The foregoing is a summary of the prince's lengthy indictment against London society. 'I saw in the fashionable world,' he observes in conclusion, 'only too frequently, and with few exceptions, a profound vulgarity of thought; an immorality little veiled or adorned; the most undisguised arrogance; and the coarsest neglect of all kindly feelings and attentions haughtily assumed for the sake of shining in a false and despicable refinement; even more inane and intolerable to a healthy mind than the awkward stiffness of the declared Nobodies. It has been said that vice and poverty form the most revolting combination; since I have been in England, vice and boorish rudeness seem to me to form a still more disgusting union.'
The prince's adventures in Wales and Ireland, with the recital of which he has filled up the best part of two volumes, must here be dismissed in as many paragraphs. On his tour through Wales, he left his card on the Ladies of Llangollen, who promptly invited him to lunch. Fortunately, he had previously been warned of his hostesses' peculiarities of dress and appearance. 'Imagine,' he writes, 'two ladies, the elder of whom, Lady Eleanor Butler, a short, robust woman, begins to feel her years a little, being nearly eighty-three; the other, a tall and imposing person, esteems herself still youthful, being only seventy-four. Both wore their still abundant hair combed straight back and powdered, a round man's hat, a man's cravat and waistcoat, but in the place of "inexpressibles," a short petticoat and boots: the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of quite a peculiar cut. Over this Lady Eleanor wore, first the grand cordon of the order of St. Louis across her shoulders; secondly, the same order round her neck; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her buttonhole; and,pour comble de gloire, a golden lily of nearly the natural size as a star. So far the effect was somewhat ludicrous. But now you must imagine both ladies with that agreeableaisance, that air of the world of theancien régime, courteous, entertaining, without the slightest affectation, speaking French as well as any Englishwoman of my acquaintance; and, above all, with that essentially polite, unconstrained, simply cheerful manner of the good society of that day, which in our hard-working, business age appears to be going to utter decay.'
Thanks to his letters of introduction and the friendships that he struck up on the road, the prince was able occasionally to step out of the beaten tourist tracks, and to see something of the more intimate side of Irish social life. He has given a lively and picturesque account of his experiences, which included an introduction to Lady Morgan, [Footnote: See page 142.] and to her charming nieces, the Miss Clarkes (who made a profound impression on his susceptible heart), a sentimental journey through Wicklow, a glance at the humours of Donnybrook Fair, a visit to O'Connell at Derrinane Abbey, a peep into the wilds of Connaught, an Emancipation dinner at Cashel, where he made hisdébutas an English orator, and an expedition to the lakes of Killarney. All this, which was probably novel and interesting to the German public, contains little that is not familiar to the modern English reader. The sketch of O'Connell is sufficiently vivid to bear quotation.
'Daniel O'Connell,' observes the prince, after his visit to Derrinane, 'is no common man--though the man of the commonalty. His power is so great that at this moment it only depends on him to raise the standard of rebellion from one end of the island to the other. He is, however, too sharp-sighted, and much too sure of attaining his ends by safer means, to wish to bring on any such violent crisis. He has certainly shown great dexterity in availing himself of the temper of the country at this moment, legally, openly, and in the face of Government, to acquire a power scarcely inferior to that of the sovereign; indeed, though without arms or armies, in some instances far surpassing it. For how would it have been possible for his Majesty George IV. to withhold 40,000 of his faithful Irishmen for three days from whisky drinking? which O'Connell actually accomplished in the memorable Clare election. The enthusiasm of the people rose to such a height that they themselves decreed and inflicted a punishment for drunkenness. The delinquent was thrown into the river, and held there for two hours, during which time he was made to undergo frequent submersions.... On the whole, O'Connell exceeded my expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intelligent good-humour, united with determination and prudence, which marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence; and one frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the martial dignity of his carriage without pleasure, or to refrain from laughing at his wit.... He has received from Nature an invaluable gift for a party-leader, a magnificent voice, united to good lungs and a strong constitution. His understanding is sharp and quick, and his acquirements out of his profession not inconsiderable. With all this his manners are, as I have said, winning and popular, though somewhat of the actor is noticeable in them; they do not conceal his very high opinion of himself, and are occasionally tinged by what an Englishman would callvulgarity. But where is there a picture without shade?'
The prince's matrimonial projects had been pursued only in half-hearted fashion during this year, and on his return to England in December, he seems to have thrown up the game in despair. On January 2, 1829, he turned his back on our perfidious shores, and made a short tour in France before proceeding to Muskau. In one of his letters to Lucie he admits that on his return journey he had plenty of material for reflection. Two precious years had been wasted, absence from his dearest friend had been endured, a large sum of money had been spent in keeping up a dashing appearance--and all in vain. He consoles himself with the amazing reflection that Parry had failed in three attempts to reach the North Pole, and Bonaparte, after heaping victory on victory for twenty years, had perished miserably in St. Helena!
But if the prince had not accomplished his design of carrying off a British heiress, his sojourn in England brought him a prize of a different kind--namely, the laurel crown of fame. HisBriefe eines Verstorbenen, the first volumes of which were published anonymously in 1830, was greeted with an almost unanimous outburst of admiration and applause. The critics vied with each other in praising a work in which, according to their verdict, the grace and piquancy of France were combined with the analytical methods and the profound philosophy of Germany. In England, as was only to be expected, the chorus of applause was not unmixed with hisses and catcalls. The author had, however, been exceptionally fortunate in his translator, Sarah Austin, whose version of the Letters, entitledThe Tour of a German Prince, was described by theWestminster Reviewas 'the best modern translation of a prose work that has ever appeared, and perhaps our only translation from the German. As an original work, the ease and facility of the style would be admired; as a translation, it is unrivalled.' Croker reviewed the book in theQuarterlyin his accustomed strain of playful brutality, rejoiced savagely over the numerous blunders, [Footnote: The most amusing of these is the derivation of the Prince of Wales' motto 'Ich dien' from two Welsh words, 'Eich deyn,' said to signify 'This is your man!'] and credited the author with almost as many blasphemies as Lady Morgan herself. TheEdinburgh, in a more impartial notice, observed that a great part of the work had no other merit than that of being an act of individual treachery against the hospitalities of private life, and commented on the fact that while the masterpieces of Goethe and Schiller were still untranslated, theTour of Prince Pückler-Muskauhad been bought up in a month.
The prince was far too vain of his unexpected literary success to preserve his anonymity, and the ink-craving having laid hold upon him, he lost no time in setting to work upon another book. The semblance of a separation between himself and Lucie had now been thrown aside. During the summer months they lived at Muskau, where they laboured together over plans for the embellishment of the gardens, while in the winter they kept up a splendid establishment in Berlin. The sight of a divorced couple living together seems to have shocked the Berliners far more than that of a married couple living apart, but to Pückler, as a chartered 'original,' much was forgiven. At this time he went a good deal into literary society, and became intimate with several women-writers, among them the Gräfin Hahn-Hahn, Rahel, and that amazing lady, Bettine von Arnim. With the last-named he struck up an intellectual friendship which roused the jealousy of Lucie, and was finally wrecked by Bettine's attempts to obtain a spiritual empire over the lord of Muskau.
In 1832 the prince's debts amounted to 500,000 thalers, and he was obliged once again to face the fact that he could only save himself from ruin by a wealthy marriage, or by the sale of his estate. In a long letter he laid the state of the case before his faithful companion, pointing out that even at forty-seven, he, with his title and his youthful appearance, might hope to secure a bride worth 300,000 thalers, but that as long as his ex-wife remained at Muskau he was hardly likely to be successful in his matrimonial speculations. Lucie again consented to sacrifice herself in the good cause; but the prince, a man of innumerablebonnes fortunesaccording to his own account, was curiously unfortunate as a would-be Benedick. The German heiresses were no more propitious to his suit than the English ones had been; and though, as he plaintively observes, he would have liked nothing better than to be a Turkish pasha with a hundred and fifty sultanas, he was unable to obtain a single Christian wife.
