself. And now for a Story better than either Print: a story to which Mrs. Siddons’ glorious name leads me, burlesque as it is.

You may know there is a French Opera of Macbeth—by Chélard. This was being played at the Dublin Theatre—Viardot, I think, the Heroine. However that may be, the Curtain drew up for the Sleep-walking Scene; Doctor and Nurse were there, while a long mysterious Symphony went on—till a Voice from the Gallery called out to the Leader of the Band, Levey—‘Whisht! Lavy, my dear—tell us now—is it a Boy or a Girl?’ This Story is in a Book which I gave 2s.for at a Railway Stall; called Recollections of an Impresario, or some such name;[82a]a Book you would not have deigned to read, and so would have missed what I have read and remembered and written out for you.

It will form the main part of my Letter: and surely you will not expect anything better from me.

Your hot Colorado Summer is over; and you are now coming to the season which you—and others beside you—think so peculiarly beautiful in America. We have no such Colours to show here, you know: none of that Violet which I think you have told me of as mixing with the Gold in the Foliage. Now it is that I hear that Spirit that Tennyson once told of talking to himself among the faded flowers in the Garden-plots. I think he has dropt that little Poem[82b]out of his acknowledged works; there was indeed nothing in it, I think, but that one Image: and that sticks by me asQueen Marydoes not.

I have just been telling some Man enquiring in Notes and Queries where he may find the beautiful foolish old Pastoral beginning—

‘My Sheep I neglected, I broke my Sheep-hook, &c.’[82c]

which, if you don’t know it, I will write out for you, ready as it offers itself to my Memory. Mrs. Frere of Cambridge used to sing it as she could sing the Classical Ballad—to a fairly expressive tune: but there is a movement (Trio, I think) in one of dear old Haydn’s Symphonies almost made for it. Who else but Haydn for the Pastoral! Do you remember his blessed Chorus of ‘Come, gentle Spring,’ that open the Seasons? Oh, it is something to remember the old Ladies who sang that Chorus at the old Ancient Concerts rising with Music in hand to sing that lovely piece under old Greatorex’s Direction. I have never heard Haydn and Handel so well as in those old Rooms with those old Performers, who still retained the Tradition of those old Masters. Now it is getting Midnight; but so mild—this October 4—that I am going to smoke one Pipe outdoors—with a little Brandy and water to keep the Dews off. I told you I had not been well all the Summer; I say I begin to ‘smell the Ground,’[83]which you will think all Fancy. But I remain while above Ground

Yours sincerelyE. F.G.

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