In 1834 the prince published two books,Tutti Frutti, a collection of stories and sketches, andObservations on Landscape-Gardening.Tutti Fruttiwas by no means so popular as theBriefe eines Verstorbenen, but theObservationstook rank as a standard work. The project of a journey to America having been abandoned, the prince now determined to spend the winter in Algiers, leaving Lucie in charge at Muskau. This modest programme enlarged itself into a tour in the East, which lasted for more than five years. The travellers adventures during this period have been described in hisSemilasso in Africa, Aus Mehemet's Reich, Die Rückkehr, and other works, which added to their author's fame, and nearly sufficed to pay his expenses. We hear of him breaking hearts at Tunis and Athens, shooting big game in the Soudan, astonishing the Arabs by his horsemanship, and meddling in Egyptian politics. It was not until 1838 that, moved by Lucie's complaints of her loneliness, he reluctantly abandoned his plan of settling in the East, and turned his face towards Europe. On the homeward journey he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and turned out of his course for the visit to Lady Hester Stanhope that has already been described.
His Highness arrived at Vienna in the autumn of 1839, bringing in his suite an Abyssinian slave-girl, Machbuba, whom he had bought a couple of years before, and who had developed such wonderful qualities of head and heart, that he could not bring himself to part from her. But Lucie obstinately refused to receive Machbuba at Muskau, and declared that the prince's reputation would be destroyed for ever, if he brought a favourite slave under the same roof as his 'wife,' and thus sinned against the laws of outward seemliness. So Machbuba and the master who, like another Pygmalion, seems to have endowed this dusky Galatea with a mind and soul, remained at Vienna, where the Abyssinian, clad in a picturesque Mameluke's costume, accompanied the prince to all the public spectacles, and became a nine days' wonder to the novelty-loving Viennese. But the severity of a European winter proved fatal to poor Machbuba, consumption laid its grip upon her, and it was as a dying girl that at last she was taken to the Baths of Muskau. Lucie received this once-dreaded rival kindly, but at once carried off the prince for a visit to Berlin, and in the absence of the master whom she worshipped with a spaniel-like devotion, Machbuba breathed her last. The slave-girl was laid to rest amid all the pomp and ceremony of a state funeral, the principal inhabitants of Muskau and the neighbourhood followed her to her grave, and on the Sunday following her death the chaplain delivered a eulogy on Machbuba's virtues, and the fatherly benevolence of her master.
The prince was temporarily broken-hearted at the death of his favourite, but his mercurial spirits soon reasserted themselves, and a round of visits to the various German courts restored him to his accustomed self-complacency. The idea of selling Muskau, and thus ridding himself of the burden of his debts, once more occupied his mind. A handsome offer for the estate had been refused a few years before, in compliance with the wishes of Lucie, who loved Muskau even better than its master, and had appealed to the king to prevent the sale. But in 1845 came another offer from Count Hatzfeld of 1,700,000 thalers, which, in spite of Lucie's tears and entreaties, the prince decided to accept. Although it cost him a sharp pang to give up to another the spot of earth on which he had lavished so much time, so much labour, and so much money, he fully appreciated the advantage of an unembarrassed income and complete freedom of movement.
For a year or two after the sale, he led a wandering life, with Berlin or Weimar for his headquarters. In 1846, shortly before his sixtieth birthday, he met, so he confided to the long-suffering Lucie, the only woman he had ever loved, or at least the only woman he had ever desired to marry. Unfortunately, the lady, who was young, beautiful, clever, of high rank, large fortune, and angelic disposition, had been married for some years to a husband who is described as ugly, ill-tempered, jealous, and incredibly selfish. The prince's letters at this period are filled with raptures over the virtues of his newinamorata, and lamentations that he had met her too late. For though his passion was returned the lady was a strict Catholic, for whom a divorce was out of the question, and for once this hardened Lothario shrank from an elopement, with the resultant stain upon the reputation of the woman he loved. In 1846 he parted from his affinity, who survived the separation little more than a year, and retired with a heavy heart to his paternal castle of Branitz, near Kottbus, where he occupied himself in planting a park and laying out gardens. Branitz was only about a tenth part the size of Muskau, and stood in the midst of a sandy waste, but at more than sixty years of age the prince set himself, with all the ardour of youth, to conjure a paradise out of the wilderness. Forest trees were transplanted, lakes and canals dug, hills appeared out of the level fields, and, in short, this 'earth-tamer,' as Rahel called him, created not only a park, but a complete landscape.
The remainder of our hero's eventful career must be briefly summarised. In 1851 he made a flight to England to see the Great Exhibition. Here he renewed his acquaintance with many old friends, among them the Duchess of Somerset, who told him that she had known his father well twenty-five years before. The prince, who has been described as a male Ninon de L'Enclos, was naturally delighted at being mistaken for his own son. In 1852 the work at Branitz was so far advanced that its lord invited Lucie to come and take up her abode at the Schloss. But the poor lady's troubled life was nearing its close. She had a paralytic stroke in the autumn of this year, and remained an invalid until her death, which took place at Branitz in May, 1854.
In the loneliness that followed, the prince amused himself by keeping up a lively correspondence with his feminine acquaintance, for whom, even at seventy, he had not lost his fascinations. His celebrity as an author and a traveller brought him many anonymous correspondents, and he never wearied of reading and answering the sentimental effusions of his unknown admirers. In 1863 he paid a visit incognito to Muskau, the first since he had left it eighteen years before, though Branitz was but a few leagues away. He was recognised at once, and great was the joy in the little town over the return of its old ruler, who was honoured with illuminations, the discharge of cannon, and torchlight processions. The estate had passed into the hands of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, who had carried out all its former master's plans, and added many improvements of his own. Pückler generously admired the splendour that he had had so large a share in creating, and then went contentedly back to hiskleine Branitz, his only regret being that he could not live to see it, like Muskau, in the fulness of its matured beauty. In 1866, when war broke out between Prussia and Austria, this grand old man of eighty-one volunteered for active service, and begged to be attached to the headquarters' staff. His request was granted, and he went gallantly through the brief campaign, but was bitterly disappointed because he was not able to be present at the battle of Koniggrätz, owing to the indisposition of the king, upon whom he was in attendance.
In 1870, when France declared war against Prussia, he again volunteered, and was deeply mortified when the king declined his services on account of his advanced age. For the first time he seems to have realised that he was old, and it is probable that the disappointment preyed upon his spirits, for his strength rapidly declined, his memory failed, and on February 4,1871, after a brief illness, he sank peacefully to rest. He was buried in a tomb that he had built for himself many years before, a pyramid sixty feet high, which stood upon an acre of ground in the centre of an artificial lake. The two inscriptions that the prince chose for his sepulchre illustrate, appropriately enough, the sharply contrasting qualities of his strange individuality--his romantic sentimentality, and his callous cynicism. The first inscription was a line from the Koran:
'Graves are the mountain summits of a far-off, fairer world.'
The second, chosen presumably for the sake of the paradox, was the French apothegm:
'AllonsChezPluto plutôt plus tard.'
WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT
Mary Howitt From a portrait by Margaret Gillies
PART I
The names of William and Mary Howitt are inextricably associated with the England of the early nineteenth century, with the re-discovery of the beauty and interest of their native land, with the renaissance of the national passion for country pleasures and country pursuits, and with the slow, painful struggle for a wider freedom, a truer humanity, a fuller, more gracious life. The Howitts had no genius, nor were they pioneers, but, where the unfamiliar was concerned, they were open-minded and receptive to a degree that is unfortunately rare in persons of their perfect uprightness and strong natural piety. If they flashed no new radiance upon the world, they were always among the first to kindle their little torches at the new lamps; and they did good service in handing back the light to those who, but for them, would have had sat in the shadow, and flung stones at the incomprehensible illuminations.
Of the two minds, Mary's was the finer and the more original. It was one of those everyday miracles--the miracles that do happen--that in spite of the severity, the narrowness, the repression of her early training, she should have forced her way through the shell of rigid sectarianism, repudiated her heritage of drab denials, and opened both heart and mind to the new poetry, the new art, and the new knowledge. In her husband she found a kindred spirit, and during the more than fifty years of their pilgrimage together their eyes were ever turned towards the same goal. Though not equally gifted, they were equally disinterested, equally enlightened, and equally anxious for the advancement of humanity. They took themselves and their vocation seriously, and produced an immense quantity of careful, conscientious work, the work of honest craftsmen rather than artists, with the quality of a finished piece of cabinet-making, or a strip of fine embroidery.
Mary Howitt was the daughter of Samuel Botham, a land-surveyor at Uttoxeter. His father, the descendant of a long line of Staffordshire yeomen, Quakers by persuasion, loved a roaming life, and having married a maltster's widow with a talent for business management, was left free to indulge his own propensities. He seems to have had a talent for medical science of an empirical kind, for he dabbled in magnetism and electricity, and wandered about the country collecting herbs for headache--snuffs, and healing ointments. Samuel, as soon as he had served his apprenticeship, found plenty of employment in the neighbourhood, the country gentlemen, who had taken alarm at the revolutionary ideas newly introduced from France, being anxious to have their acres measured, and their boundaries accurately defined. While at work upon Lord Talbot's Welsh estates in 1795, he became attracted by a 'convinced' Friend, named Ann Wood. The interesting discovery that both had a passion for nuts, together with the gentle match-making of a Quaker patriarch, led to an engagement, and the couple were married in December, 1796.
Ann Wood was the granddaughter of William Wood, whose contract for supplying Ireland with copper coin (obtained by bribing the Duchess of Kendal) was turned into a national grievance by Swift, and led to the publication of theDrapier Letters. Although Wood's half-pence were admitted to be excellent coin, and Ireland was short of copper, the feeling against their circulation was so intense, that Ministers were obliged to withdraw the patent, Wood being compensated for his losses with a grant of £3000 a year for a term of years, and 'places' for some of his fifteen children. Ann's father, Charles, when very young, was appointed assay-master to Jamaica. After his return to England in middle life he married a lively widow, went into business as an iron-master near Merthyr Tydvil, and distinguished himself by introducing platinum into Europe, having first met with the semi-metal in Jamaica, whither it had been brought from Carthagena in New Spain. After his death, Ann, the only serious member of a 'worldly' family, found it impossible to remain in the frivolous atmosphere of her home, and determined, in modern fashion, to 'live her own life.' After spending some years as governess or companion in various families, she became converted to Quaker doctrines, and was received into the Society of Friends.
Samuel Botham took his bride to live in the paternal home at Uttoxeter, where the preparation of the old quack doctor's herbal medicines caused her a great deal of discomfort. In the course of the next three years two daughters were born to the couple; Anna in 1797, and Mary on March 12, 1799. At the time of Mary's birth her parents were passing through a period of pecuniary distress, owing to a disastrous speculation; but with the opening of the new century a piece of great good fortune befell Samuel Botham. He was one of the two surveyors chosen to enclose and divide the Chase of Needwood in the county of Stafford. In the early years of the nineteenth century there was, unfortunately for England, a mania for enclosing commons, and felling ancient forests. Needwood, which extended for many miles, contained great numbers of magnificent old oaks, limes, and hollies, and no less than twenty thousand head of deer. In after years, Mary Howitt often regretted that her family should have had a hand in the destruction of so vast an extent of solitude and beauty, in a country that was already thickly populated and trimly cultivated. Still, for the nine years that the work of 'disafforesting' lasted, the two little girls got a great deal of enjoyment out of the ruined Chase, spending long summer days in its grassy glades, while their father parcelled out the land and marked trees for the axe.
In herAutobiography[Footnote: Edited by her daughter Margaret, and published by Messrs. Isbister in 1889.] Mary declares that it is impossible for her to give an adequate idea of the stillness and isolation of her childish life. So intense was the silence of the Quaker household, that, at four years old, Anna had to be sent to a dame's school in order that she might learn to talk; while even after both children had attained the use of speech, their ignorance of the right names for the most ordinary feelings and actions obliged them to coin words of their own. 'My childhood was happy in many respects,' she writes. 'It was so, as far as physical health, the enjoyment of a beautiful country, and the companionship of a dearly loved sister could make it--but oh, there was such a cloud over all from the extreme severity of a so-called religious education, it almost made cowards and hypocrites of us, and made us feel that, if this were religion, it was a thing to be feared and hated.' The family reading consisted chiefly of the writings of Madame Guyon, Thomas à Kempis, and St. Francis de Sales, while for light literature there were Telemachus, Fox'sBook of Martyrs, and a work on thePersecution of the Friends. But it is impossible for even the most pious of Quakers to guard against all the stratagems by which the spirit of evil--or human nature--contrives to gain an entrance into a godly household. In the case of the Botham children an early knowledge of good and evil was learnt from an apparently respectable nurse, who made her little charges acquainted with most of the scandals of the neighbourhood, accustomed their infant ears to oaths, and--most terrible of all--taught them to play whist, she herself taking dummy, and transforming the nursery tea-tray into a card-table. In that silent household it was easy to keep a secret, and though the little girls often trembled at their nurse's language, they never betrayed her confidence.
In 1806 another daughter, Emma, was born to the Bothams, and in 1808 a son, Charles. In the midst of their joy and amazement at the news that they had a brother, the little girls asked each other anxiously: 'Will our parents like it?' Only a short time before a stranger had inquired if they had any brothers, and they had replied in all seriousness: 'Oh no, our parents do not approve of boys.' Now, much to their relief, they found that their father and mother highly approved of their own boy, who became the spoilt darling of the austere household. A new nurse was engaged for the son and heir, a lady of many love-affairs, who made Mary her confidante, and induced the child, then nine years old, to write an imaginary love-letter. The unlucky letter was laid between the pages of the worthy Madame Guyon, and there discovered by Mr. Botham. Not much was said on the subject of the document, which seems to have been considered too awful to bear discussion; but the children were removed from the influence of the nurse, and allowed to attend a day-school in the neighbourhood, though only on condition that they sat apart from the other children in order to avoid contamination with possible worldlings.
In 1809 the two elder sisters were sent to a Quaker school at Croydon, where they found themselves the youngest, the most provincial, and the worst dressed of the little community. Even in advanced old age, Mary had a keen memory for the costumes of her childhood, and the mortification that these had caused her. On their arrival at school the little girls were attired in brown pelisses, cut plain and straight, without plait or fold, and hooked down the front to obviate the necessity for buttons, which, being in the nature of trimmings, were regarded as an indulgence of the lust of the eye. On their heads they wore little drab beaver bonnets, also destitute of trimmings, and so plain in shape that even the Quaker hatter had to order special blocks for their manufacture. The other girls were busy over various kinds of fashionable fancy-work, but the little Bothams were expected, in their leisure moments, to make half-a-dozen linen shirts for their father, button-holes and all. They had never learnt to net, to weave coloured paper into baskets, to plait split straw into patterns, nor any of the other amateur handicrafts of the day. But they were clever with their fingers, and could copy almost anything that they had seen done. 'We could buckle flax or spin a rope,' writes Mary. 'We could drive a nail, put in a screw or draw it out. We knew the use of a glue-pot, and how to paper a room. We soon furnished ourselves with coloured paper for plaiting, and straw to split and weave into net; and I shall never forget my admiration of a pattern of diamonds woven with strips of gold paper on a black ground. It was my first attempt at artistic handiwork.'
After a few months at Croydon the girls were recalled to Uttoxeter on account of their mother's illness; and as soon as she recovered they were despatched to another Friends' school at Sheffield. In 1812, when Mary was only thirteen and Anna fifteen, their education was supposed to be completed, and they returned home for good. But Mr. Botham was dissatisfied with his daughters' attainments, and engaged the master of the boys' school to teach them Latin, mathematics, and the use of the globes. The death of this instructor obliged them thenceforward to rely on a system of self-education. 'We retained and perfected our rudimentary knowledge,' Mary writes, 'by instructing others. Our father fitted up a school-room for us in the stable-loft, where, twice a week, we were allowed to teach poor children. In this room, also, we instructed our dear little brother and sister. Our father, in his beautiful handwriting, used to set them copies, texts of Scripture, such as he no doubt had found of a consolatory nature. On one occasion, however, I set the copies, and well remember the tribulation I experienced in consequence. I always warred in my mind against the enforced gloom of our home, and having for my private reading at that time Young'sNight Thoughts, came upon what seemed to me the very spirit of true religion, a cheerful heart gathering up the joyfulness of surrounding nature; on which the poet says: "'Tis impious in a good man to be sad." How I rejoiced in this!--and thinking it a great fact which ought to be noised abroad, wrote it down in my best hand as a copy. It fell under our father's eye, and sorely grieved he was at such a sentiment, and extremely angry with me as its promulgator.'
The sisters can never have found the time hang heavy on their hands, for in addition to their educational duties, their mother required them to be expert in all household matters; while, in their scanty hours of leisure, they attempted, in the face of every kind of discouragement, to satisfy their strong natural craving for beauty and knowledge. 'We studied poetry, botany, and flower-painting,' Mary writes. 'These pursuits were almost out of the pale of permitted Quaker pleasures, but we pursued them with a perfect passion, doing in secret that which we dared not do openly, such as reading Shakespeare, the elder novelists, and translations of the classics. We studied French and chemistry, and enabled ourselves to read Latin, storing our minds with a whole mass of heterogeneous knowledge. This was good as far as it went, but I now deplore the secrecy, the subterfuge, and the fear under which this ill-digested, ill-arranged knowledge was obtained.'
The young Quakeresses picked up ideas and models for their artistic handicraft from the most unlikely sources. A shop-window, full of dusty plaster medallions for mantelpiece decorations, gave them their first notions of classic design. The black Wedgwood ware was to be seen in nearly every house in Uttoxeter, while a few of the more prosperous inhabitants possessed vases and jugs in the pale blue ware, ornamented with graceful figures. These precious specimens the Botham sisters used to borrow, and contrived to reproduce the figures by means of moulds made of paper pulp. They also etched flowers and landscapes on panes of glass, and manufactured 'transparencies' out of different thicknesses of cap-paper. 'I feel a sort of tender pity for Anna and myself,' wrote Mary long afterwards, 'when I remember how we were always seeking and struggling after the beautiful, and after artistic production, though we knew nothing of art. I am thankful that we made no alms-baskets, or hideous abortions of that kind. What we did was from the innate yearnings of our souls for perfection in form and colour; and our accomplished work, though crude and poor, was the genuine outcome of our own individuality.'
It was one of the heaviest crosses of Mary's girlish days that she and Anna were not permitted to exercise their clever fingers, and indulge their taste for the beautiful, in their own dress. But they found a faint vicarious pleasure in making pretty summer gowns, and embroidering elaborate muslin collars for a girl-friend who was allowed to wear fashionable clothes, and even to go to balls. Even their ultra-plain costumes, however, could not disguise the fact that Anna and Mary Botham were comely damsels, and they had several suitors among the young men-Friends of Uttoxeter. But the sisters held a low opinion of the mental endowments of the average Quaker, an opinion that was only shaken by a report of the marvellous attainments of young William Howitt of Heanor, who was said to be not only a scholar, but a born genius. William's mother, Phoebe, herself a noted amateur healer, was an old friend of Mary's grandfather, the herbal doctor, but the young people had never met. However, in the autumn of 1818, William paid a visit to some relations at Uttoxeter, and there made the acquaintance of the Botham girls, who discovered that this young man-Friend shared nearly all their interests, and was full of sympathy with their studies and pursuits.
Before the end of the year Mary Botham was engaged to William Howitt, he being then six-and-twenty and she nineteen. 'The tastes of my future husband and my own were strongly similar,' she observes, 'so also was our mental culture; but he was in every direction so far in advance of me as to become my teacher and guide. Knowledge in the broadest sense was the aim of our intellectual efforts; poetry and nature were the paths that led to it. Of ballad poetry I was already enamoured, William made me acquainted with the realistic life-pictures of Crabbe; the bits of nature and poetry in the vignettes of Bewick; with the earliest works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, and the first marvellous prose productions of the author ofWaverley.'
After an engagement lasting a little more than two years, William and Mary were married on April 16, 1821, the bride wearing her first silk gown--a pretty dove-colour--and a white silk shawl, finery which filled her soul with rapture. The couple spent the honeymoon in the bridegroom's native Derbyshire, visiting every spot of beauty or haunt of old tradition in that country of the romantic and the picturesque. Incorporated in his wife'sAutobiographyis William Howitt's narrative of his parentage and youthful days, which is supplemented by hisBoys' Country Book, the true story of his early adventures and experiences. The Howitts, he tells us, were descended from a family named Hewitt, the younger branch of which obtained Wansley Hall, near Nottingham, through marriage with an heiress, and changed the spelling of their name. His ancestors had been, for generations, a rollicking set, all wofully lacking in prudence and sobriety. About the end of the seventeenth century, one Thomas Howitt, great-great-grandfather of William, married Catherine, heiress of the Charltons of Chilwell. But Thomas so disgusted his father-in-law by his drunken habits that Mr. Charlton disinherited his daughter, who loyally refused to leave her husband, and left his property to a stranger who chanced to bear his name. After this misfortune the Howitts descended somewhat in the social scale, and, having no more substance to waste, reformed their ways and forsook all riotous living. William's father, who held a post as manager of a Derbyshire colliery, married a Quaker lady, Phoebe Tantum of the Fall, Heanor, and was himself received into the Society of Friends in 1783.
William received a good plain education at a Quaker school at Ackworth, and grew up a genuine country lad, scouring the lanes on his famous grey pony, Peter Scroggins, the acknowledged leader of the village lads in bird-nesting and rat-hunting expeditions, and taking his full share of the work on his father's little farm. Long afterwards he used to say that every scene in and about Heanor was photographed with absolute distinctness on his brain, and he loved to recall the long days that he had spent in following the plough, chopping turnips for the cattle, tramping over the snow-covered fields after red-wing and fieldfare, collecting acorns for the swine, or hunting through the barns for eggs. The Howitt family was much less strict than that of the Bothams, for in the winter evenings the boys were allowed to play draughts and dominoes, while at Christmas there were games of forfeits, blind-man's buff, and fishing for the ring in the great posset-pot.
On leaving school at fifteen, William amused himself for a couple of years on the farm, though, curiously enough, he never thought of becoming a farmer in good earnest; indeed, at this time he seems to have had no distinct bias towards any profession. Mr. Howitt had somehow become imbued with Rousseau's doctrine that every boy, whatever his position in life, should learn a mechanical handicraft, in order that, if all else failed, he might be able to earn his own living by the labour of his hands. Having decided that William should learn carpentering, the boy was apprenticed for four years to a carpenter and builder at Mansfield, on the outskirts of Sherwood Forest. The four precious years were practically thrown away, except for the enjoyment obtained from long solitary rambles amid the picturesque associations of the Forest, and the knowledge of natural history gained from close observation of the wild life of that romantic district.
It was not until his twenty-first birthday that William's indentures were out, and as he was still unable to make up his mind about a profession--it must be remembered that the law, the church, the army and navy were all closed to a Quaker--he spent the next seven years at home, angling in the streams like his favourite hero, Isaac Walton, and striving, by dint of hard study, to make up the many deficiencies in his education. He taught himself Latin, French, and Italian, besides working at botany, chemistry, and the dispensing of medicines. It was during these seven years of uncertainty and experiment that William read Washington Irving'sSketches of Geoffrey Crayon, which produced a strong impression on his mind. With the inspiration of this book hot upon him, he made a tour on foot through the Peak country, and afterwards wrote an account of his adventures in what he fondly believed to be the style of Geoffrey Crayon. The paper was printed in a local journal under the title ofA Pedestrian Pilgrimage through the Peak, by Wilfrid Wendle. This was not William Howitt's first literary essay, some stanzas of his on Spring, written when he was only thirteen, having been printed in theMonthly Magazine, with his name and age attached.
With the prospect of marriage it was thought desirable that William should have some regular calling. Without, so far as appears, passing any examinations or obtaining any certificates, he bought the business of a chemist and druggist in Hanley, and thither, though with no intention of settling permanently in the Potteries, he took his bride as soon as the honeymoon was over. Only seven months were spent at Hanley, and in December, 1821, the couple were preparing to move to Nottingham, where William had bought the good-will of another chemist's business. But before settling down in their new home, the Howitts undertook a long pedestrian tour through Scotland and the north of England, in the course of which they explored the Rob Roy country, rambled through Fife, made acquaintance with the beauties of Edinburgh, looked in upon Robert Owen's model factories at New Lanark, got a glimpse of Walter Scott at Melrose, were mistaken for a runaway couple at Gretna Green, gazed reverently on Rydal Mount, and tramped in all no less than five hundred miles. An account of the tour was contributed to a Staffordshire paper under the title ofA Scottish Ramble in the Spring of 1822, by Wilfrid and Wilfreda Wendle.
It was not until August, 1822, that the pair established themselves in a little house at Nottingham. Of the chemist's business we hear practically nothing in Mary's narrative, but a great deal about the literary enterprises in which husband and wife collaborated. They began by collecting the poems, of which each had a large number ready written, and, in fear and trembling, prepared to submit them to the verdict of critics and public. 'It seems strange to me,' wrote Mary, when she informed her sister of this modest venture, 'and I cannot reconcile myself to the thought of seeing my own name staring me in the face in every bookseller's window, or being pointed at and peeped after as a writer of verses.' In April, 1823,The Forest Minstrel and other Poems, by William and Mary Howitt, made its appearance in a not particularly appreciative world. The verses were chiefly descriptive of country sights and sounds, and had been produced, as stated in the Preface, 'not for the sake of writing, but for the indulgence of our own overflowing feelings.' The little book created no sensation, but it was kindly noticed, and seems to have attracted a few quiet readers who, like the writers, were lovers of nature and simplicity.
During these early years at Nottingham the Howitts kept up, as far as their opportunities allowed, with the thought and literature of their day, and never relaxed their anxious efforts after 'mental improvement.' William's brother, Richard, himself a budding poet, was at this time an inmate of the little household, which was increased in 1824 by the birth of a daughter, Anna Mary. Although the couple still remained in the Quaker fold, they were gradually discarding the peculiar dress and speech of the 'plain' Friends. They were evidently regarded as terribly 'advanced' young people in their own circle, and shocked many of their old acquaintances by the catholicity of their views, by their admiration of Byron and Shelley, and by the liberal tone of their own productions. Like most of the lesser writers of that day, they found their way into the popular Keepsakes and Annuals, which Mary accurately describes as 'a chaffy, frivolous, and unsatisfactory style of publication, that only serves to keep a young author in the mind of the public, and to bring in a little cash.' In 1826 Mrs. Howitt was preparing for the press a new volume of poems by herself and her husband,The Desolation of Eyam, and in a letter to her sister, now transformed into Mrs. Daniel Wilson, she describes her sensations while awaiting the ordeal of critical judgment, and expresses her not very flattering opinion of the contemporary reviewer.
'Nobody that has not published,' she observes, 'can tell the almost painful excitement which the first opinions occasion. Really, for some days I was quite nervous. William boasted of possessing his mind in wise passivity, and truly his imperturbable patience was quite an annoyance; I therefore got Rogers's beautiful poem on Italy to read, and so diverted my thoughts. Everything in the literary world is done by favour and connections. It is a miracle to me how our former volume, when we were quite unknown, got favourably noticed. In many cases a book is reviewed which has never been read, or even seen externally.'
By this time the young authors who, to use Mary's own phrase, hungered and thirsted after acquaintances who were highly gifted in mind or profound in knowledge, had acquired one or two literary friends and correspondents, among them Mrs. Hemans, Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, and the Alaric Watts's of Keepsake fame. An occasional notice of the Howitts and their little household may be found in contemporary works by forgotten writers. For example, Sir Richard Phillips, in the section devoted to Nottingham of his quaintly-wordedPersonal Tour through the United Kingdom(1828), observes: 'Of Messrs. Howitt, husband and wife, conjugal in love and poetry, it would be vain for me to speak. Their tasteful productions belong to the nation as well as to Nottingham. As a man of taste Mr. Howitt married a lady of taste; and with rare amiability they have jointly cultivated the Muses, and produced some volumes of poetry, consisting of pieces under their separate names. The circumstance afforded a topic for ridicule to some of those anonymous critics who abuse the press and disgrace literature; but no one ventured to assail their productions.' Spencer Hall, a fellow-townsman, became acquainted with the Howitts in 1829, and in hisReminiscencesdescribes William as a bright, neat, quick, dapper man of medium height, with a light complexion, blue eyes, and brisk, cheery speech. Mary, he tells us; was always neatly dressed, but with nothing prim or sectarian in her style. 'Her expression was frank and free, yet very modest, and she was blessed with an affectionate, sociable spirit.'
A presentation copy ofThe Desolation of Eyamwas sent to the Howitts' favourite poet, Wordsworth, who, in acknowledging their 'elegant volume,' declared that, though he had only had time to turn over the leaves, he had found several poems which had already afforded him no small gratification. The harmless little book was denounced by theEclectic Reviewas 'anti-Quakerish, atheistical, and licentious in style and sentiment, 'but the authors were consoled by a charming little notice of their contributions to the Annuals in theNoctes Ambrosianaefor November, 1828. 'Who are these three brothers and sisters, the Howitts, sir?' asks the Shepherd of Christopher North, in the course of a discussion of the Christmas gift-books, 'whose names I see in the adverteesements?'
North. I don't know, James. It runs in my head that they are Quakers. Richard and William seem amiable and ingenious men, and Sister Mary writes beautifully.
Shepherd. What do you mean by beautifully? That's vague.
North. Her language is chaste and simple, her feelings tender and pure, and her observation of nature accurate and intense. Her 'Sketches from Natural History' in theChristmas Boxhave much of the moral--nay, rather the religious spirit--that permeates all Wordsworth's smaller poems, however light and slight the subject, and show that Mary Howitt is not only well-read in the book of Bewick, but also in the book from which Bewick has borrowed all--glorious plagiarist--and every other inspired zoologist--
Shepherd. The Book o' Natur'.'
The great event of 1829 for the Howitts was a visit to London, where they were the guests of Alaric and Zillah Watts, with whom they had long maintained a paper friendship. 'What wilt thou say, dear Anna,' writes Mary in December, 'when I tell thee that William and I set out for London the day after to-morrow. I half dread it. I shall wish twenty times for our quiet fireside, where day by day we read and talk by ourselves, and nobody looks in upon us. I keep reasoning with myself that the people we shall see in London are but men and women, and perhaps, after all, no better than ourselves. If we could but divest our minds ofself, as our dear father used to say we should do, it would be better and more comfortable for us. Yet it is one of the faults peculiar to us Bothams that, with all the desire there was to make us regardless of self, we never had confidence and proper self-respect instilled into us, and the want of this gives us a depressing feeling, though I hope it is less seen by others than by ourselves.... We do not intend to stay more than a week, and thou may believe we shall have enough to do. We have to make special calls on the Carter Halls, Dr. Bowring, and the Pringles, and are to be introduced to their ramifications of acquaintance. Allan Cunningham, L. E. L., and Thomas Roscoe we are sure to see.'
In Miss Landon's now forgotten novel,Romance and Reality, there is a little sketch of Mary Howitt as she appeared at a literarysoirée, during her brief visit to London. The heroine, Miss Arundel, is being initiated into the mysteries of the writing world by her friend, Mrs. Sullivan, when her attention is arrested by the sight of 'a female in a Quaker's dress--the quiet, dark silk dress--the hair simply parted on the forehead--the small, close cap--the placid, subdued expression of the face, were all in strong contrast to the crimsons, yellows, and blues around. The general character of the large, soft eyes seemed sweetness; but they were now lighted up with an expression of intelligent observation--that clear, animated, and comprehensive glance which shows it analyses what it observes. You looked at her with something of the sensation with which, while travelling along a dusty road, the eye fixes on some green field, where the hour flings its sunshine and the tree its shadow, as if its pure fresh beauty was a thing apart from the soil and tumult of the highway. "You see," said Mrs. Sullivan, "one who, in a brief interview, gave me more the idea of a poet than most of our modern votaries of the lute.... She is as creative in her imaginary poems as she is touching and true in her simpler ones."'
Though there were still giants upon the earth in those far-off days, the general standard of literary taste was by no means exalted, a fact which Mary Howitt could hardly be expected to realise. She seems to have taken the praises lavished on her simple verses over-seriously, and to have imagined herself in very truth a poet. She was more clear-sighted where the work of her fellow-scribes was concerned, and in a letter written about this time, she descants upon the dearth of good literature in a somewhat disillusioned vein. After expressing her desire that some mighty spirit would rise up and give an impulse to poetry, she continues: 'I am tired of Sir Walter Scott and his imitators, and I am sickened of Mrs. Hemans's luscious poetry, and all her tribe of copyists. The libraries set in array one school against another, and hurry out the trashy volumes before the ink of the manuscript is fairly dry. Dost thou remember the days when Byron's poems first came out, now one and then another, at sufficient intervals to allow of digesting them? And dost thou remember our first reading ofLalla Rookh? It was on a washing-day. We read and clapped our clear-starching, read and clapped, and read again, and all the time our souls were not on this earth.'
There was one book then in course of preparation which Mary thought worthy to have been read, even in those literary clear-starching days. 'Thou hast no idea,' she assures her sister, 'how very interesting William's work, now calledA Book of the Seasons, has become. It contains original sketches on every month, with every characteristic of the season, and a garden department which will fill thy heart brimful of all garden delights, greenness, and boweriness. Mountain scenery and lake scenery, meadows and woods, hamlets, farms, halls, storm and sunshine--all are in this most delicious book, grouped into a most harmonious whole.' Unfortunately, publishers were hard to convince of the merits of the new work, the first of William Howitt's rural series, and it was declined by four houses in turn. The author at last suggested that a stone should be tied to the unlucky manuscript, and that it should be flung over London Bridge; but his wife was not so easily disheartened. She was certain that the book was a worthy book, and only needed to be made a little more 'personable' to find favour in the eyes of a publisher. Accordingly, blotted sheets were hastily re-copied, new articles introduced, and passages of dubious interest omitted, husband and wife working together at this remodelling until their fingers ached and their eyes were as dim as an owl's in sunshine. Their labours were rewarded by the acceptance of the work by Bentley and Colburn, and its triumphant success with both critics and public, seven editions being called for in the first few months of its career.
'Prig it and pocket it,' says Christopher North, alluding to theBook of the Seasonsin theNoctesfor April, 1831. ''Tis a jewel.'
'Is Nottingham far intil England, sir?' asks the simple Shepherd, to whom the above advice is given. 'For I would really like to pay the Hooits a visit this simmer. Thae Quakers are what we micht scarcely opine frae first principles, a maist poetical Christian seck.... The twa married Hooits I love just excessively, sir. What they write canna fail o' being poetry, even the most middlin' o't, for it's aye wi' them the ebullition o' their ain feeling and their ain fancy, and whenever that's the case, a bonny word or twa will drap itself intil ilka stanzy, and a sweet stanzy or twa intil ilka pome, and sae they touch, and sae they win a body's heart.'
The year 1831 was rendered memorable to the Howitts, not only by their first literary success, but also by an unexpected visit from their poetical idol, Mr. Wordsworth. The poet, his wife and daughter, were on their way home from London when Mrs. Wordsworth was suddenly taken ill, and was unable to proceed farther than Nottingham. Her husband, in great perplexity, came to ask advice of the Howitts, who insisted that the invalid should be removed to their house, where she remained for ten days before she was able to continue her journey. Wordsworth himself was only able to stay one night, but in that short time he made a very favourable impression upon his host and hostess. 'He is worthy of being the author ofThe Excursion,Ruth, and those sweet poems so full of human sympathy,' writes Mary. 'He is a kind man, full of strong feeling and sound judgment. My greatest delight was that he seemed so pleased with William's conversation. They seemed quite in their element, pouring out their eloquent sentiments on the future prospects of society, and on all subjects connected with poetry and the interests of man. Nor are we less pleased with Mrs. Wordsworth and her lovely daughter, Dora. They are the most grateful people; everything that we do for them is right, and the very best it can be.'
During the next two or three years Mary produced a volume of dramatic sketches, calledThe Seven Temptations, which she always regarded as her best and most original work, but which was damned by the critics and neglected by the public; a little book of natural history for children; and a novel in three volumes, calledWood Leighton, which seems to have had some success.The Seven Temptations, it must be owned, is a rather lugubrious production, probably inspired by Joanna Baillie'sPlays on the Passions. The scene ofWood Leightonis laid at Uttoxeter, and the book is not so much a connected tale as a series of sketches descriptive of scenes and characters in and about the author's early home. It is evident that Mrs. Botham and Sister Anna looked somewhat disapprovingly upon so much literary work for the mistress of a household, since we find Mary writing in eager defence of her chosen calling.
'I want to make thee, and more particularly dear mother, see,' she explains, 'that I am not out of my line of duty in devoting myself so much to literary occupation. Just lately things were sadly against us. Dear William could not sleep at night, and the days were dark and gloomy. Altogether, I was at my wits' end. I turned over in my mind what I could do next, for till William'sRural Lifewas finished we had nothing available. Then I bethought myself of all those little verses and prose tales that for years I had written for the juvenile Annuals. It seemed probable I might turn them to some account. In about a week I had nearly all the poetry copied; and then who should come to Nottingham but John Darton [a Quaker publisher]. He fell into the idea immediately, took what I had copied up to London with him, and I am to have a hundred and fifty guineas for them. Have I not reason to feel that in thus writing I was fulfilling a duty?'
In 1833 William Hewitt'sHistory of Priestcraftappeared, a work which was publicly denounced at the Friends' yearly meeting, all good Quakers being cautioned not to read it. William hitherto had lived in great retirement at Nottingham, but he was now claimed by the Radical and Nonconformist members of the community as their spokesman and champion. In January, 1834, he and Joseph Gilbert (husband of Ann Gilbert ofOriginal Poemsfame) were deputed to present to the Prime Minister, Lord Grey, a petition from Nottingham for the disestablishment of the Church of England. The Premier regretted that he could not give his support to such a sweeping measure, which would embarrass the Ministry, alarm both Houses of Parliament, and startle the nation. He declared his intention of standing by the Church to the best of his ability, believing it to be the sacred duty of Government to maintain an establishment of religion. To which sturdy William Howitt replied that to establish one sect in preference to another was to establish a party and not a religion.
Civic duties, together with the excitements of local politics, proved a sad hindrance to literary work, and in 1836 the Howitts, who had long been yearning for a wider intellectual sphere, decided to give up the chemist's business, and settle in the neighbourhood of London. Their friends, the Alaric Watts's, who were living at Thames Ditton, found them a pretty little house at Esher, where they would be able to enjoy the woods and heaths of rural Surrey, and yet be within easy reach of publishers and editors in town. Before settling down in their new home, the Howitts made a three months' tour in the north, with a view to gathering materials for William's book onRural England. They explored the Yorkshire dales, stayed with the Wordsworths at Rydal, and made a pilgrimage to the haunts of their favourite, Thomas Bewick, in Northumberland. Crossing the Border they paid a delightful visit to Edinburgh, where they were made much of by the three literary cliques of the city, the Blackwood and Wilson set, the Tait set, and the Chambers set.
'Immediately after our arrival,' relates Mary, 'a public dinner was given to Campbell the poet, at which the committee requested my husband's attendance, and that he would take a share in the proceedings of the evening by proposing as a toast, "Wordsworth, Southey, and Moore." This was our first introduction to Professor Wilson (Christopher North) and his family. I sat in the gallery with Mrs. Wilson and her daughters, one of whom was engaged to Professor Ferrier. We could not but remark the wonderful difference, not only in the outer man, but in the whole character of mind and manner, between Professor Wilson and Campbell--the one so hearty, outspoken, and joyous, the other so petty and trivial.'
Robert Chambers constituted himself the Hewitts' cicerone in Edinburgh, showing them every place of interest, and presenting them to every person of note, including Mrs. Maclehose (the Clarinda of Burns), and William Miller, the Quaker artist and engraver, as intense a nature-worshipper as themselves. From Edinburgh they went to Glasgow, where they took ship for the Western Isles. Their adventures at Staffa and Iona, their voyage up the Caledonian Canal, and the remainder of their experiences on this tour, were afterwards described by William Howitt in hisVisits to Remarkable Places.
PART II
In September, 1836, the Howitts took possession of their Surrey home, West End Cottage, an old-fashioned dwelling, with a large garden, an orchard, a meadow by the river Mole, and the right of boating and fishing to the extent of seven miles. The new life opened with good prospects of literary and journalistic employment, William Howitt's political writings having already attracted attention from several persons of power and influence in the newspaper world. On December 3 of this year, Mary wrote to inform her sister that, 'In consequence of an article that William wrote on Dymond'sChristian Morality, Joseph Hume, the member for Middlesex, wrote to him, and has opened a most promising connection for him with a new Radical newspaper,The Constitutional. O'Connell seems determined to make him the editor of theDublin Review, and wrote him a most kind letter, which has naturally promoted his interest with the party. I cannot but see the hand of Providence in our leaving Nottingham. All has turned out admirably.'
Unfortunately for these sanguine anticipations, the newspaper connections on which the Howitts depended for a livelihood, now that the despised chemist's business had been given up, proved but hollow supports. O'Connell had overlooked the trifling fact that a Quaker editor was hardly fitted to conduct a journal that was emphatically and polemically Catholic; and though he considered that William Howitt was admirably adapted to deal with literary and political topics, he was obliged to withdraw his offer of the editorship. A more crushing disappointment arose out of the engagement onThe Constitutional. Mr. Howitt, according to his wife, did more for the paper than any other member of the staff. 'He worked and wrote like any slave,' she tells her sister. 'In the end, after a series of the most harassing and vexatious conduct on the part of the newspaper company, he was swindled out of every farthing. Oh, it was a most mortifying and humiliating thing to see men professing liberal and honest principles act so badly. A month ago, when in the very depths of discouragement and low spirits, I set about a little volume for Darton, to be calledBirds and Flowers, and have pretty nearly finished it. William, in the mean time, has finished hisRural Life, and sold the first edition to Longman's.'
The manager of the unlucky paper was Major Carmichael Smith, who, when matters grew desperate, sent for his step-son, Thackeray, then acting as Paris correspondent for a London daily. 'Just as I was going out of the office one day,' writes William, 'I met on the stairs a tall, thin young man, in a dark blue coat, and with a nose that seemed to have had a blow that had flattened the bridge. I turned back, and had some conversation with him, being anxious to know how he proposed to carry on a paper which was without any funds, and already deeply in debt. He did not seem to know any more than I did. I thought to myself that his step-father had not done him much service in taking him from a profitable post for the vain business of endeavouring to buoy up a desperate speculation. How much longerThe Constitutionalstruggled on, I know not. That was the first time I ever saw or heard of William Makepeace Thackeray.'
The Howitts were somewhat consoled for their journalistic losses by the triumphant success ofRural Life in England. The reading public which, during the previous century, had swallowed mock pastorals, made in Fleet Street, with perfect serenity, was now, thanks to the slowly-working influence of Wordsworth and the other Lake poets, prepared for a renaissance of nature and simplicity in prose. Miss Mitford's exquisite work had given them a distaste for the 'jewelled turf,' the 'silver streams,' and 'smiling valleys' which constituted the rustic stock-in-trade of the average novelist; and they eagerly welcomed a book that treated with accuracy and observation of the real country. William Howitt's straightforward, undistinguished style was acceptable enough in an age when even men of genius seem to have written fine prose without knowing it, and tripped up not infrequently over the subtleties of English grammar. His lack of imagination and humour was more than atoned for, in the uncritical eyes of the 'thirties,' by the easy loquacity of his rural gossip, and the varied information with which he crammed his pages. The Nature of those days was a simple, transparent creature, with but small resemblance to the lady of moods, mystery, and passion who is so overworked in our modern literature. No one dreamt of going into hysterics over the veining of a leaf, or penning a rhapsody on the outline of a rain-cloud; nor could it yet be said that, 'if everybody must needs blab of the favours that have been done him by roadside, and river-brink, and woodland walk, as if to kiss and tell were no longer treachery, it will soon be a positive refreshment to meet a man who is as superbly indifferent to Nature as she is to him.' [Footnote: Lowell]
The Howitts took great delight in the pleasant Surrey country, so different from the dreary scenery around Nottingham, and Mary's letters contain many descriptions of the woods and commons and shady lanes through which the family made long expeditions in a little carriage drawn by Peg, their venerable pony. Driving one day to Hook, they met Charles Dickens, then best known as 'Boz,' in one of his long tramps, with Harrison Ainsworth as his companion. When Dickens's next work,Master Humphrey's Clock, appeared, the Howitts were amused to see that their stout and wilful Peg had not escaped the novelist's keen eye, but had been pressed into service for Mr. Garland's chaise.
On another occasion, in July 1841, William, while driving with a friend, was attacked by two handsome, dark-eyed girls, dressed in gipsy costume, who ran one on each side of the carriage, begging that the kind gentleman would give them sixpence, as they were poor strangers who had taken nothing all day. Mr. Howitt, who had made a special study of the gipsy tribe, perceived in an instant that these were only sham Romanys. He paid no attention to their pleading, but observed that he hoped they would enjoy their frolic, and only wished that he were as rich as they. Subsequently, he discovered that the mock-gipsies, who had been unable to coax a sixpence out of him, were none other than the beautiful Sheridan sisters, the Duchess of Somerset, and Mrs. Blackwood (afterwards Lady Dufferin), whose husband had lately taken Bookham Lodge.
During the four years spent at Esher, Mary seems to have been too much occupied with the cares of a young family to use her pen to much purpose. She produced little, except a volume ofHymns and Fireside Verses, but she frequently assisted her husband in his work. William, industrious as ever, published, besides a large number of newspaper articles, hisBoys' Country Book, the best work of the kind ever written, according to theQuarterly Review; and hisHistory of Colonisation and Christianity, in which he took a rapid survey of the behaviour of the Christian nations of Europe to the inhabitants of the countries they conquered in all parts of the world. It was the reading of this book that led Mr. Joseph Pease to establish the British India Society, which issued, in a separate form, the portion of the work that related to India. Mr. Howitt next set to work upon another topographical volume, hisVisits to Remarkable Places, in which he turned to good account the materials collected in his pedestrian rambles about the country.
In 1840 the question of education for the elder children became urgent, and the Howitts, who had heard much of the advantages of a residence in Germany from their friends, Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Jameson, and Henry Chorley, decided to give up their cottage at Esher, and spend two or three years at Heidelberg. Letters of introduction from Mrs. Jameson gave them theentréeinto German society, which they found more to their taste than that of their native land. 'For the sake of our children,' writes Mary, 'we sought German acquaintances, we read German, we followed German customs. The life seemed to me easier, the customs simpler and less expensive than in England. There was not the same feverish thirst after wealth as with us; there was more calm appreciation of nature, of music, of social enjoyment.' In their home on the Neckar, the Howitts, most adaptable of couples, found new pleasures and new amusements with each season of the year. In the spring and summer they explored the surrounding country, wandered through the deep valleys and woods, where the grass was purple with bilberries, visited quaint, half-timbered homesteads, standing in the midst of ancient orchards, or followed the swift-flowing streams, on whose banks the peasant girls in their picturesque costumes were washing and drying linen. In the autumn the whole family turned out on the first day of the vintage, and worked like their neighbours. 'It was like something Arcadian,' wrote Mary when recalling the scene. 'The tubs and baskets piled up with enormous clusters, the men and women carrying them away on their heads to the place where they were being crushed; the laughter, the merriment, the feasting, the firing--for they make as much noise as they can--all was delightful, to say nothing of the masquerading and dancing in the evening, which we saw, though we did not take part in it.' In the winter the strangers were introduced to the Christmas Tree, which had not yet become a British institution: while with the first snow came the joys of sleighing, when wheel-barrows, tubs, baskets, everything that could be put on runners, were turned into sledges, and the boys were in their glory.
During the three years that were spent at Heidelberg, William Howitt wrote hisStudent Life in Germany,German Experiences, andRural and Domestic Life in Germany, works which contain a great deal of more or less valuable information about the country and the people, presented in a homely, unpretentious style. Mary was no less industrious, having struck a new literary vein, the success of which was far to surpass her modest anticipations. 'I have been very busy,' she writes in 1842, 'translating the first volume of a charming work by Frederica Bremer, a Swedish writer; and if any publisher will give me encouragement to go on with it, I will soon complete the work. It is one of a series of stories of everyday life in Sweden--a beautiful book, full of the noblest moral lessons for every man and woman.' In the summer of 1841 the Howitts, accompanied by their elder daughter, Anna, made a long tour through Germany and Austria, in the course of which they collected materials for fresh works, and visited the celebrities, literary and artistic, of the various cities that lay in their route. At Stuttgart they called on Gustav Schwab, the poet, and visited Dannecker's studio; at Tübingen they made the acquaintance of Uhland, and at Munich that of Kaulbach, then at the height of his fame. By way of Vienna and Prague they travelled to Dresden, where, through the good offices of Mrs. Jameson, they were received by Moritz Retzsch, whoseOutlinesthey had long admired. At Berlin they made friends with Tieck, on whom the king had bestowed a pension and a house at Potsdam; while at Weimar they were entertained by Frau von Goethe, whose son, Wolfgang, had been one of their earliest acquaintances at Heidelberg. This interesting tour is described at length in theRural and Domestic Life of Germany.
Another year was spent at Heidelberg, but the difficulties of arranging the business details of their work at such a distance from publishers and editors, brought the industrious couple back to London in the spring of 1843. 'On our return to England,' writes Mary, 'I was full of energy and hope. Glowing with aspiration, and in enjoyment of great domestic happiness, I was anticipating a busy, perhaps overburdened, but, nevertheless, congenial life. It was to be one of darkness, perplexity, discouragement.' The Howitts had scarcely entered into possession of a new house that they had taken at Clapton, when news came from Heidelberg, where the elder children had been left at school, that their second son, Claude, had developed alarming symptoms of disease in the knee-joint. It was known that he had been slightly injured in play a few weeks before, but no danger had been anticipated. Mr. Howitt at once set out for Heidelberg, and returned with the invalid, on whose case Liston was consulted. The great surgeon counselled amputation, but to this the parents refused their consent, except as a last resource. Various less heroic modes of treatment were tried, but poor Claude faded away, and died in March, 1844, aged only ten years and a half. This was the heaviest trial that the husband and wife had yet experienced, for Claude had been a boy of brilliant promise, whom they regarded as the flower of their flock. Only a few months before his accident his mother had written in the pride of her heart: 'Claude is the naughtiest of all the children, and yet the most gifted. He learns anything at a glance. Claude is born to be fortunate; he is one that will make the family distinguished in the next generation. He has an extraordinary faculty for telling stories, either of his own invention or of what he reads.'
A lesser cause of trouble and anxiety arose out of the translation of Miss Bremer's novels. 'When we first translatedThe Neighbours,' writes Mary, 'there was not a house in London that would undertake its publication. We published it and the other Bremer novels at our own risk, but such became the rage for them that our translations were seized by a publisher, altered, and reissued as new ones.' The success of these books was said to be greater than that of any series since the first appearance of the Waverley novels. Cheap editions were multiplied in the United States, and even the boys who hawked the books about the streets were to be seen deep inThe HomeorThe H. Family. In a letter to her sister written about this time, Mary expatiates on the annoyance and loss caused by these piracies. 'It is very mortifying,' she observes, 'because no one knew of these Swedish novels till we introduced them. It obliges us to hurry in all we do, and we must work almost day and night to get ours out in order that we may have some little chance.... We have embarked a great deal of money in the publication, and the interference of the upstart London publisher is most annoying. Mlle. Bremer, however, has written a new novel, and sends it to us before publication. We began its translation this week, and hope to be able to publish it about the time it will appear in Sweden and Germany.'
In addition to her translating work, Mrs. Howitt was engaged at this time upon a series of little books, calledTales for the People and their Children, which had been commissioned by a cheap publisher. These stories, each of which illustrated a domestic virtue, were punctually paid for: and though they were never advertised, they passed swiftly through innumerable editions, and have been popular with a certain public down to quite recent times. Perhaps the most attractive is theAutobiography of a Child, in which Mary told the story of her own early days in her pretty, simple style, with the many little quaint touches that gave all her juvenile stories an atmosphere of truth and reality. Her quick sympathy with young people, and her knowledge of what most appealed to the childish mind, was probably due to her vivid remembrance of her own youthful days, and to her affectionate study of the 'little ways' of her own children. Many are the original traits and sayings that she reports to her sister, more especially those of her youngest boy, Charlton, who had inherited his parents' naturalistic tastes in a pronounced form, and preferred the Quakers' meeting-house to any other church or chapel, because there was a dog-kennel on the premises!
About a year after her return to England, Mrs. Howitt turned her attention to Danish literature, finding that, with her knowledge of Swedish and German, the language presented few difficulties. In 1845 she translated Hans Andersen'sImpromsatore, greatly to the satisfaction of the author, who begged that she would continue to translate his works, till he was as well known and loved in England as he was on the Continent. Appreciation, fame, and joy, declared the complacent poet, followed his footsteps wherever he went, and his whole life was full of sunshine, like a beautiful fairy-tale. Mary translated hisOnly a Fiddler;O. T., or Life in Denmark;The True Story of My Life; and several of theWonderful Stories for Children. TheImprovisatorewas the only one that went into a second edition, the other works scarcely paying the cost of publication. Hans Andersen, however, being assured that Mrs. Howitt was making a fortune of the translations, came to England in 1847 to arrange for a share of the profits. Though disappointed in his hope of gain, he begged Mrs. Howitt to translate the whole of his fairy-tales, which had just been brought out in a beautifully-illustrated German edition. Much to her after regret, she was then too much engrossed by other work to be able to accede to his proposal. The relations between Hans Andersen and his translator were marred, we are told, by the extreme sensitiveness and egoism of the Dane. Mrs. Howitt narrates, as an example of his childish vanity, the following little incident which occurred during his visit to England in the summer of 1847:--